When you reach a crisis point in your life, you have only a few choices about how to respond. When those crisis moments come, all you can do in response can be boiled down to three things and three things only: either you can give up; or you can stand and fight; or you can learn something radically different, you can learn faith. Those are your choices; let’s examine them.
I
A
In response to a crisis, you can give up. You can let the situation defeat you. You can sit back and let it swamp you. I think of the Psalmist who cried out, “My soul is cast down within me ... all your waves and your billows have gone over me.” One response to crisis is to drown in it, let it wash over you, let it take over your life. Some folks are just immobilized when they are in crisis. But there are other choices.
B
In response to a crisis, instead of giving up, you can decide that you will fight the thing that has attacked you. You can determine that you will not let this problem get the better of you, and you will fight it to the last drop of your life’s blood. That sounds good, even heroic, and there are times when we must, as Churchill put it, “never, never, never give up”. But isn’t it also true that fighting against the inevitable can exhaust us and can lead us to frustration? Isn’t it true that if you just refuse to admit that a crisis exists and you keep on doing the same old same old, just because that’s what you do, you will end up emptied and dissatisfied? The writer of Ecclesiastes, for example, concluded that all is vanity, that we gain nothing from all our toil, that we are on an endless cycle of doing and working, and, as he writes it, “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. All things are wearisome.” What a sad commentary it would be to come to the end of your life feeling as though you had kept on keeping on, only to know that just as all streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full, so also your life has ebbed out incomplete, not full, not satisfied. No, there has to be more than that.
C
And so what else is there? How else can we respond to a crisis? If giving up and letting the waves and billows overwhelm us is destructive; if fighting back, knowing that all streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full, is unsatisfying, then what other choice is there? How may we respond to a crisis moment other than letting it defeat us, other than fighting futility? We can respond with faith. We can respond with trust. We can place ourselves in the control of the One who made us, and expect that He will give us contentment and peace. Ultimately the only victory over crisis is profound faith in God and abiding trust in the redemptive power of Christ. If you are in crisis the pathway from crisis leads through faith to Christ. From crisis to Christ.
II
The Apostle Paul provides us with a gripping account of one of his crisis moments. He lays it all out for the Corinthian church: II Corinthians 11:24-28
Wow! What a catalog of crisis moments! I am especially moved by the part that says, “for a night and a day I was adrift at sea”, because there is so little you can do if you are adrift. But then Paul points us to his response to the crisis. How did he respond? Did he give up and let it swamp him, drown him? No, not at all. Did he just stand and fight and descend into hostility and useless frustration? By no means! He responded with faith; he turned himself over to trust. From crisis he came to a fresh new experience of Christ. Listen to Paul: II Corinthians 12:9b-10. Therefore I am content with [all kinds of things – let’s just say crisis moments] ... I am content with crisis moments for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
III
How right and how fitting it is that we should gather to remember Andrew Maybin during this Memorial Day season! Andrew was the consummate veteran. He loved his Navy duty. He invested nearly a quarter-century of his life in the United States Navy. In some sense, his family says, he never left. His heart was still there, and, in fact, in his last days it seemed as though old battles were being fought and old shipmates were brought to life. His experiences as a sailor were so vivid and so much a part of everything he was.
A
So much so that it was not easy to adjust to civilian life, once he retired from active duty. But Andrew was not one to sit at home and vegetate, and the needs of a large family demanded that he continue to work. He found a position at the Government Printing Office, and spent a good number of years in satisfying work there, until ...
Until a defining crisis point. Until a moment that would challenge Andrew’s emotional and spiritual core. A heart attack led to a forced retirement from GPO. Never mind that is was for the sake of his good health; never mind that it was supposed to be for his benefit. Andrew found it hard to receive this news. It was a crisis moment for him, for you see, we in our society seem to define men by their work. For the male of the species, if we are not working, we feel as though we are nobody. Something in us pushes us to keep on working; believe me, I know what I am talking about! Since my alleged retirement from the pastorate here, I’ve taken on three things and sometimes feel busier than when I was with you! So this was not a good moment for Andrew – 66 years old and told to go home and sit. How would he respond to this crisis?
Remember, now, that there are only three choices in response to a crisis: either you let it defeat you, swamp you, drown you; or you fight it until you get angry and hostile, frustrated and dissatisfied, like the streams that run to the sea, but the sea never fills up. Or, you can turn to faith in God, you can trust Christ, you can let God be God and put your confidence in what He will do in you.
The details are hazy, but I do remember that conversation in 1993 when Andrew, encouraged by Mel Marie, came to talk with his pastor about what was going on. He described his crisis; he poured out his feelings; he let some tears flow, as I recall. We thought a bit together about what it means to let go of something as precious as a man’s work; we looked at the sorts of things he was interested in – much of that centered on his family; but most of all we talked of how our Christ is able to get down into the core of a man’s life and give him something new to be and to do. What it takes is trust; what it requires is faith. And so it was our joy, in this very room, on a September morning more than a dozen years ago, to welcome Andrew Maybin into this fellowship of the people of Christ, and to see him sail on into a new journey, not one marked by employment, but one measured by a calm spirit and a quiet heart. We saw him embark on a new phase in his life, not frantic to be doing something out there in the world, but content to give himself to his family, and just to be in Christ. We saw Andrew go from crisis to Christ, through faith.
B
Friends, the Andrew Maybin you saw in these last few years found the strength to weather the storms because of that faith. To lose a grandchild and then, so recently, a son, is not easy. But Andrew brought a calm spirit to these losses. They did not drown him, nor did he fight them in futility. He sailed through them, with a wonderful peace and a confident spirit.
And then this final illness – again Andrew became settled, clear, assured. Old sailor he may have been, but he was not adrift at sea. He was content. He had come through many a crisis to Christ. How would he respond to these debilitating strokes?
He did not degenerate into defeat and despair. The waves and billows did not overwhelm him. He was content, for the sake of Christ, for whenever we are weak, but trust in Christ, then we are strong. He came from crisis to Christ.
Nor did he destroy himself by fighting what could not be avoided. Indeed, among the family there is the suspicion that, knowing that he could not come back from his stroke to anything like full capacity, he simply let God’s mercy take over and bring him home. But remember, this is not a stream running hopelessly to the sea; this is trust, this is faith. This is from crisis to Christ.
Conclusion
Do you remember how the Lord Jesus, one evening, said to his followers, “Let us go across to the other side.”? And they set out in the boat, but a storm arose, and the waves beat the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Do you recall what happened? When they cried out to Jesus, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still”. And there was calm. Stillness. Peace.
Andrew, my brother, take your rest. Let that calm spirit which the Lord gave you carry you across to the other side. And remind us, my friend, of how you came from crisis to Christ, and we shall be content. We shall find strength. We shall hear it ourselves – “Peace, be still”.
“Drop Thy still dews of quietness
‘Til all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.”
Across to the other side ... from crisis to Christ ... peace.
