What a Difference a Day Makes

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Mount Hope UMC

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Songs of Praise for Salvation

12 In that day you will sing:
    “I will praise you, O Lord!
You were angry with me, but not anymore.
    Now you comfort me.
² See, God has come to save me.
    I will trust in him and not be afraid.
The Lord God is my strength and my song;
    he has given me victory.”

³ With joy you will drink deeply
    from the fountain of salvation!
⁴ In that wonderful day you will sing:
    “Thank the Lord! Praise his name!
Tell the nations what he has done.
    Let them know how mighty he is!
⁵ Sing to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things.
    Make known his praise around the world.
⁶ Let all the people of Jerusalem^[a] shout his praise with joy!
    For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.

            Isaiah sings a song of praise in anticipation of the coming of Jesus.  He confesses that God was angry with him.  Isaiah was commissioned by God to bring a message to the people who willfully chose to ignore their own saga.  If you attend Bible Study in the Book of 1 and 2 King, we always found that the people of Israel always did what they thought was right in their own eyes.  Then when things took a turn for the worst and they were threatened by an enemy or some catastrophe, they called on God for a new king.  They really wanted the presence of God.

            Isaiah new that God was his salvation and he was to spread the word of the salvation of the Lord.  He trusted God and said he was not afraid.  If you were here yesterday for the Prayer Breakfast and stayed for the movie, “The Shack”, the main character, Mackenzie, did not trust God.  He didn’t trust God because although he went to church and was told about the goodness of God, he had never truly experienced God’s goodness.  He saw his father abuse his mother.  His father abused him.  He felt guilty because he could not protect his mother.  He was a good man, a good father, a good husband who had married a woman who knew he had been hurt in the past and was a great support source, but he had never opened up to her and she knew he hadn’t told her all that was on his heart.

            Then on a camping trip with his children, a tragic accident that threw the entire family into dealing with the tragedy individually rather than together as a family.  The father felt guilty, the daughter felt guilty, the son felt a certain way and the mother was the only one trying to hold them all together.  In this situation, Mom was the strength that Isaiah sang about because she was grounded in her faith.  Everyone else was falling apart emotionally and spiritually.

            In our trials God meets us where the rubber meets the road.  He does not create our situations, but he is there to guide us through them if we only trust and have faith in him.  The saying “Praise him in your circumstance” is so true.  You don’t have to jump up and holler and shout.  A simple “I love you God”, “Thank you, Lord, for another day”.   Just acknowledge that he is present in your life and praise him in your own way.

            Isaiah says in verse 4, “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known among the nations what he has done and proclaim that his name is exalted.”  We want to give thanks to the Lord when things are going good for us, but when things turn around for the worst, we complain “why me, Lord?”  Well, why not you or me?  Who are we that trials and tribulations should not darken our door?  Jesus was persecuted, tried, stripped bare, made a public shame and crucified.  What makes us think we should escape?

            Just before going into the hospital last week, I read a devotion that mentioned the first last word of Jesus on the Cross.  His first words were, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  Here is Jesus, divine, God in the flesh asking his Father in heaven why he has been forsaken.  God had not really forsaken him, but I believe God withdrew his divinity from Jesus so that in his humanity he would feel the desolation and loneliness of life without God, which is what humanity had suffered since the original sin of Adam and Eve through all eternity.  Can you imagine the weight of that desolation and loneliness?

            As I was in the hospital contemplating what my new normal was going to be, I first had to wrap my head around the fact that everyone kept saying that I was a miracle.  The nurses, the doctors, visitors – all kept saying “You’re a miracle!  We’ve never seen someone with numbers that high come in without being in a coma or having had a stroke.”  Even my clergy colleagues have said the same thing.  I don’t know about being a miracle.  I only know that I am covered by the blood of Jesus Christ and what the enemy may have meant for evil, God turned it around for good.  It is the same with the health scare of my husband.

            We often become overwhelmed with the appearance and forget to look beyond the appearance of a thing to it’s eventual outcome.

           

            Since I’ve been home, a number of my friends and colleagues have been going through their times of desolation and loneliness.  Men admit to crying out of a deep sense of grief; clergy with years of experience are going through valley experiences.  I believe we are all in a season of preparation.  We are about to enter the season of Advent – the season of preparation.  We anticipate celebrating the birth of our Savior.  We know that the year is coming to a close.  I sense that God is about to create a shift in the atmosphere.  We have an impeachment hearing in Congress, the church is about to have General Conference.  We hear of violence in our communities because folk are finding conflict resolution at the point of a gun, or a knife.  Children are being snatched off our streets and butchered.  Cigarette manufacturers are killing our children with flavored smoking devices.  Church, we better wake up!  Don’t think you’re nestled nice and cozy in Owings, or Sunderland, or North Beach, or Bowie or anywhere.  We have to be the great cloud of witnesses.  We have to speak out against injustices.  We have to call a lie a lie.  We are responsible and there are consequences for our silence.  We need to learn to speak the truth in love to people.  We need to meet them at their point of need, like Jesus met us.  We have to be available to be used.  We can sit in our homes and think we’re nice and cozy.  We can go to our jobs and think that we’re safe and secure.  We can come to our churches and believe God is going to protect us cause we’re in his house.  We are safe and secure only in the arms of Jesus Christ.  He is our Rock, our Redeemer our all in all.

            I think about those we have recently lost.  Those who have been suddenly struck with life threatening illnesses.  Surgeries.  Abusive relationships.  Then I think back to the movie and how Mackenzie had to come to closure on the abduction and death of his youngest child.  He blamed himself because he had left her to rescue his son.  The older daughter blamed herself because she felt she had created the situation where Mackenzie had to leave Missy alone.  The son felt he was helpless because he got trapped underwater and his dad had to leave Missy alone to come rescue him when his sister couldn’t.  Every situation, church, has a consequence.  That was perhaps the moral of the movie, but the reality was that we have to learn to let go of the guilt and shame, forgive those who have hurt us, and trust in God who will never leave us nor forsake us.

            We have to also accept that our perception of God is flawed by what society had fed us to believe.  In the first Chapter of Genesis, when God decided to create humans, he said “Let us create man in our image.”  I thought the movie was superb in depicting God as both female and male; Jesus as a Middle Eastern young man; and the Holy Ghost and Wisdom as women.

            See one day on the Damascus Road, Jesus saw a sinner and one who persecuted people of The Way.  One day he was killing folk, the next he was preaching the Good News.  What a difference a day makes.

            One day Mary was a Virgin girl of 15 and the next she was the Mother of God.  What a difference a day makes.

            One day Lazarus lay in his grave, the next he was up walking and talking again.  What a difference a day makes.

            One day, the man at the pool in Bethesaida was lame and begging for bread.  The next day he was up jumping for joy.  What a difference a day makes.

            One day there was a man who was blind until Jesus came and spit and put some mud on his eyes and next thing you know, he could see.  What a difference a day makes.

            One day I was walking around not knowing I was at death’s door and the next I was being treated and restored to health.  What a difference a day makes.  For this, I give Him praise because God has done glorious things!  We have to let the world know about the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  You can shout and holler for your favorite sports team.  I leave you with Psalm 150 NLT –

         Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heaven!
² Praise him for his mighty works;
    praise his unequaled greatness!
³ Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
    praise him with the lyre and harp!
⁴ Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
    praise him with strings and flutes!
⁵ Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
    praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
⁶ Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!

Praise the Lord!