HE’S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS

Scripture: Ephesians 1:3-10

Text: For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

INTRODUCTION

A daughter and her father went shopping on the little girl’s seventh birthday to find the one gift that she wanted most of all. They walked through the mall and finally discovered the right store and there it was – a globe of the world.

The child was delighted with this wonderful present, and so they took the globe home and spent the rest of the afternoon pointing out the continents and the oceans and many of the countries she had learned about in school, and someday hoped to visit. After dinner, the girl carried the globe up to her room and she was still so excited that she didn’t want to go to sleep.

Her father knelt down by the bed, they said their prayers, and he turned off the light. But as he picked up the globe and started toward the door, his daughter opened her eyes and called out to him in the night: “Daddy, what are you going to do with my world?”

When we were children, many of us learned to sing a song in Sunday school about God and the world – remember?

“He’s got the whole world in His hands,

He’s got the whole world in His hands,

He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

And together with that song, most of us also memorized a verse from the Bible which is probably the best known passage in all of scripture – John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

All these years later, as adults we now realize that the song we learned and the verse we recited come ever so close to the heart of the gospel. The Presbyterian Church, adhering to the Reformed Tradition, has believed for more than 450 years in the sovereignty of God. We affirm that He has the whole world in His hands, and that He loved this world so much that He sent His Son Jesus to save us from sin and to show us how to love, how to forgive and how to live together in peace.

That is what we believe and that is what we have come here to celebrate on this World Communion Sunday. But that little girl’s question cannot and must not be forgotten: What are we going to do with the world which God has given to us?

As history shows, our answer to that question has not always been what we or what God wanted it to be.

In October of 1929, when the stock market crashed, a Great Depression began to sweep across America and the tremors of economic and political instability reverberated throughout the world.

Some of you in this sanctuary who belong to what Tom Brokaw has called “the greatest generation” can still remember what happened:

· 1932 - Japan invaded China

· 1933 – The Nazi Party came to power under Adolph Hitler and in

· 1934 they assassinated the Chancellor of Austria. That same year, in 1934 – Benito Mussolini’s Italian troops swept into Ethiopia, and by

· 1936 – Civil war had erupted in Spain.

Joseph Stalin and the Communists in Russia seized all private property and abolished every other political party. England and France faced their own financial and governmental crises, while America’s President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected in 1932, tried to instill hope and offer a helping hand to millions of suffering people throughout this land.

In the midst of that dark and painful moment in history, as the thunderclouds of World War II started to roll across the horizon, a group of visionary ministers gathered together in the winter of 1935 to consider the spiritual hope and mission of the Christian Church. In the crucible of those difficult days, they reaffirmed the power of the Lord’s Supper to unite and inspire the body of Christ on earth, and to become a witness for peace and reconciliation to the rest of the world.

So it was, on November 11, 1936, that World Communion Sunday was born, following the example of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh which had originated that international sacramental service in 1933.

Today, as Christians from the east and west and north and south gather around the Lord’s Table in more than 35 countries, the words that will be heard echoing, echoing, echoing down through the past 2000 years are these: This is My body, broken for you…this is My blood, shed for you. And if we listen ever so carefully, I believe we can still hear Jesus say to all of us in this sanctuary today: Do this in remembrance of Me.

II.

Now what we need to remember and never forget is that in a world plagued with conflict and sin ever since the Garden of Eden, God’s plan and purpose has always been to heal those who are broken, to help the oppressed, to offer hope in the midst of despair and sorrow and to call all people who have lost their way back into a right relationship with Him and with one another. That is the biblical vision of God’s kingdom on earth.

The apostle Paul caught sight of that vision and wrote to the Ephesians that Almighty God, who holds the whole world in His hands, has destined us in love to be His children through Jesus Christ…In Him we have redemption…forgiveness…and grace…for He has made known to us the mystery of His will, set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time – to unite all things in Him (Ephesians 1:5, 7, 9-10).

My friends, that is a theological mouthful which none of us will ever completely comprehend. But as Christians, we know by faith and through the experience of our own lives, that the love of Jesus Christ is stronger than hatred, His redemption has conquered sin and greed, His forgiveness has released us from the vice-grip of guilt and His grace is sufficient for our every need.

And when that happens to us, as Christians and as believers who belong to the church, His power will begin to work through us as we make our witness to the world. So it was 2000 years ago when those first disciples shared their last supper with Jesus and were commissioned to go out and spread His gospel. So it was in 1935, when the tradition of world communion was born in the midst of hard times and the rumors of war. And so it can be for us in this church and in the church universal today.

CONCLUSION

Over the past several months, we have heard the voices of many people in this country say that we are headed for war with Iraq. Since September 11, 2001, we have listened to other voices say that we must stamp out terrorism in Afghanistan and secure our nation from the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And during the last two years, still other voices have spoken out about the violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, each side claiming that they are right and the other is wrong, while Jewish and Arab children and women and older people suffer and die.

I don’t know how all of those conflicts are going to be resolved. But I do know that God’s will is for all of the human family – race, color, creed – to live together in peace. And there is one voice that is still speaking to us today, the voice of God’s Son, our Savior Jesus, with love in His heart and tears in His eyes. And His words can be heard, echoing, echoing, echoing down through the centuries of time: This is My body, broken for you. This is My blood, shed for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.

I heard those words sometime ago as I took communion to an older couple who belonged to this church. They were homebound, and both of them were struggling with the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. It was just before Christmas, and when I offered the bread and shared the cup with them in the name of Jesus, the husband asked me, “What does this mean”?

There was a globe of the world in their living room, and I pointed toward Israel and the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and told them all over again about the birth and the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. The husband looked at me and said, “I think I remember,” and his wife shook her head in affirmation that she remembered the story too.

That is our story, my friends, on this World Communion Sunday. This is My body, broken for you. This is My blood, shed for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. And if we don’t tell that story about Jesus Christ and our Father in heaven who holds the world in His hands, then who else will?

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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