A Peek into the Kingdom ————- 3rd Sunday of Easter ———— April 18, 2021
Acts 3: 12-19 ———— Luke 24: 36b-48
Today, I am starting a series of sermons in which I use a story written by one of my favorite authors—folks like George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, and Leo Tolstoy. (We’ll see who else shows up as we move along!) I am choosing stories that will come alongside the Scriptures for the day, illustrating the point, and perhaps making it easier to remember one or two of the wonderful Truths God wants us to hold in our hearts!
Our story for today was written by Leo Tolstoy, a writer famous for large works like War and Peace or Anna Karenina. But it’s not these epic books that draw me to Tolstoy. It’s the powerful short stories he wrote years later—after he had become a committed Christian—stories that illustrate beautifully many of the central ideas of the Gospel.
I’m going to tell you about a story that he entitled “What Men Live By,” but you might know it as “Michael the Visitor.” It’s a fanciful story about an angel named Michael who lost his wings and had to become human until he learned 3 lessons that God wanted him to learn. He found himself naked and freezing and hungry—perishing, actually, until a humble peasant/shoemaker named Simon found him at the side of the road. The poor shoemaker didn’t want to trouble himself with this fellow, and tried to just walk on past him—but his conscience moved him to go back and share his overcoat with the fellow.
He brought the man home, and his wife was fit to be tied! She had been worrying about having enough for her family, and her husband brought home another mouth to feed! In the face of her anger, Michael just sat drooping on the bench. When Simon pleaded with his wife, “Matrena, have you no love of God?” she looked at the stranger, and suddenly her heart softened toward him. She fed him and gave him clothes and he raised his eyes and smiled at her. He became part of the family, and quickly learned the trade of a shoemaker. His quality work helped the family to prosper!
One day, a great gentleman came into their hut to order some boots. Compared to the undernourished peasants, he looked like someone from another world! He was red-faced, burly, with a neck like a bull’s, and he looked altogether like he were cast in iron! He brought some very expensive leather, and demanded boots that would not lose their shape or split at the seams for at least a year. Would they take the work?
Simon looked at Michael, and he nodded, so they took on the task. They measured the man’s feet and calves, and then Michael seemed to be looking beyond the large gentleman, and was smiling again. When the man took his leave, he forgot to bend down when going out their door, and struck his head on the lintel, nearly driving it off the door posts! He swore and rubbed his head, and climbed into the carriage and went away.
Simon said, “There’s a figure of a man for you! You could not kill him with a mallet. He almost knocked out the lintel, but little harm it did him.”
Matrena said, “Living as he does, how should he not grow strong? Death itself cannot touch such a rock as that.”
Since Michael was younger and had a more steady hand, Simon gave him the fancy leather and the measurements so that he could make the boots, and he went to work right away. He was making slippers instead of boots, and no one noticed until it was too late. And just as Simon was beginning to panic, a messenger came to the door to say that the gentleman had died on the way home, and wouldn’t be needing boots after all. What they needed now was slippers for the corpse! Michael gathered them up and gave them to the messenger. (And, remember, the man had wanted boots that would last a year!)
Well, the years went along, and Michael did his work quietly and well—and he only smiled twice in all that time: once when Matrena gave him food, and again while the gentleman was in their hut.
One day, a woman brought two little girls, twins, to have shoes made for them. One of the little girls was lame in one leg, and Michael couldn’t seem to take his eyes off them. It was obvious that the woman loved them, but, as they talked, they learned that she had adopted the girls when their mother died in childbirth. (She had rolled over on one of the girls and made her leg lame.) The adoptive woman already had a baby boy, but was able to nurse all three. Sadly, the boy died when he was two, but these little girls lived and filled the woman’s heart with joy. Matrena sighed and said, “The proverb is true that says, ‘One may live without father and mother, but one cannot live without God.’”
And suddenly the corner of the cottage lit up, and they looked and saw Michael gazing upwards and smiling, again, light radiating from him. When their visitors had gone, Michael said it was time for him to go as well. He explained:
I was an angel in heaven and disobeyed God. God had sent me to fetch a woman’s soul. I flew to earth and saw a sick woman lying alone who had just given birth to twin girls. They moved feebly at their mother’s side but she could not lift them to her breast. When she saw me, she understood that God had sent me for her soul, and she wept and said, “Angel of God! My husband has just been buried, killed by a falling tree. I have neither sister nor aunt nor mother: no one to care for my orphans. Do not take my soul! Let me nurse my babes, feed them, and set them on their feet before I die. Children cannot live without father or mother.” And I hearkened unto her, returned to the Lord and said, ‘I could not take the soul of the mother’ and I explained why. But God said, “Go—take the mother’s soul, and learn three truths: 1. What dwells in man; 2. What is not given to man; and 3. What men live by. When thou hast learnt these things, thou shalt return to heaven.”
Michael explained further: When I found myself naked and freezing, I saw a man passing me by and he seemed terrible to me—but he returned and he looked different. I no longer saw death on his face. I recognized in him the presence of God. He clothed me and brought me to this home. When I entered the house, I met a woman more terrible than the man had been; the spirit of death came from her mouth; I could not breathe for the stench of death that spread around her. She wished to drive me out into the cold, and I knew that if she did so she would die. Suddenly, her husband talked to her of God, and the woman changed at once. And when she brought me food and looked at me, I glanced at her and saw that death no longer dwelt in her; she had become alive, and in her too I saw God. I smiled because I had just learned the first lesson of what dwells in man. It’s LOVE! God’s love lives in people!
When the man came to order boots that would last a year, I saw behind him the angel of death, and I knew that before sunset he would be taking that rich man’s soul. I thought to myself, ‘The man is making preparations for a year and does not know that he will die before evening.’ And I remembered God’s second saying, ‘Learn what is NOT given to man.’ I learned that it is not given to man to know his own needs, and I smiled for a second time.
In my sixth year with you, the woman came in and brought the twin girls. Their mother had besought me for the children’s sake, and I believed her when she said that children cannot live without father or mother; but a stranger has nursed them, and has brought them up. And when the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and understood What men live by. And I knew that God had revealed to me the last lesson, and had forgiven my sin. And then I smiled for the third time. I have learned that all men live not by the thought they spend on their own welfare, but because God’s love exists in men. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.
Then Michael’s wings sprouted, and he flew back to heaven.
We Don’t See Everything
There are several things that I love about this story. One thing that it illustrates is that human wisdom is not all that wise. We see and understand so little. When Peter addressed the people, he asked them, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this?” And, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, he asked them, “Why are you frightened? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?” Both Peter and Jesus were aware of our slowness to understand. Peter told them, “I know that you acted in ignorance.” And he expressed his confidence that, through their ignorant action, God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets. But, he said, “Now is the time to repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.” In other words, “Be ignorant no longer.”
Jesus Opens Our Minds to Understand
We say in our creeds that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the church universal, and God’s Word to us. This implies that you and I are in a position of limitations; that we will understand the Scriptures ONLY IF Jesus opens them to us! In Luke’s account, Jesus stood among his disciples, and noticed that they were afraid that he was a ghost. After showing them the prints in his hands and feet, he asked them, “Do you have anything to eat?” (Everyone knows that ghosts don’t eat!) And he ate a piece of broiled fish right in front of them. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and explained that his crucifixion and resurrection were God’s way—and that repentance and forgiveness of sins was to be proclaimed to the world. Then he made it clear that they were to be witnesses to the world.
Living Here after a Peek into the Kingdom
Socrates taught that we should be leery or skeptical of anyone who claims they are wise. In a way, Peter seems to be saying the same thing: Be leery of human wisdom. A similar thought is found in Proverbs 14, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.” Somehow, you and I have to compare rational wisdom to Kingdom values—to learn, as did the angel Michael in our story—to trust God’s wisdom above our own.
When the Resurrected Christ talked with his disciples, he told them that they were now to be witnesses. And what is a witness? It is someone who 1. Sees, and then 2. Tells what they have seen, but 3. Not trying to explain how or why God works the way God does. A witness simply relays what they have observed.
Friends, I believe that God wants to give us glimpses into the Kingdom so that we can learn and obey and become faithful witnesses. Let God speak to you; get yourself still enough that you can hear that quiet voice; and open your eyes to what is happening around you. Then, share the good news of what you have seen!