Piercing the Veil

           2 Corinthians 3: 12-4:4

 

 

          In the book of Exodus [Exo. 34], Moses goes up on the mountain and has an encounter with God. It is so intense that when Moses comes down the mountain, his face is literally shining. Moses has to cover himself with a veil to talk to his people, as they are blinded by his appearance. Every time Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God, he removes the veil and every time he comes down to the people, he wears the veil. The people cannot bear to come too close to the presence of the Lord, even when it is only the reflection given off from the face of Moses.

          In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing to the church about coming to Christ. He is talking about being ministers of the New Covenant, a covenant centered on Jesus and the Holy Spirit rather than the law. When Paul talks about the law, he is talking about the relationship created in the Old Testament between God and his people, the set of rules grounded in the Ten Commandments and everything that followed from that first set of laws.

          In order to explain what the Gospel is and what the New Commandment is all about, Paul chooses to contrast it with the Old Commandment, the Mosaic Law. Sometimes Paul gets so charged with enthusiasm for his cause that he goes overboard.  But there is a reason for him to be so commanding. In the church in Corinth, there are those who continue to see the Gospel through the lens of being Jewish, as opposed to being Christian. Paul continues to press them to see the new truth that has been revealed through Jesus, and the gospel is a new definition of who God’s people are.

          Paul reminds us that we are members of the New Covenant, that we have great hope, that such hope should make us bold. He talks about us not having to wear a veil when we turn to the Lord, because Jesus has bridged the gap between us and God.

          Over the life of my law practice, I have incorporated hundreds of organizations, from plumbers and electricians and builders to churches and chambers of commerce. The main reason most people incorporate is protection from personal liability. Provided they follow the rules and do not hold themselves out personally in the wrong way in what they say, they can enjoy the protections of personal liability afforded by the law. But if they step over the line, making promises and representations of a personal nature, then the result may be that they may become personally liable for their actions. The legal term for this is “piercing the corporate veil.”  The protection of incorporating is made void by our actions. The veil is torn away to expose us.

          In today’s passage, Paul uses this metaphor of the veil to describe how Moses hid his face from God’s people after encountering God. The plain reading from Exodus would seem to say that Moses’ face was so bright after such an encounter that the people couldn’t take such illumination. It was just too much for them to take in. But in this passage in 2 Corinthians, Paul is using that Old Testament encounter with God to illustrate that Moses covered his face in order for the people not to notice that the illumination was temporary, that it would fade over time. Paul wants us to understand that in the same way that Moses’ face faded in its brightness, so too does the Old Testament law. It is not a saving vehicle, but rather an exposing vehicle.  Paul then contrasts that to the saving grace of Jesus and to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The law is not enough, but the gospel is.

          Now, it seems to me that Paul has stretched the veil metaphor about as far as it can stretch. His take on its use is really not very close to that of Exodus. But, as we have acknowledged, Paul had a different audience and he was dealing with Jewish issues that today we don’t even think about. He was spreading a gospel rooted in, but no longer bound by, the Old Testament law.

          Whether you are applying Old Testament law or American corporate law, the result is the same. The veil to which we refer is there to protect us. In Exodus, it protected the people from a God they were not prepared to see. In the law, it protects our personal assets.

          But Paul’s next point in this passage is worth any amount of stretching to get to, for he says: “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.” Think about that in light of the reason why the veil is used in the first place. Remember ii is used to protect us, in one way from others hurting us and in another, from the presence of God consuming us. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

          What does Paul mean? When we turn to the Lord, the veil is removed. But Moses himself could not look directly into the face of God. Although he removed the veil, the Bible says he stood in the presence of God, not looking at God’s countenance. What is Paul getting at?

          In his report of the death of Jesus, Luke tells us that darkness came about the sixth hour and stayed until the ninth hour. The light failed and the curtain, the veil, of the temple was torn in two. Jesus breathed his last. The veil of the temple, the curtain protecting the people from the Holy of Holies, was torn down. What is the significance of that report from Luke?

          When Paul writes about the Lord here, he is using the Greek word kurios, which means Lord. When Paul uses kurios, he is referring to Jesus. When he talks about God, Paul uses another word. So Paul is saying that when one turns to Jesus, the veil is removed. In the same way that Paul talks to the Corinthians about the power of Jesus, Luke talks about the veil of the temple coming down. That too is in response to Jesus.

The point that Paul is hammering home to us is that Jesus is the key, that Jesus is the reason, that Jesus is the way to God. Jesus lifts the veil, whether it is in the temple, where misguided religious leaders attempt to keep the Spirit of God hidden behind a man-made curtain, or on a mountain top, where we may encounter God one-on-one, or in the reading of the written Word, a privilege made available to us only in the last 5 centuries. Jesus lifts the veil and as Paul says, we can see him in all his glory. With the coming of Jesus, we who believe are all becoming transformed into the very image of him who saved us.  

Can all see it? Can all hear it, this gospel which unveils the very presence of Jesus to us? Paul says no, the gospel remains veiled to those who are perishing, to those who have been blinded by selfish and evil pursuits. No, the gospel will not be heard by everyone, says Paul. At least it will not be heard in a saving way. As Jesus said, he who has ears, let him hear.   Sometimes, the veil we wear for protection does us more harm than good. If it acts as a barrier for the truth, it protects us not only from intrusion but from illumination as well.

Paul says that the Lord (Jesus) is Spirit, that the presence of the Spirit brings us freedom, that through the Spirit, we believers can be transformed into that divine image. Paul is not only calling us to a deeper walk with God; he is trying to get us to acknowledge that deep abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives as Christians. As we are transformed, so can we transform others. We call it witness…putting the power of the Spirit to work in our lives and turning that energy loose on those who are around us. The Holy Spirit is not an idea. He is not a concept. He is a person, living in us.

And that’s what it means to be unveiled. Jesus pierced that veil of separation between us and God. If God lives in us…can we not look at God more clearly? If the Holy Spirit guides us, can we not do without other protection? Let the Holy Spirit pierce your earthly veil of protection and let yourself be vulnerable to the light. The light of Jesus! Not only will it not blind us—it will make us see!

Going Where He Sends Us

Jeremiah 1: 1-10

           Imagine being eighteen or twenty years old and getting a very clear, pressing, non-negotiable call…from God. At any time, it is life changing. I can attest to that in my own life. But imagine at such a young age. Jeremiah had such an experience. He was called before he had an opportunity to do much living. God wanted him early.  He had big plans for Jeremiah as a prophet to God’s people.

          I’ve always thought that if I were given a choice between judge and prophet, I would take judge hands down. Judges had power. They were leaders. They could effect change. They had armies under their command. On the other hand, prophets were mouthpieces. They were like Doppler radar. They were the early warning systems for the people of Israel, but they weren’t predicting the weather. They did predict climate change, but it was the religious and political climate with which they were concerned.

          The Old Testament contains seventeen books written or attributed to the prophets. Twelve of them are called Minor Prophets, not because of their message, but because of their length. Five others, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel, are called major because they are longer. They were called prophets not because they could see the future, but rather to call attention to the present. They were commissioned by God to warn God’s people that disobedience would come at a cost.

          Jeremiah, also called the weeping prophet because of all the bad news and times he lived through and prophesied about, covered a lot of ground. Some commentators characterize him as the persevering prophet. I think that is more accurate when we examine the life of this servant of God. His ministry, and yes it was most definitely a ministry, lasted a long time. It started in the year 627, about midway through the reign of King Josiah, the last “good” king of Judah, and ended in Egypt some forty one years later, when Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch were forced to go there with the leaders of the coup against Gedaliah, the governor of Judah appointed by the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah’s ministry witnessed the reign of good king Josiah, the fall of Assyria to the Babylonians, the rise of Egypt while the Babylonians consolidated their power, the further rise of the Babylonians, and a succession of kings of Judah including Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoichin and Zedekiah, followed by the appointment of Gedaliah, a Judean, by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

          Confused? Don’t worry. Think of it this way, that Jeremiah was around at the fall of the Southern Kingdom (Judah) and that he prophesied to God’s people during the reigns of five kings and an appointed governor. The world changed greatly in the time of Jeremiah, and that indeed is part of his message, that God’s loyalty and justice never change, even in the midst of earthly turmoil.

          When God called Jeremiah, it was in the middle of good times. Josiah, the boy king, had united the people. He listened to God. Yet just twenty years or so after Josiah’s reign had ended, the country was mired in political, social, moral and spiritual decay. 

          I started out in the Navy as a deck officer aboard a ship. Part of my duties were to take care of the “aft” portion of the ship; the fantail, the stern, the back end, so to speak. What that entailed was, among other things,  painting. My division trained for many tasks, but before and after the training, there was painting. First, we painted with red lead, a red primer designed to seal rust. Then, we painted with Navy gray paint. That was one of my first lessons that much of what we do in this world is maintenance. It’s not glamorous, but it has to be done. “Red-leading” kept the rust off my ship.

Now what has my job as a painting superintendent got to do with prophecy? More than meets the eye at first blush. Think about your own experiences. What parts of your life need “red-leading?” Red-leading keeps the rust off your children and the way you do business with your life. The people of Israel forgot to do the maintenance of their culture and it rusted.

          Jeremiah was of the tribe of Benjamin, which was one of the two priestly tribes. He was born to go into the priesthood. But being called to be God’s prophet was entirely different. It would change Jeremiah’s life. If you look at the scripture for today, you can see four related but separate actions that God took when calling Jeremiah. First, we are told that that God knew Jeremiah. He knew him before he was born, before he was even formed in his mother’s womb. Before Jeremiah ever drew a breath on this earth, God had already begun a relationship with him.  Not only that, the “before” used here applies to Jeremiah’s call as well. God has claimed Jeremiah for his divine purpose before he enters the world. Thirdly, the scripture says that before he was formed or born, he was consecrated; and fourth, that again, before he was formed or born, he was appointed by God. Before Jeremiah was ever conceived by man, he was in relationship with God; he was claimed, consecrated and appointed by God…for kingdom work.

          All this is revealed to Jeremiah. The word of the Lord comes to him and tells him this much. And yet, Jeremiah acts in the way that you and I would most probably act. Put yourself in the shoes of Jeremiah. You’re walking home and the voice of God comes to you and tells you that you are appointed a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah starts with the disclaimers. Come on, God, I’m just a kid. This is special work. I don’t have the verbal skills. I just got out of high school. I’m just getting started here. I don’t know how to be a prophet.

          And what did God say? No sweat. Don’t even say all that stuff. I’m God, remember? “For to all to whom I send you, you shall go,” No fear! I’ve got your back. I’m with you. I will deliver you.

          For Jeremiah, God’s reassurance was swift and tangible. God reached out and touched Jeremiah’s mouth. One gets the impression of a physical act. Jeremiah is touched by God. It is reminiscent of the Incarnation of Christ, for here, divine meets human. In the case of Jeremiah, the human will never be the same.

          I don’t know about you, but I could use a sendoff like that. God says to Jeremiah that he is there; that he will deliver Jeremiah.

Wow! If only he would talk to me like that. Then I would know what to do.  

Jeremiah was lucky. He heard from God himself and it is inspirational to read about that event in his life. But for us to say that such is not available to us is to ignore the Scripture, the written Word of God. God’s promises are everywhere in the Bible. We can hardly turn a page without finding an example. Here are just a few.

Are you depressed? Wondering who cares? Look at Isaiah 41:10: “fear not, for I am with you…I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you.” Or Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love will not depart from you.”

Are you scared? Is there something or someone that threatens you? Call on Deuteronomy 31:8 as did Moses: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.” Or claim the promise of Jesus himself in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you…Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Do you have questions about financial decisions? Look at Philippians 4:19: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” How about health questions? You might want to claim God’s promise in Jeremiah 30:17: “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord.” If God can restore a nation, he can handle you and me.

How do we get these messages from God? How do we begin to claim his promises? In the eleventh chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus has taught his disciples how to pray. Then he moves on to the subject of claiming God’s promises. He tells his disciples to: “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” [Luke 11: 9]. That same promise remains an invitation to all who seek it. And Jesus goes on in that same story to explain that our heavenly father wants us to ask, wants us to seek, wants us to knock.  Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will be given to us in more abundance than even the love of a father for his own child.

So…while God may have not touched our mouths in the same way that he touched those of Jeremiah, he does find very effective ways to communicate with us, if only we are paying attention. Certainly one of the richest sources to mine his promises is the Bible. There are literally hundreds of promises to claim. The apostle Paul claimed them all. He was called, not at the beginning of his life, like Jeremiah, but well into his career as a persecutor of Christians. Writing to the church in Rome, he gives us this promise to add to our list: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” [Romans 8: 38].

We are all called. Most of us will not prophesy to the nations like Jeremiah, but we might prophesy to our children or others with whom we come in contact. We might do quite a bit more if we will claim the promises that God has given us, for God’s loyalty and justice never change. God does put words in our mouths in the sense that he puts thoughts in our minds, in the way that the Holy Spirit can speak to our inner life.

Do not say, I am only a youth, or only one person, or old or weak or untrained. Do not be so presumptuous as to think that God cannot give you every tool required to do his bidding. Listen to what he is saying: “for to all whom I send you, you shall go.”

If All Are the Same Member, then Where Is the Body?

                   1 Corinthians 12: 4-27

           What’s more important? The organization or the individual? Who’s more important? The star or the team? Is Cam Newton the heartbeat of the Carolina Panthers? Or are the Panthers the heartbeat that gives Cam life for his talent? My mechanic used to tell me that an automobile is the only machine in the world that costs $25,000 assembled or $100,000 unassembled. So which is more important…the body or its members? If you use the logic of my mechanic and if you assign importance by monetary value alone, then the parts are  more important than the vehicle they help assemble. But if that is true, then what do you tell all those thousands of parts when the steering wheel is missing? Are they now unimportant? They can’t do what they were designed to do because there is nothing there to steer them. The car is useless without the steering wheel. So which is more important, the thing or its components?

          Paul writes to the church in Corinth. He’s trying to get those folks to understand the importance of unity. He talks about the trinity, though he doesn’t use the word. He says one God, one Spirit, one Lord, meaning Jesus. He says no matter what kind of gifts you may possess, they manifest themselves as the presence of the Holy Spirit, of God and his grace.

          One body. The concept is of immense significance. Here, Paul is talking about the church, the body of Christ, but he certainly is in good company. Paul’s concept of unity has been applied in other contexts for centuries. You hear it in conference rooms, boardrooms, judge’s chambers and dugouts. You hear it sitting around kitchen tables. Wherever there is something to be accomplished and more than one person involved, the cry is heard for cooperation, for teamwork, for unity!

          In Genesis, we are told that a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Easier said than done, but God’s point is unity. In the book of Deuteronomy appears the Shema, the first two words of the most important prayer of the nation of Israel. It calls the people to “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” We understand God as Trinitarian, but even in that community of deity Father, Son and Holy Spirit), there is but one God.

          The secular world tries to emulate these principles of unity. Our American union is a republic of United States. Companies band together under an invention called the corporation, whereby individuals join for a common purpose, issuing stock certificates to evidence their collective ownership of the whole. Churches and denominations also join for common purposes, making constitutions and charters to bind them as they exist in a multitude of locations under one common umbrella. Sports provide yet another example of how we group our individual selves for the good of the whole, the team.

          So it would seem that the whole is of more importance than the sum of its parts, the car more valuable than its individual components. Paul tells the church in Corinth, which is having all kinds of troubles, that “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” We are all made to drink of, to answer to, one Spirit, the Spirit of God.

          In this passage, Paul is specifically talking about the Spirit of God bringing Jews and Gentiles together in one faith. But his thoughts have many other applications. Look again at Paul’s words and what they should mean to us today. It’s not just Jew and Greek, but rich and poor. It’s not just Pharisee and Scribe, but soldier and fisherman.  It’s not just Presbyterians and Baptists, but Christians. The church becomes the manifestation of the risen Christ on earth. Paul points out to us that as surely as a hand cannot operate without the body to which it is attached, so equally does the body require the hand…and the foot and every other part and system…to be whole and working efficiently.

          Look at my hand. It works great. It can grasp. It can squeeze. It can carry. Squeeze my wrist just right and you can feel my pulse. You can feel the blood flowing throughout my hand. It’s alive and vital and integral to what I am capable of doing.

          Now, cut it off. The moment it is severed, it begins to die. In a very short while, it will wither, and turn blue and become useless. That’s not all. Look at the stump where my hand was severed. If it is not treated, and with some careful attention and haste, I could bleed out. The act of cutting off my hand could cause my death.

          What if the hand represents you? What if the body represents the church? What if you are cut off from the church, the bride of Christ? Can you continue to be a vital, active Christian outside of the fellowship of the Church?

          Paul says that God has composed the body (the Church) that there is no division in it, that the members all have the same care for one another; that if one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

          But aren’t some parts are more important than others? Paul says no.  Even the seemingly weaker parts are indispensable. Take the liver as an example. Who wants to be a liver! Livers get no headlines. All they do are secret bile to carry waste away and make a little protein. But try living without a liver.

          Yes, the body can function without all its original parts. You can lose an eye and still see. But with each loss, the body is damaged and function is compromised. And the part, unless harvested for transplant, is lost. So, says Paul, the hand needs the eye; they both need the foot. Each member performs different functions, but all are needed. So it is with the church. God wills gifts for us, then gives them to us. Individuals come together, share those gifts and the bride of Christ can dance all night. Through the Spirit that unites us and guides us, we become unified in our incredible variety of gifts and diversity to do God’s will!

A thousand feet can walk nowhere, climb nothing. But one unified body? It can scale mountains and swim oceans. “If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

There is one exception. Every body needs a guidance system, a mission control. We think of it as the brain or the head, the place where decisions are made, plans formulated. Without the head, the body is useless and will die. Christians understand that Jesus Christ fulfills that role for us. Writing to the church in Colossae, Paul acknowledges as much, saying that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.”

Through Christ, we receive…gifts of all kinds, talents of all colors. Through Christ, we manifest those gifts, apply those gifts, glorify his gift to us. Through Christ we have unity in diversity, diversity in unity. No one part can dismiss another. No one part can be more proud than another. God organized the church the same way he organized the body. It is interdependent. The church is its members and its members are the church. They, and it…rise to serve, and in that service, act out their loving duty as the children of God.

What are you? A hand, a foot, a finger, a toe, a liver? It doesn’t matter. You are needed. Jesus is counting on the Church—and we are the Church! We are his manifestation. We are his voice. Let’s speak!

                         Sojourning In a Foreign Land

     Exodus 2: 22, Matthew 2; 13-15

 

 

          Have you ever been a sojourner? Chances are excellent that you have. A sojourner is a temporary resident. Sojourners are college students staying in dormitories. Sojourners are infantrymen in tents or barracks, sailors on board ships, missionaries working far afield from their homes.

          Sojourner just means temporary visitor. Add to it “in a foreign land” and you have a familiar Biblical concept. The Hebrew word (ger) that we usually translate as “sojourner,” or sometimes “stranger,” occurs about 160 times in Scripture as either a noun or verb. It’s used a lot because it’s common in scripture for people to find themselves in a temporary place.

          In the Book of Exodus, Moses has spent the first chapter of his life as a sojourner in the land of Egypt, where he is Pharaoh’s adopted prince. He doesn’t know he’s a sojourner. He thinks he is home. As time passes, he realizes what God has in store for him. In the second chapter of his life, banished from Egypt, Moses finds himself in the region of Midian. He goes to work for Jethro, the priest of Midian. Moses marries Jethro’s daughter and his first son is called Gershom, meaning sojourner in a foreign land. As you know, Moses was to experience a couple more significant chapters in his life. He was not done with either sojourning or doing so in a foreign land. God had a lot in store for Moses.

          Sojourning is a common Biblical theme. Look at Abraham. He was the king of the sojourners. He moved from the land of Ur to a nomadic life which would eventually bring him to the land of Canaan. His grandson Jacob would later flee to another land after stealing his brother’s birthright. When famine came, Jacob’s family ended up in Goshen, right outside the Egyptian capital. More sojourning. This time, it lasted about four hundred years, as God’s people became enslaved to the Egyptians, but it still was God’s people sojourning in a foreign land.

          King David spent a lot of time knocking around. It was a dozen years between his anointing and his assuming the throne as king. The prophet Elijah spent about as much time running away to the wilderness and the desert as he did trying to wake up the nation of Israel. The Israelites didn’t just wander through the Exodus years; they were also exiled in Babylon, far from home for several generations. It seems that in many instances, sojourning in a foreign land was a way of life for God’s people.

          But, you might say, that was the Old Testament. It was different in the New Testament, wasn’t it? Things began to settle down. God’s people were back in Israel.  Not really. That’s tells only part of the story. For instance, the book of Matthew reports that after Jesus was born, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem. There, they found out Jesus had been born in Bethlehem and they traveled there, finding Jesus in a house. The nativity scene we display every year has the characters right, but not the timing. The wise men, or magi, came later, probably months later. Maybe more. That’s why Herod had all the male children less than two years old killed. Jesus was sure to have been in that group.

          But Jesus wasn’t in that group. Joseph had been warned by an angel and Jesus and his family had fled quickly to Egypt, where they stayed until Herod died. So Jesus started out his life as a sojourner in a foreign land. Even when they returned, they started over in a new town where they were not known.

          Where did the great apostle Paul live? On the road. How about Philip? Try Africa. The same is true for so many of Jesus’ disciples. They found themselves sojourners in a foreign land for the sake of the gospel

          Yet as great a commitment as it is to leave your home or familiar surroundings and strike out for some unfamiliar place, it is by far a greater commitment, indeed the ultimate act of obedience, to stay right where you are, but change your allegiance. Want to try it out? Want to be a sojourner in a foreign land? Just try to follow Jesus!

First, you might want to take an inventory. Is there anything you might have to change?  Look at what you have. Let’s just take a quick tour of the average person in this community. You would say you’re pretty average, wouldn’t you? You’re certainly not rich and you aren’t poor either.

Okay. Do you own a car? Jesus didn’t. Do you own your own home? Jesus didn’t. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Jesus owned a pair of sandals. How many changes of clothes sit in your closet unworn for months or even years? Jesus owned a robe.  

          How do you support God’s church? Do you give money? The widow Jesus saw at the temple gave a mite. That’s less than a penny. It’s also a fortune, for it was all she had. How much time do you give each week? An hour, two, five?  Paul gave his life to God and paid his own way as a tentmaker to boot.  

My point is not to disparage anyone. We all fall short of Jesus and we already know that. My point is this. Jesus showed us the way to live in this world with our eyes on the kingdom.  

          It’s very difficult to live in this world and keep your eyes on the prize. We are constantly being told by every message on every billboard, in every newspaper or magazine, in every  commercial, that we need to be taller and thinner and prettier, that we can do so if we just use the right drugs, wear the right clothes, drive the right cars. The idols the media promotes are bachelors and bachelorettes, quarterbacks and singers. Even when religion is front and center, it revolves around the bigness of the ministry, the size of the purse.

          If we can turn away from such massive promotion, such a penetrating social message, then we will indeed find ourselves  sojourners in a foreign land. Almost everything in our society points us in another way, a selfish way. But Jesus is calling, too.  We live with one foot balanced precariously in the reality of place, of the here and now, of time and space and yes, consumerism.

But as Christians, we must reach. We must thrust that other foot into a spiritual land that day by day, hour by hour, begins to make us realize that the ground on which we walk is quicksand. It is only the firm ground of the cross where reality really exists. That is where we find home. That is where we can hang up the shoes of the sojourner and take our rest.

The apostle Paul, writing to the Roman church, encouraged them to present themselves as living sacrifices acceptable, not to their friends or co-workers or classmates, but to God. He entreated them to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of their minds…to discern the will of God.” He was asking them to do what Jesus alluded to in the seventeenth chapter of John. Jesus, praying to God during the Passion Week. asked God that his disciples could be “in this world, but not of it.”

What does Paul mean? What does Jesus mean? Jesus goes on to say that he is sending his disciples into the world, not withdrawing them from it. He asks God for their protection from evil, not for a place to hide. I think the message here is that we are always to be guided by Christ, by God’s grace, that we are always to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We Christians are the answer. We just need to keep reminding the world of what the true questions are.

Yes, if we are Christians, then we are called upon to be sojourners in a foreign land. It is a land full of temptation, ripe with idols, loaded with pressure from all around us to conform to its ways. But we know better. It’s only temporary.

Why should we do such a thing, make such a commitment? Why should we make life so hard? Don’t be misled. Hard can be good; even easy. Jesus promises us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

It’s time to recognize that even while we sit at home surrounded by family, relaxed in all our earthly rituals, we are just sojourners, passing through this place on the way to eternity. The place we live, the space we occupy, is only temporary. We cannot find real lasting stability on such a foundation. It just can’t hold but so long.

We can find that stability in Jesus. We can find that foundation in him. There’s nothing temporary about Jesus. Where do you stand, and how will you serve? On Christ the solid rock we stand. All other ground…is sinking sand!

Doing Your Father’s Business

     Luke 2: 41-52

 

 

          There they sat by the curb. They looked like lost sheep. They were my lost sheep. When I was a single parent, I drove my three older children to and from school every day. I was trying to juggle a law practice and make a living and also be a good parent. I remember a couple times when I lost that battle badly.  I arrived at school an hour late to find my three children huddled up, waiting for their dad. I felt like the world’s worst parent. What can you possibly say to your children when you are an hour late?

          I have some old friends who had three children close together. They used to travel to Illinois to visit her parents. On one such trip, they stopped as usual to get gas. They were a couple hours down the road when they realized they were one child short. Imagine how they felt, racing back to that gas station to find their son. This was before the age of cell phones, and all they had was a good sense of geography and a lot of prayer. Everything turned out fine, but think of how much they worried until they saw him again.

          It happens, Life comes at us fast, and sometimes, one parent thinks the other parent has it covered, only to find out that things are not quite as they appeared. I suspect that I and my friends are not the only parents to drop the ball. Has something similar happened to you?

          In fact, it even happened to the Son of God. Of course, at the time, he was also the son of Joseph and Mary. While his heavenly Father never lost him, his earthly parents did. And not for an hour or even a few hours, but for 3 days!

          The second chapter of Luke’s gospel is loaded. We have the Christmas story, but that is only the beginning. Eight days later, baby Jesus is presented at the temple as is the custom, and old Simeon gives the blessing and the announcement that he has seen God’s salvation. Anna the prophetess also gives her blessing. Then the family returns to Nazareth. But Luke is not through. He fast forwards twelve years ahead to give us our only gospel glimpse of Jesus as a boy. It is a telling picture that Luke paints for us.

          Faithful Jews in first century Israel tried to get to the Temple in Jerusalem at least three times a year for the big feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. It was no small feat for Mary and Joseph. It was sixty five miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem. That was normally a three day walk.  So for Mary and Joseph and their family to get to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast was a big deal. In this story, Jesus was 12 years old. He may well have had siblings by then, and that would have only made the trip that much more difficult and expensive. It was the custom of the time to journey in a caravan where men and boys traveled together and women and girls, or small children, did the same. A 12 year old boy might have been included in either group.

          Perhaps it was because of Jesus’ middling age that there was some mix-up. It could be that one group thought Jesus to be traveling with the other. Whatever the reason, Mary and Joseph were a day’s journey away from Jerusalem before they realized that Jesus was not with them. Making their way back to Jerusalem took another day and it took a third day to locate Jesus. Three days without the knowledge of their son’s whereabouts, and no missing person’s bureau to report to, no organization to help them hunt, no communications network other than word of mouth.

          Where would you look for your child? If he or she were gone for three days and was last seen in a city flooded by tourists for a feast, where would you look? Of course, you would retrace your steps, but after that fails, then what?  You would look up kinfolk if there were any, but what then? Look in alleys? In the seedy parts of town? Where would you look to find your child?

          Apparently, the temple was not the first place that Mary and Joseph thought of. Perhaps in light of what we now know, it should have been, but Jesus’ earthly parents did not connect that way with him just yet. He was their son. He had done nothing of which we can read to show himself to be the Son of God. There was no apparent reason to seek a twelve year old boy in the temple. But on this trip, if not before, that all changed.

          When we read Luke’s account of Jesus in the temple at 12 years of age, we can easily feel the angst of his parents. Verbs like “astonished” and “distress” and “did not understand” are used to describe their reaction. You know they were worried sick. And then, after a day’s searching all over Jerusalem, they found him in the temple of all places. If your twelve year old son were lost for three days, would you come to this church to look for him? You too might be astonished if you found him here discussing theology with the pastor and the elders, and showing quite a bit of knowledge as well.

          Jesus’ statement to his mother brings the change into focus. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The King James translates the line as “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? Just like that, the line has been re-drawn. The importance of Jesus’ lineage is now shifting right of front of their very eyes. Jesus must now be about his Father’s business and he isn’t talking about carpentry.

         Maybe this is why Luke’s story is here. It is the only place it is told, the only glimpse in the New Testament that we have of Jesus as a boy. And even in that one snapshot, Luke picks a time of transition. We don’t find Jesus playing or working or even in school. Or do we?  

          Jesus is moving, right in front of our very eyes, from boy to man. Perhaps in a kindness from God himself, Mary is deprived of her son for three days as a sort of preparation for what is about to happen. When she is re-united with Jesus, he is not the same boy who went up to Jerusalem just a week ago. Now, he must be about his Father’s business.

          I get cold chills thinking about the exchange that went on at that moment.  There is the relationship between Jesus and his parents, particularly his mother. It is still tender and obedient and Jesus’ remarks bear that out.  There is also a relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father. Jesus now clearly has an awareness that he is literally God’s Son, and he is proving that by his presence in the temple. So many emotions were at play. So many revelations were happening. All could have been anticipated, but now here they were. Mary and Joseph can hardly deny that they have a special child indeed. And now, in an instant, everything had changed and it would never be the same.

          The words uttered here by Jesus are his first recorded words. This is the first time we hear him speak. We will not hear him again until he begins his ministry at age 30. It is a short story with little detail. We don’t know where Jesus stayed or how he got by those three days alone. We only know that he was in the temple talking about God and scripture. The story is a glimpse into his life and only a glimpse. It forms a sort of bridge between the events of his birth and his adult ministry.

          Mary are Joseph were perplexed. Luke tells us that they didn’t understand. Here was Mary’s son, telling her he had to be about his father’s business. Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd recorded a haunting song in 1986 which asks the question: “Mary, did you know.” The song reminds us of all the hopes and dreams that the baby Jesus carried on his tiny shoulders. Mary, did you know? Here, the answer is clearly No, Mary does not know. When the shepherds tell Mary of the tidings of the angels, she “treasures up all these things, pondering them in her heart” [2:19]. When young Jesus tells her he must be about his Father’s business, she “treasures up all these things in her heart” [2:51]. Mary parked these windows of revelation away, waiting for the day when she would understand more. She knew only that she had played a part in the delivery and raising of the Son of God. More than that, she did not know. On that day in the temple, she watched as her oldest son began to claim his destiny and she didn’t understand where it would take him and what it would mean.

          Perhaps what Mary saw most clearly was that not only was her child becoming an adult, but that he was called, called to something greater than manhood. He was called to be about his father’s business, and his father was God himself. And yet as we witness the budding knowledge in the boy-man Jesus of his divinity, we cannot forget that this was happening to someone as human as you and me. He was called. Mary saw that. She didn’t fully understand it, but she saw it. I suspect Joseph did, too. Luke makes it clear to us that Jesus went back home with Mary and Joseph and that he was obedient to them and honored them. But something had changed, and Luke takes note of it.

          It was to be eighteen years before we hear Jesus speak again, and then his conversation is with John the Baptist during his baptism. How many events transpired over those eighteen years of preparation? How many more things had Mary laid up in her heart to treasure and ponder? The Bible does not give us these answers, but in some part, they lie in our own experiences. As surely as Jesus was both sent and called, it is that same Jesus who now calls us. We children of God are not called to save the world. That is a God-sized job. But each of us is here for a purpose. To what are you called?

          Of course there is much more to the life of Jesus than just showing us the way, but if the life of Jesus instructs us in nothing else, it certainly instructs us to be about our Father’s business, to be found in our Father’s house, and this alone is a lesson for the ages. He came for us. He died for us. He lives for us.  

          Sometimes it may take breaking away from the safety of the caravan and even home and hearth to find our way, but God is there, waiting for us. Jesus didn’t run away from home. Far from it. He just began to show his calling. Luke says that “he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”  That can happen to us as well. We need only to answer that voice within us. It’s there. Listen to it. Let us, too, be about our Father’s business.

                              What Then Shall We Do?

     Luke 3: 7-18

 

 

          We are in the third week of Advent, the season of preparation for the coming of Christ. This week the theme is Joy, joy for the coming Savior, joy for what his birth means to mankind. The passage for this week from Luke 3, telling of John the Baptist and his quest to baptize his people in repentance of their sins, may leave you wondering if John had heard about the joy.

         John the Baptist is not preaching a sermon of joy. Far from it, He is on a mission and, like so many prophets before him, there is a whole lot more warning than celebration. Last week, we heard John exhort us to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his path. This week, John takes off the gloves and punches us bare-knuckled. We are not ready, he says, and we are out of time.

          You brood of vipers! This is the title John assigns to the crowd seeking baptism. Brood of vipers. Vipers are poisonous. They can kill a full grown human. The venom they inject with those stabbing fangs is designed to immobilize their prey. Think about it. Short term, a viper bite will stun you into inaction. Long term, it will eat your flesh from the inside out. John has a point, for sin does about the same thing in about the same way. Short term, sin paralyzes us from walking with God. Long term, it separates us and kills our ability to be saved. It eats at us from the inside out. And John called the crowd a brood, meaning that they were a family group, a species. Sin is like that too. It should offer us little comfort that we all act alike that way, for the way we act can be poisonous.

          You brood of vipers, says John. You family of sinners! What are you doing here? Who warned you? You haven’t acted in a way that would give you a ticket to this event. Why are you here? Do you think being Jewish gives you some sort of free pass? Luke says Jesus was talking to a “crowd.” Matthew tells the same story and has Jesus addressing Pharisees and Sadducees. In each case, these were people leading lives in need of adjustment.

          There is nothing theologically subtle about John’s message. Some call it John’s gospel. That’s not an accurate description. Gospel means good news and John’s message was not good news unless you had lived out the Jewish law both to the letter and the spirit. Few would have come close to that standard. John came preaching repentance or else. Although verse 18 is translated as good news, it is only good in the sense that John is announcing the coming of the Messiah. It was the news of terror that John brought, unless one had been baptized and had repented.

          One commentary I read suggests that John actually refused to baptize these people because they had not repented.  I can’t tell from the text whether that is so, but I can get Luke’s point. Repentance is the act. Baptism is only the sign of that act.  John says to the crowd or to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” In today’s language, it might be: Put your money where your mouth is. Perhaps it was only the Pharisees and Sadducees who were denied baptism. If that is the case, they heard from John that their kinship with Abraham gave them no special status for salvation. I love John’s answer to that way of thinking He said that if God were in the mood, he could just raise up stones to be sons of Abraham. In other words, God’s power and blessing extend to those who believe in him and are obedient to him, not to some birthright.

          At any rate, there is a change in John’s delivery and message starting in verse 10. The crowds ask John: “What then shall we do?” I get the impression that it is a plaintiff cry, a pleading, reaching out almost in desperation. “What then shall we do?” And John’s tone seems to change. In front of him are the crowds. There are also tax collectors, perhaps the most despised of all, and soldiers, those who enforce the collection of the tax.  All in all, John the Baptist is confronted with the most unlikely of all the people and it is they who are clamoring down to the riverbank to be baptized. Go figure. Where are the religious leaders?

          John reminds those who would be baptized that they must repent and that repentance means change. The lessons are as old as the Scripture itself. What, then, shall we do? Share. Share and don’t cheat. Do you have two coats? Give one away. Do you have extra food?  Feed someone hungry. Make room in your house and offer shelter. Give someone a ride, not just to your workplace, but to his. For the tax collectors, who were engaged in corrupt collection practices, John’s message was equally simple. Don’t take what does not belong to you. Collect only what is due and live within your means.

          Repentance is a simple concept. It means to turn away. Look at who you are and what you do that goes against God’s teachings and quit doing those things. Turn away and change your behavior. Share the wealth. We have more than we need, but there are those who don’t.

          So in this world of John the Baptist, where we are just about out of time and the Messiah is coming not with open arms but with a winnowing fork, who is paying attention?  Who is seeking baptism because they have turned away from their selfishness? It’s not who we would have first thought. It’s not the people with the answers that are being baptized. It’s the people with the questions that are getting baptized.

          That might be a pretty good place to stop with this message. For most of us, repentance just means to turn away from selfishness and greed. It means to turn from a life lived by looking out for number one to a life of sharing with others. It can be as simple as the sharing of food, clothing and shelter, but it is a life of generosity and giving rather than taking.

          What the, shall we do? Don’t despair. We’re just like those people in the crowd. Let’s all go down to the riverbank and tell John that we get it. We can give that other coat away and we can do a lot more than bring in a few extra cans. We can find the “good news” that Luke 3: 18 was talking about. John the Baptist did preach a message of fire to those who held back and relied on themselves. But for those who came forward out of repentance, they found their baptism. Maybe that’s the joy for which we are searching in this 3^rd Sunday of Advent. When you turn away from the things that separate you from God, you find him standing there waiting for you.

           What then, shall we do? Let’s take John’s advice. Let’s repent and claim our baptism! Let’s live as if our Savior is coming tomorrow, for he may very well be!

                        Preparing the Way of the Lord

     Luke 3: 1-6

 

 

          “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our Lord.” This is part of a passage from the 40^th chapter of Isaiah, where the great prophet begins his prediction of the future. Unlike most of the prophetic books of the Old Testament which tell of God’s message in their contemporary situation, the latter part of Isaiah focuses on the future. Isaiah looks down the long road to come. He sees God upholding his own cause with a world-transforming display of his glory. Isaiah aims his vision at such an event, the time when the way of the Lord will be revealed, when the King will come.

          John the Baptist is a lot like Isaiah. He looks like he came out of the woods. He is not a pretty sight. Isaiah wasn’t either. The Old Testament prophet once went naked for three years and pulled out his hair to make his point. The new one wears a garment made of camel’s hair, rough to the touch, and eats bugs for his nourishment. These are not your average seminary products. John is like Isaiah in more ways than one.  Like Isaiah, he is setting the table for another. Both are prophets, heralding the coming of the real thing.

          So in Luke 1, John the Baptist is the new prophet and he quotes Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord.” Luke uses more references to people and kings in this passage than in any other place in his writings. He does so because he wants everyone to see the significance, to mark the date. Jesus is coming not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone. Luke is connecting the old with the new, but John’s prophecy is more than Isaiah’s. John is the herald, the announcer, not just the prophet. No matter who your king is, the real king is about to be introduced, and that is the job of John the Baptist. He would help smooth the way, prepare it for the Son of God. John’s call had worldwide significance, for the Savior was coming for all people.

          Luke tells us that the word of God came to John. The same words are used to describe God speaking to Samuel (1 Sam. 15: 10), to Jeremiah (1:4), to Ezekiel (1:3), to Jonah (1:1), Haggai (1:1), Zechariah (1:1), Malachi (1:1) and others. In each case, God was speaking to his servant, giving him both a vision and a task. The words introduce a special revelation, a revelation received to take to the people. In that same tradition, John the Baptist is sent as God’s prophet, and his proclamation is the “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

          How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Well, John seems to say that we need to level the field. John says make the path straight. Fill every valley. Lower the mountains and the hills. Straighten out the crooked. Make the rough places level.

          I think about that in practical terms. I like to ride a bicycle for exercise and for recreation, but I like it so much better when the terrain is smooth and fairly flat. I can go farther when the resistance is small. These days, there are bike paths designed for cyclists to move more easily with traffic. It’s as though the valleys have been filled and the mountains leveled. It makes the path straighter. I can see what John the Baptist was getting at. He wanted the path for the coming Savior to be clearly marked, easy to navigate. He wanted to prepare the way.

          When you want cyclists to be able to navigate safely with motorists, you create a bike path. You set aside a space where cyclists can ride. But what do you do when your objective is not just a safe place for a few, but a path for the Savior of mankind? It’s going to take a bigger path for that job. How do you prepare the way of the Lord?

          Prophets like John cry from the wilderness. That is, they are not the most visible, nor do they have the most credibility. They are prophets. If there is one thing that most of the prophets in the bible have in common, it is that they aren’t popular. They come talking about wrongdoing and they call for us to turn away from it, and we would just as soon they didn’t, for we are all too comfortable in our lives. This is not the way to win friends and influence people. The fact that they are right is just incidental information. If they don’t come preaching the message we want to hear, then we tune them out. They are marginalized from the start.

          In addition, John the Baptist is telling the people that the real king is coming. He says that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”   John does not promise salvation for all. Rather he heralds that it will be in sight for all to see. John points to the revelation of the Messiah, the physical manifestation of the Son of God. He goes on to say that the way must be prepared for him. The leveling to which he refers is nothing less than removal of the sin of the people.

The prophets talk in metaphors to tell us what needs to be done. How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Straighten the path, fill the low places, flatten the high places, straighten the crooked, make what is rough become level. It sounds like the prophets are in the grading business, and in a sense they are.

          That’s why John talks in terms of mountains and valleys. That’s why he uses such big terms to describe the grading project, because sin is everywhere. It’s as big as the mountains and as deep as the valleys and if we want God to be able to come to us, there is something we must do. We must be baptized in our repentance if our sins are to be forgiven. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

          What do we do to prepare for a royal visitor, a head of state? We make preparations of all kinds, from transportation to security to food and lodging and venues from which to speak and meet. We pull out all the stops to be sure we are ready to receive someone of so much importance in our midst. The ancients did the same for their kings and emperors. In the days of Isaiah, when a king proposed to tour a part of his empire, he sent a courier in advance to tell the people to prepare the roads. In Luke’s gospel, John acts as that courier. John knows he has been called to make way and that is exactly what he is trying to do. In his zest for the job, he thinks back to the visionary words of Isaiah and he attempts to remove the immoveable. Even though he knows that sin has pervaded our lives, he appeals to us to wipe ourselves clean, not only to ask forgiveness but to repent, to turn away. These are the hills to be leveled, the paths to be made straight, in our lives. The result of that repentance is salvation.

          How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Break down the walls. Tear down the fences. John the Baptist was called upon to tell the people, and through that testimony God calls upon us, to prepare our hearts, to prepare our lives. William Barclay says it this way: “The King is coming, Mend not your roads, but your lives.”

         John the Baptist tells us that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  Of that, we can rest assured. But John does not promise us that all shall receive that salvation. Neither does God. For that, we must prepare the way.

          Are you prepared? You first have to ask forgiveness. You have to turn away from your selfishness and sin. That is how you prepare your way for the Lord. Make straight your path. The King is coming!