Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Few men alive on this planet have suffered more than did James B. Stockdale.

He was a prisoner of war for 2,714 days in Vietnam.

On one occasion the North Vietnamese handcuffed his hands behind his back, locked his legs in heavy irons, and dragged him from his cell to the unshaded courtyard.

They left him lay there for 3 days.

The sun burned him, and the guards beat him so he could not sleep.

Men died with such torture, but Stockdale survived, and the reason he did was because of the music of sympathy.

That is, he got messages from the prisoners that encouraged him to fight on.

He would hear a towel snapping in their special prisoner code, and it would say God bless you Jim Stockdale.

The sounds of a snapping towel in the midst of torture does not seem like much to us, but for him it was a symphony of sympathy that helped keep him alive.

The prisoners of war were isolated, for this is, in itself, a form of torture.

Loneliness can be harder to bear than physical pain.

The captives, however, developed an elaborate system of communication by which they could send messages from cell to cell, and even from building to building.

They used their fingers, fists, elbows, and tin cups, and then they developed a sophisticated tapping routine.

Dr. Julius Segal in his book, Winning Life's Toughest Battles, studied these men who survived, and records their amazing efforts to develop their togetherness in a world of isolation.

The prisoner assigned to sweep the prison compound used the broom movements to talk to the rest of the prisoners.

When walking past another cell the way they would drag their sandals would send a message.

Some sent messages by the way they blew their noses, and others by belching.

One feigned sleep for a couple of hours each day, and during the siesta period he would, by his snoring, send reports to everyone in his cell block.

Nave Lieutenant Commander John S. McCain III, who spent much of his five and a half years in solitary confinement, concluded, "The most important thing for survival as a POW was communication with someone, even if it was only a wave or a wink, or a tap on a wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up.

It made all the difference."

POW Everett Alvarez said, "They were acts of self-healing.

We really got to know each other through our silent conversations across the brick walls.

Eventually, we learned all about each other's childhood, back ground, experiences, wives and children, hopes and ambitions."

Our hostages in Iran had the same kind of experience.

Some of them never met until after they were liberated, yet they felt they knew each other because of the support system they developed.

Katherine Koob said, "Just knowing that someone in the next cell cared that I existed helped me go on."

All of this confirms the New Testament message on the importance of sympathy.

It is a key weapon in surviving and overcoming the unjust suffering of this world.

The early Christians had to suffer so much persecution, but that which sustained them and kept the church alive was the symphony of sympathy.

The Greek word in Heb.

10:34 is sumpatheo, which means sympathy, or, to suffer with another.

Another form of the word is sumpathes, and this is the word used by Peter in I Pet.

3:8 where he writes, "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble."

These two Greek words represent, not just a solo instrument, or even a duet, but a whole orchestra of instruments that produce a symphony of sympathy, that brings harmony into a world of discord.

Just a partial list of the words that convey some aspects of sympathy will reveal how widespread this virtue is.

Synonyms of sympathy are, compassion, condolence, unity, harmony, alliance, concord, tenderness, pity, friendliness, kindness, fellow-feeling, consolation, brotherly-love, and warm-heartedness.

In other words, the study of sympathy connects us with practically every relationship virtue of the Christian life.

The paradox is, this is a form of suffering that is self-imposed.

It is a voluntary choice to enter into the sufferings of another, and feel some of the same pain they do.

Here is suffering that could easily be avoided by simply not caring.

The opposite of sympathy is antipathy.

This is the feeling that you have when you are not drawn to the sufferer to stand along side and feel with him.

But, rather, when you are repulsed by the sufferer, and withdraw in hostility to let them stand alone.

In between these two extremes of sympathy and antipathy is the neutral apathy, where you are neither pulled toward nor pushed from the sufferer, but are indifferent, with no feelings one way or the other.

Elinor Wylie, the poet and novelist, was deeply distressed, and she woke Katherine Porter at four A.M., and when she came to the door Miss Wylie said to her, "I have stood the crossness of this world as long as I can, and I am going to kill myself.

You are the only person in the world to whom I wish to say good-bye."

Miss Porter looked her dispassionately in the eye and responded, "Elinor, it was good of you to think of me.

Good-bye."

Here was a woman seeking sympathy, but she got apathy, with a tinge of antipathy.

The fact is, just as sympathy is the key to survival in life's sufferings, so apathy and antipathy are the weapons Satan uses to bring people to defeat and despair.

People need a song of some sort in their life to keep on going, and the symphony of sympathy provides the music for living.

It is no second rate virtue.

It is agape love in action.

We want to focus our attention on this paradoxical form of suffering that is a key factor in the alleviation of suffering.

The first thing we want to look at is-

I. THE PAIN OF SYMPATHY.

It costs to care, and there are pains to pay and hurts involved in helping others bear their burdens.

Our text describes Christians who stand along side other Christians who were being insulted and persecuted.

They sympathized with Christians who were imprisoned, and when you stand along side of people who are being rejected, you too will be rejected, and they were, and they suffered the loss of their property because they identified with those who suffered.

Someone defined sympathy as, "Your pain in my heart."

William Stidger tells of seeing a group of boys and girls in his home town gathered around a friend on the ground.

He walked over and saw this young boy doubled over and weeping with pain.

He asked one of the children what the problem was, and the girl replied, "We've all got a pain in Jimmy's stomach."

This was sympathy, and she was feeling the pain right along with the suffering friend.

Benjamin Franklin had sympathy for the Indians in a day when it was costly to care for Indians.

On Dec. 14, 1763, 57 white vigilantes raided a peaceable settlement of one of the Indian tribes and killed 6 of the 20 Indians there.

Two weeks later over 200 vigilantes raided the jail where the other 14 were being kept in protective custody, and they broke the door down and killed the Indians.

Franklin was outraged, and called for the punishment of these white savages.

He raised a militia of almost 1000 men, and rode out to prevent their next strike.

He succeeded in saving 140 Indian lives.

But his sympathy for the Indians cost him dearly, and he was defeated that year for reelection to the Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania.

Sympathy is a choice as to what you will suffer for, and everybody suffers for something.

Will you suffer for the prejudice and bigotry of antipathy by adding to the suffering of others?

Will you suffer the judgment of apathy by having no feelings toward the suffering of others?

Or will you suffer the pain of sympathy, because you choose to identify with, and stand along side of, others as they suffer?

The first two are Satan-like and fallen humanity-like.

Only the third choice is Christ-like.

Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, but without sin.

He entered into flesh and lived on our level, and He knows by experience what the battle of life is all about.

Heb.

4:15 says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses..."

He can stand along side and suffer with us, because He has been there, and He knows what it is to be weak and to suffer.

It was painful for Him, but profitable for us that Jesus entered the limitations of the flesh, for we now have a Sympathizing Savior.

This is where we see the value of much suffering in this fallen world.

All suffering becomes good suffering that leads you to sympathize with others in their suffering.

Allen Gregg of the Rockefeller Fund said, he hated to see a medical student get his MD degree before he had been a patient in the hospital.

"I'd like to put every intern through an appendectomy at least.

Not for the surgical experience, but to learn how the average patient is treated."

So also, every lawyer who has not been through a court case has little notion of what his clients suffer.

It is not enough to walk a mile in someone else's moccasin says Sidney Harris.

He says, "They have to pinch enough, long enough for the blister to be remembered when the shoe is on the other foot."

In other words, all caregivers need to experience suffering to some degree to be able to enter into the pain of sympathy.

This is vital to the helping of others bear their burdens.

We do not know why the Good Samaritan was so sympathetic toward a stranger who was beaten and robbed.

Possibly he had been there himself, and had been attacked on a previous journey.

Whatever the case, he was the hero of the story because he was willing to voluntarily suffer the pains of sympathy.

The priest and the Levite, on the other hand, were apathetic and missed the chance to be channels of God's compassion in a suffering world.

One of the reasons there is so much suffering in the world is because of apathy.

But on the other hand, Helen Keller was right when she said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."