Reflections on rereading The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard.

Faith in God is to believe that all things are possible.

“The decisive thing is, that for God all things are possible…..when a man is brought to the utmost extremity, so that humanly speaking no possibility exists. Then the question is whether he will believe that for God all things are possible – that is to say, whether he will believe…. to believe is precisely to lose one’s understanding in order to win God….salvation is humanly speaking the most impossible thing of all; but for God all things are possible!…For possibility is the only power to save…. The believer possesses the eternally certain antidote to despair, viz. possibility; for with God all things are possible every instant. This is the sound health of faith which resolves contradictions. The contradiction in this case is that, humanly speaking, destruction is certain, and that nevertheless there is possibility. Health consists essentially in being able to resolve contradictions.”

Faith in God makes it possible to pray.

“The fatalist is in despair – he has lost God, and therefore himself as well…He is unable to pray. So to pray is to breathe, and possibility is for the self what oxygen is for breathing…. The fact that God’s will is the possible makes it possible for me to pray.”

Christianity does not need defending.

“One sees how extraordinarily stupid it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of men this betrays, and how truly, even though it be unconsciously, it is working in collusion with the enemy, by making of Christianity a miserable something or another which in the end has to be rescued by a defense….To defend anything is always to discredit it. ….Yea, he who defends it has never believed in it. If he believes, then the enthusiasm of faith is…not defense, no, it is attack and victory. The believer is a victor.”

God is to be feared and revered, not taken lightly.

“Paganism generally uttered the name of God with great solemnity, with a certain horror, with a dread of the mysterious, whereas in Christendom the name of God is surely the word which occurs most frequently in daily speech and is absolutely the word to which one attaches the least meaning and uses most carelessly, because this poor revealed God (who was so imprudent and unwise as to become revealed instead of keeping Himself hidden as superior persons always do) has become a personage all too well known by the whole population, to whom one renders an exceedingly great service by going once in a while to church.”

When I think of Fathers’ Day I find myself thinking of my father rather than of myself as a father, or my sons-in-law as fathers. Yet all three generations are important. Each of us has had different models as fathers. I never knew my grandfathers. Both had died before I was born. My father was not forthcoming about his father. My parent’s generation was not interested in talking about their forebears. In recent years I have researched my family history so that I could fill in the gaps of my knowledge about my ancestors. In particular I have wondered how my grandparents and great-grandparents impacted the lives of my parents, and subsequently myself and my sister. Learning more about them has helped me to understand and accept them in new ways.

Fathers are not perfect. I am not perfect. And yet, as children, we expect our parents to live up to our expectations. We compare them with the parents of our friends, with parents portrayed in books and movies. We all make mistakes. We bear the sins of the fathers. The older I get the more I realize how like my father and mother I am.

My parents never had the opportunities that I have had in my lifetime. Yet they were very successful in their careers as business leaders in our home town. Both were highly regarded by their peers. They retired early when they sold the family business, and enjoyed their retirement. My father contracted Parkinson’s Disease, and had to give up his beloved golf. He had been quite the athlete in his youth, as a celebrated rugby player. Photographs of him with his team-mates hung on all the walls. It was difficult for him to find that his movements were circumscribed by his disability. He died of a heart attack in his seventies.

As I near the age when I remember him in his decline I wonder how I will cope with my own aging, and possible disability. It is a sobering thought when you think that you are immune to life’s challenges.

Jesus was only thirty three when he died. He suffered excruciating pain during his Passion. He suffered for me, so that I might enjoy the hope of everlasting life. He and the Father were one. They were closer than any earthly parent could be to their offspring. Jesus delighted in doing his Father’s will.

Father’s Day reminds us to love one another for we are all members of the family of Christ if we trust in and follow him, and are born again of the Spirit. We love our children, and we love our parents, for what they mean to us, and for what they have done for us. Let us use this occasion to express our love for one another, as God expressed his love for us in Jesus. 

Mother Teresa spoke to the 1982 Class at Harvard about a hunger for God especially among the young. She said, “We must find Jesus and satisfy that hunger. Nakedness is not only for a piece of cloth. Nakedness is the loss of human dignity, the loss of respect, the loss of that purity which was so beautiful, the loss of that virginity which is the most beautiful thing that a young man and a young woman can give each other because of their love. The loss of that presence, of what is beautiful, of what is great – that is nakedness. And homelessness is not only the lack of a home made of bricks but the feeling of being rejected, being unwanted, having no one to call your own.”

She gave the new graduates the prayer of John Henry Newman for their future.

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that all our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we meet may feel your presence in us. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus. Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine. To shine so as to be a light to others. The light will be all from you, dear Jesus. None of is will be ours; it will be you shining on others.  Let us thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching; not by words, but by our example. By the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for you.

She said, “My prayer for you is that you may grow in love for each other. That you may grow in the likeness of Christ, in the holiness of Christ. Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simple duty for you and me. And where does it begin? Right at home. God bless you.”

She reminds us that we are called to become carriers of God’s love to all people we meet. There is no higher calling.

This year is an important milestone for Antoinette and myself. As we celebrate our birthdays we realize that we are getting older, to an age that we once thought was really old, but now as we achieve it we don’t consider old! We celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary next month and feel that it is appropriate that we mark it in some significant way.

As we age there is a temptation to slack off on our youthful commitments and to take things more easily. This is appropriate for some things but not for others. I cannot ameliorate my passion for the Gospel, or my depth of concern for the needs of my congregation. I cannot be laid back in my preaching or be slipshod in my preparation.

Hebrews 6:11,12 is instructive: “We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” (NIV)

The Message renders it: “And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don’t drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.”

“Don’t drag your feet” is the description of the Greek word for lazy, dull, or sluggish. There are days when I drag my feet, when I get tired, when I get sluggish. That is a sign that I need more rest, so that I have the energy for what I want to do. It also is a sign that I need to focus on praying for the energy of the Spirit to sharpen my diligence: “to be strengthened with power through the Spirit in my inner being.” (Ephesians 3:16)

It is too easy to slip into mediocrity and ineffectiveness and not “extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish.” In order to stay the course we must be balanced and disciplined in what we attempt to do, so that we may do it well.

For Ash Wednesday and Lent I have been reading a book by the president of Calvin Theological Seminary, Cornelius Plantinga. It is entitled, Not The Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. It is a tour de force on the nature of sin in biblical, and contemporary terms. His preface states his purpose:

            “My goal, …is to renew the knowledge of a persistent reality that used to evoke in us fear, hatred, and grief. Many of us have lost this knowledge, and we ought to regret the loss. For slippage in our consciousness of sin, like most fashionable follies, may be pleasant, but it is also devastating. Self-deception about our sin is a narcotic, a tranquilizing and disorienting suppression of our spiritual central nervous system.” (p.xiii)

These words jump out at me: “Self-deception about our sin is a narcotic, a tranquilizing and disorienting suppression of our spiritual central nervous system.” Because of our self-deception, our lack of consciousness of our sins, we become tone deaf to God and his grace.

Scott Peck in The People of the Lie, wrote that the heart of sin is the persistent refusal to tolerate a sense of sin, to take responsibility for one’s sin, to live with the sorrowful knowledge of it and to pursue the painful way of repentance. That is why most people, when asked about themselves, will protest they are good people, deserving of God’s grace, and therefore, if they were honest, not really in need of a Savior.

Plantinga maintains that “…each of us possesses one last defense against the knowledge of sin – a defense so strong, supple, mysterious, and private that even veteran sinners cannot track its ways.

Self-deception is a shadowy phenomenon by which we pull the wool over some part of our own psyche. We put a move on ourselves. We deny, suppress, or minimize what we know to be true. …

A moment’s reflection reminds us that self-deception has long been a growth industry. Why do alcoholics and other drug users typically go through years of self-denial? Why is the revelation of incest an astonishment to people who are living right in the middle of it?…Why do battering husbands offer minimizing and euphemistic accounts of the beatings they administer, and why do battered wives sometimes accept and repeat those accounts?” ( pp.105,107)

This is why we have Lent. It is a time of self-examination and repentance, when we take responsibility for our sins. Kierkegaard wrote that “The consciousness of sin is the essential condition for understanding Christianity. This is the very proof of Christianity’s being the highest religion. No other religion has given such a profound and lofty expression of our significance – that we are sinners.”

There is a temptation to run too quickly to the promise of forgiveness through Jesus’ purification for our sins on the Cross, and to avoid consciousness of sin and our need for self-examination and repentance. The season of Lent gives us that time, so that we can see ourselves for what we truly are, and not be deceived. Only then can the redeeming work of the Savior have merit and meaning.

I came across a wonderful quote in Dallas Willard’s admirable book, Renovation of the Heart (p.228). “A depressed and hopeless man came to John Wesley to inquire what message he gave to the multitudes of hearers he regularly addressed, morning and evening. Wesley replied,

You ask, what I would do with them: I would make them virtuous and happy, easy in themselves, and useful to others. Whither would I lead them? To heaven; to God the Judge, the lover of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. What religion do I preach? The religion of love; the law of kindness brought to light by the Gospel. What is this good for? To make all who receive it enjoy God and themselves; to make them like God; lovers of all; contented in their lives, and crying out at their death, in calm assurance, ‘O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth me the victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ.’

 No talk here of ‘the crushing burden of piety,’ as it has been called, or of religion as a ‘life sentence’ instead of a life. Our walk with Christ, well learned, is a burden only as wings are to a bird or the engines are to an airplane.”

Why are people so depressed and hopeless today? What would John Wesley say any differently if he were to preach amongst us today? Do we find it difficult to be easy in ourselves and useful to others? Do we find it hard to enjoy God and ourselves; to be lovers of all, contented in our lives, and assured in death? Why do we find these things difficult if we believe in the good news of Jesus?

A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era. (Martha Irvine, AP, Florida Times-Union, January 12, 2010) One conclusion is that they have high expectations which are recipes for disappointment. When we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, we are setting ourselves up for a sense of failure. When we rely upon our own smarts to be self-sufficient and to succeed in life skills, career and relationships, we are heading for a fall.

We cannot find a contentment and assurance until we have seen our lives as given us in trust by God to fulfill his purpose. We cannot attain the goals he has for us until we have learned to turn to God our Judge and Redeemer. Unless we enjoy God, we cannot enjoy ourselves. Unless we ask the Spirit to fill our lives with his love, we cannot be easy in ourselves and useful to others. We have to start with the expectations of God, and his provision in the Gospel of Christ for our need.

The world and people will let us down. All of us experience failure at one time or another in our lives. But God will never let us down. Christ and his love will always be with us. His kindness will pick us up and embrace us, and give us the courage to carry on. This is what we believe. “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)

Last night Antoinette and I went to see Clint Eastwood’s movie, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, and Matt Damon as the captain of the South African, Springboks, rugby team. It is a true story of how Mandela used sport to bring his country together after years of apartheid. It stirred many memories for me. I can remember, as a child, going to see the Springboks play when they visited New Zealand. They were great rivals of the All Blacks, our national rugby team. However, at that time, they would not allow any black South Africans play on their team. It was composed solely of white South Africans, mainly Afrikaaners, whereas our teams included Maoris and Pacific Islanders as well as white New Zealanders. In the early 1960’s sanctions upon South Africa for its apartheid policies prohibited their sports teams from competing in the world. I supported and signed petitions to our national rugby authorities in favor of this boycott.

The movie is set in 1995, when sanctions had been lifted and the Springboks were allowed to play again. Their 30 year absence from the international area had affected their ability and morale. President Mandela encouraged the team captain with verses from W.E. Henley’s poem Invictus, which had inspired him during his years of confinement on Robbins Island prison.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not, how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Henley was not a Christian believer. His sentiments are secular. Yet his “unconquerable soul” is testimony to the grace of God in our lives. We can thank God for this kind of courage. St. Paul talks about being “more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) Invictus is Latin for unconquerable.

Black South Africans have now been included in the Springboks. The victory of the team in the World Cup became a national unifier. Of course, I was proud of their opponents, the All Blacks, who don’t lose many games, for personal reasons. My father’s best man, married my mother’s maid of honor, her cousin. Uncle Ron played as an All Black, became captain of the All Black team, then coach and selector. Their performing of the Maori Haka (war challenge) before World Cup final was a stirring reminder that their record was also unconquerable.

As a former rugby player, coach and referee, the spirit of competition, the burning desire to win, to triumph over all odds, is bred in me. My father was also a champion rugby player in his day. This same spirit is found in the Gospel. Jesus’s head was ‘bloody, but unbowed’ on the Cross. He has given us unconquerable souls. We are masters of our own fate and captains of our own souls. That is why our choices and our motivations are so important. Following Jesus as my captain, will find me unafraid, for he will lead me through the final. As Corrie ten Boom used to say: “Jesus is Victor.”

As I come to the end of this year, and the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, I feel the need for the guidance and protection of God for myself and for those I love. The following two prayers come from David Adam’s Celtic Prayer Companion.

Lord be with us this day,

Within us to purify us;

Above us to draw us up;

Beneath us to sustain us;

Before us to lead us;

Behind us to restrain us;

Around us to protect us.

St. Patrick

Lord, who made sea and land,

Always give me aid,

And guide my life here

In the way of truth.

Lord Jesus, look on me,

And grant me your unfailing grace.

Every hour, Jesus, it is my desire

In the world to please you.

St. Meryadoc

To these I would add my own prayer:

Lord, help me, for I am helpless;

Life is too complex and I am too simple.

Lord strengthen me to serve you, for I am weak;

Life is too full of challenges and I am too inadequate.

Lord, enlighten me with your wisdom, for I am ignorant;

Life is too confusing and I am too blind.

Lord, fill me with your love, joy and peace; for I am discouraged and disturbed;

Life is too sad  and cruel, and I am too selfish.

Lord Jesus, fill me with your Spirit, so that I become more like you.

Life is ripe with opportunities to do good;

May I be a blessing to others, and so extend your kingdom.

Empower me with your risen life to be renewed in your likeness.

The Christmas story is about God coming into a world of suffering to redeem it, to bring his love to transform self-centered lives, to give comfort, strength and hope to those who suffer from loneliness and alienation, to move people who have opened themselves to him to reach out with his love to others in need of that love.

There is no better portrayal of this than in the movie “The Blind Side”. Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy are members of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Memphis. They took in a homeless sixteen year old, Michael Oher, gave him the love, and encouragement which he never had from his drug addicted mother of 13 children, and the bleak foster homes he had been placed in. His loneliness and alienation was replaced with a family that embraced him as their own, despite the monumental differences in their backgrounds. Michael was a lost cause when he entered Briarcrest Christian School, as a six and a half foot, 340 pound hulk with zero learning or communication skills and a profound inability to express himself. He shunned human touch, and was very withdrawn.

Sandra Bullock, who played Leigh Anne Tuohy in the movie said that no one was faking anything. “This family, they were themselves, for no other benefit other than because they wanted to reach out, lend a hand, and had no idea that they would get a son in return.” The actress said that, while making the movie, she regained a little “faith in those who say they represent a faith. Wow, I finally met someone who practices but doesn’t preach. Whereas before I was like, do not give me a lecture on how to live my life when I know I’m a pretty decent human being. I might not go to church every day, but I know I do the right thing or try to. So I finally met people that walk the walk.”

Michael Oher went on to play for Ole Miss, graduated on the Dean’s List, and is now playing for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens. The bleak prospects of his childhood have been succeeded by the joy of his achievements, due to the love of God working through the Tuohys. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9)

“Live through him.” Walk the walk. Follow the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let God show you how much he loves you by opening your heart to his saving presence. This is his gift to you this Christmastime.