Tell Us Plainly
At our church service this morning there was a woman who came forward to reaffirm her faith. It was different than most reaffirmations because she had not lost or fallen away from her faith but she did suffer a stroke about a month ago. This was the first Sunday she was able to join us for church since her stroke and she contacted me Saturday about wanting to do this. I had visited her several times in the hospital and knew that her faith was not struggling, in fact she had been quite the inspiration to me during the whole ordeal but I had to ask her why she wanted to do this. She said that her life is much different now. There are several things she has difficulty doing now that she did not before her stroke. She said that she lives a much different life now yet she wanted to show the congregation that her faith in God, His plan for her had not slipped away. The reason God allowed this happen is not known, and may never be, but the courage it took for her to get up there this morning was an inspiration. It showed me, and hopefully those who witnessed this act of courage this, that God's love, mercy, and grace do not fade in difficult times, they do not fade in the face of tragedy. As long as we continue to seek God in the most difficult of situations, I have no doubt that we will find find Him as long as we seek Him. God's Spirit was definitely with us this morning, from the hymns that we sang, to the scripture read, to this woman standing up reaffirming her faith. For those of you who struggle to believe in the power of God, there is no way to explain to you how this morning may have changed that for you. I do not know where anyone stands in their faith as you read these words but I hope and pray that God's Spirit somehow touches you, that somehow God makes His presence known to you. There is so much more God wants to show each of us but we first must seek His love.
John 10:22-39:
John 10:22-39:
22 Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” 39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
As the events of the past week have unfolded in Boston and West, Texas, I have found myself wondering and struggling with how to explain such tragedies in a way that allows for God's love to be made known to all of you. Honestly, it has been a struggle. I mean, how do I explain to you that a loving, caring God would allow these two tragedies to occur. How could He allow an innocent 8 year old boy and two others in Boston to die because of the horrible actions of two individuals. How could He allow 14 people in Texas to die in that explosion, and that number is likely to get bigger as they are still trying to find many who are still missing. These questions led to many questions like: How could God allow so many innocent young children perish because they are starving to death across the world? How could God allow so many innocent people to die for absolutely no logical reason? And how could God allow people to take for granted the frailty and and shortness of life? I found myself in the exact same shoes as the Jews described in this morning’s scripture. I found myself asking God to just tell me very plainly why He allows such tragedies to happen. I did not want to try to discern the meaning by reading the Bible or by reading some news report in the hopes that He would reveal Himself to me. I just wanted him to tell me very bluntly and plainly. I found myself very frustrated with so many different emotions running through me. After I heard about the bombs in Boston, I was mad! I wanted those people to be found and to pay dearly for what they had done. Initially, I wanted them dead, plain and simple. I felt that the only way to justify the fear and loss that they put all of those people through was for them to be dead. But once I found out that they killed one of the suspects, I did not feel any better about what had happened. After hearing that they had caught the second suspect Friday night, again I did not feel one bit better about what had happened. I found reading the stories about the first responders who rushed head first into an unknown situation to help those who were hurt helped me deal with what had happened in both Texas and Boston. For example, I read about Capt. Kenny Harris, who was off-duty and went to the plant to help evacuate the plant while it was on fire but lost his life when the plant exploded. Mr. Harris has three children who now have lost their father. These three kids are now without their father but who knows how many lives he helped save. At this time, knowing that he helped saved lives probably does not help the kids to understand the loss of their dad but I hope and pray that it will someday help them deal with this loss. This really got me thinking about people like Mr. Harris and other first responders in both Texas and Boston and wondering if they believed in God and why they would rush so quickly into a situation that they know very little about. Where could they have possibly found the courage? I came to the conclusion that it was their nature, it was who God had made them to be. I have no idea if they believed in God, but what I do know is that they are human and as the scripture tells us that whether we believe or not, God is with us. The decision we must make is whether or not we want to be apart of God’s flock, some may see these tragedies and not be able to see God but that is only because they are not apart of His flock. Our faith does not keep us from tragedy but it does give us hope in times like this. It gives us an escape from the loneliness. It is human-nature to want God to explain things like these tragedies to us very plainly but the truth is that we must seek God before He will reveal Himself to us, just like I had to read the scripture and news reports for God to reveal Himself to me, I had to seek Him.
I have struggled writing this sermon more than most because I do not want to give you all the impression that a faith in God means that tragedy is unknown to us, because it doesn’t. I have struggled to make sense of this week, to put these tragedies into words, to justify my faith, to answer all of these questions. I have no doubt that you have also gone through something very similar. But the truth is that we live in a fallen world. Ever since Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple, mankind has been flawed. Those flaws are still prevalent in this world today and that is why tragedy, pain, and loss still happen in this world. God was still with Adam and Eve after their fall from the graces just as God is still with us but we must undersand that the world we live is in fact flawed. John 16:33 says, "Take heart! I have overcome the world." This scripture reminds us that even though we are fallen and live in a fallen world, God is still with us. If God had to send Jesus to overcome the world then that means the world as we know is not what God intended. God intended us to live in a place free of sin, free of pain and suffering. But since mankind fell in the Garden, that is no longer possible. While it is true that suffering is apart of this world, it is not part of the eternal world. This is where Christ stepped in to die for us so we too could overcome the sin of this world to live on in an eternal kingdom.
In the midst of these national tragedies, we each have our own decisions and life experiences that only compound our doubt. But before I can go any further I have to tell you that the love that God has for each of us is much bigger than our doubts. There is a song with the lyrics that say God's love for us is underneath, above, inside and in between all that we may face and those lyrics hit home in the midst of our troubles. We are never out of reach for God's love if we look for it, if we seek it. Last week I told you about the calf that I prayed for and it made a full recovery but Tuesday when I was checking the calves there was a perfectly good and healthy calf laying dead in a shed out in the pasture. The second calf born this year was dead, for no reason at all. I know this seems minor to a lot of things that we encounter in this life, the decisions we must make, and the loved ones that we lose but it still caused doubts to enter into my head about my ability to work on the farm. How did I not see that this calf was sickly yesterday? Why didn’t I check them Monday before I went home? When we lose loved ones we often find ourselves asking why didn’t I do more? Why didn’t I say I loved them more often? Why didn’t I spend more time with them? Our life experiences lead us to be filled with a lot of doubts and questions. We want and demand God to show up in those moments. But the point is that God does not just show up, He is not something that is here in one moment and chooses to leave in the next. He is always with us, even in those moments where we feel like He is absent but if we choose not to seek Him in those moments, then we don’t know that He is there. It is not the fact that God leaves us, it is us who choose not to see Him. While there were those who lost their lives in these tragedies, there were also those lives who were saved. Just as verses 25-28 say, “25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.”” If we are not apart of God’s flock then we will not see Him in moments like this. We will not see Him in moments of doubt. But if we do belong to God and we seek Him then His presence is very evident in such moments. The scripture says that no one, absolutely no one, no act of terror, nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39, “38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” But we first must be apart of His flock.
In this morning’s scripture, those around Jesus were getting frustrated that they could not understand what He was telling them. He had shown them miracles, he had told them several times that he was the Messiah but yet they did not believe. So what was their first instinct? They wanted to stone him for blasphemy, they wanted to get rid of him but the key phrase is in verse 39, “...he escaped their grasp.” When I read this, I thought this was extremely profound because the verse is saying that Jesus physically was able to get away from the crowd but it struck me as meaning he escaped them spiritually as well. Jesus had been in their presence, he had been teaching them, he had been performing miracles yet the crowd did not believe. The love of Jesus escaped them. How appropriate is this verse in our world today. The love, teachings and miracles are around us every day, even in the midst of tragedy, yet so many fail to see them, so many fail to see God through the smoke. His love is there, yet somehow it escapes them.
As Christians, God has given us the tools to help us deal with tragedies and doubts but we must use and more importantly, we must share them so that others can better handle these situations better. It would have only taken one person to show those two men the love of Christ and the situation in Boston could possibly have been avoided. But none of them were able to find the courage, as Christians we need to have the courage of those first responders. We have to be able to share our faith with the same courage and tenacity as those who went to help those who were physically suffering. We have to remember that there are people out there who are suffering spiritually, that for the time being the love of Christ has escaped them and we must, we have to muster the courage to help them in their time of need. It is crucial that we approach our faith with such tenacity as we approach so many other things in our lives. As an athlete, I would approach games with a certain attitude, with a certain confidence and that attitude and confidence must be found in my faith as well. We are so willing to approach several aspects of our lives with this tenacity but when it comes to our faith we are subdued for some reason. First, we must seek God in moments and tragedies like the ones of the past week. And second, we must approach them with confidence, strength and courage. We have to approach it knowing that it is a matter of eternal life or death. If the love of Christ has escaped you until today, do not worry because He is waiting for you. His heart is burning for you to follow Him. He has so much planned for you and if you are ready, you can accept His love. If you can find it in your heart to accept that God loves you so much that He sent His son to die for your sins then He wants you to join His flock. If you choose to do so, tragedies will still be present in your life but now you will have in your heart a God who very much wants to help you deal with them. No matter how badly we want God to just tell us very plainly we must first seek love, seek peace and seek God. Amen.
God Bless,
Clinton
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