The Best Sermon I Never Preached
There always a good sermon…but sometimes I’m not the one preaching it.
One of the unexpected blessings of hanging around a church for a long time is you get to know people…I mean, really know them. You know their stories and who’s been important in their lives. You know their triumphs and their failures, and you’ve seen them come through it all.
And you’ve seen some people come through things you don’t know if you could come through. I’ve seen courage—real courage—and honestly, I’m not sure I have it. At least, not like some of my friends have it.
This past Sunday, I was looking across the congregation when I saw them in their familiar place. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. Jim and Ann Burke were standing arm in arm as we sang the worship hymns.
Now, you’re thinking, “What’s so inspiring about that?” Let me give you a little of the back story. Jim has been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. He’s been fighting it with surgeries, chemo, and radiation therapies. All of them have worked…for a little while. And then the cancer would come back. Recently, Jim had to have the lower part of his right arm amputated which means he has to learn to do everything with his left hand that he used to do with his right. That also means the right sleeve of his coat hangs empty at his side.
During the worship, Jim and Ann were standing together, and she was holding onto his coat sleeve, her finger intertwined around the stump of his right arm in his coat sleeve. She had told me one time, “I may lose him, but I’m not going to give up without a fight.” So, there she was, hanging on to Jim with all of her might. If part of an arm was all she could grab, then she would hold onto that.
And there was Jim, wiping away tears as he sang, “The Glory of the Cross” with our choir. These aren’t just theological phrases for Jim. They’re words he’s had to hold onto when there was nothing left to hold onto at all. He’s been through the fire. Tested more in the last few years than I have been in my entire life. And Sunday he was here with his wife, praising the God who’s bringing them through it all.
Honestly, when I saw them, I could have gone home. Jesus had given me more to think about in that one moment than I would ever say in a hundred sermons. Jim and Ann gave me one of the best sermons I’ve ever seen.
So, that’s why you need to go to church. There’s always a good sermon being preached. It just may not be the preacher who’s preaching it.
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