Great News

#507

Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of England's Queen Elizabeth is now 88 years of age. Father of the Queen's four children, the oldest Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the thrown, is perhaps more popular in England than is the Queen. On his 40h birthday, the newspapers of the UK asked Prince Philip what he wanted for his birthday. He replied that he wanted nothing but good news on the front page of every newspaper in the British empire. It was extremely difficult to find nothing but good news to go on the front page. Today, it would probably be impossible. The book Dead Man Walking, written by Catholic Sister Helen Prejean, gives a detailed story of the years preceding the execution of just one person. Few human beings realize that all of us, unless redeemed by God through the atonement of his only son, Jesus Christ, are just dead people walking. The greatest news anyone can possibly possess, those saved by grace through faith already have eternal life. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24) “But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.” (1 Tim 5:6)

In 2007 2.6 trillion dollars were spent in America on healthcare or 16% of the gross national product. The greatest entanglements in congress, for many months now, almost the entire Obama administration, has been healthcare, largely measures employed in the prevention of death. The mortality rate is still 100%. We all know that every second, every minute of our life moves us closer to the final curtain. The Queen of England is worth an estimated 3 trillion dollars. When her moment of death comes, or even her husbands, both are in their 80s, neither can buy one more second or minute of life no matter how much money they have to spend. With so much beauty in the world, and this is the great news, the beauty of flowers, the beauty of color, the beauty of children smiles and activities, why do human beings choose ugliness, depravity, decadence, and death?

When you hear that a bomb has fallen in Iran, you will know that WWIII has begun. In the 1959 movie, On the Beach, based on WW III, we find the world has been totally destroyed with nuclear war. The nuclear holocaust cloud of nuclear fallout is moving toward the continent of Australia which has not yet been hit. An American nuclear submarine puts into port, all on board having already learned that their country, their family, the world has been destroyed. Australia is providing their citizens with suicide tablets. Evangelicals are in the street attempted to prepare the unsaved for their death. Some are in denial about the impending disaster just as every day, in our own individual cocoon of existence we think we are immortal...knowing full well that we are just one breath away from eternity. Traveling down a super highway, at 70 miles per hour, you are exactly 6 to 12 feet away from certain death if a vehicle in the other lane has a mechanical failure or if your vehicle has a mechanical failure. The big three, heart attack, cancer and stroke will get most of us sooner or later. We expect to eat what we please, do what we please, without any thoughts of the fact that the heart muscle must pump 6,000 quarts of blood through our 2,000 miles of blood vessels in our body each day. It just takes the embolism of coagulate cells to end the flow...resulting in a heart attack or stroke.

Those over age 85 take up most of the health dollars spent by this nation. The largest percentage of those have Alzheimer's disease. The most expensive time of healthcare are the last months a person lives. Still, except for the innocent unborn (3,000 abortions each day) our humanity demands that we keep everyone alive as long as possible. Christians believe that human life is precious from conception in the womb until natural death. Most pretend that they are concerned about the walking dead, the politics of survival and execution. Christians and non-Christians pretend that they are concerned about the disabled, the handicapped even though they believe that nothing bad will ever happen to them.

I sincerely believe that the worshipers in the temple were just playing with God when they saw the disabled man healed by Peter and John by “Gate Beautiful”. This man had laid there for 40 years begging from those going into the temple to worship. When Peter healed him, the man leaped and would not let go of Peter and John. These hypocrite “church-goers” could not believe this man whom they had passed for 40 years had been healed. Like us, they pretended to believe in the power of God. The great news is, is the power is real...just as real now as then. The same power with which God spoke and the world was formed, Christ spoke and Lazarus was raised from the dead. The same power when Jesus raised the dead widow's son or caused blind Bartimaeus to see, is still real.

I truly believe the only reason America has not been destroyed is because of the praying, believing, Christians who still know the great news of God's redemption. It should scare politicians in Washington to death that those responsible for bringing so much grief on this country and on the world face the same destruction that God has already rendered to Sodom.

It is so easy for someone sitting in the comfort of a billion dollar White House to send drones (unmanned small airplanes) over poverty stricken huts, bombing and killing scared children and bewildered mothers. We claim to believe in justice. We know this applies only to “just us”. The entire record of scripture and history affirms justice.

During this time of Lent, the time of fasting, repenting, praying, denial, just before Easter when we, as Christians, celebrate the second greatest event in the history of the world, the crucifixion and raising from the dead our blessed Lord, we realize, more than ever, our inability to do anything except fight the good fight of faith because, “the battle is the LORD'S.” (1 Sa 17:47) I went to the Holy temple of the monkeys, Swayambhunath, in Katmandu Nepal. This old blind man had on some dark glasses as usual. One of the monkeys jumped up, grabbed my glasses and ran off with them. Shortly, one of the young monks came up with my glasses. It was obvious to me that these monks and monkeys, in this Pagan temple, in this Pagan world, were trained to be playing with onlookers because the monk expected me to give him a “nice tip” for retrieving my glasses. Think of it, are we any better? The “great news”...we are.