Finding Courage: Presence

Presence

Outline:  

Fields Road - 

Independent.  And I left my hand dangling…

As it got darker, I felt a few hands in mine.  

Carry me…. Pull close…

Are you afraid, “Not as long as I can hold your hand”

As we are walking our journey of faith, especially in the dark, presence is where we find courage.

Jesus - farewell discourse - Chapters 13-17

Weight of the passage is in these simple words

“I will be alone.”

The hour is coming, you will scatter….

Jesus must have felt the heartache of loneliness.

He was alone, mountaintop, but greater loneliness probably was what we could not see.

Feeling alone, and the heartache of the weight he carried.

Alone and feeling misunderstood.

Alone and feeling persecuted.

It is in the heartache of loneliness is another way that God connects to humanity because being alone is one of our greatest fears.  

I have hated to be alone (seeking out God’s presence) - Ge still and know that I am God.

Seek out God’s presence

Seek out stillness.

Seek out God’s presence

Connected to a power greater than oneself.

While hard to define it is like being in the ocean or a pool, and the water holding you up.

It is a peace that surpasses all understanding.  A wholeness.  

Often happens in weakness. When we let our guard down.  My grace is sufficient for you.  For power is made perfect in weakness.”

“Jesus loves me”

“They are weak, but he is strong.”

In our weakness, we know we need God. We need a power beyond ourselves.

In our weakness, we find Christ’s strength. We find it through Christ’s presence.

That we are not alone but that Christ is with us.  

Steve and Judi Leggett - July 19, 2016

We all felt our limitations.  In what do do, in what to say.

“God was with us in that room.”

Jesus will not only say these words of our text today, but he will say these words:

Broke break, giving thanks.  Body broken for you, blood shed for you.

Real presence.  Of Christ.  God’s grace towards us.  

We find courage, in God’s presence  The one who knows when we feel alone. The one who has experienced being alone.  And we remember, I am not alone…Because Christ is with me.  For we know of a living God. 

Who is walking with us in the dark. 

We feel the scared hand of Jesus holding ours.  

And we know… In our journey of life and faith…Presence is where we find courage.  

Summary:  Are you afraid?  Not if I can hold your hand. In our journey of faith, especially in the dark it is in the presence we find courage.  Farewell discourse, The hour is coming….You will scatter and I will alone.  Jesus being alone - mostly with crowds, heartache of loneliness - misunderstood, carrying this weight.  Jesus felt alone. And yet it is this aloneness that we find a connection between the human and divine.  You know what it feels like to be alone. Abandoned, struggling.  Jesus does as well.  Peace, in presence.  Stillness.  Beyond just being quiet.  Often times it is in moments we can’t control.  They are weak but he is strong.  Christ’s power is make perfect in our weakness.  Let down the barriers and are more open to Christ’s presence.  And it is often a mystery.  July 19, 2016.  God was surely in that room.  In the upper room, Jesus will say our text, but also these words…body, Grace towards us, hold us up, we seek Christ’s presence.  That we are not alone.  That if you are walking in the dark.  Reach for that hand.  And now we feel that hand, and the palms that hold us are scarred. For this is the living God who has conquered the heartache of aloneness. And in in our powerlessness we find the power of God.  In christ, we find the courage to keep going in our journey of faith, presence is where we find courage.  

In this season of lent we continue our sermon series entitled,  Finding Courage.  We journey with Christ towards the Cross and in His journey we look to reflect on our own lives and how we might find courage through Him.  Like a train journey, we will have stations where we will pause in our journey…  We have already stopped at wilderness, And Vulnerability,

And today we focus on Presence But follow with Solidarity, Surrender Obedience And on Easter Morning new life. We pray you will journey with us in this series.  That by journeying with Christ, we might find courage.  As your hearing our text… I wonder, have you ever experienced God’s presence and in experiencing God’s presenece has it  given you courage?

Hear now the word of the Lord from John 16:32-33  Jesus says these words to his Disciples in the Upper Room as he is saying goodbye to them… Jesus said… The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution, but take courage: I have conquered the world! And from 2 Corinthians 12:9.  The apostle Paul writes these words… My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray….Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you this day.  You are our rock, our refuge,  our redeemer. Amen.

 When my kids were young. I can remember being up in Michigan during the summer. And we would be walking back to my families cottage and it would be getting dark. And there really were not any street lights. So the farther we got away from the neighbors house. The darker it became. And we were walking along the street. Now the kids wanted to be independent.  So they never wanted to hold my hand.  I’d offer, and they would refuse - No I am fine. But I knew it was getting darker especially around the corner.  So I always left my hands dangling at my side.  And as soon as we turned the corner.  It was especially dark.  And you know what I felt  I would feel their little hands gently slip into mine.  And the darker it became, the tighter their grasp would get.  If it was pitch black, They would even say these words, “can you carry me.” I lived for those moments.  The times when their fear would melt away as they buried their heads on my shoulder.  I’d ask them if they were afraid, No I am not afraid…. but I knew better.  Even I was a little scared.  And I remember one time. I asked them are you scared… And they said…

 “Not as long as I can hold your hand.” What I have learned in that moment and what I have learned in my journey of faith is this.  Presence is everything… especially when we are afraid.

______________________ Our passage for today is Jesus’ farewell discouse in chapters 13 through 17 of John’s gospel.  In this long goodbye, In the upper room Jesus makes promises. And one of his major promises to his Disciples of of a presence.  In this chapter he makes his 5th and final promise (14, 15, 16) - this promise of the paraclete.  Which is the Greek for the HS.  The Holy Spirit and God’se presence.  How does God make God’s presence known.  One way, is through accompaniment.  I will not leave you alone but I will be with you. Jesus gathers with the disciples in the upper room.  He Says, “the hour is coming.” Somehow he knows what is about to happen in just the next few hours. He knows this time of trial is coming, You will scatter.  And I wil be alone. Asnd if this text has a weigh or a center. For some reason I find it there.  With those simple words. I will be alone.

You will leave me alone. Jesus knew the heartache of loneliness. How often Jesus was alone; alone on the mountainside; alone in the garden. And maybe he was never more alone…. Than when the crowds were around him.

Alone because He was so little understood. Alone because of the weight he carried. And some of the most mysterious words in all of scripture. On the Cross he cries, Cry of Dereliction…

My God, My God why have you forsaken me. That Jesus knows what it feels like to feel alone. Abandoned. And yet, mysterious this is a way of connnection.  He endured the loneliness of human life and death; that He might again remind us….

That ultimately he was not alone.  God was in Him even when He felt alone.  Even though he could not feel it in the moment. And yet it is this cry, is the place of divine/human connection. And yet, here is the paradox of this text and our lives.  It is in the heartache of loneliness is another way that God connects to humanity. Because being alone is one of our greatest fears. 

__________________________

My journey.  Over 48 years where I have struggled with being alone. I used to hate being alone. Hated silence. Always wanting to be with others.  But in my own journey of faith. Usually by circumstances beyond my control. I have learned to search for stillness. To open up a space, not to talk to God but to listen. To listen with the heart. And in God’s presence find peace.  And what does it feel like? Well, the Spirit is always hard to define. Hard to pin down. And yet,

I think it feels like a presence beyond yourself. A peace, A wholeness. It is like being in the ocean or a pool, and feel a sense of something holding you. Lifting you.  A power beyond yourself.  

But it is also beyond our control. People will say to me at the strangest of times. I just feel a peace.

What is offered to the disciples and to us is peace through presence.   And yet this presence and this peace comes to us not in the ways we would expect it. The Apostle Paul describes it this way in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” It is often in our weakness that we are open enough to see God’s presence. This is the mystery of our faith and life. It is in weakness that are often most open to find connection.  Maybe the barriers that get in the way are gone. And in the stillness, in the quiet, we listen for God.

When we are with the kids we sing Jesus loves me.  Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are _____________(weak) but he is strong.

[We] are weak, but he is strong.” All too often, We think we are strong and God is weak.  we just trust our own strength to get us through, but in weakness, we learn the wisdom of this childrens song. We are weak but He is strong.  In our weakness we know we need God. We need a power beyond ourselves. And in a mystery beyond ourselves.  Ever once in a while we find a promised presence. That we are not alone. That God is accompanying us.  What if our journey to find courage in our lives begins by being open to Christ’s presence, always remembering we are not alone but that Jesus is among us and in us.  To find courage in our journey of faith is to seek out communion with God. To seek out God’s presence. And to experience it in the most surprising of places and times.

In our study this week we hear from Steve Leggett. Steve and Judy Leggett: Steve writes about July 19, 2016.  Karen and I went to offer home communion to Judy and Steve. Jusdi was suffering from ALS.  A terrible disease. But I saw so much courage in Judi nad in Steve.  So much courage and love.  We were all feeling helpless in the moment. There was not much any of us could control.  And we shared communion.  I will always remember the nurse putting the bread and juice into her feeding tube.  Physically we were all weak. Limited. There was very little we could control.  But Steve said these words.  “God was surely with us in that room that day.” And I know what he means.

In just a few moments you will take communion. And what we believe that God’s Spirit is here with us. As we remember Christ’s sacrifice. The HS connects us to the living CHrist. That is is a moment where though the Spirit we remember Christ’s divine grace towards us.

Especially when we feel the darkness closing in. Maybe we let our guard down. And we find a power beyond ourselves. We find courage, in God’s presence. The one who knows when we feel alone. The one who has experienced being alone. We say likes the kids.  We are weak but He is strong. In our powerlessness we experence the power of God. And we remember, I am not alone… Because Christ is with me.  For we know of a living God. 

Who is walking with us in the dark. We feel the scared hand of Jesus holding ours.  

And we know… Presence is everything.  Thanks be to God.  

Amen.

Notes:

In the words of John Calvin, sacraments are “a testimony of divine grace toward us, confirmed by an outward sign, with mutual attestation of our piety toward [God].” A sacrament is a testimony of God’s favor toward the church, confirmed by an outward sign, with a mutual testifying of our godliness toward God. It is a primal, physical act that signifies a spiritual relationship between personal beings.

PCUSA:  The Roman position insists that the bread and wine are sacramental: they genuinely offer us the presence of Christ. Not merely a symbol or a remembrance, but the authentic presence of Christ to feed and sustain his people with his own life.

It is a strong doctrine of Communion that we Presbyterians hold. The physical nature of the bread and the wine does not change. And yet Jesus is genuinely present here, as he promised, to sustain and strengthen his people. And we receive him into our inmost being in reliance on and in obedience to that promise.

Closing Prayer

God of peace and presence. Open our hearts and minds this day. That we might remember we are not alone. That we might remember you are right by our side. That we might see you more fully. And in this season of Lent, help us find courage for today. Amen.