To join us live in worship at 10 am, YouTube, or you may view later at stmarkknox.org/sermons
August 29, 2021
When I thought, “my foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. – Psalm 94:18-19
In the 1999 film, The Green Mile, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name we hear character John Coffey, who had been wrongly accused of a terrible crime, is reveled to have a special power of healing. John Edgecomb, a guard on the green mile row, realized Coffey is innocent, and even offers to let him go free. Though innocent, Coffey tells John he’s ready to go with the following quote.
I’m tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with, to tell me where we's going to or coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There's too much of it - it's like pieces of glass in my head, all the time. Can you understand?
Coffey, a larger than life black man, with an incredible story, and incredible healing power is tired of what he is hearing in the world every day, he knows that he simply wants to go on. He knows he has done nothing wrong, even if the world believed differently, and he’s tired of it all. It’s a hard story, but one that may seem familiar to followers of Christ. Of a man wrongly accused, and chooses to face his imminent death. The difference is when Jesus took on death he did it so others might have life.
The life we have given to us through Christ is one of hope, one of joy, and one which calls us to love one another. Yet, there are times when we feel tired, worn out, or even overcome. Like Coffey we’re tired of people being ugly to each other. And we might even ‘let our foot slip’ so to speak, and fall towards being angry or even ugly to someone in response to what we hear. But the steadfast love of the Lord will lift us up as the Psalmist writes. Then we can give our cares to the Lord, again, who will give us consolation in our grief, in our pain. God will lift us from the anger of our slipping and remind us once again that we are loved, and that His steadfast love remains. When we come again to know this steadfast love, we might even find that though we walk this sometimes lonely road, God’s consolation helps us know His freedom even as we keep walking on.
Grace & Peace,
Sam