Food, Fame and Faith (Luke 4: 1-11) 2/24/13

Today’s Scripture is very familiar to us. It’s the story about Satan’s temptation of Jesus at the end of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. Satan comes to Jesus at what is very probably Jesus’ weakest moment and Jesus is subjected to three temptations. The first one appeals to basic sustenance. The next one appeals to selfishness and ambition. When they fail, Satan tries to use Jesus’ own belief system to trick him into disobedience. We all know the outcome. I thought it might be instructive to look at this old story with a different lens. What might it have looked like to The Great Deceiver? Along the way, there are a couple markers about covenants, the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace, and how far back they go. Let’s take a look at this old story through the eyes of the enemy.

He’s going to be a challenge. It’s that Spirit thing. He’s full of it, you know.  Very close to his old man. He talks with him a lot. He goes off by himself and prays. I guess they can communicate that way.

He had his little coming out party last month down by the Jordan River with his crazy cousin the Baptizer. They made a big to-do and he said he was fulfilling the Scripture. I was there. I saw it all. Disgusting. The Big Guy even showed up the way he does, you know. He won’t actually show himself. He just talks in clouds and burning bushes and that sort of thing. Real hocus pocus stuff. My army was all impressed and cowered back in corners. But I’ve seen it all.  The only reason he wins is that he doesn’t play fair. He gives them a little dose of that Spirit stuff and the next thing you know, it’s praise time.

I was there in the beginning. Well, almost the beginning. I slithered into the garden all dressed up as one of his pets. I had Adam and Eve eating out of my hand, if you know what I mean. He had already made his deal with them about being obedient in exchange for his protection and all. I busted that so quick. All I had to do was to tell them they could be their own gods, and they fell for it. So much for his Covenant of Works. So what does he do? He comes up with that Grace thing. Cuts a covenant with Abraham and everything.

Well, I didn’t just fall off the cabbage truck. I got Abraham to lie about his own wife. Got Jacob to steal Esau’s birthright. Got Sampson to chase the good life and break all the rules. Got David to chase after a married woman. Then he let them have kings. That was like shooting fish in a barrel. Even the great Solomon chased power through all his marriages. The Bible is full of all these losers. People are easy. I just appeal to their selfish instincts and before you know it, they’ve sold out.

I mean, yeah, there were a few who gave me a hard time. Joseph for one. And Moses and Joshua were just plain tough. Job was an idiot. He should have just checked out instead of putting up with all that. But hey, look at my batting average. I’ve gotten to the best and the brightest over and over again, whether they were paupers or kings.

And what did he do? Grace again. Every time they asked to be forgiven, what do you think he did? You got it. Sure, bud. I forgive you. It’s not fair. He puts out his commandments. I get people to break them, but then he gives them grace!  I mean really, is there a rulebook or not?

No matter. I adapt. In all of history, I just keep coming up with ways to get people to be selfish. That’s their nature. They want to please themselves. He says they are made in his image, but look at the evidence.  If you ask me, the image is pretty tarnished.

So I was going along pretty good. Maybe a little too good. The next thing I know, here comes Junior to save the whole thing. Apparently the creation thing was getting so far out of whack that he sends the fixer down here to set it all back straight. I thought it was a pretty big compliment to me, but he says it was his plan all along, that that’s what this Grace thing is for to begin with.

So he sends the boy. Gives him all these great names: Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Messiah. Well, anybody can have a label. I’ve got names too: Satan, Diabolos, Ruler of this Earth, Prince of the Air. We’ll see soon enough what he’s got.

So after his baptism, he went out to the desert. Forty days he’s been out there. No food. No nothing. A rock for a pillow. Hot in the daytime and cold as all get out at night.  My kind of environment. Just figure out what’s unbearable to someone and that’s what they get. Of course, cold and hot and hungry and thirsty work for just about anyone. I’ve been giving him little temptations all along the way. He looks bad. Wasted. I think he’s about ready for prime time. This should be easy.

I walked right up to him. I just went for it. He looked so hungry. I said, “Hey, if you’re really the Son of God, why don’t you just turn this rock into a loaf of bread. You can make a feast out of this place and enjoy yourself.” Then he quotes Deuteronomy to me, this mumbo jumbo about “man shall not live by bread alone.” I heard that one before. That’s one of those sayings Moses came up with. Okay, so he is so tired and so hungry he’s lost his appetite. But he and I know that there’s more than one kind of food. If he won’t go for the food for the belly, I’ve got more for him to think about.

So…I took his hand and in an instant we were up high, high enough to see all the kingdoms of the world. I have some magic of my own. I could tell he was impressed and taking it all in. I knew I was close. I said: “This is all mine. I control it. It can be yours. Every bit of it. All the nations, all the riches, all the power. All you have to do is worship me. Nothing else. Take a knee and it’s yours.”

Scripture again. Deuteronomy again! He looked at me and said that only the Lord should be worshipped. Only the Lord should be served. I have to confess, it threw me. I thought sure I had him with the power thing. If food didn’t work and fame wouldn’t turn him, then what would?

Then it hit me. This guy isn’t like the rest. He doesn’t have ambition like Solomon or lust like David or a little lack of courage like old Abraham. But what he does have is this overwhelming desire to be like God, to do his will, to convince others of his mission and sincerity. There’s always an angle. You just have to be patient and look for what buttons to push.

So once again I took his hand and the next instant we were in Jerusalem, standing on the pinnacle of the temple. I sensed this was his destiny. This was where it was going to come together, right here at the temple. He had something big planned, but I could stop him right here. I quoted Scripture to him. I figured he would like that. I told him to throw himself down, because God has already said that he would command his angels to protect you from harm. That was it. I knew he was going to show me that he was God’s son. He wouldn’t brag on himself, but he would show off God by letting God rescue him. Subtle, isn’t it. I get him to disobey God by making it look like it might just be God’s will. I will use his own faith to burn him.

Well, like I said, it’s going to be a challenge. He looked at me and for the third time, he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy. I’m getting really tired of hearing from that Old Testament wilderness experience. It’s like the failure of God’s people to listen then won’t be repeated by this Jesus. This time he said “You shall not put your Lord to the Test.”

I left. I’m not a very good loser, and he took three of my best shots and gave me nothing. I offered him food of every kind at his weakest point. He could have had food for his belly, food for his head, food for his heart and soul and he turned me down flat.

He’s good, this Son of God. He reminds me a lot of the Old Man. I will have to watch him carefully. There must be a way to get to him. In fact, I have to get to him. If he does what he says he came to do, my little game is up. Nobody can be this unselfish. Can they?

Yes. He could, and he did. Satan lost!

You know, Satan comes at us in every way. He knows us almost as well as God does. He certainly knows our weaknesses and he knows when to push our buttons. And if we don’t trust God in the same way that Jesus did, we will make the wrong decisions. That’s the downside. How easy it is to fall away unless we are kept safe by God’s grace.

But here in this story, Jesus shows us another way. He shows us what Paul called a more glorious way. Jesus came in love, lived to teach it and in love died to save us. In the process, he conquered not only death, but Satan as well.  

Think back on those three temptations. Don’t try to satisfy your hunger or quench your thirst with the things of the earth. Worship the Lord. Serve Him. Don’t put Him to the test. Leave it to Him to test you. That’s our path. That’s the way out of our personal wilderness. That’s the way to life!                             

Ashes and Oil (Esther 4: 1-3. Isaiah 58: 3-11) 2/13/13

 Today is Ash Wednesday. For much of Western Christianity, this is the day that marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline. It is the period of forty days, excluding Sundays, before Easter. During this time, Christians prepare for Easter. We identify with the forty day period that Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism. We imitate in some small measure the thirst, hunger and temptation to which he was subjected. As we remember the  fasting and preparation of our Savior in the desert, we also mourn for him as we prepare with him during this season for his greater sacrifice on the cross just weeks away.

We impose ashes on our foreheads as an outward witness of our repentance. We remove ourselves from the privacy of our prayer closets in order to acknowledge not only the sacrifice of a risen Savior, but also our earnest desire to be forgiven for our participation in the sin that drove him to that cross. We remove the flowers and adornments from the sanctuary to help us remember what is coming.

In the book of Esther (3:12-4:3), a plot is hatched by Haaman, the King’s assistant, to kill the Jews. When Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, hears of the decree, he tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes and goes out in the middle of the city to cry out. As the word spread to the provinces, the Jews followed suit, dressing the same way and fasting and mourning. It is an old custom, this practice of looking sad and doing without in the midst of crisis.

Today, we mark our foreheads with ashes and oil to remember. It is no matter that we were not born when Jesus’ sacrifice was completed, for he came and died for all sin, and that means he died for you and me just as surely as he did for those who came before us.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that true worship has little to do with ritual and everything to do with restoration. He encourages us to fast to call attention to injustice, to oppression, to hunger, to providing   shelter, clothing the naked, not turning away from the needs of our neighbor. Worship is more than ritual, fasting more than form. The appearance of humility inside this sanctuary impresses little if thrown aside like a cloak once we leave.

If our fasting is to be acceptable to our Lord, we must act our testimony and not just ritualize it. If our prayers are to be listened to by our heavenly Father, they must arrive on the wings of our witness. If our worship is separated from our daily life, it is not worship and we are not righteous. The glory of the Lord here and now is seen in the eyes and acts of his disciples. This is our act of righteousness. This is our true worship; that we act as God’s people. It is for this reason that we gather  in this season of Lent. Let the oil which bonds the ashes of repentance to our foreheads be a healing balm for us. Let the sign of the cross of Christ so become our true character that no cross will need be painted upon us for that witness to be seen. May we present ourselves anew as living sacrifices to our Savior. May we, in this season, remember, repent, and restore.

Transfigured (LuKe 9: 28-36) 2/10/13

Have you ever met someone famous? I’ve shaken hands with a couple governors and Congressmen and also Bob Hope. I’ve had my picture taken with Captain Kangaroo. Once I played a round of golf with a University President. Another time I met Willie Mays, the great baseball player for the New York Giants. One can’t help but be slightly awed in the presence of great success or fame. Maybe we quietly hope that their success will rub off on us.

The Gospel of Luke records a meeting of normal and famous people. We call it the Transfiguration. It is eight days after the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 outside Bethsaida. Matthew and Mark tell the same story and they say it’s six days. Let’s just call it about a week later. Jesus goes up on a high mountain. The mountain was thought by the ancients to be Mt. Tabor. We don’t know for sure. There were other mountains in the area where it could have taken place. Today, Mt. Tabor is home to the Franciscan Church of the Transfiguration and the sight of many Christian pilgrimages. From the top, one can see all the surrounding countryside. Whichever mountain it was, it wasn’t that far from Jerusalem and it was high, according to the accounts.

 Jesus takes the big three apostles: Peter, James and John, with him. What happens on that mountaintop is miraculous. It is also a different sort of miracle from all the others in the Gospels, for this miracle comes to Jesus instead of coming from him. According to Luke, Jesus and the disciples are praying. The other gospels don’t mention this. Luke tells us that as Jesus was praying, his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. We have seen something like this before. Remember the story of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 34? Moses comes down from the mountain after having talked with God and his face is shining. He has been in the presence of God and it shows. His face is so bright that the people are afraid to come near him.  Now, here on this mountaintop, these three men find themselves in the presence of God.

Moses and Elijah are visiting with Jesus. Can you imagine? They have been dead for hundreds of years, but here they are in the flesh, so to speak. They are talking about his departure and what he is to accomplish in Jerusalem. The Greek word which we translate as departure is exodus (ecodoj). The departure, or exodus, to which they are referring, is Jesus’ death in Jerusalem and his journey back to glory. Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah, the greatest of the Prophets, are talking to Jesus about his last job on earth and his return home.

Peter, James and John are asleep, apparently in a deep sleep. Only Luke records the event this way. As they become awake, they see this event unfolding. They have trouble looking at Jesus and his friends, for they are clothed in the glory of God. It is too much to look upon. I’m visualizing them as they try to look. They must have to shield their eyes from the brightness. Their hands cover their faces. I imagine there might be a great heat accompanying the bright light emanating from the men.

What’s going on here? Jesus has just come from a great miracle where thousands have been fed with virtually nothing. He comes to the mountain to pray. Soon he will be in Jerusalem. Soon he will be arrested. Soon he will be crucified by the very people he came to save. So Jesus comes to the mountain to pray. He knows what lies ahead. He knows he must undergo a test that no man can withstand, but that is exactly what he is expected to do. So he comes to the mountain to pray, to get ready, to get re-enforced.

I’m thinking this is one of those moments of which the Son of Man has no foreknowledge. He comes to the mountain to pray. I’m sure he is used to getting plenty of feedback from God the Father, but not like this. Jesus prays, probably for awhile, because the disciples fall sound asleep. This is not the last time these three will fall asleep on the job. Remember their same failure in the Garden of Gethsemane? Jesus prays for strength to follow his Father’s will on the last night of his life and the disciples fall asleep.

But on this occasion, Jesus receives a visit. The All-Star team comes down from above and stops in on Jesus. They remind him of how far he has come. They remind him of the glory that awaits him upon his arrival back in heaven. They give him a pat on the back and some high fives. The scene is so powerful that Jesus takes on the outward appearance that manifests the glory that God has reserved for him. And the three disciples get a glimpse into what it looks like to be glorified.

Peter is you and me. He looks at the most glorious sight we can imagine and he tries to normalize it. The Law and the Prophets personified are leaving and Peter says no, wait, let me make some shelter and we can build a campfire and roast some marshmallows. Good old Peter. When in doubt, just blurt out something and hope. James and John are not heard. They are just watching, probably entranced by the scene that is unfolding. I’m reminded of another time when Peter acted without thinking. He stepped out of a boat and walked on water to come to his Savior while the others held back and watched. Peter is a man who makes mistakes. But Peter’s mistakes are the kind we should applaud, because his mistakes are made while trying to do something, as opposed to the mistakes we all make by doing nothing.

While Peter speaks, he and all the others are enveloped in a cloud. To be more accurate, they are surrounded by God’s presence. Within this cloud comes a voice. It is the voice of God. Stop here and try to capture this image in your mind. You have been in the presence of two great figures from history and your leader, all three of them in more light than you can bear to see, and then a cloud surrounds all of you…and it speaks. There is nothing normal about this scene. All of it takes on the aura of surreal, of superhuman. There is nothing to compare it to. It must have been overwhelming for these three men. This is what happens when human nature comes face to face with God.

Then from the cloud comes the voice of God in a divine endorsement almost identical with those words heard at Jesus’ baptism. Matthew’s gospel says “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Mark and Luke just call him the beloved son. Luke adds the phrase: “the Chosen One.” All three end with a command: “Listen to him.”

In the next instant, Moses and Elijah are gone and Jesus again stands alone. But not so alone now as he was before he started praying. His prayer has been answered. Jesus has not only direction; he has God’s approval. The Law and the Prophets back up his actions and propel him toward his destiny. God once again renders a divine endorsement of his Son and his Son’s actions. And the endorsement is punctuated with a three word command for not only those three disciples, but for us. “Listen to him.”

Listen to him. Look back to the call of Levi in the book of Deuteronomy (18:5), where Moses says to God’s people: “…the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord…” Levi and his tribe were called by God to be the priestly tribe of Israel. Here, it is once again made plain to these three men to whom they owe not only their allegiance and obedience, but also to whom they should look for instruction.

Perhaps we can see now why Peter, James and John accompanied Jesus up the mountain that day. Although it was an answer to prayer for Jesus…a moment set aside to prepare him and give him encouragement for his last great sacrifice, it was also a window into heaven for those three mortal men. Coming down the mountain, they were told to keep the events they had seen to themselves. They did so until after Jesus’ death and resurrection. But they had seen. They remembered that day and the things they had seen. Although they had their missteps on the way to the cross, they finished strong, didn’t they: Writers of the New Testament, missionaries, pillars of the faith, martyrs.

We need to learn the lesson of the Transfiguration. It’s not just something marvelously mystical, full of clouds and angels. It’s much more than that. It is advice and counsel from our Father. Listen to him. What simple, direct, wonderful advice. It comes straight from God. Listen to him. He is our prophet. He is our leader. He is our teacher. Listen to him. He is…our Savior!       

Super Spoiled (Luke 4: 14-30) 2/3/13

         

It’s here again. For football fans, today is the day. It’s Super Bowl Sunday. This evening, about 180 million people will watch the last two teams standing battle it out for the chance to call themselves champions of the world of football. At least that’s true in the United States. Elsewhere in the world, football is played with a round ball and the players use their feet to move the ball down the field. Americans call it soccer and its championship game actually draws an even bigger television audience than our football. The Super Bowl is such a big deal in the United States that last year, a thirty second commercial cost 3.5 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough to try to get your message out.

Super Bowl Sunday. Out of all the things Sunday might be known for, the Super Bowl is not my favorite. Don’t get me wrong. I love football and chances are pretty good that tonight I will be in front of the tube soaking it all in. A lot of grown men have spent their lives getting to this moment. This is their day. When the hype is over and the final whistle blows, a new team will be crowned champion…until next year.

Luke tells us of another Sunday when Jesus came home for a visit. It was a Sabbath day in Nazareth, the home of Jesus’ youth. The Sabbath is on Saturday, the last day of the week. It is the Lord’s Day for the nation of Israel. Some time after Jesus’ death, Christians began meeting on Sunday, the first day of the week, because that’s the day of our Lord’s resurrection. Whether you observe the last day of the week as your Sabbath or worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, either way, you are observing the Lord’s Day.

So Jesus comes to Nazareth. In the Gospel of Luke, he has spent his time in the desert being tempted by the devil and then returns to the region of Galilee. Luke tells us that a report of Jesus went out throughout the surrounding countryside. He was teaching in the synagogues and being glorified by everyone. The parallel story does not occur in the gospel of Matthew until late in Chapter 13. By that time in Matthew, Jesus has performed many miracles and healings. By that time in Matthew, Jesus has had his own Super Bowl of sorts, having fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread.

For Luke, this event in Nazareth comes early in Jesus’ ministry. But again, we must realize that Luke has a different audience and a different lens through which he sees the gospel story. Luke does tell us that Jesus had been busy all over the region. He just doesn’t give us the detail that Matthew does. The chronological occurrence of these events is not necessarily in conflict, and besides, the chronology is not as important as the story, and Luke’s story of Jesus’ ministry begins in Galilee, in much the same way that John narrates six stories about Jesus in his ministry beginning in Cana, also in Galilee.

While Matthew wrote primarily to a Jewish audience, our doctor and reporter Luke, the only Gentile gospel writer, writes his Gospel primarily to a Gentile audience. Here, we can see that he starts early. The message Luke beings us early and often is that Jesus came for God’s people. He came to save God’s chosen. Luke’s point is that God’s chosen were measured by a different yardstick than Jesus’ Jewish friends and neighbors in Nazarath…and in the nation of Israel…were looking for.  God’s people included the Gentiles. Gentile is the Jewish way of saying anyone not Jewish. So no one is excluded. Every nation is invited.

This is the crux of the passage in Luke 4. Jesus comes home and goes to church on Sunday (not literally, but figuratively). There, in the presence of many with whom he has grown up, he reads the scroll citing Isaiah 61. The good news is for the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed. This is their year. They have finally made it to the Super Bowl. Then, Jesus levels everyone with his next announcement. He essentially tells them that he is the one they have been waiting for. To use a football analogy, this is the number 1 draft choice, the franchise player. While the people in the synagogue are glad that their native son has done well, he is, after all, their native son. This is Joseph’s son. Long forgotten is the message of the angels singing in the fields outside Bethlehem. This is the carpenter’s son.

Jesus anticipates their skepticism. He talks about what they want to see. Since he has done miracles and healing all over the countryside, why not prove himself and do them here? Since he has prescribed the proper remedy for so many others, let him now do so for himself. If he wants to be believed, let him give an offer of proof.

Jesus rejects such a suggestion. Perhaps it is precisely because of the people’s need for additional proof that Jesus will not accommodate them.  The concept is not lost on courts of law. To this day, advocates are prompted by judges to render an “offer of proof” prior to being allowed to introduce controversial evidence in the presence of a jury. Such a requirement moves into a physical, rather than a spiritual, realm. Jesus is not a performer. The words of Isaiah are still ringing in his ears: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” says Isaiah, and so quotes Jesus. Jesus’ offer of proof is himself, though he does not expect it to be enough for this crowd.

On one level, we see that Jesus has no expectations of those with whom he has so much familiarity from his youth. “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” “No prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” But on another level, Jesus speaks to the Jews about who God’s people really are. He quotes two Old Testament stories about the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is sent not to deal with the people of Israel during a three year famine, but rather to a widow in the country of Sidon, where his archenemy Jezebel was born. Elisha cleanses none of the lepers of Israel, but rather Naaman, a Syrian…a Gentile.

Jesus is telling the people of his hometown…and the people of Israel…that his story is bigger than miracles, broader than Nazarath. His message is not of deliverance from the tyranny of a ruling nation, but salvation of the nations themselves. Jesus message is, to use another modern day ad cliché, supersized. Jesus has come for all God’s people. He is bigger than the promised Messiah of the prophets. He is the Son of God and he has come for all those who would believe, whether they are Jew or Gentile, saint or sinner, rich or poor, man or woman.

The people in that synagogue in Nazareth became violent when they realized they were not at the front of the line. Some twenty years later, the apostle Paul was treated no better in Jerusalem when he announced his intention to minister to the Gentiles. In both cases, the listeners turned into an angry mob. Like the people of Israel in the time of the prophets, they turned their backs and refused Jesus. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus took his message to those who would believe. It was never about the people of Israel to begin with. They were God’s chosen tool to reveal himself to the world. It was always about God and his revelation of himself to his creation. That creation did not stop with the nation of Israel.

Today, we welcome two more members into our membership. One comes from right down the road. Another made her way here from a Roman Catholic Church in Massachusetts. Our Savior could care less where they come from. He is concerned with where they are.

Where are you today? Who are you looking for when you come here to worship? Do you come to worship or to be entertained? It’s not about you, you know. It’s not about me, either. It never has been. It’s all about God. In the words of the Psalmist, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We are his creation.

Don’t be Super Spoiled like the people of Nazareth. Take a lesson from this chapter on selfishness and self-centeredness in first century Israel. God can stand right in your presence and you can be so busy looking for what you want to see that you can’t see your salvation standing right in front of your very eyes. In the Super Bowl of life, we who believe in the Good News become champions not for a year, but for eternity. In the Super Bowl of life, Jesus is the prize, and he makes it possible for every one of us to obtain it.

Will you reach for the prize? Will you become super-sized?         Or will you remain super-spoiled? The choice is yours.                             

Getting Started (John 2: 1-11) 1/20/13

          At Christmas time, we celebrated the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. This is called the Incarnation. A few weeks later, we marked the Epiphany, the time generally associated by Roman Catholics and Protestants with the visit of the Magi. I know what the manger scene looks like. That’s okay.   Many of our traditions are off a little on some of the timing or detail. The Eastern Church identifies the baptism of Jesus by John, rather than the visit of the Magi, as the Epiphany. The word means “manifestation,” so really either event could work as an epiphany. I think of the Epiphany this way.  It’s a coming out party for Jesus, at least for those who are privileged to be there.

In a way the story of Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of John is a continuation of that coming out party. It is his first time to show others something of what he is capable of. The timing of the miracle is bothersome to Jesus, for all the gospels assert that Jesus did not want his true identity revealed prematurely. For instance, in today’s passage, Jesus, when called upon by his mother to perform this miracle, says that his “time” has not yet come. Nevertheless, Jesus decides to come to the rescue.

The story seems a little odd. Most of Jesus’ miracles involve either healing or taming nature. He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, makes cripples walk. He walks on water and calms storms.  He feeds the multitude and raises people from death. In that context, the turning of water into wine at a wedding feast doesn’t seem to fit. In fact, this miracle story is unique to John’s gospel. It does not appear in the others.  But John’s gospel is not like the others. John goes his own way, tells his own story. John’s gospel is not so much about mighty acts as it is about theology and Christology and relationships.  For instance, Matthew relates twenty different miracle events, while John tells only six. The first and last of those miracles that John does narrate are unique to his gospel. The last one is the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, literally from the grave, all told in the context of Jesus being the resurrection and the life. It may be the most incredible, most uplifting of all the miracles stories of Jesus. The bookend to this is John’s first narrated miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding feast. If Lazarus is the greatest, the wine thing might be the most obscure, the most easy to dismiss of the miracle stories.

Yet, there it is. The writer of John’s gospel is thought to have been John, the beloved disciple, a member of Jesus’ inner circle, the great gospel theologian. He lived the longest of the Twelve, thought to have still been alive in the 90’s. He had sixty years since Christ’s death and resurrection to think about what he wanted to write. He almost certainly had access to the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and to Paul’s letters. It makes no sense to think other than that he wanted every single line to bring meaning and richness and depth to the gospel story he wrote at the end of his days about his friend and Savior. What is John saying to us in this, the first miracle of Jesus’ brand new ministry?

Cana was about nine miles north of Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up. According to John, Jesus is probably in his first week of ministry and has at this point picked up five of his disciples. We should assume that they are accompanying him. He has come back home, perhaps to attend the wedding feast of a neighbor. This is one of the few times we hear from Mary since the birth of Jesus, and she seems to be surprisingly assertive here. She says to Jesus: “They have no wine.” I can almost see that look. She knows what Jesus is capable of. She knows what is needed. She looks at her son and she says “they have no wine.” Jesus looks at her and says in essence, “Come on, mom. You know it’s not time yet. This isn’t for me.” To which the sainted mother of our Savior simply looks to the servants and says “Do whatever he tells you.” You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to figure out what is on Mary’s mind. Some commentaries say that this is not the story of a son doing his mother’s bidding. I think I might be tempted to qualify that to say that it’s not just that kind of story. Of course there is more to it than that, but I still get the feeling that there is a son here who wants to do his mother’s bidding as well.

There is an old legend that might explain why Mary was so invested here and why she seemed to have authority to tell the servants to do what Jesus told them to do. One of the Coptic gospels that didn’t make the cut for the New Testament claims that Mary was a sister of the bridegroom’s mother. In fact, in an early set of prefaces to the New Testament called the Monarchian Prefaces, it was asserted that the bridegroom was actually John himself, and that his mother was Salome, the sister of Mary. These are not provable facts, but they make for some interesting possible explanations. The fact that John was one of those first five disciples called makes John an eyewitness at the very least.

 While all of that is interesting, it still doesn’t explain why this particular miracle story is included in John’s gospel. I don’t think he was just taking a trip down memory lane, even if the legends are true. It has often been said about John that his gospel must be read on two levels. There is always the story itself, which never fails to instruct, and which is easy enough to understand on its face. But there is almost always the story within the story. Certainly that theory is at work here in the wedding feast miracle at Cana.

The miracle is actually part of a larger section of John that takes place in Cana and is described over the course of chapters 2-4. Theologian Craig Blomberg calls this section “The Newness of Jesus’ Ministry.”   William Barclay calls it “The New Exhilaration.” In those three chapters, there are six stories. The miracle with the water and wine is the first. It is followed by the cleansing of the temple, the meeting of Jesus with Nicodemus, the question of the supremacy of Jesus over John the Baptist, the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman and the healing of the Nobleman’s son.  Again, all these events are sandwiched into these three chapters where John talks about events in Cana or while Jesus was in and around Cana. In subsequent chapters, Jesus moves to Judea and away from Cana, but here John uses these stories to paint the big picture. Taken together as a unit, they point to the newness that is taking place in God’s people and in how they will come to be defined.

The Cana segment starts with Jesus turning water into wine. This represents a new joy, not only at the wedding feast, but in the coming of the author of the miracle. He has come to open the world to a new ministry. This is the new age, and it is represented by a new worship since the Son of God has cleansed the temple. It is also represented by a new birth, says Jesus to Nicodemus. To enter God’s kingdom, one must be born again, by water and the Spirit. John the Baptist is important as a segway to Jesus, but he represents the old and Jesus represents the new. He comes not to change the law but to finally fulfill it in the way that our heavenly Father always intended.  Then, in chapter 4, we see the stories of the Samaritan woman and the Nobleman’s son, a mixed race woman and a Gentile being healed or included by Jesus.  Now we see that the inclusiveness of Jesus’ message and his new ministry are unquestionably universal. They include not only Samaritans and Gentiles, but also the lowest and the most outcast of society. No one who believes will be turned away from God’s kingdom. This is a revolutionary message revealed in this new ministry for the ages. It is a greater grace than the Law could have ever afforded and it is being introduced here in Cana.

The Cana narrative and the discourses it contains are instructive for our church. We have been here for a long time. We have built, maintained and preserved. All those attributes are good and endearing and important. But there is and should always be a new ministry rising up from within the old story. Core truths never change, but customs do. Bedrock values never move, but practices do. We find our habits moving and changing in response to the changes around us. We celebrate that very ability to grow today as we welcome the ordination of a new elder in this church.

Change is not our enemy; it is our companion. Our challenge is to continue to worship, continue to witness in a society whose values can sometimes be compared to quicksand. Such is not the stuff of the church. Our values do not move. We change our style to achieve the spread of the gospel. We are God’s people. Jesus came to claim us and make our salvation possible. Like the new ministry that Jesus introduced at Cana, we look for new life in our own ministries. We celebrate our opportunity to add new leaders, new ideas, new life to the Church of Jesus Christ.

So the miracle at Cana was not just any old miracle. It was not just a favor to a beloved mother. It was the first miracle of our Lord on earth in a new ministry that would change the world. And, thank God, he was just getting started!       

Holding More Firmly (Heb 3: 12-14, James 1: 2, 12-15) 1/13/13

When you fill out your income tax forms each year, you are asked to list your dependants. In IRS language, a dependant is someone who lives with you at least half the time and for whom you provide at least half that person’s support. That definition works okay for determining a tax deduction, but it wouldn’t work very well in determining our dependence on God, would it? We don’t get full credit for part time dependence. Part time dependence is really not dependence at all.

In part of today’s Scripture, the writer of Hebrews warns us to take care, to watch for an unbelieving heart, causing us to fall away from God, to watch out for the deceitfulness of sin and to look out for each other. He says we have come to share in Christ if…  if we hold our original confidence to the end.

Well, that’s not so hard, is it? Just hold on to the end. Keep your confidence and don’t waver in the truth you have come to know. After all, we became convinced of the truth of it all some time ago. So all we have to do is hold the course. Of course, there are sometimes some life events that might test us a bit, like death  of a loved one or foreclosure or loss of job or a car accident or illness or divorce. You get my drift. For some, holding to the end is short term. For others, it is decades. For most of us, holding firm to the end is a lifestyle, not a moment in time.

Hebrews says to exhort one another daily, “as long as it is called today.” Earlier in the passage (v.7), the writer says “Today, if you hear my voice…”  William Barclay translates the meaning of “today” here as “while life lasts.” If we look back at the passage with that in mind, then we are called to exhort one another as long as we live. The process doesn’t stop until we are at the end of life. Then and only then are we safe from the considerable power and persuasiveness of sin.

Life seemed simpler when you were little, didn’t it? That’s because it was simpler. Your mother helped dress you, put you on the school bus or drove you to school, fixed your snack, put bows in your hair or handed you your ball glove.  Sunday meant Sunday school and probably a trip to Grandma’s for fried chicken and trimmings. The big decision for the day was whether to wear a coat or a jacket.  Your faith came in large measure from your home, but there was plenty of supplemental advice from church and school.

As you aged, the choices became wider, the risks bigger, the consequences more far-reaching. Now, you don’t always come to church. You may never come to Sunday school. You may travel thirty miles or more just to get to work. The decisions from which you were once sheltered now come at you daily with far reaching consequences. You know now that doing right has no shelf life. You have to do it over and over and over. You now realize that faith does not come with an answer book, only a loyalty oath.  

Remember how your mother or father used to make you hold his or her hand when crossing the street? Remember being lifted up and carried across a creek or stream? Remember them standing between you and danger? Today, you do the same for your own children. But who looks after you? The writer of Hebrews reminds us that we are not children and that we face tests that we can handle no better than could our little children trying to cross a busy street by themselves. He pleads with us to hold firm to that which we came to believe in the beginning of our faith.

It’s so easy to get side tracked. Life comes at us fast. We spend much of our time putting out the little fires of life, reacting rather than acting. We feel time constraints, but instead of dropping back and giving ourselves some room, we layer up. We are too busy to think and think too much about matters of little consequence to our faith.  Even when we do stop and think about what we are doing, we are easily persuaded that we know more than others.

I counseled a woman a few days ago. Her husband no longer goes to church because he feels that he has better answers than the church provides. Life has let him down. People have let him down. Now he seeks his answers in the counsel of his own home, forsaking all those who would have fellowship with him. The course he has chosen has little to do with the shortcomings of the church and everything to do with the pride of a man “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,” just as the writer of Hebrews describes.

James promises us that trials will come our way. We need never question whether as Christians we will face trials. Christians are promised that throughout God’s Word. Jesus himself guaranteed it more than once. It is the price of the cross and a great price it is. But the cross delivers us into glory for eternity. James also promises that a faith so tested makes for steadiness and later, completeness. We are not left alone to do this task. Far from it. Our God is here for us to walk every step of the way at our side.   

We live in a society of individuals. We are bombarded by stimuli which would teach the value of individuals over community, the priority of individual rights over the protection of the society. We have half the guns in the world in this country, but only five percent of the world’s population, and yet we are no more safe in many ways than our third world counterparts who must fight hunger and pestilence to stay alive. We continue to see wholesale examples of self indulgence and violence that have no place in a civilized society. This is the way of the world, and this is precisely what James and the writer of Hebrews cautioned the early Christians about. They remind us as well that we are incapable of overcoming these worldly temptations with our own strength. We cannot hold firmly to God without his help.

A Presbyterian minister named John H. Sammis put the answers to music in 1887. He called the hymn Trust and Obey. He calls on us to “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.” Do you want to hold firm to the end, as the writer of Hebrews admonishes us to do? You can’t do it by yourself. You are God’s creature, created in his likeness, but you also have a sinful nature that will create tension between you and the righteousness you seek. You need help to stay the course. You stand at the edge of a life that can be lived with beauty and promise and fulfillment with God that is far beyond the life that can be lived without him. The hymn from long ago sets that course for us. It tells us what we must do.

First, trust in God. In all the ways over all the days of your life, he is the only one to trust, the only way to find real, lasting security. Institutions will let us down. People will let us down. God never lets us down. And God teaches us that once we believe, we have to claim his promises. We have to live with him in charge.

Second, we have to obey God. Never mind that we sin. God knows our imperfections. That does not stand in our way. What does is our stubbornness to do things our way, our impatience not to wait on God. This is not obedience. Obedience is letting God have the reins and doing his will instead of our own.

These are the markers of the Christian, to trust and obey. Perhaps most importantly, we need to realize that the world we live in is not set up to accommodate that kind of thinking. We are called upon to be in the world, but not of it. In spite of what the world teaches us to the contrary, we are called to be dependent upon our Savior.

The path of God is narrow and less traveled, but it has room. God will walk beside you if you let him.  He will lead the way when you follow him. He will carry you when you can’t walk. As you grow from the tests he brings to you, don’t rely on your newly found strength. It is an illusion. The real strength we possess comes from our Savior. Hold his hand and hold on to your faith more firmly as you grow. He never meant for you to walk alone.

         

Signed and Sealed (Ephesians 1:3-14) 1/6/13

  

Last week, the Electoral College met and made official a vote that had already been taken. The people of the United States had already elected their next President. It only remained for the Electors to put the seal of approval on what had already been decided. Well, of course, this message is not about American politics or the Electoral College. But it is about sovereignty. In the case of the Electoral College, it represents the sovereign power of the several states to wield that power to elect the chief executive of the nation. In the case of Paul, here speaking to the church in Ephesus in the first century, it represents his understanding of the sovereignty of God.

The doctrine of election is closely identified with the Reformed Church, with which the Presbyterian Church is identified. To be honest, I don’t quite understand that. What I mean is, I don’t yet understand why it is that the entire Christian Church does not identify more closely with the doctrine. It has its roots planted in numerous places in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.

In the New Testament alone, the terms “Predestination” or “Elect” are mentioned in each of the synoptic Gospels (Mt 24:31, Mk 13: 22, Lk 18:7), and in Acts (13:48). Peter talks about the doctrine twice (1 Pe 1:2,  5:13), and it is also discussed twice in 2 John 1:1, 13). Paul talks about it not only in today’s passage, but also eight other times in his letters. 1

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul is speaking to a church he planted. He first visited Ephesus briefly during his second missionary journey. It was a stopover on his way to Jerusalem, but  Paul later returned to Ephesus for a three year stay.  Even later, Paul wrote to his former flock from prison, probably in Rome. His friend and helper Tychicus was the bearer of the letter.  If you’re reading Ephesians 1: 3-14 aloud, be sure and take a deep breath first. The entire passage is one sentence in the Greek. I have a sense that Paul did not have pen in hand for this passage. I would think more likely that he was dictating, perhaps to Tychicus, and that the more he said, the more he thought. The more he thought, the more he said. The result is a rambling recitation of blessing, choice, predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness and grace, all wrapped together in a divine plan. I can almost see the great apostle pacing the floor, occasionally punctuating the air with his fist or an outstretched finger as the words came pouring from his lips so fast his scribe could hardly keep up.

As I was preparing for this message, I couldn’t help but notice that what Paul said in a paragraph, it took the great reformer John Calvin about seventy pages to explain and defend in his famous work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Paul’s English teacher may not have approved of his writing style here, but his Theology teacher would have given him high marks, for the Sovereignty of God is on marvelous display here.

If the great John Calvin could take seventy pages explaining this doctrine, far be it from me to begin to simplify that which Paul has spoken here to the Ephesians and to the church at large. But I can take note of the obvious. While Paul can be difficult to read and seldom knows when to end a sentence, he is very sure of his subject matter. He tells us that God loves us so much he has blessed us with Jesus Christ, that God chose us before the foundation of the world was laid, that in love, he predestined us for adoption as his sons through Jesus.

Take a breath. That’s a lot to handle. But there’s more. Paul goes on. It was all done according to God’s will, God’s purpose, says Paul. Jesus’ sacrifice brings us redemption and forgiveness. Christ is God’s plan to re-unite all things, all people, with him.

And…we get our Godly inheritance through Jesus. We are predestined by God. He works it all out according to his will. Now listen. This is where it gets good! When we hear and believe in Jesus, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He guarantees our inheritance until we take possession.

Nothing bad there, except twice Paul mentions predestination.

Don’t we have a choice? Is the election over, and we didn’t even get to vote? That’s not the point, so don’t get all tied into knots over it. Election is about God’s sovereignty. Who’s in charge here anyway?

The answer is all over the Bible. God is in charge. Always was. Always will be. God is also omniscient, a fancy word for all-knowing. So, if God is all powerful and all knowing, how can God not know outcomes before they happen? That could only mean that he is limited in some way, that he doesn’t know everything. But God does know everything. Always has. Always will.

          It is not for us to worry about whether we are elected. The question for us is whether we believe in Jesus Christ and in the gospel he teaches, that he is God’s son, that he came for us, that he died for us, that he rose from the dead and ascended  into heaven, that he lives and will come again for us. Jesus tells us that God loved the world so much he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall live eternally (3: 16). He tells us again in John 5 that whoever hears his word and believes him who sent him has eternal life (v. 24). These and other passages make it abundantly clear that if we believe in Jesus, we are elected. Paul agrees. He says to us in today’s passage that “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [you] were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance…” (1: 13).

           The thing is, we just can’t get there from here, at least not without help. In the sixth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus tells the crowd outside Capernaum that his Father’s will is that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life…” (v. 40). He goes on to say that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (v. 44). 

          The Bible is clear. God is sovereign and omniscient. He is all powerful and knows everything that will happen before it happens. In his divine plan, he has given us free will. We can reject him and many continue to do so. Paul reminds us of our tendency toward sin in Romans 11, where he beckons the Roman Christians to “Note then the kindness and the severity of God; severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off” (11: 22, 23). The writer of Hebrews further cautions us, saying “it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance…” (6: 4-6).

These passages are evidence of the signs of God’s call, but not the call itself. John Calvin explains the difference as two kinds of call. There is the general call, by which God invites all through the outward exposure to the Word. But there is a second, special, call, as Calvin characterizes it. This comes to believers alone, who are illumined by the Holy Spirit, which causes God’s Word to dwell in their hearts. This is the church whose true membership is known only to God.

So where is the fear in predestination? If not called by God, then by whom? We cannot call ourselves, can we? If you think about it, it must be as the Bible says. God must call us, in order that our ears may be open enough to hear him. God must draw us in order that our hearts may accept the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As Calvin said it: “Faith is fitly joined to election, provided it takes second place.” Think of it this way: faith is the tool God provides us to come to him once we are called. To believe otherwise would be to accept that some sort of work is required to find God, and that won’t “work.” By grace we are saved. The good works we offer up to him can be only our testament of the love we have learned from him to feel for him. My daughter Emily reminded me of that just yesterday. She sent an email from Dahab, Egypt, a sleepy little coastal town two hours from Mt Sinai. She climbed the mountain during the night in order to see the sun come up. Then she walked down the mountain. The locals call it the three thousand steps of repentance. What a beautiful way to describe the descent from God’s mountain. As her steps traced those of Moses, she gave pause to send some love back to the God who made her, formed her, claims her and protects her. This is what he wants. Love him. Show your love by your acts. And if you believe in him, then that’s your destiny, or “predestiny”, signed and sealed!        

1 See Romans 8: 29-30, 2 Thess 2: 13-14, 2 Tim 1: 9, Romans 8: 33, 11:7, Colossians 3:12, 2 Tim 2: 10, Titus 1: 1.