Anxiety, Fear, and Peace

 

John 14:23-29

Easter 6 / Year C

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you… Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

A woman with a counselling practice had an office next to mine at the church I served when I was first ordained.  She once said to me something I have never forgotten: Strong emotions are contagious.  Think about this for a second.  We are susceptible to picking up on the emotions of another person and making them our own.  Some, like those who have what we describe as a ‘calming effect’, are helpful.  Others, like when panic spreads causing people to hoard toilet paper… not so much. 

This morning we hear Jesus talk about peace, anxiety, and fear.  I suspect the more negative an emotion, the more potent its sway will be.  The more positive the emotion, the softer it is.  Thus, anxiety and fear can be ratchetted up to a very high level in no time at all.  Peace, on the other hand, doesn’t normally barge its way into a chaotic situation.  Often it has to be invited or even cultivated before it takes root and bears fruit.

Anxiety is one of the more powerful emotions which can overtake us and dominate our existence.  I doubt there has ever been an age when the folks of that era were completely at ease, never having a worry or a care.  Anxiety, like oxygen, is ever-present.  It is woven into the very fabric of human existence.  Because we have the cognitive ability to anticipate future outcomes we worry about what is to come, even if we can (to a greater or lesser degree) shape and influence them.  In the great family of emotions, fear a close relative of anxiety.  It is what we feel when we anticipate an outcome will be detrimental and we sense we have no control over it. 

When thinking about anxiety, it is important to differentiate between responding to a typical anxiety-producing event (like waiting for the hospital to call back with your test results) and mental health conditions identified as disorders.  These fall into one of four broad categories: generalized disorder (intense worry about a lot of things), social anxiety disorder (emanating from some form of contact with other people), panic disorder (feeling trapped), and specific phobias (snakes, heights, and the like).  One in every five people suffers from an anxiety disorder and of these just a little more than a third seek professional help.  Some 50 million Americans have an anxiety disorder which is never identified or addressed. 

If you are anxious, a spouse or friend is apt to say something like, “Just calm down” or “Why do you let yourself get so stressed out” or “You need a drink.”  A well-meaning Christian is likely to tack on “You should pray about this” or “You just need to have faith” or even worse, “It is a sin to worry so much.”  In one form or another their message is you should be stronger and you should have more faith.  If you are planning an outdoor wedding and are stressed about the possibility of bad weather, this is not at all helpful.  If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, it can be downright destructive. 

Into all of this we hear Jesus say, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you… Do not let your hearts be troubled; and do not let them be afraid.” 

As with last week’s reading, the context of the passage is significant.  Jesus says this to his disciples during the Last Supper.  Before the sun rises their world will undergo a jarring change.  They will flee in fear from the scene of Jesus’ arrest.  When they gather, it will be behind locked doors.  Even the report of the empty tomb troubles them.

When Jesus offers peace to his followers, he is not separating the sheep from the goats – the goats being the ones who don’t trust enough and the sheep being those who are able to chill when times are troubling.  How do I know Jesus is not judging them for their crippling unease?  Because I read my bible and Jesus says in John 12:27: “Now my soul is troubled.”  If Jesus can be anxious about his impending arrest, torture, and death, then we can be assured we are not judged when we are anxious and fearful. 

Jesus is able to experience peace by giving his life into God’s care.  The peace he finds he offers to us as a gift to transform how we experience and react to the stresses in our lives.  Let me suggest an analogy.  Imagine you are standing outside on a day so clear the sunlight is too intense to bear.  Allow this image to stand for anxiety.  Then imagine someone hands you a pair of sunglasses which you put on.  The sun is still as severe, but wearing the sunglasses makes you better able to hold up under it.  This is what Christ’s peace offers to us as we learn to live and move and have our being in God.  Living with this peace isn’t a skill you master once and then you have it, like swimming.  It is more like learning to play a musical instrument.  It requires work, dedication, and practice in order to get better at it.   

All of this links well with today’s observance of Rogation Sunday, a name deriving from the Latin word meaning ‘to ask.’  The ritual dates back to 470 AD when Bishop Mamertus faced a crisis in his diocese.  It seems the region was inundated with plagues, earthquakes, pestilence, bad weather, and all manner of things which go bump in the night.  It was an anxious time.  So, the good bishop called the people to prayer, and not just any prayer.  He crafted a litany to address all the problems.  And the faithful were not instructed to drop to their knees in the church nave.  He led them in procession and pageantry around the bounds of village; stopping and praying as they went.  And guess what.  It worked!  Things improved dramatically.  As word spread, so did the practice.  It became popular because it imparted a certain level of peace.  The people did what they could and gave the rest to God.

There are many ways to access the peace which Jesus offers.  Some are spiritual, some are just good, common sense, and some happen as you engage mental health professionals.  There is no one path to the peace Jesus offers but know this – Jesus gives us his peace.

The Parable of Love

 

John 13:31-35

Easter 5 / Year C

Jesus said, “Love one another just as I have loved you.” (John 13:34)

Michael Curry, when he served as the Presiding Bishop of our church, often told audiences he had set one modest goal for his nine-year term in office.  He wanted to make sure every Episcopalian memorized at least one verse from the bible and could recite it chapter and verse.  Then he launched into this:

· Repeat after me: “I John”… “I John”, we all said.

· “chapter 4, verse 8”… “chapter 4, verse 8.”

· “God”… “God”

· “is”… “is”

· ‘love.”… “love”.

Then he would have us put it all together… “I John, chapter 4, verse 8: God is love.”  See, now you too have memorized a verse from the bible.  Practice it every day and make sure to quote it to you Baptist friends.  Not only will they be impressed, they might even wonder what has gotten into you!

When John writes “God is love,” he is using love as a noun.  When he records the words of Jesus saying, “Love one another as I have loved you,” he is using love as a verb in the imperative form.  God is love, not love as in the intense feeling we associate with falling in love (which we can also fall out of), but something else.  The Oxford English Dictionary has twenty-four different entries for love when it is used in the form of a noun, but none gives a fully satisfactory description for what the word means when it is used to describe God’s character and nature.

While we may not be able to come up with a good definition, we Christians can point to the definitive example.  We Christians hold the clearest, most authentic demonstration of God’s love is found in the person of Jesus.  St. Paul put it best when he wrote to the church in Colossae, Jesus “is the visible image of the invisible God.” (1:15)  So, when Jesus says to his disciples “Love one another just as I have loved you,” he is saying they are to manifest in their lives God’s true nature as he himself has made it known through his words and deeds.

To understand better how Jesus embodies divine love, we need to look at the context for today’s reading.  It takes place at the Passover meal in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday.  During the supper, Jesus gets up from the table, wraps himself in a towel, and washes the feet of those present.  This is a lowly task normally performed by a servant and certainly never by a master or rabbi. 

It is a kind of enacted parable.  And like any parable, its meaning and message are hardly static.  For example, the Parable of the Good Samaritan’s teaching in not at all limited to what a Christian should do if he or she encounters a wounded victim while travelling by foot on the Wadi Qelt, the winding dry gulch which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho.  If the teaching of a parable was confined only to the exact elements of the story, it would be rendered practically useless.  The power of a parable lies in its ability to speak to a multitude of different situations we encounter on a regular basis.  Parables are intended for application, make us work for discernment, and often drive us to prayer for guidance.

Jesus’ example of foot washing is like this.  It is about so much more than an ancient ritual, an act of hygiene, or even a display of hospitality.  It is a demonstration of Jesus’ love, which is nothing less than God’s nature revealed in human flesh.  If I, in this sermon, attempted to spell out for you exactly what the foot washing means for you, I would be locking it into something like a check-list – akin to saying “Do A, B, and C and you will be a good Christian.”  It is more like a filter on a camera lens which shapes the way a photographer sees a subject, setting, or image.  You honor Jesus’ act by looking through it as you engage life and loved ones and ask “What would foot washing look like in this specific moment or situation?”     

There is more to Christianity than embracing a certain ethic or moral posture.  Jesus’ main criticism of the pharisees seems to have been while they often did the right thing, their heart was not in it.  Their actions could be construed as loving, yet they emanated from a sense of duty and were not an actual expression of love.  They did the right thing, but their motivation soured its taste. 

There is a mystical element to our faith.  We sense the need to invite Christ’s love to live in us.  Short of this kind of possession, all the good we seek to do may become little more than an obligation and, if it becomes an obligation, eventually it will become a burden.  A good prayer each morning might go something like this:

Fill me, O Lord, with your love.  Fill me to overflowing so that today I might love others as you have loved me.  Amen.

The Voices We Hear

 

John 10:22-30

Easter 4 / Year C

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.” 

After a detailed study, anthropologist Roberta Salmi determined babies recognize the voice of their mother within a few hours of being born.  During the last ten weeks of pregnancy, she found, a baby begins to absorb what it is hearing and shortly after birth can demonstrate a familiarity with the language spoken by its mother.  Even before we are born we learn to recognize a specific voice and begin to follow.

And while a mother’s is the first voice we hear, it won’t be the last.  In fact, there are so many voices competing for our attention, one of the most essential life skills we must develop is learning how to focus our attention on what matters most while tuning out rest of the stuff which can be little more than noise.  We call this skill discernment, which is something more vast than simply what we listen to, but it does involve this, and it is comforting to know we get a leg up in the womb when we begin to home in on one of the most important voices we will encounter during all our days.

In today’s reading, when Jesus tells his critics his sheep know his voice, he is (in effect) telling them they don’t know who he is because they are not his of his flock.  Most often we turn this around and take from it the message Jesus is the shepherd who calls us to follow him.  It harkens back to one of the unique features of shepherding, namely, sheep, even when intermingled amongst other herds, respond to the call of their specific shepherd.  They associate his voice with the one who leads them to food and water, protects them from harm, tends to their wounds, finds shelter from the storms, and (perhaps like David) even sings to them, creating an atmosphere of calm and peace.  

When we are baptized we promise to turn from…

·    Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God,

·    All the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and

·    All sinful desires which draw us from the love of God.

As I say to those in baptismal preparation, we commit to renounce Satan, the world, and the self in order to turn to Jesus as our Savior (the One who frees us from the bondage of sin), our Lord (the One who we will obey), and our Guide (the One who shows us the way).  Satan, the world, the self, our Savior, our Lord, and our Guide: each has a voice that speaks to us and we must discern which is which.

I don’t think I have ever met a person who openly cultivates the voice of Satan, but I do know some colleagues who say they have.  I do know many who have followed the voices of evil which calls us (among other things) to dominate the weak or to seek revenge on our enemies or to use power to inflict pain for the sport of it. 

As for the world, it has many voices telling us how materialism is the path to happiness, beauty is the path to self-esteem, and consumption is the key to inner fulfillment.  Some people speak to us in a worldly way, perhaps an old teacher who said you will never amount to anything or a subordinate who butters you up for his or her own advancement.  I could go on, but you are discerning enough to do this work through your own analysis.

But what about the voice inside you?  What does the self say to you? 

I spent a summer in college scooping ice cream at a store in a shopping mall.  One night we had to work late and at some point the mall’s large fountain shut off.  The large concourse became dead quiet, like I had never heard it before in that space.  It was only when the fountain was still that I became aware of how much sound it was constantly making.

Our inner voice can be like this.  It is always on to the effect we may not even realize it, although we do hear it.  This can be good or bad, depending on what it is saying to you.  It might say, “You can do it!”, “Tomorrow will be a new day”, “You are good enough just the way you” or a thousand other things which remind you of your value and affirm your basic dignity and worth.

Or, your inner voice can be incredibly harsh and unforgiving: “Why am I always so stupid?”, “What else did I expect to happen given I’ve always been a failure?”, “Why didn’t I just keep quiet?  When will it ever sink into my head no one wants to hear what I have to say anyways.”  For some, this voice is cruel and unrelenting.  But it is not the voice of the Good Shepherd.  It is not the voice we turn to at our baptism.  It is the voice we renounce with the full conviction what Jesus says to us overrides everything else we are hearing.

God spoke to Jeremiah, little more than a child at the time, saying what we might expect a mother to say, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5).  Our shepherd’s voice is like this, speaking to us of how we a precious, special, deeply loved, and valuable beyond all measure… just as we are.  This is the voice we hear, and it is the one we follow because we know to whom we belong.  Learning to discern this voice amidst all the other voices vying for our attention and responding to it in the way a flock responds only to the voice of its shepherd is an act of discipleship.  It demonstrates we are followers of Jesus because we know his voice.

Peace be with You

 

John 20:19-31

Easer 3 / Year C

Imagine you are in Jerusalem gathered with friends in a room where days before you had shared the Passover meal.  It had been a warm event, not unlike the Agape Meal we experienced on Maundy Thursday.  Jesus, the host, washed your feet to demonstrate the power and place of loving one another as he loves us, spoke cryptically about an insider who would betray him, and, generally speaking, was in a dark mood.  Still, all things considered, you and the others are tired, but upbeat as you make your way out into the city and across the Kidron Valley to reach the group’s nighttime destination in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Then everything changes and changes dramatically.  An armed palace guard arrests Jesus.  After being tried by the Sanhedrin, interrogated by Romans officials, beaten, whipped, humiliated, and mocked by soldiers, he is placed before a mob of fellow citizens who demand his execution.  He is forced to carry his own cross on a torturous uphill route to Golgotha.  There he is crucified – one of the most brutal forms of capital punishment ever devised.

And now, just three days later, you are huddled in the place where days before Jesus broke bread with you.  There are many questions and few answers.  Are the authorities looking to arrest you as they did Jesus?  Will locals be rewarded for turning you in?  What should your next move be?  How do you make sense of everything you had seen and heard and done over the last three years?  Why is Jesus’ body be missing from its tomb, as some of the women reported and Peter verified?  Will you ever be able to get over the crushing grief of losing your rabbi, your leader, and your friend?

The world on the other side of the door where you are gathered holds so many unknowns.  This much is certain, you and your friends are at great risk.  Fear permeates the air.  No one questions why the door is locked.  If anything, perhaps some wonder why it isn’t barricaded also. 

Nothing compares to the emotion you feel when your entire world collapses.  It is completely disorienting.  It is all-encompassing.  It is a kind of numb so painful you can barely breath.  This is where you and Jesus’ other followers find yourselves.

And then Jesus appears in the room with you.  I can’t conceive of a similar experience we might have to which it compares.  It is unlike anything else which has happened in human history.  Given this, the first thing Jesus says to those of us gathered takes on a special significance: “Peace be with you.”  Some commentators note this is merely a standard cultural greeting.  But given Jesus says it twice and then again when he appears eight days later, it seems to carry more weight than “Hi everyone, how is it going?”  The root of the Hebrew word for peace denotes “to join”, “to tie together into a whole”, and “wholeness”.  It conveys an image of something shattered being put back together.  In a fractured and broken world, God’s peace restores us to how God intends us to be. 

This is what Jesus brings to his followers gathered in that room.  And it is more than words.  He breathes on them to impart the Holy Spirit whose work it is to tie together, to make things whole.  This two-fold act, along with the awareness of the Resurrection, changes everything for those present.  Notice it changes nothing about the reality on the other side of the locked door.  The same thugs and sell-outs are still in charge.  It remains as hostile as before.  But with Jesus present the room becomes a sanctuary.  All fear is banished.  There is only peace and unspeakable joy.

Like those early disciples, we live in uncertain and ominous times.  If you ask a thousand people to describe the world today, I am confident not a single person would use the word ‘wholeness’ or anything like it.  And yet this is exactly what Christ offers to you, to me, and to us.  Our faith community is a place where we can be still and know what it is to be tied together by God’s Spirit, to abide in peace regardless of circumstances. 

I like that our Easter lessons have us reading from the Book of Acts because they remind us what the disciples say and do in the first weeks and months after the Resurrection.  The peace Christ imparts on them is anything but a private gift.  Rather, it empowers them to witness with boldness to the very people responsible for Jesus’ death.  It enables them to speak truth in a troubling time.  The disciples understand their wholeness is not intended to be solely a personal benefit.  They decern it to be God’s gift to the world, made possible in Christ.  This is what they proclaim.  This is how they live.

My hope and prayer is that as you gather here you will experience the presence of Christ, that this moment will be a sanctuary for you, that you will sense all things being tied together and made whole, and that you will go out into the world bearing the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Consummation & Bliss

 

Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday / Year A

Facebook has figured out something about me.  I am a sucker for videos of furniture restoration.  It knows this because it keeps feeding them to me… and, apparently, I keep watching them.  Have you seen any of these?  Someone finds, say, an old dresser thrown out on the curb, picks it up, and takes it home.  It’s crusted in layers of paint, each more hideous than the one before.  Perhaps a leg is missing, but there are always nicks, scratches, and various marks indicating a history of rough treatment.  In the best-case scenario, handles, knobs, and hinges are tarnished, in the worst case… they are gone altogether.  There is absolutely no mystery as to why this hunk of drawers had been discarded as trash.

But then the treasurer hunter gets to work: stripping off old paint, replacing lost chips, fabricating missing pieces, and sanding… lots and lots of scraping and sanding.  And then comes the payoff… the refinishing… something which brings out the wood’s grain and gives the piece an up-to-date, luxurious look anyone would be proud to own.  The before and after pictures never fail to astonish me.  What had been cast off is turned into a gem… an heirloom… a showpiece that will bring dignity and grace to its new home.  The refurbished piece has been resurrected; brought back from the dead and given breathtaking new life.

I suppose folks celebrate Easter for different reasons.  For some, it is little more than a joyful reminder winter has passed, and the earth is springing back to life.  Some see in it proof Jesus is the Son of God.  Others rejoice in its promise our sins are forgiven and we will inherit eternal life.  But me, I give thanks for the hope one day we will find (to use the language of the prayer book) our “consummation and bliss” with Christ in his eternal glory.

What do I mean by consummation and bliss? 

Well, we who have been baptized into the Christian faith and life, dedicate ourselves to forsaking our sins, to patterning our lives after our Savior, and to walking with him daily throughout our earthly pilgrimage.  And though this is our aim, it is a destination we never fully reach.  In addition, life has a way of leaving its marks on us.  Some are inflicted by others, while many are self-imposed.  Let’s just say we leave this life and enter the next in need of repairs.  For some it requires only a little polishing, others need a bit more touch-up work, while for people like me, a total make-over will be in order.  The idea of consummation and bliss suggests to me it will be God’s work to make us who we have always striven to be, but never quite could achieve.  It will be God’s work to heal what is hurt, to replace what is broken, to clean up what is tarnished about us.  This, for me, is our ultimate consummation – what awaits us in the end.  This, for me, is our ultimate bliss – the highest possible happiness. 

When Jesus emerges from the tomb he emerges just as he entered, wounds and all, because he lived his life completely as God intends.  We, well we who have fallen short of this will be changed into his glorious likeness.

Perhaps what St. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi resonates with you:

All of the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life.  Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung.  I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him…  I gave up all that inferior stuff so I might know Christ personally, experiencing his resurrection power…  I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have made it my own.  But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.  Friends, don’t get me wrong; By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus.  I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.  (3:8-14, The Message)

On this day as we celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord and Savior, we give thanks one day our life-long pursuit of being like him will be complete.

Providing a Place for Resurrection to Happen

 

Good Friday

An innocent man falsely accused and punished by the state.  An insurrectionist released.  Public influencers manipulating the thoughts and actions of the people.  The initial Good Friday, occurring almost 2,000 years ago, disturbingly mirrors what is transpiring in our country in our own day and time.  The cast of characters may have changed, but the dynamic of the events from back then, which we gather at this noon hour to lament, are being replayed once again. 

More and more, people are asking me as their spiritual leader what they can do – what they should do – at an hour such as this.  I wish I could climb Mt. Sinai and return with ten directives etched in stone for folks to follow, but I can’t.  Ranting on social media may make you feel good for a moment, but affects very little change.  Contacting your congressional representatives likely is going to be met with a form-letter reply.  Arguing with a family and friends is worse than fruitless. 

I have clergy colleagues advocating for people in my position to speak up and speak out because silence means complicity.  I continue to weigh my ordination vow to boldly and prophetically proclaim the word of God with my vow to care for all people in the flock I serve, regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or political affiliation.  I continue to seek discernment on the tension between prophet and pastor, but again, Mt. Sinai has not weighed in with something definitive.

In the biblical account of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution, we read about Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea, two people whose witness has something to say to us.  Both are members of the Great Sanhedrin, a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of seventy elders.  It is this body which tries Jesus and finds him guilty, a decision neither Joseph or Nicodemus endorses.  They represent for us what it looks like not to support the status quo and yet be powerless to affect a different outcome. 

At a great deal of personal risk and no little personal expense, they approach Pilate and request permission to give Jesus’ body a proper burial.  By tending to the body, in spite of all the chaos and insanity surrounding them, Joseph and Nicodemus find a moment and an opportunity to reaffirm basic human dignity; to hold true to the standards and time-honored sensibilities of the Hebrew tradition.  Their actions do not bring Jesus back to life.  They do not sway public sentiment.  They do not set wrongs.  But here is what they did do.  By setting Jesus’ body in a tomb they provide the setting for the Easter moment.  They provide a place for Resurrection to happen.

These days, more and more, I find myself reflecting on the Velvet Revolution, a series of 1989 events unfolding over six weeks in Czechoslovakia which led to the downfall of the Soviet-backed communist party and the election of Hàclav Havel, a poet and playwright, as the president of a free country.  The revolution was fueled by students and other dissidents who gathered nightly for prayer and the singing of hymns before going out onto the streets to conduct peaceful protests.  In less than a month, the movement, starting with a relatively small number, began to double daily, and eventually drew over a million people.  Czechoslovakia became the first domino to fall in what resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demolition of the Berlin Wall.  It would be impossible to pinpoint a specific factor which launched the Velvet Revolution, but it is fair to say what happened provided a place for Resurrection to happen.   

It seems every year I remind us the Good Friday liturgy calls the faithful to prayer, specially to the Solemn Collects.  They remind us now that as Jesus’ work is finished, ours begins… and it begins with prayer.  This year, a part of my prayer is our actions might provide a place for Resurrection to happen.      

A Mighty Purpose

 

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday / Year C

Luke 22:14-5:56

Have you watched any of the Master’s Tournament this weekend?  I haven’t, even though it is the most prestigious event in the golfing world.  The purpose of golf is pretty straightforward: hit the ball down the fairway toward the green and into the cup using the fewest strokes possible.  Some are better at it than others. 

What is the purpose of life?  The answer to this question is a bit less clear and varies from person to person.  In fact, how we answer – if we have an answer at all – may even vary from day to day and certainly shifts over the course of one’s life.  If we don’t know what the purpose of life is, how do we know if we are living it well?  In golf you have a scorecard.  It tells you how you are doing over the course of eighteen holes.  But what about life?  How do we measure the way we are living?

I read of a gentleman who upon meeting a person for the first time never asked conventional questions such as “What do you do for a living?” or “Where are you from?”  He asked people “What have you done that you believe in and are proud of?”  For some it is an unsettling question, but not for all.  One woman told him that she was doing a good job raising her three children.  A cabinetmaker told him, “I believe in good craftmanship and practice it.”  Another person told him she had started a flower shop and it was the best for miles around.”  Perhaps the first step to finding your purpose of life is to have a good answer to the question “What have you done that you believe in and are proud of?” 

Every year as I listen to the Passion reading I am always struck by how Jesus was in charge of nothing yet in control of everything.  He lived his life with purpose and with passion: healing the sick, calling the lost, forgiving the sinner, lifting up the outcast, challenging the proud, confronting the powerful, and proclaiming the presence of the Kingdom of God in the midst of a society that looked like anything but.  He knew who he was, he embraced his calling, and he accepted the consequences that came with it.

In the preface to his book Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw wrote this:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 

This quote helps me to understand why I so deeply admire Jesus.  He lived with a mighty purpose, he persisted to the end, and strove in all ways to make the world a better place.  I admire his singular clarity about living.  I suspect if we could ask Jesus what he had done that he believed in and what he was proud of, he would say he believed in the Kingdom of God and was proud of the way he lived and died for it.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, contemplating Jesus’ example, wrote, “The purpose of life is not to be happy, but to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived life and lived it well.”

As you listen again to the Passion of our Lord I wonder if you come away with the same sense I do, that your life is small in comparison.  It is not that we have to be the Messiah, the one who saves all humanity.  This is not our goal, our calling, or our purpose.  But don’t you sit back and wonder if you are doing great things well within your ability and doing them to the fullest?  The old evangelist Billy Sunday once noted more people fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.  I suspect he is right. 

Jesus died because he had a purpose to his life; a purpose which called humanity to live as God intends and as a result he threatened those in power.  I am suggesting many of us fail to live because we have not discerned a great purpose in life; a purpose worthy of the name ‘Christian’ – a follower of Christ.

Perhaps you can identify with the main character in the Afghani author Khaled Hosseini’s novel And the Mountains Echoed who says,

The cities, the roads, the countryside, the people I meet – they all begin to blur.  I tell myself I am searching for something.  But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to.

For many of us Holy Week will be the most spiritual time of the year.  We will attend services, gather in fellowship, listen to the bible, and relive the last moments of our Lord’s life.  I encourage you to use this week to think about your purpose in life.  Perhaps your prayer can be, “O God, I want to be like Jesus.  Please guide me to something I can believe in that will honor you and make me proud of what I do.”