Despair: The complete absence of hope.
This is a well-known painting by the 19th century Norwegian artist, Edvard Munk.
It is entitled the “Scream”.
When he painted it, his sister had been recently committed to a nearby mental asylum…an unthinkably horrible place at that time…he said this about the painting.
“I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
His childhood had been filled trauma and he lived with the dread of inheriting a mental illness that ran in his family.
As an adult he was heavily influenced by the world view, Nihilism…literally nothing-ism…there is no basis for meaning, or morality, or even communication.
The “scream” is a picture of the realization of despair…the loss of hope…the loss of meaning.
So…Happy Easter!
But please bear with me, the real meaning and joy of the empty tomb makes no sense without understanding the “scream” that is in the human heart…apart from the gospel.
Creation, Scripture says, does not scream…but it does groan, as do we as Christians.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Creation groans, we groan…but we do not scream in despair.
We groan…in hopeful but often weary faith.
Because, even though, life is not as it was designed to be…we do not scream in hopeless despair…because the gospel is true.
We have hope…and meanwhile…for a while, we groan waiting for the final fulfillment of what Christ has won for us on the cross.
Let’s go on in this line of thought…for just a minute…in understanding despair apart from Christ.
Listen to Atheist Bertrand Russell, in his book “Why I am not a Christian.”
“That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving (cosmic accident); that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins . . only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”
Do you hear that?
You can only build a foundation for your soul on unyielding despair…how is despair a foundation?
If nothing makes sense, nothing matters, all is random chance…then why Dr. Russell, did you write your book, how can you call what you write “truth”, there is no truth in your universe.
Why do you labor to convince people to believe nothing matters, why does it matter what they believe?
And why should I care what your accidental collocations of atoms have to say about anything?
So why did he write, when for the consistent nihilist true communication itself is impossible?
Why did he “believe” in nothingness and yet try to persuade others to “believe” as well?
Because he could not live as if nothing matters…he is a living contradiction…he believed he had something to say, and he found meaning in saying it.
So, as is always true with those who disbelieve in God…he was a contradiction: “What I say has no meaning…but listen to me when I say you have no meaning.”
You can speak using words of unreality…but you can’t live there.
In reality…God exists, and God has spoken to us in his word.
Terry, who cares what a long dead artist or scientist thinks?”
Because, as we discussed last week…ideas have consequences…and they echo through the ages.
The “scream” is not limited to paintings and philosophies…it has infected lives.
I have spoken recently of the literal scream I heard in at a funeral, in a barren winter graveyard from an anguished child, whose father had taken his life.
The scream is personal, not merely theoretical.
So, we begin this way…because the scream is not just ideas or art…it is growing in the hearts of people as they try to live lives apart from God.
And we begin this way because the Bible presents the gospel, Easter, as good news as solution to the really, really bad news.
Of…Sin, separation from God, death, hell.
Jesus Christ did not scream in despair on the cross…he cried out…”It is finished”
Death, where is your victory? Paul taunted.
He might have said…Despair, where is your scream?
And when Mary wept in despair outside the empty tomb …The angel called to her “He is not here, because he is risen!”
“It is finished” and “he is risen”…these are the only answers to the “scream.”
Bertrand Russell wrote, in the beginning was nothing, in the end is nothing…and in between, you are nothing.
“In the beginning, God” is how the Bible begins.
“In the end, God” is how the Bible ends.
God is not justified or proven…he is just assumed…everyone assumes something…everyone starts somewhere.
Bertrand Russell assumed his own wisdom; his starting point was his own ability to discern what life is about…now he is dead.
The Bible begins with what is self-evident to those who do not deny the truth.
This world did not just happen, it is designed…our lives are not just the accidental collocations of atoms.
We bear the image of God.
Since God exists, and God has made us…we have meaning.
And since God has spoken, we know what our lives mean…we know our purpose.
*Christy and I both recently had to have a front tooth repaired…because we attempted to use our teeth apart from their design parameters.
Teeth work very well to bite into an apple…they work poorly as tools to fix toys or pry open certain packages.
Whenever you use something…a tooth for instance, outside its design purpose…there is frustration (it doesn’t work well) and there is often brokenness.
Whenever a human attempts to live outside their design…there is frustration, despair, and ultimately brokenness…there is the scream.
The scream is a terrible contrast with the peace that comes with eternal purpose that comes from the good news of Jesus changing and shaping the human heart.
Let’s go again to 1 Peter 1, today starting in verse 17
Since you call on a Father who judges each ones work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
We have already talked about how we are to live as sojourners, strangers now.
And as strangers here…we are to live with a reverent fear for the God who is the impartial judge.
He sees…what is true and real with perfect clarity…including our sin.
There is no “my truth or your truth”…there is only The Truth of God.
This impartial judge who is perfect in his judgement…has brought us mercy through the cross of Christ.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed (ransomed) from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
The largest question in human history on both a philosophical and personal level…is what is sometimes called the “problem of evil.”
Again, the problem for the unbeliever is the problem of meaning or good…there is neither in any ultimate sense.
But on a personal level, questions goes like this “God, if you are there and if you care, why am I suffering like this?”
The Bible gives 7 different themes to speak to this question…none of them are easy answers…and one of those themes is mystery.
We don’t know the complete answer to that question…how could we?
However, one part of the answer is that human suffering is a result of human sin…and the solution is Jesus.
The Bible presents God as both fully just and fully good…these two can seem to cancel each other out.
If he proves his perfect justice (if judges sin), it would seem to disprove his goodness (where he forgives sin)…and vice versa.
Then comes Jesus.
Romans 3:26 When God gave his Son as an atonement (payment) for sins, “It was to show his righteousness, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Jesus vindicates both God’s justice and his mercy…his justice and his love are shown fully in the Cross of Christ.
(John Frame: Apologetics)
I’m not saying this is an easy answer to “why do I suffer” or a satisfying one to the skeptic.
I’m saying this is what Peter is showing us here…and for the one who has met Christ, this answer is satisfying.
We live in reverent fear…not in abject terror…because in Christ…God’s justice and his mercy are both revealed in infinite fashion.
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. (we talked about this at length several weeks ago). Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
Purified yourselves…doesn’t mean you have justified yourselves: Again, our salvation is three movements in a single sonata:
1. Justification (all the work of God, he has forgiven our sins)
2. Sanctification (collaboration of the Spirit and our own efforts, to become more like Christ over our lifetimes)
2. Glorification (all the work of God) our final hope, when in the end we experience resurrection.
*Last week I spoke briefly at the change of command for the adjutant general for the Kansas Guard.
*I know both the incoming and the outgoing commanders very well.
*So, I could speak personally of how we were celebrating the beautiful convergence of God’s grace gifts and human grit.
I said that these two men are the recipients of manifold grace gifts.
and
They also had demonstrated years of exceptional grit…faithfulness, putting on their boots day after day, and not just showing up…but giving their all.
When God’s grace gifts and human grit converge in a life…others are blessed by that life…that was my point.
I said that our state…have been blessed by the convergence of God’s grace gifts and the grit (faithfulness) of these two men.
That is what Peter is describing here…a convergence of God’s grace and Spirit empowered human grit…that leads to blessing, good for others.
This is opposite of despair…this is meaning, purpose at the highest level.
This is the antithesis of a worldview that see humans as accidental collocations of atoms…where nothing ultimately matters.
NO…we are the recipients of God’s grace gifts…and we are to be found faithful…we can be found faithful.
1. God’s grace gifts:
We have been ransomed from despair, from the emptiness of the “scream”
And our ransom was not accomplished by the “stuff of earth” (no silver or gold could pay our sin debt) but by the perfect sacrifice of God…Christ the Messiah.
2. Human grit:
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth.
We choose what will shape our minds…we decide to obey and trust, God has saved us by his grace…now we to choose to live in obedience to him.
The outcome of this grace gift/grit convergence is that others are blessed by our lives.
3. Others are blessed:
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
The result of God’s grace and human grit…is Philadelphia (brotherly love) and growing agape (God’s kind of love)
Very few would dispute the worthiness of this goal…having deep love for others.
But as a whole, our culture has no idea how to get there.
Apart from Christ…there is no foundation (no big “why”)
-“Why should I love others in costly ways?”
*Bertrand Russell…why should I love an accidental collocation of atoms.
-He has no answer for us…just in his words…unyielding despair.
And there is no real power (no big “how”)
-“How do I love others with this self-sacrificing kind of love?”
-It’s not in me, by nature alone…to live this way.
I say our culture has no idea how to get there…because you can look at polls (the answers people give to the big “why”? Fewer and fewer people have one, they have little “why”) and anecdotal evidence from real life results (evidence that there is no big “how”)
People are less and less willing to sacrifice for anyone or anything…more and more people are openly admitting they live for self.
Evidence also shows that this self-serving, my truth life doesn’t work…all kinds of metrics demonstrate this.
it’s not how we were designed.
So, again, we are left with no ultimate meaning other than what I make up for myself.
If God is not there, and God has not spoken…we are left to make up purpose and meaning on our own terms.
The technical term for this is relativism…your truth and my truth.
Last week I read an interview with a juror in a high-profile civil trial, and she said this:
Stay with me, this is confused speech:
“He (the man who lost his case) was telling his truth and I think some of that has been distorted due to some other factors, but I do think he did not intend to tell a truth that wasn’t his truth.”
I know that is confusing…and my intention is not mock her…but to show the incoherence of trying to live in a world of your truth and my truth.
Ironically, she judged against the man in court…I say ironically because a judgment requires an external, fixed standard to judge by…the truth.
So, let me attempt to paraphrase her: “I judged against the man because his truth was not the truth.”
She would say she believes truth is relative…she spoke in a confused way about his truth.
But she made a judgment about what actually, factually…happened on a real day on real mountain.
She decided what was “the truth”.
Again, I am not mocking her, my intention is to demonstrate that to live in the world as it is we cannot operate with “my truth” and “your truth”…we have to seek to understand “the truth.”
Because WHAT the human heart most often “makes up” what “my truth” most often becomes is: Demandingness.
My truth is to make my life about me.
We become like demanding children.
Demanding that God and others and the external world itself…defer to me, understand me, see me, accept me whatever I demand be accepted.
This demanding heart misshapes us into something very different than the image of Christ…it does not bring joy, or purpose…it is the scream.
It is idolatry…we become the center…and this cannot be sustained.
Gospel faith and gospel empowered effort, train us to become like Christ…it shapes us into “others focused” new creations.
We train to Trust God (not demand from him) and love others (not demand from them).
This takes us to our last verses and where we will land today.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.
I want to give you question and propose an answer to that question.
The question is “Who will you trust?”
The proposed answer is “I will trust God!”
But wait, the implication is, “I will trust God by trusting his Word and aligning my life with his word.”
In John 3, when Nicodemus, a prominent Jewish teacher comes to Jesus at night to have, what he thinks will be, a sort of peer-to-peer theological discussion.
Jesus gets straight to the point, “No one can even see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
This completely takes Nicodemus off his game…it confuses him to the point to where twice in a short conversation he asks, “How can this be?”
His entire way of looking at the world is upended.
The starting point for understanding God, his kingdom, his rule in the world is that we must be born again.
We don’t start with us…our thoughts, our wisdom…we have to be born again…God’s new life in us.
You can figure out some things about “how” the world works…but you will miss the “Why” of the world and of your life and of your suffering and of your joy…if you are not born again.
We are born again through the gospel…the good news of Jesus Christ…as given to us in the word of God…the Bible.
If there was a YouTube video of Jesus from the first century.
If we had a Netflix documentary, with actual footage of his life.
If you saw him teaching, healing, even raised from dead…apart from the Word of God telling you…you would only see “what” is happening you could not know “why” it is happening.
But there is more… if you understand that God has revealed the “why” of the death and resurrection of Jesus…and yet you do not respond to the Holy Spirit convicting of sin, leading to faith and repentance you cannot be born again.
You could see what is happening, you could believe why it is happening…but then to experience new life in Christ…you have to transfer trust to Christ from self and all other sources of final authority for your life.
You have to be born again.
This is a spiritual, not merely intellectual, life event.
The gospel is not just about changing beliefs or trying to change minds…it is about becoming a new creation in Christ.
Yes, this is about true information…but it is ultimately about transformation.
So, who will you trust?
Will you trust another person…a scientist, a blogger, a Ted Talker, yourself?
“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field…but the word of the Lord stands forever.”
Remember General JCH Lee?
I’m being facetious…of course you don’t.
In fact, we are probably the only ones on the planet today who will think of him or speak his name.
But in 1945 everyone in the European theater of war knew him…he was the logistics guy…handed out the stuff people needed…when he retired, he was celebrated in newspapers…and by ceremonies in different countries.
He loved it…in fact, he made his aides put three stars on the back of his helmet to match the three on the front…so everyone would know he was General Lee…coming and going.
And the troops, who largely disliked General JCH Lee, came to call him, Jesus Christ Himself Lee.
My point is not to pick on him to but point out what should have been obvious to him…”all men are like grass…the grass withers…as do all people.”
One of the things that helps me think correctly about people is to contemplate that everyone sleeps.
-The person with the current greatest mind, physical strength, physical beauty, physical wealth, the most power and prestige…they all lay down each day and sleep, powerless as a baby.
-There for about 1/3 of their lives they lay down and sleep…just like a child…because they are like children.
-They are helpless as they sleep because they are unable to control their minds, strength, or wealth…the world goes on without them, and they are oblivious to it.
-One day they will die…and blow away like dead grass…beware of being impressed with people and not with God.
*I think God (who by the way, doesn’t sleep) has designed us to sleep so each day we could be reminded of our weakness and dependence on him.
-“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep”…a child’s prayer, that all of us children should consider each night.
When I prayed for two Generals last Saturday, I didn’t call them in my prayers, General Weishaar and Vernerdi.
I call them that, out of respect, when speaking directly to them in public
But I meant no disrespect for them, when in my prayers I called them, Dave and Mike.
How could I bring myself to pray, “God, bless this General”?
No, they are kids, they are grass…we are talking to God himself.
And no offense was taken by them…they know, as I know…God out ranks them.
They know, they are green grass today, but someday will be brown grass, blown away by the winds of time.
None of us are essential…all of us are responsible.
The grass withers…but the word of God stands forever.
This is the word that has been preached to you today.
Trust God…God is there, God has spoken in his word.
You have questions…okay, you always will.
But if God’s Spirit is touching your heart…respond to him.
My prayer for today has been that what Paul wrote would be true…
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. 1 Cor. 2:4
It’s not that Paul avoided being persuasive…he was persuasive, he even said he tried to persuade others to believe in Christ.
But this was his recognition that only the power of the Holy Spirit’s can change human hearts…not just human words.
Trust in God, trust in God’s word…this is about much more than mere ideas, it is about the reality of the gospel.
His word says that Jesus is the Messiah…God’s perfect justice and goodness.
Say “Yes”… for the first time if you have not been born again.
Or, “Yes again” as you surrender once again to Christ’s Lordship…his authority in your life.
PRAYER