AA Non-Anxious Christ@

How Shall We Live?

Polk City UMC

February 9, 2003

Mark Haverland

 

 

Mark 1:29‑39:  As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother‑in‑law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

 

 

 



The NASA scientists are trying to learn when, if ever, the astronauts on-board Columbia learned that they were in serious trouble.  They showed no great alarm on any of the voice transactions right up to the point where contact was lost.  Communication stopped before the astronauts expressed any sense of the danger which we now know was very real.  It may have been real from the first moments of the flight.  When I learned that a piece of foam may have doomed the flight two minutes after launch, I got the sinking feeling that some people might have known from the beginning and just not said anything because they knew they was no rescue.  I doubt this happened, but something akin to this horror accounts for our interest in the astronauts throughout their voyage.  Our fascination with pictures and voice recordings of the astronauts stems in part because we know they are about to die.  This ghoulish interest is made more intense because the astronauts did not know what we know now when we watch their apparently carefree journey into space.  Would they – would we – have behaved differently had they known they were going to die at the end of that journey?

 

When John Wesley came to America as a young priest to convert the heathen Indians, he had such an experience of thinking his journey would end in his death.  It didn’t, as it turned out, but the experience of horror and fear he felt affected the course of his life and ministry forever.  On the journey over to the colonies, a storm lashed the ship, causing it to toss and turn violently in the turbulent sea.  He and most of the passengers were frightened out of their wits.  One group of passengers, however, remained calm, singing hymns and praying quietly as they peacefully waited out the storm.  Wesley was amazed at their calm in the face of death.  Did they not know they were dying?  Why weren’t they panicked like the rest of them?

 

Wesley considered the Moravian believers to be simple and primitive people, not nearly as sophisticated in their religious understanding as he with his pedigreed Church of England education and training.  What lay in their hearts, Wesley wondered, that provided them more strength in the face of death than Wesley could muster with all his learned, educated faith?

 

Of course we will all die at the end of our current journey, won’t we?  We speak sometimes of a life saved, but we should more properly speak of a death postponed.  No life is ever saved forever.  Aren’t we all on a journey which will end in our death?  How can we live this journey with the peace of the Moravians, rather than the hectic, nervous, anxious fear which hovers over most of us most of the time? 

 

Most of us wrestle constantly with this very fundamental question:  How should we live so that we can face death well: calmly, peacefully, confidently?  I used to scoff at the old tracks that scared people with the question:  “If you were to die tonight, are you sure you would spend eternity with God?”  But, you know what, this is just an awkward way of putting a very fundamental question: How should we live so that death does not scare us?  This is important because those free to die are the ones most free to live!  The astronauts were free to live because they did not know they were going to die.  Our fascination with their journey is in part our wondering how different they would have lived during those last ten days had they known they would die on re-entry. Do you doubt that had we and they known the astronauts were going to die as they re-entered earth’s atmosphere that the world would have been in frenzied, anxious horror for the entire time?

 

Well, it turns out we will die on re-entry.  Our current journey does end in death.  The question is: how will we live in the mean time?  The answer is that we should live knowing in our hearts that God exists.  It’s not enough to believe this in our heads.  We have to feel it, experience it, believe it in our hearts.  Let’s watch this little exchange between the scientist and the believer.  It is from the movie Contact which we showed at movie night this past week.

 

 

Which of these two people lived better: The one who had to have proof, scientific, objective proof of everything important or the one who knew that God’s presence can calm the most troubled soul?  The Bible tells us that there will come a time when we see "face to face" what now is only a dark reflection in a murky mirror.  This time will come, I believe.  I don’t know exactly what I will see when the mirror is clear, but I do know that all I do now prepares me for this moment.  I don't have a concern about people dying without Jesus Christ, but I am very concerned with anyone trying to live without Jesus. 

 

I came across a story this week about a small town in New Mexico[i] that decided to have an auction to raise money for a community centre.  The townsfolk looked through closets and drawers, investigated their attics and garages and finally managed to gather a impressive collection of trinkets, white elephants, and bits and pieces of furniture and other slightly more valuable items.

 

On the day of the auction things proceeded quite well, several thousand dollars had been raised by the time the last item was brought forward - an old violin covered with spatterings of paint and coated with dust and grime. It had obviously been in the back of someone's garage for years.

 

"What am I bid for it", asked the auctioneer, holding it out at arms length.  There was only silence.  "Come on," he persisted, "say something".  Finally someone yelled out, "fifty cents", and everyone laughed.

 

Then, from the back, an old man, whom no one knew, came to the front and asked to see the violin.  He took it into his arms and began to play it.  Its beautiful sound filled the room and touched everyone's heart.  When he finished, he handed the violin back to the auctioneer and walked away.

 

"What am I bid", the auctioneer called out again: "$200! $300! $400!" and so the bids went on.

 

Isn’t this what we are looking for: someone who can play the violin well enough to make what looks like a fairly dim prospect into something of great value?  I believe firmly that God in Jesus is playing the fiddle of life and making it sound like a Stradivarius. I hope you do,too.

 

Can I prove this?  Not in the conventional way.  But I follow Jesus anyway.  I can’t prove that I love him nor that he loves me.  There will always be gaps between what we know of him and what we don=t know.  But it is not always what we know that counts.  Sometimes, the experience of our hearts tells us more truth than our heads will ever know.

 

All of us have sat at a deathbed and wished for a miracle.  AWhy don=t the doctors cure him?” we ask, we pray, we plead, we demand.  In other words, why doesn’t God care enough to give us what we want.  All of us have this thought at one time or another.  But this is our head searching in vain for the God who comes primarily to our hearts.  Jesus did not come so that we would never die, but so that we could live as if we would never die.  “How is this possible?” the skeptics ask.  “Who could believe such a preposterous idea?”  Only those of us who have had an experience of the living Christ can know these things where it really counts, in our hearts.

 


Jesus is very elusive in the passage we read this morning.  He heals a few people, casts out a few demons, throws out a few words of wisdom.  Then off he goes – to the next town – leaving behind a people full of questions.  When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons .

 

AEveryone is searching for you.@  I’ll say!  And we will continue to search if all we have is our scientific search for truth.  If we search in this way there are always going to be gaps, space between us and Jesus, for we are not God.  We can=t know everything.  But if we search with our hearts, Jesus will enter to bring peace to our troubled spirits.  Because Jesus lives, we need not fear tomorrow, even when it brings our death.

 

Everyone is searching for Jesus.  Well, not exactly everyone.  I read the other day that 33 percent of the population in the United States never go to church or synagogue.[ii]  Another 15 per cent attend just a few times a year.  About half of our country has given up looking.  The rest of us stumble on C sometimes seeing for sure, sometimes not knowing what is going on.  The point is not to have answers, but to have Jesus, Jesus in all of his life-giving presence.  It=s enough to know that he knows where we are going even if we don=t.  It=s enough to know that he has a vision of future, even if we don=t.  It=s enough to know that he leads us onward, even if we don=t know where.  Our opening song called Jesus to come “into our hearts, into our hearts, Lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay, come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”  With Jesus in our hearts, we can face yesterday, today and tomorrow.  I’d like to think that if I were on a journey I knew would end in death – and, as it turns out, I am -- I would live with peace, resolve, and understanding because the God of Jesus is in my heart.



[ii] The Atlantic Monthly,January/February 2003, page 37.