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“AND THEIR SHOUTS PREVAILED” #6
THE POWER OF A WHITE FLAG
It’s a moment of real anguish when you finally have to get the white flag out of your closet, go out to the front yard, attach the instrument of surrender to the rope, and then slowly run that abject symbol of failure to the top for the whole world to see. You’ve been beaten. The enemy got you. His forces were superior; yours were not up to the task. And the military band plays the mournful tune, “The World Turned Upside Down,” as you march your defeated troops to the ships.
Well, friend, most of us have probably not been through anything as dramatic as that. But we’ve all felt those melancholy moments when we knew we were licked. On a dark Thursday night, a disciple named Peter certainly knew it. Jesus had told him he was on thin ice; his best friend and Savior had warned him: “Before midnight tonight, you’ll deny knowing Me . . . three times.” Peter hadn’t thought so at the time, but now, tears streaming down his face, he had to put the white flag out. Lucifer had gotten him again.
There was a compelling bit of television going way back to the mid-1980s and a hit CBS show called Cagney & Lacey. Maybe you remember the female-driven cop drama starring Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless as a couple of street-smart New York City detectives. Sharon, whose dad in the series was a boozer, a hard-partying guy, played script roles where she, too, struggled with alcohol. In fact, in the next-to-last season, in a two-parter entitled “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the Cagney character hits rock bottom, drunk, disheveled, disoriented in her apartment, sick with the D.T.’s. And finally, in an Emmy-winning moment, the beautiful blonde has to look around a roomful of strangers and say the impossible words: “My name is Chris Cagney, and I’m an alcoholic.” “Hi, Chris,” her fellow surrenderers say, and the rehab begins.
The ironic thing is this. About a year later, after the series had finally come to a triumphant conclusion, Sharon Gless, the actress, had to face the same white-flag reality. SHE was an alcoholic. Not Cagney . . . HER. She was at a Malibu restaurant with her agent, Ronnie Myre, and as they waited for their dinner, he managed to quietly confront her: “Sharon, I love you. And . . . I think you’re an alcoholic.”
She began crying, afraid there was going to be a scene, and he bravely finished his little speech: “Let them look, I don’t care. I may lose you as a client and I may lose you as a friend, but I’m afraid I’m going to lose YOU. I’m afraid you might die.”
A couple of Internet articles describe how, after a hard day of shooting there on the CBS sets, Sharon’s costumer would always slip a Styrofoam cup into her hand. Everyone thought it was apple juice, but no, Sharon was celebrating “it’s a wrap” with a daily shot of J&B on the rocks. In college, attending a good Jesuit university – Gonzaga in Spokane – she would sneak out of the dorm for keg parties at local motels. And now, these many, many drinks later, millionaire Sharon Gless was facing the specter of having to say for reals the line that previously had been just a performance cued by a television director.
She admitted later:
“I was at Hazelden for two weeks before I could even say: ‘My name is Sharon, I’m an alcoholic.’ I wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t say it.”
It finally took a visit from her well-known husband, C & L producer Barney Rosenzweig, before Sharon was able to make the full confession that she was a helpless addict. That she needed the famous “higher power.”
Last week we began a series on the issue of spiritual defeat and surrender, and we drew from the classic Friday morning line in Pontius Pilate’s courtroom: “And their shouts prevailed.” A man who knew better, who had a keen mind for justice and law, sensed immediately that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was not a guilty man. He had done nothing to deserve death, and Pilate was bold enough to say so. But when the crowds began to shout, when wave after wave of public opinion washed over him, he caved. He ran the white flag up the flagpole next to the Praetorium palace, and the entire mob saluted.
Well, you know, we don’t need to watch Cagney & Lacey reruns on TV to know that it’s hard to admit defeat. And while warfare or a tennis game might be one thing, to admit PERSONAL failure, the coming to the end of our rope of character . . . that’s the hardest thing of all. But just as had to happen with the headstrong, confident disciple Peter, you and I have got to come to the point where we realize the only battle flag we have is a white one too.
There’s a little-known story over in the book of Daniel, tucked in between the visions and lions’ den adventures. But good King Nebuchadnezzar had a problem with flags: the only one he wanted waving from the balconies of Babylon had a big picture of himself on them. Words like “surrender” and “self-denial” were not in his lexicon. But after an encounter with the God of heaven, a chastened Nebuchadnezzar comes home to the throne after seven years in a mental rehab unit, and quietly observes:
“Everything [the King of heaven] does is right and all His ways are just. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble.”
The fascinating thing is this. Nebuchadnezzar really came into greatness only when he surrendered. That’s right. Before that, he was a weak, vacillating, petty ruler who made foolish, snap decisions. If someone looked at him funny, “Off with their heads!” But when he realized that he was a king UNDER the heavenly King, then he found his true strength.
It’s the same in our world, too. True strength comes to the alcoholic only when they admit they need strength from elsewhere.
One of the wonderful, gentle giants of Christianity has to be the late Jamie Buckingham, long-time editor of Charisma magazine. And a paragraph from his years of spiritual writing is still floating around our offices; here it is:
“Our society has done a strange thing,” he writes. “We see ‘success’ as the ability to go it alone, to make it without anyone’s help – especially God’s help. Therefore when we hear someone say, ‘I surrendered to God,’ or ‘I asked Jesus to take control of my life,’ we immediately think of the person as a weakling, a washout, a failure who couldn’t make it on his own and had to call on God for help.”
What do you think of that? When we admit we’re helpless, that we can’t stand up to temptation, don’t people often think of that as weakness? I remember a few years ago, just after a certain Jesse “The Body” Ventura was elected governor. And he created quite a stir when he said to ABC’s Sam Donaldson that he didn’t need the “crutch” that religion provided. “Now, my wife . . . she needs that. She gets comfort from it,” he told Sam and Cokie Roberts. “But me? No.” There was no way this former pro wrestler was going to admit he had a need of a Savior or salvation or the comfort that heavenly promises might provide.
Let me go back to Jamie Buckingham, who wrote so compellingly about the strength it takes to surrender, to run up the white flag of our own spiritual need. He was once diagnosed with cancer, and after literally millions of Christians around the globe prayed for him, there was a reprieve. But only temporary. The deadly curse struck again, and this time it seemed clear that Pastor Buckingham was facing the shadows of death. And you know, that’s when the world saw raw strength. He was calm; he was quietly sure of his salvation in the Lord. He wrote openly about how he looked forward to being in God’s kingdom. But I’m sure there had to be cynics who saw him drawing strength from the Bible’s promises, from Jesus’ guarantees regarding a resurrection morning. And there were undoubtedly those who sneered and turned away, saying, “Can’t go it alone, huh? What is it with you Christians?”
Well, here’s one fragile, frail Christian who isn’t afraid to say: “I surrender.” On my own . . . can’t make it. Can’t succeed. Can’t beat Satan. I need Jesus, and you know, I need Him every single day. The Apostle Paul once confessed that he was just as weak as weak could be. And you know, our mighty Savior came right back with this promise:
“[Paul . . . and Lonnie,] My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made PERFECT in weakness.”
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