1 Corinthians 1:18-24
John 3:13-17
Seek and Ye Shall Find
What is eternal life, and what does it mean to be a Christian? These are two questions I want to look at this morning.
 
Most people are looking for something. And generally, people find what they are looking for. People who are looking for trouble find trouble. People who are looking for God find God.
Most people are looking for something. What are you looking for? Sometimes the goal is clear. But not always. For example, if you are in Bangor, and you want to drive home to Searsport, but somehow, a few hours later, you find yourself in Portland, sitting at a bar drinking beer, then, there is some confusion. What are you really looking for? This is an important question.
We want to go home, but we find ourselves somewhere else.
As human beings, we come from God, and we go back to God. But along the way, one may have a feeling of separation. One may feel separated from God. Alone, isolated, fearful. All of our searching, all of our traveling, is an attempt to return to God. Our deepest longing is to return to God, to return home, to be reunited with God, and so to overcome our feeling of separation.
There’s a story about a man who lost his car keys. He is out under a streetlamp, looking for his car keys. For several hours, he’s been searching for the keys. Finally, someone asks him, “Did you lose your keys here by the streetlamp?”
“No,” he answers.
“Then why are you out here under the streetlamp looking for them?”
“Because,” the man answers, “I can see better here.”
The car keys are not there, and he knows they are not there, but he is looking for them there nevertheless.
Two weeks ago, I was in Texas, teaching at a conference in Houston. And while I was there, I had a chance to take a little walk down memory lane. I drove by my old high-school, and the modest townhouse a few blocks away where I lived with my family. So many things were different, and yet, so many things were the same. The Wendy’s is still there on the corner. The speed bumps and the carport where I parked my first car were the same. My old bedroom window on the second floor, the crepe myrtle tree right under it, blossoming pink, all the same. And yet, everything was different. It was a mystery. Things were the same, old and familiar, and yet, at the same time, everything was new. Brilliantly new and alive, in the bright Texas sunshine.
In our reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, “we proclaim Christ crucified.” Here, the writer defines Christian spirituality, defines the Christian path, as opposed to the Jewish or Greek teachings. The Christian path proclaims Christ crucified. And this is unique to the faith. No other religion, no other spiritual path talks about Christ crucified.
In our second reading, we have the well-known passage from John’s Gospel which speaks of salvation: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
So here we have two core statements about the Christian faith, two defining statements of Christianity. To be a Christian means to look to Christ for salvation, Christ crucified, God’s gift of grace to us, so that we may have eternal life, so that we might be saved through Christ, so that we have new life in Christ. The old life is gone. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Now, let me just pause here. Try to stay with me, and don’t start drifting. It’s along about this time in my sermon I see people start to look at their watches. And that’s ok. I get it. I don’t really like sermons, either. But I’m almost done.
I know how it is. Growing up in church, hearing these words Sunday after Sunday, they become ordinary, you know, ho hum, eyes glazing over, here we go again with all the salvation talk. Same old stuff. I get it. I understand. I grew up in church, too. My dad was a preacher, and by the time I was 18 years old, I had heard enough. My dad even told me that he understood my leaving the church. He said, “Ed, you were overexposed to God.” Overexposed. In other words, I had heard too much talking. God is this and God is that. God wants you to do this. God doesn’t want you to do that. Talk, talk, talk. But talking does not get us to God. Talking is just a stream of words. And words do not get us into a direct experience of the divine. In fact, words often get in the way.
So, what does it mean to be a Christian, and what is this thing called eternal life that Christians are always talking about? We can only know it in direct experience. It does not come to us through talking, but through being quiet and listening. We cannot know God through the intellectual mind, but rather, only through the devotional heart. Pray without ceasing. This is eternal life. This is living water. It’s the same message, and yet, it is new and fresh. It is a living message, alive with eternal life.
When we are in alignment with this eternal life, this spring of living water, then everything we do is blessed, everything we see and touch is blessed, and our life will flow along, in peace and order and blessing.
I know this may not make sense. And the fact is, mystery does not make sense. But I have seen this happen. I have seen people turn their lives around, when they begin to drink from the spring of living water. It cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. That is why it is a mystery.
I’d like to share with you a text that helps me when I struggle with this mystery, the mystery of God. It was written by an anonymous writer in 4th century England, and it’s called “The Cloud of Unknowing.” The writer is asking about God, and what is God, and how to think about God. He writes:
But now you ask me, “How am I to think of God himself, and what is he?” And to this I can only answer, “I do not know.” For with your question you have brought me into that very darkness and that very cloud of unknowing that I want you to be in yourself. By grace it is possible to have full knowledge of all other created things and their works, and indeed of the works of God himself, and to think clearly about them, but of God himself no one can think. And so, I wish to give up everything that I can think, and choose as my love the one thing that I cannot think. For he can well be loved, but he cannot be thought.
—The Cloud of Unknowing, trans. A. C. Spearing
We cannot think our way to God. We cannot think our way to eternal life. But I assure you, this eternal life is real, the living water is real, and it is available, right here and now. Pray without ceasing, dear people. Listen and look for God without ceasing. Seek and ye shall find. May it be so.
Amen? Amen.