Lifting Up: How Hardship Can Lead to Hope

On Sunday, March 17, I preached a sermon based on our Lenten theme of Lifting Up. I borrowed some material from this commentary, but not all of it. I especially wanted to offer this to you because of the hot air balloon images around the church. I hope you enjoy it!

Peace,

Pastor Travis Wilson

This blog post was written by Ben Hensley of Worship Design Studio:

Scripture:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. . . . Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. (Psalm 51, excerpts)

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12: 20-33)

The primary science involved in hot air balloons and their ability to fly has to do with the physics of air density. At the most fundamental level, the warmer air is, the less dense it becomes. And less dense air surrounded by more dense air will seek to equalize and rise until the density of the warm air is the same as the rest of the air surrounding it.

This is the same science that governs weather and even how the boilers in some of our church facilities heat our buildings.

Some of the most hopeful words in hymnody and scripture come from a surprising place: hardship. We see this in African American spirituals, white gospel hymnody, and the striving texts that emerged from the spirit of the 20th-century social gospel movement. The words of uplift in Isaiah are given with the backdrop of exile and loss. The beautiful moments of hope in John in our passage and later passages come as Jesus himself makes it clear where he is headed: crucifixion. The joyful and hopeful words of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians were written when Paul was imprisoned.

The text of “Love Lifted Me” that Dr. Marcia McFee quotes in the synopsis for this service was written by James Rowe, himself an Irish immigrant to the US who worked on railroads and then as an inspector for the Hudson River Humane Society — hardly careers that were easy or free from hardships. The beginning of his hymn isn’t buoyant:

I was sinking deep in sin,

Far from the peaceful shore,

Very deeply stained within,

Sinking to rise no more…

And from that expression of hardship, he turns to hope:

But the Master of the sea

Heard my despairing cry,

From the waters lifted me,

Now safe am I.

Love lifted me!

To make the air less dense so it becomes buoyant enough to lift the envelope of a hot air balloon, there must be a lot of heat energy applied. Massive torches in the gondola shoot flames of intense heat into the envelope and lift it. What if the hardships we experience can give us opportunities to really experience the hope that lifts us up? Maybe the kind of hope that reveals the miracles around us needs a little bit of “heat” to lift us up. That isn’t to say that we should seek out hardship arbitrarily. But I think it does allow us to acknowledge that hardship in our lives, hardships every single one of us faces, can also be opportunities to experience the very hope that can bring us through or out of that hardship.

Jesus, in the passage for this service, openly indicated “the kind of death he was to die.” And yet he speaks of a deep hope. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He speaks of the hardship of grain being transformed into fruit. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

Jesus’ first words about his death weren’t hopeless. They were determined and hopeful, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He didn’t say “the hour has come for the Son of Man to suffer,” nor did he say “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be crucified.” Jesus points out clearly that glory occurs even in the midst of hardship and death.