YEARNING FOR LIFE: PART I
Will there be golf in heaven? That’s a question that once was asked of the Rev. Dr. John Ortberg, the senior minister at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. Will there be golf in heaven? The man who raised the question reasoned, “I think heaven will be what makes me happy, and since golf makes me happy…there must be golf in heaven.” Ortberg explained that while there will be joy in heaven, the man might have to grow in certain areas of his life in order to become the kind of person who experiences joy in God’s community. Then Ortberg added, “The Bible also says that there will be no lying, no cheating, no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in heaven. Without those things, how can there be golf? Thus, there will be no golf in heaven. Tennis, maybe, but no golf.”
The issue of whether or not there will be golf in heaven aside, that man’s question is indicative of how many of us tend to approach the Christian faith. We want our faith to bring us joy and happiness and an absence of pain. We want God to help us to live fulfilling and comfortable lives. Our deepest desire seems to be reaching the splendor and grandeur of Easter without the desolation and heartache of Good Friday. In other words, while we may love the season of Advent, we’re not so sure about this season we call Lent.
In the season of Lent, we are invited to examine biblical stories that evidence waiting and yearning, but their character is very different from the stories of Advent. Stories of waiting and yearning in Lent and Holy Week are laced with strange mixtures of excitement on the one hand, and fear on the other; success on the one hand, and failure on the other; loyalty on the one hand, and betrayal on the other; affirmation on the one hand, and denial on the other; life on the one hand, and death on the other. Jesus’ popular Galilean ministry of teaching and healing takes a dramatic turn after his mountaintop visit with Moses and Elijah, when God affirmed for the second time that Jesus was his beloved Son. When Jesus returned from the transfiguration, he found a confused band of disciples, frustrated at their own efforts to teach and to heal. It was from that moment that he told them of his determination to go to Jerusalem to encounter certain death. This turn of events, of course, marks the beginning of our Lenten season.
The crowds were no longer as enamored with Jesus as they once had been because they did not understand the direction he was heading. Even his disciples objected to the thought of his death. His followers were waiting and yearning, but they were waiting and yearning for the crowning of a warrior king who would squash the hated Romans, not for a docile king who would ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and suffer an ignominious death. The gospel according to Matthew places Jesus’ intent to go to Jerusalem immediately after the feeding of the five thousand, where waiting and yearning were literally expressed by their determination to make him their king. But Jesus disappointed them…inviting them to let go of their illusions.
Our own Lenten stories are often filled with the same elements of failure, disillusionment and frustration. We know all too well the agony of defeat. We understand what it means to be hurt, or to be lonely, or to be afraid. We get the fact that sometimes life doesn’t make any sense at all. And all the while, we find ourselves yearning for life. We find ourselves mysteriously unable to give up hope.
The liturgical color for the season of Lent is purple. In the season of Advent, the color purple was meant to signify royalty. The color of purple in Lent is meant to characterize waiting and yearning in the experiences of repentance, suffering, death, relinquishment, brokenness, alienation, abandonment, loneliness, isolation and even conflict. That’s why, in recent years, we’ve changed the Advent color to blue. Thus, as we approach the season of Lent and our sanctuary is adorned with purple, we need to keep in mind what that color really means. Lent, my friends, is a time for self-examination. Perhaps there are even certain questions we should be asking ourselves as we seek God’s presence in Lent…questions like the following:
- Do I feel like I am in a wilderness?
- Do I see weakness in myself and the need to change?
- What do I need to allow to die in me in order to be closer to God?
- What do I need to confess in order to be free of guilt?
- With what am I struggling and in pain?
- Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?
- How far have I strayed from God’s purpose for my life?
- Do I doubt God, myself, or others?
- From what – or from whom – do I run away and hide?
- And last but not least: Am I facing temptation that I need help to resist?
Jesus found himself facing temptation in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. After his baptism, he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. There he fasted for forty days and forty nights, and at the end of his time in the wilderness, he was hungry. I can well imagine that he was. This, of course, is the time the devil chose to strike. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Tempting a hungry man with food can be very effective. For example, a man on a diet should avoid Pizza Hut, don’t you think? It’s a temptation few have the power to resist.
Yet Jesus withstood the temptation. “One does not live by bread alone,” he said, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Later the devil tempted Jesus to prove his divinity, and with worldly power, yet Jesus was up to both temptations. Perhaps the key is revealed in his ability to resist the first temptation. There Jesus said in essence that humanity lives by the word of God.
Jesus lived by the word of God. Jesus loved the word of God. His secret to resisting temptation was that he was aware of something even better than what the devil had to offer. That’s essentially what Harry Emerson Fosdick was saying in his book, The Manhood of the Master. He wrote:
Only by a stronger passion can evil passions be expelled, and a soul unoccupied by positive devotion is sure to be occupied by spiritual demons. The safety of the Master in the presence of temptation lay in his complete and positive devotion to his mission: there was no unoccupied room in his soul where evil could find a home. He knew what Dr. Chalmers called, “The expulsive power of a new affection.” When Ulysses passed the Isle of Sirens, he had himself tied to the mast and had his ears stopped up with wax, that he might not hear the sirens singing – a picture of many a man’s pitiful attempts after negative goodness. But when Orpheus passed the Isle of Sirens, he sat on the deck, indifferent, for he too was a musician and could make melody so much more beautiful than the sirens, that their alluring songs were to him discords. Such is the Master’s life of positive goodness: so full, so glad, so triumphant, that it conquered sin by surpassing it.
Jesus was able to resist temptation because the temptation was really no temptation to him. His music was better than the devil’s. Or, perhaps better put, he knew of a better way of life than that which the devil had to offer. That, my friends, is how we resist temptation as well. The way of life we pursue as Christians is better than any temptation the world has to offer. And we find this way of life revealed to us in the word of God. That, my friends, is why we read the Bible.
Yet the Bible is hard to understand in places, is it not? Sometimes we don’t get anything out of it and wonder, “What’s the point? Why read something that makes no sense?” Listen now to a story that addresses that issue. It’s about an old man who lived in the mountains of Kentucky with his grandson many years ago.
Every morning, Grandpa was up early – sitting at the kitchen table – reading from his old, worn out Bible. His grandson, who wanted to be like him in every way, tried to imitate him as best he could. One day the grandson said, “Grandpa, I try to read the Bible like you, but I just don’t understand it…and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bible do anyway?”
The grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and said, “Take this old wicker coal basket down to the river and bring it back full of water.” The boy did as he was told, even though all the water leaked out before he could get back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, “You will have to move a little faster next time.” Then he sent the boy back down to the river with the basket to try again.
This time the boy ran faster, but the old wicker basket was still empty by the time he got back to the house. Out of breath, the boy told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a wicker basket. Then he went to get a bucket instead. The grandfather said, “I don’t want a bucket of water. I want a basket of water. You can do this. You’re just not trying hard enough.” Then he told the boy to go down to the river and try again.
By this time the boy knew it was impossible to bring back a basket of water from the river, and he was determined to prove that point to his grandfather. Thus, he ran as fast as he could, but by the time he reached the house the basket was still empty. Out of breath, he said, “See, grandpa? It’s useless!”
“You think it’s useless?” the grandfather said. “Look at the basket.” The boy looked at the basket and for the first time he realized that the basket looked very different than it did just a few moments before. Instead of a dirty, old, wicker basket it was now a clean, old, wicker basket. The grandfather said, “Son, that’s what happens when you read your Bible. You might not understand or remember everything you read, but when you read it, it will change you…from the inside out.”
Jesus was able to resist temptation because he lived by every word that came from the mouth of God. The same can be true of us. When we discipline ourselves to live by the word of God – when we strive to study the Bible and apply it to our lives – we find ourselves being changed from the inside out…even if we don’t notice any difference at the time. Eventually we too will find ourselves playing much more beautiful music than the devil – or the world – has to offer.
Lenten waiting and yearning culminates in Holy Week with the devastation of letting go in death. Dread, not God, seems to hold the future. No one can bypass Good Friday. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death is a part of the pilgrimage. Yet in the midst of death and disappointment, we still find ourselves yearning for life. The first step to life is finding a better way of life through the word of God. The second step…well, we’ll talk about that next week. Amen.
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