Second to the Last Sunday

November 14, 2004

Mt Hope Lutheran Church, Pastor George Hesse

2^nd Corinthians 5. 1-10

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed we have a building from God, an eternal house, not built by human hands.

            A little over a year ago I received one of those phone calls that Pastors get at 3:00 AM. The nurse on the other end said you’d better come because Leona was dying.

            I quickly dressed and set off for the nursing home which was thirty minutes away. As I drove through the dark night I pondered my friend, Leona. She was a parishioner and her health had been steadily failing. I guess you could say that her earthly tent was collapsing from age. She’d recently suffered a series of setbacks that, piece by piece, took what the stroke a few years back hadn’t taken.

            Our text records that we groan and are burdened. I reflected on that as I sat at her bedside. Oh, she’d seen the normal things a farmer’s wife sees: A year’s work wiped at the last minute by a sudden storm, a lot of bills and not enough money to pay them, and seemingly good friends who just drifted away when hard times came. She’d seen her only son die unexpectedly …before his time. Her husband, too, died suddenly. She was woman of numerous groans.

            She was burdened- when they moved her out of her room at the nursing home for “remodeling.” They told her it would be six weeks but it was more than six months. It was easy to overlook her, to put her off; after all she’d probably be dead before they finished remodeling, what difference would it make. It bothered her to be shuffled around and to be put off – to be away from the room she now called home. Yet, she never gave up on the promises of God to see her through all things.

            Sometimes we don’t like being burdened, especially if it is long term. How many of us have grown tired from our struggles? How many of us have cried out, “How long, Oh Lord! How long?” We stomp our feet and if we are honest we shake our fist at God and yell, “Why me!” or “Lord if this is how it is going to be then just let me die.”

            I was blessed in seminary to have a professor who related a story about groaning, about long-term burdens, about a collapsing earthly tent. It seems that his mother-in-law was an identical twin. 

She was a devout Christian and was married to a cantankerous, difficult non-Christian. She wanted him to come to faith and in many and varied ways she dropped hints and lived out her faith before him, but to no avail.

For most of their married life he didn’t interfere with her going to church but he wanted no part in it. Then one day her earthly tent collapsed. She had a massive stroke and it left her bedridden and robbed her of most of her abilities. Now remember she had a twin sister; they shared the same genetics- if one twin had a stroke there was a good chance the other might also, but her twin didn’t. She went on another twenty years in prefect health.

            The husband of the stroke victim despite his “Archie Bunker” attitudes and self-centeredness went to visit his wife everyday. Because she could no longer read for herself, he read to her from the book she loved, The Bible. And to his credit he read to her everyday- week after week, month after month, year after year.

            One day shortly before she died, haltingly and with great effort as speech often is for stroke victims, she shared with daughter and son-in-law that her stroke had been an answer to her prayers. Her words were: “This happened to me for him.”   What this woman had prayed for most of her life came to pass. Her husband had come to believe in the words and promises of God. Even in the midst of great groaning and great illness God had worked something good.

As to all that suffering it is written that We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose.  (Romans 8.28) He can use even our toughest times, our hardest burdens to achieve His purposes: that we would cast aside the worthless idols of this world and cling only to the cross; that we would stop listening to the lying voices of this world and instead listen to and for the voice of God, and that we and others would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

            Our text goes on, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Both of the ladies who had strokes I’m sure must have had those times when deprived of their abilities, their opportunity to enjoy life… robbed of their dignity by having to have someone come and clean them up or care for them… they must have longed to have their mortal lives swallowed by immortally. Many of us haven’t had strokes but we get pretty discouraged. But God had given them and us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

            By faith these women could live even in the midst of great burdens and groaning because God had poured out His Spirit, The Holy Spirit, upon them. It is written, All of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Gal 3.27) By that Spirit that could pass through the long valley of hard times… Lo though I walk through the valley of the shadow of ….strokes, unfairness, illness, disaster, death of a loved one… You are with me; Your rod and your staff they comfort me. 

            That Spirit allowed them to hear the Word of God, not just  “words upon words” as the world speaks but Words that are the very voice of God, who promises to be with us in all things, to never abandon us, and to hear our prayers.

            But what about us, do we always listen to the voice of God as revealed in the Scriptures or do we sometimes listen to a different voice? There is a deceptive voice that says in the hard times, “If God is for you then why are suffering so?” Sometimes the voice hisses, “You say, ‘God said He’d never abandon you’ but don’t you feel alone right now?” Sometimes the voice, which belongs to Satan, whispers to us, “God must be deaf to your prayers.”

            With this going on, how can we know that God is for us? How can we know that He has not abandoned us? Is it a feeling? No, I can assure you that it is not a feeling. For our feelings can be manipulated. To know that God is for us and with us we need only look to His sacraments and His Word.

            In communion all that is God comes to us in a very real way- taking hold of us. “I am here; I’m real and I am with you.” It isn’t just some meal of remembrance. It is all that is God coming to us in a unique and sacramental way- taking hold of us, forgiving us, and building up our faith.

            Look to the font and be reminded of the promises that God poured out into the font and poured out upon us. He brought us into a relationship of forgiveness and adoption. Because of that adoption God does hear our prayers and though we might not understand how He is at work- He is. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus explained it this way: Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give you good gifts.  (Matt 7.7-11a) And give to us He does! Look to the cross and see the depth of that giving- Jesus sacrificed for the sins of the whole world.

Listen to His Word where comfort will be given to you.

In working with people who are facing varied and sometimes overwhelming challenges, I tell them to read the Psalms. Keep reading until you find that Psalm that is you…that describes what you are going through…it is as though the Psalmist were writing with you in mind. Hang on to that Psalm and then read of Christ’s life for you; His death on the cross for you; and his victory at the tomb for you. Then the Words of today’s Psalm will take on a new meaning: He has not hidden His face from us, that He has come to our relief, and that He is about rescuing us. (Psalm 130.4; 143.1,6-7,9,11)

            Now, as I sat with my friend, Leona, her earthly tent collapsing around her, she clung to the center pole that was and is Christ. She had confidence Jesus would see her through from mortal life to eternal life. Though she had not seen Him, she believed. It is written, Blessed are they who have not seen but believed. Blessed was my friend Leona.  Blessed are all of us who have not seen yet believed.

            Her Jesus had come for her 2,000 years ago; He had rescued her from sin by his death on the cross in our stead. And if she was rescued from sin and death then she had the promise of life. Not just life some day, but a life lived in the knowledge that her Jesus had been about the business of watching over her all the days of her life since her baptism- building and strengthening her faith, answering her prayers in His time, and using even her struggles to foster faith in others as she gave daily witness to the hope that lived within her.

            All around us are lives that are collapsing or in danger of collapsing from sin, unfairness, unforgiveness, hurt, disease, anger, and anguish. People are burdened and groaning. They need to know the Jesus Leona knew, the Jesus who rescues us and will rescue them and give real hope, real comfort, and real future not just some day but every day.  Amen.