Good morning!
Thank you to everyone who was able to come out on Monday night to help with the property work. The grounds look great!
When my great-grandfather, Abe Aukamp, was nearing the end of his life he recorded what is now known as “Abe’s Sermon” on an old-fashioned tape recorder. It represented his final words and exhortations to the family. After Pappy died the tape was discovered and eventually every family member got a copy of it. I listen to it a couple of times a year and I’ve transcribed it for this check-in. I hope these words from nearly 40 years ago encourage you as they have encouraged me:
My comments for the day will be found in Romans the 8th chapter, the 24th and 25th verses, which read as follows:
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But first of all, let us determine who it is that we have our hope in. And I would explain it in this manner:
He was man when he was born in Bethlehem in a stable, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, and cradled in His mother’s arms. But at the age of 12, when he stood in the temple, He was God, when He argued with the religious lawyers and confounded the leaders of His day. He was man when He lay asleep in the bottom of the boat on the sea with his disciples, and a mighty storm arose and the disciples cried out “Master, Master, carest thou not that we perish?” But He was God when He arose and walked through that boat, now fast filling with water and looked out upon that boisterous sea, and waved His hand and said “Peace, Peace, Be still.” And the angry waves went to sleep.
He was man when the devil took Him to the high mountains and showed Him all of the then-known nations of the world and said to Him “All these I will give you if you bow down and worship me.” But He was God when He said “It is finished” and threw a bridge across the gulf that separated man from God. And ever since that day, men and women and boys and girls have been coming across that bridge to God because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He was man when they took His limp form down from the cross and hasted it in a new tomb and sealed it with Pilate’s signet of the Roman governor. But on the 3rd morning, He was God when He broke the very bars of death itself and came forth alive forevermore. And thus saying on to you and on to me “Because I live, you too shall live.”
He was man when He walked this earth. He knew what it was to be human. He had His problems just like you and I. He had His fears, just like you and I. He had His heartaches, just like you and I. He knew what it was to be human! But He was God when He said “I can make a new creature out of you. And I can bring back my lost image and place it in your heart and in your life. And I can give you life and give it abundantly and eternally.”
Hope is the very essence of our spiritual life. Hope nourishes the soul. Hope is the incentive for Christ-like living. Hope is the sustainer of the dying saint. Hope springs eternal in the hearts of millions today, both young and old alike. Not only hope for heaven after this life but hope for a better world to live in here and now. Hope for a world where nations will learn to understand and trust one another and work together for a common good. Hope for the day when the spirit of Christ would be in every heart. Hope for the day when His Spirit would cover all the earth. Hope for the day when every man can sit under his own tree, so to speak, and need not be afraid. These are the great hopes of the children of God.
And I would ask you to pray for me and I’ll pray for you, that never for one moment or for under any circumstance shall we abandon our faith and our hope in the goodness and the mercy and the love and in the power of Jesus Christ. For He is our hope, there is none other.
Now you and I, as followers of this Christ, are on a pilgrimage today. A pilgrimage in the Biblical sense is seeking a holy place. Now you and I have been born into this old sinful world of which we are a part. We stay here as long as we can. We love to live in our town or in the countryside. But in the final analysis, surely you and I look for a holier place than this. And so, in faith and in hope we travel down life’s pathway and, sooner than we realize it, we find ourselves in the twilight hour. We see the sun of life’s day as it surely goes down. We see the shadows as they lengthen.
And then, let’s face it, then comes the night. For many people this is a disturbing thought, but for those who love God, who seek and walk in His ways, I like to believe that as the darkness crowds round about us that somewhere out there will be a light to guide us and a voice, the sweetest voice that man could ever hear, saying on to us “Come now my child, it’s getting late. It’s time to come home.”
It will be then that your faith and my faith, your hope and my hope, will become an actual reality, in that we have found that Holy place. And all of it made possible by a man called Jesus Christ. For He is our hope, there is none other.
Here’s what’s happening:
- The 24-hour Prayer Vigil begins tomorrow night. I’ve enclosed the prayer vigil guide. If you signed up on Sunday and forgot to write your time slot down, let me know.
- Our Good Friday Communion Service begins at 7 pm. We will be observing communion as family and friend groups in front of the cross, as we did last year.
- Easter Morning – Sunrise Service at 7 am, breakfast at 8 am and our regular worship service at 10 am. If you are planning to come to breakfast the kitchen committee asks that you bring a breakfast casserole and either fruit or pastries if you are able.
- Forms for our “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” fellowship night should be returned to Becky Myers or Mary Lois Kreider by next Sunday (4/7).
- Junior Youth meet next Sunday, 4/7.
For our Easter Celebration we will be singing those great Easter hymns of the faith (and a few newer songs) and looking at the truths that the empty tomb proclaims about our King. It’s going to be a great morning!
Scott