WHEN LIFE TUMBLES IN ON YOU...

TOWARDS CIRCUMSTANCES - BE HOPEFUL (Where There’s Hope There’s Life).

(Psalm 137, 1 Peter 1:1-19).

(The first of four sermons based on themes from 1 Peter – hope, happiness, holiness, humility).

When life Tumbles In What Then?

Life will come crashing in on each of us some time. And different people will have different reactions...

Recently a hairdresser I hadn't met previously asked what I did. ‘I do what you do.’ ‘You’re a hairdresser?’ ‘No, I'm a counsellor.' Then I asked 'So what's been your most interesting case?' She said that an elderly 'regular' came in on a different day than usual. Why did she change her day? Well, her husband was dead at home, dead in bed, he'd died during the night. 'Have you contacted anybody?' the hairdresser-counsellor asked. 'Oh no,' the lady replied, 'A lot of people are coming to my home today, and I had to have my hair done first!'

One night Jan and I and two of our daughters were playing Rummycub. Our son, a poet, philosopher and atheist, who loves to 'stir' us Christians at every opportunity came over from next door where he lived with his family and asked: 'If you knew the end of the world was about to happen would you continue to play this stupid game?’ 'Yes,' we all responded. (Martin Luther when asked a similar question said he'd plant a tree)...

Three of the greatest sermons in the English language in the 20th century focussed on this question. Arthur John Gossip tragically lost his wife when they were in their middle years, and the following Sunday he stood in the pulpit to preach. His first sentence: ‘When Life Tumbles In, What Then?’ Gossip took as his text Jeremiah 12:5: 'So, Jeremiah, if you're worn out in this footrace with men, what makes you think you can race against horses? And if you can't keep your wits during times of calm, what's going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?' Gossip preached: 'I don't think you need to be afraid of life. Our hearts are very frail, and there are places where the road is very steep and very lonely, but we have a wonderful God. And, as Paul puts it, "What can separate us from his love? Not death," he writes immediately. No, not death, for standing in the roaring of the Jordan, cold with its dreadful chill and very conscious of the terror of its rushing, I, too, like Hopeful in Pilgrim's Progress, can call back to you who one day in your turn will have to cross it, "Be of good cheer, my brother, my sister, for I feel the bottom and it is sound."’ He’d reached the bottom of who he was in his grief. But at the bottom, he reached the core of all that he believed: 'You people in the sunshine may believe the faith, but we in the shadows must believe it. We have nothing else!'

More...


May 31, 2007.

BUT ALWAYS BE WARY...



Rowland Croucher