LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART IV
A good friend of mine passed away last week. He was only 43 years old. He leaves behind a wife and three children – a son in college, a son in high school, and a daughter still in elementary school. He was diagnosed a few months ago with a highly treatable form of leukemia, and seemed to be on the road to recovery. Then, something went terribly wrong. He died in the hospital, surrounded by his family, on Tuesday afternoon.
We have come, these days, to not expect such calamitous things to happen. So many previously deadly diseases are now treatable. Life expectancy seems to increase every year. We all expect to live to a ripe old age. So when such things do happen, we find ourselves at a loss for words. We grieve deeply, and then we begin to question God. “How can a loving God allow such things to happen?” we wonder. “Why do bad things happen to good people…like us?”
If any one of us takes the time to take stock of our lives, we will find that a great number of things have gone wrong. Illness and injuries set us back. Children don’t turn out quite the way we planned. A husband or a wife turns out not to be who we thought they were. The economy collapses and we wonder how we’re going to survive our golden years. These are not things we typically bargain for, and when we believe we are following Jesus Christ, we expect them even less. So when they do happen, our faith tends to falter. “How can a loving God allow such things to happen?” we wonder. “Why do bad things happen to good people…like us?” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
This is the fourth in a series of sermons entitled, Living This Side of the Cross. The thesis of the series is pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.
Four weeks ago, we talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth. We said that the kingdom is here…but not fully here. Thus, could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? While we live in a throwaway society these days, perhaps there are some things we shouldn’t throw away. After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.
Three weeks ago we talked about living a worthy life. A worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed not in isolation, but rather, in community. Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer. You see, God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us. We see God acting in the world today when we witness the heartfelt convictions of those who serve him.
A man named Walter Percy wrote six novels in which he made us insiders to the sense of alienation that he found so pervasive in American culture. His name for this condition was, “lost in the cosmos.” In other words, from a spiritual perspective, we don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we came from, and we don’t know where we’re going. We are lost in the cosmos. This tends to be particularly true when things go wrong in our lives. So Walter Percy wrote his novels to wake us up to our desperate condition, and to set up a few signposts to help us find our way.
Believe it or not, the Apostle Paul knew a little bit about being lost in the cosmos as well, although he certainly would not have used those words. Yet Paul also tries to wake us up to our desperate condition, and to set up a few signposts to help us find our way. Paul does so, however, by providing an extensive witness to how God works in the world.
In the passage I read from the book of Ephesians, for example, it all begins with God. Paul fires off seven strong verbs that illuminate God’s way of working with us in the world. The verbs are: blessed, chose, destined, bestowed, lavished, made known, and gather. Let’s begin with the verb “blessed,” because I think that’s where our real questions lie. After all, when we take stock of our lives, we find that a great number of things have gone wrong. How blessed are we, really?
In verse 3 Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” That’s two “blesseds” and one “blessing” in a single sentence. The Greek word for bless is eulogia. We derive the word “eulogy” from this word. Eulogia literally means, “a benefit bestowed by God in Christ.” Yet there are times when we don’t feel very blessed, are there not? Could it be that this is simply a matter of perspective? Listen to this.
A group of students was once asked to list what they thought were the present-day Seven Wonders of the World. Though there were some mild disagreements, the following things received the most votes: 1) Egypt’s Great Pyramids, 2) The Taj Mahal, 3) The Grand Canyon, 4) The Panama Canal, 5) The Empire State Building, 6) St. Peter’s Basilica and 7) The Great Wall of China.
After gathering the votes, the teacher noticed that one student had not yet finished her list. So she asked the girl if she was having any trouble. The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there are so many.” The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.” The girl hesitated, then said, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh and to love.”
The room was so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop. Perhaps the Seven Wonders of the World are things we overlook as simple and ordinary…and often take for granted. Perhaps the same could be said about our blessings from God. If we could learn to dwell on the good things we have – instead of on the things we don’t – perhaps we would begin to see that. We are indeed blessed by God.
So first, Paul says that God blesses us. He goes on to say that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ. God bestowed grace upon us through the person of his Son. God lavished redemption and forgiveness according to the richness of his grace. God made known to us the mystery of his will through our relationship with Jesus Christ. And finally, God gathers up all things to him in Christ.
There it is: your roadmap through the cosmos. As Christians, we are blessed by God…chosen in Christ, destined for adoption, bestowed grace, lavished redemption and forgiveness, made to know the will of God through Christ, and gathered up to God in the end. You are a precious child of God – created in the image of God – and destined for eternal life. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Thus, there remains but one thing left for us to do. We must receive it. We must receive God’s gift to us in Christ. But how?
On a blustery autumn day, a young man named Bryan Anderson came across an elderly woman standing beside her car on an old country road. He pulled up behind her brand-new Mercedes Benz in his rusty, old pickup truck and asked her if she needed help. Yet even with the smile on his face, the elderly woman looked frightened. No one had even passed by – let alone, stopped to offer help – for over an hour. And this man looked tired, poor and hungry. “Was he going to hurt her?” she wondered.
The young man could see that she was frightened. He said to her, “I’m just here to help you, ma’am.” Noticing that her left rear tire was flat, he said to her, “Why don’t you just wait in the car where it’s warm? I’ll take care of this tire for you.”
So the woman got into the car while the young man crawled under it and looked for a place to set the jack. He got the job done – skinning his knuckles a time or two in the process, and getting pretty dirty. As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from Philadelphia, and was only passing through. She could not thank him enough for his kindness.
The young man just smiled as he put away the jack and closed the trunk. The woman then asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She had already imagined the terrible things that could have happened to her had he not stopped. But this was not a chore to the young man. This was helping someone in need. God knows, there were plenty of people who’d helped him out in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to live it any other.
He told her that if she really wanted to pay him, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed. Then he added, “And think of me – Bryan Anderson.” He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home.
A few miles down the road, that elderly woman stopped at a small café for a bite to eat. It was a dingy-looking restaurant, but it was the only place in town. The woman went in and sat down, and the waitress brought a clean towel over so she could wipe down her wet hair. The waitress had a sweet smile – one that even being on her feet the whole day could not erase. The woman also noticed that the waitress was pregnant – very pregnant. The woman was touched by the waitress’s kindness…and then she remembered Bryan Anderson.
After the woman finished her meal, she paid the tab with a one hundred dollar bill. The waitress went to get change for the woman, but by the time she got back, the woman was gone. Then she noticed something written on the napkin. It said, “You don’t owe me anything. I have been where you are. Somebody once helped me the way that I am helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you. And under the napkin, the waitress found four more crisp one hundred dollar bills.
Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill and people to serve…but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about what the woman had written. How could she have known how badly she and her husband needed it? With bills to pay and the baby due next month, it was going to be really tight.
She knew how worried her husband had been about expenses. As she crawled into bed and he lay sleeping next to her, she whispered in his ear, “Everything’s going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson.”
The issue at hand was receiving the grace of God. The question was, “How do we do that?” Maybe the way to receive God’s grace…is to simply pass it on. Amen.
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