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It was the July 22, 1999, CNN live coverage of the burial at sea of John F. Kennedy, Jr. All his family members were dressed in black, knowing that in a few minutes the remains of someone they loved would be forever committed to the sea. When the coverage from the first news of the plane crash began to air -- one of the main subjects was all the tragedy that this family has suffered, beginning with the little boy the press called John-John, standing with a salute for his fallen father, the President of the United States. As those visions passed across the television screen, the sound of the horses with the caissons still pulled at the heart strings. The next scene was that of Robert Kennedy lying on a kitchen floor of a hotel in Los Angeles after winning the state in the 1968 presidential campaign. The tragedies seem almost endless as the remaining head of the family, Ted Kennedy, stood with Caroline doing the unthinkable: taking the ashes of America's young prince and committing them back to the waters that took his life. The American dream shattered over and over again for this family, leaving nothing but suffering. Yet somehow in all this is the realization that there will be strength to guide them through their weakness.

Weakness -- what a strange word. We all know we have it. In fact, the one thing we do not like to admit or to show is our weakness.

Weakness -- something we do not teach our children about because it is our desire for them to be self-reliant.

Weakness -- something we will correct if at all possible.

It is after the open heart surgery and the doctor comes into the room. You expect the words: "Rest, take your time, and it will heal." However, the very thing that will make it heal is the thing that will overcome the weakness: exercise. How in the world do you overcome this weakness? The only answer is with strength.

Weakness -- sometimes it is that very thing that we learn to depend on.

As I opened the door to her hospital room the last time I visited her, Lou looked at me as she took the last drag of her cigarette and said, "Well, the doctor came in and told me I could have a cigarette." I took her hand as she continued in a very low, raspy voice, "If there is one weakness I have, this is it. I've tried to quit but I can't, and now it's too late. I thought it was my strength but it is my weakness."

In today's text the Apostle Paul focuses for a moment on some kind of weakness. It may not be a deadly habit, a recovery from open heart surgery, or a family broken by grief. It may be that the weakness Paul stops for a moment to talk about is the weakness we all suffer and endure. It is difficult to imagine that Paul would even bring up this subject of weakness. For him to say, "The Spirit helps us in our weakness," is like Tiger Woods signing up for golf lessons. Of all people, it would seem Paul is most unlikely to be short on understanding God and knowing how our spirit connects with God's Spirit.

That is why it seems strange for Paul, above all, to admit any kind of weakness. In any situation he is a hero to all those who have studied him. At what point does Paul's weakness arise? Is it in the pulpit? It does not seem so, even though some of the Corinthians thought preaching was not his greatest gift. He would stand in Athens and speak to people who did not understand the concept of one God. Paul preached: "In him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.' "

Of all things, Paul doesn't have weakness when it comes to his preaching. In fact, he boldly prays, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" (Philippians 1:3-5). Even when he is writing from prison and threatened with death he says, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." Where is the weakness of Paul?

These words are for us also when we think our strength is in ourselves. Maybe that is why Paul makes the statement: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness." The only question that comes is: How does that happen?

The Spirit speaks to God when we pray about things we cannot even imagine ourselves coming to God with. The Spirit is the ally of our soul that guides us down roads that are not traveled very often. Some lines from the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken," puts our weakness and strength into the proper perspective.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


The strength we are talking about is something that God does for us, through the Spirit, which we are not capable of doing for ourselves. It is becoming and being something that we never thought we could be. It is facing and going through situations that would seem impossible to our hearts and souls. How often do we see someone whose life has been lifted to a higher level when it looked like all that was there was weakness? A prayer or a hope was the only thing that the individual could cling to, and even with that there wasn't any confidence that those things would work.

My great aunt used to say, "You never see people until you see them in their true weakness." Maybe that is what Paul is saying -- it is not until we face the things that take the breath out of our lungs that we can really breathe the Spirit of life. Some of this I know by Paul's writing, but most of it I know because of what I have observed in the weakness and helplessness of those to whom I have ministered. As I thought of this fact there is one story that keeps bringing itself to my mind. It is shared out of pain that reminds me of where strength appears and lives.

It was the Saturday before Mother's Day and I was out of town when my secretary called to tell me one of our college students had been killed. Rob had just finished his first year at Texas Christian University and was about to drive home to Tennessee the next day. On Friday he had gone to a tire store to have everything checked out before his road trip. During the wait he was on the phone with his mom. While he was talking, a man came into the store with the intent of robbery. He hung up the phone for Rob and ushered him and the store manager to the back room. Rob thought he could take him, since he had been a good wrestler in school. The store manager heard two shots; one went into the ceiling and the other went into Rob's back. He died in the arms of the store manager.

That Sunday morning the local paper carried the headlines in bold letters "Happy Mother's Day" and almost directly under it a large picture of Rob slain two days before. I am not sure how a family gets through such a period of devastation or weakness. But I know that somehow, with the Spirit's help, something happens.

The January following that event the U.S. was at war with Iraq. We as a nation were holding our breath, and when we were breathing, it was in prayer. The church I was serving also paused a number of times to pray. In preparation for one of those occasions, we announced that we would have a special prayer service. It would not only be for the end of Desert Storm, but for any other need that arose. I knew that Rob's mother would be traveling to Texas the next morning to witness the trial of Rob's murderer. She came to me at the end of the service and said, "The prayer service is Wednesday night?" My response was, "I know you will be needing some special prayers and we will lift you and your family in our prayers." She thanked me. But the thing she seemed concerned about was what she did next. She placed a small piece of paper into my hand. As I looked at the paper with just a name on it, she said, "Please have the church pray for him." My response was, "Of course, we will. But who is this?" She again said, "Please have the church pray for him." I said, "I will, but who is it?" Finally with a long sigh, she said, "It is the man that killed my Rob."

Some things can come only when the Spirit takes over and somehow we become what we never thought we could be, because the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. There are occasions when those sighs come to the surface and we know that God has taken our hearts to places we did not know could exist.

Through this passage the one underlying statement that brings strength through the weakness must be Paul's wondrous line that continues to speak to us: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

How is it that in this weakness all things work together for good? The only way is to let our weakness be put into the hands of the one who supplies strength from places we cannot discover on our own. It is now the time to open ourselves to the power that appears to be weakness, just as God chose to come in the form of a baby, without strength. And that baby became a man whose strength the world would come to know by the cross. Paul closes this section with a quote from Psalms. He emphatically says: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Therefore, the horizon expands dramatically. It is here we as people of God are able to look into the face of a power greater than ourselves and know the strength available. God's strength is ours and the advantage still belongs to those who have learned the important lessons of the heart.

In the movie about the famed Presbyterian preacher Peter Marshall, as he is being taken to the hospital the last time, he looks at his wife Catherine and says, without reservation, "I will see you in the morning." Faith upon faith and strength out of our weakness.