3rd Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010 “Series C”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus the Christ, you defeated sin and death, and brought us new life. Like your first disciples, we need your continued direction to help us focus on this new life you would have us live. Come to us, reassure us, and empower us through your Holy Spirit, that we be faithful disciples in our present age and proclaim the depth of your love to those around us. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
William H. Willimon, in his commentary on our texts for this morning, made the following observation. “When we think about ourselves, most of us think that our selves are the result of what we have managed to make of our lives. My self is whatever I have chosen, worked, decided, and striven to be.” End quote. [Pulpit Resource, 2010]
Of course, there is some truth to this statement. As I learned from Paul Tillich, each of us participate in developing our own destiny. Every decision that we make can influence our future. For example, my decision to go to seminary had opened some avenues for my future employment, but it also closed some other opportunities, had I chosen to go to law school or some other avenue of study. Each decision that we make closes some doors and opens others.
But Tillich also asserted that there are other forces that work to direct our
lives that are beyond our control, which may be either positive or negative. For example, we know that crime and violence can wreak havoc upon a person’s life, as well as economic downturns. At the same time, Tillich knew the power of God’s grace, that could intervene in the life of an individual to enable that person to change their life in a more positive direction.
It is this positive intervention of God’s grace into our lives that seems to be the basis of our lessons for this morning. In all of the resurrection stories that are recorded in Scripture, there is no indication that the dejected disciples are looking for the risen Christ. The events that led up to Good Friday and our Lord’s crucifixion, was one of those negative influences upon their lives that derailed their expectations for the future. The death of Jesus destroyed their hopes and dreams, and left them in a state of depression.
But God did not leave them desolate. The risen Christ came back to the disciples, and because of this intervention of God’s grace into their lives, and through the power of God’s Spirit, they were given a new direction and a new purpose for their lives. God turned their despair and lack of hope into a more positive and meaningful direction. And as a result, they became the first apostles of the Christian church.
The same dynamic is at work in our lesson from Acts, in which Saul is on his way to Damascus, pursuing what he believed to be his destiny as a good Pharisee, to purge the synagogues of the heresy of all who came to believe in this ridiculous claim of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Paul felt secure in his life, informed by solid study of the Torah, which led him to embrace his mission with zeal.
But along the way, the risen Christ, through the power of God’s Spirit, intervened into Paul’s life. And this man, who felt it was his responsibility and duty to persecute those who came to faith in Jesus as the Christ, encountered the grace of God, and his life took on a new direction. His life changed from being a persecutor of the church, to becoming the church’s greatest missionary to the Gentiles. Saul experienced a change in his life, that brought him to a deeper faith, so much so, that he abandoned his Hebrew name, and adopted his Roman name, Paul.
Of course, those of us living in today’s society, look upon these stories of Scripture, and refer to them as miracles, and by that designation, we tend to think of special events that took place years ago, but seldom happen in our life today. After all, as Willimon pointed out in my opening statement from his commentary, we like to think of our selves as what we have made of our lives. But I believe that God’s grace continues to intervene in our lives, in many and subtle ways, to enable us to realize God’s gracious presence among us.
This morning, I ended my series of classes on the miracles of Jesus with my confirmation class. What I tried to point out during our studies on the miracles, is the fact that the miracles of Jesus are really intended to reveal the presence of God’s grace and concern for our lives. I also stated that the miracle stories that are recorded in Scripture certainly indicate that in Jesus, God’s presence and grace was revealed in a special way, for he was the incarnate presence of God in our midst.
But I also tried to emphasize that God’s presence has not abandoned us, that miracles still happen in our lives today. And I was impressed that a few students shared a few stories of how they felt that God had revealed his presence in their lives, through what we might refer to as coincidence. The point of my studies was to help the students come to realize that faith is involved in miracles, not that we need to have faith in order for a miracle to happen to us. Rather, we need to have faith in order perceive the presence of God at work in our lives.
I then shared with them the following story that occurred this past week to my good friend, Pastor Burkness. He and I had agreed to meet at my camp a day before our confirmation camp meeting, to help each other deal with personal issues facing our ministry. To make a long story short, Bruce did not arrive at camp until midnight, Tuesday evening. On his way to the camp, he had an accident, in which he distracted, and ran into a car that had stopped in front of him.
Fortunately, no one was injured. After exchanging information with the owner of the car he had hit, to which he had done little damage, he felt that he could drive on to our camp. That didn’t happen! He went about three miles and his car died. At that point, his car on the side of the road on a busy highway, he decided to walk back to the closest town, when a passing motorist stopped to offer him a ride.
In the short distance to that town, the driver shared with Bruce that he worked for Asplundt, a tree service company, and was on his way to a motel in Warren, from which he would spend the week. Bruce then asked if he could ride with him to Warren, since his home was not far from there and he could have his wife meet him, so that he could go home and get his truck to come to my camp. The driver told him that he had nothing else to do, so he agreed to take Bruce home. It turned out to be that this generous person was an avid fisherman, and instead of taking money from Bruce for his trip home, accepted Bruce’s offer to take him fishing this spring.
Well, Bruce arrived at camp around midnight, totally exhausted and in a dither. We talked for a short time, and he fell asleep on the couch. The next day, I told him that he was the recipient of a miracle, that the only person to stop to offer aid, took him all the way home. Bruce did not seem to be too impressed with my evaluation of the situation.
The following morning we had our meeting, and when it had ended, Bruce and I left camp about 3:00. On my way home, I received a call from Bruce on my cell phone. I could not believe it, but he told me that he only made it as far as Clintonville, about five miles from camp, when his truck broke down. His water pump had blown up, and he was asking that if he could get a ride to my camp, he could spend the night. Of course, there was no problem with him doing that.
But when I arrived home, I got another call from Bruce. He said that he had called AAA, and that they had dispatched a wrecker to come and tow his truck from Reynolds, in Greenville. Bruce then asked if I would mind, if he could get a ride home with the wrecker, if he spent the night with Josie and I. Bruce was then dropped off in front of my house, which not only gave us the time to reflect upon the issues that his vehicle problems had postponed, but also the opportunity for both of us to consider that in the midst of his problems, God had been present, to bring life out of chaos. Some may call this coincidence, but in our eyes, we have both come to believe that we have experienced a miracle – the presence of God in our lives to turn a negative into a positive.
As we contemplate the meaning of the grace of God, revealed most clearly in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, and his coming back to his disciples to reveal his presence and to inspire them to live life anew, can we think that God does not do the same today. Through the power of God’s Spirit, God is constantly present to us, seeking to amend and to direct our lives toward a more positive future, according to his design.
Amen.
