Knowing God Changes Everything

 December 5 2021

Ezekiel 37:1-14

         Do you know what you’re getting for Christmas? How many times, over the years, have you been asked this question. Do you remember being a kid how you would wonder just what would be under the tree just for you? Yes, you had your wish list, you know, the one that was formed from spending hours looking in the Penny’s or Sears catalog at all the latest toys and games, yet you learned quickly that what you wanted and what you got could sometimes be totally different things. So, you waited until the Christmas tree was up and decorated because you knew it wouldn’t be long until a present or two would appear there beneath the tree. This was the time when your sneaky skills would come into play and you would wait patiently until no one was looking and you would find a present and give it a little shake in order to have a few clues that would tell you what it was that was hidden under the wrapping paper. You learned over the years that you had to be gentle with your shaking of said present because if you were too rough with those boxes under the tree you might hear pieces begin to rattle around in the box. So, gently you would pick up the box, sensing just how heaven it was, and if when you moved it from side to side there were any noises emanating from inside. Through all the clues you gathered, how large the box, how heavy it was and the noises that you heard, you then would try and figure out just what it was that you might be getting for Christmas. What motivated you to spend so much time trying to discover what it was that was under the tree with your name on was this curiosity you had, this longing to know just what was it that you were getting for Christmas.

         So, yes, we can pretty easily understand that Christmas is a time of not only of giving gifts, but it is also a time when we want to know just what those gifts will be. We know that part of the Christmas joy is this element of surprise, to go from wanting to know just what it is that we will be receiving to at last tearing back the paper, and cutting through the tape so that the box might at last be opened and the truth of what it is that has been given might be at last revealed to us. Now, with all of this in mind, I wonder, do we know what we have been given that first Christmas? I mean, Jesus, is the gift of all gifts, and yes, we know that he has been given to us, but I still wonder, do we know what we were given that first Christmas? I can’t help but think about what John writes in the first chapter of his gospel account where he states that Jesus was in the world and the world was was made through him but the world did not know him. So, here was Jesus, the true gift of Christmas and as this gift was given the reaction of the world was we don’t know who or what this gift is. So, as we prepare ourselves once again for the coming of Jesus it might be good for us to ask ourselves, do we know the gift given to us that first Christmas, the gift we know as Jesus. This might seem like a silly question but as I look around at those who claim that they are Christians, people one would assume should know Jesus, I hear them say things and I see them do things and all I can think is that they do not know the Jesus that I know. Case in point: last January, in Washington, protestors there placed a cross alongside a gallows as if to say that the Jesus of the cross would have no problem with those who followed him taking the life of those who did not agree with them. To this, I would say, that they did not know the Jesus that I know. This is why I believe that now is a good time to ask yourself just how well do you know Jesus? Do you know this gift you have been given at Christmas?

         This theme of knowing Jesus, of knowing the God who came into the world as the one we know as Jesus, this is the central theme of our scripture for today. It is easy to be so shocked by the imagery of a valley of dry bones that we miss that this section of the book of Ezekiel is framed by Ezekiel telling the Lord that he was the only one who knew if these bones could live and then this section ends with God telling Ezekiel that the people of God will know him when he brings them forth from their graves. Once again, to understand what is being revealed to us in Ezekiel we have to remember the context, the situation in which Ezekiel finds himself. As we discovered last week in the book of Jeremiah, God sent his people into exile at the hands of the Babylonian army because they had become a violent people, people who had turned God’s Holy Temple into a hideout for thugs. Jeremiah, in the ninth chapter of his book, records God as telling him that his people had heaped oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit and what this proved is that God’s people had refused to know God. To put this another way, if God’s people knew him then they would not be people who oppressed the weak and the poor and they would not be people who saw no problem in deceiving others refusing to be people of the truth. At the end of this ninth chapter of Jeremiah, God tells Jeremiah that if people wanted to boast about something what they should boast about is that they understand and know God, that they knew that their God is a God who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. If God’s people knew him they would know that God is actively working at faithfully loving his people, making his goodness flourish upon the Earth and when they oppressed each other and were no longer people that could be trusted then they were coming directly against the very work of God. This is affirmed in the twenty-second chapter of Jeremiah where, speaking about the king Josiah, God says of him that he was one who did justice and righteousness, one who judged rightly the cause of the poor and needy and God concludes by asking Jeremiah, “Is this not what it means to know me?” The answer to this question, of course, is that doing justice and righteousness and watching out for the poor and needy is indeed what it means to know God.

         Well, because God’s people refused to know him, he decided that they must be carried off to Babylon to live in captivity for seventy years. As we learned last week, God sent his people in exile a letter telling them that, yes, they were going to live in Babylon for a long time, and yes, their one job was to seek the peace of Babylon, to pray to God that the very people who had captured them and had made them slaves, these were the people who they were to ask God to bless their lives with peace. When they sought the peace of their captors, then God told them, they themselves would experience peace.

         So, when we come to the book of Ezekiel, this is the story of those people to whom God sent his letter. Ezekiel was a priest who had been taken captive and was now residing in Babylon. In Babylon, Ezekiel was raised up by God to be his prophet, God’s mouth piece, to the people of God in captivity. As God’s prophet, Ezekiel’s was there not to so much to condemn God’s people but rather he was raised up by God to give his people hope in what seemed to God’s people to be a hopeless situation. What God’s people struggled to understand is that God had delivered them into what to them seemed like a desperate situation so that right there they at last might come to know him. God had to bring them to a place where the only way out of what they were going through was to stop relying upon their strength and their wisdom to at last turn to God to rescue them. Now, we have to always remember that what these same people were to do while in Babylon was to allow this time of exile to be a time when they learned to be people of peace. The way that God was training them to be people of peace was by bringing them to a point where they had to at last come to know him so that in knowing him they might trust him and his ways because knowing God and trusting God was the only way that they would ever find themselves at home once again. In this knowing and trusting God then they would at last become people who rested in the security of God no longer needing to create their own security through violence and oppression.

         We have to understand the narrative of the story of God’s people in exile in order to make sense of this vision that Ezekiel had that was given to him through the Spirit of God.  We are told that the hand of the Lord was upon Ezekiel and in the Spirit, God set Ezekiel down in a valley that was strewn with bones. As God led Ezekiel around this place there were just so many bones and we are told that they were very dry. What we have to come away with in this opening vision is a situation of utter desolation. We have to get the subtle message that these bones were scattered here because of death and violence. As we gaze upon the horror of this vast valley, we hear God ask, Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” If you had been there what would your answer to God have been to this question? Could you actually believe that these old, dusty, bones could really come to life once again? Ezekiel wisely answered by responding to this question by simply stating, “O Lord, God, you know”. It is some comfort to us that Ezekiel in this moment did not know the answer to the question. In his humility, he knew that he had to be silent and allow the answer to come from God.

         What is interesting is that God doesn’t answer the question with a simple answer but instead God tells Ezekiel to prophesy, to speak over the bones. God is involving Ezekiel in the miracle he is about to bring forth so that in this experience that Ezekiel is having he might come to know God in a deeper, more profound way. God tells Ezekiel to say to the bones, “O, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord God says, “Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews upon you. I will cover you with skin, and put breath in you and you shall live. Then God finishes his command by telling Ezekiel that when these bones at last are living they shall know that I am the Lord. Now, this is the way that this sentence is normally translated however the reason that it states that these bones will know that God is the Lord is that the Hebrew translators at one time felt that the name of God was too sacred for them to spell it out so whenever they would come to this name they would simply write, “the name”, or “the Lord,” which is the Hebrew word, “Adonai”. In this instance though, I believe that it is important that we use the name which has been replaced by the word, “Lord”. That name is often known as Yahweh or the other way that it is translated is Jehovah. 

         The name Yahweh used here in Ezekiel would have been a way to anchor this experience of the dry bones upon the foundational experience of their delivery from slavery in Egypt. There in the Exodus story the people of God had found themselves in a desperate situation just like people of God were experiencing in the days of Ezekiel. And just as in the days of Ezekiel what was most important to God is that through his people’s experience with him, in their relying on him to rescue them, they might know him.  In order for God to be known though it is he who must reveal himself to his people and the way that God revealed himself to the people he rescued in the days of Moses was by the giving of this name, Yahweh.  If one studies this name in the original Hebrew, you will find that this name is a combination of three Hebrew words, the Hebrew word for “is” or to exist”, the Hebrew word for “was” and the Hebrew word for “will be”. So, God reveals himself to be the one who was, the one who is and the one who will be. What this is supposed to tell us is that God experiences time very differently from us because for us when the past is past, we can no longer live there and the future is always not here yet so we can not live their either. We can only live here in the present moment but God can live in the past, present and future all at the same time. What this tells us then is that God experiences time like he does because he is outside of time and he is outside of time because he is the creator of time. So, long story short, the name that God revealed to Moses and his people tells us that he is the Creator, the God outside of time because he is the Creator of time.

         So, getting back to Ezekiel,  God tells Ezekiel that he is going to bring all of these bones that Ezekiel sees back to life so that Ezekiel might know that God is Yahweh, the God out of time because he is the Creator of time. The point starts to become clear, doesn’t it, that what is supposed to be known about God is that he is our Creator.  If we revisit the first chapter of the gospel of John, where we are told that Jesus came into the world but the world did not know him what is not known about Jesus is that the world was made through him. Here again, the problem with knowing is that people did not know that Jesus is the one through whom the world was made, the God who is our Creator. We have to ask ourselves then just why is it so important that we know that God is our Creator? The first reason we have for knowing God as our Creator is that if God is our Creator then he must have intended us to be here as part of his creation. We are not just some random cosmic accident but instead we are alive because this God who is our Creator has given us life. If we understand then that this God who is our Creator has given us the gift of life then it’s not hard to figure out that we need to respond to our Creator for the gift of our life. It just makes sense that we should have an attitude of gratitude toward God for this gift of life. From this giving of this gift of our life by our Creator to our response of thankfulness for that gift of life comes the basis for our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is based on the fundamental idea that as our Creator, God is the one who has intentionally given us life and we in return, respond with thankfulness. So, it isn’t a leap that if we know God is the giver of our life that we would not only respond with gratitude but to go further and respond with love. The way that we demonstrate our love to God is to join him in his work of bringing steadfast love, justice and righteousness upon the earth which is the foundation for being peacemakers.

         Here in this story of Ezekiel and the dry bones coming back to life, God is reminding Ezekiel and the people in exile that he is the Creator, the very giver of life. This is who they should know him as being, the one who gave them life and in their most desperate time he can give them life once again. They were to remember the song they used to sing that we know as the one hundred and thirty ninth Psalm where the writer exclaims that if he went to heaven, he would know that God is there. If he descended in to the land of the dead, there too he could know that God would be there. Even if he found himself in the depths of the sea, the writer knows, that there as well the hand of God would lead him and hold him up. How can he have such confidence? He has this confidence about God because it was God who had formed his inmost parts. It was God who had knitted him together in his mother’s womb. He would praise his God for he knew that he was fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

         How could Ezekiel not think of this song as he watched God bring those bones to life? If God could be known as the giver of life then he most assuredly would be constantly present to watch over that life which he created. So, the people of God could find their hope in God because they would once again come to know him as their very life. He would one day bring them back to their home and then his Spirit, the very life of God, this they would come to know as their life. When they at last knew that their life was safe in the hands of God they would at last rest in faith, no longer needing violence to create their security but rather the God who gave them life would be known by them as being their place of peace.

         Jesus at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John, states in his priestly prayer that the work that he was sent to do was that through him people might know the only true God and that they might know Jesus whom he had sent. Do you know this Jesus? Do you know him as the one who trusted his life to his Heavenly Father as he went to die upon the cross? Do you know him as the firstborn of those who the grave can not hold as Ezekiel saw so long ago? Is your life resting secure knowing this gift of Christmas? Amen!

         

         

God Sends A Letter

 November 28 2021

Jeremiah 29:1-14

         Our oldest daughter Elizabeth just recently started a new job at Giant Eagle. Now, as many of us know all too well, those first days of a new job are really rough and it was this way for Elizabeth. She started out on midnights but that proved too hard on her sleep schedule so they then moved her to days which helped.  What proved to be the most difficult challenge was to just accept that what her manager told her to do was what she was in fact supposed to do even if it didn’t make much sense to her. She wanted to put the products on the shelf in a neat and tidy fashion but her boss wanted her to throw them on the shelf as fast as she could and get on to the next product. To be honest, her mother and I were not convinced she was going to make it as she had a lot to learn and a lot of adjustments to make so that she could do her work as fast as the company wanted things done. She even toyed with the idea of quitting or looking for another job which we knew would require her to just start all over. So, you can only imagine how thrilled we were when one day last week we got a text from her simply stating, “I found my groove now.” After we read those few simple words we left out a sigh of relief because that meant that she at last was no longer fighting the system but was into doing the best she could do.

         All of us, have probably had a similar experience that Elizabeth had where we had found ourselves in a new situation, overwhelmed by a new way of doing things, frustrated by the people who we answered to, struggling to make sense out of what we were supposed to do. Then there came a day when, like Elizabeth found out, that what had formerly been strange and confusing, now began to make sense, and in her words, we at last had found our groove. This is when we no longer had to think through every step but could do what we were supposed to do almost without thought.

         The people of Judaea, which our scripture speaks of today, were finding themselves in a very similar circumstance to having a new job in that God, as he had promised them he would do, sent them into exile. In this strangely new experience of having been ripped from their home, marched hundreds of miles so that they could now be residents in the enemy city of Babylon, they too would have felt disoriented, scared and confused, overwhelmed by the loss of any point of reference. They too would have had so many questions, the most important of these would have been what would now be their relationship with God? They had always, proudly, held themselves out to be the very people of God but now what would become of this relationship? The rest of the nations who knew of them had to surely have been amazed and appalled that the God of the people of Judaea would have allowed such a catastrophe to occur. To these neighbors, this God must have not have been a very great God if he could not have stopped the Babylonian army from swooping down upon Judaea and carrying the best and brightest of its citizens off to Babylon. What those apart from God could not have possibly understood is that the God of Judaea not only knew of Babylon’s army he was counting on it to carry his people into exile because God’s plan all along was to use the Babylonians to discipline his people. You see, just like in the workplace, the boss, which in this case is God, has a certain way that he wanted his people to be, a certain way that he wanted his people to do his work, yet they just refused to perform to the standards that God had for them. If God had been their actual employer he would have probably just have fired them but God could not just walk away from his people because he had made a promise to them, a covenant bond and if he was to be known as the God who could always be counted on to be faithful, then faithful is what he would have to be. What was really at stake was not God’s power or ability to rescue his people from an invading army but rather could this God form his people into those who could live drastically different from the world, to have them live so that they might be holy as he is holy? This was a far greater challenge. What this meant then was that God would have to take drastic measures in order to break his people of all their unholy ways, the common ways of being that mirrored how people lived in all the nations around them instead of living lives that reflected the holiness, the other worldly way of life that they found in God.

         This is why God had his people hauled off to live in the custody of the Babylonians so that there in those trying circumstances they might give his ways of living a try. Just so his people did not miss the reason as to why God had allowed Babylon to take them into exile, God instructs his prophet Jeremiah, to write his people a letter. Can you imagine opening up your mailbox and in there you find a letter from God, addressed to you?As unreal as it might sound this is what we are told in this twenty-ninth chapter of Jeremiah, that God is sending his people a note. 

Now, what is interesting is that when God tells Jeremiah what to say he skips the little nicety of what we call the salutation. You know, it’s that part of the letter that reads, “Dear Sir or Madam”, or “To Whom it may Concern” or “Dear John”, you know, the polite way we were taught to begin a letter way back in grade school. Well, God totally skips that part and the reason most likely has to do with the fact that letters in Jeremiah’s day would begin with the phrase, “Peace or Shalom to you”. Even today in Israel, the way people say hello or goodby is by saying, “Shalom” which is the Hebrew word for peace. So, do you begin to understand that God is saying volumes when he begins by saying nothing. To these exiles he refuses to extend even the expected greeting that his peace might be with them. It is easy to figure out that the central issue that God is addressing with his people is that of how they might be people of peace.

         So, as we begin to get into the meat of this letter God has sent to his people we have to keep in mind that he is training his people in the way of peace. This helps us to understand just why it is that God begins by telling his people that while in Babylon that they were to build homes and live in them. They were to plant gardens and eat of the produce. They were to take wives and have sons and daughters. Then they were to take wives for their sons and give their daughters in marriage; they were to multiply there and not decrease. The point of this opening to-do list is God’s way of telling his people to get settled in because you’re going to be there awhile. In fact, as God further in the letter tells them they are going to be residents of Babylon for seventy years. Now, in the days of Jeremiah there were false prophets who countered the claim of Jeremiah by stating that God wasn’t going to leave them in Babylon for seventy years they would most assuredly be back in seven. God though was adamant that his people were going away for a long time and if we stop and think about it there is a very good reason why God was going to keep them in Babylon for seventy years and that is that the generation who went to Babylon would not be the generation that would be coming back. What God is doing with the exiles is not much different than what he did with their ancestors in the wilderness. When God’s people refused to trust him for their victory in conquering the Promised Land, he told them that they could wander in the desert for another forty years which was long enough that the rebellious generation would eventually die out and be replaced by a new generation who had come to trust in the ways and power of God. In a very similar matter, God is saying that he was willing to wait until a new generation had been raised up and then he would allow them to return to Judaea.

         You see, the reason why God was willing to wait it out for a new generation is that as it has often been said, its hard to teach old dogs new tricks. This new trick that God was hoping his people would learn is one that he had hoped that they would learn right from the beginning of their relationship and that was that his people would be people of peace. Over and over, down through the generations, the people of God refused to walk the path of peace that God had laid out for them and instead they had become terribly violent. In the seventh chapter of Jeremiah we read how the people of Judaea went to worship in the Temple, certain that they could act any way that they wanted as long as they gave God his due at the Temple but God was not impressed and he told them that he knew that his house, the Temple, had become nothing more than a den of thieves. In our day we might have said that the church had become a place for gangs and thugs to gather.  The imagery then suggests that God’s people were horribly violent toward each other and toward God.  Jeremiah told them that they refused to listen to God and instead they walked in their own counsel and the stubbornness of their evil hearts going ever backwards not forward. So they became a people, as Jeremiah describes in the ninth chapter, who had to beware of their neighbors, people who could put no trust in their brothers because every brother was a deceiver and every neighbor went about as a slanderer. They had become a people where everyone deceived his neighbor and no one spoke the truth. They were people who taught their tongues to speak lies and they wearied themselves with all of the iniquities they committed. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they were a people who refused to know the ways of God. Do you see how the violence of God’s people was tearing apart the very fabric of their society? How could God be one Lord over a people who no longer could have any hope of unity in his name? This is why God told Jeremiah that he was going to refine his people and test them because what else could God do for his people? This image of refining and testing was one where metal is put into the fire and melted so that the impurities could be drawn off so that the metal could be tested and found to at last be pure. This is  what God had done when he allowed Babylon to carry his people off to live in exile. If God’s people wanted to live by the ways of violence then God would allow the most horrible violence to come upon his people, the violence of losing home and country. At last they would feel the searing pain that violence inflicts so that they at last might be brought to a place where they would give the ways of peace a chance. God tells his people in his letter that they were to seek the peace of Babylon. Not only that but they were to pray to God on behalf of the citizens of Babylon because, as God told them, it is in the peace of the people of Babylon, this is where the people of Judaea would find their peace. So, God would not begin his letter with the expected “Peace be with you”, because the peace of God would only be theirs when they asked God to give his peace to the very people who had ripped them from their homes and sent them on a long march to live in utter humiliation. God had placed his people in a situation where their violence would be met with ever greater violence. This they learned the hard way because twice the people of Judaea rebelled against the Babylonian occupation, the first time resulted in the loss of Judaea being a country and the second time the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and burnt the Temple to the ground. They simply were a people who refused to accept that the ways of peace were the only way they would survive the ordeal of their exile. God had to bring them to a place where they had to at last submit themselves to what he expected them to be, people of peace. Yet what God asked of his people was unbelievably hard. I mean, can you imagine in your daily prayer time having to speak the names of the very people who had invaded the place where you lived and who had forced you to leave your home so that you could become a slave to your captors? The very thought of having to ask God to do something for the very people who had harmed you in this way is quite naturally, repulsive but God always expects us to go beyond what we would naturally do because doing what comes naturally is the common thing to do but God is holy and so must we be.

         It is only a holy God who would expect his people to seek the peace of those who have done violence to us. This peace that God asks us to ask him for is not just the end to war or violence as we normally think of it being. No, in the Hebrew, shalom, their word for peace, means wholeness, completeness or harmony. The point is that when one seeks peace they should not only stop the hostilities but they should seek to bring healing and wholeness where they had brought damage. Where relationships had been strained and broken, God expected his people to be the builders of bridges, the mender of fences, so that where there was discord there might at last be harmonious relations between people. This is what God, in his letter, was telling his people was to be their sole work while in exile. Yet, he did not expect that they could find the wherewithal to be such peaceful people on their own; no, God told his people to pray. You see, God was and is always at work bringing peace upon the earth all he asks is that we might be united with him in his efforts.Through prayer we are to seek to know this God who expects his people to be people who will find ways of bringing harmony and wholeness into the situations that they find themselves in. Sure, to learn to be a person who is attuned to God in such a way of course will take time, that’s why God insisted on this training to last seventy years.

         When those seventy years would at last end, God tells his people that he would fulfill his promise that he made and return them at last to their home. It is here, in this letter of God, that we come to what might be one of the most beloved scriptures from the book of Jeremiah. This phrase, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” can be found on everything fromT-shirts to stationary. Most of the time, this scripture is used to bolster the belief that God has a plan for each person’s life which unfortunately is not a belief that is found in scripture. What is found in scripture is that God indeed does have a plan, his will that he desires to have done, and what we are called to do is to conform our life to the plan that God has. The plan God has for his people and for us, this plan for peace and not for evil, this is what God had been training his people to accept their seventy years in exile. God’s plan is always for peace and never for evil, evil that is found in violence toward each other and toward God. When we align ourselves with God’s plan for peace, this is when we have the certainty that when we call upon God, he will most assuredly hear us. When we seek God with our whole heart then we can know that we will find him.

         While history will prove that God did fulfill his promise in bringing his people back to Judaea, sadly they remained in exile because they never did learn the ways of peace that God longed for them to know. We hear in the nineteenth chapter of Luke, the anguish of Jesus who as he drew to Jerusalem wept over the city, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things  that make for peace!” Jesus knew that the way of peace was the way of the cross this is why he told Pontious Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world otherwise his followers would fight. Jesus went to the cross so that he might be our peace, to make us one, to break down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility and hatred.

         On this first Sunday of Advent, as we await once again the arrival of Jesus, we must ask ourselves if we are living out this peace that Jesus shed his blood to establish? We must search our hearts for all of the places where we have begun to rebuild the wall of hostility and hatred that Jesus through his suffering and death has torn down. Now, is the time for forgiveness and mercy, for the praying for our enemies, for the seeking of peace, for this is the plan of God to give us a future and a hope. Amen!

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