Hope for the Hopeless

Think back to a day of great pain – a day of hopelessness, of despair. A day when you lost a loved one – or a loved one betrayed you. A day it seemed as if God didn’t care for you – or He didn’t even exist.

That’s the situation for the followers of Jesus after the crucifixion. They had left everything to follow Him – fathers, mothers, homes, employment. For they thought He was the long-promised Messiah, the descendant of David who would restore Israel and reign forever. They had seen His power; they had heard His words – no one had ever spoken like that! When the religious authorities tried to trap Him, time and again He turned the tables on them. So those authorities didn’t even dare to ask him anything else publicly.

Jesus had called His followers out of their simple, normal lives. He had raised their hopes in the inevitable advance of the Kingdom of God. And He told them they would judge the twelve tribes of Israel! Simple fishermen, a tax collector!

But now, they have seen this almighty King stripped, scourged, and scorned. They have heard the soldiers mock Him as King of the Jews. They saw Him hanging on the cross. They saw Him die. They saw His lifeless corpse.

This dashes all their hopes. All their dreams. Now they just look like fools for leaving everything and following an itinerant preacher – indeed, a madman.

So they despair – as you may well have despaired on your day of greatest pain.

That’s the women’s state of mind as they come to Jesus’ tomb early Sunday morning. In the midst of their despair, they intend to do what they can – to honor Jesus’ lifeless body.

But they find the tomb open! And Jesus’ body is not there!

Luke tells us two men – presumably angels – then speak:

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you … that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (From Luke 24:5-7)

The women return to the apostles, reporting what they’ve seen. But Luke tells us, “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11).

Peter goes to the tomb and finds it empty – but does not see Jesus.

Later that day two followers are walking away from Jerusalem. The risen Jesus overtakes them, but they do not recognize Him. Still very much in despair, they describe to Him what has happened and then summarize their present state of mind: “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). The implication: They no longer have that hope. The empty tomb has not raised them out of despair.

They go on to say that others went to the tomb and verified the women’s report, but conclude, “Him they did not see.”

What does Jesus then say?

He says what He says to us on our hardest days, when we lose all hope: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25)

Foolish! Why?

We all are foolish for at least three reasons when we despair:

  • First, because we have the prophets. Over many centuries the prophets tell us that God has advanced His great plan, overcoming human sin and human opposition, culminating in the descendant of David who lives a righteous life, suffers and dies for the people, rises from the dead, and promises to return to usher in His eternal Kingdom when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Nothing can keep Him from fulfilling that plan.
  • Second, because we have Jesus. The two followers are in despair because those who went to the tomb did not see Jesus. And they are looking at Jesus when they say that! They see Jesus! Yet they are completely ignorant of His presence.
  • Third, because of what Jesus Himself said. The angels tell the women, “Remember how He told you.” He had said that a disciple would betray Him. He had said He would mocked, beaten, and killed. And He had said that He would rise from the dead. He told them all this ahead of time.

So, friends: In our times of great pain, we must hold on to these same three truths.

We too have the Scriptures and the evidence from biblical history that nothing derails God’s plan. Furthermore, we today have the privilege of seeing more clearly than those disciples how God is working out His great plan through church history and through missions.

We too have the presence of Jesus via His Holy Spirit. The night He was betrayed, Jesus told His disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, … he dwells with you and will be in you” (From John 14:16-17). So when we feel abandoned – He is right there with us. We too must recognize Him, like those disciples in Luke 24.

Finally, we too have the words, the promises of Jesus.

Think about this: Suppose I promise to give you a million dollars on Monday, and then a thousand dollars Tuesday.  You would have reason to be skeptical about that promise! But suppose somehow I fulfill the first half of the promise – I give you a million dollars Monday!

What then do you expect to happen on Tuesday? If I fulfill the promise to give you a million dollars on Monday, surely I’ll give you the thousand dollars on Tuesday – you will have no doubt! I’ve kept the hard promise – surely I’ll keep the easy one!

Think, now: Isn’t the promise to rise from the dead the hardest promise to keep anyone has ever made? Jesus kept the hard promise. He lived up to His word. Shouldn’t we then believe the rest of His words, and trust Him to be speaking truthfully? He’s fulfilled the million-dollar promise – surely He’ll fulfill all the thousand dollar promises He made.

Jesus’ resurrection verifies all God’s promises.

These include:

  • “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
  • “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).
  • “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, Joshua 1:5).
  • Via the Apostle Paul: Nothing in all creation “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (From Romans 8:39).

So this Resurrection Sunday: Commit yourself not to be foolish and slow of heart to believe:

  • Remember the story of the Bible, God’s great plan;
  • Remember that if you are in Jesus, you have the downpayment of your inheritance, the Holy Spirit within you;
  • Remember Jesus has fulfilled the most difficult promise; He will surely fulfill all the others.

We experience many sorrows and sins in this world. There are times for weeping, times for mourning. Jesus’ followers were right to weep at the crucifixion.

But Jesus is risen, just as He said! Therefore, we should never despair, for we have a certain, living Hope. Trust in His plan. Trust in His presence. And trust in His promises.

[This devotion was preached at the sunrise service of Desiring God Community Church on April 20, 2025]

 

Meditating on the Cross

No event in history is more important than the cross of Jesus Christ. Yet the world around us distracts us from this great act of love and justice, of mercy and punishment. Thus we need times of intentional focus on this theme. In addition to our services Friday evening and Sunday morning, please take time this week to focus on the cross, and all that it entails.

Here are some resources to help you do that.

The scriptural accounts: We will read Mark’s account of the cross and the resurrection at our services. Read the other accounts also: Matthew 26-27, Luke 22-23, and John 18-19.

Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion: I have spent many a Good Friday afternoon listening to this masterpiece, which includes all of the text of Matthew’s account as well as various hymns and meditations. There are numerous recordings available on YouTube and the usual music apps. Listen especially to the account of Jesus’ dying on the cross and its immediate aftermath beginning at 5:30 of this video, and continuing to the first 2:15 minutes of this video. The links include English subtitles for the German lyrics; the text is from Matthew 27:45-54. Some consider Bach’s rendition of the centurion’s cry, “Truly this was the Son of God” the most beautiful piece in the entirety of western music.

John Piper’s narrative poem, “Pilate’s Wife”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Pastor John wrote these poems for Advent in 2002, a few weeks after Beth and I moved to this area; I read parts to our fledgling church plant that year. Here is an excerpt from the end of part 1.

Come, children, take your fire, and light
This advent candle one. For bright
And blazing is our hope and deep
Desire that all the world would leap
To know the truth that Christ destroys
False worlds that he might fill with joys.
To know the truth that massacres
Might be forgiv’n and one who errs
A thousand times may find at last
That all his horrid sins are cast
Into the deep, and Christ, by grace,
Has made his massacre a place
Of life where even those who scorned
His face, may be with life adorned.

Bob Chilcott’s St John’s Passion. This piece, first performed in 2013, is new for me this year. In the tradition of Bach’s passions, Chilcott includes all of John’s account, intermixing the English text with hymns written between the 5th and 19th centuries. The music is all new. You can read the biblical and hymn texts via this pdf file and listen to the one-hour performance here. The musical setting for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross – the closing piece – is exceptionally beautiful. Here are the texts of three of the other hymns Chilcott uses, with links to the recordings:

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530–c. 600), translated by Percy Dearmer (1867–1936)

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the ending of the fray;
Now above the Cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ, the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

God in pity saw man fallen,
Shamed and sunk in misery,
When he fell on death by tasting
Fruit of the forbidden tree;
Then another tree was chosen
Which the world from death should free.

Jesu, grant me this, I pray, 17th century Latin, translated by Henry Williams Baker (1821–77)

Jesu, grant me this, I pray,
Ever in thy heart to stay;
Let me evermore abide
Hidden in thy wounded side.

If the evil one prepare,
Or the world, a tempting snare,
I am safe when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.

If the flesh, more dangerous still,
Tempt my soul to deeds of ill,
Naught I fear when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.

Death will come one day to me;
Jesu, cast me not from thee:
Dying let me still abide
In thy heart and wounded side

There is a green hill far away by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95)

There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all,
Who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there,
He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiv’n,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heav’n,
Saved by his precious blood,
Saved by his precious blood.

Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved,
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do,
And try his works to do.

May our Lord work though His Word, His church, and the musical gifts He has given us to highlight our sinfulness that necessitates the cross, and thereby to magnify the riches of His grace poured out on us through the death, resurrection, ascension, and return of our Lord Jesus, so that we as His people might endure in faith in Him, boasting only in the cross, Good Friday after Good Friday after Good Friday, until He returns.

Resurrection is Sweet, Death is Painful

[I wrote this devotion in Holy Week, 2006. I’m now older than the friend I call John was when he died. Don’t wait. – Coty]

This week we remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Resurrection is sweet. Death is painful.

Personally, the reality and pain of death have hit me twice this week. Tuesday, I flipped through the alumni magazine from my undergraduate alma mater, and found to my surprise that my freshman roommate Rick had died in February at the age of 50. This morning, after an out-of-the-blue internet search, I stumbled across the information that a friend and colleague from my days as an economist – whom I’ll call John – had died last July at the age of 61.

I had only seen my freshman roommate once since graduation – at a reunion a couple of years ago. I was much closer to John. While he and I never shared a room, we worked together for over a dozen years, co-authoring several papers, presenting at conferences together, and jointly running a Masters degree program in development economics. Even after my call to the ministry, he tried to hire me as an economist. Last April a recruiter called, attempting to entice me back into economics; I’m 99.9% sure John was behind that.

I looked up to John in many ways. He was the ideal development economist, with a solid grasp both of economic theory and of the real world issues facing poor countries. A father of four, he always made time in his busy schedule to be with his children. And they thrived – one became a Rhodes Scholar. His infectious enthusiasm spurred many around him to become more than they ever thought they could be. He was ready to listen and give feedback on a wide range of topics. We had not regularly spoken to each other these last four years, but knowing now that I can’t call him, that I will never again hear his encouraging voice and hearty laugh, is painful.

For, unless something changed in his last months of life, John did not believe in Jesus. He was quite spiritual in the postmodern American sense, and considered “spirituality” to be something that we shared – but he did not recognize Jesus as His Savior, Lord, and treasure.

This man and I sharpened each other professionally; we edited each other’s words; we each made the other a better economist; we discussed how to better serve our students, how to improve our institution; we talked about fathering and marriage and, yes, spiritual issues.

But today I only ask myself: What more should I have said? How could I have better lived out and communicated to him the beauty of our Savior – the glories of the One who died on a cross on Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday, who is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and who will come again . . . who will come again, this time to judge the living and the dead?

Life is short, my friends. O, life is short! Regardless of your efforts, you yourself may have only days left. (John was an athlete as a young man and kept himself in good physical condition all his life. Yet he died of a heart attack – while exercising.) Are you confident of your status before God the Father, the King of the Universe? Throw yourself on His mercy!

Are you His? Then spread a passion for His supremacy in all things! Don’t wait! Don’t dawdle! Don’t procrastinate! Be winsome – but be bold. Be tactful – but be forthright. Choose the right moment – but know that that moment must be soon! Today is the day of salvation!

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.

To love your neighbor as yourself surely means to respect their beliefs and to be cordial. But it surely also means to share with them the only way under heaven by which they can be saved from God’s eternal wrath. It surely means to share with them the purpose for which they were created, the joy that can be theirs for all eternity.

Resurrection is sweet. Death is painful. Your time may be short. The time for your neighbors, family, and friends may be short. Don’t live with regret. Even this weekend, speak the word of God’s grace; proclaim the Gospel to those around you.

Don’t wait.

For the Church on Easter Morning by Blake Lunsford

(Blake Lunsford began his Sunrise Service devotion last week with this poem:)

For the Church On Easter Morning

No mourning, this morning
It’s a new morning, this morning

The grave’s not grave, this morning
Christ isn’t in the tomb, this morning

Death isn’t slowly dying, Death has died
Death is dead, this new day

Oh, life
Life is living
Life is living like light is living in the heat of a summer’s day

Yes, life is living this Morning
God is loving this Morning

God has raised his Son from the dead
God has raised you from the dead

The grave’s not grave, this morning
No mourning, this morning

Keep looking at him, this morning
Christ is risen indeed, this morning