"Is Everything Sad going to Come Untrue"?

Yesterday I got to preach something that inspires me every time I have the privilege to study, think and then speak about: the hope Jesus offers the world in the face of its pain. Let me share some of those thoughts that seemed to challenge and encourage many people yesterday.

One of the most profound resources Christianity offers the world is its unique message of hope. Unlike Secularist theory, that there is nothing beyond death or history, nor like some Eastern mysticism which speaks of our individuality being swallowed up in the All-Soul, or even the religions that speak of a consolation in Paradise. The hope Jesus offers is different. Its unique. That God is one day going to reverse the pain, and more than consolation he is going to bring about restoration.

He is one day going to take the pain, death, drowning, loneliness, hurt, doubt, and fear of our lives, and will reverse it all. Unlike those who perpetrate a prosperity gospel the Bible never says we will always be happy, protected, healthy and wise. The Bible says that those things are not necessarily God's ideal for us, but that when that is our experience we are to take comfort in the fact that they are happening under the sovereignty and lordship of Jesus. He is in control. The Lamb is on the throne (Rev. 5).

In the final book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, the hobbit Samwise Gamgee sees that Gandalf the Wizard is not dead when he thought he was, and he says to him "Your alive! Is everything sad going to come untrue?" Its a great question. A profound one. And the answer Christianity gives to that question is “Yes!" God is going make everything sad come untrue. One day he will wipe the tear from our eyes, there will be no more pain, sickness, sadness, or death (Rev. 21.4).

But more than just reversal of fortunes the Bible speaks to a deeper mystery here. The death and resurrection of Jesus points to a profound reality: that the eventual glory of that day of reversal, and the eternal experience of those who trust in Christ will somehow be greater for having once experienced brokeness and lostness in this life. "For the sufferings of this present time" Paul says "are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8.18). The hurt, pain, and suffering we face will somehow be put into context in the new creation and make sense in a way which we cannot right now even fathom.

My wife often has bad dreams about me, in fact she informed me this morning that she had another one last night. Sometimes, in the dream, I get hurt, or even die. She experience a profound sense of loss and pain. Then she wakes up and sees me sleeping beside her, and she is overwhelmed with a profound sense of relief and appreciation. When that happens she tends to appreciate me more (at least for a little while!). Why? Because her joy, and love for me as been enriched by her nightmare; it makes me all the more glorious (so to speak). This is the promise and hope Jesus offers to those who entrust their life to Him. Glory on the other side which will do more than console us about the life we never got to live, but restore us to the life we were always intended to.

All of which is why the Apostle Paul says, in 1 Thess 4, that though we mourn in this life, we do not Mourn like those who have not hope. It is a different kind of mourning, a cruciform mourning with anticipation attached to it. An anticipation of something coming.

Which is the reason at least one lady I heard of, buried beneath a large 150-year-old Oak Tree in rural Louisiana, has only one word carved on her tombstone: "Waiting."

That is the difference Jesus makes.