may the last long year be forgiven

all that war left within it

A sermon on St. Paul's divinely inspired retreat:

What did it take for you to get here today? It’s a bit of an odd question, I know. After all, it’s pretty self-evident. I mean, here you are. But I want to ask nonetheless. What did it take for you to get here today?

Maybe you didn’t give it much thought. Maybe coming to church on Sunday is so routine you barely have to think about it. Or maybe it took a lot of thought for you to get here today! Maybe your life has recently been upended. Maybe all your old routines are out the window. Maybe life has you back to the drawing board, and it’s not so easy to get around right now. 

Or maybe you’re in one of those times of life when it’s not so simple to get anywhere anymore. Maybe you don’t move as fast as you used to. Or maybe the person you came with isn’t moving as fast as they used to. Or maybe you’re just in that stage when hauling your family from point A to point B takes time.

That’s just the start of it, though! Isn’t it? Those are just the practical impediments to getting here. Never mind all the spiritual ones!

There’s a whole host of unseen things that make it hard to make it to worship. Isn’t there? There’s all the other, let’s call it, stuff we have to do. When life is hectic, the prospect of a little extra time on Sunday morning is a real temptation. 

And that can’t even hold a candle to all the other things that make it hard to get to church. There’s doubt. There’s disappointment. And there’s soul-deadening indifference, too. Honestly, the hardest step to church is the one that takes place before you even put your two feet on the floor each morning. Isn’t it?

And then there are all the things that might be keeping you away even though you’re physically present. There are all the distractions. There’s the strange phenomenon that it’s hard to sit still in church. It’s not easy for us to listen to God’s word. Is it? The truth is, paying attention is a spiritual practice. Isn’t it?

…No, no matter what, church never comes easily. Sure, it might have been objectively simple to get here. But internally, being present right now is anything but obvious. Isn’t it?

Yes, it may be self-evident you’re here. But your presence was never, by any means, self-evident. Was it? It took an array of factors to get you here today. And you know what? Most of them were out of your hands! I’ve come to learn our presence in the church is always a miracle. That’s right, a miracle.

The old word for this is providence. And divine providence, if you want to be specific. It’s God who ordered your steps to get you here today. BUT that’s NOT always all that self-evident. Is it? 

We don’t tend to think in those terms anymore. Do we? We have other explanations for why we’re here. We might say we’re here because that’s how we were brought up. Or we might say it’s just plain happenstance that we’re here. 

No matter what, though, it’s hard to attribute our presence here today to the hand of God. Isn’t it? Life is just a little too slapdash for that. And getting to church appears pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, too. Certainly, getting to church one week, as opposed to any other, hardly seems providentially arranged. 

And I get it. I do! Heck, I fall prey to this way of thinking way more often than I wish. That said, I’ve got to tell you, it’s wrong! DEAD wrong, if you want to be precise! 

Yes, it is hard to map one’s life. But to account it all to cold chance is the fading logic of the old gods. The old gods who are never really any god, by the way! Assigning all the twists and turns of your life to luck or lack thereof is nothing more than to put yourself in the place God has promised to occupy in your life: the driver’s seat!

You know what, though? Not only is that way of thinking tired, it’s also naive! Be honest. You don’t sit back and muse on the odds when life goes haywire. Do you?

No! When life gets out of hand, you’re always driven TO the hands of God. And not in any theoretical way, either! When all your best-laid plans go to pot, you absolutely run TO God every time. Don’t you?

But who am I talking to? There are some of you here right now who already know this deep in your bones. Don’t you? Some of you are only here today because you had to be. You were driven here.

And for those of you, it’s not incredible to hear me say it’s a miracle only God could have pulled off that got you here today. Is it? No, you’ve learned, the hard way, that unless God is pulling the strings, we might as well pack it in.

…In our passage today, St. Paul is on the run, too. But, unlike us, Paul is utterly convinced ONLY God could account for his current predicament. And as it would turn out, Paul would be vindicated, too. Only, in the moment, it was by no means self-evident.

There Paul was, out there preaching Christ as the fulfillment of all Scripture. But for all the headway he made, Paul kept suffering setbacks! And before long, the setbacks began to counteract the progress! Paul didn’t go to Berea because he planned to. No, he went there because he had to! Paul was driven out of Thessalonica.

However! However, what appeared to be nothing more than petty jealousy was really divine providence at its finest! Paul’s nighttime retreat actually advanced God’s plan! Getting Paul to Berea was a stop along the way in getting Paul to Rome. And getting Paul to Rome, the center of the world in its day, was part and parcel to the realization of God’s prophecy! 

And it wasn’t just one prophecy Paul’s frantic fleeing fulfilled, either! First, there was the pledge God made concerning Paul himself. Way back when Paul was knocked from his previous life as a persecutor of the church, God told one, Ananias, to lay hands on Saul. And when this Ananias reasonably expressed hesitancy about such a prospect, God reassured him. God told Ananias it was all a part of God’s plan! God was going to show Paul how much he would suffer for God’s name. (Acts 9:16)

Then, there’s the promise we heard last week! Getting Paul to Rome completes the divine agenda Christ laid out at the very beginning of Acts! “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Rome was nothing but the ends of the earth in Paul’s day! Yes, it may have seemed like Paul was just making a break for it that night. But in reality, God was charting the course!

But that’s not all! All this was in direct fulfillment of the very first promise God made to Abraham! When God chose Abraham, God blessed Abraham so that through him, all the world would be blessed! (Gen. 12:3) As Paul takes the Gospel to the ends of the earth, that first great promise begins to come to fruition at long last!

Paul’s mad dash actually fulfilled three prophecies! It was never the hard-liners who were chasing Paul. No, it was always God! And it’s no different for you today, either!

…Fellow sojourners, God’s plan never looks neat and tidy. God’s plan is always hard-won. God doesn’t side-step the very real problems of life. No, God goes right through them!

And yes, this often means God’s purposes are messy. But sometimes—sometimes—when we look back, we can catch snatches of Christ’s wounded hands hard at work through it all! Can’t we? But guess what? That’s utterly beside the point! 

We don’t come to understand God through the warp and woof of our lives. No, it’s through God that we can make sense of the tapestry of all our days! It’s the red thread of God’s love running throughout our death and life, in that order, that ties together all the loose ends! If you want to know the meaning of life, look no further than the author of life who died on the cross to raise you from the dead!

When Christ is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, Christ puts to death anything and everything that would stand in his way! Now, in Christ, nothing can stop God. Not Sin. Not Death. Not nothing!

That’s what makes Christ’s promises unconditional! Christ himself no longer has any contingencies! Death, the sting of Sin, has been decisively overcome in Christ! By his resurrection, Christ stands on the other side of Sin and Death! And now, he makes promises only the person who stands there can!

As the rioters in today’s Scripture learn, nothing can stop God! But it isn’t just those who outright oppose God who need to learn this lesson. Is it? No, we do, too. We do, too.

Well then, consider this YOUR wake-up call! Listen closely! It’s all been leading to this! Yes, I know it may not seem like much. But, in the hands of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, THIS moment is nothing less than the hinge of your entire existence! In this eternal instant, God takes hold of you; come what may! 

There’s no dark secret hiding in your past or monumental screwup lurking in your future that’s beyond the reach of Christ’s wounded hands anymore! And those very hands have been cradling you all along and carrying you here today, too! You’re here because it’s GOD’S good idea! As far as God is concerned, the party would be incomplete without you! 

From now on, there’s before THIS moment and the rest of your death and life for you today! We call this eternity. And yes, I know. We don’t think in those terms anymore, either. We measure our lives in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades. 

But what does it all add up to? In the moment, nothing more than one darn thing after another. But, in the divine plan, it all amounts to the “very good” God uttered from before the very foundation of the world itself! 

God will get what God wants. And what God wants is all creation basking in the givenness of its existence by God’s sheer delight! And that includes you! Yes, you! 

You don’t have to, and never were expected to, carve out your own existence! By the power of the Holy Spirit, it all just comes to you from the loving hand of God! Your future is not determined by your past or your present resolve! No, it all blossoms from God’s mercies that are new every morning! 

Including this one! In Christ, you are now free! In Christ, God has promised good to you. And this means, no matter what, nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus! 

The One in whom all things cohere holds you in his wounded hands! In your baptism, Christ gave you his death so that you would live forever! In communion, HE is broken so that you might be put back together in his name! And in this promise spoken right now, he gives you himself and his future as irrevocably as the sound of these very words themselves moving through air, striking your ear, and moving your heart!

…I’m not saying this is easy to see. Most of the time, it’s not. And I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt like the dickens, either. Often, it does! What I am saying, though, is that a miraculous, relentless, unstoppable Love has brought you here today! 

His name is Jesus Christ! Allow me to introduce you to him! He’s closer to you than your very breath or heartbeat. He’s promised not to lose a single one of you. And he’s rolled away the stone, closed the gates of hell, and opened eternity itself to have you forever and ever! 

And all God’s children say? Amen! That’s right! Amen!

And so, carried to the heart of God by Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit yet again, let’s lift our voices and sing for what God has done! Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 576. We All Are One in Mission. 

Yes, I’m switching it up! But the Sending Hymn is just too perfect for this moment! We’re one in mission because, in Christ, we’re all united together with God! Hymn number 576. We All Are One in Mission. Let’s sing!