By Pastor Lynn, Lead Pastor

Our church recently lost a 19 year old young man to gun violence.

At a time like this, when we’ve lost someone we know and love, and when we hear every day of other families losing loved ones, it can be very easy to give in to fear, despair, anger, and forget about hope. But the Christian faith is all about hope. As the old hymn says, “Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” What is it that we know from scripture and our faith tradition that gives us hope?

We know we are loved by God more than we can comprehend. We know this because Jesus lived and died for us. We know that we are created in the image of God and are worthy of honor and respect because of that. We know that, because we are image bearers of God, we have an enemy that is out to destroy us. Peter, the disciple of Jesus, tells us in his 1 st letter, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…” (5:8-9) Our enemy doesn’t just want to kill us, he wants to devour us, to completely wipe us out, as if we never existed. But as long as we are here, we resist this enemy by refusing to abandon our faith in Jesus. We know our Father in heaven is real and He loves us and He is with us.

We know that Jesus came so that we might have life in abundance. Jesus says in John 10:10 “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” So while we do have an enemy who seeks to destroy us, we have a Savior who give us life to the full.

We resist through telling the story of Jesus with words and actions. We live as gospel people. We remind ourselves of all that God has done and continues to do to heal the world. We pray for others because we know God hears and answers prayer and He has told us to come boldly to His throne and ask for what we need. We boldly ask for healing for our world, for peace where there is violence and fear. We plant seeds of faith in ourselves and others as we share about who Jesus is and what He does in our lives. We know that Jesus does not abandon or reject those seeds of faith. Isaiah 43:3, speaking of the Messiah, says, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.” Where there is a seed of faith, Jesus watches over it.

We resist the enemy through prayer. Our church is a church that prays. In Mark 2, a paralyzed man is brought to Jesus by 4 of his friends. Jesus is in a house but the crowds around the house are so thick that the men can’t get through. They go up on the roof, cut a hole in it, and lower their friend, who is laying on a mat, down through the roof to where Jesus is. Jesus sees the faith of these friends and he says to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” This man didn’t ask for forgiveness. Jesus forgave him because he saw the faith of the friends. Jesus sees our faith as we bring our world before Him in prayer.

But in Mark 2, the story doesn’t stop with the man’s sins being forgiven. There were people in the crowd, teachers of the religious law, who were questioning Jesus’ authority to forgive sins. Jesus answered them by saying, “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.” The word Jesus uses when he tells the man to get up not only means “stand up”; it also means “to be called to rise up from the grave.”

Jesus has authority to forgive sins, to heal the sick and to bring the dead back to life again. We know Jesus has this authority because he himself rose from the dead. Right now, we are like Mary and Martha in John chapter 11, burying their brother Lazarus who died when Jesus failed to come heal him. It looks to us as if God has failed to protect us from violence and fear. But what we know is that death is not the end. Jesus raises the dead to life. We don’t know why God doesn’t intervene to protect people we love, but we do know God loves us all. We don’t know how long it will be before Jesus comes again, but we do know that those who die in him will live again. Jesus said to Mary and Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” We believe it and take comfort in it. We know that just after Jesus spoke these words, he called Lazarus to come forth from the grave and the dead man came out, restored to life.

In Lamentations 3:31-33, it says, “for people are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to any human being.” We hope and we pray because our God is a God of love and He is with us.