The Armor of Light

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

His army lie asleep under the stars. The moon had long set and the only light present was the thin light provided by those cold stars – Orion walked high in the west. It was cold at that altitude – frost was on the ground. A gentle sound of snoring was all around. No fires were lit – that might betray the presence of the army to the Enemy.

And then, in the east, a bit of gray began to chase away the blackness. The sun was still an hour or so away, but now there was a bit, just a bit of light. And a bird chirped a few times.

“Wake up!” a sergeant began walking among the sleeping bodies. “Wake up and put your body armor on.” And gradually, throughout the camp, men and women began to rouse, putting on vests of Kevlar that would stop a bullet or flying shrapnel. Helmets were buckled in place, many put on Kevlar thigh, knee and shin guards. Boot laces were checked, weapons were checked, and within fifteen minutes, the company was ready to move out. No breakfast for this army today. They were ready for another day of fighting.

The long fight might be over today – if the unit stayed together and each member did his or her job. This might indeed be the day the reinforcements arrived, the day the choppers and the planes brought in overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy – or it might be another day of tough fighting. The only thing they were sure of was that the choppers would always be able to come and evacuate them if things went wrong. They had confidence in the chain of command. They always knew their commander would come for them.

And so it is with us who fight for the King of Glory. We have survived days and nights of evil, with attacks coming any minute from any direction. We have survived attacks by the Enemy and we have survived episodes where we turned on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot, doing stupid, foolish things that hurt us and our friends and family, dragging each other down because of our fears. Yet we fight in a spiritual war for the eternal souls of the people around us, people who may not even realize there is a war going on, people who aren’t sure which side is good and which side is evil, people who are so spiritually lost they might as well be sleeping through Pearl Harbor.

But now, awakened to the idea that there is a battle going on around us, awakened by our King’s messengers, we Christians stand up and put on the armor of light, as Paul said:

"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. "

The Apostle Paul wrote this passage while in Corinth in Greece to a group of believers at Rome, sometime between 40 and 50 AD. Paul was planning on visiting Rome; he was writing to this group of believers so that they would be ready to receive him, and so they would understand the message of hope that he was bringing them. Just 15 years or so after the Resurrection, they were well established already – there were no less than three house churches already meeting in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s fellow tent-making co-workers from Corinth had gone to Rome and established one of those churches. A famous gladiator was on the list of believers in Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans; servants in the Emperor’s household were on the list. Several of Paul’s friends from his days in Antioch and Macedonia were already in Rome. The letter was carried by the Deaconess Phoebe, who served a church six miles from Corinth, which shows that churches were quickly being planted. Even in Corinth this early, the Way of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading fast.

And Paul says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”

It is time to put on the armor of light and prepare for a spiritual battle.

This is how we begin this new Christian year. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of preparation for Christ’s arrival. But this year, unlike most years, we will not focus upon the arrival of the Christ child. We will focus upon the soon arrival of the Son of God in all His glory and power.

In many ways, we act like we are spiritually asleep, like we are wearing soft, cozy flannel underwear with footies, the type of nightclothes we might get toddlers, the type of nightwear that keeps us warm and protected and snuggly and drowns out the sounds of the outside world as we sleep the day away.

There are two holidays called Christmas, you see. One is loud and boisterous, busy and frenzied, filled with shopping and cooking and decorating and lights and noise. It is what the world calls "Christmastime", a continuous party and preparation for a party which exhausts us and gives us a hangover of debit.

The other Christmas is quiet, peaceful, like the quiet noises that snow makes when it lands in your backyard or the gentle sigh of a newborn baby as it settles off to sleep. This Christmas is filled with candles and a small fire in the fireplace and a bit of hot tea drunk as one particular story found in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke is reread and remembered, perhaps with bread and with a bit of wine or grape juice. 

Which one do you celebrate?

Our world around us is controlled by the Satan, the deceiver, who the Bible says is the prince of this world. Our world would have us to sleep, assuming that the Return of Christ will be hundreds of years in the future. Our world would have us to focus upon the really “important” things in life, like whether or not we could get a good deal on a 4k ultra curved 60 inch television set, or a new Playstation or a new smart phone. Our world would like us to think that the holidays are about friends and family, about traditions and coziness, about shiny ornaments for the tree, the happy cries of children as they unwrap presents, and the approving looks from the family as they see what we’ve prepared for Christmas dinner. Diamonds from Jared, watches from Wal-mart, clothes from Kohl’s, cars from Kia. And don’t forget the television specials, the football playoffs, the basketball games, and the constant news shows about the aftermath of the election. These are the things the world distracts us with this time of year. And we go along, occasionally protesting about the cost or the time or the effort.

Or we get sucked into the culture wars. Every year, there are the stories of the manger scenes not allowed, the Christmas plays that are censored, the coffee cups that don’t carry the right symbols, and we get outraged and post on Facebook and argue and fight and complain and where is the peace of Christ in all this?

Instead, do we stop during this Advent season to sit with our children and grandchildren and our neighbor’s children and read to them from the beginning chapters of Luke and Matthew? Do we decide to stay home instead of shop and read for ourselves an entire Gospel book of the Bible this time of year? Do we ever just build a fire, cover up with a blanket, and read a chapter from a New Testament epistle to the other person in the house, and then talk about what Paul or Peter or John meant when they wrote those words so long ago?

Do we have friends over to talk about the Gospel and our church? When was the last time we invited that young girl with her three kids who lives down the street over? What about next Saturday? We could cook hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and bake some biscuits and then we could direct the conversation toward the Pioneer Clubs and how our kids turned out reasonably well despite all the struggles in high school and that might give her an evening to relax. Yes, we could make some time, we could cut back on all the loud Christmastime stuff and focus on becoming Jesus to that family this year. After all, do we really need a new television? Do our kids and grandkids really need to be spoiled like we’ve spoiled them or maybe we could redirect some of those gifts to that young girl and her family because our kids are doing well, but I noticed her car was broke down for a week last month.

Maybe we could invite that old man who lives alone over for Christmas dinner. Maybe we could make friends with that struggling waitress at Denny’s and find out what her kids need and give her a giftcard for Christmas to Wal-mart. Maybe we could just leave a fifty or a hundred dollar tip for her? And there is that nice guy at the Mexican restaurant who seems to be so lost – what could we do for him?

Our homes are filled with things and our lives are full of time-wasting chores we put onto ourselves. Paul asked us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” That’s what Paul wrote…

Now I don’t think many of you spend time in carousing and drunkenness nor in sexual immorality. But we do have a tendency to indulge in our self this time of the year. We drink deeply of the intoxicating liquor of selfishness. We need to put down that cup and move onto the next level in our Christianity. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me explain…

The natural person is by nature selfish. We want to gratify our desires first and foremost. And so everything is about my wants and my needs, my problems and my successes. As we take on Christ, we should be able to shed those night clothes that are designed for our comfort and our coziness, and put on our daytime work clothes, worrying about others.

The beginning Christian begins to do things for the people closest to him or her. We begin to worry now about our families, our wives or husbands, our children, perhaps even our nieces and nephews, our brothers and sisters. We have begun to shed those cozy night clothes and put on our work clothes.

But at the next level, we begin to look outside our family and our house. We recognize when our nest is warm and cozy enough and we look to see if there are people near us whom we can help, our friends, our neighbors, our church family. And so we share with the people we know.

Perhaps we even get involved with organized ministries, like the shoeboxes or the Angel Trees or the donations that our church takes up. We give money - we even shop for other people - and then we hand over the money or the gifts to someone else to give to people who are in need.

But there is another level. That is when we begin to actively look for new people we can help, strangers, people who we don’t know, the woman crying in the card aisle at Krogers, the man walking beside the road, the waitress who is clearly having a rough time, the man at the checkout counter who is obviously buying a simple meal for himself because he is alone. Maybe we even go to work at the Salvation Army or the food pantry so we can meet people who need help and then we become friends and we treat them as our neighbors and family. We go beyond giving and find the person who needs and soon we find we have hundreds of new friends.

You tell me stories. You tell me stories of people you once knew who were filled with the Holy Spirit, people who were godly, people who were so good and kind and generous! But there is a part to the story which I haven't heard recently. I used to hear this story earlier in my life. Someone would talk about that godly man or woman in wonderful terms and then say, "And I want to become just like him (or her) someday! I'm working to learn all I can to become just like her (or him)! Will you help me?"

I haven't heard that part of the story in a long time...

Imagine, if you will, that you put on armor when you get out of bed in the morning. It is an invisible armor, but that armor protects you from every flaming arrow that Satan and his friends can send your way. But there is a catch, a magical thing about this armor. It is totally useless and doesn’t help us at all until we charge it with goodness. And that armor begins to work and glows with light as we listen to the Holy Spirit and do good.

So as we work to get out of our comfortable cozy night clothes, we find that we are putting on an armor that serves us well when the enemy attacks us in our lives, for that armor of light is recharged every time we do something kind for someone else just because they are an image of God, another portrait of God from a different angle, just as we are. That armor of light begins to glow around us and nothing the enemy can do will take us down, for we know now that we are worthy, we know that we have a purpose in life, we know that we are doing good and we know that we are powerful, strong, and part of a victorious army because we know, deep down, we know to the depths of our heart that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can even wear that armor. Every time we do something for someone else we remember what Christ did for us when we were needy, when we were struggling, when we were standing at the edge of the cliff, not sure if we would make it or not. We saw someone who was wearing Jesus’ armor of light and it lit up our lives! And now we have a set of the very same armor that fits us because we have decided to follow Jesus.

And so, my friends, put on the armor of light and charge it up by doing good works this season. Walk in that tremendously safe and joyous space, that space between Jesus and the people who need to meet Jesus, connecting Jesus and them together through your acts of kindness and charity. Let others fight the battles of Walmart and the shopping mall. You fight the important battle, the battle for people’s souls that may end this day, or this week, or this month or in a thousand years when Christ returns to earth.

While we wait for His return, we are to be wearing that armor of light, fighting the battle. Have you ever met a Christian who glowed? Of course you have! Have you ever met a man or a woman who was so calm, so peaceful, yet so passionate about saving people’s souls that there was almost a real glow to their eyes and their face when they spoke? They are rare and hard to find, but you can become one of those glowing Christians. You can be one of them, because Christ has already destroyed your sins and left you free to do good. Pick up the set of armor that He has given you! All we need to do, Paul says, is to "clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."

Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be given unto you as well.”

Let Matthew 6:33 guide you this Christian year. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness And all these things will be given unto you as well.” And wear the glowing armor of light that Jesus has given you as you go through every day doing good, changing the world, bringing people to know and understand the love of Christ.

We are the army of Christ. We are His soldiers, we are His warriors, we are the people who fight in the spiritual war. While we are free because of Jesus, millions of other people are still under the control of the Enemy. How can we leave them doomed to eternal death, the real death, eternity apart from God?

Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Throughout history, people of all ages have had a very important question to deal with. Who shall we accept as our leader? The answer ultimately determines who are and how we shall act, as well as our eternal destiny.

When a child is born, the answer is very quickly found. The infant will accept as leader anyone who does exactly what the infant wants. If the infant is hungry and a woman nearby feeds the infant, the infant is happy. But if no one feeds the infant, then that infant will struggle and resist and cry out very loudly until all the people around her do exactly what she wants done – or until she dies from starvation and weakness. For most infants, questions of leadership are easily answered: “It is my way or I will punish you with my wail!”

As a child grows, there is always a struggle between the child and the parents over who will lead. Usually, the superior force and wisdom of the parents will win over the whiny little brat, but not always, for there are many children in this world who lead in their households. I knew a couple that had decided that their three-year-old child should make decisions. “Son, do you want to go to bed?” the exhausted father would ask. “No!” was the answer from the three-year-old who was so ragged he was ready to fall down. Eventually, an hour later, “Son, I’m getting tired. Do you want to go to bed?” The response was immediate: “No! You go to bed!” And Dad walked down the hall and went to bed! I’m not sure what happened as that child grew up, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

As we move into our teenage years, the question arises once again: Who shall we follow? Shall we follow our parents, shall we follow our teachers, shall we follow our coaches, or shall we follow our charismatic friend? Who do we give the right to tell us what to do?

Increasingly today, we claim that right to lead for ourselves. We shall bow to no one else! We are self-sufficient, able to make all of our own decisions, accepting the leadership of no man or woman. And this is the American ideal.

In the 1800’s, a visiting Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.” [emphasis mine]

And so who do we accept as our leader? It used to be that a woman accepted her husband as her leadership, for he likely had more education, had experienced more of the world, and it seemed the natural thing. This has been turned upside down in the last forty years. Today, more women are attending college than men, and increasingly the leading cause of divorce is a fight over who will lead the household.

Most people no longer live near their parents, so it is difficult for a college-educated man or woman who lives 200 miles from home to respect the judgment, let alone obey the orders of a father or mother who has less education. So who will you follow?

In the 1940’s and 1950’s, men were drafted into the army and they learned to follow orders. Today, few people enter the armed forces and we look with suspicious eyes upon any organization that asks for obedience. We do not want to obey anyone – Why not?

Perhaps there are three key reasons:

First of all, it is the effect of democracy that de Tocqueville noticed a hundred and fifty years ago. We have been told that we are sovereign, that we make the decisions with our vote and that our representatives in Charleston and in Washington are our representatives, not our rulers. And so, we have become very independent-minded because we have the power. The latest election was another example of the power of the independent person.

Another reason we don’t want to follow anyone is because every time we have chosen to follow someone, they disappoint us. Perhaps this began with Richard Nixon, when the Watergate tapes told us that our President was one of the foulest mouthed people we knew. Those tapes showed us that Nixon regularly talked like a sailor – and that’s an insult to sailors! And that was perhaps even more important in Nixon’s fall than the Watergate coverup was.

And soon after Nixon, we began to see a parade of pastoral leaders and ministers fall from grace. Silver and sex brought down major television ministries of different denominations, and even the separated priests of the Catholic Church were not immune to scandal.

Nixon’s fall was just the beginning for politicians. Regular prosecution began to bring down Senators, governors, mayors, sheriffs. Money, sex, drugs, power were their downfall. Even high-ranking military leaders were prosecuted for various crimes.

Our celebrities fell from grace. At first, actresses with “nice girl” images on screen were caught in adultery. Some actresses were found to be terrible mothers. Then men with “tough guy” images were found to have male partners. And eventually, the drug-using, promiscuous Hollywood or Nashville star became the stereotype, with the few clean, happily married stars that kept a balanced life were now seen as odd.

And we can’t find a Walter Cronkite anymore. Those trusted news anchors of the 1960’s and 1970’s began to fade the election night when and 80-year-old David Brinkley famously cussed a blue streak on an open mike, not realizing that what he was saying was going to televisions across America. And now we find that reporters were actively colluding with the campaigns, feeding questions before debates so answers could be prepared, checking stories with campaign leaders so nothing embarrassing would accidentally be said about the preferred candidate, and generally taking sides rather than reporting.

So who is left to trust?

And the final blow from the world came when the churches that claim to promote Christ’s love to all instead stopped fishing for men and women and decided that they only wanted cleaned, fillets in their buildings, people who were already “good Christians”. We forgot that we were supposed to love people first, tell them that Jesus accepts all people and all people have sinned, including each one of us, and instead we told people they had to clean up their act before they’d be welcome. But how could we know what to do if we were denied listening to the Word of God? And so there was no one left for ordinary people to follow.

But there is still one left. As we think of Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that there is still one person left to follow.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was arrested for the crime of blasphemy. It seems that this Jesus had claimed repeatedly to be God’s Son, divine. He even claimed once in John 10:30 that “I and the Father are one”. And so, when they were able to, the Jewish authorities came one night and arrested him and charged him with the capital crime of blasphemy. They wanted Jesus to die.

Jesus had a very long night. The next day, he was taken to the Roman governor, and Pontius Pilate, the governor asked him an important question: Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?"... Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You [correctly] say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth (John 18:33b, 36-37).

A king of a kingdom which does not belong to this world? But what proof could Jesus provide? What reason would anyone have to follow a king whose kingdom is not here?

And so, Pilate reluctantly sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. And Pilate, to taunt the Jews and anyone else around who might challenge the power of the Romans to determine who was a king and who was not a king, put a sign on the pole with Jesus which said in several languages: “This is the King of the Jews”. Jesus was forced to carry his cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Our reading takes it from here.

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

There was a written notice above him, which read: 'This is the king of the Jews.'

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Everyone wanted to know if Jesus was a king worth following. The Romans taunted him, others sneered at him. But one of the criminals recognized that Jesus had done nothing wrong. He believed that Jesus was a king.

That Friday afternoon, Jesus died on that cross. The Romans even stabbed his already-dead body to make sure he was dead. And so the question becomes, “Why should anyone follow a dead man who claimed to be a king?”

The answer came to us on Sunday morning. It was then that people began to report that he was alive. Eventually, over the next 40 days, over 500 people saw him alive, speaking, eating, preaching, and teaching. Several of those witnesses wrote down what they had seen. Others traveled as far as India, as far as Rome, as far as Persia, as far as Egypt, as far as Spain to spread the word.

Apparently, it was true that Jesus was a king, because God would not have raised anyone from the dead who was a liar or who was delusional and tried to lead others to accept his delusion.

And over the centuries, literally thousands upon thousands of people have reported seeing or hearing Christ, talking to Him, and millions more have reported being guided by him.

And so we ask, Who is more worthy to be followed than the Son of God, a man who has a kingdom with over two billion people, more people than India or China? Who is more worthy to be our king than the Son of God, wise beyond measure, good and sinless above all people, and able to access the creative power of God with a Word – indeed, the man who is the living, breathing Word of God?

But then again, our American independence kicks in. More of the people in this country who claim Christ as their king treat him as their Sunday shift-manager rather than their king. How about you? Do you listen more and closer to your boss at work than you do to Jesus? Do you respect your shift manager more than Christ’s commands? Are you more supportive of an ordinary politician than you are the King of Kings?

Where is your loyalty? He commands us to tell all the people of all nations about Himself. He commands us to baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach those people all His commands. And in return, he promised that he will always be with us, to the very end of the age.

Why do you come to Church? Is it because you have a promise of eternal life? Is it because you have friends here? Or is it because your King has asked it of you, because your king wants you to proclaim Him to the nations, because your king wants you to know what you’re talking about and you have been filled with gratitude that you have finally found the one Person in this Universe worth following?

Each of us made a choice to follow this King, Jesus. But we would do well to remember that before we chose Him, He chose us. Without His choice, we could not follow Him, we could not be here today, we could not feel the joy of His love.

As we finish up our worship today, we are at the end of the Church Year. Next week begins Advent, the time of preparation for the coming of Christ. Perhaps this is a good time to consider where your loyalties lie, to consider what you believe in your heart, to consider what the purpose of your life is.

Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ, the King of this Kingdom has asked you to tell people about Him. At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus said: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
Will you do this today?

If so, then say, "Yes. With God’s help, I will do my best to declare Jesus’ name and power to all the nations, to make disciples, to lead people to baptism, and to teach them to obey everything Christ has commanded."

Will you read the Word of God?

Response: "Yes, I will do my best to read something from the Holy Scriptures each day."

Will you pray for guidance?

Response: "Yes, I will pray that the wisdom of Christ guide me each day."
Will you listen for the response of the Holy Spirit?

Response: "Yes, I will listen for that still, small voice that has guided the saints through the ages."
What do you expect for your obedience?

Response: "Only these…That Jesus will be with me until the end of the age, and that I will one day enter into the life eternal in His Presence."

May God bless you and help you keep these promises!

Now may the blessings of the Holy Spirit enter into you, may your life become whole and healed through your service to Jesus Christ, and may the power of God the Father enable you to do miraculous signs and wonders which grow the Kingdom of God, filling you with joy and love!

Living in Terrible Times

Malachi 4:1-2; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

There was this couple who had found a great place to live. It was basically a park-like estate, maybe in South Carolina, and in exchange for rent-free living, the couple took care of the estate. The estate had many berry bushes and gardens already planted, there were fruit trees of all types, and there were no utility bills for them to pay. So they spent their time tending to the gardens and trees and had a wonderful time. The owner had a single rule – don’t mess with the fruit from my prize tree, a one-of-a-kind tree that was the owner’s pride and joy. He reserved the fruit from that tree for his own table.

Unfortunately, one day, they ate a couple of fruits off of the prize tree and the owner found out, because he counted the fruits every evening. And so, the owner kicked them off the estate and they both had to go to work at McDonalds. They had lost their wonderful jobs and now they had to pay rent and utilities and live in a little cramped one-bedroom garage apartment, working 60 hours a week just to pay the bills. And furthermore, the woman became pregnant shortly after they got kicked off the estate. She eventually had two sons, they grew up, got into an argument one day and one of them killed the other and became a fugitive.

And you think you’re living in terrible times!

Of course, some of you have guessed that I’ve just retold the story of Adam and Eve.

Ever since our ancestors got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, people have lived in terrible times. Imagine living in a world without electricity, a world where they only heat you could get is by cutting up trees and burning wood – and you only have a hand axe. Imagine living in a world without telephones, without television, without the internet. Imagine a world without automobiles, without grocery stores, without jobs other than farming. Imagine living on 2 acres and trying to survive on that land with a shovel, an axe, and a pig. There’s no birth control. Glass is too expensive to buy, so you don’t have glass on the windows of your homes. Canning hasn’t been invented, the only fabrics you have are wool and cotton-based linen and leather. A pound of iron costs a week’s wages. The only fertilizer available comes from the pig or your neighbor’s cow. There is no such thing as insulation, as carpet, and you need to make all of your furniture from the wood on your land. Only one person in town can read. And there are no such things as toothpaste, deodorant, or toilet paper!

This, my friends, is the world of 99% of the world’s people up until about 150 years ago. It is still the world of 50% of the world’s people today, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SE Asia, parts of Latin America, and most of Africa. And we in the United States just spent almost $2 billion on an election for an office which pays $1 million a year.

After almost every election, there are certain things that happen - things that always happen. Half of the voters are happy because their candidate won. You may be happy today. Or you may be sad today because your candidate lost. If you backed the losing candidate, about half of you will get over the loss very quickly and go about your lives, while about half will stay bitter, sniping for most of the next four years. That's what always happens. Whether or not you remain bitter depends upon how much you bought the politicians’ stories. The first story is this was the most important election ever – it always is, have you noticed? I found a photo from 2008, and much the same from 2012 and much the same in 2016 and each of them urged people to vote because "This is the most important election ever!"  REALLY?

The second political myth that people buy from the politicians is that the President will actually change things in our world that will make a direct difference to our lives. And it simply isn't true.

After the election of 2008, I saw a couple of things happen that have affected me directly in my life. First, I was able to trade in my old van that had 284,000 miles on it for a new car, getting a $4000 trade-in value for my old van because of the cash for clunkers law instead of the $750 the van was worth in the blue book. This was positive.

Second, I noticed that the racial and sexual rhetoric during arguments in my seminary classes grew more intense on both sides. This was negative.

Now, I’ve noticed other things from that election affected people around me. I’ve seen a friend of mine, a very good doctor, sell his imaging practice to his local hospital because the new law almost forced him into it against his will. I’ve seen some improvements in the medical record-keeping at the hospitals and doctor’s offices, and I’ve seen the prices go up there because there is less competition. I’ve talked with coal miners who have been laid off and don’t see themselves going back to work, ever. And I’ve talked with people at the FBI who could or could not take vacation at certain times of the year because of temporary budget fights. 

The reason we don't have extreme effects is because our government system is much larger than the Titanic and turns much slower than it ever did. It takes decades to make significant changes – unless there is a clear and present danger, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor or a 9/11. Then, our system reacts in a week, declaring war and appropriating the funds. But those times are very few and far between.

Most of the changes that happen in our world because of a change of President are subtle and rarely affect us directly. "But what about the economy?" you might ask. To be honest, the recent recession had its roots in credit law changes made in the 1990’s, which were supported by both parties. "But what about wars?" you ask again. The vast majority of wars will happen regardless of which party controls the Presidency - our national interests will demand it. Can you imagine a Republican president ignoring Pearl Harbor or a Democratic president ignoring 9/11? 

Our attention on the Presidency is because we get bent out of shape by news reports we see on television, news which is intentionally made confrontational, news that is portrayed as apocalyptic because terrible, drastic news draws more viewers (and ad revenue) than “ho-hum” news, it draws more people to support the vocal politicians on the two sides of the issues, and it draws our attention into Satan's world and away from the really important things that happen in this world. Do you think your friend who just lost his wife really cares about the election? In reality, when we really think about it, a change of President rarely affects us significantly. It isn’t like we live inside the Washington Beltway, with our very jobs depending upon who is in the White House. Instead, our lives are influenced the most by the people close to us and how we interact with each of them.

Believing in the all-powerful nature of the President is believing in the wrong God, whichever your party is. It is the same mistake the Romans made - they believed their emperors were gods - and it is a mistake which will endanger your immortal soul. You can let the election results lift you up…or you can be sad about them. But don’t make the mistake in believing the hype that the Presidency has the power to change your life! That is giving a mere human far too much credit and power. Worship God…not any man or woman!

JRR Tolkien was a devote Christian and wrote books that expressed his mature Christian view of the world. His most famous set of books was The Lord of The Rings, and its prequel book, The Hobbit, books about a land where there is a tremendous conflict between good and evil going on – clearly influenced by the fact that these books were written during World War II and Tolkien was a professor of history at Oxford in England.

In the movie version of The Hobbit – the first of the three Hobbit movies – Gandalf, the kind and wise wizard, points out that Saruman, the leader of the wizards, believes that the world’s course of events is determined by the power of the powerful people in the world. But Gandalf points out that he has generally found that it is the little things, the daily acts of kindness and love done by ordinary people that determines the flow of good and evil.

I agree because this is scriptural – if we remember God is in charge and loves us, we defeat evil with every kind deed we do and every kind thing we say. Paul compared the speaking of Holy Scripture to a slashing sword in this low-level, daily spiritual warfare. When you speak Scripture, you are swing a slashing sword at evil!

Yet terrible times are coming. In our first reading, from Malachi, the prophet writes what God has said:

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them." 

Yes, Christian. There are terrible times coming. But God reminds us that God protects His own. Malachi continues:

"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."

Is it any wonder that the author of Psalm 98 cannot contain himself?

Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.

Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.

It is with this continuous praising of God, this outburst of happiness, this exuberant joy that we defeat the evil and depression around us! But even this joy, we must remember, is simply a foretasting of the joy of the future. There are great things the Lord has done – His Son has sacrificed Himself upon the cross for all of our sins, we are saved from God’s wrath when we believe and are baptized, but our joy is not yet complete, there is still more to come, the best is yet to come, and that hope for even better is what lifts us up today!

The disciples were looking with Jesus at the great temple of Herod, the Second Temple, a Temple that had taken forty years to build and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple had precious stones all over, rubies here, topaz there, diamonds, agates, pearls, emeralds. There was much gold and silver. It glittered in the sunlight that day. And the disciples were looking at the Temple, talking about its beauty, when Jesus dashed some cold water on them.

“As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

It was like a group of us today, standing in the World War II memorial, looking at that beautiful monument to the men who sacrificed in that day, and our leader telling us that in a while it will be bulldozed over. Imagine standing there and someone credible telling you, “This monument will be bulldozed, the Washington Monument will be toppled, the Capitol dome will be smashed down, the great statue of Abraham Lincoln that you and your fathers and grandfathers fought to defend, it will all be destroyed one day."

And you know….it’s true! All those beautiful monuments, all those fantastic marble buildings, all those beautiful fountains will be destroyed one day. While it lasts, they help us to remember our Veterans, those men and women who fought valiantly for our freedoms, but one day it will all be gone, crumbled stone lying in the swampland near the Potomac River.

I think a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley says it well:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

(Ozymandias)

The disciples looked at the Temple, beautiful in the sunshine.

“Teacher,” the disciples asked Jesus, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”

Jesus replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.  When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
And you can just see the disciples standing there, thinking about the far distant future when trouble would come to their nation. They had lived through troubles some 20 years before when there had been riots and uprisings, just as many of us lived through 1968 and we lived through the Los Angeles riots, and we lived through the last year’s troubles in St Louis and Baltimore and Dallas, and we've lived through the riots and protests of the last week. It was so distant and far away. But now Jesus looked them in the eye, just as He looks us in the eye and says:

“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me."

The troubles would come to them. Of the original Twelve disciples, all but John died a violent death, martyred for their faith and the Gospel they were proclaiming. Peter was even crucified upside down! Only John lived to be put on a distant island and he alone was allowed to live out his natural lifespan, to live into his nineties in peace, writing to us of a vision he had one day when the Holy Spirit took Him to Heaven in his far future and he wrote the book we call The Revelation of St. John, a disturbing book, an unsettling book, a book filled with fire and plagues and famine and wars – but with an ending that leads us back to joy. Jesus reminded his disciples that day overlooking Jerusalem, as He reminds us as we think about the city of Washington and a future when it also lies in ruins, just as Jerusalem was destroyed about 40 years after that day when they looked at the Temple in the bright sunshine. Jesus reminds us that only God and the eternal life God gives are permanent. All else will be destroyed. Jesus had more to say, though…

But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.”

Yet they died violent deaths. Was Jesus wrong? No, for He was talking about the eternal life that comes from following Christ.

And so, the disciples that day began to realize that following Jesus wasn’t going to be one continuous traveling party. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be week after week of sitting in the pews, listening to great music and decent sermons. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be a movement of a million people led by a man in armor on a charging white stallion to change the world by overcoming the powerful armies of evil while the disciples safely walked in the middle of those million people, urging them to march on the capitol of evil!

No! Jesus planned to change the world, but He planned to do that by changing individual people in the world, by focusing upon the little, day-to-day things rather than upon the powerful. Jesus, you see, wanted a group of fishermen and farmers, a guilty tax collector, a failed revolutionary, some ordinary people to change how they treated each other for the better and that was how He planned to save the world! He was much more concerned with what these ordinary people did every day than He was about what King Herod did, what the High Priest did, and what the governor of the Roman emperor did. For it is not the great and powerful who change the world, but the everyday little deeds of kindness and helpfulness and politeness and hospitality and holiness of the ordinary people which decides what the world will be like.

You see, those who have the money and the power of gods on this earth do not have need of other people or know what other people need. It is those of us who have little power, little wealth, and great needs ourselves who know of the needs of the people near us.

So do not expect the government and those who run government to solve our problems. Our problems in this life are to be solved by us, by the wisdom we share every time we gather, by the love we show each other in practical ways – a woman washes her neighbor’s dishes, a man mows his neighbor’s yard, a boy takes the newspaper to the old lady’s door, a girl walks the old man’s puppy. As a group we provide some food for families in need, we watch a group of children so their parents can talk in private without interruption, we go Christmas caroling to our neighbors so those neighbors will know that at least someone remembered they exist.

We pick up the phone and call three people from the prayer list each week. We mail postcards to five other people. We listen to the lonely woman in the card aisle at Wal-mart and we invite her to our Wednesday evening dinner together. And so we work – and it is usually easy work, for it is work driven by the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and anytime we work according to what the Holy Spirit has told our hearts, it is good for us. We are not to be idle, simply listening to the Word of God without doing anything.

There is something, you see, about living the Christian life that changes us for the better. It is one thing to know all the doctrines of Christianity – it is still another thing to follow Jesus, for following implies action. In fact, Paul had some harsh words for those who simply waited for Jesus to return, snug and secure in their own salvation:

We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.

Do you work for Christ? Or do you simply meddle in the work that others are doing for Christ? This can be real problem in churches, when more people see their role on committees as managing ministry rather than doing ministry. Instead, our committees are to be teams of people working toward a purpose, the purpose of changing the people in the world around us.

We often talk about changing the world. And we sit back and we look at the world and it is a big old thing! We feel like the ant must feel when he looks up at the huge three-story house that is newly built next to the anthill, preventing the ants from expanding their ant hill by overshadowing them. It is too big and too evil to change! And so, like the ant, we do little.

But the termite is different. The termite looks at that huge evil three-story house and realizes that it is full of food, indeed, it is made of food. The termite resolves that it will change the world near it, it will remove the house one bite at a time. And unless the homeowner shows up with termite spray, a very small termite nest will completely remove that house, destroy it, and it will fall down.

In the same way, we need to look at the evils in the world around us and realize that it is of such stuff that ministries are made. Do you realize that if there were no evil, there would be no need for any ministries? So stop thinking like an ant and start thinking like a termite, and start looking for how you and a group of friends can eat up the evil in the world around us.

Let me give you an example. In one church I know, a couple of women from the church went to the closest elementary school and asked them how they could help with homework, with an afterschool program, or with the needs of the children in the school. They found that the principal was always in need of help, so the three of them – the two women and the principal – cooked up some ideas.

The next thing you know, over the next year the church bought a dozen computers for the school, they were put in a room at the school, an afterschool homework group began, a dozen people from the church took turns one or two days a week, and about 40 kids began to see their grades improve. And many of the kids from the church began to bring their parents to the church because of the chance for those church people to meet the kids and parents at the school. And that elementary school moved from being the worst in the county to second best in the county over the next five years. Over the next few years, the property values in that neighborhood increased as the vandalism and crime rate dropped dramatically as those kids became teenagers.

Are their terrible times coming in this world? Yes. It is predicted by Holy Scripture. But until Jesus returns, we are not to be idle, we are to looking at what we can do to lead people into the Kingdom of God and out of the kingdoms of the world.

Have you thought about what this country would be like if over half the people who vote were regular church-goers, reading the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit as they made their decisions in the primaries and in the general election? There would be no close elections. 

Have you thought about how long the darkness that is running around the world would be held off here if the church were about the business of the church, doing the little acts of kindness, telling people every week about the love of Christ for all people, looking how to give practical help to people who are struggling? Have you thought about how many souls would escape hellfire and sit with you under the Tree of Life one day if you really decided to do all you could to help people understand who Jesus is?

Church, let’s remember who we are. We are the children of the Almighty God, adopted sons and daughters of the Kingdom. When was the last time you told someone of the great things our Father, the King has done for you? When was the last time you actually acted like a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom?

Awaken! It is because of the terrible times in the world, in our lives, that Jesus came to remind us of who we are and to reconcile us to our Father. And since He has done that, giving up His very life that we would become His brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we go out into the world and change at least our piece of it back into what it once was? A garden. A safe place. A world where even the lion and the lamb get along.

Some of you voted for Mr. Trump and are glad about the election. Be glad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Some of you voted against Mr. Trump and are sad about the election. You can be sad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Instead, all of us should remember that through Jesus Christ, we each have the power to change the world around us, through prayer and through those little acts of kindness and love where ordinary people determine where the good is and where the evil stops. Do your part!

The Election and the Church - How to Vote and Living after the Election

Job 19:23-27; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

There was an old man who was giving advice to a younger man about the subject of elections. “Always vote,” the older man said. “Always vote. There may not be anyone you want to vote for on the ballot, but you can always be sure that there is someone you want to vote against!”

I was telling this story to someone recently and someone else spoke up: “This year you get double the fun. There’s TWO people you want to vote against!”

Our elections. I’m so glad our founding fathers decided to only hold elections every two years and presidential elections every four years. I’m not sure we could take an election every year. But it would be good for the news channels' bottom lines with all the extra advertising dollars.

Did you hear that the NFL television ratings are down? The people that understand these things are blaming the election. It seems that that the election is more brutal than any of the NFL games...

And so I’ve had people approach me, wondering what I think about the election. My answer is this: The Bible says that God appoints our leaders so that we get the leaders we deserve. It should be noted that God provided Israel with David and Solomon. David, a man after God's own heart and Solomon, the wisest man to ever live. But God also provided Israel with Ahab and Jezebel at a different time, two people whose names have become proverbial for evil. 

Human judgement is fallible. Abraham Lincoln was elected with slightly less than 40% of the vote. Three out of five people voted for someone else because Lincoln was considered too inexperienced, a loser, and a rather stupid country hick by most people. Yet he was the man God decided we needed. And it should also be noted that Abraham Lincoln was widely considered to be our second greatest President, behind only George Washington. Would you have voted for Lincoln?

So as we go into the election, I say to you: vote! We have five candidates to choose from – Trump of the Republican Party, Clinton of the Democrat Party, Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Stein of the Green Party, and Castle of the Constitution Party. At least we are not at the point where we only have one candidate, like some countries.

How should you vote?

I’ll suggest you make your voting decision the same way you should make all decisions – by following Jesus. Take a moment in the parking lot where it is quiet. Read some scripture. Ask Jesus: “Who do You want me to vote for?”. Then listen for an answer. And then get out, get in line, and vote.

And that is how you make a difference. If more Christians listened carefully to what the Holy Spirit tells them, we would have a different country. Remember to let your children see how you make your decision.

And after the election? Our scripture today reminds us that Christians have lived through good times and bad times. Paul, writing to the church at Thessalonica in Greece, is dealing with a particular issue.

The Thessalonians had listened to some people who had a mistaken view. They believed that “the day of the Lord has already come. “ They believed they had missed the boat, they had missed the last trumpet.

Isaiah spoke of the great and terrible day of the Lord. The day when God judges the world and makes things right, with the evil being judged and punished and the righteous being rewarded. There were people who thought this day of the Lord was the day Jesus arose from the dead. But Paul and the apostles had heard differently from the Holy Spirit – and perhaps from Jesus Himself:

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

According to Paul, the day of the Lord will not come until someone sets himself up in God’s temple and proclaims that He is God. Jesus, while claiming to be God, always pointed to the Father as ultimate authority, and furthermore, Paul had heard from Jesus or the other disciples that the time was in the future, so Christians should be on the lookout for a bad time to come.

And a bad time did come. In AD 70, the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans. But neither the conqueror, the future Roman emperor Titus nor Tiberius, his second in command, proclaimed themselves as God in the temple. And the temple has not been rebuilt. Ever.

And so we still wait for the great and terrible day of the Lord. It cannot come until God’s temple has been rebuilt in Jerusalem.

About 15 years ago, a group of people in Jerusalem, after long litigation, gained permission to go up to the Temple Mount and have a symbolic cornerstone-setting ceremony for the Third Temple. After the ceremony, though, they had to pick up the cornerstone and leave the Mount to avoid trouble with the Palestinians. They have not gone back.

So for almost 20 centuries, people have been born, they’ve believed in Jesus Christ, they’ve been baptized, and they’ve died. And still we wait, knowing that the great and terrible day of the Lord is in our future.

What a recipe for hopelessness this could be! Everything is going to fall apart someday. And this is true. The world will fall apart; war will happen again, plagues will kill untold numbers of people, famine will starve many, and destruction will cover the earth.

But that does not mean we are without hope. For we know that we will live because we have the resurrection! But how are we so sure?

The group of Jews who ran the Temple in Jesus’ day were called the Sadducees. The Sadducees were convinced that there was no resurrection of the dead, because they only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament as Scripture, and it is very difficult to find a reference to resurrection in those five books. And since they did not believe in the Resurrection, they were sad, you see…

One day a group of Sadducees came to Jesus. They asked a question:

“Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

Don’t you love it when people try to catch up Jesus in a logical trap? The Sadducees were saying that this woman, who was married seven times during her life – legally and properly, following the Law of Moses – who would she be married to after the resurrection? The question shows the narrowness of the Sadducee’s outlook – they were trying to prove that there is no resurrection because they figured a woman can only have one husband at a time. It’s like saying that a person can only have one home at a time or only one telephone at a time. But I once read in National Geographic magazine of a group of people who live in the Himalayan mountains who regularly practice a form of marriage where one woman maintains a home while her five or six husbands, who are usually brothers, travel with their flocks. This is not to say it doesn’t create problems. But it is what works for that group of people. But the Sadducees could not even think of the possibility.

In the Law of Moses, a man must marry his brother’s widow if the brother dies childless so his brother and the woman will have children who can inherit his property. The focus of this rule is the inheritance of property. The basis for this Law was to keep the land well distributed in families. And the whole idea is based upon the idea that, in a subsistence farming society, husbands are needed to work the farm and take care of the women. In that society, widows without sons died from starvation.

Jesus pointed out that “in this age”, people get married. Then He goes on…

But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

Okay. Jesus tells the Sadducees and us that marriage is not an institution of the next age. So the Sadducee’s reasoning doesn’t matter. Jesus says that there is no need for marriage, since people don’t die. Have you ever considered that marriage might exist because people die? Notice the precise wording: “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead” are the people Jesus is talking about. “They are God’s children,” Jesus says. They are "children of the resurrection.” Jesus appears to focus upon marriage as a way to determine who the fathers are for the purpose of determining who gets the property. But if people don’t die, there’s no need to prove you are someone’s son or daughter for property inheritance reasons. In the next age, everyone is God’s child, an heir to everything God has. We don’t need to farm “by the sweat of our brow” to survive. We have access to everything God owns and the concept of a starving widow is gone forever.

But Jesus goes even farther to talk about resurrection. “But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ “

Jesus is quoting from Exodus Chapter Three - one of the first five books that the Sadducees accepted. And Jesus makes this declaration turn on the precise tense of Moses’ statement, “for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ The Lord is God of all three men at once! 

Jesus is saying that Moses could have told us the Lord said, “I was the God of Abraham, etc.” or even “I am the God that Abraham worshiped. But instead Moses reported in chapter three of Exodus the Lord said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, etc.” Even accepting only the Sadducee version of what scripture was canonical, the resurrection is there in scripture - to God, at the time of Moses, all three of the patriarchs are alive.

Jesus’s conclusion? “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

And so we find out two things. Jesus truly believed in the resurrection, and Jesus took Scripture in the original languages very seriously. What about yourself?

Later on, Jesus Himself resurrected several people, most notably Lazarus, and then Jesus Himself was resurrected by God. The disciples and many others saw Lazarus resurrected after four days dead, and over 500 people saw Jesus after His resurrection. Four of the disciples wrote down detailed accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection – these are what we call the Four Gospels, the four Good News accounts that form the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. At least five other disciples mention the resurrection or eternal life – Peter, Paul, James, Jude, and the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews. It is a core doctrine of Christians everywhere. Without the resurrection, Christianity becomes just another wise man’s idea for a society living together. But with the resurrection…we find the hope of eternal life – and we are faced with the idea that Jesus, who claimed repeatedly to be God, was indeed speaking as God, divine, eternal, and therefore His statements are far more important than those of Plato, of the Buddha, of prophets, of philosophers, of politicians. He deserves to be listened to and followed.

In fact, the resurrection is something which connects us together, the knowledge that people who believe in Jesus Christ have existed in the flesh in the past, exist today, and will exist in the future. We have picked up the faith from Christians who have simply transferred to the Church of Heaven and we will pass the faith onto these children we see here today and they will pass on the faith to their descendants long after we are gone – unless Christ returns sooner. And then we will all come together to meet and worship the One we follow. It is through this that the Church remains One Body of Christ, eternally connected through our worship and service to the God who created us.

And so, with all the company of Heaven, we celebrate the feast of bread and wine, the Holy Communion where God reaches down and touches us through the veil for just a moment, connecting us together as we celebrate the body and blood of Jesus Christ, assuring us that we will share in His eternal life with all of those saints who are awaiting the resurrection, awaiting the return of Christ, awaiting the great and terrible day of the Lord, when all shall be rebuilt and all tears will be wiped away.

Remember who we are. Remember those who came before us and remember those who will follow us and our responsibilities to transmit the faith to them.

Now to the only wise God, who brings rain and sunshine, winter and springtime, death and life, and lives forevermore! Go forth and tell of God’s love and be blessed!