Don Friesen
Father Murphy was a jolly priest, an extrovert, and one day he walked into a pub and said to the first man he met, "Do you want to go to heaven?"
"I do," said the man, whereupon the priest instructed him to stand over by the wall."
Father Murphy asked a second man, "Do you want to go to heaven?"
"Certainly!" replied the man, whereupon he too was instructed to stand over by the wall."
The good Father walked up to another man O'Brien and asked him, "Do you want to go to heaven?"
"No, I don't!" said O'Brien.
"I don't believe this!" said the priest. "You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to heaven?"
"Oh," said O'Brien, "when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."
A silly joke, I know, but it's a sentiment Loretta Lynn summed up in her gospel song, "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die". (Hymns, 1965) It also reminds me of disciples like Simon Peter, who made an impressive confession of faith in Jesus (Matthew 16:16), but when push came to shove and Peter found himself in the crucible of opposition just prior to the crucifixion, he caved in! "I do not know that man!" (26:69-75, TEV) he said three times! Peter knew firsthand the challenge of remaining faithful to his Lord in difficult times, and it's ironic that later he had under his care a church facing some of the fiercest opposition Christians have ever had to face!
Peter's Four Instructions
I have mentioned, in previous sermons, the diabolical devices the Emperor Nero used to make Christians' lives miserable. I won't repeat them, except to add, perhaps, that it's almost too easy to heap scorn on Nero because of his un-checked vanity. He considered himself to be enormously talented in all things: art, drama, athletics, and music, and he loved to enter competitions in those things. He won every competition he ever entered! The fact that very unpleasant things happened to anyone who bested him may have been a factor, but that did not dampen Nero's enthusiasm. He travelled to Greece to perform in Olympic Games and to sing before the Olympic crowds. When the theatre he performed in was destroyed by an earthquake shortly after his performance, many nodded knowingly, but Nero was not deterred. His last words before his death were, "Qualis artifex pereo." "What an artist the world loses in me."
Nero may have been an eccentrically engaging man, but he was also a cruel man. After divorcing his first wife, then executing her, he married another woman (Poppaea), but then kicked her to death when she complained about his late return from the races. A nephew of the infamous Caligula, Nero thought nothing of executing anyone who crossed him. The persecution of Christians was a permanent police regulation under his rule. I imagine that to his contemporaries his harassment of a tiny Jewish sect seemed insignificant, but it is remarkable that after his death even the Romans were embarrassed by his excesses. His cruelty and debauchery became the benchmark of evil in the eyes of the Church, and centuries later the spectre of his cruel rule continued to haunt the Church.
The Apostle Peter wrote a letter to the Church living in this maelstrom, and perhaps his own experience with denial sensitized him to their difficulties. In the fifth chapter of his letter, Peter writes in an understanding spirit, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering." (1 Peter 5:6-9)
Peter fully appreciated the predicament of the Church, advising, in the form of four verbs: "Humble yourselves.... Cast all your anxiety on him.... Discipline yourselves.... Resist (your adversary)...." (1 Peter 5:6-9) Peter knew full well that the spiritual combat in which the Church was engaged required some spiritual preparation. He had not been prepared when confronted in the Jerusalem courtyard. He also reminded them that they were not alone; many other Christian sisters and brothers were in similar taxing circumstances. (5:9)
When One's World Is Shaken
Peter seemed to know what to tell people whose world had been shaken, and shaken to the core! And so he wrote to them in an understanding and supportive spirit, much like the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Thessalonica, a church in a similar situation. Paul begged them "not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed...." (2 Thessalonians 2:1) The world was a mess. There were wars and rumours of wars. Believers were being persecuted, and the Church was also suffering from internal struggles, so Paul rightly wondered whether this group of new Christians could survive. He could not be with them, so he sent Timothy, his young protιgι, to them, and Timothy returned with good news! The church was thriving, despite the external and internal pressures. He encouraged them, saying, "Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us...." (2 Thessalonians 2:15) Christ will have ultimate victory over evil, he assured them.
How does one stand firm and hold fast, however, when even the foundations of one's faith are shaken? Shelly Ossinger, an insightful blogger, says, "At some time or another, all of our worlds get shaken. Fifteen years ago, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. Shortly after, my world cracked when my husband left me for another woman. There was a two year period when four close family members and one friend passed away. Currently I'm shaken by a rebellious teenage son. Every tremor or quake in my life has caused me to brace, asking (God), Who are you, and what do I believe about you now? Are you good?'" ("Don't Shake the Baby," December 3, 2007 posting)
Our worlds are often shaken, but sometimes for the good. Shelley often warned her teenage children not to shake the baby, but they teased her, saying, "I'm shaking the baby, Mom!" The baby in this case was a nativity snow-globe, one of those cheesy baubles that when shaken sends a flurry of fake snowflakes swirling around the baby Jesus! The paradox, of course, is that Jesus infant or adult often shakes up our lives! Consider how the birth of Jesus shook Mary's world, knowing that her son, "destined for the fall and rising of many," would also suffer, and Mary was warned that a sword would pierce her own heart as she watched her son suffer. (Luke 2:34-35)
Consider how the birth of Jesus shook Joseph's world as eerie dreams began to visit his nights and heavy burdens his days. Consider how the birth of Jesus shook Herod's world, although one could argue that in his paranoid state almost anything could shake him. The terrifying threat of a new king fuelled his jealousy and rage, driving him to put into effect an evil programme to eliminate all two-year-olds in the Bethlehem region, hoping the newborn king would get caught up in the sweep of his murderous campaign. (Matthew 2:16) And consider how this chain of events also shook the lives of those who lost their two-year-old sons to this tyrant's butchery!
The biblical saints were not unfamiliar with the instability and unpredictability of shaken worlds and shaken foundations. The Old Testament Job, whose world was severely shaken, speaks of those portentous moments that "shake the earth out of its place," times when "its pillars tremble...." (Job 9:6) Of his own awful experience, he confesses that while deep sleep fell upon others, "dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake." (4:14)
There's actually a whole lotta shakin' going on in the Scriptures, some of it good, some of it not so good. We celebrate Pentecost next Sunday, and the book of Acts tells us that when the apostles gathered at Pentecost and "prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit...." (Acts 4:31) That's good shaking! When the apostles were put in prison, and there was an earthquake, so powerful that "the foundations of the prison were shaken" (16:26) and the prison doors broke open, that's good shaking even for the prison warden, who became a believer!
There is always the opportunity, when our world is shaken, to discover new facets of faith, new dimensions of hope, new levels of love and trust. The Old Testament psalms encourage us to trust God. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea," says the psalmist. (Psalm 46:1-2) "(God) alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken." (Psalm 62:6)
Peter's Four Promises
Peter fully appreciated the predicament of the persecuted Church, and so he advised them with four cautionary verbs: "Humble yourselves.... Cast all your anxiety on him.... Discipline yourselves.... Resist (your adversary)...." (1 Peter 5:6-9) Then Peter added another four verbs, encouraging these beleaguered believers with four promises, saying, "And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you." (5:10)
Other versions of the Bible translate this verse in a variety of ways, using alternate verbs, like:
The God of all grace "will ...restore, support, strengthen, and establish you." (1 Peter 5:10) What a wonderful quartet of promises! Encouraging words in any circumstances! The promise of restoration to those whose trust have been eroded, or not maintained. The promise of support to those whose lives are falling apart and need shoring up. The promise of strength to those who are weak. The promise of being established to those whose faith, perhaps, is only in an early stage of development. The promise of being made whole and complete to those whose lives and spirits are fractured and broken.
Peter is proposing more than coping with what seems an impossible situation. This is hope talking! It would have been very understandable if the Church to which Peter was writing saw life as one long horror show! Peter saw a larger picture. "After you have suffered for a little while," he said to the suffering church in other words, I recognize your hard times, but from the perspective of eternity consider it a brief interruption. Keep your eyes on the promise the God of all grace will restore, support, strengthen, and establish you, make you whole and secure and strong. To this God, concludes Peter, belongs the power forever and ever. (1 Peter 5:11) God is sovereign! God will fulfill His promise! So we live in hope!
The Holy Ghost over the bent World broods
The poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), captured the timbre of hope it so eloquently, writing:
(Hopkins, "God's Grandeur," 1918)
Frederick Buechner tells a moving story of a Civil War anniversary that took place in 1913, the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Apparently there exist old, grainy, jerky films of the anniversary as the Confederate and Union veterans, now old men, gathered to commemorate the occasion. They reenacted Pickett's Charge, the old Union soldiers taking their places among the rocks on Seminary Ridge, the old Confederate soldiers taking theirs on the farmland below, and after a while the Confederates started to move forward across the broad, flat field where half a century earlier so many of them had died. An eyewitness recounts, "We could see not rifles and bayonets, but canes and crutches" as they made their slow advance toward the ridge with the more able-bodied ones helping the disabled ones to maintain their place in the ranks. As the Confederate troops got near the Union line, they broke into one long, defiant rebel yell, and then something remarkable took place. "A moan, a sigh, a gigantic gasp of disbelief rose from the men on Seminary Ridge," and then, unable to restrain themselves, the Yankees burst from behind the stone wall and flung themselves upon their former enemies. Only this time, unlike fifty years earlier, they did not do battle with them. Instead they threw their arms around them. Some in blue uniforms and some in grey, the old men embraced one another and wept." (Frederick Buechner, "Journey Toward Wholeness," Theology Today, January, 1993)
They caught a glimpse of their common humanity! Remarks Buechner, "If only the old men had seen in 1863 what, for a moment, they glimpsed in 1913. ... What they saw was that we were, all of us, created not to do battle with each other but to love each other...."
May the God of all grace restore, support, strengthen, and establish us, that, standing firmly on a sure foundation, we too will be steadfast, immovable, and excel in the work of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)
AMEN
A variety of verbs, but all positive and all chosen to intensify their sense of hope. That's hard to do when things seem hopeless! When Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was nine years old he was sent home from school with a note to his mother explaining that his mind was "addled." Later Edison suffered a beating by a train guard, causing him to become deaf. These negative experiences did not dampen his inquisitive and inventive spirit, however; this deaf man, considered a moron, invented the light bulb albeit an incandescent one and averaged one new patent every two weeks during his adult life. His inventions had a tremendous influence on modern life.
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
There are moments, even in distressing times, when we glimpse the "freshness deep down things," There are moments, even in the midst of brokenness, that we catch glimpses of that wholeness that is not fully ours but that beckons us. We catch glimpses of grace, of strength, of the beginnings of restoration, of that which is whole and secure and firm and puts all other things into perspective moments when we catch a glimpse of the essential unity of all things.
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods
with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.