An Intrusion of Faith

 December 18 2022

Matthew 1:18-25

         Just up the road from where Jennifer and I live there is a large mega-church. By large I mean a church which numbers in the thousands of participants. They began as a church in Sugarcreek which had several hundred people and now they not only have a church in Dover but also have five other such campuses up and down the I-77 corridor. So, its easy to conclude that they touch thousands of lives with the gospel message which is a wonderful blessing. The only issue that I have with them is that there are times when their message sounds like some Christian version of self-help. Its as if they are saying that if you place your faith in Jesus then you can expect that your finances will improve, your marriage will be shored up and your children will at last be the blessing that they are supposed to be. I mean, it all sounds wonderful until you open your Bible and see just what did happen when people met Jesus. When the rich, young, ruler encountered Jesus he was told to sell all that he had and come tag along with Jesus and his friends. I’m not really sure that did much to improve his finances. Those friends of Jesus who left their fishing nets to become fishers of men sounds great until you imagine just what their wives had to say when they found out that their husbands had abruptly up and quit their jobs. There are any number of stories from the New Testament that we can tell that calls into question this idea that placing our faith in Jesus is going to make our life better according to our standards today.

         Nowhere does life seem to be made worse by the coming of Jesus than right here at the beginning, right here in the lives of Mary and Joseph. It is easy to read the story of how Mary found herself with child, as they say, without fully considering just what reaction Joseph must have had when he found out that his blushing-bride-to be is pregnant and there is no way that he is the father. I’m not sure that having God intrude upon his life made Joseph’s marriage to Mary in any sense of the word, better. You see, this is just how it is when God’s plan to make the world better interrupts our plans for a better life.Sometimes the best we can hope for is to anticipate that better world that is to come.

         It is this better world that has already broken into our world and therefore a better world that most certainly will arrive, this must be our anchor that holds us steady when our life doesn’t seem to be getting better because of our knowing Jesus. This is the beauty of the resurrection of Jesus, that this rising from the dead is the event that ultimately will make our life better when Jesus returns and all those who have placed their faith in Jesus will be resurrected and know Jesus as our resurrection and our life.Now, it seems odd perhaps to be thinking about the resurrection of Jesus this close to Christmas however to make sense of the birth of Jesus it is imperative that we understand that the truth we know about the resurrection aligns itself with every part of Jesus’ life especially his birth. One of the most important statements of the early church concerning the resurrection is found in the first chapter of the book of Romans . There in the first four verses we hear Paul write, “I, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…” You see, what Paul is telling us here is that only when Jesus was raised from the dead, only then did the world at last comprehend that Jesus is the one God had promised would come as foretold by the prophets in the holy Scriptures. These are the many prophecies that we find throughout prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and many others. Yet not only did the resurrection of Jesus affirm the many prophecies about his coming found throughout the Scriptures but the resurrection of Jesus also proved that  he was the one descended from David according to the flesh. This is the promise that we have previously studied as found in Second Samuel, the seventh chapter, the twelfth through the fourteenth verses, where we find the prophet Nathan informs King David that God promises that he is going to establish the throne of David’s offspring and his kingdom is going to be an everlasting kingdom. In this promise, God has tied his very reputation to the fulfillment of this promise and when the people of Israel were sent into exile and the kings in the lineage of David appeared to be cut off, this promise that God had made to David was called into question. That was until Jesus arose from the dead and the promise that God had made to his servant David had at last been found to be fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Jesus had defeated death so his was surely a kingdom that would remain forever.

         Yet the resurrection not only confirmed that Jesus had descended from David according to the flesh, as Paul teaches us, his resurrection also proved that Jesus is declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. This is the fulfillment of what is written in such places like the second Psalm where in the seventh verse we hear God say, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” And in the One-Hundred and Tenth Psalm, where King David wrote, “The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” These and many other scriptures spoke of the coming of the very Son of God who would come and rule in power over all the earth.

         Now it is very important that we remember that Jesus did not in any way become the Son of God because of the resurrection. No, what the resurrection did was to reveal the truth of who Jesus is and always has been. This is what has to be held on to if we are to have faith that who Jesus was, is and always will be is God. You see, we must first start with our confession of faith, that Jesus is the one promised by the prophets in the holy Scriptures; that Jesus is the one who has descended from David according to the flesh; and that Jesus is the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead and if this is the truth to which we confess then it is the truth which has always been even before the earthly birth of Jesus. When we come to the story of the birth of Jesus as found in the gospel of Matthew, this timeless truth that we find in this confession of faith in the resurrection of Jesus that Paul writes of in this first chapter of Romans, this is exactly what we find in the Christmas story found in the gospel of Matthew.

         So let’s see how this confession in the resurrection forms the basis for the Christmas story that Matthew has written. After Matthew has written an earthly lineage for Jesus, he writes simply that the birth of Jesus took place in this way. So, the way that Jesus came to be born is that when Mary became betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, Mary was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Here we must pause to place ourselves in the culture of first-century Judaism. The marriages of this time were arranged by the respective father’s of the bride and groom and when all of the details had been hammered out, then the bride and groom were considered to be engaged or, as our text puts it, betrothed. This means that the bride and groom were pledged to one another even though the formal wedding service had not yet taken place. This time between when the bride and groom were pledged to be married and when the marriage actually took place was a time when the groom could prepare a proper place to make a home with his bride. So once we understand this then it makes sense that a husband and wife could be betrothed and still have no intimate contact with one another. It was into this culturally accepted time when a bride would keep herself pure for the groom that had pledged himself to her, that we are told that Mary, far from being without child, instead, we are told is with child through an action of the Holy Spirit. Now we have to wonder, just why does Matthew begin his story in this way? The answer is found in the statement of faith that has come about through the resurrection of Jesus. What does this statement of faith say about the Holy Spirit? Our statement of faith states that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. So it was there, at his resurrection, that this truth about Jesus, that he was the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, was declared to us. And then we must ask, how long has the power of the Spirit of holiness been present in the life of Jesus? The answer that we learn in the gospel of Matthew is that the power of the Spirit of holiness has been present in the earthly life of Jesus right from the moment of his conception. It is in the life of Mary that the truth that Jesus is the Son of God through the power of the Spirit of holiness is first declared to us. So, it is Mary who becomes the person whose life speaks to us about the first part of our confession of faith that we believe about Jesus.

         Well, it makes perfect sense that when Joseph finds out that Mary is with child that he would be quite upset. Into his perfect little life where he and Mary would be blessed by a large family came the workings of God which shattered all hopes Joseph might have had of a normal life. We are told that Joseph was a just man, other translations say that he was an upright and righteous man. This means, among other things, that he knew the law, that he knew in the book of Deuteronomy, in the twenty-second chapter, it spells out how he could have demanded that Mary be stoned to death for her supposed immorality. Yet, he not only knew the law he also knew compassion and mercy were also more important than justice so Joseph we are told was unwilling to put Mary to shame. No, Joseph decided to just divorce her quietly, and begin again with someone else. We are told that while Joseph thought about what his next move was in his dealings with Mary that an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. This angel was a messenger of God by whose presence Joseph would have no doubt that it was God Almighty who was talking to him. Listen carefully as to how God addresses Joseph, calling him, “Son of David”. Isn’t that an interesting title to give to Joseph? It’s important that we hold on to this statement of Joseph’s lineage as we continue in the story. Well, God goes on to tell Joseph that he is to have no fear in taking Mary for his wife for the child that is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. God tells Joseph that Mary is going to bear a son and that Joseph is to name this child Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Here again, we have to pause and consider what God has instructed Joseph to do. He is to take Mary into his home and raise the child she is bearing just as if it was his own. Joseph is also to name this child, Jesus. These two actions are important because in the Jewish culture there were two ways that a child could be considered part of his father’s family. The first, of course, is that the child be naturally the son of his father. The second way is that the child could be legally thought of as being the child of his father. To be legally a father’s child, the child would need to be welcomed into the house of the father and thus provided and cared for by him. Secondly, the father would have to give the child a name for in giving the child a name the father was claiming that this child was his own. Matthew takes care to make sure that we realize that Joseph has done what was necessary for the child carried by Mary to legally be considered his own child. And since Matthew has also made us aware that Joseph is a son of David then this son named Jesus is also to be considered legally a son of David as well. Once again we stop our story to consider the faith statement that arises out of the resurrection of Jesus and we remember that Jesus is the Son descended from David according to the flesh. So here in the life of Joseph we find the truth that Jesus is the son of David according to the flesh, the very one God had promised David would rule over an everlasting kingdom.

         When we consider that it is the life of Mary which points us to the faith statement that Jesus is declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness and it is the life of Joseph which makes certain the claim that Jesus is the Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh then it should come as no surprise that Matthew in his account of the birth of Jesus gives us an account of the gospel that was promised beforehand through the prophets in the holy Scriptures. Matthew writes, “All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken through his prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanu-El (which means,God with us).”This quote comes from the seventh chapter of Isaiah and Matthew places this prophecy here to give support to this idea that the power of God is able to work mightily in the life of a young, single, unmarried, woman so that faith might spring forth in the hearts and lives of his people. This faith is founded on the gospel, the good news that God is most assuredly with us. Now, what is important for us to remember is that the reason why we have this assurance that God is with us is is that the name of the son whom the Virgin Mary is carrying is Jesus, which means “God is our salvation”. This is the essence of the gospel message found spoken on the lips of the prophets in the holy Scriptures. God is with us precisely because God has saved us from our sins. Only as we know with certainty that the sins that stood between us and God have been taken care of by God can we have any hope at all that God is most certainly with us. There are times when people speak of this good news that God is with us without also stating the good news that had to come before, which is that the very reason God can be with us is that he has come to us through the power of the Holy Spirit and as one in the line of David as the one we know as being Jesus, the one who bore our sins, saving us to the utmost all so God can forever be with us.

         This account of the birth of Jesus Christ that Matthew has so wondrously written down for us then is not just some simple story but what Matthew has done is to show how the birth of Jesus is a statement of our resurrection faith. In Mary, we see the truth revealed to us when Jesus arose from the dead, that Jesus most assuredly is declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness. It is through the Spirit that Jesus, the Son of God was conceived in the womb of Mary. It is by the Spirit Jesus was anointed as God’s Messiah at his baptism in the Jordan river. And it was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was raised to life in the new creation.

         As Mary’s life points us to Jesus being the Son of God according to the Spirit, the life of Joseph points us to the fact that Jesus descended from the line of David according to the flesh. Matthew reminds us that Joseph is from the house of David and that Joseph brought Mary and her child into his house and named her child, Jesus. Thus Jesus was legally recognized as being the son of Joseph and therefore Jesus was and is the Son of David in the flesh, the one God promised David would rule eternally because he is the one who has defeated death forever!

         Matthew in his account has also made certain that we understand this coming of Jesus is the very gospel of God that we were promised through his prophets as found in the holy Scriptures. This good news is that because of Jesus, because Jesus is the Son of God in power through the Holy Spirit and because Jesus is descended from David according to the flesh, Jesus is the one who is able to take our sins upon himself and through his death on the cross was able at last to redeem us from our sins, saving us from the power of sin, so that the good news, God is with us, might at last be forever our eternal hope. This is the faith that came and intruded into the lives of Mary and Joseph that first Christmas, the faith that every Christmas intrudes into our life and calls us once again, to respond! Amen!  

         

 

Fear Of Missing Out

December 11 2022

Isaiah 35

         Our son Matt is one of the IT guys for the Dover School system. There are four guys who work in the IT department and they have their workload all divided up between them. Matt’s main area that he watches over is the new high school auditorium. I just keep wondering what it must be like to be a twenty-six year old put in charge of a brand new, state-of-the-art, million dollar facility! Yet, he is good at what he does and everybody who uses the auditorium loves to work with him. The only downside for Matt is that he has to work quite a few weekends as this is when a lot of shows are happening. Of course, he does have the option to work less hours during the week if he works on the weekends but what usually happens is that he goes in on Monday morning just like normal. This seems a little odd especially if he has had to work both Saturday and Sunday but what we have learned is that Matt has FOMO, fear of missing out. He goes in on Monday because he doesn’t want to miss out on what’s happening with the rest of the crew that he works with. I guess he doesn’t want to be that guy that doesn’t have a clue as to what’s happening in his office!

         This fear of missing out is one of those, you might say, good fears because it motivates us to get up and get going all so that we can say that we are not the ones who missed out on what’s happening. As we read this thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, it becomes obvious as we read through this that Isaiah is describing something that is going to happen. What Isaiah believes is going to happen can be summed up in a word, “joy” and not just any joy, but a joy marked by leaping and singing and shouting. What Isaiah is lavishly describing here is a joy so wonderful that this joy should push away every fear except the fear of missing out on such an extravagant and over the top joy that is headed our way.

         The way that Isaiah describes this joy to us is to take and describe this joy with vibrant and stunning pictures which grab a hold of our emotions. Isaiah begins with the bleakness of the wilderness, the drabness of the dry places, this is the canvas upon which he will splash the many colors of joy for his readers to be enthralled with. These wearisome places, the wilderness, the dry places and the desert, here it is in these very hopeless and dreary haunts, this is where we will witness the power of God for he is the one who can bring gladness to blossom here, it is here in the desert of all places, that we will hear the laughter of joy.

         Isaiah uses the image of the crocus, a tiny flower which pops up on the desert landscape after a rain and Isaiah tells of how this little flower transforms the endless monotony of the death-bound brown of the desert into a rainbow of color. Imagine a sudden storm rolling through the desert floor and with equal suddenness, tiny flowers poking their heads up through the ground, and the amazement of watching life appear where once there had been nothing. And not just life, but life with vibrant colors, of reds, and yellows and purple waves of flowers contrasting the pale dustiness. Isaiah calls us to imagine, to capture this image, of flowers taking over the desert floor and not just a few flowers here and there but flowers breaking forth in abundance. Everywhere you look, for as far as the eye can see, waves upon waves of brilliant color, running rampant in every direction, this is, Isaiah proclaims, the rejoicing of the desert. Can you see the joy that is breaking forth all around you? Isaiah is pleading with his readers, this is a joy that you really don’t want to miss out on! 

This joy that Isaiah speaks of here is the joy found on the far side of judgment. In the thirty-fourth chapter, Isaiah records how God brings the nations into judgment, a year of compensation for the cause of Zion. It is important to remember that judgment must come before the day of joy. The causes of sorrow, the bitter root of unrighteousness, the trust in power and strength that come through death and destruction, all of this must be dealt with, the necessary compensation must be given to those who desire to find their life through the taking of life. The glory of the Lord is his victory over death, over those who try and build their lives upon the sifting sands of taking life for this is the way of the nations, the way of the world.

This glory of the Lord, this Isaiah declares is what will at last be seen. There in the wilderness, in the wasteland and the desert, this is where at last shall be an evident glory.  The splendor and wonder found on the heights of Lebanon, upon the mountainside of Carmel and there in the rich valley of Sharon, the beauty of these landmarks will now be eclipsed by the spectacular display of glory God is bringing forth there in the wild places. There in a place where life seemed bleak there suddenly will appear the glory of God. Can we capture the mystery of what Isaiah is attempting to speak to us here? The glory of God is his ability to bring life, suddenly and with flourish, in places that are normally written off as being dead, lifeless, void of beauty. Where God brings life into the barren places, where the life of God suddenly overpowers us, surprises us, when we discover that death is not the last word, there joy erupts like flowers after a rain.

So, death should no longer be the source of our fear but rather what we should fear is that we would miss out on experiencing this sudden rush of life that God is bringing into those situations where death seems to have the upper hand. The glory of God is life, to bring life there in the midst of places that reek with sorrow, grief and fear. Isaiah promises that the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God, this is what will not be hidden from our eyes but instead we will be overwhelmed by this wondrous work of God. What will prevent us from beholding the glory and majesty of God is our fear. The fear that causes our hands to tremble, the worry that makes our knees to knock, the anxiety that grips our hearts, all of this causes us to focus on our weakness instead of the glory and majesty of God. This is why Isaiah calls to us to get a grip on ourselves. Strengthen those shaking hands, people, come on, get those legs planted firmly on the ground, and really take to heart the warning to be strong; fear not. The only fear that is acceptable when God is present is the fear of missing out on seeing God’s glory, the fear of missing out on seeing glimpses of his majesty. God is coming; are you grounded in this promise? He is coming with vengeance, at last setting the world right, those who rule through the fear of death will at last be dealt with for the God whose glory is a life which cannot be defeated has promised that he will come. God is coming; are you ready to witness the salvation of God? The life which no death can defeat, this glorious life of God is coming, coming to hover over you, protecting you from all that would harm you, why would you be afraid? The fear that overwhelms, the fear that paralyzes, the fear that puts a chokehold on us, this can no longer be our response. No, now when we know that our God is coming, when we know that we will be in the very presence of the God of glory and majesty, now is the time to rejoice with much joy and singing. 

What is it that is keeping you and I from rejoicing? If our eyes cannot see God moving in our midst, if we cannot behold his glory surrounding us on all sides then God promises that he will open up our eyes to see his wonders. If our ears cannot hear God speak to us to be strong, fear not, then God promises that he will open up the ears that have been damaged by anxiety. If our lame legs refuse to jump for joy when God surprises us with the glory of his life, God promises that he will make us able at last to leap like a deer. If the words just won’t come forth from our lips shouting out the wonders and praise to God in exuberant joy, then we have a promise from God that he will set loose our tongues so that we will at last break forth in songs of joy! Whatever holds us back from responding to the glory of God breaking forth right where we are at, God promises us that he will come, and he will save and he will heal us of all that is preventing us from praising him. God knows that our greatest fear must be the fear that we will miss out in the celebration of joy which breaks forth in wild abandon when the glory of God’s death-defying life comes suddenly to us. Here again, Isaiah brings us back to the desert, to the wilderness, to the parched places, the dust filled, death plagued places, here is where the miracle of life from God can be seen. Here in the dry land there will be waters bubbling up, bursting forth, gushing over, gurgling forth, until a stream at last flows there in the desert. There where the sand once burned against ones feet now there will be a pool of cool water, the thirsty ground drinking up the springs which appear suddenly on the scene. We must pause and wonder just what is Isaiah describing with such images of gushing waters and streams forming in the dry ground? I think he is describing more than a literal picture, perhaps he is painting images of life after the judgment of God, after God has sorted out the wickedness and dealt with the unrighteousness, Isaiah wants us to know just what will the world look like then. Isaiah refuses to speak in direct, and obvious terms and instead he chooses to describe this situation as the desert suddenly receiving life-giving water. What Isaiah states here is something very much like what he wrote earlier in his writing where in the thirty-second chapter, Isaiah writes that the land will be nothing but a place of thorns and briers, “…until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace and the result of righteousness, quietness and security forever.” Here, Isaiah portrays the coming of the Holy Spirit as the rain poured out from above, flowing forth, transforming the wilderness into a fruitful field, a field of such abundant life that the field grows into a dense woodland. Yet, what must be seen is that the fruit that is suddenly found there in that wild place is justice, this is the result of the Spirit’s flowing forth from heaven unto the earth which longed for the sweetness of the arrival of the presence and power of God. From this sudden coming of justice sprouted righteousness out of the muddy ground. This righteousness caused peace to burst forth and out of this peace flowered the glory of quietness and security for those who live in the wild places.

It is the Spirit of God, the God of closeness and blessing, this is the God who comes as a cloudburst, gushing forth upon us the goodness and glory of heaven transforming our dry and stale existence into a flourish of holy living marked by justice and righteousness. At last, the promise of a life blessed by God is made good, and Isaiah envisions such blessing in terms of life-giving water flowing out upon the dry desert places that long to be transformed into places of beauty. This blessing is found in the promise of God that he will come, come with vengeance, and he will come to save. God will come with vengeance to be our certainty that justice will be at last meted out. God will come and God will save, save the ones who are willing to find security under the glory wings of God, knowing that to accept the salvation of God is to accept his way of life, a way of life that gives life to all, a way of life which is righteous in the eyes of God. 

Here in this place where the living water of God’s Holy Spirit has been poured out in torrents of blessing, this place where justice and righteousness have sprung up from the dry and dusty landscape like flowers after a rain, here we are told will be found a highway. The image of a road again captures our imaginations, especially when we hear that this highway is none other than the Way of Holiness. This is a highway, we are told, that belongs to those who are willing to walk on this road and no other. Isaiah also states that the unclean and the unwise, these will not be able to walk on this highway. As we imagine this highway in the desert, as we watch it go on for miles out in the distance getting smaller and smaller as it becomes just a small point on the horizon, we are left wondering just what is the destination of this road, just where will we end up if we begin our journey here? It seems as if the answer is found in the words of God who promises us that he will come to us, not willing to remain apart from our cursed existence of life in the wilderness but to come and pour out upon us the blessing of his life, the showering upon us with his Holy Spirit. So as God has come to us, as the rain has been poured upon us from the heavens, so too God desires that we come to him, that we have a way to come home to the God who longs for us to see his glory and majesty. God brings forth joy beyond his judgment, the joy found in his coming to us, in demonstrating his glory, the glory of his life which death cannot defeat. Yet, there is even more abundant joy, a joy beyond our wildest hopes to be found there where this road of holiness has suddenly appeared to us in the wilderness. Where this road is headed is not a place for the unclean, those who have not been declared to be clean by God, those whose hearts still harbor judgment against another while the days of the judgment of God is at hand. It is not for the foolish who refuse to live by the wisdom of the righteousness of God. No, this road is for those who know that judgment and retribution and vengeance are for God alone. We do not have to concern ourselves with setting things right because God in his glory will do so in the end. This road is for those who know the wisdom of living under the security of God’s hovering presence, finding our security through the life of God not through the death of another. This is who the road is for, those who understand the wisdom of living protected by the life which death cannot destroy, the glorious life of God.

This road then is for those who desire to find their everlasting home in the presence of God. This holy road of God then, is a road which leads us home. Just as there is great joy to suddenly find ourselves in the glorious presence of God, to experience the showers of blessing poured out on us in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, so there is also a greater joy that awaits us as we walk this way of holiness because we know that where this road ends is home. One day our traveling days will be over for at last we will see the lights of home, we will peer through the open door, hear the welcome cries and experience the loving embrace of God and all those who have trusted their life to his salvation. This is when we will be surrounded by his promised peace and security that are ours because we have a God who does not want us to miss out on this joyous occasion. This is why our greatest fear should be the fear of missing out on this most glorious day, the day when we will come at last to Zion, to the house of the Lord, the house that will be our everlasting home. Isaiah exclaims that we will come home with singing, everlasting joy will be upon our heads; and we will obtain gladness and joy and all sorrow and sighing will be gone forever. This is why God has come to us so that we might be able to one day make our home with him, to know the thrill of everlasting joy, to know life without tears, and without a heavy heart.

What Isaiah may not have been able to fully grasp is that the way that God would come to us to save us is that he would come as one of us. God would enter our world as a baby who would grow up to be the man named Jesus. Jesus is the God who came to us and he is the God who is for us the way of holiness, the way that leads us home to that place of everlasting joy. The question we must ask ourselves, is this: are we ready for God to once again come to us just as he did when he came as the baby Jesus? Are we ready for God to come and be the one who will at last sort everything out and make it right? Are we ready to find our salvation under his glorious presence, to find our salvation in his life which was given for us upon the cross? Are you and I ready to experience the overwhelming flood of the presence of God, a presence which is like rain in the desert causing justice and righteousness to sprout up like flowers in the wilderness? Are we ready to rejoice and sing and laugh because we know without a doubt we have found our way home and we know that one day we will enter into the joy of our master? Praise be to Jesus who is the Lord of all joy!Amen

          

A Peace For Us

 December 4 2022

Isaiah 2

         As we come to this second week of Advent, we are probably very aware of the sounds of Christmas that can be heard all around us. There is the jingling of the bell held in the hand of the Salvation Army volunteer standing next to their red kettle. In all the stores there is the old familiar carols playing; singers named Bing, and Perry and Johnny Mathis are once again deemed acceptable fare for longing ears to hear. Unfortunately there is also songs being sung by someone named Mariah, but in the spirit of the season we can even tolerate her for awhile. There is also the laughter of children who know that Christmas vacation will soon be here and they will be set free to focus on anticipating just what they want more than anything to see under the tree come Christmas morning. Into this mix for our ears to hear is the theme songs from the TV specials, the music which once again causes us to begin singing, “you’re a mean one mister Grinch”, or we may hear that old familiar sound of Schroeder playing on his piano which means that the the video is beginning where Charlie Brown will once again learn the true meaning of Christmas.

         Added to all of these sounds that we hear as we prepare our hearts for Christmas we must add the sound which Isaiah heard, the word that we are told that he saw. It’s easy to read this and give no heed to the really strange statement being made here; I mean just how exactly does one see a word? Just how does a person wake up one morning and suddenly there is a sound, a noise, a communication which when it is understood results in an enlightened imagination which is able to create out of that word a far reaching vision? I think that to grasp just what Isaiah is writing about here we must remember that at the beginning of every day, the people of God would pray the prayer which goes, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your strength or resources.” Every morning was to begin with one’s ears open and ready to hear the word of God, to hear anew the command that above all else they were to love their God with all that they were and all that they had. It is not a stretch then, that Isaiah, one morning, prayed this very prayer, his ears were open once again to hear the word of the Lord, the command to love God. We have to wonder, is this vision that Isaiah had, could it be, in no small way, a fleshing out of just what loving God in all its fullness just might look like?

         When we think of loving God with all that we are, doesn’t exalting God to the highest heights seem to fit with with what must be expected of us? If we begin with the word, the command of God to love him, then what Isaiah saw begins to make sense. Sooner or later, God’s command to love him was going to be a reality and what Isaiah saw was a vision of this coming state of things. It is going to come to pass, as Isaiah tells us, that in the latter days, “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be lifted above the hills…” As we read this we might not expect that the mountain upon which the city of Jerusalem is situated will one day suddenly be found to be higher than even Mount Everest. No, the concern here is not the height of Mount Zion but rather the lifting up, the exalting of God and his holy place of his presence. The house of the Lord is the Temple, the most holy dwelling place of the most holy God this is what must be held in high esteem.

         As we hear of how the peoples of the nations are coming to the Temple of God, I believe that this should remind us of is the promise God once made to a man named Abram. There in the twelfth chapter of Genesis, we hear God make a promise to Abram that through him, and through the descendants who would come after him, all of the families of the earth would be blessed. What cannot be forgotten is the seriousness that surrounds a promise that God makes. When God makes a promise then this promise can be thought of as already being a reality otherwise the faithfulness of God would be called into question. So, yes, we can wholeheartedly believe that all of the families of the earth will be blessed by God and this blessing will come through Abraham and his family. 

When Isaiah tells us that he sees the nations flowing like a mighty river up the mountain, rushing and pulsating ever up the heights, it is again, not hard to understand that this vision of Isaiah is an image of this reality that God promised to Abram. The house of the Lord situated on this high and holy hill points us to Jerusalem, the capital city of the land given to the people of Israel, the descendants of Abram. This is the land which God had promised Abram would be the home of all his children. So, here is the house of God, exalted above everything on earth, the house representing the family of Abram, and there is within this house is found the God who is beyond the bounds of earth yet even so, all the families of the world come to this house in wave after wave. Isaiah writes that many people were coming, saying to one another, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob, that God might teach us his ways and that we might walk in his paths.” Here again, we must pause and consider the strangeness of what is recorded here in the book of Isaiah. I mean, how can we not hear the words of the psalmist who, as recorded in the twenty-fourth psalm asks, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” The answer follows saying that the one who can ascend the hill of the Lord, the one who can stand in the holy place of God is the one “who has clean hands and a pure heart.” The people of Israel who would have heard Isaiah speak of this vision where all of the people of the nations come rushing up the holy hill of the Lord, had to be appalled. Just how do you think that these people who were far from God, the people considered to be unclean, how can you expect that these people can just come waltzing on in to the holy house of God, giving no consideration to how clean their hands are or how pure their heart might be? The people who had listened to Isaiah tell of his vision had to think to themselves that it seemed more likely that these foreigners were rushing up that hill like a mad horde on a rampage bent on storming into the house of God and taking it for their own. Isaiah, upon hearing these concerns, most likely would have wondered if these naysayers of his vision had really heard the word, the word that they were to have heard, the word which commanded the people of God to love him with all that they were and all that they had. If they had loved God they would had believed the promise of God, knowing full well that, yes, all of the families would one day be blessed by God and this blessing of God was to come through the people of God. If they had loved God they would have known that if God had made such a promise to bless all the families on earth then he is a God who is fully able to bless all of the other families on earth even if they appeared to be far from him, even if they were considered unclean. For God to be able to fulfill his promise to bless those who appeared more difficult to bless just meant that in blessing even these, God’s greatness is proved to be greater than his own people could have believed. Are you beginning to understand why Isaiah saw the house of the Lord there upon the highest mountain? Here is the greatness of God, the greatness to be able to bless those who are the farthest from him, those who seem to be the least to him, it is these to whom God extends his blessing. Through his blessing of those that seem to be the hardest people to love, God is exalted to the highest heights.

         What we cannot forget is that the reason that the nations come rushing to the house of God is that everyone has heard that there is a God and he is a God whose greatest desire is to share his goodness and glory with the very beings he has created to bear his image. This is God’s choice to be generous regardless of the worthiness of those who stand to receive his gift thus those who become aware of the graciousness of God respond to his grace with glad and grateful hearts. This gratefulness is what compels those of the nations who have heard of the blessedness of God to leave their homes and go to the house of the Lord. The people of the world come to sit at the feet of God so that they can learn the ways of God. Again, we must hold fast to the premise of Isaiah’s vision which is that what he is seeing is a demonstration of what it means to love God with all that a person is and all that a person has and no where is this love expressed more clearly than for the people of the nations to come to God in all humility and ask God to instruct them on the true way for them to live. All people have what they consider to be their wisdom, what to them is the right way to live and there is nothing more difficult than to decide that the ways that one thought were the right way to live are nothing more than something which must be discarded in order that the true way of living that God desires us to live can be learned and lived out. Only when the a life with God is loved more than than the life they used to live, only then will people take hold of this new life that God is teaching them to live. This is what Isaiah sees, people willing to learn the ways of God and it is this willingness to obey God this is the love that God so rightfully deserves.

         This love that the people of the nations have for God and the ways of God leads them to become people who can at last live with justice and righteousness. This is what is meant when we hear that out of Zion, the holy house of God, shall go the Torah. This word, Torah, is a Hebrew word which comes from a root word which means to flow out of. So, what we find here is a subtle play on words in this vision where the nations come flowing up this high mountain to seek after God and his ways and then we see the teaching of God flowing outward from this mountain into the world. What flows outward from Jerusalem we are told is the word which here again we must take as being the command to love God. When God is loved as God is supposed to be loved then it just makes sense that people will seek the judgment of God for rather than bringing fear into the hearts of people as thoughts of judgment day often do, the judgment of God is instead to be the means by which people can live together. When at last we turn to God the one who created us, the one who created us to live as living expressions of who God is, and we allow him to judge whether or not we are actually living like him, then it makes sense that the relationships we have with each other will be as they should be. Knowing that it is God alone who should determine the right way that we should live with one another it just makes sense that when we find that when we have a disagreement with someone, it is God who should be invited to come into our relationships to be the one who can bring about reconciliation.

         You see, if you work through what Isaiah sees when he considers just what does it mean for us to love God with all that we are and with all that we have, then we should not be shocked at this image of wagon loads of swords being hauled off to the blacksmiths forge to be put in the coals so that they can be hammered and shaped into plows. Here we can at last envision that the implements designed to take life will be recast to become implements which give life. The spears held in the arms of armies will now be used to prune trees. The nations, we are told, will no longer lift up their swords against one another; war, will become no longer a subject worth studying. 

         As we pause to consider this vision which Isaiah saw when he heard the word, the command to love God, the temptation is to say, that this is all a pie-in-the-sky kind of hope, something we would love to see happen but we doubt that it ever will. Do we really believe that war is someday going to be obsolete? Do we really buy into this notion that one day everybody is at last going to get along and nations are going to be at peace? I mean, when we read these far out, over the top, images isn’t there just a little part of us that is cynical of the whole business? Don’t we want to just dismiss it all and move on to more practical teachings? There’s nothing wrong with us approaching this vision of Isaiah with a healthy dose of pessimism, yet I don’t believe that we can just wash our hands of this whole business of world peace, gladly ridding ourselves of such outlandish notions. No, what all of this negativity that we have about this grand hope that someday we will, at last, get along, is supposed to do is to cause us to wonder just why is this vision even here in the book of Isaiah at all. I mean, if it is hard for us to think that one day all of our weapons will become farm implements it could not have been any easier for the people of Israel to accept such an idea either. They lived in a place that was constantly being invaded by various nations that surrounded them. They too most likely thought this vision of Isaiah, that he wrote down and placed within this work bearing his name, was probably just the ranting of a mad man. Yet, I don’t believe that Isaiah was the least bit crazy because what he saw is the ideal, the ultimate end of all things, the grand and glorious hope that we have to hang on to when the hopelessness of the world we live in creeps into our life and we begin to doubt whether God can really make any difference at all. For a lot of people who write commentaries on Isaiah they wonder just why, here, do we have this vision of Isaiah. This vision comes right after Isaiah writes of the current state of affairs of the people of God, how God considered these descendants of Israel his children yet instead of obedience he found that they rebelled against him at every turn. The people of Israel, people considered to be God’s own people, these were the ones God said did not know him nor did they understand him. This was the tragic state of the people that Isaiah was called to speak to as the representative of God. Isaiah knew that his own people chased after idols, lesser gods, which caused them to become lesser people. So far had they wandered from God that all they could be thought of is a sin sick group of evildoers whose iniquity Isaiah compared to the depravity done in Sodom or Gomorrah. They had become so callous that they actually thought they could come to worship God with blood on their hands as if all they needed to do is just go through the motions, offering up just what was required, as if that was all that was necessary to be alright with God. The love that the people of Israel was to have had for God had grown cold, for them they saw God just as one more power they could manipulate for their own good.

         So right here, at this very low ebb in the life of God’s people, this is where Isaiah hears a word and sees what could be if the hearts of his people could be set aflame once again with love for God. If only God could once again be held in the proper esteem, highly exalted, lifted up above every earthly concern then life would be rightly ordered. When they loved God with all that they were and all that they had then God’s people would remember that they had been chosen to be the people through whom the salvation of the world would come, that they were to be the ones who would bear the blessing of God out to all the families of the earth. You see, we need to hold fast to the future that is surely coming when we live in a present where it seems as if that future will never get here. We have to know that people will not rebel against God forever. We need to know that the days of believing in idols will end. We especially need to not let go of the truth that violence will not be the last word because our God is a God of peace and one day the people of this world will learn the ways of God and be at last people of peace. This is the hope we have because the Prince of Peace has come and shed his blood to bring peace on earth and goodwill for all. I hope that when Christ returns he will find us busy being the peacemakers he expects us to be. Amen!

         

The Blessings of Our King

 November 27 2022

2 Samuel 7

         One of the aspects of church life that I have always been intrigued by is that every week, all over the world, there are groups of people who get together to praise God and they do so by singing. I mean, have you ever considered that the two most prominent places where people can be found singing together is on a Sunday morning and at concerts. The people in churches that sing together come from very diverse places economically and socially yet when they come and are gathered together those differences disappear as they sing and worship together. It doesn’t matter if the people of God even know how to sing, or are even good singers; when the church gathers, everybody who is there is encouraged to praise God with singing. It’s really kind of amazing when you think about it, isn’t it? In churches, people who wouldn’t think of singing out loud except for perhaps belting out a tune in the shower, these same people have no trouble joining in when surrounded by their brothers and sisters in Christ. So when you stop and think about what becomes so commonplace every Sunday morning it isn’t hard to come to the conclusion that God has made all of us able to sing and he has done so because he enjoys hearing his children sing of their love for him.

         I wanted us to pause and consider just how important singing is to our worship of God because as we come to the story of David and God making a great promise to him, what we must remember about David is that he was emphatically, a singing king. Think about the fact that one-half of the Psalms were written by David. The Psalms were and are the songbook for the people of Israel, and out of the one hundred and fifty songs found there, seventy-five of them were written by the hand of King David. Stop and consider what it would be like if a world leader was also known as a song writer say like Chris Tomlin or for the older crowd, Bill Gaither. It’s kind of strange when you think of it that way, isn’t it? Well, not only was King David the writer of songs but the songs he wrote run the gambit of human emotion. David writes of moments of great joy and exuberance and also moments where he found himself in the depths of despair wondering just where God was when he needed him. David also wrote songs revealing the awfulness of his sin and the need he had to be forgiven. It is easy to stand back and see that in the songs David wrote we find a king who not only wrote songs but within these songs he bares his soul being very real and honest about the man he really was. By telling all through the medium of song, David was also making certain that the sum total of his life, the great moments of intimacy with God as well as the moments when he sinned horribly and stood in great need of God’s mercy, all of this became a permanent part of the worship of the people of Israel. Can you imagine people singing about the awfulness of your sin and how you pleaded with God to restore you into a right relationship with him and that people would sing about this possibly forever? In these songs then we find that David opens himself up, he holds nothing back, he harbors no secrets and in doing so, I believe that we are to remember how this same vulnerability is a quality that God had asked of David’s ancestor, Abraham. Do you remember how in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis that Abram was ninety-nine years old when God appeared before Abram and said to him,” I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless.” What God was asking of Abram was that Abram be totally honest with God, never hiding any secrets because God, after all, is the searcher of hearts. Abram was to open himself up to God, to be completely vulnerable in the presence of God because this was the only way that Abram could be able to have a vibrant relationship with God. David, most assuredly, also understood this and perhaps this is why God considered David a man after his own heart.

         We have to search for reasons as to why God would make such great promises as he makes with David that we find here in the seventh chapter of the second book of Samuel because the life of David has a number of moments that were very grievous to God. Most of us think of the good moments in David’s life, you know, when he slayed the giant Goliath with only a stone and a slingshot. Or the moment when he was caught up in great worship and singing and he danced before the ark of the Lord as it at last came to reside in Jerusalem. Yet we cannot forget that this same David was the man who while he walked upon the upper floor of his palace, gazed upon the neighbor lady taking a bath on the upper floor of her house. It becomes pretty obvious that if someone were to make a series about David it would have to come with a warning that this show contains adult themes. David gets involved with the neighbor lady, and out of this adulterous affair ends up getting her pregnant so he then has to figure out how to get rid of her husband so that said husband doesn’t begin to figure out that the child his wife is carrying can not possibly be his since he was on the battlefield at the time. Yikes! David’s life is pretty far from being some ideal godly life, the kind of life that God would be justified in making promises to the person living such a life. To make matters worse, David doesn’t even consider just how sinful his life had become. It was a prophet named Nathan who had to confront David with the fact that he had committed acts that put David in the crosshairs of God. David’s response to the finding out that he had committed horrible iniquities against God is found in the fifty-first Psalm, where David cries out, “ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” When we listen to David sing his confession, we should be in awe that this is the same man who, in our scripture for today, is found to be the man who receives a great promise from God where David will be the one God is going to give a long and enduring legacy.

         What should make us wonder as we read of how God is making such an incredible promise to David is why would God do such a thing? How is God justified in choosing one who has such a sordid past, surely there were holier people to choose other than David weren’t there? The answer as to why God chose David is, I believe, found right here in this account of God’s promise to David. We hear God promise to make for David a great name and if we are paying attention, we will remember God doing the same thing to a man called Abram as found in the twelfth chapter of Genesis.  God also promises David that he will appoint a place for the people of Israel and God would plant them there so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. Are we able to hear in this promise the same promise that God made to Abram in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where God ensures Abram that he will give the offspring of Abram the land found from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadomites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” What is very interesting is that David did not rest in his conquests until Israel’s boundaries corresponded to what God had promised Abram he would do. What begins to be clear is that David knew the stories of his ancestors, of how God had made great promises to them. It does seem as if David took to heart what is found in the seventeenth chapter of Deuteronomy, where we read that “when the king sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law, approved by the Leviticus priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them so that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and so that he might not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or the left, so that they may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.” Listening to these words, it becomes a little clearer as to why God chose David to give his promises to; David appears to know about Abraham and the promises that God made to him. David knew that if God had promised that the descendants would live in the land described by God then, as king, he understood that he had a responsibility to uphold the very reputation of God. 

         It was David who meditated on the wonder of the God that he loved and worshipped and how it was that who he knew God to be is the very foundation of God’s promise of blessing for not only his people but all the families on the earth as God had promised to Abraham. We hear this in the lyrics of David’s song that we know as the thirty-second Psalm. Listen to how David takes his experience and uses it to understand the promises of blessing that God had made to Abraham, “Blessed is the one whose sins are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.” David here has defined for us just what God was speaking of when he told Abram that the future he is bringing about is one where all people will be blessed by him. This blessing, as David discovered, is that God forgives our transgressions, our acts which do not reflect that we know a God who has given us life and keeps it safe for all eternity. When Nathan confronted David he reminded David of all the ways that God had given him everything David needed in his life. It was God who had anointed David king; it was God who had delivered David out of the hand of Saul; it was God who had given David his house and his wives. If David had needed anything, God would have given him more. This providence of God is what David forgot; this providence of God is what all of us forget when we sin and fall short of the glory God has for us. It is when we forget that God gives us every good gift for life and we go and take what we desire by force, this is when we ruin the very reputation of God because God is no longer being witnessed as being a God who gives us all we need for life. Yet in spite of the grief that we bring upon God he still holds out the promise of mercy and forgiveness. We have to wonder just why God would do this for us? The answer is that, as we hear again and again in the Psalms, our God is a God of steadfast love. What does this mean for us that the love of God is a love which is steadfast? The answer is that God is loyal to us even when we turn our back on him. God loves us to such a degree that he is unwilling to let us be stuck in the past, dwelling there in anguish as David describes in the rest of the thirty-second Psalm, where he states that when he was silent about his transgressions, when he found himself trapped there in that moment of the past unable to move forward into the present and have a future, David found that it was as if his bones wasted away, the hand of God felt heavy upon him and his strength dried up. This is the way it is when we dwell upon our sin instead of looking to God for his mercy. David discovered that when he confessed his sins, God forgave his iniquity. You see, God desires to have a relationship with us, to enjoy being with us here in the present and for us to be part of the future state of blessing that is coming yet has in some ways already arrived. God’s desire for us to be in a relationship with him is so great that he waits longingly for us to take him up on his offer. The blessing of God’s forgiveness is that it is there, in our confession and the receiving of his mercy, that we experience the depths of God’s steadfast love for us. There we remember once again that God is a loyal God, a God whose love will not let us go. David, further on in the thirty-second Psalm states that “God’s steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.” This is the blessing that is found anytime we confess our sin, let go of that past and take hold of a present and a future with the God who loves us.

         We have to understand this blessing found within the forgiveness of God in order to understand the promise of God to David that he would find rest from his enemies. This is kind of a strange term, to rest, especially in the context of having enemies. To grasp what is meant here we again have to turn to a song David wrote, the third Psalm, where we hear David sing to us, “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul that there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the one who lifts up my downcast head. I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept, I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.” And further in the song David states, “Salvation belongs to the Lord, your blessing be on your people.” You see, this idea of resting in the midst of one’s enemies was a known reality for David. He actually laid down and went to sleep, he rested secure in the middle of enemies all around because he knew that God was a shield about him. Now, if we remember what we learned about Abraham, God told Abraham, as found at the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, that he would be a shield for Abraham. So, here in the third Psalm, David is declaring that just as God has been a shield for Abraham, God was his shield as well. It was David’s trust in the faithfulness of God, that he knew God would be a hovering presence over him, a certain salvation under which he was ultimately secure, this is why David could rest in the midst of his enemies. David knew with all of his heart that this salvation of God by his faithful shielding presence is, like God’s surrounding steadfast love,  the essence of the blessing God desires every family on earth to experience.

         David appears to know of God’s promise that the blessing of God is for everyone because as David replies to God in prayer, he in humble adoration of God’s graciousness toward him wonders why God would choose his house, his family, to be the one who would receive such wondrous promises. Yet as he considers the many kings that will descend from him, David says something that is hard to make sense of when he proclaims that this is instruction for mankind. What David is grasping at is the real power of the kings that will come after him, his legacy. If the descendants of David demonstrated that God had  blessed their life, that their’s was a life surrounded by the steadfast love of God, a love which always held out the wondrous hope of forgiveness and if these descendants of David could also live lives which rested under the shielding presence of God, then the people of Israel would witness in their kings a life which could be theirs as well. And then, as the people of the nations witnessed the very people of God living lives transformed by the blessing of God then they too would desire such a life for themselves as well. The blessing of God flowing ever outward into the world fulfilled the hope of David whose prayer was that the name of God, the very reputation of the God who loved him and was ever faithful to him, would be magnified and exalted forever.

         Well, as it turns out, the kings that descended from the line of David were the very reason that the people of Israel would be sent into exile by God. It was the kings who by their evil deeds led the people of God to forsake the steadfast love of God and forget his faithfulness. Yet all was not lost for out of the line of David, a legacy which is portrayed in the Scriptures as being nothing more than a cut off stump, came a shoot, a king who at last would reign under the power of God’s blessing. As John wrote in the first chapter of his gospel, grace, God’s steadfast love, and truth, God’s eternal faithfulness, came through Jesus Christ. It was there at the cross, where his blood was shed that we saw the steadfast love of God offering us the forgiveness of our sins. It is the blood of Jesus, shed for us, that  assures us of the faithful hovering over of us by God. This is our hope, the very reason why we sing, because Jesus, the one in the line of David, he has brought to us the very blessing of God. May we sing his praises forever! Amen