WEBVTT

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In the name of Jesus.

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Amen.

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Dear brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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It is as if the distance

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means nothing.

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When in our text for this day

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Jesus heals, the son of a basa lacoste.

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A basa lacoste.

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You know, when possible around here, it is always a very good thing

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when we can help those who are working very hard to see the point to

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it all.

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Even if it's just the smallest possible suggestion of a point.

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The smallest suggestion of a real pay of.

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Do you sometimes ask why?

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I know that you do.

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Why all the hard work

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and everything else?

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Here's why.

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Here is just a little example of why.

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To the one who has taken the time to learn just a little bit about the

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Greek of the New Testament.

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A little bit of Greek goes a long way

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I like to say.

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You don't have to be a stud.

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Mixed crowd

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perhaps I should rephrase.

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It doesn't have to be your strongest suit.

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You don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer and the study of

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language to notice technicolor things. To notice what your

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black-and-white English, translation of the text will never help you

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see.

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Never.

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The man with an ailing son

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is a basa lacoste.

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Everyone gets to learn a little bit of Greek this morning.

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He is a basa lacoste. A word that appears nowhere else

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in the Greek of the two Testaments and that alone should catch our

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attention.

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Nowhere else, but words like it.

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Words that inform it

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are everywhere.

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The word is an adjective functioning as a noun.

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Maybe you don't need to know that, but in class, you will.

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Abbas alea

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is a kingdom.

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A basa loose.

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Is a king.

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A basa lacoste

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is a person of royal standing.

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The father with an ailing son

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is a person of royal standing.

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Your Lexicon is an invaluable resource.

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What does it say?

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It suggests that the royal father just might be a royal relative of

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the Royal House of Herod.

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Really?

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If so, then royalty unwittingly engages royalty in or text.

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Royalty

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engages royalty

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as the father with an ailing son

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engages Jesus.

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And Jesus disciples?

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If they are of the opinion that Jesus Israel's Messiah, and by now

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they are.

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Then in no way, are the disciples unaware that royalty engages,

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royalty.

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As the royal father of an ailing royal son, engages, royal son of God.

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Jesus, and his disciples have just returned to Galilee from Jerusalem

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from being there for the observance of the first of the gospels, three

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passover's.

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In Galilee, Jesus is enthusiastically, received.

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But the enthusiasm of the Galileans is conspicuously what it was

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earlier when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast.

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There's was, there's still is a believing in Jesus solely on the basis

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of the signs that he has performed.

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Word has spread quickly.

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Word has spread far and wide.

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For this reason, the anonymous one of royal standing, the basa lacoste

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who's son is near death, comes from Capernaum.

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No mere official, no mere servant in the house of another

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is he.

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Himself the master of many servants. Himself

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a man accustomed to getting what he wants what he desires,

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is he.

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But this time,

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what that father wants

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he is in no position to demand.

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So when the desperate father finds Jesus, he begs Jesus to return with

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him to Capernaum so that Jesus might heal his son.

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But Jesus knows that the enthusiasm of the Galileans that they're

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believing him in him solely on the basis of his signs

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lacks

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now what it has lacked before.

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It lacks

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what must finally inform it.

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So Jesus abates them all for focusing, only on the signs.

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Unless you all see signs, and wonders you will by no means believe,

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says he.

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No, sufficiency will come

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if all that they want is more signs.

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No, sufficiency will come

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if in the absence of the signs, they refuse to believe.

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So Jesus responds to the desperate plea of the desperate father

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with an unexpected challenge.

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He challenges the man

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and those with him,

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to do what they have not yet done.

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He challenges them all to take him at his word.

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His solely sufficient word.

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His word that must be heard or never will those who are sightless see.

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Yea see.

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He refuses the royal father

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who would do anything to save his royal son.

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He refuses a man of considerable power and authority,

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now

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that's gutsy.

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And instead Jesus challenges the father in the presence of them all

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to take him at his word.

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What does he say?

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Go declares, Jesus to the unsuspecting father.

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Your son

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lives.

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They're up in the Hills.

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Out in the country.

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They are in Cana of all places where previously Jesus made the water

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to become wine.

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Where Jesus made a bath to become a beverage, he likes to do stuff

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like that.

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But the boy, the father's son is at home

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in Capernaum on the Northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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As the crow flies

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and the father, the royal father, he is no crow.

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The distance is likely to have been somewhere between 15 and 20 miles.

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Miles.

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And yet

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from a distance

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Jesus word

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the extraordinary all-powerful life and like giving word of the word

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made flesh is in no way hindered.

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From a distance, he speaks

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and the boy lives.

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It is as if the distance means nothing.

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But from a distance, the father is in no position to verify anything.

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Instead

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from a distance

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the father the royal father is left with two options.

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He can take Jesus at his word and believe what he has heard or, or he

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can choose not to.

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Remarkably the man responds as desired.

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He takes Jesus word to heart

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and believes it. He takes him at his word.

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He believes the word that he has heard, and he leaves

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expecting no less he departs.

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That the word of Jesus is worthy of the father's trust.

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Is confirmed when later his servants go out in search of their master.

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They meet him on his way home and tell him the miraculous news.

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The boy has recovered.

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The boy lives.

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The father inquires regarding the time of his son's recovery and he

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hears that his son recovered from his illness at the very hour that

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Jesus previously said to him, your son lives.

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That Jesus can that Jesus must be taken at his word

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is arrestingly

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affirmed.

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And the entire household of the grateful, father believes also.

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When he shares with them, all the experience that he has had

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of the trustworthy word of the word made flesh.

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Brothers sisters.

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In the last days of the first century

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the Apostle and evangelist St.

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John

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is the last of the Apostles.

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When Jesus is risen and ascended and gone.

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And then the last of the Apostles is also gone

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then what?

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To what should they then turn?

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Where are we to turn when we too have been left behind and are on our

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own or so it off and seems?

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What is to become of us now?

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Who you going to call

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in the less than friendly confines of a genuinely malevolent world.

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Friends,

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is it in fact so that we are on our own?

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With no one to rely on nowhere to turn.

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So distant is it not instead

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so

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that our Lord is ever and always with us even unto the end of the age.

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Near far, far, near it matters

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not.

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From a distance, our Lord does so much more than just watch.

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From a distance, he speaks

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and it is done.

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It is as if the distance means nothing.

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He speaks and we are reclaimed.

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He speaks and we are sustained

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till the day that the distance

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is once and for all no more.

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Blessed indeed is his remarkable all powerful light and life-giving

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word.

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Regardless of who we are

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or where we are.

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Whether near or far.

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May he therefore keep us steadfast in his word, his word that must be

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heard

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till the coming of that day.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen.