By Dr. Mickey Anders

South Christian Church

Lexington, Kentucky

March 14, 2010

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

It's a children's poem generally ignored by adults.  In fact, its message seems like nonsense:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses, and all the king's men,

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Just a clever little rhyme often animated with a funny egg figure perched on a wall.  But today I want us to stop and take a closer look.  I am often amazed at the profound meanings that come from children's books and children's nursery rhymes like this one.  Perhaps the poem remains popular among children because it has a deeper meaning that we all can sense.

In this silly little poem, we have portrayed our human condition and the futility of most efforts to fix the world in which we live.  And today I want to suggest that it can serve as an outline for understanding what Paul says in our text for today.

1) The first line says, "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall."  This line is the beginning of the poem but it also parallels of the beginning of humankind.

The poem sets up the action with a simple declarative statement.  Perhaps it was a lovely spring day with flowers blooming and birds chirping.  From his perch, Humpty declares that all is right with the world.

We can all identify with the peaceful tranquility of Humpty as he sat on the wall.  But for most of us we have to go back a bit.  Things are mess now, but we can look back to a better time.  Can you remember back to such an idyllic time?  How far back do you have to go to recover the innocence of your youth.  Back before the Fall.  Back before you made a mess of life.  Back when relationships were right.  After the Fall, we look back with envy at the simple times of sitting on a wall.

The Bible says the same thing happened in the beginning of time.  God sat humankind on a wall.  Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."  God created humankind in his image as the apex of creation.

It was as if God made humankind and set them on a wall.  People were able to relate perfectly with God, to feel his nearness, to communicate personally with him.  God sat humans high on the wall with wisdom, power, knowledge, and God-likeness.

Another analogy portrays God as a burning campfire at night and all God's new creation are all joined hands in a grand circle around the Light.  In this idyllic state, every person could see the light and everyone saw all their fellow humans with the light of God reflected in their faces.  Like Humpty perched on the wall, this original state perfectly reflected the Divine plan.

But then something happened in our poem, something happened in creation, and something happened in our lives.  In all three, we can describe it as the Fall.

2)  "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…"

The poem gives us no clue to the cause of Humpty's fall.  Maybe the wall was slippery.  Maybe he became distracted or tried to reach too far.  In the poem, the Fall is a mystery, but not in creation, and not with us.

The Bible says that humans tried to reach higher than they were meant to.  We can picture Adam and Eve on their tiptoes reaching just beyond their grasp.  God said they were not to eat of the fruit, but they wanted to be like God.  Just a little further.  The snake said this fruit would be good.

When the first man tried to reach that which was out of reach, he fell!  And great was the fall thereof!

Genesis 3 tells the story this way:

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some t o her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

This Fall represents the entry point of sin and failure into creation.  This sin problem lies at the root of all the struggles of religion.  The sin problem will occupy the next sixty-six books of the Bible.

All of us today have fallen too.  Our Fall has to do with more than just the primeval past.  The fall is not something in the past.  It is something very much present right now.  It is personal for each one of us.  For each of us comes to a point when we want that which will be harmful to us.    We stop listening to God and let the snake tell us what to do!  We change our loyalty from the Creator to the creature.  We reach for the forbidden fruit.

The Bible has warned us.  "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).    "So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).

In the analogy of the campfire where everyone was gathered in a pleasant circle, holding hands facing the Light of God, suddenly one and then another turns their back on the light, faces the darkness and moves away from God.   Before you know it all of the creatures are wandering in the darkness, far from God, and now instead of seeing others reflecting the light of God on their faces, we see the shadow side of life.  The dark shadows loom before us and bring fear and alienation.  We are groping in the darkness trying to find our way.  Lost and afraid.

One false step and suddenly we find our lives tumbling out of control.  We never intended it to turn out this way.  We only turned away from the light for a moment.  We just stretched out for one enticing bit of fruit.  But suddenly the consequences of our sin are far greater than we expected.

Suddenly, we all lie, like Humpty, at the bottom of the wall - broken, shattered, fragmented.  We lie there, knowing that unless something drastic happens our fall will be fatal.

3) "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses, and all the king's men,

Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Suddenly, much to our relief, up ride the king's men and their horses to put us back together again.  But who are these men?  And who is their king?  The poem once again leaves us in the dark.  We have no idea who these "king's men" are, but we can see them picking up the broken pieces of our eggshell Humpty, trying to fit them together.  Perhaps they attempt to glue the pieces back together.  Perhaps they have tape.  But the poem makes it clear that there was no fixing what was broken.  The king's men fail.  They couldn't put Humpty together again.

We've had our experience with the king's men too.  Perhaps today we would call these failed efforts by names like Oprah, Sally, and Montel.  Maybe we call them psychotherapy, hypnosis, or tarot cards.  Maybe these king's men are Ouija boards or self-help books.  Maybe the king's men are considerate bar tenders who listen as we cry in our beer.  Many have tried New Age religion or felt that quartz crystals would put us back together.  All of these are only Band-Aids feebly attempting to heal our brokenness.

I once dreamed prepositions at night.  Someone had suggested self-help books all of which failed to help this self.  I replied in my dream, "It makes no sense to me.  In fact, it makes no sense OF me TO me."  Maybe that's the problem with all the king's men.

And in the end, we have concluded that the children's poem is exactly right - "All the king's horses, and all the king's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again."

To what do we compare this part of the children's poem when we consider the Creation story?  I would suggest that king's men represent the failed attempts to reconcile humans and God as told in the first 39 books of the Bible.  The early patriarchs might be king's men, but they failed to put that broken relationship back together.  The Law of Moses represented a great attempt.  Everyone thought that finally the king's men would put us back together.  But in the end, the Law failed to achieve its purpose.

The nursery rhyme ends at this point with the failure of the kings' men and the kings' horses.  But the Bible adds to the story of reconciliation and redemption.  It adds a new ending to the poem.

In the new ending, God sent his Son, the King himself.  The King could do what all the king's men could not.

Romans 8:3: "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son…"

Galatians 2:16: "Yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 2:15":  "He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in the place of two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross."

The problem with the law was that it worked on the outside of us.  It tried to patch us up, bandage us together, apply a little first aid cream and a piece of tape.

Here is the only One who can put humankind back together again.  He does it by strarting all over and making a new creation.  His name is Jesus.  The King can do what all the king's men cannot do.  The king's men cannot put us together again because they did not make us to start with.  Only the One who made us in the beginning can put us back together again.  That is what the gospel is all about.

The solution to our brokenness does not come when we are reformed, rehabilitated, or re-educated.  It only comes when we are recreated.  It will not do to turn over a new leaf; we must begin a new life under a new master.  We must be born again and make a new start.

2 Corinthians 5:17: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new."

When we trust Christ, we are no longer God's enemies, or strangers or foreigners to him.  We have been reconciled to God.  We have been brought from wandering in the darkness back to the light of God.  When we are reconciled to God and humankind, we once again enjoy the campfire glow and the warmth of right relationships.

But there's a final part of the story as told in the Scripture passage.  We are appointed to be King's men, not ambassadors of those false kings who failed to put Humpty back together, but ambassadors of Christ.

1 Corinthians 18-20: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation… entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

We do not have the power to put people together, but we know the right King.  We know the one who can!  And our job is to go into the darkness and find people headed in the wrong direction.  We tell them about the Light of God, point them to Christ.  And God is still in Christ reconciling the world to himself.  Christ is still in the business of picking up the pieces of broken men and women and making them whole again.

We might finish the good beginning of the nursery rhyme this way:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

And all the king's horses and all the king's men,

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Then the real King came to his aid,

Brought reconciliation, not a Band-aid.

Jesus brought new birth and a new creation,

Made Humpty whole and brought jubilation.

Placed Humpty Dumpty back on the wall,

Then he gave to Humpty a brand new call,

Ambassador of Christ is his new name,

Healing the broken is now his game.

If you find yourself broken at the foot of a wall,

To the King of Kings you should give a call,

And just like Humpty Dumpty of old,

Christ will come and make you whole.