Preparing For Final Exams

It was Christmas time 32 years ago!  I finished my packing and dragged my suitcase and the huge box wrapped in rope downstairs.  The dorm sat on Memorial Drive which snaked along the Cambridge side of the Charles River across from Boston.  The snowy sidewalks made it just a little easier to pull the box and suitcase the long 4 blocks to the Kendall Street subway station for the noisy ride to Logan Airport.  I had worked all summer driving truck, delivering Hood Milk to all the grocery stores on Cape Cod to earn enough money to buy the cheapest round-trip ticket from Boston to Sao Paulo Brasil. The awkward box contained a small black and white television my missionary parents had asked me to bring to them since electronics were outrageously expensive down there.  I had an international connection to make in Miami, so when my flight left an hour late because of snow, I worried all the way to Florida. 

When I emerged in the Miami terminal I panicked realizing I had only a 5 minutes to get to the gate of APSA, Aerolineas Peruvianas, S.A.   I’ll never forget running with that huge cardboard box; thoughts of six months of work and planning adding burden to the awful aching of a son who missed his family and only got to see them or even talk to them once a year.  It was too late.  The agent pointed out the window at the jet which was taxiing away from the gate.  I was sick.  I stood and watched the plane for almost half an hour, delayed on the runway for unknown reasons, before it eventually raced into the humid night air headed for Brasil with my heart aboard.  The agent informed me that a small airline like APSA did not fly daily to Brasil, and so although they would pay my motel bill, it would be a three-day layover.  Without phones, even my telegram didn’t get through in time so my family made a fruitless 4 hour journey to the airport only to leave wondering and worried why I didn’t get off the plane.  My motel room was cheap, and my choice of a newly released novel to read late into the night was not a good one.  Under those circumstances, especially at Christmas time, let me suggest you not select Rosemary’s Baby. 

During the next intervening day, I walked to a grocery store to buy my mother some Lime flavored Jello, something else unavailable in Brasil.  As I walked back to the motel through a residential neighborhood, a policeman pulled up, asked me to spread out on the hood of the cruiser, and searched me thoroughly.  Apparently the locals thought it was suspicious that a long-haired man should be walking—not driving—through the area carrying a brown paper bag.  When the officer asked me where I lived I said I was staying at the Sunset Motel.  When he asked why I said because I was leaving for Brasil the next morning.  When he asked what was in the little brown bag, I said Lime Jello for my mother.  When he asked for ID, I showed him my student ID from M.I.T. in Boston. 

All of these were apparently the wrong answers, particularly because unbeknownst to me there was an “All points” bulletin out for an M.I.T. technician who had committed murder in Boston that week.  To make a long story short, I spent the rest of the day riding in the back seat of the cruiser, while the officer checked me out.  After several hours, and no reply from the FBI in Washington, he let me out at my motel, cheerfully concluding that he knew me better now than any FBI report would help, wishing me a Merry Christmas, and sending greetings to my mom and dad. 

Well I did make it to Brasil, and spent 3 glorious weeks in the summer sun and on the Atlantic beaches of Santos.  But the return was gruesome.  You have to understand that in those days, the Christmas break was not between semesters but just before the end of first semester in late January.  It was a terrible arrangement.  Stretching my visit home as much as possible, I arrived back in Boston tanned, but in a blinding snowstorm, stomach aching to be back with my family, having utterly forgotten whatever little quantum mechanics and numerical analysis I had managed to cram into my brain in the fall. Now I faced two weeks of snowy grey overcast days trying to prepare for my final exams. My teachers were obviously demon-possessed…remember I had just read Rosemary’s Baby.  They were bent and bound on humiliating me or even breaking me if possible.  I was deeply in love with a girlfriend at Wellesley, the Vietnam War raged, the government was about to conduct the infamous draft lottery, and my roommate (now CEO of Grafpoint Software in Silicon Valley) had stayed in the dorm the entire break studying.  To understate the point dramatically, Jim Mannoia was not motivated to study for final exams!

Maybe you feel a little that way today?  Maybe you feel your professors are asking too much…if not demon possessed then at least obsessed?  Maybe you are thinking about bigger issues in your life or in your world; that special relationship, the war in Afghanistan, the fear of terrorism, the sagging economy and your bills to pay.  Maybe you’re wondering why you are in college at all?  I think I know how you feel.  I’ve talked with quite a few faculty in the past weeks and some of them report a sense that for some of you motivation may be in short supply.  Even Pastor Kay at the Free Methodist church mentioned in a sermon a few weeks ago his surprise that more students weren’t “taking notes in class” the day he visited.

I’d like to share the story of a good friend who also struggled with motivation.  His struggle came to a climax outdoors one night in a garden in the Kidron Valley, the garden of Gethsemane.  As Jesus faced his final examination before Caiaphas, Pilate, and ultimately on Golgotha, he struggled mightily with motivation. 

Now your first reaction may be to object that it is Christmas time and Gethsemane is an Easter story.  But the Christmas story of incarnation has two focal points; one the struggle in Gethsemane and one perhaps a struggle preceding Jesus birth.  Both occasions were unimaginable struggles of motivation precisely because the act of God becoming human is painful.  And I mean painful for God Himself.  It represents an unbelievable “squeezing” of the infinite into what is finite. We don’t have a record of Father and Son debating this painful step before the birth, but fortunately we do have an account of the debate before the squeezing painful step of death on the cross.  And the motivational struggle is the same.  Gethsemane is perhaps the best “inside” account of Christmas we have.

   MT 26:36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

    MT 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [this final exam] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

    MT 26:40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. 41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

    MT 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup [this final exam] to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

    MT 26:43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. ["My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [this final exam] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."]

    MT 26:45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Let’s face it.  Jesus was depressed.  In His own words (v38) he was, “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  I’ve felt that way. Have you?  During those exams that January 32 years ago, I grew discouraged, I would put my head on my desk in early hours of the morning and just cry.  Only a few years ago, in a new and apparently unmanageable job as a new Vice-President at Houghton College, several times I found myself so overwhelmed, I put my head on my desk and simply cried.  It’s just too much Father. Maybe you’ve been there?  I hugged a College employee who was there this week.  My son and daughter are there this week with their final exams.  My daughter even gave me the idea for this talk.  Maybe like Jesus your friends are not helping much either.  Maybe they’re asleep when you’re trying to study, when you’re facing the biggest motivational struggles of your year, or perhaps even of your life. 

Jesus did two things.  And they were apparently paradoxical because they seem to be opposite responses.  (You knew there had to be paradox somewhere in my chapel talk today didn’t you?  Well here it is.)  First, he persisted.  Gethsemane is an account of Jesus’ own persistent effort in the face of his disciples’ laziness.  Jesus did understand that weakness.  He said, “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” (v41)  Boy doesn’t that ring true.  At 2 a.m. the spirit may be motivated but the body is certainly weak.  Sometimes we imagine this expression as a warning to avoid the temptations of overeating, of indulging inappropriately in alcohol, drugs, pornography, or maybe just indulging inappropriately in strong language or even just spending money.  But it seems to me when Jesus says these words in the context of the supreme motivational struggle of his life, He is acknowledging the fundamental struggle of our human condition.  Persistence in doing right is not natural.  Jesus persisted in his struggle.  Verse 42 says having seen the weakness of his disciples “he went away a second time and prayed.”  Then in verse 43 after returning to find them sleeping a second time, “…he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time.”  In the face of doubt and lack of motivation Jesus persisted again and again into the night despite the weakness of body and the lack of support from friends.

But second, having done all He could, Jesus trusted His Father. Paradoxically, he persisted but then he also “let go.”  Three times, this account tells us Jesus asked that the struggle might pass, but then he “let go” of it into the hands of his Father.  Verse 39: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [this final exam] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."  Verse 42: "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup [this final exam] to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."  And finally in verse 44: “So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.”  I am convinced the REAL final exam for Jesus was not at the Christmas moment of birth, nor at the Easter moment of death, but at those moments of motivational struggle before each when he persisted but then ultimately relinquished, letting go, trusting His heavenly Father.  Can you persist in your hard work far into the night?  But then can you let go and say, “Father, not my will but thine be done?”

There is an old song we sing in the church; “Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way.”  That is the Christmas message I leave with you today, a message of dealing with the struggle for motivation, a message of preparing for final exams.  Trust and obey, or perhaps in better order, obey and then trust.  Persist and then “let go.”  The example of our Lord and friend Jesus reminds us that “…we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.  (Heb 4:15)  May the Christmas message of God’s grace, and the example of our Lord help you as you prepare for your final exams.

Dr. James Mannoia