I hold here in my right hand, a little hardbound book that says on its cover, “The New Testament. A New Translation, James Moffatt, DD.” It is falling apart and all taped together because for years I have kept it in the inside breast pocket of my jacket. It is the New Testament I have carried around for most of my ministry and read and consulted during moments of challenge, crisis or contemplation. Just inside the cover, on the first page, you can read the following: “To James Crawford on joining Third Church, June 12, 1949. Wm. H. Hudnut, Jr. Ephesians 6:13-18.” That says it all. William H. Hudnut, Jr. served as the pastor of our congregation in Rochester for some 18 years and was an inspiration to all of us. But I have never forgotten the citation he inscribed on this little book on the occasion of my confirmation, “Ephesians 6:13-18,” and thus, as we celebrate these young people this morning and their joining us as full participants in the life of our congregation, I bring to you and to them this lesson as a little treasure aimed at all of us, celebrating the confirmation of their baptismal vows and the rest of us, renewing them.

Our author begins with a recognition that we live in difficult, challenging and troubled times. The person who writes this letter may well be composing it from jail, behind bars, his ankles in chains, finding himself there because he bears the Gospel to hostile territory. He writes this passage, reminding his readers that, yes, the Easter message asserts a new world, a new creation breaking in on us, a world ruled ultimately by the grace and power of the One who sent Jesus among us; but the new world notwithstanding, the old world puts up a battle before it surrenders. To use a classic analogy from the events of World War II, our author sees things as if Christ were something like D-Day, June 6, 1944, the invasion of Normandy, a day we celebrate anticipating the end of the war, yet battles still to be fought, an enemy to be defeated, a peace to be negotiated, a world to be changed.

And thus, believing Easter to be like D-Day-Easter, the victory of Love and Peace over the terrible evils separating us-or as our author has it, the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this dark domain, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm-whether those rulers of this dark domain be racism, homophobia, religious fanaticism, gender discrimination, national chauvinism, cultural pretensions, structures, ideologies, rationales claiming divine partiality, assuming themselves to be a special case, the author of our letter says, yes the victory has been won, the war is over we can see; but there remains a lot of mopping up to do. The war is over; we know who is victorious, but there are pockets of resistance needing yet to be captured and imprisoned.

II

“Therefore, take up the panoply of God so that you may be able to withstand these powers in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand your ground.”

“The panoply of God!” Don’t you love that? It suggests a knight’s full suit of armor; it is a display of all appropriate appurtenances for the carrying out of a particular task, a magnificent, an impressive array of protective attire. And to what end do we take up the panoply of God? What does our author expect of us as we don the attire of the spirit? He expects us to stand our ground, to hold the fort, to maintain the front lines, to guard the perimeter. Our author knows well we will engage in skirmishes where self deception, half-truth, the stupid claim that “Everybody’s doing it,” the surfacing of ethnic contempt and the rationales for violent retaliation blanket us. He knows we need the panoply of the spirit to hold our ground in the face of such subtle and tempting assault. “No retreat,” insists our author. Indeed, the capacity to say, “No” to the wrong and “Yes” to the right; the strength to stand with the minority when the going gets tough; the realization that God plus one equals a majority in face of all that would diminish human being or damage the human community- that is taking up the panoply of God, withstanding demonic aggression, and having done all, to stand our ground.

III

And the panoply itself? The components of the Spirit’s array? We wrap the girdle of truth around our waists. Another translation tells us we gird our loins with truth. Of course. Just as the Roman officer serving as a model for this imagery girded his loins with staunch leather support enabling him to move adroitly and with purpose, so the truth provides support and authority to our witness.

I will never forget asking an acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a lawyer, what ethics he lives by, and he answered simply: “To tell the truth and keep your promises.” To be sure. And in face of that wise counsel we discover the front page of every newspaper this morning, scrawled with the eminent difficulty of living in that fashion, headlines screaming of those in high places, Washington, Austin, Boston-us clergy types-leaving us weak in the knees, bankrupting truth, self destructing in front of us. Heaven knows there is always a temptation to take shortcuts, to fudge, to offer white lies, half truths, disfigured income tax forms, infidelity, slander, passing the buck: ungirded loins. You know it. I know it. God knows it. Somewhere I read Plato found himself falsely accused of high crimes and misdemeanors. He found no verbal response adequate. Plato’s only reply: “We must live in such a way as to prove the accusations a lie.” Plato gets it. Tell the truth, to be sure, but more persuasive still: Do the truth; be the truth.

IV

And yes, put on the breastplate of righteousness. In the scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, righteousness bears an ethical dimension. It most nearly equates with justice. Bishop Tutu put it squarely on the line some years ago, and has been doing it ever since wherever peace is subverted by injustice. He reminds us that “the heart of the Christian Gospel is precisely that God, the all holy One, the all-powerful One is also the One full of mercy and compassion. Our God is not a neutral God inhabiting some inaccessible Mount Olympus. Ours is a God who cares about his children and cares enormously for the weak, the poor, the naked, the downtrodden, the despised. He takes their side not because they are good, since so many are demonstrably not so. God takes their side because He is that kind of God and they have no one else to champion them.”

Right on, Desmond Tutu. Of such is our breastplate of righteousness.

V

And what is that on our feet? Sandals? Versatile shoes of the Gospel of peace? What else? My grief! Can we trust in a Gospel of peace when we witness what seems to be a plague of terror and counter terror? Bombs in Karachi; bombs in Nebraska mailboxes; bombs in Haifa pool halls, Tel Aviv restaurants; in Colombian Churches; in Nepalese towns; bombs in Russian villages. And if that isn’t enough, along another line, according to the United Nations Children’s Conference this week, “300,000 boys and girls around the world are believed to be involved in 30 armed conflicts as soldiers, porters, cooks, sex slaves.” As Gabriela Azurdy Arrieta, a 13-year-old from Bolivia, reminded us at the conference, speaking for children across the world, “We are street children. We are the children of war. We are victims and orphans of H.I.V./AIDS.” And her 17-year-old colleague, Audrey Cheynut from Monaco pleaded, “We want a world fit for children because a world fit for us is a world fit for everyone,” her plea echoed by Kofi Anan, “To the adults in this room I would say, let us not make children pay for our failures anymore. We, the grownups, must reverse the list of failures.” How? Our feet shod with the Gospel of Peace.

Martin Luther King, Jr. in an Oslo address in December 1964, put it in a way that rings among us still. Closing a peroration expressing confidence that “wounded justice lying prostrate on the blood flowing streets of our nations can be lifted from the dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.” Dr. King continues to that august Nobel gathering, “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day humankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will become the rule of the land. ‘And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every person shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.’ I still believe we shall overcome.” Yes: our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.

VI

And again, hold onto the shield of faith resisting, quenching all the fiery darts of the evil one. We know we get assailed by threats to our faith. We know we are vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks on our hope. Is it an untimely death? A spouse who walks out on us? A child afflicted with a terrible illness? Is it a betrayal by a partner, a fraud surfaced in a trusted association or institution, a random accident, a world gone haywire? We need a shield to stand our ground against such demobilizing, paralyzing, faith dissolving threats. And this shield of faith: a trust-a trust- grounded in the empty Cross that amid, through and against the worst that can happen to us and to those we love or to the world at large, our God never lets us go, and that Easter’s empty tomb bears the last word over everything that would diminish and destroy us. A shield: guarding us against the fiery darts that would incinerate our trust, scorch our hope-a shield of faith enabling us, having done everything, to hold our ground.

VII

And we are not yet fully arrayed. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.” The helmet of salvation? Be assured, friends, that on a Friday we call “good” something was done turning the world upside down; love took a risk in our behalf pursuing, reaching, seeking, inviting, questing, wanting to embrace and hold us tight in this sometimes fragmented and lonely world. Lost? No, saved! For your sake, put on the helmet of salvation. Hold your ground.

Ah the sword of the spirit, not so much a defensive weapon, but an offensive one. And what, pray tell, is the word of God? Could it be something like, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Or “This commandment, I give you, that you love one another.” Or “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Or “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making an appeal through us.” What an offense that provides. What a sword, this word of God! Talk about holding our ground!

And so we close. “Ephesians 6:13-18,” my little New Testament says. What more could a Christian ask? A girdle of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit

What a fantastic panoply.

And, as our author admonishes, Let us pray: