"May God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ send grace and peace to you all." Roman. 1,7b /

10 years have passed since last time I entered this pulpit. And I now look forward to return in ten years time. Allthough not much of a hope! So many of mans plans and hopes can not come true.:But now, the gospel this morning presents another hope and another challenge; And this is what I am called to say something about and we read in the Gospel of .Mathew.Chapt,22, 1.14.

:You may know the story of 4-5 girls playing at the sidewalk. A couple passed by, stopped and asked what

they were playing? They played a wedding. – O K. But they were only girls. Where is the groom? The girls giggled and did now answer. But one of them was the daughter of a pastor. She came to her senses, and having learned that there were wedding and weddings, said: " This is a s i m p l e wedding " . Good for them. Sticking to romanticthoughts they did not want the boys to meddle in their affairs. Good reasons for a less complicated play. And not completely unknown in other walks of life. - The wish for simplification in one‘s life may produce a sigh to a fellowman:" How life would have been simple if you were not there!" If this is a common thought, one is playing a life instead of living it, in its complexity. / Individualism is growing in our time. More and more ,young and old, seek to find good arrangements for ones own life, socially and economically.

.Even people who believe in God, may say: "Why should I commit myself to a certain congregation or church? I can believe in God w h e n I want, w h e r e I want and h o w I want.! This is my way to avoid lots of trouble with other people! " / How do you know that you will avoid other people? / Is the God you believe in really the Father of Jesus Christ? Who told us: You shall love one another as I love you./ The Gospel, the Good News, takes always the Other into account. Even if I believe that God loves ME, as an individual person, the Gospel is not conceivable without the other. I need the others if I shall live in Gods will in my life. If I am the center of it all it is a short road to the most dangerous ditch: I believe in God but I manage well without having him or the church to interfere with my daily life." /But that is what he does, nevertheless. To the great annoyance of the first-invited-guests in the parable of Jesus. Can`t the King see that we are busy? / A surprising side with God is that he never seems to abandon us.-An old colleague said once after a dramatic day with people:"It is not easy to be a human being. Try it whoever wants.!" That sigh of the human heart God had already heard. Instead of sighing back on us, he takes us seriously. And – became man!/Luke tells that Mary "wrapped him in swaddling clothes." The old Latin version says: "she involved him in...". :From the first moment the Son of God literally became involved in our "clothes" that is. in our life, in our problems, our limited possibilities, allowed himself to be mixed up in our complicated and sinful way of life; The apostle:2.Cor.5.21:"For our sake God made the sinless one into sin so that in him we might become....." If there is something NOT simple, it is to be human!

: Why did he do it? –Because he loves us! This is his untiring message .He lived it and said it until MAN got tired of it and killed him on a cross. And where lesser people than He would have cried out: "Everything was in vain! HE cries out: It is FULFILLED! /And the Father gives him a NEW life- which he today lives for us! In a love which is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes...." /The eternal God will not only be the Creator. He does not only keep contact with man. Does not only sustain us, in spite of our deceit and our hostility, and causes his rain to fall on honest and dishonest alike..."(Math5.45) : He wants to WEDDED to someone in the human family; is this not what a wedding is about? A new relationship between to families? /

It is Jesus who uses the symbol of a wedding, and we know from other part of his message :It is John the Baptist who says, when his disciples leaves him and follow Christ, :It is the bridegroom who possesses the bride: (John 3.29) /: A Wedding is only o n e of the symbols of how he cares. The Great Banquet is another. The homecoming of the prodigal a third, the mount which carried the half dead on the roadside to the safe inn. .A fourth. His joint concern is: The voice of the Father: "Come, everything is ready for you, come home!".

Everything! In the Fathers voice, includes "FOREVER! It is not a nights party. It is an invitation to "forever", yes, beyond all times!/// One of our problems contemplating God is that we believe he, like us, exists in time, like we do. God, however, does not live in Chronology. If one million people pray to Him at 11 PM tonight he does not have to listen to them in the flash of time we call 11 PM.To him every moment since the creation is NOW to him, or better: TIMELESS" "You are God for all eternity and forever" Psalm 90.2. ETERNITY is NOT a prolongation of Time. Eternity is a completely new dimension which never before has been available to us, until the Son gives us access to it./ BIOS and ZOÈ. Through creation he gives us BIOS. ZOÈ we have only through the SON. God has an eternity to listen to my prayer, and he has eternity to answer it to my benefit. The Heavenly Father has unlimited attention at disposal for each one of us./:When Jesus says that God loves the world, we cannot grasp how he can disperse his love and kindness on so many, and do it through all history and across the whole globe. How can it be done as if was only o n e to care for? How is it possible to restore what is irreparable?: The Life of eternal God is not "used" moment by moment, as our lives. To Him it is just as much year Zero as year 2002. / By some means or other God has, in his Son J.Chr., embraced the human nature and the human experience of weakness, need for sleep, ignorance, -into his divine life- and became true God and true man. : " He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be. He had life in him, and that life was the light of men...." (John 1.2-3)

Evidently, The concept of a wedding is a usable word to explain the new solidarity between God and man. Christ entered TIME with us, we are called into eternity with him. Eternity is NOT an "after-death-phenomenon"

Eternity is NOW, for the one who is in Christ Jesus. "The one who believes in Him h a s eternal life" This is all included in the concept of "a Wedding" in the Scripture. What the parable s a y s is: In one or another way you must receive the invitation and then prepare what you will wear for what you will participate in. : Keyword is: The Church, the Congregation, those who are gathered when the King arrives. The idea is NOT to meet the challenges alone. Behind the word CHURCH, that incidentally demonstrates much helplessness as well, is the Church of Jesus Christ which he sustains by the Holy Spirit. : The church is not only a solution , so that we shall not walk alone through this life. The church, = locally =the actual congregation- is his body.

Do not think membership (that is a necessity in this world of obvious reasons) Think a living organism, think to walk a road together, think a goal! /Along these lines(1.John. 3.2) "Here and now, my dear friends, we a r e Gods children. We don’t know what we shall become in the future. We only knows that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is!" The idea is obviously not to cease living in this world with our tasks, our joys and our problems. Christ is the best example of how to live in the world; / This hope works in us in church. In the worship the threads of eternity are at work. ///My baptism, where I , here, was made an heir to eternal life. Because he loves me, little mote in a short breath of time, and in God’s eye and on the word of Christ Jesus, is worth being loved for eternity. / THE occasional services in the church; The confirmation, the Order of confession, the marriage, the burial of our dead, it all proclaim the same; the living Hope in Christ Jesus. The affirmation of bride and groom before the altar, in the presence of witnesses; a continuous reminder of Christ’s YES to us, in the presence of apostolic witnesses. (2.Cor,1.20) With Christ it was always YES and however many the promises God made, the YES to them all is in HIM, to the glory of God."/ Now the whole creation holds its breath in anticipation of man’s answer to his Creator and savior.//We believe in a bodily resurrection. We believe we then shall be real people, redeemed human beings, in glorified and perfect bodies, risen to a new life where, according to the words of the early church, we shall hear praise his glory and his congregation in heaven and earth glorifies his name in concordant exultation! /// In the meantime we must pray, a continual prayer: "Lord, teach us, teach us to love one another as you loves us. : There is no need for heroic action on our part. Just that we tell other people that we have looked,and found Him. And that we are some who come together in this church each Sunday and sometimes more often- We have found something, or rather someone whom we don’t want to loose. We were hoping you could join us....?: Let it be a surprise later that we are "en route for" a wedding! /Finally: What about the wedding garment? See Ef.5.25.

"Christ gave himself to the church to make her Holy, having cleansed her through the baptism of his word to make her an altogether glorious church in his eyes! The one who partakes in this continuing cleansing even in this congregation, he or she will not lack the garment/

May God continue to carry this memorial Church.

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be (a )world without end. Amen"

Synge som menighetssang?

"Som når et barn kommer hjem om kvelden/og møter en vennlig favn/ slik var det for meg å komme til Gud/ Jeg kjente at der hørte jeg hjemme/ Det var en plass i Gud store rom/ en plass som lenge ventet meg/ Og jeg kjente:Her er jeg hjemme!

Jeg vil være et barn i Guds hjem.

(Salmer 1997, no. 55)