November 16, 2025 - Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost: Eschatological Hope

November 16, 2025 Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 27:7-14      Isaiah 65:17-25
“Eschatological Hope”
Melissa K. Smith

The Greek myth goes like this…Zeus gave Pandora a box and told her to never open it. Just wanted her to hold onto it but never ever to open it. But curiosity got the best of her and she did open it. Out flew all the evils into the world like disease, sorrow, and death. Everything poured out but one thing remained trapped in the box: hope.

My catch phrase of sorts over the last few months has been “The chaos continues”. Between the chaos of church programming in the fall and Christmas hurtling towards us faster than I can fathom…the chaos continues.

Between news headline after news headline that is heartbreaking and life-altering…the chaos continues.

Between injuries and illnesses throughout this congregation…the chaos continues.

I don’t say that phrase to make light of any situation. I more so say it as a way to continue to pivot, to turn to the next most pressing need and respond authentically and fully.

The chaos continues and not only are we invited to step into it together, but God chose to enter into our chaos in Jesus Christ, becoming fully human and dying on the cross to save us, and being raised from the dead to defeat sin and death.

We find ourselves standing on the side of the cross where Jesus has defeated sin and death…but we still sin and we still experience death…the chaos continues.
Our scripture reading this morning is from Isaiah 65 – the very end of Isaiah’s prophetic words. The first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah were written during the Assyrian threat on the Northern Kingdom, Israel.

The Southern Kingdom, Judah, witnessed as the ten tribes were deported and then whoever remained was forcefully assimilated, losing their identity and their home. Assyria frequently threatened the Southern Kingdom – trying to take over Jerusalem, attacking frequently, and being a constant threat.

Chapters 40-55 are set during the Babylonian exile – the time when the Southern Kingdom fell to Babylon and faced deportation, exile, and the loss of home.

The final chapters, 56-66, are written post-exile, when they returned to a home they hardly recognized and they had to rebuild.

This message of hope, the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, comes at a necessary time but also feels impossible. Isaiah recounts the Lord saying, “For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth.” The Hebrew that is translated “For I am about to create” is a reflection of the grammar representing an ongoing action. So it could say, “For I am creating a new heavens and a new earth.”

I can imagine the people looking up and shouting, “When, Oh God?” I can imagine them shouting Psalm 27, “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me.”

It’s easy to imagine them saying this because I find myself and others around me asking the same questions. When will the suffering end? When will the pain end? When will life not be overwhelming? When…when…when…

Can we take all of the chaos, all of the sorrow, all of the evils and shove them back in the box?

The Prophets end the Old Testament and after we hear the prophecy that the Messiah is coming, we turn the page and find ourselves in the New Testament reading about the birth of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who came to save the world through his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus did just that – but the new heaven and the new earth still are not here. There is still sin, there is still death. Yes, things have changed – we can go directly to Christ and ask for forgiveness. We know and trust that death is no longer the last word but that the last word is life everlasting. Things DID change – but so much still feels like chaos continuing all around us.

Isaiah 65 says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight. ¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress. ²⁰ No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed…

²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

This text calls us forward to Revelation 21, where John brings us a vision of a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more tears, where death will be no more, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more…”

“When, O Lord?” All in God’s time. We don’t get to know the time, we don’t get to understand those pieces. But what we are given is the opportunity to have eschatological hope. “Eschatology” is the study of the “last things” – the end of time, the second coming of Christ. It’s a future time that is shrouded in mystery but is offered to us much like the hope trapped in Pandora’s box.

The hope is with us always – pulsing beneath the surface, whispering to us in the throws of the chaos, calling to us to remember that God has a plan and is actively working on this plan.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen. The hope we are called to have is hope that God will restore the world back to pure shalom – to peace, wholeness, and oneness with God. It is not empty hope. On this side of the cross we know that God follows through on God’s promises – we were promised a Messiah that would come into this world to save this world. A Messiah who loves us, sins and all. A Messiah who would turn the world right side up. And he did. God fulfilled the most important promise.

So we can hope. We can have eschatological hope – hope that when Christ comes again all will be made new and one day the chaos will not continue.

Just as the hope was always in Pandora’s box waiting to be released, so too is real hope waiting for you to grab hold of it. Whether we are going through the best of times or the worst of times, whether we are in the midst of the chaos or are feeling depleted from battle after battle; hope is possible. It’s there. It’s rooted in God’s very own word.

Paul says to the Romans in chapter 8, “¹⁸ I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, ²⁰ for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, ²³ and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Let us hope. Hoping does not belittle our present suffering – the present suffering, the chaos that continues – is real, and it is valid. But let us open the box with hope and not forget to cling to the hope we have in God, given to us by his very Word.

Hope is something we do not do alone. We are the body of Christ – when one part suffers, we all suffer, when one rejoices, we rejoice together. So let us hope together. Let us remind one another of the promises God makes, and let us remind one another that God keeps God’s promises.

Let us never use eschatological hope to belittle one another’s present realities, but let us lament together with hope coursing through the background, allowing hope to give us the strength to take the next faithful step.

Psalm 27 tells us, “Wait for the Lord”. We do not wait alone.
 
Thanks be to God. Amen.