SEEKING THE WATER OF LIFE AS WE FACE THE CHANGES OF LIFE

 

I am struck that it is one year ago that the COVID wave crashed across our area, forcing us into quarantine mode. One year. I remember we all thought it would be for a short time, that if we sheltered in place well, we could all re-emerge at Easter and oh, what a day of resurrection it would be!

And here we are, a year later, and perhaps, if vaccines keep happening at the rates they are, PERHAPS we are achieving herd immunity and can together experience new life together at Easter,

So I have been reflecting on this past year, what I have learned, what I failed to learn, what I did, what I failed to do. There are so many lessons this past year offers and I believe that we need to take time to consider the lessons and be sure we have learned them well as we move into the future.

So tonight, Id like you to think about this past year. What significant events have been defining moments of the past year, what you have learned from them, how God has spoken to you through all you have experienced?

This is a season of change. Just as the length of light has grown longer, the days warmer, the buds just starting to poke through the ground across our area, change is happening, too, in our individual lives. Some of us are getting ready for moves, some are preparing young people for graduation, some are walking with loved ones who are sick and dying. We feel the changes wrought by aging increase with every passing day.

What are some changes you are facing?

Listing all of these changes, it is a bit overwhelming. And then when you place all these within the backdrop of a fast-paced, ever changing society, it can make you dizzy!

Change isn’t easy for us. For many of us, our attitude towards change is summed up by the bumper sticker: Change is good. You go first. Or by another bumper sticker: Change is good. Unless it happens.

How do you negotiate the many changes that you face in your life?  What resources help you move through change? What does your faith have to do with the changes you face?  Is it any help at all to you?

Arian Ward of Hughes Space and Communications Company said, “I’m no longer in the mode of trying to change people. I’m in a mode of finding a way to enable them to change. Because it’s going to happen naturally.”  We are going to age.  Friends and loved ones will move or die.  We will acquire new positions, new roles.  Who or what is equipping you to be able to change?  Who or what is helping you move through the transitions, which are the psychological process people go through to come to terms with change?

I have not always been graceful at negotiating transitions, but I have found that faith offers me comfort and a compass for those transition points.  For there is one who is the A to Z, the first and final, the beginning and the end. Christ’s presence bookends the beginnings and endings of change in my life. And when I sink into this truth, change and transitions are less frightening and disorienting, because through it all, my eyes are focused on the promises of God, who will be with me always.

Through those times of transition, when my soul has been parched and my spirit in a draught, Jesus has offered me the Water of Life which sustained and strengthened me so that I have been able to say boldly through the transitions of life: “I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon!”

Water, the water of life.  Many years ago a friend and I were checking out a new hiking trail for our summer church camp in the Catskill mountains of New York. For a couple of years, we had hiked the same trail in for two and a half miles and then hiked it out with our campers. But we realized that the trail went on beyond our turn around and ended at another point. We didn’t want to have to backtrack anymore so thought we would check out this seven mile hike.

We hiked the first two and a half miles. No problem. All familiar ground.  Got up to our usual turn-around point on a heavily forested plateau. But when you stepped to the edge of the plateau, you overlooked an expanse of wilderness that took your breath away. It was always hard to leave that beautiful spot.

My friend and I pulled ourselves away and began walking on the new path.  We felt pretty confident about our trail. Although every once in a while it got covered over in bushes, and sometimes we wondered if we were still on the trail or a deer path.

We stopped for lunch on a huge granite boulder, eating all our food and drinking all our water, as we lazily lounged on the stone like lizards in the hot sun.

After a nap, we continued on the trail, and began to get a little nervous: were we on the right trail? How far did we have to go? It was a hot day and we had drank all our water. We became more and more dehydrated and extremely anxious, as we wondered when we would ever get to the end of the trail. In fact, I have never been more scared out on a trail before.

Finally, totally parched, we could make out the trail head sign in the distance. About thirty yards from the end of the trail, I tripped and literally rolled my way the rest of the trail.

I learned an important lesson that day about water’s life-giving powers.  The lack of water clouded my judgment. I lost my sense of balance. I wasn’t sure which way to go, didn’t have the strength at times to go on. 

When Jesus says, come, drink freely of the water of life, I know the power that he is offering me for this trail of life I am trying to follow, even when I get lost, when the trail changes, when all the familiar signs around me are gone.

What trail are you walking? What winds of change blow fiercely in your life these days? What kinds of transitions are you facing?  There is one who was with you at the beginning of it all, and there is one who will be with you at the end. There is one who is your companion now, who wants to offer you the strength and sustenance to negotiate this time of change in your life.  Come. Come and drink freely of the water of life that Jesus offers us.