This Too Shall Pass
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1 Peter 5:10-11
“This Too Shall Pass”
Post-Easter Series: “Feed My Sheep”
We’re at that time of the year in the Deep South when weather systems tend to collide with one another, creating the most calamitous conditions in terms of both people and property. Tomorrow, for example, marks the beginning of the hurricane season, and as I understand it, forecasters are predicting an above-average season for hurricanes this year, which should not surprise us at all. If the 2020 hurricane season goes like everything else has gone in this remarkably troublesome year, then we’d better be prepared to “batten down the hatches,” as they say.
But you have to admit that if we were asked to choose between a hurricane and a coronavirus, most of us would go with the hurricane. I know I would. Why is that so? Because a hurricane comes and goes. Yes, its damage is significant and no one should ever minimize its disruptive power. But a hurricane always passes about as quickly as it comes; and unlike a coronavirus that lingers for who knows how long, we can hunker down or evacuate or do what we have to do for a relatively brief period of time, while this coronavirus madness has gone for much longer than any of us would ever have imagined.
When challenging times come, times that tax our resolve and patience, it’s always a good thing for us to have somewhere we can turn for support, a source of strength that can restore us when all the props have been knocked out from under us and empower us when our weakness has been exposed.
That was the assurance Simon Peter gave to the new converts under his watchcare as he brought his first letter to them to a close. First Peter, an orientation manual for new Christians, trumpeted the living hope that is ours through our faith in the Risen Jesus, a hope that does not give way in the face of the most challenging of this life’s trials and tribulations.
If you go back and look at the lessons we’ve gleaned from our journey through 1 Peter over these last Sundays since Easter, you’ll see how that promise is the thread that runs through every chapter of the letter. God’s living hope sustains us in the face of whatever hard times come our way.
Now, as Peter ends his instruction, he wants to leave his readers with the most encouraging promise of them all – the promise that all of the hard times we’ve ever known or will ever know, though they seem sometimes as if they’ll never pass, in fact will. God will see to it that they pass. And in the meantime, as we are called upon to deal with them, God will grant us the grace that we need to hold up in the face of every single one them and stay strong, firm, and steadfast until all of them, including this latest one, are over.
If you widen your lens and take into consideration the verses that precede this one, you’ll notice that to this point the response of the believers to the hard times that have come upon them has not been good. The hard times have created a “me first, survival of the fittest” mentality, where believers have not bothered to consider their responsibility to one another. The elders in the church, those believers who had been following Jesus longer than most of the others, were not taking their support of the newer ones as seriously as they should. Meanwhile, the newer believers were not showing their elders the respect they were due. Peter could see that such an attitude would not bode well for the church’s future, that it was precisely what the devil was using to sew seeds of discord, suspicion, and self-centeredness among the believers; and so, while Peter does warn them about the devil’s tricks and temptations, he saves most of the attention for the power that God freely provides all believers so that they might not lose heart but come together to support one another when the hard times come their way. It is a power, Peter says, that is inexhaustible, and one that endures no matter what seeks to stop it. “And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power forever and ever, Amen.”
Power is one of those things in life that we tend to take for granted…until it is taken away. How many times, for example, after a storm has passed has your power gone out at your house, but you’ve still gone into a room and flipped a light switch anyway, just because you’re accustomed to having it? And then, when it comes back on, what do you do? If you’re like most people, you feel this elation in your heart that makes you want to shout. And sometimes we do. Sometimes we shout out to others in the house, “The power’s back on! The power’s back on!” even though everyone in the house can see that it is just as much as we.
There was a time in Simon Peter’s life where he certainly felt the need to lift his voice in celebration of the power that had come on at a time when far too many folk were living in spiritual darkness. It was on the day of Pentecost, the day we are marking today, the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers in Jerusalem, empowering them to bear witness to the light of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ that had now been made available to everyone who would receive it.
Most people believe that the miracle of Pentecost was that these unlearned disciples were able to proclaim the good news of Jesus in a way that everyone gathered that day for the Festival could comprehend in his own language. And certainly that was a part of what made the day special. But for me, the greater miracle was that the power that had come upon them would never leave them, but would instead abide with them to see them through whatever difficulties would be coming their way. Read the rest of the book of Acts and see how the Holy Spirit continued to empower the apostles to be strong and firm and steadfast, regardless of the challenges that came their way.
Perhaps you’re here this morning and you’re feeling powerless in the face of some challenge that has come upon you in this tumultuous season we’re going through. You’ve given it your best shot. You’ve done everything you’ve known to do to manage the situation. You’ve tried harder in this season than in other season you can remember. But things have just gone on for too long. And you find yourself struggling to keep going.
On this Pentecost Sunday, have you thought about how the power of the Holy Spirit might do for you what you aren’t able to do for yourself? Have you considered the difference that the same “power from above” that the Risen Jesus had promised the disciples would descend upon them might also come upon you to help you hold up and even outlast the hard time that has come against you?
You’ve heard the old saying, “Hard times never last, but hard people always do?” I remember growing up with that saying, and I can’t say that it’s entirely true. Some hard times are just more than we can handle. But what I also know is that while at times it really does seem that hard times will never end, the people who find their help in the Risen Jesus will always have the power that is necessary to endure them.
Max Lucado is a preacher and author I’m sure most of you are familiar with. In one of his sermons, he tells the story of a boy named Paul, who grew up in West Texas, where spring and summer storms are just a fact of life. One day, sure enough, a tornado touched down near Paul’s home. He was only three or four years old at the time. At the first hint of trouble, Paul’s father had gone out and hustled all the children inside the house, like he was rustling his herd of cattle. He then laid them and their mother on the floor together and covered them with a mattress. His father explained they would be safe there.
But as they waited out the tornado, Paul suddenly realized that his father had not climbed under the mattress with the rest of the family. So, he peeked out from the mattress to discover his dad standing at the window, watching the funnel cloud turn and twist across the prairie.
When Paul saw his father by the window, he crawled out from under the mattress, and ran over to where he was and wrapped his arms around his father’s leg.
The tornado passed and the family suffered no damage. But the memory stayed with them and they talked about that day often. And any time anyone else in the family dared to ask Paul why he had ventured out from the mattress when everyone else had hunkered down beneath it, Paul would always explain, “Something just told me that the safest place to stand in a storm was next to my father” (In the Eye of the Storm, pp.201-202_.
We’re in the midst of a storm right this very moment. And how much longer it will last, I can’t tell; and neither can anyone else.
But I can tell you this: God is greater than the storm, and if you stand next to Him and cling to Him, His grace and power will see you through. It will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. So, find your rest in the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ. For to Him belongs the power. He will have the last word…forever and ever, Amen.