Hello,
If you watched the Super Bowl last night, you saw what I saw. The lights went out in the middle of
the game. Mysteriously.
Instantly. Inconveniently. Just after an exciting kick off return,
the game stopped more abruptly than Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hitting his
breaks. But the lights were not the only thing that were snapped off . So also were the announcers, silenced
in the middle of a sentence. One
can imagine the panic that shook the TV truck as they tried to cover time that
was selling for 3.8 million dollars per thirty seconds. When
it happened, no one knew why. No
one knew how long the darkness was going to hover. No one knew exactly what to do. Players milled around. Coaches yelled at people who were
supposed to be in charge. Building
personnel scrambled and announcers stumbled over pregnant pauses. Patience was
called for. 20 … maybe 30 minutes and the lights might come
back on…. but no one could say for certain.
Although the hype that comes with the Super Bowl game might lead us to
think otherwise, there really are far more significant times in life when the
lights going out creates a deeper crisis: “we can’t do anything more for you,”,
“please clean out your desk,” “mom…dad…are you sitting down?”, “there’s been a
terrible accident”, “what a mess I have made”. Far more significant are these light outages. With these the fear, confusion,
despair, and impatience is painfully real and heart crushingly deep. Seconds pass like hours. “Just wait” are words of torture. “Hold on. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” falls upon the
ears of those whose hands have been sapped of their strength as reason to give
us. The darkness that delayed the
Super Bowl doesn’t contend with the thick darkness that slams upon life, real life.
To that darkness and the confusion, despair, and pain that it brings
comes an a word to us from the one who shattered the darkness of creation with
the words “let there be light”…from the one whose birth in Bethlehem brought
the light into the darkness with a power that no darkness could overcome…. from the one whose Friday’s cry “it is
finished” finished off the convicting fuel of sin and whose Sunday’s steps out
of a death sealed grave ignited a flame of everlasting life fueled by the never
ending mercy of God……….. from this One comes the words, “Fear not. I am with you.”
The good news…. the powerful good news of Jesus Christ is that the one
in whom there is no darkness actually cares about you and me to enjoin himself
to our flickering lives. It may
seem that such news is too good to be true, and many through the centuries have
said so: “No god would take on the
cares of his creation”. “It is
only the wishful thinking of weak, scared people who believe such a thing.” “I see famine, war, hatred,
disease…..where’s the beef….where is God?”
These critiques of the Christian faith are not new. They are as old as the Bible itself,
and so hear the Bible’s (or as I would rather say “God’s) response to them,
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ
crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those
who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
God. For God’s foolishness is
wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
(1 Cor. 1:22-25)
“Fear not. I am with you,”
are God’s powerful words, power that reveals itself in a peace that surpasses
all human understanding when those words take hold of our hearts. I have witnessed their power in my life
and in the lives of many for whom darkness has interrupted their lives with
real, bone chilling fear, and so I put my trust in them as I turn new
corners….not knowing what I will encounter there, other than when I am there
God’s Word “will be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” So, also, it will be for you.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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