Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The Sermon on the Mount 3

Blog »    The Sermon on the Mount 3  

Wednesday, March 5, 2014   Jeff Lampl


So, what’s with all these  KEEP CALM . . . . posters all around the church?  

Perhaps you’ve seen them elsewhere, usually worded, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.  It was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, several months before the beginning of the 2nd World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities.  Today many companies are using these posters and graphics to sell their products.  

So, a couple of us thought why not capitalize on the trend and co-opt them for Jesus.   

It seems to me that Jesus came to earth to bring Good News, a fix, healing, redemption, a new kind of good and flourishing life.  He came to save us.   I remember watching the Lone Ranger (the recent movie ruined everything about him!!!!) as a child.   When he and Tonto and Silver rode into town I knew that evil was toast.   

It felt good to know they had shown up!!!   Who couldn’t feel good!!!?? (except the bad guys) Check it out  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxIuIxqo2So.   And the William Tell Overture was perfect because William Tell was a sort of a good guy, who, sort of like the Lone Ranger, fought for the average guy against their oppressors (okay a stretch but you get the point)  

When God shows up in Jesus and says, “You’re going to be blessed.  Yes you, you who are meek, sat upon, spat upon, ratted on (https://www.google.com/#q=simon+and+garfunkel+blessed) hopeless, full of guilt, lonely . . .  whoever is left out of the Good Life, I’m here to offer it to you . . . free of charge!!!!!  

When the Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore, not the other guy and Johnny Depp) rode into town, evil was in trouble.   He did something about the bank robbers and the people got their money back.   Jesus, however, did not come with guns ablazing.   He did not come with quick fixes.   He came to explain, teach, demonstrate an entirely new and different path to overcoming evil and experience human flourishing.    He didn’t get anyone’s money back or throw criminals in Jail.   In fact he came to offer the good life to the criminals too!    But talk about power!    He was killed but rose from the dead!  And then he says,  

“now boys and girls, women and men, what you’ve seen here is power.   The Lone Ranger, all he could do was shoot ‘m up.  I take those who trust me, who learn this new way of life and actually begin to live it and I raise those lives from the dead, and I do this before you’re dead, and then afterward too.   That’s power!”    (in case you’re wondering which passage this is, it’s actually a paraphrase and hard to find in your actual Bible)

Are you living the Good Life?  Is yours a life of flourishing?   Jesus said it’s yours for the taking.  And he said, “it’s available through me."  How do you access it you ask?  Keep Calm and Carry on with Trust, belief, obedience, doing what I say.  As you do you’ll begin, always slowly, but always surely, to experience exactly  what I’m talking about” (another paraphrase but a really, really good one)  


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