When Tammy Faye Messner, Jim Bakker’s former wife, recently died, there was a re-run of a broadcast of the Larry King TV show. This was not the one she just did the week of her death, which showed how cancer had so horribly destroyed her body. This broadcast had been from a couple of years back. There on the show were Jim and Tammy along with their son and their daughter. Tammy still looked healthy at the time, but it had been taped years after they had both remarried, after Jim had been released from prison, and several years after the PTL empire had fallen in disgrace.
I watched and listened carefully as they discussed the shame, the scandals, the divorces, the new spouses, the imprisonment, the drug habits and rebellion of their son Jay, and the cancer that was then beginning to attack Tammy Faye.
Many would think, after all that had happened, that some of the people in this broken family would be on the defensive. I watched to see if anybody was cynical or bitter. I wondered if somebody would show anger, or if the Bakkers or the Messners or the children would blame someone else, or each other. Amazingly, not once throughout the program did anyone hurl an accusation, or try to place blame, or seek to justify themselves or their actions!
Larry King asked how Jim felt toward Tammy’s husband Roe Messner. Jim smiled and said that he was a wonderful man and a dear friend, and he sincerely wished for them to be happy. The children (now young adults) echoed the sentiment. Likewise, when Larry King asked Tammy Faye and the kids about Jim Bakker’s current wife, they enthusiastically expressed a genuine admiration and respect, and warm affection for her.
Now I understand that it would be pretty hard to fool a seasoned interviewer such as Mr. King, and the Bakkers didn’t try to fool anybody. They were genuinely open, honest, peaceful, and kind.The program closed with King’s sincere comments on what a wonderful family he thought they were, and how much respect he had for all of them.
Somewhere around that time it occurred to me that I could be standing on holy ground! In my imagination I thought back to the time when a young Bible-school couple must have talked together about their dream of a worldwide Christian program on TV. I imagined how they may have envisioned the Heritage Village Park, and the hotels, and who knows what else. They had great hopes to succeed in these ventures, and they did. Obviously, they never thought they would fall as they did. It probably never occurred to them that they could fail morally and spiritually. But somewhere along the way, they let the fame and the money compromise their character, and it all came tumbling down and the crash of it was heard all over the world.
I am sure that if they had known of all the things that would happen, they would never have signed on for the trip. No doubt there were times they would much rather have been unknown to the world than to become a long-running joke on the Tonight Show. I believe that the pain of their failure had for years outweighed the joy of their success. As William Cowper wrote, God really does work “in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform!” Something totally different, something Jim and Tammy never thought would happen, must have been on His mind from the very beginning!
I’m aware that there are many people who think that any Christian who fails is an embarrassment to the cause of the gospel. Some people just don’t get it that at its center, it is entirely a message of grace! It’s not about our always doing it right, but about love and acceptance and forgiveness, about restoration and redemption after we have made a total wreck of our lives.
Religion without grace can only focus on the rules we must keep and the commands we must obey. It gives us a pat on the back and makes us feel good that we have NEVER done anything “really bad” like some others have done. But the powerful reality of true grace shines brightest only when we see that we have sinned, and sinned greatly.
If you are one of the people who has “never done much wrong”, I can only recommend an honest and humble look within. If you still see yourself as a really good person, you have permission to look down on the rest of us. But if you have really sinned - if you have tumbled off the pedestal, if you have been to the wrong places, done the wrong things, lost your temper, fallen off the wagon, or wrecked your marriage, or anything that made you feel so ashamed… if you have repeatedly needed forgiveness, and even now you can’t seem to get your life together without messing up something… well, welcome to the human race, and welcome to amazing grace!
Everybody doesn’t “get it”, but Jim and Tammy do. It wasn’t in their plan… but it was in His.
Growing up as a small boy in Birmingham, the oldest son of a lifetime steelworker and a “full-time” mother, life was not really bad. We had very little money, there were four of us boys, and I think I was nine when our family got its first automobile. We fought over the “good” groceries early in the month, but toward the end of the month until payday when even the Spam was gone, we ate butterbeans and potatoes, and for meat there was something called “beef tripe”. If you don’t know what that is, you don’t want to know! But life then was really not so bad. We never missed air conditioning or television, because we never had them.
Many fond family memories, however, are clouded by a dark shadow that hung over our household. It was never spoken of, but it was there. I didn’t know what it was or what had caused it, until one time when my father drank too much. He began to cry and to scream words that came as an unforgettable shock to my little ears. “I’m going to kill him! I’m going to kill him! Oh God, please let me kill him!” “Kill who, daddy?” I asked. Everything got quiet, my mother pulled me away, and I was left to wonder what this was all about. This kind of thing would happen again occasionally, maybe once or twice a year.
Finally, when I was still a small child, I learned of something that had happened eight years before I was born. My father’s brother Terry, when both of them were teenagers, had been carelessly murdered by a man he didn’t know and never even saw. Terry was eating a sandwich at a lunch counter and was stabbed in the back by a man who was showing off his new knife. Of course my dad’s heart had been broken, and for many years now my sweet, gentle and hard-working father had carried a lot of anger, and when he dreamed, he dreamed of revenge.
As I grew up, we never discussed or even mentioned this awful event. But to my father, it was on his mind every day. He harbored thoughts of committing a crime just to get in prison to get at the man who had taken his brother’s life. He kept it all inside. He learned not to open up, not to show his emotions, not to talk about his pain. Stomach ulcers, caused and aggravated by these suppressed feelings, were a constant problem to him, sometimes even sending him to the hospital. Anger and bitterness were taking a heavy toll on this man I knew as “daddy”. Though I was just a boy, I could see he was hurting a lot, and I was helpless to do anything about it.
Some years passed and things stayed about the same, until one day something happened that turned everything around. It was a rainy Sunday, and we had all gone to church that morning. When we returned home, my father wasn’t with us. It rained heavily all that afternoon, and we stayed inside, but he was gone.
I didn’t know where Dad was or when he would be back. Then, sometime around four o’clock that afternoon, we heard the front door open. It was still raining as my father quietly stepped inside, closed his umbrella, and stood in the doorway. Looking across the room at my mother, he spoke very softly. Tears were in his eyes. A look of peacefulness was on his face. He said, “Kate, I’m free! I’m free!”
What had happened was that my father had spent the afternoon with the church pastor. He had poured out his heart to God, and had finally, after twenty long years, forgiven the man who killed his brother! For over half of his life, my father had let what that man had done rob him of rest, plague him with bitterness, destroy his nerves, and ulcerate his stomach. Now, he had finally put it behind him.
Later he explained to me that, as the pastor had told him, forgiveness doesn’t mean you approve of, nor do you agree with, a wrong that was done. It doesn’t mean that wrong is right. It just means you decide to turn it loose, so it can turn you loose. Dad had finally, simply, let it go. At long last he was free– free to love, to laugh, to enjoy his family, to get on with this wonderful gift that we call life. After that, my father lived thirty more years.
What I am hoping to relate to you in this story is this simple but profound truth: when my father was angry and bitter, he was not hurting the man who killed his brother. He was only hurting himself and those who loved him. And when he forgave, it was HIMSELF that was set free!
The most tragic thing is not what someone says or does to hurt us; it’s what we do to hurt ourselves when we don’t forgive. God knows that we ourselves are often in the wrong and need to be forgiven, so He commands that we forgive others who have wronged us. And He commands this, not just for them, but for US, so WE can be free.
The thought occurs to me that since God has forgiven me for all the wrong that I do, and since my father could forgive the man who had hurt him so much, I should have no problem forgiving anybody who ever hurt me– anybody, any time, anywhere, in any way.
One more thought. If you do forgive (or if you don’t), you don’t have to say it– your children will know.
I recently read two books by a great writer named Donald Miller. In his “Blue Like Jazz” he related a story of how his Christian friends, in preparation for the big “party-time” at their college, constructed a confession booth, and a sign that simply said “sins confessed here”. The non-Christian students assumed that after their wild parties, the Christians expected them to come and confess their sins to them. Finally, when one of them did come into the booth, he found that things were not at all as expected. There at the booth were the Christians, waiting to confess THEIR sins to the young man!
What a turn-around! What a refreshing thing it is when Christians get off their “high horse”, get honest, and become vulnerable and open to other people! I believe we would see some powerful things happen if we did—but don’t hold your breath.
However, to at least make an attempt, let me confess to all of you who do not consider yourselves to be Christians, some of our sins and offenses, and an apology to you for having to endure our many shortcomings. We have become such very poor representatives of this wonderful man we say we are following. He cared about the poor, lived a simple life, always had compassion, and common sinners were loved and accepted by him. We live complicated, materialistic, uncaring lives which often reek of self-righteousness instead of grace. We sing “Amazing Grace”, but we aren’t really amazed anymore, and we certainly don’t think of ourselves as wretches. I am sorry.
Our “Christian” television and radio programs often consist of bizarre manipulation, emotionalism, cheap commercialization, and celebrity worship. Some of our programs make a circus out of the healing of a stopped-up ear, but we don’t show you the people who come in and go out in wheelchairs. We preach a God who is more into prosperity on earth than treasures in heaven, more into healing the body than the soul, more into success than truthfulness. I am sorry. If my idea of a Christian were based on what I see on “Christian TV”, I will be quick to admit to you that I would not want to become one. I see us following after some novel interpretation, finding “secret codes” in the Bible, enamored over what will happen to those “left behind”, excited over people being “slain” on the floor, and anything and everything else but the message of God’s love and grace and forgiveness. I am sorry.
Our Lord whom we profess to follow shunned the opportunity for political “power”, for very good reasons that we seem to have forgotten. Many of us are totally obsessed with defending our “rights” as Christians, and become angry or even paranoid if we can’t require everyone to embrace our values or pray our prayers. I am sorry.
We divide into denominations and split our churches over some minor differences in method or interpretation, and thereby send confusing, complicated signals to you, rather than sharing the love of Christ with you. I am sorry.
I must also apologize for each of us, because though we ourselves are sinners, we haven’t admitted it enough. We come to church and appear to have it all “together” in our lives, when we don’t. We allow people to keep the illusion that we are all “good people” when we aren’t. We are not more worthy than you or better than you are. We are plain people with faults and sins and problems just like you have. We get divorces. We lose our temper. We view pornography. We cheat on our taxes. We are often afraid, confused, and lonely. We need a lot of grace, a lot of forgiveness, and a lot of help, just like you. I am sorry. I could go on much longer about the many, many ways we have failed you. I am sorry. We are sorry.
In our Christian Scriptures the apostle Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” He didn’t say, “I was a sinner” ; he said, “I am a sinner- the biggest sinner of all!” Then he told about a savior who loves sinners more than you could ever dream.
But He never said we would not fail Him. He never said we would not fail you. He did say that He would not fail us. And you can count on Him, even if you can’t count on me. The message is not about me. It’s about Him. And if anybody ever needed to hear that message, it is I.
If we ever meet in a confession booth, please, let me go first.