"A Cure for the Common Life"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

Would you describe yourself as a common person? Before you answer that question, let me toss out a few scenarios to help you with your response. If you’re like most of us here today you probably awoke this morning to a common day in your common house. You went to your common bathroom where you brushed your common teeth and combed your common hair and looked in the mirror at your common face. I doubt that you had a butler draw your bath for you or a maid lay out your clothes. And unless it’s your birthday, you probably were not served breakfast in bed either. Instead of eggs benedict and freshly squeezed orange juice, you may have grabbed a quick bowl of cereal and a piece of toast, just like you do every other common day of your common life.

When it was time to go to church, again I doubt that a chauffeured limousine pulled up in the front of your house to drive you here. Instead, you got in your common car and drove the same common route you always drive to get here.

The job you’ll go to tomorrow is in all likelihood a pretty common job. I sincerely doubt that any of you are going to have Jay Leno calling you to ask you to be a guest on his recently reclaimed Tonight Show or President Obama consulting you for advice about what to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve been in some of your homes and I’ve never seen an Oscar on any of your mantles or a best-seller book authored by you on any of your shelves.

Let’s face it, my friends. Most of us are pretty common people who live pretty common lives. Oh, once in a while our daily routines are punctuated by an occasional wedding or bowling trophy or job promotion, but by and large, we share the same day-to-day rhythm that most people around us share.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with being common. However, commonhood can have its perils. For example, you can feel as though you’re just another face in the crowd who has nothing to offer this world. You can feel unproductive as you examine your common life and wonder whether you’ll ever do anything of lasting value. You can feel insignificant, unimportant, and maybe even unloved. In fact, you might even wonder if God takes note of such a common person as yourself, or does he just pay attention to the movers and shakers of this world?

Well, Jesus provides us with the answer to that question in a most uncommon way. And he does it by directing our attention to himself. For if the word common describes you, my friends, you can find comfort in knowing that you’re in good company because it also described Christ.

Now wait a minute, some of you may be thinking, there’s nothing common about walking on water or healing the sick or raising the dead or being raised from the dead. So how can we call the life of Jesus “common”?

Well, I’m not saying that his whole life was common. But I would suggest to you this morning that about 9/10 of it was. Let me explain. How old was Jesus when he died? Most Bible scholars believe he was around 33 based upon the evidence we find in Scripture. How long did his earthly ministry last? Right at 3 years. That leaves 30 years of his life that is pretty well unaccounted for. Granted there were the miraculous events surrounding his birth and his rather uncommon appearance in the temple at the age of 12. But aside from those things, I would suggest to you that Jesus lived a very common life in a very common town doing very common things. And in the process, he set for us an example of how to live a common life.

So using our text for today, we’re going to take a look at 3 things Jesus did with his common life. Hear once again these words from Mark’s Gospel, spoken by Jesus’ fellow Nazarenes who had watched him grow up and who were now hearing the stories about his increasing popularity and fame. It was they who said: “Isn’t this the carpenter?”

Which brings us to the first point I want to make and that is that Jesus managed his life well. You know, sometimes a verse in Scripture can teach us more by what it does not say than by what it does say. Please note then that this verse does not say: “Is not this the carpenter who owes me money?” Or, “Is not this the carpenter who swindled my father?” Or, “Is not this the carpenter who never finished the job he was doing for me?” Such words were never said about Jesus. And I think that’s noteworthy. For at different times Jesus’ fellow Nazarenes would say much against him. They would call him crazy. They would say he was out of his mind. They would try to throw him off a cliff. But not one time could they say, “You know that Jesus? He never did his work.” Or, “You know that messiah-wanna-be, that son of Mary and Joseph who grew up here and who everyone’s talking about? I wouldn’t give him the time of day because his word is about as flimsy as the tables he used to build.” Jesus may have had a common job in a common town, but he carried it out in an uncommon way.

And he thereby set an example for you and me. What kind of a job do you work at? Oh, I’m just a factory worker or I’m just a farmer or I’m just a secretary or I’m just a janitor. Listen, your job may be common, but the way you approach it, the way you work at it, need not be. Follow the example of Jesus and give it your all. Give it your best. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Whatever you are, be a good one.” And the Apostle Paul puts it this way in Col. 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” I really believe that if you’ll follow that little bit of advice you will find an uncommon sense of joy and satisfaction in that common job you have to go to everyday.

So Jesus managed his life and his work well. Then secondly, he also listened to his life. In other words, he was observant of what was going on all around him. He paid attention to his common surroundings and gleaned uncommon lessons from what he saw. For example, the town of Nazareth sits on a summit 600 feet above sea level. Can’t you just picture Jesus as a young boy climbing to the highest point of that summit, looking out over the valley below where he would see the wild lilies blooming and the farmers sowing their seed and the birds spreading their wings and soaring on the undercurrents of air that lifted them upward? Could it be that it was moments like these that inspired some of the words Jesus spoke and some of the stories he told? “Look at the birds of the air;” he would say in his Sermon on the Mount, “they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” “A farmer went out to sow his seed.”

Though Jesus lived a common life, he took note of his common surroundings and learned valuable lessons from them. This carpenter who may have very well made his share of oxen yokes would later say, “My yoke is easy.” This one who had no doubt brushed his share of sawdust from his eyes while working in the carpenter’s shop would one day say, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Jesus listened to his common life and learned valuable lessons in the process. What about you, my friends? Are you doing the same? Or have you become so busy and so caught up in the hectic and frantic pace of your life that you’re missing the important lessons and tiny miracles that God brings your way each and every day? A beautiful sunset where he paints the sky a multi-variety of colors for no other reason than our sheer enjoyment…the giggle of a baby…the purring of a kitten…the beating of your heart…the joy of success…the hearing of a beautiful song. These and so many other things just like them are gifts delivered right to your doorstep each day from the Creator of the universe, if you’ll just follow the example of Jesus and take the time to observe them and appreciate them.

So he managed his life well. He listened to his life. And then lastly, he gave his life. Have you ever wondered how Jesus knew it was time to leave his home in Nazareth and begin his 3-year ministry that would culminate at the cross? Though we’re not really told in the Gospels, Luke does tell us in chapter 3, verse 23 of his book: “When Jesus entered public life he was about 30 years old.” Now in order to enter public life, what do you need to do? You need to leave private life. So in order for Jesus to do what he came to do, in order for him to change the world, he had to say good-bye to the simple little world he had enjoyed in Nazareth.

He had to give Mary a kiss, bid farewell to his friends, take one last look around the carpenter shop, knowing full well that his common life was about to become very uncommon. I wonder if he even took one of the nails from his carpenter shop and pressed its point into his hand, already anticipating what would happen in 3 short years.

You know, it’s one thing to be forced into the fire. It’s an entirely different matter to step into it voluntarily, which is what Jesus did. It’s also what Alan and Penny McIlroy did. Recently I came across the story about this wonderful Christian couple who apparently were not able to have any children of their own so they chose to adopt a baby, but not just any old baby. No they chose to adopt a special needs child named Saleena. Saleena was a cocaine baby. Her birth mother’s drug overdose left Saleena unable to hear, see, speak, or move. Yet Penny and Alan willingly adopted her at 7 weeks. That’s what you call stepping into the fire voluntarily. The doctor gave her a year to live. The last I heard, she had lived six.

Though Penny and Alan have sacrificed so much for her, Saleena never responds, and, barring any miracle from God, never will respond. Neither will her sister, Destiny, another special needs child that this incredible Christian couple adopted. She is only one year old, but like Saleena, she is motionless, unresponsive, vegetative. Penny and Alan will never hear Destiny’s voice. They will never know Saleena’s kiss. They will never see their daughters attend the high school prom or walk across the stage to receive their diploma at their college graduation. They will never hear their daughters sing in a choir or do any of the other things that we parents take for granted with our kids. Instead, they will spend the rest of their children’s lives bathing them, changing them, adjusting their feeding tubes, and rubbing their limp limbs.

What kind of love makes such sacrifices? What kind of love adopts such disaster? What kind of love looks into the face of such hopeless and helpless children and says, “I’ll take them”?

Well, when you come up with a word for such love, apply it to Jesus. For because of our sin we were just as hopeless and helpless spiritually speaking as Saleena and Destiny were physically speaking. But thankfully Jesus was willing to adopt us. He was willing to make whatever sacrifices it took so that we could be his own and he could provide for us an eternal home in his heavenly kingdom. And because he was willing to do that for you, do you know what that means? It means that you are not common at all, and don’t you dare let anyone tell you that you are. And don’t you dare ever think you are. For you are the recipient of an uncommon, extraordinary love that comes from this uncommon, extraordinary Savior and that makes an uncommon and extraordinary difference in our lives and our eternities, which is just another reason why I’m calling him in the sermon series that I’m currently preaching “The One and Only.”

      Amen.