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Sunday's Sermon
May 20, 2007

1072
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

Have you ever been at a place in your life
where the good thing you longed for … hoped for … needed …
didn’t happen.
The healing didn’t come.
The mountain wasn’t removed.
God didn’t do for you what you hoped God would do.

And because of it, you were left with disappointment
or discouragement …
or disillusionment.

It is to this experience that I want to speak today.
Someone has said that “our greatest enemy is not disease…”
and I would add that it is not any of the things you’re fighting against
or the mountain you’re trying to move
or the difficulty you’re attempting to resolve
or the impossible things you’re dealing with.
“Our greatest enemy is not disease, but despair.”

Have you ever been there?
Have you ever been so desperate
that nothing, nothing at all, could lift you from your slump
or ease your burden
or lighten your heart?

Danté, in his masterpiece THE DIVINE COMEDY,
wrote a startling line that, when I read it years ago, jumped right off the page.
In describing Hell, he wrote that over Hell’s entrance was a sign
and on the sign these words were written:
“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

There are many who experience hell on this side of eternity ~
the hell of fighting diseases
or moving mountains
or resolving the difficult
or dealing with the impossible ~
and they have abandoned hope and found themselves lost,
not in a lake of fire, but in despair.

It is to that experience that I want to speak today.
I want to talk about hope ~
the hope that holds on, praying expectantly …
the hope that doesn’t give in or give up …
the hope that perseveres.

And in speaking about hope, I simply want to share with you
the hopeful, stirring, glorious experiences of others.

1. I don’t imagine that any of you here this morning
have not had someone you love afflicted with cancer.
Maybe that experience of cancer is your own.
Listen then, to this reflection of hope.

There was a man named Dan Richardson
and he had to deal with one of the most dreaded things
a doctor can say to a patient:
“You have cancer.”
Those words bring a chill to our spirits
as they brought a chill to his.
Although great progress has been made in cancer’s treatment,
recovery can be painful,
and many people do not survive.

Dan Richardson was one of those who battled cancer.
Dan Richardson was an enthusiastic believer in Jesus Christ.
He fought his battle with cancer … and lost.

Still, his life demonstrated that even though the physical body
may be destroyed by disease,
the spirit can remain triumphant.
At his memorial service, a poem was read.
It was chosen because it captured the essence
not so much of the physical Dan Richardson
who was wasting away day by day,
as it captured the essence of the spiritual Dan Richardson
who never abandoned hope … and whose spirit was triumphant.

2. But before I read those words, these experiences
of the triumphant spirit of others.

One of my late mother’s favourite sentences
which she would recite on waking in the morning
is from a poem written by Thomas Carlyle.
This is what Mom would say as she looked out an east window:

“So here hath been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?”

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish historian, philosopher, and essayist
who died some 119 years ago.
He had completed his manuscript on the French Revolution
and given it to his neighbour to read.
His neighbour happened to be John Stuart Mill,
an English philosopher and political economist.
Thomas Carlyle wanted John Stuart Mill to critique his work.

Several days later, Mill came to Carlyle’s house, pale and nervous.
When asked what the trouble was,
Mill confessed that his maid had used the manuscript to start a fire!
Carlyle was distraught and in a frenzy for days.
He had no other copy.

He had spent two years researching and thinking through and writing the manuscript.
Those results of those two years of disciplined labour were gone.
He was so overcome with despair
that he thought that he would never be able to write again.
Then one day he observed a mason building a wall,
laying one brick at a time.
From this sight Carlyle took courage;
he could rewrite The French Revolution … one page at a time.
And that’s exactly what he did.

And probably because of that experience
he wrote the lines my mother would recite in the mornings.
This is part of his poem called “Today.”

“So here hath been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?
…………………………………………….

Out of Eternity this new day is born,
Into Eternity at night will return.
Behold it aforetime no eye ever did;
So soon it forever from all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?”

If the manuscript of your life has been tossed in the fire,
don’t quit on it in despair;
in hope, begin to write anew …
one page at a time.
Let yours be a triumphant spirit.

3. It was during the dark days of World War II.
A Jewish man, living in Holland, hiding from the Nazis,
had found refuge in the basement of someone’s home.

The story goes that apparently someone disclosed his hiding place
and one day, the noise of the shouting Gestapo shattered the silence
and the man was discovered, captured, taken away, and apparently, like so many,
was put to death in one of the concentration camps.

I cannot imagine that kind of horror or hardship.
I cannot imagine that kind of fear or sorrow.
I cannot imagine that kind of human degradation.

This man, however, lived it … and didn’t survive it. And yet … and yet …

On the wall of that basement hiding place
three sentences were scratched beside a Star of David ~
the symbol of this Jewish man’s faith ~
as the Cross is for ours.
Three sentences which speak of faith … and hope.
Three sentences that reveal, even though he lost his life,
his triumphant spirit of hope.

He wrote on the wall of his basement hiding place:

“I believe in the sun …
even when it is not shining;
I believe in love …
even when I do not feel it;
I believe in God …
even when He is silent.”

How could he write such a thing?
Knowing what he knew?
Experiencing what he did?
Perhaps because he knew
that above the clouds, the sun still shines …
perhaps because he knew
that love outlasts anything, even the worst kind of hatred and cruelty …
perhaps because he knew the truth of his scriptures
that God may be silent but God was present,
and even though he walked through the valley of shadow of death
God was with him, and he didn’t need to be afraid.

That’s the triumphant spirit of hope.

4. I was born on September 20th, 1946.
A boy by the name of Ben Boisot was born on September 20th, 1989.
When I was born I was a perfectly normal and healthy baby.
When Ben was born, the new parents learned shortly afterwards
that he was blind and deaf.
By the age of three I was walking and talking.
By the age of three Ben’s parents knew he would never walk.

From the day Ben was two days old,
his family traveled a road they had never envisioned.
Hundreds of miles to the best doctors and the best hospitals.
Hundreds of needles and X-rays, CT scans and MRIs.
After that came the contact lenses, braces, hearing aids,
wheelchairs, walkers and crawlers -
along with all the therapists to show them how to use all these things.
The operations never stopped.

By the time Ben was eight his life consisted of his regular teacher
and special teachers
and therapists
and pathologists
and doctors
and an audiologist
and surgeons.

Yet every morning her little man, as his mother called him,
would wake up with the biggest smile on his face as if to say,
“I am here for another day everybody, and I am so glad;”
words reminiscent of those morning words of my mother,
“So here hath been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?”

By the time Ben was four, he was quite expertly maneuvering his wheelchair,
but he had never spoken a word - only vowel sounds.
So the family started putting a tape recorder at the table during dinner
to record the sounds Ben was making
because he clearly wanted to be a part of the dinner conversations.
They thought maybe if he heard his recorded voice and theirs,
it would stimulate something in him.

On a September day in 1993, the tape was rolling
while Ben’s mom was feeding him
and making some sounds, trying to stimulate an interest in him.
Suddenly, time froze.
His mother writes that she will never forget the look in Ben’s eyes,
the formation of his mouth,
how he was looking up at her from his wheelchair
when he spoke his first three words: “I love you.”
She turned to her husband, and he tearfully looked at her and said, “I heard him.”
Ben said those words for her,
and she had it on tape to play back whenever she needed to.
And she was grateful, because Ben has never said another word since.

“But you know,” she writes, “I don’t play the tape that often; I don’t need to.
I will always recognize the look in his eyes ~ even though they are blind ~
as he reaches for my face to give me a kiss.
That is all I need.”

Love, spoken … and love, even when it is silent …
can lift a slumping spirit
and ease the heaviest burden
and lighten the heart.
Love kindles hope.
One little boy’s triumphant spirit did it.

And now to the verse from Dan Richardson’s memorial service.

“Cancer is so limited …”
and you can replace the word “cancer” with any trouble you’re dealing with.

“Cancer is so limited …
It cannot cripple love,
It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot erode faith,
It cannot eat away peace,
It cannot destroy confidence,
It cannot kill friendship,
It cannot shut out memories,
It cannot silence courage,
It cannot invade the soul,
It cannot reduce eternal life,
It cannot quench the Spirit,
It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.”

Whatever it is that has invaded your life,
refuse to let it touch your spirit.
Your body can be severely afflicted,
and you may have a great struggle,
but if you keep trusting God’s love,
your spirit can remain strong …
and triumphant.

Thomas Carlyle proved it.
The Jewish man who lost his life in a prison camp proved it.
The love of Ben for his mother and her love for him proved it.
Dan Richardson proved it.
And so can you.

And so did St. Paul.
How did he put it?
“I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—
nothing living or dead,
angelic or demonic,
today or tomorrow,
high or low,
thinkable or unthinkable—
absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love
because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”

The power of love is the power of hope.
And the power of hope is to so encourage the spirit
that in any and all circumstances
it can become triumphant.

That is the love that God, in Christ, offers you … today.

Soli Deo Gloria

THE READING OF HOLY SCRIPTURE Romans 8:28,31,35,37-39 (The Message)

“ …we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?”

“Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture …”

“None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”

 

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