“Dying
to Be Born Again”
a condensed version of the
sermon delivered by John Kendall on Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at
the Granville UCC
Before I begin the message, I would like to personally offer a hand of Christian welcome to our special guests this morning. Some of our guests are from TEC #151 or the TEC program itself. Welcome.
It was quiet that day. The guns, mortars, and the land mines for some reason had not been heard. The young soldier knew it was Sunday. As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk. Just then, an Army Sergeant came in and said, "Why are you not with the rest of your platoon?" The solider replied, "I thought I would like to stay behind and spend more time with the Lord." The sergeant looked that this solider awkwardly and replied, "Well, looks like your going to play cards." "Oh no sir, you see, since we are not allowed to have bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I have decided to talk to the lord by studying this deck of cards," perked the solider. Well, how was this young man going to explain this?
"You see this ace sergeant? It reminds me that there is only one GOD. The two represents the two parts of the bible, the Old and New Testament. The three represents the trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The four stands for the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The five is for the five virgins. There were 10 virgins in the story, but remember; only five got glorified. The six signifies that it only took God six days to make the heavens and Earth. The seven, of course, reminds me that he rested after making his creations.
The eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons, and their wives. The eight people God spared from the flood that destroyed the Earth. The nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed from leprosy. He cleansed ten, but only nine came back to thank him. The ten represents the 10 commandments that GOD handed down to Moses on tablets, made of stone. The Jack is a reminder of Satan, one of God’s first angels, but god kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways. Now, he is the joker of eternal hell. The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary. The King stands for Jesus, the King of Kings.
When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with 365. That is how many days are in the year. There are a total of 52 cards in the deck. Each is for a week. 52 weeks equal one year. The four suits represent the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Each suit has 13 cards, the number of weeks in a quarter.
So when I want to talk to God and thank him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for." In amazement and awe, the sergeant just stood there. After a minute, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, can I borrow that deck of cards?"
Welcome to the first Sunday of the Advent season. We are currently 22 days away from the birth of Christ in our lives. However, how do we celebrate his birth? We wrap presents to give to people, while decorating a Christmas tree. However, do we really know the true meaning of Christmas? Do we know the signs?
See, Jeremiah in his Old Testament reading told us to "behold, the days are coming." Luke continued that message by saying in our gospel reading, "men fainted with fear and foreboding what is coming to the world. Foreboding, according to dictionary.com is foretell or predict; be an omen of; indicate beforehand; portend. The signs were in the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Christ himself is about to be born to us again. Are we ready?
Are we ready for our fathers’ gift? See, this gift is not wrapped in wrapping paper, and no, it doesn’t have a bow either. Do we even know what the gift is? See, everyone experiences Jesus Christ in their own way. For some, it maybe coming to church every week and reading and studying scripture everyday. For others however, they experience the Lord’s power through other people.
A perfect example of that is TEC. As many of you know, TEC stands for Teens Encounter Christ. It is a Roman Catholic based weekend, however, opened to all denominations. When you go to TEC, you are nervous and unsure what is going on. However, this in a way is a gift to teenagers, as they can renew and learn more about not only God, but about themselves also. There is also another program, similar to TEC, Cercio, and an adult TEC. These gifts are not wrapped up par say, but everyone who has gone there in the past 30 years has experienced God in their own way through the many different people affiliated with the awesome program.
In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 3, 11-13, it says, "May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus prepare the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow more and more and become as great as our love for you. In this way, he will strengthen you, and you will be perfect and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus with all who belong to him. That is my wish to each and every one of you this advent season.
The son of man maybe coming as a little baby, born in the manger, with no where to lay, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laying his first night in a stable. However, one day, he will appear, coming in a cloud with great power and glory. When will this come? Has it come? That is the question of time. We don’t know all the answers. This question has been raised to numerous priests, pastors, popes, and bishops over time, but the only person who knows this is God himself.
Something was going to happen. But what was going to happen? No one knew. However, scripture told us in Luke’s gospel that a fig tree was another sign. According to the prophet Luke, Jesus cursed the tree because it was not producing fruit. In other words, it wasn’t producing well. This raises a good point? What good works have you done for God lately? The fig tree shows us to be good faithful Christians doing good things. If we don’t do good things, then, like the fig tree, we will be cursed because we are not doing good fruit. During this advent season, may we be a good fig tree, bearing good fruit to all who come to us.
During this advent season, the ever Still Speaking God will be with us. He is with us in song, prayer, and preparation as we get ready for Jesus’s birth. As Bob Seger puts it in the song, "No Matter Who You Are", which is on his brand new album "Face the Promise", we need to start all over again. Let us die to ourselves in order to be born with Christ again this advent season. As I leave you here this morning, let us listen to that song from Bob Seger.