Sleeper, Awake!
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Fourth of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Ephesians 5:8-14
Theme: “Christ will shine in (through) you”
I remember as a 7-, 8-, and 9-year old, playing in the dirt in the back of our yard – against the back wall of the property there was a stretch of bare earth all the way across. I would – in retrospect, terribly wastefully, since we WERE, after all, living in the middle of the driest desert in the world – drag the garden hose back there and lay it down and build up a small mountain of dirt to cover the nozzle, and then turn on the water and watch in amazement as the water poured out of the inside of the mountain – just like a spring, and turned what had only a few minutes earlier been nondescript dusty, dull rocks into precious, colorful, brilliant stones.
I imagined coming across agates and rubies and sapphires and maybe even a DIAMOND. Never mind that I had less than a clear understanding of what any of those stones might look like if I came across one in the rough. But I was dreaming.
The colors and shiny glints that sparkled from those wet stones in the sunlight made me realize how different something can look after just a few critical changes.
It struck me as odd that in our text this morning an article seemed to be missing in a couple of places – Paul writes “for once you WERE darkness, but now you ARE light” … did someone leave out the ‘in’? It would seem to make sense for him to say “For once you were IN darkness, but now you are IN light” … but what we have is Paul saying we ARE in and of ourselves – by our very nature – or our acquired one – one or the other – darkness or light.
Have you ever known someone of whom it could be said “They could light up a room when they walked in”? Or perhaps the contrary – you’ve known someone who by simply walking into a room DIMMED it, somehow – by their affect, by their attitude, by something as seemingly inconsequential as the expression on their face or the tone in their voice?
This section of Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus comes in the middle of a warning – to keep away from all immorality, all drunkenness, greed, he hits the big no-no’s, but he also includes vulgar or silly talk. He’s laying out a description of what someone who carries the light of Christ inside them might look and act like, literally.
Notice, he doesn’t say “be happy and smiling all the time”. As a rule, though there are moments of joy and happiness – even extended ones – in this life, it would be less than honest to walk around with a smile to show off your third molars all the time. Life doesn’t work that way.
But how would you be able to TELL, then, if someone has the light of Christ in them?
There is a sense of calm, an assurance, a peace. Not cockiness, not an in-your-face attitude that yells “I KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT AND YOU DON’T”, but a humble spirit, a generous heart, a welcoming and engaging attitude – one that let’s the stranger know that he or she is important and worth GETTING to know.
Friday night at the Power Team presentation in Tappahannock, they kept repeating a line as they approached the time of decision at the end – “Jesus loves you just the way you are, and cares too much for you to leave you there!” I realize it is what I would call an example of bumper sticker theology. Understanding that their primary audience – the people they have the most impact on – are youth and children, there is, at least initially, a need to boil the message down to something that can be easily remembered – and easily built on through follow-up.
So here’s the unpacking of that message: following Christ IS about accepting his love for us, it IS about understanding that, no matter what we’ve done in our lives, however vile, however mean, however low, however unscrupulous, however twisted, God still loves us through the person of Jesus Christ. In asking Christ to be Lord of our lives, we make a commitment to follow him, to follow his example – to the point of making him the rule of our daily living. And THAT part, that following on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis, CHANGES US. The thing is, it’s not the act of obedience that is changing us, though that is part of it. It’s not the submitting on an hourly, daily, and weekly basis to what JESUS would have us do at any given moment, in any given situation, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves, though they are all part of it – it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that is both prompting and … securing, shining and polishing us up to be gems, to BE light – yes, be IN the light, but BE LIGHT as well – we can be sources of light OURSELVES.
It isn’t that we are THE source of light. The given is that GOD is the source of light for ALL of us. Notice that Paul says “Now IN THE LORD you are light.” What he is saying in a positive way is that, apart from the Lord we ARE darkness. So we stand on that promise. That if we are in the Lord, we become children of light.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
This past Wednesday night we concluded our Winter Bible Study in discussing the Ministry of Friendship. The only verse I read that evening was from the Gospel of John, the 15th chapter, the 15th verse. Jesus tells his disciples that he no longer calls them servants, for a servant doesn’t know what his or her master is doing, but rather he calls them friends, because he has made known to them everything that was made known to HIM by HIS father. In other words, we know what God is about the business of doing in the world, and we are a part of it.
We are friends of Christ, and we are friends to each other. The water of Christ has rinsed the dust, the grime, the ‘nassness’ to use a Maccubbin family word – off – and out – of us and made us to shine in the light of God.
We often pray that God would make us – as a church – a beacon in our community. Caleb got a really cool birthday present last weekend. It’s an LED headlamp. It has three different settings. You push the switch on the side once, and 1 of the LEDs lights up. You push it again, and three light up. You push it a third time and all 7 Light Emitting Diodes light up. Pushing the switch each time tells the diodes to come on, to ‘wake up’, as it were.
Which setting do you think provides the most light? The last, of course. It’s not that there is NO light on the other settings, it’s that there is MORE light when all the lights are on … it’s easier to find your way around, easier to see the way you need to go, easier to … read, to move forward, to see how those who are around you are doing, when all the lights are on.
In the same way, the Spirit wakes us to the realities of Christ in our lives. And as we become aware of that movement, that change in demeanor, in attitude, in thought pattern, we seem to awaken as though from a sleep that has kept us quiet and inactive for far too long.
My prayer is that we, as a family of faith, as children of light, as a beacon of the light of Christ in Warsaw, and Richmond County, and on the Northern Neck would be in tune enough – with the Holy Spirit and with each other – so that the light that shines through us would beckon, would gather – would ATTRACT those who have been walking in darkness all their lives to find in that light a warmth and welcome and a purifying power that will cleanse, and heal, and make them whole, just as it continues to purify, cleanse, heal, and make us whole together.
Let’s Pray.
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Fourth of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Ephesians 5:8-14
Theme: “Christ will shine in (through) you”
8For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
I remember as a 7-, 8-, and 9-year old, playing in the dirt in the back of our yard – against the back wall of the property there was a stretch of bare earth all the way across. I would – in retrospect, terribly wastefully, since we WERE, after all, living in the middle of the driest desert in the world – drag the garden hose back there and lay it down and build up a small mountain of dirt to cover the nozzle, and then turn on the water and watch in amazement as the water poured out of the inside of the mountain – just like a spring, and turned what had only a few minutes earlier been nondescript dusty, dull rocks into precious, colorful, brilliant stones.
I imagined coming across agates and rubies and sapphires and maybe even a DIAMOND. Never mind that I had less than a clear understanding of what any of those stones might look like if I came across one in the rough. But I was dreaming.
The colors and shiny glints that sparkled from those wet stones in the sunlight made me realize how different something can look after just a few critical changes.
It struck me as odd that in our text this morning an article seemed to be missing in a couple of places – Paul writes “for once you WERE darkness, but now you ARE light” … did someone leave out the ‘in’? It would seem to make sense for him to say “For once you were IN darkness, but now you are IN light” … but what we have is Paul saying we ARE in and of ourselves – by our very nature – or our acquired one – one or the other – darkness or light.
Have you ever known someone of whom it could be said “They could light up a room when they walked in”? Or perhaps the contrary – you’ve known someone who by simply walking into a room DIMMED it, somehow – by their affect, by their attitude, by something as seemingly inconsequential as the expression on their face or the tone in their voice?
This section of Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus comes in the middle of a warning – to keep away from all immorality, all drunkenness, greed, he hits the big no-no’s, but he also includes vulgar or silly talk. He’s laying out a description of what someone who carries the light of Christ inside them might look and act like, literally.
Notice, he doesn’t say “be happy and smiling all the time”. As a rule, though there are moments of joy and happiness – even extended ones – in this life, it would be less than honest to walk around with a smile to show off your third molars all the time. Life doesn’t work that way.
But how would you be able to TELL, then, if someone has the light of Christ in them?
There is a sense of calm, an assurance, a peace. Not cockiness, not an in-your-face attitude that yells “I KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT AND YOU DON’T”, but a humble spirit, a generous heart, a welcoming and engaging attitude – one that let’s the stranger know that he or she is important and worth GETTING to know.
Friday night at the Power Team presentation in Tappahannock, they kept repeating a line as they approached the time of decision at the end – “Jesus loves you just the way you are, and cares too much for you to leave you there!” I realize it is what I would call an example of bumper sticker theology. Understanding that their primary audience – the people they have the most impact on – are youth and children, there is, at least initially, a need to boil the message down to something that can be easily remembered – and easily built on through follow-up.
So here’s the unpacking of that message: following Christ IS about accepting his love for us, it IS about understanding that, no matter what we’ve done in our lives, however vile, however mean, however low, however unscrupulous, however twisted, God still loves us through the person of Jesus Christ. In asking Christ to be Lord of our lives, we make a commitment to follow him, to follow his example – to the point of making him the rule of our daily living. And THAT part, that following on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis, CHANGES US. The thing is, it’s not the act of obedience that is changing us, though that is part of it. It’s not the submitting on an hourly, daily, and weekly basis to what JESUS would have us do at any given moment, in any given situation, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves, though they are all part of it – it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that is both prompting and … securing, shining and polishing us up to be gems, to BE light – yes, be IN the light, but BE LIGHT as well – we can be sources of light OURSELVES.
It isn’t that we are THE source of light. The given is that GOD is the source of light for ALL of us. Notice that Paul says “Now IN THE LORD you are light.” What he is saying in a positive way is that, apart from the Lord we ARE darkness. So we stand on that promise. That if we are in the Lord, we become children of light.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
This past Wednesday night we concluded our Winter Bible Study in discussing the Ministry of Friendship. The only verse I read that evening was from the Gospel of John, the 15th chapter, the 15th verse. Jesus tells his disciples that he no longer calls them servants, for a servant doesn’t know what his or her master is doing, but rather he calls them friends, because he has made known to them everything that was made known to HIM by HIS father. In other words, we know what God is about the business of doing in the world, and we are a part of it.
We are friends of Christ, and we are friends to each other. The water of Christ has rinsed the dust, the grime, the ‘nassness’ to use a Maccubbin family word – off – and out – of us and made us to shine in the light of God.
We often pray that God would make us – as a church – a beacon in our community. Caleb got a really cool birthday present last weekend. It’s an LED headlamp. It has three different settings. You push the switch on the side once, and 1 of the LEDs lights up. You push it again, and three light up. You push it a third time and all 7 Light Emitting Diodes light up. Pushing the switch each time tells the diodes to come on, to ‘wake up’, as it were.
Which setting do you think provides the most light? The last, of course. It’s not that there is NO light on the other settings, it’s that there is MORE light when all the lights are on … it’s easier to find your way around, easier to see the way you need to go, easier to … read, to move forward, to see how those who are around you are doing, when all the lights are on.
In the same way, the Spirit wakes us to the realities of Christ in our lives. And as we become aware of that movement, that change in demeanor, in attitude, in thought pattern, we seem to awaken as though from a sleep that has kept us quiet and inactive for far too long.
My prayer is that we, as a family of faith, as children of light, as a beacon of the light of Christ in Warsaw, and Richmond County, and on the Northern Neck would be in tune enough – with the Holy Spirit and with each other – so that the light that shines through us would beckon, would gather – would ATTRACT those who have been walking in darkness all their lives to find in that light a warmth and welcome and a purifying power that will cleanse, and heal, and make them whole, just as it continues to purify, cleanse, heal, and make us whole together.
Let’s Pray.
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