Well happy Easter! If you're our guest, we're so glad you're here. Over the past few weeks we've been talking about "Living under Pressure." Nobody has to tell you. Our lives are filled with all sorts of pressure. The pressure can make us mean, and unloving. It can rob us of joy and peace. Or... the pressure can refine us, and sanctify us, it can draw us deeper into God's grace. This morning I want to talk about finding hope... maintaining a sense of perspective... in trouble.
This didn't happen last week, it happened in 2009. I was feeling the summer vibe, and started walking to church for exercise. I only live one mile away, so that's what I did. BTW, walking down second street confuses people, there is nothing out this way, so people think you are homeless. Once a guy w/missing teeth, and a scraggly beard, flagged me down and offered me a half-used bottle of water of his dirty cooler. He felt sorry for me!
Now my assumption was if an emergency happened, I'd bum a ride home from someone. So sure enough, one day I worked late, and all the staff had just left... when I got a frantic call from Lara at home. You know... that split second you get a call, and know something terrible is happening, but you're waiting for the other person to calm down to tell you what's going on! The only time she gets worked up is if Duke loses, Dale Jr. crashes, or a snake slithers into our basement.
So Lara composes herself and tells me our Schnauzer Rock-E has been attacked by two pit-bull boxer mixes, and is bleeding all over. So I said, "Lara, I walked to work, send a neighbor to get me, else it will take me thirty minutes to get home." [I run a thirty-minute mile flat, its impressive]. As I waited, I had the advantage of perspective. I thought, "Don't react, stay calm. Lara needs me to be like Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 when his spaceship blew up. Pray!"
When I arrived, the neighbors were all standing around. Lara had screamed for their help, and they chased off the dogs with garbage cans. And there was Rock-E, wrapped in a towel, bloody, shaking like a leaf, sittingin the back of Lara's car, ready to race off to the vet. Poor guy! And Lara was standing in the driveway waiting for me, covered in mud (at least I think it was mud). When Rock-E was attacked, she'd got on her knees in dog pen, to help him! These dogs had somehow pulled Rock-E's head through our chain link fence. It was weird.
But you know, Lara changed her clothes. We took Rock-e into the garage, washed him up, and checked him over. Most of his wounds were superficial. We thanked our neighbors. We went to vet. We didn't have to break speed limit. (I don't walk to work anymore.)
When were under pressure, perspective is one of the first things we lose. Things quickly get out of focus. We're caught up in the adrenaline rush. We feel unprepared. It's harder to step back and understand everything that is happening, or know what to do.
So here we are at Easter. The greatest perspective we can have in a given situation is HOPE. Because of Jesus' death, burial, resurrection... we can have actual hope, true hope, no matter the trouble we face in life. Good Friday and Easter have forever changed our perspective on pressure. But I don't want to get ahead of myself...
How do you give someone greater perspective when they're in the midst of trouble? The hardest time to gain perspective is when you're already in the middle of the situation! And this is our problem. We don't often think about things until we're neck deep in trouble. This is why its so hard being called at the 11th hour to the hospital when someone is dying. I'm always asked to pray, but I always wish there had been more time to prepare the loved for what they are suffering. The time to prepare isn't during a crisis, it's before, it's right now.
So in the Gospel of John chapters 13-17 Jesus is trying to do this very thing. John keeps telling us that it's the FINAL HOUR... (THE FINAL COUNTDOWN)... before Jesus' arrest, his trial by night, his death sentence, and crucifixion. He has these final moments with his disciples to prepare them for what is about to happen... to give them a bigger perspective... to teach them about HOPE... to help them understand not just what is about to happen to Jesus, but what is about to the happen to them... to help them understand matters of life and death and eternity.
But Jesus' disciples have attention deficit disorder. They aren't grasping everything Jesus is trying to teach them. Still Jesus labors to help them understand. Throughout John 13-17, Jesus uses a series of striking images to prepare his disciples for his FINAL HOUR of life. Can you imagine anything more important to be ready for, than final hour of life?
Garden season is upon us. The first image Jesus uses is a seed.
In John 12:23-25 Jesus says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Could you imagine if your perspective on death was only the Fall, and you didn't have the vantage point of the Spring? Imagine how you'd feel... watching corn stalks drying up in every field, wondering if you'd ever seen corn again. Or watching flowers die, and loose their pedals. Or watching apples trees cast their fruit to the ground. The Fall would be pretty depressing if you didn't have the larger perspective of Winter, Spring, and Summer.
This is how it is with death. Jesus is in his final hour, and he's telling his disciples, our final moment would be tragic... except my life (and your life) is like a seed that dies, and is cast to the ground. But then once it dies, it's not the end, it produces many seeds, it produces many new flowers, it later produces much fruit.
When we only have the perspective of FALL on death, we panic, we get desperate, we cling to things harder than ever before. But when we have the perspective of SPRING on death, we understand that death is just a beginning of an eternal cycle of life, and beauty, and fruitfulness... and that it's certainly not the end.
Jesus had a profound way of getting the disciples attention. You know, like us, the disciples really needed to take Jesus' words seriously. In John 16:1-3, he tells them, "All of this I have told you so that you will not fall away... the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they're offering a service to God..." For the disciples there was no escaping Jesus' point. He was in affect saying, "Like me, you too will face death, and will you be ready?" In John 16:32 Jesus is more exacting, "A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home."
In the fall our life is expended. We die, we are scattered like seed. But the Spring is our destiny. The seed emerges into new life, it grows, and bears much fruit. Perspective matters for everything!
Mother's Day is around the corner. Jesus uses the image of birth.
In John 16:16 he says, "In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me." John 16:20 he explains, "Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy." [When we're grieving, it seems like grief will never end, that there is no hope, that there will only be anguish forever.]
But Jesus continues... John 16:21, "A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So it is with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."
Imagine if your perspective on life was limited to the delivery room, and not the maternity ward. What Jesus is saying is that you can persevere through the most anguishing pain and grief if you keep that greater perspective in mind. A mother in child birth is comforted in pain knowing she will soon hold her child. We are comforted in affliction knowing we will soon be with the Father.
A third image Jesus uses to teach us about death is his own life.
I was struck, while reading John 16:5-6 Jesus maybe even chastising his disciples. He says, "... now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, "Where are you going?" Rather you are filled with grief because I have said these things. It's for your good that I am going away. . ."
We often have the wrong perspective on life and death. We often look at a person's life and memorialize them for "where they have been." When our focus is only this life, we're filled with incredibly intense grief. But Jesus says we should be asking not where been, "Where are you going?" Where is the seed going? What joy follows birth? [Read John 14:1-7].
ONE FINAL IMAGE... A MEAL. [Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26]. Communion is not a "final meal" at "final hour"... its first of many meals... Resurrection enlarges perspective... LIFE!