Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Good morning. Please join me in the call to worship.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I saw the.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God prepared as a bride on her wedding day.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See,
the home of God is among mortals. The Lord will
be with their God, and they will be God's people.
God will wipe away pict from their eyes. Death will
(05:38):
be no more warning, and crying and pain will be
no more. And the one seated on the throne said, see,
I am making all things new. Those who conquer will
inherit these things, and I will be their God, and
they will be my children.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
S s s says something sick. See says.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, ye, Good morning, Fifth Avenue Baptist. May you pray
(09:07):
with me, Almighty God, as we stand in awe of
your goodness and mercy today, we invite you to be
present amongst us by the power.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Of your Holy Spirit.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Father, we declare that we.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Love you, Thank you that you have made the way
of love known through your son Jesus Christ. We pray
that you would reveal this great love to us today
as we gather to worship, Lead us by your spirit
to praise you. May our hearts overflow with thanksgiving, and
our mouths proclaim your everlasting greatness and the wonderful name
(09:43):
of Jesus, who taught us to pray, Our Father, who
arts in heaven.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
How it be thine name, Thine Kingdom, Come, Thine will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from me
for buying ess the kingdom and the power and the
glory forever Amens.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
S ss since six.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Song SA, same.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Song its song.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Shall we pray. Dear heavenly Father, thank you so much
for bringing us here on this cool ball morning and
all Saints Day. We come here today to worship you
and to recognize those who we've lost this past year,
that have done so much to further your kingdom while
here on earth, and now they spend eternity in heaven.
(14:05):
We are so grateful and blessed to have such a
wonderful place to come and worship. As we place these
tithes and offerings in the offering plates, please bless them
and use them to your glory. May you lead and
guide all of us in your ways. In your most
gracious name, We pray, Amen, please join us as we
(14:26):
sing the doxology.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
Bless show.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Will you join me in prayer? Oh Gracious God, we
come to you as one faith fanny family of many
across our city and state and this nation. This morning
we ask, Oh God, that you would watch over our
(17:51):
nation as we creep towards a day which the commercials
on television have been saying it's coming. As we, as
citizens of this nation go to the polls on Tuesday,
for those of us who haven't already voted early, we
(18:12):
ask of God that your grace, your hand, your spirit
would watch over all that occurs. We ask a God
that you would be bring out the better angels of
us so the election day finishes in safety. We pray
(18:36):
for all those good people who are paid and who
are volunteer on election day to be at the polling stations.
We pray for their safety and ask o God that
you would keep all of us safe in that process
(18:56):
and would hold back those who might wish to disrupt
this process that we go through every year. You would
watch over two persons in our own congregation, Carol Miller
and Steve Williams, as they are running for office, and
we give you thanks for the service they've already provided
(19:19):
our community in our state. However the election turns out,
we ask that you would watch over them and bless
them for what the future holds on how their elections go.
We are blessed as a congregation to have them and
so many others in our church who have put themselves
(19:40):
out there to serve this community and state. We pray,
o God, that you would help us as a people
to understand far more important than who wins elections on Tuesday,
is how well will all of us work together for good.
(20:06):
When we are caught up in political parties and partisan politics,
we sometimes just root for our team and against the other.
But remind us, Oh God, that in a nation where
we are largely split fifty to fifty in political views,
(20:27):
nothing will be done of any value unless both sides
work together. We think, Oh God, that we are just
individual peoples. We are just one church among millions of
churches in this country. We are just a few people
among three hundred million people in this nation, and yet
(20:53):
we change the course of how we live as a
community based on how we treat and talk to others
around us. So help us, O Lord, to be the
better angel, to encourage people to listen to those who
(21:15):
have different ideas, to work together for common good. When
conspiracy theories go across our social media accounts, help us
to have the wisdom not to pass them along, to
not be a part of the division of our nation,
(21:37):
to propagate lies or hatred. Help us to be the
people who lift up one another, and to live by
your commands to us to love one another, to love
our neighbor as ourself, to love our enemies, To live
(21:58):
by your commandments to care for the and the immigrant
and the orphan. Oh Lord, on Tuesday, however, the elections
come out, make us a people that live as your
followers to make this place better and to find ways
(22:21):
to work together. For those are a congregation of God
who are struggling with esses and difficulties. We asked that
you would bless them. In particular, we keep in mind
Bill Bunch, who so desperately wanted to be here today
to light his son's candle, we asked that you would
(22:42):
give him strength and return him to home soon. For
those who are recently grieving the death of their loved
ones who lit candles today, we asked that you would
bless them and keep walking them through the valley of
the shadow of death, come to green pastures and still waters.
(23:04):
All these things of God we lift up to prayer
to you and ask that you would sustain us in
your love and your grace and your mercy. And Jesus,
we pray Amen M. H. S. S.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Shot Se.
Speaker 8 (25:01):
So school side.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Our manuscripture Passes a Day comes from the Gospel of
John the eleventh chapter, beginning with verse thirty two. When
Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt
at his feet and said, to him, Lord, if you
(26:27):
had been here, my brother Elizarus would not have died.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came
with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed, greatly disturbed
in spirit, and deeply moved. They said to him, Lord,
(26:49):
come and see Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see
how he loved tim. But some of them said, could
he not have could he who not have opened the
eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying.
(27:14):
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It
was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the other sister
of the dead man, said to him, Lord, already there
is a stench, because he has been dead four days.
(27:36):
Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that
if you believed, you would see the glory of God.
So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, Father,
I thank you for having heard me. I knew that
you always hear me. But I have said this for
the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they
(27:59):
may believe that you sent me. When he had said this,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come out. The
dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with
(28:20):
strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.
Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.
He rends the reading for God's Holy Word. May God
(28:41):
bless it for our hearing and understanding. Lazarus sisters were
where many in congregation have been recently or some time ago.
Grieving the death of a loved one. Mary was so
(29:03):
broken hearted that her tears moved Jesus to weep, and
she yelled at him, if you would have been here,
my brother would not have died. Maybe Jesus's tears were
(29:26):
a mixture of guilt and grief. Martha, the matriarch of
the family, the practical one in the family, when Jesus
starts to have the stone rolled away, speaks up and
tells him and warns him that the stench will be
(29:48):
too strong. It's been four days since Lazarus died. Don't
go in, She's telling Jesus, don't go in. Had seen
death before and didn't want that for anyone. But Jesus
(30:12):
doesn't intend on going into the tomb. Mary and Martha,
trapped by their expectations, cannot anticipate what's about to happen.
Jesus wants to unbind them as well as the dead man.
(30:43):
Maybe some of you had been mad at God too
in this process of giving a loved one up. Like Mary,
you want to yell to Jesus, if you had been here, Lord,
this wouldn't have had that grief hurts. There is nothing
(31:13):
that's going to take away that pain, except your own
perseverance and the love you received by lots of people around,
until finally you can hold on to the love of
the one you lost and you can walk forward with life.
(31:37):
Grief hurts, and when Jesus experienced Saul and felt marry tears,
Jesus wept. Maybe as you weep and work through your
own broken heartedness, Jesus is weeping with you, and you
(32:01):
can commune with him in a way you haven't experienced before.
Maybe some of you also have been impacted by some
of the ways that we talk about death, which are
not always the healthiest ways. Everything happens for a reason.
(32:22):
She's in a better place. It was his time. God
needed an angel more than you needed her. Oftentimes, statements
like to these do more to comfort the person saying
them than the person grieving a loved one. They more
(32:46):
likely come from our own insecurities about our mortality and death,
and they are more likely to soothe the uncomfortable feelings
that we have that you who having the addasage to
lose a loved one, makes me face right. Some of
(33:07):
these encounters are difficult because too often we're so uncomfortable
with death. We just give that anxiety away by trying
to cover it up, tying it up with a bow,
and make some present to the other person. More often
(33:27):
than not, these statements ring how low to the person
deep in grief. We would like to tie up your
pain with a bow, but grief doesn't work like that.
I personally also find many of these statements theologically troubling.
(33:52):
Everything doesn't happen for a reason. Though you might like
to say that, and might be at times in our life,
we hope that's true. Everything does not happen for a reason.
The Holocaust did not happen for a reason. Nine to
eleven didn't happen for a reason. Slavery in this country
(34:13):
didn't happen for a reason. Such statements, if we broaden
them out over the single moment, we're trying to comfort
ourselves with such moments. If we bring them out, excuse
evil and terrible acts, and they deny human free will
(34:34):
and the reality of our own mortality. The Psalmist said,
we've got to count our days to gain a wise heart.
The truth is that death is a scary thing, and
many of us have a hard time facing it. Going
(35:00):
beyond the veil of that moment is something none of
us can predict what's going to happen. The Bible is
very loose and how it talks about those things. The
healthiest and faithful thing we can do is to sit
(35:20):
in that ambiguity and uncomfortableness. And when we are with
people who are grieving, just to sit with them. We
can't fix them. Nothing's going to bring that loved one back.
We're not Jesus. We can't resuscitate Lazarus. Lazarus was resuscitated.
(35:41):
He wasn't resurrected. He was brought back to this life,
and then later he died of some other circumstance. He
wasn't resurrected. He's not walking around here someplace on the
earth we talk about resurrection. It's something else, something that
(36:04):
the Bible only talks about of Jesus' life. Living with
the pain and difficulty and sitting with Jesus who walks
beside us can take us to deeper places than we
have ever been before. But we have to sit with
(36:28):
the pain. Like Lazarus, we are bound up by bar
of clause made of our own fears and anxieties. Someone
needs to unbind us and let us go. Frederick Beechner,
one of my favorite authors, once wrote about an incident
(36:49):
that happened to him. A few weeks after his best
friend died. He and his wife were visiting Dudley's widow.
That night in the family guest room, Beatner had a
short dream about his friend.
Speaker 9 (37:07):
He dreamed that.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Dudley was standing right there in the guest room, next
to his bed while Beatner was sleeping. He looked as
usually smart self, dressed in a blue navy blue sweater
and white slacks. Beatner told his friend how much he
missed him and how it was good to see him again.
(37:32):
And then in his dream he asked, are you really here, Dudley,
or am I dreaming? When Dudley told him that he
really was there, Beatner asked him, well, can you prove it?
Of course, his friend said and pulled a thread out
(37:54):
of his navy blue sweater and handed it over to Beatner.
And in his dream, as he reached out and grabbed
the thread from the sweater, he woke up and his
hands were up in the air, but of course there
(38:18):
was no blue thread in his fingertips. The next morning,
he told this dream to his wife and his friend's widow,
and he had hardly finished telling the story when his
wife said that she had seen a navy blue thread
on the carpet as she was getting dressed for breakfast.
(38:40):
She was sure it was not there the night before,
because that's what caught her attention by it. Beatner immediately
left the breakfast table and ran upstairs to the guest room,
and there it was, on the floor, next to the bed,
a single navy blue threat. He sat there for some
(39:06):
time on the edge of this bed, pondering what this means.
Was what he experienced that night real or did she
somehow on that evening while he is getting dressed see
the thread and subconsciously eaves in his mind and this
dream comes out of his own self consciousness. It could
(39:30):
have been even thing. Losing a loved one is painful,
and no happy sayings are going to make the pain
go away. Don't get trapped bound up by other people's
ideas about heaven or death. Whatever is on the other
(39:55):
side of death is a mystery. God hasn't fully revealed
it to us. Listen to your heart, Listen to the
small voice of God within you. Like Beeckner, find me
the Navy blue thread of wool. Maybe things will happen
to you that you can't explain. Sometime later, reflecting on
(40:23):
this dream and this blue thread, he wrote these words.
Things happen, people come and go, the shet the scene
shifts in our lives, time runs out. Maybe it is
(40:45):
all utterly meaningless. Maybe it is all unutterably meaningful. If
you want to know which it is, pay attention to
your life. Maybe even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.
The good dream, the unexpected sound of your name on
(41:07):
somebody's lips, the odd occurrence, the moment that brings tears
to your eyes, the person who brings life to your life.
All of these are clues. Pay attention to them. From
the mystery of God we come, who gave us this
(41:29):
life that your consciousness woke up to the mystery of
God we go. The gift of life to come is
no less magical than the life that we have now.
And the going and the coming and everything in between
(41:49):
is a gracious gift. May the Good Shepherd guide us
through the valley of the shadow of death, not only
so that goodness and mercy shall follow us all the
days of our lives, but we also may dwell in
the House of the Lord forever, ah Man. We close
(42:14):
our worship service in our bapt tradition of a hymn
of commitment and open our doors of fellowship to you.
If you would like to join this church by baptism
or by transfer of your letter, we would love to
receive you. I'll be by the communion table to receive
anybody who wants to come forward while we stand together
and sing seven twelve, Be still my soul can stand
(42:36):
together and sings so s so. The handheld mike is
(46:08):
not over there, so I must speak to this for
a moment. I do want to invite you during the postlude.
John has prepared a post loud that's appropriate for all
Saints Sunday, and we invite you to come forward and
light one of the vote of candles. Are down here.
Hannah and Tim will be here maybe a little bit slower.
We have one of our torches that are working, so
they but they'll kind of watch, kind of going back
and forth to tables. We do want to make sure
(46:30):
we have time today to honor the folks, loved ones
of this church that were listened in our worship God
in our insert. So we want to make sure that
Donna Gail Atkins and Mary Ellen Day and Margo Photos
and Barbara Johnson Hall and Violet Hutchinson and George Lambros
Junior and Bernice Lemley and Anna McDowell, Jerry Moore and
(46:57):
Margaret Stanley are also remembered by their family being loved
ones and all the many other persons that you have
loved been a part of your life during the post
light and life to come forward and to take the
candlelighter from Hannah or Tim and light one of the
vote of Canpdbell's in memory of somebody in your lives
that are important to you. I want to thank so
many of you who have been a part of the
(47:18):
service helped make this a meaningful tart for all the
ways that you help things out. Tim and Hannah and
Ben and Susan. I've told folks ahead of time that
whenever you have this many moving parts, something's gone wrong.
And I think I've messed up about three times, so
I think we've managed okay together. So however you finish
out this service and wait to light a candle, We'll
be fine as we honor the memory of loved ones
(47:38):
and honor our own faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord
and Savior. Let's receive the benediction.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Love, love, man as all these he's a race and love.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
There's a letter of friends, the beat and transform fo.
Speaker 9 (48:16):
You AND's allay and as hess At Christ is walking
with hide and had loved. It was a spar It's
always surrounding me.
Speaker 8 (48:28):
She was lost.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
She's a god with whenever he faces to meet. So
the friends go down in peace. Ah manm H s
(51:52):
s h.
Speaker 9 (52:38):
Y N.
Speaker 8 (54:33):
S s s s s s
Speaker 5 (57:10):
Y
Good morning. Please join me in the call to worship.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I saw the.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God prepared as a bride on her wedding day.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See,
the home of God is among mortals. The Lord will
be with their God, and they will be God's people.
God will wipe away pict from their eyes. Death will
(05:38):
be no more warning, and crying and pain will be
no more. And the one seated on the throne said, see,
I am making all things new. Those who conquer will
inherit these things, and I will be their God, and
they will be my children.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
S s s says something sick. See says.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, ye, Good morning, Fifth Avenue Baptist. May you pray
(09:07):
with me, Almighty God, as we stand in awe of
your goodness and mercy today, we invite you to be
present amongst us by the power.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Of your Holy Spirit.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Father, we declare that we.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Love you, Thank you that you have made the way
of love known through your son Jesus Christ. We pray
that you would reveal this great love to us today
as we gather to worship, Lead us by your spirit
to praise you. May our hearts overflow with thanksgiving, and
our mouths proclaim your everlasting greatness and the wonderful name
(09:43):
of Jesus, who taught us to pray, Our Father, who
arts in heaven.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
How it be thine name, Thine Kingdom, Come, Thine will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from me
for buying ess the kingdom and the power and the
glory forever Amens.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
S ss since six.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Song SA, same.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Song its song.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Shall we pray. Dear heavenly Father, thank you so much
for bringing us here on this cool ball morning and
all Saints Day. We come here today to worship you
and to recognize those who we've lost this past year,
that have done so much to further your kingdom while
here on earth, and now they spend eternity in heaven.
(14:05):
We are so grateful and blessed to have such a
wonderful place to come and worship. As we place these
tithes and offerings in the offering plates, please bless them
and use them to your glory. May you lead and
guide all of us in your ways. In your most
gracious name, We pray, Amen, please join us as we
(14:26):
sing the doxology.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
Bless show.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Will you join me in prayer? Oh Gracious God, we
come to you as one faith fanny family of many
across our city and state and this nation. This morning
we ask, Oh God, that you would watch over our
(17:51):
nation as we creep towards a day which the commercials
on television have been saying it's coming. As we, as
citizens of this nation go to the polls on Tuesday,
for those of us who haven't already voted early, we
(18:12):
ask of God that your grace, your hand, your spirit
would watch over all that occurs. We ask a God
that you would be bring out the better angels of
us so the election day finishes in safety. We pray
(18:36):
for all those good people who are paid and who
are volunteer on election day to be at the polling stations.
We pray for their safety and ask o God that
you would keep all of us safe in that process
(18:56):
and would hold back those who might wish to disrupt
this process that we go through every year. You would
watch over two persons in our own congregation, Carol Miller
and Steve Williams, as they are running for office, and
we give you thanks for the service they've already provided
(19:19):
our community in our state. However the election turns out,
we ask that you would watch over them and bless
them for what the future holds on how their elections go.
We are blessed as a congregation to have them and
so many others in our church who have put themselves
(19:40):
out there to serve this community and state. We pray,
o God, that you would help us as a people
to understand far more important than who wins elections on Tuesday,
is how well will all of us work together for good.
(20:06):
When we are caught up in political parties and partisan politics,
we sometimes just root for our team and against the other.
But remind us, Oh God, that in a nation where
we are largely split fifty to fifty in political views,
(20:27):
nothing will be done of any value unless both sides
work together. We think, Oh God, that we are just
individual peoples. We are just one church among millions of
churches in this country. We are just a few people
among three hundred million people in this nation, and yet
(20:53):
we change the course of how we live as a
community based on how we treat and talk to others
around us. So help us, O Lord, to be the
better angel, to encourage people to listen to those who
(21:15):
have different ideas, to work together for common good. When
conspiracy theories go across our social media accounts, help us
to have the wisdom not to pass them along, to
not be a part of the division of our nation,
(21:37):
to propagate lies or hatred. Help us to be the
people who lift up one another, and to live by
your commands to us to love one another, to love
our neighbor as ourself, to love our enemies, To live
(21:58):
by your commandments to care for the and the immigrant
and the orphan. Oh Lord, on Tuesday, however, the elections
come out, make us a people that live as your
followers to make this place better and to find ways
(22:21):
to work together. For those are a congregation of God
who are struggling with esses and difficulties. We asked that
you would bless them. In particular, we keep in mind
Bill Bunch, who so desperately wanted to be here today
to light his son's candle, we asked that you would
(22:42):
give him strength and return him to home soon. For
those who are recently grieving the death of their loved
ones who lit candles today, we asked that you would
bless them and keep walking them through the valley of
the shadow of death, come to green pastures and still waters.
(23:04):
All these things of God we lift up to prayer
to you and ask that you would sustain us in
your love and your grace and your mercy. And Jesus,
we pray Amen M. H. S. S.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Shot Se.
Speaker 8 (25:01):
So school side.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Our manuscripture Passes a Day comes from the Gospel of
John the eleventh chapter, beginning with verse thirty two. When
Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt
at his feet and said, to him, Lord, if you
(26:27):
had been here, my brother Elizarus would not have died.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came
with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed, greatly disturbed
in spirit, and deeply moved. They said to him, Lord,
(26:49):
come and see Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see
how he loved tim. But some of them said, could
he not have could he who not have opened the
eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying.
(27:14):
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It
was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha, the other sister
of the dead man, said to him, Lord, already there
is a stench, because he has been dead four days.
(27:36):
Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that
if you believed, you would see the glory of God.
So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, Father,
I thank you for having heard me. I knew that
you always hear me. But I have said this for
the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they
(27:59):
may believe that you sent me. When he had said this,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come out. The
dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with
(28:20):
strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.
Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.
He rends the reading for God's Holy Word. May God
(28:41):
bless it for our hearing and understanding. Lazarus sisters were
where many in congregation have been recently or some time ago.
Grieving the death of a loved one. Mary was so
(29:03):
broken hearted that her tears moved Jesus to weep, and
she yelled at him, if you would have been here,
my brother would not have died. Maybe Jesus's tears were
(29:26):
a mixture of guilt and grief. Martha, the matriarch of
the family, the practical one in the family, when Jesus
starts to have the stone rolled away, speaks up and
tells him and warns him that the stench will be
(29:48):
too strong. It's been four days since Lazarus died. Don't
go in, She's telling Jesus, don't go in. Had seen
death before and didn't want that for anyone. But Jesus
(30:12):
doesn't intend on going into the tomb. Mary and Martha,
trapped by their expectations, cannot anticipate what's about to happen.
Jesus wants to unbind them as well as the dead man.
(30:43):
Maybe some of you had been mad at God too
in this process of giving a loved one up. Like Mary,
you want to yell to Jesus, if you had been here, Lord,
this wouldn't have had that grief hurts. There is nothing
(31:13):
that's going to take away that pain, except your own
perseverance and the love you received by lots of people around,
until finally you can hold on to the love of
the one you lost and you can walk forward with life.
(31:37):
Grief hurts, and when Jesus experienced Saul and felt marry tears,
Jesus wept. Maybe as you weep and work through your
own broken heartedness, Jesus is weeping with you, and you
(32:01):
can commune with him in a way you haven't experienced before.
Maybe some of you also have been impacted by some
of the ways that we talk about death, which are
not always the healthiest ways. Everything happens for a reason.
(32:22):
She's in a better place. It was his time. God
needed an angel more than you needed her. Oftentimes, statements
like to these do more to comfort the person saying
them than the person grieving a loved one. They more
(32:46):
likely come from our own insecurities about our mortality and death,
and they are more likely to soothe the uncomfortable feelings
that we have that you who having the addasage to
lose a loved one, makes me face right. Some of
(33:07):
these encounters are difficult because too often we're so uncomfortable
with death. We just give that anxiety away by trying
to cover it up, tying it up with a bow,
and make some present to the other person. More often
(33:27):
than not, these statements ring how low to the person
deep in grief. We would like to tie up your
pain with a bow, but grief doesn't work like that.
I personally also find many of these statements theologically troubling.
(33:52):
Everything doesn't happen for a reason. Though you might like
to say that, and might be at times in our life,
we hope that's true. Everything does not happen for a reason.
The Holocaust did not happen for a reason. Nine to
eleven didn't happen for a reason. Slavery in this country
(34:13):
didn't happen for a reason. Such statements, if we broaden
them out over the single moment, we're trying to comfort
ourselves with such moments. If we bring them out, excuse
evil and terrible acts, and they deny human free will
(34:34):
and the reality of our own mortality. The Psalmist said,
we've got to count our days to gain a wise heart.
The truth is that death is a scary thing, and
many of us have a hard time facing it. Going
(35:00):
beyond the veil of that moment is something none of
us can predict what's going to happen. The Bible is
very loose and how it talks about those things. The
healthiest and faithful thing we can do is to sit
(35:20):
in that ambiguity and uncomfortableness. And when we are with
people who are grieving, just to sit with them. We
can't fix them. Nothing's going to bring that loved one back.
We're not Jesus. We can't resuscitate Lazarus. Lazarus was resuscitated.
(35:41):
He wasn't resurrected. He was brought back to this life,
and then later he died of some other circumstance. He
wasn't resurrected. He's not walking around here someplace on the
earth we talk about resurrection. It's something else, something that
(36:04):
the Bible only talks about of Jesus' life. Living with
the pain and difficulty and sitting with Jesus who walks
beside us can take us to deeper places than we
have ever been before. But we have to sit with
(36:28):
the pain. Like Lazarus, we are bound up by bar
of clause made of our own fears and anxieties. Someone
needs to unbind us and let us go. Frederick Beechner,
one of my favorite authors, once wrote about an incident
(36:49):
that happened to him. A few weeks after his best
friend died. He and his wife were visiting Dudley's widow.
That night in the family guest room, Beatner had a
short dream about his friend.
Speaker 9 (37:07):
He dreamed that.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Dudley was standing right there in the guest room, next
to his bed while Beatner was sleeping. He looked as
usually smart self, dressed in a blue navy blue sweater
and white slacks. Beatner told his friend how much he
missed him and how it was good to see him again.
(37:32):
And then in his dream he asked, are you really here, Dudley,
or am I dreaming? When Dudley told him that he
really was there, Beatner asked him, well, can you prove it?
Of course, his friend said and pulled a thread out
(37:54):
of his navy blue sweater and handed it over to Beatner.
And in his dream, as he reached out and grabbed
the thread from the sweater, he woke up and his
hands were up in the air, but of course there
(38:18):
was no blue thread in his fingertips. The next morning,
he told this dream to his wife and his friend's widow,
and he had hardly finished telling the story when his
wife said that she had seen a navy blue thread
on the carpet as she was getting dressed for breakfast.
(38:40):
She was sure it was not there the night before,
because that's what caught her attention by it. Beatner immediately
left the breakfast table and ran upstairs to the guest room,
and there it was, on the floor, next to the bed,
a single navy blue threat. He sat there for some
(39:06):
time on the edge of this bed, pondering what this means.
Was what he experienced that night real or did she
somehow on that evening while he is getting dressed see
the thread and subconsciously eaves in his mind and this
dream comes out of his own self consciousness. It could
(39:30):
have been even thing. Losing a loved one is painful,
and no happy sayings are going to make the pain
go away. Don't get trapped bound up by other people's
ideas about heaven or death. Whatever is on the other
(39:55):
side of death is a mystery. God hasn't fully revealed
it to us. Listen to your heart, Listen to the
small voice of God within you. Like Beeckner, find me
the Navy blue thread of wool. Maybe things will happen
to you that you can't explain. Sometime later, reflecting on
(40:23):
this dream and this blue thread, he wrote these words.
Things happen, people come and go, the shet the scene
shifts in our lives, time runs out. Maybe it is
(40:45):
all utterly meaningless. Maybe it is all unutterably meaningful. If
you want to know which it is, pay attention to
your life. Maybe even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.
The good dream, the unexpected sound of your name on
(41:07):
somebody's lips, the odd occurrence, the moment that brings tears
to your eyes, the person who brings life to your life.
All of these are clues. Pay attention to them. From
the mystery of God we come, who gave us this
(41:29):
life that your consciousness woke up to the mystery of
God we go. The gift of life to come is
no less magical than the life that we have now.
And the going and the coming and everything in between
(41:49):
is a gracious gift. May the Good Shepherd guide us
through the valley of the shadow of death, not only
so that goodness and mercy shall follow us all the
days of our lives, but we also may dwell in
the House of the Lord forever, ah Man. We close
(42:14):
our worship service in our bapt tradition of a hymn
of commitment and open our doors of fellowship to you.
If you would like to join this church by baptism
or by transfer of your letter, we would love to
receive you. I'll be by the communion table to receive
anybody who wants to come forward while we stand together
and sing seven twelve, Be still my soul can stand
(42:36):
together and sings so s so. The handheld mike is
(46:08):
not over there, so I must speak to this for
a moment. I do want to invite you during the postlude.
John has prepared a post loud that's appropriate for all
Saints Sunday, and we invite you to come forward and
light one of the vote of candles. Are down here.
Hannah and Tim will be here maybe a little bit slower.
We have one of our torches that are working, so
they but they'll kind of watch, kind of going back
and forth to tables. We do want to make sure
(46:30):
we have time today to honor the folks, loved ones
of this church that were listened in our worship God
in our insert. So we want to make sure that
Donna Gail Atkins and Mary Ellen Day and Margo Photos
and Barbara Johnson Hall and Violet Hutchinson and George Lambros
Junior and Bernice Lemley and Anna McDowell, Jerry Moore and
(46:57):
Margaret Stanley are also remembered by their family being loved
ones and all the many other persons that you have
loved been a part of your life during the post
light and life to come forward and to take the
candlelighter from Hannah or Tim and light one of the
vote of Canpdbell's in memory of somebody in your lives
that are important to you. I want to thank so
many of you who have been a part of the
(47:18):
service helped make this a meaningful tart for all the
ways that you help things out. Tim and Hannah and
Ben and Susan. I've told folks ahead of time that
whenever you have this many moving parts, something's gone wrong.
And I think I've messed up about three times, so
I think we've managed okay together. So however you finish
out this service and wait to light a candle, We'll
be fine as we honor the memory of loved ones
(47:38):
and honor our own faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord
and Savior. Let's receive the benediction.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Love, love, man as all these he's a race and love.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
There's a letter of friends, the beat and transform fo.
Speaker 9 (48:16):
You AND's allay and as hess At Christ is walking
with hide and had loved. It was a spar It's
always surrounding me.
Speaker 8 (48:28):
She was lost.
Speaker 5 (48:29):
She's a god with whenever he faces to meet. So
the friends go down in peace. Ah manm H s
(51:52):
s h.
Speaker 9 (52:38):
Y N.
Speaker 8 (54:33):
S s s s s s
Speaker 5 (57:10):
Y
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