Pastor Neil Kring stood in for Pastor Josh yesterday with a message for all of us who feel like things aren't going according to plan.
John the Baptist had heralded the coming of the Messiah. He had baptized Jesus himself. Yet, after he had been in prison for some time for calling out Herod's sin in taking his brother's wife as his own, John was beginning to doubt. He sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
John was feeling like things were not going according to plan. Maybe he had been mistaken to follow Jesus. How could he know?
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)
Pastor Neil shared how struck he was by that last sentence when he first began to pay attention to it. To follow Jesus, he realized, means fear and anxiety does not go away. We often experience more of it. It is easy to stumble and to fall away, as John was tempted to, when we can't see past all that is wrong with our present circumstances. It is easy to lose hope that we can go on.
It takes courage to be willing to examine ourselves. Neil shared his personal struggles with anxiety, the lies he is so often tempted to believe about himself that tempt him to feel ashamed. You're a terrible leader, in your church and in your home. You have no business being a pastor, or a father. You are a fraud. We all tell ourselves lies like this. We are all tempted at one time or another to believe we are unworthy, that life isn't going according to plan because we have screwed everything up. John could have died with the shame of wondering whether he had been a false prophet. Instead, he chose to ask the question he needed to ask, difficult as it must have been to admit he needed to ask at all. It takes courage to say out loud what we're ashamed to admit we're thinking.
It takes vulnerability to share our struggle with others. John was baring his fearful heart when he admitted, after all he had done to prepare the way for Jesus, that he was questioning everything. But he was willing to entrust his doubt to Jesus. In the same way, we must seek out people we can trust to be vulnerable with if we're to have any hope of staying the course. We can't do it alone. Neil found a fellow pastor he was willing to talk to about difficulties in his family. To his surprise, the pastor shared troubles he was currently experiencing with his own children that seemed to Neil to be even more difficult. In this way, they helped carry one another's load.
Finally, it takes truth to overcome the lies we tell ourselves. Only the truth of who we are in Christ can defeat our sense of unworthiness, our shame. Just as Jesus told John, he is telling us: The blind receive sight. The lame walk. The dead, even, are raised. Even when you feel like you have lost your way, know that I am still good. Know that I still love you. And know that no matter what happens, because you are with me, you are blessed.
It is a difficult message to accept when you are in prison and will remain there until you are beheaded, as John was. But the truth was greater than John's circumstances. It is greater than ours, too.
We are blessed because we believe Jesus will one day come and take our suffering away. Even the suffering that comes because of him - the prison of our spiritual fears and anxieties, the doubt we feel about our faith when life is not as it should be, the temptation to fall into shame and despair - will pass. Finally and forever.
In the meantime, we must have the courage to address our doubt and shame, the vulnerability to share it with those we trust, and the willingness to accept the truth that overcomes it. Though we struggle, we are still blessed. We are still loved. We are still worthy.
And the Lord will one day put everything back the way it is suppo
sed to be.