Welcome to yet another youth-centered worship service.  In the past two months we've had Scout Sunday, Youth Sunday, Lutheran High Sunday and now OAFC Sunday.  Friends, these youth have had an important part in our church's founding.  This time they visited 300 homes around the church, all which were not yet built three years ago when we started Epiphany.  They found many who know about us and some interested in attending.  Our youth are our future, and praise be to God they are helping us get the Word out about Jesus.  I can't thank you all enough for the hard work put in this weekend.  Ed, you and all the Ongoing Ambassadors For Christ are a true treasure to the church.

          We're also worshipping on St. Patrick's Day.  Though there aren't that many Irish Lutherans, it might be good to find out why this day is so named.

          St. Patrick was born Magonas Secatus in Wales on the west coast of southern England, just south of Ireland.  As a youth he was kidnapped by Irish pirates who sold him into six years of slavery as a swineherder.  He escaped on a boatload of dogs back to England.  There, legend has it, after a lengthy bath to rid him of the smell of pigs and dogs, God told him in a vision to go back to Ireland.  But instead of obeying God right then, like Jonah, Magonas Secatus ran away to France, and there he became priest and bishop and was re-named Patrick.

          Some time later, God again told him to go back to Ireland.  So in 432, wearing a hair shirt and carrying an iron Bishop's staff, he returned to the island of his capture.  When he got there, legend tells us, this powerful and gruff priest cursed the paganism, the elf worship, the Druids, the snakes and the toads completely out of Ireland, and he transformed it by the Gospel into a Christian land.  He also inadvertently invented the "cocktail hour" by declaring no man should drink alcohol until after Vespers (5 PM).  Patrick died March 17, 461 A.D., and legend says he received permission from God to judge the Irish.  That's why every St. Patrick's Day the Irish in their saloons hoist a glass and say, "God bless all here."  Perhaps they're afraid Patrick might come back and curse them.

          Irish are also known for their humor which has carried them through famine and war.  One of my Irish friends tickled us all when he said, "Have you ever wondered how you'd like to die?  When I die, I want to go like my grandpa.  He died quietly and in his sleep, not screaming and hollering like the others riding in his car that day."

          Our theme during Lent has been "Certainty in an Uncertain World."  Uncertainty is felt in both the church and the world.  This month's Reader's Digest has a lead article called, "Finding God in Uncertain Times."  It's written jointly by a rabbi and a priest, and in it they briefly show how people are more seriously searching for meaning since September 11.

          It's followed by another short article called, "A Skeptic Starts to Pray."  Sadly, neither of these articles tell the saving Gospel of Jesus, only some general thoughts about spirituality.  But they do show that people are looking for God more now than in the past 20 years.  The search for God is such a hot topic now that the secular media is willing to take a chance writing about it.  People are searching, and like my friend Joe who emailed me last week, they're wanting to know "Where is God in all my troubles?"

          Let's go back 2000 years to Bethany, to the home of Mary and Martha a few miles east of Jerusalem.  It was a time of crisis for the sisters because Lazarus, their brother and bread-winner, had just died.  Those two single women not only loved their brother, they depended on him and suddenly they were cast into the valley of the shadow of death.  They had the great advantage of knowing Jesus personally, so they sent for him at once.  But instead of rushing to their aid, Jesus waited a few days.  Though only a half hour's walk from them, He didn't go there for awhile.  It's clear He wanted to use this opportunity to show the people something they could never appreciate while Lazarus was alive.  He would show them how God gives us life.

          When He got there, Martha, the dominant one, stepped forward and said with disappointment, "Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask." (John 11:21-22)   That's quite a statement of faith!  She believed in the resurrection, but she hadn't yet connected it to Jesus.  Christ is the source of all life because He returned to life.  His resurrection assures us that we too will rise.  Martha didn't fully understand this, but still, she had faith He could do something great for them.

          Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even if he dies.  And whoever lives and believe in me will never die.  Do you believe this, Martha?" (11:25-26)   That's when Martha's faith shined like a star.  "Yes, Lord," she said, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."  Though she didn't know all He could do, or even the full impact of what she had said, she had faith Jesus could do the impossible, and that was enough.  Faith takes God at His Word and waits for what He will do.

          God gives us life, and only He should be the One to take it back.  Job, in the midst of his loss, said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;  blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)   It's tempting as humans to "play God," but we must not.  God is bigger than we are.  To assume the role of Almighty God is to be on dangerous ground.

          We value life so much (and we should!), but this life is not all there is to our existence.  Inside each of our bodies rests a God-given soul that yearns to be with God.  Our souls have come from God and they want to be with Him again.  Our years of life on earth are a great blessing, but not the greatest.  The wonders of heaven make earthly life look pale and paltry.  No matter how good life is on this planet, life with God is so much better.  And conversely, life without God is so much worse than we could ever imagine.  Praise be that He gives us life, however long or short!

          God gives us life, both on earth and in heaven, and the latter is so much finer than the former.  Civilizations have tried to deny Christ, but they quickly crumble and fall.  No matter what secular atheistic governments may try to do, people will still seek God until they find Him.  You cannot take away the human desire to seek God.

          When Vice President George Bush, father of our current president, represented the United States at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, he was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow.  She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed.  Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage that must rank as one of the great acts of civil disobedience in a Communist country.  She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest.  There in the USSR, that citadel of secular atheism, the wife of the man who had made it run so ruthlessly made the sign of the cross in the hope that her husband was wrong.  She hoped that there was another life, a life best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, the same Jesus who might yet have mercy on her husband.  No matter what atheism will do to Christ, it can never destroy Him.  In fact, most of Christ's opponents continue silently to hope He really is the Savior.

          Think of it - the wife of a communist president hoping for God!  Everyone wants life, and God the Father gives it graciously and in abundance.  He spared not His only Son that we might have a place in eternity.  The Son took upon Himself the sins of the world and died in our place.  Now all who trust Him for eternity have their wish.  God promises heaven to all who trust in Him, and He does not forget His promises.  God loved the world so much that He gave up His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, but will be given life forever.  Praise be to God!

          That's the Gospel message the OAFC shared with people in our community.  They shared Jesus because they love Jesus, and they shared Jesus with people because they care about people.  They know God gives life and they want a place with Him.  In some respects, the youth of OAFC put the rest of us to shame the way they boldly tell of Jesus.  Keep it up, kids, and may God bless you for what you do.  May God give us all here today the boldness to share His love with others, that we might all be before the Throne in God's presence, praising Him with eternal joy.  Amen

Copyright © 2002 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.