July 24, 2022—–7th Sunday after Pentecost—-Rev. Patrick Mecham
Ephesians 3: 14-21; John 6: 1-21
I’d like you to imagine being on a commercial airplane. It’s a hot day, and the plane is lumbering down the taxiway. You reach up and adjust the air flow so that it’s just right, and you murmur, “Thank you, God, for air conditioning!” Then you begin to wonder: How does air conditioning work? I know there are compressors and Freon and fans—but how does all that actually work?
Honestly, most of us don’t truly understand the science of air conditioning, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the cool air!
Now, your plane is speeding along the runway, gathering momentum for its spring into flight. You might be a little nervous about flying, but you have no doubt that airplanes can fly! Then you begin to wonder: How do airplanes fly? I know a little about the aerodynamics that allow a fixed-wing aircraft to develop lift, but I really don’t understand HOW a plane flies!
Despite my lack of understanding, I still get into airplanes and fly. My lack of understanding does not keep me on the ground!
Now, stay with me while our airplane transforms into a Time Machine. We are traveling to a time many years ago and to a place that is familiar but far away. I want us to take a look at a couple of heroes. What exactly does a hero look like?
As we step into a dark, smelly dungeon, we see a man named John. He was accustomed to living outdoors in the desert, able to cope with desert harshness and physical deprivation. He had been preaching a baptism of repentance with absolute certainty and raw conviction. He had been proclaiming the coming of the long-awaited Messiah, preparing the way for his coming. But he got himself cross-ways with the King, and now finds himself in the stinking dungeon, away from the sun, away from the wind, away from everything and everyone that has helped his life make sense.
His certainty and his conviction have begun to waver. He has begun to doubt if his proclamation of the Messiah was really true—because nothing seems to be happening. He has sent his friends to ask Jesus if he really is the Messiah, and now he waits. He waits to see if his life’s work has been in vain. And he waits for his own imminent execution.
Granted, he doesn’t look like much of a hero. But his work ushered in the most amazing revolution in human history! He is a true hero.
Now, we get back into our flying time machine to go a short way to another prison cell. This man is also awaiting execution, in chains, shackled to a guard. He looks pretty worn out and travel-weary as he dictates a letter to some friends, a letter that he expects several to read. This letter will be (unbeknownst to him) translated into thousands of languages and shared over many centuries with those who are hungry to understand some things that he deeply understands.
He is taking his time with this letter—being in prison has given him lots of time! He has written plenty of other important letters—written to address particular problems in particular churches. (They, also, will be translated and shared with millions over the centuries.) But they were written while he was on the move, letters of specific necessity. Now that he has the time, he’s writing a letter of a much broader nature—a general letter that will sum up much of his understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
As we look at him, it’s hard to imagine him a hero. And, if we knew all the places he had been kicked out of, all the times he had been beaten and stoned and reviled—that might simply confirm our suspicions that he had not been exactly successful.
When he sees us, he beckons us to come closer, and he moves over to the side of the cell that has a window set high in the wall. He points at the night sky, indicating the stars and the heavens and the whole creation of our mighty God. Through that tiny window, he can still glimpse something of the glory of God. He has a sense of how high and long and wide and deep the cosmos is. He looks us in the eye and says, “The love of Christ is as vast as that!”
Instead of seeing a tired old man, an apparent failure, physically wrecked from years of travel and toil—we see a man who knows the victory of life in Christ—a hero who is still doing everything in his power to help us to know it, too! He shows us the paragraph he has just composed, and we see that it is written to us! A letter from the Apostle Paul to us.
The Power to Grasp
He begins, “I kneel before the Father.” He describes God as a Father, not like the pagan gods who are completely unapproachable. And he reminds us that we are part of God’s family. Then, Paul prays that out of his glorious riches God may strengthen us with power through the Spirit—so that Christ may take up a permanent residence in our hearts through faith. (It’s like Peter’s phrase, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”) Be a dwelling for God’s Spirit!
His prayer continues, “that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to somehow grasp how HUGE is the love of Christ—to know the love that surpasses knowledge, and be filled will all the fullness of God.”
He finishes his paragraph with an ascription of Glory to God!
- In a prison, we might expect to see a man cowering in the corner, praying for himself, fearful of what tomorrow might bring;
- Instead, we hear him giving glory to God!
- He says that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine!
- He says that God’s power is at work among us!
- To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
Friends, Paul didn’t understand how it all worked. He simply proclaimed (and demonstrated with his whole being) that life in Christ works. Glory to God!
Witnessing the Miracles, but…
As we turn to our passage from John, see disciples who have been witnesses of many miracles through Jesus:
- Turning water into wine
- Healing the official’s son—at a distance!
- Healing a blind man at the Pool of Siloam
The people were following him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick (a great crowd). Jesus teases Philip by asking, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip (Mr. Skeptical) basically said, “It’s impossible!”
And then Andrew (one of my favorite characters, always bringing people to Jesus) brings a boy to Jesus. (The boy doesn’t understand the laws of physics. He only wants to share what he has brought for his lunch! He has 5 small barley loaves and two small fish.) It’s as though Andrew is almost embarrassed, and he asks, “But how far will they go among so many?”
As you all know, Jesus takes the boy’s gift and multiplies it and feeds this huge crowd. How? I’ll tell you how. We don’t know. We don’t know how. The modern era demands rational explanations of miracles. But the people there did not. Even though they did not understand how, they ate! And they said, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
Living in the Mystery
Just like those disciples, I am slow to understand how things work. But we are all learning how to “live in the mystery.” Just like John the Baptizer; just like the Apostle Paul, we will be aware that we won’t necessarily understand how it all works. But we can experience the love of Christ, and live in Christ!
I want to tell you about an ordinary man who preached a sermon. He wasn’t the preacher—he was a Deacon who managed to walk 6 miles to get to church on a snowy day. There were only 12 members there that day, along with a 13-year-old visitor. The minister was snowed in, so who would preach? John Egglen was the only Deacon there, so the sermon fell to him.
His sermon only lasted 10 minutes. It drifted and it wandered, but eventually a deep courage filled his heart. He lifted up his eyes and looked straight at the boy and challenged him, “Young man, look to Jesus. Look! Look! Look!”
Years later, that boy wrote, “I did look, and then and there the cloud on my heart lifted, the darkness rolled away, and at that moment I saw the sun.” The boy’s name was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who came to be known as England’s prince of preachers!
Did John Egglen see himself as a hero? I’m sure he did not. He was just one person doing what he saw as his duty. But God is glorified in his faithfulness! Max Lucado says, “Behind every avalanche is a snowflake.” You know that, if we put enough snowflakes together, we will experience the power of an avalanche! Or, take a longer view of an even more powerful force. When individual snowflakes pile up deeply over time, they get compressed by more snowflakes until they turn into ice. That ice gets to a certain thickness and starts slowly moving downhill. Even an avalanche pales in comparison to the inexorable power of a glacier!
Yeah. Even if I am just a flake, I can be used by God who does immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, even when God’s work is beyond our comprehension!
Glory to God!