Title: Today’s The Day
Title: Today’s The Day! Text: Mark 1:9-15 Date: March 1, 2015 Hope United Church (PCUSA) By Rev. Dr. James R. Berger
Today’s the day. (Pause) “The day to do what?” you are probably asking yourself. Today is the day to remember your baptism, and to say, “I am a child of God, and I will live in joy, in faith and in hope.” St. Peter reminded us in the passage we read, “And baptism…now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” I Peter 3:21.
Jesus began his ministry in Galilee, proclaiming “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Today’s the day of your salvation. Today’s the day for serving Christ. Today’s the day to live for your Lord. Today’s the day to rejoice, for this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Today is the day to come to God. This is the day to claim Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord. Perhaps you did that ages ago. Today is the day to reaffirm that, as you come to the table for communion. Perhaps you have never prayed to God, asking Jesus to come into your life and bring you that cleansing power of God’s forgiveness. Then today is the day to do that. And then come to the table to receive life in the sacrament.
Jesus told us that no one knows the day or the hour of the Father’s coming. But every one of us should be ready. No one knows when Christ will return in glory. Nor do we know when we may be called to be with God in glory. That is why Jesus says, Be ready!
Henry Dempsey found that out one day. He was the pilot of a commuter flight from Portland, Maine, to Boston in September of 1987. He heard an unusual noise at the rear of the small plane. He turned the controls over to his co-pilot and went back to check it out. As he reached the tail section, the plane hit an air pocket and Dempsey was tossed against the rear door. It became apparent all too quickly that the mysterious noise had been the rear door, which had not been properly latched prior to takeoff. The door flew open the instant Dempsey hit it and he was sucked out of the small jet.
At that moment the co-pilot saw the red light go on that indicated an open door. He immediately radioed the nearest airport, requesting permission for an emergency landing. He reported that the pilot had fallen out of the plane and requested a helicopter to search the area of the ocean over which they had been flying.
After the plane landed, airport personnel found Henry Dempsey even before the emergency helicopters could take off. He was holding onto the outdoor ladder of the aircraft! Beyond anyone’s comprehension, Dempsey had managed to catch hold of the ladder as he fell, and he had held on for 10 minutes as the plane flew 200 miles per hour at an altitude of 4,000 feet. As the plane landed, he narrowly kept his head from hitting the runway. Dempsey was holding onto the aircraft with such force that it took the airport rescue team several minutes to pry his fingers from the ladder.
Jesus told us that we don’t know when it will be our day. So make every day a day to meet God, in prayer, in reflection, in worship. If we dwell with God now, we need never fear what may come. Today is the day to come to God.
Today is the day to turn from sin and evil, to leave behind those things that would destroy us. Jesus calls us to repent, and leave the old ways behind. Our Lord comes to bring us life, and to free us from the destructive power of sin. In a real sense the things that can destroy us are the things we want to hang on to, that we love.
Take, for example the story of Antoine Yates. Yates lived in New York City and for some inexplicable reason brought home a 2-month-old tiger cub and later an alligator. It’s not clear where he found them. But they were with him for two years — in his apartment. What was a little tiger cub, became a 500 pound Bengal tiger monstrosity. What was he feeding these two pets?
It was inevitable. The police got a call about a “dog” bite. When they got to the 19-story public housing apartment building, they discovered Yates in the lobby with injuries to his right arm and leg. Someone alerted them to the possibility a “wild animal” was at his apartment. A fourth-floor resident complained that urine had seeped through her ceiling from Yates’ apartment.
When they arrived, the police peered through a hole and saw the huge cat prowling around in the apartment. Long story short, it took a contingent of officers at the door, and some rappelling from the roof to use a dart gun to bring this animal under control.
When they entered the apartment, they found the big cat lying atop some newspapers. The alligator was nearby. Both animals were relocated to shelters.
As for Yates, he misses the tiger, demonstrating that’s it’s possible to be in love with the very things that can kill you.
You have seen it. You may have experienced it. Jesus come into the world to seek and to save the lost. And to set us free from those things that would destroy us. And to become the first love of our lives. Like Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Today is the day to turn from evil to God.
When God sets us free, he enables us to obey him and live for him. The story of Adam and Eve is powerful because it reminds us that we are human, and that we will get it wrong. God understands that, and sends the Holy Spirit as our companion. When we become Christians, we begin a journey, a journey called “sanctification”. It is a life-long trip, a process of changing and growing and become more conformed to who God wants us to be. We’ll only reach the goal when we stand in heaven with our Lord. But along the way, we discover that to become more and more the person God wants us to be makes us into the person we want to be. Despite the set-backs, we press on to grow in our devotion and obedience to God.
Sometimes the set-backs can be small encounters with God, or they might be embarrassing encounters with our own weakness. Billy was a salesman, who finally got his chance to make the Really Big Sale. He was going into the final interview on the biggest contract he had ever written.
He was ushered into the office of the top buyer. An assistant brought coffee and left. The atmosphere was cordial, and Billy knew he was going to give his best presentation and performance ever.
Then the assistant tapped on the door, re-entered the office and spoke briefly with the buyer. She stood and said, “I apologize, but I have to tend to a matter. I’ll just be a minute or two.” And she followed her assistant out of the room.
Billy looked around the beautifully appointed office. He saw her family pictures on her desk. Then he noticed a contract on her desk. She had evidently been studying a bid from a competitor. Leaning forward, he could see the column of figures, but it was obscured by a diet soda can.
He was tempted to move the can and see the bottom line of his competitor’s bid. What harm possibly could there be in reading her private information? After all, she had left it out in plain sight, almost. After wrestling with himself a while, he finally decided to take a peek.
As Billy lifted the soda can, he discovered to his horror, that the can wasn’t filled with soda at all. Instead it was a bottomless can filled with about a thousand, maybe more, BBs which gushed out, and ran all over the desk and cascaded onto the carpet. Remember those Southwest Airlines ads that asked, “Want to get away for a while?” His attempt to short-cut the competition was exposed.
Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands—and then eat just one of the pieces. Today is the day to obey God, and to live for him.
Today is the day to remember your baptism and say, “I have been baptized. I am a child of God. And I will live in joy, I will live in faith, and I will live in hope.” When you rise in the morning, tell yourself, “Today’s the day!” When you stop at the red light, remind yourself, “Today’s the day!” And when you lie down at night, take comfort in that knowledge, “Today’s the day!”
Because in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.
Amen!
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