Defeating Temptation

Well, you will remember last week I spoke of the wonderful lemon meringue pie that a friend of mine gave me. Saundra and I ate the pie a slice a day, each of us, finishing up the pie Saturday evening. As I’ve mentioned before, this required careful rationing on our part, because neither of us can handle much sugar. 

Gospel Reading (Audio) - Audio Sermon

And so Sunday afternoon rolled around and there was no more pie. So what should we do? After all, one occasional pie – our first pie since Christmas – is one thing, but we simply cannot eat a pie every week, or our doctor would find some new and expensive medicine to put us on. (Thankfully, we don’t yet need insulin or such. Our diet and exercise generally do a good enough job controlling our sugar issues.)

But if we went to a pie-of-the-week plan, we would have problems. Yet, after those few days with pie, our bodies were yelling at us on Sunday that we needed SUGAR! And it was very tempting to get the flour, the sugar, the fillings out and make another pie. But we resisted the temptation. Barely.

I’m sure you’ve been in a similar place. You may have a different set of temptations that we do, but each of us are tested differently. Your temptation may be sugar, it may be caffeine, it may be nicotine, it may be alcohol, it may be painkillers. You may be tempted by the adrenaline rush that comes when we give into our anger and shout down at our friend or relative, the temptation may be that handsome guy or pretty woman at work, the temptation may be lottery tickets or it may be pornography. Your temptation may be chocolate or it may be pizza. It may be the temptation to cheat on a test or to cheat on your taxes. It may be the money that you handle at work or it may be the chance to take a longer lunch hour than necessary. It may be that the word “Sale” pulls you off the highway and into your favorite store. Temptations are all around – and we fight against them all the time. 

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

In the Greek, the word peirazo means to be tested or, in a negative context, to be tempted. So you can think of a temptation as being a test, an opportunity to see if you can pass the test.

In our Gospel reading today, it was Jesus’ time to be tempted, to be tested.

So most of you know the story. Just after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist down on the Jordan River, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.

I know that there are days when I’m filled with the Holy Spirit and I’ve seen my wife Saundra and son Andy filled with the Holy Spirit when they preach or pray. It is something else!

The best way I can describe it is that we are filled with energy. Have you ever walked across a carpet on a cold winter day and when you get to the door, you touch the doorknob and ZAP! There is a spark that flies from your finger? It is something like that.

Have you ever laid off of all the coffee, all the cola, all the chocolate, all the energy drinks for two weeks? If you are like me, you drag around for most of the first week, but then you recover and you feel much better than you did when you needed coffee every morning just to get going. Now imagine that you’ve been off all the caffeine for two or three weeks and then at lunch, you drink four Starbucks's coffees, the dark roast, premium types, 16 ounces each! Can you imagine how you’d be filled with energy for the next few hours, if you didn’t have a heart attack first?

Years ago, we hired a high school girl to work for us to do filing in the evenings while other people took inbound phone calls. She was an athlete, a basketball player who was in shape, and home-schooled in a religious family, so she had lived a very clean life. Well, we kept this container of Sam’s cappuccino mix by the office coffee pot. You just put a tablespoon in the cup, add hot water, and it is instant sweet coffee, except double strength. The other workers told me the first night she tried this, she liked the cappuccino so much she had two cups back-to-back. They told me she was practically dancing on the tabletops that evening. That’s what it’s like to be filled with the Holy Spirit!

Now add to that the fact that Jesus was Jesus, the Son of God, and you can imagine that he was ready to burst with energy!

And Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. Notice that it is the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus to be tempted – it is not the devil. So many times, when we come to a time of testing, we blame the test on the devil. We think logically, that if the devil is giving us a test, then we are supposed to fail the test - the devil isn’t going to let us pass, is he? But it isn’t the devil who puts us into the test, although the devil may get to participate in the test – It is the Holy Spirit – God the Spirit is who tests us, who sets us up for a good test.

Now why does God test us? God knows our abilities, God knows our capabilities, God knows our weaknesses. Why would God test us?

I mean, it’s like a good football coach having his players run the 40 yard dash and timing them in the break between the last regular season game and the bowl game. Do you think that coach doesn’t know what each player can do? Of course he knows by now what his players can do!

No, the reason the coach has them run the 40 yard dash and times them is so THEY will know what they can do – both themselves and their teammates. And that is why God give us tests – so we can know what we can do. And God gave Jesus his tests so that both the devil and us would know what Jesus could do!

So when you are being tested, understand these points. God has created the test for you because God wants you to pass the test, and God wants you to know that you can pass the test and God wants you to be able to tell other people that you can pass the test.

So there are three tests.

First, Jesus is tested by going hungry. After all, Jesus is God’s Son, with a divine nature, but Jesus is also a human man, with the nature of the body that screams – get me some bread!

And the devil gives Jesus a suggestion, just whispers in His ear. "Turn the rocks into bread and eat them." After all, Jesus is the Son of God. It would be a good proof, right?

But Jesus understands that to use His divine power in that way would be wrong, it would be unfair to every human, it would defeat His mission on earth if he gave into the hunger and turned rocks into bread. For part of what Jesus has to do is to show us that a human can last for forty days without food. He has to show not only Himself but also us and the devil that humans are a lot stronger than we usually think. So He simply tells the devil, Himself, and us that “Man does not live by bread alone.”

Bread is just stuff. Our mind is stronger than our body. We are not animals – our will can be strong enough to fast for forty days.

I have read of Liu Zhenying, known as Brother Yun, who developed many house churches in China during the 1980’s and 1990’s. He later wrote a book The Heavenly Man. One day he was arrested and put into prison. Chinese prisons are bad – a dozen or more men in a cell with no running water, no toilets. Brother Yun simply began to convert men in the prison. He was beaten for this. So he began a total fast – no food – and no water – which miraculously lasted 74 days, and led to the conversion of many more men. He then recovered and after many more months, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and told him to walk out the gate. So he walked through several unguarded, open doors, across the prison yard and out the main gate, it was as if he had become invisible. These stories have been confirmed by other former prisoners who occupied his cell. He eventually left China and lives in Germany, where he promotes the Chinese “Back to Jerusalem” movement that is beginning to send Chinese Christian missionaries to the lands between China and Israel – Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria.

The second temptation of Jesus is of power. The devil suggests that if Jesus will simply bow down before Satan, the devil will make Jesus his prince, ruling over the world under Satan. But Jesus tells the devil, Himself, and us that we are to worship and serve only God.

Power, you see, is fleeting. If you try to control people to make them do what you want, you will have some power until those you try to control squirm out from under you – and that will happen! Even the Soviet Union, even Hitler’s Germany could not control completely. Trying to control other people is like squeezing a balloon. When you get control of one area, another area pops out.

If you tell people they must buy tofu from the cafeterias, someone will smuggle in a hot dog. If you force people to buy from the monopoly telephone company, someone will invent cell phones. If you force people to buy cable TV, someone will invent a Netflix or a Dish Network. If you raise taxes on New York businesses, businesses will move to North Carolina or Florida. 

If you try to force anyone to do what is good for you and not for them - by their decision - they will find a work-around, even if you are right! And it doesn't matter if you control for the good of people or for evil purposes. If you say people can not worship they way they please, a hundred pilgrims will hire a small boat to take them to the New World. If you prohibit alcohol, people will smuggle bottles of alcohol in their boots.   

But if you simply use righteousness and goodness and love, then those who also desire righteousness, goodness, and love will willingly work with you – not for you, but with you – to accomplish great deeds that are good for all. Only God has the righteousness, the goodness, and the love combined with the wisdom to be the best ruler. And Jesus knew that when you attach yourself to someone, you either go up or go down with that person. Jesus wanted to tell Himself, the devil, and us, that God is the one we should bow down before. God is the One to attach ourselves to.

God’s word is enough!

In a third and final test, the devil had Jesus climb to the highest point of the Temple and suggested that if Jesus was really the Son of God, He should simply jump, and then quotes the Old Testament to indicate that angels would swoop in and save Him. But Jesus tells Himself, the devil, and us that we should not test God.

This was a subtle test. Indeed, all of the tests were testing Jesus’ pride. Was He really who He knew He was – the Son of God? This test supposedly was to see if God really loved Jesus – would God send angels to catch Him as He fell? But Jesus’ response reminds us, the devil, and Jesus that God is in complete and total charge and those who have true faith, true trust in God, a true understanding of Who God is, do not need to test God to find out if God loves them, for God has said God loves us. God’s word is enough! Testing God is actually our way of saying, “God, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you love me.” It is an attempt at manipulation because we simply don’t know, understand, or believe God’s promises.

And isn’t that the same thing that often happens between people? We create these artificial tests, we manipulate to determine if we are loved by our spouse, our parents, our children, our church? We drive off into the night and don’t come home until late to see if they waited up, worried about us. We play silent and wait for them to call us. Or we injure ourselves so they will come meet us at the Emergency Room – IF they love us.

To me, one of the saddest games people play is with Facebook – they forward some variation of this game: “I know you don’t really love me or read my postings – if you love me and are my friend, respond with a single word.” Or the other, older variation – “I’ll skip church three weeks in a row in the middle of flu season and see who calls me.” What they often don’t realize is that they have missed church so often that missing three weeks is not really unusual. Especially when only half the church shows up any given week because of illness, bad weather, etc. True love does not mean jumping at any test; true love often means respecting a person enough to let them go, assuming that they are adults who know what they want and need, letting them try out other churches, other friends, other lives, for we certainly don’t want the people we love to be miserable if they are miserable hanging around us.

It is quite true that the older man or woman who is there every week, twice a week and misses will probably get a phone call after a single missed service – or at least after two missed Sundays. And that’s because we know they love us, too and that only something far beyond their control would keep them from church. And they show that love by showing up at church all the time. 

(You know, most people don't realize it, but in every good church, there are people who show up every week, there are people who show up 3 out of 4 weeks, and there are people who show up once a month or even just once a quarter. It means people are being attracted but are still being pulled by the world. They are looking for God at the church, but can't quite commit to every week! 

It is a mark of a dying church when the only people who show up are the regular weekly people, for that means that no one is checking out the church.)

Jesus did not need to test God for God’s love because Jesus knew that God loved Him. And Jesus loved God. They talked every morning and evening, in the same way that my wife Saundra and I talk every morning and evening, and usually at noon. We are always in each other’s lives. But I also have relatives that I love – and I know they love me – yet we only talk about once every two or three months, because we aren’t in each other’s lives very much - we live too far apart.

And so Jesus, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, stood tall in the face of the testing that the Holy Spirit had begun and which the devil had tried to manipulate. And so the devil left Him alone for a while.

You know, this isn’t the only testing that is found in the Bible. Our first reading from Deuteronomy has such a test. Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Every year, the farmers of Israel were to take some of the first produce each spring and bring it to the Temple. They weren’t supposed to wait and bring the leftovers at the end of the harvest – they were supposed to bring the first fruits to the Temple. If you think about it, that was a test of faith, for each year there is still much uncertainty about the harvest when the first produce comes in – will there be enough grain for the family for the winter? What if there is a late season drought – what if a hailstorm comes through and destroys the crops, what if a wildfire burns up the field, what if it rains so much the crops are drowned?

God says, “Give me my portion first and trust me to take care of you.” And, you know, we think that is all fine and dandy for ancient farmers, but what about those of us who live in a cash economy? What should we do?

Pay God first. Trust in God. God may not make you rich, but God will take care of you if you bring the tithe to God when the paycheck arrives.

A week ago last Friday, Saundra quit her job at the college. She felt she was not able to do ministry properly and was beginning to be affected negatively by the environment around her. So we talked and I encouraged her to quit, despite the fact that we can’t pay all of our bills on just my salary.

That afternoon, she stopped into the store to get us some juice. Just a single bottle of juice – of course that was when it was Friday afternoon, there was a snow storm coming, it was the first of the month with all those checks, and so it took a long time to get through the checkout line with her bottle of juice. And so she struck up a conversation with the man behind her in line, talking about the church.

When it was her time to check out, the man said, “I’ll pay for that juice. That’s on me.”

God will take care of us. God always takes care of us, despite everything. (She starts a new job tomorrow!) 

You know, there are people in the United State who could afford to give away $100,000 every hour and never go broke. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Our God is far richer than those men. And we worry about whether or not we will have enough money to pay our bills.  What can God provide us with? 

We always forget what God has told us through the Apostle Paul in our Romans reading. Romans 10:8-13 Let me remind you...

"On the contrary, what does it say? “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

Now the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shame,” for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So what is the problem? What test can’t you pass? Is Jesus Lord? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead? You will be saved!

Beyond that point, everything that is left is learning how to swim in the eddies and currents of life’s river. For God has created out lives with eddies and currents, and the Way of Holiness that we learn from following Jesus is the way to swim in that life river without trouble. But just as a beginning swim coach might say, “there are only two things you need to know – move your hands and feet, and breath only air, not water “ there are only two basic things needed to be saved by God.

1. Tell someone that Jesus is Lord, meaning it. 
2. Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.

With these two ideas, you can be saved and pass any test.

We sink in life’s river when we forget this basic fact, when we forget that we are already saved, that God has us by our collar, that God is good, and God is strong enough to lift us out of the water.

God is helping you see your fear!

So when you see a test or a temptation, consider these three questions:

1. Does God love me enough to save me? Answer: Yes! He sent His Son to die for our sins on the cross!
2. Can God have the power to save me? Answer: Yes! He created the entire Universe!
3. So will God save me? Answer: Yes! He loves you and has the capability to save you.

So what is the fear in this test that might make me doubt those three points? That is what is actually being tested – God is helping you see your fear – or your lack of fear. Turn your fear over to God and you will pass the test.

So what is your fear? Are you afraid that negative things people say about you is true? Are you afraid you will never again have a job? Are you afraid certain people won’t love you? Are you afraid you’ll be unloved forever? Are you afraid you’ll die? And tell me, Christian…what is wrong with death when you have Christ?

They say that most people drown when they panic from the fear of drowning. For experienced swimmers know that people generally float very well – especially people with a bit of fat on them. And so, if you keep from panicking, even if you don’t swim well, you can just concentrate on lifting your nose above the water every time you breath – and you will survive. Lift your nose and breath. Lift your nose and breath.

And the same thing goes for all the testing and temptation that we go through in life. If we remember that God loves usand has the power to save us, that death in this world means we will be with Christ in the next, we will be okay. Imagine a button with the words “Don’t Panic!” in big friendly letters. And on the other side of the button are the words, “God’s got this!”

After all, it was God who sent you the test, remember? And the test is almost always a version of “Do you really trust God?” So give the right answer: Trust God and beat the test!

The Glow of the Mountain

Let me tell you of the day that three fishermen found the God they had been looking for. Let’s listen to the story from the perspective of James, one of those fishermen: 

Gospel Reading Audio  -  Audio Sermon: The Glow of the Mountain

“That morning, the Master asked us to follow Him up to the top of the mountain to pray. Mt Hermon, which lies well north of the Sea of Galilee and is the tallest mountain in the area, usually covered with snow. (Some have said over the years that we were at Mt Tabor, but it was Mt Hermon.) I thought sarcastically, “Wow! We’re going to take a hard climb up on a mountain to watch Him pray. Again. Oh joy.” But I came along with my brother John and Simon, the one the Master had begun calling Peter, the Rock. We climbed up the mountain, passing along the way little shrines that looked like huts. People must have been making these shrines here on the mountain since the Flood, for there were many of them – wood and stone heaped together, sometimes with bones lying on altars. They smelled of death. We walked up above the clouds that morning, as the hawks and vultures circled far above.

"Near the top, the Master asked us to wait, so we sat down and began to fall asleep in the warm sunshine, tired and sweaty after the climb. He went a few feet further, stood looking toward Heaven and began to pray to His Father. That was when it happened…his face changed and became different, His clothes turned whiter than the snow patches around us, bright and glowing in the sunlight like lightning. Then two men appeared, gloriously, they were Moses and Elijah, and began to speak to Him of his upcoming departure from Jerusalem.

"We had gotten very sleepy when He began praying after our hard climb, but then we woke up in the bright sunshine when we saw Him talking to the two men. As they were about to leave, Simon spoke up – He always began to talk when he was nervous – Simon Peter spoke up and said, ““Master, it’s good for us to be here! Let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” As usual, Peter didn’t realize what he was saying – that the Master, Moses, and Elijah were all the same and worthy to be worshiped in the same way as the false gods that countless people had built those little shrines and huts for on the mountain road, the ones we’d passed climbing the mountain.

"Well, while Peter was babbling on, a cloud came onto the mountain, it got very dark, and we began to be afraid. Then a Voice came from the cloud which said, “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!”

"When we looked back up, Moses and Elijah were gone. We – especially Peter – were very quiet as we walked back down the mountain. We did not tell anyone what we had seen until after the Master’s Resurrection. But it changed us. We had known that Jesus spoke to God, but something special happened that day when God spoke directly to us about Jesus. “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!” We began to listen much more closely to what He was saying. Just talking about it sends shivers up my spine. We wondered. WHO IS THIS MAN? "

… Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36 

The story of the Transfiguration is a pivotal story in the Gospels. The first three Gospels go into detail and even John refers to it in John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Peter wrote about it in 2 Peter 1:16-18: “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” That’s what Peter wrote, years later.

Clearly, the story was important to the disciples. Of course, when we realize just what happened, we begin to understand. The man they followed up the mountain was, as far as they knew, just another rabbi – smart, wise, energetic, even possibly the Messiah, the Savior of Israel – but just a man.

But for the three who watched on the mountaintop that day, Jesus became eternally different – God’s Son, recommended by God Himself to the three, who had been told directly by God to listen to Him – and there was no doubt that God had spoken! Plus, Moses and Elijah, the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Jewish history, men who had talked personally with God – these two men who were supposedly long dead or at least taken into Heaven – they had talked with Jesus right in front of the three.

It is like finding out that your Sunday School teacher is not just a godly man or woman – but is God’s Son or Daughter and holds a two-way conversation with God every morning, or, in a more earthly example, discovering that your postman is your favorite former president’s grandson, and they talk about world events every Tuesday and Thursday evening. It changes things. You develop a new respect for your friend, a certain awe. Where you might listen with one ear before, now, you want to hear all the stories. But Jesus wasn't just the grandson of a president - Jesus was Son of the Living God!

For the three disciples, it meant that they now not only respected Jesus, but could begin to worship Him, for if Jesus was truly the Son of God – and when God tells you this directly from a cloud on a mountaintop, you believe it – then Jesus the Son of God should be listened to most carefully and truly worshiped, recognized as worthy to be followed in all things.

And there, we have a disconnect, for most of us really have little idea of what it means to worship someone. Peter definitely was messed up in his idea of worship, when he thought he ought to build three shrines to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. So what is worship?

To the Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time, worship was one of the three pillars that holds up the Universe – the other two being the study of scripture and the performance of deeds of loving kindness. Worship was equated in their minds with animal sacrifices at the Temple because that was where God was to be found. You went to the Temple, paid your sacrifice, and God had been satisfied, your world could continue. But soon, the Temple was gone. Forty years after the disciples walked with Jesus, the Temple was destroyed. So how do you worship in a world where there is no Temple? How do you worship when you don’t know where God is to be found?

The ancient people of Palestine were always trying to answer this question about where to find God – that is why they built so many shrines and huts on the mountaintops – “the high places” that are referred to in I and II Kings - and in groves of big trees. That is why it seemed so right that Moses would go up on the mountain of Sinai and meet with God, with his face glowing so much when he came down that it had to be covered by a veil lest he frighten people. You find God on the mountaintop if you don’t have a Temple. And if you find God on the mountaintop, you build a small hut or shrine for God to live in so you can find God the next time you need Him.

We still do this, don’t we? Although we know in our head that God is everywhere, our culture and our heart tells us that God can only be found in certain places – a grove of redwoods, the top of Pike’s Peak, on Spruce Knob, in Cathedral State Park among the trees. We talk of finding God in our garden, and we even put special monuments and stones and signs and statues of angels in and around our homes so we will know where to find God. We look for God in our church buildings.

After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Jewish nation was terribly disturbed. Where do you find God without the Temple? How do you worship without being able to give animal sacrifice. So the rabbi’s began to talk about worship as being prayer. And prayer as one form of worship is a good idea. But Jesus was way ahead of the rabbis. But even today, we often are confused, because we still want to worship in the Temple, in the building. Stained glass and brass help us worship, it seems.

Learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for.
In the Temple, as part of the regular daily sacrificial routine, certain prayers were said to God by the priests and there were responses by the people. These prayers were fixed – These are the equivalent of our liturgical prayers, the prayers we find in the bulletin and the pastoral prayers I pray each week. These are the prayers of a community, praying together to worship God.

But, as you know, there are other types of prayers. For there is the prayer of an individual who comes to the altar at some point in a service to speak to the God that created him or her. When we pray at the altar, we are not limited to confessing some great sin. We are not limited to turning over our heart to Jesus. No, when we come to the altar, we may do so because we want to tell God how grateful we are for His ordinary, daily goodness, the provision of our daily bread, the home we have, the friends God has sent us. We don’t need to wait for the special blessings, the miraculous healing or deliverance, the new job, the winning of the lottery, the big things of life. No, we can and should pray our thanks, not for just what God gives us, but even for the simple goodness of God.

I have noticed that learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for. A new Christian only thanks God for big things like a home, a saved marriage, a deliverance from cancer. The mature Christian thanks God for the cup of water that came from the spigot this morning like every morning, the blue sky of a Wednesday morning, and the quietness of the night that allowed a good rest, the songs of the birds that greet the sun in the morning.

And there is the worship of song or poem, of reading scripture back to God, particularly of the Psalms. And this can truly lift us up just as much as it shows our devotion to God. So when you sing, sing strongly, for you are worshiping God with your music – even if it is off-key and non-musical, for we do not sing for the people around us, but we sing for God when we sing.

My friend Gerry Messenger called me up this week. Gerry is nearly 90 years old and worships at Quiet Dell. She has been a lay speaker for decades and was the person I could call on Saturday night to substitute for me if I was sick on Sunday morning, because she always has a sermon ready to go.

Gerry makes a fabulous lemon meringue pie – one of those pies that has 2-3 inches of meringue on top of a LEMONY base, with little pearl drops of liquid on top of a perfectly browned meringue. Her pies are famous – people at her church skip the main food line to grab a piece of her pie, take it to their seat, then go back to get in line because they don’t want to miss the pie.

Gerry just wanted to offer me a pie as a gift - I think because at a recent meeting I didn't get any of her pie.. So I took time and drove over Wednesday morning and met her in a parking lot – I felt like I was doing a drug buy (My wife says I was...) – and she gave me the pie. We talked a couple of minutes and traded hugs.

Why did I do this? I don’t need desserts – the sugar is bad for me and so I have to ration my sweets very carefully. In fact, I guess I average about one mint a day in sweets.

But I also know this. I know that this woman does what she does as part of her worship of God. When she bakes a lemon pie, she is using her gifts to present something to God, to say “thank you” to God for a full life guided by God. – I just happened to be the recipient of this particular pie. So I enjoyed the pie and let her have the joy of having done something for the God I represent. This is her worship.

You see, worship is about an interaction with God. Yes, it is about prayer – a conversation with our wisest friend. But it is also about willfully, joyfully doing what God would have us do – it is about quilting, about needlepoint, about singing as we work, about making a bird feeder, about planting tulip bulbs or spreading mulch.

• Worship is about creating a beautiful story, about building a company that helps people, about visiting those who are homebound, about repairing a friend’s front porch while they are at work.
• Worship can be about taking a photo of a sunset or grilling hot dogs for the kids in the neighborhood.
• Worship can be about bringing a pan of lasagna to your neighbor that you have always wanted to meet, especially when you see they can’t keep up their property because they are always working.
• Worship is about being generous, it is about giving of things, giving of time, giving of ideas to those other creatures of God that walk around – our friends – and those who could become our friends.

For when Christ died on the cross and returned, He gave the Holy Spirit to His closest disciples – and then, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came on all of the followers of Christ. God had left the Temple, God had left the mountain, God had gone into the heart of every believer, and now walked upon the earth. And we could now respond directly to God without finding and entering that Temple or climbing that mountain!

The age-old question of how and where to find God was answered in a new way for Christians – God could be found, not only in the Temple, not only on the mountain, not only in Holy Scripture – but God could be found in two-way prayer in your shower, in your car, in your living room, walking along the street, working in your garden, sitting at your desk, waiting in the doctor’s office. We get close to God when we practice two-way prayer with God, speaking our deepest desires and listening to God’s response. In the most mature Christians, the asking part of daily prayer is not a list of things desired – but simply a question: “What would You have me do today, Lord?”

In our 2 Corinthians reading, Paul tells us that when Moses came down from the mountain, Moses listened to the people and put a veil over his glowing face so they would not be reminded that he had stood in front of God, for that frightened them. And we still get nervous today when someone starts talking about God speaking to them, don’t we? We look for the exits, we begin to wonder if this person has "other issues", don’t we? It is because we want the veil between us and any reminder of God's presence, we don’t want to know that we can get close to God – we even sit far away from the altar, don’t we?

The apostle Paul points out that this veil still lies over hearts when the Law given to Moses is read, but it is set aside by Christ, when a person really turns to Christ, the heaviness, the darkness, the chains of the Law are lifted and the glory of the Lord shines forth. Paul says it is like looking in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image by that glory. Now, we can see with the light of the glory of God through the Spirit of the Lord and there is freedom. Or we can be focused upon the do’s and don’ts of the Law – and the veil blocks the glow. Look at the freedom Jesus gave us and see with the light of the glory of God!

Peter, James, and John saw the glory of Christ on the mountain that day and were changed! And so we see the glory of Christ on the mountain from time to time and it changes us.

We all have mountaintop experiences, times when the Spirit grabs us and shakes us, when joy hits our hearts and we want to shout rather than contain that joy. A worship service, a concert, a quiet reading of scripture or a sermon alone at home can give a wonderful emotional experience to us.

But worship is not about our emotions. Worship is not about our joy. There is nothing wrong with becoming emotional in worship, nothing wrong with raising hands, with dancing, with singing joyfully. But if our purpose in worship becomes to gain an emotional high, we have confused the horse and the wagon. For worship is a flow from us to God of our praise for God, our need for God, our desire for God. Truly, the more we praise God, need God and desire God, the more we will find our emotions rising. But that emotion needs to remain the effect of worship, not the goal of worship.

And yet we still need to come to worship expectant – expecting to hear from God – sometimes a wonderful emotional lift, yes! – but just as valuable to us as the joy is a dread feeling in the pit of our stomach in the middle of worship that tells us we have gotten off track with God’s will. – Did you notice that when God spoke to the disciples on the mountain, it was more of a correction than a compliment? – Other times, worship gives us just a quiet glow that says we are where we need to be, the smile of God is upon us, if you will.

But if we come to a worship service looking for that emotional high, it will not happen, just as the man or woman who seeks happiness will not gain it. That is striving for a high the same way an alcoholic or a drug addict looks for a high. "Do this, and you’ll be high." No! 

Happiness – and joy – come when we have chosen to do what our Creator desires of us – and when we know we have done what God asks. And so we find joy praising God together in prayer and in song, we find joy when we realize that God chose the passages of scripture this week because of something happening in our lives, and we find joy when we bow down at the altar rail in tears because we realize that God is listening to us, even us.

The disciples did not climb Mt Hermon that morning expecting to see and hear God. They did not expect a singular, once-in-their lives experience. They expected a difficult climb – which they got. They expected to be bored when Jesus began to pray – which they got. They even feel asleep! But God chose something else for them that day. And what God chose was enough to silence them during the long walk down.

Scripture does not record that the disciples ever walked up that particular mountain again. They did not need to – most mountaintop experiences are a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And even if they did go back there, God did not meet them there. God did not want to limit the disciples, for God knew that there would be disciples one day who could not travel to Mt Hermon on the Lebanon-Syria border. God wants to meet us everywhere. God is ready to meet us everywhere and anywhere – the question is where do we expect to see God? Are we willing to accept the correction from God as well as the joy, for God’s corrections are always for our good?

God does not want to only talk to us on the mountain. He wants to come into our home, our life. He wants to talk to us in our bedroom, in our car, at our desk, in the shower. God wants us to spend every waking minute talking to Him. God wants us to talk to him while we bake lemon pies because God wants to be our closest friend. And God wants us to listen to Him, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, God wants us to walk with Him in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, as He once did with Adam so long ago – and will again with us one day.

Will you take time today to walk or sit with God and talk with Him – just you and Him, no television, no internet, no music. Just you and Him talking together like a pair of old friends – not asking for anything except “Father, what would you like me to do?” For like all voices, the Voice of God is best heard in silence with focus and concentration on what the Voice is saying, taking time to understand,... not rushing,... not hurrying,... not worrying about the cares of the world. Glory is best appreciated by a slow study, not a quick glance.

You see, when Jesus walked off the mountain, Jesus left the dazzling glow behind, but He took with Him His glory. Jesus had changed on the mountain before the disciples, but it was the disciples who were changed the most, as it is when we see the glory of Christ, we are changed!

The disciples kept the glow of the mountain with them for the rest of their lives – it was now in their minds, unforgettable. And the same should be with us – carrying around the glory of the Son in our minds, as we walk with the Spirit of God in our heart, conducting our worship through our actions which are designed to bring glory to God – our praises, our humble petitions, our good deeds of loving kindness – and our tears when we find out how we have stumbled, when we have misspoken, when we have brought God down on the same level as those who worship idols.

Take the glow of the mountain with you today! Bow down before our Creator and speak with God in a two-way prayer. Worship the One worthy of worship.

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?