Our text today begins with one of the most prosaic but fascinating sentences in the New Testament.

“Now there was a man in Jerusalem who’s name was Simeon.”

This is about is common a person as you could ever wish to meet. His name could have been John Doe and it would not has changed the story one iota.

Simeon was one of those devout Jews who constantly came to the temple, hoping to see the Messiah at his appearance. For most surely he would first appear at the temple if he was to appear anywhere. These “temple tramps” were somewhat of a nuisance to the priests. They were so devout that the priest did not dare discourage them from coming. In fact, to make the best of a bad situation the priests generally assigned to them some temple tasks. One of these was to pronounce the patriarchal benediction on the many children who were brought to the temple for just such an occasion.

Simeon was different from the rest of the temple people in that he felt he had a message from the Holy Spirit that he would someday hold the Messiah in his very hands. The priests were very skeptical about his claims. In fact, the telling of Simeon’s claim had become the temple joke. One priest would ask the other, “Has simple Simeon met up with the Messiah yet?”

Then the day came in that time of Simeon’s old age. Mary and Joseph came to the temple to have their son Jesus receive this patriarchal benediction. Of late, Simeon stood at the gate to receive these children, for he was old and his days were numbered and he knew that the next child may be the Messiah.

When he took the child Jesus in his arms, he suddenly felt the warmth of the Messiah of Israel—God’s Messiah—in his hands. As he finished the customary benediction he knew that his dream had been fulfilled and he lifted his voice to God and prayed:

Now Lord you have kept your promise,
And you may let your servers go in peace
For with my own eyes, I have your salvation.
Which you have made ready in the presence of all people
In light to reveal your way to the Gentiles of Israel.

Actually the biblical story says even Mary and Joseph were amazed at the things that Simeon said about their son. He went on to say,

I’ve got good news for you and bad news. This child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God, which many people will speak against and sorrow like a sharp sword will break your own heart.

The child was chosen for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. Jesus was both good news and bad news. The good news was he was a Savior. The bad news was the implication there were sinners who needed saving.

Someone once gave me a book titled “Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tales” by Frederick Buechner. The theme of the book is that a minister is dealing with the gospel as truth—a truth that is strange—a truth that is filled with contradictions. The minister realizes that people come to church to believe in the truth, but they have a hard time doing so. In the church, there is a woman who wants to understand how people believe what they cheerfully acknowledge as a comic fairy tale. The Gospel for the minister is the overcoming of the tragedy of darkness, by the light of the ordinary. The thing is the Gospel is the tale too good to be untrue. To dismiss it as untrue is to lose a way for the human heart to be turned from sadness to joy. He goes on to say that the Gospel is bad news before good news. It is bad news in that it is news that humans are sinners. What each of us look at in the mirror is shaving soap or cosmetics. We do not like what we see there, for what we see there is at least parts chicken, phony, and slob. This is the tragedy

But is also good news that we are loved anyway, cherished, forgiving, pleading to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. Then, comes the fairytale. Any good news story has extraordinary things happen to the individual, and in a sense that he or she lives happily ever after.

It is like King Lear, who goes berserk, commits heinous crimes, and wanders alone as a fool on a heath. Somehow, he comes out of it for a few brief hours to become everyone’s King again. Then there is Zacchaeus, who climbs up a sycamore tree, as a crook, to see Christ, and climbs down the tree a Saint. Or, there is Paul who sets out on the road to Damascus as a henchman for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. It is impossible for anyone to leave behind the darkness of the world they carry on their back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. This is the truth of the Gospel. Simeon points up the contradictions for Mary. “Behold the child is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel.”

In a sense, Herod was the great realist of the time. He wanted to do away with Messiah-baby, because he believed that this baby wanted to take away his throne. He was actually 100% correct. The Christ child was absolutely and totally bad news for him, because the Messiah was to come to put down tyrants just like him.

Simeon goes on to say to Mary that the good news will be bad news to you, “And a sword will pierce through your own soul.” Mary was standing by the Cross when they drove the nails—and every nail went through her own hands—blow-by-blow she was there when they pierced his side with a sword and blood and water ran out.  For Mary, that sword pierced her heart, too. Messiah’s mothers seems to always suffer like that. I could not help but think of Martin Luther King’s mother. I’m sure that she felt the bullet killed her son in Memphis. Ironically, more than six years later, she would be killed by a bullet, while she sat at the organ in her church.

The gospel was bad news for Simeon, too. The Christ had come in his old age. He had the joy of holding the baby in his arms, but he would never be with him and any of his triumphs. He would not hear him preach the sermon on the Mount. He would not see him feed the multitudes, cleanse the leper or restore sight to the blind.

I was thinking of how a young American immigration officer while he was visiting a Vietnamese family and a dirty refugee camp in Thailand said, “I’ve got good news and bad news for you!” The good news is that the Presbyterian Church in Portland,Oregon,United States has committed themselves to your sponsorship. Very soon you will be getting on one of those big airplanes with your wife and six children. That is the good news. The bad news is that Oregon has an east wind that is unbelievably cold. Having lived in the tropics all your life, you cannot imagine how cold that wind is. More than that, you’re going into a strange land where many people will not want you. Some of them may even call you a “gook.” You will not be able to work as a fisherman in Oregon. You’ll probably have to take one of the lowest jobs and try to work yourself up. You will have to learn a new language. You will have to become self-supporting quickly. You will have to pay back the plane fare from Thailand to Portland for all eight of you within three years. But, there is good news. Some people will care for and love you and try to understand you. They will be waiting at the airport to meet you with warm clothes. They will have a home for you and bring you rice and fish to eat.

In a sense, Lutheran World Service was also saying to us, we have good news and bad news for you. The good news is we have found a family you can sponsor, but here is the bad news. This family has six children who are 10 under and they may have more. We cannot guarantee anything. They might not adjust well to American life. You may find it hard to understand them. It may take longer to get this family to self-sufficiency. A lot of people will have to join in to help and there will be a lot of hard work. The good news is this mission will probably bring your congregation together as nothing else ever will. You will never be the same again, because of this and this good news is just beginning to happen. I’ve had several people come to me almost in tears, fearful that they would not have a vital part in this ministry. One of our members called who is a public health nurse assigned to the Portland at the Indochinese Cultural and Service Center, and said she wanted to help—I have sources for information that I would like to share. She is now on the steering committee. One of our members has a companion who is a complete invalid and is his total care of said: “I can get away long enough to oversee the housing and the furnishing committee. I’m willing to chair that committee.”

This New Year’s Day there is good news and bad news all over the world. The bad news is that the middle east is a veritable tinderbox, so volatile that it could explode at any moment like the grain elevator recently in Louisiana. The Holocaust of history could be upon us in the Middle East. The good news is that Anwar Sadat has spent his whole life and career working on peace—making his trip to Jerusalem to bridge—the unbridgeable—to become the bridge over troubled water. It is exciting to see how Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Begin have all been seen in the media at prayer this past week. Their deep yearnings for world peace on their part  and for all of us is clearly religious.

This can be looked at it as a bad day for the church where the giving is not keeping in step with inflation, membership is going down and the request for Mission in the world seems overwhelming. But, the good news is that there are more committed Church people in strategic positions in the American government and in the world than ever before.

As Frederick Buechner put it, the Gospel is the bad news first—because it begins with humankind as sinners. But, it does not end there. Its central message is an incantation, “For unto us is born this day in the city of David savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Simeon said, “Now Lord, you have kept your promise, and you may let your servant go in peace. For with my own eyes, I have seen your salvation, which you have made ready in the presence of all people. A light to reveal your way to the Gentiles and to give him glory to your people Israel.” I am ready to die, Lord, said Simeon, for I have seen your salvation. Now, actually all he saw was a little baby. For him, that was enough.

Faith is the fairytale that takes the bad news and turns it into the Good News. Christians never deny the wrong. They move right into the teeth of wrong with the Good News of the Gospel, believing with their Christ of Bethlehem who stood in the synagogue and said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon you because he has anointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

If we overlook the patriotic gore, to use Edmund Wilson’s phrase, the story of David and Goliath has to be one of the worlds most satisfying sagas. Former Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, that great theologian, once said, “Nice guys finish last.” And he was right. But every now and then a baddie or a biggie falls toppled by one of the nice little guys, whom God must love, because he made so many of us. David takes on Goliath—Nader takes on General Motors—Gandhi the British Empire—Luther the Roman Empire—Moses the Egyptians. And, if we go back to pre-history, the analogous biological competition for these historical ones I imagine would be the competition between the tiny soft-furred mammal and the massive armored reptile.

But in our satisfaction, we fail to realize that the Goliaths of this world are really fall guys, that is they fall easily. In fact, they probably defeat themselves more than they are defeated. The Goliaths of this world are those individuals, organizations, and nations that share the same to fixed ideas that characterize the original giant. So convinced are they of the invincibility of their armaments that have won them so many victories they cannot conceive of using other armaments. Secondly, it never occurs to them they might be challenged on terms other than their own. So, the Goliaths never think about the slings. They never even see them until it’s too late. Goliaths don’t say: “I wonder what the kid’s got in that little bag?” So, these smug individuals, these complacent organizations, these proud nation’s stalk pompously forward to their own doom.

Pride does go before the fall. There is rough justice in the world. The empires that lasted the longest where the least unjust. The British and Roman empires held on far longer than did the Assyrians. Hitler lasted all of 13 years. All of which is not to slight David, who may represent another historic truth that some of the greatest things in this world or done by people too stupid to know they can’t be done. Think of all the events in history that are only plausible in retrospect: The State of Israel, the Chinese Revolution, and our beloved Christian Church, itself. I read somewhere that the Goths always went over their battle plans twice: once sober to make sure they were well thought out and again when drunk to make sure they did not lack daring. But, David doesn’t need drink or drugs or for that matter much thought. David has none of the crippling curiosity of the intellectual, which makes him think of himself as a problem instead of feeling himself as a person. David has lots of self-confidence, and of course a very simple certainty that he is about to do battle in the name of the living Lord of hosts.

How he contrasts with Saul, who should have been fighting this battle. For once again, Saul has broken under pressure. Poor Saul struggling with a task that is beyond him and with a destiny above him. He can’t make it as a King in the Kingdom of Israel, and he knows it. Saul is torn apart by unreconciled polarities. He is hopelessly ambivalent. Torn between what his abilities say he can do and what his job says he must do.

Not David. There are no splits in his nature—spirit and flesh—individual mind and collective consciousness all integrated into one clear, clean and decisive person. Without a qualm, he goes out to topple the giant who dares to defy the will of God. A few seconds into the first round and it’s all over. Goliath is down, dead, amid all the bright armor that was his own.

Then comes the more interesting confrontation. After slaying Goliath, David you remember is set over many men of war, and proves himself to be an able commander. One day he and Saul are returning triumphantly together. The women come out to meet them singing, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David is tens of thousands.” Immediately, Saul is racked with envy. It is proof-perfect of his perversity and our perversity. When you stop to think about it, of all the seven deadly sins, as opposed to gluttony and lust, envy has no gratification whatsoever. Yet, which of us has not envied.

We read that on the morrow, while David is playing his lyre, Saul twice seeks to pin him to the wall with his spear. What does David do? This glorious warrior, this yearning nation’s brown-eyed pride, ducks twice and runs away. What’s the matter with him? Why can’t he confront Saul the way he did Goliath? Why can’t he get angry? Whys can’t he say, “What are you doing, you almost killed me?” Or, even if David had the intuition to know that whatever is worthy of censure is also worthy of compassion—anxiety has always been the precondition to sin—why can’t he stretch out the healing hands to the wounded leader? Instead he flees.

Well, how many of us have successfully confronted our parents or bosses, when they have try to nail us to the wall? Maybe David was afraid of Saul’s anger. Something most of us could understand, if only because middle-class Christians seem to have a positive allergy to anger. The so-called “permissiveness of parents” so falsely ascribed to poor Dr. Spock, is only an inhibition of anger. Instead of seeking conflict, as a thunderstorm to clear the air, we generally view it as something negative, to be subdued, not resolved. Actually, in the story, Saul acts out his anger and David represses his. As we know, acting out and repressing are but two sides of the same coin, evasion

Maybe David was afraid of Saul’s love, which was real. That to we could understand. For the root fear in all humans is the fear of love. For love can be a wounding as well as a wonderful experience. Love has arrows and in order that they may fall short we keep our psychic distance. So, in fleeing, David may have been acting out the psychic distance he felt necessary for his protection. In any case, it’s probably safe to say that David is confused and frightened by Saul’s complexity, he been such a stranger to these complexities in himself. Good against Goliath, David was a flop against Saul. For how can he understand in Saul what he had recognized in himself? Actually, young David and Goliath seem much alike. They were both self-sufficient, self-enclosed, and full of the intensity of their own being. Hence, David is unable to expand or grow, because he is totally unaware of his own insufficiency. “In my weakness, is my strength,” said St. Paul.

Far from growing, David seems stuck in the next few years in a fight or flight syndrome. He fights Philistines and he flees Saul, and he feels sorry for himself. After a tragic episode in which Saul seems for a moment again to be his old warrior self—Saul is killed. David becomes king. He settles down to his family, his job, which he does well. He is a capable administrator, a moderate and a true diplomat. But then, the unrecognized and unintended seeds of his dissolution sprout. In his old age, David falls apart. He grows slack in prosperity. He is unable or unwilling to control his appetites. He becomes unfit to govern his household, then his kingdom. The intrigues in his nature and in his kingdom creep out of the shadows in which they had long been confined, and begin to raise havoc. David begins to fall apart because he never really was put together. Because he didn’t evolve and grow, he eroded. What was repressed, eroded what was conscious.

I talk to David today, because I think there is a certain parallel us now. The United States of America was once a young David and is now old. There was something young, vigorous, heroic and biblical about those pilgrims, women and men, who craved no other recreation than that of carving out of an unyielding wilderness towns with the name of Canaan, Dan, Goshen, and Sharon. The same is true of our revolutionary forbearers. But, one can hardly say the same of their descendants, who have grown slack in prosperity, have repressed nations abroad and minorities at home, who plunder hideously and casually the Earth’s landscape, and cannot deal decisively with two grave crises the have crept out of the shadows and the now stand before everyone’s sight in broad daylight—the climate crisis which will soon prove murderous to the poor and the arms race that is both homicidal and suicidal for us.

Yet, the trouble may in part stem from our forbearers. For like young David, there was something about our pilgrim and revolutionary ancestors, spiritually speaking, that had a certain presumptuousness about their own innocence. A certain unearthly arrogance not easily matched in the history of other countries, with the exception of Israel or Rome. Many were guilty of what psychiatrist call and a very nice phrase “premature closure”. They were zealous, all right, but with more zeal than knowledge. There were idealists yes, but they didn’t restrict their idealism to what was ideal. Eager to fulfill themselves, they repress the ambiguities, complexities, and the dark and troublesome side of personal and corporate life.

Because they were repressed, they themselves became repressive. The land of the free and the home of the brave—yes they created such a country—but also a nation founded in the blood of 10 million Indians and developed with the sweat of 40 million slaves. And their descendants have continued to show the intimate relationship between inner repression at outer suppression. Any man who represses his feminine nature will perforce be a male chauvinist. Anyone who represses the darker aspects of their nature, will perforce show more respect for law and order than reverence for life, when it comes to lives of those in Attica or San Quentin and our own penitentiary. And dear fellow Christians, you know as well as I do that the Christian church throughout the land is full of such people. The faithful have always sought the infidel in order to confirm them in their fidelity.

But if today, we Americans are going to mature as a nation, be reconciled as a people and survive in our world, one world or no world, we must see that our God-given task, yes blessed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not to vindicate ourselves against the Goliaths of the Philistines. Rather, we need to liberate ourselves from the enemies within us that let us make Philistines out of the other human beings. In short, it is time for the United States not to confront Goliath, but to confront Saul, which is to say to confront ourselves. It is time to become, by design, what Saul was by default. We must choose to split open our tightly closed souls to grapple with realities and all our complexities. Faith is not a substitute for thought, it’s a substitute for anxiety. And therefore, we must consider what makes good thinking possible, and especially hard thinking about the things in our personal and corporate life we prefer not to think.

An integrated nation, an integrated world, can only be created by integrated people. Christians recognize that the words whole and holy have the same roots. Christians are spiritual paralytics who have been make whole. Christians are people whose faith in God’s love is so great that if it has liberated them from the fear of their own darkness, so that we are now free to help others to find their rightful places in the sun.

I have always liked the story of the three Wise men, who in order to find the son of God had to avoid the daylight moving only by night. They were wise because they had a cat-like ability to see in the dark. If we are to be the wise people today we must too—be able to see through the darkness of the armament race and the despair of our separations to the new day of wholeness—and holiness as one world to which God has called us.

Strangely I am beginning to prefer Saul to David. True, Saul was a desperate man, but desperation and truth are ofttimes related. You can generally trust the confessions of a desperate person. Our task is to see his truth without his despair. Our task is to see in religious language that the way down is the way up. For, it is in the depths of Hell that Heaven is found and life is sanctified. When we are at our wits end—says the Psalmist—then we are in the place for God can take over and act out his plan for us and for our history.

In the following program, Rev. Arthur Schwabe interviews Charles Hosford, an Education Leader, Leadership Coach, and Organizational Development Consultant. He created the leadership development tool, leadout (TM).

This morning on a little sheltered island on the Gulf of Suez a veritable miracle is happening. Prime Minister Begin of Israel and President Sadat of Egypt are talking peace. And some ways, it is just like Moses being with the Pharaoh saying God has sent me to you to let my people go.

The miracle of the Middle East is that all the world is waiting in expectation. There is an unbelievable feeling that agreement will be reached. Peace is imminent. When one listens to Prime Minister Begin, the former radical terrorist and freedom fighter, it is as though God has softened his heart and he is willing to make the kind of radical concessions history demands of him at this critical moment. The happenings this morning in Egypt are illustrative of the crisis of faith that is part of our Judeo–Christian heritage.

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her she was to become the mother of God’s Messiah, her incredulous answer was: “How can this be since I have no husband?” Somewhat strangely the crisis of faith is centered around this very point in the Christmas story. “How can this be since I have no husband?” Or, to phrase it in a modern way” “Do you believe in the virgin birth?”

Just recently, I experienced a good illustration of this. Snowcap, our community-service agency, sometimes makes strange bedfellows. Not long ago, a staff member of Snowcap was asked to speak at a neighboring Presbyterian church. On Monday morning of our coffee hour, he said: “Boy, did I get into something yesterday. I was speaking at another Presbyterian Church in the area and had to recite the creed with all of this stuff about “Born of a Virgin” and this Son-of-God bit. I had to mumble through it my tongue  in my cheek at many places and fake my way through it.”

Strangely, if you go through the Judeo– Christian story, it is one of “Believability”. God came to an older couple, Abraham and Sara, one day and said:

Leave your country and your father’s place and go away to a land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

Abraham looked incredulously at God and said: “ Wait hey minute. My wife and I are old, and long past the bearing children stage. We do not have a son. Where is all of the seeds going to come from?” And God answered: “Sara will have a son!”

When Abraham came home and told Sara, she just laughed and disbelief. “I an 80-year-old Woman will have a son?” I am sure any of us in Sara’s place would laugh to. God came to Moses, the sheepherder, out of the desert: “I have heard …” Moses answered: “Who me Lord, take on the Pharaoh? Why I’m running away from him now?” David and Goliath is another model of faith of our Judeo-Christian heritage” “Who me, take on the giant of the Philistines?”

The Christmas story is this kind of “crisis-in-faith” story. God came to Mary: “How can this be, Lord?’ God came to Joseph: “Now what will the people say, Lord?” Shepards in the field: “Will the people believe us?” Imagine a wise man was standing in this community saying: “Tomorrow, I am going to take off after a star!” Only the paranoid Herod had no problems of belief. He was so insecure and so paranoid about his job that he would believe any threat to his kingdom.

However, in our Judeo-Christian heritage, the crisis of faith is always resolved by brave action in obedience to radical faith:

—Abraham did go

—Moses did go

—David challenged Goliath

—Mary did believe the angel in his unbelievable magnificence

—Shepherds did leave the hills

—Magi did follow the star

—Disciples did see him through beyond the resurrection

This morning you and I are disciples of the incredulous. That Bethlehem’s manger should have meaning for our time is unbelievable. However, year-after-year we go to Bethlehem on our pilgrimage of faith. We go following our star to where the Christ child would have us be in our time.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” I Thessalonians 5 18 Rev. Vers.
“In everything give thanks.” King James Version

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, there comes to me a challenge from across the years. The challenge goes like this: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Now you expect that these were the words of a man who lived in a very easy life. Nobody who had really tasted the cup of life to its bitterest dregs, would ever mix such a statement.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Give thanks in sickness and bereavement. Give thanks when unemployment crowds in upon you and the bills pile up. Give things when your best friend let you down, our when you have pulled a boner that has your best friend down. Really this word is certainly that of an unrealistic dreamer. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Be a realistic man. Take off your gray flannel suit: come down out of your ivory tower and be a realist.

On the contrary, however, these are not the words of a man who dressed in a gray flannel suit and lived in a penthouse or an ivory tower. These were the words of a man who was not always prone to thanksgiving. At one time, he felt self-sufficient—he was going to turn the world upside down at all by himself. He had singled himself out as a great defender of the face, Heritage and nationhood of his fathers. Single-handed he was going to wipe out every threat to their heritage that was his. She would begin by wiping out the followers of the Nazarene. But, he did not conquer the woolly Nazarene. Instead he was conquered by this one to be came to him the Christ, the son of God, the Savior of the world and of his life.

But you say—be a realist. How can you give thanks in every circumstance. However, these are the words realist if there ever was one. He had tasted of life as few men have. These are the words of a man who are in the occasion of his first witness to his faith, became a hated person I his former friends, and suspected by those with whom he had identified himself. At the outset they had to spirit him away and let him down over the wall in a basket that he might escape. These were the words of a man who had to flee for his life from Iconic: then in Lystra he was stoned and dragged out of the city and left for dead. He was imprisoned at Philippi after a severe beating. He was the center of a riot at Ephesus. He was arrested in his native Jerusalem. He was sent to Rome as a prisoner. On the way he was shipwrecked in Malta. He was bitten by a poisonous viper and finally in Rome languished in prison for a long time, before he was ultimately beheaded.

Nor was this all. He was afflicted with an eye disease that made him obnoxious to look upon. He was the victim of jealous friends, who criticized him and tried to discredit his work. He was the center of much controversy, because of his burning zeal to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But in all this he could say: “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Now the Greek word that Paul uses here in this phrase is a very interesting one. In the first place, it is somewhat familiar word Eucharisto, from which we get the word for the Lord’s supper: Eucharist. This word is made up of two words: Eu and Charis. Actually the word Eu means good or well done. The word Charis is the word for Grace, what is God’s free favor showing to us. . More than this, the Greek word is in the present tense. The present tense in the Greek conveys the idea of action continually going on in present time. In other words, hey good translation of this phrase would be: “Keep on giving thanks in all circumstances.”

Now, there is a great deal of theology behind this verse. You’ll have to go back to the eighth chapter of Romans and hear Paul say:

We know that and everything God works for good, with those who love him are called according to his purpose.”content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abundance and want. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4 verse 11 to 13.)

And again and the same book he said: “I want you to know, Brother and, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel.” (Philippians 1 verse 12.) “In all circumstances, give thanks.” Why? Because, God is at work in our lives for good. What is happening to us is really for the advance of the Gospel.

No really, this great Spirit of Paul is certainly deeply rooted in our heritage. This week we will all go back in history to the great day at the pilgrims. I don’t want you to think for a moment that these programs had an easy time just as soon as they landed in this land Of milk and honey. As Gov. Bradford later wrote:

The whole country, for love with some tickets, represented a wild and savage hue. If they look behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed and was now as a main goal and bar to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. What could sustain them but the Spirit of God and his grace? May not an are not the children of these fathers rightly say: “Our fathers came over the great ocean, and were ready to perish in the wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and heard their voices and looked on their adversity. Lets them therefore praise the Lord because he is good and his mercies into her forever.”

Stand with the group of thin, emaciated prisoners in the hellish Daschau prison camp, which was the worst horror that Hitler could invent. It is Christmas 1944. My Christmas is celebrated in a prison, by half starved, diseased and dying people it is a dismal affair. Martin Niemoller, sunken-eyed, hungry and sick stands up to speak to the prisoners who are just as tragically broken as he is. But, and she recalls the name of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, his eye carries a new glint of courage, and his voice favorites with new strength as he says:

We are not alone amid the horrors of these years, cut off as we are from the outside world. We are in the hands of God—the god of Jesus Christ, who is with us in this dismal lonely place, to up hold and comfort us and keep hope alive in our hearts.

“In all circumstances, give thanks.”

Suzie M Best put this so beautifully in her poem:

Thanksgiving:

Lord, I give thanks!
Last year that I notice my ambitions failed,,
My back with scourging of defeat was flailed;
My eyes filled off the sharp, salt wash of tears,
No guerdon blast the tireless toilet of years,
Fast in the snares of my helpless feet were tied,
Yet in my woes without its with me abide.
Lord, I give thanks.

Lord I give thanks!
Last year my one ship came back to me,
They ruined wreck of what she used to be,
No cargo in her hold, storm-strained and scarred,
Oh, Lord, thou knowest that it was hard, was hard,
To watch her drifting hulk with hopeless eyes,
Yet, in the desolation thou wert nigh,
Lord, I give thanks.

Lord, I give thanks!
Last year the one I love the dearest died,
And like a desert waste became the wide,
And weary world. Love’s last star went out.
Lord, I give thanks.

During World War II, St. Phillip’s Church of London was shattered by bombs. There are many who thought the church could never be rebuilt, for there was little to salvage. The brave and dedicated people went to work. Once again they raised a spire with its cross bearing testimony to all the world. At the rededication of the rebuilt cathedral there was a drama given as part of the service. The prologue of the drama sounded these words:

There lives a beauty that men cannot kill and that shall kill all ugliness at last. Yes, God lives! Let people who work for good, for truth and for hope give thanks. Our struggles will not end in defeat. Sacrifices will not be lost. God lives! God is the victory!

But now let us look at our lives again. “Give thanks in all circumstances,” says the apostle Paul. Now the other day I heard someone say: “I just can’t think of a thing for which I can be thankful.” He was a man living in a fine house with a good family, a job, and was a member of a church. He just about everything an average American can be. Yet he could not find anything for which to be thankful. Someone described our generation as a people who are like hey herd of swine: “Gutted, gorged and full.” We have taken life for granted, and entirely. In our plenty and our ease, we have become a generation of grumblers.

Someone said to me the other day: “You know down at work I get so depressed. All people talk about his depression and low wages. They just gripe, gripe, gripe. And certainly, this attitude is telling on our generation. We are killing more with our automobiles than we ever killed in war. We have developed more new diseases in our generation than the world ever dreamed of. Mental illness has become the chronic disease of our times. Well I could go on and on. What is our trouble. I think a crying trouble of our times is just this thing that Paul was driving up. We have lost faith in God—a God who is working out all things for the good in our lives—even when we are imprisoned and beaten and deprived and suffer want.

I want you to know, brother that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

We are the children of pilgrim fathers. See them as they leave the Mayflower to stand on a new shore with all its perils and its hardships. Food is running low. Scurvy threatens. Indians lurk in the woods. They built an altar like Noah of old and the left the ark to find a new world. They gave thanks to God who brought them this far. They believed God would see them through.

We going to advent season this week. The central theme of the advent season is this: “His name shall be called Emanuel,” meaning God is with us. God is with us! He is walking down the road. In all things, his hand is leading. All things are working together for good. Therefore, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

There is something about Thanksgiving that does something to us. It takes the frown off our face, the fear in our heart and the grumblings off our lips. It puts a confidence and boisterousness in our lives that makes all the difference. It is this kind of boisterousness and high spirit that makes for healthy people. He puts the heart back into the center of our lives.

“Give thanks in all circumstances!” I can hear Paul say: “Give thanks in all circumstances,” for the ultimate victory is assured. As he later saw at Patmos when he said: “And I John saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven is a bright adoring
for her husband … behold the tabernacle of God is with man—the kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our God.”

Paul can say: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me hey crown of righteousness.”

Victor Hugo cut division when he wrote:

For Half a century I have been writing my thoughts inprocess and verse. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave, I can say like many others, I finish my day’s work. But I cannot say, I’ve finished my life. My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The life is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight and opens on the dawn.

This is the faith by which we live. His faith in God and in Christ who is bringing in his eternal kingdom. We are together Sharing in that work. The kingdom may be slow in coming. Our task may be discouraging. Our burden may be heavy. But ever in our eyes their glimmers that eternal light. We pray with real faith, may that kingdom come, knowing that it will. For God is at work in our lives and in our world, and he will accomplish his task. This makes her burden is lighter in our task easier—for these are for the advance of the Gospel—we are the heralds of his kingdom.

“We give thanks in all circumstances.” For God is at work, in all our lives.

“Is God Dead?” This startling question that stares out from the cover of the current issue of Time magazine. In our day, this is not an academic question. In fact, it is a question loaded with more emotion than any other that may be asked. Time magazine says:

It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.

The interesting thing is, that as you read the books and articles being written on the subject of the death of God, you would almost think that we were the first generation to ask this question. Actually this question is as old as man himself. In fact, one of the most exciting stories in the Old Testament is centered on the question: “Is God dead?”

It is the story of Elijah and the contest of the Gods on Mount Carmel. You remember, Israel was living as though their God was dead. They were worshipping Baal of the Canaanite. Elijah threw a challenge at the people of Israel. We will go up on Mount Carmel. I will represent God. The prophets of Baal will represent Baal. I will build an altar. We will put wood on the altar, then we will slay a bull and put it on the altar. We will pray. I will pray to God. You men pray to your Baal. The God who puts fire under the slain bull — let him be God.

The story ends, when the prophets of Baal prayed and shouted and cut themselves for half a day with no effect. Before Elijah prayed, he had his servant saturate the altar with water. If God was going to put fire under the sacrifice, he would have to kindle his fire with wet wood. There would be no room for trickery. Elijah prayed, and suddenly the fire of God came down and consumed the wood and the bull. It did not stop there. The fire lit up the stone altar for good measure. All the people began shouting: “God is God. God is alive. Hallelujah!” Then, Elijah said: “All right, if God is alive, lets get rid of all of this mess in the name of religion, and worship and serve him.”

The fact is however, that the question “Is God dead?” was perhaps most forcefully asked by the disciples of our Lord between the night of the Crucifixion and the morn of the Resurrection of Christ. At that moment of the Crucifixion, God had literally died for them. They had proclaimed him God. He was really all they knew about God that meant anything to them. Now, he was crucified. All Hell had broken loose in their lives, drawing the black shroud of doubt and despair across the shining ray of hope and faith that had been theirs. Their God was verily dead!

In fact, there is also the glimmer of this question “Is God dead?” In the awful words from the Cross, dramatized so effectively by our choir and the reader last Friday night:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Or, as the sonnet on Friday night put it so forcefully:

Your face does not look at me
The clouds gather darkly here….
My God, my God, the blood runs cold
In water mixed with vinegar stirred.
The Shades have grown gray and bold
And in my dripping breast is spurred
A last shred of love? Some faint old breath
of you inhaled before my life unfurled.

In fact: the question that follows our first one: “Is God dead?” on good Friday is this?

“God, if you are alive in heaven, why did you let us kill your son?”

This question was posed by Harold Bosley recently in the Christian Century magazine. “God, why did you let us kill him?”  Who can bear the answer God might make?

I knew of no other way to do it. I did not want him to suffer and die as he did. I did not want you to neglect, misunderstand, and finally kill him. But, I knew of no other way to let you know the full meaning of my love for you except to send one whose life was the full and perfect embodiment of it. I hoped you would receive him with rejoicing and follow him with adoration. I created you so you might do that. You are free moral agents: free to believe or to doubt, to affirm or deny, to follow or to refuse, to love or to hate, to preserve or to kill. Such freedom is necessary to you, to your life as I want it to be. It is the greatest danger too. You can misuse it—and in the misuse of it, someone always gets hurt. You could not truly obey my son, unless you were free to disobey him. You could not truly love him, unless you were free to hate him. You could not really follow him, unless you were free to kill him. I knew the risk of it all, when I made you that way. I never knew how dangerous it was until I heard him cry out to me: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then, I knew, as never before, the inescapable tragedy, yet the glorious necessity of your freedom. And when his heart broke, so did mine—and so must yours if you are to ever understand my love for you. You see, you not only killed him in AD 29 on Calvary outside the city wall in Jerusalem—you have done it many times since. Every high hill in the world is a candidate for Calvary. And, you—even as you put the question to me—know you would do it again if he were to come to you as he did among them.

To which, there can be only one response—God be merciful to me a sinner.

But, the wonder is that God did not let the drama end there. Today is Easter. We celebrate this day because of the event which occurred on the first Easter. That was the day that the disciples had their question: “Is God dead?” answered. The answer came in no uncertain terms. In Easter, we witness no mere human experience, but the mighty God engaged in his victorious act over death, magnifying and multiplying the presence of his redeeming son whom the world killed. Graciously renewing the gift that had been spurned, and writing his “FINISHED” over death.

What an impact that first Easter made on those disciples! They were all discouraged men and women. Some had left Jerusalem already. They were going home for good, discouraged and feeling God-forsaken, just like their master. The risen Christ fell in step with them on the road home, and before they were through, he broke bread with them. Then, the Gospel writer wrote those wonderful words: “They knew him in the breaking of the bread.” You know I don’t believe there was a person who broke the bread of Communion in this church last Friday night, who did not know the risen Christ better—in the breaking of the bread with him, and then listening to the drama of his last hours unfold.

To me, this is the greatest miracle of Easter. It is not that death was vanquished once for all, and each of us has a hope of heaven, indeed this is wonderful. The real message that comes through is one that is much more wonderful. The disciples saw the Resurrection as the consummation of the Cross. They were now forgiven sinners. Christ had destroyed sin on the Cross. Guilt that had plagued and drove them into the deep anxiety of depression and hopelessness—was now destroyed. God had atoned in his son for human sin. In the Resurrection, he had vanquished not only physical but spiritual death. They were now forgiven sinners. They could now go out and live the lives of free people—free from guilt. They were now ready to go out free to live lives of meaning and importance—to fulfill their lives doing the will of God, as they had seen their Master do before their very eyes. This is the big message of Easter for you and me today.

There is an interesting episode in Alice in Wonderland that illustrates best what I mean. You remember how the gardener went around painting white roses with a red brush. In response to an inquiry, he breathlessly replies that he had been requested to plant red roses. By an unfortunate error, he planted white roses. Therefore, he had to rush about and cover his mistakes.

The gardener’s anxiety to hide his blunders seems like the description of modern life, where people are not so much worried about living after death as they are about dying before they have lived. The mounting burden of half-living, and half-serving God is intolerable. Internal frustration and disappointment reveal themselves in critical attitudes and the constant complaining. The inward irritation of a secret “Hair Shirt” reveals itself in the tension and hostility of restless lives. What men and women need most is a realized sense of forgiveness of sin, based on the validation of Christ’s resurrection. Easter confirms the promise of wholeness and salvation, which he promised those who trust him.

On that morning when Christ was resurrected, the disciples became resurrected too. For them too, the bonds of death were broken. They were no longer slaves to sin—they were free men. The thing that had enslaved them was anxiety about God and themselves. They were never sure that God was really alive. This was true for all of them up until the Cross. This anxiety began with Adam. He said to himself: “God is not really the loving God he makes himself out to be. He has held out on me. If I disobey him and eat the forbidden fruit, I will be like him. I will be like God.” You see he felt something was missing from his life—he was not good enough—he was guilty as sin—and sin bought more guilt.

But now in the Resurrection, the disciples knew that God was really alive. More than that, they were really alive by the power of his resurrection. The risen Christ had taken away their guilt through the Cross. They who were estranged from God by guilt, and their own anxiety. They were now reconciled to God, and walked as new, free people, free from anxiety and guilt, free to be whole—freed by the power of the Resurrection.

I don’t want to be misunderstood this morning. Death is vanquished in the Resurrection. Paul could say: “Because he lives, I too shall live.” This was so real to the Apostle Paul that he almost wished he could be martyred sooner than he was. Because, he said: “To be absent from the body meant to be present with his Lord.” It is a wonderful thing to stand by the grave of a Saint, as I have done so many times, and to know that this is really not the last requiem or the last word about this person. Christ is risen! This is the beginning of fullness of life.

However, there is an even greater truth to me. Christ is risen! The disciples partook immediately of the risen life of Christ. They were forgiven, set free, and went out from the empty tomb changed. The spirit of the risen Christ possessed them—soon they went out into their world. They were no longer painting white roses red, motivated by guilt, trying to change their lives—always driven by anxiety. They were now new people in Christ.

The old had passed away—the new had come. They had partaken of the forgiveness and the new life of his Resurrection. No longer did they care who would be seated on the Master’s right hand or his left. No longer did Peter want to build a temple on a mountain and sit there forever as Jesus did on the Mount of Transfiguration. These disciples became new people—made alive by the Resurrection. Now was the time for them to live as Christ—to follow in the Master’s train in dedication was now the great dynamic of their lives.

I see some of you this morning are beginning to feel this power too. I see the new glint in your eye. One of the new members who joined the Church last Sunday dropped me a note. She said she was tingling from head to foot with the new life of Christ. I received a very beautiful Easter card from another who said:  “Thanks for bringing our family into this wonderful pilgrimage of faith.”

“Christ is risen. God is not dead.” He is alive—he is very much alive in Christ. He wants to become alive in you, too. All you need to do is put yourself under the power of the risen Christ—accept his forgiveness—and your life will begin to tingle too. You will begin to feel the thrill of the pilgrimage—and your family well too. Here then is the challenge of Easter as the Apostle Paul puts it:

That I might know him and the power of his Resurrection!

Now, Christ risen from the dead—for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall we all be made alive. The first Adam became a living being. The last became a life-giving spirit.The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Are you torn by anxiety and guilt? Do you feel the emptiness and the brevity of your life crowding in on you? Tune in on the Resurrected Christ. Accept his forgiveness made possible on that first Easter. Join the hosts of men who call themselves followers, and your life too will tingle with the glory of the new life and the excitement of the new commitment to a new Pilgrimage!

What can you preach on the Sunday after Easter?

True that in the Lenten season we have relived the major events in the life of Christ. On Good Friday, you have stood between the crosses and he felt the power of the crucified emanate from the center of the cross. Then on Easter, you go to the mountain top and you stand with risen Christ, and you gaze into the promised land of his kingdom. You reached the acceleration of the climax of the Church year and the crowning event of the gospel. Then comes the Monday morning after Easter. You are physically tired and emotionally spun out. There is an emptiness and a letdown. You really wonder what you will preach about on the Sunday after Easter.

It doesn’t help when on the Saturday after Easter you are on a retreat with a group of young adults, and during the question period one asks: “Why do sermons have to be so dull?” You look for some of the other young people to come to the defense of sermons, knowing that for the most part it is your sermon they’re talking about. After further discussion, you become aware most of the young people feel the same way.

Then you go back to your study on Saturday night and feel very much empty and alone. (If you have ever been in your study alone, you might not know how it feels.) Suddenly you become aware that you are not the only one to pass through the post-Easter doldrums.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus we’re really going home to turn in their ordination certificates. They heard the reports of the empty tomb found by the women, but it only added one more mysterious happening in a long week of happenings that just didn’t make sense. The rest of the faithful women and men must have lingered between ecstasy and despair—between his resurrection appearances—wondering if they were the victims of a cruel hallucination—doubting even the very resurrection itself.

It was at this point I thought I better just address my subject, which was already printed in the Church bulletin. But, the cupboard was so bare I could not remember the subject I had placed in the bulletin two days before. When I discovered the subject: “An Invitation to Celebration and Service,” I actually thought: “Whatever possessed me to announce such a subject—and to announce it of all days for the Sunday after Easter? Well, the die was cast, so I better get to the task before me.”

Where do you start working on a sermon, when you are in the mood you are in, and it is the Saturday night after Easter? Then, I remembered the biblical insights that triggered the sermon.

I returned once more to the Gospel stories written by Matthew. I began to live through the experiences in the Gospel that had set me off in the direction in the first place. While reading the Easter story in Matthew, I suddenly came to Jesus’s closing words to his disciples as he spoke to them on the mountain in Galilee. The last words of the risen Lord went like this:

     Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you. And low I am with you always to the close of the age!”

As I read these words, I suddenly got a flash of insight. I remembered how at the beginning of the book of Matthew an Angel of the Lord came to Joseph and said to him:

     Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the
Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, can’t you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his
people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet.

     Behold the virgin shall conceive
     And bear a son and his name
Shall be called Emmanuel
Which means God with us

It was then that the wise men came from the East—following a star—and when the star came and stood over Bethlehem, they rejoice with exceeding great joy—and they went in and found the baby with the mother and Joseph. They fell down and worshiped the baby, and they gave him their gifts.

Now this had all the elements of a celebration. They came to the place with exceeding great joy. They fell down and worshiped him, and then they made an offering to him—all because his name was:

     Emmanuel = God with us.

Matthew begins the gospel story with a celebration of the incarnation, the celebration of God’s presence in the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He ends his book with the enthrallment of the risen Christ: “All Power is given to me!” says the risen Lord. Then he goes on:

     And lo I am with you always to the close of the age.

At this point I thought it would be fun to look up all is celebrations in the Gospel of Matthew. The first one that came to my mind was the experience of the mount of Transfiguration. He had taken Peter, James and John up on the mountain, and suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared to talk with him. While Jesus was talking to the prophets, Matthew says:

     He was transfigured before them, and his face shown like the sun, and his
     garments became white as light.

And Peter said:

      I will make three booths here—one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.

In other words she said: “Let’s have a Celebration.”

The celebration was very short. I don’t think Peter even had time to build the booths. Soon, they went down from the mountain where they were met by a crowd and were accosted by a man whose son was demonized who cried out to be rid of his demon.

This is too true for us today. Our celebrations are short. There’s not much time for them. There is the struggle of the mission, the hard work of learning the mysteries of the Kingdom, and above all the process of being spent in the love of God and neighbor. This does not leave much time for celebration.

I began to look for other celebrations in the book of Matthew. I found Jesus used the word “joy” twice in his parables. In the parable of the sower, Jesus explains the parable in Matthew 13:20:

     As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root himself and immediately
he falls away.

Here is a shallow celebration that is so short-lived that the celebration returns to the state of shallow apathy before the brief moment of joy.

In the same set of parables, Matthew has another one:

     The kingdom of heaven is just like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and
     covered up, then in joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.

Here the celebrator goes and sells all that he has—he celebrates with giving all he has—there is a dimension of depth here that makes the celebration real.

There is one other discovery about celebration. Matthew has the celebration of the Magi come after they have completed a long journey. They put their whole life and credibility as astronomers on the line when they followed the star. When they found the baby, they celebrated.

Matthew has his boots parallel with Exodus. During the days of the exodus, Yahweh remained with his people on the march across the Red Sea. As Yahweh went before them, they sang Miriam’s song as they came to the Jordan. Those carrying the Ark slipped into the water. Yahweh went before them, and the water parted. They went through into the promised land, on dry land. And again they had a celebration.

Now at the end of the book of Matthew, the very last words of the risen Lord confirm the celebration of the Lord’s presence, “Lo I am with you always to the close of the age!” As in the Old Testament, a word of revelation is followed by a command followed by a promise.

     Revelation—Christ is King
     Command—Go make disciples
Promise—Lo I am with you

Now the risen Lord would remain with his disciples, while they travel on the border line between history and the Kingdom, until this age is closed.

Back to the young people. Our religious symbols have become impoverished. In our sermons, our young people do not know what we are all talking about. For example, think of the symbol of the Exodus with the rise of the civil rights movement and crossing the River Jordan. Consider the good news message of Good Friday compared to the news stories in the weekly newspaper—Transcendence is on the way out. This is the world on whose border we walk.

Symbols of Exodus, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.

Come let us Celebrate the presence of the Risen Christ!

Psalm 8

This is one of the great hymns of the ancient Hebrew church. The author is stirred to praise by the contemplation of the glory of God as manifested in the wonders of the heavens, which in turn excited reflection on the place of humankind in the scheme of creation. The hymn is marked by originality, imagination and deep insight as it contrasts god’s greatness with human littleness. However, humankind is too a master stroke in the artistry and the scheme of God. Because of God—humankind is ultimately crowned with glory and honor—given dominion over the creation. We have the vastly important job of managing his great ecology.

Psalm 19

This brief hymn starts as one of the noblest examples of Hebrew poetry. It follows one of the traditional patterns of hymnic composition, and from the beginning to the end it manifests fresh poetic and theological insights. As a Psalm opens, the hymn has already begun aeons ago at the time of the creation. Its first notes were sounded—and ever since as the celestial hosts keep singing it. The theme, which the heavens recount and the firmament proclaim, is the “work of his hand at their creation.” Though neither speech, nor words, nor voice is heard by mortal ears, the mind that surveys them can detect them, and the eloquence is so loud it resounds to the end of the world!

Psalm 22

Picture a solitary prophet—Amos or a Jeremiah—who feels utterly alone with all his enemies closing in on him to destroy him, because he has been faithful to the word of the Lord. This becomes the genuine outpouring of a sorely tried servant of God, who made so alive his own experience of despair that it has become the universal cry of the sufferer everywhere. It is apparent that Jesus used the psalm many times, when he went up to the solitary place to be alone with God. He could identify with the aloneness of the sufferer. On the cross he felt the ultimate aloneness—separated from earth and heaven—he uttered the words hope this psalm, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

Psalm 34

This song in Hebrew is an acrostic. Each line begins with the letter of the alphabet and order. By accident 6th letter, which belongs between line 5 and 6 has been omitted. The Psalm is a song of salvation. The keynote is found in verse 6.

     The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
     And saved him out of all of his troubles

The Psalm is sings confident trust in the Lord—whose providential care surrounds his righteous people. Gods people should give thanks to the Lord at all times, and not only when they are in need of being delivered out of great trouble.

Psalm 37

This Psalm is another acrostic song. Each of the 22 strophes or couplets, begins with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. The great question of the Psalm is a fact fundamental to all wisdom literature. Why do the wicked seem so often to prosper—while the righteous suffer and live in privation? The answer of the song is that God does not always pay on Saturday night. Even though the fact of experience may at times indicate otherwise, it is only a seeming disturbance of the balance of justice. In due time, if we do not faint the righteous one, we shall be gloriously vindicated.

Psalm 51

David was an oriental Emperor, with powers of life and death over his people. For the Emperor, his whim was his subject’s beck and call. The subject was there to serve every need of the Emperor. One day, the Emperor was lounging on the upper deck, when he saw the beautiful wife of one of his army officers was sunbathing on her private patio on the roof of her home across from the palace. David desired Bathsheba for his harem. So, he acted like the emperor he was. His Army was at war. He commanded that Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, be given a command at the head of the Army, where he was most likely to be killed.

The Philistines obliged and killed Uriah. David brought comfort to Bathsheba by inviting her into his harem and promising that her first son by him would be his heir. For most oriental Emperors, the story would have ended there but not for David. Nathan the prophet comes on the scene. He has a grievance before the king, and says, “You are the man!” The story then is David’s Psalm of anguish and contrition.

Psalm 91

Picture a young Israeli today. He is a very devout Orthodox Jew surrounded on every side by enemies. Since his childhood, he has lived with the terrors of the night, and the arrows of death that fly in the daytime. With his faith rooted in God, he identifies with the ancient Psalmist, who lived in the same predicament. Life has many parables. But he is obsessed with the security of those who dwell in the secret place of the most high.

     A thousand may fall at your side
     Ten thousand at your right hand
But it will not come near you

In the midst of the Holocaust, God will protect you.