American culture is a culture of fixing blame -- fixing blame on others. Whenever the President of our land slips a bit the media ask, "Why? Who is to blame?" When our favorite sports team loses, the question is asked, "Why? Who is to blame?" And on and on it goes. We are anxious to fix the blame somewhere. This "blame" culture may nowhere be so clearly seen as in the mountain of court cases brought in our land. It's getting to the point that when anything wrong happens to anyone the first thought is to go to court in order to assign the blame to someone else.

There lives a man whose name is J. B. J. B. is a lot like an Old Testament character named Job. J. B. protests his innocence when anything goes wrong. His method of choice for assigning blame is a lawsuit. J. B. is a rugged, athletic man. He is very proud of his body. He boasts of his feats of strength. So when the local YMCA advertised a "Refrigerator Race" J. B. signed up immediately. In this kind of race a refrigerator is strapped to your back. The one who can move ten yards the most quickly with a refrigerator on his back wins the race. This was just the kind of stuff that J. B. loved. He strapped on the refrigerator and away he went. And then the strap broke. Down came J. B., refrigerator, and all. His back was hurt to be sure. But his pride was hurt more than his back.

"Who is to blame?" J. B. thought. His answer: The company that made the strap. What to do? He thought it over and said, "I'll sue." He sued the strap company for one million dollars. They were to blame. He was innocent. He sued and he won! The blame was not his!

On another occasion J. B.'s equally physical son crashed the seat of a swing into the head of another young man. There was brain damage to the other boy. What was more important to J. B., however, was the damage to his own reputation. "Who is to blame?" J. B. thought. His answer: The company that made the wooden swing seat. What to do? He thought it over and he said, "I'll sue." He sued the company that made the swing seat for making a seat that could hurt someone. They were to blame. He was innocent. He sued and he won! Two million dollars this time! The blame was not his!

J. B. lived in suburbia. He took pride in his house and his yard. One day while he was out working in his yard he noticed that his neighbor, Mike, was also working on his yard. They each paused for a bit in their work and talked over the hedge. They began discussing the fact that the hedge between them needed trimming. Since Mike was standing with his lawn mower, J. B. suggested that they hold the lawn mower up by its four wheels, two men on each side of the hedge, and use the lawn mower as a hedge clipper. Great idea! And it worked -- for a while. Then J. B. stepped into a hole, lost his balance and down he went with the mower on top of him. His hand was badly cut.

As always, J. B.'s first thought was, "Who is to blame?" It just couldn't be his fault. It couldn't be his stupidity. The last place he would think of looking to assign blame was to himself. Who is to blame? The lawn mower company, of course. Nowhere in their directions did they indicate that this machine should not be used as a hedge clipper. What to do? He thought it over and he said, "I'll sue." And sue he did. The lawn mower company was to blame. The court agreed. He was innocent. The blame was not his!

P.S. The legal facts in this parable are true!"

Most people think of AIDS as being transmitted sexually or through intravenous drug use. There are few actual cases of anyone contracting the virus in other ways. However, there is the case of two brothers. One of the brothers had advanced symptoms of AIDS. The other brother was not infected at all with the deadly disease. Then one day the two brothers got into a very violent fight. The infected brother continuously smashed his head against his brother's head. Both men bled a great deal into each other's exposed wounds. Soon after this episode the non-infected brother tested positive for the virus.

It is stories like these that have caused the medical community to revisit how they view sports. The Center for Disease Control did conduct one study a few years ago, reviewing eleven NFL teams playing 155 games. The scientists recorded 575 bleeding injuries. From this they calculated that the risk of getting AIDS on the field was 1 in 85 million. According to official records there has not been a case of transmission on the field to date.

However, minds were challenged again in the sport of boxing. In February of 1996, a boxer by the name of Tommy Morrison announced to the world that he is HIV-positive. It turns out that Tommy had been very active in areas beyond boxing. Because of his fame, which had also extended into some television appearances, Tommy was very attractive to a lot of women. Tommy soon discovered that he could have almost any woman he wanted at any time. Because of this philandering activity, Tommy became HIV-positive.

Tommy Morrison described himself and many others when he tried to explain how this could happen. Yes, he gave the normal reflection that he never thought that this could ever happen to him. No, he was not careful but instead very reckless. Perhaps he stated the situation best when he said, "I thought that I was bulletproof."

Wasn't that the problem that Jesus saw in the many arrogant religious leaders of his day? Isn't that our problem when we try to live lives that are distant from God? Couldn't we say along with Tommy Morrison, "I thought I was bulletproof"?

Adapted by Time (New York City: Time-Life Syndication), February 26, 1996, p. 59.

This notice appeared in the window of a coat store in Nottingham, England: "We have been established for over 100 years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coat rationing, government control and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next."

Another great way to describe the Christian attitude toward "good works," toward moral and spiritual effort, is to remember the words of Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10: "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me." We would also do well to make a motto out of a line from Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. He expressed this same profound paradox when he wrote: "Work hard and struggle as if everything depended on you; yet pray and trust God as if everything depended on God."

This notice appeared in the window of a coat store in Nottingham, England: "We have been established for over 100 years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coat rationing, government control and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next."

At first it is hard to comprehend that Dr. Karl Menninger wrote both The Crime of Punishment and Whatever Became of Sin? The two books appear to be diametrically opposed. The one emphasizes that we must take Sin seriously while the other denounces the "philosophy of punishment" as obsolete, vengeful and itself criminal. But the two books are not contradictory. An emphasis on a gracious attitude of forgiveness, redemption and rehabilitation does not mean that we naively ignore sin and evil. Menninger writes that in place of the vengeful philosophy of punishment we should "seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventative in its total social impact." He is calling for a paradoxical combination of judgment and grace.

Johnny was going home one day past his grandfather's house with a couple of his chums.  As they passed the house they spied the old gentleman out on his sun porch in his rocking chair with a big black book (the bible) on his lap reading rather intently.

"What's your grandfather doing", asked one of Johnny's friends.

"Oh, grandpa - he's cramming for the finals", Johnny replied.

Our Lord and Savior is patient with us my friends. He cultivates us and tends to us, even when we ignore him, even when we fail to trust him, even when we produce nothing for him.

But not forever can we put off the day when we are called home for the finals - home to account for what we have done and what we have not done.

A young and fearless preacher had a problem with a somewhat worldly parishioner who would remark sarcastically every Sunday as he shook the preacher's hand at the door, "You got them today preacher!" Sunday after Sunday this fellow never seemed to feel that he needed to repent and always felt that the sermon was for everybody else. Then one Sunday there was a bad snow storm and the preacher and this one fellow were the only ones that could show up. The preacher seized the opportunity and preacher his entire three point sermon on, "Hell, Fire, and Damnation." Well, the one congregant again walked out the door and shook the preacher's hand and said, "If they had been here today preacher, you would have gotten them real good!"

Medieval theologians argued that since a ladder leaning against a wall forms a triangle and a triangle is a symbolic reminder of the Holy Trinity, anyone who carelessly blunders through this mystical space is risking divine wrath! Even when that argument lost itself in history's muddle, condemned Englishmen about to be hanged at Tyburn or some other notable place of execution were required to walk under the ladder that stood against the gallows for convenience of the executioner. In those circumstances, you could say the man was certainly in for a spell of very bad luck.

Tim Bruster tells a powerful story about a mom who took her children to a crowded restaurant one day. Her six-year-old son asked if he could say the grace. He prayed: “God is great and God is good, Let us thank him for the food, and God I would thank you even more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all! Amen!” Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, the woman at the very next table growled loudly: “That’s what’s wrong with this country. Kids today don’t even know how to pray. The very idea… asking God for ice cream! Why I never.”

Hearing this, the little six-year-old boy burst into tears and he asked his mother: “Did I do it wrong? I’m sorry. Is God mad at me?” The little boy’s mother pulled him over into her lap. She hugged him tightly and assured him that he had done a terrific job with his prayer and God was certainly not mad at him. Just then an elderly gentleman walked over to the table. He winked at the little boy and he said: “I know God really well. We visit every day and I happen to know that God loved your prayer. It may have been the best one He has heard all day.” “Really?” the little boy asked.. “Cross my heart,” said the man. Then he leaned over and whispered into the little boy’s ear. Pointing at the woman at the next table who had made the remark that started the whole thing, he said: “Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes.”

Naturally, the mom ordered ice cream for her kids at the end of the meal. The little six-year-old boy stared at his for a moment and then he did something that no one in that restaurant that day will ever forget. He picked up his sundae and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the woman at the next table. With a big smile he said to her: “Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes and my soul is good already!’ The people in the restaurant applauded and somewhere in heaven Jesus was smiling… because that little boy had already learned how to look at others with the eyes of sacrificial love. Sight (true sight) is always a matter of the heart… not the eyes.

H.G. Wells once wrote an essay on a tribe of people he called the "Goodness Sakers". These were the folks who when they saw something that needed to be done, or when they saw a social evil, or detected some moral shortcoming, would stand around and wring their hands and say, "For goodness sakes, why doesn't someone do something about this?"

I know a lot of "goodness-sakers". They're always saying "for goodness sake, something ought to be done." But they never get around to sharing in the doing of it. So the obvious truth of the parable is that unfruitfulness is not allowed God's vineyard. Uselessness is a sin because it means that when we are useless we fall short of God's intention for us.
 

The Romans sometimes compelled a captive to be joined face-to-face with a dead body, and to bear it about until the horrible effluvia destroyed the life of the living victim. Virgil describes this cruel punishment:

The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;
Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.

Without Christ, we are shackled to the dead corpse of our sinfulness. Only repentance frees us from certain death, for life and death cannot coexist indefinitely.

Simply changing outward behavior is not repentance. We at times change our behavior for self-centered reasons. Sometimes we change in an attempt to atone for my sins.  Such change will only make my sinfulness more sinful.

This is the basis for the reference in Hebrews of repenting from ‘dead works'.  A dead work is a work that is not done with the leading and empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Hence any good work a non-Christian would attempt is a dead work.  And many types of good works that Christians do could be devoid of the Spirit's leading and empowerment.

• A dead work is giving to charity because it is a good tax break.
• It is going to church because it is good for my business reputation or my resume or my politics.
• It is tithing because I am afraid God will ‘get me' if I don't.
• It is sending my kids to a Christian school, not because I want them to learn the truths of the Christian faith and surrender their lives to the Lordship of Christ, but because there they will run in the right crowd.
• It is the giving up of a sinful habit, not because I want to be controlled by the Spirit of God instead of the habit, but because the habit inhibits my performance at work and is harming my professional reputation.

In all these ways, I have actually changed, but the change has not accomplished what Jeremiah said was impossible:

Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good
who are accustomed to do evil.

A friend of mine tells a story about a man who borrowed a book from an acquaintance. As he read through it, he was intrigued to find parts of the book underlined with the letters YBH written in the margin. When he returned the book to the owner, he asked what the YBH meant. The owner replied that the underlined paragraphs were sections of the book that he basically agreed with. They gave him hints on how to improve himself and pointed out truths that he wished to incorporate into his life. However, the letters YBH stood for "Yes, but how?"

And that's the question for us this morning: "Yes, but how?" "I ought to know how to take better care of myself, but how?" "I know I ought to spend more time in scripture reading and prayer, but how?" "I know I ought to be more sensitive to others, more loving of my spouse, more understanding of the weaknesses of others, but how?" These are all good qualities and we know that, but how can we acquire them? As Christian people we know the kind of life we ought to live, and most of us have the best of intentions to do so, but how? We are afraid because we know where the road paved with only good intentions leads!

This morning we hear Jesus' parable of the fig tree, telling us to repent and bear good fruit. We know what the Christian life requires of us and yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we also know how far short we fall. So the question that confronts us this morning is: "Yes, but how?"

Soil was at a premium in Israel. It was not unusual for a vineyard owner to give a little bit of his soil up for a fruit tree but the tree took up the best soil, the deepest soil, and required the most water. A fig tree doesn't grow fruit until three years after planting. The owner in this story, had given the tree "due season" to bear fruit and yet the tree bore no fruit. It took up valuable space and resources. The owner questioned why the tree was allowed to "even use up ground."

God had given the Israelites the choicest ground. Their land possessed everything necessary to make themselves a great nation, indeed, a light to all nations. They were strategically positioned to send the fruit of God north and south, east and west; but instead, in-fighting continued to make them a worthless fruit tree.

Every one of us and all of our churches will have to answer (from God's perspective) this same question; "Why does it even use up the ground?"

A story is told of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer when he was a young boy. His mother took him to a museum, and he happened upon a painting that caught his eye. It depicted a bedraggled, exhausted older man slumped over a chessboard. Few of his pieces were left on the board, and he was conceding the game. On the other side of the board was his fresh and snappy opponent, Satan.The painting was entitled Checkmate. Already a chess prodigy, young Bobby Fischer stood looking at the painting for a long time. His mother soon tired of it and moved around the remainder of the gallery, finally returning to find Bobby still entranced by that painting. "Come now, Bobby, we have to go." Bobby Fischer did not stop staring, thinking. One more time his mother insisted, "Bobby, we have to go. Come now!" "But, Mom," he pleaded, "he has one more move!"

What the lay eye could not see the trained eye did. The painter had intentionally left an option open for the old man that he could not see. Fisher did. There IS always an option open to us, even in the face of our fiercest opponent. Satan cannot checkmate God!

It seems that the University of Tennessee coach bought a bolt of cloth thinking he would have a suit made out of it. He took the material to his tailor in Knoxville where the tailor measured him, examined the bolt of cloth, did some computations on a piece of paper, and said, "I'm sorry, coach, there just isn't enough material in this bolt to make a suit for you." The coach was disappointed, but he threw the bolt of cloth in the trunk of his car, wondering what he was going to do with it.

A couple of weeks later he was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama the home of the Crimson Tide arch enemies of the Vols. He was on his way to the coast for a vacation. Driving down the main street in Tuscaloosa, he noticed a tailor shop, which reminded him that he had that bolt of cloth in the trunk. He stopped, thinking he would give it a try. He told the tailor he had bought this bolt of cloth and wondered if he could do anything with it. The tailor measured him, measured the bolt of cloth, did some computations. Finally he said, "Coach, I can make you a suit out of this bolt. What's more, I can make you an extra pair of pants. And if you really want it, I can give you a vest out of this, too." The coach was dumbfounded. "I don't understand," he said. "My tailor in Knoxville told me he couldn't even make one suit out of this bolt of cloth." The tailor said, "Coach, here in Tuscaloosa, you are not nearly as big a man as you are in Knoxville."

I tell the story to make the point that things are not always what they seem. Our Scripture lesson the parable of the fig tree is clearly a parable of judgment. But at the very heart of it is a marvelous word of grace.

Somerset Maugham said it best in his autobiography, Summing Up, "I knew that I had no lyrical quality, a small vocabulary, little gift of metaphor. The original and striking simile never occurred to me. Poetic flights...were beyond my powers. On the other hand, I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed. I could put down in clear terms what I saw...I knew that I should never write as well as I could wish, but I thought, with pains, that I could arrive at writing as well as my natural defects allowed." Somerset Maugham discovered the secret of genius.

The point is that life does not ask us to become what we are not. The fig tree was only required to produce figs. No more. You and I are asked only to accomplish what our natural gifts allow, but we are asked to accomplish just that.

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.

Before one becomes very old there comes the startling realization that one day you will die. Death is the universal enemy of humankind. Although life has been extended through medicine, all eventually die. Death is always decisive. It holds the only perfect winning record.

But for the Christian, death loses some of its sting. It loses the sting of finality and eternal separation from loved ones. There is no sadness for us who die in the Lord. It is replaced by a wonderful, eternal life with God. There is only sadness for those who remain, for when someone loves, then loses, they grieve because they first loved.

Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is still the most important news for humankind. With the empty tomb, death was put to death. Jesus now gives each of us the possibility of an eternal lease on life. We simply must claim his promises for our lives.

I like to think of life as a long hallway with a door at each end. We have all gone through the first door called birth. Someday we will all pass through the second called death. For each of us the hallway is a different length. For some it is very short: three years, ten years, twenty-one years. For others somewhat longer: thirty-three, forty-seven, fifty-eight years. Still others, rather long: sixty-six, seventy-eight, ninety years. The length of the hallways is not as important as what happens in our lives.

As we meet and know Christ in the hallway of life, he has promised to know us in death. Then as we pass through that second door we are assured of his company. Jesus goes with us and takes us to the celebration of the saved in the Father’s house.

For those who die in the Lord, death is never a funeral march to the grave but a triumphant march to the throne of God.

Why did the Father will the death of his only beloved Son, and in so painful and shameful a form? Because the Father had "laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6). Jesus' death was vicarious (undergone in our place) and atoning (securing remission of sins for us and reconciliation to God). It was a sacrificial death, fulfilling the principle of atonement taught in connection with the Old Testament sacrifices: "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb. 9:22; Lev. 17:11).

As the "last Adam," the second man in history to act on mankind's behalf, Jesus died a representative death. As a sacrificial victim who put away our sins by undergoing the death penalty that was our due, Jesus died as our substitute. By removing God's wrath against us for sin, his death was an act of propitiation (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2,; 4:10 "expiation," signifying that which puts away sin, is only half the meaning). By saving us from slavery to ungodliness and divine retribution for sin, Jesus' death was an act of redemption (Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19). By mediating and making peace between us and God, it was an act of reconciliation (Rom. 5:10-11). It opened the door to our justification (pardon and acceptance) and our adoption (becoming God's sons and heirs Rom. 5:1,9; Gal. 4:4-5).

This happy relationship with our Maker, based on and sealed by blood atonement, is the "New Covenant" of which Jesus spoke in the Upper Room (1 Cor. 11:25; Matt. 26:28).

We, as human beings, whoever we are and whatever station in life we are in, all stand on common ground when we realize that we all at sometime in life fear death, we all live in the presence of death, that all men, in some way or another, have been hurt by death. And it does not only touch the life of the elderly. In his preface of "Bread For the World", Author Simon reminds us that before we complete reading this brief preface that four people in the world will have died of starvation, most of them children. So no matter who you are, whether you are in the sunset years and expect to live fewer years than you have lived to date, or whether you are just beginning life's journey—death is real. All of the wars in the world have not increased the death toll by one. It robs people of valuable years of their life but it in no way increases the death toll, for all of us, one day, shall have to go through the experience of death.

I have always wondered about the cynics and non-believers. What do they do at Easter? Have you ever wondered about that. On that day when the Christian church joyfully celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, what do they do. Humanism is all right for the classroom, but it leaves you nothing at an icy graveside. It is precisely at that point that Christianity responds: Yes, we shall see our loved ones again and all be reunited.

Some demand that they need proof and documentation. I wonder what kind proof that they desire. There is more documented evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived. There is more evidence of the resurrection than there is that Alexander the Great died at age 33. I have always found it interesting that some will accept thousands of facts for which there are only shreds of evidence, but in the face of overwhelming evidence of the resurrection they cast a skeptical doubt, because it is so unique. We say that we want the facts. Well the facts are that in the history of the ancient world the resurrection has been attested to as much as most of the events that we routinely accept and read in the history books.

In the early nineties the ABC news show 20/20 had an interesting segment on the shroud of Turin. If you were completely out of touch at that time and have not heard of the shroud of Turin, let me tell you that it is supposed to be the cloth that Jesus was buried in. And on this cloth is an imprint of the person of Jesus. It is now housed in a cathedral in Turin, Italy. Several years ago an international team of scientists, consisting of Christians, Jews, Moslems, and non-believers, set about to prove or disprove the story behind this ancient cloth. The results of their findings were published in an issue of National Geographic magazine.

The interesting thing to me about the 20/20 story was an interview that they had with one of the scientists, an Air Force colonel who was a specialist in laser technology. He openly admitted that he began the project not only as a non-Christian, but as a person who was openly anti-religious. I relished this opportunity, he said, to debunk what I considered a childish myth. Haraldo Rivera asked him: Now that you have spent four years on this project what is your response. His response not only shocking, but it was shocking that 20/20 allowed it to go on the air. He said: After four years on this project, I now fall upon my knees and worship a resurrected Christ.

It would be nice if we could hold some physical evidence in our hands to prove it all, but I would mislead you this Easter Day if I left the impression that the resurrection was a matter of fact. For in the end, the resurrection is a religious belief. In the end you cannot prove it or disprove it. And that is why some brilliant people believe and why some brilliant people do not believe. Because you cannot prove it one way or the other. There just are not any photographs. In the end we must fall back upon the words of the resurrected Christ to the disciple Thomas: Thomas, you have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.

In the summer of 1981, Will Lee, the actor who played an adult character named Mr. Hooper on the children's television show SESAME STREET, died. This posed a difficult set of issues for The Children's Television Workshop, producers of the show. Should they deal at all with the subject of death? If so, how would they explain it to their 10 million viewers, most of whom are under the age of six? A staff writer describes it this way: "We asked ourselves: What do we want the kids to know? What can they absorb? What might open up things we can't answer? We try to create boundaries around what we can safely teach without doing any damage."

Child-development experts who specialize in loss and separation provided some specific don'ts for dealing with death on the show: Don't say Mr. Hooper got sick and died, because you don't always die when you get sick. Don't say he was old, because children think their parents are old. Don't say he went to the hospital and died, because people go to the hospital all the time. The staff also decided to avoid religious issues, such as saying that Mr. Hooper had gone to heaven. What about the do's? Early on they decided they were going to say a few basic things. He's gone--acknowledge the reality. He won't be back. He'll be missed.

They also wanted the cast to express how they felt about Will. And they wanted the kids to know that death stimulates a full range of emotions. You're sad, you're angry, you're frustrated--all at the same time. The show that resulted aired on Thanksgiving so that parents could watch with their children.

In one segment, Big Bird walks on camera and says to the cast: "I just drew pictures of all my grown-up friends on Sesame Street and I'm going to give them to you." He passes out sketches and the cast members ooh and ahh over the likenesses. He's left with Mr. Hooper's picture. "I can't wait till he sees it," says Big Bird. "Say, where is he? I want to give it to him."

One cast member explains: "Big Bird, don't you remember? We told you . . . Mr. Hooper died. He's dead."

Big Bird says, "Oh yeah, I remember. Well . . . I'll give it to him when he comes back." Another cast member gets up from her chair and touches Big Bird saying, "Big Bird, Mr. Hooper's not coming back."

"Why not?" Big Bird asks innocently.

"Big Bird," explains the cast member, "when people die, they don't come back."

No they don't. That is the sad reality Big Bird that you and I learn as we grow older. But hidden under the dirt of the grave is a story, told in the death of Mary and Martha's brother, told in the death of Jesus their friend, told in the death of everyone of you brothers and sisters of Jesus. Resurrection! It is the greatest unfinished story of our times. Its author is penning the finish even as we speak. It is His story. He knows the conclusion. The curtain will soon fall. And then shall begin the end that shall not end. Resurrection! It's almost Easter Big Bird…and Easter tells me they do come back. Amen.

Tonight, Shanghai is burning,
And we’re dying, too.
What bomb more surely mortal
Than death inside of you?
For some men die by shrapnel,
And some go down in flames,
But most men perish inch by inch,
In play at little games.

What could be more descriptive of our flabby indifference  -- the little games we play from day to day, our obsession with material security, our neurotic efforts to be accepted by the crowd, the fanatical devotion we give to seeking entertainment.  But most men perish inch by inch in play at little games.

The daily routine interests of our lives tell the story of who we really are.  How we spend our money, our time, our energy, what we read, what we give our attention to, are all the tell-tale marks of who we are.  Take a look at yourself.  Are you perishing inch by inch in play at little games?

With whom do you most identify in today's gospel? There are plenty of characters here who are being stung by death. There is a woman whose whole life has been caught, dominated by a terrible, life-demanding illness. There is a distraught father. A little girl whose young life is being cut short. There are the baffled disciples, the crowd who doesn't know what to think of all this. Where are you?

And yet, intruding into the story is another face, the strong, live-giving face of Jesus. Mark says that Jesus was forever intruding into fixed, settled, hopeless situations and bringing life. Hear his strong voice speaking over the laments and dirges in today's gospel? Hear him as he calls to the little girl, "Get up!"

I think he may be calling to you. "Get up!" His voice is strong, commanding, vital. "Get up!" You have perhaps heard his comforting, soft voice before, stilling the waves of the storm, bringing peace to troubled waters. Now hear his other voice, that strong, shattering, enlivening voice. Evoking "fear and trembling" (verse 33) in all who heard it that day, it may do the same for us. Life is frightening, when it intrudes into the realm of death. Hear his voice now. I think it is a shout. There is so much death. We are asleep with death so it takes a loud voice to wake us.

The great tower of the CastleChurch in Wittenberg overlooks the church where Luther preached and is today buried.

On the anniversary of the Reformation the Socialist government took it upon itself to paint, in large, tasteless letters, a quote for the first line of Luther's famous hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God, a bulwark never failing."

Believers in Wittenberg, for whom the words were more than an advertising slogan, whispered among themselves "The communists should have quoted from the first line of the second verse of the hymn, 'If we on our own strength confide, our striving would be loosing.'"

And it's true. Left to our own devices, we are caught, trapped, dead. Face facts. There's a lot of deadness out there and in here.

But Jesus does not leave us be. In this story, we don't have to wait to Easter for life to intrude and death to be defeated. Get up! he says. In the name of Jesus Christ, the victor over pain and death, enslavement and despair, Get up!

The story is told of a certain man who was walking in his neighborhood when he came face to face with Death. He noticed an expression of surprise on the creature’s horrid countenance, but they passed one another without speaking. The fellow was frightened and went to a wise man to ask what should be done. The wise man told him that Death had probably come to take him away the next morning. The poor fellow was terrified at this and asked how ever he could escape.

The only solution the two could think of was that the victim should drive all night to a distant city and so elude Death. So the man drove to the other city—it was a terrible journey that had never been done in one night before—and when he arrived he congratulated himself on having eluded death.

Just then, Death came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I have come for you.”

“Why,” exclaimed the terrified man, “I thought I saw you yesterday near my home!”

“Exactly,” said Death. “That was why I looked surprised—for I had been told to meet you today in this city.”

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.

Well-intentioned people often take on the role of God's defense attorney. Sometimes when bad things happen to us they "defend" God by telling us that the ways of God are mysterious, and we do not understand them. That which seems to be a bad thing - a child who is born blind - is really a beautiful thing. We should give thanks for the blindness or tragedy. It is all God's Will.

Perhaps our friends will use the famous illustration of Thorton Wilder from his book The Eighth Day, where he compares life to a beautiful tapestry: "Looked at from the right side, it is an intricately woven work of art, drawing together threads of different lengths and colors to make up an inspiring picture. But turn the tapestry over, and you will see a hodgepodge of many threads, some short and some long, some smooth and some cut and knotted, going off in different directions. Wilder offers this as his explanation of why good people have to suffer in this life. God has a pattern into which all of our lives fit. His pattern requires that some lives be twisted, knotted, or cut short, while others extend to impressive lengths, not because one thread is more deserving than another, but simply because the pattern requires it. Looked at from underneath, from our vantage point in life, God's pattern of reward and punishment seems arbitrary and without design, like the underside of a tapestry. But looked at from outside this life, from God's vantage point, every twist and knot is seen to have its place in a great design that adds up to a work of art."

Telling someone that the tragedy that has just befallen them is "God's will" is the worst possible thing you could say to them.

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.

The mark of a great leader is the demands he makes upon his followers. The Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi offered his men only hunger and death to free Italy. Winston Churchill told the English people that he had nothing to offer them but "blood, sweat, toil, and tears" in their fight against the enemies of England. Jesus demanded that his followers carry a cross. A sign of death.

• Andrew died on a cross
• Simon was crucified
• Bartholomew was flayed alive
• James (son of Zebedee) was beheaded
• The other James (son of Alphaeus) was beaten to death
• Thomas was run through with a lance
• Matthias was stoned and then beheaded
• Matthew was slain by the sword
• Peter was crucified upside down
• Thaddeus was shot to death with arrows
• Philip was hanged

The demands that Jesus makes upon those who would follow him are extreme. Christianity is not a Sunday morning religion. It is a hungering after God to the point of death if need be. It shakes our foundations, topples our priorities, pits us against friend and family, and makes us strangers in this world. We sing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." But, we must come to see that on many occasions he is not our friend but our adversary.

One day, as Jesus was being followed by a large crowd, he turned on the them, sensing that the demands of discipleship were not getting through, he told two parables. In these parables we learn the three great requirements of Christianity. To follow Jesus:

1. We must establish our priorities.
2. We must count the cost.
3. We must pay the price.

According to an old fable, a man made an unusual agreement with Death. He told the Grim Reaper that he would willingly accompany him when it came time to die, but only on one condition that Death would send a messenger well in advance to warn him. Weeks winged away into months, and months into years. Then one bitter winter evening, as the man sat thinking about all his possessions, Death suddenly entered the room and tapped him on the shoulder. Startled, the man cried out, "You're here so soon and without warning! I thought we had an agreement." Death replied, "I've more than kept my part. I've sent you many messengers. Look in the mirror and you'll see some of them." As the man complied, Death whispered, "Notice your hair! Once it was full and black, now it is thin and white. Look at the way you cock your head to listen to me because you can't hear very well. Observe how close to the mirror you must stand to see yourself clearly. Yes, I've sent many messengers through the years. I'm sorry you're not ready, but the time has come to leave."

There is a road in southern Italy that begins in the city of Eboli and ends in the mountain village of Gagliano. To anyone who makes that journey, it is an ascent to hell. Gagliano is no more than a scattered cluster of fallen down whitewashed old buildings, hanging desperately to barren slopes near a rocky cliff. The village has been there for centuries and for as far back as the oldest person can remember it has always been a place of severe poverty, unrelenting disease, frightening superstition, monotonous despair, and death. Oppressed and defeated by those conditions, it is said that the peasants of Gagliano do not sing and there is a saying among them that "Christ stopped in Eboli," that somehow God had forgotten them and Christ stopped at the other end of the road. Because hope and joy, the fullness of human life that God means for us to have, are not found there, the road to Gagliano is a road that leads to hell.

Likewise, there are some stairs in a New York City tenement that go up six flights to an apartment that houses a family of ten -- a grandmother, her two daughters and their seven children. Anyone who has climbed those stairs and shared in the experiences of that family this past year has made an ascent to hell. Unemployed, with few or no job skills, the family subsists on welfare payments and the meager wages one daughter brings home from work at a fast-food restaurant. Often the heat does not work and there is no hot water. Many days there is no food, for alcohol and drugs often eat up their money. Five days before Christmas, while the grandmother was down on the first floor to fetch the mail, one of the little boys climbed up on the gas stove, turned it on and set himself ablaze. While the rest of the world was singing "Joy to the World," that family, already dead to the world around them, mourned the painful death of one of their children.

In another part of the world, there is a trail in eastern Turkey that winds its way through the rocky barrens to the squalor of a refugee camp. Here thousands of people are housed in makeshift tents -- tattered blanket homes. If you were to take that road and visit those camps, you would hike yourself into hell. Sickness and disease are rampant there. Death is a frequent visitor where fresh water and food are scarce and sanitary conditions are unheard of. The people who live in those camps are trapped -- unable to move forward into Turkey and, because of war and fighting behind, unable to go back to their homes.

In this so-called modern world, which is supposed to be undergoing a revolution of change in the direction of a "new world order," so many of its roads lead not up, or forward, into the future, but back and down into hell. Sickness stalks the streets of Zaire under the name of the Ebola virus. In fact, all over our world, and even here in the United States, there are streets and stairways, elevators and superhighways that lead to hell, places of evil where people are trapped in boredom, bigotry, loneliness, leukemia, poverty, psychosis, despair, and death.

Trouble is all about us and the words of Saint Paul ring true when he wrote, "Outwardly we are wasting away. Daily we are being given over to death." To us Jesus speaks this morning, saying, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid."

The master preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse was widowed at a young age. The death of his wife left him and a six-year-old daughter in the home. He had real difficulty working through his own grief, but the hardest part was to comfort and explain the death to his daughter. He later recalled that all of his education and theological training left him at a loss.

One day he and the little girl were standing on a busy corner at a downtown intersection waiting for a light to change. Suddenly a very large truck sped by the comer, briefly blocking out the sun and frightening the little girl.

To comfort her, Dr. Barnhouse picked her up, and in a moment, the wisdom of God broke through and he was able to explain to his daughter:

"When you saw the truck pass it scared you, but let me ask you, had you rather be struck by the truck or the shadow of the truck?" She replied, "Of course, the shadow."

I have a Christmas dilemma. When I was a kid there was no Christmas dilemma. You filled out your wish list and you waited for Santa to fulfill it on the 25th. That was pretty awesome. The rest of the year didn't work like that so it made Christmas a strange and wonderful time. But you know what happens? Slowly the tables get turned on you until one day you're being handed the wish list. Such is life!

This is when the dilemma enters in too. Not for everyone. There are still some sad sacks out there who are 40 years old still filling out their wish list like their 4. But for those who are keenly aware and can read between the lines, you will take note that when the Angel meets the shepherds out abiding their fields he says, "Peace good will toward men." That's well and good and fits my four year old concept of Christmas. But the second part of the verse never gets quoted. Our culture curiously ignores its presence. Here is the whole verse: "Peace, good will toward with men, with whom he is pleased."

What does that mean? It makes me want to run and hide more that it makes me want to sing Jingle Bells. Look at our text in Matthew 1:21. The same strange thing occurs. The angel tells Joseph, "Don't be afraid to take Mary as you wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus" Sounds like the Christmas we all know. But then there's the matter of another unfinished verse which ends, "You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

That's the dilemma. That baby is the greatest gift ever given. But it's as if someone handed you a beautifully wrapped gift and said, John, I am giving you this because I love you. And when you open it it's a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, or When Bad Things Happen To Good People, or a new copy of Miss Manners. You can't miss the message that someone is trying to tell you something. Christmas tells me that God has launched a great rescue mission. That is the message that is presented in the Advent story over and over again. In fact, the name Jesus (which is, of course Greek because the New Testament was written in Greek) is the Hebrew equivalent of Joshua, which translated means: The Lord will save.

The Advent message says to us that in the midst of our depressions, our fears, the mundane of living, a rescuer is coming because we need rescuing. The church teaches that sin is like quicksand. You know what happens when you get stuck in quicksand and try to get yourself out. You only end up getting in deeper and deeper. The Unitarian church affirms that man is capable. If he is just shown the right way and is properly motivated he will do what is right. The Christian church says just the opposite. It says that man is not capable of extricating himself from the messes that he gets into. He is in need of a rescuer, and that is precisely what God has given us in the person of Jesus. Someone to save us. And the price of the rescue mission is a costly one. Blood is shed. Christ who was born in Bethlehem was also born to die. That is why one of the gifts that the wise men bring the Christ child is the gift of Myrrh. It was an embalming agent. It is to remind us always that the child was sent to die.

But the great tragedy is that after this costly rescue mission has been launched, so often our response to it is thanks but no thanks. We don't want to be rescued. We did not ask for a rescuer and we do not want one. That is the dilemma that we find ourselves in. God has sent us a Savior, and there are a whole lot of people who don't want to be saved.

Well, you say, how ridiculous. Everyone wants to be saved. On an intellectual basis, perhaps, but on an emotional basis where decisions are really made (and I am convinced that most of our decisions in life are emotional ones and not intellectual ones --I think studies prove this) I am not so sure that we do want salvation. Indeed, I think that we even resist salvation. Oh, it is true that we sing songs in church like Rescue The Perishing but the problem is that we usually don't have us in mind when we sing it. We have someone else in mind. Who of us wants to be counted among the fallen, the erring, the perishing. Who of us wants to change or be changed? We rebel at the thought of being snatched in pity from sin. That is the truth of the matter. This morning I would like for us to look at several reasons why we reject this great rescue mission that God had given to us. We reject it because...

1. We have a misconception of what salvation really means.
2. We believe we can save ourselves through their own cleverness.
3. We are uncomfortable with the Biblical image of power - power through vulnerability.

Let me share a story about Michael Wayne Hunter who was put on death row in California in 1983, in San Quentin Prison. After his third year on death row something happened. One day he was getting ready to spend time exercising when the guard said, "You're going to miss Mother Teresa. She's coming today to see you guys." Yea, sure, he said, "one more of those designs they have on us." A little later he heard more commotion about it and thought it might be true.

Another guard said, "Don't go into your cells and lock up. Mother Teresa stayed to see you guys." So Michael jogged up to the front in gym shorts and a tattered basketball shirt with the arms ripped out, and on the other side of the security screen was this tiny woman who looked 100 years old.

Yes, it was Mother Teresa.

This hardened prisoner wrote about his experience, he said, "You have to understand that, basically, I'm a dead man. I don't have to observe any sort of social convention; and as a result, I can break all the rules, say what I want. But one look at this Nobel Prize winner, this woman so many people view as a living saint, and I was speechless."

Incredible vitality and warmth came from her wizened, piercing eyes. She smiled at him, blessed a religious medal, and put it in his hands. This murderer who wouldn't have walked voluntarily down the hall to see the Warden, the Governor, the President, or the Pope, stood before this woman, and all he could say was, "Thank you, Mother Teresa."

At one point Mother Teresa turned and pointed her hand at the sergeant, "What you do to these men," she told him, "you do to God." The sergeant almost faded away in surprise and wonder.

That day was a turning point in the life of Michael Wayne Hunter. This San Quentin Death Row prisoner was cleansed by that experience. Life changed. Suddenly there was meaning to it. So drastic was the change a new trial was set and the death penalty was not sought. The verdict was guilty on both counts of first degree murder but a new sentence was given: Life without the possibility of parole. Prosecution did not seek the death penalty because Mr. Hunter was now a model prisoner and an award-winning writer. He is one other thing: A testimony that Christ still is willing to heal, still willing to touch the untouchable, and to make us whole.

As Ted Peters once pointed out, in the English language, it's curious that the word evil is "live" spelled backwards. And indeed, evil always destroys. Life is diminished if not wiped out where the demons rule. The death of the pigs reflects that. What's more, in the Ancient Near East, the sea represented one of the forces of chaos that people feared. So it's a double-whammy: first there is death but second there is death by drowning in the sea, thus piling up and compounding the sense of chaos and evil in this story.

But the sad spectacle of those hapless pigs rushing headlong into the sea also reminds us that the expelling of evil from our world always involves sacrifice. For whatever the reason, God does not simply wave a magic wand to eliminate evil. Rooting out evil takes time, takes effort, and takes above all sacrifice. This should hardly come as any surprise, however, to people who live their lives in the shadow of a cross.

One final point, however: Jesus was chased away by the townsfolk but the healed man remained and according to verse 39, he kept on talking about what Jesus had done. Something about his ongoing witness reminds us that this is also our role: lots of people in this world try to chase Jesus away. Our task is to hang around anyway and to just keep talking, just keep witnessing to Jesus' work, and just keep hoping that at the end of the day, that witness will bring people back to the very Jesus they once chased away. "Return home and tell how much God has done for you," Jesus told this man.

He tells the rest of us the exact same thing.

Who will ever forget those first pictures? There were pictures of starving men and starving women and starving children. These pictures stunned the world when they first hit our television screens. Pictures of Ethiopia. Pictures of an incredible famine. Millions of lives were at risk. And the world hardly knew about it until we saw the pictures. It was the pictures of the starving children that probably carried the most power. Babies sucking desperately at mother's empty breast, sucking for their life. Large brown eyes filled with tears and flies and fear. Distended stomachs. Bodies unimaginably lean. Innocent young lives were being snuffed out. The world shook its head in disbelief. The pictures, of course, motivated the world to action. Relief agencies from all over the world began to pour into Ethiopia. Christian organizations from our country also rushed to the scene of the disaster. Kathleen O'Meara was sent to Ethiopia on behalf of her church. Kathleen looked forward to the challenge. She had offered her life to her church for just such an occasion and now she would have a chance for service to humankind that would call forth her best gifts of serving.

When Ms. O'Meara arrived in Ethiopia, however, she was nearly overwhelmed by the devastating power of the famine. She was assigned to work in a feeding station in the northern part of Ethiopia. She went north with a convoy of trucks bearing sack upon sack upon sack of food. After two days of arduous travel the caravan finally arrived at its destination. Kathleen had seen many people along the roadside on the way north begging for food. At the feeding station, however, starving 57 people were just about all she saw. It seemed that for as far as her eye could see she saw nothing but starving, dying people. There were faint sounds from the youngest children. There were wails of despair from the lips of many of the women. There was an utter look of resignation and defeat in the eyes of men whose bodies were long and gaunt. Now there was work to be done. Kathleen was assigned to help distribute the many sacks of food that had been brought by the convoy. Sacks! Night and day that's all she would think of; all she could do. She saw those sacks in her troubled sleep each night. Sacks of food. Sacks that could bring life. Sacks were her mission and her hope. For Kathleen it was a daily round with the life-giving sacks of food. She came to see those sacks in her mind as a kind of symbol of hope in the midst of the devastation.

And then one day her eyes caught sight of an event that shattered her vision of the sacks as life-giving agents. That day she saw several hundred dead Ethiopians being carried to their graves in a funeral shroud. To her dismay the empty food sacks had now been filled with dead bodies. Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. The bitter irony of it all was almost too much for Ms. O'Meara. Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. She pondered deeply on this awful turn of events. "What the world needs," she mused to herself, "is for someone wrapped in the shrouds of death to bring new life and hope to the world." Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. What if a shroud of death became a garment of life? Would anyone believe such a story? Or would the world pass it off as just an idle tale?"

Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers, suggests that Jesus' action represented a revolution happening in seven short verses. In this short story, Jesus tries to wake people up to the kind of life God wants for them. He often talks about the Kingdom of God where people have equal worth and all of life has dignity. But in the latter part of his ministry, he begins to act this out. In the midst of a highly patriarchal culture Jesus breaks at least six strict cultural rules:

1. Jesus speaks to the woman. In civilized society, Jewish men did not speak to women. Remember the story in John 4 where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. She was shocked because a Jew would speak to a Samaritan. But when the disciples returned, the Scripture records, "They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman?" In speaking to her, Jesus jettisons the male restraints on women's freedom.

2. He calls her to the center of the synagogue. By placing her in the geographic middle, he challenges the notion of a male monopoly on access to knowledge and to God.

3. He touches her, which revokes the holiness code. That is the code which protected men from a woman's uncleanness and from her sinful seductiveness.

4. He calls her "daughter of Abraham," a term not found in any of the prior Jewish literature. This is revolutionary because it was believed that women were saved through their men. To call her a daughter of Abraham is to make her a full-fledged member of the nation of Israel with equal standing before God.

5. He heals on the Sabbath, the holy day. In doing this he demonstrates God's compassion for people over ceremony, and reclaims the Sabbath for the celebration of God's liberal goodness.

6. Last, and not least, he challenges the ancient belief that her illness is a direct punishment from God for sin. He asserts that she is ill, not because God willed it, but because there is evil in the world. (In other words, bad things happen to good people.)

And Jesus did all this in a few seconds.

Why be afraid of death,
As though your life were breath?
Death but anoints your eyes
with clay. O glad surprise.

Why should ye be forlorn?
Death only husks the corn.
Why should you fear to meet
The thresher of the wheat?

Is sleep a thing to dread?
Yet sleeping you are dead
Till you awake and rise,
Here, or beyond the skies.

Why should it be a wrench
To leave your wooden bench!
Why not, with happy shout,
Run home when school is out!

The dear ones left behind?
Oh, foolish one and blind!
A day and you will meet--
A night and you will greet.

This is the death of death
To breathe away a breath
And know the end of strife,
And taste the deathless life,

And joy without a fear,
And smile without a tear;
And work, nor care to rest,
And find the last the best.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lost his life for the sake of the Gospel, literally, wrote: "When Christ calls a (person), he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like (Martin) Luther's who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world, but it is the same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old (person) at his call... Only the person who is dead to his own will can follow Christ." (from The Cost of Discipleship).

The cross, Bonhoeffer, tells us, stands not as "the terrible end to an other-wise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ." Thus our life with Christ begins and ends. That's pretty radical stuff, but Christianity is pretty radical stuff, counter-cultural even.

You know it has been several decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall and since the Soviet Union collapsed but there are still many places in this world where darkness, death, and defeatism still reside, where the people are made to keep silent, and religion is squashed. But even in these places the church maintains a vigilant protest.

On May Day, 1990, in Moscow's Red Square one such protest took place. "Is it straight, Father?" one Orthodox priest asked another, shifting the heavy, eight-foot crucifix on his shoulder. "Yes," said the other. "It is straight." Together the two priests, along with a group of parishioners holding ropes that steadied the beams of the huge cross, walked the parade route. Before them was passed the official might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: The usual May Day procession of tanks, missiles, troops, and salutes to the Communist party elite. Behind the tanks surged a giant crowd of protesters, shouting up at Mikhail Gorbachev. "Bread!...Freedom!...Truth!"

As the throng passed directly in front of the Soviet leader standing in his place of honor, the priests hoisted their heavy burden toward the sky. The cross emerged from the crowd. As it did, the figure of Jesus Christ obscured the giant poster faces of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin that provided the backdrop for Gorbachev's reviewing stand. "Mikhail Gorbachev!" one of the priests shouted, his deep voice cleaving the clamor of the protesters and piercing straight toward the angry Soviet leader. "Mikhail Gorbachev! Christ is risen!"

Even within the oppressive regime of Soviet Russia the cross is raised and so it is within our lives. When darkness creeps into our heart and we are tempted to hate. When death calls for a loved one and we are left behind. When loneliness threatens to take over every waking moment of our lives the cross emerges from the crowd. And as it does the figure of Jesus Christ obscures all that hate, death, and loneliness can muster.

Phillips Brooks' short poem illustrates this:

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right;
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter Day.

If you have ever thought about writing a novel or telling a story, Robert Fulghum, who has written many books, suggest that you keep this creed close by as you write:

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.

He calls that the Storyteller's Creed. I think he is right on all counts because life, real life, is not about knowledge, history, facts, grief, and death; rather life is about imagination, dreams, hope, laughter, and love. When we hear good stories those are the things that inspire us, move and motivate us. Now you might say to me, "Now preacher, life most certainly is about grief and death. The world is full of it." Yes it is! But they do not have the final word. Grief and death are not the end of the chapter. You see, there is a people whose attitude is not changed by its poverty. There is a nation whose hunger does not drive it to despair. There is a bride whose tears do not cause her to lose hope. There is a church which is persecuted but shall persevere.

One day this great people called the Church of God will leap for joy because it's reward will be great in heaven!

Death is no respecter of persons, or families. There is an Eastern legend about a Hindu woman whose only child had died. She went to a prophet to ask for her child back. The prophet told her to go and obtain a handful of rice from a house into which death had not come. If she could obtain the rice in this way, he promised to give her the child back. From door to door she asked the question, "Are you all here around the table fathers, mothers, children...none missing?" But always the answer came back that there were empty chairs in each house. As she continued on, her grief and sorrow softened as she found that death had visited all families. Yes, death is universal; our painful experience is not the only one of its kind. Because God is faithful, because Jesus Christ is alive, so is your loved one and mine.

Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. Their conviction resulted in untold sufferings for themselves and their families. Of the 56 men, five were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army. Another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships of the war. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships sunk by the British navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in poverty.

At the battle of Yorktown, the British General Cornwallis had taken over Thomas Nelson's home for his headquarters. Nelson quietly ordered General George Washington to open fire on the Nelson home. The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and mill were destroyed. For over a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home only to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion.

Such were the sacrifices of the founding fathers. There are no movements that have shaped the world where sacrifice was not called upon. And of course in the church we have all our grace predicated on a sacrifice and it didn't stop at the cross. Jesus told his disciples that they too would need to take up the cross. And that's what they did:

• Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia.
• Mark expired at Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets of that city.
• Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece.
• John was put in a cauldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward banished to Patmos.
• Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward.
• James, the Greater, was beheaded at Jerusalem.
• James, the Less, was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller's club.
• Bartholomew was flayed alive.
• Andrew was bound to a cross, whence he preached to his persecutors until he died.
• Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies.
• Jude was shot to death with arrows.
• Matthais was first stoned and then beheaded.
• Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned to death at Salonica.
• Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was at length beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.

Every Christian will bear spiritual fruit. Somewhere, sometime, somehow. Otherwise that person is not a believer. Every born-again individual will be fruitful. Not to be fruitful is to be faithless, without faith, and therefore without salvation. Having said that, some caveats are in order.

ONE, this does not mean that a believer will always be fruitful. Certainly we can admit that if there can be hours and days when a believer can be unfruitful, then why may there not also be months and even years when he can be in that same condition? Paul exhorted believers to engage in good works so they would not be unfruitful (Titus 3:14). Peter also exhorted believers to add the qualities of Christian character to their faith lest they be unfruitful (2 Peter 1:8). Obviously, both of those passages indicate that a true believer might be unfruitful. And the simple fact that both Paul and Peter exhort believers to be fruitful shows that believers are not always fruitful.

TWO, this does not mean that a certain person's fruit will necessarily be outwardly evident. Even if I know the person and have some regular contact with him, I still may not see his fruit. Indeed, I might even have legitimate grounds for wondering if he is a believer because I have not seen fruit. His fruit may be very private or erratic, but the fact that I do not see it does not mean it is not there.

THREE, my understanding of what fruit is and therefore what I expect others to bear may be faulty and/or incomplete. It is all too easy to have a mental list of spiritual fruits and to conclude if someone does not produce what is on my list that he or she is not a believer. But the reality is that most lists that we humans devise are too short, too selective, too prejudiced, and often extra-biblical. God likely has a much more accurate and longer list than most of us do. Nevertheless, every Christian will bear fruit; otherwise he or she is not a true believer. In speaking about the Judgment Seat of Christ, Paul says unequivocally that every believer will have praise come to him from God (1 Corinthians 4:5).