Tragedy
HC Wilson · Tidal Church Moncton · November 10, 2024 · You Can't Talk About That series
H.C. Wilson speaks from Ecclesiastes 9:12 about facing tragedy, which touches every life. Using stories of loss, forgiveness and his own grief, he encourages trusting God, taking time to grieve, and knowing that He is always watching and carrying us.
More from HC Wilson · The You Can't Talk About That series
Topics: Faith, Forgiveness, Suffering, Grief
Transcript
[0:00] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's my joy to be with you on this Remembrance Day Sunday. Thank you for being here. I was assigned a topic or asked if I would speak on a topic during this series we're doing about things that are rarely discussed in church, and I was humbled and, frankly, apprehensive to be trusted with the treatment of the morning's topic, which is tragedy, a disastrous event, a calamity, a catastrophe, devastation, cataclysm, tribulation, fatal, tragic, appalling, deadly and shocking are used that are words, that are used to describe this topic. Myles Munroe, who was a minister in The Bahamas, died in this plane crash, a small plane crash, in 2014, but he once famously said, the greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life lived without purpose.
[1:00] And I fully concur with what he said. But this morning, while we are trusting everyone here is living a life with purpose, and if you're not, too soon, we'll begin that journey. We're gonna talk about tragedy. We've briefly remembered already this morning. Captain Kanes helped us do that. The two world wars of 1914, 1918, 1939 to 1945, in which an estimated 80 million lives were lost. That's about two and a half people for every citizen of Canada. A staggering number. Many of you are wearing a poppy this morning, as I am, to indicate what we remembered on this special day. 11, 11, 11, the 11th hour, the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, and we began to celebrate these days when people had given their lives.
[1:53] Did you ever, for just a moment, just gonna pass by this very quickly, but have you ever considered how different life would be if World War II had ended differently, if the other side, if the Axis powers had won rather than the Allies? We would very likely not be here this day today. We would not have the freedoms we have to freely worship without fear of official intimidation or worse. A tragedy would be impossible to comprehend. Actually, in 1947, two years after World War II was over, Joseph Stalin, who was the head of Russia at the time, is attributed to having said, a single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is merely a statistic. But it's the tragedies we're going to speak about this morning for just a few moments.
[2:40] The anchor verse for our consideration this morning is from Ecclesiastes 9:12, which said, People can never predict when hard times will come, like a fish in a net or a bird in a trap. People are caught in sudden tragedy. I've been preaching for about 60 years. I understand the value of a soft opening to draw people in and put them at ease. I understand a talk that's laced with appropriate humor to make a point, to keep the people engaged. I understand the use of a powerful one-liner that leaves people thinking, but I must tell you this morning, this topic is manifestly different.
[3:26] This topic is not soft or humorous, and it's not a place really for a carefully honed one-liner. This is about tragedy as we prod this heart-impacting topic. Just to note that my emotions may show as we stand in the darkening shadows of tragedy. Sooner or later, virtually every person who is under the sound of my voice this morning, in this place and online and beyond, you either have already or will soon face a tragedy of some description. It is inevitable. It's rather like death and taxes. It always shows up.
[4:16] Tragedy takes many forms, varying degrees of intensity. It can involve sudden, unexpected death, or crushing betrayal, or crippling business collapse, or devastating health diagnosis, or abandonment by a spouse, or becoming a victim of criminal activity, or decisions you could not control that have deeply destructive impact on you or your family, reckless conduct by others for which you or your family pays the price, suffocating family conflict, stunning violence that touches your family, or it just could be the circumstances of life that roll over you like a rogue wave that threatens to drown you.
[5:04] Tragedy. I've had the privilege, as Jordan said in his little intro to me, I've had the privilege of doing international ministry in times past where you sometimes come face to face with tragedy. I dedicated the cemetery and couldn't. So Sierra Leone one day that included the graves of nine missionaries and number of their children who had died from what was then called blackwater fever, now known as malaria, while they simply were following God's call to take the gospel to those who have never heard it. My wife and I had dinner in the family, in the home family in Monrovia, Liberia, one day, and that very family was killed in that very house.
[5:53] The very next year, when the Civil War ravaged the country in the early 1990s, a young missionary was found dead in bed one morning in Central Asia, one of the countries of Central Asia. A gas leak in a stove released fatal gas into his apartment while he was asleep, and he died in the night. It fell to me to meet with and inform his parents of this tragedy and the crushing sadness that followed in its wake. His name was Steven Smith. He was 29 years old, and he was a member of what was then known as the Moncton Wesleyan Church.
[6:43] He was one of us. I have his parents' permission to share this story. I would not do it otherwise, but tragedy touches us, and often, ladies and gentlemen, tragedy comes to us. It prompts a series of questions beginning with why. That question was asked the morning I told Steven Smith's dad, Kevin, about his passing. One of the first things that said in the right attitude is why. Why now? Why me? Why not? What next? And tragedy highlights questions, folks, that really don't have any answers, and this sermon is partly about the false idea.
[7:29] Hear me say this now. It's about the false idea that things always work out well for the Christians. We'll talk about that more in a minute, but that's a false idea. But this is also about trust, and it's also about love. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45, He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. John Oxenham was a British poet. Some of you would know of his work. He's perhaps best known for a little poem that said, To everyone there opens the high road and the low, and the high soul climbs the highway, and the low soul gropes in the low, and in between on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro. To everyone they're open to highway and a low, and everyone decides which way their soul will go.
[8:31] On August 29th this year, on a rural road in New Jersey in the United States, two brothers, Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau were run over by a drunk driver while they were bicycling the night before their sister was to be married. Johnny played for 11 years in the NHL, most of that time with the Calgary Flames. And at the time of his death, he was a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He left a wife and two children, a 2-year-old daughter and an infant son. On the day, this very fall, on the opening day of the Blue Jackets season this fall, his wife Meredith spoke to the crowd. She said, "I don't want anyone to be mad.
[9:19] I want you all to be inspired by the life John lived. This means love your family, and family, your family, and love your family first. I'm sorry, love your family first and foremost." How does a woman have the kind of strength in a totally unexpected, unwelcome, unnecessary tragedy to take the high road? When we face tragedy today, ladies and gentlemen, we will have the opportunity to decide whether we will take the high or the low road. Please consider this: developing the capacity to face tragedy requires strong winds and a solid root system.
[10:05] It requires wind and a solid root system. The University of Arizona constructed a thing called the Biosphere 2, an earth science system research facility that's located in Oracle, Arizona. You will see it soon on the screen, right there. It is right there. It was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of a closed ecological system, an artificial system with perfect growing conditions. There were many issues almost from the beginning, and one of these was with the trees. The trees initially grew much faster than they would've ever grown in the wild, but they never completely matured. Before they could mature, they collapsed. Later, it was found that this was caused by a lack of wind in the biosphere.
[10:56] Trees were drooping and dying under ideal circumstances because their strength and the root systems were compromised. It was later determined by research that wind played a major role in a tree's life. The presence of wind makes a tree stronger. It builds stress wood, is the term, and makes it able to mature and not collapse under its own weight. And we are the same. When tragedy comes against us, it creates a wind that allows us to take the high road and develop stress wood. Tragedy hits us with the force of a hurricane and with winds that are potentially divisive.
[11:45] This is not about avoiding the wind, it's about building strength to resist the winds of tragedy. And where are we to find the strength to withstand this swirling wind? The Bible says, "Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise. Like a person who builds a house on solid rock, though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it will not collapse because it's built on bedrock. But anyone who hears My teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish. Like a person who builds a house on sand, when the rains and floods come and the winds beat against the house, it will collapse." But the mighty crash. Psalm 1 tells us that those who delight in the law of the Lord are like trees planted by the riverbed.
[12:39] Strong winds of tragedy, ladies and gentlemen, help develop the internal strength and necessary to face the external storms of life that the wind brings to us. Consider this truth, please. God never promised a safe journey, but He did promise a safe arrival here on earth. The Scripture said, "You'll have many trials and sorrows, but take heart. I've overcome the world." Jesus said, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust in Me." Also, He said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you, and when everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with Me. Where I am." A friend of mine who is a songwriter in New Brunswick or I recently heard him sing a little song and I got the copy of some of the lyrics from it speaking to this topic.
[13:34] And he said, "I knew I could not walk another mile, strength all gone along with my smile. I cried, 'Oh Lord, I can't make it through.' 'Don't worry, son, I'll carry you in every storm of life. I'll see you through. I'll carry you till you're safely home.'" And, ladies and gentlemen, always too soon to quit. Consider, please. Also, we can never fully understand why God acts miraculously in some situations and He seems silent in other situations: a miracle here and a death over there. How do we figure that out? He's the potter. I am the clay. And we can never understand why God does some of the things that He does.
[14:23] And if we did understand them, then we'd be God. Oh, how great. Romans says, "Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand His decisions and His ways. His ways are past finding out." Our finite minds can never fully grasp why life takes its unexpected and unwelcome turns. But I'm comforted continually by the truth that I'm in the shadow of somebody bigger. When I was a child, probably, I don't know, six or seven years old, my parents and I were visiting with relatives in the state of Maine. They had a camp on a lake there in southern Maine and we were out there on a very hot summer day.
[15:09] And I don't know whether my dad did this by design or just by the coincidence of walking past, but my dad came when the sun was beating down on me. And I remember the day. It was boiling hot, which is an exaggeration, but it was a warm day and my father stood between me and the sun. Whether he did that to shield me intentionally or whether he just did that by instinct, I'm not sure. But as soon as the father was standing between me and the heat, the heat subsided and comfort came in a different way because my father was providing shade for me. And I need to tell you, when the worst thing could come to you comes to you. If you're a servant of the Lord Christ, you're standing in the shadow of somebody bigger and it makes such a difference.
[16:04] Consider this too. In my judgment, God is not pleased when we ask the why question. In fact, His own Son pleaded with Him in Matthew 27, "My God, my God, why have You abandoned Me?" The why question. Ruth in the Old Testament said, "I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why has almighty God brought this trag And the pain filled uttering of why? Even though we know it doesn't have an answer, it can aid in the healing process if it's coming from a broken heart and not from a heart full of rage and accusation.
[16:51] Consider also that facing tragedy is more about trusting God than it is about loving God. Somebody wisely said, to be trusted is a greater consummate than to be loved. And I don't know about you, but around our home and our with our family, we deeply love the whole bunch. But there are some that I don't entirely trust, even though I entirely love them, I don't entirely trust them to use good judgment in financial decisions or to maintain a healthy lifestyle or to remember special days like anniversaries and my birthday. For goodness' sakes, sometimes people I love, you can't trust them to get me a birthday card. What's the matter with them? But God is love, and He can be trusted.
[17:39] He's loving the big stuff. He also can be trusted with the big stuff. You just can't, even if you can't understand the ways He's going, the trust. There is a verse that my mother wrote in my Bible when I was just a child. Proverbs 3:5, which is well known: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding. So when tragedy knocks you down and knocks the wind out of you, don't ever fear that God will betray you. God will never betray His children. It's not in His divine nature. Don't ever fear of being forgotten. Remember always, you're in the shadow of somebody bigger. The Psalm said, for when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for You are close beside me.
[18:25] Surely Your goodness and Your unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord forever. The songwriter Ray Boltz did the song that many of us would know, where he said, the anchor holds though the ship be battered, the anchor holds. Oh, the sails are torn. I have fallen on my knees as I face the raging seas. The anchor holds in spite of the storm. Consider, please, also that when tragedy comes, take time to grieve. Take time to grieve. Stephen Wilson, a country artist, wrote one time, grief is the only love that has no place to go.
[19:12] Take time to pretend that all is well. Don't pretend that you've got it all put back together when facing a tragedy, but you haven't. It's often a misplaced attempt to present, to project strength and control. So take time. There can also be peace in the midst of tragedy. Peace in the midst of tragedy. My wife Gloria died of acquired hemophilia type A about two and a half years ago. I sat in the hospital with her, obviously, nearly all day for weeks while she was getting ready to go on home to heaven. And I remember as if it were yesterday, almost about 4:30 or 5 o'clock one morning, I was there in the room and I sensed that things had changed. Her heart had stopped, but her spirit somehow lingered.
[20:14] And in that, moment, an old song I'd grown up with came into my mind that said, I cannot tell whence it came, this peace within my breast, but this I know, there fills my soul a strange and tranquil rest. And the loss of a spouse ranks extremely high on the devastating loss scale. Even if the spouse is older, she was 78. But if it's your spouse, it's a tragedy. And all of you this morning who are here, who are married couples, you've got this figured out. Have you not? 50% of you are gonna lose a spouse unless you're killed in a common accident. 50% of you are going to lose a spouse.
[21:06] I was married about a year and a half or a little more ago to a lady who'd also lost her husband. And so she'd gone through the tragedy of losing a spouse as I have, and then watched my sound like a foolish scheme. We got married. So now we can experience that again. One of us, her, I hope so. Those of you who are married, have you told your spouse today you love them this very day? And if you haven't, why in the world not? If your spouse takes a heart attack the next five seconds and drops dead beside you, you'll wish with all your heart you would've told them today that you loved them.
[21:53] When tragedy comes, forgiveness may be in order. Might need to forgive yourself or a family member or other people, or perhaps even God. On October 2, 2006, a gunman named Charlie Roberts entered the Lancaster County Amish school, one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and shot 10 little girls, killing five of them and then killing himself. A tragedy, hard to grasp, an impossible, totally impossible to understand. Charlie knew these people. He drove a truck for a large dairy that went around to Amish farms and gathered up the milk that was being done by the farmers and then took it to the dairy for processing.
[22:43] And he knew every one of the families of these people that he killed. Everybody's wondering, why this tragedy? What do you do with this tragedy? Friends and family gathered at the home of Chuck and Terri Roberts, Charlie's parents, trying to grasp what had occurred and seeking answers that could not be found. The sorrow and shame, distress and disbelief, anguish and anger hung heavily in the air. And allow me to quote from the book Forgiven, which was written by Terri Roberts, Charlie's mother. Through the window. She said, "That's the morning of the murders.
[23:29] Through the window, I caught the sight of a stalwart figure. Dressed, in black. It was our neighbor, Henry Fisher, dressed in the formal visiting attire and his wide-brim straw hat. He was a leader of the Amish community, and he had friends and relatives whose daughters had died that day in that schoolhouse. Like all the Amish, he had every reason to hate us." Now, she went on to say that Henry didn't look angry as we welcomed him into our home. Instead, compassion radiated from his face.
[24:20] He walked over to my husband, put one hand on his shoulder, and the first words he spoke took my breath away. Roberts, referring to her husband by his last name, Roberts, we love you. This was not your doing. You must not blame yourself. And by the time Henry left, it was for my husband, not only the beginning of forgiveness, but also of healing. A week or more went by before they had a funeral for Charlie to allow the Amish to bury their children. And then the date was set for his funeral. The press were pressing around, if you'll pardon the pun. They were there to try to take pictures of what was going on as this murderer was being buried.
[25:08] And the state police had agreed to keep them off of the distance, up a rise in the topography. So they were up there on the top of the hill, some distance away, the press was. And as the Robertses got ready to bury this son, who by the way left behind a family also, about 60 Amish people came out from behind the church and formed a circle around them so they could mourn the loss of their son who had done this, a dastardly deed. And in this circle around them were the parents of the people whose children had been killed by the man now being buried. How can you do that? How is that even possible?
[25:58] Just because the strong winds of life had blown against them and they had determined that we will grant forgiveness. We will not harbor a grudge or feed our anger. Lesser people do that. But ladies and gentlemen, if you face the worst thing you could face, if you feed anger and hold a grudge, it's like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Martin Luther King reminded us, darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Come to the light. It's shining for these sweetly. The light has dawned upon me. Once I was lost, but now I'm found. The light of the world is Jesus.
[26:48] And finally this morning, when tragedy comes, God is watching you. My father died of the heart attack on December the 8th, 1955. I was 10 years old. It's hard to understand death at any age, but it's hard then too when you're young. First dead person I ever saw was my own dad. My mother and I moved in with my uncle and his wife coming up toward Christmas that year. And about two weeks after my dad's death, there was a knock on the door of my uncle's house, and he went and opened the door and there stood a man who was a minister in the Atlantic District of the Wesleyan Church.
[27:35] He seemed really old to me. He was about 50, but I was 10. Now, how your perspective changes a little bit. He came in carrying a bookcase and sat it down beside me. You see it there. He sat that bookcase down beside me on the floor in my uncle's home and said, two weeks ago at your dad's funeral down there in the Corbett Avenue Church, God spoke to me and said, Frazier, go home and do something so this little boy will know I'm watching him.
[28:22] So he said, I went home and the two weeks between that day of your dad's funeral when I saw you up at the front of the church and your feet wouldn't even touch the floor, I watched you up there and I built this bookcase with my own hands. And I'm bringing it to you as a testimony that God is watching you. The picture of that bookcase was taken. It's in my home here in Moncton right now, and it's well used, as you can see, and that's been in my possession. I'm 79 years old. That bookcase has been in my possession for 69 years and serves as a constant reminder that God is watching me. And I need to tell you that the combined wealth of all of this crowd in this building, you don't have enough money to buy that.
[29:08] That's not for sale. And when the worst thing that could happen to you happens to you, know this: God may not send somebody into your life with a handmade bookcase, but He will send an angel in disguise to tell you that He is watching you. A woman named Civilla Martin wrote many hymns. Her best-known one is a little song called "God Will Take Care of You." It was written by her in Jordan Falls, Nova Scotia, in 19 04, gonna remain seated.
[29:57] You're going to hear this song, parts of it beautifully done. Take a moment to reflect on the great truth that in every situation that comes to you and every circumstance that comes to you in your life, God is watching. He is the light that drives out the darkness of tragedy.