Sermonstudio

Sometimes the healing of our hurts starts only when we find another song to sing. Take the story of Helen, for instance. She had her sights set on a law degree from Ohio Wesleyan College. But then the flu epidemic of 1918 hit, taking her father as a victim. Suddenly everything had changed. Helen could not go to college; she had to get a job to support her mother.

For the next ten years, Helen worked at an electrical utility; a simple, repetitive cog in the company machine. Just when she thought she was destined to remain lonely and unmarried, young Franklin Rice stepped in. He was a dashing entrepreneur, an up-and-coming banker. When they married in 1928, Helen’s future was bright with promise.

A year later, though, the stock market crashed, and Franklin’s financial world fell apart. He could not take the pressure, so he committed suicide. The litany of Helen’s life had become an unrelenting nightmare of overwhelming: a deceased father, a lost career, a vanished fortune, a dead husband, and a lonely existence.

Still, more people know Helen than we might think. You see, Helen eventually took a job with the Gibson Greeting Card company. As she began to write the verses for card, people began to realize how much she was able to articulate the thoughts of their hearts and the passions of their souls. It was during these creative days that Helen Steiner Rice became a folk poet who spoke the language of thousands of Christians.

Some years ago, Helen was asked which poem she thought was her best. She hesitated for a moment. She could not tell, she said. Then she went on. There was one that had meant the most to her, ever since the words tumbled out. It was this verse:

So together we stand at life’s crossroads
And view what we think is the end.
But God has a much bigger vision
And he tells us it’s only a bend.
For the road goes on and is smoother,
And the pause in the song is a rest.
And the part that’s unsung and unfinished
Is the sweetest and richest and best.
So rest and relax and grow stronger.
Let go and let God share your load.
Your work is not finished or ended;
You’ve just come to a bend in the road.
(in the public domain)

Powerful! And we all know what she is talking about, don’t we?!

After Good Friday
I think of Helen’s story and the insight of her poem when I read this last chapter of John’s gospel. The disciples had been displaced from their homes and careers. For a while, they experienced the exhilaration of being “married” to Jesus, sharing a life that was no less than bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. They walked in humble pride next to their wise and miracle-working leader.

But then things were catastrophically upended. Jesus was ripped away from them, shamefully treated and torturously executed. So now they were cautious. They were tenuous ―hoping, but fearing. Jesus came back to them, to be sure, but all was not the same. Jesus was not the same. And their daunting mission of revolution had less clarity than it did before. What kind of revolution? What kind of kingdom? And would Jesus even stick around long enough for them to find out?

“I’m going fishing,” Peter said. What else was there to do? So they all stumbled down to the sea, and numbly went through the motions they learned as lads.

No fish that night. But that was really not the point of coming out there anyway. The men needed to do something routine and ordinary. They needed to live again.

Then, out of the darkness, shined Jesus. They wondered at first, nervous about the shimmering ghost on the shore. But his voice steadied them, and his command strengthened them. All at once they were wildly successful fishermen. The net could hardly hold their enormous draught.

Yet it was not the fish that excited them. Nor did they conceive of themselves as successful lords of the sea. Instead, they were drawn to Jesus. They needed to be with Jesus.

It is fascinating to note that the gospel of John is actually quite complete at the end of chapter 20. Although no manuscripts exist of the book, excluding chapter 21, which is viewed as a later appendage. Still, even if it was written later by the evangelist or one of his disciples, the story it tells brings further completeness to the rest of the gospel.

Living Into Easter
For one thing, it sets the mission of the church in motion. In John 20, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into this new body of his that recreated the human race, like the divine creative story in Genesis 2. Yet these new living souls did not set out immediately on the campaign of resurrected life before that chapter closed. There was intent; Thomas’ great testimony was a prelude to all the other testimonies of faith that would be given, but it did not lead naturally or directly into them. Here in John 21, the story of the church began to roll forward. The disciples needed to make choices about their futures, Jesus restored Peter to his leadership role in the enterprise, and the Lord of life articulated a vision about the future that would lead them on.

Secondly, the failures of Peter, so pronounced in the passion story, were rectified. Peter was resurrected by the resurrected Jesus and re-empowered to take initiative again. Yes, he was a good fisherman, and this was a noble calling in life. But he had been transformed by Jesus to a new career, one that involved tossing his nets into an even greater sea.

Third, the missionary character of John’s gospel is re-invigorated by the story of this morning meal on the beach. The prologue to the gospel makes the whole story of Jesus a divine missionary enterprise: Jesus is the word, the light penetrating the blackness of our world, the radiance of almighty God. But that blaze of glory was veiled for a time as those around Jesus wrestled with his identity. Then the miracle of Easter happened, and, for a time, the disciples wrestled with the meaning of all those things. Now, finally, questions of Jesus’ identity could be set aside. He is risen! He is Lord! He is all powerful! So it was time to get back to the mission. While Jesus was heaven’s bright light, he was laser-focused and limited by his physical limitations. Only when the disciples began to glow could the light be spread, and the mission recovered. John’s gospel was all about “light” and “darkness.” Here, after a night in the darkness of night that proved unprofitable and seemingly wasted, they were brought into the light of glowing campfire as dawn was breaking, and they were given a new purpose. They were able to start over. Jesus, who was and is the vision of heaven, became their vision here on earth. The church was born.

Centuries ago, the great theologian Cyprian said that a person who has God as his father, has the church as his mother. Why? Because the church was the means by which God strengthened, deepened, and restored our faith. We learn of God from the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs of the church. We see God in the testimonies of the saints. When we’ve lost our way, the church directs us to the one who lives within her and draws us back to him. At the heart of the church is Jesus, head of the body.

It is a bit like the experience columnist Robert Fulghum wrote about years ago. He said that long before he had given up any significant relationship with God. He didn’t really want God, the church, or religion to cramp his style.

Then he met someone who prevented him from banishing God from his life. He was so amazed that he put her picture on the mirror above the sink where he washed each morning. Every time he cleansed his hands, she was there to cleanse his heart. Whenever he scrubbed his face, she was there to wash his soul.

He met her in Oslo, Norway, during the Nobel prize ceremonies one year. He was standing among the crowd of guests that filled the doors and hallways of the auditorium.

Then she passed by. She stopped for a moment and smiled at him. For a brief moment, it seemed as if she had reached into his heart and understood him. There was no condemnation in her look, only genuine care. Then she went to the front of the auditorium to receive the Nobel Peace Prize from the hand of the king of Norway. It was Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Somehow, said Fulghum, she reminded him of the things that were missing in his life. “We can do no great things,” she said, “only small things with great love.” With that, wrote Fulghum, “she upsets me, disturbs me, shames me. What does she have that I do not?”

But deep inside, he knew. That’s why he kept her picture on his mirror and looked into her eyes again and again. That’s why he wrote about her. He knew that she had God. That was the source of her strength, her energy, and her inner beauty.

But Mother Teresa was herself only a reflection of the one who first gave her a vision as well. Like the disciples at the seashore, in the initial encounter, we all need to see Jesus. And when we see him, we can start life again ― with purpose ― with mission with passion.

Reborn
A.J. Cronin was a doctor who worked in England in the 1920s, and saw this well. In his autobiography, Adventures in Two Worlds, he described working in the hospital of a poor northern mining district early in his career.

One evening a boy dying of diphtheria was brought to him. The hospital was dirty and poorly equipped, with no trained help. Still, Cronin had no alternative but to cut a hole in the boy’s throat and insert a breathing tube in his windpipe. Only this emergency tracheotomy saved the fellow’s life.

Exhausted, Dr. Cronin left the room. He called a young nurse to sit by the bed. She was only a wisp of a girl, and half starved, but she was a nurse, and she would have to do. “Make sure the tube stays clear, and don’t take your eyes off of him,” he told her. Then he lay down in a corner and slept.

Suddenly the young nurse was shaking him. She had fallen asleep too, and the tube had shifted. The boy had suffocated; he was dead.

Dr. Cronin’s eyes blazed in anger. He told her that he would report her, that she’d never work as a nurse again. Standing in front of him, frail, timid, and shaking like a leaf, she mumbled something under her breath. “What’s that you’re saying?” he demanded.

So she said it a little louder: “Please give me another chance!” But he was furious that she dared ask such a thing. “You’re finished,” he said. “There will be no more chances for you!”

He stormed away and tried to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come because her words echoed through his mind: “Give me another chance. Please, give me another chance!”

In the morning he tried to write the letter of discipline, but the picture of her pleading face wouldn’t leave him. Finally, he tore the letter up.

But that was not the end of the story. That poor, feeble creature, more child than woman, went on to become the matron of one of England’s greatest children’s hospitals. In her later years, she was known throughout the nation for her wisdom and devotion.

You see, she never forgot what happened that night. She never forgot her failure; but neither did she forget the grace that had given her a second chance. She carved her future out of her past, based upon one slim vision of eternity. She saw a new future. God’s future. And she became part of it.