Sermon from March 17

Lenten Midweek Service 5
March 17, 2010
1 Peter 1:6-9
I can’t believe in a God who would…

In the name of Jesus, amen. I imagine that the reversal would have had to be stunning. I know Jesus knows all things, but the reversal of the crowds still would have cut quite deeply. “Save yourself! Come down from the cross.” That was quite a change from “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Once the crowds had hung on his every word, now they just wanted him hung. They turned on Jesus in a most vicious way. The chief priests and the scribes pointed out the utter folly of the so-called Son of God: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Even one of the criminals joined in the jabbing. Jesus hung on the cross, hung between two criminals, hung between heaven and earth, utterly alone. His followers had fled into the darkness the night before, and except for his mother, two Marys and John, all his people seemed to turn on him.

Jesus turned his eyes where he was certain to find some respite. Intensely Jesus looked to heaven, searching for a sign of deliverance from His God. But even the midday sky closed itself to him. The clouds were thick and the sun was nowhere to be found. All Jesus saw was black nothingness. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” How could God leave him like this? How could he trust in a God who would abandon him in his time of greatest need?

On January 12, 2010, Odinel was in her first floor apartment preparing rice and beans for her family’s dinner. She had six children to feed, five were doing their homework in the family room and one was playing outside. It was a day like any other day, until the earth shook itself and convulsed, bringing the six-story building crashing down upon them in a few moments of chaos. Stunned, Odinel was incredibly able to compose herself and dig herself free, but she feared the fate of her five children who had been inside with her. She was sure they were dead as she saw layers of concrete lying where the children had been studying. She could never move that kind of concrete by herself, so how could her children? Everybody else was scrambling for their own survival and this mother faced the harsh reality that her children were dead or soon would be. In a matter of moments, five of her children were snatched from her motherly embrace.

That Haitian earthquake killed an estimated 230000 people. The world was staring into the abyss. Until the Chilean earthquake struck. Until there was an earthquake in Tokyo. Until torrential rain fell on top of melting snow. We are pressed by the brutality of this world on so many different sides. There are everyday struggles of family and health that we long for when we are receiving news about wars and terrorist threats, lost jobs, tragic car accidents, and long battles against disease. In those times we come face to face with utter helplessness. We cry out for help- to anyone! We look to anybody for some sort of answer. We especially pray to God, time after time. But what do our cries get? Often the same thing that Jesus got- silence.

How many Christians have prayed to be delivered from clutches of cancer or some other terrible illness to no avail? One or two make it against the odds, but what about the rest? How often do people pray over their failed relationships? How many cry out over the despair of joblessness? Does God ever hear us? Is God even real? 230000 dead in Haiti. 3000 killed in the United States on 9-11. Did God ignore the cries of those people, of anyone caught in peril or distress?

As the dark clouds hung over the head of Jesus, he faced his greatest trial. Everything he stood for hung in the balance. In a matter of hours he would be dead. He had already been shamed, humiliated and discredited. Everyone around Jesus had reason to abandon faith because the pressure to despair was immense. What good, what benefit was there for Jesus to patiently wait any longer?

How could this be the arrival of God’s kingdom that he had so forcefully preached? How could he be the Messiah and long-awaited king of Israel if it was going to end like this? Now was the time for Jesus to give it all up, and no one would fault him for it. But stubbornly, defiantly, Jesus pressed onward. He did the unthinkable, resolving himself to patiently wait on his Father in heaven. Jesus refused to give up his hope that God’s kingdom was at hand. He did not fight to bring himself down from the cross. He did not call on an army of angels to intervene. He did not curse God. Some mocker would say that like a fool Jesus threw himself into the hands of his God. A scoffer would ridicule Jesus for blessing and loving those who stood against him. Following the way of love, Jesus persisted till the end and refused to back down. He would not be deterred. He threw himself headlong into the destructive path of death itself. And to the despair of those who stayed and watched, death did not yield. It pushed forward and crushed Jesus under its feet.

Under six stories of broken building, seven year old Kiki, his ten year old sister Sabrina, and their little brother were buried alive. Tucked away in a small pocket in the concrete rubble with the corpses of their other two siblings, these three had amazingly been spared. But they were trapped- alone, hungry, thirsty, weak. Days passed, and they heard no one calling for them, and there was no sign that rescue was on the way. Kiki and Sabrina’s little brother cried and cried, begging for water. Powerlessly they were unable to satisfy his need. He asked for water on Wednesday, and on Thursday, and on Friday, but there was no water. Fatigued and dehydrated, he died of thirst in their arms. Surrounded by the decaying bodies of their brothers and sisters, Kiki and Sabrina clung to each other and waited. Though it would have been easy to simply surrender in despair, slipping into death like their brothers and sisters, they continued to hope beyond all hope that they would be rescued. They found their solace in one another, strengthened by the fact that they were not alone.

In this world death stands on your doorstep- disease, disasters of every sort, wars, and violence rage all around threatening to tear your life apart. Will you continue to look to God in hope or will you walk away in despair? Alone, you will eventually fall into despair. With others, there is a chance for hope. Like Kiki and Sabrina, it is important that you and I face the harshness of reality in the company of one another. If you and I try to go it alone, then we will not make it- we are simply not strong enough. God has graciously given us a community of brothers and sisters that we might build each other up and strengthen ourselves in the face of the world’s darkness. Peter’s first letter was written to Christians who were dealing with persecution. They were people tempted to give up on God. ‘Now for a little time you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These come so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine.’ Those facing persecution were part of a community in Christ. Without community, the task ahead of us would be too much. When we stare death in the face, refusing to buckle, we need each other.

On Friday they laid Jesus’ body in the tomb. He had stared into the abyss and it had swallowed him up. It looked like the kingdom he had preached never came and now he was just another dead messiah, a failure. Scoffers said his trust in a god who would let him face rejection, suffering, and crucifixion was nothing but a joke. They reveled in their ridicule. How could he have thought that such a god was real? His god had been too late. His trust had been in vain. In a world where the strong conquered, Jesus was weak. In a world where wisdom rules, Jesus was foolish. In a world where death was the final word, Jesus was dead. The dark, unforgiving world once again asserted its strength. But as it pressed relentlessly on this weak and seemingly foolish Jesus, its iron grip began to slip. On Sunday morning, the way of the world was shown to be a fraud. The world that everyone thought they knew was completely turned on its head. Jesus, the crucified failure, was bodily raised to life! His foolishness proved to be true wisdom- his weakness, true strength! Everything the world thought it had figured out began to crumble to rubble.

A week after the disaster, Kiki and Sabrina’s aunt Devinal returned to the family’s apartment to look for some belongings. As she looked through the rubble, she heard what she thought were faint cries. She started to dig with a crowbar. She then went to find help and some rescue workers from New York and Virginia came to the scene and moved in to help. After four hours of digging and cutting through five layers of crushed concrete, they came upon Kiki. Huddled next to the corpse of one of his siblings they were able to pull him free. They then released Sabrina who was trapped behind a metal chair. After eight days with no food or water the two children were reunited with their mother amidst tears and laughter and joy. Their foolish hope was answered, and a small window into another world was revealed.
In the story of Kiki and Sabrina, in countless other stories throughout the world, we are given small reminders that our natural understanding of what is good and evil, right or wrong, wise or foolish, strong or weak, has been turned upside down in Jesus Christ the crucified. The insignificant and humble ways of faith, hope, and love are shown in Christ to be God’s way. The dark world around us will continue to mock the Christian’s foolish hope. But our assurance is that the outcome of faith in Jesus’ God is nothing short of true rescue on the other side of death.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. Though you do not see God, you know that you will be saved from the evil clutches of a world of disease, disaster, war, and broken relationships. Cling to God in all things and you will be raised from the dead, just like Jesus! As you lie on your deathbed, and all the days leading up to it, you can be certain that your God, the God of Jesus, acts on the other side of death, on the other side of the abyss. Our God resides in a crucified Jesus. You would be a fool to believe in a God like that- a God you cannot see, a God on the other side of death! Yeah, you would be a fool, just like Jesus. ‘You believe in him, and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls!’ SDG