NOTEBOOK
by Mark Powell


THE HUMAN CONDITION


[ This article was adapted from a Sunday Conversation presented on 29, January, 2006, at THIRD BAPTIST CHURCH ]

Isaiah 40:27-31
27 O Israel, how can you say the LORD does not see your troubles? How can you say God refuses to hear your case? 28 Have you never heard or understood? Don't you know that the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. 30 Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. 31 But those who wait on the LORD will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. NLT

INTRODUCTION
We begin with an important question: Is it your way of thinking that, because we are followers of Jesus, we have special protection from the human condition?
Asked another way, how do followers of Jesus survive before the watching world with the stiff challenges of disappointed dreams? How do we the face the painful losses of our loved ones, or the hopelessness of illness, without somehow thinking that God has let us down?

Asked still another way, as the people of God, how do we cope with the conditions of exile because that is sometimes how it feels. Don’t we sometimes interpret our troubles to mean that God, having other more important things to do has left us for better company.

For Israel, their exile meant their beloved Jerusalem was destroyed and burned, their King was exiled and gone, their leading citizens were made refugees, and their public life had come to an end. It also meant an end to privilege, certitude, self-determination, and the social fabric. And, make no mistake; it also marked the end of their understanding about who God was to them. It would later be reborn, but at the time things were drastically changing.

To underscore this, listen to this familiar Psalm one often prays when we desire to meet with God. But, if you read the subtext you will see what this is really describing is a person who is actually exiled from God:

1As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him? 3 Day and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, "Where is this God of yours?" 4 My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks – it was the sound of a great celebration!


These thoughts give perspective to our TEXT from Isaiah 40, for what we have here is a starting point, a foundation, that can begin our understanding as to how we must learn to respond to troubles when they come to us, and believe me they’re on their way, which is important because of the frailness of life and the chaos that surrounds us. So, I’ll make the announcement now: If you’re not in the fire, you’re headed to the fire because believers are in no way exempt from the human the condition. But this TEXT gives us a place to stand when pain and evil crashes in on us.

The TEXT begins,
“O Israel, how can you say the LORD does not see your
troubles? How can you say God refuses to hear your case?”

Notice Israel had become the judge. They looked at their own case, their own exile situation, and had rendered their verdict – God did not see their troubles; God refused to hear their woes. God was neglectful.

“O God,” they were saying, “We’re your people; we’re your chosen people, and look at us. We’re broken, abandoned and forgotten by you. And you’re the one who is guilty!”


GOD ON TRIAL
As I was thinking-through this I remembered an essay I read about
thirty years ago by C. S. Lewis. Some of you may have heard of him recently because they have made a movie from one of his books, The Chronicles of Narnia. But he’s also written much that sought to defend Christianity. Anyway, a long time ago he wrote an essay entitled, God in the Doc. Of course, he is English, and in England when you are in the Doc it meant you’re on trial, standing before the judge. If you’re in the Doc you’re in the witness stand and you’re being questioned.

Lewis wrote:
“The ancient person approached God as the accused person approached his judge. For the modern person the rolls are reversed. They are the judge and God is in the Doc. We moderns are quite kindly judges. If God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty and disease, we are ready to listen. The trial may even end in Gods acquittal. But the important thing is that the people are on the bench and God is in the Doc.”

This is a pungent statement and we want to rebel against it, but all to often we know it is true. We know we really don’t want God to be in the judge’s seat. We want to be in control!

In response to the Hebrew’s questioning, the writer Isaiah says, “How can you say God refuses to hear your case?” It’s as if he is saying with Lewis, “Why, to make those statements puts God’s in the Doc!”

But, listen to how God responds to the Prophet:

Have you never heard or understood? Don’t you
know that the Lord is the everlasting God, the
creator of all earth? He never grows faint or
weary. No one can measure the depths of
his understanding.


That is, the everlasting God was there before we were and he will be here long after we are gone. This God is the maker of all, even of us. But unlike us, God does not grow weary or faint in his judgment, his ways are higher than our ways and his understandings are different from ours. We can’t measure the depth of His understanding.

This is how I would say it: I know of no place in Holy Scripture that explains the question that Israel is asking – Why are we in this mess? Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask “why,” but I am saying what is offered in our TEXT is something different. God does offer a response to our exile and our struggles, he offers strength to the weak and power to those who are tired and worn out, noting that even youths will be exhausted and young men will give up, but those who wait on the LORD will find new vigor.

This tells us that God’s response to the trouble in Israel was not an intellectual response, it was a spiritual response; it was a spiritual strengthening. I want to unpack this idea by asking just what are the forces that God uses to strengthen us? I want to discuss three:
The force of daily grace
The force of community
The force of perspective


THE FORCE OF DAILY GRACE
The idea of daily grace permeates the TEXT, and it tells us something that’s really important. I want to explain this idea by sharing my own lived experience. In the moment of my darkest hour I would testify that the Lord had already given me strength to stand the test. Grace was there before I needed it, and I knew it.

This reminds me of the struggles of St. Paul when he was imprisoned because he was a Christ follower, and he told his very good friends in Philippi, “I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I’ve learned the secret of living in every situation whether it’s on a full stomach or empty, plenty or little. I can do all things with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.”

The secret of living in every situation is the prior sure reliance upon the strength that the Lord gives in our behalf.


What I declare to you today is that we do not need to be afraid. And how important is this, seeing as how most of us live our lives in fear. But the writer is telling these Hebrews that the days of fear are over because we know the Lord will give us exactly what strength we need, right when we need it. This Isaiah passage tells us that even if all hell breaks loose on us, God stands beside us, lifting us in grace.

I’m looking at you and you some of you are nodding your head in agreement, and I know why; I know you’ve been through the fire. But I also know you’ve experienced that strength and that help right on time.

But, let me just say to you, if you are here today and you’re not a believer that doesn’t mean God won’t help you, but you should know that he is not obligated to help you. However, if you are a Christ-follower here and you’re a Christian you have the promises of God’s daily grace so, while we may not understand why everything happens, we can know before anything happens that God’s daily grace will lift us up and carry us through.

Here, I’m reminded of that moment in time that marked the darkest days that Charlotte, Joy and I ever had. I remember waking that day and how it started just like any other day, but by the end of the day it was surely different than any other. How did we get through that mess? I would testify I had the feeling of being carried, carried in the arms of a loving God who daily gave grace.

Now this is really important. There’s a lot here. I just dished out a lot of theology. So to make sure you’re with me, I’m going to unpack this idea further by making several more statements that they are tied together underneath what we just said about daily grace.

First, I would assert that God is determined – and when I say determined I mean settled, resolute, even stubbornly – to bless us. He is determined to bless us not because we deserve it, but because we are his creation, because we are his children, because he has obligated himself to us, and because he loves us. And, watch this now, because we are his and because he loves us, he has not determined everything before hand. In other words, our choices matter. Our prayers matter. All of which means that because we have free choice the world is chaotic. People make wrong decisions; tough things happen – accidents, death, sorrow, sickness and disappointments. This is what it means to be a free person on the earth.

You see, God has determined not to stand over us as supreme Sovereign, determining our every decision. Instead, God is a partner who walks beside us saying, “Oh you’re going here? Good; lets go.” Or, “How Cool! You’re going to do that? OK.” But he also says “Oh you’re going to go there? No! Don’t go there. That’s a mistake. Well, okay, I’ll see you when you get back.” And after we’ve fallen he says, “Here let me help you up. Let me dust you off. Let me pick you up. Now c’mon let’s go together.”

Whenever I think of this daily grace I’m reminded of William Sloan Coffins and the death of his oldest son. Coffin is a famous New York pastor, retired now, who’s written a lot of books. When his thirty-year old son was killed in a car accident, he responded by saying:

When a person dies there are many things that can be said and there’s at least one thing that should never be said. The night after Alex died I was sitting in the living room of my sister’s house outside of Boston when the front door opened. In came a nice looking middle-aged woman carrying about eighteen quiches. You know how death and food go together in churches, right. When she saw me she shook her head and headed for the kitchen saying sadly over her shoulder, “I just don’t understand the will of God.” Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her. “I’ll say you don’t lady,” I said.

For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fists around knives, his hands on steering wheels. God is dead set against all unnatural deaths. And Christ spent an inordinate amount of time delivering people from paralysis, insanity, leprosy, and muteness… Which is not to say that there are no nature-caused deaths — I can think of many right here in this parish in the five years I've been here — deaths that are untimely and slow and pain-ridden, which for that reason raise unanswerable questions…

But violent deaths, such as the one Alex died — to understand those is a piece of cake. As his younger brother put it simply, standing at the head of the casket at the Boston funeral, "You blew it, buddy. You blew it." The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is "It is the will of God." Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break…


THE FORCE OF COMMUNITY
Besides the force of daily grace, we are also given the force of community. By this I mean to explain how the body of Christ builds us up. St. Paul put the idea this way:

“Share each other’s troubles and problems and in this
way we obey the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

In other words, in our darkest moments we recognize that along with the force of daily grace we are also not alone. The body of Christ hovers, I like that word. The body of Christ hovers and broods over its broken. This is how we become more than a weekly club meeting. God has called us to be here together, and we are here because we need one another. To be sure, we are on mission together, but part of that mission is to edify one another. This is why we are given those spiritual gifts. You have are gifted not to make you famous, not to put us on the radio or television. No! These gifts were given to encourage the body of Christ, so when trouble hits we have the force of daily grace that lifts us, and we have the body of Christ that sustains us and stands with us.

THE FORCE OF PERSPECTIVE
Finally, we have present with us the force of perspective. Question: Why did the author of our TEXT choose the symbol of an eagle? One could take this to mean that we will be snatched and pulled out of our problems. But, I know through my own experience to know that it doesn’t happen this way. No, I think the eagle tells us that in exile we will be given a new perspective. That is, when we follow Christ, we learn to see the situation as God sees it. Which means, more often than not, we do not escape the mess; we just begin to see it from above. Listen to St. Paul one more time:

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Now there is perspective. Notice, our present trouble is not to be compared with the great glory that will last forever. This tells us that there are things worse than exile, things worse than death. For, remember: death does not end our story. Which says, in the midst of our struggle, when life punches us out and leaves us to lie bloody on the ground, Gods daily grace sustains. God gives us a perspective that helps us to see this moment will not last. We see that this moment is penultimate and not ultimate. We see that the ultimate blessing still waits for us in a future with the God who blesses us with his presence.

Let’s pray together:

Heavenly Father, in this very moment, Lord, you see the deep struggles that some of our folks have today. We pray for them. Help them to discover your daily grace. Help them to sense the love of the body of Christ and help them, Lord, to look at the situation from your perspective. Help them to know that this present trouble is not the last word. Allow all of us Lord to hear you voice and give us the strength to obey your word. This prayer we make in Jesus name. Amen.