Sermons
"Keeping the Faith"Pastor Russell Norris |
As for me ... the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness...
Listen, and I will tell you a mystery. Oh, not the Agatha Christie kind. A real mystery! Something you experience in life, and yet is absolutely incomprehensible - like the birth of your first child ... or your first grandchild. Suddenly, after months of waiting, there he is - that perfect little person. You see him, you hold him ... and yet, the whole experience is so unbelievable, so incomprehensible. It's a mystery!
The universe is a mystery. Ever go out under the stars at night and just look up and stare? Ever do that, maybe when you were a kid with a friend? Lay there in the grass or on the beach and look up and wonder, "How far does it go? Does it go on forever? And if it doesn't, what is there beyond that?" It's a mystery.
Like life. Life is a mystery. We know it's there, we experience what it means to be alive, and yet we can't even begin to understand it. Astronomers and mathematicians tell us the chances of life happening by accident are less than one in ten to the 40,000th power. Now that's a lot of zeroes! How did life appear on this earth? Where did it come from? We've tried to reproduce it in the laboratory, in a test tube, but without success.
Life is a mystery. And if life is a mystery, how much more whatever lies beyond this life? Life beyond? Where? How? Under what conditions? I have no idea. Paul says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness..." What does that mean? I don't know. It's beyond my comprehension. "We see in a mirror dimly," says Paul.
We're like a baby that hasn't yet been born. Try telling her what life will be like after birth. You'd be wasting your breath. It's the same with life after death.
So why do we believe it? We don't go around believing wild stories just because they're wild, do we? Did you know there were ghosts in the church last night? And that three-legged Martians were walking around the parking lot? Oh, really? Thanks for letting me know!
Come on, this isn't a wild story like something out of a Hollywood thriller. We believe the mystery, first of all, because we have some pretty good witnesses: One man who lived and loved and died, and came back. Showed himself to a bunch of people. Over five hundred heard him and saw him and touched him.
And they were so convinced by what they heard and saw and touched, that it turned them from a bunch of cowards into a band of saints, ready to take on an empire - ready to risk even death in the name of that experience. In fact, the earliest written account we have was written down not twenty years after it happened. The man who wrote it knew most of the witnesses first hand. So this is no ghost story. This is real.
We believe because of what we've heard. And we believe because of what we've experienced - because of what happens to us and our lives, when we go with Paul and Peter and the rest of them, when we trust them, when we believe what they say. For one thing, faith in this mystery gives meaning to our lives. If there's no reckoning, if there's no justice, if there's no reward, the whole idea of a loving God is ridiculous.
It's only when we believe the mystery, that life doesn't end with a pop like a light bulb dropped on the sidewalk - it's only when we believe that we come from somewhere and we're going somewhere - it's only when we believe that how we live has consequences ... eternal consequences - it's only then we find the real meaning of life.
That's what Paul is talking about this morning. He says, "I have kept the faith". I have kept the faith. And that faith turned the world upside down. It took Simon the fisherman, made him Peter the Rock, and carried him all the way to Rome. It took Saul the Pharisee, made him Paul the Apostle, and marched him 15,000 miles around the Mediterranean. That's what faith did for them. Think what that faith can do for you.
Look around you. You see what shape the world is in. What do we say to all these things: the violence, the tragedies, the storms, earthquakes, accidents, rejections, infirmities, hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword? What shall we say to these things? We say, "What shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
You see, the mystery calls us to believe that - appearances notwithstanding - nothing, not disease, not divorce, not disaster, not dumb luck, not even death itself can separate us from God's loving purpose for our lives. Paul says, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom." If God did it for Paul, God can do it for us.
Listen to the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he sat in a prison cell in 1944, a prisoner of the Nazis, and soon to be a martyr. He wrote to a friend, "Please don't ever get anxious or worried about me, but don't forget to pray for me - I'm sure that you don't! I am so sure of God's guiding hand that I hope I shall always be kept in that certainty. You must never doubt that I'm travelling with gratitude and cheerfulness along the road where I'm being led. My past life is brim-full of God's goodness, and my sins are covered by the forgiving love of Christ crucified."
Out of trust in the mystery comes meaning. Out of trust in the mystery comes strength. What then shall we say to all these things? We are more than conquerors. We who embrace the mystery - we who embrace the promise that God is with us even in our darkest hours, bringing life out of death - we receive the strength and the courage to face whatever tomorrow holds.
Out of the mystery, meaning. Out of the mystery, strength. Out of the mystery ... music!
Yes, music. "For the trumpet will sound." I know there are plenty of folks in this world who believe that death is the last word. I just don't know how those who think life leads only to the grave, can ever really sing. Music is a sign of the mystery.
When John Kennedy was shot back in 1964, I was just a senior in college. I went home from school to the apartment I shared with three other students, and found one of my roommates sitting in the middle of the living room floor, listening to Brahm's Requiem, with tears streaming down his face. The music was both a reminder of our mortality and a promise that death shall have no dominion. The music brought the mystery to life.
One of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther speaks of his love for music: "I am strongly persuaded," he said, "that after theology, there is no other art that can be placed on a level with music, for besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy to the heart."
I know of a pastor who never sang very much, because he didn't have much of a voice, and couldn't read music. But one Easter his daughter persuaded him to sing along with the choir when it came to the "Hallelujah Chorus". And he really got caught up in the last part, when they were singing all those "hallelujahs" at the end. He said that as they were singing all those hallelujahs, he got carried away. He loved singing those hallelujahs, and he was about to sing a couple more, when all of a sudden, the choir stopped, the director stopped, and the organ stopped. Later he said they stopped too soon! He said, "Ever since then I've been going around with a couple of hallelujahs inside of me, waiting to get out." What a way to live. What a way to die.
So we embrace the mystery this morning. And in it we find meaning, and strength, and music. "I have fought the good fight," says Paul, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness..." Thanks be to God, who rescues us from every evil and saves us for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah!