Looking Through Mist
Years ago, back in the 70’s, there was a period of about ten years when there was no bridge between St. Marys, WV and Newport, OH. The previous bridge, built in 1928, was a twin to the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, and since it could not be determined whether or not it was safe after the Silver Bridge collapsed, the bridge at St. Marys was closed and demolished. So for about ten years while the new bridge was designed, funded, and built, traffic was carried by a ferry.
I don’t know if you’ve ever traveled on a ferry like the one still operating between Sistersville, WV and Fly, OH. You are right down on the water where the barges and tows are moving. And at night – and in the early morning, there is fog.
Quite a few men who worked at the Friendly, WV Union Carbide plant lived in Newport or Reno, Ohio, so they would drive to the ferry landing and load up. Then, the ferry would cross, unload, and they would drive on to Friendly. After the evening shift finished at midnight, they would drive back down and load onto the ferry for the ten-minute return trip, for the ferry ran late just for these guys.
ey pulled out from the St. Marys landing, the fog and mist surrounded them. It was dark, chilly, and the water condensed on the windows. And the fog grew even thicker. In fact, it grew so thick that the captain couldn’t see anything on either side of the river. Since radar was an expense the ferry company couldn’t afford, the ferry became lost in the mist. The captain slowed down to a crawl.
A half-hour went by. Then, three-quarters of an hour. Where was the Ohio side? After about an hour, he suddenly saw a light ahead and put the engines in reverse to stop the ferry. Where were they?
Finally, the mist cleared a bit – and there was a break. He could see lights. They were coming into the West Virginia side, about three miles downriver, near Belmont - nowhere near where he expected or wanted to be. But now that he could see, he turned the ferry around, turned up river, and made it to the Newport landing without further trouble. Of course, it was a story the men on that ferry told over and over, about the night the ferry got lost in the fog.
Living through life is a lot like riding that ferry boat through the fog. We think we know where life is taking us, but sometimes things aren’t going the way we want. Sometimes, life doesn’t take us anywhere near where we wanted to go. But often, what we think is a very bad thing turns out to be just fine. We just couldn’t see where we were going because of the fog and mist that blocked our view of the future.
The prophet Jonah learned about life’s fog the hard way. God told him to go to Nineveh, a city of a bit over a hundred thousand people near the present side of Mosul, Iraq, the same city that the terrorist group ISIS used as its headquarters ten years ago. Jonah didn’t want to go. Nineveh was a declared enemy of Israel – and they were known for their murderous ways, the way they tortured captives, the way they showed no mercy to cities they attacked, enslaving and killing the people in cities they defeated. It would be like God asking you to go to the headquarters of ISIS a few years ago when they were very active.
So, famously, Jonah decided to get on board a boat headed the other direction - for Spain. But a storm came up and Jonah realized that God was going to capsize the boat unless the crew threw him overboard. He confessed to the crew and they reluctantly threw him overboard, where he was swallowed by a huge fish or whale. After three days – and much prayer on behalf of Jonah, Jonah was vomited up onto a beach. God repeated his command to go to Nineveh
So Jonah went to Nineveh and walked through it, announcing that God was going to destroy the city. And Jonah was delighted, because he hated the Ninevites. They were going to be destroyed by God because of their evil deeds!
But then, the people of Nineveh repented. They believed Jonah’s message from God! The king ordered that everyone should pray to God and give up their evil ways and their violence, hoping that God would relent.
Jonah, you see, had looked ahead through the mist, hoping to see the destruction of Nineveh, the death of the enemies of Israel. He saw darkness. And so he went outside the city and waited for God to rain destruction on Nineveh. But God listened to the people of Nineveh. God relented. God did not destroy Nineveh. God’s light shone on Nineveh – and Jonah was disappointed. So God gave Jonah a talking-to, reminding him that there were over 120,000 people in Nineveh, plus much livestock, so why shouldn’t God take pity on them? After all, they had chosen to change their ways and worship God.
There are two lessons here.
First, we are much the same as Jonah. We often want the death or destruction of our enemies, but God wants them to turn to Him. We want to see destruction, but God wants to see prosperous people. If we were to succeed in our hatred, we would survive and our enemies would die, but if God succeeds, both we and our enemies survive and turn to God, doubling the number of people worshiping God. God wins big-time! Conversion is twice as good as destruction because both sides win.
The second lesson is that we can often only see darkness, but God can shine the light. To become more like Jesus, we need to learn to look for the light in the darkness, in the mist, and move toward the light. Like Jesus, we need to go through the fog, the darkness and look for the joy and light that is beyond all the mist.
One day, as Mark tells us in Chapter 10 of his Gospel, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher, he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus challenged him. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus, the sinless man – was pointing out that if you think Jesus is good, then you are actually saying he is God. Which is true.
But then, Jesus answered the man’s question, essentially by saying, “Keep the commandments.”
And the man proudly answered, “Teacher, I’ve kept them all since I was a boy.”
Mark tells us that “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” This was a man who was trying his best to do the right actions, to follow the commands of God. So Jesus said, “You only lack one thing. Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.”
But the man couldn’t see through the mist that was his wealth to come to the light. He only thought about the dark idea of losing his wealth, and so he went away sad and did not join Jesus’ disciples.
At the time, it was thought that wealth was a measure of how much God loved someone. It was thought that poor people were being punished by God, while rich people were blessed by God. And people still think this way today, don’t they? Some churches even teach this, that praying to God and giving to the church will lead to wealth.
But Jesus said the guy needed to look past the wealth that was blocking his vision like thick fog. He was so focused upon that wealth that he couldn’t see the great joy that comes from walking closely with God. Wealth had become a dark barrier that was keeping him from Jesus. What do we have that prevents us from coming to Jesus? What do we love more that Christ?
Peter then tried to point out how good the disciples were. “We’ve left everything to follow you!”
And Jesus tells him that anyone who leaves relatives or homes behind to follow Jesus will receive back a hundred times as much – plus persecutions – and eternal life. But for the disciples, they were still astonished and many were afraid. The dark mist was still before their eyes. They missed their homes and their wealth. And the fogbank across the future frightened them.
In the next scene, Mark tells us that Jesus told them very clearly about the future, about what was going to happen when they got to Jerusalem.
32 They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid.
They remembered, you see, that the last time they had gone to Jerusalem, the Jews tried to kill Jesus for blasphemy, for claiming to be God. Mark continues his story:
Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”
(Jesus often called Himself the “Son of Man”, which is a title found in the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Daniel. In Ezekiel, it emphasizes Ezekiel’s human nature. In Daniel, it refers to a future man who will be given great authority and power and an everlasting kingdom. So Jesus was referring both to his human nature and his position as the Messiah, the Savior of Israel – and the world.)
In this passage, Jesus sees clearly through the mist of the future as though He were using radar. He tells them exactly what is going to happen. Jesus would be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.
But the disciples still had trouble seeing. And those who could see the darkness of the cross could not see beyond the cross to the bright light that was the victorious resurrection.
It is our human nature to look at the bad side of things, particularly things in the future. We worry about inflation making our groceries cost more, without realizing that for people who have mortgages or car loans which have fixed payments, inflation raises our incomes without affecting our payment. We worry about what “the government” will do next, forgetting both that government policies always have winners and losers - and that there is an election every two years. And we worry about trips to the doctor or the hospital, forgetting that those trips are to give us healing.
The other day, I asked my Ethics class why a good God allows bad things to happen. After fifteen minutes of discussion, most of them came to the conclusion that there simply aren’t any “bad” things or events, but we just can’t see the goodness in those events at the time because we focus upon the troubles at the time. That clear vision comes later. (I have a lot of hope for this class.)
One guy gave an example of being seriously injured in a car wreck. A passerby stopped and prayed with him while waiting for the ambulance. It led our guy to become a Christian. Years later, after a storm blew through, he stopped to help a family where a tree had fallen onto their home. It turned out to be the home of the man who had prayed for him at the car wreck. Now they are good friends. God had a plan.
At the time of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, the idea of a silver-backed glass mirror was still 1800 years in the future. The early mirrors were made of polished obsidian, and then were made of polished copper or bronze or brass. The Romans had recently invented the idea of a glass mirror with lead or tin on the back to give it a better image, but most mirrors were still made of polished bronze or brass. And so the image you saw in the mirrors of the day were dark and distorted.
Which helps us understand Paul’s passage in I Corinthians 13, beginning with verse 8:
8 “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”
Looking through the mist, we only see in part. We only know a bit about what is on the other side of the mist – and sometimes, that view is so incomplete we don’t recognize what is on the other side. And so we wait to see the entire picture – “when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” Yet love never fails. In particular, the love of Christ for us never fails – God will take care of us, either in this life or in the next.
Part of what helps us mature is when we recognize two things: The mist that covers the future is always there, and God always loves us, so we can confidently walk through the fog, the mist, the darkness.
Paul continues: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.”
Remember that the mirrors of Paul’s day were distorted, and dark, like looking at a room through the reflection off a brass doorknob. But Paul has hope. He says:
“Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
The mist, you see, will dissolve like the morning fog rising off the river.
And Paul finishes this section with a reminder of what is permanent:
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
No matter what is happening in the world around us, no matter how dark and foggy our future seems, there are three things that will endure.
First is our faith in God, God’s goodness and God’s power. Our faith is totally within our control. It endures as long as we want our faith to endure. God is always taking care of those who love Him.
And that gives us our second enduring thing: Hope. For our faith in God should always give us hope for the future. Even on that night when the darkness closes in and we take our last breath, our faith in God gives us hope for a glorious new life.
And underlying all of these is remembering the love that God has for us. That love that will last forever. That love that gives us the hope that God will be there. That love that died on the cross and was resurrected is the basis of our faith and thus of our hope.
Everything else will sometimes and often be covered in mist. We won’t always be able to see our way through the fog and the darkness, only seeing a bit of the future at best. But the love of Christ is there somewhere, shining brightly. We simply need to wait until the mist clears – and we will find our way, led by that light.
So if you are worried about the state of this world, stop worrying. We are on the ferryboat of life, and the darkness and mist may close around us, but the light will appear, sooner than we expect. For Jesus knows what is happening and our heavenly Father controls the winds that will sweep away the dark fog and bring the light..
We need to remember – once when a storm came up and the disciples were on a boat, they were afraid that they would sink. But Jesus was on the boat with them and commanded the storm to be calm. And it was.
Jesus is always on our ferryboat with us. Remember that. He is here with us.
And so, we are never, truly lost even when surrounded by darkness and fog. Have faith and hope in His love.
Amen.