As most of you know, recently my wife Kay and I were in Knoxville, Tennessee, planning with our son and his fiancee the details of their wedding.  Their simple ceremony will take place in mid-October, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  But speaking of weddings, have you ever wondered why the mother of the bride so very often cries?  Have you noticed?   Is she weeping for joy over gaining a son, or for sorrow over losing a daughter?  --I've often wondered!  Maybe you have, too.

    Now, friends, in our First Lesson today, that Ann Grainger read to us, from Ezra, chapter 3, we see a situation like that of the tearful mother at her daughter's wedding.  Only here it's not just tears that are being shed, but cries actually fill the air!  And here it's not just one person who's caught up in the emotional trauma of the moment, but an entire crowd of folks pours out their feelings.  What does it all mean?           

    Get the picture. This great throng of adults and children is standing at the summit of a hill in the ruined city of Jerusalem.  For nearly 50 years their nation has existed only in exile.  They've suffered as slaves in distant Babylonia (incidentally, today's IRAQ).  Indeed, the younger folks were born in that foreign land--and have never even seen Jerusalem before now.

    And yet King Cyrus  of Persia (today's IRAN) has allowed these Jews to return to their homeland.  And they start to rebuild the ruined city of their ancestors.  What a gigantic task!-Kind of like rebuilding the whole NINTH WARD of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina!  So much work needs to be done!  Jerusalem's great wall is broken down.  Piles of RUBBLE fill the streets.  And the once-glorious TEMPLE OF SOLOMON is a blackened, plundered RUIN!

    On this particular day, however, the people are all excited; for the builders are laying the foundation for a NEW Temple!  The priests in their rich vestments blow trumpets and sing a great psalm of praise.  And then, we read, "all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid!"

    Yes, it's a tremendous noise!  Deafening!  BUT, the Scripture tells us, some of these folks are shouting for joy, and others are wailing with sorrow. Oh, the younger men and women are enthusiastically cheering!  They're excited to see the new Temple going up on the ruins of the old.  But many of the older folks, those who can remember the former Temple and how magnificent it was, are crying in grief; for they know that the new building will never equal in size or beauty the old! 

    Yes, our lesson puts it this way: "The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away!"                    

    This whole scene reminds me of a powerful exhibit that gripped me the last time I was in New York City.  Inside the International Center for Photography, on Avenue of the Americas at 43rd, I stood transfixed before two large video screens that met at one corner of a gallery.  On BOTH screens were moving pictures taken at a football game in England (we call it "soccer.")  But the movies WEREN'T of the PLAYERS on the FIELD, but of the opposing FANS in the stands facing each other across that field.  Obviously ONE team was TROUNCING the other.  And, as the game went on, BOTH crowds seem to grow more SAVAGE in their REACTIONS to each another.  The fans on the WINNING side would CHEER and SNEER and make obscene gestures towards the other side.  But the LOSING fans would react in EQUAL savagery towards the OTHER-but with growing DESPAIR and PAIN.  Yet LISTENING to the LOUD ROARS of both crowds, it was impossible for me to DISTINGUISH between the two.  No, I had to look very closely at individual FACES really to see which side was TRIUMPHANT and which was HEARTBROKEN.  Yes, joyful shout or sorrowful wail?

    But, friends, isn't this true of SO MANY THINGS TODAY?  Our lesson from Ezra raises for us the BIG QUESTION of how you and I adjust to change.  On this hilltop in Jerusalem there seems to be something of a generation gap.  It's the older folk-or, at least, many of them-who are wailing, and the younger folk who are shouting for joy.  We can well understand the sorrow of these old-timers.  They remember the FIRST Temple-by far, the GRANDEST ever constructed by the Jews.  Nothing could ever equal it.  The new Temple, now being built, will only be a pale shadow of that magnificent edifice reared by King Solomon, which the Babylonians destroyed.  So, quite naturally, many of these older folk WEEP.
    
    What a pity that, at least for the moment, they can't see what God is DOING for them!  What a pity that these older folks forget God's gracious providence in leading them out of slavery and back to their homeland --and making it possible for them to begin again!  What a pity that they forget that in the new Temple, despite its relative mediocrity, God will once again dwell with God's people, as in the former days!
    
    But let's be fair!  Not ALL the older folks here in Jerusalem are weeping.  Ezra says only MANY of them are.  Some of the old-timers are just as enthusiastic about the new Temple as the younger folks.  Some of them shout just as joyfully as do they!

    Now what does this story have to do with YOU and ME, thousands of years after his rebuilding scene in ancient Jerusalem?  With you and me who live in an entirely different culture, a seemingly entirely different world?  Simply THIS:  you and I, like these folks rebuilding old Jerusalem, continually face VAST, DRAMATIC CHANGES-EVERYWHERE.  For example, look how the American landscape has been altered in the past 80 years or so.  No longer are we a rural nation; we're predominantly urban.  And here in Florida, as in the whole South, we have the "Sun Belt" phenomenon.  The mass of American population is rapidly shifting in this direction-mushrooming GROWTH, DESPITE the recent world-wide recession, though seemingly good for the economy, can pose HUGE HEADACHES for any of us who would love to keep cities and neighborhoods as they were (say) 30 years ago!                      

    And consider how the Church has changed and is changing.  Our mainline denominations that for 200 years were the moral voice of the U.S.A., that molded the VERY GOVERNMENT of our nation, founded most of its schools and colleges, and nurtured its culture, are rarely LISTENED to anymore.  Instead, the public media play up the shrill voices on the extreme RELIGIOUS RIGHT, with their quick judgments on who exactly are the "GOOD GUYS" and the "BAD GUYS." For most Americans in our secularized culture, worship is just one of MANY weekend options.  When I was growing up in the Deep South, to admit that one had no church affiliation was like saying you didn't take a bath!  No longer!
    
    And, friends, think of the VAST CHANGES that have taken place in this venerable congregation-that worships in this large and beautiful building!  SOME of us, like some in the crowd in OLD JERUSALEM, are convinced that all the GLORY DAYS of this congregation were IN THE PAST!  But that's utterly to MISS the vision of the wonderful things that God is doing in and among us RIGHT NOW! -Through (for example) loving support and prayer and help for one another in time of bereavement, sickness, and need.  Through often quiet, largely unseen but sacrificial VOLUNTEER WORK within this fellowship and in the community-by many of you.  Through a vision for the FUTURE that is leading you, eventually, to call your NEXT PASTOR, whom God has chosen to guide you into God's bright future!    

    John Lennon, in one of his songs, declared, ""Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  How true!  Lennon himself, of course, at barely age 41, was murdered!  But for ALL of us, "Life IS what happens," while we're "busy making other plans!"  ALL of us (old AND young) find it so hard to ADJUST to change, expected and especially UNexpected-whether in our lives or in the church! 

    But tell me, does anything  NOT change?  Anything at all?

    YES, thank God!  --The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter thirteen, verse eight, gives us THESE wonderful words:  "JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME YESTERDAY AND TODAY AND FOREVER!"  Yes, to you and me who live in a world of rapid, often frightening changes, the Bible presents One who NEVER does.  Jesus Christ is STILL the loving Savior of sinners.  Still the Friend of the friendless and the outcast.  Still the Great Physician who heals the sick in body, mind, and spirit.  Yes, Christ CONTINUES to be the Comforter for the broken-hearted, the Light for those stumbling in darkness.

    Hymn writer Albert Simpson gave us this little couplet:


    With the future-OUR OWN PERSONAL FUTURE, as well as that of Christ's beloved Church and of this congregation-with the future in the hands of the CHANGELESS One, what more do you and I NEED?  Yes, come what may, ALL our cries need NOT be wails, but eternal JOYFUL SHOUTS!

Prayers:
    O God, how like small children we often seem to be emotionally!  What loud noises we can make! -YELPS of pain; SQUEALS of delight!  When we are confronted by change, how easy it is to WEEP and HOWL and make such a racket that we drown out your voice-and thus MISS your exciting message of reassurance coming to us in the midst of the changes!
    Deliver us, we pray, from such childlessness.  Imbue us with the realization, however painful it may be, that we can NEVER stop the clock.  But make us also gratefully aware that, in Christ, we don't have to!  For he is the unchanging One, the one Constant amid all this change.  And in him we are in touch with true permanence and eternity!
    Cause your Church, and especially this congregation, faithfully to proclaim the changeless One to a world in often DESPERATE SEARCH for solid ground to stand on.
    Hear our prayers now for all your children who may be hurting in body, mind, or spirit--especially any in this holy place today who knows pain in any way.  Stand by and heal those who are ill.  Comfort those who mourn.
    Guide the LEADERS of the nations, that STRIFE and WARFARE, SUFFERING and DEATH, may end and PEACE prevail, particularly throughout the Middle East.  Bring relief to those who have lost so much in those and other troubled regions.  Help us, wherever we may be, to obey forthrightly and courageously Christ's call to BE peacemakers ourselves.
    Finally, God of all eternity, keep us in fellowship with our brothers and sisters who have gone before us and who, now in your perfect presence, rejoice forevermore.
    For we make these and each of our prayers in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.