What Would Jesus Say to Frosty the Snowman?

Transcription

1 What Would Jesus Say to Frosty the Snowman? (Advent Series: What Would Jesus Say? ) + Sunday, December 31, 2000 Peachtree Presbyterian hurch +++ Dr. Victor D. Pentz Senior Minister + What a Sunday we had last week at Peachtree! I am told that we had about 10,000 worshipers in all of our hristmas Eve services. Our organ got such a workout that it gave up the ghost this morning; and we are praying for its quick return. We also had a very hefty offering last Sunday. In fact, when our business office people went to the bank last week, our deposit contained so much cash that it set off the federal drug money safeguards in the bank computer system. I nearly had to bail our business manager out of jail. What a wonderful problem to have! This is certainly a generous congregation, and for that, we are very grateful. Today s sermon will bring down the curtain on a series of messages that I have called What Would Jesus Say? We began in early December with What Would Jesus Say to Santa laus? Then we asked, What Would Jesus Say to Ebenezer Scrooge? Then What Would Jesus Say to Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Last week, it was What Would Jesus Say to Our World? This morning it is What Would Jesus Say to Frosty the Snowman? One winter day some children put a top hat on their snowman, and in a spell of hristmas magic, the snowman comes to life. Frosty the Snowman shows the children the most wonderful time they have ever known. They can play outdoors with Frosty all day long and never get cold. Their sleds slide farther than ever before. But then the days get a little warmer, and one day a gust of wind blows the top hat off their snowman. Frosty the Snowman had to hurry on his way, but he waved goodbye saying, Don t you cry; I ll be back again some day. Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump. Look at Frosty go! Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump, over the fields of snow. In the biblical account of the Ascension of Jesus, the disciples are feeling a lot like the children who have to say goodbye to Frosty the Snowman. With Jesus, the disciples have had the greatest experience of their lives. Life has been miraculous with Jesus. But now, Jesus is about to ascend into heaven. Jesus waved goodbye and said, Don t you cry; I ll be back again some day. We find that story in Acts 1:6-12: So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them: It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father

2 has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he had said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, 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. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Would you join me in a moment of prayer? Lord, on this last Sunday of the year, the last day of this year, the new year stretches out before us like a field of newly-fallen snow. Give us ears to hear what you say to us; give us wisdom to understand; grant us a faith that sees even beyond human understanding; and above all, help us commit to follow Jesus step by step throughout the year It is in his name we pray. Amen. In a sense, all of us are like those children in Frosty the Snowman. All of us are like the disciples at the moment of the Ascension. The magic spell is broken. hristmas is over. If it isn t gone already, the tree will soon be taken down and discarded wherever we discard trees here in Atlanta. I haven t discovered where that is yet, but I am sure my wife will sometime this week. The diet will begin! My downfall this year were the little cookies covered in powdered sugar. When you bite into them, a little snowstorm sprinkles down your front. The holiday season was fun while it lasted, but now we face turkey soup every night. For some of us here today, the new year will hold a challenge far greater than a new diet. There are those who, like the disciples, have said goodbye to a precious loved one in the past year. We will hear the names of those dear folks during a time of remembrance after the sermon this morning. Perhaps, like the disciples, you are standing on the mountaintop, and you want to remain there, surrounded by memories of that precious person. Maybe it is not memories of the past but fears of the future that keep you from moving forward. What will the economy be like in 2001? None of us knows. Will we have a job? How will we solve new problems that arise? What will be the results of the tests that my doctors have been running on me for all the strange symptoms I have been having? How will I meet the demands of parenting my children? Early in December my oldest daughter announced that she planned to spend hristmas vacation backpacking with friends in the Andes. The nation she would be in had just deposed its president, and the military was about to take over the country. Her announcement was very good for my -2-

3 prayer life. They say there are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, pay someone to do it, or forbid your children to do it. This morning we may be standing, paralyzed, on a mountaintop overlooking the new year, wondering What now? An angel comes to the disciples and says, What are you still doing up here? You have so much to look forward to. The angel then makes promises. In the text we read this morning, God gives us four promises here in this text. Promise #1: Your life is in the hands of a loving God. Acts 1:7 says It is not your time to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. We can t know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. The future is a secret known only to Him. I know many of us would love to go home and find that God has ed us a detailed itinerary for the year It s not going to happen. We have no choice but to trust God for our future. I once had a profoundly spiritual experience while watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In one scene, Indiana is running as fast as he can from the bad guys with machetes, when he comes to a precipice with a thousand-foot drop. There is no way to get across it. The bad guys are coming fast. This is the end of Indiana Jones! We see a closeup of his face. (You know, Harrison Ford has made a career out of looking worried.) Then, Indiana Jones does a crazy thing. He steps out into thin air, and as his foot comes down, a bridge materializes out of nowhere! He crosses the bridge and escapes. When I saw that I thought, That s the hristian life! We are always stepping out, trusting that God will be there for us that s the Gospel according to Indiana Jones. When I think of trust, I think of the most trusting creature in the world, my hocolate Lab, arolina. Recently David Letterman listed ten reasons why dogs are better than wives. The one I remember was The later you get home at night, the happier the dog is to see you. arolina is the most trusting dog in the world. She positions herself in front of a doorway, rolls over on her back, spreads her legs out, and trusts you will not step on her. She even trusts that you will love her so much that you will reach down to pat her on the most tender part of her tummy. Do we trust our Master as much as our dogs trust us? You cannot be a hristian without trust. What was salvation for Adam and Eve in the garden? Did God say, Now, you must pick eighteen boxes of apples every single day? No, He said, Do not eat of the fruit of that tree. You must trust that I know what is better for you than you yourself know. For us, trusting God in 2001 means going forward without knowing the future and trusting that everything that happens to us in the coming year will occur for a reason. In Psalm 59, David mentions enemies lying in wait for him. His bad guys aren t behind him like Indiana Jones pursuers; his enemies are out ahead, and David is terrified to move forward. He prays, O Lord, You go before me. You are already out there around the bend, preparing my future full of blessings and goodness and hope. A friend of mine always signs his letters, In His grip. That is how we must go forward into the year 2001: with the sure knowledge that our lives are in the hands of a loving -3-

4 God. That is Promise #1. Then we receive Promise #2: When we are in the hands of this loving God, we will experience intimacy with hrist. You may think that is a very strange promise in this text because Jesus is leaving the disciples. His physical absence will surely distance him from them. That is one of the great misconceptions in the hurch about the Ascension of Jesus. We think of it as a kind of space shot that deposits Jesus out beyond Halley s omet. Actually, the Ascension marks a deepening of hrist s connection to his followers. In fact, Jesus said to his disciples, It is to your advantage that I go away. Why? Because through the Ascension, Jesus became more involved with his people and more intimately entwined with their lives. He said, In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. One of the ways we experience intimacy with hrist, believe it or not and I know many of you realize this is through difficulty and trials. This is the time of year when we ask each other, Well, how was your year? How was 2000? Sometimes, we will answer, It was a tough year. It was lousy. We had struggles and family illness and countless problems! Isn t it interesting that the Bible says that hristians are to give thanks in all things? This is because God has His own criteria for evaluating a good year. Let me give you God s standards for a good year. When you ask yourself, Did I have a good year?, ask: Have I grown deeper in my walk with God? Have I grown in my knowledge of God? Have I strengthened my ties with the family of God the hurch? Have I given myself away in serving other people? According to God s standards, you may have had a very successful year in spite of enduring great trials and difficult circumstances. You can look forward to 2001 as a year of great hope maybe the best year of your entire life, because once we are in the hand of this great God and have intimacy with hrist, we receive the most famous promise in this particular Scripture Promise #3: You will receive power: that is, the power is for a specific purpose, Jesus says to be my witnesses. You can live the life I live; you can love with the love I have. Some time ago, the television program ER had an episode about the stress experienced by emergency room physicians. One of the doctors was working hours a week and had just lost his family. Another doctor had emotional problems and had been charged with assaulting someone. The focus of the episode was Dr. Benton, an African- American doctor. He worked hours a week and then went home and cared for his dying mother. His sister accused him of not doing enough to care for Mom. She said, You are always down at that hospital. You re not here when we need you. You re not pulling your weight. In this episode, Mom is having a birthday, and the sister tells Dr. Benton, You will be there no matter what! No excuses. He agrees to be there. In the next scene, he is in the emergency room, wrapping up his shift. He intends to go home and be at his mother s birthday party. Suddenly, an emergency patient is brought in: a skinhead stabbed in the heart in a gang fight. The man is taken -4-

5 into the operating room, and his clothes are stripped off in preparation for emergency surgery. Present in the room are Dr. Benton and an African-American nurse who is about to insert an IV. As the patient s clothes are removed, a tattoo on his arm is revealed. That day on ER they used a word I would never use from the pulpit, but I need to allude to it. The tattoo on the skinhead s arm said, Die, N-----, die. African- American Dr. Benton and the African- American nurse gasp as they read it aloud. Then Dr. Benton looks into the faces of all the people around the examining table and says, Folks, we ve got a job to do; let s do it. He operates and saves the man s life. He gets home an hour after his mother s birthday party has ended. His waiting sister berates him for missing the party and storms out of the room. Dr. Benton stands in the dark and says, an you beat this? I miss my dying mother s birthday party to save the life of a man with that word written on his arm! God s love is so powerful that it can help an African-American doctor save the life of a skinhead and maybe even forgive his sister. It is a love so powerful that it can help us love the flawed, imperfect people in our families and in our jobs and all around us. It helps us bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things because it comes from one who loved us so much that he gave his own life on our behalf. His love is enthroned in our hearts. He gives us Promise #4: Don t cry, I ll be back again some day. One of the angels says, This Jesus whom you have seen go into heaven will return in the way you saw him go. Our reed says, He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come... Who knows, 2001 may be the year. On that day we get our loved ones back, and our family circles will be unbroken, and there will be hugs and tears of joy forever and ever. David Peterson, pastor of the Memorial Drive Presbyterian hurch in Houston, Texas, is a good friend of mine. One day as he was working on a sermon, his little daughter, Angie, ran in and said, Daddy, can I give you a hug? Like any compulsive preacher, he said, No, honey, wait until I finish working on my sermon. Angie turned around and started to walk out. Then she ran back, threw her arms around her daddy and gave him a chiropractic hug, as David calls it. He said, Hey, I thought you were going to wait until I was finished working on my sermon. Angie looked up and said, I know. I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to. You and I have so much to look forward to in the year 2001 and forever and ever. Would you join me in prayer? Lord, we thank you that we don t have to fear tomorrow because You are already there preparing blessings and wonderful things for those who love You. Today, especially, we thank You for all the saints who from their labors rest, to Thee by faith before the world confessed. We know that many families gathered here are still reeling from the loss of loved ones in the past year. You are so patient with us in our grieving. You understand that we need time to heal. We thank You for the hope that is ours in hrist Jesus, for the party You are -5-

6 planning, for the hugs and kisses, and for your last promise: that You will wipe away every tear from our eyes. It is in that hope that we sing Your praise, in hrist s name. Amen. -6-