November 22nd English text

Worship Order November 22nd 2020 German Church Atlanta

Organ Foreplay Welcome Psalm 126 Meditation 107 Song 1: Blessed are they Matthew 25: 1-13 Sermon “21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 1

4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

Dear Congregation, Many of us have encountered death this past year. A person, who was close to us, who we loved, has died.

Sometimes suddenly and surprising.

There was no time for a good bye. And only slowly do we even comprehend was has happened, and slowly learn how to live with it. Sometimes though death also came at the end of a long suffering process, we expected it in the end, and sometimes even longed for it, as it was experienced as a relief. Today, at the end of the church year, we remember the beloved and special people who we have lost and remember what their life and death means for us.

2

I invited each one of us to light a candle for a person who you especially miss during these days. Maybe the person’s death has been even a few years ago.

But grief does not know time. For many the loss of a loved one will always be as if it happened yesterday. Every candle that burns reminds us of the love and warmth that connects us with the person who died.

(Lighting of Candles) Loss. Somebody is missing and leaves a painful gap. What remains? There is the feeling of being lost; Why did it have to happen? What can I hope for?

Then there is sometimes relief that the burden and suffering has come to an end. Then there are memories. Which ones do I want to hold on to? With gratitude? Or also those that remain behind that are filled with anger and disappointment?

Death has come close. I don’t think only those among us who lost a loved one felt it. I think all of us know those experiences of death that confronts us in many different ways.

Political commentators from Germany talk about the election of the new president as the US suffering a major heart attack. Other German commentators say that the country as we know it has died. Maybe some of us experience the political events in these days similarly, while others have different and more hopeful thoughts.

However this may be, grief and loss are for many of us a daily reality.

3

Some of us have lost their jobs this past year. Others have experienced the end of a relationship. Dreams have died or not come true. Hard work has not paid off in the end. Hopes got dashed along the way. We could account for many different ways of experiencing sudden or slow death.

And so I think that each one of us experiences letting go in very personal ways: We experience how much one can miss another person. How one’s strength decreases. How an illness can take one’s courage for life. How a relationship ends and how one suddenly does not have much in common with another person anymore.

And then death is experienced also in general and in universal ways: How humans are able to kill others in horrific ways. How peace seems hardly possible. How rich and poor are further and further apart from each other. How violence and oppression seem to have the last word.

This is how death comes to us as well.

And then many times tears are shed.

Often in silence and alone. Horror and bewilderment are the emotions that are publicly shared. Last year I have heard over and over: “I cannot watch the News anymore”. The suffering and screaming in the world are too pervasive.

The sermon text from today is written in a time when suffering was pervasive.

The Revelation of John was written about 95 after Christ, during the Roman Empire and the reign of King 4

Domitian. As all Roman Kings since Augustus, this one also asked to be revered as a God. He had many eager officials who erected statues of the King and forced the people to worship and bring offerings to those statues.

Whoever resisted this practice was considered an enemy of the state and was threatened to be killed. John’s Revelation is an expression of the early Christians’ religious and spiritual resistance against the Roman Empire.

The apocalyptic writing of John is a book of comfort for the persecuted minority of the Christians at the time.

He wants to encourage them: “Have faith, the battle is already won. Christ through his resurrection is already the winner. He is the real Lord of history.

He will return soon. And when he comes he will put an end to this world’s battles and oppressions. This is when a new world will break forth, a new Heaven and a new Earth.”

The visionary John sees how God in the future will wipe away all tears: Tears about the loss of our loved ones.

Tears about our own failures. Tears about the state of this world. God will wipe away our tears. He will wipe ALL tears. And that means: “God takes each tear seriously. As every tear is grieving the suffering and longs that things will be different. Every tear carries in it the awareness how life and the world could be. Unbroken.

Peaceful. Through God. And through us humans.

And many of our tears carry within them the prayer: “My God, have 5

mercy”. And God in God’s mercy will wipe away all the tears from their eyes, and Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

And yet, isn’t “the first” where we live?

We live here and now. How can those images of a better future help us? Still, we are living in the midst of death, loss, fear about tomorrow, pain when we see the conditions of suffering our world is in.

For example in a conversation before a funeral a woman shared with me how her mother had died in a nursing home. How difficult it was to see how she became increasingly weaker and suffered pain. “She waited so long to be able to die”, he daughter said. I wonder how I will die one day. I know that I do not want to die the way my mother died.

When we allow it these questions can be very present: “How will I die one day, and how do I want to die?” This question is very present especially in the discussion of physician assisted suicide and its legal implications. Most of us want to have a pain free and selfdetermined last phase of our life.

“Mein Ende gehoert mir!” (“The end of my life is mine!”) is the German slogan for the movement that demands the right for physician assisted dying.

How will I die one day? How do I want to die one day? Not many of us will have the same grace filled experience as the German pop singer Udo, who 6

with 80 years was walking on a Sunday afternoon along a lake and suddenly just died. Most of us wish that we will be surrounded with people we love, hopefully at home, prepared and without pain. I think this is how most people would wish their own dying experience.

Not many of us actually talk about how we would like to die. And even though it is the end of the church year, and a suggested topic, I did not feel as easy to talk with you about death and dying as part of today’s sermon. And this is understandable. This subject is uncomfortable. It raises anxiety. And for many Christian it feels even like a taboo, as it is God determines our life and death, and not us.

However, there are surely questions that we can think about and even answer for ourselves: - What is really important to me in life, and what will surely be as important to me as I am approaching the end of my life?

- Who do I want to see one more time?

- Who do I need to talk to and share with one more time?

- What do I want to leave behind as personal memories?

- What is my specific legacy for my family and for my friends?

When we start to think about those questions, we will notice that we surely will first think about the end of our life.

7

However, at the same time those questions lead us back right into the midst of our life.

When we ask such questions – and dare to find an answer – then we experience us alive and in the midst of meaning filled life: Why not say it here and today, who I love and what I love.

Why not share my regrets. Why not be intentional about those things that I want to pass on. When I share these thoughts and values with my family, and talk with my friends, then this can be very rewarding for both sides.

Whatever will be important to me at the end of my life, is already important and with me, now today in the midst of my current life. It can be healing to share what is wonderful, and what still remains painful. To talk about what is and will remain important to me. To share what makes me happy and what I might have messed up or what I missed. Those are not only questions for the end of our life. Those are important questions to think and talk about already today: life is beautiful and incomplete, it is a blessing and it is an ongoing challenge.

When we dare to ask those questions already in the midst of life, we experience something like healing. We open ourselves for that which we long for and hope for. And as Christians we believe: this life is not everything. It is wonderful in all its vulnerable and temporary ways. For us as Christians this often unfinished and incomplete life is embedded in a greater hope that John in the book of Revelations 8

described with the words: “See, I am making all things new! No tears anymore, no suffering, no pain. And that not only for our life, but for the whole of creation.”

The images that the visionary John creates in front of our inner eyes can already have power in the here and now. And we are able to be part of it.

We can start the journey and begin to dry others’ tears. Begin to heal pain – or carry it together with others. We can become aware of other people’s suffering – and where we are able alleviate it. We can bring calm into the overall screaming. And, yes, we can also talk about the hope that we have and that we are anticipating. We can pass that hope on. We are together on a journey to a destiny that already shines into our here and now. God’s eternity already shines into our today.

And this does not apply to a few people. The visionary John sees and names it: God’s dwelling is with his mortals, is with his peoples. Like a friend, like a neighbor, door to door, this is how close God wants to be. And this not only for Christians, but for all peoples. God wants his comfort to reach everybody. His closeness to heal everybody, and God wants to make everything new.

And so, in the midst of our sadness, in our experience of loss, in our fear about tomorrow, and in our sorrow for this world, we listen today to the words of the prophet: And because God has already come, because he has come so close to us in our brother Jesus Christ.

9

Because God has not shied away from the suffering of this world, but Jesus took it upon himself. Because God suffers with us every time one of his creatures suffers, this is why we know we are not abandoned or left alone.

Even when we feel like it. God wants to free this world from fear and from suffering. And this is where our journey will lead us.

And on this our way, just like the first Christians, we will not follow earthly rulers who demand us to blindly follow, and we will refuse to worship idols.

No, with John we uphold the hope that in the end God will live with his creation, and we will be his peoples, and the God of peace will be our God. And God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of humanity, and death will be no more, nor suffering, nor mourning, nor pain; for the first will be no more.

And God says: “See, I am making all things new!” This is where our journey will take us. Amen.

And the peace of God that surpasses all our understanding may keep our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

“Achte auf diesen Tag”

Song 2: Du sollst nicht müde sein

Intercessory Prayer 10

Blessing

Life on Goes on – Judy Bailey

11