From Where Will My Help Come?

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 121 and Acts 1: 1-11 Sermon Title: From Where Will My Help Come? Preached on May 29, 2022 Friends, we need help. It’s always been true, but some weeks our need for help is made plainer than others, and last week the reality of human depravity and our inability to even know how to address it was made abundantly clear for all in the course of 10 days’ time: A young man in Buffalo, New York, after considering a church or an elementary school, chose a supermarket. There, he killed 10 people. Three more were wounded. The victims range in age from 20 to 86. 11 of the 13 shot were black. Another walked into a Presbyterian church in California. He killed one and wounded five from that Taiwanese congregation. And last Tuesday, May 24th, 19 children and two adults died in a shooting at an elementary school in Texas - 19 children and two adults in an elementary school. Have you seen their pictures? Did you see their parents, how they wept and cried out? Did you even need to see them because you already knew in your heart what they were doing and how they were feeling? This week, we have all felt what the one who wrote Psalm 121 felt. I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? From where will my help come? That’s what we’re all asking. However, we don’t know the answer to that question. We don’t all agree on the answer. We don’t even all agree on the problem. Is the problem racism? Guns? Mental illness? Bullying? What is the solution? Policy change? Armed teachers? It’s all terrifying, and it’s hard to even know where to look or what to do. I woke up last Wednesday morning after reading and watching and looking at the faces of those elementary school kids, recognizing that Sara and I could be among those parents looking for our daughters, and I longed for the good old days when all we faced was a global pandemic. At least we had our kids at home and knew how to keep them safe. Now, many of the effects of that pandemic are gone. Life is returning to normal after the COVID-19 virus had us terrified, but we still have the problem of human evil. We still need help, and as we look for help, today I ask you to recognize that we humans don’t necessarily know where to find it. I lift up my eyes to the hills, says the psalmist. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Will our help come from the hills? No. This line from the psalm: I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? is a question that the author asks, and it’s a question that we all need to be asking, for before we go rushing to a solution or broadcasting our opinions, we must hear the answer: I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord. That’s the answer according to the psalm, and this answer points to the original sin of humankind. We don’t naturally like the idea of waiting on God for the solution. We want to do it ourselves. We don’t want to ask for help. We look up to the hills and rub our hands together. We rack our minds for a solution. I remember so well one hot Sunday morning in Columbia, Tennessee where I was the pastor. Someone said, “The air conditioner is out again.” When I heard that, what did I do? I started walking out to the air conditioner unit outside the church. Would I have known how to fix it once I got there? Of course not. Still, I have an opinion. I want to do something about the problem. Am I an expert? No. Likewise, the Bible says that human sin came into the world the moment Eve and Adam heard from God, “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Trust me on this one.” Human sin begins here, with two people sure that they know better than God. They were sure that they had the answer, and they didn’t. The Bible says that’s the first of all humanity’s sin. Sin begins when we humans think we know better than God, and wisdom begins when we stop staring off into the hills and start to listen. That’s why we teach the children to sing, “We are weak, but He is strong.” It’s because we are weak, foolish, shortsighted, and narrow-minded. For advice, we go to people who tell us what we want to hear, and when no one will tell us what we want to hear, we just stop listening. Therefore, we must be so brave as to face the fact that we are all the time looking to the wrong places for answers. I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? It’s a question, and the psalmist provides the answer: Help comes from God. That’s hard for us to accept. Because that’s hard for us to accept, we look to the disciples in our second Scripture lesson from the book of Acts, and what are they doing? They are staring off into the clouds. We read: As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” This is such a funny image, with such a strange question. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. That’s what the two men said. Were they angels? I’m sure they were because they do this unlikely thing. They say, “He’ll come back. Just wait.” That’s not what humans do. Humans look up to the hills or stare up into the clouds, but look to Jesus this morning. Don’t look to the hills. Don’t look to the clouds. Don’t look to yourself for the solution. Don’t stare into the darkness so long that it overcomes you. Look to Jesus. Where was Jesus? Where was love? Where there was love, there was Jesus. There were two teachers with those children. Their names are Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, and when I think of them, when I think of the teachers I’ve had, when I think of the teachers my children have now, I know exactly where they were standing when that young man broke into the classroom. I know where they were standing. Do you? I think of Mrs. Lawton, who told my wife, Sara, just the other day that I was a kind-hearted troublemaker in her class at Marietta Middle School. She had to lecture me and my friends, but she saw remorse in my eyes when she did. That’s been more than 35 years, and she still remembers how I looked when she had to lecture me, so I know where she would have been standing. I think of the teachers in our preschool. I’ve seen them walk their children down to our playground. The kids follow behind them like little ducklings. I stop to speak to the ones I know when they line up for carpool at the end of their day, and I see how their teachers wipe their noses and touch their cheeks, and so I know where they would have been standing. I know just where they would have been standing. This morning, don’t look to the mountains, don’t stare at the clouds, stop watching the news, and look away from the darkness. Think of Jesus. You know He loves the little children, all the children of the world, so I know that when evil rose from the earth and He faced the choice, to save Himself or die before us, He chose death. He chose to die before abandoning us, His children, whom He loves. On this Sunday before Memorial Day, I call on you to look down from the hills, to look away from the clouds. Turn away from the darkness and towards the light, for the Lord Jesus Christ, He will come in the same way as you saw Him go. He comes to us in love and grace. He comes to us in sacrifice. He comes to us in teachers. He comes to us from the places we hardly expect to find Him, so stop looking in the same old places. Stop staring at your TV screen and turn your gaze to the light. It shines all around us. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Look to love. Look to the light. There you will find our help. Amen.

The City Without a Temple

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 1: 1-5 and Revelation 21: 10; 21:22-22:5 Sermon Title: The City Without a Temple Preached on May 22, 2022 I’ve never driven past an old church without wanting to go inside. Are you the same way? As a seminary student, I often had the opportunity to go out to rural churches to preach. Their standards weren’t very high, so they kindly invited me to go out and struggle through leading a worship service as I learned what being a preacher is all about. I remember a little country church called Friendship Presbyterian way south of the airport. They had about a dozen members, all faithful and kind. One told me how her husband was a Gideon and had dedicated so much of his time to making Scripture available to those who didn’t have a Bible in the home. Another was the man who lived across the street from the church. He met me when I drove up, and it was his job each Sunday morning to unlock the building. He also handed me the bulletin. The first time I preached there, I looked through it, saw the place where I’d give the sermon, and asked about how to call for the offering and a couple other details. I also noticed that there’d be a choir anthem, only the choir hadn’t shown up yet. That was ok. It was still early. I walked around the old graveyard and reviewed my sermon notes. Then, when it was time to get the service started, I sat in the big chair up front and noticed that there was still no choir in the choir loft. Without them, I went on with the Call to Worship and the Prayer of Confession, though the closer we got to the anthem, the more nervous I got. Well, when we got to the choir anthem, the congregation in the pews stood up, went into the choir loft, and sang the anthem. When it was over, they went back to the pews, and the service went on. Can you imagine? The barrier between the choir loft and the congregation is reassuring to a lot of people. It feels like a healthy boundary. So long as you’re not on the other side of that wall, it’s ok if you need to mumble through the hymns or can’t read music, but the folks over there in the choir loft, they can really sing. They can. In fact, they’ve given me a false sense of my own ability. Someone once told me that the best thing about being a pastor is that you never have to sit with your children in church. Our children would say that the best thing about their dad being a pastor is that he rarely sits with them in church. The last time I sat with our girls, and we got to the hymn, they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “Dad, why are you singing so loudly? We don’t do it like that where we sit!” Well, I’ve grown so used to singing up here where I’m so close to the choir that no matter how loudly I sing, I can hardly hear my own voice. I mostly hear theirs, so the volume on the self-awareness has gone down, and the volume of my singing voice has gone up. When I get out there in the congregation, I do it all wrong. I do it the way the choir does behind the wall that separates the choir loft from the congregation, just not as well as they do. Still, we all must get ready to sing as though we were in the choir, for in heaven, there will be no such wall. There will be no wall between the choir loft and the congregation. There will be no wall between what we do in here and what we do out there. When we’re in heaven, some say, we’ll all be issued harps and wings, and we’ll sit on the clouds to sing hymns to the glory of God day and night. That’s how Aunt Becky said it would be in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If you remember, when Tom Sawyer heard about it, he decided he’d rather not go. Do you remember that? He decided upon hearing about all the singing required that he’d rather go to the other place to be with his friend Huckleberry Finn, who everyone said was not good enough to go the Good Place. Of course, we have no jurisdiction over who will go and who will not. In this Scripture lesson from the book of Revelation, the Book of Life and whose names are written in it are clearly the jurisdiction of the Lamb and not us. We just oversee membership rolls, which isn’t the same thing, though sometimes we think it is. Back in Columbia, Tennessee, unlike in the New Jerusalem, there is a church on every corner. You couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into one, and when I first started as a pastor there, when I was getting the lay of the land, I wanted to walk down the sidewalk to meet the nearby pastor at West Seventh Church of Christ. It was just down the street from First Presbyterian Church, where I was the pastor, so we were neighbors, only before I could get down there to meet the pastor at West Seventh Church of Christ, someone said to me, “But Joe, you know they think we’re all going to hell.” “Really?” I asked. “They do. We have instruments in our sanctuary and women preachers. They don’t like that. They think we’re going to hell.” I thought that was strange, and I wanted to know more. Maybe I was I little scared they were right, so I went and asked the county historian, a knowledgeable man and a good Presbyterian, “Bob, is it true what they say, that the folks at West Seventh Church of Christ think we’re going to hell?” “Not only do they think we’re going to hell, the folks at West Seventh Church of Christ think that the folks at Greymere Church of Christ are going to hell for that fancy electric sign they put up out by the road, and the folks at Greymere think that the folks at Highland Church of Christ are going to hell because their kids are all in public school, and all of them think that the folks at Maury Hills Church of Christ are going to hell because in one of their services each Sunday, they started using guitars.” “What?” I asked, “Are you serious?” “I am,” he said. “The only place they don’t judge each other is when they’re in the liquor store. They all go there, but they can’t tell anyone who they saw in there, or they’d be giving themselves away.” Here on earth, we have these barriers. We draw the line between the congregation and the choir. We draw a line between different churches and denominations. We pay attention to whose name is on which membership role, though in the New Jerusalem, there will be no membership role. There’s only the Book of Life. There also will be no churches. None. Did you see that? All the walls of the churches will come down that we might sing one loud “halleluiah” to the King of Kings. Think for a minute, though, about how far away from that we are. This is what we read from the 21st and 22nd chapter of Revelation: I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Did you hear that? The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. All the nations doing this one thing. All the kings of the nations using their glory to honor the King of Kings rather than themselves. That sounds wonderful, for in this world we can’t even compromise on what words to say in the Lord’s Prayer. In Tennessee, there was another country church I loved. They were a Presbyterian church, but the closest church was a Methodist church, so they worked out a deal. The pastor at the little Methodist church would come down to lead services at the Presbyterian church, and by the time I got to know them, they were saying “forgive us our trespasses” instead of “forgive us our debts” when they prayed the Lord’s Prayer. Well, that was ok, but they were excited at the idea of having a Presbyterian preach. They talked me into preaching there once a month and celebrating communion with them. I’d go and do that, except for when it rained. When it rained, they didn’t have church because the roof leaked so badly. Can you believe that? It’s true. That leaky roof reminds me of something else that happens in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Maybe you remember that Tom Sawyer didn’t die and go on to playing a harp on a cloud in Mark Twain’s novel. No, he didn’t reach the end of his days in the course of that book. However, a lot of people thought he did. So many feared that he had died after Tom and his friend Huckleberry Finn faked their deaths so that they could run off and live on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River. Eventually, once the two of them got bored on their island, they made their way back home and found that everyone was in the church, assembled for their funeral. Tom and Huck climbed up to the attic of the church and listened in on what all everyone said about them. They heard about how loved they both were. They heard the preacher talk about how maybe they got up to some mischief, but they were good boys. That’s how the town thought of them. Maybe Huck’s name wasn’t on a church membership role; surely, his name was written in the Book of Life. Can you imagine what the world would be like if the church treated people that way while they were living? Can you imagine what it would be like if we all went out into this world loving our neighbors the way we know God loves us? It happened this way to a preacher named Louie Giglio. He was traveling for a conference and went into a diner late at night. It was a diner on the wrong side of town. That didn’t matter to him. He was hungry, and he sat down and ordered a slice of apple pie and a cup of coffee. While he was there, a group of women sat down nearby. They were dressed as those women who make their livings on the wrong side of town late at night often dress, and as they talked, this preacher learned that the next day was one’s birthday. They got up and left, and the preacher asked the owner of the diner if those ladies often came in at this time of night. The owner said they did. Would they come in tomorrow night? The owner said they would. Would it be ok to bring the lady a birthday cake? The owner said it would be fine and that he’d be glad to put up some streamers and things. The plan came together. The next night, the preacher brought in the birthday cake. The group of ladies came in, and everyone there sang. The birthday girl looked at the cake and said, “I’ve never had a birthday cake before,” and the owner looked at the preacher and asked, “Who are you, anyway?” The preacher said, “I’m a preacher.” “At a church?” the owner asked. “Yes, at a church,” the preacher said. “What kind of a church is it?” the owner asked. “The kind that celebrates all God’s children,” the preacher said, “even the ones who aren’t on the membership role.” The owner said, “I don’t believe it. If there was such a thing as a church like that, I’d go, but I don’t believe it exists.” My friends, it’s when we take what we have in here out there that we so truly live as His disciples. It’s when we act as though the walls of this church have fallen that the Gospel escapes into the world. There’s no church in the New Jerusalem. There is no sun either, for the light of hope and the light of God’s love will shine all over that place, and we, as the first fruits of this coming Kingdom, are charged to live as though it has already come. This summer, as you go on vacation, walk around your neighborhood, call on your friends, or just live your life around Cobb County, I commission you to proclaim this Good News. The day is coming when names on the church roles won’t matter. The day is coming when God’s love will shine brighter on us than the noonday sun. The day is coming when all God’s children will know His love. I ask you to stand and to be commissioned for such service in the world: Friends, God has called you to a particular service. Show your purpose by answering these questions. Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior? If so, say, “He is.” Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying His Word and showing His love? If so, say, “I will with God’s help.” Do you welcome the responsibility of this service because you are determined to follow the Lord Jesus, to love your neighbors, and to work for the reconciliation of the world? If so, say, “I do.” Will you serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love, relying on God’s mercy and rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit?” If so, say, “I will with God’s help.” Let us pray. Faithful God, in baptism, You claimed us; and by Your Holy Spirit, You are working in our lives, empowering us to live lives worthy of our calling. We thank you for leading us to this time and place. Establish us in Your truth. Guide us by the power of the Holy Spirit, that in Your service, we may grow in faith, hope, and love and be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The World Turned Right-Side Up

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 148 and Revelation 21: 1-6 Sermon Title: The World Turned Right-side Up Preached on May 15, 2022 I love this passage from Revelation because in it is a description of the new Heaven and the new earth. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. In other words, here is the promise that God turns the world right-side up, which is good news for us today because some days, many days, most days, it feels as though the world has been turned upside down. Does the world ever feel that way to you? Just the other day, our friend and neighbor Linda Spears, who has been volunteering at our food distribution ministry, told me about her grandfather, who made a career out of selling mules. He was the man to see when it came time to plow the field. For years and years, he knew how to make a living. His life made sense. Then John Deere tractors came to town, and his way of life was entirely disrupted. Have you ever felt as though your world were coming together like a puzzle out on your kitchen table, when all of a sudden, life comes along to scatter the pieces? Sometimes, our world is like a puzzle, and not just a 1,000-piece puzzle newly bought, but more like the kind you bought at a yard sale, so at least half the pieces are to a different puzzle, and the picture on the box doesn’t match what seems to be coming together. Take Polk Street or Mountain View Road for example. John Hills walked into my study the other day, and he says, “Joe, did the city of Marietta get a buy-1-get-10-free deal on stop signs recently?” These streets, up until those stop signs, I could have driven blindfolded. Now, all of a sudden, a stop sign has materialized out of nowhere. Likewise, I read the paper, and it describes an unfamiliar world. Just last Wednesday, I read that the Braves game will air on Apple TV or the Peacock app. Does everyone in here even know what that even means? Everything changes. Case in point: I received an email recently pointing out how there was a time when only rich people had automobiles. Everyone else had horses. Now, everyone has a car, and only rich people have horses. From time to time, the world turns upside down. Maybe you remember listening to baseball games on the radio; now we’ll watch them on our computers. More than that, columnist Dick Yarbrough reminded us that our copies of the Marietta Daily Journal will no longer be tossed on our driveways but sent through the mail. He looked back on his life, remembering the good old days when a group of kids would gather each afternoon on a street corner with bikes at the ready waiting for a truck to arrive with a bundle of newspapers that they’d roll, place in their bags, and would throw onto doorsteps or into bushes nearby the doorsteps. I was never a paperboy, but a newspaper in the mail feels like heresy. Of course, I don’t mean to be so hard on Otis Brumby III, our local publisher. I grew up playing football in his front yard. I’m sure he’s doing his best. We all are, but it’s hard when the world feels turned upside down. When everything changes. When all the pieces were fitting together. Or when it feels like our best days are not before us but behind us. That’s why we must, from time to time, look to this passage from the 21st chapter of Revelation. Let me read a portion of it again: And I heard a voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; They will be his peoples, And God himself will be with them; He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; Mourning and crying and pain will be no more For the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Don’t you love that? I do. I look forward to that great day in the future when God will set the world right-side up. We must remember that God’s going to do that. We must remember that just as God created the world, so it will all be recreated. We don’t always think about that. Christians are most always mindful of how God created the world. We care so much about how God created the world that we argue about the way in which God did it. Parents used to take their kids out of public schools if they taught evolution. There were these great debates: Are you a creationist or might God’s hand have been at work in the evolution of the earth’s species? We get embroiled in that creation debate, but we must not forget how just as God was at work in the beginning of all things, so God will speak and make all things new again at the last. We can’t forget that. If we forget, we’ll lose hope. We can’t forget that God will put the puzzle of our lives together. God will sort it all out. My cousin and friend, Fran Sommerville, she’s a part of the Stephen Ministry of our church, sent me a wonderful piece written by a man named Sean Dietrich. He told the story of buying a jigsaw puzzle at the grocery store. I’ll read you just a piece of it: My mother started each puzzle by saying the same thing: “We gotta find the corners first, that’s how you do it.” The idea was that once you found the corners, the rest of the puzzle would come together. Thus, we would sift together twenty-five hundred pieces, looking for four corners. Once we found them, we’d dig for the edges. And we would talk. I remember one day, working on a puzzle. She stopped working. She said, “You know, you’re gonna grow up one day, and you’re gonna soar.” I did not think I would do anything with my life. I dropped out of school before eighth grade, I worked pathetic jobs. I once scooped ice cream for a living. That was my actual job. Ice cream. I threw the newspaper, laid tile, hung sheetrock, pulled electrical wire, drove a commercial mower, and played piano for church choir. Today, I dumped a five-hundred-piece puzzle on my kitchen table. I found the corners first. And I thought about the way our lives went. The day my father took his life, my mother was angry at him. She was angry at the universe for letting it happen. And I was angry with God for letting that happen to her. I wasn’t fuming mad, mind you, but I was sour inside. But I think I see things more clearly now. Our lives have been one giant puzzle. And maybe that’s how everyone’s life is. The pieces don’t make sense when they aren’t together, but you don’t give up looking. Not ever. My mother helped me find the corners first. My wife, my family, and my friends helped me find the edges. And so, the twenty-five-hundred-piece puzzle gets put together by an Unseen Hand. And even though it resembles a big cardboard mess before it’s done, it’s no mess. It’s perfect. That’s a nice image, isn’t it? And I can relate to corners first - then the edges. Is that how you put puzzles together? Is that how your life has come together? Or does it feel today like a jumble of pieces: Half must go to some other puzzle, or you get to the end, and you can’t find that last piece? When that’s life for you, then remember the picture on the box. The picture of how it will all look in the end is our second Scripture lesson for today. “See, I am making all things new.” Of course, so much is gone. Notice what all isn’t there. There are no stop signs, newspapers, Braves games, mules, nor tractors. The sea is gone, and Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, For the first things have passed away. As the pieces go up in the air, remember that’s where we’re going. Don’t forget what it will look like, or you won’t have the faith you need to step out into the future. Speaking of stepping out into the future, today we celebrate graduates of high school, college, and medical school. I remember being one of them, though I can’t relate to most of them anymore. I applied to two colleges, only got it to one, and that’s how I decided where to go to college. Now, it’s so different. These days, kids start working to build their resumes to get into the University of Georgia as soon as they start middle school, while another Marietta Daily Journal columnist once wrote, “My acceptance letter to the University of Georgia came addressed: Dear [Joe], or current resident, congratulations, you’ve been accepted to the University of Georgia.” You see, everything changes. Some things get easier. Others get harder. Graduates, in the midst of all of it, never forget those voices telling you how you’ll soar, and when one door closes before you or when it feels like the pieces of your life are all up in the air, remember the cover of the box, which is our final destination. That’s where we’re going, my friends. It is done, God said. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. This is our God, so as you think about all that’s wrong in our world, all that hurts in your life, and how the future may seem as jumbled as a puzzle dumped out on your kitchen table, I tell you, God is at work, leading us all to this new heaven and new earth when all will be put right-side up. Graduates, listen to your church as we say, “You will soar.” Parents of graduates, as your lives change, know that the pieces will come back together in new and beautiful ways. And everyone here, all God’s people, listen to this: The future is not uncertain. Today may feel like chaos, but God is in control. The first things are passing away as God is making all things new. Halleluiah. Amen.

A Saint is Just a Sinner Who Fell Down and Got Up

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 23 and Revelation 7: 9-17 Sermon Title: A Saint is Just a Sinner Who Fell Down and Got Up Preached on May 8, 2022 This second Scripture lesson from the book of Revelation makes me think of three hymns. This is the first: Oh, when the saints Go marching in Oh, when the saints go marching in Lord, I want to be in that number When the saints go marching in That’s a good song to hear Louis Armstrong play. It’s also a good one to sing at a funeral. If you’re from New Orleans, you may have heard it in a funeral procession, and that really makes sense. That’s what the song is about: when the saints go marching into heaven. Did you know that? It’s true, and as strange as the book of Revelation is, the images in this book are more familiar than we sometimes realize. Who would have imagined that a song we all know the words to was inspired by the Scripture lesson we just read? A better question to ask is, who here knows what you must do to be in that number? Lord, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in. That’s true. I do, but how? That’s where the second hymn that this passage from Revelation makes me think of comes in. I can’t play it on the harmonica, but you might know the words: There is power Power Wonder working power In the blood Of the lamb There is power Power Wonder working power In the precious blood of the lamb Do you know that one? If you were raised Baptist, you probably know how to sing that hymn. Its lyrics are based in verses of our second Scripture lesson: “Who are these, robed in white and where have they come from?” “These are [the saints] who have come out of the great ordeal; [for] they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.” If you want to be in that number, then you, too, must be washed in the blood of the Lamb, only what does that mean? That’s the question we must always ask when reading the book of Revelation, “Now what does that mean?” Let me try to tell you. A good friend of mine, Brandom Gengelbach, was president of the chamber of commerce in the town where we both lived in middle Tennessee, south of Nashville. Brandom decided to run for school board because the chamber of commerce recognized, as the chamber is often wise to recognize, that the economic growth of a community is linked to its ability to educate every single child, so Brandom, the chamber president, ran for a seat on the Maury County School Board, even though he had his kids in private school, and he quickly learned how difficult it is to run for public office. Going door to door, asking his neighbors for their votes, carrying around his five-year-old son Tyler, he knocked on the door of a man who asked just one question, “Have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb?” Brandom didn’t know how to answer the question, and later he called me for help. I told him that the answer is “yes,” especially if he wants that guy’s vote, but what does being washed in the blood of the Lamb even mean? It means that His victory, sacrifice, and blood change everything. When Brandom later lost the school board race, were it not for the blood, the loss might have crushed him. He tried and he lost, but he wasn’t crushed. Have you ever been there? I have and so has Coach Mark Richt of the Georgia Bulldogs. Last Thursday morning, I was honored to sit at Nancy Bodiford’s table at the Cobb County Prayer Breakfast where Coach Richt was the speaker. He said that someone asked him why he wasn’t coaching for the Bulldogs anymore. “I got fired, that’s why,” he said, and he said it laughing. Then he started talking about how after he was fired, he almost died. He was exercising in the gym and couldn’t finish the set he was on. He felt so nauseous, made it to the bathroom, but then realized he was all alone and really needed help. He called out. No one heard him. He closed his eyes and was at peace. Now, how did the saints come to be in that number? What does it mean to be washed in the blood of the Lamb? How did they, just as the Scripture lesson says, “come out of the great ordeal?” That’s like asking how Mark Richt could say, “I got fired; that’s why I’m not coaching for the Bulldogs anymore.” That’s like asking how he could close his eyes, thinking he had reached his last breath with peace in his heart? More than that, he told these stories, and the whole time the National Championship trophy, which he couldn’t win, was sitting just to the side of the stage, and I tell you, the reason he could laugh at his failing and have peace at the last was because the victory had already been won and he knew it. That’s what this is all about, and I don’t just mean our Scripture lesson from the book of Revelation, I mean our faith in general. What does it mean to be a saint? Does it mean you won the race? That you finished first? That you never made a mistake or hit rock bottom? No. A saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up. That’s the third hymn this passage from the book of Revelation makes me think of. It’s a Gospel song. You might call it a 7-11 hymn because it repeats the same seven words 11 times. It’s not a Presbyterian hymn where you need a dictionary to understand what you’re singing about it. It just repeats the same powerful phrase again and again and again: We fall down, but we get up We fall down, but we get up We fall down, but we get up For a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up Did you hear that? So many faced their darkest nights of the soul when they fell down. They lost their jobs. They hit rock bottom. A problem came along that they couldn’t fix by being any nicer or working any harder. So many of us are walking around still feeling like a loser from the memory of falling down or being pushed down by the world. Likewise, I remember being nine or ten years old playing left field at Oregon Park when a dad from the other baseball team pointed to me and yelled to his son as he walked up to bat, “Hit it to the kid in left field; looks like he’s asleep.” I still remember how that felt. This is the kind of thing that happens, and it’s hard to forget about it. If you’ve ever been in such a position, on this Mother’s Day, I hope you had the kind of mother who would have walked over there and given that man a piece of her mind. Or the kind of mother who wiped the tears from your eyes. Or the kind of mother who looked at you and said, “That man’s words don’t define you.” Neither does how you do in this game or any other define you. Your job isn’t ever going to define you. Your height isn’t ever going to define you. Your grades aren’t ever going to define you. Where you get into college isn’t ever going to define you. You have been washed in the blood of the lamb. That’s how those saints robed in white came out of the great ordeal. Their lives on earth were a lives of persecution, famine, oppression, injustice, and slavery. There are saints in that number who watched their friends fed to lions and burned at the stake. How did they make it? How did they survive it? They kept walking through the valley of the shadow of death because they knew Who was with them. Maybe they didn’t win any trophies on this earth, but they knew they were more than conquerors because the One who loved them defeated, not just the world, but death itself. They closed their eyes and felt peace. They washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. They have come out of the great ordeal. For this reason they are before the throne of God. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; The sun will not strike them, Nor any scorching heat; For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, And he will guide them to springs of the water of life, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. This is Christ Jesus Who died for you. You are precious in His sight. Don’t ever forget it. Amen.