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Sunday, March 2, 2003 Sermon:
"Count Down to Easter: Prepare Ye the Way"
Scripture: 2 Kings: 2:1-12 Reverend Larry Gerber

The count down to Easter begins officially, this Wednesday. We will gather here in the Sanctuary at 7 p. m. to begin preparation for our "40 days in the wilderness". We will remember that Jesus set aside the last 40 days of His life, in order to prepare the way for God's action for Him. Jesus was doing more than preparing Himself though. Jesus was really preparing His followers for the inevitable. If the Disciples were listening, they would have understood that which Jesus was preparing them for.

We must focus our thoughts on the last 40 days of Jesus life, in order to understand what is in store for us, and what The Lenten Season is all about, as we anticipate The Resurrection experience once again, on Easter morning, April 20.
How do we prepare ourselves? John the Baptist prepared the way for the baptism of Jesus, as he baptized with water in preparation for the coming of the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Are we preparing ourselves for life eternal? Are we looking through this earthly life in preparation for the heavenly life? Are we scheduling, or booking our seat on the vehicle that will some day get us to Heaven?
It's no problem these days to book a seat on a heavenly ride if you've got rubles for a Russian rocket. Christians, however, need neither rubles nor dollars to get into the heavens. They need only anti-gravitational grace.

From 'N Sync to 'N Space. That's where Lance Bass, one of the stars of the boy-band 'N Sync wanted to go in the nose of a Russian rocket. But when he couldn't pull together $20 million for the ticket, Bass was bumped. "No Dough, No Go," reported The Washington Post. Russia soared into the space tourism business two years ago when California investment banker Dennis Tito plopped down $20 mil and became the first person to bankroll his own ride into orbit. South African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth soon followed in his footsteps. Lance Bass wanted to be next, but not with his own cash. He wanted to fly to heaven using other people's money. After approaching Radio Shack and Pepsi for sponsorship, Bass spent several months in Russia, modeling spacesuits and undergoing training. He was following the lead of a Hollywood promoter who believed that the next great frontier in space was going to belong to celebrity game shows. Problem was, nobody paid. The Russians waited and waited and finally lost their patience. "It's ridiculous!" groused the top Russian space spokesman. Lance Bass is "eating right now on our account and he's living on our account and he hasn't paid a single kopeck .... We've been spending our own money and we don't want to do that. The whole idea was to make money on this." No dough, no go!!

The prophet Elijah ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, not a rocket but his liftoff was every bit as spectacular as the launches we watch today on CNN. His blastoff included a chariot of fire and horses of fire, a sight so overwhelming that it caused his mini-me prophet, Elisha, to cry out in amazement as Elijah disappeared from view (2 Kings 2:11-12). Like a roaring rocket that causes us to stand slack-jawed until it becomes a tiny speck and then disappears into space, Elijah exited the earth in a blaze of glory.

This mornings story is a story of transition in prophetic leadership, and we are going to leave it there. We are going to look ahead to what it takes to prepare ourselves for transition in our own lives. Certainly God does not expect us to scrape together $20 million and book passage on a Russian rocket. Nor does he promise that we'll escape our earthly existence in a whirlwind, surrounded by the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. Nor is it likely that we'll be walking with God and find ourselves in glory, like Enoch.

So what can we say about heaven and how to get there? We can say that there is a heaven. Most people agree. And the Bible announces it loud and clear. We can say that we don't know where heaven is. It's a curious thing about human nature: If we are headed for a particular destination, we'd like to know where it is. Makes sense. Knowing where something is, is crucial to getting there. But the Bible doesn't give us any clues.

Traditionally, we have thought of the universe as a three- storied affair with the earth on a middle plane, hell below us, and heaven above us. Third-millennium dwellers such as ourselves know, however, that in space, there is no up or down, backward or forward. We can say that heaven is not for those who think they can pay or work their way there. Doesn't matter if you drop 20 dollars or 20 million dollars in the church coffers, philanthropy doesn't get you a ticket.

Being in church is no guarantee either. Good works don't punch your ticket to paradise. This can be puzzling because the Bible also says that bad works can keep you out of heaven. Paul says, "I warn you!" (Galatians 5:21). He goes on to say that those who dabble in the occult, who are sexually impure, those who are envious, jealous and given to fits of rage are not going to get by St. Peter on the day of reckoning. Logic would seem to dictate then, that if doing bad stuff bars the doors of heaven, doing good stuff is the key that unlocks the doors to our heavenly home. Wrong.

Here's something else we know about heaven: We get in only by the grace of God. "For by grace you have been saved through faith," says Paul to the Ephesians, "and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God not the result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Accepting this gift of grace is a transformative event: We live changed lives. We do not do the bad stuff anymore; we do the good stuff.

Paul puts it another way: Acceptance of the gift of grace results in a moral morphification: We are new creations in Christ; the old has passed away, and everything is new. That's why we can say that knowing that we're headed for heaven changes our lifestyle: We pack light for the journey. This means laying aside "every weight and the sin that clings so closely," and running with perseverance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Our priorities have shifted. Our values are different. Our lives have taken on new meaning. What can we say about heaven? We can also say that the trip to heaven requires training. Even a Lance Bass or a Dennis Tito had to undergo training even if they were paying $20 mil to go.

The difference is that they had to condition themselves for the challenges of outer space, while we have to prepare ourselves for inner space a new environment dominated by "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). Moral and spiritual discipline plays a large role in the training of Christians aspiring for heaven. Paul makes this point repeatedly (see Philippians 3), but especially in 1 Corinthians 9: "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training" (9:25 NIV).

Finally, we can say that heaven is a place where God and his people will reside together, where "God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away" (Revelation 21:3-4).

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord, and prepare ye the way for yourself. John came baptizing with water in preparation for the One who would baptize with The Holy Spirit. Jesus set aside 40 days in preparation for the transition in His life, so that we might understand how we might be better prepared for our own transition: set aside the old ways; put them behind you; put on the new and renewed garments of life, so that you can enjoy the inner space of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness gentleness, and self-control.

Someone once told me that "life is the art of living without an eraser." We cannot live with erasures and deletions, but we can live is such a way that we can put those old ways behind us, and go forward with the new. We can get beyond the old, knowing that God will take us into the inner space of righteousness and wholeness. We cannot buy or work our way into His Grace, but we can prepare ourselves for the time when His Grace will take us to the inner space of peace and harmony, beyond crying and pain.

Let us prepare ourselves for the taking of the elements that represent the Body and Blood of Christ. These elements represent the sacrifice that Jesus did, for you and for me, and for the whole world. Let us pray.........................

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Source: Baker, Peter. "No dough, no go, Moscow tells pop star: 'N Sync's Lance Bass booted from space shot." The Washington Post. September 4, 2002, C1.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766