July 24, 2005 Installation Service, 2:00 PM
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
For us to live and work in San Francisco, crossing one of the many Bay Area bridges is a part of life. The news of the retrofitting debacle of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge will affect our wallets for years to come. But we’ll pay dearly because if we plan to live and work here, Jane and Lauren, we cross bridges.
I cross the Golden Gate Bridge almost everyday and sometimes twice a day. People from all over the world visit San Francisco and want to see the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s not the biggest bridge in the world and built more than 75 years ago, it certainly is not the newest. But it holds you in thrall. You stand there looking at it and snapping tons of pictures because it’s simply beautiful.
In the 1930s, they said it was a bridge that couldn’t be built. At the cost of only $35 million (Bay Bridge is now $6 billion.) and 11 human lives, the Golden Gate Bridge is subject to 60-mile per hour winds and strong ocean currents. It’s usually surrounded in fog. The Golden Gate Bridge is still standing strong today (thank, God!), although it can sway 27 feet as it withstands wind blasts of up to 100 miles per hour.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge because the chasm is so great that conventional supports can’t be used. The suspension bridge is a metaphor for the oldest question in human history: how can we bridge the chasm between the human and the divine?
Chasm of Sin
We know that our sin and wrongdoing has estranged us from God. The chasm between God and us is so wide that no conventional bridge is long enough or strong enough to connect us with God.
Some people think that they can do something to reconnect with God. They work hard at good deeds or praying to idols of wood and stone. They may offer sacrifices, burn incense and offer prayers. But all of these efforts may build a bridge but it’s not enough. These bridges collapsed and failed. Toppled by wind, crumpled by earthquake, incomplete because of the sheer magnitude of the task, these efforts come up short.
Then God decided to be the master bridge builder. Paul writes, “there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Against the raging waters of our failures and disappointments, our weaknesses and acts of disobedience comes Christ the Bridge who links the human and the divine.
We didn’t design it. We didn’t finance it. We didn’t build it. We don’t even deserve it. Even if we had a Fastrak transponder, we would never have enough money in our account to cross it!
The Apostle Paul was writing to first-century Roman Christians living in the vortex of political storms where they had every reason to wonder if there was a bridge between fear and hope, between suffering and glory, between evil done to them and the good that would ultimately triumph.
But because of their faithfulness in knowing that all things work together for good for those who love God and called according to his purpose, they believe that if God is for them who can be against them. No hardship or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril or the sword will separate them from the love of Christ. God the master bridge builder built Christ the bridge to reconnect us with God.
Jesus is our connection, our link, as the “way, the truth, and the life.”
Jane and Lauren
Jane Lam and Lauren Ng, your faithfulness in God’s plan in your lives has led you to First Chinese Baptist Church because you know that all things work together for good, for those who love God. We are working together for good because this is God’s purpose.
As you begin your years of ministry with us, we remind you of the bridge of faith that you will need. Have the faith and confidence, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that all things—not some things—will work together for good. That is, in the big picture, the different pieces will all fit together. Don’t leave anyone out. From the world’s point of view, it shouldn’t have worked. But it did and still does.
Habitat for Humanity was asked to build a house in Birmingham, Alabama. What made this house special from the thousands that have been built around the world is that it was built for a disabled person by other disabled people. A fully accessible home was needed for a 29-year-old man who became paraplegic from an infection of the spinal cord. When it came to time to start on the house, all the workers were people who had some kind of disability. The volunteers included accident victims who were confined in wheelchairs, individuals with multiple sclerosis and diabetes, and others, who were blind, deaf, mute, or who had various mental illnesses. Yet they all took part in the project as they were able. All persons—not just some people—will work together for God’s good plans for the world. Don’t leave anyone out.
Build a faith that stands up well in the storm. We know that San Francisco is not always sunny and warm. There will be bad weather coming: hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.” All of these things were very real bad weather threats for the Christians in Rome in the first century.
What are our real challenges—Chinese immigrants who work long hours with no time for family and church; young adults who are busy with careers and vacation plans and no energy for prayer and Bible study; grieving people watching their loved ones lose their lives; and perhaps our Christian conviction about the morality of the war on terrorism that we are engaged in losing precious lives on both sides of the conflict.
What’s at stake for us when we identify ourselves as Christians? We may gain the respect and admiration of others but we may also be rejected for our anti-worldly convictions. It’s not easy in our culture, Jane and Lauren, to proclaim our faith boldly. You will need a bridge that can stand strong in the storm.
When you follow Christ the bridge, you know it is strong in the storm because God built it. Many things may be against us, but the bottom line is: Nothing can prevail against us!
We all have seen how they build a bridge from both sides and hopefully meet at the same point in the middle. But before they get to the middle, the bridge is too short to be on. You might think that if you drove your car real fast over the unfinished bridge that you might make it over. Might work in the movies, but not in real life! Christ the bridge is long enough to connect us to the love of God, thus making it the longest suspension bridge in the history of humankind.
Jane and Lauren, Christ the bridge is also high enough. When the rains come this bridge won’t be flooded or washed out. No fallen tree will knock out one of the spans because it’s high enough. Christ sits at the right hand of God so “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus or Lord.”
Christ the Bridge
The real question in life is not why there’s evil. The real challenge for us is why is it so hard for us to see that at the core of life, all things work together for good.
Why do people persist in faith in the face of doubt? The answer is God is good! Why do people persist in hope in the presence of despair? The answer is Jesus Christ is good! Why do people persist in love in the darkness of hatred? The answer is the Spirit is love! Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe not only bends toward justice, but the Heralds of Eternity are rushing toward us with righteousness.”
Jesus built us a bridge with 2 boards and 3 nails. Now he is inviting you, Jane and Lauren to cross over the bridge in the faith that nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Suspension bridges are things of beauty. They hold us in thrall. And none are as beautiful as Christ the bridge when we cross to connect with God humbled that we are on holy ground and at the same time honored to have the privilege to be on this bridge even when we don’t deserve it.
We all need a bridge, a bridge that works, a bridge that stands strong in the storm, a bridge that is long enough, a bridge that is high enough. That bridge built by God himself is Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us pray.
Lord God Almighty, we thank you for leading Jane Lam and Lauren Ng to serve as your humble and dedicated servants at this great church of yours in San Francisco Chinatown that is connected by the bridges and highways of life. We pray that they will look faithfully toward Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and that through their discernment of your will and purpose for us, we may know your kingdom of heaven on earth. Bless us all and may this time of worship serve as an opportunity to rededicate our lives to you. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
Installation Prayer
We thank you, Gracious God, for Jane Lam, who has answered the call of your people to be their Community Outreach Worker and to Lauren Ng to be their Assistant Pastor. Fill them with your Spirit, that they may be ready to do every good work and give a full measure of devotion as they serve in this place. Make Lauren and Jane faithful servants of your Word, that through their preaching and teaching those who hear may be drawn to Christ, be strengthened in their faith, and equipped for Christ’s service in the world. May they be so filled with your love that they will care for your people in their joy and sorrow, their sickness and health, their doubt and faith, standing beside them so that they may come to know the meaning of your love through their ministries. And give this congregation, the First Chinese Baptist Church openness to receive this ministry for its strengthening and renewal. We pray these mercies through Jesus Christ. Amen.