excerpt from "Unfinished Business"
When you hear a sermon that is based on Biblical scripture – the preacher is not adding anything to the truth that the bible contains, but he or she is making it relevant again in terms of our modern life. When you read a story or poem based on the Bible or sing a hymn– again the author is not adding to the truth but taking that truth and making it real for us – making it part of our lives – part of our being.
And when you absorb its teachings, as you read it for yourself – you are hardly likely to feel that you could pick up your pen and add to its contents. Yet, in a reality you are writing a new chapter – a chapter no one else can write. For every man or woman or as it says in Nehemiah “all who could listen and understand” – if everyone who has been gripped by the message of the Bible is really a living translation of the Book – and there are many people today – in our community –whose first contact with the Bible is through the life of a friend or neighbor. The way you share your faith becomes a conduit for others to learn about Jesus Christ.
Listen to these wonderful words from 2 Corinthians 3 – “ Do we need letters of introduction to you or from you , like some other people? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show us that you are a letter from Christ sent through us. This letter is not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not written on stone tablets but on human hearts.” We know the epistles – letters – are contained in the New Testament. Don’t we also know people who are living epistles – people whose Christian lives are an open book? Just as the children and I were able to find people in this sanctuary whose lives touched ours and who have shared their God given gifts – we all know people like that – and hopefully are people like that.
In the middle of the Bible – this very profitable book – there is a book that is obviously and surprisingly unfinished – and that is the book of Acts. It lies between the four gospels and the epistles and forms a kind of link between the story of Christ and the teachings given by the apostles to the early church membership. If you haven’t read Acts lately I suggest you take it up and read it sometime soon (like even today) and read it in one gulp – not little sips like we often do with the bible. Read it in one of the contemporary translations that’s printed more like a modern book – one without verse divisions more like a modern novel. It only has 29 chapters so it could easily be read in one sitting. It’s an exciting story and begins with the bewildered disciples just after the events that we now call Holy Week and Easter. They are still wondering what it was that has happened to them. Max Lucado says “that although we meet the same men with the same names and the same mannerisms they are different. They have stood face to face with God. And because they are different so is the world.”
Acts tells the story of how they become a new community – a church of Jesus Christ and they knew that his spirit was alive and well within and among them. Immediately the infant church is launched into action - the beginning of the most dynamic movement that has ever swept the lives of human beings.
Pastor Lorah Houser Jankord 
January 24, 2010
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