"He's Been There"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

I think we would all agree that most families do their best to keep their family secrets a secret, right? Most families don’t go around talking about that great-grandfather whose picture was on all those “Wanted” posters or the aunt who was a streetwalker or the uncle who was an alcoholic. In fact, sometimes families even keep those skeletons in the family closet hidden from other members of the family. I found this out a number of years ago when my mom let me in on a little family secret that I’d never heard before. My mom’s mom – in other words, my Grandma Schnedler – was one of 15 brothers and sisters. They were all raised in St. Charles, MO, and I believe that most of them got married and lived pretty normal lives, including my grandmother. But one of her sisters had anything but a normal life. For she met and fell in love with a man who was definitely not the one that her father would have chosen for her. But instead of listening to her dad, who would have been my great-grandfather, and following his wishes, she listened to her heart and followed her own desires and got married to this fellow, after which her dad completely ostracized her from the family. From what my mom told me, it was as though this aunt of hers ceased to exist. No longer was she welcome in the home. No longer was she allowed at Christmas celebrations. No longer was she permitted to attend family reunions.

Now you’re no doubt wondering what was so terribly wrong with the man she chose to marry. Well, are you ready for this? He wasn’t a thief. He wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t an ex-con. He wasn’t a lazy bum who refused to work and earn a living for his family. But do you know what he was? He was a Catholic. That’s right. My great-grandfather completely banished one of his own daughters from the family because she, a Lutheran, had the audacity to fall in love with and marry a Catholic. Someday when he and I meet in heaven, I want to sit down and have a talk with him about that, though I’m sure the Lord has already done that.

But my point is, that is a skeleton that hung in our family closet for a long time until my mom shared that story with me some years ago. That’s why I say, we don’t like to tell our family secrets. We don’t like to air our dirty laundry. And we certainly don’t record these stories that we are less than proud of in the family Bible, right? That is, unless you’re Jesus. All you have to do is read the 1^st chapter of the New Testament, Matthew 1, and you’re immediately confronted with Jesus’ family closet, skeletons and all. There’s Jacob who could be about as slippery and slimy a character as you could ever hope to meet; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah who seduced him into getting her pregnant so she would have a child to carry on the family name; Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho; David the adulterer and murderer; Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 mistresses. And it just goes on and on.

So my friends, if your family tree has some rotten fruit on it, Jesus wants you to know that you’re not alone. He can relate. He can say, “I’ve been there.” In fact, that’s a phrase that he could say in lots of different ways because he wasn’t just our divine Savior, but our human Savior as well. So to the lonely, he whispers, “I’ve been there.” To the discouraged, he nods his head and sighs, “I know what that’s like.” To the rejected and dejected, he says, “Yep, been there and done that too.”

To show how human Jesus was and how easily he can relate to the lowest of the low, all we have to do is consider where he came from. He was raised in Nazareth, right? That was the town about which it was sometimes said, “Can any good come from there?” Now if we wanted to find a parallel to Nazareth in our area, here’s what I’d suggest we do. We’d get in our car and head south on I-57. We’d take the first exit and head west on Rt. 161 toward Centralia. We would then weave our way through that booming metropolis and continue on 161 till we came to the small town of Hoffman. But we wouldn’t stop there yet. Instead we would continue on our merry way for a few more miles until we would finally come to the tiny hamlet of Posey. How many of you have ever been to Posey before? I have to confess that I’ve been by it, but never in it. It’s one of those towns where if you blink while you’re passing by, you miss it.

Well, once we’d get into Posey, then we’d need to look for a house there. Not one of the nicer homes for Joseph and Mary were poor. So we’d need to look for one of the smallest homes in town, not necessarily an old run-down shack, but a simple home. And there, with all due respect to the people who live in Posey, I think we would have a modern-day equivalent of what Jesus’ home and hometown were like.

But there’s more that we want to note about Jesus’ common background today. In Mark 6:3 some of the folks who heard him preach in their synagogue were saying, “He’s just a carpenter.” In other words, Jesus had callused hands, dirt under his fingernails, sweat stains in the armpits of his robe. And you know what else he had? Common looks. Is. 53:2 says, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Some of you might recall a reality series that was on television a few years ago. In fact, it ran from 2003 to 2007. It was called “Average Joe.” On this show a beautiful woman would think that she was going to be introduced to a lot of very fine looking guys from which she would hopefully choose her partner for life. But as they were paraded before her, they were just a bunch of average Joe’s – some of them were overweight, some were balding, some were skinny, some were not attractive at all. Well, Jesus might have made a good candidate for that show. Drop-dead smile? Doubtful. Chiseled physique? Probably not. One author I came across said that if he even closely resembled the average male Jew of his day, he would have had “dark olive skin, a broad peasant’s face, short curly hair, and a prominent nose. He would have stood 5 feet one inch tall and weighed around 110 pounds.” According to a 3^rd-century historian by the name of Origen, “his body was small and ill-shapen and ignoble.”

What about you, my friends? Have you ever felt as though you were just an average Joe or Jane who got shortchanged or completely bypassed in the looks department? Jesus can relate to you. He’s been there. Our text for today says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” So what are your weaknesses? Are you poor? Jesus can sympathize with that. He once said, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Do you ever feel like you just need to get away from it all? So did Jesus. Mark 1:35 says: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Do you ever feel pressured and taken advantage of? Again, Jesus has been there. Mark 3:20 says: “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.” Have you ever felt misunderstood? Jesus was too. In that very same chapter of Mark’s Gospel we read: “And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.’"

How about tension in your family? Do you know what that’s like? So does Jesus. Mark 3:21 says: “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’" Have you ever been falsely accused? If so, you have a friend in Jesus for in Matt. 11:19 he was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. And the night before he was put to death, his enemies actually paid false witnesses to come in and tell lies about him. Do your friends ever let you down? Guess what? Jesus has been there. Matt. 26:56 says: “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”

Heb. 2:15 tells us that Jesus experienced “all the pain, all the testing” that we could ever experience. A look at the Gospels reveals that he was angry enough to drive the moneychangers out of the temple. He was hungry enough to eat raw grain with his disciples. He was distraught enough to weep in public, weary enough to sleep in a storm-tossed boat, winsome enough to attract little children, radical enough to get kicked out of his hometown, responsible enough to provide for the care of his mother while hanging on the cross, tempted enough to know the smell of Satan, and fearful enough to sweat blood. You know what I think? I think Jesus knows more about what it’s like to be human than any of us do.

But why? Why would this former ruler of the universe, this 2^nd Person of the Holy Trinity, subject himself to the worst that this world could throw his way? I think you know the answer to that question. He did it so that you and I would know the depth and breadth and magnitude of his love for us. He did it so that we would know that the God we worship and follow and serve is not some distant being out there in the heavens somewhere who has no concept of what it’s like to struggle in this earthly vale of tears. He did it so that we would know we have a friend in heaven who understands, who’s been there, and who will always be there for us, no matter what we have to face because he’s already faced it.

I remember when Marilyn’s dad died in 1995. It was unexpected kind of like Frances Fatheree’s death a few weeks ago. It was something that I know both Marilyn and I have always dreaded because we were both blessed with wonderful parents and the thought of having to do without any of them was almost more than we could bear. But at the visitation which was held in Campbell Hill, more than 50 members of this congregation drove the 85 miles down there to express their love and sympathy. In addition to that we received numerous cards in the mail from so many of you. And we appreciated all of that so much. But there was one card in particular that I have never forgotten. It came from Jim and Eileen Wall, former members of our congregation who now live in Effingham. I don’t remember what the card itself said, but I do remember what the personal note inside stated. It simply said, “The first year is the toughest.” And oh how true that was. The first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first Easter, all the birthdays, the first Campbell Hill picnic, the first anniversary of my father-in-law’s death.

Now I suspect Eileen wrote that note. But how did she know that? How did she know the 1^st year would be the toughest? I suppose it was because she’d been through it before and she was doing her best to help us prepare for what she knew lay ahead us.

Jesus does the same for us, my friends. Since he’s been here and experienced the worst that this world has to offer, he better than anyone can help us prepare for and meet the challenges and difficulties that lie ahead of us.

One more thing before I close. Remember those skeletons in Jesus’ family closet we talked about before? If you’ve ever felt as though you’re one of them because of your sordid past or because of your faults and failures, I want to leave you with some very important words from Heb. 2:11. There it says: “Jesus, who makes people holy, and those who are made holy are from the same family. So he is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.” Wow! Isn’t that great? No matter what you’ve done, no matter how far you’ve fallen, no matter how many times you have disappointed Jesus, he still loves you. He still wants you to be a part of his family. And he is not ashamed to call you his brother or sister. Now there’s a thought that is definitely worth taking home with you today and carrying around with you throughout this week. It’s also a thought that is definitely worth sharing with others so that they too might know how much Jesus wants them to be a part of his forever family.

      Amen.