Singing The Atonement

Romans 5:6-11

If there is anything that we can learn about the Bible, it is this: That it is a book about relationships and community. It is a book about the relationships that exist between God and humanity, between humanity and the world, and between human beings and each other. From the very beginning of the Bible we discover God's need for relationship, or community. Thus, God created the cosmos and all that it in it as an environment wherein relationships and community could take place. And God created human beings, sentient creatures, us, to be the solution of God's need for relationship. We are the ones God may relate to and have community with.

And, so the importance of community is fundamental to the scriptures. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden is a story about the breakdown of community. And the stories that follow are illustrations of how God continually strives to re-create community, once again; to break down the barriers between human beings and God, human beings with the cosmos, and human beings with one another.

There is a new hymn in the hymnal about this: Help Us Accept Each Other (560). I'll sing the first verse of that hymn. Then, together, let's sing the last three verses.

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Accepting each other is the first thing we have to do if there is going to be community and peace. Several years ago I had the opportunity to be the song leader for a school of Christian Mission in the West Michigan Annual Conference. Part of my job was to put the song sheets together that people would be using. In order to do that I had to choose the songs I wanted to put on the song sheet and contact the composers of the songs to get their permission to use them. In the process, I was able to speak with Jill Jackson, who with her husband, Sy Miller, wrote "Let There Be Peace on Earth." I had written to her for permission, but rather than writing me back, she called me on the telephone from New York; and we had a 10 minute conversation. Among other things, she told me that the song she and her husband had written had been intended for a youth camping experience, with youth attending the camp from all over the world. When they first sang the song, it was with the youth standing in a circle around a large globe of the earth, everyone holding hands. So, at this time, let's all stand and join hands singing "Let There Be Peace on Earth" (431).

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Relationships, the importance of community, and peace: these are the things that have concerned God as God has revealed Godself to humanity over the millenia. Where there has been division, God has been concerned with bringing about unity, once again. Where there has been brokenness, God has been concerned with bringing about healing. Where there is sin, God has worked to bring about reconciliation and wholeness. For without these things there can be no community. And without community there can be no peace.

In Hebrew the word for peace is "Shalom". In fact, for the Hebrew person it meant more than peace. It meant wholeness, and health, and healing, and unity. In fact, "Shalom" means community.

Our new hymnal has the hymn, "Shalom" to You." (666) In essense that very title conveys a wish that we should have for one another: a wish, a desire, for wholeness, health, healing, unity, community, and peace.

In case some of you haven't heard hymn #666, yet, I'm going to sing it through once. Then, following that, we'll sing hymn #666 together.

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Of course, the biblical story of God's struggle to bring about reconciliation and atonement is climaxed in God's sending his son, Jesus Christ, to die for us upon the cross. It was this great gift of love that proved, once and for all, how much God loves humanity. Jesus shed his blood for us. And it is as simple as accepting that fact to have unity, once again, with the God who loves us. In spite of our sin, in spite of the obstacles, in spite of ourselves, God has made it possible for us to be restored to relationship and community through the blood of his son.

Our old hymnal only had one or two hymns in it that talked about the blood of Jesus. But, our new hymnal has several, simply because we United Methodists have begun to realize that stark symbolism is very important to human beings. To visualize our Savior bleeding and dying upon the cross brings home to us the reality of his great love for us.

The most familiar of these hymns is, no doubt, "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood" (#622). Let's sing verses 1, 3, and 5.

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The ultimate, the very climax of community, would have to be heaven, itself. As Christians we believe that when we die we will be transported into the very presence of God. We don't know what that existance will be like. Nor do we know what we will be like. All we can do is imagine what such a wonderful, eternal community with God might be like. But, some song writers, many of them Afro-American, have compared going to heaven with going over the Jordan River, from the Wilderness, into the Promised Land. And, indeed, heaven is a Promised Land, for the Christian. It is what community and peace should be.

Let's sing hymn #703 -- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, verses 1 and 4.

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As United Methodists, community, reconciliation with our brothers and sisters and God, peace, and Shalom, are things that we don't wait for to happen only after we die. Rather, we believe that these are things that can begin now, in this life. Heaven, atonement, peace, shalom, love, redemption: All of these things are possible in this life, as well. So, together, we work faithfully for the Kingdom of God. Amen.