This week's sermon

 

LIFTING THINGS UP

        The title of this sermon is “Lifting things up.”

        It’s the Old Testament lesson and the Gospel that the title comes from.

        Remember how in Numbers the people of Israel had turned against Moses and God because they thought they had been too long in the Wilderness.

        So, God punished them by sending poisonous serpents to bite them and make them die.

        When the people repented God told Moses to make a poisonous serpent of bronze and ‘lift it up’ onto a pole and when anyone was bitten, they needed only to look up at the bronze serpent and they would be healed.

        Then in John’s Gospel, Jesus reminded the people that Moses had “lifted up the serpent” in the wilderness and tells them “the son of man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

        He, of course, is talking about being ‘lifted up’ on the cross to be crucified and how, after he is Risen, he will be “lifted up to heaven” to sit on the right hand of God.

        That got me thinking about what we ‘lift up’ in our lives.

        I came up with quite a few and want to share them with you. I’ll begin with the mundane and move up to the holy.

1.  A thoughtful man lifts up the toilet seat when he’s going—oh, you know what he’s going to do….

2.  We lift up a hat to put it on our head.

3.  We lift up windows to open them on a warm day.

4.   We lift up our bodies getting out of bed or up off a chair.

5.  We lift up our glass to drink our wine.

6.  We lift up our pets to put them on the table when we visit the veterinarian.

7.  We lift up flags and banners to show our patriotism or display things we like.

8.  We lift up our children as babies to hold them or lift them up over our heads to give them joy.

9.  We lift water from the baptismal font to put on someone’s head to baptize them.

10.       We go out of our way to lift up a friend or a little child who has fallen.

11.       The priest lifts up the bread and the wine during the communion service.

12.       As we will do after the Nicene Creed, we lift up our hearts to God in prayer.

You probably have other examples.

“Lifting Things Up” has many uses.

So, lift yourself up, stand up tall and offer your life and your belief to God.

 

Shalom an Amen.