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So today we are going to talk about desire. I don’t mind if you want to chuckle that a guy named Randy is going to talk about desire. I think it’s likely that at the mention of the word “desire” most of us go there with the naughty thoughts. Google does. If you search for the word “desire” on Google you won’t be disappointed I promise. Yes, there are pages and pages of the same dictionary definition from different dictionaries but there’s all these ads for clothing optional resorts. Do an image search of the word “desire”, well if you’re a guy, you’ll probably waste a good afternoon on that. For some reason, as a culture we seem to have bookended the word desire into that realm of the naughty by equating it to lust, and predominantly sexual lust.
Well, I don’t want to disappoint you, but a lusty sermon is not where we’re going today in considering our desires. To desire something is simply to strongly want it. If we inventoried the desires of our hearts, the things that we strongly want, I think our list will wind up being not so one-track minded and really quite innocent, things like meaningful companionship, fulfilling work, not having to live hand to mouth, and that our children and grandchildren can grow up safe and healthy and have opportunities. Those aren’t bad desires. There are even passages in the Old Testament that indicate our desires aren’t all that “tainted with sin”. The Psalmist wrote, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). I don’t think he was referring to a strong desire to take a Caribbean cruise on a clothing optional ship. Rather, I think he was referring to the key-to-a-meaningful-life things I just mentioned. Delight in the Lord and he will make life fulfilling.
Delight is a teaser of word. So, what did the Psalmist mean by “Delight in the Lord”? Well, it’s an interesting metaphor. The Hebrew word we translate as “delight” means to pamper or refresh oneself. Pamper oneself in the Lord. Refresh oneself in the Lord. Take a spa day in the Lord, a mental health day in the Lord. This is an invitation to sit on the front porch with the Lord and watch the birds come to the feeder, to take some time just to have a little seventh day of creation time with God. After six days of creating his creation and calling it very good, God then on the seventh day rested, which means he just kicked back and reposed like gods do and enjoyed the beauty of it all. Another helpful Bible image is in the story of Adam and Eve and how every evening in the cool of the day God would come around and spend some time with his two favourite people and catch up on all they had discovered that day.
So, the Psalmist invites us to find our delight in the Lord by spending this rest-filled time with the Lord and he will give us the desires of the heart, mainly the things we would otherwise worry about. Pamper yourself, refresh yourself in the presence of the Lord. This seems like such a simple gift, but why do we have such a hard time with it? It’s such a simple gift to sit on the porch with the Lord. If it helps, do something simple like always keep one more rocking chair on the porch than you need so that God can sit with you. Enjoy that time with the Lord and in time the Lord will look after those desires of your heart. There’s no need to worry. So simple, but so neglected.
Well, let’s step into Luke and talk about desire for a moment. The Greek word for desire shows up three times. In most English translations it’s hidden under words like “want”, “long”, and “willing”. I’m going to start with how Jesus used it. He speaks with reference to Jerusalem, the city that stands as the emblem of God’s beloved people but also the religious establishment and political power that corrupt God’s people. Jerusalem is a beautiful city like God’s people but it’s got this nasty reputation for murdering those who speak for God. Jesus says “Jerusalem, Jerusalem how I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” This is a very touching image of God having a motherly love for his people to protect and shelter them. A mother hen has a very fierce instinct to protect her chicks. If a fox gets into the chicken run, a mother hen will stand her ground to her own detriment. She’ll stamp her feet and fluff her feathers to make herself look really big and then squawk loudly to call to her chicks to come gather under her for safety. Unfortunately, the fox will kill her but hopefully let the chicks run away.
Of course, there’s a bit of foreshadowing of Jesus’ death hidden in this metaphor, but let’s not miss that God’s love for us, his beloved children, is as fierce as a mother hen for her chicks. God strongly desires that we find our security with him. Thinking back to the Psalmist, God strongly desires that we delight in him rather than fear stuff and worry.
But…notice what Jesus says about the chicks. Jesus also says that the chicks are not willing to come. The chicks do not desire, do not strongly want to seek security, protection, comfort and warmth under their mother hen. In this world of powerful foxes invading chicken runs for predatorial reasons, the people of God, the very vulnerable people of God, do not desire to draw close to the Lord for safety, for their protection. The thing about hens and chicks when threatened is that the hen will instinctually stand her ground before the threat to protect the chicks who will instinctually run to gather under her for protection. Hundreds of thousands to millions of years of evolution have made it nearly impossible for little chicks to do anything other than gather under their mother hen for warmth and protection and, if we want to humanize them, probably a whole lot of emotional security too. It’s a law of nature.
This is the way the relationship between God and his beloved children is supposed to be. God strongly desires that we gather to him not just in times when our lives are out of kilter and we need help or protection, but also when we just need to feel at home in this world. But, we chicks oddly seem to lack the instinct to desire God, to “delight in” God. In fact, our instinct is quite the opposite. As St. Augustine said, we tend to love and trust the right things wrongly and the wrong things rightly. We are chicks who seem to have the desire to flee to something other than God for delight. We will even seek to delight in the fox who wants to kill us.
And about the fox here in this passage. This is the same Herod who killed John the Baptist. The Pharisees warn Jesus to get out of that area because Herod desires, he strongly wants, to kill Jesus just like he did to John the Baptist. There are some who once they get a taste of wealth and power, they will desire to kill God and those who speak for him rather than have their way of life brought into question by the God who made and loves them. It’s a twisted world we live in.
This odd twistedness about us is what the Bible would call sin. God has a strong desire for us to come and find our delight in him so that he may give us the true desires of our hearts. God’s not going to give us a cruise on a clothing optional ship. That kind of desire isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about the baser stuff here but rather the important desires like meaningful companionship, fulfilling work, not having to live hand to mouth, a future for our kids, and that when the bad stuff of chaos breaks forth on us God will work all things to the good for those who love him. But, something’s wrong in that we, his beloved children, don’t desire to delight in God, to find our home in God and rather we pander to baser instincts and are bullied with fear by foxes.
And so, we return to the Psalmist and the invitation to delight in the Lord, to pamper ourselves in the Lord, to refresh ourselves in the Lord. We are beloved by God. Like a mother hen fiercely and unquestionably loves her chicks, so God loves us. God desires we gather to him. There’s more to this Christian faith thing than just the comfort of coming to church on Sunday to worship together and socialize with the people we’ve known and worshipped with for a long, long time. There’s comfort in that, yes, and it’s a good thing, but is it really our desire for the Lord that brings us to congregate or simply for the comfort of the familiar that we have in our church buildings and the love we have for one another?
There is a delight to be had in our relationship to God, a delight that can be found out on our front porches or out for a walk at anytime and not just on Sunday mornings. It is the realization that God is with us, we are his beloved children whom God treasures spending time with and listening to. A communicative, restful relationship with the God who made us and knows us, who bears our burdens with us, who comforts us is something God deeply desires for us. We just need to take the time, make the space for it to happen. Delight in the Lord and he truly will give you the desires of your heart. Amen.
