Well, how many months has it been now? Almost five, it seems! This semester has been interesting, and my hours at work never seemed to drop below 50/week until the last 2-3 weeks… Any way… I wrote this for this morning’s service and thought it was worth sharing with everyone…

Romans 8: 18-39 (NIV)

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Music has always been very important to me. And generally I like just about all kinds. In high school, I’d always ‘bragged’ about how my record library ranged from Beethoven to Bacharach to the Beatles… and everything in between! And even though most of what I listen to today is on cd instead of albums, that adage is still very much true!

And I have to say that that was one of the things I liked most about driving over-the-road… the opportunity to put in and listen to an entire cd straight through with no stops and no interruptions. Indeed, I made it a point to never start one unless I knew I would not be stopping before it was over. And when you had days that found you driving 8-10 hours non-stop, that was usually pretty easy! But you also had days where you would be making two-or-three runs back-and-forth between the same places. One such run was what we called the ‘slurry run’.

Briefly, one of the by-products of grinding wheat at the mill in Keokuk, IA was a solution of pasty wheat-powder suspended in water. The plant would generate between 45-48,000# of this stuff every two hours of operating, and only had storage tanks for about 5 hours worth. This meant that there had to be a steady stream of tankers arriving every two hours around the clock to haul it off, and the company I drove for had had the contract to do so for some years.

Occasionally, I would get send up there to fill in for a day or two… or three or four… Now, this stuff started fermenting almost immediately… a fact that was very apparent from the little that dripped out of the hoses as they coupled and uncoupled them… and so, the destination for all of it was the old Hiram Walker plant in Peoria. This plant is still very-much in the business of converting corn into alcohol, but now, instead of little glass bottles to be sold in plain brown paper bags, it is put into gasoline for you and me to drive on.

This ‘slurry’ that we hauled in is used as the catalyst to help the corn ferment faster, thus speeding up the process, and it was used up as fast as the other plant made it! So it was very important to keep to the scheduled pick-up times as much as possible, and since I usually got to fill in for the night guys, I had no choice but to keep moving, driving back and forth between Keokuk and Peoria all through the night on a series of twisty, curvy two-lane roads. The only thing that got me through each night was my music!

Now, I had had a two cd collection of Harry Chapin’s songs for some years, but since his biggest hits were all on the first cd, I had never really listened to the second one… until one night I chanced to start it as I left the plant in Keokuk. As I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi river in the dark, the genius that is Harry Chapin came to me out of the darkness. I rode through the night with my mouth open, literally shocked by words and stories that spoke so much of the realities and harshness of life that it was as if they slapped me across the face like a cold, wet towel! I suppose I was about Macomb when these words came from the speakers…

“It is an early Monday morning
The sun is becoming bright on the land
No one is watching as he comes a walking
Two bulky suitcases hang from his hands

“He heads towards the tower that stands in the campus
He goes through the door, he starts up the stairs
The sound of his footsteps, the sound of his breathing
The sound of the silence but no one was there

“He reached the catwalk, He put down his burden
The four-sided clock began to chime
Seven AM, the day is beginning
So much to do and so little time

“He looks at the city where no one had known him
He looks at the sky where no one looks down
He looks at his life and what it has shown him
He looks for his shadow it cannot be found

“He laid out the rifles, he loaded the shotgun
He stacked up the cartridges along the wall
He knew he would need them for his conversation
If it went as it he planned, then he might use them all

“He said ‘Listen you people I’ve got a question
You won’t pay attention but I’ll ask anyhow
I found a way that will get me an answer
Been waiting to ask you ’till now
Right now!”

“The first words he spoke took the town by surprise
One got Mrs. Gibbons above her right eye
It blew her through the window wedged her against the door
Reality poured from her face, staining the floor”

Intermixed between these verses were supposed cuts of news interviews of his parents and teachers and others who had known the Sniper… each saying just how strange and moody he had been as a child, and how they all tried to just ignore him. As I was researching these lyrics yesterday, I came across a blog containing an article written by a Sean T. Collins and published October 06, 2003… I’d like to read a part of it, if I may…

The scariest song I’ve ever heard is by Harry Chapin.

“Yes, that Harry Chapin–the one who did “Cat’s in the Cradle” and “Taxi” and “Circle” and so forth. (And no comments from the peanut gallery about “Cat’s in the Cradle” being scary enough, okay?) Harry Chapin was always a very, very big deal in my family. A fellow Long Islander, he was one of those musicians that both my rock-centric Dad and easy-listening show-tune-weaned Mom could agree upon. Moreover, he was always playing live shows at local Long Island venues, where my folks saw his surprisingly theatrical singer-songwriter styling’s up close and personal many times. (They still sing the praises of his bass player’s stage presence.) In fact, they had tickets to the benefit concert in Eisenhower Park on route to which he died, at age 38, in a car accident on the LIE. Rare was the Sunday afternoon when Harry Chapin songs wouldn’t be playing on our stereo.

“What motivated my mischievous Dad to play the song “Sniper,” from Chapin’s second album Sniper and Other Love Songs, on one such Sunday afternoon is a mystery to me. I guess he figured I’d get a kick out of how crazy it was. Indeed I did. But it’s more than crazy–it’s inventive, insightful, piercing, and, to me at least, unforgettable.

“For starters, it really is about a sniper. It’s a vaguely fictionalized account of Charles Whitman’s August 1966 University of Texas clocktower rampage–an unusual topic for the man behind “Sunday Morning Sunshine.” But the earnestness with which Chapin imbued his folksy love songs serves this macabre subject well. Chapin is no more able to hide behind irony or ambiguity here than he is in his more romantic work, forcing the audience to come directly to terms with the horror of the sniper attack, and the tortured character of the sniper himself.”

Mr. Collins goes on to describe how for almost ten minutes the genius that is Chapin used music to build and weave and elevate and deflate all of the emotions and supposed reasoning of a deranged mind, and finishes by saying…

“That listening to a song afforded me insight into and understanding of a human struggle makes it art. That that struggle involved an unblinking, unrepentant killer makes it horror.”

Some years back I wrote an article about another kind of tragedy that had just occurred… I’d like to read it now, if I may…

          I’m sure by now you’ve seen the headlines. Twenty-some people were crushed to death in a stairwell in Chicago, while later that (same) week, almost a hundred died in a blaze in a Rhode Island club. Aside from the needless loss of life, why does any of this bother me? Because it has all happened before!

          In 1940, 198 people died in a fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Miss. Two years later, 492 were burned to death in the Coconut Club in Boston. 1990 – 87 dead – New York City… 1928 – 40 dead – West Plaines, MO… and the list goes on.

          My point is this… in each of these instances lessons were learned and changes made. And still, these things happen! Why? Because we either forget… or we fail to teach the next generation!

          In the December 2002 issue of Readers Digest an article written by David McCullough describes how we are losing our history. Among his examples is an undergrad who never realized that the original thirteen colonies were all on the eastern seaboard. And he goes on to explain that without knowing our past… without knowing not only WHAT happened before, but also WHY it happened… these people will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes!

          Each generation must learn from the one before and build on that knowledge. If we ignore the lessons of the past then we must, forsooth, repeat them!

          We are all prone to feel so much more intelligent than our predecessors that we fail to accept ANY of the teachings they offer us. And that is a very dangerous mistake! That is why these news stories bother – nay, scare – me… they are such blatant proof that we haven’t learned anything!

          The Old Testament records how God’s ‘People’ would repeatedly forget and wander away from Him until He decided to ‘remind’ them… usually in a very strong way! Unless we are very careful about passing on the lessons and words of Jesus, the very same thing could happen here!

          The proof is in the headlines!

And what more proof do we need than the headlines we have all seen this week? I’ll not try to delve into the reasoning’s of a mad man… I’ll not try to ‘prove’ that those around him maybe should have seen and read the signs and been able to prevent it… if you have any interest at all in that sort of thing there are ample sources for it online, in the papers, and on TV! I’ll not even plead for prayers for those who died or were injured, or for all of those left to deal with it all… I’m sure you are already doing that, each in your own way…. No, the point that I want to make this morning is this… We all know that in the end God will win this battle of good vs. evil… but a case could sure be made that it seems as if Satan is winning this particular skirmish!

Look around us… we are surrounded by evil at every turn! And worse, we have come to accept the idea that there is nothing ‘we’ can do about it! But in accepting that concept, aren’t we really just furthering Satan’s work?

Ignatius Loyola once wrote, “I beg of you for the love and reverence of God our Lord to remember the past, and reflect not lightly but seriously that the earth is only the earth.” What he means, I think, is that whatever happens during our time here… all of the joys… all of the pain… all of our triumphs… each of our failures… are only a part of our lives here on this earth! As I listened to the words of this song for the first time… and, often, each time since… I was struck by how much I could relate to the emptiness and frustration that this person must be feeling… I have been there! I think, in some ways, each of us have been there! Yet, none of us have ever entertained the notion of doing anything like this… Are we ‘special’ in some way? What is the difference between us and them?

The difference is right here!!! (Hold up Bible)

Let me read these words of Paul’s again, this time from The New Living Translation… and listen to how they so aptly apply to us even today!!!

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

          And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

          What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

          Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

          And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.