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The Real Deal                        Hebrews 9:24-28                   November 08, 2009

In a world of smoke and mirrors, where it's hard to tell if things are what they appear to be, calling someone "the real deal" is a compliment of the highest order.

Actually, if a quick Google search is any indication of the truth, the phrase is most often used in the world of sports - which may explain why it comes to my mind so readily. Athletes, for better or for worse, have the opportunity to prove themselves in an environment where the score is clear and contributions can be easily measured. Whether you're a quarterback, a pitcher or a power forward, you either deliver when the pressure is most intense or you don't. You're either the real deal, or a bearer of false hope.

But it is not only in sports that this notion applies

For example, politicians certainly want to be viewed by their constituents as "the real deal." No one consciously votes for someone unless they feel they can trust that candidate to be what he or she claims to be; and when post-election realities fail to live up to hyped campaign expectations, we citizens are inclined, as we saw this past Tuesday, to "throw the bums out."

So, whether it's in sports, politics or another sphere, like music or cinema or finance, the truth is that you and I want to embrace and support what we perceive to be "the real deal," and avoid or reject what we perceive to be false.

The problem, of course, is that discovering what is real is usually a daunting task. As one author puts it, "We show up on this planet and look around and wonder who the heck we are and what the world is all about. Coming to the truth involves a search. And everyone out there you turn to for answers is a searcher as well.*

The same is true in matters of faith. All of us who are here this morning are searchers.

We set our alarm clocks on Sunday morning and head for church for a host of reasons. We do it out of habit, perhaps, or out of guilt, or out of a commitment we made a long time ago. But primarily, I think, we gather together every week because we are searching for something. And we want to know that the something we find when we get here is "the real deal."

Well, my friends and fellow searchers, on this Anniversary Communion Sunday, as we remind ourselves that folks like us have been gathering in this place for the past 144 years, let me assure you, with all the conviction I can muster, that the faith we are proclaiming when we eat and drink the bread and wine of this holy meal today, is, indeed, "the real deal."

Our text for today, from the Book of Hebrews, is a perfect text for an Anniversary Sunday.

The book of Hebrews, as one scholar puts it, is "a grand celebration of Jewish history and faithfulness." In Chapter 11 the list of great Jewish heroes is recited: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, David and Samuel. The list goes on and on.

These giants of our faith, the author of Hebrews tells us "were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. These were people "of whom the world was not worthy."

And why is this significant? Because there is more. Because the heroes from the past are what the author of our text calls the "great cloud of witnesses."

As it was for the original readers of the Book of Hebrews, we 21st Century Moravians are reminded, on this Anniversary Sunday, that we too are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses: All of those Saints who, in the past 144 years, have made it possible for the First Moravian Church to prosper and grow.

All of those Saints are watching us, today, from their places in the stands, and it's now us - you and I - who are "running the race" of faith in this place. Those great Saints of the past, our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, are watching us, encouraging and teaching us, cheering us on.

Our text for this morning points out why it is that we find ourselves in the presence of this "great cloud of witnesses." And it points out why we need look no farther than the table that is set here before us this morning in our search for "the real deal."

Christ, our text points out, "Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all . . . to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself."

My brothers and sisters, we are, of all of God's children, most fortunate today. Not only are we sitting in the presence of a "great cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on this morning, we are about to enter the presence of the one who was and is "the real deal."

The other night I watched a portion of a re-run of a recent episode of "Real Sports," the Bryant Gumbel series on HBO. I rarely watch this program, but it caught my eye the other night because it featured an interview of a man named Ashrita Furman, of Queens, NY. Furman, I discovered, holds the Guinness World Record for holding the most world records. Since 1979, he's set 244 official Guinness World Records, and in April of this year he became the first person in history to hold 100 Guinness records simultaneously.

His rather incredible achievements include juggling underwater in a shark tank, walking 80 miles with a milk bottle on his head and cutting apples in mid-air with a samurai sword.

Why does he do all of this ridiculous stuff? Furman reveals, in the interview, that it is all a part of his pursuit of spiritual truth.

Ashrita Furman has spent thirty years pushing his body in all sorts of odd directions in his search for "the real deal." You and I need not go to such ends. We simply need to gather around this table.

This is "the real deal," my friends. Come, let us eat and drink together.

                                                                             AMEN

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