Peace Be With You

Sunday, March 30^th, 2008

Second Sunday of Easter

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

John 20: 19-31

Theme: “Living With the Resurrected Jesus”

 

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” ²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” ³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  

 

                            

We are gathered here today not because we woke up this morning and decided on the spur of the moment to step out of the house and across the yard or into our cars and happened by this building and decided to stop and walk inside – though it would be VERY cool if anyone WERE here for JUST that reason – most of us are here because we have been here before.

 

In some cases, a few of us can’t remember the first time we walked into this building because we were too young at the time.  In other cases, some have been a member of this church since long before the congregation moved into this new building, and remember vividly the first worship service held in this sanctuary.  The point is, there is a history behind our reason for coming here on Sundays and or Wednesdays, or any other day of the week. 

 

If you would, pause for a moment and try to imagine coming into this sanctuary for the first time, having never before been inside a church, never been asked to sit in a padded pew with books in a pocket in front of you, with cards and pencils and odd looking slots and holes inserted here and there. 

 

When you came in you were handed a small folded booklet with a picture on the front and a lot of printing on the inside, and you only had a few minutes before the service started to browse everything that was in there – the announcements, the lists, the calendar of activities, the order of service.  And then the service started and though some things were announced, you still had to multitask and hold the bulletin AND the hymnal, then you had to set it DOWN ENTIRELY during the Jerusalem Hand of Welcome, then you had to flip through a couple of pages to find the responsive reading … if you didn’t know what came next, and were SOMEWHAT familiar with the flow of the service, there’s a pretty good chance you got flustered a couple of times AT LEAST.  For those who have been coming for a long time, it can be equally disconcerting to see a significant change in the order of worship – we are an easily flustered people.           

 

So imagine what it must have been like for the disciples.  They were familiar with death.  They probably saw it every day – whether due to illness, or injury, either animal or human.  First century Palestine was far from a mild society.  The Roman occupation, though relatively peaceful in the broader scope of human experience, at the local level could get pretty ugly.  The practice of the Roman governors was to squash any uprising swiftly and with overwhelming, deadly force, operative word being deadly.  The people of Israel did not suffer their occupation timidly.  There were frequent and numerous uprising by one group or another, trying to rally the rest of the population to take up arms against the occupying armies and throw them out.   

 

The acclamation with which the people of Jerusalem had received Jesus just the week before was probably due primarily to the thought that maybe he would be the one to light the fire that would burn the Governor and his guards out of their land once and forever. 

 

They’d seen more than one charismatic leader rally a few hundred or a few thousand followers to him, to cause an uproar, only to quickly be subdued – and more often than not – also crucified; it had even been the case that the roads leading to Jerusalem had been lined with those who dared attack Rome’s control hanging from Crosses. 

 

The disciples were facing the real probability that they would be following Jesus to death at the hands of the Roman Guards.  They were afraid for their lives.  That was why they went into hiding when Jesus was being crucified.  Things had been quiet since Friday afternoon.  Saturday had come and gone as the Sabbath usually did.  They observed it, and tried to sleep the next evening.  I wonder how much sleep they got – or if they did, how restful it was? 

 

Then, came Sunday morning: they received word that Jesus was alive – or at least that he was not in the tomb where they’d laid him on Friday afternoon.  They’d spent the last three days in hiding, afraid that the fate that had met Jesus would soon be theirs as well, if they were caught and identified as his followers.  Their hearts must have been in turmoil, utter and total chaos.  I imagine them to have been sitting in silence for most of that time.  Sometimes looking at each other guiltily, other times just sitting and staring at the floor, too ashamed of their cowardice to meet each others’ eyes.

 

And suddenly in their midst, there was Jesus standing right there just plain as day.  They COULD literally, reach out and touch him.  He wasn’t an ethereal mist, he wasn’t a semi-transparent image, he wasn’t a sense of presence.  He was a living, breathing, heart-beating, light-stopping, flesh-pressing, finger-pokeable body standing within reach of any and all of them. 

 

And what were his first words to them?  “Peace be with you.”   Jesus knows what they’ve been going through.  He understands that the words they need to hear first were not “Ta-dah!   See?!  I told you so!” but something more to the heart of what they were living.  They were scared.  They were confused.  They were nearly despondent.  And now they were struggling with whether or not to even believe what they’d heard about him. 

What did they most need right then?  Right before Jesus presented them with the fact that he HAD, in fact, been raised from the dead, and that he was ready to empower them to go out and take the good news to the rest of the world?             

 

Twice, in that first meeting he said it.  “Peace be with you”.  As a father, there’s an echo of ‘settle down!’ when I read that in my head.  Sometimes you just want the kids to be still for a minute to let what you are telling them sink in.  There’s also a good bit of “it’s going to be okay” in there as well.  Calming reassurance.  And who better to give it than the Lord Jesus?

 

We know the story.  Thomas wasn’t at the first meeting, and when he was told of what happened, he gave the now-famous response: “unless I see the mark of the nails and put my hand in his side …” An interesting detail to make note of:  and for this I have the lectionary comic strip Agnus Day to thank.  You’ve heard me mention the two sheep, Ted and Rick, before.  In this week’s strip, the topic at hand is Thomas’ nickname.  Not the one he got AFTER this event, but the one he had BEFORE.  If you’ll look at verse 24 you’ll see it: 

 

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.         

 

See?  Did YOU know Thomas was from Minnesota?  I didn’t! J   Anyway, Ted, the sheep that is more like the disciples, comments that it is weird that scripture points out that Thomas was a twin, but doesn’t tell us WHOSE twin.  Rick, the sheep that is a little more together, responds by saying “I like to believe that THAT makes it possible for him to be MY twin.”   The laugh comes at Ted’s response, which is “that’s funny, you don’t even look Jewish!”

 

But the point is made.  I’d never thought of that particular aspect of the passage.  Thomas’ twin ISN’T identified, and if you think about it, maybe that is a good thing.  It gives US a chance to connect on a very personal level with the most flustered of the disciples.  The one who least wants to accept the new reality they are living in: the one where they are witnesses to the fact that death, which up until the last three years and most especially up until the night before last, had been the most permanent, final word they would be confronted with in their life.  It was no longer that.  There in front of them was the reality of a risen Jesus.  The one who was dead was now alive.    

Now, here’s the thing.  We’ve known this story for nearly two thousand years.  The CHURCH, throughout those intervening centuries, has incorporated the story of doubting Thomas into not only ecclesiastical culture, that is, the culture of the church, but it has, over the course of time, become a cultural term as well – in that part of the world that has been influenced by the Christian tradition in some form or other.  We live in a culture that still has some part of that IN it, but it is a culture that is in transition.  It is no less spiritual, but it IS probably more materialistic, more sense-oriented.  The underlying assumption of modern western culture is that something needs to be scientifically proven in order to be valid, to be believed, to be accepted.  I say that, and then I look back at the passage, and read Jesus’ own words from 1,900 plus years ago and realize that it may not be all that different – then and now:    

 

²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

 

It would seem he’s talking to us here today as well.  Because even though we have HEARD the story all our lives, we have not SEEN the risen Lord with our own eyes.  And yet, we are so used to hearing it that it has become part of our identity.  It is part of what we believe to say that “Christ is Risen”.  At some point, if we have taken on the life of Christ by asking him to be Lord of our lives, we HAVE believed that he DID INDEED rise from the dead, and ascended to heaven, and will some day return to Earth. 

 

But can you imagine the hurdle it would have been for those first eleven disciples and the rest of the folks who followed Jesus HAD HE NOT ACTUALLY BEEN THERE TO SHOW THEM IT WAS HIM?  The degree to which they would have been flustered and confused would probably blow us away – as it did them at first.  As it did Thomas. 

 

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, the Sunday after Easter, 2008?

 

It means we need to understand that the message we are usually so comfortable with, the claims and affirmations of our faith that are so comforting TO us, WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY BE SO for folks who are NOT so familiar with them.  Remember the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthian Church: 

 

“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”

 

It IS an incredible story we tell.  Let’s be aware of that, and with humility and patience share the story, but more importantly, the LIFE of the risen Christ through our own times of blessed assurance, as well as through our own times of doubting and struggle, because we do, all, at some point in our lives, bear a striking resemblance to Thomas the Twin. 

 

Let’s pray.  

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

       

Easter Cantata - The Cross Made The Difference

The notes are familiar, the words as well. We will proclaim our faith in song this morning. And by ‘we’ I mean ALL of us. You are invited to sing along at any point with any song. Today of all days, we are ALL called to proclaim our faith in the risen Lord. (Chorus)

58 AT THE CROSS

Christ’s offering of himself on the Cross for our sake, in our place, is the central mystery of our faith. It is a mystery ONLY in the sense that we are incapable of understanding the depth of the love that God had for his creation, to come to earth and live among us and die for us to atone for us – to pay the price that WE should have, by rights, paid ourselves. (Chorus)

59 AT CALVARY

Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthian church:

“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. I resolved to nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

That is the heart of the Gospel. Without the crucifixion there would be no resurrection. Without the resurrection and ascension, there would be no Pentecost and no church. Jesus taught a revolutionary ethic that echoes to this day against what the world would have us do. Where else do you hear ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’? If Jesus had just been a prophet and teacher, we could write off those things he said as points of disagreement and be okay with it. But in the resurrection, we are confronted with who Jesus WAS – in ESSENCE – and he was God incarnate, God dwelling among us. We are therefore not in a position to say ‘I don’t think I’ll keep THAT particular teaching’, or ‘I’ll meet him halfway on this other one.’ No. That is not an option. Jesus is either Lord or not. If we claim to be Christians, then we are proclaiming that Jesus is Lord of our lives— EVERY aspect of our lives. Not just on Sundays, not just at Easter, but every waking moment of our lives are given to him. The life of a follower of Christ is one of continuing trust, continuing surrender, continuing obedience. We commit to LIVE our faith, we don’t just think about it and read about it, we ACT on it. So we remind ourselves of what we believe.

33 I BELIEVE IN A HILL CALLED MOUNT CALVARY

Images and symbols bring to life the story of Jesus. They are reminders of God’s presence among us. A manger, a fishing boat, a basket with five loaves and two fish, a basin of water and a towel, a lilly, a fig tree, the sparrow that searches for food, or a sower sowing seed with reckless abandon; a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. All of these ordinary, everyday images carry a meaning beyond what is first seen and call us to look beyond what is on the surface. Especially when it comes to an empty cross, and an empty tomb.

36 THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
37 THE OLD RUGGED CROSS MADE THE DIFFERENCE


Paul continues in his letter to the Colossians:

“God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things … by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God … but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

Why did God make peace with us through the blood of Christ? It was a terrible price to pay, but it was necessary. And God knew that THAT was the only way for the reconciliation to be accomplished. God knew that we’d never fully understand and accept if it had just been left up to keeping the law. So he came and showed us what was at the root of it all. Love. Love beyond measure, love beyond understanding, love that is deeper and wider than anything we can imagine in this world.

52 IF THAT ISN’T LOVE

The whole thrust of the Gospel, what Jesus showed, and what Paul said time and time again was that there was nothing we can DO to merit the gift of salvation offered through Jesus Christ on the Cross. We can’t live a life worthy of it, we can’t work our way to heaven, or into God’s good graces. We can only accept the gift freely given: the gift of Jesus standing in our place when God sees us. And that makes us uncomfortable, because we live in a world where there are no free lunches. Everything has a catch, a hidden cost. We don’t get something for nothing. The Cross stands in clear and absolute opposition to that. With this one thing, God changes everything. The offer is radical, universal, dynamic. Dynamic means it is in motion. That is, God’s offer of salvation is an offer to meet us where we are, but to take us where we have yet to go. God’s offer of salvation is one that involves a calling to a higher purpose, a deeper commitment, a broader view of the world than simply that which touches or immediate daily lives. We are called to live into the Kingdom of God – to bring about the reality of the Kingdom in some small or not-so-small way every day.

131 I WILL GLORY IN THE CROSS

So what does this mean for us here, on Easter morning, 2008, at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? We have to ask ourselves the same question we ask every week: how will this affect my life? Will I LET it impact my life? Do I believe it enough to let it make a difference for me tomorrow, or the next day, or the next?

If we agree that Jesus suffered on Thursday and died on Friday on the cross at Calvary and did it for us, and that he was buried, and rose from the dead at some point early Sunday morning after that, our FIRST response should be just the same as the women who saw him in the garden. Matthew tells us that they fell at his feet and worshipped him. John tells us that eventually, ultimately, EVERYONE will call him Lord – whether in rejoicing welcome on his return or simply in recognition and understanding that the one whom they have ignored all their lives, or paid lip service to, IS INDEED the risen Lord. You might call this a dress rehearsal.

16 HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LAMB

Easter has a meaning beyond simply REMEMBERING the resurrection. The resurrection is central, but the follow up is where we are now. We don’t simply sit and ponder all the details of the story. We live the life of the resurrected Christ DAILY. We sing of the cross, we sing of the tomb, and we sing of the resurrection. We now sing of HOW the resurrection moves us. It is not simply a single event that took place 2000 years ago, it is an event that is lived out in our daily lives. What we do, what we say, what we speak, ALL need to be done in the light of the resurrection. We serve a living savior, not a crucified prophet, dead and buried. We are empowered by the one who overcame death itself, and asks to live in our hearts today.

Please turn in your hymnal to number 407 and join us in singing

BECAUSE HE LIVES

Benediction

Who is this?
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
Palm Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 21:1-11
Theme: “Christ as Redeemer, Savior, Counselor, Friend”

1When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5“Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

I have a confession to make. For the introductory remarks this morning, I was tempted to draw some kind of illustration from a couple of wildly popular movies from a few years ago, where ‘the bad guys’ wind up confronting a lone but more-than-capable ‘good guy’, who is either haunted by his past or is struggling with his crumbling present circumstances, and in what ends up being a hail of bullets and spectacular explosions, or a systematic picking off of the bad guys one at a time, the good guy winds up winning – of COURSE – who would expect anything different from Hollywood? And SOMEWHERE along the way, there’s at least one scene where the bad guys look at each other as they realize they are going down and ask themselves ‘Who IS this guy??’

But thankfully I overcame the impulse. Because if I had gone into more detail than I just did, on some subconscious level I’m afraid we’d begin to think of Jesus as some kind of action figure, a superhero who is going to tie a bandana around his head and go at all the evil in the world with guns blazing and grenades flying, and that is simply NOT who he is. So, if you recognized any part of the references I just made to those blockbuster movies, file that away as ‘belonging to Ceasar’, and give God what is God’s.
Why do films like that make so much money? It’s not the acting, I can tell you THAT much. Nor is it the sensitive and in-depth treatment of the socioeconomic factors that brought the various characters into conflict with each other. If I were to ask a member of the target demographic – 15 to 25 year old males, I think I’d get a pretty simple answer. It’s the action, the excitement, the adrenalin-pumping thrill of seeing good ALMOST be overcome by evil, but then good triumphs.

You see, we are JUST as prone to look for the action figure hero as were the folks who lived under the yoke of Roman occupation in first-century Palestine, the priests and leaders of the temple, everyone who looked right past the messiah in front of their faces while searching for the messiah from their imaginations.

Even now, after two thousand years of church history, of KNOWING the Messiah Jesus WAS, the language we use to describe him is as likely to be expressed in military and political terms as it is in spiritual or relational terms. When we call Jesus our “King”, we are saying something that not only belongs in the spiritual realm, but it is rooted in the political realm. When we say he has “conquered” sin and death, the phrase creates an image in our minds that is much more in tune with our earthly history than with a concept that is an expression of a spiritual reality. What image do we create – and how does that translate into our living out of our relationship with that image – when we speak of Jesus as Friend and Comforter, Redeemer and Savior, or as King and Lord, Conqueror and Defender?

I’m not saying we SHOULDN’T use those titles. They ALL apply, on some level, to who Christ is. But at some point, we must come to terms with what the use of those titles has birthed in us as a group of Christ followers.

In our living out our relationship with a King and conqueror, do we approach those who are strange to us as enemies to be defeated, or as neighbors to be befriended? In our living out our relationship with a Savior and Lord, do we approach strangers with the unspoken understanding that WE are in possession of what THEY most need, and relate to them in such a way that would expect that person to become subject to our ideas, our understanding of the world?

In one of his letters to the church at Corinth, Paul says we hold these treasures in jars of clay, in speaking of what we’ve been entrusted with – the task of bringing the gospel to the entire world – and the clay jars he’s talking about are us. WE are earthen vessels, imperfect and flawed, with cracks maybe, some imperfections in the finish, some clumps in the clay that formed us, and yet, we hold inside us the treasure that is the most precious news the world has ever – or WILL ever – hear – that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self. That God has made a way for humanity to be re-engaged in relationship with God.

In our text, we read that the whole city of Jerusalem was in turmoil at the arrival of Jesus. The inhabitants of Jerusalem were asking themselves ‘Who is this?’ And where did they hear their FIRST answer? From the crowds who were welcoming Jesus, the same who laid down palm branches and cloaks in the road, the people who shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!”, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” – THEY told the people of Jerusalem that he was “The prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The question still stands today – it is still being asked – and it is being asked of US – those who gather on Palm Sunday, and decorate the sanctuary with palm branches, who sing Hosannah, and Aleluyia, who call Jesus the Son of God, who comes to set us free.

[Communion]

How are we answering the question? We are charged with the task of answering it with our lives – with how we LIVE our lives, how we allow our relationship with Jesus to influence, to color, to INHABIT the rest of our lives. We are called to GIVE UP our lives to the one who gave his life for us – to the one who, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread and after he gave thanks, broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

(Prayer)

And after supper he took the cup, and he said “this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

(prayer)

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Communion is prayer, reflection, remembrance and proclamation, all wrapped up in one event.

Do we proclaim a Christ who is King and Conqueror of our hearts, a warrior leader who gives us courage to speak truth to power, give voice to those who have none, and call our world to a better place? Do we proclaim a Christ who is comforter and counselor, the truest friend we will ever have, who gives us the guidance to in turn BE true friends, to BE genuine examples of the love of God? Do we proclaim a Christ who is able to change us and make us more like him, who is full of wonder and awe, power and glory yes, but tenderness and a gentleness of spirit that will capture us the moment WE open ourselves to HIM?

Or do we proclaim a Christ who is relegated to subject matter on Sunday mornings, and doesn’t really have any influence on the rest of the week?

My prayer for us this morning is that he would be all of the first and none of the last.

Let’s pray.

If Christ is in You
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Fifth of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 8:1-11
Theme: “Life in Christ, dead to sin”

1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

I still shudder a little remembering that night.

I was driving between Louisville and Lexington. I don’t remember what the purpose of the trip was, but it was late, and the weather was clear at the time, though it had been raining earlier in the evening. There’s a place along the highway, near Frankfort, where the roadway crosses the Kentucky River. Going from West to East, after crossing the river, you drive through a man-made gorge that was dug into the bluffs to accommodate the highway. As I crossed the bridge, I was looking ahead to see if there was any traffic heading up the incline inside that gorge. I saw what appeared to be the reflection of a pair of taillights on a truck pulled off on the right hand side of the road. As I got to the end of the bridge and started into the ravine, the reflectors seemed to move out into the roadway. For just a moment, I had this image of a medium size truck backing up and completely blocking the highway – and I started to slam on the brakes and swerve to try to miss it.

Had it been the case that a truck WAS there, it would have been too late. In the next second I was at the place and then beyond it. There was no truck. There WERE a couple of markers on either side of an access road off to the side, similar to the reflectors that are on either side of the driveway over here at the parsonage. The angle and speed at which I was approaching, along with the curve of the road on the far side of the bridge combined to create the illusion that there was something there that was not really there.

I still got the adrenalin rush, and stopped breathing, and then started shaking as I recovered from the shock of “seeing” and then NOT hitting that truck. But there for maybe a little more than a second, I was sure I was going to be involved in a terrible accident.

I was SURE. Absolutely positive.

There was no sense of the fact that what I was seeing was actually completely a product of light and shadows. To my knowledge I’ve never had a hallucination in my life, but this probably comes closest. I’ve known of people, and heard reports of what it is like to HAVE a hallucination. They are, as I understand it, very convincing. Even to the point of the person having one becoming belligerent in insisting on what they are seeing.

It’s not, after all, something you PLAN on happening. If you have lived your entire life trusting what you’ve seen with your eyes and heard with your ears, you have absolutely NO reason to begin to randomly question the accuracy of what you see and hear – especially if there are no other changes or symptoms to point you in that direction.

Paul is dealing with something along the same lines when he discusses this issue of living according to the flesh versus living according to the Spirit.

We can reach out, we can touch, we can feel, we can SENSE the physical world around us. Yesterday as the wind blew and the clouds scuttled across the sky, I was very aware of the movement of the air around me, and around this building. At one point, the wind caught one of the doors to the sanctuary and blew it open and back against the outside wall. I ran back and pulled it closed and turned the bolt to keep it from happening again. Though I couldn’t SEE the wind, I could certainly feel it and see the effect it was having on things around me.

It is the same when we talk about the physical world and the spiritual. They are to a degree, mutually exclusive. I say ‘to a degree’ because, we are in a constant struggle between the two. As human beings, and as new creations in Christ, we reside in both worlds. Ultimately, one will prevail. The question is WHICH one. Paul gives us a pretty clear indicator of which one will prevail in an objective sense – that being the life of the Spirit of God – the Spirit of Christ.

But our struggle is with what is in front of our eyes, with what we face day in and day out. We turn on the radio or the television, or the computer, and are made aware of senseless, seemingly random acts of terrible violence. A student in an Alabama high school walks into a gym and fires a shot into the ceiling and then into his head. Another man enters a seminary in Jerusalem and kills eight students before he himself is killed. Two suicide bombers detonate their charges in the middle of a crowded market in Baghdad, minutes apart – just long enough to create the most havoc among those emergency responders who come to help victims of the first bomb.

And it’s not all in far away places. Even in our own extended community, we deal with the tragedy of a young man taking his own life and we wonder what the world is coming to, to cause someone with seemingly so much to live for to cut it all so prematurely short.

We are reminded that we really don’t have any control, and don’t always know what is going on inside the person sitting next to us.

So what does it take to sense the world differently? What does it take to begin to understand the world on a different level? Paul argues that it is that Spirit of Christ in us that makes the difference. It is the presence of the person of the Holy Spirit that gives the ability to see beyond the flesh and blood, beyond the pain and the sometimes agony that can so easily cloud our vision, that can even distract us into thinking that this (touch pulpit) material world is all there is.

Friday afternoon I was listening to an interview with a British evolutionary biologist who has written several books from an Atheistic point of view against the existence of God. The interviewer asked him a question at one point – about life having meaning, or if it was just a simple combination of random events and reactions that form us and give us life. His response was that the universe doesn’t owe us meaning. While I actually understand his answer – the universe doesn’t, in fact, owe us meaning, the fact remains that we seek it. There is something in us that compels us to find meaning to our lives. It isn’t the universe’s place to owe us meaning, any more than it is an orange’s responsibility to be grateful to the tree from whose branches it grew. They are each part of one and the same. We are, along with the universe, part of creation. Our meaning is derived from that which is OTHER than created.

And we come face to face with that Other-than-created in the person of Jesus Christ. It is in relationship with HIM that we understand ourselves – not fully, because we are finite beings trying to understand the infinite grace of God, but we begin the journey that will lead us to that fulfillment. It is in the journey that we are confronted with the reality that transcends this physical realm.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

We need to understand ourselves as operating on multiple levels as a family of faith. We are called to tend to physical needs inasmuch as we are able. For those who are in need of food or assistance, we maintain a benevolence fund and a food pantry. We are, in addition, called to tend to emotional needs. For those who are suffering from loneliness, anxiety, grief or fear, we are called to be comforting presence. We are called to share our lives with each other in such a way as to serve as reminders, pointers, as it were, of the difference the presence of God can make in one’s life. Ultimately, we are called to minister to the spiritual needs around us, to provide a sense of direction, a sense of right and wrong, a sense of accountability, a sense of acceptance, of welcome, of care, to understand ourselves to be representative, in the incarnational sense, of the living presence of Christ in this world.

And if we do that well, if we do that effectively and on a relatively regular basis, we dispel the idea that this physical world is all there is. Just like moving up to and beyond that place in the highway changed my perception of what was going to happen – nothing short of what DID happen – actually being confronted with the reality that there WAS no truck there, would have dissuaded me from what my eyes, the shifting shadows, and reflected lights were leading me to believe.

We are surrounded by a world that goes on the unspoken and more importantly unchallenged assumption that there is nothing more to life that what we see and hear and can feel and sense. Our call is to point beyond, to the one who came into this world to show us that this is but a dim reflection of true life.

Let’s Pray.

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”

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.

Much More Surely
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
Third of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 5:1-11
Theme: Assurance of salvation – the grace of God predisposed to reconnect with us

1Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Tomorrow is Caleb’s birthday. He’s going to be 10 years old. It’s hard to believe that an entire decade has gone by since we welcomed him into our family and into this world.

We celebrated his birthday yesterday. He had several friends over, along with his grandparents and Leslie’s brother Scott and HIS family. It was, all in all, a good day. Good play, lots of laughter, graciously generous gifts, and not TOO much getting on each others’ nerves.

Before getting too far into today’s message, a disclaimer needs to be made: Though this is not a Father’s Day message as such, I am going to be touching on issues of parenting – of Fathering – and the marks of a loving father, knowing full well that there may well be some of you hearing this whose point of reference for a loving father is not your biological father, but rather another male figure in your life: an Uncle, an older brother, a teacher, perhaps someone who did not come along until later years, but who filled that void in your life who took on the role of a father. It is to THAT person, to whom I would ask you to turn your thoughts in trying to put a face to the concept – to the idea and the ideal of a loving father or parent.

If you are still SEARCHING for that person in your life, I would encourage you to search patiently, diligently, prayerfully, with openness to who God might put in your path who could be that person for you.

On with the message:

I spent most of the time watching the proceedings of the party. Helped a LITTLE around the edges, took a few pictures, and threw away the wrapping paper as it came off the gifts, minor things. A couple of things came to mind during the party that I chose to tend to – a couple of short phone calls – one to take and the other to make, which took me away from the festivities.

I consider myself a loving father, for the MOST part. Not anywhere NEAR perfect, as you’ve heard me share from here or on one or another Wednesday evening Bible Study on occasion. I would much rather use myself as an example when things go wrong – because in my mind they so often DO – than to find an instance to point to someone else and say “That’s not the way to do it” – it goes back to having a plank in my own eye and trying to take a splinter out of someone else’s. It works better to work on the plank first.

But like I said, I think for the most part I’m a loving father – but even as such, there are times when I fall so far short of the mark – the goal – of fatherhood that I wonder about my fitness as one. That is usually in a particularly dark moment. I don’t have them very often, thankfully, but they come around on occasion, and I have to ask myself: will that that I just did – or didn’t do – be what Hannah and Caleb and Judson think of when they are asked to picture God as a loving parent at some point later in their lives, and will it stop them from being able to do that?

It’s a heavy burden to bear. A sobering realization that how I am with them is going to affect how they think about God. Maybe not their complete understanding of who God is, but on some level, perhaps not even on a conscious one – I will be in there. That goes for all of us who have interaction with children – whether our own or someone else’s, whether in a structured environment like school or Sunday School, or in random encounters around town or at ball games, at Wal-Mart or Food Lion, or Family Dollar.

Our faith and scriptures tell us to be kind to one another – even to our enemies, but especially so to children, to be gentle and loving, to be patient, to be willing to teach, and listen, to laugh and play. Don’t ask me to quote THOSE particular verses, but the overall thrust of the Gospel, as well as those places IN scripture where we SEE Jesus interacting with Children – it was in a welcoming manner – in contrast with how his disciples were apparently treating them.

We have this image of Jesus as welcoming, loving and accepting. By extension, and understanding Jesus to be God the Son -- God incarnate, we can apply THOSE same attributes to God the Father as well as God the Holy Spirit.

And here is where we get to the intersection of our text and our lives.

Kids will be kids. They will get distracted, they will be careless, they will forget something they’ve been told to do. It happens all the time. My family is no exception. I was no exception. I would venture to say that no one here went through their childhood without at least once goofing up. How did our parents respond? How did WE, as parents, respond?

Did we laugh it off, or did we fly off the handle? Did we yell, or did we gently remind for the 34th time in the last hour to do the same thing yet again? Did we threaten, or did we take the time and energy to correct, gently and perhaps with a little humor, and in the process create a lasting memory of how we would LIKE to be remembered as a parent?

You see, we’re all kids. We’ve all been there. We’ve all “goofed up.” We’ve all done what should not be done. We’ve wandered away. In some instances, we’ve actively RUN away – From God, from Jesus, from the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit.

And our image of what might happen to us if and when we come back around to ask forgiveness for what we’ve done – or failed to do – is on some level based on our own experience in our own lives, or worse, on an image of a wrathful, vengeful, dispassionate God who would just as soon let us burn as come to faith and a relationship with him – a person that is divorced from the image and the person of Jesus Christ to the point of being someone entirely different.

Paul is telling us in this passage of a God who is the opposite of that. He is telling us that God INITIATED the reconciliation that we are beneficiaries of before we were even in the picture – before we even LONGED for that reconciliation – before we even realized we were in NEED of that relationship – God as a loving creator and father made provision for us.

You see, the one thing that God does better than create is love. And he’s already done the creating – at least the INITIAL creation – God DOES engage in creation every day, minute and second of our lives – but God is working on teaching us to love – to love as he did while he was with us in the person of Jesus – and teaching to love like that is the work in progress. It was begun in the incarnation, and continues through Christ’s present body – the church.

So God has given us – has SHOWN us – how it is to love – to reconcile – especially when the one with whom you are trying to reconcile initially rejects you – or even kills you.

There is nothing to fear in God. There is nothing to fear in entering into relationship with Jesus Christ. There is everything to gain – everything to know, to feel, to experience, to find. God has saved a place for us – for all of us – at his table. The invitation is open.

Let’s Pray

Rest On Grace
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Second of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 4:1-17
Theme: The Grace of Salvation

1What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” 9Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ”

It seems a little involved, doesn’t it?

I mean, HONESTLY, all this talk of Abraham before circumcision or after circumcision, righteousness or unrighteousness being reckoned here or reckoned there … this is, truthfully, one of those places in the Bible where people’s eyes start to glaze over pretty early in the reading.

I don’t blame you.

Mine did.

And yet, it’s there. As part of scripture, it is part of what we hold to be central to our faith, so we have to do something with it. We have to make a good-faith effort (no pun intended) to wrestle with it and try to understand it, trusting that the Holy Spirit with guide our thoughts and enlighten us along the way.

So we take a step back, and take a deep breath and dive in.

The issue Paul is discussing is, in simpler terms: How do we obtain salvation? WHEN do we ‘become eligible’, as it were?

His beginning point is, as was made abundantly clear in our reading this morning, the starting point for any good Hebrew: Abraham. It is critical to begin there because it is through and FROM Abraham that the Hebrew people base their understanding of the covenant between them and God. If it didn’t start with Abraham, it didn’t start. It IS not. It never WAS.

The reason Paul is going back to Abraham is even more precise, more definitive, more finely drawn.

He is asking his listeners at what point within Abraham’s life did he come to righteousness – or in something more like our words: a saving relationship with God?

If we can follow the argument, it goes something like this: Did Abraham have faith in God enough to be considered a child of God BEFORE he lost his foreskin or AFTER?

I don’t mean to be irreverent, I don’t mean to be flippant, and I’m not making light of the matter. But there you have it. When it boils down to it, it seems that that was what Paul spent a LOT of his time fighting against.

We’ve read it time after time. Paul against the Judaizers – those who held that to be fully CHRISTIAN meant that you had to first be fully JEWISH – that to include following the dietary laws, observing the Sabbath laws, and all the rest of the 326 laws, in order to be able to become a follower of Christ.

So Paul goes back to the very foundation of the Hebrew religion to argue his point. Was Abraham, the founding father of the faith, the one who laughed when God told him he would be the father of nations at the robust and fruitful age of … well, over ninety, at the very least – who left his home and traveled to a land he’d never seen before and established himself there based on God’s direction to him, who received the promise from God and entered into the covenant agreement WITH God that would extend even to today, was ABRAHAM in relationship with God BEFORE his circumcision or did he enter into relationship with God AFTER the circumcision?

Paul’s point is pretty clear. Abraham was already in relationship with God before he followed the instructions that God gave him so that anyone who cared to would be able to tell without asking that there was something different about this Abraham fellow – something important enough to make him mark himself in such a permanent way. Humans are not known for growing back parts that get cut off.

The point we would do well to remember this morning is that it was not – and never HAS been – about DOING something to GET to the point of salvation; it is about DOING something BECAUSE of having BEEN GIVEN THE GIFT of salvation. Beginning in verse 13, Paul says,

13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham…”

Those are startling words, freeing words, blessing words, but they are words that, insofar as they empower us with the truth they speak of how we enter into relationship with God, they also call us out of an almost-natural sense of entitlement to salvation – by virtue of what we’ve given, or what we’ve suffered, or how much we’ve been involved in church, or how much TIME we spend in Bible study, or prayer, or in committee meetings, or in associational meetings, or on mission trips, or listening to missionaries speak, or preparing and delivering meals to the community, or shut-ins, or any of that – don’t think I’m saying DON’T do those things – DO do those things—JUST BE CLEAR ON WHY we do them.

WE DO NOT DO THEM IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SALVATION. WE DO THEM IN GRATITUDE FOR THE GRACE BY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SAVED.

We do them in obedience to God’s command to care for each other. We do them in response to God’s call to be in relationship with each other – and to have that relationship be called a loving one. We do those things as a way of showing our loving response to God because it is THROUGH those things that we draw closer to God and hopefully get to know God better.

So what does it all mean for us here at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we acknowledge, we understand, we wrestle against the urge to live in a mindset that says ‘I did this – whatever ‘this’ is, therefore I deserve salvation’ about ANYTHING in our lives. It is truly faith that came first, not action; faith in what God’s promise means to us, for it is the promise of relationship – and not just any relationship, but a relationship with the maker of the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb – who knew us before we were born, and who loves us beyond measure.

God God’s self is inviting us to rest on grace. Can we take God at God’s word?

Let’s Pray

Changed by His Glory
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Last of Epiphany/Transfiguration Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 17:1-9
Theme: The transforming power of the Lordship of Christ

1Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

This is a safe place to come, isn’t it?

When you walk in the door on Sunday mornings, or Wednesday evenings, on some level you breathe sigh of relief and relax … because … you’re home, you’re among family, you are with people you care about and who care about you. You are where you know what to expect, right?

After all, the whole “worship, church, Sunday school” atmosphere – they’ve been a part of our lives in most cases … our ENTIRE lives. We have a Sunday morning routine, and if we stick to it, it helps us mark our days. We have some sense of the passage of time, even if it involves becoming aware of how others in our family of faith are wrestling – as we have at one point or another – with the frailty of the human body. That has been made patently clear to us in the last week and weeks through the experiences of our brother Elwood, and our sisters Jean and Doris Jean.

So we come to church to seek some sense of reassurance that we are on the right path, that we are heading in the right direction, that whatever may have happened in the intervening 6 days, we are still, to a greater or lesser extent, heading TOWARDS God and not AWAY from God.

As a college student, for a couple of years I took a break from the familiar and visited unfamiliar churches – attended services that were to a degree similar to what I’d grown up with, but were equally different. On several occasions I and my roommates visited the Assembly of God Church in town. One of my roommates had been … smitten … and I don’t mean that in any negative sense – by the charismatic movement that was sweeping through American Christendom in the late 70’s and early 80’s. They were opportunities to explore the different expressions of faith that we enjoy here in the States.

It also happened to coincide with an exploration that was taking place internally in MY life – my pilgrimage of faith – where I was able to study, not in an academic sense, but in more of an experiential sense – how I wanted my faith to impact my life – or indeed if I even WANTED it to.

What I came away with from those services in the charismatic tradition was … exhaustion, to be honest. To one who was unaccustomed to the level of emotionalism and spiritual ecstasy that you are capable of experiencing in a charismatic worship service, I was usually completely wrung OUT by the time the service was over. The emotion, the energy, the life-changing decisions that took place in those services were draining in the best sense of the word … but I wondered how one could maintain that level of engagement over a protracted – an extended – period of time. There are only so many times that you can fall on your face, lay prone on the floor, and ask God to forgive your wretched lack of self-control before it too becomes more of a performance than a true expression of repentance.

That, I suppose, is what has, in the long run, drawn me to the more liturgical expressions of faith. There is a measuredness about it. A sense of pacing yourself, I suppose. Though even in that, I sometimes miss the sense of abandon that comes with the emotional release I found in a charismatic service – chaotic as it may have been, there was a catharsis – a transformation, a change – that took place that I have only rarely found outside that experience.

So I wonder what it must’ve been like for Peter, James and John on top of that mountain – and after. There was evidently an awareness of the significance of the event – Peter offered to build dwelling places for Jesus and Moses and Elijah. He wanted them to hang out together. They were his ultimate role models, I guess.

They’d all spent enough time with Jesus to begin to understand that he WAS who he was telling them he was. They were finally beginning to understand the full implication of what it meant to have God say to them in this vision – LISTEN TO HIM. In case you are wondering, the phrase is in the imperative form. It’s not a suggestion or a recommendation from God. It’s a commandment. “Imperative” comes from the same root as Empire or Emperor.

Peter and James and John KNEW they’d experienced something terribly significant in the ministry of Jesus. They KNEW they wanted to mark it. They knew it was a turning point in THEIR lives – as well as Jesus’ life. It wasn’t until later that they realized the full implication of the vision.

How long has it been since you experienced a life-changing encounter with God?

To be truthful, there is a part of me that has to wonder how HEALTHY it is to repeatedly live through these tremendously moving and seemingly life-changing events. From an emotional perspective, I know that as humans, we can accustom our bodies to a constant barrage of almost anything. Some young men become addicted to the adrenalin rush they get from engaging in extreme sports – jumping off bridges or skyscrapers attached to bungee chords or parachutes – others become addicted to the attention that is garnered from having some crisis going on in their lives each day or every other day – at least once a week. There are babies that can only go to sleep in the middle of a raucous party – music blaring, lights flashing, people yelling. We had our very own example of that up here in the choir a few minutes ago, courtesy of Chloe Garner. Here she was in her grandmother’s arms, surrounded by the whole choir singing their hearts out, and she was fast asleep. Not that I’m hoping that will be the case LATER in life, but there you have it. There is no end to what we can adjust to if we see no alternative to it.

Is it any wonder that we seek solace, seek comfort, seek PREDICTABILITY when we come through those doors on Sunday mornings? Our lives are, even here, in rural Virginia, bombarded with change – changing demographics – our neighbors don’t look like they used to – changing mores – what we hear on the radio or see on television isn’t the same as what it used to be – changing values – whether we like it or not, the children and grandchildren of those people we grew up with have to varying degrees walked away from any semblance of what had been, up until a few years ago, the accepted norms of society. We are faced with what seems to us a downward shift in all aspects of life – moral, spiritual and ethical.

I was speaking to a man yesterday who was one of the earliest members of Thalia Lynn Baptist Church, if not a founding member, who shared with me of his burden for a lifelong friend – a fishing buddy, he called him, who was 87 years old and had yet to ask Jesus to be Lord of his life. I asked if this man attended church anywhere. My friend replied that he did – that he attended Thalia Lynn Baptist Church. His wife was a member, but he had never taken that step of asking Jesus to be the Lord of his life. I was almost overwhelmed with the sadness of the situation. Though I don’t know who my friend was talking about, I am pretty sure that I would know the man he was talking about if he named him. And I wondered if I would have ever asked myself if he had given his life to Christ if I had known his name.

You see, there’s this thing that goes on – especially in American Christianity – but not only. And it is that idea of … guilty by association. Not in the negative sense here – but in the sense that … if I move around close enough to where the action is, I should be able to blend in and be considered part of it.

The problem with that is, it doesn’t work like that. Jesus tells us we HAVE to engage. We HAVE to believe. We HAVE to trust, and have faith, and proclaim and LIVE every day as though it were the day that he will come looking for us in order for it to be effective for us.

And even that part – the “effective for us” part of it is secondary. It’s a side-effect. Salvation is secondary to obedience. We are here primarily to help break in the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God is risky. That’s why we include the phrase ‘risk something big for something good’ in our benediction and commissioning. There is nothing better to risk than that which will break in the Kingdom. And how does that look? It is as close as the person sitting next to you or in front of you or behind you. There are certain spaces empty this morning, but that’s okay. Even in the existence of these spaces, we are faced with what we can do to break in the Kingdom. I’m not saying that a full sanctuary equals breaking in the Kingdom, but it is a starting point. And it is a challenge.

We come to church seeking comfort and safety, but we need to understand that whenever we are in the presence of God, we must redefine what it means to be “safe”. Being in the presence of God is the … CAN be the LEAST comforting place TO be, and still want to be there … does that make sense?

God is about changing us. Changing the way we see the world, changing the way we see ourselves, changing the way we act and talk, and live. And that is risky.

So the hope and the prayer is that, whenever we come together, and understand ourselves to have been in the presence of God, that we will come away from this event with the knowledge that God has changed us. Maybe a lot, maybe a little, but God HAS changed us. We are more than we were when we came in and we are less than we will be tomorrow, and yet we are in that pilgrimage, and as unsafe and as risky and as uncomfortable as it may be, there is no safer place to be than holding God’s hand, because he’s got HIS hand outstretched to us, to walk alongside, and to guide.

Let’s Pray

Strengthened Among You
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Epiphany 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Theme: Fellowship of believers, growth in the Spirit

1Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul’s letters to the Corinthians aren’t the first letters that come to mind when you are asked to name the great love letters of history.

Let me read a couple of sample letters to you:

First:

I and my heart put ourselves in your hands, begging you to recommend us to your good grace and not to let absence lessen your affection... For myself the pang of absence is already too great, and when I think of the increase of what I must needs suffer it would be well nigh intolerable but for
my firm hope of your unchangeable affection...

Second:

I love you, I cannot live without you... I would like to go through life side by side with you, telling you more and more until we grew to be one being together until the hour should come for us to die. Even now the tears rush to my eyes and sobs choke my throat as I write this... O my darling be only a little kinder to me, bear with me a little even if I am inconsiderate and unmanageable and believe me we will be happy together. Let me love you in my own way. Let me have your heart always close to mine to hear every throb of my life, every sorrow, every joy.

Now THOSE are love letters!

… Or are they? What our society has come to label ‘love’ is a somewhat distorted, shallow reflection of what true love is.

Henry VIII penned the first one in 1528 to Anne Boleyn, unfortunately while he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, his first of six wives. King Henry was desperate for a male heir, and ended up plowing through 6 wives in order to get one. Even having written that beautiful letter to Anne 5 years before they were married, he only allowed their marriage to last 3 years before he fabricated charges against her and had her executed for treason in 1536.

The second was from James Joyce to his at-the-time mistress Nora Barnacle, who eventually DID become his wife, but not until several years after they had met and had at least two children together. She would later confide to her sister that she was terribly disillusioned in her marriage, that James drank too much and that she didn’t understand his writing and hated to accompany him to his ‘artists meetings’.

We call the divisions in our Bible ‘books’, and, more often in the New Testament, ‘Letters’ or ‘Epistles’ – which is just another word for letter. And it is, I think, helpful to remind ourselves now and then that what we have come to regard and understand as scripture is also something else. When we call our Bible ‘scripture’, as with anything that is Holy or important, or foundational for us, we tend to add an element of … otherworldliness to it. We look at it as sacred, of course, which it IS, but in doing that we sometimes lose touch with that initial reason for the writing of the words. In this case, it is a real letter from a real person to a real group of people who were dealing with serious and thorny problems after Paul has had to move on to another place – prison, in Ephesus, by most scholars’ estimation.

I have never been in prison. I hope I never have that experience. But I can imagine that the biggest enemy – the biggest psychological trauma – would come from inactivity. I cannot imagine the loss of freedom, the inability to get up and go when and where I may be needed. Moving around has become such a major part of what I do that it is almost inconceivable to not be able to do it. And yet, it is what Paul was faced with. While travel in the first century was considerably more difficult, hazardous, and relatively expensive than it is for us today, compared to previous centuries it was almost a walk in the park. The Pax Romana – that period of peace imposed by the existence of the world power of the time – the Roman Empire – allowed for trade and travel to flourish. Though still at the mercy of the weather and the occasional band of bandits, the ability to travel on roads built by Rome throughout the empire made Paul’s missionary journeys that much more possible.

For him to have been able to take at least the four journeys we have clear evidence of during the course of his ministry would have, I imagine, given him a travel bug that was rare even in those times.

And here he was, sitting in prison, when HE gets word – perhaps through a letter, or a message sent through a person – about what is going on at the church in Corinth.

And he pours his heart out to them. His love for them is evident in the opening lines of the letter.

3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,

“I give thanks to my God always for you …” Paul’s not just being polite, he’s not just going through a formality. I truly believe he sincerely means every word he writes – or dictates – to the folks in Corinth.

It is evidenced further in the passion with which he argues his points later in the letter. With as much passion as we heard earlier … in those letters written by Edward and James … only this is a passion that is lit by an eternal flame – the flame of the Holy Spirit.

But in a larger sense – and this is where a simple yet heartfelt letter becomes scripture – as time has passed and different congregations – congregations beyond the one in Corinth to whom the letter was first written – have read and studied the advice, and arguments, and pleading and yes, even berating that comes through in Paul’s writing, we begin to see that it is not just Paul that is writing to us, but it is God.

There IS, in truth, an element of otherworldliness that comes into play when I make that statement. It is a statement of faith to believe that – to speak that – and to hold to the idea that in some way that is not easily or empirically or maybe even theologically clear, God is communicating to us through the words on these pages. Paul’s words are infused with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is, on some level, the Holy Spirit speaking to ALL of us – from that first group of believers who received the letter that was physically addressed TO them, all the way to today – to this group of believers who can simply reach out and pick up one of any number of copies of a book that includes that same letter and have it apply to OUR lives.

So the question always boils down to what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, on this cold January morning in 2008?

Paul’s initial words, before he gets into the heavy deep and real – and messier parts of what is going on with the church in Corinth – are words of encouragement. They are words that are intended to remind them – and us – of just what it is that we are recipients of in the person of Jesus Christ.

5for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Did you hear the number of times Paul uses absolutes in those phrases? (Re-read). Paul is trying to convey to his brothers and sisters in Corinth just how much Christ has done for them. He is essentially saying that, when it comes to relating to each other – as well as to the world – in the Spirit of Christ, there is nothing they are NOT capable of doing. The catch is capacity vs. ability. While we may well be capable of doing something, actually DOING it is an altogether different thing. I have the capacity to run a mile. Actually RUNNING a mile is a whole different animal. I have the CAPACITY to smile and shake hands or hug someone who has said or done something that has hurt me deeply in the past. Actually DOING it is a whole different animal. I have the capacity to let that hurt go. Actually DOING it is a whole different animal. But read on to what Paul says next:

8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

So not only has Christ provided us with the tools we need to BE in fellowships with one another and to practice BEING the BODY of Christ in the world, he has also provided us with what we need to ACHIEVE that fellowship. He’s given us the whole package. I guess the question becomes: are we going to actually open it up and pick up what’s inside?

Paul’s closing words in the opening passage stand as a promise for us.

9God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Note, he doesn’t say ‘with’ his Son, Jesus Christ, but the fellowship OF his Son. Yes, of course the former – fellowship WITH Christ, is the central part of our relationship with God, but we also get the added benefit of having access to the fellowship OF Christ – that is, his body. And that is where Paul speaks to US here today. Because that fellowship continues – from then until now and into the future – however long God gives us – to learn what it means to love in the name of Christ, to live in the way of Christ, to BE in the name of Christ.

Let’s Pray