Re-Gifting Christmas: The Old Briefcase
November 27, 2016
Dr. Tom Pace
Isaiah 55:10-13

Today we’re going to be talking about hope. We lit the candle of hope, we’re going to talk about hope. During the season of Advent, which is the beginning of the church year, for the four weeks leading up to Christmas you talk about our expectation, our preparation, our anticipation of the coming of Christ. And we read the words of the prophets and then as we get closer we begin to celebrate the gift of Christ into our lives.
So today I want to encourage you to follow along in the Scripture as we look together at the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
¹¹so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
¹²For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
¹³Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to theLordfor a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55:10-13 NRSV)

James went to work for O’Neil Securities when he was only 25 years old. Started as sort of an errand guy. It was a small company, a startup. And he worked his way up to become a floor trader on Wall Street. You know those men and women with blue blazers who stand down on the floor and they wave paper back and forth? He worked for O’Neil Securities for 30 years. He was so proud that he had a relationship with Mr. O’Neil, the CEO of the company. Because it had started so small, they had become friends and developed this relationship.
Thirty years later when James was 55 years old Mr. O’Neil retired. It was also about that time that floor trading became electronic trading and they had not quite the same need for floor traders. So James was laid off at age 55. In fact, the only skill and practice he had was becoming obsolete, and he wasn’t sure what he would do. He was out of work for over 2 years.
He used to go up the Randall’s where Mr. O’Neil and his old cronies would sit in the coffee shop and drink coffee. He would go on Tuesday mornings when they would gather there. Not every Tuesday but sometimes; he was unemployed after all and it got him out of the house. He’d sit and visit with the old guys, and they’d all tell him, “Something good’s going to come. You just have to hang in there. Hang in there, James, you’re going to get a job. Something good’s going to come.”
One day near Christmas Mr. O’Neil, his mentor, showed up with a box, big red bow on the top of it. He opened the box with all the other guys around and inside was an old briefcase. James said, “What’s this for? I don’t even have a job. Why would I need a briefcase?” And Mr. O’Neil said, “My mother gave it to me when I began the company and you were with us all of those years and I think you’re going to need it. You’re going to need that briefcase and I want you to carry it with you every time you go for any kind of interview. Every time you do any kind of business, you keep that briefcase with you to remind you that something good is coming for you.”
Mr. O’Neil didn’t really need to give him a briefcase. What he was trying to do was give him something way more important. He was trying to give him hope. When we lose our hope we really struggle.
He had received a gift from his mother saying, “You have incredible potential and now he wanted to re-gift it. Pass it on, pay it forward, if you will, to this man who needed hope so badly.”
We’re going to be talking about re-gifting Christmas for the next four weeks, actually the next five if you include Christmas Eve. We’re going to talk about re-gifting hope, re-gifting peace, re-gifting joy and re-gifting love, and there are three basic principles that I want you to hold in mind for all of these weeks.
The first one is this – everything that really matters in our lives cannot be bought but must be received as a gift. Everything – our salvation, our hope, our joy- none of those things can be purchased. None of them can be manufactured. They all must be received as a gift from God.
The second principle is this – that you can’t give away something you have not received. Sometimes we’re afraid to talk about our faith. We’re afraid to talk about what matters to us because we don’t have that confidence, we don’t have a sense that we have received God’s presence in our lives. And so it’s hard to talk to others, to share that with others, because you can’t give away what you haven’t received yourself.
Now the third principle is this – once you receive a gift - the gift of the things that really matter – what you want to do is pass it along. It comes with it, it carries with it an expectation that it be passed along. So when we receive hope there is an expectation that it be passed along.
Have you ever thought about the fact that on Christmas we give gifts? It’s because it’s the day we’ve received the greatest gift – the gift of God’s very presence as a human being in our world and in our lives. And when we receive that kind of gift it carries with it an expectation that we give, so we give away, and we’re generous at Christmas. We support causes, we give to the people we love because when we receive that kind of gift there is a natural expectation that it be carried forward.
So those are the principles throughout this whole time and I hope you’ll keep those in mind. Today we want to start by looking at the prophet Isaiah and talking about re-gifting hope.
Let’s pray. O God, open us up. Open our eyes that we might see, our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts that we might feel, and then, God, open our hands so that we might give. Amen.
I really have only two points I want to make today. The first one is that we have to hear and receive a word from the prophet Isaiah that gives us hope. I hope you’ll hear that word today.
Let me tell you about Isaiah. The book of Isaiah most scholars – almost every scholar – believes that there were at least two, maybe three authors of the book. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah were written at the time of the Assyrian conquest, the time when Assyria defeated Israel and destroyed much of Israel. That’s the 8^th century BC. But 200 years later the children of Israel were taken into captivity in Babylon, an altogether different enemy with King Nebuchadnezzar. And that’s 200 years later and everything from chapter 40 on is about that time of the children in exile in Babylon. So they’re about two completely different times.
Well, here’s the message you get in Isaiah 55. Now the Israelites, certainly all the leadership, have been held in captivity in Babylon for about 60 years. Think about that - three generations. And the prophet Isaiah says, “You’re going home. You are going home.” Three generations of people have been born and lived only in captivity, and Isaiah says, “You’re going home.”
That’s why when you read this Scripture, the part that we read at the end, you can get the picture in your mind now. So he says, “For you shall go out in joy…” You’re going out of Babylon. “… And be led back in peace.” Not back to Babylon, but back to Jerusalem. So they’re going on this trek where they’re leaving Babylon and going all the way back to Jerusalem. And as they go what’s going to happen. What a beautiful picture!
“The mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to theLordfor a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
You’re going home and all of nature is going to sing praises as you go – wow!
Now here’s what I would say if Isaiah or some prophet came and told me that after 60 years in captivity, “I don’t believe you. I don’t think so. Show me.”
You see, there’s a difference between the hope that the world has and Christian hope. Biblical hope. The hope that the world has, I can illustrate best with a scene from a classic movie. Lloyd is talking to Mary, his intended, the one he wants to be with. And Lloyd says to Mary, “What are the chances of a guy like me being with a girl like you?” And Mary says, “Lloyd, they’re not good. Not good at all.” And then Lloyd says, “Not good? Like one in a hundred?” And she says, “No, it’s more like one in a million.” And Lloyd says, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
It’s from “Dumb and Dumber” one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s like “Doctor Zhivago” or “Gone with the Wind” it’s just a marvelous classic. Much to be learned there.
That’s the kind of hope we have, and it’s sort of an illusion that that’s the kind of hope the world gives. It’s kind of an illusion that keeps you going even though it probably isn’t going to happen. It’s like she was saying, “Maybe it’s going to snow today.” No – it’s not going to snow today. It’s the same hope that had millions of people and many of you buying a Powerball ticket yesterday. When you talk to people who buy them regularly they often say, “I really kind of think I might win.” You’re not going to win! Sometimes I’ve said, as I buy my Powerball ticket, “If I win I’m going to pay for the church’s parking garage in total. I think that will help.” I think some of you have said that, too. Doesn’t work. I’ve tried it. Doesn’t work.
That’s the kind of sort of illusory image that says, “Maybe, maybe…” That’s not Christian hope.
With Biblical hope here’s the key verse for today: “So the word that goes out of my mouth shall not return empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” It shall succeed to do what I have sent it to do.
So the idea is that it’s the kind of hope that says, when you see the rain falling and you don’t see any flowers you can say, “Flowers are going to grow because the rain falls. Because that’s how God works.”
That’s the Scripture that it says. “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they’ve watered the earth making it bring forth and sprout giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word that goes out of my mouth, it shall not return to me empty.” It shall come to pass just like the rain brings the flowers. Christian hope is the kind of hope that when it’s freezing cold outside you can think to yourself “It’s going to get warm. It’s going to get warm.”
And the next day it might even be colder, and the day after that even colder still. But it’s going to get warm – you can count on it. That’s Biblical hope. That God’s purposes will ultimately be accomplished. It’s the kind of hope that says in the darkest night…
Some of you may have struggled with clinical depression as I have at times in my life. When you’re in the thick of it and you go to bed and then wake up two hours later, and you can’t go back to sleep and you think to yourself, “Will morning ever come? Will morning ever come?” But you know it will.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live in the time before people had clocks? I was thinking about that, I’d never really thought about that. What would it be like to wake up in the middle of the night on a cloudy night and not know whether it was midnight or almost dawn? You’d have no idea how long you’d been asleep.
So you’d wait for the dawn. Is it coming? Is it coming? But Christian hope says, “Yes, it’s coming! Because that’s the way God works. That’s always the way God works.” Resurrections follow crucifixions, morning follows night. And God’s purposes are accomplished. God’s word does not come back empty.
Here’s my definition of hope. It’s that hope that is the gritty resilient active defiance in the face of resistance to God’s good purposes. The gritty active defiance in the face of resistance to God’s good purposes. To say, “You know what? I don’t see morning, but I believe in it. And I want to be a part of it and I’m going to do everything I can to be a part of what God is accomplishing.”
There’s a great poem I love by Victoria Stafford and it’s called “The Gates of Hope.” This is just part of it.
“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges …
Not the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place …
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
Indeed, as it will be…”


To see the world as God has shown us what the Kingdom of God is like and believe that yes, it will be. That’s Biblical hope. Friends, I want you to have that hope. I want you to claim it, I want you to receive that hope from God as a gift today.
So that’s the first thing. We receive this word from the prophet Isaiah that just as the waters go and bring forth the flowers, so God’s word will not return empty. But when we receive that what do we do with it?
The second thing is that once we’ve received that hope, it’s our privilege and responsibility to pass it on. To re-gift it. One of our habits is to study the Bible and we’re really going to focus on that a lot in 2017. But one of the reasons that’s so important to me is that I want you to build – I want all of us to build – an internal Bible, one that’s in our heads. And to do that we have to study it, we have to learn it.
It’s not about memorizing Bible verses. Some people ask me, “Do you memorize your sermons?” And I say, “I don’t memorize my sermons – I know my sermons.” There’s a difference. I don’t memorize my children’s names – I know my children’s names. Most of the time I know my children’s names. Sometimes they go away. Sometimes they go away.
But I want you to know the Bible so that when difficult times, challenges, issues, conversations come, those verses are there for you that you can hang on to. That would be your internal Bible.
So one of them is the passage, “The word that goes out of my mouth shall not return empty…” So we can hold on to that. But there’s another one that comes from I Peter that I’d like to share and I hope it becomes part of your internal Bible. It goes like this: “Always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within you.” Always be ready to re-gift your hope – to pass it on.
I began with a story about a briefcase and I want to tell you another one that’s really inspired me. It’s the story of John Raskob. When Al Smith was running for the presidency in 1928 he was defeated soundly. His campaign was financed by his best friend, a man named John Raskob who was a Roman Catholic layman. He was connected to Al who had been involved in some of the New York political machine, Tammany Hall, and involved in all the mess in New York. But Al Smith was so dejected that he lost the presidency that he said to his friend, “I don’t even know why I’m around anymore. I have no purpose. This is what I thought I was born for. I don’t know what to do now.”
The very next day John Raskob, his best friend, said to him, “Let’s do some business together. Let’s build the tallest building in the world.”
He was famous for taking a pencil and putting it up in front of engineers and saying, “How tall can you build a building before it just falls over?” So they set about the business of building the Empire State Building. It’s 85 years old this year. Interestingly, the great Depression hit the very next year and most people assumed that they would cancel their plans when the stock market crashed. But they said, “No, we need this more now than ever.”
So they built the Empire State Building and it took 1 year and 45 days. I tell our contractor that all the time. One year and 45 days to build the Empire State Building. Now what’s the deal here? He reminds me that Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took two centuries.
What’s interesting is that once the Empire State Building was done it took forty years before it was fully occupied. That’s kind of interesting because there wasn’t a lot of business to put in it.
So the Empire State Building was built just so that Raskob could give hope to his friend.
Here’s maybe a more interesting fact. When the Empire State Building was sold 100% of the proceeds went to the Raskob Foundation. And that is the largest funder of Roman Catholic charities around the world. It was the biggest funder for Mother Teresa’s work, and for many, many others who fight poverty and injustice around the world on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.
I had the privilege last week of hearing Kerry Robinson, who is Raskob’s granddaughter, speak. She is one of the Trustees of the Raskob Foundation, and one of things the Raskobs did – and I think this is so funny – they said that all of their children and all their heirs, like every generation, would participate in determining how the money was to be distributed. She said, “Now there are about 150 of us who get together to make decisions about what our great-grandfather and great-grandmother would do.” All the proceeds have to go to Roman Catholic causes.
I had the privilege of hearing her speak. Sort of an aside she is the executive director of a group called the Leadership Round Table which is a Roman Catholic organization that came into existence after the great scandals of ten or 11 years ago in Boston, and then again in Dallas. Their job was lay people, business people, who said “We’re going to put in best practices about management, transparency, and accountability into the church. We’re laypeople who know how to do that.” They worked with the priest to begin that process. Very interesting. She’s an amazing lady.
So, I heard her speak and what she said inspired me. She talked about what she had learned from her great-grandfather, what the family learned. She said, “His motto was to go ahead and do things. The bigger the better if your intentions are sound. This is what we have all learned from him. Look for the potential at hand. Don’t be afraid to act on it. Be tenacious and never give up. Cultivate the virtue of presence, seeing all the way down the timeline. Imagine the vibrant future and wondrous outcome. Think abundantly where dramatic solutions involve everyone benefiting. Be convinced and convicted like prophets of the future not your own. Plant seeds now, knowing they hold future promise. Be motivated by faith, take risks, be bold in the name of the Gospel. Be a reason for someone’s hope.”
Be a reason for someone’s hope – re-gifted. Pass it on.
Let me talk to you pragmatically for a moment. One of the organizations we support is Prison Entrepreneurship Program – PEP – you might remember Bert Smith came and spoke to us about it. PEP works with those who are in prison who are about to be released within the next year or two, and helps them develop a business plan for going into business when they get out. How to raise the capital, how to manage the work, how to get it going. So they bring that expertise and they help them do it.
Now what do they really bring? What they really bring more than anything is hope.
Some of you are Can-Care volunteers. Can-Care volunteers are cancer survivors who, when someone else is diagnosed with the same kind of cancer that you have, go and meet with them and talk to them about the journey. About chemotherapy, and losing your hair, and how our children respond, and the tiredness, and the pain, and all the things that you feel. And what you mostly do is sit beside them and you bring hope, because the very fact that you’re alive says, “I’m here to give you hope.”
Become a Kid’s Hope mentor. Sit and talk to them. A child for whom every other part of their culture is saying to them, “You’re not really going to amount to much, you know that?” And say to them, “I think you’re going to amount to a lot. I see huge potential in you. God has purpose for you. I’m here to give you hope.”
My father-in-law works at Christian Community Service Center and people come in requesting food or assistance for all sorts of things. They solve a very temporary problem in a very temporary way. But much of the power of a volunteer at the Christian Community Service Center is speaking to someone else and being a reason for their hope. To just share with them a word of hope that it can get better.
Our Christmas offering is for Early Childhood Literacy where we’re working with the Legacy Healthcare, and UT Health, to work with parents when they have children, who come to the pediatrician, or an obstetrician and they talk to those parents. They train them and give them tools about the first three years of a child’s life. And what an impact just talking to them means. They give them books to read to them, but they explain to them that if you don’t talk to your child enough when they get to kindergarten, they’re never going to catch up. It’s to say, “Look at all the potential in this baby that’s here.” You want to be a reason for hope.
It can be a small thing. Send a note, make a phone call, drop by to visit with someone. I love what Walt Disney said: “I hope we never lose sight of the fact that it all began with a mouse, a tiny mouse.” Hope can begin with just such a small thing.
James never got work in the investment business ever. He was given the briefcase and never got work in the investment business. But he did ultimately did get work at a Christian non-profit doing credit counseling. And as people would come in, thinking they were overwhelmed and they’d never get out of the hole they were in, many of them were unemployed, he would say to them, “Yeah, you can. You can do it. I know you can.” Sometimes he told them the story of the briefcase that he always carried. It was a Christian organization so he could pray with the people. He helped them with solutions, but as he likes to say, “Mostly what I do is give them hope.”
Let’s pray together. Lord God, we confess that sometimes we’re cynical and we do not believe your promises. We do not believe that the word that proceeds from your mouth never comes back empty, but always accomplishes that which you purposed for it. So, God, help us to receive and believe that message. And then let us find how we might be a reason for someone else’s hope. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.