When Life Seems Out of Control
a sermon based on John 20:19-31 (focus on verses 30-31)
by Rev. Dr. Roger W. Thomas

Did you ever have one of those days when nothing seemed to go right?  When life seemed out of control?  When events seem to be speeding by so fast that all you can do is hold on tight?  Larry Walters must have felt that way. 

Larry Walters was a 33 year-old truck driver from North Hollywood, California.  Personally, I find his story a bit hard to believe, but I have read about it in several places.  At the time of the event in 1982, the UPI and Associated Press carried accounts of the story.  The LA Times referred to the event when it carried the announcement of Larry’s death on November 24, 1993.  Believe it or not, this is the story.

Larry said he lived a fairly normal life for a truck driver from North Hollywood, California.  He went to work every day, came home and watched TV, went to bed, got up and went back to work.  On weekends he would occasionally go to a ball game.  But on most Saturdays he did the same thing week after week.  After mowing the yard, he would get a six-pack of beer, a stack of peanut butter sandwiches and sit in his lawn chair staring at the fence in his backyard or watching the jets fly over from LAX airport.  One day he decided to do something different.  Believe it or not!

Larry’s boyhood dream had been to be a pilot. When he graduated from high school, he even joined the Air Force in order to become a pilot.  Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. 

On this particular day, tired of watching life go by from his backyard lawn chair, Larry decided he was going to fly one way or another.  He had a plan.

According to the reports, Larry first went to an army surplus store and bought 45 six-foot weather balloons.  On a Thursday night, he went to his girlfriend’s place in San Pedro.  I suppose he decided her house had a bit more space for the project.  His plan was to inflate the balloons with helium, tie them to his lawn chair, and allow them to float him into the air.  He thought maybe a hundred feet or so would be nice.  He would take a BB gun with him so that he could if necessary shoot out balloons to maintain his proper height. 

Friday morning he had several friends meet him in the San Pedro yard for the big day.  The 45 balloons were inflated and tethered to the lawn chair.  They tied the chair to Larry’s jeep so that it didn’t lift off to quickly.  Larry donned a parachute, just in case, sat down in the chair while his girl friend tied him in.  He didn’t want to fall out when the chair lifted off.  He might get hurt.  Larry was no dummy.  In his lap, he had a CB walkie-talkie, his BB gun, a six-pack of Miller Lite, and a stack of peanut butter sandwiches. 

Slowly the friends let loose of the chair and let out the thirty foot anchor tether they had tied to the chair and released the other end from the jeep.  As planned, Larry, chair, and all lifted off the ground.  When the tether was fully extended and Larry felt comfortable in the chair, BB gun posed and ready, they cut the tether.  The rest is the stuff of which urban legends are made.

When they cut the tether, Larry didn’t stay at 30 feet.  Nor did he level off at one hundred feet as planned.  Instead, Larry shot straight up to 11,000 feet.  Some estimates had him as high as 16,000 feet.  The ascent was so fast that he didn’t even think about using the gun.  He simply held on for the ride of his life.  I have no idea what happened to the beer and the peanut butter sandwiches. 

According to FAA regional safety inspector Neal Savoy, quoted in the Associated Press, Larry was spotted by TWA and Delta pilots while they were in flight patterns for LAX.  Savoy said, “ We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act.  If he had a pilot’s license, we’d suspend that.  But he doesn’t” 

You can only imagine the control tower’s reaction when two pilots reported spotting a flying lawn chair at 16,000 feet.  According to one report, an immediate psychiatric evaluation was ordered by one of the airlines for their pilot.  Larry did get enough control of himself to use his CB to call for help.  According to Doug Dixon of the Orange County citizen’s band radio club, “This guy broke into our channel with a mayday.  He said he had shot up like an elevator into the clouds and was getting numb from the cold.  He sounded worried but he wasn’t panicked.”  

Never fear, Larry survived.  The details in my account about the rescue are unclear.  Apparently a helicopter managed to get a rescue line to him after he had punctured a few of the balloons and descended a bit.  Once back on the ground, he was immediately arrested by LA police on a number of charges, including entering LAX air space without authorization.  Reporters surrounded the scene.  One reporter got close enough to ask some questions.  “Were you scared?”  “Yes.”   “Are you going to do it again?”  “No!”  “What in the world made you do it in the first place?”  Larry’s reply was simply:  “You can’t just sit around all the time!”

Larry Walters certainly received more than he had bargained for the day he decided to fly his lawn chair over Southern California.  Circumstances went just a little bit out of control.

Ever feel that way?  I am sure none of you have tried to ride a flying lawn chair, but have you ever felt that everything was just moving too fast and there was nothing you could do about it?  Larry’s situation is a bit extreme, to say the least.  But experiencing a life that sometimes seems out of control is not an unusual experience.

As I have experienced life and observed people as a pastor through the years, I think most of us experience this in one or more of five different areas of life:  time, money, family, relationships, aging/health.  The truth is, many of us, perhaps most, are experiencing more and more a sense of being out of control in some areas of our lives.  Days are still twenty-four hours in length, but we feel hurried.  We have more to do and less time to do it in.  We live in unquestionably affluent and prosperous world, yet more and more feel intense worry and even unmet wants. An alarmingly high percentage of us, have racked up huge financial debts.  Families are under so much pressure in our days that children and adults experience loneliness.  Too often relationships are marred by anger and lingering resentment of past hurts.  While everyone grows older day by day, too many of us mark time with growing despair and fear.

I want to declare today that God has a better idea.  Jesus said he came to bring what he called “abundant life” to those who follow him.  Abundant life is not a life of hurry, worry, loneliness, anger or despair.  Jesus put it this way in (John 10:8-10)  "All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. {9} I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. {10} The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  A very real part of being a follower of Jesus is the experience of a qualitatively different way of life. 

The Gospel of John explains how to discover and experience this qualitative difference.  The key that unlocks the secret comes near the end of the book.  John 20:30-31 provides the theme verse for John’s Gospel.  John makes very clear that:  he is telling an accurate story of what Jesus said and did—he and other disciples were eyewitnesses of he events he has written about; his account has been edited—he has been selective;  what he did write down has a single unifying purpose. There are three key words in this passage:

Signs—Miracles with a message.  There are three common words for miracles in the New Testament—miracles, wonders and signs—each with a slightly difference shade of meaning.  Miracle generally refers to a display of  “power.”  It emphasizes the source of the miracle.  Wonders describes the effect of a miracle on those who observe it.  Witnesses are amazed.  The third term sign is the one John uses here.  It emphasizes the purpose of the miracle.  Most often it describes a miraculous event that pointed to something beyond itself.

Imagine you are traveling to northern Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. You have heard people describe it.  Perhaps you have even scene pictures of it.  You are eager to actually see the real thing for yourself.  You drive southwest across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and across Arizona through Flagstaff.  You drive through Flagstaff and head north.  Finally you are there.  You come to a huge sign that says Grand Canyon ten miles.  You are so excited your whole family jumps out of the car, crowds around the sign, and take turns snapping pictures of one another.  You jump back in the car and head toward home.

Silly? Of course.  We all know the sign and the reality are not the same thing.  The sign simply points to the reality.  If all you do is see the sign and never follow it to the reality, you will have missed the entire point of the sign.  John says that the miracles he has selected to tell us about are signs.  They are intended to point to something more than themselves.  There is meaning beyond the miracles.  That’s what we will be looking for as we work our way through John. 

John chooses seven miracles to emphasize in his story of his Jesus:  changing the wine to water (chapter 2); healing a Nobleman’s son (4); healing the lame man at the pool of Bethesda (5); feeding the 5000 (6); calming the storm at sea (6); restoring sight to a blind man (9); and raising Lazarus from the dead (11).

The late Merrill C. Tenney, Bible scholar and writer, has an interesting observation about the seven miracles John records: “These seven miracles operated precisely in the areas where man is unable to effect any change of laws or conditions that affect his life.  These areas, Jesus proved himself potent where man is impotent . . . “ (New Testament Survey, p. 190).  The chief miracle was Jesus’ personal victory over death.  All the others point to that grand finale.  What I hope you will see is that these miracles show us how Christ can be Lord of the very areas of life that can so easily feel out of our control.  When life seems out of control….Jesus is!

Life could not have seemed any more out of control than it did that Sunday for those first disciples.  The men found it hard to believe the testimony of the women who first reported the empty tomb.  Even when confronted with the reality of the resurrection, Thomas found it more than he could handle.  But once these ordinary men and women understood the truth of what Christ had done for them, an extraordinary door to a brand new future opened for them.  They learned that even when even life seems otherwise, Jesus is still in control.  He is Lord and God!

Life—The Quality Difference.   Do you notice anything strange about John’s statement?  “You may have life through his name.”   This was written then and now to living people.  What does he mean you can have life?  Aren’t we already alive?  We often mentally add the word “eternal” to it.  But John doesn’t say “eternal life.”  He says “life.”

To make sense of this we must understand that the Bible uses two common words for our word life.  One is the word from which we get our term for biology –bios.  Generally it means physical life.  It is never the word used when “eternal life” is meant.  That is always the second word –zoe.     The distinction in the Bible is important.  The first word can mean simply living, existing.  But there is a sense in which that is not life.  It is certainly is not the “fullness of life” that Jesus promises.

Do you understand the difference?  It is the difference between adding years to your life or life to your years.  We recognize the difference.  We see someone who is in a coma or in totally debilitated health and describe them as being in a “vegetative state.”  It is not very delicate, but we know what we mean.  The person is alive.  The heart is still pumping and brain waves are present.  But there is no quality of life.  There is life and then there is LIFE.  We know the difference.

But what I am talking about this morning goes way beyond that.  I insist that there lots of perfectly healthy people walking around who are not truly ALIVE.  They have bios, but not Zoë.   Once you understand this, you can make sense of what Bible says in two places:

(1 Tim 5:6)  "But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives."  It is possible to dead and alive at the same time.  Bios but not Zoë. 

(Eph 2:1-5)  "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, {2} in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. {3} All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. {4} But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, {5} made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved."    This too describes people (all of us at some point in our lives; some of you the way you used to be; perhaps some of you right now) whose vital signs are still present; but who don’t have Zoë.  Years but not LIFE!

Believe—The Way to Life.  John says that he recorded the account of these selected miracles so that those who read it might believe.  Remember this follows Jesus’ encounter with Thomas who had refused to believe unless he saw for himself.  Jesus insisted, (John 20:29 "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Note that the belief John intends to inspire is very specific.  He wants to bring us to faith in Jesus, not just believe in the miracles or believe in ourselves (that’s how our world most often uses the idea of faith or believing) or believing in faith (you have heard the notion:  it doesn’t make any difference what you believe, as long as you believe).  Please understand the issue is not how hard you believe, but what you believe in that matters.   These signs/miracles point to a specific truth—that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.

Defining believe is often our problem.  Here is the Bible’s definition—Romans 4:20-21, “Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”  Believing is all about be persuaded Jesus keeps his words.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) the classic devotional writer put it this way:  It is a great thing to be a believer, but easy to misunderstand what the New Testament means by it. It is not that we believe Jesus Christ can do things, or that we believe in a plan of salvation. It is that we believe him; whatever happens we will hang on to the fact that he is true. If we say, "I am going to believe he will put things right," we shall lose our confidence when we see things go wrong.

Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) noted that there are three kinds of faith in Christ:   1)  Struggling faith, like a man in deep water desperately swimming.   2) Clinging faith, like a man hanging to the side of a boat.  3) Resting faith, like a man safely within the boat (and able to reach out with a hand to help someone else get in).

Which is yours?  As we consider the miracles of John’s Gospel and more importantly the One to whom they point, where is your faith?  What is it producing in you? 

Is there anyone here who feels their life is out of control?  Your hanging on for dear life, watching your world speed by, feeling that there is so little you can do about it?  When life seems out of control,  Jesus is still in control.  In fact, he can exercise his control in the precise areas where seem so powerless.  He promise life, not just years, but life!