On Being Prepared                                                              8/28/49

 

Scripture:  Mark 14: 27-31, 66-72.

 

I once took a course in first aid.  It was one of those courses approved by the National Red Cross, and was taught by a very able District Boy Scout executive.  It involved regular attendance at the class sessions on a given night of the week for several weeks.  It required some study of various kinds of physical emergency which one may encounter, and the appropriate First Aid treatment for each type of such emergency.  Each class participant was supposed to develop some skill in the application of First Aid methods.  Most of the class members were successful in passing the requirements of the course, and in demonstrating an acceptable degree of proficiency at the end of the required period of time.

 

And so I was one of those who received a certificate of proficiency in First Aid from the National Red Cross.  As a Scouter, a member of a local troop committee, I was given the first (and only) merit badge I have ever earned, or received in Scouting - the First Aid merit badge.  Indeed, I did have occasions, a short time after that, to use some of the knowledge of bandaging which I had gained in the course, and once, still later, I had to splint a child’s broken leg before taking the child to a doctor.

 

I moved from the parish where I resided when I took that training, to another.  And then I moved again, coming by ocean liner and train a distance of 4 or 5 thousand miles to this community.  The shipping company which handled my freight lost my filing case and files on the way.  One item in the lost files was my Red Cross First Aid certificate and my Boy Scout First Air Merit Badge.  The badge was quickly replaced by the Scout executive who had first awarded it to me.  But the American Red Cross declined to re-issue the certificate.  Its office informed me that the subject of First Aid requires constant study and cultivation in skills; that one is expected to take periodic refresher courses in order to keep qualified and to keep one’s certificate validated; and that a certificate as old as mine had been would not be any good now anyway!

 

And so, though having once been considered “prepared” in First Aid, I was forced to recognize myself no longer prepared or satisfactorily proficient.  It would take more study and more practice before I might be again prepared to render First Aid with official Red Cross approval.

 

It is a spiritual truth that character requires the same kind of vigilance in order to be prepared for all sorts of exigencies of life.  And it seems to me that only Christian character, constantly cultivated and renewed, is adequate to the demands and emergencies of living.

 

A bereaved wife, whose husband had died very suddenly in the prime of his usefulness as an electrical engineer remarked to me a year later, “Why is it so hard to accept the will of God?”  A man who was used to enough resources to get along comfortably found himself suddenly needing more.  He was in a business position which offered great temptation to take what belonged not to him but to others.  Only Christian fortitude prevented him from appropriating that which did not belong to him.  Another man, also in the prime of life, goes to his physician for a checkup and is informed that he has an incurable ailment that will soon take his life.  And he must tell his wife and plan as best he may, for the welfare of his family.  All sorts of emergencies and unforeseen events, require a constant preparedness of spirit, that we may be found not wanting in the hour of spiritual emergency.

 

A strong body and a trained mind amount to very little that is worthy without a disciplined spirit.  It is our Christian business to be constantly developing spiritual strength and to be growing in spiritual preparedness to cope with the trials of our age and of our personal lives.

 

People who have been Christians all their lives may think they are fully prepared spiritually, when as a matter of soul-searching fact, they often are not.  Simon Peter is a good example of the man who feels fully prepared for the spiritual demands that may be made upon him, when the time of testing proves him woefully inadequate.  His predicament throws light on the plight in which any of us may land and in which most of us do now and then find ourselves.

 

After Jesus had had his last supper with his disciples, he warned them all that they had not yet perfected a loyalty that would stand the test of events soon to transpire.  When the going was to become rough and dangerous, he said that they would scatter like sheep which  through misfortune, had suddenly lost their shepherd.  Simon Peter didn’t believe it, and said so.  In fact, he boasted preparedness:  “Though all should be offended, yet will not I.”  Jesus loved him, but knowing him better than he knew himself said to Peter that within the very next twelve hours - before dawn and the crowing of the cock, Peter would have denied the Master more than once.

 

As a matter of record, that is exactly what did happen.  Before the evening was out, the Master was arrested by a mob incited by his enemies, and guided by a traitor.  At first, Jesus’ friends would gladly have pitched battle with those who took him.  But when he forbade it, and resistance no longer appeared possible anyway, they scattered like scared sheep.  Peter did follow at a distance and stood around in the cold night air of the outer court yards of buildings where Jesus was being put through a mockery of trial.  But his boasted loyalty was such a thing of weakness that when a servant girl, passing through the courtyard and seeing him warming his hands by a fire, said, “You must be one of the fellow’s friends; you talk like a Galilean,” Peter cursed, and swore that he had no acquaintance at all with the accused man.  He had thought he was ready to go to prison and death with his master and had said so.  But, ready as he had supposed himself to be, his self confidence had been misplaced.  How could it have been so with Peter?

 

1)  For one thing, Peter lacked humility.  He kept constantly thinking of himself so much that he got in his own way.  He had never fully appreciated just what Jesus meant when he taught: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”  [Matthew 5: 5].  Neither, for that matter, do most of the rest of us.  I think it took courage and profound spiritual insight for Dr. Harold Phillips, pastor of a great Baptist Church in Cleveland, to preach at the baccalaureate services of Oberlin College in June of this year on the text and subject “Blessed are the Meek.”  It was a good sermon, with an emphasis that was needed by all of us who heard it.

 

Peter, like so many of the rest of us, seemed to feel that the earth needed to be carried by storm.  At the same time that he was sincere and full of good intent, he was a blustering, boastful, hasty, impetuous man of action.  Whatever needed doing, he could do.  And within reasonable limits such a man can accomplish a lot of good.  Did Jesus need defending?  Very well then, he would defend him, cutting off an ear or a head if necessary.  Did Jesus need rebuking or correcting?  Then he, Peter, would rebuke the Master:  “O no, Lord, this shall hot happen to Thee!”  Then Peter shared the awe-inspiring experience of the transfiguration, he couldn’t keep silent in the presence of something he did not understand, but he wanted to do something about it then and there.  And he made the silly suggestion that they all stay up the hilltop and build three tabernacles there.  Did Jesus face persecution, suffering and death?  Very well, if it came to that, Peter would be first at his side: “Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death.”

 

But Peter was not ready.  He was over-confident.  He had come from a dispute with other disciples as to who was going to be counted greatest.  He measured himself by the standards of men.  He had not yet learned the humility of placing himself under the judgment of God.  There is something about our worry and contending for personal power and prestige that does not go with him who said: “ Blessed are the meek.”

 

Peter needed more humility.  Without it, he was ignominiously humbled by his own weakness and denial.  Peter had some superb qualities and Jesus loved him dearly; of this there can be no doubt.  But his appreciation of Peter’s generous warmth, and passionate purpose to be loyal did not blind him to Peter’s need.  Peter often stood in his own way.  And when in his own way, everything else seemed to get in his way, too.

 

I suppose that a modest and accurate appraisal of one’s self is necessary for true courage.  We need some estimate of our own resources and limitations in order to know where we must rely on the resources of God.

 

[At this point the pen and ink script is replaced by penciled notes, not a complete text].

 

1)  If Peter - humble enough - perhaps not caught in web of his own making -- awkward position -- quick question : “You’re from Galilee yourself, aren’t you?”  Slow-witted under fire -- could think of nothing better than to lie.

 

Behind true strength of character, prepared for its testings, lies humility.

 

2)  Spiritual unpreparedness - often due to sentimentality.  Peter’s outlook had been naive.  Never quite understood tremendous reality of his situation.  “Be it far from thee, O Lord.” -- It just can’t happen to me.

 

(“It doesn’t happen to a Soares”).  But it did, and it can.  Reality is sometimes stupendous, sometimes harsh.  It takes realism to be ready to fact it.  First Peter said “It can’t happen.”   Then he said, “I will go along” - to prison, etc.   He lived on, unimprisoned and unharmed, long after Jesus.

 

Tendency to sentimentalizing illustrated by mountain hikers.  (sliding on glacier at Hallet Peak)  “nature coasting” halfway up Mount Rainier.  Sit down, shoot over the ledge and far out on the hard crust.  Descent so precipitous none dared try it.  Man saw pretty girl eyeing him - said prayer for his sins, sat down, and tried it -- so far in few seconds that it took 20 minutes of hard climbing to get back.  Later, same girl looked up and said, “Look back up there; that’s where we slid down.”

 

That’s sentimentalism.  She dramatized herself into a situation as a participant in a part she never actually played.  So with Peter.  (day dream)  (Song:  “Lord, We are Able.”)

 

3)  Spiritual preparedness - not only from humility and deep realism -- but also from true understanding of our Lord and basic commitment to his purposes.  Perhaps Peter never fully understood Jesus until near the end of his own days.  (His denial; later to Cleopas: “We had hoped that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel”   --- largely regret rather than comprehension.

 

Satan said to the Lord -- “remove all the temptations -- just leave me the weapon of discouragement and I’ll get along all right.”  Gerald O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. -- Nothing could lick any of the family frrom outside.  His failure - that he could be licked from the inside.

 

That was Peter --- and often it is one of us.  But Jesus saw beyond Peter’s weakness to his great strength -- and sees beyond our weakness to our strength and redeems us to our best selves.

 

People stagger at shock and sorrow and unexpected reverses and tremble before new responsibilities and rise to better selves.  Peter became a pillar -- could accept Paul’s view on admission of Gentiles.  Could finally even accept death like our Lord’s.

 

Let us endeavor so to be prepared in spirit ourselves - by God’s grace, and by our own humility, realism and understanding.

 

---------------------

 

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 28, 1949 (Union Service).