Living in the Light

 November 21 2021

Isaiah 9:1-7

         Our daughter, Sarah, has always been something of an overachiever. As a kid she was involved in so many activities and that hasn’t changed now that she’s an adult. This past while, Sarah, through her work, was responsible for one of her agency’s biggest events, the Reading Festival, where on one Saturday she and many volunteers gave away around a thousand books to children. Yet, at the same time she was also was involved in Little Theatre practicing for a musical revue where she sang like five different solos, some of which required dancing as well which meant a lot of hours of practicing. But that wasn’t all that was on her plate. She was also selected to be part of a leadership development group which had meetings she had to attend and on top of all of this she is also on the Tuscarawas Philharmonic board which is in the midst of choosing a new conductor which requires her to be part of the interviewing process. Oh, one more thing, because she was part of the Philharmonic board she felt that she should sing in the choir that is going to be part of their Christmas show sometime in December. Now, the song that they are going to sing is none other than Handel’s Messiah which after Sarah finished up her first practice told us is a really big performance. I guess she hadn’t really realized what she had gotten herself into which didn’t surprise her mother or me.

         In thinking about Handel’s Messiah that we undoubtedly will be hearing before long, I must confess that I don’t remember much about it. The one part of it that I think, like most people, that I am familiar with is the part where Handel has interwoven this prophecy of Isaiah that we read today into his music. I would imagine that it is Handel’s Messiah where most people have heard the words, “ Unto us a child is given, unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders. His name shall be, Wonderful…Counselor…Almighty God… the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. It is a beautiful work which is much revered and enjoyed and has been so for decades.

         Now, even though there are many who have heard these words and sung along to them I have to wonder if people really understood just what the prophet Isaiah foretold so long ago. Like so many scriptures, the key to get a real appreciation of what is being said is to understand the context in which the text is situated and this is extremely true in the case of this well known scripture that we read this morning.When we begin to follow what Isaiah is telling us what is interesting is that the context alters how these words of Isaiah are translated so that what we find is that here is where we discover the very beginning of the hope of the Messiah. But before we rush into that new understanding of what Isaiah is communicating to us we first need to look at the situation out of which he is speaking because as we will find it is quite relevant to the times we live in today. 

         If we go back to the beginning of the seventh chapter of Isaiah, we find that the king, Ahaz , the king of Judaea, the southern kingdom, has received word that Syria, the country north of the northern country of Israel has joined forces with Israel and is on the way to invade Judaea. At the news of this invasion we are told that the heart of Ahaz and the heart of the people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. What this points out is that the fear of the king quite naturally becomes the fear of the people that he rules over. This fear is what Isaiah comes to speak to the king about. Isaiah tells the king to, “be careful, be quiet, do not fear and do not let your heart be faint.” Isaiah’s reason for such optimism in the face of the oncoming invasion is that God is with them. Now, even to us this seems to be a little sentimental, doesn’t it? Yes, God is with us but what good is God’s presence when we face an invading army, or when we face an invading virus, or an invading culture war, what good is God in these situations like these? Sure, we understand that our God is a personal God, always with us, but can we actually believe that he is a God who is working out there in the real world where there are wars and evil and uncertainty? These are the very questions that Isaiah addresses because these are the very questions that were going through the minds of the king of Judaea and the people who were looking to him to protect them.

         You see, the people then were not much different then people are now because they, just like people now, when faced with a crisis refuse to turn to God and quite naturally turn to everything else to find a way out of their problem. This is why in the eighth chapter then that God tells Isaiah to not walk in the ways of of the people of Judaea. Listen to the words of God that are written in this eighth chapter of Isaiah and see if they don’t ring a bell, “Do not call conspiracy what these people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.” Isn’t interesting that conspiracy theories have been around forever? You see, in uncertain times where people try and explain unpleasant and trying events the fear they feel will often lead people to become paranoid and conjure up all kinds of ideas as to just why things are the way that they are. This is what God tells Isaiah that he is to absolutely reject. You see, when people refuse to see the hand of God in the events of their times this only leads them to become more fearful and more unstable. This in turn leads people to believe that their lives are in the hands of unknown powers that cannot be known yet nonetheless are in some way controlling what is happening in their world.

         The answer to this belief that there are unknown powers at work in the world is to come back to what is known. God tells Isaiah, the the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, let him be your dread. In other words God is saying if you want to be fearful of something I will give you something to be fearful of. God tells us that we need to be in awe of his holiness, to be so overwhelmed by the wholly otherness of his presence and power that all other fears fade into the distant background. God calls us as his people to sanctify him, to magnify him, to make him great before the watching world, to show the world that our God is a God who is high and lifted up in strength and his unfailing character. When we fear everything but God then we witness that our God is helpless, indifferent and unimportant. Can you understand why God forbid Isaiah to walk in the way of the people whose lives had succumbed to fear and paranoia?

         Isaiah continues to tell us that God can either be for people a sanctuary or a stumbling block and if you think about it this is very true. When people are in awe of the holiness of God, when God is the focus of all that they are, then for them God will be their sanctuary, a place of refuge and peace. But for those who refuse to witness to the holiness of God, when through their words and actions they make God out to be insignificant and unimportant then for them God will be a stumbling block. You see, for those who make a place for God they will find that God makes a place for them. But for those who do not make a place for God in their world, for those who are unable to concede that God is at work within our world, they will end up tripping over him because he is there whether people believe this is true or whether they flat out refuse to do so. 

         Isaiah goes on to testify that he is one who was willing to sanctify God and find his sanctuary under the wings of God. Isaiah tells us that he was waiting on God to act and it was in God that he would find his hope. The people of Judaea though, would not follow in Isaiahs footsteps. For those who had no certainty in God, they turned to consulting the dead on behalf of the living. Can you begin to understand the level of absurdity that happens when in our fear we look to everything else but God? You see when people lose their faith in God they will turn to just about anything else to find answers to the dilemma that they find themselves in. Isaiah cries out, “To the teaching and the testimony”. This means that he is calling his people to remember the words of God and the mighty acts of God that recall the power of God, this is what they were to hold fast to. The word of God is to remind us that the hope of our world does not reside within the realm of our world but the answers for the way out come to us from the word from above. Isaiah tells his people if they do not speak according to this word, the word of God, then they will have no dawn. In other words, for them they will go from darkness into deeper darkness. They will pass through their land and be hungry because as Isaiah knew, we do not live by bread alone but we need the very word of God to live. Their lives then just go from bad to worse because in their hunger and their groping in the dark they turn to cursing their king and their God.

         This then is where we begin with our scripture for today. Do you see how the preceding scriptures explain the gloom and the darkness that only God can overcome? Isaiah speaks about the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the land of the northern kingdom that as we learned last week in our study of Amos, refused to be people of justice and righteousness so God had no choice but to allow them to go into exile at the hands of the Assyrians. These were as Isaiah tells us, the former days when God brought the nation of Israel into contempt. They, like the people of Judaea, refused to hear the word of God so for them there was no dawn. The light they turned away from was the presence of God and when they refused to listen to him and instead listened to everything else then they were in essence walking always further from the light. Yet even though they turned their back on God, God never gave up on his people. The coming of the Assyrian army into their land was a wake up call that was to be seen as the hand of God disciplining his wayward children so that they might once again turn back to the light of his presence. This is why Isaiah tells us that those who had walked in darkness had at last seen a great light.  When they at last realized that every human attempt to bring forth light had failed then God at last would shine the light of his presence. It is in this act of grace, the favor of God that welcomed home those who had traveled to a far country, this is where at last the people would find their joy. Their joy, Isaiah tells us, is like the great joy of the harvest, like the joy of the  receiving of unexpected abundant riches. This joy replaced the elemental fear that had once gripped their hearts and made their minds conjure up wild causes for their plight. At last, we are told that they no longer found themselves oppressed at the hands of their enemies but instead they found that God had secured their freedom. It is here that Isaiah gives us a clue to where his thinking is in all this. He writes that the rod of their oppressor will be broken as it was on the day of Midian. This phrase, “the day of Midian”, recalls the time of Gideon, one of the so called judges that God had raised up when the Midians had come to enslave God’s people. Isaiah is reminding us that God delivered his people then and if that is so then he can very well do so again. This recalling of the day of judges is also put there as a contrast to the days of the kings under which Isaiah lived, the judges who trusted God to deliver them from any foe instead of cowering in fear at the first sight of trouble.

         We need to hold on to the victory God has proven he can provide over those who seek to oppress his people as we go further into the thought of Isaiah because he tells us that one day that every boot of the warrior and every garment from the battlefield will be burned as fuel for the fire. You see, for Isaiah, it is not a leap to go from knowing that God is able to defeat any army to understanding then at last all armies will be done away with when God has at last come to rule over all. Yet, where Isaiah goes next is very unexpected because he states the words that we have so often heard as we prepare ourselves for the birth of Jesus, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” This is the one upon whose shoulders will be the government. He is the one, in other words, who will rule over the world where all wars have been done away with. Now, even though it is clear that this one who comes to rule is very much human he is as his name tells us, much more than human; he is in fact, divine as well. So, as we contemplate the true nature of the one who is coming to rule we cannot forget that he comes as human child, which tells us that he will be one who is vulnerable, one who is humble, and one who is dependent. So, he will come to us at the place where all our fears originate yet he will be one who does not let his fears be the source of violence against God and others but instead he will be the one who defeats violence forever.

         All of this must be understood as we at last come to this rather unusual name that Isaiah prophesies will be given to this child. If we go back to the original Hebrew we will find that there will be some differences from what we normally hear from this scripture. The first part of the name that we usually know as being Wonderful Counselor is actually better translated as being the Wonder of the Counselor. The Counselor is one who speaks wisdom and this child will be a source of astonishment and wonder for them. The next part of this child’s name is often heard to say Almighty God. Now, there the word translated as being “God in this instance can also be translated as being the word “Judge”. In this instance there is a lot of support for the use of the word Judge because when it is connected with the next phrase, the Everlasting Father, we get this sense that this child will one day be the Almighty Judge who stands in the presence of the Everlasting Father. This then is followed by the title, Prince of Peace. This too if we look at the Hebrew meanings can be understood as the one who makes peace prevail at last. Now, when we understand this child being the wonder of the one who speaks wisdom, we can follow this thought through the further prophesies of Isaiah who states in the forty-second chapter that God speaks, “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. This word, “delights” is similar in meaning to this idea of wonder, or being amazed or astonished at the one who is before God. 

         Then when we can understand that this child shall be the Almighty Judge before the Everlasting Father we can begin to see the roots of the vision of Daniel, who in the seventh chapter of his book, writes about the one like the Son of Man, who stands before the one Daniel calls the Ancient of Days which is very similar to the title of Everlasting Father. The Son of Man we are told will bring judgment against the nations and take away their dominion but he will also judge in favor of those who are the holy ones of the one Daniel calls the, Most High.  When we understand that this Son of Man is going to judge in favor of the holy ones of God, we begin to see how this rings with what Isaiah already knew that those who make holy the name of God will find God to be for them a holy sanctuary and they being in his holy presence must by extension, be holy as well. It is the judgment then, by the one who is human like us yet can stand in the presence of the Everlasting Father, his judgment is the source of the world’s salvation which is exactly what Isaiah is speaking to.  God is saving the world and he does so by judging those who oppose him to be evil. Those who are evil, who refuse the incoming kingdom of peace where violence has no place, these will find themselves forever in the darkness, the absence of the presence of God’s light. But those who make holy the Lord, who live knowing that his peace will prevail these will share his life in the kingdom of light. This is what I believe God revealed to Isaiah and this is what is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one by his rejection of violence and his willing to give of himself as our once for all sacrifice has perfected those who are made holy. Now, we can know God as our sanctuary, the place where we can draw forever near to him in full assurance of faith. The question we must ask ourselves then is this: As God’s holy people does the world see our faith in God? Does our faith in God  make God holy in the eyes of the world? May we glorify him always for giving us Jesus, the child Isaiah prophesied about and our king forever! Amen!

         

Go With the Flow

 November 14 2021

Amos 5:4-24

         A while back when my family was in to celebrate my parents sixty-fifth wedding anniversary we, of course had our family picture taken. So, when we had the photos in hand we had to figure out how we were going to display them. As it turns out the one picture fit very well in the frame that previously held a picture of Jennifer and I when we went white water rafting a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. To look at us now it may be a little difficult to imagine but, yes, we actually did go white water rafting not once but twice. The second time out was kind of a bust as there was a drought that year so the river was low and it was a lot of work to paddle our way down the river but the first time was how a white water trip should be-terrifying. We went with a church group mostly made up of young adults like we were at the time and we drove to a place in West Virginia where we could experience the New river in all of its splendor. Now, there was, of course, a class concerning safety while on the river, you know, you have to keep your life jacket on at all times, and how when one gets tossed out of the inflatable raft we were to go down the river in a seated position with our legs lifted up. In other words, when we found ourself caught up in the rushing flow of the river the best thing to do was to go along with where the river was going and eventually we would come to a place beyond the rapids where the river would be slow enough that we could climb out on the river bank. It sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Well, it was actually pretty terrifying to be on a raft with five other people, to be given a paddle and told that we had to steer our way through the rapids with them. So, off we went, the river at first quite calm and we were lulled into a false belief that this was not going to be all that bad and then, bam!, suddenly the river grabbed our raft and hurled us against the rocks, the water spraying us in the face and the raft began to lurch from side to side and then the nose of the raft disappeared and we were going down the river at a crazy angle struggling to remain in the raft. Then all at once we found ourselves in the river caught up in the swirling madness and it was then we had to recall the important safety lesson to lift up our legs and go with the flow. Once we did that then the ride down the river became quite fun as we floated and bounced along until at last we did come to a quiet place beyond the rapids where we could at last regroup.

         I feel very fortunate to have this experience of white water rafting because, I’m not up to trying it now. But it was through that experience that that I now have an idea of just what Amos meant when he told his audience, the people who lived in the Northern kingdom of Israel that they were to let justice roll down like waters and let righteousness flow like an ever-flowing stream. We may have heard this idea that justice is to roll down like water before but when we stop to think about it can you grasp the imagery that Amos is using? What would it mean for justice to be like a white water river rushing and crashing through the rapids, thundering headlong against the rocks threatening to leap out of its banks? Can we imagine that this idea that we call justice as being a powerful, terrifying, rolling, river, that is rushing forth, pouring itself out in sheer and utter power? Can we understand this concept that we know as righteousness as being a river that never ceases to pour forth in a cascade of torrents that threaten to flood everything in sight? You see, I believe, that to rightly understand Amos and his prophecy we must begin here with these images otherwise Amos will just sound like some grumpy old man who is speaking for an angry, upset, God. No, Amos rightly understood just what God was up to in his choosing of the people of Israel to be his people, to choose to covenant with them, to seek an everlasting bond with this one family out of all the families on earth. Amos, we are told in the first chapter, was a shepherd and as we are told later, he was also a tender of fruit trees, so he had much time to be alone with God and to meditate on what God was up to. It was here while Amos was in the fields that God called Amos. We are told that God took Amos from his flocks so that he might go and prophesy to the people of Israel.  At this time the people of Israel had become separated into two separate kingdoms, the southern kingdom which was called Judaea where the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were located and the Northern kingdom called Israel where the remaining ten tribes of the house of Jacob were found. Amos at this time lived in the southern kingdom but God was calling him to go to the northern house of Israel and prophesy to them that God’s judgment was being announced against them which meant that God was going to send them into exile for their sins.

         Now, here thousands of years after the fact, it sounds harsh that God would allow the very people that he had entered into a covenant with to be removed from their homeland by an invading army. Yet, in order to understand why he was going to do so, we have to go back to this vision that Amos had, that we must see justice as a raging mighty river, thundering down the canyon walls, leaping out of its banks.  This river of justice is what God is bringing forth upon the earth and the beginning of this river that God was pouring forth was to begin with the people he had chosen, the people he had saved from the injustice they endured while slaves in Egypt. These people, of all people, should have understood the power of God’s justice, how he had lifted them up from their oppression in order that they in turn, might lift up the oppressed. God would remind them again and again how they had been a stranger down in Egypt therefore they were to be those who watched out for the strangers in their midst. Through this remembrance the people of Israel were to understand that all people were equal in the eyes of God even though God held the people of Israel to be his beloved treasure. As his people they were to unfold the mystery of their daily prayer that God commanded them to say with their first breath that they were to hear, O Israel, that the Lord their God was one God and they were to love the Lord their God with all of their heart, and all of their soul and all of their might. Out of understanding that there is one God was to come the understanding that he alone is good, and if he alone is good then there can be only one good way that people were to live. If there was only one good way for people to live then it just followed that all people are equal under the God who alone could judge whether they were good as he was good or whether they did not mirror his goodness and did evil in his sight.  This is what Amos concluded that the God of Israel was not just their tribal God but he was in fact the God of all creation, the one God who is God over all peoples. Since this was true then their was a standard by which good and evil could be understood universally. This understanding that the actions of people could be separated into actions that were evil and those that are good is the essence of justice. Those actions which are good find their source in the very heart of God and it is this goodness that is the raging river being poured out upon the earth. As the goodness of God floods out upon the earth, it is to wash away the evil that attempts to find a foot hold in God’s good earth. Righteousness then was the acting out of the good, the good that is found in the heart of God so that the goodness of God is seen mirrored back to him in the lives of his people.

         So, the people of Israel, who God had rescued from Egypt were to be people who were willing to be people obedient to the commands of God because in doing these commands they would become people whose lives reflected the goodness of the God they believed in. As we are told in the fourth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, they were to keep the commandments and do them so that God’s commands would come to be seen as their wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations around them. When the rest of the nations surrounding Israel got wind of how they were living they would say of Israel, “What a great nation is this that has statutes and rules so righteous as found in the law that God has given to them! You see, this is how the righteousness of God’s people was to flow out to their neighbors because after they saw Israel living out the goodness of God they too would want in on the action. So, here we get just a glimpse that of what Amos understood that God’s justice and righteousness were to be lived out in the people of Israel but this justice and righteousness wasn’t to be their personal possession; no, this justice and righteousness were to flow further and further out until the whole world came to experience them.

         So, as Amos begins his writing he surveys the kingdoms around the people of Israel and he finds that there is much cruelty and injustice. Nowhere that he looked could Amos find any trace of anyone longing to enter into the flow of God’s justice and righteousness. As such, this prophesy against the pagan nations was not so much aimed at them as this judgment was instead coming against God’s own people because it was they who were to be people whose justice and righteousness were so evident that they would begin to influence the world around them yet such was not the case. You see, these pagan people had not entered into a covenant relationship with God to worship only him and to bear his name in the world as the nation of Israel had done so they quite rightly would have had no certainty of good and evil and no God given power to choose them either. But the nations of Judaea and Israel did have a covenant relationship with God and God had provided them with a place of worship where who he is was ever before them. To them alone had been given the law, the very way of life which reflected the good of the God that they worshiped. It is because the people of Israel alone understood good and evil as revealed to them by God that they alone could come under the judgment of God. They had become people who as Amos declared made justice into a bitter fruit and cast righteousness to the ground. So, the stream of justice that was to flow through their lives they thought they could simply ignore yet to do so was as if they had dammed up this ever flowing stream. Eventually as Amos so well understood, no dam could hold back the purposes of God and if they did not decide to go with the flow of God’s justice and righteousness then that same rushing river would wash them away out to live among the very pagan neighbors they were acting like.

         Amos understood correctly that where the stream of God’s justice and righteousness had become stopped up was in their house of worship. Amos writes in the fourth chapter, “Come to Bethel and transgress; go to Gilgal, and multiply transgressions; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel” declares the Lord God. Bethel and Gilgal were where the Northern Kingdom of Israel worshipped God yet in spite of celebrating worship that adhered to the letter of the law it appeared that they came away from their time of worship worse off then when they arrived. This is why in the fifth chapter of Amos that we hear God cry out, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.” You see, what the people of God had so misunderstood is that the worship of God is to always lead to them being fountains through which his justice and righteousness flowing out upon the earth.

         We can figure out just how our worship of God is supposed to transform us into people who have lives the over flow with justice and righteousness from the first chapter of Romans where Paul writes, “For although they knew God, they did not glorify God or give thanks to God but they became people who no longer fulfilled God’s purpose for their lives and their foolish hearts were darkened.” When Paul writes that these people who knew God but they did not glorify God what you find in studying the Greek word for glory is that these were people who no longer valued God for who he is. You see, as we remember the worship that God commanded his people to observe, in the sacrifices the people were to realize that God so longed to have a relationship with his people that he was willing to give a life, the shedding of blood, all so that the sins of his people might be forgiven. In doing so God was showing how much he valued his relationship with even those who had sinned against him. It was this undeserved gift that God gave that was to create in the hearts of his people a sense of gratitude. As God valued  and treasured his people enough to make them his very own, they in turn would value and treasure him in return for this is what would be the just and right response for his people to give.

         As we also recall about the worship of God there was more than just the offering of sacrifices there was also the Inner Chamber where the perpetual light shone upon the bread of the presence representing that the light of God’s presence shown continually on his people. This was to remind them that the Lord is the one who blessed them and kept them safe. It was the Lord who was gracious unto them and it was the Lord who gave them peace and contentment. For all that it meant for the people to live in the continual presence of God it makes sense that their lives would be a continual offering of thanksgiving to God; this only seems just and right.

         When we ponder on what this worship experience God expected from his people then when the people just went through the motions in worship its easy to understand why God’s people failed to be people through which God’s justice and righteousness would flow. If God’s people were unwilling to treasure him and give him the thanksgiving that he so rightfully deserves then how could they be expected to do what is right and just to those around them. This is the conclusion that Paul comes to as we read once again from the first chapter of Romans that when people fail to value their relationship with God, when they fail to offer up thanksgiving to God, then they will become people unable to fulfill God’s purpose for them and in the end their hearts will be darkened. Surprisingly then, it is not idol worship that lures people away from their worship of God but it is rather when the hearts of people become dark, this is when they are consumed by idol worship.

         So, when we worship God, when we value God, when we treasure him for seeing us as his treasure and when we offer up an offering of thanksgiving to him for his faithful presence because this is the only just and right response that we can offer, this is what opens up a fountain of justice and righteousness in us. When we are in a right relationship with God then our desire will be that we will be holy as he is holy and our lives at last will be riding the rapids of God’s incessant outpouring of justice and righteousness from above. 

         This is what Jesus was speaking of when in the seventh chapter of John, he cried out that whoever believes in him out of their hearts will flow living water. Here Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit, the one promised to those who believe in Jesus that was to be given to them after Jesus was glorified. Jesus was glorified when he offered himself up on the cross as our once for all sacrifice for our sin, to ransom us not with silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ. This is how much our Heavenly Father treasures us. If this is so then how can we not, in response, treasure him? And as he promised, when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, he sent to us the Holy Spirit, the ever present God with us, the God who blesses us, keeps us safe, is gracious unto us and gives us peace, is it not right that we in response should offer ourselves up as a continual offering of thanksgiving to God. You see, when we worship God as God so rightly deserves then out of us will flow life, a life of justice and righteousness for everyone. To God be the glory!Amen.

         

Whose Faithfulness Really Counts?

 November 7 2021

1 Kings 19:1-18

         Last Sunday evening Jennifer and I decided that the time had come to get ready for the upcoming frosty weather. Our son Matt one year brought us back from Florida a tiny lemon tree and palm tree both of which are now fairly large and both of which do not take kindly to being frosted. So, we had to take them from the deck and place them in front of whatever windows they would fit at inside our house. Then we had other outdoor plants that we had placed around our deck and we saved a few of those and drug them inside as well. All of this was done because we knew that cold weather was coming and with the cold snap all of the flowers we had enjoyed all year were going to be gone until next spring. Its not really a shock but it just happens way too quick as the years roll around. As I walk among the frost-bitten and wilted flowers I can’t but help think of what the prophet Isaiah wrote thousands of years ago as found in the fortieth chapter of his book that the grass withers and the flower fades. Isaiah knew that the changing seasons at least teach us of the impermanence of even the most simple of pleasures. Isaiah goes on to say that, just like the grass and the flowers after a hard frost that wither and begin to fade away, this is not much different from us, our lives are just as fleeting. Yet there is one thing that is unmoved throughout the seasons and that is the word of our God, because it is the word of our God which will stand forever.

         The word of God for us is often thought of to be the Bible. How often have we heard scripture referred to as the Word of God? While this is in a sense very true it would be better to say that scripture is the way that God through the Holy Spirit speaks to us and I say this so that we never assume that the written words of the Bible are in some way the only words of God. Our God is a God who is always communicating with us if we, like Elijah are still enough to listen.

         The story of Elijah and the still, small voice of God is a story that is a fairly common story but it is, I’m afraid, perhaps misunderstood because it is a story that can be comprehended only within the full context of the life of Elijah. We don’t know much about the early life of Elijah because Elijah just suddenly appears on the scene like someone leaping out of the shadows. What prompted his arrival was the reign of Ahab, a king over the northern state of Israel. He was an extremely evil king who went against the law of God at every turn. The law specifically stated that no one, most especially the king, was not to marry themselves to a foreigner yet Ahab blatantly wed himself to Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Sidonians. This was done perhaps as a way to secure peace for Israel but in doing so Ahab was marrying one who was a worshipper of Baal, the God of nature, and as a worshiper of Baal she adhered to a different code of ethics. Ahab, to make his new wife happy erected an altar for Baal and set up idols to other gods as well. Now, the problem was that Ahab, and the rest of Israel with him saw no problem with worshipping the one true living God and, at the same time, worshipping Baal and whatever gods might strike their fancy but the problem with this is that worshipping the one true living God was always meant to result in his people living a vastly different way of life, one where every life was sacred, the very basis for the righteousness demanded by God.

         So, into the midst of all this evil that Ahab had done in the sight of God, there arrives Elijah, who tells Ahab that God was bringing his curses upon him and the nation of Israel. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy we read that when the nation of Israel turned from God, God in turn would strike them with fiery heat and a drought so that the heavens over their heads would be like bronze and the earth under their feet would be like iron. The Lord would make the rain of the land be nothing more than powder. This is what Elijah came to declare to Ahab. So, this word that Elijah brings to Ahab was the beginning of what would turn out to be a three year drought where Israel would become nothing but a wasteland as all vegetation died and likewise the animals that depended on that vegetation; death and decay were everywhere.

         Well, the time came at last when God decided to bring rain once again to the land of Israel and so Elijah sends word to Ahab to meet him. The person that Elijah uses to speak to Ahab was a man called Obadiah who was a servant of the king, the one who managed the household of Ahab. Now, even though Obadiah worked for the king he remained faithful to God and when Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, tried to kill all the prophets of the one true living God, it was Obadiah who hid them in caves and made sure they had food to eat. It is Obadiah who arranges a meeting between the king and the prophet Elijah. Elijah tells Ahab that he is planning a showdown of sorts between the prophets of Baal who are supported by Jezebel and himself. This showdown took place on Mount Carmel.Elijah and the prophets of Baal were both given a bull to sacrifice and whichever respective God answered by fire that God would be the real deal. Now, it is here in the story, that we begin to see a flaw in Elijah which is easy to overlook because of him being the one to confront the opposition but its important to understand what comes later. Elijah, in laying out the rules of the contest, states that he only is left a prophet of Israel. This sounds very courageous but the writer of First Kings has told us that this is in fact not true because there are one hundred more prophets hidden in caves that are being kept alive by Obadiah. So, we must see this claim of Elijah, that he is the lone survivor, to be a serious issue, and is in fact the issue that is dealt with in our scripture for today.

         Well, the contest went as planned. The prophets of Baal cried out to their god all day long and, of course, nothing happened because Baal was nothing more than an illusion of their imagination. When they at last gave up, Elijah, placed his bull upon the stone altar he had built, then, in an act of defiance, had the altar and the sacrifice and the wood for the fire soaked with water. This proved no problem at all because fire came from heaven and consumed the bull, the wood, and the very stones of the altar. So, take that, you prophets of Baal. These promoters of false gods were then summarily sacrificed themselves.

         Once Elijah proved the falsehood of belief in the gods of Baal, then at last the rain could come back to Israel. Elijah prayed to God for rain three times and at last the rain came from the Mediterranean Sea. Elijah told Ahab to get his chariot ready for a storm was brewing. Ahab set off by chariot to the capitol city to outrun the rain and to his surprise alongside the chariot was running none other than Elijah. Now, it is unclear why Elijah thought it would be a good idea to follow Ahab to the capital city, to place himself in the vicinity of the queen Jezebel when he had just done away with four hundred of the prophets of her religion. It just makes sense that she is going to seek revenge on Elijah and since he had come to her, all the better. So, when Elijah finds out that the queen has put a hit out on his life he gets out of town and fast. Elijah, we are told, heads south, afraid for his life. He heads out past civilization, out into the wilderness. It is this word, “wilderness”, that is an important clue, to the thought process of Elijah from this point on. There in the wilderness we are told he is fed bread prepared for him by an angel. Does this sound at all familiar? In the seventy eighth Psalm, we are told that the manna that fed the people of God in the wilderness was the bread of the angels. It isn’t hard to understand then that Elijah is, in a way, reliving, the wilderness journey of his ancestors. This understanding becomes clearer when we are told that this meal was his last because he fasted for forty days and nights as he headed to Mount Horeb which is another name for Mount Sinai. Now, has what Elijah is doing becoming obvious? What we know about Mount Sinai is that this is where Moses brought the people of Israel when God rescued them out of the slavery of Egypt. Moses went up on the mountain and there he fasted for forty days. It was when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments that he discovered the people of Israel engaged in idol worship, dancing and singing around a golden calf. God told Moses that since he was the only faithful person left he would just wipe out everyone else and begin anew with Moses. Only the intercession of Moses saved God from going to such drastic measures.

         You see we have to realize that Elijah had Moses on his mind as we come to our scripture for today because this is what helps us understand why Elijah has come to this place, of all places. I am sure that when God asked Elijah just what in the world Elijah was doing there he already knew the answer but God asks the question so that Elijah can hear himself say what he has pondered in his heart. God knows that sometimes we need to say things out loud to hear that our thoughts are in need of correction. Elijah tells God that he has been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts. This way that Elijah speaks of God, that God is the leader of the heavenly armies, is important because Elijah also understood himself as being a foot soldier for God. Elijah goes on to say to God that the people of Israel had forsaken your covenant, they had thrown down the altars of God, and they had killed the prophets of God by the sword and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away. Can you hear how off track that Elijah has become? All of Israel has forsaken the covenant of God, really Elijah, what about Obadiah who is risking his life sneaking around to ensure the survival of one hundred faithful prophets to God? Are you really the only one left Elijah because as God will soon disclose to him there were in fact seven thousand people who remained loyal to God in the midst of such overwhelming evil. This is what has to be kept in mind when we read what comes next, when God tells Elijah to come and stand before him. There, as the Lord passed by, we are told a great wind had come up which was so strong that it busted rocks to pieces but, the Lord, we are told was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake and again we are told, that the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire but, once again, we are told that God was not in the fire. All of these as we can read in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus, happened when Moses brought the people of Israel to meet God at the foot of Mt. Sinai. What God did for Elijah, then, was to give him the very same experience that his ancestors had at that mountain but none of that experience was an experience of God. After the wind, and earthquake and fire then we are told that Elijah heard the sound of a low whisper or as it has been written of often, a still, small voice. What is hard to believe is that it is the quiet voice of God because as we have heard already God began this exercise with Elijah by speaking to him, asking Elijah, “What are you doing here? Throughout the story of Elijah, God has been speaking to him so it isn’t like Elijah needed to hear God speak to him and there up on the mountain he at last heard the still, small voice of God. No, to understand what is going on we have to go back to the experience of Moses and ask ourselves just what is missing in this experience of Elijah? There was a significant experience that Moses had when he went back up on the mountain after he had encountered the people of Israel engaged in idol worship and the whole creation of a people who would be faithful to God looked to be in great peril. Moses went back up on the mountain and prayed and interceded for his people. Moses asked God to allow him to know the ways of God so that God’s favor, his grace might be with him. Moses then insisted that God’s presence go with them because how else would his people know that God’s favor, his grace, was with them unless they experienced the presence of God with them. So, God agreed that his presence would be with his people just as Moses had asked him to do. Further, God told Moses that he would allow his goodness to pass before Moses and in that moment God would allow Moses to know his name. Then we are told that up there on Mount Sinai, God descended in a cloud and stood with Moses and there was proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed that he was the Lord, God, who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who by no means will clear the guilty.’ You see, for people who know the story of Moses, they are left wondering  just where in this story of Elijah is this experience of God’s proclamation of his name? The answer I believe is in what is in this undefinable moment, this low whisper, this stillness, this moment of sheer quietness. It is as if that God is barely speaking his name because he expects that Elijah, who knows the story of Moses so well, he should already know the name of God. God, in other words, expected Elijah to”fill in the blank” because it is the name of God, this is where God is to be found. This truth is what had been revealed to Moses. Moses asked for the presence of God and God in return gave Moses his name, a name which spoke of God’s faithful presence. We are to know that God is a God whose love is gracious and merciful and that he is a God who is steadfast and faithful. The question that hovers over this encounter that Elijah has with God is does Elijah remember the name of God? The importance of the name of God especially in the context of the covenant that God makes with his people is that the fulfillment of the covenant is solely because of the faithfulness and steadfastness of God and nothing else. God, as his name insists, is the one who is gracious and merciful, willing to forgive transgressions, sins and iniquities for the very reason that we are unable to be faithful to the covenant as we promised to be. Only the promise of God, his word, this is what can be counted on throughout the seasons. 

         This is what Elijah so desperately needed to remember. You see, in the midst of such raging evil, Elijah had come to believe that if the covenant God had with his people were to survive then it would survive because of his faith and nothing else. Elijah came to believe that since he was on the frontlines battling the powers that be that there was no one else who was being faithful to the covenant. In his spiritual tunnel vision, Elijah wrote off the heroic efforts of Obadiah who saved one hundred prophets while being in the service of an evil king as not even being worth his time. When he got ready to confront the queen Jezebel, his doubts about whether the covenant of God would remain if he were to die got the best of him. This is why he headed back to where the making of the covenant happened, back to the holy mountain called Sinai so that God might begin again with him.

         What Elijah, in his zeal, forgot is that God is faithful and God in his faithfulness has a plan to bring his covenant to its proper end. So, what Elijah also forgot is that he was just part of a the greater plan that God was faithfully executing. All was not lost as Elijah had assumed; on the contrary, God’s plan would prevail in the end. This is why God asked Elijah, twice, “What are you doing here Elijah?”, because God had a role for Elijah to fulfill within God’s plan and Elijah couldn’t be obedient to what God desired for Elijah to do if he was hopelessly caught up in the belief that it was all up to him. Elijah was to anoint others who would join him in the fight, a fight God never intended Elijah to do alone.

         In these days we live in we see much rampant evil, much idol worship, many of God’s people going astray and it is easy to be fooled into thinking that it is all up to us and our faithfulness to God. Yet, Jesus was born in our corrupt flesh so that we might at last understand that only God in his faithfulness could uphold his covenant. Only Jesus, the very Son of God, loved perfectly as the covenant demanded and he did so even unto death relying solely upon the faithfulness of his Father present with him in the presence of the Spirit. Thus the life of Jesus witnessed to the name of God, that our God in his love, grace and mercy is steadfast and faithful. God in his faithfulness has a plan and he is asking you to be part of that plan just as he asked Elijah to do so so long ago. The question then is this: Will you hear God’s word and obey? To God be the glory! Amen

The Center of Worship

 October 31 2021

1 Kings 8:1-21

         A week or so ago was the gotcha day for our dog Mazy. We got her from a rescue center and all we really know about her lineage is that she is a fox terrier and perhaps Italian Greyhound which explains why her mature weight is about 9 pounds. Yet even though she is small in size she is quite big in personality. One of Mazy’s favorite things to do is to go for walks in the woods which surround our home. Being that she is part Greyhound means that she has weird ways of getting what she wants. Instead of incessant begging she will instead sit and stare at you. If you ignore her fiery glances then she will take her paw and knock whatever you are reading out of your hand to get her point across. If her paws still don’t get the desired effect then she will climb up on the back of the couch and start licking your ears which pretty much makes you want to get out of your chair. 

         Now, when we go for walks in the woods, Mazy just runs off to sniff every little hole in the vicinity leaving me to just have to walk around pretending that I too am part of the critter hunt. So, because I have no interest in critters I instead use my time just looking at the trees and plants that make up the woods. One of the things that I have found fascinating is how the two storms that affected our home have caused a lot of damage to the trees in the woods. There are a lot of uprooted trees strewn everywhere. There are also those trees that have been bent and twisted by the wind, some of them have been partially uprooted yet in spite of the terrible shape that they find themselves in these battered trees still show signs of life.  From the trees permanently bowed over are growing shoots heading straight up towards the meager sunlight. Others trees which are leaning over at steep angles look like they are  not far from falling but out of them comes new shoots that know how to grow straight. I quite frankly am amazed at how this life that is in them is a life that is seemingly not easily defeated. The word that comes to mind when you look at these tough battered trees is resilient. The word resilient means “to spring back” and while these trees never will spring back to their original shape that they had before the storms they nonetheless have sprung back to life when the forces of nature did their best to take that life from them.

         Being resilient seems to come quite naturally for trees but we have to wonder just what is necessary for us as people to be resilient, to be people who bounce back after adversity strikes? Well, fortunately for us, there are people who study such things. Duncan Westbrook a clinical psychologist who assists missionaries who move to foreign lands wanted to discover what was necessary for these missionaries to be able to weather the storms they would face when they found themselves in strange lands with confusing cultures and norms. What he discovered is that there was a relation between the picture one holds of God and ones ability to be resilient in the face of difficulty. So, I have to ask, just what picture comes to mind when you think about God? Is your God a distant God who is just there in emergencies or is your God close by all the time? Is your God a God who is only compassionate or is your God a God who seeks out justice and judgment? Is your God a God with whom you have had the same relationship since you first met him or is he a God that you have grown to know him better as time has gone on? Is your God you have pretty much figured out or is he a God who the more you learn about him the more you realize that he is a God beyond what you will ever figure out? Just what is your image of God?

         Well what Duncan Westbrook learned is that there are three healthy signs of a person’s image of God. The first of these is the presence of intimacy, a knowing that our God is a God who is close by. The second sign that should be present in our image of God is that he is a God that we have a growing relationship with through all of our stages of life. The third sign of a healthy image of God is an acceptance of the mystery of God. If our picture of God includes these three things, that our God is a God who is a God close by, that he is a God we grow in our relationship through our stages of life and if our God is a God of mystery beyond our understanding then we will be less likely to be plagued by anxiety and we will find ourselves more resilient, able to bounce back in the face of difficulty.

         Now, the reason that I found this study so intriguing is that these three signs of a healthy image of God correspond very closely with the three distinct areas found in the temple that we read about in our scripture for today. The reason that we even need to worry what image of God that we might have is that the main purpose of the Temple is that it was to be built as a house for the name of the Lord. Over and over in this account of the building of the Temple by Solomon there is this repetition of the Temple being tied to the name of the Lord. So, we have to ask ourselves just what is meant by this phrase, “the name of the Lord”? The best way, perhaps to figure out what is meant by this phrase is to consider what is meant by someone saying that they don’t want anyone to ruin their good name. When we hear this we just know that what they are talking about is their reputation; this is what they do not want ruined because their reputation is what people will know about them until they actually get to meet them in person. A person’s reputation is very much like an image of who a person is until we can meet the person that the image is based upon. So, it is with God. His name is his reputation, what people say about him, the image that is portrayed about him by those who do know him. We get this sense in part of the prayer that Solomon offers up at the Temple dedication found in the forty-first verse of the eighth chapter of First Kings where we hear Solomon say, “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people of Israel, comes from a far country for your names sake, for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand of your outstretched arm and when this foreigner comes and prays toward this house hear his prayer.” Here is a person who knows nothing about God except of his great reputation, what others have experienced of him and because of this great reputation the one who is foreign to the ways of God will have the assurance to pray to this God and know that God will listen to him. So, if this is what is meant by God’s name then we have to go on and ask just what does it mean for the Temple to be the house of the name of God, or better how is the Temple the place where the reputation of God is established? When we try and figure out the answers to these questions what helps in our discovery is knowing what is a healthy image of God, an image which empowers the people who have this image to be resilient people.

         It was in the Temple then that the people of Israel developed their understanding of who God is and the three distinct areas of the Temple align themselves with what has been discovered are necessary for a healthy image of God. The first of these areas was the outer court where the altar was located. It was in this area that the people would bring their animals and their first fruit offerings as required by God. It is difficult for us with our modern sensibilities to make much sense of all of the required sacrifices however the most important aspect of the sacrifices is that they involved the shedding of blood. The importance of blood in the sacrificial rituals is found in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus where we are told, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, the blood makes atonement by the life.” You see, the reason for all of the sacrifices is that they were necessary to make atonement. Atonement is a word that means to come together in unity after having being separated and the separation that needed remedied was the separation that was caused by the sins of God’s people. So, the reason for the sacrifices was so that God was willing to give a life in order to remove whatever stood in the way of there being an intimate relationship with his people. What was to have been taken from this experience in the outer court was that the God that they worshiped desired an intimate relationship with his people and he provided the life blood necessary to cleanse the sin that kept that intimacy from happening.

         The next court found in the Temple was called the Holy Place. Here in this inner court was found on one side a candelabra of seven wicks fueled by olive oil which never went out. This is the menorah that is seen when the Jewish people celebrate their holiday of Hanukkah. Opposite of this candelabra was a table upon which were laid twelve loaves of bread representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The imagery of this place was that the twelve tribes of Israel were to live always in the perpetual light of the face of God. This is what is referred to in the blessing that Aaron was instructed to pray over the people when he prays that the face of God shine upon them. Once they had their sins forgiven through the shed blood then in this restored unity with God they were to continually live before the face of God, in the light of his continual presence. This living before the light of God meant that over time that their lives might glow with his light, that who God is might be seen in who they were and who they were becoming. So, once again this is much like what is necessary to have a healthy image of God, that we have a God whom we are continually growing in our relationship with him. As the people of God moved through the various stages of their life they would bask in the light of a life lived before the face of God and in doing so they would be transformed as Paul understood it, from one degree of glory to another.

         The last court that was of upmost importance in the Temple was the Holy of Holies. This was a small chamber in which inside was found only the ark of the covenant. Inside the ark was to be found the Ten Commandments the sign of the peoples covenant with God. The Holy of Holies was only entered once every year during the Feast of Atonement, the Yom Kippur. The High Priest would enter and sprinkle blood upon the top of the ark of the covenant, the place known as the mercy seat of God, the place that it was believed that the Holy Presence of God would touch the earth. This holiness of God was a mysterious, powerful, awe inspiring aspect of God that indicated that the God that the people of Israel believed in was beyond their very understanding and knowledge; he is a God who is only known as he desires to reveal himself to us. This is what was communicated through this holiest of holy places, the infinite, holy, otherness of God. This too is a necessary part of a healthy image of God because for us to be resilient people we need a God whose infinity can counter our limited existence. We need a God who stands outside the broken sinful mess of our world, unstained by all of its corruption, in order to have any hope that this world and ourselves can be saved.

         So, through this experience that God’s people would have at the Temple, God communicated to them who he was. He is a God who desired a close intimate relationship with his people willing to allow the shedding of blood, the giving of a life so that the sins which came between God and his people might be cleansed away. In their experience at the Temple, the people of God would become once again aware of the Holy place where the bread of the presence, a loaf placed there which represented their own tribe, would be known to reside before the perpetual light, the shining face of their God. This is the light which was to shine upon them to guide them through all their life. And they also would know that at the very center of this holy place of worship was the most holiest place of their world, a place of such infinite holiness that they would have been filled with a sense of dread when they thought of it. This was their reminder that their God was a great and holy God who was beyond all they could ever imagine, greater than their problems, a God who was their sure anchor through whatever storms might come. There God then would have a reputation of being a God who did not keep them from adversity but rather he was a God who made them resilient no matter the storms that they faced. They could bounce back because he was a God who was close to them, a God who was present with them, whose light guided their way and a God who is greater and so beyond us that his holiness was all that needed to be feared. This then would have been the reputation of the God that the people of Israel met in their house of worship so that it could be said that their house of worship was indeed the house of the name of God.

         Where all of this becomes so important for us today is that it helps us understand what Jesus meant when, in the second chapter of the gospel of John, he tells the people in power, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” These people could not understand what Jesus had meant as it had taken forty-six years to build the Temple so just how did Jesus expect to build one in three days. The answer we are told is that he was speaking of his body. The risen Jesus then is our new Temple yet even knowing this we still are left wondering just what does it mean for Jesus to be our Temple. A clue to help our understanding is found in something Jesus tells us in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, where he states, “The hour is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.” When Jesus spoke these words we know that he was the one who was anointed by the Holy Spirit and so he was the one who worshiped the Father in the Spirit and the truth. Yet, because Jesus came in the flesh with a body just like ours, we are united with him so that we also can worship truly in the Spirit. The Spirit reveals to us that the once for all sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross happened because of the great desire that our Heavenly Father has to have an intimate, love relationship with us, so much so that he was willing to give his only Son up to shed his blood for our atonement. Now, because of Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we can be united with God. Three days later Jesus arose from the dead shining in the light of the glory of God so that we might know that we live forever before the face of Jesus who is for us the very face of God. So, as Paul wrote in the third chapter of Second Corinthians, “And we all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another”. There again we see a growing relationship over time with the God who has united himself with us. Jesus after his resurrection ascended into the heavens on the clouds and there he reigns forever. Jesus, our High Priest, has entered into the most Holy of Holies, yet, amazingly, Paul tells us at the beginning of the third chapter of Colossians, so have we. Paul tells us that there in the heavens, a place beyond what we can ask or imagine, there our life is hid in Christ until he comes again when we will appear with him in glory. This experience is clearly beyond us, that we are here and yet we are in the heavens caught up in the mystery and holiness of God on account of Christ. Yet, just like experience had by the people of Israel, our anchor holds within the mystery beyond the veil. 

         Through our experience with Christ who is our Temple then we understand God as a God whose greatest desire is to be intimate with us. With our God we can be completely open and vulnerable because Christ was willing to be vulnerable enough to open himself up to the experience of the cross. Through our experience with the risen Christ we now know that ever before us is not an unknown future but instead we know that in that future is the very face of Christ in whose glorious light we are to live our life and grow ever more like him. In our experience with Christ as our Temple we are to know that we have ascended into the great mystery of heaven with him and know that the God who knows us is infinitely more than we will ever understand. This is our hope that our God is greater than our greatest fears and it is this mystery that anchors us. The result of our Temple experience is that we know God as the God who is able to create us as resilient people who can weather the storms and bounce back from adversity. The question then, is this: Is this the God that others know through you? Just what is the image of God you share with the world around you? To God be the glory! Amen!