Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

When I was serving in the church in Marine on St. Croix, I drove the same way to work from Stillwater every day, and so every day I passed by the same yellow sign on my way home. It was a sign so familiar that I hardly noticed it after five years.  Driving along that scenic and picturesque roadway there was a curve near the city’s limit where the road down passed through the prehistoric riverbed of the receding ice age.  Stone ridges surrounded you on both sides where you were greeted by the sign, “Watch for Fallen Rocks.”  It’s not as stressful than the road signs in the Rocky Mountains, “Beware of Falling Rock.”  After all, what you can do about rocks that are still in the act of falling?  Fallen rocks, however, are different.

There don’t appear to be any peculiar road signs here on Lake of the Isles, but there was an equally troubling road sign in Hopkins when I served at Gethsemane Lutheran Church.  I am not sure that the members ever noticed, but as you turned onto Gethsemane Road from Minnetonka Mills Boulevard, there was a sign on the right side, “Dead End.” It’s not exactly the most welcoming sign for new visitors to the church.

I rather suspect that Jesus’ disciples were suddenly seeing for the first time those road signs “Watch for Fallen Rocks” and “Dead End” on that fateful night in which their master was betrayed.  For three years they had felt the success of Jesus’s ministry. Crowds came out to meet them and they barely had time to themselves. But Jesus surprised them that night by saying that his time on earth was short. Then he warned them that where he was going they could not come. Regardless of what happened along the way, however, Jesus told them that they were to keep his word, and to do his work in this world. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them

Regretfully, that is not always our natural inclination when facing trials and setbacks, fallen rock and dead ends.  Instead, when you see the road signs, you may wonder what to do. I can’t imagine there are many of us here, who, upon seeing one of these signs along the highway,  would peer anxiously above his or her shoulders, and seeing the loose, overhanging rocks, would turn the car around and drive back.  After all, we view ourselves as risk takers, and we live in a community of risk takers. We are men and women who set out, in spite of obstacles and danger, to achieve our goals. Of course there may be momentary lapses and a questioning of judgment, and at those moments. In this world you may for social, economic or political reasons, choose simply to play it safe.

Others may see the signs of fallen rocks and dead ends and anxiously choose to worry and over plan.  Like many of you, I know that most of the things I fret about never happen, primarily because I have successfully worried about them ahead of time.  My mother’s favorite writer Erma Bombeck once wrote, “Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”  But what good does worrying do?  It doesn’t hold the rock up on the hillside, nor does it jar it loose.  The worrying of the driver, the spouse, your parents, or the well-intentioned friend, however, doesn’t effect the rock, but it does have a tremendous effect upon the driver. Anxiety and fear have a way of killing us from the inside.

Hopefully, you and I will all experience the long stretches of uneventful days with few road sign distractions and so will our children. But then one day, without warning, some crisis falls upon you.  You may at any moment be cast into a painful tragedy that brings your dreams crashing down around you.  It takes from you the spring in your step and the joy in your heart. Of course, it wouldn’t be so bad if troubles had a warning. If you could see them approaching along the curve in the road. But like falling rocks and dead ends, a crisis generally attacks as an ambush when you least expect it. Avoidance and anxiety cannot prevent the rocks from falling. We may not know when, and we may never know for sure. But fearing and worrying will never help. Life must go on, and so must you.  That is the message of Jesus’ farewell sermon to his disciples on the night he was betrayed.

Faithful acceptance of the sorrows of this world doesn’t mean that the Christian simply acknowledges and accepts what happens and then sullenly moves on. For the Christian, such benign passive acceptance, like avoidance and anxiety, is not a faithful response.  We are living in a world facing countless tragedies, the ongoing war in Russia and Ukraine, the destruction of Gaza and the starvation of children, the daily loss of veterans here at home from suicide, and today as a city we remember the murder of George Floyd and the carnage which followed.  There are road signs of fallen rocks and dead end scattered all around us.  That was Jesus’ warning to his disciples.

But my friends, Christ-like acceptance is a trust that God is still beside you regardless of whether the rocks tumble and fall or not.  God is still with you in the dead ends of life. It is a trust and confidence that there is no stone that he cannot overturn in his time. Not even the stone rolled across his tomb in death. No, faithful acceptance is the trust that because Christ lives, you will live also. And that God’s dreams for you can still become a reality.  God’s Holy Spirit will inspire you to act and respond. God’s Holy Spirit will encourage to listen and to speak and to challenge. Yes, God’s Holy Spirit will accompany you as you work with others to build up this world and restore it. That is the Spirit  Jesus promised his disciples. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

Charles M. Schultz, the author of Peanuts who must have been think of Charlie Brown once said, “I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.”  My friends, as Christian you can do one better. You don’t have to dread any day at all. When the rocks are falling and dead ends appear, Jesus promises that “I will not leave you. So do not let your hearts be trouble , and do not let them be afraid.”

My friends, you and I must faithfully do God’s will in this world- in spite of the warning of the road signs around us. All will be well, not because of what you are doing, but because of what God in Jesus Christ is doing through us. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.