The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Over the course of my nearly 69 years, there are two times that I have felt most at peace. Certainly, there have been many, many times when peace has taken hold of my soul and many of those times have been when I have received Holy Communion around the table of the Lord. But there are two specific times when the peace that I felt was so profound that I remember them today.

Many years ago, when my wife and I were young and having kids, which we had three boys, I was always anxious during my wife’s pregnancy. Part of my anxiety came from the fact that I attract anxiety like a magnet, but the other part of my anxiety came from the fact that as a pastor, I was all too aware of all the things that could go wrong leading up to a birth. That is what ministry does to you. It often puts you in people’s lives when things are falling apart. In those younger years of ministry, I had become all too well acquainted with tears of parents who were confronted with the reality of this broken world. And so, for me, each of our three pregnancies were laced with anxiety. As it turned out, all three of my boys were healthy and continue to be so.

But when my third son was born, I had this hovering fear that having dodged the bullet two times, it just might not be so on the third. So, when the time came for my son to make his way into the world, my wife and I went to the hospital and soon found ourselves in a delivery room. In my recollection, the labor was not as long this time (ask my wife, and she can tell you for sure!), but for some reason my anxiety was higher. I was more fearful of what the birth might bring, and my imagination was taking me into deeper and darker possibilities. Then I heard the nurse say, “The baby is coming!”, and in that moment of complete helplessness, I found the thoughts of my mind turning around, as it occurred to me that God who loves me with all of his being would give me the courage and strength to handle whatever came my way…even the worst things that had been polluting my mind. And in that moment when everything was completely out of my hands, I felt an abiding peace in the hands of God that was overwhelming.

The second time was not so long ago. As you may remember, I had kidney cancer a little over four years ago, which brought a jolt of fear. To make a long story short, in preparation for having my cancer stricken kidney taken out, they did a whole lot of tests, and after one of the tests, a cat scan, I got a call from my doctor who said to me that the scan was showing that I had a “compromised blood vessel in my brain”, and I should immediately go to the hospital to get a special MRI to address the problem. “Pack some clothes,” the nurse said, “as they will probably want to keep you there.” So, my wife and I hopped in the car, and I was scared to death, as the news made me fear that my death might be near. If the cancer had not been enough to knock me off my feet, this was like a right-hand blow from Mohamed Ali. We got to the hospital, and they quickly got me into the MRI room and put me on the table and started to slide me into the machine, when the 23rd Psalm popped into my mind….The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures……”. And in that moment of complete helplessness sliding into the “

valley of the shadow of death”, I suddenly felt a peace, that as scripture says, “surpasses all human understanding”. The fear was shattered, and I “feared no evil.” Although that machine was holding me so tightly that I could not move, I felt the grip of God on me that made that machine’s grip, and even death’s grip, feel like nothing more than a pinch. Fortunately, the bulging vessel was deemed as probably having been there my whole life, and since it hadn’t popped yet, the likelihood was that it wasn’t going to pop.

Those two events were etched into my memory and my soul with their soothing peace. Interestingly enough, both of them were at times when things were completely out of my control. I don’t know about you, but I know that I find myself trying to keep things under control, and when things seem to be slipping out of control, I tend to up my efforts. A friend of mine some years ago, who was experiencing his life falling apart out of control, said a very wise thing to me, “Control is really just an illusion.”

Granted, it is a foolish thing to live life without making plans, setting goals, and being wise, but there are times when all of those things no longer hold things together and we find ourselves with no control, and when those times have crashed upon me, I have heard the echo of Psalm 46 ringing in my ears saturating me with peace, “Be still and know that I am God,” and I feel peace.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 

The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Every year, the Gospel reading in liturgically aligned churches is from the Gospel of John, commonly called the story of “Doubting Thomas”. In the story, Thomas, who wasn’t with the disciples on Easter evening when they told him that they had seen the resurrected Jesus, said this to their story, ““Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25). Thus the name that history has given Thomas, “Doubting Thomas”.

However, if one reads the 20th Chapter of John carefully, it is clear that Thomas was not alone in his doubts. As the Bible tells us, all of the disciples….every one of them….were hiding in fear behind locked doors when suddenly there was another person with them, and they were filled with fear, not knowing who it was. It was only after that person presented his nail scarred hands and feet to them that they believed that this person was, incredulously as it might have seemed, Jesus. So, when Thomas asks to experience the exact thing that they had told them that they had experienced, Thomas was no more of a doubter than any of the other disciples.

I know that if I had been one of those disciples who had seen Jesus tortured, crucified and die, that I would have likewise not figured to see Jesus again. Interestingly, all of the Easter accounts written in the Bible make it clear that no one expected to see Jesus alive again after that grave-boulder had been rolled across the opening of the tomb. Not the women, not the disciples….no one.

So, I don’t find it surprising that many people throughout the centuries, and in these days, find themselves in the shoes of the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection….doubting Jesus’ resurrection. Actually, I think everybody does, at least a bit. Why else would things that “prove” Jesus’ resurrection gain so much attention and significance? The shroud of Turin (If you have not heard of it, google it and see what a stir it caused in the 70’s and 80’.)? Claims of apparitions of Jesus? Claims of miracles? There is a yearning for tangible proof. The story of Jesus’ resurrection that has been passed on to us, for many, lacks convinciblity, and they just can’t buy it.

For that reason, I am very thankful that I, as one whose life has been shaped by the story of the resurrection of Jesus, am glad that I am not a salesman….I am a talesman. When I preach, I am not selling anything. I am telling something. Something life changing. I am telling about one whose love for you and me….mere specks of dust in the scope of the universe…is so great that that one would hold nothing back in loving you and me. I. am telling about one who considers you and me so valuable, like a found pearl of unmeasurable worth, that in finding it he would give everything to have it. Or one who would leave 99 sheep to come after just one, and the he throws a party that rumbles through the universe when he finds it. Or one who would send his only child into a deathtrap in order to pull me out of it. I am the one to pass on the word (Word) that the one who created the universe and holds it together loves you and me.

Can love be proven? Maybe not completely, but it seems to me circumstantially. It surely can be spoken, shown, and exhibited which leads to tangible evidence of love. As Paul said in Romans 5, “ 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” And it is in that “proof” that my doubt that God loves me is quieted and my faith in his love is activated. Further, I find myself believing that if God is going to go that far to love me, maybe (or surely) God isn’t going to just hold me for a short time. Rather, having given his all for me, it makes sense to me that God is going to want to hold me always….forever.

Notice that when the Bible says that Jesus appeared to the disciples in that locked upper room, they did not recognize him by his face, by his voice, or by his stature…..they recognized him by the wounds that bore evidence of God’s love for them. His nail scarred hands and feet. His spear pierced side. It was then that the disciples said, “It’s the Lord!”, and it was then that Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus showed them the depth of God’s love for them, and that is what I tell you and everyone who “has ears to hear”, and with the power of that love doubt loses its grip and faith explodes with eternal life.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord.

No matter who tells us the Easter story….be it Matthew, Mark, Luke or John…they all make one thing very clear; no one expected to see what happened on that day. Sure, Jesus had told them several times before that he would be turned over to those who hated him, that he would die at their hands, and on the third day he would rise from the dead. But his words must have had an empty ring to them. The din of the cross … the nails, the suffering, the cries…must have been blaring in their ears. The silence that followed a spear thrusted through his side must have been haunting them. The deathly quiet of the grave in which he was laid must have been yelling at them. The roll of the stone to close the grave must have been echoing in their ears.

So, when the women went to the grave, they did not expect to see what they saw. Matthew tells us that the women were struck with fear as the earth quaked and the stone was rolled away, and they were taken back by the sight of lightning white angel who spoke to them who knew that those women were encountering something they didn’t expect. “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified, “he said, “6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay.”

And then they ran into the thing that they least expected to see, Jesus, standing there alive right in front of them, and I am sure with a smile on his face he said, “Surprise!” The reading that we just heard translates the word that Jesus greeted those two women as, “Greetings!”, but the word that is found in the original language of the Bible, Greek, is “chairete”, which literally means “rejoice”. Jesus did not just say, “Howdy”, or “Hi”….no, when those women ran into him, he saw their fears and doubts, and he said to them a word of victory, “Rejoice”…. “Surprise!”

Surprises are some of the best things in life when they are good surprises. They have a way of etching themselves in our memories, and they shape our lives. I remember some years ago on my 60th birthday that I was sitting in my house watching TV when suddenly my dog started barking, and when I went to the door, I heard the word, “Surprise!” It was my three sons who had come from their homes far away from me to give me a birthday present that I wasn’t expecting….them! I remember that day as if it was yesterday, and it shapes my life even to this day.

Imagine how that greeting from Jesus, “Surprise!”, must have implanted itself in those two women’s lives. How it must have overwhelmed all the other noise that had been filling their ears…how it must have been like a bomb exploding in their hearts with an urgency to tell others about it…how it must have brought strength to their legs as they ran to tell the disciples….how it must have crushed the darkness with brilliant light…how it changed the way they lived each day…and how it turned the day that they died upside down. “Surprise!”

And the power of that surprise has made it to you and me today. We who have stood by grave sites and watched death gobble up one person after another. We who have heard with our own ears and seen with our own eyes, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We who have looked at the empty recliner in the living room, the empty seat at the kitchen table, the closet full of clothes that will never be worn again, and the smile that is only in pictures. To us, on this day, we hear the word that was spoken to those two women spoken to us, as we run into Jesus in this place, “Surprise!”

“Surprise!” Death is swallowed up in victory. “Surprise!” We are not just dust in the wind, but we are dust in whom the Spirit has breathed life, now and forever. “Surprise!” Loneliness and grief have been washed down the drain in a tidal flood of love and mercy. “Surprise!”

And today, those two women would have you know, that long after your days in this life are over, and your body has long rested in the grave or mingled with the dirt, you will hear a knocking and a recreating hand will reach down and pull you up into new life, and there will be Jesus, and he will say to you words that will transform you for eternity, “Surprise!” Amen.