4-24-2022 The Second Sunday of Easter

Dr. John Tamilio III

When I was on the way into the WEZE studio to record my broadcast (Understanding the Word with Dr. John) two days ago, I had another verse from the Bible in mind that I was going to talk about today. but then something happened — something that proves to me yet again that our God works in mysterious ways, and thanks be to God for that.

Here’s what happened. I came into the building and was about to get on the elevator. There was a woman who was ahead of me. The doors opened. She got on, I followed, and as the door closed she looked and saw that I had a Bible in my hand. She asked me, “Is that a Bible?” I said yes, and then she said, “You know, as long as you have Jesus in your life, everything is going to be okay. The world can be crazy, your life can be crazy, everything around you can be crazy, but if you have Jesus, everything will be alright.” Then the doors opened, we both stepped off and went our separate ways. This woman (I could tell from her accent was from Haiti) this woman smiled this beautiful smile as she witnessed to me on that elevator, and I said to myself, “Well, I have to change my plans. Another verse is needed today,” and that verse came from the prophet Habakkuk, one of the twelve minor prophets. His text appears towards the end of the Old Testament.

Let me read chapter 2, verses one and two. It says,

I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

That final line, write the revelation on tablets so that a herald may run with it, suggests that whatever the message is that you have, make it simple, make it plain. and make it clear so that a runner can take it and deliver it elsewhere. There is a different translation of that same verse that can be found in the New Revised Standard Version and it says, “Then the Lord answered me and said write the vision, make it plain on tablets so that our runner may read it.” I think I like that translation better because it suggests that a runner, who is running along the roadside, can see a sign that is so clear and simple and plain that he or she doesn’t have to stop. They can read it while they’re running and get the gist of the message.

One might call that an elevator speech. You may have heard that expression before: an elevator speech. What does that mean? Well, basically, it just means in the amount of time that you would be on an elevator with someone else, what would you say in that short amount of time that would sum up what you believe about really anything, for that matter, but in this case, what we believe about Jesus, or what we believe about God, or Scripture, or anything like that.

I think of the Rabbi Hillel — the person who lived a generation before Jesus. Some people think he could have been Jesus’ teacher because some of their teachings are very similar to one another. Hillel lived a generation before Jesus and is responsible for the development of Rabbinic Judaism: the type of Judaism that is practiced to this day. Hillel was once asked if he could sum up the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Imagine that for a minute. The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) is divided into three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Poetical Writings. The Law, the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These texts are formative for the Jewish community; they’re normative; they’re the most important part of the Bible for Jews. So, so Hillel was essentially asked can you sum all that up the Law while standing on one foot? Basically, he was asked can you give your elevator speech? I don’t know how long you can stand on one foot, but I can’t stand on one foot for too long.

Could you sum up what you believe while standing on one foot? Hillel did. The whole Law is summed up by how we treat others. The rest is commentary. Amazing! Twenty-four words. Hillel uses those words to basically say if you take all of the Torah and boil it down to a statement that is Hillel’s elevator speech.

Well, I received an elevator speech Friday from someone I do not know: a stranger. I didn’t get her name. She gave me her elevator speech, and that inspired me to do the same. What is your elevator speech? What would you say about God, about Jesus, about the Bible, about the church in the amount of time that it would take you to go one or two floors on an elevator? What would you say to someone that would sum up everything that you believe? I sat down and thought, “Well, I really have many elevator speeches — many different ones depend on what I’m saying, depending on what aspect of the Bible or theology I’m talking about. So, here are my top ten elevator speeches. Here we go. Here are mine. Think about what yours might be:

Our God is triune. Our God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — three distinct persons of the same essence. God’s very being is that God is a community of persons united in perfect love: the Christian God is a triune God.
Our God created the universe out of nothing: ex nihilo is the Latin expression for that.
Our God created the universe out of love, too, not just out of nothing. God did this to share God’s divine life with us. There could have been nothing, and there was for a while, but God turned that nothing into something — something spectacular.
God has been revealed to us through the 66 books of Scripture: the 39 that comprise the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible) and the 27 that make-up the New Testament.
God entered the human drama definitively through Jesus Christ. The incarnation is central to who and what God is, and what God did and continues to do for our salvation.
Jesus is the savior of humanity. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” as he said.
Jesus taught us how we are to live our lives in order to make the Kingdom of God a reality. There is a whole field of study called Christian ethics, and it’s all about how we are to live our lives, not just to be good, righteous people, but to make God’s Kingdom a reality here on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Often referred to as substitutionary atonement, Jesus paid the price. He took your place and mine. The bill for our sins has been stamped paid in full, because of the cross.
Salvation is available for all who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans 10:9-10, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” And then last but not least…
Jesus will return at the end of time to make all things new. That is the subject of the Book of Revelation, and we are about to launch a Bible Study in which we will make our way through Revelation. Let me give you one more for good luck.
God calls us through Jesus to be part of the Body of Christ — the Church — where we declare the Word of God, where we celebrate the sacraments (particularly baptism and Holy Communion), where we serve God in the service of others. and where we simply coexist in a covenantal fellowship — or a relationship of reciprocal love support and care

Those are my elevator speeches if I had to sum up my faith for a stranger, if I had to tell someone what I believe in the amount of time it takes to go maybe one or two or three floors on an elevator. These are the things I would say. What would you say what would you say to someone in order to sum up your faith? You could be like Hillel and do it while standing on one foot, or you could do it while you’re on an elevator. Write it plain and clear so that a runner may read it: someone passing by, not necessarily someone literally running by you, but someone who’s running through your life — someone who is in your life for a second and then they’ll be gone. What could you write? What could you say quickly so that they could read it and hear the Good News?

Sometimes you are witnessed to, and sometimes you are the witness. Amen.