April 13th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Ercole de’ Roberti
Thanks to National Gallery, London
My solos tonight turned out okay. For some reason I felt a little constricted, and I didn’t get enough warming up out of the hymns. They were sung after the Old Testament reading and the sermon, which preceded communion. I got a little bronchial dilation after communion and sang out more. Thus the moral of the story is that I should have a glass prior to worship. 
I played a little more with WavePad and discovered it has a Noise Cancellation filter. It worked quite well, so well that it took out too much of my weak diction. It can be adjusted; I’ll have to work with it some more. My new digital voice recorder was able to pick up the pastor from my position in the back of the sanctuary, a distance of maybe 40 feet.
Sermon notes as best as I could take them off the recording:
During World War II Ed Sullivan asked the entertainer Jimmy Durante to go with him to a Veteran’s hospital to entertain troops which had been wounded in battle. Durante said he’d really like to go but he had to do a radio show that night. Sullivan told him they could go, and they put Durante right at the beginning of Ed’s show, and that way he’d be able to leave and make it back in time to do his other show. Durante said that was fine.
Durante went out and did his first routine. The crowd just went wild, and they wanted more. So Durante went back out, and did two, three routines, and the men just went crazy. Of course, he missed his radio show. Well, Ed Sullivan asked, “Why didn’t you leave after the first routine?”
Durante said, “Look out through that curtain,” and Ed looked through the seam. Ed saw two soldiers, and each one had lost a limb. Yet they were wildly clapping by taking the hand each had and clapped them together.
Now, in a much higher way, that’s how it is with us and our God. Even though we are crippled and are maimed by sin, our God promises He will never leave us. He will never forsake us.
In today’s Gospel we’re told Jesus knew His time had come. The time had come for him to leave this world. He also knew the agony he was going to face. Very shortly, when he finished celebrating the Passover meal with his disciples, He was going to have to ignore the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. There He prayed, and the stress was so great that sweat turned into big drops of blood. Then Jesus had to suffer the agony of being betrayed by one of His own disciples and being arrested as a common criminal. Then He had to go through the agony of being unfairly put on trial. During the course of the evening He was beaten, and He was constantly ridiculed. Jesus knew that on the next day He would go through the agony, the agony of being nailed to a cross where people would stand at its foot. They would mock and ridicule him. The worst agony of all was coming, when he was suffering on the cross, the agony of literally being separated from God, literally on that cross, suffering Hell itself.
You and I also know that we’re going to have our agony. We’re going to have our Gethsemanes and our Golgothas. We to are going to have stresses in our lives, sometimes stresses that literally make us sick. We’re going to have sicknesses, illnesses, and other difficulties which are really going to hurt us. Some of us are even going to be betrayed by good friends, sometimes even by family members themselves. Death is always going to be very close to us, reaching out now and then and taking away good friends and good relatives.
All of those agonies are ones that we do have to undergo in this world, but one agony we will never, ever have to face is being separated from God. That’s why Jesus died on the cross. He died so that through faith in His suffering, death, and resurrection we will never, ever, not even in death, will we ever be separated from God.
Throughout all the events of Holy Week, especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, we to some degree don’t realize something: Jesus is really the one who’s in control of everything. Jesus is not some helpless pawn that people are pushing and pulling, taking him wherever they want him to go, or keeping him from going wherever he wants to go. Look at the Garden of Gethsemane again. When the mob goes out there to take hold of Jesus, they rush up and grab Him, what happens? They fall back! They can’t lay a hand on Jesus until He’s ready to turn himself over. Look on the cross on that cursed Good Friday. It’s Jesus who gives up His life. It’s not men who’s forcing His life out of Him. The Scriptures remind us over and over: He gave up the ghost. Even Pilate was surprised by how quickly Jesus died, because he wasn’t in control of killing Jesus. Jesus was the one in control.
As we go through our agonies in this life, too, we also must remember Jesus is there, and Jesus is in control of everything that happens. Whenever we have our stresses, our sicknesses, illnesses, our problems, and our difficulties, it’s our God who’s standing right there by our side promising us He’ll never let more come on us than we can handle. When we go through the agonies of life our God is still there right by our side assuring us He’s done this all by Himself for our eternal good. In fact, that’s why He gave us the gift of the Lord’s Supper. It’s by means of bread and wine that Jesus Himself comes to us personally and individually, forgives our sins, and gives us the strength we need for daily living, for all the agonies of life. It’s Jesus who compels us, when He institutes that sacrament, partake of it often and frequently. He’s reminding us we need all the strength He can give us, all His strength so we can stand up and endure all the difficulties and all the troubles of this life.
In ours and Jesus’ Lord’s Supper, He reminds us so clearly and so personally, God isn’t something way out there or way up there. God is here, with us. God is with you, and God is with me. Amen.
