The Power of Agape

Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24: John 10:11-18

There are some times in this job when the sheer breath and depth and extent of misery in this world comes back to me and I feel overwhelmed. About two weeks ago, Saundra and I went to Crisis Intervention training, learning how to help people when sudden negative events happen such as a school shooting, a sudden death in the family, a house burning down, or some similar issue. Immediately upon coming home, we were called to the home of a family who had lost a son. Over the next few days, between our six churches, there were a total of four families that lost loved ones and another three are worried that they may get the call within days. And we are asked to bring strength and comfort to all of these families, families who are experiencing death which has either just arrived or will come soon. Some are concerned, some are frightened, some are being strong, some are angry, some have dissolved in tears. Most of you have experienced this in your own family at one time or another.

When we show up, a strange thing happens, though. Not through anything we do, but it is as though an embodied Hope walks through the door, for when people look to us, they remember the Loving God that we represent. We know it isn’t us, for we aren’t that special – it is not us that cheers someone up, it is simply the reminder that God and Christ love you that happens because you have seen and heard us speak so often of that love. In many cases, I have walked into a home, been introduced to family as “our preacher”, and even before I can say a word I’ve seen this effect happen with people whom I’ve never met before, so I know that it isn’t me. I am just a walking billboard that says, “God is here with you and there is hope!” It is an amazing, yet humbling experience.

And this is what keeps us going despite all the sadness we see, the tears that stain our shoulders, and the fact that we are recognized on sight by the triage nurse at the hospital. It is the amazing power of what simply remembering God’s love does for people. And all we have to do is to walk in the room and most people are reminded of that love. Oh, we say are few things, we listen to the stories, and we point people to some important parts of Christ’s ministry, but ultimately, we simply watch God’s love do its amazing work as people remember it.

And that is the amazing thing. There is tremendous power in simply remembering God’s love. Remind people of that love and watch the goodness happen.

God’s love is a different sort of love. It isn’t just that God’s love is far, far more intense than any emotion that we have ever felt, far deeper than the greatest love we have ever felt, far more compelling than our love for child or grandchild. God’s love is of a different sort. Let me explain.

In ancient Greek, the original language of the New Testament, there are four different words which we translate into English as “love”.

First, there is eros, the physical romantic love most commonly found between a man and a woman. This is the love that usually leads you to get married. Eros is possessive, you must HAVE the object of your love. It is a burning desire, and resembles hunger or thirst.

Second, there is phileo or brotherly love. This love is found between two good friends or two family members, a love where we have found someone we can count on, a reciprocating love – you help me and I help you, we work together and have fun together. Phileo is enjoying the companionship of a friend, even the love between a boy and his dog. Think of it as the appropriate love of two good friends for one another.

Third, there is storgi, or affection. This is the love of a grandparent for your grandchildren, or of a parent for a child. It is also the love of the child for the parent or grandparent. Storgi is the love that the Queen of England has for her Corgi dogs (Storgi for Corgi's - get it?) , or the love of a woman for the deer that walk into her yard every morning. Storgi is close to a feeling of loving familiarity for the person or object that we feel storgi for.

And so we have the three human loves – Eros, which is romantic love. Philios, which is brotherly love, and storgi, which is affection. Each of these loves has a payback – Eros provides us with sexuality, Philios provides us with partnerships and friends to barter work with, and storgi establishes bonds which help us in our old age.

But God showed us another type of love, a love-word which really came into the Greek language through the letters and Gospels of the New Testament. Before the New Testament, this word barely existed. But it dominates New Testament writings about love.

The word is agape.

Agape love is a self-sacrificing, freely given love which has action. Agape is not content to just speak words of love to the recipient – Agape does, just as Christ did not just tell us He loved us, but took action to show this. Agape love is love that has action, like a group of North Carolina women who repair roofs for free. Let us look at some examples of Christ’s agape love for us.

First, while many people felt pity for the poor and some people felt pity for those who were forced into sinful ways such as prostitution, collecting taxes for the occupying Romans, or were captured by the addiction of alcohol, Jesus did not simply say: Isn’t it sad about these people.

No, Jesus sat down with them and ate with them, and brought the poor into the homes of the men who had stolen money for the Romans and shared supper together with both of them. He ate with those who were alcoholics and did not condemn them. He allowed prostitutes at his table and treated them as human beings instead of animals.

There was a cost for this. There were “good people” who thought this was not proper conduct for a rabbi, it was not dignified enough, it was not what a real rabbi should do and so they gossiped about Jesus. Yet Jesus cared enough for these people who were on the outside of society to bring His company to them, to teach them, and to help them make friends with each other, for social friendships are part of what gives people hope and strength and the power to improve their situations.

Second, Jesus healed many people, and did not charge for this service. There were some doctors who had some basic grasp of basic medicines, but they always charged for their services. Jesus gave His agape love medical treatments free of charge and even went so far as to sometimes tell the recipients of particularly powerful miracles to keep quiet and not tell anyone how they were healed. In return for this, Jesus was overwhelmed with people needing care.

Jesus even healed people who were outside of all normal bounds in society once again at the cost of poor press and gossiping about Him. He healed the daughter of a Roman centurion, a man who led 100 men into battle and was there to occupy the lands around Jerusalem. He healed lepers even though leprosy was a contagious disease and touching a leper was forbidden because it made you “dirty”.

There was no direct payback for Jesus’ agape love through His healing ministries and His friendships He developed with the outcasts.

And then, of course, He demonstrated the ultimate act of agape love. Knowing what was to happen, He walked to Jerusalem, goaded the authorities into arresting Him, and was executed, a great sacrifice in front of God to pay for all of our crimes against God. Jesus spoke of His upcoming sacrifice:

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

The Apostle John was much affected by Jesus’ sacrifice. It changed John’s life completely. In his Gospel, John referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (egape). Many years later he wrote: 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

The word John used for love was agape. “This is how we know what agape is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

John continues:

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

And so, with the teachings and example of Jesus, with this letter from John, the early Christians began to agape people not just with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. They built the first hospitals, they became known as peaceful, loving people. They worked together to save the world’s culture when Rome was sacked, with monks spending long days carefully copying old books by hand and making new copies for no direct benefit to themselves. Untold millions became priests and nuns and served God and other people in exchange for a life of poverty and no family. Many thousands of others left their homes and went in search of towns and villages who had never heard the Good News of Christ’s sacrifice and they became known as missionaries. As the hospitals grew, many Christians became doctors and nurses and worked for untold hours among misery and death.

And later on, as governments stopped supporting the churches, ordinary people gave of their own money to support the churches, to support the missionaries, to support the hospitals and missions and food pantries and children’s camps and all sorts of aid programs as ordinary Christians learned to agape love with actions, sacrificing a new set of clothing for themselves so that others might have clothes, sacrificing a meal for themselves so that others would have a least one good meal, sacrificing time in the service so that others could hear the Word of God, sacrificing, sacrificing, sacrificing – showing agape love to others.

And the world was changed.

All because one man chose to die a gruesome, horrible death so you did not have to die. We all feel we owe Him everything – but He would have done it even if you never felt that way. He only asks – if this has changed your life for the better, go and show agape love to others.

Once while Saundra and I were in Atlanta, we had severe money problems. That evening, we heard a noise at the front door and found two friends trying to slip an envelope filled with money between our screen door and the inner door. Caught in the act, they admitted that they had felt that God was asking them to give the money to us. It made a real difference that week – both the money and the fact that we now knew someone cared about us enough to do that for us.

Another time we had to move from our rented home to another because our landlord had sold the property. Saundra was very pregnant, and I was covered up in our ink business and had no spare cash to pay movers or time to move us. And then we heard from our youth leader that the youth needed a project and wondered if they could help us move? That Saturday, about 40 youth and parents showed up, packed us, moved us, and largely unpacked us in about 8 hours. It was wonderful!

And then there was the time one of the Chinese students we mentored asked me a question which had been bothering him for some time. In China, as you know, Christianity is growing fast, but in many urban areas Christian ideas are still largely unknown or misunderstood. And so the concept of agape is not very widespread in China.

My friend asked me, “Why do American Christians want to adopt Chinese baby girls, even those with disabilities?”

In his world, without agape, this made no sense at all. You see, in China daughters are usually considered liabilities, because they marry and leave the family. It is the son who takes care of mother and father when they grow old, and so the “one-child” rule in some areas lets you have a second child if the first child is a daughter. But two strikes and you are out. And with some families, when the first child is a daughter and the second child is also a daughter, she ends up being discovered by someone else in the park, particularly if she was born with disabilities, and the authorities take her to an orphanage. And so, for my friend, he could not understand why anyone would want to adopt a child who was obviously going to be a financial burden.

And so I was given the opportunity to explain agape love to him.

And so I ask you: How much agape love do you have? How much like Christ are you?

Do you pity those in our county who are old and sick, or do you show agape love in action to them by visiting them, talking with them, praying with them, reading a Bible with them, fixing them lunch, or cleaning their houses?

Do you pity those in our county who are poor, or do you show agape love in action by visiting them, teaching them, fixing their homes, inviting them over for lunch?

Do you shy away from those who look or speak differently from us, or do you greet them and welcome them into the community, learn who they are, help them adjust to a new place, introduce them to your friends, share a meal with them?

Do you complain about those neighbors who do not take care of their homes, or do you mow their lawns for them because they are working three jobs and don’t have time, do you paint their fences, help them fix their cars, bring your pickup over and help them take that old sofa to the dump?

Agape love – the self-sacrificing love that Christ showed us – has changed the world for a better place. What agape love will you show and do that will change the world and the people around you?

For you see, agape love is what comes from God. As John wrote: 19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them.

You see, when we see something in this world which needs to be set right and we do not act, our hearts will condemn us as the Holy Spirit speaks to us. But if we show agape love in these situations, we are following God’s commands and the Spirit lets us be at rest, secure in the knowledge that we have loved one another as Christ commanded us.

I read somewhere this week that Americans are the richest people on earth and are also those people who are least likely to see themselves as rich. Look at your riches – not only your bank accounts, but your appliances, your homes, your cars, your education, kitchen pantry, your land, your spare time, your knowledge, your skills, your wisdom, your standing in the community. What of those could you use to make life a little bit better for someone else?

Each of these riches has been a gift from God to you, a gift to you which you could give to another and tap into God’s power to create and change the world, the power for positive change which is agape love. What do you have to fear? God has blessed you many times in your life already. Won’t God bless you even more if you follow God’s will? Perhaps not financially – but perhaps in many, many other ways.

Glorified Bodies

Acts 3:1-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7: Luke 24:36b-48

I was looking in the mirror the other day and I noticed something about myself. My clothing fit. Now you’ve got to understand – this is a rare thing for me. I’m not one of those people who can go to the store and find a 32 inch waist with a 32 inch inseam – a 32/32, and it works. I have a 47 inch waist and a 28 ½ inch inseam, a combination that is hard to find in the stores. Even my arms are hard to fit in a shirt, because I take a 33 inch sleeve, which is very hard to find on an 18 ½ inch neck. So I usually make do with Triple X shirts, and I prefer short sleeves.

But you know, the statistics tell me that I am only a little bit on the high side for the state I’m living in – West Virginia. My doctor doesn’t believe in those statistics, though. He wants me to figure out how to get on the low side of the state average for my height, which will bring me down to a safer weight. And so I’ve made some changes to my diet and I’m trying to slim down.

I guess that there aren’t many of us in this room that could be said to have a “glorified body”. In fact, there are many of us in this room that have bodies that are downright scary. And we know that this is a problem. Our doctors all tell us that if we continue onward, our bodies will lead us to meet Jesus a bit sooner than we’d prefer.

But for most of us, our body still functions. It gets us from point A to point B, even though it may not be as quickly as it once did – or we would like it to travel. But in our first reading from the Book of Acts, there was a guy whose body would not get him from point A to point B – and that caused both a lot of problems for him – and led to a great miracle by Jesus Christ working through the Apostles Peter and John. Luke writes:

2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Can you imagine this guy’s life? In a time before wheelchairs, before handicap ramps, before any sort of help for people with disabilities, this man was carried to sit in front of the Beautiful gate to the Temple every day to beg, and that evening was carried home. We don’t know who carried him, but it appears he had at least one friend – or someone who he paid to carry him to and fro.

And so he sat there every day as people from all over the Empire walked past him, asking for coins that would buy him food, coins that would get him water, coins that would keep him living a bit longer. He had no health insurance because no one in the world had health insurance, because the skill of doctors had not progressed to the point where they could do him any good. In those days, at that time and place, if a man or woman received a wound that opened up the skin, it was likely that they would die from the infection, for there were no antibiotics. In fact, there was not even the concept of keeping the wound clean. And so no one dreamed of cutting someone open to fix what was inside. Any surgical operation would have resulted in a slow, lingering death.

The plight of this man was even worse than most people would guess. In the Old Testament, in Leviticus, there was a passage which said that those who were lame must not enter the sanctuary of the Temple. 16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand,..”(Lev 21)

This man could not offer any sacrifice to God. And by the time of the New Testament, this prohibition had spread to keeping all the lame out of the Temple completely, the quest by the Temple leaders to keep the Temple pure had reached the point where people who were lame could not enter the Temple, they could not make sacrifices, and thus they could not get right with God. They were not considered pure, and they were not considered good enough to enter the Temple. It was as though we banned anyone who needed a wheelchair or crutches or who had serious health issues from entering our sanctuary and taking communion. He also was banned from entering because of the way he looked and the way he acted, which, of course, was because of something he had no control over – his disability.

But Peter and John had seen this man for a long time, and when they approached the Temple that day, they apparently had a plan, for they both fixed their eyes upon the guy.

4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.

He was finally able to enter the Temple! He could go to God now and offer his sacrifices. Plus, he could now work at a regular job and did not need to beg anymore.

And from the Apostle’s point of view, Jesus was now working miracles through them. The Holy Spirit had guided them and now the power of the Holy Spirit was flowing through Peter’s words and hand. Here was a great miracle, a great affirmation, a great sign that the power of God had indeed come with the Holy Spirit and had not gone back to Heaven when Jesus returned. The Resurrection power of Christ had lifted this man from his seat and allowed him to leap!

And the formerly lame man had a new body that worked much better than his old one. This new body had been touched by the Holy Spirit and strength had flowed into them. The glory of the Lord had touched him, and he would never be the same.

John Wesley wrote of the time before the Fall, a time when Adam and Eve walked upon the earth in a Garden with the Tree of Life, perfectly created by God. Sickness and disease did not exist – the body’s defense mechanism’s were perfect, as if we were made from another substance entirely. Even Adam’s mind functioned wonderfully – he gave names to all the types of animals quickly and efficiently. There was no fogginess, no forgetfulness, no feeling of sleepiness. Adam’s mind functioned better than Albert Einstein’s mind after a good night’s sleep when Einstein was 21 years old. We don’t have any idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden – it may have been a few days or it might have been thousands of years. But even after the Fall, Adam lived for over 900 years.

When Adam was kicked out of the Garden, it was as if some important substance in Adam’s body was gradually lost, and he became less and less capable of functioning. And the same thing happened to his descendents – they began in excellent condition, but as they lived in the world, that great, wonderful substance was replaced with ordinary materials, and generation after generation lived shorter and shorter lives. It is like elastic losing its flexibility or a blacktop road gradually losing its tar, or a painted fence from which the paint has gradually flecked off – or like men making copies of copies of a Stradivarius violin – what was once perfect becomes less and less perfect with each generation.

And then we move forward from the time of Adam to the time of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. It is that first Easter Sunday, and the disciples are gathered, when Jesus appears to them.

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish,43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.

This passage is very important, because it helps us to understand a few things about the Risen Christ. First of all, the point is clearly made that Jesus is NOT a ghost, not a spirit being, but instead is present in a cleaned up body. The blood is gone, He looks good. In fact, He looked so different from the last time His disciples saw Him on Friday that in another passage in Luke, the men on the road to Emmaus don’t even recognize Him when He walks beside them for several miles. Despite his intense lashing with a whip in which was embedded broken glass and nails, despite his crucifixion, despite having spear thrust in His side, Jesus is fit and ready to start for the Green Bay Packers! Yet his scars were still there, as we saw last week when Thomas doubted and Jesus asked him to touch His hands and his side. Finally, Jesus eats some fish, which tells us that the normal processes of the body continue.

Theologians call the new body that Jesus has a “glorified body.” This is the body that has been restored to the functional perfection of the Garden – a body which will not age and will not fade over time. Paul calls it “incorruptible.” Interestingly enough, Jesus’ glorified body does show one sign which we normally associated with age – in Revelation 1:13 “among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.”

Jesus’ hair has turned white. Apparently white hair is not really a sign of age, but is a sign of wisdom and authority?

And what about us? What shall happen to us when Christ calls us back from death?

“2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

We shall be like Him. We shall once again have a glorified body which is filled with the incorruptible aspect of Christ’s body – and Adam’s original, pre-sin body.

What does this mean?

Incorruptible means it doesn’t rust or wear out or rot.

I used to think that a glorified body meant I was back in my 18-year-old body, when I weighed 155 pounds and could easily run up the steps on the campus at Morgantown with 20 pounds of textbooks, and recover my breath within a half dozen steps at the top of the stairwell. Now, I’d be happy with my 40 year old body. What age shall our body be? I don’t know.

The key thing is that the glorified body does not age. We know that it is different enough in appearance that Jesus was not immediately recognized on the road to Emmaus, but it is not a perfect body in appearance, for His scars were still present. Yet, it appears, that all the necessary functions of the body are still there – we walk, we talk, we eat. Scars, it appears, are only skin deep, badges of honor, marks of wisdom like white hair on a body that functions without decay, lasting without sickness nor disease for hundreds and thousands of years the way our bodies were supposed to work.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen more and more articles recently about the man-made immortality that is supposedly coming upon us, as doctors defeat old age with new treatments, with artificial organs, and artificial joints, replacing bone and cartilage with titanium and plastics.

But have you noticed something? An original hip joint, made of bone and cartilage, lasts for 70 or 80 years. The replacement lasts for 10 or 15. We have a long way to go.

And now there are those people who talk about us uploading our memories into computers so that we will last forever. But I don’t think I’ll take advantage of that opportunity.

You see, I think I would rather live in a God-designed incorruptible body that has perfect regeneration and does not wear out than in a machine-like body that wears out, or in an electronic mind that is subject to being scrambled by a power surge. I’d rather trust in God’s ability to design than in Silicon Valley.

And what leads me to think that our future is such an incorruptible body?

For one thing, Paul says in I Cor 15 “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55 “O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”

Another important passage is this one from our Third Reading by John: 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him…”

This is important because it reminds us that we are children of God. We will not become angels with wings, for you see, the angels are the servants in the household of God. When we are children in a king’s household, the servants watch over us and protect us, and they may even give us orders. But when we become adults, we look the servants in the eye and take our proper place in the household, as princes and princesses of the kingdom.

And there are two other reasons for my hope.

The first is the demonstration given to us by the lame man that Peter and John met at the Beautiful gate. This man had a body that functioned as well as the body of a bedfast man in a nursing home. But when Peter and John told him to walk in the name of Jesus Christ, the power of the Resurrected Christ flowed into him and he walked. He not only walked, but he was able to leap! The power of Christ is amazing.

We, too, can gain some of that power by learning to listen to and follow the Holy Spirit.

The second reason for my hope is this: John Wesley pondered upon the purpose of Communion. We know that there is something more than a mere remembering in Communion, for Jesus did not do anything that was meaningless, and this was something He told us to do, to share a meal of bread and wine, a meal that He said consisted of His body and His blood. Yet, we know from our senses that when we eat the bread we do not eat human flesh, and when we drink the juice we are not drinking human blood. And so what does this mysterious ceremony truly mean? What is its purpose?

Wesley thought – and I do too – that in some mysterious way in which we don’t fully understand, the supernatural presence of Christ is present in the consecrated bread and juice. In some way that we simply can’t see or taste or smell, Jesus Himself is there in His spirit. And in some way that we can’t prove with any scientific study, the mysterious life-giving substance that was once present throughout Adam’s body flows through the bread and the juice into our bodies when we eat and drink the elements. As John said, 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” As we receive Communion and eat this life-giving substance, do our bodies purify themselves and restore that mysterious substance that was lost after the Fall?

You’ve seen some evidence of this in your lives. Your friends who never receive communion are dying, often from their sin addictions and their sinful choices at early ages. We read their obituaries, we see the postings on Facebook, we grieve with their families, we sense the fear in those families and our sadness for them tears us apart. They and their families die many times along the way even before their hearts stop beating.

At the other extreme, we see the pleasant, happy, godly men and women who have had a long relationship with God living into their 80’s and 90’s and sometimes breaking the century mark. When their time comes, we see peace in their eyes and hear words of comfort from them as they go to be with their Lord. We even seen those believers who have been diagnosed at an early age with a dreadful disease living for many months or years or even decades beyond what they have first been told by the doctors, surprising them, and lifting the spirits of all those around them in the process.

I’m not saying that Holy Communion is a longevity food, but I am saying that the spiritual aspects of our obedience to Christ will often take what body you have and do good with that time you’ve been given, perhaps even extending your time to help others on this earth and at the very least having a peaceful journey to that place which so few have returned from, those few that Christ and the Apostles raised. Even as the bodies of Christian believers die, they still live.

And those who do not obey Christ reap the death that was promised to them as the natural results of that disobedience. As with the ancients and the lightning that strikes from thunderstorms, there is something here we don’t understand, but even if we don’t understand it, there is something here we should be in awe of. Receiving Holy Communion is an important part of obeying Christ – and it is life-giving in some mysterious way.

You know, so many times we allow Christ and the Holy Spirit to come into part of our lives, but keep Him out of the rest of our lives, like a house that has public rooms where company can visit and private rooms that company is not allowed into.

Imagine, if you will, that the mysterious substance that gave Adam his long life was the breath of God within Him. Remember how Adam came to life? Genesis 2:7 says 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

In the ancient languages, breath and spirit are the same word. What Adam had within him that gave him that long life was the breath, or spirit of God. Allowing that spirit into the far reaches of your body, into the distant rooms of your mind, into your entire life is life-giving. What was dead will live again when you bring Christ into your entire life, into all the rooms of your life, letting Him roam throughout you as He wills instead of confining Him to a few hours on Sunday, or even letting Him into everything but THAT place in your life, that place in your life where you really could use Him…your marriage, your relationship with your children and grandchildren, your relationship with your boss, your daily interactions at the grocery store or at work.

Here’s how to tell if you have not let the life-giving Holy Spirit flow into a room of your life: During your life, when do you feel dead, hopeless, defeated, depressed, frustrated, upset, angry or sad? That is the room which you have kept locked and kept the Holy Spirit from moving into. If politics makes you angry, invite the Holy Spirit to join you as you watch the news. If your work is frustrating, take the Holy Spirit to work with you. If you are having problems with your family, bring the Holy Spirit to the dinner table with you. And if you are sad about something that has happened or worried about something that will happen, ask the Holy Spirit to sit and talk with you a while you go through those pictures in the attic of your mind. Let the Spirit redecorate those dead rooms with life, turning the gray and angry red of your life into beautiful sunny yellows and sky-blues of beauty and happiness, lifting you up to a new life which will flow through you and over you and even overflow out of you into others as the glory of God spills from your heart in joy!

For you see, my friends, the glorified body of Christ – and of our future – is not merely about an incorruptible body. It is about a joyful, incorruptible spirit that He has – and we shall have – as God’s glory comes to fill us with overflowing wonder.

Doubts, Anyone?

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2: John 20:19-31

When Saundra and I lived in Atlanta, we went through a period of time when we had tremendous money problems. I was a new Christian – in fact, the day after I became a Christian believer, I was laid off from my job. About a month later, after sending out about 110 resumes, I started up an electrical automation business with nothing but one project, a loan from another customer to cover the project, my credit cards, and my new-found faith in God.

The first year was terrible. We had gross income that year of about $6000, and had to cover our bills with credit card loans. But we grew used to getting calls from bill collectors, and it isn’t a fun thing. The next year was also terrible, but sales began to pick up rapidly at the end of that year, and the next year we began paying down those bills. I spent a lot of time on the road, and Saundra worked the warehouse. Gradually, things improved.

About 8 years after we started our business, we decided to move the business and ourselves to Ohio. There, in February with the snow covering the property, we had found a house which had a large warehouse on the property, and the new payment would be about a third of what we were paying for rent for both our home and the business in Atlanta. But we were concerned that this might not be the right move for us. And so we made an offer on the new house, submitted the credit information, and prayed that God’s will be done – while hoping that God’s will was that we would get the new home. It was a scary time – we were filled with doubts over whether we were making the right decision, and also filled with doubts about our ability to get the loan. And when the loan came through, we were filled with doubts about whether or not the house would close, because in Atlanta at that time, it seemed that about a third of firm offers did not close for one reason or the other, or were delayed for weeks.

We could not handle a delay. Moving a business requires having phone lines transferred on a specific timetable, or you don’t get sales. At that time, even our credit card processing meant we had to have an active phone line – and we really needed about 3 phone lines to handle the call volume. We needed the house to close on the day it was supposed to close or we would begin to lose about a thousand dollars a day. And because of our limited cash-on-hand, we had to move about half of our home and business from Atlanta on the night before closing, with the plan being to make the final move a week later. Our fears and doubts about whether or not to make the move almost paralyzed us.

On the drive from Atlanta, Saundra turned to me. She asked me if we could plant a lilac bush on the property. It seems that when she was young, she would take lilac blossoms and put them on her pillow in the early afternoon and shut the doors and windows in her room. Then, when she went to bed, the sweet smell of the lilacs would fill the room as she drifted off to sleep. But in Atlanta, the weather is too hot for lilacs.

I replied, “Of course we can. We’ll own the place.”

When we arrived in town in early May, we drove a truckload of goods to the house and left it parked there. As we drove up, there beside the door to the warehouse was a large, beautiful blooming lilac, and under the window to the master bedroom was another that was even larger. We had not seen them in February because of the snow, but God had planted them years earlier to help us understand that God was there, and that all of our doubts should vanish. The house closed easily, and we moved in there and spent the next ten years living there. The home is on the market as we speak.

It seems that when we deal with the things of God, the subject of doubt always comes up. It isn’t a new thing – the disciple Thomas the Twin earned the nickname of “Doubting Thomas” for his skepticism that is shown in today’s story.

The disciples gather in the upper room the Sunday after the crucifixion. They had heard wild rumors that Mary Magdalene had seen Jesus, and heard from Peter and John that the tomb was open and the body was gone, with the mummy wrap still lying there, still wrapped up as though the body had simply gone right through the wrappings. But there was still a strong element of doubt, and so they locked the doors because they were afraid of the Temple leaders, and whether or not the disciples would be the next men arrested and crucified.

Suddenly, Jesus appears in their midst. He didn’t knock at the door, He simply appeared there and said “Peace be with you!”. Then He showed them His scars - the cruel nail holes in his wrists and the spear cut to His side.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Jesus had another message: “I am sending you.” They were to go into the world and tell the world what they had seen, and tell the world what Jesus had said and done over the last three years – particularly the part where He came back to visit them this day.

Jesus then breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. The Greek word for “Spirit”, pneuma, is the same as the word for “breath” or “wind”. It is the root of both pneumonia and pneumatic. And so when He breathed upon them, naturally they got the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath. They got the real thing! And they received a direct communication line to God.

Thomas the Twin wasn’t there. He didn’t believe the other disciples and said so. Thomas had doubts, he was skeptical, he didn’t trust the other disciples and he wasn’t afraid to tell them so.

But a week later, Thomas was there when Jesus reappeared to the gathered disciples, and Jesus knew that Thomas had doubted. “Stop doubting and believe”, Jesus said as He encouraged Thomas to touch His scars and the hole in His side.

History records that Thomas landed in Southern India in 52 AD, and founded seven churches in the area known today as Kerala. We have Christian friends in Atlanta that date the founding of their denomination to Thomas. He had given up doubting, and spread the Gospel farther than any of the disciples.

But today, there are many people who doubt the stories of Jesus. Why do people doubt?

The first and most important reason is a lack of trust. We have learned to not trust anyone. As we grow to be adults, people play tricks upon us and tell us lies which lead us to become injured, emotionally harmed, or suffer financially. About a month ago I received a call from a man with a strong Indian accent who claimed to be calling me from the “United States Grant-making Agency in Washington DC” and told me that a grant of $8000 had been made in my name. Of course, I needed to provide him with some personal data to get the money. SURE!

Each time this happens to us, we lose trust in people. And that lack of trust in general means that we have difficulty believing truth when faced with it. We learn to become cynical, skeptical, and suspicious of everything. And so we don’t trust the stories of Jesus. Just this week, I read someone commenting that they doubted that Jesus even existed.

The worst thing about this is that trusting means becoming vulnerable. Yet, when we truly believe what Jesus said and did, then our fears disappear, and we are no longer vulnerable since we no longer fear death.

The second reason people doubt the stories of Jesus is that they are unique and were once new to this world – yet since that time they have been duplicated over and over again in literature, on television, and in the movies. The hero who dies to save the world and perhaps comes back to life is a common idea in our culture. Ironman died in the Avenger’s movie to save the world and came back to life. Spock died to save the Enterprise and then came back to life in the next movie. The soldiers in Saving Private Ryan died to save one man. Even JR Ewing was shot in the tv show Dallas and came back the next year. It was said that poor Charlton Heston always played sacrificing heroes that died and never made it out of a movie alive. The story resonates with us so much that we have told it and retold it time and again in many different ways.

And because Jesus performed miracles – including coming back from the dead – we doubt. But that is the entire point of the story, isn’t it? The point is that God came to earth once, performed miracles, and then died and came back to life to save us from death and prove that we really could be resurrected by God.

You see, our doubting is tied to our view of the world. There are three views of the world.

There are those who believe that the world is chaotic, that powerful forces are clashing against us like hurricane waves battering a rowboat, and that we are completely subject to luck, to how things happen to occur, that there’s no plan, no order, that things just happen, while you live luck controls everything, and one day you get unlucky, you die and it’s all over.

Then there are those who believe that everything is in order, that the world runs like a well-oiled machine with physical laws always operating perfectly, and that is very predictable, with nothing supernatural possible. From a chaotic random beginning, driven by physical laws, everything orderly developed. What you see is what you get – and nothing more. What you call your mind is just a bunch of chemicals reacting to the chemicals you have eaten and the chemicals generated when light hits your retina. Your life is predictable, controllable, and it continues up until the day you die and then you are gone. There is nothing more.

And then there are those who believe that there is a good Mind behind everything, who prepared the physical laws, lets the world develop mostly according to those laws, but every once in a while, very rarely but just often enough that people have noticed, that wonderful Mind steps in and tinkers with the world just enough that people call it a miracle. Your life is guided, gently led by a loving God, and there is indeed something beyond the veil, something more than just what you can see and taste and touch. And so when you die, there is the possibility of more.

You see, if you believe in life after death, you must believe that there is something supernatural – it only follows because life after death is a supernatural event. There is no known physical law that gives anyone life after death. It makes no sense to believe in life after death if you don’t believe in God.And thus, if you believe that life after death is possible, then there must be a Mind beyond this physical world, a guiding, leading intelligence that gently molds this world as that Mind sees fit, a Mind that one day may step into your life and turn your world upside down as you see strange and wonderful things happen.

This past summer, Saundra and I had to miss the final morning of Annual Conference because we had to drop Andy off at the Boy Scout Camp in Wirt County at 9 AM. Coming back, we were two pastors without a church, so we saw a church on the left, but a gentle voice said, “Not this one,” to me. We went a few miles further and saw another church on the right, and the voice said, “Not this one, either.” And so we continued on. Finally, we arrived in Burnt House, and saw a sign pointing up the hill to Burnt House United Methodist Church, and the voice said to me. “Here.” We pulled in, Saundra snapped some pictures of a chipmunk on a stump and we went inside.

There were about 8 people there, and we sat down quietly in back as the Sunday school lesson was going on. We didn’t say a word, because we didn’t want to be asked to lead the lesson or preach in a church without the permission of the pastor, who was not there that Sunday. She alternates preaching with another church.

At the end, the lay leader asked us if either of us played the piano, and I admitted that I did, so they asked me to play one hymn, which I did. They then asked an older woman what hymn she had wanted a couple weeks back when the piano player was out, and she said, “Leave It There”. So I opened up the old shaped-note hymnal, squinted at the music in the dim light, and did a passable job playing the song, which I had never before heard or played. We finished, and everyone went home.

About two weeks later, a pastor friend of ours who happens to be a carpenter met us over at the house we’re trying to sell to help me with some flooring that wasn’t working. We mentioned that we had stopped at a church on Rt 47, and he said, “You stopped at Burnt House”. Surprised, we said, “Yes”. Then told us about the lady asked about the hymn and we said, “Yes, it was us.” Then he said, “Let me tell you the rest of the story. The woman was my aunt and she had had a stroke a couple of weeks before, and just loved that hymn, but no one was able to play it when she had come back to church. Then you two showed up that Sunday morning. She went home and early Monday morning at 1:30 am, she went home to be with the Lord.” Our friend preached her funeral a few days later, and everyone wondered who those mysterious strangers were that stopped in to play that song for her.

God, you see, plans things and works out things for the best for everyone. There are many, many people in this room who have similar stories to tell – stories of amazing coincidences, stories of miraculous healings, stories of God guiding things in a way that sends chills up your spine because you suddenly realize that there IS more to this world than what you can see, touch, and hear.

But there is one more reason that we doubt. The reason we doubt is very personal. You see, deep down, many of us would like to be a god, completely in control of our Universe, particularly if we have been successful in our lives. We’d like to take charge of the world around us, ordering it the way we want it to be, the way we know it would be better, the way that seems best to us. And so we put this dome of control around us, and try to control everything in that dome of control, extending the dome as far as we can. That’s why video games are so popular – you are in control of an entire computer-generated world. That’s why crafting is so popular – you are in control of the fabric. That’s why we go hunting in tree stands – it’s the feeling of control as you gaze down upon the deer or the turkeys coming into your dome of control. In each case – you are in charge, and you are in control.

But the presence of God in the Universe can make us very uneasy, for, you see, God can’t be controlled and we know it. We can try it – I have a couple of friends who are very definite about what God will do and what God won’t do. But God will not be controlled. And since deep down we know that, we try to deny the existence of God – or God’s just and proper command of our lives which is due to the fact that God created us and we are God’s property.

Deep down, we understand that admitting that God exists means that we are not gods. Deep down, we understand that coming to church on a regular basis means that God will speak to us through God’s Word in the Bible, and that would mean we have to listen. And deep down, we know that if we listen to God through God’s Word and Holy Spirit – we will eventually have to bow the knee to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and change our ways.

And so people doubt.

But why won’t God give me a special sign to show me that He is real and His Son is special?

Because, my friend, only a god negotiates with another god, and the God of the Universe will not help you keep lying to yourself that you are that high and mighty that you can demand God talk to you. The proper place for a man or woman is to bow to our Creator.

If you want a sign that our Creator exists, consider the rainbow or a sunset. As a physicist, I can tell you how the rainbow and sunsets form, I can tell you according to physical laws why the colors are arranged the way they are, and I can even predict somewhat when and where those beautiful colors will appear. But as a physicist, I cannot tell you why they are beautiful. For there is no need for beauty of this sort to exist in a world run solely by natural processes. Beauty, you see, is something supernatural, for in the rainbow or the sunset, the Beauty you see does not aid in our survival, but it does lift our spirits. And that tells me that a Creator God exists who loves beauty and wants to share it with Creation.

And finally, the reason that we doubt is usually because we haven’t taken the time to understand the whole story. If you want to understand the story, let me suggest the following:

First of all, get ahold of a modern translation of the Bible. One that says NEW King James, or New International Version (NIV) or perhaps the New Revised Standard Version or the Common English Bible. I personally prefer the Holman Christian Standard Bible, but they’re sort of expensive and harder to find. You can find any of these versions on Amazon and many at Walmart.

Open the Bible to the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament. Read it. Then Read the Gospel of John. After that you can jump around. But it is important to read at least Mark and John.

While you read, keep a notepad beside you and write down any questions you might have. I’m here for dinner every Wednesday evening from about 5:15 until 6:30, and I’m ready to answer questions you have during dinner. I consider that to be a great use of my time. I’m also here at 6 pm on most Sunday Evenings for the Defending the Faith class, which is a class for people who really want to understand Christianity so they can explain it to other people. It’s a good class to come to if you want to get deeper – or simply want to settle some doubts.

You know, almost everyone has doubts at some time about the issues of faith. There are some ideas and thoughts in the Bible that simply don’t make sense according to the way our culture and society normally looks at the world – but that’s the point! Jesus came to earth to completely turn things around, to take us off the collective road to Hell that our world was headed along, and put us on the road to Heaven. Naturally some things seem odd in His teachings.

For example, I was talking to my 10-year-old granddaughter the other day and mentioned that Jesus told us when we are slapped by someone to turn the other cheek to them so they can slap that cheek also. She looked at me and said, “That’s crazy!” Of course! In a world where you are told to “get even”, turning the other cheek appears like the wrong idea. Until you work through the idea that you have just taken all the power out of the slapper when slapping doesn’t upset or insult the person slapped. And then it makes lots of sense.

Take this as wisdom: When we doubt a Christian teaching, we are standing on the edge of learning a tremendous new idea. Take your doubt and turn it into a question. And ask one of the Sunday School teachers here – or me – what the answer is until you are satisfied. Any question is acceptable – for questions are how we come closer to understanding God. Every time I have doubted or questioned – and there have been many times – I have always found that the search for understanding led me to a great new truth.

Who are You Looking For?

Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; John 20:1-18

On that first Easter morning, in early April of the year 33 or 34, several women steeled themselves to perform a grim task. It was Jewish custom that a dead body should be washed and mummy-wrapped in linen by women who were close to the deceased. Inside the layers of linen would be sprinkled myrrh and other spices, which would disguise the odor of decomposing flesh. You can think of it as a primitive embalming method.

Friday evening, after the death of their friend, there had not been time before the Sabbath began at sundown to do the job properly. So His body had been mummy-wrapped and lain in a tomb cut out of solid rock nearby, a tomb donated by a wealthy friend, Joseph of Arimethea, a member of the ruling council of elders in Jerusalem – Joseph’s own tomb which he had paid good money to have chipped out of the solid rock that underlies Mount Zion. And then, as the sun was going down, a huge boulder had been dropped in front of the tomb in a trench so the 2000 pound rock blocked the entrance. A guard of 4 shifts of 4 men each was placed upon the tomb and the Roman governor’s seal was placed across the entrance, announcing that any who broke the seal would incur the wrath of the powerful Roman governor, Pontus Pilate. And all of the dead man’s friends that were still around scurried home for the Sabbath.

It had been a rough day. Their leader and friend had been executed by the Romans, and a great darkness had spread across the sky, a darkness that was reported upon by the great Roman historian Suetonius, writing some 80 years later and quoting an earlier Roman historian. There was a strong earthquake that afternoon just as the man died, and so the Sabbath could not have come at a better time. The Sabbath – a time to rest and reflect, a chance to read scripture and a chance to pray with God.

The Sabbath ended Saturday evening at sundown. And so the women prepared for their visit so they could leave for the tomb at first light. They hoped to persuade the guards to allow them past the seal, to roll back the stone, and to let them accomplish their grim task, which would make them unclean because they had touched a dead body. But they loved the man, and this was something that must be done, just as today, someone must send flowers to a funeral and words must be said that are traditional, somber, and appropriate. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And so they went to the tomb.

Mary Magdalene was one of the women, but she went alone, and planned to meet the others at the tomb. Apparently Mary Magdalene could not sleep, and arrived very early in the chilly gray darkness, even before daylight. The tomb was open, no guards could be seen, and so she stopped, turned around, and ran to get Peter, the leader of the gang of followers, a strong, rash fisherman. A fisherman who a few nights before had said he would never leave the man, but who had slunk in the shadows the night of his arrest and claimed he never knew the man. The fisherman was grieving – whether more over his own actions or the death of his friend and leader, we will never know.

Peter and another disciple – probably his friend John, the man who wrote down the account of these events, they ran back to the tomb. When they got there, they looked into the tomb and discovered that the mummy wrap lay there without a body in it. Even the head wrap lay there without a mummy wrap. The wraps had not been unwrapped from the body, the wraps had not been sliced from the body, and – by the way – the head wrap was not “neatly folded”. The Greek word used means it was twisted or wrapped, not folded. No, it was as if the body had dematerialized and moved through the mummy wraps of body and of head.

Mary, very distraught, stood outside the tomb while the men investigated and then went home. She wandered around the garden area a while and then put her head into the tomb. There she saw two men who said, “Woman, why are you crying?” She told them, “Because they’ve taken my Lord and I don’t know where they’ve put Him.” You can imagine her grief – someone stole the body of the man she respected and loved more than anyone else in the entire world, the man who had freed her from the demons that formerly possessed her, the man she had seen speak to thousands. She turned away and ran into the man she thought was the gardener. He asked her the same question, “Woman, why are you crying?” And then He asked her a very important question: “Who is it you are looking for?”

In our lives, we are all looking for someone. I remember when I was three years old, my mother took me to Alden’s, a big box department store in Marietta, OH. Somewhere during the trip, I became separated from her and lost her. I thought she must have left me behind, so I went to the front of the store and then out into the dark, rainy night. I stood outside for a very long time, yelling for my mom and crying. A stranger found me in the parking lot and took me back into the store, where a woman asked me my name, and then paged my mother, who, honestly, had NOT yet missed me – I guess the whole, long-drawn traumatic experience had only taken about 5 minutes. She came to the service desk and everything was all right.

When we get older, we look for a spouse. We spend huge amounts of money making ourselves attractive to the opposite sex. We date and we date and we date some more, looking for that one person who will love us, who will spend the rest of their life with us. Unfortunately, for many people, that search doesn’t stop with a first marriage, but the search continues. A second marriage? Perhaps a third or even a fourth? Who are we looking for? Perhaps we’re looking for the wrong person.

At some time in our lives, we ask the question about ourselves. Who are we looking for in ourselves? “Who am I?” we ask ourselves, and we look long and hard to find this out, answering it in a variety of ways. Ask yourself who you are right now, and see what your answer is.

Did you define yourself by your job? Did you say, “I am a master bricklayer, the best insurance agent in town, a retired electrician, a 5th grade teacher?” Or did you define yourself by someone else? “I am Jessie’s mom, John’s wife, Sarah’s husband, Martha’s grandmother, Bill’s little brother?”

Or did you define yourself in another way. “I am nobody. I am worthless. I used to be somebody. I am a survivor. I am an alcoholic. I am lonely. I am better than those around me.”

Who is it you looking for? Why are you looking for someone?

We are all looking for someone. We look for someone because we were made to be in relationships. People were not made to live alone, one to an island, like castaways from sunken ships. People live in groups – groups of two and four and twenty. Groups of a hundred and a thousand and a hundred million. Communities are how we know who we are. Relationships help us find a place in our lives. Even the hermit on the mountain soon finds that he has adopted pets in the woods and fields around his hut. It is hard to even imagine a person who lives completely alone without even a pet mouse, or a family of plants to care for, for we are so completely defined by our relationships that it is the most important question in your life. Who is it you are looking for?

Mary thought she knew. She thought the man she was talking to was the gardener, and in those days a woman shouldn’t be talking to a man, so keeping her eyes down, turning slightly away from him, bending her head down so he would not get the wrong idea she mustered up courage and so she asked Him, referring to the body of her Lord and Teacher, ““Sir, if you’ve removed Him, tell me where you’ve put Him, and I will take Him away.”

Even in death, this most important relationship in her life kept Mary going. Even though she knew that He was dead, her relationship with Him meant that she was going to suffer great hardship, do all sorts of things a person should not have to do, and she was willing to do all those things because she had never, ever met anyone – or anything – that meant as much to her as her relationship with this man.

”16 Jesus said, “Mary.

She whirled around “RABBI!” she responded and she must have clutched at Him, for He said, ““Don’t cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and tell them that I am ascending to My Father and your Father—to My God and your God.”

Mary, you see, had found the One that she was looking for.

She had found the One who loved her, she had found the One who had the power to protect her, she had found the One who could comfort her, she had found the One who would always, always be there for her. She had found the One who gave her life meaning, she had found the One who was never dull, she had found the One who could make her laugh and the One who gave her joy and hope and peace. In this relationship, she found the answer to her life’s journey. In this relationship all the hurts of her life were healed. In this relationship, she found she could gain the strength for all of her other relationships. Here was the One who defined her, who answered all of her other questions: Purpose, meaning, her ultimate destination.

And this is the Jesus Christ we talk about and introduce people to even this morning here in this building. Our fellowship is not about the person sitting beside you or the woman two rows back ,or about what the man three rows up on the other side thinks about you. Our fellowship is not about each other and how we treat each other. Our fellowship is not about our friendships, although we have great friendships. Our fellowship is about our individual and group relationships with this Man, the man who God raised from the dead, and what He taught us.

Because that Man, you see, was more than a Man. As He walked around on this planet, He taught us with great wisdom – turn the other cheek seventy-times seven times, love your neighbor as yourself, pray for your enemies, give the man who wants your cloak your shirt also. He showed us that all people are loved by God, no matter how much society looks down upon them. He told us and showed us how deep that love was when He told His followers what would happen that terrible night that He was arrested, tried, and eventually executed. He told His followers about this in plenty of time for Him to leave town – but He didn’t leave town.

While He taught us, He performed miracles, miracles that everyone recognized were miracles. He turned water into wine, walked across a lake, chased demons out of people, healed the blind and the lame and the deaf, and brought several people back from death. Not merely people who might have fainted, but at least one man who had died and been put in the tomb for four days. His miracles are written down right beside his teachings. They are inseparable. If you want one, you also get the other.

And He claimed to be God. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly. Over and over Jesus made a claim of divinity – He claimed to be able to forgive sins and everyone around said, “Who is this? Only God can forgive sins.” He claimed to have been alive at the same time as David a thousand years before – the crowd picked up rocks to stone Him for claiming this divinity. He said, “I and the Father are one” and “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”, and when asked if He was the Messiah, the Son of God, he answered, referring to Himself: “ From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” And the council voted to convict him of the crime of claiming to be God.

And so, this Man that Mary sought and found, this Man that a billion other people have sought and found, this Man that you are seeking, was not just a wise Man, but was actually God walking upon the earth, for God endorsed everything that Jesus said when God raised Jesus from the dead. And because of that endorsement, we can believe Jesus when He says that those who follow Him will have eternal life.

This is the Man that we all have been looking for – the Son of God, God Himself, our Creator in a human body, walking among us, teaching us, and giving us hope that one day, all will be made right. The One we have been looking for is waiting, ready, ready to speak to you, to walk with you in the Garden the same way He walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, and the same way that He walked with Mary in a different Garden.

For He is indeed the Gardener, and is the Owner of the Garden, and put us in His Garden for His enjoyment. And one day, those of us who follow Him, who look upon Him as our leader and master, who have become friends with Him, will walk in a new Garden with Him in a New Jerusalem, a city of light and hope, a city overflowing with the Tree of Life, a city where the gates are always open because there is no fear.

We will be there one day, because this Man that we have been looking for has promised us eternal life. And so we shall live forever, leaving behind in our distant memories the things of this world, barely remembered, as dimly as childhood fears of being left behind. For we have found the One we are looking for, and everything is all right.

Announcing the King

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11

From the earliest days of the Kingdom of God, the people of God have loudly announced the arrival of their King.

In the early spring of the year 33 AD, Jesus of Nazareth was called by the two sisters Mary and Martha to come quickly to their home at Bethany, a town about 5 miles from Jerusalem. Jesus was, at that time, across the Jordan at the place where John had baptized, and there was a considerable walk ahead of Him. The reasons Mary and Martha called Him was because their brother, a man who was a good friend and probably relative of Jesus, had become ill, and was very seriously sick. Jesus waited. In fact, when Jesus and the disciples finally left for Bethany, Lazarus had already died and Jesus knew it. But Jesus knew this family well, so He walked to Bethany, which was only a couple miles from Jerusalem. Thomas commented upon the close proximity of Bethany to Jerusalem, where a group of Jews had tried to kill Jesus because He had claimed to be God just a few months earlier – “We might as well die with Him”, and they walked to Bethany.

You’ve heard the story. When they arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already died and had been placed in a tomb with a stone guarding the entrance. First older sister Martha berats Jesus for not being there: “If only you’d been here, he would still be alive” and then Mary, the younger sister who may have had a crush on Jesus comes out of the house, falls at His feet, and says, “If only you’d been here, he would still be alive”. But Jesus says there can be a Resurrection and asks the women if they believe in this, which they say they do.

Jesus walks to the tomb and is overcome with emotion. He wept. He then cries out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth” and the man comes out of the tomb alive. Many people see this miracle, and Jesus has his disciples go with him away for a week or so to a town named Ephraim, a few miles northeast of Jerusalem in the wild country.

On Saturday evening, there is a banquet held at Mary and Martha and Lazarus’ house for Jesus and his disciples. Many people come out from Jerusalem to see Jesus. It is at this point that Mary takes some valuable perfume and pours it on Jesus, anointing Him. Judas gets angry, telling them that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor, but John says that Judas actually preferred money in the money box, for he was a thief.

Sunday morning, the disciples and the entire entourage walks to Jerusalem and crests the Mount of Olives, called that because of the olive trees that grew there in that day – and many of them are still there today. Olive trees live a very long time. As they come down the hill, they can see into the city and the people in the city can see them coming down the hill, shouting and making noise. It was loud, “the Son of David” they shout, “Hosanna” they yell, which means “Save us now!” and everyone knows that this is a very important person coming down the hill. Just to make sure everyone understands, Jesus rides on the colt of a donkey, which was predicted in Zechariah 9:9 – “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

And so the procession came into the city, with people shouting and singing and waving clothes and palms and throwing their cloaks on the ground in front of Jesus and the donkey. The smell of dust and sweat and animals in the air combined with the smell of food being cooked by the street vendors, it was a loud, joyful occasion, with dozens of people telling other people about the King that had come to them. Of course not everybody was happy – some of the Temple priests were worried that the Romans would get nervous, so they asked Jesus to quiet down His followers. “If they were quiet, the very rocks and stones would start to sing” was His reply. And so Jerusalem welcomed her King into town. He walked around, looked at a few things, and then, because it was late, went outside the town and found a place to spend the night.

And then some other things happened, And for a period of about 7 weeks, few people told others about this new King. For seven weeks, the public spectacle was gone. For seven weeks, things were fairly quiet. Not completely silent, but things were very quiet as Jesus talked with one group of people, then another group in debate in the Temple. And then even more things happened that would have a lasting impact upon the world.

And seven weeks from that day, the disciples were in a room in Jerusalem. Some other things had happened with Jesus. Just a few things. Who are we kidding? A lot had happened, but the disciples were in an upper room in a house in Jerusalem. They had been there several times over the last seven weeks.

After entering the city, Jesus had taught at the Temple for 2 or 3 days, defeating people in debate, upsetting powerful men and delighting average people. Later that week, Jesus and His disciples met in an upper room in one of the homes, the same upper room to which they had returned seven weeks later. That first night in that upper room, they shared a traditional Passover meal, but Jesus changed everything about it and said that the bread was His body, that the third traditional cup of wine from the meal, often called the Cup of Redemption was His blood, to be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. It was all very confusing, and the disciples began to wonder what He meant by all this.

And then, after the meal, they had walked to a Garden and there, just as Adam had been ordered out of the Garden of Eden by God after being led into sin by the serpent, Jesus, betrayed by Judas, was taken out of the Garden by armed men, agents of the Temple of God. Jesus spent the night going from one place to another, was beaten, and finally tried and convicted of the crime of claiming to be God. Jesus was placed upon a cross and crucified that Friday, and died that afternoon. In accordance with Jewish Law, His body was taken down and placed in a Tomb, just as Lazarus’ had been, and the Tomb sealed with a 2000 pound boulder dropped in a trench in front of the Tomb. A guard was placed and everyone went home. This Friday evening at 7 pm, we will go through the details of Holy Week, and in particular, the events of that Thursday evening and Friday.

Before the end of the weekend on that particular Sunday, six weeks before the big meeting in the upper room, the disciples were back in the upper room a second time when the women came running to tell the disciples that Jesus was alive. The disciples scattered – some ran into Jesus on the road, Peter and John saw his burial clothes empty, the Tomb empty – and they all came back that evening to that same upper room to talk about what they had seen, when He appeared to them, walked around, ate some fish, and talked with them. But the disciple Thomas was not there, and Thomas was skeptical. Jesus came back to meet them in the upper room a week later, and this time Thomas saw Him and believed. Over the next few weeks, Jesus appeared a total of at least eleven times to the disciples, including once when at least 500 people were present, and then He went back to Heaven. That was just a few days before the disciples met once more at the upper room, seven weeks after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And that morning in the upper room, seven weeks later, the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 or so disciples who were gathered there, and the wind howled and tongues of fire were on their heads and they could suddenly speak in many different languages, praising God to each other and anyone who would listen.

Peter explained it to everyone, becoming the first apostle, proclaiming to everyone that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and the Son of David and the rightful Lord of the earth, sitting at the right hand of God, and over three thousand people joined the church that day and were baptized.

And ever since that day, the average follower of Jesus has been telling other people about what Jesus did. The average follower of Jesus has spread the Good News of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection to over a billion people – that’s a thousand times a thousand times a thousand. People just like you and me. Most became disciples, then they became apostles. During the great Methodist Revivals of the 1700’s and 1800’s, men and women told the Good News to their neighbors and people became Christians. In 1860, there were more Methodists in America than Catholics, more Methodists than all the Baptists combined, more Methodists than all the other churches combined.

And then, about a hundred years ago in America, in the United Methodist Church… we stopped.

Somewhere in the middle of the last century, we began to believe that the only people who spread the Gospel are special people like Billy Graham, professional evangelists who speak to large numbers of people at once. We began to believe that our pastors were the only people qualified to talk to people about God’s love. We began to believe that spreading the Good News was as tricky a job as being a neurosurgeon, an astronaut, a rocket scientist.

We forgot that spreading the Gospel was what Christians do. We forgot that it was a mark of truly understanding the goodness of God. We forgot that all students of Jesus are to become apostles one day.

Instead, we learned to keep quiet, to sit on our pews and come back every Sunday and to appreciate good music and good preaching. After all, we paid the pastor to tell people about Jesus, didn’t we? And we invited people to church, but after a while people stopped coming to church and that was probably because people had changed for the worse, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

But, you know, we were the ones that changed. We were the ones that stopped shouting at the top of our lungs: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” We were the ones that had decided that “you never talk to people about two things: politics and religion”.

Instead, we began inviting people to church.

I’ve looked throughout the New Testament and there is no place in that collection of books where it tells people to invite other people to church. No place – no where.

Instead, though, there is this very important passage at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew: 16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

- And I’ll pause at that point and ask you “Do you believe that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus?”

If you answered, “Yes”, then the following command of Jesus is for you: Jesus continues:

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

If you believe that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus”, then this command applies to you. You and I are to go and make disciples of all nations – literally all groups of people - those people are to be baptized, and they are to be taught to obey everything Jesus has commanded. They are to be led to become Christians by you, by me, by the person sitting beside you, by your children, by you personally.

I’ve delivered this message. Some of you are doing this – others aren’t. Some of you are trying your best to understand what Jesus commanded by coming to Sunday school, to midweek studies, by intense study – others hope to get it all understood here during the main service on Sunday mornings. Some recognize that this is a simple but important task. Others see it as a very difficult task. Let me see if I can simplify things for you.

Each of Jesus’ followers only followed Him in person for three years or less. Paul, the greatest, most fruitful of all, only saw Him in person a couple of times in visions. For three years those men were known as disciples – students. After three years and the Resurrection, those men became known as apostles – those who proclaim.

And those key men were generally not heavily educated – some of the most effective were professional fishermen. So this can’t be too complicated.

Perhaps you thought there were only 12 apostles – let me point you in your NIV Bible to this passage in Romans 16:7, written by Paul:

7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

You will notice that Junia is a woman’s name. And we will remember the women who went to the Tomb and were told to spread the word. You know, it isn’t difficult to become an apostle – a person who proclaims the Good News about the King to other people. I’m going to go down a checklist with you. If you don’t like being called an apostle, that’s ok. You can call yourself a “Great Commission Christian” if that makes you feel better. Here’s the checklist. There are seven key things.

First of all, we’re not talking about speaking in front of large groups of people. We’re talking about one-on-one conversation. I’ve looked around in here before the service begins, and we have some great experts at one-on-one conversation, and almost everybody here is pretty good at it.

Second, an apostle needs to realize that Jesus Christ was God Himself walking upon the earth as Jesus. Do you understand that? I did a sermon on that about a month ago and you can find it online if you missed it or want to read it again.

Third, apostles should understand that Jesus died to pay the penalty for everything we’ve ever done wrong in our lives, those sins that keep us away from God. Got it? That was last week’s sermon – and it is online too.

Fourth, He came back alive so we would know He was telling the truth when He said He was God, and to show that we can all live eternally, as He promised. God endorsed Jesus through the Resurrection. Still with me?

Fifth, the key to becoming a follower of Jesus is three parts: to recognize that this is all true, to ask God to forgive your sins, and then to get baptized. Are we there?

Sixth, It really helps if you can tell a story about what God has done in your life. Most of you have those stories – practice telling them to your family and friends.

Finally, seventh, as an apostle you need to be able to explain “the Joy that is in you” Well, that’s simple, isn’t it? You’re happy because no matter what – God loves you – and you’ll live forever!

Now there are a few things people should see when they look at you. There are certain personal characteristics that will make you an effective apostle. It really helps your credibility if you are a happy person who has no obvious, glaring sins and lives a holy life, and so we work to remove the sins from our lives. It is also important that an apostle has an attractive personality – you do nice things for people, speak kindly, pray for people, and listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you. A lot of our classes are to help you learn these things and help you become more confidant in speaking to others.

So, you see, I expect that you can speak to someone this week about Christ.

Let this be the year that you decide it is time to step into your role as a Great Commission Christian and become an apostle. Last year, I challenged you to try to bring one person to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is over the course of a year. Some of you took up that challenge and we’ve seen the effects. Even where no one came to Christ directly because of you, we have seen you grow in your understanding of Christ and in your ability to follow Him. This year, I once again challenge you – are you willing to lead one person this year to the eternal saving grace of Jesus Christ?

Join the millions through the ages that have announced: “The Son of David is here. Make way for the rightful King. Hosanna in the Highest!”

Or perhaps, you’ll sit down with a friend, a family member, or a neighbor and say, “Friend, do you understand what Easter is all about? Do you believe in everything that happened that week?” and then you’ll have one of the most important conversations of your friend’s life. Perhaps at the end of that conversation, they’ll say, “Yes, I would like to give my heart to Jesus”.

Hosanna!