Pastor McCarty's Sunday Sermon
Christ Lutheran Church, Staunton, VA
March 1, 2015
Tags: Mark 8; Eager Anticipation
Jesus instructs his
followers this morning to “Take up their cross and follow me.”
That statement stands as a statement of deep faith. Perhaps deeper
than many Christians find themselves ready to engage in. To tone the
statement down a bit, consider this catchphrase, “drop everything
and go.” Both statements suggest that what you are currently doing
might not be as important as what you could be doing. Actually, you
may have heard “drop anything and go” in advertising and
marketing. “Drop everything and go to Crazy Harry's discount
emporium,” which of course is not what we are talking about. So to
our statement of faith, “drop everything and go” we will add
another statement of faith:
“Christ has died.
Christ has risen. Christ will come again.”
Those who were here for
Ash Wednesday worship will remember as we gathered around the
communion rail to celebrate the Lord's Supper, we proclaimed the
mystery of faith. “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ
will come again.”
The Christian Church has
taught belief around this proclamation. You believe Christ died.
You believe Christ rose. And I hope you believe that Christ
will come again.
Again the Christian Church
has anchored our proclamation on this truth. This confession within
the confession. Where, perhaps, the church has missed the boat is the extent of our hope. You believe
these words, but do you eagerly anticipate this. Eagerly anticipate
it to the point of “drop everything and go.” One might think
that eager anticipation might guide our expectation of Christ's
return, but probably not.
How might these words
sound different if you surround them with eager anticipation:
Christ has died. Christ
has risen. Christ will come again.
Are you looking for Christ
now? What does it mean to pick up your cross and follow Christ now.
I will answer that question for you. It means Christ is here, now.
Sometimes the news
provides lousy examples. You may have seen two this week about what
has gotten people ready to “drop everything and go.” This week
in the news you may have heard about or read about teenagers from
Canada and three teenage girls from the United Kingdom flying to
Syria by way of Turkey. The fear is that they are going to become a
part of ISIS. Some people will drop everything and go. Though it might frighten us as to where they are going. Pray for these girls, also a couple of boys from
Canada, pray for them and their families.
Here is a less troubling
example: a pool of a hundred people have been gathered from thousands
of applications for a one way trip to settle Mars. A one way ticket,
where the first settlers of Mars will likely have a life expectancy
of about a hundred days. And the hundred in the pool eagerly
anticipate the chance to be pioneers, to be remember as the first to
settle Mars. Eager anticipation such that you leave everything and
go.
But take these examples
and wonder about this, what would make you in your teenage years,
young adult years, what could the church have done to get you
excited, and if not run away, move away in eager anticipation that
Christ is here now or that Christ is coming soon. Actually it
happens in the Lutheran Church, the ELCA has a program called Young
Adults in Global Mission, where a young adult, aged 19 through 29,
applies to live internationally for a year and do ministry in God's
name.
YAGM
Luke Hanson lives and works in rural eastern Rwanda, he teaches
children at an elementary school organized by the Lutheran Church. He
recently wrote: "One of the important themes that has colored my
life in the last few months is that of “waiting well.” ....I’m
learning from Rwanda that waiting well is about trusting—
about
relinquishing the fear of uncertainty and pain and
brokenness
that breeds urgency and impatience—
waiting poorly. As it
happens, my Rwandan village
neighbors have been excellent
teachers.... Things which initially caused me such great impatience
and frustration are no longer such a huge deal ..."
(from www.ELCA.org)
I like the paradox of not
being urgent or anxious from Luke's blog cast against our eager
anticipation of God's return. We wait patiently for Christ to return
and yet we eagerly anticipate his return as well. We eagerly
anticipate Christ's return so much that we look for it here on earth.
Perhaps this just might be
the conundrum of the church. The church lifts up the resurrection as
eager anticipation because of death. The closer one gets to death,
the more one latches on to the hope of the resurrection. But for
youth who have little reason to think about death, and middle aged
adults as well frankly who do not want to think about their own
mortality, the church needs another message.
To help them, young and
old alike, we all can open our eyes and hearts to eager anticipation
of Christ's return, not because death is a painful reality, not
because you think the world is so messed up. Open your eyes and
heart to the coming of Christ with eager anticipation because heaven
is such glorious place, a wonderful place. And that heaven is so
good and wonderful and glorious that it is overflowing onto earth
now. Christ is here now. The goodness and the glory of heaven overflow to you today, to
us today and to the world today. And Christ tells you where to look
to find him and the goodness of heaven, “pick up your cross and
follow me.”
Amen
