Easter 2006

"God is closer than you think"

I am a big baseball fan. I follow baseball with a passion that is perhaps just shy of being obsessive. When I lived in Dallas Texas I would go to four or five Texas Ranger Baseball games a year. When the Mariners where in town I would go to as many games as I could. One time we were at the Ballpark and as the sun was setting I realized that I was having trouble seeing the ball. I looked up and the lights were on. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t see so well. So explained to Kendra I was having trouble seeing and she looked at me with loving amusement and said, “Bruce, you still have your sunglasses on.”

God is always there with us but there are times when we aren’t able to see as well as we normally do. Sometimes we are blind to the holy activity taking place in our midst. If we are lucky there will be someone who can lovingly look at us and remind us to take our blinders off.

Did you notice in the Gospel reading, that even after the Disciples had run to the tomb and Mary had been talking with Angels, she couldn’t see Jesus for who he was, it took the gentle word of saying her name for her eyes to be opened? Here she was in the midst of a miracle and she almost missed it. Wrapped up in her grief and her own expectations of the way things should be she almost missed God’s activity.

I find it remarkable when a scientist who studies the cosmos is unable to be filled with awe and wonder of God’s activity. There are some who get so wrapped up into the math and the theories and the questions about the nature of the physical universe they miss the miracles in their work. When you look at the stars aren’t you filled with awe and wonder? When you look at the cosmos don’t you begin to feel small in the midst of God’s wonderful creation?

Equally I find it remarkable that some who study genetics and micro biology, that they aren’t greatly humbled by God’s gift of life. Life is a gift that begins the simplicity of a cell. We can study cells, we can help them multiply and we can kill them, but we can’t create them. Life is a wonderful miracle.

As we have moved from an agricultural and rural society to an industrial and urban one, one of the miracles we have lost as a common experience is the miracle of birth in its many forms. One spring when I was a child our Cat was expecting a litter of Kittens. My sister must have been about five years old at the time and this Cat was her cat. She named it Mog after a cat in one of her story books. She fed Mog and Mog seemed to go wherever my sister went. One morning my sister awoke to a surprise in her bed, Mog had given birth to her kittens right there next to my sister as she slept. Mog seemed to have wanted my sister to be a part of the miracle of birth.

As a pastor I am occasionally asked to be present when people are near death. Like birth sometimes death can be a time of God’s grace being revealed to us. One occasion I was asked to come as the family had prayerfully made the decision to remove dad from the machines, which would likely end his life. We gathered together and prayed as we listened as his body took its final breathes. When the last breathe left his body we mourned but we also anticipated the miracle of new life, of resurrection. God’s grace was revealed as we considered the suffering that was over and the eternal joy that was beginning.

Are you ready for the truth? As John Ortberg has stated in his book, “God is closer than you think.” One of our failings as human people is that we believe so much in ourselves that we forget to notice the miracles God is performing around us all the time. Are you ready to notice the miracle of the immense size of God’s creation. God has created billions of galaxies and billions of stars in each galaxy and here we are on this one planet able to admire it all. Our life is dependent upon billions of cells working in harmony with each other. Skin cells, blood cells, tissue cells, nerve cells and many more all working so that we can enjoy life. We are able to witness the miracle of birth if we only open our eyes. We can witness the birth of new plants, or of new pets or of new members in our family.

We can even come to death with awe and wonder at God’s grace, because Jesus faced death, died on a cross, and miracle of miracles he rose again!

God is close if you are ready to notice. This is not a promise that things will always go the way we want them too. We are fragile creatures prone to disease and aging. I find it ironic that sometimes those who are most alive are those who are dying. My wife Kendra often talks fondly of her grandfather who she called “Pop.” When Kendra was about 10 years old Pop was dying of cancer. One summer he knew it would be his last and they had a great summer. They saw movies, they ate ice cream, Pop spent as much time with his granddaughter as he could. He was one who was faced with the reality that life is short and he wasn’t going to waste a moment. That time they shared together was a gift of Grace, a tangible sign of God’s love.

God is close if you are ready to notice. Take notice of the miracle of life and treasure it!