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I Can See You

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — August 24, 2008
 

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Introduction
In a tale from classic Greek mythology, the god Apollo fell in love with a beautiful human named Cassandra. In trying to woo her, he granted her the gift of foretelling the future. But when she ultimately spurned him and refused to be his bride, the god got his revenge by causing Cassandra to only see bad things happening in the future—and thus her name became the by-word for “gloom and doom” predictions. Needless to say, Cassandra’s obsession with worst-case scenarios and anxieties about the future did not exactly make her popular. Who wants to invite a Cassandra to a party or social gathering where she’ll just make everyone anxious and depressed? It was Cassandra’s curse to see the worst possible outcome in every situation.

We have modern-day Cassandras among us, and it seems to me that most of them have gone to work for the news media. Apparently the news execs believe that negativity sells newspapers and grabs eyeballs on TV and the internet. It was early one December a few years ago, when I was living in a northern city. The first snowfall of the year had begun late that afternoon, and the meteorologists were predicting 3-5 inches. That was not a lot of snow for that part of the country, but local news channels sent their Cassandras out with their remote satellite trucks across the region. Breathless reporters stood outside supermarkets as panicked shoppers tried to hurriedly buy a month’s worth of provisions; they interviewed the highway department managers who were readying the snow plows and road salt spreaders. One young beat reporter, signing off her live feed back to the studio, looked earnestly at the camera and said, “One thing’s for certain, Jim: It will only get worse!”

Actually, the storm turned out to be a dud; we only got a couple inches, and the next day turned sunny and it all melted. But that gloom-and-doom message continued to rattle around my brain. There’s something in human nature that is drawn to pessimism, to bad news, to putting the worst-possible slant on things. “And it will only get worse,” the voice of Cassandra within us says.

We see the same orientation toward the negative on the national as well as the local level. Bad news is big news; good news is hardly worthy of mentioning. No headline in a U.S. paper this morning will announce: “No U.S. casualties in Iraq yesterday.” That’s apparently not interesting. And, as we’ve seen in the past year, negative news about the economy can actually be self-fulfilling: the more the news people pronounce that real estate sales or stock prices will keep dropping, the more people decide not to buy—and so their gloomy predictions come true.

Scripture
In our scripture text for today we see some ancient predecessors of our contemporary bad-news media. The setting was not an impending snowstorm, but rather the hot and dry Sinai Desert. Moses had just led the people of Israel out of their Egyptian slavery, through the miraculous parting of the Red Sea, and now they were on the highway towards the Promised Land. And though the few optimists might be feeling great, the Cassandras were among them in full force. “Things may have been bad in Egypt, Jim,” their reporters said, “but they will only get worse.” Let’s read the account:

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”
      Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?”
      But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
      Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
      The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

Exodus 17:1-7 (NIV)

Is the Lord Among Us?
That final question lingers: “Is the LORD among us or not?” Our human nature tends to panic, to jump to the worst conclusions, to give in to our fears and decide that God is not with us. That’s what the people in Exodus 17 did. They were thirsty, their water bottles were nearly empty, there was no lake around to get refills, and they jumped to the conclusion that they were all going to die of thirst. A hasty, rash, and — as we see — wrong assumption. But it’s typical for us to draw conclusions too quickly.

We should not hastily conclude that the Lord is with someone just because they appear to be prospering. We see clear indications in the Bible that short-term success can be deceiving. David stole another man’s wife, Bathsheba, and looked for awhile like he’d gotten away with it. Ahab defrauded another man of his property, and for a time his scheme seemed successful. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss and walked out of the Garden of Gethsemane, his pockets loaded with cash. In each of these cases, a day of reckoning was just around the corner. Let’s not fall into the mistake of thinking that people today are automatically blessed by God because things seem to be going well for them.

Why can appearances deceive? First, because we don’t see what’s on the inside of another person. The fancy mansion can hide lonely, hurting and broken people behind its gates. The tinted windows on the Escalade can mask a miserable driver inside. Trappings of wealth and success, beauty and fame, good times and popularity can all be tragically misleading. The second reason why we can be fooled by outward appearances is that we can’t see the future. A temporary success can lead to a long-term downfall. We’ve seen it happen in business and careers, in politics, in marriages, and in families. Only God knows what tomorrow will bring. We must not, therefore, view the outward circumstances of ourselves or anyone else as accurate barometers of the presence of God.

And just as we would be foolish to conclude that someone is blessed and favored by God simply by apparent success, even more would we be mistaken to conclude that those who are experiencing difficulties must be outside the will of God or abandoned by Him. The Israelites were in a dry desert precisely because they were following God’s leadership; to go back to Egypt and its fast-flowing Nile simply to have access to an ample water supply would have been disastrous. One night Jesus sent His disciples in their boat across the Sea of Galilee, and it was while they were doing what their Lord had told them to do that they encountered a frightening storm. The same truth applies to our own times: just because we’re going through some difficult trial does not, by any means, tell us that God is not with us.

Like these men and women in Exodus 17, we can easily give in to the knee-jerk reactions of fear and panic. The “gloom and doom” can be so magnetic to our minds and emotions. When we get a sobering diagnosis or bad news about a child or grandchild, when our stock portfolio takes a big hit or a close friend dies or moves away, we may even wonder, like the Israelites, if God has abandoned us. That’s when we need to remember that life on this earth is never without struggle. Even those most loved by the Lord face challenges to overcome.

When I find myself feeling exhausted and frustrated by the seemingly unending demands of pastoral ministry, I need to remind myself again of the biblical perspective. Of course serving the Lord is hard — in any context. It’s hard to be a faithful worker or employer, it’s hard to be an effective parent, it’s hard to maintain a strong and intimate marriage, it’s hard to be a leader in a community organization. But nothing of true value in life comes without effort. And it does not mean that God is absent, just because things are hard.

Trust the Promises
So how do we know that God is with us? His Presence with us is guaranteed by His Promises to us. The Bible is full of assurances to us, if we’ll just listen to them and remember them. Do you need a few to refresh your memory of God’s continual, unending, constant presence with you?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
 
“Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”
So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.”
Hebrews 13:5-6
 
Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:20
 
Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged,
for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9

All of these words of promise were spoken and written down and passed on to future generations after the incident in Exodus 17. So, as dense and foolish as the Israelites may seem to be, we can understand and forgive them. Living by faith was very new to them, and they hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Later on, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul sums up the life of the believer this way: “For we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). That’s what we need to learn to do. In Exodus 17 all the people could see were empty water bottles and a dry desert around them. What they could not yet see was what God was about to do for them, in providing for their needs. He would provide water from the rock, to quench their thirsts and sustain them for their long journey. Later on the Lord would provide miraculous food for them to eat, called manna, and would fight their battles for them to bring them to victory. In spite of their doubts and questions, it is obvious the Lord has not abandoned His people.

Nor has He abandoned you or me, no matter what our current circumstances are. He is with us. In His time He will bring forth water for us to keep us going. He will provide help to bear up under our burdens. He will strengthen us and reassure us. Though we may not know how or when God will come to our aid, as He did those thirsty people in the desert, we can trust in Him to do so. We can learn, day-by-day, to “live by faith, not by sight.”

Living by Faith
My mentor in the ministry, Frank Kik, came upon an interesting little story one day in a newspaper, and he shared it repeatedly in his sermons. I’d like to close with this, for it strengthens our hearts to keep “living by faith.”

Late one night in rural Kansas an old two-story farmhouse caught fire due to an electrical short inside one of the walls. The hottest part of the flames was upstairs, midway between the parents’ bedroom at the front of the house and their only son’s bedroom at the back. The father and mother raced down the stairway, around to the rear, and stood under their son’s bedroom yelling his name. He awakened, saw the flames outside his room, and realized he couldn’t make it to the stairs. He dashed to his window. Throwing it open, he cried out into the dark for someone to rescue him.

The father assured him he was there, just below him. “I don’t have time to get a ladder from the barn, son. Just jump. I’m here to catch you.” But the flames were so blinding inside his room, and the night outside was so dark, that the boy hesitated. “Daddy, I can’t see you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the father replied. “Just jump! You don’t need to see me, because I can see you!”

That is what our Heavenly Father is saying to us. Though we may not always be able to see Him clearly, that’s not important. Because He can see us. And He is standing there with His open arms to catch us.