Christ the King

Henry Van Dyke wrote a fictional account of a "fourth" Wise Man's journey to Bethlehem to visit the newborn King. Actually, the Gospel doesn't tell us how many Wise Men (or Magi) followed the "Star of Bethlehem," but according to popular tradition, there were three: Caspar, Melchior and Baltassar.
But there also is a tradition of the "Fourth Wise Man" whose name was Artaban...
As Artaban prepared to follow the star, he carefully wrapped three valuable gifts for the newborn King: a glittering sapphire, a magnificent ruby and a pearl of great price.
On his way to the place where he was to meet the other Magi and begin the journey, Artaban
encountered a sick traveler who was alone and in need of help. If he stopped to assist the sick person, Artaban would surely miss the rendezvous with his friends. Nevertheless, he stayed. Consequently, he was late for the departure of the caravan. Now he had to make the journey alone, and he needed supplies and transportation. So he sold the sapphire in order to purchase camels and the supplies he needed to cross the desert. He was saddened to realize that the newborn King would not receive the precious gem.
After a long and tedious journey following the star, Artaban finally reached Bethlehem -- only to
discover that soldiers were everywhere, due to Herod's command to slay all the male children in the village. Artaban, therefore, used the magnificent ruby to bribe the captain of the soldiers and save some of the innocent children. Children were spared, mothers rejoiced, but the magnificent ruby would not be presented to the newborn King.
Artaban remained undaunted. He resolved never to give up his search. He searched in vain until, thirtythree years later, he found his way into Jerusalem on the very day that several crucifixions were to take place on a hill called Calvary. Deep within his soul, he somehow knew that the King of Kings he had been searching for all his life was on that hill. And so he hastened to Calvary intent on using his pearl of great price to bribe Jesus' executioners. On his way, he encountered a young woman who was being dragged to the slave market. She pleaded for help. Whereupon, he gave his last jewel -- the pearl of great price -- for her ransom.
Finally, he reached the place where the crucifixions were to take place, and quickly realized there was nothing he could do to help his King of Kings. He was brokenhearted. Then something remarkable happened. Jesus looked down from the Cross and said to him: "Don't be brokenhearted Artaban.
You've been helping Me all your life. When I was hungry, you gave Me food. When I was thirsty, you gave Me drink. When I was naked, you clothed Me. When I was a stranger, you took Me in."
Some say that Artaban should not be called the "Fourth Wise Man" because He didn't find the newborn Jesus in the Bethlehem stable with the other three. Others say he was the wisest of the Wise Men. On that hill called Calvary, some people stood and watched passively, perhaps uncaringly. Others jeered. The chief priests and scribes dropped to their knees and mocked Jesus, saying, "All hail, king of the Jews!" They spat at Him, saying "He saved others but He cannot save Himself...Let's see Him come down from the Cross! Then we will believe Him!" One of the two criminals hanging next to Jesus reacted angrily, cynically: "If Jesus is the Savior He claims to be, why is He bleeding and dying, hanging between two criminals? Why doesn't He save all three of us from this terrible death? Why? Why? Why?" The second criminal's reaction, however, was one of great faith. "Remember me when You enter Your reign," He asks Jesus.
The Apostle John reacted obediently. From the Cross, Jesus said to His mother, "Woman, there is your son." Then He turned to John and said, "There is your mother." "From that hour onward," Scripture tells us, John took the mother Mary "into his care."
To this day, the Gospel Story has been evoking the same mixed reactions to Jesus' life and ministry. Some of us react with fear and apprehension. Some with obedience. Some with indifference. Some with cowardice. Some with cynicism. Some with scorn. Some have decided that since it seems not to matter what one believes, it might be easier not to believe at all. This modern "cop-out" is largely responsible for the powerful wave of emptiness and aimlessness which seems to overwhelm so many of today's people.
Many of us react to Jesus like the criminal at Calvary who wanted to know "Why?" If Jesus is the Savior He claims to be then why doesn't He save us from war and cancer and heart attacks and auto accidents and poverty and injustice and loneliness? Why doesn't He do something about this mess we are in on planet earth? How can He be aware of it all and fail to act?
A child drowns while the lifeguard is elsewhere and some people will react with pious words about it being "God's Will." Others will want nothing to do with a God who plans such tortures. The truth is that we mere humans haven't the capacity to resolve such problems on our own. We are the creatures of God. Only God is God. Only God is Creator. Only God has all the answers. And the one solid answer He has given us is that He already has done something! He has given us His Son, who lived a human life and died a painfully human death in order to show us that God understands our needs, hears our prayers, will never abandon us. He has given us His Son in order to reveal the Resurrection Power of His Love.
When we come together like this, we each come with our own pressure-points and our own particular set of problems. That is the wonder of human life: each of us is unique. Each of us has a unique set of these conditions. Not even two people in the same family bear the same set of conditions. Some of us, for example, are feeling pressure at the point of identity. We hear so much these days about the "identity crisis" so many people are going through: the need to find out who we are, and to be who we
are. This isn't just the problem of young people. It is the problem of people of all ages. Deep in the life of each one of us the cry goes up: "I've got to be Me!" It seems that the more we learn, the more we need to know about who we are, and the more we need to be who we are.
A little girl was given her birth certificate to take to her new school. "Be sure not to lose it," her mother said. Well, she lost it, and when someone saw her crying and asked her what was wrong, she answered, "I've just lost my excuse for being born." That is what we are talking about here. Some of us haven't found our excuse for being born, or we've lost it temporarily, and that is a real pressure point in our lives. Not very much in life can make sense until we find out who we are and begin to grow into that
person. Wherever you are, whatever your pressure points, however you are hurting, God comes to you in and through Christ the King to tell you that He loves you -- His unique creative masterpiece -- totally and eternally.
There is an old Hassidic tale about an elderly rabbi who was highly respected for his piety. One day, a devoted young disciple came to him and, in a burst of enthusiasm, cried out, "My master, I love you." Whereupon, the wise old teacher looked into the eyes of his fervent disciple and tenderly asked, "Do you know what hurts me, my son?" A puzzled look came over the young man's face. "Master, forgive me, but I do not understand your question. I am trying to express my deep feelings about you and you respond by asking me a confusing and irrelevant question." To which the rabbi replied, "My question is neither confusing nor irrelevant, for if you don't know what hurts me, how can you truly love me?"
We came to this house of worship presumably to position ourselves under the Rule of Christ Our King, and to express our love for Him. And, if we're really listening during our worship experience, we will hear him ask: "Do you know what hurts Me?" And if we're still tuned in, we will hear Him say: "Your disobedience to My command to 'Love one another' -- that is what hurts Me."

33rd sunday c end times

In the popular film, "Four Weddings and a Funeral," the humor which is present in the first three
weddings disappears when death comes to one of the characters -- a man who loved life. At the funeral
service, W.H. Auden's sad poem entitled "Funeral Blues" is read. And the scene is filled with an
overwhelming sense of heartbreak. Here are some of the words from "Funeral Blues":
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my
midnight, my talk, my song; I thought love would last forever, I was wrong.
Overwhelmingly sad though those lines may be, they too are wrong. By the Resurrection Power of
God, love does last forever. And isn't that what we come together to celebrate over-and-over again?
Isn't that the Good News we've just heard in today's Gospel Lesson, which Jesus describes as a
"wisdom" no one can "resist or contradict." (Lk. 21:14,15).
In today's Lesson, Jesus gives us the bad news and the Good News. The bad news is that, in this life of
ours, some of our worst fears may come to pass. There may be wars and revolutions and earthquakes
and famines and plagues and persecutions and betrayals and hatreds, to name a few. The Good News
is that, because God is still God, nothing can happen that does not have redemptive value. Because
God is still God, somehow, beyond our ability to comprehend, we shall never suffer in vain. Because
God is still God, He transforms sorrow into joy, death into life, heartbreak into ecstasy. Jesus puts it
metaphorically saying, "not a hair of your head will be lost" (Lk. 21:19). Follow Jesus, and you have
nothing to lose. Follow Jesus, and you have everything to gain. Follow Jesus, who transforms mere
existence into new life.
New life? It sounds good, but what is it really? To be perfectly honest with you, I can't logically
explain it, but as Jesus often did in His parables, I can offer you a few examples ...
A certain computer salesman went to a big, important sales meeting. Being a thoroughly meticulous
man, he calculated both the meeting and travelling time to the point where he could assure his wife that
he would be home in plenty of time for dinner. But it so happened that the meeting lasted longer than
he had anticipated, and he found himself racing through the train station,ticket in hand, trying not to
miss the commuter he had planned on taking. As he barrelled through the terminal, immediately in
front of him was another man rushing to make the same train. He saw the man accidentally knock over
a table holding a basket of fresh, shiny fruit. Without stopping, both men reached the train and
climbed aboard with a sigh of relief. But the man coming from the sales meeting had second thoughts.
Getting in touch with his feelings, he focused on the boy whose fruit stand had been overturned by the
man who had been running in front of him. Then he jumped back onto the platform and ran back to the
overturned fruit stand. where he discovered that it belonged to a lad who was blind. The salesman
quickly righted the upturned stand and, as he gathered up the fruit, he noticed that some of it had been
bruised. He reached into his wallet and said to the boy, "Here is ten dollars for the damaged fruit. I
hope this didn't ruin your day." And as he started to walk away, the blind boy called after him, "Are
you Jesus?"
A certain preacher tells the story of a visit he once made to a nursing home for the elderly. There, as he
often did, he played his guitar and sang for the residents, then greeted each one personally. As he
circulated through the residents, one of them took his hand and asked him to return on a certain date.
"Why that particular date," the clergyman asked. "It will be my 100th birthday," the woman answered.
"How have you come to live so long?" he asked. The woman explained: "I once had a wonderful
husband, but he is gone. I once had beautiful children, but they are gone. That was what I had then.
This is what I have now." And she opened her arms and gestured to all her companions in the room.
On an afternoon in May, a certain woman on her way home from work boarded a bus. In her words,
"The day had started off rotten. I overslept and was late for work. Everything that happened at the
office filled me with stress and anxiety. By the time I reached the bus stop on my homeward journey I
was ready for a triple dose of "Mylanta" and a six-pack of "Tums." The bus was late, of course, and
jam-packed. As I stood in the aisle, the lurching bus made my stomach queasier and my spirits
gloomier. Then I heard a deep voice from up front: "Beautiful day isn't it?" I couldn't see the man, but
I heard him comment as we rode by: on the lovely spring greenery, on the beautiful Church windows,
on the children romping in the park, on the stately old firehouse, on the lush cemetery lawns, and more.
Soon, all the passengers were gazing out the windows. And I caught myself smiling for the first time
all day. When we reached my stop, I got a glimpse of our self-appointed 'guide.' He was a plump,
bearded man, wearing dark glasses and carrying a white cane. Incredible! He was blind! I stepped off
the bus and, suddenly, all my built-up tensions drained away. God had sent a blind man to help me see
that when all seems dark and dreary, it is still a beautiful world, His beautiful world. Humming a tune,
I raced up the steps to my apartment. I couldn't wait to greet my husband with: It's a beautiful world,
isn't it!"
In the Gospels we find, over-and-over again, the Good News of the kind of full life God wants us to
live because He loves us so much. Through Jesus Christ, He is offering us the full life that, deep down
inside, we want -- for ourselves, for those we love, for the world. This full life in Christ is a gift, and it
is a real possibility for each of us. At this very point in your life, you can begin to grow into the full,
creative, unique, beautiful person God created you to be. And it all depends on your acceptance of the
gift on God's terms. You have heard about the gift of new life, but if you are unwilling to position
yourself to receive it, by paying the cost, you will miss it.
Some of us are physically or emotionally ill or inwardly distraught and discouraged and depressed, and
have awful feelings of fragmentation and incompleteness. And, in many cases, it is simply because we
are not willing to pay the cost of receiving the gift of new life God wants to give us. The cost? The
Gospel writers make it perfectly clear that until you come to terms, at a deep inward level, with the
experience of repentance -- CHANGE -- there is no way God can give you the life that you so much
want.
"God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved by
Him," we read in John's Gospel (Jn. 3:17). God sent His Son into the world to make you an
instrument of His love. At rock bottom, what your life is all about, really, is to make your way to the
head of the class in the "Divinely Created School of Learning How To Love" in which we all live
together. And, in the pursuit of that goal, the constant, ongoing, ever-present need to change is
required of every one of us.
Somebody is needed to do the Savior's work of healing and reconciling and peacemaking. Somebody
is needed to help make life more acceptable, more beautiful, more rewarding, more enriching.
Somebody human is needed to do a Divine job. And that somebody is you!
"Your endurance will win you your lives," Jesus promises us , one and all, in today's Gospel Lesson
(Lk. 21:19). And that is because love does last forever!

tomorrow belongs to God 32nd sunday C

In religion classes, among the first lessons taught to children are the Ten Commandments. Some
teachers require that they be memorized. Others prefer to stress the underlying principles of the
commandments. One teacher, who combined both approaches, would relate an incident to illustrate one
of the commandments and then ask the children which commandment applied. The dialogue went
something like this:
Teacher: John's parents went shopping at 9 a.m. Before leaving the house, they told John to get out of
bed and wash the breakfast dishes before they returned. The parents returned at noon. John was still in
bed and the dirty breakfast dishes were still on the table.
Student: HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.
Teacher: Helen was with her mother in a supermarket. While mother was busy unloading her basket
at the checkout counter, Helen took a candy bar from the shelf and slipped it into her pocket.
Student: YOU SHALL NOT STEAL.
The young students did very well on the simple illustrations. But they could be stumped by more
complex examples. For instance:
Teacher: George sometimes had a nasty temper. One day he got into an argument with his sister.
When it seemed that George was losing the argument, he grabbed his sister's pet kitten and tried to pull
its tail off. The children were puzzled. There was a long pause. Then a student raised his hand
triumphantly and blurted out: WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER, LET NO MAN PUT
ASUNDER!
The Ten Commandments form the centerpiece of the Law of Moses -- God's first great gift of
revelation. In today's Gospel, Jesus encounters some men who were experts on the Ten
Commandments. These men were known as Sadducees -- members of an ultra-conservative religious
party who accepted as authoritative only those things written down in the Law of Moses (the first five
books of the Old Testament). Because of this religious outlook, they rejected many of the things Jesus
was teaching. For example, they rejected the notion of bodily resurrection. Their view of afterlife was
pessimistic, joyless. The abode of the departed was called "Sheol." It was a nether-world, deeply
imbedded in the earth, where the soul lived a shadowy sort of life. A grim picture of Sheol is found in
the book of Ecclesiastes: "Whatever work you propose to do, do it while you live, for there is neither
achievement, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going" (Eccl. 9:10).
"Sheol" is described as "a land of darkness, with death's shadow over all." However, during the two
centuries immediately preceding Jesus' birth, an expanded awareness of the hereafter-state had begun
to emerge in the Old testament people's consciousness. This included a notion of bodily resurrection,
more or less in harmony with Jesus' teaching on the "last things." But this was anathema to the
Sadducees. The purity of the old doctrine was at stake. What better way to neutralize this doctrinal
contamination, they reasoned, than to make Jesus look foolish before His followers? Thus, in today's
Lesson, we find the Sadducees challenging Jesus' vision of afterlife. They present Jesus with the
hypothetical case of a woman who had been widowed seven times. After her seventh husband was
gone, the woman herself died. Given this situation, Jesus is asked the following question: "At the
resurrection, whose wife will she be? Remember, seven married her" (Luke 20:33).
Jesus rejects the Sadducees' effort to read the conditions of time-and-space into the unknown eternal.
He rejects their effort to place earthly limitations on eternal life. Tomorrow belongs to God. We can
but glimpse eternity, within the limits of our finite understanding. Beyond that we may look toward the
eternal future only through eyes of faith in the Resurrection Power of God ...
A Resurrection faith in God's plan of salvation that admits of only two eternally enduring relationships:
the Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man in union with the Lord Jesus.
A Resurrection faith in Jesus' prescription for our sweetest foretaste of the Father's eternal love,
namely, our own acts of loving service to one another.
A Resurrection faith in Jesus' teaching that our works of peace and brotherhood signify our willingness
to serve God, to trust God, and to love God.
A little boy asked his dad for permission to go outside and "have a game of 'catch' with God." Dad was
puzzled. "How do you play 'catch' with God?" he asked. "Easy," answered the little boy, "I just throw
my ball up in the air and God throws it back!"
If we want to experience wholeness of life, we need to acknowledge that tomorrow belongs to God.
We need to trust in God's tomorrow with the childlike attitude of the little boy who trusted in God to
send his ball back. The ball will come back. The sun will come up tomorrow. God will keep His
promise to us that our life is going someplace; that life is worthwhile; that the pieces of life's puzzle
will fit, ultimately ... all in God's time, God's tomorrow.
"God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for Him," Jesus said (Lk. 20:38). God,
the God of the living, wants us to point our life toward tomorrow by living today (unlike the Sadducees
in today's Gospel Lesson who preferred to live in the past).
If you somehow have been turned off to the infinite possibilities of God's Resurrection Power, if you
have been losing faith in your ability to do what needs to be done in order to achieve your full human
potential, you are spiritually dead. That is to say, you are blocking the God of the Living out of your
life.
God's Love does find a way. Nothing we have done in life prevents God from giving us a new
tomorrow. No mistake, no wrong decision, no wrongful act of any kind can defeat God's Will to
forgive us, to bind up our wounds, to show us the way to new life in a new tomorrow -- sometimes in
the most surprising, most wondrous ways.
Especially in times of turmoil and tension, we need to put our childlike trust in God's power to move us
confidently into a new tomorrow.
A gigantic retrospective showing of the late Pablo Picasso's works was held at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City. More than 900 of Picasso's works were displayed chronologically, beginning
when he was a very young boy. Most of the earlier works were traditional landscapes and still-lifes.
Then, as the artist advanced in age, brilliant colors began to emerge, and the still-lifes were no longer
very still. Finally, of course, the works turned into the kind of bold, zesty experiments for which
Picasso is best-known today. One art critic who saw the show recalled that once, when Picasso was
eighty-five, he was asked the reason why his earlier works were so solemn and his later works so
exuberant and exciting. "How do you explain it?" asked the interviewer. "Easily," Picasso answered,
his eyes sparkling. "It takes a long time to become young!"
To become young! For some it takes a long time. For others it takes an even longer time. But Jesus
promises eternal salvation to those who become young enough in spirit to trust God like a little child
trusts a good, loving parent.
Believe in tomorrow because tomorrow belongs to God! Place your eternal life in God's good hands!

31st sunday c. today salvation has come to this house

Luke 19:9

"Now is the favorable time; this is the day of salvation," the Apostle Paul wrote to the members of the Church in Corinth (2 Cor. 6:2). Now! Today! In the midst of our daily ups and downs, in the midst of our joys and sorrows, in the midst of our earthly pilgrimage, God wants to bring us alive to His saving Presence. God wants us to make the Good News of Jesus Christ the basis of our everyday, now experience. God wants us to trust in His promise that, for each of us, this is the day of salvation.

"This is the day of salvation!" What do we mean by that? We can delve deeply into the theology of salvation. We can discuss salvation in abstract terms. We can debate over various ideas of salvation. But eventually we will realize that it takes more than a head-trip to put real Christian meaning behind the word "salvation." Understanding salvation is more than an intellectual exercise. Understanding salvation is a matter of the heart. Understanding salvation is a matter of experiencing it.

We finite creatures do not have the capacity to grasp God's plan for our salvation in its fullness, but we are given a glimpse -- an exciting glimpse that brings God's promise of eternal happiness down to earth. Our gracious God has given us a clue to the mystery of salvation. He brings it into our everyday life, not as a concept but as an experience. God has implanted deep within us the Grace (the source of power) to experience the mystery of salvation. God wants us to be alive to it. God wants us to allow it to surface in our life.

A famous lawyer was reflecting on the major events in his long years of practice. After describing several happy and rewarding episodes, he was asked to recall the most memorable event of his professional career. He was quiet for a moment, then replied, "Over the years, the one single event that has influenced my life more than any other is a terribly sad interview I had with a prospective client." He recalled the incident in these words:

One day, soon after I began practice, a handsome and fashionably dressed woman came into my office. She was in her mid-twenties and had been married for five years. She told me that she had been having trouble with her husband. I supposed that my visitor had come in search of a legal solution to her problem. "Do you have any evidence on which you might base an action for divorce?" I asked. "Oh no sir," she replied, "I don't want a divorce." Then I told her the grounds on which she might seek a legal separation. "But I don't want a separation," she protested. Being now somewhat puzzled, I told her that I might bring an action in the domestic relations court to compel her husband to contribute a weekly sum to her support. "But I don't want him to contribute to my support," the woman said tearfully. "I can make more money than he can." I had reached the point of exasperation. "Well, madam," I said, "You don't want a divorce and you don't want a separation and you don't want your husband to contribute to your support. How then can I advise you when I have no idea what you want?" The tears began to run down the woman's cheeks. She faltered, then stammered woefully, "I want ... him ... to ... I want him to love me!"

There are persons in this world who need your love, persons who want you to love them now! This is the day of your salvation! This is the day for you to rearrange your priorities in the light of the Gospel Message. This is the day for you to begin to be the beautiful, caring, loving, person God wants you to be. This is the day for you to enter into the experience of eternal life with God. Eternal life is to "know you, the only true God," Jesus prayed to the Father (Jn. 17:3). "My dear people," the Apostle John wrote, "Let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is Love ..." (1 Jn. 4:7-8).

One Halloween night, a neighborhood practical joker decided to frighten the young "trick-or-treaters" who rang his doorbell. He put on a floor-length black cape, a black hat fitted with devil's horns, and a hideous mask that seemed to combine the most gruesome features of "Dracula," "Frankenstein," and the "Wolf Man." Then he waited. Finally, his doorbell rang. He turned off all the lights and, shining a flashlight on his mask, he opened the door and pierced the night air with an eerie scream. Then he looked down and saw standing before him a tiny, golden-haired, five-year-old, dressed as a dainty fairy. The little tyke stared wide-eyed for a moment. Then she raised her eyes up along the massive black cape, looked straight into the hideous mask, smiled and said, "Is your mommy home?"

Very often, in our relationships with one another, whether we see devils or angels often depends on where we're coming from: our fundamental attitude and approach to life. Have we taken to heart the religious knowledge we have stored up in our head? Have we consciously chosen to make the Good News of Jesus Christ the basis for our everyday, now experience? Have we begun to reflect the Love of God in the experience of our everyday, now relationships?

Today's Gospel story is about an encounter Jesus had with a man who had made a fundamental change in his attitude and approach to life. This man, Zacchaeus, was a tax-collector who had grown wealthy in his profession. We may assume from what we know about the social and political conditions of the time that he had acquired at least some of his fortune through unethical business practices -- even gangsterism. (That's what tax-collectors were like in those days.) However, Zacchaeus had repented: reformed his life; changed his ways. And when this Jesus (whom everyone was talking about and who claimed to speak for God) came to town, Zacchaeus was determined to get close to Him. Large numbers of people had turned out to greet Jesus as he entered the City of Jericho. Because Zacchaeus was a very short man, the crowd blocked his view. He couldn't even see Jesus. "He first ran out in front," Luke tells us, but that didn't work. Then he "climbed a sycamore tree which was along Jesus' route," and that did work. Jesus saw the excited man, perching in the tree, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today" (Lk. 19:6). Hearing this, the crowd became resentful toward Jesus. They knew Zacchaeus was a tax-collector. "He has gone to stay at a sinner's house," they complained. For this reason, Zacchaeus was most anxious for Jesus to realize that he had reformed his life and that he was sincerely trying to do God's Will. He told Jesus that he had been going far beyond the requirements of religious law in his effort to right the wrongs he had done to others. He had hurt people in the past and now he was walking that extra mile in order to be reconciled to them. And he is excited about this. That is why he scurried around the fringes of the crowd trying to get a glimpse of Jesus. That is why he scrambled up the sycamore tree. That is why he quickly came down from his perch when Jesus spoke to him. Something wonderful and exciting had happened to his life and he just had to share this good news with Jesus and the others.

And that is the whole point of our New Testament Gospel of salvation. When God's Grace touches you at the very center of your being (as it did, obviously, to Zacchaeus), the Source of power and vitality to give life real meaning and purpose wells up inside you and moves you into a whole new style of life. And you want to shout it from the housetops: "This is the day of salvation!"
Your salvation is at hand! Come alive, therefore, to the cries of "I want you to love me!" Come alive, therefore, to every opportunity for rescuing another person from the terror and the horror of loneliness and despair! Come alive, therefore, to the experience of joy that comes when your actions reflect God's Love in a healing, saving way. Come alive, therefore, to the experience of your own salvation.