The Super Ball
Romans 8:31-39 & Hebrews 4:14-16
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Lou Nyiri
December 28, 2008

Happy New Year!
I love this time of year because this is the time when all people – ALL PEOPLE – regardless of race, creed, color, and social status pause and reflect.  This is the time of year when people look back at the preceding year and try to learn from its mistakes.  It’s also the time when people look toward the upcoming year with anticipation of its possibility.  Yes, this is the time of year when ALL people pause (for a moment or maybe moments) and take an inventory of their life.

Some of history’s great thinkers have reveled in the New Year and its challenges as well as its opportunities with these thoughts:

• G.K. Chesterton the prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature who found in Christianity answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life has said,
• “The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul.”
• Edward Payson Powell who wrote historical works in the late 1800s in hopes of promoting a spirit of reconciliation among the north and south states has said,
• “The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!
• The 1800s Congregational preacher & brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher has said,
• “Every man [and woman] should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let one down, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every [all people] gird [themselves] once more, with [their] face[s] to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.”
• The writer of Hebrews says,
• “…we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
• The Apostle Paul writes,
•  “For I am convinced [that nothing] will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• “January is a wonderful time of year!  It’s the time when we get to decide if and how we are going to start a fresh page in the new chapter of the book we call our lives.”
• (That one, well that one is mine.  Someday it too might be prolific & profound!)

For me though that is why the first day of the New Year is such a wonderful day! 
Today (like every day) is a chance to decide in each one of our individual lives how we are going to live into the reality and realization of what God’s grace can do in and through our lives. 
Today (like every day) we can decide if we are going to let past hurts, wounds, wrong choices and disappointments live our lives for us OR if we are going to allow God’s grace to work in and through our experiences – to breath new life into us, helping us become the creations God knows we can become. 
Will we live chained to the despair of all our yesterdays or will we live freed-up by God’s grace into the hope of all our tomorrows?
What will it be this year?

My wife and me and our two boys were hanging out last weekend when I noticed the super ball in the bowl on our kitchen table.
Maybe you have a similar bowl or drawer in your house.  I’m talking about that spot where missing or lost & found items gravitate to when being moved from one place to another.  It’s that place in your house where odds-n-ends accumulate. 
Maybe your bowl or drawer has paper clips or loose change or a key to a lock only God knows about. 
When I saw the super ball I picked it up and asked aloud, “Hey, where’d this super ball come from?”

My wife said, “I don’t know.”
My youngest son said, “Beats me.”
My oldest son chimed in, “I don’t know.” 
Then he went on this diatribe about the super ball.

You know what, I have no clue where that ball came from. 
Do you know? (He asked his brother.)
How ‘bout you mom?
I have no idea where this super ball came from.  You know what I mean?  You know.?
Wow, that is the craziest thing…that super ball just showing up here like that. 
And we have no idea where it came from and now here it is. 
That’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen.  None of us knows where it came from but now here it is. 
I wonder where it came from?

And my wife and I look at each other with that look of amazement, confusion and questioning that speaks without words –
Whose child is this? 
What is he talking about? 
And does he really think we’re buying this rant of his that claims he doesn’t know where the ball came from?  Does he really think we were born yesterday?  Are we that naïve in his mind?
But we had things to do and time was getting away from us so we let it slide – after all it was only a super ball – right?

So, I’m driving home from work and I call my wife on the cell phone to tell her I’m on my way and I should be home in about 20 minutes.  And she tells me about her afternoon with the boys:
About how she was cleaning up downstairs after the boys had finished lunch.
They were playing football or some macho guy game when it happened.
The youngest child came running down the stairs with tears in his eyes. 
And through quickened breaths from running down stairs and crying he managed to get out, “He hit me hard.”
And almost directly behind him was his oldest brother declaring innocence by using the No I didn’t.  It wasn’t me. defense.

It’s the craziest thing, he started, it just happened.
I have no idea how it happened all I know is it just happened.
I don’t know how but it just happened.  It wasn’t me though.
We were playing.  We were running around.  We were having loads of fun.  Then it happened.  I don’t know how but it just happened. 
It’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen…neither of us knows how it happened but it just happened. 
I have no idea. 
You know what I mean?  You know.!?

And my wife pauses then leans in so that here eyes are the same level as my oldest son’s eyes and she says, “Kind of like you don’t know where the super ball came from?”
And the look in his eyes was memorable.  It was a cross between deer in the headlights and a fugitive no longer on the run.  In the words of those TV cop shows, he was “busted.”
Before she could say anything else, he started crying and took of running up the stairs as fast as he had come running down them.  She heard a door open and close hard and then she didn’t hear anything else.  And she hadn’t seen nor heard from him since.  All she knew was that he hadn’t come back down those steps and they were the only way down from upstairs.

“And so here I am,” the father continues, “on my way home from work not knowing what I’m going to do or say but knowing I’m expected to say and do something when I get home.”
I park the car in the garage, enter the house, greet my wife, hug my youngest son, take off my coat & hang it on the dining room chair, and then I breathe a quick prayer of guidance and go upstairs to find my oldest son.
First, I go to the scene of the crime, my youngest son’s room where the two had been playing and the ensuing scuffle had occurred.  I open the door look around and see nothing.
Next, I go to his room, figuring he’ll be in his closet behind the door hoping and praying no one finds him.  I enter his room, look around, peer inside his closet, move the hangers around and still no one in sight.  I even looked under his bed and all I found were dust bunnies and a half eaten bowl of macaroni & cheese.
I look in the bathroom and even the hall closet and find no sign of him.
Then I look at the end of the hall and see the door closed to the one room I couldn’t imagine he would have gone to but it’s the only one left.

I open the door to our room and I see it.
There in the middle of our bed…between the covers and the sheet is a lump curled into a ball approximately the size of our oldest son.
“Hey,” I say, “are you in here.” 
(I can see him.  The question isn’t so much for me as it is for him to identify my presence.) 
Nothing.  He doesn’t even move.
And it hits me, He’s been here ever since he ran upstairs.  He has been hiding under the covers for almost four hours.  Can he even breathe under there?

So I go over and stand next to the bed wondering what I’m going to do.
I breathe another quick prayer and I pull back the covers revealing my child as I sit down on the edge of the bed.
And he doesn’t move an inch.
Then he lifts his head and slowly looks up at me until his eyes meet mine.
And there I am staring into the face of my child drenched in sweat, with thick matted hair plastered to his forward and cheeks stained from wet tears.
And he lunges himself forward at me until his head hits hard in the middle of my chest and his arms swing wildly around me and he locks onto me for dear life.
I wrap my arms around him as the sweat from his head begins to seep from his hair and saturate my shirt creating an ever expanding wet spot in the middle of my shirt.
I lean my head down and kiss the top of his head and all I can say is, “I love you.”

And then I have an epiphany. 
This is what God does with me. 
This is what God does with all of us.
No matter what we’ve done God says to each of us,
“I love you. 
There is nothing you could ever do that will make me stop loving you. 
I love you.  I will never stop loving you. 
Nothing you could ever do would make me stop loving you.”

And you’re right; I don’t know what you’ve done. 
But I don’t have to know because you know…and God knows.
And as people of faith we know what God can do with those things which hold us back from realizing the fullness of God’s grace for our lives.
The reality of the gospel is that no matter what we’ve done…no matter how big we think we’ve screwed up…our mistakes are never too big that God can’t forgive us. 
I heard something a few years back that has changed the way I look at life,
My brilliance can’t make God love me any more and my ignorance can’t make God love me any less.

I get into conversations that often end up with people asking me, “What do you believe?” 
When I am asked this question I am reminded of several declarations of faith:

• I remember and believe the words of our Apostle’s Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.  Maker of heaven and earth.  And in Jesus Christ [God’s] only Son our Lord….the one who ascended into heaven and who judges [us]
• I remember and believe the words of the writer of Hebrews, “…we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need….”
• I remember and believe the Apostle Paul when he writes, “For I am convinced [that nothing] will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Now these reminders of God’s grace are not get out of jail free cards.  
Just because we are forgiven doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want or that once we’ve done it we don’t have to make amends for the hurt we may have caused another person. 
God’s grace is not cheap and if we flippantly receive it without seeking to make amends for wrongs we have done we run the very real risk of cheapening grace. 
However the very nature of God’s grace is such that we are empowered to work through hurtful moments because we are not alone…God goes with us.

• We are loved and cared for by a God who not only understands our struggle but identifies with our struggle. 
• We are loved and cared for by a God who not only identifies with our struggle but has done something to bridge the gap our struggle puts between us and God
• I believe it is this bridge which opens us up to become the creations of God that God knows we can become. 
• I believe this gap between us and God is bridged through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ and our faith in that redeeming relationship.

January is a wonderful time of year! 
It’s a time of year we get to decide if and how we are going to start a fresh page in the new chapter of the books we call our lives. 
May we turn the page into this New Year by spending time to connect or re-connect with God’s grace which is not only available for every one else in this world…it is also available for us as well. 
Happy New Year!  Make it a great one!

Let us pray: Holy God, we sit poised on the very first day of another brand new year.  It is a year that like other years will give us 365 days that are as fresh with possibility as the new baby whose birth we just celebrated one week ago who grew to be the mane we have come to worship as our Savior.  Overwhelm us this day and this year with the hope and gladness you know we need.  Open us to a brand-new reality, to the way things might yet be.  Transform us into vibrant witnesses as we accept your grace for our lives, and then help us to live out your good news that is ancient, yet always and ever new.  Amen.

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