Acts 10 : Matthew 3 : Sermon

Transcription

1 Acts 10 : Matthew 3 : Sermon I feel as I m taking three steps forward and two steps back. Do you know that expression? Do you know that feeling? It is a description of the kind of frustration we so often experience when we try to make progress, but every time we seem to be getting somewhere we are hit by a couple of setbacks which leave us pretty much where we started. I often feel like that when I am trying to get out for some appointment. Usually I ll take my glasses off to wash my face and then struggle to find them again. Then I ll search for my gloves, finally get them and put them on, only to remember that I still need to change my shoes, so I take my gloves off to go do that, than I can t remember where I put them down. And that is before I even start looking for the car keys There is plenty of activity going on but not much progress. I know that this is somehow connected with the ageing process, but I don t think I m alone. Three steps forward and two steps back. We might experience that when we are getting ready to go out, or when we are struggling with some project at work. We might experience it when we are recuperating from some illness, or when we are trying improve our finances. More significantly for us today, we might even experience it when we are trying to grow in faith, or when we are striving to live a more spiritual life. Yes, we are trying our best. Yes, there is progress being made. But there are also many setbacks, and sometimes it can just feel so frustrating, it can feel as if we are not getting anywhere. I guess that sounds like a description of life as most of us know it. For all of our efforts and all our successes, we don t really make as much progress as we would like, and we certainly don t progress as quickly as we would like. So why does life have to be like that? Why are we faced with so many frustrations, so many setbacks, even when we are trying to do good things?

2 2 Well at least for a moment, let s ask some slightly different questions. What if our perspective is not always the correct one? What if the things we consider to be progress are not as helpful as we imagine, and what if the things that feel like backward steps can actually be more valuable that we realise? I ll explain what I mean in a moment, but the thought was raised for me by someone suggesting that the path of Jesus life was in fact a story of three steps backward and only two steps forward, or more accurately three steps downward and two steps upward. The first step down was being born into this world as a helpless baby in a remote small town on the edge of the Roman Empire. After all the scriptures tell us that he was accustomed to better things. The Gospel of John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being". (John 1:1-3) So the picture is not of Jesus coming into being for the first time in a manger in Bethlehem. It is of one who was actively present at the creation, overseeing all that is, arriving in a manger at Bethlehem. By any understanding of making progress, that has got to be a pretty big step backwards, and downwards. His second step down was his baptism. John the Baptist was offering what he called a baptism of repentance. He urged sinful people come to the river and to let God cleanse them of their guilty past. Jesus had no guilty past, but he came to John, and he despite John s protests he went into the river to be baptised with everyone else. There has been plenty of debate around exactly why he did that and what it means, but it seems clear that Jesus had to take one step down to be born in our world and then he had to take another step down to enter into the river and identify himself with sinners who need to repent. Then he took a third step down. He not only identified himself with people like us who know guilt and shame, he went to the cross to die as one of us, a man condemned and tortured and ridiculed. It is quite a journey. From being involved in the creation of life, the universe and

3 everything, to a painful death at the hands of humans who understood so little. 3 Put like that Jesus life sounds very negative. There is no evidence of progress in any of that. Yet each downward step was not a sign of failure, nor a frustrating setback, rather each was a necessary part of the journey, a journey which would lead to the two upward steps; the first being his resurrection, and the second his ascension. In the end, though it must have been so very hard to see it at the time the great purpose of God was achieved, but it was achieved through setbacks and failure, just as much as through success and triumph. It is possible that something similar may be happening in our lives. Perhaps the times when we seem to be blocked and held back and forced to wait, are not in fact barriers to making progress. Perhaps they are important steps towards the real goal that we are set in life. For real progress in life is not about us achieving our goals, it is about our discovering God and learning how to walk closely with him. Some of us have got to an age now where we can look back and recognise that the key moments in our lives were not those times when everything went smoothly and we got whatever we wanted. It is the times when we were forced to struggle, and confronted with difficult questions, and made to acknowledge our own limitations that were the turning points. That is what makes for growth and development and maturity and faith. So perhaps it is not the three steps forward that we should value as much as those two steps back that are occasionally enforced upon us. And often it seems that those people who have been forced to take a few steps back are much more interesting people to be around than those who are still charging forward, building themselves up and surrounding themselves with all the appearances of success. Terry Anderson s story illustrates this quite dramatically. He was a journalist assigned to Beirut in 1985 when he was abducted by Hezbollah,

4 crammed in the trunk of a car and imprisoned. He would remain in captivity for nearly seven years. This must have been enormously frustrating and often unpleasant, and we can only imagine how it might affect us, but when he was finally freed, he talked about how the experience had changed his life. "Before my capture, he said, I was a brusque, arrogant, restless man. Now I have changed." 4 Some people might consider being brusque and arrogance as a strength, qualities that help you get on in the world. But the key word is restless. His career in journalism had been very successful others no doubt envied how he was progressing, earning more respect and better jobs. But it was only when he was forced to stop and to reflect, that he realised that he had always been restless, never at peace with himself, never content. During those years, he requested a Bible, which he read over and over again. After his release he founded a charity to build schools in Vietnam and started a charitable foundation. And he explained the change that had taken place with these words: "We come closer to God at our lowest moments. It's easiest to hear God when you are stripped of pride and arrogance, when you have nothing to rely on except God. It's pretty painful to get to that point, but when you do, God's there." It is a rather dramatic example, but I think it is an example of something that is true for all of us. The scriptures do not speak of a God who asks us to do great things so that we can be near to him. They speak of a God who lowers himself to the worst things that happen to us, so that when we need him most, and when we most recognise that we need him, he can be near to us. Three steps forward; two steps back. Three steps down, and two steps up. The journey through life is never straight forward and perhaps it is never meant to be. But the progress that we seek may not be the progress that we need, and the backward steps that are forced upon us may be the opportunity we need to set of again in a better direction. The story of Jesus life is hardly one of easy success and triumph, but it was the story that led

5 5 to salvation and eternal possibility. So may we not live in to despair when are faced with our own setbacks, but continue to trust and to look for God. He may well be nearer than can know, and the experience may turn into something more precious than we can realise.