EVERYONE IS WELCOME HERE! 

10:30 am Worship

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Psalm 37: 1-3

¹ Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; do not be jealous of those who do wrong.
² For they shall soon wither like the grass, and like the green grass fade away.
³ Put your trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and feed on its riches.

Consider: The only path to joy leads through darkness.

An old Buddhist story: A woman lost her child and, unable to accept it carried the child’s body around for days, asking everyone she met to heal her child. She went to the Buddha and begged for his help. He told her he could help her if she would collect mustard seeds for the medicine. She agreed, but then the Buddha told her the seeds had to come from a house that had not been touched by death. When the woman visited every house in search of the seeds, she discovered there was no house that had not suffered the loss of a spouse, a child, a parent. Seeing her suffering was not unique, she was able to bury her child and release her grief.

In a very real sense, our pain and frustration with an imperfect world function the same way. Our own suffering exposes us to the suffering of countless others and fills us with compassion. It creates relationships. Seeing the tears of others, we too cry, and we become somehow one. Sadness and grief knit us together. We cannot be human without experiencing grief, pain, anger, and fear. Those negative emotions serve a positive purpose. They lead toward love and motivate us to seek solutions

Thus, the Jesus story – a sad event filled with injustice – could change the world. Following in his wake and concerned for countless others, we find the road to Easter, the ability to set aside sadness, to become beacons of light for others.

I remember Gladys, an elderly woman who had endured many surgeries for an old back injury. She lived every day in considerable pain. She once told me she rose at 4 a.m. each Sunday so she could spend hours dealing with the pain and then later go to Sunday worship.

What do you do to make the pain go away, I asked.

I get up from bed, dress, and then lie on the sofa in my living room praying, she responded. I pray that God might use my pain to relieve the pain of others, that my pain might be useful to someone else. I think of people I know who are hurting. Eventually, the pain relents enough that I can get up and come to church.

Gladys was one of the most joyful people I ever knew.

One day, sitting in a hospital room awaiting a doctor, she heard cries coming from the room across the hall. Looking, she saw a young girl in tears. She left her own room to go and to hold the girl’s hand, and she told the girl it helped to pray. Then she taught her to pray. Under her ministrations, the girl soon stopped crying, and Gladys could return to her own room. Just outside the door, she encountered two nurses who had overheard everything.

“That was the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” one of the nurses said. “We were unable to calm her, and it was as though you took all her pain onto yourself. Thank you.”

This is how we can set aside darkness in life.

Hymn of the day: In Christ Alone. Online at Rossford UMC - Media.

Rev. Lawrence Keeler