Follow Me

The Sunday evening message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on April 30, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Luke 5:27-32.

            Our Bible reading for tonight gives us yet another example of an ordinary person, sitting around minding his own business, doing what he does every day.  And suddenly, the Lord comes along, and in a few seconds the Lord completely changes this man’s life.

            It’s amazing to me how often this happens in the Bible.  And it’s also amazing to me how matter-of-factly the Bible always tells these stories.  I mean, here’s Levi, changing his entire life to follow Jesus, and the Bible handles it in two verses.  “Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.  ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.”

            That’s pretty incredible, don’t you think?  For someone to just immediately leave their entire way of life behind to follow Jesus?

            But you know, that seems to be how it worked with all of Jesus’ disciples, at least the ones we’re told about how they were called.  Jesus sees Peter and Andrew casting a net into the lake, fishing, and he says, “Come, follow me, and I will sent you out to fish for people.”  And we’re told, “At once they left their nets and followed him.”  Jesus sees James and John out in a boat with their father.  We’re told, “Jesus called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.”

            Think about that in the context of Levi.  After all, who was Levi?  Levi was a tax collector.  Tax collectors were not popular people in Jesus’ time.  I don’t suppose tax collectors have ever been popular people, really.  But Levi was a wealthy man.  Most tax collectors were, because they were allowed to charge people as much as they wanted and keep any excess over what Rome wanted.  It was not necessarily an honest way to make a living, but it was a way to get rich.  

And Levi was rich.  You can tell that because he was able to pull off this huge banquet in Jesus’ honor at barely a moment’s notice.  He must have had servants and a large room and the money to pay for all this food and wine and everything.  Levi was leaving behind an awful lot of wealth to follow Jesus.

            I wonder if, when Jesus came along, Levi know who Jesus was?  Jesus had started his ministry by this time.  He’d healed a lot of people.  He was attracting crowds.  Levi certainly might have heard of him.  He might have even been curious about him.  

            And maybe, Levi knew he needed to change his life.  We’re into speculation now, but again, think about how Levi was.  A wealthy man, but not popular.  Maybe friendless.  Maybe Levi had looked at his life and said, you know, I have all this money, but what’s it getting me?  What good is it all?  

            I wonder, too, if Jesus knew Levi before this?  I mean, as the divine Son of God, I’m sure Jesus knew who Levi was when he called him.  But had Jesus seen Levi before?  Did He know Levi had his tax collector booth in this spot?  Did He deliberately go there that day for the purpose of calling Levi?  Or was he just walking by, when suddenly He got the divine inspiration that Levi needed to be one of the twelve disciples?  

            And that makes me wonder, were the twelve disciples the first twelve people Jesus called?  Again, of those disciples that we’re given a call story for, Jesus comes up to them, says “Follow me”, and they immediately follow.  Were there people Jesus came up to, said, “Follow me”, and they said no?

            We’re not told that, but it seems like there could’ve been.  After all, in John Chapter Six, we’re told about a lot of people who had followed Jesus, and then stopped, because he was saying things that were too hard for them to accept.  In Luke Chapter Nine, we’re told about people who said they would follow Jesus, but they had to do other things first.  It seems to me that it’s at least possible that the disciples we know as the Twelve may not have been the first Twelve Jesus called.  They may have just been the first Twelve who said yes.

            What the twelve disciples did was not easy.  They left everything behind to follow Jesus.  You know, we talk sometimes about how Jesus came for the poor, but the disciples for whom we know something about their background don’t seem to have been poor.  We talk of James and John, and Simon and Andrew, as fishermen, but it’s not like they were just fishing for pleasure or for sport.  This was their business.  They were commercial fishermen.  I don’t know how good their business was, but it was good enough that they could afford the boat and nets and all that.  

            And not only that, they walked away from their families, too.  James and John left their father behind.  We know that Simon, at least, was married, so he apparently left his wife behind, too.  The twelve disciples walked away from everything to follow Jesus.  It’s not everybody who could do that.

            Now, it’s certainly possible that Jesus knew the twelve would say yes before he asked them.  But I think it’s possible that He asked some others and they said no.  Or, it’s also possible that there are some others Jesus would like to have asked, but He knew they would say no, so He did not bother to ask them.

            So you probably know where this is going.  You and I would probably consider ourselves ordinary people.  Suppose that tomorrow we’re just going about our business, doing whatever we do every day.  Maybe we’re at work.  Maybe we’re at school.  Maybe we’re out doing errands.  Whatever it is.  And all of a sudden, Jesus comes along.  And Jesus says two words:  “follow me”.

            What do we do?  Do we follow?  

            We’d like to think we would.  But would we really?  Would we walk away from everything we own?  Would we walk away even from our own family?  Would we leave everything behind, the way the twelve disciples did, to follow Jesus?

            It’s a hard question to answer.  Because the truth is that when we hear a question like that, we think of it as just theoretical.  We don’t really believe Jesus is going to come along and ask us to leave everything behind to follow Him.  And so, while we might give an answer to the question, we don’t really know what the answer is.  And we cannot really know what our answer is unless and until we’re faced with the situation, which we don’t really expect to be.

            But I still think it’s worth thinking about.  We talked sometimes about the kingdom of heaven being worth more than everything else in the world.  A situation like this is where we would find out if we really believe that.  I mean, we may say we believe it, and maybe we do.  But Simon and Andrew, James and John, Levi–they proved it.  They actually did give up everything to follow Jesus.

            And they did that, not really knowing all that much about Jesus.  We don’t know how much they knew, but Jesus was just starting his ministry when he called these men.  They had no idea what they were in for.  They had no idea what they were going to see.  They did not know the tremendous power Jesus had.  They did not know they were going to see Jesus do miraculous healing, feed five thousand people, and even raise someone from the dead.  They did not know they were going to hear Jesus arguing with the Pharisees and the other religious leaders and make them look like fools.  And they certainly did not know that Jesus was going to die so that they and all of us who believe in Him can have salvation and eternal life.

            You and I know a lot more about Jesus than the first disciples did.  We have the advantage of being able to read the end of the book, so to speak.  We may not know everything we’d like to know about Jesus, but we know all we need to know.  We know that He was and is the divine Son of God.  We know that faith in Him truly does lead to salvation and eternal life.  We know that the day will come when Jesus will come again, even if we don’t know when that day will be.  We know that, no matter what the world might look like right now, in the end, Jesus will win.  And we know that, if we stay faithful to Him and serve Him and love Him, we will win, too.

            Jesus calls each of us to follow Him.  What that looks like may be different for each of us, but Jesus does call each of us to follow Him.  We don’t expect Jesus to ask us to leave everything to follow Him, and maybe He won’t.  But those first disciples probably were not expecting Jesus to ask them to leave everything to follow him, either.  And He did.

            And when He did, those first disciples were able to say yes.  I don’t know whether I could say yes.  I’d really rather Jesus did not ask me to.  But if He does, my prayer is that all of us will be able to say yes.  It won’t be easy.  But it will be worth it.

 

The Narrow Road

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on April 30, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 7:13-23.

            God is love.  And God is forgiving.  And God is merciful.

            Those are some of the greatest things about God, right?  At least from our standpoint.  If those things were not true, you and I would all be in deep trouble.  It’s because of God’s love, and God’s mercy, and God’s desire to forgive, that Jesus was sent to earth in the first place.  Jesus Christ dying so that our sins could be forgiven is the ultimate act of love.

            But sometimes, we’re tempted to take God’s love and God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness for granted.  And we especially take it for granted when it comes time to talk about heaven and hell.  We say, well, if God loves us, and if God forgives us, and if God is merciful, than God surely does not allow people to go to hell.  Well, maybe a few people.  Maybe mass murderers and people like that.  But not most people.  Certainly not the kind of people we know.  God’s love conquers all and so God allows pretty much everyone into heaven in the end.

            We’d like to believe that.  And don’t get me wrong, I’d like to believe it, too.  I do not want to think of anyone going to hell.  If you take the concept of hell seriously, if you’ve read the Bible and know how hell is described, you would not want your worst enemy to go there.  I would like to believe that God will let just about anybody into heaven.

            I’d like to believe it--but that’s not what the Bible actually says.  It’s certainly not what Jesus said in our reading for today.  Jesus said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

            Man, I wish Jesus had not said that.  But he did.  Now, Jesus does not say this because he’s happy about it.  I’m sure Jesus wished that everyone would find the road that leads to life.  But Jesus knew that’s not the way it is.  And so Jesus says this, not with pleasure, but as a warning.  Jesus says this for our benefit, really.  If Jesus had not said this, and other things like it, we’d be tempted to keep believing that God lets just about anybody into heaven.  And if we lived our lives counting on that, we’d be in for a rude awakening when we found out the truth.  And by the time we did find out the truth, it would be too late for us to do anything about it.  Jesus knew it was important for us to know the truth now, even if the truth is not what you and I might wish it was.

            And Jesus continues that theme.  He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

            Think about that.  Jesus is saying that it’s not enough just to call on his name.  It’s not enough even to do all kinds of good things in his name.  Even driving out demons and performing miracles is not enough.  Jesus says that to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to do the will of God the Father.

            See, the thing is, Jesus knew a lot about human nature.  Jesus knew that calling on his name is not necessarily the same as really following him.  Because what do we human beings tend to do?  We tend to call on Jesus when we get into trouble, right?  We turn to Jesus when things are going against us and we need help.  But when things are going well, we tend to just kind of go our own way, doing our own thing, not really making Jesus much of a part of our lives.

            There’s nothing new about that, by the way.  It happens all through the Old Testament.  The people get in trouble, they call on God, God bails them out, they promise to be faithful to God, things going well, the people forget God, they get in trouble again, they call on God again, and round and round and round we go.

            So just calling on Jesus’ name is not enough.  But what about prophesying in Jesus’ name?  What about driving out demons and performing miracles?  I mean, Jesus says we need to do the will of God the Father, but would those things not be doing God’s will?  What’s Jesus getting at here?

            I think what Jesus is getting at is that doing good things--even really good things--is not the same as doing God’s will.  Am I saying God does not want us to do good things?  No, of course not.  Obviously God wants us to do good things.  But Jesus did not say that the way to heaven is by being good people or by doing good things.  Remember, Jesus told us in Mark Ten that we should not even call him good, because no one is good except for God alone.  All of us human beings are sinners who fall far short of being “good”.  The way to heaven is by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And faith in Jesus Christ means that we do God’s will to the best of our ability, just as Jesus spent his life on earth doing the will of God the Father.

            Let me give you an example.  Wanda and I lived in Wessington Springs for several years before I became a pastor.  And we did a lot of “good things” there.  Not everything--I mean, we’re far from perfect people.  But we were part of the community club and we helped raise money for the senior citizens bus and we did a lot of work supporting the troops--we had a local National Guard unit that was called up to serve in Iraq at that time--and we did a lot of other stuff that most people would consider “good things”.

            But then God called us into ministry.  Had we said no, we would’ve stayed in Wessington Springs and we would’ve continued to do “good things”.  But we would not have been doing God’s will.  God’s will for us was not that we stay in Wessington Springs and keep doing “good things”.  God’s will for us was that we go into ministry, first in North Sioux City and now here.

            Now again, I don’t want to sound like I’m some sort of perfect person that everyone should look to as a role model.  There are plenty of times in my life when I have not followed God’s will, when I have gone my own way.  But the point is that doing “good things” does not make someone a Christian.  What makes someone a Christian is believing in Jesus Christ and do our best to follow God’s will.

            What that means is that there are probably people you know, people who we’d probably consider “good people” who do “good things”, who are not going to heaven.  I can think of people like that.  They are going on the broad road that leads to destruction, rather than the narrow road that leads to life.  And believe me, it gives me no pleasure to say that.  I wish it was not so.  But Jesus told us it is so, and any time we deny Jesus’ words, we become the false prophets Jesus told us to watch out for.  

            And so, there are at least two things we need to do.  The first one is to look at our lives.  Are we content to simply do “good things”?  Or are we truly trying to do God’s will?  It’s not always easy to know the difference.  We may need to spend some time in prayer.  We may need to spend some time reading the Bible.  We may need to spend some time talking to others whose opinions we trust.  We may need to spend some time truly listening for God’s voice, however God’s voice may make itself known to you.  

            But the second one is to do everything we can to bring others to Christ.  Including those “good people” who do “good things”.  We need to do what we can to help them truly accept Jesus Christ as the Savior and truly follow God’s will.

            Is that easy?  No, a lot of times it’s not.  It may lead to some very difficult conversations.  But remember, we don’t do it alone.  We do it with God’s help.  Any time we try to help someone accept Jesus Christ as the Savior, God will be with us.  God will give us the courage to act, and God will give us the words to say.  Will we always succeed?  No, probably not--even Jesus himself did not always succeed.  But one thing we know about God’s will is that God wants us to, in Jesus’ words, “go and make disciples of all nations”.  Any time we do that, we know we are doing God’s will.

           "Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  That’s not the way I wish it was.  But Jesus says that’s the way it is.  Let’s keep our faith in Jesus Christ strong.  Let’s do everything we can to truly follow God’s will, and be one of those few who are on that narrow road that leads to life.  And let’s do everything we can to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ, and help them follow God’s will, so that more and more people can find that narrow road.  Let’s do everything we can to make that narrow road crowded with believers, all doing their best to follow the will of God.

Jesus' Prayer for You

The Sunday night message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on April 23, 2023.  The Bible verses used are John 17:1-26.

        Every Sunday morning, we have a time where we ask for prayer requests.  Lots of churches do that.  It’s called “Joys and Concerns” or something similar.  It’s a time for people to express what they would like the church, and the people in it, to pray about.

That’s a good thing.  We should pray for each other.  In fact, the Bible tells us many times that we should do that.  But in our Bible reading tonight, we have an example of Jesus himself praying for us.

That’s a pretty awesome thing, don’t you think?  That Jesus Christ, the Savior, the divine Son of God, would pray for you?  And for me?  It’s another example of how much Jesus loves us.  After all, at the time of our Bible reading, Jesus had a lot on his mind.  The prayer we read tonight is, according to the gospel of John, the last thing Jesus said before he went to the garden of Gethsemane.  And of course, that is where he would be arrested, an arrest that would lead to his death on a cross.

Jesus could certainly have been excused if, at that point, his thoughts were all on himself.  But they were not.  A little, yes, but not that much.  His thoughts were mainly on God and on his disciples and followers.

So, what does Jesus pray?  First, he prays that God the Father will be pleased with what Jesus has done.  He says, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in Your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”

You know, when we talk about the sacrifice Jesus made, we immediately think of his death on the cross.  And of course that was a tremendous sacrifice that Jesus made.  But it’s not the only sacrifice Jesus made.  Jesus’ statement reminds us that Jesus gave up a lot just to come to earth in the first place.

“Glorify me in Your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”  Jesus, as God the Son, was with God the Father in heaven.  He always had been.  God the Son had glory with God the Father before the universe was ever created.

Jesus gave up that glory to come to earth.  And he had a specific job to do while he was here.  Now, his work on earth is nearly finished, and he prays that God will be pleased with what he has done and will return that glory to him again.

But again, Jesus does not spend much time on himself.  He goes on to pray for the disciples.  And it’s interesting, I think, to note that Jesus specifically says he is not praying for the world.  He is simply praying for those who are his, who follow him.

What does he pray for them?  Maybe not what we’d expect.  Jesus does not pray that God the Father will make things easy for them.  He does not pray that they will have anything material.  He does not even pray that God will keep them from harm.  Instead, he prays that God would protect them from the evil one.  And he prays that God would sanctify them with God’s word, which is truth.

Protect them from the evil one, and sanctify them with God’s word, which is truth.  What does that mean?  Why would Jesus pray that way?

        Jesus knows that now the disciples have a job to do, just as Jesus had a job to do while he was on earth.  They are going to have to carry on the ministry that Jesus has started, spreading the good news of salvation.  And Jesus knows it’s going to be a tough job.  He’s already told them they’re going to have all kinds of trouble.  In fact, he’s told them that the world is going to hate them because of him.  And he knows he’s not going to be there any more to protect them.

        But Jesus wanted the disciples to look at this the way he looked at it.  Jesus knew that, if he stayed firm, if he stayed with God the Father and with God’s truth, nothing the world could do could touch him.  Yes, they could kill his earthly body.  But they could not do anything to his eternal life.  If he stayed with God the Father, he would, as he said, return to his glory in heaven.

        And that’s what he wanted the disciples to do.  Stay firm.  Stay with God the Father and with God the Son.  Stay with God’s truth.  And so, he prays that God the Father will protect them from the evil one.  Protect them from the temptation to compromise.  Protect them from the temptation to back off, to get along.  Protect them from the temptation to soften God’s truth to satisfy what the world wants to hear.  

        Again, Jesus knows that, if they stand firm, they will get into trouble.  But he knows that, if they stay with God’s truth, there’s nothing the world can do to them.  Yes, the world could kill their earthly bodies.  But the world could not do anything to their eternal lives.  If they stayed firm, if they stayed with God’s truth, they would be sanctified.  They would be set apart, and they would go to heaven to be with the Lord.

        As I thought about that, I realized that we don’t pray that way for each other nearly enough.  We pray for others’ good health all the time, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.  We should do that.  We pray, sometimes, for protection from storms.  We pray for favorable weather or for safe travels.  We pray for lots of things.  But we rarely pray that God would keep us strong in our faith.  We rarely pray that God will help us stand firm and stand with God.  We rarely pray that God would help us stay with God’s word and God’s truth.

        That’s wrong.  And it’s at least partly my fault, as the pastor, that we don’t pray that way more.  I’m not saying every prayer we ever pray needs to be that, but we should pray that way more than we do.  And I’m going to try to do my part to correct that.

        Because that’s something we all need.  You and I are every bit as tempted to compromise as the disciples were, if not more.  We’re every bit as tempted to back off, to get along.  We’re every bit as tempted to soften God’s truth to satisfy what the world wants to hear.  And we’re also tempted to convince ourselves that the “softened” version of God’s truth is the right one, because sometimes it’s what we want to hear, too.

        But Jesus did not stop there.  Jesus continued, praying for all who will come to believe.  That includes you and me.

        What was his prayer for us?  It’s a prayer for unity, but not in the way we might have expected.  Yes, he’d like us to be united, but united because we have God’s Holy Spirit in us.

        Listen to what he says.  He prays “that all of them might be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”  A little later he says something similar, “that they may be one as we are one--I in them and you in me.”

        Again, Jesus does not pray for the whole world.  He prays for believers.  Jesus knows that there can be no unity between believers and non-believers.  We should love them, yes.  We should pray for them.  We should treat them as we would like to be treated.  But we cannot be unified with them.  As Jesus said earlier, his disciples are not of this world, just as Jesus himself was not of this world.  Trying to be unified with the world is what leads to the compromises that Jesus prayed his disciples would avoid.

        As believers, we are to be unified with Jesus.  That’s our goal.  To live as Jesus told us to live.  To treat others as Jesus told us to treat them.  To believe as Jesus believed.  To think as Jesus thought.  To love as Jesus loved.  To have the courage and trust in God the Father that Jesus had.  We’ll do it imperfectly, of course, because we’re imperfect people.  Even the disciples did it imperfectly.  But they did it, and we can, too.  And if we’re unified with Jesus, we can be unified with each other, too.

        And Jesus prayed for one more thing for us.  He prayed, “Father, I want those you have given me to be where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

        Jesus wants us to be with him.  To be in heaven.  To be with God the Father.  To see His glory.

And when that happens, we truly will be unified with Jesus.  We will be perfect, just as God intended in the beginning.  Not because of anything we’ve done, but because the death of Jesus, and our belief in him, washes away our sins.  What an awesome thing.  What an amazing thing.  What an incredibly loving thing.  To be one with each other and one with Jesus in the presence of God in heaven.

We should pray for each other.  But when you get down, when you get discouraged, when it seems like things are not going the way they should, remember this:  Jesus has prayed for you.  Jesus is still praying for you.  With Jesus on our side, there is nothing we cannot overcome.  We can stand firm in our faith.  The world may not love us for that.  But if we stand firm in our faith, we can be unified with Jesus, on earth and in heaven.

How to Be Ready

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on April 23, 2023.  The Bible verses used are 1 Peter 4:1-11.

            Jesus Christ will come again.  That’s one of the most basic Christian beliefs.  In our communion liturgy, which we say every month, we say, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”  In our oldest creed, the Nicene Creed, we say, “Christ will come again in glory.”  And of course, Jesus Himself said that He would come again “on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”

    We don’t know when Jesus will come again, of course.  When Jesus was on earth, He said that He, Himself, did not know when He would come back.  Only God the Father knows.

    We do think about it sometimes, though.  Some people think it will happen soon.  They look at the things Jesus said would be signs of His return–wars and rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes, false prophets appearing, lawlessness increasing–and they see them happening now.  And I certainly cannot deny the truth of that.  On the other hand, we’ve seen these things happen before, and Jesus has not returned yet.  So I don’t know.  If Jesus Himself did not know, at least while He was on earth, I’m okay with not knowing, either.

In the first years following Jesus’ death, His followers expected it to happen soon.  Many of them expected it to happen in their lifetime.  That’s why the gospels were not written until thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death.  Writing was a laborious process back then.  It took a lot of time, and getting copies made took even more time.  And if you thought Jesus was going to come right away, well, you did not have time to go through all that.  You simply went everywhere you could and told everyone you could about Jesus.  It was only after time passed, and the people who were witnesses to Jesus’ life and death were starting to pass away, that people thought, hey, we’d better get some of this stuff written down while we still can.

And of course, in saying that, I want to note that the people who wrote it down did so under the inspiration of God.  Yes, they were relying on memories, but they were divinely-inspired memories.  You and I might be fuzzy on the details of something that happened thirty years ago.  But God was involved in the process of writing these gospels, and that helps us know they are accurate.

But the point is that the end times will come at some point.  We get a day closer to it every day.  And of course, even if the end times are a long way off yet, our own personal end time is also coming.  We get a day closer to that every day, too.  

So, we need to be ready.  How do we do that?

Well, the obvious answer is to have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And that’s the correct answer.  And it’s tempting to just leave it at that.

But I’m not going to leave it at that, for two reasons.  One is that this would be a really short sermon if I did.  But the more important reason is that Peter, in our reading for today, did not just leave it that.  He agrees, of course, that we need to have faith in Jesus Christ.  But he goes on to talk about what that means.

First, he says, be prepared to suffer.  Well, that’s not something we want to hear, is it?  But Peter says, look, the rest of the world is going to live for selfish desires–in fact, Peter calls them, “evil human desires”.  He lists some of them:  debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.  I doubt that Peter meant that as the complete list, but I think we get the point.  

And Peter goes on to say that people who do those things–who live for selfish, human desires, are going to be surprised if you and I don’t.  They’re not going to understand why we don’t.  They’re going to feel a little bit guilty, when they see that you and I don’t.  And so, they’re going to try to get us to join them in their way of life.  And when we don’t, as Peter says, they will “heap abuse upon us.”

And I don’t want to move past that too quickly.  The influence of the world is strong.  Those things Peter listed–you see them everywhere.  You see them on TV.  You see them on the internet.  Sometimes you see them in the lives of people you know.  And we see an effort, right now, to make those things seem normal.  All kinds of behaviors, all kinds of activities, that not many years ago would have been roundly criticized, are now being brought into the mainstream of society, and even celebrated.  And if anyone does not celebrate them, they’re told they’re haters and bigots, and an effort is made to silence them.

The influence of the world is strong.  Resisting it is not easy.  But, as Peter said, we will all have to give an account to Christ, the one who is to judge the living and the dead.  Not that we earn our way into heaven–no one could ever be good enough to do that.  But our faith in Jesus Christ is shown by our actions.  If we believe in Jesus Christ, our behavior should show that we are doing our best to live as Jesus told us to live.  Not doing so perfectly–perfection is beyond us.  But doing the best we can.  And when we fail, asking for forgiveness and trying again.

But it’s not enough to just resist the influence of the world.  What is it that we should positively do?  Peter tells us that, too.  

First, “be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.”  Think about that.  Peter could’ve just said “pray”, but he did not.  He said, “Be alert and of sober mind, so that you may pray.”  We say that prayer is talking to God, and it is, but Peter reminds us that this is more than just casual conversation.  If we want to really get something out of our prayers, we need to focus.  We need to concentrate.  It’s okay, sometimes, to say just a quick prayer to God.  But if we really want to get closer to God, if we really want to feel God’s Holy Spirit with us, if we really want to live a life in which we do God’s will, we need to put some effort into our prayers.  We need to think about the fact that we are talking to the almighty, all-powerful God.  We need to go to Him with respect, as if our conversation with God was the most important conversation we will ever have.  Because, in fact, it is.

Then Peter says, “love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”  You see, it does not just matter what we do.  It matters how and why we do it.  There’s an echo here of what the Apostle Paul says in First Corinthians Thirteen:  if we have the gift of prophecy and all knowledge, if we have faith that can move mountains, if we give all we have to the poor, but do not have love, we are nothing.  

So that goes back to resisting the influence of the world, right?  When we resist, we need to do so in a loving way.  Any condemnation will be done by Jesus Christ–we don’t need to do that job for Him.

But, of course, love sometimes requires us to say things people don’t want to hear.  Have you ever had someone do that for you?  Someone who loved you enough to tell you that what you were doing was not right, was not acceptable, and that you needed to change?  I have.  I did not want to hear it at the time.  I was not happy to hear it at the time.  But as I look back on it now, I’m very fortunate that I had people in my life who loved me enough to tell me those things.

But again, they did it in a loving way.  And that’s the key,  It’s not easy to do that.  But sometimes, it’s what love requires.

Peter goes on to say that whatever gifts we’ve been given, we should use them to serve others.  Each one of us has been given gifts from God.  There has never been anyone who has not been given gifts from God.  We need to use those gifts to serve God.  

And when we speak, we need to speak the words of God.  That does not mean our every statement has to quote the Bible.  But it does mean that our words should reflect God in some way.  They should reflect God’s love.  They should reflect God’s grace.  That should reflect God’s mercy.  And they should reflect God’s glory.  We won’t do that perfectly, of course.  No human being can.  But that should be our goal.  

Think about the words you say.  Do they reflect God?  I don’t know about you, but too often, mine do not.  It’s something I need to work on.  And I suspect I’m not the only one.

And all of these things–showing God’s love, using the gifts God has given us, speaking the words of God–need to be done for the glory of God.  In other words, we need to stay humble.  We need to realize that any of those things that we do–anything good we ever do–is not because of our own goodness.  As Jesus said, no one is good but God alone.  Any time we do any of these things, it’s because of God.  And we need to give God the honor and glory, because God deserves it.

I don’t know if the end times will come sooner or later.  I don’t know if they’ll come in my lifetime or thousands of years from now.  But I know they will come.  And I know that my personal end time will come, too.  So will yours.  So let’s listen to the words of Peter.  Let’s resist the selfish, human desires of the world.  And let’s get ready.  Have faith in Jesus Christ, pray, show love, use our gifts, and speak the words of God.  If we do, then we don’t need to be afraid of the end times.  We will know that, when the time comes, by our faith and God’s grace, we will go to be with God in heaven.

Untroubled Hearts

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on April 16, 2023.  The Bible verses used are John 14:1-7.

            When we think of Jesus’ commandments, we think of things like “love your neighbor as yourself.”  “Pray for those who persecute you.”  “Turn the other cheek.”  “Love your enemies.”  

            We talk about those commandments a lot in church.  We talk about how hard they are for us to do.  We talk about how we should do them, anyway.  We talk about how God will help us keep those commandments.

            But when we think of Jesus’ commandments, the one we read tonight rarely comes to mind.  In fact, I suspect most of us don’t even realize that there was a commandment in there.  But there was.  Here it is:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

            Have you ever thought of that as a commandment?   Well, until I started thinking about the message for tonight, neither had I.  But it is.  After all, what is a commandment?  It’s something the Lord has told us to do.  And Jesus told the disciples, and us, “do not let your hearts be troubled.”

            And just like those other commandments I mentioned, this one is not easy for us to keep.  It seems like there are an awful lot of things that trouble our hearts these days.  Some of them just have to do with the everyday things of life.  We have health concerns, we have financial concerns, we have concerns about our families and our friends.  Some of them have to do with events happening in our country, or in the world.  We see wars and threats of wars, we see economic problems, we see rampant crime.  Some of them have to do with our faith.  We are called to be faithful to God in a country, and in a world, that seems to be turning away from God.

            But you know, when Jesus said those words to the disciples, they had a lot of things troubling their hearts, too.  Jesus said these words on the night of the Last Supper.  The night on which He was to be arrested.  The day before He was to be killed.  The disciples did not know all that was going to happen, but they knew they were in trouble.  They knew the Pharisees and the other religious leaders were plotting against them.  They knew that things were coming to a head, and that something big was going to happen soon.  But they did not know what it was or how it would come out.

            And to top it all off, Jesus has just told them He will be leaving them soon.  They probably did not understand that He meant He would be killed, but they knew He would no longer be there for them.  They were wondering how they would go on without Him.  They were wondering what they were going to do.  

            To say the disciples were worried would be an understatement.  And then Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  Do you think that helped?  I mean, to me, it’s like when your wife is mad at you and you say, “Calm down.”  You’re probably going to get the exact opposite response from what you wanted.

            But Jesus tells them why their hearts should not be troubled.  First he says this, “You believe in God; believe also in Me.”

            Jesus understands why the disciples are worried.  He’s not mad at them for being worried.  But He’s saying to them, look, you really don’t need to be.  It’ll be all right.  Just trust Me.  Just believe in Me.  I’ll take care of you.

            But Jesus does not just leave it at that.  Jesus goes on to say, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am.”

            He’s telling the disciples, yes, I’m going away.  But it won’t be forever.  Hang in there.  Whatever happens to you here, it’ll only be temporary.  Because eventually, I’m going to come back.  And when I do, I’ll take you out of here.  I’ll take you to where I am, and we’ll all be together again.  

            And then, Jesus says this, “You know the way to the place where I am going.”

            Well, if the disciples' hearts were starting to get untroubled, this got them troubled again.  You can imagine them, staring at each other, with confused looks on their faces.  Finally, Thomas, of course, is the one to put into words what they’re all feeling.  “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

            And of course, Jesus answers, “I am the way.”  If we want to go to where Jesus is, we have to follow Him.  There’s no other way to do it.  There’s no one else we can follow who will get us to Jesus.  

And when we get to where Jesus is, there’s no reason for our hearts to be troubled.  Because, as Jesus says, “If you really know Me, you will know My father as well.”

When we follow Jesus, we eventually get to where Jesus is.  And when we are where Jesus is, we are in the presence of God the Father.  And at that point, there is no reason for our hearts to be troubled.  We are in the presence of God, and God will have everything handled.

We don’t know whether the disciples’ hearts became untroubled after this.  I somehow doubt it.  I imagine them thinking, well, yeah, that’s great that someday we’ll get to go to be with you in heaven.  And we look forward to that and everything.  But in the meantime, we’re here on earth.  We’ll be here, and You’ll be gone.  And we’ll have the Pharisees coming after us.  And maybe the Roman soldiers, too.  You’re going away, but we’re stuck here, having to deal with all this stuff without You.  How can you tell us to not let our hearts be troubled?

I suspect a lot of us feel that way sometimes, too.  We have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  We believe in Him.  We look forward to the day when we’ll be in heaven with Him and with all those who have gone before us.  It’ll be a great day.  It’ll be a grand reunion.

But in the meantime, we’re stuck here on earth.  And we have all those problems we talked about at the start of this message.  And we see the country and the world turning away from God.  How can our hearts not be troubled?

Well, the way we can do it is the way the disciples could do it.  Jesus goes on for the next few chapters telling them how to do it.  But what it amounts to is this.  Trust Me.  Believe in Me.  Be faithful to Me.  Do the things I’ve told you to do.  Love God.  Love each other.  Stay faithful no matter what may happen to you.  Yes, there will be times when things are bad for you here on earth.  But the Holy Spirit will be with you, and the Holy Spirit will help you through it.  And if you stay faithful to the end, you will go to be with Me in heaven.  As Jesus Himself puts it, “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”

Jesus has overcome the world.  He did not just do that for Himself.  He did that for us, too.   And knowing that, and believing it, and trusting it, is how we can keep our hearts from being troubled.  

            This world we live in now seems so real to us.  And it is real, of course.  And the thing is, it’s the only world we’ve ever known.  And so, too often, we act as if we believe it’s the only world that is.  I mean, yes, we say we believe in heaven.  But we’ve never been there.  We’ve never seen it.  We don’t know what it’s like.  

Because of that, there’s a sense in which it does not seem real to us, at least not in the way this world is.  And so, our focus is on the problems of this world.  Our focus is on the things we see and hear and experience here on earth.  And a lot of those things are troubling to us.  When we have problems, when the people we love have problems, when we see things going wrong in this country that we love, our hearts are troubled.  

But they don’t have to be.  Jesus knows we’re going to have trouble in this world.  That’s the way it’s set up, ever since sin entered the world through Adam and Eve.

But Jesus gave us a promise.  He promised that He has overcome the world.  He promised that He will come back to take us to be with Him.  And then, we will be where our hearts will never need to be troubled again.  We will have nothing but peace and joy and love, in the presence of the Lord.

When we look at the world, it’s hard for us to not let our hearts be troubled.  It was hard for the disciples, too.  But take heart!  Jesus has overcome the world.  If we stay faithful to Him, and trust Him, and believe in Him, then through Jesus’ power, we can overcome the world, too.  And we will never need to have our hearts be troubled again.

 

Jesus Explains It All

The message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday evening, April 9, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Luke 24:13-49.

            It’s the first Easter Sunday evening.  They did not call it that, of course.  They did not call it anything, really.  The women had gone into the tomb in the morning, and found it empty.  They had been told that Jesus had risen.  But--what did that mean, really?  

Had Jesus really risen from the dead?  Was he really alive?  Was it possible?  Yes, he had said he’d be able to do this, but--could it actually be true?  Or was this some sort of a trick on the part of the Romans, or the Pharisees?  Were they just trying to fool Jesus’ followers into thinking Jesus was alive, so they’d come out of hiding and the soldiers could arrest them, just like they’d arrested Jesus?

            And if Jesus was alive, well, what did that mean?  Was Jesus going to resume his ministry?  Were they going to start traveling with him again?  Was he going to go back to healing people and driving out demons and doing all that stuff he had done before?  Or this time, having conquered death, would he raise an army and battle the Romans and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory?  Was this going to be the kingdom of Israel reborn?

            Everybody was in a state of confusion.  Nobody knew what was going to happen.  For that matter, nobody really even knew what had happened.  

            Luke has just told us about the discovery of the empty tomb.  Now, the scene shifts.  It’s later in the day.  Two guys are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, which we’re told was seven miles away.  That sounds like a long walk to us, but of course people were used to walking everywhere back then.  It was probably no big deal to them.

            These two guys are walking along, talking about what happened.  We’re told that one of them was named Cleopas.  We don’t know anything about him, other than his name.  But that’s better than his friend, because we’re not even told the other guy’s name.  He’s simply “Not Cleopas”, I guess.

            They were not among the Twelve Disciples, the inner circle, but they apparently were followers of Jesus and were acquainted with the disciples.  They refer to Jesus as “a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.”  And they refer to the disciples who went to see the empty tomb as “our companions”.  They’re also described as being downcast about Jesus’ death.  

            Jesus shows up, but they don’t know it’s Jesus.  They tell Jesus what’s happened, not knowing that he obviously knew all about it.  And then Jesus starts explaining it all to them.  It says, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

            When Jesus leaves, they realize who this was they’d been talking to.  They go find the remaining eleven disciples, minus Judas of course, and tell them about it.

            And Jesus shows up again!  And we’re told, “He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

            You know, we wonder sometimes why Jesus did not explain things more.  So many times he spoke in parables or in figures of speech.  He’d answer questions with questions.  Why did Jesus not just come out and say what he meant?  Why did Jesus not just say what he had to say and make everything clear to us?

            It’s a good question.  It’s one that a lot of us have probably wondered about at one time or another.  We assume Jesus had reasons for the way he did things, and we assume they were good reasons.  

            We could speculate about it.  Maybe Jesus did not explain things because we would not understand them.  I mean, think of all the times Jesus did try to explain things to the disciples and they did not understand.  And in fact, in John Sixteen, Twelve, just before Jesus is going to the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says that he has more to say to the disciples, but they would not be able to handle it.  So maybe that’s why Jesus did not explain things--he knew it would do no good anyway.

            Or, maybe Jesus did not explain things because he knew we would not accept them.  There were times that happened with the disciples, too.  In Matthew Sixteen, Jesus tells the disciples he’s going to be killed, and Peter says no, that’s not going to happen.  Think how that must have made Jesus feel--I’m the divine Son of God, I’m telling you what’s going to happen, and you’re arguing with me?  So maybe Jesus decided there was no point explaining things if people were going to argue with him about it.

            But whatever the reason is, there are times Jesus did not explain.  But here, he did.  He explained it all.  He explained it to Cleopas and Not Cleopas.  He explained it to the eleven disciples.  All of it.  He started with all the great prophets going back to Moses.  He explained how all this stuff that had happened hundreds of years ago was pointing to him.  And he opened their minds, so that they could understand everything he was saying to them.

            That would be such an awesome thing.  To have Jesus explain everything to you.  And to be able to understand it all.  Maybe that’s one of the things that happens in heaven.  Maybe in heaven you have everything explained to you, and you have all your questions answered, and it all suddenly makes sense.  Or maybe, in heaven, you feel such joy and peace in the presence of God that none of it matters anymore.  I don’t know.  But still, it would be an awesome thing to have Jesus himself answer all your questions and make everything about life clear to you.  I think that’s something we’d all love.

            But you know, there’s another way to look at this.  There’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me.  It’s the parts that I do understand.”

            We have a lot of questions about the Bible, and that’s fine.  There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.  It’s natural to want to know more and to understand more.  But at the same time, nowhere in the Bible does the Lord say, “You must understand everything.”  What we’re told, over and over again, is that we should trust.  That we should have faith.  That we should believe.

            When it came to telling us how we should live, Jesus made it simple.  Love one another.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love even your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  

There’s nothing complicated about that.  What happens is that we complicate it.  We complicate it because, while those things are simple, they can be really hard for us to do.  We don’t want to do them.  And so we make excuses.  We claim we don’t understand, to avoid having to do what Jesus said.  And we look for loopholes, to avoid obeying Jesus’ commands.        Too often, we’re like the expert in the law who Jesus talked to.  When Jesus said love your neighbor, he said, “Well, who is my neighbor?”  He wanted an excuse.  He did not really want to have to love his neighbor, and so he was looking for a way to narrow things down.  He was looking for a loophole.  And too many times, so do we.

There may be parts of the Bible we don’t understand, but there are plenty of parts we do.  There are plenty of things that Jesus made simple.  So let’s stop complicating them.  So, on this Easter Sunday night, let’s stop making excuses.  And let’s stop looking for loopholes.  Let’s not worry so much about the parts of the Bible we don’t understand.  Instead, let’s focus on obeying the parts of the Bible we do understand.  And let’s start by doing the simple things Jesus told us to do.  Let’s love God and love our neighbor.  Let’s love even our enemies.  Let’s simply, as Jesus said, love one another.

            It would be awesome to have Jesus sit down and explain all the scriptures to us.  It would be awesome to have Jesus open our minds, so that we could understand it all.  Maybe that will happen someday.  But unless and until it does, I think Jesus would like us to focus on the things Jesus said that we do understand.  Live according to those things.  Trust God.  Be faithful to God.  Serve God.  Love God.  Love one another.  Feel that love and show that love with all of our heart.  With all of our mind.  With all of our soul.  With all of our strength.  And don’t just do that once in a while.  Do it all the time.  Every day.  Day after day after day.

            If we do those things, we just might find that our faith is not all that hard to understand after all.

 

Super Sunday

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 9, 2023.  The Bible verses used are John 20:1-18.

            It’s the big day!  It’s Easter!  They call the day of the Super Bowl “Super Sunday”, but for a Christian today is Super Sunday!  This is the day we celebrate the risen Jesus, who defeated death, not just for himself, but for all of us.  Jesus, who died so that our sins would be forgiven, rose again so that we would know we can have eternal life in heaven!

            We celebrate this day, and we should celebrate this day.  But at the start of that first Easter Sunday, nobody was celebrating.  Nobody knew what had happened.  Remember, on Good Friday, Jesus was killed.  He was dead.  His dead, lifeless body was placed in the tomb, really more like a cave.  A huge stone was put in front of it.  No one could get in or out.  And of course, since the next day was the Sabbath, nobody even tried to get in or out.  Everyone--literally everyone--assumed that Jesus’ lifeless body remained where it had been placed, in the tomb.

            Before sunrise on that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb.  Other gospels mention other women who were with her.  She sees that the stone has been removed from the entrance.  And she’s shocked.  More than shocked, she’s horrified.  Not only have they killed Jesus, but now it looks like they have not even left his body in peace.  She comes running back to where the disciples are.  She finds Simon Peter and John.  For all we know, they might have been still asleep.  She’s probably crying.  She tells them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

            Simon Peter and John run to the tomb.  We don’t know what they expected to find.  We don’t know what they thought they were going to do.  But they had to go and see for themselves.  John gets there first.  He stands at the entrance, looking at the linen grave clothes with no one inside.  Then Simon Peter gets there and runs right into the tomb.  He sees the grave clothes, too.  And then they left.  They went back to where they were staying.

            The reading tells us “They saw and believed.”  But it also tells us that they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.  So what, exactly, did they believe?  They believed that Jesus was not there, obviously.  Did they believe that he had risen, that he was alive?  Did they believe he was the Savior, the divine Son of God?  Or did they just believe that the body had been moved or something?

            We don’t know.  But they left.  Mary Magdalene did not leave.  Mary stayed at the tomb.  And two angels appeared.  We don’t know if Mary Magdalene recognized them as angels, we’re just told that’s what they were.  They ask her why she’s crying.  She tells them it’s because they’ve taken Jesus’ body away and she does not know where it is.  Then she turns around.

            And there’s Jesus.  She does not recognize him, either.  He, too, asks Mary Magdalene why she’s crying.  She tells him.  And then, Jesus says her name.  And she knows.  She knows.  Jesus is not dead.  He’s alive.  And the celebration starts!  She does not know how this happened.  She does not really understand why it happened.  She does not know how this is even possible.  But none of those things matter.  This is Mary Magdalene’s Super Sunday.  The celebration can begin!  Mary Magdalene knows Jesus is alive, and that’s all she needs to know.

            The first appearance of Jesus, after he rose from the dead, was to Mary Magdalene.  Why do you suppose that is?  Why not appear to Simon Peter and John?  Why not appear to someone else?  Why Mary Magdalene?

            Well, for one thing, she was there.  Simon Peter and John had gone out to the tomb, of course.  But the way this is written, it sounds like they came, they looked around for a minute or two, and they left.  Jesus is gone.  Huh.  How about that?  And they went away. They thought they’d seen all there was to it.  Time to move along.  Nothing to see here.  

Mary Magdalene did not leave.  She stayed there.  She did not know what had happened, but she stayed.  She stayed in the last place she had seen Jesus.  In her mind, there was nowhere else to go.

Mary Magdalene made herself available to the Lord.  She was not just coincidentally in the right place at the right time.  She decided that if she could not go to where the Lord was, she would stay where the Lord had been.  She would wait for him to come back.  She put herself in that place, so that the Lord could speak to her at that time.  She had enough faith, and enough trust, to wait for Jesus even when he was nowhere to be found.  And she was rewarded for her faith and her trust.

            I think that’s a lesson for us.  There are times in our lives when we really are trying to find the Lord.  There are times when things are not going right, or when we have hard decisions to make, or we just know that something’s missing in our lives.  We’d like to have God give us some guidance, tell us what to do.  Or maybe we’d just like to feel God’s presence, to know God is there with us.  And it seems like we don’t hear anything or feel anything.

            Some of us have had that happen.  Maybe it’s happening for some of us now.  If not, it may at some point in the future.  When it does, think about this.  Are you making yourself available to God?  Are you putting yourself in a place where the Lord can speak to you?

            Maybe you are.  But I think there are times when we think we are, but we’re actually not.  I know I’ve done that.  I don’t have the patience to wait.  I don’t hear from God, so I start running around, trying to do stuff on my own.  I go here and go there, I do this and do that.  I think I’m trying to find God, but the fact is that I’m doing things my own way.  And it’s only when I stop running, when I slow down, or even stop, that I actually hear from God.  And often it’s when I go back to the last place I heard from God, and patiently wait there, that I find him again.

            That’s one of the things prayer is about, really.  Too many times, when we pray, we ask God to do certain things for us.  And that’s okay–Jesus told us that we’re allowed to ask God for things.  But sometimes, we need to just pray that God’s Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us.  

When we do that, we’re not asking for God to do anything specific.  We’re not telling God to lead us in a certain direction.  We’re just asking God to lead us.  We’re just asking to be in God’s presence.  We’re just patiently waiting, making ourselves available to God, so God can speak to us if God chooses to do so.

            And look again at Mary Magdalene's reaction.  As soon as Jesus says her name, Mary Magdalene immediately recognizes him.  And she rejoices!  She knows it’s Jesus.  Again, she does not ask any questions.  She does not ask how.  She does not ask why.  She does not ask how this is possible.  She just rejoices that this is Jesus.  She feels unbelievable joy that Jesus, who she saw killed and put into a tomb, is alive.  Again, none of the questions matter.  Mary Magdalene does not need to know the answers.  This is Super Sunday!  Jesus is alive!  Mary Magdalene knows that, and that’s all she needs to know.

            Contrast that to how the disciples reacted.  We’ve talked about Simon Peter and John going to the tomb for a few minutes and then leaving.  But then, that evening, Jesus comes to the disciples.  He says peace be with you.  But they did not rejoice.  They did not immediately respond at all.  Then Jesus shows them his hands, with the nail prints in them, and his side, which had been pierced by the sword.  It was then that they believed.  But only then.  They needed evidence to believe it was Jesus.  Mary Magdalene did not.  She believed immediately.

            Now, the disciples eventually got there.  And that’s okay.  Jesus did not get mad at them or anything.  But the thing is, by demanding proof, they cheated themselves.  They cheated themselves of the spontaneous, overwhelming, overflowing joy that Mary Magdalene felt.  They cheated themselves out of Super Sunday.  Again, Jesus did not condemn them for it.  They did not sin by doing this.  But they missed out on some of the joy.  Jesus’ best friends, the ones who’d been with him for all the years of his ministry, missed out on some of the joy of his resurrection.  They missed out on Super Sunday.  And that’s kind of sad.

            So where are you?  And where am I?  Are we like Mary Magdalene, ready to rejoice, ready to have Super Sunday today?  Or are we like the disciples, still demanding more evidence?  Not sinning by doing so, but missing out on some of the joy of Jesus’ resurrection.

            My prayer for all of us, including myself, is that we have Super Sunday today.  Let’s make ourselves available to God.  Let’s be where we can find God and wait there, trusting that God is going to come.  And when God comes, let’s recognize Him and rejoice!  Like Mary Magdalene, let’s know that Jesus is alive, and that’s all we need to know.  It’s Super Sunday!