Happeninga at Pilgrim for the week of May 1, 2011

OUR CALENDAR
Sunday, May 1st 4:30PM ... Golden Age Banquet
Monday, May 2nd. 6:30PM ... Property Committee
7:30PM Finance Committee
Tuesday, May 3rd NoonP{rayer time in Parlor
7:00 PM Bible Study Fellowship Hall
Wednesday, Mar 4th 6:30 PM Pilgrim Circle @ Pattie Leonard's house
Thursday, May 5th, 7:00 PM Choir Practice
Friday, May 6th 9:45 AM Senior Adventure to Victory Junction
Sunday, May 8th 8:00 AM Consistory Meeting
9:15 AMSunday School Assembly
9:30Sunday School
10:30 Worship Service


BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK
Sunday, May 1st ... Johnny Jones
Tuesday, May 2nd ... Ruby Hatley & Christy Peacock
Wednesday, May 4 ...Ray Black,Becky Daley, Margaret Ward & Billy Warner
Saturday, May 7th ... Jessica Hill

THIS PASTOR’S VIEWPOINT

Not so long ago I was looking for some photographs that I have had ever since I was a child. I can’t even remember why I suddenly wanted them, but I did, and it irked me that no matter where I looked, they weren’t there.

What, I wondered, could have happened to them? This kind of thing is not, of course, unique to either old photographs or to me. We all have wondered what ever happened to this or that. Sometimes we are surprised to find the pencil we are seeking is really right behind our ear.
Go to any reunion, perhaps your high school’s twenty-fifth, or better yet, fiftieth, and you will hear “What ever happened to so and so?” “Whatever happened…” becomes a regular reunion litany.

This week my mind was directed upon the path of “whatever happened” wondering while in my daily Bible readings, which included this partial verse from Ruth 1:14 (NLT). “…and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye.” Here, in tis story, we have the two daughters-in-law of Naomi going separate ways. They made different choices.

Ruth chose to go on with Naomi, on to a strange land with different people, a very different single God, different customs and perhaps food. It was a land full of strangers that seemingly offered her little chance of finding a new husband.

Orpah, on the other hand, chose to do the smart thing. She was encouraged by Naomi to return to her people and her gods. There among her many relatives she would find succor and hope. Hope for a new husband and a secure future.

Whatever happened to Orpah? We don’t know. She was never heard of again.

What happened to Ruth, the one who chose the obviously more difficult path, the path advised against by her mother-in-law? Well, all she found was a wonderfully righteous and loving husband and the one true and living God. Her words, "Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God, (v.16b) are repeated in countless wedding ceremonies through the centuries, and she became a direct link in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As so, one took the path of self-love and passed into obscurity and the other took the path of selfless love. Now, after thousands of years no one ever needs ask, “Whatever happened to Ruth?”

Perhaps there’s a lesson here.



Sermon for Sunday, May 1, 2011

“WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW
THERE WAS NOTHING TO FEAR?”

Sermon Text: Luke 24:36b 48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

Billy Ray and Joe Tom, two men from Tennessee, were still new to flying. But they decided to rent a plane and fly from Knoxville, Tennessee to Asheville, North Carolina. As they crossed over the Smoky Mountains, they discovered there was a problem with one of the engines, and they decided to notify the Asheville airport that they might need to land quickly.

Billy Ray nervously grabbed the microphone and said, "Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving! New Year's! New Year's! Easter! Easter!"

"You're getting there, Billy Ray," said Joe Tom. "Stop when you get to May Day. May Day."
Today is May Day, and it is also the first Sunday in May. It is interesting to note that while we are enjoying our worship service today there are young men and women in Austria running through the mountains of that land carrying torches. They do this every year on the Second after Easter. It’s called the Race of the Four Mountains. They begin with a mass on the top of Magdalensberg mountain. Then, carrying burning torches, they go over the mountains to Saint Lorenze. The race takes twenty four hours. At the end a priest waits to bless them. I can’t help but think that if most of us were to run that race, the priest would be waiting to give the last rites.

We’re told there are sections of this race that are so treacherous that the runners dare not look back. Some people in that part of Austria, are said to believe that to stop this ritual pilgrimage, would be a sign of the end of the world.

Our text for today for the second Sunday of Easter is not about the end of the world. No one’s crying, “May Day. May Day” though the Scripture says the participants were frightened.

But what they were experiencing was a different kind of fear. For the first time in human history a man had returned from the dead. His friends and followers did not know what to think. This had never happened before.

When people are in the grave they are supposed to stay there --- and yet here this man was among them --- a living, breathing person. Luke tells us the disciples were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

No wonder. The disciples were witnesses to an event that changed the world forever. We said about the events of 9-11, that America would never be the same again. Well, 9-11 was a horrific event, but there have been many horrific events in history. Many of them recently. But there has been only one resurrection of the living Christ.

Jesus says to his disciples, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Then Luke adds something interesting. He writes that the disciples “did not believe because of joy.” What a fascinating phrase. It was literally -- in the disciples’ minds -- “too good to be true.” They disbelieved for joy.

I wonder how many of us also regard Easter to be in that category--too good to be true? I wonder how many of us hold back from opening ourselves to the good news of Easter because our rational minds whisper to us that this has got to be mere “wish fulfillment.”

We want so much to believe that life makes sense, that life does have meaning. We long so intensely to believe that the grave does not diminish nor destroy our value as human beings, that death does not separate us forever from those we love. We want to believe that so much, that we are afraid to really think about it too much for fear that we will conclude that it is all an illusion, all a fairy tale, a myth with no basis in history. They “did not believe because of joy.”
The Reuters news agency carried an amusing story a number of years ago. Le Lavandou, a tiny town on the coast of France, had a real problem: they were running out of burial space in their overcrowded cemetery.

So the mayor of Le Lavandou, Gil Bernardi, came up with a novel idea for fixing the problem: he passed a city ordinance making it against the law for any citizens of Le Lavandou to die until they could establish a new cemetery. No matter how sick anyone was, they were forbidden to die. For longer than one would have reasonably expected, the citizens of Le Lavandou were remarkably compliant.

Now why can’t we get our politicians to campaign on a “no-death” platform? We think the economy is important --- it’s small potatoes compared to this issue.

Well, friends, here is the good news for today: death HAS been banned as a permanent flaw in the human condition. Death has been overcome. It has been trampled underfoot. No more does death hold its fearsome tyranny over our lives.

The good news of Easter is such enormous news, such mind-boggling news, that we do not give it the attention it deserves. Why not? Could it be that we, too, disbelieve for joy?

Oh, I don’t mean if I came around to each of you and asked you point blank, “Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus?” that you would deny that you do. Intellectually, we accept it as fact. There is too much biblical evidence to deny it outright.

Rather, we disbelieve in the sense that what ought to have a critical impact on our life, the truth that life goes on beyond the grave, does not seem to impact us very much at all.

We still fear death. Don’t we? We’re still afraid of dying. And we still fear losing those we love to the tomb.

The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, wrote a poem as his father lay critically ill. He received the Pulitzer Prize for writing it. It begins like this:
Do not go gentle into the good night.
Old age should burn and rave at the close of day.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

His words may have impressed the Pulitzer Prize committee, but they were of little comfort to his wife Caitlin. When Thomas died in St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, the staff had to put her in a straitjacket, so unrestrained was her grief; and when she came to write about it, she called her book Leftover Life to Kill.

We may read these comforting stories from scripture each year at Easter time, but still there is that unrelenting fear of the grave. In Woody Allen’s well-known sentiment: “it’s hard to contemplate your own mortality while whistling a tune.” We fear death. Even more importantly, we still fear life.

Sometimes in a seminar, a speaker will ask this profound question, if you knew that you could not fail, what would you do with your life?

If you knew you could not fail . . . then people start dreaming about that business they would start . . . that hobby they would indulge in . . . that long-delayed adventure on which they would embark. If you knew you couldn’t fail, there is no limit to the things you might attempt.

But you can fail. You can fail in a business, you can fail in a marriage, you can fail as a parent, you can fail as an athlete. On and on goes the list of possible failures. There is no use asking, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”

However, what if the fear of failure were removed? What if you knew, deep down in your heart of hearts, that failure really doesn’t matter, that it is better to try something great and fail than to live always denying yourself that long-neglected dream?

Then you could walk into your boss’ office and ask for that raise, then you could start that business, then you could begin achieving a multitude of dreams.

Do you understand that to a certain extent this is what separates people who are super-successful from the rest of us? They do not let fear of failure defeat them.

But let’s move beyond the fear of failure for a few moments. What if there were nothing important in life for you to fear?

Nothing at all, whether it be failure or poverty, pain or loss of people you love, declining health or anything else imaginable including death? Think of the kind of person you could be, if all fear were totally and completely removed from your life. That, my friends, is what Easter is about. Easter says to us that all of creation is in God’s hands. Even that ultimate enemy of humanity, death, has been trampled underfoot by the power of Almighty God. You don’t need to fear aging, you don’t need to fear losing loved ones, you don’t need to fear the loss of your home or your source of income.

No matter what experience may come your way, what if you knew that in the end everything will work out to your best good? Wouldn’t that have an impact on the choices you would make?
That is the message of Easter. Jesus says to his disciples, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.”

The Taj Mahal in India is one of the most famous and beautiful buildings in all the world. It has been described as “a shimmering, white jewel that seems to float over the hot Indian plain.” Actually the Taj Mahal is a tomb, and it tells one of the greatest love stories of all time.

“A great shah, when he was only nineteen, fell in love with a highborn beauty and married her. She gave the shah many children. She ruled at his side as an equal. He adored her and brought her diamonds and flowers. In the tenth year of their marriage, once again she was with child, but this time, something strange occurred.

She confided that shortly before the baby was born, she heard it cry in her womb--an ill omen. A healthy baby girl was born, but the queen did not recover.

As she lay dying, she whispered a final wish to her grief-stricken husband: ‘Build for me a monument so pure and perfect that anyone who comes to it will feel the great power of love.’ She paused and then added, ‘ . . . and the even greater power of death.’”

It’s a beautiful story, but the queen was wrong. Easter says to us that love is stronger than death. Love has forever conquered death. "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”

The question is: Isn’t it time you began believing for joy? Most of you have invested many years of your life, much of your time and much of your money, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet you have not taken out of the faith the one privilege that every follower of Jesus has rights to --- and that is the life-changing joy of knowing there is nothing in all the world, nothing in all the universe, nothing in all creation that can defeat you if God is with you. All these years you have denied yourself the one gift that Easter has to offer --- and that is the gift of deep and abiding joy.

The movie Black Hawk Down retells the dramatic story of a small group of Army Rangers who flew into Mogadishu, Somalia, to capture a warlord who was stealing American food shipments from the starving Somali citizens.

One of the young men whose life was changed by this brutal battle was Sergeant Jeff Struecker, who now serves as an Army chaplain. Sergeant Struecker claims that as bullets whizzed past his head and grenades exploded all around him, God called him into the ministry.

As he said, “In the middle of that firefight, I had to decide whether I believed what I say I believe. And when I finally answered that question, my faith became so strong it gave me the strength to fight the rest of the night.”

This is ultimately what all of life comes down to. If we believe what we say we believe, that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and that he now lives at the right hand of the Father, if we really believe that, how can we go from this place and live the same timid, tepid lives that we’ve lived in the past?

So, in the light of Easter, for just a moment, let me be the seminar leader and ask you this question, “What would you do with your life if you knew that there was nothing of which you need to be afraid?”


Amen.