Visualize Your Victory

“When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished’” (John 19:30).

John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his presidential entourage passed by within inches of the curb on which my family and I stood. We were back at the house within the hour as JFK landed in Dallas and was soon be assassinated.  We had stood on the curb just outside the main gate of Carswell Air Force Base as Secret Service agents passed between us and the presidential car with their weapons pointing almost in our faces, but we had a superb view of our youthful president in his open limousine.

JFK’s presidential party entered Carswell’s main gate, quickly boarded Air Force One, and lifted eastward to Dallas. By the time we drove 2-3 miles back to our Tex Boulevard home he had landed in Dallas. The motorcade quickly launched onto Stemmons Freeway and the impact of the resulting events brought undisguised confusion as we watched our local news channel in horrified excitement. Reacting to a raw unguarded moment, local newscaster Scotty Moncrief exploded. “My God! They’ve shot his head off!”

Glued to the TV, we were stunned as news people reported this unexpected turn of events. We were swept up in a tsunami of emotional overload in the unrehearsed emotion of this extraordinary on-the-spot coverage. From one hour to the next, this popular president was transformed into an assassinated former president and we watched America reel as if in the throes of death.

A stunned and disbelieving nation staggered beneath an overload of gut-wrenching pain. A watching-Washington found itself in the wake of escalating uncertainty while Texas teetered in topsy-turvy despair, bouncing between troublesome tremors of truth and the treacherous treading of titanic trespass.

Fort Worth, the city where the west begins and the place we then called home, felt the furtive foreboding of a frigid freedom that totally lacked meaning or direction. People milled about in melancholy meditation agonizing over the monstrous morality of a misguided murderer.

The day Jesus hung on his rough Roman cross was, I suspect, just that highly charged. As the hours dragged by and death drew slowly closer to the place of the skull, an Unknown Soldier performed the last rites for Jesus. A Gentile stranger and likely a man from a different nationality and culture, shared the suffering of my Lord by touching a soaked sponge of drugged wine-vinegar and held it up to his parched and burning lips.

Whether or not this Gentile intended it as such, that simple act of human kindness provided the last kind deed done to our Lord before death overtook him. I am indebted to this unknown stranger, this soldier who had likely seen enough men die in his lifetime to willingly help another suffering human die just a little easier.

I appreciate his gentle sensitivity. I thank him for his anonymous heroism but I am humbled by the thoughtfulness of that Guild of anonymous women--unsung heroines who allegedly provided this ministry to prisoners being crucified. Even condemned prisoners being crucified deserve the recognition of being human beings, but who among us would dare to care in such an hour?

Yes, I take to heart the comment of W. E. Sangster the noted British Methodist Pastor, regarding all who ministered to Jesus on that last day of his physical life. “Never think that there has been no value in something you have done of good intent,” Sangster suggested, “even if it failed in its immediate object.”

 W. E. Sangster, They Met At Calvary.  (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956), p. 75.

Although Jesus rejected the offered drink, I believe he found new courage to complete his mission and face his death without the help of that mind-numbing drug, even if not pain-free. Collecting himself together in one surging burst of vigorous energy, Jesus cried aloud: “It is finished.”

Jesus had completed his course! He finished his task. He stayed true to his vision. He refused to be deterred from his objective. He bowed his head but he never lost sight of where he was going. With the defiant finality of a sprinter making that last dash to a victorious finish line, Jesus committed his victorious spirit to the Presence of the Eternal (Luke 24:21).

A different reporter added: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2, italics mine).

However magnificent his cry of completion, Jesus bowed his head and heart and patiently endured what no one present that day would ever forget. It is noteworthy that very few of the people present that day even dreamed of seeing what Jesus was suggesting he had completed. About all that remained of that first Holy Week were a few broken tokens, but this concluding word from Jesus unveiled the blindness in which men and nations groped, searching for some sense of completion to humanity’s final fulfillment.

Unfinished lives, like that of John F. Kennedy, only reveal the finer details of an unfinished agenda for much of human life. At another time and place, a young lad and his dog pushed pell mell along a narrow path and crowded a blind boy off his familiar lane and into tangled underbrush.

“When I untangled myself and got on my feet,” admitted the unseeing lad, “I couldn’t find the path. I couldn’t tell which direction was which.”

When he listened, he sensed no direction. When he called out, he heard no response. Then, somewhere out in his unseen abyss of space, he recognized the familiar chime of a church bell. Immediately, his life snapped back into focus. Describing his experience as a twelve-year-old blind boy terrorized by being lost, he confessed, “That awful feeling of not knowing where I was, which way to turn, which way to go. It was a terrible feeling.”

Then into the personal privacy of his lonely world there came a familiar sound. A church bell chimed from out of his past. Its sound announced a saving word for the wandering youth who had lost all pretense of direction. Like the sightless lad, the disciples of Jesus now found themselves unexpectedly shoved off of life’s path and down into life’s underbrush. Picking themselves up in the thorny brambles of confusion and faulty expectation, they recognized no direction. Only later could they confide in an unassuming stranger, “We had hoped that he was the one… ” (Luke 24:21).

Jesus had launched his rather inconspicuous beginning by calling twelve disciples together and inviting them to travel about with him. His controversial ministry led him on an initial tour of the district of Galilee. His influence expanded in ever widening circles. Eventually, a second tour came and went, followed by a third tour. Much of the recorded story focuses on that last week, often called the Passion Week, which seemed to begin and end with Jesus being anointed.

The first anointing came unexpectedly, from an uninvited source. The disciples protested the invasion of their privacy by this infamous woman they viewed as gaining notoriety through her pursuit of rich and famous men. They neither approved of her deeds, nor understand her needs. Aside from her scandalous reputation, Judas looked with a jaundiced eye at her extravagant behavior with Jesus and concluded she wasted an unnecessarily large sum of money. 

He saw her as a prodigious waster, thoroughly prodigal. Therefore, he felt justified in caustically chastising Jesus for his generosity toward the woman, not to mention his highly imprudent acceptance of her.

Whatever Host Simon may have thought, Jesus obviously welcomed the occasion. He applauded the impetuous lady. In fact, he described her deed as an act of devotion, an anointing that anticipated his coming burial (John 12:1-8).

The following day; Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Entering the city on his humble colt, he accepted the plaudits of the admiring crowd as his followers prepared his way by spreading their garments on the ground before him. The crowd quickly caught him up to its bosom, carrying him along on songs of praise. Caught up in the excitement of the palm-waving crowd, the disciples almost believed his kingship.

It was hard to understand his refusal to take the throne, especially when people were so obviously ready to launch him on his long-awaited coup d’etat. There were many, like Simon the zealot, who would gladly overthrow Rome for King Jesus! No one really understood why Jesus quietly retreated to Bethany that evening.

On Monday, the plot thickened as Jesus cursed the Fig tree. He spent Tuesday telling stories, teaching and explaining his authority for all he did. Possibly that same evening, Judas appeared privately before the Sanhedrin with his proposal to betray Jesus. On Wednesday, Jesus rested one last time at his Bethany resting-place, then on Thursday he celebrated his final Passover with his most intimate friends, the twelve he chose to inherit his mission.

As will frequently happen when there is a shifting in the power structure, a quarrel arose among the disciples over who would be the Chief Rulers in the New Kingdom Jesus talked about. That was when Jesus gave them a lesson they would never forget; he washed their feet! Later that evening, Judas left for reasons of his own and this left Peter firmly assuring Jesus of his utmost personal loyalty, regardless of anyone else. Finally, the group accompanied Jesus to the garden, where Jesus wanted to pray. He prayed but they slept.

Friday’s dawning brought an early appearance in Pilate’s civil court, where Pilate could find neither threat against Rome nor criminal behavior of any kind. By sundown nevertheless, Jesus hung on a crude Roman cross. From the broken flask to the broken palms; it was finished. From broken promises to misunderstanding disciples, from unresolved conflicts between the disciples to hostile and non-believing authorities; it was finished. With his side punctured by a Roman spear, the crucified Jesus gathered himself together and in one climactic shout of defiance he loudly declared, “It is finished!”

“He’s to blame!” the people concluded. He was finished, or so everyone thought. His cry declared the completion of his earthly ministry, the uniquely specific task for which God had sent him here. “It is finished!” informed everyone present that Jesus had been true to his mission. The life God had planned for him, and the life he had lived for his Heavenly Father, was one and the same. “It is finished;” his special assignment now awaited God‘s final stamp of approval.

“Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work after all,” admitted Ruskin. “We may smooth, and soften, and sharpen till we are sick at heart; but take a good magnifying glass to our miracle of skill, and the invisible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky threat a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert.”

As Ruskin further contemplated, he realized “God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the human mind becomes the more the infinitiveness of interval is felt between human and divine work in this respect.”

Only God can bring things to their “full-fillment”. May we recognize the unique assertion of achievement in this sixth word of Jesus on the cross. It is in the midst of human maturing that God often shows up as unexpectedly as the proverbial Tom Bean of Abilene. Texas lore described Tom as a friend of former Governor, John Connelly; President Lyndon Johnson; and the Pope at Rome. So, it came as no surprise one day as the Pope stood on his balcony and a friend leaned over and whispered to a nearby Nun, “Is that the Pope?”

“I do not know,” replied the nun, who had been out of the country, “but I know the other is Tom Bean.”

We initiate our beginnings. We fumble. Sometimes we blunder. Frequently, we are still finding our way when we are finally ready to begin our journey; but not so with Jesus. He “finished” the work for which he came. His birth divided time between before and after. His death and resurrection provided the hinges holding past and future together, bridging the gap left in between. Today, “He” stands in the gap separating human finiteness from infinity, connecting before and after.

Before Christ, there was but the vanity of endless search. God’s Almighty Act on the cross stamped on the pages of history as finished fact “In the Year of Our Lord.” Thus; we find ourselves compelled to confess there are some pieces of life that only God can complete. With true insight Alta Starnes allowed, “As long as we think we will be well when we get better situated or get away from a certain person, our emotional health cannot improve.” 

“As long as a man stands in his own way,” Thoreau frankly admitted, “everything seems to be in his way.”

If we are wrong in denying God the ability to bring some closure to our unfinished human designs, we stand to lose only sixty or eighty years, albeit a lifetime. If God does exist, however, and if God has brought a divine intervention into our midst, we can conceivably waste an eternity and that would be a “real waste!” The followers of Jesus, having heard his declaration “It is finished,” ought to engrave “NEEDS COMPLETION” in bold print across much of humanity’s unfinished agenda.

Human hope need never be totally extinguished however desolate life may become. The Day of the Lord long anticipated by men and nations still loomed large on the horizon, and none watched more wistfully than faithful Jews. As treasurer of the disciple band, Judas came to the group with more than average ability. Yes, he questioned the leadership of Jesus. He also challenged the woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair.

Pouring her expensive oil on the feet of Jesus was without doubt an act of extravagant waste. She was a prodigious waster; a prodigal, a spendthrift that perhaps noted that Simon neglected to provide the common courtesy of a good host. With deep gratitude she washed Jesus’ feet with tears of personal repentance. Yet, rather than allow her to express her adoration of Jesus, the practical, penny-pinching, self-preserving Judas kept his eye focused on his treasurer’s bag. He even went so far as to discretely suggest that she give her riches to the poor, through the treasury of course.

Although Judas was closely associated with Jesus’ mission and ministry, he was eons away from experiencing the truth Jesus came to proclaim. Unfortunately, Judas never stopped scheming as to how he could best control Jesus and manipulate his teachings. Giving Judas every benefit of doubt, we still see him betraying Jesus for the price of a slave, thinking to maneuver Jesus into asserting his power and thereby forcing him to move forward with an immediate launching of his coming kingdom.

The nation of Israel had waited long for the time when God would again burst into history and establish his reign of peace on earth. Israel’s tradition taught her to expect a full future. She had no doubt she belonged to God. Had not history confirmed her as a people chosen by God and defended by him? From the days of the Exodus, the light from that candle of hope slowly expanded until it became a brilliant beacon filling Israel’s night skies with expectancy and hope.

The Eighth century prophets drew from a well five hundred years deep as they reminded Israel God would eventually intervene. Thus, when the Northern Israel-Syria coalition tried to whip Southern Israel’s kingdom into line, a caring young prophet named Isaiah urged King Ahaz not to lose heart “because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood” (Isaiah 7:4).

Ahaz ignored the zealous promise of deliverance before a child could be brought to years. He offered modest tribute to his enemy, hoping to pacify the potential invaders, and sought help from Assyria. Since Egypt was but a “broken reed,” Assyria initiated eventual annexation of both Israel and Syria. This left Jerusalem’s remnant to dream their dream of renewal and restoration. Unfortunately, there were also forces twisting that dream into perverted political aspirations.

Earlier, Amos had pounced nimbly onto this popular theme of the Day of the Lord, reminding Israel she had nothing to anticipate. He described her as saturated with social injustice and rampant immorality, dominated everywhere with greed Amos consequently registered the most shockingly novel idea of Israel’s eighth century, suggesting that God could reject the State of Israel. In flouting God’s laws, he suggested they violated the very covenant by which they claimed to be God’s unique possession.

By the time Jesus began his ministry, he was ready to announce God’s intervention into history: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17). Facing the problem of the cross, Jesus described the seed that dies in the ground to produce other seed.  Would he pray for The Father to save him? “No,” he insisted, “it is for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27).

When Jesus finally appeared on the Emmaus road following his resurrection, he chided his two traveling companions for their dull faith and foolish hearts. “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Jesus asked. Then, he explained from their scriptures “all that Moses and the Prophets had said concerning this matter” (Luke 24:44-49).

From Paul until today, the church has proclaimed the wisdom of the cross, through the foolishness of preaching, giving testimony that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).        

Helen Keller was born deaf, dumb, and blind. Yet, in spite of her terrible handicap she lived a long, full, and fruitful life. Through the friendship of her young teacher, Laura Bridgeman, Helen became both a faithful Christian and a model of visionary excellence and integrity. Laura had been the first blind-deaf patient of the doctor who treated Helen as patient number eight. Helen Keller later concluded, “If Laura had not won her fight I would not know my own soul.”

Had Jesus Christ not won his own struggle with that obedience that shapes the contours of our character and moral excellence, we would have no human hope for personal achievement. Had Jesus not given personal witness to his true son-ship, we would have no more hope than that offered by all the other humanistic religions of self-endeavor. 

Had Jesus not spoken his finishing word and trusted himself to the care of his heavenly father in death, we would not know our own souls. In spite of the high cost of grace, God honored the obedience and devotion that Jesus so freely gave during his life and death. Then with a flourish of finality, Almighty God stamped “finis” across the whole process. The plan whereby God envisioned bringing wholeness and holiness into the life of humanity was completed.

Nor was it a “cheap grace.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer popularized this term reminding us that quality is always a bargain and that Grace never comes cheap. Bonhoeffer served first as a student pastor in Berlin. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer founded Finkenwald Seminary. Hitler ordered it closed in 1937. When Bonhoeffer had the good fortune to visit New York in 1939, associates offered him a teaching position in America. Friends begged him to accept the offer and insure his safety by remaining in safe surroundings.

Bonhoeffer’s self-interest weighed heavily on his mind, for after all, he had much to offer as a visiting scholar, as well as much to share with the larger church. Nevertheless, on the eve of his departure for Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer candidly confessed,

            I must live through this difficult period of our national 

            history with the Christian people of Germany. I will 

            have no right to participate in the reconstruction of
            Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not

            share the trials of this time with my people.

He consequently returned to Germany as quickly as possible Back in his homeland, he faced a deteriorating political structure and a wavering church. Hitler gradually assumed tighter control of the nation. The church vacillated between ambivalence and compromise. Bonhoeffer’s underground seminary became an island of vitality and renewal in a sea of ambivalence and stormy oppression. Then, on April 9, 1943 by order of Henrich Himmler, the thirty-nine year old Bonhoeffer was taken from his cell and hanged just outside Flossenberg prison.

We survived Hitler’s assault, in spite of Emperor Hirohito’s treachery. Many of us celebrated when World War Two came to a dramatic halt, following America’s use of the newly discovered atomic bomb. But now we faced a new threat--self-extinction. Some thoughtful church leaders asserted God would never allow us to destroy ourselves; however, it would be nearly half a century before the political Cold War among world Super Powers ended.

Before we could recover any normalcy, we entered into a new millennium flooded with political and economic uncertainty, military inadequacy, and huge gaps ripping the moral fabric of our social structure. Loss of personal integrity abounded on every continent, among every people group, leaving thoughtful minds musing on our perceived character crisis.

The internal anarchy of unrelenting self-determinism drove individuals and nations over the precipice of time, leaving them smashed on the rocky coastline of broken dreams and failed hopes. Separation from God only accented the visionary announcement Jesus gave in offering an abundance of divine grace, thus making it more imperative than ever that we share his good news.

The resulting separation further accented our bankrupting indebtedness, whereas Jesus offers nothing less than the relief of God’s forgiving, sustaining, and empowering grace. The blood of Christ simply erases the debt. While the human problem floats upward like an impenetrable cloud the love of Jesus shines through and dispels the storm. Although guilt accumulates heavy burdens, Jesus becomes the burden bearer.

When the futility of human achievement became a lifeless corpse, Jesus took that death into his own body. When selfishness poisoned the human spirit, the life Jesus gave became life-giving antibody for injection into terminally ill human souls. When humanity found itself captive to its own corruption, Jesus delivered captivity captive. When failure blotched and blurred the human record, Jesus’ purity scrubbed all things eternally clean. When human nature abounded with death, Jesus forfeited his life, giving it as the one substitute that could merit God’s approval.

When the human problem abounded, divine grace super-abounded. How do you spell relief?

     G-R-A-C-E – 

                          God’s
                                     Richest
                                                     at
                                                             Christ’s
                                                                             Expense!

This sixth word of Jesus, spoken from the cross, acknowledges the finality of our faith, a process only God can complete.

One day I joined peers, friends, and family at Pennway Church in Lansing, Michigan where we attended the memorial service of our colleague and friend, B. Gale Hetrick. Dr. Hetrick lived a life of extraordinary service while serving the churches of our area for many years. Serving first as a pastor, then as a pastor of pastors, Gale’s selfless service had been forcibly interrupted and abruptly terminated by incurable malignancy.

As part of that service, someone read Gale’s favorite poem. As I listened to the lines of Rudyard Kipling, I, too, saw the vision Gale caught from Kipling in “Beyond the Ranges.”

            There’s no use in going further so they said and I believed them,
            Built my barns and strung my fences in a little border station tucked
                        away among the foothills where the trails run out and stop.

            Then a voice as bad as conscience rang interminable phrases in one 

                        everlasting whisper day and night repeated so;

            ‘Something hidden, go and find it; something lost beyond the ranges;
                        something lost and waiting for you. Go!’

Anybody might have found it but the whisper came to me! 

                  Rudyard Kipling, “Beyond the Ranges,” B. Gale Hetrick & Company,

Laughter among the Trumpets. (Lansing: The Church of God in Michigan, 1980), p. 177.

We all knew Gale did not always see beyond those ranges where the trail of life disappears into the underbrush. But those of us who had known and worked with Gale through the years, had also watched him follow That One who is the visionary guide when the trail does disappear. By personal choice, Gale plunged into his own wilderness of unknown fate. Without ambivalence and without bitterness, he fully expected to encounter That One that calls us from beyond the ranges.

Thus, I write noting the fact that I too am rapidly descending life’s downhill side of the mountain. Approaching that ninety-first mile marker, I contemplate completing my journey without my companion of more than seventy years and one-day leaving friends and family with the hopefully rewarding taste of that well-weathered persimmon.

A green persimmon instantly puckers one‘s mouth. On the other hand, the more snow and freezing that persimmon endures, the sweeter and more sugary it becomes. Life is like that and I recall my early working years when a brain tumor struck down Dr. Carl Kardatzky, a popular professor and highly revered Christian Educator.

Dr. Carl’s death left an indelible imprint on our national church family. At home, his family and friends watched him slowly lose his bodily strength. Simultaneously, we observed continuing renewal of his spirit resulting from his regular Bible reading and the prayers of family and friends. A couple nights before his final coma, he participated in family devotions and those present experienced his strong confidence as he confessed, “I don’t want to be here like this: I’d like to terminate and begin.”

Obstacles often appear insurmountable. Failure seems inevitable. This sixth word from Jesus—on the cross, visualizes the goal and prompts me to look above and beyond the slights and slings of my cloudy sky and behold the glory of the sun.

When short-story writer, O. Henry lay dying, he allegedly whispered to someone nearby, “Turn up the light. I don’t want to go home in the dark.”

This final word from the cross flips a light switch that allows us to see more clearly what Jesus saw from the cross. Greater than Martin Luther King’s “I have a vision” speech in 1963, this final conclusion from Calvary’s cross has clearly revealed to multitudes of children, youth, middle-agers, and senior adults across the centuries--a glimpse of eternal glory—Son-light.

Confined by our human limitations, we can but agree with that writer who insisted that we throw off every hindrance and entanglement and “run with perseverance the race marked out for us. . .for the joy set before him”--and us (Hebrews 12:1-2). It was a great cloud of witnesses, and a praying nation, that watched eagerly, all eyes focused on Votaw, Texas February 18, 1967.

That day Ransom Bill successfully lifted tiny Theresa Fregia to safety, in the early morning hours, eight hours and fifty-five minutes after she tumbled twenty-eight feet inside the earth. This old and abandoned Texas water well threatened to be tiny Theresa’s permanent burial site, but a bold, precision-like maneuver rescued the helpless child from certain death. It resulted when a group of workmen cooperatively shared their vision of giving this unknown youngster a crack at a normal life.

We thanked God as those determined workmen wearily lifted this tiny Texan up to the earth’s surface from the chilly depths of that narrow well casing at 2:25 a.m. The sight of her living form launched a rousing cheer from the more than three-hundred workmen who had labored hour after hour to save her from her potential tomb. 

The ability of Jesus to successfully tie up life’s loose ends provides us a preview that powerfully grabs my attention, demands my commitment, and refuses to turn me loose. As I view life’s television screen, I know I live not only for today but I can also trust in the certainty of tomorrow. Moreover; that is where I want to be - neither in the past, nor in the future. As each day’s work absorbs my interest, energy, and enthusiasm, I ask only for faith for today and hope for tomorrow.

In listening to Jesus, I find that “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Consequently, I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (Lamentations 3:22-23). This thought prompted T. O. Chisholm to exclaim, 

            “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father!...

            Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

            Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,

            Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow--
            Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!...
            Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”

T. O. Chisholm, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

 Worship the Lord  (Anderson: Warner Press, Inc., 1989), p. 121.

Or, as Sir William Osler quipped in his address titled “A Way of Life;” the best preparation we can make for tomorrow “is to do today’s work superbly well.”  No one ever saw that more clearly than Jesus from his cross_____

walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com