March 29, 2009

John 12:20-33

5^th Sunday in Lent

Do you really believe in the way of Jesus?

            Do you really believe in the way of Jesus? I mean – really believe?  Let me tell what I’m getting at here. 

Charles Blondin was a French acrobat whose greatest fame came in June of 1859 when he became the first person to cross a tightrope stretched over a quarter of a mile across the roaring Niagara Falls. He walked across 160 feet above falls several times- in a sack, on stilts, on a bicycle, in the dark, blindfolded, and once he even carried a stove and cooked an omelet!  

On one occasion he pushed a sack of cement in a wheelbarrow from one side to the other. The crowd “Oooohed!” and “Aaaaahed!” as Blondin carefully walked across one dangerous step after another -- pushing a wheelbarrow. Upon reaching the other side, the crowd's applause drowned out the noise of the falls.  Blondin suddenly addressed his audience: "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” The crowd enthusiastically shouted, "Yes, yes. A reporter said, “You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world. You can do anything!"  

"Okay," said Blondin, "Get in the wheelbarrow....."  He didn’t and neither would anyone else.  

This is a real life picture of what faith is all about. The crowd had watched his daring feats. They said they believed, but their actions proved they truly did not trust. Believing means trust in the Gospel of John. Believing means following Jesus, doing as he asks, and putting ourselves into the wheelbarrow. We can go through the motions of our faith and never experience the abundant and eternal life that is offered to us by God. 

Jesus says this new life that God promises us is born from above and brings about a transformed life where we die to the old ways of living in order to live in the way of Jesus. This way of living is radically different from the principle that this world idolizes - the pleasure principle and spending our time looking out for Number One.  

To be faithful entails hating the value system of the world and dying to the old ways, like a seed, in order to rise up as a child of God dying to the “Big I” and becoming a servant in the way of our Lord. And it is those who are transformed into this new way of life that live into the abundant life being the hands and voice of God’s son in the world today.  

Gosh, how many times in your life have you heard this? Bla, bla, bla. I believe in Jesus, but God does not really expect this of me. No? Well, He led the way and says He is truth and life and expects at least a few of us to follow. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also.”  

It is so hard for us to try to see from God’s perspective. Let me tell you a strange little fantasy story from a book by Hank Hanegraaff in his book Christianity in Crisis that may help our seeing. 

It was the 1920s in Oklahoma where we find John Griffith, newly married and full of hope who had just been blessed with a beautiful baby. John wanted to travel the world with his family.  He imagined what it would be like to visit faraway places with strange sounding names.  He would read about them and research them.  His hopes and dreams were so vivid that he obsessed on them and couldn’t wait to get started.  But then came 1929 and the great stock market crash.  John's dreams were smashed.  Brokenhearted he packed up his few possessions and with his wife and little son, Greg, headed east making their way to the edge of the Mississippi River in Missouri. There John found a job raising and lowering one of the huge railroad draw bridges that spanned the great river. 

Day after day John would sit in a control room and direct the enormous gears of that immense bridge over the river.  He would look out wistfully as bulky barges and splendid ships glided gracefully under the elevated bridge.  Then, mechanically, he would lower the massive structure and stare into the distance as great trains roared by and became lost on the horizon.  Each day he looked on sadly as they carried people who would experience his dreams and visions of far off places and exotic destinations. 

But in 1937 a new dream began to be born in his heart.  His young son was now eight years old, and John had begun to catch a vision for a life in which Greg would work shoulder to shoulder with him, a life of intimate fellowship and friendship.  On the first day of this new life, father and son packed their lunches and, arm in arm, headed off toward the Mississippi bridge. 

Greg looked on with wide-eyed amazement as his dad pressed down the huge lever that raised and lowered the bridge.  As he watched, he thought that his father must surely be the greatest man alive.  He marveled that he could single-handedly control the movements of such an enormous structure. 

Suddenly noontime arrived.  John had just elevated the bridge and allowed some scheduled ships to pass through.  So they headed off for lunch hand in hand and inched their way down a narrow catwalk out onto an observation deck that projected some 50 feet over the majestic Mississippi.  There they sat, ate, and watched spellbound as the ships passed by below.  

Suddenly John was startled back to reality by the shrieking whistle of a distant train.  Looking at his watch in disbelief, John saw that the bridge was still raised and that the Memphis Express would be by in just minutes. 

Not wanting to alarm his son, he calmly instructed his son to stay put.  Leaping to his feet he jumped onto the catwalk and ran at full tilt to the steel ladder leading into the control house.  Then he looked straight down beneath the bridge to make certain nothing was below.  As his eyes moved downward, he saw something so horrifying that his heart froze in his chest.  For there below him in the massive gearbox that housed the gears that moved the gigantic bridge was his beloved son. 

Apparently Greg had tried to follow his Dad but had fallen off the catwalk.  Even now he was wedged between the teeth of two main cogs in the gearbox.  John could see that his son's leg was bleeding profusely.  Immediately, an even more horrifying thought flashed in his mind.  For in that instant John knew that lowering the bridge meant killing his son. 

Panicked, his mind probed in every direction, frantically searching for solutions.  As soon as a plan appeared, he would realize its futility. There was no time. Perspiration began to bead on John's brow, terror written over every inch of his face.  His mind darted here and there, vainly searching for yet another solution.  What could he do? 

In a state of panic, his agonized mind considered the 400 or so people on the train moving ever so closer to the bridge.  Soon the train would come roaring out of the trees with tremendous speed.  But this - this was his son - his only child - his pride - his joy.  

He knew in a moment there was only one thing he could do.  He knew he would have to do it.  And so, burying his face under his left arm, he plunged down the lever.  The cries of his son were drowned out by the relentless sound of the bridge as it ground into position. With only seconds to spare, the Memphis Express - with its 400 passengers - roared out of the trees and across the mighty bridge. 

John Griffith lifted his tear-stained face and looked into the windows of the passing train.  A businessman was reading the morning paper.  A uniformed conductor was glancing nonchalantly at his large vest pocket watch.  Ladies were already sipping their afternoon tea in the dining car.  A small boy, looking strangely like his own son, pushed a long thin spoon into a dish of ice-cream.  Many of the passengers seemed to be engaged in either idle conversation or careless laughter. 

But no one looked his way.  No one even cast a glance at the giant gearbox that housed the mangled remains of his son. In anguish he pounded the glass in the control room and cried out, "What's the matter with you people?  Don't you care?  Don't you know I've sacrificed my son for you?  What's wrong with you?" 

No one answered; no one heard.  No one even looked.  Not one of them seemed to care.  And then, as suddenly as it had happened, it was over.  The train disappeared, moving rapidly across the bridge and out over the horizon. 

Don’t be a passenger on that train oblivious to God’s love for you. Let God transform you into what God wants you to be. We see, we know, we believe, right?

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