Sermon Blog

The video kind of softens it before it actually happens.  In the movie, Martha simply says, “It has been four days.”  However, while they left the line out of the movie, we see them quickly depict it once the stone is down.  Mary and Martha gag, we hear men coughing back the nausea, and many of the folks cover their faces…we see the result of Martha’s NRSV warning of “Lord, there is already a stench.”  Or, better yet, as old King James puts it, “Lord, by this time he stinketh.”  Any of us who watch the CSI type of shows where they encounter dead bodies, along with their resulting foul, decomposing smell, are familiar with the sight of folks reacting to that smell…some of us here may have even encountered that smell as the bacteria that are living in each of our pancreases today, start eating away, first at our pancreas and then at the rest of our organs, causing our bodies to exude a very foul smelling gas. [i]   Yet we see Jesus, the wind evidently blow...

Have you traded or sold something off without realizing just how valuable it was, or would be?  Have you had a trade that you wish you could go back and undo, but it was too late?  I’m sure it has happened many times during my life, but as I was reflecting, one of my occasions was an Ebay transaction.  Back in early 2000, when we were living in Rich Square, we did a lot of shopping online because it was a good thirty minute drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, and forty minutes to the nearest mall.  At that point in my life, I had stopped collecting comic books.  At the same time Ebay was rising in popularity as a way to find good deals and make some good sales of things you did not want any more.  I decided, because at that point I had moved three times in seven years, that I would sell off stuff that I did not want to move any more.  Unfortunately, as I see now, I started with parts of my comic book collection.  I was doing pretty well that sprin...

Watch:  http://youtu.be/vYEXzx-TINc Ever encountered a picky eater? Mikey evidently was one.  His brothers said of him and the Life cereal, "he won't try it, he hates everything." Anita will tell you that she's been married to a picky eater for most of twenty years. When we first started dating, I will admit that I was ultra-picky. I was so picky that I wouldn't even eat macaroni and cheese, spaghetti with sauce, or anything cooked with a lot of spices. At that point, the only vegetables I was reading were green beans and corn (though Davey tells me now that green beans do not count as a vegetable, they are legumes--and I tell him I don't care, I'm still considering them a veggie). I grew up loving of a steady diet of plain cheeseburgers, Pop Tarts, and peanut butter (with no jelly) sandwiches.  I was so picky it wasn't until middle school that I added pizza to the list of foods that I loved to eat. I’ve had been considered a picky eater most of...