I heard a young clergyman preach a sermon about the Trinity
on Trinity Sunday a number of years ago at the beautiful cathedral in Coventry,
England where we were visiting. It was a
good sermon, one of the best that I have heard from a preacher trying to
explain the unexplainable. I resolved
that day never to preach on Trinity Sunday, at least never to try to explain
what I don’t understand. From that
moment on, I always had my assistants preach on Trinity Sunday. I always enjoyed listening to them.
In a sense,
all of our religion is unexplainable.
Who can even try to interpret the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. It certainly makes no sense in any factual
way. There have been those who have
tried to prove it through the centuries, but that has never worked. It is much easier to disprove. Who has ever seen a resurrection? There isn’t any reason at all to believe in
it. But reason is not what we are after
here. Faith is the only thing that
matters, not even belief, which for me always seems tied to doctrine. Faith is what draws us close to our God. That out of all of the wonders and wreckage
that humanity and religion is and has created, God reigns. That is, I think, all that we need to know
about what God is about in this world.
But this is
a difficult world. As I write this, a
tornado has devastated Moore, Oklahoma and many people have been killed and
injured. Particularly a grade school was
inundated and destroyed. Workers are
trying to recover bodies and find any survivors who might remain in the
wreckage of the building. Parents are
stunned and the whole community grieves.
It is in this context that we look for God’s presence and comfort. The comfort comes from each of us when we
encounter situations like this. We do
what we can to bring hope and comfort in the middle of unbelievable pain. God is present in the pain. I am reminded of Jesus’ words on the
cross: My God, My God, why have you
forsaken me? These are the words
that tell me of God’s presence in our most horrible moments.
The
devastation doesn’t have to be as terrible as what the city of Moore is
experiencing. Sometimes in our lives,
the loss of income or our health, or the death of loved ones can be as
overwhelming to us. Where is God in
these terrible moments of our lives? Where
is the Holy Spirit, our comforter who Jesus promised to send to us? Where was God when Jesus called out to him on
the cross? It is only in the moments of my
absolute devastation that I know that the Holy Spirit is present. It certainly isn’t in the good times, when I
can take care of myself without any help from anyone. My self-sufficiency is one of the clearest
barriers to the presence of God that exists.
Only when that falls away is it possible for God to somehow penetrate my
hardened soul.
When my
brain tumor was diagnosed, I lived in a state of quiet anxiety. The doctors prescribed a treatment that
involved radical surgery, to remove the tumor and provide some kind of
rehabilitation. It was only on the
operating table, right before the anesthetic was given to me that a remarkable
calm penetrated my body. I knew then
that whatever happened that day, whatever the outcome, I would be all
right. That wasn’t much comfort to my
family who all waited for me, but it was a deep touch of God for me. After the surgery, it took several years for
me to recover completely, with the help of a remarkable family and community of
faithful people, but from the moment of that touch of the divine, I knew the
ending. I have kept that moment with me
from that time forward. God came to me
in the middle of my devastation to give me hope. That was not a promise of anything other than
presence. I knew that at the time.
thanks rodge!
ReplyDeletetone