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I was a senior in seminary at Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary,

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and it was a fall afternoon, and I
remember vividly that I

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was studying by myself in the library. And
I had a stack of books in front of me, and

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as you know, a library in a theological
seminary is a place that is quiet as a

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morgue. No one is ever allowed to talk or
chatter. It's a hushed silence. When

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suddenly my attention was distracted by
this murmuring that started running

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spontaneously through the stacks and
through the open tables in the library,

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and people began to disrupt the whole
atmosphere of the place, and people were

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leaving their seats and their desks and
rushing out into the corridors of the

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seminary; and I didn't know what was going
on until some lady -- somebody said

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something out loud that was unmistakable,
and they said this: "Someone has shot the

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President." You can imagine an
announcement like that and what it would

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do to people's normal, daily routines. I
rushed outside, and like every other

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American I glued myself to the radio, and
I listened to the moment-to-moment

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bulletins as President Kennedy was
fighting for his life momentarily, and

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then of course the announcement came
through that he died. And for the next

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day, indeed the next weeks, the next
month, the people of the United States of

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America were preoccupied with this tragic
moment in our history of the sudden death

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of a popular President. And then later a
book came out that was entitled "Johnny,

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We Hardly Knew You," and it called
attention to the fact that his

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presidential term was indeed brief; but
anytime, ladies and gentlemen, that the

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chief executive, the leader, the king, the
prime minister of a nation, passes away,

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it is a time of solemn, serious trauma for
the nation. Well that was true in Israel

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as well as in the United States, for in
the eighth century a king came to the

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throne in Jerusalem and began to reign at
sixteen years of age, and he reigned in

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Jerusalem for over fifty years -- imagine
it, over half of a century. And he wasn't

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the most famous king in Jewish history or
the most important king of Jewish history,

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but he would certainly rank in the top
five. His name was Uzziah, and what Uzziah

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accomplished in his reign was to bring the
last significant spiritual reform to the

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people of the land, and when he died --
and he died, incidentally in disgrace

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because he was sort of a Shakespearean
tragic hero who violated his own

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principles of ethics and spirituality in
the last year of his life. But when he

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died, it sort of signaled a turning point,
a watershed in Jewish history where from

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that day on the spiritual life and
vibrancy of the Jewish nation went into a

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serious decline from which it never
recovered. I think it's significant in the

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providence of God that four years after
Uzziah died the city of Rome was founded

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and a cultural change took place that
would shape the whole future destiny of

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history. But in the midst of that struggle
of that nation, a man was called of God to

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the sacred vocation of being a prophet,
and some would call him the greatest

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prophet in Old Testament history, a man
who was not only a religious person, but

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he also was a statesman in his own right,
as he spoke to several kings in the course

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of his ministry. He was the prophet who
said that someday in the future a virgin

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would conceive and bring forth a child,
and His name would be called Immanuel.