1 Peter 1:6-9 Lisa Kipp
March 3, 2004
I Have Seen the Lord
I remember very clearly the first trip that I made with our youth and the Appalachia Service Project. Our group was much smaller than it is now, and the number of adults that attended was also much smaller. In fact, left to lead the work group that I was in was done by me and my younger sister. My husband and I had just recently moved into our first house so the amount of tools that we had to pull from to take with was very limited. This meant that my sister and I spent time in Dad’s garage trying to guess at which tools we would need. Now my father only had two daughters, so we were raised to do things that perhaps in some families the sons would have done. But I have to be honest; I don’t think that my dad had much faith in the two of us doing home improvement for a week to someone else’s home. He’d pull out something new that was on the list of needed things, and immediately my sister and I would look at each other and say, “How do we use that?”
The first major project that my work group had to do upon our arrival to Appalachia was build a wooden ramp leading up to Mr. Phillip’s front porch. Charlie Gilmore was along and he gave Jennifer and I good advice and we felt pretty good about the job that we were about to tackle. So that first day we started in. We had a plan. We had the materials. We had a lot of tools—weren’t quite sure which ones we should use—but we had them! We started out just fine, but soon we came into a little bit of trouble.
Perhaps some of you have had to work with a lag screw similar to this one before. I hope that I never have to work with one again! I don’t even recall exactly what we were trying to do with it; all I know is that it got stuck. And I mean really stuck. It was in crooked and I couldn’t figure out how to get it out. If you know me well enough you know that I like to figure things out and conquer them. Well I couldn’t conquer this stupid lag screw, and it was getting the best of me. I was frustrated.
It was at about this time that Mr. Phillips came out to check out how we were doing. He came out on the front porch and he praised our work that we were doing up and down. He was so proud of us, he said. And so grateful for all of the work that we were doing. He had nothing bad to say about our work. It was at the moment that he left that Mike Witte, a high school sophomore at the time, looked at me and whispered, “Lisa, right now, aren’t you just a little bit glad that Mr. Phillips is blind and he can’t see what we’ve done?”
Perhaps I left that part out earlier. Yes, Mr. Phillips is legally blind. And when he came out to see the job that we were doing, all that he could see was that we were working hard. He couldn’t see that this awful lag screw was stuck into this 4x4 post so badly. He couldn’t see the frustration in our faces. But he could sense that we were working hard, and that we were trying to do our very best for him.
In the text, Peter writes that “Although we have not seen him, we love him; and even though we do not see him now, we believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.” Unlike Mary Magdelene at the tomb when she sees Jesus and announces, “I have seen the Lord,” I have never seen Christ face to face. Nor, I’m assuming, have many of you. However, we brought Mr. Phillips joy, even though He couldn’t see the work that we were doing.
This is how it often is with youth ministry. At the most unlikely of times our youth do or say something when I least expect it and it is then that I think, “I have seen the Lord.”
It’s when a sixteen-year-old says to me after a powerful retreat, “Lisa, I have words just burning inside of me that I need to say.” I have seen the Lord.
It’s when I spend a weekend making over 200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids on a ski trip, and then I see that one friend who’s never been to church before so engaged and moved by our closing worship service. I have seen the Lord.
Or last year during the 30 Hour Famine retreat when I’m trying to get our youth together to leave the Salvation Army and they come to me and say, “Wait, Lisa, we need to pray for the man we’re working with.” And then I walk back to see four of our high school boys joining hands with a man two generations older than them and praying for his ministry at the Salvation Army. I have seen the Lord.
Now every time that I am with our youth, trust me, I don’t see the Lord. There are some days when I finish an after school visit with a youth that I think to myself, “I’ve just spent an hour talking about Play Station games and homework – how am I actually making a difference in this kid’s life!?” But, that is what youth ministry is all about, about meeting our youth where they are at. Talking about what is important to them. What is real in their lives.
There is one young man that I try to get together with whenever I can. He’s in college now so I don’t see him as often, but he professes nearly each time that we are together that he doesn’t believe in God. And right now, that is fine with me. Because there is something that keeps bringing him back. There is some reason deep down that he still wants to have a cup of coffee with me. He knows what I stand for. He knows that I want him to find his faith again. And I honestly believe that he will. It might not be soon, it might not even be in ten years, but I believe with all my heart that meeting with him for coffee today just might make a difference in his life in twenty years. For right now, I don’t see the Lord when I am with him. But Peter writes that, “even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” I have faith. Faith that someday the young man that now professes his disbelief will someday see the Lord for himself.
For I don’t think when Mary Magdelene saw Jesus alive, risen from the tomb – from the dead – that she expected to see him. Nor, do I usually expect to see the Lord when I do.
It’s that the Holy Spirit is alive. He’s active within the youth of this congregation. He’s in their minds, He’s in their thoughts. It’s then that I realize, I have seen the Lord. When I least expect it.
I haven’t seen the Lord like Mary Magdalene once did. But I love Him, I believe in Him, and it is with an indescribable and glorious joy that I find myself in the calling I have here – to be a part in helping our youth see the Lord for themselves.
And by the way. If you’re still wondering about this lag screw here and how we got it out… There were six of us at that worksite. Finally one of the youth suggested that we pray. So we dropped all of our tools, we stood up, we joined hands in a circle around that 4x4 wooden post, and we prayed. We prayed that God would somehow show us the way to get that lag screw out. After we finished our prayer, I looked into our tool box. Lo and behold, we had a saw that cut metal in there. And we used that saw to saw off the metal lag screw. From there, the ramp was brilliantly created. The power of faith and the power prayer. Thanks be to God!