Someone sent me a great cartoon recently. Two men are leaving a worship service, walking together from the church toward the parking lot. Both of them are barefooted, wearing only their tee-shirts and boxer shorts. The caption under the cartoon has one of the men saying to the other, “That was the best sermon on stewardship I have ever heard!” I think that the Finance Committee is hoping that I will have a sermon like that today! I know that you are hoping that my sermon will be short so that you can get on with your dinner.

Today is also Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday in the Christian Year and it is set aside to celebrate that ultimately Jesus will be recognized as the Universal and Eternal King. The One who gave His life for us and Who guides us through life will also be our King forever. Consecration Sunday and Christ the King Sunday go together as we think about what Christ the King asks from us during 2009 and beyond.

What an amazing King Christ is! While earthly kings and petty dictators judge their subjects based on how they serve their selfish goals, Jesus is a King who doesn’t care how He is treated but rather one who cares greatly how His subjects have treated one another. So immediately we see that Jesus is a very different kind of king and His Kingdom is a very different kind of kingdom. And we see that this King who will judge all people will do so not on the basis of moral perfection or church attendance or observing the correct rituals or even obeying the 10 Commandments; rather He will judge us on our actions toward to least of His people whom He considers His brethren. The King is so vitally connected with His brethren that He experiences good deeds done to them as good deeds done to Him.

Let me hasten to point out that this parable has caused a lot of debate and confusion within the Church. There is no mention of faith or grace, much less mention of salvation by faith alone. There is no cross of sacrifice, no repentance, and no redemption. One way to reconcile this parable with the doctrine of justification by faith is to notice that neither the ones on the left hand nor on the right hand know why they deserve their fate. The justified have no idea why they deserve eternal life. They know it is a gift of grace to them. But the King points out that He finds ample evidence of their faith to back up His verdict. The condemned also have no idea why they deserve their judgment, but they would have to admit that there was little evidence to overturn the King’s verdict. There was no faith within their lives to produce any good works. Perhaps the question Jesus is asking us in this parable is “If you and I were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us?” Another implication of the fact that neither the just nor the unjust are aware of why they deserve their fate is that they were not conscious of their actions.

Now, when I am not conscious of doing something, it means that I am doing it out of habit. I formed the habit of brushing my teeth before bedtime – you wouldn’t believe that if you looked at all my fillings and crowns, but hey, at least I still have my teeth! Some nights I crawl into bed and I wonder, “Did I brush my teeth?” I don’t remember brushing, but I can tell that I did. Perhaps the reason that the ones on Jesus’ right weren’t conscious of their good deeds is that, in response to being saved by grace, they made it a habit to do good deeds for others. Perhaps the ones on the left weren’t so bad, but not knowing of God’s love, they formed bad habits of not caring for others. They probably meant to, but they just didn’t get around to it. Lots of us have a “meant to” religion. As someone has said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I took a continuing education class a few years ago, and the teacher was Rev. Joe Alley. One of the things Joe would not let us say was “I’ll try to.” He would ask me, “Arthur, will you finish reading that book by next week?” I would respond, “I sure will try.” “No, you won’t,” Joe would reply. “You either will or you won’t! Which will it be?” His point, of course, was that most of the times when we say “I’ll try,” we really mean “I will not do that but I am ashamed to admit that to you.” The ones on Jesus’ left probably tried to do good works. The ones on Jesus’ right became intentional about doing good deeds.

The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, did everything intentionally. His parents taught him that he should pray, and so Wesley set a specific time for prayer every day. Jesus said that we ought to visit the sick and the imprisoned. To make sure that he did this, Wesley put in on his daily schedule. Every day he visited prisoners and the sick. Someone told him that he would grow spiritually if he would read his Bible, but rather than trying to get around to it, he set aside a particular time each day for Bible study. He knew he should worship God and so he set a daily time to do so. John Wesley became a spiritual giant. He was absolutely methodical about the practice of his faith, hence our name “Methodists.” I wonder if that was all that separated the sheep from the goats in Jesus’ parable? The sheep got around to committing themselves to Christ and accepting His offer of salvation. They made good habits of caring deeds, and their habits ran so deeply within them that they became instinctual. They weren’t even aware that they were pleasing their King.

I am convinced that we won’t do what our King expects His followers to do unless we develop some good habits. We don’t succeed in many things without forming habits. Penny is a piano teacher at Converse College’s pre-college department, and her hardest battle is convincing her students that the only way to learn to play music is for them to make themselves practice every day for at least thirty minutes (and more as they get older). If you just work steadily on something, you will master it. I know for a fact that for a very long time in my childhood, I went to church because I was made to, not because I wanted to. My parents formed that habit within me. I really didn’t want to go to school during the week either, but that was also nonnegotiable! They also taught me the habit to examining my allowance and giving God a portion of it as a way of saying thanks to God for His blessings to me. When my parents made their annual pledge to their church, my sister and I also made a pledge. I know that Bethel United Methodist Church could have done without my $5.20 but that wasn’t the point. The point was for me to learn to make a commitment and then strive to meet that commitment.

Let me tell you about the financial commitment Penny and I make to Memorial Church. It really should be more than it is, but it is at least high enough to really make us feel pushed to meet our pledge goal. I find that I really need this accountability to myself and to God. Penny’s job is a nine-month job. She is off every summer, and that means that we really have to tighten our belts every June. Most years our bank account is running on fumes when she returns to work, and I hold my breath until her first paycheck arrives in mid-September! Uncle Sam expects me to send him a quarterly self-employment tax payment on September 15, and some years I really sweat that payment! This year our son’s car decided to kick the bucket in June, and I had to float a loan on my credit card to get it running again. That debt should be paid off early in 2009. So we always get a little behind on our pledge to the church during the summer and we have to play catch up between September and December. I might be tempted not to make up the shortage if I hadn’t set myself a goal to meet. That is why I make a pledge every year. I need that goal. And I know that if something really unexpected happens to the Holts, not only will you understand my failure to meet my pledge, you probably will also pass the hat for me. I don’t think I am the only one who needs a giving goal. I think you do, too. Otherwise you might not give God’s Church the priority in your life that you want to. I know that I am saved by grace and not by works, but I hope my banker sees my canceled checks and knows by that evidence that I am a follower of Christ.

I am convinced that the difference between the sheep and the goats in Jesus’ parable is that the sheep on Jesus’ right side didn’t wait to get around to committing themselves to Christ, nor did they wait to begin habitually doing good deeds to others. The goats say, “Lord, we would never have seen you in need and failed to respond to you. We tried to. We meant to. We just didn’t get around to it.”

I invite you to become more intentional, more methodical, about your faith during 2009. Don’t just intend to grow spiritually; make a commitment to yourself to attend Sunday School and worship and to read your Bible. Don’t just intend to do good deeds for others; find a way to schedule your good works into your daily schedules. And don’t just intend to give back to God a portion of what He has given to you; set yourself a goal by pledging a certain amount in support of the Lord’s work through Memorial United Methodist Church. Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

If you follow politics at all, you know the name “Rush Limbaugh.”  For 20 years he has dominated the noon to 3:00 P.M. time slot on talk-radio.  Even the venerable Larry King wasn’t able to dethrone Limbaugh.  Now let me hasten to say that my mention of Rush Limbaugh is not an endorsement of his political views, a fact that is obvious to any of you who know my political leanings!  But I do agree with something Limbaugh often says – that he has talent on loan from God.  Someone called his hand on this when he first said it, saying that it smacked of arrogance, but he explained that if any of us has any talent, it is not ours to possess but rather it is entrusted to us by God for a reason.  He explained that this was a statement of humility, not arrogance. Certainly Christians should know that our talents, our possessions, our bodies, everything that we consider ours is really not ours.  It belongs to Almighty God, on loan to us.  God retains ownership.  We are merely trustees or stewards of God’s possessions.

The Parable of the Talents illustrates this point. A man (symbolizing God) entrusted his property to his three servants before he left on a journey.  Later he returned to reclaim what was still his.  God lends us our abilities and material blessings and expects us to exercise good stewardship over his gifts, but he retains ownership.  You don’t believe that?  Then ask yourself who will have your house, your land, even your body 100 years from now? I saw two infants enter this world.  They arrived, wearing only their “birthday suits.”  That’s all we leave behind when we exit this world.  We take from here a soul that by God’s grace is clothed in Christ’s righteousness, but that is all we take with us.

Remembering that all we are and have belongs to God keeps us humble.  How divisively arrogant we become when we think we’ve done something by ourselves.  There are no self-made men and women.  We stand on our parents’ shoulders, if we had good parents.  Some parents dig a hole for their children to climb out of.  Secondly, remembering that God owns everything keeps us from becoming possessive about our things.  It is easier to give things away if I remember whose it is.  Thirdly, remembering that it belongs to God gives us more respect for our gifts and abilities.  I ought to take better care of something if it isn’t mine but is rather on loan to me from someone I love.  When we recognize that all we are and have comes from God, we will exercise care to see that these gifts are invested in ways that bless ourselves, others, and God.

While the parable does state that God owns everything, it also plainly states that His gifts are placed under our care to use or misuse.  This is one place where the Presbyterian concept of  predestination and United Methodist doctrine of free-will come together!  Some things are predetermined, like my gifts, talents, and appearance.  But how I use these gifts depends on my free-will and my choice.  Genetics determines my approximate life-span.  No male in my family has made it beyond 80 years of age, and that gives me some idea of the length of my life.  But I can shorten my days and perhaps lengthen them by the choices I make.  God made my body, but I can fill it with junk foods or nourish it properly.  I can abuse it with illegal drugs and immoral actions. I have a responsibility to what I do with my talents even though I don’t have any say in what talents I was given!

A church was having a revival, and they posted signs all over town which said, “Those who are weary of sin, come to our revival.”  But someone else came along and wrote these additional words: “Those not weary of sin, call 555-5687.”  We do have free-will.

God also gave me my possessions and wealth.  It is important to remember that we use the word “talent” to mean one thing while Jesus used it to mean something else.  In Jesus’ day, a talent was a sum of money, and so the Parable of the Talents was a stewardship sermon by Jesus.  He was talking about money.  People say, “The preacher talks too much about money.”  Well, Jesus had more to say about money than he did any other subject.  He said to use it wisely, to give it all away, and to make sure we don’t allow money to keep us out of heaven!  Most of all, we are to remember Whose it is.

So remembering that all we have belongs to God keeps us humble, keeps us from becoming possessive, and gives us more respect for God’s gifts to us.  A fourth thing it will do for us is to help us appreciate the gifts of others rather than be jealous of them.  In the parable, some of the man’s servants were given more than others.  Isn’t that the way it is?  No matter how talented I am, I can always find someone more talented.  But the good news of the parable is that God only asks for our faithfulness, not our ability to do better than someone else.  The master asked the same thing of his three servants: to be faithful over what was given to them.  As we are, we find that we are given more gifts.  We discover more talents.  We gain more abilities.  What good news!  We might even find that some of the things we have thought were weaknesses are actually strengths.

One time when I was still doing youth ministry on a weekly basis, I had the youth to draw a line down a piece of paper.  I asked them to make two lists.  On the left side of the page, they were to write their talents, gifts, and strengths.  On the right side, they were to write their weaknesses and the things they didn’t like about themselves.  The right side of their pages filled up very quickly, but they really struggled to come up with things they liked about themselves.  Most of them thought that I was going to ask them to work on some of their weaknesses, and so I really caught them off-guard when I asked, “How could God use some of your weaknesses for His Kingdom?  How might your weaknesses really be strengths that God could use?”  They finally came to the understanding that whenever our weaknesses help us understand and respond in love to another human being, then God uses our weakness as a strength.

One of the startling truths in this parable is that the more we use the gifts we already have, the more new ones we will discover and develop.  Even weaknesses become strengths.  When we practice good stewardship over our finances, we will become wealthier.  The real surprise is that good financial practice does not mean stingy hoarding but rather generosity.  When we give, we get.

In the Old Testament, tithing did at least three things: 1) it took care of the poor; 2) it provided for the priests; and 3) it produced good financial habits.  When we give God the first fruits and not our leftovers, we learn that what we have left goes even further, and that is miraculous!  “Give and it will be given to you,” Jesus said.  The prophet Malachi 3:10 tells us that this is one time we can put God to the test:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

The Parable concludes with some rewards and a failure.  The two servants who had gratefully received gifts from the master had gone out and wisely used what they were given, resulting in profit for both themselves and their master.  But one steward got “left standing with his bare face hanging out and his ruby lips flapping in the breeze” as my father used to say, because he had no love for his master nor appreciation for his generosity.  His attitude was, “I knew it really wasn’t mine but yours and that you would want it back, so here it is.  I didn’t want to cooperate with your plan.”  He missed out on life, on blessings, and enjoying his master’s approval.  The other two servants used the talent on loan from their master to bless themselves, others, and their master.

In 1981, a fire destroyed the educational building of Edgefield United Methodist Church.  It was rebuilt the next year, leaving the church with a huge debt.  The pastor Dr. James Rogers was determined to get that debt paid off before he retired in June 1984 so that the new pastor, yours truly, wouldn’t have to contend with it.  One Sunday early in the new year, Dr. Rogers preached on the Parable of the Talents, and then he opened his robe and pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket.  Placing the thousands of his own dollars in the offering plates, he had the ushers pass the money out to the members of the congregation, inviting them to take whatever they thought they could use for God’s Kingdom.  A few months later that money, along with whatever they had earned by following the Parable of the Talents, would be collected in a special offering, and the earnings would go toward retiring the debt.  The congregation was in total shock, but they did what he asked.  In spite of Dr. Rogers reminding them about the evils of gambling and our United Methodist Social Principles, we think some of the money was wagered on the Super Bowl.  Other people bought certificates of deposit.  Others bought items for resale at a yard sale.  They never really knew what all was done with the distributed “talents,” but when the offering was received, it was a huge sum, enough to repay Dr. Rogers and still pay off the building loan!  I am sure that Dr. Rogers’ bold action shocked some people into getting up off of their own wallets, but others found that the Parable of the Talents really worked!  If you use what God gives you, the results are astonishing.

Next Sunday as you make your decision regarding your stewardship for 2009, please remember the parable!  Use a portion of what God has loaned you for His Kingdom!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

Three pastors were discussing how much time they each spend in preparing a sermon.  The Lutheran pastor, well known as an excellent preacher, spent a minimum of 20 hours per week on his sermon.  The minister at the very large Baptist Church said, “I’d like to be able to spend more time on my sermons, but I spend many hours visiting hospitals and nursing homes, and so I am lucky to get to spend 10 hours preparing the sermon.”  For a long while, the United Methodist pastor was silent, and then he said, “What do you guys do during the morning anthem?”

Between researching, writing, and editing sermons, it is common for pastors to need about 15 to 20 hours a week on sermon preparation.  It is important work, work that should not get our leftover time!  This particular sermon has been a bit longer in hatching.  I began work on this sermon 40 years ago and it is not done yet.  It won’t ever get done.  It is constantly being revised.  It dates back to a confirmation of my call to ministry in the fall of 1968.  Just when I think I have it all figured out, something happens to tweak the meaning of that confirmation, and I have to go back to them drawing board.

1968 had been a very turbulent year: two assassinations, a hotly debated war in Vietnam, and an incumbent President who had decided not to run for reelection.  It had also been a year during which I had been sorting out my faith, deciding what beliefs I would carry from my childhood into my adulthood and which I would toss out.  By November, I was a Wofford College freshman, experiencing a renewal in my personal faith, beginning to feel that God was calling me to some type of full-time service, perhaps in youth ministry.  I received some encouragement from my pastors and friends, but nothing was quite as defining and troubling as the confirmation I received from Presbyterian missionary Adger McKay.  Shortly after we met, Adger told me that he sensed a call from God upon my life.  He said that God was calling me to teach others the ways of Jesus.  Now, that is not all that profound, nor is it in any way unique. All Christian pastors are called to teach the ways of Jesus, right?  But there was something about that phrase “the ways of Jesus” that began haunting me. What did these words mean?  Periodically, especially in November of each year, I find myself wrestling with those words and asking myself, “Are you doing what God called you to do?  Are you being faithful to God’s expectations?”  Just what are the ways of Jesus?

For a while, I thought that the ways of Jesus were the ways I had come to experience God’s grace.  I thought that everyone had to experience God’s grace in the same way I did.  I was like the man who fell in a well and was stuck down there for hours.  While in the well, he repented of his sins and became a Christian.  When he was rescued from the well, the first thing he did was push someone else into that well in hopes that they, too, would become a Christian.  I pushed a lot of people in the well during 1968.

Next I thought that the ways of Jesus meant that I was to become a famous TV evangelist.  You remember how many TV preachers we had back before PTL went AWOL?  Fortunately, I quickly realized that I had neither the talent nor the nerves for a high-profile ministry, and I discovered that a ministry built upon a personality was doomed to failure.  I also learned that Jesus valued obscure servanthood over fame.

Then I wondered if the ways of Jesus meant that I was supposed to reinvent the wheel, to start all over and organize a new church after the First Century pattern.  In those days I much preferred small prayer groups to real churches.  But then I discovered that the ways of Jesus are much greater than prayer groups and church organization.  Maybe in a few more years I will have a clearer vision of just what Jesus’ ways are, but let me share with you what I believe I was commissioned to preach, and when you hear them, you will not find anything new or different about what I have learned.  I am convinced that the ways of Jesus are the way we relate ourselves to Almighty God and the way we relate ourselves to others.

Jesus taught that there was only one way to relate ourselves to God, and that was through simple trust in His goodness and grace, not through trusting in our own works and goodness.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus was asked what work God required of us before God would accept us, and Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”  Most all religions in the world teach that we must earn a relationship with God through our faithful obedience to prescribed duties, that is, through works.  The religions that teach salvation by reincarnation believe that you earn your way to God through an indefinite recycling of our soul on earth until you finally get it right and earn your way to God.  But Jesus said that the work God requires of us is simple trust in God’s generous mercy.

Even Jesus didn’t come to God, trusting in His own goodness.  When He came to John to be baptized, John protested, saying that Jesus didn’t need baptizing.  In fact, Jesus ought to be the one baptizing John.  But Jesus indicated that He knew that the way to right standing with God – the way to fulfill all righteousness – was by trusting in God’s goodness, and that is why He was baptized.  So, one of the ways of Jesus is His way of being in right relationship with God, not by  good works but by simple trust in God.  I hope you have heard me teaching this on numerous occasions during the past four years!

Now, if you think that there should be a connection between what I believe and how I act, you are correct.  There should be a connection between my faith and my actions.  I don’t have to do good works to be saved, but salvation should produce good works.  When our daughter Hillary was about seven years old, she was having to put up with the antics of her four-year-old brother, and one day she asked me, “Daddy, do you think that John will go through a stage of being nice when he learns that there is a God around here?”  If you want to see what I really believe, then watch how I live.  The ways of Jesus are also the ways of relating to one another in love.

What are Jesus’ ways of relating to others?  First, Jesus’ love accepts all people with respect, openness, and warmth.  Jesus could even accept people who had messed up their lives pretty badly: thieves, adulterers, outcasts of society.  When I find that I cannot accept someone and love them, then I’ve lost sight of the fact that God has accepted me, undeserving as I am.  When I categorize someone, judging them by their appearance or nationality or color rather than getting to know them personally, I am not practicing the ways of Jesus.

A few years ago I went to a Salkiehatchie work camp with some youth, repairing the homes of some elderly people.  There was a guy named Mike who was also there.  He looked like the missing link!  He was the hairiest human being I’ve ever seen – hair everywhere except on the top of his head.  I could just hear the words of my dear grandmother: “Law, look at that ugly mortal.”  But before the week was over, Mike was my friend, a person of love and compassion, and a great guitar picker, beautiful in his heart.  I almost missed out of knowing him because of not practicing the ways of Jesus.  It is important that we learn to accept people because folks become like the people who accept them.  If we fail to accept them, they will find another group that will, and that might be an unsavory lot.

The ways of Jesus are also the ways of mercy and grace.  Jesus’ main trouble with the Pharisees was that their religion was devoid of mercy and grace.  Observing the law was more important than showing mercy to those who had failed to keep the law.  Christlike people are those who never miss a chance to show mercy to others.  Christlike people learn to replace their “I told you so” attitude with an “I love you so” attitude.

The ways of Jesus are the ways of generosity, and I am not just talking about money.  Generosity is an attitude toward others that affects all aspects of your life – your time, your energies, and your money.  It was expressed by Jesus as self-sacrifice: “If anyone will come with me, let him pick up his cross and follow me.”  Self-sacrificing generosity is the willingness to give oneself for someone else, and it is so rewarding.  It can even be fun!

Once when I was visiting Greenville Memorial Hospital, I was racing other cars as we competed for the very few parking spaces.  I was about to make a left turn into a space when I noticed a car facing mine.  The woman in the car was about to make a right turn into that same parking space.  For a moment she just glared at me, but because my parents taught me to be a gentleman, I extended my arm out the window in an “after you” fashion and let her have the space.  Her staring glare changed into a look of amazement.  She parked, and I found another space.  We met on the stairs leading down from the parking deck toward the front door of the hospital.  She looked at me with the look of a fourth-grade teacher who had something to tell me, and she said, “That was a good thing you did.”  I made light of it, saying “Oh, that was nothing.”  Her fourth-grade teacher look intensified as she said, “You listen to me!  That was a good thing you did!  There aren’t that many good people in this world.”  I was utterly amazed at the result of that little act of generosity, and I thought, “Lord, is it that easy to show my faith in You by a tiny little sacrifice for another?”

My dear friend Rev. Enoch Finklea was a generous person.  When he preached for me, he brought a pile of toys, jewelry, and trinkets along with him.  It was not uncommon to see an entire congregation licking on suckers during one of his sermons.  When he was having open heart surgery, he had prearranged for a friend to deliver barbeque lunch to the crowd of people who were there at the hospital, awaiting word that the surgery had gone well.  Did you get that?  When he should have been preparing himself for serious surgery, he was instead preparing a meal for his friends!

The ways of Jesus are the ways of giving and generosity.  I wonder how our lives and our homes would be different today if we sacrificed for one another and if we practiced Jesus’ way of generosity with each other?  What if we didn’t look out for our own interests but willingly sacrificed for someone else’s good?

What are the ways of Jesus that I was called to practice and preach?  I’m sure that the ways of Jesus include the way to relate to God through simple faith and trust, like Jesus did.  I am sure that I am to relate to others in the same merciful way that Jesus did, accepting them. And I am sure that the ways of Jesus are the ways of sacrificial generosity.  May we all learn the ways of Jesus!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

The coming of winter means that the harvest is in the barn, the days are short and cold, and the nights are long, giving us time to think about our lives.  To our ancestors, this was the end of one year and the beginning of a new year.  It was a time to think ahead and to look back.  Since it seemed that the earth itself was dying for a season, lost loved ones who had died during the recent year were brought to mind.  In many ancient cultures, the end of the harvest and the new year were occasions to celebrate the lives and mourn the deaths of their community.

As the Church moved into these communities, it adapted itself to the customs of the people, and the people adapted themselves to the Church as well.  New Year was postponed until after the observance of the birth of Christ, but the practice of remembering the deceased remained attached to the end of the harvest.  November 1 became known in the Church as “All Saints Day” when those who were loved and who had died in the faith were remembered once again.

The three scripture passages today each speak about the dead and their place in eternity.  Although they may seem a bit frightful upon first reading, they actually are words of comfort, encouragement, and hope. The prophet Daniel had a vision that assured him that all people would appear before Almighty God for judgment but that this judgment would be mediated by a divine figure who appeared to be human also: “As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat…  Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.  I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”  Daniel spoke these words in a time of great turmoil when the Exile in Babylon was still fresh in the memories of the people.  At that particular moment, the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanies threatened to destroy Israel once again like the Babylonians had centuries before, and Daniel spoke to remind the people that God still ruled the universe.  Ultimately it would be God’s chosen Messiah who would be given all power over the forces of evil and death.  How good it is to know that when the books are opened, with the stories of all of our lives written on them, there will be one by our side who is our Christ and our Savior.  How good it is to know that our loved ones are part of that huge crowd of thousands upon thousands who live in God presence!

The passage in Revelation also contains a prophetic vision of heaven.  In it John spoke words of hope to those who were afraid that God’s chosen people were going to be left out because of their rejection of the Messiah.  Not so, said John!  There will be a huge crowd of the  chosen people there – a symbolic 12,000 from each of the Hebrew tribes.  At the time of John’s vision, ten of the twelve tribes of Judah had been totally lost, assimilated into other peoples in the middle east, their identity forever lost to us.  But they are not lost to God!  John’s words were words of hope to the people, saying that although these tribes may have forgotten God, God would never forget them!  They, too, will be in heaven.

But that is not all that John proclaimed.  Not only were there many of God’s chosen people there but there were also many others, from every nation, tribe, people, and language.  They were those who had lived through various trials and tribulations while on earth, maintaining their faith and trust in God, even in the face of death.  They had suffered deprivation, hunger, thirst, scorching sun, and martyrdom.  These will not have suffered in vain, John writes.  Jesus keeps these people real close to His presence, and never again will they suffer.  How good it is to know that our loved ones who have died now live in close proximity to Jesus, kept safe now under His watchful care and mighty power.  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  Together, the passages in Daniel and Revelation give us a glimpse into eternity, assuring us that the departed saints are happy and well, protected from all harm by God’s presence.

The Sermon on the Mount gives us a picture of what Jesus considered to be saintly living on earth.  Some have said that the Beatitudes not only tell us what God considers blessed but they also tell us the rules Jesus followed in His daily life.  Humility, meekness, hunger and thirst for right relationships with God and people, the willingness to enter into the suffering of others, showing mercy to others, purity of heart, peacemaking, and the ability to do the right thing even when ridiculed and persecuted were some of the guidelines for Jesus’ daily life.  These directed His heart and mind even more than the 10 Commandments did.  He never missed a chance to show mercy.  His heart was pure in that He consistently desired only one thing: to do the will of His Father.  He never missed a chance to work for peace, although he sometimes shook up the complacent.  As someone has said, “Jesus comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable!”

I think I know what Jesus’ daily life looked like, and I know what saintly life looks like because I have seen His life lived out in others, especially in the lives of people who are no longer here on earth with me.  I saw the Beatitudes lived out in my parents’ lives, every day.  When you see the same Christlike attitudes and actions lived out by parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides of the family tree, you get a good idea of what God is like!  When I was in my mid-twenties, I had to write about my Grandfather for a class in seminary, and even though 15 years had passed since he had died, I still couldn’t write about him without crying!  He was a saint in my eyes, in spite of the fact that he suffered terribly with manic-depression.  But he was a man of faith, courage, and good humor who lived his life for God, despite his illness.  My call to preach came through him.  I didn’t like it when he first told me that I was going to be a preacher, but since he had already raised two sons as pastors, I guess he knew one when he saw one! He always said that he was called but his sons answered.  Along with my parents, he will be among the first I look for in heaven.

Another person who lived the Beatitudes was a Presbyterian missionary named Adger McKay.  Adger led a Bible Study and prayer time during my college years, and when I arrived at seminary, I discovered that I was ahead of the game because of the wise interpretation of scripture given to me by Adger.  But his biggest gift to me was the way he preached and taught!  The joy within him just bubbled over all the time.  Faith in Christ wasn’t just something for him to have so that he could avoid eternal damnation.  It was like football or NASCAR or shopping for new clothes.  It was fun!  It was life-filling!  It is what gave his life its zest each day.  Someone once described Rev. McKay as a cheerleader for God, and no one could hear him preach or teach without being swept up in his genuine excitement.  He was just 49 when he contracted a rare disease while on a missionary journey and died, but his influence in my life lives on each day.

I saw what humble service was supposed to look like when Hal Bonnett would fix cups of coffee for the senior pastor and me when we had just five minutes to catch our breath before our second and our third Sunday morning worship services in Irmo.  My coffee was properly creamed and sugared for quick gulping.  Then Hal would put his arms around the pastor and me, say a prayer for us, and send us back out into the sanctuary.  A couple of times Hal did not get the praise or the breaks he deserved, at work or at church, but Hal was never one to keep score of things like that.  If the action helped his company or his church, it didn’t matter how he was treated.  He was truly a servant.

One time I attended the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast with Hal.  Leaving the breakfast, we saw a man staggering down the sidewalk with a bottle in his hand.  Then the man fell to the cement.  I was about the step over the man when I saw Hal help the man up, put him in his (Hal’s) car, and take him home.  Well, it wasn’t home.  The man lived in a car.  So Hal gave the man his name and phone number and encouraged the man to call him if he needed any help.  Blessed are the merciful!

When I was appointed to Francis Asbury United Methodist Church in Greenville, I met an elderly couple, Hilda and Jimmy Bolt.  They were in their mid-80′s, but Jimmy could still touch his toes (I can’t even see mine!) and Hilda still taught private music lessons.  Two-year-old John Holt was a handful to manage in church, and Penny really wanted to join the choir.  “Let John sit with us,” they said.  “We will teach him how to behave in church.”  I don’t know how they did it – with candy or a taser gun – but John would do anything the Bolts asked him to do.  My first Christmas in Greenville, I met their great-grandsons, one becoming a doctor and the other earning a master’s degree in organ performance.  I learned that when the boys were preschoolers, their parents divorced, and neither parent was able to care for the children.  Family Court was about to place the boys in foster care when Jimmy and Hilda, then in their mid-70′s, asked the court to put the boys in their care.  “You are too old, Mr. Bolt,” the judge said.  “Not while there is one breath left in my body will one of my children be without a home,” Jimmy replied.  With some reservations, the judge granted custody of the preschoolers to their elderly great-grandparents.  The Bolts had to teach them table manners and respect for each others, but they were up to the task.  The boys’ mother was eventually able to resume custody of her sons, and today these two fine young men owe everything they have become to the sacrifice of Jim and Hilda Bolt!  When Jimmy died, my son John was a fourth grader, and he said to me, “Dad, somebody is going to have to step up and take Jimmy’s place in this world.”  That is the impact of a saint on the lives of little children.

Saints stand before Almighty God, but they are not alone.  One who resembles a son of man stands with them.  He has been given all power over them because He gave His life for them.  There will be a great multitude in heaven, made up of Jews and Gentiles, that God keeps close to His side always, and we will be in that number.  Saints live like Jesus, like the Beatitudes, and they leave tracks for us to follow!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt