Today we are going to talk about trusting God in the days of crisis in our lives. We are calling this series of sermons "Days of Passion". They remind us of the sufferings that our Lord endured leading to and including his death on the cross. Yet as we said last week, we as well have our days of passion, our own experiences of pain and suffering. Thomas a’ Kempis said, "Realize to know Christ you must lead a dying life." That ability to know Christ and a dying life comes when we experience trouble, crisis, failure and despair.

What is a crisis? Webster’s defines crisis as a "turning point in the course of anything, a decisive or crucial time, stage or event." We define a crisis in our life by the way we feel during a critical event. One expert on persons in crisis describes them as "having uncontrolled emotional expressions, disorganized thoughts, anxiety and fatigue" (Helping a Neighbor in Crisis p. 9) When we find ourselves in a crisis we discover that we are beyond our normal ability to cope with the situation and we need someone to help us cope and get through the crisis.

While there are may ways we as humans can help someone and ourselves get through a crisis, the most essential yet most difficult will be to turn to God. God uses the days of crisis in our life to bring us closer to himself. Rick Warren says, ""Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days—when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you are out of options, when the pain is great—and you turn to God alone. We learn things about God in suffering (crisis) that we can’t learn any other way." (Purpose Driven Life, p. 194). But we won’t know God’s power and presence unless we trust him in and through our crisis.

There is no other person in the Gospels who on a true human level shows us what it means to trust God in days of crisis other than Mary the mother of Jesus. Besides Jesus and the disciples she is the one constant figure seen in the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We see her as a young woman, an unwed mother, a young wife and mother, a parent of a young boy becoming a man, a widow, a mother of a celebrity, a mother of an executed criminal and a mother whose son shows himself to be truly the Son of God. Through all those events Mary lived out the words of the Psalmist and thought deeply about all God’s actions in her life. Throughout her life she would come to places where her only confession would be, "Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is as great as our God?" (Psalm 11:13). How could she say this? Because she experienced the truth that the crisis she faced was never greater than the God she trusted.

The days of crisis of Mary’s life demanded a lot from Mary. What did those days ask of her and what will our days of crisis ask of us?

Mary’s days of crisis demanded from her to believe the impossible. (Luke 1:26-38). When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary telling her of God’s choice of her to bear His Son her response was clear, "How will this be since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34). It was fine for her to be favored by God but to be asked to do something biologically impossible caused her to ask some questions. After Gabriel explained it to her, her response was one of trust and surrender. "I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said" (Luke 1:38).

In her crisis Mary was asked to believe the impossible. Our times of crisis will ask the same for us. Crisis will put us in a place where our faith is pushed to believe the impossible. We will be invited in our days of crisis to believe that God is God and we are not, that what is humanly impossible is possible with God. Gabriel told Mary, "Nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37). We are asked to believe that a stroke victim can recover, that a job will be found, that a child will survive, that a marriage can be restored. Whatever your crisis is, it brings you to a place where you are invited to believe that God is in charge of the impossible.

If Mary’s first crisis was the events surrounding the birth of her child, her next crisis came before the child could probably walk. Matthew records the story of the wise men coming to look for Jesus and to do so they first went to Jerusalem to Herod, the Jewish king. Out of jealousy and fear Herod orders the death of all the males in Bethlehem two years old and younger. God sent an angel to Joseph telling him to take Mary and the child Jesus to Egypt. " ‘Get up,…take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt…(Matt. 2:13-14) Later, when Herod had died and it was safe to return the angel came again and said, " ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel." (Matt. 2:20-21)

On both accounts Mary simply obeyed what her husband said yet you wonder if there were not moments of confusion. She was the one who had sung to Elizabeth her cousin of God’s might and power over all wicked rulers. Now, here she was running away to a land and a culture that was not only foreign but also hostile to her faith. Can you imagine the confusion in her mind and her heart? In spite of the confusion and doubt she trusted that God was fulfilling His plan and purpose.

Our days of crisis will do something similar for us. Our days of crisis will give us the opportunity to trust God through our confusion and what we can’t understand. When we encounter our crisis we ask, "Why?" We will seek for rational explanations for things for which there are no human answers. It is in those days that God offers us the opportunity to trust though we can’t understand. George Everett Ross says there are two kinds of faith that Christians have: one says "if" and the other "though." "If" says, "If things go well then I will trust." "Though" says, "Though things do not go well, I will trust." Crisis allows us the chance to see what kind of faith is ours. "Though" trusts through the confusion.

When Jesus was twelve years old Mary experienced another crisis. This crisis came as the culmination of everything that God had asked for her, for it caused her to accept what she knew as inevitable—Jesus really wasn’t hers but God’s. That time came when they had gone to Jerusalem as a family and in all the confusion of the events Jesus had stayed behind. Fearing he was lost, Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem. Upon finding him Mary asked somewhat irritated, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." (Lk.2:48) Jesus’ response was "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house? But they did not understand what he was saying to them." (v. 49) Jesus’ words confront Mary with what she knew was true and inevitable—her son was the Son of God. And with that inevitability came the reality that she was losing Him to a destiny she could not control.

Our days of crisis ask us to believe and to trust but they also may demand that we face the inevitable. It was inevitable that Jesus would fulfill God’s destiny for his life and that would include his death. Crisis has a way of making us face some things that are inevitable: the surgery is necessary, they don’t love me anymore, there’s nothing more to be done, and the conflict has to come. Some things just don’t go away because life just doesn’t go away. It’s just inevitable. That doesn’t mean we throw our hands up in defeat but we offer our hands to God to accept what we cannot change. Luke says that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus meant (Luke 2:50) but that in spite of that Mary did what only a mother could do. She "treasured all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51). There are just some things we can’t change and have to accept.

As Jesus became a man and began his public ministry Mary, I’m sure, at first was thrilled. Yet it wasn’t long before it was obvious things were out of hand. Mark records that at the peak of Jesus’ ministry and popularity that Jesus and the disciples were so busy that they didn’t have time to eat. Mark writes, "When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." (Mark 3:21) Isn’t it just like a mother to worry about things like that? My Mom used to say to me, "You are just snowed under aren’t you?" Mary may have taken it a step further and felt that the stress was causing her son to lose touch with reality. Her solution was to bring him more.

After she and her other sons arrive Jesus is told that they are outside looking for him. Jesus says in response, "Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:33-35) Put yourself in Mary’s place. All Jesus’ response did was confirm, "He’s not himself!" How could he reject me?" Mary was left to do only one – struggle with what she couldn’t explain.

Crisis confronts us as well with things that don’t fit our categories. You know we have everything pretty well set about how life ought to be and then crisis comes and we are left to struggle with what we can’t explain. This is especially true with those we love the most. Life just happens and we can’t put it in its place. No matter how much we beat on that square peg, it isn’t going in that round hole. One writer said, "If knowing answers to life’s questions is necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables—of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair" (Reaching for the Invisible God, p. 61). Crisis leaves us with the truth that we sometimes struggle with what we can’t explain.

Whatever the previous days of crisis may have been for Mary none were like the day of his crucifixion and death. We don’t know when she came to Jerusalem for the Passover. We don’t know how much of Jesus’ arrest, trial and scourging she witnessed. What we do know is that she followed him to the cross. She was not alone but she was there and Jesus knew she was there. John records, "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home." (John 19:25-27) Mary saw her son die.

I can’t even imagine what Mary felt to watch Jesus die. There are so many of you here who have had a child die from the unborn to an adult and I dare not even attempt to describe how you feel. What I do know is that you understand what Mary felt when her crisis demanded she endure what she thought she couldn’t survive. Thirty-three years before she was told that because of this child "a sword would pierce your own soul" (Luke 2:35). Now the nails and spear had pierced his hands, feet and side and she felt every pain. Life would seem to end but she would choose to endure.

Your crisis may never be the gravity of the death of a child but it does make it seem like you can’t go on. It asks us, though, to endure, to live through, what we thought we couldn’t survive. That is the testimony of so many of you. Your stories are ones of endurance that no matter how many minor keys and chords have been struck in your life you have played on. Those notes may be the blues or sometimes a symphony but the music continues to be played through your life. Crisis asks you to endure what we think we can’t.

How did Mary go on? How do we go on? Her days and our days of crisis ask us to believe, trust, accept, struggle and endure. Yet they do something more that underlies them all and that is to confess. What did Mary confess with her life and what do we confess with ours? Days of crisis create a confession that the crisis we face is never greater than the God we trust. How do I know this for Mary? Because Mary’s story doesn’t end at the cross. The last place Mary is mentioned in scripture is in Acts 1:14. There Luke records that in the days following his resurrection Mary had gathered with other believers waiting for the fulfillment of his promise of the Holy Spirit. "They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers." (Acts 1:14)

I do not know when or how but somewhere Mary met her resurrected son who was now her Risen Savior. She lived through what she thought she could not endure because he had changed every darkness into light, every hopeless circumstance into hope. She had become because of his resurrection as Jurgen Moltman says, "A prisoner of hope." She would confess that she had witnessed from her days of the depth of her crisis that no crisis was greater than the God she trusted! That will be our confession as well: Because of the resurrection of Jesus the crisis we face is never greater than the God we trust. Many knew at last that truly, "Nothing is impossible with God."

Phillip Yancey tells the story of his wife Janet with a nursing home patient named Betsy. Janet goes each week to a nursing home and works with the residents. Betsy is one of those who have Alzheimer’s. Janet discovered that while there were many things Betsy could not do she could read. So each week Janet began calling on her to read a hymn. "One Friday the senior citizens, who prefer older hymns they remember from childhood, selected "The Old Rugged Cross" for Betsy to read. ‘On a hill far away stands an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame,’ she began, and stopped. She suddenly got agitated. ‘I can’t go on! It’s too sad! Too sad!’ she said. Some of the seniors gasped. Others stared at her, dumbfounded. In Years of living at the home, not once had Betsy shown the ability to put words together meaningfully. Now, obviously she did understand. Janet calmed her: ‘That’s fine, Betsy, You don’t have to keep reading if you don’t want to.’ After a pause, though, she started reading again, and stopped at the same place. A tear made a trail down each cheek. ‘I can’t go on! It’s too sad!’ she said, unaware she had said the same thing two minutes ago. She tried again, and again reacted with a sudden shock of recognition, grief, and the exact same words.

"Since the meeting had drawn to a close, the other seniors gradually moved away, heading for the cafeteria or their rooms. They moved quietly, as if in church, glancing over their shoulders in awe at Betsy. Staff workers who had come to rearrange the furniture stopped in their tracks and stared. No one had ever seen Betsy in a state resembling lucidity.

"Finally, when Betsy seemed tranquil, Janet led her to the elevator to return her to her room. To her amazement Betsy began singing the hymn from memory. The words came in breathy, chopped phrases, and she could barely carry the tune, but anyone could recognize the hymn.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross

The emblem of suff’ring and shame.

"New tears fell, but this time Betsy kept going, still from memory, gaining strength as she sang.

And I love that old cross where the dearest and best

For a world of lost sinners was slain.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,

Till my trophies at last I lay down;

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

And exchange it some day for a crown.

"Somewhere in that tattered mind, damaged neurons had tapped into a network of old connections to resurrect a pattern of meaning for Betsy. In her confusion, two things only stood out: suffering and shame. Those two words summarize the human condition, the condition she lives in every day of her sad life. Who knows more suffering and shame than Betsy? For her, the hymn answered that question: Jesus does." (Reaching for the Invisible God, p. 286, 287)

If you cry out of pity you missed the point of the story. The point of the story is that God proves in Mary’s Son that there is nothing we face that he is not greater. We will exchange the days of our passion, our crisis for a crown because God didn’t stop at the cross but only at an empty tomb! I do not know what days of crisis you face. All I do know is that God is greater than them all. All he asks of you ultimately is to trust him.

"I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy.

© Sunday, March 21, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org