The Burr in the Burbs

“If you believe in God, you have to believe in the Devil.”  Or so said the reverend Cotton Marcus in Eli Roth’s new movie, The Last Exorcism.  That’s even the tagline on some of the move posters.  Actually, I think he’s got it wrong.  It should be the other way around: “if you believe in the Devil, then you must believe in God.”  And this is the point the movie ends up making.

What should we make of the movie poster to the left with a crucifix and the words, “Believe in Him” above it?  The girl in the poster is bowing in submission, though contorted into a grotesque version of a believer paying devotion before the symbol of the Lord.  Pictures mean things.  And I’m still wondering what this one means.

Cotton Marcus is the magnetic pastor of a pentecostal-ish congregation in the deep South.  He started preaching in his dad’s pulpit when he was 8 years old.  He’s a born performer.  Doing exorcisms has been a family ministry, passed from father to son, for generations.  However, during a family crisis, Cotton discovers that his faith is lost.  He continued the charade of his ministry, even the exorcisms, because. . . well, it’s a living.  And besides, he figured he was basically helping people.  Things change again when he learns of an episode where a child is accidentally killed during an exorcism.  This is his turning point.  Cotton decides to blow his own cover by performing one last exorcism with a documentary film crew recording his spiritual warfare sleight of hand.  The minister randomly chooses one of the frequent letters he receives from troubled souls requesting his services and off they go.

They arrive at the Sweetzer farm in poor rural Louisiana where they meet Nell, an angelically innocent girl whose father is convinced she is inhabited by the Devil.  Cotton employs his usual tricks, allowing the camera to see how he does things behind the scenes.  Things get interesting when the counterfeit demon slayer comes up against something real.

To say more about the plot would be to give too much away.  The central question is whether the devil is real and, if so, what implications should this have on one’s belief in God.

When I heard that Eli Roth was producing The Last Exorcism, I expected more than I got, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Actually, I appreciate the comparative restraint this movie exercises.  Too many occult themed movies feel the need to top the last in terms of shock and awe, leading many into the realm of the absurd.  A general rule of thumb for storytellers is to show, not to tell.  But one can show too much.  Sometimes, especially for horror stories, it’s better to neither show nor tell, but to suggest.  A great director is a great editor.

Many people I’ve talked to say they disliked the ending.  The director definitely took a risk.  In my opinion, the ending is not entirely satisfying, but it wasn’t  a total miss.  I needed just a little bit more.  The film is good, not great.  It takes the increasingly popular found footage approach, which still works for me.

Take a little bit Rosemary’s Baby, a little bit The Exorcist, a little bit Blair Witch Project and more than a smidge of The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  Stir them on a low heat and you get this new film.  The Last Exorcism is not nearly as good as any of the above mentioned projects, but is still probably better than most occult-themed films.

Someone asked me recently what advice I would give to a new pastor.  My first thought was that there is no vice worse than ad-vice.  I was ordained in 1996 and I am now six months into serving my second congregation.  I have been the recipient and beneficiary of good counsel many times over.  So here’s a few thoughts for the fellow newbies out there.

• Listen.  I really think that you should spend your first six months doing a lot of listening.  Listen to the stories, the anecdotes, the complaints, the dreams of your folks.  Go to their homes.  Eat meals with them.  Ask them to tell you about themselves and their congregation.  Pastors naturally do a lot of talking.  It’s not so natural to for us to listen.  When you are new, getting to know your people has got to be a top priority.  There will be times when you will really need them to listen to you.  They’ll return the favor if you invest in listening to them from the start.

• Get out of your office.  Most likely you will want to keep certain office hours at the church so that people know when they can find you there.  But I have found huge advantages in taking my show on the town.  I love to take my books and computer to a local coffee shop and work there.  Wear your collar so everyone knows you are a pastor.  I go regularly to three or four coffee shops in my town and have gotten to know quite a few of the locals.  I see more of my parishoners at Starbucks than I would if I just stayed at the church office all day.  Let people know where they can find you, but get out and about.

• Join a service club.  I joined Rotary, but you could try the Lions or Kiwanis.  The advantages are manifold.  First of all, you immediately make a bunch of friends and have a rewarding social circle outside of your congregation.  This keeps you grounded.  You can network and connect with community leaders in a mutually beneficial way.  Plus, these organizations do great work, both locally and around the world.

• Read widely.  For the last four to ten years, as a student, you’ve been assigned mountains of things to read, some of it worthwhile.  Now that school is over, you can begin your education.  Get a library card and walk to the new book shelf and select something there.  Then go to the newpapers and find out what the best-sellers are and check out one or two of them.  It doesn’t matter what they’re about or whether you think you’ll like them.  Read them anyway.  Make sure that at all times you are reading a current popular novel.  Certainly, you will want to keep current in theology but take the time to read in other areas as well.  Read current events, psychology, pop culture, history, sociology and whatnot.  Read for several hours every day.  It’s work, not leisure.  Being well-read will make you a more interesting person.  And NEVER underestimate the importance of being interesting.

• Maintain a sense of humor.

• Work hard on your sermons but not too hard.  If your sermon sounds like poetry, re-write it.  I’m not saying you can’t be poetic, just make sure the average listener will actually know what the blazes you are talking about.  You are no longer writing for professors, unless you happen to serve a congregation full of professors.  Don’t try to impress.  Try to communicate.  Many pastors, accustomed to years of classroom work, write for the eyeball, not the ear hole.  Next to being faithful to the text of Scripture, being clearly understood is your top priority.  Just because your parishoners are tolerant of bad preaching doesn’t mean you should be.  Learn from other preachers but never imitate them.  Preach like you talk.  If people don’t follow your sermon, it literally doesn’t matter what you say.

Not exhaustive.  But it’s a start.

What really cool thing did you do this Memorial Day weekend?  We went last night to see The Million Dollar Quartet at the intimate Apollo Theater in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.  It was a roaring great time and you must go see it right now today.

On a December day in 1956, four young musical geniuses met at Sun studios in Memphis for a jam session.  Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley were gathered by legendary producer, Sam Philips.  True story.  The photo to the left is a record of the occasion.

The musical is a showcase of many of the early hits of these four incomparable artists.  Each of the actors/musicians were spot on, for the most part.  David Lago didn’t look a whole lot like Der Koenig, but then, who does?  He did, however, capture Elvis’s sound with crazy accuracy.  Lance Lipinsky was more Jerry Lee Lewis than Jerry Lee Lewis.  Sean Sullivan had Johnny Cash’s look and signature style of movement down pat, but the vocals were maybe only about 85%.  Still really good.  I think Joaquin Phoenix spoiled me for any other Johnny Cash impersonators.  And I’m sad to say that I cannot judge how well Gabe Bowling covered the real Carl Perkins because I’m just not that familiar with the original.  But my loss.  The stage performer was fantastic.  I’m sure Mr. Perkins would be proud.  The supporting parts were also very solid.

Favorite songs of the night included: Hound Dog, Great Balls of Fire, and Folsom Prison Blues. There were many others, all of them crowd-pleasers.  I’d say my favorite piece was the opener, Blue Suede Shoes, with all four performers filling the Apollo with sound and presence.  Today, I just want to go to my iTunes account and load up on these golden hits.

Image via Wikipedia

A while back, my wife bought some Coca-Cola from the local Mexican grocery and some from the “regular” grocery store.  We did a taste test and BOTH of us were able to identify which one came from the Mexican store.  Do you know why?  Because the Coke in the Mexican store is made with sugar and the other stuff uses high fructose corn syrup.  The one that tasted better to us was the one made with sugar.  It tasted like the Coca-Cola from my childhood.

At some point, the U.S. Coke manufacturers started using HFCS for a sweetener, presumably because it is cheaper.  Corn subsidies and all that.  But in Mexico, the government subsidizes sugar growers.  So… if you want better tasting Coke and potentially, less fattening, buy it from your local Mexican grocer.

Another way to get the sugary stuff is to stock up on it when Passover rolls around.  Apparently, HFCS is not Kosher.

I know this observation is a couple of weeks overdue, but I figured I’d go ahead and put this out there.  Did you happen to notice that there were some changes in this year’s Academy Awards show on television?  For one thing, even though they doubled the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, it ended at a reasonable time.  Yippeee!  Most of the program is usually pretty boring.   It’s nice when they end on time.

But even more significant, I’d say, is the new way they announced the winners.  In year’s past, at least in recent memory, they would open the envelope and say, “The Oscar goes to . . . .” But this year, they said, “The winner is . . . .” This stuff is scripted.  Someone told the presenters to say it that way.  This isn’t exactly a stop-the-presses moment, but it does strike me as a little bit meaningful considering that Hollywood is the Holy Land of political correctness.

My assumption is that saying, “the Oscar goes to” was supposed to be a gentler way to make the announcement and not hurt the feelings of the people the Oscar did not go to.  They wanted to honor all of the nominees and not focus on so-called winners and losers.  But let’s be real.  It’s an awards ceremony.  People vote for their favorites.  Some people win and others lose.  It’s a good thing to award achievement.

Below is the message I just wrote to be included in our new upcoming church directory.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4:6

This is our congregation’s pictorial directory for 2010.  It’s got all of our names with our contact information.  But more importantly, it’s got pictures of our faces.  Sometimes, directories like this one are even called “face books.”

Faces are interesting things.  Your face reveals a great deal about you.  If I am perceptive, I can look at your face and tell if you’ve had enough sleep recently, whether you’ve spent a lot of time outdoors, if your cheek’s been kissed, whether you’ve been crying, maybe even clues about where you are from, and so forth.

Our faces communicate a lot of data.  Aside from the relatively superficial information mentioned above, I can look at you, looking at me, and tell how you feel toward me.  If you are angry with me, there will be daggers in your eyes.  If you are pleased with me, you will be smiling.

Certainly, some people’s faces are more expressive than others and poker players train their faces to conceal their thoughts from their companions.  But that’s not typical.  Nor is my face-reading infallible.  I might totally misread your expression at times.  Nevertheless, faces are designed to convey on the outside what is going on within.

We often describe a person’s facial expression in terms of light and dark.  “Her face lit up when she saw him walking toward her.”  Or “We knew Tommy had lost the game when we saw his dark expression as he entered the room.”

The Bible talks about God’s face.  Many passages talk about God’s face shining on us as a sign of His approval of us.  Psalm 4:6 says: “Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.” God’s most majestic expression of His glory comes not in scowls of judgment, but a smile of acceptance.  And we are acceptable to God, not in and of ourselves, but in Christ.

God is alive and active in Elmhurst and our neighboring communities.  He is pulling desperate people back from the edge.  Human beings everywhere get up everyday to face sickness, loneliness, and sorrow.  But the light of God’s love will put a smile in your heart, if not your face.

Redeemer Lutheran Church is a place where we bask in the radiance of Jesus Christ, His mercy and everlasting kindness received through His Word and Sacraments.  And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are committed to presenting a face of Divine compassion to all.

Yours truly,

Pastor Scott Stiegemeyer

A lot has changed of late.  The Stiegemeyer family moved to Elmhurst, IL, a suburb of Chicago, in January 2010.  I was installed as the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church on January 24^th.  Their pastor for the last 8 years or so is Rev. Robert Fitzpatrick.  Though he is retiring this year, I’m very blessed to have a period of overlap for a few months.  For an incoming pastor, this is a dream situation, at least for me.  It means that Redeemer experiences no period of pastoral vacancy.  It also means that the new guy (me) has a chance to relocate his family and begin adjusting to the new community and the new congregation without having the full burden of responsibility right away.

I determined that I wanted to spend the first couple of months getting to know people, asking questions, listening to congregational stories, and begin establishing myself into the community.

God has blessed us abundantly.  We were able to purchase a home in Elmhurst a short distance from the church and close to Jacob’s new school.  Elmhurst is a fabulous town with about 43,000 people, not far from the highlights of Chicago, conveniently located near O’Hare, with great shopping, restaurants, culture, you name it.  We’re very pleased to be here.

More importantly, Redeemer is a wonderful congregation of about 450 members.  We have a beautiful building with some of the most glorious stained glass windows anywhere.  Our organ is excellent and our Music Director, Mr. Michael Waal, is top shelf.  We have a strong music program for the kids lead by Mrs. Heather Knight.  Our facility includes lots of classrooms, meeting space, and a full sized gymnasium.  The people are warm and friendly and fun to get to know.  I am extremely grateful for the gracious welcome we have received.

My joy overflows at being a pastor once more.  Presiding or assisting with weekly Eucharist, preaching on a regular basis, teaching bible classes, visiting members and developing plans for mission and ministry, etc.

I believe that it is imperative for a pastor to do what he can to be visible, accessible and engaged in his community.  Last Thursday, I was inducted as a member of the local Rotary Club, an organization devoted to community service.  It is incidentally a terrific way to network and get to know business and community leaders in the area where we live and our church ministers.

Mission and evangelization are, and have always been, driving priorities.  Given the many unchurched or under-churched people in our society, I think it is generally unwise to simply wait for new people to show up on our stoop.  It’s important to do things to draw people and be hospitable when they visit.  Certainly, we do not water down our proclamation of God’s Word.  Nor do we jettison our traditional worship practices.  Those things enhance and define our outreach, and do not impede it.

My goal is for everyone in the community to know me as the pastor at Redeemer and, as much as possible, have a positive impression of our church.  And this is not about me, as a person.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that I naturally tend toward being an introvert.  Part of me wishes I could just go and read books all day.  I want to make as many friends in the community, firstly, because I do like people.  And I want to be a positive contributing member of my community.  But it also occurs to me that when an unchurched or seeking person thinks of contacting a church, they might be more likely to give me a ring if they get to know me at Caribou Coffee or the Elmhurst Newcomer’s & Neighbors Club with my wife or from a Rotary luncheon.  Doesn’t it just make sense that people in need are more likely to visit a church if they already know the pastor socially?

Here is our church website.  Visit our Facebook Page: Redeemer of Elmhurst.  Our Sunday services are at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.  Nursery childcare is available at 8:30.  Pay us a visit.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Text: Luke 4:21-30

There’s a story of an evangelist at the turn of the century who was visiting a town as the guest preacher.  In the course of delivering his message, the preacher talked about graft and corruption in the town council.  After the service, some of the church elders sent the preacher a note saying, “Please just focus on spiritual matters.  Don’t delve into our earthly affairs.  You have rubbed the fur the wrong way.”  After getting the note, the preacher returned a note that said, “If I have rubbed the fur the wrong way, tell the cat to turn around.”

I get the distinct impression that Jesus Christ rubbed people the wrong way from time to time.  Take for example today’s reading which tells of the time when He preached His inaugural sermon in Nazareth.  Some of His hearers were so upset by His message that they tried to throw Him off a cliff.  That’s what you call a hostile audience.  I’ve heard of people throwing tomatoes at speakers, but I have never heard of a crowd trying to murder the preacher.

Why were they offended?  What was so irritating about Jesus’ message that day?

A bit earlier in chapter 4, Jesus declares that the time had come for the blind to see, the oppressed to be given freedom and the captives to be released.

What’s wrong with that?  In general, that stuff sounds OK.  What made it sticky is when Jesus pointed to Himself and identified Himself as the fulfillment of the old promises.  He said, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

When the gospel was vague generalities, it was inoffensive, innocuous, unproblematic.  It required nothing of us.  It made no change and had no impact in our lives.  It’s the same way today.  The world is content to hear about peace and love and joy and goodness, as long as it can be left vague, left vague enough to be open to wide interpretation.  It’s not until we get to specifics that we risk stepping on toes.

It’s like the way the secular elements in American society view Christmas.  They approve of Christmas when it’s just a seasonal holiday, full of cheer and general feelings of fraternal good will.  But when the Church reminds the world that Jesus is the reason for the season, that He is the source of all that cheer and good will, then we get the cold shoulder.

Let’s talk about giving sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed.  No one can really stand in opposition to that.  But Jesus goes further.  The Kingdom of God was no longer to be seen as some hypothetical cloudy possibility that might arrive someday, maybe.

The Jews knew full well that this piece of scripture in Isaiah was referring to the reign of the Messiah.  And it’s a lovely passage.  We can all agree.  But when Jesus made the preposterous claim that He Himself is the fulfillment of the promises, that He Himself is the Messiah among them in the flesh, that was a problem.  That’s what made this occasion so radical.

The text says that they were amazed that Jesus would be so cheeky.  “Isn’t this boy who grew up around here, whose family we know,” they said.  As the old saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

To top it off, Jesus knows what they’re thinking, and He cites two Old Testament examples of God’s grace being extended to foreigners.  The Jews understood themselves to be God’s chosen people.  To them were given the law, the Temple, the covenant.  Jesus is saying that the He comes today with salvation and if pious citizens of Nazareth weren’t going to accept Him, then He’ll bring salvation to those who would.  To say that the people in Luke 4 took God for granted would be an understatement.  When we take God for granted, He will remove His Spirit from us and go to another place.

It’s very interesting when you look through history at the advancement of the Christian Church.  In the early years, Christianity was strong in Israel, the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.  Nowadays, the churches there are few and weak.  Next the Church grew and become influential in Europe.  But in most of Europe, the Church now is little more than a museum.  Then the center of gravity of Christianity appeared to move from there to North America.  But nowadays, we can observe a decline in the Church’s vitality in our land.  Where is the Spirit of God most active today?  Some observers would say that South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are the places where Christianity is thriving the most.  Our Lord despises lukewarm-ness.  When people fail to recognize God’s work, He tends to go to people who will appreciate Him.

The people of Nazareth had grown complacent.  They’d begun to take pride in their rich heritage and their culture while losing track of what it all meant.

Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.  And lost.  How does something like that happen?  It happens because people get an image in their mind of what Charlie Chaplin is supposed to look like and then they don’t recognize the real man when he stands in front of them.

I think something similar happens with Jesus.  People develop a mental picture of the Messiah or they have a very particular idea of what God should be like and then they are frustrated when He turns out to be something else.

The Scriptures reveal Jesus as a suffering servant.  And if you want to get a crystal clear picture of who God is, you don’t look within, you don’t look to the heavens, you look to the cross, particularly a crucifix.  For it is Jesus hanging, bleeding, suffering, dying on the cross that shows us the true heart of God.  He is One who lays down His life for sinners.

This passage reveals Jesus to be rather revolutionary.  He is coming to upset the establishment and declare solidarity with people who have been kept to the margins.  But He is not a revolutionary in the sense of Che Guevara or the Bolsheviks who talked about social upheaval, and creating a worldly Utopia.  Jesus is revolutionary but He did not come to re-arrange our economic and political systems.  He came to liberate us from the tyranny of death.

Woody Allen once commented, “I’m not afraid of death.  I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”  Well, guess what Woody, we can’t avoid the subject so easily.  Sometimes, as a coping mechanism, people make jokes about what scares them.  Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  He is alive and He is the ruler of the cosmos.  You who eat His body and drink His blood, know this.  Christ is in you and you are in Him.  His life is within you and you will live forever.

There is no question that Jesus can be an irritant.  The Word of God is, at times, intrusive.  It is disruptive.  It interferes.  It can be inconvenient, unwelcome, even unwanted.  But the next time God’s Word rubs you the wrong way, consider if perhaps you are the one who needs to turn around.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

So I finally read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, the vampire mega-hit that is so popular today with early adolescent girls. I give it a B-.

Until about the last twenty pages, the plot remained strong and engaging. I appreciate the unique remote Northwest setting, with its rain-drenched gloomy atmosphere. Vampires, it seems, do well under overcast skies. Meyer incorporates enough twists and turns to keep the general reader interested. But since I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl, I have a few criticisms.

Every vampire story constructs the mythology a little bit differently. For me, Meyer does the genre a disservice by overly romanticizing.  Most vampire stories are romantic in more than one sense. The original 1931 Dracula movie starring Bela Lugosi (note the actor’s first name) was not promoted as a horror flick, as it would have been today. Horror was not conceived of as a unique genre until later. It was originally billed as a dark romance. Vampires are romantic in the sense that they embody passion over reason. Van Helsing, in the original, represents science. Dracula ends with reason overcoming passion. But passion never dies.

In Twilight, the narrator is 17 year old Bella. She’s a little bit socially awkward, unfashionable, and from a dysfunctional family. In her new school, she falls in love with a hunk of burning vampire love named Edward. Bella ends up wanting to become a vampire and it’s hard to blame her. Immortality. Amazing powers. Physical beauty. Lots of money. Heightened senses. Superiority in intelligence, strength, and grace. What’s not to like? The fact that Edward and his crew are vampires is almost arbitrary. They could as well be elves or fairies or any other species of supernatural creature. It’s somewhat incidental that their nature is to drink human blood. There is none of the traditional vampires as agents of Satan or evil demonic life-sapping figures in this. But there are good vampires and bad ones. To be sure, the baddies do make an appearance and there are genuine moments of tension. But this is mostly a sappy adolescent love story, make no mistake. There is way too much breathless eye gazing, tingling surreptitious touches and fawning over Edward’s gorgeousness in this book to seriously appeal to heterosexual males.  At least this one.  But that’s OK, I reckon. Stephanie Meyer has become one rich chica writing this mush.  I still give a B-.

Stories about inwardly tormented vampires who become the equivalent of vegans and swear off killing humans for food are not original to Stephanie Meyer. What does seem particular to her books, however, is the high school setting. At least, it’s new to me. When Edward refrains from ravishing Bella and making a feast out of her, it comes across as a metaphor for a teenage boy working to control his raging hormones. Vampirology frequently has sexual intercourse as the underlying theme. Edward’s bloodlust is representative simply of lust. And to it’s immense credit, this is a chaste romance.

I’m now about twenty-five pages into the sequel, New Moon, and I’m already pretty irritated by Bella. I hope it improves.

Below is the homily I preached this morning in Kramer Chapel at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.  I think I overdid it a bit with the references, quotes and illustrations.  As the dean said afterward, “well that was a post-modern romp.” 

Text: Malachi 4: 1-6

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

You may have recognized that quote from an episode of Mad Men, but it originates from a 1925 poem by T.S. Eliot called “The Hollow Men.”   What does he mean the world will end not with a bang but a whimper.  1925 is too early for there to be fear of nuclear holocaust.  One literary critic – I don’t remember whom off the top of my head – but someone opined that Eliot’s ending is hopeful.  That the whimper is the sound of a cooing newborn baby.

I’ll tell you what I think it means.  I had a parishoner named Dino.  Dino was a swarthy Mexican American man who worked hard at his white-collar job in Pittsburgh, who loved his family, and was, on occasion really nice to his pastor.  Dino’s family were in charge of the annual Easter morning breakfast.  It was the usual watery scrambled eggs with papery thin strips of bacon.  But not for me.  For me, Dino mixed in homemade salsa with the eggs and put a generous side of chorizo sausage next to them.  Dino was a terrific guy.  He fought in the Vietnam war.  To his wife and kids, to me, and to everyone who knew him, Dino was heroic.

One gorgeous afternoon in late Spring, right around Easter, Dino and his wife were at the Home Depot loading up on topsoil and other garden supplies.  As they were loading their trunk, his wife, Linda, remembered that she’d seen some African Violets by the counter and hustled back inside to grab a few pots.  When she came back to their car, Dino was lying on the pavement, turning blue, and very dead.

My friend, Dino, should have gone in a blaze of glory, but instead he collapsed alone in a parking lot holding a fifty-pound bag of manure.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper.

One perennial theme for popular American movies is about the end of the world.  People just love this stuff.  Two new ones that are getting lots of attention right now are 2012, based on a New Agey look at ancient Mayan calendars.

The other big film stars Viggo Mortensen and it’s called “The Road.”  I expect it will be a very bleak film based on the very bleak novel by the very bleak writer Cormac McCarthy.  But the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2006, so it’s not trivial.  And McCarthy’s book, “No Country for Old Men,” was made into a film that won the Oscar for best picture of the year and it is infused with a sort of nihilism that even makes nihilists want to go look at photographs of soft fuzzy kittens to recover.

A reviewer writing for Entertainment Weekly said:  “Here’s a tip: If you see one austerely hopeless movie this year about a father and son wandering through a junk-strewn post-apocalyptic wilderness as they struggle to fight 
off demons of fear, madness, and starvation, not to mention roving bands of cannibalistic killers, then by all means make that movie The Road.”

Sometimes the end of man is by caused climate change, global warming and deforestation of the polar icecaps of some such.  Other times, the end is the result of a plague or a natural disaster.  The real end will come about as, to use the terminology of the insurance companies, “an act of God.”

For there is a day coming… A specific day, a day as real and certain as today, when God will punish the wicked and reward the righteous.

Woody Allen once said, “I’m not afraid to die.  I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”  The latest news flash from the great scientific geniuses of our time is this: Everybody dies.  You, like me, are on a time limit.  Sorry Woody, but you probably will be present at your own death.  You can’t phone in well that day.  You can’t evade the angel by traveling incognito.

And likewise, you will be present at your own death.  And it will happen, EITHER with a bang or a whimper.

Here’s a hymn verse that some of your parishoners know by heart:

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
triumph o’er the shades of night.

But here’s a line from another song that many of your parishoners ALSO know by heart: It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. It’s from the pop song by REM. Many will say, it’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.  It concerns me little.  Death concerns me little.  And that that is the case, should concern you much.

No preacher worth his salt enjoys preaching about God’s anger.  God does not delight in the death of the wicked.  Malachi had a most unenviable call.  It stinks to be the bearer of bad news but you do no one any favors by avoiding it.

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.

Jesus Christ is the sun of righteousness who brings healing in his wings.

The phrase that pokes me in the eye when I read this text is the line, “you shall leap like calves.”  When God’s prophet was trying to think of the most dramatic way to depict the joy of the righteous on the Day of the Lord, what came to mind was the jubilance of baby animals.

In 1949, C.S. Lewis wrote to Owen Barfield: “when you study any animal you know, what at once strikes you is their cheerful fatuity, the pointlessness of nearly all they do. Say what you like, Barfield, the world is sillier and better fun than they make out…”

The unofficial motto of the United States Marine Corps is “No better friend, no worse enemy.”  And I have often considered how well that motto applies to God.  You have indeed been made friends of God.  We talk about the Great Exchange which took place upon the cross, where an innocent man paid the penalty for the sin of the world, but the righteousness of Christ was exchanged for the wickedness of man.  When you gaze upon the form of Jesus dying, know that there hung the most perverted fornicator, the most pathological liar, the greediest scoundrel the world has ever known.  It had to be that way.  He who knew no sin became sin for us.  If the accounting of God’s righteousness to men is to be something more than a mere legal fiction or a turn of phrase, then the promise of resurrection and glorification must be included in the Judge’s pardon.  We are not merely declared innocent.  We become innocence itself.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.