First Presbyterian Church
Marianna, Florida
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Revelation 21:1-7
                                 John 14:23-29
Sermon Title: “Sharing the Victory of Jesus with Trouble-Free Hearts”
Sermon Text: John 14:27:  Peace, I leave with you; my peace, I give to 
you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be 
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

		How sweet to hold a newborn baby, 
and feel the pride and joy he gives.  
I feel sure that on this Mothers’ Day most, if not all, mothers here can 
identify with those words as they remember looking at their children for the first 
time.  Some, of course, can extend the thoughts to the pride and joy they felt when 
they held their newborn grandchild or even great-grandchild. Our two new mothers 
here this morning experiencing their first Mothers’ Day as mothers, Jennifer 
Stafford and Leah Green, would, of course, want to change the words and say,
How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy she gives.   
Mothers’ Day is a day to recall that pride and that joy that was felt when first 
holding that newborn baby.  It is also a time to reflect on the pride and the joy that 
children have brought to our lives, and to give thanks for what they have meant to 
us.  It is also a time for children, of whatever age, to stop and to think about all of 
the things that have happened to them in their lives because of the loving concern 
of their mothers, and to give thanks to them and to God for them.  
Today as many come to think of that time of holding a newborn baby and 
the pride and joy that he brought to your life we recognize that despite all of the 
sentimentality associated with this day it can be a very difficult day both for 
mothers and for children. For some mothers it confronts them with the sense of 
disappointment and heartache that they have known because the actions or 
reactions of their children has meant that they have not always been the perfect 
children they had hoped, and all that they have done has not always continued that 
sense of pride and joy they may have known when they first held them as newborn 
babies. We think so much this day of the mothers of the students and faculty killed 
on the campus of Virginia Tech, but what anguish and disappointment must the 
mother of the young man responsible for the shootings be feeling?  For some 
children it is also a difficult day because the mothers they have known have just 
not matched up to the beautiful descriptions of motherhood on the Hallmark cards.  
Just this past week our local paper reminded us of this truth. On Thursday in 
Annie’s Mailbox there was a letter from a young lady who was asking whether it 
would be all right for her to un-invite her mother, her only living relative, to her 
own wedding because she has heard there is going to be an open bar at the 
reception and she has invited all of her drinking buddies, and the young lady was 
now afraid her mother would embarrass her in front of her new in-laws. (Jackson 
County Floridan, Thursday, May 10, 2007) 
Despite the way in which this Mothers’ Day confronts us with the reality of 
human weakness, human failures and human sinfulness there are still so many 
mothers who on this day will feel the truth of those words, “How sweet to hold a 
newborn baby, and feel the pride and joy he or she brings.”  
I was reminded of these words recently, though, not because I had visited 
Jason and Virginia Watford to celebrate the birth of Elizabeth Joyce.  I did not hear 
them on the maternity section of the hospital. I was reminded of them rather, as 
many of you may also have been, at two recent funeral services. One of these 
services I was conducting for Mike Higgins. The other service was one Rachel and 
I attended for our neighbor, Evelyn Johnson. The words are part of a hymn, which 
is familiar to many people, and was sung at both of those funeral services. The 
words while very appropriate for Mothers’ Day were probably written originally 
by a father, or at least by a mother in cooperation with a father. Bill Gaither writes 
about their own experience in writing these words, “We wrote this hymn after a 
period of time when we had had a kind of dry spell and hadn’t written any songs 
for a while…Also at the end of the 1960’s, when our country was going through 
such great turmoil with the height of the drug culture and whole “God is Dead” 
theory which was running wild in our country, and also the peak of the Vietnam 
War, our little son, Benjy, was born, or at least Gloria was expecting him.  And I 
can remember at that time we thought, ‘Brother, this is really a poor time to bring a 
child into the world.’  At times we were even quite discouraged by the whole thing.  
And then Benjy did come.  We had two little girls whom we love very much, but 
this was our first son, and so that lyric came to us, ‘How sweet to hold a newborn 
baby and feel the pride and joy he gives.’” (101 More Hymn Stories, page 46, 
Kregel Publications, 1985)
Those of you who have sung those words with me at one of the recent 
funerals, or have sung them on other occasions, will recall that Bill and Gloria 
Gaither go on to say, “but greater still the calm assurance, this child can face 
uncertain days because he lives.”  The hymn as such is not about Benjy or other 
children, or about all the sentimentality associated so often with Mothers’ Day it is 
rather an affirmation of the Christian faith in what the victory of Jesus means.  This 
is seen clearly in the refrain which affirms, “Because he lives I can face tomorrow; 
because he lives all fear is gone; because I know he holds the future, and life is 
worth the living just because he lives.”  These words, of course, reflect the 
assurance that John sought to share with discouraged and persecuted Christians in 
Asia Minor as in that vision of the new heaven and the new earth he affirms that 
the full reality of the victory of Jesus in his resurrection will become evident. 
Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, and God 
will wipe away every tear from our eyes. He goes on to affirm that, though we may 
not know when this will happen, we can look forward to it with confidence 
because the God who has won the victory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
As Jesus himself had sought to prepare his closest followers for his own 
death and departure from them in his ascension, which will be celebrated on 
Thursday of this week, he had spoken those words which we heard in our anthem 
and in our Gospel reading. We have to wonder, though, would we have even heard 
those words if death had been the end for Jesus? Without the victory of Jesus that 
we celebrate as we affirm, “The Lord is Risen,” would John have felt here indeed 
are promises that are so true and which I want to make sure that all people come to 
know and to claim for their own lives? The promises that Jesus made before his 
death become significant and meaningful to us only as we can say and sing, 
“Because he lives.”  
Since the late 1960s when the words of that hymn were written our world 
has continued to see not less but even more tragic events which have probably 
prompted many parents to feel like Bill and Gloria Gaither that “this is really a 
poor time to bring a child into the world.”  The times of student protests and sit-ins 
of the late 1960s now seem very calm as compared with the shootings on College 
Campuses and in public and private schools.  The drug culture certainly has not 
gone away, and in many cases has become more sophisticated and life-threatening.  
The threat of Communism and the Cold War associated so much with the Vietnam 
War may have passed away but how many people can say that their lives are now 
far more secure as that threat has been replaced especially since September 11, 
2001 with that of terrorism?  Yet today even on this Mothers’ Day as we feel  
sorrow for the mothers of students and faculty killed at Virginia Tech, or the 
Amish School, or in the war in Iraq, or in other places of tension and violence in 
our world, or even those killed in natural disasters, in Enterprise, Alabama or 
Greesnburg, Kansas, or other places, is there any greater hope and comfort that we 
can find than as we say and sing of what the victory of Jesus means to us, 
“Because he lives I can face tomorrow; because he lives all fear is gone; because I 
know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives.”? This 
is the peace that Jesus promised, a peace he said that is not like the world has to 
give us. This is the peace that enables us in the midst all that might threaten us and 
make us fearful to be able to have hearts that are not troubled and that are not 
afraid.  
The Heidelberg Catechism is part of our Book of Confessions in the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) At another funeral service I attended recently in 
Tallahassee for Dr. Isabel Woods Rogers, one of Rachel’s former Professors from 
the Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Brant Copeland, the pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee reminded us that since it was first written 
in 1562 in Germany the opening question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism, 
which is part of our Book of Confessions in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)  has 
reminded Christians in that country and throughout the world of the assurance that 
is ours in life and in death because we share that victory of Jesus, and know a love 
from which nothing can separate our children or each one of us.  Let us claim that 
assurance again as we affirm our faith using the words of affirmation printed in the 
bulletin.  Let us stand and affirm our faith together…

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH          from Question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism	

       Leader: What is our only comfort in life and in death?
Unison:		That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life 
and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.  He has 
fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and set me 
free from the tyranny of evil.  He watches over me in such a 
way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will 
of my Father in 	heaven: in fact, all things must work 
together for my salvation.  
				Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures 
me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and 
ready from now on to live for him.

HYMN OF ASSURANCE No. 400                                              Somos Del Senor
                                                                    AWhen We Are Living@
         
 
 
 
 
 


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