John 19:16b-30
“So they
took Jesus; 17 and carrying the cross by himself, he went out
to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew[d] is called Golgotha. 18 There
they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus
between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put
on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth,[e] the King of the Jews.” 20 Many
of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified
was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew,[f] in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then
the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the
Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate
answered, “What I have written I have written.” 23 When the
soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four
parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was
seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24 So they said to
one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.”
This was to fulfill what the scripture says,
“They
divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.”
and for my clothing they cast lots.”
25 And that is what the soldiers did.
Meanwhile,
standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary
the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his
mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his
mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the
disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into
his own home.
28 After this, when Jesus knew that all
was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29 A
jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine
on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus
had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and
gave up his spirit.”
This is the
Gospel of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, The Word of God for the People of
God. Thanks be to God.
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I love Peanuts. My uncle and cousins often farm peanuts, and my dad works
with them on the farm, so I have a lot of experience with the edible kind, but in this
particular instance I’m referring to the comic strip and animated television
series created by Charles Schultz featuring a boy named Charlie Brown-that
lovable, hapless, unlucky fellow that most of us have been able to relate to at
some point in time in our lives.
Several
years ago, I cut out a Peanuts comic that appeared in the Sunday paper,
featuring Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt.
The comic strip had a place in several of my offices before eventually
getting displaced in one of our moves.
In this particular strip, Lucy was playing with…you guessed it, a
football. Charlie walks by, determined not to pay attention, but Lucy manages
to not only lure poor Charlie Brown in, but cleverly convinces him that this
time, this first and one time, she will finally let him kick the football. Charlie, bless his heart, takes the
bait. You can see the determination in
his eyes. This is going to be the
time. This will be the best kick
ever. He is going to give it his all
and make it just as perfect as he’s always envisioned this moment being.
Charlie
takes several steps back in order to get a running start, and begins charging
at full speed towards the football that Lucy is holding. He readies himself to kick, and of course,
the inevitable happens. Lucy snatches
the ball out of the way just as poor Charlie is about to kick it, and the force
of Charlie’s kick sends him flipping through the air at warp speed, where he
eventually lands flat on his back, devastated and defeated. Lucy walks off, smirking that some
blockheads never learn, and the final frame of the comic shows our beloved
Charlie Brown, still flat on his back, pondering, “How long, oh Lord, how
long?”.
You’re a
good man, Charlie Brown, because we’ve all been there at some point in our
lives. I’ve always said that Charlie
Brown may have had a hard time as a kid but he was probably a better prepared
adult for it. Charlie learned pretty
quickly that life’s not always fair, and well, those poor souls like Lucy may
have had a hard lesson to learn when things went south the first time later on
in life.
I learned
pretty early on that things don’t always go your way. Twenty years ago, my brother became a
father-to a beautiful baby girl. Now, I
was particularly close to my brother, so the birth of his first child was a
pretty exciting thing for me-especially since it was a girl and we had already
been blessed with two nephews. I saw her
twice right after she was born. I fell
head over heels in love, and Bo was flat out silly over her. She was
perfect. Absolutely wonderful. But, the relationship between her parents
wasn’t. And a few weeks after she was
born, her mother left with her and went home to North Carolina. We were all no doubt crushed and devastated at
the idea of her being so far away from us, but Bo made the best of it, making
frequent trips to see her and spend time with her. But it didn’t last. He went not long after her first birthday
only to find that she and her mother were gone. We didn’t hear any more from them and we
didn’t know where they were. Various
efforts were made to find the child throughout the years, but nothing ever
turned up. For years, I bought birthday
and Christmas presents, just in case we found her-I didn’t want her to think we
didn’t love her or had forgotten her.
We, especially Bo, were heartbroken, so much so that her existence was
rarely ever mentioned after a while, because the memories were just too
painful.
Life’s not
fair. I know it’s not. I’m literally sitting in it right now-for the
second time in a year. You know it as
well as I do. Things go wrong. Plans go awry. People do stupid things. We get smacked around. To quote Forrest Gump,
it happens. We’ve all had our hopes
raised, only to be dashed. Maybe it was
a promotion you worked hard for and deserved-perhaps even a job loss. Maybe it was a trip that cancelled. Maybe an illness or injury. Perhaps it’s the loss of a loved one
unexpectedly. Maybe an unexpected
financial loss. The car broke down, the
central unit went out, the roof needs replacing. That stuff.
It doesn’t take but a quick glance at the news to see the unrest in the
world around us. Shootings, war, greed,
slavery, acts of nature, tragedy. Eventually, you find yourself at the point where you’re in absolute despair
and you just want to cry out “How long, oh Lord, how long!??!”
I suspect
Jesus’ followers felt the same way.
They had waited and waited some more.
Their hopes had been raised and then smashed on the ground time after
time. Their history had been a
chronology of failures- Moses and that stupid rock, Samson and that woman. Even David and Solomon had failed-and forget
their descendants-That bunch of hoodlums had landed their people in exile under the rule of Babylon and Persia, and now since only a
small percentage had returned to this land after the exile, they were spread
all over the known world. Then the
Greeks came in and tried to change their culture Now, the Romans were in charge, and they
certainly weren’t getting anywhere with them.
Then comes
this Jesus fellow. And he’s doing it
right. He seems to have God’s favor,
and a remarkable relationship with the Almighty at that-God even identifies him
as his Son! They’ve seen miracles. They’ve heard his teaching. People are drawn to him. And best of all, he hasn’t managed to screw
it up-he’s blameless! No accusation of
sin can stick to him! He is THE one
they’ve waited for, the one that was promised.
They know it. They feel it. They’re sure of it. The time has come. God is fulfilling His promise. God does indeed love His people! Hallelujah, Hosanna in the highest!!!
But wait. Just when he appears to be making his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, something goes wrong. He’s arrested. He’s put on trial. He’s beaten and mocked. God doesn’t even save Him when the crowd is given a choice between him a known violent criminal. He’s led up a hill, placed on a cross where he is further mocked and humiliated, and he suffers. Yes, he suffers-crucifixion is one of the most horrific manners of execution in human history. And then, like a book that is slammed shut, it’s over. He’s dead. It is finished. The sky turns dark, and their hopes are shattered into tiny little embers left to finish burning off in the ashes of what could have been. And his followers are left wondering, “How long, oh Lord, how long?”
One year and
one week ago, I got the urge to do a random search for a little girl that I had
not seen in 19 years. Every now and
then, the gut feeling to check and see if I could find anything else would hit
me so hard that I just had to do it-and the results were always the same-a
heart wrenching nothing. Another glimmer
of hope snuffed out, another reminder that life wasn’t fair. So, I began, preparing myself once again to
feel the hurt of not knowing. But this
time, something popped up-an obituary for her mother’s father, which led me to
a married name for her mother, and a Facebook page for another relative that
led me to another Facebook page belonging to a beautiful young woman- who had a
striking resemblance to me and my brother-holding an infant. And I knew, and hope began to glimmer just a
little stronger.
Now, a funny
thing happened next. After close to
twenty years of searching and wondering, I had the information I was looking
for-I had a location, a picture, a start! But all of a sudden, I didn’t know what to do
with it. It scared me, so badly, in
fact, that I went to a friend’s house that night (Brian was working the prom)
to show her the information and pictures I had found and to try to determine
what to do. You see the thing is, after
all that time feeling hopeless, love had kept that one little ember of hope
burning, and I was terrified that it might die out. I simply wasn’t sure how much more disappointment
my brother (or myself) could take on this matter. I wasn’t sure my brother would be willing to
take the chance. I didn’t know what she’d
been told, or if she would even want to know us. Suddenly, when it seemed all like it might be
about to happen and hope was at its highest, what could well be the end of all
of this, and not a pleasant one, became all too real. The truth was, if this went badly, it would
end and all would be lost.
Unbeknownst
to me, at the same time, 700 miles away in North Carolina , a 19 year old and
her fiancé were wondering why their three month old son was so long, when
neither of them are particularly tall individuals nor are their immediate
family members. She speculated that her
father might have been tall, but she just wasn’t sure. All she had was a name, and a location where
he was when she was born. She’d tried
before, but not with a lot of luck, and it was no wonder. After all, our last name is Johnson-there’s
only 29 million or so of us in the world-you can’t throw a stick without
hitting one of us. And, his given name is Ricky. Finding a specific “Ricky Johnson” in the
United States is basically the equivalent of finding a needle in a
haystack. They’re everywhere. But this time, she found one that gave her
reason to believe that he might be the one.
I gathered
all the information I could and prepared to broach the uncomfortable subject
with my brother for the first time in years.
I emailed him everything I knew on Thursday. On Sunday night, his phone rang-she had
found him before he’d been able to locate a contact method for her. By Wednesday, he was holding his grandson,
and having lunch with his daughter. And
since that week, I’ve gotten texts, pictures, emails and calls every week and
more often than not, every day. And I’ll
be more than happy to show off those pictures to you at any time.
I tell you
this today, to say this. Hope does not
die. It can’t die. It may be broken, beaten and whittled down to
a tiny little ember that’s barely glowing with life, but it will not die. There will be dark times, but that’s when
hope will shine the brightest, because the darker it is, the easier it is for
that faint light to be seen so it can lead the way. And it shines because love wins. Hope is connected to love, and it cannot die
because love wins. Do you hear me? Love wins.
Life isn’t
fair. I don’t understand why some things
are the way they are or why things happen the way they do. I can’t make sense of it. And it drives my little analytical brain
crazy. But I know the most important
thing. Two thousand years ago, when
heaven itself wept and the world was at its darkest, hope remained because God
loved us still, and that love won. Love
won. And God loves us still today, so love wins.
Easter is
coming, but it’s not here yet. In the
meantime, all is not lost. We are not
defeated. It’s always darkest before
the dawn, but if we wait and lean on that hope that is just barely clinging to
life, I just bet we will see love prevail once again.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
