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A number of years ago some Christians placed bumper stickers on their vehicles stating, "Christ is the answer." After some time a wiseacre started displaying a sticker that read, "If Christ is the answer, what is the question?" Of course this made a hilarious impression on those who seem to have "three sneers for everything and three cheers for nothing."

As we consider our text for today we discover God telling us that "Christ is the answer"; he is the eternal "yes" to all the promises of God, and the final answer to all the questions man can propose. Verse 20 affirms, "For all the promises of God, he supplies the yes that confirms them."

What are the insistent questions that haunt the thinking person as he seeks to find his place in life and to discover his role in it. Rolla May has suggested that the critical questions are these: Who am I? Why am I here? And where am I going? It is the Christian's conviction that only Christ can answer them adequately. Let's think about them this morning.

The first question that confronts us is: "Can I know who I am?" To this our text responds, "Christ is the answer, for he is God's yes to all that confounds you." But the supreme problem that faces the person who lives apart from Christ rests right here. He doesn't know who he is.

In Arthur Miller's excellent play, The Death of a Salesman, the leading character is Willie Lohman, a philandering salesman. Willie has two sons. Biff, one of the sons, speaks up in a dramatic scene, saying, "All that I want is out there waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am." After Willie has been discovered by his sons in an adulterous relationship, he becomes terribly depressed and finally takes his own life. The last scene finds the family gathered at Willie's grave. Again Biff speaks up and says concerning his father, "He had the wrong dreams -- he never knew who he was!"

And this -- I repeat -- is the tragic situation in which the person who lives apart from Christ finds himself: he never really comes to know who he is. Not so with the Christian -- he knows! Listen to Saint John as he writes in 1 John 3:1, "See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are." In verse 2 of the same chapter, he says, "Beloved, we are God's children now." With all the confidence he can muster, the Christian says: "At the heart of this universe beats the heart of its Creator-God, and I am his child. I belong to him because he made me, and also because he bought me back at the cost of his own life." You may recall the story I told several weeks ago about the boy and his boat -- he made it, then lost it, then bought it back again. In a similar manner, Christ stands and says to each of us today, "This is who you are -- you are mine! Your wandering and wondering are over. You are mine because I made you and you are mine because I bought you back at the cost of my life on a cross.

Can I know who I am? The Christian answers, "Yes, I am his."

I heard the voice of Jesus say, "Come unto me and rest,
Lay down, o weary one, lay down, thy head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus, as I was, weary and worn and sad;
I found in him a resting-place, and he has made me glad.


And with his gift of gladness, he tells me who I am. I need never be puzzled again.

The second question we encounter asks, "Can I know why I am here?" And once more the One who is God's "Yes" assures us that we can.

About thirty years ago one of the popular Country Western hit songs was titled, "Please, Mr. Custer, I Don't Wanna Go." It was an amusing ballad and many found it delightful listening. The ballad told the story of a poor army soldier who had a premonition of impending doom and who wanted to be left at camp instead of going with the foolhardy General George Custer as he was about to start on that campaign that ended in his famous "last stand." Again and again we hear the soldier say, "Please, Mr. Custer, I don't wanna go." But, of course, he has to go! In time the Indians surround the regiment, arrows begin to fly wildly about, and many of his friends are being killed. In the midst of all this confusion, our poor private cries out pleadingly, "What am I doing here?" It was an amusing ballad; I'd love to hear it again, but it asks the question that haunts every person who seeks to live apart from Christ, "What am I doing here? Is there any rhyme, reason, or purpose in my living?" How tragic it must be to find oneself in a world like this and not to know why on earth we are here. How often we have heard people say words similar to those. Heard them expressed in the lives these persons were living, for lives speak more clearly than many are honest enough to admit. Recall Emerson's precept, "Your life speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say." Look about you. Observe the unfaithful wife, the philandering husband, the dishonest businessman, the irresponsible worker in factory or office, the young person who feels that life is "just one big blast." What are their lives saying? They are asking, almost shouting, "What am I doing here?" Or to use Burt Bacharach's words, "What's it all about, Alfie?"

Into this distressing milieu of meaninglessness, nihilism, nothingness, and purposelessness comes the answer of Christ to every Christian man and woman: "For this cause were you born and for this cause you came into this world, to bear witness to the Truth." You are here to love the truth, to live the truth, to share the truth; to get your eyes off yourself and recognize that you are here to invest your life in the common good of the human race. You are here not to be part of the world's problems. God knows we have enough of them already. You are here to be part of the answer to life's miseries. And the Christ who lives within you is the answer! John Oxenham put it so well:

But once I pass this way, and then no more.
But once, and then the silent door swings on its hinges,
Opens, closes, and no more I pass this way.
So while I may, I will assay
Sweet comfort and delight to all I meet along the pilgrim way.
For no man passes twice the great highway
That climbs through darkness up to light,
Through night, to day!1


A third, and final, question faces the thinking person: "Can I know where I am going?" And once again Christ answers decisively, "Yes!" And where is the Christian going? He's going home, home to his Father's house. Jesus said, "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you, there you may be also" (John 14:1-3). "In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live [because I will conquer death for you!], you also will live" (John 14:19). Going home! Sounds old-fashioned, doesn't it? Other-worldly? Unrealistic? But the Christian gains his unruffled certainty from the Word of Christ. He said it. I believe it. That settles it! This is the Word of the Prince of Life who endured the worst that death could hurl at him and walked out of the tomb on Easter morning as death's Victor not its Victim. What confidence this inspires in all who look at life with eyes of faith.

The novel The Road tells of an ex-officer who in any crisis, when life seemed to be so twisted by evil, so mean and crushed by misfortune, that it looked as though it could not be retrieved, always recalled himself and others, and rallied them with the words, "Christ is risen, Christ is risen." This idea he kept repeating in desperate moments as a guarantee of recovery and victory. For Christ's resurrection is God's power for repair available to all broken lives and all hearts fearful and anxious about what lies ahead. "Be not anxious," said Christ to his own. The thing that redeems those words from being mere hollow advice is this: the One who spoke them was the One who also said, "I am the resurrection and the Life." And he was the One who rose victorious over sin, death, and despair. Nothing less than this "blessed assurance" could cause John Donne to write his defiant challenge:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor death; nor can'st thou kill me ...
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!2


Those of you who are familiar with the Boy Scout movement will perhaps recall the name Sir Robert Baden-Powell. Sir Robert served with distinction in the British army and was the founder of the Boy Scout movement in Great Britain. In 1908 he brought the movement to the United States. Because of his work among young people of both nations, he received countless honors. When Sir Robert died in 1941, Winston Churchill offered to have him buried with other notables in Westminster Abbey. His children declined this honor, saying that they felt their father would have preferred to be buried next to his wife. In a quiet cemetery he now rests, a small gravestone marking the spot. On the gravestone one can read simply his name, the dates of his birth and death, and, underneath, a small symbol understood by those who have been Scouts. The symbol is used by Scouts who break camp to inform their comrades where they have gone and where they might meet again. The symbol means simply, "I have gone home." The Christian knows exactly what Sir Robert meant, for that is his destination as well: he is going home, home to his father's house.

A pastor friend tells of standing in a quiet cemetery behind his first parish, in a small town in Illinois. With him there were two others, a heartbroken father and a funeral director holding a small white casket containing the remains of an infant boy. The little child, a firstborn, had died only a few hours after birth. The mother was still hospitalized, too weak to attend the short service. The pastor read Jesus' words: "In my Father's house are many dwelling places," along with other comforting passages from the New Testament that speak of our reunion with loved ones who have gone on before us. When the brief service ended, the young father put his arms around the pastor and said, "Pastor, if it were not for the words you have just read, I think I would lose my mind."

I beg you, dear people, every time you think of death and parting and the losing of those beloved faces of your loved ones, get down on your knees and thank God for Jesus Christ! For he has shown you death defeated and parting ended and you and your loved ones reunited in God's heaven -- the Father's house.

O blessed hope! With this elate,
Let not our hearts be desolate,
But strong in faith, with patience wait,
Until He comes!


Christ, our Lord, the answer waiting for a question. He tells us who we are, why we are here, and where we are going!

Let's trust him, always. Amen.

____________

1. "The Pilgrim Way," quoted in Selected Poems of John Oxenham (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), p. 47.

2. "Holy Sonnets," quoted in Masterpieces of Religious Verse, p. 617.