Born of a Virgin

Text: Luke 1:26-42

One thing we tend to read over at Christmas time is that Jesus was born with questionable paternity and this had to have been a stigma that followed him all his life.  To us the story goes that the archangel Gabriel appeared to a very young Jewish girl of Nazareth named Mary betrothed to a much older man named Joseph and told her that God had chosen her to be the mother of the Messiah, the anointed king who would deliver the Jewish people.  Mary asked how since she had never done the prerequisite activity.  Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and she would become pregnant with the Son of God.  “I am the Lord’s servant,” she said, “Let it be with me as you have said.”  That’s pretty, “Wow!” to us.  Yet, to Mary’s community the story was probably that her family noticed the baby bump and her father was very vocal in demanding to know who the father was so that she could be married to him and save the family honour.  Then the question of who the father was made its rounds at the whisper posts.  Paternity options were rape, a fling, incest, or Joseph.  It wasn’t Joseph for he was ready to end the betrothal yet after his own angel moment; he decides to go ahead with it.  Even so, Mary went to stay with Cousin Elizabeth.  Wink. 

Jesus’ birth is something that many Christian’s have a difficult time with and it has nothing to do with the negative stigma attached to having questionable paternity.  Many in the church actually find labelling Jesus “illegitimate” more plausible than to proclaim that he was born of a virgin.  In the academic world, there are those who say that the early church invented this story of Jesus being born of a virgin in an attempt to legitimate his divinity in the Greco-Roman world.  How do you that? How do you make a man into the Son of God in the Greek world?  Well, you say that Zeus was his father.  Many compare the story of Jesus’ birth to the birth of Apollo who in Greek mythology was the son of Zeus by a human mother.  Roman mythology also liked to call the Roman emperor the Son of God and some emperors thought of themselves as a sort of incarnation of Apollo.  So, many academics say that the early church made up the story of the God of the Jews fathering Jesus as a Jewish version of the Apollo birth myth in order to claim that Jesus was greater than Caesar.  These academics will then go on to say that the early church had a leg to stand on because of the identity of Jesus’ real father being questionable.  And so, the official historical version determined in the university by the best scientific methods is that the virgin birth did not happen, Joseph was not Jesus’ real father, and that he was most likely the product of a fling, rape, or incest…or. And I’m sure someone is published somewhere claiming Mary was fertilized in vitro by aliens or time travelers.

The debate surrounding the Virgin Birth of Jesus exposes quite readily our culture’s pseudo-scientific presumption that God, if there is a God, does not get involved in his creation.  Miracles like that don’t happen.  Oddly, some will profess that God created this Creation out of nothing and yet in the same breath deny that God initiated New Creation in the womb of Mary, New Creation where God has mingled created matter with his very self in order to reveal himself through it and to heal it of sin and death.  Many think that the doctrine of the virgin birth is really not all that important in the scheme of things.  Truly, when was the last time you heard a sermon on it?  But, consider this; if there was no real, historical virgin birth, then there is no new humanity that came into existence as Jesus of Nazareth, no humanity in union with God, and thus no salvation.  Jesus Christ is the first born of the New Creation, a new humanity in perfect union with God (Col. 1:18; Rom. 8:29).  

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ is as essential to God’s means of saving his creation as the cross and resurrection.  Humanity, (us, you and me, and everybody) which has been dehumanised through sin, now has a way opened up to being truly human in union with God in, with, and through Jesus Christ who is the true human in the midst of our inhumanity.  Humans in union with God in, with, and through Jesus the Son in the power and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is the end of fallen humanity.  And let’s get BIG about this, it is even more so the end of the whole fallen Creation.  This union is then not only the end of fallen humanity but also the beginning of the new humanity and the New Creation that God will bring to its completion at Jesus’ return.  This means that because we are human we can share now in this new creative act that God has wrought in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and that sharing in this creative act results in our in the present being liberated from the corruption and bondage that we have to sin in our fallen selves, relationships, and communities that only die and decay even when they are at their best.

The Virgin Birth of Jesus was a complete act of God’s grace showing us how he acts in our lives to save us.  It is all about God’s doings and nothing of our own.  God’s means of saving grace is that God the Son himself in the power of the Holy Spirit in union with humanity in the human Jesus, comes into this creation and into our fallen humanity being born as a baby, born of a woman, born a real human to be with us in our estrangement and to bring forth from it a new humanity healed and restored to being God’s image.  What this all means is that God’s saving of his creation and his beloved humanity by God the Son’s uniting himself to it/us initially in the power of the Holy Spirit as Jesus the Christ and now to us by our adoption as children of the Father in union with Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit poured into us, all this is 100% God’s doing.  We do not earn it or say our cooperation with it makes it possible.  Gabriel telling Mary that she had found favour with the Lord didn’t mean she lived so righteously that God that God decided to make her pregnant with his Son, the Messiah.  There wasn’t a cult of virgins back then living righteously in an effort to gain the motherhood of the Messiah.  No, it was that in his grace for his own reasons God chose Mary and acted in her.  She could not say no to it and stop it.  She could only get on and live with it.  It was, “Mary, this is your life.  Now, go live it.”  

Jesus was utterly new humanity not born of the will or the agency of a human father, but solely of the will and agency of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The union of God the Son and a human embryo in Mary’s womb by the creating power of the Holy Spirit conceived the embryo that became Jesus the Christ.  In like manner our real union with God the Son in the Holy Spirit is the embryo of the New Creation and the New Humanity that is coming with the return of Jesus.  The question may arise as to what role our faith plays in all this.  Obviously, it is not our faith that makes God’s saving grace possible or a decision to believe that gets this grace applied to us.  Our human faith is not the agency of our salvation.  It is the response to it.  Faith, like the womb of Mary, is the empty vessel into which God pours his grace.  John of Damascus, a 7^th century monk and priest, said, “Mary conceived through the ear: she heard the Word and the Word spoken by the Holy Spirit in her ear begot himself in her and through her, and so the Word which Mary heard and received and obeyed became flesh of her flesh.”[1]  So it is with the Word of God that we proclaim in the Gospel.  The Word of the Saving Lordship of Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit comes into us through the simple hearing of it and it goes to that part of us in which our ability to trust and be faithful is and begets saving faith in Jesus Christ in us by uniting us to him, creating an embryonic relationship with him in us that begins to grow and mature and make us to be more and more like him. 

Like pregnancy, some women say they knew the moment the baby was conceived, others knew only after certain changes began to happen within them, others in rare instances didn’t know until the baby was born.  Nevertheless, when a woman finds out she is pregnant for the health of the baby and of herself.  She must adjust her life to henceforth live to nurture this new life in her.  So, it is with new life in Christ.  Friends, Jesus Christ is Lord and our Saviour from the many bondages that sin gets us into whether they be good or bad.  He is Lord and Saviour of the entire Creation and this is very good news and entirely the work and the result of the Trinity’s love for us.  He is your Lord, your Saviour.  Friends, through no effort of your own and whether you perceive it or not you are now pregnant with the new life of Jesus Christ simply because I have proclaimed this good news to you.  How are you going to live now? for the nurturing of this new life or…?  Amen.

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[1] Torrance, Thomas F.; Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ; Robert T. Walker, Ed.; InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove; 2008; p. 101.

While You Are Waiting...

Text: 1 Thessalonians 1:5:16-24

            In our culture we view waiting as an unpleasant waste of time.  I believe this is largely because we’ve got some crazy ideas about time.  Particularly the belief that time is an article of private ownership.  As such, we spend our lives in the pursuit of that elusive bogey called, “My time” or “time to myself”.  For couples, we seek out “time for us” while families pursue “family time.”  We never seem to find that time.  We never seen to have enough time for anything we would truly wish to have more time.  We believe that our time is our own yet the reality of never having enough time for things we’d like to have time for seems to me to suggest that time is not ours to own.

Another crazy idea we have about time is that time is money.  We punch the time clock so that somebody is not only paying us for our skills, they are also buying a share of “our” time.  We do this because paying somebody for their time and skills is believed to be a viable alternative to slavery.  Thus, ownership of our time and skills is part of what we believe makes a person a freeperson.  Nevertheless, when we punch a time clock we do indeed sell our own selves into slavery for in essence we are saying for this period of time my skills will belong to whoever pays me for them.  It would make one think that as long as there is time there will be slavery. 

With respect to time spent waiting, to have to waste time waiting on something or someone amidst our worldview of time being an article of private ownership and a commodity to be bought and sold is in essence to enter into slavery for which there is no wage.  Waiting is slavery for which there is no wage.  Indeed, when we find ourselves having to wait on someone or something it becomes painfully obvious that our time belongs to someone who is not paying us for it.  How many times have we wanted to send a bill to the doctor for the two or more hours we’ve had to spend waiting to be seen?  What about the lines we have to stand in at the various government ministries in order to partake of the services that our taxes pay for.  We pay governments for services and they enslave us, indeed take us hostage, whenever we need to partake of those services.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a doctor actually show up early for an appointment or for government ministries to open up a little bit early for our convenience.  After all we are paying for them to serve us, are we not?  We own their time and skills, do we not? 

And then there are the greatest time-thieves all.  Wouldn’t you like to send a bill to Wal-Mart or Zehr’s and all these other big-box retailers who hold us as hostages by making us wait in line because they won’t spend the money to buy the time and skills of enough people to work those fifteen empty cash registers that are always unstaffed.  But, they don’t care. In their minds they bought our time by making us think they save us money.  That’s like saying, “Gee honey, I just got paid $5 for a half-hour’s worth of work standing in line at Wal-Mart and reading the National Enquirer.  Dream job, eh?  Pays $80 a day. Tax free.”

Waiting is a fact of life.  We don’t like it.  It makes us feel as if we’ve unwillingly sacrificed our personal freedom or been taken hostage.  It should strike us odd then that God would choose waiting on him as the primary means of shaping our character.  Indeed, in the Bible there is no such thing as private ownership of time.  There is no “my time,” “our time,” “family time” or “work time.”  There is only God’s time.  This phrase that we hear so often, “I just need a little time to go and find myself” is the language of fairy tales.  We don’t find ourselves in time.  We find ourselves in being found by God.  Our lives are hidden with Christ in God.  Therefore, we must wait for God to reveal us to ourselves in his time and however he sees fit to do it.  Time belongs to God and so we must undergo the discomfort of waiting on God to act for me and you, life, and history to make sense.  God gives us time.  It is a gift.  Therefore, time is not matter of ownership.  It is a matter of stewardship.  If we approach time from the standpoint of private ownership we become disillusioned not really knowing who we are or what we are here for. Yet, if we spend this time we’ve been entrusted with in waiting for God, he fills it with knowledge of himself and of ourselves.

To say that what we do with our time is a matter of stewardship is to say that what we do with our time matters.  Waiting in a world where time is viewed as a matter of private ownership and a commodity makes us feel as if our time is wasted, as if we are being bad stewards.  Truly nothing good is accomplished waiting in line at Wal-Mart.  On the other hand, if our waiting occurs in a world where time belongs to God every moment can be time well spent even if it is in the line at Wal-Mart.  In our passage today Paul tells us how to wait, how to let time serve its God-given purpose for us. 

Paul begins here with our inner lives, with our attitudes.  He says, “Rejoice always.”  This is to let oneself feel joy always.  Joy does not mean, “Be happy, happy, happy all the time.”  Joy rather is like hope, which goes hand in hand with faith.  There is a contentment that arises from knowing that God is going to do what he says he is going to do.  To know that our lives are in the hands of a gracious and loving God should bring us joy.  To time and time again experience that God works all things together for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes sets joy firmly in our hearts, a joy that uproots despair and bitterness.  Paul tells us to rejoice always which means we have to take responsibility of our inner lives and let ourselves feel hope, let ourselves have faith. 

Paul then says, “Pray continually.”  “Pray without ceasing.”  The primary way we express faith is in prayer.  Hope builds in answered prayers.  Joy grows in answered prayer.  “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  We know we have faith when we look back over our lives and can be thankful for everything that has happened for in it all it is evident that God used these things, both good and bad to make us who we are and to reveal to us who he is.  God’s will is to make us like Christ and in so doing he lets us in on the love that they share, but crosses are involved.  If we cannot see where even in the worst of things God was trying to reveal himself to us, all we need do is ask him and he will show us.  Eventually, we do come to a point when we can say, “let the world fall down on my head, I know God loves me.”

While we wait there are also things that we do together.  The first is not quenching the Spirit, not extinguishing the flames of the Spirit in our midst.  Seeing God lead a congregation and being a part of that inspires faith, awakens hope, and calls forth joy.  Along the way, there will be those whom God raises up in our midst to speak his Word to us.  For us to treat them or their words with contempt would quench the Spirit.  To fan the flames of the Spirit we must work together to discern what is the Word of God for us and then hold fast to that which is good.  Moreover, we must also abstain from every form of evil not only in the way we treat one another but also in our private lives…if there truly is such a thing as a private life in God’s world.  If our inner lives are filled with “my wants, my needs, and my feelings” rather than joy, prayer, and thanksgiving chances are we won’t hear the voice nor the Word it brings to us.  If our outer lives are filled with conduct that would grieve Christ, indeed, we quench the Spirit.  It is a sound inner life and a blameless outer life that God wishes to give us.  This is why we call him the God of peace.  All we need do is cooperate and live according to the purpose he has set aside for us.  God has given us all the time in the world.  It may only last another second or maybe another million years.  But it is his time and it is time to wait on him to do what he does.  So, while you wait whether it be in a line at Fortino’s or on your back in a hospital bed.  Live in his time.  Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing.  In all things give thanks.  Do not quench the Spirit.  Listen for and cherish his Word.  Shun evil.  The one who calls you is faithful and he will do this. Amen.

Surely, His Salvation Is Near

Text: Psalm 85

When my son William was a toddler one of his favourite things to do was smashing the block towers that Dana built with his little wooden blocks.  He thought it was enormously funny.  Dana would build some elaborate tower and say, “William” and he would turn, see the tower, laugh, and then charge and with one fell swoop of his arm destroy the tower and laugh some more.  Then, the cycle repeated itself.  Over and over this little game went on. 

William really enjoyed that game.  But something happened that put an end to it.  William began to stack the blocks himself.  He’d grab some blocks and leave behind a little tower on the coffee table stacked three high, a little tower on the windowsill, in the middle of the floor and oddly, he didn’t smash those.  I guess his mind hadn’t made the connection between his own building and the fun of smashing.  Smashing is the game he plays when somebody else is building.  Build and smash and build and smash and then, suddenly, he’s building.  It’s amazing how children learn.

Well, Psalm 85 brought to mind for me this building and smashing game.  Actually, that’s the picture the Old Testament paints of the relationship the LORD has with his people.  They are continually going through a similar pattern of building and smashing; except, it is no game.  Rather, it is the reality of the LORD trying and trying to build his kingdom within his creation in and through his people only to have his own people, us included, smash it time and again. 

Psalm 85 reflects a time when God’s people had once again smashed what the LORD was building and it’s a prayer that God would yet build again.  His prayer is essentially: “LORD, in times before you have shown favour to your land; brought your people back from captivity.  So many times you have withdrawn your anger from us, taken away our iniquity, and covered over our sin.  Do it again.  But this time, you turn to us, you, your very self and revive us that we might rejoice with you in sharing your work.  Show us you loving-kindness.  Give us your salvation.”  In that prayer Psalmist pleads the true need of his people.  They need the LORD himself to come and be with them because the LORD’s living presence with them is the only thing that will revitalize his people.  He prays for a new creating word from the LORD to make revitalization happen. 

In verse 8 the Psalmist makes an interesting move.  He goes from praying for the people to praying for himself asking for the Lord to do in him what he’s asking God to do in the people.  He says, “Let me hear what God the LORD is speaking.”  Let me partake of this new creating act that God is speaking into existence.  This was a very wise insight on the part of the Psalmist.  Too often we in the church ask the Lord to do things for others not realizing we need it ourselves.  We need the life-giving presence of the living Lord to flow in us that it may flow through our lives.  Blessed to be a blessing.

But anyway, the Psalmist is praying to the God of salvation to bring salvation to his people and by salvation he means for God in his steadfast love to speak a new creating word, the word of peace.  Peace as the Bible presents it is a really awesome concept.  It is what spontaneously erupts when God himself lives in and among people.  It is a word that describes relationships between people that exudes the steadfast love and faithfulness of God.  Where God lives in his people there is to be no injustice, inequity, poverty, hatred, malice, none of that.  Rather, life is full and fulfilling and the sense of community is rich.

This prayer was answered with the birth of Jesus.  God himself, God the Son became human and set it in motion.  At Pentecost God the Holy Spirit came and gave living breath to the new humanity the Trinity created in Christ.  Now something new has begun to happen.  In, through, and as Jesus Christ something new has begun to happen.  Human beings empowered by the Holy Spirit have begun to build.  Just like when my son had that “aha” moment of realizing he could build the towers, so something new has happened in humanity and we are a part of it. Jesus Christ, God the LORD himself has come to humanity and revived us, made us live anew.  The salvation the Psalmist prayed for has come.  God has spoken the word of New Creation in the Incarnation of the Son and by the gift of his very self, the Holy Spirit, we each can hear, know, and experience God’s peace as it is coming to be…and having heard it, we by the power of the Holy Spirit are made able to build upon it. 

The Psalmist says something else that is interesting.  “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him.”  I saw something new this week.  I have always read the word “near” as having to do with time as if this verse read, “Surely his salvation is soon to come to those who fear him.”  Well, near doesn’t have anything to do with time.  It has to do with proximity so that the verse reads, “Surely his salvation is in the proximity of those who fear him.”  This means that if one wants to know the LORD, to know salvation, to experience peace, then one can find it in the community of those who know and revere the LORD.  This means that God’s salvation is actively present in this world right now in our midst.  God is assembling the building blocks of his kingdom in the midst of his creation through his people and we are among his people.

“But, wait a minute.” You say.  “God’s salvation is in the proximity of Christian community,...us?”  Yes!  In, through, and as Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit God the Father in his loving kindness has spoken his salvation into us and through us he demonstrates it to humanity.  He has spoken the New Creation that began with Jesus’ resurrection into us and by the power of the Holy Spirit it is at work in us so that through us God is beginning to bring New Creation about until he renders it in its fullness when Jesus returns.  Our works may only be like William’s little three block stacks.  Nevertheless, the Trinity is using us to build now his kingdom of peace here on earth as it is in heaven.

The love of God present in Christian community - community that we share and extend to others at work, at school, at home, and even in the checkout line at Wal-Mart - is like John the Baptist in the wilderness proclaiming that as Jesus Christ God himself has come and is coming with salvation for humanity.  The Holy Spirit filled fellowship that we share is salvation present now.  The Christian faith is not a personal matter of private belief.  It is an act of new creation that God is doing and we are the living proof and proclaimers of it.  The world out there needs the salvation we share in here.  Let us not be shy about it. Let us build with these blocks so that right here in this little corner of Grey County there is peace.  Amen.

Jesus, Show Your Face

Text: Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

My grandfather was a quiet man.  My Grandmother, on the other hand,…well, she was one of those who could talk non-stop, relentlessly.  I know that’s redundant, but it helps to make my point.  My grandfather usually found a way to cope with that.  Usually with work, civic groups, and staying busy.  But, when Granddaddy retired he had to come up with something quick . It did not take long for the number of TV sets around their house to increase.  He could turn on and tune out while Grandma yattered on.  He even put one in the kitchen.  Grandma could watch her shows while she piddled in there throughout the day, but mostly it was to give Granddaddy relief at meal times.   I have a fond memory of that TV.  I was there for dinner one evening.  The news was on.  Grandma was “givin’ ‘er” with the chatter on family and neighbourhood news.  In the midst of this I noticed Granddaddy staring at the TV and becoming agitated in a way very unlike him, so I turned to look at what was on.  It was a news story about how the face of Jesus was beginning to take shape in the rust on the side of a water tower somewhere in Ohio.  Granddaddy was as angry as I’ve ever seen him, if I ever saw him angry and he blurted out, “The Bible says that when Jesus comes back he’s coming on clouds of glory not on the side of some water tower.  Ain’t that right, boy?”  I said, “That’s right”.  He shook his head in righteous indignation and went back to eating.

Now, I cannot say much for Canada, but I know that down in the Southern U.S. where I’m from, down in the Bible Belt, people are as superstitious about their so-called face of Jesus appearances as the Roman Catholics were about their “relics” back in the Middle Ages (a piece of the cross here, another head of John the Baptist there, here a finger of Peter, there a toe of Paul).  I have actually heard it reported on the news in just the last ten years that the face of Jesus has appeared on the tin roof of a barn silo, a piece of toast, on a tortilla chip, and in the mould on a bathroom wall of a run down little house somewhere in South Carolina.  I’ve even heard a news report on a Madonna and Child taking form in a Cheeto.  And, the Jesus’s all look the same – the bearded European, Shroud of Turin-y, crusader-looking guy who bears next to no resemblance to a Middle Eastern Jew.  I don’t want to be stereo-typical about the facial features of certain races, but the silo Jesus, the water tower Jesus, the tortilla Jesus, the bathroom mould Jesus, and the Cheeto Madonna none of them in any way looked like Middle Eastern Jews.  Well, the fact is we wouldn’t know Jesus to see him if we saw him, but Channel Whatever News all over the South reports these things as if they are factual proof of the existence of Jesus and people get giddy about it. 

I’m with my grandfather on this one.  The proof of the hope of our faith is not rusting up on the side of some water tower in Ohio. But, you never know.  Maybe if a face of Jesus had appeared in the brickwork of a building or two down in Ferguson, Missouri this past week legitimate cries for justice and equality before the law may not have turned so violent so easily.  Maybe if a face of Jesus had appeared somewhere when the initial altercation occurred between Michael Brown and Officer Wilson maybe it would not have ended in a needless death. 

Today, in the wake of all that I know this morning there are some people down there, faithful people, good Christian people sitting in church hearing the same passages of Scripture read that we just read and its really speaking to them because it gives word to what’s deep down in them.  “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.”  Actually, in the Hebrew language the word we translate as “presence” is face. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your face, as when fir kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your enemies, so that the nations might tremble at your face.”  Isaiah goes on to say and I paraphrase, “You did it before when we didn’t expect it, when we didn’t deserve it.  You freed us from slavery in Egypt, and brought us to Mt. Sinai, ‘you came down, that mountain quaked at your face’.  No ear has heard.  No eye has seen any God besides you who acts for those who wait for him.”  I think there are many people down in the Southern U.S. this morning remembering how God delivered them from slavery and led them through the fight for civil rights, but this morning they are praying and shouting, “Jesus, show your face.  We are you people.  You made us who we are.  Where are you Jesus?  Come down and show your face.  Put things right here.”  I know down there this morning there’s a whole lot of people wanting Jesus to show up and do something.  Yet, Jesus for whatever reason keeps his distance and so the cry of lament legitimately goes up to God.  What a profound sense of God’s absence they must feel.

This passage from Isaiah is a lament and a special one.  Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann in his commentary of Isaiah says that this passage from Isaiah is “the most profound psalm of communal lamentation in the Bible”[1].  There’s something about laments we need to take to heart.  Their very presence in the Bible let’s us know that it’s okay for us to be angry at God when he seems to be pulling a George Jones.  We bought the ticket, stood in line, found our seat, but he ain’t showing.  It’s okay to be angry with God when he seems to be a no show. Job in the midst of his trials cries out “if only I could see God face to face.  If I could find where he lived, I’d give him the what for.” (Of course, that’s my paraphrase of the first few verses of Job 23.)  There are probably as many if not more psalms of lament in the Bible than there are psalms of praise.  Folks, it’s okay to be angry with God.  If we’re not allowed to get angry with God, then we really don’t have a relationship with him.  I would even as far as to say that he must be bring us to a place of a profound sense of God’s absence before we find ourselves profoundly aware of his presence.  I think that’s the message at the heart of this passage.  God makes us feel his absence and somehow in the wake of that he makes his presence known.

Have you ever looked looked at the state of your own life and felt the profound absence of God?  Have you ever found yourself powerless over the course of your life and in need of God’s help and yet it seems he’s nowhere to be found.  Have you ever been on your knees crying out, “Jesus, where are you?  Come!  Tear open the heavens and come down.  Jesus, show me your face.  You’ve done it before.  I’ve read my Bible It’s full of stories of your steadfast love and faithfulness, of how you did miraculous things for those who wait for you.  You did it for them.  Why don’t you do it for me?  I know it is you who has made me who I am so where are you?  Jesus, show your face!”  If you have ever felt that profound sense of God’s absence and spoken your lament, then you know what this first Sunday in Advent is about; this gut-churning waiting for God to act in the midst of the painful profoundness of his absence.  It is not Christmas that we hope and wait for.  Christmas has happened and so we stand on it in faith.  God has once and for all gotten involved in his Creation to deliver it by becoming Jesus the Christ.  Christmas has come.  It’s the completion of Christmas that we await.  It’s his coming again to put things right that we await.  The strong feelings underlying lament are mysteriously the seedbed of hope and faith through which he eventually makes his presence known.  It’s okay to be angry with God and it’s okay to let him no it.  Lament is part of how faith and hope work.  Amen.

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[1] Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, (David M. G. Stalker, trans.; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 392.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven

Text: John 18:33-37; Daniel 7:9-14; Revelation 1:4-8

Let me try your memories a bit. Where have you heard this before, “Great is the mystery of faith!  Christ has died!  Christ is risen!  Christ will come again!”  It comes from the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving that we pray when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  The prayer is an affirmation, an amen, to what Jesus did on the night of his arrest.  It says: Christ has died in victory over sin and death so that we are forgiven.  Christ is risen, vindicated to new creation life and Lordship over the whole Creation.  As Lord, Christ Jesus will come again in judgment, a judgement or verdict that all things will be made new.  In him we place our utter trust and can therefore hope.

Here is another confession you might find familiar.  “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”  That is from the Nicene Creed, the most common of all Christian creeds and confessions.  It fills in a little more what we mean by “Great is the mystery of faith!  Christ has died!  Christ is risen!  Christ will come again!”

This affirmation and creedal confession of faith both have in common that they point us to Jesus personally and bodily returning from Heaven to earth one day. Yet, Jesus’ return is a difficult topic to broach.  When we do, it seems that there a some extremes that show up.  On the one hand, there is the Christian fundamentalist talk of the Rapture, a fabricated event when Jesus will return and all true believers will be whisked off with him while those who are left behind will have to suffer living on a Godless earth where all Hell is breaking loose.  On the other hand, there is the view of Christian Liberalism that says, “Jesus is not returning at all.  His return as well as his resurrection and ascension are impossible according to science and reason.  Therefore, it is up to us to bring his kingdom to earth through spirituality and following his teachings.”  Or, the Spiritualists who say “all that matters is spirit.  Therefore, let’s get as spiritual as we can and just feel love.”  Then, in the midst cowers Mainline Christianity thinking that since the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, has bound our Western minds with the assumption that religion is really a matter of private beliefs and since we find this topic confusing and uncomfortable, let’s just not talk about it and just privately believe in God or at least the idea of God and be good so that we can go to Heaven when we die.  This view unfortunately robs us of real hope upon which we should act. 

So, to do justice to what the Bible really says about Jesus return (and it says he really is going to return) we must lay aside those extremes and our impotent Mainliner middle ground.  Without contest, one element of the Gospel that Jesus is Lord that the Christian Church should be proclaiming today as it did in the First Century is that he is coming to judge the world and the judgement he will render will be the act of putting it to right through the full establishment of his kingdom.  Therefore, Jesus is coming to judge the world with righteousness (according to God’s steadfast love and faithfulness) and to rule it with justice, fairness, and equity.  To speak metaphorically, that which is high will be brought low and that which is low will be lifted up.  This message is meant to stir the world’s hope and not for fear-mongering.

Psalm 96:10-13 tells us to “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns.’ The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.  Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth.  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.”  People rejoice.  Be glad.  Join Creation’s celebration.  It might sound funny but…sing with the trees!

Daniel wrote: “I saw one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”   That son of man was Jesus resurrected and ascended.  Paul wrote in Philippians, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  This is Jesus we are talking about.  He is the one to whom all power and authority has been given.  Jesus is the LORD…Jesus who healed the sick, cleansed the leper, raised the dead, forgave the sinner, and turned the judgements of the judgemental back upon themselves.  Jesus is coming to put the world to rights. 

If this is true about Jesus, then what John writes at Revelation 1:5-6 is true about us. “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father-- to him be glory and power for ever and ever!  Amen.”  Because he loves us he has set us free from our sins and made us to be a kingdom and priests.  His kingdom is coming now in and through yet not exclusively us, his church, his disciples.  His kingdom is coming now on earth as it is in Heaven in answer to the Lord’s Prayer.

So, what are we going to do about it?  Bishop N.T. Wright in his book Surprised by Hope asks, “What would happen if we took seriously our stated belief that Jesus Christ is already the Lord of the world and that at his name, one day, every knee would bow?”  I would add that as we proclaim the Lordship of Jesus according to Scripture, even now knees are bowing.  So, what would happen?  You know, we the church as his kingdom and priests really do have the responsibility in the first place of worship and secondly, of announcing Jesus’ reign and his return and thirdly, holding the powers that be accountable to the standards of justice and peace presented in the Bible.  We cannot use what Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world,” as an excuse to sidestep our responsibility to hold our governments accountable to what God has established them to do. 

As a priesthood of all believers we serve by worshipping him not only in a Sunday morning service but with the sacrifice of our whole lives as Paul says in Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual {Or reasonable} act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  Since Jesus is Lord of the world and we are his evident kingdom we cannot sit back or throw our hands in the air at the enormity of evil in this world that our governments and other powers like multinational corporations are propagating or turning a blind eye to.  We must play the prophet.  We must demand climate control because this is God’s good Creation and humanity is its steward, the priest who gives voice to creation’s praise.  Destroying the Creation is not what God created us to do.  Moreover, Christians must continue to hold global governments accountable for the corruption that leads to poverty.  And the list goes on.

Let me end with a story.  The Duff’s Presbyterian Church in Puslinch, ON is right next door to the Nestle plant that is arguably destroying the water table over there by drawing free water from the ground and selling it to us in little plastic bottles.  The Duff’s Session after hearing of the difficulty of finding clean water that First Nation reserves in Northern Ontario are having wrote to the manager of the plant and basically said “you have so much water and these people have so little; can you help?”  Oddly, the plant manager fully sympathized with the need and she got Nestle to help by shipping free water up to several communities.  Christians held a multinational accountable at the local level and the kingdom of God broke in.  Friends, our Lord is coming and when he comes stuff like that is going to happen.  The world will be put to right.  Amen.