Faithful

Luke 2:1-20

December 23/24, 2014 (Christmas Candlelight) • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It began with a walk and a promise. “If you walk with me,” he had told them, “I will provide all that you need.” He had given them life, after all. They were his most prized creations. And all his heart longed for was to be with them, to walk with them, to have them draw near to him. He wanted them to love him as much as he loved them. And, for a time, they were close, all three of them. But then, one evening, when he showed up in the usual spot for their walk, they were nowhere to be found. “Where are you?” he called out, though he knew, just as he knew what had happened. But he wanted them to come to him. After all, he had kept his promise, while they had not. And after a time, both the man and the woman came out of hiding, admitting that they had broken the one promise they had made to him, the one request he had made of them. And he knew that, from that moment on, something would have to be done, something drastic, to fix the brokenness that these first two had created. “Don’t worry,” he told them. “In good time, I will send someone who will destroy the evil that has been created today. I promise that I will do this.”

And the years passed. The decades passed. Centuries passed. And he continued to make promises. To a man named Abraham, he promised that, if Abraham would walk with him, he would make Abraham’s name great and bless all nations through Abraham’s family. To another man named Moses, he promised he would rescue the people who were in slavery if Moses would allow himself to be led, to stand up to evil. And a young shepherd boy named David, the runt of the litter, a scrawny little boy no one gave much thought to, received a promise that, if he remained faithful, not only would he become king, but his family would remain on the throne forever. None of these people were chosen because they were perfect. They were chosen because, despite their many flaws, they set their hearts on remaining faithful to their God. That’s what God was looking for, a heart set on faithfulness.

And so he sent prophets and preachers who would not only speak the truth about the people’s situation when they wandered away, when they became less than faithful. They would also make promises. One man, named Hosea, lived out a parable. He married an unfaithful woman, a prostitute, and when she wandered away from him, he bought her back. Hosea echoed the heart of the one who called him when he said, “How can I give you up? How can I hand you over?” (Hosea 11:8). Another preacher reminded the people of what had been true since the beginning, that their creator wanted to walk with them—he wanted to live among them, to be their God and for them to be his people (Leviticus 26:11-12). Still another, centuries later, repeated the promise from the beginning when he said that God would “remove the sin of this land in a single day” (Zechariah 3:9). And then there was that final promise. One last word of reminder from a prophet whose writing is clear at the end of our Old Testament. Malachi told the people that the Lord, the one they were seeking, the one who would make all the promises of the past many centuries come true, would, one day, suddenly come to his temple. He would refine and purify the people, and Malachi wondered if anyone would survive (Malachi 3:1-3; cf. Card, The Promise, pg. 6).

And then…nothing. For four hundred years, nothing. No prophet. No preacher. No word from God. No more promises. Four hundred years of silence. Four hundred years of people hearing the same promises repeated over and over again and wondering, “When?” When will these things happen? When will God make good on the promises he made all the way back in the beginning, the promises he made during those walks he took with Adam and Eve? When? The rabbis had no answer. The priests had no clear direction. Four hundred years of silence. Can you imagine?

One day, a priest who lived in a little town outside of Jerusalem, reported to the Temple for his assigned time of service, and he was chosen to be the one who would go into the Holy of Holies—the most sacred place in the Temple—to present the offerings. He was dressed carefully, and the curtain was pulled back while he entered. Everything had to be “just so.” The attention to detail in the ritual was meant to be evidence of their faithfulness to God. And so, as Zechariah began the ritual, he looked up and saw a luminous being waiting on him. An angel. One named Gabriel, he was told. And Gabriel told Zechariah that he and his wife, Elizabeth, were going to have a son. They had longed for children for so long, but now both of them were well past normal childbearing years. Even so, Gabriel said, you will have a son and Medicare will pick up the hospital bill. But since Zechariah did not believe the angel, he was going to be made mute until the boy was born. Oh, and one more thing, Zechariah, the angel said. God is about to do something amazing. All those promises you’ve read and pondered? Yeah, he’s about the keep all those. Because that’s what he does. He is faithful, you see. God keeps his promises.

So while Zechariah is pondering all of that and decorating the nursery, Gabriel had one more stop to make. He shows up in Nazareth, a nine days’ journey north of Jerusalem (Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 65). Of course, Gabriel didn’t have to walk it, and in fact he didn’t actually go there until six months later. There he found a young woman who was engaged but not yet married. Her name was Mary, and he gave her one more promise: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 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…his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:31-33). Just a short while later, her husband-to-be, Joseph, was given a similar promise, including being told what to name the baby: Jesus. The name was important. It wasn’t a unique name in that time, by any means, but it had a powerful meaning, especially for this baby. The angel told Joseph the name would remind people that God had come to save them from their sins (Matthew 1:21). God had come to rescue. That promise that was made all the way back at the beginning to repair the brokenness of the world? That promise of rescue and salvation made to Moses? That promise of an everlasting kingdom made to David? All of that is finally coming true. All of the promises are about to be fulfilled, through you, Mary. And with your help, Joseph. Everyone will know once and for all that God is, above all else, faithful. God keeps his promise, for Christmas is about the keeping of a promise.

Maybe no one realized that more than a few lowly shepherds, gathered on a hillside outside of Bethlehem one cool evening. They were gathered in the fields because it was lambing season; that was the only time of year they had to be out in the fields all night, waiting for the new lambs to be born. But it’s not like they had very many other places else to be. Shepherds were the lowest of the low. They were on the bottom rung of Jewish society, not allowed to testify in court, or participate in the religious life of the synagogue (cf. Card 46). Their job kept them perpetually unclean, unfit for worship—and the irony of that, at least for these Bethlehem shepherds, is that they were probably raising the lambs that would be used in the worship and the sacrifices at the Temple. Their lambs could go to worship, but they could not. They were the forgotten, the ignored, the despised, the untrusted; the only ones they could really depend on were each other.

Even so, they knew the promises. They shared the hopes of the rest of their people. They also remembered that David had been a shepherd, just like them. I wonder at what point the glow of the angel outshone the glow of the fire enough for them to notice that something was going on? Something extraordinary. Something no shepherd had ever encountered before. An angel was visiting them and—what was he saying? Something about a baby who was Messiah, Savior, and Lord? Good news? This was not the news they had been waiting on. All the folks who seemed in the know had always said the Messiah would come in power, in glory. He would ride in on a white horse and destroy the Romans and all those who had abused Israel. They had said God would throw out the powerful and in a single day take care of all the ruin and the brokenness and the sin in their people. And now the angel is talking about a baby? Born in a feeding trough? And yet, the angel (and the ones who showed up shortly after) were insistent: in that baby, God was somehow coming to keep his promises. The baby was evidence that God is faithful.

I wonder if any of those shepherds were around some thirty years later when, on a hill not far from where they were camped that night, this baby would carry his own cross up a hill, a cruel hill named Calvary, Golgotha, the place of the skull. I wonder if any of them might have been in the crowd, or perhaps they were out with their sheep and wondered what the commotion was outside the walls of Jerusalem. You see, on that day, thirty years and just a few miles from where he was born, this baby, now a man, would give his life in order to somehow save humanity from their sins. On that single day, God dealt with all the sin of the world because when that man cried, “It is finished,” a promise, made at the foundation of the world, was kept.

Christmas is about the keeping of a promise (cf. Renfroe, Under Wraps, pg. 71). For all of those centuries from the beginning of time until Bethlehem, having faith meant waiting—waiting for the promises of God to come true. But, in that moment, in a manger in a backwater town, faith came to mean following (cf. Card 6). When the promise was kept, when God proved faithful, what other choice is there but to follow wherever he leads? Well, of course, there is a choice, just as there was a choice all the way back in the garden with Adam and Eve. The choice is to follow, or not. To respond to God’s faithfulness by being faithful to him or by being unfaithful. To believe or not. We come this night to celebrate the keeping of a promise, to worship the one who kept his promise even when it might have been tempting to just walk away from us…from the world…from everything he had created and just start over. If I had been God, I might have done that. But he did not, because he loves us. In spite of our rejection and our rebellion and our sin, he loves us. That’s why he came. That’s why the baby was born.

It’s an amazing thing to see faithfulness like that in this world. It seems to be increasingly rare, but there have been many instances where I’ve witnessed faithfulness that reflects the heart of God, promises kept that could have been ignored. I know a woman who, fifteen or so years ago, was in a car accident, and for all these years she has never quite recovered. But her parents refused to give up. When others might have told them it was useless, they kept encouraging her, visiting with her, believing that she could get better and stronger. They made a promise to their daughter, and they were not going to break that promise. I’ve watched several of you sit by bedsides of spouses who were going through great difficulty—whether from an accident or an illness or a disability, and you’ve stayed right there, faithful, even to the end. Friends who have been with you through your most difficult times, who sometimes become closer than family. Promises made and promises kept—and as great and wonderful and powerful as those experiences are, they’re still nothing compared to the faithfulness of God toward us, demonstrated throughout the centuries. Paul put it this way: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Christmas is about a God who is faithful, a God who keeps his promises.

Tonight, we gather in this place to light candles, to sing and to celebrate God’s unwavering faithfulness, demonstrated in the birth of a baby. But even before we sing of his birth, we remember his death. I know some folks struggle with that. I had a lady several years ago tell me she simply did not want to think about his death on the night of his birth. But it’s always been true that in the background of the manger is a cross. Jesus did not come for any other reason than to give his life as a ransom for our sin, to keep the Father’s promise to deal with the sin of the world in a single day. So even as we kneel at the manger, we stand before the cross, knowing that ultimately in the death and resurrection of this baby from Bethlehem, we experience the faithful God. My prayer for you, for every one of you this night, is that you know his faithfulness, that you know him, and that you have allowed him to come in and change your life. Most of all, my prayer for you, as we come to the table tonight, is that you have learned you can trust him, for he is, above all else, faithful.

Jealous

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 1:26-38; Deuteronomy 6:13-15

December 21, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Tis the season—only a few days left to get all of those Christmas wish lists fulfilled! I would imagine many of you are already done with your shopping, and there are probably few hold-outs here who haven’t yet started. Maybe a few weeks ago, you made your lists or sent your letters to Santa. I remember as a kid pouring over the catalogs and [doing just what was done in the video] circling those things that I wanted; my brother Doug would do the same. And we’d make sure those catalogs would get to some place where Mom and Dad would see them. Then we would wait and anticipate and hope and dream. What gifts might we get? Because, let’s be honest, as much as we love to give gifts this time of year, we really like getting them even more. That’s the way our culture, our world has trained us to be. We like giving, but we love getting. [In the video, everyone’s concerned about what they’re going to get, how their wishes are going to be fulfilled.] And that’s why, in our culture, Christmas has become an even bigger celebration than Easter. Did you realize that the early church didn’t celebrate Christmas? Paul makes no mention in any of his writings about the birth of Jesus, and the early church had no celebration for Jesus’ birthday until perhaps the early 300’s; the first written evidence of its celebration is from 354 AD. Even then, Christmas wasn’t widely celebrated until the 1300’s—a thousand years later. Easter, however, has always been the primary Christian holiday because it focuses on the resurrection of Jesus, our great hope. But retailers haven’t yet figured out how to market Easter, and so Christmas, with its gift giving and its spending and its feasting has become bigger than Easter, even for Christians. Because we like to get even more than we like to give (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 11).

It begins very early in life. Have you ever watched two kids in a room full of toys? Let’s say one child has a particular toy they are playing with and which toy does the other child want? The one the first child has, right? And “rules” are established, a “pecking order” of sorts, when the second child goes up and takes the toy away from the first child. The second child may not even want to play with it; he just knows someone else has something he doesn’t have, and he wants it. So he takes it because deep down we believe it’s better to get than to give. Now, those habits continue into adulthood, as much as we would like not to admit that. We may not walk up to someone who has something we want and take it from them; hopefully we’ve learned better manners than that! But we do have those moments when we see something our neighbor has or another family member has or someone we don’t even like has and suddenly we want it. That new car your neighbor pulled into the driveway? The one with all the bells and whistles? Yeah, we convince ourselves we need it. The bigger or at least newer house, the faster computer, the new iPhone, the latest styles. We want it, we need it, we have to have it. I mean, that’s really what Black Friday and the sales after Christmas are all about. Deep down we really do believe that to get is better than to give, so we end up jealous of that other person and the things they have. We’re not proud of it, but there it is. We’re jealous. And our Christmas wish list gets bigger—and more expensive.

Now, we know what jealousy is like and, more than that, we know what sorts of grief and animosity jealousy produces (cf. Kalland, “Deuteronomy,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 67). We know how it breaks down relationships, how it hurts individuals, how it drains our wallets! And then we come to a passage like we read in Deuteronomy this morning, a passage that tells us that God is “a jealous God” (6:15). I mean, we refer to jealousy as a monster—a green-eyed monster, to boot! Why in the world would the Bible describe God in such a way? And in what way does Jesus demonstrate jealousy? That is, after all, what we’re exploring during this Advent season: the way Jesus is God “under wraps,” the ways Jesus demonstrates the character of his heavenly father in his life and ministry. The first week, we talked about how God is expectant, and that the greatest gift, the one he couldn’t wait to give, was Jesus, the baby king. Then, the second week, we talked about how God is dangerous, and the ways Jesus calls us to places and ministries we hadn’t planned to go. Now, we come to another characteristic that may be even more disconcerting. God is jealous.

The Bible, though, tells us over and over again that God is, in fact, jealous. That word is used to describe God as early as the book of Exodus. The reason we are not to “have any other gods” is because our God, the God who rescued the Hebrews from slavery, is a “jealous” God (Exodus 20:5). In the passage we read this morning from Deuteronomy, Moses, the one whom God used to rescue the Hebrews, is about to die and he wants to remind the people all that God has taught them. In many ways, Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell address; the name of book means “second law.” This is Moses’ last attempt to shape them into the people of God. The chapter before the passage we read this morning is a restatement of the Ten Commandments, and in the verses before what we read is the famous prayer, the Shema, that Israelites still pray today: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). And in that context Moses reminds the people that God is jealous.

The Hebrew word for “jealous” means “warmth” or “heat.” It originally referred to the way someone becomes intensely red in the face when they get passionate about something. It’s the way we tend to react when someone argues with us about an issue or a topic that is close to our heart (Nixon, Under Wraps, pg. 51). When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, they chose to equate this word with “zeal” or “passion.” So while there is a dark side to jealousy, as we all know too well, that’s not the sort of description the Bible is giving of God. Instead, when the Bible talks about God being “jealous,” it’s describing God being a lover, God loving his people with intense passion and zeal. Like a husband or a wife would become jealous of something that gets in the way of their relationship—whether that’s a person or a job or even a hobby—God is jealous for each one of us. He doesn’t want anything to stand in the way of our having a close, passionate relationship with him.

For the Hebrews headed into the Promised Land, that was an important matter. There would be many choices calling for their worship once they settled there, and, to be quite honest, when you read the Old Testament, you see that they never quite got it. There were good years and better years and bad years and really bad years. Those false gods and little idols kept grabbing onto their hearts, so much so that eventually God did have to do what he promised. Moses says he will “destroy [them] from the face of the land” (6:15), and that’s exactly what happens. They are overrun by enemy nations and taken away to a foreign land. When some of them return, they begin to understand what their relationship with God should be like, that God loved them so much and wanted to be with them. However, some tried to live that out by making lots of rules to keep everyone in line, while others simply tried to live a life that pleased God. They tried to respond to God’s love with love of their own. One of the latter was a young maiden living in a small town called Nazareth. Her name was Miriam, although we know her as Mary.

Much of what we think we know about Mary has been invented or added over the centuries, because Luke, honestly, doesn’t tell us that much about her. He says she is engaged, which in that day was much more binding than our idea of engagement. The engagement itself was most likely arranged by the parents, who would host a whole ceremony where the man and woman dedicated themselves to each other and a bride price was paid. Then it was the groom’s job to go and prepare a place for the two of them to live together. Engagement lasted sometimes as much as a year, during which preparations for the wedding would be made, although the man and woman were considered married in every way except for physical relations (cf. Vanderlaan, Echoes of His Presence, pg. 15; Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 22). In fact, Luke makes a point of saying Mary is a virgin. We can infer some other things about her. For one, we can assume she was poor, because later in the story, when they give an offering at the Temple in Jerusalem (2:24), it’s the offering that is designated for poor families (Leviticus 12:8). In that culture, Mary was probably uneducated, and our best guess is that she might have been somewhere around thirteen years old (Hamilton 21). We do know, according to the angel Gabriel, that Mary was someone who had “found favor with God” (1:30). She was blessed, and as a “reward,” she would give birth to the Son of God.

Now, while we look at it as a high privilege, and Mary has certainly been remembered as a great hero of the faith, in her culture, this was not a privilege. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, it was a dangerous job. When it was discovered that she was pregnant before the formal wedding, she could be put to death. Joseph, her husband-to-be, would know the baby is not his, and he could order her death. No one would blame Mary if she walked away, and it’s important to note that God does not insist on her obedience. He invites her to participate in what he is about to do in the world, and he even puts up with her questions and her doubts. But do you know why Mary said, “Yes”? Do you know why she agreed to go along with this crazy plan of God’s, not knowing the outcome, not knowing what would happen to her? Because she was already living a God-ward life. She was already living a life in which she responded to God in love. She was already serving a God she knew was jealous toward her and she responded by putting him first in her life. She was, as she said, first and foremost “the Lord’s servant” (1:38).

Christmas is a call to refocus, to follow Mary’s example and to put God first in our lives once again, to become again “the Lord’s servant.” And we want to do that, at least on some level, or we wouldn’t gather here. We come here because we have, at some point, encountered the God who is jealous for us, who is passionate about us. But as the days roll by, there are so many things that get in the way or even threaten to replace our relationship with God, to cool the passion we might have once felt. Maybe the one thing that challenges us most is our work. Whatever work we do, it takes up a lot of our time—the majority of our time. Our occupation can demand a high amount of energy and loyalty. And there’s the constant message—sometimes subtle and sometimes spoken—that you’re supposed to give your all to the job. And so we do. When I’ve talked with people around this topic, sometimes I hear, “Well, you’ve got it easy. You’re a pastor. You work for God.” And I always remember Professor Boyd, my worship professor at Asbury, Professor Boyd, once telling us that when we become a pastor we cut our chances of going to heaven in half. And we all laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. He went on to remind us how important it is to stay connected with God, and how easy it is to become disconnected because you’re working with and dealing with holy things all the time. It’s easy to quit reading the Bible for anything other than sermon ideas. And early on in my ministry, I realized the truth of his words. I was busy doing good things, talking to people about Jesus without spending much time with him at all. The challenge for any job is this: where does Jesus fit? The question is really this: how do we balance our work—our necessary, important work—with our commitment to God?

We can even talk in broader strokes when we think about our time. We live in an overcommitted age. No matter what your age, there are endless activities, priorities, things we think we have to do or we have to enroll our children or grandchildren in. I’ve heard my parents and many “retired” folks here say that they don’t when they had time to work. There’s just so much to be done! The culture is not going to give us room for growing a relationship with God and if we believe we have to “do it all,” we’ll find ourselves becoming distant from this jealous God simply because we have no time left to spend with him. We can also become so passionate about what other people think of us so much so that we really quit caring what God thinks of us. Our energy and our time and even our money is spent trying to get others to think well of us, to make sure they have a good opinion of us. We demonstrate this in a lot of ways: choosing clothes based on what others will say, buying what we think others will approve of, or waiting on social media for people to “like” our posts. There is the story in the Gospels of a man we call the “rich young ruler,” a man who comes to Jesus and asks what he needs to do to “inherit eternal life.” In other words, what can I do so that I can live forever? He’s kept all the rules, and still finds himself empty. And Jesus points to the one thing that is standing in his way: his stuff, all the things he thinks will gain him acceptance and importance in this world. Get rid of those things, Jesus says, and you’ll be close to God. And the young man, Mark says, went away sad because the opinions and stuff of this world were much more important to him than even eternal life (cf. Mark 10:17-22).

Even our beliefs—including our beliefs about God—can get in the way. If we think we have God all figured out and we can’t allow room for God to work in the way he sees fit, then our beliefs and our theology have become more important to us than the God we claim to love. Bart Campolo, the son of Christian evangelist Tony Campolo, announced earlier this year that he no longer believed in the Christian faith. Through the last few years, he had encountered situations he could not easily explain, and he came to the point where, by his own admission, it no longer mattered to him what the Bible said. If verses or passages didn’t line up with what he already thought or believed, then he was going to jettison the Bible and not his own personal beliefs. “My Christianity had died the death of a thousand nicks and cuts,” he told Jonathan Merritt of Religious News Service. When he came to the point where he no longer believed in eternal life, he knew he was no longer a Christian. His beliefs had become more important than the God who is jealous for him. Today, Bart Campolo serves as the humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. And God is still jealous for him, even if he has allowed his theology or beliefs or whatever he might call it to take priority. All of us face that challenge, to let our beliefs be shaped by God and not the other way around.

None of these things so far are bad in and of themselves. Work, time, theology—all of those things shape who we are. Of course, some folks do become passionate about clearly bad things. Judas, in the Bible, was passionate that Jesus become the kind of king he wanted, and when Jesus didn’t do what he thought Jesus ought to do, Judas sold him out in the most famous betrayal in history. Those who carried out the Crusades with the goal of purifying the Holy Land in the middle ages were passionate about their love for the land where Jesus walked, but they became more passionate about killing people—Muslims in particular—than they were about the Jesus who loves each person. And, in our own time, we have the sad example of some Christians who want to persecute others, or who blame others for the problems in our country. They live and act as if they alone have a word from God. They carry out their passion by picketing and harassing and hating. And do you know what? God is jealous for them, too, even as they are passionate about all the wrong things. He still loves them, even as they spew out hate toward others. Because he’s that kind of God. He’s jealous, and longs for us all to have him first in our lives.

And so there are so many things—good and bad—that can pull us off track, that can consume our energy and our enthusiasm. And then Christmas comes along because we need to return each year to the manger to remember that God is jealous for us. Canadian songwriter Carolyn Arends put it well in these lyrics:

God makes the world and the world makes a choice

And the choice isn't good and we fall

We make our own way and the way that we go

Goes to nowhere but death for us all

He could've just started over
Left us alone in the dark
But our God is not like that, he wants his family back
He's had a plan from the start

And this is the story of stories

This is the mystery of old

This is the glory of glories

All that exists comes down to this

Newborn baby boy! (“The Story of Stories,” 2014).

He is jealous for us. He is passionate about us, so much so that he took human form and came down to rescue us.

How, then, do we respond to this jealous God? Well, if we’re going to get to know someone, if we’re going to fall in love again with someone, we have to spend time with them. A lot of couples report that, after the birth of children, their relationship suffers. So much time and energy is spent taking care of and raising the children that there’s little time left for each other. Divorces often happen during this time as the “feeling” of love goes away. But wise couples take time for each other away from the children. Call it a “date night” or whatever—relationships need time to grow and be nurtured and re-energized. It’s no less true for our relationship with God. We need time spent in God’s presence, and so I want to suggest four disciplines that, if we’re not already practicing them, are good to start during this Christmas week, when life sort of slows down. This time can give us a “running start” for the new year.

The first discipline is worship—and you’ve already got a head start on that one by being here this morning. Worship is a weekly reminder of God’s great love for us, and our opportunity to respond in love, to allow God to shape our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our goals. In worship, we are sharpened by each other and our spirits are lifted to see a bigger picture in the world. As Luke tells the story, Mary and others in the Christmas story often respond in worship, in giving thanks to God for all he has given them. Worship shapes their perspective. One of the things we ask here, for those who are a part of this church family, is that you’re present in worship every week unless you’re sick or out of town. This week, of course, we have multiple opportunities for worship, including tonight at the Longest Night Service.  And then Tuesday and Wednesday, we’ll have our candlelight services. Come and worship the newborn king at any one of those services, and if your family is here in town, bring them along. Worship is so important to our soul, as it connects us with the God who is jealous for us, who wants to spend time with us.

A second discipline is reading the Scripture. We try to make that easy for you. Every week in the bulletin there are suggested readings. I take the time to try to pick out Scripture passages that connect in some way with the message and lead us into next week as well. None of the passages listed will take you very long to read, but if we want to know the author, we have to read the book. It’s okay to read devotionals about Scripture, as long as that’s not the only connection we have with the book, with the Bible. We need to hear God’s heart, God’s love for us, his people, by reading the Scripture on our own. And read it with your kids or your grandkids. When our kids were little, that was one of the highlights of my day, reading each evening with them in their devotions. Kids get it more than you realize, and it begins what you hope will be a lifelong habit.

We follow that with prayer. A lot of folks get freaked out when you mention prayer because it seems so scary, but the reality is prayer is simply talking with God, just like you would talk to your spouse or to a friend. You can’t have a relationship with someone you never talk to. Now, as I wrote in this month’s newsletter, which you’ll get this coming week, I struggle with prayer. Even after all these years as a pastor, it’s a struggle. But a book I was reading recently has challenged and inspired me to use a simple prayer to connect with God more frequently. There’s an ancient prayer called, simply, “The Jesus Prayer” that goes like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There’s no magic in that prayer, but it’s a way of connecting with God. So when I’m a stoplight, or when I’m waiting for something, or when I’m tired and resting, I want my heart and mind to turn to that prayer as way, for me, to connect with God. I’m going to try that in the coming year, and in the article, I’m inviting you to come with me as we deepen our prayer lives. Maybe that’s not the prayer that will connect with you. That’s fine. But what will help you? What will call you to prayer, to reaching out and talking with the God who is jealous for you?

And one more discipline for this week: generosity. Giving of our time, talents and resources for the sake of the God who gave us everything when Jesus was born in the manger. Generosity doesn’t mean giving lavish gifts. Generosity means we give out of what we have to honor the God who gave us his all. And so, for some of us, generosity might mean we don’t walk by the red kettles without putting something in. It might mean we take some of our personal time this season to serve someone else. I have a friend who goes every year on Christmas day to a different city and works in a soup kitchen. Their whole family goes, giving up their “family day” for the sake of others. It might mean signing up to help at a church or a mission work project, or making the decision that 2015 is the year when you’ll finally go and serve at Red Bird Mission. And, I pray, for all of us, it means we’ll give generously during the Christmas Candlelight services. As in past years, we’ll be giving away whatever comes in the plate during those services; if you’re still finishing your pledged giving for this year, you can bring that next Sunday or drop it off in the office this week. This Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s offering will be divided between two mission opportunities. One is Africa University, our United Methodist university in Zimbabwe that is providing hope and light on that continent that has struggled so much this year. Africa University trains leaders who are then going back to their communities and making a huge difference in agriculture, clean water, education and in churches. Take a look at this brief video.

VIDEO: Christmas Eve for Africa

The other half, then, of our generosity will go to the “Feed My Lambs” ministry here in Portage Township, where we’re seeking to make sure every child in our school system has food on the weekends. For many, their only meal is at school, and so through “Feed My Lambs,” they get a box of food and snacks to take home every weekend so that they can eat. It makes a difference in their education and it shows them that people care. The God who is jealous for us calls us to generosity that shows others he is jealous for them, too.

As we enter this Christmas week, can you believe and grasp the idea that God is jealous for you? He loves you with a passion you can’t even imagine. This Christmas, will you put him first? Will you be passionate for him as well? As we will pray next week during our Covenant Service, “Christ will be all in all, or he will be nothing” (BOW pg. 292). Will you allow him to be your all in all this Christmas? Let’s pray. 

Dangerous

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 1:1-14; Nahum 1:2-7

December 7, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It’s a common scene, even in our own city. You’re walking along, minding your own business maybe talking to a friend, and suddenly there is someone holding a sign: “Homeless, need work, have kids, God bless you.” And a choice confronts us. Do we ignore them, pretend we didn’t see them? Do we acknowledge their presence and yet just go on? Do we engage them? Do we give to them? Believe me, I know all the cynical reasons why we don’t want to give, and I also know that many of those reasons are legitimate. There are agencies “those people” can go to. There are resources available. Very often, they are standing in front of places that have jobs available—maybe not glamorous jobs, but jobs nonetheless. What do we do? How do we respond?

The same dilemma confronts us in less threatening situations when we exit a store this time of year and hear the ringing of a bell. We might look over and see a red kettle with someone standing by it. The Salvation Army is out again; in fact, they were out mid-November this year, collecting donations for helping those in need. They collect the biggest part of their donations during these weeks. And some of you have stood by those kettles, as I have and will again at the end of the month, and you’ve watched as people just like you and me face that choice. Some walk by. Some pretend not to see you. Some drop in a few pennies. And some drop in dollars. The choice is ours every time we see a red kettle or something similar. What do we do? How do we respond?

I don’t know about you, but every time I face a choice like that, whether it involves a kettle or a homeless person, I’m haunted by words from the Bible. James, the brother of Jesus says that pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans (James 1:27). For him, “widows and orphans” was a way of saying what Jesus had said earlier, that we’re to care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). In fact, when Jesus talked about “the least,” he talked had a much broader definition: prisoners, those who are hungry, the stranger, the one who needs clothes, the one who is sick. Jesus went so far as to say, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45).

I realize these are not the most uplifting words for the second Sunday in Advent, but here’s the thing. This year, during this season, we are looking at the ways Jesus demonstrates the character of his heavenly Father. We’re thinking about how Jesus is God “under wraps,” and last week we talked about the joyful news that God is expectant, waiting and wanting to give us the very best gift or all. But another side of God’s character is that he is dangerous. He invades our lives and doesn’t leave us comfortable. He presents us with choices like these. Some have said this baby of Bethlehem has come to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He is dangerous because he comes to mess with our lives, to tear them up in order to put them back together.

Though I haven’t done so for a long time, I used to do some work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization that seeks to provide comfortable, affordable housing for those who are living at or below the poverty level. And I remember talking with some of those in the local Habitat leadership about the different projects they had going. Most of the time, Habitat prefers to build a brand new house, mainly because, as any contractor will probably also tell you, it’s easier to start fresh than to do a remodel. When you set out to remodel, no matter what you think you’re getting into, it’s almost always worse. We learn that every time we go to Red Bird Mission. The first time down there, we were to put in replacement windows in a trailer, and when the old windows came out, the wall beneath them literally disintegrated in front of us. So we had to build a new wall before we could put the windows in. When we pulled up the carpet to replace it with linoleum, we found we had to also replace the rotted floorboards. Remodeling is often more costly and a lot more work than rebuilding, and yet which does God choose to do with our lives? Rebuild? Does he just get rid of what he has and start over? I think there must be times when he is tempted to do that, but instead God sends Jesus to mess with our lives, to tear them up and remodel. Jesus comes to put us back together, to make our lives the way they ought to be, and when he starts his work, it’s messy. And the work is dangerous.

That truth is tucked into the midst of John’s nativity story which we read this morning. Now, if you missed the shepherds and wise men in the passage we read this morning, you’re not alone. John’s account of the nativity is much more cosmic in scale than either Matthew’s or Luke’s, as John reaches all the way back to Genesis to begin telling his story of Jesus. His first words, “in the beginning,” are, of course, the same way that book begins, and it would have tipped off his readers that John is about to tell a story that is about so much bigger than just a single rabbi teaching in a tiny little outpost of the Roman Empire. This story John is going to tell is all about God and the world and the new way God is going to work and act within his much-loved creation (cf. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 3). “In the beginning,” John says, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1).

At the risk of sounding like a politician, we have to think for a moment about what the word “word” means. John was, most likely, writing in Ephesus, which in those days was a cosmopolitan port city. Today, it’s located several miles inland as silt has, over the centuries, filled in the old harbor. It’s about a half hour from the port of Kusadasi, Turkey, and in its day Ephesus was an impressive city. We were there this fall, and got to walk on those ancient streets. We got to stand in the theater where Paul found his life threatened. And we got to see the famous Library of Celsus. Ephesus was a place of learning, of scholarship, of knowledge. In ancient times, this library was one of the top three in the world, and though it was built after both Paul’s and John’s time, it still tells us that this city had a history, a heritage of great learning, especially in philosophy. When John taught about this Word, the Ephesians would have understood it to refer to a universal law, the Word that governs everything (Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 31). And they weren’t far off, except John insists that the Word is a person. The Word is God, who does indeed govern everything. And that Word became flesh (1:14). In the person of Jesus, the Word came to live among us.

And then John goes on to describe that “Word made flesh.” This Son, he says, came from the Father, “full of grace and truth” (1:14). We love to read those words on Christmas Eve, or any most any other time for that matter, but do we often think about what they mean? What does it mean that Jesus comes “full of grace and truth”? I mean, obviously, it means that what “grace” and “truth” are, he is. Jesus is completely filled with those things. “Grace” and “truth” are who he is. I’ve shared before that behind our word “grace” is the Hebrew word hesed, which John would have known from his study of the Old Testament. Hesed is a dangerous word, and it’s very difficult to translate into one English word. In fact, the King James Version translates it fourteen different ways, and those translators even made up a word in order to try to convey what it means: “lovingkindness.” Perhaps the best attempt at a translation of hesed is this: “when the one who owes you nothing gives you everything” (cf. Card 36). It is the defining characteristic of God. He owes us nothing, even though we often act and think like he does. He is the creator; he owes us nothing, and yet he chooses to give us everything. He chose to come as a baby in a manger, to live and die to show us the way to life. He offers us eternal life, resurrection life. He owes us nothing, but gives us everything. And when we really think about what that mean, it sounds a bit—you guessed it—dangerous. God’s taking a huge risk—what might he have in mind for us? What does he want from us?

The Word became flesh and came full of grace and truth. Truth stops being a philosophical idea when Jesus comes. Truth ceases being about having the right doctrine or all the right answers. We Christians fight with each other and with other people of other faiths about correct answers and interpretations of Scripture and right ways of doing things and whether or not we can get along. Our own denomination is in the midst of several such fights right now, and all sides claim to have the truth, to be on the side which has figured it out. But, Jesus is not an idea. Jesus is not a correct answer. Truth is a person—“living, breathing and eventually bleeding and dying…[After the coming of Jesus,] knowing the truth will no longer mean knowing the answers but only knowing Jesus Christ” (Card 36). Truth is a person. It’s not about having all the right answers. It’s knowing the only answer is him. When Pilate, the Roman governor, looked Jesus in the eye and asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), he didn’t realize what John has already told us: truth is a person. Jesus is truth, and so being “in the truth” is not about having all the right answers so much as it is about being faithful to and following this one who is full of grace and truth.

“The Word became flesh,” John says, “and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). Behind this idea of “the Word” would be the Hebrew word dabar, which isn’t just about speaking. When we think of a “word,” we think speech only. Words are those things that come out of my mouth, hopefully after I’ve thought them through (but not always!). Dabar, however, refers to both “word” and “deed.” In other words, what God says he will do. Unlike us sometimes, he will always follow through on what he promises. And we like to think about God’s promises. We like to buy little books with positive promises that we want to believe apply directly to our lives just as much if not more than they did to the ones who first heard those promises. We like promises like these words from Isaiah: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles…” (40:31). Or this promise from Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” (29:11). I find myself in difficult days often clinging to the words of Psalm 27: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (27:13). And everyone wants to hear the words of Psalm 23 at a funeral: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (23:4). And when we’re tired, who doesn’t love to hear these words from Jesus himself: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

But there are other promises God makes as well, promises we usually ignore, promises like those spoken through the prophet Nahum: “The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished…Who can endure his fierce anger?” (1:3, 6). Malachi echoes a similar theme: “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap…I will come to put you on trial” (Malachi 3:2, 5). God keeps those promises, too. In the Old Testament, God promised over and over again that if Israel did not repent, enemies from other lands would come and destroy them. And that’s exactly what happened. And God even keeps promises we don’t want him to keep on behalf of others. Look at the story of Jonah. He only preached to the Ninevites, one of Israel’s enemies, because when he tried to run away, God had him swallowed up by a big fish and redirected. And when he preached, and they repented, he still hoped God would destroy them, just because he didn’t like them. When that destruction didn’t come, Jonah was mad at God. If anyone knew the dangerous side of God, Jonah did.

You see, here’s the dangerous truth about God: he doesn’t follow our plan. God only follows his plan, and that means we very likely will be “called to tasks we never imagined ourselves undertaking, to challenges we feel ill equipped to handle, and to unknown territory where we may not want to go” (Robb, Under Wraps, pg. 33). Think about the story we remember this time of year. Mary was minding her own business, trying to be a good, faithful Jewish girl, engaged to a righteous man and waiting on her wedding when God stepped in and completely disrupted her life. She was going to become a mother, pregnant before she and Joseph got married. Regardless of how it happened, it was a dangerous thing to undergo in that time and place. She could be stoned—killed as an adulterer. That would have been within Joseph’s right to order. God called Mary to walk a dangerous path, and yet, knowing full well the risk, Mary said, “May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38). And what about Joseph? A carpenter from Bethlehem, engaged to this young maiden. When he finds out she is pregnant, he decides he has to divorce her, break off the engagement. He won’t ask for her death, but it’s too risky for him to marry her. He knows the child is not his, and he also knows that, in small towns, people talk. A lot. It would be damaging to his reputation and it could be damaging to his business as a carpenter if he stayed with her. And, at that moment, when he’s made up his mind, God speaks to him through a dream and tells him, as God often has to tell people in similar situations, “Don’t be afraid.” Joseph learns, as he takes Mary to be his wife, that God and God’s call are dangerous.

And the danger didn’t stop when Jesus was born. Herod, the puppet king of the region, gets wind that a “newborn king” is in Bethlehem, and so he sends soldiers to get rid of all the baby boys under the age of two in that tiny village. Herod was one of the greatest builders of the ancient world. He was known as “Herod the Great” because of his many ambitious building projects, not because of his kindness, because behind this successful politician was a terrified man. He was extremely paranoid, so much so that he had his wife and two of his sons put to death because he thought they were trying to take his throne. Ordering the death of baby boys in Bethlehem was nothing to him if it would guarantee his continued rule. Now, we often picture a huge massacre, but in reality, in a village the size of Bethlehem, we’re probably talking about a dozen or so baby boys—still too many. Jesus came to overturn and challenge the power structures of his day, and that challenge, that danger, began when he was born. It’s only a warning Joseph receives in a dream that saves the family by sending them on their way to Egypt (cf. Robb 37; Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 125). Jesus’ presence is dangerous. God’s call is dangerous. He might call us to do something or go somewhere we’ve never been before, to our own personal “Egypt.”

But the good news is this: when God calls us, he also equips us. A few weeks ago, we looked at that truth in the life of Moses. When you read the prophets, you see how many of them complained about God’s call on their lives, and said they didn’t have what it takes. God reassured every one of them he would be with them if they would be faithful. Over Christmas break 1987, Cathy and I attended a missions conference in Urbana, Illinois, and when at the end of the Conference Tony Campolo asked everyone who was called to respond in some way to stand up, I found myself getting to my feet. Now, the whole conference had been about urban ministry, inner city missions. I was from Sedalia, Indiana. Population 150. The closest thing to inner city we had was the grain elevator. But that next spring break, I found myself working with a team from Ball State on the north side of Chicago. And that summer, when I could have been working a job and earning money, I answered God’s call to go work on the west side of Chicago in a day camp outreach ministry. I was the woodworking teacher. I had and have very few skills in woodworking. More than once, I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. It was an unfamiliar path, and yet, God gave me what I needed. I didn’t get great woodworking skills, but God equipped me just enough to barely stay ahead of the kids, and more importantly to answer his call. While we were there that summer, there were multiple murders about a block from where we lived and drug deals going down daily. Yet God provided and equipped all of us. Are you willing to be called by the dangerous God?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was generally a quiet man, and he wanted to be a scholar, or even just an “ordinary” pastor. But the circumstances of history forced him to be more, as he lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. Bonhoeffer’s heart broke when he saw his beloved church co-opted by the Nazi government, and so he set out to do something about it, to purify and renew the church. He was outspoken in his criticism of Hitler, and even participated in a plot to kill the Fuhrer. Because of that involvement, Bonhoeffer found himself arrested and imprisoned near the end of the war. This was not the life he would have chosen, but he believed that his call from God was not to remain safe, but to follow the dangerous God into peacemaking. Bonhoeffer did not survive the war, as he was executed just a few weeks before its end by the Nazis, but during his last Advent, he was able to write to his fiancé, Maria. He wrote these words: “I live in a great unseen realm of whose real existence I’m in no doubt…So you mustn’t think I’m unhappy. Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us” (Robertson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, pg. 179). Bonhoeffer had a strong sense of God’s goodness in the midst of horrible human cruelty. Surrounded by hostile forces, Bonhoeffer wrote these words, among his last written: “By kindly powers protected wonderfully, confident, we wait for come what may. Night and morning, God is by us, faithfully and surely at each new born day” (Robertson 180). Bonhoeffer knew God is dangerous, and will often call us into dangerous places, but he will go with us.

It reminds me of that famous scene from C. S. Lewis’ children’s book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when the children learn that the hero, Aslan, is a lion. Susan asks, “Is he quite safe?” To which Mr. Beaver responds adamantly, “Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you” (Lewis 64).

To walk with God is not safe, but in that walking we learn so very well that God is good. We learn, too, that even in the beginning of the story it’s evident Jesus is not just an ordinary baby. He came to do the will of his father (John 6:38). He was born to die, to give his life for the salvation of the world. That’s what we celebrate every time we come to this communion table, as we’re going to do in just a few moments today. This bread and this cup reminds us that this God we worship is expectant, but more than that he is dangerous. He calls us to follow him wherever he may lead, to trust him with all that we are and all that we have. This baby would grow up and remind those who follow him, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Are you willing to follow this dangerous God whom we find in the manger? Are you ready to follow him wherever he leads? Let’s declare our commitment to him this morning by coming to the communion table.

Expectant

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 1:39-45

November 20, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

My dad is one of the worst waiters I know. Not in terms of waiting on a table, but in terms of waiting for an appointment or anything like that. In fact, I remember when I was growing up that the local doctor’s office would get him in almost as soon as he walked in because they knew how much he hated waiting! You don’t find doctor’s offices like that anymore, do you? Dad hates to wait. I think it’s largely because he likes to be busy, and waiting seems like a waste of time. I didn’t use to think I was like that, but the older I get, the more I find myself wanting to get things done and not have to wait on them. Waiting is hard. On more than one occasion, down here at the corner of Central and Hamstrom, I’ve had the experience of someone blowing their horn the instant the light changes. No one’s had a chance to move yet, but they can’t wait to get going. Waiting is hard. We are an impatient people. And then comes Advent, which is, by definition, a season of waiting, of anticipation, of expecting something. And we even try to hurry through Advent because we don’t like waiting.

So Thanksgiving is over and now it’s on to Christmas. Hurry up, hurry up, get things done. We get busy getting decorations hung, plans made and presents purchased—though I bet some of you went out on Friday and you’re pretty much done with the purchasing part, right? Nevertheless, we hurry around and are always in danger of completely missing what Advent is all about. This is the season of expectation. We’ve learned a bit about that in our family this year. We’ve anticipated and expected many things this year. We counted the days until Christopher’s graduation, then we got excited about our trip to Florida, and then Rachel and I counted the days until our “Lands of the Bible” trip, and every day on that trip we were “anticipating” where we would be the next day. I bet you’ve also expected some things this year: weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and other celebrations. We are, very often, expectant people.

When I hear the word “expectant,” though, I most often think of new life—pregnancy to be specific. We talk about parents “expecting,” and while I know what that feels like from a Dad’s point of view, I would be foolish to presume that’s the real perspective. But I do remember what it was like to be expecting both our kids. When both of them were born, we were in appointments where there had not been a baby in the parsonage for a long time, and so that expectation took over the whole church. Everyone seemed to have a stake in these babies! Everyone was expecting! And that was fun. But that didn’t make the waiting any easier. I had my heart surgery a year before we became pregnant with Rachel, and because of that surgery, the doctor wanted to run lots of tests to make sure she didn’t have the same heart defect I had. She didn’t, thankfully, and doesn’t, but I remember waiting on those test results, expectant, yet fearful. Sometimes being expectant, anticipating, is hard on us. Test results. Job interviews. Waiting beside the bed of a loved one who passing away. We have a love-hate relationship with waiting.

Today is the beginning of Advent, and over these next few weeks, in worship and in small groups (which I hope you’ll participate in), we’re going to consider this gift we are given, this gift we spend these four weeks waiting on, this gift we never expected. The baby to be born, this Jesus, is not the sort of savior we would have dreamed up, but he is, as Paul reminds us on several occasions, a perfect reflection of who God is. In fact, Paul says he’s the best picture of God we’ll ever get (2 Corinthians 4:4, MSG). “We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen” (Colossians 1:15, MSG). So he may not be the gift we expected, but he is the gift we need. In Jesus, in this baby to be born in Bethlehem, we see the God of the universe perfectly reflected. Jesus is God “under wraps.” And so, from now until Christmas, we’re going to consider how we see God in Jesus. This morning, first of all, we want to remember that God is expectant.

Now, by that I don’t mean that God is pregnant in some way! But that a lens through which we see God’s expectancy. We begin at the door of a home in Ein Karem, a small village less than an hour's walk from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (cf. Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 62). Ein Karem was the home of Elizabeth and her husband, the priest Zechariah. Luke’s Gospel doesn’t begin with a birth. It begins with expectancy, with the promise of not one, but two baby boys to be born just a few miles and few months apart. One, John, was to be born of natural means to a couple once thought to be barren. He would “be great in the sight of the Lord” and would “bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God” (Luke 1:15-16). The other baby boy would be born to a virgin and her husband, a miraculous birth, and he would be called “the Son of God” (1:35). When these two expectant mothers came together to share stories and to support one another, there was rejoicing and a recognition that God was up to something in their lives and in the life of their people. In fact, the younger mother, Mary, sang of that when she visited her relative, Elizabeth: “My soul glorifies the Lord…for the Mighty One has done great things for me…” (1:46, 49).

To really understand what’s going on there, though, we have to step back from these two women and look at the culture, the world around them. It would be hard to underestimate the expectancy that was in the air at that time. It had been nearly 400 years since the people had heard anything from God. No prophet had spoken. No word from the Lord had been revealed. The Romans had taken over their land, and they were just a small outpost in a vast empire. It was a dark, violent, difficult time for the people of Israel, and this urgency, this expectancy, began to rise up in them. They knew the prophecies, the promises, including the one we read from Isaiah this morning, and they began to hope that maybe, just maybe, their generation might be the one to see all of those promises come to pass.

Try to imagine yourself in a first-century BC synagogue, hearing these words from from the prophet Isaiah. As a matter of fact, it might not take all that much imagination. It was a time of expanding governmental power, when religious people often found themselves at odds with the establishment. There were taxes and shortages to deal with, and work was not always plentiful. In addition to that, there were rival religious factions that had different theological views, and they often (or usually) didn’t get along. So perhaps their world was not all that different from ours, a time when hope seemed in short supply and the faithful waited for God to do something about it all. So imagine you’re there in the synagogue, and the scroll is opened to what we know as Isaiah 9, and suddenly you hear these words: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (9:1). Every time I hear that passage, I can’t help but think of the times I’ve been to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. If you’ve been there, or probably to other similar caves, you know that at the lowest part of the tour, they will turn off the lights to emphasize the absolute darkness that exists underground. No light whatsoever. And then, someone will either light a candle or turn on a small flashlight to remind us how just a little bit of light can penetrate the darkness. Light always wins. But, unlike that underground trip, Isaiah doesn’t say we can produce the light. He doesn’t say we can turn it on. He talks about the light “dawning.” Can you make the dawn happen? No, of course not. The light is brought to these people in darkness, not produced by them. That’s an important distinction because it reminds us that whatever Isaiah is promising, the people themselves cannot make it happen.

But there’s another great promise hidden in this verse, this prophecy. In the context of Isaiah’s writings, the “darkness” he talks about has come because of the people’s sin and rebellion against God. They’ve created a very dark place for themselves to live. It’s a land of “deep darkness.” The implication is that there is no way out unless someone turns on the lights. And that's where the great good news comes in. No matter how dark their lives have become, no matter how much sin and brokenness and rebellion their lives have consisted of thus far, it’s still not enough to keep God away (cf. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39, pg. 242). You may have come in here this morning thinking you’ve done something or said something or lived a certain way and because of all that, because of that darkness in your life, God can’t love you. One of the things I’ve enjoyed doing over the last several weeks is trying to answer questions sent back by the offenders in our prison ministry, and the theme that keeps coming through is that many of them feel they’ve done something that God can’t forgive. The darkness is too deep. Maybe you feel that way, too. Some people are afraid to come to church, or take communion, or to read the Bible or whatever because the darkness in their lives is so dark, so deep. But Isaiah’s good news to them and to us is this: there is no darkness so deep that God can’t and won’t show up. Folks, there is no sin and there is no rebellion and there is no brokenness that can keep God away. If you hear nothing else this morning, I want you to hear that. God wants to be present in your life. All we have to do is turn away from the darkness and toward the light. That’s the promise of Isaiah, and in those words, hope begins to rise up.

Isaiah is, of course, writing to a time when there was an enemy swarming all over the land, when there was a powerful army threatening to overtake tiny Israel (cf. Grogan, “Isaiah,” Expository’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 6, pg. 74). And he uses fearsome images: a yoke of burden, a rod that oppresses, a warrior’s boot, a garment rolled in blood, burning fire. And what is God’s solution to this terrifying image? What is the hope for the end of the war? “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders” (9:6). A child? Are you kidding me? Warriors, armies, bloodshed—and God plans to send a baby, an insignificant son (cf. Grogan 74). Well, maybe not all that insignificant. This child holds some fairly significant titles, titles that are, in fact, a not-so-veiled attack on the power of the Assyrians, the invading army. These titles would have reminded God’s people that ultimately, though the Assyrians may seem to have the upper hand, God is in control. Wisdom and power belong to God alone and this child he is sending is coming to save them, to rescue them.

Look at the titles the child is given (9:6). “Wonderful counselor.” (That is, by the way, what I call Cathy at home.) But in Isaiah’s prophecy, the title is in contrast to human wisdom, which is depicted as lacking. The one coming will have true wisdom, the wisdom that knows strength is found in weakness, victory is found through surrender (as Pastor Deb shared last week), and life is found through death (Oswalt 247). “Mighty God.” As opposed to the false gods that are all around, the one coming will possess the power of the one true God, the power that can “absorb all the evil which can be hurled at it until none is left to hurl” (Oswalt 247). Isn’t that a great image? Evil wears itself out long but the Mighty God never does. “Everlasting Father.” Most kings of that era called themselves “father” to their subjects, but their “fatherhood” only lasted as long as they lived. This one coming will be an everlasting father—there will be no end to the care this one gives to his people. And, like a good father, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t sacrifice for the sake of his children (Oswalt 248). He will do whatever it takes so that he can he with them forever. And, then, the final title: “Prince of Peace.” Isaiah saved the best title for last, because in the midst of war, who doesn’t long for peace? And yet, “peace” in Biblical terms means more than just an absence of war or conflict. You can be without any of those and still not have peace. The Hebrew word is “shalom,” and it means wholeness, well-being, soundness and harmony. It’s life working the way it’s supposed to. It’s reconciliation and getting along and not having to all agree to all love. This one coming will make reconciliation possible between people because he makes reconciliation possible between God and humanity. In the midst of war, Isaiah promises a wonderful counselor, a mighty God, an everlasting father, and a prince of peace.

Now, let's go back to that synagogue in Israel, and hear these words read aloud: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (9:6-7). Maybe you’re sitting there and you’ve just paid the high taxes you’re required to pay to Rome. Maybe you’ve lost a brother or an uncle in one of Rome’s brutal power displays. Maybe you’ve wondered if the government even knows you’re there, or if they care. And maybe your heart begins to long for something different. Maybe this one coming wasn’t just for Isaiah’s time. Maybe he’s for your time, too. 

And maybe he’s for ours, as well. Wonderful counselor—this time of year, many of us fall again for the world’s wisdom, where we believe that buying more things and spending more money can actually bring happiness to us. We believe that stuff and things and money is what we need. That’s the wisdom that’s all around us, the “truth” proclaimed on the airwaves, on the internet and in print. But our wonderful counselor tells us that the way to shalom, the way to contentment is by giving ourselves away. On Christmas Eve, you’ll once again have a chance to do that, as we give away that evening’s offering to Feed My Lambs and to Africa University. Now, world’s wisdom says to keep it. It’s been a difficult year financially. We’re making it, but just. Why not keep the offering to provide some cushion? Well, because our wonderful counselor reminds us “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” (James 1:27). Contrary to the world’s wisdom, we care for those in need.

Maybe you need a mighty God this holiday season. For some of us, more than we probably are aware of, this time of year isn’t one of anticipation but of dread. We have to pretend to be happy, because that’s the expectation. And yet, in our hearts, there is a hole, a loss that can’t be replaced. For some of us, 2014 has been a difficult year, and you’re just trying to keep your head down and "get through the holidays.” Others are struggling with depression or anxiety and you don’t really know why. Those chains you threw down last week still haunt you. You want to be free, but it’s difficult. And Christmas is just one more thing to try to deal with. For all of those situations and more, our mighty God can strengthen and hold us, walk with us through times that seem to be so dark, and he is strong enough to turn the lights on, to heal and to give hope. If this season is difficult for you, I can’t encourage you enough to come to the Longest Night Service on December 21. That service, over the last few years, has become a favorite for many because it’s a time of gentle songs, prayers and Scriptures. It’s a place to be reminded that the one coming is a mighty God.

And he is an everlasting Father. Now, I know that for some people, calling God “Father” is a hot-button issue. Some have had abusive fathers here on earth, or fathers who walked out on them, or even fathers who were present physically but absent emotionally or spiritually. The thought of someone who will be like that eternally is frightening to some people. But we've got it wrong when we judge God by our earthly fathers. Our earthly fathers are not the standard. We earthly fathers are never the standard. Rather, God is the standard by which earthy fathers are judged, measured. So imagine the sort of care, love, nurture and attention that the best of fathers would give, and then magnify that by an unimaginable number. That’s the kind of father God is. He loves us without condition. He wants us without reservation. And he welcomes us for eternity. Even those of us who had good earthly fathers still long for that kind of care. He is an everlasting Father.

And he is the Prince of Peace. All of it comes together in this final title, because it doesn’t take much thinking or analyzing to know that our world is broken. Sin, sickness, death, hopelessness, rage, anger, broken families and broken relationships—we are a broken and hurting world. We are a world constantly in turmoil, in need of not just an absence of conflict but a sense of wholeness, harmony, shalom. This one coming is the one who will bring that peace and bring it for good. He is the prince of Peace; peace/shalom is who he is. Do you long for some shalom in your days? He is the prince of peace, and he is the one who is coming, who has been promised, and who always keeps his promises.

Now, here’s the problem from our end, and it’s the same problem they had in the first century. We want the one coming to be what we want him to be. We want him to come on our terms, and not his. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she was going to give birth to the Son of God, the one who would be king, she and everyone else in her village and among her people thought they knew what that meant. They expected a real, honest-to-goodness king, someone who would take the throne in Jerusalem, defeat the Romans and establish Israel as an eternal kingdom. There are still people today in Israel (and other parts of the world) who are expecting just that. Still! Today! And that expectation caused Jesus all sorts of problems because he came not to conquer but to sacrifice, not to rule but to die. He was not what they expected. And he is not what we expect. Because we read all those wonderful titles, and it’s easy to begin to think that this one who is coming will solve all of our problems, will make life easy for us, will give health and wealth and good looks and no conflicts and…and…and…and he doesn’t come on our terms. When the people of the first century were expecting a king, he came as a baby. No matter what we are expecting, he comes as he is, not as we want him to be.

So we’re expectant, but I thought this series and this sermon was about what God is like, and how God is expectant. How is God “expectant”? Well, in the midst of our expectations, picture it this way: suppose you have spent hours and hours or maybe even weeks either finding or creating the perfect gift to give to someone you love. You wrap it carefully, put it under the tree or maybe keep it hidden until Christmas Day. But there’s that eagerness, that expectation of what will happen, how they will react when you finally give that gift. That’s the image I’m talking about when I say that God is expectant. From the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, God began planning this gift. When Adam and Eve sinned by listening to the serpent, he told them there would one day be someone who would come and “crush the serpent’s head” (cf. Genesis 3:16). Someone who would defeat evil once and for all. And throughout the Old Testament there are hints and glimpses and prophecies of this one who is coming, of this gift God was waiting to give humanity. In fact, Isaiah, when reflecting on what he’s been preaching and wondering aloud how God is going to do what he’s promising to do with this child, says, “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (9:7). The passion, the heartfelt desire, the excitement of God himself will see this through. And that’s why, I think, on a hillside outside Bethlehem, nine months after Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she was going to have a baby, the angels literally explode in song in front of some lowly shepherds. God had been expectant for so long that he couldn’t wait to announce the news that the time had finally come when he would, once and for all, rescue and save his people. God is expectant. He is an expectant giver.

And he expects one other thing, too. He expects us to respond to his gift. Imagine that gift you eagerly bought or made and wrapped. Imagine gathering on Christmas Day and presenting it to the one you love. And then imagine that they look at the box, then back at you and say, “That’s very nice, but it’s not what I wanted. And it’s really sort of irrelevant to my life. And besides that, it makes me uncomfortable.” And then they put the gift aside. You’d want to say something like, “But you haven’t even opened it yet. You don’t even know what it is! Don’t you know what I went through to get that gift for you? And you can’t even open it?” And then they say back to you, “I told you, it’s irrelevant to my life. I don’t need to know what it is or try it out. I just don’t want it.” Well that’s the same sort of response God often gets today to his gift. God, the expectant giver, expects us to receive the gift he prepared through the centuries, just for you, just for me. It’s a lavish gift, but you’ll never know that if you never open it. You’ll never know that if you leave the gift of God’s only son wrapped up, unopened, never received. God, the expectant one, offers you his gift this Advent season. What will you do with it?

This is a season of expectation. The first candle that we lit today is the candle of hope, and Advent is a season that ought to give us “a sense of hope that the unchangeable can change, that good can prevail over evil” (Under Wraps, pg. 21), that light triumphs over darkness. That’s why Advent celebrates both the first coming of Jesus and anticipates or expects the second coming. This one who came once to Bethlehem is coming again to set the world to rights, to repair the broken, to bind up the hurting and to redeem the world. On that day, he will indeed reign on David’s throne and there will be no end to his peace. “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (9:7). With eager anticipation, we expect his return even as we celebrate his arrival.

When we were in Bethlehem a little over a month ago, we visited the Shepherd's Field, or at least one of the traditional locations, and we saw the cave and the church and there are a lot of decorations all over the place. But I’d seen all that, and when we had a bit of free time, Rachel and I wandered down the hill a bit toward some more recent excavations. There, we found lots of little caves, probably other places where, in the first century, shepherds would have kept their sheep at night, protected from the elements and from any attacking animals. In those caves, in the spring, the shepherds would have and waited for baby lambs to be born. And there was something in me that said, “This feels more authentic.” Now, I don’t want to question tradition, but as I’ve thought about it, it was because in those caves, in those small places, there weren’t all the distractions and decorations that there were in the other places. No one selling souvenirs. No guides arguing over who gets in first. Just simple caves, places of anticipation and expectation. Places where ordinary life happened. Places where baby lambs were born. And I’ve wondered, as I’ve thought about that time, how often we let all the glitter and hustle and overcrowded calendars get in the way of our letting the expectant God give us his simple gift, the gift we never expected. He comes in the midst of our ordinary life, but he will not force his way in, which is why we so often go all the way through this season and completely miss him. This Advent, can you make room, clear out some space, and allow your soul to connect with the expectant God? He’s waiting to give you the greatest gift you can ever receive. Let’s pray.