The Park Road Pulpit
Sermons from Park Road Baptist Church
Russ and Amy Jacks Dean, Pastors
An 80 year-old friend of mind had been suffering with terrible back pain, and had told me on more than one occasion that the beginning of his trouble was a fall which he took years ago. He was cutting a limb from a tree on some property when he slipped and fell. Even through his pain he always managed a wry grin when he said, “You know, the fall wasn’t all that bad, it was just the sudden stop at the end that hurt!”
With that dramatic “sudden stop” Corley experienced the consequence of the most fundamental law of the entire universe – gravitational attraction. There is an attraction between any two objects (in this case Corley’s back and the ground) that is “inversely proportional to the distance between them.” In other words the higher you climb, the harder you fall!
For his formulation of the “Theory of Universal Gravitation” the 17th century English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton is considered one of the world’s greatest geniuses. Sir Isaac’s discovery revolutionized the world. But it’s not understanding his theory that is so appealing to the world, as it is that basic attraction just to experience his theory at work.
Know what I mean? Though no one wants to go so far as the “sudden stop at the end,” thrill seekers galore are out to prove that the matter of coming down can be quite a ride! All athletic contests are in some way just challenges against the pull of gravity, and most of our amusements these days involved speed or air. And our call for faster, farther, longer, higher is insatiable.
Humans have always challenged this giant, and we have made unbelievable strides, but lunar landings and weightless space flight aside, the battle against gravity is futile. What goes up... must come down.
It is no secret now that I have a passion for the water, especially if I am being dragged across it behind a boat! I’m trying my best to pass this obsession along to my two boys, each of whom had taken his first ski run before taking his first steps. Three years ago, I devised a training plan for Jackson which involved not only a few summer lessons on a pair of modified training skis, but a whole off-season training routine in the yard, behind the riding lawnmower. I had removed the fins from his skis and would tie him to the back of the mower (with his mother’s approval!) and off we would go.
Our training course in Birmingham involved a trip around the front yard and into the neighbor’s, circling their Dogwood and then heading for the home stretch, where I would disengage the mower and let it speed down the little hill across their driveway and down the dip into our yard (again, with his mother’s (hesitant) approval!) Well, the last round we made on one particular training run (the fact is that this round ended all training runs!) came to a crashing halt when the tip of Jackson’s skis caught the edge of the driveway and sent him through the air like a limp dishrag. Gravity won again, but instead of bobbing up with a head full of lake water, I rushed to a screaming 2-year-old who had absorbed the full, concrete impact -- with his bottom lip. Mother’s are necessary when dealing with the consequences of gravity -- I wish Jackson’s mom had been there. Instead, she was in Florida for a weekend student revival. (It was not a fun telephone call that evening when she called to see how we were doing!) Jackson may take that scar one to his grave – I will definitely take it to mine!
The point of this tale is not to scare you out of ever sending your kids with me to the lake, but to illustrate a point that you undoubtedly have experienced in your own life as well – What goes up... will come down. This is true of the entire physical universe; it is also an inescapable law in our emotional, psychological, and spiritual worlds as well.
I could stand before you today and preach in a spirit of trite optimism, “Something good is going to happen to you!” (Richard Roberts theme song) But the truth is... it may not. Life, like nature, is filled with ups and downs, and anyone who has had more than a few years of experience in it, knows that the reality of our existence is that slowly, unavoidably, we all succumb to the persistent pull of the Gravity of pain and loss and heartache and heartbreak. Pick up the news any day or tune-in to a local television station and be convinced: disease and famine, civil wars worldwide, economic and ecological disasters, gun violence and physical abuse, fraud, deception, and sexual scandal. It is the pull of Life’s Gravity at work.
We complained once about the sad ending to a movie we had just seen, and a friend of ours reminded us, soberly -- “all true stories end in death.” (John Ballenger)
But... Gravity and Grace, are kin. The words themselves come into our English language from Latin: gravis and gratus, and they share a root. But more important than this linguistic trivia is the meaning which these words hold for us today. These two concepts are also related spiritually, theologically, and existentially (in our own living). In the pain and suffering of this world “Grace” and “Gravity” also have a word in common. That Living Word is Jesus Christ. Jim Callahan says
“Not only is he the Savior of the world, he is also our close, storm-proof companion, our fellow traveler. Like all who follow him, he bears the marks and the scars of the journey; they are part of his beauty. They are part of us, and the part that he loves the most as he bids us join him.” (Christian Century, June 7-14, 2000, p.642.)
We could preach only a theology of victory: “Something good is going to happen!” But I think that would be unfaithful to our scriptures. I think that would be an affront to the Gospel. I think that would fly in the face of the One who bore the marks of the most fierce Gravity this world has ever offered. And I think this would be an embarrassment to the Apostle Paul, who had experienced the pinnacle of spiritual ecstacy and the rock bottom of spiritual abandonment, and who testified that “Grace... God’s Grace in Jesus Christ is sufficient, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
And I think if I challenged you to be brutally honest about your experience with the world and of your faith in it, that kind of cheery optimism would also offend you. Am I right? The reality of life is that for more people than not, more often than not, faith is no easy “victory” but a “long and winding road.”
In this section of his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul was in a shouting match with some rival preachers – missionaries who had come there subsequent to his first visit whom he believed were misleading this household of faith. Though he stated his objection at having to do-so, Paul says in effect, “If I’ve got to brag to make my point, to make you listen to me... OK, I’ll brag...” He then goes on to share a personal experience of spiritual and mystical ecstacy. It was a charismatic experience to top all charismatic experiences. He could well have used it as the conclusive validation of his faith and authority. This mystical experience, being carried into the very presence of God might well have been considered the ultimate confirmation of God’s presence and providence and protection in Paul’s life, but he says, “No.” No, that is not where “Grace happens” (point upward). This is where “Grace happens” (palms upturned).
The Apostle Paul, who would certainly be counted among history’s spiritual giants says grace doesn’t happen in ecstacy. And to prove it to me, God gave me a thorn. A painful reminder in the flesh that that is precisely where Grace comes to us -- in the flesh. In our humanity. Our fallen-ness. Our deepest need. In the point of our weakness! The Gospel tells us that God did not descend to earth, only to stop at the high point of human greatness, to commune only with spiritual giants. No, the Gospel makes it scandalously clear that in the Cross of Jesus Christ, God was subjected to the Gravity of the human predicament all the way to the sudden stop -- at the end of the fall!
And this is good news for me – for I am no spiritual giant. I have never had a charismatic moment in my life. But I have experienced Grace. There is no doubt.
Its names are Amy and Jackson and Bennett; Marinn and Scott, Sue and Chet, Mary and Buck and Peggy and Bryan. Its sound is majestic like a great pipe organ at full-swell and quiet like the rustling of cool, flowing water. Its beauty is as awesome the Grand Tetons and as common as a smile. It is as powerful as an open-heart surgery and as meek as a heart-felt “thank you.”
You see, scientists can calculate Gravity. They can measure and formulate the downward pull of nature’s most universal force. To their own satisfaction, an atheistic community can even postulate the creation life without the presence of God.” It has been demonstrated in a laboratory that amino acids, the basic building blocks of DNA, can be manufactured from inorganic matter -- in essence, creating living matter from non-living matter. And a purely natural scientism can theorize, from this basic beginning, the evolution of a complete universe of living creatures by chance, random mutation, and natural selection.
But what science cannot do in a dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, look out for ole “number one” world, is to explain why you would so much as stop to give me a glass of cool water. It cannot explain beauty. It cannot rationalize benevolence. It cannot explain love. It cannot account for forgiveness. It cannot tell us why in God’s name one individual seeking his own survival in a world spiraling ever downward, would lay down his own life for his friends. (John 15.13)
Grace. And Grace alone can explain that.
You don’t have to be a spiritual giant to experience Grace. And you do not have to be God to give it, for God’s power is made perfect in weakness. My weakness. Your weakness. God was in Christ, reconciling the world – this is Grace. And God has given to us the message of reconciliation – Amazing Grace, indeed.