Scripture text: John 14:1-6
“This sucks.”
On Sunday afternoon, I was having lunch at Taco Bell in Shrewsbury, on my way to a meeting, when I got the phone call. Freddie’s in a bad way; you need to get to the hospital. So I finished my food and rushed back up. I walked into his room with him and Lindsey and his nurse. Freddie was trying to get comfortable in his bed and he just couldn’t. He was moving and fussing, and you could tell he was hurting. And he looks up at the nurse and said aloud “This sucks.”
I know that kind of language isn’t terribly proper for a church setting, but sometimes proper language just doesn’t cut it. Our emotions are raw right now. We’re angry. This isn’t fair. People aren’t supposed to get sick. Healthy and strong men like Freddie aren’t supposed to die in their 30s. We’re confused. This isn’t supposed to happen to good people and Freddie’s as good as they come. We’re afraid. He was only 36. If it can happen to him...what about me? What about the others that I love? We’re sad. He leaves behind two lovely children and beautiful wife, a whole host of friends and family. It’s not fair.
So let’s just be honest; This does suck. This whole thing is wrong.
And then there’s the whole timing of it all. It’s Christmas. We’re only a week away. We’re not supposed to be sad at this time of year. We’re supposed to be merry! Well, we’re not merry. Not by a long shot.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Everything about this just ain’t right. It truly does, in Freddie’s own words, “suck.”
But, while we are in this honest moment and expressing our sincere and intense anger and sorrow and confusion, let us also remember another truth. We are far from alone in looking upon this with those emotions. We are not alone in assessing this as wrong, that it’s unfair, that it should not be.
I believe with every fiber of my being that not only is God here present with us in this moment, but he feels as we do. He’s angry about this. He’s upset. He’s hurting. He’s feeling it too. He’s been feeling it, ever since the world began, because every time life goes wrong like this, he feels it.
All of us are God’s precious creation. You, me, Freddie, everyone here. “Fearfully and wonderfully made” the Psalmist once wrote of us. We are God’s joy, the reason a smile crosses his face. In much the same way that Freddie looked upon Lindsey or Zoey or MaKenzie, God looks at us, all of us. He loves us beyond words. He did not create us to suffer. He created a good and just world in which we could thrive. But something went wrong, and because something went wrong, this is what happens.
People dying far too young. The nightmare of disease. A wife left widowed and children without a father. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. But God isn’t going to leave it like this. He’s put in motion a plan to fix what has gone wrong.
The Bible tells us that his plan began with a man in ancient times called Abraham. God said to him “I’m making you a promise. I’m going to make your family something great and from them, I’m going to bring a blessing that will be for everybody. All the families of this world will be blessed.”
And God fulfilled that promise in the birth of a child, born to Abraham’s line. That birth we will celebrate one week from today, the birth of Jesus Christ.
That baby didn’t stay a baby, of course, but he grew up and taught us about God and God’s purposes for the world. One of those lessons is the passage of Scripture I just read from the Gospel of John. Jesus teaches “Look, I’m going to prepare a place for you. I’m going to ready a place away from all this pain and torment. And then I’m going to take you there. I’m going to put right what went wrong in the world. I’m the way that’s going to happen. I’m the solution to all the world’s problems.”
It’s not long after this teaching that Jesus puts his money where his mouth is. He goes from here to Jerusalem, where he’s arrested, put on trial, and nailed to a cross. He dies so that the world may live. So you and I and Freddie may have life abundant, life eternal. And as if to demonstrate just how true that is, he rose again on the third day. Easter had come.
We all know the world’s got problems, and the biggest one is right before us today. Death. But God is doing something about this. God has done something about this. Jesus came and told us he was going to fix this. And he did. He went to cross and rose again on the third day. “It is finished!” he cries out from the cross. God keeps his promises, and in that moment, the promise was fulfilled.
It may not seem that way right now, but the world is moving in the right direction. It’s hard for us to wait for that day when Jesus finally says “All is ready.” We’re not there yet and we know it. But we can be confident that that day is coming.
And on that day, as the Bible tells us, the dead will rise and they will have life again. And we will all be together: us, God, and those we’ve lost. On that day, the promise God made through Jesus will be fulfilled. “Where I am, there you will be also.”
Until then, here we are. We will cry. We will scream at the sky in rage. We will hold one another and offer words of comfort. And life will continue. We will be there for one another, but we will also keep hope. Hope that the day God promises is coming soon. The day when the world will be set right and all this pain will go away and we will see those we love again.
Freddie will be there on that day. He will be waiting for us, waiting to welcome us into the world that is meant to be. And he’ll hug and kiss Lindsey and his girls with a smile on his face. And he’ll tell all of us “This...this does NOT suck. This is what we’ve waited for. This is what God promised us. It’s here at last.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment