Reverend Raymond Osborne, O.S.L., Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Have you ever noticed how excited people get about sports? I have seen people get excited at a sports event when they didn’t even understand anything about it. Like the one gentleman who was asked his opinion of a Football game after he watched one for the very first time. His reply: "Seems like a lot of trouble for 25 cents." "25 cents?" "Well they all kept yelling: ‘Get the quarter back!’"

I will never forget attending a football game in Ashe county with a couple of friends. My friend’s wife was so excited about the game! She was yelling and screaming and jumping and clapping. When "our team" went into the end zone we all thought we had just won the game. But there was a penalty which negated the score. I will never forget her words to me that day - "What happened? Did they take the homerun away?"

Wasn’t the NCAA tournament grand? I suppose that depends on where you were sitting. If you wear a hat like mine it was wonderful! Some of the fouls were questionable and some of the decisions made by the officials on the court were also questionable. When someone made a basket and a foul took place, people all over jumped up and down wondering why it was or weren’t called. There were people present at the game, gathered in sports bars and around televisions throughout the world who will not understand why the homerun was taken away but they had never had as much fun in their life!

Just a comment here; have you ever noticed how people involved in ministry act like they’re in pain rather than experiencing joy. I must confess that I peeked once during a prayer while I was involved in a worship experience at school. As I watched the student pray – I wondered if he were going to die! It made me aware of my own need to not look like this worship is killing me! I think churches throughout the world could probably use a little more joy and life in their worship.

The Andy Griffith Show is probably my all time favorite show in the world. I will always remember one show where Mr. Weaver, a grouchy business owner was going to evict this lovely couple that had fallen on hard times. Andy and Barney had decided to fill up the jailhouse with yard sale type items and raise the rent for these people. In this show someone picks up an item off the table and takes it to Andy and says: "Andy? What ya reckon this is?" Andy replied: "I’m not really sure." To which the gentleman says: "Me either but I always wanted one."

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Not long ago I attempted to find David Simmons with no success. The name David Simmons means nothing to you, but to me he is an extremely important man. I haven’t heard from or seen David Simmons in over twenty years but it occurred to me a few weeks ago that I had never thanked David Simmons for something very important. If he had not done this one thing for me I am not certain I would be here today. It was David Simmons who was on the other side of a railing much like this one, at Cochranville United Methodist Church helping me to respond to Christ’s invitation. I can still see the tears in his eyes as he said: "The Lord is getting a good man." The sad thing in all this is that I am learning that David went through a divorce and his family and his church has basically shunned him, which has made it almost impossible to find him. After learning this I now understand why God has made this a high priority in my life.

I was like the man with Andy that day - I didn’t quite know what it was but I knew I had always wanted it! I didn’t understand it all but I knew the power of God had come over me and I could no longer resist Him.

The sports world is filled with experts and many times even the experts don’t understand all the rules or factors of the game. So it is with Christianity.

I am so glad to be finished with seminary. I sat in a lot of classrooms and absorbed a lot of information regarding God and His Word. I will be the very first to tell you that I don’t completely understand it all.

Today churches throughout the world gather to worship. In those pews, chairs, floors, and pulpits are people who simply do not understand it all. Someone asked me for my views on the Sabbath. I said: "The Sabbath is a day that we set aside to honor and worship God." Then this person asked me why some worship on Saturday and some worship on Sunday. I again responded: "The Sabbath is a day that we set aside to honor and worship God. According to the Hebraic calendar it is Saturday but do you really think God is all that concerned about a certain day of the week? I think God is perhaps more concerned about our worship than He is the day on which we do it." It’s the same with salvation. If we waited until we understood every aspect - we’d never be saved. There are some things about God that our minds can never comprehend.

Why would God choose Raymond Osborne to preach? Why would God choose to forgive Raymond Osborne for all the wrong he has done and all the mistakes he has made in his life? Why does God choose to forgive again and again and again? I don’t know. None of us do. All that we can possibly know is that He is God and He has the power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

As I read our text I discovered one way that I am like the Apostle Paul. Paul said to the church at Corinth: "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power." (1 Cor 1:17 NRSV)

Christianity as we know it is rich with symbolism. We light candles every service which symbolizes Christ as the Light with us. When the service is over the wick on the candlelighter is lit, then the candles are extinguished and the acolyte leads the way of the Light going out into the world. When an infant is baptized it has its first experience of the grace of God. When I served a Baptist congregation we baptized those who accepted Christ and desired to become part of His Body. Whenever I placed a candidate under the water it symbolized the death of the old life and as they were raised it symbolized resurrection into new life. The last baptism I performed in the Baptist church I handed each person a candle as they left the baptistery. As I did I said, “Go and take the Light of Christ into the World."

This evening we celebrate Eucharist - Holy Communion. As you came into the church perhaps you saw the two wooden crosses on the church porch and the hammers and nails. At the conclusion you will be hammering the cards you received in your bulletin to those crosses, an act rich in symbolism. Here at the alter you see a bowl of water and a towel, symbols to remind us of that night when Jesus washed the disciples feet and to remind us that we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our community and world. Here on the table you see three large spike nails, again symbols to remind us of the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf as his hands and feet were nailed to the cross. You also see the wine chalice and the jug and the bread – all symbols tonight to remind us of the Grace of God, of the Forgiveness of God, of the Sacrifice of God, ultimately a reminder of Christ being nailed to a cross. The Bread creates in our minds a picture of Christ as he is tied to a whipping post and a Roman soldier is beating him with a whip. Not an ordinary whip but one, which had steel balls, placed periodically throughout. We see the hands and feet of Christ being nailed to a cross. We can almost identify with those who watched that day as the Son of God died the power that accompanied that act which caused the earth to quake and the sky to become dark. Power to save. Power to forgive. Power to heal. Power to transform lives.

The world doesn’t understand that power and if you and I are completely and totally honest this morning we don’t either. But you know? That’s okay. We don’t have to understand it we need only to accept it. To know that there is true power that came and continues to come to you and I through the cross of Christ. Even through they did not understand that power that day they knew the implications for it is recorded that they said among themselves, "Truly this was God’s Son." (St. Matthew 27:54 NRSV)

This evening I invite you to participate in Eucharist. I not only invite you, but Christ invites each of us to His table, to remember and experience for ourselves God’s grace; God’s forgiveness, God’s love, and God’s acceptance. Christ’s sacrifice. But more than anything else - the power of the Cross! Amen.

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