Whether you are young or old people love to be
amazed by coincidences. For instance, isn’t it amazing that
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, and
John Kennedy in 1946? Lincoln was elected President in
1860 and Kennedy in 1960. The names Lincoln and
Kennedy each contain seven letters. Both were deeply concerned
about civil rights, and both, along with their
wives, lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot and mortally wounded in
the head on a Friday. President Lincoln’s secretary was
named Kennedy, and President Kennedy’s secretary was
named Lincoln. Both of their secretaries warned them
not to attend the events where they were
assassinated. Both were assassinated by Southerners and were
succeeded
in office by a Southerner named Johnson. The
successor to Lincoln was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808.
Kennedy’s successor was Lyndon Johnson, born in
1908. John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Lincoln was
born in 1839 and Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated
Kennedy was born in 1939. Both were known by their
three names and each had three names when combined
together totaled the same number of letters at 15. Booth
ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theatre.
Both men were assassinated before their trials.
Is this some kind of crazy coincidence or perhaps
something more? While it’s hard to say for sure, often we are
unwilling to allow our eyes of faith to see the
events of our lives as being anything more than mere coincidence
as if God had nothing to do with the process of our
life. This tendency just might be rooted in our ultimate need
to be in control of our life and existence. Author
Scott Peck in“The Road Less Traveled”wrote that the goal of
the evolution of our life is to“become God”or rather
to become Godlike. As he points out, nothing will tend to
give readers more theological indigestion because
the thought of“becoming like God”can only be safely negotiated
when we are willing to empty ourselves of our
self-centeredness and self-importance. Unwilling to empty
himself of his selfish motives, Satan fell like
lightning from heaven after rebelling against the will of his
Creator.
In ancient Greek mythology, Icarus attempted to fly
under his own steam into the Sun (a godhead) on selfmade
wings of wax and feathers. The closer he got the
more quickly his wings melted and he plummeted to his
destruction. We creatures cannot be more like God
except by giving up ourselves and becoming empty vessels
filled by the life of the one who created and
redeemed us. As St. Paul wrote,“
Let
the same mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form
of God, did not regard equality with God as something to
be exploited, but emptied himself; taking the form
of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in
human form, He humbled himself…”As individuals
and as a congregation we become more like Christ himself
when we are willing to empty ourselves of those
things that separate us from God and each other. If we attempt
to go it alone under our own“steam”, thinking we
have no need of God and the strength of our community, our
wax wings will melt, and we too might fall like
lightning from the sky.
To the overly rational mind the story of Jesus and
the continued existence of the Christian witness is a crazy
coincidence.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s more. Maybe we didn’t
just get here under our own“steam”. We confess
that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, God
continues to
