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1 Corinthians 11:23-28 New International Version (NIV)

 23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

 27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.

            We are in week three of a seven-week sermon series on the Schleitheim Confession, the first confession of faith from an Anabaptist perspective.  It traces all the way back to February 24, 1527.  I thought it would be neat to see when we would finish this sermon series because I knew that it would be coming to an end right around February 24, and do you know what the last Sunday will be when we look at this confession of faith?  February…19^th.  Just five days short of the 485^th anniversary of the signing of this confession of faith.

            What’s special about the 485^th anniversary?  Not much.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if in 2027 there was a large celebration in the Mennonite Church commemorating the 500^th anniversary of the Schleitheim Confession.

            We like to celebrate special events, and I believe it is a good thing.  Every July 19^th, my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Last Monday we celebrated Paxton’s birthday.  Every year, on these specific dates, we do something to remember these important events in our lives.

            But this birthday for Paxton wasn’t really a big one.  He turned two.  It wasn’t his fist birthday, which, if you recall, we made cupcakes for everyone in the congregation to help celebrate.  He really isn’t old enough to know what’s going on, so his second birthday was a lot more low-key.  Our anniversary this year will be our 9^th.  I don’t think we will do much for our anniversary this year.  The 50^th anniversary is the gold anniversary; the 60^th is the diamond anniversary.  I think the 9^th anniversary is the nap anniversary.  Just a nap; it would be great if you could get me a nap.

            But next year will be our 10^th anniversary.  Do you know what the traditional gift is for the 10-year anniversary?  Tin.  That’s right, baby cakes.  You’re getting a can for our anniversary!  No, I assume we will celebrate in some special way.

            We like our celebrations.  We mark the years that have gone by since a special day and we celebrate together.  July 19^th is just one of 365 days on the calendar (or 366 this year).  But each year we use this time to remember something special that happened in our lives.

            The Bible is full of things intended to help us remember.  When the Israelites were ready to cross the Jordan River and enter into the Promised Land after wandering through the wilderness for 40 years, Joshua instructed the people to choose 12 men, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, to gather 12 stones.  Joshua then stacked the stones where they crossed the river as a memorial to what God had done.

            These stones were meant to look out of place.  Joshua anticipates that the Israelite children will see these large stones in strange places and they will ask, “What do these stones mean?”  And when the children ask, the adults are to tell them the story, the story of how God has been with them.

            Another example of rituals in the Bible that are meant to help us remember God’s blessings is something that we as Christians do not celebrate, and that is the Passover meal.  The Passover is the event where God passed over the 1^st born of each Israelite family and spared their lives before the Israelites were released from captivity in Egypt.

            The Passover Meal is complicated.  There are 15 parts to the meal, and I am impressed with a three-course meal!  In the Passover meal, each part is significant and symbolic.  The night begins with the youngest child asking the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”  Then follows ritualistic hand washing and symbolic food like the bitter herbs, which reminds the Jewish people of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt and the matzo, or unleavened bread, which is a reminder that they had to leave their homes quickly and didn’t even have time for bread to rise.

            You begin to see the importance of rituals and celebration in religion.  It is done to help us remember and it is done as a way of teaching of the next generation.  But sometimes we get so caught up in these things that we just do them year after year and we don’t give them any thought.  This isn’t what God wants.  Keep Amos 5:21-24 in mind, “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

            Rituals for the sake of rituals aren’t the point.  We find the point again in the second part of verse 24 from our scripture for this morning from 1 Corinthians 11, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Jesus gives his disciples a new ritual after the Passover meal that they are to practice as a way of remembering his life, death, and resurrection.  And we know that this was continued and passed on to the followers of Jesus in Corinth because they were participating in this ritual.

            Paul’s concern in our text is that the Corinthians were not practicing the Lord’s Supper in an appropriate way.  It became evident to Paul that this act that was intended as a memorial, as a way to remember Jesus, was being used and abused as a way to separate the rich and powerful from the poor and the weak.  The rich and powerful are stuffing themselves with the food and intoxicating themselves with the wine that was meant to be shared in this act intended to remember Jesus.  And Paul says to them that what they are practicing isn’t the Lord’s Supper.  They aren’t remembering Jesus because if they were remembering Jesus they wouldn’t neglect the needy among them.

            So Paul concludes today’s passage with verses 27-28, “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.”

            Article III of the Schleitheim Confession says this:

In the breaking of bread we are of one mind and are agreed (as follows): All those who wish to break one bread in remembrance of the broken body of Christ, and all who wish to drink of one drink as a remembrance of the shed blood of Christ, shall be united beforehand by baptism in one body of Christ which is the church of God and whose Head is Christ. For as Paul points out, we cannot at the same time drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devil. That is, all those who have fellowship with the dead works of darkness have no part in the light. Therefore all who follow the devil and the world have no part with those who are called unto God out of the world. All who lie in evil have no part in the good.

Therefore it is and must be (thus): Whoever has not been called by one God to one faith, to one baptism, to one Spirit, to one body, with all the children of God’s church, cannot be made (into) one bread with them, as indeed must be done if one is truly to break bread according to the command of Christ.

            So, to the first Anabaptists, baptism was a prerequisite for participating in communion or the Lord’s Supper.  Again, everyone was baptized in those days as an infant, so what they were saying is that in order to partake in the bread and the cup in an Anabaptist gathering, you needed to have been baptized as an adult.  Furthermore, you needed to have separated yourself from “the world,” that is, sinfulness.   If you were not baptized as an adult or if you were found to be involved in sin, you were excluded from the table.

            I grew up in a congregation that practiced “close communion” and is often incorrectly called “closed communion,” though that descriptor isn’t too far off.  Close communion is when communion is only offered to those who are members of a particular congregation or perhaps a denomination.  You avoid any awkward situation by serving communion at members-only gatherings held on a weeknight.  I never even saw a communion service in this church.

            Also in this church, before the communion service the members are given an opportunity to examine themselves, to consider any sins that they might have committed and to seek forgiveness from God and from brothers and sisters that they might have sinned against.  That’s biblical and that seems to have been the practice of the early Anabaptists as well.  I like this aspect of communion and I believe it is important that we all take time to self-reflect or self-examine.  It is a good way to ask yourself how you could be doing better at following Jesus.  But it is the close communion that I have a problem with.  I do not think it is biblical, and I do not think it is good for the church.  I think it misses the point.

            Jesus frequently dined with the tax collectors, prostitutes and the sinners.  He didn’t do so in order to justify their lifestyle, he did so to validate them as human beings, loved and cared for by God.  Jesus’ table was not closed.  Even at the Last Supper, when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, gathered around that table were men who would soon be failing Jesus.  There were disciples who would fall asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane while they were supposed to be praying.  There was Peter who would deny Jesus three times.  All of them would scatter and hide when they thought they might be in danger.  And there was Judas, who would betray Jesus, handing him over to the Roman soldiers.  Baptism is never a prerequisite for communion, and neither is sinless-ness.  All that is required to participate in the Lord’s Supper is desire to do so.

            This makes me think about a story that seems totally unrelated, but I think I can tie it together.  The story that I am thinking of is commonly called the Prodigal Son.  A young man embarrasses his family, disgraces his father, and squanders a large amount of money on things that were, shall we say, less than holy.  Furthermore, he not only goes against the wishes of his father, he finds a job that would make him ceremonially unclean, feeding pigs.  He has gone against family; he has gone against God.  And he is left with nothing to show for it.  So he decides to go to his father, not looking to be restored to his once privileged position, but just to get a job.  He rehearses over and over in his head what he is going to say.  He wants to get it just right.  He is truly sorry, and all he wants is something, anything, to put in his belly.

            Luke 15 tells the story so well.  As soon as the father sees the son on the horizon, he drops everything and dashes off to greet the son and welcome him back.  The son tries to tell the story that he has rehearsed, “Father, I have sinned…” but he is cut off.  The father is too busy hugging and kissing his son, calling out for fine things to welcome him home.  The father isn’t any too concerned with what the son has to say.  His actions say it all.  The son has returned.

            The story of the Prodigal Son shapes my understanding of communion.  You don’t have to go through years, days, hours, or even minutes of confession.  You don’t have to prove yourself to be worthy, because none of us are worthy.  The simple act of coming to the table says that you want to be made right with the Father again.  And the Father was right there ready for you.  You don’t have to say a word, your coming says enough.

            So what is Paul talking about when he says that anyone that drinks or eats these elements in an unworthy manner sins against the body and blood of Christ?  Well, let’s first ask the question, Who is worthy to drink the cup and eat the bread?  Nobody.  All have sinned and fallen short.  You’re not worthy, I’m not worthy, nobody is worthy.

            I recently read that the Greek word that we translate as unworthily (anaxious) is an adverb, not an adjective.  This means that it is describing an action, not a person.  All people are unworthy.  What Paul is critiquing is the way that they are participating in communion.  Anyone who participates in a way that is inconsistent with the very person who instituted this practice is doing so in an unworthy manner.  If you take communion in a way that does not celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, they you are doing so in an unworthy manner.  And I would argue that close communion, based on the teachings of Paul, is not the Lord’s Supper.  Jesus’ table was always open to anyone, who like the Prodigal, made the decision to come.

            When we practice communion at Staunton Mennonite, I am very particular about my words.  I say something like “If you consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus, you are welcome to participate.”  Baptized or unbaptized, sinner or saint, you are welcome.

            We also offer grapes and crackers for anyone that has not made the decision to follow Jesus.  The grapes are a sign of the early stages of the juice or wine.  I believe that offering these items says that even though you may not fully consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus, there is a place for you here.

            And something that close communion seems to forget is an aspect of these religious rituals that is so important: This is meant to not only be a time of remembering, it is meant to be a time of teaching.  Children must be present for communion; they must see this strange act of people drinking out of little cups and nibbling on bite-sized pieces of bread so that on the ride home after church, they can turn to their parents and ask, “What does this bread mean?”  The table is open to everyone who wants to follow Jesus.

            Whether or not you participate in the Lord’s Supper is not to be decided by what you have done, it has been decided by what Jesus has done.  It is to be decided by whom you will follow.  Do this in remembrance of Him.

Beyond the ban

1 Corinthians 5:1-13 (NIV)

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

 

            Okay, confession time (no pun intended).  When I decided to do a seven-week series on the Schleitheim Confession, I did not expect to be challenged so much in only the second week.  But here we are, and I have concerns.  I agreed with most of what we looked at last week when we studied adult baptism, but today’s article is much more difficult for me.  It is difficult because I don’t like it, and it is even more difficult because it is biblical.  But when have we ever backed down from a good challenge at Staunton Mennonite Church?

            As much of a challenge as today’s article is, I must admit that this is exactly why I wanted to do this series.  Some of us are Anabaptist by birth while others are Anabaptists by choice.  And regardless of which camp you belong to, I think that it is important to look at the beliefs of your particular worshipping community and ask what they believe, why they believe it, and if you believe it as well.  The question of what you should do if you don’t agree with the beliefs of your worshipping community is an entirely different topic for another day, but I will simply say that it is important to surround yourself with people that think like you and people who think differently than you as well.

            So, without further ado, Article II. of the 1527 Schleitheim Confession of Faith is:

II. We are agreed as follows on the ban: The ban shall be employed with all those who have given themselves to the Lord, to walk in His commandments, and with all those who are baptized into the one body of Christ and who are called brethren or sisters, and yet who slip sometimes and fall into error and sin, being inadvertently overtaken. The same shall be admonished twice in secret and the third time openly disciplined or banned according to the command of Christ. Matt. 18. But this shall be done according to the regulation of the Spirit (Matt. 5) before the breaking of bread, so that we may break and eat one bread, with one mind and in one love, and may drink of one cup.

 

            The ban, or perhaps you have heard of it called excommunication, is our topic for this morning.  We are talking about kicking people out of the church.  Does that sound like a good thing to anyone?  Maybe if there is someone that you really don’t like and would prefer to not have to see them every Sunday morning.  Really, doesn’t this seem a bit harsh?  But again, it is biblical.

            Matthew 18 is referenced in this article and it is a passage that I have preached on a number of times and strongly affirm.  In Matthew 18, Jesus tells his disciples that if a brother or sister is found to be in sin that they are to go to the person and let them know about it.  If the person doesn’t listen, you are to bring another witness or two, not to gang up on them, but to back you up.  If they still don’t answer, you are to discern this issue with the church.  And if they still don’t listen, then Jesus says that you are to “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (verse 17b)  That last line is important, and we will come back to it shortly.  But first, off to the scripture that is highlighted at the top of this page.

            In our passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul is urging the church to take some kind of action against a man that has been committing a sexual sin.  The actual sin isn’t the point as Paul goes on to lift out several other sins that would warrant the same response (verse 11).  Paul is telling them to break off fellowship with the man.  Don’t even eat with him.

            My initial response is, Well Jesus ate with the tax collectors and the sinners!  Why would Paul instruct the church to break fellowship with this man?  But Paul goes on to answer that question in verses 10 through 13.  This isn’t how you are to relate to people outside of the church.  If you were supposed to avoid eating with all people that participated in these actions that Paul deems inappropriate, well then you would have to leave this world to fill your tummy.  This is how you are to discipline someone in the church.

            This is where the early Anabaptists came up with this idea of the ban, and it is still practiced in some of the more conservative groups like the Amish.  There is no doubt in my mind that this is biblical, but is it effective today?

            There is a number of differences between first century Christianity and what we have today, which I think helps us better understand this passage.  This letter was written to a specific congregation, the church in Corinth, a city of about 400,000 people.  The church was made up of about 40-50 people at this time.  So that means that Christians were a bit of a minority.  They made up about .01% of the population.  The church was made up of mostly Greeks, which means that they had left the pantheistic religion of their families to follow Jesus.

            As cruel as it sounds, the church cutting off fellowship from a straying member had a major impact on that individual.  They had left family and friends to follow Jesus, and now they didn’t have the support of the church, either.  They were all alone in this cold, cruel world.

            This is a mirror image of what happened in the 16^th century with the early Anabaptists.  They were by far a minority among the other religious groups.  Sure, everyone was a Christian at that time in Europe, but very few were Anabaptists, and the other Christians were persecuting the Anabaptists.  They too had left family and friends behind to follow Jesus.  So in these situations, the ban, or excommunication worked really well.  We even find in II Corinthians that the person that Paul was suggesting that church ban was restored to their fellowship.

            So as I keep saying, the ban is biblical.  But I don’t think it works today.  The reason it doesn’t work today is because if someone is kicked out of a church, all they have to do is go a block or two down the street to another church that will be more than willing to welcome them in with open arms.  Imagine if a Mennonite church in Harrisonburg excommunicated someone.  There is a Mennonite church on every corner in Harrisonburg.  You don’t even have to leave the conference; just walk a few more steps to the next church and they will be waiting on you, with open arms.

            So I get why Paul instructed the Corinthians to practice the ban in their church and I get why the early Anabaptists practiced it as well.  It was surely effective in their context.  But I believe that today it would cause more pain to practice the ban in the church than it would do good.  And I don’t think we need to interpret what Jesus said in Matthew 18 as teaching the ban.  But again, we will come back to that later.

            I believe that Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church were specific for that congregation and not intended to be normative for all of Christianity.  I know that it can seem like a slippery slope to start contextualizing scripture and saying one thing in the Bible applies to everyone and others do not.  But if we are all honest, we know that we all do this.  I like to lift out passages like Leviticus 19:19, which speaks of clothes, crops, and cross-breeding.  It says don’t make a cloth out of two different kinds of materials, yet we all wear poly-cotton blend shirts.  It says not to plant two different kinds of seed in the same field, but our gardens are filled with a variety of cultivars.  And it says that we should not breed two different kinds of animals, yet who among us doesn’t want to see a liger? 

            These commandments in Leviticus, which none of us really thinks we need to keep, are intended for a specific purpose.  And that is to keep people from cheating one another.  The reason for these commandments is still just as applicable today is it was 3,000 years ago, but the way it is lived out and enforced will change with the time.

            My point is that Paul’s reason for instructing the church in Corinth to practice the ban is just as relevant today, even if the practice of the ban is not.  Paul’s reason for the ban is to bring a brother or sister back into right relationship with God and the others.  And that is just as applicable today as it was in Paul’s day.

            In verses 6-8, Paul addresses the effects of sin on the church and why it is so important to not just let these issues go.  He says, “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?  Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.  Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

            You see, the church was not only turning their backs to the immorality of this individual, they were boasting about it.  They had learned about the grace of God offered through Jesus, and they were reveling in it.  But Paul compares the sin of this man to bad yeast.  Just as bad yeast will spread through dough and ruin the entire loaf, so too will malice and wickedness spread through the church.

            So while I don’t think that the ban is effective for today’s church, I do think that some sort of action is called for.  If nothing is done, then the person involved could hurt themselves, and they could hurt others.

            I was doing some electrical work around my home recently, and of course I had my little helper with me.  My little boy, who turns two on January 16^th, loves to help dad by taking my tools and hiding them in his sandbox.  In his defense, you never know when you are going to need a 9/16” wrench to build your next sandcastle.

            When you install a duplex outlet, you use a screwdriver to tighten a couple of screws around a wire, pinching it against a copper contact, which travels to the plug.  So Paxton had watched daddy taking his screwdrivers and putting them inside the outlet box all day long.  So when I put down my screwdriver, he saw his opportunity to give it a turn (pun intended).  I had the outlet all closed up so there were no wires or screws exposed.  Paxton took the flat-head screwdriver and put it in the only place it would fit: in the slot where you would plug in an appliance.

            I knew that the breaker was turned off, so I simply told him, “No, no.  That’s ouchy.”  He wasn’t going to be hurt, but I didn’t want him to think it was a game that he could play.  He listened to me, put down the screwdriver, and went off and did something else.

            I was just finishing up with that project and I went down to the basement and turned on the breaker.  I started cleaning up after myself, and as I turned around, I saw Paxton going to the outlet again with the screwdriver.  This time I yelled, “No!” and rushed to pick him up as…he…started…screaming.

            He wasn’t screaming because he was shocked.  He started screaming because of my reaction.  I yelled, I moved briskly, I snatched him up in my arms and coddled him.  He just wanted to do what daddy had been doing, but he didn’t understand that what he was about to do would cause him pain and perhaps suffering.  The good news is that he hasn’t tried to stick anything in any outlets since.

            I believe that sin causes pain.  It causes pain to us and it causes pain to the church and it causes pain to God.  It causes pain to God because it hurts to see the ones we love suffer.  So much of what we are told to do and not do in the Bible is for our own good.  And as the church, we are called to correct other members of the church when we believe that they are involved in something that is detrimental to them physically, emotionally, or spiritually. 

            If Paxton had shocked himself because he was trying to do what I had done, I would have felt terrible.  No, I wasn’t shocked myself, but it hurts me in a different way to see a loved one in pain.  So I responded to his actions according to the level of danger that he was putting himself, and my emotional well-being, into.  And if we truly believe that sin is harmful to a person, to the body of Christ, and to God himself, we cannot sit back and allow a person to continue in their harmful ways.

            So I come back to Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 18 on how to correct a person who is sinning.  Jesus never says to cut off fellowship with the person; Paul says that in a letter written to a specific church with a specific issue(s).  Jesus says to treat that person as you would treat a tax collector or a pagan.  Paul himself says not to cut off fellowship from a tax collector or pagan.  We are called to love the tax collector and pagan.  We eat with them, sharing our goods, and sharing the love of Christ.  We are to teach them gently, as a father corrects his little boy, not cut them off from the body.

            The ban may have been effective in situations where Christians were a minority, but I don’t believe it is effective in our society today.  And I don’t believe that Jesus endorsed the ban.  But this doesn’t mean that we do nothing when a brother or sister is hurting themselves, hurting their relationship with God, or hurting their relationship with others.  The point that Paul made was that sin hurts us all, and we need to address it.  But as Jesus points out, the goal is always to restore people to right relationship with God and with others.  This isn’t about feeling morally superior to others.  It is about feeling spiritually at one with God and others.

Raised with Christ

Colossians 2:6-15

Spiritual Fullness in Christ

 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

 

 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

 

 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross

 

            Today we are beginning a new series, which will take us right up to Lent.  We are going to do a seven-part series from the Schleitheim Confession based on the seven articles of this, the first confession of faith by the Anabaptists, our spiritual ancestors. 

            Before we get to article one, I want to give some background that may help us to better understand this confession of faith and the individual articles that make it up.

            First we need to look at the beginning of Anabaptism.  Anabaptist literally means “Re-baptizer” ana being the Greek prefix that means “again” or “a second time.”  And that’s just what these people were, they were re-baptizing one another.

            It was during the height of the Protestant revolution that a number of young leaders in the movement began criticizing some of the leaders of the revolution for not taking it far enough.  One particular issue that concerned them was infant baptism.  These young leaders felt that infant baptism was not biblical and that baptism should be a sign of one’s decision to follow Jesus.  So after debating with leaders like Ulrich Zwingli to no avail, on January 21^st, 1525, Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock (I believe in Blaurock’s home in Switzerland).  Blaurock then baptized the others that wished to be baptized and thus began the Anabaptist movement.  We will return to adult baptism shortly.

            Anabaptism spread, but it was a religious movement without clear leadership and without an articulation of what they really believed.  It was hard to have strong leadership when other religious groups and government leaders were killing off anyone found to have been re-baptized.  In 1527, just over two years after the first adult baptisms of the age, a group of Anabaptists gathered in Switzerland at a place called Schleitheim.  There a former monk by the name Michael Sattler penned a document that would help unify the Anabaptist movement in Europe.  Remember, at this time most people did not know how to read or write.  So they relied on their ability to memorize and recall information to pass it on.  So a brief confession of faith like the one written at Schleitheim would be extremely helpful to those seeking to share their faith with others.  So the seven articles of the Schleitheim Confession were written and unanimously agreed upon by the group on February 24, 1527.  On May 20, 1527, less than one month after writing the Schleitheim Confession, Michael Sattler was put to death after King Ferdinand stated that “drowning was the best antidote to Anabaptism.”

Adult baptism is something that our spiritual ancestors believed in so strongly that they were willing to die for it.  I want us to keep that in mind as we work through this series over the next two months.  There will be times that I disagree with what the early Anabaptists had to say and there will probably be times when you disagree with what they had to say as well.  There might even be a chance that you could disagree with what I say.  But we must respect the fact that the first Anabaptists believed so strongly in what they believed that they were willing to die for it.  So with that introduction, let’s move to article 1:

 

1. Observe concerning baptism: Baptism shall be given to all those who have learned repentance and amendment of life, and who believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ, and to all those who walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and wish to be buried with Him in death, so that they may be resurrected with Him and to all those who with this significance request it (baptism) of us and demand it for themselves. This excludes all infant baptism, the highest and chief abomination of the Pope. In this you have the foundation and testimony of the apostles. Matt. 28, Mark 16, Acts 2, 8, 16, 19. This we wish to hold simply, yet firmly and with assurance.

 

Verse 12 of our scripture from Colossians seems to be the source of some of the language that Sattler uses here, “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.”  Paul and the early Anabaptists seem to believe that baptism marks the end of one way of life and the beginning of another.  They use the metaphor of death, the end of your life before Jesus, and raising up out of the waters marks the beginning of a new life.  This reminds us of the conversation that Jesus had with a man named Nicodemus when Jesus told him that in order to see the kingdom of God, Nicodemus had to be born again.

            Baptism was not something new to the people of Switzerland.  It was done on a regular basis, like every time a child was born.  A kid is born, you take them to the church to be baptized, and you did it as soon as you could.  I don’t know what the average age was for baptism, but I don’t think it would have been more than a couple of weeks, and likely only a couple of days old.

            There seems to be a hurry to get these children baptized, and I believe it comes from some bad theology.  One of the reasons for the hurried baptism of all infants is because it was believed that baptism was necessary for the forgiveness of sins.  And if your child were to die in infancy, as many children did in those days, the church taught that all unbaptized children would go to hell.  What sin has the child committed?  The church taught that all children are born sinners as a result of the sin of Adam, something that is often called “Original Sin” and without baptism, an infant that died would be sent to hell for eternity because of this inherited sin. 

A scene comes to mind from the 1990 movie “The Radicals,” which was based on Myron Augsburger’s novel on the life of Michael Sattler.  In one scene, Sattler has just finished preaching a message in an Anabaptist congregation and he invites the people to come forward to receive baptism.  One woman comes forward carrying an infant and she refuses baptism for herself and requests baptism for her child, whom she says is dying.  Sattler refuses because he believes that baptism is to be the choice of the individual, not the parent, and the mother goes away weeping, fearing her infant child was heading for eternal punishment.  That’s just bad theology.

            But there was another reason for the hurried baptism of all children: it was required by law.  Perhaps there were some that would say that this law was intended to protect the child by requiring baptism, that this would protect the child from The Radicals from eternal punishment.  But the reason most often referred to has nothing to do with the child’s well-being.  Many people claim that the law requiring infant baptism was so that the child could be recorded as a citizen of a particular region for later tax purposes.  When you submitted your child for infant baptism, their name and birthdate were recorded and turned in to the appropriate authority and when they reached a particular age, the city, nation, and the church could tax them.  The church tithe was mandatory, and if you did not pay, the church came to collect their 10%.  Baptism was a way to make sure that the state and the church were getting their share.

            So we can begin to get a better feel for why the Anabaptists struggled with infant baptism.  They didn’t think that baptism “saved” a baby from their sins and we begin to see something that had not been a part of the church for 1200 years: the separation of church and state.

            So the Anabaptists were protesting what they believed to be unbiblical.  Yet there are still many denominations that practice infant baptism even today.  So obviously, not everyone has been convinced by the arguments made by the Anabaptists.  So let’s take a few minutes to look at the arguments for infant baptism and perhaps where I believe those arguments break down.

            The first argument that is usually made for infant baptism is the household baptisms found in the New Testament.  We find multiple times in the New Testament, especially the book of Acts (chapters 10, 16), where Lydia and Cornelius make the decision to become a Christian and the text tells us that their entire households were baptized.  The pedobaptists (infant-baptizers) would say that these households surely had children in them, so this is a justification of infant baptism.  I think that is a bit of a stretch as we don’t know if there were any children in the households, and we would have no idea of knowing how old these children might have been.  Furthermore, I have heard it said that when censuses were taken of a household in the first century, children were often not counted.  Only the adults, including servants, were counted in the number in a household.  So my understanding is that when the New Testament says that entire households were baptized, it meant that all adults including servants were baptized.

Another popular passage of scripture used to defend infant baptism comes from Matthew 19:14, which says, “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’”  Infant baptism adherents claim that this passage means that children should be baptized, but it never says that.  Jesus says for the children to come to him, but says nothing of baptism.

            The final defense of infant baptism that I want to address this morning refers to covenantal signs.  We read in the book of Genesis that God gave Abraham a sign of the covenant that he was making with Abraham that God would give him a son and bless all the world through Abraham’s descendants.  That sign was circumcision.  Any male that became a part of Abraham’s family was circumcised.  A male child was to be circumcised on the 8^th day.

            In the New Testament we find a widening of God’s people.  Now, through Jesus, Gentiles, Samaritans, all people can come to God.  But this provides a bit of a dilemma: Are these new followers of Jesus required to follow all of the Torah?  There is much debate on this issue and it leads to what is commonly called the Jerusalem Council, which we can read about in Acts 15.  At the Jerusalem Council it is decided that the new followers of Jesus did not have to be circumcised.  What was required of them is listed in verse 29, “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”

            This is often referenced as a justification for infant baptism because, it is argued, baptism takes the place of circumcision under the new covenant.   And since circumcision was done on the eighth day, infants should be baptized as a sign of their participation in the new covenant.

            I understand this argument, but I disagree with where it ends up.  I believe that under the new covenant that baptism does replace circumcision as a sign of the promise made to Abraham, but the reason I don’t believe that this applies to infant baptism is because the mode of entrance into the people of Abraham changes with Jesus and the change from circumcision to baptism is symbolic of that change.

            Under the Abrahamic Covenant, how did most people become a part of the Kingdom of God?  They were born into it.  That’s one reason why lineage is so important to the Jews of the New Testament.  We know that Paul traces his lineage back to the Tribe of Benjamin.  Jesus was of the Line of Judah.  And this all began with Abraham and his son.

            Have you ever wondered why God chose circumcision as a sign of this covenant?  Abraham was told to circumcise all male children as a reminder.  Whenever they reproduced and created the next generation, they remembered that this was only made possible through God.  I believe that is why the reproductive organ is involved in this symbol.

            It has often been said that God has no grandchildren, only children.  This is a change from the Old Testament paradigm.  The Old Testament paradigm was that you were born into a particular religious group.  The New Testament paradigm is that you are born again into a particular religious group.  You are not a Christian by virtue of being born to Christian parents.  Surely the decision to follow Jesus might be made easier for you when it has been modeled well for you by your parents, but the decision to follow Jesus is your own.  And I believe it is a decision that you must make every day.

            So since we are not Christians by virtue of birth, the symbol of circumcision does not have the same meaning for us.  The publicly identifying act of baptism takes its place.  Baptism shows anyone with eyes to see that you are choosing to identify with the church of the last 2,000 years as a follower of Jesus.  And as a sign of the new life that we have been given when we chose to follow Christ, we submit to a ritualistic cleansing known as baptism.  While an infant might be circumcised as a sign that they are a part of the Abrahamic Covenant without their consent, an adult is baptized as a symbol of their desire to be a part of Jesus’ kingdom here and now and into eternity.

            So what does this mean for us today?  How does this play out practically in the 21^st century?  I want to say that I disagree with those denominations that believe that infant baptism takes away the sins of a baby or an adult for that matter.  Verses like 1 Peter 3:21 can be interpreted as saying that the waters of baptism  washes away sin, but if that was all we needed, then Christ died for nothing.  I don’t think baptism is salvific; it is a sign.

            But there are other denominations that practice infant baptism and see it in the same way I do, as a sign of entering into a committed relationship with God.  The difference is that the parents are making the commitment, where I believe it should be the child making the decision when they are old enough to make the decision for themselves.  What I think is important is that infant baptism in these denominations is followed up with confirmation.  Confirmation is when the child, usually in early adolescence, goes through instruction class and makes a public profession of faith.  I view these denominations, such as the Methodists and Presbyterians, to be flip-flopping what we in the Mennonite church do.  We commonly have child dedications, which is the parent(s) saying that they promise to raise the child in the ways of Jesus so that they can chose for themselves when they get older and then allow for baptism when they reach their early adolescent years.  So the way I see it, we just do the water part of it at a different time.

            If you were baptized as a baby, I don’t think you are going to hell.  But I do think that it is important for you to make some kind of public statement of faith as an adult.  Baptism is our way of identifying with Jesus, dying to the old ways and being raised to new life with him.

Come to the light

Isaiah 60:1-6 (NIV)

1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.  2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. 5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. 6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.

 

Matthew 2:1-12 (NIV)

 ¹ After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

 ³ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

 ⁶ “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
   are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
   who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

 ⁷ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸ He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

 ⁹ After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹ On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

 

Today we conclude our Advent series on Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect and we conclude with one more unexpected event.  We conclude today with a story that we have all heard many times before.  Our New Testament text is the story of the wise men.  These wise men have been made famous through song and story.  Traditionally we think of there having been three wise men, though we don’t know the exact number for sure.  We know there was more than one (note the plural) and we know that they brought three gifts.

            We traditionally call them “wise men” as they are called in the King James Version, but the text does not use this phrase.  Surely they were wise, wise enough to find a baby born many miles away because of the appearance of a star.  I have found what way is north because of a particular star, but never a baby.  We sometimes also call them the three kings, though our text says nothing of their royalty.  I have heard it suggested that this title came from later Christianity making the connection between this event and Psalm 72:11, which says, “May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.”  I doubt that they were actually kings because I find it hard to believe that a king would follow a star many miles and bow down to worship a baby.

            Christian traditional also gives these men three names, which I will not try to pronounce here today.  These names were probably given to the men around the year 500 AD.  Furthermore, we like to give their country of origin with one being from Persia, another from Arabia, and the third from India.  I have no idea how anyone would even begin to guess where they came from.

            We put a lot of effort into describing these men.  We put a lot of effort into describing them without actually using the term that the Bible uses.  The Bible calls them magi.  Magi is the plural form of magos.  Magos is the word used to describe the priests of an ancient religion called Zoroastrinianism.  They were likely priests of the occult.

            I think we as Christians have gone to great lengths to hiding the true identity of these men, but I think it is past time that we make it clear that these men noticed the star that led them to Jesus because they were astrologers.  These astrologers travel many miles to recognize Jesus as king.  There’s something pretty cool about that.

            When I think about the possible reasons for why someone might try to hide the true identity of the magi, I assume it has something to do with our fear of people that come from different religions.  This isn’t anything new.  Humans have feared people from other religions since the beginning of religion.  And yes, I am using the word fear with some intentionality, though I could probably substitute the word “hate” and still be accurate.  If we look through the Old Testament, we see a lot of fear, anger, and fighting between the Israelites and other religious groups.  The Israelites are constantly at odds with the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and the Mennonites (just making sure you are still listening).  The New Testament tells us about the struggles between the Jews and the Samaritans.  There is fear, there is often hatred, and I just don’t think that any of it is warranted.

            In our 21^st century context there tends to be two dominant yet opposing perspectives on how to view people of other religions.  The first view mirrors the methods that I just spoke of from the Bible.  We can call this the fear and hatred approach.  This is what led to the Holocaust, the slaughter of innocent Jews in Nazi Germany.  It is also what led to the terrorist acts of September 11^th, 2001.  And it has led to countless other acts of bigotry and prejudice, some acts perpetrated against Christians, and some acts perpetrated by Christians.

            The other dominant view in our society is that of religious pluralism.  Religious Pluralism is the belief that all religions are basically the same.  So if there is no real difference, why can’t we all just get along?

            I really like the part about all getting along, but I am going to reject both of these options.  The Jesus of the New Testament does not fear people of different religions.  Jesus speaks freely with the Samaritan woman at the well, the Roman centurion, and even uses a parable about a Good Samaritan to answer the question of Who is my neighbor?  Jesus doesn’t fear or hate other religions (I’ll leave the Syrophoenician woman out of the discussion.  I don’t have time to get into that here).

            But the Jesus of the New Testament also does not simply say that every religion is essentially the same.  Jesus didn’t even think that every sect of Judaism was the same, which is quite the way I feel about Christianity.  We can’t agree within our own religion on a large number of things; we can’t even agree on everything within our own denomination, conference, or congregation.  Guess what, not everyone is going to be correct!  If I say that a coin is a quarter and you say that it is a dime, one of us is going to be wrong, and it is even possible that we both might be wrong!  So while I like the idea of religious pluralism–and I do think we all need to get along and love each other–I think it is wrong to say that we all believe the same thing.  I also think it is wrong to say that everyone that doesn’t believe exactly as I believe is going to hell, and I am sure glad that decision is not up to me.

            So I reject the hate/fear model of viewing people from other religions, and I reject the religious pluralism model as well.  Instead, I want to suggest a model that I believe is more biblical and healthy.  I want to suggest the “light model.”  But first, a little reminder of the biblical narrative.

            In the beginning God created the world, including human beings, and God said that what he had made was very good.  But that did not last long.  The created human beings chose to rebel against their creator and things went downhill pretty quickly.  Soon the entire world was called wicked, save for a few righteous individuals along the way.  Eventually God calls a man named Abraham (eventually) and tells that man that he would be the father of a great nation and that nation would be a witness to all other nations; they would be blessed to be a blessing.

            So God choses Abraham’s family, who we eventually call the Israelites to be the nation of people that will reveal to the rest of the world the character and the will of God.  Through the giving of the Torah God was grooming this nation to accept and extend the invitation to come back to God to all of the world.

            But this chosen nation of Israel, like their predecessors in the Garden of Eden, exercised their free will to rebel against God.  They followed other gods, they became self-serving, and they got caught up in all sorts of things that were antithetical to God’s will.  And above all this, the Israelites began to interpret their chosen status as a badge of righteousness, like they were some part of a secret club and all other nations were excluded.  Now, rather than being a blessing to other nations, rather than inviting all nations to come and follow God, they began to judge other nations, hating them, fearing them, rather than loving and serving them, revealing to the nations the true nature of God.

            So God sent his prophets to deliver messages to the people, calling them to return to God.  And through the prophets we see God’s invitation to his people and to all others to return to him.  Isaiah 55 invites all who are thirsty to come to the waters, all who are hungry to come to the table to eat and drink.  Our scripture from Isaiah 60:1-3 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.  Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

            There is this invitation to come back to God and there is a reminder to the Israelites that they are not supposed to just be smug about their chosen status.  That chosen-ness is to serve a purpose: Be a light that draws people back to God.  And we find this many times throughout the Old Testament.  All people will be drawn to Israel, to Jerusalem, to God.

            The prophets were successful, at times, but not fully.  So God says, “Enough of this.  If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”  God comes to the world that he created in the form of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s character and will.  Jesus even says that his will and the Father’s are one.

            On that first epiphany, Magi, priests of Zoroastrinianism, came to the light.  They were drawn from far and they worshipped the newborn king.  Epiphany means “revealing” and it was revealed to them that the king had entered the world.

            As I spoke of the failings of Israel, I wouldn’t be surprised if Christians felt slightly convicted by my unflattering description.  As followers of Jesus we are called to continue his ministry as lights to the world.  Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot easily be hidden.  I think we fail Jesus when we view people from different religions from a fear/hatred perspective and we fail Jesus when we view people from a religious pluralism perspective.  We need to be light.

            I was thinking a little this week about different forms of lights that we might be familiar with.  On our back porch, where we usually come in and go out of our house, we have a special kind of light mounted above the door.  This light has a special sensor in it that recognizes movement within a certain distance of the sensor.  And when it senses movement, the light comes on.  Obviously, we call this a motion detector light.  It is off until someone or something walks comes close.  This is great for when we come home after dark and need to find our way to the door.

            Another popular type of light is the kind that we have installed on the exterior of the church.  We have a light on the two gables of the church building that come on when the sun goes down and go off when the sun comes up.  So if it is dark outside, the lights are on.  If it is light outside, the light stays off.  We call these “dusk till dawn” lights.

            The final kind of light that I thought of is not so much a kind of light, but the status of a light.  Many of you will remember the old radio commercials featuring the voice of Tom Bodett for the motel chain Motel 6.  In these commercials Bodett would often share some down-home story with brief commentary relating to the clean, comfortable, and affordable rooms offered at Motel 6.  And in his very first radio commercial for Motel 6, Bodett signed off with what is now his catch phrase, and I was surprised to find out that it was ad-libbed.  Bodett simply said, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”

            This brings back memories of my mother leaving the front light on when I was out with friends late on the weekends while in high school.  It is warm and inviting.  It is homey and comforting.  It beckons you in from afar.

            As Christians, I think we too often are like the motion detector or dusk-till-dawn lights.  We might be willing to let our lights shine, to live like Jesus, when it is convenient.  Like a motion detector, we might start following Jesus when someone comes into our motion sensor zone, but when nobody is looking, we fail to be Christ-like.  Especially when we can maintain anonymity, we tend to say or do something unlike Jesus.  We might post something online that is hurtful and demeaning, but come Sunday morning, we are perfect little Christians.  Or maybe we are more like the dusk-till-dawn light, or more likely the opposite of the dusk-till-dawn light, following Jesus by day and our own rebellious ways by night.

            No, I think we are called to be Motel 6 Christians.  We are to leave the light on at all times.

            Our passage from Isaiah reminds us that “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”  Isaiah didn’t say that nations and kings will come to God’s light or Jesus’s light.  Nations and kings will come to your light.  And that light is to be a reflection of Jesus, who is the image of God.

            When we encounter people of other religions, we cannot fear them and we surely should not hate them.  We must respect others but we also need to be aware of our differences.  This applies to interaction with other Christians as well.  And we must be light.  We must live as Jesus showed us to live, we must live as Jesus has called us to live.  Loving God and loving neighbors, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.  Our light will shine, God’s light will shine, and all nations will come to him.  We see it in the Magi, I have seen it in my own life as well.

Gift cards for Christmas

Luke 2:22-40

 ²² When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

 ²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

 ²⁹ “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
   you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation,
 ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
   and the glory of your people Israel.”

 ³³ The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, ³⁵ so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

 ³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ and then was a widow until she was eighty-four, She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸ Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

 ³⁹ When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

            I am not going to preach a long sermon today.  Please, hold your applause.  I know that nobody wants to hear me talk today; you want to sing.  And besides, what can I say today that hasn’t been said already, many times before?  But it is a story that is worth retelling.

            Since this is a shorter sermon, I am also going to make it a thinking kind of sermon.  So get your notebooks ready and keep your pencils sharp!

            Our text for this morning comes from Luke 2; it is the story of Jesus being presented at the Temple.  Leviticus gives the instructions that parents are to bring their children to the temple for two reasons: One is for the mother to go through the rituals required to become ceremonially clean and the other is to present their first-born son to God.

            Verse 23, which is in parentheses in my version of the Bible, says, “(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’).”  To consecrate something means to set it aside as holy to God.

            We find this practice in Exodus 13:1-2, which says, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.’”  Set aside as holy the first born of the family.  Originally, when the Israelites came out of captivity in Egypt, it was the first born son’s duty to serve as the priests to the people.  If you were the eldest boy, you were dedicated as a servant of the Lord.  You didn’t have to worry about what you were going to do for a living, it was already decided by God.  I don’t know if that would take some of the pressure off your career choice or add more pressure.

            Well the Israelites wander through the wilderness and they come to Mt. Sinai, where Moses receives the 10 Commandments and the rest of the Torah.  When Moses comes down from the mountain, he sees that the Israelites have fashioned a calf out of gold and they were worshipping it.  Not cool guys, not cool.

If you read through Exodus 32 you will find that as a punishment, God tells Moses to consecrate the Levites as his priestly people, taking the privilege away from the first born.  But this transaction did not occur for free.  The firstborn child needed to be purchased out of the priesthood.  A slightly edited version of Leviticus 44-48 shows how this happened, “The LORD also said to Moses, ‘Take the Levites in place of all the firstborn of Israel… The Levites are to be mine. I am the LORD.  To redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of the Levites, collect five shekels for each one, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.  Give the money for the redemption of the additional Israelites to Aaron and his sons.’”

            So when Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple to consecrate him to the Lord, they would have been going through this ritual.  Before the golden calf incident, Jesus would have been set aside as a priest.  But since the Levites now held the priestly position, all first-born sons had to be redeemed, that is, 5 shekels had to be paid to the Levites to release the first born from the priestly duties.  And this is a practice that some Jewish people still participate in today; it is called Pidyon haben, which means “redemption of the first born.”

            We probably think about redemption in the church as the forgiveness of sins, and it is indeed that.  But let me ask you this: Did Jesus, or any other baby for that matter, need to be forgiven for some sin?  Of course not.  Redemption in this case meant something more than forgiveness.  Redemption is a word that we use frequently in our culture, probably without really knowing what it means.  For Christmas you might get a gift card to one of your favorite restaurants or stores.  For instance, we got my dad a gift card to a restaurant in Ohio called “Cleats” and another gift card to Playhouse Theater for a musical.  We bought that card in advance so that my father would not have to pay the price of admission.  All he has to do is take the card to the restaurant or theater and redeem it.  The word “redeem” literally means to “repurchase” something.  So the restaurant repurchases the gift card with food.  Before they give you the food, they owe you.  Something is offered to make everything right.  Redemption is making things right.

            As Mary and Joseph go to the temple to participate in the sacrificial rituals and the consecration/redemption of their son, a man named Simeon snatches up the young boy and he begins to praise God.  It had been revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he saw with his own eyes the anointed one of God, the Messiah.  And having been led by the Holy Spirit, Simeon knew that this baby boy was the one he had been waiting for.

            But our text also speaks of another individual named Anna.  Verse 38 says, “Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”  When Simeon snatched up the baby Jesus and began praising God, Anna also realized who he was.  She began proclaiming that the Messiah had arrived to all that were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

            Jerusalem was under occupancy by the Roman army.  The people were slaves in their own land.  They were taxed heavily, and they even had to use Roman money for their taxes, which bared the image of Caesar.  To an Israelite, this was blasphemy.  The Israelites were to have no graven image.  Remember that whole golden calf thing?  Furthermore, the leader of the Romans was called things like lord, savior of the people, and even the son of God.  The Israelites were looking forward to the day when the Messiah would come and redeem the people from the Romans, purchasing them from the Romans who were not only oppressive, they were forcing the Romans to participate in acts that clearly were contradictory to their religious beliefs.  So they used the metaphor of redemption for God acting in their world to set everything right.  Come, Lord, and redeem us from our enemies.  Buy us back from the Romans and make things right.  Anna and Simeon believed this little boy to be that Messiah.

            Let’s stay in the book of Luke, but fast-forward about 33 years.  Luke tells us that Jesus had been crucified and raised back to life again.  And we pick up in chapter 24 with two men going on a walk to the city of Emmaus.  And as they are walking along and talking about all that has happened over the last three days, a stranger appears to them.  We are told that this stranger is the resurrected Jesus, but they don’t know that.

            Jesus asks them what they are talking about and they are a little surprised that this guy has no idea about the things that have been going on.  And they tell him, beginning in verse 19, “‘About Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.  The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.’”

            Again, we find this redemption thing.  We had hoped that he was the one to redeem us, to repurchase us from our enemies, to make things right.  And Jesus replies, “He did.”  He then explains to them, walking them through the Hebrew Bible, that what happened to Jesus was how the messiah was to redeem the people.  Not through war, not through power and might.  The messiah was to redeem the people by providing them with them with the way to live as God’s people within the empire; a countercultural, upside-down way of revealing the sins of the people and calling them to repentance.  And as a final act of redemption, the messiah purchased the people back from their sinful ways through the cross.  It is not only Jesus’s death that redeems Israel.  It is Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection that redeems the world.  Which is good news, because the world needs redeeming, and we are called to work with our redeemer for that purpose.

            Last week I spoke of my high school’s success in the recent football season.  Recently I got the chance to watch the game that my little brother had DVR’ed.  It was truly one of the greatest high school games that I have ever seen.  However, I realized after the game that the night was bigger than any one person.  It wasn’t just about the star quarterback or the mean linebacker.  It was about the community coming together.

            The thing that made me start to think communally about this game was a saxophone.  A single saxophone sat in the bleachers among the other woodwinds in the marching band, only this one was without a musician.  You see, a few years back a young girl passed away after a battle with cancer.  She lived the next block over from where I grew up.  Hattie would have been a senior this year and she played saxophone in the school band.  So as a way to remember her and honor her, they placed her saxophone with the band.  And this was explained over the loudspeaker during halftime of the game. 

            We live in a world that needs redemption; things are not right, they are not as they are supposed to be.  I know that redemption is a word that is often associated with the forgiveness of sins, and it is indeed that, but redemption is much more.  Through Jesus Christ, God is redeeming the entire world, God is making things right.  And we are to continue in the work that Jesus began.  The redemption that we have experienced is just the beginning for us.  We are to work for God’s redemption of all the world.  That is why we work for peace, that is why we work for justice, that is why we love our enemy, that is why we care for the poor and the needy, and that is why we fight to defeat cancer.  The redemptive work of Jesus reached its pinnacle on the cross, and it continues through his resurrection.

            Just as I believe that football game was about more than one person or even one team, I believe the redemptive work of Jesus is more than about what Jesus can do for me.  Redemption is bigger.  Like Simeon, Anna, and Jesus’s traveling companions on the road to Emmaus, I believe that Jesus is the one who will redeem Jerusalem, and all of the world.  And we are called to be his hands and feet, giving the world a taste of the redemption that is to come.  Because one day Jesus will make everything right.

Surprised by grace

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

1 After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

 3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”

 

 4 But that night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:

 

 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

 

 8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

 

16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”

 

Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

 

 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

 

 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

 

 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

 

Mary’s Song

 46 And Mary said:

   “My soul glorifies the Lord

 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has been mindful

   of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

   holy is his name.

50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,

   from generation to generation.

51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

   he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones

   but has lifted up the humble.

53 He has filled the hungry with good things

   but has sent the rich away empty.

54 He has helped his servant Israel,

   remembering to be merciful

55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,

   just as he promised our ancestors.”

 

 

                        Some of you know about my personal hobby.  I like coffee.  Maybe I should clarify that statement, I like good coffee.  No Folgers, please.  There has been a progression for me as I seek to brew a better cup of coffee.  It starts with buying better coffee from a coffee shop.  Then a coffee grinder so you can grind your own beans right before brewing.  Experiments in brewing technique naturally follows, including things like cone filters and French presses.  Then, a couple of years ago, I upped the ante a bit and began roasting my own coffee at home, first in an old popcorn popper, then in a converted bread machine.  Now my wife and I enjoy the freshest coffee in town each and every day brewed in my chemex.  Some of the best coffee in Staunton can be found at my house (and for a fraction of the cost of what you would spend at a coffee shop–though I admit it is slightly more labor intensive).

 

            I like ethics.  I like to talk about ethics and I like to read about ethics.  And I think that ethics is an important thing for Christians to be talking about and reading about.  We need to continue to seek out how God is calling us to live as his people.  God has laid the abundant life before us and it comes from following a narrow road.  Being a disciple of Jesus is tough.

            But today we aren’t going to be looking at ethics.  Don’t expect any fancy Greek words or any –ologies or any isms.  Today we are talking about grace because from where I am sitting, I see today’s passages as being about grace the whole way down.

            To see these passages as being about grace, however, we need to have a better understanding as to what grace is.  And I think that there is a danger in trying to define grace because any attempt to define grace is going to fall terribly short of the goal.  But I am going to try anyway.

            We often say that grace is a gift that we do not deserve and it is often applied to the gift of forgiveness.  That is a good starting place because grace is indeed that.  But it is so much more.  If you see a ballet dancer or an ice skater, you might say that she moves with grace or that she is graceful.  Before a meal, someone might say “grace.”  So perhaps the ballet dancer or the ice skater is exceptionally gifted with the ability to move her body and we might believe her gift to be undeserved and therefore we say that she is graceful.  Perhaps the reason we say grace before a meal has to do with our recognition of God as the giver of all things and that we do not deserve the food that we are about to eat more than the person who is starving in Africa.

            So grace is a difficult thing to define, but we know it when we see it.  We recognize when we are in the presence of grace.  And we know that through Jesus, grace abounds.

            As we enter into our 4^th Sunday of Advent, we are beginning to expect the unexpected.  Our theme has been Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect, and today I want to look at stories of grace so that we can better recognize it when we see it.  Today we will be surprised by grace.

            Our Old Testament passage seems a bit out of place in our Advent series.  We have been looking at texts that encourage us to wait, to anticipate the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  We have looked at the prophesies of Isaiah that seem to point to the coming of the Messiah and we have looked at how John prepared the way for the coming of the Lord and how we are to do the same.  But our text from 2 Samuel seems to be focused on a totally unrelated topic.  It focuses on the building of the temple in Jerusalem.

            Our passage from 2 Samuel talks about King David having a bit of an “aha” moment.  David is sitting in his nice, comfy palace and he realizes that God has no place to live.  It seems to David that God is out in the cold, living in a tent.  So David decides that he is going to build a house for God.  David is wise enough to run this past someone else, because he doesn’t want to seem impulsive.  So he approaches the prophet Nathan with the idea, and Nathan is excited about the idea.  Go for it!  God is with you!  Of course, Nathan did take the time to first check with God.

            Well God decided that he better have a word with Nathan, even though Nathan never sought out God’s opinion on the matter.  And I picture God laughing about it all as he gives this prophetic message to Nathan, or if he isn’t laughing, he is probably shaking his head, like, “really?”

            God gives Nathan the message to give to David that he has never had a place to live in before.  He was with the people when they came out of Egypt and he has been moving around from place to place with them, but he has never needed a “house” to dwell in.  If you ask me, it is a little weird to offer to build a house for the maker of the heavens and the earth.

            Instead, God reminds David of how God has been with David, calling him as a young shepherd boy, making him the king over the Israelites.  What I hear going on here is that David is a little worried that somehow he and the rest of the Israelites might lose favor in God’s eyes.  And I think David is trying to provide some kind of incentive for God to remain there with the Israelites, blessing them.  And God says, “I’ve been with you since you were nothing but a shepherd boy and you could offer me nothing but your love and adoration.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’m with you for the long-haul.  Then in verse 16, God makes this promise to David, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

            I think that at the center of David’s plan to build a temple to God is a sense of insecurity.  Have we done enough?  Are we good enough?  Does God love us enough?  What can we do to keep God around and keep God happy?  David, like so many of us today, is afraid that he is going to be found out to be a phony.  He isn’t royalty.  He is a shepherd boy.  But God says, “I know, and I’m not going anywhere.”

            God choses this little shepherd boy from nowhere to lead his people, and God promises that David’s throne will exist forever.  But that isn’t the only example of God using people that you wouldn’t expect from our texts today.  If we turn to our New Testament passage we find the angel Gabriel revealing God’s intentions to a young woman named Mary.

            Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a child and he will be the one to sit upon the throne of David that we learned from our Old Testament Passage would last forever.  And Mary gets excited because she knows that it is payday!  Her ship has come in and she isn’t going to have to worry about money, working, clothes, food, or doing her own housework ever again.  Her son is going to be king!

            One problem, she isn’t married yet.  And there is something that one has to do before they can have children and she hasn’t done that yet.  Something doesn’t add up.  But Gabriel reveals to her that her child will not be of a man, but God’s own seed.  God can do stuff like that.  And as an example, Gabriel points to Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, who is having a baby in her old age.

            So God choses a teenage, unmarried, betrothed-to-a-carpenter, Nazarene virgin to be the one to bring Jesus into this world.  No royalty, no riches, no fame, to fanfare.  Mary is from Nazareth.  Can anything good come from Nazareth?  God moves in unexpected ways.  That’s grace.

            Some of you know that I am a fan of NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion.  I don’t like to go out on Saturday evenings and I usually tell people that it is because I like to be home to prepare for Sunday morning, but in all honesty, I don’t like to be away from my radio and miss this variety show.  Of course the highlight of every show is Garrison Keillor’s news from his fictitious hometown, Lake Woebegone.  Well today you are going to hear some stories from my real life hometown, Sterling, Ohio.

            It’s been an exciting couple of weeks in Sterling, Ohio, my hometown.  I graduated from a high school out in the country, which is made up of the students from three surrounding cities.  My high school is called Norwayne High School.

            Norwayne is known for its excellent agricultural and woodworking programs and for perennially finishing near the bottom of the Wayne County Athletic League in most sports.  I did not play football in high school, but I believe that my senior year the football team won one game.  We lost to Rittman, that’s how bad the team was when I was in high school.

            Over the last number of years, Norwayne football has been improving.  A few years ago they made the state tournament for the first time ever.  They lost in the opening round, but it is an honor to make it to the playoffs.

            This year Norwayne football was blessed with some great talent; talent usually seen at the larger schools, the schools known for their football programs.  They went through the season winning all but one of their games, which is the complete opposite of my senior year!  They went to the state playoffs again, but this time, they won their opening round game.  Then they won the second round.  And the third.  Then the state semifinals.  My high school would be playing for the state championship.

            It would be the proverbial David versus Goliath scenario as little Norwayne faced the experienced team from Kenton with their star quarterback who had signed to play at a division 1 football school and had been named Mr. Ohio for football earlier that week.  And it was a shootout.  Five touchdowns were scored in the last seven minutes.  The lead went back and forth, back and forth.  And I wish I could tell you that my high school finished first, so I will.  Final score: Norwayne 48, Kenton 42.  What an unexpected gift to the little town whence I come.

            Just down the road from my high school in Wooster, Ohio, you would find Triway High School. Triway compared to Norwayne would be like Staunton City Schools to Fort Defiance.  Triway is the alma mater of a man named Josh Krajcik.  Josh is a 30-year-old burrito maker who now lives in Columbus.  He is slightly overweight, has bad skin, and is anything but clean cut.

            Josh has become a bit famous lately because he has been on a television show called The X Factor.  The X Factor is a reality television show fashioned in the likeness of American Idol, right down to the judges.  So Josh shows up at the audition having drove, make that his mother having driven him, all the way from Columbus to Chicago, wearing a frumpy jacket, his chest hair hanging out of his v neck t-shirt, looking less than spectacular.

            I saw the video of Josh’s audition and they ask him about what he does and where he is from, and he is just this regular guy.  Then Simon, who is known for being a bit rude, asks him what he is going to sing.  And Josh replies, “At Last, by Etta James.”

Simon looks at Josh and he says, “Really?”  And if you click this youtube link, you can see what happens.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BWPbIdFlvs

            I love Simon’s response.  He says that he thinks that after all of these years that he can pretty well guess how someone is going to perform.  That’s the opposite of grace.  Josh Krajcik is grace personified.

            God promised a little shepherd boy from the sticks that his throne would endure throughout eternity.  God later entered into this world through an unmarried virgin from Nazareth.  God moves in unexpected ways and gives unexpected gifts.  That’s grace.

            Today, as a gift, I want to offer the fruit of my labor to you.  Anyone that wants to take home some of my coffee can do so.  I roasted it yesterday.  It is the freshest coffee you will taste, and it is fairly traded.

            Grace is a small word, only a single syllable.  But it is a huge concept.  Grace is an undeserved gift.  Sometimes that grace comes in unexpected ways and from unexpected sources.  Whether that be an unmarried virgin who is chosen to be the mother of God, or a little high school out in the country that wins the state championship, or a 30-year-old burrito slinger from Ohio, we know that God moves in unexpected ways.  Come and taste and see that the Lord is good.  Grace is available to you; it is free for the taking.

Hands, feet, and index fingers

Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

⁸ “For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. ⁹ Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed.”

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ¹¹ For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

John 1:19-28

John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah

 ¹⁹ Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. ²⁰ He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

 ²¹ They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

   He said, “I am not.”

   “Are you the Prophet?”

   He answered, “No.”

 ²² Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

 ²³ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

 ²⁴ Now the Pharisees who had been sent ²⁵ questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

 ²⁶ “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

 ²⁸ This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

 

            Last week we had a cyclical sermon, this week we will have a backwards one!  I know what you are thinking, most of my sermons are backwards.  What I mean is that I will start with the New Testament and move to the Old.  I think that is even biblical, isn’t it?  Something about the last being first and the first being last.  Or something like that.

            Our New Testament reading finds John the Baptist doing the very thing that he is named for: baptizing.  And verse 19 tells us that the leaders in Jerusalem sent the young priests and Levites to the site where John was doing his baptisms and ask him why he was doing this.

            They ask him, “Are you the Messiah?”

            “Nope.”

            “Are you Elijah?  Or the Prophet?”

            Still, his answer is no.  So they ask him, Who are you?  We need something to take back and tell our supervisors.  They sent us here to find out who this guy is baptizing in the Jordan and so far, all we know is that you aren’t the Messiah, you aren’t Elijah, and you aren’t the Prophet.  So who are you?

            Verse 23, “John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”  You can tell that Jesus and John are related because neither one likes to give straight answers. 

John’s response should sound familiar to us as we looked at that passage from Isaiah last week.  And it would have sounded familiar to the young priests and Levites as they would have memorized the writings of the Prophets in their youth.  But as familiar as it might have sounded to them, it still really didn’t answer their question.

            So the young Pharisees ask him, Why do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet?

            You see, the Jewish leaders probably thought that John was a little off.  Here is a guy wearing camel hair, eating locust and wild honey, and dunking people in the river.  Baptism wasn’t an unfamiliar event, it just wasn’t something that some random dude would be doing in Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan River.  Baptism would have been used in two different ways in the first century.  The first way was if a Jewish person had become ceremonially unclean after something like touching a dead body or a woman who had her menstrual period, they would have to go through a ritual washing that would have resembled what we commonly call baptism before they could enter the Temple to worship and make offerings.  It was a ritual that symbolized purity before the Lord.

            The second way that baptism would have been used in the first century was when a Gentile became a Jewish proselyte.  A gentile would go to a priest, go through classes on the Hebrew Bible, the men would be circumcised, and finally, they would go through a similar ritualistic washing before they could enter the Jewish Temple.

            So this was weird.  John was not a priest, so why was he conducting this practice?  Furthermore, these ritualistic cleansings would have been done in the Temple courts and John was doing it on the other side of the river; the Gospel of John is sure to mention that it didn’t happen in Jerusalem or in the Temple.  It happened in Bethany, on the other side of the river.  The Jewish leaders thought this guy was a little off, but they wanted to make sure.  That is why they go to check him out.

            They ask him if he is the Messiah.  The Jews were expecting the anointed one who would come and restore Israel.  They ask if he is Elijah.  Malachi 4:5 says that God will send the prophet Elijah back to the earth before the day of the Lord comes.  They ask if he is the Prophet; Deuteronomy 18:15 promises that God will send a prophet like Moses when the world becomes corrupt.  They don’t believe that he is the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet, but they want to see if he thinks he is the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet.  Because if he isn’t, why is he baptizing, and baptizing in Bethany, of all places?

            John is a very interesting person to me.  John in some ways represents the typical Old Testament prophet.  He speaks on behalf of the Lord, he dresses strangely, he eats strangely, he calls the people to return to God, and he is rejected by many of the leaders of his day.  But John also represents the beginning of the New Covenant.

            In the Old Testament, the Temple was the site of all major religious ceremonies.  If you needed to make a sacrifice, you went to the Temple.  You need forgiveness for something, you go to the Temple.  You need to study the scriptures?  You go to the Temple.  The Temple was the center of religious activity because the Temple was believed to be the place where God dwelled.

            Inside the Temple there was a room called the Holy of Holies.  The Arc of the Covenant sat in the Holy of Holies, along with some other religious items.  The Holy of Holies was separated from the rest of the temple by a big, thick, heavy curtain.  And nobody dared to go into the Holy of Holies except for the High Priest, who could only enter one day of the year, The Day of Atonement.  And if someone entered in an unworthy manner, it was believed that God would strike them dead.

            We read in some of the Gospels as well as in the book of Hebrews that when Jesus died, the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was torn in two, right down the middle.  Now the God who was separated from the general public, the God who was inaccessible, the God who was hidden within the Holy of Holies was not limited in access.  Anyone could come directly to God.

            John baptizing in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan seems to be symbolic of the beginning of the new age, the decentralization of worship.  God was no longer in there; God was now out among the people.

            Not only that, God became accessible to regular people.  John’s father was a priest and his mother was also from the line of Aaron.  But we have no reason to believe that John had any ambition to take up the role of priest as his own occupation.  But here was John, performing the act of a priest, baptizing people.  John bore witness to the beginning of the new era where God was accessible to everyone, everywhere.  That is why the Jewish leaders are so interested in what John was doing on the other side of the river.  He wasn’t following the rules.

            As important of a person as John is, he knows his place.  He is a bridge between the Old and the New, but he realizes that it isn’t about him.  He says in verse 26, “I baptize withwater, but among you stands one you do not know.  He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

            I am not the Elijah, I am not the Prophet, and I am not the Messiah.  But the Messiah stands among you and I am not even worthy of untying his sandals.  I am not worthy of being his servant.  John says, My job is to point to him.

            Last week I showed a picture of John the Baptist, but that picture is really a portion of a larger work known as the Isenheim altarpiece painted by Mathias Gruenwald from 1506-1515.  It is an interesting piece with several wings and levels.  If you are ever in France, it would be interesting to take an up-close look at this piece of art, which is now housed in the Unterlinden Museum. 

Now I know that most people don’t like dead Swiss theologians as much as I do, but you may have heard of a man by the name of Karl Barth.  Barth is especially known for his 13 volume magnum opus known as Church Dogmatics.  Church Dogmatics took Barth 35 years to write and there is something like 6 million words between the 13 volumes.  Let’s just say that Stephenie Meyer has a lot of work to do if she wants to keep up with Karl Barth.  And if you don’t know who Stephenie Meyer is, that’s okay.  Church Dogmatics is believed to be one of the greatest works of theology of the 20^th century.

            Karl Barth taught in at a German university during World War II, when he spoke out publically against the Nazi regime.  Thankfully for him, and us, he was deported back to Switzerland rather than being killed.  He was a highly influential theologian, and he continues to influence many theologians today.

            I mention Karl Barth because he kept a replication of the Isenheim altarpiece above his desk as he wrote those volumes of books and documents speaking out against the Nazis.  He frequently references the artwork in his writings.  And he comes back time and time again to this bearded man, dressed in camel hair, with his finger extended toward the man hanging on the cross.  We know that John the Baptist was not at the crucifixion of Jesus, but Gruenwald chose to include him in this painting.  And Barth loved it.  Because Barth said that we as Christians are to do the very thing that John is doing in this picture.  We are to point to the Messiah.

            Barth kept that picture close by because he wanted to remind himself often that no matter how many books he published, and how many lives he influenced, he was not the Messiah.  He only points to the Messiah.

            We need this reminder every now and then as well.  Especially as Mennonites who tend to have a strong desire to work for issues of peace, justice, and poverty related problems around the world.  We need to be reminded that ultimately we are not, nor will we ever be, the savior of the world.  Now I have absolutely no doubt that as followers of Jesus that we need to be doing what we can to make the world that we live in look more like the world that God wants it to be; the world that God created it to be.  We are called to lives of discipleship, but being a disciple means that we are not the Messiah.  We already have one of those.

            John the Baptist knew that he was not the Messiah; he knew his role.  And because he knew his role and was comfortable with his role, I believe that he was able to be more effective in his calling.

            When we turn to our Old Testament passage, we will likely remember hearing this one from somewhere else.  This is that passage that Jesus chose for his first sermon in his home town.  He sat down, read these words, and proclaimed that these things had been fulfilled in him.  He came to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the captives, the year of the Lord’s favor.

            In its original context, Isaiah spoke these words to the Israelites after they had returned to the Promised Land and things were not quite as great as they expected.  The reason for that is simple: they were still living in a fallen world.  Other nations still had the free will to rise up against the Israelites.  People still had the free will to steal or harm one another.  But it is clear that this is not nor has it ever been God’s will.  Verse 8 says, “For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing.” 

            We can’t redeem the world all alone.  But together we can work to make this world a little more like God intended for it to be.  As the Bible tells us, we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  It might seem like it should go without saying, but don’t forget that you are not the Messiah.  You are simply pointing to the Messiah.  When we love others, serve others, and share with others, we point to the Messiah.  When we share our faith verbally, we point to the Messiah.  Do what you can to make this world more like God intended for it to be, but remember, only the Messiah will bring the Kingdom of God in its fullest.

Paving the way

Isaiah 40:1-11 (NIV)

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

   the way for the LORD;

make straight in the desert

   a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be raised up,

   every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level,

   the rugged places a plain.

5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,

   and all people will see it together.

            For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.  7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them.  Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain.  You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”

10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm.  See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.  11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

 

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,the Son of God, ² as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

   “I will send my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way”
³ “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
   make straight paths for him.’”

 ⁴ And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. ⁶ John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸ I baptize you withwater, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

            Comfort, oh my people.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.  Sometimes we need this.  When life is stressful—and when isn’t it stressful—we need someone to speak comfort into our lives.  As a sign of this comfort, I have decided to preach this Sunday wearing sweatpants. 

            The prophet Isaiah speaks comfort to God’s people because their time of service has been completed.  And Isaiah understands this time of “service” to have been a punishment for the sins of the people.  God allowed the Babylonians to overtake the Israelites and carry them off into exile.  But now their time of punishment is complete.  Their forced slavery, forced labor, forced relocation is over.  They can return to the Promised Land.

            This is a beautiful passage of scripture, but it is also very troubling for me as it seems to shake the very foundations of our faith.  For instance, look at verse 2, which says, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”  Isaiah tells us that Israel had received double punishment for their sins from the Lord’s hand.  Even Handel’s Messiah chooses to skip over this part as it is not included in the musical score.

            I have no idea why Isaiah says this, but I assume that it has more to do with trying to make the meter in the poetry fit than it does with being theologically accurate.  I struggled with this passage this week, wondering how and why a just and good God would make the Israelites pay double for their sins.  Hopefully, this gives you some pause as well, but we will come back to this later.  The point that I want to make right now is that the point of this passage isn’t that God is inconsistent, unpredictable, and harsh.  I think that the point is to be found in the comfort.

            God will lead the people back to Jerusalem and he will make the journey easy.  The paths will be made straight in the desert, every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low, the ground will become level, the rugged places will become a plane, and all of those orange construction barrels will be cast into the deepest regions of hell whence they came.  (I started thinking about this sermon when I was driving to Washington, DC to pick my family up at the airport and it took an extra 45 minutes to get there.)  This is a passage about comfort, about God’s blessing, and about forgiveness.

            We come to the Gospel text for this morning and we find that Mark makes a connection between the Israelites returning from exile and the ministry of John the Baptist.  On the surface, these two things seem unrelated.  Isaiah is telling the people that they can return to Jerusalem after their time in exile, but in Mark’s text, the people aren’t going anywhere and they haven’t been anywhere.  They are in Jerusalem and in Jerusalem they shall stay.  They don’t need to have any roads straightened and hills leveled off.  Sure, they could use some comfort, but then again, can’t we all?

            Mark makes the connection between God preparing the way for the Israelites to return to Jerusalem during the Babylonian exile and John the Baptist’s ministry in preparing the way for Jesus.  John’s role was to enhance the ministry of Jesus by blazing the trail for him.

            Verse 1 of Mark chapter 1 says this: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,the Son of God.”  Nothing too shocking there, right?  But where does Mark go.  Does he being to talk about the immaculate conception of Mary?  Does he talk about the birth of Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem?  Does he talk about Jesus’ childhood?  Nope.  Mark starts with the ministry of John the Baptist.  In Mark’s Gospel, the beginning of the good news about Jesus doesn’t start with Jesus at all.  It starts with John.

            The story of Jesus doesn’t start with Jesus.  It starts with John the Baptist.  Luke’s Gospel also starts with John.  And how does Matthew begin the good news of Jesus?  He starts with Abraham and then gives the genealogy of Jesus.  Most of Matthew chapter 1 is the genealogy of Jesus.  Now John’s gospel is a little more interesting in that it begins before the beginning.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

            It is clear that Jesus didn’t come out of nowhere.  He had a story, he had family, he had lineage, and he had a history.  It wasn’t just John the Baptist, but each and everyone one of these individuals helped to prepare the way for Jesus.

            Have you ever given any thought to people that led you to the place where you are today and the things that they did to get you here?  Who prepared the way for you?  My parents prepared the way for me when I was just a little boy, taking me to Sunday school, reading me Bible stories, and telling me the story of Jesus.  Their parents helped pave the way for them, and their parents did the same.  I think of the friends in my life that helped me to get involved in a Bible study when I was in my late teens and early 20’s.  I think of the leaders of that study.  I think of the Christians that I came in contact with at the large, pagan university in Columbus, OH when I was still pretty young in my faith.  I think of my pastor whose daughter I married.  It isn’t hard to come up with many names and faces of people who have influenced my life and have brought me to this place here today.  They have prepared the way for me, and more importantly, they have prepared the way for Jesus in my life.

            I think that is a part of what discipleship is.  We prepare the way for others, we try to make the way smooth and level for others to come to Jesus.  This is true in our family life as well as in our lives outside of the home.  We make the path straight for our children, our siblings, our coworkers, and the guy that makes your morning latte.  If people are separated from God, we want to make it as easy as we can for them to get back.

Unfortunately, I think too often we put up road blocks and obstacles rather than making the way straight.  We invent rules that are not even biblical and in that way we become like the Pharisees.  The Pharisees would take a very good rule and then run with it.  If it is good to not work on the Sabbath, the Pharisees took it to the nth degree.  Don’t walk more than a couple of miles, don’t make a meal, don’t even heal on the Sabbath.  Jesus told the Pharisees once that they are willing to travel across land and sea to make a single convert, but when they do they make that person twice the child of hell that they are.  That’s not a compliment; not a compliment at all.  Religion is really good at making rules about what is okay and what is not okay; what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and it isn’t always faithful who Jesus is. 

            I recently listened to a sermon from a pretty hard-core Christian, and to be honest, I am surprised that I was able to listen to the whole thing.  The pastor, whose intentions I do not question—his method is another issue, repeatedly yelled at the top of his lungs, “God hates you!  If you are a sinner, God hates you!”  He even went to lengths to explain that the old saying that God loves us and hates our sin is wrong and unbiblical.  No, he said, if you sin, God hates you.  This guy isn’t making the way straight for anyone to come back to God.

            Preparing the way for the Lord does not mean that we don’t talk about right and wrong.  We name sin as such.  But how we talk about these things is important, and even more important is how we interact with others.

            John, the way-preparer for Jesus, did not just sit around and sing kumbaya with the people.  Look at verse 4, “And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

            Repentance means to turn and go the other way.  It means to make a 180.  John is telling the Israelites to stop sinning because the Kingdom of God has come near.  In Luke’s gospel the people ask John for some specifics as to how they should live and he lays out his vision, no God’s vision, of radical generosity.  If you have two shirts and someone has none, give them your extra shirt.  If you have extra food, share with someone who has none.  The tax collectors shouldn’t take more than they were supposed to take and the soldiers were not to extort money from others, accuse others falsely, and they were to be happy with their pay. 

Is this making the path straight for Jesus?  I think that if you told someone today that they needed to give their extra clothes and food to someone in need if they wanted to be a Christian, you would be called a lot of things, but a way-paver would not be one of them.  You would not make it easier for them to come to Jesus.  You would seem to be making it more difficult for them.  But I would argue that without that call to repentance, there is no easy way back to God.

            This brings me back to the traffic that I got to sit in on Tuesday on my way to Washington.  I hate traffic.  I really hate construction.  I can understand when there is a traffic jam because of an accident and I really try to have patience when I know that there is an accident ahead.  I try to remind myself that whatever inconvenience that the traffic jam has caused me is probably nothing compared to the inconvenience of the ones involved in the accident.  I am safe and I will be able to get where I need to be, even if I am a little late.  I try to think like that.

            But construction…ahh!  Remember, I come from the state of Ohio where the four seasons are: almost winter, winter, still winter, and construction.  So those trips up 77 can take for-ev-er.  And what frustrates me the most about construction is when the signs are telling you that the road goes down to one lane ahead and the cones are set up for miles at a time, yet it seems like there is rarely anyone working at that site.  Or maybe there is a crew of two, and one of them is holding a sign that says “SLOW” on it.  And my favorite thing is the police.  Last Sunday, the day after Thanksgiving when everyone was trying to get home, I mistakenly got on 81 where traffic was moving at about 20 miles-per-hour.  And there in the median was a police car.  I guess he was looking for speeders?

            As much as I hate traffic and as much as I despise construction traffic, I know that what they are doing is making the road better.  They are making the high places low, the low places high, the curvy path straight.  They are literally paving the way for me in the future.

            Being one who prepares the way for Jesus doesn’t mean that you won’t cause a few traffic jams along the way.  I find myself in a position where I am pulled between making the way too easy or too hard.  I get frustrated when I hear people try to get people into the church by telling them “All you gotta do is believe in Jesus.”  Then when they come, they are hit with about a million rules.  It’s the old bait-and-switch move.  But I also believe that we can do just the opposite and make things too hard, with too many hoops to jump through.  We have to find the middle ground.  And when we find that middle ground, it is there that we will also find Jesus.  We find Jesus, who was very clear about what it looked like to live as a part of the Kingdom of God, but was also very quick to offer love, support, and grace when people failed to do so.

            So I come back to that challenging line from Isaiah 40:2, the line that Handel left out of the Messiah, the line that doesn’t seem consistent with God’s character.  Why would a fair and just God punish the people with a double portion for their iniquities?  The verse says, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”

            I struggled with this passage for a long time this week, reading commentaries and websites, and picking the brains of others.  But it wasn’t until a friend of mine on facebook helped me to see this passage from a different perspective that it made any sense to me at all.  The passage never specifically says that what the Israelites received double for from the Lord for their sins was punishment.  This passage could be understood as saying that the Israelites received double the grace for their sins.

            Yes, we need to be clear about what we believe and we need to call people to repentance.  But as way-pavers for Jesus, we need to be people of grace.  Be clear about what you believe, but be filled with grace for those who fail to live up to those measures.  In the wilderness, God provided grace to the Israelites.  In the River Jordan, God provided grace to the Jews.  May we show the way back to God, may we show the way of comfort, may we show the way of grace.

 

A plea and a promise

Isaiah 64:1-9 (NIV)

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.  4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.  But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.  How then can we be saved?  6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.  

8 Yet you, LORD, are our Father.  We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.  9 Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD; do not remember our sins forever.  Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.

 

Mark 13:24-37 New International Version (NIV)

24 “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; 25 the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

 

            What a strange way to start Advent.  Today’s texts are obviously from the Lectionary because I would never choose these passages as a way to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.  These passages talk about pain, suffering, and the end of the world as we know it.  Merry Christmas?  But I am glad that someone chose these passages because I think that these passages will help us as we prepare for the birth of our Lord by reminding us why we need him in the first place.

            Our passage from Isaiah 64 is one that we paraphrase often in the church, especially verse 8, You are the potter, we are the clay.  We are the work of your hand.  What beautiful imagery of a gentle God who shapes us, molds us, and forms us into the people that he wants us to be.  But to understand this passage we must back up and look at what has brought Isaiah to say these things and turn his life over to God’s formative hand.  So, a quick overview of the book of Isaiah for you on this first Sunday of Advent.

            The book of Isaiah spans a long period of time.  It speaks of the Israelites going into exile and then returning 70(ish) years later.  In Isaiah 40 we find God speaking to his people through the prophet Isaiah saying that their time in exile is over; they have paid the price for their sins.  And now God is speaking words of comfort to them.  They will be able to return to the Promised Land.

            Isaiah 40-55 is this good news about God’s blessing of his people once again and God’s promises of how he will be with his people, moving among them, protecting them, delivering them, and providing for them.  But the tone of Isaiah changes by chapter 56.  Some time has passed and the blessings described in chapters 40-55 just don’t seem to be panning out in the way that the Israelites had expected.  They were back in the Promised Land, but they weren’t thriving.  They were surviving…barely.  This just isn’t the way it is supposed to be and Isaiah seems to know why.  The people are rebellious, living for themselves, not for God.

            This is what prompts Isaiah to plead with God, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  Do something great, Lord!  Make the mountains shake, set the trees ablaze, make the water boil, whatever it takes, just make yourself known!  Do this, and the people will know that you are God and they will turn from their ways and worship you.

            Isaiah remembers.  Perhaps he remembers stories, or maybe he remembers events that he witnessed first-hand.  Either way, he remembers.  He remembers when God did awesome things that the people did not expect.  And he wants God to do it again.

            Our theme for Advent this year comes from this passage.  Our theme is “Awesome Deeds We Do Not Expect.”  We know what it is like to want God to do something awesome.  Whether we are hoping for something awesome to happen in our lives to help us out of a difficult situation, or like Isaiah we are hoping for something awesome to call God’s people back to him, we want to see something awesome.  We long to see God do something, because like the Israelites, we know that things just aren’t right.  God, break into our world and reveal yourself to us once again.

            We move forward about 530 years and we find Jesus already well into his ministry on earth.  He is going from town to town, building up quite a reputation for himself, and stepping on some toes as he does it.  At the beginning of chapter 13 Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and some of his disciples ask him when it will happen.  And Jesus sees this as an opportunity to not only talk about the destruction of the temple, but the end of the world as we know it, the apocalypse. 

            I know that some people get excited about apocalyptic literature, but I am not one of them.  There is a lot of symbolism being used in our text for today, and I could try to explain what these things might represent, but I would only be guessing and it would probably not mean anything to us anyway.  But the point that we can take with us from this text from Mark is that Jesus entered into this world once, and he will do it again.  As we celebrate the first Advent at this time of year, we know that there will be a second advent.  We don’t know when and we don’t know how, but Jesus will come back and set the world right.

            I know that apocalyptic literature can be scary to read with all of the symbolic language that it uses, but I don’t think it should be scary for us.  It isn’t meant to scare us.  As the people of God we should not fear this day.  It is the day when the plea of Isaiah will be answered once again.  Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!  He did rend the heavens and come down as Jesus.  And he will come again.  God will break into this world once again; we should expect awesome deeds.

            But why the waiting?  Why not break in and make things right, right now?  I come back to that imagery offered to us by Isaiah.  We are the clay and God is the potter.  God is forming us for something, presumably to use us.  When Isaiah uttered these words, I believe that he was contemplating the reasons for the current suffering of the people with hopes that it would not be in vain.  Isaiah does not give a reason for the suffering, but rather trusts that the suffering is forming them into the people that God wants them to be.  God the potter is forming them into something, though we aren’t told what.  The point seems to be that there is a point.  We are moving toward something.  There is a goal, there is a telos, there is a plan for all of this.  We are moving toward God breaking into this world once again.  Expect the unexpected.

            This week I got a few surprises that I think will help us better understand how we are to expect the unexpected.  I have been working on a little project on our home since July (I know, it is almost December, and I am not anywhere close to done).  I had been planning on designating a lot of time this week to working on this project, particularly the exterior of the project.  I had ordered a manufactured stone veneer for our home’s exterior and I received a phone call the Friday before last that it had arrived and could be delivered to my home at a time convenient for me.  And that day was Tuesday.

            I can be like a little kid in a toy store when I am expecting a delivery, and I was watching for the delivery truck all morning on Tuesday, just waiting for my stone veneer to arrive.  And then finally, the moment came when the truck pulled up to my house.  My excitement was contagious and I got my little boy in his coat so he could come outside and see the big truck with our special delivery.  We went outside and the delivery guy was getting the pallet down off the truck with a forklift and bringing it up my driveway.  He brought it straight to my back door, got off his forklift, opened up the box and asked me, “Is this what you were expecting?”

            I was expecting a shipment of concrete stones; however, what was there before me was four boxes of vinyl soffit.  I don’t usually try to be a jerk, but sometimes it just happens.  I just shook my head at the delivery guy and told him, “Not even close!”  I might have said it a little too sarcastically.  That’s story #1.

            Story #2 took place on Wednesday at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC.  I took my wife and son to the airport to send them to Nebraska for the Thanksgiving holiday.  And airports are kind of cool places, especially when you are not the one traveling and carrying all of those heavy bags.  So after I got Sonya and Paxton through security, I decided to do what any 31-year-old, ordained, minister of the word of God would do when left alone in an airport.  I played on the escalators and moving sidewalks.

            You know what the moving sidewalk is, right?  It is that conveyor belt that you can walk or stand on to move you and your baggage along at a faster, easier rate.  And I had the next week or so all to myself without much to do, because I didn’t get my stone veneer, so I decided it would be a good time to do some research on things like how fast I could run on the moving sidewalk, walking the wrong way, and how long a man with no luggage and no ticket could play at the airport until security would ask him to leave.  The answer is 27 minutes.

            Here is the weird thing about the moving sidewalk: no matter how prepared I was for the end, it always jarred me.  I was very aware that the sidewalk was coming to an end; I could see the end, I could hear the recording saying, “Warning, the sidewalk is coming to an end.”  I would try to adjust my rate of travel and just walk normal off the end, but each time, it caused me to at least change my momentum and I wouldn’t be quite ready for the end of the sidewalk.

            My thoughts on our texts for this week are reflected in these two stories.  The more we think we know exactly what is coming, the more likely we are to be disappointed when it comes, or to miss it when it comes altogether.  Isaiah wanted God to break into the world and for the mountains to tremble and the trees to burst into flames.  On Christmas day about 2,000 years ago, God did break into this world.  But he didn’t come in a mountain-shaking, tree-blazing, water-boiling manner.  God came into this world as a baby, born in a manger to unmarried, common people.  When we think we know exactly how something should happen, we are often disappointed, and we sometimes miss it altogether, just as many people likely have missed God entering this world through Jesus.  They were expecting stone veneer, and they got vinyl soffit.  Vinyl soffit is great, but the people were looking for something else and they missed it.

            And even though we know that the end of the sidewalk is coming, or the world as we know it is coming to an end, we cannot fully know what to expect.  It may be jarring, it may cause us to stumble.  But we know it is coming, and we should be ready, lest we trip and fall.  Being as ready as possible might be the difference between simply noticing that shift in momentum and stumbling and falling down.

            This Advent season, I invite you to be ready because God moves in unexpected ways.  And though we might not always be able to anticipate how God will move, we can be confident in knowing that God is active, moving, and about to do a great thing.  God will do great things for us, and God will do great things through us.  Expect the unexpected.

Thanks

Ephesians 1:15-23 New International Version (NIV)

15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

 

            I came home from working at the church Thursday evening to find my wife sitting in the living room, listening to the radio.  This in and of itself is not unusual, and would not be anything significant if it was not for the music that was on the radio.  On Thursday, November 17^th, my wife was listening to Christmas music.  I walked in to the tune of “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.”  And this radio station was playing, not only a Christmas song but rather, nothing but Christmas songs.

            Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas songs and the holiday cheer that often accompanies them.  Who doesn’t love to go a wassailing every now and then?  I even enjoy the occasional “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and other goofy, secular songs.  But the reason that this event gave me pause was because we were exactly one week before Thanksgiving, and this radio station was already playing Christmas music.

            Do we spend enough time giving thanks?  Do we spend enough time giving thanks to God and to other people?  I don’t think so.  Even in the church we can skip over this important holiday as we celebrate the beginning of Advent the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.  But we aren’t going to let that happen this year.  I want to take some time today to say thanks. 

            A friend of mine recently started a little bit of a debate on Facebook about Thanksgiving.  He called into question whether or not what we commonly call Thanksgiving is really giving thanks at all.  He mentions that what we commonly call Thanksgiving is really a gathering of people who participate in “a generic act directed at a generic deity for generic ‘blessings’ that we’ve earned through hard work, preparation and stockpiling.”

            It’s not that he doesn’t like Thanksgiving; he just thinks that the holiday as we celebrate it misses the point.  Here is his suggestion: “The Christian virtue of giving thanks ought to be our frame of mind, giving thanks to a specific God for specific acts and blessings named in our specific life-stories.”  To that I say “amen.”

            Giving thanks should be a part of who we are; it should be a part of our DNA.  And while I have no problem with setting aside a day to celebrate all that we are thankful for, I by no means believe that we should only be thankful for the things that we have on one day out of the year. 

            My friend suggested that we be more specific in the subject of our thankfulness.  We give thanks to a specific God, the god revealed to Moses in the burning bush, the god who spoke to the Israelites through the Prophets, the god revealed to us through Jesus. 

            In our scripture for this morning, Paul is very specific about to whom he is directing his thanks.  He mentions God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the first three verses, making some reference a member of the Trinity six times in those three verses.  Specificity is important to Paul and his acts of Thanksgiving.

            My friend also said that he believes we need to be more specific in what we are thankful for.  Paul does the same thing.  He says that he gives thanks to God for the faith of the people of Ephesus and for their love of God’s people.  Paul is saying that he is thankful that the people are obeying the Greatest Commandment and the Second Greatest Commandments.  The Ephesians are loving God and loving their neighbor.

            Finally my friend notes that we need to be thankful to our specific God for these specific blessings that we have received in our specific life-stories.  How have these things influenced you, your life, and those around you?  This takes time, it takes an effort on your part, and it can be a challenge.  And I want to challenge you all to do just that this week; no, to do it right now.

            I am going to start.  I thank my God for you, my church.  I thank you for coming here on a regular basis and listening to me babble for 30 minutes each week about something that you probably already know anyway.  I thank you for your financial support of this church and your financial support of me and my family.  I want to thank those who don’t always get thanked.  I want to thank the Sunday school teachers that prepare a lesson to challenge us to think deeper about our faith.  I thank the children’s Sunday school teachers that are helping to form the next generation of the church and the Sunday school superintendent for all that she does.  I thank the trustees who keep the facility in good shape, and the treasurers who pay for it and everything else that happens around here.  I want to thank the ushers who do more than you can imagine, from making the coffee to taking up the offering.  They are the first to arrive and often the last to leave.  I want to thank those that provide rides for others and those that provide cookies and muffins most weeks.  I want to thank the song leaders who provide guidance in our weekly singing and the worship leaders who guide our worship each week.  I want to thank our sound guy, who also records our sermons each week.  I know you often don’t notice our sound guy, and that is a sign that he is a good sound guy.  I thank the librarians for providing that lending service to us all.  To all of the people who hold an office, provide a service and support this church one way or another, I thank you and I thank God for you.  Thanks for all that you do and thanks for being a part of my life.  Now, what are you thankful for?