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.
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