Letting the Light Shine (Rev. Dr. Charley Reeb)
Bronnie Ware was someone who will never forget the last word she heard from the dying. Bronnie Ware was a caretaker for the dying for many, many years. Now she’s a writer and an artist. But some time ago, she put together an article where she wrote the top regrets she heard from people who were dying.
She recounts that when you’re faced with your own mortality, you grow in amazing ways. And she kept hearing the same regrets over and over and over and over and over again from people. And one of the ones she heard most often was this one, “I wish I had let myself be happier. I wish I had let myself be happier.” Where said that many of the people she cared for who were dying finally came to the realization that their choice to be happy was theirs all along, they could control their attitude and their mindset. Now, I hope it doesn’t take us to be on our deathbed for us to learn that lesson. God has given us a mind and a will to control our thoughts, to choose to be happy. I remember my mom saying to me all the time when I was little, and even now she says it, “Charlie, happiness is a choice we make. We can choose joy.”
Now, I know what many of you’re thinking, “Well, Charlie, that sounds sweet, that sounds nice, but there ain’t much to be happy about these days.” Well, honestly, choosing joy from a Christian perspective does not mean denying the difficulties and the challenges of life that we face right now. It means gaining a new perspective. In fact, if we’re Christ followers, it is our duty to choose joy because I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a negative Christian. I think that’s an oxymoron. If anybody has something to be joyful about, it’s us as Christ’s followers. Amen. For our Lord has overcome the world and he is still working in the world and he is still working in and through us.
And we come today to gain a perspective on that. In fact, I would venture to say that many of you who are in worship today come because you need a different perspective than the world is giving you.
Some time ago, a former dean of Harvard Business School by the name of Dr. Kim Clark was interviewed on PBS. I only watched the most cultured shows and interviews of course. But he was being interviewed and the interviewer asked him a very interesting question. He said, “Dr. Clark, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?” And Dr. Clark said, “Well, honestly, the best piece of advice I ever received is so good that honestly, I always share it with students.” What is that advice? He said, “Don’t take courses, take professors.” He says, “If you take courses, what you learn in that course, you’ll probably forget after a time. But if you take a professor, a person who’s impassioned by their subject and loves their students, they will stretch your mind and they will help you see the world with a new pair of eyes.”
In all four gospels, Jesus is intentional about choosing those who would help him change the world. And his call was simple. He said, “Follow me.” In other words, “Follow me and I will give you a new pair of eyes in which to see this world. And if you receive this new pair of eyes, you’ll experience an adventure that you never imagined.”
Now the disciples were slow. It took them a while to see this new light and to have new eyes. They were slow. In fact, it took after Jesus died for them to see it. But in the light of the resurrection, as we know, they saw the world with new eyes. So much so that they went out and they changed the world and they preached to proclaim about the joy of the Lord and the love of the Lord in their hearts and said, “You can also be changed with new eyes.”
Can you imagine? One day people were scurrying away from Jesus Christ denying they knew him. The next day, these small group of ratted and tattered disciples went out and changed the world. Now of course, the tradition continued in the Apostle Paul, and as we all know, Paul wasn’t always a very positive person. In fact, he was very hateful and destructive. He wanted to eradicate the Christian community. But as we know, something happened to Paul, right? He took a trip on the Damascus road and on that road, he was blinded for three days. And after three days, he regained his sight and saw the world with new eyes. So much so that the Apostle Paul became one of the most influential Christians in all of history and authored most of the books of the New Testament. What did Paul found? Well, I think we can get to the root of what he was talking about in our scripture lesson for today that I just read for you.
When Paul says, “I have learned how to get along in all circumstances. I can do with a lot, I can do with a little, I can have hard times, I can have easy times. I know how to adjust. I can be content.” In other words, “I choose joy.” How he would say in verse 13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And then the Apostle Paul would flesh that out in Romans when he would say, “I am convinced and I am persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And all things work together for good, for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
In our vernacular that means it doesn’t matter what life throws at you, it doesn’t matter what life is bringing to you. Now, if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you will always land on your feet. That’s the power of positive faith. That’s the power of choosing the joy in Jesus Christ that we need so desperately today.
Some of you remember the name Norman Cousins. He was the editor of the Saturday Review many years ago. Well, early on in his life, Cousins was a very negative person, very negative, harsh man, until one day something happened. He was on a trip in Russia when he became gravely ill, so ill that he had to return home to the United States and go into a hospital. And as he was in that hospital, he asked himself this question, “Why am I so sick? This is weird. Why am I so sick? The doctor says my systems are shutting down. Why am I so sick?” And he came to this conclusion, “I am so sick because all my negative energy and all my negative attitudes are making my body respond in a negative way.” And he thought, “Maybe if I’m positive, maybe it will help.”
True story. This is what he did. He checked himself out of the hospital, went home, found as many copies of Candid Camera as he could find, and he laughed his way to health. And he said, for every minute that he belly laughed, he would experience 30 minutes without pain.
What did Paul say? Did you hear it? Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. In other words, choose joy, choose it.
Eric Butterworth was an amazing minister in New York City and he wrote something down one time that I will never, and I want to share it with you today. It has always stuck with me. He said, “So many in the Christian community always forever will look at Jesus’ face and praise him.” But he said, “I don’t think Jesus only wants praise.” He said, “What I think Jesus wants most of all is for us to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow and look out into the world and see it as he sees it.” Can you imagine seeing the world with the eyes of Jesus Christ? And when Jesus was in the world, what did he see?
Well, he saw his own people, the Jews. He saw the Samaritans who were enemies of many people. He saw the lame, he saw the outcast. He saw the beaten and the broken and the bruised. He saw those who were unloved. Oh, the rest of the world saw them too. But Jesus saw them differently. He saw them with eyes of compassion and love. He saw them as they could be.
Let me ask you this morning, church, can you imagine if just all of us in this sanctuary today went out into this community and saw the world with Jesus’ eyes, saw the world with new eyes? Can you imagine what a difference that would make?
Somebody once said that Jesus was the only person so tall that he could see beyond the walls that divide us. How do you see other people? How do you choose to see other people? How do we choose to see other people? I’ve learned in life that what we see and expect from people is usually what we get is usually our perception. And this is a word we really need today because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our country is painfully polarizing right now. Painfully. Our country is divided by hate and such division.
As I mentioned in Facebook the other day, our new God, it seems, is to pounce on people with strong opinions. The new enemy is those to whom we disagree. What has gotten into us?
I tell you, I believe this. God couldn’t care less about our political opinions and our views about whatever. But I tell you one thing God does care about and the Bible is clear about this. God cares about how we treat each other. Amen.
May that be something we also never forget. How do you see other people? How do we see other people? Maybe the better question is how do we see ourselves? Because oftentimes it’s how we see our ourselves that determines how we’re going to see other people. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a child of almighty God who can overcome anything with God? Do you see yourself as someone who’s filled with joy?
I don’t care what you get out of this message today, but for some of you, if you don’t get anything, if you’ve been doing your grocery list or playing Tic-tac-toe, listen for just a second. If you don’t get anything, you walk out of here with your head held high knowing you’re a child of almighty God.
That great theologian, only read great theologians, Ann Landers once said this, “If I were to be asked to consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this, expect trouble as an inevitable part of your life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, “I am bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.”
And in essence, that’s what Paul was saying in our text for today, “You go ahead and throw me into prison. You go ahead and throw whatever you want at me. I tell ya, the love of God in Jesus Christ can never be separated from me. I choose that love. I choose that joy. I choose to see this world as a beautiful place that God created. I choose to see other people as children of almighty God. I choose it.”
Now, what had Paul discovered? You know, read these amazing words from the apostle Paul that inspired him so much. What punched his gut? What got into his soul? Well, I believe the prophet Isaiah reveals it because in a manner of words, this is what God said to Paul, and I want God to say this to you through Isaiah today. Listen up.
“I’ve called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.”
What had Paul discovered? He had discovered that the very love and spirit of God, excuse me, was in his soul. And nothing could be separated from him, never could be separated from him.
Helen Keller once said that oftentimes when a door of happiness closes and another one opens, we’re so focused on the one that is closed that we don’t see the one that’s open. I tell you that is a word for us today. It is so easy as people, it is so easy as a church to get bogged down in all the bad news of this pandemic. We’re bombarded by it every day, but God is still working. God is still here. How many of you believe that today? Say amen. God is still working. His church will never be defeated. His light still shines. Otherwise, why are we here?
A doctor by the name of Rachel Remen, cancer doctor, illustrates the invincibility of God’s love and light and joy if we choose it through a story about one of her patients. And as you can imagine dealing with cancer patients, they often faced issues of loss and grief and fear. And she tells the story of a 24-year-old patient who lost his leg, a young man who lost his leg to save his life, and he was miserable. He became very bitter, especially to those who had their legs and had their health. He had felt he’d been cheated and he was just a miserable person. And Dr. Remen tried to help him work through these negative feelings and to no avail. And then she suggested that he go visit other patients who were also struggling. He wouldn’t do it.
Finally, one hot summer day, she persuaded him to visit a young woman about his age who was struggling because she had lost both of her breasts, a mastectomy, and she was really having a hard time. And so he agreed and he walked into her room with his artificial leg clearly visible, and he tried to get her to respond. He tried to get her to talk and she wouldn’t say anything. And then he had an idea. The nurse had left the radio on, and so he went into the middle of the room, took his artificial leg off and began to hop and dance to the music on one leg, snapping, just trying to make her laugh.
She looked at him and said, “Well, if you can dance, then I can sing.” And she burst out into song. That event changed both of them. A couple days later, Dr. Remen brought out old pictures, drawings that she asked him to write and draw early on in his treatment. And one was of a cracked vase. At the time, he said, “You see? It can’t hold water anymore, just like me. I can’t do much of anything anymore.” But that day he said, “It’s not finished.” And he took a yellow crayon and ran that crayon down that crack and said, “The crack lets the light shine through.”
I don’t know what you’re going through today. I don’t know what brings you into worship today. I don’t know what the heaviness that’s in your heart, but I know it’s there. I don’t know what it is specifically, but I do know this. God is still very much on the throne. Don’t you forget that. And Jesus wants so much to give you a new pair of eyes. And if you’re willing to see the world as Jesus sees it, you’ll see it’s still a very beautiful world and the light still shines through.