Peter J. Gomes - "Life Before Death" (April 18, 1999)
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| - | Let us pray. | 0:22 |
| Oh God who has prepared for them that love thee | 0:26 | |
| such good things as pass our understanding. | 0:31 | |
| Pour into our hearts such love towards thee | 0:35 | |
| that we loving thee above all things | 0:40 | |
| may obtain thy promises which exceed all that we can desire | 0:44 | |
| through Jesus Christ our lord, amen. | 0:51 | |
| I take as my text the tenth verse | 0:59 | |
| of the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. | 1:02 | |
| These most famous and abundant words of Jesus. | 1:08 | |
| I am come that they may have life | 1:15 | |
| and that they may have it more abundantly. | 1:20 | |
| Better translated it is | 1:26 | |
| I am come that you may have life | 1:28 | |
| and that you may have it more abundantly | 1:33 | |
| beginning right now. | 1:37 | |
| I'm very sensible of the unique circumstances | 1:44 | |
| in which I stand before you this morning | 1:49 | |
| on the third Sunday of Easter, | 1:52 | |
| and when I told my colleagues in Cambridge | 1:56 | |
| that I was going to preach in the Duke Chapel | 1:59 | |
| on the alumni Sunday when over 3,000 graduates | 2:02 | |
| of this university would be | 2:08 | |
| more or less in the vicinity of the chapel. | 2:10 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 2:14 | |
| They said to me it will be like Easter, | 2:15 | |
| and I said well every Sunday | 2:19 | |
| is like Easter in the Duke Chapel, | 2:21 | |
| and so it is. | 2:24 | |
| What a joy it is to stand among you, | 2:26 | |
| to see so many living examples | 2:30 | |
| that there is life after Duke. | 2:34 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 2:37 | |
| If there happen to be any undergraduates here, | 2:41 | |
| I urge you to look around. | 2:44 | |
| Look to your left, look to your right. | 2:46 | |
| Do not be frightened at what you see. | 2:48 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 2:51 | |
| That is you, and your future. | 2:53 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 2:56 | |
| There is life after Duke, and I stand before you | 2:58 | |
| as a Duke graduate myself. | 3:03 | |
| I wear the hood to prove it. | 3:06 | |
| I got mine however the easy way. | 3:09 | |
| It was given to me, whereas you doubtless paid | 3:12 | |
| a great deal for yours. | 3:16 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 3:18 | |
| It is wonderful to be able to affirm | 3:21 | |
| that there is life after Duke, | 3:24 | |
| but the real question, not just for Duke graduates, | 3:29 | |
| but for believers in Jesus Christ is this question. | 3:33 | |
| Is there life before death? | 3:38 | |
| That's the real question to which | 3:43 | |
| we must address our attention in this season of Eastertide. | 3:46 | |
| Often around this time of year, | 3:52 | |
| nonbelievers, secular friends will come up | 3:55 | |
| having some vague clue about Easter | 3:58 | |
| and say do you believe in life after death? | 4:00 | |
| Now that sounds like a good Orthodox Christian question | 4:06 | |
| upon which Shirley MacLaine and a host of other people | 4:10 | |
| doubtless have an opinion or even an experience or two, | 4:14 | |
| but that is not the real question. | 4:20 | |
| That is not the question of the Emmaus Road. | 4:23 | |
| That is not the question of the empty tomb, | 4:27 | |
| nor is it the question of this, the third Sunday of Easter. | 4:30 | |
| The real question that Jesus puts to us is this. | 4:35 | |
| Do you believe in life before death? | 4:40 | |
| Do you have any life in you now? | 4:46 | |
| Is there anything in you that would demonstrate | 4:50 | |
| to anybody else that not only does Christ live, | 4:54 | |
| but Christ lives in you? | 5:00 | |
| That I am convinced is the question | 5:04 | |
| and the challenge that the faithful must address, | 5:08 | |
| who seek an Easter faith and an Easter experience. | 5:12 | |
| Easter may seem to be about the future. | 5:18 | |
| It may seem to be about a place far away | 5:21 | |
| either long ago or yet to come, | 5:24 | |
| but if Easter cannot speak to you here and now, | 5:27 | |
| where and as you are, then there is | 5:32 | |
| less to Easter than meets the eye. | 5:36 | |
| Remember the famous epitaph | 5:40 | |
| found in a churchyard in Vermont in New England. | 5:42 | |
| It said of the woman quote | 5:47 | |
| "she lived with her husband for 63 years | 5:49 | |
| "and died in the hope of a better life." | 5:53 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 5:57 | |
| The question is not what happens after death? | 6:03 | |
| The question is what do you do before death? | 6:08 | |
| And it is a question I would presume to put | 6:13 | |
| to you alumni with as fine a point on it as I may make. | 6:15 | |
| What are you going to do not in the next life, | 6:21 | |
| but with what remains to you of this life? | 6:26 | |
| What are you going to do before death claims you? | 6:31 | |
| Now that's a question I know that it's easier to ask | 6:37 | |
| than to answer. | 6:41 | |
| That is why preachers specialize in rhetorical questions. | 6:43 | |
| We ask the questions, you sit and listen to the questions. | 6:47 | |
| There are no answers to the questions, so it appears to be. | 6:51 | |
| But I, if I may mention Harvard in this circumstance, | 6:56 | |
| the Duke of the north, as we all know | 7:01 | |
| on such a family occasion as this, | 7:04 | |
| I want to say a word about my understanding of alumnae. | 7:08 | |
| I have some experience in the likes of you. | 7:13 | |
| We have been generating alumnae without cease since 1642. | 7:16 | |
| The world is not that much better for it, | 7:22 | |
| but we keep on doing it anyway. | 7:24 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 7:26 | |
| And there is connected with our alumni life in Cambridge | 7:28 | |
| as it must be here, a series of volumes | 7:33 | |
| that is called the class report. | 7:37 | |
| The class report consists of a report | 7:40 | |
| by every member of the class written at five year intervals | 7:43 | |
| from the fifth reunion until there is no one left to write. | 7:48 | |
| And these class reports have been | 7:54 | |
| accumulating since the middle of the 19th Century, | 7:56 | |
| and they make extraordinary reading. | 7:59 | |
| It's a tale of in the first third of the life of a graduate, | 8:03 | |
| it's a tale of ambition and adventure. | 8:09 | |
| The fifth, the tenth, the fifteenth reunion. | 8:14 | |
| These are where the great goals are staked out. | 8:18 | |
| The great ambitions determined. | 8:22 | |
| The great conquests aspired, | 8:25 | |
| and you read in those five year reports | 8:27 | |
| in those first 15, 20 years of | 8:29 | |
| all the great adventures the young have been on. | 8:32 | |
| All of the giants you have slain. | 8:35 | |
| All of the mountains you intend to climb. | 8:38 | |
| And then those reports take a slightly different turn | 8:43 | |
| after the 25th reunion. | 8:46 | |
| That is where people start listing their accomplishments, | 8:48 | |
| their achievements, their distinctions, | 8:53 | |
| their grandchildren, their children, | 8:56 | |
| their spouses, their ex-spouses, their new spouses, | 8:59 | |
| their contemplated spouses. | 9:03 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 9:05 | |
| There's a certain amount of eager ego | 9:07 | |
| in that second third of the class report | 9:10 | |
| from the 25th reunion to the 40th reunion | 9:13 | |
| and you know who you are. | 9:16 | |
| I can almost pick you out seat by seat out there. | 9:18 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 9:22 | |
| But the third third of the class reports | 9:23 | |
| take on a slightly different tone. | 9:26 | |
| From the 45th reunion on there's a combination of serenity | 9:29 | |
| and a certain degree of regret. | 9:36 | |
| Serenity, which suggests that there are | 9:40 | |
| no more mountains to climb, | 9:43 | |
| not because mountains don't exist | 9:45 | |
| but because I'm too old and feeble to try to do so anymore. | 9:47 | |
| Serenity in the sense that I am what I am. | 9:52 | |
| I have become what I have become. | 9:56 | |
| It may not be what I had in mind, | 9:58 | |
| but there it is, take it or leave it. | 10:01 | |
| We must make the best of what we have, | 10:04 | |
| what little is left, and do what we can. | 10:06 | |
| A certain degree of serenity and resignation | 10:10 | |
| may be the satisfaction in realizing | 10:14 | |
| that there is no more blood in the stone | 10:16 | |
| for the alumni office after the 60th reunion. | 10:19 | |
| Not much left to be sent back to Cambridge or... | 10:22 | |
| And when I look at these ages of alumnihood, as it were | 10:28 | |
| and come to that sort of final third. | 10:34 | |
| I'm very much aware in the candor of these reports | 10:37 | |
| where people say if I had it to do over again, | 10:41 | |
| if I had a second choice, | 10:46 | |
| if I had another opportunity | 10:49 | |
| things might be different. | 10:53 | |
| I now would be able to benefit in the next life, | 10:56 | |
| or the second chance at this life | 11:02 | |
| from the experiences I have accumulated in the first life. | 11:04 | |
| And I can recognize that in the brain waves | 11:09 | |
| I am receiving from you in this congregation | 11:13 | |
| even as I speak. | 11:15 | |
| Things might be different. | 11:18 | |
| Oh I wish they could be. | 11:20 | |
| I was once asked to speak at the memorial service | 11:24 | |
| for the 75th reunion of the class of 1921. | 11:28 | |
| There weren't a great deal, | 11:34 | |
| wasn't a large number of them there, | 11:36 | |
| but those who were there were eager to be seen to be there. | 11:39 | |
| Lots of widows, lots of widowers, | 11:43 | |
| a sense of loss and limits. | 11:46 | |
| The days of bright and gilded youth now long past gone, | 11:49 | |
| and the class secretary said to me | 11:55 | |
| just before the service began, | 11:57 | |
| he said I hope you'll be cheerful. | 11:59 | |
| We haven't much time. | 12:01 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 12:03 | |
| I assumed that he was anxious to get to lunch, | 12:07 | |
| but he meant that he really didn't have much time | 12:11 | |
| and so I said to them what I thought | 12:16 | |
| was the most audacious, courageous | 12:18 | |
| and actually accurate thing I could say on such occasions. | 12:22 | |
| I said to them what I say to all of you now. | 12:28 | |
| In the spirit of Easter, and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, | 12:32 | |
| your best years are ahead of you. | 12:36 | |
| The best is yet to come. | 12:42 | |
| No matter how close to the end you may think you are, | 12:46 | |
| no matter how much you may have done, | 12:50 | |
| or how little you may have done, | 12:53 | |
| or how little appears in front of you, | 12:56 | |
| your best years are ahead of you. | 12:59 | |
| Your best days, your best hours, your best moments | 13:04 | |
| are ahead of you. | 13:08 | |
| The essence of the Gospel is | 13:10 | |
| that the best is yet to come. | 13:13 | |
| This means by implication you cannot live in the past, | 13:18 | |
| no matter how comfortable or familiar | 13:22 | |
| or accomplished that past is. | 13:26 | |
| You cannot live there. | 13:28 | |
| It also means that the present is incredibly elusive. | 13:30 | |
| If you don't believe me, the present has just passed. | 13:36 | |
| As I speak, your present is vanishing before your very eyes. | 13:41 | |
| All we have is the future. | 13:48 | |
| All we have is the next moment, | 13:52 | |
| and the promise of the Christian Gospel is | 13:55 | |
| that the best is yet to be, because in that | 13:59 | |
| which is yet to be, our chances of meeting | 14:03 | |
| the living Christ along the | 14:08 | |
| highways and byways of life increase. | 14:10 | |
| Your Emmaus Road is in front of you, not behind you | 14:16 | |
| and that is the power of the Easter Gospel. | 14:24 | |
| Now I know that some of you | 14:31 | |
| are quick to reach the conclusion | 14:32 | |
| that I surely must be talking about heaven here. | 14:35 | |
| The place where the streets are paved with gold | 14:38 | |
| and angels float about on harps and play all day long. | 14:41 | |
| Well I'm not speaking about heaven. | 14:46 | |
| I don't know anything about heaven, | 14:48 | |
| and I don't trust people who tell me that they do. | 14:52 | |
| And I don't think there's anybody here | 14:56 | |
| who knows anything about heaven | 14:59 | |
| that they've not read in some badly written poem | 15:01 | |
| or some worsely written hymn. | 15:04 | |
| You know nothing about heaven, and I'm not talking | 15:06 | |
| about heaven at all. | 15:09 | |
| I say no more than the text says | 15:12 | |
| when Jesus says I am come that they may have life | 15:17 | |
| and that they have it more abundantly, | 15:22 | |
| and that they may have it more abundantly in the future | 15:26 | |
| than we have had it in the past. | 15:29 | |
| The radical news of the Gospel is not that heaven | 15:33 | |
| is the destination of the faithful. | 15:37 | |
| The radical news is that God wants us to flourish | 15:41 | |
| in our present lives. | 15:45 | |
| God wants us to flourish in our earthly existence, | 15:48 | |
| and to do so now and here and to do so more in the future | 15:53 | |
| than in the past. | 16:00 | |
| And that is perhaps the most important | 16:02 | |
| word alumnae need to hear. | 16:05 | |
| Your past, however pleasant here, was short | 16:09 | |
| and considerably less distinguished | 16:14 | |
| than you now imagine it to have been. | 16:16 | |
| It cannot be repeated. | 16:20 | |
| It cannot be recaptured, though many of you futilely | 16:23 | |
| and pleasantly tried to do so last night | 16:27 | |
| as I understand. | 16:31 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 16:32 | |
| What that reminded you was of an uncapturable elusive moment | 16:34 | |
| and none of you pretended or could possibly persuade | 16:41 | |
| anybody else that it was 1949 and not 1999. | 16:45 | |
| You cannot recapture that moment. | 16:51 | |
| Your present, well we know how elusive that is. | 16:55 | |
| When I talk to students at commencement in my university | 17:01 | |
| and I tell them over and over again | 17:05 | |
| that your best years are ahead of you, they don't believe me | 17:08 | |
| and I suspect if I tried that line here at Duke, | 17:13 | |
| they would respond in the same way. | 17:17 | |
| I know that because I have tried it here at Duke | 17:20 | |
| and they didn't believe me here either. | 17:23 | |
| But you are smarter than college seniors. | 17:26 | |
| Now you may not believe that because you can't | 17:32 | |
| program the VCR or you don't quite understand | 17:34 | |
| how to use your credit card to advantage, | 17:37 | |
| but you are truly smarter than college seniors | 17:42 | |
| because you do know that your best years | 17:46 | |
| were to be found outside | 17:50 | |
| of the college experience and beyond it. | 17:51 | |
| You embrace the future and you discovered | 17:55 | |
| that it was ready, in some sense, to receive you. | 17:58 | |
| When I hear people describe the college years | 18:02 | |
| as the best years of your life, | 18:05 | |
| you've heard that over and over again. | 18:07 | |
| They say college, those are the best four years of your life | 18:08 | |
| and I say if that is true, what a boring, tedious, | 18:13 | |
| and uninteresting life you must have led | 18:16 | |
| if those four prepubescent years were the best | 18:19 | |
| that it gotten in your fourscore years and 10. | 18:24 | |
| Of course not. | 18:29 | |
| It is not where you were, it is where you are going | 18:32 | |
| and what awaits you and confronts you and challenges you | 18:37 | |
| that should excite you and turn you on, and why? | 18:41 | |
| Because every one of us in embracing that promise | 18:44 | |
| of abundance in the future is given a claim | 18:49 | |
| for a second chance, and who is there | 18:53 | |
| in this chapel this morning so perfect, so satisfied, | 18:56 | |
| so accomplished who couldn't use a second chance? | 19:00 | |
| Who wouldn't like to try again? | 19:05 | |
| Who would not like to improve in the second edition | 19:09 | |
| upon the first edition? | 19:13 | |
| Now in the chapter of John's Gospel that immediately follows | 19:19 | |
| the point where my text comes from in John 10:10 | 19:22 | |
| is the story of Lazarus, | 19:26 | |
| the raising of Lazarus from the dead. | 19:29 | |
| The great resurrection story before the resurrection story | 19:31 | |
| and you all know that story. | 19:36 | |
| Lazarus was a friend of Jesus. | 19:39 | |
| Jesus was a friend of Lazarus | 19:42 | |
| and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. | 19:45 | |
| You know all about that, and you know about that account | 19:47 | |
| because it contains the shortest verse in the Bible. | 19:52 | |
| Those of us who used to have to do Bible verse drills | 19:56 | |
| in church school remember the story of Lazarus | 19:59 | |
| because of the shortest verse, Jesus wept. | 20:02 | |
| And so he did. | 20:07 | |
| We know about Lazarus, and we know how Lazarus died | 20:08 | |
| and was dead and buried in the tomb for four days, | 20:12 | |
| and we know how Jesus came and raised him from the dead | 20:17 | |
| and said Lazarus, come forth. | 20:21 | |
| And we have that image of Lazarus | 20:25 | |
| staggering out of the tomb, | 20:26 | |
| his eyes blinking into the bright sunlight of his new life | 20:29 | |
| and his new day, his second chance. | 20:33 | |
| We think we know the moral of that story, | 20:38 | |
| and that story is if the doctor can't help, Jesus can. | 20:41 | |
| This is a resurrection story, and prepares us | 20:47 | |
| for Jesus and the stunning reversal of death. | 20:50 | |
| The theologians warn us however, | 20:54 | |
| that Lazarus unlike Jesus was to die again. | 20:57 | |
| So we must not think that he was spared death. | 21:01 | |
| He was just given a reprieve. | 21:06 | |
| That's an interesting point, as many theological points are. | 21:08 | |
| It's an accurate point, as many theological points are. | 21:12 | |
| And it is beside the point, as many theological points are. | 21:16 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 21:20 | |
| Why is it beside the point? | 21:22 | |
| Because the interesting question | 21:24 | |
| is the unasked question in that story of Lazarus. | 21:26 | |
| And I've always wondered this, for example | 21:30 | |
| what went through Lazarus's mind | 21:33 | |
| when he heard those words of Jesus | 21:36 | |
| came out of the tomb | 21:39 | |
| and was unwrapped from his burial shroud? | 21:40 | |
| What went through his mind as he was called back to life? | 21:43 | |
| Did he sing the hallelujah chorus do you suppose? | 21:48 | |
| Say thank God almighty I'm free at last? | 21:51 | |
| Or did he say oh my god, not this again. | 21:54 | |
| Life with my sisters! | 21:58 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 22:00 | |
| We don't know. | 22:02 | |
| The text is silent. | 22:04 | |
| Mercifully, the text is silent on the fact, | 22:05 | |
| but the text is pregnant with the unasked question | 22:09 | |
| what now would Lazarus do with the second chance, | 22:13 | |
| the new life, the new opportunity given to him | 22:19 | |
| perhaps this time to get it right. | 22:24 | |
| Well you may not find Lazarus all that persuasive, | 22:28 | |
| being the secular unbiblical crowd that most of you are, | 22:34 | |
| except when you come back to chapel on alumni day. | 22:38 | |
| So I can invoke another figure that makes much more sense. | 22:42 | |
| I invoke a much more pregnant example than Lazarus. | 22:47 | |
| I invoke of all people, Ebenezer Scrooge. | 22:51 | |
| Now, Ebenezer Scrooge is wasted on Christmas. | 22:55 | |
| He is lost amidst all the claptrap | 23:00 | |
| and the sentimentality and the bad TV shows of Christmas, | 23:04 | |
| and besides, Ebenezer Scrooge is not about Christmas at all. | 23:09 | |
| It is an Easter story about a man | 23:15 | |
| who is given a second chance | 23:19 | |
| to live his life before death. | 23:22 | |
| When you watch A Christmas Carol next year, | 23:26 | |
| or read it to your children or grandchildren, | 23:29 | |
| remember Christmas may be the occasion | 23:32 | |
| but Easter is the story. | 23:37 | |
| Scrooge experiences the opportunity to live before he dies. | 23:40 | |
| Now were you to be given a second bite | 23:49 | |
| of the cookie, as it were. | 23:53 | |
| If you were to be given right now a second chance, | 23:55 | |
| a second time around at the ring, | 23:59 | |
| a second opportunity of making something of the life | 24:02 | |
| that is now before you, | 24:06 | |
| what literally on Earth would you do? | 24:08 | |
| Have you considered the fact | 24:12 | |
| that God created you for more than golf? | 24:13 | |
| Have you considered the fact that there is more | 24:18 | |
| to making a life than making a living? | 24:22 | |
| Have you considered the fact that maybe | 24:26 | |
| you have wasted and squandered opportunities | 24:28 | |
| but God may give you a chance to embrace | 24:31 | |
| an abundant life which breaks you away | 24:34 | |
| from your old and familiar and tedious habits. | 24:38 | |
| Is there going to be life for you | 24:43 | |
| before you die? | 24:47 | |
| That is a thought that you should think about | 24:50 | |
| at least through lunch today. | 24:53 | |
| And maybe a way of helping you think about that | 24:56 | |
| is the wonderful phrase of that Easter theologian Mae West. | 24:59 | |
| Remember, it was she who said | 25:04 | |
| "it is not the men in my life, but the life in my men." | 25:07 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 25:13 | |
| Something for you to think about, men and women. | 25:16 | |
| Mae West got it. | 25:21 | |
| She got what Jesus is talking about here | 25:23 | |
| when he says he wants you to have | 25:25 | |
| fullness of joy in your life. | 25:28 | |
| He wants abundance in your life. | 25:30 | |
| He wants you to live before you die | 25:33 | |
| in the fullness of the new and resurrected life. | 25:36 | |
| By this he does not mean more of this world's goods. | 25:41 | |
| He doesn't mean by this more material security. | 25:44 | |
| He doesn't mean by this more life | 25:49 | |
| in an ever bullish economy. | 25:52 | |
| He doesn't mean that at all. | 25:54 | |
| He wants you to know the richness, the fullness, | 25:56 | |
| the imagination, the power of living | 26:00 | |
| that so far has escaped you, | 26:02 | |
| that so far has avoided you, | 26:05 | |
| that so far has evaded you, | 26:07 | |
| he wants you to have that fullness of joy | 26:09 | |
| so that you can prosper and purpose in God's design for you. | 26:13 | |
| What he wants for you and for me | 26:21 | |
| is that piece which passeth understanding. | 26:25 | |
| That piece which this world cannot give. | 26:29 | |
| That piece which this world cannot take away. | 26:32 | |
| That piece which is so extraordinary that this world | 26:35 | |
| simply cannot understand it. | 26:38 | |
| The piece that passeth all understanding. | 26:40 | |
| That is the abundant life to which the risen lord | 26:46 | |
| invites you as you walk with him along the Emmaus Road. | 26:50 | |
| And you know what that piece is for it is that | 26:57 | |
| which will fill the void that | 27:02 | |
| inhabits the center of your being. | 27:04 | |
| It is that piece which gives meaning to meaninglessness. | 27:07 | |
| It is that piece which gives joy to drudgery. | 27:11 | |
| It is that piece which redeems | 27:16 | |
| the routine, the habit, the ordinary, | 27:19 | |
| the familiar, and the tired. | 27:23 | |
| It is yours for the living, | 27:27 | |
| and you do not have to die to experience | 27:31 | |
| this new and risen life. | 27:35 | |
| This life here and now that is | 27:39 | |
| the Easter Gospel available for you. | 27:42 | |
| That is why Easter is about you, | 27:46 | |
| and not about Jesus. | 27:50 | |
| That is why Easter is about life, | 27:52 | |
| and not about death. | 27:55 | |
| That is why Easter is about now, | 27:57 | |
| and not about the future. | 28:01 | |
| So wake up, my beloved and tired | 28:08 | |
| and slightly weary world people. | 28:12 | |
| Just wake up! | 28:15 | |
| You may have slept through the first third | 28:17 | |
| or even the second third of your lives | 28:21 | |
| just as you nodded through the first third | 28:24 | |
| or the second third of this sermon, wake up! | 28:26 | |
| You have a chance to step out into the sunlight | 28:30 | |
| and reclaim the life that God | 28:34 | |
| meant for you to have in the first time. | 28:36 | |
| That is what it means to rise up from the tomb | 28:39 | |
| and go out into the world. | 28:45 | |
| God desires that our life before our death | 28:49 | |
| abound and flourish in good things | 28:52 | |
| so much so, so pressed down and overflowing | 28:55 | |
| that we cannot help but share that abundance with others. | 29:00 | |
| We cannot keep it to ourselves. | 29:06 | |
| That is why they call it the good news. | 29:09 | |
| And it is the promise of that abundant good news | 29:13 | |
| that is yours for the asking | 29:18 | |
| and for the living in the risen Christ. | 29:21 | |
| You therefore have the rest of your life, | 29:25 | |
| less now than when we began, but still enough. | 29:29 | |
| You have the rest of your life | 29:35 | |
| to test that hypothesis of abundance | 29:37 | |
| by claiming it as your own. | 29:41 | |
| By claiming the life for which Christ Jesus came | 29:44 | |
| and gave up his own life as a ransom for us all. | 29:48 | |
| I am come that you may have life | 29:55 | |
| and that we may have it abundantly. | 30:00 | |
| This then is your new life. | 30:06 | |
| Use it, or lose it. | 30:12 | |
| Let us pray. | 30:20 | |
| Oh God who has prepared for us such good things | 30:26 | |
| as pass our understanding, | 30:29 | |
| pour into our hearts such love towards thee | 30:32 | |
| that we, loving thee above all things, | 30:36 | |
| may obtain thy promises which exceed all that we can desire | 30:39 | |
| through Jesus Christ our lord, amen. | 30:47 | |
| - | The lord is with you. | 31:01 |
| - | And also with you. | 31:03 |
| - | Let us pray. | 31:04 |
| Loving God we gather this day in this chapel so dear to us. | 31:11 | |
| We've never come here that we did not have a sense | 31:17 | |
| that you in this beloved place have come to us. | 31:22 | |
| Therefore, having heard your word | 31:29 | |
| preached faithfully and lively, | 31:32 | |
| having sung your praise we are now ready to lay ourselves | 31:35 | |
| and our need before your throne of grace. | 31:39 | |
| We cannot gather in this chapel | 31:45 | |
| without calling to mind that great cloud of witnesses, | 31:47 | |
| those dear saints who through the years | 31:50 | |
| blessed our lives at Duke, and in the world. | 31:53 | |
| James Cullen, Sterling Wilder, and Ben Smith, | 31:58 | |
| and Terry Sanford, and all the rest | 32:01 | |
| who taught us, loved us, guided us. | 32:06 | |
| Our lives are the sum of the gifts of others. | 32:10 | |
| Grace that makes all our lives in their debt. | 32:14 | |
| Thanks for the saints. | 32:22 | |
| We cannot gather in this chapel on so beautiful a day | 32:25 | |
| in so peaceful a place without remembering all those | 32:28 | |
| for whom this day is hard, ugly, and cruel | 32:32 | |
| because they suffer in the midst of civil strife and war. | 32:37 | |
| We pray for those in Kosovo and Yugoslavia | 32:43 | |
| and Albania and Rwanda | 32:46 | |
| and wherever there is war and cruelty. | 32:48 | |
| Particularly we pray for the children. | 32:52 | |
| We cannot gather in this place | 32:58 | |
| without calling to mind those who suffer | 32:59 | |
| due to sickness of body or mind, | 33:02 | |
| particularly those in Duke hospitals. | 33:04 | |
| Lord, you know what it is like to suffer. | 33:08 | |
| You know what it is like to grieve | 33:13 | |
| at the death of a friend. | 33:15 | |
| Therefore we pray for your healing and care, | 33:18 | |
| for all those who are ill | 33:21 | |
| and for those who care for those who are ill. | 33:23 | |
| Lord of life, be with people in pain. | 33:27 | |
| We gather today as any Sunday full of need | 33:34 | |
| that is inarticulate, too deep for words, secret, | 33:37 | |
| known only to you and to us. | 33:41 | |
| We now pray for those needs that people | 33:44 | |
| have brought to the service today. | 33:47 | |
| Make us bold to lay our need before you, | 33:51 | |
| and make us confident that you care | 33:54 | |
| and that you move toward us in love. | 33:57 | |
| For all this we pray, confident | 34:02 | |
| that you came to give us life | 34:06 | |
| and that abundantly amen. | 34:09 | |
| Now let us stand and exchange signs of God's love and peace. | 34:15 |