Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the beginning of our new series, Living Beyond. In the past, Amy Warner has kidded me about my ability to link a few disparate Sunday morning happenings like a baptism or communion, with say, the Steeler opener. But this Sunday the linkage is not at all difficult.
At 8:15 and 11:00 the message will begin with a clip of George Bush’s bullhorn speech on the rubble of the World Trade Center ten years ago. In no way is it an endorsement of politics, policies, or pride, rather it’s a helpful way into our subject this Sunday as we look at “The Big Story”! Among the points Bush makes in those two minutes is the fact that the events of 9/11 brought many Americans to their knees in prayer. That point is well corroborated by a former Wall Street Journal editor (faith unknown) who walked the streets of Manhattan that fateful Tuesday ten years ago. I’ll briefly tell her story on Sunday and her written reflections published three days later in her newspaper. What the president and the deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page found in common was a theme of the tragedy – in times of crisis there seems to be a greater thirst for the things of God. Another way of saying that is - a profound thirst for salvation.
This week we begin a new 12-week series that will focus on the full extent of our salvation in Christ. Did you know that the Bible speaks of salvation in three different tenses – the past, the present, and the future? In each tense the salvation we enjoy in Christ is from a different enemy. And the great problem of our day is that most Christians only know of one tense – the past tense – Jesus saving us from the penalty of our sin.
This is a profound problem of which Paul was acutely aware. It’s because of this problem that he earnestly desired to travel to Rome to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s also this problem that prompts him to write his magnus opus, the Book of Romans.
In preparing for worship this 9/11 you may wish to consider the following questions.
1. Why would Paul say he’s eager to preach the gospel to Christians? (I thought we should be eager to preach it to pagans!)
2. Why does he understand himself to be under an obligation to Greeks and non-Greeks (barbarians), the wise and the foolish?
3. Why does Luther say to preaching students that “We must preach the gospel to ourselves lest we grow discouraged?”
4. What does the word “gospel” mean to the Romans?
5. What did the messengers of Caesar declare to any Roman conquered population?
6. How does Jesus’ announcement in Mark 1:15 relate to a Roman conception of the gospel message?
7. What part of the gospel is so hidden for most Christians today? (Think of three 3 tenses.)
8. What is the central message of Jesus’ teaching?
9. How does the gospel of Jesus Christ speak to our two most deep-seated needs and God’s original intentions in creating us?
10. The word “salvation” comes from the Latin word for health. How does Jesus’ promise of “rest”, “shalom”, “wholeness”, relate?
11. How do the words of Paul in Romans 1:14-17 relate to the thirst we witnessed by George Bush and Melanie Kirkpatrick?
See you on 9/11!
