Have you discovered that nothing which you call permanent really is permanent? Lots of things are called permanent, many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
Not long ago I wanted to mark two plastic containers so that I could be sure they would stay permanently marked. It was important, because I wanted to put gasoline in one and kerosene in the other. I had had enough of scribbled pen or crayon markings being rubbed off, so I went to the cabinet and got out something called a “permanent marking pen.” A “permanent marking pen”. I diligently wrote on those containers with that permanent marking pen, making the labels clear, and set the cans up on the shelf. But I didn’t count on the fact that either of those liquids spilling out over the permanent marking was enough to make it less than permanent. Permanent marking pens, when a solvent goes to work on them, aren’t permanent. Lots of things are called permanent; many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
Yesterday afternoon I officiated at a wedding. As in every wedding I have ever done, we used the words, “till death us do part.” We expect permanence in this relationship. And yet, as the groom and I sat waiting for the ceremony to begin, he told me about an acquaintance of his who had been married five times, and one of those marriages had lasted a grand total of thirteen weeks! Lots of things are called permanent, many things are described as lasting, but they aren’t. Not really.
That doesn’t stop us from trying to make things look permanent. We put makeup on corpses, so that we can fool ourselves into thinking they are living; but they are not. We build monuments to great men, hoping to perpetuate their memories, but I can show you a District of Columbia storage yard cluttered with statuary that nobody wants on the streets any more. And gentlemen, if you are not convinced yet, just ask your wife why that hairdo that she has done again and again is called a “permanent wave.” I don’t think so, and I have the receipts to prove otherwise!
We would like to think that some things are permanent, but experience shows us something else. In Marc Connelly’s play, “Green Pastures”, the angel Gabriel, having been sent by God to report on how things are down below, comes back to heaven and offers his own version of the six o’clock news. God, He says, you know that earth you made, and it was so fine, you called it very good? You know that world you created, and you said, now that’s a good job. That will last a whole eternity? Well, Lord, I have to ask you. Do you know what’s happening down there now? Why, Lord, everything not nailed down is coming up loose!”
I suspect that the angel Gabriel was not the only one to figure that out. We know very well that we live in a world that’s coming up loose. The world is changing rapidly, and it’s all we can do to figure out where we are, much less peg ourselves down and stay anchored. The world is changing rapidly, it’s coming up loose, and finding something that you can hold on to and be sure of is getting very hard to do.
But don’t you want to? Don’t you just get hungry for some things you can count on, some things you can be sure are always going to be there? Don’t you thirst for some permanence? I find I want life to be something like my old neighborhood where I grew up. I don’t want things to change. I want to go back and see the same old familiar buildings and the same old predictable parks and streets. I want to go back and find things as I left them years ago. Maybe it’s looking for a lost childhood. But whatever it is, I find that I want to know that some things don’t change, some things are sure, some things can be counted on. I want stability and permanence in my life; don’t you want that too? Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, says, “I feel kind of temporary about myself.” We feel that too. We need to know that something lasts.
I
And so we work very hard at creating stability. We work very diligently at doing things that we think will come close to giving us staying power.
a
For example, we work at our achievements. We labor to accomplish something. A taller building, a mightier machine, a smarter computer, we want to achieve something that will last. But even the best of our achievements are doomed to temporariness. I suspect lots of you went to see the movie, “Titanic”. In the story of “Titanic” you heard all the bragging about how the engineers had built an unsinkable ship, and had loaded it with all sort of expensive adornment, confident that it would ply the sea lanes for years and years. But an iceberg spoke a ravishing “hello” on the very first voyage! The unsinkable, permanent “Titanic” fell fathoms into faultiness. Our achievements are not permanent.
b
We work at building wealth. If you are even a little past the business of living from paycheck to paycheck, as you have watched the Dow Jones climb higher and higher, maybe you have dreamed of building a fortune. Now most of us live where there is always more month than money, but even we have let ourselves dream about investing and just watching that nest egg expand exponentially. One young man I know, who is a thirtysomething, has already on paper accumulated enough wealth that he is thinking of cashing it out and quitting his job. He thinks he may strike off to become a kind of adventure sports bum! He believes his earnings are permanent and can maintain him for the rest of his life. Well, maybe so, and maybe not. Tornadoes rip apart homes before the residents can even think about how to save them. Stock markets crash; the cost of living inflates; illnesses become catastrophic; obligations get out of hand. And then there is that strange thing in the human heart that always wants more; no matter how much we have, we want more, and we take risks to get it, and risks can mean losses. I wouldn’t count on material wealth being permanent.
c
Some try to achieve permanence with their accomplishments, others with their wealth, and still others with their reputations. Their legacies. Some try to be the best at whatever they do, so that from here on out they will be remembered for their uniqueness. Olympic stars train for years in order to become the record holders in their sports. Musicians practice endlessly in order to give the definitive performance of some concerto. Artists labor with infinite care to create a masterpiece that will inspire others for ages to come. And, Lord help us, even preachers, poor misguided souls that they are, will hunch over their computers far into Saturday night, trying to hammer out immortal words that parishioners will remember at least until after Sunday dinner! Some of us try to achieve permanence just by being good at what we do, but guess what! The downhill record you just earned was beaten by the next skier down the slope, who shaved a massive eight-hundredths of a second off your record! Guess what! Tomorrow’s newspaper music critic liked your performance last week, but loves the one given by that young prodigy who just showed up out of nowhere. And that masterpiece, like Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper”, falls prey to the ravages of time and temperature. And worst of all, preachers find out that not only do people not remember what they say, but if they remember anything, they get it wrong anyway!
Guess what! Every human achievement, the best things that we can do, are temporary. They are fleeting. They are here today and gone tomorrow. Our search for permanence defeats us at every turn. It seems there is nothing we can do that will last forever. Nothing.
II
In the Bible there was a man who faced this reality wholesale. Everything he had accumulated was snatched from him in a series of deathblows too horrible to wish on your worst enemy. This man’s name was Job. Job had been healthy, wealthy, and wise. He had it all, his reputation was widespread. He had accomplished everything he ever set out to do. But everything vanished overnight. His wealth was destroyed, his family was snatched from under his eyes, his health eroded, and even his sanity was questionable. Job saw in a twinkling of an eye just how fast things can be removed. They don’t last at all.
Job’s friends counseled him just to give up. His wife urged him to curse God and die. His advisors told him it was useless, it was his fault, just surrender to the inevitable. But Job wouldn’t give up. Job believed that there had to be something permanent, and that somehow God was going to provide that. Job, tormented though he was, expressed his hope:
“I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth .. then in my flesh shall I see God”. “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth .. then in my flesh shall I see God”. Job’s heart cried out for stability, and he felt, intuitively, that someday God would put someone here who would bring him back from the precipice, someone who would stand forever. “At the last he will stand”, this Redeemer.
This Redeemer, in Job’s mind, would be more than a human accomplishment. He would be God Himself. A God who would do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
This Redeemer, in Job’s heart, would be more than some vague ideal. He would be more than noble philosophies, more than nice nebulous notions. This Redeemer would be a person who would get down in the trenches with us. He would be on our side. He would be personal, one whom our eyes would be able to see.
And most of all, this Redeemer, as Job struggled to see Him, would be one who would deal with the biggest permanence issue all, with death. This Redeemer would confront the harsh truth that you and I, sitting in this room, are going to be witnesses to the fact that nothing is permanent, because, unless they have somehow changed the rules, I confidently predict that the mortality rate for the crowd gathered here will be exactly 100 per cent. You and I have to live with the notion that we ourselves are not permanent. I told a bunch of children about this the other day, and their response was, “Really! Yuck!!”. I agree. Death for all? Yuck. But true. But true. Still Job dares to think that this Redeemer might mean something more than that. “After my skin has been destroyed, I shall see God.” Tennyson the poet said of us, “[We think] we were not made to die.” Job dared to think that too.
“I know”. What confidence! “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last” .... when everything else goes, wealth and health, wisdom and reputation, everything ... “at the last he will stand.”
III
We are here today, on this Easter Sunday, to declare that Job was right. It has happened. There is a Redeemer who at the last will stand. There is something permanent. There is something that will stand the test of time. There is something everlasting. I have good news today.
I have good news today. There is a Redeemer who at the last will stand, and he is Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. There is a Redeemer who is permanent, who is down in the trenches for us. There is a Redeemer who knew loss and tasted death, just as we must taste death, but who defeated death and is alive for us. There is a Redeemer who can give us what we most desire, what has eluded us so long. Jesus Christ the risen Lord.
There is one thing which will stand forever, and that is a living and vital relationship with this risen Savior. Accomplishments, wealth, reputation, you name it, it will go. But one thing and one thing only will stand forever; Job named it, “I shall see him on my side, and my eyes shall behold him.” The Apostle Paul described it: “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And, in fact, Paul even writes off everything else, he says that everything we try to build up and hold on to is just so much garbage in comparison. “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”
My message is really very simple today. The good news is quite straightforward. If you want something permanent, I offer you a living, vital relationship with Jesus Christ. If you want something that does not dim with age or decline with passing years, I hold out to you: knowing Christ. Not knowing about Him, but knowing Him personally. Not just having information about Him, but fellowship with Him. Not just a nodding acquaintance, but a deep, daily, abiding, moment-by-moment presence.
If you want to know that your life can be more than temporary, if you want to beat that 100% mortality rap, then I call you to Paul’s words, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.”
Christ is risen! The Redeemer of whom Job spoke, He is beside us, He guides us and strengthens us, He fills us with His life. Trust Him, believe Him, let His risen life fill you. Though He was dead, now He lives. Though the powers of death have done their worst, He has won the victory. Though every human institution will die and every cultural achievement will vanish, though the earth itself may be on the way out, at the last He will stand. When Calvary was over, He stood; when Rome fell, He stood; when slavery was on and freedom was unsure, He stood; and when Watergate, Whitewatergate, and even Monicagate will be over, the President may not stand, and the Republic may be shaky, but He who came forth from the grave, He will stand. And we who know Him, personally, will stand with Him, stand when everything else is gone.
Conclusion
Christ is risen! And at the last He will stand. Do you want permanence? Christ is risen!
Christ is risen: more than a sugary symbol of spring, He is the solid substantial Savior of souls. At the last He will stand.
Christ is risen: more than the frail fragile fragrance of flowers; He is the fairest of ten thousand to my soul. At the last He will stand.
Christ is risen: more than ephemeral Easter eggs; He is the eternal everlasting essence of life itself. At the last He will stand.
Christ is risen: more than bunnies, baskets, and bonnets; He is born to new life, He bears hope to the hopeless and brings joy to the joyless. At the last He will stand.
Christ is risen: more than couture clothing and combed cottons; His robe is the light and His canopy space. At the last He will stand. At the last He will stand.
Christ is risen: not just younger than springtime. He is the ancient of days, enthroned in glory. At the last, at the very last, he will stand.
Christ is risen: not just the destroyer of death, but also He is life, He gives life, He invites us to life. I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection. I want you to know Him and the power of His resurrection. It is the only thing that is permanent, the only thing you can count on forever. Everything else will crumble. Everything else is throwaway. It’s not worth the powder it would cost to blow it up. But at the last He will stand. I want to be there. I want you to be there too. At the last He will stand.
