New Page 1

“Nothing Routine”

(The Duct Tape Sermon)

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said . . .

(Hebrews 10:5)

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2006

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

Thirty-four years ago this week, at 4:54 p.m. CST on December 14, 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 Lunar Landing Module, Commander Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison Schmitt, lifted off the lunar surface to initiate their return to earth. We haven’t been back. Commander Cernan was the last astronaut to add his footprints to the dusty lunar surface. “The Eagle has Landed,” announced Neil Armstrong three summers earlier, in 1969, as the landing module touched down. And for three years we frequented the moon, but no American under thirty-four years old has been alive for the thrill of a manned flight to the moon.

It’s a good time to bring it up because it’s been a great couple of weeks for NASA. In addition to another successful Shuttle launch and making public evidence of recent water on the surface of Mars, the long-awaited announcement has been made that by 2024 NASA plans not only to go back to the moon, but to establish a lunar base at the moon’s south pole with astronauts staying up to six months at a time. It’s about time. The Apollo program’s moon missions all happened during my 15^th to 18^th years, and it’s something I’ve longed ever since to see again. After so long a lunar interlude, to go back would indeed be an Adventure, and therein is the link to Advent, for remember, Advent forms the first six letters of Adventure. A new moon mission would be an Adventure worth taking.

Strangely enough, in 1972 a moon trip was not considered so adventurous. America was on the moon so often that it seemed more Routine than Adventure. In the summer of 1969 Neil Armstrong made “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” More Apollo missions followed that historic trip, one after another after another until, seemingly, NASA had it all down pat. Each new mission seemed a sure-fire success, a slam dunk. Had going to the moon become Routine?

To some, yes. When the three Apollo 13 astronauts held their pre-launch news conference, one reporter asked if moonwalks weren’t now so common as to be hardly newsworthy. “There just doesn’t seem to be any drama and adventure anymore. Moon missions are about as exciting as a trip to Pittsburgh!” Astronaut Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks in the Ron Howard directed film Apollo 13, stepped to the microphone to make the statement from which I derive my title, “I assure you,” Astronaut Lovell said, “there’s nothing routine about going to the moon.”

Nothing Routine announces a theme that fits Advent well. For a long time I’ve marveled at our text, Hebrews 10:5, “So when Christ came into the world, he said . . .”. The verse seems to take us to a time prior to Christ’s departure on his divine mission. Is this verse not, in a very real sense, his pre-launch statement? Imagine astronauts in a room crowded with reporters, standing at a podium thick with microphones and television cameras. The excited audience has gathered to hear the hero’s words of courage, determination, and daring.

Hebrews 10:5 seems to describe a similar scene played out in heaven. As the Son of God embarks on the divine journey, he makes a pre-launch statement, “Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.” Imagine the fanfare of angels surrounding what the book of Hebrews calls the Captain (Commander) of our Salvation as he prepares for his odyssey to the virgin’s womb. This was no small step. Even for deity this was a giant leap, a leap from the throne of heaven to a manger in shepherd-clustered Bethlehem, a courageous act of heroism, a drama of redemptive worth become an eternal source of wonder and praise.

No, there was Nothing Routine about this divine journey, though the Book of Hebrews opens in a manner suggesting that the sending of divine messengers had become, in fact, quite Routine. “God, who in various times and in many and various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” Messengers from God? Routine. Since the Greek word for messenger is angelos, let’s call this series of divine messengers the “Angelos” program. Instead of Apollo 1, Apollo 2, etc., we have Angelos 1, Angelos 2, Angelos 3. The Old Testament tells the story of those ambassadors from God. Abraham and Ruth. Samuel and Moses. Isaiah and Elijah. Jonah and John the Baptist. Over and over. Again and again. Especially with the Levitical priestly line. Hebrews 10 opens with the priests faithfully doing their ritual duties, a Routine flow of the blood of bulls and goats spilling at the altar. The continuity of their work is expressed in such phrases -- over and over, year after year, standing and performing. Why, it’s about as exciting as a trip to Pittsburgh!

I think it instructive to note that among the furniture of the tabernacle there was something missing. There was the candle stand, symbol of our need for light. There was the basin, symbol of cleanliness. There was the table of shewbread, symbolizing God’s provision. There were also curtains and drapes, symbolizing our need for privacy and intimacy in communion with God. And there was the altar, the place of worship through sacrifice.

But there was no chair, no couch, no recliner. In all the tabernacle there was not a single piece of furniture to suggest rest. Why? Because the priest’s work was never done. From Yom Kippur to Yom Kippur, year after year, the people’s sin required atonement, and it was the priest’s function always to work, perpetually busy running back and forth between the people’s sin and God’s justice, seeking appeasement and pardon.

The heart of the Good News is that Christ broke that cycle. The Son of God himself came to offer one sacrifice for sin forever. Gone would be the over and over mentality of priests standing and performing, standing and performing. No chair. No couch. Until Jesus. After his one and only one sacrifice Jesus victoriously did what no priest could, “He sat down at the right hand of God.” No, there is Nothing Routine in the person and work of the Christ. He alone could whisper the word of victory, tetelestai, “It is finished.”

There was Nothing Routine about this Adventure undertaken by God, an Adventure not without danger. Astronaut Lovell, in saying that there was Nothing Routine about this moon Adventure, spoke more than he knew, becoming himself a central figure in a drama of danger. And when the danger was at its most severe, threatening to take the life of our astronauts -- to the rescue came – duct tape.

Apollo 13 became history’s most famous duct-tape-to-the-rescue story. “Houston, we have a problem,” said Commander Jim Lovell as an explosion in deep space rendered the mission in grave danger. Our astronauts were able to get back to earth thanks, in part, to duct tape. Duct tape played a star role as NASA engineers in Houston dumped onto a table everything the spacecraft had on board to try and configure a working carbon dioxide filter to keep the astronauts alive. Ed Smylie, one of the NASA mission control engineers who designed the scrubber modification 36 years ago, said in an interview last year that he knew the problem was solvable when it was confirmed that duct tape was on the spacecraft: "I felt like we were home free," he said. "One thing a Southern boy will never say is 'I don't think duct tape will fix it.'" Simply put, if duct tape is not on board Apollo 13 in 1970, we don’t get our astronauts back from the wilderness of space.

Now, in the For-what-it’s-Worth department, for those of you still Christmas shopping and growing desperate, duct tape makes a splendid Christmas gift, available in an assortment of holiday colors. Call up www.ducttapecreations.com, and www.ducttapefashions.com and you will find ways to use duct tape for everything from holiday wrapping paper to artificial bouquets of roses to fashion items like purses and wallets and belts and even backpacks for the kids. Duct tape (if you’ll pardon the pun) is on a roll.