The Banner of Hope: Romans 5:1-5 - Holy Trinity Sunday

¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (NRSV)

Relay for Life 2019. Photo by Shannon Kiro

Every year, when the Relay for Life comes around, I always think back to a Survivors’ Walk a few years back. Ellen Toy, the Leechburg High School physical education teacher and women’s Volleyball Coach, was battling a severe form of cancer that had ravaged her otherwise strong body and confined her to a wheelchair. Nevertheless, when the Survivors’ Walk began, she was helped out of the wheelchair and walked the full lap. Even though the cancer ended her life the following winter, what I saw in her was the number one reason to participate in the Relay: to support one another in the fight against this devastating disease. The Relay is an act of hope—and you can’t live without hope. But how is it that so many live a hopeless existence? What does it mean to be without hope?

For starters, you turn to substances, chemicals, material things, and reckless behaviors in order to cope. You lock the door between yourself and the outside world and throw away the key. Your only company is those who indulge in your misery. Nothing really matters anymore; not even life itself.

To make matters worse, there is so much around us that fosters hopelessness: abandoned storefronts and dilapidated homes; rusting mills and factories; crumbling infrastructure; empty pews; the 24-hour cable news cycle, and poverty, poverty, poverty. Every church that closes marks a big win for hopelessness.

Hopelessness is nothing less than the destruction of the gift of life. It’s cancer of the soul. It’s cancer on community. You know a community has descended into hopelessness when people are blaming others for their problems and turning everything into a war of us versus them. It’s hopelessness that keeps people behind locked doors, because individual survival is the only objective. Hopelessness the devil’s business—and business is booming.

For the Body of Christ, however, hope is our business. It’s the reflection of God in us. But hope does not originate in us. It’s from God.

If it were entirely up to you to get yourself right with God, or “believe God” into giving you everything you think you need for a happy and meaningful life, there would be no hope—because you’re on your own to achieve the goal. And even if you “arrive,” are you not still vulnerable to failure and loss?

Real hope is the direct result of God taking the initiative to seek you, find you, claim you, and redeem you—and there’s nowhere you can go, and nothing you can do, that will put you beyond God’s reach. It is hope, along with faith and love, that bind us to God and to each other. We become people of hope by trusting in God’s power to create promising futures for ourselves and the people around us.

I’m thankful for the mystery of the Triune God—because otherwise, god would be much too small for us.

Consider what it means to be “justified by faith:” God took on flesh in Jesus and personally suffered your rejection of God and the sin you commit against the neighbor—and yet, you are embraced and forgiven. At the same time, Jesus joins you in your suffering, so that it produces endurance, character, and hope! And it is the Spirit of God who breathes the resurrected life of Christ into you, and draws you into the life-giving activity of this Triune God.

Hope begins with this simple truth: Jesus loves you and longs to be in relationship with you. The Triune God is for you—so who or what can be against you?

To claim hope, you first must identify where hopelessness exists. Hope isn’t the Polyanna act, trying to look for good in everything, denying a bad situation, or minimizing it. You call a bad thing what it is. Then, you remember: the Triune God is bigger—bigger than cancer; bigger than poverty; bigger than drugs; bigger than everything that’s changing our world for the worst. Then. You remember: God’s love is being poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit.

So, you get up off your chair. You unlock the door to yourself and go outside. You embrace the new day, ready to receive God’s love as it comes to you. You move forward, trusting that something far better awaits you on the other side of pain and death.

In my opinion, last week’s Relay paints a beautiful picture of what hope can be—because God’s gift of hope is nurtured in community. We give it to each other.

Right now, there are people in your life whom you can help walk the way of hope. You can’t cure their cancer, but you can still help them to be whole. Then, you can join the Body of Christ, carrying the banner of his love and salvation in an otherwise hopeless world. People will witness your hope and they will want to come along. This is why we do what we do: everything from VBS, clothing closet, GriefShare, and the prayer walk: because Jesus is risen. The Triune God reigns. Love wins.

And no matter what, you can pray with total confidence: “your kingdom come, your will be done, TO ME, on earth as in heaven.”

We become people of hope by trusting in God’s power to create promising futures for ourselves and the people around us. Move forward, trusting that something far better awaits you on the other side of pain and death.