October 5, 2003
Read Hebrews 2:14-18
These are the words of neurosurgeon Mel Cheatham from his book (which
can be found in our church library), Living a Life That Counts:
I can still hear the words. Cold and real. Dropped into my lap without warning.
“You probably won't live beyond age fifty. You
should get your living done while you can.”
The doctor's voice echoed in my head. ... And everything in the room seemed
to slow down.
I was thirty. I was married with two small
children. As I tried to take all of this in, I
couldn't escape the irony that I was the doctor who did not want to accept
the truth. I was nine months into my neurological
surgery residency, looking forward to a career as a neurosurgeon and a future
with my wife Sylvia, and our son and daughter.
It was perhaps the saddest evening of my entire life.
It was also the beginning of an unexpected turn of events that has
since left me professionally exhilarated, emotionally exhausted, and personally
fulfilled beyond what I ever dreamed at the time.
Mel Cheatham’s book tells the story of a man who was set free of his fear
of death and so found that he was set free of his fear of life.
In our text this morning, we learn that Jesus died for us so that we could
be set free of our fear of death, a fear that has the power to hold us in
slavery.
That is the tragedy of the fear of death. It
is not just about the fear that can cloud our lives for a few years, or
a few months, or a few days before our own inevitable death. It goes far beyond the fear of that moment when the
last breath will escape from our lips. If we
are not set free from the fear of death, it will cloud our whole life. Fear of death will hold us in slavery and keep us
from living.
A story is told of an old hand pump that was attached to the top of a
deep well in the middle of a vast stretch of desert. On the pump were two
things. A bottle of water that was tightly capped. And an engraved message
on the side of the pump itself, which read:
Dear traveler. You have a choice to make. You are desperately thirsty.
You can take the bottle and try to make it across the rest of the
journey on that one bottle of water. However,
I warn you, without more water to fill your canteens, you will not make it
the rest of the way.
Or, you can resist the desire to preserve this water, Instead, pour the
water slowly in the top of the pump. It will
take the whole thing. Wait a few moments for
the dry cork sleeves of the plunger to swell, and then obtain all the clear,
cold water you can drink. Fill your canteens,
all of them to the top--for the journey ahead.
This little story illustrates the difference between the person who lives
his life as a slave to the fear of death and a person who lives his life
freed, not only from the fear of death, but from the corresponding fear of
life.
People who are afraid of death look at their life as a small bottle of
water. It’s their bottle.
It belongs to them. It’s all they have.
And their response to life is to try to preserve the water as long as
they can. As they trudge across the desert of
life, they are always thirsty, never satisfied, as they try to ration the
water on their journey.
On the other hand, a person who is set free from the fear of death is
also freed from the fear of life. A person who
is freed from death looks at his life, not as something to grasp and preserve, but as something to pour out, as something that belongs
to God. A person freed from death knows it is
only when he gives his life to God that God will turn it into an artesian
spring of blessings and true life.
Jesus on several occasions makes a statement that reflects these two ways
of living. In Luke 17:33, He writes: “Whoever
tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve
it.”
Turn with me to Luke 1:74. This is the prophecy
of Zechariah after the birth of his son--the man who would become known as
John the Baptist. He was prophesying about the
things Jesus would accomplish for his people: “.. to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to
serve him without fear in
holiness and righteousness before him all of our days.”
Jesus came so that we could serve him without fear. In other words, He
came so that we could live a kind of life that involved, not a desperate,
fearful attempt to control and hang onto a life we see as belonging to us,
but rather a kind of life we find only by relinquishing our lives to Him.
Going back to the story of the pump, we all know which is the right choice
to make. Certainly it makes sense to prime the pump so that you can get
all the water you need.
So what would keep us from making that obvious choice?
It would be the fear that the pump wouldn't work.
What if we pour the water down the pump, but the pump doesn't work. And so we throw away the little water that we had
in our hand. If we were faced with that choice, what would make it easier
to be confident that the pump will work?
If we had known someone who had taken the same journey, had primed the
pump, and finished their trek across the desert...If we had known someone
who had done that before we took
the journey, surely their experience would help us to make the right choice.
But I can think of something even better.
What if the person who had already made the journey once, had already
primed the pump before, was actually right there with us on the journey?
Then we would surely have even more courage to make the right choice.
Returning to our text in Hebrews 2, this is our situation. This is
why we can have the courage to lose our life and then find it. First, Jesus
took on our flesh and blood so that he could die the same death we die. Jesus
died the death of a human being. In dying a death like ours, he sealed the
destruction of Satan and stripped him of his power to hold people in slavery
to the fear of death.
Let me make a couple of quick clarifications here:
Hebrews 2 does not say that when Christ died, Satan was destroyed. It says that Christ's death insured that Satan would
be destroyed. The destruction of Satan was sealed
when Jesus Christ died. Hebrews 2 also does not say that when Jesus died,
death was destroyed. This is evident when we
look around. The statistics regarding death remain
impressive. One out of one.
No exceptions. It does say that when Jesus died, death’s enslaving hold,
which keeps us in fear, was broken, stripped of its power. Just as Satan
will ultimately be destroyed, so death will ultimately be destroyed. It will
be gone. It will be taken out of the dictionaries because it will no longer
be. 1 Corinthians 1 5:26 says, "The
last enemy to be destroyed is
death.”
But the emphasis here is that Jesus actually went through physical death--he has been there and done that. Then in verse 1:6 we have this little sentence: “For
surely it is not angels he
helps, but Abraham's descendants.” God helps angels. I could take you to scriptures where
we are told God helps angels. The author means he doesn't help angels as
he helps us.
God never became an angel.
God did become a human being.
Just how human did he become? In verses 17 and 18 we read: For this
reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might
become a merciful and faithful
high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.
He is leading us through territory that he has already conquered. That is why we don't have to fear. Jesus was also
tempted to hang on to his life. But at every point he did not. He laid down
his life in service to God and to minister to people.
And we can have the courage to do the same because of two tremendous
truths we see in this text.
1. He has already faced all we have faced and has conquered.
This does not mean that He has done exactly everything we have done; for
example, Jesus was never a CPA, or a policeman, or any number of other occupations.
But he faced all the temptations that we face in our lives.
Let’s think about some examples.
If we give our life to Jesus Christ, we will face being misunderstood
by other people./Did Jesus?
Big time. His own family once came to get Jesus when he was teaching because
they thought he had gone crazy. The religious leaders of the day told people
that he was of Satan.
If we give our life to Jesus Christ, we, too, will serve people in ways
that are costly to us.
Did Jesus?
Many times after long days, Jesus was called upon to continue to minister
to people even when he was tired. Jesus often stayed up all night to pray
and seek His Father's wisdom. Jesus gave up his comfortable life as a carpenter
and entered a world where he made a lot of enemies and encountered the rigors
of constant travel and poor living conditions.
If we give our lives to Jesus, we will likely suffer tragedy and loss
and grief.
Did Jesus?
Jesus' earthly father probably died during his teen years. One of Jesus'
best friends, undoubtedly a childhood playmate, his cousin John, was imprisoned
and beheaded because he was doing the right thing. Jesus knew the betrayal
of those who professed to love him. Every one
of his disciples left him at the moment of his greatest need.
If we give our lives to Jesus, we will have to speak the truth at times
that will make us very unpopular
and might even jeopardize our lives.
Did Jesus?
On several occasions he made people so mad they tried to seize him and
kill him.
During his entire three years of public ministry, some of the greatest
minds of his day dedicated themselves to trying to trip him up in his words
and actions in order to discredit him.
If we give our lives to Jesus, we may have to put ourselves at risk in
order to help other people.
Did Jesus?
Jesus embraced lepers. He put himself in the company of the great unwashed.
He healed people on the Sabbath, knowing full well he would incur the murderous
wrath of many.
As the text reads, “... he had to be made like his brothers in every
way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in
service to God.”
So we can have the courage to give our life away instead of trying to
preserve it because Jesus has already been through all the fears we will
ever encounter. It gives us great strength of heart and mind to know that
our leader, our savior, has faced it all before.
2. The second reason we can have courage is even better:
He is present with us as we go through what we go through, and he can
help us very effectively.
"Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those
who are being tempted.”
So we can pour our water bottle down the pump. Because not only has Jesus
done it before us, but he is with us this moment as we pour.
I want to relate to you a true story of a young, wealthy, suburban California
homemaker named Diane Bringgoid.
Her story illustrates how Jesus can give us the
strength to walk though any great difficulty because of His promise that
He will walk through it with us,
dramatically revealing what is true of all of our lives.
Again, by conquering our fear of death, Jesus also conquers something
even greater--our fear of life. He sets us free
from thinking of our lives as little bottles of water we need to preserve.
Instead we are free to place our lives in his hands, pour out our bottles--our
lives--into his hands and find His Life as abundantly flowing as an artesian
well.
Diane's husband was a young, ambitious attorney.
His skill and ability caused him to quickly become a partner in a
Ventura California law firm.
Diane had a career, too. She “retired” at
the birth of their first child to devote herself to being a wife and mother.
The Bringgold's net worth was increasing rapidly. Not only in money but in
things far more valuable. First there was Scott. The
spitting image of his father. Loved to hunt with Dad. Loved sports. Played
sports. Breathed sports. Adored as a first child, a cherished son.
Then three years later, a daughter, Mary. Very serious. Liked to turn
Mother's kitchen into a cooking club. Five or six third graders messing
up Mom's kitchen. And making Mom feel included
in their adventure.
And three years later, a second daughter, Laura. Brunette. Affectionate.
Loved her brother and sister. Shared a bedroom
with them until another room was added.
Everything changed on a Monday.
Bruce, Diane, Scott, Mary, and Laura were seated snugly inside a Cessna
210 with friends Jim and Virginia Dixon. They
had just spent a weekend with close friends at their vacation home near
Mt. Shasta in Northern California.
They had planned to leave Saturday, but the weather prevented it. By Monday
afternoon, the low overcast was clearing as they took off. But as quickly as the sky had seemed to clear, the
low-lying clouds moved in again. As a worried Bruce tried to make his flight
path follow the outline of Highway 5, a thousand feet below, Diane grew more
quiet, more tense.
Suddenly they had no visibility. Then came
the moment that changed her life. A moment without
warning of what the next 20 years would bring. A
moment only Diane, herself could describe, as she does in the following excerpt:
“Oh my God, Bruce, the trees!”
I screamed. Bruce, at the controls, saw them
too. Instantly, he reacted, banking the plane sharply left, but not in time
to avoid the onrushing mountain.
I remember the crash landing did not seem as rough as I expected. Then...it
was all over...the end....the end of everything...nothing ....
I don't know how long I was unconscious, but probably no more than a few
moments. Suddenly, I was aware of the flames bursting out from below the
instrument panel. I still had my seat belt on, but I had slid down in my seat. Bruce was leaning on top of me.
He wasn't moving. There was no sound at
all in the plane except the crackling of flames. They
were searing my legs, my hands, my face. Somehow,
wriggling and squirming, I got my seat belt unfastened, and pushed Bruce
off me. He still did not move.
I slid out the open door and crawled away from the plane second before
the gas tanks exploded.
I crawled away from the flames and behind a large rock to die. There I
placed the back of my hands on the snow-covered rock to ease my pain. I wished
it were colder so I could freeze to death quickly.
Suddenly something caused me to look up. About eight or ten feet away,
I saw a white-robed figure. THE figure was radiant,
but the radiance did not dispel the fog. It seemed to be a man, though I
couldn't distinguish His features clearly. Somehow
I knew it was the Lord.
“Diane.” His voice was
warm but full of authority. “It is not up to you to decide whether to live
or die. That decision is Mine alone to make.”
I don't know why, but somehow I was not surprised that He was there with
me, that He was speaking to me. I wanted Him to know that I really couldn't
go on living. “Lord, that's easy for you to say, but I can't face being widowed,
being childless, and being badly burned. Two out of three maybe, but not
all three.”
I wasn't trying to bargain with Him. I did not expect Him to restore my
husband or my children or to heal me, although He could have. I just wanted
Him to know it was the combination of circumstances that had overwhelmed
me.
He remained silent, as if He were waiting for me to continue. “Lord,”
I said “if you want me to live, I will give you my life. I will give you
my problems. You will have to cope with the pain, the loneliness, and with
the grief. I can't.”
Still he did not speak, but such love flowed from Him that I knew He would
care for me-- that he would handle the grief, the pain, the loneliness. I
knew that I was in His care and that everything would be all right...As suddenly
as he had appeared, the Lord was no longer there. I don't know how long
He had been with me on the mountain--a few minutes or a few seconds. Time
was unimportant.
Diane had been burned over 30 percent of her body. All of her family was
dead.
For ten years after the accident, Diane remained alone. She experience
loneliness, anger, and moments of wanting to give up. But always in her loneliness
and anger, in her times of doubt and uncertainty, she turned to God, asking
for His help, His guidance, and found her prayers answered. This was not a storybook ending, but a long-term
chapter of being human and remaining humble. Her greatest fear was standing
up in front of an audience and telling her story. Yet, over the last 20
years, she has stood before hundreds of groups, telling audiences what has
been given to her to share with them:
"Most of us are raised to be self-reliant. As long as we handle things,
we don't need His love. Yet, now that you've heard my story, you know that
I have no other option than to live the rest of my life for Him."
We conquer our fear of life when we realize, as Diane did as she lay on
that mountain, that life is not and never has been our own. We are ultimately powerless to control our own destiny. It has to do with humility. It
has to do with the fact that once we are stripped of all our creature comforts,
our titles, our reputations, we see how helpless we really are--and how much
we need God.
We cannot really hang onto the little bottle of our lives. When we believe we can, we delude ourselves.
Instead, Jesus, gives us the courage to surrender our bottle to Him. To
pour our water into His pump. In doing so, we allow Him make of our lives
something that of our own power we could never accomplish. And we are able
to do this because He was made like us, His brothers and sisters, in every
way. We will face nothing that He has not already encountered.
And better yet, He is present with us:
"Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are
being tempted."