Jesus went a little farther. We can go a little farther too.

     Hey, my friends.  You know?  There are many ways to learn.  We can learn by experience.  This is a tough way to learn, but lessons learned by experience will certainly stay with us.  We tell our little children “Don’t touch.  Hot.”  They really cannot understand “hot” until they experience, “hot.”   Many years ago we were spending the weekend with my grandparents in rural northwest Alabama.  They have one of those old timey gas floor furnaces, mounted beneath the floor in the hall with one of those metal grates that cover the furnace.  Man, is this grate hot in the wintertime.  Our daughter, who was just a toddler, woke up early when she heard her “Granny” in the kitchen getting breakfast ready.  She ran down the hall and before we could stop her, she ran across the floor furnace.  All we heard was the patter of little feet, then a spine chilling scream.  The bottoms of her feet matched the grate on the floor furnace.  Fortunately for us Granny had what we needed to cool and heal our daughter’s burned feet.  One thing is for sure.  Our daughter would not come even close to that furnace after that.  She learned what “hot” was. 

     We can learn from the experience of others.  Our parents and grandparents, our family and friends, the people around us teach us what to do and what not to do.  All we need to do is look, listen, and learn.  Do we?  Well, sometimes we do and at others times we only wish we had.  When I was growing up, my dad was probably just about like your dad or anyone’s dad.  He was a good lecturer.  He would say to me, “Son, look at my life.  I am not a perfect person.  I have made many mistakes.  I have also had many successes.  Follow me in the things I have done right.  Do not follow me in the things that I have done wrong.”  He was saying to me, “Son, learn from my experiences.  You really don’t have to run across a floor furnace to learn what “hot” is.  Just listen to what I am telling you about “hot” and you won’t have to run across a furnace grate.”  Sometimes I listened to him and learned.  Sometimes have haven’t.

     We learn from speeches, books, movies, music, and of course the internet.  In Colossians 3:16 in the Bible we find that we teach and admonish (challenge and encourage) each other in the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs we sing.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

 
     This past Sunday we took at look at Jesus and the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane just before Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial, the mob’s cruelty, and Jesus’ torture and death.  Our topic was “And He went a little farther.”  We sang together the song “Night with Ebon Pinion.”  Maybe you know the song.  Do you know the meaning of the words, “Ebon Pinion?”  Consider that Jesus and the disciples were in that beautiful terrible garden called Gethsemane.  The night was dark and still, so dark that one could almost feet the darkness.  The writer of this hymn used the word “pinion” to describe how the night could have felt to Jesus.  Imagine a night that is so dark, so eerie, that it covers you with its darkness.  When you look up and around you, you get the feeling that you are literally covered with the wings of the darkness, pinion.  Though the night is very silent, there is the wail of the wind.  Just below our house in the Sharon community there is a small “vale” that leads to the Sharon cemetery.  There are several large cedar trees in the cemetery and when the wind blows through those trees, you can literally hear “night wind’s wail.”  Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us.  He also rose again for us.  He went a little farther for us.  What about you and me?  What a difference it could make, what a difference it would make, what a difference it should make if we would just go a little farther at home, at school, at work, in the church, in our neighborhoods, in our world.  Today, try to go a little farther in your life to be a better man or woman, boy or girl in patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, and in your thinking, speaking, and in your behavior.  I hope you will.