St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Pictou, NS

 

Unimaginable Energy

 

Isaiah 40:21-31

Mark 1:29-39

 

 With the Iraqi war and the cost of fuel, talking about energy is all the rage. We are dependent on energy. Even George Bush himself recently and finally admitted that the USA was addicted to foreign oil.

 

We use all kinds of ways to measure energy:

-we cost oil by the barrel, (in Canada, we pay for gas by the litre.)

-we talk about computers with so many megabytes of memory,

-we measure fuel efficiency when we talk about miles per gallon,

-atomic bombs are measured by “so many tons of TNT,” although now they measure them as being as powerful as “so many Hiroshima’s,”

-we measure electrical power with “watts,”

-when we are tired, we say “I feel like I’m a hundred years old today,”

-we talk about G Force when we refer to gravity, and say that planets or stars are so many light years from us.

 

But nobody, not all of the scientists in the world have yet found a way to measure one powerful kind of energy.

 

Since nobody has found a way to measure this energy, it is often seen as unimportant and without value, because we are into “measurement” and if we can’t measure it, then it must not be important. Even though we can see the results of this energy, we still don’t value it, because there is no Richter scale we can use to impress each other with various measurements.

 

The power I am talking about is Divine Power; the power of God, spiritual energy: the power you and I receive when we believe.

 

There is only one sin that human beings ever make. What is that sin?

 

If you were told that the whole Bible was going to be taken from you and you could only keep one verse, which verse would it be?

 

For me that one verse that I would keep would be commandment number one:

“You shall have no other Gods before me.”

 

This is the only sin we really ever make: we think that we are God.

 

No matter how smart we are or how badly we mess up our lives, our environment, or our planet, we hold on to that idea like a pit bull, that we are God.

 

There is a great deal of difference in thinking that you are the source of power, rather than thinking that you are can tap into an infinite source of power by your belief.

 

AA recognizes as fundamental to its program in healing powerful addictions: to draw on the infinite resources of the power of God.

 

After their first step where the alcoholic is to acknowledge that their life is a mess, (We could interpret as, “We acknowledge that thinking we are God doesn’t work,”) the second Step reads:

 

“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

 

“…a power greater than ourselves?”

 

Be truthful to yourselves, do you really believe that God is a power beyond the power that you, yourself have in your person?

 

Do you really believe that if you have 100 megabytes of power that God has a billion megabytes of power?

 

The prophet Isaiah said exactly that same thing 3,000 years ago in his language of the day:

 

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

 

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not grow faint or weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

 

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

 

Recovered alcoholics in AA all know that God is more powerful than alcohol.

 

Did you know that God is more powerful that negative thinking?

 

Did you know that God is more powerful than handicaps, misadventure, or accidents?

 

Did you know that God is more powerful than being young?

 

“Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

but (the prophet says), but

those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings as eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.”

 

I read an obituary last week about a beautiful Christian woman who at one point was in a wheelchair. Her niece told the story about her being photographed by the local paper using her new vacuum cleaner… sitting in her wheelchair.

 

I’ll bet that good and faithful Anglican woman knew that Isaiah said, “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.”

 

That woman was tapping into a power beyond her wheelchair!

 

Our God is an awesome God.

 

In the Gospel of Mark we read that all kinds of people came to Jesus for healing.

 

On arriving at the house of one his disciples, Simon they found his mother in law laying in bed with a fever. Jesus “took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then her fever left her, and she began to serve them.

 

That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons…”

 

What power brought all of those people to a house where Jesus was? What kind of power did Jesus use to lift up his mother in law’s hand, to heal all of those people?

 

How many megabytes of power did Jesus use that day?

 

A powerful healing event like this caused the news to be spread. Jesus had gone off to pray by himself the next morning and was sought out by the disciples:  everyone wanted more. There were more people wanting to be healed.

 

Did Jesus run back to town and heal the waiting people?

 

No – he moved on. If you had put off your healing until tomorrow, you were too late.

 

Jesu said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

 

We find in this passage that even Jesus was responding to a power greater than himself: his mission in the world. He was not supposed to stay and be a well-known healer in a small village, Jesus Christ was called to bigger and bolder things; Jesus was called for the world. He had to move on and move on he did: without computers, cell phones, faxes, and wireless internet he encircled the globe.

 

The question is not that we should be so marveled by modern technology, the question is why are we not much more impressed by Jesus Christ who could do more that it could… without it!

 

The even better question is, “Why aren’t you and I in our lives, not accessing through prayer and meditation God’s high tech power to get the strength and energy we need for our lives?”

 

God’s power system was wireless before there were even wires!

 

As individuals, as a church, through the power of Jesus Christ, you and I have access to a source of unimaginable energy: the power of God:

-more powerful than the internet,

-more powerful than alcohol,

-more powerful than a minority government.

 

You and I in our lives are in the exact same position as the Newfoundland government.

 

Joey Smallwood did a poor deal with the Churchill Falls energy project. In the past and for the next 35 years, most of the profits go to the province of Quebec.

 

The Newfoundlanders are thinking of doing another project: Churchill II.

 

Shockingly, one of their options on the table is: to do it without Québec this time. They are now absolutely determined to not let this opportunity to pass them by. If Quebec doesn’t want to negotiate in good faith, there are other options!

 

Two thousand years ago, some sick people heard that this amazing man, called Jesus was healing people. It was miraculous! People were being healed, but some didn’t do anything about it.

 

Picture people trying to cajole, plead, and beg with their loved ones to go and see Jesus.

 

“Sounds good, I’ll go tomorrow.”

“I don’t feel like it, I’ll try it in a few days.”

 

Tomorrow was too late! Jesus was gone.

 

The Churchill River is powerful with energy waiting to be used.

 

God in Christ is a source of unimaginable energy waiting to be used.

 

There is only one question for us: “when” and “if” we are going to use it.

 

AMEN                              Rev. Alan Stewart