My guess is that this is far closer to the way it was in Jesus’ time than my childhood images. That the very fact that Jesus can perfectly divide the sheep from the goats is a testament to His status as the Good Shepherd, thoroughly knowing his own and knowing his own despite how similar they are on the outside. This is also a reminder of what we see on this Earth. Often from the outside the sheep and goats look a lot alike. In fact I think it happens often that the goats look more like sheep than the sheep do, going far out of the way to help the poor and needy, while the sheep sit in church thinking I give my ten percent to church that is enough. This is very dangerous on two fronts; first because it makes Christ’s name a thing of mockery among the heathen. Christopher Hitchens’ recently wrote a best seller entitled God is not Great in which he attempts to prove that no God exists, or at least that all the religions of the world are phony. At one point he makes a statement to the effect that he has found that those who preach forgiveness and love are often the least likely to practice it. ² There is no doubt in my mind that this is true in many instances. Christians can often be far more condemning of those who have fallen into sin even after they have repented than atheists. Contrary to what Hitchens’ says this of course doesn’t prove anything about the validity of the Bible, all it proves is that those who claim the name of Christ often fail to live lives reflecting Christ. The other danger comes from the Christian perspective when he sees secularists being far more loving than people in his own church, looking far more Christian than the Christians he knows, and begins to wonder if after all there really is a difference. This is of course a danger that Christ warns about in the parable of the wheat and the tares (or weeds for those of who speak modern English). Christ makes it very clear in that parable, that yes sometimes it will be very difficult to tell the difference but that this is not our job. He reminds us that it is not our duty to try to separate them and that if we were to try we would almost certainly pull out some of the wheat and miss some of the weeds. What we need to worry about is do I look like a goat? Can people tell when they see me that there is something different about me? Do I reflect the light of my Savior in my life? This is something we need to worry about not for Christ’s sake, He knows the difference we can’t fool him one way of the other, but for our neighbors sake. For the sake of those who do not yet know Christ. Can they tell the difference? As James says do they see our faith by our works? Because if they can’t see our faith in our works I assure you they can’t see it anywhere.

Once I realized that I didn’t know what the difference really was I thought I would ask and find out. I So I asked our men there, what is the difference? How can you tell apart the sheep from the goats? The response I got was that the goats hold their heads up but the sheep keep theirs down. Both animals of course must bend their heads over to eat, but the rest of the time sheeps’ are down, goats’ are up. What a wonderful description I thought about the true difference between Christians and non-Christians. What reason does a sheep have to raise its head? It has perfect trust and confidence in its Shepherd. He will lead it to good grazing ground. He will protect it from every danger. The sheep is content to graze and eat and need worry about nothing, the Shepherd is standing over head. The sheep can concentrate on the job at hand, pulling those succulent morsels of grass out of the ground. The goat however has no trust and no faith in the Shepherd. It must at all times constantly be on the alert for danger. It must at all times constantly be on the lookout for its own welfare. How else will it make sure that it gets to the choicest grazing first? How else will it make sure that it receives its fair share? The goat must keep its head up whenever possible to look out for number one, after all who else is going to do it for him? But the sheep relaxes in perfect contentment glad to leave that task up to it Shepherd, enjoying the gifts that He has given to it.

Praise be to God that He has given such a Shepherd to us.

As humans we share much with all men, whether they be Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, or Mormons. For one we could list Pizza, which seems to be a completely universal food, perhaps simply because each culture can put whatever toppings they like on it. We have been called out of the world but we are to a great degree still in it. Some of us are lazy, some of them are lazy, some energetic, some depressed, some optimistic, some thoughtful, some quick, some poor, some rich, some conservative, some liberal, some large, some small. We get ourselves caught at times in terrible sins which ruin our lives and drag us down, from which it seems there is no way out. There are those of us who spend our entire lives looking out only for number one. We are greedy, covetous, riotous, rebellious, lustful, and hurtful. In every way that people differ from one another, we differ from one another. We are so quick to divide people on the surface, not only by lines of race or politics, but also by academic standing, monetary status, choice of clothes, choice of music, place of birth, etc. All of these things are of course superficial, only surface differences, in reality they mean nothing. It is this superficial character which also allows so many to see all religions as only one. In almost every area Christianity parallels other religions. Even the resurrection is not unique to the Bible. There are many myths in the world about gods who die and come back to life. Yet all this is superficial. Look deeper and you find a vast canyon of difference. One of these is as simple as one word: Hope.

The Christian defines the word in a way that is fundamentally different from anything that is known to the world or its religions. Outside of Christianity the word hope is one of those words in the English language that simply does not have a synonym. The thesaurus gives: expect desire, dream, wish, plan, aspire, and anticipate. To expect or anticipate indicates a reasoned probability based on concrete evidence for a future event. To desire, dream, or wish in no way indicates whether the thing is likely to come to pass or not. They leave the question of probability completely out of the equation. Aspire or plan ignores probability and replaces it with man’s will and power to bring an event to pass. The word “hope” however includes a low probability (on rare occasions perhaps a moderate or high probability although never a full one) and waits for the said event despite this acknowledgement. Hope acknowledges probable failure yet continues straight ahead. That is this is what it means to those who don’t have Christ. To us however, the word means something entirely different, and it has synonyms: certainly, truth, success, knowledge. To the Christian hope indicates that which will happen, not that which might happen. This has an immediate impact on every moment of our lives. I man may fight against alcoholism for thirty years trying desperately to quit and he may continue to struggle hoping that he may yet find a way to quit. If he is not a Christian with each passing year that hope becomes a little smaller dwindling to nothing in the end and dyeing out. If he is a Christian the hope never changes because it is not a possibility but a certainly that someday he will win the fight, because the very power of God the same which raised Christ from the dead lives in him and fights with him to the end that God has in store and that power cannot fail. A man may give up that hope, he may cast it away but while it remains with him it never weakens. A mother might hope that she can find the strength to be a good caring and loving mother, but a Christian mother knows that every ounce of compassion, love, and understanding which she may need will be supplied to her through the living God. She hopes knowing so shall it be, even as God has promised through His Son Jesus, the Christ. Whatever difficulty lies before us, whatever sorrow, whatever sin, whatever temptation, we keep on fighting not because we wish to win, not because we think we might win, but because we know that we can win against it, by the Grace of God, through the love of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To some the song of Ram is the song of Hope. Ram is coming, Ram will come, Ram might come, perhaps Ram will come, please Ram come, Ram did not come, trailing off to a mere whisper of the indistinct cry of loss. But for those of us who” have seen the end which the Lord intends”, who know the certainty of victory, there is no trailing off but only the certainty of the finality of the triumph. The certainty of what we wait for.

In that same newspaper I found the following advertisement, and thought I woudl share it with all of you. It puts a whole new twist on personal ads. (If you can’t read the smaller print, click on the picture it will bring it up in  a seperate window, then click again and it will enlarge it)

On a totally different note what I really wanted to mention today was the latest issue of Time Magazine. The June 30 - July 7th issue has a large section on games played aroud the world. They take a number of popular international sports and briefly talk about how these sports affect the lives and cultures of people in different areas of the world. I found some of these articles extremely interesting.  For example one article speaks of how families in Cameroon will often sell everything they have including their business and only means of livilihood just to pay for a son to go to Europe to train in football (soccer). Many of the young men end up penniless in Europe with no way to get home. Meanwhile their families have enormous debts (to them anyway) with little chance of ever paying them back. Often these situations are intiated by hucksters who make big promises take the money and abadon the boys once they get to Europe. Another article informed me that Polo was not originally a British game but had its roots over here in Tibet as an exercise for Calvary. Or how South Korea has turned computer gaming, I’m sorry e-games, into a national past time to the extent that the top players are treated in much the same way we revere Brett Favre or Michael Jordan. The articles are short only a page or two and yet give a good deal of insight into understanding both the sport and the lives and culture of some of the people that play them. I thought I would mention them in case anyone else was interested in reading them.

- Matt