Sermon for July 26, 2009 Proper 12 Text: Mark 6:45-52 Title: Does God Pass Us By? A. There is an old story about a devout abbot who decided to take a spiritual retreat in a cabin located on a remote island in the middle of a large lake. For six months he remained on the island with no other person seeing him or hearing from him. But then one day, as two monks were standing near the shore soaking up some sunshine, they could see in the distance a figure moving toward them. It was the abbot, walking on water, and coming toward shore. After the abbot passed by the two monks and continued on to the monastery, one of the monks turned to the other and said, "All these months in prayer and the abbot is still as stingy as ever. After all, the ferry costs only 25 cents!" Well, my friends, unless one knows where the rocks are located, none of us can walk on water! Jesus doing just that, however, seems to be what most catches our attention in this morning's passage of Scripture. However, let's not overlook everything else that is going on here, because a number of other details are just as important as the Master striding atop the waves. I don't know about you, but I tend to identify with the disciples in this story, who see Jesus intending to pass them by, and cry out, not knowing who He is, thinking He is a ghost, and scared out of their wits! How many of us have been faced with the storms of life, and in the midst of guilt and pain, feel like Jesus is passing us by? God can walk on the waves, but I have to stay in the boat, straining to keep my equilibrium in the tumult of life! As the disciples say in another related story, "Lord, don't you care if we perish?" Have we ever felt this way? Of course we have. Maybe we feel that way now. But rather than being an intended slight by an arrogant God, Jesus intending to pass the disciples by is proof positive that God is always strong enough to save. Let me explain. B. Our story this morning is set immediately after Jesus' miraculous feeding of the 5,000. He dismisses the crowd, filled to the brim in both body and soul, and immediately sends His disciples across the Sea of Galilee ahead of Him. The text is clear that Jesus desires to seek quiet prayer and fellowship with His Father. For Jesus, prayer was always rocket fuel for His public ministry. Jesus never failed to consult with the Father through prayer before He proceeded with God's ministry plan. We should notice Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go across the Lake. He knew what was going to happen to them. These guys had spent a lot of time with Jesus engaged in discipleship 101, On-The-Job-Training. They had watched Jesus feeding the 5,000, specifically to see that nothing is impossible for God. He was getting them ready for their ministry to evangelize the world after His Resurrection, Ascension, and gift of the Holy Spirit. This means He had to strengthen their faith in a God who would be with them always again and again, even in the face of hardship. So Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He sent them across the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee; He knew He was sending them into a dangerous situation that would test their faith. Unfortunately, they didn't pass the test; fortunately, this would not be their last test. God's got all the time in the world to train us up spiritually for the tasks He has before us. We can learn our lessons now or learn them later. But we will learn them! Now to glean as much meaning as we can out of these Spirit-inspired words, we need a brief lesson in Biblical interpretation. Biblical scholars frequently use a technique known as "form criticism," when doing the vital work of interpreting Scripture. When I use the word "criticism" in this context I don't mean that we are going to nitpick every word with the intent of disproving the clear meaning of the text. Rather, when we talk of using form criticism, the word "criticism" is synonymous with the word "analysis." Form criticism is a way of analyzing the text. In a nutshell, it was discovered long ago that the various types of stories in the Gospels follow very specific patterns, called "forms". This comes from the fact that in Jesus' day, everything He did and said were first communicated orally. People used certain mental templates to help them remember the events of the story as best as they could. These templates were retained when the stories were written down as a whole Gospel narrative. For example, a very common template, or form, is one called "miracle story". Miracles all follow the same general pattern: statement of the situation or problem, Jesus' miraculous intervention, and the reaction to the miracle by the witnesses. Consider the Feeding of the 5,000. The situation or problem here was that there were a lot of very hungry people; Jesus intervened by miraculously feeding everyone out of very little; and the crowd's reaction to the miracle was that they were able to eat their fill, and there was still 12 baskets of food left over, more than when they started. Where form criticism is useful for Biblical analysis is that whenever something special is added to the template, it is like the Gospel writer sending up a signal flare and saying, "This is of special importance!" In the story of the Feeding of the 5,000, Mark adds the statement of Jesus to the disciples (You feed them!) and their incredulous response (Even 200 denarii couldn't buy enough food!). Then Jesus breaks and blesses the bread, reminding the Jewish listeners of the day of God providing manna for His people in the Wilderness, and reminding Christians of Holy Communion, where our spirits are fed by the Spirit of God present with us. Taken all together, we clearly see that whenever we disciples engage the world with the Gospel, which is food for the hungry soul, we are empowered by Christ, who will bless and multiply our efforts. That's how form criticism works, and it has been an invaluable tool to Biblical scholars for generations. This morning's passage of Scripture finds the disciples once again in the middle of the Lake during a violent windstorm. It is obvious that they don't believe Jesus knows of their dire situation, even though He has been watching it from the shore all along. It's the wee hours of the morning. Jesus sees their plight, and heads towards them, walking across the surface of the Lake. Shockingly, Mark tells us that Jesus "intended to pass them by!" The disciples think He is a ghost, and cry out in panic. Jesus hears their cry, steps into the boat, and immediately the storm ceases. The disciples, incredulous, don't know what to think. Mark says that, "their hearts were hardened." As I said, they had flunked the test, but the final exam was still coming. They still had too much of themselves and their preconceived notions about who God is and how He acts on our behalf getting in the way to be the kind of disciples Jesus needed. But that would come. Now this story seems at first glance to be a miracle story. After all, walking across the waves is pretty miraculous! But upon closer examination, we find that this story has all the characteristics of another form, namely, an Epiphany story. An Epiphany story always describes a time that the Divine is revealed in all His glory to human beings. Here are the clues: 1) Jesus uses the phrase, "It is I", which in both the OT and the NT refers back to the divine name Yahweh, or "I Am Who I Am." 2) The awesome appearance of God in Jesus, who is at first unrecognized, and which invites fear and astonishment on the part of the person involved. Think of Moses before the burning bush. He couldn't understand what was going on at first, He didn't know it was God, and he was terrified by what was going on, 3) Jesus' phrase "Fear Not," is common when people are confronted with the presence of God. Remember the angel who appeared before Mary to tell her about her role in the birth of the Messiah. 4) Lastly, the use of the verb "pass by" is common in epiphany stories; for example, when God revealed Himself to Elijah on Mt Sinai after the prophet fled from Jezebel, God commanded Elijah to come out of his cave and "behold the Lord passed by." So Jesus wasn't being callous at all when He started to pass the disciples by in their distress. He knew they couldn't behold or comprehend His full divinity at that time. And he was right. At the end of the story they don't have a clue about who this Jesus is! So if we consider this story to be an Epiphany story, our interpretation is put in an entirely different light. This is not a story about a miracle, although it is certainly miraculous. Rather, this is a story about a human encounter with God. In the midst of danger, God was still large and in charge!! Like in the Book of Job, where we find mention of God astride the waves of the sea, Jesus is proving beyond a shadow of doubt that He and the Father are one! With Jesus, the impossible becomes possible! A minister was making a home visit to one of the families in his parish. A five-year-old boy answered the front door and told the minister his mother would be there shortly. To make some conversation, the minister asked the little guy what he would like to be when he grows up. The boy immediately answered, "I'd like to be possible." "What do you mean by that?" the puzzled minister asked. "Well, you see," the boy replied, "just about every day my mom tells me I'm impossible!" C. Friends, these are times when the impossible all too often seems to be all there is before us. All too often we seem to catch ourselves saying, "I can't", or "God won't". We can communicate huge amounts of information across the planet, but we can't seem to talk to our spouse or to our children in a meaningful way. We have tremendous expertise to do most any job, but we can't seem to find a job in these recessionary times. Life seems to be filled with myriad impossibilities. But the thing we should glean from this passage is that even though those first disciples just didn't seem to get it, and even though their faith was at times very weak, God through Christ was not going to let them go. And Jesus is no more willing to let us go than He was with these all-too-human early Church leaders. Jesus is with us every step of the way. Jesus sees and knows our troubles, and can and will intervene in our lives. We should be aware that God might come along in unexpected or even surprising ways -- through others, or through something we read or hear, or through a situation that can only be described as miraculous. It is all too easy to put God in a box, to say that God can't or won't act in such and such a way. I remember watching trained fleas once in a circus. They did the same thing the same way as if they were in lockstep. I asked how one could ever train a flea, and I was told that the fleas are first put into a glass jar. As they try and jump in the jar, they bump their heads on the lid. Over time, they forget they can jump and, for fear of bumping their heads, never go beyond the limits of the jar, even though the lids have been removed. We get into similar ruts. It is easy to say 'I can't do this', or 'God won't do that'. And then God strides across the Lake, appearing where we didn't think He would ever appear, and suddenly stills the storm that rages around us. Am I saying that God will take away the difficult times in life? Of course not! Remember, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, knowing that the storm would come. They had learned much wisdom from the Master. Now He had to place them in a situation where their faith would be stretched. In like manner, God doesn't cause difficult life situations, but God doesn't insulate us from them either. Through these times God shows us that we can ground our faith in Him, and not be disappointed. God never lets us down, nor does He ever let us go. I'm not belittling such a crisis time in our lives, if now is such a time, or if such a time has left us scarred, emotionally and maybe even physically. I know of such times too. No, I'm simply stating that God can walk on water; He is still in charge. And He won't let us down. Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA 20177 703-344-3569 |
Monday, July 27, 2009
Does God Pass Us By?
Monday, July 13, 2009
Walking Stick Faith
Sermon for July 13, 2009 Proper 10 Text: Mark 6:7-13 Title: Walking Stick Faith A. During WWII General McArthur asked an engineer how long it would take to build a bridge across a certain river. "About three days," was the response. The engineer was told to go ahead and draw up the plans. Three days later McArthur asked for the plans. The engineer seemed surprised. "Oh, the bridge is ready. You can cross it now. If you wants plans, you'll have to wait a little longer, we haven't finished those yet." Leadership development has been an important part of my ministry for a long time. For a number of years, I consulted with congregations, laity, and church pastors on the value of having a plan for ministry. I helped local churches draw up one-year, three-year, and five-year plans. I preached the old adage that you'll never get where you want to go unless you know where you want to get. I analyzed demographic surveys, identified spiritual gifts, and formed focus groups, all with the goal of developing a plan. Now don't get me wrong – there's nothing wrong with all this! Indeed, it's still essential! But at least in the passage of Scripture we just read, Jesus was not nearly into strategic planning as much as He was into go and do!! Rather than a plan, He gave them a walking stick! B. Let's take a look at it. It's safe to say that Jesus channeled his ministry in two different directions. One direction led away from his disciples, towards the crowds, where he performed all manner of healings, feedings, parable-tellings, and other miracles. His other avenue of ministry traveled inward, focusing on those faithful few whom he had chosen. For them Jesus held special seminars on the meaning of discipleship, where he revealed glimpses of His true nature. In this week's Gospel text, these two roads merge into one path as Jesus sent his frail contingent of followers out to minister to the villages of the land. Nowhere do we see him sitting down with the twelve and a map, or a snakebite kit, or a store of provisions, or a feasibility study, or a specific set of goals, strategies, and objectives. Jesus gave the disciples only what they needed most: a job and the authority to carry it out. The preparation He gave them before sending them out was not secret knowledge nor a strategic plan. He didn't give them the promise of divine protection. What Jesus gave them was "authority", specifically, power over any unclean spirits they may encounter. Armed with His authority, Jesus' small community was sufficiently well prepared to face the outside world. That Jesus chooses this particular moment to usher his disciples forth into their first solo missions is somewhat surprising. They had evidenced no great new insight into Jesus and his mission. They were still stumbling along, bumbling about two steps behind each punch line in his parables, about three steps behind in recognizing the meaning of his miracles. Indeed, the disciples don't really seem to get who Jesus was and what He was about until after the Crucifixion, when they could see the true meaning of His life through the lens of the Cross. Yet, flawed as they were, Jesus sent them out, trusting them to spread his work. In fact, Jesus spent more time stripping the disciples of presumed traveling necessities than he did outfitting them for their expedition. His instructions appear foolhardy: take "no bread, no bag, no money," not even an extra tunic for warmth or sturdy shoes "just in case." The only equipment Jesus advised them to take along is a staff, an item designed to facilitate movement, not slow them down. Jesus' additional instructions further focus his emissaries' energies on the task at hand, the active aspect of their mission. They are to go out "two by two", demonstrating that they are part of a community of faith. He told them to travel light, in view of the urgency of the mission and as a sign of their reliance on God. Instead of wasting time looking for comforting accommodations, Jesus urged the disciples to accept the first offer of hospitality they receive. With the Kingdom of God at hand there simply was no time to squander their attentions on social niceties. If, instead of an open door, the disciples got the door slammed in their faces, Jesus advised His missionaries to cajole and convince reluctant listeners, but to shake the dust of a rejecting household off their feet as they leave (an image Jesus knew would be burned in the brains of those inhospitable households). In Jesus' day, when faithful Jews had to visit non-Jewish territory, for whatever reason, they "shook the dust off their feet," before coming back home, to symbolically disassociate themselves from anything worldly. This practice had a powerful connotation of rejection of anything ungodly, and would stick in the minds of all who saw it practiced. It was also a warning that decisions have consequences, and by rejecting God's disciples one might be incurring the wrath of God. Somewhat uncharacteristically, we are not treated to a long argument from the disciples. For once they apparently took Jesus at his word and obeyed His instructions to the letter. Until now it has not been made clear what the disciples were to do out on their missions. Claiming only the authority of Jesus' name, the disciples boldly preach the same message of repentance that the Master did. The mission of those first disciples gives us a glimpse of what the Church can and should be doing today: preaching, teaching, leading others to Christ, anointing with oil and healing the infirm simply through the power of Jesus' name. And those first disciples were successful: "So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them." C. There are at least a couple of things that should catch our attention in this passage: 1. God can use us despite ourselves! It is an amazing concept that the Creator and Sustainer of the whole Universe has decided to use us to help bring in the Kingdom!! God loves us so much that not only is He as close as our very breathing, but He has given real meaning to our lives by giving us a job to do! God has given each one of us gifts and abilities. He has made each one of us unique and special. He matches our talents with the need He has for us to fill. And He places us in just the right place where we can be most useful. The disciples who followed Jesus misunderstood Him, didn't understand Him, and failed to get what He was trying to say and what God was doing through Him. It was only through the lens of the Cross and the Resurrection that they were fully able to understand. Still, Jesus sent them out, and they accomplished great things. We have that lens firmly in place; imagine what we can accomplish. God magnifies our small efforts into big results! In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. The space craft's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no space ship had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth. So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work through us even when we think we have just 8-watt abilities. 2. The second thing we should notice in this passage goes along closely with the first: When God uses us, and we put our trust in Him to fill the gap between our efforts and final success, He will, because He's in charge. We agree that the disciples were hardly doctors of theology or accomplished orators. They were ordinary people, who sometimes succeeded and sometimes didn't, just like you and me. But they went out with the Authority that Jesus had given them, and that was all that was required. They trusted God with the results, and they witnessed amazing healings and miracles because they did. There were times when their faith was not so firm, and the results of their efforts were less than sterling. But in this passage, they believed the authority of God, and the Kingdom entered the world wherever they traveled with transformational power. Rabbi Kushner, Jewish scholar and author, once wrote: "Atlas was condemned to carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. That was as harsh a punishment as the ancient Greek mind could conjure up. Today, it seems, we have volunteered to play the role of Atlas. We have not offended God, we have dismissed him, told him we were grown up enough not to need his help any more, and offered to carry the weight of the entire world on our shoulders. The question is, when it gets too heavy for us, when there are questions too hard for human knowledge to answer and problems that take more time to solve than any of us have, will we be too proud to admit that we have made a mistake in wanting to carry this world alone? " When we trust God, amazing things can happy. Mountains can be moved, miracles can happen, and the unexpected can become the routine. This Church has a mission to carry out, and we can if we trust in the Authority of God to empower our efforts. And in our everyday lives, when we trust the results of our particular situation to God, even the painful, the desperate, and the tragic can work out in the end. Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA 20177 703-344-3569 |
Monday, July 6, 2009
Power in Weakness?
Sermon for July 5, 2009 Proper 9 Text: II Corinthians 12:2-10 Title: Power in Weakness? A. Recently I read a news story about a woman who set a world record for continuous play on an arcade pinball game. After standing in front of the game for fourteen hours and scoring an unprecedented seven and a half million points, the woman noticed a TV crew arriving to record her efforts for posterity. She continued to play while the crew, alerted by her fiancé (how she had time for a fiancé I don't know!), prepared their cameras for the shoot. Suddenly, the arcade game went out – no power! While setting up their lights, the camera team had accidentally unplugged the game, thus bringing her bid for ten million points to an untimely end! The effort to publicize her achievement became the agent of her ultimate failure. Sometimes, as my grandfather liked to say, you can't win for losing! Sometimes, our best efforts are simply not enough. We have all faced extreme circumstances, and probably more than a few of us have wondered why in the world God would let us go through such trials and tribulations. There is no good explanation as to why a person has to deal with a chronic illness, or the loss of a job, or a terrible home situation, or a sudden death. To use the title of an old book that tries to deal with the matter, there is no good explanation as to "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People?" Sometimes the bad things are of our own making. The really tragic situations are when the bad things are thrust upon us by life circumstances that we can't control. Sometimes we say that the tribulation is the judgment of God, put upon us because of some past-unforgiven sin. Sometimes we think God has forgotten about us, or perhaps doesn't exist at all. This is not good theology, but that fact is little comfort if we are hurting. It really all comes down to faith. Can we believe in a good God even in the face of trial and tribulation? Can we trust that God is as close as our very breathing when He seems to be so far away? Can we continue to go on through life powered solely by faith when we really don't know how we can? In this morning's passage of Scripture, the Apostle Paul makes an astonishing statement that begins to address these questions. But to get the answers to some of these questions, we need to unpack what Paul means when he says, "Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." What's up with this? B. Paul's experience with the Corinthian Christians was long and checkered. The Book of Acts tells us that Paul founded this Church on one of his missionary journeys, and for 18 months he stayed with them, nurturing and teaching them in the Christian faith before he left. Evidently the Church continued to grow under several different leaders after Paul left. But the church had a lot of problems – disunity, dissention, sexual immorality, and theological confusion. Perhaps the worst problem the Church experienced was the advent of a group of Jewish Christian teachers who came in after Paul and taught the congregation that they must become Jewish before they could become Christian. They dismissed Paul's prior teaching, cutting him down in a somewhat snooty fashion as being a person who didn't have the proper Christian credentials. I'm sure you've never known such "perfect" people who look down their noses at folks who they think are not as good a Christian as they are!! Anyway, they confused a number of folks, and Paul anguished over them as the spiritual father he was. Many scholars believe that Paul wrote as many as four letters to the Corinthian Christians. Indeed, according to this theory fragments of three of these letters are in II Corinthians. It is a fact that portions of II Corinthians read as though they were "stuck" together by a later editor. But fortunately, whether Paul wrote 2 or more letters doesn't diminish the power of what he says in this passage. In Paul's day, great leaders were expected to have had amazing visions and revelations. This was seen as a sign of God's favor. The so-called "super-apostles" as Paul calls them later on in chapter 12 belittled Paul because they said he had had no such vision. Although we don't know exactly who these opponents of Paul were, they were swaying many of Corinthian Christians who began to wonder what Paul's true status and worth was. Again and again, Paul felt the need to defend his own calling and status as an apostle. He rhetorically holds his own against his opponents by comparing both his exaltations and his hardships to theirs, and his exasperation at the necessity of this contest of credentials is thinly veiled. Boasting was a rhetorical device common in literature of the day — credentials were important. One's social status and one's moral virtue were linked. Exceptional persons had exceptional things happen to them. So Paul was pulled into this "credentials game" much to his own dismay. This is why Paul begins this morning's passage of Scripture with a rather odd way of describing himself: "I know a person in Christ who..," We know Paul is talking about himself, because later on he writes, "So to keep me from being elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelation, a thorn was given me in the flesh…" But he doesn't want to get into this boasting game, even though he is forced into proving his own credentials in the eyes of many of the Corinthians who had been hoodwinked by slick-talking but false apostles. To show that Paul is truly a man of God (in contrast to the super-apostles who were happy to tell people they were men of God), he puts this whole credential thing in the proper context. What Paul relates is intensely personal, something he had kept to himself for 14 years. This was almost certainly a once-in-a-lifetime event. Most scholars agree that this "revelation" is not to be identified with his conversion experience. Throughout his ministry Paul was concerned about preaching Christ crucified and building up the church, and he only spoke of his own personal spiritual journey insofar as it advanced his mission. Paul's conversion was one such public conversation of his private life. Obviously, it was painful for Paul to speak of these personal/spiritual things. Paul's description of the experience is vague. He merely says that he was "caught up to the third Heaven," in a kind of rapture. He cannot describe how it happened or even in what form: "…whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows." The "Third Heaven" is the phrase used in Paul's day to mean that part of existence that is in the presence of God. The pre-scientific view of the world in Paul's day considered the First Heaven to be the atmosphere above our heads and all that is in it. The Second Heaven is the part of existence beyond that, where the stars, etc. are located. So Paul got translated into the very presence of God. Quite a trip!!
Church scholars have speculated endlessly about the nature of this "thorn in the flesh", also referred to by the Apostle as a "messenger of Satan." Paul's audience may have known the identity of the "thorn in the flesh" but it is certainly unknown to us. Obviously it was something very painful. Many have tried to identify a certain physical ailment like epilepsy, migraine headaches, bad eyesight, malaria, or a speech impediment. Others have claimed that Paul might have struggled with depression. We can safely make the assumption that it was not a congenital illness, because Paul makes it clear that this condition came from God after his experience of the Third Heaven. Given that it is called a "thorn in the flesh", we are probably on safe ground to assume that it was a chronic illness, one that had lingered for 14 years. Three times Paul begged the Lord to take this thorn away, but it never happened. Satan meant for it to hinder the spread of the Gospel. At first, Paul thought that was all it was meant to do. But although God answers prayer, He doesn't always answer prayer the way we think He should. Paul tells the Corinthians as well as us that in fact the spread of the Gospel wasn't hindered; it was enhanced. The thorn certainly gave him a depth of wisdom in his experience and helped him focus on the reality of the Lord's sufficient grace, which in turn made Paul a better disciple. Paul came to accept the problem, and then even be grateful for it: You see, experience taught him that when his own strength was just not enough, when he was pushed against the wall and couldn't do it on his own, God was fully capable of filling in the gap. When we stretch our abilities, and ourselves when we can't go any further, God takes over and miracles happen. This is like rocket fuel for our faith. God made it clear to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." And that was why Paul was able to witness to the Corinthian Christians that "I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong". There is therefore no reason to boast, because God provides the power and we give Him the glory. If Paul had claimed the experience of being transported into Heaven as being something that enhanced his own credentials, then he might have had a lot to boast about, but he wouldn't have a witness that glorified God. The amazing thing about God's grace is that the weaker we are, the more useful we are to God. The more we let go and let God, the more He can use us to advance the Kingdom. The less there is of us and the more there is of God, the greater are the things that are accomplished in the name of Christ! Anyone who travels to Edinburgh, Scotland will find Edinburgh castle a tower of seemingly insurmountable strength. But the truth is that the castle was once actually captured. The fortress had an obvious weak spot that defenders guarded--but because another spot was apparently protected by its steepness and impregnability, no sentries were posted there. At an opportune time, an attacking army sent a small band up that unguarded slope and surprised the garrison into surrendering. Where the castle was strong, there the defense of the people was weak. C. So now we can begin to get an answer to our question about the "why" behind trial and tribulation. Trials and tribulations tend to strengthen our faith. Now wait a minute; I know that sometimes trials and tribulations leave us embittered, mere shadows of the way God wants us to be. That is why we need to be in the Body of Christ called Church. When we have others to lean on, when we hear the testimony of others who have come through trials because of the strength imparted by faith, we are in turn strengthened. Whenever I am weak, Paul says, I am strong. The power belongs to God, not to human beings. And when we are weak and the impossible is accomplished, we know that it is God who did the accomplishing, and it is to God (not us!) to whom the glory is owed. Paul also explains this power in terms of its perfection. "My power," God says, "is made perfect in weakness". God's power through our weakness allows us to function as God designed us to function. God in effect tells us, "Although I will not give you the victory by lifting you out of suffering, I will give you victory by giving you sufficient grace and perfect power in your suffering." And when we see that God means what He says, our faith is strengthened. It is not that God causes suffering for His own ends. Remember, Paul called his thorn a "messenger of Satan". But God can take suffering, and bring spiritual growth out of it. It all depends on how much we decide to trust our lives to the Lord, in good times, or in bad. A man who lived on Long Island was able one day to satisfy a lifelong ambition by purchasing for himself a very fine barometer. When the instrument arrived at his home, he was extremely disappointed to find that the indicating needle appeared to be stuck, pointing to the sector marked "HURRICANE." After shaking the barometer very vigorously several times, its new owner sat down and wrote a scorching letter to the store from which he had purchased the instrument. The following morning on the way to his office in New York, he mailed the letter. That evening he returned to Long Island to find not only the barometer missing, but his house also. The barometer's needle had been right--there was a hurricane! As we leave this place today, let us remember that God is in control, that He desires the best for His children, and that if we trust Him, we will see that all things work out in God's time. Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA 20177 703-344-3569 |