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"Exalting Christ, Equipping Christians"Stallings Memorial Baptist ChurchText Box: Volume 40 Text Box: Number 19 Text Box: May 11, 2010 The VOICE of the People's ChurchText Box: Many of you have probably seen the movie, “Forrest Gump.” Tom Hanks plays a somewhat-slow witted southern man who, on account of his simplicity and good-heartedness, and no small amount of good luck, finds his way from an obscure childhood to being a millionaire shrimping tycoon. As the film takes us through the twists and turns of Forrest Gump’s life, we meet all sorts of people – all of whom have the problems of their lives contrasted with the innocence of Forrest. The thing about Forrest’s response to most of the other characters in the movie charms us because of the way understanding and misunderstanding are blended together to produce an unusual new way of perceiving the situation. Maybe you remember “Lt. Dan,” Gump’s glory hungry platoon leader that loses his legs in the Vietnam conflict. His handicap makes him a very bitter man, and when Forrest meets him again several years after the war, Lt. Dan cynically asks him from a wheelchair, “So Forrest, have you found Jesus yet?” And Forrest, in his southern drawl answers, “Well, Lt. Dan, I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for him.” Lt. Dan rolls his eyes. We smile. We do not literally find Jesus, do we? He is not lost. And yet we have to affirm the basic assumption in Gump’s response, Jesus is somewhere. Jesus died, Jesus rose again…so where is he now? This question was once put to a candidate for ordination in his presbytery council. An older preacher asked the young man, “Where is Jesus?” The candidate responded, “In our hearts.” “No! I mean where is Jesus right now?” The candidate was

uncertain what the man wanted, but he ventured another answer, “When we pray he is in our midst.”  Again, came the answer, “No!  Where is Jesus right now?”  The poor young guy was flabbergasted and said something to diffuse the tension like, “I wish he were here right now.”  The old man responded, “Well, I don’t know what they are teaching you young people in seminaries today, but when I went to school we learned, Jesus ascended into heaven and  now sits at the right hand of God the Father.”

    Those words are from the Apostle’s Creed.  The same Jesus who walked on the earth, suffered the cross, was sealed in a tomb, is now in heaven.   The stories of the resurrection impress upon us that Jesus rose from the grave with a physical human body, not merely as a ghost, phantom, or spirit.   Not all the laws of nature applied to his body in the same way as it does to ours, that is obvious.  For example, Jesus could appear and remove himself from rooms, and he will never die again.  Jesus could be touched, eat, drink, and show the healed wounds of his passion.  It was important to Jesus to show us that He did not lay aside his human body when he rose from the grave.  Rather, he took it up again and glorified it. Therefore, physically and locally, as that applies to his humanity, Jesus is in heaven. That is where Jesus is.

    But what difference does that make for us?  I will be addressing that question in my message on Sunday morning as we celebrate Ascension Sunday.  Hope to see you then as we worship together.

From Your Pastor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

Sunday, May 16

10:30 AM

6:00 PM

“The Ascension of the Lord”

Acts: 1:1-11, Luke 24:44-53,

Ephesians 1:15-23

“Are We Compelled?”

2 Corinthians 5:11-21