On Christian Hope - Acts 16:16-34

I have always loved jigsaw puzzles, but I got really into them in seminary. As Ragan can confirm, it probably bordered on an obsession. A few of my friends and I had a puzzle going in every living room on campus, and sometimes one in the Welcome Center, as well. We would puzzle together in the evenings, chatting and snacking, and we would puzzle alone, stopping to put in just a piece or two between classes, to regulate our nervous systems and transition from one activity to the next.

One of my dear puzzling friends came to visit me earlier this year, and we completed a 1000 piece puzzle in 36 hours - which I think is a record for us, but she is convinced we’ve done one quicker. It was lovely to revisit our puzzling routine, and we fell right back into our old habits. She sorted pieces by color and shape, while I looked for noteworthy individual pieces, and when I couldn’t find them after the very briefest of searches, announced that they were definitely missing. My friend just rolled her eyes. She knows my shtick.

I’m not usually so fatalistic, but when a puzzle piece is not immediately apparent, I immediately worry that it’s been lost. My friend has tried for years to quell this instinct of mine. She reminds me over and over again how many times we’ve found the “missing” piece after puzzling just a little longer, and how many times the culprit has been my own elbow knocking pieces to the floor.

I can’t really explain my tendency towards puzzle pessimism, but over the years, I’ve begun to notice a similar phenomenon in other places. It can be small, like a toddler who throws a tantrum when she can’t find her special toy because her mother put it back where it belongs, and who would ever think to look there? Sometimes, the stakes are a little bit higher, like when we go into a frenzy thinking we’ve lost our keys, only to realize that they were in a pocket all along.

These are silly and relatable examples, but if left unchecked, this instinct can grow. There is a surprisingly fine line between fearing that a treasure is lost, and fearing that all hope is lost. I’ll say that again because I think it’s important. There is a surprisingly fine line between fearing that a treasure is lost, and fearing that all hope is lost. It’s a slippery slope that requires some vigilance in spiritual practice to overcome. I’ll tell you what I mean.

In today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles, we meet Paul and Silas, recently arrived in Philippi, and absolutely plagued by a heckler. Before long, Paul whips around in a flurry of frustration and liberates the woman from her demon. Unfortunately, the possessed heckler was an enslaved woman, and her now-exorcised demon had been quite lucrative for her enslavers, so they have Paul and Silas thrown in jail.

Although our intrepid heroes have found themselves locked in the darkest, innermost chamber, with chains securely fastened, they remain in high spirits. In fact, they’re having a little midnight hymn sing when an extremely isolated earthquake somehow manages to open all the doors and release all the bindings, without waking the prison guard.

When the guard finally wakes up in the morning, he sees that everything has been unlocked while he slept. He assumes that the treasure he was responsible for guarding has been lost, and in an instant, all his hope is lost, as well. He can fathom only shame and pain in his future and he prepares to take his own life. He does not go looking for Paul and Silas. There is no search for the missing puzzle piece under the table, just unexamined, unmitigated despair.

Thankfully, before he can act, Paul and Silas call out to him. “Hey man, we’re right here! We’ve been waiting for you. All is not lost.” This is one of my favorite images in all of scripture: the juxtaposition of a man who holds the keys, but who is made hopeless by one mistake, and men who are literally imprisoned and know that the road ahead is filled with more persecution, yet are perfectly content, still filled with the hope of Christ.

It’s a powerful moment, dense with potential. And upon seeing the hope that these two poor men have, and fully comprehending his lack thereof, the jailer falls to his knees and says, “let me in! I want to live a life like yours. What you’ve been given, that’s what I want too. What do I have to do?”

Last week, Ragan talked about the word “apocalypse,” which in Greek means an unveiling. He reminded us that sometimes, the truth of the world is unveiled in a global crisis. This is the source of the booming dystopian film and literature industry. But sometimes, the truth of the world can be unveiled to a single person, who is suddenly able to see what was always there, but never clear before.

Paul and Silas inspire an extraordinary conversion without teaching or preaching or proselytizing in any way. It is their hope, founded in resurrection, which emanates out from their very beings, that changes the jailer’s life; his own little apocalypse. Without any coaxing or force, the veil is gently lifted, hope is restored, and the whole world is new. This is the power of resurrection in real time. The truth of a post-Easter world is that hope is never truly lost.

I suspect some of us in this room have had moments not unlike what the jailer experienced. Humans have an unfortunate tendency to assume that all is lost and it often takes a dramatic experience to show us that we don’t have to live that way. And chances are, we will need several of these moments throughout our lives to get us back on track. But we are not without help.

This time between Ascension Day and Pentecost is all about Christian hope and how it can change the world. With our prayers and worship during these nine days, we remember the time when the followers of Christ were without their savior, but had not yet received the comfort of the Holy Spirit. All they had was their hope, and what an incredible hope it is to witness.

We can practice our Christian hope outside of this special liturgical time, too. As Paul and Silas teach us, in order to hold onto our hope, we’ve got to sing hymns in jail. We have to participate in the concrete applications of our faith in good times and in bad. Practices like prayer and worship, but also things like shared meals, exploring nature, and working puzzles, whatever sacred practice helps us to recenter around Christ. Tending to our Christian hope can change our lives, how we move through the world day to day and how we invest in the future. And it can change the lives of others who may see it and perceive the deep and powerful truth of the resurrection.

Over the years, my friend and I have completed a few puzzles that were missing a piece or two. In fact, we once challenged ourselves to put together a box of puzzle pieces we found at garage sale that had no lid or accompanying image to work from. The result was a cheesy a winter landscape filled with holes, and a lot of frustrated laughter. It was a good and joyful reminder that when a treasure is missing, our hope doesn’t have to be. As people of faith, we trust in a resurrection that promises we will never be without hope. It’s a treasure from God that can never be lost, even in spite of our clumsy elbows. Amen.