The Bungee Cord   12-16-19

Hello,                                                                                      

I’d like to paint a picture for you.  It’s a picture of a sight that I saw some years ago as I was travelling out in the bush from Lutheran congregation to Lutheran congregation in Cameroon, Africa.

The road was like most of the roads in rural Cameroon, dusty dirt, excessively bumpy from the lack of care and the occasional rain that caused wash outs.  The road sliced its way like a laser beam through the endless savannah.  Sometimes the grass was no more than dried stubble, other times it was knee high, but in either case it was sandy brown, baking under the heat of the African sun.

As the 10 of us rode in the medium sized SUV, driven by Phillipe who knew the unmapped roads and was skilled in navigating the untamed terrain, we came upon an old man walking on the side of the road, out in the middle of nowhere.  Tattered and torn was the shirt that draped his shoulders, and baggy and loose the short pants that he wore, held up by a worn out rope.  An old weathered baseball hat covered his head.  His African face was age worn, his cheek bones and jaw bone where chiseled out of his gaunt face.  His eye were glazed over with blindness.  Tennis shoes, if you could call them shoes, shod his feet.

He walked with great effort, bent over, shuffling his feet along the dusty roadside.  His legs were thin and seemed almost muscle-less, his knees stuck out like cantaloupes.  In his boney left hand was a stick with which he stabbed the ground with every labored step.   What was this old man doing out on this road?   Where was he going, out in the middle of nowhere?

He wasn’t alone, though, because in front of him….maybe four feet in front of him was a young boy, middle school aged, I would have guessed. Thin, but seemingly healthy and strong. The shorts and shirt that he wore were in good shape, and they fit him well.  There was a strength to his stride as he put one second or third hand Nike flip flop clad foot in front of the other.  He was obviously walking much slower than the pace that he would have set on his own, because the pace that he was walking was being set by his travelling partner…..the old man who was walking behind him.

But the most striking thing about these two travelers was what each of them was holding in their right hands.  It was a branch, maybe about six feet long, linking the young boy to the old man behind him.  The boy carried it behind him.  The man held onto it in front of him.  Sighted leading the blind.  Strong leading the weak.

And when I saw it, this verse from Isaiah came to my mind:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
   the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
   and a little child shall lead them. 

Do you ever feel like that old man?  Worn out from life?  Eyes glazed with blinding cataracts from the “years and tears” that Jackson brown sang of? Muscles wilted from the heat of the oppressive sun and sin that has beaten down on you? Out in the middle of nowhere shuffling your way along an endless dusty road?

And you don’t have to be old to find yourself in this picture.  The kid who gets teased every day as she shuffles her was through the high school halls, and sits alone among a table of peers who doesn’t even notice she’s there.  The man who has fallen into so many holes – some holes of his own making, others that have simply been covered traps on his path, fallen into so many holes that his phone never rings and his guest chair is never used.  The parent who looks in the mirror and is beat down by the whispers of “failure”.

There are some….and maybe even some of you…who know all too well the steps of that old African man because you have walked them a lot.  But isn’t it true, that all of us, have found ourselves walking in his steps at times in our life, and we know that all of us will find such blind and dusty walks ahead of us.  Do you every feel like that old man?  Yes. Of course.

So, listen to today’s Advent message, “And a young child will lead them.”  That is the Advent message to us when we know that old African man’s steps far too well.  “A young child shall lead them.” A young child with keen eyesight to keep us on the path.  A young child with strength and endurance to be able to travel the distance.  A young child with a sharp mind who knows the way. A young child who will patiently walk a slow and deliberate pace.  A young child who will stay close and connected to us by a branch, a cross shaped branch.

To us who sometimes feel, or a lot of the time feel like that old African man, God says this from the book of Isaiah… “and a young child shall lead you.”  And who is that “young child”?  It is the one that John the Baptist pointed to to all those people who had come out into the wilderness.  “I can lead you only so far,” he said to the people….but there is one who is coming after me who will lead you all the way…he will take hold of you like fire taking hold of dry piece of wood….he will take hold of you in an everlasting grip of love and mercy that will fill your lungs and soul.  I can lead you only so far, says John the Baptist, to you and me today….but there is one who is coming who will lead you all the way….his sandals I could never fill.  Out of a Bethlehem manger he will come.

Hear this, those who know the steps of that old African man, “a young child will lead you.” 

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger