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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Humor: It'll Come Back to You</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>This preacher moved
to a new Church. This particular church didn't have a lawn mower so he
was looking for someone to either mow the lawn or sell him a used
lawnmower. One day he saw a young man going by pushing a lawnmower. So
the preacher asked him, "Hey, looking for a job?" The young man said,
"Sure." It turned out that he was mowing yards and trying to earn enough
money to buy a bicycle. This preacher was kind of young and didn't mind
mowing the yard so he told the young man, "Look, I've got a 10 speed
bicycle that I never ride any more. What do you say we trade the bicycle
for the lawnmower."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Well, the young man
was ecstatic. They swapped and the young man took off on the bicycle.
He rode around the block and came back to see the preacher standing in
the same place wiping sweat off his brow. The preacher waved the boy
over and said, "Hey, I've pulled on the rope a half a dozen times and
this lawn mower just won't start."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The young man said,
"Preacher, I hate to tell you this but it's a special kind of
lawnmower. You have to cuss it to get it to start."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The preacher looked at him and said, "Well, I've been in the ministry so long I don't think I can remember how to cuss."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The young man grinned and said, "Pull on the rope some more and it'll come back to you."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The point is this,
we ought not stay on the mountain top so long that we forget what it is
like to be in the crowd. Like Peter, we shouldn't forget that our work
is in the crowds.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Traditional </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>____________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>A Haunting Moment</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>John Killinger
tells this story about a haunting moment: "Somewhere in my journals
there is an entry about how strongly it hit me one day as I was sitting
in the chancel of a church, waiting to deliver the guest sermon. A
beautiful woman was playing a violin solo. Her lovely hands worked
continuously at the frets and the bow, evoking the most soulful music I
thought I had ever heard. There was a rose pinned in her exquisitely
coiffed hair. I was transported.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>"Then a dark
thought crossed my mind, as if it had been a cloud passing between me
and the sun. In a few years the woman would become old. The rose in her
hair would die. Her soft hands would be gnarled and wrinkled by age. She
would stop playing the instrument. She would be confined to a bed or a
wheelchair. Then she, too, would die.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>"The music brought
me back again to a realization of how beautiful it was. But I did not
recover from the image of the violinist as an old woman. It haunted me
for days."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>John Killinger, Letting God Bless You, Nashville, Abingdon, 1992, quoted in sermon by William Willimon.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>___________________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Slow Down and Listen</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Writer Charles
Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days.
He got nervous and tense about it. He was snapping at his wife and
children, choking down his food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated
every time there was an unexpected interruption in his day. He recalls
in his book "Stress Fractures" that before long, things around their
home started reflecting the pattern of his hurry-up life style. He said
the situation was becoming unbearable. Then it happened.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>After supper one
evening his younger daughter, Colleen wanted to tell him something
important that had happened to her at school that day. She began
hurriedly, "Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really
fast."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Suddenly realizing
her frustration, Swindoll answered, "Honey, you can tell me -- and you
don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." He has never
forgotten her answer: "Then listen slowly."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>I can hear God's
voice saying to Peter, James, and John: "This is my Son, listen to him!
Slow down. Don't be so quick to move things your way, to shape the world
as you see it Peter. Don't be so quick to climb the corporate ladder,
to join the rat pack and be number one John. Don't try to beat your
colleagues to the first position James. Slow down. My Son is trying to
show you another way, another world, another kingdom. If you will listen
slowly.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Brett Blair, <a shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001MVbkup1F9Q-6dOVxzccoiqj4M6g1obxMl0IopUP8ViJDfd2Mn9F5MaYtlpZXNuXRCkxQzPtDn10bzrbPHGBQMxGrwADP8icWB6rGST4IT1o=">www.Sermons.com</a>.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>______________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Figuring Out The Transfiguration</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Madeleine L'Engle, the great Christian writer, said we tend to avoid this story for the following reason, in her words:</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>The Christian
holiday which is easiest for us is Christmas, because it touches on what
is familiar. The story of the young man and woman who were turned away
from the inn, and had a baby in a stable, surrounded by gentle animals,
is one we have known always. I doubt if many two or three-year-olds are
told at their mother's knee about the Transfiguration ... And so,
because the story of Christmas is part of our folklore, we pay more
attention to its recognizableness than to the fact that the tiny baby in
the manger contained the power which created galaxies and set the stars
in their courses.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>She concludes by saying:</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>We are not taught
much about the wilder aspects of Christianity. But these are what
artists have wrestled with throughout the years.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>_______________________</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Mountain Top Experiences</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Fred Craddock tells
a wonderful story about a young minister, newly graduated from
seminary, serving his very first church. He gets a call telling him that
a church member, elderly woman who has just given her life to the
church, is in the hospital. She's so weak she can't even get up out of
bed, and the doctors don't hold much hope for her recovery. Would he go
up and visit? Well, of course he will and he does.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>All the way to the
hospital he's thinking about what he will say to this Christian lady,
what words of comfort he can give her to prepare her for her eminent
death. He arrives at the hospital, goes up to her room for the visit. He
sits and talks with her a few minutes, just small talk really, nothing
earth shattering. When he makes ready to leave, he asks if she would
like him to have prayer with her. She answers, "Yes, of course. That's
why I wanted you to come."</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>He then asks politely, "And what exactly would you like me to pray for?"</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>"Why, I want you to pray that God will heal me," she answers in a surprised tone of voice.</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>Haltingly, fumbling
over the words, he prays just as she wanted, that God will heal her,
even though he's not really sure that can happen. When he says the
"Amen" at the end of the prayer, the woman says...</span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px">The rest of this illustration and <span>many additional illustrations and sermons for this week, Lent and Easter, can be accessed at <a shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001MVbkup1F9Q-6dOVxzccoiqj4M6g1obxMl0IopUP8ViJDfd2Mn9F5MaYtlpZXNuXRCkxQzPtDn10bzrbPHGBQMxGrwADP8icWB6rGST4IT1o=">www.Sermons.com</a>. </span></div>
<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span> </span></div>
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