There’s a story about a young boxer from Oklahoma who moved to Chicago to train. He arrived in the big city with nothing but optimism and a suitcase under each arm. Upon departing the bus, he put down his suitcases, stared up at the Sears Tower and said to himself “I am going to conquer Chicago.” When he looked back down, his suitcases were gone. I imagine we’ve all had days like that. Days or weeks were it felt like nothing goes your way. Feeling like everything was stacked against you. Those times that it feels like no matter what you do, it’s wrong. That whatever you do, you just can’t win.
I imagine that’s how the Cumberland College Bulldogs felt one October day back in 1916. Cumberland was a small Presbyterian college in Tennessee. Though they fielded a strong baseball team, the school had decided to disband the football team prior to the 1916 season. There was one small problem, however. Back when they had a team, a game had been scheduled against Georgia Tech, a team coached by John Heisman.
When Cumberland asked about cancelling the game, it was made clear to them that this was not an option. Perhaps partly as payback for Cumberland having defeated Georgia Tech 22-0 in baseball earlier that year, the Bulldogs were told that cancelling the game would require full payment of the terms agreed to when the game was scheduled. That is, it would cost Cumberland $3,000; about $60,000 in today’s prices.
So, with few options remaining, Cumberland scraped together a 14-man team and headed to Atlanta to take on their powerful foes. Were this a Disney movie, the scrappy underdogs would have fought bravely before ultimately succumbing in the end.
However, this was no Disney movie. Georgia Tech started scoring early, and didn’t stop until the clock struck zero and the scoreboard read 222-0.
Have you ever had a day like that? A day where you try and try, where you push yourself to do the best you can, for no apparent reason? Maybe you’ve had one of those days where days, weeks, or even years of work seemingly disappear in the blink of an eye. Maybe you know what it’s like to suddenly be rendered numb and speechless by a phone call bearing bad news. Perhaps you’ve found yourself weeping over the sudden loss of a loved one.
Horatio Spafford knew all about those days. In 1871 Spafford was a successful lawyer in the city of Chicago. Early that year, his only son died. Later that fall, the Chicago Fire tore through his city, burned its way through his building, and left him near financial ruin. Two years later, he planned to take a holiday with his wife and four daughters to England. When business issues came up that looked to delay their departure, he sent his family ahead of him, planning to meet up with them a couple weeks later. However, while crossing the Atlantic, the boat they were on was struck by another vessel and sank. His wife survived, but all four of his daughters were lost to the sea.
When Spafford was able to set out and join his wife in England, his ship passed over the place his children had lost their lives. In the midst of his heartbreak, he went to his cabin, and wrote these words… “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.” The words that Horatio Spafford wrote in the midst of profound heartache has since gone on to become a dearly beloved hymn sung by others during their own times of grief and mourning.
There are some churches, some pastors out there who will tell you that God wants you to have your best life now. That if you believe in God, good things are going to happen in your life. That being a Christian, that being a child of the heavenly Father means you are going to be blessed with a better job, better behaved kids, a bigger house, and a newer truck. The bad times, it is implied, are the result of a not fully realized trust or faith.
If that’s true, what then do we make of the apostle Paul? In 2nd Corinthians, Paul runs through the list of the trials and hardships he had faced up that point. Just a sampling of his list says, “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.” Paul knew trial and hardship. Was it because his faith wasn’t strong enough?
What about Jesus himself? Who was ever more faithful than Jesus? Who deserved a life of comfort and peace more than him? And yet look what he endured. Three years of religious leaders trying to trap him in his words. No bed to call his own. Disciples who would deny even knowing him. Being beaten and mocked. Having nails hammered through his hands and feet, killed for sins he never committed.
Our Savior was intimately familiar with the truth that life is hard. That things aren’t always fair. And it’s going to continue to be that way. At least for a while. Jesus knew this, and told his followers to be prepared to face pressure and persecution. Sin prevails upon us every day, and in every way.
St. Peter writes, “Satan prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he will devour.” The evil one comes at us however he can. He wants us to be completely overwhelmed by our times of struggle. He wants us to feel overburdened. He wants us to wallow in the darkness of despair. He wants us to lose hope. He wants us to feel abandoned and alone. He operated this way in Jesus’ time, and he works that way today. And left on our own in a sinful world, he would break us. We would have no hope.
But the good news we have been given is that we aren’t alone, and we aren’t without a sure hope. The last verse of our reading for today quotes Jesus as saying “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Christ spoke these words to his disciples in the upper room a few short hours before he was betrayed by Judas into the hands of the Pharisees.
He knew what was coming, both for him and for his disciples. He knew they were going to be tested in the coming hours and days, and he knew they were going to fail. But his message to them was to take heart. That he was bigger than their trials. That he was bigger than the forces that sought to kill him. That he was bigger than death, bigger than the world. He was in control.
The reason that Horatio Spafford was able to write those words, the reason that we can hope to find peace in the midst of the chaos and tribulations of our own is because of the one to whom we look for comfort. We find peace not in the things of the world, but in Christ. Christ, who took the sins of the world upon himself. Even more, who took the punishment for those sins upon himself. So that we might have peace, he faced the full wrath of God. So that we might live with the hope of life in God’s eternal kingdom, the Son was abandoned and forsaken by the Father. By his wounds, you have been healed.
In our lives, we will face hardship. But in our trials, we are not facing the punishment of God. Jesus has forever removed from us the divine wrath. Instead, we are simply experiencing the effects of living in a sinful, imperfect world. A world in which pain , death, and struggle still exist as it waits for Christ to return again. But all things, we are assured, work out for our good. Every sorrow is used by God to benefit us. These sorrows though cannot compare to the glory that is to be revealed in Christ.
When we feel do feel beaten down by the world, Christ promises to carry us through. He tells us to remember and rejoice in knowing that he has already overcome the world. In our day to day dealings in the world, we might not always feel his presence. We might not immediately feel any less tired or beaten down. So you might wonder what that leaves us with. What we are left with is hope. We are given hope in the knowledge of Christ’s ultimate victory over death and the devil. We are given the hope that comes from knowing that even the good times in this life don’t hold a candle to what is to come.
This isn’t the hope that your request for vacation time gets accepted. This isn’t the hope that your husband remembered to stop at the store and get milk, or to put gas in the car before the price went up again. This isn’t even a hope that we do. It’s a hope that we have been given. It’s an object we can hold on to, not a feeling that may fade away. This is a hope that can only be given to us by the one who makes us and calls us his own. It’s a hope that comes from the one person who has never failed to deliver on a promise. A hope in the promise that when we feel weary, he takes our burdens off of our shoulders and takes them upon his own. A hope in the promise of eternal salvation, and in the promise of eternal peace before the throne of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
