September 5, 2004

"Labor Day"

I was driving down the road yesterday with Robin and for no reason whatsoever I started to sing a song from the musical “Annie.” It just popped into my head and popped back out again.

That’s the way my mind works, or sort of works. I told Robin sometimes I think my mind is like a mirror broken into a thousand pieces. You just never know what piece is going to catch the light.

I say this because, well, I sort of got a late start on a sermon this week, because earlier in the week I was finishing a newsletter article. I was thinking about what might be a good topic for Labor Day Sunday, but my mind kept going back to the newsletter article and how this has been a particularly rough summer for people having health problems, and passing through death, both here in the church and in the larger community. This is a tight-knit community and even when someone from another church or no church at all dies, the rippling pain affects everybody.

Now what’s this have to do with singing a number from a musical?

When I was in college, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, a musical came out that is now all but forgotten. It was called “Celebration,” and it had a very simple plot line about good vs. evil and one generation growing old and another taking its place. That’s how life works, right? The main character sings a song about some of the basic questions of our existence, and this song still pops into my mind sometimes: “Does this lonely road just lead to nowhere? Can it be that there’s no reason why, when in spite of all the strife, and the endless dying, life keeps reaching higher for the sky?”

In other words, is there a force that keeps us bouncing back when we experience heartbreak and discouragement? Do we have a future?

I’m here, of course, to offer a resounding “Yes,” but let me elaborate for just a few minutes.

We start almost everything we do as Christians, certainly every sermon, with the premise that our lives are a wonderful gift from God the Father. And the best thing about the gift of life is its amazing resiliency.

We humans bounce back, more or less, from the tough hits we take in the course of living. We were never promised a stress-free existence, and I know that each one of us has come through some terrible hardships. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t.

Sure, lots of people look like they’ve had it pretty easy, but you learn as you grow older to look under the surface a little bit, and discover that your neighbor’s problems are much the same as your own.

The people who don’t bounce back from their trials and problems are those with no sense of the future.

Keeping our eyes on the future, that’s hard for Americans. We want instant gratification in everything. But the gospel of Christ doesn’t offer instant gratification. There is a lot of patient waiting required to obtain the promises of Christ. Sometimes, justice is not to be found in this world.

Many times, when we suffer, all we really can do is focus on the promise of the heavenly kingdom. There may never be real relief from our problems here on earth, but there is a future, a promised home where we will forget about all the sorrows we endured in this life. So let’s quickly look at four principles that will keep us going, keep us reaching for the sky when life is in the pits.

First, there is somebody who knows what you’re going through, and cares.

On the front of a Christmas card were the pictures of many famous conquerors and dictators—Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin. The caption on the card read, “Throughout history there were many men who wanted to be gods.” Then inside the card it said, “But only one God who wanted to be a man.”

What we must never lose sight of, what we must never fail to appreciate, is that Jesus became a man for one reason—so that he could die, and thus, save a world. Along the way he experienced everything, all the pain, all the hurts, all the temptation, that you and I face, only without sin.

Have you ever told somebody about a problem, and they said, “I know just how you feel,” and you were tempted to say, “No you don’t.”

Well, Jesus really does. He has faced all the same problems that we face, and knows how we feel. He cares.

Second, the one who cares proved how much he cares long ago.

In his book “Written in Blood,” Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor had explained that that girl had the same disease that the little boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, he was the ideal donor. And the doctor asked the little boy, “Would you give your blood to Mary?”

Johnny hesitated and his lip started to tremble. But then he smiled and said, “Sure, for my sister.”

Soon the two children were wheeled into the operating room—Mary, pale and thin, and Johnny, healthy and robust. Neither one spoke, but Johnny caught his sister’s eye and grinned. As the nurse inserted the needle in his arm, Johnny’s smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube, and when the ordeal was almost over, he said, “Doctor, when do I die.” Only then did the doctor realize why he had hesitated, why his lip had trembled. To Johnny blood equaled life, and he thought giving up his blood meant giving up his life.

Johnny, fortunately, didn’t have to give his life for his sister. But all of us had a condition even more serious than Mary’s, and that condition required Jesus to give not just his blood, but his life. He proved his love for us. So why do we doubt him?

Third, we have to do our part by praying constantly. Pray even when there is nothing else to do but pray. Pray because there is nothing else to do but pray.

I think the single thing that I love doing as a pastor, more than anything, is the chance to pray for all of you, and myself as well. But it’s so important that we all carry our prayer life forward seven days a week, not just for an hour on Sunday morning. My mother used to call it “storming heaven with our prayers.”

Jesus said in Luke 18:1 that we ought to pray constantly and never become discouraged. But I think that our natural inclination is to stop praying when we get discouraged. I know that many of us—or perhaps all of us—have gotten into a situation where we lose heart and stop praying, saying something along the lines of “Why bother? Nobody’s listening. Nobody cares”.

And we may turn our backs on God and blame him for our problems. We may get into a twisted kind of logic where we say “God is all-powerful, so he could help me if he wanted to. He sees the pain in my heart. I am desperately crying out to him, and he is not listening to me. He is playing games with me. He is fickle.”

And in desperation, we might say, “God, you have a problem, and I don’t feel like praying to a God who has a problem. You obviously don’t care about me and the problems I’m going through. You are not worthy of my worship because I cannot depend on you. You are unreliable. I have prayed again and again, and obviously you have not heard me, and I do not want to pray to you any more.”

Jesus did not say there would never be times when we get discouraged and start to lose heart, and it is at those times when we demonstrate how real our faith is, and whether we really love him for who he is, rather than for what he can do for us.

Do you want Jesus, or only his blessings?

It is during these times of wilderness experiences, when life feels barren, that the reality of our desire and commitment to Christ will be revealed—whether we will lose heart because we are not getting what we want.

Finally, we need to rely on God’s promises. Did you enjoy Psalm 131? It’s amazing it’s not read more in the churches. Psalm 131 says “My heart was at peace when I finally gave up on the idea that I had all the answers. There are some questions that we cannot answer, not in this lifetime. But I am content to lie in my Father’s arms and trust in his strength and goodness forever.” Psalm 131 doesn’t mean that we go through life blissfully ignorant. But it does mean that we need to stop driving ourselves crazy trying to figure out the why of some things.

A theologian once said that Christianity is not a blind faith proposition. He said the cup is ¾ full of what God has revealed about himself and his ways, and the other ¼ is where our faith must take over.

There are certain things that we will never fully understand about God, such as why he lets certain things happen in our lives. Instinctively, the life that God was pleased to put inside us seeks out God’s power for everyday living.

I saw a good sign on a church this week. It said very simply, “In the dark? Follow the Son.”

When you see a blade of grass poking up in a crack in the sidewalk, that’s what that blade of grass is doing: seeking the sunlight.

And when a soul that has been battered and bruised and knocked around still rises and keeps going in spite of everything, that’s what it is doing: Following the Son, who gives us his power to find a reason to go on. We need to remember God’s promises, folks. God is faithful. His people will be delivered. He’s come through for us in the past, and not just in material goods. He’s come through for us with a caring friend, an encouraging word, an unexpected gift. And he’ll come through in the future. He is the same God, yesterday, today and forever.

Does anybody here know how a three way light bulb works? I didn’t know this until this week. Inside a three way light bulb there are two filaments. Most three way bulbs are 50 watts, 100 watts and 150 watts.

When you turn the switch to the first setting, electricity flows through the first filament, making it glow at the 50 watt level. Turn the switch to the second setting, and the 100 watt filament glows. But turn the switch to the third setting, and both filaments light up, for a combined 150 watts worth of light.

I think that life is a lot like that. We know that our relationship with God is based on three factors—faith, hope and love.

If any one of those factors is alive and bright in our lives, then we shed a little of Christ’s life in this dark and lonely place we call Planet Earth.

If two of the three are present, the glow of God’s presence shining through us is much greater and reassuring.

 But if all three, faith, hope and love, are truly active and powerful in our lives, catch this—then the darkness cannot prevail against the overwhelming glow that will be the promise of God’s kingdom established right here and now.

I say this because I know that you all are loving people. That’s a given. That’s the 50 watt bulb shining in you. Many of you are hopeful of a better world and a future in heaven. That’s the 100 watt bulb shining.

But for many people, faith is tough. Faith is a challenge, a continuous struggle. Especially when we smack up against the brutal realities of a world that seems to be indifferent whether we live or die.

So what keeps faith alive in a world that seems to taunt us? The answer is not found in theology. It’s not found in philosophy. The answer is not even found in religion.

Only one reality makes faith come alive and burn bright, and that reality is Jesus Christ, who is real, and risen from the grave, and triumphant over all things, including the power of Satan.

So if in the face of life’s disappointments, in the face of health problems and the loss of loved ones, of broken marriages and broken dreams, of money problems and family problems, in the face of drugs and alcohol and gambling and every other addiction that human beings are prey to, even in the very face of death, we cling to the promise of life because of Jesus Christ.

In the Letter to the Hebrews we read, “What is man, O God, that you should think of him, mere man, that you should care for him? You made him a little bit lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor, and made him ruler of all things.”

The author goes on to say, this was God’s plan for the world, that men and women should live in peace with each other and with all creation, that there should be no suffering, no pain, no tears.

Of course, we all know that’s not an accurate picture of real life the way we see it. But Hebrews continues, “we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that through God’s grace he should die for everyone. We see him now crowned with glory and honor because of the death he suffered.”

Those few verses have great meaning for all of us.

They say that yes, life is difficult, but Jesus triumphed over the worst things that life could do to him—his love was answered with scorn and hate, his friends abandoned him at his moment of crisis, he was humiliated, tortured and left on a cross to die. But he triumphed.

Remember the words to my song, “In spite of all the strife and the endless dying, life keeps reaching higher for the sky?”

That’s Jesus calling for us to triumph, also. His call comes to us like a whisper on the wind, sometimes in the middle of the night or in the midst of a busy work day. He comes to us with visions of a world not the way it is, but what it could be. Just like the hardware store slogan: he says, “You can do it, and I can help.”

So if we can find in our poor souls even the slightest love for Jesus, how can we not struggle on through success and failure, through good times and bad, through hope and disappointment, through life and death until at last all of us, and all of creation, are as good and beautiful as God has promised?

That’s a Labor Day message we all can embrace.