FOURTH SUNDAY in LENT

April 3, 2011

Text: Ephesians 5:8-14

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

Apostle Paul writes to a little church in Ephesus, today part of Turkey:

Live as children of
the light.

To help us get a sense of living in the light, let’s use a little tune from South Africa called Marching in the Light of God. First, let’s listen to them sing it. You can get it, because the lyrics are easy, We are Marching in the Light of God. And if we relax a little we can pick up the rhythm. The little song suggests we change the stanzas. So we are going to do that. Our stanza is going to be:

We are walking in
the light of God.

Let’s try that. (Pretty good for a start, I hope)

Apostle Paul writes to that little church that once we walked in darkness, but now we walk in the light of the Lord. You all know the motto of our school, the words of which are on our official logo. They are from Psalm 36:9: In Your Light We See Light. The purpose of our schools is to help your children learn in the light of the Lord. We believe that education in a framework of faith brings out excellence. So I wasn’t surprised to read in our principal’s

collumn in the Rays of Hope that Jalissa Cordova and Matthew Krier, first graders at Cross of Hope School, won recognition for their essays on the “Senior
Citizen I Know” competition. The field of competition was 1,500 essays in K through eighth grade. That’s walking in the light of the Lord.

Let’s try that little song again. This time we are going back to original lyrics.

We are marching in
the light of God.

Marching. Marching to a different drummer named Jesus. Or, as Paul wrote:

Try to find out
what is pleasing to the Lord.

When you are marching in the Light, you follow in the footsteps of God. Things like the Ten Commandments matter. Putting God and others first matters. Living by the Spirit matters: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is what Moses taught. It is what Jesus taught. It is what needs to be taught; it is what we teach.

One more time. Let’s sing our little song again.

We are marching in
the light of God.

In Paul’s letter of the little church at Ephesus he reminds them to take no part in the “unfruitful works of darkness.” Darkness is everywhere. I get only commercial T.V. I watched an episode of Bones a while back. It is usually a murder mystery. The lead character is an anthropologist who uses her skills to solve crimes. She works with a pathologist who uses her skills. She also works with a reconstructionist, who generates computer-generated images of dead people, helping solve crimes. All three are beautiful women. All are sincere. All bed hop, with other staff and other folks. As is true in most of our culture today, sex and marriage have been separated. Shacking up is, well, just what people do.

As we march with God, here at Cross of Hope School, we expose darkness and model light. It is something we teach and model.

Paul then says to Ephesus these words:

Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.

Cross of Hope schools are places of light, walking, marching, teaching, praying in the light of God.

Amen.