Second Thoughts: A Walking Sermon

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Author: Juliette McNair | Student, Living Education Charlotte 2021

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 20 seconds. 

Mr. Alex Celan, a ministerial trainee at Charlotte, teaches Characters in the Bible at Living Education—a semester-long course focusing on select individuals from the Bible. This week, Mr. Celan asked us, “Have you ever heard of the saying, I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day?” I hadn’t heard of this saying, but the idea stuck with me as we were told the story of the Apostle John. In the words of Mr. Celan, “John was a walking sermon.”

Would I Drop My Net?

John and his older brother James were the sons of Zebedee. They were from a wealthy family that owned a fleet of fishing boats and employed servants (Mark 1:19-20). John was likely one of the two followers of John the Baptist who followed Christ after discovering who He was (John 1:35-40). Mr. Celan said, “As soon as Christ called them, they dropped their nets.” I have to wonder, Would I have dropped everything and followed Christ?

Later, as Christ was being crucified, He saw His mother watching and deliberately asked John to take care of her. Though Jesus had several brothers, He trusted John to take responsibility for Mary. Why?

A Son of Thunder

God called John when one of his defining traits was a streak of impetuousness. John boldly rebuked some who were performing miracles in Christ’s name—Christ even had to rebuke John and his brother for wanting to call down fire from heaven and destroy a Samaritan city (Luke 9:54). Mr. Celan reminded us that John’s mother presumptuously asked Christ if her sons could sit on either side of Him in the Kingdom. John’s impulsiveness seems to have been a family trait; perhaps our biggest weaknesses are “inherited” or facilitated by our parents and upbringing.

Whether John’s tendencies can be laid at his feet or his parents, God worked with him and his flaws—and if Christ was willing to train a son of thunder to do His Work, could He do the same for me and my failings?

John’s Legacy

When John’s mother asked Christ if her sons could sit by Him in the Kingdom, Christ asked John and his brother if they were able to drink the cup He was to drink. John said, I am, and Christ replied, “You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Matthew 20:22). After Christ died, John remained committed to teaching true doctrine. He devoted His life to teaching the true love of God. He wrote in 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” The region of Asia Minor, where John worked, was one of the last regions to give in to the pressure to compromise from Rome. In the second century, Polycrates wrote to Pope Victor about the Passover:

We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the Lord’s coming…. Among these are… John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord…. 

The Disciple Jesus Loved

John’s example inspired his followers to hold fast to God’s law. He was transformed from an impetuous son of thunder into the Apostle of love. John grew into a person Jesus could trust, not only to care for His mother but to protect His future wife, the Church. God refined John’s boldness into a trait that would help him to continue the Work and stand strong against pressure to compromise. He drank of the cup Christ drank by remaining unabashedly committed to the truth to the end.

John’s legacy lives on, not as a presumptuous son of thunder but as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John embodied the change that true conversion brings—he was indeed a walking sermon. As I examine the way I walk before Passover, maybe I should have some second thoughts on the traits that God might be trying to change and convert in me.

Juliette McNair headshot

Juliette McNair is a student at Living Education Charlotte. She works in the Editorial Department transcribing sermons and proofreading transcripts. She also assists Living Education by writing Second Thoughts essays and Forum/Assembly Summaries for the website. Juliette recently graduated from SUNY Cobleskill in Upstate New York with an A.A.S in Horticulture, a B.T in Plant Science, and a minor in English with a writing focus. She loves playing soccer on the beach, getting up early to watch the sunrise, and playing piano with the lights out.

Forum Summary: Mars and Beyond: God’s Awesome Universe

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Author: Juliette McNair | Student, Living Education Charlotte 2021

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds.

Mars and Beyond: God’s Awesome Universe—A scale we cannot fathom yet

Dr. Roedolph Opperman was introduced for the Forum on March 2, 2021, 64 days before the Living-Ed graduation according to the students’ countdown. Dr. Opperman works for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is part of the team that landed the Mars rover, Perseverance, on Thursday, February 18, 2021. For the next 90 days, Dr. Opperman’s team will live with their clocks adjusted to “Mars time,” since Martian days are 40 minutes longer than Earth days.

Fault Protection

“Our job is to try to break the spacecraft—well, not really. It’s way too expensive for that.” Dr. Opperman is a Fault Protection systems engineer. His team was responsible to find out “what could potentially go wrong.” Whether software glitches or cable breaks, they trialed the rover and programmed the computer to detect issues and self-correct. The engineers use an identical testbed rover to simulate the Perseverance and gauge its performance before commands are sent out.

The Challenge of Getting to Mars

One key challenge to the mission was landing the rover safely. Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) is known as the “seven minutes of terror” to NASA engineers. On average, it takes about 10minutes for a message from the Mars rover to reach the earth—during this time, the engineers have no idea if it has landed or crashed. Dr. Opperman explained the vehicle has to enter, descend, and land on its own. When the spacecraft reached Mars’ atmosphere, a heatshield—heating to 1600 degrees under friction—protected it as it hurtled to the planet. Then, a 70-foot diameter supersonic parachute that could withstand over 65,000 pounds of force deployed and slowed the vehicle’s descent. The heat shield was dropped, and the spacecraft secured a radar lock on the ground. To slow it even more, a powered descent was performed using rockets. The chute was cut, and rockets diverted the vehicle away from the parachute. At 20 meters above the surface, using the “sky crane” maneuver, cables lowered the rover to the ground. Every step of EDL had to occur autonomously, in perfect coordination.

Mission Objectives

“I’ve been working on this project for three years—some have been working on it for eight years or more. For some people, this is what life is all about.” One objective of the mission is to find out if there was ancient life on Mars. For this purpose, the rover was equipped with different tools, like a ground-penetrating radar, UV and X-ray spectrometers, a laser, several cameras, and a drill for taking soil samples. Another objective is to test MOXIE, a system that can convert carbon dioxide from the Mars atmosphere to produce oxygen for humans to breath on Mars. NASA aims to land humans on Mars by the 2030s, and private companies like SpaceX are also racing to establish colonies on the planet. Yet, Dr. Opperman stated, “Humans aren’t designed for space.” The weightlessness of space—without the gravity earth exerts on a body—causes bones to demineralize and muscles to atrophy without at least 90 minutes of daily exercise. Also, without the earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetic field, space radiation poses the major threat to human exploration of space.

“A Speck of Dust in the Universe: Earth”

Dr. Opperman said, “Let’s take a step back. We’ve gotten a glimpse of how hard it is just to get to the closest planet next to us.” But “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). He created everything we see and don’t see, like dark matter, the entire spectrum of light, and the spiritual realm. The Voyager space probes, launched in the 70s, have traveled over 14 billion miles and are the most distant human-made objects from Earth. They have since exited our solar system and are still in communication with Earth today. Yet, the extent of mankind’s exploration of the universe is minuscule in cosmological terms. Our planet could fit into the Sun 1.3 million times. Dr. Opperman put this into perspective: If the Earth was the size of a golf ball, the Sun would be a 15-foot diameter sphere such that one could fill a school bus full of golf balls inside it. But our Sun is dwarfed by the size of many other stars: The Pistol Star, a blue hypergiant, is 100 times the size of the Sun, and the Red Supergiants are up to 1,000 times the size of the Sun. Even our Milky Way Galaxy, which contains roughly 200 billion stars is an average galaxy. The largest galaxy, IC 1101, is 50 times its size. The Laniakea Supercluster that contains the Milky Way is also home to about 100,000 other galaxies—and larger superclusters than Laniakea have been discovered. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. That’s at least a billion trillion and probably much more. Studies seem to indicate that there are even far more planets than stars!

Building Planets

Even as a speck of dust in the vast universe, Dr. Opperman reminded the students that Earth will be where “the headquarters of the universe, New Jerusalem, is established.” He quoted Paul, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Dr. Opperman said, “The Mars rover is so minute compared to what God can create… As humans, we have this desire to explore—but as spirit beings, we can be on the other side of the galaxy and not just build rovers, but build planets.”

When asked what his plans were for after the Mars rover project, Dr. Opperman replied, “Get some sleep. I have a toddler—I’m not really on Mars time.”

This post is part of our new series of student-written content for LivingEd-Charlotte. These summaries cover topics originally presented by our faculty and guest speakers in our weekly Forum and Assembly. For more Assembly-related content check out our Second Thoughts posts.

Course Spotlight: Prophecies of Christ’s Crucifixion

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Did you know that the Old Testament has multiple prophecies relating to Christ’s crucifixion? Check out how these prophecies were fulfilled in the New Testament!

Course Spotlight From God’s Feast Days: Passover
Learn more!

Assembly Summary: Be Patient and Trust in God

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Author: Juliette McNair | Student, Living Education 2021

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 44 seconds.

Mr. Weston began his Living-Ed Assembly with a personal story. In his fourth year of marriage, he and his wife were using handed-down furniture. They were given a chair which they decided to re-cover rather than buy a new one. After a few months of saving, they chose material for their chair. But, looking around their living room, they realized their re-covered chair would clash with the curtains. They really needed to replace their dining room chairs and table, and even the furniture in the other rooms was not really what they had wanted. Mr. Weston said, “We started thinking about all the things we didn’t have. We were thinking, It will be forever before we have everything we want.”

“Most of life is still ahead!”

 Mr. Weston said that what he and his wife hadn’t understood was that most of life was still ahead of them. “When I go back and look at my life, the greatest aspiration I had after being sent into the field ministry was to become a minister pastoring a couple of churches… I never thought I would be anything beyond that.” He said, “Right now, you are in the preparatory phase for what comes after.” Decades of marriage, kids, homes, and successful careers are still ahead for most young people. “In the Assembly today, I’m going to discuss patience and the need to trust God in directing your life.”

Joseph distinguished himself.

Joseph’s brothers, antagonized by their father’s favoritism and Joseph’s dreams, sold him into slavery when he was only seventeen. While God was with Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 39:2), Joseph was proactive. When he was falsely accused and thrown into prison, “he didn’t allow himself to wallow, but he did what he had to do.” Joseph didn’t focus on what he didn’t have—Mr. Weston reminded the students that having everything does not bring happiness. He quoted Dennis Prager from The Rational Bible: Exodus:

In many ways, gratitude is the most important of all the good character traits. It is the most indispensable trait to both happiness and goodness. One can neither be a happy person nor a good person without gratitude. The less gratitude one has, the more one sees oneself as a victim… As for happiness, if you think of all the people you know, you will not be able to name one who is ungrateful and happy. The two are mutually exclusive.

– DENNIS PRAGER

Joseph distinguished himself for thirteen years. Rather than worry about what he couldn’t accomplish, he focused on what he could do. Eventually, he achieved success and his power was second only to the Pharaoh.

“Joseph had no idea what God planned for him.”

“God exalted Joseph, but He did so on His schedule.” Joseph’s journey from slavery to leadership in Egypt was rocky. Yet, Mr. Weston explained, “God had a long-term plan for Joseph, the sons of Israel, and for all mankind.” God used Joseph to prepare for the institution of the Passover, providing for Ancient Israel and foreshadowing the sacrifice that would cover every human being’s sins. “You have no idea how God is going to use you in the future.”

“Joseph was a big picture person.”

Genesis 45:1-5 recounts the emotional confrontation between Joseph and his brothers. Mr. Weston said, “They must have been terrified, knowing what they had done.” While Joseph reminds them of what they had done to him, he also understood God’s larger purpose. Joseph said, “Do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Mr. Weston explained, “God allows some things to happen for a period of time to give people a chance to repent and change.”

A Matter of Trusting God

In Mark 10:29-30, Christ explained that those who leave their possessions, families, and previous lives for His sake would “receive a hundredfold now in this time… and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mr. Weston finished reading the scripture and said, “I can stand here and say that I can see this in my life. We must learn to trust that God will prosper us if we do what we should do.” He said specifically to the students, “This is an educational phase for you—you’re doing what you should be doing. There’s a lot of life ahead of you. Don’t become impatient and think you have to have it right now.” Mr. Weston inspired the students to be thankful and to do their part as Joseph did. “Be patient and trust in God.”

This post is part of our new series of student-written content for LivingEd-Charlotte. These summaries cover topics originally presented by our faculty and guest speakers in our weekly Forum and Assembly. For more Assembly-related content check out our Second Thoughts posts.