Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (May 24, 1998)

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (2)
- MP3 Part 1
- MP3 Part 2
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4j679b1f?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4j679b1f
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

-	Our scripture text from the Gospel of John	0:10
	comes at the end of the section where Jesus	0:13
	has been teaching his disciples and praying for them	0:15
	as he prepared them for his death.	0:19
	For five chapters in this gospel,	0:22
	from Chapter 13 through Chapter 17,	0:24
	Jesus tries one last time	0:27
	to get across to the disciples	0:30
	what he most wants them to know.	0:32
	He will soon be going to his death	0:35
	and in the shadow of the cross,	0:38
	everything that he says takes on special meaning.	0:40
	You know how it is,	0:45
	you get word that a loved one has fallen ill	0:47
	and the message that you should come home right away.	0:50
	You think about what you will say when you see them,	0:54
	knowing that it might be the last time	0:57
	you have the chance to speak to them.	0:59
	And when you get there, you hang	1:02
	on every word they say to you,	1:03
	knowing that it might be	1:06
	the last words from them that you ever hear.	1:07
	Everything takes on greater meaning at the end.	1:12
	What I want you to hear this morning	1:17
	is that at the end, just before Jesus went out to the garden	1:20
	where he was arrested, taken to be tried, and crucified,	1:25
	just before then,	1:31
	Jesus prayed for us.	1:34
	For five chapters, he has been teaching	1:37
	and praying for the disciples, but at the very end,	1:39
	just before he would move	1:42
	with resolute purpose toward his death,	1:44
	he prays for us who would come to believe later,	1:47
	based on the word of the disciples.	1:52
	The timing of his prayer gives his words	1:56
	even greater import.	1:58
	At the end when everything unimportant was fading away,	2:00
	in the final moments when what really matters	2:04
	stands out in bold relief,	2:07
	on that last evening,	2:10
	the last words that Jesus speaks before he was arrested	2:12
	are a prayer for us.	2:17
	So listen, listen carefully.	2:21
	Because in the end, what Jesus wants	2:24
	for us more than anything else,	2:28
	what he prays for and dies for and is raised for,	2:31
	is that we may be one.	2:37
	"As you Father are in me, and I am in you,"	2:44
	"may they also be in us."	2:48
	"I and them and you and me,	2:51
	"that they may become completely one."	2:55
	More than anything else, Jesus desires that through him	3:00
	we might become one with God	3:05
	and one with each other.	3:08
	Do you realize what an amazing prayer this is,	3:12
	what an amazing hope?	3:14
	It is not only the hope that through Jesus	3:17
	we will come to believe in God,	3:19
	though that is part of it.	3:21
	It is the prayer, the expectation,	3:23
	that with Christ,	3:27
	we will be united in God.	3:29
	That is, as the Father and the son are of one substance,	3:33
	such that the life of Jesus Christ reflects	3:38
	the very essence of God,	3:41
	so might we become	3:44
	one substance with them,	3:46
	one mind, one heart,	3:49
	one will,	3:52
	one body, one love.	3:54
	Jesus prays that we may all be one,	3:58
	completely, totally, one.	4:01
	It is the point of his coming,	4:05
	it is the main thing he wants for us,	4:08
	it is what he prays for at the very end and beyond,	4:11
	that we might all be one.	4:16
	So how did there get to be so many divisions between us?	4:21
	Especially within the Christian church.	4:26
	As director of religious life at Duke,	4:30
	I work with the staff of about 20 religious leaders,	4:33
	several faiths, and more than 15	4:37
	different Christian groups are represented on campus.	4:39
	Every time we come together to plan	4:43
	a joint Christian service of worship, I'm reminded	4:46
	of how difficult it is for us to agree.	4:49
	We keep bumping up against our doctrinal differences.	4:53
	Over and over, somebody feels compromised	4:57
	by what somebody else deeply believes	5:00
	or the way they express it.	5:04
	When we find a middle course	5:07
	that can accommodate our differences,	5:09
	it sometimes seems that the service we end up with	5:11
	speaks to no one.	5:14
	But Jesus prays that we may all be one.	5:17
	Surely our denominational divisions	5:22
	must pain the heart of Christ.	5:24
	As we present a splintered face to the world,	5:28
	we lead people not toward greater unity and oneness,	5:30
	but more separateness and strife.	5:34
	Even within denominations, we often dissolve	5:38
	into bitter conflict.	5:42
	In my own United Methodist denomination,	5:44
	we're in the midst of an increasing bitter struggle	5:47
	about the place and the role of gay, lesbian,	5:50
	and bisexual people in the church.	5:54
	The Reverend Jimmy Creech's blessing of a lesbian union	5:57
	has brought this controversy into the public eye.	6:00
	Clergy and laity are lining up on either side of the issue.	6:04
	Families and congregations are being torn apart.	6:09
	We are a long way from oneness about this issue,	6:12
	and in fact some have predicted that it will eventually	6:16
	split my denomination as race once did.	6:19
	In North Carolina, where they say	6:26
	there are more Baptists than people,	6:28
	we have followed with interest,	6:31
	the battles within the Southern Baptist Convention.	6:34
	For the last decade or so, a major takeover	6:37
	has been underway, and those who refuse to tow	6:40
	the conservative party line have been kicked out.	6:43
	The struggles within the Christian community can get ugly.	6:48
	Taken to the extreme, you get Ireland,	6:52
	where Protestants and Catholics have been killing	6:55
	each other for many years.	6:57
	In East Belfast, the peace line is a literal wall	7:00
	that separates Catholics from Protestants	7:05
	with their houses only yards apart.	7:08
	Even with the work and the hopefulness of the peace process,	7:12
	there are those	7:16
	who are willing to kill and, if necessary, die	7:17
	to promote their differences.	7:20
	But Jesus prays that we may all be one.	7:25
	Jesus's prayer for unity was given to embrace	7:32
	the whole world.	7:36
	And how desperately we need his vision of oneness.	7:38
	Three times in recent months, teenagers have felt	7:43
	so cut off from communities, so cut off from family,	7:46
	so cut off from God,	7:51
	that they opened fire on their classmates.	7:54
	In the US, many people live	7:59
	in constant fear of violence	8:00
	Families are splinted	8:03
	as the divorce rate climbs toward 50%.	8:05
	Racial tensions continue to plague us.	8:10
	There's a growing gap between rich and poor.	8:13
	But Jesus prays that we may all be one.	8:18
	In Israel, Palestinians and Jews continue	8:23
	to kill each other over a few square miles of land.	8:26
	In the former Yugoslavia, ethnic Albanians and Serbs	8:30
	square off across battle lines.	8:33
	Political unrest threatens the peace in Indonesia.	8:36
	Ethnic fighting continues to leave a bloodbath in Africa.	8:41
	And yet, even now,	8:47
	Jesus prays that we may all be one.	8:50
	When we consider the divisions that separate us,	8:56
	we're tempted to despair.	9:00
	Sometimes it seems that the vision of unity	9:03
	that Jesus prays for is nothing but an empty dream.	9:06
	We can't even get together within the Christian church,	9:10
	how are we supposed to get together outside the church.	9:13
	Look around you, here.	9:18
	Even here, we are mostly strangers.	9:21
	It is easy to come to Duke Chapel	9:26
	without ever having to speak to another person.	9:28
	But I bet if you sat down with the people in your pew or row	9:32
	and talked, it wouldn't take long	9:37
	until you came up against your differences.	9:39
	Political, social, cultural,	9:43
	economic, personal differences.	9:46
	Some how it seems safer, less threatening	9:50
	to keep the distance between us.	9:53
	That way we can come in separately and leave separately.	9:56
	That way we can imagine what some kind of vague notion	10:01
	that we have of oneness, of common belief.	10:06
	I'm a Christian and you're a Christian, isn't that nice?	10:09
	But this kind of unity doesn't demand much of us	10:14
	and even less does it change us.	10:18
	And yet, even now, Jesus prays for us,	10:22
	that we may all be one.	10:27
	Is this just a lofty, theological idea	10:31
	that has no basis in reality?	10:34
	No, it is the prayer,	10:38
	it is the deep hope of Jesus for us.	10:41
	Christ yearns to be so close to us	10:47
	and for us to be so close to God and to each other,	10:52
	that our hearts beat as one.	10:57
	He wants us to experience the depth of God's love	11:01
	to the same degree that he has known it.	11:05
	Such that we become a reflection,	11:08
	a mirror, of that love.	11:11
	How can we know such closeness, such unity, such love.	11:14
	Lest we feel hopelessly inadequate	11:19
	to ever attain such unity,	11:22
	it is important for us to remember that this	11:24
	is first and foremost God's work.	11:27
	Through Jesus, God has taken a giant step toward us.	11:32
	In choosing to be born as a human being,	11:37
	God chose to come close to us.	11:40
	God wants to be in relationship with us,	11:44
	and through Christ, the gap between us and God	11:47
	gets bridged in a way that we could never accomplish.	11:50
	Because the Father is in the son,	11:54
	and the son is in the Father,	11:57
	it is possible for us to be in them.	12:00
	One theologian describes it this way,	12:04
	"The incarnation means therefore above all things	12:07
	"that nothing, literally nothing that happens	12:10
	"in human life and in the world here and now,	12:13
	"can be regarded as having no relationship with God.	12:17
	"The world is God's, and God is in the world.	12:21
	"All men and women and children are God's people,	12:25
	"and God is in us all.	12:29
	"God near us, God with us, God in us."	12:32
	In Christ, God comes near to each of us	12:38
	and invites us into an intimate relationship with God	12:42
	and with all whom God loves.	12:46
	Our first and primary work	12:48
	is to draw nearer to Christ	12:51
	so that in Christ, God can draw us nearer to each other.	12:54
	Jesus prays,	12:59
	"May they be one, I and them and you and me,	13:01
	"that they may be completely one so that the love	13:05
	"with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them."	13:09
	The oneness that Jesus prays for is only possible	13:15
	when we become so close to Christ that he is in us	13:18
	as the Father is in him.	13:22
	In the 15th chapter of John,	13:25
	Jesus describes this relationship	13:27
	as that of a vine grower, a vine, and its branches.	13:30
	The branches cannot bear fruit apart from the vine,	13:34
	and the vine has no growth without the vine grower.	13:37
	Each needs the other.	13:41
	The Father is the vine grower who gives Jesus the vine	13:43
	and lovingly tends him.	13:47
	And we are the branches created to bear fruit,	13:49
	but only as we abide in Jesus and feed on his love for us,	13:52
	can we bear the fruit of oneness and love for others.	13:57
	This deep connection to Christ is the sap of life	14:02
	that energizes our life and makes possible	14:07
	our unity with each other.	14:10
	Jesus prays that we might be one	14:14
	by staying so close to him	14:17
	that his life and our life	14:20
	and God's life become linked in such a way	14:23
	that we embody the same quality of love	14:27
	that unites the Father and the son.	14:30
	It is this mutuality of love that has the power	14:33
	to bind us together and heal our divisions.	14:37
	The love we receive in Christ	14:42
	makes it possible for us to love in return.	14:44
	Love creates more love.	14:47
	In Christ, oneness, even with	14:50
	the most improbable people becomes possible.	14:53
	In Durham, we've seen this happen.	14:57
	When an ex-leader of the KKK and an African American woman	15:00
	joined hands to work for the good of the community,	15:04
	fostering between them a deep friendship	15:08
	that surprised them both.	15:11
	We've seen the healing power of people in this community	15:14
	coming together at the sight of murders in the community	15:18
	to pray both for the victims of violence	15:21
	and the perpetrators.	15:24
	We've seen the system of apartheid crumble	15:27
	as black and white people in South Africa	15:30
	have come together to acknowledge the sins	15:33
	of their past and work for greater mutuality.	15:35
	And in the past week, we've witnessed a historic vote	15:40
	for peace in Northern Ireland.	15:44
	These are signs of hope that witness to the power of Christ	15:49
	to bring unity from disunity,	15:53
	love from hate, life from death.	15:55
	Many divisions remain among us,	16:01
	but we need not despair, because Jesus continues	16:03
	to pray that we may be one.	16:07
	This is what he wants for us more than anything else.	16:12
	Christ lived and died and was resurrected	16:16
	so that we may be one as the Father and the Son are one.	16:19
	Unity is possible because we don't seek it alone,	16:24
	but through Christ, who has the ability	16:28
	to bring us close to God and to each other.	16:31
	I'd like to close this morning	16:36
	with a prayer for unity that was written	16:38
	by a church in Northern Ireland.	16:40
	I think this prayer has special meaning in light	16:43
	of the referendum this past week.	16:45
	Let us pray.	16:48
	"Lord Jesus, who on the eve of your death,	16:57
	"prayed that all your disciples might be one.	17:01
	"Make us feel intense sorrow over the infidelity	17:06
	"of our disunity.	17:10
	"Give us the honesty to recognize, and the courage	17:13
	"to reject whatever indifference towards one another	17:17
	"or mutual distrust,	17:21
	or even enmity lie hidden within us.	17:24
	"Enable all of us to meet one another in you.	17:29
	"And let your prayer for the unity of Christians	17:33
	"be ever in our hearts and on our lips.	17:36
	"Unity such as you desire it,	17:40
	"and by the means that you will.	17:43
	"Make us find the way that leads to unity in you,	17:47
	"who are perfect love through being obedient	17:52
	"to the spirit of love and truth."	17:56
	Amen.	17:59
	(church organ)	18:04

-	The third reading is from the gospel	0:06
	according to Saint Luke, chapter 24.	0:08
	But on the first day of the week at early dawn	0:12
	they came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.	0:15
	They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,	0:20
	but when they went in they did not find the body.	0:24
	While they were perplexed about this,	0:28
	suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.	0:30
	The women were terrified and bowed their faces	0:34
	to the ground, but the men said to them,	0:36
	"Why do you look for the living among the dead?	0:41
	"He is not here but has risen.	0:43
	"Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee	0:46
	"that the son of man must be handed over to sinners,	0:50
	"and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."	0:54
	They had remembered his words,	0:59
	and returning from the tomb they told all the 11,	1:01
	and all the rest.	1:06
	Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna,	1:08
	Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them	1:12
	who told this to the apostles.	1:15
	But these words seemed to them an idle tale,	1:18
	and they did not believe them.	1:22
	But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,	1:25
	stooping and looking in he saw the linen cloths	1:28
	by themselves.	1:32
	He went home amazed at what had happened.	1:34
	This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.	1:39
-	When I was in high school I read	1:51
	Walter Lord's, A Night to Remember.	1:54
	It made deep impression.	1:59
	It was the story of the Titanic.	2:02
	Lord not only told details of the sinking,	2:07
	and stories of the victims and the survivors,	2:12
	but he also managed to tell a larger story	2:18
	about early 20th century technological arrogance,	2:23
	about duplicitous ship owners,	2:29
	and a captain too sure of his own knowledge,	2:32
	too confident in this great technological marvel,	2:37
	too brash on the sea.	2:41
	It's quite a contrast to Hollywood's most expensive	2:46
	movie ever, 400 million dollars spent	2:52
	to rebuild the Titanic in the Mexican desert,	2:57
	an extravagantly conceived, ferociously produced,	3:02
	Hollywood epic, all reduced to the level	3:06
	of Romeo and Juliet, with a little class rivalry thrown in.	3:10
	I couldn't help but feel toward the end	3:17
	of Hollywood's latest Titanic,	3:20
	when young Leonardo DiCaprio was taking his time drowning,	3:24
	I couldn't help but think about this gargantuan violence,	3:29
	the realistic horror of the great ship's	3:36
	last agonizing minutes.	3:42
	A thousand bodies floating frozen in the dark water.	3:45
	I just couldn't help but wonder how so huge a tragedy,	3:50
	with so many large lessons to be learned,	3:56
	could by Hollywood be reduced to the smallness.	4:01
	A boy meets girl, boy beds girl, then dies,	4:07
	and girl goes on to live a sweet little life.	4:11
	A tattered charcoal drawing, a gauche necklace,	4:16
	faded photographs clutched by an old lady into her 90s.	4:21
	To me at least, these seemed pitiful.	4:25
	The small retrieval from so huge a tragedy.	4:30
	I really despise this contemporary tendency	4:38
	to reduce everything, even large, undeniable tragedy	4:42
	like Titanic, to the level of personal relationship.	4:47
	Titanic the movie managed to depict so well	4:53
	the horror in this huge, awesome tragedy of death,	4:57
	but it wimped out when it came to hope.	5:05
	Look, I'm all for relationships.	5:12
	I'm in the business myself,	5:15
	but really now, two teenagers clinging to one another?	5:17
	Is this really enough to carry the freight,	5:22
	as so many think, into dark, watery oblivion?	5:25
	I felt a bit the same about the ending of another	5:32
	really good movie this year, The Ice Storm.	5:35
	A movie which so masterfully, and depressingly,	5:38
	lays out the misery of living	5:41
	in upscale New Canaan, Connecticut, 1971.	5:44
	But then after getting all sorts of great dilemmas	5:49
	out on the table the movie ends	5:52
	with dad, and mom, and the kids in the family car,	5:54
	weeping, just weeping.	5:58
	I can't find a movie which manages both	6:04
	to be honest and hopeful.	6:08
	I'm yearning for a really satisfying end, are you?	6:14
	But really now, without a God who saves,	6:23
	without a God who acts, who moves, who triumphs,	6:28
	what do I expect of late 20th Century folk?	6:34
	Let's all join hands.	6:38
	Let's hold on to the wreckage.	6:41
	Let's cling to one another for comfort.	6:44
	Let's shed a tear.	6:47
	Let's hold on to our fading photographs,	6:49
	and all the stuff we've accumulated	6:54
	as we sink into dark nothingness.	6:58
	Still, this seems small potatoes	7:02
	in the face of so much death.	7:07
	The death portrayed in Titanic was so large,	7:11
	and the hope at the end seemed so small.	7:17
	Death, death is large.	7:23
	Everything that lives, dies.	7:28
	Everyone whom we love are day by day	7:32
	descending toward that dissolution.	7:35
	Biologist, Lewis Thomas, speaks honestly	7:38
	of the largeness of death,	7:41
	the shear carnality of our finitude.	7:44
	Thomas writes, the obituary pages tell us news	7:48
	that we're dying off.	7:53
	While birth announcements in finer print	7:55
	over at the side of the page inform us of our replacements,	7:57
	but usually we get no grasp of the enormity of the scale.	8:01
	There are 3 billion of us on Earth,	8:06
	and all 3 billion must be dead on schedule	8:08
	within this lifetime.	8:12
	The vast mortality, involving something over 50 million	8:14
	of us every year, takes place in relative secrecy.	8:19
	We can only really know of the deaths in our households,	8:24
	or among our best friends.	8:27
	These, detached in our minds from the rest,	8:30
	we speak of as unnatural events, as anomalies,	8:33
	as brief outrages.	8:37
	We speak of our own deaths in low voices.	8:40
	Struck down, we say, as though visible death	8:44
	can only occur for some good cause,	8:47
	by disease, or by violence, unavoidably.	8:50
	We send our flowers, we grieve, we have ceremonies,	8:55
	we scatter bones, unaware of the rest of the 3 billion	8:58
	right on schedule.	9:03
	All that immense mass of flesh and bone and consciousness	9:05
	will disappear into absorption in the earth	9:10
	without recognition by the transient survivors.	9:13
	Well I tire of movies or biologists	9:22
	who do such a great job of laying out in all honesty	9:27
	the vastness of human mortality,	9:30
	but then they wimp out in the end	9:35
	with some couple clinging to one another for cold comfort.	9:38
	And yet, in fairness to Hollywood, or the biologists,	9:44
	what do you say in the face of so much death?	9:50
	In the 26th chapter of the Book of Acts,	9:58
	Paul is summoned before King Agrippa,	10:01
	the Roman lackey in that corner of occupied Judea,	10:04
	and during the course of his eloquent defense,	10:09
	after Paul tells how Jesus was crucified,	10:13
	and died, and then rose from the dead,	10:16
	Paul says something to Agrippa that I noticed	10:19
	just the other day.	10:23
	Paul says, "Oh King, this thing did not occur in a corner."	10:26
	Acts 26:26, this thing, this Easter,	10:35
	this wasn't some kind of purely personal,	10:41
	isolated, local event.	10:43
	It did not occur in a corner.	10:47
	Easter is large.	10:51
	It is cosmic.	10:52
	It's world shaking and rending.	10:54
	It is Jesus raised from the dead, yes,	10:59
	and it is even more, Easter.	11:03
	Paul learned to read as a kind of sign, a foretaste,	11:07
	of what God is doing, will do, in the whole world.	11:12
	It is that Jesus lives, yes, but it is more.	11:17
	It is that Jesus reigns.	11:23
	It is that God is life and God will not	11:26
	be defeated by death.	11:30
	This thing is more than personal, it's cosmic.	11:33
	Jesus comes forth from the tomb and the whole Earth shakes.	11:38
	This thing, this Easter, it did not occur in a corner.	11:43
	Philosopher (mumbling) said,	11:49
	Easter represented no more than humanities lust	11:51
	for personal immortality, wishful thinking,	11:55
	infantile projection.	11:59
	We want so to live forever that we, you see,	12:01
	wishfully project a dream that fulfills our fondest hopes.	12:05
	No, Easter wasn't just about Jesus being resurrected.	12:13
	Easter is God getting God's way with the whole world.	12:19
	It's about God getting in the last word in human history,	12:24
	and that word was life, not death,	12:28
	and that word is large.	12:32
	Death is vast, but Easter is larger.	12:36
	Today you have noted that we reach	12:42
	for our most extravagant song to sing of it.	12:44
	This day words always seem to fail.	12:48
	The one who was raised from the tomb	12:54
	shall ascend into heaven,	12:57
	shall rule at the right hand of God,	12:59
	shall reign, shall put all enemies down under His feet.	13:02
	And the last enemy, as Paul said in the epistle today,	13:07
	the last enemy death.	13:11
	Titanic the movie, took a huge tragedy	13:15
	and reduced it to touching personal relationship.	13:20
	Easter takes an event where God vindicates dead Jesus	13:26
	by raising him to life and explodes it	13:31
	into cosmic triumph.	13:35
	It's not just about how can I, and those whom I love,	13:37
	live forever.	13:44
	It's about how can God's justice be vindicated.	13:46
	How can God get God's way with the world?	13:50
	It's about peace in Northern Ireland.	13:54
	Well, if the end of the story of Jesus	14:05
	had been left up to us,	14:07
	you know what we would've tried to salvage?	14:09
	We would've said something inane like,	14:13
	oh well, I guess he'll live on in our memories,	14:15
	or, well let's get organized and get armed,	14:17
	and get those Romans out of Judea,	14:21
	or maybe we could endow a chair in the philosophy department	14:24
	in Jesus name.	14:28
	It's about that kind of triviality getting exploded	14:32
	and blown open.	14:36
	What does God do with all the sin, and all the suffering,	14:37
	and all the death?	14:42
	The end, thank God, is not in our hands.	14:43
	The Earth shakes and He is risen.	14:49
	The Communist lecturer paused before summing up.	14:57
	His large audience listened fearfully.	15:01
	Therefore, he said, there is no God.	15:06
	Jesus Christ never existed and there's no such thing	15:09
	as the Holy Spirit.	15:12
	The church is an oppressive institution,	15:13
	and anyway, it's out of date.	15:16
	The future belongs to the State,	15:19
	and the State is in the hands of the party.	15:21
	He was about to sit down when an old Orthodox priest	15:26
	near the front stood up.	15:32
	The priest asked, "Could I just say just two words."	15:34
	Actually it's three in English,	15:42
	but he was of course speaking in Russian.	15:43
	The lecturer disdainfully gave him permission.	15:47
	The old priest turned, he looked out over the assemblage,	15:53
	and he shouted, "Christ is risen."	15:57
	Back came the roar of the people.	16:03
	Shouting by word, by heart, those words	16:06
	they had said by heart at the end of the Easter service	16:10
	in their churches down through the millennia.	16:16
	Christ is risen indeed.	16:20
	And the almighty State crumbled.	16:25
	Death slinked away in humiliation,	16:28
	and the Earth shook, and we were free,	16:32
	or as Paul puts it, this thing didn't occur in a corner.	16:37
	He disarmed the rulers and authorities.	16:42
	He made a public spectacle of them.	16:46
	He triumphed.	16:50
	Easter is big.	16:52
	(organ music)	17:00

Item Info

Title:

Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (May 24, 1998)

Description:

Brazzel emphasizes the importance of coming together as a church community. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: Jesus continues to pray that we may be one. This is what he wants for us more than anything else. Christ lived and died and was resurrected so that we may be one as the father and son are one. Unity is possible because we don’t seek it alone but through Christ, who has the ability to bring us close to God and to each other.

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4j679b1f

Date:

May 24, 1998

Speaker:

Brazzel, Debra K.

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0907
ref9963_tgr
uachapelsermaud
duke:320710
dcrau001551
ark:/87924/r4j679b1f
f50442ab-e4e1-42e3-b5b0-6ca051fccad2

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (May 24, 1998)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options