Weekly Sermon

"He Goes on Ahead of You" : March 31, 2002

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." Prayer: On this Easter morning may we shake with joy as we realize anew our Lord is risen and goes on ahead of us. Amen. For every minister, Easter morning is a challenge. Today is the day on which our faith is based. It is overwhelming to try to think of something to say that is as profoundly meaningful as the story of Christ's resurrection itself. Of course, there is no way to do it. The thing that sustains every preacher including me on Easter morning is that the Lord goes before us. And the Lord goes before us not just on this morning, but every morning. As Eugene Peterson writes so simply: "In every visit, every meeting I attend, every appointment I keep, I have been anticipated. The risen Christ got there ahead of me. The risen Christ is in that room already…In order to fix the implications of that text in my vocation, I have taken to quoting it before every visit or meeting: 'He is risen,…he is going before you to 1020 Emmorton Road; there you will see him, as he told you." [Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992) p.127] This morning, I want to remind you that you never go into any situation alone. The Lord goes ahead of you, whether you are facing defeat, confusion, or success. When we face defeat we often feel like we stand alone, but the Lord goes on ahead to make a way. The Bible consistently shows that the Lord is at work for good in everything including defeat. A wonderful example is the work of the apostle Paul who to the world appeared defected when he was imprisoned in Rome, but from his prison cell he wrote letters of faith that still change human hearts today. Another example is Dr. David Livingstone. Most people don't know that the great missionary had his heart set on going to China, but his way was blocked. Trusting that God was at work even in his disappointment, Livingstone went to Africa, the last place on earth he ever dreamed of living. David Livingstone introduced Africans to the love of Jesus Christ and today, Africa is the fastest growing Christian continent in the world. When Dr. Livingstone wasn't able to go to China, he felt defeated, but the Lord went ahead of him to Africa! We often think of defeat as brokenness, but the Lord can use even our defeats for good. I found a beautiful poem by Vance Havner about how God works with us in defeat: "God uses broken things. Broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever." [Vance Havner, Leadership, Winter 1983, 94] Sometimes we face defeat, but there are also times when we don't know what we are facing. We are confused. I'm convinced that confusion can be harder to handle than out right defeat. Confusion brings a high level of anxiety. Thank heavens the Lord goes before us when we feel confused. I will always remember the confusion I felt before I received my call to be a minister. I was working hard and experiencing success in my career, but something wasn't right. I didn't feel satisfied with my work. I finally got up enough courage to pray about it and that is when I found the Lord had a plan for me. The Lord went ahead of me to Princeton, the institution that would support me during my seminary training. When I was finishing seminary, again I felt confused, but the Lord had gone ahead of me to New York where I would receive my first call to ministry in a church. It seems that every change in my life has been surrounded with confusion, but each time I discover that the Lord has already gone ahead of me. I read a fascinating story about a man named Jack Dalton. He was an attorney who was convicted of embezzling from his clients. When he was released from prison he didn't know what to do. Confusion reigned. "He was disbarred, disowned, and disenfranchised. He had nothing going for him except the fact that he had nothing going for him. Along with half a dozen other former prisoners who were struggling to build new lives, he started a halfway house with a budget of less than a thousand dollars that he raised by going to the very friends from whom he had embezzled." The Lord went ahead of him to those friends. In 1962, Jack Dalton began Pioneer Human Services which is "the largest and most self-sustaining human service agency of its kind. It has revolutionized the way human service organizations operate through self-supporting enterprises and programs that integrate jobs, housing, training, and other support services for at-risk individuals. With revenues in excess of $50 million a year, it has created wealth of a magnitude previously unheard of in the nonprofit world. "They did it the toughest way possible, not by begging for foundation grants or government support, but by manufacturing and selling high-quality products and services with a workforce made up entirely of ex-offenders and former substance abusers. As Gary Mulhair, who runs the company today, explained to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 'These are people who have broken the law, folks most people are frightened of. They've been in prison or they're recovering from alcohol or drugs. They haven't held a job. When they apply for a job they get screened out pretty quickly…We're going to hire people you wouldn't,' Mulhair asserts, 'but in a year or so, you will-because they'll be citizens.'" [Bill Shore, The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back, (New York: Random House Trade Paper, 1999) 126-127. Jack Dalton, an ex-con and an ex-lawyer was confused and worried about what to do when he left prison, but the Lord went ahead of him and together they began quite an enterprise. When we face confusion-questions about what we are to do-remember the Lord is already preparing the place where we are to go. We can just ask him where he's expecting us! Jesus also goes ahead of us in victory. Defeat and confusion are difficult, but following the Lord in success may be the most difficult. There is a wonderful story about a monk living in the desert during the middle ages. It goes like this: "To one of the brethren appeared a devil, transformed into an angel of light, who said to him, 'I am the Angel Gabriel, and I have been sent to thee.' But the brother said, 'Think again-you must have been sent to somebody else. I haven't done anything to deserve an angel.' Immediately the devil ceased to appear." [Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 329] Most of us are only too happy to believe that we are important enough to warrant a visit from the angel Gabriel. Seriously, when we find success it is easy to forget who is leading us. It is easy to define success by the world's standards and take credit for all we have achieved. When that is our attitude, we neglect our responsibility to give back from our abundance. When we experience success, it is time to look around to see where the Lord is going on ahead of us. That is what happened to Melinda and Bill Gates, although I'm not sure they knew that the Lord set it all up. Here's how it happened that Melinda and Bill Gates, the richest people on earth created a fund of more than $24 billion to save the poorest from disease. In the February 4, 2002 issue of Time Magazine, Melinda Gates explained: "In the fall of 1993, Bill and I traveled with a small group of friends to Africa. The trip was purely for pleasure. We had a wonderful safari, seeing the African countryside and the animals. What I didn't expect was how moved I would be by the people. I came back and told a close friend that Africa changed me forever…Seeing the women walking, walking, walking really struck me. We would go for miles and miles and see these women walking, and we'd always look to see if any had shoes. They didn't… "The other turning point for us took place a few years later, after we read a Sunday New York Times article that showed a chart of the top diseases that kill children around the world. It was stunning. We just don't face many of those diseases in the U.S. It's the first time I remember talking with Bill about how tragic these diseases are for children: We asked ourselves what we could possibly do. After that, we approached Bill's dad and asked him to help us start learning more about global health." Melinda Gates goes on to explain the pain of seeing tiny babies left on mats with flies all over them and children drinking from streams in which cattle have defecated. It is clear the Lord has taken her on a journey of discovery. Melinda Gates is known to struggle to keep her family's privacy, but what she has seen in Africa and Asia forced her to make a decision to "go public." There is no mention anywhere in the Time Magazine article about God or faith, no mention of the name of Jesus, but the Lord often acts anonymously. God isn't worried about getting the credit. He just goes on ahead of us to open our eyes and show us what we need to do in defeat, confusion, and success. He's been doing that for a long time. Today on Easter morning we take a few minutes to give him some credit. He is risen. He is risen. He is risen, indeed, and he goes on ahead of us! Alleluia! Amen.