Concordia Lutheran Church – Cerritos and
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Garden Grove
February 27, 2010
“Rain Gear, CHECK!”
1 Peter 1:3-9, Isaiah 43:1-3, Isaiah 48:16a
† IN JESUS NAME †
In the midst of these storms of life, may the grace, the mercy and the peace of God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ clothe us, as the Holy Spirit sustains and comforts us, His people! AMEN!
Could this be you?
There you are, hiking at 8,000 feet in the towering pines of the San Gorgonio wilderness. Suddenly, a black cloud rolls over the ridge and within minutes a major mountain storm is upon you.
The last thing you want is to get drenched, so you take off your pack and reach for your rain gear… but you forgot where you pack it! By the time you find your rain pants, the rain has started to soak through your clothing. While searching for your rain jacket you begin to panic, did you pack it at all? Finally you locate your jacket, but you are starting to chill. Shivering you put away all your wet gear you pulled out during your frantic search, then discover the pack cover, but too late, your pack is now thoroughly soaked…
So starts Clyde’s trail chat about a critical aspect of hiking – the Rain Gear – Check! As he told me about it, and we talked about this very sermon, this very day, it became apparent that it was to be the theme for the sermon. Not just preparing you for storms on mountain trails, but preparing you for the storms of life, the very kind of storms we who love him, and know him, have witnessed him endure in this last year, and actually saw him thrive in, in the last weeks and months.
As we talked about this message, Clyde told me of the Rain Gear Checks that caused him to write the article. His infamous “inspections” where he would call for the CHECK, then inspect and share how each person would have survived. Those well prepared would be described in terms of being safe and functional. Others would have lost food but would have been dry, and others would have suffered hypothermia and become a burden to the group of hikers, and perhaps, given the remote nature of some hikes, not survived the vicious mountain storm. Does this lecture sound familiar to any of you?
Clyde the Pastor
I can imagine a fervor in Clyde, to see those he trained to hike, be protected and healthy and well, and to know the accomplishment of a successful hike, even through the storms. I can see that fervor translated into a pretty…. Straightforward and maybe brutal assessment – because he knew the dangers of being caught unprepared in the storm – and to make the scouts uncomfortable before they left, or in practice, was better than being unprepared and suffer on the trail.
It’s that attitude which made him a good friend, and a man I looked forward to serving beside as his “mentor” in ministry, even as he taught me much about life, and faith. And it is the attitude that is behind this sermon. Clyde was very concerned about those who would be here, and where you are at in life. A pastor’s role in serving his community is the same duty as the trail boss on a hike, its ensuring the safety of the group – until it reaches its destination. And Clyde, whether or not he was ordained, as a vicar at Concordia, as an elder and deacon in this place, or guiding a bunch of scouts in the wilderness, is a pastor at heart. He wants you each prepared to survive the storms of life, and to do it in a way, that leaves you able to see the power and majecty, not of the storm, but the one who protects you in it.
Are you ready for the storms? Are you going to survive this storm? It’s time for a spiritual Rain Gear Check…
The Storms of Life
As sure as mountain storms come up both unexpectedly and with a ferocity that overcomes all that is in its path, so too, do the storms of life.
Some storms we create, through our inability to love God and realize that His plan for our life, and our inability to live at peace and love each other. Such storms are based in sin, which can simply be defined as not loving and trusting God, and not loving our neighbors. Sin can cause some of the most vicious of life’s storms, which literally can affect generations, and often – those but innocent victims, caught in the crossfire of others. You can’t prepare against such storms, and often our reactions cause the storms to grow in their strength.
Other storms are not attributable to a specific sin, but are the result of living in a broken world; Illness, economic struggles, natural catastrophes. Such storms happen to those who are right with God, and to those who turn their back on God. These storms loom large and dominate our thoughts and lives.
Like the unprepared person backpacking, such storms cause us to scramble, and trying to find a way to deal with them. We look through our hearts and minds, looking for something that will protect us. If we only scramble harder, if we only create some new way to deal with such storms, if we can only find a way to cope. All the while, the storms are beating down us, wearing us thin, and destroying more and more of our life.
The Answer to the Storm
Clyde knew about storms in the mountains and about storms in life. He knew that surviving was found in knowing that the preparations had been made, and that there was protection and a refuge available. That preparation was the key to the peace we saw in him, in the midst of the pain and the suffering, in the midst of the medications, and the chemo and nausea.
He relied what we see in Peter’s epistle,
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
It is our faith, our trust, not in our preparation and our pack, but in God himself, that sees us protected from the storms of life. Christ’s resurrection from the dead, guarantees that Clyde has been raised from the dead as well. Peter’s comment about our new birth into a living hope is echoed throughout scripture, and in one passage in Galatians, is described in this way,
“26 for all of you are the children of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus, 27 since every one of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ. “ Galatians 3:26-27 (NJB)
HE is our rain gear, and it is in our baptism that we are dressed with all that it takes to protect us in these storms of life. Perhaps one of the greatest myths about our faith, is that miracles are the effect of strong faith. Yes, miracles happen, but the nature of faith is the assurance that whether it storms or not, we are ready, we will survive, shielded and comforted by God.
Perhaps it is difficult to grasp, but that uniting with Christ’s resurrection is possible because we have united with His death in our baptism as well. Suffering and even death takes on a different focus then. It becomes proof, not just of our faith, but in the faithfulness of the God in whom we trust. Peter said it this way
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
We begin to realize that incredible truth, that in Christ death’s sting is never permanent, it is never complete. Our friend Clyde, who would ask us to check our faith this day; was sure of the peace that would fully encompass him in Christ.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that in Christ, Clyde lives, even more than he lived in our presence. Freed of the cancer that entrapped his body and laid it waste, he is also freed of the sin and spiritual storms of life that had the same effect. He is part of what we refer to in our worship service, where we hear, “with angels and archangels and all the host of heaven…
And as we sing that tomorrow at Concordia, as it is sung here at St. Paul’s, know Clyde is singing it with us, as all the saints of God gather and proclaim God’s power and holiness.
Summary of the Matter…
Here then is the Faith-gear – CHECK. Our faith is not a matter of our own personal strength, but in realizing the power, the peace, the refuge we have in Christ, whose words were written these favorite words of Christ.
The Lord says, “I will not forget you ever, for see, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”
For those hands were pierced, so that all that would separate Clyde from God would be found without any power, and that Clyde could rest in peace, witnessing the glory of the one who made the mountains upon which Clyde so loved to hike.
Those hands were pierced for you as well. So that “38 nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 (NLT)
Clyde, one more time, today, calls us to consider where we are at. To know that the preparations have been made for the storms of life, and to survive for eternity. Having made the journey, he wanted to guide us, and in that, not pointing to our own efforts, but to the cross, and to the baptismal font, where God has clothed us with Christ, and assured us of sharing in His glory, for He has marked us as His…
Trust in Christ then in the midst of this storm, encouraged by our dear friend, rest in the unsurpassable, indescribable peace of God which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. AMEN?
