Being Nude with Others

Okay, that was a dirty trick. I just used that title to get your attention. I really wanted to write about hope. I guess you can hope about nudity and being nude with others, but that’s not the point of what I’m writing today.

Easter season is a time of hope. The story of Easter is the story of Jesus being raised from the dead, and in the process of the resurrection, brings hope to the world.

People hope for lots of things. Whenever there is an election people all hope that their candidate gets elected. After the election people who ‘won’ hope that their candidate does well and the people who ‘lost’ hope that the candidate they did not vote for does not mess things up as badly as they think that person will. People will debate, to varying degrees, on how well each person does. But this isn’t a source of what would be ‘great’ hope.

Some people hope that the world will be a better place. Often people find hope in that some people do not get what they want. Gun control advocates hope that people can’t purchase certain types of weapons. They have a sense that people don’t need AK-47's with armor piercing bullets to go duck hunting. Gun rights people hope that the gun control people don’t get their way. People find hope in hoping that some folks don’t get what they want.

William Willimon, a United Methodist Bishop and prolific author and great preacher used to be the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. Willimon suggested that he didn’t believe that preachers always preach what people want to hear or that they should give people everything they want as, he generally was preaching to young people who he hoped DIDN’T get what they always wanted.

Hope comes in all sorts of varieties, but great hope has to come from something else, something more. Hope comes in the miracle of Easter.

Often when people are facing the end of their lives they search for hope, and search for a miracle.

On occasion there are ‘healing’ miracles where a person gets cured of their disease. But there are also ‘healing’ miracles that take place when people come to peace with the end of their lives and find their hope and miracle in life after death.

When we have faith there is always that hope for that miracle. The really great miracle comes because Jesus came forth from the tomb teaching us that truly was life after death.

And in that there truly is great hope.

Clothed or not.