The Cure for Hopelessness

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I want to thank Joan Fontanella for sharing her story with us this morning. Can we say thank you to Joanie? I asked her to do that because it’s a beautiful example of what can happen when Jesus enters into a situation. In fact, every Sunday of Advent we’re going to have the privilege of hearing from a different member of our Chapel family describing how there was something in their life that was unwell—something was broken. And how Jesus entered in and brought healing and wholeness. And that’s why this year’s Advent series is called “Cured by Christmas.” 

I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t appreciate the healing power of Christmas nearly enough. We love the carols and the gifts and the food and all those great Christmas traditions—I love them too. But sometimes we forget that underneath all of that, Christmas is the story of Jesus entering our world to heal something that was broken. He was the long-awaited cure for the deepest sickness in the world. And if that’s true for the world in a global way, it’s true for your life in a personal way. Jesus has the power to bring healing to the deepest problems in your life. If you doubt that’s true, or if that’s a new concept to you, I hope by the time we get to Christmas, your faith will be enlarged. 

So today we’re going to talk about the cure for hopelessness. Joan talked about a time in her life when she felt hopeless, and if you’ve ever been there, you know how dark that can feel. You know how isolating and depressing that can be. I’m sure some of you are feeling hopeless right now—you’re really struggling. So I want to ask you to open your heart to how Christmas can cure you. 

Let’s look at today’s Scripture—Matthew 1, starting in verse 18. Let’s hear God’s Word… 

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). 

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. This is the Word of the Lord. 

So…how can Christmas cure our hopelessness? Let’s talk first about The Absence of Hope. In that culture, the average age for a man to marry was 18-20 years old. So Joseph was a young man. Mary was likely even younger—probably around 15. Can you imagine the conversation that must have taken place between them? And remember: at this point, Mary had already been met by an angel, who explained to her that she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. So when it actually happened—when Mary realized she was with child—she knew why. It was impossible and it was crazy…but it was happening—and she knew why. And we don’t know when she told Joseph. Did she tell him as soon as she was visited by the angel? We find out in Luke’s Gospel that Mary spent the first three months of her pregnancy at the home of her relative, Elizabeth. So maybe she waited until she came back home from that visit, right around the time she was starting to show, before she broke the news to Joseph. But at some point, she sat down with her fiancée and she had a really awkward conversation. “Joseph, I’m pregnant, but it’s not what you think.”  

And I really think Joseph wanted to believe her. He saw the earnestness in her eyes. He knew this girl, and he knew she wasn’t a liar. But still—this was a stretch! 

So that night, when Joseph went to bed, he was facing what looked like a hopeless situation. He had two main choices. Either he sticks with Mary, she gives birth to this baby that’s obviously not is, and Joseph completely loses his reputation. In an honor and shame culture, which this was, that was a terrible option. He would never shake that shameful reputation. So that was option number 1. Option number 2 was to break his betrothal to Mary, which in that culture was considered divorce, but it would be justified under those conditions. His reputation would a little less of a hit, but he’d lose Mary, whom it seems like he truly loved. So as Joseph thought about his future and the different scenarios that could play out, none of them looked good. Joseph was in a no-win situation. 

And that’s the definition of hopelessness. When you look toward the future, and you don’t see any possibility things will get better. Your financial situation is so bad; the credit card interest keeps piling up; you keep waiting for prices to come down so you can buy a house, but the prices just keep being ridiculous, and you feel hopeless. That stupid habit or phobia or addiction, that you once thought you’d conquer, just won’t go away. That prodigal son or daughter, that you used to have so much hope for, is showing no signs of returning. Hopelessness has this way of creeping up on us, and putting a dark cloud over everything.  

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl reflects on his experience in a concentration camp. He said, “The prisoner who lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.” In other words, the difference between having hope and not having hope can be the difference between life and death. Hopelessness is a scary place to be. 

And that’s where Joseph was as he got ready for bed that night. So before he went to sleep, he chose what he felt was the lesser of two evils. Verse 19: Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. Now: if he wanted to, he could have gained something by divorcing her publicly. He could have brought her to court, where they probably would have impounded her dowry—all the assets she was bringing into marriage—and they would have given it to Joseph to compensate for his emotional suffering. And if he had paid a bride price to Mary’s father when he proposed to her, he could have gotten a refund on the bride price. So he had a lot to gain by dragging her to court. But Joseph was a man of honor, and he didn’t see any point in making Mary suffer any more than she already would. So Hebrew law said you could present a certificate of divorce in the presence of two witnesses—very discretely—and end the marriage that way.  

So with that plan settled in his mind, Joseph went to bed. Little did he know, that would be the most significant night of his life.  

Point number two—let’s talk about The Arrival of Hope. Verse 20: But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. That’s the same exact crazy thing that Mary had told him! And now he was hearing the same thing from an angel in a dream? Sometimes God needs to hit us over the head with the same message, from multiple sources, before we start really hearing it. (This is a painting of that angelic visit by a German painter named Anton Raphael Mengs—it’s called “The Dream of St. Joseph”). 

Did you notice the first thing the angel said? Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. The thought of not divorcing her—the thought of going through with the wedding—was a scary thought! Even if he could somehow convince himself that the baby was from God, he was afraid of how that would play out in his life! He was afraid of the social implications, and the family implications and maybe the career implications. It’s such a human tendency, isn’t it? We are afraid of the unknown.  

A few years ago, Norma Jean and I visited the New York Public Library, which is an amazing place. And there’s a section of the Library called the Treasures Exhibit, and it’s a collection of historical documents and artifacts. And one of the things they have is the third-oldest globe in the world—it’s from around 1510. And on that globe, out beyond the area that had been explored, it actually has the Latin words, Hic Sunt Dracones, which means “here be dragons.” Isn’t that interesting? Why did they do that? They could have said, “Beyond this, is the unknown.” Or they could have assumed good things! They could have said, “Beyond this, there is gold and beautiful mermaids, and a land full of coconut trees.” But they assumed the worst. “There be dragons out there.”  

That’s human nature. We get scared when we’re confronted by something that doesn’t fit our categories. It makes us uncomfortable. So instead of allowing God to stretch us, we push him away and stay where we are. I like the way A.W. Tozer described this. He said we can wind up with a God who can “never surprise us, never overwhelm us, never astonish us, never transcend us.” Let me ask you something: when’s the last time you’ve been surprised, or overwhelmed, or astonished by God?  

The angel continued in verse 21: 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” And then Matthew explains…22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). 

Every one of those verses just adds to the wonder and the amazement! If Christmas has become routine to you, you have to look at this with fresh eyes.  

Verse 21 says that this Son that Mary will have will do something so cosmically significant that it will rescue people from all of their darkness and their mistakes and their sins. Wow. 

Verse 22 says that this whole thing wasn’t something that God had recently come up with. This was something that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah 700 years earlier. So this was an epic drama that was being played out in real time. 

And then verse 23 quotes that verse from Isaiah, and it says people would call this child “Immanuel,” which means…what? God with us. As if this whole thing hasn’t shattered all our categories already—by the way, the baby would be God.  

Suddenly, Mary’s words didn’t seem so crazy anymore. 

There’s a passage that I go back to over and over again—especially when God is stretching me. It’s in Isaiah chapter 55—look at this:  

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
    neither are your ways my ways,” 
declares the Lord. 
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, 
    so are my ways higher than your ways 
    and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

Did you know astronomers have discovered galaxies 13.2 billion light years away? That means that light—traveling at 186,000 miles per second—would take more than 13 billion years to reach what we know as the outer edges of the heavens. And God says that’s about the distance between My thoughts and your thoughts. In other words, we underestimate God by about 13.2 billion light years. 

Joseph was starting to realize that God was bigger and more wondrous and more mysterious than he ever imagined. Are you willing to believe that? Are you willing to at least be open to the possibility that through your situation that looks hopeless, God could be doing something really good? You still might have no idea what it is, because his thoughts and his ways are higher than yours; but are you willing to trust the character and the goodness and the love of God enough to say, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I trust you.”  

Somewhere in the middle of the night, in a little bedroom, in a little house in Nazareth, there was a flicker of light starting to penetrate the heart of Joseph. That’s called “hope.” So the next morning, Joseph woke up—and he had a decision to make. 

Final point: The Effect of Hope. How can you tell when you’ve experienced true hope? Look at verse 24: 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. I don’t know how long he spent wrestling with this decision through the night. But when the sun came up, he got out of bed and he acted: he tore up the divorce papers. He went to Mary, and he said something like, “I don’t get this; I don’t know how we’re going to do this; I don’t know if anyone else is going to believe this. But I believe you. And more importantly, I believe God.”  

Do you think Joseph still had any doubts? I think he might have. When I think about the biggest decisions I’ve made through my life, I can’t think of a single decision where I didn’t have some doubt. Maybe it’s just my personality; maybe it’s just because I’m human. Joseph might have still had some doubts. But here’s the thing: now he had a mindset of hope. Probably not even perfect hope, but just enough hope to move him to action. And he made his decision. And because of that decision he got to play a key role in bringing the Messiah into this world. What an honor! 

So how do we look at the story of Joseph, and connect it to our actual lives? Let’s follow the trajectory of Jesus’ life, from his birth in Bethlehem through his adult life. Because I believe there are two things about Jesus, that if we embrace them, can give us a mindset of hope, even in situations that appear hopeless. 

First, A new view of life. Think about the way Jesus interacted with people. At the Pool of Bethesda, Jesus met a disabled man who hadn’t walked in 38 years. You talk about hopeless, right? But Jesus really didn’t care about his past. He helped the man believe that his future could be radically different. And the guy walked away changed.  

By the side of a well, Jesus met a woman with a terrible moral reputation—five marriages and counting. And she was so used to being rejected. But Jesus refused to judge her for her past; instead, he gave her hope for her future.  

See hope is the belief that the future holds good things…and Jesus was a master at delivering hope. It was just the way he looked at life. 

Up in a tree, Jesus spotted a guy named Zacchaeus. He was a wealthy man, but he gained his wealth by being a tax collector for the hated Roman government, and his people despised him for it. In fact, none of Zacchaeus’s Jewish countrymen would set foot in his house, but Jesus came over for dinner, and he gave Zacchaeus a whole new vision for his future. And that became the turning point in his life.  

Time after time, Jesus encountered hopeless people, and he transformed the way they looked at their future. And here’s the thing: it wasn’t just because Jesus was a glass-half-full kind of guy! He wasn’t just super optimistic. We all know annoying optimists, right? Those people who are a little too happy? You just lost your job, and they’re like, “That’s okay—you’ll find a better one! When the going gets tough, the tough get going! When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” And you just want to go, “Shut up.” Jesus wasn’t that guy. When Jesus gave people hope, it was specifically because of what he would do for them. He was saying, “Because of your connection with me, your future is good.”  

So listen: think about all the people Jesus encountered when he walked this earth, and how their life pivoted on that moment—like “before Christ” and “after Christ.” Think about our friend Joan Fontanella, and how her life was radically affected by the entry of Christ. And then realize, “Wait a minute—I’m one of those people. He’s found me.”  

But it gets even better. Because Jesus doesn’t just bring a new view of life; he brings A new view of death. See, the reason Jesus showed up in a cradle was ultimately so he could go to a cross. Because at its core, the Christian story is a story of death and resurrection. Right? The cross and the empty tomb. Jesus died, and then miraculously came back to life. Jesus reversed death. Two weeks ago I stood in a cemetery with a family who had lost their mother and grandmother friend. But I had the joy of standing there, and with integrity, I got to deliver a message of hope—that the future holds good things—that her future holds good things. Not based on wishful thinking. But based on the reality that Jesus reversed death. So the resurrection of Jesus gives us tremendous hope at funerals. I don’t know if you’ve needed that hope before, but I promise you will.  

But it’s not just at funerals. Because when we make the cross and the empty tomb the main story of our lives—when that becomes the lens through which we view all of life, it changes the way you think about the little deaths—all those situations where hope seems dead. Does that make sense? It changes the way you think about loss and defeat. Your car gets totaled in an accident, and you break three ribs. And you say, “Okay, that’s bad. This feels dark—it’s like the cross—it’s death. BUT, I’m connected to the one who reversed death. And I believe God’s going to bring life out of this death.” Your boyfriend, that you were so sure you’d spend the rest of your life with, falls out of love with you and leaves you for someone else. And it feels hopeless—it feels like death. But you realize you’re connected to the one who reversed death. And you actually get excited about how he’s going to work in that dark situation to bring resurrection.  

Joseph’s situation looked completely hopeless, but God said, “Don’t be afraid; trust me—Mary told you the truth, and her child will be called Immanuel—God with us.” And Joseph believed, and hope came flooding in. Jesus truly is the giver of hope.  

In March of 1863, an 18-year-old kid named Charles Longfellow snuck out of his family’s house up in Massachusetts; he got on a train, and traveled down to Washington, D.C. Charles was the oldest of six children, and his father was actually the famous American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The family had suffered a tragedy less than two years earlier, when Charles’ mother had died from a fire—and Charles’ father still hadn’t recovered from the grief of losing his wife. And the reason Charles had snuck out of the house on that day was to join President Lincoln’s army and fight in the Civil War. And when his father found out, he supported him. He was proud of his son.  

But about nine months later, in December, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was at home eating dinner, and he got a telegram that said his son had been severely wounded in battle. He had been shot through the left shoulder, but the bullet had traveled across his back and skimmed his spine, and there was concern of him being paralyzed. So Charles’s father immediately jumped on a train and went to be with his son in Washington, just as the Christmas season began. 

So on Christmas day, he woke up and he heard the bells ringing in the churches; he saw people celebrating and singing “peace on earth.” But at the same time, he looked around at all the injustice and violence in the world, and he looked at all the pain in his own life—losing his wife, and now his son nearly paralyzed from war. And—I’m so grateful for poetic people who can do this—he took all of those conflicting thoughts and feelings, and put them together in a poem, which was later made into a song. It’s called, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  

Listen to these words… 

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day 
Their old familiar carols play, 
And wild and sweet the words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 

And in despair I bowed my head: 
"There is no peace on earth," I said, 
"For hate is strong and mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good will to men." 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; 
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, 
With peace on earth, good will to men." 

You know what I hear in that song? First of all, a reminder that things haven’t changed much. Right? The world was messed up in 1860, and it’s messed up now. But more than that, when I listen to that song, I hear hope. If I could summarize the song in just a few words, here’s what I’d say: yes—the voices of war and hatred are strong. And we all have our own little wars, and those voices that shout despair and hopelessness to us. And I know for some of you, 2024 has been a year filled with darkness. It’s been a really tough year. But if you listen closely, there is another voice. It’s the voice of the angel, saying that no matter how hopeless you feel, hope is on the way. God is not dead; he’s working in this world, and he’s working in your life, if you have eyes to see.  

This Christmas, would you allow the arrival of Christ to cure your hopelessness and fill you with hope?