Proof in Confession:
A young man was sent to Spain by his company to work in a new plant. He accepted because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. Their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned. As the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her. After all, Spain is populated by beautiful women. The young man declared that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. "I admit," he wrote, "that sometimes I'm tempted. But I fight it. I'm keeping myself for you."
In the next mail, the young man received a package. It contained a note and a harmonica. "I'm sending this to you," his girlfriend wrote, "so you can have something to take your mind off those girls." The young man wrote back that he was practicing on the harmonica every night and thinking only of her.
When the young man returned home to the states his girl was waiting at the airport. As he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, "Hold on there. First I want to hear you play that harmonica!"
Ah, the course of true love. This morning's text is about lips and hearts. Sounds like a theme for Valentine's Day doesn't it? Listen to St. Paul's words in Roman 10: 9: "...if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (RSV) This is our response in faith to the grace of God extended to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ - believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. Like the young man in the story above, we must practice to be able to show our Lord that we are thinking only of Him, speaking His salvation to all….let your lips tell the story.
LET'S BEGIN WITH "BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART THAT GOD RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD."
Every year thousands of people climb a mountain in the Italian Alps, passing the "stations of the cross" to stand at an outdoor crucifix. One tourist noticed a little trail that led beyond the cross. He fought through the rough thicket and, to his surprise, came upon another shrine, a shrine that symbolized the empty tomb. It was neglected. The brush had grown up around it. Almost everyone had gone as far as the cross, but there they stopped.
Some believers have done that. They have followed Christ as far as the cross, but there they have stopped. How sad. How very sad. The truth of the matter is that there is no power in believing that once upon a time there lived a good man named Jesus who taught many good things and then died on a cross. St. Paul says, "Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead...." When you add the affirmation that God raised Jesus from the dead, you are adding a whole new dimension to faith. Millions of good men and women have lived and died, but only one was resurrected from the dead. Only one still lives triumphantly. Only one is still available to his followers today. That is the faith that saves us - faith in the resurrected Christ. That is the kind of faith that we want to continually nurture and nourish. Revdoc Welch
