Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

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

With no disrespect intended toward any individual person and certainly with no disrespect intended toward our great God, I really must wonder how many of us have ever thought to ourselves – and maybe even gone so far as to communicate to others – that “God is crazy”?

I had to admit that I thought that this past Friday. I had visited Lillian Greenlee in the hospital Friday afternoon. It had been a mere 24 hours since I had last visited her, but the change was like night and day. On Thursday, I was there with her when her doctor told her that he thought she’d be sent home on Friday. Twenty-four hours later, she was not at home but rather in Intensive Care on a ventilator, in and out of consciousness. Now I’ve seen that before and – trust me – it’s not a good thing, especially the way it happened with Lillian. When someone her age has an event that transitions them from where she was on Thursday to where she was on Friday, it usually means death is not far off. In fact it was told me that there was a 95% chance Lillian would not live through the weekend.

To be honest, that fact really made me sad. Even as a pastor, I am a human. You may not know this, you might rarely see this, but I grieve every time I lose a church member, but Friday afternoon was different. Fighting a case of severe sadness, I returned to the church campus to get ready for our “Good Friday” Youth Outreach, but I found the tears would not leave my eyes. Now I had told a couple people about Lillian and we had agreed that because Lillian has always been a fairly private person it would be best not to announce her condition to people, but the tears wouldn’t stop and they were telling me, “Tell People!” And I thought “God is crazy!” There’s no need to get people upset. There’s nothing anyone can do, but the tears wouldn’t stop and the message became more and more clear. So I wrote an email to our church family and I posted a prayer request on my Facebook page. I know that hundreds of prayers from across our country suddenly flooded God’s Throne. Suddenly God wasn’t so crazy because Lillian’s ventilator tube was removed Saturday morning and she is stable and holding her own. You and I have again been part of a miracle!

Nicodemus thought “God is crazy”! Nicodemus one night went to Jesus, Whom he knew as a trusted, reliable, accurate, powerful teacher, One sent directly from God [John 3:1-17]. Nicodemus went to Jesus to ask Him His secret. Suddenly it seemed Nicodemus must have previously misjudged Jesus. Suddenly it seemed Jesus had caught a case of lunacy, talking repeatedly in normal conversation about being “born again.” “Jesus, how can an old man go back into his mother’s womb?” Nicodemus surely thought Jesus was crazy! But as crazy as He was believed to be, Jesus maintained that there are things in this world we don’t understand. There are things in this world only God understands. There are things in this world that can be dealt with simply with faith, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see [Hebrews 11:1].

Abram – Abraham’s birth name – thought “God is crazy!” At age 75, God told Abram to pack up his house, to pack up all his human possessions, to gather together all his family, to leave behind everything familiar and move to a new location [Genesis 12:1-9]. That’s crazy enough, but to make things even worse, God told Abram to move somewhere, but wouldn’t tell him where. Men, try that with your wives: “Honey, we’re going to move. God told me we’re supposed to move, but I don’t know where we’re moving to and I don’t know how long we’re going to travel before we arrive there.” It wasn’t just God Who was perceived as being crazy. People must have thought Abram also was crazy, until the Lord again appeared to him and said, “This is the place. This is your land. This will be the land of your descendants.” Abram knew and taught others that there are things in this world we don’t understand. There are things in this world only God understands. There are things in this world that can be dealt with simply with faith, being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see [Hebrews 11:1].

St. Paul told the Roman Christians that there are things in this world that prompt us simply to say “Abba,” “Daddy” [Romans 4:13-17], things we can’t understand, things only God understands, things that can be dealt with simply with faith, as the Holy Spirit of God empowers us to be sure of what we hope for and be certain of what we do not see [Hebrews 11:1].

The greatest example of that is what Jesus revealed to Nicodemus – the great mystery able to be accepted only through faith – that – and listen her carefully to each and every word – that “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” [John 3:16-17].

Now that’s something we really don’t understand! That’s something that really doesn’t make sense! That’s something many people look at and respond to by saying “God is crazy” and He’s even more crazy if he expects me to believe that!

“Abba!” Father! Daddy!

What is it in your life right now that causes you to believe God is crazy? Whatever it is – WHATEVER IT IS – let God’s Spirit lead you in praying that one word prayer – “Abba! Father! Daddy!” Bring that doubt, that fear, that situation in life into God’s storehouse and see if God will not work the same way He has worked throughout history, pouring out blessings into your life, blessings for life in this world (that’s what God worked in Abraham’s life), blessings for faith (that’s what Paul told the Roman Christians), blessings for life everlasting through our Lord and Savior Jesus (that’s what God worked in Nicodemus’ life).

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