This was given on May 25, 2003 at the little church I pastored in Lynnville, IL. The Scripture is from John 15: 9-17…

          Some of you may remember me telling you how my grandpa on dad’s side of the family was born in 1900. That meant that he was too young to go to war during the First World War, and too old during the second. I don’t remember him ever talking about any military service, so I can’t tell you if he had a chance to serve or not. Dad, however, is the oldest of the three boys, and I can tell you that each of them served their stint wearing dog-tags. He served in the Seabees during the Korean War and told, one time, how they were the first ones to go onto an island to build the landing strips that the Marines would come in on. The next brother down was also in the Navy, judging by what I remember of his tattoos, and I remember the youngest telling how he once flew with the Blue Angels… as their radio operator! That side of my family was just about as ‘redneck American’ as they come, so I feel justified in telling you another story about my grandpa in honor of Memorial Day.

          Grandpa was what you might call a self-made man. And apparently most of what he did must have worked out alright. They had the very first television set in that whole area, and I was told that all of the neighbors would come from miles around to see it. (Of course, I saw it too. I was a teenager when he was finally forced to replace it!) I was also told that at one time the family went around in a new Pierce Arrow… I do know that grandpa always bought a new vehicle for grandma, though for many years he would usually find some old clunker for himself. So most of what he did must have really been successful. But the stories that I was told, and the ones that I remember being a part of as I was growing up, are more about some of the infamous mistakes that occurred over the years.

          The first is rather short… for some reason, nobody has ever wanted to fill in any of the details. Indeed, if I hadn’t been paying attention when dad mentioned it in passing one time, I would probably never have known anything about it. It seems that when the family was starting out they lived right on the Mississippi river close to Hartford in a ‘treehouse’. Along with fishing, grandpa also farmed, and apparently had ground on both sides of the river. To move equipment from farm to farm, grandpa built some kind of barge and would load up on one bank, cross, and unload on the other. As interesting as this has always been to me, it has never been explained in great detail because… apparently on one trip across, the barge sank along with everything on it! (From what I remember of the homemade fishing boats we used as I was growing up, his boat-building skills never did get much better… just boards, nails, and roofing tar… and a ‘pork-and-beans’ can to keep it bailed out with!)

          The second story I can vouch for personally… I was an eye-witness to the whole thing! Grandpa had bought a medium-sized bulldozer to build the fishing lake on the farm that he had intended to retire on, and had kept it afterwards to do various jobs on both farms and for neighbors as needed. One year, the moss in the fishing lake had grown so thick it was almost impossible to row a boat through. (Remember, this was in the days before they had chemicals and such to take care of that problem.) After ‘cussing and discussing’ the problem and different possible solutions with everyone for a number of weeks, grandpa brought the ‘dozer down to the shop and fabricated a drag for the front of it. This consisted of a piece of 12” I-beam about 12 feet long attached to the bottom of the blade by two eight-foot lengths of heavy angle-iron, with two lengths of chain running from the top of the blade to hold up on it. When he lifted the blade, the I-beam would rise well into the air, and when he lowered it, it would just drag its’ own weight on the ground. After making sure it worked, we disassembled it, hauled everything back up to the other farm, then reassembled it. I was standing on the bank and watched as he pointed that crawler right at the lake and drove in until the water was just over the tracks. Then he dropped the bar and went to back out… and was stuck! The crawler had pitched forward in the mud, and he couldn’t raise the I-beam off of the bottom! There he sat in the middle of that end of the lake and couldn’t move! He finally had to get my uncles and some tools and remove the I-beam from the blade in three feet of mud and water before he was able to finally back out. Another good idea that didn’t work!

          I was the oldest grandchild on that side of the family and was always pretty close to grandpa. When he passed away in 1983, I wasn’t able to go up and look at him, but I remember all of us grandkids telling ‘grandpa’ stories as we rode to the cemetery and all during the dinner afterwards. Each of us loved him in our own way, and each of us knew he loved us, even though I’m sure that he never uttered those words to anybody in his family except maybe grandma, and then only when they were young and foolish. And later, as I came to dwell on that fact, it grew to mean even more to me… because, even though I was adopted into that side of the family, you would never have been able to tell it from either his or grandma’s actions. Neither may have ever been able to express their feelings out loud, but their love for me and all of their other grandkids was proven in some form every time we were with them.

          I picked up a lot from my grandpa… I tend to look for solutions to problems from ‘outside the box’… I truly love the outdoors and farming, even though I don’t get to be around either very much anymore… and I am overwhelmingly good at teasing people in such a way that they may not realize they are being teased and get upset. (This is not always a good thing!) But one other thing I seem to have picked up from him is the idea that we aren’t to let any of our emotions show on the surface. In today’s’ verses, Jesus commands us to, “Love each other as I have loved you”, and this is what I seem to have done in regards to grandpa. But in this instance, that, also, is not a good thing!

          Scholars tend to agree that Christ’s words in this chapter and the next were given at the close of the last supper, and basically amount to a farewell sermon. He wanted them to be aware of these things;

Now that he was about to leave them, they would be tempted to return to Moses again; therefore, He tells them how necessary it was that they should adhere to their faith and abide in Him. He also knew that they would be tempted to grow apart from one another; and therefore pressed upon them to love one another, and to keep up that communion, which had been their comfort, when he was gone. These words had been given to the apostles, but the same words very much apply to us today as well… and for many of the same reasons!

Jesus’ own words are, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love… My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” Barnes’ Notes points out that, “Jesus’ love was so great for all of us that he was about to lay down his life. This constitutes a strong reason why we should continue in his love: first, the love which he shows for us is unchanging. It is the love of our best friend – love whose strength was expressed by toils and groans… and blood.

The only way that we can properly express our gratitude, and show that we are His true friends, is to be as unchanging in our character and strength as He is in His. And finally, our happiness here – and forever – depends altogether on our continuing in the love of Christ. We have no source of permanent joy but in that love.

Now, I think that that is a very interesting statement… “We have no source of permanent joy but in that love.” As translated in the Living Bible, Jesus said, “I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your cup of joy will overflow!” What does he mean by that?

The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “When things go well, we feel elated. When hardships come, we sink into depression. But true joy rises above the rolling waves of circumstance. Joy comes from a consistent relationship with Jesus Christ… The joy of living with Jesus Christ daily keeps us levelheaded no matter how high or low our circumstances.”

Grandpa had a ‘Joy’ of life… a real joy of living everyday to its fullest. And yet, in all of the years that I knew him, he never took a step into any church building. I don’t believe that I have ever met anyone who had more Christian values as they pertained to dealing with others and with life. But I can’t tell you what his religious beliefs were, if he indeed had any… because he kept all of his emotions wrapped up inside of himself!

And I believe that many of us are prone to doing the same… I know for myself, that the fear of being hurt from negative emotions was so strong that for many years it was far simpler to just bury them all. But that prevented me from enjoying all of the really good emotions that are also out there!

The Life Application Commentary says that,

“Our world wants love to be spontaneous and driven by feeling. But Jesus knows our deeper need. We know we ought to love even when we don’t feel like it because we want others to love us when we are unlovable. In Jesus we find both the supreme model for loving and the supreme resource. He commands us to love, and he helps us accomplish his command.

If we understand how deeply we are loved by God in spite of our sin, we will be pushed in the direction of loving others ourselves. Those who do not realize God’s love for them find it difficult to love others.”

That, in my opinion, is one of the greatest gifts that Christ left for us today… the overpowering joy that comes when we choose to use our God-given ability to love others…

Jesus made the first choice — to love and to die for us, to invite us to live with him forever. We make the next choice — to accept or reject this offer. We choose whether or not to accept His love and sacrifice. But if we so choose… if we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior… then we are required by Him to pass that love… that offer… on to others! Are we doing that in our lives?

Today, as we remember all of the sacrifices made by others for us over the years… as we remember loved ones who had a great impact on our lives… I ask you to consider Him who made the greatest sacrifice of all in your name… and to ask yourself, “Whose life have I impacted… and whose can I impact today?” For Jesus’ command IS to “Love each other!” And obeying that command is the source of our greatest joy!

The ‘story’ portion of this has always been one of my favorites… Those who know me will surely have heard me tell it before!?! The ‘message, though, was written for and given at the little church I pastored in Lynnville (IL) on May 18, 2003. The Scripture is from the Book of Acts, chapter 8, verses 26 – 40…

       As I sat at my computer one weekday morning, many, Many years ago, and noted the beautiful sunshine outside, I was suddenly filled with an overpowering urge to ‘get out of the house’ for a while. Since I’ve always really enjoyed going up and walking through the village at New Salem state park and hadn’t had a chance to get up there for a while, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I reasoned that being the middle of the week I might have the place to myself much like when I would go in the dead of winter.

       So, I packed up my note-pad (I still needed to get SOME writing done!) and meandered my way up on a number of oil (and even gravel) country roads, through the little Illinois towns of Chandlerville and Petersburg to finally arrive at New Salem State Park right at noon. As I drove up the hill into the parking lot I was greeted with the sight of about nine school and tour busses and the lot half full of cars. So much for having the place to myself! Undaunted, though, I put on my hat, locked up the van, and headed in.

       Ever since my first visit there on a school trip as a fourth-grader, I have always been struck with the feeling of traveling through a time tunnel as I walk around the first bend under a solid canopy of tree limbs, and this day was no exception. Granted, the asphalt walks and wheelchair ramps that exist in today’s world tend to detract from the feeling of maybe seeing Lincoln, himself, around the next corner, it’s still not TOO difficult to immerse yourself into the living history that surrounds you if you only open up to it.

       I have written and talked before about the many times I have been there over the years, and about how I tend to look at everything with a very analytical point of view, and very early on I had made an intense study of the oxen drive wheel used to power the carding mill. For those of you who may not have seen it, this consists of a huge wooden turntable set to turn on an angle. A giant beam is mounted to rub on one side of it as a brake and is controlled by a wooden lever in the mill. The brake is set and two oxen are brought up into a stall facing uphill on one side of the wheel complete with feed racks, where the oxen dutifully begin eating. When the mill is ready, the brake is released and the weight of the oxen on that side of the wheel causes it to move down. If the oxen want to continue eating, they have to keep walking uphill to stay even with their food. They walk uphill as the wheel moves around. Underneath the wheel is a large wooden gear with handmade wooden teeth engaging another wooden gear connected to a hand-hewn log shaft running under the mill. After going through another set of wooden gears under the building, the power is transferred by belt up into the mill to power the carding machine. Ox power!

       Many has been the time that I have walked up to different people and groups trying to figure out just what all of that massive woodwork was and took the time to explain it to them, and that day was no exception. As I approached, I could see and hear what I would say was a junior-high class coming up with some very strange ideas and comments as to what it was and how it worked, none of which were even close to being right. As they were beginning to move on, I walked up and asked, “Do you understand how it works?” The teacher stepped out of the group and said, “No! Please explain to us how it works!” They all turned back towards the wheel and listened as I pointed out the different aspects and what their importance was in making everything work like it should. As they walked away I could hear some of those who had been more vocal before in stating their ideas exclaiming, “OK. That’s how it works!”

       For at least the very brief period of time that I had their attention, the people in that group were willing and desirous of learning the facts that I had to offer them. And the same thing can be said for the eunuch in today’s story.

       The Life Application Commentary points out that, “Today’s passage is set carefully and strategically after the initial work done by the disciples in Jerusalem and before the conversion of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles… The gospel of Christ was leaving a purely Jewish audience and beginning to be spread to the world.

“Philip was having a successful preaching ministry to great crowds in Samaria when the angel of the Lord called him to travel on a desert road. God handled the details — set up the appointment, timed the arrival, and told Philip which chariot to look for and what to do.

“In God’s strategy, Philip was sent to the side of the road, where he met an Ethiopian eunuch traveling home from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Ethiopia is located in Africa, south of Egypt. The eunuch was obviously dedicated to God, because he had traveled such a long distance to worship in Jerusalem. The Jews had contact with Ethiopia (known as Cush) in ancient days, so this man may have been a Gentile convert to Judaism. That he had a copy of Isaiah’s prophecy points to that probability.

“Candace” was a title for the monarch of Ethiopia, somewhat the way “Pharaoh” was used in Egypt and “Caesar” in Rome. The fact that this court official was in charge of the entire treasury shows that he was an extremely high-placed and well-trusted member of the government.

When asked by Phillip if he understood what he was reading, “The court official expressed the frustration that every Bible student throughout the ages has felt from time to time: “How can I understand this passage unless someone explains it to me?””

He was willing and desirous of learning the truth!

“Philip began with the same Scripture that the official was reading and explained what and who it was about, added to it many others, and eventually led the eunuch to the Good News about Jesus. It is important to note that Philip began where the man was; only then did he directly and clearly take him to where he needed to go. Phillip first listened, thought, and then adapted the message to his audience.” And this is the lesson that we very much need to learn today!

As many of you know, I have always enjoyed visiting zoos and museums, and have been to several all over the country, and some of those I have been to many times over the years. And on almost every visit, at some point I will overhear an adult telling a child incorrect information about an animal or exhibit that they are looking at. They may be looking at the orangutans and call them monkeys… (They are apes)… or look at a crocodile and call it an alligator…. they may look at an antique tool or piece of furniture and not have a clue as to what it was really for. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of misidentification, but sometimes the names and/or facts that they spout out are so far removed from reality that they could only have been made-up on the spot! Sometimes, I will take the time and effort to talk to them and tell them what things actually are… (some I grew up with, but it’s usually right there on the sign!). But often I would just shake my head and move on… it all depends on how I might feel at the time. I mean, it is so much easier to just not get involved! Right?

What if Phillip had decided not to get involved this time? He had a lot of reasons not to! First of all, the man was an Ethiopian… not only a Gentile but a Gentile ‘of color’! The man was obviously of high position and had great wealth, riding cool and clean in his chariot, while Phillip was probably hot, tired, and dusty from walking, and might well have been considered a thief or beggar. And Phillip had no way of knowing, at first, why the man had been to Jerusalem, nor what it was that he was reading as he returned! Surely there were far easier and more productive uses for his time than talking to one very foreign traveler! Yet, in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, we have a wonderful picture of God’s global love and his surprising plan to get the good news of Christ to those who have never heard. Because Philip went where God sent him, Ethiopia was opened up to the gospel.

What does all of this have to do with us today? It’s simple! How many times have you talked with or overheard someone at the office or on the street worrying about their job – their future – their marriage – or their child. What if they say, “I’m scared of dying.” That could be your passing chariot… an open door for the good news of the gospel.

At any time… in anyplace, you might hear a neighbor… friend… family member… or even a complete stranger… telling someone… “Nobody likes me – I’m having a baby – My cancer is back – My wife is leaving… What does God have to do with all this?”… It could be your passing chariot!

When we follow Phillip’s lead and listen to people, and then start from where the other person’s concerns are focused, you can not only share the gospel, but you bring it to bear on those concerns.

In the fourth chapter of 1 John we read, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete…”, and shortly after that, John tells us, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

People, THIS is what we should be thinking!!! This is what we should be feeling! And this is what we should be telling those who are searching for something in their lives! We cannot be afraid to speak up when the opportunity presents itself. And those opportunities abound everyday!

       I know… it is so hard to reach out to others when we have so much going on in our own lives… it is so hard to reach out to others when they might reject us… it is so hard to reach out to others when we’re afraid and don’t know what to say! How do we deal with all of that?

Listen to what Paul tells the Corinthians in his first letter to them…

“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God… I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

Paul was not a powerful speaker!… He was not a dynamic personality!… Not when he started out! But he reached out to people on their level and let the power of God work through him! That’s all we have to do… reach out to those in need… those who are searching… those who are hurting… reach out to them on their level… tell them of the love that God has for them… and let God work through us by showing them His love… through us!       

This was given at both the Bayliss (IL) UMC & the New Salem (IL) UMC on April 13, 2003… Palm Sunday of that year! The Scripture is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11, verses 1-11.

       When people look at how I dress most assume that I must ride horses. And I do really enjoy riding when I get a chance. As I was growing up, my relatives close to Pittsfield always had at least one or two horses around whenever we would visit them. I recall one time in particular when, as a middle teenager, I was riding and went to cross a very steep ditch. The horse didn’t think much of the idea and threw me off over her head about halfway down. Everybody came running out of the house to see if I was alright, (I was) and then everybody proceeded to encourage me to get back on. You know what they say…if you don’t get back on right after a fall you never will. Apparently they didn’t know me very well! The only thing going through my head was… “Heavens YES, I’m going to get back on! No horse is going to throw ME and get away with it!”

       I recall another time, some years later, when we ‘rented’ some horses down at the campgrounds where my mother and her husband were members. My son was probably around six or seven, so they gave him a very tame old mare, but I chose the big stallion that was there for myself. The guide led our little column down various trails through the Missouri woods with me bringing up the rear of our procession so that I could keep an eye on everybody and make sure they were alright. However, the stallion that I was riding was used to being up front during these treks, and fidgeted and jumped and carried on the entire trip. But I had no trouble keeping him under control, and when we were finished, the handlers commented on my ability to keep him in rein.

       So if anyone ever asks me if I can ride a horse I give them a qualified YES. The qualifier is that I have never learned to gallop on a horse. That’s because I actually learned to ride on a donkey!

       ‘Cookie’ came with a farm that my Grandpa had bought close to Prairietown (Where ‘Holiday Shores’ is today…). We were told that she was actually a genuine Mexican burro, but most people called her a donkey. She was very old and arthritic when we got her, and that only got worse as the years went by. But at that, she could still move pretty good when she wanted to. When the Prairietown farm was sold to developers, Cookie was moved to the ‘home’ farm south of Hartford. It was there that I learned how to put a bridle on (when I could catch her!) and how to use your knee to knock the wind out of them as you cinch up the saddle. (For those who don’t know, horses, mules, and donkeys are prone to holding their breath as you draw up a saddle so that it won’t be so tight afterwards.) However, I just wasn’t big enough to make much of an impression on her with my knee, and I would sometimes be riding along when the saddle would start slipping sideways…with me still on it! I remember one time that after I was dismounted she took off running for her pasture. By the time she got there, the saddle was completely upside down under her stomach. That had to hurt! As I got older, I got to the point where I just wouldn’t mess with the saddle and rode bareback, even though she had a very sharp backbone ridge.

       While at the Hartford farm, my aunt had told us how Cookie would greet each morning with a good roll in the dust, then usually get off a really good bray at the rising sun, but none of us had ever seen or heard it. As grandpa began scaling back the farm at Hartford we bought our twenty-three acres close to Edwardsville, and Cookie was brought out to spend the rest of her days there. We turned her loose in with the cows, and the first thing that she did was stampede them all through the fence at the rear of our property. After rounding them back up and mending the fence, Cookie was put into the pasture next to the house…by her self! That next morning, sometime before 6:00 AM, we were all awakened by the most horrendous noise that you could ever imagine! Slowly, I realized what it had to be! Rushing to the back door to look out at the pasture, we all saw…Cookie…braying!! Have you ever heard a donkey bray? They don’t go ‘hee-haw’. They go ‘haw-hee’. Actually they go…(YES, I BRAYED!) Believe it or not, after a while we all got used to her antics and would usually sleep right through them.

       Along with taking care of her daily needs, every once in a while, I would get out the bridle and ‘try’ to go for a ride. The key word here, usually, was ‘try’! People always talk about mules being stubborn. Well, I’m here to tell you that they get it from the donkey side of their parentage! We might get a mile down the road or so and she would decide that that was enough. She would just up and stop, and nothing that I could do would get her to move…period. I would finally end up walking back to the farm and get a tractor. When I returned, she would still be standing in the same exact spot, and I would tie the reins to the drawbar and pull her back home…slowly of course. So, you see, I never learned to gallop. Indeed, with Cookie, I sometimes did more walking than riding…but I did learn to ride!

       Now, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t had an opportunity to ride a horse for some years now. And if the truth be known, most of my interest in horsepower has been HORSEPOWER! Even as a teenager I always claimed that given an opportunity to run a ‘Cat’ or go on a date, the choice would be a very difficult one. (It would probably depend on the girl.) But there is no denying that sitting up on a good horse gives one a feeling unlike anything else. A horse is a magnificent creature, and anyone lucky enough to be seen on one usually has some of that magnificence rub off on them as well.

       Throughout the years, horses have been seen as noble creatures and symbols of power. So why, exactly, didn’t Jesus want a horse to ride into Jerusalem? Why, instead, did He choose a donkey? To understand that, we need to understand a little bit about the society and customs of the day…as well as a bit of Bible history.

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary tells that…the ass was a lowly beast, and no Jewish king since Solomon had ridden upon one officially. But meekness and lowliness were earmarks of (the) Messiah predicted by Zechariah, and now fulfilled.

And I’m sure that many people have always felt that that was the main reason…that Jesus wanted to emphasize His humbleness.

However, Barnes’ Notes points out that… In Judea there were few horses, and those were chiefly used in war. To ride on a horse was sometimes an emblem of war… on a mule (or a donkey), an emblem of peace. Kings and princes commonly rode on them in times of peace, and it is mentioned as a mark of rank and dignity to ride in that manner. So Solomon, when he was inaugurated as king, rode on a “mule”. Riding in this manner, then, was not a sign of poverty or degradation, but was an appropriate way for a king to ride… and therefore, an appropriate way for the King of Zion to enter into his capital, the city of Jerusalem!

So here we find a picture of Jesus triumphantly riding into Jerusalem, not on a warhorse as many had hoped for…but on a donkey…a symbol of peace! And furthermore, it was a colt! This was to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9

See, your king comes to you,

righteous and having salvation,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Mark and Luke only talk about the colt, because it was this on which Jesus rode. However, Matthew tells us that both mother and colt were brought. One of my sources points out that this may have been to keep the young colt calm, which would certainly make sense to me. Since the unbroken colt would not have had any kind of saddle, the disciples threw their cloaks over it for Jesus to sit on. Then, it was on to Jerusalem!

Let me read this from the ‘Life Application Commentary’.

Crowds of people had already gathered on this stretch of road a mile outside of Jerusalem, going to the city for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover.

This was not a little group of people along the wayside; this crowd was characterized as “multitudes.” The people lined the road, praising God, waving branches, and throwing their cloaks in front of the colt as it passed before them. (Many) knew that Jesus was intentionally fulfilling prophecy. This verse is one of the few places where the Gospels record that Jesus’ glory was recognized on earth.

This was the crowd’s acclamation… that he was indeed the long-awaited Messiah. The people were sure their liberation from Rome was at hand. When it became apparent that Jesus was not going to fulfill those hopes, many people would turn against him. A similar crowd would cry out, “Crucify him!” when Jesus stood on trial only a few days later.

How fickle is man? From the beginning of time mankind has chosen to accept or reject God according to whether or not it seemed convenient at the time. And here is the ultimate example…the cheering of Jesus as the Messiah into the Holy city…only to be replaced with the jeers as He went to the cross soon afterward. And you know what? Two thousand years have not changed a thing! When this country was attacked on September 11 of 2001 and all of the various things that have occurred since, many people have been trying to find their way back to God. And that’s great! But you and I both know that, unless someone is really able to reach out to them and help them build a real understanding and acceptance of God, as soon as things begin to settle back into a routine most of these people drift away again.

And what about us? Here we are on what we call ‘Palm Sunday’, celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem two thousand-odd years ago. But what will we be celebrating tomorrow? Or Tuesday? Or next week? Will we hold firm to our belief and our joy in the Son of God? Or will WE begin backsliding into the everyday world around us?

Maybe I’m a little luckier than some people…my experience with riding a donkey as a child gives me some connection that I can relate to in the Gospel story, albeit a very minute one. But the truth is everyone of you, every member of your family, every one of your friends and coworkers, indeed every person on this earth has a direct connection if they would just open up to it!

Let me read this ‘bit’ I got in my e-mail some years ago…

The man whispered, “God, speak to me”…and a meadowlark sang.

But the man did not hear.

So the man yelled, “GOD, SPEAK TO ME!”…and thunder rolled across the sky.

But the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said, “God, let me see you”…and a star shone brightly.

But the man did not see.

And the man shouted, “GOD, SHOW ME A MIRICLE!”…and a life was born.

But the man did not notice.

So the man cried out in despair, “Touch me God, and let me know you are here”…whereupon God reached down and touched the man.

But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

God is in our lives everyday. He reaches out to us everyday. He’s with us as we sleep, when we wake, as we work and play, and as we prepare for sleep yet again. Is it really so much to ask to let Him be a part of lives on a Monday or Tuesday as well as a Sunday? After all, remember what He did for us…He sent His Son to die on the cross of Calvary in our place. Then raised Him from the tomb to show the world that we can all conquer death and live in eternal Paradise with Him in the place prepared. I don’t know about you, but I feel like shouting Hosanna!

This was used at the little church in Lynnville (IL) on March 30, 2003. The main Scripture is from the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 14-21, with referrals to Numbers 21: 4-9, the first chapter of Proverbs, and the 5th chapter of Matthew…

       At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, my friend Larry and I both joined the Technician’s Club. I don’t know how other schools did it, but at Edwardsville it was the members of the Technician’s Club who were responsible for setting up and operating the sound system at every school event requiring it, as well as designing, installing and operating the light show for everything from plays to school dances to concerts. So it was that the very first major production that we got to work on was helping the older members set up the lights for that years’ Homecoming Procession and dance. Since we were the new kids on the block, our job was to help set-up the spotlights and light bars, and to run extension cords as instructed. And when finished, the effect was beautiful!

       That part of the school was fairly new, then, and the gym had been built to accommodate around 4000, if I remember right. It was two stories tall, with a balcony forming the second floor. There were a full set of bleachers on both floors facing each other, with a 10’ walkway connecting the two sides of the upper level. The ‘Royal Court’ had its seating, complete with fancy chairs and thrones, on one end of the gym floor just under one of these walkways. Each of the couples of the court were to walk out in a procession from the doorway at one side of the other end, to the center of that wall, and then proceed across the center of the basketball court, to finally take their places with the girls seated and their escorts standing behind them. Above where they were to sit was our 2000-watt spotlight which was to follow them as each couple came out and proceeded across the floor. Lighting the court area were three light bars on the floor hidden by plants, each having three 150-watt floodlights aimed at the seats. On the other balcony walkway, over where they would begin their walk across the floor was ‘BIG BERTHA’! Big Bertha was an old spotlight that we jokingly said had been used by William Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre before coming to the Edwardsville High School. It was aimed and locked on a general flood of the court-area seats.

       Now, the older guys had done all of this before… or so we thought. So all we did was set up everything, aim the lights so as to hit a person’s face when they were in place, and make sure that no cords or fixtures were visible to a casual glance. We were ready!

       Since all of the older guys were attending the dance, we sophomores were responsible for running the show that night. People came, music started, and soon it was time. Turn on the floodlights… kill the house lights, fire up Big Bertha, and ready on the main spot… everybody was at their assigned places and everything went like clockwork! The first couple came out followed by the main spot and crossed to their seats. The spotlight swung back to pickup the second pair as they started across when… Poof! The main spot and all of the floodlights go out! After a mad scramble to find which circuit board had those breakers, Larry snapped it back in, and we continued. Another couple and… Poof! No lights! Throw the breaker again and go a little bit, then… Poof. As best I recall, the lights went out thirteen times during the royal procession… including just as the King and Queen began their march across. Larry had his thumb pressed tight against the breaker trying to hold it in but just wasn’t able to do so. An unforgettable night for all! During the whole affair, the only light that stayed on was Big Bertha! But I have to admit, she at least kept everybody from panicking!

       Jesus tells us that sinners would have been uncomfortable even in that light! In verse 19 of today’s Gospel reading He said, “… men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”   Barnes’ Notes says that this is true of all wicked men. They choose to practice their deeds of wickedness in darkness. They are afraid of the light, because they could be easily detected. Hence, most crimes are committed in the night. So it is with the sinner (in regards to) God. (The sinner) hates the gospel, for it condemns his conduct, and his conscience would trouble him if it were enlightened.

       Verse 7 of the first chapter of Proverbs says that, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Knowledge brings us truth, and Jesus says that, “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.”  So… if we fear God… that is, if we acknowledge Him AS God, ruler and maker of all that is, ever was, and ever will be… then we are responsible for increasing our personal knowledge of Him in everyway that we possibly can, because with that knowledge comes truth… and that truth will bring us light… And that light IS Jesus!

The Gospel of John begins by saying, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men… the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it”. Later on, in the 8^th chapter of John, Jesus spoke to the people saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus IS the Light!

       The second part of that verse from Proverbs says that, “fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Now, we just learned that wisdom and instruction bring us to the light, so the fools that despise these things must live in darkness! Darkness is the emblem of ignorance… of iniquity and error… of superstition… whatever is opposite to truth and piety. Men are said to love darkness more than they do light when they are better pleased with error than truth… with sin than holiness… better pleased with the ways of Satan than the ways of Christ. Again, in today’s verses, Jesus says, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” The ‘Life Application Commentary’ says that…

Many people don’t want their lives exposed to God’s light because they are afraid of what will be revealed or because of the demands the light places on them. They don’t particularly want to be changed.

After that Homecoming dance, we sat down to figure out what had happened. It seems that when the building was built, they had put both upper and lower levels of each wall on one circuit. When we added up the spotlight, the nine floodlights, and all of the little lights that the band had to play by, we were pulling about thirty-five amps through a twenty-amp circuit breaker. From that point on, every production that Larry and I set up was calculated out, and no circuit was ever allowed to exceed 75% of its’ rated load. Now, sometimes that meant making very heavy extension cords to run to several different rooms around the school, but we never again lost the lights during any production!

       By the same token, we must all be very attentive to ‘keeping the lights on’ in our own lives. We must study God’s word and learn the truth… and we must use that truth to fight back the forces of darkness… those things that would pull us away from the light and into the world of evil and eternal torment!

In the Old Testament book of Numbers, 21^st chapter, we hear the story of God sending vipers among the people because of their turning away from Him, once again, and worrying more about themselves than God. After they repented, God had Moses construct a bronze snake and put it on a pole. When ever someone was bitten, all they had to do was look up at that image and believe that God would save them, and they would not die! Why did God do this? Jesus says that He is like that image… He must be lifted up (a euphemism for death on the cross… the victim was literally lifted up above the earth) for all to see. Then, all sinners are to look to Him and believe so that they might be saved! Again, to what do we, mere sinners, owe this glorious chance for redemption? GOD’S LOVE!!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life… Whoever believes in him is not condemned… but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

       Jesus is the Light. And God sent us the Light because of His love for each and every one of us! We have only to look at the light and accept it… accept it as the gift that it is… and then live our lives in gratitude of that gift. And the way we show that gratitude is by studying, praying, and acting upon what we have discerned as truth. For truth is light… and light is always stronger than darkness!

       In the 5^th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says that, we… each of us listening to this… are the light of the world. You don’t light a lamp and hide it away… you put it on its stand, and let it give light to everyone in the house. In the same way, we should let our light… the light of Jesus… shine before men, that they may also see the truth. For it is only in truth that we find the light, and it is only by that light that we find our way to God! Let there Be Light!

Let us pray…

Our heavenly Father, we your humble children invoke your blessing on us. We adore you, whose name is love, whose nature is compassion, whose presence is joy, whose word is truth, whose Spirit is goodness, whose holiness is beauty, whose will is peace, whose service is perfect freedom, and in knowledge of whom stands our eternal life. Unto you be all honor and all glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A slightly updated reading of the article I wrote for the March 2003 issue of ‘The Circuit Rider’, the monthly newsletter I edited/produced for a little church outside of Jacksonville, IL for many years…

View     Point    by the Editor

                In one sense, this story is not personal. After all, it hasn’t affected me or anyone I know personally in any way. But in another sense, it is very personal to each of us! Twenty years ago the news for this month was full of the tragedy of over one hundred lives lost in two separate nightclub incidents within a week of each other.

       I’m sure many of you will remember the stories. In Chicago, club-goers panicked while trying to get away from the effects of mace being used to break-up a fight and became entangled in the stairwell when the exit became blocked from the crush of the crowd. Rescuers had to enter from other exits and pull the people away from the top to get to those beneath. Twenty-some people were crushed to death, and many more injured. Later that same week, an unapproved pyrotechnic device started a blaze in a Rhode Island club where almost a hundred died trying to get out the same doorway they entered. 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. 1977 saw 165 die in a club in Kentucky. 1990 – 87 dead – New York City… 1928 – 40 dead – West Plaines, MO… the list goes on and on.

       My point is this… in each of these instances, lessons were learned and changes made. Exit lights were installed, codes written and enforced, and the public made aware to BE aware! 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 Americans, at least, are losing our history. He tells of an undergrad telling him after a lecture how she never realized before that the original thirteen colonies were all on the eastern seaboard… how a recent survey at colleges and universities showed that most of those surveyed believed Ulysses S. Grant to be the American general at Yorktown… and how none of the nation’s top 50 learning institutions, at least at that time, required American History as part of the curriculum! And he goes on to explain that without that knowledge… without knowing not only WHAT happened before, but also WHY it happened, these people will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes!

I have noted on numerous occasions how each generation learns from the one before and builds on that knowledge. But if we ignore the lessons of the past then we must, forsooth, repeat them!

The same exact idea holds true for our religious beliefs and faith! How many crazy ideas have you heard people speak that were purported to be spiritual! I recall how many of the youth in the group I used to cosponsor, along with myself, the other sponsor and other adults who had occasion to know him, had to deal with the tragic death of a young man who had been a part of our last two mission trips. He had apparently fallen into a ‘cult’ that told him that the only way to be really ‘close to God’ was through death! And his personal knowledge of the Bible and the teachings within were not yet complete enough to show him the truth that WAS THERE!

Someone once told me that the youth of today are more than just the ‘church’ of tomorrow…    they are the church of today, as well! That is a very true and powerful statement. So it stands to reason that if the ‘Bride of Christ’, the church, is to survive, it will do so through the youth of today…    and tomorrow. But it will only survive if we can pass on the truths that Jesus gave us two thousand odd years ago… a story that will never age…    a story that will have the same impact a thousand years from now as it does today – and as it did when Jesus, Himself, walked the roads and countryside of Galilee and Jerusalem!

And yet, we are all prone to feel so superior, 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, and others like them, bother – nay, scare – me… they are such blatant proof that we haven’t learned anything!

The Old Testament records over and over how God’s ‘Chosen People’ would forget their past and wander away from Him until He decided to ‘remind’ them… usually in a very strong way! And unless we are very careful and become more assiduous in passing on the lessons and words of Jesus, then the very same thing could happen here!

THE PROOF IS IN THE HEADLINES!

My uncle, Teddy Ronald Luebbert, passed away last Friday, March 10, 2023… I was privileged enough to perform his funeral. I have asked for and received permission to share what I gave! After some songs and a prayer I delivered ‘Part 1’, another song and my (Much) younger cousin gave her memories, another song and I read ‘Part 2’, closing, of course, with another prayer.

At the gravesite I started by noting how much of the ‘plain’ in the distance used to be what I called ‘Luebbert Land’, since we used to farm a fair part of it. I then gave the last section, and finished with singing, ‘I Come to the Garden’, after which the Honor Guard performed their ceremony.

I am posting it on here because I believe that even those who might not have actually Known MY ‘Uncle Teddy’ might get some ‘good’ from it… I feel certain that many people have an ‘Uncle Teddy’ in their own lives to relate to!!

(Part One)

       OK, I need to start this by making one very important correction… In spite of what some may have read, I am NOT, nor ever have been, a ‘Reverend’! I have been a ‘preacher’, a ‘teacher’, a ‘youth-sponsor’, and even a ‘pastor’… not to mention my ‘day-jobs’ as an operator, truck driver, and mechanic! I am a writer, a speaker, and wana’-be-philosopher… But I have never been a ‘Reverend’ of any kind, no matter how many people have addressed me as such! What I AM, though, and HAVE been my entire life, is a ‘Luebbert’. I want to talk today just a bit about what that means, and about one Luebbert in particular… Teddy Ronald Luebbert.

Now, to understand what being a Luebbert might mean, I might need to talk about My grandma & grandpa Luebbert, Teddy’s mom and dad (That’s Reba and Theodore [or ‘Ted’] for those who might not remember…), as well as tell some stories from-or-about his brothers and sister.

Teddy became a Luebbert when he was born on May 28, 1937 in Kirkwood, MO… My aunt Donna, Teddy’s younger sister, told me that the reason he was born in Kirkwood was because the Mississippi had flooded (again) and forced them out of their home along it at just that time. I don’ think I need to quote from the obituary facts that most of us here know as to his heritage… suffice it to say he was born and raised a Luebbert! I, on the other hand, became a Luebbert when I was about 2 years-old, and met ‘Uncle Teddy’ at about that same time… that is, just about the time he was graduating from high school.

This might be the point to insert how Teddy seemed to be fully immersed in the philosophy, that all Luebbert’s seem to have to some degree, that the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence… to that end I’ve been told how he and a friend ran-away-from-home his junior year of high school to find work on the oil rigs of Texas! When that didn’t pan out and they ran out of money, it was his mom who sent them enough to come home on… on the condition that he finished school!

But MY stories and memories of Uncle Teddy begin just after that time and go on, generally, until I moved out of the area in the ‘70’s. I can tell you about how he got into ‘racing’ not long after he returned from serving in the Navy for four years in 1959. I remember the ‘hulk’ of an old beat-up stock car sitting somewhere out back on the farm along the canal… I remember it was black and had big white letters hand-painted on it that identified it as ‘U2’… I always thought that was the neatest thing!! Aunt Donna, though, told me how grandma went to watch him race One time at Mitchel and saw him crash… he was fine, but she swore she would Never go to another!!

Speaking of crashing, I also seem to recall him crashing almost, if not Every, vehicle he ever had during those years, and quite a few of grandma’s as well… I specifically remember something about a motorcycle and grandma’s little black Dodge Dart! But he always seemed to recover from any of them just fine. He was very lucky!

And speaking of luck, Teddy was also sometimes very lucky with various things such as the friends he had and Lottery tickets and the game boats and such! Aunt Donna tells of him riding a bicycle with her on the handlebars down the center line of what used to be the major highway from the canal into Hartford… they’re BOTH lucky to have survived!

But as often happens, to be lucky in one part of your life is to be unlucky in others… ‘Though there Are those who say that our lives are not so much about ‘luck’ as they are about planning, dreaming, and hard work… And Teddy was very familiar with ALL of these!

I can recall going with my dad, Teddy’s oldest brother, Darrel, to help him and several of his buddies as they rebuilt the old schoolhouse south of Hartford into what came to be called the ‘Spot’ tavern. Yes, I’ve heard how some of the ‘peoples’ of Hartford didn’t think much of it, but HE loved it whether it made a profit-or-not! Aunt Donna tells of going in to help at different times and setting the baby on the bar as she was doing whatever she went in to do, and how she and grandma would be the ones cooking the fish for some of the Friday fish fries! For my part, I remember when it closed that I got all of the 45’s out of the jukebox, as well as a collection of ‘Schlitz Beer’ coasters and a big stack of these really long, skinny, brown paper bags!

I remember his buddies convincing him one time to run for the local road commissioner… Teddy ran, as I recall, on the slogan, “If nominated I will not run, If elected I will not serve”. I’m not sure who Really said it first, but the first time I ever heard that was from Uncle Teddy!

As to his friends, the only one I remember was ‘Tiny’… and the only reason I remember him was because he Wasn’t! I also remember, though, how, like Jim Nabors, Tiny’s singing voice was so amazing that he recorded and released an album under his real name, Jim Harrington.

After I moved from the area it has my dad, Darrel, who would regale me with various Uncle Teddy stories… I remember being told that instead of paying people to build his new house on 7^th street that he offered to furnish his union buddies ‘all of the beer they can drink’ to help build it, and how that wound-up costing him more than if he had paid scale! And, I was told, how they all wanted to test the fireplace before the firebrick had been installed and wound-up cracking the brick wall. (Aunt Donna says She doesn’t remember a fireplace, but I know I was told that story!?!) I heard about, and was suitably impressed by, his competing in and winning the ‘Case’ Backhoe Rodeo… Having owned my own Case backhoe at one time I knew this was Not a minor feat!

And again, yes many of the Luebberts have been known for operating machinery… in addition to all of the farm equipment, Grandpa-and-sons had a number of crawlers through the years, and even a small dragline when he retired to the farm in Missouri! I recall dad talking about donating some time to build some of the playing fields at Gordon F. Moore Community Park… at one time there was a street sign that said ‘LUEBBERT’ on one road to commemorate their service. I’m not Sure that Teddy had a hand in that project, but he certainly Could have had! Because another trait of many Luebberts is their willingness to help others!

And I can’t leave this session of talking about the Luebberts and Teddy’s ‘earlier’ years without mentioning the sawmill. I only got to see it used once or twice when I was very young… but I remember the process of getting the tractor belted-up to it ‘just-so’ to run it… Again, I’ve been told that grandpa and the kids used that mill to saw the lumber for many of the houses and buildings in-and-around Hartford during its early years!

I’m sure there are many here today, older than my 70 years, who have more, and even Clearer, memories of Teddy stories than I have… But That is the mark of a life well led! I’m going to turn this over now to one of the Younger generation who have lived with and known him during the years I was ‘away’… I will come back, later, and talk a bit more about the ‘Luebberts’ and how being one influenced so much of who Teddy was and how he lived his life. ‘Until then, just think on Your memories… and stories… of Teddy Ronald Luebbert.

(Part Two)

       I want to talk, now, a little about the Luebberts. Teddy Ronald Luebbert was, in many ways, the epitome of a Luebbert. But what, exactly, does that mean…

       To borrow a phrase from Rod Serling, ‘Imagine if you will’, a young boy who has somehow gotten hold of a little scooter, and he would Dearly love to ride it… The only problem is it won’t start! So he gets his little sister to drive their small tractor and pull him on it to try to start it… She pulls him around the barn yard, and then out onto the road… she pulls him all the way through the fields into Hartford, pulls him around the streets of Hartford, and finally pulls him all of the way back out to the farm! In the meantime, one of the ladies in Hartford sees them and calls their mother. So, as they are coming down the last stretch towards the farm, they see this little woman with steam rising from her standing in the yard with a broom!! On seeing her there, Teddy bales off of the scooter and goes running the other direction, leaving his baby sister to ‘face-the-music’ alone! Of course, we all know that eventually he Had to come home… and it was even Worse for him when he did!

       Growing up in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s had to be tough enough on its own! For example, I have seen pictures of the boat tied to the steps of the stilt-house they lived in along the Mississippi when the waters were up… Donna says she recalls Grandma putting the boys in the boat by themselves and shoving them off to go to school… Can you imagine how some of these ‘spoiled’ kids would react to something like that today? I mean, many are not even allowed to ride the school bus but have to be driven to, dropped off, and picked up, at the door of the school! But here we have three boys climbing into a rowboat and paddling through the flood waters of the Mississippi, probably fighting with each other all along the way, get to shore and pull the boat out of the water, then walk the rest of the way to school!?! Can you imagine growing up like that AND having two, shall we say, Very strict… parents at the same time?

       To go back to the image of Reba standing in the yard with the broom, I’m sure that those of us who knew and remember Reba can just picture her stance as she waited there, and can even hear her voice as she ‘lit-in-to’ the two of them! I’m also sure that many of us here today have heard, or even experienced, their own stories of ‘dealing’ with either grandma or grandpa (OR.. Reba or Ted, if you will…). But let’s be clear about something… As legendary as their strictness, and, yes, even temper, might have been, there was a method in their madness!

       Many of you may remember my brother Mike… He was most of three-years younger than me, and quite a ‘pistol’ even when very young. The story is told of Grandpa working on a project in the back of the farm yard that had him15-18’ up in the air… Somehow, he had been put in charge of babysitting Mike that day and had him up on the platform with him. Mike was fascinated by how high up they were and kept walking to the very edge of the platform. Grandpa would yell at him to get away, and would finally have to stop what he was doing and go drag him away from the edge… Butttt.. Mike being Mike, it wasn’t long until he was back right on the edge again looking down! After so many times of yelling at him and dragging him back, grandpa finally nailed his pant leg to a board and kept him there until time to go eat lunch. Mike went crying up to grandma, ‘Grandpa nailed me to a board!’… Grandma retorted, ‘Well, are you hurt?” to which Mike had to say, ‘No’… and that was that!

       My point is that for all of their strictness… and I’m sure there are those who sometimes interpreted it as ‘meanness’… it was out of love!!! It was out of an attempt to protect and teach their children about life, and to push them into being better human beings!

       Which leads us to discussing the elephants-in-the-room… Without which, no remembrance of Teddy would be accurate or complete.

       First, I recall Grandpa Luebbert drinking one Falstaff when he was done for the day, and I’m told he also had a ‘medicinal’ shot each night before bed. My dad, Darrell, the oldest boy, only drank occasionally, while I have Never had a drink. Teddy, on the other hand, Did drink! And I’m sure you could find as many people who fault Me for Not drinking as you might have found for Him doing so. But… here is My take on that…

I have seen, and even known, some people who drink out of sadness… they drink to forget, they drink in spite, they drink to get by… they just drink to survive. But I’ve never thought that about Teddy! I don’t believe Teddy ever drank to just get drunk. Instead, I’ve always felt that Teddy drank because he just Loved life so much… and drinking made him even happier and be able to enjoy it even More! And regardless of your thoughts on drinking, I challenge Anyone to dispute that!

The second elephant we need to address is his temper. I’ve already addressed his upbringing and how much that was just a part of it. And if the truth be told, it is trait that seems to have followed ALL of the ‘Luebberts’ along this branch of the family… even I, an ‘adopted’ Luebbert, seem to have picked it up from somewhere! But there are those who would say… I fear correctly… that That is only an explanation… It is NOT an excuse! So, how DO we deal with that? I can’t make a blanket statement for every instance, but I Can say this much…

Luebberts sometimes have a Very hard time with one particular four-letter word… Love! This is something that seems, again, to be inherited… But I KNOW it can be overcome! I have told how, before dad died I was able to ‘force’ myself to start telling him I love him… and even though he might have stumbled over the words, he would say it back each time! And I recall being at ‘the garden’ one time soon after dad passed and telling Uncle Teddy that I loved him! Again, he kinda’ slurred his way through it, but he told it back to me!

Those closest to Teddy Know that he was a caring, loving person! But he showed it more by helping others in most any way that he could! He maybe wasn’t so good on a more personal level… but that Love was always there, nonetheless!

So, let’s remember Teddy for his outgoing, happy-go-lucky, even, yes, boisterous… another ‘Luebbert’ trait, by the way… way of living! He tried so Hard to be happy, and really did try to make others happy as well! Like all of us, he might not have always been successful at it… But it WAS in him… and he Did try!

Let me just close, then, with this quote from Psalms, chapter 144, verses 3 & 4… “Lord, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.       And this from the Book of Revelations 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.”

Teddy Ronald Luebbert… we pay our respects to you, we honor you and your life… And each one of us tells you in our heart how much we love you and miss you… and we hear back from you, in our hearts, how much you have loved each of us!

Amen

(Graveside)

I’d like to start by reading three passages from the Bible…

Psalm 34:18 “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

1 Peter 5:10 “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

Teddy Ronald Luebbert. Born on May 28, 1937. Passed on March 10, 2023. 86 years of living on this earth… and What a life he led!

I am not going to spend the time to try to relive all of that life again… I hope we did a fairly good job of that as we have all gathered together earlier, and will continue to so for some time to come. All I Will say is that, while maybe not appearing to be so on the surface, Teddy was a lover! He loved life… he loved his work… he loved working in the dirt… and he loved anything that grows… be it plants… or the people around him.

And, again, while it may not have been obvious, I believe he loved God as well! He carried in his wallet this little message… you can find in the memorial…

God looked around and found an empty space.

He looked down upon the earth and saw your loving face.

He put his arms around you and lifted you to rest.

God’s garden must be beautiful, for he only takes the best.

Let us pray…

       God, we send to you the soul of Teddy Ronald Luebbert. While he lived on this earth he was a son… and a brother… he was a husband, a father, and a grandfather… he was an uncle… and a friend to So many people throughout this world!

       God, we know he was not perfect… None of us are! We know he was not worthy… again, none of us are! But we also know that one drop of your Son’s blood wipes away All of his… and Our… sins! One drop of Christ’s blood washes him white as snow.

       Help us, God, to always be able to picture him in that way… Forever washed as white as snow, healthy and happy in Your Kingdom… even, perhaps, joining his brother in digging-up a plot of ground to set a few dozen Heavenly tomatoes and a few rows of potatoes out on cloud-nine!

       Through Your Son’s name we pray…

There is one last thing I want to leave you with today… Teddy also had a favorite hymn. You heard it played during the service earlier, but I would like to sing it for him now… Please feel free to join in on the chorus if you like…

In the Garden   #26

Originally written and used as my article for the May 2002 issue of the monthly newsletter I did back then, it has been rewritten to incorporate the verses from Genesis 10: 1-9 for use here…

For four years during the very-late ‘90’s and early 2000’s I was one of the sponsors of the local youth group. During that time I tried to attend as many youth-leader-orientated classes and/or seminars that I could find. To that end, I went up to Milwaukee, WI late one winter to attend a Youth Specialties seminar, and decided to go up two days early and made a mini-vacation out of it. I left Jacksonville, IL very early the first morning and didn’t stop for lunch until I found a little place about a half-hour north of Milwaukee. The name of the place was ‘Bublitz’s Family Restaurant”, and let me tell you, the owners and the employees that we had contact with definitely had that ‘northern’ twang in their voice.

       From there, I headed on up to Oshkosh and went through the Experimental Aircraft Association air museum. And again, several of the people there had that ‘Wisconsin’ sound in their speech. But even though I was just an hour farther north than where I had eaten, the sound of their speech was just a little different. On Friday I went to the Milwaukee Zoo, and Saturday was the seminar itself, held at a big Lutheran church just some blocks north of the zoo.

At the zoo, generally, the locals’ accents weren’t as noticeable. Due to my vast experience in such things, I attributed this to the people in the city being more exposed to outside influences through being more of a part of the global economy… there are more people from other parts of the country, or world, who move to, work in, or do business with the metropolis. But at the seminar, where there were youth leaders from all over Wisconsin and parts of Illinois, one could hear a number of slightly different ways of saying something.

       A few years before all of this I had decided to climb up in a ‘big truck’ for a while, and went to work for a local trucking firm. I went to plants all over Illinois and Iowa, was in Wisconsin and Indiana, and pretty well covered the southern states…Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, as well as Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas. And the accents I encountered were many. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois all have that midwestern sound, but if one really paid attention you could notice subtle differences all along the way. In Dodge City, Kansas, you start to hear a little of the west. The Georgia peach, south of Atlanta, and the little strawberry blonde doing the paperwork in Enterprise, Alabama both had the sweetest little southern accents you might like, while people in central Arkansas sounded more like Bill Clinton. But the most pronounced of any I heard was in the offices of the little cotton plant I went to in the boot-heel of Missouri! I really had to pay attention to what was being said or I would just get lost and have to ask them to please repeat themselves…several times!

       Before Columbus touched the shores in this hemisphere each tribe, indeed each people had their own language. And I’m sure that even then there were local deviations. And since the landing of the Pilgrims, the King’s English has been corrupted with such fervor that we now sometimes have trouble understanding the King’s English! It would seem that wherever you go in this great country of ours, the English that we hear is going to sound a bit different. And when you add to that mix all of the people from other countries that come to this country and add their own accents to our English—the range of sounds that one can hear speaking the same words is just amazing! And we’ve only talked about language! There are many other differences that one can notice as you move across the country.

       At a truck stop in Mississippi I ordered iced tea with my meal and promptly tore open two packets of sweetener and put in it. Big mistake! Tea is served sweet in that part of the country. And a place in Madison, WI, served kielbasas and brats made with a variety of cheeses in them. The point is that all of us are different in one way or another. Some of those differences are due to our family heritage, some to the area where we grew up, and some are learned from the culture and society that surrounds us at any given time.

       And sometimes there can be extreme differences concerning the same topic all in the same town. How many churches do you suppose are in your town? And why? A Pastor told me once of planning a special service for Easter one year and trying to get all of the churches in his area to take part. Out of 7 or 8 churches, only 3 or 4 agreed to participate. It seems that some of their philosophies prohibited them from associating with anyone else.

       Most consider the verses from Genesis that I read as telling the story of what has come to be called the ‘Tower of Babel’. Many historians often try to debunk this as an attempt to explain why we all have developed such different languages. However, I have a book of ‘historical fiction’ where the writer did extensive research into the Babylonian empire and tied it into various Biblical accounts of that period, and it all seems fairly plausible to me! I also remember studying in one of my college art classes about the art and culture of different civilizations, and the Babylonians were quite advanced for their day! So who are we to argue about the veracity of this story from Genesis? But whether-or-not this be the source of our different languages, the fact remains that we Do all speak differently… even if we all live in the same country, wherever that country might be around the world!

       But the fact remains that, even if true, it makes NO DIFFERNCE to our relationship and acceptance to God!!

In the book of John, Chapter 14 to be exact, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” For all of our diversities… for all of our differences…for all of our independence…for all of our individuality…there is only one way to have eternal life…there is only one way to see heaven and speak with God…there is only one gate. The King James version says, “I am the door,” Jesus is the door…the only door…to heaven. It doesn’t matter if you serve sweet tea with a southern accent, ride a bronco and talk like a Texan, or pull a plow through the soil of central Illinois and talk like normal people. It doesn’t matter if you say ‘Hail, Mary’, recite the Lord’s Prayer, or shout ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Amen’. Jesus is our salvation…Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus is our Savior and our Lord. Jesus is the only door…the only gate…the only way…to get to Heaven. It doesn’t matter how you say it…you only have to believe it…and accept it!

A version of this appears earlier on this site and was used on the first Sunday of Lent at the Lynnville (IL) church on February 29, 2004. THIS version has been rewritten to remove the ‘Lenton’ connection…

       I have always loved reading! I guess I learned how to fairly quickly and generally led my classmates in that ability through most of my grade-school years. And it seems as though I could never get enough of it… I would read everything! I would read the labels on cans… I would read dad’s Popular Mechanics magazine each month… I would read the lyrics in the hymnal during service… I would devour any books that I chanced to get at the library… and I dearly, dearly loved reading comic books! Whether at the barber shop, or a friend’s house, or the few that I had at home, I would read them from cover to cover, memorizing even the advertisements that filled so many pages of them. And for many years it seemed like those advertisements were the same in every issue that I chanced to see.

       There was the one for x-ray glasses that were supposed to let you see around a corner or tree to spot someone who was waiting in ambush for you… there were the ones promising to give you the body of Atlas so that the beach bully would stop kicking sand in your face… and the one that I always drooled over… a locker chest full of 1000 plastic army men posed in a number of battle positions! It cost something like $2.99 plus shipping and handling, but since my primary source of cash consisted of a weekly 25-cent allowance, we were talking half-a year’s income… just totally undoable for a young man with holes in his pockets from the money that burned whenever placed there!

       Another ad that seemed to be in each of the comics during that time was the one prompting you to make your fortune by selling seeds for them. It seemed easy enough… they would send a box of seed packets for you to sell to friends and family, after which you would send back the money and select from a number of prizes as your payment for doing so. The pictures that they showed were of gas-powered airplanes and telescopes and so on… just the kind of things that every young boy knows they just have to have! So finally, after enough pestering and promises, mom decided to let both my brother and I order a box and see how it worked. They arrived with a catalog listing all of the various prizes that were available… page after page of color pictures that were reminiscent of the Sears Christmas catalog… almost every one of which required selling multiple boxes of seeds! Undaunted, I set out that first day with my box to grandma’s house, and then to all of my friends. Over the next thirty days, which was the time period given to return either the money or the seeds, I hawked my wares to friends, to friends of friends, at church, and finally started going door-to-door… “Hello, would you be interested in buying some flower or vegetable seeds for your yard or garden?” I got to be fairly good at it. My brother, however, wasn’t nearly as enthused and as the end of our time grew near, his box was still mostly full. Mom had me take him door-to-door and help him sell some of his, so when the end of our allotted time found his box still almost half full and mine having only a few flowers seeds yet, she decreed that since I had helped him sell some of his I could empty the few packets I had left into his box and count mine as done. He got to keep a portion of the cash from what had been sold, but I got to choose a prize out of the catalog… that’s how I got my very first camera… my first sales commission!

       It seems as if over the years I have always had to be ‘selling’ something… first of all I would have to sell myself to a potential girlfriend (or wife!), or to prospective employers or investors. Once accepted into a position, I found that in addition to performing my regular duties and tasks, I had also always been the interface… the direct link, if you will… between the customer and the company, which meant representing and selling the company and its services or products to all that I came in contact with. And over the years I found that it is far, far easier for me to sell something that I really believe in myself!

For example, in the three years that I was the Ingersoll Tractor dealer in Morgan County I sold almost one hundred tractors… and these were some of the most high-quality garden tractors available, and priced accordingly! However, I don’t think that I could ever be a successful used-car salesman… I won’t try to sell someone something that I don’t believe in or use myself! The same holds true for my faith and how I try to present it to others!

       Our verses today start off with Paul quoting from Deuteronomy… let me read you the paragraph that it is from… chapter 30, verses 11-14.

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

       Moses spoke these words to Israel as a reminder that God’s Law was known to each of them. This Law had been given to Moses directly from God and was very clear and distinct. I have studied some of the instructions and decrees as listed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and God had given them a very, very specific set of rules to follow. Moreover, these rules were known to all of the Israelites… they memorized them when they were young and studied them throughout their lives! They knew them, and they knew they were to obey them!

Paul borrows and applies this phrase to the Gospel of Christ… “… the word of faith we are proclaiming…” …  and declares that it was near to each of them, as well… it was ‘in their mouths and in their hearts’! What follows, then, is what many call the ‘Gospel in a nutshell’… “…if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

       Paul tells us that, “Anyone who trusts in Christ will never be put to shame.” He also says that, “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,” and that, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”   But he also makes very plain that, “…it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

       Over the past few weeks I have been making a special effort to impress upon you the importance of reading your Bible so that YOU know what it says. I have encouraged you to ‘Open the Eyes of your Heart’ so that you may see God more clearly… I have expounded on how some ‘beliefs’ sometimes change but how our belief in God should NEVER change… we have reaffirmed our belief in the resurrection of Christ… and we have learned how we must protect and defend all of these beliefs with every ounce and breath of our being! We have come to see how the love of Christ connects ALL of these ideas and holds them together… it is what makes everything work!

Today I challenge you to look into your own heart and discern just what truly is there. Do you confess “Jesus is Lord” merely through your mouth… or do you FEEL it with all of you heart and soul? Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He died as a sacrifice for your sins on the cross, and that He was raised back to life three days later, and sits next to His Father in Heaven? And if you believe all of that, are you then doing everything in your power to ‘sell’ those beliefs to everyone you possibly can?

Because Jesus only wants those who truly believe in Him… those who know Him as the Messiah and accept Him as Lord! He only wants those who believe in what He has to offer so much that they not only use it in their own lives every day but are also trying to sell the whole world on it! And that is only possible when each of us comes to know and accept every item in His ‘product line’… Love… Peace… Contentment… Forgiveness… and at the very pinnacle… the very last word in anything that anybody could ever possibly want… Salvation!

What product line do you represent?

Using Pauls’ words from his Second letter to the Corinthians, starting with chapter 3, verse 12 and going through chapter 4, verse 2, this was given at the church in Lynnville, IL on February 22, 2004…

Many years ago I had decided to make more of an effort to get out and exercise a bit and started going out early and walk. To help pass the time I strapped my portable CD player to my belt, and with the headphones on over my cap and under my hood (it Was cold outside right then!), I would listen to some of the new Christian music CDs I’d been acquiring. I had been thinking for some time how nice it might be to use that same time to do some of the daily Bible reading, that I knew I really should be doing, by purchasing the Bible-on-CD that I had seen available, but time passed and one thing led to another and I didn’t do it.

       However, when I got back to driving over-the -road everyday I found that I could make that CD player work in at least some of the trucks, and when the subject of getting the Bible-on-CD came up again I searched for the best deal and ordered it. So it was that once it arrived I started trying to listen to at least one CD a day, though in all honesty that didn’t quite work out that way… the adapter didn’t work in the tape-player of some of the trucks, and even when it did, some roads were just too rough for it to play or the run was too short or too ‘intense’, due to weather or traffic, for me to put one in and concentrate on. Still, I listened to enough of them to know that it was going to take a while to get all the way through it… each disc is at least an hour long and there are 64 of them! And the first three were just the book of Genesis!

       I had bought the dramatized version, which means that they used different actors to read each of the characters, and added background music where appropriate. This really adds a whole new dimension and helps to visualize the story as it moves along. For example, if any of you have ever seen the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, you may have noticed that one of Jacobs’s sons is usually cast as a black man. I realize that this may bring to light how much of the Bible I still need to really study, but I always thought that that was done tongue-in-cheek to allow for someone to sing the calypso song later in the show. But on listening to this dramatized reading of Genesis, I came to realize that Jacob had sons by different women, including his wive’s handmaidens and personal servants… at least one of which was a ‘person-of-color’!

Listening to the story of Joseph and his brothers brought to mind a revelation I had regarding it some years ago. We had been studying it in our Sunday school class when it hit me… that was how the Israelites came in to Egypt! I had always known both the story of Joseph and his coat-of-many-colors and of Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea… suddenly, it was like a veil was lifted and I realized that the two stories were connected… the one tells of the beginning, the other of the end of their stay in Egypt!

       Historians tell us there is 430 years between the two stories. So the book of Exodus starts over three-hundred years after the time of Joseph with the story of how the nation of Israel had been placed in bondage and were slaves to the Egyptians. It tells of the baby Moses and how God worked through him to bring out the people and set them towards their promised land. Verses 29-35 of the 34^th chapter of Exodus tell of him bringing the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them down from Mount Sinai, and how those who saw him were afraid because his face was radiant. We read how he put a veil over his face except when he entered the presence of the Lord, and how, each time he came away, the people would all see the radiance again on his face before he reached to put the veil back down. In these verses from 2^nd Corinthians Paul talks about that very veil.

       In the verses just before the ones we read, Paul has been discussing and comparing the old Law of Moses with the New Gospel of our Lord. The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “From his discussion on the superiority of the new covenant over the old, Paul concluded that the new inspires great boldness. The Greek word translated “boldness” is the word that the Greeks used to speak of the right to free speech. Here Paul used this word to indicate the public nature of his ministry. He would boldly preach the mysteries of salvation that had been obscured for centuries. Although the Jews had God’s promises regarding the coming Savior and Messiah in the Scriptures, not even their well-educated rabbis could fathom exactly what God planned to do. But to the apostles, God had revealed this mystery: God had planned long ago to offer salvation to both Jews and Gentiles through the death of the Messiah. Openly and publicly, Paul was proclaiming this great mystery in the cities all over the Roman world.

Paul interpreted the veil over [Moses’] face as an effort on Moses’ part to conceal the fact that the radiance of his face was fading away. In the fading away of this brilliance, Paul saw a sign that the old covenant, which Moses presented to the people, would also fade.” And all of that is certainly true. But I see still more in this story.

The term veil can be used in many ways. There are bridal veils and dancing veils… there are hanging veils and natural veils… it can describe a covering, a shroud, or a curtain… as a verb it can mean to conceal or obscure something. I recall some early visits to the History Museum in Forest Park, in St. Louis, when they still had a display of all of the costumes worn by the ‘Veiled Prophet’ over the years, and all of the negative connotations that I had with that… many people didn’t realize that the Veiled Prophet was a remnant of the KKK days… the veil was intended to hide their identity! And it is this negative image… that of hiding something… that I think we need to pay attention to today.

The King James translates this verse in this way… Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

To that end, Matthew Henry’s Commentary says that the verse, “Concern(s) the duty of the ministers of the gospel to use great plainness or clearness of speech. They ought not, like Moses, to put a veil upon their faces, or obscure and darken those things which they should make plain. The gospel is a more clear dispensation than the law; the things of God are revealed in the New Testament, and ministers are much to blame if they do not set spiritual things, and gospel-truth and grace, in the clearest light that is possible. Though the Israelites could not look steadfastly to the end of what was commanded, and is now abolished… we may. We may see the veil is done away with in that Christ… who was the end of the law and whom Moses and all the prophets pointed to, and wrote of …is come to all those who believe.

Over the years, it seems, there have been many who have tried to reinterpret the words of Jesus and His Apostles to mean what they think they should mean… that is, to make them fit that that they wish to believe! They may use the excuse of ‘updating it to modern times’, or of some new ‘revelation’ given just to them, or any number of seeming good, logical reasons… but it all boils down to them reinterpreting what the Lord has said!

For example, I recall have been both fascinated and appalled by some of the arguments for and against people seeing, “The Passion of the Christ” movie when it was first released… so much so that I intentionally started to ignore most of what I heard. At that time, as well as over all of the years since, I have heard, and hear, supposedly learned men take the same passage and make totally opposite points from it… I have heard non-Christians go into ‘great detail’ as to why Pilate would never have done any of the things attributed to him as doing… and I have seen great debates and discussions concerning who was at fault for Christ’s death! To any true Christian, the answer to that particular question is obvious… I am at fault for Christ’s death… it was for my sins that he went to the Cross!

My point is this… far too often we try to see things with just our eyes! We try to understand with just our head! And we try to feel with just our fingers! The problem is that those senses were developed for use on this world… they work fine for seeing the sunshine and understanding how it makes the wheat to grow and harvesting it to feed ourselves! But when we try to use those senses to understand God, they are far too inadequate… it is as if there is a veil separating us from the full understanding and appreciation of Him and His work! How do we see past this veil… how can we remove it from between ourselves… our understanding… and God? I think the answer can be found in verse 15 of today’s Epistle reading when Paul says, “Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.”

There it is… a veil that covers our hearts! That is what prevents us, sometimes, from hearing the truth… that is what keeps us from feeling the love of God… that is what keeps us from seeing what He wants and needs us to be doing… a veil that covers our hearts! None of our physical senses can penetrate something like that! Indeed, unless brought to our attention by an outside force, none of our senses would ever detect something like that… we would simply go through our lives wondering why we had never had a really clear image of God’s love and desire, and would be open to almost any reasons given for that that we may hear, regardless of the source! And odds are that the most vocal, the most vehement, of some of those explanations are from those who also are not aware of the veil over their heart separating them from God! A true case of the blind leading the blind!

So… if the eyes in our head deceive us… if our hearing and feeling is impaired to the point of not functioning under these conditions… how do we see past this veil? By opening the eyes of our heart!

Have you heard that song? I must admit it become one of my favorites when it came out years ago, because it is so true.

“Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

  Open the eyes of my heart…

  I want to see you.

 I want to see you.”

Yes, we each have that veil over our hearts that keeps us from sometimes seeing and feeling God as He intends for us to. But Paul says, in verse 16, that, “whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” And that veil is ‘taken away’ when we learn how to see through the eyes of our heart and accept Christ wholeheartedly!

I am not going to sit here today and tell you what movies, tv shows, or songs you should see/hear or not see/hear… what I am going to tell you is to not let other people tell you what you are supposed to think about it! By the same token we must not let others make up our minds for us in any way! Open the eyes of your heart! Let God show you what He wants you to know… let God show you what He wants you to learn… let God help you to be the person he wants you to be!

Let me close with this thought from the Life Application commentary. “Thus, Paul’s boldness in his ministry lay in the eternal nature of the new covenant. Paul could act with greater confidence than the spiritual giant Moses, for Paul had been given an eternal message to proclaim to all nations. God’s plan for salvation was no longer hidden. It was not only a time to celebrate God’s great mercy; it was also a time for boldness. It was a time to declare God’s glory to all the nations, making disciples of whoever turned to God for the gift of salvation.”

People, it is still that time! Time to declare God’s glory to all nations! Time to make disciples of whomever will turn to God! And we can only do that when we ourselves understand and accept that discipleship… and we can only do that… when we open the eyes of our hearts and see the truth of God’s message to us! As Paul tells us in the last of todays’ reading, reading this time from the New Living Translation… “And so, since God in his mercy has given us this wonderful ministry, we never give up. We reject all shameful and underhanded methods. We do not try to trick anyone, and we do not distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God… and all who are honest know that.”

Tell the truth before God! Tell the truth to all the world! And to know that truth, read your Bible! Read in carefully… thoroughly… and diligently! And most of all, be sure you read it through the eyes of your heart!

Using Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 15: 12-20, this was given at the little church in Lynnville, IL on February 15, 2004…

The first full winter we spent on our small farm outside of Edwardsville, IL, found us still experimenting with different things and configurations to see what worked best for our operation and ease of maintenance. The old barn that we used for cattle was of the hand-whittled tendon-and-peg era and still had the track in the hayloft that had been used for putting up hay in earlier years. We, of course, had used our old corn elevator to fill it full of that season’s hay bales, and part of my daily chores was to feed it to the cattle on each side of the barn.

To feed the cows on the one side was a simple matter of climbing the steps and dropping however many bales were required down the steps into the hallway, then breaking them apart and spreading them out into the hay-rack that ran the length of the stall. The other side, though was actually just a fenced-off area of a machinery storage stall where we let our registered Polled-Hereford bull, Joe, get in out of the weather. There were two holes that had been cut through the floor of the hayloft for the purpose of dropping bales out, but one was over the machinery that we did have stored in that area, and the other was right over Joe’s part. Now, he didn’t get a full bale each day, so when you needed one the only thing you could do was to drop a bale through the hole into all of the muck and slop in his area, go down, climb the gate we used as a divider into it, grab the sloppy bale and throw it over the gate. Then, each day you would throw him a few slaps off of it, always being careful where you grabbed it. Needless to say, this was not pleasant, nor efficient! Furthermore, it was wasteful, because, obviously, he wouldn’t eat all of it that you did give him.

After only a week or two of doing this, I noticed an old piece of tin-siding that had been nailed to two 2×4’s to form what had probably been a corn chute sitting on a pile of junk that had been left by the previous owner. Putting my thinking cap on, I nailed one end of it underneath the hole in the floor over his stall and the other end over the divider gate. Now, when you dropped the bale through the hole it landed in the chute and slid right down over the gate! No muck… no muss… no fuss… ready to feed!

I’ve always seemed to have a knack for thinking things out like that. That’s one reason that I seem to get along with computers as well as I do… like Mr. Spock, I just tend to reason things out logically one step at a time. I recall once in my Geometry class, as a sophomore in high school, of reasoning a different solution for a given problem than what the teacher had in his book … my answer was 100% correct and one step shorter than the book’s! This was quite a shock to him, for I disliked the class and seldom did any of the homework assignments, yet on this occasion that I had, I outdid the writers of the book!

I really did not like any of the math courses that I ever took back then… probably because of the way they were taught back then… everything was just so dry and boring. But I do remember bits and pieces of what I learned. One of those ‘bits’ involves what I’ve always called the basic Algebraic equation. What that says, simply, is that if A=B, and B=C, then A must be equal to C. Let me see if I can make that simpler… if 2+2 is equal to 4, and 3+1 is equal to four, then 2+2 must be equal to 3+1! What we find in today’s verses is Paul’s use of that type of algebraic formula, or reasoning, to defend the resurrection, not only of Christ, but of all mankind!

Are you aware that there are many today who would deny the resurrection of Jesus? And I’m not talking just about non-Christians… I have been told… and I grant that that makes it second-hand… but, I have been told that there are some who profess to believe in Christ and yet deny the resurrection! Take, for example, the fact that the rock-opera Jesus Christ, Superstar ends with the crucifixion… it never mentions the fact the He arose three days later! I find that incredible!

Think about that for a minute! If Jesus’ life did indeed end altogether on the cross, then could He have been any more than just a really great teacher and philosopher? But, in the first part of this chapter, which we studied last week, Paul states emphatically that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures… that he was buried… that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures… and that he then appeared to a vast number of people!

I had written a little chart that I had passed out to those present when I gave this in person listing some of the questions or doubts that some people seem to have concerning the resurrection of Christ and some Biblical and philosophical answers that refute those doubts. If you  care to see it I will include it in the printed/manuscript portion that I always  include on the website along with this ‘live’ version… you’re free to look at that at anytime… in fact, I invite you to print and carry a copy with you, and should you ever find yourself in a discussion with someone at the coffee shop or hair-dresser’s about this very topic, you’ll have your answers at the ready. For now, though, let me just read two of the short ones as examples…

Proposed Explanation:

Unknown thieves stole Jesus’ body.

Evidence Against:

The tomb was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. — Matt 27:65-66

Proposed Explanation:

The religious leaders stole Jesus’ body to produce it later.

Evidence Against:

If the religious leaders had taken Jesus’ body, they would have produced it to stop the rumors of his resurrection.

In today’s verses, though, Paul is assuming that his audience accepts the concept of Jesus as the Messiah, and of His resurrection, and begins attacking the idea that some of the people at Corinth seem to have regarding the resurrection of the human body! We read in the Life Application Commentary that, “Christians attempting to share their faith are often shocked by the world’s denial of the possibility of Resurrection. The gospel remains an irritating and upsetting challenge to the commonly held views of life and death. True Christians are convinced that Jesus’ resurrection did happen, and that it changed everything. The Christian faith comes from Christ’s experience, not people’s individual feelings or desires. The conviction of the Resurrection gives believers hope for the future.” As we learned last week, “It seems from this passage in 1^st Corinthians, and the course of Paul’s argument, that there were some among the Corinthians who thought the resurrection an impossibility.” And Paul is taking them to task for it!

Let me read Paul’s argument again and see if I can simplify it a bit for you… if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either.  And if Christ was not raised, then all we have been taught is useless, and your trust in God is useless. The apostles would all be lying about God, for they said that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ have perished! And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.

But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again.

The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “The bodily resurrection of Christ is the center of the Christian faith. Because Christ rose from the dead, as he promised, we know that what he said is true. The Resurrection affirms the truthfulness of Jesus’ life and words. The Resurrection confirms Jesus’ unique authority to say, “I am the resurrection and the life”. Because he rose, we have certainty that our sins are forgiven. Because he rose, he lives and represents us before God. Because he rose and defeated death, we know we will also be raised. Christ’s resurrection guaranteed both his promise to us and his authority to make it. We must take him at his word and believe.”

In all honesty, by its very definition faith is not an exact science. There is no scientific or mathematical formula that I’m aware of that will prove or disprove the existence of God. There are currently no videos or photographs of Jesus walking on water… there will most likely be no ‘news at 5’ regarding His latest healing… He won’t be interviewed on the Today show tomorrow morning by Katie Couric regarding the latest speech He made on the mountain about all those who are blessed. Faith… is faith!

Either you believe in the Bible… believe the words, the instructions, and the messages that are there… or you don’t! Either you believe it to be the Word of the living God, directed by Him to be written down for us over the centuries and read, understood and obeyed by all… or you don’t! There is no pick and choose! There is no ‘bending’ of this idea a little, or ignoring that commandment… either the Bible is the Bible and you know, believe, and follow what it says… or you don’t! And if you don’t… you cannot be a true follower of Christ! And if you are not a follower of Christ… just who is it that you are following?

Proof! That’s what people want! Proof! Proof of God’s existence… proof of Jesus’ resurrection… and proof of our own reward! And I stated that there IS no scientific or mathematical proof that I am aware of! However, let me leave you with this quote from Martin Luther… “Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

That’s where our proof is! In the life around us! In the air that we breath… in the magnificent way our bodies function… in the magic of the renewal of life surrounding us almost everyday… from the budding of an apple tree, to the metamorphosing of a butterfly, to the birth of a new human being… life is ‘resurrected’ around us almost continuously! How can we doubt that the being responsible for all of these amazing miracles each and every day is any less capable of restoring these clay shells of ours and granting us everlasting life?

PROOFS! (Please Copy and Share! )

EVIDENCE THAT JESUS ACTUALLY DIED AND AROSE

This evidence demonstrates Jesus’ uniqueness in history and proves that he is God’s Son. No one else was able to predict his own resurrection and then accomplish it.

Proposed Explanation:

Jesus was only unconscious and later revived.

Evidence Against:

A Roman soldier told Pilate that Jesus was dead. — Mark 15:44-45

The Roman soldiers did not break Jesus’ legs because he had already died, and one of them pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. — John 19:32-34

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’ body and placed it in the tomb. — John 19:38-40

Proposed Explanation:

The women made a mistake and went to the wrong tomb.

Evidence Against:

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw Jesus placed in the tomb. — Matt 27:59-61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55

On Sunday morning, Peter and John also went to the same tomb. — John 20:3-9

Proposed Explanation:

Unknown thieves stole Jesus’ body.

Evidence Against:

The tomb was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. — Matt 27:65-66

Proposed Explanation:

The disciples stole Jesus’ body.

Evidence Against:

The disciples were ready to die for their faith. Stealing Jesus’ body would have been admitting that their faith was meaningless. — Acts 12:2

The tomb was guarded and sealed. — Matt 27:66

Proposed Explanation:

The religious leaders stole Jesus’ body to produce it later.

Evidence Against:

If the religious leaders had taken Jesus’ body, they would have produced it to stop the rumors of his resurrection.

(from The Life Application Commentary Series copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 by the Livingstone Corporation. Produced with permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.)