a sermon on Isaiah 35.4-7, James 2.1-17, & Mark 7.24-37
September 9th, 2011 | @LCMontheHILL
One of my heroes growing up was CBS Evening News anchor, Dan Rather. I grew up in rural North Carolina, far enough away from town that we didn't have access to cable television. Of the 2.5 television stations we did receive, the only one we could get with any semblance of regularity and without project funding from NASA was CBS. So, every week night at 6:30pm my family would, like clockwork, tune into the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
Over time, after years of watching him every night, Mr. Rather become someone whom I greatly admired. I loved what he gave me. He was my connection with the mystery of all that was happening beyond the borders of the neighboring soybean fields, all that lie outside the reach of our rural county. He took all the world’s events, wrestled out the truth, and gave it to me.
I became such a fan that at some point in elementary school I acquired a series of videocassettes CBS had produced that were essentially the greatest hits of the evening news. I watched Rather on the convention room floor in Chicago. I saw Cronkite reporting on the assassination of President Kennedy and the civil rights movement. There was Murrow taking on McCarthy. Watching, rewinding, and re-watching those videos until the tape gave out, I came to see Mr. Rather as one in a long line of the ones called to the holy vocation of news anchor, called to be society’s designated arbiters of truth.
