Living The Song Of The Servant
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Living the Song of the Servant" by Keith Wagner
"A God Who Forgets" by Keith Wagner
"Judgment" by C. David McKirachan
"More than Esoteric" by C. David McKirachan
* * * * * * *
Living the Song of the Servant
by Keith Wagner
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
In this passage of Isaiah the Messiah is described as a suffering servant. The expectation of the Hebrews was a Messiah who would free them of foreign domination. The servant however is one who "shall be exalted and lifted up." At the same time he would be one who was "despised and rejected."
The image of the servant is a real paradox. On the one hand to be a servant is one who lives a life of humility and compassion, thinking only of others. On the other hand the servant is a light to the nations, praised and close to God.
One of my favorite hymns is, "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." It was written by Rev. Timothy Dwight. He was from Massachusetts and taught at Yale. He was a pastor, teacher, and eventually became the president of Yale in 1795. He was a notable scholar and very much loved by his students. Dwight was stricken with smallpox and as a result his sight was adversely affected. He suffered with pain and could only read about fifteen minutes a day. But in spite of his illness, Dwight was able to write 33 hymns. "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord" was published in 1800.
The servant is one whose song helps us to rise above our despair and connect with the almighty. Singing with joy doesn't eliminate the difficulties of life but a servant gives us hope and purpose to our lives.
The servant also "suffered from infirmity... stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted." In other words, the servant had a marred appearance.
Many years ago a boy was born in Russia who thought of himself to be so ugly he was certain there would be no happiness for him in life. He bemoaned the fact that he had a wide nose, thick lips, small gray eyes, and big hands and feet. He was so distraught about his ugliness, he asked God to work a miracle and turn him into a handsome man. He vowed that if God would do this, he would give God all he possessed.
The Russian boy was Count Tolstoy, one of the world's foremost authors in the 20th century, perhaps best known for his epic War and Peace. In one of his books, Tolstoy admits that through the years he discovered that the beauty of physical appearance he had once sought was not the only beauty in life. Indeed it was not even the best beauty. Instead, Tolstoy came to regard the beauty of a strong character as having the greatest good in God's sight.
For me, the watershed verse in this passage is "the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."
In their book, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen tell the story of Betty Tisdale. She was the wife of a naval doctor in Vietnam. She had compassion on the hundreds of orphans in Saigon. She made fourteen trips to Saigon by using her life savings. With great determination she managed to airlift orphans from Vietnam during the time it was falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese. It was not a simple task. First, she needed birth certificates. She went to the hospital and created them herself. She managed to make 219 eligible certificates that satisfied the government. Next she had to find a place for the children to stay when they arrived at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in the US. Again she met resistance and the Secretary of the Army wouldn't answer her calls. Determined to carry out her mission, Betty called his mother and pleaded her case. Virtually overnight, her son, the Secretary of the Army, responded.
Then she was challenged as to how to get the children safely out of Vietnam. She was unable to charter a plane. She went to Ambassador Graham Martin and pleaded for some form of transportation. He agreed to help as long as the Vietnamese government cleared their release. Two Air Force transport planes flew the children to the Philippines. Because her husband was dedicated to helping his wife he used $21,000 of his own money to charter a United Airlines plane to take the children to the states. Within a month all 219 children were adopted and placed in homes in the US.
This story struck me for several reasons. It reminded me of all the children who were born to Vietnamese women and left behind. Since I am a veteran officer of the Vietnam War it reminded me that in spite of all the destruction and loss of life there are those who seek no glory and strive only to serve.
Just as Isaiah described the Messiah in his day as a suffering servant, Jesus advocated a life of self- denial. He was talking about denying ourselves the demand for power, honor, status, and being servants.
Faith is indeed a paradox. Life in the kingdom is not acquired with honors, prizes, achievements, awards, and success. It is realized with sacrificial love, unwavering faith, and belief that God has a seat reserved just for us.
A God Who Forgets
by Keith Wagner
Hebrews 10:16-25
In Hebrews we hear these words; "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." When God forgives, God forgets. God does not forgive conditionally. God forgives completely. The forgiveness of God is total and everlasting. This was the purpose of this passage in Hebrews. The writer (most likely Paul) contrasts the priestly role of Jesus with the priests of the day. The priests repeated the temple ritual of animal sacrifice over and over. The writer is saying that their work was essentially futile, because it was never finished. On the other hand, Jesus finished his work. His one-time atonement for our sins was enough because the forgiveness of Jesus was totally unconditional.
Our text reads, "Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds... and encouraging one another." To be part of the community of faith is to accentuate the positive. In the counseling world we use this technique to encourage clients who lack self-esteem. Troubled individuals stay troubled because no one in their life has ever praised them for what they do right. All they know is criticism, judgment, and guilt trips. What they really need is affirmation for the positive aspects of their lives.
During my teaching career in counseling I used the textbook titled, Interviewing and Action in a Multicultural World, by Murphy and Dillon. The textbook included video clips of counselors working with clients.
Vinnie was a young man who got into trouble with the law because of drugs. He hung around with the wrong crowd and fortunately he was probated to a half-way house. He was assigned to a counselor who was really worth her salt. During a session she told him that she observed him playing basketball. She noticed that he frequently passed the ball to others so they could make a shot. She said this was symbolic of who he was as a person. He actually cared for others and wanted others to succeed.
That session changed Vinnie's life. Never before had anyone said something positive to him. It was a decisive moment and it enabled him to go forward with his life.
What Vinnie experienced was a God who forgets sins but remembers good deeds. God does more than forgive, God forgets. Since God is a God of grace we don't have to let others control us with their grudges and inability to forget. It may take years for reconciliation to happen but God wants us to be "unwavering" in our faith. The only true way to grasp the nature of God's unconditional forgiveness is to be people who forget, just as God has forgotten.
People are human and there will be some who just won't forget. But we don't have to let the controlling memories of others keep us from moving forward. In the book, Putting Forgiveness into Practice, Doris Donnelly tells the story of The Forgiving Son. One day a seven-year-old boy was riding in the backseat of the car. Suddenly, in a fit of anger, his mother, who was driving, spun around and struck him across the face. Then she yelled at him: "And you! I never wanted you. The only reason I had you was to keep your father. But then he left anyway. I hate you."
That scene branded itself on the boy's memory. During the years that followed, his mother reinforced her feelings toward him by constantly finding fault with him. Years later, that son told a friend: "I can't tell you how many times in the ensuing years I have relived that experience, probably thousands." Then he added: "But recently I put myself in my mother's shoes. She was a high school graduate with no money, no job, and a family to support. I realized how lonely and depressed she must have felt. I thought of the anger and the pain that must have been there. And I thought of how much I reminded her of the failure of her young hopes. And so one day I went to visit her and told her that I understood her feelings and that I loved her just the same."
We find this troubling because we find it difficult to forgive others completely. Are we able to tolerate someone who has wronged us and completely erase their sins? No way. When it comes to forgiving others I frequently hear people say, "I can forgive, but I will never forget." That's a clever way of saying that forgiveness is conditional. God's forgiveness however is unconditional and the only way for us to fully understand that God forgets is to be persons who forget ourselves.
I must confess that when Jesus said he would, "Remember our sins no more," it is not easy to live up to. I am a veteran of the Vietnam War. When I returned from overseas we were not greeted with ticker tape parades and a hero's welcome. If anything, we were looked down upon as a bunch of failures and losers. It was equally difficult for me to forgive my colleagues who decided to flee to Canada and escape the draft. I remember vividly when President Carter granted them amnesty and permitted them the opportunity to return to the US. It took me a while to forgive them just as it has taken time for society to forgive the veterans of Vietnam for not winning the war in Vietnam.
This past winter I was invited to my granddaughter's elementary school for a luncheon for veterans. Most of the veterans there were from the Vietnam Era. I was struck by the attention we received but more importantly how proud my granddaughter was of my service. It has taken me many years to forgive our government for the Vietnam War. This event helped me to overcome that begrudging attitude and move on with my life.
Without forgiveness we are paralyzed, unable to move forward and recover the freedom that is ours to enjoy. Forgiveness is a liberating experience, not just for those we forgive but for ourselves as well.
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
Judgment
by C. David McKirachan
John 18:1--19:42
When I was just beginning to grow from being a child into being a kid, there were these guys, they were more than kids, who scared the living daylights out of me. They called me names that were bad words, they laughed at me, they threatened me, and they scared me, and a lot of others. The first time I came home after being pushed down and rolled around, my mother asked me how I got so dirty. I used the excuse all abused people have used and still use rather than face their shame. "I fell down." The next time I came home disheveled and ashamed she sat me down and gave me a speech that I remember so clearly.
Without asking a question, my mother told me that she knew they were bigger than I was. She knew they scared me and that made me ashamed. She knew they were willing to do things that I wasn't, and their lack of reservation made me feel weak. By that time I was crying. I probably needed to, but she didn't stop there.
She told me that people like them were nothing new. They had and still used different kinds of power to push others around. She wasn't sure why. Maybe they were afraid to play by the rules or maybe they liked to hurt people. But the worst ones got really good at using all kinds of power, gossip, laughter, scorn, money, and status. These were the hardest to fight. But whether they used their words, their power, or violence they were trying to judge and to convince others that they were weak, small, and powerless. Then she asked me if I felt like that. When I nodded, she said that was not wrong. They were scary. She'd been scared a lot of times. That impressed me. I never knew she was afraid of anything.
But one thing she'd learned, when they started doing what they did, pushing and putting down and hurting, all the judgment they were making was a judgment on themselves. It didn't stop them because they really didn't care what you thought. But by their judgment they were judged.
Then she read John chapters 18 and 19 to me. She asked me who was the more powerful person in the story, the ones who were pushing Jesus around or he. I had to work on that one for a while. On the surface it looked like the one we called Lord was anything but powerful. The guys with the positions and privilege could basically do what they wanted. But the more those guys talked the more they were doing just what Mom said. They were judging themselves.
The two that stuck out were Pilate and the rulers. They seemed confused and almost afraid. So I told her what I thought. She smiled and asked me who I'd rather be, the one who got crucified or the others. That kind of bothered me, because I really didn't want to get crucified, but she'd asked me, so I had to answer. I settled for Jesus. She said she was proud of me and she knew Jesus was too.
When I had to face the tough guys again, I remembered the speech. And I remembered Jesus was proud of me and Mom was too. They still pushed me around. I think they broke my pencils and told me that it would be worse next time. Somehow it was less painful and less scary. They'd judged themselves. That year when it was time to read about the crucifixion, it meant an awful lot more to me.
The nasties weren't in school the next week. People said they got the flu, but I knew better. I asked my mother if she knew anything about that. She said that we all have gifts given to us by God. Other things we had to work on. She'd been working on forgiving other people for years. She had a way to go. I asked her if she'd scourged them. She laughed and said, "I didn't forget who I was. I just got a little hot. When you have kids, you'll understand." I do. Thanks Mom.
More than Esoteric
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 22
Having been a Bible geek for a number of decades has had its perks. In the midst of all kinds of situations, I have found myself remembering and considering and sensing a harmony between that specific moment and a passage from the Good Book. How that makes me feel is not a simple call. I don't go for the deterministic, "It's all preordained." Presbyterian I might be, but God seems to go through a lot of hassle to create and allow free will. So putting us into a lock step system just makes no sense to me. Now, I may get to the other side and find out that I've been wrong all these years, but if I do, I've been preordained to be so. See what I mean?
I don't just feel comforted either. Sometimes the passage reminds me I've been shall we say, less than Christlike. It jabs me with a prod of eternal clarity. Hard to sit still when that shock goes through you. Then there are the "stop whining, you're a child of God" moments. See? It's complicated.
But the consistent sense is that there have been others, people of faith who have struggled as I am struggling now. They have doubted and wept and rejoiced in much the same way I am now. And they have found the presence of God close to them, even in the midst of all the tangles and confusions of life.
Jesus had been doing good things, harmonizing, letting the moment move along with the song of God's grace and truth and justice. His sense of the presence of the Lord was more than knowledge of scripture; it was a visceral presence, as much a part of his identity as pain or joy. Now the situation was a horror almost beyond imagining. But even there, even in the midst of that ugliness and pain Jesus found a reminder, a place, a rock that spoke clearly from the heart of another person of faith, of that person's experience and pain and even in that darkness of the undeniable truth of the presence of God. Not necessarily a God that was clear or reasonable. There is very little clarity or reason in the midst of abandonment and crucifixion. But even there was the presence and truth of God. Psalm 22 was a rock for the Lord. If it worked for him, I guess it might work for me.
That's more than esoteric.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 18, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Living the Song of the Servant" by Keith Wagner
"A God Who Forgets" by Keith Wagner
"Judgment" by C. David McKirachan
"More than Esoteric" by C. David McKirachan
* * * * * * *
Living the Song of the Servant
by Keith Wagner
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
In this passage of Isaiah the Messiah is described as a suffering servant. The expectation of the Hebrews was a Messiah who would free them of foreign domination. The servant however is one who "shall be exalted and lifted up." At the same time he would be one who was "despised and rejected."
The image of the servant is a real paradox. On the one hand to be a servant is one who lives a life of humility and compassion, thinking only of others. On the other hand the servant is a light to the nations, praised and close to God.
One of my favorite hymns is, "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." It was written by Rev. Timothy Dwight. He was from Massachusetts and taught at Yale. He was a pastor, teacher, and eventually became the president of Yale in 1795. He was a notable scholar and very much loved by his students. Dwight was stricken with smallpox and as a result his sight was adversely affected. He suffered with pain and could only read about fifteen minutes a day. But in spite of his illness, Dwight was able to write 33 hymns. "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord" was published in 1800.
The servant is one whose song helps us to rise above our despair and connect with the almighty. Singing with joy doesn't eliminate the difficulties of life but a servant gives us hope and purpose to our lives.
The servant also "suffered from infirmity... stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted." In other words, the servant had a marred appearance.
Many years ago a boy was born in Russia who thought of himself to be so ugly he was certain there would be no happiness for him in life. He bemoaned the fact that he had a wide nose, thick lips, small gray eyes, and big hands and feet. He was so distraught about his ugliness, he asked God to work a miracle and turn him into a handsome man. He vowed that if God would do this, he would give God all he possessed.
The Russian boy was Count Tolstoy, one of the world's foremost authors in the 20th century, perhaps best known for his epic War and Peace. In one of his books, Tolstoy admits that through the years he discovered that the beauty of physical appearance he had once sought was not the only beauty in life. Indeed it was not even the best beauty. Instead, Tolstoy came to regard the beauty of a strong character as having the greatest good in God's sight.
For me, the watershed verse in this passage is "the righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."
In their book, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen tell the story of Betty Tisdale. She was the wife of a naval doctor in Vietnam. She had compassion on the hundreds of orphans in Saigon. She made fourteen trips to Saigon by using her life savings. With great determination she managed to airlift orphans from Vietnam during the time it was falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese. It was not a simple task. First, she needed birth certificates. She went to the hospital and created them herself. She managed to make 219 eligible certificates that satisfied the government. Next she had to find a place for the children to stay when they arrived at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in the US. Again she met resistance and the Secretary of the Army wouldn't answer her calls. Determined to carry out her mission, Betty called his mother and pleaded her case. Virtually overnight, her son, the Secretary of the Army, responded.
Then she was challenged as to how to get the children safely out of Vietnam. She was unable to charter a plane. She went to Ambassador Graham Martin and pleaded for some form of transportation. He agreed to help as long as the Vietnamese government cleared their release. Two Air Force transport planes flew the children to the Philippines. Because her husband was dedicated to helping his wife he used $21,000 of his own money to charter a United Airlines plane to take the children to the states. Within a month all 219 children were adopted and placed in homes in the US.
This story struck me for several reasons. It reminded me of all the children who were born to Vietnamese women and left behind. Since I am a veteran officer of the Vietnam War it reminded me that in spite of all the destruction and loss of life there are those who seek no glory and strive only to serve.
Just as Isaiah described the Messiah in his day as a suffering servant, Jesus advocated a life of self- denial. He was talking about denying ourselves the demand for power, honor, status, and being servants.
Faith is indeed a paradox. Life in the kingdom is not acquired with honors, prizes, achievements, awards, and success. It is realized with sacrificial love, unwavering faith, and belief that God has a seat reserved just for us.
A God Who Forgets
by Keith Wagner
Hebrews 10:16-25
In Hebrews we hear these words; "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." When God forgives, God forgets. God does not forgive conditionally. God forgives completely. The forgiveness of God is total and everlasting. This was the purpose of this passage in Hebrews. The writer (most likely Paul) contrasts the priestly role of Jesus with the priests of the day. The priests repeated the temple ritual of animal sacrifice over and over. The writer is saying that their work was essentially futile, because it was never finished. On the other hand, Jesus finished his work. His one-time atonement for our sins was enough because the forgiveness of Jesus was totally unconditional.
Our text reads, "Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds... and encouraging one another." To be part of the community of faith is to accentuate the positive. In the counseling world we use this technique to encourage clients who lack self-esteem. Troubled individuals stay troubled because no one in their life has ever praised them for what they do right. All they know is criticism, judgment, and guilt trips. What they really need is affirmation for the positive aspects of their lives.
During my teaching career in counseling I used the textbook titled, Interviewing and Action in a Multicultural World, by Murphy and Dillon. The textbook included video clips of counselors working with clients.
Vinnie was a young man who got into trouble with the law because of drugs. He hung around with the wrong crowd and fortunately he was probated to a half-way house. He was assigned to a counselor who was really worth her salt. During a session she told him that she observed him playing basketball. She noticed that he frequently passed the ball to others so they could make a shot. She said this was symbolic of who he was as a person. He actually cared for others and wanted others to succeed.
That session changed Vinnie's life. Never before had anyone said something positive to him. It was a decisive moment and it enabled him to go forward with his life.
What Vinnie experienced was a God who forgets sins but remembers good deeds. God does more than forgive, God forgets. Since God is a God of grace we don't have to let others control us with their grudges and inability to forget. It may take years for reconciliation to happen but God wants us to be "unwavering" in our faith. The only true way to grasp the nature of God's unconditional forgiveness is to be people who forget, just as God has forgotten.
People are human and there will be some who just won't forget. But we don't have to let the controlling memories of others keep us from moving forward. In the book, Putting Forgiveness into Practice, Doris Donnelly tells the story of The Forgiving Son. One day a seven-year-old boy was riding in the backseat of the car. Suddenly, in a fit of anger, his mother, who was driving, spun around and struck him across the face. Then she yelled at him: "And you! I never wanted you. The only reason I had you was to keep your father. But then he left anyway. I hate you."
That scene branded itself on the boy's memory. During the years that followed, his mother reinforced her feelings toward him by constantly finding fault with him. Years later, that son told a friend: "I can't tell you how many times in the ensuing years I have relived that experience, probably thousands." Then he added: "But recently I put myself in my mother's shoes. She was a high school graduate with no money, no job, and a family to support. I realized how lonely and depressed she must have felt. I thought of the anger and the pain that must have been there. And I thought of how much I reminded her of the failure of her young hopes. And so one day I went to visit her and told her that I understood her feelings and that I loved her just the same."
We find this troubling because we find it difficult to forgive others completely. Are we able to tolerate someone who has wronged us and completely erase their sins? No way. When it comes to forgiving others I frequently hear people say, "I can forgive, but I will never forget." That's a clever way of saying that forgiveness is conditional. God's forgiveness however is unconditional and the only way for us to fully understand that God forgets is to be persons who forget ourselves.
I must confess that when Jesus said he would, "Remember our sins no more," it is not easy to live up to. I am a veteran of the Vietnam War. When I returned from overseas we were not greeted with ticker tape parades and a hero's welcome. If anything, we were looked down upon as a bunch of failures and losers. It was equally difficult for me to forgive my colleagues who decided to flee to Canada and escape the draft. I remember vividly when President Carter granted them amnesty and permitted them the opportunity to return to the US. It took me a while to forgive them just as it has taken time for society to forgive the veterans of Vietnam for not winning the war in Vietnam.
This past winter I was invited to my granddaughter's elementary school for a luncheon for veterans. Most of the veterans there were from the Vietnam Era. I was struck by the attention we received but more importantly how proud my granddaughter was of my service. It has taken me many years to forgive our government for the Vietnam War. This event helped me to overcome that begrudging attitude and move on with my life.
Without forgiveness we are paralyzed, unable to move forward and recover the freedom that is ours to enjoy. Forgiveness is a liberating experience, not just for those we forgive but for ourselves as well.
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
Judgment
by C. David McKirachan
John 18:1--19:42
When I was just beginning to grow from being a child into being a kid, there were these guys, they were more than kids, who scared the living daylights out of me. They called me names that were bad words, they laughed at me, they threatened me, and they scared me, and a lot of others. The first time I came home after being pushed down and rolled around, my mother asked me how I got so dirty. I used the excuse all abused people have used and still use rather than face their shame. "I fell down." The next time I came home disheveled and ashamed she sat me down and gave me a speech that I remember so clearly.
Without asking a question, my mother told me that she knew they were bigger than I was. She knew they scared me and that made me ashamed. She knew they were willing to do things that I wasn't, and their lack of reservation made me feel weak. By that time I was crying. I probably needed to, but she didn't stop there.
She told me that people like them were nothing new. They had and still used different kinds of power to push others around. She wasn't sure why. Maybe they were afraid to play by the rules or maybe they liked to hurt people. But the worst ones got really good at using all kinds of power, gossip, laughter, scorn, money, and status. These were the hardest to fight. But whether they used their words, their power, or violence they were trying to judge and to convince others that they were weak, small, and powerless. Then she asked me if I felt like that. When I nodded, she said that was not wrong. They were scary. She'd been scared a lot of times. That impressed me. I never knew she was afraid of anything.
But one thing she'd learned, when they started doing what they did, pushing and putting down and hurting, all the judgment they were making was a judgment on themselves. It didn't stop them because they really didn't care what you thought. But by their judgment they were judged.
Then she read John chapters 18 and 19 to me. She asked me who was the more powerful person in the story, the ones who were pushing Jesus around or he. I had to work on that one for a while. On the surface it looked like the one we called Lord was anything but powerful. The guys with the positions and privilege could basically do what they wanted. But the more those guys talked the more they were doing just what Mom said. They were judging themselves.
The two that stuck out were Pilate and the rulers. They seemed confused and almost afraid. So I told her what I thought. She smiled and asked me who I'd rather be, the one who got crucified or the others. That kind of bothered me, because I really didn't want to get crucified, but she'd asked me, so I had to answer. I settled for Jesus. She said she was proud of me and she knew Jesus was too.
When I had to face the tough guys again, I remembered the speech. And I remembered Jesus was proud of me and Mom was too. They still pushed me around. I think they broke my pencils and told me that it would be worse next time. Somehow it was less painful and less scary. They'd judged themselves. That year when it was time to read about the crucifixion, it meant an awful lot more to me.
The nasties weren't in school the next week. People said they got the flu, but I knew better. I asked my mother if she knew anything about that. She said that we all have gifts given to us by God. Other things we had to work on. She'd been working on forgiving other people for years. She had a way to go. I asked her if she'd scourged them. She laughed and said, "I didn't forget who I was. I just got a little hot. When you have kids, you'll understand." I do. Thanks Mom.
More than Esoteric
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 22
Having been a Bible geek for a number of decades has had its perks. In the midst of all kinds of situations, I have found myself remembering and considering and sensing a harmony between that specific moment and a passage from the Good Book. How that makes me feel is not a simple call. I don't go for the deterministic, "It's all preordained." Presbyterian I might be, but God seems to go through a lot of hassle to create and allow free will. So putting us into a lock step system just makes no sense to me. Now, I may get to the other side and find out that I've been wrong all these years, but if I do, I've been preordained to be so. See what I mean?
I don't just feel comforted either. Sometimes the passage reminds me I've been shall we say, less than Christlike. It jabs me with a prod of eternal clarity. Hard to sit still when that shock goes through you. Then there are the "stop whining, you're a child of God" moments. See? It's complicated.
But the consistent sense is that there have been others, people of faith who have struggled as I am struggling now. They have doubted and wept and rejoiced in much the same way I am now. And they have found the presence of God close to them, even in the midst of all the tangles and confusions of life.
Jesus had been doing good things, harmonizing, letting the moment move along with the song of God's grace and truth and justice. His sense of the presence of the Lord was more than knowledge of scripture; it was a visceral presence, as much a part of his identity as pain or joy. Now the situation was a horror almost beyond imagining. But even there, even in the midst of that ugliness and pain Jesus found a reminder, a place, a rock that spoke clearly from the heart of another person of faith, of that person's experience and pain and even in that darkness of the undeniable truth of the presence of God. Not necessarily a God that was clear or reasonable. There is very little clarity or reason in the midst of abandonment and crucifixion. But even there was the presence and truth of God. Psalm 22 was a rock for the Lord. If it worked for him, I guess it might work for me.
That's more than esoteric.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 18, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
