Years ago a fascinating study was published on the topic of mice and hope.

Researchers took a number of mice and, one by one, put them in a bucket of water to see how long they would live.

These scientists noted that an average mouse would try to swim for about 10 minutes before giving up, surrendering to his fate and sinking to the bottom to drown.

The researchers would then scoop the mice up, revive them and let them go on their merry way.

However, when they put these same mice, who had been once rescued, back into the bucket, they noticed something absolutely astonishing.

These mice did not try to swim and struggle for 10 minutes before giving up, they would now go on for 60 minutes.

In other words, having experienced a miraculous rescue, seeing that there might be some possibility of survival, these mice hung on six times longer.

This Sunday, the last Sunday before Holy Week, we hear the iconic story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave. Lazarus had been dead for 4 days, people thought Jesus had lost his marbles for suggesting he would be revived.

You know the story, Jesus commanded the dead man to come out, he did, and the amazed disciples would take this story and store it in their hearts as they went into the very first Holy Week. 

It's as if Jesus wanted them to witness this life after death event in preparation for his own, hoping, perhaps that they, too, would have six times more faith than before.

Jesus has us hear these stories because he wants us to believe as well. Jesus wants us to know that we serve a God who makes possible the impossible.

So when people tell us we'll never solve the problems of gun violence, loneliness, homelessness, political division, and poverty, we are not ones to chime in and say, 'You're right, these will never be solved.' No, we have seen God do impossible things, so we can be a people of hope.

We know that the world does not get any better by negativity, pessimism, apathy, and defeatism, of which there is way too much. What the world needs, is Jesus message of hope, and Jesus's people, you and me, to be heralds of that hope.

We, too, have seen, let us go and act accordingly.