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SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2008

THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

John 9:1-41 (The remedy for hopelessness)

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TODAY’S SERMON THEME:

When life gets difficult, it is absolutely crucial for us to remember that God is still in control, and that He is able to transform hopeless situations into occasions of joy. All we have to do is believe Him and turn to Him.

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1. As long as I live, I will always remember a stormy Sunday night in Austin, Texas, back in 1990. I was just about to begin teaching the first in a series of Confirmation classes at our parish. It was the first night of the classes. And just before I opened with prayer, the door opened and a FRAIL YOUNG MAN WITH A CANE walked in. He was clutching tightly to the arm of a young woman, who was his best friend. The classroom was crowded (I presented 37 people for Confirmation that Fall), so the young man and his friend sat at the back. His name was Johnny. He was 32 years old. And he was dying of two things -- (1) Hopelessness, and (2) AIDS. He had just moved into our neighborhood a few days earlier. He had moved in with his female friend, who was a registered nurse. He had moved there to die with dignity. He had -- according to the best medical advice -- less than three months to live. And he had absolutely no hope. None. Zero. From that night onward, I began to visit with Johnny several times a week. He shared with me his diaries, his troubles, his fears. I began to pray with him. And I started talking to him about Jesus. Suddenly, about three months after that stormy Sunday night, a miracle occurred: JOHNNY CAME FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE LORD. He surrendered his will and his life to the Lord. Totally. And then, in December of 1990, along with 36 others, I presented him to the Bishop of Texas for Confirmation. And then another miracle occurred: Johnny's AIDS symptoms disappeared. And he lived another THREE years before the symptoms returned in 1993. He died serving others with AIDS -- talking to them about the Lord and sharing his faith with them. I had the great honor of presiding and preaching at his funeral.

2. As best I can tell, as we go through life, there are two ways of looking at things: (1) We can look through our own eyes, with our limited perspective, or (2) We can look through the eyes of Christ, with His unlimited perspective. When we look through our own eyes, we make ourselves the center of the universe, and we are nearly always overwhelmed with circumstances and situations -- disease, bankruptcy, divorce, accidents, depression, death. When we rely on our own limited abilities to understand such things, we often find ourselves faced with that awful condition of the spirit known as HOPELESSNESS. Johnny's situation when I met him was hopeless. He felt so lost, so alone, so confused, so abandoned, so HOPELESS, that he saw no reason to keep on living. When I met him, he was contemplating self-murder, suicide. But . . . as Johnny discovered . . . there is ANOTHER WAY to look at life: Through the eyes of faith, through the eyes of Christ, using the perspective of eternity. This way of looking at life makes GOD the center of our universe, and not us; it makes GOD the focus of all things, and not us; it makes God the most important aspect of our lives, and not our own selfish whims.

3. BUT here is the catch: The only way we can look through the eyes of Christ is to ask Him to come INTO our eyes, INTO our minds, INTO our hearts, INTO our bodies. When we turn our will and our lives over to His care (Step 3 in the 12-step program), we suddenly discover that He is always able, always willing, to make Himself known to us. And He is right there with us all the time, in all places, no matter the circumstances. He is there with us in the hospital room, at our bedsides, in our offices, in our cars.

A brief example from my life this past week:

This past Monday morning, as some of you know, I had oral surgery -- two very abscessed, very infected, very damaged teeth were extracted. And I spent most of the afternoon and evening on Monday on pain medication. And I had a little time to think, as I dozed in and out. I BEGAN THINKING ABOUT MY OWN JOURNEY OF FAITH . . . and my own favorite definition OF faith. To me, FAITH IS BELIEVING IN ADVANCE IN THINGS THAT WILL ONLY MAKE SENSE WHEN SEEN IN REVERSE. Faith, to me, is making a decision to BELIEVE in the goodness of God, no matter the circumstances, and no matter my inability to figure out what is going on all around me. In my life, I never really understand WHAT God is doing UNTIL AFTER HE HAS DONE IT. I merely make a decision to BELIEVE in advance, even though I never really understand until much later. Consider this: (1) FIVE YEARS AGO (2003), I was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church and Trinity School in Marshall, Texas; (2) TEN YEARS AGO (1998), I was rector of St. Cuthbert Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas; (3) FIFTEEN YEARS AGO (1993), I was rector of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; (4) TWENTY YEARS AGO (1988), I was chaplain at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas; (5) THIRTY YEARS AGO (1978), I was assistant metro editor of the morning newspaper in Memphis, TN; (6) FORTY YEARS AGO (1968), I was a junior in high school in Fort Worth, TX.

The fascinating thing about this is that at each moment, I understood NOTHING beyond the immediate events in my life. And I understood ZERO about my future. At each juncture, there were good moments and difficult moments. Great moments. Painful moments. Hopeful moments. Hopeless moments. But God gently guided me each day, each moment. Without His constant intervention in my life, I would not be here today. Without Him, I would not be alive today.

4. Here is my main point this morning: When life gets difficult, it is absolutely crucial for us to remember that God is still in control, and that He is able to transform hopeless situations into occasions of joy. All we have to do is believe Him and turn to Him.

5. Our Gospel lesson this morning from John Chapter 9 shows us WHAT GOD’S LOVE CAN DO -- God’s love for a helpless, hopeless, blind beggar. Let us look at our text for today:

(1) The setting -- near the pool of Siloam in Old Jerusalem. A busy place where people were cleansing themselves before approaching the Temple of the Lord. Near the pool, Jesus encounters the blind beggar -- a man who had been blind from birth. As always, Jesus sought out the LEAST of the people of the world. The helpless. The hopeless.

(2) The question came from the apostles: Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Please hear Jesus’ answer, for it is the most important word ever spoken about illness and disease. “Neither this man NOR his parents sinned (to cause this). The man was born blind SO THAT THE MIGHTY WORKS OF GOD MIGHT BE REVEALED IN HIM.”

(3) The action taken by Jesus. He mixes his saliva with dirt, makes a mud pack, and rubs it on the man’s eyes. He tells him to go and wash in the pool. EVEN DIRT can become holy when touched by the Lord. Even DIRT can be used to show God’s glory.

(4) The immediate result. The man did as Jesus instructed, and he was healed completely. Please notice that this was a COMPLETE healing -- spirit, mind, and body. How else could a person BLIND FROM BIRTH see and understand what he saw? Without spiritual healing and mental healing, the physical healing would have driven the man insane. He could not have processed the shapes, lights, colors, and images that suddenly appeared to him. But because he believed Jesus, and DID WHAT JESUS ASKED HIM TO DO, he was healed. Body. Mind. And Spirit.

(5) The delayed result: The entire city of Jerusalem was thrown into an uproar. What occurred next was one of the funniest (and saddest) exchanges in the Bible. Those who REFUSED to believe were shown to be the ones who were truly blind. Those who REJECTED the miraculous healing (despite the evidence) were shown to be the ones with hardened hearts.

(6) The healed man . . . Was eventually excommunicated by the elders of the people . . . because he believed in the One who healed him. “All I know,” he said to the elders, “was that once I was blind, but now I see.” He continued to believe in Jesus. And he continued to worship and follow the Lord. His hopeless state had been turned into an occasion of JOY.

6. The New Testament is literally FILLED with similar stories of God’s love -- a love that transforms HOPELESSNESS into HELPLESSNESS into occasions of JOY. (1) The widow of Nain’s son who was brought back to life. (2) The raising of Lazarus from the dead. (3) The ten lepers who encountered Jesus on a road near Nazareth. (4) Blind Bartimaeus outside the village of Jericho. (5) The daughter of Jairus, a ruler of his people, brought back to life. (6) The crippled man whose friends lowered him through the roof on a pallet to get near Jesus. Story after story. Person after person. Throughout time. Throughout history. Throughout cultures. Right up to, and including, my friend Johnny in Austin, Texas.