Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Conscientiousness
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*Mist*
As many of you know, I recently celebrated my 5th anniversary since being diagnosed with cancer.
In spite of my protests, my wonderful wife Tricia threw me a big party.
Most of my family came down from NY; my daughters and grandchildren were all there; many of my friends were there as well.
I had a great time and I thank you all.
The day before the party was the annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life at Clearview High School in Mullica Hill.
I have attended this event regularly since I was diagnosed with Stage 3, Level IV Melanoma in 2002.
At this year’s Relay, the list of survivors was much shorter than in years past.
Many of the people that I had gotten to know thru this event had died since the last Relay.
My next door neighbor, Chuck Schroeder, had been diagnosed with cancer at about the same time I was.
This year marks the 4th anniversary of his death.
As you might imagine, this experience has caused me to reflect quite a bit on my life, my near-death experience and the question of “Why?”
Why did God allow me to get cancer?
Why did God choose to heal me?
Why am I cancer-free now for more than 5 years when others I know have died during that timeframe or are still suffering with the disease?
Why?
I’ve even been feeling guilty about it.
I just don’t understand.
I’ve turned to others for input on this but I still don’t get it.
I suppose I never will.
I mean, I’m nobody special.
I certainly don’t deserve this second chance that I’ve been given.
So many questions…so few answers.
Why do some live?
Why do others die?
Why does God allow suffering to come into our lives?
Why would God allow his children especially to suffer?
Life is so fragile.
Life is so fleeting.
Is there anyone of us who doesn’t feel like the months and years go by faster and faster the older you get?
I think Pink Floyd said it best in a song called “Time” from their groundbreaking album “Dark Side of the Moon”: (For you youngsters—that’s the title of a record from 1970.
And “yes” we had electricity back then.)
*Time * \\ (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour) \\ \\ Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day \\ You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
\\ Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town \\ Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
\\ \\ Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
\\ You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
\\ And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
\\ No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
\\ \\ So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking \\ Racing around to come up behind you again.
\\ The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, \\ Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
\\ \\ Every year is getting shorter.
Never seem to find the time.
\\ Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines \\ Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
\\ The time is gone, the song is over, \\ Thought I'd something more to say.
Ah, the classics.
What’s not to like about “Dark Side of the Moon?”
As the song points out, when we’re young we think that we have all the time in the world.
There’s no hurry.
We’re young!
There’s time to kill.
We will live forever.
Nothing can stop us.
It’s usually not until you get a bit older that you are confronted with the reality that your life is passing by at a rapid rate.
Not only that but you realize that you have absolutely no control over the events and circumstances of your life.
It’s a frightening realization to be sure.
The Apostle James tells us in James 4:14 that our life is “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
<spray bottle> A mist that appears for a moment and then vanishes…just disappears.
David put it this way: “…my days disappear like smoke…” (Psalm 102:3) \\ \\ And again “…for we are like a breath of air; our days are like a passing shadow.”
(Psalm 144:3) \\ \\ Job said it like this; \\ \\ “…my days are running out quicker than the thread of a fast moving needle…my life is just a breath…” (Job 7:6,7 CEV)
Our life “is but a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
Just how long is that?
If one day is as a 1000 years with the Lord, then how long is the appearance of a mist in His eyes?
Are we talking about a mist like the one you sometimes see in the morning that the sun burns away by mid-morning?
Or, are we talking about a mist like that of the steam from a boiling pot of water?
Or, maybe even the mist from waves of the sea crashing on the shoreline?
In any case, mist doesn’t have much of a lifespan.
It appears for a very short while and then it is gone forever.
When I was given the bad news that I had 5 years to live, I began writing down my thoughts and feelings.
(How typical!
I never had the impulse to do this until I was told I was dying.)
I also began writing the story of my life.
I wanted to be able to pass these stories down to my children and grandchildren.
Maybe they could learn from some of the mistakes I’d made.
In any case, here is some of what I wrote back in 2002 right after I was told of my diagnosis:
* *
*Excerpt from “Five Years”*
“Five years.
Five years used to seem like a long time.
Four years of high school seemed like forever.
Four years of college was an eternity or so it seemed.
But now, at forty-four years of age, five years was more like the blink of an eye.
My three daughters, Crystal, Heather and Meghan, had all grown up over the last twenty-two years.
Or was it 22 minutes?
Where had the time gone?
Only yesterday, each of them had been born and now Meghan, my youngest, was eighteen.
(She’s now 23.)
I had only become Alyssia’s grandfather two short years ago.
(Alyssia is now 8.) A young grandfather admittedly, but I relished the job.
Being a grandfather was the best thing in my life.
I loved playing with Alyssia so much.
I spent as much time with her as possible, just trying to keep up with her, taking in every little detail of her growth.
Perhaps I was trying to make up for all that I missed or could no longer remember of my own children’s early years.
Oh God.
The thought of not being there for her was crushing!
How would my children deal with my death?
How would Tricia go on?
She had married a man with a death sentence.
The thoughts of family and friends mourning my death flooded my emotions until the tears began to fall.
I wasn’t worried about myself.
I was much more worried about how my children…my granddaughter…my wife…would be able to cope with this horrible situation.
How would my mother, father, my dear sister Colleen and my brother Shaun take it?
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