"Among those who are born of women ..." If you are thinking of the human race, this is a rather inclusive statement; I can’t think of very many people it leaves out! And this is a statement of Jesus as he offers a summa cum laude of highest praise to one of his associates in the dissemination of truth and light. He says, "Among those who are born of women, there has not arisen a greater prophet than John the Baptizer" (Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28).
What was it that was so great about John - this son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, this leather-clad, locust-eating rustic from the "hill country" of Judea? Actually, it seems to me, aspects of greatness were breaking out all over this man, the prophet who stands at this end of a long line of prophets. They had spoken hopefully and longingly of the coming of the Messiah, but to John the lot fell to introduce him to the world. So, yonder beside Israel’s historic Jordan, John said, "World, may I present my cousin, your Savior?"
Surely it is a high privilege to make a presentation of this kind, a privilege which, incidentally, nobody but John has ever had. Doing this, however, does not necessarily require any large measure of greatness. But John did something else which does; he said another thing which only the great can ever say. Concerning the Messiah, he said, "One is coming after me; he is mightier than I; I am unworthy of him; I am simply helping to prepare the way for him."
It was an aspect of John’s greatness that he could see himself as who he was, as standing where he stood. With no tinge of bitterness or jealousy or self-pity, he could say concerning Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30). He could see his own star eclipsed by the brighter sun, and could turn with upreached arms to welcome that more brilliant light. "Little" people usually do not make good forerunners. Most of us, of course, are forerunners of something or other; but generally we don’t know it at the time. John knew that he was, and he was willing to be. He was content to draw aside the curtain, focus the spotlight upon Another, and then step back into the shadows. There are dimensions of greatness in the character of anyone who can do that as gracefully and graciously as did John.
In the story of Adam Bede, George Eliot describes a certain conceited person as being "like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." I’ve known, as you probably have, a few persons along the way who were just about as vain as this. Remember that line by Tennyson: "One far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves?" I knew one fellow once who apparently believed himself to be that divine event. He seemed to have the idea that all of time and circumstance, up to then, had conspired to accomplish only one purpose, and that was just to get him into the world. He saw himself as creation’s ultimate achievement, the apex toward which all else had forever been aimed, and beyond which nothing of any notable quality would ever appear again. There isn’t much future in that.
This man John was a different type; beyond himself he saw something else, something better, something to be cherished and looked forward to. "He who is coming after me is mightier than I," says he. It is he, not I, who will do the wonderful things the world needs to have done, he says. "His winnowing fork is in his hand," and he will put everything where it belongs; he will set things right. John had a hope, an expectation. He had an outlook. In other words, he could see out. And the view was forward. He could see beyond himself, and beyond his day; and what he saw was good.
John had a vision of the future, an image of tomorrow; and in the midst of that picture stood hope and redemption and rightness. What he saw in his image of tomorrow gave him courage to stand by the Jordan and challenge his world from its lowest peasant to its highest king. He stood in the finest tradition of the Hebrew prophets of the Eternal, and like all who had come and gone before him, it was in the light of what he saw in his image of tomorrow that he saw the moral squalor of his own day. The beauty and glory of what he saw ahead of him rendered intolerable the ugliness of what he saw around him. And so in Israel another prophet’s heart was stirred and another prophet’s voice was heard. And Jesus said he was the greatest of them all.
Well, my dear friend, here we are today, you and I. What about tomorrow? What is your image of it? Do you have an OUT-look? What is it? As you look out from within, what is it you see? What do you see out there ahead of you? In my theological school days I sat in classes taught by Professor Earl Marlatt, who wrote what in my opinion is one of the finest Christian hymns ever written by anybody. This prayer-hymn, starting as life starts, petitions:
Spirit of Life, in this new dawn,
Give us the faith that follows on ...
Then as the hymn reaches its end, climaxing as life does, it offers this prayer:
Give us thy vision, eyes that see,
Beyond the dark, the dawn and Thee ...
These we need, you and I: the faith that follows on and the vision that sees beyond.
Let us unite our minds, then, to think together a little about your image of tomorrow.
In Berkeley, California, a few years ago a blind comptometer operator stood at a busy street corner, waiting in the hope that some kind person would assist her to cross. Sensing a presence beside her, she said, "Please, may I go across with you?" A man’s voice replied, "I’ll be glad if you will." Arm in arm the two walked across the street together. When safely on the other side, the man said, "Thank you; when one has been blind as long as I have, he appreciates a favor like this!" Both were blind, and neither knew the other was.
Well, moving into the future as we all are, we are all blind. We are blind not because we have no vision, but because as yet there is nothing there to see; it hasn’t happened yet; it hasn’t materialized or taken shape. But inevitably we form some image of what it’s going to be like, and we "see" it this way or we "see" it that way. And we are talking about a most important subject when we speak of our images of tomorrow.
They can be quite unlike what tomorrow eventually turns out to be. Often we are very unfair to the future. We mistrust it; we mangle it brutally even before it issues from the womb of time. We borrow troubles that haven’t come yet; we wear ourselves away worrying about problems that will never be. How often we have crossed perilous old bridges long before we ever got to them, and in the after-years, having passed them, we have looked back and said, "Really, they weren’t actually all that bad."
Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the untraveled lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the notions the ancients had about what was out there - a dropping-off-place, mammoth sea serpents to swallow up ships. But as things turned out, it wasn’t that way at all. You know, if Columbus had believed half the maps and legends of his time he would never have lifted an anchor!
Well, we are all traveling into the unexplored land, and we ought to be careful how we map it until we’ve traveled there. Certainly we shouldn’t let the future do things to us it never meant to do. It is my faith that the future means to be friendly; and I don’t thnk we ought to treat it as an enemy. If we do, and start in to do battle with it, I can tell you this: it’s a battle we can never win. Let’s not suspect it of standing over us with a club waiting for a chance to clobber us into the ground, or of lurking in the shadows to pounce upon us around the next dark corner.
And surely we shouldn’t be afraid of the future - not if we are Christians. I am hearing Jesus say, "I am the way." And he is talking about himself, and about you, and about your future, and about your journey into it. He is saying that he is the way all the way through, beyond whatever it is, even beyond death - and especially beyond it. Yes, some days will be darker than others - which means, of course, that the others will be brighter. Were this not so we couldn’t make the comparison in the first place, could we? In the conflict between our future-related hopes and fears, we must keep our hopes in control, and we can if we are walking into tomorrow hand in hand with one who is going on. He isn’t going to drop our hand out there somewhere and say, "So long; it was nice to have you walk with me; but this is as far as we go."
When I was calling on him in a hospital, a good man said to me, "I am not afraid of dying." And I said to him, "Why should you be? For, after all, if you are walking with your hand in our Lord’s hand, after you have died your hand will still be in his." Often in hospital rooms I have had occasion to say, "Every day is a good day when you are going in the right direction." And it is.
As we think of our future-related fears and hopes, let us not overlook the immense importance of another and even greater future-related reality: our Faith. No, I am fully aware that even by faith we cannot yet see what will happen tomorrow; but if we live by faith, we do not have to see; because if we live by faith, we have an advantage better than seeing what is in the future; we know who is there, and we can trust him.
Remember Abraham? He was called to go into a land that God would show him. Abraham did not know where he was going; but he knew with whom, and this was enough.
I suppose there are two ways of walking into tomorrow. Let me illustrate. I saw two blind men, each walking along the main street of town. One groped his way, arms outstretched in wild motions of search, his feet shuffling tentatively as though they mistrusted one another. The other man strode, a spring in his step, white cane tapping lightly before him as he went, his body erect, head held high in the posture of one who sees. The first man is so afraid of stumbling that he never walks; he only gropes. The other is so in love with walking that a stumble for him will be only a very small thing. And both will stumble sometimes. The difference is that one will do it with fear and dread, and between stumbles will grope, and the other will do it without fear, and between stumbles will walk.
In some ways all of us are like blind men moving into the future, and we have the choice between being gropers and walkers. You can wear yourself away worrying whether, with your next step, your foot will land on a banana peel - when as a matter of fact there may not be a banana peel anywhere within a thousand city blocks. Did you hear about the mother bear that was teaching her cubs to walk? One said, "Momma, which foot shall we put forward first?" and she growled, "Shut up and walk!" That’s pretty good advice, really. The centipede would soon go crazy with frustration if he should start worrying about which of his one hundred feet to pick up next and exactly where to put it down.
We all live by some image of tomorrow. What’s yours? I am saying to you: No matter what the circumstances, how old you are, the condition of your fortune or health, if you are walking with the Lord of life, you can walk into tomorrow with confidence and hope, and nothing is there to be afraid of. Yes, I know that we should walk with due caution, be alert for dangers; there are stumbling blocks we must try to avoid, perilous precipices we might fall over. A normal part of walking is to use whatever vision we have. We ought to walk in the best light we can get, use discernment in choosing the roads and pursuing the goals which arise before us.
Have you seen a beautiful little thing called The Hummel Book, paintings and drawings by a wonderful Catholic sister named Berta Hummel and verses by an equally wonderful Viennese lady named Margarete Seemann? Directed to children mostly, the volume gives us this little verse:
Carry your candle with care, my child!
The wind is waiting,
The wind is waiting to blow it out.
Now I fully agree that one should be wary of the waiting wind, and I know that winds are waiting. But I would make this point: If you are too apprehensive about the wind, you will never light your candle in the first place - and that, I think, would be more calamitous than to risk it to the wind. Yes, we are all going on into tomorrow; we have no choice. So light your candle and venture into the wind. It might be a gentle zephyr, or it might be a stormy gale; for life has some of both. But your Christ is the Master of the raging winds, and he is Lord, and they are not.
There is at least one very important difference between a painting and a photograph. The photograph is an actual reproduction of a scene; the painting is the artist’s interpretation or impression of it. The photograph is a record of what is actually there; the painting is what the artist sees as being there. Of course we have no technique by which we can photograph the future. You cannot photograph what isn’t there, and the future isn’t - yet. But we can certainly paint pictures of the future; and we do; we do it all the time. You look into the future and paint a picture on the canvas of your mind. The picture may be clear or dim, bright or dark, inviting or forbidding; or it may be a mixture of elements; but, whatever the quality of your artistry, you are making some kind of image of tomorrow.
In our representation of the future, we are painters rather than photographers. We form our impressions of what we think things will be like, and we do not so much live by tomorrow’s reality as we do by our impression of what that reality will be. As a matter of fact, we of the human family are a great bunch of picture painters.
Not only do we paint our impressions of the future, but also the current realities of the world around us are likewise reproduced within us. For the most part, we live by the images we form, the pictures we make, the impressions we have - images, pictures, and impressions of people, places, things, events, relationships, motives, intentions, and of almost everything around us. A little data is fed into our consciousness, and inevitably we construct a picture around it. Unfortunately, our inward reproductions do not always conform to the outward reality; too much we paint distorted pictures; we give them the wrong coloring; we see in the scene not so much what is there, but what we want to see, or expect to, or have made up our minds we are going to. Such distorted images are a major source of much of the world’s sorrow. It is of urgent importance that in all our picture-painting we represent the subject as faithfully as we can.
In no case, though, can a distorted image prove more devastating than when it is an image of tomorrow. Too often our images of tomorrow have huge, hairy, monstrous apparitions of fear prominent in the foreground or lurking somewhere in the shadows. A story is told about a man who was a successful bill collector. He could collect old debts from people upon whom all the other collectors had given up years before. Someone asked him how he did it. He replied, "O, it’s quite simple really. I just write them one letter, and in that letter I tell them just one thing, and that one thing is this: if you don’t pay this bill immediately, that thing which you are afraid will happen will happen." He was, of course, gambling on the rather safe bet that most people have some fear of something in the future.
Then there is the story of the fellow on shipboard who was miserably seasick. One of his friends found him hanging over the ship’s rail and said, "Cheer up, buddy; nobody ever died from being seasick." "Don’t tell me that," said the poor, pallid victim with a groan, "it’s only my hope of dying that’s kept me alive so far." These two amusing stories have one thing in common: an anxiety concerning the future. And I strongly suspect that if you could add up all the anxiety which today indwells the minds and spirits of the human family, it would come to an imponderable total.
Once, on an airplane flying west, my mission somewhat sad and the outcome unsure, I found myself considering the others with me on the flight, some 180 of them, all strangers to me. What would happen on arrival? Where would each go? What would each do? Each, in view of his own image of tomorrow, was living in his own world - and, without a doubt, there were about one hundred and eighty worlds on that plane, and probably no two of them alike.
Well, my friend, each of us is on an airplane flying west. Tomorrow will overtake us; we cannot outrace it. If our image of tomorrow is inviting, if it offers fulfillment of dream, then we can move toward it with eagerness and hope. If the image is foreboding, we are likely to move toward it with dread and fear. For most of us the tomorrows hold some of both - and our fears and our hopes are all intertwined and intermixed.
Permit me now to point out two problems common to most of us as we form our images of tomorrow. The first problem is that the image may be unclear, out of focus, confused, hazy. How often the wrongdoer will foolishly hope and the rightdoer will foolishly fear. I know that in saying this I imply a relationship between moral action and what tomorrow will bring. Well, there is - there is a realtionship. Evil, if it runs its full course, leads to ruin; goodness, maintained until the end, leads to glory. But frequently the wrongdoer hopes that his sin will not "find him out" (Numbers 32:23) - at least not yet anyway - and that he can get by with it for a while. And frequently the rightdoer fears that out yonder somewhere a storm may come or that around the next bend in the road some awesome peril may lurk unseen.
The other common problem with our image-making is that we do not view tomorrow as a long enough day, or, we do not consider enough tomorrows. There will be more than one, you know. Good people need to remember: "Though weeping endure for a night, joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). If on the first day Jesus is crucified, and on the second day his body is guarded in a sealed tomb, so what? - on the third day he will arise! You can count on it: there will be a third-day morning, a vindication of right and truth and beauty, a confirmation of love and an affirmation of power. And all of this is tomorrow, some tomorrow. I’m not sure that which one is of any great importance. Any one is good enough.
If you want a proper image of the future, then get all of it into your picture. In Luke 12:16-21 Jesus gives us the parable of a rich landowner whose lands one season brought forth so abundantly that his barns were too small for the harvest. He commanded his servants to tear them down and build larger barns. Then he spoke to his soul, and this is what he said: "Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years, take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry." The next voice we hear in the story is the voice of God, as God speaks to this man, saying, "You fool! Tonight your soul is required of you; and those things you have prepared, whose will they be?"
God didn’t exactly mince words with this fellow. He really put it on the line for him. And right there in a few split seconds that farmer learned something which he hadn’t thought much about before, if at all. He had looked ahead, and he had felt very secure with the bountiful harvest which had been his. He believed himself to be all fixed for as far as he could see. But with shocking suddenness he discovered that he hadn’t seen as far as he should have. He had looked ahead for several years, considered himself provided for for "many days." But there was that other day which he hadn’t seen. It hadn’t been in his picture; it wasn’t a part of his image of tomorrow. Perhaps we should call it the judgment day, for surely it was, for him, just that - judgment. He ran into something he hadn’t reckoned with - the day when all things are put right; and he hadn’t counted on that; he just hadn’t figured it in. He had framed his picture too narrowly, and what he had left out was what undid him.
Earlier I mentioned Dr. Marlatt’s fine hymn, Spirit of Life, in this New Dawn. I mentioned the prayer with which the hymn concludes:
Give us thy vision, eyes that see,
Beyond the dark, the dawn and Thee.
I think this prayer has the approval of Jesus, and I base this on something he said to his disciples long ago. He had walked with them for many months, teaching them. He had exposed them to dimensions of life they hadn’t known before; he had opened up for them ranges and reaches of life they hadn’t known were there; he had disclosed vistas of the heights and depths of meaning which were new to them. And his disciples were impressed. They were seeing things they had never seen before, and, from the Gospel record, it is apparent that Jesus was pleased.
He drew his disciples aside and said to them privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it" (Luke 10:23 RSV). My message to you, dear friend, is a call to the far vision; my prayer is that your eyes may be blessed in seeing.
Yonder at the western end of the Mediterranean, where Europe and Africa almost touch, stands the towering 1,400-foot mass of rock called Gibraltar. The ancient people who lived along the Mediterranean shores looked upon that rock as the end of their world. Beyond it was a mystery, the awesome and forbidding waters of the great sea of Atlas, the Atlantic. High on the Rock of Gibraltar, so it is said, someone chisled the Latin legend, "Ne Plus Ultra," meaning "Nothing More Beyond." Then one August day in 1492 three small ships under command of Christopher Columbus loosed from the port of Palos in Spain, swung into the open sea, and with sails trimmed for sailing west, disappeared into the sunset. After many months, the adventuring explorer was back with glowing accounts of other lands beyond the sea. And, so it is said, someone altered the legend on the face of Gibraltar, erasing the negative "Ne" and leaving only "Plus Ultra," meaning: "More Beyond."
And there is - there is more beyond. And I do not mean geographically only. I mean that in terms of our human life there is more beyond, vast areas which may lie beyond the horizon of our natural sight, clothed in mists and shadowed in mystery. And we do not have a Columbus to venture forth and explore for us and return and report to us. We just have to see. But there is much we cannot see with the unaided eye alone. Neither is there a powerful telescope which will help us here; but there is the lens of faith. And he who sees with the aid of this lens may clearly perceive what others miss.
Ann Sullivan Macy, the wonderful lady who, as the teacher of Helen Keller, liberated this deaf and blind child from the prison of her darkness, once spelled out this message in her pupil’s hand: "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but just felt in the heart."
We really haven’t gotten perspective upon what life is all about until we have begun to see with the heart as well as the eye. The Apostle Paul is thinking of this fact in Ephesians 1:18 when he expresses the prayerful wish that we will have knowledge of God, as he says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." The heart needs an enlightened eye. We need the heart as an instrument of vision, and it should be in good trim for seeing. The Authorized Version of our Bible translates this: "The eyes of your understanding." We need to see with the understanding.
In this passage Paul is pointing to realities beyond which he fervently hopes we will comprehend, and by which we will be inspired and guided. Listen to what he is saying: "I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of the power in us who believe ..."
One of the afflictions which sometimes impairs the physical sense of sight is myopia, more commonly called near-sightedness. The myopiac cannot see very well very far. I have known a great many people who have suffered from a kind of psychological and spiritual myopia.
I read of a man who traveled around the world carrying with him a sophisticated camera equipped to take pictures at any distance from five feet to infinity. Throughout the entire journey he allowed the focus to remain set on five feet; and when he got home, the only clear pictures he had were those of objects just five feet away. What a waste! He might have photographed the Matterhorn with the sun rising over its summit, but he didn’t. He might have gotten a spectacular picture of clouds over Mount Blanc, but he didn’t. He might have returned with a beautiful view of the moon over the Mediterranean, but he didn’t. Well, you and I, my friend, are made to look into infinity, to view the unseen - and it is such a tragic waste when our focus is set on five feet and we never change it from that setting.
Once I saw a dozen vultures circling against a crimson sunset. Nature’s evening pageantry was glorious, and my heart leaped within me as my whole being was infused with the beauty of that western sky. But I’m sure the vultures never saw it. Their poor pea-brains were set on the carcass of some dead thing on the ground. Of course, this is the nature of vultures. But it should never be the character of human beings to miss the glory for the carcass of some ugly thing. The prophet Jeremiah was sickened and saddened by the insensitivity of the people of his time. He cried out to them, "Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but hear not" (Jeremiah 5:21).
I wonder what Jeremiah would say to us in our time. We tend to give higher priority to quantity than to quality. Someone has pointed out that the one word which has most aptly characterized us of Western Civilization in the twentieth century has been the word "more." Our prevailing aspirations are for more automobiles, television sets, refrigerators, and all the vast repertoire of push-button gadgetry which has prompted someone to comment that "Our civilization is like a hardware store caught in a whirlwind." Speaking of the dimensions of our being, Jesus says, "You are more." But generally our larger interest is in having more; we are more concerned with having than being. We tend to have a greater interest in a kind of breadth than we have in any sort of depth. Our inclination is to take a quick glance at everything and a penetrating look at nothing. It may be an epitome of our time that when we are confronted with a problem, we assemble huge masses of statistics, feed them into a computer, and ask it to tell us what they mean!
Blessed are the eyes that see beyond - eyes of understanding, expectation, faith. During World War I, Quentin Roosevelt, an American military pilot in Europe, and son of former President Theodore Roosevelt, was shot down in battle, and killed. His father wrote the inscription to mark his grave, and here is the inscription Theodore Roosevelt wrote: "he has outsoared the shadows of our night." It is, I think, the privilege of each of us to do that. In the ongoing process of our human living, shadows occur in many forms, and there are many kinds of night. Most of us who have lived very long can testify to the truth of this. But we will not be terrified by either the night or the shadows if we can have an image of tomorrow with enough brightness in it to drive the dark away.
Now let me say a rather important thing: It isn’t always easy to have this kind of image. At any moment we must view the future from wherever we are; and we who are living in our day are looking into the future out of a terribly pessimistic time. Remember Jesus’ parable of the prince, going to claim his kingdom, who turned over his affairs to his associates to care for them until he should return? Remember that one who failed so miserably? And do you remember why he failed? He said it himself, "I was afraid." He had been afraid the venture of the prince might not turn out well, and he wished not to be identified with a loser. He was afraid also, apparently, that if the prince did succeed and did indeed become a king, he might be a hard man to work for. So whether the prince’s play for the throne proved successful or unsuccessful, this man could see only the problems. Either way, he looked on the dark side, believed the worst. In other words, he was a pessimist; he just couldn’t believe things could possibly turn out right.
Sadly, in the history of our race, this fellow hasn’t been the only one of his kind. The world has seen a few others. There has always been a contingent who have cried calamity and doom. Somebody writes:
My grandpa notes the world’s worn cogs,
And says we’re going to the dogs;
His granddad, in his house of logs,
Swore things were going to the dogs;
His dad, among the Flemish bogs,
Vowed things were going to the dogs;
The cave man, in his queer skin togs,
Said things were going to the dogs.
But this is what I wish to state;
The dogs have had an awful wait!
Recently a French scientist was asked what he saw on the human horizon to be optimistic about. He replied, "I am very optimistic about the future of pessimism." Well, of course, we’ve always had some of it; but it seems we have more of it now than we’ve ever had before. It has actually become popular to be pessimistic. I’m sure you remember the story of the shepherd boy who persistently alarmed everyone by crying "Wolf!" when no wolf was there. The "wolf cry" is heard often in our time. Again and again we are told that this or that wolf is scratching at the door, fangs bared to tear us apart. Many interpreters of the times, many of them "experts" more or less, have set up a noisy wail of doom: our human race is just about to be destroyed!
This theme is one of the most profitable areas of publication and journalism. We have a whole spate of articles and books, many of them big money makers, very convincingly telling us that anything and everything is about to happen: there’ll be a chain reaction in the earth’s atmosphere, or a depletion of the ozone layer, or a new ice age, or the insects will overcome us, or we’ll run out of energy, or suffocate in our garbage, or poison ourselves with insecticides. It would seem we like to be scared; and it would seem there are many who like to scare us - and especially since scaring us is money in the bank for them. Pessimism is, big business. And every new crier of doom is listened to like the voice of the Lord.
We have become victims of a horrible hypochondria; if I may coin a phrase, we are becoming psychological hypochondriacs. There is much pessimism concerning man. By many, man is seen as a nogoodnik (and that may be a new word, but if so, I think it’s better than any other I can think of for use at this point). Too much we see ourselves as sick; and we don’t see much hope. The tragic consequence is that it’s terribly difficult to form a clear and affirmative image of tomorrow when we must look at it from within the psychological matrix of this popular pessimism.
Pessimism is defined as "an inclination to put the least favorable construction upon actions and happenings; to maximize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities; or to anticipate the worst possible outcome." That dictionary definition is an accurate description of an attitude which prevails in many segments of our modern life.
What kind of effect does all of this have? This distorted mentality - what are its consequences in our human life? First, it seems to me, it produces a form of creeping paralysis. A human who is afraid tends to be immobilized by his fear. One doesn’t try very much if he doesn’t belive in the outcome. He doesn’t invest much in the future unless he can believe there is one.
This, it seems to me, is a tragic disservice we older people have perpetrated upon the younger people of our time: We have been so gloomy concerning humanity and the human future that we have almost taken the future away from them, and they are inclined to say, "What the heck - if the world is like this and the future is going to be like that, then what difference does it make what I think or how I act?" It is my conviction that whatever deviate and distressing patterns of attitude and conduct may exist among our younger people, they exist because of what we older people have done to their image of tomorrow. After all, for the young almost everything is in the future, somewhere; and if you take that away from them, there isn’t much left. If the picture of the future is calamitous or uninviting, then it is almost inevitable that terrible inward devastation will occur. I have the uneasy feeling that many of the gloom-mongers of our time will have a lot to answer for.
Let’s come to the point of all of this: Is there no alternative to all this gloom? I proclaim to you: There is. We need a friendly wind to drive the gloom away, a sunray to penetrate the pall, a light by which to exorcise this demon, a power to dispel all this despair. We need to find an antidote for the poison of all this pessimism.
I repeat the question: Is there no alternative to all this gloom? And I repeat the answer: There is. I speak with you out of the context of the Christian Faith, and I speak with you of hope. There isn’t a pessimistic syllable in the entire New Testament record of the gospel of Christ, not one. Seen in right context, even the declarations of judgment are proclamations of hope - and especially these. Those writers lived in about the worst of times, but there isn’t a gloomy word in all they said.
Yes, they realistically recognized the evils, dangers, and darkness around them, but all this they saw in context. They were able to view the bad news in the light of the good, the good news of Christ and change and hope. One of our problems in our time is that so many of us are unable to see our present in the light of anything bigger and brighter than it is. Unlike the doomsday exponents of our day, those New Testament writers were able to read the signs of their time under the rays of a brilliant light which beamed in from beyond it. For them the future was a primary reality, and the present was prelude.
You cannot thoughtfully read the New Testament writings of Paul and Peter and John without being struck by their firm conviction that tomorrow was a solution, not a problem; it was an answer, not a question. They were certain of it; eventually things would come right. Living by that image of tomorrow, they marched with triumph through the sufferings and problems and perils of their day. And as Christians, my dear friend, you and I must not permit the clouded issues of our time to eclipse that vision of tomorrow, for the vision is still valid; and whether or not we have comprehended this truth, for us of this Faith the future remains primary, and the present is prelude. Do you doubt this? I hope not. But if you do, I invite you to go again thoughtfully and prayerfully to your New Testament and read it for the answer to this one question: What was the meaning of the future for those people?
Whatever they saw in their time, they saw also that God was in it, touching it with redemption and hope. It has been often said that "pessimism is another name for atheism." True. You just cannot, with understanding, be a true theist and a pessimist at the same time. But when in every real and significant sense, God is pushed out of the picture, not much but gloom is left. A lot of people have made the mistake of leaving him out. O yes, they still name his name, and generally they would assert that they believe he is - somewhere, somehow, but not doing much of anything. But God isn’t out; and he is not going to be; and he is not going to abandon his world or his people.
How much I wish each of us could have the eye-opening experience of Elisha’s servant. Remember that story from 2 Kings, chapter 6? The servant believed the armies of his people to be hopelessly surrounded by the overpowering hosts of the enemy. As he was wailing about the impending calamity, Elisha prayed, "Lord, open my servant’s eyes." And the story is that his eyes were "opened," and round about them he saw that the mountains and valleys were filled with the horses and chariots of God! I know that this is picture language, but it is the picture of a profound truth, one we ought to recapture and never let go again. Also there was Elijah, intimidated by Jezebel, who ran into the woods and sat down in self-pity under a Juniper tree. But God said to him, "Get up and go," things are not all that bad. And he did - and they weren’t.
In Hebrews 10:35 we Christians are told: "Do not throw away your confidence." I would like to emblazon those six words on the mind and spirit of every person who names the name of Christ. Do not throw away your confidence. It’s your most priceless possession; keep it. Don’t throw it away as though it didn’t matter; it does.
I proclaim to you the power to purge this popular pessimism which is the scourge of our time - and it is the power of the gospel of Christ. The gospel was planned, designed, and arranged for this very world. I think the Planner knew what kind of world he was planning for, and I am quite sure the power he devoted to it is power sufficient. In our world have we reason for hope? Yes, I am confident we have many reasons; but had we no other, the Christian Faith is reason enough.
Take these insights, my friend; I offer them to you as a gift for your future. Take them; and of these materials build your image of tomorrow; and in the light of that image always see everything that stands this side of its fulfillment; and under the power and inspiration of it, move victoriously through all the days between now and then.