Sermon Illustrations for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (2015)
Illustration
Object:
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
It is not surprising that people in Jerusalem thought the first Christians were drunk. Spirituality and getting drunk have a lot in common, neurobiologists tell us. In both cases, the drunk and the believer are under the influence of drugs. In spiritual experiences the brains of the faithful are saturated with the pleasant-feeling, amphetamine-like brain chemical dopamine. And it is addictive (Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes). When you’re drunk you are under the influence. In a sense, the booze controls you. The Holy Spirit does that to you. It has power over the faithful. As the famed Reformed theologian Karl Barth once wrote: “...the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ that his power is on certain men, that he comes to them as such, that he is ‘poured out’ on them, that he ‘sits’ on them and ‘fells’ them...” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/1, p. 649).
Christians are people intoxicated with God, under his control, and having a good time while life goes on! As Martin Luther put it: “Since these promises of God are holy, true, righteous, free, and peaceful words, full of goodness, the soul which clings to them with a firm faith will be so closely united with them and altogether absorbed by them that it not only will share in all their power but will be saturated and intoxicated by them” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 31, p. 349).
Mark E.
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
The procession of Super Bowls, with their over-solemn use of Roman numerals to mark their passage, sometimes causes football fans to forget there were previous decades full of pro football history, with heroes and heroics that ought not to be forgotten.
At the dawn of the Super Bowl age a ground-breaking book, Instant Replay, was written by Jerry Kramer, a lineman for the Green Bay Packers. In the book he not only tells the story of a championship season but also brings to life an era that will never be forgotten.
It’s hard to remember what it was like before the advent of free agency, with players moving freely between franchises while making incredible sums of money. In one scene towards the beginning of the book, Kramer reveals that when running back Paul Hornung was taken by the New Orleans Saints in the expansion draft, Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi wept. Meanwhile, Packer running back Jimmy Taylor took advantage of the opportunity to make more money and moved to another team. Later, Kramer wrote:
It seemed strange not to have Paul Hornung and Jimmy Taylor at the first meeting. Paul was here ten years, Jimmy nine, and for several years they gave us the best one-two running attack in pro football.
“We’re going to miss Paul Hornung,” Lombardi said. “We’re going to miss Paul a great deal. He was a leader and he added a lot of spice to professional football. We’re all going to miss him.”
And then Vince said, “We will replace the other fellow.”
He does have a thing about loyalty.
(from Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer,p. 28)
Frank R.
1 John 5:9-13
My wife has a childhood acquaintance who has been a lifelong friend. They have corresponded over the years, and though separated by hundreds of miles we have visited in her and her husband’s home. Our children are about the same age. On October 20, 2014 she posted on her Facebook page a portion of a letter her son Kevin sent to her in 2001.
Kevin began by quoting a poignant Theodore Spencer poem: “The day was a year at first, when children ran in the garden. The day shrunk down to a month, when the boys played ball. The day was a week thereafter, when young men walked in the garden. The day was itself a day, when love grew tall. The day shrunk down to an hour, when old men limped in the garden. The day will last forever, when it is nothing at all.” Then Kevin said, “It is easy to rush through life, and we do not want to end up with a few pieces of coal to show for our lives when the day is nothing at all!”
Not long after writing this, Kevin, an avid bicyclist, was riding to work on his bike. No one knows for sure what happened, but he must have hit a rock and was thrown from his bike. Though wearing a helmet, he struck another rock just below the helmet line and died within a few hours.
Kevin understood that life is short and that we must not rush it, but enjoy it to the fullest. As a Christian, he also grasped that life here is just the stepping stone to the eternal life that comes when Christ lives in the heart.
Derl K.
1 John 5:9-13
The Bible was written by men, but when we read it we can see it is really a testimony of God. We sense that is more than just some interesting stories written by men. We wouldn’t die for interesting stories, would we? When I read the Bible I feel God’s presence in the message, because it is full of love and God is love!
It should frighten an atheist to realize that he is calling God a liar! Even an agnostic should worry!
It can be a powerful testimony to quote this passage to a non-believer. You can risk death to quote this to a Muslim! It seems to be telling us: “Either you believe this or you are going to hell!” For us the important thing is to say it in love, leaving the one you tell it to in God’s hands.
Bob O.
John 17:6-19
The great preacher of the early Church John Chrysostom has said that we human beings (even adults) are like children who have just been deprived of our toys. We cry over missing them, when in fact what really should concern us children is paying for the next meal or the future. And so we adults spend a lot of energy and worry over the latest gadget, must-have product, or our image, without much attention to spiritual matters (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 14, p. 301). How does God get us out of this mess? By throwing us into the things of the world, where we are afforded opportunities to live in holiness (in the world, but not of it).
John Chrysostom elaborated further on this point: “He that practices showing mercy to him that needs, will soon cease from covetousness. For as the physician continually tending wounded persons is easily sobered, beholding human nature in the calamities of others; so we, if we enter upon the work of abiding the poor, shall easily become truly wise, and shall not admire riches, not deem present things any great matter” (Ibid., p. 302).
While in prison in 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a similar point: “...it is only by living completely in the world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint or a converted sinner or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously not our own sufferings, but those of the world...” (Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 193).
Mark E.
It is not surprising that people in Jerusalem thought the first Christians were drunk. Spirituality and getting drunk have a lot in common, neurobiologists tell us. In both cases, the drunk and the believer are under the influence of drugs. In spiritual experiences the brains of the faithful are saturated with the pleasant-feeling, amphetamine-like brain chemical dopamine. And it is addictive (Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes). When you’re drunk you are under the influence. In a sense, the booze controls you. The Holy Spirit does that to you. It has power over the faithful. As the famed Reformed theologian Karl Barth once wrote: “...the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ that his power is on certain men, that he comes to them as such, that he is ‘poured out’ on them, that he ‘sits’ on them and ‘fells’ them...” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/1, p. 649).
Christians are people intoxicated with God, under his control, and having a good time while life goes on! As Martin Luther put it: “Since these promises of God are holy, true, righteous, free, and peaceful words, full of goodness, the soul which clings to them with a firm faith will be so closely united with them and altogether absorbed by them that it not only will share in all their power but will be saturated and intoxicated by them” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 31, p. 349).
Mark E.
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
The procession of Super Bowls, with their over-solemn use of Roman numerals to mark their passage, sometimes causes football fans to forget there were previous decades full of pro football history, with heroes and heroics that ought not to be forgotten.
At the dawn of the Super Bowl age a ground-breaking book, Instant Replay, was written by Jerry Kramer, a lineman for the Green Bay Packers. In the book he not only tells the story of a championship season but also brings to life an era that will never be forgotten.
It’s hard to remember what it was like before the advent of free agency, with players moving freely between franchises while making incredible sums of money. In one scene towards the beginning of the book, Kramer reveals that when running back Paul Hornung was taken by the New Orleans Saints in the expansion draft, Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi wept. Meanwhile, Packer running back Jimmy Taylor took advantage of the opportunity to make more money and moved to another team. Later, Kramer wrote:
It seemed strange not to have Paul Hornung and Jimmy Taylor at the first meeting. Paul was here ten years, Jimmy nine, and for several years they gave us the best one-two running attack in pro football.
“We’re going to miss Paul Hornung,” Lombardi said. “We’re going to miss Paul a great deal. He was a leader and he added a lot of spice to professional football. We’re all going to miss him.”
And then Vince said, “We will replace the other fellow.”
He does have a thing about loyalty.
(from Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer,p. 28)
Frank R.
1 John 5:9-13
My wife has a childhood acquaintance who has been a lifelong friend. They have corresponded over the years, and though separated by hundreds of miles we have visited in her and her husband’s home. Our children are about the same age. On October 20, 2014 she posted on her Facebook page a portion of a letter her son Kevin sent to her in 2001.
Kevin began by quoting a poignant Theodore Spencer poem: “The day was a year at first, when children ran in the garden. The day shrunk down to a month, when the boys played ball. The day was a week thereafter, when young men walked in the garden. The day was itself a day, when love grew tall. The day shrunk down to an hour, when old men limped in the garden. The day will last forever, when it is nothing at all.” Then Kevin said, “It is easy to rush through life, and we do not want to end up with a few pieces of coal to show for our lives when the day is nothing at all!”
Not long after writing this, Kevin, an avid bicyclist, was riding to work on his bike. No one knows for sure what happened, but he must have hit a rock and was thrown from his bike. Though wearing a helmet, he struck another rock just below the helmet line and died within a few hours.
Kevin understood that life is short and that we must not rush it, but enjoy it to the fullest. As a Christian, he also grasped that life here is just the stepping stone to the eternal life that comes when Christ lives in the heart.
Derl K.
1 John 5:9-13
The Bible was written by men, but when we read it we can see it is really a testimony of God. We sense that is more than just some interesting stories written by men. We wouldn’t die for interesting stories, would we? When I read the Bible I feel God’s presence in the message, because it is full of love and God is love!
It should frighten an atheist to realize that he is calling God a liar! Even an agnostic should worry!
It can be a powerful testimony to quote this passage to a non-believer. You can risk death to quote this to a Muslim! It seems to be telling us: “Either you believe this or you are going to hell!” For us the important thing is to say it in love, leaving the one you tell it to in God’s hands.
Bob O.
John 17:6-19
The great preacher of the early Church John Chrysostom has said that we human beings (even adults) are like children who have just been deprived of our toys. We cry over missing them, when in fact what really should concern us children is paying for the next meal or the future. And so we adults spend a lot of energy and worry over the latest gadget, must-have product, or our image, without much attention to spiritual matters (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 14, p. 301). How does God get us out of this mess? By throwing us into the things of the world, where we are afforded opportunities to live in holiness (in the world, but not of it).
John Chrysostom elaborated further on this point: “He that practices showing mercy to him that needs, will soon cease from covetousness. For as the physician continually tending wounded persons is easily sobered, beholding human nature in the calamities of others; so we, if we enter upon the work of abiding the poor, shall easily become truly wise, and shall not admire riches, not deem present things any great matter” (Ibid., p. 302).
While in prison in 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a similar point: “...it is only by living completely in the world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint or a converted sinner or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously not our own sufferings, but those of the world...” (Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 193).
Mark E.
