Embers of Hope

Easter Sunday at 9:30am

Sunday, April 20, 2025

The Rev. Megan Collins

I’ve gotten really into survival reality TV shows lately. In these shows, they take people and drop them off in the wilderness in these hard to survive places like Botswana and Cambodia and Nicaragua and even right here in Florida to see if they can survive for 21 days. I know someone is going to ask what the name of the specific show is I’ve been watching. I’m going to level with you. It’s called Naked and Afraid. But it’s on the Discovery Channel, and they blur out all of the nudity and it’s actually the most wholesome show in the world. 

In this show (that I promise is actually really wholesome) they are dropped in the wilderness with literally nothing, and they have to build a shelter, find food and water, and deal with the wildlife and bugs.  They don’t get a tent or a sleeping bag. In fact, they can only take one survival item with them. Some people take a machete or a pot or a mosquito net. Some people bring a roll of duct tape. But the smart ones, they bring a fire starter.  (On a side note, this is how I know I’ve watched too much of this show. I have gone from admiring their perseverance and skill to judging them if they bring the wrong survival item. I am clearly a survival expert as I sit on my couch. In my living room . . . under a blanket . . . with a bowl of tortilla chips).

Before watching the show, I didn’t think about how important fire is if you are going to be in the wilderness. In all of my camping experience, I have had food and water and warm blankets, so the fire was the thing you sat around while singing and making smores. It was nice, but not essential. But fire, if you are really trying to survive, purifies water and cooks food so it’s safe to eat. It provides warmth and protection from predators. 

The smart survivavlist on the show bring something to start a fire. Sometimes it’s a flint. Other times they have this contraption that causes friction between sticks. The survivalists work and work and then suddenly, it happens. They start frantically piling on kindling and moss and blowing on this tiny glowing speck that you can’t really see, but you know it’s there. After a few moments, out of nowhere, a huge flame erupts. Fire is a critical resource, but it doesn’t start with large flames. Fire starts with one tiny, glowing speck, the size of a seed.

All it takes is an ember. 

Sometimes I think the amount of survival TV I watch is directly proportional to how crazy the world feels at any given time. This might be why I am on a bit of a binge of survival shows right now. I don’t think things are going to get so bad that  I’m going to have to survive in the woods, but I’m starting to think if I did have to, I would at least know how to properly make a fire, and maybe even cook a snake? Our world really does have a “we’ve been dropped in the middle of the wilderness” feel to it right now. If you watch the news it can seem like we are way out in the chaos of the woods, with none of the tools we need and no idea how to survive this.  It can feel heavy, and dark, and lonely. 

Our personal lives can have those wilderness seasons too. There are times when we end up in the middle of something that is impossibly hard, that feels heavy and dark and lonely. Maybe you would rather be dropped in the middle of the Cambodian jungle than deal with whatever is on your calendar for this week, because things are that difficult in your life. 

Then we come to church on Easter, and it’s flowers and music and celebration and an awful lot of talk about hope. When we talk about hope in the church it’s not just a warm feeling. Real biblical hope has this strength to it. It’s full of confidence and trust, a firm conviction that God is here. 

The book of Hebrews says this:  “We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul" (6:19) and "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful” (10:23). The story of faith has an unwavering hope that God is still at work in the world, that God is involved in your life. It’s this hope that works its way into you and refuses to give up. 

Hope as a sure and steadfast achor for our soul.

Hope as something we hold to without wavering.

Hope that is essential for survival. 

That is a big, roaring fire kind of hope. Maybe that amount of hope feels impossible to us when we are deep in the wilderness. How do we jump from our grief and our pain to unshakeable, confident, hold fast without wavering hope?  Maybe we don’t.  But here’s the good news: Hope doesn’t have to start big. Hope doesn’t have to start out at this roaring fire in the darkness. 

What if all it takes is an ember?

What if all you need to have is this tiny, almost invisible glowing speck of hope?

What if all you have to have is an almost imperceptible feeling that maybe God is here, that maybe it can be better, that maybe you can do something, that maybe you could change?

What if you bring that ember of hope, and then God brings the blowing air and the kindling and the wood to make it into something big enough to take on whatever you are facing, right now? 

Every year on Easter we read the same story.

This Easter story is the story of resurrection. Jesus breaks the chains of sin and death for humanity and for the world. It’s the time when we remember that our shame doesn’t have to define us, that our sins and our failures and our fears do not condemn us. It’s when we hold onto the promise that Jesus has defeated death and promised us resurrection. It’s a story where the evil of the world is taken on,  where oppression is broken and the marginalized are lifted up, where God shows just how much God loves us, and just how lost our world has become. It’s new creation and heaven someday and also heaven breaking into our world today. 

It’s hope, huge hope. 

The Easter story is unshakeable, unwavering, soul anchoring, hope.

But on that first Easter morning, it was dark and lonely in the wilderness.  There were these women who had walked with Jesus when he was alive. They knew him. They followed him. They loved him, and then he died.  The one they loved was condemned by a corrupt government. He was betrayed by a friend, abandoned by his followers, executed by the state. He carried the brokenness of the world, the weight of its sin, and he died, holding all of it. 

The world was dark. 

Then, on Easter morning, the women got up. 

They are not full of hope. They don’t run to the tomb expecting Jesus to be alive. They don’t enter the story giddy with the anticipation of resurrection. No. They do what we do when we grieve. They summon their strength, pull themselves out of the depths of their grief and go do what needed to be done. The women go to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus for his burial. Even when they get close to the tomb, and they see the stone rolled away from the opening, they don’t let themselves believe. Not yet. 

Let’s read from Luke 24:1-10

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.6Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 

When they go into the tomb, two angels appear to them. The women were terrified because you would be too, if two otherworldly beings suddenly appeared in front of you and started talking. The angels remind them of what Jesus had promised to do, that on the third day he would rise again.

The women were not full of hope that morning.  But there was this ember. There was this tiny, almost imperceptible, glowing piece of hope, deep within each of them.  Their faith in Jesus had once been a roaring fire but after everything they have been through, it had gone out. But there was still one tiny piece of warm coal under the ashes.  

All it takes is an ember. 

When the angel spoke, it blew their hope back to life. The story goes on:

8Then they remembered his words, 9and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 

The women remembered all at once what Jesus had promised. Their ember of hope became a flame. They went back and told everyone what they had seen. Their testimony went on to catch in their town and then spread throughout the world.  

These women were the first to share the news of Jesus’ resurrection. 

Here we are, over two thousand years later, still telling it today. 

All it took was an ember. 

Some of you feel like you are out in the wilderness right now.

Maybe your life has that “dropped in the middle of nowhere with no map and no tools” kind of feeling.Maybe the grief from losing someone you loved is overwhelming. 

Maybe you're waking up every day wondering what your purpose is or how you're supposed to keep going. 

Maybe you're anxious, or exhausted, or fighting your way through depression. 

Maybe your family is barely holding it together. 

Maybe everything looks okay on the outside, but your faith feels  lost. You haven’t seen or heard from God in a long time, and you’re not sure if you even believe anymore.

The wilderness is not just personal. Our world is a wilderness too. 

We see conflict rising around the world.

We see people grasping for power and wealth and taking advantage of the vulnerable.We see systems breaking and justice delayed again and again.

We see people denied human rights because of where they were born or who they love or what their gender is or the color of their skin. 

We are in the wilderness. Individually. And as a people. 

In the wilderness, there is one thing that is necessary to survive. 

Hope. Just an ember of hope.

Because God can use our little bit of hope to do big things. 

The wilderness in Scripture is where God prepares people. It’s where God speaks. It’s where God provides. The wilderness is where God calls people like you and like me to work for good. It’s where God moves in the darkest places of your life to bring healing and change. LIke the women on Easter morning, you come to the tomb today and you may feel weighed down by the things you are carrying. But deep inside of you, there just might be a tiny, imperceptible bit of hope, a hope that says maybe, just maybe, the same God who conquered sin and death, the same God who rose from the dead, that same God, loves you. That same God loves the world. And God is not done yet. 

Resurrection isn’t just something that happened two thousand years ago.

It’s what God does.It’s who God is.

You don’t have to have hope for God to move. God has been at work in the world since the beginning, a stumble in our faith won’t change that.  But if you come to God, and bring just the tiniest speck of hope, that maybe God is real, that maybe resurrection is possible, that maybe what feels dead in you or around you isn’t the end of the story. God can help it grow into a big, unshakeable, soul anchoring hope.  God can create in you a hope that helps you survive - and maybe even thrive - in the wilderness. 

All it takes is an ember.

Christ has risen.

He is risen indeed.