NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766

Sunday, April 14, 2002
Sermon: "Hope Through Challenging Times"
Scripture Lesson: I Peter 1:17-23

On a clear spring day, near an airport north of Madison, Wisconsin, Alan Klapmeier almost met his Maker.
He was taking an advanced flying lesson, with an instructor sitting right next to him, when his plane suddenly collided with another one. Klapmeier's wing sliced through the strut that supported the other plane's wing, and that aircraft quickly spun into the ground, killing the pilot.

Alan Klapmeier had to ram the control yoke hard to the left to keep his plane -- now missing part of its right wing -- on course back toward the runway. As he neared a landing, he realized that he had pushed the yoke as far left as it would go. In moments, he was going to begin rolling over to the right. Then his disabled wing would strike the ground, sending the plane into a cart-wheeling crash.

But death took a holiday. With a second to spare, Klapmeier felt the wheels touch the runway. He was "born anew" (v.23).

Now you might think that Alan Klapmeier would walk away from such a harrowing experience determined never to fly again. But you'd be wrong. Realizing that existing small planes were too risky, he committed himself to making them safer.

He decided to start building planes with parachutes.

And so he has. He and his brother Dale have developed the Cirrus SR20 -- a four-person aircraft that contains, as standard equipment, a parachute for the whole plane.

This is one solution to the long-standing question of how best to protect pilots and passengers. Fired out by a rocket, this strong Kevlar parachute enables a plane to drift safely down to Earth, saving the lives of everyone on board. Its speed at impact is still violent -- rough enough to jar the passengers and total the plane -- but the landing is controlled enough to prevent massive injury and destruction.
Like the Klapmeiers, we, too, are parachute people. The apostle Peter reminds us that we "were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [our] ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold ..." (v.18).

He's not talking about a Kevlar parachute, of course, but a Christos provision ( a safety net provided by God) to save us from ourselves and our sin. Ransomed, restored and spared, we have been saved by "the precious blood of Christ" (vv. 18-19). The blood of Christ, shed on the cross, is our parachute of salvation. With it, our wheels touch down on solid ground, and we are "born anew" (v. 23).

The important thing about parachutes is that you have to trust them. You can't always see them, packed and strapped to your back. You can't fuss over them or fiddle with them when they're lodged deep within a Cirrus SR20. You can't test them in the safety of your home. You can't control them as they deploy in a mighty rush of wind.

You simply have to trust them, rely on them and have complete faith in them, as they blossom above you in the sky and save your neck.

Peter's point is clear: God has provided a parachute, but it requires an element of trust. God destined Jesus to save us "before the foundation of the world" (v. 20). God's divine research and development plan put Jesus in place long before we began to spin sinfully out of control and plummet headfirst toward destruction. Just before impact, Jesus "was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake," announces Peter; he popped suddenly into view and slowed -- if not stopped altogether -- our descent into a life of meaninglessness, "quiet desperation," sin, postmodern malaise, rebellion, disobedience or all of the above.

Because of this, "you have come to trust in God," concludes the apostle, "who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God" (v. 21). The point of Christ's sacrifice is not to give us a pleasant little parachute ride, but is, instead, to save us so that we will live a new and more abundant life: a life in which we trust in God and set our faith and hope in him.

In other words, the point of Christ's parachute is to send us soaring again. It's to get us back in the air and flying right -- maybe for the first time.

So what does the life of a parachute person look like? According to Peter, it involves the purification of our souls by obedience to the truth (v. 22). There's nothing hip or ironic or clever or conceptual about this obedience; it's simply a deep and heartfelt connection to the one person who was sent by God to show us the way to live and to save us from death and despair. When we are obedient to Jesus, we are tied tightly to the parachute that can hold us when we begin to plummet and deliver us to safety.

Peter wraps it up by saying that the purpose of all this is so that we might have "genuine mutual love." And as if that were not clear enough, he adds: "Love one another deeply from the heart" (v. 22). Benjamin Franklin put it another way to John Hancock: "We must indeed all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

And, through these challenging times, with the aftermath of 9-11 and the tension, and brutal daily killings(murders) by the Israelis as well as the Palestinians, the terrorists attacks and build ups in the world, and dis-ease around the world, we must re-establish hope and faith in our maker, sustainer, and redeemer. Whether we are going through a personal crisis, a community crisis, or a country, or world crisis, we must indeed hang together, or most assuredly hang alone.
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Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of her nephew Will's first birthday party. The little boy was the center of everyone's attention, and so he happily did a little dance -- until a jealous 7-year-old named Jason charged over, put both of his hands on Will's chest and shoved. Will fell hard. His rear end hit first, then his head, with a crack.

He looked utterly surprised at first. No one had ever hurt him before, and he did not know what to make of it. Then he opened up his mouth and howled, but not for long. His mother hugged him and helped him to his feet, and the first thing Will did was to totter over to Jason. He knew Jason was at the bottom of this thing, but since such meanness was new to him he didn't know what to do. So he did what he had always done. He put his arms around Jason and laid his head against that mean little boy's body.

"What Will did to Jason put an end to the meanness in that room," observes Taylor. "That is what love is ... not a warm feeling between like-minded friends but plain old imitation of Christ, who took all the meanness of the world and ran it through the filter of his own body, repaying evil with good, blame with pardon, death with life. Call it divine reverse psychology. It worked once, and it can work again, whenever God can find someone else willing to give it a try."

So, are you willing to give it a try? To show genuine mutual affection, loving one another deeply from the heart? To purify your soul by your obedience to the truth? To set your faith and hope on God, the one who raised Jesus from the dead and gave him glory?

If so, you'll be born anew. You'll find yourself saved from destruction and sailing smoothly on the wind of God's Spirit.

Those of you who are on the prayer chain, now known as the e-chain, know that Jane's second cousin, his wife, and their three children were in the church in Afghanistan, nearly 4 weeks, when at least one suicide bomber entered the church and blew himself up. Two of Jeff's children were playing in the basement and were spared any physical harm. Jeff, his wife, Cindy, and little 6 year old Samuel were in worship. They were injured quite severely, with Samuel getting the worst of it. They are now, 4 weeks later, recuperating somewhere in Europe. Samuel and Cindy are still hospitalized, with little Samuel having the worst injuries

we have gotten e-mail updates daily, since the incident. The family has a solid faith, and complete trust that God will heal them, and deliver them safely back to the states soon. They also believe that God has used this horrible situation to bring others to Christ. They have seen Dr's and nurses, assistants, and others come to Christ because of little Samuels faith.

Even though they have been maimed and tortured, physically and emotionally blown out of the water, their spirit has not wained. They have found themselves safe in the arms of Jesus; saved from destruction and sailing smoothly on the wind of God's Spirit. Even though, the smell of death was just around the corner several times, they turned themselves over to God with thanksgiving. They are sure of God's love, and of God's power, and of God's deliverance from harms way. How come?

Because Jesus Christ is their parachute.
And they are a parachute people.

Is our faith shaken beyond repair? Is our stability so off kilter, that we will never be in balance again? Has 9-11 rocked our boat out of the water? Is your home front so out of focus that you will never again be able to stand proud, hug your loved ones, and hug and forgive the bully that shoved you to the ground? Are you leaning on the everlasting arms, safe and secure from all alarms? For many of us, these are the most challenging times we have faced in our lives. We have not felt this unstable since WWII and the Great Depression, yet we must be sustained by our hope and trust in God Almighty, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Guiding Light.

As we receive 7 new members into our church today, let each of us re-affirm our fiath, hope, and trust in our God. And then, let us sing with conviction: "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"

Would those who are joining at this hour please come forward
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Sources:
Fallows, James. "Freedom of the skies."
The Atlantic Monthly, June 2001, 42-45.

Taylor, Barbara Brown. "It's hard to hug a
bully." Christianity Today, January 1
1999, 74.

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It's a sophisticated archaeological dig. One that has employed state-of-the-art forensic techniques and has cost American taxpayers millions of dollars.

The workers at the site are looking for bones. Not famous bones or even ancient bones, but some very specific bones -- namely, the remains of Navy Cmdr. Richard Rich, whose F4 Phantom was shot down on May 17, 1967, over Ha Tay, Vietnam.

This crash site is just one of hundreds of locations that are being scoured for the remains of American servicemen who disappeared during the Vietnam War. The United States remains determined to discover the fate of every single serviceman still missing, over 2,000 military personnel who are still listed as missing in action. A two-week search of the site last year gathered five bags of metal fragments and two bone shards and evidence than an F4 had indeed crashed there.

They're a small team, and even now, they're in Vietnam revisiting leech-infested jungles and murky swamps. As they work, they try to avoid contact with the green pit vipers known as two-step snakes: That's as far as you'll get -- two steps -- before you die, if you're bitten by one of them.

They're bone collectors. They're looking for the remains of GIs missing in action. In 1999 they found 36 sets of remains. In 2000, another 24, and by midyear 2001, they had recovered 23 sets. They plan to keep working until all 2,029 MIAs are identified.

On Easter morning, the original bone collectors were busy. The chief priests and Pharisees were worried that the disciples would sneak in and steal the bones of Jesus, so they posted a guard of soldiers to make the tomb secure. As the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb, to check out the body, to pay their respects. No one had any earthly reason to suspect that the corpse would not stay put.

After all, death is death. The end. The final curtain. The last dance. Once in the grave, bones don't tend to move -- for hundreds, thousands, even millions of years.

From time to time, you read news of bones that are believed to be the remains of Jesus. Just last year, Ron Dubay sifted the dust through a small sieve and found two tiny fragments of bone on the cliff-tops above the Dead Sea. Then he heard his partner, Dennis Walker, shout, "Whoa! We got something here." Walker's trowel held three vertebrae. Fighting their excitement, the researchers carefully dusted away for two days, finding skull fragments and the brittle, broken remains of at least one human body.

Dubay and Walker believe their find is important because, among the 1,200 simple graves at this location, only this tomb was inside a purpose-built structure. That may mean that the bones belonged to the "Teacher of Righteousness" mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some researchers are speculating that the teacher may be one of the Maccabean kings of Judea, the apostle James, John the Baptist or perhaps even Jesus himself.

It seems as tho we must find the remains of Jesus in order to prove His death and resurrection. If we do not find some physical evidence, then the mystery remains. Or "faith" seems to hinge on scientific proof, rather than the miraculous work of God.

"He is not here," says the angel of the Lord. "He has been raised" (Matthew 28:6).

Jesus left no bones, and no body. Without a doubt, this is good news for believers, but bad news for bone collectors.

So why, like some of the early disciples, do we still feel a nagging sense of doubt?

For many of us, the resurrection story itself remains a subject for argument. In a country in which we spend millions of dollars to determine the fate of every single serviceman still missing in Vietnam, we simply aren't very comfortable with mysteries. We want rock-hard facts, empirical evidence, DNA matches and carbon-14 dating. None of us was present to feel the Easter earthquake or hear the angel or see the place where Jesus lay, so we wonder whether the story could possibly be true.

We forget that the resurrection is a faith event, and linear, prepositional arguments will carry little weight for those who refuse to believe. Moreover, it is somewhat problematic to put quite so much emphasis on the perceptions of our five senses. After all, scientists tell us that the earth is spinning on its axis at a speed of over 1,000 miles per hour at this very moment. Yet we have no sensation of motion. At the same time, the earth is soaring around the sun at a speed of 66,000 miles per hour. Do you feel anything?

Our planet is moving at an incredible speed, but we do not perceive it. Christian writer Ron Rhodes says that Albert Einstein made this point by striking two consecutive blows with his fist and saying, "Between those two strokes, we traveled 30 miles." Incredible motion with no perception! Yet we accept by faith that it is nevertheless true.

We wonder, "How can an infinite God have revealed himself in one man, Jesus? There are so many religions, and so many spiritual paths -- how can we claim Christ to be the way, the truth and the life?"

But the need to broaden our horizons should not get in the way of sharpening our focus on Jesus Christ. Regardless of how God is encountered in the other religions of the world, we are people who have discovered that God has come to us quite clearly in Jesus Christ.

And what a difference it has made.

Our challenge is to conform our lives to what God has done through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, not to make a case for Christ in some imaginary religious courtroom. We strive to love our neighbors -- and even our enemies -- because this is what Jesus demonstrated to be so powerfully good in his own life. We sacrifice for our spouses and children because the cross of Christ shows us the greatness of self-giving. We believe that new life can emerge from crushing defeats because the resurrection reveals the power of God over anything that threatens to destroy us.

Pluralism is not a problem for Christians, because we already know who we are, and, more importantly, whose we are. We are children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, people who have discovered a quality of life that cannot be found anywhere else. Since nothing can change this, our response to diversity should be dedicated discipleship -- showing the world through our words and deeds that we are part of a loving, forgiving and hope-filled family of faith.

Our faith says "Without A Doubt He lives!" We hear about the women racing full-speed from the empty tomb, feeling an exuberant mixture of "fear and great joy" (v. 8), but we have to confess that we rarely experience this level of intense emotion. Perhaps we've heard the story so often. Perhaps we don't make the effort to go questing for the risen Christ. Perhaps we're satisfied with life the way it is, comfortable with the status quo, and don't see any reason to complicate it with a fresh and passionate commitment to Christ. Do we just say "Without A Doubt he Lives?", or do we really feel His presence?

Is there feeling in our heart when we say that I walked today where Jesus walked and felt his presence there, or is it a nice song without feeling?

Consider what the angel says to the women at the tomb: Jesus "is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him" (v. 7). Jesus is "going ahead" of us, always ahead of us. We are to walk behind him, to follow Him. To walk where he walked. If we do not follow him with some enthusiasm, then we will never discover where he is leading us, and we will never become the people he desires us to be.

Maybe it's time to stop collecting bones. Time to toss the tools you normally use in your dry and dusty search for facts and figures and empirical evidence. We've been looking for the risen Christ with the wrong tools. The tools of evidence will not produce the transforming power of resurrection life. We need, instead, to pull out the tools of faith to access the reality of the resurrection. That's not a matter of believing the impossible; it's a matter of trusting the invisible!

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766