She believed that for the first fifteen years. Then she became discouraged. In time the company changed management, and she was part of the group that was laid off. Two years later, she was still looking for work. And now she was also the sole caretaker for her aging parents.

She said that she didn't think God was hearing her prayers. She thought she was surely doing something wrong. Was there a way to pray that she hadn't tried yet, she asked.

Her friends told her that if she prayed hard enough her prayers would be answered and she would live in the joy of the Lord. She said that she had tried to smile and be happy, but she didn't feel very happy. Her friends said that she would receive her rewards in heaven.

Then she said to me: "If this faith stuff doesn't have something to do with receiving on this side of life, then I'm not interested.

"If it doesn't have something to do with some justice on this side of life, then I'm not interested.

"If it doesn't have something to do with some peace on this side of life, then count me out."

Then she concluded her story by asking: "Just where is God anyway? If I could just see some evidence, maybe I could believe. Is God too busy for the likes of me?"

Today's word is for the likes of you, my friend. And anybody else today who has felt doubt, despair and abandonment. God has a word for you.

If you have stood at the grave side of someone you loved and watched as their coffin was lowered into the ground and been unable to exclaim, "Death is swallowed up in victory," then you have an understanding of how those first disciples felt with the death of Jesus.

This word is for you who are despairing disciples

who have been broken by a vision

or for those of you who have worked hard to keep family and work together
   and find that you are standing on sinking sand

for those of you who have worked to keep love and justice embracing, and
   found the mushrooming of more enemies....and more violence.

for those of you who have given your lives to causes and programs and
   institutions that have run full speed in the opposite direction of your efforts.

If we are honest, surely we have to admit that there are days when we cannot follow the biblical admonition to give account of the hope that is within us. Some days our accounts have run dry. There is no hope left, and we are ready to declare bankruptcy. Despair, cynicism, anger, and depression sneak up on us, knock on our door, and demand to be let into our inner-chambers. There are times when hope's door is not strong enough. Sometimes, don't you despair?

A long time ago, God despaired. It was during the time when the prophet Ezekiel was the shepherd of a flock of defeated people. He was the pastor-prophet to a congregation forced into exile in Babylon.

The people were chanting:

Our bones are dried up.
Our hope is lost.
We are clean cut off.

Ezekiel preached to a beaten-down people.

As the preacher, Ezekiel's concern was not with job security or getting a book of the Bible named for him. His concern was in prying open the worried hands of the people long enough to receive God's hope and new life. Ezekiel worried that his dramatic techniques were not getting the attention of the people. He started thinking it was all up to him.

But then, one day God plopped Ezekiel down in the middle of a valley of bones -- dried up bones.

This time, God despaired.

God took a good look at God's people and saw dried up hopes and dried up dreams and dried up congregations and dried up programs.

And God said: "Can these bones live?"

Ezekiel did not respond to God by pointing out all the good things that were happening in spite of dried up bones. Ezekiel did not respond to God by putting on a happy face, shoring up a positive mental attitude and looking on the bright side. Ezekiel had the wisdom and humility to respond to God's question of, "Can these bones live?" with, "I don't know. I don't know. Only you know, God."

The only hope we have, my friends, is in a God who can breathe life into our dried up bones.

A few years ago, a Vietnam veteran was in despair. He began experiencing the after-tremors of his war service in what we now have started calling "post-traumatic syndrome." Nightmares stalked his mind. Day anxieties left him in cold sweats. The VA hospital put him in therapy, but he also sought the help of pastors. He went from one pastor to the next saying, "Pastor, I killed twenty-four people in Vietnam. I can't sleep at night remembering it all. What can I do? How can I get over this?"

One pastor told him to put it out of his mind and think on other things because what is past is past and there is no use dwelling on history and things that you can't change. Concentrate on the present and on your life that was spared.

Another pastor told him not to feel guilty because he was following orders, and he could not be held accountable for his actions. "You are forgiven completely," this pastor said.

A third pastor listened to the anguish of the young man. She sat in silence listening to the soldier's story of killings. When the veteran asked his question, "What can I do? How can I get over this?" the pastor continued to sit in silence.

Then she put her head in her hands and wept uncontrollably, shaking her head back and forth and saying, "I don't know. I don't know."

The veteran joined the weeping pastor, and together they wept for a world much too frightening and much too confusing to have answers, a world much too big and sorrowful for only one person's tears.

There are griefs we bear and sorrows we share that the way we suffer through them is by flowing on a river of tears. But at the center of our faith is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who weeps with us. Sisters and brothers, the resurrection came to people who were weeping, people who were at the end of their rope. The resurrection came to people who were shaking their heads and saying, "I don't know. I just don't know."

For most Americans, Easter has become a day to fortify our great optimism. It has become a day to look at our privilege and to celebrate our continued plan for privilege. But the first resurrection did not come to people of privilege. The resurrection came to people who were at the end of their rope, people who were devastated with no hope for the restored kingdom that they longed for, with no hope for pulling any meaning out of this great tragedy.

Resurrection happened, not with trumpet sounds, Easter lilies,

budding trees and a great burst of sunlight, but it came in the early morning mist, while it was still too dark to see clearly,

through weeping and weariness, through fear and confusion, through the disorientation of grief, through arms reaching out to feel the way in the darkness. It came. It came, not because they'd found some sure-fire way to enliven the worship services on Sunday morning. It came, not because they finally got their political party in office. It came, not because they found an innovative program for mission action. It came because our God is a God who breathes life into dead bones.

The resurrection did not change this Good Friday world of ours. The resurrection changed the disciples, and the world never looked the same to them again. And they found themselves remembering Jesus' words, "In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world."

We know why the world is weeping, and we are called to stand alongside the weeping of this world. So you who are weeping, hear this news. Christ came for you. Resurrection is about the breath of God's spirit that breathes life into us and calls us forth to keep on. Resurrection is about reconciling the spirit within us, that hope that lives on with the darkness of a weeping world.

Jesus did not leave us with an empty longing. Jesus the Christ left us with light, the hope, the spirit of seeing in a way that the world cannot see. The disciples began to see it. They began to see it in the dim mist of a devastating morning. Christ lives on in our hearts and in our lives. We will bring good news to the afflicted. We will bind up the broken-hearted. We will proclaim liberty to the captives, and we will open the prison for those who are bound. We will feel our way in the darkness. We will hold onto God's vision of a world made whole, for Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Thanks be to God. Christ is risen. Let us go and tell the others.

David Hardin: Nancy, you have been involved in controversy and pressure. How do you handle it?

Nancy Sehested: Well, not very easily. It is not something where I go into situations and say, "How is it that I could stir up yet one more controversy?" I have found that God's middle name seems to be "surprise." In the midst of trying to be faithful to responding to God's surprising calls, I find that controversy has followed me whether I liked it or not.

Hardin: It is part of the journey for you, isn't it?

Sehested: It has been part of the journey.

Hardin: How does God help in that? Just from hearing you tonight, I know that God is clearly in your life. Does He get you through the controversy?

Sehested: Absolutely. I think that in my journey what has helped me the most is my prayer life, where the Spirit continues to give me strength, my family, my friends, a very supportive husband, and the biblical story where I find all kinds of controversial people whom God called to speak a word on God's behalf. I find myself in good company, so I feel like I am with others who have gone before me.

Hardin: You know Jesus talks a lot about peace and kindness. What is it that causes people in churches to get so excited and so polarized? Do they have a sense of ownership, or what is it?

Sehested: I have always wondered that. I am not real sure, but we certainly feel passionate about our beliefs. That is a good thing, but when the passion closes us off from other people, I think it becomes destructive. It is not what Jesus wanted.

Hardin: Do you feel sometimes that fanaticism is a little dangerous?

Sehested: I think it is quite dangerous. It makes many enemies and leaves many bloody bodies on the battlefield.

Hardin: The Viet Nam veterans story reminded me that your husband is in the Baptist Peace Fellowship. What is it that they are trying to accomplish?

Sehested: I think they want to say that the heart of the gospel is following the Prince of Peace who really brings peace, not only within ourselves, but in relationships, between nations, within a city. It is the hope of that organization to keep that message alive.

Hardin: Don't you think it is getting better, at least between nations?

Sehested: We have certainly seen evidence of some miraculous things with some walls coming down. We can certainly give thanks for that and hope that it continues to happen.

Hardin: Do you think the people will have to find some new enemies or can we finally accept peace?

Sehested: Wouldn't that be great if it were true, that we would not have to go looking for other enemies, that we could find that we can live in the world with people without having to name any enemies. It seems to be part of human nature to keep looking for enemies. I don't think that is what Jesus wanted.

Hardin: That is not what He had in mind.

Sehested: No, I don't think so.

Hardin: Maybe we can finally grow up and drop them.

Sehested: I hope so. That would be a sign of the kingdom come on earth.

Hardin: Thank you so much for being with us. It has been great to have you here.