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Our text this morning is about one of the greatest spiritual and theological events in the history of the Christian church. Interestingly enough, it was not a dramatic martyrdom, nor a mass miracle, or even a crusade. It was not a worship service, a great sermon preached, or a crowd conversion. It was a church convention - a convention held about fifty years after the death of our Lord.

For those of you who have ever attended a convention of the church, it may sound unbelievable that it could be a spiritual or a theological event. In many cases, for the neophyte minister or the layperson, one's first attendance at a church convention can be a shocking and even a faith-shaking experience. As one newly-ordained young minister was heard to say after his first day at convention, "If the Devil wants to destroy Christians, he should send them all as delegates to a church convention."

After all, the church is a human institution; of course, it is more than that - much more. But, the fact remains that the church is a human institution with all the frailties and faults of a political organization. There are caucuses that meet at night behind closed doors. There is the "good old boy" system where persons in power maneuver the meetings to keep the "young bucks" under control and to maintain safe middle-of-the-road policies. This results in the church following social trends rather than spearheading them. There is also "logrolling," where bargains are struck - "You vote for my motion, and I'll vote for yours." All of this is present - all of this and more.

Nevertheless, the truth is that the Holy Spirit works better in the corporate context of a convention or at a council meeting than he does in isolated individuals who claim that God has spoken to them privately and personally and has given them an exclusive revelation. The guidance of the Holy Spirit thrives best in the conflict of publicly-expressed opinions, where people meet together and struggle, honestly and openly, with various biblical interpretations, theology, the mission, and the business of the church.

This was the case in our text for today. The apostolic convention, which was held at Jerusalem, was marked by strong differences of opinion and heated debates. Here was Paul's first sharp clash with the Judaizers, and Barnabas stood staunchly at his side. Peter was also there, and the spotlight of our text falls directly upon him. The issue at stake was crucial for the future of the church. The issue was: "What are the essential requirements for a person to be saved?"

The Judaizers stood firm in their conviction that, first and foremost, for a Gentile to become a Christian, he had first to become a Jew. Their slogan was: "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." It was not the physical act of circumcision that concerned them as much as it was that circumcision was a symbol of the old covenant of the law. Faced with the glories of the new covenant, the Judaizers were not willing to let go of the glories of the old law-covenant. Faith in Christ was not enough to save a person; something had to be added - the rite of circumcision and the holy legacy of the law.

In contrast to a combination of the old and the new covenants and a blending of faith in Christ with obedience to the law, Peter and Paul and their followers stood steadfast in their conviction that it was Christ, and Christ alone, who saves. To add any requirements to faith in Christ as necessary to attain salvation - even participation in the sacraments of baptism and communion, or acts of confession and penitence - weakens the power of the cross and places limitations on Christ as our total savior. If a bridge to heaven has only one rivet of human steel to hold two beams together, under pressure and stress, it will break down at this joint; it will cease to be a bridge at all. As one scholar put it, "Even if Christ be conceived as carrying us 599 miles on the way to the throne of God, anything merely human for the last mile would drop us all crashingly into the depths of hell."

The theological temptation to interject added requirements to the pure, the simple, and the direct doctrine of justification by Christ, and by Christ alone, is not limited to the ancient church. We face the same fatal heresy today. Well-intentioned and biblically knowledgeable people claim that a particular and an exclusive manner of baptism is necessary for salvation. Others claim that a second baptism by the Holy Spirit is an absolute must for "born again" salvation. Others stake salvation on the possession of charismatic gifts, public confessions of faith, penitence, and absolution by the church. The list goes on and on. Such attempts to add such baggage to the doctrine of salvation by Christ, and by Christ alone, causes Saint Peter, in our text for this morning, to shout out a sharply pointed warning, "Why are you tempting God, to place a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were strong enough to bear?"

The phrase used here - "tempting God" - is an interesting one. As Peter uses it, it means to tease or to challenge God by adding additional requirements to his act of salvation in Jesus Christ. Tempting God means to test God to see whether God will overlook this deliberate altering of his intended purpose to save the world by means of the cross - and the cross alone. Will God resent these additions to the cross-event and punish the offenders? It is much like mischievous students who play pranks and test a new teacher to see how much devilishment they can get away with without being punished. So, Peter warns the Judaizers. They are playing pranks with God. They are testing God's patience with their human additions to his revealed plan of redemption through Jesus Christ - and through Jesus Christ alone!

In the New Testament, salvation is best summarized by the word "freedom." Christ sets us free - free from the law; free from ritual, rules, and regulations; free from self-centered lives; free from sin, death, and the Devil. It is human-sided religion that burdens us with the yokes of liturgies and laws, rules and regulations.

The fifteenth chapter of Acts tells us that, for a time, the council at Jerusalem succeeded in silencing the yoke-builders and those who would play God by adding their own amendments to the revelation of the Gospel of Christ. It was not to last (but, that is another story).

At the end of the convention, the various warring factions were united. However, this unity was not to last. The struggle for unity is a constant battle. Therefore, we need to look briefly at how unity was achieved, for a time, in the early church. There were basically five factors which marked the procedure that accomplished unity in that church convention which was held about fifty years after the death of our LOrd.

First, despite their differences, they agreed to meet together in order to talk to each other, because they all accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and their savior. The horizontal and the vertical dimensions of the beams of the cross symbolize the possibility of diversity within an overall unity.

Second, they did not deny their differences. We frequently think that the sign of unity and fellowship is when everyone agrees on everything. The truth is, true fellowship is being able to attack and to argue issues without attacking and tearing down the people who hold conflicting ideas. Lawyers, more than any other professionals, are excellent examples of this. They can fight like gladiators in the arena of the court room; but, during the noon adjournment, they can lunch together as if life-long friends.

Third, the delegates at the Jerusalem Council apparently listened to each other. How often communication between people breaks down because they do not listen to each other. Our minds are not on what the speaker is saying; rather, our minds are concentrating on what we are going to say, once we gain the floor and have the opportunity to speak.

Fourth, the convention at Jerusalem was open to the judgment and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. At every gathering of the church, there are always the number of people who are attending the meeting - plus one - and that one is God, himself, present in the Holy Spirit.

Fifth, they did not conclude or close the convention at Jerusalem until a consensus of common agreement was reached. Unity in the Spirit demands persistence and patience. Any disagreement can be solved if we are willing to give the time and the attention to it which it demands.

These five factors form an excellent pattern for the solving of differences in any convention or meeting of the church. And, we might add, they are the basic ingredients in the solving of family disputes or hassles between friends. The acceptance of Christ as Lord, debating issues, not debasing people, listening, and being open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit through patience and persistence - these ingredients are the way to unity and solidarity for all, who would claim to be a part of the Body of Christ.

A legend tells us of two knights in armor who were riding down a road. They passed a shield which was hanging from a tree. They both stopped. One said, "Did you see that magnificent white shield hanging from the tree?" "I did," the other knight answered, "but, it was black." "You are color blind," shouted the first knight. "I am certain that it was white."

The debate became so heated that they climbed down from their horses and began dueling with their swords. A monk, who was passing by saw the fierce fight and stepped between them. After listening to their opposite opinions as to the color of the shield, the old monk smiled, as one possessing great wisdom, and said, "Good gentlemen, let us strike a compromise. Let us agree that the shield was not pure white or pure black; rather, it was a delicate shade of gray, which one of you saw as white in the sunlight and the other saw as black in the shadows."

The knights, overcome by such wise insight, agreed. All three men went their merry ways - and all of them were dead wrong. For the truth was that the knights had passed the shield on opposite sides, and the shield was black on one side and white on the other.

So, the shield of faith is black on one side and white on the other. The black side of faith is the Law. It was given to us by God - not to save us, but to prepare us for salvation. The Law is a mirror that reflects how far short we have fallen from God's intention for our lives. The Law makes us aware that we cannot, by our own efforts, obey God's will, fulfill his demands, or measure up to his standards. The Law is intended to bring us to a state of total helplessness where we are certain that we can do nothing - absolutely nothing - to accomplish our own salvation. We are helpless!

The white side of the shield of faith is the Gospel. The Gospel proclaims that, in our state of total helplessness, there is hope. God's grace is sufficient. Christ, and Christ alone, saves us and gives us a new and a transformed life.

There is no grey area between the Law and the Gospel. The Law prepares. The Gospel alone saves. The Law must be pure as the Gospel is pure. Such is the plan and the purpose of God. To add laws and requirements to the process of salvation by Christ, and Christ alone, is to compromise the cross (settle for the wisdom of the world) and to live in a state of grey togetherness - rather than walking as one in the light of Christ.

Therefore, rejoice. Law and Gospel are both expressions of God's determination to save us; but, they must never be confused. The Law must be pure, just as the Gospel is pure. The Law is important, but it is the Gospel that alone saves us from our sins and grants us a new life by grace.

We are off to the convention. The banner of the Father's shield of faith waves over us. The cross of Christ leads the procession. The Holy Spirit is at work within us. We are one - united in the Body of Christ. Three cheers for the church of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!


Acts 16:16-34
The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Jail House Joy

You may, or you may not be a fan of Elvis Presley. Fans or not, most people agree that he was the King of Rock and Roll. When Elvis shook his hips, the public was shocked. His gyrations vibrated the public's moral standards and dislodged them from their conservative moorings. He opened a door that cannot be easily closed. Things, once held as strictly private, became openly public. Critics tell us that his most innovative song was entitled "Jail House Rock." Up until this time, "blues" had been associated with imprisonment. Elvis brought joy into the jail house.

Now, you are probably wondering what all this has to do with the text today. More than likely, you hope the answer is "Nothing!" However, the truth is that this is a direct lead-in to our text. The passage from Acts, read as our First Lesson, has to do with a man named Paul. He also shocked the public with his actions. He, too, radically dislodged culture from its historic moorings. Certainly not in the same direction as Elvis did it; but Paul ushered in a change in the culture of his day. The change Paul wrought was like that of Elvis Presley's song - the discovery of joy in a jail house.

If we jump into the middle of our text, we see two men, Paul and Silas, jailed behind stone walls and iron bars. They are singing. They are not singing "jail house blues"; rather, they are praising God by singing glorious hymns of joy. The jailors were shocked. Never before had such a thing been heard of - joy in a jail house, prisoners singing.

Now, why? How could Paul and Silas find the spirit to sing in jail? To answer this question, we need to examine what happened to Paul and Silas before they were jailed and what happened to them during and after their imprisonment. To do this, we need to look at the total text. It is a long and an involved story. It possesses all of the elements of an afternoon television soap opera; there is a slave girl with a touch of insanity, who is a soothsayer; there are con-men, who exploit her; there is racial prejudice; there is an imprisonment; there is an earthquake; there is an attempted suicide which turns into a religious conversion.

But, let us start at the beginning. Paul and Silas have attended the church convention which we spoke of in the sermon last Sunday. They are returning to their missionary work. Their first stop is the Roman colony at Philippi. Few Jews lived there; and those who did were not wanted. Anti-semitism ran rampant. Since there was no synagogue in Philippi, Paul and Silas preached to a small group of women at a riverbank prayer meeting. One woman, named Lydia, was converted. She, along with her whole family, was baptized.

After this less-than-smashing success, Paul and Silas entered the city. Instantly, they were the center of attention. This was not because of their preaching; it was because of the fact that they were pursued by a demonically-possessed fortune teller, who followed after them everywhere, crying out, "These men are servants of the most high God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation."

This attracted attention and also gave Paul and Silas plenty of free publicity. But it would seem to us, that it was publicity that Paul and Silas could have done better without. To us, an insane slave girl screaming in the streets, is not the best means of establishing good public relations. To us, it would be like seeing your picture and name on the cover of the National Enquirer or some other scandal sheet. However, this was not the case in the days of Paul. At that time, it was believed that when a person lost his or her mental faculties, it meant that the gods had invaded the person and that the gods proclaimed predictions of the future through that person.

What the insane girl was saying was true. However, her words were not inspired by God. Rather, they were directed by the Evil One, who was cunningly attempting to gain control of the situation and to discredit the effects of the witnessing of Paul and Silas.

Paul, however, was able to discern the difference between the words of a demonically-possessed fortune teller and the authentic proclamation of one who had been blessed with a gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit. So, Paul turned to the deranged girl and, on the spot, performed a miracle of exorcism which drove the demon from her. What Paul did not know, but what he was soon to find out, was that the con-men in the city, those who owned the slave girl, were making a handsome profit from her prophesying. They were outraged by their sudden loss of revenue. So, they had Paul and Silas arrested and taken into court by charging them with inciting a riot. All the judge had to hear was that they were Jews, and his prejudice prompted him to exercise "the" appropriate justice - immediately! He ordered them to be stripped, to be beaten, and to be thrown into prison. That is the first act of the drama which is recorded in our text. The second act begins with Paul and Silas as they are confined to jail. Ironically, they are in jail not because they had been preaching Christ, but rather because they had been born Jews.

It was midnight. In the damp darkness of their cell, even though their legs and arms were in chains, their lips were free. They sang hymns of joy and praise to God. Their voices echoed and re-echoed through the halls of the Roman jailhouse. The prison guard, who was awakened from his sleep by the singing, thought to himself that they were making the very walls vibrate - and the floor and the doors. Suddenly he realized that it was not the singing that was causing the lantern above him to swing. It was an earthquake! The very foundation of the prison was shaken. The locks of the doors sprung open. The iron gates burst loose from the beams. The bolts in the walls fell out and no longer held the chains. The prisoners were free.

When the jailor saw that his prisoners had escaped, he panicked. He knew that a long and lingering torture would be his punishment for permitting the prisoners to escape. So, he drew his short sword and was ready to commit suicide. This was preferable to facing a severe and an agonizing death at the hands of his superiors. Paul cried out to him, "Do not harm yourself, for we are here!" The jailor looked up and saw that the other freed prisoners had not run away. They were standing around Paul and Silas. Though set free, they did not flee.

The jailor fell to his knees in front of Paul. An inner earthquake shook the very foundation of his being and he cried out to Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" He received the answer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." The jailor confessed. Soon thereafter, he and all of his family were baptized.

Beyond the limits of our established text, there was a third act to the drama of our text yet to be played out. This third act tells us that the jailor, his family, Lydia and her family; and the freed prisoners formed the nucleus of a strong church which grew and flourished. It was to this same church that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians, which expressed so much tender love and encouragement. Out of great adversity and persecution God brought great blessings. The earth was still quaking from the resurrection; Jesus Christ, the crucified one, was becoming the cornerstone of an edifice - the church, which would change the course of history and decide the destiny of millions.

Why, or how, could Paul and Silas sing hymns of praise and joy in a Philippian jail house? They could sing because they were, before all else, prisoners of Christ. And to be captured by Christ, is to know a freedom that cannot be fettered by anything in all of life. For to be in Christ, is to add a dimension to the height of all of life that no ceiling can limit, no walls can enclose, and no iron bars can confine.

Dr. Grensted of Oxford University was a giant of the faith. When he wrote about Jesus Christ, he added a range to redemption that challenges the horizons of human imagination. When he lectured, the spectrum of his thoughts expanded the minds of his students to the limits of their capacities. Long before the first moon landing, Dr. Grensted had traveled into the outer space of faith - giving Christ cosmic dimensions.

Frequently in his lectures, Dr. Grensted would mention the spaciousness of his garden where he worked, wrote, and prepared his lectures. One day, several of his students were invited to take tea in Dr. Grensted's garden. When they entered the gates to the garden, they expected to see acres of trees, shrubs, vast lawns, and flower beds. They were shocked. Instead, they found a tiny, little, walled-in garden no more than twelve feet square.

Seeing the shock on the faces of his students, the old professor remarked, "You are surprised at the smallness of my garden. True, it is not very long, and it is not very wide; but, just look up. There is no limit to the height of my garden. It reaches up to the very heart of God in heaven."

Prisons that enslave people and their minds have walls, floors, and ceilings. However, it is the ceilings that truly imprison us. Paul was constantly referring to himself as a prisoner of the love and the grace of Christ. But he could sing hymns of joy and praise to God because the prison of Christ has no ceiling. Once you have committed your life to Christ, your life takes on a dimension of height that reaches into the very heart of God in heaven.

You may feel fenced in by life. Tragic circumstances and troubles may erect stone walls around you. Distress and depression may forge iron bars across the windows of your life. But rejoice, because in Jesus Christ nothing in all the world can create a ceiling to separate you from the love of God. Nothing in all the world can limit the height of your life. In Christ Jesus, life is as high as heaven itself. Therefore, sing with Paul and Silas. Rejoice and sing. Let the whole world rock and roll with praises to God. Amen!


Acts 1:1-11
The Ascension of Our Lord

The Same New Jesus

In most Christian churches Ascension Day is "A Silent Day." The church doors are closed and locked. The nave is empty. The pulpit and the choir loft are unoccupied. The candles on the altar are topped with charred wicks, indicating that worship has happened here in the past, but is in no way happening now.

It is curious that we so easily confess the Ascension in our creeds, but we have great difficulty in celebrating it in our churches. Perhaps, this is due to the fact that Ascension is tucked away on a weekday and we are Sunday-only worshipers.

It may be that our neglect of the Ascension story is due to the fact that it is dependent on a world view which we have long ago discarded. The idea that Jesus ascended, like a rocket launched into outer space, and landed on a celestial satellite - a space station in the sky called heaven - and that Christ sits there in a chair at the right hand of God, is just too fantastic for us to believe. A crucifixion is believable. A resurrection is unusual, but not unbelievable (particularly when we want to believe it, for the sake of our own destiny after death). However, a tale about a man, floating upward into the clouds sounds more like the levitation of a magic show than it does a revelation from God.

In the creed, when we refer to the Ascension of our Lord, we confess that "He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God ..." We are not witnessing to the physical fact that God has a right hand, nor are we saying that there is a chair that is suspended in outer space where our Lord sits beside the throne of God. This is picture language, used by believers to confess the conviction that the same Jesus who puts aside his might and majesty to be born a baby in a Bethlehem barn, now, once more, assumes his position of power as the Son of God and the Lord of all creation.

Picture language is not unusual. We say that the sun "rises or sets," knowing full well that the sun does not literally rise in the East and set in the West. It is the earth that moves, not the sun. However, such picture language communicates accurately what we experience. When the writers of the New Testament desired to picture for us what the disciples had experienced as the Son returned to the Father; they said that he ascended into the clouds and above the clouds into heaven. There he reigns in power with God the Father.

To argue the historic factuality of the Ascension-event is not to achieve a more accurate communication of revelation, but to distort it. In the end we miss completely what God, through the sacred record of the Bible, is trying to say to us. God does not desire to prove that he can defy the law of gravity, nor is he identifying the location of heaven in the sky - or in outer space. God is not trying to hide something with the clouds that surrounded our Lord at his Ascension; rather, God desires to clarify and to verify what happened to Jesus after his resurrection. Our Lord was neither time-bound nor space-bound by his resurrection body. Rather, he was released to reign as sovereign king of all creation. His presence and his power are unlimited. This profound revelation cannot be communicated without the ascension imagery of a movement upward. Christ was moving upward to a higher level of life - a life that was higher than the tangible, material, localized, and limited life that we know.

The intent of the Ascension was to reveal to the apostles and to us that Jesus was moving up to a new mode of existence and activity. He was not only raised from death; he was raised up from this space-bound, time-bound life to reign eternally in glory.

By failing to understand the intent of the Ascension, we risk forgetting the festival because it has become a dead doctrine for us. If so, it is essential for the full force of our redemption experience to revive it. The Ascension means many things, but basically the meaning of the Ascension-event can be summarized in three words: confirmation, extension, and coronation.

•First, the meaning of the Ascension is the confirmation of our Lord. Without Christmas, there would be no Cross. Without Easter, the Cross would be a meaningless martyrdom. Without the Ascension, Easter would be a victory without verification. The Ascension is our Lord's confirmation by God the Father. As he was baptized by the Cross and Resurrection, he is now confirmed by the Ascension. God the Father confirms and verifies his acceptance of all Christ has done for us. Our Lord's ministry of obedience and the sacrificial offering of his death for our sins have been accepted by God the Father. We are accepted by his acceptance.

We need to know not only what happened to Jesus through the event of the Ascension but also what happens to us because of it. Our status of being restored to the family of God is confirmed by the Ascension. Our status as born-again children of God is confirmed by the Ascension. As the early church fathers put it, "Christ became what we are in order that we might become what he is."

But more! The Ascension assures us that Christ is our eternal advocate - our "defense attorney." When the Evil One stands and accuses us of sins in the court of God, Christ intercedes for us. Our Lord pleads our innocence based on his sacrifice on Calvary for our sins. He covers us with the innocence of his righteousness. Seminary professor C. George Fry graphically reminds us that, when Christ is our lawyer, the "anxious bench" of guilt and the "mourner's bench" of repentance are transformed into the "mercy seat" of joy!

•The second word of the Ascension event is extension. Without the good news of the Ascension, our relationship to the Lord would be limited to hearing the story of the earthly Jesus. It would be second-hand information at best. However, the Ascension proclaims the extension of Christ beyond the limitations of time and space. Now we can have direct access with the ascended Lord.

The phrase, "at the right hand of God," does not locate a place. It refers to an act of participation. Christ participates not only with the sovereignty of God over all things; he also, and at the same time, participates in the lives of all believers. As he sits at the right hand of God, our Lord's hands can still reach into our lives and touch us. Christ is present to wipe away our tears and to penetrate the loneliness of our lives with his Joy-filled presence.

•Confirmation of our acceptance by God the Father, extension of our Lord's presence into our lives; finally, the Ascension means coronation. The Ascension crowns our Lord with glory, majesty, and power. It is one thing to assert that Jesus has been raised from death; it is quite another thing to assert that he now shares the sovereignty of God over heaven and earth.

Most of our thinking about Christ is in the single dimension of his common humanity - a babe born in a barn, a friend of fishermen, a rural rabbi who walked the dusty back-roads of Palestine, wearing a homespun robe, quietly teaching the truths about God, challenging the pride of the Pharisees, discouraging the elaborate ritual of the priests and the liturgical extravagancies of the temple.

We picture our Lord as the "Gentle Jesus," the humble "Servant-Savior" with a bowl and a towel, who sits washing the feet of his disciples and silently submitting to the ignominious death of a criminal on a cross. This is a true picture of our Lord, but, it is only a one-dimensional view. It is only a partial picture of our Lord, particularly when we fail to project our vision above time and space in order to catch a vision of the regal Christ who reigns as king of all creation.

The evidence of the Ascension is limited in the New Testament. Only the Book of Acts gives a detailed account. But, what the Ascension of our Lord symbolizes and stands for is - the confirmation of our acceptance by God, the extension of our Lord's presence into our daily lives, the coronation of Christ as king of all creation. All of this permeates to the heart of every word penned by the writers of the New Testament. These inspired believers, who wrote the words of Holy Scripture, were men who were enlightened and lifted up by the risen and the ascended Lord. The perspective of the Ascension is the viewpoint from which they witnessed. They wrote, not with fear-filled hearts and tear-filled eyes. Rather, they sang each word that they wrote with the hope and the joy which was flooding every fiber of their being. They had caught the vision of the ultimate victory of Christ. They were messengers of a battle fought and won - and of a kingdom come. They saw beyond the man, Jesus, to Christ the King. They saw beyond the stable to the sacred sanctuary of God. They saw beyond the cross to the crown. They saw beyond the tomb to the ultimate triumph.

Across the street from our seminary stands Ascension Lutheran Church. Above the altar is a stained glass window which depicts the ascending Christ. The congregation decided to completely remodel the chancel of the church. Because of the sentimental attachment of the people to the altar window, they decided to retain the ascension window in the new design.

When the remodeling was completed and the congregation returned to the church for worship, the little seven-year-old son of the pastor leaned over to his mother and said, "A brand new church, but the same old Jesus."

Now, it is true that Jesus is old. He is, in fact, one thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine years old. He is historically removed from us by nearly two centuries. We remind ourselves of this fact every time that we date a check, begin a letter, or ask someone what day it is. Yet, the good news of the Ascension is that Jesus Christ is both old and new. On the one hand, he is the same "old Jesus" but, on the other hand, he is the same "new Jesus" - new every day, because his acts of power are not limited to the record of his earthly life. The Holy Spirit brings Christ to us daily in his "real presence."

The message of the Ascension - the confirmation of our acceptance by God, the extension of our Lord's presence in our lives, and the coronation of his kingly power over all creation - can be condensed to one simple truth; "Christ is Lord and he is with us." The same Christ who lived and died, the same Christ who was resurrected and ascended in kingly power is our daily companion and friend, our daily defender and protector. Rejoice! Christ lives forever in us, with us, and for us. We are strengthened by his power. We are engulfed by his glory.

We are truly alive in him, and he is alive in us.



About the Author

The Reverend Dr. Richard Carl Hoefler, Dean of Christ Chapel, professor of preaching at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina was graduated with an A.B. degree from Wittenberg University and received his M.Div. degree from Wittenberg University in 1945.

Dr. Hoefler was then pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church, Springfield, Ohio for four years, at which time he was also instructor of Bible and Speech at Wittenberg University.

Dr. Hoefler then studied at Oxford University, England for his B.Litt. degree. Returning to America, he became a professor of Bible at Wittenberg University. In 1953 he attended Princeton Seminary and received his M.Th. degree.

Dr. Hoefler has done graduate studies at the University of London, The University of Paris, Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York.

In 1977 Milton Crum, Jr., Professor of Homiletics at the Episcopal Seminary, Virginia, dedicated his book Manual on Preaching, to Professor Hoefler "who taught me to preach."

Dr. Hoefler is the author of the following books:

Creative Preaching
And He Told Them A Story
There Are Demons In The Sea
Will Daylight Come?
The Divine Trap
I Knew You'd Come
A Sign In The Straw
Realize and Rejoice
At Noon On Friday
With Wings Of Eagles