Sermon: Hope that Overcomes Fear

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Hope that Overcomes Fear

By Charles Rush

April 24, 2011 -- Easter Sunday

[ Audio (mp3, 5.2Mb) ]

though there is a vigorous debate about the place of the resurrection in the life of the church, what actually happened, and how we can understand it, on another level, you either get the resurrection or you don't.

I am reminded of a story from 1918 in Russia, when the new Communist commissars were fanning across the countryside preaching the gospel of Marx with evangelistic zeal to peasants who had been steeped in suffering for ten thousand years and steeped in Christianity for a millennium.

A group of 7,500 people were assembled to hear a lecture in one of Moscow's largest assembly halls. It was entitled “religion, the Opium of the Masses”. The commissar delivered his speech with great passion and enthusiasm, imitating the charisma of Lenin. He explained that the science of dialectical materialism was the true light, which would forever supplant the legendary myth of Christianity. He closed by making pointed reference to what he described as the “naïve, childish, ridiculous fable called the Resurrection of Jesus.” The people listened attentively.

When he finished his lecture, he was very pleased with himself, so much so that in an act of confidence he invited anyone in the audience who had a question or wanted to debate a point to come to the podium. There was silence in the vast hall, none of the peasants knew what to say.

Finally, a 26 year old priest, just out of seminary and recently ordained, stepped forward. The commissar sneered at him with disdain and said, ‘You have two minutes and not a second more.' The priest assured him that it wouldn't take that long. He mounted the platform, surveyed the vast throng, and in a loud and defiant voice exclaimed, “Christ is risen!” With that, 7,500 people spoke as one and roared back, “He is risen indeed!”

Now that story may simply illustrate how effective the Russian Orthodox church has been at teaching the masses the Easter liturgy, but I suspect that it is more than that. I suspect that the masses also choose to memorize the Easter liturgy because it speaks to the incredible power of hope that overcomes despair in the midst of suffering. You have to go through Good Friday to get to Easter. And it is probably the case that only those who have had to really live through suffering and despair can really get the meaning of resurrection hope.

Father Gleb Yakunin was a prisoner in the Gulag in Russia from 1975 onward. He had been arrested for conducting a Bible study without a permit, which meant that he was effectively proselytizing, and that was against the law in Communist Russia. He had been in prison for ten years when an organization that I worked with, CREED (Christian Rescue Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents) heard about him. At CREED we worked to get prisoners of conscience released throughout the world, but the vast majority of our cases back then were from behind the Iron Curtain.

We wrote letters to our politicians, we organized conferences, we testified before Congress if we were lucky, all to no avail, except for the very important function of keeping these people alive in the conscience of the West.

It was 1988 or 1989 that our director, Dr. Ernest Gordon, dean of the Chapel at Princeton University, got a call from the White House. We were bowled over with surprise. President Reagan was going to a meeting in Moscow with President Gorbachev. Did we have anyone that we wanted to see released from prison? We couldn't have but 5 names. I told Dr. Gordon we have about 1500 names. How do you pick 5?

Dr. Gordon sent in our list. All of us gathered at his home to watch TV as President Reagan got off the plane with Mrs. Reagan. President Gorbachev and Mrs. Gorbachev greet them on the tarmac. And then, unbelievable, we saw President Reagan reach in his coat pocket and had Mr. Gorbachev a personal note. On it he had written, “As a courtesy and a gesture of good will, could you have these 5 dissident released from jail? At that precise time, the Soviet Union was falling apart; Mr. Gorbachev was intensely motivated to develop good relations with the U. S.

Gleb Yakunin was in his cell in solitary confinement. One morning the guards open his cell and say to him, “Ronald Reagan knows who you are. You are lucky man.” And three minutes later, completely out of the blue, he was walking down a country lane a free man. Fantastic, unexpected, unwarranted, life-changing good news…

A couple of years go by. Dr. Gordon and I go to Moscow to give some lectures on Christianity, democracy and human rights at one of the colleges. Dr. Gordon had written a book called “Miracle on the River Kwai” about surviving a Japanese concentration camp in World War II. (You might have seen the movie “The Bridge over the River Kwai”. Dr. Gordon's own account of those events was made into another movie called “To End All Wars”.) Dr. Gordon's book had been the very first English book to be translated into Russian and sold on the open market after the fall of communism.

We heard that Father Gleb Yakunin had been elected to Parliament in the first elections in Russia. At that time, tanks surrounded the Parliament building and things were very tense. We called Congressman Yakunin's office, explained who we were.

His secretary called back in 2 minutes and told us that we were welcome to come anytime but was there any possibility we could come immediately. We drove over, walked past the soldiers, the protesters, the Tanks and were ushered upstairs to Father Yakunin's office. And attaché took our coats and led us down a corridor. A large committee was meeting. It stopped. We were introduced and they told everyone the story. They all stood.

From across the room strode a diminutive man in a clerical collar. Dr. Gordon, a reserved Scottish Presbyterian, extended his hand like the gentleman that he was. Father Gleb brushed it aside and gave him a bear hug that only Russian men can give. He did not let him go.

Two elderly men, with many other successes, hugging as former prisoner… It was a profound, holy moment I will never forget as long as I live.

Father Gleb's story was indicative of the era. Unquestionably for me, the most profound thing about experiencing Russia after the fall of communism was the realization that communism did not fall because of the triumph of free market capitalism, although that is partly true. It did not fall because we spent the Soviets to their knees in an arms race that exhausted them, although that is partly true. The end of communism was a moral and spiritual triumph of hope in the midst of oppression. It was thousands of people praying with one voice for an end to the mangling of the human character. He is risen Indeed!

As soon as Father Gleb was released from prison, he organized a party for political reform. He had no money, no political experience, no campaign experience. The party platform was simply about human rights and human dignity. But in order to actually get elected right after the fall of Communism, it was almost a precondition that you had to have done some time for the movement. Only former prisoners of conscience need apply. Only prisoners who had suffered really get it. If you hadn't done time, people weren't sure that you were authentic. You had to go through Good Friday to get to Easter. He was elected.

Hope filled him with a determination and resolve that tanks could not deflate. He was beyond that. He carried with him the despair of every prisoner of conscience ever locked up and forgotten. He had a mission that mere circumstances could not derail.

And that is the point of the resurrection. The disciples were dispirited and despairing. They were lost and hopeless, confused, without direction. Something happened to them that was totally unexpected. There is no tradition in Judaism that looked for a resurrection of wise or holy men, no tradition that looks for a resurrection of their Messiah.

But something happened to them that was dramatic and tangible. It is beyond words, like all mystical experiences of extraordinary reality because our words are devised the ordinary, mutual things we share. So they used stock images from apocalyptic literature: Angels, earthquakes, shining and white, a message not to fear. It was a popular literature of the day that describes the end of history. They were trying to say that with Jesus the point of history has reached its fulfillment. This is the point of our world.

What happened, we cannot know but it was so real that the disciples felt they had grabbed hold of Jesus feet and worshipped. What we do know is that it was so powerful, they changed their lives. They went from fear to confidence, a group of mainly quiet fishermen devoted the rest of their lives to telling the story of what they witnessed. Almost all of them died, many of them tortured more brutally even than Jesus. The did it because they were changed women and men and the mere circumstances of the world, the mere hardships were no longer a deterrent to their mission and purpose in life.

The resurrection does have this incredible, fantastic quality to it. But so does most of what we believe. We Christians believe that forgiveness is more important than retribution. We believe that compassion towards those in need is vital, despite their dysfunction and their morally compromised lives. We believe that humility and love are going to triumph in the end. We teach our children that reconciliation is more important than victory. We believe that integrity will ultimately triumph over power as Jesus said, “Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Silly Christians, we believe that a vision of peace is more profound than the violent aggression swirling all around us.

We believe that God cares for each and every one of us. We believe that God not only knows us but that God forgives us when we sin and keeps after us until we get it right. We teach our children that it is more important to look after the needs of others than it is to take care of our own needs and that we should use our resources so that everyone is taken care of and has dignity and self-esteem.

We believe that we can let go of the world around us and embrace this coming realm, and so we occasionally have a radical freedom from possessions and positions. Christians don't have a problem with things that are incredible and fantastic. Fantastic and incredible fairly well describes most of what we believe.

Those overworked bumper sticker sill pretty much have us in mind, the ones that say, “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of mercy?” What are we crazy? Yes we are.

So let yourself go. There is a radicalness to the gospel and encourages abandon and outrageousness. It cannot be controlled. Just go with it. Let it fill you with the incredible fantastic hope that it has to share. Live for something beyond yourself. Start something that will outlive you. Radiate love in all aspects of your being. Bless the world, wherever you find yourself. Sense the divine aura that shoots through the universe. And live in grateful joy.

The writer E. B. White once shared a personal story about his wife. She was dying and had only a few weeks to live. He knew it. She knew it. Gardening had been one of the passions and joys of her life. It was October, time for her to plant her bulbs for the spring. One day she got on her gardening clothes, took trowel and spade, and headed out to the garden beds. He went with her. This is what he wrote. “There was something comical, yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on that awesome occasion. The small hunched over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another Spring. Oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well were at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October calmly plotting the resurrection.”

My brothers and sisters, be free. Plot your own resurrection and live life to the fullness it has to offer. Amen.