[AI translation] A few weeks ago I visited two women, two old relatives. Their home was completely destroyed by the fighting. Large holes were gaping in the walls, and once beautiful pieces of furniture were lying scattered around the dirty rooms, disintegrated beyond recognition. As they drove through the ruins, they said, with infinite sadness in their eyes. Let us only have the strength! But we are old! Since then, I have often heard this wistful statement: "If only we had the strength...! Yes, if only we have the strength, that's the main thing - the rest is irrelevant, whether we are old or young doesn't matter so much! Strength! Spirit! That is the main thing in life! That is the main problem of the whole world today: strength, energy! We have heard a lot about it lately. How many times has the radio announced that work and production in this or that factory or plant has stopped because of a lack of energy? Yes: because without energy the machines simply won't work! We already know that! But we only learn through bitter experience that the soul cannot work without energy! But that soul-power runs out so quickly, because it is so very little! One feels it when one is tested, when one is burdened. Disappointment, suffering, misery can settle on the soul like a winter fog on this valley of Pasaréti! The soul loses its bearings, doubts, sees terrors, is tormented by hopelessness, is troubled, its faith is shaken, it rebels against its fate, loses its balance, despairs!The Scriptures are familiar with this miserable state of mind. In the Word we read, it speaks of cracked reeds and smoking candleholders. Could there be a more apt expression of human weakness and powerlessness than the reed? Anyone who has ever stood among rustling reeds on the shore of a lake will understand why Jesus Christ compares human instability to the reed, which is bent to and fro by the slightest breeze, swayed in its position, its pose. If even an intact, living reed is so weak, has so little support, what must a cracked reed be like?! I remember from my childhood, when we were making kites, what a problem it was when the reed cracked. You could throw it away, it wasn't even good for playing anymore! Such is the broken-hearted man, the soul crushed by life's adversities, the man who has lost his spiritual strength: a broken reed! Hopeless and disconsolate, trampled on the highway of life, without purpose, without profit, without vocation, as one who is good for nothing in this world! Why is he still in this world at all?
Yes: such is man without a soul! And like the smoking candle wick, the wick that the housewife, when she refilled the primitive lantern with oil in the morning, threw away because it was no longer usable. Oh, what an apt image of the man whose vocation it would be to shine God's light, but whose lack of oil of the soul makes him a barely flickering, smoking, foul-smelling wick. Oh, how bitter to live thus! And yet I say that it is good sometimes to be in this cracked reed state, this smoking candle-stick state, even if it is bitter! It's good for something, you know! It's good to feel in the fullness of one's heart how dependent one is on God! How little strength he has, how little strength he has without God! He is compelled to plead with Him, and to look to Him for help. For by nature we are all inclined to regard God as a kind of philosophical formula, a concept, to think of Him as being! But the misery of our own powerlessness makes us take God seriously! Then we see that without God we cannot live, without Him our life becomes hell. That is when God begins to become a tangible reality for us. We learn to live by faith! Even powerlessness can be a source of blessing in our lives, because it drives us to God!
Look, God Himself encourages every discouraged, weary, weary soul. The Word says of Jesus, "He will not break a broken reed, nor put out a flickering candle. This alone is a great power, that when a man feels that everyone is against him, that everyone is only trampling on him, mocking him; he feels that he is exposed, helpless, helpless, his soul is paralysed; he feels that everyone has turned away from him, abandoned him: one person, not the mightiest, does not press him down even more, does not extinguish the flickering flame, but opens his arms to him, stands by him, takes him into his side! Yes: this alone gives you unheard-of strength, that there is Someone, Jesus, Who does not reject you, but with great tender love bends down and embraces you! This is how the Old Testament speaks of Jesus as God's love extended to the weakened and faltering. And in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says of the same Jesus. Jesus strengthens me, pours new strength into the weary - He gives just what is so much needed today: strength! Spiritual strength! I have seen so often how Jesus can give a person wonderful strength in the face of death. Many times I have sat beside a patient with a face disfigured by the fear of death, and I have seen how, under the influence of Jesus Christ, the faint spirit has been strengthened, encouraged, and has awaited death with a smile and a smile of peace. Well then, if the presence, the word, the nearness of Christ is so realistically empowering in the face of the most fearsome power, is it not much more so in the face of life?! For if one can give such power to death, he can also give power to life!
Let me try to express this miracle in a picture. A friend of mine told me that in the miseries and deprivations of prisoner of war, he consoled himself by always striving in spirit to be at home, surrounded by his loved ones. Physically, he suffered under the barbed wire, but his mind, his hope, his heart and soul remained at home. The knowledge that he was thought of with love from afar, surrounded by prayers, welcomed home, and that he could be one with them in spirit from afar, was an inexpressible strength to him! Something like this, but much more real, is the inner spiritual strengthening of which Paul speaks when he says this: I have all power in Christ who strengthens me. For my thoughts, my hope, my heart, my soul are not in a distant home, but in Christ. And if even the thought of home can give me such strength, how much more so the knowledge that He surrounds me with His love, not from afar, but from close at hand. The apostle Paul's special expression is "I in Christ" and "Christ in me"! I could say: I am in Christ, then Christ is in me. It is somewhat like when a flower is immersed in water, the water is absorbed into the flower. So, if I am in Christ through my prayer, my faith, my soul, my love: then through my prayer, my faith, my soul, the power of Christ's death and resurrection is absorbed into my life and I come to life like a withering flower in water.
This is the mystery prophesied by Isaiah when he joyfully proclaimed to a weary, despondent, hopeless people, "Those who trust in the Lord will have their strength renewed..." It was sung by the psalmist as he fled from his persecutors in his own country: "They that look to him shall be glad, and their faces shall not blush." This is what the apostle Paul proclaimed when, in a Roman prison, he rattled his chains and wrote serenely, "I have strength for all things in Christ who strengthens me." Yes, brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ strengthens the one who believes in Him as Lord and Saviour. He does not promise not to put a burden on him, but to give him strength! He strengthened Paul not by shaking off the chain, but by being able to rise above it in spirit. His joy, his good feeling, his happiness, his hope, his equilibrium were independent of his external situation, they were not broken by the events that happened to him, but lifted him up even higher!
I have strength for all things in Christ - this means not only bearing all things when I must and because I must, but bearing them in such a way that others, other weary and discouraged people, are given new strength, courage and hope in the sight of them. To bear it in such a way that it becomes a testimony and a good deed for others. For the most powerful witness is precisely when someone bears witness to the spiritual strength of suffering, of a difficult situation, with an attitude that shows something of power from above, something inhuman, that points to Jesus Christ! A balanced spirit is as good in an unbalanced world as sunshine in winter. And it is precisely in this that Christ gives strength, it is precisely in this that he strengthens us, not only so that we can overcome our sins. It is also this, but it is more than this: it is that the believer in Him may be a blessing, a support, a consolation among the powerless. For the spiritual power received in Christ is greater than any material power or human violence! This is what the world needs most today!
Brothers and sisters, here is Jesus, bending down to the crushed and cracked reeds, taking them in his hands and strengthening them, making them a pillar of support for those around him, cleansing the smoking wicks of soot in the flickering tapers, refilling them with the oil of his Spirit, so that they may once again become a light of heavenly radiance where they live.
I read somewhere about Paganini that he once took part in an auction in London where, among other things, a ramshackle old violin was sold. Nobody wanted to promise anything for it. Then Paganini took it in his hands to try it out. He wiped the dust off, saw the master's signature on it, tuned up the strings and began to play it. The people were mesmerized by the beautiful sounds the great master had coaxed out of the old instrument. Paganini played on and on, until suddenly a string snapped. He continued on three strings. Another string snapped, and soon another. But on the one string that remained he still played so beautifully that the crowd forgot all about the auction. When at last he stopped, the bidding for the violin suddenly started from all sides, people outbidding each other! I wonder why? Had the value of the violin suddenly increased so much? Oh, no! It was because people had now heard what such a dusty instrument could be when it was in the hands of a master.
My brethren! We may be covered with the dust of the world, we may be cracked reeds, we may be smoking candles - wicked men - but let us not forget that the Creator's mark is still upon us. We are made in the image of God! If we look only to ourselves, we have a thousand reasons to despair. But even if we are tools so depressed, even if almost every string of our lives has been broken: in the hands of the heavenly Master, we can all become a precious tool, a useful instrument again!
Come, let us pray together:
Broken and empty, I give myself to him,
That he may make me new, that he may fill the void.
All my troubles and sorrows I give to the Lord,
He bears all my burdens, He wipes away my sorrows,
He takes away my sorrow.
(Song 459, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 27 January 1957.
Lesson
2Kor 4,6-18