Christ: Our Firm Foundation

I used the following as a Meditation I gave for Sunday, June 1, 2008. I used This morning, the story of the Wise and Foolish Builders as the basis for the meditation. It reads from Matt. 7:24-27: "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
In the book of Colossians, Paul gives us further direction in our Christian lives, as well as a bit more to think about as we talk about foundations in chapter 2, verses 6-7: 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
As we all may know, having a solid base, or foundation, is particularly important for our houses, which is why Jesus uses houses in this parable. So, I decided to offer an illustration to give us a visual of this concept. I made two houses out of popsicle sticks . One I put on top of a rock, the other on sand. We all can understand what the rock symbolizes: as Matthew says it is the Word of God, Paul tells us it is Christ, which since Christ and the Word are the same as John tells us. Also, we know what the sand symbolizes: us placing our plans and hopes, our faith and trust in ourselves or each other and various other things. But then the rains come and floods and other difficult times. (Here I poured water over them). At this point, when we are founded on ourselves or founded on anything aside from Christ, we come crashing down. But when we are built and founded on Christ and his Word, we remain firm. That doesn’t mean things don’t get a little shaky sometimes, but we can be confident that we will remain strong since we have Christ as our firm foundation. Now, what does the water symbolize? We all of certain things in our lives that can act like this water, such things like: our doubts, our bad attitudes, negativity, and our fatigue, and especially the hard times in our life, like the passing of a loved one, personal crisis, problems within our families.
All of these things can bring us down, but we are strengthened like a tree by its roots and like a house on a strong foundation, we are rooted and built up on Christ and the Word. The fact of the matter is, we can’t do all of this alone. We will collapse if we try to depend wholly on ourselves, we can’t do it.
This makes me think of a time in my life that was particularly rough for me. I think it was the summer of 2004 and I was at camp okoboji as a counselor for Cub Week 1. For several years, I have lived with migraine headaches, and several things can trigger them. Well, it just so happened that on Wednesday morning of that week, right before crafts, a migraine started to come on, I could see the crazy squigglies in my vision, I don’t know how else to describe them. But then they disappear and the throbbing headache comes on, I’m sure several of you here today struggle with migraines as well. So, I spent several hours in the nurse’s cabin since it was air conditioned and I was able to do some activities in the evening, but the headache stayed and I began to feel worse and worse. Thursday morning I still did not feel well, the headache was gone, but I just did not feel right. So I decided that I needed to go home. But I still didn’t feel better. I was supposed to counsel the second Cub Week as well, but I had to decide that I could not. I wish I could describe how I felt, but I always felt sick, never willing to do much. I laid in the house and watched TV and moped around the house. My parents could tell something wasn’t quite right with me so my mom suggested that I speak with my Pastor. After a few days, I kept feeling worse and worse, so after a long fit of tears I finally realized I would not be able to pull myself out of this alone. It was then while talking with my Pastor that he helped me see that my migraines were shaking my foundation, making it crumble, because I now understand that I was depending on myself to straighten out my problems and I had hallow hopes that I would one day wake up and feel better. However, I was growing frustrated and just sadder. Psychologists don’t like to use the word depression for just anything, but I think I was pretty close, and with the little psychology I’ve had I know enough that I exhibited some of the symptoms. Now I consider it a nervous breakdown because at that time I was letting the migraines win and control my life. I felt sick because I was living in dread for the next migraine to come. I was making anxiety and worry my sandy foundation instead of letting Christ by my foundation. A few days after speaking with my Pastor, I was reaching the end of my rope if you will, and I realized I would not make a foundation by myself. So I turned to a book that led to me to God’s Word, and there I really realized I could not depend on myself. And to be completely honest with you, there are still days that my anxiety and worry of a migraine, along with worries about other things, control my day and bring me down. But I’m able to stop those advancements of Satan, because worrying is a sin, with remembering and knowing Christ is my foundation.
Plainly speaking, when we place our faith and hope on anything that is not Christ, we sin. It is so easy to try to control a situation, or find the strength within ourselves. When we do that, we will fail every time. But we receive our help in not only remembering the Words Christ spoke to us before and after this parable and doing them by putting them into practice, but we also have the reassurance of Christ’s strength, the strength it took to have his arms spread wide, to have nails driven through his hands, to be crucified, and to hold the weight of all of the world’s sin on his shoulders as he hung on the cross. In Jesus’ illustration of the two houses, each house looked the same from the outside. The real foundation of our life seems to be hidden, but it is revealed to us in His Word and the Sacraments, but another time we really see Christ is in the storms of life. The real foundation of our lives is Christ, since after all, we don’t see Christ physically with our eyes, and we don’t always see the foundation of house either, but we know it is there, we then also know that even though we do not physically see Christ, we still know that he is there, our foundation, who we are rooted, built up, and establish on. It is our faith in Christ through grace that allows us to stand firm and to be established and founded on Christ. AMEN

In Christ,
Adam