A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2009 (December 20) at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV, and based on Luke 1:39-56.
39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,and holy is his name.50 And his mercy is for those who fear himfrom generation to generation.51 He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;52 he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;53 he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.54 He has helped his servant Israel,in remembrance of his mercy,55 as he spoke to our fathers,to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. (ESV)
This past week I've been contemplating a number of disparate readings, events, music and film: The Gospel, The Copenhagen Summit, The Health Care machinations, The Christmas music of Sting, a current movie, and Mother Teresa's reflections on her Life for the Poor.
I've noticed a huge contrast in approach to the world's problems. Like the ill-fated builders of the tower of Babel, the nations of the world have met in Copenhagen to try to fix the global climate and Congress has been trying to hammer out a scheme to fix the ailing health care system. Their attempts to address the world's problems are desperate, filled with duplicity and greed, and blatant in their intention to micro-manage people's lives. There is anger and frustration with those who don't want to go along with the Grand Plan.
Everywhere, people observe what Stings sings about in his song, 'Lullaby for an Anxious Child":
"The world is broken now,
All in sorrow
Wise men hang their heads."
Sorrow, brokenness and despair are the natural conditions of the world. Joy is not its default setting.
But reading the Good News this week from Luke, we find this very thing: Joy!
In Chapter 1, vv39-41, after the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that she was to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bear a child called Jesus, we learn that she "arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb." In verse 44, Elizabeth explains that when the sound of Mary's greeting came to her ears, the baby in her womb leaped - for joy.
Unlike the world, the Christian default setting is indeed Joy.
The baby leaped for joy in Elizabeth's womb. (Remember, the baby was John the Baptist, the very same scary prophet that called the pharisees a brood of vipers.) John leaped for Joy when he sensed the presence of Jesus within Mary.
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (vv. 41, 42) She too was filled with Joy.
And then Mary gets into the act and sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...(v.47)
You see, Joy comes to us when we recognize and acknowledge the Presence of Jesus in our midst. And Advent is all about preparing for and acknowledging this wonderful Presence.
The pop singer Sting is a self-proclaimed agnostic, but he sings this wonderful traditional lullaby called "Balulalow":
"O my dear heart, young Jesu sweet,
Prepare thy credle in my spreit (sic)
And I shall rock thee in my heart
and never more from thee depart.
But I shall praise thee evermore
With sangis sweet unto thy glore
The knees of my heart shall I bow,
And sing that rich Balulalow."
Joy and Praise come in when we welcome Christ and bend the knees of our hearts to Him.
So, let me ask you some questions: Today, does your spirit rejoice and leap over Jesus? Do you know Him personally? Do you recognize Him in others? And does the joy of knowing Jesus in your heart cause you to serve him by serving others with Joy? I hope so, for the Leap of Joy is what makes life worthwhile and meaningful.
In the book of her collected sayings, 'My Life for the Poor," Mother Teresa describes the inner joy of Knowing Jesus:
"To me Jesus is my God.
Jesus is my Spouse.
Jesus is my Life.
Jesus is my only Love.
Jesus is my All in all.
Jesus is my Everything."
"A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love," she says (pg. 40). "Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love."
The love of Jesus is what causes our hearts to leap with joy.
So let's ask the question again, "Has your heart ever leaped with joy in recognizing Jesus?"
It's possible that you may not have had a dramatic conversion experience where you went from night to day, despair to joy in a moment. Maybe the joy of Jesus grew within you gradually as your parents raised you in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
But maybe somewhere along the way, you have had other experiences of Joy which looked or felt like something else - namely a call to service.
When I drove past 1410 Charleston Avenue one August morning in 2006 and was arrested by that For Sale sign in the yard, it didn't really feel like Joy. Actually, it was profoundly troubling. My heart leaped in recognition, but it was more like and instant understanding that something had changed within me in a moment - that I was being called to something I could not fathom at the time. This too is Joy - but it's a call to give out the Joy we have been given.
When Cindy and I sat down with Tina Ward and Jasmine and watched little Kion throw a football like he was born to it - something leaped within my heart. I had a vision of him playing college football - it must have been God, because I saw him playing for WVU - and I'm a four-generation Marshall man! I saw a whole life of potential in a two year old and longed for that potential to be realized, not snuffed out like his uncle Donte's was, when he died in the driveway at 1410 Charleston Ave.
Maybe you felt it too when you picked an item from the Angel Tree. Is this not the recognition of Jesus? Yes, I believe it is. And the joy we give out has an impact upon the world. Mother Teresa again:
"Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls." (MLFP, Pg. 40).
The joy we receive from God through Christ propels us out "into the world to love and serve Him" by ministering to the lost, the broken and lonely one soul at a time.
Unlike the kingdoms of this world, which scheme on a global level, trying to change the masses, we Christians are called to love our neighbors as individuals, one at a time, often in obscurity and seeming insignificance.
For some reason, God actually seems to enjoy obscurity. Mary, lived in an obscure town in an obscure country. She said yes to bearing one child - and her child was born in still more obscure stable. He lived an obscure life. But this Child named Jesus went on to change the world!
Last night, Cindy and I went to see the movie "The Blind Side" a true story about a wealthy white Christian family that adopts a young black man and helps him go on to become a football hero. There's a moment in the film, where Leanne, the mother, comes face to face with the knowledge that Michael has never had his own bed in all his almost 18 years of life. Leanne is profoundly affected by this stark fact and has to go into the other room and sit down. I believe it is at that moment that her heart leaped - and she realized that she would have to really 'prepare a credle in her heart' for Michael and so welcome him -as if he were Christ in distressing disguise, as Mother Teresa puts it.
One family welcomed one young man into their hearts. Did they change the world?
In another scene from the Blind Side, we hear Leanne's voice talking and see the newspaper clippings about all the young men she had read about in the newspaper who had had wonderful athletic talent and potential, but whose lives were cut short by gang and drug related violence. At the end of the sequence, she comments that she had taken in one such young man - and he didn't die. Instead he reached his potential - and is going on to affect many lives himself. Can there be any doubt that Leanne and her family changed the course of history?
'What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean. but if we don't do it, the ocean would be one drop less", says Teresa. When we serve as if we are 'doing it to Jesus' we profoundly change the world. We can even win souls.
"Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls", says Mother Teresa.
She goes on to tell how an atheist came to the Home for the Dying in Calcutta and watched a sister care for a dying man covered with maggots.
"The [atheist] stood there, watching the sister and then he returned and said, "I came here godless. I came here full of hatred. I am going full of God. I have seen god's love in action. I have seen that through those hands of that sister, through her face, through her tenderness, so full of love for that man. Now I believe." (Pg. 42). The atheist's heart leaped for joy when he saw Jesus in action.
As did the heart of a Hindu man who came to the Home for the Dying and said, "Your religion must be true. Christ must be true if he helps you to do what you're doing."
Joyful service is a silent apologetic for the Gospel. It helps people encounter Jesus.
But as always, it's easier to hear inspiring service than to practice it. It's easier to love a million people in Africa than it is to love one cranky neighbor next door. The challenge is always to start where you are right here and now. That's why in our Advent meditations we have emphasized listening to what God may be leading us to do in our own neighborhoods and circles of acquaintance.
During our Wednesday evening devotions, we have heard a number of inspiring testimonies about how God has directed some of us into service opportunities such as adopting a Muslim child, having lunch with a group of friends and praying for an agnostic at work. I believe that, even now, He is leading us to reach out to the un-churched, the spiritually confused, the lonely and the poor - right around us.
As I have announced previously, to give us more time to discern and follow his leading, we will suspend our 8th Day Life Groups between Christmas and Lent. As we do this, who knows how our hearts will leap in response to Jesus?!
I urge you to open yourselves to recognize the presence of Christ in our midst - personified in one another, in the reading and hearing of the Logos, in the bread and wine, and in the face of the poor around us, whether they be financially or emotionally poor. Let the Holy Spirit cause your heart to leap, and then rejoice that the Mighty One will do great things in you, just as he did for Mary.
I'd like to have us close now by saying responsively a sort of litany adapted from My Life for the Poor, entitled This is Jesus to Me:
Jesus is:
The Word - to be spoken
The Truth - to be told.
The Way - to be walked.
The Light - to be lit.
The Life - to be lived.
The Love-to be loved.
The Joy- to be shared
The Sacrifice- to be offered.
The Peace- to be given.
The Bread of life-to be eaten
The Hungry - to be fed.
The Thirsty - to b satiated.
The Naked - to be clothed.
The Homeless - to be taken in.
The Sick - to be healed.
The Lonely - to be loved.
The unwanted-to be wanted.
The Leper-to wash his wounds.
The Beggar-to give him a smile.
The Drunkard - to listen to him.
The Mental-to protect him.
The Little One - to embrace him.
The Blind-to lead him.
The Dumb- to speak for him.
The Crippled - to walk with him.
The Drug Addict-to befriend him.
The Prostitute - to remove from danger and befriend her.
The Prisoner - to be visited.
The Old - to be served.
May God give us the grace of His Holy Spirit to receive Jesus and allow our spirits to Leap with Joy. AMEN.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sting on Christmas
This past week, I've been listening with great interest to music by an artist that I have been aware of, but consciously avoided - Sting!
After hearing a snippet of him singing Gabriel's Message, I bought the album (at Starbuck's!) and started listening in earnest. I soon realized that I purchased not only some very different Christmas music - but a full postmodern commentary on Christmas itself. Here are some selected comments from the liner notes of 'If on a Winter's Night':
"Since the first millennium the festival of Christmas has become the central and defining event of the winter season: the story of Christ's birth contains many magical elements, prefigured by ancient prophecy: the god king born among animals in a stable, the mysterious star in the East, the three Wise Men, King Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents, Mary and Joseph and the conundrum of the Virgin Birth. I appreciate the beauty of these stories and how they have inspired musicians and poets for many centuries . It was my desire to treat those themes with reverence and respect, and despite my personal agnosticism, the sacred symbolism of the Church's art still exerts a powerful influenced over me."
"Implicit in the story of the birth of Christ is the knowledge of his death and his subsequent Resurrection. This is what connects it to the secular songs about the cycle of the seasons. We are reminded that there is light and life at the center of the darkness that is Winter - or conversely, that , no matter how comfortable we feel in the cradle, there is darkness and danger all around us."
"The magical quality of the Christian story is not diminished by the knowledge that much of the myth of Christmas seems to have been superimposed upon an ancient matrix. ...For me it was important to draw parallels between the Christian story and the older traditions of the winter solstice. ...These myths and stories are our common cultural heritage, and as such need to be kept alive through reinterpretation within the contest of contemporary thinking, even if that thinking is essentially agnostic. ...all of us need our myths to live by.. "
These comments are very instructive to those of us who want to understand how thoughtful non-Christians view Christmas - and the Christian faith itself. Christianity is seen to be mythic in the same way the older pagan stories of the WinterSolstice are mythic. There is an appreciation for the 'beauty' and power of the stories, but an attitude of personal agnosticism. And there is some genuine insight into the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. Finally, Sting acknowleges the power of the Chrisitan story over him. I imagine that it would quite stimulating to sit down and have a chat with him about The Faith. But it seems to me it would be very difficult to move him from his thoughtful Agnosticism to personal faith - indeed only God can do this, I know.
We need to pray that God Himself would open the eyes of the heart so that people like Sting can understand the true power and beauty of the Christian story - not just as story, but as reality!
After hearing a snippet of him singing Gabriel's Message, I bought the album (at Starbuck's!) and started listening in earnest. I soon realized that I purchased not only some very different Christmas music - but a full postmodern commentary on Christmas itself. Here are some selected comments from the liner notes of 'If on a Winter's Night':
"Since the first millennium the festival of Christmas has become the central and defining event of the winter season: the story of Christ's birth contains many magical elements, prefigured by ancient prophecy: the god king born among animals in a stable, the mysterious star in the East, the three Wise Men, King Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents, Mary and Joseph and the conundrum of the Virgin Birth. I appreciate the beauty of these stories and how they have inspired musicians and poets for many centuries . It was my desire to treat those themes with reverence and respect, and despite my personal agnosticism, the sacred symbolism of the Church's art still exerts a powerful influenced over me."
"Implicit in the story of the birth of Christ is the knowledge of his death and his subsequent Resurrection. This is what connects it to the secular songs about the cycle of the seasons. We are reminded that there is light and life at the center of the darkness that is Winter - or conversely, that , no matter how comfortable we feel in the cradle, there is darkness and danger all around us."
"The magical quality of the Christian story is not diminished by the knowledge that much of the myth of Christmas seems to have been superimposed upon an ancient matrix. ...For me it was important to draw parallels between the Christian story and the older traditions of the winter solstice. ...These myths and stories are our common cultural heritage, and as such need to be kept alive through reinterpretation within the contest of contemporary thinking, even if that thinking is essentially agnostic. ...all of us need our myths to live by.. "
These comments are very instructive to those of us who want to understand how thoughtful non-Christians view Christmas - and the Christian faith itself. Christianity is seen to be mythic in the same way the older pagan stories of the WinterSolstice are mythic. There is an appreciation for the 'beauty' and power of the stories, but an attitude of personal agnosticism. And there is some genuine insight into the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. Finally, Sting acknowleges the power of the Chrisitan story over him. I imagine that it would quite stimulating to sit down and have a chat with him about The Faith. But it seems to me it would be very difficult to move him from his thoughtful Agnosticism to personal faith - indeed only God can do this, I know.
We need to pray that God Himself would open the eyes of the heart so that people like Sting can understand the true power and beauty of the Christian story - not just as story, but as reality!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
What Repentance is FOR
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on December 6, 2009 (II Advent) at teh Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.
Collect: Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Baruch 5:1-9
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
"Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God's command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:‘Prepare the way of the Lord, [1]make his paths straight.5 Every valley shall be filled,and every mountain and hill shall be made low,and the crooked shall become straight,and the rough places shall become level ways,6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Something to Sing About
When I was young, my parents would often take us to a performance of the Messiah at Christmas time. One famous pair of arias from that work is: Comfort, ye my people/Every Valley Shall be exalted. - based on Isaiah 40:4. It's for a tenor voice, and there's this wonderful way that Handel treats the melody.
When he gets to the world 'exalted', the tenor sings exal-al-al etc. The song itself imitates the nature of what the Lord will do. The valleys will be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the cro - oked straight and the rough places plain.
There's also a dramatic part in Comfort ye my people". The music pauses and the tenor sings: "The voice of one crying in the wil-derness, Prepare ye the way of the Lo-rd. make straight in the desert, a high-way. For our G-od! (Bum-Bum.)
As Christians, we've learned to associate the 'one crying in the wilderness' with John the Baptist. He was crying in the wilderness - and the people were going out to him to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. His was a ministry of calling people to repentance - of asking people to make their hearts straight before God.
John is not a real warm-fuzzy kind of guy. It's true he did wear wild animal pelts for clothing, but his demeanor was not exactly meek and mild. It was more like,
"COME OUT HERE YOU MISERABLE SINNERS! CONFESS YOUR SINS! FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME! - RIGHT NOW!
Maybe the closest thing that many of us can relate this to would be going to the principle's office to be rebuked for some infraction. I remember one time when I was in junior high school, acting up in class and being sent down to Mr. Maturen's office. (He was actually the Vice-Principle). It wasn't a real pleasant experience.
I think John the Baptist was his cousin.
He was kind of a hatchet-faced sort of man. He didn't smile very much, and you wondered whether or not his face wasn't permanently cast into a frown. When you went to Mr. Maturen's office, you knew you were going to be "called on the carpet" - 'dressed down' - 'taken down a notch'. Yelled at!
Believe me, when I went to his office, I was not rejoicing that I was going to get the book thrown at me. Being happy or joyful was the farthest thing from my mind at that time. And believe me, too, that I wasn't so much interested in confessing and repenting of my sins, as I was finding a way out of the trouble!
By way of contrast, Cindy tells about one of her sisters, who seemed to have a penchant for being bad at times. When the tension would get too great, she would almost beg to be whipped. She just wanted to hurry up and get it over and clear the air, so things could get back to normal. (Both Cindy and I were amazed by that behavior.)
Cindy's sister probably had a better understanding of repentance than either Cindy or I: Confess the crime, take the whuppin', cut the tension and get back on the right track! She knew there was something on the other side of repentance - in her case 'normalcy'. But thinking about it as Christians, we know God wants something infinitely better for us: JOY! And that's what we are going to talk about today: Joy - because that's what repentance is For.
Baruch, Jeremiah and Isaiah
Now let's go back and look at our texts. There's an interesting similarity between our reading from Baruch and the quotation from Isaiah found in our Gospel reading: Baruch says, "For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground"...
Sounds pretty similar to the text from the Messiah aria from Isaiah 40:1 quoted in Luke: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked straight, the rough places plain..." ( KJV) Some writers think that Baruch's writing depends upon the book of Isaiah for its content - and judging from the two sentences we just quoted, they're probably right.
At any rate, Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe. He was the one who actually wrote down the prophecies. The book that bears his name is from the Old Testament Apocrypha. Scholars call it a 'deutero-canonical' book. That means 'second-string' - not quite up to snuff, not accepted by everyone. Although his book has some beautiful and powerful passages, and we read it out in church, yet it is not included in the canon of scripture. In this case, it's likely because Baruch was the scribe, not the prophet himself and so his work lacked prophetic authority.
Regarding the circumstances of Baruch's writing - he was with Jeremiah from before the siege of Jerusalem, when the prophet tried to warn the people of what was coming: wrath, destruction of the city, and exile to Babylon.
Sadly, the people ignored the warning and disaster came upon them. The city was destroyed and the best of the people were exiled to Babylon. After the destruction, Jeremiah continued to live in Palestine for a time, and then went to Egypt, where he probably stayed until he died. Baruch was likely taken to Babylon and lived their until he died.
His words that we read today are addressed to the Jewish people in the midst of their bitter captivity. They are words of hope, words of promise to a beaten- down people, words that indicate that the tide is about to turn in their favor.
"Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;"
Take off something and put on something. Take off sorrow and mourning and put on joy. This sounds similar to Isaiah 61:3: "To grant those who mourn... a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning..."
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting (NASB). Joy and Gladness; these are the results of Repentance. These are the things that the Lord wants us to have in abundance.
In our readings today, we can also see several other marvelous things He wants for us:
Beauty
Glory
The Robe of Righteousness
Splendor
Peace
Godly Glory
Joy
Mercy
Righteousness
Laughter
Grace
Peace
Purity
Blamelessness
The Fruit of Righteousness
Quite a list, eh?! These things add up to more than just mere happiness. They indicate something deeper than pleasure when something goes right at work, satisfaction when you've had a fun day, or excitement when Marshall or WVU wins a game. These characteristics are indicative of being reconciled with God - something that only comes about through repentance.
Now the most dramatic story of repentance I can think of in the Gospels is the story of the Prodigal son. When this young man got to the lowest point of his life, He came to his senses and went back to his Father and said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”
As we know from hearing the story many times, the father " felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. He told his servants to bring the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, so they could celebrate (Lk. 15:11-32). The son came into his father's joy after he had repented.
In the story of Job, a righteous man loses everything. He longs to plead his case before God, but when God shows up and starts asking Job questions, such as: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Tell me, if you have understanding" (Job 38:4), Job can only respond by saying:
..."I have uttered what I did not understand,things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
I had heard of you [God] by the hearing of the ear,but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself,and repent in dust and ashes.”Job 42: 2-6).
It's the Hebrew equivalent of saying, "Well, shut my mouth!"
Most of us can relate to this. I see it all the time in my counseling practice - especially as people deal with sexual abuse in their backgrounds. They suffer, and God doesn't respond to their suffering the way the think He should. They withdraw from God, and seek solace in material things, promiscuous relationships or drug and alcohol abuse. And then, during healing prayer, when we invite Christ to come into a picture of the abuse, invariably they say, "I see him now....He was there all along, I just couldn't see it."
How often we do this. We jump to conclusions about things we don't understand and we get all bollixed up and stuck. This is a clue to repent - to be like Job and say, "Shut my mouth!" - To give up trying to make it come out the way I think it should - to acknowledge that God is God and I'm not. To repent of our Pride and Self-Sufficiency.
We need to get to a place where we can be like the psalmist who said,
"O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:1,2)
This is what it sounds like to be repentant: calm and quiet, unstuck, In that quiet place of listening all of a sudden you can realize that God is in charge after all.
The psalmist admonishes us:
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 131:3)
In other words, Repent of the Sin of Frank Sinatra! Stop doing it your way! Put your trust in the Lord. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight. Prov. 3:5)
The Bible promises us that when we repent, when we turn around and walk the other way, that he will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We might have to take a whuppin like Cindy's sister did, or get dressed down, like I did in Mr. Maturen's office, but the goal is not to weigh us down and discourage us, but to lift us up, to turn us around and get us going in the right direction, to to lead us with joy, in the light of [God's] glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him, to exalt every valley, bring down every mountain, straighten the crooked, smooth out every rough place and to 'restore to us the joy of our salvation" (Ps. 51).
Jane's Story
Last week, we received an amazing phone call from a woman we have known for many years. Let's call her Jane. We met Jane and her husband 'John' through church during our days at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Jane had grown up in a very rigid environment and struggled with being rigid and obsessive herself. John too was rather compulsive and driven, having been raised in poverty. Money and security were very important to both of them, but it was also obvious they had a heart for ministry.
Despite their strugles, they really were kind and gracious people and we hit it off with them as a couple. We spent a lot of time with them when we lived close and after we both moved away, we've have been as involved with them as you can be when you live hundreds of miles apart from each other.
Up until about ten years ago, John always worked in the business world and he had well-paying corporate type jobs. But we always knew his heart was in ministry. He finally became sick and tired of the work that he was doing and launched into full-time ministry - much to Jane's consternation. She just couldn't see how they could support their family and make it financially with him in this very insecure ministry.
Sure enough, finances became very tight, and they didn't make it very well financially. Jane's world began to crumble and she began to lose hope that things would ever be different. When we talked to her she sounded flat emotionally and she began to develop some real severe emotional problems. Her husband questioned whether she was actually a Christian, and we wondered ourselves.
Some time in the last six months, Jane reached a breaking point. Everything within her just came to a screeching halt. In her desperation, she finally broke down and called out to God. She told Cindy that her prayer went something like this:
Jane's Prayer:
"God, I'm not even sure you're out there, but if you are, will you reveal yourself to me, even if it means tearing down everything I have ever believed about you? "
She said that after she prayed that prayer, she was emotionally spent and numb. As she sat there, exhausted, she began to have a dawning realization that she wasn't alone. Over the coming days and weeks, God began to show her, in many small ways, that he really was there with her and for her. She began to understanding that He is actually taking care of her.
He also impressed upon her this profound truth: "Ultimately, all anger is anger at God."
This allowed her to repent of her anger at God and become like that weaned child on its mother's lap. So, even in her pain she began to have joy. Even though her marriage was teetering on the brink of failure, God began to minister hope to her and give her a will to go on. He began to lead her to books that taught her about His true nature. He gave her a close friend that she could confide in - an Anam Chara - who listened well and kept her confidence. Her walls began to come down, and now, by God's grace she is starting to sound like a faithful Christian for the first time in her almost six decades of life!
And it's all because she was willing to repent, to say to God, "Shut my mouth! - and teach me about You!
God is answering her prayer - because He wants her to experience JOY! He is helping her to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain, to enlarge her heart so that she has a place for Jesus, a place where the God of the Universe can love and nurture her as one of His own dear children. This is what repentance is all about - what its' FOR - in a word, JOY!
Friends, this same God is calling out to you. Today, if your hear His voice speaking to you, I urge you, like the Psalmist, not to harden your heart as the people of Israel did (Ps 95), but to repent - so that you may know JOY!
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Collect: Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Baruch 5:1-9
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
"Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God's command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:‘Prepare the way of the Lord, [1]make his paths straight.5 Every valley shall be filled,and every mountain and hill shall be made low,and the crooked shall become straight,and the rough places shall become level ways,6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Something to Sing About
When I was young, my parents would often take us to a performance of the Messiah at Christmas time. One famous pair of arias from that work is: Comfort, ye my people/Every Valley Shall be exalted. - based on Isaiah 40:4. It's for a tenor voice, and there's this wonderful way that Handel treats the melody.
When he gets to the world 'exalted', the tenor sings exal-al-al etc. The song itself imitates the nature of what the Lord will do. The valleys will be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the cro - oked straight and the rough places plain.
There's also a dramatic part in Comfort ye my people". The music pauses and the tenor sings: "The voice of one crying in the wil-derness, Prepare ye the way of the Lo-rd. make straight in the desert, a high-way. For our G-od! (Bum-Bum.)
As Christians, we've learned to associate the 'one crying in the wilderness' with John the Baptist. He was crying in the wilderness - and the people were going out to him to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. His was a ministry of calling people to repentance - of asking people to make their hearts straight before God.
John is not a real warm-fuzzy kind of guy. It's true he did wear wild animal pelts for clothing, but his demeanor was not exactly meek and mild. It was more like,
"COME OUT HERE YOU MISERABLE SINNERS! CONFESS YOUR SINS! FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME! - RIGHT NOW!
Maybe the closest thing that many of us can relate this to would be going to the principle's office to be rebuked for some infraction. I remember one time when I was in junior high school, acting up in class and being sent down to Mr. Maturen's office. (He was actually the Vice-Principle). It wasn't a real pleasant experience.
I think John the Baptist was his cousin.
He was kind of a hatchet-faced sort of man. He didn't smile very much, and you wondered whether or not his face wasn't permanently cast into a frown. When you went to Mr. Maturen's office, you knew you were going to be "called on the carpet" - 'dressed down' - 'taken down a notch'. Yelled at!
Believe me, when I went to his office, I was not rejoicing that I was going to get the book thrown at me. Being happy or joyful was the farthest thing from my mind at that time. And believe me, too, that I wasn't so much interested in confessing and repenting of my sins, as I was finding a way out of the trouble!
By way of contrast, Cindy tells about one of her sisters, who seemed to have a penchant for being bad at times. When the tension would get too great, she would almost beg to be whipped. She just wanted to hurry up and get it over and clear the air, so things could get back to normal. (Both Cindy and I were amazed by that behavior.)
Cindy's sister probably had a better understanding of repentance than either Cindy or I: Confess the crime, take the whuppin', cut the tension and get back on the right track! She knew there was something on the other side of repentance - in her case 'normalcy'. But thinking about it as Christians, we know God wants something infinitely better for us: JOY! And that's what we are going to talk about today: Joy - because that's what repentance is For.
Baruch, Jeremiah and Isaiah
Now let's go back and look at our texts. There's an interesting similarity between our reading from Baruch and the quotation from Isaiah found in our Gospel reading: Baruch says, "For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground"...
Sounds pretty similar to the text from the Messiah aria from Isaiah 40:1 quoted in Luke: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low. The crooked straight, the rough places plain..." ( KJV) Some writers think that Baruch's writing depends upon the book of Isaiah for its content - and judging from the two sentences we just quoted, they're probably right.
At any rate, Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe. He was the one who actually wrote down the prophecies. The book that bears his name is from the Old Testament Apocrypha. Scholars call it a 'deutero-canonical' book. That means 'second-string' - not quite up to snuff, not accepted by everyone. Although his book has some beautiful and powerful passages, and we read it out in church, yet it is not included in the canon of scripture. In this case, it's likely because Baruch was the scribe, not the prophet himself and so his work lacked prophetic authority.
Regarding the circumstances of Baruch's writing - he was with Jeremiah from before the siege of Jerusalem, when the prophet tried to warn the people of what was coming: wrath, destruction of the city, and exile to Babylon.
Sadly, the people ignored the warning and disaster came upon them. The city was destroyed and the best of the people were exiled to Babylon. After the destruction, Jeremiah continued to live in Palestine for a time, and then went to Egypt, where he probably stayed until he died. Baruch was likely taken to Babylon and lived their until he died.
His words that we read today are addressed to the Jewish people in the midst of their bitter captivity. They are words of hope, words of promise to a beaten- down people, words that indicate that the tide is about to turn in their favor.
"Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;"
Take off something and put on something. Take off sorrow and mourning and put on joy. This sounds similar to Isaiah 61:3: "To grant those who mourn... a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning..."
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting (NASB). Joy and Gladness; these are the results of Repentance. These are the things that the Lord wants us to have in abundance.
In our readings today, we can also see several other marvelous things He wants for us:
Beauty
Glory
The Robe of Righteousness
Splendor
Peace
Godly Glory
Joy
Mercy
Righteousness
Laughter
Grace
Peace
Purity
Blamelessness
The Fruit of Righteousness
Quite a list, eh?! These things add up to more than just mere happiness. They indicate something deeper than pleasure when something goes right at work, satisfaction when you've had a fun day, or excitement when Marshall or WVU wins a game. These characteristics are indicative of being reconciled with God - something that only comes about through repentance.
Now the most dramatic story of repentance I can think of in the Gospels is the story of the Prodigal son. When this young man got to the lowest point of his life, He came to his senses and went back to his Father and said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”
As we know from hearing the story many times, the father " felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. He told his servants to bring the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, so they could celebrate (Lk. 15:11-32). The son came into his father's joy after he had repented.
In the story of Job, a righteous man loses everything. He longs to plead his case before God, but when God shows up and starts asking Job questions, such as: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Tell me, if you have understanding" (Job 38:4), Job can only respond by saying:
..."I have uttered what I did not understand,things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
I had heard of you [God] by the hearing of the ear,but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself,and repent in dust and ashes.”Job 42: 2-6).
It's the Hebrew equivalent of saying, "Well, shut my mouth!"
Most of us can relate to this. I see it all the time in my counseling practice - especially as people deal with sexual abuse in their backgrounds. They suffer, and God doesn't respond to their suffering the way the think He should. They withdraw from God, and seek solace in material things, promiscuous relationships or drug and alcohol abuse. And then, during healing prayer, when we invite Christ to come into a picture of the abuse, invariably they say, "I see him now....He was there all along, I just couldn't see it."
How often we do this. We jump to conclusions about things we don't understand and we get all bollixed up and stuck. This is a clue to repent - to be like Job and say, "Shut my mouth!" - To give up trying to make it come out the way I think it should - to acknowledge that God is God and I'm not. To repent of our Pride and Self-Sufficiency.
We need to get to a place where we can be like the psalmist who said,
"O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:1,2)
This is what it sounds like to be repentant: calm and quiet, unstuck, In that quiet place of listening all of a sudden you can realize that God is in charge after all.
The psalmist admonishes us:
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 131:3)
In other words, Repent of the Sin of Frank Sinatra! Stop doing it your way! Put your trust in the Lord. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight. Prov. 3:5)
The Bible promises us that when we repent, when we turn around and walk the other way, that he will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We might have to take a whuppin like Cindy's sister did, or get dressed down, like I did in Mr. Maturen's office, but the goal is not to weigh us down and discourage us, but to lift us up, to turn us around and get us going in the right direction, to to lead us with joy, in the light of [God's] glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him, to exalt every valley, bring down every mountain, straighten the crooked, smooth out every rough place and to 'restore to us the joy of our salvation" (Ps. 51).
Jane's Story
Last week, we received an amazing phone call from a woman we have known for many years. Let's call her Jane. We met Jane and her husband 'John' through church during our days at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Jane had grown up in a very rigid environment and struggled with being rigid and obsessive herself. John too was rather compulsive and driven, having been raised in poverty. Money and security were very important to both of them, but it was also obvious they had a heart for ministry.
Despite their strugles, they really were kind and gracious people and we hit it off with them as a couple. We spent a lot of time with them when we lived close and after we both moved away, we've have been as involved with them as you can be when you live hundreds of miles apart from each other.
Up until about ten years ago, John always worked in the business world and he had well-paying corporate type jobs. But we always knew his heart was in ministry. He finally became sick and tired of the work that he was doing and launched into full-time ministry - much to Jane's consternation. She just couldn't see how they could support their family and make it financially with him in this very insecure ministry.
Sure enough, finances became very tight, and they didn't make it very well financially. Jane's world began to crumble and she began to lose hope that things would ever be different. When we talked to her she sounded flat emotionally and she began to develop some real severe emotional problems. Her husband questioned whether she was actually a Christian, and we wondered ourselves.
Some time in the last six months, Jane reached a breaking point. Everything within her just came to a screeching halt. In her desperation, she finally broke down and called out to God. She told Cindy that her prayer went something like this:
Jane's Prayer:
"God, I'm not even sure you're out there, but if you are, will you reveal yourself to me, even if it means tearing down everything I have ever believed about you? "
She said that after she prayed that prayer, she was emotionally spent and numb. As she sat there, exhausted, she began to have a dawning realization that she wasn't alone. Over the coming days and weeks, God began to show her, in many small ways, that he really was there with her and for her. She began to understanding that He is actually taking care of her.
He also impressed upon her this profound truth: "Ultimately, all anger is anger at God."
This allowed her to repent of her anger at God and become like that weaned child on its mother's lap. So, even in her pain she began to have joy. Even though her marriage was teetering on the brink of failure, God began to minister hope to her and give her a will to go on. He began to lead her to books that taught her about His true nature. He gave her a close friend that she could confide in - an Anam Chara - who listened well and kept her confidence. Her walls began to come down, and now, by God's grace she is starting to sound like a faithful Christian for the first time in her almost six decades of life!
And it's all because she was willing to repent, to say to God, "Shut my mouth! - and teach me about You!
God is answering her prayer - because He wants her to experience JOY! He is helping her to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain, to enlarge her heart so that she has a place for Jesus, a place where the God of the Universe can love and nurture her as one of His own dear children. This is what repentance is all about - what its' FOR - in a word, JOY!
Friends, this same God is calling out to you. Today, if your hear His voice speaking to you, I urge you, like the Psalmist, not to harden your heart as the people of Israel did (Ps 95), but to repent - so that you may know JOY!
In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
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