Jan 20, 2008 - "Getting Out of a Pit"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany 2
January 20, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

GETTING OUT OF A PIT
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42


Anybody here today sitting in the desolate pit and miry bog of despair? The state of our world or the dark night of your soul is keeping all light from coming in. The wounds of your life - guilt, betrayal, failure, defeat - so encompass your heart you find yourself paralyzed by fear and sadness, silence and weakness. Your knees buckle beneath you. It’s hard to put one foot in front of the other because your feet are mired in the clay of your broken humanity.

Ruth Haley Barton says that the experience of “desolation is the loss of a sense of God’s presence [in our lives]. We feel out of touch with God, with others and with our most authentic self. It is the experience of being off-center, full of turmoil, confusion and maybe even rebellion.” [1]

If that is where you find yourself today, I have a song and a prayer for you. If that is not where you find yourself today, listen anyway. Because chances are there will come a time when darkness and paralysis will be the condition of your soul. And you, too, will need a song.

The song and prayer are found in the worship book of ancient Israel known as the Psalter or Book of Psalms. A collection of hymns and prayers for every condition of the soul and every possible circumstance of human living. From high praise to low blues and everywhere in between. Because somewhere in between is where real hope lies.

Today’s song sings the blues and offers praise. The strange joining of lament and thanksgiving. Interestingly, most psalms have a little of both. And together a song and prayer of hope can be raised.

Psalm 40 is the testimony of one who says there is hope in God. She has waited patiently, hoped intensely for God and has been heard by God and lifted up out of despair. It is often not within our strength to get ourselves out of a desolate pit. The heart is just too heavy to lift us and the feet are just too weak to carry us. This song is a testimony of what God can do.

The psalmist sings of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. He prays that God will not withhold the mercy needed. He’s searching for a safe and secure place to rest his weary bones in God’s faithful love.

Though the desolate pit is where he lies at the moment, he knows God is faithful and will hear him and lift him up out of the mire, and set his feet upon a solid rock, making his steps firm in God’s instruction, and putting a new song in his mouth.

But right now he is unable to sing. If he tries the only sound will be his tears. Only the deep whispers of his heart, sighs too deep for words - that’s all he can muster at the moment. And God understands. One day though, one day, he knows he will sing again. Because God is faithful and will lift him up.

Such rising from desolate pits and miry bogs often requires patient waiting.

It’s how the ancient song begins - with the pregnant pause of patient waiting.

“I waited patiently.” Which means, “I waited and waited and waited and waited. I cried out to God from the depths of heart to come and lift me up out of my desolation and despair.”

And in the mysterious ways of God and the human spirit, patient waiting was required.

What does it mean to wait?

Rarely is biblical waiting a passive activity. Sometimes it is done alone in silence, but not always.

One of the least favorite places in a hospital is the waiting room. If someone we love is having surgery, the waiting we do there is rarely passive. Our heart descends into our stomach. We pray intensely for our loved one’s well-being.

Waiting is often active. It is an act of faith, hoping intensely in God with every fiber of our being. And we have the strength to wait better when others are with us.

I wonder if such an active waiting was not part of Jesus’ invitation to Andrew?

In our gospel lesson, two invitations are offered.

The first invitation is to search our hearts.

Looking over his shoulder and seeing John’s disciples following him, Jesus turns and asks, “What are you looking for?” This is a question we manage well most of the time: “Oh, I’m looking for my keys or my cell phone. I’m looking for something to wear.”

However, when Jesus asks the question it disarms us and makes us feel uncomfortable. What can we answer? “I’m looking for whatever it takes to get me through the day. I’m looking for meaning in my work. I’m looking for love and happiness and home. I’m looking for justice and peace in the world” (though nothing would startle us more than actually finding them!) Jesus’ question reminds us how little we reflect on our searchings.

In the time of patient and hopeful waiting we search our hearts and see if we can discover why we are in despair. How did we fall so far? Who turned the lights out? Did we take a wrong turn? Sometimes there are no answers. But sometimes we can find clues.

Sometimes our desolation is the pit of lost wandering. We don’t know what we’re looking for. We have no sense of direction. And we find ourselves despairing of purpose and meaning.

At the very beginning of this story, John the Baptist introduces Jesus to his disciples as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

It is enough to peak their curiosity.

And it is a fine introduction to Jesus. For he came to embody God’s forgiving grace. And if you search your desolate heart and find that you are buried in the pit of sin and guilt, then in Jesus you have found what you are looking for: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Patient, hopeful waiting calls for us to search our hearts for what we are really looking for.

Jesus offers a second invitation.

First Jesus asks “What are you looking for?
Then Andrew asks, “Where are you staying?
And Jesus says, “Come and see.”

Pastor Lillian Daniels says about this conversation: “Jesus has gone from being the Lamb of God to a guy having some other guys over at his place.” [2] I’m sure it’s to watch the NFL Conference Championship games.

Or is this something more?

On one level, the disciples truly want to know where Jesus is staying. But with the language John uses here he wants us to know they are really asking, “Jesus, where are you abiding?”

Abiding. A good Johannine word. It travels all through the gospel. We are told early in chapter one that Jesus abides close to the heart of God. That is his deepest residence. Jesus wants us to know it can be our ours too.

“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks.
“Where are you abiding?” The disciples want to know.
And Jesus responds with an invitation: “Come and see.”

“Come and see” invites us to a place we have never been. It is an invitation to spend time with Jesus as you search for your heart’s deepest longing, your life’s truest abiding place.

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus urges his disciples to “abide in me as I abide in you.” Jesus offers himself to John’s disciples as the place for them to abide.

Part of what it means for us to wait is to spend time in the waiting room where Jesus abides, resting in his presence, prayerfully searching, allowing God to strengthen us and raise us up out of our pit, making our steps secure.

Waiting, searching, abiding is holy, necessary work. And in the waiting, searching, abiding, God comes to us with a new song and new life.

And then we sing and we testify to others of what God has done for us.

The psalmist tells the glad news of deliverance with unrestrained lips to the congregation. He has shared of God’s faithfulness, salvation and love.

When Andrew found in Jesus the one his heart had longed for, the first thing he did was to go and tell his brother Simon Peter, “Simon, we have found the Messiah.

What about you? What story of deliverance do you have to tell?

When has God lifted you up out of a desolate pit and miry bog?

When has God set your feet upon a rock and made your once frail steps now secure?

When has God put a new song in your mouth?

Tell some one about it. Because you can be sure that there are those even now in a pit of desolation and despair, waiting to be lifted up, wanting to know if there is reason for hope. The testimony of your life can lead others to place their trust in God.

Part of your testimony and song is to tell of God’s deliverance.

Another part of your testimony and song is to live a life of faithfulness, taking delight in God’s will.

Sometimes it may be our inability to discern God’s will, our confusion that has us mired down. However, if we will search our hearts and abide in Jesus and wait patiently in hope for God, a word will come and guide our steps.

The testimony of our lives is to live in trust and dependence upon God, listening for God’s instruction, walking with feet willing to do God’s will.

The psalmist reminds us that there will be other gods tempting us to go astray, leading our feet into ungodly places. God wants those who delight to do God’s will, those whose obedience is not just external, but springs from a heart upon which God’s law is engraved. The proper sacrifice is the offering of the obedient self.

Tomorrow we honor the life, work and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One who knew a great deal about desolate pits and miry bogs. On the night before he died, with threats breathing down his neck, King offered these now famous words of hope. He said,

I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.

Another prophet of another day, a prophet named Isaiah, says that to do God’s will is to live like King, as a servant of God, giving one’s life as a light in a world where it sometimes seems the light has gone out. Snuffed out by hatred and bigotry, self-seeking greed and pride.

We are called to walk in the light of God’s will, living lives of love and compassion, serving the world around us, singing our song of testimony as witnesses to God’s saving help.

That is the song from the ancient hymnbook of Israel.

There’s another song in a less-than-ancient hymnbook that mirrors the one from the psalmist. It goes like this:

In loving-kindness Jesus came
My soul in mercy to reclaim
And from the depths of sin and shame
Through grace he lifted me.

From sinking sand he lifted me
With tender hand he lifted me
From shades of night to plains of light
O praise his name, he lifted me.

When you find yourself in despair: Wait patiently. Search deeply. Come and abide in the heart of God. And God will hear you and lift you out of despair. God will draw you up out of the desolate pit and miry bog and set your feet upon a rock and make your steps secure. God will put a new song in your mouth. A song of testimony and praise to the God who is faithful. And in the brightness of God’s new day we will live as God’s servant, as a light in a desolate world.

_______________

1. Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, Intervarsity, 2004, 123
2. Lillian Daniels, “Grand introductions,” The Christian Century, January 2-9, 2002, 19