Author: TechCommittee

June 20, 2021                                                                        Text:  2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Some of you have been around since the early stages of the church plant that became our church – Good Shepherd Lutheran.  This morning we look at another church plant that got off to a rocky start.  There were divisions among the members.  A sex scandal involving a member.  There was disorder in worship and confusion about fundamental beliefs, including the resurrection of Jesus.  A painful visit from the Pastor-missionary was followed by a tough letter from this same fella.  This church plant was hanging by a thread.  Then came another letter from the missionary except this letter brought comfort and good news that they needed.

            We know this letter as 2 Corinthians.  The Pastor/Church planter is the Apostle Paul.  The Church in Corinth had been through a lot when they received this letter.  There was even conflict between the church and Paul.

            Paul notes a problem they have.  Their hearts are restricted, confined, closed off.  Their hearts are blocked by a stubbornness that is putting them at risk.  Paul pleads with them and speaks to us . . .

“WHAT CAN HEAL OUR SPIRITUAL HEART DISEASE?”

            We all are aware of physical heart disease.  The hamburger we have piled high from the fast food restaurant or movie theater popcorn with butter is not helping the situation.  Neither is the backside on the couch when a nice walk should be the menu item for the day.  It builds up fat that clogs heart and arteries.  Not enough oxygen is getting through to our cells and we suffer.

            We don’t know if the Corinthians suffered physical heart disease but we do know they suffered spiritual heart disease.  How about you?  Ever closed your heart off to others?  Walked by a person in need?  Conveniently forgot to wash the dishes or take out the garbage and it was left for someone else?  We too suffer spiritual heart disease when we fail to love our neighbor as ourselves.

            What could damage our heart?  Maybe you’ve been hurt by someone and you find it hard to trust?  Someone close to you has died and you can’t understand why God would allow such a thing.  Or could it be a conflict with another person that causes anxiety and you suffer in silence for it? 

            Every one of us in this sanctuary has had affliction and suffering.  No one has a perfect heart.  Like the Corinthians are hearts are restricted.

            The Church in Corinth was not left to themselves to conquer their spiritual heart disease.  Healing was available to them and it is available to you.  Paul proclaimed, “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (v. 2)  These early Christians no longer have to carry around their burdens.  They don’t need to hang on to their shame, their guilt, or the wrong done to them.  Their damaged hearts have been made whole in Jesus.  Paul wrote in the previous chapter, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  (2 Cor. 5:17)  A new heart has been created within them.  Salvation, help, and grace, are all theirs because of Jesus.

            We inherit this same help, grace, and salvation as these brothers and sisters.  We are new creations because of Jesus.  Jesus opened his heart and his whole body and came down to earth and became us – fully human.  This sinless Son of God opened his heart and his arms and took our sin to a cross.  Jesus took our spiritual heart disease and, in exchange, gave us righteousness, forgiveness, and clean hearts.

            We are not left to heal ourselves.  We do not become our own cardiologist.  Our healer is the Lord Jesus.  Brothers and sisters in this mission plant of a congregation, now is the favorable time.  Now is the day of salvation when Jesus brings healing for our spiritual heart disease.  There is no waiting.  Come to the altar today for forgiveness, life and salvation through the healer’s body and blood.  You have already had your sins absolved by the authority of Jesus Himself.  You received God’s favor by hearing His Word of Good News.

            Our hearts will continue to be challenged.  We may even suffer some of the things Paul mentions.  Hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, dishonor, slander.  We may still internalize conflict and grief and broken relationships.  Our hearts are imperfect.  But the struggle does not last forever.  We do not receive the grace of God in vain.  We receive the grace of God fully.  Just as Jesus has risen from the dead, we, too, will rise from our graves on the Last Day.  When He returns our hearts will not be restricted but will be opened wide.  When Jesus comes again, our spiritual heart disease will be forever cured.

                                                                                                                                    Amen. 

June 13, 2021                                                                                                Text:  Mark 4:26-34

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Is ignorance bliss?  Sometimes, not knowing what makes a thing great enhances its beauty. 

            Have you had this experience?  You eat something that is delicious and then you find out it had some ingredients in it you don’t like?  Mom makes a cake and you discover she put sour cream in it.  Should something sour be put in with sweet?  Sour cream helps make the cake moist but you still have a hard time reckoning your taste buds.  Or you are given bread that looks like pumpkin and so you go ahead and eat it.  Did you enjoy it?  Why, yes I did.  I can now tell you it was zucchini!  What? 

            Sometimes a thing is good on its own, and to know too much about it might ruin our appreciation for the good that is in it – ignorance, as they say, is bliss.  Such is the case in the parable of the growing seed that we hear from Jesus today.

“IGNORANCE IS BLISS?”

            It is true sometimes that not knowing what makes a thing great enhances its beauty.  Certainly for the growing seed, ignorance was bliss.  The succinctness of this parable gives it such power:  “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.” (v. 26)  The kingdom is scattered throughout the whole world.  No distinction is made of the soil like in the parable of the sower.  It is sown in every place. 

            The man then goes about his business day and night and the seed grows without his knowing how:  “The earth produces by itself.” (v. 28)  The Greek term here is “automatically” no further invention is needed or required.  First the blade and then the ear and then the full grain.  Good growth happens even if the man doesn’t know how.  In time, a plentiful harvest will come.

            As prideful, sinful people we are not content with something working without our effort to make it happen.  When churches are dying we want to come up with some program to save them.  When members of our family or friends are outside the Christian faith we ask what can I do to bring them around to the love of Jesus?  How about our own faith life?  We might even take credit there by letting everyone know that we go to worship and Bible study regularly and we pray harder.

            But the truth behind all of these scenarios is not looking at what we can do, but what is done already.  The cake was good the way the baker crafted it.  The Kingdom of God is a beautiful gift because the Creator mysteriously causes it to grow into a glorious harvest. 

            The growth of the Kingdom of God is up to Him, not us.  Jesus highlights that in the parable today.  Man scatters the seed but God causes the growth.  Christ’s death on the cross has redeemed the whole world, and the Kingdom of God is already sown everywhere that the Gospel is preached – in you and me, in the people of God in the Church, in your unbelieving loved one, in your atheist neighbor, when they have heard the Gospel.

            The only growth that is going to happen will occur by God’s design, not by your effort, pressure, stress, or badgering.  It is God who grants the growth automatically.  If it were up to us to accomplish faith and church growth, we would have figured it out in two thousand years – growth would be happening by leaps and bounds.  It happens in God’s time.  Our Lord is more interested in freeing our guilty conscience in his forgiving grace and granting to us a holy and eternal joy.

            The question still lingers – what can be done?  Dr. Fred Craddock was a Professor of New Testament and Homiletics at Emory University.  He had a father who was very critical of the church.  Every now and then the minister would come to the Craddock home to speak with Fred’s dad.  Mr. Craddock would complain they didn’t care about him only his pledge of money.  This would embarrass Mrs. Craddock.  But Mr. Craddock continued this talk for years.

            There came a time he didn’t say it.  He was in the Veteran’s Hospital.  They had taken out his throat.  He was down to 74 lbs. and radiation had badly burned him.  He couldn’t speak.  Around his room were flowers everywhere.  Cards were attached from the Men’s Club and the Women’s Fellowship and the Youth Group.  Every group in the church and many other parishioners had sent cards. 

            Fred’s dad could not speak but he wrote on the side of a Kleenex box a line from Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’:  “In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.”  “Dad, what is your story?”  He wrote, “I was wrong, I was wrong!”

            There are a lot of desperate people in our world who are suffering emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually.  God doesn’t ask us to be their critics.  He directs us to sow seed.  The Word will do what God wants it to do in spite of us.  He just asks us to share the love of Jesus.  Not to be obsessed with results – just do.  Christ’s love.  We’ve got it to share

            Virginia Laren put it this way:  “There is only one answer to man’s deepest needs, only one source of life.  Therefore, if I know Christ and have studied the Gospels, that makes me either a missionary or a cop-out.”  Where do you stand with this issue?  God bless our trust in the power of the Word.  God Bless our sowing.  Amen.     

June 6, 2021                                                                                   Text:  Genesis 3:8-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Naked.  Do I have your attention?  I figure there are two reactions when I say naked.  Naked, all right this sermon is going to be good.  Naked.  Should Pastor be talking about that from the pulpit? 

            If you are familiar with the early chapters of Genesis, you realize nakedness existed in the Garden of Eden.  Before the fall, Adam and Eve lived naked.  Because of their innocence, lack of shame, and freedom from sin, nakedness did not affect them.  They stood naked before God in Paradise.  This topic is Biblical, so if you are little nervous, relax.  Let’s step into the Garden and talk about being . . .

“NAKED”

            Recall life in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were made to live in a loving relationship with God and reflect for them their own relationship and in their stewardship of creation.  God said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:28)  They were defined by the love of God that brought them into being and the honor of being stewards of God’s earth.

            Then sin crept into God’s creation.  The serpent promised they could be like God.  Adam and Eve abandoned their privileged position among God’s creatures.  By coveting godhood, they separated themselves from the life-giving love of God that had made them and defined them.  They thought if they had the knowledge of good and evil, they wouldn’t owe anything to anyone.  But this knowledge didn’t make them more divine.  It only opened their eyes to how evil their abuse of God’s love had been.  It exposed their nakedness. They were now free to define themselves, create their own godhood.  But this freedom proved to be an endless struggle to cover their shame – a struggle filled with pain, doubt, and death.

            Isn’t their naked shame quite amazing?  We understand this if we have ever been naked in front of someone or many some ones.  But their shame was before God, not necessarily each other.  This is why they played hide and seek.  They weren’t hiding from each other, they were hiding from God.  “Who told you that you were naked?”  They would cover themselves with fig leaves but Adam still complained to Eve that she had put his pants in the salad again!

            Ever since the fall, we mark our lives by self-definition.  We are judged by how much we have achieved in life, how much education we have or how much we earn.  We make a statement:  “This is what I’ve made myself to be.”  We dress ourselves up in our achievements for everyone to see.

            There is nothing wrong with all of this unless they become our gods.  “This is what I made myself to be” can never be our creed.  When what we accomplish turns into a means of self-creation, we fall into the same sin as Adam and Eve.  This deceives us into thinking we are naked unless we clothe ourselves with our successes.  This blinds us to the fact that all we are and all we have comes from the hand of God, the only and true Creator. 

            God didn’t just leave Adam and Eve naked.  He cursed them yes for their disobedience but He then promised a covering for sin – a Savior who would bridge a right relationship with God.  He would bring them back.

            We also are not left naked.  We can never do enough to cover ourselves up.  Thanks be to God, by the resurrected, ascended, and glorified body of Jesus Christ, we do indeed become clothed.  All sinners who repent and are washed in the cleansing flood of Baptism receive a robe of righteousness.  The Spirit recreates us as members of Christ’s holy, glorified body in union with our Savior.  He makes us, the Bride of Christ, one with our eternal Husband.  Our Lord and Savior covers us in His holiness and righteousness.  So when the Father looks at us, He sees the clothing of His beloved Son.  Those glorious fashions are bestowed by grace as part of our dowry and inheritance.  Clothed with the robes of Christ, we can enter the divine and holy presence of God with boldness and confidence.  Because we partake of Christ, we presently stand in God’s heavenly presence in this flesh.  We abide in Him; He dwells in us.  And when He returns to bring us into His eternal home, we will receive the radiant clothing of His majesty and glory forever.

            Talking about naked wasn’t so bad now, was it?  What happened to Adam and Eve happens to us daily.  The world tries to clothe us with their constant drivel and their “look at me” mentality.   Through the Holy Spirit we know better.  The love of our Savior, Christ’s love covers us now and into eternity. 

            You can lift your head now . . . it’s time to say . . .    Amen.  

May 30, 2021 – Holy Trinity Sunday                                              Text:  John 3:1-17

Dear Friends in Christ,

            It’s Holy Trinity Sunday.  A day to take a deep breath and confess the  incomprehensible – God as one divine being in three divine persons, A Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity.  Or as we say tri-une.  “Neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.”  But it’s sure confusing, isn’t it?  We were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We invoke Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our worship.  But are we any closer to wrapping our minds around it on this side of the resurrection?  Now we know only in part.  You can’t rationalize it – you can only believe and confess it.

            Analogies can be tricky.  Some compare the tri-unity of God to three phases of water – solid ice, liquid water, gaseous steam.  Three forms of H2O – water.  Sounds good, but it doesn’t hold water for long.  You can have ice without steam and steam without liquid water, and in the end they are three different forms of the same thing. 

            The best we can offer is the triangle or the tricycle.  Take away any leg and you no longer have a triangle.  Take away any wheel and you no longer have a tricycle and you aren’t going anywhere.  Before we put our theology to rest let’s just say this today . . .

“IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”

            Today is a reminder we can’t fit God in a box or fit Him neatly inside our heads.  We dust off the venerable 5^th century creed named after St. Athanasius (though he didn’t write it) and we recite all the undivideds and incomprehensibles and when you get to the Amen, you feel as though you haven’t quite said it all, or maybe you’ve said too much.  And that’s good.  St. Paul reminds us we see dimly through smoky glass.  We are only given what God revealed to us, no more or less.

            And that’s the point.  God tells us who He is.  We don’t make God in our image – that’s an idol.  God revealed Himself, and we try our best to say what God revealed.  And at the end of this Holy Trinity Sunday, we won’t be any closer to understanding God or explaining Him.  But we will have confessed Him and worshipped Him.

            God reveals Himself as Father.  Our Father.  This is where it all begins – the head, the source, provider, protector, defender.  Fatherly goodness and mercy.  The Father begets the Son who sends the Spirit who proclaims the Son who brings us to the Father. 

            The Father loves the world so He sends the Son.  The Son is lifted up.  Lifted up with our sin, lifted up on a cross, lifted up from the grave, lifted up to the right hand of the Father.  Jesus is the antidote for our sin.  Imagine having a cure for every disease known to man?  We have that vial and it is labeled “Jesus Christ crucified for your sins and raised for your justification.”  It’s free.  You don’t need an appointment or physician approval.  No call to the insurance company because there is no cost to you.  It’s all-gratis in the Word that forgives you, the Baptism that makes you His child, the bread of Christ’s body and the wine of His blood.

            The Holy Spirit delivers the medicine.  He is the breath of God, blowing over the dry, dead bones of this world and making them alive in Jesus. 

            In our text, Nicodemus has a Holy Trinity encounter with Jesus.  He doesn’t get it.  He can’t grasp it.  He keeps asking these questions.  Similar to many of us.  “Pastor but what about this?  Pastor what about that?  How can this be?”  Early in my ministry I stopped being the Shell answer man.  I tried faking a good answer but people see through that.  Sometimes, I have to tell you, “I don’t know.”  I believe.  I confess.  Even if it is not fully understood. 

            “How can a man be born again?”  Jesus replies with a double Amen.  “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  That which is born of flesh is flesh, that which is born of Spirit is spirit.”  He goes on to tell Nicodemus not to rationalize it.  You can no more box up the Spirit than you can capture the wind.  Listen to the voice preaching to you and believe.

            Water and Spirit.  Wind and water.  That’s the creative womb for the Word to conceive and bear.  Water and Spirit were at creation.  Water and Spirit at Jesus’ baptism.  Water and Spirit at Pentecost.  You must be born anew but that doesn’t mean you get to decide.  Did you decide to be born the first time?  No one consulted you about that.  If you were baptized as an infant, no one had a mealtime discussion with you.  For many of the important decisions in your life, no one ever asked you.  It is all of God’s doing, not ours.

            You may have topped the Apgar charts as a baby.  You may have been the smartest, most beautiful baby in the nursery, but you were born into the death of your father Adam.  You inherited his sin.  You can’t fix that.  You must die and rise.  You must be born anew.  And you are.  Born from above.  A new, heavenly birth through the Holy Spirit.  Your new birth in Jesus makes you a child of God.

            Nicodemus still struggled.  Somewhere along the way he got it.  He helped to bury Jesus.  Wherever there is water and Spirit there is new creation in Christ the Word.  Trust his Word.  Have faith in your new creation.  Through your doubting’s and questions you are loved by the Father, through His Son Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.  And in the triune love of God, you will live forever.         Amen.

May 23, 2021 – Pentecost                                                                Text:  Acts 2:1-21

Dear Friends in Christ,

            A medical technician was asked about his most unusual emergency experience.  He chose to tell about a call from an usher at the Lutheran Church.  The usher said, “We have a man who slumped over in his pew during the sermon and we think he has expired.”  He relates, “When we got to the church, the preacher just kept preaching, so we carried the man out as quickly as we could.”  “What makes that so unusual,” he was asked.  He replied, “We carried out four other men before we found the one who had died.”  Welcome back Pastor.

            Today is Pentecost and we pray we have your attention just like the Apostle Peter had when the Spirit enabled him to preach on Pentecost.  No one fell asleep when He was speaking.  Today …

“THE HOLY SPIRIT IS POURED OUT ON JESUS AND US”

            As Peter preached he reminded the people of all the things that God, the heavenly Father, had put on Jesus, his Son.  Heaviest of all was the weight of the cross the Father placed on His Son’ shoulders.  While evil men played a part in the passion of Jesus, it was the divine plan of the Father to sacrifice His Son for the sins of the world, just like Isaiah had written in prophecy, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Is. 53:6)

            The Father also put new life into Jesus when He raised Him from the grave.  Following this Jesus was called home to heaven where He was exalted to the highest degree. 

            The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus and He could pour it out upon all people.  Isaiah foretold it this way, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Is. 42:1)

            Because the heavenly Father put all those things on Jesus, our Father now puts His blessings on us, His children by faith.  “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . . even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” (vs. 17a, 18a)

            We are God’s children and He blesses us by putting things on us.  Think of all the things you have put on your children.  I was privileged to put water and the Word through the Holy Spirit on the boys at their baptism.  I put on diapers and their first helmet.  I put on shaving cream for their first shaving experience and numerous times I got to tie their tie around my neck and put it on theirs.  I put on skates and bicycle helmets.  I was privileged and blessed to place a confirmation stole on them and then to put my hand on their head as they were confirmed.  I put on silly outfits to make them laugh and some times I put on the face of comfort and faith when they had worry or anxiety.

            The Lord has done the same for us.  When dead in original sin the waters and Word of the Triune God put us on a path of Christian faith.  The Lord put on the Word in our hearts as we attended Sunday School and worship.  We sang songs and hymns and heard bible stories and the Holy Spirit was pouring all of this onto us.  We needed the Spirit’s help to memorize the catechism and make our public confession of the faith.  And the Lord has provided us with comfort and peace when life doesn’t go the way we think it should or how we had it planned.  He puts on the robe of righteousness, which we will wear into eternity.  “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

            Another experience many of us parents have had or will have is when we drop off our son or daughter at college or we leave their first apartment as they start in a new job in a different town.  We will no longer be there to put on everything they are going to need.  But we trust, don’t we?  We trust that the Lord is watching over them.  We trust that the Holy Spirit will keep them in the faith.  We trust that what the Lord allowed us to do will carry them the rest of their days.  We drive away confident that we have given them everything they need to make it on their own.

            Our heavenly Father has done the same.  Because of everything that His Son Jesus handled for us – the burden of our sin, His presence in turmoil, the joy of salvation that is on us – we are confident of our place in His family.  He put His Spirit in us to be with us . . . always.

                                                            Amen.        

May 13, 2021 – Ascension                                                               Text:  Acts 1:1-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

            “You don’t know about me without having read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer…That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.  There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth…Aunt Polly – Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is – and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.”  Page 1 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

            “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to heaven.” (v. 1)  Our text this evening is the 2^nd book Luke wrote to a man named Theophilus.  The first book is the gospel of Luke.  In it, Luke described in detail the life of Jesus.  It only began to tell what Jesus did.  Like all good authors Luke left the door open for a sequel.

            Luke’s Book II is the Book of Acts.  Book I is what Jesus did for us.  Book II is how He continued to act through us.  Book I the story of the Gospel.  Book II what God’s people have done with the Gospel.

“THE STORY OF JESUS CONTINUES WITH US”

            To understand this Book I is an absolute prerequisite.  Luke wants us to see the two books as a unit.  If we didn’t have the basic facts of what Jesus did and taught in the Gospel of Luke then Book II would make no sense.  When Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn, he assumed we knew Huck and Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.  Without the Gospel, we wouldn’t know the characters in Acts – Jesus, Peter, and the rest.  More important, without the Gospel, there would be no Book II.  Jesus’ death means forgiveness.  Jesus resurrection assures eternal life.  Jesus’ teaching about the grace of God rules our hearts.  In Book II Luke assumes we know and believe this:  “After His suffering, He showed Himself to the apostles and gave many convincing proofs He was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” (v. 3) 

            Luke’s gospel is required reading in order to move to Book II.  Without Jesus’ teachings, there would be no Word to proclaim.  Without Jesus’ suffering and death, there’d be no reason to speak.  Without Jesus’ resurrection, there’d be no hope; no story to tell.

            The ascension ends Jesus’ earthly ministry, yet our text is not an ending.  Jesus’ resurrection continues in Book II.  For forty days He appeared frequently to the disciples and other men and women.  Easter wasn’t just one chapter in an ancient book.  Jesus is alive and this is the hope.  Why else would they share His Word? 

            “While He was eating with them, He gave them this command:  ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” (v. 4-5)  Pentecost.  The disciples would proclaim Jesus boldly in a whole United Nations of languages.  Where the Holy Spirit is at work, Jesus’ story continues.

            The same story continues with us.  The Holy Spirit has baptized us.  This is not an isolated event in our scrapbooks.  It is a continuous writing of our life story.  In the faith, forgiven, sharing the Good News of Christ.  We are the witnesses to Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth.  The Book of Acts is a book of acts.

            Book II continues with us.  We are the characters in Book II.  We have our Jerusalems and Judeas and Samarias.  They are our children and the people we work with and golf with.  They are the millions in the state and billions in the world who need the saving message of Jesus. 

            Jesus ascended to God’s right hand.  This is no distant place.  It’s really no place at all.  He is still exercising God’s power on our behalf.  Not only His divine nature with us but his human nature as well.  True God and true man are right here with us.  The Lord is praying for us, guiding us, protecting us.  Jesus is continuing to write the story of our lives, our Book II’s.

            Book II will continue until the end of time.  The Greek forms Luke uses in v. 1 of our text might suggest a third book – a trilogy.  We don’t have this third book but it might complete the story of Jesus forever.  “They were looking intently into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.’” (vs. 10-11)  If there would  be a Book III, it would begin when this same Jesus returns as we have seen Him go.  Christ has ascended into heaven as our forerunner, with the promise to return and take us there.  That . . . Book III. . . will never end.

            But that’s another story.

                                                            Amen.