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
didnt, 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 werent 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, wont we? We speak
sometimes of a life saved, but we should more properly speak of a death
postponed. No life is ever saved
forever. Arent 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
earths 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. Its not
enough to believe this in our heads. We
have to feel it, experience it, believe it in our
hearts. Lets 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 Gods 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
dont 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.
Isnt
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 cant 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
doesnt 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.@ Ill 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. Id
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.