A Sermon Idea From The Immediate Word On The Rescue Of Elizabeth Smart
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A Sermon Idea from The Immediate Word on the Rescue of Elizabeth Smart
Dear fellow preachers,
The news practically exploded into our living rooms - Elizabeth Smart had been found alive. The fifteen-year-old girl had been abducted from her home nearly nine months ago. Hundreds of law enforcement personnel had spent thousands of hours trying to locate her. Those hours were particularly difficult for Elizabeth's family. The ordeal for them was a daily exercise in anguish as they pleaded with her abductors to set her free unharmed.
Then suddenly, she was there. She was alive and back with her family. Working with information provided by Elizabeth's sister, the only eyewitness to the abduction, police were able to develop new leads that eventually led them to Elizabeth and her captors.
We at The Immediate Word think there's a sermon in this, and it fits well with the lectionary texts for March 16, both the lesson from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, where Abraham and Sarah are promised a son, and the epistle reading, Romans 4:13-25, especially verse 18: "Hoping against hope ..."
Finding Elizabeth alive was big news. For a little while, at least, Elizabeth's return to her family even dwarfed news about the war. The reasons why are fairly obvious. Even though finding Elizabeth was good news, it was probably unexpected news. We are all aware that situations like this most often do not end happily. Abducted children are often found dead, or never found at all.
That's why Elizabeth's family is calling her return "miraculous," and it's hard to argue with their sentiments. They had to know that the odds were against Elizabeth ever being found alive.
In spite of that awareness, however, Elizabeth's family demonstrated an amazing and tenacious hope throughout the entire nightmarish ordeal. Knowing how abductions usually end, some might argue that the Smart family was simply living in denial. But the outcome for this family suggests that we might be cautious about assigning such psychological explanations to what may be a profound aspect of faith.
Holding stubbornly to hope, even in the face of growing hopelessness, may not be denial so much as faithful delay. In order to leave room for hope, we delay giving in to despair.
Obviously there is always the danger of false hope. It is possible, especially when strong emotions and terrible loss are involved, to grasp illusions and call them real. But if our choices are between hoping too much or too little, the return of Elizabeth Smart to her family suggests that we would do well to err on the side of excessive hope.
There is perhaps a window here for us to learn something about the way God works in our world. Clearly, not all stories like Elizabeth's have happy endings. One of the reasons despair presents itself to us so readily is because we have seen too many times what can happen, maybe what usually happens.
But every once in a while, grace surprises us. An outcome we really did not expect, even though we were hoping, suddenly appears. And for a moment we are forced to re-evaluate our view of what is real. We are forced, even for just a moment, to step back from our cynicism and hard-edged skepticism and entertain the belief that sometimes good news is an option.
John Claypool, longtime rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, often remarked that "given our limited knowledge, despair is always presumptuous." In other words, we really do not know whether or not a situation is hopeless until it is resolved. For that reason, hope is always a proper response to difficulty. To give in to despair presumes we know what only God can know.
Related Illustration
Scripture offers to the human race the promise of salvation: a free gift bestowed by the God who never gives up searching. In the words of Karl Barth, "To be saved does not just mean to be a little encouraged, a little relieved. It means to be pulled out like a log from a burning fire."
In 1989, an 8.2-magnitude earthquake flattened buildings across the land of Armenia, in the Caucasus. Over 30,000 people were killed in fewer than four minutes. Survivors rushed back to what was left of their homes, seeking family members.
One father rushed over to the school where his son had been, only to discover that the building had become a flattened pile of rubble. Who could have survived that crushing weight? The father nearly gave up hope.
But then he remembered a promise he had made to his son: "No matter what, I'll always be there for you." Tears filled his eyes. Was this a promise he would be unable to keep?
Clearing his thoughts, the father approached the problem systematically. He calculated where in the pile of rubble his son's classroom had been, and began to dig. Other parents were digging too. They cried out to their children, in desperate hope.
Hours passed, and the hopeful cries of the parents grew fewer. Finally, the only voices left were those of despair: "It's too late! We can do nothing. Our children are dead."
One person, then another, tried to pull the father off the rubble of the school, saying sympathetically, "You have done all you can. It's time to go home."
The father was deaf to every entreaty. To each well-meaning neighbor he would make only one reply: "Are you going to help me now?" And he continued to dig.
The local fire chief came, then the police. Each one tried to convince him to give up his desperate efforts. But to each one the father simply replied, "Are you going to help me now?"
In his thirty-eighth hour of digging, the father pulled back a slab of concrete and heard his son's voice. He called out his son's name, "Armand!" The boy called back, weakly: "Father, I knew you could come. I told my classmates not to worry: if you were alive, you'd come save me and when you saved me, they'd be saved too. You promised, 'No matter what, I'll always be there for you.'"
So, too, the word of the Lord to us.
Team Comment
George Murphy responds: You refer to Romans 4:18: "Hoping against hope..." The hope that we are given is hope in spite of apparent impossibility - that's what "against hope" means. And this hope is grounded not just in a belief that "wishing will make it so." Earlier in this chapter of Romans Paul has characterized God as one who "justified the ungodly" (v. 5), "gives life to the dead" (v. 17), and "calls into existence the things that do not exist" (v. 18). All of these divine works are things that are impossible by ordinary human standards, but their reality is fundamental to Christian faith. The basis for our "hope against hope" is trust in the God who created the world, raised Jesus from the dead, and invites sinners into fellowship.
It may be worth considering this in relation to the situation in Iraq. Is war between the United States and Iraq indeed inevitable? To think that war could be avoided at this point does seem naive to many people. To hope for a peaceful outcome of the present crisis is - well, hoping against hope. Perhaps for Christians that isn't such an unreasonable thing to do.
The Immediate Word, March 13, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Dear fellow preachers,
The news practically exploded into our living rooms - Elizabeth Smart had been found alive. The fifteen-year-old girl had been abducted from her home nearly nine months ago. Hundreds of law enforcement personnel had spent thousands of hours trying to locate her. Those hours were particularly difficult for Elizabeth's family. The ordeal for them was a daily exercise in anguish as they pleaded with her abductors to set her free unharmed.
Then suddenly, she was there. She was alive and back with her family. Working with information provided by Elizabeth's sister, the only eyewitness to the abduction, police were able to develop new leads that eventually led them to Elizabeth and her captors.
We at The Immediate Word think there's a sermon in this, and it fits well with the lectionary texts for March 16, both the lesson from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, where Abraham and Sarah are promised a son, and the epistle reading, Romans 4:13-25, especially verse 18: "Hoping against hope ..."
Finding Elizabeth alive was big news. For a little while, at least, Elizabeth's return to her family even dwarfed news about the war. The reasons why are fairly obvious. Even though finding Elizabeth was good news, it was probably unexpected news. We are all aware that situations like this most often do not end happily. Abducted children are often found dead, or never found at all.
That's why Elizabeth's family is calling her return "miraculous," and it's hard to argue with their sentiments. They had to know that the odds were against Elizabeth ever being found alive.
In spite of that awareness, however, Elizabeth's family demonstrated an amazing and tenacious hope throughout the entire nightmarish ordeal. Knowing how abductions usually end, some might argue that the Smart family was simply living in denial. But the outcome for this family suggests that we might be cautious about assigning such psychological explanations to what may be a profound aspect of faith.
Holding stubbornly to hope, even in the face of growing hopelessness, may not be denial so much as faithful delay. In order to leave room for hope, we delay giving in to despair.
Obviously there is always the danger of false hope. It is possible, especially when strong emotions and terrible loss are involved, to grasp illusions and call them real. But if our choices are between hoping too much or too little, the return of Elizabeth Smart to her family suggests that we would do well to err on the side of excessive hope.
There is perhaps a window here for us to learn something about the way God works in our world. Clearly, not all stories like Elizabeth's have happy endings. One of the reasons despair presents itself to us so readily is because we have seen too many times what can happen, maybe what usually happens.
But every once in a while, grace surprises us. An outcome we really did not expect, even though we were hoping, suddenly appears. And for a moment we are forced to re-evaluate our view of what is real. We are forced, even for just a moment, to step back from our cynicism and hard-edged skepticism and entertain the belief that sometimes good news is an option.
John Claypool, longtime rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, often remarked that "given our limited knowledge, despair is always presumptuous." In other words, we really do not know whether or not a situation is hopeless until it is resolved. For that reason, hope is always a proper response to difficulty. To give in to despair presumes we know what only God can know.
Related Illustration
Scripture offers to the human race the promise of salvation: a free gift bestowed by the God who never gives up searching. In the words of Karl Barth, "To be saved does not just mean to be a little encouraged, a little relieved. It means to be pulled out like a log from a burning fire."
In 1989, an 8.2-magnitude earthquake flattened buildings across the land of Armenia, in the Caucasus. Over 30,000 people were killed in fewer than four minutes. Survivors rushed back to what was left of their homes, seeking family members.
One father rushed over to the school where his son had been, only to discover that the building had become a flattened pile of rubble. Who could have survived that crushing weight? The father nearly gave up hope.
But then he remembered a promise he had made to his son: "No matter what, I'll always be there for you." Tears filled his eyes. Was this a promise he would be unable to keep?
Clearing his thoughts, the father approached the problem systematically. He calculated where in the pile of rubble his son's classroom had been, and began to dig. Other parents were digging too. They cried out to their children, in desperate hope.
Hours passed, and the hopeful cries of the parents grew fewer. Finally, the only voices left were those of despair: "It's too late! We can do nothing. Our children are dead."
One person, then another, tried to pull the father off the rubble of the school, saying sympathetically, "You have done all you can. It's time to go home."
The father was deaf to every entreaty. To each well-meaning neighbor he would make only one reply: "Are you going to help me now?" And he continued to dig.
The local fire chief came, then the police. Each one tried to convince him to give up his desperate efforts. But to each one the father simply replied, "Are you going to help me now?"
In his thirty-eighth hour of digging, the father pulled back a slab of concrete and heard his son's voice. He called out his son's name, "Armand!" The boy called back, weakly: "Father, I knew you could come. I told my classmates not to worry: if you were alive, you'd come save me and when you saved me, they'd be saved too. You promised, 'No matter what, I'll always be there for you.'"
So, too, the word of the Lord to us.
Team Comment
George Murphy responds: You refer to Romans 4:18: "Hoping against hope..." The hope that we are given is hope in spite of apparent impossibility - that's what "against hope" means. And this hope is grounded not just in a belief that "wishing will make it so." Earlier in this chapter of Romans Paul has characterized God as one who "justified the ungodly" (v. 5), "gives life to the dead" (v. 17), and "calls into existence the things that do not exist" (v. 18). All of these divine works are things that are impossible by ordinary human standards, but their reality is fundamental to Christian faith. The basis for our "hope against hope" is trust in the God who created the world, raised Jesus from the dead, and invites sinners into fellowship.
It may be worth considering this in relation to the situation in Iraq. Is war between the United States and Iraq indeed inevitable? To think that war could be avoided at this point does seem naive to many people. To hope for a peaceful outcome of the present crisis is - well, hoping against hope. Perhaps for Christians that isn't such an unreasonable thing to do.
The Immediate Word, March 13, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
