May 30, 2004 was not only the Sunday of the ‘Memorial Day’ weekend but also ‘Pentecost Sunday’ of that year. This is the talk I gave on that date at the Lynnville (IL) UMC addressing Both of those occurrences!

The Scripture is from the 14th chapter of John, verses 8-17 and 25-27…

          If I’m counting the years right, I was thirteen years old when I first went to work for the neighbor as a ‘tractor operator’. And on that first day, one of the main things he taught me was how to start his two International 450 Farmalls, each of which had the semi-diesel engine. You see, these started on gasoline to warm-up but switched to diesel for operating, and were quite complicated for their day.

          First, there was a large lever on the side that you had to lean forward and pull towards you until it snapped into position. Then, making sure that the key was on and the throttle was in the full-off position, you pulled the choke and hit the starter till it was running on the gas-side of the engine. After letting it warm up a bit, you placed one hand on the big lever on the side and the other on the throttle, and at exactly the same time, push the big lever forward and open the throttle about half way. This required not a few calisthenics by the operator, who had to be pretty flexible!

          After walking me through the sequence, I remember telling him that he might have to show me at least once and maybe twice more for me to be absolutely sure I had it, but after that I would remember. I think that my description of it here proves that I did!

          Have you ever noticed how easy it usually is to learn something you really Want to learn, and harder to learn something you don’t? By the same token, once you do learn something, don’t you find that unless you have cause to use it, you sometimes tend to forget as the years go by? And what about those things you really had no interest in learning in the first place… or that were just too complicated to make much sense of so you didn’t really try to learn? How much of that do we retain?

          I know that there have been many times over the years that I have said to someone, “How long have you been here (Or been doing this)? And you still don’t know about such-and-such?” The problem is that I get to be rather gun-shy about it, because I know that sooner or later the day will come when they’re going to come back to me and say… hopefully with a grin… “How long have you been here? And you still haven’t learned such-and-such?” What goes around comes around! Sometimes, though, that feeling is justified… and that’s what we find in today’s verses!

          Phillip starts off by saying to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” And what does Jesus say? Can’t you just see Him standing there saying, ‘Phillip… how long have you been here? And you still don’t know or understand me!!’ And yet many of us can relate to Phillip’s comment… after all, he was only asking for confirmation, right?

The Life Application Commentary asks, “Was Philip wrong, shallow, or out of place to question the Lord? Whatever Philip’s personal reasons for asking Jesus to “show us the Father,” his question shows how much easier it is to ask for more proof than to act on what we already know. We expect God to satisfy our conditions before we will trust him. These conditions take some of the following forms:

• The desire for assurance: “Please give us bomb-proof faith in who you are and exactly what you expect from us. Protect us from doubts and ambiguity.”
• The desire for intimacy: “Please give us such a constant feeling of being close to you that we will never be alone or afraid again. Protect us from the risks of broken relationships and living in a fallen world.”
• The desire for knowledge: “Please give us a deep understanding of your nature. Protect us from confusion.”

These desires may be real, but God is not obligated to satisfy them. Most of us will experience desires that will go unfulfilled in this life. In fact, unmet desires remind us to submit to God. He is in charge; not us. In Christ, God has given us all the resources we need to live, to love, and to serve. Eventually, Christ will help us understand why some of our desires go unmet. In the meantime, we are to trust and go on.”

          There have been many, many things over the years that I have had to learn, and each time I try to take special note of those that I think I need to retain. And if it’s something complicated, I try to ask as many questions as I can to make sure I’m absolutely clear on what it is I am to learn. Sometimes, I might wind up making a nuisance of myself in the process, but I manage to learn what I need to none-the-less. Yet after all of that, I have found that unless it is something you really use or are interested in, time has a way of disrupting our memories and we forget some or all that we worked so hard to learn… and it’s almost like we never really learned it in the first place!

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It was originally called Decoration Day, and is intended to be a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. According to a source I found on the internet, there are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day, most since the end of the Civil War.

In fact, Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868, by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was first observed on May 30 of that year when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

Since the late 50’s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing.

Many other organizations sponsor annual observances of various kinds, but the truth is that most Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. Why do you suppose that is? Because, like so many things, we forget the lessons that have been learned in the past!

          I don’t want to get into a big history lesson this morning, but consider, if you will, how many different men and/or nations have set out to ‘rule the world’ over the centuries. Consider the evils that have been perpetrated by one man against another in the name of race, creed, and yes, religion! And it seems that since the establishment of this United States of America some 200 years ago, it has been our country valiantly standing up for Christian ideals and honor all over the world. But… over time, Satan has corrupted our ideals of right and wrong… so much so that it is no longer ‘proper’ to consider ourselves as a Christian nation… we now fight for, ‘Truth, Justice, and the American way!”

          True, the ‘American Way’ used to be the ‘Christian Way’, but time is causing us to forget the lessons of the past… and most of that un-learning tends to pull us away from God. Consider how many times the Israelites fell away from God… He would punish them, they would repent, He would forgive them, they would follow and be His people again… until… again, they would forget and move away. They never seemed to be able to remember that all of this had happened before. People, we are headed down that same path!

          Our soldiers are in a foreign land today trying to save those people from an evil, sadistic regime and ruler… and in that they have been somewhat successful. But when their leaders lose all trace of Christian ideals and morals, they become as corrupt and evil as the evil they are attempting to destroy… and all of that evil then spreads outward and touches all who are involved! Instead of it being a battle of Christianity over Satan, as it should have been… for Satan certainly has a mighty stronghold in the Middle East… it becomes one of evil subjecting evil to even further evils… and the only winner is Satan!

How do we combat this evil… how do we defeat Satan and push him back to the hell he belongs in? By learning the truth… and then spreading what we have learned throughout the world!!!

Today is also Pentecost Sunday… and we heard earlier this morning how the Holy Spirit came upon all of those present that day, as promised by Jesus in these verses when He said, “…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth,” and later adds, “…the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

          ‘The Holy Spirit … will teach us all things!!!’ That’s what Jesus tells us! He will teach us how to live our lives… he will teach us right and wrong… he will teach us how to recognize and defeat evil at every turn. “All things!!!”

But are we listening? Are we learning anything? And if not… why not? And if we do learn it, are we understanding it… retaining it… using it? Remember what I said earlier? If we don’t understand something, we sometimes tend to gloss-over the learning of it… and even if we do absorb it, if we don’t make use of it, we will eventually forget it again. Either way, the devil’s work is done… for by not learning and using and teaching the Message and Work of the Lord… we become Satan’s ambassadors on this earth… for in the end, our inaction for Christ counts as a positive for His enemies!

So… what do we do about it… how do we learn from the Holy Spirit? How do we face our fears of ignorance and embrace the knowledge of the Lord? How do we know what’s important to know and what’s not? How do we know that we are using our knowledge to do the work He intends? How do we ask questions if we’re not sure of something?

The answer is really very simple… first, we must study… we must KNOW God’s Message! And then… we must pray! It is only through prayer… and being open to His answers afterwards… that we can truly discern God’s teaching and calling!

How many hours do you suppose the officers in charge of those Iraqis prisoners spent on their knees in prayer and meditation each day? How many hours a day do you think the soldiers overseeing those prisoners spent on their knees in prayer and meditation? How many hours a day do you spend on your knees in prayer and meditation? So… who is setting the example for who… and what are they learning by that example?!

In the closing verses of today’s passage, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” The Living Bible puts it, “I am leaving you with a gift-peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

Don’t be troubled or afraid… the peace of Christ is yours… a gift from Christ! But it is not intended to be a gift to be put up on a self and admired… it is to be shared and used and spread out to all who want and need it! And it is up to you… to do it… in Christ’s name!