On the Road to Glory

Rev. Harriette Cross Englewood United Methodist Church Rust Memorial United Methodist Church October 28, 2012 Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Mark 10:46-52 22nd Sunday After Pentecost Year B On the Road to Glory The questions of life Have you noticed that the older we get in life, the more complex our questions about life become. As we go through our journey of life, we find that life is full of questions. When we were young we used to think that there was not a question that we could ask, that our parents didn’t have an answer for. And when we discovered that our parents didn’t have all of the answers, that is when we started to ask God. Of course God had all of the answers. God’s word, the bible is full of questions about life and answers to our deepest questions. Questions that we all ask, such as where did human beings come from, how did the world begin, what is our purpose in life, how are we supposed to live our lives, what is evil, how to be a righteous person in the midst of evil. We have come a long way in the last 6000 years. We have worked hard to be able to find the answers to our questions. But no matter how far we have come in life. There are certain questions that come up time and time again in our lives. The greatest question that we have is why? Why is this happening to me. Why does bad things happen, even when we strive to be good people. People who are faithful to God. Instead of giving us an straight answer, if you read the bible, God gives the answers we seek in the context of a story. Usually a story about someone’s life. They say that Job may not be the first story in the bible, but that it is the oldest story in the bible. This story was told even before the book of Genesis was written. Job is not a isrealite, Job is a foreigner who came to know God. Job intended to answer our deepest questions Even if Job is not the oldest story – it addresses the oldest question. Why does bad things happen to good people? Today are at the end of the story of Job. The man who started out with everything, who God allowed to devil to take it all away. He and his friends struggle with this. Why is this happening? Why is God standing by and letting this happen to a faithful person. Job asks, but God never gives an answer. It is in this final chapter of the story that Job answers his own question. Chapter 42 is known as the restoration of Job. Everything that he had in the beginning is restored to him. His health, his family, his wealth. But most importantly his faith in God. I want to focus on the first six chapters of chapter 42 – Job says that he repents from his need to question God about his life. He says that I now understand what I did not understand. He says that he repents. He says that he had heard of God but now he sees. He sees the ways of God for himself, and he is ready to go on with his life. I have heard it said that God is a lot like a pastor – you don’t see him all week, and then when you come to church to hear the sermon, you still don’t understand. The ways of God are always going to be a mystery. It is not ours to understand. But if by chance, in the midst of our confusion, in the midst of or questions, in the midst of our darkness, if we can come to the realization that we worship a truly wonderful God – we come to see all that we need to see. If in the midst o my pain, I am able to see the glory of God – I see it all. Helen Keller on being able to see Keller, so brave and inspiring to us in her deafness and blindness, once wrote a magazine article entitled: "Three days to see." In that article she outlined what things she would like to see if she were granted just three days of sight. It was a powerful, thought provoking article. On the first day she said she wanted to see friends. Day two she would spend seeing nature. The third day she would spend in her home city of New York watching the busy city and the workday of the present. She concluded it with these words: "I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you were stricken blind.' You see that is just it, most of us, all of us, go through life blind to what is really important. Most of us don’t see God for who he is in our lives. Our eyes work fine, but there is something wrong in our spirit. God is hard at work showing us the beauty of life, and for some reason we just don’t see it. That is probably why one of the signs of the messiah is that the blind will see. The lame will walk, the sick will be healed, the hungry will be fed and the blind will see. If you read the book of Mark you will see that Jesus does all of these things in order to show that he is indeed the messiah – the son of David, the son of God. In Mark 10, Jesus is on a trip to Jerusalem. His final trip to Jerusalem. He has been trying to teach his disciples, but it seems that they have a bad case of spiritual blindness. His disciples are still looking at Jesus through the eyes of the world and not the eyes of the spirit. They ask to sit at his right hand, as he greatest. Jesus has to tell them that greatness is not about honor, it is about serving. As jesus is teaching, a blind man, bartimaeus cries out and asks to be able to see. His request is granted. This is not the first story in Mark about Jesus healing a blind man. After the first healing of the blind, Jesus tells him not to tell anyone. But this story Is not just about healing the blind. The blind are able to see. Not just with their eyes, but with their spirit. Bartemaeus stays around to follow and serve Jesus. By now the secret is out. It is time for everyone to see. Not just the disciples, but everyone. Not just those who have been there all along, but the latecomers, not the insiders, but the outsiders. God’s love is for everyone. God’s glory is available for everyone to see. But sometimes, we are so caught up in our suffering that we just don’t realize it. We are all blind, we all cant see God in our lives. But Jesus says that it is our faith that makes us whole. Can’t see Jesus in the picture Pastor Steven E. Albertin told the following story. He said, in my church secretary's office there hangs a modernistic picture composed of a maze of colors and shapes. I realized these sophisticated, modern, and abstract pictures were supposed to contain some profound artistic or philosophical message, but I never was able to figure it out. It just looked like a jumbled mass of confusion. If there was a message there, I was blind to it. One day while I was standing in the office, waiting for the copier to warm up, one of the congregation's kindergarten-age boys, Adam, stood beside me and said, "Do you see what I see?" "Do you see something in that picture? I sure don't." Adam looked at me with glee in his eye, "Pastor, can't you see him? It's Jesus hanging on the cross." I stared as hard as I could, until my eyes actually hurt from staring. I wanted to believe Adam and that there actually was the image of Jesus hanging on the cross hidden somewhere in that mass of color and shapes, but I couldn't see Jesus anywhere. "Adam, I'm sorry but I must be blind. You will have to help me see." Directing his finger to a mass of color in the center of the picture, Adam said, "There, Pastor. Do you see what I see? There is Jesus, his face, his arms outstretched on the cross." And then, like an epiphany, the image began to appear. Yes, there hidden somehow "behind" the colors and the shapes was the barely visible image of Jesus, hanging with arms outstretched on the cross. "It's amazing, Adam. You have helped one blind pastor to see Jesus. Yes, I can see what you see, Adam." Steven E. Albertin, Against the Grain, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Some say that the biggest problem in the world is not so much that we live in an evil, fallen world. The biggest problem in the world is the fact that there are so many people in the world who are going through life, and their eyes are not open to see the glory of God in their lives. Everything that happens to us in life is a test. Just as the devil challenged Job’s life, the devil challenges or life. Suffering is our chance to see God in our lives. In the midst of suffering we all have a choice – we can decide to be bitter or we can decide to be better. When Job decided to get better, he started to understand his God. The story of Job shows that God didn’t come to rescue us from the events of life. God didn’t come to answer our questions. If you know the story of Job, you know that Job didn’t get God’s answers, but he did get God’s presence. He realized that God was with him from beginning to end. He also realized that he didn’t need to have the answers, he didn’t need to understand why, all he needed to do was to have faith in a God that loves him. Japanese sword illustration: It is the Japanese who have created the best swords in the world. To create these fine weapons, ancient Japanese sword makers had to create a sword that was hard enough to retain a sharp edge, but at the same time soft enough not to be brittle. Sword makers who made swords by making the steel hard found they could preserve a sharp edge. Such swords, however, were often so brittle that they would often break when they clashed in battle. Soft steel, however, was found to be not as brittle, but would easily dull and be unable to slice through armor. Japanese sword makers, therefore had to forge a sword with steel hard enough to retain a sharp edge, but at the same time pliable enough not to break in battle. What Japanese sword makers learned to do was to create a sword made of hard and soft steel. Multiple sheets of hard and soft steel are heated, folded and pummeled together over and over again. Japanese swords go through a lengthy forging process until they have up to 33,000 paper-thin laminations of hard and soft metal. Each of these layers is one hundred thousandth of an inch thick. This is all done to a very precise recipe of temperature treatment. The end result is a finely crafted weapon with extreme pliability and a blade that will retain a finely honed edge. Just as Japanese sword makers repeatedly hammer together layers of metal to produce a sword that will be strong enough to withstand breaking, so God allows trials to hammer metal into the lives of His children. Just a sword made of hard metal will easily break in battle, so the believer filled with pride will also break in adversity. It is in the forging hand of God that humility and dependence on Him are developed into our lives to create character that will triumph in adversity. The hard steel in our lives is the word of God. The soft steel in our lives is humility and a dependence on God. These are forged together in our lives through fiery trials and prayer to produce vessels that will give Him glory. We need the hard steel confidence of what we believe together with the soft steel of humility. Job’s restoration is our restoration. Job’s faith is our faith. When we decide to turn around, and see God – the lord will bless our days to come, just as much as he had blessed our past. Let us pray…. The rest of these stories are not used… D.L. Moody, the famed evangelist, told this story at one of his meetings: One evening just before Christmas, a man was walking through the streets of an Eastern city. The store windows were all beautifully decorated, and he observed three little girls intensely interested in one of them. He discovered that the girl in the center was blind, and the others were trying to describe the beautiful things in the window. “Why,” they said, “can’t you see that Teddy bear and that doll? Just look at that pretty pink bow!” But the poor little girl stood with a blank expression on her face and could not appreciate the beautiful things before her. “Now,” said Moody, “this is an illustration of the effort we Christians are making to arouse the unconverted to an interest and delight in spiritual things. The reason we can’t do so is because the sinner is spiritually blind.” Moody had scarcely concluded when a reporter was on the platform asking him where he had heard that story. “Oh,” said Moody, “I read it in one of those daily papers. I have forgotten which one.” Then the reporter said, “I’m the one who wrote the story because I was there and saw the whole thing. I see now that I’m just like that little girl, spiritually blind.” That man was converted then and there. Illustration: In fact, most Christians today perceive God like one person noted: God is a lot like our pastor. I don’t see him through the week and I don’t understand him on Sunday. Dear God, Before I finish, I want you to take care of mommy, take care of daddy, take care of my sister and my brother and please, God, take care of yourself, because if you don’t we’ll all sunk. Amen! A. Little Suzie understood a very important lesson about herself....she was totally dependent upon God. as if tomorrow you were stricken blind.' As bad as blindness is in the 21st century, however, it was so much worse in Jesus' day. Today a blind person at least has the hope of living a useful life with proper training. Some of the most skilled and creative people in our society are blind. But in first century Palestine blindness meant that you would be subjected to abject poverty. You would be reduced to begging for a living. You lived at the mercy and the generosity of others. Unless your particular kind of blindness was self-correcting, there was no hope whatsoever for a cure. The skills that were necessary were still centuries beyond the medical knowledge of the day. Little wonder then that one of the signs of the coming of the Messiah was that the blind should receive their sight… The story is told of a Sunday class that had been asked the question, ¡§in your time of discouragement, what is your favorite Scripture.¡¨ A young man said, ¡§the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want Psalm 23:1.¡¨ A middle age woman said, ¡§God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1. Another woman said, ¡§In this world you shall have tribulations, but be of good cheer, I have overcome this world. John 16:33-35. Then old Mr. John who was 80 years old, with head of white hair and dark black skin, stood up and said with as much strength as he could muster, ¡§and it came to pass¡¨ 85 times in the bible. The class started to laugh a little thinking that old Mr. John¡¦s lack of memory was getting the best of him. When the snickering stopped, he said. At 30 I lost my job with six hungry mouths and a wife to feed. I didn¡¦t know how I would make it. At 40 my eldest son was killed overseas in the war. It knocked me down. At 50 my house burned to the ground. Nothing was saved out of the house. At 60 my wife of 40 years got cancer. It slowly ate away at her. We cried together many a night on our knees in prayer. At 65 she died. I still miss her today. The agony I went through in each of these situations was unbelievable. I wondered where was God. But each time I looked in the bible I saw one of those 85 verses that said, ¡§and it came to pass.¡¨ I felt that God was telling me, my pain and my circumstances were also going to pass and that God would get me through it.