He went anyway
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You're gone. There are times in our life that we have to take a journey that we don't want to go on. we lack the strength from the courage to do the trip because we are afraid of the consequences of waiting us when we get there. Please give us the strength the patience and the understanding to make that trip. And not shirk away from my responsibilities in Jesus name we pray amen. I must apologize. First of all, I have violated a cardinal rule of public speaking classes. Don't come up with a big pack of papers because then they'll think you're going to talk all day. That's just my notes. And the other thing before I started as you know opening days this week.
If you know anything about the Cubs anybody can have a bad Century, but you know in the Bible it's very faithful and oriented cuz it says writing in Genesis in the beginning.
Oh good. You got that, okay.
Today's message is called he went anyway, based on Luke chapter 9 verse. 51
When the time Drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face toward Jerusalem. Now some some translations had this Ascension some of this has it as just a journey but to get to the Ascension he had to go through suffering death and resurrection and that the three years of ministry it was time for Jesus to complete his mission, which means he had to go to Jerusalem knowing full. Well it was going to happen when he got there. but in the real world all of us at one point or another have to go on a journey come to something where we don't want to go because we know what's going to happen when we get there were ample it work. You might had it missed a deadline or missed a goal or didn't complete a project. Some people would give excuses like I need more time or you know, something didn't work it out to have it tomorrow if I call in sick. I might just quit to avoid do you know thinking they're going to get fired so I can quit anyway. But some people will gather the courage go in and face take the journey in face the consequences in this case. So think this guy's getting a reprimand.
That's in the real world. Now we have Junior here. You can see he's about to die. The fish bowl over and what happens after the Fishbowl gets knocked over his mom will probably say come here. And he knows what happens when he has to come here. I could try to run away and Mom will catch him in a probably be worse if I catches them. Or he can make up an excuse cuz kids love to do that. or you can just go up to take take the punishment learn from it and move on. We've all done this to.
Jesus knew where he's going and no knew what was going to happen when he got there the cross. Maybe his disciples didn't understand. It may be his followers didn't understand it even probably the the religious leaders the time to understand it, but he knew what was going to happen when he got there. I don't know if we were faced with the same thing. If we make the same decision he did we we might we might also turn tail run away, but he didn't he knew what he had to do to fulfill his his work so he get it. I have two examples in which today that actually happened true events that kind of parallel the story. There is a lot of similarities and there's one big difference which I'll get to chat the end of this.
Garth Palm Sunday is a day we come in in Jesus comes in with a triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey as you know, they were looking at maybe a military leader military leaders usually come in on big chariots with white horses and have people behind them with a white horses and powerful powerful donkeys are not that not that threatening. They're less. You get the Mad. They're very docile animals, and everybody was happy to see Jesus them do the other they're putting us on the road waving Palms are cheering and the disciples Lotto boy, we we made it now that was not to be So, our first example is a b Cumberland College in Lebanon, Tennessee. Now this is a picture of it about 1915 small school still small school today, then I'll be called Cumberland University football team as many colleges did and in those days. It was very possible for a small school to play a big school and do quite well. If you look at some of the old time schedules Notre Dame played once they lose some high schools. You didn't have to play both you didn't have to have many players because they play both ways. You didn't need much equipment. If you look at people of that time in the uniforms, they wore and things were not complicated. You did not have all these Innovations in football that you had back now that you had back then. with all that Cumberland College
wasn't a great football power. In fact, they were terrible at the end of the 1915 season. They decided that this isn't worth it. We're going to drop football. They did they contact all the schools. They had scheduled in in 1916 and told them that we don't have a football team anymore. Please cancel our contract every team did but one. the one thing that didn't did you see the game year was Georgia Tech? That book Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets live we know today.
The reason there are two reasons why they didn't first of all the coach at that time. John Heisman, who was the Heisman Trophy named after felt that they were going to lose a gig they were lose money. They didn't know if they could get somebody to replace them. So they want to hold on to the contract the second reason. Was it the spring before they played them in baseball and lost 22 to nothing. So they said well you either play the game or we're going to sue you and their lawyers looked it over and said we can't afford the lawsuit. You're going to have to play them. So they had a one-game football season. They got a student because back then students. Did Coach, who is the who is the coach of the baseball team and get us some players and let's go down and play them so they got about 12 or 13 players had a couple practices knew they weren't going to win but went down anyway while they didn't win really that's a picture of them of Georgia Tech. And this is a picture from the actual game because the final score was. That's not a mistake. It was 222 to nothing. It is the largest margin of victory in college football history. Pro record is 73 to nothing set by the Chicago Bears when they beat washing of the 1940 championship game. Georgia Tech only ran 29 plays never threw the ball Cumberland never gain positive yardage. And in fact every time they got the ball away cuz they couldn't compete maybe make a first down and even shortening the second third and fourth quarters, Georgia Tech kept piling it on and piling it on and piling it on because they were mad and they were going to just inflict. It on Cumberland and to this day when they had reunions of the game that Cumberland people would show up there that embarrassed. They were felt hurt. They felt that they were mistreated. They felt that we did this and you know, you know, we were bad and you did it. Anyway, the other thing Georgia Tech like was the fact that the score ended in 2222 nothing they lost in baseball 1:40, nothing. They thought they had perfect Revenge. Nowadays any coach runs up the score that they could probably get fired for. For poor sportsmanship, you don't do that anymore. If it gets to be a route that usually put the 3rd and 4th string in and tell them they have to running up. The score is considered good form in college football race board anymore. But back then it was Cumberland drop football after that and didn't get back to it to about 3 or 4 years ago. And they grudgingly remember this game cuz they're going to be forever linked in football history because of this and they went anyway, I think even if they knew there was going to be this bad. I think they would have went anyway, cuz they wanted to help their school and did not want to see that gets sued because a lawsuit could have shut the school down. So they went and they lost I got clobbered.
The next example is the Royal air force bomber command in World War II.
That's a picture of a typical Royal Air Force Base of bomber command now back then they were a unit of the royal Air Force and most people when they train did not want to be in cuz you want to be a flashy fighter pilot will fly those flashy fighters in your own all that thing. They just had the bed or threaten. Nobody want to fly a bomber. They bombed with us the Americans will we had one way of dealing with it? We would go in big heavily-armored planes would not much bombs with a lot of guns sometimes fiber support lots of planes and bombs during the day military targets with the bomb site and they could as they put a drop a bomb in a pickle Barrel at 30,000 ft. The British didn't feel that way. But Commander there's a picture of where they bombed which is mostly in Germany in a place called The Ruhr Valley which they called Happy Valley cuz ain't nothing but wax and Fighters and it was a bad place to go cuz a lot of people didn't come back. They would go at night cuz they figured it was safer. But in order to do that you had to go in the Moonlight, which means you go have found found out and they also believe they'd want to be Precision. They wanted to wipe out Germany. So they just go in the bottom of town the idea that you're the head of bomber command Arthur Harris thought was if I bomb enough cities in the house a lot of people we won't have to invade. Well that didn't work and they were getting a reputation as a bunch of people. That weren't very humane.
I'll get more to that later. It took a long time between crew members in bomber command at least a year for most of them a year plus. They would fly have to fly 30 missions the first time take a little time off come back and fly another 25-30. the problem was most of them didn't make it past mission number 5
cuz they were either dead or prisoners of war or severely wounded and I'll explain why that is. And that's how many people took the butt one of those bombers up in the air the eight crewmen or down there and you see all the people that had to help them get that plane ready to go.
now pilot would hand pick his own crew just like the
Cumberland College, they put all the cruise in a room all the specialist and the captain they said go pick out some guys the American who was usually assigned person to a group he would pick his own crew work with them and develop a decent amount of teamwork. And if you lost somebody then you had to reintegrate another person in and redevelop that hole. Chemistry, and so that's how they look at it.
All they would they would have they wouldn't get their mission. Most of the time it was going to somewhere that has a lot of Defense has a lot of Fighters and a lot of them knew that they weren't coming back because the survival rate was terrible. They would get a special meal you working at bacon and eggs. And I usually what's the bacon and eggs fresh bacon fresh eggs were very rare and Great Britain back. Then they were severely nobody got them. I got the powdered stuff. So as a a tree before they went they got a bacon and eggs meal and then they got one when they got back if they got back.
The plane they flew with the one called the Argo Lancaster was a four-engine bomber carry a lot of bombs what it didn't carry was a lot of ornament and a lot of armor got a crew of seven and you're seeing one drop some bombs on the night raid there and it's kind of Cloudy. The only thing bomber command cared about was getting them there. So they really work on navigation and dropping bombs. The rest of it. They didn't care. You know, it was what it was. So the problem with the plane was that it didn't have much Armament 30 caliber machine gun as opposed to 50 caliber and cannon with the Enemy had had Norm except behind the Pilot's seat and nicely for combination of gas and bombs. The other thing was the only had one pilot. Basically because of your phone to train them and they thought the second pile was not worth having around so One Pilot pilot that whole point out he had helped but it was still One Pilot and co-pilot are dead. They were not they were going to have a problem. It was hard.
Now this thing didn't have any bottom of a tournament. Which back in World War II was not good cuz what would happen is either a you would get cone buy a Searchlight, which means they found you and they can either antiaircraft guns or be a German fighter that was in the plane would burst into flames. And once it did that it was very difficult to get hold of especially for the pilot who had to keep control everybody jumped out and he barely made it out and most of them perished in a flaming crash like that. That's a typical Lancaster in Germany after it got shot down. See there isn't much left of it. I don't know what happened to the crew, but it is assumed they probably did not make it. now the other problem was if they were able to bail out. They were hoping when they landed in either the police or the military would find them because if the civilians found them they had a name formally called tariff leaders and if they caught you they would kill you. They weren't angry mob they they showed no mercy if they caught you you were dead because we just found them out of the house. They had no no compassion or sympathy nothing. They just killed you. So knowing all this they went anyway. The odds were stacked against them. They weren't playing the really couldn't defend themselves. They are flying over areas that had a lot of the fence a lot of Fighters a lot of anti-aircraft fire and the odds were just meant to say also that had no Fighters going with them which means they have no protection for that. So they would go and they were kind of fatal if they knew what was going to happen to them and it wasn't good very few made it to Thirty missions and then very few on top of that would if they made it through 30 come back and finish the other 30 So a lot of got scared. And also when they if they were found to be to be a prisoner missing or dead their fellow Squadron mates would clean out their locker like you see here take anything of value that they could use so very little went back to the survivors into the Airman family. It was kind of like a rummage sale or they would just pick up Pickaway of everything. I don't know was their way of remembering him or just getting stuff they needed or just the way to blow off steam. I don't know but that's what what happened. So everything would be passed out. Everything would be taken away from him. Now the problem with that is if you don't want to go. You get scared and you try to find ways not to go. B-raf had a solution for that. It was a very cruel solution was called lack of moral fiber if you want what they called. Lmf you'd be marched in front of your squadron mates Publix Preparatory rank, giving a bath and a white feather in it and spend the rest of the war doing very very menial. And for one of the better term dirty task throughout the rest of the Warren. You have to wear your uniform wear the the old rankings to be so you see The Faded part where they ripped it off of you you didn't get benefits if your family was disgraced that you would hurt them and trying to get rations and and
And benefits for them. They're normal civilian benefits because you wouldn't you wouldn't go fight. So if they were sick they went if they were slightly injured they went they did not want to be considered. Lmf if they had to abort if they brought the plane back date better and they better be able to prove that was that was that was a problem or if they would be classified. Lmf. So they they worked off a fear. So if you didn't get them fear, did they have to figure either? Okay, if I don't go I'm going to get get branded. Lmf and it's not I'm going to just be living a awful life for the rest of the war or I can go and face to face the consequences there knowing that a lot of people went anyway, and the end result of all this was bomber command did not get the Laurels other units got at the end of the war. It's a long time for them to get respect because a lot of people are highly critical of what they did. For example, if you've heard the town Dresden, it was a victim of a fire storm started by their incendiary bombs and all gang together in a big fire storm wiped out most of the city they were not considered. They were on the same level as any other troops in in in World War. I had to do it to protect our country and as he's one of my better times or or is dangerous or scary they went and that. And that is important.
Now we get to Jesus and some of the similarities and the differences.
Jesus handpicked us apostles. Like the number one football team in a Lancaster bomber crew the head of IT pick his team Jesus Pick 12 Apostles. He knew what he wanted. He knew the people he went and picked them. He trained them and taught them things so that they could spread his message. Once he had left this Earth just like the football team the practiced and the Bomber Crew that train for a long time. His disciples were trained. He taught him much. Cuz he he wanted to establish his message on Earth. The next thing was Palm Sunday, like I said earlier he came in on a donkey not very scary. Not the military leaders some Jews were hoping for and donkeys with the plane don't have a great sense of the fence. So he came in on that even though and people were cheering as they cheered on the runway at the points to go off as a Georgia Tech fans. Cheered every time they scored and rang rang it up on Cumberland. But Jesus also was cheered. But he knew that years weren't going to last is possible slow. We're very very happy. They thought good times were head. They were wrong. Good Times ahead
Jesus had a special meal the Last Supper just like the bomber Crews did their hands to do Holy Communion. And it is there that he found his betrayer Judas and explain once again, what needed to be happen? And he also wash the apostles feet showing servant servant the hood. So not a similarity there.
Like the like the bombers and the Cumberland football team they faced an Angry Crowd. Angry crowds at 1 to pylon abuse and pain and suffering and wanted to kill him. They were screaming at pilate crucify him crucify him. I would go you did nothing wrong. We don't care crucifying they were calling for his death like the mob down in Germany did what they call an RFP flyer. They were going to kill him. They wanted Jesus dead. So once again, he face the mob that piled on abuse in and Scorn and pain and wanted him gone.
and even on the cross as he hung there, you can read all the passages in there that he He was my only said like well, if you're who you say you are take yourself off the cross and show us a miracle. Take yourself off the cross. Jesus wasn't going to do that because it would not go through this message. But there they go they were cheering they were they were mocking him as I'm sure the Georgia Tech fans were mocking Cumberland as they were running up the score. So another similarity.
As for courage when we have the story of Peter, Jesus said he'd deny him three times and he did. You know if he was truly a follower of Jesus and really wanted to defend and Peter could have done that but no he didn't cuz he knew where the probably would win if he defended him. So we did the rest of the Apostles except for John the minute. He was arrested they turned tail and ran. No, no Purge there they ran because they thought they were going to be next more or less. They became human. but once again lack of moral fiber lack of Courage they ran away.
And while Jesus was on the cross the soldiers as stated in in the Bible gambled to get his clothes. Just like the RAF for people who raided The Departed person's Foot Locker and and belongings here. They are trying to gamble to win. Jesus is closed right in front of them. So they're they're humiliating him by even casting lots for his clothes. What's the gallery a similarity there?
But there's one big difference between the two stories in Jesus. The difference is Jesus forgave everybody on the cross. He was going forgive them because they know not what they do. If you've ever been at the face that Journey where you had to make a a journey you didn't want to make a lot of us after we get the negative result will make excuses. An old might blame somebody but ourselves or if you're really mad, you might want revenge. I'm going to show them. I'm going to know I'm going to you know, when I when I when I when I'm really going to give it back to them and I'll kind of twisting the do unto others as they do want to you. Well, that's not what you're supposed to do in that case, but we don't have sometimes the compassion to forgive. We do have a passion sometimes to get even or even like top what they did to us. We have anger. We have Envy we have jealousy and those are some of the same Jesus died for We don't forget when this happens. We tend to want to get even even the little kid who probably got in trouble when you broke the fish bowl. doesn't like Mommy at the time if he's grounded he is not happy about that at time out spanking whatever because at some point he's going to figure I'm going to show them kids can be kind of a kind of Rebel Rebel with a have to be But Jesus forgave and we need to remember that throughout all of this. Then we take a journey. We don't want to take because we know the results. We know we have to take it. Anyway, we also have to accept what happens to us. We have to know that we might do some suffering and endure some pain. 2 During this trip, but I also think God tries to teach us a lesson with that to in terms of don't try it again, or maybe try harder or maybe do what you're supposed to do and maybe just say they're doing what they have to do accept it and move on. We don't. We need to learn that cuz Jesus forgave everybody that persecuted. He didn't come he reinstated Peter. He didn't come back with a desire to Smite pilot or anything else as some people would have expected of a human about about Center. He forgave everybody and that's what we need to do as well. and then we can take a journey that your mother had the results. We will have the strength the courage and the understanding to take that Journey. I'm in lettuce bright.
God by these examples we hope we've learned that even though we take a journey and the results are not good. We need to take it anyway and understand that we have to learn from that and better ourselves and move on. We thank Jesus for the sacrifice he made cuz he took his journey and Conference in and deaf and Promises a great reward in heaven if we live the life he intended us to live. In Jesus's name. Amen. See, I thought it was going to be long.
Are benediction today comes from John 2830?
after look up there. Okay, after this, they can't see that one after this Jesus knowing that all things were not accomplished that scripture might be fulfilled. He said I thirst now this looks our wine was sitting there and they fill the sponge with our wine put it on a hyssop and put it to his mouth. And so when Jesus had received the sour wine, you said it is finished and balling his head he gave up a spirit. a good Friday verse for this week Thank you for service starts at 9 next Sunday. Have a good week. You are dismissed.