"God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" 7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:5-8 NIV
Loss is not something we celebrate. It is painful. It is unwelcome. It is emotionally jarring and it can leave us in a place of feeling empty; of feeling sad, of feeling restless and disconnected.
The news today of Kerry’s resignation as Senior Pastor of Church at the Mission (CATM) creates for many of us a feeling of loss. Our experience of church at CATM has always included Kerry.
He has helped set the tone of this congregation. He has taught us and cared for us and loved us in a way that only Kerry can.
I have had the privilege of working alongside Kerry for twelve years. I have the utmost respect for Kerry as a man of faith who truly lives his faith, who wrestles with the challenges and implications of serving God with a full heart, who excels in character and Christ-likeness.
He is truly one of my favourite people and has been an example to me of what it means to be a pastor and a father and a friend.
He and I and Jan have come to work like a well-oiled machine, anticipating each other’s moves, reading each other and knowing what’s going on without even needing words a lot of the time.
And I know that most of you have been touched by Kerry’s life. You’ve been impacted by his teaching, you’ve been encouraged and challenged by his counsel.
And yet now we all face this loss together. Of course the mission isn’t losing Kerry. In fact Kerry will have an even greater influence in the life of the mission in his new role as interim Senior Director supervising the director of Community Services, of Genesis Place and also of CATM.
We will all still see a lot of Kerry throughout the week, and I personally take a lot of comfort from that. I told Kerry the other day before he left on vacation that the only thing that is keeping me from being really, really crabby about this whole change is that I’ll still get to see him a lot and to hang out a lot.
Friendship means a lot, and for those of us who know Kerry we can take comfort from the fact that he’ll still be around the mission a lot.
But still...there is a feeling of loss. What are we to do with this feeling? Where do we go in our hearts and minds to begin to process this change? How do we accept this...without becoming disoriented. Or discouraged. Or really, really crabby.
Life is more fragile than we commonly believe. Nowhere has this been brought home to me more than in my own life for the past six months. Many of you know of the death of my brother Craig at the end of January.
Long before Craig died it was evident that he had cancer and that he would die. Nevertheless many of us prayed for Craig...for healing, for full restoration. In the months leading up to his death I spent a good deal of time with him working with him on projects, trying to help around the house as he became less able to do things.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with his dying, so I just tried to do stuff with him and sit with him and pray with him. I felt the need, for his sake to not be sad around him all the time.
He would often tell me how other people who were close to him would bring him down by being despairing and crying on the phone or in person. I didn’t want to bring him down so I tried to keep pretty upbeat but also very present to him.
After he died everyone who knew him well experienced a great deal of sadness. His wife and children, his friends, his colleagues, his birth family. I remember the powerful feeling at times of “What?!? Craig is dead?! No way!!! This absolutely cannot be true. My brother cannot have died”.
This sense of profound disbelief was completely disorienting. Driving home the day after his death and after a day at the funeral home with Craig’s wife, Karen, I had a strong physical, visceral reaction that scared me so much that I had to pull over twice as I drove home from Acton.
Loss is palpable. When you are going through it you cannot cover it up. It forces upon us an unwelcome reevaluation of life. It is not the preferred option. We strain against the loss, sometimes denying it has happened, sometimes, in the early period, bitterly succumbing to or accepting that thing that we have no control over.
We can feel anchorless. Ungrounded. Unstable. These are real emotions, folks, that you all well know. And some of us are feeling some degree of these emotions as we try to let the news of Kerry’s resignation sink in.
Where are we to turn? To whom are we to turn?
“Jesus Christ...the same yesterday and today and forever.”
I chose the passage that was read today as our text because I truly believe it to be the bedrock of Christian faith. The anchor of our spirituality. The solid ground of everyone whose life is carefully and thoughtfully turned over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There is an eternity locked up in these words. And I believe God would draw us into reflecting on what this means today as we experience feelings of loss and as we wonder about what change will bring.
For some this might suggest that God is static and rigid. Sameness means that for some. But the key to understanding this passage is actually from an earlier sentence in our reading: “God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”.
Wedding vows. I’ve heard a lot of them. I’ve heard very creative ones. I’ve heard very odd ones. Very individualized ones. For our wedding Barbara chose Naomi’s words to Ruth: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God”.
That floored me on our wedding day as it does today. The best wedding vows share a common theme with Barbara’s vows to me. “I am yours. I will be with you always. I will not depart.” Why? Why do couples make this statement to each other? It’s because commitment and constancy are required for a relationship to flourish.
If there is doubt about the commitment of one toward the other, the relationship cannot move forward and both people become stuck. Like wearing concrete galoshes. Unable to move. Unable to dream.
So why does God say to you: “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you”. The NLT translates this “I will never abandon you”. The Message paraphrase says: “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you”.
God says this to you because He wants us to live in the freedom and confidence of knowing that we know that we know that He is our Rock. Our faithful and unchanging refuge and strength in all the situations that we may face in our life.
And He says this to you because it is His character to do so. And this is the way He treats his people. He said to Jacob in Genesis Chapter 28:15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
To his people Israel he said: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deut 31:6)
And King David, that tragically flawed man who had a heart after God’s own heart, told his son Solomon : “ “Be strong and courageous, and do the work.
Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you 1 Chronicles 28:20.
David, maybe more than any other biblical character, had experienced God’s abiding presence and faithfulness despite his own stupid, stupid mistakes. Aren’t you glad that God’s faithfulness isn’t dependent on you?
He speaks the comfort of his constancy because it is His character to be completely faithful. Completely trustworthy. You are never alone. We may feel alone. But here is where feelings betray us. They can lie to us.
They block out the most critical truth that God wants us to carry with us. [Put your hand in front of your mouth. Breath onto your hand.] He is closer to you than your own breath.
What does this mean for you...now, today. It means He will never withdraw His presence from you - He will never leave you. And He will never withdraw his help (he will never forsake you).
What is a fitting response to this revelation of God’s character? When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:16-17
What value was added to Jacob’s life because he trusted God to never leave or forsake him? Confidence. Courage. Courage to move forward. Courage to believe God for better things yet to come.
More importantly perhaps...courage to wake up and get out of bed tomorrow morning when the rest of the day is uncertain. And for us, now, as a congregation who are trying to wrap our heads around Kerry’s resignation. That He goes before us as the church into what I believe can only be a very bright and exciting future.
Here’s the thing about the church, about the family of God, about the people of God.
Kerry, Jan and I are not the head of this church. No human ever has or ever will be. Christ is the head, the covering, the true Leader. Kerry and Jan and I have had the incredible privilege to serve this congregation for the past 9 years. And what is Christian leadership?
It is servanthood. The lead pastor is the lead servant. There is no other Christian understanding of leadership. Christ chose to bless us incredibly by giving us Kerry to lead the way for the past many years. And now, in the midst of this change the Word of God speaks to us: 7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
This was originally written to a community who’s leaders had been martyred. Of course, this is not the case with us, mercifully. But still we are called to honour Kerry by remembering him. Remembering him in prayer.
And he will need a lot of prayer as he leads the downtown ministries of YSM. But also, we honour him by remembering his teaching, his constant call to us to “act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”.
To think about the fruit of his life. To imitate his faith. Incidently, we will all have the privilege of praying with Kerry in a service of consecration for his new ministry at YSM in June.
The same Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever, goes before us. Yesterday reminds us of all that Christ has done. He has suffered and died for us. He rose again for us.
He has called each of us to faith. He has walked with us and talked to us and cared for us; he has picked us up when we have fallen; he has cleaned the miry clay off our faces and he is giving us hope in place of despair, dignity to replace our shame, and purpose and passion for life. He has transformed us and loved us to this very second.
Today reminds us of all that Christ is doing right now. His power over death, his triumph over evil, his glorious resurrection...all these things that Jesus accomplished are at work in us today.
As Paul says in Colossians 1:27: “Christ in you (is) the hope of glory”. Today is hugely important in life. Today is when choose to serve the living God. Today is when we can get right with God. When we can renew our love for Him. Paul said that he worked with Christ’s energy which worked powerfully in him. That energy is working in us. Strength for today and bright hope for....
The Future reminds us of God’s abiding presence throughout the rest of our lives and into eternity. He knows the future.
He knows the places we need to go as a congregation and he knows the places we need to go as individual followers of Christ. And his promises are sure.
Loss and change are never welcome. You and I will each struggle to come to terms with the fact that Kerry will no longer be the Senior Pastor of Church at the Mission.
But we serve a God who is unchanging. He will always make His presence felt and wherever His glory rests, there we will find holy ground.. God will never leave or forsake you.
He will not abandon us. He will never let us down, never walk off or leave us”. Jesus is the same.
Yesterday, today, and forever.
Prayer: Before the mountains were born, O God, or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. And you love this broken world and you heal our broken lives. You replace fear with courage and depression with unspeakable joy. You turn us outward, to love our neighbour, to act justly and to love mercy and you turn us to you and teach us to walk humbly with you. We lift our eyes up to You, O God, and we boldly proclaim your strength, Your love, and our determination to follow the living Christ into the future He prepares for us. In his matchless and glorious name we pray. Amen.
