PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Yes-Meaning To The Labyrinth of Life”.
By: Ron Woodrum
Around midnight, on September 17, 1961, in in the heart of Africa, while on a mission of peace, the DC-6, carrying U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammerskjold crashed, taking the life of one of the most respected and intriguing characters that has crossed the world scene of history. His death occurred in circumstances that have forever remained shrouded in mystery and secrecy. We may never know the truth. Philip Toynbee said, “Hammerskjold was the greatest statesman, best matched for his hour, since Abraham Lincoln”. John F. Kennedy said he was “the greatest statesman of our century. Next to him I am a very small man!” Billy Graham referred to him as one of the most spiritual men he had met, certainly the most spiritual man to hold the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations. His stand for what is right may have cost him his life! The last time Graham visited him was just a few months before his death. At that time Hammerskjold told Billy that he “really did not believe that world peace would ever occur with a major spiritual awakening”.
After his death, per his last wishes, his best friend, Leif Belfrage, was given his diary, simply titled with one word, Markings, with the intentions of leaving it up to his friend to decide if that diary was worth printing for the public. Dag called that diary “sort of a white book concerning my negotions…with myself…and God!” It was 175 pages meticulously typed. It did not contain a single reference to his distinquished career; it did not contain a singular mention of the many presidents, kings, and prime ministers that he had dealings with. It dealt ONLY with his own personal spiritual pilgrimage. W.H. Auden, who wrote the preface, and translated it from the Swedish language into English, said this about the book…”It is an attempt in one life to unite Action and Contemplation”. He made reference to Hammerskjold own quote “in our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through a world of action”. Something very significant and spiritual happened to him on New Year’s Eve 1951. He wrote, “Night is drawing nigh. For all that has been-THANKS! For all that shall be-YES!” After that night, all his activity recorded in his diary was footnoted with the words, “Not I, but God In Me!” He had experienced something life changing and life transforming…by his YES of surrender to God.
One of the interesting entries into his journal came on Pentecost 1961, just a few months before his tragic death. He gave illuminating clarification of the meaning of the YES that had transformed his life. It was a YES to God, but it involved a surrender to Jesus Christ. He wrote, “I don’t know Who-or what- put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some point I did answer YES-to Someone-and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. From that moment on I have known what it means ‘to not look back’ and “To take no thought for the morrow’. Led by Ariande’s thread of my answer through the labyrinth of Life, I came to a time and a place where I realized that the Way leads to a triumph which is a catastrophe, and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price of committing one’s life would be reproach, and that the only elevation of man lies in the depth of humiliation. (Sounds like Jesus). After that the word ‘courage’ lost meaning, since nothing could be taken from me. As I continued along the Way, I learned, step by step, word by word, that every saying in the Gospels stands one man, and one man’s experience. Also behind the prayer that the cup might pass from him and his promise to drink it. Also behind each of the words-the cross!”
Later, in 1956, in his Markings, he adds this clarification to the meaning of “Yes”. “To say YES to life is at one and the same time to say YES to oneself. The YES transforms you”. “You dare your YES-and you experience a meaning. You repeat your YES-and all things acquire meaning. When everything has a meaning, how can you live anything but a YES!” He had found real life by his Yes of commitment to God, through Jesus Christ His Son. What other answer is there but that TRANSFORMING YES!
The Aged Apostle John has given that YES to Jesus. That YES had transformed his life. After sixty years the YES was still impacting his life and making his life impacting. There were elements where, as Hammerskjold said, “seemed to lead to a triumph, which was a catastrophe, and a catastrophe which was a triumph!”. John wanted his little children to come to know Jesus, God’s LIVING WORD, and let the WORD transform them, as He had him. That YES to HIM would enable them to experience ETERNAL LIFE-and transform them into an AMPHIBIOUS CHRISTIAN. That is today’s message.