Klasis Tou Artou

[klasis]

Isaiah 30: Hustle

You may have heard part of the passage I just read [Ed. I read Isaiah 30 here] somewhere else before. “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” It is a popular quote for those inspirational calendars you see. My sister even used it as the title for her blog. When you read it like that though, it’s missing all the other stuff around it that makes it so profound. This morning I want to give you the rest of the story of the passage. Here’s what’s going on. Israel had a problem. They were right where other people needed to go. Let’s look at a map to demonstrate this. This is all nice land along the sea and this is all desert. The only way to get from anywhere up here to Egypt without travelling through the Arabian Desert is to go through Israel. This position meant that other nations in the North had to pass through Israel to get to Egypt. Israel had control over the most important north-south trade route in the region. This made them a target for conquest because of how important this route was. At the time that this passage was written, Assyria was threatening to conquer Israel. A large empire by this time, Assyria had a large army. You can imagine how the logic in Israel went from there. With another nation standing on the edge of their borders and ready to attack, Israel felt the need to do something. They couldn’t just stand around waiting. They needed to set some goals and objectives and start being productive to handle this impending crisis. They needed to be busy. So they collected their own troops and moved them to strategic positions. Then they were worried they hadn’t done enough, so they sent a diplomatic mission to Egypt to request horses and chariots, the weapons of ancient war. By all accounts Israel was keeping busy and getting things done in the face of this invasion. Except they appear to have forgotten to stop and consult God. They had been warned against asking Egypt for help or putting trust in military might. In Deuteronomy, a command was given which spoke about the King. “He must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the LORD has said to you, “You must never return that way again.” They were so worried about the coming invasion that they seem to have forgotten about their history with Egypt and God’s instructions about their military. They did not bother to consult God or take pause. In their urge to take action and be busy, they are sending away to Egypt for horses. Isaiah tells them that this is a problem. They have not taken the right course of action. So that’s the context, but what does this have to do with you? Let me show you a video. It’s buy a guy named Casey Neistat who makes lots of movies for youtube. He also has some really interesting ideas about life. Here is one of them.

Roll the “Life in 28 Seconds Video”

Is it true? Does it feel like it’s true? I’m out of my element here in Westport because I’m usually in Toronto and in Toronto it’s true. Every day I look at the paper and the housing market is harder to enter, the economy is going to the toilet for everyone outside the upper class, and the government looks increasingly lost. It seems like I need to start thrashing against everything around me in order to get anywhere. Do you get that here to? Let’s do a poll and if I’m wrong on this then maybe I’ll just stop now and I can try again next time. Who feels like life is ready to leave you behind if you stop paying attention for a moment? Who feels like things move at a nice leisurely pace? Okay, so there’s this ongoing story that we are told. We need to always be working. We are supposed to hustle in order to keep moving ahead in life. Go to school, get a job, get a promotion, etc. But God is missing from this story. The story is about you and keeping your place amongst everyone else. The story is not about you as a creature created by God. If you’re so focused on your hustle, you leave no room for God. Even in ministry (church or otherwise), hustling for God can take away all of his space. In our urge to take action or be busy or hustle, we can move God to the margins. This is a problem for us who profess to be Christians. How can we follow Christ if we get so focused on the hustle that we are forgetting to make space for God? Israel forgot about God in their worry about Assyria. We can forget about God in our concern about being left behind on the moving sidewalk of life. So how do we avoid all of this? Isaiah tells Israel what they should have done. This whole passage makes it sound like they are already lost. It’s a passage of judgement.  But in the middle, this famous verse comes in. “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..” Isaiah says to Israel “You sent envoys out to Egypt ignoring what God told you and ignoring the fact that you were slaves to them for a while. You thought that they would save you. You thought that you had to do something to keep a hold of this land you’ve been given. But you didn’t have to do anything. You didn’t need to seek Egypt’s help. All you had to do was come to God. There in repentance and rest and quietness and trust in him, you would be saved.” The solution they needed wasn’t to be busy and search for nations to ally themselves. God stood there with his arms wide open asking his people to return to him and find their rest and strength in him. If they had only embraced it, he would have given them all they needed. “but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee!”” This is the Gospel message. There is a problem and we are in trouble. Our world is very broken. We can see that there is a problem so we try all kinds of ways to solve it, but we’re never going to be able to do it. So God comes along side of us, and sends his son among us to die for us to take away the problem. And at that point, the only thing that we have to do is turn and embrace him. This is the grace offered to Israel that they reject. They call on Egypt, but God is standing there ready to extend his grace to them the entire time. So it goes with us. We are surrounded by lots of problems and troubles. We think that the solution is to hustle, but that’s not what God said to Israel and I don’t think it’s what he says to us. God calls us aside from the hustle of life to be with him in quietness and trust. He has promised to take care of us. We don’t need to hustle with the same sense of urgency as before. God is not going to leave us behind. All we need to do is seek after him, and he will take care of everything else. Instead of calling us to hustle, God invites us to places of quiet and solitude to focus on him so that we might renew our strength and find the power to keep moving in life through him. This is backwards. This is not what people recommend you do. The video I just showed you would say “You’re going to fall behind!” But this is what God calls us to do. There is a spiritual discipline that captures this idea of coming to God humbly and without hustle. It is called solitude. It is a practice where you take time to stop and turn towards God. Given that there are so many demands on our time and so much we could be doing, it is an act of great faith to take time out of our day to stop and focus all of our attention on God. Here is how it works. Here is what you should do. Find some time in the day when you will not be interrupted. It may be early in the morning before anyone else is awake. It may be late at night after everyone else has gone to bed. It may be while you are taking a bathroom break. Maybe you need to schedule a meeting with God. Find a time though. Then take time and focus your attention on God. I like to say the Lord’s Prayer to get me in the right space. Don’t spend the entire time speaking to God though, because that is not solitude. Spend some of that time listening. Quiet yourself, keep still, and focus on God. If you are anything like me then this will feel like torture. This year I have been trying to start my days by practicing five minutes of solitude when I wake up. I set a timer for five minutes and I begin. It is rare that I make it through the five minutes without looking at the watch to see if it’s broken. We are so used to being busy and active all of the time that solitude is a radical thing. It can be hard. But don’t use that as an excuse. Five minutes is not a lot of time but consider it an offering to God. That gives you twenty three hours and fifty five minutes to be busy. That’s plenty of time. You can start by giving God five minutes of your undivided attention. Five minutes of quiet. The Lord says “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” We should believe that. We should practice it. It is a good thing. In fact it is so good, let us practice it right now. I am going to close with two minutes of solitude. I will end the time with a prayer and then we will sing our final song. In this time, draw your attention to God.

[klasis]

Comfort

  We are in a series talking about spiritual disciplines, and since it’s Easter season we are talking about places where Jesus demonstrates some of these disciplines for us. Last week Pastor Paul recounted the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, a particular poignant moment in a culture based around honour and shame. Today we are going to talk about comfort. Specifically, we are going to talk about Jesus who is both the best, and worst person to have around when someone close to you dies.  “Pastor Ben what are you talking about?” Think about it for a second. What happens in all of the stories where Jesus is around someone who dies. There’s Luke 7:11 where Jesus is walking along when he runs into a funeral procession for the only son of a widow. As a widow, she would have been completely helpless save for her son, and now her son is dead. Jesus’ heart goes out to her. So what does he do? He walks up to her and says “I’m sorry for your loss”. [pause]  No actually. He says “stop crying”. Then he walks over to the body and says “get up”. And to everyone’s amazement the boy gets up.   Then there’s the daughter of Jairus in Luke 8:40. Jairus comes to Jesus and says “My daughter is sick, come and heal her”. Jesus goes, and after a short detour they arrive at the house and some people come out and say “don’t bother Jesus, the girl is already dead”. To which Jesus replies “She’s just having a nap”. Then he walks into the room, sends everyone out and says to the girl “Get up!” and to the parents astonishment she gets up.  Then we come to today’s story where Mary and Martha send for Jesus with news that Lazarus is sick. “Come and heal Lazarus for us” they say. Jesus then waits two days before setting out. Upon leaving, he tells the disciples “Lazarus is asleep, let’s go wake him up”. They go with him and upon arriving, discover that Lazarus has already been dead four days.  Both Mary and Martha are sad Jesus didn’t make it earlier. “Lord if you had been here he wouldn’t have died”. Mary begins weeping. Then Jesus weeps [pause] but I learned something this week. When he weeps, he does so angrily.  I know, it’s not immediately obvious in English, but it’s there and it teaches us something about offering comfort. In order to understand why, first we have to talk about the gospel of John.  John has some themes that span its entire length. We miss out on these because we tend to read it in bits and pieces but one of the themes which emerges over and over again is the two kinds of faith. The first one is called signs faith. This is what happens when people see the miracles of Jesus and then believe that he must be a prophet. For example, when Jesus is talking to the woman at the well in Samaria.  Jesus says “you have had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband” and the woman responds “Sir I can see that you are a prophet”. When she calls Jesus a prophet, all she is saying is that he has great power. She hasn’t professed Jesus as sent from God.   Signs faith is people’s initial response to Jesus, but he doesn’t take it seriously. It’s like free pizza offered by a group looking for volunteers. Lots of people will come for the free pizza. Who doesn’t love pizza? But your response to free pizza doesn’t communicate anything about how serious you are. The leaders of the group know that. In this same way, Jesus knows that just because people are amazed by his miracles, doesn’t mean they truly understand him.   That’s where the second type of faith comes in. This is true faith which comes when people profess Jesus to be sent from God. You can tell who in John’s gospel has it and who doesn’t by who chooses to follow Jesus around and who tries to throw rocks at him. For example in John 10, Jesus is standing in the temple court and starts talking about how the father and he are one. When those listening to him hear this, they pick up rocks and start preparing to throw them at him. They have seen and heard of his signs and agree that he has power, but without authentic faith, Jesus’ claims about who he is and what he is meant to do just make them angry. They don’t want to hear him when he says “I am the way the truth and the life! No one comes to the father except through me”. In John, Jesus is constantly looking for people who will respond to him with this true and authentic faith.  So in the story of Lazarus and Martha and Mary I said that Jesus weeps angrily when Mary starts crying. Normally when we read “he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled” and “Jesus wept” we think of him as sharing in the grief and sorrow expressed by Mary and Martha. But John might be communicating something different.  We know that Jesus came to Bethany with the intention of raising Lazarus from the dead. He told his disciples “I am going there to wake him up”. Why, then, would he share in the sorrow of Mary and Martha when he knows that in mere moments they will express the joy that comes with seeing their brother alive again? Why would he cry over someone who is “asleep”? Why wouldn’t he just get on with the healing miracle if he can alleviate their sorrow? Additionally, the Greek word used for “weep” here is not the same one that describes Mary’s weeping. Jesus’ weeping is the same as what happens when he weeps over Jerusalem’s unfaithfulness “Oh Jerusalem if you had only listened to me!”   I think Jesus is angry here because Mary and Martha, some of Jesus’ closest friends, both show that they believe in his signs, but lack true faith. Here he is at the very end of his ministry hiding out for fear of his life. He knows he is mere days away from entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday only to have them turn on him and crucify him on Good Friday, and he comes into Bethany at the call of Mary and Martha because they need him. His mission on earth is nearly over. He is about to die. He has so little time left. And when he comes to raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, Mary and Martha both tell Jesus that there’s nothing he can do. “Jesus if you had been here, he wouldn’t have died. But now that he is dead, you are powerless to do anything to stop our grief and our loss” And that’s where the weeping in anger comes from. Here is God among them and he’s told them this several times and they still don’t listen to him. To Mary and Martha and those mourning with them, death is the one thing Jesus is powerless to stop. As Jesus approaches one of the darkest times of his life, his friends show that they either don’t understand him or do not have faith in him.  If I were Jesus in this story, I would walk away. He has taken time out of his very busy schedule to come and comfort them and they insult him. Why should he stick around after such a personal offence. But that is not what Jesus does. In spite of their lack of faith in this moment of incredible vulnerability, Jesus is faithful to them. He follows through on what he set out to do in the first place. Ignoring Martha’s protest that Lazarus’ body will stink Jesus orders the tomb be opened, thanks God in prayer (because as soon as the tomb is open, there is no corpse odor), and tells Lazarus to come out. After being dead for four days, Lazarus stands up and walks out. Mary and Martha are comforted by Jesus through an incredible miracle.   What can we learn from this story? In the face of incredible anger and frustration, Jesus still takes time out of his work to go to Mary and Martha and comfort them with his miraculous actions. Regardless of what they say or how they respond or how much insult they hurl in his face unintentionally, he is coming to their aid. Jesus expresses unconditional love in the face of their sorrow. Jesus’ comfort for them, in this case in the form of a resurrection, ignores their actions. Jesus extravagant gift in this story is undeserved. Jesus makes a sacrifice because of their need.  Why is comfort a spiritual discipline? Because it requires a sacrifice on our part. Sometimes it is awkward. Sometimes a person is so uncontrollably sad or distressed and we have absolutely no idea what to say to them. One summer at camp I was leading a group of grade 9’s. One evening as I was sitting around a table with a few of them, I got a tap on the shoulder. I turned around to find one of our boys who I did not know well with tears streaming down his face asking me if I could come outside and talk with him. As we went out into the mosquito-filled air and sat down on the bench, I asked him what was wrong. He told me how his girlfriend had cheated on him and just broken up with him through a text message. I had no idea what to say or how to help him. I’ve never been through anything even remotely like what he was going through and I had no idea what to do. Yet I still had to exercise the discipline of comfort and sit with him in his time of need as he worked through what was happening. Sometimes comfort is awkward. But when we practice Jesus’ unconditional love for others, comforting becomes more important than being comfortable. If you don’t know what you are going to say, then just sit. Being with a person who is hurting is always better than leaving them alone. Presence is often enough to bring comfort.   Then sometimes you can believe that the person doesn’t deserve consolation. In their brokenness they lash out at anyone close to them, make destructive choices, or just lack any sort of hope. This is the experience of the character Leo McGarry in the TV show, “The West Wing”. Leo serves as the President’s chief of staff in the White House and does a good job of things. He has a past as an alcoholic though which many people know. As the show begins Leo has gone several years without a drink and speaks candidly about his past history with alcohol. Then one day, while meeting some politicians, he makes a decision to have a drink which leads him to have another, and another, and another. He winds up laying out on the couch in his hotel room. One of the politicians from earlier returns to grab his coat only to discover Leo passed out drunk on the couch.  Leo waits for some time before finally deciding to tell the President (his closest friend) what happened. Things work out, but later in the episode Leo gets into a conversation with another character who wants to know why he didn’t seek help sooner. He gives the following quote. “I went to rehab. My friends embraced me when I got out. You relapse, it’s not like that. “Get away from me.” That’s that it’s like”  Sometimes the people who need comfort the most are the ones that nobody wants to talk to. The man who caused his own divorce. The addict who has relapsed again. The friend who has done the same thing they told you they wouldn’t do. Jesus was wounded by the way Mary and Martha responded to him. They didn’t “deserve” to have Lazarus raised from the dead. People don’t deserve comfort. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t need it. Comfort is a discipline of serving people’s need for people, whatever the circumstance. And while it may start off being hard, comfort can build some of the strongest memories and relationships that you will ever have.   This week, think about who God might be calling you to comfort, to visit with. If you think of something don’t wait. Jesus took the time to go and see Mary and Martha even though he was about to die on the cross. We can take some time out of our week to go see someone. Write their name down and get in touch with them. Go see them. Don’t think about it too much or then you’ll convince yourself not to do it. If you see someone who could use someone, be that person to them. In the act of comfort, we can be Jesus to others in a very real way.

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Giving and Receiving

 Why do you act like that? Why call yourself a Christian? These are challenging questions that we can be asked and I think there is value in having an easy way to explain to others a little bit about why we are Christian and why we act in the way that we do. It helps us to justify it when asked, but more importantly it can help us to act as more faithful disciples of Jesus. We can use models or pictures to help us act in a way that mirrors God’s will. Like a folded map which can be easily pulled out and put away at a moments notice.  We’ve already talked about two models like this. We talked about the two cliffs. Then Paul presented his bubbles model. I’m going to suggest a third one today. The purpose in doing all of this is not to find “The model” for understanding faith, but to give us something that we can keep in our minds all of the time so that when we act, we can check to see if that is in accordance with what we believe. We want a model that will lead us to become better disciples of Jesus life and work.  I’ll use two stories to explain this model. The first comes from Luke 18:15-17. It’s about babies. I’m talking can’t hold your head up, can’t talk, can’t do anything but eat, sleep, poop, and cry babies. In a utilitarian sense, babies are the most useless members of society. They can’t do anything. So what is it that makes their faith superior to Jesus’ disciples? They know how to receive.  Think about it. It’s the only thing babies are good at. They are so good at receiving that when you are breastfeeding, you have to structure your whole life around when your baby is going to receive. Newborns disturb our sleep cycles because they want to be cuddled and have diapers changed and eat. Parents give years of their lives to their children and the children absorb everything we can give them.  Do you think children ever pay that time back as they grow older? Are you keeping a log of every action you’ve done for your child so that when they become an adult, they can start to pay you back. Do you expect that they will feed you and change your diaper? Do you expect them to wake up in the middle of the night and cuddle you when you feel lonely? Maybe in a small sense, but certainly not in the same way that you did for them when they were your child. There is an understanding that kinds cannot pay back what they owe to their parents. There is no record of service to be repaid. For this reason, the parent child relationship is not based on payback.  This is one area where our culture today is the same as in Jesus time. In Jesus time babies were functionally useless in society. They could not pay back what they were taking when they were a kid. They were and still are helpless. But here is what babies do. They recognize their own helplessness, and then they cling to the faithfulness of their parents. They recognize their own helplessness, and cling to the faithfulness of their parents.  It’s not normal for us to label helplessness as a virtue. We spend our entire lives trying to become independent from our parents and from those people around us. Dependence is a derogatory term. When given a gift, our first thought is that we need to pay the person back. We are so bad at receiving, it is laughable.  A great example of this is when you watch people try to pay for each other at a restaurant or coffee shop. I used to have to deal with this at Starbucks. Two friends would try to pay for each other and they would try and shove their credit cards closer and closer to my face in hopes that they would not have to owe their friend something. To receive a gift is to be obligated to pay it back and we carry this sense with us wherever we go.  Jesus says that’s not how it works in the kingdom of heaven. There is no paying it back. If you want to inherit the kingdom, you need to exercise faith in the same way that a child exercises need. You need to recognize that all that you have is a gift from God, and that is the way God wants it to be. The life that you have comes not because you chose to be born or exercise some force of will. You didn’t arrange your parents meeting. You didn’t pick the hospital you would be born in. You didn’t guide your ancestor’s decision to immigrate to Canada. You didn’t dictate what the Canadian economy would be doing when you came to the place of needing work. We can try and argue that we are independent and self-made but it’s not true. God grants us all that we have. If we follow it back far enough, everything we have starts with him.  Then another gift. You see, sin has put us on a path to destruction. We cannot work it off or put it off by changing the way that we live. There is no amount of “good stuff” we can to do make things right. God knew this.  He wants to take care of us though. He wants us to remain with him. So he sent Jesus to take out punishment and set us free. He grants us the gift of eternal life which we have absolutely no right to. But he gives it freely. We do have to do anything to get it. In his faithfulness, he gives us a sure status with him. Our relationship with God will always be secure because it is based in God’s generosity and his faithfulness. Remember how Paul talked about God’s covenant with Abraham and how it is a one-sided covenant where God does everything? This is the same thing. God’s gift of Jesus for us is a free gift that we do nothing to create. Because of God’s faithfulness we have total security in what we face in this life and in death. That is some good news, some gospel.  Tempting as it may be to try and pay off this gift or say we don’t need it, there is no repayment for this gift we cannot live without. Jesus wants us to accept it in the same way that a baby accepts nourishment from its parents. A baby recognizes their own helplessness and clings to the faithfulness of their parents. We recognize our own helplessness and cling to the faithfulness of God.  Ok, the second story. This one comes from Luke 19:11-27. It comes up in several forms in the gospels so it may sound a bit different than what you remember.  If we understand that everything we possess, our money, time, status, possessions, relationships, family, our own lives, come as a free gift from God, how should we respond? What do we do if we cannot pay back what we have been given? We are always running up more debt. How should we make use of what we have? There are two responses.  The first is to receive with gratitude, and that will make us act like the first two servants. When someone gives you a gift, particularly a gift that you want or need, you want to honour that person’s gift. You honour a gift by making use of it. If someone gives you a painting, you don’t stick it in the garage (especially when they come to visit). If someone gives you money you don’t stick it in an account that will never be used.  We understand that gifts are honoured when they are used by us. When we receive God’s blessings as gifts, we should honour them. We should make use of them. The two servants in the story look at the Minas that they have and they say “I can do something with this!” They aren’t afraid of losing it because it was a gift. They didn’t know it was coming in the first place and the best thing they can do is make use of their gifts while they have them. We honour the gifts that God gives us by using them to bear fruit. We can make something more with what we have been given.  But if we don’t receive it with gratitude and think of God like some kind of divine repo-man then we become like the third servant who says

“I didn’t ask for this and I don’t want any trouble so I’m just going to bury this in the ground so that it doesn’t go anywhere and I’ll give it back when the king comes for it. I don’t want to risk actually doing anything with it because then it might disappear.”  So there are two parts to this life. There is receiving and then there is giving. They really are one in the same though. If we don’t know how to receive God’s gifts like a child, then we will never find it in our hearts to give. If we don’t receive anything then what do we even have to give?  Here, at Westport Free Methodist Church, we receive in our worship times through teaching and prayer and fellowship. We receive and we learn about what we have already received. If we want to be Jesus’ disciples then we must have a child-like acceptance of God’s free gift of life and of all the other things that God gives.  But once we receive, the only response that honours God’s gifts is to give or share or make use of those gives. Once we understand that there is no paying this back, the only thing we can do with what we have is to use it to give to those around us. To share Jesus, to share our resources, all of the things which we are thankful to God for, to share those things.  This is a model for the Christian life. Receiving and giving. You receive from God and honour that by giving. You can’t do one without the other. If you don’t receive God’s gifts, you don’t have anything to offer anyone including yourself. If you don’t give then you don’t truly understand what it is that you have been given.  Let me give you one more way to remember this. I’m going to take this money and I’m going to give it to...... here. How do you feel now? You want to give it back right? I would. But you can’t. I wanted to give it to you and now you are stuck with it. You have to keep it. So what are you going to do with it? You’re going to spend it as if I am following you around and watching you spend it. As you open your wallet and reach for it, you will hesitate for a moment because you remember that this money was a gift. You want to honour the gift.  Think of the Christian life in a similar way. God comes to you with gifts that he doesn’t want back. He takes joy in giving them to you so you are stuck with them. As you go about your business in life remember that you are always receiving and giving. Recognize your own helplessness and cling to God’s faithfulness. Receive God’s gifts and thank him for them. Then think how you can make use of what he gives you. Every moment of every day. Receiving, and giving, and receiving, and giving. Let’s pray.

[klasis]

The Anointed One

  So we’ve been talking about hope. Well, sort of. We’ve been talking about things that happen around hope. Two weeks ago we talked about lament and remembrance which help to take away things that get in the way of hope. Last week we talked about preparing the way which is something that we do while we are hoping. This week, I just want to read the passages to you and give you an idea of what it is we are hoping for.  I’m going to be reading from Isaiah 61 today. Isaiah 61 is sort of a monologue about a character in Isaiah called “the anointed one”. The anointed one is a messianic figure meaning he is someone who will come to bring the world into a state which is different from the one it is in now. He presents an alternative world and invites us into that. Hear these words.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

 I want to show you a picture. This is Kwame Ajamu. He is 56 years old and he is from Ohio. When he was 17, he was arrested and convicted for the murder of a money order salesman. The conviction came because of the testimony of a thirteen year old boy.  He spent twenty seven years in prison insisting upon his innocence before being released on parole in 2003. You’ll notice something in this photo. He is crying. Why is he crying? What is happening? He is crying because he has just been exonerated. You see, the testimony of the then thirteen year old boy ( who is now fifty two) was thrown out after the witness admitted that he had fabricated his story about Ajamu and supported it after detectives told him it was too late to change his story. Kwame Ajamu has been released from the darkness. He has been proclaimed to be innocent. But how many others are like him. How many other innocent people lie in prison accused of crimes they did not commit? How many others lie in prisons that are not physical but are spiritual, emotional, or financial, trapped by their own actions or their circumstances. What we have now is a world filled with people who are poor, broken hearted, captive, and prisoner. People who were once like Kwame Ajamu [pause]. But there is an alternative world that is possible and is coming. This man has experienced a piece of that. And the “anointed one” is coming to bring more; good news, binding up, freedom, and release from darkness. Let’s read some more.

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair

 This is a photo from a refugee camp that is filled with people displaced by the civil war in Syria. The caption I found said this was the line for food. Can you imagine? This is happening in the world right now as we sit here! These people have been displaced from their homes and now there are something like three million of them with nowhere to go, stuck in camps like this one until something else happens.  These people know ashes, and mourning, and a spirit of despair. And they are not the only ones. You and I may not be in a refugee camp but we experience some of these same feelings in different situations. The intensity of those feelings can still happen in situations that seem less severe. We could all use another world.  The anointed one is coming to bring a new world. He promises that this world has comfort, provisions, a crown of beauty, oil of joy, and a garment of praise. How much do you think a barrel of the oil of joy costs? What do you think a garment of praise looks like? I can’t tell you, but it all sound better than this food line. Let’s continue.

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; They will renew the ruined cities That have been devastated for Generations.

 Where do you think this picture is from? It’s from Detroit. I have another that is similar. There’s another one here that looks a little prettier. This is what large swaths of the city look like. After experiencing a boom in the post-war years due to manufacturing jobs, Detroit contracted dramatically beginning in the eighties. People left to look for work elsewhere. The city shrank from two million to around eight hundred thousand in a short span of time. With so many people leaving, large tracts of land are just completely abandoned. Blocks like these ones are not uncommon. There may be one occupied home on a stretch of street with twenty buildings.  They received some good news this week. Detroit filed for bankruptcy a little over a year and a half ago and ended that process this week. They are slowly rebuilding and redeveloping, but that doesn’t make things any less difficult. They are not the only place where there are ruins and a need for rebuilding. Every city or township has its corner that needs help. The “Rideau Heights” area of Kingston is one that is not so far away from us. Our world leaves people and places behind when they no longer serve a profitable function. What this has given us is ruin, and devastation. Another world is possible though. The anointed one comes to rebuild, restore, and renew.  He comes to plant his people, and they will be called “oaks of righteousness” not by themselves but by those all around them. When I think of an oak tree, I think of something which stands firm through anything. Not something that is subject to the whims of the world. That’s quite a statement. Let’s read on.

“For I, the LORD, love justice;     I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people     and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be known among the nations     and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge     that they are a people the LORD has blessed.”

 The Lord loves justice and hates robbery and wrongdoing. Why would Isaiah mention something that seems so obvious? Like earlier in the passage, he is drawing attention to what they, what we, have now and what God is working to bring about. In the future, God’s people will be known out of everyone for being blessed and rewarded. But right now what do we have?  Right now we have a mess. The world we see in front of us seems to cater to those who lie, cheat, and steal. How many pastors or missionaries, or charity workers or Nobel Peace Prize winners do you see on the Forbes 500 every year? The world around us does not reward God’s people as its rule. Nobody looks at the church and says “wow, their God sure gives them a lot of money”. And yet the anointed one is coming to change this. The anointed one comes to establish justice and reward his people in his faithfulness. This anointed one truly comes with a different plan for the world then what we see now. It is a radically alternative world. So when is the anointed one coming? For that we turn to the gospel of Luke.

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

 Have you ever read the comments on a youtube video? I can talk about all of this other stuff but I think that’s probably most obvious example of the mess that humanity is in. Give us a platform to comment on other people’s work in a somewhat anonymous format and people will tear each other apart with such hatred and vitriol that it’s downright shocking.  Right now righteousness and praise do not spring up before all the nations.  But the anointed one comes to present a world much more beautiful than the one that we have now. It is clear that what we have now is not very good. It appears to be getting better (I think? Even that is up for debate) but it’s not anywhere near what the anointed one is meant to bring. If this alternative world sounds good to you, then you are probably waiting for the anointed one now. I have news for you. It comes from the gospel of Luke.

He (that is Jesus) went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

 Things look pretty ugly. There is still a great deal to be angry at or to despair over. Whatever notions of progress that we understand don’t hold up very well when we expose them to the things we’ve talked about this morning. We are in just as much need of a new world today as we were when Isaiah started telling of the anointed one twenty six hundred years ago.  Here Jesus says he has the answer that we are looking for. He says that he is the one who comes to bring about this alternative world with all of these good things. He says that he is the one to reshape his people so that they will be called “oaks of righteousness”. He is the one to bring blessing and restoration.  We are on a journey of discipleship. We started [however many] days ago and we’re still on that journey. Today’s passage has reminded us of our need for someone to follow. The difficulties and problems we face in the world and in our own communities need someone who can bring us through them. The passage has also shown us that we’re following that person.    Have you forgotten why you agreed to this whole discipleship thing? In the business of life or amid the anxiety that creeps in from the outside world, did you forget what your reason for following after Jesus was? Let this morning be a moment for you to pause, reengage with Jesus, and remember what he has promised.  Jesus reaches out to us to connect us back to God. He saves us from our sins. He saves us from ourselves. That is not the only thing he does though. He is the anointed one who saves the world, bringing about an alternative world that replaces the one that we have now. As his disciples, we have the opportunity to partner with him in bringing about that world. He promises to bless those who are called with people. He promises to make us “oaks of righteousness”. When we look at ourselves and at our world, I think we can’t help but see that Jesus is good news no matter where we are.

[klasis]

Isaiah 40:1-11 Making Preparations

    So this week, I’d love for you to say hello to those in the pew around you. Just in case you’re not sure what to say (which is a problem I often have) ask them to tell you a story about a time when they were not prepared for something. Maybe not prepared for company coming over or not prepared for a meeting or not prepared for a school assignment. The less prepared you were, the better the story is right?     The closest I’ve ever come to enjoying being unprepared is when I’ve worked in kitchens and during my eight month stint at Starbucks. If you’ve ever worked in fast food or in a restaurant, or maybe even the Vanilla Bean, you’ll probably understand this. A crush of people suddenly appear and you become extremely focused and very efficient. You devote every ounce of energy to dealing with the unexpected surge of people. But when it’s over you take a deep sigh, begin to clean up, and feel your body start to drag as it recovers from the sudden burst of energy. It’s never easy to be unprepared.     Last week we talked a little bit about waiting and having hope in God’s ability to change the future. I said how lament helps us to deal with our feelings and our past experiences, and remembering God’s faithfulness helps us to have hope. If you’ve done that, what do you do with this hope? What comes after lament? In the time before hope is fulfilled, what should we be doing?     Our scripture this morning comes from Isaiah 40:1-11. I think this passage shows us a pattern of what to do when we are waiting for hope to be fulfilled. I’d like to show you how by telling three stories.     Our first story begins in Babylon. If you were with us last week, you’ll remember that when we last left Israel they were being led away from Jerusalem into captivity. They headed off into exile in Babylon and they lived there for quite some time. You can read stories of how God remained faithful to his people in exile in the book of Daniel. Yet the shock of the exile still lingered. Would God really be faithful? Would he come and dwell with his people again? Did they have a reason to hope?     They received this prophecy that we heard this morning. “Comfort oh Comfort my people”. The prophecy came with a promise. It also said to prepare. Prepare the way, for the Lord is returning soon. It announced that a King would travel through the desert to arrive at his people in Jerusalem and rule over them once more. Their suffering would be over. The future would be different from the exile. They had a reason to hope     With the knowledge that God was returning. The prophecy came with a plan of action. Make a highway in the desert for the Lord. Get yourselves ready. Yahweh is coming back. So they made preparations. They got permission to go back to Israel. They cleaned up the pile of rubble that Jerusalem had become and restored the temple, all the while singing God’s praises. [If you read Ezra 3, the priests and the Levites in Israel were standing around the builders laying around the foundations with cymbals and trumpets ready to praise God as the stones were set into place.]     And when all of the hard work of restoring the temple was done, the people were glad. When they celebrated the first Passover celebration after the completion of the Temple, Ezra records that “the Lord had made them joyful”. They spoke of God’s faithfulness in returning them home and helping them to rebuild his temple and returning to live among them. There is a pattern in this story that got them from hope to hope fulfilled. There was an announcement that God was coming, the people made preparations for his arrival, and they spoke of his faithfulness when he came.     Our second story begins sometime later, in a time when Israel was occupied by the Romans, when a man appeared in the desert. His name was John, and he looked about as strange as the things he ate (which were locusts and wild honey). He also said strange things. People went out into the desert to see what he was doing there. When they got there, John would announce “one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to get down on my knees and remove his sandals, all the while getting dirt all over my hands.”     The people asked him what they should do to get ready. John said “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”. In other words “turn your lives around”. Picture John, draped in camel leather, speaking to the crowds as they gathered on the shore of the river. He’s yelling so he can be heard over the sound of the current. Amid the silence of the crowd, someone asks “What should we do?” John says “stop hoarding your money and share it around. If you’re defrauding people, stop that. Get your life straight. Someone great is coming and I’m here to set the road straight for him.” John fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy once again by preparing the way.     And one day that someone came. Jesus showed up at the river ready to be baptized by John. After some convincing, John baptizes him and God spoke saying “this is my son with whom I am well pleased. After this Jesus left and went to prepare for his ministry, travelling to Jerusalem on a road laid in the wilderness by John. Though it takes some time, Jesus’ followers go out and proclaim God’s faithfulness everywhere that they go for finally sending the Messiah. We see the same pattern that comes out of Isaiah 40. There was an announcement that Jesus was coming, John made preparations for him, and people proclaimed God’s faithfulness when he arrived.     And now the third story. After his ministry, death, and resurrection, Jesus takes his disciples outside Jerusalem. As they follow, they ask him “Jesus are you going to restore the Kingdom now?” Jesus replies that it is not for them to know the time. As he is saying this, they watch him ascend into the sky. While they are standing there, some angels appear and ask them “Why are you starting at the sky? Jesus is not coming back down right now. He is coming later.” The disciples walk away, a little unsure of what to do.     But once they return to Jerusalem they begin making preparations for Jesus return, with the help of the Holy Spirit. They start churches, preach the gospel, make disciples, and serve as Jesus’ witnesses throughout the world. Ever since the day Jesus ascended to heaven, Christians have continued in this tradition, making preparations for Jesus return.     Someday Jesus will return. He promised it. I cannot tell you when he is coming, but I can tell you that today we are one day closer to his return. We wait for the moment when we can proclaim God’s faithfulness before all nations when Jesus returns. We are following Isaiah’s prophecy once again. There is a promise, we are making preparations, and we will proclaim God’s faithfulness when Jesus returns. So those are my stories which means it’s time to talk about what all of this means. Today I have a homework assignment for us to all work on together. Imagine that Jesus were to come back tomorrow and you were to begin living with in the Kingdom of Heaven with the Father at its head and Jesus at his right hand. What is one thing that you are do right now that you wouldn’t do then? You’re not going to fix everything in one week but we can start with one thing. Like Israel made preparations by rebuilding the temple and John prepared by preaching repentance, we too have preparations to make.     It’s like you’re preparing to have company. When you’re getting ready to have someone over for dinner, you typically tackle the most obvious mess first because it sticks out to you. You want to make sure that if they show up early, at least the pile of cat vomit on the floor is cleaned up. We have a cat and he tends to do that. Once that’s done you notice other things in the house. You need to clean the pile of dishes. You need to tidy the sitting room because there are things out of place. Once things are in their proper place and the floor is clean you realize you need to vacuum or mop. Once that’s done you might notice the dust. When there was cat vomit on the floor, the dust wasn’t so noticeable but as you have more time and you deal with more things you discover messes that you can continue to work on.     The reality is that company is coming. Jesus is coming back. This is our greatest hope. Thank goodness that Jesus has taken away our guilt before God because otherwise it would be our greatest fear. Safe in the knowledge that Jesus is coming to embrace us, what is something that we can begin doing right now to prepare for his return. Is there some habitual sin in your life that you have stopped trying to deal with? Is there a habit you have that seems innocent but doesn’t seem appropriate when you think about doing it in God’s kingdom? Are there relationships that you need to start repairing? Isaiah’s prophesy said “make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. John came to fulfil that prophesy by saying “repent for the kingdom of Heaven is near”. Where do you need to follow the spirit of Isaiah’s prophesy and John’s words? Where does your life need turning around? I can tell you that one of the first things I would be looking at is how to stop wasting so much of my time. I am sure, just by talking about this, that there’s probably something being brought to your mind. Take a look at that this week. Maybe talk to a trusted friend or family member about it or someone you consider a mentor. Maybe you need to just write it down or ponder how to tackle it. Maybe you need to look into counselling or other resources to help you deal with it. Think of it as rebuilding the temple in your life. Israel got out of Babylon. Jesus came after John, baptizing with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is coming back. In the season of advent when we remember the hope of Jesus’ birth, we can hope in a future where we look different than we do now. While we are hoping and waiting, we should be preparing ourselves. This is a great season to start putting one brick on top of the other.

[klasis]

    Before we start, I have a question for you to discuss. So find someone, preferably someone you don’t know as well, and ask them this question. “Where were you when you heard the news of the September 11th attacks?” A sobering topic, I know, but it relates to what I’m going to talk about this morning.     Did you find it easy to remember what you were doing? Why do so many of us seem to remember this event with such clarity? [pause] September 11th fundamentally changed the way we saw the world in more ways than we probably realize. Here’s a small example. I was watching the movie “Love Actually” a couple of years ago. It’s kind of a Christmas tradition. Near the end of the movie, there is a scene where this boy is trying to profess his love for a girl but she’s about to get on an airplane. It looks like they’re going to catch up, but then she goes through security and the guard says “you can’t go through without a ticket”. Another passenger creates a distraction while the boy takes off past security to the girl. He eventually reaches her and says what he wanted to say. My first reaction every time I see this scene now is “there is no way he would make it that far.” After 9/11, airports became fundamentally different like so many other things.     In the history of Israel, there is an event similar to September eleventh. Walter Bruggemann, Old Testament scholar and possessor of a fantastic speaking voice, says that the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians is the 9/11 of the Old Testament. In the same way that 9/11 changed the way we understand our place in the world, the destruction of Jerusalem changed the way that Israel understood their place in the world. On September 10th, you couldn’t have imagined that the next day the World Trade Centre wouldn’t be there anymore and the Pentagon would have a big hole in it. It was just unfathomable. Elsewhere things might be dangerous but here at home things were always going to be ok. I think Israel may have said similar things in the year before the temple was destroyed. Sure, on the borders of their territory things were dangerous. They had skirmishes with other tribes in their area and the Assyrians had conquered the other ten tribes in the northern kingdom, but the temple was in Jerusalem and there was no way that God was going to let Solomon’s glorious temple, Yahweh’s dwelling place, be destroyed. You can imagine that the feelings of confusion many of us experienced on 9/11 were something Israel experienced as they were led away from the smoking ruins of a once glorious city and temple.      How are you supposed to process something like this? As the remnants of Israel left Jerusalem for the last time and looked back on it, how do you think they dealt with that experience? In the book of Isaiah, there is a passage that might tell us. It’s on page 609 in the pew bible, but I’d encourage you to close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to say this as you are led away from Jerusalem to Babylon at the hands of your conquerors. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. In times of deep loss or grief, it can be easier to avoid thinking about the things we have lost. If we don’t think about what’s happened to us or the world around us, we don’t have to relive the pain or frustration or anger or sadness or confusion that comes with that loss. Not knowing is sometimes easier than knowing. Ignorance is bliss. The world encourages this in us too. It heaps on pleasures and distractions and says “Don’t think about your life and how scary it is because then you might be driven to despair. Instead buy these things and watch this and try this. We’ll keep you so busy that you won’t have time to feel whatever is inside you.” By distracting ourselves or forgetting what it is we’ve lost, we never look to the future. Our attention span becomes limited to what is right in front of us and we have no sense of hope. Loss has a way of coming out of us when we don’t deal with it. I was sitting in on a senior’s luncheon a couple of weeks ago and one of the ladies there was talking about what it was like after the war. She told a story of walking down the street and watching a former soldier standing in front of a store window and screaming at the television. For a moment she was shocked and confused. Her father, who was walking with her at the time, took her aside and explained to her that he was “shell-shocked”. He was reliving his memories from the war and did not know how to handle them. This man, and many others, experienced loss. Loss of a personal peace, loss of friends, and a loss of innocence. When they came home, they found it clawing its way out of them whether they wanted it to or not. When confronted by tragedy or loss, one of the worst things we can do is try to bury it. This passage does the exact opposite. From the very beginning the prophet pours out all of the emotions of frustration and anger at God’s inaction in the situation. It is an emptying of feelings of loss. Loss of loved ones, a sense of security, safety, or innocence. Loss of a job. Loss of community. There are all kinds of loss in the world around us that need to be recognized. The church is a perfect place for this. We have a God who walks with us in our loss and is more than capable of taking our words, and emotions. Go ahead, tell God how you feel. You’re not going to hurt his feelings or leaving him feeling insecure. Take the time to communicate those feelings to him. Sit down and pray it out to him or write it on a page. Make sure it comes out before it works its way out of you in bitterness.     There is a pattern to this lamenting though. It is not just lashing out at God. We want to remember the loss and process it. But when we focus only on the loss, we can ignore all of the other things God has done for us. In this passage, in a time of great loss and distress the prophet remembers what God did when he brought them out of Egypt and gave them the law. He came down from heaven and created such a disturbance that the people of Israel were too terrified to listen to him. “Those were the days” they said. “God if only you would come back and make those mountains quake again, then things would be good.”     In Lamentations 3, another lament of the destruction of Jerusalem, the author is emptying their loss.  “He has made my flesh and my skin waste away” “My soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is”. But then in verse 16 “This I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.”     When we process loss, we should remember that we’re lamenting to God for a good reason. There were once good days. There was a time when God felt close enough that we made a commitment to reach out and accept him. You are here in this building for a reason. Remember that reason. If you’re having trouble remembering the times of God’s faithfulness, try making a timeline. Start before you were born and end at the present moment. Then go back and mark all the points where you can see God acting in your life, whether you were aware of it or not. If something happened in your family history before you were even born, you can add that before your line begins. Whatever your timeline or memory looks like, Israel grounds its lament in God’s past faithfulness and we ought to do the same. God acts in powerful ways in our lives even if we don’t always remember it and remembering gives us hope for the future.     At the end of all of this, that is where we arrive; hope. Being open to a future which is different from the present. Once the frustration of seeing God be silent is out, Isaiah writes in this unexpected twist. When I am frustrated about something, I often talk with close friends about it. I tell them the story of why I am frustrated and then we sit there and linger in that feeling of frustration. Often I leave those conversations feeling just as upset as when I entered. At the end of this lament though there is a turn toward God. It goes like this. “God I am so angry at you. You have left me in this state of lawlessness and sin and won’t even look at me [pause] Yet I will submit myself to you. I am clay in your hands. I imagine a future where things are different.”     If lament only bring us to express our loss, then we can be consumed by the things we express in lament. Lament ceases to be constructive and turns to destruction. Think about it this way. Do you know about Ferguson? [tell a brief story of Ferguson]. Right now there is a part of that town that is lamenting. But without someone or something to turn to at the end of their lament, it just turned into destruction. They were angry and they took their anger out on anything around them. Riots, looting. They should lament, but they have nothing to turn on at the end so it just descends into destruction. Lament in the Bible, with one exception, never ends without a turning towards God in renewed faith. We see it here when Isaiah says “We are the clay, you are the potter.” “Oh Look on us we pray for we are your people”. Or Psalm 13 which begins with “How long oh Lord? Will you forget me forever?” but ends with “But I trusted in your steadfast love”. It’s almost as if the biblical authors ran out of steam at the end of their laments and were finally able to calm down long enough to look God in the eye and say “Ok God, I’ve let it all out and I know it’s in your hands now”.     In a time of incredible, unimaginable loss Isaiah penned this lament over the state of things. As we go through times of loss we can follow his example and pattern our lament after his. We can let out those feelings of loss that come up everywhere in life, we can remember the faithfulness of God, and we can turn towards him once we have expressed our loss. And out of lament can come great hope. In the same book, we have the beginnings of the Messianic hope which we see fulfilled in our saviour Jesus Christ. Good things come out even in the midst of lament. Isaiah hopes not just because he is following a pattern but because lament allows us to see past the fog of what is right in front of us to a world of possibilities that God offers us. When we release our feelings of loss, we open ourselves up to God’s possibilities for the future. As we are going to see over the next two weeks, hope comes out of this experience of loss. Into death God breathes new life. But in order to see that new life we have to process what is old and gone. When we’ve done that, God has hope for the future.     So for this week you have a homework assignment in two parts. The first is to find an area of your life where you are in need of a lament. It can be small or big. But take some time, sit down with a pen and paper and write it out. Or if you’re not a writer, take a few minutes (or hours if you need them) and lament it. Or think about it as you’re driving into work on Monday. Whatever you do, don’t put it off. If there’s loss in your life and it’s jumping out at you as I’ve preached this morning, then you need to get it out soon. Own those difficult experiences and feelings and events. Bring them before God. Then secondly, while you are doing that, take some time to remember where God has been faithful in your life. Maybe you can only think of one example right now, but that’s ok. Take the time to sit down and think about why you’re complaining to God in the first place. What are the places where he’s touched your life? Write them down. Hang them up somewhere so you can remember. If you’re feeling crafty you can carve up some stone tablets. Just remember how God brought you to where you are today. That way when you lament, you always have a place to fall back to. [Announce presence of box on the prayer table to leave moments in the life of the church or in the life of the congregation where God has been faithful] When you finish a lament, you are open to hope for a new future. You can imagine the possibility that God has plans for the world which look different than the present. In a world that seems especially troubling, I can’t think of a better place to be as we start another year in the life of the church.

[klasis]

"Here I Am, Hinneh"

 When I started preparing for this sermon, I wondered what I might talk about. I know that John spent some time talking about Noah and so I wondered if there was another figure in Genesis that we could talk about. I immediately thought about Abraham and when I thought about Abraham, I thought about the binding of Isaac.  The story happens in Genesis 22. You can open to page _______ of your pew bibles if you would like to follow along.

1Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him,  “Abraham!”  “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said,  “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

 The Bible does a pretty good job of crafting a story that gives all of the important details. God speaks to Abraham with the purpose of testing him and tells him to sacrifice his only Son Isaac. This is a test because Abraham loves Isaac very much since Isaac is his only son from his marriage to Sarah. This is also a test because God has promised Abraham that he will give him many descendants through Isaac. When God tells Abraham that he wants him to sacrifice his son, Abraham could almost read God’s request like this. “Abraham, forget all of the things that I said about Isaac. Go and sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering for me.” A test to be sure. If Abraham sacrifices Isaac, how will God’s promises come true?  (Pause)  I’d like to make a note here about child sacrifices. If you are reading this story later in your journey through the Bible, you are probably wondering why Abraham does not question God about this sacrifice. I know if I was in Abraham’s position I would be getting my hearing checked just to make sure that I had heard correctly. “Are you sure God?” I would say. But remember where we are in the Bible. Abraham’s story started when he left his father’s household and all of the safety that implied and followed God’s directions to live in Canaan. He did not have a printed and bound copy of the Bible with him when he left. He had a calling and God’s words to him. Can you imagine? You hear a word from God and you leave all the safety and security of your hometown and your family and your job to follow the instructions of a God who has only told you one thing? And yet Abraham is the first person to hear from a God who speaks. That must have been a revelation. A God who is not silent but speaks and goes along with him.  (pause)  I was going to say something about child sacrifices. Abraham followed God to Canaan. One of the common practices in Canaanite worship was child sacrifice. Many of the gods in the land where Abraham was living would have “demanded” those kinds of things. It would not have been an outlandish concept. That was just something that gods did. Given that Abraham doesn’t know anything about God except what God has said about himself and most of that has been a promise about Abraham’s future. When God tells Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac, it is likely that Abraham knew this was a common thing. “gods demand child sacrifices. This is a normal thing.” I hope that explains a little bit behind why he seems to go so readily. Obviously this would have been a test for him because of his love for Isaac and because of the promise of Yahweh, but he knows that child sacrifices happen and Yahweh might be the kind of God who asks for them.  Ok, so that is the situation that is happening here but I want to point to something Abraham that is worth looking at more closely. Did you notice that this story happens in three parts? (pause). Those three parts can be broken up around a word that Abraham uses three times. In Hebrew, that word is “Hin-nay” and it can mean “lo” or “behold”. It’s like a highlighter or a word for drawing attention to something. “Here I am!” That’s actually how it gets used in this passage. Someone addresses Abraham, and Abraham says “Hin-nay. Here I am”.  I’ve lived in Toronto for two years, and one of the things I learned there is that you shouldn’t talk to people or make eye contact with them. It’s awkward. You would much rather go unnoticed or remain invisible. Making yourself known to other people is risky business. They might ask you for help or do something that makes you uncomfortable. If you remain invisible though, there is no need for you to help anyone.  When Abraham says “Here I am” he does something very brave. He is making himself known to those around him. He is not hiding from their requests or the hard things they may ask him to do. Instead he allows himself to be vulnerable and to be open to helping others. He becomes extra visible. (pause)  I think we can learn a little bit from Abraham about what happens when we say “Here I am”. He says it three times but each time he says it, he is in a different set of circumstances. The first time he says it in this passage, the call from God comes out of the blue. “Some time later” God speaks out to Abraham. God has been good to Abraham to this point in time. He has asked him to do hard things, but has also made big promises. When Abraham answers God for this first time, he is opening himself up to listen to God. He does not know how things will turn out. He does not know what will be asked of him, and yet he answers God readily and shows himself. “Here I am!”  We can do the same. When God speaks to us, we can choose to hide, or we can choose to show ourselves and be open to what he has to say to us in whatever way he speaks. It may be that God is speaking directly to you, or maybe God has spoken to you through someone else. Sometimes when people reach out to us to ask us for things or express a desire to connect, we might want to hide away for fear that they might ask something hard of us or something difficult. That is not what Abraham does here, and that is not what I think we should do. We should be willing to show our faces before God and before others and be willing to accept what comes instead of hiding.  Let’s move on to the next section.

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham,  “Father?”  “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.  “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

 Think of a time when someone asked you a question and you knew that the answer would be difficult. If you’re a parent, the question might have been “where do babies come from?” If you work for someone, maybe it’s “why isn’t this finished?” If you’ve been talking with someone about your faith, maybe they’ve asked you something like “why is there so much evil in the world?”  What was your first reaction? Did you try to avoid the subject and dodge the question? Did you say it’s because of the storks? Did you say something to fill the space but really didn’t address the issue?  Here Abraham is asked a difficult question by his son who is carrying the wood which will be used to (presumably) sacrifice him. This is a difficult question. This will be a difficult conversation. Abraham has a choice to make. He can answer Isaac and risk messing up his answer, or he can say “Here I am” and speak with Isaac. Once again, Abraham does not hide. He answers his son, hard as that may have been.  When people come to us with difficult things, it is again tempting to hide away because hard questions sometimes reveal our own insecurities or our own lack of understanding. I can’t give an ironclad answer for why bad things happen in the world. I have things that give me hope, but when someone asks me that question it reveals things in me that haven’t been resolved. And yet I have faith that God has an answer to that question, and whoever may be asking it deserves an answer. We should have the strength to answer hard questions just like Abraham.  Ok, we’re almost there.

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven,  “Abraham! Abraham!”  “Here I am,” he replied.  12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said,  “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” 15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said,  “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”

 Sometimes we hide because we are afraid of the risk. We think that by showing our faces to God or to those around us, we will have trouble or difficulty. It will take a lot of work. Other times we hide ourselves from people because we are angry at them or because it is too hard to talk to them. In this moment, I imagine Abraham was struggling to sacrifice his son. If he thought about it too much he was probably afraid he would not be able to go through it. As he goes through the motions of preparing the altar maybe he is thinking how upset he is that God has asked him to sacrifice his own son. He hopes that God will not speak to him in this moment because he could not bear to respond. He is too hurt to reveal himself to God.  Have you ever felt like this? Is there someone in your life that is difficult to talk to because of something they did or asked of you? Do you find it hard to open yourself to them because of that past hurt or that hard thing? Do you struggle to talk to God because you are upset about something he has done or something he has allowed in your life?  (laptop story)  When we become bitter towards God and others, it is tempting to hide ourselves. Opening up to that person again becomes an opportunity to be hurt or to have those thoughts and wounds reopened. We would rather remain closed off forever.  Before I finish this thought I just want to say that if someone is hurting you repeatedly and seemingly without remorse or without evidence of change and growth, then you should be careful about that relationship. I do not think that God encourages us to remain in abusive relationships or abusive friendships.  However, lots of times we hide from people after a single time. One thing happens that could have been a mistake. Maybe someone broke our trust and we haven’t spoken since. Maybe we can point to a moment where God let us down or made us go through something hard. When that person comes back to us, what will we do. Will be open ourselves to be called by God again even though it might be hard? In the midst of our sacrifices, we should be willing to show our faces to others. When someone that we struggle to love calls on us, we should be ready to say “Hinneh”. We should be ready to say “Here I am”. Lw it turned out for Abraham. He answered God’s call and his son was saved. Good may come out of these hard situations, and that should encourage us to respond.  In all three of these situations. In the vulnerability of being called, in times of difficult questions and conversations, and in moments when people who have caused us hurt call on us again, we have a choice. We can choose to hide. We can choose to look down at the sidewalk and ignore the face in front of us who is looking for us and calling for us. We can try to ignore the call of God on our lives, asking us to come to him.  Or we can follow the example of Abraham. In moments when we are called, we can remember that word “Hinneh”. We can show our faces to God or to others. We can remember that God is watching over us. And we can trust that whatever happens, it is better that we are here than hidden. Would you pray with me please.

Father, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it can be hard to show our faces to others. Sometimes we would rather hide. Would you give us the strength to do what Abraham did, and say “Hinneh - Here I am” Give us the courage to respond when we are called. Give us wisdom to answer difficult questions, and gives us strength to face our hurts and open ourselves up. Remind us of you each time we are called. We ask all of this in Jesus’ name. Amen

[klasis]

The Father Almighty

“I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”     Talking about God the Father the Creator might lead you to think about Genesis 1. The creation accounts remain one of the most familiar passages in the Old Testament and my first thought was to go there. But then I got to thinking that there is another part of this line that we sometimes miss, and in order to deal with that we’re going to look at the book of Job.     Have you ever read the book of Job? If you haven’t, consider it. Job is a book that talks about seemingly undeserved suffering. Struggle that is a struggle to make sense of. Have you ever come across that? Have you ever looked at a situation and asked “Why God?”     For those of you who are unfamiliar with Job, let me give you the short version. Job is a man from somewhere around the time of Abraham. He has many children, many servants, and many animals. The first thing the Bible says about Job was that he was faithful. “Blameless, and upright. One who feared God and turned away from evil”. Job was successful and also served and revered God.     One day, Satan comes to visit God. God is boasting about Job’s faithfulness to Satan. He says     “Have you seen my servant Job?”     Satan says “Yes, but you know that he really only serves you because he is wealthy and has a large family. Deep down inside he is just as selfish as everyone else. If you take away his family and his flocks, he will forsake you.” So God says     “Try it. Take those things, and see what happens. But don’t harm Job at all.” So Satan takes away Job’s animals, his servants, and his children in one day. One of his servants approaches and tells him that his animals have all been slaughtered, and while he is still speaking another runs up and tells him his servants have been killed. While that servant is still speaking another servant comes and tells him that all his children are dead. But Job does not curse God nor forsake him. He says “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked will I return. The Lord gave and the Lord took away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”     Satan returns to God and says “he hasn’t forsaken you now but if you take his health he will.” So God gave permission for Satan to make Job sick but not to kill him. Job gets very ill, and his wife tells him to abandon God. Job refuses.     Then three of Job’s friends come to visit him. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Most of Job is about their discussion together. Job’s three friends are convinced that Job has done something wrong and this is why he is suffering. One says “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.”      But Job is convinced that he has done nothing wrong. Because of this, he cannot understand why God has made him to suffer and he asks that God might let him die. “O that I might have my request, and that God would grant my desire; that it would please God to crush me. That he would let loose his hand and cut me off!” Job is angry at God. Angry that he suffers but does not die and angry that he seems to suffer for no reason.     The first time I got into Job was when I was in high school and I loved a girl who did not love me back. It was torture. I felt I was suffering. I turned to Job because I was frustrated. Why do you leave me with this pain? Why can’t you take away these feelings? I empathized with Job’s words.  God needed to answer for the situation I was in. Have you ever done that? Have you ever looked at suffering and asked why such things happen in a world created by God? God should answer for these kinds of things.     Imagine my surprise then, when we get to chapter 38. Follow along with me, beginning in verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. From the wicked their flight is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! God goes on and then ends his first statement in 39 verse 2. “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond.” Then Job answered the LORD: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.” Does this kind of response frustrate you? It frustrated me when I first read it. I expected God to roll out a list of reasons for his testing of Job and a reward for enduring this suffering. Why didn’t God answer for the suffering he allowed Job to experience? God has treated Job unfairly. Job has the upper hand in this argument and has God in a chokehold. There is no way God should be able to get out of this without some kind of compensation or explanation for Job.     A chokehold on God. Does that sound funny to you? Imagine having God in a chokehold. The creator of the universe, who set the heavens and the earth in order but is now on a wrestling mat in a singlet tapping out and begging for mercy. This is where I thought Job had God.     But the father doesn’t have to wrestle with us as equals. Sometimes he chooses to, like when he came and revealed himself to us in Jesus. But ultimately God is so infinitely beyond us that it is laughable. If this was a contest of strength, we might as well be ants fighting against the sun. We cannot even imagine winning out over God in a show of strength.     In the movie Dogma, a parody of the Catholic Church decides that the crucifix has become too depressing and sombre and needs to be replaced by a new image of Jesus. Their solution? “Buddy Christ” an image of Jesus dressed in robes, with a large heart drawn on his chest and posed a bit like this [show pose]. It’s tempting to do this to the Father. To redraw him with our own pictures and our own visions. To shrink him down to a size that we can handle and can fight with. To make him safe and comfortable and to make him play by our rules.     This is not the picture of the Father that we see in Job. This is a God that created everything out of nothing. We have a latin term for this. Creation ex nihilo. First there was nothing, and then there was something. This is a task for someone almighty. The Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Not the kind of person that you wrestle with and hope to defeat. Not the kind of person that needs to give articulate justifications of his position. He is so far beyond that, that we ought to be amazed each time he speaks and interacts with us.     So what do we do with all of this incomprehensible might of the Father? It seems a bit overwhelming. Here’s a thought. Maybe you’re in a place where a part of your life has gotten out of control or seems beyond your strengths. You are not sure how to keep all the pieces together. You don’t know how you’re going to make it. I know I have places like that. I look at them and shake my head and think “how am I going to do that. It’s impossible.” Or I find myself echoing Job’s thoughts and saying “God, this pain is unbearable.”     In times like this, we can look at this line in the creed and remember that we serve the almighty father, creator of heaven and earth, and we can bring our problems to him. He has the strength to keep things together. He has far more power than we can even comprehend. He can make things happen. No matter how great a trial or trouble we face, he has the power to bring us through it. And even though he has all of this power, he still finds time to listen to us if we come to him in prayer.     And it all starts with acknowledging this first line of the creed. Say it with me “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” May the God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place meet with you this week and bring you comfort in strength. Amen.

[klasis]

Get Behind Me Satan: A Sermon from Mark 8:27-38

In the middle of the book of Mark, Jesus sets out on a journey. As he heads out, he asks his disciples who the crowds say he is. It’s a reasonable question since Jesus has generated quite a stir in Israel. Mark has recorded that he had fed crowds of thousands, performed many miraculous healings, and cast out demons. The disciples answer his question. 

“Elijah, or John the Baptist, or one of the prophets back from the dead” they tell him. The people on the disciples list are influential in the minds of the people having great authority and influence. Think Martin Luther King but with an extra element of divine empowerment. People think Jesus is important, but certainly not without precedent. Without commenting on these answers, Jesus asks the disciples what they say. Peter answers on behalf of the group.

“You are the Christ”.

The title Peter gives is a loaded one. Christ, or its Hebrew equivalent Messiah, was a title with some expectations. It means anointed one and there was a popular perception that the Messiah would be a political and military leader ready to dispel the Roman occupation and unite the nation of Israel under one king. 

Jesus sternly tells them not to tell anyone this fact about him. The disciples have the correct title for Jesus, but that is not enough to understand him completely. He then begins to tell them that he must suffer and die and rise again after three days. He told them this “plainly”. I like to think he was trying to make sure the disciples weren’t going to try and explain his prediction away. This is the first time he tells them about his purpose on earth.

This is too much for the disciples to handle. They think Jesus is being ridiculous. He could not possibly suffer and die. He just confirmed to them that he was the Messiah. If he is the Messiah, he has an army to conquer and a country to run. There is glory to be restored. There’s no place for suffering and certainly not death in that.

I would imagine that the disciples are also looking forward to the days of glory that they think Jesus will bring about. Things have been awfully difficult under the Romans with the soldiers and the taxes and the bureaucrats and Herod. They are not free to do things how they wish to do them. It will be much nicer when Jesus restores Israel and they get to join him. Of course they will have a special place since they were part of his inner circle.

Peter takes the initiative to correct Jesus. Peter is sure that Jesus has just misunderstood what he said earlier. He said Christ but maybe Jesus got confused. Maybe he doesn’t know what that means. He takes him off to the side of the road and mentions quietly how he really ought not to say such things. You aren’t supposed to die. Jesus does not match his hushed tone.

“Get behind me Satan”

Which I imagine is not what Peter was expecting to hear. 

The intensity in Jesus reaction makes sense in light of his final destination. The ever present temptation for Jesus is that he might not do what he was sent to the earth to do. As he prays in the garden of Gethsemane before he is betrayed, Jesus asks the Father if there is another way. He is distraught over what is about to happen. Here was Peter suggesting that Jesus might not have to die. Might not have to go through with it. Jesus responds with rebuke because he understands how vital his death is.

After rebuking Peter, Jesus turns and tells his disciples (and a crowd which has suddenly appeared) that if they wish to follow him, they must deny themselves and follow him. The disciples are even more confused. This does not sound like they are going to be in charge. This sounds like they are supposed to be servants.

I hope you catch their confusion. Though we imagine that we might have understood what he was saying if we had been there, the truth is that we probably would have been just as confused. What Jesus did is so backwards, so against expectations, so confusing, that we might have been tempted like Peter to tell Jesus that he had gotten it wrong. And we would have motives for doing so too. After all, if the leader succeeds by dying then what can we expect as followers? Jesus has spelled it out for us. Death.

Where do we see ourselves today in the story? I think we feel a bit like the apostles sometimes. Maybe you have this in your church, or maybe you have seen it in others. Some of us remember the glory days. The days when we ruled the government our buildings overflowed, and we had steady income. Those were the good old days. That was the way it was supposed to be. Now we live in a time when we’ve lost all of that. We don’t hold the political power we once did. We don’t control the culture the way we used to. We don’t have the kind of influence we once did. Our churches aren’t as full as they used to be. Our children don’t listen to us the way that we listened to our parents. Our nation and our church and our school has been occupied by non-believers. “When did that happen?” we say. We long for the days when we will return to our former place of influence. We long to see God restore us to power and influence.

All for his sake of course. He will be the leader.

So when Jesus starts talking about how he will suffer and die before being raised up, we ought to be unsettled. We cannot get around this. Jesus death is the central point of his life on earth. Mark is arranged so that Jesus journey towards the cross begins with this point and takes up the rest of the book. His death so that we might be reunited with our loving father is the most important part of his life’s work. 

If we’re think about taking over the country, we might be following the wrong guy. Like the disciples, we might have the right title but the wrong expectations of what that title means.

And maybe this is for the best. The church hasn’t done a very good job with the power that it has been given at times. We have forgotten what Jesus said about denying ourselves. We have forgotten that the Son of Man must suffer and die and that if we want to follow after him we must deny ourselves and follow him.

We are in exile. We ought to remember that and act like it. Remember that people don’t know what they once did about us. Remember that not everyone goes to church. Remember that not everyone has the same understanding of life and morals and the human conditions. And then we ought to tell people about our Messiah who surprised us all and died instead of taking over the nation.

[klasis]

The Dead Lamb: A Sermon from Revelation 5

Imagine for a moment that you are John. Imagine you are witnessing this scene with God on the throne and the creatures and the elders and there is this scroll. You are weeping over this scroll. You are not entirely sure why but you cannot imagine anything more distressing than the fact that this scroll cannot be opened. There must be someone that can open this scroll, but you are told that no one on can. Just when you have given up all hope and are overwhelmed by this distress, someone taps you on the shoulder. “Don’t cry John! See the Lion of Judah has conquered so that he can open the scroll”.  There is a moment of excitement. The Lion of Judah! If anyone could open the scroll surely it is the Lion of Judah. And he has conquered! You cannot think of a more apt description for someone who is worthy to open this scroll. Your wave of dread passes as you lift your face to look at the Lion of Judah. You prepare to be overwhelmed by the image of this Lion.   And then you see a dead lamb.   Maybe dead is the wrong way to say it. The lamb looks like it should be dead. It does not look good. It does not look like a creature who might be called a Lion. You are confused at the image unfolding before you and something is very odd about all this.  But the lamb goes forth and takes the scroll and when he does, every creature in the room bursts into song. The songs praise the actions of the lamb and its worthiness and their songs are just as confusing as what you see.  “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slaughtered." This is the picture Revelation gives us to describe Jesus' status in the universe.  Our views of conquest and worthiness do not fit these images. The images of our conquest are reflected in our military emblems; lions, eagles, bears or snakes. Maybe the occasional gun or cannon. These are symbols of strength. When we show how we have conquered, we do everything to present ourselves with force. The strength to crush the enemy is on display. Stories of conquest are everywhere in our history and our news.  I’ve been following a twitter account called “tweets from World War 2” that gives information from the war in real time as though the events of 1942 were happening today. The scale of destruction and suffering that occurs in the war gets me nearly every time I read one of their tweets. Yesterday they were reporting on the state of the island of Malta (then controlled by the British) and how it was being bombed one thousand times a week at the height of the war. Some four thousand people died and thirty thousand buildings were destroyed, all in the name of holding a place of “strategic importance”. All of this part of a war based (at least on one side) on conquest.  Have you ever heard of Al Dunlap also known as Chainsaw Al. Dunlap was a corporate executive who developed a reputation for successfully turning around companies and helping to make them lots of money. One of the most significant parts of his plan to make businesses profitable was to downsize operations. In 1996 when he was hired as the president of Sunbeam Corporation, he fired some seven thousand people people as part of his plan to increase profits. Those seven thousand lost their jobs all for the sake of one corporation run by a man who had a vision to conquer in the corporate world.  Or consider the plight of those who were conquered by the Roman Empire in the century before and after this vision was written down. In the name of peace, nations were overrun by Roman soldiers and occupied with enough military strength to ensure they could not resist. Those who dissented and resisted the empire were executed, often on a cross. All in the name of Roman conquest.   The image of the slain lamb is confusing, but in light of all of this, is our normal understanding of conquest an more sensible? Are these the kind of events we want in the world? Conquest that destroys lives, buildings, and jobs and brings about pain and suffering?  Jesus comes into the world to conquer. He came to conquer sin and death. He is worthy to rule over every tribe and every nation. He is worthy of all of the praise and power we can ascribe to him. But not because he has a gun to our heads or an executioner over our shoulder. On the night he was betrayed, he told Peter to put his sword away. Jesus reminded those around him that if he wished he could have called in legions of angels to protect him with force. Instead Jesus went  quietly to the cross and died.  But in his death, Jesus accomplished more than he could have ever accomplished with a show of force or an army of angels. Through his death, Jesus freed us from our bondage to sin and brought us into his kingdom. He has invited us to join him in this Kingdom. It is a kingdom unlike any that we have ever seen. Forged not in conflict or in strife, but in self-giving sacrifice.  When we read this passage, let us be surprised that the Lion of Judah looks like a lamb who was slain and let us be surprised that this lamb is worthy because he was slain. But let it be a joyous surprise. Let us be glad that God does not use our own methods when dealing with us. Let us be glad that there was a different way. We should embrace the alternative conquest of the Kingdom Christ established and we should join all the creatures in heaven and on earth as we bow down and worship the one who was slain.

[klasis]

            Spend any time in an intellectual environment and you’ll come across the marks of post-modernism. Post-modernism says a lot of things, but one of those things is that we don’t necessarily know what we think we know. Theories shift, philosophies are subjective, and each individual’s perspective means they have some kind of bias which is explained as the reason for that person seeing that thing as true. It’s hard to stand up and tell people truth when you’re qualifying every statement with “in my experience” or “from my perspective”.

            Post-modernism has been devastating for Christian Evangelism in the West. It has been devastating because Christianity is based on the person of Jesus who stands up and says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me”. Christ claims that he has the exclusive rights to truth. He claims that he is the only way to get to the father. This is a claim which is utterly ridiculous to post-modernism because everyone has their perspective and what is wrong in one perspective is right in another. How can Christ claim such exclusive knowledge?

            Furthermore, post-modernism just leads to the degradation of our certainty surrounding the person of Jesus. “Christ didn’t actually say that, Christ is recorded as saying that in the scriptures and there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the scriptures! The apostles and the authors of scripture were simply trying to make themselves more influential in the Christian community that spontaneously developed in the wake of Jesus’ execution. They made these things up so more people would follow them and they could gain influence”. This is easy to believe because the Christian story and the good news it contains are sensational and difficult to believe. It is much easier to attribute them to someone’s perspective instead of viewing them as truth.

            This is confusing to me though. The New Testament contains instances of a great reversal. He who is least is actually greatest and he who calls himself great is actually the least. Conventional models of power and influence don’t hold up. Humble leaders are held in high regard and those who appear to be great would be lowered. This is teaching which is present in the writing of scripture, and yet those who wrote these things down are involved in a highly deceptive game whereby they fabricate stories which corroborate each other and teaching which is meant to encourage? And this makes more sense all because of the presence of miracles and sensational accounts and a man who claims to be the son of God rising from the dead?

            I understand the attractiveness of the dismissive position. It is based on what many people see around them. The world looks simple and being dismissive allows us to maintain that perspective. It just doesn’t make sense though. How could people maintain such incredible levels of self and public deception and still travel around telling people about this resurrection of Jesus Christ. That seems just as unlikely as the resurrection of a dead man. This leaves me and everyone else with a choice. Of two seemingly unlikely possibilities, which one do we choose?

            I hope we choose the message of hope. In a world full of skepticism and accusations of wrongdoing, a message of hope is what people need. We don’t need another reason to call someone a liar and claim wrongdoing. We need a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to fight for justice, a reason to do good work. We need good news, and that is just what scripture aims to provide.

 Postscript: N.T. Wright presents another compelling argument for belief in the resurrection in his book “Surprised by Hope”. Pages 1-74 contain most of what inspired this piece.

[actuallygrimes]

i cant handle this -_-

[klasis]

Sometimes in class the teacher will pray for the class, but before they do that they will ask if there are any prayer requests. Most days nobody says anything. Sometimes someone will offer something generic (proper rest or provision) but usually nothing significant. This fact struck me last week. I wanted to say to the professor "do you really mean that?" I think that if someone actually shared something serious then people would respond positively, but no one is sharing right now.

I'm not advocating forced intimacy. If people are content and not in need of specific prayer for anything then that is great. However, if someone has something that is eating them up inside and they are dying to share, they should be able to do that when someone asks for prayer. They shouldn't be afraid of what might happen, because what would happen would be amazing. They wouldn't have to carry their personal issues alone anymore. They would have people around them to help.

[klasis]

I went to see Les Miserables (the 2012 film version) with my fiancee last week. I have mixed feelings about the film. It has some great themes (redemption is always a great theme), but I was paying a lot more attention to the vocal performances of the lead actors than I should have been. If you're thinking about seeing it, I'd suggest going to see a theatre production of it instead.

I mention this because this story caught my eye and made me a little sad because it told me that there is a company that was established to provide publicity for Hollywood studios in churches (either through pastoral communication or just word of mouth). A pastor's job is to facilitate the spiritual formation of individual members and community life. Their focus should be on the good of the congregation. If it happens that they view a piece of media or come across something and choose to recommend it to the congregation then that is fine. But this is a targeted effort to advertise films with "religious appeal" to church goers, and that should not be a pastor's responsibility.

[klasis]

Opinion: Trans-Denominational

I'm just about to finish my first semester at seminary. The school where I go describes itself as a trans-denominational evangelical seminary."This means that instead of ignoring our differences, we embrace them and draw on them." I've been here for three months and I've decided that this is not really a good definition. Trans-denominational really just means that we crack jokes about the differences between denominations. If I have to hear one more joke that centres around the difference between Pentecostals and Baptists, I'll probably just leave the room. These jokes are sort of funny because they allow us to laugh at our differences instead of screaming at each other over doctrinal issues in some kind of debate, but the more I hear them, the more uncomfortable I become with them.

[klasis]

Mark Driscoll Loves Mixed Martial Arts

Mark Driscoll seems to love expressing his support for mixed martial arts (MMA) and here he is at it again. With the MMA being broadcast before a broad audience for the first time Mark has taken the time to generate a theological position on MMA. There are some who disagree with Mr. Driscoll.

This is not the first time that this has come up. It is interesting to see that a guy like Mark Driscoll is taking the time to talk about this so extensively.

Source: pastormark.tv

[klasis]

N.T. Wright has some strong words about the NIV. Incidentally, he's publishing his own translation of the New Testament.