Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

“Like two ships passing in the night.”

That old phrase came to mind when I read this morning’s three Scripture readings. Individually, that phrase could be applied to each of the three readings, but when you put all three together to form one complete whole as they do this morning, the phrase absolutely cannot be avoided.

“Like two ships passing in the night.”

That old phrase is what literally could have happened in our Gospel today [Luke 7:11-17] because, you see, there were two processions that day in the small village of Nain: one procession, headed by Jesus, was traveling into the village; one procession, headed by a casket, followed by a grieving woman dressed in black and surrounded by friends, was traveling out of the village. Each procession could have simply gone on their own way, minding their own business, avoiding and ignoring the other, “like two ships passing in the night.”

And, “like two ships passing in the night,” the widow of Zeraphath [1 Kings 17:17-24] could have just attributed the death of son to her own bad misfortune, never thinking of the prophet Elijah and how he might be to blame or how he or his God might step in with a solution.

And, unlike the accounts of those two widows grieving the deaths of their sons, there is nothing gentle about the conversion of St. Paul [Galatians 1:11-24]. Unlike two ships passing in the night, the conversion of St. Paul is more like the Titanic grazing the iceberg, an unsightly serious tear in an otherwise believed impenetrable armor. Yet as dramatic as was his conversion, St. Paul could have acted like Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, and E. J. Smith, Captain of the Titanic, and just stared blankly in total disbelief. His conversion could have become “like two ships passing in the night.”

Yet that didn’t happen in any of our three Scripture readings this morning.

The widow of Nain, about the business of escorting her only son to the graveyard, was stopped in her tracks by a young man who empathized with her, who felt her pain and, with a total of ten English words, drastically changed the course of her life: “Don’t cry. Young man, I say to you get up!”

The widow of Zeraphath got angry. In the midst of a drought [1Kings 17:1-7], this strange man – perceived as a man of God – wandered in from the desert and asked her for a drink of water and then asked her for a small cake of bread. Totally unobligated to help, the widow helped anyway, giving to Elijah not out of her great wealth, but out of her meager reserves, and this was the thanks she received in return – the death of her son. She could have just chalked it up to Murphy’s Law, but she got angry, so much so that the course of her life was also drastically changed.

And, St. Paul? After his Damascus Road experience [Acts 9], he could have lived as a blind persecutor of the Church of Jesus Christ, even more enraged with hatred. Believe me, as zealous as he was, the Jewish leaders would have ensured he had plenty of help in carrying out his murders of the followers of Jesus Christ. Or, after he received his sight back, he could have gone right back to his old way of life. But Paul knew that with God, there is no such thing as “two ships passing in the night.”

But that’s sometimes how you and I live. Sunday morning is “God’s time.” By Sunday evening, the Bible is safely back on the coffee table for the coming week, our “Sunday best” are carefully hung in the closet, and we set out, hoping for calm seas and pleasant weather. Sometimes that’s exactly what we discover. The ship of our life slips silently through a week of water, unaware of and unobtrusive to the Master of the sea.

Then again, sometimes serious squalls blow in from nowhere – totally unpredicted; totally unexpected. It’s not like we enjoy going it alone, but let’s face it, we can get so overwhelmed with the mere act of survival that we can easily forget we have someone sleeping in the boat with us and we just let Him sleep while we struggle alone for survival [Luke 8:22-25], “like two ships passing in the night.”

My friends, today again, Jesus stands in your way. He’s blocking your path. He’s changing your life. He’s saying to you, “Don’t cry.”

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but our pains and problems, our cares and concerns, our complaints and burdens appear as nothing to God. The stuff that weighs us down like a huge boulder tied to the legs of a swimmer, is like a feather to Him, so seemingly small and light that it would be easy for Him to pass right by us, to allow us to go our own way, to allow us to just slip by. All our stuff is easy stuff for God because He’s already dealt with our serious stuff. He took our sins. He became sin for us. He suffered and died. His body was laid in a tomb. And, after three days, He raised Himself back to life after defeating death and the devil. That heavy stuff out of the way, everything else to Him is light and easy.

So this morning, don’t just go about your business. God is able to help. God desires to help. God’s put Himself into our path and isn’t satisfied with our decision to just to slip on by.

So, in closing, I ask each of you to cup your hands together in front of you and in those cupped hands imagine your biggest concern, your biggest problem, your biggest complaint. Then with your hands still like that and with that image in your mind, pray with me: “Lord Jesus, this is too much for me to bear, but I know I am not alone and I turn this over to You and know that You will change my life. In Your Name, Amen.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena