I have always wondered about the cynics and non-believers. What do they do at Easter? Have you ever wondered about that? On that day when the Christian church joyfully celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, what do they do. Humanism is all right for the classroom, but it leaves you nothing at an icy graveside. It is precisely at that point that Christianity responds: Yes, we shall see our loved ones again and all be reunited.

Some demand that they need proof and documentation. I wonder what kind proof that they desire. There is more documented evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived. There is more evidence of the resurrection than there is that Alexander the Great died at age 33. I have always found it interesting that some will accept thousands of facts for which there are only shreds of evidence, but in the face of overwhelming evidence of the resurrection they cast a skeptical doubt, because it is so unique. We say that we want the facts. Well the facts are that in the history of the ancient world the resurrection has been attested to as much as most of the events that we routinely accept and read in the history books.

In the early nineties the ABC news show 20/20 had an interesting segment on the shroud of Turin. If you were completely out of touch at that time and have not heard of the shroud of Turin, let me tell you that it is supposed to be the cloth that Jesus was buried in. And on this cloth is an imprint of the person of Jesus. It is now housed in a cathedral in Turin, Italy. Several years ago, an international team of scientists, consisting of Christians, Jews, Moslems, and non-believers, set about to prove or disprove the story behind this ancient cloth. The results of their findings were published in an issue of National Geographic magazine.

The interesting thing to me about the 20/20 story was an interview that they had with one of the scientists, an Air Force colonel who was a specialist in laser technology. He openly admitted that he began the project not only as a non-Christian, but as a person who was openly anti-religious. I relished this opportunity, he said, to debunk what I considered a childish myth. Geraldo Rivera asked him: “Now that you have spent four years on this project what is your response?” His response not only shocking, but it was shocking that 20/20 allowed it to go on the air. He said: “After four years on this project, I now fall upon my knees and worship a resurrected Christ.”

It would be nice if we could hold some physical evidence in our hands to prove it all, but I would mislead you this Easter Day if I left the impression that the resurrection was a matter of fact. For in the end, the resurrection is a religious belief. In the end you cannot prove it or disprove it. And that is why some brilliant people believe and why some brilliant people do not believe. Because you cannot prove it one way or the other. There just are not any photographs. In the end we must fall back upon the words of the resurrected Christ to the disciple Thomas: “Thomas, you have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”

Have a blessed and joyful Easter!!

Pastor Cory

My Dear Ones,

As we approach the season of Lent I am considering, as has been my practice, what I am going to “give up” for my Lenten fast. I have shared with many of you how a fast works. However, I don’t encourage you to fast, unless you are truly committed to this discipline as a spiritual journey. For example, if you go into a “food fast,” giving up red meat, with the hope that when Lent is over you will have lost a few pounds, what spiritual value is that?

Self-Denial is about making a sacrifice that makes a difference, focusing on the Cross and reminding ourselves what Christ gave up for us. Rev. Craig Gates of Jackson Mississippi has a great list of suggestions. He says we should:

GIVE UP grumbling! Instead, “In everything give thanks.” Constructive criticism is OK, but “moaning, groaning, and complaining” are not Christian disciplines.

GIVE UP 10 to 15 minutes of bedtime! Instead, use that time in prayer, Bible study and personal devotion. A few minutes in prayer WILL keep you focused.

GIVE UP looking at other people’s worst attributes. Instead concentrate on their best points. We all have faults. It is a lot easier to have people overlook our shortcomings when we overlook theirs first.

GIVE UP speaking unkindly. Instead, let your speech be generous and understanding. It costs so little to say something kind and uplifting or to offer a smile. Why not check that sharp tongue at the door?

GIVE UP your hatred of anyone or anything! Instead, learn the discipline of love. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

GIVE UP your worries and anxieties! They’re too heavy for you to carry anyway. Instead, trust God with them. Anxiety is spending emotional energy on something we can do nothing about: like tomorrow! Live today and let God’s grace be sufficient.

GIVE UP TV one evening a week! Instead, visit someone who’s lonely or sick. There are those who are isolated by illness or age. Why isolate yourself in front of the “tube?” Give someone a precious gift: your time!

GIVE UP buying anything but essentials for yourself! Instead, give the money to God. The money you would spend on the luxuries could help someone meet basic needs. We’re called to be stewards of God’s riches, not consumers.

GIVE UP judging others by appearances and by the standard of the world! Instead, learn to give up yourself to God. There is only one who has the right to judge, Jesus Christ.

This type of Lenten discipline brings us to humility before the cross. It can make us appreciate God’s sacrifice for us. This Lenten discipline promises to bring close to God! This type of Lenten discipline leads us to Easter joy, like we have never before experienced!

As always, I invite your comments. Blessings on your Lenten journey!

Pastor Cory

Dear Friends,

A hundred years ago Rev. Charles E. Jefferson described the difference between an audience and a church. He said, “An audience is a crowd. A church is a family. An audience is a gathering. A church is a fellowship. An audience is a collection. A church is an organism. An audience is a heap of stones. A church is a temple.” And he concludes, “(We) are ordained not to attract an audience, but to build a church.” I hope that everyone in this room understands that critical difference. If a business, non-profit organization, or a political party is torn with dissension, it is a shame. But when the church of Jesus Christ is in turmoil, it is a tragedy. Christ depends on us and our unity.

It is a time to open up to the mind-blowing, heart-warming, life-changing power of God. The power of God can invade the body, inflate the mind, swell the soul, lift the Spirit and make us more than we ever imagined. It’ll make you young when you’re old, and it’ll make you live even when you die.

The power and presence of the Spirit will disturb, delight, deliver and lift. When God sends forth the Spirit, “the whole face of the earth is renewed” (Psalm 104:30). When God sends forth the Spirit, chaos is changed into creation the Red Sea opens up to a highway of freedom. When God sends forth the Spirit: A young woman says “Yes.” Jesus is born and life is never the same.

When God sends forth the Spirit amazing things happen:

Barriers are broken, communities are formed, opposites are reconciled, unity is established, disease is cured, addiction is broken, cities are renewed, races are reconciled, hope is established, people are blessed, and church happens.

Today the Spirit of God is present and we’re gonna have church. So be ready, get ready…God is up to something…discouraged folks cheer up, dishonest folks ‘fess up, sour folks sweeten up, closed folk, open up, gossipers shut up, conflicted folks make up, sleeping folks wake up, lukewarm folk, fire up, dry bones shake up, and pew potatoes stand up!

But most of all, Christ the Savior of all the world is lifted up.

Are we an audience, or are we a church? Amen?

As always, I invite your comments,

Pastor Cory

Dear Friends,

The story is told of John Henry Newman, who, in the 1800’s, was an Anglican minister in England. His religious pilgrimage ultimately took him to Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. He ultimately would become a cardinal in the Catholic Church and the most preeminent leader of that church in Europe. If you go into almost any Catholic church today you will find a Sunday school class called the Newman class. That was named after John Henry Newman.

While serving as Cardinal, he received a message from an English priest from the tiny village of Brennan, a dirty little mill town north of Birmingham. It seems that an epidemic of cholera had decimated the village and the priest was asking for the help, for another priest to assist him in the giving of the sacrament, administering the Last Rites, and to do funerals, so many people were dying.

Newman read the letter in his office, an office that is still there today. It has not been changed since the day he left it. Newman read the letter and he spent the next hour in prayer. Finally a secretary came in and said: Cardinal Newman. We must give an immediate reply to Brennan. Your eminence, what shall we do? Newman answered: The people are suffering and dying. How can I send a priest to do this work? I must go myself.

At Advent God looked down upon his dying people dying from sin and distraction, pride and preoccupation. How, under the circumstance could he send a substitute? He came himself—in the person of Jesus Christ.

How secure are you as we enter this Advent season? Is your marriage less than solid? Is your job at risk? Do you have medical problems? Have lost a loved-one in the last year? Insecurity could be part of your Advent season.

Emmanuel, “God with us” is our assurance that God is always beside us. Therefore, let the Messiah replace your insecurity this Advent with the following bedrock conviction: God and you are in this together. Nothing can happen that God and you together cannot manage. Nothing will ever be able to separate you from his love. Now, that’s real security.

Advent Blessings to you all!

Pastor Cory

My Dear Ones,

Remember that you are a gift from God. God has placed you on earth and given you all that makes you a person. Even your history is part of what has shaped you. “Wonderful are your works.”

There is much in life that goes against this pronouncement God has made about you. Our society too often says that you are wonderful if you are rich, young, thin, physically energetic, happy and a thousand other things which appear in television, social media, and advertising. Many are made to feel of little value because they do not measure up. Can you hear this word of God, “wonderfully made,” in spite of all the other voices?

I once knew of a woman who was elderly and wheelchair-bound, went to a church retreat in which the participants considered the gifts God had given them and how they might use these gifts for others. She had been persuaded to come in spite of her fears. Two days passed and the depressing thought of being of no value in her condition plagued her. She left the retreat discouraged. She felt others had much to give and she had nothing.

Ten days later she called the pastor with a new spirit in her voice. She remembered that she could use the telephone, and asked if she could be in contact with others through this means.

She now knows most of the members of the parish. She remembers their birthdays, anniversaries, and other important happenings in their lives. She calls many regularly to share their joys and their misgivings. She again celebrates the gift of her life and the gift of her ability in telephone conversation. Many in the parish now know that she is “wonderfully made.” She understands what it means to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!” Each of you thank God that you are also “wonderfully made.”

Ask God to help you discover your gifts and the means through which you can share them with others.

As always, I welcome your comments. Pastor Cory

In the third article of the Apostle’s Creed we say “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints…”

We are reminded that there is a wholeness and diversity in the catholic church: Presbyterians, UCCers, Methodists, Pentecostals, Baptists, Mennonites, Disciples, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and many more.

All these have different histories. They meet in chapels, homes, cathedrals, open fields, under tents, stadiums, huts, theaters, storefronts, a variety of rented quarters from bars to funeral homes. They meet in a variety of ways but still confess the same Lord.

The one body of the holy catholic church lives in communion with all who are connected to Christ—past, present and future.

We gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we celebrate that our table is connected to the whole company of heaven and to all the company on earth. This could either be the most ridiculous concept in all the world, or the most profound. It seems ridiculous because it suggests that in the body of Christ time and space do not exist.

The congregation to which we belong is important, for this is where Christ takes on flesh in this time. We believe that it is the Spirit of God that binds us in this particular space to the whole church on earth. We are called to give thanks for the Spirit who holds this body together.

As we move forward, pray for the unity of the church, and for the Spirit to remove all barriers that divide us.

As always, I invite your comment.

Blessings,

Pastor Cory

Two apples up in a tree were looking down on the world. The first apple said, “Look at all those people fighting, robbing, rioting no one seems willing to get along with his fellow man. Someday we apples will be the only ones left. Then we’ll rule the world.” Replied the second apple, “Which of us the reds or the greens?”

Mark, chapter 4, which we read several weeks ago, contains the parables of Jesus revealing to us the Kingdom of God. These parables remind us to look inside ourselves and examine how we are contributing to the Kingdom. These parables give us hope.

Yet we live in a universe and in a world with huge threats to existence and with sickeningly large social and geopolitical problems. There are meteors hurtling through space, many of which would wipe out life on earth if they struck us. There are dictators harboring or seeking weapons of mass destruction, many of which threaten our survival as a species. In the Middle East but in so many other places, too, there are seemingly inflexible and intense hatreds and prejudices between and among various ethnic groups. There are diseases like Covid 19 and all its variants galloping through continents, killing over 4.5 million people. Hunger and poverty loom up like a whole mountain range of daunting problems whose heights we don’t know how to scale.

Yet in the midst of all these threats from within and from without, in the face of great sin and evil, faced with maladies that are global in scope, we Christian people swing in with no more than that simplest of all messages: Jesus saves. A Jewish carpenter’s son from halfway around the world and from over 2,000 years ago is the one we hold up as some kind of solution. And not a few folks today want to say, “Give me a break!”

To so much of our size-crazed culture, the gospel is too small for the task at hand. In the face of untold millions of starving people, we seem to offer just five loaves and two fish. In the face of trillion-dollar federal and international budgets, we seem to celebrate the widow’s penny going into the collection plate. In the face of hostile terrorists and repressive regimes headed up by the hounds of hell itself, we dispatch lamb-like folks to China and the Sudan and Afghanistan as missionaries witnessing to the Lamb who was slain. None of it seems equal to the task of reaching, much less changing, this sorry and troubled old world. Yet as Mark 4 reminds us, hidden in the midst of all that is a small mystery — hiding the uncontainable glory — of the kingdom of God.

Hope for the best, because God’s grace is sufficient. Amen?

As always, I invite your comments.

Pastor Cory

Reverend Billy Strayhorn tells a story of a mother mouse who decided to teach her children about the world. So, she gathered all of her little mice and set out for a walk. They walked down the hall and turned to the right. Then they went down the hall and took another right. And suddenly they found themselves in front of the family cat dozing in the sunlight. The mother mouse was scared. But she didn’t want to give in to her fright. So, she signaled to the children to be very quiet and to follow as she began to tip toe quietly and slowly past the sleeping cat. Just as she was about to get past the cat, the cat’s eyes popped open and raised its paw.

The little mice were petrified. What would their mother do? Well, just as the cat’s paw started to come down, that mother mouse looked the cat right in the eye and started barking like a dog. And do you know what? The cat was so startled and frightened that it jumped up and ran away! The mother mouse, wiped her brow, shook a little and then turned to her little mice and said, “Children, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes it’s good to know a second language!”

It’s the same way with us. It’s good to know a second language. Salt and light are the language of God; the language of Grace; the language of hope and love. And when this language is translated into action it becomes the most beautiful language ever spoken. We’re called to be salt and light and to speak the language of God as we live our faith. We’re called to live the Word.

I am so thankful to our VBS leaders and volunteers who shared the language of “salt and light” to the children in our community. So many worked very hard to put on a program that was not only fun for our young people, but was consistent to the Gospel message we preach.

Children, youth and adults alike learned so much last week! Thanks to them all for a job well done. Thanks for sharing the language of “salt and light.”

The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked this question: What was the earliest sign of civilization in any given culture? He expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was “a healed femur.” The femur, of course, is the leg bone above the knee. Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion, she said, is the first sign of civilization. I would contend that it is also the first sign of the work of Christ in the life of a Christian.

On the last Sunday in June, we discussed the healing power of touch, and began sharing “God’s Peace” with one another. Wasn’t that wonderful? I received much positive feedback from so many of you. It seems you missed that as much as I did. We need to be reminded that there are many other ways to offer healing to one another. While we discussed the healing power of touch, it is also true that forgiveness is another powerful healing tool.

Research provides clear evidence that forgiveness is a powerful tool to help us recover from abuse, bereavement, trauma, addiction, abortion, divorce, and other losses. It enables us to tap into powerful spiritual resources that foster our healing.

As a pastor, I find it interesting that the Cancer Treatment Centers of America are now using forgiveness therapy as an integral part of their cancer treatment.

Studies have verified the positive power of forgiveness on our well-being. For instance, people who forgive are more likely to enjoy lower blood pressure, a stronger immune system, and a drop in the stress hormones circulating in their blood. Their back pain, stomach problems, and headaches may disappear. They report reduced anger, anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms; higher self-esteem; and more hopefulness about their future.

In other words, to jettison some of our emotional baggage allows our mind to provide some natural healing of our body. While forgiveness is not a cure for cancer, studies have shown that our body responds very positively and prolongs life and our quality of life.

Forgiveness is a decision we can make! We can choose to forgive—to dismiss, to cut off— the debt created by the one who hurt us. As Christians, we can do this because we say that the blood of Christ was enough payment for that debt and we do not have to extract it from them.

Is there anyone you need to forgive?

As always, I welcome your comments.

Pastor Cory

While crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, F.B. Meyer was asked to address the first-class passengers. At the captain’s request, he spoke on “Answered Prayer.” An agnostic who was present at the service was asked by his friends, “What did you think of Dr. Meyer’s sermon?” He answered, “I didn’t believe a word of it.” That afternoon Meyer went to speak to the steerage passengers. Many of the listeners at his morning address went along, including the agnostic, who claimed he just wanted to hear “what the babbler had to say.”

Before going to the service, the agnostic put two oranges in his pocket. On his way, he passed an elderly woman sitting in her deck chair fast asleep. Her hands were open. In the spirit of fun, the agnostic put the two oranges in her outstretched palms. After the meeting, he saw the old lady happily eating one of the pieces of fruit. “You seem to be enjoying that orange,” he remarked with a smile. “Yes, sir,” she replied, “My Father is very good to me.” “Your father? Surely your father can’t be still alive!” “Praise God,” she replied, “He is very much alive.” “What do you mean?” pressed the agnostic. She explained, “I’ll tell you, sir. I have been seasick for days. I was asking God somehow to send me an orange. I suppose I fell asleep while I was praying. When I awoke, I found He had not only sent me one orange but two!” The agnostic was speechless. Later he was converted to Christ. Yes, praying in God’s will brings an answer.

I’ve learned something humbling about prayer during the last several weeks. We often speak about the power of prayer, as many have gone through hard times and stood up in church thanking all for their continued prayers. I would reinforce the notion of prayers power as an  encouragement for all to pray, as scripture tells us, “Without ceasing.”

I have to admit there are times when those words of encouragement just rolled off my lips with very little thought or feeling behind them. Sometimes, I admit to paying “lip-service” to the notion of how powerful prayer is.

Leading up to my surgery, I didn’t really give it much thought. I knew it had to be done, and I didn’t think I was nervous or apprehensive at all. Then, on the Sunday before the surgery, my friend Pastor Doug, and Patti came to my door with communion. Then Patti handed me get-well cards with prayers and well-wishes from so many of you.

I was overwhelmed. I think, for the first time in my life, I truly felt the power of prayer; it’s a good feeling! My friends, never underestimate the power of prayer. It truly helped me through the surgery and especially through my recovery. I am so grateful to you all. Please keep the prayers coming!

Blessing to you all from your recently humbled pastor,

Cory