Living in the Face of Death
INTRODUCTION
In the original Chicken Little story, Chicken Little is hit by an acorn on his beak and he feels the bruise. He thinks the acorn is the sky. Fear seizes him. “The sky is falling!” he yells. So he tries to enlist everyone to help him, eventually enlisting Foxy Loxy for aid in stopping the sky from falling. Foxy Loxy eventually eats Chicken Little for dinner. Among the many versions of this story through the generations, the two main themes are these. One, some of us need to learn, that just because an acorn falls on our beak and we feel its bruise, this doesn’t mean that all is lost. Two, some forms of help are no help at all. In fact, some things will harm us in help’s name.
The Preacher has been walking us through the dark creepy basement of the fallen world with his flashlight. It would seem that if anybody could come to the conclusion that the sky is falling, it would be the Preacher. But the Preacher doesn’t panic. He hates it. He grieves it. He declares it ruthless and ugly and empty. But he refuses to run toward the welcoming arms of the nihilist, the cynic, the hedonist, or the religious escapist. That kind of help doesn’t.
Instead, the Preacher believes that God has not left the mess but remains here in it and with us. In that light, we start with what we have and we do this little bit each day with God. But how?
GETTING BACK TO BASICS
ORDINARY MOMENTS
When Jesus came to redeem us, he did so, not by bypassing the ordinary human lot in life, but by recovering it.
When Jesus healed people or forgave them, these restored ones did not escape their lot in life but they returned to it.
JESUS AND OUR PORTION
When Jesus came to redeem us, he did so, not by bypassing the ordinary human lot in life, but by recovering it.
When Jesus healed people or forgave them, these restored ones did not escape their lot in life but they returned to it.
What is it that we believe God is trying to do for us by sending his Son? Just as the Preacher foreshadows by his wisdom, Jesus did not come to give us an escape from our lot, misuse our lot, or make our lot our god
When Adam and Eve left Eden, they were not given a different calling. Their calling remained as it was even though death was now alive in the world. They were to love each other, work, care for the place, and meet with God. The calling didn’t change. The environment did.
CONCLUSION
A story tells us about criminals paying for their crimes within a prison of cruel mistreatment.
Year after year in this prison one man says to another, “I played a mean harmonica as a young man. Lost interest in it though. Didn’t make much sense in here.”
The other man responds, “Here is where it makes the most sense. You need to play it so that you don’t forget.”
“Forget what?” asks the first man.
“Forget that there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone, that there is something inside that these stone walls cannot take away.”
“What are you talking about?” the first man retorts.
“Hope,” the other man answers. “It is the wonder of wonders.”
The Preacher tells us, “Death is coming!” “Everything is meaningless!” “What is done under the sun is grievous and warrants our wise hatred!”
Yet, there exists a place of joy that the cruel walls cannot take away. That place is our lot. Our lot offers hope under the sun. Death is here, but God is here too. Death will die. But God is Immanuel, “God with us.”