I have a feeling this sermon might have been like the hymns we sang in the service. I enjoyed them, but it was a guilty pleasure picking some of them. In the same way I liked this sermon. I felt really good about it before giving it. I still think there are some very good things about it, but it didn’t connect in the way I thought it might. The entire service was probably perfect for a congregation circa 1948, but it might have asked too much in its atmosphere and mood. Preparation and acknowledgment of our own day and hour are not topics that our culture does not want to talk about. We celebrate the natural – the person who doesn’t have to prepare. Preparation implies sacrifice and prioritization. We want it all. Our final day and hour also flies in face of the culture. It still amazes me that the generation that started with ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ never really flipped that. The natural progress would have been for people to grow up and flip that emphasis – over becomes under. Instead one of the financial firms I can’t remember which one just upped the age. 60 years olds still want to be associated with 20 year olds. A fundamental denial of the day and the hour. A denial of a need for preparation. Yet if preachers don’t pay attention to the end of things we miss the great hope of the resurrection. Jesus becomes just another self-help alternative.