WOKE BUT RESTING; RESTING BUT WOKE (audio of sermon)

The title of the message from the Exodus preaching series is: WOKE BUT RESTING; RESTING BUT WOKE.

Listen well and leave a comment.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, AL 35064

THE WEEKEND: (Blogging through Genesis)

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. ² And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

³ Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.  (Genesis 2: 1-3)

Friday, at 5 P.M., I posted a grant application, acknowledged a confirmation text, and closed my laptop.  The rest of my weekend was dedicated to moving my daughter into her dorm room to begin her first year as a college student. You could say that “I ended the work which I had done, and rested from my work which I had done.”

As I write this post it’s Sunday evening and my daughter’s all moved in.  Monday, bright and early, I’ll be back in the office doing the same work which I’d ceased from doing for the weekend.  I mean, just because I stopped working for the weekend doesn’t mean I quit my job.

In the 6 days of Genesis chapter 1, God showed Moses how He had created the heavens, the earth, and the earliest forms of terrestrial life. Then for a single one-day weekend God rested.  No new building projects for 24 hours.   But, God taking a weekend off doesn’t mean He quit creating.

Since that first weekend, God has made the trees at  the edge of my yard, the clouds in the sky today, the earthworms burrowing under the foundation of wherever your wifi hotspot is connected,  you, me, and all the species of plant, animal, and microbe that did not exist when the first human beings walked around naked, munching on nuts, and berries, and “every green herb for food” (Genesis 1:30).   Bright and early everyday God is busy in the Creating business.

With so much work yet to do, why did God take a day off?  Same reason the owner or CEO at our jobs takes a day off:  He wanted to.

God wasn’t physically exhausted.

“ Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The everlasting God, the Lord,the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.” (Isaiah 40:28a)

He wasn’t out of ideas.

 “His understanding is unsearchable.”

And, God didn’t rest on the 7^th day because day #7 was holy.  He set apart the 7^th day because that happened to be the day He’d rested.  Wine and bread aren’t objectively holier than any other drink-carbohydrate combination.  When wine and bread are consecrated, they become holy communion.  When the end of the week was sanctified, it became the Sabbath. The Sabbath is holy, but the number 7 isn’t special. 

No. No, it isn’t. 

God simply chose to spend a day experiencing and enjoying His creative work cause He felt like it, and it’s O.K., for God to rejoice and enjoy Himself, too.  (Zephaniah 3:17)

And, though He didn’t say so, God clearly thought the way He spent the day was good because “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” 

The benefits of a weekly day of rest are so good, so very good for us that the Lord made it mandatory.  As Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). 

So, the day after God invented humanity, God invented the Sabbath for the benefit of humanity. 

Even on His day off, God was taking care of us.

Take a day this week, and every week to think about that. 

Do what God did.  Take a break from pursuing wealth, influence, attention, or whatever it is we spend the rest of the week doing to rest and reflect on how good, how very good God is.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

YOU’VE BEEN DOWN LONG ENOUGH; TIME TO GET UP

What do you do when you haven’t been able to do anything good for yourself for so long that you’ve stopped expecting anything good to ever happen for you?  Jesus answered this question for a man whose troubles had lasted for 38 years. 

The title of the message is YOU’VE BEEN DOWN LONG ENOUGH; TIME TO GET UP.

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

SOME HONEST MATH FOR GOOD FRIDAY

I learned the Easter story when I was a young heathen in Holly Springs CME Church in Bassfield, Mississippi. And I believed it.  The cross made sense.  The personal, biological death of Jesus made sense.  His physical resurrection was not a theological stumbling block.  But what I didn’t get, what made no sense to my junior high school mind was all my teachers and pastors demanding that I believe in a God who can’t count.

But Jesus answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12: 39, 40)

In the original Greek, the word three means 3.  The word Jesus used for day means day, but the term translated night actually means night.

Jesus said 3 days and 3 nights.  Jesus meant 3 days and 3 nights.

The gospels agree that Jesus died around 3 P.M.  (Matthew 27: 46-50; Luke23:44-46)

“So how,” I asked in my 13 year old, smart-alecky voice, “you get 3 days between 3 o’clock Friday and eaarrrllly Sunday morning?”

My elders read to me from their study Bible commentaries that say that ancient Jews considered any part of a day to count as a whole day.    O.K.  So let’ count.

Friday, 3 P.M. – sunset	=	1 day
Friday night	=	1 night
Saturday sunrise –sunset	=	2 days
Saturday night	=	2 nights
Sunday morning (He was already risen, but I’ll give you that, too) = 3 days or parts of a day and 2 nights

The crucifixion makes sense, but the Good Friday math doesn’t. 

Jesus was crucified the day before the Sabbath.  Any normal week, that would mean Friday afternoon. (The Jewish Sabbath runs from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday).  But Jesus wasn’t executed during a normal week.  It was Passover.  In Exodus 12, after the 10^th plague, God instituted the feast of Passover, and the guidelines included 2 EXTRA sabbaths.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. (Exodus 12: 15, 16)

John’s gospel states the day after the Crucifixion wasn’t a normal Sabbath.  “That Sabbath was a high day” (John 19: 31).

The day after Jesus died was a Passover Sabbath, and the regular weekly Sabbath might have been the day after that.  Let’s count again, class.   

Thursday 3 p.m. - sunset	=	1 day
Passover Sabbath,  High Day, Holy Convocation	=	1 night & 2 days
Weekly Sabbath (Fri- Sat.)	=	2 nights & 3 days
Saturday night	=	3 whole nights & 3 days or parts of day
Sunday morning (He was already risen, but I’ll give you that, too) = bonus

There are a couple of other plausible scenarios. The crucifixion could have occurred on Wednesday, but if you base your math on the Bible and not on the church’s rich 2,000 year old tradition, you can’t start your count on Friday afternoon. 

So Jesus wasn’t crucified on Good Friday.  Jesus also almost certainly wasn’t born on  December 25^th of the Julian calendar.  Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.  didn’t celebrate his birthday every 2^nd Monday of January.  The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 2^nd, not the 4^th of July.  And the Last Supper wasn’t at 11 A.M. on the 1^st Sunday of the month.

The day we celebrate isn’t as important as what we celebrate. 

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.  He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. (Romans 14: 5-6)

Commemorating the crucifixion on the Friday before Easter is not a sin.  It’s a convenience.    This Good Friday I’ll attend 3 worship services in 3 cities and preach at two of them.   I will honor the traditional day.   But I won’t preach the day as doctrine.

When we defend the Good Friday TRADITION as a DOCTRINE we argue that Jesus didn’t really mean what He explicitly said.  We tell questioning believers that God can’t count. 

As Jesus said, we “[make] the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down.” (Mark 7: 13)

Some people never question their culture’s or church’s traditions.  But there’s always that one kid.  He/she is sitting there listening more intently than all the stewards and deacons and mothers in white. That kid has questions because that kid wants the Truth.   You’ve convinced him that the Bible is true, but then you tell him to accept a tradition that contradicts the Bible.   He won’t accept that. It just doesn't add up.  He’d rather reject both the tradition and the Bible.  I know this because I was one of those kids.

All those kids want are answer that make sense.  All they need is some honest math.

This Good Friday is a good Friday to start giving it to them.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THE OTHER TRUTH THAT HURTS

           Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.

 And He said to the man who had the withered hand,  “Step forward.”

 Then He said to them,  “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”

 But they kept silent.

 And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man,  “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.  (Mark 3: 1-6)

Jesus was and is God Himself manifest for us in the flesh.  As God, Jesus knew what the people around Him were up to.  Jesus fully understood the principles of human behavior and what to expect in response to His action.

But when Jesus actually personally experienced those realities, the truth hurt.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”

Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.

And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching. (Mark 6: 4-6)

In ancient prophetic revelation, God had already predicted that Jesus, like every prophet before Him, would be least understood and least appreciated by those He most personally loved.   But when Jesus experienced that directly and personally, it still blew His mind.  The truth hurt.

When we say, "The truth hurts," we usually mean that it hurts the ones hearing the truth about themselves. That's true, but there's more to it.

Sometimes the most hurtful truth is the revelation you receive about others. 

What hurts most is that moment when you realize:  Wait.  This is who you really are.  This isn't an act or a ploy to get your way or an error based on you misunderstanding me.  This is it.  This is you.

That truth hurts ----- no matter who you are.

So what do you do?

You do what Jesus did.  You hurt, and you keep right on healing.   You hurt and you feel useless, and then you keep right on preaching.

The truth is that the truth hurts.  But the Truth set the example of going on anyhow.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  (John 14:6)

Find your strength in the Truth and you’ll be able to handle the truth about anything and anyone else.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can read more on Pastor Graves's personal blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  .

If this message helps or touches you, please help support this ministry. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116