Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
In
1965, Cdr. James Stockdale’s plane was shot down over North Vietnam.
Having
ejected from his aircraft and parachuted to the ground,
he
was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese
and
imprisoned in the place which became infamous as the ‘Hanoi Hilton.’
In
1973, he was released, having endured eight years of imprisonment,
which
included torture and extended periods of solitary confinement.
He
received the Medal of Honor, and remained in the U.S. Navy,
retiring
with the rank of Vice-Admiral.
Long
after he had returned,
he
was asked by an interviewer,
How
did he make it through his torture and confinement?
Admiral
Stockdale replied,
"I
never lost faith in the end of the story."
"I
never doubted not only that I would get out,
but
also that I would prevail in the end
and
turn the experience into the defining event of my life,
which,
in retrospect, I would not trade."
His
interviewer asked him, "Who didn't make it out?"
and
Admiral Stockdale replied immediately:
"Oh,
that's easy. The optimists...
They
were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.'
And
Christmas would come, and Christmas would go.
Then
they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.'
And
Easter would come, and Easter would go.
And
then Thanksgiving,
and
then it would be Christmas again.
And
they died of a broken heart."
"This is a very
important lesson.
You must never confuse
faith that you will prevail in the end –
which you can never
afford to lose –
with the discipline to
confront the most brutal facts of your current reality,
whatever they might
be."[1]
The Stockdale Paradox,
as it has come to be known,
is used often in
business,
but I find it especially
appropriate for Easter morning,
especially Easter
morning in the time of the pandemic.
I find it appropriate because
I feel that a lot of us may well be
at a critical time
physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
For Easter has come, and
Easter is going,
and we may not be close
to the end of this,
and maybe you feel
broken-hearted.
When the news came
through that Pennsylvania’s schools would not reopen,
there was a lot of
anguish, from teachers who miss their kids,
from parents whose kids
are terribly sad.
The hope that they would
return and be able to finish out their year
was taken away from
them.
Each day business owners
or furloughed workers are losing money
is a day that they are
closer to losing hope,
and there’s no promise
of when it will be over.
Health-care workers and
grocery clerks go into work over and over,
having been lucky so
far, but will that last?
And some of us have
parents or spouses we can’t see
because they’re isolated
in a home,
and we’re not sure when
or if we’ll get to see them again.
All of this is not to
depress you, not to be a downer on Easter morn,
But because we need to
be aware of it,
that, in Admiral
Stockdale’s words,
we need to have the discipline
to confront the most
brutal facts of our current reality.
Especially if you are
dealing with depression or anxiety
or any kind of mental
illness,
whether it is low-grade
or major,
just be aware that it is
okay to feel depressed at this time,
that this is incredibly difficult,
that even though we’re
not being tortured in prison or bombed or herded into camps,
we’re in a hard spot and
it might not get better right away.
So it’s okay how you’re
feeling.
But don’t lose faith in
the end of the story.
Not simply that life
will return to normal, whatever normal is,
but that God will
provide us the strength we need
to get through whatever
we need to get through.
And that God has already
won the victory.
On the cross, Jesus was
in agony.
He had been rejected by the
religious leadership,
abandoned by his
disciples,
The people who had
cheered him were nowhere to be found;
But the faith was still
in the end of the story.
Despite the most brutal
facts of his current reality.
the faith was still that
God was his Father,
and that he would be
brought through.
What a difference on
Easter morning!
His faith in his Father
had been vindicated,
He was set free from death,
He had won the final
victory over the evil one.
Jesus is the example for
our faith,
that we can trust in all
times in our Father’s provision,
even when things are
dark.
But even this is not the
most important thing.
For if we trust in our
own faith,
we are lost, for our
faith is weak and faltering.
But Jesus is not only
the example for our faith,
He is the reason for it.
His victory is the
reason we can put even our faltering faith in his Father.
For we say the words ‘conceived
by the Holy Spirit’ and we can add in our hearts,
‘For us.’
We say the words ‘born
of the Virgin Mary…’ ‘for us.’
Suffered under Pontius Pilate
‘for us.’
Crucified, died, and was
buried, ‘for us.’
Descended into hell, ‘for
us.’
On the third day he rose
again, ‘for us.’
Ascended into heaven,
seated at the right hand of the Father, ‘for us.’
Will come again to judge
the living and the dead, ‘for us.’
not simply as an example
for our faith, but for us,
his resurrection takes
on an entirely new meaning.
It means that whatever
is lacking in our strength,
whatever is lacking in
our holiness,
whatever is lacking in
our faith
has been made good by
Christ.
It means that though we
are sinful, we are forgiven,
though we are assailed
by evil, we are victorious,
and though we are
subject to death, we are promised life.
Christ is the object of
our faith,
he is the end of our
story.
The end of the story in
which we must never lose our faith
is not that the pandemic
will end and everything will be okay again,
because it may not.
The pandemic may not end
right away,
and the job may not come
back,
and we might be in for
several more months of separation,
and we might get sick
and we might die.
Facing up to those facts
is called discipline.
It’s where we get the
word disciple.
I’m relatively sure that
whatever discipline Jesus was preaching to his disciples,
it involved living in
reality, however hard that might be.
All the way to Jerusalem,
Jesus was telling his disciples
what had to happen,
that the Son of Man was
to be handed over and rejected and killed,
but here’s the end of
the story –
and on the third day
rise.
They didn’t want to hear
that reality,
but after the
resurrection they were able to confront reality.
And so are we.
For we are no longer
slaves to fear and sin and death.
God has made us free to
act with discipline and self-control.
God has made us his
people through our baptism into Christ,
and we can seek the
things that are above, where Christ is,
for our lives are hidden
with Christ in God.
and this new life on
this side of the grave
is a life of faith and
discipline.
Discipline in this time
means that as God’s own people,
whom he has won by the
price of Christ’s blood,
you are solemnly charged
to confront with open
eyes the current reality of this time,
not trafficking in false
optimism or conspiracy theories,
refusing to place blame,
honoring the government
and those charged with maintaining
public safety and health,
and seeking in
everything to help and serve your neighbor.
There are many ways in
which you have been doing this and will do this.
Not as a pastor, but as
a fellow Christian,
I urge you to check up
on people,
not only those who are
at risk or elderly or may not have enough,
although we should all
do this,
but even people who have
enough and seem to have it all together,
because despair and
darkness can be in unexpected places.
Send the text, make the
call, send the card.
The
life of faith is to hope in the end of the story,
the
end of the story which God has made known on this Easter day
in
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
This
is why on this day have flowers and music and alleluias,
not
as an escape from reality but to give us strength to face reality.
It
is because we have a reality that is beyond the reality that we can see,
not
a false reality but one that comes alongside of our reality
and
comes into our reality,
which
transforms our reality in which the evil one seems to reign
into
the reality in which God is present despite all
and
gives us peace.
The
end of the story in Jesus means that when we falter,
though
we be physically, mentally, or spiritually worn-down,
we
still have a victory not that we can win,
but
that he has won.
Even
at the grave, where the last hope ends,
We
make our song,
Alleluia,
alleluia, alleluia.
For
Christ is risen from the dead, and will never die again,
Death
has no dominion over him;
This
is the day that the Lord has made,
Let
us rejoice and be glad in it.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
