Sermon from December 24, 2009
"Hope"
Isaiah 57:10

I came of age when America elected John Kennedy to be the first Catholic President. He symbolized a new age of high hopes. On inauguration day he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask rather what you can do for your country." That statement captured the imagination of millions.

Then, one by one, the blows began to fall: the Kennedy assassination; riots in Watts, Detroit, Newark, and Chicago; Vietnam; Watergate; OPEC; American hostages in Tehran; AIDS; Saddam; President Clinton's impeachment; 9/11; Afghanistan, and Iraq; Hurricane Katrina; Iran and the bomb; North Korea and the bomb; and the sub-prime mortgage disaster that brought our world to the edge of the abyss.

After 50 years of this
We are wearied in all our ways,
   but we will not say, "It is hopeless."
We have found renewal of our strength,
   and so we do not faint. (See Isaiah 57:10)

Now, another young American President writes of the audacity of hope and captures the imagination of millions. Yet in the face of all I say to you, "Moderate your political hopes."

You will be disappointed by Obama
   as you were by Bush.
For the Lord has rejected those you trust;
   you will not be helped by them. (See Jeremiah 2:36-37)

On what do our hopes rest? Shall we trust again Washington, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such are our political masters to all who depend on them. (See Isaiah 36:6)

I do not and dare not belittle the gravity and grandeur of the American Republic. But the state alone cannot fulfill the hopes of mankind, and if it tries to do so, it becomes idolatrous and is doomed to failure.

Man is too great for the state alone. Our greatness cries out to God for fulfillment. That is why the Church needs to seek God again. That is why thousands of unchurched households in the neighborhoods of North Wilmington and Southeastern PA need to seek God again. These thousands are not hostile to Christ, but they will have nothing to do with the Church. But if you will have nothing to do with the Church, then you have turned away from Christ, because He loves the Church like a young man loves his bride.

Brandywine Valley Baptist Church is only one of hundreds in this area. We don't have a corner on God. We too are terribly flawed. We are also capable of repentance and forgiveness. You can find God here.

This congregation is part of the global faith community that we call the Church. The flesh of Church members is the dwelling place of God in the world, the carnal anchor that God has sunk into the soil of creation. That's why our hopes can rest here; they don't rest on man but on God whose purpose to bless all the nations of the earth cannot fail.

So, shake off your skepticism like you shake off rainwater from an umbrella. Seek God in the Church again. Seek God with us here. Anchor yourself and those you love to what cannot be shaken and be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. Our God is a consuming fire. (See Hebrews 12:27-29)