Is Anything too Hard for the Lord?

Do you prefer things to be easy or hard? Now that's kind of a difficult question isn't it? I guess it would all depend on what you were talking about? If we are talking about a test in school or doing your income taxes, well we would prefer if those were easy. What about a puzzle? Sometimes we like a challenge. OK, so the question could really go either way, but in general, what do you prefer? I think most of us would prefer if things were easier instead of harder. After all, that desire for things to be easy is what motivates a lot of great inventions and technology. Would we have invented cars, if we thought that walking was just easy enough? Or airplanes if driving were easy enough? If you are like me then you are still looking forward to the days of flying cars? Why? Because it is easy.

Our lesson from Genesis has a great question in it. Is anything too hard for the Lord? That's the question. The story takes to the oaks of Mamre. We are about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. And it is in the heat of the day, which means that it is really, really hot. Abraham is sitting at the door of his tent.

Abraham is a great guy. He started out as Abram. Living in the land of Haran. Haran was in modern day Iraq. Abram was not a follower of God, not yet at the time that he was called by God. And yet, God out of his grace and mercy calls Abram to leave the idolatry, and the land and security of his fathers, to go to a place where God would show him. And just like that Abram gets up and goes. Funny thing about Abram's name by the way, it means "exalted father." Know why that is funny? Because Abram has no children. And so at the very, very young and tender age of 75 Abram goes.

Sometime later his name is changed to Abraham, which means, "Father of many." And by the time that he is 99 he has one son, but this was through his wife's servant and not his wife Sarah. So our "Father of Many" is really still only a Father of one.

So Abraham is sitting at his tent. It was how you kept cool during those hot parts of the day. He lifts up his eyes and behold there are three men standing in front of him. He sees them and he gets up and runs to meet them. Now that is kind of significant. The Hebrew of this tells us that they kind of showed up suddenly. And the fact that Abraham runs to meet them, well it is a little undignified for a man his age, so it must be that there is something about this visitor.

In fact, there is. Because the text tells us that it was the Lord who appeared to Abraham there. So Abraham runs to meet his guests and bows himself down before them and invites them to stay. Now hospitality in this culture and at this time was a big deal. It was very important to show good hospitality. So Abraham offers some water and some bread and his offer is accepted.

So Abraham has a meal prepared that is lavish. It is way more than three people could ever eat, but remember, this is the Lord and two of his angels. These are important guests who deserve nothing less than the best. So he has three seahs of flour made into cakes. This is roughly 7.3 liters. He had a calf prepared in order to provide meat. This was extremely rare. The meal is completed with curds and milk and Abraham serves his guests and waits while they eat their meal.

They ask where Sarah, Abraham's wife is? "She is in the tent." He tells them. It was customary in that culture for the women to not eat with the men, but to eat after them. The Lord says, "I will return this time next year and Sarah will have a son.

Sarah is listening from behind the tent door and do you remember what she does? She laughs. Now Abraham isn't that old. He is only 99. And Sarah is quite a bit younger than he is, she is 89. Can you imagine finding out at the age of 89 that you are going to have a child? What would you do? I'm 31 and I can't imagine having another one. For Sarah, there really isn't even the issue of wanting or not wanting, she certainly wants a child. But at the age of 89, it is a biological impossibility. Wouldn't you laugh too?

But the Lord says, "Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return next year at this time and Sarah will have a son." Is anything too hard for the Lord? That's the question of the day, and it is a good question too. But it is also one of those questions where knowing the answer and living according to the answer are two different things.

Because this is one of those questions where we know that it is true. We know that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Really, nothing. Our God is the creator of the entire universe everything that we can see, and even all the stuff that we can't see. Our God has defeated the powers of sin and death through Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Our God has made us his own dearly loved adopted sons and daughters through the waters of holy baptism. Nothing is too hard for God.

And yet, even though we know it, for some reason, we find that it is really easy to live life as if that were not true. So we worry. We panic. We get frantic. We are not the only ones. We are in good company. Sarah, when confronted with her laughter, denied it and said, "I didn't laugh." It was almost as if she were a little kid trying to stay out of trouble.

I'm not talking about small insignificant things here. I'm talking about big stuff. Like, what do you do when the money is gone and yet the bills are due? What do you do when your relationship is really struggling and that awful "D" keeps coming up? What do you do when the medical test results come back and you are suddenly face to face with your worst fears? What do you do when you are struggling with an addiction, or depression? These are very real issues. And while we know that nothing is too difficult for the Lord, sometimes it is very hard to reconcile what we know with what we seem to be experiencing.

Is anything too hard for the Lord? The answer is no. It really is not. That is the good news in all of this. It is not too hard for the Lord. Nothing that we could ever possibly face in this life is too hard for the Lord. Now he may not show us the solution in the timing that we would like. He may allow us to be pressed a little harder than we would be comfortable with. But nothing that we would ever possibly face in this life is too difficult for the Lord.

Our God is faithful. He always, always keeps his promises. So we can take our problems, all of our problems to the Lord. We can run to him knowing that he will provide for everything that we need to support our bodies and lives. The one who has paid the price for our sins. The one who has restored us back to himself. The one who gives us life that never ends. Nothing is too hard for him. He will see us through. He kept his promise to Sarah. Within the year she had a son. Can you imagine giving birth at the age of 90? And then having to go through the terrible twos when you are 92? And do you remember the name of her son? Isaac. Isaac means "laughter."

The story of Abraham is important for the life of the church. God set Abraham apart, God blessed him, so that Abraham could be a blessing to others. God told Abraham that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. And indeed they are, because through Abraham's family comes Jesus, the savior of the world. There is no better way for the nations to be blessed, and yet that is not the only way that the nations are blessed.

Because the people of God, the children of Abraham, are also in world in order to show the world who God is, and what it is like to live life in relationship with him. Because our God is a God of relationships. He is actively about the work of reconciling the world to himself, and he includes you and me, his people, children of Abraham, in this work. It is a great privilege and blessing. Isn't it wonderful news to know that no matter what you are facing, no matter how much the evidence around you seems to tell you that it is too difficult for God, isn't it great to know that it really is not? And we all know people who could really use that good news in their lives too.

Our God is a God of relationship. And he lives that with us. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. This story of Abraham and his guests is the story that is used in the icon of the Holy Trinity painted by Rubleov in the 15^th Century. Now as Lutherans we don't approach icons in the same way as our Easter Orthodox friends. But they are certainly beautiful art, and a picture is worth a thousand words. So allow me to unpack this for you a little bit and to show us a little something about our God…

In our text this morning we saw the Lord come to Abraham. In our lives too our God comes to us. Good reason to be sure to greet those strangers, the author of Hebrews says that in showing hospitality some have entertained angels and didn't even know it. But our God also comes to us in sure, certain and unmistakable ways. He comes to you and me through the hearing of his word. He comes to you and me through baptism and holy communion. These are means where we do not have to guess, where we do not have to wonder, but we can be sure and certain that our God comes to us just as certain as he did to Abraham and Sarah.

This God who was faithful to them, will also be faithful to you and me no matter what is going on in our lives, no matter what challenges we are faced with. Nothing is too difficult for our God.

May this great truth be evident in your lives, and may you always be comforted and strengthened by the great presence of our great God in your life. Because nothing is too difficult for him. Amen.

Some Questions on the Positively Preposterous Parable

One of the goals with this blog is to spark conversation and dialogue. Every once in a while some questions come through. Thank you to the one who posted them. My responses are below.

 

Since both the Priest and the man who was attacked were both going away from Jerusalem (according to St. Luke), I am assuming that the Priest had completed his annual week or two of work in the Temple and was on his way back home. Would it have been permissible, then, for the Priest to have attended to the wounded man and incurred ritual impurity and could take the steps to restore purity once he arrived home?

First of all, I think a good point to remember is that these are fictional characters. The major contrast and emphasis of the parable is between the ones who did not help, religious leaders, and the one who did, the Samaritan. So when we get into the motivations and whatnot of the characters involved we are merely speculating and have moved beyond the intent of the parable. But it is fun to talk about it, so let's speculate. You could go in one of two directions with the priest. One would be sympathetic, and the other would not be. If you are going to be sympathetic you could argue that the road he was traveling was quite dangerous. There was no way of knowing how genuine the need of the man really was. He could have been a robber pretending to be hurt and then when the priest would go to help, the others would jump the priest. If you have ever driven through a bad neighborhood in the city at night, you know what this feeling is like. If that is the case, you can hardly argue with the priest. The other way is to say that he should have put the needs of his fellow brother ahead of his own ritual purity. After all true religion is caring for the orphan, widow and those in need. But again, this is all speculation.

I would also appreciate your insight on the relationship and differences in Priests and Levites since both are prominent players (more like non-players) in the parable. I am of the opinion that all Priests are Levites (except Melchizedek and Christ), but not all Levites are Priests. Is this correct?

The priests would have been descendants of the Aaron the brother of Moses. Aaron and his sons were chosen to be priests and to offer the sacrifices of the people to God. Then within the priesthood there was always the power struggles and whatnot that come when sinful human beings are together. So the priests in the city were seen as more important than the ones who lived in the villages and surrounding areas. The Levites were descendants of Levi, but not necessarily a descendant of Aaron. So your assumption is correct. But realize that the history of the priesthood is not as simply as what this answer makes out. There is a long history and lots of politics and debates over who has the right to claim the priesthood and all that kind of good stuff. But again, to get too deep into that is to miss the point of the parable.

Did non-Priest Levites participate in the business of the Temple in roles other than their traditional ones as musicians and cleaners?
I am sure they did, but my understanding of Temple roles is a bit rusty at the moment, so I would have to look into that. The bottom line is that both the priest and the Levite not only should have helped the man in need, but they would have been expected to. If we were to tell the parable in modern day terms it would be as if Superman and Batman both passed the guy up and Lex Luthor came by and helped him out. Being a neighbor has less to do with the status that we have and more to do with showing mercy and compassion.

 

Thanks for the questions. I hope my responses help. Blessings to all of you this week.

 

Sincerely,

Pastor CJ

A Positively Preposterous Parable

I love to watch movies. It is one of my favorite things to do. It never fails. Where there are movies, there are always bound to be previews. Do you ever pay much attention to movie previews? They are designed to capture your interest and to get you to come out again and see more movies. There are different styles and types of previews, but often you will see a little quote from movie critiques.

So here you are, sitting in your seat with your giant popcorn, and 4 gallon cup of pop that you paid $25 for, and the previews come on and you see things like, "outstanding," "superb," "the best movie of the year," "two thumbs up." This list goes on and on. The words are almost always preceded by or followed by an ellipsis. You do not even know if it is a positive or negative review. So if the critic wrote that the movie was "this movie was not outstanding," then the preview would show "… outstanding."

Well if there had been parable critics in the time when Jesus told this parable about the Good Samaritan. I imagine that no amount of ellipses would help the previews. The critics would not have many positive things to say at all. You would probably see something like, "offensive," "shocking," "insulting." They might even go as far as to say that it was a "Positively Preposterous Parable."

Now this might be a little difficult for us to understand. This is a parable that we are fairly familiar with. Most people have at least heard of the Good Samaritan. In fact, in our world when someone does something nice for another person we say that they are a Good Samaritan. It is not uncommon to hear an anchor on the evening news use the phrase when they are telling a story about people helping people.

I mean it is a good story, who could really have issue with someone helping out another person in need? Well, for the Jewish people who first heard this, they had a huge problem with it. It is not that they took issue with helping another person. That was not the case at all. For them the issue really was the identities of the characters. I mean, come on, that a Jew would be helped by a Samaritan. Really? That is crazy. It is positively preposterous.

Jews and Samaritans did not get along very well. They just did not ever have anything to do with one another. And there was a long history behind it. If you go back about a thousand years from Jesus, you will find yourself in the neighborhood of King David; slayer of giant, writer of psalms, king of Israel. David's son Solomon was the wise guy who succeeded him on the throne. And it was Solomon's son Rehoboam, who had a pretty major role in the split of the kingdom from one to two.

Now you have the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south. In the year 722 B.C. the Assyrians come in and they wipe out the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel. The Assyrians come and they take the people from the Northern kingdom and they relocate them throughout their very big empire. And the Assyrians bring in new, foreign people from across their empire to live in the land that once belonged to Israel.

As marriages took place, and children were born, the people that lived in this land were seen as half-breeds. They were not nearly as good as the full-blooded children of Abraham. These are the people who became known as Samaritans. At one point they even tired to build their own temple. A very offensive act to any Jew. It was terrible. It was worse than anything you might find between a Spartan and a Wolverine. So to talk about a Samaritan is to talk about a person who has rejected God's law, who is not a full-blooded child of Abraham, and who is someone that a good God-fearing Jew would want nothing to do with. Anything beyond this would be positively preposterous.

Last week we saw a picture of Jesus and mission. He sends out a group of disciples they come back rejoicing that the demons are subject to them in Jesus' name. And Jesus tells them to rejoice not that the demons are subject to them, but that their names are written in heaven. And while the lesson ended there, the story does not. From that point Jesus offers up a prayer of thanks to God because he has hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

He then turns to the disciples and says, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear; and did not hear it."

And behold. A lawyer stands up so that he could test Jesus and asks him a question. "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" It is not a bad question that he asks. Neither was it an uncommon question to be asked. For this conversation was one that had been debated by the rabbis for many, many years. The issue here is that this lawyer is not asking the question because he is seeking the answer, he is asking it in order to show-up Jesus.

By the way, this is not a lawyer in the secular sense. This is one who studies and specializes in the Law of Moses, in Scripture. This is a religious kind of a guy. So Jesus answers his question with another question. "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" And the man correctly answers, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus tells him that he answered correctly. That's one point for Jesus. But the lawyer is not ready to give up. So he asks another question. Again, he is not asking it because he wants to know the answer. Now he is trying to justify himself. So he asks, "Who is my neighbor?"

And Jesus responds with a positively preposterous parable. A man, most likely a Jew, is on a journey and is encountered by robbers. They beat him up and leave him for dead. A priest, another Jew, comes along the way and sees the man, and passes by the other side of the street. Then comes a Levite, another Jew. He does the same thing.

What is going on here is that you have religious kinds of guys, Jews, people who would be familiar with the love the lord your God and love your neighbor thing, and what do they do? What do they do when they see their fellow brother lying there on the road? Nothing. They do nothing. They pass right on by. They walk right on by. Then comes a Samaritan and he has compassion on the injured man.

Now it is bad enough that the injured man was ignored by the priest and Levite. But the fact that he was helped by a Samaritan, a no-good, half-breed, law-disregarding Samaritan, that is positively preposterous.

Not only that, but this Samaritan goes beyond merely helping the man. He binds up his wounds. He transports him to a place of safety. And they he gives a large sum of money, two days worth of wages, enough to keep him there for a couple of months, and promises to pick up the tab on any other expenses. Not only does he help, but his help is lavish. It is help that is given out of mercy and compassion. It is help that comes from a neighbor.

You see in that day, a Jew would call another Jew his or her neighbor. But not an outsider, and certainly not a Samaritan. So when the lawyer is asking Jesus about who his neighbor is, he is expecting to be in safe territory. And yet Jesus turns things around on him. And he tells this parable that is positively preposterous. Your neighbor is not just the people like you. Your neighbor is anyone who is in need. Jesus asks which of the three men was the neighbor. The lawyer cannot even bring himself to say it was the Samaritan, he says, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus tells him to go and do likewise.

Wow. Do you see it? Do you get it? What is happening here is positively preposterous. But not because Jews and Samaritans don't get along too well. By the way, the Jews in Jesus' day would be like the members of the church today. We often act just like they do, and so have no right to look down our noses at them, and often will have a difficult time learning the same lesson. I believe that the reason the Holy Spirit has preserved these stories for the church is because the church needs to hear and learn from them. So here is that lesson.

Love the lord your God with all your, heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Go and do. Is this a little preposterous? OK Pastor, you are getting into some dangerous territory. Sounds like some works righteousness stuff going on here. No. That is not the case but what we are talking about is a little preposterous.

You and I are sinful human beings. We know that we are to love God and neighbor, but that it is too difficult to do. It is easy to put other things before God. It is easy to drive by that person with the sign asking for help. It is easy to let the phone ring and pretend that we are not home. And then we read and hear something like this, and we feel, well guilty. Good ol, Lutheran guilt. I know I should do those things, I even want to do those things, and yet…

But here is the thing to remember; in spite of our sinfulness the love that our God has for us is preposterous. It is beyond reason or understanding. His love is lavish. His forgiveness is real and certain and for the sake of Jesus. It is not based on the amount or the quality of love that we show. This preposterous love from our God is never in short supply. It is always constant. In Jesus we are loved and forgiven by God. We are freed from sin and death and the devil. We are free from having to earn our salvation. So that we can be free to love and serve both God and neighbor. We don't have to focus on ourselves all the time, it is not that much fun anyway, but we can love and serve and experience life in a great and preposterous abundance.

Luther said that God is able to help everyone, but he does not want to do it alone. Our God wants us to work with him, and so he works with us and through us. God does not need our acts of love, but our neighbors sure do. Now let's begin to imagine. What if we as a congregation challenge ourselves to be known for preposterous acts of love? What would that look like? How would we gain that reputation? What would we need to do in order to become the preposterous people of Port Huron? Think about it. Pray about it. Does it give you goose bumps? Is it exciting?

God's preposterous love fills our lives, so that we can go and share it with others. So that we can help those in need. So that we can share with the world the awesome grace mercy and forgiveness of our God in Jesus.

God's preposterous love is for you. May it always be joy and strength for you, especially in service. Now and Always. Amen.

A Couple of Twists

A man was walking down the street one evening and he notices that his friend is behaving rather oddly. He is crawling around on his hands and knees in circles around a light pole. He wasn't exactly sure if it was him or not, because it was so dark out, but by the time he got closer, he realized that it was indeed his friend. "What are you doing?" the man asked. "I'm looking for my keys." His friend replies."Let me give you a hand." So he gets down on his hands and knees and begins making laps around the light pole.

It is not long and a third friend happens upon the first two and asks what is going on. They explain and he offers to help and starts his orbit around the light pole in search of the keys. So here you have three guys on their hands and knees crawling around this light pole looking for a set of keys. After a time, a police officer notices this strange train going around in circles and he walks up to the guys and asks them what is going on. They explain it to him and he asks, "Well where did you lose the keys?" and the first guy says, "I lost them down the street a bit." And the police officer asks, "Well, then why are you looking for them here?" And the man says, "Because this is where the light is."

Have you ever lost something valuable or important? It has got to be one of the worse experiences. You get that sinking feeling in your gut as you realize that it is gone, and you search high and low. Every place that you can possibly think of to look, you look. You may even find yourself going back to places you have already looked three or four times in hopes that somehow it will be there when look again. And you become consumed with the hunt. It is all that you can think about. It is the only thing you want to do, until you at last find your long lost treasure.

We do a lot to try to prevent things from becoming lost. You can buy a keychain that will beep when you clap your hands, so that when you can't find them, all you have to do is listen for the beep. You can download software that will supposedly allow you to recover a file that you accidently deleted. There is an app you can download that will show you the location of lost ipods. You lose it, find your buddy, have him download the app, and then look up the location. Have you ever called your own cell phone to follow the ring? Or had to push the pager button on your cordless phone?

Losing something is not a pleasant or fun experience. And if you understand this, then you can understand why this text in our gospel lesson is so very important. These verses paint for us a picture of Jesus and give us a glimpse of how important the work of mission is to him. Thus, we can conclude that mission is also to be important for the life of the church, you and me, as well.

In this text Jesus is sending out a large group of disciples ahead of him. He is sending them to the places where he was about to go. They are to go and heal the sick and say, "The kingdom of God has come near to you." Why? Because our God is a God who is concerned with seeking and saving that which was lost.

He is a God who did not give up on the world, who does not give up on us because of sin and our own sinfulness, but instead he goes to great lengths in order restore us and bring us back to himself. Indeed, he goes through great lengths to restore and bring back to himself all people, because he loves them so very, very much.

So what we see here in the tenth chapter of Luke is Jesus sending out this group of disciples to announce that God's Kingdom has indeed come near. Now this is a very cool and important concept for us to understand as God's people; especially since we think in terms of time and timelines.

So let's take a look at this time line. Here you have the beginning. God creates the heavens and the earth. Then the fall and sin and death enter the picture. But even then at that point at that moment there is a promise of restoration and salvation. Now Go all the way to the end. What happens at the end? The Kingdom of God. Sin is defeated. Death is no more. The devil is forever gone. At the end there is a new heaven and a new earth and God's people live forever with him. There is no more sin, or sickness or suffering or injustice. All the wrongs that we see in our world are made right. It is something for us to look forward to with great anticipation. Because when God's Kingdom comes, everything will be as it should be.

Now there is a twist in this story. Everyone loves a good twist. You are watching a movie or reading a book something unexpected happens in the story and…Wow! Didn't see that one coming, that was awesome. So here is the twist in the Kingdom of God story. The Kingdom of God did not wait for time to come to an end in order for it to be a part of the lives of God's people, in order for it to be experienced by you and me. Because the Kingdom of God has broken into time. It is come into our midst, and now it is indeed near. We get to experience it right now.

It came through Jesus. If you look at Jesus as he walks the earth you find that wherever he goes creation is restored. Storms are clamed. Demons are driven out. Sicknesses are cured. The blind see. The lame walk. The deaf hear. The mute speak. Sins are forgiven. The dead are raised.

This is why when the demons see Jesus they ask him if he has come to destroy them before the appointed time. They expect it at the end of time, they are not expecting it at the moment that he is there. But in Jesus the Kingdom of God has broken into time and we get to experience it.

It is not just something we wait for, but something we get to experience right now. Not in all of its fullness mind you, but we get a foretaste of the feast that is to come. But be sure that this foretaste is the real deal. We get to experience life with our God right now. We get to live in relationship with him. We hear his word, and receive his gifts in the sacraments. He restores us, fills us with us love and grace, so much so that we are overflowing and he sends us out to announce and proclaim and to show that the Kingdom of God has come near.

This is so very important that it cannot be understated. Making this good news known in our world is something that needs to be a top priority for us, especially for us as a congregation. We do this not just in the words that we say, but in our actions as well, in the ways that we live life together. It is different than the way the world lives. After all, they will know that we are Christians not by the T-shirts that we wear, or the music that we listen to, or by the stores where we shop, but they will known we are Christians by the love that we have for one another.

Jesus says that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray for the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. Any time we talk about mission and the great task of making the good news of God's love and grace and mercy in Jesus known to the world the best place to start is with prayer. And not just the kinds of prayers where we are asking God to send others, not just the professional workers, church workers or missionaries, but we do this together as a family of faith, as the body of Christ in this place. Pray for God to open our eyes to see what he has to show us, and to hear what he has to say to us. And to give us courage to follow where he is leading us.

The next set of instructions that Jesus gives is about not getting all caught up in the things that would be so easily distracting. Don't' worry about supplies or small customs, simply go and heal the sick, drive out demons and announce that the Kingdom of God has come near.

This is not to say that we don't practice good stewardship and become frivolous and wasteful with what God has entrusted to us. But it is a reminder for us to do a priority check. What is most important? A friend of my has a sign in his office that reads, "Remember, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

So these are the instructions that the group of disciples are given and they are sent out. When we get to verse 17, we see that they come back with great joy over the things that they had seen and experienced while on their mission. Even the demons are subject to them! Cool! Talk about great power and opportunity.

And once more, our Lord puts everything into perspective. He says, "I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you." Can you see them all wide eyed and excited as he is speaking. Perhaps punching each other on the shoulder and giving out high fives, maybe even posting it on their facebook account. This is some pretty major stuff here. And Jesus says, "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Ah, another twist. As we talk about mission and the work of proclaiming this good news to the world around us, we are sure to see and experience some really awesome and exciting things. It will be great. It will be awesome, there will be all kinds of things to celebrate and rejoice about. But in the midst of all that, in the midst of all the great things we will see and experience, our rejoicing comes out of not the things that we do, but out of the things that our God does for us, are names are written in heaven. Simple. Humble. Certain. Sins forgiven, life and salvation are ours, not for our sake or because of us, but for Jesus' sake. It is something that is truly worth rejoicing about.

There are some very exciting days ahead of us. For that we can really thank and praise our God. But in the midst of all of it, we rejoice not just because God works so graciously in our midst, but because he has worked so specifically in our lives. Your names are written in heaven.

May this good news be a source of joy and strength and comfort for you now, and always, especially as we go and proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near. Amen.