The Non-Anxious Presence

Text:  Psalm 23

Theme:  "The Non-Anxious Presence"
4th Sunday of Easter

April 21, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

A psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters.  He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.  Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is also known as Good Shepherd's Sunday.  The occasion comes over a little half of the way through the grand and annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, from the grave.  All of today's readings, as you may have already observed, in one way or another, have to do with shepherds and sheep.  King David who wrote Psalm 23 -- one of the most famous and best-loved selections from the Bible -- was, as you will recall, a shepherd-boy.

 

What do we say about shepherds?  Has anyone ever seen one at work?  In Bible times, it was one of the dirtiest and most menial jobs around.  It was the lowest rung on the economic totem pole.  But you had to start somewhere; at least the shepherd had a job. 

 

What of the sheep?  Well, they got dirty a lot, and they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer of the animal kingdom.  They were prone to stray. 

 

As far as sheep are concerned, the Bible has us pegged.  From Isaiah 53:  "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."  Sheep and people.  Put them together, and you get "Sheeple."  But something happened to us "sheeple" along the way.  From 1 Peter chapter 2:  "You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."  "I am the good shepherd," says Jesus Christ.  "I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.  No one can snatch them out of my hands."

 

All of this takes us back to King David and Psalm 23:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

 

Thank goodness for that, because there was much "want" this past week.  We "want" a world where pressure-cooker bombs -- laden with nails and BB's --  do NOT go off at marathon races in Boston or anywhere, for that matter.  We "want" a world where fertilizer factories do NOT explode.  We want a world where "small and stunted individuals" -- to use the president's phrase -- do not, for any reason, seek to take the life of the innocent.   While the nation debates "common sense gun control", as it has been called, others seek revenge -- as in Kaufmann County.  We want a world where we don't have to hide out in our own homes.  We want a world with more people like Janice Hauge who, having run the Boston marathon this year, has returned safely among us.  We want a world with more people like Lynn Eustis -- an incredible soprano voice from Texas who is now teaching in the Boston area -- not having to hide away in her own residence for fear of the dark and terrorists on the run.  We do have wants -- good wants; meet, right, and salutary wants. 

 

But there are still sheep who go their own way, and so there is anxiety, want!  Get rebellious with me and take the words of David as your own:  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

 

Because we so often want something we don't have, we have anxiety.  As Harriet Lerner, in her book Fear and other Uninvited Guests, has said, "to be alive is to have an anxiety disorder."  As a result, we seek to regulate our own anxiety.  Sometimes medicines are prescribed for that, but then people compound their anxiety when they discover they're hooked on the pills that purport to treat the anxiety.  On and on it goes. 

 

Yet regulating anxiety to the point of no anxiety at all is humanly impossible. Anxiety is always present.  To be human is to be anxious -- in one way or another.  It is a fundamental human expression -- and can even be a healthy response to life. 

 

Anxiety has been defined as an automatic reaction "to a threat, real or imagined."  Anxiety is a natural reaction designed for self-preservation.  Our Creator has given us a strong urge for survival.  Thus, at one level, anxiety can make us alert, more self-conscious, and highly motivated to take action.  But at an elevated level, anxiety can paralyze you.  The actual word "anxiety" is derived from a word meaning "to choke" or "to cause pain by squeezing". 

 

One of the things I like about the Presbyterian Church is that it places an emphasis on the life of the mind in the service of Jesus Christ.  Put simply, we don't check in our brains at the door!  Last Tuesday, with the events of the Boston bombings fresh in my mind, I went to listen to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice speak at UNT.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she was Presbyterian.  She grew up in Alabama which is definitely in what is called the "Bible belt" where there were quite a few Southern Baptists.  But she became Presbyterian.  Why?  Because it was Presbyterian churches that offered her and her siblings the scholarships that enabled them to attend college.  Her entire family became Presbyterian  -- among other things, because the church valued education.  If anyone would qualify as one who experienced anxiety in the mind on a world stage, it would have to be a U.S. Secretary of State, don't you think?

 

Whether on the world stage or in our own little corner of the world, we -- with our minds -- can get anxious.  And the mind can do different things when confronted with threats real or imagined.

 

Author Peter L. Steinke tells of an Israeli army exercise.  Soldiers learned that they were going to take a forced march.  They were divided into four groups that were not allowed to communicate with each other.  Each group went over the same area on the same day and with the same backpack.  Group 1 was told the exact distance they had to go (25 miles) and were kept fully informed about how far they traveled.  Group 2 was not told how long the march would be and were not informed regarding the distance.  Group 3 was told at the last moment they were expected to march more miles.  Meanwhile, Group 4 was told they had to go twice as far as the first group but they were stopped about halfway there.  They all walked the identical distance, but they walked with different ideas in their heads.

 

At the end of the march, the effects on the soldiers were measured -- in terms of morale, performance, and change in body chemistry.  The results were quite interesting:  Group 1 showed the least evidence of stress and the highest degree of hopefulness; Group 2, not knowing the distance, fared the worst; Group 3, with information that they had to march more than the others, was very discouraged; Group 4, initially told they had to travel twice the distance, was demoralized and had high levels of stress.  In the end, the degree of anxiety -- the degree of "want" -- was determined more by what was in the head of the soldiers than in their tired feet!

 

Obviously, this isn't a group of Israeli soldiers here this morning.  But we do have a group of people that knows a little bit about marching orders.  We ALL have marching orders -- in terms of responsibilities to ourselves, our families, our work, our church, you name it.  Sometimes the orders are clear, and at others they are confusing.

 

Think of it:  would not all of us -- with our anxious minds, at times, going every which way but loose -- benefit from a non-anxious presence?  Of course!  Our lives would be stabilized -- and our situations right along with them!  There would be less emotional friction, less reaction and more response; there would be healthier functioning. 

 

Anxiety, like some diseases, can be infectious. A non-anxious presence would not transmit further anxiety.  A non-anxious presence would calm the mind and, to use language of our text, "restore the soul."  Have you ever thought that maybe you could be that non-anxious presence to someone else? 

 

In the Bible, there are numerous texts about being a non-anxious presence.  In Ephesians 4:26 we read:  "Be angry but do not sin."  In 1 Thessalonians 4:  "Grieve, but do not grieve as one who has no hope."  In 1 Corinthians chapter 14, Paul wrote:  "In thinking be mature."  The non-anxious person is what Paul has in mind when he writes:  "Do not repay anyone evil for evil" (Rom. 12:17) and "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them" (Rom. 12:14).  He lists self-control as one of the "fruits of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:23).  Of Jesus himself, it was said:  "When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten" (1 Peter 2:23). 

 

When people are under extreme anxiety, most people become an anxious presence.  They don't immediately think:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."  People tend to lack restraint and act on impulse. Once anxiety fills the brain, our attention is focused almost entirely on the threat.  Then, we start to obsess about it, and our capacity to see or hear other information that may be helpful is nearly impossible. 

 

But think about it:  the one who can more readily control the anxiety is always more aware of its presence.  To be a non-anxious presence means to acknowledge anxiety but not let it be the driver of behavior.  While we might feel like losing it with someone, the non-anxious person doesn't submit to instinct.  Instead, they turn to their thinking facilities.  The emotional state doesn't go into overdrive.  The non-anxious presence says:  "I'll survive this; I can take the sting out of anxiety and be a calming agent."

 

The greatest non-anxious presence of all is our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  Go back to Psalm 23.  Do you sense any anxiety in Psalm 23? No much.  Hardly any at all.  Maybe that's why people love the passage so much.   But look closer; there are two anxiety-causers:  first, there is "the valley of the shadow of death"; secondly, there is a reference to the "presence of enemies".  This is simple truth-telling:  there is death, and there are enemies.

 

But listen:  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:  for thou art with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me." The non-anxious presence makes me a non-anxious presence.   And what of our enemies?  "Thou preparest a table in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

 

Finally, did you catch how it ends?  "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."  The goodness and mercy of the Good Shepherd, the non-anxious presence, follows us.  It's the first responder!   And we "shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  Amen.



Tailored Exclusively for You!

 

Text:  John 21:1-19

Theme:  "Tailored Exclusively for You!"

Third Sunday of Easter

April 14, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.^[a] It happened this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus^[b]), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ³ “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

⁵ He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

⁶ He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

⁷ Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.^{[c] 9} When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

¹⁵ When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶ Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

 

Looking back over the sermons and homilies I've delivered from this pulpit for over two and half years, I find them to be lengthy -- and 3.5 out of 5 messages, in retrospect, seem boring. The other 1.5 are pretty good -- if I do say so myself!  Yet I have to accept the fact that I don't have the energy or the spiritual, mental, technical, or rhetorical skills to hold an audience in rapt attention for forty five minutes straight.   Sometimes I can't even find the main point that I've tried to make in any given message.    I want to change that.  As a result, maybe we'll get out of here a little bit earlier, and you'll have something a little more memorable to take with you.

 

Today's main point is this -- and only this:  God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for you.  I'll repeat that:  God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for you.  You're not a robot; you're not a widget; you're not a pawn on someone else's chess board. You're not just a nameless face among the seven billion some odd other people on this planet. You're not just another motorist given to road rage because someone in front of you is texting when the light turns green.  You are more -- so much more -- than what your Social Security number says about you.  You are worth more -- infinitely more! -- than what your tax return might declare.  You are you, and you are unique down to the very strands of your DNA.  The Scripture says that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" and that we were "knitted together" in our mother's womb.  I find it fascinating that DNA strands, under a microscope, look like knitting.  Isn't that something?

 

Yes, the grace and love of God is tailor-made exclusively for you, and that means that there is no "one size fits all" Christianity.  Why?  Because people are different -- vastly different.  For example:  Matthew the tax collector, one of the disciples of Jesus, was a far different man than, say, Simon the Zealot, another disciple.  Politically, they were worlds apart.  One was a committed liberal.  The other was a diehard conservative.  But the grace and love of God was tailor-made for each of them uniquely.  Yes, Jesus spoke to large crowds and fed thousands of people at once.  But more and more I'm drawn to just Jesus and one person:  Jesus and the woman at the well, Jesus and the rich young ruler, Jesus and the blind man, Jesus and Nicodemus at night (one on one and mano a' mano!), Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician demoniac, Jesus and the widow at Nain.  In each example, the grace and love of God was tailor-made for one person and one at a time.

 

This isn't to say that we don't have things in common.  We do.  What we have in common, among other things, are as follows:  we all are in possession of a body, a mind, and a spirit.  You don't necessarily need a church to nourish an strengthen the body.  A good diet and exercise, generally speaking, will take care of that.  You don't necessarily need a church to  challenge and expand your mind.  I have at least twelve different books on my kindle that I hope to read.  I don't need church for that.  I just need my kindle and some time.

 

But what about the spirit or soul?  Who or what will care for that soul of yours, that spirit of yours that is so up on one day and down the next?    People sometimes say  "Keep your spirits up!"  Well, who does that?  How do you do that?
Who or what will care for that spirit and soul that is so powerful and yet so fragile at the same time?  What about that spirit and soul that seems to have a sense -- an inkling, if you will -- of eternity within it? 

 

In the last week or so, three famous people have died.  Lady Thatcher, a prime minister of Great Britain, passed away.  Annette Funicello, from the original Mickey Mouse Club, died.  And then there was Roger Ebert -- a famous film critic.  In his last days, if newspaper accounts are accurate, he talked about his life that was lived between what he called "two oblivions".  He came from "oblivion" when he was born, and, in death, he would return there.  Oblivion.

 

With all due respect to the massive talents of Roger Ebert, I don't think the idea of oblivion lifts my spirit.  I don't know about you and your soul, but me and my soul rages against this notion of "oblivion".  There just has to be more to this life than oblivion before and oblivion when it's all over. 

 

Enter the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  He rose not just in spirit or as some sort of zombie.  He rose bodily from the grave.  So often we just read the words without letting them sink in.  Let them sink in now:  "We believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting!

 

What comes with the body -- resurrected or not?  That's right.  A mind and a spirit.  God's grace and love covers the whole of you, the very all of you:  body, mind, and soul.

 

Best of all, that grace and love is tailored exclusively for you.  Today's readings -- from the book of Acts and then from John's Gospel -- told us the story of Peter and Paul. 

 

Begin with Peter.  He was the outspoken, gregarious, lead disciple of Jesus Christ.  He didn't want Jesus to die on the cross, and Jesus replied with "Get behind me Satan."  He pledged that he would never deny Christ, but he did three times when the pressure was at his highest.  Then, when he remembered that Jesus predicted his denials, this big, burly professional fisherman left the scene and cried his eyes out.  He denied Christ three times, but Jesus would not deny Peter.  Three times he asks Peter:  "Do you love?"  Peter says yes three times.  Jesus says, each time, "feed my sheep."  This big, burly professional fisherman went on to do just that.

 

Then there's the apostle Paul.  We heard about him in the Acts reading.  He wasn't a fisherman, and he certainly wasn't a follower of Jesus.  Before he was named Paul, he was named Saul and he was a Pharisee -- and well-educated and extremely devout religious man.  He was so devout, in fact, that he violently persecuted this new band of people who followed Jesus Christ.  But, as with Peter, God's love was tailor-made exclusively for Paul.  He was struck down, dramatically, on the Damascus road.  The voice of Jesus came to him:  "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?" And, long story short, from that time on he would persecute the church no longer.  He began to proclaim the very faith he had once tried to destroy! 

 

Sometimes the grace and love of God works slowly over time -- as it did with Peter.  Sometimes it comes on dramatically -- as it did with Paul.  My point is that it was tailor-made for both of them.  It met them where they were in life.  It changed them and it continued to work with them.

 

It is the same grace and love, dare I say, that has worked, is working, and will continue to work for you too! 

 

The problem, though, is that we tend to forget this -- or devote only an hour to it on Sunday.  But what if, during the other one hundred sixty seven hours of the week, that we actually believed that God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for us?  

 

Why, that could be a game changer!  Why, we might be able to say for ourselves what Paul said to the Romans:  "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."   And "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

What more is there to say than that this grace and love is tailor-made for you?  That, after all, is the main point.  Amen.

Morel Mushrooms, Texas Wildflowers, and Saint Thomas

 

Text:  John 20:19-31

Theme:  "Morel Mushrooms, Texas Wildflowers, and Saint Thomas"

2nd Sunday of Easter

April 7, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

There was some mix-up in my childhood brain about toadstools and mushrooms.  Are mushrooms toadstools, or are toadstools mushrooms?  Every now and again, either toadstools or mushrooms would appear in our front yard.  It was the strangest thing I ever saw, and no one -- to date -- has been able to explain satisfactorily.  Now mother said not to eat the toadstools; that's what she called them.  They were poison. Thus, ever since, I've been jaded in my thinking about toadstools and mushrooms.  Even now, I see a portabella mushroom in the store, and I kind of cringe. 

 

Imagine my surprise when a friend, back in high school days, invited me to go mushroom hunting -- and these would not be just any old mushrooms but "Morel" mushrooms.  My first thought, which I didn't share with my friend, was "Why are we going to hunt something that's poisonous?"  

 

In Nebraska, the big, in-state river is the Platte River.  It flows into the Missouri River which, in turn, flows into the Mississippi.  And the Mississippi, of course, runs down into the sea.  I grew up in Fremont, but we had a little cabin on a lake just west of town next to a village called North Bend.  It was a sand pit lake, and it was right next to the Platte River.  Now there was a road that ran down the Platte, alongside some farmland, to a forested area.  It was there -- next to the river and in the trees -- that we hunted the infamous Morel mushroom. They only popped up for a few days in May. 

 

I went from an unbeliever, to a skeptic, and then, finally, to a believer -- at least when it came to Morel mushrooms. You take them home, clean them up, and then bread them and fry them or saute' them. 

 

Next up on the journey from unbelief to faith:  wildflowers!  For the past few days, at the Denton Christian Preschool plant sale (right here on our grounds), we saw pot after pot and plat after plat of various annuals and perennials.  From what I was able to see, there were no wildflowers there.

 

In fact, for years and years, I thought that wildflower was simply a polite term for a weed that had a little more class!  Where I came from, wildflowers were called dandelions.  Mr. and Mrs. Fees, who lived across the street from us, always had a problem with those pesky little things. They were so bad that any homeowner's association should have complained, but they didn't have homeowner's associations in those days (maybe they shouldn't now)!  Down the street at the edge of the cornfield, there were lots of thistle plants and milkweed that would go into bloom.  Now those were wildflowers.

 

I love the state of Texas for many reasons. One of them is that it's simply a bigger version of the state of Nebraska.  Back when I lived in the Nebraska, my understanding of wildflowers sort of flowered into bloom, if you will.  I remember reading something in school about Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of LBJ and the First Lady of the United States.  She loved wildflowers.  In fact, as I think most of you know, she made it possible for the highways and byways of Texas to be dappled with them. 

 

Now, I came to believe that; there was no reason for me to doubt that. What reason would anyone have to tell falsehoods and flat out lies about wildflowers?  My mind, apparently, was open -- and, when confronted with the lesson in school, I swung from a rather limited view of wildflowers (dandelions, thistles, and so forth) to a great appreciation.  Just a few years ago, I took my first trip down into the Texas hill country -- right about this time of year.  I was headed to Mo-Ranch to give a workshop at a Presbyterian men's conference. Traveling down in the car, I was blown away the magnificence of all the wildflowers along the road. The colors were kaleidoscopic.  On the way down, we drove by -- of all places -- the LBJ ranch, and it all came flooding back to me.  We even stopped at a nursery near Fredericksburg, Texas where all sorts of wildflowers were being grown. 

 

My point in mentioning mushrooms and wildflowers is simply this (and you knew I was going to get to it!): we all have opinions, viewpoints, understandings, and beliefs, etc.  Guess what?  They can change.  People can move -- and sometimes by no choice of their own -- from unbelief to doubt and skepticism, and from doubt and skepticism to belief. They also can change in the other direction.  In which direction are you moving at this point in your life?

 

All of this brings us to our annual visit with St. Thomas.  St. Thomas, you may recall, was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ.  He's featured in the Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Easter.  Unfortunately, he has been called "doubting Thomas." And it's true:  he did have his doubts, but that is not the end of the story.

 

The Gospel reading doesn't tell us why he was absent and A.W.O.L. on the first Easter.  The rest of the disciples had locked themselves in a room.  Who could blame them?  The powers that be had crucified Jesus; maybe they were next ones in line to get killed.  Perhaps Thomas wanted to be done with the whole shebang.  He may have thought:  "Jesus is dead, and, come to think of it, I don't really want to hang around with His followers either.  So I'm out of here!" Have you ever noticed this? When the pressure is on, people either hide or bail out.

 

To all of this, Jesus, in His mercy, paid no mind.  On that first Easter evening, He showed up -- behind the lock doors.  The reading says the disciples were overjoyed to see Him.   Thomas, however, wasn't there.  But somehow, some way, a bit later on, they got the word to him:  "We have seen the Lord."

 

Thomas replies with language that has won the hearts of doubters and skeptics the world over:  "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."  There you have it: unbelief as an act of the will.  It takes a lot of willpower to be an unbeliever!  Mushrooms are poisonous; wildflowers are dandelions, and dead men don't rise, period.  End of discussion. 

 

One of the little miracles that surround the big miracle of our crucified Lord's resurrection and rising from the grave is this:  Thomas did  show up a week later.  He didn't get to the party on time, but he did get there.  There must have been something -- a gentle nudging, if you will -- that triumphed over his "willpower."  Could it be that his mind was slightly ajar? Could he, the initial doubt notwithstanding, actually have an open mind?  For some Christians, sad to say, an open mind is a rather novel concept.

 

There he stands on the second Sunday of Easter -- locked in the room with the rest of them.  The text says:

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

 

Here's a quotable quote -- attributed to William Paley.  It's a little long, so, if you like it I can print it out for you.  It goes like this:

 

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

 

If Thomas followed that principle to the letter, he would never have showed up with the rest of them on the second Sunday of Easter.  But he didn't follow it to the letter, did he?

 

Point A is pretty clear:  mushrooms are poisonous; wildflowers are dandelions, and dead people don't rise.  I'm holding onto and holding out for Point B:  mushrooms can be delicious; wildflowers are glorious, and Jesus Christ is "my Lord and my God."

 

When Thomas afterwards had heard

That Jesus had fulfilled His word,

He doubted if it were the Lord.

 

"Thomas, behold My side," saith He,

"My hands, My feet, My body, see;

And doubt not, but believe in me."

 

No longer Thomas then denied;

He saw the feet, the hands, the side;

"Thou art my Lord and God," he cried.

 

Blessed are they that have not seen

And yet whose faith hath constant been,

In life eternal they shall reign:  Alleluia!

Yes, there's even a poetry to such a faith as this; the faith that says to Jesus:  "My Lord and my God."

 

Amen.