Overwhelmed

What can we focus on when we are overwhelmed? Do we lose ourselves in the past when times were easier? Do we begin an elaborate blame game so that we can target something or at someone at whom to be angry? Do we try to ignore the situation? Maybe, we do all three at one time or another. But there is a better solution. My sermon suggests it.

Are any of you feeling overwhelmed right now? I know that you are, because you’ve told me. I am certainly feeling overwhelmed! I am overwhelmed with just the number of changes that I have needed to make in my daily life! I feel like I am standing on shifting sand. Just about the time that I think I have figured out what life is going to be like, it changes; and I am back to square one!

Some of you, though, are overwhelmed with a lot more than that. Some of you are dealing with loved ones who are in long-term care facilities, and you are prevented from visiting them in person. Others of you have loved ones who work in the health care field, and you’re worrying that they may fall victim to the COVID virus that has already claimed so many lives. And all of us are grieving! We’re grieving losses of familiar schedules, anticipated events that have been cancelled, and even just the comfort of sharing lunch with a friend. High school seniors are grieving the loss of what should have been a once-in-a-lifetime moment in their lives, and might be forever lost to them as we remain isolated. Yes, we’re all overwhelmed in one way or another!

We’re not the first ones to be overwhelmed with what life throws at us. Job is the poster child for being overwhelmed. Just read what happened to him on the very same day! Within just a few minutes, Job heard the news that he had lost every one of his seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred donkeys and nearly all the servants who were caring for them. He was wiped out in less time than it takes to list all the wealth that he once enjoyed. And if that weren’t bad enough, all his children – all seven sons and three daughters – were killed in a freak windstorm that collapsed the house on their heads. Job lost everything that he had, and nearly everyone that he loved in one dreadful day! Oh, yes, Job was overwhelmed, all right. When his friends came to visit him, Job was sitting in the ashes suffering what no human being should ever suffer. He wasn’t shy about telling them how he felt, either! “Why am I even living?” he asked. “I can’t cope with all this!” Job could be the poster child for the world “overwhelmed.”

And then, God showed up. Now, God didn’t give Job a reason for what had happened to him. God merely pointed to the grandeur of the cosmos. I only read you a tiny fraction of God’s response to Job in chapters 38, 39, and 40. Beginning with creation itself, God showed Job how vast and astonishing creation really is, and how powerful God is to be able to care for all of it. In four chapters of magnificent Hebrew poetry, God showed Job the marvels of the heavens, the wonders of weather, the diversity of animals and birds, and even the breathtaking spectacle of sea monsters who cannot be controlled by any human being. And at the conclusion of God’s speech, Job confessed, “I had heard of you with my ears, but now I have seen you with my eyes; and – wow – I had no idea!” Job moved from being overwhelmed with his own loss to being overwhelmed with God’s grandeur.

The New Testament offers us a similar, although much shorter, story (John 20:19-20). On the evening of Easter, the disciples were overwhelmed, too. They had locked themselves into a room for safety, overwhelmed with the reality that their master had been crucified just days earlier, and terrified that the same men who had killed Jesus might come for them, too. They had been convinced that Jesus was God’s Messiah; and they expected him to establish God’s kingdom on earth. But just when the disciples thought that Jesus might be ready to establish that kingdom; after Jesus had challenged the power of Rome by riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday; after Jesus had challenged the power of the religious authorities by clearing the Temple of all its officially-sanctioned greed and corruption; after all that, Jesus didn’t establish God’s kingdom. On the contrary, Jesus was crucified as a common criminal. The expectations of the disciples had disappeared as quickly as Job’s wealth. In one horrible day, they, too, had lost everything.

But then, Jesus showed up. Just like God showed up to Job when he was overwhelmed, Jesus showed up to his overwhelmed disciples; but Jesus showed them much more than the wonders of creation. Jesus showed them his wounded hands and pierced side, and the disciples realized that he had been raised from the dead! John’s gospel tells us that they were “overjoyed,” but I imagine that they were overwhelmed, too. How could you NOT be overwhelmed when someone that you thought was lost to you forever is restored to you – and restored forever?! They, too, moved from being overwhelmed with loss to being overwhelmed with joy at what God had done.

And what about us? We are all overwhelmed with loss right now, too: loss of our familiar schedules, loss of being able to gather with friends, loss of the expectations that we once had that our lives would go on more or less normally no matter what happened. We know now that those expectations led us into a false sense of security. Like Job – like the disciples – our expectations didn’t match reality; and we were overwhelmed when reality pulled the rug out from underneath us. But here’s the thing – God is also reality; and God is greater than anything that life can throw at us! When we are overwhelmed, God is the reality on which we need to focus. If we focus on the coronavirus, or on the stock market, or even on our leaders, we will soon become overwhelmed. I suggest that we focus on the grandeur of the universe that points to the power of its Creator; and on the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead. If we allow that to overwhelm us, we will be spared some of the agony that Job and the disciples experienced. Oh, sure, life will still be difficult. But we need not allow it to overwhelm us, because God’s power is greater than everything in all creation! Paul described that power beautifully in the book of Romans (8:38-39): “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is Christ Jesus our Lord.” The One who created the universe and everything in it is the same One who died and was raised for us! And that, friends, is something that is truly overwhelming!