Life
Easter, 2008
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers
March 23, 2008
I watched The Exorcist last week. (Happy Easter!!) I know, doesn’t seem like much of an opening line for a message on Easter morning. Or is it?
Anybody ever seen The Exorcist? Anybody, after seeing it, swear to yourself you’d never see it again? Anybody enjoy it? If you enjoyed The Exorcist, something is seriously wrong with you. Jason came over last Monday and we both watched it for the first time. Now before I go on, I need to make some clear disclaimers here so you know what I’m NOT saying.
I’m not saying you should watch The Exorcist, either this week or next week or ever. I’m not recommending it to anyone and in fact I want to be clear that many people would find this movie highly disturbing. I don’t want any debates with anybody over whether a minister (or anyone else) should be watching a movie like The Exorcist. For those of you who are the type to sit around all the time saying, “I can’t believe a pastor did this or that,” try not to let it get to you too much. That kind of thing will get harder and harder to carry around as you increasingly find that very few people, pastors or otherwise, will always live the way you think they ought to. It will be harder and harder for you to live in the world as you see that fewer and fewer of your role models have ever been able to meet your standards. I say this not defensively at all, but because I care about you and I know where that road leads. I’ve been there.
Enough disclaimers. Now for the reason I mentioned this. In case you haven’t heard about it, The Exorcist is a 1973 movie about a young girl who is possessed by the devil, and two priests who attempt to exorcise the demon (get it out of her through a ritual of the church). It is shocking. It is disturbing. It is bizarre. It is terrifying. And for me (again, for ME), it was an amazing affirmation of God’s amazing power and of what I most deeply believe: that all is not as it seems. That in the most awful of circumstances, God is moving. That there is no place that God’s love has not reached. That because of that mighty love, no person is beyond the point of redemption and wholeness. That God works in ways that are continually unexpected, totally disarming, and completely beautiful.
Toward the end of the movie, hope is nearly lost. This young girl’s mother has taken her to every conceivable medical professional to find out what’s wrong with her child. The girl has gone from sweet and innocent to exhibiting ghastly and goulish behaviors. Scary and supernatural things are happening all the time in the girl’s bedroom. The girl’s appearance is beginning to change. Her speech has become filthy. She regularly mutilates herself. Her bed bounces up and down even when she’s laying perfectly still. Some of you have seen clips of the famous scene where, at one point, her head spins all the way around. Scars have begun to appear on her face, and her lips are constantly dry and cracked. She has gone through painful medical tests. She has seen psychiatrists. Everyone has tried to explain this as something physical. The desperate mother finally consults a priest and eventually he agrees to find someone to do a ritual of exorcism on this girl.
And so into this horrible, seemingly God-forsaken place, walks a priest. An old man. A very old man. A man who is obviously physically weak. A man who can barely carry the weight of his own body. And in he goes with his prayer book, his crucifix, and his Holy Water. He kisses his crucifix, kneels beside this girl’s bed, and begins to pray. As he prays, the girl hisses and spits and convulses and levitates and wretches, and the windows rattle, and the temperature has dropped below freezing in the room. Then he opens his prayer book and begins reciting the ritual of exorcism. It’s so loud in the room you can barely hear what he’s saying. The younger priest with him is barely able to get his words out, as fear has lodged them deep in his throat. He is white as a sheet and nearly paralyzed in terror as this thing proceeds.
And there is the old man. Praying. Reciting his lines. Taking physical and verbal abuse from this girl who is literally twisted with evil. On and on and on the battle goes. And I’m watching this and thinking, “It’s this little old man and his holy water and prayer book and crucifix against the powers of hell – evil so frightening and overwhelming it seems like there’s just no use fighting it.” Maybe some of you know how the movie ends. The priests prevail. The demon is expelled and this little girl gets her life back. But it costs both of the priests their lives. The old one dies of heart failure during the ritual, and the younger one throws himself out of a window. But the girl is free. At the end of the movie, she and her mom drive away to move to a new town.
I was deeply touched by this movie because it was a movie that ultimately made the case for what I most deeply believe in this world, indeed what we all must believe most deeply, which is that things are not as they seem. I’ve said it before and I’ll preach it a thousand more times. Hope is not lost. But it goes even beyond that. Not only is hope not lost, but God is present in moments where you can’t imagine he is present. In The Exorcist, a frail old man takes on the devil himself. And you might say, “But the old man has God on his side.” Yeah, he does, but how? Through his little crucifix, his prayer book, his holy water – symbols and words. The devil, through the possessed girl, is showing immense power, and using that power to manipulate and frighten and paralyze. God, through the priest, shows very little power. Just those ritual prayers, read out of a book. But those ritual prayers, on the lips of a man who loves and serves God, become tools in the hands of God to overcome what seems like overwhelming power. The man’s frailty didn’t matter. All God needed was this man’s willingness to go in the strength he had – and that’s what he did. And through his sacrifice, God worked to deliver this girl. No matter how bad things look, God is mighty to save.
A couple thousand years ago, things looked pretty terrible for the Messiah on a Friday. He was supposed to be the deliverer – the one who would bring peace and freedom to Israel and restore their hopes of national glory that had been devastated hundreds of years earlier. He had been quietly born to the earth in a way no one else had ever been born (immaculate conception), yet without fanfare. He lived quietly with his parents in Nazareth and learned the trade of his step-dad – carpentry. When he was 30, he was baptized and began going around doing miracles – stuff no one had ever been able to do. Physical healings, spiritual healings, emotional healings, command over wind and weather, and even exorcisms.
But following him around was a gathering dark. He alienated and angered the religious leaders (who were the political leaders) of his day by claiming that if they really knew God, they would recognize him – because he was God. He didn’t accept their understanding of God and how it allowed them to think they were holy for following rules, while neglecting critical things like love and justice and mercy. Though Jesus was known and loved by many, and crowds followed him around that were so huge he sometimes had to preach from a boat to those standing on shore, the people in power didn’t like him at all. The hatred of Jesus among the leaders of his time grew stronger and stronger and finally led to his trial, merciless flogging, and crucifixion. If you saw The Passion of the Christ you saw a little bit of what that was like, although the actual experience was softened quite a bit because most movie goers couldn’t watch it if it were truer to life.
Evil grew more and more intense in Jesus’ last hours. Jesus was nearly flayed alive with those flogs. Roman flogs were strips of leather that had pieces of metal and broken pottery attached to them, so when they hit the flesh, they would rip out enormous pieces. It wasn’t unusual that a man condemned to be crucified died from the flogging itself. After his flogging, he was tied to the piece of wood he’d soon be nailed to and forced to walk a long distance up a hill called the Via Delarosa - the Way of Suffering – all while probably bleeding to death. As he carried his cross up this hill, Roman soldiers followed behind him, pushing him on, probably whipping him to keep going. Many of those in the crowds lined up on both sides jeered at him and spit on him and, I’ll bet, when he stumbled too far to one side under the weight of his cross, gave him a good push and sent him careening into the other side where he was spat on and his beard pulled out and he was openly struck in the face. Evil was having its day.
All the way up the hill to the top – a spot called called Golgotha – the Place of the Skull. Jesus was thrown to the ground and placed on his cross and large nails were driven into his hands and through his feet. The arms were not quite fully extended, nor were the legs. They needed to be able to flex. That’s because the nails in the hands put pressure on a large trunk of nerves called the median nerves. In order to relieve pressure on the hands, the one crucified would push themselves upward, putting all their weight on the nail in their feet, causing searing pain. Muscle spasms would continually shoot through most of the muscle groups of the body, particularly the arms, which reacted violently against the presence of the nail running through the hands. When the crucified could no longer bear the pain of his body weight on the nail through his feet, he would slump down and his full weight would be supported by the nails in his hands. This would commonly lead to dislocation of the shoulders of the crucified, if they had not already been dislocated during the placement on and nailing to the cross. Evil was having its way with Jesus. It doesn’t get any uglier, or scarier, than this.
Victims were commonly stripped completely naked to add an element of shame to an already shameful method of execution, reserved for people society considered worthless. Ravens would often come and peck out the eyes of the condemned and wild animals would eat them alive. That didn’t happen to Jesus, but crucifixion was not a way that anyone wanted to go. In case you were not aware, it’s from the word crucifixion that we get our word “excruciating.”
Cause of death for crucified people was usually asphyxiation. As they weathered hours and hours on the cross (some would stay alive on crosses for days), their chest cavities filled with fluid from the shock of what was happening. They could only take a breath by pushing up on the nail in their feet. They would take a breath and then slump back down again. Then another push, another breath, and another slump – for hours, for days on end. Normally death came by crurifracture – the breaking of the bones of the leg with large hammers. This prevented the victim from pushing up to take a breath and suffocation quickly followed. We see this in scripture:
John 19:31-33 (NIV)
31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.
32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.
33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
Chances are Jesus died from asphyxiation before they got to him. Evil had its way, and Jesus was gone. His body was taken from the cross and prepared for burial and placed in the grave of a wealthy man who had asked for it. A stone was rolled in front of the opening of the tomb and soldiers were placed on guard so no one could take the body.
John 20:1-9 (NIV)
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!"
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.
4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.
6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there,
7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.
8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.
9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Now why have I walked you through all this today, starting with The Exorcist and winding up here at the resurrection of Christ? Because one of my favorite themes is that nothing is as it appears. The way this world and its circumstances look to us is not the way they really are. Ultimately evil doesn’t win. It may be flashier and showier. It may look more powerful, and seem overwhelming, like the girl hissing and thrashing in that bedroom, or Jesus writhing on that cross, but the quiet grace and love of God will prevail. Jesus was crucified on a cross, but he didn’t stay dead. Evil didn’t win. It may seem overwhelming. You may think there’s no way you can stand up against it. And God isn’t very flashy. In fact the Gospels record that the religious leaders wanted a definitive sign from God that Jesus was who he said he was.
Matthew 12:38-40 (MSG)
38 Later a few religion scholars and Pharisees got on him. "Teacher, we want to see your credentials. Give us some hard evidence that God is in this. How about a miracle?"
39 Jesus said, "You’re looking for proof, but you’re looking for the wrong kind. All you want is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. The only proof you’re going to get is what looks like the absence of proof: Jonah-evidence.
40 Like Jonah, three days and nights in the fish’s belly, the Son of Man will be gone three days and nights in a deep grave.
What sign would Jesus give? Just his death. That’s the way God works. The little girl is healed, but the priests had to die. You are healed, but Jesus had to die.
Isaiah 53:3-5 (NIV)
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. So wrote the prophet Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus was born. That’s the way of God. With God, things are not as they appear.
2 Corinthians 4:7 (MSG)
7 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us.
God has done some flashy, incredible things throughout history, but more often, God opts for the quiet things, the things that are easy to question and that require faith to believe.
1 Corinthians 1:26-28 (NLT)
26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.
27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
This is how God works. In the broken body of an old priest. In the broken body of Jesus. Not usually with overwhelming money (although God’s not opposed to money!), or power or wisdom. In fact, we see here, God chooses things considered foolish by the world to accomplish his purposes. The devil will wow you. He’ll thrill you and amaze you with his power. And he’ll use it to manipulate you. God will quietly do what he does, using everyday things, ordinary things. God will not dazzle you into putting your faith in him. I mean c’mon, even when Jesus rose from the dead, he did it when almost no one was looking. But he did rise. Things really weren’t as they appeared. Evil didn’t win. God came out victorious.
My friends, if you spend your life looking for the “big sign,” you’re gonna miss God, just like the religious leaders did in Jesus’ time. The devil is perfectly happy to show you his power – to overwhelm you with the appearance of evil all around you – to convince you that that’s all there is. After all, it’s not his goal to increase your faith. It’s not his goal to nurture your spirit and soul. Evil just wants to manipulate you and force you into living in service to it, and the devil will take it any way he can get it.
In resurrecting from the dead, Jesus showed that his power is greater than any power ever seen. Why do so many of us not live in that power but instead keep bumbling along making the same mistakes over and over again? Because we think everything God does should look like the resurrection – some dramatic, incredible, miraculous, emotional event that nearly forces us to bow before him. This, in fact, is the exception rather than the rule. God usually does not do these spectacular things. The devil does sick and twisted things to force us to lose hope. When God displays power it’s always for one reason: to show that our hope in him is not misplaced. No matter how things look around you, God is mighty to save.
Psalms 37:4-11 (NLT)
4 Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.
6 He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.
7 Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act. Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.
8 Stop being angry! Turn from your rage! Do not lose your temper— it only leads to harm.
9 For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.
10 Soon the wicked will disappear. Though you look for them, they will be gone.
11 The lowly will possess the land and will live in peace and prosperity.
It is God’s desire that small things become great – that his incredible power be displayed in your everyday, ordinary, walking-around, going to work life. The resurrection shows that things are not as they appear – that God is indeed powerful over all things – that no matter how strong evil may seem – in the world, or in your life – God is able to overcome. But of course this depends on something, which is rooting your life in God. Living with him as the source, and at the center, of your life. God has demonstrated that he is mighty to save, that he is deserving of your trust. Many people want the peace God can bring when things are hard, but don’t want to live their lives for God. That will never work. Consider the life that comes from God like a stream. You either stand in that stream or you don’t. In that stream is peace and love and contentment. But if you live your life in a way that takes you far away from that stream, don’t expect you’ll be able to get back to it in time to help you when things are tough. That’s not how it works. The peace, the joy, the contentment – they come from standing in that stream – letting it wash over you day after day after day – keeping your spirit and soul clean and your conscience clean before God.
Psalms 1:1-4 (NLT)
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.
2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.
3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
There is no place where God’s power cannot prevail. Jesus has shown us the extent of God’s power by overcoming death. I pray you will be like one of those trees planted along the riverbank, with roots that go deep down into the flow of God’s life-sustaining power. The more you plant yourself there, the more you will see God everywhere you look. You’ll realize that the ugliness in your life is not any more hopeless than the ugliness at Golgotha one Friday long ago. That even in the absolute worst of situations, God is working – even when you can’t see it or feel it. And at this moment, whether you know it or not, God is working in your life to draw you to him.
