Does Jesus Matter?

Does Jesus Matter?

Matthew 16:21-27; I Peter 3:18-22

Delivered February 27, 2011

Is Jesus important? Can’t you have a healthy spiritual life without bringing the figure of Jesus of Nazareth into the picture? Does it really matter if Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross and rose from the dead? Aren’t these just myths? Isn’t it really his teachings that are important? Aren’t we just as well off with the teachings of Buddha, Muhammad, Lao Tzu and the gurus of India? What is this hang-up that Christians have about Jesus? Isn’t he really just one of many spiritual teachers who have lived and taught the same eternal truths? In other words: Does Jesus’ life matter?

This is what I want to address today. I want to do it within the framework of the Apostles Creed, which we are exploring this winter in this series of sermons entitled “Questions of Faith.” The largest section of the Apostles’ Creed deals with Jesus. Six of the traditional twelve lines of the creed (attributed to the 12 apostles) deal with Christ. Only one line is about God: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” The next six are about Jesus:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,

Born of the Virgin Mary,

Suffered under Pontius Pilate,

Was crucified, dead, and buried:

He descended into hell;

The third day he rose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,

And sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

From there he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I am going to try to deal with all of this in one sermon. It is an impossible task, but I am not trying to communicate a systematic theology in these sermons. I just want to sketch the outline of why Jesus’ life matters. Biblical faith – both Old Testament Hebraic faith and New Testament Christian faith – is grounded in history. The Bible is not primarily a theology book; it is a record of God’s dealings with people in history. History is important to Christians. Jesus’ life is important. In fact who Jesus is and what he did is more important than what he taught. Last Sunday I talked about who Jesus is according to the Apostles’ Creed: the Christ, the Son of God, our Lord. Today I talk about his life. This Christological section of the creed falls into three parts: Jesus’ birth, his passion, and his victory.

          I. First is Jesus’ birth.  A woman took her 14-year-old daughter to the doctor. The doctor says, "Okay, ma’am, what seems to be the problem? "The mother says, "It's my daughter. She keeps getting these cravings, she's putting on weight and is sick most mornings." The doctor gives the teen a thorough examination then turns to the mother and says, "Well, I don't know how to tell you this but your daughter is pregnant. About 4 months would be my guess." The mother says, "Pregnant?! She can't be, she has never been with a man! Have you, darling?" She replies, "No mother! I've never even kissed a boy!" The doctor walked over to the window and just stares out it. About five minutes pass and finally the mother says, "Is there something wrong out there doctor?" The doctor replies, "No, not really, it's just that the last time something like this happened, a star appeared in the east, angels sang hymns in the sky and three wise men came over the hill. I'm not going to miss it this time!"

The Apostles Creed says Jesus was “was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” Jesus’ birth is one of the most controversial elements of Christian doctrine. As I read and listen to critiques of Christianity, the accounts of Jesus’ birth are treated with special contempt. The Christmas story is routinely scorned as a myth borrowed from other religions or mythologies. This past Christmas the American Atheists organization waged a publicity campaign against the Christmas story. One of the billboards displayed in NYC showed the wise men coming to the manger with the words: “You know it’s a myth. This season celebrate Reason.” The idea that Jesus was born of a virgin is ridiculed as a biological impossibility – nothing more than a legend that developed later and inserted into the gospel narrative. The same with the Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men coming from the East. Even the idea that Jesus was born in Bethlehem is treated as a later fabrication of the church meant to shore up the claim that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah. 

What are we to make of the statement in the creed that Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary”? Is this really so unbelievable and ridiculous that no intelligent educated 21^st century person could possibly take it seriously? I don’t think it is so implausible. Virgin births – the scientific name is parthenogenesis – is known in the animal world. Parthenogenesis occurs naturally in some invertebrate animal species and some vertebrates (e.g. some reptiles, fish, and even birds and sharks.) It was made famous by the movie Jurassic Park, when the all female population of dinosaurs suddenly began reproducing without any males around. But it is not science fiction; it is science.  Parthenogenesis has been induced artificially in fish and amphibians. This type of asexual reproduction has even been induced in mammals – mice and rabbits.

If scientists can produce virgin births in mammals in the laboratory, why is it so unbelievable that God could have done it in Mary’s womb? Humans share most of our DNA with these mammals. It is just a matter of switching on the right gene. If God wanted to make a point that this little baby was unique, what better way to do it than a virgin birth? As I said in a previous sermon, I understand miracles not as God breaking the laws of nature, but using the laws of nature in ways we do not yet comprehend. The virgin birth is believable

II. The next section of the creed talks about Jesus passion. (The word passion refers to Jesus’ suffering and death and burial.) It is interesting that this ancient statement of faith moves immediately from Jesus birth to his passion. There is no mention of anything about his life, teachings or ministry. This confirms what I said at the beginning – that for Christians what is most important about Jesus is not what he said or did for the first 33 years of his life, but what happened at the end of his life - his death and resurrection.

This is echoed in the four gospels. Look at the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - in our New Testament and you will see that a large percentage of the books is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life. The gospel writers are clearly pointing to the death of Jesus on the cross as of paramount importance. Jesus’ himself is recorded as pointing to his death as the culminating event of his life. Jesus teaching shifted from talking about the Kingdom of God to how his death was to usher in that Kingdom. Our Gospel Lesson says: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the heart of the gospel. There is no Christianity without these events. These are not just mythological motifs borrowed from other religions, even though it is true that mythical deaths and resurrections can be found in non-Christian religions. Jesus’ passion is not a mythological suffering and death; it is depicted as an historical event which occurred during a specific historical period when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor in Palestine.

The myths of the sacrificial deaths and resurrections of various gods found in other mythologies are fulfilled in history in Jesus Christ. I see them as prophecies, which God placed in every culture on earth. Jesus is the fulfillment of these mythologies in history. The truths found in mythologies for millennia throughout the world were fulfilled in Jesus who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” I am not one to disparage other spiritual and religious traditions. I affirm them because I see them fulfilled historically and theologically in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Jesus suffered, was crucified, died and was buried. That is all the creed says. It doesn’t tell us why this is important and what happened through that death and resurrection. I could do a whole series of sermons just on Christian understandings of the Cross – which I have done, and may do in the future - but I am not doing now. Suffice it to say that Christians find the death and resurrection of Jesus to be the key to freeing humankind from the power of death and sin. Our eternal redemption is accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

At this point I need to mention one controversial phrase that is inserted here in the creed. It says Jesus “was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead.” This phrase “He descended into hell” is included by some and omitted by others. There is disagreement as to whether it was originally part of the creed. Interestingly it is not included in the Methodist version of the creed in our Methodist hymnal. Some translate the phrase as “he descended to Hades” or “descended to the dead.” The controversy concerns what Jesus was doing and where he was during that period between his death and resurrection.  I don’t want to get into the controversy here, but I did want to acknowledge its existence. It is not essential to our understanding of who Christ was and is. What is important is that he died; he was buried; and he rose from the dead.

III. I have talked about Jesus’ birth and his passion. Third I want to talk about his Victory. The creed says: “The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

He rose from the dead. That is the most important aspect of his victory. Without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no gospel and no Christianity. The gospel rises or falls on whether or not Jesus really rose from the dead. Like the virgin birth, this is also a very controversial teaching, for the same reason. It is scientifically and historically difficult to accept. Many people would say it is impossible for a rational educated person today to literally believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. They say you might accept it as a literary symbol or a spiritual truth. But to believe that the physical body of Jesus was somehow restored to life is more than many people can swallow. Frankly, to many people it smells like religious nonsense.

Earlier this month I taught a class for the Community School in Tamworth on Christianity as part of a Comparative Religion class. The class rightly picked up on the fact that the resurrection of Jesus was the distinctive tenet of our religion and the most unbelievable. Can we believe in the historical resurrection of Jesus without committing intellectual suicide – without checking our brains at the door of the church?

I think we can. I would say to the skeptics what Shakespeare said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I think that the resurrection of Jesus is believable in a way that skeptics do not comprehend. The resurrection is misunderstood. The resurrection of Jesus was not the resuscitation of a corpse; it was the resurrection of a body. There is a difference between the two.

There are hints in the scriptures that the risen Christ was different from, as well as the same as, the crucified Jesus. The gospels say repeatedly that his disciples did not recognize the risen Christ. Mary at the empty tomb, the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, the disciples in the upper room and by the Sea of Galilee, did not recognized Jesus when they saw him. In every case it took some convincing that this was the same man they lived with for three years. Jesus looked so different that two of his closest companions could walk and talk with him for hours on the Emmaus Road and not recognize him. Then he disappeared before their eyes and showed up in Jerusalem seven miles away. Yet in both places he ate with them and could be touched by them; he was not a ghost.

The resurrection of Jesus was not the simple resuscitation of a corpse, nor a near death experience, nor just a spiritual vision experienced by the apostles. It was the transformation and translation of the bodily form of Jesus into an immortal form. The resurrection of Jesus is about survival beyond death, which is beyond the realm of science.

The creed goes on to say that Jesus now “sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” which means that he is now part of the invisible spiritual realm. It also says “From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” This speaks of the future, which I will talk about in a future sermon when I preach on the final words of the creed that speak of “the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.”

The question I asked at the beginning of this message was: Is Jesus important? Or is he just one exchangeable figure in the list of religious figures throughout the ages? Does Jesus’ life matter? My answer is a resounding YES! His teachings are inspiring, but other spiritual leaders’ teachings are also inspiring. What is unique about Jesus is not his teachings but who he was – which I talked about last week – Christ, Son of God and Lord. And what he did - his birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension and return. Through Jesus is victory over our human condition of sin and mortality. Through faith in him we share that victory.

Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

Matthew 16:13-20; 2 Peter 1:16-21

Before she returned to Egypt, Christie Pohl (who works as an archeological conservator in Luxor, Egypt) gave me the two recent issues of Biblical Archeology Review. The cover story of the November/December 2010 issue is entitled “Jesus: History versus Tradition.” It describes the ongoing scholarly discussion about the differences between the Jesus of history and the Christ of Tradition. The article mentions New Testament scholars who paint very different portraits of the historical Jesus. Some say he was a magician (practitioner of the magic arts), some say he was a shaman, others an Hasidic Jew, others a Cynic (a wandering Greek-style philosopher.) There is even mention of a book written in 1941 by a German professor entitled “Jesus the Galilean” which claimed that Jesus was a Gentile and not a Jew.

There has been, and still is, a great difference of opinion as to who Jesus was. That was true even in Jesus’ lifetime. In our Gospel lesson for today Jesus was traveling with his disciples in northern Galilee, and he asks his disciples what people were saying about him. “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They give s variety of answers. “So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is the first clear profession of faith by any of the apostles, and it was to become the basic Christian understanding of who Jesus was … and is.

My sermon today is the second in a series of sermons on the Apostles’ Creed. Last Sunday I preached on God and today I start talking about Jesus. I didn’t tell you anything about the history of the Apostles’ Creed last week, so I thought I ought to give you a little background on this historic document today. The Apostles Creed is the earliest of the Christian confessions of faith. A story says the creed was composed by the twelve apostles – hence it’s name. The story says that shortly after Pentecost the twelve disciples were sitting around and suddenly Peter gets up and says, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Then John says, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” And Matthew chimes in “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” And so forth. Each of the twelve statements of the apostles Creed supposedly composed by one of the twelve apostles. That story is pure legend made up seven hundred years after the apostles, but it is a nice story.

The Apostles Creed is usually dated in its earliest form to the end of the second century (c. 180 AD), although the wording that we have today likely comes from the fourth century with final editing done in the seventh century. Still it is the earliest and simplest creed. It is much simpler than the more sophisticated Nicene Creed, for example, which is the next famous creed in the fourth century. But the Apostle’s Creed has the basics, which is why I am using it for this series of sermons. I wanted to start off my ministry here in Sandwich with the basics. Last week I dealt with the first line of the creed. “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Today I take the next line: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” The word creed, by the way, comes from the Latin word credo, “I believe.”

Who was Jesus? Can we know anything about him? Some say we cannot even be sure that he existed. That is pretty far-fetched. The New Testament was entirely written within the first century – within the lifetime of John, the longest living apostle. Paul’s earliest letters were written in the in the late 40’s less than twenty years after Jesus’ death. These biblical documents are very early and very close to the events the record, within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses of Jesus. Compare that to Buddhist texts, which were written 600 years after the death of the Buddha. As far as historical evidence is concerned, these biblical documents are as good as it gets. We can be more certain that Jesus existed than that Plato or Shakespeare existed. The question is: who was Jesus really? The Apostles Creed – the earliest extra-biblical description of Jesus - describes him with three shorts words: Christ, Son, Lord. Those are the three points of my sermon today.

I. “I believe in Jesus Christ.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is the Greek form of the Hebrew term Messiah. It is a title that means, “anointed one.” When Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ” he was professing his belief that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah. What the term “messiah” meant in first century-Palestine is a whole sermon in itself. During Jesus’ lifetime the disciples themselves seemed not to understand exactly what that meant. Usually it described a political king, a descendent of King David, who was to rule Israel. In the first century there were dozens of men who claimed to be the messiah, and many of them were killed in uprisings or crucified as rebels. Messiahs appeared throughout Jewish history, even after Jesus. The famous Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) was centered on a man named Simon Bar Kokhba who was believed to be the Messiah. In the twentieth century Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson was considered by many of his followers to be the Messiah until he died in 1994. Messiahs are commonplace.

But when Christians say that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, we are saying he was a spiritual leader who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. We believe that Jesus was the one whom the Hebrews scriptures prophesied about. Skeptics say that the authors of the New Testament made up stories about Jesus to fulfill the biblical prophecies. Christians believe that the stories were recorded because he did actually fulfill the prophecies. It all depends on how trustworthy you believe the scriptures are.

That is what Peter was getting at in our epistle reading for today. He writes: “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. (Then he describes his experience of the transfiguration of Jesus, which we will get to in a moment. Then he says) ¹⁹ And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; ²⁰ knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, ²¹ for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

It boils down to whether you think the gospels are reliable historical documents or not. If you think the New Testament is all legend and myth – “cunningly devised fables” as Peter puts it – then Christianity is based on a lie. The Biblical Archeology Review article I referred to at the beginning of this sermon says: “If we say Jesus is purely a construct, without any historical roots, then Christianity itself would be in danger of collapsing.” My study leads me to believe that the New Testament authors are credible witnesses. So I believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. (If you want to investigate this further read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.)

II. Second, the creed says, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son.” Here we move beyond history to theology. This is an incredible statement. The creed says that Jesus is God’s Son. More than that – that he is God’s only Son. In our gospel lesson, Peter was the first one to believe this. He professed “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus confirmed Peter’s statement. Jesus answered, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

In our epistle lesson, Peter said that he actually heard the voice of God say this. He refers to the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus, which is recorded in chapter 17 of Matthew’s gospel. Peter, James and John went up a mountain with Jesus and saw Jesus transformed before them, shining with a divine light. We have the account in the gospels, but Peter himself records what he heard in his letter. He writes: “¹⁷ For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” ¹⁸ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.”

To say that Jesus’ is God’s Son is a theological statement. It means that Jesus shares the nature of God. The Apostles’ Creed does not try to explain the divinity of Jesus like later creeds do. The Nicene creed for example says, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” They were trying to explain exactly how Jesus was divine. The Apostles’ Creed simply says that Jesus is God’s Son – period – and let’s us wonder what that means. That which is begotten shares the nature of the one who begets. Squirrels do not give birth to birds, and cows do not beget horses. That which is begotten of God is divine. So we are saying that somehow Jesus shares the nature of God while still being a man.

To say that Jesus is God’s only Son means that he was unique among human beings. Historically no other founder of any other religion ever claimed to be the Son of God. That is not claimed by or about Moses or Muhammad or Buddha or Confucius or Lao Tzu. The only religious figures that ever claimed divinity are clearly mythological characters like Hinduism’s Krishna and the Greek and Roman gods. Only one real human being ever claimed to be the Son of God.

In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this statement, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

Peter believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter said this in Matthew 16 and then experienced it in chapter 17 at the transfiguration. He believed it not just because he thought it up himself or trusted someone else’s words. He believed it because he experienced it. To be completely honest, that is what it boils down to for you and me. We should not believe something just because other people 2000 years ago said it was true or because the religion we were raised in says it is true. You should not believe this simply because I – or any other religious leader - say so. For you to say, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son” you need to experience it. Even religious experience is not infallible. People can be deceived by religious experiences and emotions. There is that danger. We might be deceived in believing that Jesus is the Son of God. But we might also be deceived by rejecting it. Each person has to investigate and decide for themselves.

III. That leads to the third word the Apostles’ Creed uses for Jesus: Lord. “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” To call Jesus the Christ is an historical statement. To call Jesus the Son of God is a theological statement. To call Jesus Lord is a statement of faith. It moves us from the theoretical to the practical and personal.

People misunderstand faith. Faith is not believing without evidence. Faith is trusting in what you believe is true. It is moving beyond doctrine to living. People can believe that Jesus is the Messiah and not be Christian. People can believe that Jesus is the Son of God and not be Christian. You can believe lots of Christian doctrines and not be a Christian. A Christian is one who trusts Jesus as Lord.

The Apostles’ Creed is the earliest church creed, but the earliest confession of faith is in the Bible. It is simply “Jesus is Lord.” The apostle Paul writes, “Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” (I Cor. 12:3) He says in Romans 10:9-10 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

Standing at the graveside of Lazarus, Jesus said to Lazarus’ sister Martha,  “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Martha replied, “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” I ask you the question Jesus asked Martha: Do you believe this? Can you say in your head and with your heart, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord?”

Does God Exist?

Does God Exist?

Delivered February 13, 2011

Acts 17:16-34; Jeremiah 10:1-16

On April 6, 1966, Time magazine had a black cover with red words that asked, “Is God Dead?” That was the philosophical question being asked back then. When I entered college in the fall of 1968, the Religion 101 class I took was a study of the Death of God theologians. My professor had just published a book on the subject. Today the question is being asked again. The April/May 2010 issue of Philosophy Now magazine had a replica of that famous Time magazine cover with the words (still red words against a black background) “Is God really Dead?)

There has been a spate of best-selling books in recent years by thinkers called the New Atheists. They are writers like Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The New Atheist books have titles like Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion,” and Christopher Hitchens’ “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” and Victor J. Stenger’s “God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.”

That last title reminds me of a story about a college professor, an avowed atheist who shocked his students when he flatly stated in class that he was going to prove there was no God. Addressing the ceiling he shouted: "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!" The lecture room fell silent. Ten minutes went by. Again he taunted God, saying, "Here I am, God. I'm still waiting." His countdown got down to the last minute when a male student walked up to the professor, and pushed him from his lofty platform and took his seat again. The class fell silent...waiting. Eventually, the shaken professor looked at the young man, and asked: "What's the matter with you? Why did you do that?" The student responded, "God was busy. He sent me."

I think we can do a lot better in our interactions with atheists than push them around. I have been doing a lot of reading in such authors in the past year. I take them very seriously. The fact that these books can be on the NY Times bestsellers list means that many Americans are seriously asking the question “Does God exist?” and are often answering in the negative.

So this morning I want to ask the question: Does God exist? This is the first in a series of sermons I am starting today entitled “Questions of Faith” on the words of the Apostles’ Creed, the earliest extrabiblical statement of faith of Christianity. The creed starts off with the words “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Are those words true any longer, or do they describe an outdated superstition from a pre-scientific age? I have two points this morning. First I want to talk about the God that does NOT exist – in other words the false god. Then I want to talk about the true God.

I. First, the God who does NOT exist. The God that the New Atheism describes does not exist. As I read the writings of the New Atheists – as well as reread some old atheists like Bertrand Russell “Why I am Not a Christian” and Sigmund Freud “Future of An Illusion” – I found myself agreeing with them on many points. That was kind of troubling for a Christian preacher. But the truth is that the God that they reject is not the God I believe in. I don’t believe in the god they don’t believe in (if you can follow that reasoning.) The god they describe as God is not God; it is a false god. It is the product of human imagination.

The Biblical prophets often compared and contrasted the true God and the false gods – like in our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah today. That distinction needs to be made again today, but updated to include not just idols of wood and stone but also theological and philosophical idols.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor." The god that man has created in his own image is not God. Yet that is the god that is being attacked by the New Atheists. It is a primitive kind of deity, a philosophical straw man that can be easily discredited. It is not God!

Michael Dowd, a Congregational minister, preached a sermon recently entitled “Thank God for the New Atheists.”  In it he says, “The New Atheists are God’s prophets, and believers need to listen up.” By that he meant that Old Testament prophets were always attacking false gods – just like Jeremiah. The atheists are doing the same thing. They are very effectively tearing down false gods. We ought to thank them. Of course the atheists say that after they have torn down all the false gods, there is no God left. I would say that what is left after all the idols have been exposed is the true God.

So who is this God that the atheists attack? It is a super man in the sky. A god made in the image of humans only bigger and stronger. This super male does not exist – at least not in the way that God is normally pictured. First of all, God is not up in the sky. Heaven is not “up there.” In pre-scientific times people believed in a three tier universe. Heaven was above. Hell or the underworld was below and earth was in between. God was thought to be up there in heaven, which was somewhere in the sky. You remember when the first Russian cosmonauts went into space. They came back gloating that they had been into the heavens and there was no God up there. We think that is silly, but that was the traditional thinking.

But now we know God is not in the sky. You can travel up as far as you can into space - through our solar system and our galaxy and to the edge of the universe and never reach heaven. Heaven is not up there. When we talk about God as our heavenly father we know we don’t really mean he is a male hiding in the sky behind a cloud or sitting in a planet. Heaven is not a place up there where you sit on clouds like in the comics. Heaven is a non-spatial spiritual dimension.

Likewise God is not an all-powerful male. We call God Father, but we know that he transcends the categories of male or female. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the true God; he would be Zeus or Hermes. Even the author if Genesis knew that. It says “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Even Genesis 1 shows that the image of God transcends male and female. The same with Christ. Even though Jesus was clearly a human male, the apostle Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” God is not a super male in the sky.

But it is still proper to call God our Heavenly Father – I will come back to that in a moment. When we use language like “Heavenly Father” we have to realize that we are speaking metaphorically and symbolically, and not anatomically and biologically. We are using human gender categories to describe a God who is not human and has no gender. There are people who are offended at the idea of God as Father and want to call God Mother. There is a whole mother goddess movement. That does not solve the problem. There are those who want to use impersonal language to solve the problem - God as a cosmic It – like cousin It in the old Addams family TV show.  That is much worse. No language describes God adequately. All language falls short. But the traditional biblical language is the best, for reasons I will return to in a moment. But first let me make another point.

God is not a Lawbreaker. One persistent image of God is that he has set up the world to operate by certain natural laws. But if you pray well enough, then you can get God to break the rules for you. Miracles are understood as those instances when the Heavenly Father breaks the laws of nature in response to the prayers of his people. I don’t believe that. I believe in miracles and I believe in answered prayer. But I don’t think God breaks the laws of nature to answer prayers. That would be just as bad as God breaking moral laws to answer prayers. He would be an immoral God not worthy of worship if he did evil by breaking his own moral laws. He would be like the capricious immoral gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome. The same is true of a god who would break natural laws. Miracles are not the breaking of natural law but the using of natural laws in ways we do not understand.

People a thousand years ago would think that airplanes and cell phones, and television were miracles. But we know they are not; we know they are perfectly within the natural laws of physics. People two hundred years ago would have thought that CT scans and antibiotic were miraculous. We know they are just science. When God heals people in ways that physicians do not understand, he is not breaking his own laws of how the human body heals. He is healing bodies in a way that we do not yet comprehend. God is not a lawbreaker – of moral or natural laws. That is why I can pray for healing with such confidence. The Great Physician knows our bodies; he can heal.

The God that the New Atheists describe and reject is not the God I know. I reject their primitive and obsolete concept of God. I don’t believe in the God they don’t believe in. But I do believe in the true God. Atheist Stephen F. Roberts is often quoted as saying to Christians, “I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” I contend that atheists take their reasoning one God too far. Because they can demonstrate that false gods do not exist, they assume that no God exists. That does not follow.

II. Now I want to move on to my second point, which is the true God. The question posed in my sermon title is: Does God exist? I want to change the wording now. Theologically speaking it is inaccurate to say that God exists. God does not exist the way that creatures and things exist; God is. When God described himself to Moses at the burning bush he said “I am who I am.” To says that God “exists” assumes that God is bound within time and space, that God is a being among other beings. That is the mistake that atheists make. They think God – if he exists - is a supernatural being. Any being like that would not be God.

God is not a being; God is not a supernatural creature. God is Being. God is the Source and Ground of all that exists. As the apostle Paul said to the philosophers in Athens “In Him we live and move and have our being.” In college I cut my theological teeth on Christian philosopher Paul Tillich who used phrases like Being Itself and the Ground of Being and Ultimate Concern to describe God. Even though I would use more personal language than Tillich, I appreciate his point. God is by definition that which is Ultimately Real. Defined that way, there is no way God cannot be. “I believe in God.”

God is Personal. “I believe in God, the Father almighty” I have no problem with calling God Father, because Jesus called God Father and taught his disciples to pray calling God Father. To call God Father means that God is Personal. God is not the impersonal Power behind the universe. God is not the Star Wars Force. God is not just a human personification of an impersonal power in the way that ancient pagan deities were personifications of the forces of nature. God is personal. We only know persons as male or female; we do not know genderless persons. God is not cousin It. So we have to choose some personal gender designation for God. Jesus choose to call God Father; in fact he called him “Abba, father” which is the intimate personal form of the word father. As followers of Jesus we follow his example in this.

Of course, ultimately Father is just an approximation of who God truly is.  All descriptions of God are just mental handles we use to try to grasp the ungraspable. We need to always realize that is true of all language and words we use to describe God. ⁸ “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.  “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:8-9)

But this is the best we’ve got to describe the truth that God is a personal God with whom we can have a personal relationship. God is a personal spiritual Reality, to whom we relate as our Heavenly Father. Maybe your personal history makes it hard for you to relate to God as a father. Maybe you had an abusive, absent or distant earthly father; that will affect the way you come to God. This is a very serious matter and needs to be worked through. But I believe the best way to work through our personal issues is not to reject the idea of God as father, but rather see God as the good father you never had. Reclaim the idea of father through a good relationship with your Heavenly father.

God is the Father Almighty. Almighty is simply an acceptance that God is omnipotent, to use theological language. Anything less than almighty makes God into a demigod. God by definition has to be almighty or he is not God. He is Lord of Heaven and earth, to use another equally culturally conditioned term.

“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” That is the first line of the Apostles’ Creed. The true God is “creator of heaven and earth.” God is Creator. God is not a creature. Nor is God simply the sun total of everything that exists. He was before there was anything, and he brought everything into existence. How he created the universe in the beginning and how he continues to form galaxies even today is for science to explore. There is no contradiction between science and faith. Absolutely none. I was a geology major in college before I was a religion major. I see no conflict between the two disciplines. The truths that God communicates through his creation discovered by science cannot conflict with a proper understanding of Scripture. If there is a conflict then we are misreading something, but that is a whole sermon – or sermon series in itself.

Does God exist? I would say that God is. God is almighty. God is personal and best addressed with the personal name that Jesus taught us – Father. He is the Source and Ground of all that exists. God is creator of heaven and earth. In Him we live and move and have our being. And if God is, then this is the most important piece of information that we will ever have. For if God is, then it is of ultimate importance that we learn as much as we can about him and orient our lives in relation to Him. That is what the rest of this series will be about. But it begins with the foundational belief: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Amen.

The Wilderness Trek

The Wilderness Trek

Genesis 12:1-4; Hebrews 11:8-10

Delivered February 6, 2011

My last sermon in my previous church was on these scripture texts. That was a year and a half ago. This is not the same sermon I am preaching today, but I am using the same scripture texts. When I preached that sermon at an outdoor worship service and picnic in Pennsylvania, I felt like Abraham when it says of him, “he did not know where he was going.” I literally did not know where I was going or what I was going to do. All I knew was that after more than 31 years of doing ministry, I was burned out. 

I needed some time off, so I decided to take a year off from ministry – a true sabbatical. No agenda, no study program, no plans. When people asked me what I was going to do, I said “I don’t know.” People did not like the uncertainty of that, so they decided I must be retiring. That is what the people in my previous church kept saying to each other. I wasn’t retired, although I wondered it it might evolve into that. I was just waiting on God.

Then this amazing thing happened. The Federated Church of Sandwich suddenly needed a new pastor, right at the time I was starting to look to get back into ministry – and here we are! But I still feel like Abraham. Even after he left Mesopotamia and got to the Promised Land, he was still in transition. He got to the Land of Canaan, and he then said, “Now what, Lord?” That is what I am asking, “Now what, Lord?” We are in the wilderness – me and you. 

Last night I finished reading Over the Hill Hikers by Shirley Elder Lyons. This group started right about the time I first came to Sandwich in 1982. These people traveled the wilderness literally and physically. As I read the book, I realized that they were also much like a church. They cared for each other. They walked together, and never left anybody behind. They had rules; they had fellowship; they had adventures, food, and celebrations.  It was tough going but it was very rewarding. They were wilderness trekkers. That is what the church is called to be.

The wilderness figures prominently in the Bible. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness of Sinai until God finally allowed them to enter into the Promised Land. Elijah, when pursued by the wicked queen Jezebel went into the wilderness for forty days until finally on a mountainside he heard the still small voice of God. The Israelites were taken from their homes in Jerusalem through the wilderness to Babylon, and had to return the same wilderness route. John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea. If you wanted to hear him preach you had to travel into the wilderness; no padded pews or heated sanctuary for his flock. After being baptized by John, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. The wilderness is an important part of the spiritual life in the Bible, and it still is an important part of the spiritual life today. So I want to talk about the wilderness.

 1. First, the wilderness is a place of calling. Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”   Genesis 12:1 records the words of that call “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” Abraham was called to leave home and go into the wilderness. 

We are called to a future. I believe this church has a great future. It has a great past, but we are not called to go back to the past. We are called to go into the future with God. We don’t know for sure where we are going. We don’t know what this church is going to look like in 5 or 10 or 20 years. Some of you are afraid of what the future holds for this church. I hear that and I sense it. Some are afraid about the finances. Some are afraid about maintaining two buildings. Some are afraid that you would be able to draw the children and young parents back into the church. Some are afraid you won’t be able to have a fulltime pastor in the future, and then what? 

I am here to tell you, “Do not be afraid.” That was one of Jesus’ main messages. We find those words on the lips of Jesus over and over again when addressing his disciples. If God is for us, who can be against us? It is true that we don’t know what the future will be like, but we know that God is calling us to the future.  And we know that if God is there, then it will be alright.

2. Second, the wilderness is a place of testing. These future years will be a time of testing our faith and our trust in God. Do we really trust God or do we trust in our trust funds and investments. Do we trust in God’s resources or our own? Do we trust in God’s leading or do we rely on our own wisdom? Think of the wilderness experiences in the Bible: the Hebrews’ 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai, Elijah’s forty days in the wilderness, the Israelites 70 years of captivity in Babylon, Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. The wilderness is a tough place. The wilderness is uncomfortable. It’s a place where we will be tested. 

 3. Third, the wilderness is a place of obedience. Hebrews 11:⁸ “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go….” Abraham could have said no to God. He could have stayed in Ur of the Chaldees. His family was wealthy and secure back there. But Abraham obeyed when he was called to go. In the Wilderness of Sinai, Israel did not obey. They kept wanting to go back to Egypt where they had food and shelter and work, where they felt secure. So what if they were slaves? They would rather be slaves under Pharaoh in Egypt than free under God in the wilderness. That is the temptation to retreat into the past, and that is why it is so important to obey God in the wilderness.

4. Fourth, the wilderness is a place of unknowing. Hebrews 11:⁸ “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” I love that phrase: “And he went out, not knowing….” I love it because that is how I am feeling. I don’t have all the answers. I have some ideas. I hope they are from God. I hope some of those ideas will work. I know some will fail. I know we will have to try lots of different things and see what works. I do know that what worked in the 1980’s will not work in the 2010’s. This is going to be trial and error. But we have to be unafraid to try and unafraid to fail – over and over again. 

The apostle Paul wrote, "Let us not become weary in doing good: for in due season we will reap, if we don't faint." (Galatians 6:9) Thomas Edison failed over 6,000 times before creating the first electric light bulb. On one occasion a young journalist challenged Edison saying to him, "Mr. Edison, why do you keep trying to make light by using electricity when you have failed so many times? Don't you know that gas lights are with us to stay?" Edison replied, "Young man, I have not failed. I have successfully discovered six thousand ways that don't work!"

We may discover many ways that don’t work. But if we persevere we will also discover ways that do work! The wilderness is a place of unknowing because we do not know what is out there. It is also a place of unknowing because we are going to have to unlearn things. Churches have a tendency to do things the way we have always done things. In the wilderness we have to unlearn that. The rhythm of my life will change and the rhythm of this church’s life will change. We have to unlearn some things and admit we do not have all the answers. 

 5. Fifth, the wilderness is a place of faith. Our scripture lesson says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out….” Faith is what the wilderness is all about. Think of the Hebrews in the wilderness after being freed from Egypt in the Exodus. They were leaving the security – albeit the slavery - of life in Goshen to go into the desert. What would they eat? What would they drink? They had to go completely on faith. God provided for them manna in the desert and water from a rock. We have to walk not by sight but by faith. God will provide. And it will be good. God works all things out together for good. 

What is the Federated Church of Sandwich now? What will it be? This is a time for faith. Not depending on old patterns and an old identity but stepping out in faith. God will form us into a new people just as God formed the Hebrews into a new people in the wilderness and God formed Abraham into a new person, even changing his name from Abram to Abraham, signifying the change. We will change – this church will change - in the ways that we need to change. Trust God to accomplish that change.

6. Sixth, the wilderness is a place of promise. “⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham got to the promised land of Canaan pretty quickly after the call. The call came in Genesis 12:1-4 and he is in the land of Canaan in the next verse. But when they got there, he found that the Promised Land was still the wilderness for him. By verse 10 there is a famine in the land, and he has to leave Canaan to go to Egypt. 

Abraham never settled in the Promised Land. He never owned any of the land of Canaan except a cave as his family burial plot. The story of Abraham tells us that life is a journey. That is why I entitled this message “The Wilderness Trek.” The story of Abraham is an allegory of our lives. Our lives are a trek through the wilderness. The only place we really own in this world is the few square feet of ground where our body will be placed when we die. If who are cremated may not even have that if our ashes are scattered. As the hymn says, “This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” Our lives are a wilderness trek; we follow a trail through the wilderness, traveled by saints before us. We are headed toward a goal, the land of promise, but it is not in this world. 

7. Seven, the wilderness is a place of tents. Our passage says in verse 9 “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham spent all of his life dwelling in tents. His son Isaac and grandson Jacob lived in tents “in the land of promise as strangers in a foreign country.” Not until his great-grandson Joseph did one of his descendents settle in a land, and then it was not the land of Canaan but the land of Egypt. And you know how that turned out. 

Being on this wilderness trek of faith is like camping. If you have been camping you know camping just isn’t like being home. It is not as comfortable or easy. Church ministry is like living in tents. It is not comfortable or easy. We can’t get too attached to the landscape. Things are fluid in a church. People come and go; pastors, interim pastors and even transformational pastors - come and go. Church members come and go. How many of us are going to be sitting in these pews and serving in positions in twenty years? That is life! 

The apostle Paul calls our bodies a tent. In talking about the resurrection in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul says, “¹ For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, ³ if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. ⁴ For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” Paul ought to know something about tents since he was a tentmaker. The apostle Peter uses the same image in 2 Peter 1: ¹³ “Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, ¹⁴ knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.”

Living in tents is a colorful way of saying that things are temporary. Abraham and his family lived in tents in the wilderness even when they reached the land of Canaan. We dwell in tents. God instructed the Hebrew people that when they finally settled in the Promised Land and built houses and planted vineyards, that they had to take a week out of every year to leave their homes and live in tents. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, known in Hebrew as Sukkot. Jews still observe it today. The tents remind them of the time they spent in the wilderness, and we need that reminding also. 

 8. Eighth, the wilderness is a place of waiting. “⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” We are still waiting for the City of God, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven a bride adorned for her husband. We are waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth - for God’s kingdom to come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus told a lot of waiting parables. He continually instructed his disciples to watch and pray. 

We have to wait. It doesn’t mean we don’t do anything. I am going to be doing a lot. I am going to be busy. You are going to be busy as a church.. But while we are busy, we need to wait. Wait on God. Seek the leading of God. Watch and pray. We need to make sure we are following the direction of God. We have to learn how to function together as pastor and people. 

This is going to take time. And we have all the time we need. Because we have now. All we ever have is now. When we live faithfully, obediently in the present – which is the presence of God – then we are exactly where we ought to be. We are living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit through the wilderness, being led by God every step of the way, waiting on God to guide us. God’s timing is perfect when we keep in step with him. As he led the Hebrew people by the pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, he will lead us. Wait on his leading, and enjoy this trek through the wilderness.