Still Here?
Text: Psalm 31:1-5;15-16
“My times are in your hand…” – Psalm 31:15
Well. How about this. We’re all still here!
Well, maybe not… it is the long weekend after all and I would expect that many have gone off to their cottage or camping to spend some good quality time with their families and friends. But what I meant is we’re pretty much all still here.
Unless you’ve really been ignoring the media over the past few months, and over this past week in particular, there has been a very vocal fringe group in the United States called Family Radio which identified Judgement Day as being May 21st, 2011. They paid for signs and billboards all across North America, including several Canadian cities. It was posted up with great certitude and urgency, with even a flared seal-like stamp with the words “The Bible guarantees it!” in large bold letters. Followers quit their jobs, sold their houses, gave away their possessions… and seemed to be encouraging others to do the same. So here we are. May 22nd. Unless I’ve missed it, judgement day has come and gone. To be honest, I decided to write this sermon for today, to talk about us still being here. I figured I had nothing to lose, because if this group was indeed right… we wouldn’t be here anyway. Win-win either way!
But it points to a far more serious issue that we have as Christians. As of today, critics are having a field day, and as Christians, whether or not we buy into this kind of worldview, we have now been tarred by the same brush. It is unfortunate, but true… the media pays attention to those who appear to yell the loudest… regardless of whether or not what they have to say is worth listening to. It makes for interesting copy that people will read… but it does not represent who we are as Christians and how we are part of God’s universe.
This received a lot of press in its lead-up… so much so that it was even featured a few weeks ago one Friday morning on CBC’s “The Current.” The show first featured a representative from the group, who presented their spiel with fervent urgency. The second person they talked to was an aggressive atheist whose group had also bought billboard space as a counter-campaign to the group. To be honest, I found both of them to be two sides to the same coin. What redeemed the show was a familiar voice: the Rev. Dr. Harry Maier, who teaches New Testament at Vancouver School of Theology, my own alma mater. Harry’s response was reasoned, healthy, and he set this whole conversation within the context of its historical development… and how throughout Christian history there have been those who have claimed that the end has come and have fixed a date. I think we can safely say how many of those have been right… and it should be a caution of this entire exercise… and of any such future date setting. Remember that when the impending hysteria around 2012 crops up next year.
Harry also pointed out that there is a serious danger within movements like this. Any attempt by any group religious or otherwise, that encourages disengaging from society because the end is near is at its core evil. That’s not what God calls us to do or to be.
There’s a short line in Psalm 31 that I would bet that not many of us have paid attention to when it was read this morning. It reads “My time is in your hand…” an expression of trust that our lives, our being, our hopes, our dreams, everything is in God’s hands. It is a reminder perhaps, of a more sober view, and a reminder if even if the world were to end tomorrow, our lives are still in God’s hands.
Our time is in God’s hands. We are still here. That says something inordinately powerful about life, hope, and our responsibility towards one another as human beings. We find meaning and purpose in life by living it to the fullest… trusting that our time is in God’s hands, while at the same time knowing how fleeting life can be.
So let’s talk about time for a bit. In many ways, time is the great equalizer, and our most valuable commodity. Unlike money, it cannot be hoarded or banked, and we truly do not know how much time we will have. It is what makes it so precious. While this is not terribly optimistic, we do know that each morning we wake up, we have less time than we did before… which makes our time all the more precious, and how we make use of it all the more special. You’ve heard the term “quality time” or the phrase “making the best of our time.” There’s a lot of truth to that.
I think this is one of the most valuable gifts of our faith is the idea of “Sabbath” or a time of rest. Sabbath has many forms, but it recognizes one of the most valuable commodities we have as human beings is time… and especially the time that we have to spend with one another. We could find ourselves so busy making a living that we forget how to live. It is also acknowledging that our time is in God’s hands, and we truly do not know how much time that we have. Make the most of the time we have, but that includes making sure that we take the opportunity to rest, and to appreciate life around us, and try not to get stressed about it.
As John’s gospel says “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.” Do not fear, but trust in God.
I think yesterday’s failed prediction really needs to be a wake-up call to us as Christians, as there are these movements that tell us that we should simply give up, sit down, and wait for the end to come. But throughout the Bible, even in the darkest and most desperate of circumstances, it is always a word of encouragement. Jeremiah bought property when Jerusalem had been destroyed, Ezekiel encouraged people to still live in hope in very dark times. John of Patmos encouraged Christians to remain faithful in the face of Roman persecution, and expressed a great hope for the future.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s prediction will not be the last. I have little doubt that the same group will say that their math was off, and will issue a new date sometime soon. Not only that, thanks to the ancient Mayan Calendar, there’s a building hysteria over what will happen next year, when the Calendar effective expires. There are some that will say that there’s a large rogue planet out there by the name of Nibiru or Nemesis that will hit the earth.
Did I mention I have a reasonably decent telescope? If there was something that big that would hit us next year, I would have already seen it by now. In fact, you wouldn’t need a telescope because it’d be pretty obvious in the night sky even now. We’re pretty safe to say that the 2012 fears that are out there are unfounded. I think we need to be reasonable when it comes to hysteria and hyperbole. It reached a fevered pitch ten years ago around the turn of the millennium, and it will continue to come and go… I would hope that we would take it with a grain of salt, and trust that our time is in God’s hands.
After all, when the fullness of time comes, it is on God’s timeline. We cannot set times or dates. For us, God calls to live our lives to the fullest, and never withdraw from this world that God created and called good! Remember that bit from Genesis? The world is a good place, and God calls us to be a part of that, because in the end, God is still here.
Happy Easter.
Amen.
“My times are in your hand…” – Psalm 31:15
Well. How about this. We’re all still here!
Well, maybe not… it is the long weekend after all and I would expect that many have gone off to their cottage or camping to spend some good quality time with their families and friends. But what I meant is we’re pretty much all still here.
Unless you’ve really been ignoring the media over the past few months, and over this past week in particular, there has been a very vocal fringe group in the United States called Family Radio which identified Judgement Day as being May 21st, 2011. They paid for signs and billboards all across North America, including several Canadian cities. It was posted up with great certitude and urgency, with even a flared seal-like stamp with the words “The Bible guarantees it!” in large bold letters. Followers quit their jobs, sold their houses, gave away their possessions… and seemed to be encouraging others to do the same. So here we are. May 22nd. Unless I’ve missed it, judgement day has come and gone. To be honest, I decided to write this sermon for today, to talk about us still being here. I figured I had nothing to lose, because if this group was indeed right… we wouldn’t be here anyway. Win-win either way!
But it points to a far more serious issue that we have as Christians. As of today, critics are having a field day, and as Christians, whether or not we buy into this kind of worldview, we have now been tarred by the same brush. It is unfortunate, but true… the media pays attention to those who appear to yell the loudest… regardless of whether or not what they have to say is worth listening to. It makes for interesting copy that people will read… but it does not represent who we are as Christians and how we are part of God’s universe.
This received a lot of press in its lead-up… so much so that it was even featured a few weeks ago one Friday morning on CBC’s “The Current.” The show first featured a representative from the group, who presented their spiel with fervent urgency. The second person they talked to was an aggressive atheist whose group had also bought billboard space as a counter-campaign to the group. To be honest, I found both of them to be two sides to the same coin. What redeemed the show was a familiar voice: the Rev. Dr. Harry Maier, who teaches New Testament at Vancouver School of Theology, my own alma mater. Harry’s response was reasoned, healthy, and he set this whole conversation within the context of its historical development… and how throughout Christian history there have been those who have claimed that the end has come and have fixed a date. I think we can safely say how many of those have been right… and it should be a caution of this entire exercise… and of any such future date setting. Remember that when the impending hysteria around 2012 crops up next year.
Harry also pointed out that there is a serious danger within movements like this. Any attempt by any group religious or otherwise, that encourages disengaging from society because the end is near is at its core evil. That’s not what God calls us to do or to be.
There’s a short line in Psalm 31 that I would bet that not many of us have paid attention to when it was read this morning. It reads “My time is in your hand…” an expression of trust that our lives, our being, our hopes, our dreams, everything is in God’s hands. It is a reminder perhaps, of a more sober view, and a reminder if even if the world were to end tomorrow, our lives are still in God’s hands.
Our time is in God’s hands. We are still here. That says something inordinately powerful about life, hope, and our responsibility towards one another as human beings. We find meaning and purpose in life by living it to the fullest… trusting that our time is in God’s hands, while at the same time knowing how fleeting life can be.
So let’s talk about time for a bit. In many ways, time is the great equalizer, and our most valuable commodity. Unlike money, it cannot be hoarded or banked, and we truly do not know how much time we will have. It is what makes it so precious. While this is not terribly optimistic, we do know that each morning we wake up, we have less time than we did before… which makes our time all the more precious, and how we make use of it all the more special. You’ve heard the term “quality time” or the phrase “making the best of our time.” There’s a lot of truth to that.
I think this is one of the most valuable gifts of our faith is the idea of “Sabbath” or a time of rest. Sabbath has many forms, but it recognizes one of the most valuable commodities we have as human beings is time… and especially the time that we have to spend with one another. We could find ourselves so busy making a living that we forget how to live. It is also acknowledging that our time is in God’s hands, and we truly do not know how much time that we have. Make the most of the time we have, but that includes making sure that we take the opportunity to rest, and to appreciate life around us, and try not to get stressed about it.
As John’s gospel says “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.” Do not fear, but trust in God.
I think yesterday’s failed prediction really needs to be a wake-up call to us as Christians, as there are these movements that tell us that we should simply give up, sit down, and wait for the end to come. But throughout the Bible, even in the darkest and most desperate of circumstances, it is always a word of encouragement. Jeremiah bought property when Jerusalem had been destroyed, Ezekiel encouraged people to still live in hope in very dark times. John of Patmos encouraged Christians to remain faithful in the face of Roman persecution, and expressed a great hope for the future.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s prediction will not be the last. I have little doubt that the same group will say that their math was off, and will issue a new date sometime soon. Not only that, thanks to the ancient Mayan Calendar, there’s a building hysteria over what will happen next year, when the Calendar effective expires. There are some that will say that there’s a large rogue planet out there by the name of Nibiru or Nemesis that will hit the earth.
Did I mention I have a reasonably decent telescope? If there was something that big that would hit us next year, I would have already seen it by now. In fact, you wouldn’t need a telescope because it’d be pretty obvious in the night sky even now. We’re pretty safe to say that the 2012 fears that are out there are unfounded. I think we need to be reasonable when it comes to hysteria and hyperbole. It reached a fevered pitch ten years ago around the turn of the millennium, and it will continue to come and go… I would hope that we would take it with a grain of salt, and trust that our time is in God’s hands.
After all, when the fullness of time comes, it is on God’s timeline. We cannot set times or dates. For us, God calls to live our lives to the fullest, and never withdraw from this world that God created and called good! Remember that bit from Genesis? The world is a good place, and God calls us to be a part of that, because in the end, God is still here.
Happy Easter.
Amen.
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