Fred Craddock tells about a family that was taking a lovely Sunday afternoon drive, when suddenly the children began shouting, “Stop the car! There’s a kitten by the road!”
The father kept on driving, but his children wouldn’t quiet down. He tried to reason with them. The kitten was probably someone’s pet. It might have a disease. The family already had too many pets.
It did no good. The children insisted that a loving father would stop the car for a stray cat. So finally the father drove back to the spot and reached for the scraggly kitten. The ungrateful little beast scratched him! Fighting an instinct to strangle the kitten, the father packed it into the car and took it home.
Once at home, the children created a bed for the kitten out of their softest blankets. They fed the kitten droppers full of milk. They petted and fussed over the kitten. Soon, the kitten was purring and rubbing on family members, especially the father, as if he were its best friend.
The father looked at the scars on his hand left by the frightened and ungrateful kitten. Then he looked at the comfortable, well-fed kitten rubbing against his leg. Had he suddenly become more worthy of love? No. His intentions toward the cat had always been to do it good, not harm. Something had happened to the kitten that made it feel secure, loved, accepted.
How often does God try to bless us? And how often do we respond by scratching God’s hand? (1)
Today is the celebration of Christ the King. It’s ironic, don’t you think, that the Sunday before we begin our celebration of Advent, we are confronted in our lesson from the Gospel with a picture of Jesus dying on the cross. And yet the two are inseparable--Christmas and the cross. It is impossible to appreciate the events of Bethlehem except in the light of Golgotha. For the hand that reached down to bless our lives in the babe in the manger is indeed covered with scratches.
God loves us. That is where we must begin in understanding both the cross and the manger. God loves us.
A little boy in Florida lay in a hospital bed, his body riddled with cuts and bruises. His friend asked to hear his story.
The lad had been swimming in a local lake, when an alligator surfaced a few feet away. The boy’s mother spotted the alligator first. She ran for the lake and grabbed hold of her son’s arms just as the alligator wrapped its mouth around his leg. The mother won this crucial tug-of-war. The boy’s friend stared in gruesome fascination at the stitches in his legs. But the boy was more proud of the injuries to his arms.
He held out his skinny arms carpeted with bruises and announced, “These marks were made by my mom because she refused to let go.”
It reminds me of a Cece Winans’ song that came out about 8-10 years ago titled “Mercy said, ‘No.’” The chorus went something like this:
“Mercy said, ‘No, I’m not going to let you go. I’m not going to let you slip away. You don’t have to be afraid.’
“Mercy said, ‘No, sin will never take control.’ Life and death stood face-to-face. Darkness tried to steal my heart away. Thank you, Jesus. Mercy said, ‘No.’”
God refuses to let go of us. Why? Because God loves us.
Dr. Gary Nicolosi compares God’s love to the 1993 hit film, In the Line of Fire. Clint Eastwood plays Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan. Horrigan had protected the life of the President for more than three decades, but he was haunted by the memory of what had happened thirty years before.
Horrigan was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on that fateful November day in Dallas in 1963. When the assassin fired, Horrigan froze in shock. For thirty years afterward, he wrestled with the ultimate question for a Secret Service agent: Can I take a bullet for the President?
In the climax of the movie, Horrigan does what he had been unable to do earlier: he throws himself into the path of an assassin’s bullet to save the President. Secret Service agents are willing to do such a thing because they believe the President is so valuable to our country that he is worth dying for.
At Calvary the situation was reversed, says Dr. Nicolosi. The President of the Universe actually took a bullet for each of us. At the cross we see how valuable we are to God. (2)
God loves us. Every one of us. Young, old, rich, poor, whatever color or family background. And God is working to draw us unto Himself.
This means that God sees something in us worth saving. That’s amazing, isn’t it? God sees something in us worth saving. I wonder why? After all, we’re not all that great. I mean, human beings are capable of some incredibly stupid activities.
Did you see that allegedly true story about two duck hunters from Michigan?
One of them bought a new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500.00. He and his friend go duck hunting in upper Wisconsin. It’s mid‑winter, and of course all of the lakes are frozen. These two guys go out on the ice with their guns, a dog, and of course the new Navigator. They decide they want to make a natural looking open water area for the ducks to focus on, something for the decoys to float on.
Now making a hole in the ice large enough to invite a passing duck, is going to take a little more power than the average drill auger can produce. So, out of the back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a short 40-second fuse.
Now our two rocket scientists, afraid they might slip on the ice while trying to run away after lighting the fuse, decide on the following course of action: they light the 40-second fuse; then, with a mighty thrust, they throw the stick of dynamite as far away as possible.
Unfortunately their dog is a highly-trained Black Lab used for retrieving-- especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog takes off across the ice at a high rate of speed and grabs the stick of dynamite, with the burning 40‑second fuse, just as it hits the ice. The two men swallow, blink, start waving their arms and screaming at the dog to stop.
The dog, now apparently cheered on by his master, keeps coming. One hunter panics, grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with #8 bird shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused, then continues on. Another shot, and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused and of course terrified, thinks these two geniuses have gone insane. The dog takes off to find cover, under the brand new Navigator. The men continue to scream as they run. The red hot exhaust pipe on the truck touches the dog’s rear end, he yelps, drops the dynamite under the truck and takes off after his master. Then BOOM! The truck is blown to bits and sinks to the bottom of the lake. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered by the policy. The dog is okay . . . doing fine. (3)
I suspect this story is apocryphal, still, have you ever noticed that people do some really stupid things? And yet God sees something in us worth saving.
It’s an awesome thought. God sees something in us? Many of us think of ourselves like Linus in that old “Peanuts” cartoon.
Linus is looking at his hands one day. He says, “These are magnificent hands! These are hands that may create incredible works of art. These are hands that may one day shape the course of history. These are hands that may one day hold the future of the world!”
Lucy, the inevitable spoilsport walks over, looks at his hands, and says, “They’ve got jelly on them.”
My hands have jelly on them. Don’t yours? And yet God loves us. With all our imperfections, all our sins, God loves us. God sees something in us worth saving.
And that is why God sent Jesus.
Rev. Bill Hays has an analogy that speaks to me. He notes that analysts say that only about 5 percent of SUVs are ever taken off‑road--which means that you’re more likely to see a Range Rover at Starbucks, for example, than anywhere near a mountain lake.
And in these days of rising gas prices and fears over global warming, SUV owners sometimes face resentment for their decision to buy a rugged, off-road vehicle for driving through downtown suburbia.
Hays tells about a product he found at Target that the SUV owner can buy to escape any such criticism. It is called “Spray-on-Mud.” It is an aerosol can filled with high-quality mud, and a glue-like substance that makes it stick to the vehicle better. Spray-on-Mud makes it look as though you’ve been camping, four-wheeling, driving up mountains and down into ravines. It makes it look as though you use your vehicle for more than just car-pooling and commuting to work. (4)
Friends, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any spray-on mud. I’ve got plenty of my own. So do you. That is why Jesus came into this world and suffered and died. The story of Christ’s death on the cross is not out of place on this Sunday before the beginning of Advent. This is the real reason for the season, as the saying goes.
Jesus hangs on a cross between two thieves. One of them hurls insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebukes him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Friends, that second thief is you and me. We come this day confessing that without God’s love and mercy, we have no hope. But because God loves us, and because Jesus died for us, we have abundant hope about life, about death and about life beyond the grave.
In December 1997, a young man in West Paducah, Kentucky, took a gun to school and killed seven of his classmates. Parents came from all over the community, frantically praying a parents’ most heartfelt prayer: Not my child. Please don’t let anything happen to my child.
Timothy J. Kennedy tells the story of one mother whose prayer was not answered that day. Her son died in the shooting. In spite of her shock and grief, the mother didn’t hesitate when doctors ask if she would donate her son’s organs to someone else in critical need.
Many months pass, and the mother discovers that some of her son’s organs went to a Methodist pastor. She contacts him and asks to meet. The day of their meeting, the grieving mother and the grateful pastor talk and pray and celebrate the life of the precious son who died. And then the mother asks one last question: “Can I put my ear to your heart? Can I hear my son’s heart beating, one more time?” (5)
When God wants to hear His Son’s heart beat, God puts His ear to our chest. Christ died that we may live. That’s how loved we are. Aren’t you tired of living an inferior life? Are you ready to be the best you can be, for Christ’s sake? Your life matters. God’s grace covers even you.
1. As told by Will Healy, http://www.emmauschurch.org/wor‑sermons.htm.
2. http://www.stbartschurch.org/sermarch/2005/sb0320.html.
3. Http://my.execpc.com/~crnrstn/sermons/matt25_1‑13.htm.
4. http://revbill.wordpress.com/2006/01/07/genesis‑11‑5‑mark‑14‑11/.
5. http://grace‑lutheran‑church.com/sermons/2004/12/24.