These illustrations are for John 17:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53
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Sermon Opener – The Meaning of Life - John 17:1-11
In Act 5 scene 5 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the character Macbeth has heard that the queen is dead and he knows his own death is imminent. At this time he delivers his famous soliloquy:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, Out, brief candle
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Is Macbeth right? Is life nothing but a shadow having no substance, no meaning? Writers and philosophers since recorded time have tried to answer the question. I don’t think any of them have been successful in answering the question to everyone’s satisfaction. Someone once said that "Trying to speak about the ultimate reality is like sending a kiss through a messenger." I understand their point: Something of its truth is lost in the translation.
What is the meaning of life? A philosophical question to be sure but this is not only the philosopher’s question. It is a genuinely human question and therefore a question that we all ask. It might be a question that is asked in despair or hope, out of cynicism, or out of sincere curiosity and a deep desire to have goals and guidance in life. However we raise the question about the meaning of life, it is our most basic and fundamental question.
And so it comes as no surprise that Jesus deals with this question and answers it…
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What's Your Superpower? - Luke 24:44-53
What’s your superpower? That’s a question you hear often in today’s pop culture. You’ll find jokes about it on Facebook or the internet, such as “I can make coffee disappear. What’s your superpower?” Or quips such as, “I’m a librarian. What’s your superpower?” In fact, maybe cracking jokes or the ability to make clever quips IS your superpower! But this is in fact a pressing question for today’s young people. “What’s your superpower?” It’s a question asked not just in social media, but in an interview, in a workplace, or maybe even in your church!
Traditionally we’ve associated superpowers with superhuman abilities. But in today’s world, it doesn’t mean what you think. It’s not a pretend game of whether you identify with superman or spider man or iron man or wonder woman. In today’s culture, your superpower represents something unique to you, a unique gift or ability within you that enables you to do something that others can’t or don’t. For some, it may mean succeeding at business or being a great cook. For others, it may mean, winning at a certain video game or playing the piano well. Knowing your “superpower” doesn’t really mean others don’t have that gift too. But it means that this particularly unique ability sets you apart and, well, makes you, you. It’s a way in common 21st century slang to say, “This is my particular strength that supersedes all others.” Understanding your “superpower” can help you make healthy career choices, can help you choose a life partner, make good decisions, or simply give you an advantage in daily life.
So, I’ll ask again, “What’s your superpower?”
Like people, churches too need to ask, “What’s unique to us?” “What’s our superpower?”
But there’s something else that’s important in asking that question within the church, something that we can’t find anywhere else in culture, because a church’s “superpower” always starts with Jesus, always begins with the supernatural touch of Holy Spirit power. Because you see, your superpower in culture may not be anything other than your natural ability. But within Christ’s holy church, we have a much bigger definition of “superpower”…. ____________________________________
Keepers of the Aquarium
Paul Harvey, the well-known radio broadcaster, once said, "Too many Christians are no longer fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium."
I take that to mean that we Christians are more concerned about preserving the Church than we are about touching the lives of other people, more concerned about preserving our "religion" than we are about helping people discover the source of wholeness, the fountain of living water that wells up to eternal life.
Richard J. Fairchild, The Last Words of Jesus
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Then It Is Still Night
An old rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. "Could it be," asked one student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the rabbi. Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?" "No," answered the rabbi. "Then when is it?" the pupils demanded. "It is when you can look on the face of any person and see that it is your sister and brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night."
Frank Schaefer, Christ’s Last Words
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Humor: Giving While We Are Alive
I'm sure you've heard the old story of the conversation between a pig and a cow. The pig is complaining to the cow that nobody ever has a kind word for him. "Look at the way I give of myself," he says. "I produce bacon, ham, and pork chops. The bristles of my skin are used for brushes, my hide for luggage. Why, some people even pickle my feet and consider them a delicacy. Why is it then that everyone speaks more kindly of you, the cow, than of me?" To which the cow replied, "My friend, perhaps it is that I give of myself while I am still alive."
Lee Griess, Return to The Lord, Your God, CSS Publishing Company
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Losing Sight of Life's Goals
In Steven Covey's best seller "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," talks about how we can lose sight of our main goals in life. In no other place are the consequences more destructive than in our families: Covey writes:
"I value my children. I love them, I want to help them.I value my role as their father. But I don't always see those values. I get caught up in the "thick of thin things."What matters most gets buried under layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors. I become reactive.And the way I interact with my children every day often bears little resemblance to the way I deeply feel about them."
For us Fathers...to truly be known by our children would be wonderful. I suspect that this is so much more difficult for men than women. And yet here in Jesus' prayer it is his first thought, that we might know the Father and the Son. This, he says, is salvation. You want to know what being saved means, what the meaning of life is? It is written here in Jesus prayer: If you will come to know God, the only true God, and the Son whom he has sent, you will be saved.
You might say this is difficult for me to do--to know God. Yes it is. It is difficult for you to do. But it is not difficult for God to make himself known to you.
Brett Blair,www.eSermons.com
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A Weapon Terrible to Behold
In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons, Lucy comes into the living room to find Linus in control of the TV. She demands he change the channel. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus.
"These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they're nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold."
"Which channel do you want?" asks Linus.
Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"
Brett Blair,www.eSermons.com
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Shoving It All Back
The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.
C.S. Lewis
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Keep Climbing
A Canadian by the name of Ashleigh Brilliant drew cartoons to go with pithy sayings called "Pot Shots." There is one I really like. Two people with walking sticks in hand are climbing a mountain in knee-deep snow. The caption reads: "Keep Climbing Upwards! You may never reach the top, but it's definitely in that direction."
We have to continue to work toward unity and understanding - between each other, between the races, between cultures and between denominations. We may never reach it, but by working toward it, at least we'll be going in the right direction.
Billy D. Strayhorn, So That We May Be One In Christ
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Individual Skills
We still have to live in the world and each of our individual skills can be used to enhance the kingdom. Some are more visible than others. Some are very subtle. For example; Idlers of a seacoast town watched the village smith day after day as he painstakingly wrought every link of a great chain he was forging. Behind his back they scoffed at such care being taken on such an ordinary thing as a chain. But the old craftsman worked on, ignoring them as if he had not heard them at all.
Eventually the chain was attached to a great anchor on the deck of an ocean vessel. For months it was never put to use. But one day the vessel was disabled by a breakdown in its steering apparatus while nearing the coast in a storm. Only a secure anchorage cold prevent the vessel from being driven onto the rocky coast. Thus the fate of the ship and hundreds of passengers depended on the strength of that chain. No one knew of the care and skill that had been lavished on each link of that chain by an obscure smith who was only doing his best. The chain held, both the ship and its passengers and crew were saved. The blacksmith had saved the day.
Keith Wagner, In a Different World
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Grabbing up the Truths
Forty-three years ago, I read something by Sherwood Anderson in an upper-level literature class at Albion College. Which took me a while to find, given that I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it. But I did. And it was.
Anderson shared a legend, suggesting that in the beginning there was a valley filled with truths. And the truths were all beautiful. There were truths about every subject under the sun. There were truths about virginity and truths about passion....truths about wealth and truths about poverty....truths about thrift and truths about profligacy....truths about carefulness and truths about abandon. There were hundreds and hundreds of truths, all of them beautiful.
And then the people came along, pouring into the valley. Each snatched up one of the truths. And the strong, several. But in trying to protect their truth from others, they squeezed it until it became misshapen....deformed....even grotesque. Until the person holding it became grotesque. Which happens in my business all the time. And which is why I hold the truths I love in humble hands. For short of eternity, there is little I can claim with absolute certainty. I suppose if you persist in a belief that out there is to be found "the one true church," all I can tell you is where you cannot find it....that being the church that claims (to the point of bragging) that they have it. Whatever you do, don't go there.
William A. Ritter, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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The 4 Words that Tell What It Means to Be a Christian - Luke 24:44-53 by Leonard Sweet
Is life becoming more complex, or what? I don’t know about you, but I’m needing some simplicity to offset that complexity.
I’m looking out at some of you: we have in our midst some people who are tech-savants, up-to-the-nanosecond in every new app and digital advance, every new social media minutia; and we have in our midst some “off-the-grid,” computer-phobic, techno-anaphylactic Luddites.
And then there are the rest of us, the most of us--the in-betweeners.
But whoever you are, we can agree on one thing: our twenty-first century lives are amazingly complex.
Every day we live in these soon-to-be teenage years of the 21st century, we use skills that would befuddle previous generations. Driving computers masquerading as cars. Using microwave ovens. Functioning simultaneously in different time zones all across the world. Understanding how events in Pakistan tonight will give our world a different tomorrow. Grasping the enormity of destruction and loss that tornados and fires, hurricanes and tsunamis, have done, even thousands of miles away from us, only hours after those wounds have been inflicted.
We accept and even thrive in this complex, interwoven world. Our most abandoned moments in this new world? When our electronic umbilical cords get severed. When the power goes out don’t you still find yourself reaching for the light-switch? How about trying to “google” some piece of information? Or longing for news-updates that you cannot access?
The great blessing of local, regional, and national emergency response networks is that they are comprehensive and coordinated with all sorts of emergency services. The curse of our twenty-first century response to emergencies is that they depend upon the power grid to work. If you are really in the middle of a major emergency — like the killer tornadoes that have so decimated the Midwest and South this spring — you do not have access to any of the vast sources of information and “new updates” that are available to all those who are not personally caught up in the whirlwind. Those most in need of information are those who are most cut off from information.
When the disciples hunkered down in the upper room after the crucifixion — let’s call them ‘upper room shut-ins’ -- they were “off the grid” of their cultural information highway…
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What Would Jesus Do? - or - How Would Jesus Do It? -John 17:1-11by Leonard Sweet
The worst thing you can do to your children is to “be cool” as a teen.You say, what?“Being cool” means you will be immortalized in pictures sporting the “coolest” fashions of your teenager years. And one day your children and grandchildren will groan in embarrassment at how “cool” you look in those pictures which, of course, will be the opposite of “cool” by the time they look at them.
[Here is where you throw up on the screen pictures of members of your congregation looking ridiculous in what were the “fashions” of their teen-age years. Or just show pictures of people in these fashions. . . Or if you don’t use screens, paint verbal word pictures that demonstrate how the fashions and fads of one generation become the embarrassments of the next . . .Or you could even do a fashion parade of some of these once-cool-now-uncool outfits.]
-Here is . . . . . sporting a beehive hair-do.
-Here is . . . . in an Afro.
-Here is . . . . in huge bell-bottoms.
-Here is . . . in a poodle skirt.
Anyone for grunge? Tie-dye? Shoulder pads? Converse? Platforms? Earth shoes?
I remember from my high-school basketball days being really proud of my maroon and white varsity jumpsuit and jacket. I can also remember looking at the big baggy shorts Michael Jackson wore in his college days and thinking how ridiculous he looked. Far superior were my tight-fitting basketball shorts. Now I don’t want anyone to see shots of me playing basketball in those shorts that suddenly look now more like boxer underwear than basketball shorts.
The only guarantee if you are fashionably “in the moment” is that a few years later you will be laughed at by your kids until their sides hurt. Our only satisfaction is in knowing that a similar fate awaits the next “cool generation,” and the next, and the next.
Yet some styles never go out of style. Some fads never fade.
-Cowboys are always cool.
-Jeans—whatever their width—can’t be canned.
-A great fitting T-shirt never looks bad, whether it was 1950 or 2011.
But most of what is called “fashion” is flash in the pan. It is designed with the intention of becoming obsolete next season, so that you will need to buy a new outfit in order to “stay cool.” Fashion is the very definition of “planned obsolescence.”
Fashion trends change fast, but not as fast electronic trends. Everyone knows that when the economy crashes hemlines drop. But who could have foreseen that when the bottom dropped out of Wall Street, the avenue know as “Tweet Street” would have opened up for rush hour traffic. Smaller, more personal, less organized, individualized—tweating took off even as the stock market tanked.
The world has its own measurements of “success,” of “cool,” of “power.” But those measures are not gospel gauges, but culture yardsticks. And they last just about as long as it takes the media to glom on to something else, some newer “latest trend” and “new and improved” update.
So here is the question of the morning: how are we who are committed to an old, 2000 year old truth to be forever “new” while never becoming “old-fogeys?”
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Prayer for Work
Peter Marshall once began a Senate session with this prayer, "O Lord, forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time, and help us to see that without prayer our work is a waste of time."
Robert J. Bryan, All Constantly Devoted to Prayer.
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To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.
Karl Barth
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Prayer Doesn't Change God; It Changes Me
In a scene from Shadowlands, a film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just been married to Joy Gresham, an American woman, in a private Episcopal ceremony performed at her hospital bedside. She is dying from cancer, and, through the struggle with her illness, she and Lewis have been discovering the depth of their love for each other. As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is. Lewis hesitates; then, deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, "Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news."
Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy's medical situation, replies, "I know how hard you've been praying .... Now, God is answering your prayer."
"That's not why I pray, Harry," Lewis responds. "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me."
Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics, CSS Publishing Company.
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We Have the Majority
Isaac Asimov told a hilarious story about a Rabbi Feldman who was having trouble with his congregation; they couldn't agree on anything. The president of the congregation said, "Rabbi, this can't continue. There has to be a conference, and we have to settle all areas of dispute once and for all." The rabbi agreed.
At the appointed time the rabbi, the president, and ten elders met around a magnificent mahogany table in the conference room of the synagogue. One by one the issues were dealt with and on each issue, it became more and more apparent that the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The president of the synagogue said, "Come, Rabbi, enough of this. Let's vote and allow the majority to rule." He passed out slips of paper and each man made his mark. The votes were collected and the president said, "You may examine them, Rabbi. It is eleven to one against you. We have the majority."
Offended, the rabbi rose to his feet and said, "So, now you think because of the vote that you're right and I'm wrong. Well, that's not so. I stand here," and he raised his arms impressively while looking heavenward, "and call upon the Holy One of Israel to give us a sign that I'm right and you're wrong."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when there was a deafening clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the mahogany table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the president and the elders were hurled to the floor.Surrounded by rubble the rabbi stood erect and untouched, his eyes and smile flashing with triumph.Slowly, the president lifted himself out of the rubble. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, his clothing was in disarray. Finally he said, "All right, eleven to two. But we still have the majority."
Right and wrong does not rest with the majority but with the Authority who is Christ. He is the One whom God has given authority over all people.
Traditional
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For All Peoples
Down at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Steve Jacobs, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El was always a big hit with the students.I listened one day after class as he chatted with students. One bright young lady asked shyly, "Rabbi Jacobs, I really have been interested in the things you say, would I be allowed to come to your synagogue for services?"
Steve turned to the young woman and smiled."At the top of our building," he said, "it is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.'"
"Uh, yes," she said, "I understand, but I'm a Christian, you see, and I didn't know, I mean, is it okay, can I come to your synagogue?"
Steve grinned and explained very carefully:"The synagogue is on South Highland Street. At the top of the building it is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,' it's from the prophet Isaiah."
The young woman stood very still. Everyone was quiet for a moment. You could tell from the confused look on her face that she hadn't a clue to what Steve was saying. Here she was, asking an honest, polite question and he wouldn't give her a straight answer. Then it sank in and you could see her imagination rearranging the furniture of her faith. Great, ancient walls were crumbling inside her. "Oh," she whispered, "and Jesus said that too, didn't he?'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.'"
She smiled, nodded her head and walked away, and as she went, I heard her say once more, just to herself, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people."
Author unknown
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Joy In This World
Men have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found:
Not in Unbelief -- Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born."
Not in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone."
Not in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that.When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth."
Not in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."
Not in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer."
Where then is real joy found? -- the answer is simple, in Christ alone.
The Bible Friend, Turning Point, May, 1993
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Meaning of Life – Time Flies
Some of you may remember the movie "City Slickers," comedian Billy Crystal plays the part of a bored baby boomer who sells radio advertising time. One the day he visits his son's school to tell about his work along with other fathers, he suddenly lets loose a deadpan monologue to the bewildered youngsters in the class:
Value this time in your life, kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. It goes by fast.
When you're a teenager, you think you can do anything and you do. Your twenties are a blur.
Thirties you raise your family, you make a little money, and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"
Forties, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud, one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.
Fifties, you have a minor surgery -- you'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery.
Sixties, you'll have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway.
Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon, you have lunch around 10:00, breakfast the night before, spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, "How come the kids don't call? How come the kids don't call?"
The eighties, you'll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling with some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand, but who you call mama.
Any questions?
Billy Crystal, dialogue from the movie "City Slickers."
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In The World but Not Of It
In Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Ivan endures all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day he is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and says with ridicule, "Prayers won't help you get out of here any faster." Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, "I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God."
Our Daily Bread, December 29, 1993
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Clinics are crowded with people suffering from a new kind of neurosis, a sense of total and ultimate meaninglessness of life.
Viktor Frankl
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The central neurosis of our time is emptiness.
Carl Jung
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Futility
A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweatand struggle;...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramblefor little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them;infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,...a world which will lament them a day and forgetthem forever.
Mark Twain shortly before his death.
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Unity in Christ
Evangelical Christians tend to say that all those that confess Jesus as Lord are united in Him. Liturgical Christians tend to say that all that are baptized in the name of the Triune God are united in Him. Unity in Christ is a given, theologians and pastors like to say, and most agree that the visible disunity of Christians is a scandal. Notably the new leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, says that working for the visible unity of the Church will be a major goal during his papacy.
The disunity of Christians is bothersome to more than us Christians. There is no doubt that the visible disunity of Christians is a scandal to the world – particularly to unbelievers. Doubtless some unbelievers wonder: “Why can’t those Christians get along?” People that profess no faith often look at feuding Christians and doubt that being a Christian makes any good difference in the life of a believer. When it comes to being nice or even being charitable, one unbeliever can almost always find several unbelievers that far surpass many self-identified Christians. “So, what’s the point of being Christian if it doesn’t make you a better person?” they say.
Typically Christians don’t like to respond to such questions or criticisms. Rather one often hears a more positive take on the scandal of disunity. Among a number of pastors and theologians the rallying cry is: “Unity in diversity” or “United in Christ despite our differences.” Some pastors and theologians like to say: “We are united at the altar and the baptismal font despite our profound differences.”
Samuel D. Zumwalt, That They May be One
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A Different World
The world young men and women are stepping into now is quite different from the world that I graduated in. In the 60’s we lived under the "cold war." No one ever thought of terrorism. We didn’t have cell phones, VCR’s or DVD’s. Instead of the Internet we contacted our friends with a rotary telephone. Gas cost about 30 cents a gallon and it wasn’t difficult to find a job. Even paying for a college education in those days was relatively easy. But, that has all changed.
This is a different world. The job market is tight. The world is much smaller and we can communicate anywhere in the world instantaneously. It is very challenging to venture out on your own, since things like utilities, rent and health insurance are very expensive. The world travels in the fast lane and the majority of folks are doing whatever necessary to survive, even if it means stepping on people in the way.
Our culture has changed too. Our society is much more diverse. For example, your doctor will most likely be from another country. It is very possible that your next door neighbor might be from Japan or Mexico or Vietnam. The company that you work for may be owned by someone overseas. It is a very different world.
Hopefully, parents, teachers, the church and community has prepared our young adults for this new and different world. But, will they survive?
In our text Jesus is preparing his disciples for their life in the world. He prays for them and assures them that they will be protected. He will be leaving the world soon, and he wants them to know they will not be abandoned.
Keith Wagner, In a Different World
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Moments of Unity
I was on the station platform awaiting a train from Yokohama to Tokyo one fall morning when I noticed a man who seemed a bit lost. I spoke to him, and his beautiful Scottish burred accent made me glad I did. We struck up a conversation as we boarded the right train for the destination we had in common. It turned out that he was a Presbyterian missionary en route home to Scotland after years of Christian service in China and Southeast Asia. His boat had docked in Yokohama, and he had a day to look around before sailing off for home. He told me some wonderful stories about this vocation, and seemed interested in everything around him. I recall his commenting especially on the Japanese university students who were on the train with us. He took their black uniforms and white plastic collars to be seminary garb! I regretted to correct his impressions, but he took it with good humor and enjoyed a laugh on himself.
As we came to the Tokyo Central Station we got off together and shook hands before parting. He took my hand firmly in his own and said, "We'll meet again, you know ..." I thought about his sentence as I went on to my appointment. Where will we meet? Not in Japan. Nor in Scotland or the U.S.A. No, we will meet again in the church triumphant as we all gather about the throne of God to praise him forever! This hour in my life occurred thirty-seven years ago, but it will stay with me always. I cite it to stir your own awareness of those splendid, unplanned moments that bring you into the presence of another person of the faith. Such moments express the unity for which Christ prayed and they are unforgettable.
Dean Lueking, From Ashes to Holy Wind, CSS Publishing Company
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Patsy Clairmont, author of the book God Uses Cracked Pots, tells a story about her youngest son Jason. Little Jason has two goals in life. One is to have fun, and the other is to rest. He does both quite well. So it was no surprise when he was sent out to catch the bus one fall day and there was, a few moments later, a knock on the door. Mom flew to the door, jerked it open, and their stood Jason looking up with his back pack and lunch box dragging the ground. Mom demanded, "What are you doing here?" He bravely said, "I've quit school." Mom said, "Quit school?" As she looked at her child in disbelief she tried to think of some motherly wisdom but all that came to mind at the time was "A stitch in time saves nine" and "Starve a cold and feed a fever." They didn't seem to fit the occasion so she asked, "Why have you quit school?" Without hesitation Jason said, "It's too long, it's too hard, and it's too boring." This time she was equal to the task. She shot back, "you have just described life. Get on the bus!"
Brett Blair and Staff, www.eSermons.com
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Perceiving Truth
Too many of us are, with regard to truth, as a young student was to an assignment made by her teacher. She was told to write a paper on the truth concerning the life and accomplishments of Benjamin Franklin. Here is what she submitted:
"Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, but he soon got tired of that and moved to Philadelphia. When he got to Philadelphia he was hungry so he bought a loaf of bread. He put the bread under his arm. He walked up the street. He passed a woman. The woman smiled at him. He married the woman and discovered electricity." Now all of that is probably true, but there's a lot more truth to Franklin's life than we find in those words.
So with Jesus. "Name Jesus anything you like. Remember Him in any way you want. Recall any of the parables He told. Quote word for word any statement He ever said. Put all these things together into some kind of historical record, and still you have nothing if you do not include this one truth" (Boulware, Ibid.): When Jesus becomes the way of being and doing for you; when He becomes the Truth -- how you perceive life, is forever shaped by his Spirit.
Maxie Dunnam, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Nurse Bryan's Rule
Peter Drucker, America's management guru, tells of a hospital administrator who held his first staff meeting. They worked through a rather difficult matter and the new boss felt the matter was settled. But then suddenly one of the staff asked, "Would this have satisfied Nurse Bryan?" The arguments immediately started all over again and did not stop until a better solution to the problem had been hammered out.
Who was this Nurse Bryan? The administrator soon found out. She had been a long serving nurse in the hospital. Whenever a decision regarding patient care came up, Nurse Bryan would ask, "Are we doing the best we can to help this patient?" As a result of her conscientious concern, patients on her floor did better and recovered faster. Gradually as time went by, the whole hospital learned to adopt what became known as "Nurse Bryan's Rule."
Though she had retired ten years earlier, the standard she had set was still providing vision for employees in the hospital today. Her secret? She took every aspect of hospital work back to the central question: "What can we do to best do our job as a hospital?"
St. Paul set the standard for us over 1900 years ago when he wrote that our job is "whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him." (II Corinthians 5:9). That is our test of excellence in the church and in our lives as believers in Him. Would this be pleasing to Jesus?
King Duncan, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Check Yourself
Max Lucado said that one day his wife brought home a monkey. His daughters were thrilled but he wasn't; he had all kinds of questions. Where was the monkey going to eat? His wife said that it was going to sit at the table and eat with them, just like the rest of the family. Then he asked her where it was going to sleep? And she told him it was going to sleep in their bed. Then he asked, "But what about the smell?" And she said, "Oh, he'll get used to you. I did."
Then Dr. Lucado went on to say, "Before you comment on the odor of someone else, check your own odor first." That's what Jesus meant when He said, "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." Unity has to begin with us. And it has to begin with our personal relationship with Christ. We have to be one with Christ, first.
Billy D. Strayhorn, So That We May Be One In Christ
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Pulling as a Team
At a Midwestern fair many spectators gathered for an old-fashioned horse-pull (An event where various weights are put on a sled hitched to a horse and pulled along the ground). The grand-champion horse pulled a sled with 4,500 pounds on it. The runner up was close, with a 4,400 pound pull. Some of the folks wondered what they could pull if they were hitched together. Separately, they had totaled nearly 9,000 pounds, but when hitched and working together as a team, the winning horses were able to pull more than 12,000 pounds. Almost three times what either one of them could pull, alone.
Imagine the powerful force we could exert as a congregation, as a denomination and as the Church in the world, if we all "pulled together as a team."
Billy D. Strayhorn, So That We May Be One in Christ
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Unity Isn’t Easy
Unity isn't easy. Most of us have never learned how to disagree in love, or how to love those with whom we disagree. We're like the poet who wrote:
"To dwell above with saints we love,
That will be grace and glory.
To live below with saints we know;
Well, that's another story!"
Unity isn't easy. But Jesus not only prayed for it, He modeled it for us. Remember when the disciples came to Him complaining about the people who were preaching and doing signs and wonders in Jesus' name but weren't part of the crowd of disciples? They were ready to run them out of town or call down lightning upon their heads. Jesus told the disciples not to stop them and said, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit."
Christian unity is not determined by whether we agree with each other about every interpretation of scripture or doctrine or form of church government. Christian unity IS determined by whether we love one another, and whether we reflect the love of God in Christ for the world.
Billy D. Strayhorn, So That We May Be One In Christ
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Looking at Footprints
Not long ago I saw a wonderful picture of Jesus' ascension. It was a black and white woodcut print finely etched. In the picture Jesus is rising up as the disciples watch him disappear into the clouds. If you look closely at the picture, not in the clouds, but on the ground, you can see footprints on the earth. The artist has carefully etched Jesus' footprints down on the level where the disciples are standing with their mouths open. Perhaps the artist was simply imagining a homey detail that isn't in the text. Or, perhaps, the artist is pressing us with the old question, "Why do you stand looking up into heaven? Look at these footprints here on the earth." Jesus' muddy footprints are all over the pages of the gospels.
Can you see Jesus' footprints in the wilderness? Each time he was tempted to claim earthly power and glory, he reached up and touched the words of Torah. One does not live by bread alone. Worship the Lord your God and serve only God.
Can you see Jesus walking on the wrong side of the street with the wrong people?
Can you see Jesus walking up to a sycamore tree, then looking up at Zachaeus, the tax collector, perched in the branches? "Come down, Zachaeus," Jesus said, "let's walk over to your house for dinner."
Can you see Jesus walking, then riding, into Jerusalem?
Can you see him stumbling toward Golgotha, loving us to the very end?
Barbara K. Lundblad, Footprints on the Earth
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Priorities
In his highly popular book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Steven Covey says: "I value my children. I love them, I want to help them. I value my role as their father. But I don't always see those values. I get caught up in the "thick of thin things." What matters most gets buried under layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors. I become reactive. And the way I interact with my children every day often bears little resemblance to the way I deeply feel about them. (105)
Jesus, at the throne of grace - watching us, caring for us, praying for us - helps us keep perspective on our goals, where we are headed. Even when we cannot see, we can trust that He can, and that he will "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Russell F. Metcalf, Jr., The Session of Jesus
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A Picture of Evangelism
An artist, seeking to depict on canvas the meaning of evangelism, painted a storm at sea. Black clouds filled the sky. Illuminated by a flash of lightning, a little boat could be seen disintegrating under the pounding of the ocean. People were struggling in the swirling waters, their anguished faces crying out for help. The only glimmer of hope appeared in the foreground of the painting, where a large rock protruded out of the water. There, clutching desperately with both hands, was one lone seaman.
It was a moving scene. Looking at the painting, one could see in the tempest a symbol of humankind's hopeless condition. And, true to the Gospel, the only hope of salvation was "the Rock of Ages", a shelter in the time of storm.
But as the artist reflected upon his work, he realized that the painting did not accurately portray his subject. So he discarded the canvas, and painted another. It was very similar to the first: the black clouds, the flashing lightning, the angry waters, the little boat crushed by the pounding waves, and the crew vainly struggling in the water. In the foreground the seaman was clutching the large rock for salvation. But the artist made one change: the survivor was holding on with only one hand, and with the other hand he was reaching down to pull up a drowning friend.
That is the New Testament picture of witnessing - that hand reaching down to rescue the perishing. Until that hand is extended, there is no Gospel - and there is no hope for the world.
Richard J. Fairchild, The Last Words of Jesus
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Ascension: An Irresistible Confidence
Our culture is tired of politicians who promise but do not deliver; tired of entertainment all around us which does not satisfy; tired of trouble between neighbors; tired of religion that promises bread but gives a stone. In the Ascension, God can put into our hearts an irresistible confidence that all is not as it seems, that love, truth and integrity are never defeated, that the kingdoms of this world will indeed become the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ.
John Davies, After Ascension - Transformation
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Humor: We Do Know You
There was a tavern near a college campus, and it was a favorite hangout for many of the students. As Parents' Weekend approached, they posted a sign that said, "Bring your parents to lunch. We'll pretend we don't know you."
One of the local churches countered with a signboard that read, "Bring your parents to church. We'll pretend we do know you."
David Canada, Jesus' Prayer for You
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Sent Forth
Back in the days of King Arthur, a young knight would be invited to the banquet feast set for the Knights of the Round Table. He would be wined and dined. But he would not receive his golden spurs of knighthood until he went forth on a quest to serve his king and to help someone in distress. In much the same way, we are gathered in Christian community, and Jesus prays that his Father would protect us, for we, too, are sent forth one in faith and one in service.
Lee Griess, Return to The Lord, Your God, CSS Publishing Company
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Hold Hands and Stick Together
Robert Fulghum was a feature writer for The Kansas City Times. I'm not sure he's still there, because he has written a runaway best seller entitled All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. That book is an expansion of an article he wrote for The Kansas City Times a few years ago. It was this article that launched his writing career. Listen to a part of it:
"Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.
"These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody...
"Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that...
"Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."
Maxie Dunnam, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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The Import of Jesus’ Prayer
In the city of Rome, Italy, the marks of martyrdom are to be seen almost everywhere - and more clearly than at most other places in the world. In the middle of the famous Piazza Navonna, a church marks the spot where a young Christian girl was humiliated and martyred for her faith in Christ. Another church, not too far away, stands over the place where the body of Saint Lawrence was found and given decent burial by a Christian woman. Almost every corner and virtually every church building and religious monument has a story, or stories, to tell about the martyrs. And if one travels out the old Appian Way to the Catacombs of St. Sebastian, descending into the depths of a primitive Christian graveyard - which even held the bodies of Peter and Paul -and ascends to ground level again through the Church of St. Sebastian, one may begin to grasp the import of Jesus' prayer.
George M. Bass, The Tree, The Tomb, And The Trumpet, CSS Publishing Company
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Progress?
James Reston, the columnist, quoted his 94-year-old Presbyterian grandmother as saying, "Lots of what seems to be progress is just wickedness going faster." Three out of four Americans say there is no such thing as absolute truth and they see all truth as relative. But we Christians believe that Jesus Christ is absolute truth, and holy scriptures provide an absolute guide for faith and ethics.
Bill Bouknight, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Humor: Hot Potato
In one of his writings, Thomas Carlyle told of a country boy who went to a fancy dinner. In the midst of the meal, he got a piece of hot potato in his mouth. Much to the embarrassment of all those dignified ladies and gentlemen there at the table, he spit the piece of potato out and put it back on his plate. Then he looked around at the shocked faces of all those sophisticated people and said, “You know, there's many a fool that would have tried to swallow that!”
Maxie Dunnam, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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The Loss of Memory
One of the most memorable sections in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ prize-winning novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude concerns a strange disease that invaded the old village of Macondo from somewhere in the surrounding swamp. It is a lethal disease of insomnia that attacks the whole town. The initial effect is the inability of people to sleep, although the villagers do not feel any bodily fatigue at all. A more critical effect than that slowly manifests itself: loss of memory. Gradually the victims realize they can no longer remember or recall the past. Soon they find that they cannot remember the name or the meaning of the simplest things used everyday.
You’ve heard of the fellow who said two things happen to you when you grow old — “one is the loss of memory, and I can’t remember the other.”
Christians are to be reminders, living reminders of Christ’s presence in the world. The world’s lethal disease is amnesia, the loss of memory.
Maxie Dunnam, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Humor: Be Careful
A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. Suddenly the light turned yellow. And though he could have run it, he chose not to. The tailgating woman - who was all set to run it with him - missed his rear end by a matter of inches. Screeching to a stop, she jerked forward in her seat. Figuratively, she hit the roof. Literally, she hit the horn. Rolling down the window, she screamed and gestured (loudly and obscenely) until an officer approached her in mid-rant and had the gall to ask for her license and registration.
When he returned, she had calmed enough to inquire as to why she – rather than the stupid jerk in front of her - was under suspicion. "Well," said the officer, "when I pulled up behind you blowing your horn and screaming, I paused to read your bumper stickers."
"God loves you and so do I."
"Honk if you love Jesus."
"My boss is a Jewish carpenter."
"Then I saw the chrome-plated fish emblem on your trunk. So you can understand why I assumed you had stolen the car."
When I heard that story, my initial response was an arm-pumping "Yes." Until I remembered that she, too, is my sister in Christ.
William A. Ritter, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Humor: Splitting Hairs
Let me share with you a brief conversation which took place in an airport boarding area. Two people in quite similar suits with equally similar briefcases sit down side by side. They strike up a conversation:
I see you are reading the Bible.
Yes, I am.
May I ask, is it King James or RSV?
King James, of course.
So is mine. Is yours the red-letter edition?
Yes.
Thomason Chain Reference?
Of course.
So, then, you are a Christian?
Yes, I am.
Born again?
Definitely.
Baptized?
Yes.
Immersed or sprinkled?
Fully immersed.
Pentecostal?
Yes, I am.
Holy-roller?
Yes.
Pre-millennial or post-millennial?
Pre-millennial.
And in your worship, do you use old-style hymns or contemporary music?
Contemporary.
Organ or praise band?
Praise band.
Video screens?
Of course.
And what about the preacher?
Well, I'm the preacher.
Oh, so am I!
Wonderful.
Seminary-trained?
Yes.
And do you preach with notes or without?
Without.
Wooden pulpit or Plexiglas?
Plexiglas.
Plexiglas pulpit? Die, heretic!
And Jesus' prayer is still..."That they may all be one."
John E. Harnish, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Illustrations for Luke 24-44-53
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Sermon Opener - “Don’t Get Into Things!” - Luke 24:44‑53 and Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
“Don’t get into things!”
How many times did you hear that directive as a kid. Mom had to run to the store for a minute or Dad was tied up on a project in the garage. Knowing what children will do when left to their own devices, the last ditch effort of “out‑of‑sight” parenting is the generic and ultimately unenforceable order — “Don’t get into things!”
Like that ever stopped kids from burrowing into the back of closets as Christmas closed in. Like that ever kept the curious chemist from testing things like putting Mentos in soda bottles or trying to melt chocolate chunks into “hot chocolate.” Being empowered by freedom coupled with being unsupervised makes it far too tempting for any and all of us to “get into things.”
Jesus’ resurrection was the miraculous “happy ending” his disciples had never imagined possible. His physical presence in their midst, eating and talking with them, filled them with wonder and confused joy. Then his “opening up the Scriptures” opened their blurry eyes to read God’s drama of salvation, of which they were now a part. Receiving Jesus’ blessing and witnessing his ascension finally brought these disciples to a place of faith that they had never before inhabited. They were first-hand believers in the resurrection. They took to heart his promise of the gift of the Spirit. Their faith went almost overnight from being unhinged to being untinged and untroubled by doubt…
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Standing on a Cloud
In my grandmother's bedroom hung a very old-fashioned plaque. It depicted Jesus standing on a cloud, arms outstretched, beckoning the viewer to come to him. The inscription proclaimed, "Jesus Shall Come In Like Manner." Grandma died at the age of 94. She was perfectly prepared to meet her Lord coming to receive her in the clouds. She lived through Indian raids to man's walk on the moon. Sharp as a tack to the very end. Still, in her mind's eye, this was the way her Lord would come to her. Walking on the clouds. Who's to say it isn't so? She took quite literally the word of the two in white robes who said to the disciples, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Charles L. Koester, Mission Accomplished, CSS Publishing Co., Inc.
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Ascension Day: Power Unleashed on Earth
Ascension Day is not really about the power of Jesus vanishing into heaven. It's about having that power unleashed into all the earth. While on earth, Jesus affected those right around him. After he ascended, this powerful presence was unleashed on the whole globe, the whole cosmos. One theologian (Walter Wink) once noted that killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it (Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 226). Christ was the light of the world all right, but "now that light, as if hitting a prism, would fracture and shoot out in a human spectrum of waves and colors" (Yancey, 228). There is "no place that we can go to flee from his presence" (Psalm 139), nowhere we can go to separate ourselves from God's love (Rom. 8).
John D. Witvliet, Beyond the Blank Blue Sky
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Proof
Proofs for the existence of God have always been elusive, to say the least, but also appealing, apparently no less so today. I was just reading about a conference last month at Yale that brought together philosophers interested in the field of ethics and belief. One professor from Oxford, employing the same probability theories used to work out actuarial tables, has calculated that there’s a 97% chance that the Resurrection actually occurred. That’s impressive. After all, the Risen Christ presented himself alive to the eleven disciples, and they still couldn’t believe fully. They did at least acknowledge the reality of what they had seen over the previous forty days enough to head off to a mountain outside Jerusalem. Maybe they were just following their hearts, but when Jesus appeared to them there, they worshiped him. They also doubted. So two thousand years later, a 97% probability that it was all true? Sounds pretty good.
Gregory Waldrop
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All Shall Be Well
It was Julian of Norwich who wrote those inspired words that 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.' They are words that are particularly poignant tonight because they sum up the transformation in the followers of Jesus that we celebrate on Ascension Day, for on this day strange, as it may seem we celebrate Christ's leaving his disciples.
But his leaving them is not a somber occasion. It is full of joy and hope and reminds us how their lives had changed, of how they had come to trust in God's ultimate purpose for them and believe that all will indeed be well because Christ will always be with them.
Matthew Peat, All Will Be Well
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The Glory of God
"The Glory of God is the human being fully alive;" writes the 2nd Century Saint Irenaeus, "the life of a human being is the vision of God." Ascension marks the next to last moment in the Jesus narrative which begins each year in Advent with a pregnancy and grows into the story of a ministry that shows the glory of being fully human. Jesus’ life encompasses wholeness and healing, suffering and death. It addresses our delight in earth’s gifts and wonders and our very real and daily fear of "being limited by time and by the body." Jesus lives in the world without the complication of complaint. He has nothing to prove but the reality that God is love. So Jesus lives and Jesus dies and Jesus’ body descends into the dead, is reborn as bread and wine in the Eucharist, and as a full and nourished body in the resurrection. Easter teaches us again and again (for it takes many tellings for us to learn this) that what we call death is in fact a transformation, is in fact a birth. But even that is not the full story.
Carol Luther
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The Joy of Living New Life Is Beginning
The feast of the Ascension reminds us of two facts: one is the resurrection means we are deprived of the physical presence of Jesus as he was known in history to his disciples; the other fact is the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, is able to make him known and present to far greater numbers at the same time than would be possible in human form. So the disciples are being told, we are being told, while this is the end of one significant experience, it is the beginning of another one. The historical Jesus is no longer present; the cosmic Christ has received all authority and will be with us until the close of time. (Matthew 28: 18-20) Our Easter celebration is coming to an end; the joy of living the new life in Christ is still just beginning.
Kendall K McCabe and Michael L. Sherer, Path of the Phoenix, CSS Publishing Company
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Heavenly Orientation
When men were still traveling to the moon there was an astronaut, named David Scott, who looked up into the heavens at the planet he was from. As he stepped outside his spacecraft, on to the moon's surface, he said, "I can look straight up and see the earth." At the same time, millions of Americans heard these words on their radios and TV's and could look straight up to see the moon. From the moon above, you could look "up" and see the earth below. And from the earth below, you could look "up" and see the moon above.
We look up to heaven from wherever we are. On the Ascension of Christ, the disciples looked as they saw their Savior being lifted up. They looked up. In fact, all of creation looked up.
Brent Porterfield, www.eSermons.com