Celebration Time – Come On Now

 “There's a party goin' on right here

A celebration to last throughout the years

So bring your good times, and your laughter too

We gonna celebrate your party with you”

       Wow!  That song’s old!  It came out at least three years before we started the building project we conclude today.  I’m just kidding.  Actually it’s from 1980. 

       The song’s old.  But most of us know the words because Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration Time” is still number 1 at wedding receptions – five full points ahead of “YMCA”.and twice the numbers of the “Chicken Dance.”

       We all know the words. But do we feel the beat?  Do our lives match the song we sing? Even as carefree children of the age of disco, did our hearts always sing along with our mouths?

       How long has it been since we have acted truly joyful? How long has it been since we greeted a new day with sheer, deep-felt excitement? When did we last exclaim when we saw the dawn, "O Lord!! It's morning!!" rather than "O Lord, it's morning."

       For some people it's been a very long time.

       Well I’m not one of them.  I have hope in my life. I have people I love. I have things I look forward to. I have things that thrill me. I do walk with God.  I do have the “joy joy joy joy down in my heart.”  

       It's just that I sometimes have a hard time letting it bubble to the surface.

       Today is Palm Sunday the day of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem . The gospels tell how the followers of the Lord celebrate before Him as He enters the city. I wish I could have been there.

       But if I had been there, I wonder if I would have enjoyed it as I should. Or would I have spent all my time wondering if I was holding my palm branch at the right angle, worrying that some child was going to get poked in the eye with the sharp leaf point, debating if it is correctly "Hallelujah" or "Alleluia."

      And even as we celebrate this morning I have that inner voice that keeps me from just letting go.  It asks pleasure-sucking questions like, “Is it big enough?”  “Does the ceiling have enough angles?”  “Will someone get lost in the basement and never be seen again?”

       In other words, although I am named David, I am not very Davidic.  Right after Easter we are going to spend some time looking at the life of David.  God calls David a man after His own heart. And I believe that part of the reason for this is because, unlike me, David knows how to let himself go and enjoy the party while the party was going on.  In this way, David is like God -- the God who parties.

       Our Old Testament passage tells how David leads the company bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem . David dances and leaps before the Lord while wearing a rather short linen kilt called an ephod. Everyone is celebrating and shouting and blowing trumpets.  The only one not in the party spirit is David's wife Michal.  She is scandalized by David's undignified behavior -- and especially by the fact that David has neglected to wear his swim suit under his kilt.  That fact becomes obvious to everyone as he celebrates.

       Remember that Michal is the daughter of King Saul. She has pretty definite ideas of kingly behavior which David is failing to meet. David assures her that the Lord has chosen him and that he has to celebrate.

       Michal disapproves.  And I'm sure she is very confident that God agrees with her because we all know that God is big on decency and restraint. But apparently God doesn’t agree. He approves. He even overlooks David's indiscreet dress for the sake of his celebrating spirit.

       Is God joyful? The evidence says "Yes." God is very joyful.

       Just look at creation.  There is a wonderful flamboyance about it all. God doesn't just create flowers. He creates all kinds and colors and shapes, and hides some of His most glorious designs in the most inaccessible corners of the tropical jungle, or on the snowy slopes of mountains. He does it for no utilitarian reason, but for joy. He doesn't just create a minimalist solar system just large enough to support life on an earth. He creates millions of galaxies. Who else but a joyful God would have thought of hiding pearls in the bottom of the sea in a dull looking oyster, or putting diamonds and rubies deep in the ground? There is a flamboyance, even an extravagance about God's creation.

       God could have made it all so dull. But He enjoys His creation. He delights in it!  So when we are part of creating a building that is not only functional but beautiful, we reflect the nature of God who made us His co-creators. 

       You know, we sometimes picture God as a tired old man with a long white beard. But that's not who God is.  God is and always will be a supremely joyful being.

       If He weren't, the story of creation in Genesis would not read the way it does. In fact, John Ortberg offers this hilarious version of how an old, worn out God would have created in The Life You've Always Wanted:

       Ortberg writes: "In the beginning, it was nine o'clock, so God had to go to work. He filled out a requisition to separate light from darkness. He considered making stars to beautify the night, and planets to fill the skies, but thought it sounded like too much work, and besides, thought God, "That's not my job." So He decided to knock off early and call it a day. And He looked at what He had done and He said, "It'll have to do."

       "On the second day, God separated the waters from the dry land. And He made all the dry land flat, plain, and functional, so that---behold---the whole earth looked like southern Idaho . He thought about making mountains and valleys and glaciers and jungles and forests, but He decided it wouldn't be worth the effort. And God looked at what He had done that day and said, "It'll have to do."

"And God made a pigeon to fly in the air, and a carp to swim in the waters, and a cat to creep upon dry ground. And God thought about making millions of other species of all sizes and shapes and colors, but He couldn't drum up any enthusiasm for any other animals- -in fact, He wasn't too crazy about the cat. Besides, it was almost time for the Late Show. So, God looked at all He had done, and God said, "It'll have to do."

       "And at the end of the week, God was seriously burned out. So He breathed a big sigh of relief and said, "Thank Me, it's Friday."

       Of course Genesis reads nothing like that. Instead it throbs with joy in creation.

       Creating is a joy.  We have had marvelous people on this project – both from our congregation and from the construction trades.  And I don’t think any of them ever said, “That’s good enough, it’ll have to do.”  Instead, there has always been a wonderful joy of doing outstanding work.

      God shares the joy of good work with us. On the first day, "God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good."  

       So if joy is God's nature and if we are made in God's image then why don't we enjoy as God enjoys?   Why can’t I just let go and celebrate as hard as God’s favorite David did?

       Well the problem is sin.  Sin makes us old before our time. Since God doesn't sin, this means that compared to God, we tend to be worn out and worn down. So the joy we see in the happiest child is but a fraction of the joy that resides in the heart of God. Because God is not weighed down like we are.

       In fact, "God is younger than we." That's the point made by G.K. Chesterton is these marvelously insightful words. Chesterton writes, "Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown- up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

       We will not understand God until we understand this about Him: "God is the happiest being in the universe."  Jesus, God made flesh, said that we are to live with joy. Paul says that joy is one of the fruits of God's Spirit. So Christians are supposed to be joyful people. Our goal as believers should be to die young as late as possible.

       But am I off base in assuming that some of you, maybe many of you, find it hard to be joyful because of the circumstances of your life and the circumstances of the world about you? All of us know someone with enough grief and tragedy to wipe out any one of us. Any day we can pick up the paper and sink into depressed feelings. Why can't we live lives of happiness, peace and joy all the time?

       We may be confused in our understanding of joy. There is a difference between short-lived pleasure and deep, abiding joy. True joy comes from deeper roots.

       This is why Jesus, on Palm Sunday is able to experience both sorrow and joy in the space of a few moments.  As we saw last Sunday, when He sees Jerusalem He weeps over it.  He knows what the people's rejection of the way of peace will bring. But when the rulers try to get Him to quiet His followers he says, "If they were silent, the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing" -- because this is party time.

       Sure, life is tragic. But wherever did we get the notion that tragedy cancels out joy? Jesus knows that life is tragic. Think of the turmoil He must have felt that last Thursday night of His earthly life. But in the midst of that agony, He said to His frightened friends: "These things have I spoken to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."

      If we feel high levels of emotional stress His Spirit comes to put our lives in perspective. If we feel loneliness He relieves it with the mystery of His fellowship. If we have sinned, if we are living a lie, He comes to forgive if we desire forgiveness. If we feel despair about our lives or our world, He lifts our lives with hope. Then comes our encounter with the final enemy, death, and He transforms it into the Resurrection we celebrate next Sunday at Easter.

      Just because there is agony in the world we do not need to be depressed full-time. We don't need to choose between sorrow and joy -- any more than a woman in labor needs to choose between the pain and what is being produced by the pain. Ecclesiastes 3 says there is "a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." We live with a deep abiding joy through all of life because we are God's people. He delights in us, and He comes to us in Jesus Christ with infinite resources.

       We are grateful for each and every worker who worked here.  We are grateful for the Building Committee for working month after month in Monday night meetings.   Project manager Dan Varnum and architect Tom Flitsch have put in countless hours and burned many creative brain cells.  Building projects don’t just happen.  I am grateful to everyone, including you in your strong financial support, for bringing us to this place.  

        This list of gratitude certainly includes our God.  I am amazed at the way the Lord met a need we didn’t even know that we were going to have.  If I ever wondered whether building the sanctuary was His will for us, the events of 2005 removed those doubts.

       Back in 2001 we made a decision to buy 2.7 acres of vacant land between our church and Pinecrest School for $750,000.  That was a financial stretch but one we felt we had to make.  When we bought the land we had a number of possible uses in mind.  We weren’t sure how we would make the land useful because of the difference in elevation.  Buying the old Angels Flight from Los Angeles was one option.  But we knew that buying the land was the right thing to do.  You agreed by your votes and your gifts.

       Then came 2005 when we faced both a need and a realization.

       The need was the large gap between the financial resources we had and the projected cost of building what we needed to build.  Building costs have soared.  The gap was over a million dollars.  We couldn’t reduce the size of the project and have the facilities we need for our ministry in the community.  We seemed to be stuck.

       But we also faced the realization – the realization of what creative, I believe Holy Spirit inspired, architectural design can accomplish.  The redesign of the sanctuary and the addition of the huge walk-in basement had taken away much of the need for the upper property.  The reorientation of the project made room for the parking we need on this lower lot.  We realized that we don’t need the upper property to meet our facility needs. 

       A huge financial gap!  Now unneeded land!  We knew that the land had increased in value.  We didn’t know how much.  As you know, we closed for 2.25 million.  This gave us enough to close the gap and move forward. 

       We didn’t do that.  God did it.  And I’m sure God got a kick out of doing it.  He probably turned to St. Peter and said, “Hey Peter, watch this one!!  He met a huge 2005 need way back in 2001 when He nudged us to buy that land.  We didn’t know His purposes so we filled in with our best guesses.  But God knew the program and then He revealed it to us.  And if we aren’t thankful, if we don’t sense God’s strong leading and blessing on our congregational life, then there is something very wrong with our thinking and our praise.   “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

       How can we keep from being joyful especially today?  Maybe we can even dance before the Lord.

There's a party goin' on right here

A celebration to last throughout the years

So bring your good times, and your laughter too

God’s gonna celebrate our party with us

      If we are silent, the rocks and stones – and maybe even the wallboard and the stucco will cry out. Because it's party time. Let's stand and sing!

"Let All the World Sing Praises"