Happy Birthday Jesus

 December 20 2020

Luke 1:46-56, 2:1-14

         Last week the Ratchford’s blessed our church with two outside signs that said “Happy Birthday Jesus”.  Whenever I think about those words, “Happy Birthday Jesus” I remember going Christmas caroling when I was a kid. Our family belonged to Grange and our Grange had a Junior Grange, which was all of  the kids of the regular Grange members. The lady who kept us in line was named Lucille. Now every year around Christmastime all of the Junior Grange members and their parents would meet at Lucilles house to carpool to go out to sing Christmas Carols to the Grange members who were house bound or in the nursing home. After we finished up with the singing we would head back to Lucilles house to eat and fellowship. But before we did anything though we would gather around her kitchen table where there was a cake with a candle placed upon it and we would sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. It always struck me kind of funny, I mean this was the only place where I sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, but you know, it was so very right to do so because after all that is what Christmas is all about, the birth of Jesus.

         Our scripture today from Luke’s gospel is perhaps the best known story of the birth of Jesus. It is the same story that Charles Schultz insisted be a part of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. It is the story we know all so well, the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, their finding no place to lodge for the night having to spend the night in the stable. There in that most lowly of places the Christ child was born and Mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes and made a bed for him out of the feeding trough. Now this is not the only version of this story for as we know there is another version of the birth of Jesus that is found in the gospel of Matthew which has the account of the wise men instead of angels and shepherds. The gospel of Mark doesn’t have the story of the birth of Jesus which is kind of interesting all things considered. Finally, as we come to the gospel of John what we discover is that what John has done is to give us the story behind the story. John has included the story of Jesus birth but what John has done in his account is to strip away all the elements of the story to leave just the bare meaning of the birth of Jesus. It is John who makes us ask just what is it about this birth of Jesus that is so important for us to hang on to? What should catch our attention, the willingness of Mary to be the handmaiden of the Lord, or that there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the overcrowded Bethlehem or is it rather the humble setting of the stable which to us should be what we take away from the birth story of Jesus? Or is there something else that we should really be concerned with, perhaps it is the birth of Jesus itself while seemingly much like every other birth was actually nothing like any other birth before or since? This is what John wants to remind us of, the unusual nature of the birth of Jesus. This is why John begins his gospel account by telling us that the birth of Jesus had its beginnings not on earth but rather in heaven. John writes that Jesus the Christ was in the beginning and he is the Word, the Word that was with God and the Word that is God. It was this Word, John tells us, that became flesh and dwelt among us which I guess tells us something about the birth of Jesus but not much. What is more helpful is what John writes before he tells us that the Word became flesh. There he writes that the children of God are those who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. Here I believe that John is not just talking about those of us who consider ourselves children of God but he is more importantly speaking to us about Jesus, the firstborn child of God.The birth of Jesus was solely an act of God. His existence in our world came about through the work of the Holy Spirit. Much like the Spirit hovered over the chaos in the first chapter of Genesis to form creation, so also the Holy Spirit hovered over Mary, the moment of new creation. The first Adam as we are told in the second chapter of Genesis came into existence from the Earth. His origins we might say were earthly. But Jesus our deliverer, the last Adam, came into existence from heaven. Jesus was the Word that came forth from God, sent from God. While he came to existence through Mary we must not forget that what made the birth of Jesus so different from every other birth was that his birth was an act of God. This is what was the “new” in the good news of Jesus.

         This is why we speak of this time of Advent, Advent the word for coming. Jesus, the Son of God, came to us from beyond our earthly existence. Through a special creative act of the Holy Spirit the Son of God became one of us. Jesus, Son of God clothed himself in our fallen nature, our broken humanity in order to demonstrate the way that we might find deliverance out of the sin that  enslaves humanity. What may have not been apparent at his birth became so incredibly evident at his resurrection. There when Jesus walked out of the grave three days after his brutal death, the power of a life that was born from above was witnessed  by the followers of Jesus. The resurrection revealed the power of a life where God and man are united as one. It is the resurrection that shone a light back to the birth of Jesus to help us understand that it was the birth of Jesus that redefined life forever. No longer would life be thought of in merely flesh bound terms but now life would be known as its ability to bear the Holy Spirit and in that Spirit find a life set free by power from above.

         This is how Paul understood the birth of Jesus.  Paul wrote about the birth of Jesus but what he writes about is not the details of that birth but rather the impact that birth had for all people. In his letter that he wrote to the Galatians, Paul writes some rather odd ways about something that is pretty common, our faith. He tells us that before faith came we were held captive under the law imprisoned until the coming faith could be revealed. Here is this idea of Advent, but what was coming was faith. Hearing this we have to wonder what Paul means because it is quite evident that faith can be found throughout the Old Testament. This coming of faith that Paul speaks of thus can only be understood as being a way of speaking of Christ coming into the world, Christ being born as one of us. So it is very interesting that Paul uses this term “faith” as a way of speaking about Jesus and what Paul is telling us is that faith is Jesus and Jesus is faith. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?  If we weren’t certain that this is how Paul thought of it all we have to do is to continue reading and Paul goes on to say that the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer under a guardian. So to Paul what was born that night in Bethlehem was not just Jesus but faith. We often say that love came down at Christmas but here Paul is making it quite clear that not only love but faith as well arrived in the birth of Jesus. To understand this we have to remember that faith for Paul, as he defines it in the fourth chapter of Romans, is the belief that God is the one who gives life to the dead and the one who calls into existence the the things that did not exist. So for Paul, Jesus is the embodiment of this faith, the embodiment of God calling into existence through his word that which did not exist. What came into existence with the birth of Jesus was a human life that was born from above. Why this is so important for Paul is that he knew that the Spirit that caused Jesus to be born from above is the same Spirit that can cause us to be born from above. In other words, the Spirit that brought Christ into existence can make Christ exist in us. This is what Paul writes in the fourth chapter of Galatians, that when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.And because you are sons and daughters of God he has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” . So, this is what Paul understood that in a way, when Jesus was born we were born. 

This is the hope that John wrote about in the first chapter of his gospel that to all who did receive Jesus, to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God. John is saying, like Paul, that when we believe, when Jesus is our faith we too can be born of God.  So, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was not just a one and done kind of deal. No, it was just the beginning. There the Son of God came into the world so that through him those who placed their faith in him might become sons and daughters of God. So, again his birthday is in a way, our birthday. When he was born our hope of being born from above became a reality, a reality that becomes real for us by faith. The same Spirit that brought Jesus into existence brings Jesus to exist in us.

         It is important for us to understand that the significance of the birth of Jesus was that he was born from above, that because he was born from above we can be born from above. The reason why we being born from above is so important is that as Jesus tells us in the third chapter of John’s gospel, unless we are born from above we will not see the kingdom of God. In other words, without being born from above we cannot be a part of the new creation God is bringing about, a new creation that began that night in Bethlehem so long ago. So, when we are born from above, life in Gods kingdom is opened up to us. What this means for us to have life in God’s kingdom as Paul explains in the fourteenth chapter of Romans is righteousness, peace and joy, all of this is ours through the Holy Spirit. The life of righteousness  secures our future because now we have no fear of judgment but instead we know we have passed from death to life. This is why we can live with a living hope. The joy we experience living in Gods kingdom is the joy of knowing we are able to enter into the joy of our Master whom we serve. And the peace we have is a life secured by bonds of love, the love we have because God first loved us.This is the life we receive when the Holy Spirit comes upon the chaos of our life and through the power of God makes us a new creation, a person born from above.

         So we rightly sing, Happy Birthday Jesus! He was born from above through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was our frail humanity that Christ was clothed with but his life was different because of his oneness with his Heavenly Father. Through this unity with his Heavenly Father,  Christ overcame every temptation to sin, and was willing to offer himself through the Holy Spirit, a perfect sacrifice to God.  Jesus lived this life so that we too might have the chance to experience unity with our Heavenly Father and discover a life that can overcome the world . This is what happens when we too are born from above through the action of the Holy Spirit. So, this is why we celebrate the birth of Jesus because his being born through an act of God opened the way for all of us to be born from above. When we are united to Christ by faith then the Holy Spirit creates a new life in us. This life is one where we know God as our Heavenly Father and through the Spirit we cry Abba, Father. When we know God as our Father then at long last we know each other as sisters and brothers in the family of God.  And because our life has come to us from heaven we have the blessed assurance that in the end we will be welcomed home into the heavenly mansions of God all because of Jesus born in Bethlehem so long ago. Praise be to God!Amen.

The Joy of Knowing Jesus

December 13 2020

Isaiah 61:1-11

         Well, one of the great things about this Christmas season is that it is a welcome gift of something normal in a year that has been anything but normal. The same old TV specials are there to watch, you know,  The Charlie Brown Special with its sad little Christmas tree, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas- the original version with all The Who’s down in Whoville and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the Bergermeister Meisterberger. Even though we have watched them too many times to count there is a comfort in their old familiarity.

         Then of course are all the old Christmas songs. In addition to the Christmas Carols there of course are ones like I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas, or Jingle Bells or Little Drummer Boy or Do You Hear What I Hear? and Silver Bells. The minute you hear these songs from the past it seems like you are transported back to happier better days. 

         So it is with the Christmas story itself. It is an old story, one that we have heard countless times. We know of how the angel came to Mary telling her of how she was going to bear the child who would be the Savior of the world. We remember how Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem and how their was no room in the inn. We can not forget how the Holy Couple had to find rest in a stable and there in the most humble of places, Jesus was born. We of course cannot forget the angels appearing to the shepherds telling them that this day in the village of Bethlehem was born a Savior. And last but not least, we cannot forget the Wise Men who came from afar by following the star.

         You see, Christmas, thankfully is a very familiar holiday and this brings us such comfort especially this year of all years. But this familiarity is a two edge sword because while we know the story so well what might happen is that we forget just what is all of this supposed to mean. We remember the who, the what, the where, when and the how almost to the exclusion of the why. Yes, Jesus was born, this is of course what we are celebrating but do we remember just why it was such an earth shattering event that Jesus was born? Have we become so complacent with the season that we have forgotten just how amazing and awe inspiring was and is this event of the birth of Jesus? The thing is is that if we would  come with fresh eyes to just what God did so long ago on that Silent Night we should come away transformed by the impact of what God has done for us. 

         This is why this season of Advent is so crucial for us as followers of Jesus who always stand in need of being awaken again and again to the hope we have been given in the gift of the Christ child. This is why our scripture for this week, this sixty first chapter of Isaiah is so important for us to hear. It is this chapter that Jesus himself tells us in the fourth chapter of Luke is fulfilled with his coming. So, this chapter is all about Jesus, who he is and why it is that he came to us so long ago. 

         This sixty first chapter holds a place of prominence in the book of Isaiah that may not be evident from a quick read through but if you study the book of Isaiah starting at the fifty sixth chapter and ending with the sixty sixth chapters what you find is that all of these chapters point to this chapter, the sixty first chapter. It is as if Isaiah was doing his best to point his readers to what he considered the most important message that he had been given. Not only that, there are parts of what has been written in this sixty first chapter that point to other chapters so that was disclosed earlier now is brought once again to the fore front. We encounter this in the very first sentence that states, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me…” Isaiah here is stating something that we find way back in the eleventh chapter of his book. There we read, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him…” The phrase the “the stump of Jesse” refers to the covenant God made with David that there shall always be one of David’s offspring on the throne of Israel. What happened though was that the descendants of David were corrupt and God punished them by allowing Babylon to carry them into exile. So it appeared that that covenant had failed, the house of David was like a tree that had been cut down. But in this eleventh chapter of Isaiah we find that out of this stump that seems so lifeless there will come one last king on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest. This is very much like when David was anointed king as we hear in the sixteenth chapter of the first book of Samuel where we learn of how Samuel took a flask of oil and anointed David and we are told that the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. The point of all of this is that when we learn that the Spirit of the Lord is resting upon this person in the sixty first chapter of Isaiah we are to know that who Isaiah is referencing is the last king of the lineage of David, the one who will come forth like a sprout out of the long dead stump of the house of David.

         Yet, this one spoken of in the sixty first chapter is not only the long awaited king he is the one Isaiah writes extensively about known simply as the Servant. We first hear of this servant in the forty second chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah writes, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;” So, here in the sixty first chapter, Isaiah brings these two strands of thought together in one individual, the King who is also the Servant of God. This is how this chapter begins with two ideas that don’t seem to belong together, this idea of kingship, this exalted one upon the throne, and this idea of servanthood, the one who is humble and lowly. So right here at the beginning of this chapter, Isaiah is challenging the typical views that someone can’t be both an exalted king and a lowly servant and instead states that this one who is coming will most assuredly be the embodiment of both.

         Now, what this king-servant is going to do is clearly spelled out in the following verses of this sixty first chapter. This Servant-King is going to bring good news to the poor, to the afflicted. Here again, Isaiah is pointing us to something that he has written earlier.In the fifty second chapter we read, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.’ This then is the good news that those who are afflicted are to hear that their God is king. Now hearing this and knowing that the one who is to be anointed as king we can see that this one who is coming is none other than God himself who comes to reign but he will do so as a servant which further should never stop to amaze us. When God is king then those who are poor and afflicted will have at last hope that they will experience the justice and righteousness that they hunger and thirst for.

         The Servant- King though will do more than bring the good news that our God reigns but he will also act because he has, as our scripture tells us, been sent to bind up the broken hearted. The words, “bind up” point us to the first chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah speaking of the state of God’s people tells us, “The whole head is sick  and the whole heart diseased. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up…”So, here Isaiah is stating that this Servant-King is coming to us reaching into the depths of who we are and bringing back together our hearts that have been divided by their loyalty to our base desires and our desire to be true to God unable to decide which voice shall command our attention.

         This servant-king we are told in this chapter, is going to be the one to proclaim liberty to the captives, to let out into light those who sit in darkness. Here Isaiah writes something similar to what he had written in the forty second chapter that his servant was to be a light for the nations, to open the eyes that were blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Once again this one that Isaiah writes about here in this sixty first chapter he is the one who is going to come down into the depths where light cannot reach and bring the light and raise up those imprisoned there so thy might live in his light.

         So can you feel the joy expressed in these few verses from Isaiah? This Servant-King is coming to announce the good news that our God reigns. No more will the poor and afflicted be used and abused by the strong and powerful because now God will bring his justice and righteousness upon the earth. This Servant-King will take the sickness and disease that afflicts people and replace this with health and wholeness. And those who were living imprisoned by a life of sin, living in depths where light cannot reach, these will be be set free to live in the light by this Servant-King who is willing to come to them right where they are at. Yet this is not all because Isaiah goes on to tell us what we might understand as the cause, the power that brings about the healing and freedom making them to be a reality in our life. Isaiah tells us that this Servant-King will proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Here we must pause and consider just what is being said here. Just why is it that at long last we have been found to be favorable in the eyes of the Lord, that we might be found to be accepted by God even though we are people diseased by sin, whose hearts are divided, even though we are people imprisoned by the darkness of living far from the glory of God? The answer is that this Servant-King has done something incredible for us. Isaiah tells us in the fifty second and fifty third chapters about the work of this servant of God that he was the one who has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows. We esteemed him stricken,Isaiah tells us, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed. And further in the fifty third chapter we are told, “God shall see the anguish of the servant’s  soul and be satisfied; by his experiencing pain and suffering shall the righteous one, my servant make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.” This is the reason for their being a time of God’s favor because the Servant-King has taken upon himself our sins and our transgressions. It was his wounds that brought us healing; it was his going down into the darkness of death this is the reason that we are set free to live in the light.In this work of the Servant-King, God wanted to make certain once and for all, that he accepts us just as we are, right where we are. It is this knowing that God accepts us that changes everything.Now we know a secure place of refuge for our soul. Here is the God who has done the unthinkable to make so that we an come to him and trust him with all of our life no longer putting any confidence in our own strength or abilities. Now we know the God who accepts us will provide all we need so that anxiety, fear and worry will no longer dominate our life. We are set free to hear the word of God and obey that word so that we live the righteous life that God created us to live. This is how we have confidence on the day of God’s vengeance, that day of judgment. This is when God will once and for all deal with the evil that has ruined his good creation. On that day we will be safe when, by faith, we place our trust in what the Servant-King has done for us.This is why instead of mourning we have gladness, instead of a faint spirit we have shouts of praise for our God. The Servant-King has dealt with our transgressions and our sins  so that we might be called oaks of righteousness. Here again Isaiah is pointing to something he wrote in the first chapter. There Isaiah tells us, “For they shall be ashamed by the oaks that you desired; and you shall blush for the gardens you have chosen. For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers and like a garden without water.” Here Isaiah describes how the oaks became a source of idol worship to the people of Israel who had turned their back on God. The result is that in doing so is that they had cut themselves off from their very source of life. But now through the sacrificial work of the promised Servant-King their sin will be dealt with so that they can at long last return back to God. Now those cut off from life can experience healing through what the Servant-King had done for them that they can find life through him and become oaks of righteousness, strong, immovable, steadily growing upward through the power of God who accepted them and loved them. These Isaiah tells us will be the planting of the Lord and they exist to bring glory to God. This glory as we find in the thirty fourth chapter of Exodus is that God is a God who is slow to anger, a God who is merciful and gracious, a God abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. When we bring glory to God then, we have lives that display this same glory, lives that are slow to anger, lives of mercy and grace, lives abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is a life of righteousness that finds its life in the eternal life of God.

         It is this righteous life that is to be be so different than a life driven by one’s base desires that others will long to have this life for themselves. This is what Isaiah is trying to convey when he tells us that strangers and foreigners will come to the people of Israel to join in their work of bringing God’s salvation to all the world.  The people of Israel will once again know themselves in the way God described them at Mt. Sinai a royal kingdom of priests, people through whom the salvation of God comes to the world. Isaiah says that no more will the people of God experience shame, that experience of judgment at the hands of others but instead Isaiah tells them they will receive a double portion. What is lost in translation here is that this term a “double portion” describes the share of the inheritance for the first born son. So, what is meant by their receiving a double portion is that God considered them to be like a first born son. No wonder they would have everlasting joy! In knowing that God considered them to be like a first born son then they also had to understand that God was saying that he was their Heavenly Father. Like a story we know all too well, when we find ourselves in a far country and we turn to go home what we find is that our Heavenly Father welcomes us home with arms wide open. Much as Isaiah describes, our Heavenly Father takes and clothes us with the garments of salvation and he wraps his robe of righteousness around us.  This is why we rejoice in the Lord, why our life is high and lifted up because of what God through his Servant-King has done for us. 

         This then is why we rejoice at the birth of Jesus. This Jesus born at Bethlehem is none other than the promised Servant-King. This is the one who came into our world to bring good news to us who are poor in spirit, afflicted by sin. This is the one who has come from heaven to bind up our broken hearts. This is the one who is the light of the world who has come to a world imprisoned by the darkness of evil and death. This is the one who declares that now is the time of God’s favor because he is the one who not only came to serve but also to die upon a cross to bear away our sins, to deal once and for all for our transgressions. This he did so that no longer do we have to fear the day of God’s vengeance, the day of judgment because in accepting the acceptance of God we have been judged to be righteous. Now because of this Jesus we can know ourselves as oaks of righteousness, strong immovable for ever alive because of Jesus. Through Jesus we can know God as our Heavenly Father who welcomes us home, who clothes us in garments of salvation and wraps a robe of righteousness around us. All of this is why we rejoice and sing with gladness at the birth of Jesus our beloved Servant-King. Amen.

  

Something to Cry About

 December 6 2020

Joel 2:12-13, 28-32

         Well, here we are in the second week of Advent 2020.It is this year that has changed so much of how we live and it seems like the way we celebrate Christmas this year will be no exception. With COVID getting worse all of the normal gatherings that we would attend have now been canceled which just seems to put a damper on the festive spirit. What makes it even worse is that we really could have used some of that festive spirit to take our minds off of all of the uncertainty that has become the norm of what we are living in. This is why having this season before the season of Christmas starts to make a lot more sense. Perhaps we do need time to reflect and remember just why Jesus was sent to us. Maybe we need time to understand that it is precisely times just as the times we are living in, now more than ever these times are when we become awakened once again to the real importance of Jesus.

         When you hear our scripture for this second Sunday of Advent that comes to us from Joel, you might wonder just what does weeping and mourning and repentance have anything at all to do with Christmas the season of joy and merriment? Yet in a year such as we have been through where over two hundred and seventy five thousand people have succumbed to the coronavirus, where racial strife has demonstrated the underlying division and hatred that we would just as soon ignore and in a year where there has been so much political controversy perhaps we might have to admit that the prophet Joel, with his words of grief and mourning, he just might have something to say to us as we prepare our hearts for Jesus.

         Joel is one of what are referred as the Minor prophets. You have the four major prophets in Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and then after them come the twelve minor prophets whose books are much shorter and whose works cover much less time. Joel is one of these lesser prophets whose book is only three chapters long yet within this very condensed work there are a lot of important truths. Like with all prophets, we are told that the word of the Lord came to Joel. This is what prophets do, God speaks to them and they in turn speak to the people of God. Now the occasion for God speaking to Joel is that the land of Judah has experienced devastation through swarms of insects. In the first chapter of Joel we are told that four different types of locusts, the cutting locust, the swarming locust, the hopping locust and the destroying locust have swept down upon the land devouring everything stripping the fields clean. This meant that in turn there was a famine, a shortage of food. Now, for those familiar with the law that was given to Moses, they would have remembered the words written in the twenty eighth chapter of Deuteronomy where Moses tells the people of Israel that one of the things that they could expect if they failed to obey the voice of God is that they would carry much seed into the field but gather little because the locust would come and consume it. This is what Joel was doing reminding the people of God that this devastation they were experiencing had been forewarned. 

         Now what made the devastation so problematic was that the grain and animal sacrifices that were necessary to bring before God on account of their sin had been destroyed. The Temple served as a symbol of Eden of the fruitful a abundant world where all was right with God. The locusts had turned their land into a wilderness and what the people desired is to go back to an abundant and fruitful existence but this could not be done within the means provided by the priests at the Temple. This meant that they were stuck in this world without grain, without bread, without the basic means of staying alive.

This brings us then to the second chapter the twelfth verse, where we hear God tell his people that they are to turn to him with all of their heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. They were to rend, or tear their hearts not their clothing.Now, if we pause for a moment to think about what God is implying here it becomes rather obvious that God is telling them to turn back to him with an acknowledgment that their disobedience has led them to death. The actions of fasting, weeping and mourning and the tearing of one’s clothes were actions done by people experiencing profound grief. Fasting was merely the inability to eat because one is overwhelmed by sorrow. Weeping and mourning are natural reactions to the loss of a loved one and the tearing of one’s clothes was done as an outward symbol displaying to the world that they had experienced a terrible loss. Now in this last action, God tells his people to skip the whole theatrics of ripping your clothes to shreds in order to get people to show you some sympathy. This is much like Jesus told his disciples in the sixth chapter of Matthew that when they would fast they were not to look gloomy and disfigure their faces so that their fasting might be seen by others. Instead when they fasted they were to anoint their head and wash their faces that your fasting might not be seen by others but instead might be seen by their Heavenly Father who is in secret. This is very similar to what God expects when he says to rend our hearts. God wants our focus to be on him not on what others might think about our grief. We are to confess to God that the sorrow experienced has been caused by by the base desires that reside within our heart that need to be torn away otherwise death will be the result.This is the same thing James teaches us in the first chapter of his letter, that each person is tempted when they are lured and enticed by their own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death. John in the second chapter of his first letter puts it this way, “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes  and pride in possessions these are not from our Heavenly Father but from the world and this world with its desires is passing away, this world is dying out but whoever does the will of the Father lives with him forever. It is as Paul explains it in the seventh chapter of Romans that we are enslaved by sin to such a degree that we cannot even do the good we know to do. What we are left with is a body of death.All of these scriptures help us understand why the language of grief, the fasting, weeping and mourning is expected because this is the truth of their situation before God; they are in fact the real walking dead. This is why God tells them to rend their hearts, to tear these desires from their innermost being because of the sorrow and grief that they have caused in their lives.

         So, if we stand back and look at the situation in the book of Joel what we see is the mercy hidden within the curses of God. The famine brought about by the plagues of locusts caused the people of Israel to pump the brakes on their ordinary everyday life which was drifting further from God, veering down that wide road that leads to destruction. As the noted author C.S. Lewis put it, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” The message God shouted to his people was that they were to assume the position of death because this is where they were headed. The sin that brought about the plague though, was done when everything was all right in their word. God’s warning had a hard time getting through to them until they watched their grain be devoured and the bread they needed for life become a memory. The pain of their hunger, the pain of knowing that death was closer than ever, this pain is where the voice of God came through loud and clear. Is it becoming clear just why this scripture is so important for us, those living out the new normal of twenty twenty? It is easy for us to make life all about the fulfillment of our desires right up until our world gets turned upside down by unprecedented events. Then in the pain of constant uncertainty, overwhelming sickness and death, in a world full of racial and political strife, in this pain, in this season, God truly is speaking to us this year through a megaphone. In our pain, God is crying out to us to come back to him. As we read further in the second chapter of Joel, “Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…” What is recorded here is the name of God, his unchanging character. We first read of God’s name in the thirty fourth chapter of Exodus where Moses asks to see the glory of God. God places Moses in a cleft in the rock because no one can look on God’s glory and live and there Moses hears God speak to him. God speaks to Moses about himself and God tells Moses that he is a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. You see what God was saying is that this is what the glory of God is, it is His unchangeable nature, the one perfect constant in a world that is constantly changing. Just as God did in the days of Joel, when our world is shaken God pleads for us to come to Him and find life in his unshakeable kingdom. When we turn back to God we leave behind a life of fear and sin and death to experience a life where we bear the name of God.

         Life is the reward for those who realize that there is no life apart from God.We must never forget that Jesus teaches us in the sixth chapter of John that he is the bread of God who came down from heaven and gives life to the world. Now we have to stop and meditate on what Jesus is saying to us here. When he declares that he came down from heaven to give life to the world what he is implying is that there is no life on this earth apart from him.We can understand how this is so when we remember that in the first chapter of John’s gospel that we are told that Jesus is the Word, the word that is with God, the very word that is God. All things were made through him and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men.So life is what entered into our world on Christmas morning. That is a mind blowing way to think about Jesus yet I believe that this is what this season of Advent is to do, it is to make us ask ourselves once again, is Jesus really our life? Are we really holding fast that it is Jesus and nothing else that is our life?

         Jesus goes on to further explain in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel that  as those who come to him the bread of life, they shall not hunger, and whoever believes in him shall never thirst. This is so different from in the book of Joel where earthly bread had run out and the people were hungering. The bread ran out because in their making the stuffing of their faces their sole goal in life they drifted far from God. But when we turn to God, make him our one desire, then Jesus tells us, the anxiety and worry that drive our base desires diminishes. This is because when we come to Jesus and make him our life we have a life built upon the faithfulness of God. So when Jesus is our bread of life we have life of peace and blessing.

         This life of peace and blessing is what Joel prophesied would one day be given without measure to everyone. In the beginning of the third chapter of Joel we hear God tell his people “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” This is what Jesus was referring to when again from the sixth chapter of John, Jesus again using this idea of the bread of heaven tells the people, “This is the bread of heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread I give for the world is my flesh.” This was a hard saying for his audience to understand and it still is for us today. But as Jesus explained to his disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words I have spoken are spirit and life.” This teaching of Jesus has to be held on to when we hear in the seventh chapter of John, Jesus cry out in the midst of the Temple, “Have faith in me for out of my heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this Jesus said about the Spirit which those who had faith in Jesus were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given  because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Here, after seven hundred years, the promise God gave to Joel that he would pour out his Spirit of all flesh was finally going to be fulfilled. The only way though that the Spirit could come as a mighty living river is as Jesus said that he had to be glorified. Where would the world see his glory, see the true embodiment of the name of God, to see one who was slow to anger, one who was gracious and merciful, one who overflowed with steadfast love and faithfulness? Where could we say that the world saw the most clear and evident portrayal of a life that bore the name of God, well, obviously we would have to say at the cross. It was there at the cross, as Jesus himself foretold, that Jesus gave his flesh, gave up his desires, gave up what his strength could do, and relied solely upon his Heavenly Father to vindicate him. And his Heavenly Father did prove that the life of Jesus was the life victorious when Jesus walked out of the grave three days later. Jesus gave up his flesh upon the cross so that he could the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who would pour out upon the world without measure the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of life that Joel spoke of so long ago. When Jesus spoke of needing to eat the living bread that comes down from heaven what he meant is that it is in the Spirit that they find their whole source of life which we make our life by faith.

         This promise of God’s Spirit being poured out on all flesh found in the book of Joel gives us hope that no more do we have to fear condemnation because of our slavery to sin. No more must we like the people of Israel feel the shame of the curses God brought against them for their sin. Now, the death of Jesus has broken the power of sin; we have died to a life held captive by our flesh and its desires. Now we have risen to a new life whose power is the very power of God. Where Joel and the people of Israel faced a severe famine because locusts had eaten the grain and left them without any bread needed for life we instead have been given Jesus who is our bread of life. Jesus is our source of life, a life he promises will be a life that lives forever.

         So as we prepare ourselves once again for the coming of Jesus may we remember that Jesus, is the bread that came down from heaven to give life to the world. It is easy to begin to believe that life is the life we make by our flesh, by our effort, a life driven by our desire but as God’s word assures us this life is an illusion for we are more dead than alive when we listen to anything but the word of God. No, life, the life that lives forever is as Joel saw so long ago, a life empowered by the Holy Spirit.  It is this Holy Spirit that we must find to be our true source of life, the life given to us that first Christmas. May we once again turn to the God who loves us and find our life in him. Amen! 

         

 

Count it all joy…

 November 29 2020

Daniel 6

         Well, Thanksgiving is over so now we can legitimately get out the Christmas decorations and play incessantly the Johnny Mathis and Mariah Carey Christmas music until our ears bleed. At least that is the general consensus of the general public everyone that is except the die hard church goers who have not forgotten that we have to go through the season of Advent to at last get to the season of Christmas. The thing is that most people don’t know what to do with Advent. I mean it isn’t like we can put on our favorite Advent album and listen to our favorite Advent music while we make plans about what we are going to do this year during Advent. All most people know is that the church is kind of a kill joy when it insists on telling us to pump the brakes on Christmas because we first must have this season whose name means “Coming”. Now some think that we are to prepare for Christ’s first coming and some believe that we are to prepare ourselves for Christs second coming but either way what this season forces us to do is to keep Christmas about Christ and to remember just why it was that he came and why it is that he will come again. Once we define Advent like this it isn’t so hard to see why it is so important that we have this season before Christmas because its kind of obvious that Jesus starts to get lost in all that the world has made out of Christmas. I mean you have Jesus who is born in poverty in very humble circumstances being the cause of one of the most hedonistic and indulgent times of the year and it becomes kind of obvious that somewhere along the line there has been a serious disconnect.

         So, with that we begin this season of Advent to reconnect the coming of Jesus with how we celebrate and live into what his birth is really all about. Now, as I have said before, I follow what is called a narrative lectionary which is just a big name for a list of scriptures that week after week give us the big overarching story found in the Bible. This is a story first and foremost about God and secondly, the Bible is about us. The reason I try and follow the scriptures that they have for each given week is that it forces me to speak about parts of the Bible I would just as soon not preach about. Yet to be honest, it isn’t healthy to just pick and choose which Bible verses that we want to hear and ignore those that we would rather not delve into. Besides that, it is a challenge to be given a given scripture and to meditate on it to discover just what does this scripture has to say to us at this time, in this season and especially now, in this year that we are living in. I say all this so you join with me in wondering just what does the story of Daniel in the lion’s den have to do with this first Sunday in Advent? When I say that using this set of scriptures is a challenge you can begin to see what I mean. There are a few things that help to make sense of this scripture story and how it relates to Jesus and the first is, that the problem Jesus came into the world to address is a problem that has existed from chapter three of Genesis and it runs the whole entire length of scripture especially in the Old Testament. The second important thing that helps to make sense of scripture is to use scripture to interpret scripture especially to use New Testament scriptures to shine light upon Old Testament scriptures. With that being said, I want to let the second through the eighth verses of the first chapter of the letter of James to help us connect the story of Daniel in the lion’s den with the coming of Jesus. Sounds interesting doesn’t it?

         So, here is what we read in the letter of James: “Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds.” Right off the bat we are confronted with two ideas that just do not seem like they should go together, namely these ideas of joy and trials. We all, I imagine, desire joy, I mean this is what we sing that Jesus has brought joy to the world. But for most of us, this joy we are looking for we want in the absence of trials not in the midst of them. What most of us are looking for is a little happiness in a world doing its best to make us hurt. Yet it is here that we are reminded as to why Jesus came and that is that we live in a world that tests our faith. Ours is a broken world; this goes it out saying. It is hard to hang on to this idea that the goodness of God is going to prevail when we see the overwhelming presence of evil in our world. What is important is just how do we react to life in this broken and evil world? One way that people deal with life in a fallen world is to just deny as much as possible the hurt that they experience and to do everything possible to make themselves as comfortable as they can.

         This leads us to the back story of of Daniel’s trial of faith. To understand the importance of Daniel trusting God even as he is thrown into the lion’s den we first have to remover just why it was that the people of Israel found themselves living as exiles in Babylon. Why was it that God had allowed the Babylonian army to sweep down upon Judaea and Jerusalem and carry his people thousands of miles away? As you begin to study just what it was that they did wrong what you discover is that their problem is a universal one, the problem as to what do we do with the hurt we experience from living in a broken world. The people of Israel did what people still do today they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible. They were living the, eat, drink and be merry, kind of life. Yet what happens when people begin with satisfying their base desires is that this life destroys the relationships we have with others as they become mere means to our ends of being comfortable. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have enough just as long as I have all I want. In the same way when we are solely focused on having a comfortable life now then we expect God to be the ultimate power to be the fulfillment of our desires. You see when we think that life is about all about the satisfaction of our base desires so that we can be as comfortable in a world where the brokenness is always out to bring us pain then life is going to become all about us. Life is going to be one where God and others will be used instead of enjoyed. This is what happened to the people of Israel and God brought his judgment against living such a life. What God did was to place his people in a situation where they were not able  to pursue their own comfort at the expense of everybody else, to place them in a strange land where they ended up being the ones who were used to bring comfort to others. God placed them in this situation so that once again they would seek him first, to put life in its proper order. When we make God and his kingdom our first desire what we discover is that we will have contentment not comfort. In God we find the one unbroken one in a world of brokenness, the one who is trustworthy in a world where very little can be trusted. What the people of Israel discovered while in exile is that in the midst of their pain, confusion and sorrow this is where they found God. They also discovered that when their relationship of God was right then their relationships with the other people in their life became the way God expected them to be. This is why it was said of Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps because he had an excellent spirit in him. Daniel had first established his relationship with God, and then because he found contentment trusting God, Daniel dealt with people in a different manner, one where he could treat them with respect. So, of course the other presidents and satraps who were living the life which looks out for number one, Daniel was making them uncomfortable and when life is all about comfort, being uncomfortable was not a good thing. So they started looking for a way to eliminate Daniel which wasn’t so easy because his life lived with a faithful God made him a faithful man. So, what to do? Well, they decided that they would get the king to sign an ordinance that anyone who prayed to prayed to anyone else but the king would be thrown into the lion’s den. They did this because they knew that Daniel was a man of God who prayed faithfully to his God three times a day. So, they thought, problem solved.

         Well, when the king signed the decree that for the next thirty days everyone should exclusively pray to him, what do you think Daniel did? He went home and did what he had always done, he prayed. He prayed not in secret which may have made his life so much easier. No, instead he knelt down besides an open window in full view of a watching world and he prayed three times every day just as he had always done. What we are not told is just what exactly were the words spoken by Daniel as he prayed with the certainty that as he did so he was breaking the law which was punishable by death. There in his room, Daniel’s faith was on trial, it was being tested to see if it was for real. Would Daniel demand that God save him from the certain death that awaited him or would Daniel yield his very life to God to be used by God for his glory? This is the very essence behind what is meant when we read in Deuteronomy chapter six, that we are to love God with our very life. To love God with our life means that we realize that when we come before God we, being created by God, we cannot demand anything of the God who created us. All we can do is to give back to God the life God first gave to us. This is the what lies behind the teaching of James about the trials that we face, the testing of our faith. The trial, the test we are ultimately are going to have to face is are we willing to give our life back to the God who first gave this life to us? The end result of having our faith tested and tried as Daniel did is that we might develop endurance. The word translated as “endurance” here in James is a compound word which means to live under, as in to live under the hurt and suffering that are just part of the deal of living in a broken world. This means we don’t fight against the pain and suffering nor do we try to run away from the hurt and pain of this world through a life of denial. No, we live under this suffering and pain and hurt of this world because through our faith in God we have found a place of refuge. When we entrust our life to God we know that despite the afflictions that are inevitable in this life, our life remains secure because our life is grounded upon the unmovable God. This is what Daniel understood as he prayed and waited the inevitable outcome of his faith, the being thrown into the lion’s den at the hands of his enemies. What is interesting is that the faith of Daniel was a powerful witness to the king who told Daniel that he hoped that the God that Daniel served might deliver from certain death. 

         The king was troubled all night knowing that it was by his hands that Daniel had been given a sentence of death. The king unlike Daniel had no certainty of what the one true living God was able to do. Thus we can hear the anguish in the kings voice when the next morning upon reaching the lion’s den, the king cried out, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” What joy the king must have experienced when from out of the lion’s den came the voice of Daniel who exclaimed, “O king live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion’s mouths and they have not harmed me because I have been found blameless before him…” Daniel speaks of being found blameless before God which is what James teaches us is supposed to be the outcome of our endurance, our remaining under the suffering that we have when we live in this broken world. What our willingness to trust in God is supposed to create in us, despite the pain and hurt that this world produces, is a life God has always expected when he first created us. James uses the words “perfect” and “complete” but they have the same meaning of the word blameless that Daniel used. When are faith remains strong despite of the trials of this world this is when we become the people God created us to be, people who truly lack nothing. The way Daniel knew that he had it all was because there in the lion’s den, in the midst of the most fear-inducing trial he would ever face, Daniel keep the faith and it was there in the most unlikely place, a lion’s den, there Daniel experienced the closeness of heaven. Daniel reports how an angel had come and closed the mouths of the lions. Daniel experienced salvation in a real and powerful way which was the result of his faith. What Daniel had received was the very real presence of God with him through the one sent by God. Now, through looking at this experience of Daniel we can begin to understand how these two seemingly opposing ideas, the idea of joy and the idea of trial, how these two make sense together. You see, when our faith is tested and found to be strong, unwavering without doubt this is when God becomes more real than ever. There in those times that test our faith we receive a certain blessed assurance of the presence of God when our faith is found to be as unmovable as the God we believe in. Here is where we discover the difference between joy and happiness. We might put it like this: Happiness is achieved; joy is received. Happiness is something we must pursue, to seek out and make happen with our own effort. But joy is a given, a gift we did not expect, the gift of the presence of God, touching our lives. God gives himself to us, not in those times where hurt, suffering and pain are absent but right there in the worst that this world has to offer. It is there, when we choose to to continue to believe in the light in spite of the darkness, this is when God gives us the present of his presence. What joy it is to be given the fullness of God abiding with us, to know with him we truly lack nothing. This is the contentment that Paul wrote of in the fourth chapter of Philippians, “I have learned that in whatever situation, I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You see, life in a broken world is not about denying the hurt and doing your best at making yourself comfortable. No, life in a broken world is all about loving God first, finding by faith in him a strength that empowers us to have peace and contentment right in the midst of the hurt and pain we might experience. 

         This peace and contentment we can have by faith which we can experience whether we find ourselves in the lion’s den or our living room comes to us as a gift, the gift of God’s presence. This is why we were given the gift of Jesus so that through him we might know the forgiveness and acceptance of God, and know that in the name of Jesus we can experience the power of new life, a life of joy. Yet, like every other gift, the gift of new life Jesus gives, this life of joy, this can only be ours if we have a faith which pasts the tests we face. As James teaches us, the person who doubts should not suppose that they will receive anything from the Lord. So, this time of Advent is our time to strengthen our faith. As a man who once encountered Jesus begged him, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.” You see if our unbelief is evident then we must come to Jesus and plead for faith.  The whole reason Daniel could face the lion’s den is that his was a life marked by prayer. Continuously crying out to a God who is faithful results in a stronger faith in us. This then is where we must begin in our preparation for the coming of Jesus, in prayer, in faith counting it all joy these things in life that test our faith for by faith we receive the greatest gift, the very presence of God. Amen!

         

Taking God’s Word to Heart

 November 22 2020

Jeremiah 31:31-34

         Well, by now I imagine everyone’s Thanksgiving menu is probably set. My daughter Elizabeth has created a spreadsheet for our Thanksgiving spread where we can all put down what we plan on bringing to the party. Now, everybody kind of expects that there will be turkey, that’s a given. Then you probably have some kind of veggie dish like corn or a green bean casserole. And of course you have to have some kind of starch, mash potatoes or noodles or both. Last but not least is dessert perhaps pie, most likely pumpkin to top everyone off to full to overflowing. What is most likely not given much thought is what kind of bread will be served to go with the meal. It’s kind of interesting that one of our families favorite memories of Thanksgiving centers around the bread we ate more specifically the rolls that we had for our dinner. My sister and her family were coming up from Columbus and she said one of the things she would bring for dinner was the rolls. Now, when our family thinks about rolls our thoughts turn to soft doughy little balls of bread. So, we were a little perplexed when my sister shows up with hard rolls and when I say that that they were hard I mean that they like a rock. I mean you needed tools to break them open and you had to be careful how you ate them or you could have chipped a tooth. They did taste good but they were just so hard that our family just wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. At least they created some memories of Thanksgiving that still make us laugh.

         Well, our experience with those hard rolls just proves that while we like to have bread with our meal it really isn’t the main event. We are blessed to have so many other options when it comes to eating. But it hasn’t always been like this. There was a time when bread was the main staple on many peoples table. We  to keep that in mind to understand how radical it must have been for these same people when they heard Moses tell them that the reason God had fed them with manna, this strange bread from heaven was so that they might know that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. What is implied in what is being taught here is that there are two ways to view life, one way is by bread alone and the other way is through every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Now what is not apparent is that these two ways of coming at life are the background to our scripture for today.

         In our scripture that is found in the book of Jeremiah, we hear Jeremiah tell the people of Israel that God has declared that the days are coming when God is going to make a new covenant. This new covenant will not be like the old covenant that of had with his people, the one he had made when he had brought his people out of Egypt, the covenant that God points out, that his people had broke. This is why God had decided to enter into a new covenant because the old one was broken, no longer able to define the relationship with God. Before we are to consider the new covenant God is proposing, I believe that it is important that we have an understanding of just why the old covenant had broken, so damaged that it had to be abandoned and replaced by something else, something better.

         If we go back to some of the earlier chapters of Jeremiah what we find is that Jeremiah writes often about the matters of the heart. In the seventeenth chapter we find what is perhaps the best description of just what exactly is the problem that God is solving by initiating a new covenant. Jeremiah begins this chapter by stating that the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts. When you read this then you begin to see why it is important that we begin here because the heart on which God is going to write his law is not a blank slate. As Jeremiah tells us the hearts of the people of Judah have written on them, their sin. This sin has been written down using a pen of iron which has a point of diamond which implies that their hearts are hearts of stone. This echoes the prophesy of Ezekiel who in the thirty sixth chapter of his book declares in the days to come God is going to remove the stony hearts of his people and replace them with hearts of flesh, hearts that are beating with life. 

         So, Jeremiah wants his readers to understand that the problem affecting God’s people is a heart problem.Yet as important as this is, Jeremiah also wants his readers to understand the root of just why the hearts of God’s people, the people God has claimed and promised so much to their well being, why are their hearts in such an unholy state. Here is what Jeremiah tells us further in the seventeenth chapter that the Lord says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness…”What again, may not be apparent is that what Jeremiah is telling us here is this way of life, this life is the same life that Moses was referring to when he said that man does not live by bread alone. In our modern times we have a difficult time to get the full weight is being said in this reference to live by bread alone. For us bread is just that loaf of Wonder that we grab on our way through the grocery store but for the people in ancient times to speak about bread meant speaking of plowing the ground, planting the seed, the watching and waiting until harvest, the harvest and threshing of the crop and then the storing and grinding of the crop into flour and finally the mixing up the flour into dough and the baking of the dough into bread. Now, it is easy to sympathize with the people who lived in these times when we find that this creation of bread became a kind of obsession for them. It’s obvious that the whole process was plagued with a lot of uncertainty, a lot of ways that problems could occur that could bring ruin upon the people struggling to just to have enough to eat. Yet God tells his people don’t believe for a second that this is what life is all about. When his people began to think that life was about raising a large crop so they could eat lots of bread then what they would do is use their creative urge that is part of being in the made of the image of God and use that to achieve their goal of a bountiful crop. This lead people to put their confidence in what they could do, what the strength of their own flesh could accomplish, their trust was in their own ability. This is what God declares is a cursed life. When we hear this we may be a little confused especially as we live in a world where personal achievement is an exalted way of life. But what happens when life becomes all about us and what we can achieve and when our focus is on the goal we have set out to achieve then we expect that God should be the guaranty of our success. Do you see how warped things begin to get when life is all about us? This is why this life is cursed because we start to expect that God will support our definition of life instead of allowing God to be the one who defines our life. What happens to a person’s relationship with God is that it morphs into religion. Religion is where people think they can formulate an understanding of the terms of God’s actions, the preconditions of God’s favor. In other words, religion is thinking that we have God all figured out so that all one has to do is just follow a formula and God’s favor will follow.

         Well, this life that puts its trust in man and finds its strength in the power of the flesh not only ruins ones relationship with God it also ruins the relationships we have with those around us. You see the thing is that it isn’t easy to a live a life where we are seeking to fulfill the goals we desire using our own power. People or nature can block us from reaching our goal which results in us getting angry at our inability to achieve what we desire. Or we begin to realize that there are any number of things that could go wrong, that there are so many things that are beyond our control that can destroy any hope we have of achieving the goal that we have chosen. The result is that we become anxious, worrying because of the reality that so much of life is beyond our control. Or it may become apparent that the goal we are pursuing is going to be impossible for us to ever achieve. This is going to make us depressed and distraught.So do you begin to understand how a life where we trust in ourselves, a life of anger, anxiety and depression how this is really a cursed life?

         Well, God is not fooled when we are trusting in our own efforts, when we attempt to use him like a utility we can plug into to make our life better. Jeremiah writes in the seventeenth chapter  that the heart is deceitful and desperately sick; who can understand it? What Jeremiah is saying here is that we believe, wrongly that we can use part of our heart to pursue the goals we desire and at the same time use another part of our heart to maintain a relationship with God. Yet God is not fooled because as we read further, God says, “I search the heart and test the mind to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” God is the searcher of hearts, the one who knows who we are at the very depths of our being and God is not fooled and he will not be used to further the pursuits of anyone.Because the people of Israel continued to do what they wanted while religiously trying to maintain their relationship with God , God finally decided to send his people to serve foreigners in a foreign land. The reason was that the people of Israel striving to find life in their own strength by the power of their flesh were in effect being no different than the life lived by the foreigners who did not know God. So if they were going to live like foreigners then they might as well live with foreigners.    

         God had a purpose for sending his people out to serve the foreigners and that was to change their hearts. In the twenty ninth chapter of Jeremiah, God tells his people that after they had been in Babylon for seventy years, his people would call upon God and come and pray to him and God promises that he would hear them. They would seek God and they would find God when they would seek God with all of their heart. You see God put them in a place where no matter how strong or how smart they might be, in the power of their flesh they could nothing while in the captivity of foreigners. This is where God has to bring people, to places where they come to the end of themselves because it is there that God at last can be found. It is when we can admit the weakness of our spirit, what directs the power of our flesh that is when God can offer us his Spirit which gives us the victory to control our flesh.

         This brings us to the new covenant that God promises to his people.  In Hebrew thought we are given first the result of God’s action and we need to read down to find the cause of what God has promised. The cause of this new covenant is that God declares that he will forgive the peoples iniquity and God would remember their sin no more. What is incredible about this is that God forgives without any demands that his people do anything. There is no call for God’s people to repent, to grieve and clothe themselves with sackcloth. No, the message God is sending to his people is that it is not about them. There is nothing God’s people can do to win his favor, to manipulate God’s grace to be in service of them. No, God just forgives, he just forgets what is past in order that his people night have a future.  In forgiving the sins of his people, they no longer are living under a death sentence. Now they can know with certainty that their life is a gift from God. In knowing that their life is gift from God they then know God as the gift-giving God, the life-giving God. This is why we read that all will know the Lord from the least to the greatest. Why is this so? This is is going to be the reality because all will have experienced the forgiveness of their sins thus all will know their life as a gift from God and all will also know God as the life and gift giving God. So it is not hard to understand how it is that in this new covenant that God writes his law upon our hearts. God has given our life to us as a gift and so now our hearts are open to receive the word of God because now we know that God and not our strength is the fountain of our life.Instead of planting seeds in order to have bread for life God calls us to take the seed of his word into the seedbed of our heart and by faith plant it there and discover life through the power of God.

         Well, the prophesy that God was going to make a new covenant was given with no clear date in mind only the ambiguous saying that it would happen in the days to come. As it turned out that those days turned to months and years and centuries because it wasn’t until seven hundred years had passed, in the fulfillment of time, God sent his Son, Jesus. Jesus came to condemn sin in the flesh, this cursed condition where we put our trust in our own abilities, where we trust the strength of our own flesh. This is condemned because through the cross the world witnessed that the flesh far from being strong was in fact, weak. The flesh was unable to do the good it knew to do, held captive by the power of sin. It was this power of sin that Jesus destroyed upon the cross where he placed no confidence in his flesh but only found his strength in his faith in his Heavenly Father. There upon the cross Jesus shed his blood so that we people far from God might be forgiven of our iniquity so that our sin might be forgotten. Here at the cross we knew that we deserved death but in the gift of Jesus we received the gift of life. Now all can know God as the giver of gifts, the giver of life.  Now we know that the words God speaks are words of life that gives us life when we place our faith in that word. This we know to be the truth because the faith of Jesus was proved to be true when he walked out of the grave after three days. Now, through the Holy Spirit the life of Christ can live in us. This is the one thing we can be certain of that there is nothing in this world that can prevent us from growing to be more like Jesus except  us. All of this is possible, our hope of God’s new covenant because God forgives us, before we even repent, before we are even sorry, God has forgiven us and accepted us just as we are all to give us a blessed life. So, this Thanksgiving in addition to giving thanks for the turkey and all the rest of our feast let us also give thanks for a life that comes from every word God speaks to us. To God be he glory! Amen!

An encounter with a Holy God

November 15 2020

Isaiah 6

         It goes without saying that there are a lot of slogans out there that are used to advertise all of the stuff that we can buy. We’ve heard them so often that we just kind of automatically know the company that they refer to when we hear them. If I say the phrase, “I’m lovin’ it”, you just know that this is what McDonalds uses to promote their fast food. Or is I say, “Just Do It” most of us know that this is Nike’s slogan. If we hear, “Eat Fresh” that of course is the jingle for Subway. The best of these give us in a nutshell exactly the reason we should choose the company behind them. We know when we hear, “Fifteen minutes saves you fifteen percent or more” we know this is telling us that Geico insurance might just be able to save us some money in a short amount of time.

         Now, I was thinking about these jungles or slogans because I was thinking about this sign that hangs above the pulpit in our church. It states “Holiness unto the Lord.” I grew up in a United Methodist church, attended a Moravian church, served in a number of churches and this is the first church I have been a part of that has had such a sign. To tell you the truth, I find it kind of neat. To me its like our jingle or slogan. For most of you though you may have attended so long that this sign just kind of blends into the woodwork; that’s the other reason I thought I should point it out. So, I wonder if somebody new came and read this sign and was curious just what it meant, what exactly would you tell them?

         I am required to take classes to be ordained as a pastor and this class I am currently taking is all about this idea of Christian Holiness. In this weeks assignment we were asked to explain what this idea of holiness means to someone who had never attended church and to do so on one sheet of paper. Let me tell you, I have taken a lot of classes so far and had a lot of difficult assignments but this one was one of the hardest one that I have had to do.I mean you think about it, just how would you explain this idea of holiness to someone who had no clue about God, or Jesus or the Holy Spirit and do it using just enough words to fill a single piece of paper, twelve font and double spaced. 

         You see holiness is one of those things we kind of know, something we think we know but when pressed to express what we know, it isn’t all that easy to talk about it. I mean we can all agree that God is holy. This means that he is nothing like us, he is without sin, and we can say that God is love, like this is who God is. God doesn’t just love us he is love; that certainly makes him different from us. So, all of these kinds of thoughts run through our mind when we say God is holy. Now the reason that it might be important for us to know just what it means to be holy is that in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, God tells his people, “You shall be holy as I am holy.” So in some sense, what God is saying to us here is that in some fashion we are supposed to be like him. On one hand then when we think of being holy we say that God is holy because he is nothing like us and on the other hand God tells us to be holy just like he is holy. Do you see how weird it is to talk about this thing called holiness? At least now you kind of have an idea where this sign we have in our sanctuary comes from, that it has its roots in this call by God that his people, in some way should be like him. The exact wording of this sign comes from the fourteenth chapter of the prophet Zechariah who prophesies that on the day of the Lord that the bells of the horses will be inscribed, “Holy Unto the Lord” and all the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as the bowls before the altar. Every pot shall be holy unto the Lord of Hosts. What the prophet foresaw is the day when what was thought to be the most common of objects would be considered as being able to be used for the holy work of God. No longer would holiness be something confined to the Temple but instead, one day holiness would be part of everyone’s every day life. From this then we start to understand what is meant by consecration which means to set something apart for God’s holy use.This then is what the sign we have is trying to remind us every Sunday, that we are to allow God to take us out of the world to be used by him for his holy purposes. All this then brings us back to the question just what do we mean by holy? What exactly is this holy purpose that God has chosen us to do?

         With all of these questions running around in our head we come to the scripture for today from the sixth chapter of Isaiah. It goes without saying that this chapter is a really strange, rather mind-blowing event that Isaiah invites us to experience with him. Not only that, but as we find out, this is when God calls Isaiah however this call does not happen in chapter one like we would expect but it happens after five chapters of prophesying by Isaiah have occurred. If you read these first five verses you hear Isaiah rail against all of the injustice he sees being done by these people who are supposed to be the people of God. Interspersed within Isaiah’s call of judgment against the people of Israel are these images of a glorious future that God has in store for his people that are found in the second and fourth chapters. Here Isaiah sees the day when people from all over the world will come to Jerusalem and learn the ways of the Lord. The result will be that the nations will beat their swords into plough shares and their spears into pruning hooks. So in these first five chapters there is this tension between what God’s people are now and this vision of what one day they will become. And then all of a sudden Isaiah has this vision, right out of left field. We are told that this vision happened in the year that King Uzziah had died. This detail lets us know that this is a year of uncertainty, a change in the leadership of God’s people. Uzziah had been one of the better kings but his greatness went to his head and in his arrogance King Uzziah attempted to go into the holy place of the Temple and light incense upon the golden altar. This was absolutely forbidden for the king to do what was the work of the priests. The priests took and surrounded the king forcing him out of the Temple and God punished the king by giving him the dreaded skin disease which meant that he was unable to be part of the rest of the community. His son Jotham took over the kings household and Uzziah  lived in isolation until his death.Now, I’m not sure if what had happened to Uzziah is important to our understanding of Isaiah. But as we study this vision of Isaiah we begin to notice that there are a lot of connections. So, what we re told next is that Isaiah’s sees the Lord sitting upon the throne. The throne of God was thought to be above the ark of the covenant in the holy of holiness, the most sacred place in the Temple so this helps us to understand just where Isaiah’s vision takes place. The statement that God is on the throne also tells us that here is the true king over all. The kings and rulers of this world come and go but the one true king remains and rules forever.We are told that God our king is high and lifted up not just physically but also in comparison to all that is in our world that seeks our worship. God is over all of these. Then we are told that the train of his robe filled the Temple. This is a very unusual wording to describe the presence of the Lord. If you look at the Hebrew word used for robe you find that it is used only in one other place and that is to describe the robes worn by the priests in the Temple. So the implication is that God is not only our king but he is also our heavenly priest. This serves somewhat to tell us why Uzziah was not allowed to be a king and to do the duties of the priests because only God was allowed to do both, to be our king and priest.

         Next we are told that above the throne of God were the seraphim. These are what we might call angels, or heavenly beings. Now these weren’t the cute little chubby beings with wings that are some Hallmark version of what we find in the Bible. No, these were terrifying awe-inspiring beings whose name means to burn. In some way they were fiery and they had six wings, two to cover their eyes because the glory of God was too much for them to behold; two wings to cover their bodies so that God could not look on them; and two wings by which they flew about. So the image is a flying fireball swirling around the throne of God. As is often said, where there is smoke there’s fire and this is also what Isaiah describes. So, Isaiah not only sees this awe inspiring imagery but he could smell the smoke that filled the Temple. This smoke corresponded to the burning of the incense in the most holy of places so that one could not directly gaze upon God otherwise they would die. Out of this smoke and this whirling of flying fire beasts came a loud chorus of voices crying out, back and forth to each other, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The sound of their voices, we are told, was so loud that the doorposts of the Temple shook violently. Definitely not your typical worship experience.

         What Isaiah is witnessing here is the inner workings of heaven where the Lord of hosts, the leader of the armies of heaven is surrounded by beings who never stop declaring one thing that God is holy, the most holy, the one whose holiness is above and beyond any other.It is this most holy God whose glory fills the whole earth. It is hard to know just what is meant by God’s glory filling the whole earth but something Jesus told his disciples may help uncover its true meaning. In the seventeenth chapter of John, in what is called the High Priestly prayer, Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one.” God’s glory fills the earth because as we know from the first chapter of Genesis, that when God created his image bearers that they were to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Knowing what we know about God’s holiness, that he expects his image bearers to be holy as he is holy, then we can begin to understand that God’s glory fills the earth as the people he created display his holiness throughout the world.

         It’s important that we have this understanding of how God’s glory fills the earth to figure out Isaiah’s reaction to what he witnesses in heaven. Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! For I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” After hearing Isaiah’s reaction we are left wondering just what does he mean when he says he is a man of unclean lips and that he lives among a people of unclean lips. There is a lot of speculation as to just what this might mean but I think that its important to figure it out within this context of the vision that Isaiah is having. When we think of what comes out of our lips we think of communication, the communication of who we are, what we’re thinking, what we value, all of who we are and what we find important can be find out by what we say. Isaiah has just heard voices of what had to be clean lips because these were voices that were before the throne of God the king. These voices were crying out about the holiness of the Lord. Their whole being, their purpose as they understood it was to declare the holiness of God. Isaiah immediately realized that his people, the people of Israel did not have as their purpose the exaltation of God, the declaring of God’s holiness to a watching world. Isaiah knew that he was one of them; their uncleanness was his uncleanness. Without a life that declared the holiness of God it was obvious that it was unable for him to remain before a holy God.But all was not lost because Isaiah knew what it meant to have a life that declared God’s holiness for we read in the fifth chapter of Isaiah that the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice and the Holy God is shows himself holy in righteousness. It is when we act towards each other with justice that we exalt or lift high our God the Lord of Hosts. It is when we live righteously we declare to the world our God is holy. This justice and righteousness has as its foundation the ancient rule that we are to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves. This means that in our dealings with others we see in them ourselves and live with the understanding of the oneness of our humanity. This is the glory of God that is to fill the whole earth, one united humanity. Isaiah knew that the people of which he was a part of were not a people of justice nor righteousness but they were people divided by wealth and privilege.Isaiah knew how far from holy he was and he also knew the great weight of the holiness of the presence he was in. Yet even though he knew what he deserved, as one who was unclean in the presence of a holy God, what happened next must have surprised him. One of the seraphim’s flew to him with a burning coal in his hands that he had taken from the altar.The seraphim took the red hot coal and pressed it to the lips of Isaiah. Imagine how terrifying it must have been for this flaming fiery beast to take a burning coal in his hand and come flying at you to press it upon your lips. Yet more surprising still, Isaiah found that he was not burned but instead he was healed. The seraphim told Isaiah that his guilt had been taken away because his sins had been atoned for. To make sense of what happened we have to know that in the twenty ninth chapter of Exodus that after the altar of the Temple was consecrated it was then holy and what ever touched the altar would become holy. So, the coal from the altar was holy and when this holy coal touched Isaiah, Isaiah then became holy, healed and right before God. God took Isaiah’s sincere confession, that he was a man of unclean lips, a man whose life did not declare the holiness of God because he lived in the midst of a people whose lives also did not declare God’s holiness, and he cleansed him by setting him apart through his gift of holiness. In much the same way we become a cleansed people, people of justice and righteousness when the Holy Spirit takes the love of Christ which burned for each one of us upon the altar of the cross and he touches our hearts with the holy love of God. This empowers us to be people whose lives exalt our God through acts of justice, whose lives declare the holiness of God through our righteousness.

         Well, the atoning of Isaiah’s sin is not the end of the story. When God at last spoke, he asked, “Whom will I send and who will go for us?” As the story unfolds it appears that the question is being addressed to one of the heavenly beings but before they could answer, Isaiah says, “Here am I! Send me! Isaiah’s response is a response  of gratitude that God in his mercy did not remove Isaiah from his holy presence when he was unclean but instead made a way to cleanse him and make him holy.It always sounds so noble, so exciting that Isaiah was willing to be sent by God to go and speak the message of God to his people but Isaiahs calling was one which was unbelievably hard. Isaiah was to go these people of unclean lips, those whose lives did not declare the holiness of God and tell them that they were like him, in need of healing. Yet as God forewarned him, these people would not listen, they would refuse to see the need of a coming clean with God. God already knew that the fate of these people was sealed yet God still sent Isaiah. The reason God sent Isaiah was that he was a God of justice and righteousness; this is what makes him holy. And this is why he would warn his people so that one day they would look back and remember that God had once offered them his mercy through the cries of Isaiah but they had turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the offer that had been extended to them. Unlike Isaiah who had allowed the fearful holiness of God to touch his life they would refuse him, satisfied with their status quo. What is important though is that Isaiah was willing to go, to serve God even among a faithless people. Isaiah would go because he had an encounter with a holy God, the true Lord and King who had been merciful to him. You see, what else could Isaiah do to show his gratitude but to give God back the life God had saved. So it is with us. God has cleansed our hearts by the burning fire of Christ’s love for us poured out for us upon the cross. What can we do to show our gratitude to God except to give our lives to him just as Christ first gave his life for us. We need to our lives and use them to exalt our God through treating others with justice. We need to allow our lives to declare that our God is holy God through a life of righteousness. May our prayer be the prayer of the seraphim that the whole earth may be truly filled with the glory of God. Amen.