HOLDING ON TO THE FAITH...
When Our World Begins To Crumble...

And Things Get Fuzzy…
A Sermon “Starter” for the second Sunday in Lent
February 24, 2002
Lectionary Texts:
Genesis 12:1-4a, Psalm 121, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
*John 3:1-17
(*Preaching Texts)
Rev. Justin K. Fisher
Trinity United Methodist Church - Ft. Wayne, Indiana
fishhook@iquest.net
 http://www.trinityumc.cjb.net/

 

ow well do you see in the dark?  Thought you might enjoy this “fuzzy” passage that came across my desk this week:  Seems one Sunday night at church a pastor told the congregation that the church needed some extra money, and he asked the people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering plate.  He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns.

After the offering plates were passed, the pastor glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $1,000 bill in the offering.  He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with his congregation and said he’d like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate.  A very quiet, elderly, saintly lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand.  The pastor asked her to come to the front.

Slowly she made her way to the pastor.  He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanksgiving asked her to pick out three hymns.  Her eyes brightened and then she squinted in the darkening shadows for a moment.  Finally, she pointed to the three handsomest men in the building and said, “I’ll take him and him and him”!

I’ll take your $1,000 any time, night or day, and believe me I’ll see it in the offering plate!

Some of us don’t see very well at night.  My night vision isn’t what it used to be, and I find myself squinting a lot.  Some of you don’t drive at all in the evening, and some of us have some mighty powerful glasses.  I know this, and so do our youth, for a few weeks ago we used some of your donated eyewear in our devotions.  Each youth put on a pair of glasses that was not his/her own.  We then proceeded to read the scripture lesson for that evening from our Bibles.  Blurry, fuzzy, out of focus, we struggled to make out the letters.  The words didn’t mean anything if we couldn’t see them clearly.  And when we were done, we put the glasses back in the collection box.  Over the months and years, you have brought in your glasses to share with the Lions Club.  Our Lions recycle the lens wear and use them to provide eye care to persons in developing countries.  In Anderson we had an optometrist who made yearly trips to Central America with our “discarded” glasses.  What we no longer see through provides a new view for others.  Some of the discarded glasses we have been donating to our Lion’s Eye Box are now providing vision help in the day and in the night for our friends there.  We personally touched another’s eyes and helped him see better, no matter the time of day. 

But darkness, I’ve found,  is not just a time of night, it’s also a condition of the heart.

John tells us it was evening when Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees and the Jewish ruling council, came to seek out Jesus.  We suspect he came at night so as not to be seen by his colleagues.  After all, Jesus was not very popular with the religious establishment at the time.  Nicodemus came in the shadows so as not to be seen.   And we assume it was getting dark out.   But perhaps he also came because his heart was dark and gloomy.   Perhaps his world doesn’t make much sense anymore.  Perhaps he realizes that even though he is a respected religious authority, he doesn’t have all the answers.   And the more he “knows”, the less he is certain about.  Especially when his world begins to “crumble” with problems.  We don’t know what his problems are, but we suspect they run pretty deeply through his life.  This much we do know about Nicodemus.  He knows Jesus is a teacher from God, but is unsure of just what else he may be.   Regardless of the darkness on the inside and the outside,  Jesus sheds some light on the subject by declaring to him, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”  You must be born again.  And when you are born again, we might add, the pieces of life’s puzzles make more sense.

That statement, “You must be born again” is our faith statement this morning for this second Sunday in Lent.  Remember, Lent is our forty days of penitence and repentance and the seeking of forgiveness and renewal before Easter.  Lent is a journey, a biblical journey and very often a physical and spiritual one, that winds its way through a remembering of the suffering of Jesus.  It is a time to grow, and even though it is full of much sadness, that sadness turns to joy for the believers on Easter.  One way of looking at it is a journey through a wilderness toward home.  Another way of looking at Lent is to call it a journey from darkness to light.

During these Sundays of Lent our sermon series is entitled: “Holding On To The Faith … When…”, and today the “when” in the title  is “when our world begins to crumble and we don’t see clearly”.    Those days come, don’t they?  The ones where nothing goes right, and nothing seems clear, and trying to make sense of what happens to us is a puzzlement.   On days like that, when the best we have done seems to crumble under the weight of the world, we hold on to our faith and claim the promise of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”   Jesus gave this promise to a man who saw things in a puzzling, fuzzy way, to Nicodemus who came to him in the shadows.  To him and to us Jesus says, “you must be born again!”  There is no other way to come to God without becoming like a child in the faith.  There has to be a turning around, a movement from darkness to light, in faith and action.  Jesus brought this out in the open when he talked with Nicodemus.  He enlightened him quickly that we must all be born again and forgiven of our sins.  

And then to the “squinting” Nicodemus, Jesus adds this promise, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  ...This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light ... But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  (John 3:16-21)

So many times we gloss over these faith and promise statements, almost as if they were powerless influences in our life instead of life changing realities.  How often have week walked in darkness spiritually, refusing to acknowledge our sins and wickedness before God?   When we do this, we stumble in the darkness and the darkness deepens.  C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful short story about hell.  He doesn’t describe it as a place of fire and burning, but as a kind of darkening bus stop from which the busses from life pass through.  People get off quickly because they want their “space”, their rights, their own place, and are eternally unhappy and grumpy with everybody else.  Each builds his own home, but with enough space from his neighbor that he can barely see him in the darkening sky.  Way off in the distance one can see flecks of light indicating how far some have moved from the light.

How often do we do that?  Move away from each other in the faith?  Claim our own little lamp as the source of all warmth and light?  Especially on those days when our world crumbles.  When the job no longer stimulates us, when our closest personal ties come “untied”, when tragedy strikes, when accidents happen, when we’re shocked by the actions of others and by our own cruelty.  Jesus says when we do this we are not living as born again spiritual babies.  We are choosing to forget the innocence of infancy of salvation for the correctness and “justice” of adulthood.  We get just what we ask for, a little bit of light in a sea of darkening clouds.   But for the most part, we dwell in the shadows.

The light comes in when we acknowledge with heart and hand and soul and mind that Jesus was indeed the only Son of God, given up to save the world.  And we forget the promise too: that in him we are not condemned and we will not perish but have everlasting light.  What a powerful surge of light that message is, isn’t it?

No one tells us what happened to Nicodemus that night.  But we do know that he reappears in scripture at the end of Jesus life, when the light of our Savior’s day was flickering.  Scripture tells us that he donated myrrh and aloes for the burial, and along with Joseph of Arimathea, he asked for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion to give it a decent burial.  After that?  Did he become a secret disciple?  Did he “come out” and join the faithful believers?  Did he shrink back in the shadows?  Only God knows for sure.

And only God knows for sure about us!  Will we remain in the “crumbs” of gloomy existence?  We have been given the commandment, “You must be born again!”   Have we?  Lent is a time for making sure.  It is a time to get down on our knees and ask the Lord to come into our lives and forgive us our sins.  If we do that the promise goes into effect, “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  I want to claim that promise, don’t you?   I’m tired of always living in the shadows.

One of you sent me this poem this week, entitled, “How Do You Live Your Dash?”   It begins with the lines, “I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.  He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning...to the end.  He noted that first came her date of birth, and spoke the following dates with tears.  But he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years. (1900-1970).  For the dash represents all the time that she spent alive on earth....and now only those who loved her (and God) know what that little line is worth...  (Author unknown)

That poem challenged me to speak boldly about what I believe: You must be born again.  And it encouraged me to affirm the promise of eternal life.  I want my life to count, not just the year I was born and the year I died, but everything in-between.  I want to know that how I spent “my dash” made a difference, not because I did something wonderful, but because my Savior claimed me in “the dash” and saved me for eternal life.

How about you?  How are you living your dash?

Most of us will not get the opportunity to put a $1,000 bill in the offering plate.  A dollar in the self-denial Lenten folder will do...  But each of us has the opportunity of living in the light instead of the darkness.  Each of us has the chance to sharpen our line of vision and straighten our acts of faith up.  But we must speak boldly of what it is we believe, for the world is not much interested in anything that it doesn’t create.  You must be born again.  “For whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through Christ.”  (John 3:21)

He’s turning on the light in you right now! And he’s picking up the crumbs.  And you know what?  We are made whole in Him.  Praise Him!