Jesus Prayer for Our Success (Threatened with Resurrection)

7th Sunday of Easter – Ascension John 17:1-11 May 21, 2023 Jesus Prayer for our success Year A Prelude Welcome Introit Call to Worship L: Today is Ascension Sunday when we celebrate Christ’s return to God. P: We look up in wonder as he is lifted from us into heaven! L: But this is not a time to gaze upward. There is work to be done. P: Jesus has entrusted the ministry of God’s love to us. L: Let’s get to work! P: Let’s make our hearts ready for the task ahead with prayer and praise! L: Amen P: AMEN! (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Opening Prayer God of incredible surprises, as we gaze into the clouds, remind us that we are standing on holy ground. Place our feet on the pathways of peace and hope. Draw our attention from the vision of the Lord rising to the heavens to be with you and help us to focus on the ministries that you would have us do. Keep us ready and willing always to serve you all our days. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Song All Hail the Power of Jesus Name UMH 155 Children’s Sermon Good morning! Today we are going to talk about a very special event that took place in the Bible. First, though, I want to show you a little trick. Have you ever seen a raisin dance?? It might sound strange, but let me show you what I mean. Here are my raisins, ready to party (show a handful of raisins). Now, do you know what a raisin used to be? That’s right, a grape! You’d think the grapes might want to dance, so maybe we’ll try it out with them too… Okay, here’s my dancing juice (pour enough fizzy soda to fill about half a glass or jar). Let’s see, do the grapes want to dance? (Drop in a grape or two…nothing happens). Well, the raisins look a little shriveled up here, but watch what happens when I drop them in the bubbles… (wait a few moments, and observe the raisins float up to the top of the glass). Wow, those raisins got excited about being in that glass, didn’t they? They might have seemed like all the juicy grape life was drained away, but they got new power and rose back up! So, the reason we watched raisins is because today we are looking at what happened when Jesus ascended into Heaven. Have you ever heard the word “ascend”? It means something goes up, like an elevator or a person going upstairs. In our lesson today, we are looking at the last time Jesus was on earth. We’ve been talking about how He showed up to His disciples a few times after His resurrection, and spoke with them about things or gave them encouraging words. Well, He had one final special meeting with them…Jesus took His disciples out of the town a little ways, and He reminded them again of who He was, and how He suffered and died to fulfill the prophecies. He told His friends that He was going to send them an exciting present, and that they should wait for that present to get an amazing sort of power…then He gave them a blessing, and then do you know what happened? Well, have you ever had a balloon, the kind with helium, and let it go? What happens? It just floats all the way up into the sky, right? That’s what happened to Jesus! He floated up, ascending into the sky just like those raisins. But He didn’t come back down. (At this point, you may use your stuffed animal to demonstrate the “lift off”; or for extra effect, hoist one of the kids—safely—and lift them up for the others to see). The disciples were left open-mouthed, starting into the sky and wondering when He would return…an angel let them know that Jesus would be coming back, though they didn’t realize it would take such a long time. In the meantime, the disciples were excited about what Jesus had said. They went to Jerusalem and hung out in the church, giving praise to God and telling people about what they had seen. They were all stirred up with energy and excitement, just like those raisins were stirred up and started dancing! How do you think you might have felt if you saw Jesus go up into the clouds like that?? It might have been shocking or confusing or exciting. One thing we can know is that we should be eager to share God’s love and good news with one another. And do you want to know something else? This story about ascending has a sequel! Jesus told the disciples to wait for a special power that would be sent, remember? Do you want to know how that power came? You’ll have to stay tuned, because in our next lesson we will get to hear all about it! For now, let’s say a prayer and ask God for patient hope, and for enthusiasm to share His news with others: Prayer: (Have kids repeat each line, if desired) Dear God, Thank you for who you are Thank you for resurrection joy Help us to be excited about your story So we can share the good news with others Thank you for your love Thank you for Jesus! (Ministry to children, Kristin Schmidt) Affirmation of Faith UMH 888 Anthem Scripture John 17:1-11 Sermon Jesus’ Prayer for our Success This is the last Sunday of the Easter season. Next Sunday is Pentecost, and the Sunday after that is the beginning of ordinary time. Ordinary time is the longest and the most boring season of the church year. The first six months of the Christian year, which starts in December is dictated by the holidays and festivals- advent, Christmas, epiphany, lent Easter. The last six months of the year the church is silent. That silence is intended to challenge us to take the lessons that we have learned and become better Christians, delve deeper in our faith, get closer to God, have a clearer understanding of our purpose, to become more determined to fulfill our mission. Our mission is to fulfill Jesus mission, Jesus mission is to fulfill God’s mission of love for all people. On the last Sunday of Easter, we remember the culmination of Jesus ministry on earth. The culmination is not Easter. After Easter, Jesus hangs around a little bit and encourages the disciples. Until one day he returns to heaven and leaves the mission in their hands. All week I have been seeing a Facebook meme which says that Ascension is the day Jesus decided to work from home. Ascension happens in the middle of the week – and has its own scriptures to talk about it. Our scripture for today is john 17. Our songs are Ascension songs, but I chose the gospel for the last Sunday of Easter. I felt that it was a nice combination of both thoughts. John 17 is Jesus final prayer for his mission, for the mission of the disciples and for the mission of all future Christians who will read and hear these words. Now to give you a little background on this prayer. In Matthew, Mark and Luke – Jesus gives a final prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is alone, and his is very worried and concerned and he prays the God will take this cup away from him, so that he doesn’t have to go through even more pain and passion. John always tells things a little differently. For John – Jesus is at the last supper with his disciples. He is not upset, he just accepts what is to happen next as a part of the plan. So he prays this his disciples will have strength, solidarity and steadfast hope. He prays that all who fulfill his mission will have eternal life. In this prayer, eternal life is not something in the sweet by and by. Eternal life is always there for us to use – when we know the power of Jesus in life and we know that power comes from God and is available to us – we are living eternally her today. John’s point in his gospel is to teach us that heaven and earth are always connected, Jesus is always fully human and fully divine. We always have access to God through Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we follow God. Heaven is not a place up in the sky – heaven is a place in our hearts. Heaven is how we live, how we treat people, how we pray, how we fulfill God’s mission for love and unity for all people. If God can resurrect Jesus from the dead, then the challenges that we face are no match for God. On this last Sunday of Easter, I want to share with you a poem that we studied in seminary – 30 years ago. This poem has stuck with me all of these years because it reminds me of the power of resurrection. The poem is called “They have Threatened us with Resurrection” It was written in the 80’s by Julia Esquivel. She is a survivor of a massacre of indigenous people in Guatemala by the military. Whole villages were destroyed and people felt helpless to defend themselves and their families against their own government. And yet rather than give up on life, they chose to stand on their faith. They knew that evil had the power to destroy their body, but not their spirit. For them, tough times had threatened them with resurrection. It made their faith stronger and they were more determined to survive. The quetzal is Guatemala’s official bird. Legend has it that if caged the bird will die of sadness. But when it is on freedom, it has the power to overcome any circumstance. Even in deadly circumstances, it will always come back to life and thrive. The poem says that it is the internal cyclone of struggle that heals the wounds of the quetzal. The power within is the earthquake soon to come that will shake the world and put everything in its place. Jesus is the earthquake that puts everything back in its place. I wont share with you the whole poem, as a matter of fact her book is a series of poems. But I will share some of the important parts It isn’t the noise in the streets that keeps us from resting, my friend, nor is it the shouts of the young people It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep, that doesn’t let us rest, that won’t stop pounding deep inside, it is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands, it is the sad gaze of the children fixed somewhere beyond memory, precious in our eyes which during sleep, though closed, keep watch, What keeps us from sleeping is that they have threatened us with Resurrection! Because every evening though weary of killings, an endless inventory since 1954,** yet we go on loving life and do not accept their death! They have threatened us with Resurrection because they are more alive than ever before, because they transform our agonies and fertilize our struggle, because they pick us up when we fall, because they loom like giants before the crazed gorillas’ fear. This poem has stuck with me all of these years because I think that at some point we have all been threatened with resurrection. Out faith has been tested. We have become discouraged, we have felt that it was no use, we have not seen results, we have seen evil prevail, we have lived in darkness, we have felt that there is nothing that we can do, we have stared death in the eye. It is in that moment that we cannot hold onto the things going on around us – we have to look inside and hold onto our faith. We have to realize that it was at that moment in the life of our saviour that he did not cry – but he prayed. He prayed for us as we face our darkest moment. John 17 says I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours. I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, even as I am coming to you. Holy Father, watch over them in your name, the name you gave me that they will be one just as we are one. It is the moment that we see resurrection as life in the midst of death, light in the midst of darkness, and eternity as the power of God right now in this situation that we learn the power of our faith. The poem, Threatened with Resurrection ends by saying… Join us in this vigil and you will know what it is to dream! Then you will know how marvelous it is to live threatened with Resurrection! To dream awake, to keep watch asleep, to live while dying, and to know ourselves already resurrected! When we are able to see resurrection clearly- the mission of Jesus has been fulfilled and God has been glorified. God’s mission is in our hands now, we just have to keep the faith. Amen. Song I’ll Fly Away TFWS 2282 Pastoral Prayer Lord, we sometimes wonder why you bother with us. Throughout history, you have called to humankind to be your witnesses. You have given to each a special blessing. But the historical record reveals the stubborn, selfish responses of your people. We think that we deserve your blessing and don’t have to do your will. We have acted in wicked ways far too often. Today you have called us together to hear the words of Jesus as he prayed for his disciples, telling you that his love for them is complete and that he believes in them. We would like to think that we are included in that number, that Jesus prays for us and loves us. And, indeed, he does. He has given his life for us. Now we are called to give our lives for him, to offer to all the good news that God’s love is real and powerful. God’s healing mercy is for all people. We offer our prayers for our families and our friends who are in situations of need, asking God’s blessings upon them. We raise our voices in choruses of pleading for you to be present to all your people, creating pathways of peace. Be with us, gracious Lord. Help us to witness to the world, not only by our words and our thoughts, but by our actions that your peace may be known. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Stewardship Moment Offertory Prayer Our kind Heavenly Father, we rejoice in your faithfulness! As you promised, your glorious Spirit inspires a new way of life through the church of Jesus Christ. We trust that as we continue to devote ourselves to prayer, you will strengthen our congregation in mission outreach. Direct all our gifts and offerings for the purposes of your kingdom, O God. We pray through Christ, who ascended on high to your eternal throne in the heavens. Amen. (Acts 1:6-14) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook Easter people, God has done great things for you! Go, now, carrying the story of God’s work in your lives that in all things, good and difficult, you can ask with confidence, “How will God show up now?” knowing all the while that God will, indeed, take all our caring and point us toward joy. Amen.( Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, October 2022.) Joys and Concerns Benediction The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen! (Aaronic Blessing) Additional Illustrations

The Magic of our Faith

Acts 2:14, 22-32 2nd Sunday of Easter April 16, 2023 The Magic of our Faith Opening Song Welcome Call to Worship (Acts 2, Psalm 16) My heart is glad! My soul rejoices, and my body rests secure! For you do not abandon me. You give me counsel. You are at my right hand. You show me the path of life. Your presence is sheer joy. You are my God; apart from you, I have no good. Blessed is your name! (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Rebecca Gaudino) Opening Prayer (Acts 2, 1 Peter 1, John 20) Stand among us once again, risen Christ, and bless us with your greeting: "Peace be with you." Stand among us once again, Exalted Brother, and breathe upon us your promised Spirit. Stand among us once again, You Who Have Escaped Death, and give us new birth into your living hope. Amen. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Rebecca Gaudino) Song He Lives UMH 310 Children’s Sermon Affirmation of Faith (based on 1 Peter 1:3-9) We believe in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whose mercy we are given new birth into a living hope through Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We believe that through Christ we are born into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading; and into a present salvation that will be revealed in its fullness in the last time. We believe that until that time, the Spirit works in us to grow the genuineness of our faith, that we may give praise, glory, and honor when Jesus, whom we love but have not seen, is revealed. Amen. Adapted from 1 Peter 1:3-9 by Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, October 2022. Scripture Acts 2:14, 22-32 Sermon The Magic of our Faith A.W. Tozer, that great preacher of a previous generation, was right. Perhaps we Christians can be seen as a bit odd: We love someone we have never seen; we daily speak aloud to someone we do not hear. We are strongest when we are weakest and richest when we are poorest. We die so that we might live and give away so that we can keep. We see the invisible, hear the inaudible, and know that which is beyond knowledge. Christian strange? Are we delusional? No. We just know the end of the story and that makes all of the difference. The resurrection helps us to see life from a different perspective. It teaches us to look for the presence of God in every situation. It is that different perspective that helps is to see things that others cannot see. But it would not be the first time. Seeing Beyond Our Reality It is difficult to see things that are beyond our reality. We live lives that are narrowly focused, conditioned by our environment, traditions and habits. The name Hans Lippershey is not a famous one, but he made a tremendous contribution to the world of vision. In l600, he created the first telescope. He was a Dutch spectacle maker. One day two children came into his shop and were playing with some of the lenses scattered around. They put two together which greatly magnified a weathervane across the street. Lippershey capitalized on the discovery and made a profit selling his new lenses to the military. This all happened in Middleburg, Netherlands. Several others claimed to invent the telescope about the same time. Galileo is the most famous but even he credits Lippershey for its creation. Most everyone doubted the creation at first. It was hard for them in that time to envision things could be magnified. It was beyond their reality. Even when our vision is enhanced by technology it is sometimes impaired by our lack of faith. Ironically, it took two small children at play to make it all happen. An unexplainable event shaped the beliefs of society and enabled them to see. Keith Wagner, Faith Without Facts, ChristianGlobe Networks Inc. The telescope is only one way to be able to see beyond our present reality. Easter is another one. Jesus not only opened up our hearts, but he also opened up our perspective. Easter is our invitation to have hope and a new vision. Every Easter season we get a chance to go back to the foundation of the Easter vision and the beginnings of the church. Instead of reading from the Hebrew Bible, we read from the book of Acts. The disciples were witness to a miracle during the resurrection. We are here today because they felt that they needed to share that story with the whole world. The doors of heaven are open for anyone. The real miracle of the story is how lives of those who heard were changed immediately. They were able to see life so much clearly than before. In our scripture in Acts two – Peter is preaching his first sermon and 3000 people are baptized and want to become a part of that church. This is just one of the first things that the Holy Spirit did for that community. Today – the average congregation has 65 people present. After the pandemic 65% of congregations in the US have fewer people than that. With numbers like that – it is easy to here this scripture and either think that no one is interested in the power of the resurrection, or we are doing something wrong. We are not – just as Jesus crucifixion and death was a part of God’s plan – so is the waning and testing of our church. What does it mean to be faithful in time like this? The story of the disciples spreading the gospel is not intended to be a comparison, but an example. The gospel is still alive and well. God is still working in our faithfulness. God still performs miracles. We are all modern day witnesses to the power of the gospel. The gospel works one person at a time, one situation at a time. If God can change just one life, that is all that matters. Jesus is that one person that was able to make all the difference in the world. In Peter’s sermon he says that there are a lot of people who God loved and took care of. We have a lot of heroes and legends in the bible. Peter names David as one of those legends and heroes. David is an important person in our faith, and yet he died. But God raised Jesus up and even today we are witnesses to that fact. Is Jesus dead or alive today? Our answer makes all of the difference in the world. Thomas Jefferson thought Jesus was an important person. Yet he was convinced that Jesus was not raised from the dead. As a matter of fact, he rewrote the whole bible, taking out all of the miracles. Here is how his bible ends: "There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed." It is very easy to rewrite history. To say, "that did not happen." But the story remains that the disciples were witnesses to these events. Thomas Jefferson is in essence calling the disciples liars and that they continued throughout the first century, for 70 years, to propagate those lies. Furthermore, Jefferson's Bible has been robbed of its power. I am convinced that the church does not accomplish 2000 years of life inside the walls of a closed dark sepulcher. There is no power in that dark place; rather, the Church is alive because He is alive forevermore. Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com In your faith is Jesus dead or alive? In 1955, the Cambridge Humanist society was formed at Cambridge University in England. Sir julian Huxley explained that their purpose was to enable people to cope with their environment without resort to the idea that there is a God. He said that one hundred years hence people would find it hard to believe in God as they currently do to believe that the world is flat. A few years later, another distinguished man of science was asked to address the faculty of Cambridge. He opened his address with these words:”before my lecture, I want to tell you something. That I am a Christian. I was brought up in a Christian home with my brother, the two of us were the closest friends. We were both at the university together. My father and mother were deeply religious. My brother and I had no time for religion. We thought that religion was all right for old people, but we were scientist and we thought we had found our way through by what we were pleased to call scientific methods. Then my brother was killed. My parents had the resources to deal with that shattering loss. But I had no one. One night, brokenheaerted, and with all of my proud science in ruined uselessness at my feet, I knelt down. I did not know how to pray. I had scorned prayer. But I put out my hand – and found that it was grasped. I knew that someone was coming to my help and somehow I knew it was Christ. I have been Christian every since and no one, nothing, will take christ from me anymore. Belief in the resurrection gives us a perspective that other people do not have. The doors of heaven are open, and we get to see beyond the darkness of this world. The power to change the world is available to us as it was to the first disciples. How does Easter live in your life? We may never see 3000 people come to Christ in one day. If we witness just one that is all that matters. If we choose to live in the hope of the resurrection for all and not the death, destruction and bad news that we see everyday – then God’s spirit has made a difference. Rosie Lives! Once there was a man named George who was accustomed to driving his wife, Rosie, to church. They had a long and happy marriage; their love for each other was monumental. They did everything together; everything, that is, except one thing. When George drove Rosie to church each Sunday, she went in but he did not. He remained in the car, reading the newspaper. After 45 years of marriage, Rosie died. George was distraught with grief. On Sunday mornings George no longer made that drive to church, transporting Rosie. But several months after her death Easter Sunday rolled around. George drove to the church and he went in. The pastor delivered a stirring resurrection sermon and then closed with prayer. Then there were a few moments of silence as the pastor prepared to announce the final hymn. Suddenly George stood up and with deep emotion declared loudly, "Rosie lives!" Then he began to sing with a deep, rich baritone voice that song that he had always associated with Rosie--"My Wild Irish Rose, the Sweetest Flower That Grows..." The congregation was stunned at first. But several people in the congregation knew George and how he was grieving for Rosie. They stood up and joined in the song. Then more and more people joined into the song. Finally, the whole congregation was joyfully and tearfully singing a glorious, secular Easter hymn. Bill Bouknight, ChristianGlobe Networks If Rose lives on, then so does Jesus. I have really enjoyed having chapel with the preschool this year. They really seem to enjoy hearing the gospel story. I have been really surpised at how much they have gotten into jumping up at saying Halleleujah lately. This week, after hearing the Easter story – we were all looking for Jesus. And one little girl pipes up and shouts Jesus lives in my heart! Christ is alive today! Believe it, live it , witness it. God still has a few tricks up God’s sleeve. – we just have to be awake to see them………… Okay so that wasn’t God, that was magic. But it encourages us to see the little miracles that happen in our life every day – If God can do it for Jesus – God will do it for us – one person at a time. Amen. Song Easter People, Raise your Voices UMH 304 An Easter Prayer Good and gracious God, Our most glorious Creator, As we greet the signs in nature around us: Of Spring once again regaling us in bloom, In the songs of returning birds and fields soon to be planted, We give you praise for an even greater sign of new life: the resurrection of your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, that we especially celebrate at this time. The sadness and despair of his death has given way to the bright promise of immortality. For the Resurrection is our guarantee that justice will triumph over treason, Light will overcome darkness, and love will conquer death. As we celebrate, we also dare to ask for your grace that we may live the promise given to us, By imitating the life of Jesus in reaching out to the poor, the marginalized, the least among us as we strive to be neighbor to all those we meet. We praise you in this Easter season. Change our lives, change our hearts to be messengers of Easter joy and hope. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord forever. Amen. Adapted from “An Easter Prayer” written by Fr. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, Stewardship Moment Moment for Stewardship In some congregations, this first Sunday after Easter is known as “holy humor” Sunday, celebrating with jokes, funny stories and gratitude for the biggest joke of all, played out in the face of those who sent Jesus to the cross, when God raised Jesus from the dead! So I want to share a story of how two mice played a joke on a cat. Two mice out for a stroll when they were surprised by a cat. Just as the cat prepared to pounce on his breakfast, one of the mice barked. The barking so startled the cat, he turned and fled. The mouse who barked turned to her companion and said, “In times like these, it is always nice to know a second language.” Now, I believe most of us know two languages. Yes, really! The first is the language of possessiveness, and the second is the language of generosity. Our first language emerges early, when we learn to say “MINE!” It may be at home, at Sunday School, or in kindergarten, but often by the time a child is 3,4, or 5, “MINE” is a favorite word. Our second language may also emerge in childhood. It often comes when we’re encouraged to share our toys, our books, our clothes or our food. Often, when we manage to share, we get LOTS of affirmation! In the church, we continue to delight in the times we hear others (or hear our own language) offer to share time, responsibility, and money. Recently, I heard _____________________ (describe a moment when you heard someone offer to share). Today, we’re ALL invited to practice our second language, sharing what God has graciously provided for us. Let us offer our morning tithes and gifts. Prayer of Thanksgiving Giver of Life, You’ve raised us up to new life through our baptisms into Christ. You’ve given us all that we have, and called us to be stewards of your many graces. So we ask you to accept these gifts offered today. Help us put to wise use all that has been given, seeking to transform this money into shared blessings for the least and the lost, both here and to the ends of the earth. AMEN ( Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook Let us step out into the world Knowing that we are not alone when doubts and fears surround us The Risen Christ is with us Empowering and encouraging us To transform our wounds into sources of liberation May the power of resurrection, the divine peace, and the empowering grace of the Triune God Be with us now and forever more. Amen. (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Rev. Vinod Wesley) Community Time Benediction We leave this sanctuary a blessed people. Let us go now and be a blessing to others. May the grace, hope, peace and love of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer be with us all, now and forever. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Teri McDowell Ott) Additional Illustrations It's Time to Get Up Winston Churchill had planned his funeral, which took place in Saint Paul's Cathedral. He included many of the great hymns of the church, and used the eloquent Anglican liturgy. At his direction, a bugler, positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul's, intoned, after the benediction, the sound of Taps, the universal signal that says the day is over. But then came the most dramatic turn: As Churchill instructed, as soon as Taps was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played the notes of Reveille - It's time to get up. It's time to get up. It's time to get up in the morning. That was Churchill's testimony that at the end of history, the last note will not be Taps; it will be Reveille. The worst things are never the last things. John Claypool in Leadership, Vol. 12, No.1. God's Back It was Saturday, the day before Easter, and Joanne Hinch of Woodland Hills, California was sitting at the kitchen table coloring eggs with her three-year-old son Dan and her two-year-old daughter Debbie. She told her kids about the meaning of Easter and taught them the traditional Easter morning greeting and response, "He is risen...He is risen indeed!" The children planned to surprise their Dad, a Presbyterian minister, with that greeting as soon as he awoke the next morning. Easter arrived, little Danheard his father stirring about in his bedroom, so the boy got up quickly, dashed down the hall and shouted the good news: "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, God's back!" David E. Leininger, "Laugh, Thomas, Laugh!" Professor Boltloose What follows is a factual story. There once was a seminary student who was having a hard time accepting this idea that the writers of the New Testament Gospels took poetic license with their accounts of the life of Jesus. He was particularly bothered by the extreme view of some scholars that Jesus might not have been an actual historical person at all! One day as a fellow student was playing around with his tape recorder, the two suddenly fell into a spontaneous mock interview with the troubled student pretending to be "professor Rudolf Boltloose" (a parody of the famous German biblical scholar, Rudolf Bultmann). Piously, professor "Boltloose" intoned - "I have come up with a new theory! There was no cross at Calvary. There were only nails. There was no body. There were only clothes. You see, they hung the clothes on the nails ... And this is important for us today!" Although totally spontaneous, this little episode of play-acting was a superb statement of the danger we face when we deal with the fact that the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus. Carl L. Jech, Channeling Grace, CSS Publishing What’s the Good Word? A student from Korea was complaining about how difficult it is to learn the English language. He felt that American idioms were particularly difficult to comprehend. He said that he had studied English for nine years in preparation for attending the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. On his first day at the school, as he was walking across the campus, an American student casually greeted him with, "Hi, What's the good word?" The Korean boy stopped dead in his tracks. He thought to himself: "I don't know the good word! You would have thought that after nine years of studying English, someone would have told me what "˜the good word' was!" Later, trying to solve this puzzle, he decided to turn the tables and ask an American, "What's the good word?" and listen to his reply. So, approaching a fellow student, he repeated, "Hi! What's the good word?" The quick response was, "Oh, not much. How about you?" It was obvious that neither of these students knew what the good word was. It's a rather plastic greeting. But I can tell you the good word for today: Christ the Lord is risen. That's the Good Word. And because it is; it says a great deal about our lives. Brett Blair and King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com he Secret of the Power Thomas Jefferson ranks as one of our nations greatest intellects but not many people know that he rejected the notion of miracles. When he approached the scriptures he could not tolerate those passages, which dealt with the supernatural. So what did he do? He wrote his own bible. In the Thomas Jefferson Bible you will find only the moral teachings and historical events of Jesus' life. No virgin birth. No healing of Jairus' daughter. No walking on water. And, no resurrection. Humor: “I’ll Be Right Back” Sometime back, former talk show host Johnny Carson visited Harvard University to receive an award. After the ceremony he agreed to answer some questions from members of the press. One reporter asked, "What would you like to have inscribed on your tombstone?" Carson thought for just a second, then answered with the words he used before every commercial break on his television show. He wanted his tombstone to say, "I'll be right back." King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Easter in Us The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote an ambitious poem entitled 'The Wreck of the Deutschland.' It commemorates the death of five Franciscan nuns drowned on the German ship Deutschland at the mouth of the Thames in the winter of 1875. One half-line especially intrigues me: 'Let him Easter in us.' Let Christ 'Easter' in us. A rare verb indeed, but it suits this sacred season, ... How does Christ Easter in us? In three wondrous ways: (1) By a faith that rises above doubt. (2) By a hope that conquers despair. (3) By a love that does justice. Walter J. Burghardt, Let Christ Easter in Us, Dare to Be Christ: Homilies for the Nineties (Mahwah, NJ.: Paulist Press, 1991), 51. Do we think he is dead or alive? In his book "Living Jesus" Luke Timothy Johnson declares: The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we think he is dead or alive? If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments. And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him. But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him. If he is alive, however, everything changes. It is no longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence. If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us. What we can learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him. Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus. The Reality of the Resurrection Several hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a crucial battle occurred between the Greeks and the Persians upon the plains of Marathon. The battle raged for hours. In many respects it was a fight to the finish. Finally the numerically inferior Greeks, the underdogs, managed a tremendous tactical win, but there was a problem. Soon the Senate, many miles away in Athens, was to vote and would most certainly ratify a treaty of appeasement. In desperation they sent a runner in full battle gear to go the twenty-seven miles to tell of the news. By the time the young boy got to Athens he had run a Marathon. It is said he was totally spent, that he literally ran himself to death. In his exhaustion he was able to utter only one word to the Athenians: "Victory." Today we come to church with the sound of the Hallelujah Chorus still resonating in our ears. We have been to the empty tomb. We have heard the glad news of resurrection. And now it is time for the church to send a message back to the world. What should that message be? May I suggest that it could be a single word: Victory. Unfortunately, that single truth is not so self-evident to many people today even as it was not initially to the first century disciples. We fall short of victorious living. We must learn anew to live out the reality of the resurrection. Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com A Church with Nothing to Offer Check out the church ads on the religion page of the Saturday edition of most big city newspapers and you find some impressive sounding places of worship. There, with sleek graphics and Madison Avenue phrases, a few select churches boast of their assets -- their choirs, their friendliness, their powerful preaching, their singles ministries, their ample parking, their family life centers, their sensitive child care, and their compassionate spirit. Some churches, it seems, have it all. Other churches, however, appear by contrast to have nothing, absolutely nothing. Take, for example, the church depicted in our text for today. Here, we get our first glimpse of the disciples gathered together after the resurrection, the first glimpse, in other words, of the church in its earliest days, and, all in all, it is not a very pretty picture. Near the end of his life, Jesus had carefully prepared his disciples to be a devoted and confident fellowship of faith. They were to be a community of profound love with the gates wide open and the welcome mat always out, but here we find them barricaded in a house with the doors bolted shut. They were to be the kind of people who stride boldly into the world to bear fruit in Jesus' name, a people full of the Holy Spirit performing even greater works than Jesus himself (John 14:12), but here we find them cowering in fear, hoping nobody will find out where they are before they get their alibis straight. In short, we see here the church at its worst -- scared, disheartened and defensive. If this little sealed-off group of Christians were to place one of those cheery church ads in the Saturday newspaper, what could it possibly say? "The friendly church where all are welcome"? Hardly, unless one counts locked doors as a sign of hospitality. "The church with a warm heart and a bold mission"? Actually more like the church with sweaty palms and a timid spirit. Indeed, John's gospel gives us a snapshot of a church with nothing – no plan, no promise, no program, no perky youth ministry, no powerful preaching, no parking lot, nothing. In fact, when all is said and done, this terrified little band huddled in the corner of a room with a chair braced against the door has only one thing going for it: the risen Christ. And that seems to be the main point of this story. In the final analysis, this is a story about how the risen Christ pushed open the bolted door of a church with nothing, how the risen Christ enters the fearful chambers of every church and fills the place with his own life. Thomas G. Long, Whispering The Lyrics, CSS Publishing. [Suggestion: Take actual church ads from the local newspaper from Saturday's paper into the pulpit and read the ads.] Devout of this World The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it. Of course there are plenty of scriptures and plenty of priests who make plenty of promises as to what your good works will yield (or threats as to the punishments awaiting you if you lapse), but to even believe all this is an act of faith, because nobody amongst us is shown the endgame. Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying, 'Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.' There's a reason we refer to 'leaps of faith' because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be by definition faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly know all the answers in advance to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be . . . a prudent insurance policy. Elizabeth Gilbert - Eat, Pray, Love - Penguin ______________________________ ____________________________ A Backstage View Garrison Keillor said, "We always have a backstage view of ourselves." We let the audience see only the neatly arranged stage. But behind the curtain all kinds of things are lying around: old failures, hurts, guilt and shame. We hear that we are living in a shameless society, and that people are no longer bothered by shame. I don’t believe it. Shame plagues our souls. Psychologists tell us that shame sweeps over us when we overstep our abilities, or when our fantasy about who we would like to be encounters the backstage reality of who we really are. Nothing is more crippling to our souls than working at hiding shame. We lock up more and more doors, sealing off more and more rooms of the heart to prevent our true selves from being discovered. We think we are keeping the world out, but in fact we are keeping ourselves locked in. Craig Barnes, "Crying Shame," article in The Christian Century, April 6, 2004, pp. 19.

The Afterglow

April 24, 2022 Easter 2 Year C Afterglow Opening Song Welcome to the Easter season. Easter lasts for 50 days until Pentecost. But every Sunday is Easter. Call to Worship L: Happy Easter Season! Today is the first day of the week. P: The joy of Easter still sings in our hearts. L: Breathe the breath of new life in your spirits! P: We open our hearts to all the wondrous work God has for us to do. L: Welcome to worship this glorious day! P: Let our lives be testimony to God’s redeeming love! AMEN. (Nancy C. Townley – Ministry Matters) Song – Breathe on Me Breath of God - UMH 420 Prayer of Reflection and Growth Spirit of Serenity- You tell us “peace be with you,” but we set that peace aside to live with drama and chaos. We are drawn to highly emotional situations instead of the peace that only comes from you. How can we set aside turmoil to live within your realm of peace? When we cannot sense your holy tranquility surrounding us, open our souls to your warm and calming presence. May we embrace your peace and scatter serenity into our world. Amen. (Rev. Michelle Torigian – UCC Worship Ways) Assurance of Grace The God who walks with us scatters the seeds of grace behind us and before us, allowing us to understand the future with healing and hope. Amen! (Rev. Michelle Torigian – UCC Worship Ways) Scripture John 20:19-31 Sermon – afterglow It is Easter….again. Easter is not just a day- but it is a season. Easter is a way of life. Every Sunday is Easter. I look forward to the 50 days of Easter – because the scriptures this time of year challenge each of us sitting here with our faith. – Why are we even sitting here in the first place? All of the rest of the year- we follow the life of Jesus. Jesus is a nice person who teaches us how to live right. His advice is good for us, whether we actually believe that he is the son of God, whether we actually believe in miracles, we can go along with the story. But this time of year, people can really struggle with the whole Easter story. Did a man really die and then raise from the dead? And yet Easter is the crux of our faith. Easter, not Christmas is the beginning of our story. Easter is where the rubber meets the road. The lectionary scriptures help us to think for ourselves and to come up with our definitions of church, faith, Christianity, and resurrection. What is it that you actually believe about these words? And how do your definitions affect your life. Easter is something that should live in each of our hearts. I listened to a webcast this week featuring my favorite theologian – John Dominic Crossan. Crossan has done a lot of work on the history of the resurrection. He is my favorite theologian, because when I served in Aurora, the ministerial association paid for him to come and teach a weekend class for us. Theologians are good at defining faith, but don’t always have faith. Crossan says that for us Easter is a metaphor. He says the whole bible is a metaphor – a symbol for a deeper meaning which may or may not have happened in history. But before we decide that the resurrection did not happen – let me say that Crossan points out that everything in our life is a metaphor. A metaphor is the way that we define reality. The question is not if we believe in the resurrection, the question is do we live the resurrection. When we live in the resurrection, it becomes truth. It is not about the life and death of a man 2000 years ago, but how does that story affect our actions today? How did this story affect the people who heard it? Are we still willing to tell that story today? Does the resurrection story create a better world? Our Easter scriptures are all about how witnesses responded and felt called to create the church – a community of believers. You know that bible never does say what happened to the body that was laid in the tomb. But the New Testament is full of stories of how Christ appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. If there was one set of stories, that could be someone’s opinion. But these stories are widespread in all of the gospels. It is these appearances that convinced them to write down these stories for everyone else to hear. Luke tells the story of the walk to Emmaus. We don’t look at that story this year. This year, John will be the gospel all throughout Easter. Our story today, the story of doubting Thomas appears every year. Jesus comes into a locked upper room and talks with the disciples. Thomas was not there, and refuses to believe it until he sees it himself. Thomas forever has the reputation of being a doubter. And yet the resurrection stories are double stories – there is a part of the story that we can follow easily and have faith, and some parts of the story don’t make any sense. In life, faith and doubt go hand in hand. Ants in The Pants of Faith Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving. Frederick Buechner Doubt is like a front porch. All of us go through it before we get into the house of faith. William L. Self, The Prelude to Faith, ChristianGlobe Networks All of us have to decide if we really believe the resurrection story. Is it a convenient metaphor that we tolerate, or is it the reality that we live? Encountering the Crucified Risen Lord In a Lecture Series given by D. T. Niles, he finished by saying, "Let me conclude with a story told by a famous French bishop to his congregation. Three university students of Paris were walking along the road one Good Friday afternoon. They noticed crowds of people going to the churches to make their confession. The students began to discuss this custom of the ‘unenlightened,’ and talked in rather cynical terms about the survival of religion, which they described as superstition. Suddenly two of the students turned to the third, who was the leader among them, and said to him, ‘Will you go into this church and tell the priest there what we have been saying to each other?’ ‘Sure, I will,’ he said, and went in. He stood in the same queue of those who were going to their confession, and when his turn came, he looked at the priest and said, ‘Father, I have come here merely to tell you that Christianity is a dying institution and that religion is a superstition.’ The priest looked at the young man keenly and said, ‘Why did you come here, my son, to tell me this?’ And the student told him of his conversation with his friends. The priest listened carefully and then said: ‘All right, I want you to do one thing for me before you go. You accepted the challenge of your friends and came here; now accept my challenge to you. Walk up to the chancel and you will find there a large wooden cross and on it he figure of Jesus crucified. I want you to stand before that cross and say these words: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn.’ The student looked defiant but, to save face, agreed. He went up and stood before that cross and said it: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn.’ He came back to he priest and said, ‘I have done it.’ ‘Do it once more,’ said the priest; ‘after all, it means nothing to you.’ The student went back and looked at the cross for some time and the figure on it, and then he stammered it out: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn.’ He returned to the priest and said, ‘I have done it; I am going now.’ The priest stopped him. ‘Once more,’ he said, just once more and you can go. The young man walked up to the chancel and looked at that cross again, and at the Crucified. He stood there for a long time. Then he came back to the priest and said, ‘Father, can I make my confession now?’ The bishop stunned the congregation when he concluded with these words: ‘My dear people, that young man was me.’" D. T. Niles, Preaching the Gospel of the Resurrection. ______________________ We all have a personal story of why we are sitting here right now. I am here because Christ has revealed himself to me time and time again. I can believe in this story and let it center my faith. Our stories are different, our faith is different. For some of us our faith is based in signs, some of us don’t need any signs, some of us are questioning, some of us are certain, some of us have a shallow faith, some have a deep faith, some of us are faltering in faith, some are seeking , some are growing. But it is the Easter story that draws us all together in one place, on one community. As a matter of fact, each of the disciples has a different story of how they were affected by Christ’ story. You notice in today’s scripture Jesus didn’t chastise Thomas for doubting, he understood. We don’t know a whole lot about Thomas situation. He is named in the other 3 gospels, but nothing is said. John only briefly mentions his twice. Some think he may have been John’s brother, or even Jesus brother. He becomes a missionary to India, and is reportedly killed by a Hindu priest who didn’t appreciate him converting people. December 21st the traditional day that he is remembered. There is a gospel of Thomas that is not included in our bible. John is the only disciple who was not killed while spreading the gospel. John’s message to us – Jesus was the messiah, we can believe his story and form our faith around it. Beleiving is not just about reading the bible, or praying a certain prayer, or a set of actions to do to guarantee going to heaven. Believing is a way of life that feeds your soul and gives you the strength to go forward. Believing is living a life that radiates and helps others to see God clearly. When Jesus tells Thomas that he is blessed, but those who believe without actually seeing the nails in Jesus hands are even more blessed – Jesus is inviting us to become a part of the Easter story. We today can live the Easter story and become witnesses to the resurrection. We can believe in a way that truly changes circumstances. You know, your can only believe in something that you belove. Easter in Us The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote an ambitious poem entitled 'The Wreck of the Deutschland.' It commemorates the death of five Franciscan nuns drowned on the German ship Deutschland at the mouth of the Thames in the winter of 1875. One half-line especially intrigues me: 'Let him Easter in us.' Let Christ 'Easter' in us. A rare verb indeed, but it suits this sacred season, ... How does Christ Easter in us? In three wondrous ways: (1) By a faith that rises above doubt. (2) By a hope that conquers despair. (3) By a love that does justice. Walter J. Burghardt, Let Christ Easter in Us, Dare to Be Christ: Homilies for the Nineties (Mahwah, NJ.: Paulist Press, 1991), 51. Amen. Let us pray…. Prayer Patient God, you know us better than we want. We like to think that we can fool you with our bravado and high-flung phrases of faith. We hear the story of doubting Thomas and think “What a fool he was!”. We think that we would never have doubted. And in our arrogance we preen and strut about. But you know us fully. You know that we all have our moments of doubts and fears. We all wonder where you are. We want to know that everything is going to turn out for the best. We are frightened. And in our fear we cannot even face our own doubts. Help us to understand your forgiving grace. Help us to know that you understand our weakness and confusion and that your love extends to us in spite of that weakness. Strengthen our faith and our commitment to you. As we have offered prayers for those near and dear to us; as we have lifted situations of darkness and fear before your throne of grace, help us to be people who truly believe that you hear our prayers and answer them. Where we have not seen, give us faith to believe in all you have said and done. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. (Nancy C. Townley – Ministry Matters) Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment The risen Christ appeared to his disciples a week after his resurrection. John tells us Thomas was there (along with the others), and Christ gave them all new energy as he spoke simple words: “peace be with you.” Today, we have opportunity to follow the Christ, giving new energy and hope to those struggling with fear, despair, scarcity, hunger or loneliness. We share the peace of Christ with our neighbors, our sisters and brothers, through offering our time, our talents and our treasure. Your gifts today help provide (use specifics from your own congregation, as you can…or fill in with this general statement:) “hope, abundance, food, relationships and deep peace.” In the coming weeks, our offering will be translated into resources, sharing Christ’s peace with our own community and beyond. As you have been blessed, so now you are invited to become a blessing for others as we receive our morning offering. Offertory Doxology Prayer of Thanksgiving God of Life and Love, we rejoice in the new life the risen Christ continues to bring to a weary world. So receive these gifts, and allow them to be multiplied and translated into all that will become PEACE for our neighbors, near and far. Build us up, that we might grow in our capacity to give, and to live out Christ’s love for each and for all. AMEN (Center for Faith and Giving) Song I Love to Tell the Story - UMH 156 Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook Peace to you from the One who is and was, and is to come. Grace and peace to you from the One who loves us and frees us, the One who gives us repentance and forgiveness. As God sent Jesus into the world, so the Spirit now sends us to continue God’s holy work. To God be glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen. (Bill Hopp – Ministry Matters) Community Time Benediction Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! We are an Easter people! Live into the hope of Christ’s resurrection! May the grace, hope, peace and love of God our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer be with you now and always. Amen. (Terri McDowell Ott – Presbyterian Outlook) Children’s Time John 20:19-23 describes Jesus' first postresurrection encounter with the disciples. His appearance tells us two things about his resurrected body. First, he appears inside a locked room; his "new" body is not like the physical body he had before death. Second, his body bears the wounds of crucifixion; his body is still the same. Children will be curious about this. During this encounter, Jesus reassured his disciples that he was indeed alive, and then he put them to work. The message to children is that Easter is not an ending; it is a new chapter in God's work. On Easter evening, Jesus is already looking ahead. He gives his disciples the gift of the Spirit and sends them out, saying, "As the Father sent me, so I send you." To help the children identify what the Father sent Jesus to do, explore key stories about Jesus' ministry. Their challenge is then to find ways to do that kind of work today. Just as Jesus fed the hungry crowd, children can work to help relieve hunger. Just as Jesus befriended the friendless, children can make friends with the lonely people they meet, and so forth. The story of Thomas reassures children that the Risen Lord is still the kind, understanding Jesus. Thomas, who was left out of the first encounter with Jesus, raises the kinds of questions any child might raise. Jesus is not offended by the questions, but honors them and offers to let Thomas touch the wounds, if that's what it takes to answer his questions. In so doing, Jesus blesses all our questions. No honest question is too silly, disrespectful, or unworthy to be asked and answered (or at least discussed). 1. These texts and those for the following Sundays suggest a sermon series about Easter People. Explore who the Easter People are, what they do, and what they are like. Challenge worshipers of all ages to see themselves as Easter People. Consider giving each worshiper a small token, perhaps a plastic or metal cross to carry in a pocket each day during the coming weeks, as a reminder that each of them is one of the Easter People. Ask the choir to sing Avery and Marsh's song, "Every Day Is Easter Day," today and several times during the series. From today's texts we learn that Easter People experience God's peace (John), praise God (Psalms), obey God first (Acts), and are sent to serve (Revelation and John). Additional Illustrations If I were to mention the names of certain disciples to you and ask you to write down the first word that comes into your mind, it is unlikely you would come up with the same words. If I were to mention the name of Judas many of you would write down the word "betray" but not all of you. If I were to mention Simon Peter, some of you would write down the word "faith," but not all of you. If I were to mention the names of James and John, some of you would write down the phrase "Sons of Thunder," but not all of you. But when I mention the word Thomas, there is little question about the word most everyone would write down. It would be the word doubt. Indeed, so closely have we associated Thomas with this word, that we have coined a phrase to describe him: “Doubting Thomas.” You may be interested to know that in the first three gospels we are told absolutely nothing at all about Thomas. It is in John’s Gospel that he emerges as a distinct personality, but even then there are only 155 words about him. There is not a lot about this disciple in the Bible but there is more than one description. When Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem the disciples thought that it would be certain death for all of them. Surprisingly, it was Thomas who said: Then let us go so that we may die with him. It was a courageous statement, yet we don’t remember him for that. We also fail to point out that in this story of Thomas’ doubt we have the one place in the all the Gospels where the Divinity of Christ is bluntly and unequivocally stated. It is interesting, is it not, that the story that gives Thomas his infamous nickname, is the same story that has Thomas making an earth shattering confession of faith? Look at his confession, “My Lord, and my God.” Not teacher. Not Lord. Not Messiah. But God! It is the only place where Jesus is called God without qualification of any kind. It is uttered with conviction as if Thomas was simply recognizing a fact, just as 2 + 2 = 4, and the sun is in the sky. You are my Lord and my God! These are certainly not the words of a doubter. Unfortunately history has remembered him for this scene where the resurrected Christ made an appearance to the disciples in a home in Jerusalem… ________________________ We Know Where We Are Going The story is told about Albert Einstein, the brilliant physicist of Princeton University in the early 20th century. Einstein was traveling from Princeton on a train, and when the conductor came down the aisle to punch the passengers’ tickets, Einstein couldn’t find his. He looked in his vest pocket, he looked in his pants pocket, he looked in his briefcase, but there was no ticket. The conductor was gracious; “Not to worry, Dr. Einstein, I know who you are, we all know who you are, and I’m sure you bought a ticket.” As the conductor moved down the aisle, he looked back and noticed Einstein on his hands and knees, searching under the seat for his ticket. The conductor returned to Einstein; “Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don’t worry. I know who you are. You don’t need a ticket, I’m sure you bought one.” Einstein arose and said “Young man, I too know who I am; what I don’t know is where I am going.” And that is the good news of Easter; that we know where we are going. We have been told by the Savior that his life and death has promised us life eternal. And Low Sundays don’t change that promise. And unemployment doesn’t change that promise. Neither does divorce, or bankruptcy, or cancer, or depression, or felony, or failure. Through elation and deflation and every emotion in between, this truth remains; we know whose we are and we know where we are going, because the Son of God has promised. And this, my friends, is faith. Steven Molin, Elated....Deflated Peace Be With You...It Already Is! Theologian Karl Barth once remarked that to say the old line from the creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church" does not mean that we believe in the church. It means rather to believe that God is present and at work in the church, that "in this assembly, the work of the Holy Spirit takes place. ... We do not believe in the Church: but we do believe that in this congregation the work of the Holy Spirit becomes an event." Barth's words rang true for me some years ago, when I was invited by a church in a nearby town to be the worship leader at a special evening communion service. The church staff had planned this service to be educational as well as worshipful. The idea was that, first, the congregation would gather in the sanctuary and I would give a brief talk about the meanings of the Lord's Supper. Then, we would go into the fellowship hall and be seated around tables for the service itself. At each table there would be the flour and other ingredients to form the dough for the communion loaves. The plan called for each table to prepare a loaf and, while the loaves baked in the ovens of the church kitchen, the people at each table were to engage in various exercises designed to get them talking about their experiences in the faith. It was a good idea, but like many well-planned events, things looked better on the drawing board than they turned out in reality. There were problems. Children at many tables began to play in the baking ingredients, and white clouds of flour floated around the room coating everybody and everything. There were delays in the kitchen, and the communion bread baked with agonizing slowness. Some of the tables ran out of things to say; children grew weary and fussy; the room was filled with commotion and restlessness. The planners had dreamed of an event of excitement, innovation, peak learning, and moving worship. What happened was noise, exhaustion, and people making the best of a difficult situation. In other words, despite the rosy plans, it was the real church worshipping down there in the church basement. Finally, the service ended, and, with no little relief, I was able to pronounce the benediction. "The peace of Christ be with you all," I said, and just as I did, a child's voice from somewhere in the room called out strong and true, "It already is." Just that -- "It already is" -- but with those words the service was transformed into an event of joy and holy mystery. That small voice captured what the Gospel of John is trying to say. In the midst of a church that can claim nothing for itself, a church of noise, confusion, weariness, and even fear, the risen Christ comes to give peace. The peace of Christ be with you? Because the risen Christ comes to inhabit our empty places, then, as the child said, "It already is," and the church with nothing becomes the church with everything. Thomas G. Long, Whispering The Lyrics, CSS Publishing Watch and You'll See This story is about three accountants who doubted their three engineer friends. They were traveling by train to a conference. The accountants bought three tickets, but the engineers only bought one. "How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" an accountant asked. "Watch and you'll see," said an engineer. They all boarded the train. The accountants took their seats, but the three engineers crammed into a restroom and closed the door behind them. The train departed the station and soon the conductor came through the car asking for tickets. He knocked on the restroom door and said, "Ticket, please." The door opened a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor took it and moved on. The accountants agree that this is a rather clever idea so after the conference, they decide to duplicate the engineers' feat. They buy only one ticket, but are astonished when the engineers buy no ticket at all! "How are you going to travel without a ticket?" the accountants ask. Watch and you'll see, reply the engineers. When they boarded the train, the accountants crammed into a restroom with their ticket while the three engineers did the same in a nearby restroom. After the train departed the station, one of the engineers left the restroom and walked over to the restroom where the accountants were hiding. He knocked on the door and said, "Ticket, please." Author unknown Just Because We Can't See It A junior high school teacher was telling her class about evolution and how the way everything in the world was formed proved that God doesn’t exist. She said, “Look out the window. You can’t see God, can you?” The kids shook their heads. “Look around you in this room. You can’t see God, can you?” The kids shook their heads. “Then our logical conclusion is that God doesn’t exist, does He?” she asked at last, certain that she had won her audience over. But one girl from the back of the classroom said, “Miss Smith, just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We could do brain surgery and investigate the parts of your brain and we could do a CAT scan and see the brain patterns in your head. But we couldn’t prove that you’ve had a single thought today. Does that mean that you haven’t thought anything today? Just ‘cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Seeing is believing, right? But, “just ‘cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” C. T. Powell, "Seeing Is Believing" What’s the Good Word? A student from Korea was complaining about how difficult it is to learn the English language. He felt that American idioms were particularly difficult to comprehend. He said that he had studied English for nine years in preparation for attending the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. On his first day at the school, as he was walking across the campus, an American student casually greeted him with, "Hi, What's the good word?" The Korean boy stopped dead in his tracks. He thought to himself: "I don't know the good word! You would have thought that after nine years of studying English, someone would have told me what "˜the good word' was!" Later, trying to solve this puzzle, he decided to turn the tables and ask an American, "What's the good word?" and listen to his reply. So, approaching a fellow student, he repeated, "Hi! What's the good word?" The quick response was, "Oh, not much. How about you?" It was obvious that neither of these students knew what the good word was. It's a rather plastic greeting. But I can tell you the good word for today: Christ the Lord is risen. That's the Good Word. And because it is; it says a great deal about our lives. Brett Blair and King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com I Just Have Questions Some of you are familiar with Jerry Kramer—he used to play professional football—now he writes. In one of his books he reflects on his own mortality. He says: "I think a lot about death these days, which is funny too, because I’ve never been healthier. I’ve had only one serious illness in the past ten years—only one near-death experience. I haven’t broken a bone, not even a finger, since I stopped playing football. And yet, now more than ever, I sense that I’m mortal." He confesses: "A year ago, I lost my father to cancer, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over his death. In some ways, I think it was more difficult for the family than it was for him. Dad was a very religious man and he was ready to go. Sometimes I wish I had that kind of faith—but I don’t. I just have questions." "Taking Their Word for It," by Dr. Leigh Bond Joy I recently saw a news report about an Army veteran named John Crabtree who had been receiving benefits from the government. Evidently he had been wounded in Vietnam and was now on permanent disability. One day, out of the blue, he received an official notification from the government of his own death. Needless to say, this was quite a shock! Mr. Crabtree wrote the government a letter stating that he was indeed very much alive and would like to continue receiving his benefits. The letter did no good. He then tried calling the government. (Have you ever tried to call the government? This required the patience of Job and the persistence of Noah!) The phone calls didn't change the situation either. Finally, as a last resort, the veteran contacted a local television station, which ran a human-interest story about his situation. During the interview, the reporter asked him, "How do you feel about this whole ordeal?" The veteran chuckled and said, "Well, I feel a little frustrated by it. After all, have you ever tried to prove that you're alive?" That's a pretty good question for all of us. Could you prove that you are alive? Really, genuinely, deep-down alive? When was the last time you had an alive moment? Not the last time you took a breath or had your heart beat inside your chest, but the last time you felt yourself alive to your living, alive to your loving, deeply present with the gift of life itself?" R. Scott Colglazier, Finding a Faith That Makes Sense, St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1996, 116-117. A Seeking Doubt Someone described Thomas' doubt as a "seeking doubt, a doubt that wants not to continue to doubt but to come to believe." Thomas makes it clear to us that there is more than one kind of doubt. There is the kind of doubt that does not want to believe, that reaches for arguments in order to deny the affirmations of the faith. But there is also that "seeking doubt." This is a person who earnestly wants to believe but honestly admits that he struggles to understand. This kind of doubt actually energizes and expands faith. Mickey Anders, A Doubt That Leads to Faith, ChristianGlobe Networks __________________________ Bereavement Visions vs. Resurrection Visions I was traumatized by a tragic death several years ago, so I am personally familiar with the phenomena that bereaved people experience. I can speak out of personal experience. Right off the bat I can see very significant differences between bereavement visions and the resurrection accounts. I was the only person who saw my bereavement visions, and I was very much aware at the time that they weren’t part of the reality I live in. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, in a flash, in a dream, or in the foggy moments while awakening from sleep. The vision went away as soon as I looked at it directly or became fully awake. The visions were momentary and fleeting, but they were comforting and helped me make peace with what I had witnessed. From what I have read, my experience was normal and typical for a person who had witnessed a tragic death. The resurrection accounts do not fit this pattern. There were multiple witnesses who were all wide awake at the time, the duration of the incidents was too long, and skeptics, such as Thomas, could see them. Thomas was not an exceptional case. All of the disciples were skeptical of the resurrection until they saw the Risen Jesus, only then were they convinced, and the resurrection appearances did not comfort them, they emboldened and energized them. Bereavement visions comfort the bereaved; they do not end the bereavement, as the resurrection appearances did. Bereavement visions certainly do not charge up a person to the degree that they can evangelize the world and march fearlessly into death! There is no doubt in my mind that the disciples must have experienced the same sort of bereavement phenomena as I did. However, the resurrection accounts in the gospels are something entirely different. Whatever the resurrection accounts are, they are not the phenomena that accompany bereavement. I have heard a lot of Thomas-bashing in sermons and in Sunday school, but notice it does not occur in this passage. No one criticizes or rebukes Thomas for his lack of faith or for his skepticism. The passage does not tell us about how they put Thomas in his place, rather it tells us how Thomas was surprised! Thomas says he won’t believe until he can see for himself that Jesus is alive. What happens next? Do they heard Jesus’ voice booming through the room, rebuking Thomas and imposing some penalty on him? No! Jesus immediately appears and meets his demands! Jesus did not criticize Thomas for wanting physical evidence, but rather blessed those who believe without it. So if Jesus didn’t penalize Thomas for doubting the resurrection, He certainly won’t penalize you if you have misgivings about it. You are not saved by your beliefs but by your faith; by your reliance on Jesus Christ. Ken Collins, A Surprise Appearance _____________________________ No Substitutes Sometime back a writer at the web site www.TheOnion.com published a fake press release. The press release was touting an imaginary snack food meant to ease what the writer called, the "hideously bleak emptiness of modern life." The writer described this snack like this: "We're proud to introduce T.C. McCrispee's as the antidote you've been reaching out for. Our tasty new snack cracker will, if only for a few lovely moments, significantly lessen the aching, gnawing angst that haunts your very soul." According to this press release, participants in taste tests testified that the "satisfying crunch distracted them from the parade of tears that is life." A fictitious spokesperson summed up the campaign by saying: "We're selling the salty, unctuous illusions of happiness." And, of course, it is an illusion. Peace is not found in a snack food. Or a chemical. What are drugs--or alcohol, for that matter--but an inferior way to chemically induce peace of mind? Jesus said, "Peace be with you." But how and where do we find that peace? King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com ____________________________ Doubt is not the opposite of Faith, but a part of it. As the poet Tennyson put it: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” It is significant that the English word “belief” is related to the word “love”. Originally, the things that people “believed” were what they held “beloved”. For too long the dogmas and doctrines of the Church have effectively locked the doors to keep out the doubters. Thomas’s doubt is not non-belief in some credal statement or other, but a lack of confidence to trust in the present reality of the Love of God. Keith Whyte

Can These Bones Live?

March 29, 2020 Fifth Sunday of Lent Ezekiel 37:1-14 Do these old bones have life? Year A Children’s Sermon Object: A bone Boys and girls, have you ever sung the little song: "The toe bone's connected to the foot bone, the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone's connected to the shin bone...now hear the word of the Lord." That little spiritual comes from our lesson from the Bible for today. I brought a bone with me this morning (show bone). Did any of you bring a bone with you? Of course you did. You brought all kinds of bones just under your skin, didn't you? You brought your hand bones, and your ankle bones and your foot bones. You don't go anywhere without your bones, do you? I'm glad for my bones. We would be in trouble if we didn't have bones, wouldn't we? We wouldn't be able to sit up or walk and all kinds of things. I'm glad for my bones. But I'm also glad for my skin and muscles that cover my bones. But, you know what's even more amazing than skin or bones or muscle? It is the gift of life. My bones are part of my living body, and I am up here sitting with you and you are here and smiling and beautiful and it all happened because there is a loving God who gives us the gift of life. That's what the story about the dry bones is really all about. It's not about bones but about the God who gives life to bones and muscles. I'm glad God loves us enough to give us the gift of life and in return I'm going to make my life the best life of which I'm capable just to show Him how grateful I am. That's a good idea for all of us. Take these bones God has given us and use them to his glory. Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan Prelude Opening Prayer Scripture Ezekiel 37:1-14 Common English Bible (CEB) Valley of dry bones 37 The LORD’s power overcame me, and while I was in the LORD’s spirit, he led me out and set me down in the middle of a certain valley. It was full of bones. 2 He led me through them all around, and I saw that there were a great many of them on the valley floor, and they were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Human one, can these bones live again?” I said, “LORD God, only you know.” 4 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the LORD’s word! 5 The LORD God proclaims to these bones: I am about to put breath in you, and you will live again. 6 I will put sinews on you, place flesh on you, and cover you with skin. When I put breath in you, and you come to life, you will know that I am the LORD.” 7 I prophesied just as I was commanded. There was a great noise as I was prophesying, then a great quaking, and the bones came together, bone by bone. 8 When I looked, suddenly there were sinews on them. The flesh appeared, and then they were covered over with skin. But there was still no breath in them. 9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, human one! Say to the breath, The LORD God proclaims: Come from the four winds, breath! Breathe into these dead bodies and let them live.” 10 I prophesied just as he commanded me. When the breath entered them, they came to life and stood on their feet, an extraordinarily large company. 11 He said to me, “Human one, these bones are the entire house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely finished.’ 12 So now, prophesy and say to them, The LORD God proclaims: I’m opening your graves! I will raise you up from your graves, my people, and I will bring you to Israel’s fertile land. 13 You will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, my people. 14 I will put my breath[a] in you, and you will live. I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the LORD. I’ve spoken, and I will do it. This is what the LORD says.” Footnotes: a. Ezekiel 37:14 Or spirit Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible Sermon I just watched the daily news conference of the governor, and every day he tells the number of corona virus cases in Illinois and the number of deaths. Today there were 17more deaths. There is a total of 3491 cases in Illinois and a total of 47 deaths. Will County has the 4th most deaths in the state with 110 cases and 4 deaths. The 110 cases have been reported from every area of the county. This lent has truly been a valley of the shadow of death season. Every day I listen to a meditation from a spiritual leader that I admire, and every day she says a prayer for the souls who for whatever reason are departing their earthly bodies. That is an astonishing thought to think about. Last week I didn’t to talk about the events of our world. But this week it is appropriate. This week, the fifth Sunday of lent is the week before holy week begins. I have no choice but to talk about death. The gospel lesson for today is about Jesus journey to his death in Jerusalem. He stops by a friend’s house only to discover that he has died. Jesus brings Lazarus back to life. This week however, I chose to focus on Ezekiel 37. This is one of the most dramatic messages in the bible. It also has a very timely message for us. I think that this is one of the most important lessons in all of history. Every generation in history seems to have had that moment of challenge. This is not the first time in history that church has been cancelled in order to keep people safe. In 1918, when there was the flu pandemic, church services were cancelled. In history there has been pandemics, wars, economic crashes that have challenged our whole society. I feel like I have seen all of those challenges just in my lifetime, and this may not be the last challenge to our way of life. The challenge in Ezekiel’s time was the exile of the Babylonians. His people had been defeated, they were forced to abandon their lives and to walk away and live for generations in a foreign land. The experience challenged them to the core. But have you ever noticed that sometimes it is the aftermath that is the biggest challenge? When you are going through a crisis, your adrenaline has a way of helping you to survive. You are not thinking of processing life, you are just doing what you have to do to survive. It is only after everything is over, that you look around and your realize that you are 100 miles away from where you want to be and that the only means of transportation is one step at a time. And you ask what do you do now to get back home. That is probably where Ezekiel was, when he dreamed that he was in the valley of the shadow of death, surrounded by human bones that had laid out in the sun for so long they were dry. I have listened with interest as survivors of corona virus speak of their condition. I was really touched as one man said that he got so sick that he just knew that he was going to die. He went to the hospital and waited to die, but the thing is, he didn’t die. He just had to live with the pain, he was still sick he was still here. Sometimes the road to recovery is harder than death. You are living, but your spirit is dead. The vision that Ezekiel has about the shadow of death – is more about the death of the spirit of his people. His people are alive but they have no hope. The community that they knew is dead. I have seen several pictures of Chicago this last week, of the structures, but no people. Frequently I come here to the church at night to pray over the seats in the sanctuary, over the hallways, over the rooms. I pray for the future of the ministry that will take place in each place. I said those same prayers last night, but this time it was different. As I looked at the empty seats, I got an eerie fear. What if the seats are never filled again? What if the church cannot recover from this shut down? What if there is no real future beyond all of this. The fear came from not having any answers. Ezekiel stood in the middle of a dream, and he too did not have the answers. His community had lost hope and felt they had no future. So, he asks God a question - can these old dead bones really live. He goes into a full conversation with God. God says you know the answer. Ezekiel knows that the answer is no. I want us to pause for a moment and put ourselves in that conversation with God for a moment. As we deal with the loss of life, with the loss of wellbeing, with the loss of income, with the loss of special moments that we will never recover. We can’t help but to ask God will these bones live? And we come to the stark reality that only God knows. We have no resources to solve our own problems. We can only look to God for the answers. This lent is our valley in the shadow of death moment. It is only is the valley of the shadow of death that we have the strength to be honest with God and to ask – Can these bones live? God gives Ezekiel an interesting answer. He tells Ezekiel to go back and to prophesy to the people. God says I am going to open up that grace, I am going to raise you up and take you home. Home can mean a lot of things – it can be a place, it can be a situation, it can be a feeling. Home is always restoration to wholeness and peace. Only God can move us from the valley of the shadow of death to wholeness and peace. He does that by giving us words of hope. Dr. Bernie Siegel in a wonderful book, “Love, Medicine and Miracle”, told of a man who was very ill with cancer. He was given a new medicine for which his doctors had high hopes. Sure enough, the man went into remission, returned home and spent the next month recovering. He did such things as fly an airplane. Then he read a report in the newspaper that the drug he’d been taken was ineffective. Immediately he had a relapse and returned to the hospital where he was soon terribly ill. The doctors despairing for the man, decided to tell him an untruth, but for worthy reasons: They told him the medicine he’d taken was defective, and they had received a new shipment which was good. They again administered the medicine, and before long the man seemed to recover. Again, he returned home and began to get better. Finally, though the doctors had to tell the man the truth. He immediately returned to the hospital and the next day he died. Hearing some words of hope makes all of the difference in our outlook on our situations. The moral of the story is that news of today is relevant – it tells us the truth; it gives us the facts. But it is not the source of our hope and our peace. The word of God is that for us. I love the vision of this story in Ezekiel – because he looks are a group of dry human bones, but then he starts to preach to them about the hope of God. and right before his eyes, he sees flesh and bone start to appear on the bones. They start to appear as normal people. But he appeals to the four winds and the breath of God comes in the bodies and they are restored to life. They are restored alive and well. The original meaning of resurrection is the restoration of community life. The day when the community has enough hope to restore itself and come back to life. The day the community had enough strength to do what it needed to do to go forward. That is what these valley moments do for us. they help us to find the strength to move forward. When I look at the pandemic of 1918, I see similarities to this moment in time. But even then, church may have been canceled, but Easter was not. This corona virus pandemic seems to take away even Easter, the ultimate celebration of resurrection. But this just reminds us that Easter is not about egg hunts, or bunnies or new clothes There is a strict formula to the date of Easter, Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon after Passover. But Easter is not a date on the calendar. Easter is resurrection. One man, Christ experienced death so that the community could be restored to full health. This Easter, when it comes, we will understand and experience the true meaning of resurrection and restoration. We are alive for such a time as this – the day when community hope will be restores. The hand of YHWH, the Breath of Life, was on me, And in a rushing-breath YHWH brought me forth and set me in the center of a valley - Full of bones! - And led me all around them, all around. Here! - Very many on the face of the valley, and here! - utterly dry. And said to me; "Child of Adam, earthling, can these bones live?" my people. And I will put my breath within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own earth, and you shall know-deep-in-your-heart that I the Breath of Life have spoken, and made it happen - proclaims the Breath of Life."'" (Translation by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 9/8/01) Amen. Stewardship Moment It has been said that this is the lentiest lent every – it has truly been a road through the shadow of death. But it reminds of that we get through one step at a time. And each step that we take is a step with God. Intentionally thinking about what it means to be a disciple of God. Let us preach the hope of God with our mouths but also with our offering. Your offering allows our church to continue to give hope in these dark times. Please remember to give your offering – you can give online, through the mail, dropping it off. Music Benediction Additional Illustrations Sermon Opener - Rise Up - Ezekiel 37:1-14 November 2019, the virus we know as the “Coronavirus” or “COVID-19” appeared in Wuhan, China. Today, nearly five months later, that same virus is affecting people around the world. At nearly 400,000 cases worldwide, COVID-19 is on a trajectory that will continue to infect people in 150 countries for months to come –their health, their finances, and their weary spirits. This event, next to Sept 11, 2001, may be the most devastating world event of the 21st century and is already being compared to two monumental events of the 20th century: the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic that infected 500 million people around the globe, killing about 50 million, and the October 1929 US stock market crash and the following great depression that reverberated around the world through the 1930s. The Spanish flu was a three-year epidemic. The great depression lasted a good 10 years through the 1930s.The changes and devastation of COVID-19 is still in its infancy. But these kinds of devastating events don’t just impact our wallets and our health. They severely impact our emotional, mental, and spiritual health. 1918 ended the bloodiest war (WWI) in history with huge losses of life but was followed by more loss with the Spanish Flu. Both devastated the young, killing primarily those from 18-40. In 1929, the suicide rate jumped to 18.9% after stocks plummeted 13% on Black Monday (October 28) and another 12% on Black Tuesday (October 29). The economy would take years to recover. And yet the human spirit, aided by the Holy Spirit, continues to strive, to hope, and to love. Every time we face death, destruction, despair, and devastation, we call upon the Holy Spirit to renew us, refresh us, and set us on our feet again. Just as faith surged in the past after global changes and difficulties such as the industrial revolution, the revolutionary, civil, and world wars, the Spanish flu, and the great depression, we live in a time when faith is needed now more than ever. Joy Unbounded, Glory Fulfilled Pastor/Bishop Kenneth Ulmer (Inglewood, California) envisions the animating, life-fulfilling power of the Holy Spirit as like the transformation that comes over the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon figures as they're inflated. Without any air these huge balloons lay flat on the floor, limp, and featureless figures. But when the wind starts whipping up inside those balloons, they begin to rise, stand up, and stand tall. They become individuals, people and creatures that we recognize and love. Once on the parade route, these balloons take on even more life, for they are animated not just by the air within them, but by the winds that buffet and bolster them down the street. Humor: "Look, He's Moving" Three friends were discussing death and one of them asked: "What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?" The first of the friends said: I would like them to say, he was a great humanitarian, who cared about his community. The second said: He was a great husband and father, who was an example for many to follow," said another. The third friend said, I would like them to say, "Look, he’s moving!!" Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com Daylight Lasts Longer There is a couple in Arkansas who have given their six-year-old son strict instructions to come home from playing every afternoon no later than 5 p.m. He is allowed to play with his friends, but his parents are quite serious about his curfew. If he is not home by 5 p.m., they begin to worry and call around the neighborhood to find out where he is. The boy knows this, though, and is careful to arrive every day on time. One April Monday, however, the day after Daylight Saving Time went into effect, the boy was late coming home. When he finally arrived, a few minutes before 6 p.m., his mother scolded him for being late. "You know you are to be home by five," she said, "and here it is nearly six." Puzzled, the little boy pointed out the window. "But the light," he protested, "the light; it's the light that tells me when to come home." Realizing what had happened, his mother smiled and gently explained that the day before the time had been changed, that everyone had reset their clocks and, now, the daylight lasted longer. The boy's eyes narrowed. "Does God know about this?" he asked suspiciously. In a childlike way, this little boy shared John's theological vision. Martha Jesus wants you to know that with God daylight last longer than death. Adapted from Thomas G. Long, "When Jesus Arrives Late," Whispering the Lyrics, CSS Publishing Company Mr. Hooper Is Dead 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 every one 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. Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com. Adapted from Robert H. Waterman, Jr., The Renewal Factor, New York: Bantam Books, 1987, pp. 100-101. Take Off the Grave Clothes Her name was Carol. She was the organist at her church. She was an outstanding musician, but she did something no organist should ever do. She overslept on Easter morning and missed the sunrise service. She was so embarrassed. Of course, the minister and the church forgave her. They teased her about it a little, but it was done lovingly and in good fun. However, the next Easter, her phone rang at 5:00 in the morning. Jolted awake by the loud ringing, she scrambled to answer it. It was the minister, and he said, “Carol, its Easter morning The Lord is risen! . . .And I suggest you do the same!” The message is clear: We too can be resurrected. Christ shares his resurrection with us. He rises, and so can we. We too can have new life. We too can make a new start. We too can rise out of those tombs that try to imprison us! James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True, Dimensions, p. 74 Dry Bones Come to Life Through God’s Breath I said - "Pillar of the World, Breath of Life - You know-it-in-your-heart, and only you." Then God said to me, "Prophesy upon these bones! Say to them, 'Dry bones, Hear the word of the One Who breathes all life! Thus speaks the Pillar of the World, the Breath of Life, to these bones: "Here! - I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will weave muscles on you, and raise flesh upon you, and form skin on you, I will give you breath, And you shall live! And so you will deeply know that I am YHWH, the Breath of Life."'" So I prophesied as I was commanded. And while I was prophesying, there came a voice, and - here! a commotion! - and the bones came together, bone to bone. And I saw - here! - upon them muscles; Flesh arose, skin covered them; But there was no breath in them. Then God said, "Prophesy to the rushing-breath-of-wind - Prophesy, you child of earth! - and say to the breathing-wind - Thus says the Pillar of the World, the Breath of Life - From the four breathing-winds come, O breath, And puff upon these slain, that they shall live." So I prophesied as God commanded me, and the breath blew into them. They lived, and stood upon their feet, An overwhelming, overwhelming vast array of strength. Then God said to me, "Child of earth, These bones are the whole house of Israel. Here! - they say, 'Dried up - our bones, Shattered - our hopes, Cut off - our roots.' So prophesy and say to them, 'Thus speaks the Pillar of the World, the Breath of Life: "Here! - I will open your graves, and rouse you from your graves, my people! And I will bring you to the earth of Israel. And you shall know-deep-in-your-heart that I am YHWH, the Breath of Life, when I have opened your graves, and roused you from your graves,