One day an atheist was walking through the jungle, contemplating his total disbelief in anything remotely spiritual. Suddenly, a Lion appeared - charging toward him and just about to leap.
"OH GOD!!!!!" the atheist cried.
Then, as if time stood still, the lion was suspended in mid air and a voice from Heaven bellowed out:
"You called?"
"Oh Lord, I'm so sorry I have not believed in you, I beg you do something!" said the ex-atheist.
Being merciful, God looked down on the situation. He was thankful that, at least the man accepted that He existed. Then He looked upon the Lion pitying this poor dumb creature - and He decided to make the Lion a Christian.
"I've done something" God said "I've made the Lion a Christian"
"Oh thank you, thank you" Said the ex-atheist, mopping his brow.
Then before his eyes, the Lion floated gently to the ground and sat up. The lion looked the man up and down once then closed his eyes. The ex-atheist sighed in relief but then was taken aback with horror as the lion put his paws together and uttered
" For what I am about to receive may the Lord......".
This tale of the atheist and the Lion might not at first seem to have anything to do with my sermon, and you might be right, but it's a good joke anyway.
Most analysts agree that there are many people today searching. Searching to find the missing link in their lives, and they search in a variety of places and for different reasons.
Prince Charles once spoke of his belief that for all the advances in science, 'there remains deep in the soul a persistent and unconscious anxiety that something is missing, some ingredient that makes life worth living.
Leo Tolstoy, author of 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina', wrote a book in 1879 called, 'A Confession' In it he tells the story of his search for meaning and purpose in life. He had rejected Christianity as a child and had sought to get as much pleasure out of life as he could. He drank heavily, lived promiscularly and gambled a great deal. But it did not satisfy him.
He became ambitious for money. Yet that did not satisfy him either.
He sought fame, importance and success. These he certainly achieved - the Encyclopaedia Britannica states that he wrote one of the two or three greatest novels in world literature' But he was left asking the question 'so what?'
He then became ambitious for his family. He married in 1862 and eventually had thirteen children. And then came to the fulfilment of all his ambitions and yet one question brought him almost to suicide:
'Is there any meaning in my life which will not be annihilated by the inevitability of the death which awaits me?'
He searched for the answer in every field of science and philosophy. The only answer that he could find to the question 'Why do I live?' was this definition, 'in the infinity of space and the infinity of time, infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity'.
And as he looked around at his contemporaries he saw that people were not facing up to the questions of life (Where did I come from? Where am I heading? Who am I? What is life about?).
Eventually Tolstoy found that the peasant people of Russia had been able to answer these questions through their Christian faith and he came to realise that only in Jesus Christ do we find the answers to the many questions we ask in our common search for meaning.
Other people search because of Loneliness.
Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock band, Queen, who died in 1991, wrote in one of his last songs, 'Does anybody know what we are living for? In spite of his amassed fortunes and the thousands of fans he had, he said, in an interview before he died, that he was desperately lonely.
He said, 'You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man, and that is the most bitter type of loneliness. Success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds, but it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need - a loving ongoing relationship'.
Freddie was right to speak of an ongoing relationship' as the one thing we all need. Yet no human relationship will satisfy entirely, nor can it be completely on going. There always remains something missing. That's because we were made to be in relationship with God.
Jesus said, 'I have come so that you might have life, life in all its fullness.' He also called us friends. He is the only one, who can show us the Way to have a life relationship that is truly on going even to eternity.
Guilt is another factor for people searching.
It is true that we are made in the image of God but we are also fallen - we are born with the propensity to do evil- and we are all tarnished by the things we do wrong.
Good and bad co-exist in human beings -
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian writer said, 'The line separating good and evil passes, not through provinces, nor through classes, nor between political parties... but right through every human heart and through all human hearts.
And it is when we come to realise this evil lurks within that we are sometimes stirred to seek forgiveness.
C.S.Lewis wrote. 'The first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.
We are all guilty for all have sinned and are in need of forgiveness, forgiveness which can only be found in Christ.
Marghanita Laski, the humanist, debating on the television with a Christian, made an amazing confession. She said, 'What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness'... Then she added, rather pathetically 'I have no one to forgive me'.
Many a prisoner has come to faith through the desire to have their sins washed away and have found in Jesus true forgiveness and newness of life. Because Jesus died to set us free, to pay the penalty for human sin and to bring life to those who are dead in their sin.
Finally, the fear of death turns peoples thoughts to consider what will happen next, and their search has led many to faith in Jesus.
On an Indiana tombstone, is found this epitaph:
Pause stranger, when you pass me by,
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so you will be,
So prepare for death and follow me
A passer-by had read those words and scratched the reply
To follow you I'm not content
Until I know which way you went
And the passer-by was right, the important thing about death is what follows. Where will we be going? Do you know where you are going?
A missionary once told an old first nations chief about Jesus Christ, describing him as God's only way to heaven. 'The Jesus road is a good road' the aged chief agreed. ' But I have followed the aboriginal road all my life, and I cannot change now'
A year later, he lay in his hut, deathly sick. The missionary hurried to his side and once more told him of Christ. ' Can I turn to Jesus now?' the dying chief asked. 'My own road stops here. It has no way through the valley'
Every road that we walk in life, ends at the grave.
The roads of religion, fame, wealth and success can never take you through the valley of the shadow of death. Only Jesus can do that, and he will if we but trust him.
When Jesus said, I am the life, he did not just mean of our three score years and ten - but eternal life, a life which we can enjoy and have in all its fullness.
I am reminded of a testimony I heard at a CPA national celebration. There a RUC police sergeant told us of the time his police station was mortar bombed in the early 80's. Many police officers were seriously injured and he told us how he held his inspector in his arms as he lay dying. The inspector, a good friend and work colleague, faithfully witnessed to his sergeant right to the end. His final words were....... 'I know where I am going, make sure you come too!'
These words echoed in the mind of the sergeant for weeks until the day he sank to his knees and invited Jesus into his life to be his Lord and his Saviour.
And so these are just some of the ways in which people come to faith in Jesus Christ as they come to realise that in him there is meaning;
- in him there is companionship and satisfaction;
- in him there is forgiveness and new and abundant life;
- and in him we need not fear death for he has opened the gate of life and all who enter by him, will be saved.
So if you are searching, if you don't know where you are going either in this life or the next, if you are lonely deep within, or if you are burdened with guilt, come to the Good Shepherd today, come to your loving God for in him all who seek, find.
Amen