The Call

The other day I was walking home from the church to the parsonage, and I thought, “Gee, this is great! It’s freezing out here, the roads are bad, but I’m going to get a chance in a minute to have lunch and then spend the afternoon at a warm desk writing a sermon about God’s Word. And that means I’ll spend an hour or more reading the Bible, commentaries on the Bible, good, thoughtful authors. And at the end of it all, I’ll feel like I’ve made an eternal difference in the lives of people. This is just wonderful!”

Song: "We are Called!" ;  Audio: Gospel Reading of Luke 5:1-11 Audio sermon: The Call

And then I thought of you. How many of you enjoy the work you do? How many of you would like to keep on doing that work for years? How many of you feel like you are making a difference in the world with what you do?

I’ve asked the emotional question, haven’t I? I’ve asked for your FEELINGS. But our God is not just the God of feelings, the God of our heart, but is also the God of our mind, the God of rational thought. So I’m going to use a very important word today. I’m going to ask you if you are following your calling...

Calling. Like most words that make sense in a Christian context, the world has taken over the word and watered it down so it means much more and yet much less than the word meant when it was first used in a Christian-only sense. So let’s see if we can narrow it down, to define it, to discuss it so we know exactly what it means for God to call you. 

 Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13) ,· 1 Corinthians 15:1-11,  Luke 5:1-11 

Our readings today speak of two calls by God – first, the call of Isaiah to speak on behalf of God. Second, the call of Peter, James, and John to follow Jesus, stop fishing for fish and to start fishing for people. 

Isaiah was a man who lived in a time of trouble. After Solomon’s death, his kingdom was split by civil war. The area around Jerusalem stayed with the kings of Judah, while the northern territory split away and formed under the kings of Israel. After a couple hundred years, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. Isaiah saw this coming. And he saw the coming trouble from Assyria for Judah. Isaiah’s reputation as a prophet was so high that in the New Testament he is often referred to simply as “The Prophet”.

One day, when King Uzziah was king of Judah, a vision came to Isaiah. Now what is a vision? A vision can be a vivid dream or it can be a vivid daydream, a mental movie that is received from God. Isaiah had quite a few of these visions.

In this one, Isaiah saw the Lord seated on a “high and lofty throne.” His robe was so large and lush that it filled the temple. There were at least two seraphim standing above the Lord – these were six-winged creatures, possibly otherwise human in appearance – or not, it is always unclear when seraphim are mentioned in the Bible. The root word “seraph” is also used to describe serpents, so they could be holy serpents with six wings. Origen, an early Christian writer, says they are the physical manifestation of the Christ and the Holy Spirit in heaven. Unfortunately, there are no details that help us answer this question about who the seraphim are.

One of the seraphim called to the other – “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts’ His glory fills the whole earth.” Isaiah writes that “the foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices and the temple was filled with smoke.” Can you imagine this? The power of their voices, the smoke filling the entire room, and behind it all is God sitting there upon a throne.

And poor Isaiah realizes that Isaiah is NOT “holy, holy, holy”. On the contrary, Isaiah is a man who talks in a very unholy way and lives among people who are not holy, either, and poor Isaiah figures he’s toast because he has seen the Holy King, the LORD of Hosts and his sin overwhelms him.

And doesn’t that happen to us all on the day when we realize that God is so holy, so perfect, so good that our very presence in His sight would contaminate God. 

We don’t often think of that, but to get an idea, imagine that you are standing, looking at the throne room of God, awaiting an interview with God Himself. Everyone around you is dressed in fine clothing, everyone has perfect teeth like Hollywood actresses, there’s not a speck of lint anywhere to be found, not the slightest smudge of dirt, not a missing button anywhere. Everything glistens, everything is polished, not a fingerprint or footprint on the perfect glass floor, everything is golden unless it is made of perfect gemstones, everything is so perfect and so beautiful. 

Suddenly you realize that you are standing in front of God and you forgot to wash and comb your hair, brush your teeth, and use deodorant this morning. And you can smell your underarms. Plus, you also realize you are wearing your well-used work clothes, which are covered in mud, grease, and the hair from your pet puppy. And then you remember last week’s parable about the man who showed up to the king’s wedding feast NOT wearing wedding clothes, who was bound and tossed into the outer darkness. You believe - you know you aren't good enough to stand in front of a perfect God!

Isaiah was terrified. Isaiah was terrified for it hit him how imperfect, how unholy, unholy, unholy he was.

But one of the seraphim flew to him with a glowing coal from the altar, touched Isaiah’s lips with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

What joy! All has been forgiven. Every unclean thing Isaiah has ever said is forgiven!

And almost all of us have all felt that joy of knowing that our sins have been forgiven and we are right with God!

And now, Isaiah heard from the throne the voice of the Lord saying:

Who should I send? Who will go for Us?
Who indeed? Who is ready to speak of the loving, forgiving king who has just allowed this terribly evil man to be forgiven, to be given a new life, to stand without punishment? Would you? You have also been forgiven by that king of all your unholiness, your crimes, your blasphemies, your sins against God and man. Would you step forward?

So Isaiah said, (and I imagine it in a weak voice.)

Here I am. Send me.

And the Lord gave Isaiah a message to take to the people.

That, my friends, is a vision! That is a calling!

But that is the blockbuster movie type of calling, with the special effects, the CGI seraphim and smoke, the Dolby surround-sound when the seraphim speak. It shakes you in your boots.

But there are also callings that are a bit more down to earth... 

Audio: Gospel Reading of Luke 5:1-11

One day, Simon, James, and John were minding their own business. They’d gone out fishing the night before, probably trying to attract fish to their boats and nets with a lantern. It had been a terrible night – no fish at all. And these guys weren’t recreational fishermen – they didn’t use a hook and line, they didn’t have a tackle box full of lures, carefully tied and selected. No, these were working men who made their living off of catching and selling many fish every day, men who supplied the nearby town with food and were in competition with other fishermen, men for whom a night without fish was like a day for a restaurant without a customer. It had been a terrible night for business.

So the three – and possibly Simon’s brother Andrew – had pulled the boats up to the shore, and taken the nets, cleaning and washing them, removing the mud and the sticks from the twine – this was far, far before monofilament lines were available. Can you imagine how much junk would get caught by a twine net? 

So Jesus, a man they had met before down in the Jordan Valley at John the Baptist’s camp, asked them if he could use one of the boats as a floating stage. Would Simon mind putting out just a few feet so He could teach from the boat and everybody could see and hear Him?

So Simon did so and Jesus taught for a while. When he finished, he turned to Simon and said, “Put out into deep water and ya’ll let down your nets for a catch.”

Simon was tired. He’d only let the man teach from his boat because he had talked with him down at John’s place and knew Jesus had some good things to say. But Simon was tired, and you can hear his almost complaint.

“Master,” Simon replied, “we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing! But at Your word, I’ll let down the nets.”
So they went out to the deep water, put in the nets, and so many fish came into the nets the nets began to tear. So they yelled to James and John in the other boat to come and help, and they lifted so many fish into their boats that they began to sink.

Simon – the man Jesus would later call Peter – Simon Peter fell to Jesus’ knees, much like Isaiah. “Go away from me, because I’m a sinful man, Lord!” Simon recognized the power of God in Jesus – if he didn’t yet quite realize that Jesus was God Himself walking on the earth – but Simon knew that Jesus was responsible for perhaps the biggest day of fishing he’d ever had. Jesus must know God and God must listen to Jesus. Talk about a way to pay rent for a speaking stage!

Jesus looked back at Simon, and then, assuming Simon’s agreement, Jesus said to him. “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people!”

And the men brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed Jesus. They left the biggest catch in their life and followed Jesus. For they knew that this was what was important in life – being with the man who knew God was far more important than even the most profitable fishing day those fishermen had ever had.

And so, with these two calls as a basis, how do we know our calls?

First of all, there is the general call by God of Christians and Jews – indeed, of all people. This is found in Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (NIV)

This is a general call to all people. It is the basis for this song - We are Called!"

Then, there are the two great commandments and the great commission, which apply to all Christians. In Matthew 22, A Pharisee asked Jesus:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.

And the Great commission of Matthew 28:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Make disciples of all people, baptize them, and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded.

But there is also the question of a special call from God. For these more general calls are pretty vague – the call of Isaiah was not vague. It was very specific and special.

How do we find out our call?

Part of this is something we can do on our own while we await the vision or the voice of God.

GPS. You know how a GPS system helps you find your way - except in parts of our state of West Virginia. There is a GPS for helping understand your personal call to ministry and purpose in life.

G – what are your gifts that God has given you? Scripture tells us that all believers are given gifts. What are your gifts? Ask yourself: What do I do far better than the other people I know. For example, I’ve been given two musical gifts – I play the piano well and I sing well. My wife has the gift of being able to talk and listen to people for hours. Debbie Moore has the gift of being able to teach children. Lynn Davis has the gift of organization, which makes her a wonderful treasurer and church secretary. I know a woman who has the gift of baking – another who has the gift of a healing touch. I knew a man who had a special, focused gift – he could heal rheumatoid arthritis through prayer and touch. Nothing else. Just rheumatoid arthritis. I know another man who has a gift when it comes to carpentry, another with making furniture. Still another has been blessed with the ability to make money and gives 30% of his income to charity. Another woman can paint; still another man can design anything. My son Andy can preach revival. What are your gifts? Ask your close friends if you don’t know. "What do I do well that other people have trouble with doing?" These gifts are the tools you bring to the mission of God.

The P in our GPS stands for Passion – what gets you worked up? What makes you angry or makes you cry? Is it old folks in the nursing home or two-year olds? Is it the poor or is it the child with Down’s Syndrome. Is it the homeless man under the bridge – or is it the brilliant child who is being picked on in class? Is it falling down houses or is it dead fish in a river? Where is your passion directed? Find out. This passion tells you what your mission is repairing of the Creation.

Finally, the S in our GPS stands for Style – How do you like to work? Are you a loner, sitting in front of a computer screen? Or are in happiest in front of a crowded room? Do you prefer to work outdoors with two friends on a project, or would you rather coordinate a world-wide project by email from your living room? Do you like the idea of being alone in a foreign country – or do you prefer going to an office where you meet with a twenty-person team? Do you like doing a project and completing it or would you rather just keep DOING, never finishing, but always doing, like the person who works the refreshment stand at a WVU game. Do you like meeting new people every day or would you rather work with two other people for the next ten years. Find out your working style and you will know how you will be happy.

The GPS – Gifts, Passion, and Style – helps guide us to our part in the Body of Christ, to our part in God’s mission.

But for some, God calls us directly.

We are minding our own business, maybe beginning to get involved in the church, when a thought or a dream or a vision or a voice comes to us that suggests we should completely change our course from what we were doing to something else, more radically involving us in God’s mission. Like Samuel, who as a boy was given by his mother to live and learn at the tabernacle under Eli the high priest.

One night, everyone had gone to bed, when Samuel heard the Voice: "Samuel, Samuel!" The boy got out of bed, went to the old priest Eli and said, “Here I am”. But Eli had not called the boy. He told him to go back to bed.

This happened twice more than night. Then Eli realized it was the voice of God calling to the boy Samuel. He gave him advice and the boy followed it. He went back to bed and when the voice came again, Samuel said, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

And God gave instructions to Samuel that night. And Samuel grew up to be the prophet that anointed the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David. 

Did you notice that the Voice that called Samuel sounded to him like the voice of his friend and mentor Eli? Sometimes, God's Holy Spirit speaks to us through the voice of a godly friend, a Sunday school leader, a pastor.

Next, did you notice it was only on the fourth call that God and Samuel began to hold a conversation? If God is calling you, the call will not go away, but will come back time and again until you answer the call. Most of the pastors I know tell me they heard the call and tried to ignore it for five or ten years before finally answering it. God isn’t going away and God isn’t going to take your excuses. Remember the exchange that Moses and God had at the burning bush in Exodus Chapter 3. If you don’t remember, go read that this afternoon.

If you are feeling a call toward greater involvement in leading ministries in the church, I encourage you to put Saturday April 6 on your calendar for the Basic Lay Servant Course. It is a course in church leadership, taught at Buckhannon’s Chapel Hill UMC. I will be your teacher – you need to come to Chapel Hill to get credit for the course. It is not a course in preaching – you will be asked to prepare and lead a 4-5 minute devotional to 4-5 other students like yourself. Most of the day-long course is spent in orienting you to the duties and roles of being a leader in the local church.

If you feel that God may be calling you to actually lead a church, this is the first step. After this, you can take several other courses in preaching, leading worship, grief counseling, Methodist doctrine, and such. But this course is the ideal course if you want to lead or develop a ministry in this local church.

But if you hear God calling your name, remember to do as Samuel did. Bow in prayer and say, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.” And listen!

The Immortals Among Us

A few days ago, I was reading from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Weight of Glory. I love Lewis…you probably know him as the author of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and the other Narnia books. What you may not know about him was that he was the professor of Medieval literature at first Oxford and then later at Cambridge. Particularly during WWII and the fifties, he wrote many excellent books and articles that will take a person from a beginning Christian into, if you will, a second stage Christian. His writing style is easy to follow – and he hates jargon.

Sermon Audio Version - Gospel Reading Audio Version

Well, I was reading from Lewis and had his thoughts going through my head, and then I stumbled across a painting that my wife did a couple weeks ago. Yes, Saundra likes to paint. She doesn’t think she is very good, but I do.

Song of Songs 2:10-14; 8:6-7; Revelation 22:1-5; Matthew 22:1-14

Have you even noticed watching someone paint, maybe Bob Ross, that the way the painting looks at the beginning is very different from the way it looks finished. "Hey! That's a tree!"And sometimes it looks good for a while, then it turns ugly, then a few brushstrokes later - beauty breaks out all over?

Anyway, this painting of Saundra’s got me thinking about the very different ends of paint in a bottle and paint on a canvas. The paint that stays in the bottle fairly quickly ends up in the trash and then in the landfill for centuries, useless to all, unseen, dried up, flaky, ugly, molding and decaying. Yet the paint that is put on a canvas may also have a lifetime of centuries in a different way as people look at the paint, the painting, the artwork that has been created by the paint, passing the paint from owner to owner, from location to location, being seen by dozens or hundreds, or even millions of eyes. It is all in whether or not the paint comes out of the bottle or not.

Well, as this mixed with Lewis’ ideas and I realized that I had missed my Valentine’s Day sermon, certain ideas began to crystallize.

For Friday was Valentine’s Day, a day devoted to love, but not necessarily agape, the self-sacrificing love of the New Testament. No, the love which Valentine’s Day is devoted to is described by the Greek word eros, the physical love of a man and woman for each other – passion, fueled by emotional energy, romance, and diamond rings. It is the emotion found in our first reading from the Song of Songs, sometimes known as the Song of Solomon, where two lovers talk of how beautiful they each are to each other. Believe it or not, reading the Song of Solomon to each other can be a wonderful romantic experience even with old married couples, especially if you use a modern translation. Yes, the Bible has romance!

But this leads to the question:

What is the purpose of marriage?

For much of history, marriage has been an economic contract, a way for two people to reduce the work of living by helping each other. Eve was created as Adam’s helper – And then marriage became a way to ensure the survival of children in a time when men worked the fields and protected the women and children from bandits. Economics and safety.

But what about today? What is the purpose of marriage in a day when a woman or man can earn a living alone, when dishwashers and microwave ovens, prepacked food and industrial farms have made it simple for anyone to prepare food, when Walmart provides ready-made clothing, when society has police and lands which are basically secure from bandits, when daycare providers and school systems raise most children? What is the purpose of marriage in the modern world?

Today's English, particularly in London, have mostly discarded marriage in favor of two single people living together for years or decades of time as “partners”. They aren’t even couples, but simply roommates with benefits, people who see themselves as temporarily living together until they move onto a different roommate. This is partially because the English tax system and the English health system provide no advantage to being married. So they have “partners” - not spouses, not even common law marriages, for there is no assumption of permanence.

In our society, our most common arrangement today is for two people to live together for a few years, then split up and try it with someone else. Children may or may not be involved. Marriage may or may not happen later. Our divorce rate has been falling – but that’s only because we have raised the bar so that only the most committed get married today. Our break-up rate is perhaps even higher than it was a few decades ago, because we simply don't get married until we are fully committed to it and "worn-out" by being single. So why get married?

We have to go back to an understanding of theology and ancient Jewish law to understand the true purpose of marriage.

In ancient Israel, the Law that Moses brought from God to the people of Israel included a rule about how to determine facts in a trial. All facts must be established by the testimony of two or three people. If you could not find at least two people to testify to a fact, then it wasn’t admissible evidence.

And it is from this that we find the real purpose of marriage.

In God’s eyes, marriage is extraordinarily special. We were created as two parts of a single creature – A man and a woman who form a couple. For years we search for the other half of ourselves and when we finally find that other half, we know it deep inside. And we marry.

Therefore, whenever you see each other, remember that it is like looking at part of yourself in the mirror. Whenever you touch each other, remember that it is your own body that you touch. Whenever you speak to each other, remember most supremely that you are speaking to yourself.

In the best marriages, over time the he and she disappear. After a few years, friends always refer to them as “them”, and the couple refers to themselves as “we”, for it has become impossible to remember that he and she can be found as separate from “them”.

And the magic that makes this possible is the Holy Spirit of God, which blends together the roughness of the he and she and gives them one purpose, blinding them together into the one “we”.

This is why it is important for married couples to find a church to attend together. It is because you, the couple, must to join together in love with a third member of your marriage – The God that created you and brought you together, the God that arranged the entire Universe so that you could be married. Always remember that in the best marriages, there is a third member besides the he and the she – there is the all powerful “I AM” that created all things. Without God, marriages become just business partnerships or worse, slave and master relationships. Without God, the love fades.

Invite God into your marriage. Find God and together ask Him for help each day. Find God and live together in peace and love until the day that you die – and then you will see God, the One that kept you together through the years of happiness.

Marriage was not created for the purpose of satisfying lust. It was created because under the Law that God gave to Moses, all truth is verified by the testimony of two or three witnesses. You are each the witness of each other’s life, able to speak at the end of time about the truth of the other’s life, able to testify about the truth of the other’s goodness, able to speak the truth that this other person was important and meaningful and loving to at least one person in the Universe.

And God the Son is the other witness Who sees both of you and testifies to the Truth of your lives, the importance of your lives, the existence of your lives. He is the necessary second witness, and the third witness when you two stand together against the evil in the world, against the Devil that accuses, God the Son is the Witness that will back up your testimony.

But there is even more…

We don’t think about this much, but every man and woman we encounter is immortal. Some will spend their eternity alone, separated from God and light, cast into the outer darkness because they did not choose to honor God, but wanted to follow their own path. Looking at our reading from Matthew 22, the parable is about a king who allows all people, good and bad to come to the marriage of His Son. But one man showed up not wearing a wedding garment. He did not honor the King or the King's Son. God allows that; God is polite, God accepts all people, good and bad. But those who do not honor God and God’s Son are cast into the outer darkness. Let me explain that.

In first century Israel, when there was a wedding, everyone brought their oil lamps and candles with them to the village square or other wedding venue. The party went on all night, sometimes for days and nights. If you were thrown out of the party into the outer darkness, it was DARK! There were no street lights, no window lamps, no glows from television sets, no city or industrial lights reflected on the clouds to give a glow. Remember, Israel usually has very little humidity and clouds. There’s no light except the stars and what moon there was that night to give you light. That is how dark it is in the outer darkness.

In the distance you can hear the music of the wedding feast of the Lamb, Jesus. You can hear the crowd laughing and singing. But where you are, it is dark, you are alone, and there are lions and jackals and bears roaming around. All you can hope for is to run into someone else who has rejected God, someone else who is equally as selfish and self-centered as you are, someone else who wants to be in total control just as much as you do. It doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that this includes people like Hitler, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Billy the Kid - who murdered in cold blood for pleasure, and whoever else you can think of. They are out here in the outer darkness too. They have practiced and practiced their ruthlessness, their need for control, their evil, in some cases for a thousand years or more. And you will be here encountering them for eternity, for you will still live forever. This is the outer darkness where those who dishonor God and God's Son end up.

Or there are those who will spend their eternity in the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 22, learning directly from Jesus. I read books such as the letters of James and I John, and I can glimpse the holiness of these Apostles. Can you imagine what they are like today, living with Christ for the last two thousand years? John Wesley was known in his day for being the kindest, most gentle man, full of grace – can you imagine how he has grown in the last two hundred and thirty years since his death? For that matter, take the nicest, kindest, most holy person you know and think about what they will be like after a thousand years of sitting at the feet of Jesus. What beauty!

We don’t realize it, but the holiest things we ever encounter on earth, apart from the blessed bread and wine of Communion are the people around us. Each is an unfinished portrait of God, an image of God, potentially so good and holy that they will be like those gold-framed portraits we find on display in a museum or in an ancient English mansion. Holy images, holy incomplete paintings of God walk by us every day, paintings that if we could see them in their complete, final stages, they would take away our breath with their beauty.

And there are also paintings of God who walk by which are destined for the outer darkness, the trashcan, to be buried forever in the landfills of that outer darkness, crumbling, flaky, molding, decaying.

We each have the opportunity to touch up these paintings, these people, the good ones, even the great ones – and especially the ones that have started poorly. We can speak a few words, and like God speaking in the Creation story, the painting becomes more beautiful. Or we can speak different words and it is like putting a blood-red diagonal slash over delicately painted spirals and flowers. We encounter the holy every day, every time we speak with someone.

Our paintbrush and palette is our mouth and our actions. Encouragement and hope are beautiful yellows and blues and violets – Sarcasm is black, insults are slashes of blood-red paint. Wonder is the golden tinge of sunlight on clouds while hugs are the green of springtime moss. Warmth and listening puts orange and the brown of deep piles of fallen leaves of a warm Indian summer forest walk in a person’s soul.

A child says something in Walmart – and we can speak back in many ways. What can we say that will make him more beautiful? "You are so smart! I know you always help your mother!" especially when she is not helping her mother.

A woman complains in ugly ways about her family to you. How can you help her move around the paint so the ugly goes away and beauty comes through? "It sounds to me like your daughter is simply looking for friendship and doesn’t know how to find a good friend. Maybe I could take her shopping?"

A man says something sarcastic about his wife. How can you remind him of why he married her, the beauty he once saw?

And this, my friends, is the real core of marriage. For in marriage, we are given a special relationship with a special portrait of God, a holy, immortal soul whom we have special responsibility for. How will you help that soul that is your spouse become even more beautiful and glorious in front of God? What will you say today that will lift up your spouse, help them cover up and remove the ugly streaks, add onto them the glory that is God’s words and deeds?

For our words and deeds each day affect the souls around us, none more than our husband or wife. You may say that you’ve always wanted to create something beautiful. Every single day, you put brushstrokes on the ones around you, making them beautiful or ugly with every word and deed. Take responsibility for the glory of another, working like a master painter, a Michelangelo, a DaVinci, a Rembrandt working to present your spouse to God, beautiful in soul, when you both walk in front of God at the end of time. Can you imagine the happiness in your marriage if you work to beautify your spouse’s soul through uplifting, positive words?

And as you go out to eat today or shop, look for other people, other portraits of God that you can touch up – just a dab of color here for the wait staff, just a brushstroke there at the checkout - so they will also walk in New Jerusalem at the feast of the Lamb, avoiding the outer darkness.

For your words and deeds can be spray cans of red and black, vandalizing God’s creations. Or your words and deeds can be a glorious palette of beautiful color – if you desire – to be used for God’s glory. It is your choice.

Lift up your friends and lead them to Jesus. Pray for your enemies that they may know Christ through your words and deeds. And lift up those who are different from us, yet worship Christ in their own way, that we may come to know them as friends.

Amen.

It Begins with Cucumbers

As we move into January, a time of cold and darkness, it is time to look at how Christ allows us to lead an abundant, fruitful life in the here and now, not just holding onto Christianity for the day when we take our last gasps of breath in this world, but understanding how our lives with Christ can be much improved over a life lived without Christ. And that is exactly what I’ll be talking about over the next few weeks.

Our Gospel reading today talks about two men. John the Baptizer, and Jesus, who is the Christ. Both men are in their early thirties at the time in question, somewhere around 30 AD. John has become famous, for he stood in the desert wilderness near the Jordan River, preaching to all who came by, telling them that they must repent, or “rethink” their views of what God wants of them.

At the time, just as now, there were many people who claimed to believe in God’s existence, who claimed to be good religious people, but to objective observers, there was little fruit. The people John preached to claimed to be good people – they did not murder, they did not commit adultery, they did not steal – yet in their hearts and in their daily actions, they ignored God, they assumed God was a distant power, like a man who sits at a desk in a far-off capital and is concerned with far greater things than the lives of the everyday citizen. These people were law-abiding concerning the most obvious laws – but they had hearts of stone, for they assumed that their wealth meant that God had blessed them – and they assumed that people who were poor were somehow being punished by God, and so they ignored the struggling people near them. These presumed good people were very common at the time of John – and they are very common today. They are like a crowd of people climbing on rocks at the side of a river which is rising, so concerned that they will get to the high ground that they never look back to help someone behind them.

And so John called upon people to rethink their understanding of God, to rethink what God wanted of them, to look at their neighbors and lift them out of the rushing water that threatened to carry them away.

And then, he called upon them to be baptized.

Baptism.

It is so central to Christianity, core to who we are. But what is the meaning and purpose of baptism. Why should we be baptized? Who should be baptized? When should we be baptized? How should we be baptized?

Understanding baptism begins with cucumbers…and pickles.

The word baptizo is a Greek verb that first appears about 150 BC in a discussion of cucumbers and pickles. You see, you take a cucumber and baptize it – and this is how the cucumber turns into a pickle.

Notice the subtleties of the action. The cucumber is dipped in the vinegar and remains for some time. When the cucumber is removed from the vinegar, it has changed – not just a surface change – it isn’t just a washing, but a deep change has happened in the cucumber. In fact, it is no longer a natural cucumber, which would quickly decay and rot. It is now a pickle, which will be preserved much longer than a cucumber. It tastes differently. It has a different texture. It is something new and different than the original cucumber.

A hundred years later, the term baptizo was applied to the act of changing the color of cloth through dye – but in several ways. The cloth could be dipped into the dye and the cloth would take on the new color. Or the cloth could be lain on a table and the dye poured onto it. Or the cloth could be hung and the dye sprinkled onto it. All of these actions used the word baptizo.

Now, since the time of Moses, the Jewish Law had stated that washing in water was a manner of purification. Unlike most cultures of the day, Jews washed their hands before meals and before worship to purify themselves. And they purified other things with water. In Mark 7, verse 4, we see that 

“When [Jews] come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, jugs, copper utensils, and dining couches (or tables)” 

The word translated here as “washing” is the word baptisontai, meaning literally, “They wash” or "They baptize".

Clearly, they might have baptized their cups or jugs or copper utensils by immersion, but they would have sprinkled or wiped down their dining couches.

And so, by the time of John, baptism had become to mean a purification by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling, usually with water, but the idea of baptizing something with vinegar or even fire for purification was also present with the word. Baptism isn’t just getting something or someone wet – it is a purification.

John told his listeners to repent – rethink – and be baptized to remove their sins. His listeners were wondering if John was the promised Messiah – high praise indeed! For the Messiah was the future Prophet/King of Israel, the godly man who would be known as the Son of Man – a supernatural person who looked like a man – who would restore Israel, freeing Israel from the pagan Romans, providing justice to the average man and woman. John’s listeners considered John to be so holy that they wondered if he was the Messiah.

But then, John ominously promised that another One more powerful than John was coming. This man who was even more holy than John was so holy that even John wasn’t worthy to be his lowest servant, untying his sandals for him, the sandals that in that day were always covered with dirt and the filth that comes from walking down a road behind donkeys and oxen. John considered himself unworthy of even that task, which was performed by the lowliest servant.

And John declared that this One to come would baptize the people. He would purify the people not with water like John was, but instead with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And then John used an analogy that all the people of the day would understand. Every fall, the 95% of the people who were farmers would cut their wheat, take it to a place with a hard-packed clay floor and thresh it. In threshing, they would dance on the wheat stalks, with the wheat grains falling to the ground and the chaff, the stalks and the loose covering over the grains blowing away. The winnowing shovel or winnowing fork would be used to toss the mix into the air and the wind would blow the light chaff away to the side while the heavy, dense grain fell down. And then, the shovel would be used to collect the valuable grain into the barn, while the chaff was collected up and burnt, because it was worthless.

John told the people:

 “His winnowing shovel is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will burn up with a fire that never goes out.” 

And the people understood that John was talking to them, about their lives, about whether they were valuable wheat or worthless chaff. How about you? Have you been fruitful, doing the work that God wants or have you been worthless for God, chaff that needs to be burnt up in an everlasting fire?

Then, as now, most people were distracted by the ordinary cares of life and began to worship other things than God. They worshiped their clothing, they worshiped their animals as we worship our vehicles, they worshiped their nice homes, they worshiped their sports, they worshiped their piles of money as we worship and feed our 401K plans.

They believed that God was only responsible for the miraculous good or the tragic bad. They forgot that every day God provided them with bread to eat, that every day God provided them with something safe to drink, that every minute God provided them with air to breathe, that every second God kept the gravity of the earth functioning and the sun providing light and heat, that God kept the laws of the Universe functioning so our brains and hearts continue to function.

I jump to something that we are only today beginning to realize. You may remember that electrons orbit the nucleus of atoms. You may remember that the electron is negatively charged and the nuclei of atoms are positively charged. So why don’t the electrons quickly spiral into the nucleus and all the atoms of the Universe collapse in a fraction of a second? Physicists will tell you that the rules of quantum mechanics keep it from happening, but if you ask them why the rules of quantum mechanics are the way they are, they will tell you they don’t know. "It’s just the way things are!" It is God who keeps the electrons circling – and keeps us from dying before we even knew we were in trouble.

Why does God keep us alive?

He has no need for us. Nothing we can do will affect God. God does not need our money, our animals, our work. No, God keeps us alive simply because God loves us as His creatures. He loves us.

Many years ago, a Presbyterian preacher named Jonathan Edwards talked about how dependent we are on God’s good will.

Edwards talked about how we are like terrible, loathsome, ugly spiders on thin lines of spider silk dangling above a fire, ready to fall into the fire – but God keeps us from falling. He does not need to throw us into the fire, he only needs to let go and we will fall.

And so, as John the Baptizer asked so many centuries ago, Good People, will you continue to go along in your assumption that you are good, that God will take care of you because you are good – or will you rethink your relationship with God, will you recognize the great debt you owe God, will you read and study God’s scriptures to understand what God wants of you, will you reach a hand out and down to those you considered not so good because you have finally realized that you are not as good as you thought, you are not so self-sufficient as you thought, that your position on the side of the rising flood waters is not as high as you thought? Will you ask God what people you are to go to and bring the good news that God truly loves them, as God loves you?

One day, while John was preaching, his cousin Joshua came to the riverbank and asked John to baptize him. John was in awe of his cousin – his cousin was a much better, more holy man than John, and so John said he did not need to baptize his cousin. But his cousin insisted, and so John baptized his cousin Joshua, the man the Romans called Jesus of Nazareth. And when they were finished, the clouds opened up, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove, and a voice came from Heaven – “You are My beloved Son. I take delight in You!”

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Will you be baptized?

Once is all that is necessary, for when we are baptized, God changes a setting in our hearts, allowing us to do good for the sake of being good, where before we might do good, but it was for selfish reasons. God purifies us – we don’t do it, the water doesn’t do it, the pastor doesn’t do it. God purifies us.

We don’t need to know what it means, we don’t need to understand it, we don’t even need to agree to it ourselves – our parents or guardians can give that permission, just as a parent can save your life by giving permission for a vaccination. You don’t need to know what it means, you don’t need to understand it, the vaccine just works.

And so, in the United Methodist Church we never baptize a second time, for we believe that God purifies us – we are not able to purify ourselves, no matter how old, no matter what we understand, no matter what. To re-baptize is the height of arrogance, assuming that we are the ones with the power, rather than understanding that God has the power. 

And just like giving your children a vaccine against a dread disease, parents, do you want your children to like forever, to have life eternal? If so, have your young children baptized.

Baptism with water is only part of the ceremony, though…

There is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Notice our reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had welcomed God’s message, they sent Peter and John to them. After they went down there, they prayed for them, so the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit. For He had not yet come down on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Whenever we baptize in the United Methodist Church, after the water has been applied, we lay hands on the person being baptized and we ask for them to receive the Holy Spirit. This is a key, important part of baptism, for when the Holy Spirit arrives in someone, they are able then to connect with God.

It is like a person lost out in the woods trying to connect to the Internet. Unless there is a cell tower or WiFi signal nearby, the phone is not worth much. But when the phone is able to connect with a cell tower or a WiFi signal, all the knowledge of the planet, every person on earth, all the answers are made available at your fingertips.

The Holy Spirit is the internet of the Trinity, connecting us with the wisdom and knowledge of God, the power of the Creator, the love of Christ. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit: He will lead you to all knowledge. And this Holy Spirit usually arrives with the laying on of hands during the baptism ceremony.

How about you?

Have you been baptized? Have you felt the Holy Spirit speak to you? Or are you still lost out in the woods, trying to connect with God’s love?

The first step toward living an abundant life is to believe that Jesus was God’s Son, part of God Himself walking upon the earth, speaking on behalf of God the Father, having the power given by God the Father, fully God and fully human, sharing our human problems yet having the holiness of God. Do you believe, even a little bit? Do you believe?

The second step toward living an abundant life is for us to rethink our relationship with God, recognizing that God loves us intensely, so strongly that Jesus was sent to be the ultimate sacrifice upon the cross, to pay all the penalties for all the things we’ve done wrong over the years, a God who loves us enough to sacrifice God's own Son, not because of the good we’ve done, but despite all the bad we’ve done. Do you recognize that God loves you and has already been gracious toward you by letting you live and understand who Jesus is?

The third step toward living the abundant life is to be baptized. Someone asked me the other day how old a person should be before they are baptized. I replied, “eight days old”, because that was when Jewish custom circumcised infants. I would baptize a newborn less than an hour old, but generally speaking, I will baptize anyone as soon as they can be brought to church. It does not matter if they need an interpreter because they cannot speak or hear, It does not matter if a guardian must give assent because they cannot comprehend what is being said because of mental deficiency. And it does not matter if they are too young to speak or understand what is going on, for God knows and God will not make a mistake. God purifies us – we don’t.

At a later date, in their early teens, we will give our young people the chance to take upon themselves the vows to follow Christ. This is our Confirmation process. And we will be starting a Confirmation class the last Sunday in January at Mount Clare for all eleven year olds and higher – including adults – who are ready to consider making a full profession of faith. We will talk about Christ, the Church, and what it means to be a Christian – and a United Methodist. If there are those would like to do this at Calvary, let me know and we may have a class at Calvary also.

As part of the baptism, I will lay on hands so that the one being baptized will receive the Holy Spirit. We can baptize here in the church by sprinkling or pouring a pitcher of water on your head, or we can go down to the creek at Center Branch and baptize in the creek. It is your choice. Let me know if you wish to be baptized, or for your children to be baptized.

It is difficult to live in Christ without the Holy Spirit. And it is uncommon to receive the Holy Spirit without being baptized first to have your sins washed away, to have your relationship with God changed by God’s action upon your heart.

And so, to experience the joy of living an abundant life in Christ, it begins with baptism. It begins when you, a cool cucumber are turned into a pickle, changed completely from something that was quickly turning rotten into a new creation that will be preserved, have better taste, and will be beloved of God.

See or call me to be baptized. Amen.

Planning for Success

Today, January 6th, is Epiphany Sunday, the day that God appeared in the flesh to humans. We traditionally celebrate on this day the visit of the wise men of the East, the Magi, to the Holy Family. We celebrate that on this day, the wise men of the East met the baby Jesus – and declared that He was divine.

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These men of the East, these Magi, are still a mystery. The Gospels do not say that there were three. There may have been two – there may have been a dozen. The traditional listing of three men comes from a story composed hundreds of years later. But more and more, scholars believe that the wise men of the East were members of a group of philosophers, theologians, and scientists from Babylon that were descended from the Jews of the Exile, perhaps even from Daniel and his friends who lived in Babylon a half-millennium earlier. Others believe that they may have been from Persia (modern Iran) or even from the part of India that today is known as Pakistan.

Whoever they were, they certainly planned their journey well. An overland journey from the East would have taken months, if not years. This group of men left with good preparations. Let’s see what they did. Let's see how we can learn from them.

First of all, they apparently left home when the star appeared. They must have expected this star – and there are clues in the Book of Daniel which allow a calculation of when the star might appear, so they could have been prepared. Reading between the lines of Matthew’s account, we see that the star must have appeared up to two years before the Magi arrived to visit the Holy Family in Bethlehem. Judging from Herod’s reaction that we talked about last week, when he sent his soldiers to kill all male children under two years of age, the Magi told Herod that the star had appeared about two years earlier. Please note that there is nothing in the Bible which says that the Magi appeared on Christmas Night, or even the same year that the child was born. We know that Jesus was circumcised at the Temple in Jerusalem 8 days after his birth and that the family then returned to Nazareth, but came back to Jerusalem each year for the feasts. Since Bethlehem is less than ten miles from Jerusalem, the family could have been staying with friends or relatives during one of these feasts when the Magi arrived, especially since the text tells us that the Magi came into the “house” where Mary and the child were.

But this is less important than the other preparations that the Magi made for their journey.

Their second preparation was to study the scriptures carefully. This was probably the reason that they left home in the first place, having read Micah 5:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” The Magi undoubtedly brought these scriptures with them on their journey so they could refer to them time and again. The desert caravan trails have little for entertainment – reading and re-reading scriptures would have been their daily and nightly habits.

And their third preparation was in their choice of gifts. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold was a gift that you brought a king. With gold, a king could hire soldiers, outfit an army, and buy food for that army. With gold, the Magi were saying that the child would be a king.

Frankincense was a gift you brought to a high priest, who would burn it to a god. Incense was burnt in almost every temple of ancient times. It was costly, found only in the dried sap and resin of certain trees that grow on the Indian Ocean coast of what is today Oman and Yemen, the land of the Queen of Sheba. The incense was burnt and a sweet fragrance wafted up to heaven. Incense was a gift only appropriate for a god or a high priest who made intercession for people to God. With frankincense, the Magi were saying that the child would be a high priest.

Myrrh was a special gift. This embalming spice was used by the morticians of ancient times to coat the bodies of the dead, to cover the odors of death. Myrrh was also seen as an offering that was given to the supernatural beings that took the dead spirit of a dead person to their final resting place in heaven or in the underworld. Myrrh was the gift given to the One who had power over death. With myrrh, the Magi were saying that the child was a god. And since the Magi were Jewish scholars, they were saying that the child was THE GOD, Yahweh, the great I AM THAT I AM who had led the people of Israel out of Egypt, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Jewish Scriptures.

And so, the Magi were well prepared. They may not have been sure whether the Messiah of Israel would be a king, a priest, or a god, but they were prepared. They were ready to meet Messiah, the Savior, the Christ.

And when they met the child Jesus and Mary, they bowed down and worshiped Him and presented all three of their gifts, for they recognized that Jesus would indeed become the King of all the earth, that Jesus was not only the high priest, but God Himself on earth, and that Jesus holds power over death.

But God had intervened even here. Echoes of the past resound throughout this episode.

In 1 Kings 10, a special ruler from the East, the Queen of Sheba, had come to meet Solomon, the King of Israel. She brought gold and spices. The depth of Solomon’s wisdom astounded her. These Magi were so astounded by the Babe, they worshiped Him, the new King of the Jews.

And as mentioned in Isaiah 39, King Hezekiah, a good, but prideful king of Judea at the time of Isaiah, had shown Babylonian representatives his stores of gold and spices, treasures that inspired them to return a few years later to defeat and plunder Jerusalem, taking away the gold and spices to Babylon, where a few years later Daniel would observe the King of Babylon and his friends drinking from golden cups looted from Solomon’s Temple. On this night, the Magi returned some of the loot to Bethlehem, to the city of David, to the rightful king of Israel, the infant Jesus. God’s justice had prevailed. Bethlehem and Jerusalem were regaining their rightful place in the world.

At this point, I’d like you to think a bit about Mary and Joseph. Joseph isn’t recorded as being present during the visit. Perhaps he was working; perhaps he was making a sacrifice or prayer at the Temple a few miles away in Jerusalem.

Mary’s memory of the visit of the angel Gabriel had probably slipped to the back of her mind. Events – even extraordinary events – tend to do that as the ordinary cares of life take over our days. For example, when I call your attention to it, you remember when you first encountered Jesus, when you first made a commitment of faith. But most days, you forget about it.

Mary had spent months feeding and tending to the needs of the child. She probably spent many hours just looking at him, playing with him, and cleaning, cooking, and doing all those things which ordinary mothers do. And then comes a knock at the door and someone tells her: “There are several wealthy-looking men here to see your child.” Would she have been startled – or frightened?

And then they met her and the child and they worshiped her child as God. It must have all come rushing back, the memories of the angel, the stories Joseph had told her of his dreams, the time spent with Elizabeth, the long ride to Bethlehem when she was very, very pregnant, and the visit of the shepherds that night in the stable and their report of angels when she was so-o-o-o exhausted. And the wonder came back. Her child WAS fathered by the Holy Spirit and divine.

And now, they were opening chests and presenting the chests to Him and to her. Gold, more gold than she had ever thought could exist. Sticks and beads of frankincense, a wonderful smell filled the room. And the dark myrrh, ominous in its smell that reminded her of the funerals she’d attended. And the talk of the strangers, in a strange accent, telling her that she held the Savior of Israel in her hands, the Son of God. It must have been overwhelming. What would you have done?

The strangers leave. A while later, Joseph comes home. “I’m home, Mary! Anything interesting happen while I was out?”

And she tries to explain. She shows him the presents, she tries to explain what they said, how they looked, who they were. He asks many questions. And she stayed awake long into the night, thinking about the visit and what it meant.

Have you traveled a distance in your life looking for someone or something you could worship? Have you tried different philosophies, different religions, different ways of living? Perhaps you have and didn’t realize it.

Have you tried finding happiness by earning money, trying to find happiness in your job, in your spouse, in your home, in your hobbies? Have you tried to find happiness in chemicals, in movies, in the newest toys, in books, in sports, in children, in the people you’ve dated? Can't it be fairly said that you worship that which you spend your time on, your focus upon, your creativity for? But all these things ultimately don't bring happiness, do they? Who shall we worship?

The Magi traveled a very long way to find the One that they could worship. But they planned for a successful journey before they began. They started early, traveling on camels to speed their journey; they studied the writings of wise men, reading scripture; and they brought gifts. Perhaps you already have found Jesus, the One that you can worship. You have found Him – but are you truly ready to worship Him?

Consider these lessons of the Magi. Plan for a successful journey in your life.

Start early. As soon as you see Jesus – or now, if you’ve already seen Jesus, start walking closer to Him. Don’t gaze at Him from a distance of thousands of miles. Do what you can to speed your journey. Find your camel - a Bible study, a way to work in a mission, a ministry. Move from the back of the church to the front of the church to get closer to Jesus.

Spend plenty of time studying the scriptures. It is through the scriptures that we get to know the character of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. That is how we will know when we are getting close to Jesus – by comparing our spiritual position with the Holy Persons we find described in the Bible. The more scripture we read, the more we get to know God, Christ, and Holy Spirit, in the same way that watching years of a television series helps us to understand the leading characters on the series, such as why Jethro Gibbs of NCIS is so strait-laced, why Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory is so weird, why Tom Barnaby of Midsummer Murders doesn’t like to eat at home. Reading scripture helps us understand just how much God loves us, as well as what God wants from us. If these stories from the Old Testament are new to you, you might want to join us on Tuesday evenings at 7 pm, for we will begin this week to study the historical books of the Old Testament, beginning with Joshua.

The third lesson of the Magi is to bring gifts. You have gifts with you. Some of you have the gift of teaching. Some of you have the gift of organizing. Some have the gift of music, or of the other arts. Some can write, some can administer, some are carpenters or electricians, some have the gift of being able to listen and respond in wisdom, some have the gift of generosity, the ability to give generously to the support of the church and individuals, and some have the gift of being able to discern good from evil. Bring these gifts. The Body of Christ can use all gifts – offer your gifts to Jesus.

The Magi brought five gifts that night.

Yes, five gifts.

Just as the Magi did when they brought their gold, you should be looking for a righteous king, someone to give your allegiance to, someone you can trust as a leader, someone you can trust to care about you and to do the right thing – all the time. We cannot always trust our earthly leaders, but we can trust Jesus as our king, the king to whom we owe allegiance and trust. Bring that king your allegiance and trust.

Just as the Magi did with their frankincense, you should be looking for a high priest, who can make things right between yourself and the Creator of the Universe, who can help you understand the way the Universe was designed to operate and to help you get in a proper relationship with that Creator. For it is only in following the rules of the Universe – both physical and spiritual – that we can live at peace in the Universe. Jesus is that high priest. Bring that high priest your sacrifices.

Just as the Magi did with their gift of myrrh, you should be looking for someone who can help you navigate the waters of death when it comes, for none of us mortals leaves this world alive. We need help when we die, so that we will live eternally in a land with our good King – otherwise we may wander for eternity, no better off than we have been in this life. Jesus tells us that He holds the keys to life and death. He claimed to be God walking upon the earth while He taught – and His resurrection proved this. Bring God the Son your love.

And just as the Magi did, bring your fourth gift and leave it at Jesus’ feet. That is the gift of worship. The Magi bowed to demonstrate that this small child, this little baby, was more powerful and wise than they were, the “wise men of the East”. Bow down before Jesus, accepting that there are things you cannot do without His help. Have you ever noticed that only a handful of people come to the altar rail - yet they are those very people who are known among us as the more godly, the wise, our leaders in the faith? Perhaps they come to the altar because they have truly begun to worship Jesus. And here is a secret – the more you worship, the more you CAN worship. Worship Jesus as the One who can do all things, the One who will not break your trust, the One who is God walking upon the earth.

The fifth Gift that the Magi brought was an indirect gift. They gave the gift to Jesus, but they gave the gift through Mary. The fifth gift they brought was the gift of assurance. Their very presence assured Mary that her journey was not alone. Their very presence and worship assured Mary that she was sane, wonderfully sane in her wondrous encounter with the angel Gabriel. The very presence of the three solid gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were something that she could go to, anytime, whenever she was beginning to wonder if the miraculous events in her life were real, she could go and open up the three chests and see the gold, smell the frankincense, and touch the myrrh. And because of that assurance that Mary had, she was able over the coming years and decades to properly raise the Son of God, to KNOW that He was special, to teach Him all she knew of the ways of God.

We have all had times when we felt God was speaking directly to us, but we questioned this because our culture denies the very existence of a God that cares about us individually. If we hear the voice of God, our culture tells us we need therapy, while the Bible tells us we have been blessed. And so we need to assure one another, helping each other to know when the voice of God is real – and when we truly need professional help.

You can bring that fifth Gift of assurance to someone else. Today. You can reach out to someone else and tell them – “I also believe”. You can listen to another person tell of God’s miracles and you can tell them, “I believe you. Let me tell you my God-story.”

And together, you both can tell the skeptic what you have seen and experienced, and show them the gold in your lives where your King has fought for you, the gold that is called the “defeat of sin”, the frankincense in your lives where your High Priest has intervened for you, the frankincense that is called “love”, and the myrrh in your lives which your Christ will use to defeat death for you, the myrrh that is called “faith”.

Jesus left those gifts that He was given with us when He returned to the Father. The sin-fighting gold that the Magi brought still circulates among us – perhaps some of it is in a piece of jewelry you wear, perhaps a wedding band? The smell of the frankincense, much diluted, still blows in the love of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind of God. And the myrrh still helps people transfer from this life into the next life through faith.

And Jesus left us another two other gifts. He left us the gifts of bread – which is his broken body – and of wine – which is his shed blood. These gifts are available to all who would accept them – the gift of your King’s protection, the gift of your High Priest’s love, the gift of your God’s faith and eternal life – the gift of physical and spirit food, the gift of physical and spiritual drink. Will you accept these gifts from your King, your high Priest, your God?

The Road to Bethlehem: The Mountainside

Our journey to Bethlehem continues this week. We have left the comforts of home behind in Nazareth, we have walked into the Jordan River Valley, past the place where one day a man John will baptize people, and now we are approaching the Sea of Death, about ten miles to the south. Joseph and his young wife Mary, who is riding on the donkey and looking very tired, is still with us. We are over 1300 feet below sea level. Another hundred foot drop in the last part of the River will take us to the Dead Sea, the Sea of Death where fish quickly die because of the salt, the lowest place on the surface of the earth, the end result of all those who refuse to climb the mountainside out of the valley.

But now we leave the Jordan River and follow a small stream up the hill a couple miles to the West. We are going to Jericho, perhaps the oldest city in the world. Jericho, the first conquest made by the Israelites in the promised land, the city where the prostitute Rahab lived, an ancestor of David, an ancestor of both Joseph and Mary, a woman who trusted in the God of Israel and was saved from the destruction of Jericho when the walls fell. She is the poster child of God's grace.

Jericho, at 864 feet below sea level, about 400 feet above the valley floor, was founded as a city because of the great spring that lies at the base of the mountain, with a flow of over a thousand gallons a minute. This water was used to irrigate the rich soil brought down the Jordan Valley by the River’s floods. And here, Herod the Great was building his palace. It is the lowest city on earth, but is one of the most beautiful, fertile places on the planet. If only the King didn’t live here, for he is violent and selfish, a tyrant. But he has provided for travelers with a place to spend the night. 

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Luke 1:39-55 
We stop for the night. Fruit and vegetables and flour are for sale by the locals. We could stay here. Some have stayed, working for King Herod in his town. We’d gradually become his slaves, though, as many have done when they choose comfort over the journey. We spend a pleasant evening in a pleasant place – but the toughest part of our journey is ahead. We must get on with our journey to Bethlehem, our journey of life.

For we must climb up the mountainside road, the road that leads out of the valley up through the dry, bare mountain walls, up, up, up almost 900 feet to the level of the ocean, then another 2500 feet to Bethlehem. After the 400 foot climb we made today from the valley floor to Jericho, we must climb another 3400 feet – almost 3800 feet altogether, over four times the height of Seneca Rocks. And we will do it on a rocky path, on foot. Mary will ride a donkey.

Who is this girl, Mary?

She is a cousin of Elizabeth, who is the mother of John, Zechariah’s son. Zechariah is an ordinary priest in the Temple, they live in a small village near Jerusalem. 

Like most women in that day, Mary will have her first child in her middle-teens, at age 15 or 16. But she will not be alone, for she spent several months with Elizabeth, and Joseph and Mary will travel to Jerusalem for the great festivals three or four times a year and probably stay with Elizabeth, for Elizabeth’s home is an easy day-walk from Jerusalem.

The road onward from Jericho is steep, rocky, and dry. Here things get difficult, just as in our real lives there are times which are difficult. 

Children are born and must be raised. Even the best children cause tremendous stress for their parents, for they are individuals, with the ability to act independently, the ability to think independently, the ability to sin – just as we have that ability.

We always want to raise our children in our own garden of Eden, don’t we? We want them to be safe, to grow, to explore, to learn good. But in the Garden beside the Tree of Life was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the gardens we build for our children, we strive to give our children life – and we want to teach them the difference between good and evil. But the problem with this is that evil is an attractive part of the fruit. We can’t just eat the fruit of the Knowledge of Good, for with that fruit comes the Knowledge of Evil, it’s a single package, one fruit. To know what is Good, we and our children must understand Evil. And to know what is Evil, we and our children must understand what is Good. The serpent will always sneak in to teach about Evil.

Will we spend enough time teaching our children what is Good by reading to them from the Bible, by talking about those stories and readings, by helping them see how the Bible stories can apply to their lives? Or will we rely upon Children’s church, a half-hour a week? Sunday school can more than double that time. Kid’s and Parents time can add more as adults can take some time at breakfast or lunch or supper to read a half-chapter from the Bible to the family and then all can discuss it. If you want to start this, start now, for it is easier to start the tradition with young children. It’s hard to start when they are 17 and ready to leave home. Start today, for the serpent is slithering into your Garden.

We continue up the mountainside, the children turn into teens and the serpent talks to them. He comes into their lives in the disguise of their best friends, their popular classmates, the teacher who has always rebelled against religion. That 's why it's important they make friends who are godly - and the way they do this is to spend time in a church when they are young, when they are teens. But even still, the serpent whispers in to their ear, you come home one day, and they have decided not to listen to you. It is a dry day on the side of the mountain when this happens.

But there is comfort in this: You didn’t listen to your parents about everything. There were times you turned away and listened to the serpent. If you have taught them about good and evil, about sin – and most importantly about forgiveness and redemption – they will one day be able to break free, just as you have returned to the God you loved when you were young and living in the green valley of youth.

And God knows where each of those children are, just like God knows where you are this minute.

You look back over the edge and almost fall, for the Valley seems to call to you. You wobble on the path, trying to regain your balance. There is wisdom in the old warning to not look down. And you remember the warning from the angel to Lot’s wife – don’t look back! And far over the valley, on the other side of the River is the mound that is said to be Sodom of old.

Yet there is also beauty in looking back. The trick is to accept the beauty of what you came through, and not stop on the trail, leaning over so far to see our old life that we fall back into it. For Bethlehem is not at the bottom of the mountainside in the rich, beautiful, fertile valley, but is in the cool clear air at the top of the mountain of life. There is where we will meet the Babe.

When we honestly look back, we see that in addition to the pleasant downhill walk that was our time beside the River, there were mudholes, snakes, and fallen trees that blocked our path. Yet, there were also beautiful sights. A mixed bag.

Yet where we are going takes us up, up, up! We must travel up and not look back too much, or we may stumble and fall. And so we take a quick peek from time to time at the view from on high, looking over the Valley as we walk along a mostly flat ledge. Knowing where we’ve come from can give us courage for the climb – but focusing on where we’ve come from for too long can trip us up and make us fall. And so we relax for a couple of minutes on the ledge.

But there are other steep places to travel over. So we look back to the path and walk onward.

The path goes nearly vertical. At least it isn’t completely vertical. Experienced mountain climbers have found that it is absolutely critical to test what they hold onto before putting weight on it, to make sure that the rocks they hold onto are solidly part of the mountain, and not merely loose boulders that will come loose given fifty or a hundred pounds of pull.

You slip on loose stones and almost fall over the edge of the mountain. We all come to places where we loose our footing in life and slide down, down, down and teeter on the edge. Sometimes, it’s because we trusted too much in a job. Sometimes, it’s because a relationship breaks, like a rock slipping from under our feet. Sometimes we lose our footing because of an accident or a sudden illness. And we slip and slide and stumble, trying to find something stable to hold onto. And at that point, the breeze from the East blows hard against us, shoving us back onto the path, giving us a chance to find that stability again. And you remember again that the same word in the ancient languages means wind, breath, and spirit. Was that breeze the Holy Breath, the Holy Spirit of God saving us from falling, putting us back on course? Were you listening for a message as that breeze hit you?

Losing our stability from time to time is natural in this world. It happens because we make the wrong choices in our lives, choosing to treat the unstable as stable, the temporary as permanent, the sand as a rock-solid piece of the mountain. We hold onto people, to things, to jobs as though they were the solid Rock of Christ. And then, we are disappointed when they break loose. Think about it, what gives you stability in this life? Is it a job that could be eliminated, a company that could fold, a government program where funding could be cut, a person who could die or leave, a house made of wood that could burn in a night? Or is your stability based upon the solid relationship and faith between you and the Creator of the Universe? We have to remember that sometimes the insubstantial, invisible wind can bring us the most stability if it is the Holy Breath of God, the Holy Spirit speaking to us about the right course, what to hold onto and what to let go. Hold onto God’s Spirit, God’s Breath, God’s Holy Breeze, for it is more stable than earthly rocks.

But it is also wonderful to have good earthly relationships, people who treat us as they treat themselves. For there are many times on the trail to the top of the mountain where we are dry and dusty and thirsty, and someone gives us water, giving us the strength to climb a bit further. Our good friends give us water – yet there are always those who like to make fun of our thirst, pouring perfectly good water in the dust in front of us, laughing at our inability to talk through dry lips, our coughing when the dust hits, people who pour water on the ground in front of us to taunt us. And there is spiritual water as well as physical water, which takes a dry, dehydrated soul and gives it new energy, new endurance, new life! And, of course, there are people who listen to us and dry us out spiritually even more, making fun of us instead of making fun of the rocks, laughing at us instead of the shared journey, piling on their life problems instead of lifting our spirits with a shared uplifting story. Have you given someone else spiritual water recently, or have you poured it out on the ground in front of them, letting that spiritually boosting water soak into the ground? Have you lifted someone up over a steep part of the journey? Or have you kicked sand in their face? Are your relationships uplifting and supportive to others or do you pull people down, drag them down, threaten to pull them over the edge down into the valley again?

Mary and Joseph and the donkey worked together to climb the path. She rode, the donkey carried, and Joseph guided the donkey. And sometimes Mary got off the donkey and walked. They worked together to climb the mountainside. Perhaps it’s the same in your relationships. Perhaps not. A marriage is part of climbing the mountain. Sometimes it can be steep – other times, it is a relaxing walk along a wide ledge that slowly climbs the mountainside, allowing an easy passage up the mountain.

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians Chapter 5 gave good advice. He said for both the husband and wife to submit to each other as if they were submitting to the Lord. And this is important, for each spouse where possible to do for the other, to defer to the other, to submit to the other to help each other.

But there are times traveling up the mountainside when two different paths offer a way to travel. Both look good, but both are risky. Husband and wife talk it out. They hash out the good and bad of both courses. And when they’ve done this, eventually he says go left and she says go right. And, because they have the donkey, they must both go the same way. So they talk more and still can’t figure it out. And so, according to Paul, the wife makes the decision. She goes in the direction that the husband wants, respecting him, knowing that he loves her like Christ loved the church – which means he’s ready to die for her – which is also how Paul says a man should love a woman. As Christ loved the church.

Both the man and woman understand that he makes the final decision. But both the man and the woman understand that she has the holy duty to point out the risks, the advantages of the other course, that she simply must ask him, “Have you considered this?” And he understands that she is not nagging, not causing trouble, but is truly trying to help him make the best decision possible. And then, he makes the decision because he loves her and wants what is best for her. And she goes along because she respects him.

And if it goes wrong and the donkey falls over the hillside, she steps in to tell him that there is no one she’d rather be sitting beside on this hillside than him, no one who could have made a better decision, no one she respects more. And he looks at her, glad she was not on the donkey, because he loves her and she respects him. And he listens a bit more to her the next time, but for now, they keep climbing the hillside. Together.

Good earthly relationships help us climb the mountainside. But those relationships should not define us, like the woman who was completely lost after losing her husband of fifty years. “He did everything for me”, she said. God said back, “It’s time for you to grow and do with Me. Stick with Me, and the three of us will be together again one day soon.” Soon? How many years and decades is “soon”?

Remember Mary’s reaction to the angel Gabriel when he told her that she would bear the Son of God? “I am the Lord’s slave,” said Mary. “May it be done to me according to your word.” Her relationship with God defined her for all time. It was far more important to her than her relationships with her friends, family, the older women around who said things behind her back. It was even more important to her than her relationship with Joseph – And God rewarded her obedience, for God took care of her relationship with Joseph, making it strong by sending Joseph an angelic dream.

Perspective. We look up at the mountainside above us and it seems like such a long hard climb ahead. And then we turn and look out and down, and we realize that we’ve already covered most of the distance, that the valley is far, far, below us. And this terrible, terrible climb for us - to the eagles who circle above it is nothing.

Altogether, as we climb from the Jordan River to Bethlehem, we will climb 3800 feet, over four times the height of Seneca Rocks, over three times the height of the Empire State Building. But that is still less than a mile. And the diameter of the earth is about 8000 miles. From space, this part of the earth is smoother than a marble.

Perspective is everything. Our terrible climb on the mountainside of life is 60, 80, a hundred years. But from the point of view of Heaven, it is nothing compared to eternity. Our legs ache now – one day, we will remember the flash that is this life in an easy chair. What will be important about this life ten thousand years from now? Will the fact someone dented your car at Walmart matter? Will it matter if the chicken in the refrigerator spoiled and had to be thrown out? Does the color of your fingernails matter, the exact number of points on that buck you shot, whether you are paid $14 per hour or $15 per hour? None of these things will matter – only the people you brought to an understanding of Christ will matter. It will all boil down to this: Did you climb the mountainside? Who did you lead up the mountainside?

Perspective is everything.

And the clearest perspective is from the top. I have it on good authority that the first 84 years are the toughest. This from a woman who died at 84 ¾ years of age. Perhaps that’s why so many pastors tell people considering becoming pastors that they wish they’d started pastoring 20 years before they started. Perhaps perspective is why so many older Christians move to be with their grandchildren instead of moving away from family. Perhaps that’s why we don’t remember our old pastors and Sunday school teachers by their charge conference forms, their paperwork, the songs they picked, their bulletin boards, the order of their worship service. We remember old pastors and Sunday School teachers by the times when their sermons, their talks, their teaching, their advice helped us climb over those steep, scary patches on the mountainside of life.

Mary had perspective. One day, many years after her journey to Bethlehem, she had to wait at the foot of a cross and hear her favorite son tell her that His student John was now her son, and that John would now take care of her. 

Another twenty or so years later, she told a kindly man named Luke about everything that happened when that favorite son was born, how she had traveled from Nazareth down the Valley and up the steep mountainside to Bethlehem. But that journey didn’t seem to be nearly as important in the retelling as the visit from Gabriel, the arrival in Bethlehem, the boy’s birth, and the shepherd’s visit. It wasn’t nearly as important as the later visit from the travelers from the East. It wasn’t nearly as important as the day her son died – and the morning He lived again. The climb up the mountainside on a donkey’s back was just about the ordinary struggles of her life, soon forgotten, not important.. Her Son’s story was about all of our lives, eternally. Of immense importance.

And so we reach the top and look back. There is the Valley, way back there. There is the Dead Sea, the Sea of Death we would have gone to if we had decided to stay in the Valley by continuing the easy path by the River. But the journey up the steep mountainside to Bethlehem is about avoiding the Sea of Death.

But now? Now that we are at the top, the wind is blowing again, a cold wind that swirls around us. It’s time to head south overland to Bethlehem. For the Babe will be here soon and we don’t want to be wandering, lost on the road when the storm arrives. 

Consider the story I’ve told, for The Holy Spirit has a story to write today – a story in our hearts. What will your story be? Take a moment to pray to God and find out...

The Road to Bethlehem: In the Valley

Last week, we began our journey from Nazareth in Galilee and started to take the journey to Bethlehem because an emperor in a far off land called Rome has ordered that we be counted. And so, we have to return to the town of our ancestors, a little village called Bethlehem. Walk with me this morning as we travel in our minds, in our imagination.

We’ve left our comfortable homes in Nazareth and are beginning the hundred-mile walk to Bethlehem. After walking for a day, about 15 miles, we reach the Jordan River where it spills out of the Sea of Galilee, and begins the 500 foot downhill travel to the Dead Sea through fertile farmland. But the descent is slow and the river road meanders back and forth like the river. And we begin to think, “this won’t be such a bad trip!”

he river sounds pleasant, and there is humidity in the air, we can smell it, a welcome change from the highlands near Nazareth. And so our journey to Bethlehem begins like our life, a journey that is mostly pleasant and comfortable in the time of our childhood and youth, not understanding what we are missing because we have been mostly comfortable.

Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Luke 3:1-6 
We grow thirsty and take cool water from the river. There are fish in the River that have drifted down from the Galilean Lake. Wide farms line the banks of the River – trees are plentiful, unlike anywhere else in our land. And so we take our time, enjoying the trip, talking to old friends, making new friends, laughing, for we are twenty years old and our life’s journey is ahead of us. We meet young men and women, and begin to chat with them, eventually settling with the most interesting one. And we walk together down the valley beside the River, the early spring flowers growing beside us, the birds singing, the water bubbling over some rocks. The leaves are green, the sky is blue, and the sun is bright. This is the beginning of the Jordan Valley; This is the beginning of our lives.

The first days are joy-filled and carefree, for we have left the farm, we have left the workshop, we have left the daily grinding of flour and baking of bread, we have left the fights with our neighbor over the land, we have left far behind the thorns of our field, the dryness of Nazareth hill. We have even left behind the constant presence of the enemy, the Romans who walk or ride into Nazareth almost daily. We have forgotten that the enemy would take our lives in a heartbeat if we stood tall to his soldiers. We have forgotten that the enemy would burn our homes, take our livestock, destroy our crops. For we are on holiday, even though this trip was commanded by the Roman leader himself, we have chosen to make this a holiday, and the beautiful river beside us helps us to forget that we will have to come back to Nazareth someday. Someday soon. And so we don’t see that the walls of the valley are rising slowly as we walk south, down toward the Sea of Death. We don’t realize that the valley is becoming a prison, the beautiful river leading us toward Death. We don’t realize that at the end of the River is a place where even worms die painfully. And so we ignore and forget what is ahead because we are enjoying life, the walk, our friends, the pretty girl or handsome man who walks beside us, the flowers, the green leaves, the river.

Over the centuries, thousands, even millions of people have made this trip. The only thing that makes the trip different this year is that the Emperor has commanded it. Even the man leading his donkey and his very pregnant young wife on the donkey are common sights every time we travel the journey. There is nothing special about him and his beard, his strong muscles, his calloused hands. There is nothing special about her, the weary eyes still smiling after a day and a half on donkey back. There isn’t even anything special about the donkey, walking easily down the road. Even their names are common. Y’sef. Miriam. Joseph, Mary.

Where are they headed to? Bethlehem, The House of Bread, it means in the language of the day. The village was the hometown of King David and had a great history. It was where Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel was buried, where Ruth and Naomi moved to after the famine killed their husbands in Moab, where Ruth married Boaz and had a son Obed, who had a son Jesse, who was the father of King David. The village is over 2500 feet above sea level, and there are many limestone/sandstone caves in the area. David hid out in one of those caves.

Back to the road beside the river...

The next day, during the walk beside the river, we come to a place which is known through history as the place where John baptized people. Of course, this was thirty years after Joseph and Mary’s journey.

John was a real character. His father was Zechariah, the temple priest who gave us the lovely song from Luke 1:68. Did you notice what Zechariah said about John?

And child, you will be called
a prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord
to prepare His ways,
to give His people knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins.

Sometimes people get confused, for there are at least two Johns in the New Testament. There is John, the son of Zechariah, who baptized people at the Jordan River – including Jesus at the beginning of His ministry. And there is another younger man also named John, who was a student of the older John, and who became one of the chief disciples of Jesus. This younger man is celebrated as the author of the Gospel of John, and probably also wrote the three letters, I John, II John, and III John, and also likely wrote Revelation when he was a very old man.

But let’s go back to the older John, John the Baptist, or, more accurately, John the Baptizer, who was the cousin of Jesus.

Zechariah said his son would be called a prophet of the Most High, a prophet of God, for he would go before the Lord and prepare his ways. He would give people a knowledge of salvation, an idea that they needed to be saved and that they could be saved through the forgiveness of their sins.

So many people today who do not regularly attend church fall into one of two categories. First are the people who believe they are good. They don’t understand their need for salvation, for they believe that all people except those who are Hitler types or serial killers end up in Heaven. They believe that they are basically good enough for Heaven, that God looks at people on balance – They think: "Today, I cussed out a telemarketer, but I also held the door open for an old lady, so that probably balanced out. I smiled at my kids, so I’m ahead for the day." 

So many people believe that when we get to the end of our lives, God adds up a ledger of good and bad deeds and decides if the good deeds outweigh the bad to decide who gets to go to Heaven. And most people believe that they are so much better than the murders and Hitler, that God will let them into Heaven – assuming they “believe in God”. And they do. They even pray occasionally to God. So they don’t worry – in their minds, they don’t need salvation, for they believe they already have it. You may have once thought this yourself.

The second common category is the set of people who look at their lives and are acutely aware of the sins they’ve committed. They realize that Hitler was worse than they are, but they also realize that they have some sins they commit over and over and over again. In their mind, they have done so much bad that God will never forgive them. Sometimes it’s because of a life full of different sins, committed daily…other times it is one BIG sin in their lives. And they believe that God will send them to Hell and there is nothing that can be done about it. They know they need salvation, but they don’t see how they can be saved.

John the Baptizer began to speak of the need for salvation. He spoke mainly to the “good people”, the people who believed they were good people, destined for Heaven, doing all the right things, for the "good people" were more numerous and more difficult to convince. At the top of the list was the fact they made a sacrifice every year. Every year they went to the Temple and did what was asked of them. Still other people simply looked around and concluded that since God had clearly blessed them – they had nice clothes, a nice home, good food, spoke well, were educated, had some money – then this was proof they were good people. To them, God’s blessings meant they were good and going to Heaven.

Do we still do that today? Do we still assume that because we live in a nice house, we mostly pay our bills, we dress well, we speak well, we have a car that we can count upon – Do we assume we are good people? And do we assume that the man begging at the intersection is "bad" because he doesn't have these material things? Maybe we do and maybe we don’t, but I’m sure we each have friends who assume this. We all have friends who assume they have no need of salvation because they are already good enough for God. Or if they aren’t, they believe that’s because God is mean and not good enough for them.

John spoke directly to these people. He called them out to repent, to re-think their relationship with God.

He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones!”
Just like the Jewish crowds, who assumed that because they were Jewish, God’s Chosen People, descended from Abraham they would each be saved, don’t we often say to ourselves, “But I am a Christian, descended from Christians. Of course I’m good and will be saved.”

John continued: “Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees! Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

What is the fruit? Could it be leading others to the love of God through our piety, our good deeds, our clear love for others? Could the fruit be results, actual results that comes from helping others?

“What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him.

He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.”
And John spoke on and on about what it meant to be a good person, the daily sacrifices that had to be made, the need to stop being so comfortable and selfish and the need to personally help those who did not have those comforts.

And John offered to wash away their sins with the water of baptism. John offered to give them a chance for a clean start, a chance to start over doing what was right instead of living comfortably, assuming they were good because they were comfortable.

Are you comfortable?

When a pair of eagles is about to lay eggs, they build a nest. They start with big sticks and then gradually move to smaller and smaller sticks and then twigs. Then, they put in leaves. Finally, the mother eagle takes the soft down hair from her chest and she feathers the nest with it so it will be soft and cozy for the eaglets that will soon be hatched, so they will be comfortable.

Is your nest soft and cozy? Have you ever thought about when your nest is feathered enough? How much feathering of your nest are you going to do?

Then, after they are hatched, they grow and grow and finally, there comes the time when they need to fly from the nest. So mother eagle begins to pull those soft down feathers out of the nest so the nest bottom will become sharp and poky and uncomfortable for the eaglets. They move up to the edge of the nest and one day they fall over and have to fly.

Perhaps your world has become sharp and poky. Perhaps it is becoming uncomfortable. Perhaps that’s because God knows that it is time for you to stop hiding in that soft, cozy, comfortable nest. Perhaps God knows that it is time for you to FLY! Perhaps it is time for you to go into the world and achieve the godly goals God has for you!

John made things uncomfortable for his listeners. And many of them chose to rethink their relationship with God. They began to understand that, despite the fact they were good and successful and comfortable by the standards of the world, they needed to change. They needed forgiveness. They needed to grow closer to God.

There were many people in that crowd that didn’t take long. They were the people who already understood their sin. They were the people who already knew they needed forgiveness, they needed salvation, they needed a new start. Others in the crowd walked away and went back to their comfortable homes, to their servants, to their pleasant lives where no one reminded them that God wasn’t looking at their ancestry, but at their lives, where no one reminded them that God wasn’t looking at the sacrifices their grandparents had made, but what they had given up, where no one reminded them that God was a jealous God who wanted to be worshiped far more than they worshiped their comforts, their homes, their money.

And those who went home…they missed the main event, the big show, the most important part of what happened in that spot there beside the Jordan River in the Valley. For John was just the warm-up act. John was the carnival barker attracting the crowd to the Big Tent. John was the pre-game show, who said He wasn’t even worthy to untie the sandals of the One who would come after Him.

Imagine being there that day. Imagine you can see what is happening...

The vision forms...John has been speaking in the heat that morning…and you can smell the sweat from the crowd. The water looks cool and inviting before you. A gentle breeze is blowing from the East and it bring the mixed smell of flowers – and animals. It is the smell of life blowing in. It reminds you that the same word is used for wind, for breath, and for spirit. God’s Holy Spirit, God’s Holy Breath, God’s Holy Breeze.

A fly buzzes near your head, trying to distract you from what John is saying. A group of well-dressed young men from Jerusalem have been asking John what to do and finally, in disgust, they decide to leave. But several men and women go forward, down into the water for John to baptize them, and they all come up from the water filled with joy! Again, the breeze blows from the East.

And then, as if He came in on that breeze, a taller man walks down to John. They look similar – there is a family resemblance. But where John is roughly dressed, the new man is middle-class. Where John’s skin looks like leather, the new man’s hands are rough and calloused. Where John seems like a wildman – the new man seems almost kingly in bearing.

They talk in the water. John shakes his head no. The other man insists. And John baptizes the man in the water. As the man comes up from the water, a dove descends on his shoulder, and the crowd says “OO!” And you realize something important has happened, you just don’t know what. But you hope you’ll find out. You’d like to talk with that man. Maybe someday. And the vision fades away…

But all of this is years in the future. Is that what it is like to be a prophet, to see a vision? It’s something to consider later. For now, we have to follow Joseph and Mary and that donkey down stream, deeper into the valley, closer to the Sea of Death, having Faith that one day, that new man who seems so kingly will actually come to the River to meet with John. For we have days and many miles to travel until we get to Bethlehem. And the worst part of the road is still to come. We all have to walk into the wilderness in order to escape the Valley and reach Bethlehem.

This week, I ask you to come to prayer with the question of comfort on your mind and on your prayer lips. Come to God and ask what comforts in your life are keeping you from God. For instead of being comforted by STUFF, God wants to be your comfort. Ask God what comforts you need to give up so that you might fly before the Holy Wind of God, the Holy Breath of God, the Holy Spirit of God. What comforts are holding you back, keeping you from being free?

The Road to Bethlehem: Leaving Home

Last week, we faced the question of whether Jesus was our Lord – or merely our friend, an interesting man from history, an idea that gives us comfort. I asked you to come to the altar and, if you felt this way, to state that Jesus is Lord, understanding the full meaning of those words, that you were acknowledging that Jesus was more than a friend, more than an ordinary man, that Jesus was indeed your commander, your leader, your guide, and that you were doing more than studying Him, but were following Him. The Apostle Paul once wrote to a church he loved, the Thessalonian church. These words express how I feel about your response last week to the question of “Is Jesus your Lord?” Paul wrote:

How can we thank God for you in return for all the joy we experience before our God because of you, as we pray very earnestly night and day to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith?

Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you. And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone, just as we also do for you. May He make your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Amen.
Your response last week filled me with joy.

And now we turn to Advent, the time of preparation for the Lord’s arrival. We want to jump ahead to Christmas, but for now, we will wait in Advent, preparing and waiting...

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25; Luke 21:25-36 

Yes, we will talk about the arrival of Christ on earth as a small baby. But we will also talk about the next arrival of Christ on earth at the head of the greatest army the world has ever seen. And we will also be talking about the arrival of the Lord into the lives of individuals, the time when someone realizes for the first time that Jesus is still alive, that being called Son of God has a meaning that Jesus is also God in the flesh, God walking upon the earth, that Jesus and Holy Spirit are here to bring us into a relationship with God the Father.

As many of you know, I once owned an orchard. Apples, peaches, pears, cherries, even persimmons grew in my orchard. When the derecho came through, I lost a small apple tree and a large pie cherry tree went down. I cut that cherry tree off about two feet above the ground, because that was where it broke.

Over the next months, a green shoot grew up from the trunk, using the stored energy from the roots to send out new leaves, for the heart of a tree is in the roots. The energy is stored in the roots, the power of life is in the roots. Left by itself, the shoot would develop into an entire tree, as strong as the first one. In fact, every year, to ensure that orchard trees and grapevines continue to bear well, the old wood is pruned off, cut off, and new shoots are encouraged to grow. With many grapevines, it is common to cut off 90% of the old growth and only leave 10% as a basis for the new growth, for it is on the new growth that the fruit grows.

In ancient Israel, the greatest the kingdom of Israel ever grew to was under the leadership of King David and his son, King Solomon. After that point, Israel became weak and divided. Eventually, even Jerusalem was conquered and the people taken into captivity. Jeremiah saw this destruction, but God spoke to Jeremiah:

“Look, the days are coming”—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
“when I will fulfill the good promises
that I have spoken
concerning the house of Israel
and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time
I will cause a Righteous Branch
to sprout up for David,
and He will administer justice
and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will dwell securely,
and this is what she will be named:
Yahweh Our Righteousness. 

Jeremiah spoke of a branch of the family tree of David sprouting up from the roots like that shoot growing from that cherry tree. And so the people of Israel began to look forward to a coming Messiah, a Savior, a man who would rescue Israel and make Israel great again, a place of peace, a place of safety, a place of beauty.

Around the year 4 BC, a man and his young wife began the journey from Nazareth, a village near the Sea of Galilee, to Bethlehem, a village about 3 miles from Jerusalem. What? Not in the year zero, you ask? No, for the monk who 400 years later would calculate the date made a mistake, but by the time the mistake was discovered, it was over fifteen hundred years too late.

The man was named Y'osef and his young wife was named Miriam. Later people would Romanize the names to Joseph and Mary. Both were descendants of King David, the king who had lived some 1000 years earlier. Mary was pregnant with her first child, so tradition has it that Joseph put her on a donkey. Their family was still missing something – a child. They had a journey of about a hundred miles to travel on dirt roads that would scarcely hold a single cart.

Galilee is the land around the freshwater Sea of Galilee. The lake is fed by snow melt from the mountains north of the sea, in modern day Syria and Lebanon. But the surface of the lake is almost 700 feet below sea level, about 13 miles long north to south, and about 8 miles wide from east to west. The Sea is about 140 ft deep and contains many fish. To the south flows out the lower Jordan River, which leads to the Dead Sea. It is down the Jordan Valley that the road lie to the Jerusalem, because it was down this valley road that people could count on having water.

The land around the lake has long been a farming area. The land is well-watered, and the low elevation means that the area stays warm even in the winter. In ancient Israel, Galilee was considered to have some of the best farmland in the Holy Land. By ancient standards, living in Galilee was comfortable. But the journey down the Jordan Valley would not be comfortable. Mary’s discomfort began the day she realized she was pregnant, for at that time she was not married. And her society was much less tolerant of single mothers than our society, for they blamed the mother for everything, never thinking about the responsibilities of the father. But the Father of Mary’s child would always be with her, even after Joseph accepted her pregnancy. But for now, Mary was not comfortable.

In our lives, we live in comfort. However, just like Josef and Mary, we often discover that we are missing something in our lives. We have an emptiness in the comfortable lives we live. We work – but why? To make money to keep our comforts? We spend tremendous time and money on leisure activities – watching television, on social media, looking at our phones, preparing food for family get-togethers. But what is our purpose?

Joseph and Mary knew they had a purpose. At one level, their journey to Bethlehem was simply following the order of the government, an order to return to the home of your family to be counted, and since Joseph was from King David’s family, he was to return to Bethlehem, the home town of King David. But Joseph and Mary both knew that their baby who was soon to be born was special, perhaps even the promised Messiah, the Savior of Israel. They had a purpose, a purpose they would not fully realize for many years as that son grew and ultimately began his ministry to the world. Their purpose was to protect God on the earth.

Each of us needs to journey to Bethlehem from our comforts in Galilee. We need to find our purpose, our calling, our life which God has planned for us. Each of us needs to understand why God is sending us on journeys that are difficult, that take us out of our comfort, that beat us up as we walk over difficult roads.

But there is a purpose to leaving home. No one has ever become great who did not leave the comforts of home. No tool of metal ever became tough without being placed in fire and beaten by the hammer of the blacksmith. No tree ever bore good fruit without being pruned.

Jesus left His comfortable home in Heaven to be vulnerable among us, to be hungry in a cradle, to walk barefoot on the earth, to experience the cruelty of children to each other, to work and sweat and thirst, to be taunted by people, to be beaten, to bleed, to hang upon a cross, suffocating, and to die. He had a purpose in leaving home – that we could become reconciled with God the Father once more, that we would live forever in comfort instead of suffer eternally in pain. That’s why Jesus left his comfortable home and came to be with us. That was His purpose.

As we look forward to the arrival of Christ once more, I ask you to take your Bible out of the bookcase, to open up to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, to read a chapter in each – one every morning, one every evening. And ask – Lord, what is here for me this year? What is my purpose over the next twelve months? What shall I do for you, Lord?

As we join in Holy Communion. I ask you to come to prayer with those questions:

Lord, what is here for me this year?

Lord, what is my purpose over the next twelve months?

Lord, what shall I do for you?

And listen for the answer in all reverence.