Divine Comedy

by Bob Setzer, Jr
Since I’m not much of a television fan, I have no idea how Conan O’Brien will fare as the new host of The Tonight Show. Personally, I prefer Jay Leno, but if the studio execs are to be trusted--and generally speaking, they’re not!--that says more about my aging tastes than the relative merits of these two comics. But there is one way in which I readily identify with Mr. O’Brien, and that is in his acknowledgment it is far easier to actually do a show than wait for it to start.

In a Parade Magazine interview regarding the start of his new show, Conan O’Brien likened himself to a thoroughbred aching to start the race: “I’m a little bit like a horse—you know, when they load those horses into the gates to run the race. I am being loaded in, and I am kicking and tossing the jockey off and smashing into the sides, and they’re saying, ‘You can run . . . June 1st.’ I’d like to go. The doing of it is how you find it.”

For me, preaching is like that. The preparation is the hard part: the study, the mulling over of the text, the pastoral conversations that shape what I listen for and hear in the Scripture, the search for imaginative material that gives the sermon tenterhooks. But even when the sermon is done, or mostly done (it’s never really done until it’s preached), there is still the tense countdown to the actual preaching of it. Let’s just say I’m not good for much on Saturday nights. Saturday nights are devoted to the preacher’s nervous wondering, “How will this go? How will I do? Any chance the congregation might actually hear a word from God through all this feeble chattering?”

Sunday mornings aren’t much better. Butterflies start doing aerial acrobatics inside my stomach. I work at memorizing the essence of my remarks, while my weary brain rolls its eyes and says, “Enough already!” I watch the hands of the clock slowly but relentlessly ticking toward the high and holy hour.

But most Sundays, when I step into the pulpit to preach, a refreshing wind starts to blow. The Holy Spirit shows up and meets me in the act of preaching. Very shortly, the worrying and fretting is gone and in its place, a calm and joy that comes from God.

It’s a little like two friends agreeing to meet at a favorite old haunt. Maybe they haven’t seen each other for a while, but when they meet, it’s like they never parted. They are at home in each other’s presence.

Jesus promised, “I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you” (John 14:18). On the wings of the Spirit, he comes to vanquish the loneliness and fear of life without him. And he does that not just for Preachers in their hour of need, but for all who count on him to help them do what they would not dare attempt without him.

I don’t know how Conan O’Brien does what he does, but that’s how I do what I do.