I believe that most of us are experiencing the crunch - the crunch of living - of doing business on the planet called Earth. The simple life has somehow eluded our grasp - even things that we could once take for granted like enough gas for our cars, sufficient oil for our homes, uninterrupted education for our children, and the prospect for a raise that would provide us a little higher standard of living - these things are no longer commonplace.

Often we are tempted to ask the question, "Where is God in this whole mess of living?" And the answer, I believe, is that God is the still point in a turning, increasingly chaotic world. God can still bring calm to chaos; he is still a source of hope in the face of despair; with him we can even snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Yes, God is the still point in a turning world.

The psalmist knew that, for the world of chaos was turning even in his day. He said it this way, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult." God is the only answer to chaos, for he is our refuge and strength. From him alone we can receive strength to go on. He is the source from which we must draw the power to overcome. There is no situation that can be deemed impossible, a lost cause, or insolvable as long as we continue to entreat the help of the Almighty. "We shall not fear," the psalmist says, even if our whole world is blowing up around us, for the Lord is still with us; he has not abandoned us.

"Be still, and know that I am God," the psalmist continues. Oil isn’t God. Cancer isn’t God. Money isn’t God. Yahweh, the God of Jacob, is God. He is still present, he has not abandoned the world. He is the author of life and love, so he doesn’t send cancer, sickness, or death. He doesn’t place greed and anger in the hearts of people; chaos and grief are not from him. He is the still point in the turning world; his love is constant - it doesn’t change.

Only the fool says in his heart there is no God. Only the fool tries to go the world alone. Martin Luther looked at all the pressures of his life one day and said, "I have so much to do today, that there will be no chance of getting it all done unless I spend at least four hours in prayer."

If your life is crowded, if grief or worry is consuming too much of your world, return to the still point and seek refuge in God. Receive renewed strength from the God of our fathers who spared not even his only Son so that we could not only have victory after death but also victory in life. Be still, and know that God is still God.

Martin Luther, believed in demons but he believed in God more. In that great Hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" he writes:

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That hymn, first published in 1529, has been called "the greatest hymn of the greatest man of the greatest period of German history." It has also been dubbed the "Battle Hymn of the Reformation" and with good reason. The Reformation touched off one of the most influential movements in world history. But before this famous Battle Hymn could be written Luther had to battle his personal demons and exorcize them from his own life. Luther felt utterly worthless and incapable of carrying the burdens of priesthood. On occasion Luther even flogged himself in an attempt to keep himself from sin.

He was often, he felt, pursued and tormented by Satan and his cohorts. Until one day, while reading Paul's letter to the Romans, he suddenly understood the meaning of God's grace and how it is appropriated by faith. In that moment he came to understand that he was justified before God through faith and not by his works.

You might say that after this experience Luther was no longer possessed by his demons, he was sitting upright, dressed, and in his right mind.

I heard recently about a man who prided himself on being exceedingly punctual. He followed a very precise routine every morning. His alarm went off at 6:30. He rose briskly, shaved, showered, ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth, picked up his briefcase, got into his car, drove to the nearby ferry landing, parked his car, rode the ferry across to the downtown business area, got off the ferry, walked smartly to his building, marched to the elevator, rode to the seventeenth floor, hung up his coat, opened his briefcase, spread his papers out on his desk, and sat down in his chair at precisely 8:00. Not8:01, not even 7:59. Always at 8:00 A.M. He followed this same routine without variation for eight years.

Until one morning his alarm did not go off and he slept fifteen minutes late. When he did awake, he was panic-stricken. He rushed through his shower, nicked himself when he shaved, gulped down his breakfast, only halfway brushed his teeth, grabbed up his briefcase, jumped into his car, sped to the ferry landing, jumped out of his car, and looked for the ferry. There it was, out in the water a few feet from the dock. He said to himself, “I think I can make it," and he ran down the dock toward the ferry at full speed. Reaching the edge of the pier he gave an enormous leap out over the water and miraculously landed with a loud thud on the deck of the ferry.

The captain rushed down to make sure he was all right and said, "Man, that was a tremendous leap, but if you would have just waited another minute, we would have reached the dock, and you could have walked on."

In all innocence, children have for centuries sung a nursery rhyme that is in truth anything but an innocent verse:

Ring-a-ring o’roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!

The rhyme arose about 1665 in the streets of London during a plague epidemic of the Black Death. Each phrase of the rhyme refers to an aspect of the plague.

“Ring o’roses” is a reference to the small, red rashlike areas that developed on people infected with the plague.

“Pocket full of posies” is a reference to the ancient belief that evil smells were the poisonous breath of demons who afflicted people with the disease. It was thought that sweet-smelling herbs and flowers would drive them off.

“A-tishoo! A-tishoo!” is a reference to the sneezing that was a symptom of the plague.

“We all fall down!” is a reference to death.

Thus, a common children’s rhyme is in fact a sinister parody of one of the most dreaded plagues ever to strike—the Black Death.

The same loss of context and therefore of meaning can affect those who study the Scriptures. And that is why when we seek to interpret the word of God, we do so in part by studying its historical, grammatical context.

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the waiting disciples, there were a number of extraordinary events occurring: there was the sound of a rushing wind, cloven tongues of fire appeared, and they all began to speak in other languages and the Holy Spirit gave them ability. The Jews who were visiting Jerusalem, from all nations, hearing them speak in their own tongues, were amazed at this startling phenomenon. They came to the hasty, false conclusion that the disciples must be drunk, and accused them, saying, "They have had too much wine!" "Not so!" said Peter. "It is only nine in the morning -- far too early to be fixed. They are not drunk, but rather filled with the new wine of the Spirit. This is what Joel the prophet foretold many years ago."

In other words, the Holy Spirit is New Wine and it cannot make you drunk. The Spirit will not cloud your mind, it won't cause you to talk stupidly, it won't make you an unsafe driver, and it won't give you a hangover. The disciples were not inebriated, but rather filled with God the Holy Spirit. They had not imbibed on the fruit of the vine, nor had they drunk the nectar of the gods, but they had been filled with the Divine Nectar, the New Wine from heaven. This Spirit will be a wine for all occasions, for all people.

Before his Ascension, Jesus had wanted his followers to know that the same Lord who had called them and ministered to them in his physical presence would now, through the Holy Spirit, always be with them. They must realize that the crucified, resurrected, and now ascended Lord would return. The same Spirit which dwelt in him would now dwell in them.

On this anniversary of the Day of Pentecost, when the Christian Church was born, let us be deeply grateful that the Spirit of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, has come to us. Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible. We would have no understanding of spiritual things without the Spirit of Truth. We would never enjoy Christian fellowship with one another without the unity of the Spirit. We could never be effective Christian witnesses without the Spirit's power. In fact, we would have no life without the life-giving Spirit. Just as the body without breath is a corpse, so a church without the Holy Spirit is dead!

The rest of the sermon follows this outline:

1. They Waited And Prayed
2. The Specifics Of The Spirit's Coming
3. This New Wine Makes A Difference

Christian thinking about salvation has divided itself into two main streams which I like to think of as: "Monkey-hold" salvation or "Cat-hold" salvation. The difference in theological viewpoint is seen in how monkeys and cats protect their young. A mother monkey will sound the alarm when danger lurks. The baby monkeys come running to her and hold tightly to her fur as she runs to safety. A mother cat, on the other hand, picks her kittens up by the nape of the neck and carries them in her mouth out of harm's way. So, which is it? Monkey-hold salvation or Cat-hold salvation? Does God sound the alarm in Jesus leaving us to come running and hold on tightly, or does Christ take us by the nape of the neck and carry us to the throne of grace?

At least in Jesus' parables it appears to be a Cat-hold salvation. Jesus pictures God as a shepherd who seeks out a lost lamb and carries it home on his shoulders. Or a homemaker who searches every corner of the house for a lost coin until she finds it and rejoices with her friends. Our salvation rests in the care and keeping of a seeking Savior. The message is simple and clear: We do not have to worry about holding on to God's coat tails for God will not let go of ours.

The following story could be used as a basis to point out some of the plights we need to be delivered from.

In one story of the Holy Grail, a knight rode forth in searth of fulfillment. He came to a singing brook, deep meadows, trees plentiful with fruit. But even as he ate the fruit, it turned to dust. No feeding of the flesh could satisfy his deepest hunger.

Further on he saw a home, a lovely woman standing in its open door, her eyes innocent and kind and all her bearing gracious, and he thought that surely the love of a woman and the shelter of a home would be his answer; but she, too, fell into dust at his touch and the home crumbled into a broken shed.

Later in his journey, the knight came to a warrior clad in golden armor; but the warrior, too, turned into dust, for the deepest meaning of life is not in the pride of battle. And still later he saw a city on the hill, at its gates a great throng shouting his praises as he climbed the slope, so that he felt that surely civic honor and the esteem of others would be his deepest need, but the city and its people were gone when he reached the crest of the hill. So he cried out, in Tennyson’s words, "Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself and touch it, it will crumble into dust!"

A concluding point could be made that God’s triumphant grace offers us deliverance from the disappointments that always follow when we look for salvation in the contemporary equivalents of the points made above, as surely we do.

My favorite story about Marcus Aurelius comes at the depths of the Antonine Plague, which is a horrible pandemic that kills millions of people. Rome’s economy has been devastated. People are dying in the streets, and everyone feels like it can’t possibly get better. And what does Marcus Aurelius do? He walks through the imperial palace and begins to mark things for sale. For two months he sells on the lawn of the Great Emperor’s Palace, the jewels and robes and couches, the fineries owned by the emperor. He’s sending a message. He says, I’m not going to put myself first. I don’t need these fancy things, not when people are struggling. He says, I’m gonna do the little things that make a difference. To me this is like the CEO who takes a pay cut in a bad economy; this is the athlete who renegotiates their contract so the team can bring on new people; this is the leader who sacrifices and struggles, who puts the people first not their own comfort and needs. That’s what greatness is like.

Exodus 30:12 - "When you take the census of the people of Israel, then shall each give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them."

Numbers 1:1 - "Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by families, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head;"

I’m sure we all remember the great census of 1970, which our government claimed would be the most comprehensive ever undertaken in this country, and which included items of information about which we had never before been asked. Certainly, these items of information could be recognized as being very important in determining living standards, educational backgrounds, and many other facts about American citizens which the government needs to know to enable us to live "the good life."

At the lime, we also heard much about the extra time that was being put in by census takers and other employees of the Bureau of Statistics, and, cynics that most of us are, perhaps we said, with a shrug, "Well, that’s tough. So they’re collecting overtime, aren’t they!" But, still, not being averse to doing the same thing ourselves whenever possible, we were tolerant about the whole thing. Certainly, the public response to the census was gratifying. Very few actively objected, and the great majority submitted their questionnaires on time. Would you be surprised, then, to learn that, until recently, there was a strict taboo against census-taking?

Although the taking of a census - not only of people, but also of all the kinds of properties - is an ancient custom, dating back to the third millenium B.C. in Babylonia and Egypt, and, as our texts show, was not unknown in Israel, still this taboo existed.

The prevailing theory among scholars is that this taboo was imposed because the taking of a census (head-counting) is a presumptuous usurpation of God’s rights: only God knows who is to live or to die, and by assigning a military rating to a man (the original purpose of the census), this pre-knowledge of man’s fate can be somewhat assumed. So, we as often find when God is crossed, terrible consequences were thought to follow the taking of such a census. Joab tried very hard to deflect David from this undertaking, but was unsuccessful, and, as a result, the plague broke out.

To avoid this punishment, finally a new system was inaugurated: a half shekel was collected from each person. These were then counted, and thus the number of people was known. Bureaucratic maneuvering is hardly an accomplishment of the twentieth century! The system that we have today takes its name from the Roman system, in which the members of families were enumerated every five years for the purpose of determining their civil status and corresponding liabilities. But even the Romans concluded these census takings with a cleansing ceremony.

We are, of course, familiar with two very important Roman censuses: the first was the one ordered by Quirinus in 6-7 B.C., in Palestine, which aroused a revolt of the people, and, of course, the one ordered by Augustus that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, and so ushered in the Christian era.

However, after the downfall of the Roman Empire, census taking also declined. Superstition probably had a great deal to do with this. Undoubtedly the Christian Church remembered the punishment of Israel, and so, aside from two very notable endeavors - Charlemagne’s Breviary and the English Domesday Book which followed the Norman invasion - there was no systematic census taking until the mid-l7th century.

This was done in Quebec, although, as late as 1753, in the British House of Commons, the proposal that a general census be conducted was turned down because of a fear that a numbering of the people would be followed by "some great public misfortune or epidemical distemper." Great Britain did not have its first census until 1801.

No doubt there was a great deal of the unspoken objection to being placed on a list to be declared eligible for military service, or the payment of taxes, but, nevertheless, the primitive fear of the taboo is still buried deep within us, and it sometimes can surface without our tacitly acknowledging it. But - next time the census taker comes around, be cooperative! Our legal and monumental judicial and administrative system could no longer function without list after list after - ad infinitum! And the only curse that we can expect is that of increased taxes!

Jeremiah 9:54 - "Then he called hastily to the young man his armorbearer, and said to him, ‘Draw your sword and kill me, lest men say of me, "A woman killed him." ’ And his young man thrust him through, and he died."

1 Samuel 14:7 - "And his armor-bearer said to him, ‘Do all that your mind inclines to; behold, I am with you; as is your mind, so is mine.’ "

2 Samuel 23:37 - "Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai of Beeroth, the armor-bearer of Joab the son of Zeruiah."

1 Chronicles 10:4 - "Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, ‘Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and make sport of me.’ But his armor-bearer would not; for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword, and fell upon it."

The armor-bearer in early times was the personal attendant of a warrior chieftain, just as today the aide-de-camp is an officer who is attached to the person of a general to assist him in his duties, transmit orders, and collect information. The armor-bearer of the Old Testament, however, had additional duties, rather more similar to those of an officer’s aid today, which including caring for his master’s weapons and other equipment. He also carried his master’s weapons and other equipment. He also carried his master’s weapons and fought along side him in battle.

Strangely enough, the armor-bearer is referred to only in early Old Testament times, as a servant of Abimelech, Jonathan, Saul, and J oab. As we can see by reading the material which includes our texts, both Abimelech and Saul ordered their armor-bearers to kill them so that they would not be captured by the enemy.

In the account in 1 Samuel, Jonathan’s armor-bearer is said to have killed those who had been bested by Jonathan. David himself served for a time as the armor-bearer of King Saul.

And how were these armor-bearers chosen? If we let our minds wander back to the period of chivalry, during the Middle Ages, we can recall the standards upon which selection for such high honor was based. This probably wasn’t so involved in the times of which we are speaking. Most likely the merits upon which the armor-bearer was chosen were bravery, loyalty, and skill in warfare.

We find this picked out for us by the third of our biblical texts. Joab’s armor-bearer, Haharai of Beeroth, was himself a mighty warrior, being one of the "Mighty Men" of David (cf. 2 Samuel 23:37; 1 Chronicles 11:39).

We see, then, that these men were heroes in their own right. And I think there is one further point that we should make. They were not only servants of their masters, but also personal friends as well. It may seem to us that a friend would never deliberately kill another, but if we consider the alternatives that were offered; if the enemy captured the master, I would say that friendship demanded the ultimate act. And so they reacted!

This is actually a pretty new festival in the church year. Its roots go back only to the early 1900's, when the world's great empires British, American, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese were all at war or about to go to war somewhere.

The man who was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church at the time wrote a letter in which he dedicated the world to Christ the King. In the letter, he reminded the empires that God is present with the whole human race, even with those who do not know God.

After World War I, Pope Pius XI designated the last Sunday in October as Christ the King Sunday, a day to remember that Christ received power and honor from God and was thereby made ruler of the universe. Christ the King Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year for good reason. It's a time to reflect on Christ's return at the end of time to rule over all creation, a theme which echoes throughout Revelation, the last book of the Bible. But here's the powerful thing about this celebration. Pope Pius created the day because of the encroachment of secular forces upon society. Something he called anticlericalism. 

In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote the following:

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anticlericalism, its errors and impious activities.

With the term “anticlericalism,” Pius XI sums up the multifaceted war waged against Christianity by modern revolutions, characterized by a ferocious and indeed demonic hatred of the church, clergy, celibacy, religious life, communion, crucifixes, church buildings, parochial schools, the cross and Gospel, and anything that belonged to or bore the mark of the Church. “Anticlericalism” is a fitting term for all this.

It was an ideological war whose roots were only beginning to grow, and after decades of deep roots, has only now blossomed in our generation.

Pius XI continues:

This evil spirit, as you are well aware, venerable brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation—that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the State and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God.

The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the encyclical Ubi Arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.

"Made in America?" Joe Smith starts the day early, having set his alarm clock (made in China), for 6:00 A.M. While his coffee pot (made in China), is perking, he puts his blow dryer (made in Taiwan) to work and shaves with his electric razor (made in China). He puts on a dress shirt (made in Taiwan), his designer jeans (made in Singapore), and a pair of tennis shoes (made in Korea). After cooking up some breakfast in his new electric skillet (made in Philippines), he sits down to figure out on his calculator (made in Mexico), how much he can spend today. After setting his watch (made in Switzerland), to the radio (made in China), he goes out, gets in his car (made in Germany), goes looking as he has been for months, for a good paying American job. At the end of another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decides to relax for a while. He puts on a pair of sandals (made in China), pours himself a glass of wine (made in France), and turns on his TV (made in Japan), and ponders again why he can't find a good paying American job.

According to John Silling, a Purdue University entomologist, the ant is an exemplary worker. “Basically the ant’s entire life, which can range up to seven years, is spent working,” says Silling. “They gather food, bring it back to the nest, and use it for day-to-day meals as well as to store for the winter.”

In addition, the amazing insects can be adept horticulturalists, states the professor. Some species “gather bits of grass or leaves and take them back to their nest. On this organic matter, which is used much like fertilizer, they place tiny mushroom spores and grow them for food.” But ants as dairy-keepers? That’s right. “Some ants get the majority of their food by ‘milking’ aphids or plant lice which are often known as ‘ant cows,’ says the scientist. “The ants sometimes herd the aphids down into the ant nests at night or when it starts to get cool; then when it gets warm again, they herd them back up to the plants.”

George Orwell wrote in Time and Tide, 6 April 1940: "Reading Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge's brilliant and depressing book, The Thirties, I thought of a rather cruel trick I once played on a wasp. He was sucking jam on my plate, and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed esophagus. Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him. It is the same with modern man. The thing that has been cut away is his soul, and there was a period - twenty years, perhaps - during which he did not notice it."

It seems that Pilate cannot grasp the dreadful thing that is happening around him. Neither can the Jews. He asks, "What is truth?" Indeed, is it so hard to discern truth when you are putting to death an innocent man and letting a murderer go free?

"One night at the end of a special Saturday night worship service," writes Warren Hudson of Ontario, Canada," a thunderstorm unleashed a bolt of lightning that plunged the church into darkness." With the congregation seated in total darkness, the pastor felt his way to the kitchen to find some candles. The pastor handed out the candles to everyone present. Persons lit their candles in much the same way as many churches do on Christmas Eve, each person lighting the candle of the person next to them. The worshipers then made their way through the church's winding hallways to the front door.

"Peering out, we could see the rain coming down in sheets," Warren remembers. With traffic snarled, people were running for the nearest shelter. Looking around they realized that the entire city was in darkness. "There in the darkness we stood," Warren writes, "a little band of Christians, each clutching a light, not sure whether to venture out into the storm or stay inside the church in hopes that the storm would soon blow over."

There in the darkness the light of truth struck him. In this most dramatic way he realized what it means to be the "light of the world." He writes, "It occurred to me then that this is the temptation I face every day. It is easy to play it safe and be a good Christian in church. It is a lot harder to venture out in faith into the storms of the world."

One night at a circus the tent was packed with thousands of people. It was time for the tiger trainer to come out and perform. He bowed to the audience then went inside the cage. A hush drifted over the audience as the door was locked behind him. The trainer skillfully put the tigers through their paces. Suddenly there was a huge pop, followed by a complete blackout of power. For several long minutes the trainer was trapped in the cage with the tigers in total darkness. The trainer knew the tigers could see him with their powerful vision, but he could not see them. All he had was a whip and small chair as a means of protection.

Finally, the lights came back on, and the trainer finished his performance. Everyone was amazed that he wasn't attacked and feared for him in the darkness. After his performance the trainer was interviewed by a local television reporter. He admitted how scared he was. But during the blackout he realized that the tigers did not know that he could not see them. He just kept cracking his whip and talked to them until the lights came back on.

There are times when all of us are confronted with tigers in the dark and we lose trust. We don't trust the government. Some don't trust the Church. We lose trust in relationships, in spouses, even our children.

When the lights go out and darkness prevails trust that God's got the tigers under control.

Have you ever sat in a lighted room at night, reading or talking, and suddenly the lights go out? What's the first thing you say? Usually everyone says, "Who turned out the light?"

In this age of electricity, light is something we take for granted. Few of us ever experience total darkness. In the city, we have street lights which come on automatically as soon as it begins to get dark. In the country, most farms have a mercury vapor light that stays on all night for security reasons. Consequently, most of us never get a good look at the stars as we used to when all the lights went out at night.

If you ever get the chance to go out in the desert at night do it. The darkness on nights with no moon or star light is so total someone could be standing right next to you and you wouldn't know it.

This text from John's gospel is about darkness and light: "And this is the judgment," John says, "that the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."

The Bible is a book that is loaded with images from agriculture.  The reason is obvious.  The people described from the first page to the last lived close to the land.  They were a people who knew what it was to stoop for long hours in the hot sun to till the soil.  Their toes and feet were often covered by the black soil on a spring day.  They chopped and hoed through the summer, waiting patiently for the coming harvest.  They knew what it was to watch as the crops slowly inched upward with first the blooms and then the tiny shapes of the fruit appearing.  They, no doubt, spent endless hours discussing too much rain or not enough of it.  They fought the insects and the weeds just like farmers do today.  And in the fall, they experienced the profound joy that comes from a crop well-harvested.  They did not always understand the deep things of God, but they knew about the rhythms and cycles of nature.

Because of that, agricultural images crop up in every part of this book.  When the writers were challenged to explain something new about God, they reached for what they knew – the agricultural life all around them.

Again and again our Lord awakens us, whether we will it or not. Again and again his voice breaks in upon our indifference and complacency, even though we may be unwilling. But while it is not ours to decide whether we shall be disturbed or not, it is ours to decide what we should do, once we are disturbed. If an alarm clock rings in your room it is likely to wake you whether you wish it to or not. But when it has gotten you awake, that is as far as it can go. It cannot drag you out of bed. Whether you go back to sleep depends entirely on yourself. And that, with all reverence, is as far as our Lord can go. All he can do is disturb us. But having done that, the rest is left to us. He can wake us, but the getting up must be done by ourselves.

In one of his books writer and philosopher Loren Eiseley tells about the time when he was only a young lad and his father died. His father died a slow death in great bodily torture. Eisley's mother was deaf. Young Loren alone heard the sounds of his father's agony. This was before the wide application of painkilling drugs. Eiseley said a curious thing happened to him during that very stress filled time. He became so tense that he could no longer bear the ticking of the alarm clock in his own bedroom. He smothered it with a blanket but still he heard it as if it were ticking in his own head. He tried to sleep, but he could not. His distress and loneliness were too great. It was then that help came.

His grandmother saw the light burning in his room in the wee hours and came to sit with him. Later when it came time for her to begin her own long journey from which there is no return he touched her hair and knew in those moments that she had saved his sanity. Into that lonely room at midnight she had come, abandoning her own sleep, in order to sit with troubled young Loren. Eiseley never forgot what that meant to him. To know that someone sees and understands. Sometimes that is all we need to know in order to make it through a time of crisis. Sometimes, though, even our closest friends are blind to our despair. We read about tragedies in the newspapers in which people are left lying on a public sidewalk after an accident or a mugging and no one does anything, and we think to ourselves if I had been there I would have done something. But sometimes there are persons in our own family or our neighbor's family who are in terrible distress, and we never pick up on it. It is as if we are blind. Jesus is never blind. He sees us in our distress. He hears us when we call upon him.

Have you heard the story about man who lived in the Midwest, right smack in the middle of tornado alley? After several tornados came near his home, tearing up his neighbor's homes and barns, he decided to build a storm cellar.

He decided to go first-class and build a well-stocked cellar that would give him refuge in any storm. He spent an enormous amount of money.

But, as luck would have it, as soon as he spent the money for the shelter, tornadoes stopped coming in his direction. Oh, sometimes a warning would be posted on the news and he would go down into his cellar, but invariably it would be a false alarm. He began to wonder if he had spent his money for nothing. Finally, there came a major storm that roared through his property and flattened his barn. When he came out of the storm cellar, he looked at all the damage and then he looked up at the sky and said, "Now that's more like it!"

That man was ready. And he stayed ready. He didn't know WHEN the storm was going to come, he just knew it was going to come. So, he was ready. We don't know WHEN Jesus is coming back, He didn't tell his disciples, He didn't even know the time Himself, that was in the Father's hands. He did his part in getting us ready. Now it's up to us to "STAY READY."

The life of the one holy Universal Church is determined by the fact that it is the fulfillment of the service as ambassador enjoined upon it.

Where the life of the Church is exhausted in self-serving, it smacks of death; the decisive thing has been forgotten, that this whole life is lived only in the exercise of what we called the Church's service as ambassador, proclamation, kerygma. A Church that recognizes its commission will neither desire nor be able to petrify in any of its functions, to be the Church for its own sake. There is the "Christ-believing group"; but this group is sent out: "Go and preach the gospel!" It does not say, "Go and celebrate services!" "Go and edify yourselves with the sermon!" "Go and celebrate the Sacraments!" "Go and present yourselves in a liturgy, which perhaps repeats the heavenly liturgy!" "Go and devise a theology which may gloriously unfold like the Summa of St. Thomas!" Of course, there is nothing to forbid all this; there may exist very good cause to do it all; but nothing, nothing at all for its own sake! In it all the one thing must prevail: "Proclaim the gospel to every creature!" The Church runs like a herald to deliver the message. It is not a snail that carries its little house on its back and is so well off in it that only now and then it sticks out its feelers and then thinks that the "claim of publicity" has been satisfied. No, the Church lives by its commission as herald, it is la compagnie de Dieu.

They really didn't understand it. But, of course, they really had no means to. How could they possibly know that it was contagious only after long periods of very close contact? The only thing they knew about it was what it looked like and what it did to a person in the advanced stages. That they knew well. They understood how it maimed and disfigured. And that was enough for fear to take over.

I'm talking about the disease of leprosy. In a world and a time in which the disease has all but been eradicated except in small pockets, we perhaps cannot appreciate the fear that accompanied this word in the ancient world of Jesus. It was a red flag word. It brought about the same responses as the word Plague did in the 1200s, or Small Pox in the 1700s, or Aids in the 1900s. It frightened them. They felt largely helpless against it, as indeed they were.

What happens when fear takes over is people do not act, they react. And reactions to leprosy were both swift and cruel. In times not far removed form our own people would be put to death by heir own family. It seems incredible to us today, but on the edge of every large city in the ancient world huge pits were dug, and in those pits lived the lepers of the community.

And if, by some remote possibility, they did escape this hovel and venture out into the streets, they would be quickly greeted with shouts of "leper," accompanied by stones to make them keep their distance. In Jesus' day a leper by law could not get within fifty yards of a clean person. So this was the heart of the matter. Not only did these wretched poor people have to endure the trials of an incurable affliction, they also were isolated from society and kept from the community of faith. The horror of disease, a lifestyle of loneliness, isolation and hopelessness where could they find hope? The only friend a leper had was God himself. In this life they were doomed. It was walking death.

This, then, is the background of the leper we meet this morning. What can we learn from this man's tragic story?

1.  The Loneliness of Leprosy
2.  Our Suffering Moves God's Hand.
3.  Our Lord Is Willing to Heal.

In his book Wind and Fire, Bruce Larson tells of a friend of his who lives near Hoyt Park in Madison, Wisconsin, and who happens to be a great bird lover. Invariably, his yard is full of all kinds of birds in all seasons. However, the squirrels plague his bird feeders continually. Exasperated, he finally bought a pellet gun and began to shoot the squirrels, two and three a day, every day, week after week. In spite of these desperate measures, the squirrel population seemed undiminished. One day, he was discussing the irksome problem with his colleague at work. His friend said, "I solved that problem. I was troubled by squirrels, too. But now I trap them. I trap two or three a day and take them down to Hoyt Park and release them."

Larson comments, "That's an example of what can happen when we approach all of our problems individually, with no sense of the larger picture."

The great renaissance artist Giotto captures the essence of this scene in his "Presentation at the Temple." Simeon holds the baby Jesus, his lips moving beneath his hoary beard, carefully reciting the lines of his nunc dimittis: "now may your servant depart in peace." Giotto knows his Simeon, and he knows his babies too. The infant Jesus, far from resting contentedly in his arms through this holy aria, is responding as all babies do when held by weird strangers. His eyes are narrowed and fixed in frozen alarm on Simeon. He reaches desperately for his mother, every muscle arched away from the old man toward Mary. But looking carefully at the background, we see the artist's true genius. The child seems suspended above the temple altar, that place of sacrifice. As art historian John W. Dixon puts it, "This very human baby is known, from the very beginning, to be the eternal sacrifice for the redemption of the mankind."

Becoming good at the things that build inner confidence and calm takes practice and a dash of creativity! The following list might provide some cloudseeding for a brainstorm or two of your own:

1. Pay off your credit cards.
2. Take off ten pounds or accept where you are without any more complaints.
3. Eat dinner together as a family for seven days in a row.
4. Take your wife on a dialogue date (no movie, guys).
5. Read your kids a classic book (Twain's a good start).
6. Memorize the Twenty-third Psalm as a family.
7. Give each family member a hug for twenty-one days in a row (that's how long the experts say it takes to develop a habit).
8. Pick a night of the week in which the television will remain unplugged.
9. Go out for a non-fast food dinner as a family.
10. Pray for your spouse and children every day.
11. Plan a vacation together.
12. Take a vacation together.
13. Read a chapter from the Bible every day until it becomes a habit.
14. Sit together as a family in church.
15. Surprise your teenager. Wash his car and fill up his gas tank.
16. Take an afternoon off from work; surprise your child by excusing him from school and taking him to a ball game.
17. Take a few hours one afternoon and go to the library as a family.
18. Take a walk as a family.
19. Write each member of your family a letter sharing why you value them.
20. Give your spouse a weekend getaway with a friend (same gender!) to a place of their choice.
21. Go camping as a family.
22. Go to bed early (one hour before your normal bedtime) every day for a week.
23. Take each of your children out to breakfast (individually) at least once a month for a year.
24. Turn down a promotion that would demand more time from your family than you can afford to give.
25. Religiously wear your seat belts.
26. Get a complete physical.
27. Exercise a little every day for a month.
28. Make sure you have adequate life insurance on both you and your spouse.
29. Write out information about finances, wills, and important business information that your spouse can use to keep things under control in the event of your death.
30. Make sure your family car is safe (tires, brakes, etc.) and get it tuned up.
31. Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm.
32. Put a security system in your house.
33. Attend the parent/teacher meetings of each child as a couple.
34. Help your kids with their homework.
35. Watch the kids on Saturday while your wife goes shopping (but if a friend calls, don't say that you're "babysitting").
36. Explain to your spouse exactly what you do for a living.
37. Put together a picture puzzle. (One thousand pieces or more.)
38. Take time during the week to read a Bible story to your children and then discuss it with them.
39. Encourage each child to submit to you his most perplexing question, and promise him that you'll either answer it or discuss it with him.
40. Finish fixing something around the house.
41. Tell your kids how you and your spouse met.
42. Tell your kids about your first date.
43. Sit down and write your parents a letter thanking them for a specific thing they did for you. (Don't forget to send it!)
44. Go on a shopping spree where you are absolutely committed to buying nothing.
45. Keep a prayer journal for a month. Keep track of the specific ways that God answers your needs.
46. Do some stargazing away from the city with your family. Help your children identify constellations and conclude the evening with prayer to the majestic God who created the heavens.
47. Treat your wife to a beauty make-over (facial, manicure, haircut, etc.). I hear they really like this.
48. Give the kids an alternative to watching Saturday morning cartoons (breakfast at McDonald's, garage sales, the park, chores, etc.).
49. Ask your children each day what they did at school (what they learned, who they ate lunch with, etc.).
50. After you make your next major family decision, take your child back through the process and teach him how you arrived at your decision.
51. Start saying to yourself "My car doesn't look so bad."
52. Call you wife or husband from work just to see how they're doing.
53. Compile a family tree and teach your children the history of their ancestors.
54. Walk through an old graveyard with your children.
55. Say no to at least one thing a day even if it's only a second piece of pie.
56. Write that letter to the network that broadcast the show you felt was inappropriate for prime-time viewing.
57. Turn off the lights and listen to a "praise" tape as you focus your thoughts on the Lord.
58. Write a note to your pastor praising him for something.
59. Take back all the books in your library that actually belong in someone else's library.
60. Give irritating drivers the right to pull in front of you without signaling and yelling at them.
61. Make every effort to not let the sun go down on your anger.
62. Accept legitimate criticism from your wife or a friend without reacting or defending yourself.
63. If your car has a Christian bumper sticker on in drive like it.
64. Do a Bible study on the "wise man" and the "fool" in Proverbs...and then apply what it takes to be wise to your life.
65. Make a list of people who have hurt your feelings over the past year...then check your list to see if you've forgiven them.
66. Make a decision to honor your parents, even if they made a career out of dishonoring you.
67. Take your children to the dentist and doctor for your wife.
68. Play charades with your family, but limit subjects to memories of the past.
69. Do the dishes for your wife.
70. Schedule yourself a free day to stay home with your family.
71. Get involved in a family project that serves or helps someone less fortunate.
72. As a family, get involved in a recreational activity.
73. Send your wife flowers.
74. Spend an evening going through old pictures from family vacations.
75. Take a weekend once a year for you and your spouse to get away and renew your friendship.
76. Praise your spouse and children in their presence to someone else.
77. Discuss a world or national problem, and ask your children for their opinion on it.
78. Wait up for your teenagers when they are out on dates.
79. Have a "quiet Saturday" (no television, no radio, no stereo...no kidding).
80. If your children are little, spend an hour playing with them but let them determine the game.
81. Have your parents tell your children about life when they were young.
82. Give up soap operas.
83. De-clutter your house.
84. If you have a habit of watching late night television, but have to be to work early every morning, change your habit.
85. Don't accept unnecessary breakfast appointments.
86. Write missionaries regularly.
87. Go through your closets and give everything that you haven't worn in a year to a clothing relief organization.
88. Become a faithful and frequent visitor of your church's library.
89. Become a monthly supporter of a Third World child.
90. Keep mementos, school projects, awards, etc. of each child in separate files. You'll appreciate these when they've left the nest.
91. Read the biography of a missionary.
92. Give regularly and faithfully to conscientious church endeavors.
93. Place with your will a letter to each family member telling why you were glad you got to share life with him or her.
94. Go through your old records and tapes and discard any of them that might be a bad testimony to your children.
95. Furnish a room (or a corner of a room) with comfortable chairs and declare it the "disagreement corner." When conflicts arise, go to this corner and don't leave until it's resolved.
96. Give each child the freedom to pick his favorite dinner menu at least once a week.
97. Go over to a shut-in's house as a family and completely clean it and get the lawn work done.
98. Call an old friend from your past, just to see how he or she is getting along.
99. Get a good friend to hold you accountable for a specific important need (Bible reading, prayer, spending time with your family, losing a few pounds, etc.).
100.  Establish a budget.
101. Go to a Christian marriage enrichment seminar.

Kathleen Norris writes, "When I think of the demons I need to exorcise, I have to look inward, to my heart and soul. Anger is my best demon, useful whenever I have to go into a Woman Warrior mode, harmful when I use it to gratify myself, either in self-justification, or to deny my fears. My husband, who has a much sweeter nature than I, once told me that my mean streak grieved him, not just because of the pain it cause him but because it was doing me harm. His remark, as wise as that of any desert Abba, felt like an exorcism. Not that my temptation to anger was magically gone, but I was called to pay closer attention to something that badly needed attention, and that was hurting our marriage. It confirmed my understanding of marriage as a holy act: one can no more hide one's true faults from a spouse than from God, and in exorcising the demon of anger, that which could kill is converted, transformed into that which can heal."

What are your best demons? To name them for what they are and how they bring suffering, is half the battle.

In order for Jesus to heal us, He must first expose our sins, prejudices, and myths. That process is not pleasant. It made the folks in Nazareth fighting mad. In order for Jesus to heal them, he had to challenge some of their cherished myths and prejudices.

When I was a boy of 7 or 8, I was running through a neighbor's yard one day and stepped on a sling blade. Today's children don't know what a sling blade is, but it was an ancient grass-cutting instrument. My foot was cut rather deeply. I ran and hid. Why? Because I had heard that in such cases a doctor would stitch up the wound, and nothing sounded more dreadful to me than having somebody sticking a needle and thread into me repeatedly like I was a piece of cloth. Fortunately, one of my loud-mouthed friends told my mother and I was discovered. To my great relief the doctor did not stitch me up, though he probably should have. My fear of the cure was for me much worse than my wound. We want the cure that Jesus brings. We want Jesus to forgive and save us, but not to make us change, especially if the changes hurt. We are like the little boy whose bedtime prayer sounded like this, "Dear Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am."

I've always enjoyed this charming little story about Martin Luther. He dearly loved his wife Katie and was devoted to her, but it seems he had to struggle all the time with her dreadful habit of worry. Once when he was traveling, he wrote her this letter, "To the saintly, worrying Lady Katherine Luther, doctor at Zulsdorf and Wittenberg, my gracious, dear wife. We thank you heartily for being so worried that you can't sleep, for since you started worrying about us, a fire broke out near my door, and yesterday, no doubt due to your worry, a big stone, save for the dear angels, would have fallen and crushed us like a mouse in a trap. If you don't stop worrying, I'm afraid the earth will swallow us. Pray and let God worry. Cast your burden on the Lord."

You can even be thankful during the most difficult of circumstances in life. It's true! We see an especially inspiring example of a brave and thankful heart in the story behind one of the church's most popular hymns, "Now Thank We All Our God." This particularly hymn was written during the Thirty Years War in Germany, in the early 1600s. Its author was Martin Rinkart, a Lutheran pastor in the town of Eilenburg in Saxony.

Now, Eilenburg was a walled city, so it became a haven for refugees seeking safety from the fighting. But soon, the city became too crowded and food was in short supply. Then, a famine hit and a terrible plague and Eilenburg became a giant morgue.

In one year alone, Pastor Rinkart conducted funerals for 4,500 people, including his own wife. The war dragged on; the suffering continued. Yet through it all, he never lost courage or faith and even during the darkest days of Eilenburg's agony, sat down and wrote this table grace for his children:

Now thank we all our God,
with hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom the world rejoices

So keep us in His grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills,
in this world and the next.

Even when he was waist deep in destruction, Pastor Rinkart was able to lift his sights to a higher plane. He kept his mind on God's love when the world was filled with hate. He kept his mind on God's promises of heaven when the earth was a living hell. Can we not do the same - we whose lives are almost trouble-free, compared with the man who wrote that hymn?

Whom can you say "thank you" to?

William Safire gave a lighthearted look at grammar and good usage. The following are "fumblerules." Mistakes that call attention to the rule:

• Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
• No sentence fragments.
• It behooves us to avoid archaisms.
• Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
• Don't use no double negatives.
• If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Resist hyperbole.
• Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
• Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.
• Kill all exclamation points!!!
• Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
• Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
• Take the bull by the hand, and don't mix metaphors.
• Don't verb nouns.
• Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
• Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

In 1816, Lord Byron wrote a narrative poem that has become a classic. The poem is titled, "The Prisoner of Chillon," and it is the story of a man incarcerated in the dungeon at the Castle of Chillon near Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

The prisoner was in a narrow, cramped dungeon cell for such a long time that he began to think of it as home. He made friends with the spiders, insects, and mice that shared his cell. They were all inmates of the same dungeon and he was monarch of each race.

The years in the dark dungeon cell had taken their toll. He was no longer unhappy or uncomfortable. He had grown accustomed to his environment and came to think of his chains as friends.

One day a bird perched on the crevice of the ledge above and began to sing. It was the sweetest music he had ever heard. Suddenly, the desire to see the outside world overwhelmed him. He grabbed the walls of his cell, and began climbing and struggling up the wall so that he could look out of the little window. In that moment, he saw a world that he had forgotten. There was a crystal blue lake ... and some tall green trees ... and the beautiful little white cottage that he called home nestled against the green hills ... and an eagle soaring majestically across a blue sky.

He saw them all for one magnificent moment and then he fell back into his cell. But that dungeon cell was no longer home. For one fleeting moment he had seen a home that lay beyond the tiny cramped cell of the dungeon. He had seen a vision of a world beyond and hope eternal towered over the despair.

We, too, have a vision beyond our present existence. We are pilgrims of the future because our faith enables us to catch a glimpse of an everlasting Kingdom which lies beyond this world.

Today's passage almost has the feel of Aesop's fables with barnyard animals playing a starring role. In the short space of five verses, we find pictures of both a fox and a hen. Herod is called a fox. Jesus says he feels like a mother hen. And the people in Jerusalem are all the little chicks running around in great danger.

There is an old proverb that warns, "The fox is in charge of the henhouse." We might use that expression when we put the oil companies in charge of making sure we don't have price gouging during an oil crisis. There's a fox in charge of the hen house.

Jesus describes Herod as a "fox," a fascinating choice. I am sure that Herod would have preferred a nobler mascot. A fox is an animal noted for cunning, craftiness and slyness. A fox will prey on the young of others. And Herod could be just that ruthless, as we see in the fate of John the Baptist. Herod is a symbol for raw, political power.

Why a hen? Why not a lion, King of the jungle? Why not an eagle? Why not a mighty warrior on a white horse from Revelation? We want to hear about the one with eyes like a flame of fire and with the armies of heaven following him. We want to hear about the sword that comes from his mouth and strikes the nations. I prefer to tell you a story of victory and conquest. I even want to say that the hen is victorious over the fox. In the end it is true, but first he has to die.

The well-known preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says, "Jesus won't be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first." Jesus came to be a suffering servant and live a life of self-sacrifice. And he calls us to that life as well.

In the classic fantasy book by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and his troupe is traveling through a dark, dangerous forest infested with gigantic, poisonous spiders and all manner of dark critters and creepy-crawly things. Just being in that kind of place was a frightening experience. And each member of the group, especially Bilbo Baggins, wanted to get out of that dreadful forest of darkness. As they traveled on, hoping against hope that the edge of the dangerous forest was near and not having their hopes fulfilled, one of the leaders orders Bilbo Baggins to climb the tallest tree he can find in order to have a look around and see where the dark forest ended.

Reluctantly, Bilbo climbs the tree, with limbs, branches and leaves scratching at him all the way. Several times he nearly falls. Having pushed his way through the forest canopy, he is nearly blinded by the sudden and intense sunlight. It took some time for his eyes to adjust, but once they had, Bilbo found that it was very wonderful and beautiful up there. The canopy above him was the most beautiful blue sky and around him was an ocean of green tree tops. After being in the damp darkness below, he enjoyed the sunshine and was able to soak it into his weary, tired and aching bones. The fresh air blew softly in his face and invigorated his lungs and cleared his mind. What a wonderful place to be! And no doubt, if we could have asked Tolkien's fictional character, Bilbo Baggins, he would have said, "Yes, 'tis good to be here."

Now, that story is fiction, but it reminds us of a time when three disciples were permitted a view that was extraordinary. What happened on the Day of Transfiguration was real. When Jesus took Peter, James and John with Him, He took them out of the dark valleys of this world and up to a high place, a mountaintop, where their eyes would squint at the bright light of the Son of God, who would be transformed before their wondering eyes. It was good that they were there to view this special revelation of God.

When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time in the woods, which were full of treasures for me. At night I lined them up on my bed: fat flakes of mica, buckeyes bigger than shooter marbles, blue jay feathers, bird bones and if I was lucky a cicada shell, one of those dry brown bug bodies you can find on tree trunks when the 17-year locusts come out of the ground. I liked them for at least two reasons. First, because they were horrible looking, with their huge empty eye sockets and their six sharp little claws. By hanging them on my sweater or better yet in my hair, I could usually get the prettier, more popular girls at school to run screaming away from me, which somehow evened the score.

I also liked them because they were evidence that a miracle had occurred. They looked dead, but they weren't. They were just shells. Every one of them had a neat slit down its back, where the living creature inside of it had escaped, pulling new legs, new eyes, new wings out of that dry brown body and taking flight. At night I could hear them singing their high song in the trees. If you had asked them, I'll bet none of them could have told you where they left their old clothes.

That is all the disciples saw when they got to the tomb on that first morning two piles of old clothes.

The Army chaplain of the 106th Division was captured in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Along with many other Americans, he was herded on to a freight car and taken into the heart of Germany.

On the evening of December 23rd, the men were in the railroad yard of a German city, when a devastating attack was made by the British Royal Air Force. Many of the American prisoners were killed as well as many Germans. The next night, Christmas Eve, the air raid was repeated. When the planes began to fly over, there was fear and alarm among the prisoners who were packed like sardines into these freight cars. The chaplain persuaded the German officer in charge to let him go up and down the line of the cars and talk to the men. As he passed by he said, "Boys, this is Christmas Eve and we are in a tough spot. But, if you have your Bibles, get them out and read the story of the birth of Jesus and you will know that He is with us even here. If you can't read because of the darkness, then let's sing."

Immediately there was a medley of response. Some sang revival songs and some sang hymns. Then a rich baritone struck up "Silent Night, Holy Night," and he was joined by others. Carload after carload joined in singing that beautiful Christmas carol. Then something marvelous happened. Other voices, German voices, began to sing the song in the original "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht."  The German voices and American voices blended together in praise of Christ who came to bring all people together in peace.

Two Kinds of Life: The Greeks had two words for "life" and both appear in the New Testament. One is bios from which we get "biology." It refers to biological and physical life. It is not true life but mere existence. This is life in terms of quantity and extension. Methuselah, the oldest man in the Bible, had this kind of life. He lived 969 years, but there is no record of any contribution he made to the welfare of society.

The other Greek word is zoe. It is used to denote true life, the quality of life. It is spiritual life with God as the source of life. While bios is temporal, zoe is eternal. The one deals with the body and the other with the soul. But this eternal life also has quantity, for it extends through eternity. To distinguish this type of life from the former, the New Testament uses "eternal life."

Two Kinds of Death: As there are two kinds of life, there are two kinds of death. The bios type of life ends in physical death. The body declines, deteriorates, and dies. This is in accord with the natural order, for all living things die, including Homo sapiens. If a human were only a physical body, the person would come to an end. In this case, death has the last word and is the ultimate victor over life.

There is another kind of death. The Bible speaks of death in terms of separation from God. "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Sin is the dreadful agent that separates us from God. To be apart from God, from life, love, joy, and peace, is to be dead. Does this mean that the soul is exterminated or extinguished? If so, there would be a merciful nothingness. However, the Bible teaches that a soul apart from God, living in death, is in hell, a state of misery. Paul describes the condition in hell: "They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). As there is eternal life, there is also everlasting death. It is to save us from this fate that God gave his Son to die for us and to reinstate us with God in whom we have eternal life. The scriptures repeatedly assure us that God does not want a single soul to perish or to be lost or to go to hell. In Christ, God the Father gave his very self to prevent people from going to everlasting death.

Bob Harris, weatherman for NY TV station WPIX-TV and the nationally syndicated independent Network news, had to weather a public storm of his own making. Though he had studied math, physics and geology at three colleges, he left school without a degree but with a strong desire to be a media weatherman. He phoned WCBS-TV, introducing himself as a Ph.D. in geophysics from Columbia U. The phony degree got him in the door. After a two-month tryout, he was hired as an off-camera forecaster for WCBS.

For the next decade his career flourished. He became widely known as "Dr. Bob." He was also hired by the New York Times as a consulting meteorologist. The same year both the Long Island Railroad and then Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn hired him. Forty years of age and living his childhood dream, he found himself in public disgrace and national humiliation when an anonymous letter prompted WCBS management to investigate his academic credentials.

Both the station and the New York Times decide to fire him. His story got attention across the land. He was on the Today Show, the Tomorrow Show, and in People Weekly, among others. He thought he'd lose his home and never work in the media again. Several days later the Long Island Railroad and Bowie Kuhn announced they would not fire him. Then WNEW-TV gave him a job. But not before he admits it was a dreadful mistake on his part and doubtless played a role in his divorce. "I took a shortcut that turned out to be the long way around, and one day the bill came due. I will be sorry as long as I am alive."

In ancient Greece it was customary for peddlers who walked the streets with their wares to cry out, "What do you lack?" The idea was to let people know they were in the vicinity, and also rouse the curiosity of the people. Coming out of their houses they would want to know what the peddler was selling. It might be something they lacked and needed, or simply something they desired.

What do you lack? We may have sight and hearing, but what do we lack? Take an honest inventory of yourself. Have you found contentment? Are you close enough to God to receive his guidance and strength? Have you secured peace of heart and peace of mind, invaluable assets in life? Deciding what we lack is the first step in securing it. Christ can fulfill our needs needs that are to some extent physical, but, more so, the deepest needs of heart, mind, and soul. 

The man in Mark 7 lacked the physical ability to hear. But many of us lack the spiritual ability to hear. We suffer a kind of a spiritual deafness. The affliction of not listening to people, or, to put it another way, the affliction of physically listening to people, yet failing to comprehend, to understand, and come to grips with what they are saying, is a plague upon the Church. For, you see, it is possible to listen to a person, yet fail to really hear them.

Listening is a skill. It is something that can be acquired. I don't think it is at all an exaggeration to say that you could have no greater impact upon your world then by closing your lips and opening your ears. How can we become better listeners? Let's take a look at…

1. The life of a man who could not hear.
2. The life of a man who will not hear. 
3. How life changes when you hear.

Listen to this statistic: Knowledge is exploding at such a rate more than 2000 pages a minute that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished (Campus Life)

An amazing statistic. Now tell me when do you suppose this information was compiled? It will alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet. They do not even take into account the personal computer. And, why not? It is because the statistics are from 1979.

It is crucial that we learn not the glut of information that is screaming down towards us on social media and the internet, but that we learn something that will sustain us for the days to come. The Prophets from of old proclaimed: They will all be taught by God. Are we listening?

The radical gospel of grace as it is found throughout Scripture, has always had its critics. Jimmy Swaggart once said that by trusting in God's justifying and preserving grace, we would end up living a life of sin before long and thus, lose our salvation and be consigned to hell. Paul anticipated that reaction from the religious community of his own day after he said, "Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more" (Romans 5:20, NKJV). So he asked the question he expected us to ask: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" (6:1) Should we sin so that we can receive more grace? In other words, "If people believed what you just said in Romans 5, Paul, wouldn't they take advantage of the situation and live like the dickens, knowing they were 'safe and secure from all alarm'?" That's a fair question. But it reveals a basic misunderstanding of the nature of God's saving grace. Paul's response is unmistakable: "Certainly not? How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:2, NKJV).

Someone confronted Martin Luther, upon the Reformer's rediscovery of the biblical doctrine of justification, with the remark, "If this is true, a person could simply live as he pleased!"

"Indeed!" answered Luther. "Now, what pleases you?"

Augustine was the great preacher of grace during the fourth and fifth centuries. Although his understanding of the doctrine of justification did not have the fine-tuned precision of the Reformers, Augustine's response on this point was similar to Luther's. He said that the doctrine of justification led to the maxim, "Love God and do as you please." Because we have misunderstood one of the gospel's most basic themes, Augustine's statement looks to many like a license to indulge one's sinful nature, but in reality it touches upon the motivation the Christian has for his actions. The person who has been justified by God's grace has a new, higher, and nobler motivation for holiness than the shallow, hypocritical self-righteousness or fear that seems to motivate so many religious people today.

In the ancient Greek myth The Odyssey we read the epic tale of Odysseus. Odysseus was the valiant warrior who fought so bravely in the Trojan War. But, according to legend, his homeward journey after that war was interrupted for many years as the gods had decided to test Odysseus' true mettle through a series of trials. His journeys carried him far and wide as he encountered mythic beasts and lands, many of which have passed into common parlance: the Cyclops, the Procrustean bed, Scylla and Charybdis, the sirens' voices.

Meanwhile, back at his home, Odysseus' wife and family presume he must have died en route back from Troy. Finally, however, the day came when the gods released Odysseus and he arrives back home at last. But instead of simply waltzing through the front door and crying out some Greek equivalent of, "Honey, I'm home!" Odysseus decides that he wants to determine if anything has changed during his long absence. Did his wife still love him? Had she been faithful? In order to find out, Odysseus disguises himself so as to approach his home looking like a stranger in need of temporary lodging.

The housekeeper, Euryclea, welcomes the apparent traveler and performs for him the then-standard practice of foot-washing. As she does so, Euryclea regales the stranger with anecdotes about her long-lost master, Odysseus, whom she had also served as a nurse when he was young. She told the traveler about how long her master has been missing and she noted, too, that by then Odysseus would be about the same age and of about the same build as the man whose feet she was washing. Now when Odysseus had been a young boy, he was once gored by a wild boar, leaving a nasty scar on his leg. As Euryclea went about her servile task, suddenly her hand brushed against that old scar and instantly her eyes were opened and she recognized, with great joy, her beloved friend and master!

The men on the road to Emmaus have traveled with Jesus for hours listening to his knowledge and stories, but in the breaking of bread, suddenly it occurs to them. This is Jesus. Their master has returned. 

When a terrible plague came to ancient Athens, people there committed every horrible crime and engaged in every lustful pleasure they could because they believed that life was short and they would never have to pay any penalty.

In one of the world's most famous poems, the Latin poet Catullus wrote, "Let us live and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single halfpenny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep."

The Gospel according to Mark, commonly accepted to be the earliest of the synoptics, relates that Jesus began his Galilean ministry by 1. making an announcement, 2. extending an invitation, and 3. issuing a command. It would be pressing the matter entirely too far to even remotely suggest that the sequence of events was intentional, yet there is a certain familiarity about the sequence itself. As a matter of fact, the three ingredients, broadly categorized above, probably bear a striking resemblance to the sermon you will likely hear in your particular church on any given Sunday: a. the announcement of a Gospel truth; b. the exhortation, with some degree of urgency, to accomplish something in the name of Christ, and c. the invitation to respond. Intentional or not, Jesus began his ministry with a format exceptionally accommodating to Gospel preachers. However, let us take up the sequence as described by Mark.

1. The announcement. The arrest of John the baptizer apparently served as the catalyst for Jesus to reveal the messianic secret. For thirty years, he had maintained a low profile, preparing himself, shaping his perspectives, waiting - waiting for the proper time to thrust himself prominently into the midst of human affairs. At last, the moment had arrived: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel" (1:15). Daring words! He had made bold as a young man sometime earlier in his hometown synagogue to proclaim that the Scriptures had been fulfilled at his reading. The Nazarenes responded by chasing him from the community. He knew full well that there would be a more general uprising against him now by both civil and religious authorities. But there was no choice. The groundwork had been laid, preparations had been completed, John was in prison, and the alarm must continue to be sounded: "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

2. The invitation. He would need help. Passing along the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew. Without the slightest qualification, he said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Take notice that no questions were asked, no excuses offered, no "process planning" nor introspective "objective-setting" dialogue transpired. Mark says, "And immediately they left their nets and followed him." Going a little farther, two other brothers, James and John heard a similar, abrupt invitation to respond in like manner. How do you account for the fact that these four individuals, secure in employment, having obligations and immediate responsibilities, walked away from it all to follow one who had come upon them from behind, no questions asked? Perhaps a part of the answer is found in 1:22 where Jesus is referred to as one who spoke with "authority," and not as the scribes. This particular reflection upon the scribes, implying a certain insipidness, interests us. They possessed authority by virtue of their position. Why did they not speak with authority? Conjecture is risky business, but we have a notion that their recitations were mechanical, unfeeling, and sing-song. Devotion may have been reduced to formalized vocation, and the sharp edge of adeptness dulled by neglect. Figureheads occupy space but command little respect, whether they be scribes, ministers, bishops, church-school teachers, or members of a church staff. One must be more than simply a "figure-head." Perhaps we should each take counsel with ourselves regarding the phrase, "for he taught as one having authority, not as the scribes."

3. The command. Jesus rebuked an unclean spirit and commanded it to come out of a man in the synagogue, "and the unclean spirit ... came out of him" (1:26). Let us note the response: "They were all amazed and said ‘With authority he commands even the unclean spirits’ " (1:27).

Jesus began his public ministry with an announcement, an invitation, and a command, but most of all with authority.

Some advice for life:

1. Never have more children than you have car windows.
2. Never loan your car to someone to whom you have given birth.
3. Pick your friends carefully. A "friend" never goes on a diet when you are fat or tells you how lucky you are to have a husband who remembers Mother's Day when his gift is a smoke alarm.
4. Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
5. Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.
6. Never be in a hurry to terminate a marriage. Remember, you may need this man or woman someday to finish a sentence.
7. There are no guarantees in marriage. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a Sears battery.
8. Never go to a class reunion pregnant. They will think that's all you have been doing since you graduated.

The allied troops under General Wellington fought Napoleon on June 18, 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo, a village in Belgium just south of Brussels. News was transmitted by the use of lights across the channel to anxious Britishers. The words were spelled out, "Wellington defeated...." and then a fog, so typical of England, fell over the channel. England thought the battle was lost and the dreadful news was spread quickly, throwing the land into despair. But when the fog lifted, they could see the final word, "Wellington defeated Napoleon." And the mood in Great Britain changed from one of tragedy to triumph. The whole country exploded in thunderous celebration as the news was relayed. Napoleon had been defeated. 

We know from the Gospel records that there was a great deal of circumstantial evidence that at first clouded the landscape for the disciples. It seemed that the Roman authorities had taken their fondest hopes and greatest dreams from them on Good Friday. They were living as victims--when God had achieved for them the victory. How tragic it is for Christian believers to continue to fight the Good Friday battle and always remain a victim when we could claim the resurrection power of Christ and be a victor. However, I understand that it does take a leap of faith to believe that Christ has won the big war when our world looks the way it does today.

Celtic Christians chose, not the dove, but the wild goose as a symbol representing the Holy Spirit. It sounds strange to us, but it has a long tradition in Ireland.

While the Roman Church imagined the Holy Spirit in the form of a peaceful, graceful dove, the Ancient Celts understood the Holy Spirit to be like a wild goose. When you hear of the Spirit descending like a heavenly dove on you, you hear harps and strings softly playing and get a peaceful feeling. The image of the Holy Spirit as dove has become so familiar and domesticated an image we pay little attention.

The image of a wild goose descending upon you is a different matter altogether. A wild goose is one noisy, bothersome bird. I like this image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose because it jars us out of our complacency. We need such an image to correct our overly safe and overly sweet image of the Spirit. One preacher friend asked, "How many times can you sing 'There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in This Place' without your blood sugar reaching diabetic levels?"

When the Spirit comes in the Bible, it never seems to be sweet or safe. God's Spirit called the prophets to speak to Israel in words that were bold and sometimes dangerous. Ezekiel saw a vision of God's Spirit blowing through a valley of dry bones and bringing them to life. John the Baptist dressed in camel's hair and eating wild locusts proclaimed, "I baptize you with water but he who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Paul gave this advice to young Timothy, "For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

Neither safe nor tame, the Spirit inspired Paul to proclaim, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28).

It was this wild Goose that Jesus referred to when he preached his first sermon and quoted Isaiah, saying, "For the Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of God's favor" (Luke 4:18).

The English mystic and Benedictine nun Juliana of Norwich (1342–1414) had reasons enough to worry. She lived during the Black Death that killed 75 million people in medieval Europe. Many people interpreted the bubonic plague as divine punishment, but not Juliana. In her unapologetically optimistic view of life, she believed that God loved every person and that he would redeem every tear. In her book of visions called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love — by some accounts the first book published in English that was written by a woman — Juliana wrote one of the most well-known sentences in all of Christian history that's also the perfect antidote to worry.

In her thirteenth vision or "shewing," Juliana concluded that she was wrong to worry about the sins and sorrows of life. Jesus told her that these trials and tribulations were, in fact, "behovely" (from which we get our word "behoove"). Even our sins and anxieties are somehow incumbent uponus. They're part of our human story. Despite "all the pains that ever were, or ever shall be," Juliana believed that God longs to "comforteth readily and sweetly." He does so by reassuring us that, because of the certainty of his boundless love,

"All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well."

“Jesus wept.” Had he not heard that big boys never cry? He wept with Mary as she told how Lazarus came to die. He wept with her. His heart was touchedto see her weeping there. And, as he wept, his weeping said her sorrow he would share. He did not say, “Be brave and strong,”and thus condemn her tears. He worried not that he was seenas sharing in her fears. If Jesus was so sensitive to Mary’s dreadful loss, I wonder how he bore so well the torture of the cross.

If Jesus thus could weep and did not try his tears to hide, I wonder why we try to keepour tears of love inside. And I believe that Jesus weeps for human anguish knownthroughout the world by those in pain. He makes their pain his own. If I would then be Christ-like and would follow in his way, I too may weep with others as I share with them today.

Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands,
For our offenses given;
But now at God's right hand He stands
And brings us life from heaven;
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of hallelujah.

It was a strange and dreadful strife
When Life and Death contended;
The victory remained with Life,
The reign of Death was ended;
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That Death is swallowed up by Death,
His sting is lost forever.

Then let us feast this Easter Day
On Christ, the Bread of Heaven;
The Word of Grace hath purged away
The old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed.
He is our meat and drink indeed;
Faith lives upon no other.