SPECIAL DAYS: April 17, 2003 Maundy Thursday
Lessons: Psalm 116.1-2, 12-19; Exodus 12.1-4, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35
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INTRODUCTION:
Jimmy Dean, country-music star turned pork-sausage king, co-wrote a song about celebrating life's little blessings called Drinking From My Saucer.
The key verse is this one:
So, Lord, help me not to gripe
'Bout the tough rows that I've hoed,
I'm drinking from my saucer
'Cause my cup has overflowed.
We are beneficiaries of the blessings
MAIN BODY:
We are the beneficiaries of the blessings of Jesus.
It is not singular but plural.
It encompasses anyone who is interested and committed.
A beneficiary is one who benefits from a legacy.
We can all benefit from the blessings of God.
Psychiatrist Dave Larson is at the podium pointing to a cartoon slide on a screen: the Agnostic Fleas. They're standing in a forest of fur, and one says, "Sometimes I wonder if there really IS a dog ...." (1)
Larson's point is a serious one, however, and it's his passion: Whether or not there is a God, scientific research suggests that religion benefits both bodily and mental health ....
Larson is propelled by his findings that, basically, the pious tend to be healthier and live longer.
For instance, in a survey of people in Evans County, Georgia, he found that smokers who went to church regularly were four times less likely to have high blood pressure than those who didn't, and had about the same blood pressure as a nonchurchgoing nonsmoker.
And in a survey of psychiatric research, he found that religious people were less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, commit suicide, be depressed, be juvenile delinquents or get divorced - and they tended to have better sex.
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We are the beneficiaries of the blessings of Jesus
The blessings of Passover protection
The blessing of the cup of the new covenant
The reminder of the coming of Jesus
The blessing of humility
The blessing of spiritual washing and regeneration
The blessing of the presence of God with us.
The blessing of a new commandment of love.
The blessing of discipleship and family.
The blessing of forgiveness.
The blessing of knowledge
The blessing of an inheritance.
The blessing of hope
The blessing of the seal the pledge of our inheritance as God's own people.
Henry Ward Beecher has written:
If one should give me a dish of sand and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes and search for them with my clumsy fingers and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it and now would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction.
The unthankful heart, like my fingers in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour, some heavenly blessings. Only the iron in God's sand is gold! (2)
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CONCLUSION
So we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
We can stand holy and blameless before God.
In this service we claim the blessings and hold them dear to our hearts and minds.
The words to a song written by Mike Murdock are an appropriate conclusion (3)
I won't let go of his blessing,
I've fought too hard to believe,
I've lived through too many storms
To have what I have received.I won't let go of his blessing,
I have a dream I still can see,
Regardless what may ever come my way,
I won't let go his blessing me.
1. Jessica Cohen, "The Greatest Story Never Told," Utne Reader, March-April 1997.
2. Henry Ward Beecher
3. Song written by Mike Murdock found in Richard Roberts' He's the God of the Second Chance (Tulsa, Okla.: R. Roberts, 1985), 70: