Some of us live in a state of perpetual unreadiness. No matter what happens, we think we are not ready. Notice how I put that. We THINK we are not ready. We may have plenty of stuff in our old kit bags. We may have assembled all that we need to accomplish whatever we are about to do, but the issue is that we think we are not ready. And if you think you are not ready, you will live in a state of perpetual unreadiness and will never, never do a thing.
Occasionally my daughter asks me to do some handyman projects. Her husband works long hours, and, besides, after they had by their own hands built an addition to their house, he gave away his tools and said he was never doing that again! So it falls to me to be the occasional handyman. Now since he did in fact give away most of their tools, keeping only a sorry excuse for a screwdriver and a pitiful little hammer that would not drive so much as a carpet tack, I have to think about what I need to take with me. Hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, of course. Maybe a saw; maybe a drill. Oh, and I’ll need an assortment of nails and screws, washers and nuts. What else? Probably should take a level. And a plumb-bob. Oh, and a shovel, and a trowel, and …! Every time I take another armload to my car, I think of something else I might need. By the time I’ve loaded up everything you can imagine, and have wondered if there is something more I haven’t thought of, I am too tired to do the work! I’ve lost the will to work! I am stuck in a state of perpetual unreadiness, because I think I’m not ready.
But the truth is that I am ready. All it takes is for me to head down the road and go to her house and start. The truth is I am equipped for the task; what more could I possibly need, when I have plenty of tools and ample material and years of experience? What more could I ask? I just need to do it.
That first Easter must have been both exhilarating and confusing for the disciples. They were living in unprecedented times. No one had ever experienced anything like this: their master arrested, insulted, tortured, and crucified. Then their master dead and buried, and now alive again. Just what were they supposed to do with that? How were they supposed to react? They knew there had to be more than huddling in a house behind closed doors, but what? They locked the door against the world, awed and afraid and anxious. What was next? They didn’t know.
When the risen Lord appeared among them, the answer became clear. There was no uncertainty about their mission now. Jesus announced, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” The words of Jesus to those who had gathered in that house are about mission, about doing what He had done. This is roughly John’s equivalent of the Great Commission. “So send I you.” Go do what I have done. Thus we understand that we, like those first disciples, are commissioned to go and teach and share the good news. The mandate is clear. The orders are crisp. The expectations are sharp. “So send I you.”
Then why isn’t it happening? What is holding us back from our mission and contradicting our mandate? When I read that the number of Americans who consider themselves Christian is declining, I wonder what has happened. When I learn that the percentage of people who stipulate that they have no religion at all is growing, I wonder what happened to the sharing of the Gospel. When I go to churches to preach or encounter pastors in my work, and discover that many of our churches have declined and some have almost disappeared, I wonder how that can be? How can it be that we are failing to share the Gospel with the next generation? What is going on that keeps us from a confident and convincing proclamation of the Good News?
Can it be that we are paralysed in a state of perpetual unreadiness? Can it be that our problem is that we think we are not ready? Can it be that we are stuck in supposing that we do not have the tools for our task? But I believe that we are more ready than we give ourselves credit for. What more can you ask than what you have already? What’s the issue?
I
Is the problem that we do not have enough information? Is it that we do not have enough knowledge? Might it be that we do not share our faith because we do not understand that faith? Is it a knowledge problem that paralyses us in a state of perpetual unreadiness? Do we just not know enough?
But we do have enough information. We do have a story to tell. We have a record of the work of God. It’s called the Bible. We do not have to make things up as we go along. We have the Scripture as a record of what God has done in Jesus Christ. There is no excuse for our thinking that we are not equipped to share the Christian faith, for it is all here for us, all laid out for us. The work of God is recorded, and if we wish we had more, John has an answer for us:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” We have enough. We have enough information to offer life to anyone. We have a record of God’s moving in Christ. What more can you ask than to have this?
Well, I can hear someone saying, “Yes, but I don’t know the Bible well enough. I don’t understand it well enough to interpret it to anybody.” We get paralysed because the Bible looks complicated and sounds arcane and has in it stuff we can’t explain. Granted. But this church provides ample opportunity to learn. There is no reason we cannot know enough of the truth to share it with others. Sunday School, Wednesday nights, weekday Bible studies, the church library – it’s all here. What more can you ask than to have these resources? Are we paralysed in a state of unreadiness, even when there is plenty of information?
Or, I can hear someone saying, “Yes, I study the Bible, and when I get my own questions answered, then maybe I can share it with others. But I just don’t understand enough. I just don’t get it very well. It’s still a mystery to me.”
Ah, but we do know enough. We know enough to offer life. What do we know? We know that the Bible teaches us about the risen Christ. We know that the Bible proclaims that God so loved the world that He gave His son that we might have life. We know that God made us for Himself, that in our sin we have walked away from fellowship with Him, and that God has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ, reconciling us to Himself and guaranteeing the gift of eternal life by raising Christ from the dead. We have all that. What more can you ask?
No, our issue is that we are paralysed in a perpetual state of unreadiness. We are like the character in a story by Stephen Leacock called, “The Retroactive Existence of Mr. Juggins”. Mr. Juggins is in love with a sweet young lady, and wants to marry her. But he thinks he is not yet ready for marriage to this sweet and spiritual soul, so he decides to hone his spirituality by teaching a Sunday School class. However, when he takes on the Sunday School class, he discovers he needs to know more about the Bible. And then he finds out that if he is to understand the Bible, he ought to know both Greek and Hebrew. And then he learns that if he is to know both Greek and Hebrew, he should go to the primitive languages that lie behind them. Guess what? By the time he has gone backward and backward, deeper and deeper, the object of his affections has run off and married a man who doesn’t know Moses from Methusaleh! Mr. Juggins was ready, but never knew it. Paralysed in a state of perpetual unreadiness.
No, we know enough. And we can easily find out more. What more can you ask? No, the issue is not knowledge. It is not information. Nonetheless, we are paralysed in a state of unreadiness. Why?
II
Maybe it is that we don’t feel empowered. We don’t feel energy to get out there and share our faith. Maybe it is that even with the information we have, even with a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible, we just don’t feel empowered or motivated or energized. Is that it? Is that why we are paralysed in a state of perpetual unreadiness? We are waiting for the Lord to hit us over the head or to give us a push in the right direction.
When Jesus came into that room where the disciples huddled in their fear, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” Wow! That’s power! That’s authority! To forgive or to withhold forgiveness – that’s huge!
But I want to tell you that that is not limited to the disciples. That is not limited just to those gathered in that room. That is our gift as well. That is ours to work with. We are those who mediate forgiveness or withhold forgiveness. Either we embody the very essence of what Christ is all about, or we drive people farther from Him. Either we usher others into the power of forgiveness, or we shove them deeper into despair.
Think about our everyday encounters. Think about how many times a day we could offer the gift of forgiveness and do it with the grace that suggests the presence of Christ. And think about the consequences if we do not do this.
Was there a moment when some friend or neighbor did something you thought was wrong, but you said nothing because you thought it would be a painful encounter? What if, instead of saying nothing, you had taken him aside and had counselled him lovingly not to do that dishonest thing? It would have been an opportunity to offer forgiveness and to show something of God’s love. What more can you ask than to have a chance to intervene with a friend and show the way of Christ? But we don’t do it because we feel powerless. We feel inadequate. I tell you, we are not inadequate. We are not powerless. Christ has breathed on us; Christ has given us the Spirit. Whose sins we forgive are forgiven; whose sins we retain, whose sins we don’t deal with, they are still there.
Was there a moment with a family member where you got crossways of one another? There’s that sister that seems to take a contrary view about everything. There’s that brother that never has gotten his life together. There’s that cousin that seems to be nothing but a happy pagan with no room in his life for spiritual things. How many times, when you have been with them, have you heard in your heart the whisper of Christ, “Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive … they are forgiven … if you retain their sins … they are retained?” How many times have we walked away from those we loved, thinking we were not yet ready, not empowered, not motivated. But I tell you, when you really hear the Lord on this, what more can you ask for motivation? Those whose sins you retain … those whose sins you do not deal with … those sins will stay around. If we don’t deal with them, then who will? What more can you ask for than that awesome truth?
I have a friend whose nephew is in deep trouble. He has apparently been involved in gang activity. This young man, though he comes from a family with profound Christian roots, has been arrested and imprisoned for firearms charges. Now my friend is not his mother; she is his aunt; you could argue that he is not her responsibility. Nor is it convenient for her to be here in Montgomery County for his court appearances; she lives well over a hundred miles away. Yet every time her nephew has had a court appearance, she has driven here to stand by him. Every time he has been available, she has come to counsel with him. Her very presence has told him that someone cares. Nor has she been silent about his issues. She does not lecture him, she does not accuse him, she does not shame him; but under the power of the Holy Spirit she counsels him, she prays with him, and she points him to a different way of life. Someone she loves is in trouble, and that was all she needed to move her to enflesh forgiveness and help him receive what the Lord wants to give.
To see that someone is in trouble – isn’t that enough? What more can you ask? The Spirit whispers to us, compassion moves us. We can offer redemption by our presence and our counsel. And still we think we are unready. Still we imagine that we are not prepared to be a witness for Christ. Why are we still in a state of perpetual unreadiness?
If it’s not a question of knowledge, for we have the Scriptures and the resources to study them; and if it’s not a question of motivation, for all around us are those who need to know Christ and experience forgiveness, then what is it that holds us back? Why are we paralysed in perpetual unreadiness? What more can we ask that we might become faithful witnesses for Christ?
III
Brothers and sisters, may it be that the real issue is that we have not experienced Christ personally? Might it be that we do not have a fresh and real experience with Christ, and therefore cannot offer anyone a sense of His power, because we do not know it ourselves? Oh, is this the issue, that we know about Christ but do not know Christ Himself? Is this our stumbling block, that we know lots about the Bible and much about church, but that the One about whom the Bible is written is a stranger to us and the One around whom the church is built is only a distant idea? Have I put my finger on our unreadiness? Is this why we are not prepared to give our testimony – that we have not ourselves experienced Christ and therefore have no account to give?
One disciple was a little late arriving that night. One disciple had not seen the risen Lord. He had only the witness of the others. Thomas expressed his doubts and gave voice to his skepticism. “The other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But [Thomas] said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’” I have to tell you, I love Thomas for that. I love him for sticking to his standards. I love him for being his own man and not letting the others stampede him. Far from criticizing Thomas as the doubter, I applaud him as Thomas the honest man. We need more like Thomas.
But then … but then … a week later, another gathering of the disciples, and this time Thomas was there. This time Jesus, encountering Thomas personally: “’Put your finger here … reach out your hand … do not doubt but believe.” And Thomas, with an answer that rings out through the ages, with a joy and a power that is infectious, even when it is read twenty centuries later, Thomas cries out, “’My Lord and my God.’” Thomas had now had a personal experience with Christ. He knew the risen Christ, and doubted no more, waited no more, lingered no more. What more can you ask than to know the risen Lord personally? What more can you ask to speed you on your way?
Let me tell you about a friend whose name, for reasons that will become obvious, I cannot share. A little more than a year ago he walked off the street into the Gaithersburg church where I was serving as interim pastor. He told me a story so intense that to this day I cannot hear it without being profoundly moved. He reported that about a week before we met, he had been notified that there was a warrant out for his arrest. The police had discovered that he had been viewing child pornography on the Internet, and because he had purchased some of it, he was charged with trafficking in pornography. I thought he had come in to ask me to pray him out of trouble or to manufacture some sort of character witness. But instead he wanted to share his witness with me. What he told me was astounding. He said that almost immediately after he was notified of the charges, he felt the power of Christ. He literally heard, in his mind, a reassurance and a forgiveness that he had never known.
Now this man had some background in the Christian faith. He had made a profession of faith as a child, but had stayed away from any form of Christian practice for years. Still he knew enough, he said, to know that the Lord was dealing with him personally. Right then and there, in his own home, knowing what little he knew, but feeling the presence of Christ and knowing his own need, he submitted himself to the Lord. I cannot this morning tell the whole story; but I can tell you that a year ago I baptized him, that I have walked with him through his court appearances, and that I now see a man whose addiction is gone, whose marriage has been strengthened, whose child has a better father, and who has an undiminished passion for reaching others. My friend is ready to share his faith wherever he can, because he has had a personal encounter with the living Christ. What more can you ask than that?
Are you here this morning, still doubting, still uncertain, still unready? What more can I ask than that you come to know this Jesus? He died for you. He died for each one of us. God so loved the world … yes, God so loved Joe, God so loved Margaret, God so loved Rob, God so loved Cheryl, God so loved Jennifer, God so loved each one of us that He gave His Son. Jesus the Christ poured out His life for us, and then rose from the dead to assure us of life eternal. What more can our God say than He has already said in this Good News? What more can our God do than to come in so personal a way to encounter us with His love and His forgiveness? What more can this Christ do for us than to be for us to the ends of the earth? What more can the Lord say than to us He has said, to us who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
Do not stay in a state of perpetual unreadiness. Know Him and you will know His power. What more can you ask?
