Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-14
Once upon a time there was a man who had it all. He had a good wife and wonderful children. He owned a small, but very productive farm which grew all sorts of vegetables. On the edge of the beautiful farm he had planted fruit trees which grew wonderful fruit almost every year. In the woods nearby were deer and turkey and rabbits which came down to the farm, but the farmer was an excellent shot so his family always had meat to eat. A stream ran through the farm in which there lived many fish. And the farmer’s neat house was warm and cozy in the winter, because he worked hard and everything was kept in good repair.
One day, the farmer was talking to himself and he said, “You know, I’ve got a good life. I’ve worked hard and my farm is in excellent shape. I think I’ll build myself a swing for the back porch where I can look over the farm I built.” And the farmer did just that. And for the rest of that summer and fall, in the evening after he finished his work, the farmer and his wife would sit on that back porch swing and swing.
Winter came and it snowed. That cold and snowy Christmas night, the wind began to howl, and from the back porch a thumping sound came. The farmer thought: “I hope my swing isn’t destroyed by the wind blowing it away.” So the farmer quietly got out of bed without waking his wife, and went outside where the swing was thrashing wildly back and forth. As the farmer reached for it, the wind shifted, the farmer slipped just a bit on some ice, the swing hit him in the head and the farmer went down, knocked out cold.
Hours passed before his wife found him in the grey light of morning. Some of the farmer’s hair was still stuck in the wood of the swing, the swing had hit him so hard. The fingers on the farmer’s right hand were frost-bit. The next day they turned black, and within a few days it was clear that they had to be amputated. The doctor was sent for and the operation done. All that winter the farmer recovered, but now he had no fingers on his right hand, which was his strong hand.
That year was terrible. The farmer’s wife and children did what they could to help out, but they just couldn’t do what the farmer had done. Weeds were growing in the vegetables and some rabbits and deer managed to eat some of the vegetables. The fruit trees, which were not properly pruned that winter, didn’t bear properly. That year, the harvest was only about half what it normally was, and the house began to have some leaks in the roof and some wind came through some cracks in the walls.
A traveling minister came through in December of that year, after the harvest time, when the snow was just beginning to fall. The minister stopped at many people’s homes and God led him to stop and spend the night at the farmer’s house on Christmas Eve. That night, in front of the fireplace, the farmer told the minister his story, choking back tears. “Why is God so angry at me?” the farmer wanted to know. “I worked hard, I did everything I was supposed to do, I took care of my family, and now everything is falling to pieces!”
This question bothered the minister. Being a wise man, he didn’t answer right away, but asked the farmer to let him think on it and pray on it, and he promised the man an answer in the morning. The farmer agreed and went to bed. The minister, though, he stayed up most of the night in front of the fire, reading his Bible and praying for an answer.
Eventually, after reading many scriptures, the minister came to Psalm 98 where he read:
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The minister had his answer. And he slept soundly the rest of the night.
The next morning, when the farmer came down for breakfast, the minister was waiting for him. “I’ve found your answer”, the minister said.
“Yes, what is it?” the farmer asked.
“I listened to you last night. You talked to me for hours about how nice your farm was, how prosperous you’d been, and how hard you worked. But in all that time, not once did you give the credit to God for your success. You never mentioned the times God sent you rain and the times God sent you sunshine. You never mentioned that God always sent you deer when your family needed venison, or fish when they were hungry for fish. You never mentioned that God had kept blights and mildews away from your plants and your fruits and that God had protected your farm from storms and tornados. Yet as soon as something bad happened to you, your first tendency is to blame God. But listen to this Scripture from the Gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
“The Word is Jesus Christ.”
“You’re so right”, the farmer said, hanging his head. “I always thought it was myself and my hard work that made this farm prosperous. But God was there with me all along. It was through Jesus that everything was made. He brings life to this farm and everything else.”
“Yes, you’ve got it. Sometimes God knocks us on the head to get our attention. Now listen to this from Psalm 98”, the minister said.
“Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
“God can replace your right hand, if you will but ask Him.” The minister said confidently. “Why don’t we pray?”
The farmer and the minister got on their knees and prayed long and hard that day. They prayed that God would forgive the farmer of his sin of ignoring God’s goodness. They thanked God for thumping the farmer on the head with the swing. And they prayed that that farmer would receive Christ into his heart that Christmas morning.
Every day after that the farmer began his day by reading His Bible, giving God his thanks when things went well, and asking God for help and guidance when things did not go well. And to the neighbors, it was as though the farmer had replaced the fingers on his hand, for between the farmer, his good wife, his growing children, and God’s blessings, the farm prospered even more than it had before.
Later that winter, after the minister had gone walking west over the mountains to help other souls, the farmer read in Isaiah 52:
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
And so whenever a neighbor or traveler stopped by, as the farmer and the visitor ate delicious fruits, vegetables, and venison from that prosperous farm, the farmer had the visitor sit on the back porch on the porch swing with him. There, he pointed out a bit of old hair caught in the wood on that old swing, and then told the story of his farm and how Christ had come to that farmer on Christmas.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Monday, December 19, 2016
God with Us!
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
As I sat down to write this sermon on Tuesday afternoon, our home was being invaded. Two nice men from Stanley Steemer had arrived at the front door and were proceeding to clean the carpets in the parsonage.
Our Shih Tzu Brownie was not impressed.
And so, I went back the hallway to my office and Brownie followed me, reminding me every step of the way that there were MEN! MEN! In the HOUSE! She barked with every step.
Finally, she followed me into my office and I closed the door. She jumped into my chair and as I sat down, she snuggled up tight against the small of my back. And so far, while I’ve put together the service, she has stayed snuggled up tightly against me, letting me know about once a minute that there are still MEN out there, doing who knows what to our house.
Brownie understands that she wants to be close to me, because, unlike some dogs like our friend Kelsey’s Beau (who is a 120-pound mastiff), Brownie trusts me to protect her, not the other way around. And so Brownie likes to be close to me.
There are people today who argue that the story of Jesus Christ must be made up, a fictional story, a legend with little basis in fact because so much of the story and the prophecies of the Old Testament fit the Christian message. What most of these people don’t realize is just how revolutionary the Jesus story was for ancient times. Today, the story makes sense – but that is only because for 2000 years people have been writing stories and making movies which have Christian ideas and Christian story lines at their heart. Let’s see if we can go back in time and understand how revolutionary the Jesus story really was.
This is the story of the birth of the Messiah, the savior and future king of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was descended from King David, the greatest King of Israel. His ancestors were forced to leave Jerusalem when Jerusalem was burned, but they escaped and lived in another country until the time was right for the Princess Mary to be married to the Emperor of Rome.
WHOA!
Did you see anything different?
Yes, our Mary – the real Mary – was not a Princess of the royal Davidic family, but instead was a 14 or 15 year old ordinary virgin living in a small village out in the sticks, a hundred miles from Jerusalem, when an angel came to her and said she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit. And so Mary instantly became an unwed pregnant teenage girl, which was far more damaging to her reputation in those days than it would be today.
But Joseph, her fiancé, had a particularly notable ancestry. Not only was Joseph descended from David and Solomon, but he was also descended from the main line of kings of Judea, which included Ahaz (found in our first reading), Hezekiah (who famously prayed for help from God and God destroyed 185,000 Assyrians who were besieging the town one night) and Josiah, the last godly king of Judea before the Babylonia exile (Josiah restored the worship of God and destroyed untold numbers of idols in Judea). Joseph did not have any of the final ungodly kings of Judea in his lineage. In addition, after the exile, when the kingdom of Judea was re-established by the Maccabees, a man named Zadok was Joseph's ancestor and may have been the founder of the Sadducees who became the high priests of the Temple. But by the time of Joseph and Mary, the family was decidedly middle-class – Joseph was a carpenter.
And Mary? An unwed teenage mother was hardly the woman a writer would pick to be the mother of a sinless religious leader and king. No. Instead, she would have been a princess, cloistered in a tower since her birth and wed by a powerful emperor whose son would now become the king. But that wasn’t the story either.
At this time in Israel, an engagement was almost the same as marriage. At that time a breakup was considered a divorce and was shameful, especially for the one being divorced. And a pregnancy with a wild story about the father being an unseen spirit was definitely grounds for divorce – or even for Mary to be considered an adulteress, worthy of being stoned. But Joseph sticks with Mary.
But lest we think Joseph is so noble and and such a good guy, we need to remember that Joseph doesn’t stick with Mary because he believes her or because he is in love with her. No, he has to be persuaded by an angelic vision. Joe’s idea of being a good guy was to break off the engagement quietly, keeping her from being stoned, but letting her live in disgrace for the rest of her life.
And what about the names? Is the child called Jesus or is he called Emmanuel? Let’s look at the two names and their meaning.
Jesus is the English version of Iesious, which is the Greek verson of Y’shua, the Aramaic and Hebrew name that we first encounter as Joshua. Jesus is the new Joshua. Joshua means “Yahweh saves”. Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew name of God. So the name Jesus ultimately means “God saves.”
Yet there is a bit more to the name Jesus than that. For Joshua was the great military leader who led the Israelites into the Holy Land. Imagine the meaning of having such a name. It would be similar to a man running for President today with the name “George Washington III”. So Jesus was the new Joshua, the man who would lead the Jews into a new Promised Land.
And so He did. Jesus leads all who will follow Him into a Promised Land of peace, a land of purpose, a land of eternity spent under God’s protection. What better outcome for the new Joshua?
And you know – we get that. We understand that God saves, Jesus saves. He leads us to the new Promised Land, to Heaven. But what the world wants us to forget is the second part, the name Emmanuel.
You see, the world is happy to let us think about God saving us – as long as we don’t get too close to God. The world wants God to stay up here at the front of the church and all of us to sit in the back row, in the balcony, maybe even out in the narthex. It’s ok to believe in God, just keep your distance. After all, we want the governor to stay in Charleston, the President to stay in Washington, the Secretary-General of the United Nations to stay in UN headquarters in New York City. Keep them all away from us – we’ll stay here in our place – let God stay in Heaven where He belongs and we’ll stay here in the back of the church or, even better, we’ll stay outside the church at home. That’s what the world wants of us.
But that’s where the world and God have a disagreement. For it is the second name, Emmanuel, that we have to take into account, for that is also the name by which Jesus was called.
And the name Emmanuel? What does Emmanuel mean?
The name Emmanu-el literally means “with us – God”, or more commonly, “God with us”.
And so, recognizing the divine nature of Jesus Christ, Matthew tells us that Jesus is the presence of God with us on Earth. God is with us. And this is the very important part of the entire Christmas story which we often forget – the New Testament writers were very clear that Jesus is not only a little baby boy who was Mary’s son, but was fathered by the Holy Spirit, and has a truly divine nature which amounts to God walking on this earth.
Theologians over the next three hundred years puzzled and made sense of all of this and came to two conclusions which are accepted by different Christian groups, from the Greek Orthodox church to the Roman Catholic church, from the Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, from the Presbyterians to the Churches of Christ, from the American Baptists to the Lutherans, from the Dutch Reformed Church to the United Methodist Church.
The first conclusion is that the Christian “God” is actually a complex fusion, a mixture, a semi-blending of three personalities – God the Father, the divine super-spirit who is the power of Creation; God the Son, who is the Word of God, the Angel of the Lord, and is most commonly known as the God-man Jesus Christ; and God the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere and is found inside Christian believers and guides us in our communications with the Father and the Son. Three persons, of the same divine substance, communicating perfectly in harmony with each other, in perfect love with each other, and all eternal in existence beyond time. We call this three-in-one Being the Holy Trinity or the Godhead or simply God.
The second conclusion is that Jesus Christ has two natures. He is both an ordinary man, born of Mary, made of flesh and blood and bones like all men, needing to eat, drink, and sleep, limited by his body – and He is also the son of God, with a divine nature, far superior to us in wisdom and knowledge, eternally alive, overflowing with God-ness!
Let me be clear. Jesus was not just a wise man. He was God walking on this earth.
But let me be clear the other way. Jesus was not God the Father just looking like a man. He really was a man.
What makes Jesus the Christ unique is that He was and is 100% man and 100% God, undiluted, unblended, possessed of both natures.
And that has consequences…
First, it means that when Jesus died on the cross, he really died. He really died and then came back to life. He didn’t just pretend to die – his human nature meant that he really did feel that death because He really did die.
Second, His human nature meant that when He died, He really was a human sacrificing himself for all other humans. He showed his love for you and me and every other human that day and so his sacrifice meant something.
Third, His divine nature meant that He was of infinite value, for He was God being sacrificed. Only because of His divine nature could Jesus’ death be worth more than all the animal sacrifices that were required by the law, only because of His godliness could that sacrifice be of a perfect Being, only because He was the divine Son of God could He show that God truly loves all people to the point where He was willing to die for each of us.And He would have died just for you if you were the only person who needed His sacrifice.
Fourth, it was His particular God-nature that meant He had the creation energy inside Him which allowed Him to come back to life through the Resurrection. Only because of His God-natured goodness can we believe His promise that we will also be resurrected. Only because of his divine nature can we know that He has the power to make good on His promise that we will have eternal life.
And Fifth, it is only because of His Human nature that we humans could be close enough to Him to hear his daily teachings, to feel his healing touch, to know that He was one of us, born to an ordinary family in the ordinary way, growing up just like one of us, learning what it meant to fall and scrape a knee, to trip and fall into the dirt, to wake up in the morning with bad breath, to grow tired and hungry and thirsty, to be tempted to try to control the things and people around us that are so irritating and troublesome and tiring to us. In short, it is only because of Human nature that we could actually know He knew us and had experienced those problems that being human brings to us.
Our God is with us: Emmanuel. Our God saves: Jesus. Yes, our God saves. But our God is with us.
And that is how the Christian God is so different from Buddha, from Allah, from the Force, from all the other gods that people have invented over time.
Our God is with us. He does not live just in a temple or a church building or in a distant Heaven. He is here with us and can be approached and talked with and listened to wherever we are, for wherever we are, there He is. Whatever we run into in our life, He has already encountered it. And He came to earth as a baby boy to experience our lives, growing up in Mary’s arms, working with Joseph, walking alongside the lake with His friends, probably skipping a stone or two across the water...
When you or your friend are wondering about how to get through a tough part of this life, remember to tell yourself or your friend: Emmanuel. God with us. Christ is with us – no matter what.
And just like my little dog Brownie, snuggle in close to your Protector when you are afraid, for He is close by.
Jesus – God saves. A distant and powerful God. But Emmanuel – God with us. A very close God. We aren’t to stay outside the church, we aren’t to stay in the narthex, we aren’t to be in the back row, we are to come into the front row, no, we are to come right up to the altar and stand where we can touch Jesus and Jesus can touch us.
He wants you close to Him. Come forward and grow close. Bow down at His feet. Apologize to Him for trying to keep your distance. Feel His warmth, the heat of the candles, the smell of the wax, the wonderful touch of His love.
And this Christmas…snuggle in close to God. Read a gospel book. Speak with Jesus in two-way prayer. And be blessed by Emmanuel. God with us.
As I sat down to write this sermon on Tuesday afternoon, our home was being invaded. Two nice men from Stanley Steemer had arrived at the front door and were proceeding to clean the carpets in the parsonage.
Our Shih Tzu Brownie was not impressed.
And so, I went back the hallway to my office and Brownie followed me, reminding me every step of the way that there were MEN! MEN! In the HOUSE! She barked with every step.
Finally, she followed me into my office and I closed the door. She jumped into my chair and as I sat down, she snuggled up tight against the small of my back. And so far, while I’ve put together the service, she has stayed snuggled up tightly against me, letting me know about once a minute that there are still MEN out there, doing who knows what to our house.
Brownie understands that she wants to be close to me, because, unlike some dogs like our friend Kelsey’s Beau (who is a 120-pound mastiff), Brownie trusts me to protect her, not the other way around. And so Brownie likes to be close to me.
There are people today who argue that the story of Jesus Christ must be made up, a fictional story, a legend with little basis in fact because so much of the story and the prophecies of the Old Testament fit the Christian message. What most of these people don’t realize is just how revolutionary the Jesus story was for ancient times. Today, the story makes sense – but that is only because for 2000 years people have been writing stories and making movies which have Christian ideas and Christian story lines at their heart. Let’s see if we can go back in time and understand how revolutionary the Jesus story really was.
This is the story of the birth of the Messiah, the savior and future king of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was descended from King David, the greatest King of Israel. His ancestors were forced to leave Jerusalem when Jerusalem was burned, but they escaped and lived in another country until the time was right for the Princess Mary to be married to the Emperor of Rome.
WHOA!
Did you see anything different?
Yes, our Mary – the real Mary – was not a Princess of the royal Davidic family, but instead was a 14 or 15 year old ordinary virgin living in a small village out in the sticks, a hundred miles from Jerusalem, when an angel came to her and said she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit. And so Mary instantly became an unwed pregnant teenage girl, which was far more damaging to her reputation in those days than it would be today.
But Joseph, her fiancé, had a particularly notable ancestry. Not only was Joseph descended from David and Solomon, but he was also descended from the main line of kings of Judea, which included Ahaz (found in our first reading), Hezekiah (who famously prayed for help from God and God destroyed 185,000 Assyrians who were besieging the town one night) and Josiah, the last godly king of Judea before the Babylonia exile (Josiah restored the worship of God and destroyed untold numbers of idols in Judea). Joseph did not have any of the final ungodly kings of Judea in his lineage. In addition, after the exile, when the kingdom of Judea was re-established by the Maccabees, a man named Zadok was Joseph's ancestor and may have been the founder of the Sadducees who became the high priests of the Temple. But by the time of Joseph and Mary, the family was decidedly middle-class – Joseph was a carpenter.
And Mary? An unwed teenage mother was hardly the woman a writer would pick to be the mother of a sinless religious leader and king. No. Instead, she would have been a princess, cloistered in a tower since her birth and wed by a powerful emperor whose son would now become the king. But that wasn’t the story either.
At this time in Israel, an engagement was almost the same as marriage. At that time a breakup was considered a divorce and was shameful, especially for the one being divorced. And a pregnancy with a wild story about the father being an unseen spirit was definitely grounds for divorce – or even for Mary to be considered an adulteress, worthy of being stoned. But Joseph sticks with Mary.
But lest we think Joseph is so noble and and such a good guy, we need to remember that Joseph doesn’t stick with Mary because he believes her or because he is in love with her. No, he has to be persuaded by an angelic vision. Joe’s idea of being a good guy was to break off the engagement quietly, keeping her from being stoned, but letting her live in disgrace for the rest of her life.
And what about the names? Is the child called Jesus or is he called Emmanuel? Let’s look at the two names and their meaning.
Jesus is the English version of Iesious, which is the Greek verson of Y’shua, the Aramaic and Hebrew name that we first encounter as Joshua. Jesus is the new Joshua. Joshua means “Yahweh saves”. Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew name of God. So the name Jesus ultimately means “God saves.”
Yet there is a bit more to the name Jesus than that. For Joshua was the great military leader who led the Israelites into the Holy Land. Imagine the meaning of having such a name. It would be similar to a man running for President today with the name “George Washington III”. So Jesus was the new Joshua, the man who would lead the Jews into a new Promised Land.
And so He did. Jesus leads all who will follow Him into a Promised Land of peace, a land of purpose, a land of eternity spent under God’s protection. What better outcome for the new Joshua?
And you know – we get that. We understand that God saves, Jesus saves. He leads us to the new Promised Land, to Heaven. But what the world wants us to forget is the second part, the name Emmanuel.
You see, the world is happy to let us think about God saving us – as long as we don’t get too close to God. The world wants God to stay up here at the front of the church and all of us to sit in the back row, in the balcony, maybe even out in the narthex. It’s ok to believe in God, just keep your distance. After all, we want the governor to stay in Charleston, the President to stay in Washington, the Secretary-General of the United Nations to stay in UN headquarters in New York City. Keep them all away from us – we’ll stay here in our place – let God stay in Heaven where He belongs and we’ll stay here in the back of the church or, even better, we’ll stay outside the church at home. That’s what the world wants of us.
But that’s where the world and God have a disagreement. For it is the second name, Emmanuel, that we have to take into account, for that is also the name by which Jesus was called.
And the name Emmanuel? What does Emmanuel mean?
The name Emmanu-el literally means “with us – God”, or more commonly, “God with us”.
And so, recognizing the divine nature of Jesus Christ, Matthew tells us that Jesus is the presence of God with us on Earth. God is with us. And this is the very important part of the entire Christmas story which we often forget – the New Testament writers were very clear that Jesus is not only a little baby boy who was Mary’s son, but was fathered by the Holy Spirit, and has a truly divine nature which amounts to God walking on this earth.
Theologians over the next three hundred years puzzled and made sense of all of this and came to two conclusions which are accepted by different Christian groups, from the Greek Orthodox church to the Roman Catholic church, from the Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, from the Presbyterians to the Churches of Christ, from the American Baptists to the Lutherans, from the Dutch Reformed Church to the United Methodist Church.
The first conclusion is that the Christian “God” is actually a complex fusion, a mixture, a semi-blending of three personalities – God the Father, the divine super-spirit who is the power of Creation; God the Son, who is the Word of God, the Angel of the Lord, and is most commonly known as the God-man Jesus Christ; and God the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere and is found inside Christian believers and guides us in our communications with the Father and the Son. Three persons, of the same divine substance, communicating perfectly in harmony with each other, in perfect love with each other, and all eternal in existence beyond time. We call this three-in-one Being the Holy Trinity or the Godhead or simply God.
The second conclusion is that Jesus Christ has two natures. He is both an ordinary man, born of Mary, made of flesh and blood and bones like all men, needing to eat, drink, and sleep, limited by his body – and He is also the son of God, with a divine nature, far superior to us in wisdom and knowledge, eternally alive, overflowing with God-ness!
Let me be clear. Jesus was not just a wise man. He was God walking on this earth.
But let me be clear the other way. Jesus was not God the Father just looking like a man. He really was a man.
What makes Jesus the Christ unique is that He was and is 100% man and 100% God, undiluted, unblended, possessed of both natures.
And that has consequences…
First, it means that when Jesus died on the cross, he really died. He really died and then came back to life. He didn’t just pretend to die – his human nature meant that he really did feel that death because He really did die.
Second, His human nature meant that when He died, He really was a human sacrificing himself for all other humans. He showed his love for you and me and every other human that day and so his sacrifice meant something.
Third, His divine nature meant that He was of infinite value, for He was God being sacrificed. Only because of His divine nature could Jesus’ death be worth more than all the animal sacrifices that were required by the law, only because of His godliness could that sacrifice be of a perfect Being, only because He was the divine Son of God could He show that God truly loves all people to the point where He was willing to die for each of us.And He would have died just for you if you were the only person who needed His sacrifice.
Fourth, it was His particular God-nature that meant He had the creation energy inside Him which allowed Him to come back to life through the Resurrection. Only because of His God-natured goodness can we believe His promise that we will also be resurrected. Only because of his divine nature can we know that He has the power to make good on His promise that we will have eternal life.
And Fifth, it is only because of His Human nature that we humans could be close enough to Him to hear his daily teachings, to feel his healing touch, to know that He was one of us, born to an ordinary family in the ordinary way, growing up just like one of us, learning what it meant to fall and scrape a knee, to trip and fall into the dirt, to wake up in the morning with bad breath, to grow tired and hungry and thirsty, to be tempted to try to control the things and people around us that are so irritating and troublesome and tiring to us. In short, it is only because of Human nature that we could actually know He knew us and had experienced those problems that being human brings to us.
Our God is with us: Emmanuel. Our God saves: Jesus. Yes, our God saves. But our God is with us.
And that is how the Christian God is so different from Buddha, from Allah, from the Force, from all the other gods that people have invented over time.
Our God is with us. He does not live just in a temple or a church building or in a distant Heaven. He is here with us and can be approached and talked with and listened to wherever we are, for wherever we are, there He is. Whatever we run into in our life, He has already encountered it. And He came to earth as a baby boy to experience our lives, growing up in Mary’s arms, working with Joseph, walking alongside the lake with His friends, probably skipping a stone or two across the water...
When you or your friend are wondering about how to get through a tough part of this life, remember to tell yourself or your friend: Emmanuel. God with us. Christ is with us – no matter what.
And just like my little dog Brownie, snuggle in close to your Protector when you are afraid, for He is close by.
Jesus – God saves. A distant and powerful God. But Emmanuel – God with us. A very close God. We aren’t to stay outside the church, we aren’t to stay in the narthex, we aren’t to be in the back row, we are to come into the front row, no, we are to come right up to the altar and stand where we can touch Jesus and Jesus can touch us.
He wants you close to Him. Come forward and grow close. Bow down at His feet. Apologize to Him for trying to keep your distance. Feel His warmth, the heat of the candles, the smell of the wax, the wonderful touch of His love.
And this Christmas…snuggle in close to God. Read a gospel book. Speak with Jesus in two-way prayer. And be blessed by Emmanuel. God with us.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
The Rains are Coming!
Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm146:5-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
Shall we have a white Christmas this year? We know that Christmas is coming when the snows begin to fall. That’s how our climate is. And we know that shortly after Christmas, more snow will fall and the temperature will plunge.
Easter will arrive when the temperature has increase enough for the snow to melt. Oh, there may be an Easter snow, but the main thing we expect on Easter is the blooming of early flowers and the rains of April. April shows bring May flowers, right? But the main thing is that the temperature has increased enough that we don’t worry about wearing heavy coats anymore.
In many other lands, the climate is different than around here. In particular, in Israel, the seasons are more divided by rainfall than by temperature. And so, in Israel, almost all of the rainfall comes between October and early May, while there may be no rain at all in June, July and August. Farmers really don’t care too much about rainfall when the temperature is too cold to grow in December to February, so our Bible writers began to talk of the “early and latter rains” – something our NIV has translated as the “autumn and spring rains” – the rains of October and November being the early rains, while the rains of March and April are the latter rains.
Rain makes crops grow. Part of the reason our trees lose their leaves in the fall is because our winter season has such little moisture compared to the spring and summertime. But in Israel, the rain comes all winter, with very little snow except in the north and particularly in the high mountains of Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
So in Israel, farmers lived off of two crops. Ancient Israelites did not grow many vegetables other than fast-growing onions and melons because of the water issues. Instead, there were the summer crops, grapes and olives and figs and pomegranites, because the vines and the trees had deep roots which could survive the long hot dry months of the summer, when no rain fell, but which had gorgeous sunny days without a cloud in the sky, and that allowed the grapes and fruits to ripen beautifully without the rot that our foggy summer mornings allow to grow.
And then, there were the winter crops, sown in the dry soil of early October, ready to germinate and grow when the latter rains came and survive the cool but not cold of winter, growing all winter. Cereal crops like barley and winter wheat, along with other grains such as rye, buckwheat and millet. These were planted in the fall and harvested in March, April, and May.
James wrote to believers:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
James was writing some thirty or forty years after the Resurrection and Ascension. The disciples assumed Jesus was returning soon. Yet, months and years and decades had passed. Christians were starting to die while they waited on Jesus’ return to Planet Earth. It is as though Jesus left and then….”To be continued” flashed across the world! The season’s over… we have to wait until the next season to see Him again. Oh, we’ve seen previews, but we want to see the next episode of this story!
But what should Christians do while we wait? The question is as important today as it was in the days of the Apostles.
As we wait for the Lord’s coming, there are three reactions which we might have – two of which the world approves of and one which the Lord approves of.
First, we can grow impatient and give up on Jesus. “Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years and so He won’t return at all!, so why bother?” That’s the attitude many people have taken, particularly recently. They don’t have patience, so they want to prove Jesus isn’t for real. And so they state that since Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years, He won’t ever return. That’s like telling a child that since it’s been eleven months since Christmas, it will never be Christmas again. It makes about as much sense, for we have the promises found throughout the New Testament that Jesus will be returning. But the world would have us give up believing in Jesus because He is running late. Yet we should trust someone who has a history of being truthful and reliable.
One morning when I was a single insurance agent back in the days before cell phones, I got a call at home from another agent, a really nice-looking brunette agent from another firm that I knew from an insurance class. She wanted to discuss a mutual customer, so I asked her to meet me at a nearby Pizza Hut for lunch. I had a sales call on a small business, and while I was there, the owner encouraged me to take applications on all the employees – all ten of them. Naturally, I got to work immediately taking applications. Time passed.
The other agent went to Pizza Hut, and told the waitress she was meeting someone. A while later, the waitress asked her if she wanted something to drink. She ordered some tea. A while later, the waitress said, “He doesn’t look like he’s coming, would you like to order?” The agent ordered a personal pizza. After still more time had passed, reluctantly, she finally paid the bill and walked outside, getting into her car.
About that time, I wheeled into the parking lot and saw the agent’s car driving over to me. I rolled down the window. Saundra pulled up beside me and said, “Did you get the application?” “I did – it was a group policy.” And only because Saundra was another insurance agent did she understand, park her car, and walk back inside to have lunch with me. And that was our first date. God is good!
Saundra did not give up believing in me, and we shouldn’t give up believing in Jesus because he is running late by our standards.
The second reaction the world would like from us is to become impatient about Jesus’ return and, while still believing in Him, stop thinking about Him and His return. We should focus upon this world and today. That’s what the world tells us time and again. “Don’t be a religious fanatic – they’re dangerous, they’re weird, they’re kooks!”
But consider the farmer who believes in the rains. He knows that there may be no rain in June, no rain in July. He sits and watches throughout 31 days of August and there isn’t a cloud in the sky, nor dew in the ground. Through September he counts the days, Sept 1, Sept 2, Sept 3 and so on through 30 days. He’s counted 122 days without rain. But he knows that it will rain in the fall. He doesn’t know if it will rain in October or whether he’ll have to wait until November, but he goes forward in faith, plowing the hard-baked fields, scattering life-giving manure on the fields, disking the fields repeatedly to turn the hard-baked clods into sandy dust, and then taking his seed wheat and sowing it in the fields, fields that blow dust whenever the wind comes. And he waits for the rains to come because he knows that the rains are coming soon. He just doesn’t know which day or which hour, but he is prepared, his fields are prepared, he’s done everything he can do to stand ready, he’s worked hard, he’s even assured his worried young neighbors that all will be all right by telling them stories of what he’s learned over the years, like the time he waited until the 15th of November for the rains to come, and he waits for the rains to come. He has trust in the Lord and the weather the Lord sends and so is he a dangerous fanatic?
I ask you – why is the farmer, who has faith the Lord will send the rains – a logical, optimistic, good farmer, while the man or woman who prepares his family and friends, who spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ, who walks on the Way of Holiness, who has faith that Jesus will return soon, considered a religious fanatic?
The third response, you see, is what the world doesn’t want us to do but Jesus wants us to do. We are to act like the farmer. There is a Way of Holiness, a path we are to follow. We are to believe that the rains are coming soon, that Jesus is returning soon, and to prepare our family, our friends, our neighbors for that return by spreading our wisdom, our knowledge, the Gospel story to everyone around us. We are to change the world around us, the hard-packed hearts of the world by plowing the Gospel carefully into them, by spreading life-giving Scripture all around, by turning over and over the hard clodded hearts by doing good deeds and speaking words of kindness and life to others, by telling others of all the times Jesus and God the Father came through for us and why we believe Him when He says He will return and bring His eternal life-giving water to a land that is thirsty for new life!
James said:
Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
If we follow the example of the farmer as I have said, we will show our patience, and we will be seen as the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. That is a cause for great rejoicing, that people would think us so devoted to God we’d be called prophets. We think well of prophets. What did the prophet Isaiah say about Christ’s return 2700 years ago when he compared it to the rains coming to the desert?
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
But we should also remember – and strengthen ourselves – that prophets in ancient times – and today – are not treated kindly by the world, for prophets make most people uncomfortable. Yet Moses wanted all people to be prophets, speaking on behalf of God, and that was what Jesus asked of the Twelve and the Seventy that He sent out to the towns and villages and indeed, that is what He asks of everyone in the Kingdom of God. For there is a time when we should stop being called Disciples – which means students – and become Apostles - which means those who proclaim.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Members of the kingdom of heaven, you are greater than John the Baptist. Will you proclaim the Messiah to all, as John did? Will you remind people that Jesus will return? Will you, as the good farmer, prepare your field and show your neighbors what must be done?
The rains are coming soon. Jesus will return soon – when, exactly, I cannot say, just as the old farmer couldn’t say. But just as he knew that the drought would end “soon”, we also know that Jesus will return “soon”. Be ready. He may return in the middle of the night. Profess your faith, be baptized, be a member of God’s church. And help your friends, neighbors, and family come into the kingdom of heaven.
Shall we have a white Christmas this year? We know that Christmas is coming when the snows begin to fall. That’s how our climate is. And we know that shortly after Christmas, more snow will fall and the temperature will plunge.
Easter will arrive when the temperature has increase enough for the snow to melt. Oh, there may be an Easter snow, but the main thing we expect on Easter is the blooming of early flowers and the rains of April. April shows bring May flowers, right? But the main thing is that the temperature has increased enough that we don’t worry about wearing heavy coats anymore.
In many other lands, the climate is different than around here. In particular, in Israel, the seasons are more divided by rainfall than by temperature. And so, in Israel, almost all of the rainfall comes between October and early May, while there may be no rain at all in June, July and August. Farmers really don’t care too much about rainfall when the temperature is too cold to grow in December to February, so our Bible writers began to talk of the “early and latter rains” – something our NIV has translated as the “autumn and spring rains” – the rains of October and November being the early rains, while the rains of March and April are the latter rains.
Rain makes crops grow. Part of the reason our trees lose their leaves in the fall is because our winter season has such little moisture compared to the spring and summertime. But in Israel, the rain comes all winter, with very little snow except in the north and particularly in the high mountains of Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
So in Israel, farmers lived off of two crops. Ancient Israelites did not grow many vegetables other than fast-growing onions and melons because of the water issues. Instead, there were the summer crops, grapes and olives and figs and pomegranites, because the vines and the trees had deep roots which could survive the long hot dry months of the summer, when no rain fell, but which had gorgeous sunny days without a cloud in the sky, and that allowed the grapes and fruits to ripen beautifully without the rot that our foggy summer mornings allow to grow.
And then, there were the winter crops, sown in the dry soil of early October, ready to germinate and grow when the latter rains came and survive the cool but not cold of winter, growing all winter. Cereal crops like barley and winter wheat, along with other grains such as rye, buckwheat and millet. These were planted in the fall and harvested in March, April, and May.
James wrote to believers:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
James was writing some thirty or forty years after the Resurrection and Ascension. The disciples assumed Jesus was returning soon. Yet, months and years and decades had passed. Christians were starting to die while they waited on Jesus’ return to Planet Earth. It is as though Jesus left and then….”To be continued” flashed across the world! The season’s over… we have to wait until the next season to see Him again. Oh, we’ve seen previews, but we want to see the next episode of this story!
But what should Christians do while we wait? The question is as important today as it was in the days of the Apostles.
As we wait for the Lord’s coming, there are three reactions which we might have – two of which the world approves of and one which the Lord approves of.
First, we can grow impatient and give up on Jesus. “Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years and so He won’t return at all!, so why bother?” That’s the attitude many people have taken, particularly recently. They don’t have patience, so they want to prove Jesus isn’t for real. And so they state that since Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years, He won’t ever return. That’s like telling a child that since it’s been eleven months since Christmas, it will never be Christmas again. It makes about as much sense, for we have the promises found throughout the New Testament that Jesus will be returning. But the world would have us give up believing in Jesus because He is running late. Yet we should trust someone who has a history of being truthful and reliable.
One morning when I was a single insurance agent back in the days before cell phones, I got a call at home from another agent, a really nice-looking brunette agent from another firm that I knew from an insurance class. She wanted to discuss a mutual customer, so I asked her to meet me at a nearby Pizza Hut for lunch. I had a sales call on a small business, and while I was there, the owner encouraged me to take applications on all the employees – all ten of them. Naturally, I got to work immediately taking applications. Time passed.
The other agent went to Pizza Hut, and told the waitress she was meeting someone. A while later, the waitress asked her if she wanted something to drink. She ordered some tea. A while later, the waitress said, “He doesn’t look like he’s coming, would you like to order?” The agent ordered a personal pizza. After still more time had passed, reluctantly, she finally paid the bill and walked outside, getting into her car.
About that time, I wheeled into the parking lot and saw the agent’s car driving over to me. I rolled down the window. Saundra pulled up beside me and said, “Did you get the application?” “I did – it was a group policy.” And only because Saundra was another insurance agent did she understand, park her car, and walk back inside to have lunch with me. And that was our first date. God is good!
Saundra did not give up believing in me, and we shouldn’t give up believing in Jesus because he is running late by our standards.
The second reaction the world would like from us is to become impatient about Jesus’ return and, while still believing in Him, stop thinking about Him and His return. We should focus upon this world and today. That’s what the world tells us time and again. “Don’t be a religious fanatic – they’re dangerous, they’re weird, they’re kooks!”
But consider the farmer who believes in the rains. He knows that there may be no rain in June, no rain in July. He sits and watches throughout 31 days of August and there isn’t a cloud in the sky, nor dew in the ground. Through September he counts the days, Sept 1, Sept 2, Sept 3 and so on through 30 days. He’s counted 122 days without rain. But he knows that it will rain in the fall. He doesn’t know if it will rain in October or whether he’ll have to wait until November, but he goes forward in faith, plowing the hard-baked fields, scattering life-giving manure on the fields, disking the fields repeatedly to turn the hard-baked clods into sandy dust, and then taking his seed wheat and sowing it in the fields, fields that blow dust whenever the wind comes. And he waits for the rains to come because he knows that the rains are coming soon. He just doesn’t know which day or which hour, but he is prepared, his fields are prepared, he’s done everything he can do to stand ready, he’s worked hard, he’s even assured his worried young neighbors that all will be all right by telling them stories of what he’s learned over the years, like the time he waited until the 15th of November for the rains to come, and he waits for the rains to come. He has trust in the Lord and the weather the Lord sends and so is he a dangerous fanatic?
I ask you – why is the farmer, who has faith the Lord will send the rains – a logical, optimistic, good farmer, while the man or woman who prepares his family and friends, who spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ, who walks on the Way of Holiness, who has faith that Jesus will return soon, considered a religious fanatic?
The third response, you see, is what the world doesn’t want us to do but Jesus wants us to do. We are to act like the farmer. There is a Way of Holiness, a path we are to follow. We are to believe that the rains are coming soon, that Jesus is returning soon, and to prepare our family, our friends, our neighbors for that return by spreading our wisdom, our knowledge, the Gospel story to everyone around us. We are to change the world around us, the hard-packed hearts of the world by plowing the Gospel carefully into them, by spreading life-giving Scripture all around, by turning over and over the hard clodded hearts by doing good deeds and speaking words of kindness and life to others, by telling others of all the times Jesus and God the Father came through for us and why we believe Him when He says He will return and bring His eternal life-giving water to a land that is thirsty for new life!
James said:
Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
If we follow the example of the farmer as I have said, we will show our patience, and we will be seen as the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. That is a cause for great rejoicing, that people would think us so devoted to God we’d be called prophets. We think well of prophets. What did the prophet Isaiah say about Christ’s return 2700 years ago when he compared it to the rains coming to the desert?
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
But we should also remember – and strengthen ourselves – that prophets in ancient times – and today – are not treated kindly by the world, for prophets make most people uncomfortable. Yet Moses wanted all people to be prophets, speaking on behalf of God, and that was what Jesus asked of the Twelve and the Seventy that He sent out to the towns and villages and indeed, that is what He asks of everyone in the Kingdom of God. For there is a time when we should stop being called Disciples – which means students – and become Apostles - which means those who proclaim.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Members of the kingdom of heaven, you are greater than John the Baptist. Will you proclaim the Messiah to all, as John did? Will you remind people that Jesus will return? Will you, as the good farmer, prepare your field and show your neighbors what must be done?
The rains are coming soon. Jesus will return soon – when, exactly, I cannot say, just as the old farmer couldn’t say. But just as he knew that the drought would end “soon”, we also know that Jesus will return “soon”. Be ready. He may return in the middle of the night. Profess your faith, be baptized, be a member of God’s church. And help your friends, neighbors, and family come into the kingdom of heaven.
Monday, December 5, 2016
The Kingdom of Heaven - Present or Future?
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you.”
About 2700 years ago, 700 years before Jesus was born to Mary, there lived a man named Isaiah. God spoke to Isaiah, and Isaiah spoke to the people of Israel.
It was a gloomy time. Based in the area we call Northern Iraq today, the powerful Assyrian Empire had sent its armies to overrun the Northern kingdom of Israel, based at Samaria. Samaria was sacked and most of its people were sent away as slaves, where they lost their identity as Israelites and gradually faded away over the years and decades. Today, we know them as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
But the Assyrians were not ready to stop at Samaria. They sent another army to the south to attack Jerusalem and their commander sent an ultimatum to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem to surrender or be destroyed. Unlike most kings, who ignored what prophets said, Hezekiah sent a message to Isaiah asking him to pray to God for Jerusalem.
And Isaiah prayed. God sent Isaiah a message of hope, which Isaiah delivered to Hezekiah. And so King Hezekiah stood strong and did not surrender. And that night, the Lord sent a plague which killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. The Assyrians returned to Assyria. Such was the power of Jerusalem when its kings listened to the prophets who spoke for God.
Isaiah was given visions of the future. In particular, Isaiah was told of a future new glorious kingdom, a kingdom ruled by a descendent of Jesse, the father of David the great king and grandfather of Solomon, the wisest man who ever ruled.
This new ruler would be righteous and wise. Hear what Isaiah has to say about Him:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord. OH, wouldn’t we love to have a governor, a President, a king who had these attributes!
“He will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
What a comment! Can you imagine someone who is so confident of the goodness of God that he or she delights in being fearful of God?
I can. You were that way once with someone. When you were very small, your father or mother or someone else who loved you picked you up and dangled you by your ankles. They threw you up in the air and caught you and you giggled! Here was someone so powerful and so good, someone you trusted and knew loved you! And you delighted in that power! And I bet that when you had your children you picked them up and tossed them around, too. For you loved them and loved to hear them delight in your goodness and play with them. Can you now imagine how God feels when he does wondrous things for us and we delight in those things?
Isaiah spoke of a kingdom of God, a kingdom ruled by a ruler who was absolutely fixed upon what God wanted, and because of this, righteousness and justice and peace and wisdom would be what this kingdom would be known for. And so people began to look for this kingdom and they began to look for this ruler. They called him the Anointed One, because the kings of Israel were not crowned, but anointed with fragrant oil poured over their heads. The Anointed One – in ancient Hebrew, the word was Ma-siah. The Messiah. In Greek, the word translated to Christ. The Christ. In the Latin of Rome, the word was Christus. Other Romans called him the “Salvetor”, which the French changed to “Savior”, a word we use today in English.
The kingdom of God would be ruled by the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
And time moved on until about 700 years had passed.
After a hundred years, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Seventy years after that, Jerusalem was rebuilt. Armies came and went. A man named Alexander the Great brought the Greek language and culture to Jerusalem and Judea, the area around Jerusalem. Hebrew declined in importance – the Aramaic language grew more important. A Greek king named Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the altar of the Temple, the Jews rebelled and once again had their own kingdom under the Maccabee family. Then the irresistible army of the Romans arrived and conquered Greece and Egypt and Judea and everywhere in between. Once again, the Jews were a conquered people, beaten and depressed.
Matthew takes up our story eighty years later after that conquest:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
Isaiah had spoken of a man who was to come who would announce the Messiah. He would speak in the wilderness and he would tell people to get ready for the Messiah “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
And so John told everyone who would listen that the kingdom of heaven was near. Can you imagine the excitement in those people who yearned to lift their heads up high as equals beside those Roman soldiers?
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John spoke of Jesus. It was just a few days later that Jesus showed up at the Jordan River and John baptized Him.
But what is this kingdom of heaven? Is it a present thing or is it something to come?
The answer is: Yes.
As we read the scriptures, particularly the Gospels, we see that Jesus often had His mind on the kingdom of heaven. Because almost all Jews had heard Isaiah’s prophecies, Jesus continually referred to the kingdom coming, the kingdom coming near, joining the kingdom, and other phrases. But to understand this, we have to understand better what the ancients thought a kingdom and a king were.
Our view of a kingdom is based on the late medieval concept of a kingdom, which is essentially the same thing that we call a country today. The kingdom of France, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Spain – these are our ideas of a kingdom. But at the time of Jesus, a kingdom was something with a slightly different idea.
Herod was king of the Jews. He ruled the Jewish kingdom, which consisted geographically of Judea and Galilee. By our modern definition, Herod would have ruled in Jerusalem, but that wasn’t true even though it is the capital of Judea. Herod ruled from Jericho. For you see, a kingdom in those days was composed of an ethnic group, a group of people who identified as one and the same people, like we might today think of the Scottish people, the Amish, or West Virginians.
You know that today, you don’t need to live in West Virginia to be a West Virginian. Someone, born in Clarksburg, can move to North Carolina and live for twenty years and even then, the people in North Carolina will refer to you as a West Virginian, you yourself will be a West Virginian, and when you come back home for a family or class reunion, you will still be a West Virginian. In fact, in some way, your children will be West Virginians, even though they were born in Charlotte. And if someone moves here from New York City, it takes a while before they are considered West Virginians. You can’t be a West Virginian living in West Virginia if you still root for Syracuse over WVU or Marshall! Being a West Virginian is not dependent upon where you live.
That was the way people thought of kingdoms in ancient times. Naturally, most people of one ethnic group lived in a particular area, the way you find most West Virginians living in the state. And so most Jews lived in Judea or Galilee, but Herod was the king of all the Jews – and he wasn’t the king of the Samaritans or the Greeks, even though they might live in Jerusalem or Jericho. And the Roman Emperor ruled over all the kings inside the Empire’s area of control – from Egypt and Turkey to Spain and England.
And so with this in mind, Jesus’ message was incredibly subversive. Jesus was saying to give your loyalty to the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of Herod – or to the empire of Rome.
This kingdom of heaven was initially for the Jews, with Jesus as the head. But soon after his Resurrection and ascent to Heaven, Philip the Evangelist led Samaritans and an Ethiopian to join the kingdom. Peter led the entire household of a Roman soldier to join the kingdom. Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Mark and a host of others began to lead all sorts of Greeks and Romans and other people to join the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven wasn't just for Jews! And then, around the year 230, the kingdom of heaven took over the Empire of Rome as Constantine became the Roman Emperor and made Christianity the preferred religion in the Empire.
Today, the present kingdom of heaven counts some two billion people who claim their first allegiance is to God and Christ, and only secondarily to their earthly rulers. And so, the kingdom of heaven is almost twice the size of China or India and six times the size of the United States.
And inside that kingdom, we see that things are more peaceful, less barbaric, and generally a better place to live than outside that kingdom. It is lands where there are few members of the kingdom of heaven that we see the worst atrocities committed today, the worst justice, beheadings of innocents, executions without trials, the least righteousness in the judges and rulers. Even without Christ’s physical presence on the earth, the Body of Christ, the church, exercises influence over the kingdom.
And yet, Christ has not returned to rule. Yet. And so the present day kingdom of heaven is not as perfect as we'd like.
So we have a future kingdom to look forward to. What we see today is a foretaste, an influence, an appetizer, an anticipation of the kingdom of heaven which is to come when Jesus the Christ returns in glory and power to take personal command of his throne.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Our plan this year is to seek to establish and expand the kingdom of God in individuals and in this community. Our goal is to add 30 new members this year in the Quiet Dell church and 10 new members in the Monroe Chapel church. All of what we have been doing over the last few years has been in preparation, to help each of us understand more and better how to talk to people who are outside the kingdom about how to come into the kingdom. Now, we are ready to work together to grow the kingdom in this area.
You can join that kingdom. Have you joined the kingdom yet? Have you officially joined this church or another church? Have you declared your love of Christ, have you been baptized?
On Christmas Day, which comes on a Sunday this year, we will have a service which will include the opportunity for you to profess your faith, to be baptized, or to officially join this church. Speak to me or leave me a comment if you want to see what that involves. My contact information is posted nearby.
Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you.”
About 2700 years ago, 700 years before Jesus was born to Mary, there lived a man named Isaiah. God spoke to Isaiah, and Isaiah spoke to the people of Israel.
It was a gloomy time. Based in the area we call Northern Iraq today, the powerful Assyrian Empire had sent its armies to overrun the Northern kingdom of Israel, based at Samaria. Samaria was sacked and most of its people were sent away as slaves, where they lost their identity as Israelites and gradually faded away over the years and decades. Today, we know them as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
But the Assyrians were not ready to stop at Samaria. They sent another army to the south to attack Jerusalem and their commander sent an ultimatum to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem to surrender or be destroyed. Unlike most kings, who ignored what prophets said, Hezekiah sent a message to Isaiah asking him to pray to God for Jerusalem.
And Isaiah prayed. God sent Isaiah a message of hope, which Isaiah delivered to Hezekiah. And so King Hezekiah stood strong and did not surrender. And that night, the Lord sent a plague which killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. The Assyrians returned to Assyria. Such was the power of Jerusalem when its kings listened to the prophets who spoke for God.
Isaiah was given visions of the future. In particular, Isaiah was told of a future new glorious kingdom, a kingdom ruled by a descendent of Jesse, the father of David the great king and grandfather of Solomon, the wisest man who ever ruled.
This new ruler would be righteous and wise. Hear what Isaiah has to say about Him:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord. OH, wouldn’t we love to have a governor, a President, a king who had these attributes!
“He will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
What a comment! Can you imagine someone who is so confident of the goodness of God that he or she delights in being fearful of God?
I can. You were that way once with someone. When you were very small, your father or mother or someone else who loved you picked you up and dangled you by your ankles. They threw you up in the air and caught you and you giggled! Here was someone so powerful and so good, someone you trusted and knew loved you! And you delighted in that power! And I bet that when you had your children you picked them up and tossed them around, too. For you loved them and loved to hear them delight in your goodness and play with them. Can you now imagine how God feels when he does wondrous things for us and we delight in those things?
Isaiah spoke of a kingdom of God, a kingdom ruled by a ruler who was absolutely fixed upon what God wanted, and because of this, righteousness and justice and peace and wisdom would be what this kingdom would be known for. And so people began to look for this kingdom and they began to look for this ruler. They called him the Anointed One, because the kings of Israel were not crowned, but anointed with fragrant oil poured over their heads. The Anointed One – in ancient Hebrew, the word was Ma-siah. The Messiah. In Greek, the word translated to Christ. The Christ. In the Latin of Rome, the word was Christus. Other Romans called him the “Salvetor”, which the French changed to “Savior”, a word we use today in English.
The kingdom of God would be ruled by the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
And time moved on until about 700 years had passed.
After a hundred years, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Seventy years after that, Jerusalem was rebuilt. Armies came and went. A man named Alexander the Great brought the Greek language and culture to Jerusalem and Judea, the area around Jerusalem. Hebrew declined in importance – the Aramaic language grew more important. A Greek king named Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the altar of the Temple, the Jews rebelled and once again had their own kingdom under the Maccabee family. Then the irresistible army of the Romans arrived and conquered Greece and Egypt and Judea and everywhere in between. Once again, the Jews were a conquered people, beaten and depressed.
Matthew takes up our story eighty years later after that conquest:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
Isaiah had spoken of a man who was to come who would announce the Messiah. He would speak in the wilderness and he would tell people to get ready for the Messiah “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
And so John told everyone who would listen that the kingdom of heaven was near. Can you imagine the excitement in those people who yearned to lift their heads up high as equals beside those Roman soldiers?
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John spoke of Jesus. It was just a few days later that Jesus showed up at the Jordan River and John baptized Him.
But what is this kingdom of heaven? Is it a present thing or is it something to come?
The answer is: Yes.
As we read the scriptures, particularly the Gospels, we see that Jesus often had His mind on the kingdom of heaven. Because almost all Jews had heard Isaiah’s prophecies, Jesus continually referred to the kingdom coming, the kingdom coming near, joining the kingdom, and other phrases. But to understand this, we have to understand better what the ancients thought a kingdom and a king were.
Our view of a kingdom is based on the late medieval concept of a kingdom, which is essentially the same thing that we call a country today. The kingdom of France, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Spain – these are our ideas of a kingdom. But at the time of Jesus, a kingdom was something with a slightly different idea.
Herod was king of the Jews. He ruled the Jewish kingdom, which consisted geographically of Judea and Galilee. By our modern definition, Herod would have ruled in Jerusalem, but that wasn’t true even though it is the capital of Judea. Herod ruled from Jericho. For you see, a kingdom in those days was composed of an ethnic group, a group of people who identified as one and the same people, like we might today think of the Scottish people, the Amish, or West Virginians.
You know that today, you don’t need to live in West Virginia to be a West Virginian. Someone, born in Clarksburg, can move to North Carolina and live for twenty years and even then, the people in North Carolina will refer to you as a West Virginian, you yourself will be a West Virginian, and when you come back home for a family or class reunion, you will still be a West Virginian. In fact, in some way, your children will be West Virginians, even though they were born in Charlotte. And if someone moves here from New York City, it takes a while before they are considered West Virginians. You can’t be a West Virginian living in West Virginia if you still root for Syracuse over WVU or Marshall! Being a West Virginian is not dependent upon where you live.
That was the way people thought of kingdoms in ancient times. Naturally, most people of one ethnic group lived in a particular area, the way you find most West Virginians living in the state. And so most Jews lived in Judea or Galilee, but Herod was the king of all the Jews – and he wasn’t the king of the Samaritans or the Greeks, even though they might live in Jerusalem or Jericho. And the Roman Emperor ruled over all the kings inside the Empire’s area of control – from Egypt and Turkey to Spain and England.
And so with this in mind, Jesus’ message was incredibly subversive. Jesus was saying to give your loyalty to the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of Herod – or to the empire of Rome.
This kingdom of heaven was initially for the Jews, with Jesus as the head. But soon after his Resurrection and ascent to Heaven, Philip the Evangelist led Samaritans and an Ethiopian to join the kingdom. Peter led the entire household of a Roman soldier to join the kingdom. Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Mark and a host of others began to lead all sorts of Greeks and Romans and other people to join the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven wasn't just for Jews! And then, around the year 230, the kingdom of heaven took over the Empire of Rome as Constantine became the Roman Emperor and made Christianity the preferred religion in the Empire.
Today, the present kingdom of heaven counts some two billion people who claim their first allegiance is to God and Christ, and only secondarily to their earthly rulers. And so, the kingdom of heaven is almost twice the size of China or India and six times the size of the United States.
And inside that kingdom, we see that things are more peaceful, less barbaric, and generally a better place to live than outside that kingdom. It is lands where there are few members of the kingdom of heaven that we see the worst atrocities committed today, the worst justice, beheadings of innocents, executions without trials, the least righteousness in the judges and rulers. Even without Christ’s physical presence on the earth, the Body of Christ, the church, exercises influence over the kingdom.
And yet, Christ has not returned to rule. Yet. And so the present day kingdom of heaven is not as perfect as we'd like.
So we have a future kingdom to look forward to. What we see today is a foretaste, an influence, an appetizer, an anticipation of the kingdom of heaven which is to come when Jesus the Christ returns in glory and power to take personal command of his throne.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Our plan this year is to seek to establish and expand the kingdom of God in individuals and in this community. Our goal is to add 30 new members this year in the Quiet Dell church and 10 new members in the Monroe Chapel church. All of what we have been doing over the last few years has been in preparation, to help each of us understand more and better how to talk to people who are outside the kingdom about how to come into the kingdom. Now, we are ready to work together to grow the kingdom in this area.
You can join that kingdom. Have you joined the kingdom yet? Have you officially joined this church or another church? Have you declared your love of Christ, have you been baptized?
On Christmas Day, which comes on a Sunday this year, we will have a service which will include the opportunity for you to profess your faith, to be baptized, or to officially join this church. Speak to me or leave me a comment if you want to see what that involves. My contact information is posted nearby.
Monday, November 28, 2016
The Armor of Light
Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
His army lie asleep under the stars. The moon had long set and the only light present was the thin light provided by those cold stars – Orion walked high in the west. It was cold at that altitude – frost was on the ground. A gentle sound of snoring was all around. No fires were lit – that might betray the presence of the army to the Enemy.
And then, in the east, a bit of gray began to chase away the blackness. The sun was still an hour or so away, but now there was a bit, just a bit of light. And a bird chirped a few times.
“Wake up!” a sergeant began walking among the sleeping bodies. “Wake up and put your body armor on.” And gradually, throughout the camp, men and women began to rouse, putting on vests of Kevlar that would stop a bullet or flying shrapnel. Helmets were buckled in place, many put on Kevlar thigh, knee and shin guards. Boot laces were checked, weapons were checked, and within fifteen minutes, the company was ready to move out. No breakfast for this army today. They were ready for another day of fighting.
The long fight might be over today – if the unit stayed together and each member did his or her job. This might indeed be the day the reinforcements arrived, the day the choppers and the planes brought in overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy – or it might be another day of tough fighting. The only thing they were sure of was that the choppers would always be able to come and evacuate them if things went wrong. They had confidence in the chain of command. They always knew their commander would come for them.
And so it is with us who fight for the King of Glory. We have survived days and nights of evil, with attacks coming any minute from any direction. We have survived attacks by the Enemy and we have survived episodes where we turned on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot, doing stupid, foolish things that hurt us and our friends and family, dragging each other down because of our fears. Yet we fight in a spiritual war for the eternal souls of the people around us, people who may not even realize there is a war going on, people who aren’t sure which side is good and which side is evil, people who are so spiritually lost they might as well be sleeping through Pearl Harbor.
But now, awakened to the idea that there is a battle going on around us, awakened by our King’s messengers, we Christians stand up and put on the armor of light, as Paul said:
"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. "
The Apostle Paul wrote this passage while in Corinth in Greece to a group of believers at Rome, sometime between 40 and 50 AD. Paul was planning on visiting Rome; he was writing to this group of believers so that they would be ready to receive him, and so they would understand the message of hope that he was bringing them. Just 15 years or so after the Resurrection, they were well established already – there were no less than three house churches already meeting in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s fellow tent-making co-workers from Corinth had gone to Rome and established one of those churches. A famous gladiator was on the list of believers in Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans; servants in the Emperor’s household were on the list. Several of Paul’s friends from his days in Antioch and Macedonia were already in Rome. The letter was carried by the Deaconess Phoebe, who served a church six miles from Corinth, which shows that churches were quickly being planted. Even in Corinth this early, the Way of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading fast.
And Paul says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”
His army lie asleep under the stars. The moon had long set and the only light present was the thin light provided by those cold stars – Orion walked high in the west. It was cold at that altitude – frost was on the ground. A gentle sound of snoring was all around. No fires were lit – that might betray the presence of the army to the Enemy.
And then, in the east, a bit of gray began to chase away the blackness. The sun was still an hour or so away, but now there was a bit, just a bit of light. And a bird chirped a few times.
“Wake up!” a sergeant began walking among the sleeping bodies. “Wake up and put your body armor on.” And gradually, throughout the camp, men and women began to rouse, putting on vests of Kevlar that would stop a bullet or flying shrapnel. Helmets were buckled in place, many put on Kevlar thigh, knee and shin guards. Boot laces were checked, weapons were checked, and within fifteen minutes, the company was ready to move out. No breakfast for this army today. They were ready for another day of fighting.
The long fight might be over today – if the unit stayed together and each member did his or her job. This might indeed be the day the reinforcements arrived, the day the choppers and the planes brought in overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy – or it might be another day of tough fighting. The only thing they were sure of was that the choppers would always be able to come and evacuate them if things went wrong. They had confidence in the chain of command. They always knew their commander would come for them.
And so it is with us who fight for the King of Glory. We have survived days and nights of evil, with attacks coming any minute from any direction. We have survived attacks by the Enemy and we have survived episodes where we turned on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot, doing stupid, foolish things that hurt us and our friends and family, dragging each other down because of our fears. Yet we fight in a spiritual war for the eternal souls of the people around us, people who may not even realize there is a war going on, people who aren’t sure which side is good and which side is evil, people who are so spiritually lost they might as well be sleeping through Pearl Harbor.
But now, awakened to the idea that there is a battle going on around us, awakened by our King’s messengers, we Christians stand up and put on the armor of light, as Paul said:
"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. "
The Apostle Paul wrote this passage while in Corinth in Greece to a group of believers at Rome, sometime between 40 and 50 AD. Paul was planning on visiting Rome; he was writing to this group of believers so that they would be ready to receive him, and so they would understand the message of hope that he was bringing them. Just 15 years or so after the Resurrection, they were well established already – there were no less than three house churches already meeting in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s fellow tent-making co-workers from Corinth had gone to Rome and established one of those churches. A famous gladiator was on the list of believers in Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans; servants in the Emperor’s household were on the list. Several of Paul’s friends from his days in Antioch and Macedonia were already in Rome. The letter was carried by the Deaconess Phoebe, who served a church six miles from Corinth, which shows that churches were quickly being planted. Even in Corinth this early, the Way of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading fast.
And Paul says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”
It is time to put on the armor of light and prepare for a spiritual battle.
This is how we begin this new Christian year. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of preparation for Christ’s arrival. But this year, unlike most years, we will not focus upon the arrival of the Christ child. We will focus upon the soon arrival of the Son of God in all His glory and power.
In many ways, we act like we are spiritually asleep, like we are wearing soft, cozy flannel underwear with footies, the type of nightclothes we might get toddlers, the type of nightwear that keeps us warm and protected and snuggly and drowns out the sounds of the outside world as we sleep the day away.
This is how we begin this new Christian year. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of preparation for Christ’s arrival. But this year, unlike most years, we will not focus upon the arrival of the Christ child. We will focus upon the soon arrival of the Son of God in all His glory and power.
In many ways, we act like we are spiritually asleep, like we are wearing soft, cozy flannel underwear with footies, the type of nightclothes we might get toddlers, the type of nightwear that keeps us warm and protected and snuggly and drowns out the sounds of the outside world as we sleep the day away.
There are two holidays called Christmas, you see. One is loud and boisterous, busy and frenzied, filled with shopping and cooking and decorating and lights and noise. It is what the world calls "Christmastime", a continuous party and preparation for a party which exhausts us and gives us a hangover of debit.
The other Christmas is quiet, peaceful, like the quiet noises that snow makes when it lands in your backyard or the gentle sigh of a newborn baby as it settles off to sleep. This Christmas is filled with candles and a small fire in the fireplace and a bit of hot tea drunk as one particular story found in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke is reread and remembered, perhaps with bread and with a bit of wine or grape juice.
Which one do you celebrate?
Our world around us is controlled by the Satan, the deceiver, who the Bible says is the prince of this world. Our world would have us to sleep, assuming that the Return of Christ will be hundreds of years in the future. Our world would have us to focus upon the really “important” things in life, like whether or not we could get a good deal on a 4k ultra curved 60 inch television set, or a new Playstation or a new smart phone. Our world would like us to think that the holidays are about friends and family, about traditions and coziness, about shiny ornaments for the tree, the happy cries of children as they unwrap presents, and the approving looks from the family as they see what we’ve prepared for Christmas dinner. Diamonds from Jared, watches from Wal-mart, clothes from Kohl’s, cars from Kia. And don’t forget the television specials, the football playoffs, the basketball games, and the constant news shows about the aftermath of the election. These are the things the world distracts us with this time of year. And we go along, occasionally protesting about the cost or the time or the effort.
Or we get sucked into the culture wars. Every year, there are the stories of the manger scenes not allowed, the Christmas plays that are censored, the coffee cups that don’t carry the right symbols, and we get outraged and post on Facebook and argue and fight and complain and where is the peace of Christ in all this?
Instead, do we stop during this Advent season to sit with our children and grandchildren and our neighbor’s children and read to them from the beginning chapters of Luke and Matthew? Do we decide to stay home instead of shop and read for ourselves an entire Gospel book of the Bible this time of year? Do we ever just build a fire, cover up with a blanket, and read a chapter from a New Testament epistle to the other person in the house, and then talk about what Paul or Peter or John meant when they wrote those words so long ago?
Do we have friends over to talk about the Gospel and our church? When was the last time we invited that young girl with her three kids who lives down the street over? What about next Saturday? We could cook hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and bake some biscuits and then we could direct the conversation toward the Pioneer Clubs and how our kids turned out reasonably well despite all the struggles in high school and that might give her an evening to relax. Yes, we could make some time, we could cut back on all the loud Christmastime stuff and focus on becoming Jesus to that family this year. After all, do we really need a new television? Do our kids and grandkids really need to be spoiled like we’ve spoiled them or maybe we could redirect some of those gifts to that young girl and her family because our kids are doing well, but I noticed her car was broke down for a week last month.
Maybe we could invite that old man who lives alone over for Christmas dinner. Maybe we could make friends with that struggling waitress at Denny’s and find out what her kids need and give her a giftcard for Christmas to Wal-mart. Maybe we could just leave a fifty or a hundred dollar tip for her? And there is that nice guy at the Mexican restaurant who seems to be so lost – what could we do for him?
Our homes are filled with things and our lives are full of time-wasting chores we put onto ourselves. Paul asked us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” That’s what Paul wrote…
Now I don’t think many of you spend time in carousing and drunkenness nor in sexual immorality. But we do have a tendency to indulge in our self this time of the year. We drink deeply of the intoxicating liquor of selfishness. We need to put down that cup and move onto the next level in our Christianity. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me explain…
The natural person is by nature selfish. We want to gratify our desires first and foremost. And so everything is about my wants and my needs, my problems and my successes. As we take on Christ, we should be able to shed those night clothes that are designed for our comfort and our coziness, and put on our daytime work clothes, worrying about others.
The beginning Christian begins to do things for the people closest to him or her. We begin to worry now about our families, our wives or husbands, our children, perhaps even our nieces and nephews, our brothers and sisters. We have begun to shed those cozy night clothes and put on our work clothes.
But at the next level, we begin to look outside our family and our house. We recognize when our nest is warm and cozy enough and we look to see if there are people near us whom we can help, our friends, our neighbors, our church family. And so we share with the people we know.
Our world around us is controlled by the Satan, the deceiver, who the Bible says is the prince of this world. Our world would have us to sleep, assuming that the Return of Christ will be hundreds of years in the future. Our world would have us to focus upon the really “important” things in life, like whether or not we could get a good deal on a 4k ultra curved 60 inch television set, or a new Playstation or a new smart phone. Our world would like us to think that the holidays are about friends and family, about traditions and coziness, about shiny ornaments for the tree, the happy cries of children as they unwrap presents, and the approving looks from the family as they see what we’ve prepared for Christmas dinner. Diamonds from Jared, watches from Wal-mart, clothes from Kohl’s, cars from Kia. And don’t forget the television specials, the football playoffs, the basketball games, and the constant news shows about the aftermath of the election. These are the things the world distracts us with this time of year. And we go along, occasionally protesting about the cost or the time or the effort.
Or we get sucked into the culture wars. Every year, there are the stories of the manger scenes not allowed, the Christmas plays that are censored, the coffee cups that don’t carry the right symbols, and we get outraged and post on Facebook and argue and fight and complain and where is the peace of Christ in all this?
Instead, do we stop during this Advent season to sit with our children and grandchildren and our neighbor’s children and read to them from the beginning chapters of Luke and Matthew? Do we decide to stay home instead of shop and read for ourselves an entire Gospel book of the Bible this time of year? Do we ever just build a fire, cover up with a blanket, and read a chapter from a New Testament epistle to the other person in the house, and then talk about what Paul or Peter or John meant when they wrote those words so long ago?
Do we have friends over to talk about the Gospel and our church? When was the last time we invited that young girl with her three kids who lives down the street over? What about next Saturday? We could cook hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and bake some biscuits and then we could direct the conversation toward the Pioneer Clubs and how our kids turned out reasonably well despite all the struggles in high school and that might give her an evening to relax. Yes, we could make some time, we could cut back on all the loud Christmastime stuff and focus on becoming Jesus to that family this year. After all, do we really need a new television? Do our kids and grandkids really need to be spoiled like we’ve spoiled them or maybe we could redirect some of those gifts to that young girl and her family because our kids are doing well, but I noticed her car was broke down for a week last month.
Maybe we could invite that old man who lives alone over for Christmas dinner. Maybe we could make friends with that struggling waitress at Denny’s and find out what her kids need and give her a giftcard for Christmas to Wal-mart. Maybe we could just leave a fifty or a hundred dollar tip for her? And there is that nice guy at the Mexican restaurant who seems to be so lost – what could we do for him?
Our homes are filled with things and our lives are full of time-wasting chores we put onto ourselves. Paul asked us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” That’s what Paul wrote…
Now I don’t think many of you spend time in carousing and drunkenness nor in sexual immorality. But we do have a tendency to indulge in our self this time of the year. We drink deeply of the intoxicating liquor of selfishness. We need to put down that cup and move onto the next level in our Christianity. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me explain…
The natural person is by nature selfish. We want to gratify our desires first and foremost. And so everything is about my wants and my needs, my problems and my successes. As we take on Christ, we should be able to shed those night clothes that are designed for our comfort and our coziness, and put on our daytime work clothes, worrying about others.
The beginning Christian begins to do things for the people closest to him or her. We begin to worry now about our families, our wives or husbands, our children, perhaps even our nieces and nephews, our brothers and sisters. We have begun to shed those cozy night clothes and put on our work clothes.
But at the next level, we begin to look outside our family and our house. We recognize when our nest is warm and cozy enough and we look to see if there are people near us whom we can help, our friends, our neighbors, our church family. And so we share with the people we know.
Perhaps we even get involved with organized ministries, like the shoeboxes or the Angel Trees or the donations that our church takes up. We give money - we even shop for other people - and then we hand over the money or the gifts to someone else to give to people who are in need.
But there is another level. That is when we begin to actively look for new people we can help, strangers, people who we don’t know, the woman crying in the card aisle at Krogers, the man walking beside the road, the waitress who is clearly having a rough time, the man at the checkout counter who is obviously buying a simple meal for himself because he is alone. Maybe we even go to work at the Salvation Army or the food pantry so we can meet people who need help and then we become friends and we treat them as our neighbors and family. We go beyond giving and find the person who needs and soon we find we have hundreds of new friends.
But there is another level. That is when we begin to actively look for new people we can help, strangers, people who we don’t know, the woman crying in the card aisle at Krogers, the man walking beside the road, the waitress who is clearly having a rough time, the man at the checkout counter who is obviously buying a simple meal for himself because he is alone. Maybe we even go to work at the Salvation Army or the food pantry so we can meet people who need help and then we become friends and we treat them as our neighbors and family. We go beyond giving and find the person who needs and soon we find we have hundreds of new friends.
You tell me stories. You tell me stories of people you once knew who were filled with the Holy Spirit, people who were godly, people who were so good and kind and generous! But there is a part to the story which I haven't heard recently. I used to hear this story earlier in my life. Someone would talk about that godly man or woman in wonderful terms and then say, "And I want to become just like him (or her) someday! I'm working to learn all I can to become just like her (or him)! Will you help me?"
I haven't heard that part of the story in a long time...
Imagine, if you will, that you put on armor when you get out of bed in the morning. It is an invisible armor, but that armor protects you from every flaming arrow that Satan and his friends can send your way. But there is a catch, a magical thing about this armor. It is totally useless and doesn’t help us at all until we charge it with goodness. And that armor begins to work and glows with light as we listen to the Holy Spirit and do good.
So as we work to get out of our comfortable cozy night clothes, we find that we are putting on an armor that serves us well when the enemy attacks us in our lives, for that armor of light is recharged every time we do something kind for someone else just because they are an image of God, another portrait of God from a different angle, just as we are. That armor of light begins to glow around us and nothing the enemy can do will take us down, for we know now that we are worthy, we know that we have a purpose in life, we know that we are doing good and we know that we are powerful, strong, and part of a victorious army because we know, deep down, we know to the depths of our heart that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can even wear that armor. Every time we do something for someone else we remember what Christ did for us when we were needy, when we were struggling, when we were standing at the edge of the cliff, not sure if we would make it or not. We saw someone who was wearing Jesus’ armor of light and it lit up our lives! And now we have a set of the very same armor that fits us because we have decided to follow Jesus.
And so, my friends, put on the armor of light and charge it up by doing good works this season. Walk in that tremendously safe and joyous space, that space between Jesus and the people who need to meet Jesus, connecting Jesus and them together through your acts of kindness and charity. Let others fight the battles of Walmart and the shopping mall. You fight the important battle, the battle for people’s souls that may end this day, or this week, or this month or in a thousand years when Christ returns to earth.
While we wait for His return, we are to be wearing that armor of light, fighting the battle. Have you ever met a Christian who glowed? Of course you have! Have you ever met a man or a woman who was so calm, so peaceful, yet so passionate about saving people’s souls that there was almost a real glow to their eyes and their face when they spoke? They are rare and hard to find, but you can become one of those glowing Christians. You can be one of them, because Christ has already destroyed your sins and left you free to do good. Pick up the set of armor that He has given you! All we need to do, Paul says, is to "clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be given unto you as well.”
Let Matthew 6:33 guide you this Christian year. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness And all these things will be given unto you as well.” And wear the glowing armor of light that Jesus has given you as you go through every day doing good, changing the world, bringing people to know and understand the love of Christ.
We are the army of Christ. We are His soldiers, we are His warriors, we are the people who fight in the spiritual war. While we are free because of Jesus, millions of other people are still under the control of the Enemy. How can we leave them doomed to eternal death, the real death, eternity apart from God?
Imagine, if you will, that you put on armor when you get out of bed in the morning. It is an invisible armor, but that armor protects you from every flaming arrow that Satan and his friends can send your way. But there is a catch, a magical thing about this armor. It is totally useless and doesn’t help us at all until we charge it with goodness. And that armor begins to work and glows with light as we listen to the Holy Spirit and do good.
So as we work to get out of our comfortable cozy night clothes, we find that we are putting on an armor that serves us well when the enemy attacks us in our lives, for that armor of light is recharged every time we do something kind for someone else just because they are an image of God, another portrait of God from a different angle, just as we are. That armor of light begins to glow around us and nothing the enemy can do will take us down, for we know now that we are worthy, we know that we have a purpose in life, we know that we are doing good and we know that we are powerful, strong, and part of a victorious army because we know, deep down, we know to the depths of our heart that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can even wear that armor. Every time we do something for someone else we remember what Christ did for us when we were needy, when we were struggling, when we were standing at the edge of the cliff, not sure if we would make it or not. We saw someone who was wearing Jesus’ armor of light and it lit up our lives! And now we have a set of the very same armor that fits us because we have decided to follow Jesus.
And so, my friends, put on the armor of light and charge it up by doing good works this season. Walk in that tremendously safe and joyous space, that space between Jesus and the people who need to meet Jesus, connecting Jesus and them together through your acts of kindness and charity. Let others fight the battles of Walmart and the shopping mall. You fight the important battle, the battle for people’s souls that may end this day, or this week, or this month or in a thousand years when Christ returns to earth.
While we wait for His return, we are to be wearing that armor of light, fighting the battle. Have you ever met a Christian who glowed? Of course you have! Have you ever met a man or a woman who was so calm, so peaceful, yet so passionate about saving people’s souls that there was almost a real glow to their eyes and their face when they spoke? They are rare and hard to find, but you can become one of those glowing Christians. You can be one of them, because Christ has already destroyed your sins and left you free to do good. Pick up the set of armor that He has given you! All we need to do, Paul says, is to "clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be given unto you as well.”
Let Matthew 6:33 guide you this Christian year. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness And all these things will be given unto you as well.” And wear the glowing armor of light that Jesus has given you as you go through every day doing good, changing the world, bringing people to know and understand the love of Christ.
We are the army of Christ. We are His soldiers, we are His warriors, we are the people who fight in the spiritual war. While we are free because of Jesus, millions of other people are still under the control of the Enemy. How can we leave them doomed to eternal death, the real death, eternity apart from God?
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Christ the King
Jeremiah
23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke
23:33-43
Throughout history, people of all ages have had a very important question to deal with. Who shall we accept as our leader? The answer ultimately determines who are and how we shall act, as well as our eternal destiny.
When a child is born, the answer is very quickly found. The infant will accept as leader anyone who does exactly what the infant wants. If the infant is hungry and a woman nearby feeds the infant, the infant is happy. But if no one feeds the infant, then that infant will struggle and resist and cry out very loudly until all the people around her do exactly what she wants done – or until she dies from starvation and weakness. For most infants, questions of leadership are easily answered: “It is my way or I will punish you with my wail!”
As a child grows, there is always a struggle between the child and the parents over who will lead. Usually, the superior force and wisdom of the parents will win over the whiny little brat, but not always, for there are many children in this world who lead in their households. I knew a couple that had decided that their three-year-old child should make decisions. “Son, do you want to go to bed?” the exhausted father would ask. “No!” was the answer from the three-year-old who was so ragged he was ready to fall down. Eventually, an hour later, “Son, I’m getting tired. Do you want to go to bed?” The response was immediate: “No! You go to bed!” And Dad walked down the hall and went to bed! I’m not sure what happened as that child grew up, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.
As we move into our teenage years, the question arises once again: Who shall we follow? Shall we follow our parents, shall we follow our teachers, shall we follow our coaches, or shall we follow our charismatic friend? Who do we give the right to tell us what to do?
Increasingly today, we claim that right to lead for ourselves. We shall bow to no one else! We are self-sufficient, able to make all of our own decisions, accepting the leadership of no man or woman. And this is the American ideal.
In the 1800’s, a visiting Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.” [emphasis mine]
And so who do we accept as our leader? It used to be that a woman accepted her husband as her leadership, for he likely had more education, had experienced more of the world, and it seemed the natural thing. This has been turned upside down in the last forty years. Today, more women are attending college than men, and increasingly the leading cause of divorce is a fight over who will lead the household.
Most people no longer live near their parents, so it is difficult for a college-educated man or woman who lives 200 miles from home to respect the judgment, let alone obey the orders of a father or mother who has less education. So who will you follow?
In the 1940’s and 1950’s, men were drafted into the army and they learned to follow orders. Today, few people enter the armed forces and we look with suspicious eyes upon any organization that asks for obedience. We do not want to obey anyone – Why not?
Perhaps there are three key reasons:
First of all, it is the effect of democracy that de Tocqueville noticed a hundred and fifty years ago. We have been told that we are sovereign, that we make the decisions with our vote and that our representatives in Charleston and in Washington are our representatives, not our rulers. And so, we have become very independent-minded because we have the power. The latest election was another example of the power of the independent person.
Another reason we don’t want to follow anyone is because every time we have chosen to follow someone, they disappoint us. Perhaps this began with Richard Nixon, when the Watergate tapes told us that our President was one of the foulest mouthed people we knew. Those tapes showed us that Nixon regularly talked like a sailor – and that’s an insult to sailors! And that was perhaps even more important in Nixon’s fall than the Watergate coverup was.
And soon after Nixon, we began to see a parade of pastoral leaders and ministers fall from grace. Silver and sex brought down major television ministries of different denominations, and even the separated priests of the Catholic Church were not immune to scandal.
Nixon’s fall was just the beginning for politicians. Regular prosecution began to bring down Senators, governors, mayors, sheriffs. Money, sex, drugs, power were their downfall. Even high-ranking military leaders were prosecuted for various crimes.
Our celebrities fell from grace. At first, actresses with “nice girl” images on screen were caught in adultery. Some actresses were found to be terrible mothers. Then men with “tough guy” images were found to have male partners. And eventually, the drug-using, promiscuous Hollywood or Nashville star became the stereotype, with the few clean, happily married stars that kept a balanced life were now seen as odd.
And we can’t find a Walter Cronkite anymore. Those trusted news anchors of the 1960’s and 1970’s began to fade the election night when and 80-year-old David Brinkley famously cussed a blue streak on an open mike, not realizing that what he was saying was going to televisions across America. And now we find that reporters were actively colluding with the campaigns, feeding questions before debates so answers could be prepared, checking stories with campaign leaders so nothing embarrassing would accidentally be said about the preferred candidate, and generally taking sides rather than reporting.
So who is left to trust?
And the final blow from the world came when the churches that claim to promote Christ’s love to all instead stopped fishing for men and women and decided that they only wanted cleaned, fillets in their buildings, people who were already “good Christians”. We forgot that we were supposed to love people first, tell them that Jesus accepts all people and all people have sinned, including each one of us, and instead we told people they had to clean up their act before they’d be welcome. But how could we know what to do if we were denied listening to the Word of God? And so there was no one left for ordinary people to follow.
But there is still one left. As we think of Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that there is still one person left to follow.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was arrested for the crime of blasphemy. It seems that this Jesus had claimed repeatedly to be God’s Son, divine. He even claimed once in John 10:30 that “I and the Father are one”. And so, when they were able to, the Jewish authorities came one night and arrested him and charged him with the capital crime of blasphemy. They wanted Jesus to die.
Jesus had a very long night. The next day, he was taken to the Roman governor, and Pontius Pilate, the governor asked him an important question: Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?"... Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You [correctly] say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth (John 18:33b, 36-37).
A king of a kingdom which does not belong to this world? But what proof could Jesus provide? What reason would anyone have to follow a king whose kingdom is not here?
And so, Pilate reluctantly sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. And Pilate, to taunt the Jews and anyone else around who might challenge the power of the Romans to determine who was a king and who was not a king, put a sign on the pole with Jesus which said in several languages: “This is the King of the Jews”. Jesus was forced to carry his cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Our reading takes it from here.
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
There was a written notice above him, which read: 'This is the king of the Jews.'
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Everyone wanted to know if Jesus was a king worth following. The Romans taunted him, others sneered at him. But one of the criminals recognized that Jesus had done nothing wrong. He believed that Jesus was a king.
That Friday afternoon, Jesus died on that cross. The Romans even stabbed his already-dead body to make sure he was dead. And so the question becomes, “Why should anyone follow a dead man who claimed to be a king?”
The answer came to us on Sunday morning. It was then that people began to report that he was alive. Eventually, over the next 40 days, over 500 people saw him alive, speaking, eating, preaching, and teaching. Several of those witnesses wrote down what they had seen. Others traveled as far as India, as far as Rome, as far as Persia, as far as Egypt, as far as Spain to spread the word.
Apparently, it was true that Jesus was a king, because God would not have raised anyone from the dead who was a liar or who was delusional and tried to lead others to accept his delusion.
And over the centuries, literally thousands upon thousands of people have reported seeing or hearing Christ, talking to Him, and millions more have reported being guided by him.
And so we ask, Who is more worthy to be followed than the Son of God, a man who has a kingdom with over two billion people, more people than India or China? Who is more worthy to be our king than the Son of God, wise beyond measure, good and sinless above all people, and able to access the creative power of God with a Word – indeed, the man who is the living, breathing Word of God?
But then again, our American independence kicks in. More of the people in this country who claim Christ as their king treat him as their Sunday shift-manager rather than their king. How about you? Do you listen more and closer to your boss at work than you do to Jesus? Do you respect your shift manager more than Christ’s commands? Are you more supportive of an ordinary politician than you are the King of Kings?
Where is your loyalty? He commands us to tell all the people of all nations about Himself. He commands us to baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach those people all His commands. And in return, he promised that he will always be with us, to the very end of the age.
Why do you come to Church? Is it because you have a promise of eternal life? Is it because you have friends here? Or is it because your King has asked it of you, because your king wants you to proclaim Him to the nations, because your king wants you to know what you’re talking about and you have been filled with gratitude that you have finally found the one Person in this Universe worth following?
Each of us made a choice to follow this King, Jesus. But we would do well to remember that before we chose Him, He chose us. Without His choice, we could not follow Him, we could not be here today, we could not feel the joy of His love.
As we finish up our worship today, we are at the end of the Church Year. Next week begins Advent, the time of preparation for the coming of Christ. Perhaps this is a good time to consider where your loyalties lie, to consider what you believe in your heart, to consider what the purpose of your life is.
Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ, the King of this Kingdom has asked you to tell people about Him. At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus said: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
Will you do this today?
If so, then say, "Yes. With God’s help, I will do my best to declare Jesus’ name and power to all the nations, to make disciples, to lead people to baptism, and to teach them to obey everything Christ has commanded."
Will you read the Word of God?
Response: "Yes, I will do my best to read something from the Holy Scriptures each day."
Will you pray for guidance?
Response: "Yes, I will pray that the wisdom of Christ guide me each day."
Will you listen for the response of the Holy Spirit?
Response: "Yes, I will listen for that still, small voice that has guided the saints through the ages."
What do you expect for your obedience?
Response: "Only these…That Jesus will be with me until the end of the age, and that I will one day enter into the life eternal in His Presence."
May God bless you and help you keep these promises!
Now may the blessings of the Holy Spirit enter into you, may your life become whole and healed through your service to Jesus Christ, and may the power of God the Father enable you to do miraculous signs and wonders which grow the Kingdom of God, filling you with joy and love!
Will you do this today?
If so, then say, "Yes. With God’s help, I will do my best to declare Jesus’ name and power to all the nations, to make disciples, to lead people to baptism, and to teach them to obey everything Christ has commanded."
Will you read the Word of God?
Response: "Yes, I will do my best to read something from the Holy Scriptures each day."
Will you pray for guidance?
Response: "Yes, I will pray that the wisdom of Christ guide me each day."
Will you listen for the response of the Holy Spirit?
Response: "Yes, I will listen for that still, small voice that has guided the saints through the ages."
What do you expect for your obedience?
Response: "Only these…That Jesus will be with me until the end of the age, and that I will one day enter into the life eternal in His Presence."
May God bless you and help you keep these promises!
Now may the blessings of the Holy Spirit enter into you, may your life become whole and healed through your service to Jesus Christ, and may the power of God the Father enable you to do miraculous signs and wonders which grow the Kingdom of God, filling you with joy and love!
Monday, November 14, 2016
Living in Terrible Times
Malachi 4:1-2; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
There was this couple who had found a great place to live. It was basically a park-like estate, maybe in South Carolina, and in exchange for rent-free living, the couple took care of the estate. The estate had many berry bushes and gardens already planted, there were fruit trees of all types, and there were no utility bills for them to pay. So they spent their time tending to the gardens and trees and had a wonderful time. The owner had a single rule – don’t mess with the fruit from my prize tree, a one-of-a-kind tree that was the owner’s pride and joy. He reserved the fruit from that tree for his own table.
Unfortunately, one day, they ate a couple of fruits off of the prize tree and the owner found out, because he counted the fruits every evening. And so, the owner kicked them off the estate and they both had to go to work at McDonalds. They had lost their wonderful jobs and now they had to pay rent and utilities and live in a little cramped one-bedroom garage apartment, working 60 hours a week just to pay the bills. And furthermore, the woman became pregnant shortly after they got kicked off the estate. She eventually had two sons, they grew up, got into an argument one day and one of them killed the other and became a fugitive.
And you think you’re living in terrible times!
Of course, some of you have guessed that I’ve just retold the story of Adam and Eve.
Ever since our ancestors got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, people have lived in terrible times. Imagine living in a world without electricity, a world where they only heat you could get is by cutting up trees and burning wood – and you only have a hand axe. Imagine living in a world without telephones, without television, without the internet. Imagine a world without automobiles, without grocery stores, without jobs other than farming. Imagine living on 2 acres and trying to survive on that land with a shovel, an axe, and a pig. There’s no birth control. Glass is too expensive to buy, so you don’t have glass on the windows of your homes. Canning hasn’t been invented, the only fabrics you have are wool and cotton-based linen and leather. A pound of iron costs a week’s wages. The only fertilizer available comes from the pig or your neighbor’s cow. There is no such thing as insulation, as carpet, and you need to make all of your furniture from the wood on your land. Only one person in town can read. And there are no such things as toothpaste, deodorant, or toilet paper!
This, my friends, is the world of 99% of the world’s people up until about 150 years ago. It is still the world of 50% of the world’s people today, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SE Asia, parts of Latin America, and most of Africa. And we in the United States just spent almost $2 billion on an election for an office which pays $1 million a year.
After almost every election, there are certain things that happen - things that always happen. Half of the voters are happy because their candidate won. You may be happy today. Or you may be sad today because your candidate lost. If you backed the losing candidate, about half of you will get over the loss very quickly and go about your lives, while about half will stay bitter, sniping for most of the next four years. That's what always happens. Whether or not you remain bitter depends upon how much you bought the politicians’ stories. The first story is this was the most important election ever – it always is, have you noticed? I found a photo from 2008, and much the same from 2012 and much the same in 2016 and each of them urged people to vote because "This is the most important election ever!" REALLY?
The second political myth that people buy from the politicians is that the President will actually change things in our world that will make a direct difference to our lives. And it simply isn't true.
After the election of 2008, I saw a couple of things happen that have affected me directly in my life. First, I was able to trade in my old van that had 284,000 miles on it for a new car, getting a $4000 trade-in value for my old van because of the cash for clunkers law instead of the $750 the van was worth in the blue book. This was positive.
Second, I noticed that the racial and sexual rhetoric during arguments in my seminary classes grew more intense on both sides. This was negative.
Now, I’ve noticed other things from that election affected people around me. I’ve seen a friend of mine, a very good doctor, sell his imaging practice to his local hospital because the new law almost forced him into it against his will. I’ve seen some improvements in the medical record-keeping at the hospitals and doctor’s offices, and I’ve seen the prices go up there because there is less competition. I’ve talked with coal miners who have been laid off and don’t see themselves going back to work, ever. And I’ve talked with people at the FBI who could or could not take vacation at certain times of the year because of temporary budget fights.
There was this couple who had found a great place to live. It was basically a park-like estate, maybe in South Carolina, and in exchange for rent-free living, the couple took care of the estate. The estate had many berry bushes and gardens already planted, there were fruit trees of all types, and there were no utility bills for them to pay. So they spent their time tending to the gardens and trees and had a wonderful time. The owner had a single rule – don’t mess with the fruit from my prize tree, a one-of-a-kind tree that was the owner’s pride and joy. He reserved the fruit from that tree for his own table.
Unfortunately, one day, they ate a couple of fruits off of the prize tree and the owner found out, because he counted the fruits every evening. And so, the owner kicked them off the estate and they both had to go to work at McDonalds. They had lost their wonderful jobs and now they had to pay rent and utilities and live in a little cramped one-bedroom garage apartment, working 60 hours a week just to pay the bills. And furthermore, the woman became pregnant shortly after they got kicked off the estate. She eventually had two sons, they grew up, got into an argument one day and one of them killed the other and became a fugitive.
And you think you’re living in terrible times!
Of course, some of you have guessed that I’ve just retold the story of Adam and Eve.
Ever since our ancestors got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, people have lived in terrible times. Imagine living in a world without electricity, a world where they only heat you could get is by cutting up trees and burning wood – and you only have a hand axe. Imagine living in a world without telephones, without television, without the internet. Imagine a world without automobiles, without grocery stores, without jobs other than farming. Imagine living on 2 acres and trying to survive on that land with a shovel, an axe, and a pig. There’s no birth control. Glass is too expensive to buy, so you don’t have glass on the windows of your homes. Canning hasn’t been invented, the only fabrics you have are wool and cotton-based linen and leather. A pound of iron costs a week’s wages. The only fertilizer available comes from the pig or your neighbor’s cow. There is no such thing as insulation, as carpet, and you need to make all of your furniture from the wood on your land. Only one person in town can read. And there are no such things as toothpaste, deodorant, or toilet paper!
This, my friends, is the world of 99% of the world’s people up until about 150 years ago. It is still the world of 50% of the world’s people today, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SE Asia, parts of Latin America, and most of Africa. And we in the United States just spent almost $2 billion on an election for an office which pays $1 million a year.
After almost every election, there are certain things that happen - things that always happen. Half of the voters are happy because their candidate won. You may be happy today. Or you may be sad today because your candidate lost. If you backed the losing candidate, about half of you will get over the loss very quickly and go about your lives, while about half will stay bitter, sniping for most of the next four years. That's what always happens. Whether or not you remain bitter depends upon how much you bought the politicians’ stories. The first story is this was the most important election ever – it always is, have you noticed? I found a photo from 2008, and much the same from 2012 and much the same in 2016 and each of them urged people to vote because "This is the most important election ever!" REALLY?
The second political myth that people buy from the politicians is that the President will actually change things in our world that will make a direct difference to our lives. And it simply isn't true.
After the election of 2008, I saw a couple of things happen that have affected me directly in my life. First, I was able to trade in my old van that had 284,000 miles on it for a new car, getting a $4000 trade-in value for my old van because of the cash for clunkers law instead of the $750 the van was worth in the blue book. This was positive.
Second, I noticed that the racial and sexual rhetoric during arguments in my seminary classes grew more intense on both sides. This was negative.
Now, I’ve noticed other things from that election affected people around me. I’ve seen a friend of mine, a very good doctor, sell his imaging practice to his local hospital because the new law almost forced him into it against his will. I’ve seen some improvements in the medical record-keeping at the hospitals and doctor’s offices, and I’ve seen the prices go up there because there is less competition. I’ve talked with coal miners who have been laid off and don’t see themselves going back to work, ever. And I’ve talked with people at the FBI who could or could not take vacation at certain times of the year because of temporary budget fights.
The reason we don't have extreme effects is because our government system is much larger than the Titanic and turns much slower than it ever did. It takes decades to make significant changes – unless there is a clear and present danger, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor or a 9/11. Then, our system reacts in a week, declaring war and appropriating the funds. But those times are very few and far between.
Most of the changes that happen in our world because of a change of President are subtle and rarely affect us directly. "But what about the economy?" you might ask. To be honest, the recent recession had its roots in credit law changes made in the 1990’s, which were supported by both parties. "But what about wars?" you ask again. The vast majority of wars will happen regardless of which party controls the Presidency - our national interests will demand it. Can you imagine a Republican president ignoring Pearl Harbor or a Democratic president ignoring 9/11?
Most of the changes that happen in our world because of a change of President are subtle and rarely affect us directly. "But what about the economy?" you might ask. To be honest, the recent recession had its roots in credit law changes made in the 1990’s, which were supported by both parties. "But what about wars?" you ask again. The vast majority of wars will happen regardless of which party controls the Presidency - our national interests will demand it. Can you imagine a Republican president ignoring Pearl Harbor or a Democratic president ignoring 9/11?
Our attention on the Presidency is because we get bent out of shape by news reports we see on television, news which is intentionally made confrontational, news that is portrayed as apocalyptic because terrible, drastic news draws more viewers (and ad revenue) than “ho-hum” news, it draws more people to support the vocal politicians on the two sides of the issues, and it draws our attention into Satan's world and away from the really important things that happen in this world. Do you think your friend who just lost his wife really cares about the election? In reality, when we really think about it, a change of President rarely affects us significantly. It isn’t like we live inside the Washington Beltway, with our very jobs depending upon who is in the White House. Instead, our lives are influenced the most by the people close to us and how we interact with each of them.
Believing in the all-powerful nature of the President is believing in the wrong God, whichever your party is. It is the same mistake the Romans made - they believed their emperors were gods - and it is a mistake which will endanger your immortal soul. You can let the election results lift you up…or you can be sad about them. But don’t make the mistake in believing the hype that the Presidency has the power to change your life! That is giving a mere human far too much credit and power. Worship God…not any man or woman!
JRR Tolkien was a devote Christian and wrote books that expressed his mature Christian view of the world. His most famous set of books was The Lord of The Rings, and its prequel book, The Hobbit, books about a land where there is a tremendous conflict between good and evil going on – clearly influenced by the fact that these books were written during World War II and Tolkien was a professor of history at Oxford in England.
In the movie version of The Hobbit – the first of the three Hobbit movies – Gandalf, the kind and wise wizard, points out that Saruman, the leader of the wizards, believes that the world’s course of events is determined by the power of the powerful people in the world. But Gandalf points out that he has generally found that it is the little things, the daily acts of kindness and love done by ordinary people that determines the flow of good and evil.
I agree because this is scriptural – if we remember God is in charge and loves us, we defeat evil with every kind deed we do and every kind thing we say. Paul compared the speaking of Holy Scripture to a slashing sword in this low-level, daily spiritual warfare. When you speak Scripture, you are swing a slashing sword at evil!
Yet terrible times are coming. In our first reading, from Malachi, the prophet writes what God has said:
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them."
Yes, Christian. There are terrible times coming. But God reminds us that God protects His own. Malachi continues:
"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."
Is it any wonder that the author of Psalm 98 cannot contain himself?
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
It is with this continuous praising of God, this outburst of happiness, this exuberant joy that we defeat the evil and depression around us! But even this joy, we must remember, is simply a foretasting of the joy of the future. There are great things the Lord has done – His Son has sacrificed Himself upon the cross for all of our sins, we are saved from God’s wrath when we believe and are baptized, but our joy is not yet complete, there is still more to come, the best is yet to come, and that hope for even better is what lifts us up today!
The disciples were looking with Jesus at the great temple of Herod, the Second Temple, a Temple that had taken forty years to build and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple had precious stones all over, rubies here, topaz there, diamonds, agates, pearls, emeralds. There was much gold and silver. It glittered in the sunlight that day. And the disciples were looking at the Temple, talking about its beauty, when Jesus dashed some cold water on them.
“As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
It was like a group of us today, standing in the World War II memorial, looking at that beautiful monument to the men who sacrificed in that day, and our leader telling us that in a while it will be bulldozed over. Imagine standing there and someone credible telling you, “This monument will be bulldozed, the Washington Monument will be toppled, the Capitol dome will be smashed down, the great statue of Abraham Lincoln that you and your fathers and grandfathers fought to defend, it will all be destroyed one day."
And you know….it’s true! All those beautiful monuments, all those fantastic marble buildings, all those beautiful fountains will be destroyed one day. While it lasts, they help us to remember our Veterans, those men and women who fought valiantly for our freedoms, but one day it will all be gone, crumbled stone lying in the swampland near the Potomac River.
I think a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley says it well:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
(Ozymandias)
The disciples looked at the Temple, beautiful in the sunshine.
“Teacher,” the disciples asked Jesus, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
Jesus replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
And you can just see the disciples standing there, thinking about the far distant future when trouble would come to their nation. They had lived through troubles some 20 years before when there had been riots and uprisings, just as many of us lived through 1968 and we lived through the Los Angeles riots, and we lived through the last year’s troubles in St Louis and Baltimore and Dallas, and we've lived through the riots and protests of the last week. It was so distant and far away. But now Jesus looked them in the eye, just as He looks us in the eye and says:
“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me."
The troubles would come to them. Of the original Twelve disciples, all but John died a violent death, martyred for their faith and the Gospel they were proclaiming. Peter was even crucified upside down! Only John lived to be put on a distant island and he alone was allowed to live out his natural lifespan, to live into his nineties in peace, writing to us of a vision he had one day when the Holy Spirit took Him to Heaven in his far future and he wrote the book we call The Revelation of St. John, a disturbing book, an unsettling book, a book filled with fire and plagues and famine and wars – but with an ending that leads us back to joy. Jesus reminded his disciples that day overlooking Jerusalem, as He reminds us as we think about the city of Washington and a future when it also lies in ruins, just as Jerusalem was destroyed about 40 years after that day when they looked at the Temple in the bright sunshine. Jesus reminds us that only God and the eternal life God gives are permanent. All else will be destroyed. Jesus had more to say, though…
But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.”
Yet they died violent deaths. Was Jesus wrong? No, for He was talking about the eternal life that comes from following Christ.
And so, the disciples that day began to realize that following Jesus wasn’t going to be one continuous traveling party. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be week after week of sitting in the pews, listening to great music and decent sermons. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be a movement of a million people led by a man in armor on a charging white stallion to change the world by overcoming the powerful armies of evil while the disciples safely walked in the middle of those million people, urging them to march on the capitol of evil!
No! Jesus planned to change the world, but He planned to do that by changing individual people in the world, by focusing upon the little, day-to-day things rather than upon the powerful. Jesus, you see, wanted a group of fishermen and farmers, a guilty tax collector, a failed revolutionary, some ordinary people to change how they treated each other for the better and that was how He planned to save the world! He was much more concerned with what these ordinary people did every day than He was about what King Herod did, what the High Priest did, and what the governor of the Roman emperor did. For it is not the great and powerful who change the world, but the everyday little deeds of kindness and helpfulness and politeness and hospitality and holiness of the ordinary people which decides what the world will be like.
You see, those who have the money and the power of gods on this earth do not have need of other people or know what other people need. It is those of us who have little power, little wealth, and great needs ourselves who know of the needs of the people near us.
So do not expect the government and those who run government to solve our problems. Our problems in this life are to be solved by us, by the wisdom we share every time we gather, by the love we show each other in practical ways – a woman washes her neighbor’s dishes, a man mows his neighbor’s yard, a boy takes the newspaper to the old lady’s door, a girl walks the old man’s puppy. As a group we provide some food for families in need, we watch a group of children so their parents can talk in private without interruption, we go Christmas caroling to our neighbors so those neighbors will know that at least someone remembered they exist.
We pick up the phone and call three people from the prayer list each week. We mail postcards to five other people. We listen to the lonely woman in the card aisle at Wal-mart and we invite her to our Wednesday evening dinner together. And so we work – and it is usually easy work, for it is work driven by the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and anytime we work according to what the Holy Spirit has told our hearts, it is good for us. We are not to be idle, simply listening to the Word of God without doing anything.
There is something, you see, about living the Christian life that changes us for the better. It is one thing to know all the doctrines of Christianity – it is still another thing to follow Jesus, for following implies action. In fact, Paul had some harsh words for those who simply waited for Jesus to return, snug and secure in their own salvation:
We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.
Do you work for Christ? Or do you simply meddle in the work that others are doing for Christ? This can be real problem in churches, when more people see their role on committees as managing ministry rather than doing ministry. Instead, our committees are to be teams of people working toward a purpose, the purpose of changing the people in the world around us.
We often talk about changing the world. And we sit back and we look at the world and it is a big old thing! We feel like the ant must feel when he looks up at the huge three-story house that is newly built next to the anthill, preventing the ants from expanding their ant hill by overshadowing them. It is too big and too evil to change! And so, like the ant, we do little.
But the termite is different. The termite looks at that huge evil three-story house and realizes that it is full of food, indeed, it is made of food. The termite resolves that it will change the world near it, it will remove the house one bite at a time. And unless the homeowner shows up with termite spray, a very small termite nest will completely remove that house, destroy it, and it will fall down.
In the same way, we need to look at the evils in the world around us and realize that it is of such stuff that ministries are made. Do you realize that if there were no evil, there would be no need for any ministries? So stop thinking like an ant and start thinking like a termite, and start looking for how you and a group of friends can eat up the evil in the world around us.
Let me give you an example. In one church I know, a couple of women from the church went to the closest elementary school and asked them how they could help with homework, with an afterschool program, or with the needs of the children in the school. They found that the principal was always in need of help, so the three of them – the two women and the principal – cooked up some ideas.
The next thing you know, over the next year the church bought a dozen computers for the school, they were put in a room at the school, an afterschool homework group began, a dozen people from the church took turns one or two days a week, and about 40 kids began to see their grades improve. And many of the kids from the church began to bring their parents to the church because of the chance for those church people to meet the kids and parents at the school. And that elementary school moved from being the worst in the county to second best in the county over the next five years. Over the next few years, the property values in that neighborhood increased as the vandalism and crime rate dropped dramatically as those kids became teenagers.
Are their terrible times coming in this world? Yes. It is predicted by Holy Scripture. But until Jesus returns, we are not to be idle, we are to looking at what we can do to lead people into the Kingdom of God and out of the kingdoms of the world.
Have you thought about what this country would be like if over half the people who vote were regular church-goers, reading the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit as they made their decisions in the primaries and in the general election? There would be no close elections.
Believing in the all-powerful nature of the President is believing in the wrong God, whichever your party is. It is the same mistake the Romans made - they believed their emperors were gods - and it is a mistake which will endanger your immortal soul. You can let the election results lift you up…or you can be sad about them. But don’t make the mistake in believing the hype that the Presidency has the power to change your life! That is giving a mere human far too much credit and power. Worship God…not any man or woman!
JRR Tolkien was a devote Christian and wrote books that expressed his mature Christian view of the world. His most famous set of books was The Lord of The Rings, and its prequel book, The Hobbit, books about a land where there is a tremendous conflict between good and evil going on – clearly influenced by the fact that these books were written during World War II and Tolkien was a professor of history at Oxford in England.
In the movie version of The Hobbit – the first of the three Hobbit movies – Gandalf, the kind and wise wizard, points out that Saruman, the leader of the wizards, believes that the world’s course of events is determined by the power of the powerful people in the world. But Gandalf points out that he has generally found that it is the little things, the daily acts of kindness and love done by ordinary people that determines the flow of good and evil.
I agree because this is scriptural – if we remember God is in charge and loves us, we defeat evil with every kind deed we do and every kind thing we say. Paul compared the speaking of Holy Scripture to a slashing sword in this low-level, daily spiritual warfare. When you speak Scripture, you are swing a slashing sword at evil!
Yet terrible times are coming. In our first reading, from Malachi, the prophet writes what God has said:
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them."
Yes, Christian. There are terrible times coming. But God reminds us that God protects His own. Malachi continues:
"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."
Is it any wonder that the author of Psalm 98 cannot contain himself?
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
It is with this continuous praising of God, this outburst of happiness, this exuberant joy that we defeat the evil and depression around us! But even this joy, we must remember, is simply a foretasting of the joy of the future. There are great things the Lord has done – His Son has sacrificed Himself upon the cross for all of our sins, we are saved from God’s wrath when we believe and are baptized, but our joy is not yet complete, there is still more to come, the best is yet to come, and that hope for even better is what lifts us up today!
The disciples were looking with Jesus at the great temple of Herod, the Second Temple, a Temple that had taken forty years to build and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple had precious stones all over, rubies here, topaz there, diamonds, agates, pearls, emeralds. There was much gold and silver. It glittered in the sunlight that day. And the disciples were looking at the Temple, talking about its beauty, when Jesus dashed some cold water on them.
“As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
It was like a group of us today, standing in the World War II memorial, looking at that beautiful monument to the men who sacrificed in that day, and our leader telling us that in a while it will be bulldozed over. Imagine standing there and someone credible telling you, “This monument will be bulldozed, the Washington Monument will be toppled, the Capitol dome will be smashed down, the great statue of Abraham Lincoln that you and your fathers and grandfathers fought to defend, it will all be destroyed one day."
And you know….it’s true! All those beautiful monuments, all those fantastic marble buildings, all those beautiful fountains will be destroyed one day. While it lasts, they help us to remember our Veterans, those men and women who fought valiantly for our freedoms, but one day it will all be gone, crumbled stone lying in the swampland near the Potomac River.
I think a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley says it well:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
(Ozymandias)
The disciples looked at the Temple, beautiful in the sunshine.
“Teacher,” the disciples asked Jesus, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
Jesus replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
And you can just see the disciples standing there, thinking about the far distant future when trouble would come to their nation. They had lived through troubles some 20 years before when there had been riots and uprisings, just as many of us lived through 1968 and we lived through the Los Angeles riots, and we lived through the last year’s troubles in St Louis and Baltimore and Dallas, and we've lived through the riots and protests of the last week. It was so distant and far away. But now Jesus looked them in the eye, just as He looks us in the eye and says:
“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me."
The troubles would come to them. Of the original Twelve disciples, all but John died a violent death, martyred for their faith and the Gospel they were proclaiming. Peter was even crucified upside down! Only John lived to be put on a distant island and he alone was allowed to live out his natural lifespan, to live into his nineties in peace, writing to us of a vision he had one day when the Holy Spirit took Him to Heaven in his far future and he wrote the book we call The Revelation of St. John, a disturbing book, an unsettling book, a book filled with fire and plagues and famine and wars – but with an ending that leads us back to joy. Jesus reminded his disciples that day overlooking Jerusalem, as He reminds us as we think about the city of Washington and a future when it also lies in ruins, just as Jerusalem was destroyed about 40 years after that day when they looked at the Temple in the bright sunshine. Jesus reminds us that only God and the eternal life God gives are permanent. All else will be destroyed. Jesus had more to say, though…
But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.”
Yet they died violent deaths. Was Jesus wrong? No, for He was talking about the eternal life that comes from following Christ.
And so, the disciples that day began to realize that following Jesus wasn’t going to be one continuous traveling party. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be week after week of sitting in the pews, listening to great music and decent sermons. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be a movement of a million people led by a man in armor on a charging white stallion to change the world by overcoming the powerful armies of evil while the disciples safely walked in the middle of those million people, urging them to march on the capitol of evil!
No! Jesus planned to change the world, but He planned to do that by changing individual people in the world, by focusing upon the little, day-to-day things rather than upon the powerful. Jesus, you see, wanted a group of fishermen and farmers, a guilty tax collector, a failed revolutionary, some ordinary people to change how they treated each other for the better and that was how He planned to save the world! He was much more concerned with what these ordinary people did every day than He was about what King Herod did, what the High Priest did, and what the governor of the Roman emperor did. For it is not the great and powerful who change the world, but the everyday little deeds of kindness and helpfulness and politeness and hospitality and holiness of the ordinary people which decides what the world will be like.
You see, those who have the money and the power of gods on this earth do not have need of other people or know what other people need. It is those of us who have little power, little wealth, and great needs ourselves who know of the needs of the people near us.
So do not expect the government and those who run government to solve our problems. Our problems in this life are to be solved by us, by the wisdom we share every time we gather, by the love we show each other in practical ways – a woman washes her neighbor’s dishes, a man mows his neighbor’s yard, a boy takes the newspaper to the old lady’s door, a girl walks the old man’s puppy. As a group we provide some food for families in need, we watch a group of children so their parents can talk in private without interruption, we go Christmas caroling to our neighbors so those neighbors will know that at least someone remembered they exist.
We pick up the phone and call three people from the prayer list each week. We mail postcards to five other people. We listen to the lonely woman in the card aisle at Wal-mart and we invite her to our Wednesday evening dinner together. And so we work – and it is usually easy work, for it is work driven by the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and anytime we work according to what the Holy Spirit has told our hearts, it is good for us. We are not to be idle, simply listening to the Word of God without doing anything.
There is something, you see, about living the Christian life that changes us for the better. It is one thing to know all the doctrines of Christianity – it is still another thing to follow Jesus, for following implies action. In fact, Paul had some harsh words for those who simply waited for Jesus to return, snug and secure in their own salvation:
We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.
Do you work for Christ? Or do you simply meddle in the work that others are doing for Christ? This can be real problem in churches, when more people see their role on committees as managing ministry rather than doing ministry. Instead, our committees are to be teams of people working toward a purpose, the purpose of changing the people in the world around us.
We often talk about changing the world. And we sit back and we look at the world and it is a big old thing! We feel like the ant must feel when he looks up at the huge three-story house that is newly built next to the anthill, preventing the ants from expanding their ant hill by overshadowing them. It is too big and too evil to change! And so, like the ant, we do little.
But the termite is different. The termite looks at that huge evil three-story house and realizes that it is full of food, indeed, it is made of food. The termite resolves that it will change the world near it, it will remove the house one bite at a time. And unless the homeowner shows up with termite spray, a very small termite nest will completely remove that house, destroy it, and it will fall down.
In the same way, we need to look at the evils in the world around us and realize that it is of such stuff that ministries are made. Do you realize that if there were no evil, there would be no need for any ministries? So stop thinking like an ant and start thinking like a termite, and start looking for how you and a group of friends can eat up the evil in the world around us.
Let me give you an example. In one church I know, a couple of women from the church went to the closest elementary school and asked them how they could help with homework, with an afterschool program, or with the needs of the children in the school. They found that the principal was always in need of help, so the three of them – the two women and the principal – cooked up some ideas.
The next thing you know, over the next year the church bought a dozen computers for the school, they were put in a room at the school, an afterschool homework group began, a dozen people from the church took turns one or two days a week, and about 40 kids began to see their grades improve. And many of the kids from the church began to bring their parents to the church because of the chance for those church people to meet the kids and parents at the school. And that elementary school moved from being the worst in the county to second best in the county over the next five years. Over the next few years, the property values in that neighborhood increased as the vandalism and crime rate dropped dramatically as those kids became teenagers.
Are their terrible times coming in this world? Yes. It is predicted by Holy Scripture. But until Jesus returns, we are not to be idle, we are to looking at what we can do to lead people into the Kingdom of God and out of the kingdoms of the world.
Have you thought about what this country would be like if over half the people who vote were regular church-goers, reading the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit as they made their decisions in the primaries and in the general election? There would be no close elections.
Have you thought about how long the darkness that is running around the world would be held off here if the church were about the business of the church, doing the little acts of kindness, telling people every week about the love of Christ for all people, looking how to give practical help to people who are struggling? Have you thought about how many souls would escape hellfire and sit with you under the Tree of Life one day if you really decided to do all you could to help people understand who Jesus is?
Church, let’s remember who we are. We are the children of the Almighty God, adopted sons and daughters of the Kingdom. When was the last time you told someone of the great things our Father, the King has done for you? When was the last time you actually acted like a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom?
Awaken! It is because of the terrible times in the world, in our lives, that Jesus came to remind us of who we are and to reconcile us to our Father. And since He has done that, giving up His very life that we would become His brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we go out into the world and change at least our piece of it back into what it once was? A garden. A safe place. A world where even the lion and the lamb get along.
Some of you voted for Mr. Trump and are glad about the election. Be glad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Some of you voted against Mr. Trump and are sad about the election. You can be sad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Instead, all of us should remember that through Jesus Christ, we each have the power to change the world around us, through prayer and through those little acts of kindness and love where ordinary people determine where the good is and where the evil stops. Do your part!
Church, let’s remember who we are. We are the children of the Almighty God, adopted sons and daughters of the Kingdom. When was the last time you told someone of the great things our Father, the King has done for you? When was the last time you actually acted like a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom?
Awaken! It is because of the terrible times in the world, in our lives, that Jesus came to remind us of who we are and to reconcile us to our Father. And since He has done that, giving up His very life that we would become His brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we go out into the world and change at least our piece of it back into what it once was? A garden. A safe place. A world where even the lion and the lamb get along.
Some of you voted for Mr. Trump and are glad about the election. Be glad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Some of you voted against Mr. Trump and are sad about the election. You can be sad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Instead, all of us should remember that through Jesus Christ, we each have the power to change the world around us, through prayer and through those little acts of kindness and love where ordinary people determine where the good is and where the evil stops. Do your part!
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