A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .
Make ready
Luke 3:1-6, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, December 6, 2009
A young man goes into a fortuneteller who looks into a crystal ball and says, “You will be poor and unhappy until you are 45 or 50 years old.” “Then what will happen?” asks the twenty-something. The fortune teller replies, “Then you'll get used to it.”
By now the world around us is getting ready for Christmas. Most folks (including us) have tried to make their homes and churches ready for the approaching holiday by adding touches of seasonal beauty: green trees, red ribbons, and bright lights for the basics, and myriad variations on the theme of home, from little wood or ceramic villages to gingerbread houses and Christmas cards with scenes of sleighs that carry families back to see grandparents for the holidays. We spend so much time, effort, and money on these preparations that we often miss the enjoyment and, perhaps even more, the deeper meaning beneath them. Before we know it, Christmas is over and we're both tired and relieved. What, we may wonder, was that all about, anyway?
Thank God for Advent. While we shop, trim the tree, and plan parties, the church is preparing, too, not for a holiday but for a holy day. Our communities of faith are preparing the way for the Christ Child to come not only into our homes but into our hearts as well. Or is it better to say that we are preparing for the coming of Christ, the Word made flesh, into the world again, bearing hope and good news, forgiveness and peace? Yes, Jesus didn't come for just you and me, but for the whole world. Luke makes that universal reach of the gospel quite clear: the good news isn't our little secret, our private possession or privilege; it's for all of God's children. Not just one people or one kind of people, or one nation, or one time in history, but for all of us, every nation, and every age. It's not just good news; it's really big news for us all, today, just as much as two thousand years ago. The truth is that on its way from Jerusalem to Rome, as Luke’ story continues in Acts, the Gospel will not only encounter the poor, lame, halt, and blind, but also the synagogue rulers, high priests, governors, kings, treasurers, city officials, leading women, philosophers of Athens, captains of ships, imperial guards, and finally the emperor himself. God has plans for all the people.
And how do we, the church, prepare ourselves for this greatest of homecomings? We listen to John, the Baptist, who proclaims a message of repentance, and a preparation of a different sort. We need to get ready for what's coming, he says. When we are expecting guests over, we look at our home with a whole new perspective. John tells us to take a good hard look at ourselves and at our world. The hour is at hand, the time has come, he warns, for a radical change of heart and mind, a dramatic course adjustment, a renewal of our spirits. For John, this conversion experience was sealed in a baptism that expressed the commitment to a whole new way of living in faithfulness to God.
But you know, this becoming different isn’t as difficult as it
may seem. It’s not like we don’t already have it in us. It’s sort of like the
fella who stopped in the diner, ordered coffee, and when it came dumped the five
packets of sugar remaining in the holder into it. He asked for more, but the
waitress having seen him clear out the supply snapped and said, “Stir what
you’ve got!” You've already got what it takes. Think of it this way. What would
you do if you knew that you had only one day to live? That was the question
Gunther Klempnauer asked 625 young students in 12 different German vocational
schools. He reported a wide variety of responses including the expected: Get
drunk, get a fix, get a girl. Some said they would spend the time with family,
others wanted to climb a mountain or sail their boat, and yet others wanted to
go on a picnic with friends. One student indicated that he would spend the time
reviewing his photo albums and savoring the memories. An 18-year-old young woman
wrote, “I would like to spend my last evening in church alone with God and thank
him for my full and happy life.” It is an arresting question and a daunting
exercise to answer. A popular news columnist imagined what the world would be
like if everyone suddenly knew there were only 24 hours left for them to live.
He said the telephone circuits would be overloaded with desperate people trying
to call family and friends in order to say, “I love you.” Stir what you've got.
You've got a lot of sugar in your life already. Stop trying to keep adding more
upon more. Relax a bit more. Don't try so hard to get everything you can from
everyone you know. That's not right. We mess up enough ourselves, so let others
off the hook. Focus on your own need for forgiveness. All need make the journey,
follow the star, kneel in heart and adore in soul, the grace and beauty of God's
salvation revealed in
We’ve heard we need to live today like it’s our last. By doing
this, we will get the most out of it and be the best person possible. We’ve also
heard we need to make sure we make plans for tomorrow simply because today may
not be the last day, and tomorrow and the next day are coming, and that's what
wise people do. It can be confusing. Do we save or spend? Are we getting ready
only for today or for a whole bunch of tomorrows? Or is it possible to do both?
The founder of the Central City Mission in
Back in 1901 Bateman had labored in Baltimore where he once conducted a service in which only three boys came forward to receive Christ. Disappointing, right? Yet one of those boys was E. Stanley Jones, who became one of America’s most effective and famous Methodist missionaries and author of many books about Christ in India. In his autobiography, A Song Of Ascents, Jones describes Bateman: “Through his rough exterior I saw there was reality within. He was a converted alcoholic, on fire with God’s love and I said to myself, I want what he has!… I accepted him for what he was – a devoted, diamond-in-the-rough winner of souls.”
In 1912, a desperate letter from a girl employed in a brothel prompted Bateman to return to England to study methods of Christian social work. During a tour investigating these “houses” in London, the doctor also preached in revival services in English churches. On the return voyage to America, he conducted the only religious service aboard a ship of 2,207 people, concluding with his favorite hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee.” That night at 11:45 p.m. the Titanic struck an iceberg. As Bateman escorted his sister-in-law to a lifeboat he said, “Don't be nervous, Annie. This will test our faith. I must stay and let the women go. If we never meet again on this earth, we will meet again in heaven. He threw his handkerchief into the descending lifeboat saying, “Put that around your throat. You'll catch cold.” After he saw the women safely off the sinking ship, Bateman "Collected about 50 men on the stern of the ship and told them that they should prepare for death. And he led them in praying the Lord's Prayer," said a surviving passenger.
Edward A. Mueller, curator of the Jacksonville Maritime Museum, said, “Dr. Bateman and another man were also purported to have opened some of the steerage passageway doors to allow those mostly unfortunate and ill-fated passengers to escape.” Ten days after the disaster, the widow received a letter from her dead husband. Bateman had written on shipboard and mailed the letter in Ireland when the Titanic had stopped for more passengers. "I feel that my trip has not been in vain," his letter said. "God has singularly blessed me. We had a glorious revival... It was the Time of My Life." His nephew received a letter mailed at the same time. "Tom, if this ship goes to the bottom, I shall not be there, I shall be up yonder. Think of it!" Bateman had written. When the family pried open Bateman's locked roll-top desk, they found that he had set his affairs in order and that he had written a poem on a black-bordered card and left it on top of his papers: Do you shudder as you picture/All the horrors of that hour? Ah! But Jesus was beside me/To sustain me by His power. And He came Himself to meet me/In that way so hard to tread/And with Jesus' arm to cling to/Could I have one doubt or dread?
The funeral service at First Baptist Church was the largest in Jacksonville's history at that time. Mourners, some in rags, some in best-dress finery, lined the route of the funeral procession. Rich and poor hugged each other and wept. The minister delivering the eulogy said, "I somehow felt from the first that Dr. Bateman would be among the lost ... Knowing Dr. Bateman as I knew him, I believed he would do just what he did in a crisis like that—help others to safety and take his chances among the last. With the courtesy of a gentleman and the spirit of Him who laid down his life for others, he stepped aside for the women and children and took his place with those marked for certain death. It was so like him. He died as he lived—serving others with a triumphant faith in God."
That’s how you live both as if today is the last day, and yet tomorrow still matters; and matters that day does: when “(E)very valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” May you and I be made ready to see if not soon, then still and definitely someday, one glorious day, one most wondrous and holiest moment, the salvation of God.
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