Romans 15:4-13
Most of us have heard of Sigmund
Freud, a famous Austrian Psychiatrist who lived in the beginning of the 20th
century. He was a Jew and died shortly
after WW2 began. There was another Austrian
Psychiatrist who was younger, but considered Freud to be a mentor. His name was Viktor Frankle and he was also Jewish. In 1942, he and his whole family were sent to
Auschwitz. He spent three years in various
concentration camps. He was there until
the concentration camps were liberated.
As
you can imagine, much of his later work was informed by this experience. In reflecting on his experience in the
concentration camps, he tried to determine what the difference was between
those who died in the concentration camps and those who survived. He said that
it was not about physical strength. He saw many strong men die and many weaker
men survive. He said that finding
meaning in your own life was critical to survival and that sometimes we need to
find meaning in the suffering. He concluded that the difference between those
who died and those who survived was hope.
The Apostle Paul lived through a
great deal of suffering. He was a strong
believer in hope. Our reading for today
begins with, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our
instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the
scriptures we might find hope.” Paul found hope in the Holy Scriptures. You
might think, wait Paul wrote the scriptures.
That is true. Paul wrote a good
portion of what we consider scripture, the New Testament. However, in Paul’s day, the only scriptures
were the Hebrew Scriptures, what we refer to as the Old Testament. He believed
that the hope the Old Testament promised was embodied in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus
fulfilled the prophesies of the Old Testament.
This
did not mean that Jesus brought utopia to earth. He did not bring freedom to
the Hebrew people, which is what many expected from the Messiah. In many ways, he left the earth in the same
place it was before he was born---but not in the important ways. For people who knew Jesus, who experienced
his love, the world was forever transformed.
There was also a hope in what was to come, when Jesus came again. Jesus left this world with a promise to
return, a promise that something better was coming. Paul believed in this promise. He believed that after death, he would meet God. He believed that we all have that potential,
which is why it was so important to him that he share the good news of Jesus
Christ.
This
did not change the fact that people were suffering under the Roman occupation.
They were oppressed and hurting. Even
those who knew of Jesus and believed in Jesus were losing hope. They had assumed that Jesus was going to
return in their lifetime. But Jesus wasn’t back. The Romans were still oppressing the Jews.
Their lives were no better. It is
understandable that they were growing weary and losing hope.
Earlier in
Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote, “For in hope we were saved.
Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with
patience.”[1] One of
the things we have to remember is that Paul did not know Jesus while Jesus was
still living. Paul heard the voice of
Jesus only after Jesus died and ascended to heaven. He did not even see Jesus--he heard his
voice.
Therefore
Paul knew all too well what it was to believe without seeing. He knew what it
was to suffer and hope when there seemed to be absolutely no reason to hope. For Paul, hope was dependent not on the
current situation but the ability to believe despite the current situation—to
hope when there seemed to be no reason to hope.
In my life,
I have found hope in despair, but only when there was a spark, a spark of light
in the darkness. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to find hope when
there is only darkness and a promise of more darkness. As Christians, we always have a reason to
hope, even when all seems lost. We find
that reason in scripture. We find it in this community of faith. We find it in our worship.
However,
sometimes we do not have the energy to look for hope. We don’t want to have to find it. We want it to come to us. Occasionally that
happens. Sometimes, hope is easy. In
times of suffering and despair, it is not. It can feel almost impossible.
After his
experience in the concentration camp, Viktor Frankle wrote a lot about
humanity’s search for meaning. He
specialized in the study of psychology and religion. While he survived the concentration camp,
both of his parents and his wife died.
There is no way to explain away the murder of 6 million people. We cannot always explain suffering away by
saying there is a reason for it all.
While I doubt that Frankle claimed a reason for the suffering of so
many, he found a way to learn from his own.
During his life and career, he was able to help a lot of people because
of what we had learned from his own suffering.
He wrote, "What is to give
light must endure burning."
In Advent,
we talk a lot about light. We light a new candle every week and sing about the
light of Christ. Even in popular
culture, there is light. We hang lights on our bushes and trees. We put up a tree inside the house and cover
it with lights. We put electric candles
in our windows. We do that because it is
festive and pretty. We do it because we don’t want to be the only house on the
block without lights. There is also a
deeper reason. We do it because the
nights are longer and the days are shorter. We need more light in our lives.
While
Christmas lights are easy to hang (relatively) and candles are easy to light, discovering
the light within ourselves can be much more challenging. In life, we will endure hardship and
pain. Often we find the strength to
endure those things because we know they will end. Sometimes that hope that the suffering will
end is not enough. Sometimes the
suffering is so great, the pain lasts so long, we need something else to keep
us going. In those times, we tend to
look for a reason for the suffering. Perhaps we would be better not to look for a
reason why we are suffering, but to search for something that we can learn from
that suffering. Because in learning something from our own suffering, we might
be able to ease the pain of another. We
might be the light of Christ for someone who cannot find it on their own.
While I do
not agree with Frankle that what gives light must endure burning, I do believe that our lights have the capacity
to burn a little brighter after we have endured the burning. And because they are brighter, they will
reach even farther into the hearts that need the light the most.
In the end
of our reading, Paul provides a benediction.
Benediction is a fancy word for blessing. We end every service with a benediction from
the clergy. This was Paul’s blessing to the Romans and one I share for all of
you, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that
you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
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