While you were growing up, your father was difficult and verbally abusive towards you. Now that you are older and have children of your own, he is much softer and wants to have a relationship with you. But you keep him at arms length. He hurt you too badly to have him close to you again.

Your daughter is on the club soccer team. Your son has a part-time job after school. You’ve just received a raise and more responsibility at work. Your cancer is in remission. Your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to take your relationship to the next level. You finally have your “man cave” or your crafting room.

And the devil laughs.

The Joker is laying siege to Gotham City. New York City is under attack by Dr. Octopus and the rest of the Sinister Six. Lex Luthor has another diabolic plan to take over the world.

The people of Gotham and New York and planet Earth are helpless. They are weak victims of crimes being perpetrated against them. They are powerless to stop their enemies.

They need superheroes.

The Israelites in the book of Judges are helpless. They are victims of the mighty Philistines. They are powerless to stop their enemies.

They need a superhero.

Christian writer Greg Elder grew up along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As a boy he used to spend long hours building intricate sand castles on the beach. One year, however, he encountered trouble. For several days in a row, local bullies came by and used their bare feet to kick down whatever sand castle he was building.

Finally this young boy had had enough. He decided to try an experiment. He started to build a sand castle as before, only this time he included cinder blocks and chunks of concrete as part of the base.

One day a farmer’s old dog fell into a dry well. He was trapped. No way out. The animal cried piteously for hours while the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, though the farmer sympathized with the dog, he decided that the dog was old and the well dry, and neither was worth the trouble of saving. So the farmer decided to bury the old dog and put him out of his misery.

In South Euclid, Ohio, a 62-year-old man from that community was found guilty of picking on a neighbor who has two adopted ethnic, developmentally challenged children, a husband with dementia and a paralyzed son. The man would shine a spotlight at the neighbor’s house at three in the morning and disturb the family’s sleep, play loud music to disturb his neighbors, he spat on the mother while she was holding her children, and publicly shouted a racial epithet to describe the mom. He also regularly threw dog feces at the son’s car.  

In the movie, “God’s Not Dead,” two Christian pastors have a refrain that they repeat between themselves a number of times during the movie. The first pastor says, “God is good ...” The second pastor replies, “… all the time.” Then the second pastor starts, “And all the time …” the first pastor finishes, “… God is good.”

Social media was filled this past week with two very different and distinct stories. The first was the news that Robin Williams had taken his own life. Many of us knew him from his famous roles in “Mork and Mindy,” “Dead Poets Society,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” and “Good Will Hunting.” Our children knew him as the cross-dressing Mrs. Doubtfire and the voice for the multi-dimensional Genie in “Aladdin.”

In A.D. 537 the Byzantine Emperor Justinian dedicated what was then the largest cathedral in the world in his capital city of Constantinople. It was called the Shrine of the Holy Wisdom of God (referring to the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ), known more commonly by its Greek name Hagia Sophia (Greek for “Holy Wisdom”). For its time it was a stupendous miracle of engineering and construction. Its inner walls were covered with mosaics, and it boasted a 49-foot-tall iconostasis – the screen that separated the altar area (priests only) and the nave where the people stood. It was the center of Christian worship for the entire Eastern Empire after the West fell to the barbarian invasions in the 400s. (Have some fun later today and Google “Hagia Sophia” and even take a virtual tour.)

This Sunday's sermon is a series of devotions used during the week of Training Camp from July 21st to July 25th.