The Sunday Sermonette – Life Among the Ruins.
Berlin. The leafy beauty of the Unter den Linden. The magnificent baroque palaces. Museums filled with tantalizing art treasures. The canals and bridges. And the monumental Brandenburg Gate. But history has not always been kind to this city. The Nazis may have marched triumphantly into Poland in 1939, but by 1945, Soviet Armies were triumphantly entering Berlin. Its beauty, destroyed by a blitzkrieg of Allied bombing, was now nothing more than piles of bricks, dust, and death.
When the tank bombardment and the gunfire stopped, and the city finally fell to the Soviets, Berlin’s citizens, those who had survived the carnage, dug out from the ruins and life began again. One woman found rope to make a makeshift clothesline, water, soap, and strung her wash out on the side of a ruined building. She was alive. Had survived. And life went on. And so it does for all of us.
Life’s tornadoes and hurricanes can blow away a lifetime of our treasures. Earthquakes may shake our home’s foundations and our sense of security. Then, a drunk driver kills a loved one, or divorce enters a marriage and shatters a home. Personal tragedies can cover us with a heavy blanket of worry, making our world seem a frightening place, bubbling with evil and seemingly out of control. These heartbreaking events can cause us to ponder whether Father God is on vacation or has forgotten us. In our anguish, we may look up toward heaven and cry out: “Father God, where are you? We’re drowning in sorrow, misery, and doubts down here. Help us!”
Over two thousand years ago, the Old Testament Prophet Daniel could have thrown his hands up in despair, too. When he was a teenager, he was taken in chains to Babylon; Jerusalem’s ruins and the fall of Judah forever a bitter memory. When he arrived, Daniel found himself under the rule of egotistical King Nebuchadnezzar and surrounded by his idolatrous subjects. But he didn’t give in or give up. This courageous young man held fast to his faith in his God because he knew that, in spite of his circumstances, Father God was on His throne and was working out His plan for Daniel.
When Babylon was defeated by the Persians, Daniel became one of King Darius’s most trusted advisers because of his God-given power to interpret the king’s dreams. This pleased the king but angered others in the royal court. They plotted Daniel’s death by convincing the king to outlaw prayer of any kind. Daniel, being a devout Jew, prayed to Father God three times daily. And he continued to do so in private, even after the law was passed. When Darius found this out, he condemned Daniel to a horrific death by throwing him into a den of hungry lions. However, Father God intervened and saved him by shutting the lion’s mouths. Daniel survived to live another day.
Daniel’s tribulations in Babylon placed him inside a bubbling cauldron of egos, lies, and hate. Powerful armies had stripped him of his home, language, and his family and friends. His survival, however, depended on one thing: an inward discipline that could not be derailed by the evil around him. It caused him to pray when prayer was outlawed, and to trust Father God even when surrounded by corrupt people who attempted to break his spirit.
A woman hanging wash on a makeshift clothesline in bombed-out Berlin suggests a different but related kind of endurance. She is not in a royal court or a lions’ den, but in the ruins of her ordinary, everyday life. Her act is humble, yet it, too, has an inward discipline. Even after war has devastated the city she called home, she insisted on cleanliness, routine, dignity, and the hope of a better tomorrow.
Daniel’s story is shaped by divine deliverance and moral testing, while the woman’s story is shaped by war’s aftermath and God-given resilience. Daniel waited for and trusted Father God while in the treacherous court of the king. The woman rebuilt her life in the wreckage of bombed-out Berlin. Together, they show that courage to live another day can appear either as heroic faith before kings, or as the difficult, stubborn task of surviving a catastrophe.
Daniel discovered that Father God is all-knowing, all-caring. I can only hope the washwoman knew this as well. God was in control in ancient Babylon and bombed-out Berlin, and He has been moving in history, controlling the destinies of people ever since for their good.
Despite news reports or personal strain, you can be confident that Father God is in control. As you travel life’s treacherous highway, never forget that. Whether you are in the “lion’s den” or hanging out the laundry in a “bombed-out” city, remember that Father God never takes a vacation. He’s always there and is only a prayer away.
Ponder this and go forth.
