October 8, 2015

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” 1 Peter 1:3

“In 1966, U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy made an influential visit to South Africa. There he offered words of hope to opponents of apartheid in his famous “Ripple of Hope” speech at the University of Cape Town. In his speech, he declared, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

At times in this world, hope seems scarce. Yet there is an ultimate hope readily available for the follower of Christ. Peter wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3) (Our Daily Bread, Ripples of Hope, September 7, 2015)

The other day I was playing a golf outing on a golf course somewhere outside of Carlisle, PA. The golf course we were playing is a beautiful course set up against the mountains south of Carlisle. As do most golf courses, this one had several holes with ponds that bordered the greens. On one of the holes, each one of the four golfers teed off, and one of our players hit his shot to the right, through some trees, and in the direction of a pond. As we drove our cart toward the water, we wondered where his golf ball landed. At that moment both of us noticed some ripples in the pond — realizing immediately that his ball had indeed landed in the water causing the ripples to fan out across the pond. These were not ripples of hope, they were ripples of reality.

Ripples of hope come from our actions of hope — actions where we do a good deed for a stranger, give a donation to the food bank, sit with a shut-in, visit the sick and imprisoned, and so many other little actions that ripple across the landscape of a troubled world. Every little “ripple of hope” can, as Senator Robert Kennedy said, build a wave of change and hope that can make a difference in our communities and our world. We all have ripples within us – it takes tossing ourselves into the waters of sorrow and hopelessness so that we can be ripples of hope and ripples of change..

Pastor Dave