Stand Firm, Hold Fast, Our Redeemer Lives
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
About ten days before she died, I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of interviewing Dr. Jane Goodall for the Cathedral’s podcast Crossroads. It was on very short notice and rather spontaneous. It seems Dr. Goodall was looking ahead on her calendar and saw that on one particular day she had an hour free on her schedule, and she wanted to fill that hour. At 91 years old, she wasn’t thinking about rest or taking it easy, she was thinking about how much she could accomplish with the time she had left, and she would not waste even an hour.
If you are interested, you can find my conversation with Dr. Jane on the Cathedral’s website or on all the major podcast platforms. And if you ever wonder what kind of impact her life and her work are having on people, we average about 30-40 thousand downloads per episode of the Cathedral’s podcast. My chat with Jane has more than 750,000 downloads and is still growing.
There are several things that especially struck me about our conversation. If you look at all the work Jane was doing near the end of her life, all the causes, all the speaking and writing, all the advocacy she was involved with, you could see that throughout her life she was continually growing. She was continually expanding not only her knowledge of the world but her passion and compassion for the world. A young woman who started out recording the behavior of chimpanzees in the jungle, became a world-renowned icon who was committed to the wellbeing not only of primates, but every type of animal. She worked passionately to slow climate change, environmental degradation, and the extinction of species. She fought to alleviate poverty and hunger around the world. She literally worked until her dying day because she believed this world of ours and all that lives on it are so precious we cannot waste a second.
What I found most moving and inspiring about Jane and what fueled her boundless energy was her sense of hope. She was driven by unwavering hope. During our conversation she said: “Well, we are indeed going through very, very dark times, politically, socially and of course, environmentally. And I see humanity. And so, we’re at the mouth of a very, very long, dark tunnel. And right at the end, there’s a little star shining. That’s hope. But it’s no good sitting at the mouth of the tunnel with our arms folded, hoping for that star to come close. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves, climb over, crawl under, work around all the obstacles that lie between us and that star.” That was Jane Goodall.
In our lesson from 2 Thessalonians for this morning, Paul is trying to bolster the resolve and the hopes of the church in Thessalonica. Thessalonica was a major Roman city, proud of its loyalty to the Roman Empire and deeply invested in the imperial cult. To be a Christian in that city meant that you refused to acknowledge Ceasar as Lord. Christ was Lord, Ceasar was a despot and tyrant. But by refusing to honor Ceasar, the church in Thessalonica risked social ostracism, public harassment and even violence. Christian businesses were boycotted, and the faithful were blocked from participating in the city’s trade guilds. As a result, the community was discouraged and afraid.
You have to remember that this was only 20 years or so after the resurrection and just ten years after the term Christian was even invented. These people were young in the faith. Paul was the founder of the church, but he was only physically with the community for a little more than three weeks before he was run out of town by a mob. The pressure on the Christians in Thessalonica to turn away from this nascent religion that followed the way of Jesus was intense. They were being plagued by false teachers, they wondered why Christ hadn’t returned and they feared that God had abandoned them. So, Paul wrote them a letter to encourage them in the faith.
In this letter, Paul warns them not to be “quickly shaken” or deceived by sensational claims or dramatic voices pretending to know God’s will. He reminds them that deceptive spiritual influences are real, and that they must stay rooted in what is true rather than getting swept away by fear-based thinking. Then he pivots and pastorally assures them that they are “beloved by the Lord,” chosen from the beginning, and held fast by the faithfulness of God. In other words: they must not let fear or deception define them, because their identity is anchored in Christ. Instead of panic, he urges them to “stand firm and hold fast,” trusting that God will strengthen their hearts “in every good work and word.” Paul’s message is simple and powerful—stay grounded in truth, refuse to be shaken, and remember that you belong to the resurrection and to the God who will not abandon you.
Friends, I know some in our community have not gotten a paycheck in weeks. I know others have been laid off or fired for nothing more than doing your jobs. I know there are several who worry about being swept up, detained, and deported even though you are living peaceful, productive lives and following all the rules. I know there are many who are hungry, struggling to buy food for your families while also paying the rent and the electric bill. Let Paul speak to you today. Let him speak to all of us.
Paul’s words echo down across the centuries to us this morning. His words to the Christians in Thessalonica could have been written to us. They were frightened, anxious, and confused by mixed messages and false voices. Paul didn’t minimize their troubles, instead he anchored them in something deeper: You are beloved by God. Do not be shaken. Stand firm and hold fast. He reminded them that the world may swirl with fear, but their identity does not come from their circumstances. It comes from the resurrection. We can make it through this, Paul says, if we stick together, if we help one another, if we take action. We can endure this, and we do not hope in vain.
I think Jane Goodall’s life gives us a living picture of what this hope looks like when it is put into practice. She spoke of a world filled with “dark times,” but she refused to let the darkness define her. She saw hope like a star at the end of a long tunnel—something you move toward with determination, sleeves rolled up, refusing to give in to despair. Her hope was not a naïve optimism; it was an active, resilient, stubborn courage that believed that striving against the darkness mattered, doing the work made a difference. In her own way, she lived the very thing Paul urged: do not be shaken. Do not give up. Keep moving toward the light. Paul wrote to bolster our hope – and Jane Goodall shows us what it looks like when a human life leans into that hope and keeps going. Together, they remind us that even now, in a fearful and fractured time, hope is not a luxury. It is a way of life rooted in God’s faithfulness and lived out with courageous persistence.
Finally, there was one moment in our conversation when Jane described a dream she had many years ago. She said, “I was, I suppose, 18, but I remember it as if it was yesterday, and I was, I don’t know how old I was in the dream, but I was pushing through a shouting, sweating, angry, angry crowd and they were shouting horrible things I couldn’t understand. It was another language, and I pushed through and there was this cross, big, with Jesus on it, and I got quite close, and he looked directly into my eyes and said something. I don’t remember what he said, but it was as though that dream, if it was a dream, has enabled me to do what I’m doing now. It’s like I’m answering some plea.”
My friends, the dream is real. Our hope, our work, our determination to follow Christ is not in vain. Even now, Christ’s Kingdom is breaking into this world of ours. So don’t give into the fear, don’t let deception fool you, stand firm and hold fast because you are God’s beloved. Because as Job reminds us this morning – we know that our redeemer lives and that at the last day he will stand upon the earth. We shall see God and our eyes behold him who is our friend and not a stranger. Amen.