True Wisdom

1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16)

We live in the Information Age, also called the Computer age or the Digital Age. We are living during the biggest shift in human history since the Industrial Revolution. We have more information at our fingertips than any other generation in the history of the world. We do not need to consult experts or encyclopedias any longer. We just Google it. We don’t even have to go to a computer. We can google it on smartphones and tablets. Yet with all of this vast information, it seems to me that people know less than ever before.

Jay Leno just finished hosting the Tonight Show this week, so I will use an example from his show. He had a segment on the Tonight Show called Jaywalking. Comedian Jay Leno interviewed people on the street, asking them simple questions. It is amazing what people do not know these days.  In November he asked some questions about Thanksgiving, like when the first Thanksgiving was. Answers were 1966 and 1492. Where did the first pilgrims land? Hawaii, Rhode Island or Virginia. The episode in January reviewed current events for the year 2013. No one could identify the Vice President by name or face, nor the new pope Francis. I am not just saying that they did not know the new pope’s name; they could not identify his photograph in his white robes as a pope. But they knew Miley Cyrus. On another episode people could not answer the questions "What color is the White House?" or “What country is the Panama Canal located in?” It makes us question the quality of public education in our nation. We might have more and more information available to us, but it seems the average person knows less and less.

There is knowledge and then there is wisdom. Long before computers or the internet, T. S. Eliot wrote “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” Knowledge and wisdom are different. Some people are very smart and knowledgeable, but they are not very wise. They can make pretty stupid choices. And there are different types of wisdom. There is the common sense of living – street smarts. One does not have to be religious to have this type of wisdom. There is even wisdom in children. Children can say some wise things I ran across these examples of Words of Wisdom from Children

Never trust a dog to watch your food. - Patrick, age 10 

When your dad is mad and asks you, “Do I look stupid?” don't answer him. - Michael, 14 

Never tell your mom her diet's not working. - Michael, 14 

Stay away from prunes. - Randy, 9 

Never allow your three-year old brother in the same room as your school assignment. - Traci, 14 

Puppies still have bad breath, even after eating a tic tac. - Andrew, 9 

Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time. - Kyoyo, 9 

You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. - Armir, 9 

Felt markers are not good to use as lipstick. - Lauren, 9

Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat. - Joel, 10 

Never try to baptize a cat. - Eileen, 8

Good advice. But today I want to talk about spiritual wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is different than religious knowledge or even common human wisdom. You can have a very intelligent highly educated minister who may not be very wise at all. And you can have a person with no formal education at all who is very wise spiritually. Unfortunately most denominations have strict requirements for ordination with include college and seminary training with lots of knowledge, but there are no requirements when it comes to wisdom. Some churches learn that difference too late. 

That is what our Epistle lesson is about. When the apostle Paul went on his missionary journeys he would come in contact with highly intelligent and educated people who were considered wise. This was especially true in Greece. One time Paul addressed the Greek philosophers who had gathered on Mars Hill in Athens, right below the Parthenon.  They listened carefully to his words until he started talking about Jesus’ resurrection. Then they mocked him. Paul did not appear wise in their eyes. Our epistle lesson is addressed to the church in Corinth which was about 50 miles west of Athens. They also saw themselves as educated, sophisticated and wise. To this audience, Paul described the difference between human wisdom and spiritual wisdom – wisdom that comes from us and our own experience and knowledge and wisdom that comes from God.

I. First let’s see briefly what he says about human wisdom. He says in the first verse, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom….” He says in verse 4 “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom.” In other words he says that human wisdom sounds great, but it is not all it is cracked up to be. Let me say right now that there is nothing wrong with human wisdom in its own realm. It is not that human wisdom is bad and spiritual wisdom is good. It is that human wisdom only goes so far. It is limited by the fact that it is from human beings and subject to our human limitations. In verse 6 he talks about human wisdom as “the wisdom of this age.“ Human wisdom is culturally conditioned by the time in which we live and the place we live. What seems obvious to us will seem like foolishness to future generations.

It is like hair styles. What looks good today will look silly to the next generation. Did you watch any of the Grammy Awards? We watched a little of it. I could not stand to watch too much. That is not music in my opinion. And did you see the hairstyles. There is this new pompadour thing going on now that looks ridiculous to me. This Justin Beiber, Mylie Cyrus look. So many of the singers were sporting these silly-looking things on their heads. They think they look great now. But they are going to look back on photos and videos of this years later and say, “What was I thinking?” That is the way human wisdom is. It is wisdom of this age, which will look silly in the next age.

II. Paul compares human wisdom and God’s wisdom. In verses 6-7 he calls God’s wisdom a mystery: “However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory.” “We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.” Human wisdom can be understood. We hear someone speak it and we say “Isn’t that profound?” The wisdom of God is spoken in a mystery, according to the apostle Paul. Mystery refers to something that cannot be understood. He goes on to describe it in verse 9 in these words:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

God’s wisdom cannot be seen or heard or thought. It has to do with personally and directly knowing God. It is not about being experienced in the ways of the world. That is human wisdom, and it is fine as far as it goes. It just does not go very far and is subject to human pride. We always have to watch out for those who are wise in their own eyes. The prophet Isaiah said, “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” Proverbs says, “If you have seen a man that is wise in his own eyes, a fool is more useful than he.” That is why meekness and humility always accompanies spiritual wisdom. Those who think they are wise are not, and those who are do not think they are. We all can think of people in both categories. God’s wisdom is not something that can be captured and owned by a human being. It is God’s alone and he communicates it to us in mystery.

He goes on in our passage: “10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

Here Paul speaks of the source of spiritual wisdom, which is the Spirit of God. In fact there are other passages that describe the Holy Spirit himself as the Wisdom of God. This is important. Spiritual wisdom is God. God is Wisdom. You cannot know wisdom without God. Remember I am speaking of spiritual wisdom now, not human wisdom. There are people who do not believe in God who are wise in a human sense. They can have profound thoughts and speak profound words. That is the wisdom of human philosophy; that was the wisdom of the Athenian philosophers. What Paul is talking about as spiritual wisdom is very different. It is wisdom that comes only with knowing God.

It is revealed wisdom. Verse 10 “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” Spiritual wisdom is a gift. It is not earned or achieved through years of experience and practice. It is not gained through effort and time. It is revealed by the Spirit of God to our spirit. That is what the next verse says, “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

I know this is starting to sound a bit esoteric, and I apologize for that. But we are talking about spiritual things here. Spiritual wisdom is revealed wisdom communicated by the Spirit of God to our spirit. He talks more about that in the next verse 13 “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” A better translation says: “speaking spiritual truths in spiritual words.” I love that phrase. What are spiritual words? They are not written words or spoken words. They are not human words. Paul is saying that the Spirit has his own language. It is the language of conscience and intuition and communion with God. Human words cannot convey the spiritual truths communicated by the Spirit of God to our spirits.

Because of this spiritual wisdom appears foolish to many people. Paul says in the next verse: “14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” We are talking about discernment here. A blind person cannot discern colors, no matter how much you describe the colors in words. The natural mind cannot discern spiritual wisdom, no matter how much you describe it in words. We are talking about something beyond words. Something communicated directly from the Holy Spirit to our spirit, which is the inmost essence of ourselves.

Paul goes on in verse 15 “But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.” This means that spiritual wisdom is self-authenticating. People can judge us and say this is a bunch of nonsense. And it certainly sounds that way, but it is real. Then he makes the most extravagant claim of all in verse 16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” This is an amazing statement: We have the mind of Christ. It sounds like megalomania. Who would ever claim to have the mind of Christ? Paul does! And he says it is not unique to him but that we all have the mind of Christ. For wisdom we need to look no further than Christ, who dwells within us.

There is one important aspect of spiritual wisdom which I have not mentioned yet, even though it was mentioned first in our passage. I saved the best until last. It is literally crucial to spiritual wisdom. (The word crucial refers to the cross.)  It is found in the opening words of our passage. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” The cross of Christ is spiritual wisdom. A few verses before our passage Paul wrote: “22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks[b] foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

In the Cross of Christ the wisdom of God is displayed. In this historical event is a spiritual symbol which communicates the power of God and the wisdom of God. The Cross is what makes us Christians. A lot of people can talk about spiritual wisdom in mysterious and vague language which makes it all sound very profound. But without the Cross is just a subjective experience. The Cross grounds the wisdom of God in history. It grounds it in human suffering. It grounds it in human flesh, so it is not just some lofty philosophy. The Wisdom of God is grounded in the Cross of Christ which was literally stuck into the ground and Christ’s hands and feet literally pinned to that wood.

In the Cross of Christ is the wisdom of God. That is why it is so offensive to human wisdom. The resurrection of Christ is the wisdom of God. That appears foolish to human wisdom. That is why the Greek philosophers of Athens heckled Paul off the floor of the Areopagus when he preached the death and resurrection of Christ. It does not fit the standards of human wisdom of the philosophies of the age. But God in his divine wisdom became a human being, who taught, and ministered and healed, and was crucified and rose again. Through our identification with Christ – ourselves being spiritually crucified and risen with him – we share in the Divine life of God. Through the Spirit of Christ given to us we have the mind of Christ, through which we can share in his Divine Wisdom. That is true wisdom. 

The Topsy Turvy Kingdom of God

Matthew 5: 1-12

Hebrew 13:2 says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a corner of the cold basement to sleep in. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the senior angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the junior angel asked why, the senior angel replied, "Things aren't always what they seem."

The next night the pair came the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their own bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the farmer and his wife were in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The junior angel was infuriated and asked the senior angel: "How could you let this happen? It isn’t fair. The first family had everything, yet you helped them," he accused. "The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and yet you let their cow die." "Things aren't always what they seem," the senior angel replied.

"When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall, hidden there by the previous owner of the house. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I thought it best to seal the wall so he wouldn't find it. Then last night as we slept in the farmer's bed, the angel of death came into the bedroom for his wife. I convinced him to take the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem."

The Kingdom of God is not what it seems to be. Religious people think we have it figured out – who is good and who is bad, who is in and who is out, who is going to heaven and who is not, who is right and who is wrong, what is true and what is false. Jesus came on the scene and turned everything upside down, telling us and showing us that things are not always as they seem.

The first sermon of Jesus recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew is the famous Sermon on the Mount. The beginning of this most famous sermon is the Beatitudes. The beatitudes define who is in the Kingdom of God and what it means to live as part of the Kingdom of God. There are eight brief statements which we are going to be looking at today.  Because there are eight I will do them briefly.

I. The first four beatitudes tell us who is in the kingdom of heaven.

1. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The world tells us what wealth is. It says that those with money, power , fame, beauty and position are rich - the celebrities, the world leaders, the billionaires. They have got it all. Those of us who consider ourselves to be above such crass materialism say that the truly rich are those with friends, family, and health, meaning and purpose. We religious people say that the truly wealthy are those who are spiritually rich. Therefore that is what we expect Jesus to say. But that does not seem to be saying. He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  What does this mean?

I think he is challenging the conventional wisdom of all people, including those who would say they are spiritual but not religious. He is saying that it is not those who think they are rich by any standards who are the truly rich, but those who see themselves as poor, even spiritually poor. I don’t understand this completely. Jesus is too profound for me, but I try not to make Jesus words fit my beliefs. I think he is challenging me and all of us to a life of spiritual humility. He is urging us to be very careful about our views of who is in and who is out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

2.  ^“Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted,” says Jesus in the second beatitude. Grief is one of the most difficult emotions. It is a psychological response to loss. It can be any type of loss. Most powerful is the loss of a person we love. But it can be the loss of a pet we love, the loss of a home, the loss of a job, the loss of our health or reputation. And it is the loss of our own lives as we approach our own death. All types of losses prompt us to mourn.

 Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.” There is a spiritual blessing in grief. That is hard to hear. We would rather not have the grief and therefore forgo such a blessing. But the fact is that we cannot avoid loss in our lives. We will have it no matter how much we try to protect ourselves. How will we approach it? I think that Jesus is saying that loss brings us in contact with something fundamental in life. It shows us life in stark true terms. It brings us face to face with ourselves, and the spiritual reality of life. Loss brings us face to face with the Eternal God. Somehow in that grief and loss, comfort is found.

3. “Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.” I think this addresses the modern cult of the self. We are obsessed with the self. We make a religion of self-help, self-esteem, self-fulfillment and self-realization. Self, self, self. Meekness, as I understand it, is anti-self. Jesus instructed us to deny our self. This is not beating ourselves up or putting ourselves down. It is not even low self-esteem. It is seeing that the self is not who we really are.

I talk about this regularly because it is an important aspect of my own spiritual experience. I see a major spiritual problem of human beings as being lost in our selves. Spiritual liberation is being freed from our selves, freed from the tyranny of the self, from the illusion of the self, to live openly and freely as children of God. When that happens, suddenly we can live life fully here on earth. Not waiting for a better tomorrow if this or that happens, nor waiting for heaven to compensate us for a tough life here on earth, but living the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. I think that is what Jesus means when he says that the meek shall inherit the earth.

4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” This beatitude hinges on what the word righteousness means. I have also defined this on a number of occasions. Righteousness is not a state of moral correctness or perfection. Righteous means to be in right relationship - right relationship with God, with our selves, and with others. To be in right relationship we have to know who we are. Scripture says we are made in the image of God. That is who we really are. When we look at our true selves as God made us, then we see God reflected as in a mirror. That mirror can get pretty dirty. That is how I understand sin. Sin obscures the image of God in us. The purpose of the spiritual life is to clean the mirror so that when God looks at us, he sees himself reflected in our lives. And when others look at us, they also see God reflected in our lives.

We should hunger and thirst for this righteousness, this right relationship. Most people don’t. They hunger and thirst for things which will not satisfy. People look for love in all the wrong places, and we are never satisfied with life. But those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.

II. The second half of the beatitudes move from our identity in the kingdom to how we are to live as part of the Kingdom of God.

1. “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” Be merciful. Another word for this might be love. But it is good to use different words than love. Love can be so overused that it is good to use different vocabulary – like merciful. This means to be gracious to people. Be forgiving to people. Be accepting of people. Not to be judgmental of people. I see this as open-heartedness.

We can either open our hearts and lives to people or we can close our hearts to people. We close our hearts because we do not want to get hurt by people. We especially do not want to get hurt again after being hurt once. “Once bitten, twice shy” as the saying goes. But God calls us to be vulnerable, to take risks, to take chances. This is scary emotionally. It feels so much safer to put up the walls and protect ourselves. To be merciful is to let go of prejudices, to forsake retaliation, to treat others the way we would want God to treat us. The golden rule is to do unto others the way we would have others to do unto us. But the platinum rule is to do to others are we would have God do to us. We hope that God will be gracious to us, to overlook our faults and sins. If we expect that from God, we are to give that mercy to others. When we do, we find the mercy we desire.

2. “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” This brings us even deeper into this movement into our true selves. I don’t know about you, but my mind and heart is filled with all sorts of thoughts and emotions all the time. I have a continual inner dialogue going on. No matter what I am going, I tend to be thinking of something else. My brain will go off on some tangent even while my mouth is speaking the words of a sermon. I am double-minded. And double hearted. My emotions are the same way.

Jesus is calling us to simplicity of thought and intention. Peace of mind, if we want to call it that. Most of our emotional suffering is of our own making. It is not caused by something that happens to us. We cause it to ourselves. It is our response to what we imagine might happen to us. In other words, most of our problems are in our heads. We need purity of mind and heart. Calmness, peace. We are to relate to people and events as they happen without all the inner drama. When we do this, it opens up space for God. God is always present, but we are not present. We are always somewhere else or somewhen else. We are in the future or in the past or in some hypothetical scenario. No wonder so many people’s lives are inner turmoil. Jesus calls us to purity of heart. When we dwell in that purity of heart, we suddenly are aware that God is present. God is always present waiting for us to be present to Him. When we have some degree of this purity of heart, then we see God, and we find ourselves living in the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.

3. “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.” We live in the Kingdom as peacemakers. There are so many different dimensions of peacemaking. Some people bring conflict, disagreement and trouble with them wherever they go. Others seem to bring peace. As residents of the Kingdom we are to bring peace. This is talking about interpersonal peace, international peace, national peace. I think this has something to say to the political bickering that seems to have settled into Washington DC. And it is even talking about bringing inner peace to others, which can only come about if there is inner peace in our lives. Peace is contagious. We cannot make peace unless we have peace. If we have peace, then we can bring peace into every aspect of our lives.

4. ^“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus goes on to expound on this final beatitude. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In short Christ is saying that this path of the beatitudes is not easy. It will not be accepted by people. It will not be accepted by the political establishment or by the religious establishment. In fact Jesus is saying that a life lived by the standards of the Kingdom of God will be persecuted. He says, “Don’t be discouraged by this. Expect it to happen.” He even says to rejoice in it, which doesn’t sound easy to do to me. He says that this opposition is evidence that we are on the right track, because people have always opposed the Kingdom of Heaven. Why do you think they crucified Jesus? It was because He was the embodiment of the kingdom of Heaven. So the political and religious leaders felt they had to get rid of him. We should not expect it to be any different for the followers of Christ.

The beatitudes communicate for us profound teachings about the Kingdom of God. Let us take them to heart.

When Jesus Began to Preach

Matthew 4:12-23

Our gospel lesson for today is about when Jesus began his ministry as a young man of around thirty years of age. It seems like a good occasion to start it off with a preacher story.   A new pastor went to visit a single mother who had started attending church with her little boy. He was sitting in the living room with her young son waiting for the mother to bring tea from the kitchen. He noticed a bowl of peanuts on the table. So he began to eat them. The little boy watched him eat the peanuts with obvious interest but did not say anything, and did not ask for any. It took a while for the woman to come back with the tea, and by the time she did the bowl of peanuts was empty. When the mother finally entered, the young minister apologized to her, "I hope you don’t mind that I ate all your peanuts. I skipped lunch and was a bit hungry." The little boy quickly replied "That's okay, I already sucked all of the chocolate off of them anyway."

Such are the trials of the pastor’s life. The trials of John the Baptist and Jesus were a bit more than soggy peanuts. Our gospel lesson for today is about Jesus beginning his ministry. The stories immediately before this are about his baptism by John the Baptist, followed by his temptation in the wilderness for forty days. The scripture says he was tempted by the devil. Time for another story. Struggling to make ends on a preacher’s salary at his first church out of seminary, a young pastor was upset when he found a receipt for a $250 dress that his wife had bought. "How could you do this?!" he asked her. "I was in the mall looking at the dress through the window, and then I found myself trying it on," she explained. "It was like Satan was whispering in my ear, 'You look fabulous in that dress. Buy it!'" "Well," the pastor replied, "You know how to deal with that kind of temptation. You say, 'Get behind me, Satan!'" "I did," replied his wife, "but then he said, 'It looks fabulous from back here, too!'"

The temptation in the wilderness was a time of soul searching for Christ. I see that solitary wilderness time as a period when Jesus integrated his new understanding of himself and his relationship with his Heavenly Father and his mission on earth. He had to decide whether or not he was going to go into ministry, and he decided in the affirmative. I have four points I would like to make about Jesus’ ministry.

1. The first is WHEN Jesus began to preach. According to Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus returned from his time in the wilderness he heard that his cousin John, who had baptized him, had been arrested by Herod. John, by the way was never going to get out of prison. He would later be executed in prison. When Jesus heard about John’s imprisonment, our passage says that he left Judea and began his ministry in Galilee.

My point is that he began his ministry in difficult times. We do not know what difficult times are like here in 21^st century America. I was reading recently about an American Christian named Kenneth Bae, 44, of Lynnwood, Washingtom. He has been sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean labor camp for a "crime against the state." He has been imprisoned for more than 14 months, longer than any American has been detained in North Korea. He is accused of planning to bring down the government through religious activities. The evidence against him was that he had a Bible and other religious literature on him. He was actually on his 15^th tour of the country trying to bring economic investment to that impoverished land. That is difficult times. You have heard me several times mention Saad Abedini, the American pastor imprisoned since 2012 in Iran for preaching the gospel. He is enduring difficult times.

 My point is that ministry by its very nature is done in difficult times. Jesus did not start out with a honeymoon period. As soon as he stepped out of the desert and onto the stage of his public ministry, it was difficult. In fact the Gospel of Luke say when Jesus preached his first sermon in his own home town of Nazareth, that the congregation dragged him out of church, kicked him out of town, and tried to throw him off the nearest cliff. His ministry in his home town crowd did not go so well. My point is that churches and Christians and ministers expect things to go well in ministry. They look for success and define success in the same terms that the secular world uses to define success. That is the impetus behind the megachurch movement and much of the church growth strategies. But if Jesus and his ministry are our guide, then we have to expect ministry to be difficult. Even the most difficult time is the right time. As both Jesus and the apostle Paul would say Now is the time. Today is the day of salvation. The Kingdom of God is at hand now.

2. My second point is WHERE Jesus began to minister. Jesus did not start off in Judea following in the footsteps of John the Baptist. He knew that if he stayed there in Judea, it would end with him sharing John’s prison cell. Our passage says, “Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum.” Jesus was no coward, but he also was no fool. There was no point in following John into prison in Judea, nor in flying off a cliff in Nazareth. So he made Caperaum on the shore of the Sea of Galillee, the center of his ministry. The gospel writer Matthew explains his choice as the fulfillment of prophecy. He says, “He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:

 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,

By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles:

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,

And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death

Light has dawned.”

Jesus began his ministry, and spent most of his three years of ministry (except for trips to Jerusalem for the religious festivals) in Galilee. The area is called Galilee of the Gentiles. It was called that because there were a lot of Gentiles – non-Jews – there. Galilee means circle and it describes the land encircling the Sea of Galilee. Jesus made trips into the Decapolis, the Greek cities on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. He made trips to Caesarea Philippi and Tyre and Sidon in the north. Even though Jesus said he had a ministry to the Jews he spent an awful lot of time with Gentiles. His chosen place of ministry was Galilee of the Gentiles.

Galilee was not an easy place of ministry. New Hampshire is not an easy place of ministry. I have heard Dale Edwards, our Baptist executive minister say on more than one occasion (including in his keynote address at our last Annual Regional Gathering) that the Baptist region of Vermont and New Hampshire are the two most unchristian states in the union. I have heard many of my colleagues refer to New Hampshire as rocky ground. They are not referring to the granite. They are referring to Jesus’ parable of the sower about the farmer trying to plant the seeds of the Kingdom of God. We do not live in the easiest place of ministry. You can trust me in this because I have ministered in several states, and this is difficult. That is why it is so wonderful. It is the same type of place that Jesus ministered. In fact we seem to have just as many rocks as Israel.

The Israelis have a myth about when God created the world that he sent an angel to scatter rocks evenly over the whole earth. But when the angel flew over Israel the bag of rocks ripped and deposited most of the bag’s contents in Israel. I personally think that the bag must have popped an earlier hole over New Hampshire, and especially over my back yard.

            Jesus sowed the seed of the gospel on rocky soil, and so do we. That is a good thing. Because the fruit that grows here – physical and spiritual – is that much sweeter. This is where God has planted us, and as the proverb says, “Grow where you are planted.”  God has put this church here in this community of Sandwich for a reason. That reason is to proclaim in words, but even more important in attitude and in action, the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ. My understanding of the mission of this church is to be the love of God in this time and place. To demonstrate God’s love in whatever we do and whatever we say. The Bible says that God is love. Jesus was the love of God incarnate. This church is to be the love of Christ incarnate – enfleshed in us – in this place.

            3. We have explored the WHEN and WHERE of Jesus’ start of ministry. The third point is WHAT Jesus began to preach. The gospel lesson tells us, “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” You have heard me preach on this before. This is Jesus‘ message in a nutshell, and I have cracked open this verse on a number of occasions.

            Jesus said, “Repent!” Normally this is taken to mean to feel sorry what we have done wrong and change your ways.  But you know that I do not like moralism and I especially do not like that smell of guilt. That is not what the word means anyway – neither the English word nor Greek word in the original NT. The English word “repent” means to rethink, to think again. The Greek word means the same thing – a change of mind. In his book “The Great Meaning of the Word Metanoia,” Treadwell Walden says that metanoia conveys the essence of the Christian gospel. He says that no word in the New Testament is greater than metanoia. But Walden says that the translation of metanoia as repentance is “an extraordinary mistranslation.” The great Greek scholar AT Robertson agrees. He says that a better translation is “change of Mind, a change in the trend and action of the whole inner nature, intellectual, affectional and moral,” “transmutation of consciousness.” Jesus is not talking about feeling sorry, regretful and guilty. He is talking about a spiritual transformation that happens from the inside out through the grace of God working in our lives.

Then he adds, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” That has also been interpreted in many ways. Often Jesus is pictured as an apocalyptic preacher, telling people to get their act together before it is too late because the end of world is coming soon. I don’t think that is what he meant. If it was, he was mistaken, because the end of the world did not come soon. I don’t think Jesus was mistaken; I think we are mistaken in our interpretation of his words. I think he is saying that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, meaning that it is so close that you can reach out your hand and touch it. He is saying, “Rethink the way you see yourself. God, and this world. It is not like you think it is. The Kingdom of God is right here in our midst. All we have to do is open our minds to see it and open our hearts to embrace it.

The Kingdom of heaven was present in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus said on one occasion, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God present with power.” (Matthew 16:28) This verse has caused great consternation to Christians who understand the Kingdom of God exclusively as a future event occurring in history. Such a kingdom did not come in the lifetimes of the people who heard Jesus speak these words. But when the verse is understood as referring to a person who sees the invisible Presence of God, the saying makes perfect sense. Jesus is simply saying that some of the people who were listening to his words would personally “see the Kingdom of God present with power.”

On another occasion Jesus was performing exorcisms, and he said, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Luke 11:20 Clearly Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God was already present, as evidenced in his ministry. Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21) An alternate translation of the verse reads: “the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” This is our message: that the kingdom of God is here now in the living presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ now.

4. Fourth, what happened when Jesus began to preach? Our gospel lesson tells us that people began to follow Jesus. Jesus preached by the shore of the Sea of Galilee and the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew began to follow Jesus. James and John, the sons of Zebedee began to follow Jesus. We can interpret what it means to be a Christian in many ways. We can interpret it in theological terms, defining people as Christians by whether they adhere to a defined set of beliefs established by Christianity over the centuries. We can define it in ecclesiastical terms, by whether they belong to the right denomination or the correct branch of Christianity. I define it simply by whether a person follows Christ and calls him Lord. When Jesus began to preach people followed him. When we preach Christ, people follow him.

And not only that, but our gospel passage goes on to say that healing of all kinds happened when Jesus began to preach. I pray that healing of all kinds happen when the gospel is preached here. Healing of heart and mind and soul. Healing of relationships, and most of all the healing of people’s relationship with God. This is what happened when Jesus began to preach. May it happen still today.

Jesus Who?

John 1:29-42

A couple in Tennessee this spring had a baby boy. They named him Messiah DeShawn McCullough. This summer a judge in Tennessee ruled that they could not name a baby Messiah. She said in her ruling that the name was a title, and only one person had earned that title - Jesus Christ. She changed the baby’s name to Martin. The parents protested and appealed, and the judge was overruled. So now there is a little baby in Tennessee named Messiah. Messiah is the Hebrew word that means Christ. Just so we are clear, Christ was not Jesus’ name either. Jesus last name was not Christ. As the judge said, that was a title given to him by his followers. Christ or Messiah means anointed One. It is just one of many names and titles that have been given to Jesus. One of the names we heard a lot during Advent and Christmas was Immanuel. Today in our gospel lesson we see some other titles for Jesus.

1. The first one is given to him by John the Baptist. One day John is walking with some of his own disciples, and Jesus approaches. John points at Jesus and shouts out, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” What a strange thing to call anyone. It is not the type of title that any human being would pick for their leader. Lambs are not known for their leadership qualities. King Richard was not called the Lamb-hearted. He was the lion-hearted. Lions are the king of beasts, not lambs. You won’t find sports teams called the lambs. You’ve got the Cincinnati Bengals, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Denver Broncos, Boston Bruins. But you don’t have the Saint Louis Lambs. You have the Saint Louis Rams. But Jesus is not called the Ram of God, which is a symbol of strength. He is called the Lamb of God. You would not think that would inspire confidence. Lambs were followers. Lambs were domestic animals. Lambs were vulnerable.  Why is Jesus called the Lamb of God? What does it mean?

The primary reference of this title was to the Passover Lamb. In fact the apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 5:7 “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” When John called Jesus the Lamb of God, Passover was approaching. It was on everyone’s mind. Passover is mentioned in the beginning of chapter two. The Passover was one of the most important festivals of Israel. It commemorated the time when Israel was freed from bondage in Egypt. Most people here likely know the story, but for those who don’t, I will reount it very briefly. And it is a good review for everyone.

The Hebrew people had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. God called Moses to free his people from slavery. He did it through a series of ten plagues through which he tried to convince Pharaoh to free the Hebrew people and let them go to the Promised Land. Each plague grew in severity and intensity. They were things like frogs, gnats, boils, hail, and locusts. The tenth and final one was the death of all the firstborn in Egypt. It was the last resort due to the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart. But God provided a way of escape from this death sentence. God gave instructions to slaughter a lamb for a meal. Take the blood of the lamb and put it on the doorposts of their home. The people within that home would be protected from death. The doorway to liberation was painted, you could say, in the blood of the Lamb.

This imagery might feel a little strange to modern people because most of us (except for farmers) are not used to slaughtering our own animals for food. Our meat comes in neatly wrapped in packages in the supermarket. Most of us do not get our hands dirtied by the blood of the animals that we consume. But blood was a part of everyday life for ancient peoples and especially shepherds, the occupation of the Hebrews. The slaughter of animals was common for all ancient peoples, whether they were hunters or farmers. We modern sanitized Americans need to get over our squeamishness over blood in order to relate to the power of this spiritual image in Scripture.  The Passover Lamb was the lamb of God which was the symbol that God used as protection for his people. It was also the means by which he freed his people from bondage.

Not only is this true of the Passover lamb, but the sacrificial system of the Old Testament instructed that the priests offer lambs as the daily sacrifice at the temple. Every morning and evening, a lamb was sacrificed for the sins of the people (Exodus 29:38-42).  So the phrase Lamb of God had great symbolic meaning. It meant protection from death. It meant liberation from bondage. It meant forgiveness of sins.

All of this is seen by Christians as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Christ was killed during the feast of the Passover in Jerusalem. In the Gospel of John Christ dies at the same time as the Passover lambs are being slaughtered. In the other gospels, he dies at the time that the daily evening sacrifice of the lamb was being made in the temple. The Lamb of God is a powerful image of what Christ does for us. Some people get really hung up on the whole idea of death and blood. It all seems so violent and even primitive. The idea of animal sacrifice is offensive. To describe Christ as some type of sacrifice is more than some people can stand. But we need to remember that freedom always involves sacrifice.

One of the best analogies that we can make these days is the sacrifice that folks in the military make for us. We all know the sacrifice that servicemen and women make every day. We use the word sacrifice for this because it cost them so dearly. We know that many men and women have laid down their lives in battle. Many men and women have laid down their lives in the wars that our nation has fought to win and preserve our freedoms in this country. Many Americans have laid down their lives for people in other countries that they might also be free. That was true in Europe in WWII, but more recently in the Iraq war that the Iraqi people that they might be free, and for the Afghan people that they might have the opportunity for freedom. Whether those countries will now step up and continue on the road to human rights and democratic freedom is up to them and still to be seen. But the American blood that was shed for them is a genuine self-sacrifice.

That is a good way to understand the sacrifice of Jesus. The animal sacrifice idea worked for people 2000 years ago. It is certainly true and it is biblically accurate in that historical context. But we no longer sacrifice animals, and the concept does not connect to many people nowadays. But the military sacrifice does connect to people on an intellectual and emotional level. And there is a biblical precedent because the Messiah was expected to be a military leader in Jesus’ day. And in the Book of Revelation he is portrayed in this manner, as commander in chief on a white horse leading his army. So it is a biblical metaphor. Some people have a difficult time with the military metaphor also, but I can’t help that.

Think of Christ as a spiritual warrior who died in a spiritual battle. He laid down his life for us. Think of Christ as a warrior of nonviolence who gave his life so that people could be free from the fear of death and from bondage to sin. When understood in this way, the title Lamb of God is a powerful title. 

II. It is not the only title used in our gospel lesson for today. John the Baptist also calls Jesus the Son of God. It says in our passage in verses 32-34. “And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

In this passage John is referring to his experience at Jesus’ baptism. Last Sunday was the date for the remembrance of the baptism of Christ, but it is referred to in our passage again for today. Jesus came to John to be baptized by him. As John was baptizing Jesus he witnessed the powerful presence of God. As Jesus came up from the river Jordan, John saw the Spirit of God descending upon Jesus like a dove and remaining upon him. Then John declares, “And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” 

To call Jesus the Son of God is an extraordinary statement. We don’t really understand how extraordinary it was at that time and place. It was a revolutionary statement both politically and religiously in those days. You could be separated from your head for calling someone this title. And John would be later beheaded but for a different reason, for challenging King Herod.

Today we call people children of God and it doesn’t really mean hardly anything. It is just a way of saying that we are all special in God’s sight or to declare the sacredness of human life. Back in the first century the term Son of God was a declaration of divinity. The only human in the Roman Empire allowed to be called the Son of God was Caesar. The title was stamped on Roman coins along with Caesar’s image. There was a Caesar cult connected to the emperor’s divinity. To call anyone else but Caesar the Son of God was equivalent to treason against Rome. This was the charge brought against Jesus at his trial. His interrogators were trying to get him to admit that he was the Son of God.  Such a confession would be equivalent to confessing to treason and be grounds for the death penalty. For the religious  leaders at the time to claim to be the Son of God would also be considered blasphemy and also grounds for the death penalty under religious law.

It is still grounds for the death penalty under Sharia Law in extremist Muslim countries today. If a Muslim declares that Jesus is the Son of God and converts to Christianity it is called blasphemy. Such a person can be executed in many countries today. In America we have religious liberty. We Christians declare Jesus to be the Son of God in our songs, prayers, and sermons, as I am doing today. But do we really take this confession to heart?

For us to call Jesus the Son of God is not just a religious statement about his divine nature. It is not just a doctrinal confession. To really believe that Jesus is the Son of God is still a controversial political statement. We live in a very politicized climate in our nation today. Democrats and Republicans are at each other’s throats. Congress repeatedly gets up in knots and unable to get much done. Politicians fight over budgets and Obamacare. People get very agitated over politics, especially every four years.

To declare that Jesus is the Son of God is a political statement today as it was when Caesar was emperor of Rome. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God is to say that Christ has authority over the nations on the earth and over our nation. That is why I call it a revolutionary statement. It is a challenge to powerbrokers and those who sit in Congress and in the White House and on judicial benches. Jesus is not called Lord of lords for nothing. He is not called the Judge of all the earth for nothing. It means that all earthly authority and power is under his ultimate authority. It means there is a higher standard of morality than majority rule.

I am not talking about an earthly Christian theocracy.  That has been tried and failed. I am not talking about Christianity as the official religion of the land. I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state and freedom of religion for people of all religions. I am speaking to us who call ourselves followers of Jesus as Lord, who in actuality follow political leaders and political systems and political ideals more than we follow the ways of Christ and his kingdom. I believe that politics has taken on the function of a religion in many people’s lives. It has become a substitute for God, God’s Law and the gospel in many people’s lives, including many Christians’ lives. To call Jesus the Son of God is to challenge the idolatry that is at the heart American political life – the idolatry of human political and economic power that seems to acknowledge no restraints besides itself and no authority higher than human authority.

III. There is one last title for Christ that I want to mention briefly. It is the term Rabbi. Verses 35-39 say, “Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day.”

We know the term rabbi today as a title for a Jewish religious leader. In this passage it is actually explained to us by the gospel writer that it means teacher. But that is not completely accurate. The ending i makes it possessive. It literally means “My teacher.” It is a personal profession of faith. In the story, two of John the Baptist’s disciples heard John call Jesus the Lamb of God, and it says that they followed Jesus. That means they stopped being disciples of John the Baptist and they became disciples of Jesus Christ. To call Jesus Rabbi meant in that time and place that Jesus was your master.

This is the title I recommend to you this morning. We can talk about titles for Jesus in an impersonal and objective sense. But this title makes it personal. It was personal for these two disciples, one of whom we learn in this passage is Andrew. The titles for Jesus should be personal for us as well. To call Jesus the Lamb of God is to talk personally about being freed from bondage, sin and the fear of death. To call Jesus the Son of God is to make a statement about his divinity, and just as important about his Lordship over the world and over our lives. To call him Rabbi means that he is our personal teacher whom we follow as disciples. That is who Jesus is to those of us who call ourselves by the name Christian. 

New Year Blessings

Ephesians 1:3-14

There is a hymn, which unfortunately is not in our hymnal, otherwise I would have had us sing it today. The refrain goes: “Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your many blessings, see what God hath done!” The first Sunday of the New Year is a good time to do blessing counting. Today is Jude and my 40^th wedding anniversary, so I am especially grateful for the blessing of Jude in my life and for our marriage. That is #1 for me. When we count blessings probably at the top of all our lists is family and friends. I know that not all of us have perfect families, especially extended families, but I am so grateful for family and for friends. We will also likely think of material blessings. Even though we know it may sound materialistic to count material blessings, the blessing of a degree of financial security with adequate food, shelter, clothing, and things like that really is a blessing. Every one of us in this nation is blessed materially beyond imagining compared to many other nations and peoples, and especially when compared to the situation of most people in the history of the world.

Health also is a big blessing, even when we are having some health problems, the life expectancy we enjoy compared to past generations is amazing.  I know there has been a lot of hullabaloo about Healthcare this year with the roll out of Obamacare.  I know that we could do better in this area compared to other industrial countries, especially when you compare what we spend on our care in our country compared to other countries. But I am still very grateful for the medical care that we have in this time and place, compared to what people have had to deal with through most of the history of humankind and in so many places of the world today. I am also grateful for this town and state. I am so grateful for this nation. Again, I know we have problems as a country. But I am so thankful for the human rights and liberties that we enjoy in this country. I am grateful for those who served in the armed forces paid the ultimate price to win and preserve these freedoms. You get my point here. There are so many categories of blessings. We could go on and on about the blessings every one of us has. And it is a good exercise at the beginning of a new year.

Our epistle lesson for today speaks about spiritual blessings and so that is what I want to concentrate on this morning. Our scripture lesson starts off with the word: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.” I am going to be counting spiritual blessings this morning. I could go on and on with these also. But I am going to limit myself to three spiritual blessings mentioned by the apostle Paul in our lesson from Ephesians.

I. First are the blessings before we were born. Verses 3-6 of our lesson say: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

This is a truly amazing passage. And it is not talked about very much. It clearly says that we were blessed before the foundation of the world. The word translated world here is cosmos, a word we normally use for the entire universe. The earth is dated at about 4.5 billion. Scientists date the beginning of the universe at about 14 billion years, give or take a few million. Before the earth was formed, even before the universe was formed, we were blessed. It says God “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

This idea is very difficult to get our minds around. How could we be blessed before the creation of the universe – before we even existed? How could we be blessed before the human race existed, before planet earth existed? To be honest with you I am not sure what this means. I have studied what biblical scholars and theologians say this means, but I don’t think they know. I am not sure that the apostle Paul even knew what he meant when he penned those words by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But it says that we were “in Christ” before the foundation of the world. Ponder that. Wow! Again I don’t know what that means, but it clearly mean that my life is much bigger than I thought it was.

It says God “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” This passage is where theologians get the idea of predestination. It even uses the word in verse 5 “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” People start arguing about election, fate and destiny and free will and all that. Most people outside of Baptist circles don’t know this, but the Southern Baptists are in a big controversy now between Calvinists and the more traditional Baptists in that denominations, and one of the issues is this doctrine of election or predestination. I don’t argue about such things. I think that here we are entering into an area of mystery. But at the very least it means that we are known by God from the very beginning, long before we were born. God says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

The purely naturalistic understanding of human beings is that we are soulless animals, nothing more than self-conscious primates who accidently arose on this planet. We are born and die and that is it. This passage is saying we are much more than that. We are somehow in Christ, who is himself in God. Who we really and truly and eternally are is more than the brief time span of these human bodies and minds. This is a blessing of God which I don’t even understand. And it say we have been “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Every blessing that Christ has, we have in him.

Many people go through their earthly lives without any sense of a larger meaning and purpose. They do not know why they were born and are not at all sure there will be anything of them that survives death. That is the legacy of the philosophical materialism that is the predominant worldview of our age. This statement of scripture, if it is true, and I trust it is, means that the blessing of our lives is greater than the brief span of our earthly lives.

II. Second we have the blessing of forgiveness. Verse 7-8 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence….” The Christian gospel focuses on forgiveness. Different religions of the world focus on different aspects of human experience. The Judeo-Christian tradition, which is based on the Old and New Testaments, focuses on forgiveness. Some people do not like that emphasis. Some people accuse Christianity of being preoccupied with sin, guilt, shame, punishment, and judgment. So they reject Christianity outright, or they reinterpret Christianity to eliminate these uncomfortable aspects. They turn the gospel into a psychological self-help program designed to boost self-esteem.

The reality is that guilt is a part of human experience. It is not pathological. It is a natural response to doing something wrong. Guilt is found in every culture in some form. Every culture has a sense of right and wrong, a moral law that is understood as built into human nature. There is some form of the Ten Commandments in every culture, and most would say that morality is built into the fabric of the universe. We can’t just pretend that this feeling of right and wrong, good and evil does not exist. We have to deal with it.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ deals with it. The central purpose of the gospel is to free us from the consequences of sin. Christianity does not encourage feelings of sinfulness, guilt and shame. It accepts them and present and seeks to eliminates them. The good news of the gospel is that we no longer have to be bound by guilt. We no longer have to feel shame. We no longer have to worry about judgment or punishment. We can be set free from that! Sin is really negative soul-killing stuff. It knocks the life and heart out of you. Some distorted forms of Christianity seek to keep that negativity alive and use it for religious and moral manipulation. That is pathological! But that is not the gospel of Christ.

The gospel is complete freedom from that. It is liberation. Our passage here calls it redemption. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us….”  The word redemption comes from the world of slavery. It refers to a slave being set free. Traditionally we call it salvation. A better translation is liberation or freedom. Those are concepts that we American care a lot about. We value political, social, economic and religious freedom. Christ gives us spiritual freedom. The apostle Paul goes on to say that how God accomplished this is a mystery. The next words in verse 9 are: “having made known to us the mystery of His will….” The heart of this mystery is the Cross. “In Him we have redemption through His blood….”  This reference to blood points to the death of Christ as the means and symbol of this liberation.

Theologians try to explain exactly how the death of the Son of God on the Cross accomplished this liberation. They propose theories of atonement. They try to explain this mystery with theological systems. Some of the theories are very complicated. Some are better than others. Some of them are pretty bizarre. None of them are satisfactory to me. I have never read a theory of atonement that holds up to serious scrutiny. Some of them seem to give God a split personality. Some describe God in such a way as to make him appear schizophrenic, sadistic or even masochistic. I understand why so many people are repelled by Christian preachers and their theology. Some interpretations of the Cross present such an angry vengeful Deity that any sensitive person would be repelled by it. I am repelled. Too many theories of the Cross compromise the essential nature of God as perfect unconditional love.

If you want an airtight theory on how we have forgiveness through the death of Christ you will not hear it from me. I am not saying there isn’t one. I just haven’t found one that seems faithful to the whole testimony of Scripture. I believe that at its heart the Cross is a mystery. But it is a divine mystery that is effective in setting us free. Somehow the perfect sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ demonstrated on the Cross frees us.

If a surgeon saves us from heart disease through a heart transplant, it is not important that we understand exactly how the surgery was performed. It is not necessary that we have extensive medical knowledge of the heart, heart disease and open heart surgery. It is only important that the surgeon has this knowledge. And that we have faith in that doctor enough to be put out and laid open on an operating table. It is not important to me to know the details. What is important is that we are healed through the surgery and that we have new life because of the Great Physician. It is also good to be grateful to the organ donor who died that we might live. That is how I approach the Cross – by faith in the Great Physician and grateful to the one who died that I might live. This is a metaphor, but it is helpful metaphor to communicate the truth of the sacrifice of the Cross and the blessing of spiritual liberation that we have through the death of Christ.

III. The third blessing this passage speaks of is the Holy Spirit. 13 “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; (that is what we were just talking about. Then he goes on) in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” The Holy Spirit is the everyday living proof which confirms the truth of the gospel. The Spirit confirms that what we have believed is true. The passage speaks of the Spirit as a guarantee.

It is nice to have some evidence that what we believe is really true. People can believe in any crazy thing they want to and there is often no way such beliefs can be proved or disproved. That is the way it is with religion. A lot of people believe a lot of weird things. People think that we Christians believe a lot of weird things. How to do we know we are not deceived? How do we know we are not off our rocker, deceived by a religion that has no basis in reality.

God gives us a guarantee. That electronic gadget you got for Christmas is guaranteed, at least for a while. It comes with 30, 60, day, maybe even a six month or one year guarantee. God gave us a lifetime guarantee. It is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God.  Not God far away in a distant heaven. Not God theorized in the mind. God experienced in our lives. The passage says that “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” God is to be experienced. Not just in worship or in prayer, but every day, every moment of every day. Through faith in Christ God indwells us. We can live in daily relationship with God. We can walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, live in the Spirit. This is the daily experience of eternal life. Eternal life is now. this present experience of divine life is a guarantee “until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” That is talking about our death. At our death the promise of eternal life is fulfilled. It comes full circle. We were blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing before the foundation of the world. And that is fulfilled when we depart this world and return to Christ who is our eternal life… “to the praise of his glory.”

Twas the Day After Christmas

Matthew 2:13-23

The Sunday after Christmas is an awkward time. Our society has already forgotten about Christmas and is already gearing up for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Christmas is past. But on the Christian calendar Christmas just starts on the 25^th and goes for twelve days, the 12 days of Christmas. That is why we are still singing Christmas songs in the worship service. I am pulled between the two calendars. I want to be faithful to the Christian observance while not being oblivious to what people are thinking and feeling in our society. What most of us are feeling is that things are starting to get back to normal. They will not really get back to normal until after New Year’s Day. But the family Christmas celebrations are over. We probably not have taken down the tree and decorations yet, but there is a sense that the holidays are nearing an end.

What is left of Christmas after the guests have gone home, the presents are put away and the leftovers are eaten? What happens after Christmas? In the gospel lesson for today we have the story in the Gospel of Matthew of what happened after Christmas. It is very informative and helpful to see what the characters in the Christmas story do after Christmas and what God does after Christmas.

I. First, God still speaks after Christmas.  Let’s look at the Wise Men. They are barely mentioned in our reading for today. The first line of the reading says, “Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.” The “they’ referred to are the Wise Men. Their story is in the first twelve verses of chapter 2. It clearly says there that the Wise Men came to Bethlehem at some time after Christmas. It says in 2:1 “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

How long after Christmas the Wise Men came is up for debate, but I will not debate it here. It is clearly after Christmas. Even though in the Nativity Scenes we tend to crowd the wise men, angels and shepherds all together, as if they all appeared at the same moment, the gospel story does not describe it in that way. The Wise men clearly traveled to Bethlehem and worshipped the Christ child after Christmas.

As such they are an example for us. Christmas is not the end of the worship of Christ. For many people Christmas is the beginning and end of their religious experience. It may be the one and possibly only time they might come to church to worship. It used to be Christmas and Easter were the two occasions, but Easter is not the holiday it used to be, even though from a Christian and biblical point of view it is the more important of the two holidays. But our culture does not promote Easter the way it promotes Christmas. The Easter bunny runs a distant second in popularity to Santa Claus. So for many people Christmas - especially Christmas Eve - may be their only worship experience all year. And most Americans do not even observe Christmas in a religious manner.

But in the Scriptures the worship of Christ continues after Christmas. Christmas is only the beginning. The Wise men probably started their long journey from the East after Christmas and arrived long after Christmas day. Therefore they are a model for us. Christmas is just the beginning of a new year lived in worship and service to Jesus Christ.

God still speaks after Christmas. God spoke to the Wise men after Christmas. After they had met and worshipped the Christ child, God spoke to them in a dream warning them not to go back and report what they knew to King Herod. Verse 12 says, “Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.”

God spoke to Joseph after Christmas. We see that in our reading in verse 13 “Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” God spoke to Joseph after Christmas.

In both of these examples God spoke to protect them and especially to protect the Christ child from harm. I will talk more about King Herod in a moment. He is the villain of the story. But for now I want to emphasize the protection of God. The purpose of God speaking and leading the Wise Men and Joseph was protection.  This is a demonstration of the love of God.

There is a hymn we sing at Christmastime. “Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine. Love was born at Christmas. Star and angels gave the sign.” This divine love is overshadowed at Christmas in the waves of sentimentality that surround the holiday. But this is clearly the meaning of the holiday. God sent his only begotten Son to earth at Christmas out of love for us. When God speaks to us, it is in tones of love. Not sappy sentimental love. It is not just a feeling that brings tears to our eyes. It is strong courageous love. This is love that protects, love that saves. Love that costs something.

God still speaks after Christmas. The gospel lessons in these Sundays after Christmas will quickly go from the birth of Jesus to the teaching ministry of Jesus. God spoke through Jesus after Christmas through his parables, sermons and miracles. God speaks still today in love.

II. Second, Evil still acts after Christmas. Our gospel lesson includes the story which is called The Slaughter of the Innocents. When King Herod discovered that the Wise Men had deceived him, he became furious and ordered his soldiers to go into Bethlehem and kill all the children under the age of two in an attempt to kill the Christ child. He saw this infant Messiah as a threat to his own rule, just like the young North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un saw his uncle as a threat and had him executed this month.

We know too much about the slaughter of children in our American society. We repeatedly hear on the evening news examples of some crazed gunman, usually a young man, who goes into a school somewhere and shoots children and teachers before turning the weapon on himself. The slaughter of innocents happens today. It does not stop for the holiday season. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT happened during the holiday season last year. The recent shooting in Colorado happened a couple of weeks before Christmas. Evil does not take a holiday.

Therefore our vigilance against evil cannot take a holiday. I do not know the solution to gun violence. It seems to me that almost all of these young men who did these terrible shootings used guns that were purchased legally. These were not illegal weapons, so it seems to me that the solution to this problem involves much more than gun legislation. I was reading an article that reported that these much-publicized mass killings account for just 1 percent of all murders nationally. We are talking about a culture of violence in our country. And to be honest it is not just our country. There is a culture of violence in the world. In many countries it takes the form of civil war, international war, organized crime or government violence against its own citizens. There is no easy solution to this problem.

It is not just about violence. It is about evil in the hearts of men. Evil will not be restrained by laws. Evil is by nature law-breaking. The apostle Paul talks about this in regard to the moral law of God. He says that the Law does not stop people from doing wrong. In fact he says there is something in us that rebels against law. If it is wrong, we want to do it. If you have any doubts about that being part of human nature, spend some time with my grandsons. If you say, “Don’t do that!”, then that is exactly what they want to do. That is why there will always be bad people doing bad things. Evil does not take a holiday because we spend a day celebrating the Prince of Peace. There will be still be King Herods and Bashar al-Assads and Kim Jong-uns.

Likewise suffering, illness and death do not take time off for the holidays. I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago entitled “A Funeral at Christmas” about recently going to Pennsylvania to conduct the funeral of a friend. I mentioned in the blog my memories of the death of my father at Thanksgiving thirty years ago and the funeral of my grandfather the next year on Good Friday. Death does not take a holiday, regardless of the play and film by that name.

Our problems do not take a holiday just because the calendar turns to December. In fact financial problems might be worse when people get their credit card bills in January. We might be able to momentarily forget our troubles for a day of celebration, but the day after Christmas they return. Problems, suffering and evil still are present the day after Christmas.

III. Third, we still have to respond to God the day after Christmas. In our gospel lesson, the Wise men heeded the dream and returned to their homeland by another route. Mary and Joseph heeded God’s message in the dream and fled to Egypt. Then a couple of years later the story says that an angel appeared to Joseph once again in a dream and told them to return to Israel to Nazareth. And they obeyed. After Christmas we have to listen to God and obey.

One issue I need to address in this scripture is dreams. In the gospel of Matthew the post-Christmas story is filled with dreams. God speaks to the Wise men and Joseph primarily in that manner. And it seems like angels populate these dreams. It raises the issue of dreams today. Does God speak to us in dreams? To be honest I do not know. I believe that God spoke to the Wise Men and Joseph through dreams. And we see this elsewhere in scripture. Joseph the patriarch in the Book of Genesis was a famous interpreter of dreams. God spoke to Jacob in the dream of Jacob’s ladder.

But God has never spoken to me in a dream. And when people have told me that God has spoken to them in dreams, I confess I am a bit cautious about interpreting such dreams as signs from God. I am not saying it doesn’t happen. I am just saying that it has never happened to me. Perhaps the Near Death Experiences that people have these days are a type of dream in which God is speaking and giving them a glimpse of heaven. But that is the closest thing like this that I know of.

I hear God’s voice in other ways. I hear it through Nature. I hear it through Scripture. I hear it through conscience. I hear it through intuition. I hear it through the Holy Spirit. I hear God speaking through his people. That is how I hear God speaking today. But the fact remains that God speaks still. He spoke to the Magi. He spoke to Mary and Joseph and he speaks to us.

If God does not speak to us today then our religion is just a memory of God speaking in the distant past. That is not my religious faith. I believe that God speaks today. We have to discern God speaking to us today. There are a lot of false voices and false prophets today just like there have always been. It takes some spiritual discernment to distinguish between the voices that claim to speak in the name of God today. To discern the authentic voice of God takes wisdom, which comes from God and from time and experience of a living relationship with God. But the more we grow to know the Spirit of Christ the more we recognize his voice.

Jesus says, “14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own…. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” He says, “the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

God speaks today. Christ speaks today. But there are also a lot of other voices clamoring for our attention. But if we know Christ, we will recognize his voice and follow him. That is what Joseph did. I am sure that Joseph had lots of dreams in his life, but he did not pack up his family and move to Egypt every time he had a dream. He knew the difference between the voice of God and the voice of his own unconscious mind. When he discerned the voice of God, he responded in obedience.

We have to respond today. We have to be open to hear the voice of God, discern the voice of God, and then obey the voice of God. Not just on the holy days and in the holy seasons but after Christmas. After the Christmas carols have long ceased to be played and sung, we are to still hear the voice of God speaking to us in Jesus Christ. And we respond in worship, service, and love.