John 1:1-18

There is a Jewish legend that tells how Satan was once asked what he missed most since he was fallen from his former high state in heaven. "I miss most," he answered, "the trumpets in the morning."

Do you remember the first time you discovered you were in love? I recently saw a young girl weeping over a boy’s fickleness. Other girls were crowded around, offering their concern and advice, playing their part in the ritual of teenage love. Do you remember how you felt the first time you realized someone really loved you? Trumpets in the morning?

Or something you did especially fine – a solo in a cantata, or a part in a play, when it came off well, and folks – not just your dad and mom – gathered around you and told you how wonderfully you did? There were trumpets in your life!

Do you remember trumpets when you first dreamed about God, when you thought about His touch, when you wanted to give yourself to Him? Did you feel trumpets then – at your confirmation, or when you dedicated yourself to Him? Did you feel His presence and His power surge within you? Did you hear trumpets in the morning?

Perhaps what happened to Satan is simply what happens to us all – you get used to the trumpets. You get used to their clarion call. Perhaps they even become a nuisance. In Pittsburgh, I used to live near the river. The trains would run along at night, and tug boats make their way up and down the river, blowing their whistles. When I first moved there, I would sit on the back porch and listen to them, making their way up and down along the river. I loved the sound of them. But then I got used to them, and one day a visitor commented to me about them, and I realized that I hadn’t really heard them in a long, long time.

Our relationships can become like that. At first, we hear the trumpets, and everything is fresh and wonderful. But then we start to get used to each other, we start to take things for granted, and even though the trumpets still are blowing, we don’t hear them any more. That is why so often we hear Jesus saying things like, "Let those who have ears to hear, listen!"

Just because puppy love gives way to mature love, doesn’t mean that we no longer hear the trumpets in the morning. We had a couple in my first congregation who had been married for over sixty years. Yet every day, they walked down the street in front of my office, hand in hand. They still heard the trumpets. So it is with our faith.

There are some who never know that they have missed anything, and so are content with what they have, and think that’s the way it ought to be. For instance, some children in a slum neighborhood, when they were asked to indicate what was wrong with a drawing of a three-wheeled wagon, saw nothing wrong – that’s how their wagons always were. I remember when I was in fourth grade and got my first pair of glasses. Suddenly I could read the chalkboard. My grades suddenly got better, because I could read the assignments that the teacher put there. No big deal for anyone else, but for me it was a revelation!

Life doesn’t have to be fuzzy and out-of-focus. The trumpets sound when life is suddenly brought into sharp focus for us - when we suddenly catch a glimpse of what it's all about - when the 'Big Picture' suddenly flashes before our eyes. The problem is that we don't - we can't - see all of it, all of the time. But we can catch glimpses of it now and then, if we attune ourselves to it. We can't have trumpets and fireworks every moment of our marriage, but we can have a relationship that is like a beautiful symphony - complex, deep, and melodic - that continues to grow and develop in richness over time. So our relationship with Jesus also can grow and develop, it can become richer and more complex.

There is a kind of religious fad that says we should hear trumpets all the time. It is full of Jesus talk, and smiles, and wears a polyester no-wrinkle finish. But talk can be cheap and glib. It is the day-to-day living out of faith that takes a real man or woman of faith. I don't know how many times people have told me, "I don't know whether I belong in church. I look around, and see all those bright, smiling faces - all those people who have their act together. I just don't fit in." Yet, as a pastor, I know that, every Sunday as I look over the crowd, there are many people struggling with their faith. Behind the bright, smiling faces are people who are trying to deal with cancer, or getting old, or divorce, or kids that are in trouble, or a myriad of other concerns. They are like the disciples, when Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they were in the Valley, trying to deal with the pain and hurt of the world, and questioning whether they had the resources to do that. I do believe that the faith of those who struggle is stronger and deeper than that of those bright, joyful Christians that never have any questions. If you can hear the trumpets even in the depths of the Valley, then how much brighter they will seem when you finally ascend to the mountaintop!

One other thing needs to be said about these trumpets; that is that you and I are called to be the buglers, we are the ones called to sound the trumpets of God. Our congregation does some wonderful things. This Christmas season, we helped dress up dolls for children; the Salvation Army couldn't have distributed their packages of food and gifts without the help of this congregation. The congregation is the backbone of Religious Community Serlvices. And I know that many people have reached out in other ways to help others. All of these things are important. They are ways in which we help to sound the trumpets of God in the lives of others.

But trumpet-sounding is also a very personal thing as well. There are people who will never know of God's love and grace unless you tell them. There are people who will never know that they are ai gift from God, unless you help them to understand. They will never hear the trumpets, unless you sound the notes for them. That is why you are here. That is your calling - to play the trumpets of God. To sound the clarion call of His love and grace. So that all may hear the trumpets in the morning. Let us pray: