Mark 9:2-13
Interim Pastor Doug Marshall

Thought for Meditation
           Jesus implodes with glory.  For just a moment, he is transfigured; a roaring radiance pours from him.  He becomes as he was before he came.  For one brief, shining moment, the burden of his humanity is lifted.  “Decarnation” occurs.  He is elevated above earth’s horizon and escorted into the eternal.  He is home again.  Familiar sounds surround him.  Those who understand welcome him.  And the One who sent him … holds him.  Max Lucado  In the Eye of the Storm
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At some point, many Christians have what is usually called a mountaintop experience.  They often happen on some sort of retreat or at a conference. They are wonderful experiences.  You feel close to God and connected to other people.  You are filled with peace and life is good. It’s a wonderful feeling.

In Colorado there are fifty four 14ers, mountains that are taller than 14,000 feet.  A couple years ago our family Christmas picture was on top of one of them, Mount Evans, 14,264’.  Not that sounds impressive until you realize that you can drive to about 14,130’, which means we only climbed about 130’ in about a quarter of a mile.  I’ve actually climbed three of the 14ers.  It is exhausting and sometimes can be a bit scary.  More often than not, when you get to the top of the mountain all you see is clouds.  It’s cold and windy.  The wind blows so hard that the snow and dirt sting when they hit you.  And, if a thunderstorm happens to roll in, the top of the mountain is the last place you want to be.  It’s dangerous.  People usually don’t lounge on top of a 14er for very long.  The top of a mountain is a desolate and lonely place.

The story I just read from Mark, the Transfiguration, is about a mountaintop experience of this second type.  Let’s take a look.
 
“Six days later,” which leads to the obvious question, six days after what?  In the previous passage Jesus has just told his disciples that he is going to “undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed” (Mark 8:31).  It isn’t the most uplifting idea.  Then Jesus told the people who were with him that if they want to be his disciples they must take up their own cross and follow him.  If they want to find life they must lose their own life.  That is the context for the story of the Transfiguration.  At the end of the Transfiguration story Jesus repeats the idea that he would soon be betrayed and killed.  Mark connects the prediction of Jesus’ death with this mountaintop experience as a way to show that the mountain is a dangerous and terrifying place.

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, … and he was transfigured before them” (Mark 9:2).  Mark doesn’t tell us which mountain Jesus went up.  There are two places in Israel which are traditionally thought to be the mountain of the Transfiguration.  One is Mount Tabor.  It is a little under 2,000’ high.  It is about 11 miles west of the Sea of Galilee, which would be about a six day walk from where the previous story took place.  The other place, which I think is more likely, is Mount Hermon, which is the mountain on the cover of the bulletin.  Mount Hermon is about a six day walk north from the previous story.  It’s more than 9,000’.  You can see that even in the summer it is high enough to be covered in snow.  In Jesus’ time it would have been a desolate and impressive wilderness area. 

Either way, on this mountain Jesus was transfigured.  The word for transfigured is metamorphosis.  Jesus’ form changed.  Mark tells us that Jesus’ clothes became dazzling white.  The word he used here means the glistening gleam of gold.  It is the blinding glare of the sun reflecting off polished metal.  Mark tries to describe Jesus in all his heavenly glory.

Then Elijah and Moses appeared.  Elijah was the great prophet of the Old Testament.  He never died and was expected to return to prepare the way for the Messiah.  Moses was the greatest Old Testament character, the one who led the people of Israel out of Egypt and gave them the Law.  The appearance of Moses and Elijah shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, of the whole Old Testament. 

Then Peter spoke.  “Hey Jesus.  This is pretty cool.  Why don’t we set up a few tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah?”  I’ve always wondered where Peter figured that he and James and John would stay.  Peter knew that this was a holy moment.  He probably didn’t fully understand everything but he knew that Jesus was an extraordinary person.  Peter wanted to build these dwellings to capture this moment of glory. He wanted to hold on to this mountain-top experience of God.  He figured the tents could make it last.

Right after Peter spoke a cloud came down on the mountain, a cloud that symbolized God’s presence.  If you’ve ever been on top of a mountain and had a cloud roll in on top of you, it is an eerie feeling. In just a few minutes you can go from bright sunlight that can be blinding, to needing a flashlight to see anything.  Then a voice came out of the cloud, God’s voice.  “This is my Son, the one I love, the one I have chosen to bring salvation to the world.  Listen to him.  Obey his words.  Follow him, even when it means denying yourself and taking up your own cross.”

As suddenly as this mountaintop experience started, it stopped.  Suddenly the cloud disappeared.  Moses and Elijah were gone.  The disciples were there, alone with Jesus.  They went back down the mountain and Jesus went toward Jerusalem and the cross.  The story of the Transfiguration is a dark, terrifying and mysterious experience that focuses on the death of Jesus. 

There is something about the Transfiguration that I find captivating.  I’ve studied it and preached it many times.  I know the story, but I always have the sense that there is more to it than I can fully grasp, much less proclaim.  Let me share with you two thoughts that come to me from this story. 
 
First, “mountaintop experiences” can be of many different types.  Sometimes the presence of God is a wonderful experience.  We have a sense of calm and peace.  We know that we are loved and are filled with joy.  Everything feels right.  I hope that at some point in your life, maybe many times, you have that type of experience, when you are overwhelmed by God love for you, you overflow with joy and thankfulness.

However, there are other times when the presence of God will not be comforting and peaceful, but very disturbing.  It may shake you to your core and leave you with more questions and doubts than you had before.  Notice in our passage, right after Peter made his comment about putting up the tents.  Mark tells us that “He did not know what to say, for they were terrified” (Mark 9:6).  Part of that could be that mountains can be scary places.  Part of that may have been seeing Jesus in all his glory.  Part of that could be because Moses had been dead more than 1000 years and Elijah about 800 years.  Seeing the cloud roll in and hearing God speak out of the cloud must have been terrifying.  Any one of those would have been enough to scare us beyond imagination.

Because God is God, because God is holy, almighty, and transcendent, our experience of God may not be what we expect.  God chooses the way He will come to us and we can’t choose what that will be like.  Sometimes that may be a warm fuzzy that makes us feel good.  Other times we may be terrified.  We may be overwhelmed by life and death.  It may come at a time when we are confused and lost, when we are struggling and broken.  Our job, which isn’t easy, is to recognize the presence of God in all the experiences of life. 
 
 
Second, when we experience the presence of God, when we have a mountaintop experience of any sort, we must not cling to it or try to prolong it.  Peter wanted to build the tents so it would last.  But that does not work.  When it is gone, it’s gone, and we can’t recreate it. 

Years ago there was a man in one of my congregations who went to a Promise Keepers conference.  He’d been raised in the church but the conference was the first time he really experienced God’s love for him.  It was a life-changing event, a mountaintop experience.  The next year he went to another Promise Keeper’s conference.  It was good, though not quite as powerful as the first one.  Every year he kept going back to Promise Keepers, looking for that same experience.  He also spent a great deal of time and energy trying to create that same experience within the life of the church.  I’m convinced that all of the time and energy he put into trying to recreate that first experience caused him to miss a lot of what God was doing in his life. 

I’m not suggesting that mountaintop experiences are a bad thing.   They are wonderful.  I’m simply saying that we can’t create them.  We can’t control them.  We can’t make them last.  They are a gift to us.  They are God’s grace.  What we can do is celebrate them and be thankful for them.  We can remember them and let them encourage us.  I’m sure that as Jesus headed down the hill toward Jerusalem and toward the cross, he was encouraged by this mountaintop experience.  His heavenly Father had embraced him and said to him, “You are my beloved son.” 

When these mountaintop experiences end, and they will end, we are called back down the mountain.  Jesus didn’t stay up there, why should we expect to.  Jesus received a glimpse of God’s grace and glory on the mountain, but the fulfillment of that glory came only after he went back down into the valleys of life.  God called Jesus off the mountain to face the pain of the world, the needs of broken people, and the sin of all creation.  Jesus had to go back down the mountain, and ultimately to the cross, before he would receive his final glory.
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Just as Jesus had to go back down the mountain, we are called to follow Jesus back down the mountain into a world filled with suffering and pain, sin and evil.  And in that world we are called to share God’s love and proclaim that through Jesus death and resurrection our sins are forgiven and we are free to live as God’s beloved children. 

I hope that you have mountaintop experiences, glimpses of God’s grace and glimpses of God’s glory.  But friends, the glory that we really want and need is not found on top of the mountain by escaping the world.  The road to glory and the grace of God’s presence leads us down the mountain and into the world, to serve the people that God loves.  The road to glory leads down.
 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 

Thought for Meditation:
When God’s at the center [of your life], you worship.  When he’s not, you worry.  Worry is the warning light that God has been shoved to the sideline. 
Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life
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Last summer, while we were on vacation, Tanya and I went to my sister’s church.  They did something that my sister said the whole church loved.  They had a series of sermons based on the favorite Scripture passages that congregational members picked.  Each week a person selected a Bible passage that was meaningful and shared with the congregation why they liked that passage.  Then the pastor preached on that passage. 
I really liked that idea so today, and about once a month, you are going to hear sermons based on Bible passages that I didn’t pick.  They are favorite passages of members of our congregation.  Each person will read a Scripture and then talk for a few minutes about why they like that passage.  Today, Mark Killmeyer is going to share with us his favorite passage. 
 
When I was in college I was in several Christian groups.  One of the topics that we talked about most was trying to know what God wanted us to do.  The terminology that describes that process is “Discerning God’s will.”  We had a number of Sunday school lessons, Bible studies and even a few conferences that dealt with that topic.  Being a person who likes books I bought several books that deal with discerning God’s will.  I think I still have some of them.

Lots of time and energy went into that discussion because no one wanted to be out of God’s will.  We wanted to be faithful because there were dire consequences if you missed God’s will.  You might end up married to the wrong person or in the wrong career, and miss out on the blessings that God wanted to give you, but couldn’t because you were not in God’s will.  There was an underlying fear of what might happen if we missed the blueprint that God has for our lives.

I’d like to be able to tell you that over the years I’ve outgrown that issue, but worrying about what I’m supposed to be doing and anxiety about the future continues to be something that is a struggle.  If I had to guess, I would imagine that many of us struggle with worry.
 
 
My assumption is that everyone here wants to do what is right.  Yes, we sin and turn away from God at times, but most of the time we desire to be faithful to God’s will.  The problem is that it isn’t always clear what God wants.  In some cases it is obvious – should I murder my neighbor?   Should I steal the car I would really like to drive?  Do I really need to forgive that person who hurt me?  There is no question what we are supposed to do in those cases.  But more often than not, we want to be obedient to God, but we aren’t sure what that looks like. 

The uncertainty of what we are supposed to do creates within us an anxiety that at times can be overwhelming.  We have so many choices before us of what we could do that we worry about making the right choice.

With that in mind let’s take a closer look at this passage that Mark shared with us.  As one preacher said, this passage has a message for those who have worried in the past, for those who are worried in the present, and those who plan to worry in the future.  That probably includes all of us.                  
 
These two verses in Proverbs have four verbs.  The first three verbs describe what we are to do.  They actually describe three different ways of saying the same thing.  First, we are to trust.  The Hebrew word for trust,  בטח  (batach), has to do with something that is firm or solid, something that will hold you up.

A couple of years after we bought our house we replaced the roof.  We had a couple of leaks.  After they took the shingles off they found that one of the pieces of plywood underneath the shingles were had rotted.  I made the mistake of replacing only that one piece.  The problem was that it was I think a ½-inch plywood and should have been ¾-inch.  I don’t go onto the roof very often but when I do I worry that I’m going to break through the plywood.  I don’t trust it.  It’s not solid and firm. 

We are to trust, to have confidence, because God is trustworthy.  God is firm.  We are called to trust in the Lord.  This is the personal name of Israel’s God, Yahweh.  This is the God who delivered Israel out of Egypt, the God who was revealed on Mount Sinai as the holy and powerful, the king of creation.  God’s name, Yahweh, means “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be.”  Trust in Yahweh.
 
The second verb is “rely.” Sometimes the word is translated as “lean,” as you lean on a crutch to hold you up.  Trust involves the image of something under you, holding you up.  The word rely has the image of something beside you that you lean on to hold you up. 

Sampson was one of the judges who led Israel after they settled in the Promised Land.  He was a man of incredible strength, who fought and killed hundreds and thousands of Israel’s enemies.  At one point in his story he lost his power and he was blinded.  The text says that he leaned against a pillar.  He needed the pillar to hold himself up.  He relied on the pillar to keep from falling.

In Proverbs, this is a negative command.  “Do not rely on your own insights.”  Don’t lean on your own abilities, your own strengths or wisdom or charms.  I would suggest that one of the great problems with the church today is that we have a tendency to rely on God and ourselves.  As we think about the future we find our security in God and our material wealth.  We lean on God and our hard work.  We rely on God and our nation.  It doesn’t matter if you are a left-wing liberal who thinks that Obama was the best thing ever to happen to our country or a right-wing conservative who thinks that Trump will make America great again.  If we rely on our country for our hope, for our future, we are going to end up disappointed and hurt.  We are not to rely on anything other than God alone.
 
The third verb is “to acknowledge.” This is the primary Old Testament word for knowing something, which is not only head knowledge, but an intimate, personal knowledge.  Genesis tells us that “Adam knew his wife” and she conceived a baby.  To know God is to have a personal relationship with God.  To acknowledge God is to be humble enough to admit that we are completely dependent on God. 

Another crucial word in this passage is easy to miss because it is only three letters.  It’s the word “all.”  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.… In all your ways acknowledge him.”  We are called to commit everything in our lives to God.  All of our thoughts, all of our abilities, all of our struggles, all of our time belongs to God. The Christian life is so much more than worshipping some of the time, maybe on Christmas and Easter, or thinking about God on Sunday mornings, but the rest of the week ignoring God.  The Christian life involves all that we are and all that we do.  It is loving God and God’s people in every way we can, with all of our energy and ability.  It is committing our entire life to God.                
 
Finally, we get to the fourth verb, which is what God does.  God makes our paths straight. Or as the King James Version says, God will “direct your path.”  God will keep you on the path where you need to be, doing what you need to do. Ultimately, this wonderful passage is about trusting God, rather than ourselves, as we seek to know and follow God’s will. If we trust God, rather than ourselves or anything else, God will guide us and keep us doing what we are supposed to be doing.  The Hebrew word for making straight is an intensive form.  It isn’t God “might” make our paths straight or God “should” direct us, maybe but maybe not.  God will guide us in the way we need to go.
This is a message of hope and encouragement.  You don’t need to worry about whether or not you are making the right choices.  It’s not up to you to find God’s blueprint for your life and then follow it.  In fact, I don’t believe that God has a blueprint.  Even if there is, we can trust that God will keep us doing the things God wants, walking the path God wants, living the way God wants.  Tell God you want to follow his will.  Ask God to show you the way.  And then trust in the Lord, who loves you and is faithful and trustworthy.
 
Right now, some of you are probably in the process of making decisions about what you should do.  The Pastor Nominating Committee is in the process of looking for the next pastor of Sharon church.  There is always anxiety that goes with that, wondering what the new pastor will be like, wondering if s/he will be the right person to lead this church in the coming years.  Maybe you are worried about your job, wondering if you should stay where you are even though you don’t like the job, or if there is another job out there that would be better for you.  Maybe you are worrying about caring for someone you love, wondering what you should do to help them.  We all face situations like that throughout our lives.
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Here is what you do:  If you know what is right, do it.  Sometimes there is no doubt as to what God wants.  Simply ask God for the strength to do what you know you should do.  In those other times when it isn’t so obvious, pray.  Ask God to guide you, to make your paths straight.  Tell God you want to do what is right.  Then trust that God will lead you.  Do what your mind and your heart tell you is best, and believe that if it isn’t right God will make it obvious.  But above all, trust that there is nothing you can do that will make God stop loving you. 
 
Trust in the Lord, with all your heart.
      Do not rely on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
      And he will make your paths straight.
 
 
In the name of the Father, the Son,  and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Mark 6:30-44
Interim Pastor Doug Marshall

Thought for Meditation:
Somewhere at the intersection of joy, fear, mystery, and insight lies awe, the ineffable response to the amazing world around us…. Overwhelming, surprising, humbling, even a little terrifying--awe is what we feel when faced with something sublime, exceptional, or altogether beyond comprehension. David Hochman 
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As I was growing up, our family had a tradition that on your birthday you got to pick what you want for dinner.  I always chose fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, jello salad, and homemade biscuits, with a banana cake for dessert.  I still get that meal, except we don’t do the jello or biscuits.  I can’t eat as much as I used to.  That meal is part of who I am. Without it, my birthday just isn’t the same.

Meals do more than satisfy our need for nutrition.  Certainly, we need food to keep alive, but the meals we eat together do so much more.  Meals give us our identity and they are an opportunity for connection and love.  About 10 years ago I made a decision that as long as my kids will sit at the dinner table I will not get up.  Unless I have a meeting that I have to go to, I will sit at the table as long as we are sitting around having a good time.
 
Our Gospel lesson this morning is the story of a meal that was very significant, not only to the people who were there, but also to the early church.  The miracle of the feeding of the 5000 is the only story, other than cross, that is in all four of the gospels. 

Part of the reason it was a significant event for the early Christians was because it was such an extravagant miracle.  Mark says that there were 5,000 men there.  Matthew’s version of the story adds a little phrase, “besides women and children.” In other words, there might have been 15-20,000 people there, fed by five loaves of bread and two fish. 

There is another reason that this meal was so significant for the early church that may not be so obvious.  The way Mark describes the feeding of the 5000 foreshadows what will happen later in the Upper Room.  The words Mark uses to describe what Jesus does in this miracle are exactly the same words that he uses to describe the Last Supper.  Jesus took the bread.  He blessed it and broke it, and gave it to the disciples.  The Feeding of the 5000 points to the Lord’s Supper.            
 
The Lord’s Supper is one of the two sacraments for Presbyterians, along with Baptism.  By definition, sacraments are sacred.  They are holy.  Through them we are connected with God.  We experience God’s presence, God’s power and God’s love.  This meal is intended to feed us and bring us into God’s presence.  What that looks like will be different for everyone and may be different at different times of our lives. 

The idea that there are different experiences of the Lord’s Supper is actually built in to this meal.  This meal is like a smorgasbord in that it can be understood and experienced different ways. Depending on which idea we emphasize, our experience of this meal will be different.  What I’d like to do this morning is share with you five different ways to think about the Lord’s Supper.

The first image is probably the most familiar to us.  It has to do with memory.  When Jesus gave the gave the bread and the cup he said “Do this remembering me.”  Biblical remembering is not just thinking about something that happened in the past.  It is remembering in a way that it becomes a present reality.  By remembering we are actually in the Upper Room with Jesus.  We go with him after the meal into the Garden of Gethsemane.  Like the other disciples we fall asleep as he prays that God would take the cup from him.  We remember and are with him as he is arrested, put on trial, crucified and died.  This is probably the most common way to experience the Lord’s Supper. It is certainly our focus on Maundy Thursday when we remember the Last Supper.  It’s somber and reflective.  We remember that our salvation depends on Jesus’ suffering, his sacrifice, and his death on the cross.   
 
The second way to think about the Lord’s Supper is to focus on Christ’s presence.  Jesus said “This is my body.” and “This is my blood.”  In this meal we believe that Jesus is present with us.  This idea has created lots of controversy over the years.  Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into Jesus’ body and blood.  He is physically present in the elements.  During the Reformation some people completely rejected that idea and said that Jesus is not present at all.  Most of the reformers tried to hold somewhere between those two ideas.  They claimed that Jesus is spiritually present, but not physically present.  But even then they didn’t agree exactly on what that meant.  I’m not going to try to explain all the nuances of that debate, much less solve it.  I simply proclaim that just as Jesus gave us the bread and the cup, he gives us himself.  In this meal Jesus is present with us. 
 
The third image for the Lord’s Supper is that it is an eschatological meal.  Eschatological is a word that means the end times.  This meal is a foretaste of what we call the Messianic feast after the second coming of Christ, at the end of time.  This meal reminds us of our hope that someday all of God’s people, from all times and all places, will join together in a grand celebration.  It will be an eternal feast with Jesus as our host.   
 
The fourth image I’d like to lift up today is fellowship.  One of the terms we use for this meal is communion. It comes from the Greek word koinonia, which means to share, to have something in common with one another.  This meal reminds us that as we eat the bread and drink the cup we united with Christ and we are united to each other.

The culture in which Jesus lived was such that when you ate a meal with someone else it connected you with those people in a way that goes far beyond anything we can imagine.  The idea of going to McDonalds or Bob Evans and eating a meal surrounded by complete strangers was incomprehensible. That isn’t a statement about the quality of their food.  It’s because you did not eat a meal with a stranger.  You only ate with close, intimate friends.                        
 
Right before she went to seminary to become an Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor worked as a cocktail waitress at a jazz club.  It was called Dante’s, and was located underground in Atlanta.  Let me read to you what she said about that experience.

All these years later, I like to think that I learned as much about human nature waiting tables at Dante’s as I did writing papers for my seminary professors.  One happened in the dark and one happened in the light, but together they offered me a better education in the mysterium tremendum (the tremendous mystery of God’s power and presence) than I could ever have gotten by attending just one of them.  Later, when I stood in front of an altar waving incense, I would remember standing in front of the bar at Dante’s waving cigarette smoke out of my face, and the exact same feeling of tenderness would wash over me, because the people in both places were so much alike.  We were all seeking company, meaning, solace, self-forgetfulness.  Whether we ever found those things or not, it was the seeking that led us to find each other in the cloud even when we had nothing else in common.  Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin.  Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk – Dark p53
 
I can’t say that I’ve ever compared gathering at a bar to gathering around the communion table, but maybe there is some truth there.  We do not eat this bread and drink this cup as isolated individuals.  We are connected to each other. We are family, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles.  As you pass the bread and the cup look at those who are sitting next to you and around you.  Do the same at the end of worship.  Smile at someone.  Pray for someone, and know that we have fellowship with each other.
 
The fifth, and final, image for the Lord’s Supper has to do with Thanksgiving.  I’m sure that many of you know that when the Roman Catholic Church celebrates this meal they call it the Eucharist.  Eucharist means “thanksgiving.”  This meal is a celebration, a joyful feast.  In the Lord’s Supper we give thanks to God for the amazing gifts that God has given to us, including our salvation, forgiveness, and life itself.  We celebrate God’s love and the blessings that fill our lives every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper. 

Another way of saying that is that the Eucharist is a party, a wonderful celebration.  The churches that I have been part of over the years have tended to emphasize remembering more than celebration.  Sometimes that is appropriate, certainly on a day like Maundy Thursday.  But sometimes it feels as if Presbyterians go too far that way and this meal ends up feeling more like a funeral than a celebration. 

One of my worship fantasies is that someday I would like to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with a band playing; drums, keyboard, guitars, playing upbeat and rowdy music.  Instead of passing out the elements people would come dancing down the aisles.  They would be laughing and hugging each other, giving high fives and having a great time.  Now, I don’t think we are ready for that today so please stay in your seats.  But at the least, I invite you to turn to someone right now, and smile.  Turn to someone else and say “Thanks for being here.”  Turn to a third person and say “Thanks be to God.”
 
Seth was a curious five-year-old.  One Sunday he was at church with his parents.  They were celebrating the Lord’s Supper that day.  As the bread came by Mom and Dad each took a piece of bread and ate it.  Then they closed their eyes to pray.  Seth watched this very intently.
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The cup came by.  Mom and Dad each took a cup and drank it.  Then they closed their eyes and prayed.  Mom opened her eyes and stole a peak at Seth, who was watching Dad pray.  She was delighted that Seth was experiencing the solemnity of the sacrament.  She thought to herself, “We are setting a good parental example.”
Then Seth leaned toward her and whispered, “What’s in that stuff?  Every time you eat it you go to sleep!”
 
I don’t usually think of telling jokes or funny stories with the Lord’s Supper.  However, today, as we celebrate this meal, this gift that God has given to us, let us receive the bread and the cup with joy.
I come with joy, a child of God, forgiven, loved and free,
In awe and wonder to recall, His life laid down for me.