Sermon planned for Sunday, December 26th, 2010
Text: Hebrews 2:10-18
Merry Christmas! I hope your Christmas celebrations were joyful and that you were able to spend some time with family. This morning’s scripture passage has a lot to do with Christmas. If the story of Christmas is about what happened over two thousand years ago; then our passage from Hebrews helps us to understand why it happened in the first place. So, just to refresh our memories, WHAT happened just over two-thousand years ago (someone under 10, shout out the answer)? That’s right! Jesus was born just over two-thousand years ago.
Let’s turn to the epistle to the Hebrews. This letter was written just over thirty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ disciples were spreading the news about Jesus all around and many people decided to be baptized and follow Jesus. The Church was growing really fast, and many people wanted to know more and more about Jesus, and about why he had to die: what did this all mean?
The letter to the Hebrews is a very deep book. It’s often ignored because it can be difficult to understand what the author was trying to say. At the same time, it’s well worth the effort to try and understand. Among other things, Hebrews is a letter that tries to make sense of how the God’s chosen Messiah was for both Jews and non-Jews – that Jesus was the Savior for all.
In our passage this morning, the author of Hebrews was explaining how it was necessary that God not only came to us as a baby boy, but that he would also have to suffer. The people understood the details about Jesus’ birth – they knew the Christmas story well – but some were confused about why Jesus had to be born, and why this baby would grow up to be a man who suffered, was crucified and buried. Like the child who always asks “Why?”, Christians want to know more detail – we’re hungry for knowledge about God. Hebrews is an answer to the ‘why’ question of Jesus’ birth and of his suffering.
Let’s go over what we heard earlier in this passage. I invite you to turn, with me, in your bibles to Hebrews, chapter two, beginning at verse ten. We read: “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” This is the author’s quick answer to the question: Why did our Almighty God choose suffering servanthood in Jesus? Why the cross? Isn’t this foolishness? Isn’t the cross of Christ a symbol of defeat and weakness? Why? The quick answer is: “because… it is fitting… that’s how God get’s the job done… that’s how God brings his children to glory.”
Imagine a child asking the typical ‘why’ question here. “Dad, why can’t I have that water gun” (I remember that question well). “Because… Marco! Just Because!” That wasn’t good enough for me. “Why dad? All my other friends have one, why can’t I?” (It’s like the debate is still right there, fresh in my mind) “Well, Marco, you’re not just like your friends. You’re a Christian, and Christians don’t go around pointing guns at people.” The simple answer was never good enough; I needed to know why.
Like me, the early Christians weren’t happy with simple answers either. Just imagine the conversation between student and apostle: “teacher, why did Jesus come? Why did he suffer and die?” “Because!” “Why?” “Because it was fitting?” “What do you mean? Why was it ‘fitting’?” “Because it was fitting for him to suffer in order to bring many children to glory?” Can you imagine the blank faces on the students in class? Well, our passage this morning begins with this simple answer; but as the author continues-on he fills in the rest of the picture. At the most basic level, the answer to the ‘why’ question is: it was appropriate for God to complete salvation by suffering – because that’s how he identified with us, His children.
Like most good teachers, the author of Hebrews then gave some further examples about why this suffering was appropriate for God. For Jews and Greeks, the idea of a suffering God was obscene. For the Jews, God was the Great King and Ruler of all Creation. For the Greeks, God was unchangeable, unmoveable, a fixed principle – suffering, death and resurrection suggests weakness and change in nature. Hebrews begins by insisting that it is appropriate for us to understand God as One who suffers. Then we have the expected “Why” question. Why is it appropriate for God to be One who suffers? The rest of our passage gives two reasons for why it was appropriate for Jesus to suffer. Actually, the two reasons are just two sides of the same coin. The underlying reason for God’s suffering is that this was God’s way of joining himself to us. It was God’s way of showing solidarity with humanity. It was God’s way of being Immanuel – it’s the completion of what began in Bethlehem.
The first reason for Jesus’ suffering is that he was our brother – because of the family connection. Jesus and his followers share the same Father. That’s why he taught us to pray to “Our Father”. And so, because Jesus was fully human, His Father is also our Father. We’re all in the same family. Jesus is God’s Son, in the sense that he is the only-begotten Son of God the Father. We are children of God the Father, because we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, who were created by God, and more importantly, we have been adopted as God’s children by the Holy Spirit. It was appropriate for Jesus to suffer because we are his brothers and sisters. That’s what siblings ought to do for one another. More importantly, by dying for his siblings, in their place, and conquering death in his resurrection, Jesus has also done the same thing for us, his brothers and sisters. Because of our sin, humanity was stuck in the mud. Therefore, it was appropriate that God sent His Son into the mud to lead us out.
When I was seven years old, my family and I went to Paraguay for a six-month vacation. One of the things we loved to do was go to my cousin’s ranch and go fishing in the dug-out. One time my cousins, my older brother, and I decided that we were going to walk across the dug-out – through the water. It was fairly shallow and I could touch the ground for most of it. But that’s the key part to the story. You see, my cousins, who were all older than my brother and I, they didn’t know how to swim. Bruce and I, on the other hand, had taken swimming lessons in Winnipeg – plus, I float like Styrofoam. As we slowly walked across the dug-out in neck-deep water, we made sure to keep our eyes on the alligator that also inhabited the pond. We made sure that we could see its eyes at the other end of the dug-out at all times. (Ya, I know, what were my parents thinking!!!) Anyways, as we got to about the middle of the dug-out, suddenly there was a deep section. We had hit an old well that had been there prior to the dug-out. For me, this wasn’t a problem at all. I began floating around and calmly swimming… that is, until my cousin, eight years older than me, began hanging onto my neck. In their panic, they grabbed the nearest thing they could hold onto – my brother and I became life vests. Of course my cousins’ panic rubbed off on us. We began screaming and paddling hard for the shore. We finally made it to a shallower part, where my brother and I had a good laugh at our older cousins. Our parents, on the other hand, were not amused. Their fishing trip was ruined – we scared off all the fish.
In all of the turmoil, there wasn’t much our parents could do to help my cousins – and so, it was left to us brothers to get them out of that mess. The nature of the situation demanded that there be someone in the water, neck-deep in the danger, to help my cousins to higher ground. This is the kind of analogy that Hebrews is making to explain Jesus’ suffering. Since we humans suffer and die on account of our fallenness and sin, we’re drowning in death so to speak. Therefore, it was quite appropriate… “fitting” that Jesus would be in the thick-of-it with us. We can hold onto his shoulders as he swims us to higher ground. In his death and resurrection he not only joins us in the pits, he also breaks our chains and helps us out of the pit. As our brother, Jesus is in it with us. He’s with us in our pain, in our struggle – and he can help us reach the shore.
Moving on - let’s together read the last part of our passage:
Hebrews 2:16-18 16 For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
This is the second answer that Hebrews gives to the why question of Jesus’ birth, suffering and death; and it has to do with empathy, mercy and atonement. Atonement is a word that combines the notions of ‘forgiving sins’ and ‘making peace’ – to gather the scattered… to heal the dying… to make new the broken. It’s in this part of Hebrews that we first read about Jesus as a high priest. The rest of the book examines this part of Jesus’ work. Jesus is a high priest for the children of God. As fully divine and fully human, Jesus makes the perfect priest with the perfect atoning sacrifice. When he cleans us, we’re perfectly clean. He can represent God to us – to show us His love, His character and Truth. And Jesus can perfectly present us before God – not as sinners condemned to die, but as His children, cleansed from sin and redeemed by Christ’s pure sacrifice. Jesus is the perfect high-priest. Hebrews makes this argument in a lot of ways, but in our text this morning the author makes the argument in a very interesting way.
Why is Jesus a perfect high-priest for us? Because he knows the depths of human suffering. Jesus knows exactly what you’re going through. He understood suffering completely. If he came to represent angels, he wouldn’t need to suffer, because, from what we know, angels don’t suffer in the same way we do. They don’t nearly drown in dug-outs. But Jesus came to help the children of Abraham and, by God’s mercy, that includes us Gentiles. And since we suffer – since we get ourselves into all kinds of deep water – Jesus joined us here. He can fully present our case before God because he’s been in the deep-end with us. He is fully-human.
The text says that he became like his brothers and sisters in every respect. It’s important for us to emphasize that this doesn’t put a clear equals-sign between Jesus and us. Jesus is like us in every respect, but not in every detail. He was a man, not a woman. But he was like all men and women in that he shared our human nature – he had a gender, just like men and women have gender. He spoke Aramaic, not English or German; but he was like us in that he shared in human culture. Jesus didn’t sin and we often sin; yet he was like us in that he had the freedom to choose obedience, which is precisely what he did… all the time! And so, just to clarify, Jesus was human in every respect, but not in every detail.
Why did God’s Word become flesh? Why become like his brothers and sisters in every respect? Because God’s intention was to provide a perfect high-priest for us: someone who could perfectly bring us before God, and someone who could perfectly show God to us. Another way of saying this is to quote verse seventeen, “so that Jesus might be a merciful and faithful high priest...” The perfect high priest is both merciful and Faithful, both kind and truthful. If Jesus was merciful, but not faithful, he would have been with us, in the deep water, but he wouldn’t have led us to the shore of God’s love. He would have led us to some other shore. On the other hand, if he was faithful, but not merciful, then we would not have been able to follow him to the loving arms of God. We would never be able to hold onto his slippery shoulders if he swam too fast for us, or didn’t patiently wait for us to hold on. Jesus was both merciful, forgiving us our sins, and faithful, leading us into the arms of God and not some other idol.
The great news we hear at Christmas is the news about the Incarnation. In Jesus we meet the one who is fully-human and fully-divine. Since he is fully human, we can grasp onto his shoulders. He’s in the water with us. He has given us teachings to follow. And he modeled a lifestyle of obedience to God that you and I can follow. Because of his humanity, His Way is one that we, as humans, can follow – it’s not impossible for us. We can love our enemies. We can forgive someone who’s wronged us. We can speak the truth. We can cancel someone’s debts to us. These are possibilities because Jesus has given us His Spirit. He doesn’t swim too fast for us. We can hang onto him because he’s in the dug-out with us.
On the other hand, since Jesus is fully-divine, we better hang on to him, because He’s the only One who knows how to find higher ground. Since he is fully divine, he’s the only whose shoulders we want to grab a hold of. He’s the only one in the deep end that knows how to swim. His teachings are truthful because He Himself Is the Truth. Jesus’ humanity makes discipleship possible, and his divinity lends his teachings complete authority.
During Advent and Christmas, we await and proclaim the event of Christ’s coming. This is really good news. But like most of the good news we hear, we want to know more. We’re hungry for a deeper knowledge of God and His kindness to us. Our passage this morning treats us like children with the why question, but in a very good way. For those of us drawn to the love of God, we are like children. We do want more and more about God, about His love for us in Jesus. For God, our ‘why’ questions are enjoyable. He loves inquisitive children. We can ask them all day long and never get to the full bottom of it. Why? Because God’s love for us is infinitely beautiful, unique, and deep.
Our ‘why’ questions will never reach the bottom of God’s mystery and beauty. We can sink deeper and deeper into his loving arms, and grow closer and closer to God’s heart. Why does God do all these great things for us? Why send a perfect high-priest? Why redeem sinful humanity? Why? Because God loves us! Why does God love us? All I can think of is to be thankful that the Lord does love us. This morning, the Word of God draws us into a deeper love for our Savior by knowing why God chose this path: to show family solidarity, and to demonstrate his saving power. This morning I want to encourage you, take time to cultivate a deep hunger for knowing God more and more. Keep asking questions, learn, meditate, study and discuss it with your friends and family. Dig deeper into your relationship with God. Don’t be afraid of sounding like a child with ‘why’ questions… they are a delight to God’s heart.
In our joys and sorrows, in our health and deep brokenness, in our successes and in our failures – know that Jesus has chosen to be our elder brother, sharing our pain and brokenness, and ultimately destroying its power in the resurrection. Jesus is the faithful high-priest, and being like us in every respect he is able to help us all. He is able to usher us into the merciful arms of our Father.
Please join me in closing with the family prayer that our brother and Lord Jesus taught us – the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father…
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Immanuel: longing for God
Sermon planned for Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25
The Bible ends as it begins. The story of God’s journey with humanity began in a garden, a time when Adam and Eve could hear God walking around in the garden (Gen 3:8). In Revelation, we read about the fulfillment of this story – not the end of the story – and it is a time when God is, once again, at home among mortals. God sets up camp in the middle of the holy city, and the light that emanates from God’s being replaces the light of the Sun (Rev 21:23). The story begins with “Immanuel: God is with us”, and the story finds its fulfillment in a time when God will live with us in the new Jerusalem.
Immanuel: God-with-us! This is the promise we heard about in both the reading from Isaiah and in the Christmas story in Matthew. It is the promise that drives the human soul. Our soul is a moving thing – it desires, it longs, it anticipates. Being created in the image of our Living God, our own soul, too, is a Living thing that desires. And in the Bible we learn that our soul’s desire is to be fulfilled in God; to be with God, and for God to be united with us. Early Christian pastor, Augustine of Hippo, wrote that a person’s heart is restless until it finds its rest in God. This restlessness is part of how we’re created. But this restlessness is also easily misdirected.
For me, as a child, the season of Advent had one purpose alone; it was a time to anticipate gifts and family gatherings. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that the hope of Immanuel has really invaded my longings at Christmastime and throughout the year. God’s gift in Jesus brings me real joy & hope. It fulfills a deep longing.
The Israelites had a deep longing for God’s presence. Their peace, their hope, and their joy was sinking. Their enemies had taken them into captivity – and their soul’s desire – to sing the joyful songs of Zion – went unsatisfied. To this disheartened community, Isaiah spoke a word of prophecy. He said that God would send a child to deliver them. His name was to be Immanuel, God with us. There’s a bit of a debate among Christian scholars as to whether Isaiah was pointing us to Jesus, or whether he already had a person in mind, who was living at the time. After all, it was Cyrus, the King of the Persians, who delivered Israel from captivity in Babylon. Was the original prophecy fulfilled by Cyrus’ deliverance, or was it fulfilled in Jesus?
I believe that the prophecy was fulfilled in both. A prophecy can be fulfilled at one time, and then reach another level of fulfillment, and then reach an even deeper level of completion. When the Holy Spirit speaks a Word to a prophet, that prophet relays that message to the people, but the Spirit also has the infinite capacity to speak again and again through that same Word.
The Bible is a great example of this. Human experience is as various as the grains of sand on the beach; and yet, the Holy Spirit can and will use one Bible to speak a fresh Word of God into each situation. Another example of this is what happens every Sunday when I preach. Inevitably I’ll get a comment from one of you saying, “Marco… I really liked how you said this about this-or-that topic”… and then, in my mind, I’ll think: “you know what, I didn’t even say anything about that!” It’s like the Holy Spirit does something to the words between the time when I preach them and when those words hit your ears. In other words, the Spirit of God has the infinite capacity to speak something fresh through an earlier message.
King Cyrus, and his deliverance of the captives in Babylon, was God’s way of being with Israel – it was God’s way of being Immanuel to His people. And yet, even Isaiah recognized that his prophecy would have an even deeper fulfillment someday. In Isaiah 9:6, we read the prophecy: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This is a prophecy that Isaiah would not have made in direct relation to King Cyrus – Cyrus may have been God’s instrument, but he was not the “Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This layer of fulfilment to God’s deliverance would only come later.
This is where we come to Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth. Jesus was the true Immanuel in a way that King Cyrus could only faintly resemble. Once again, the context of the angel’s message to Joseph was that of persecution and exile. God’s people were under Roman rule. King Herod was a puppet for Rome, and Israel was still living in exile. For the Israelite, true peace and freedom could only come when they lived under God’s rule in the promised land. They longed for Zion to be restored and for unhindered worship and allegiance to God. Instead, they were ‘permitted’ to live in the holy land by the decree of Caesar and forced to pay tribute to rulers that considered themselves divine.
Into this world of idolatry, and amidst Israel’s deep longings for redemption, the angel proclaimed: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew was quick to point out that this Jesus was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus is Immanuel: God with us. Once again, as God’s people faced political destruction, and spiritual decay, God was determined to be with his people.
With the fulfillment of this prophecy, you think history would’ve come to an end. If the entire purpose of God’s creation was that God and humans were to be united in loving fellowship, then you think the Incarnation would have been the final chapter. God had done for us what none of us could accomplish on our own – God had closed the gap between Creator and created; God had assumed flesh.
But, as I said earlier, the human soul is restless. The gospel of John tells us that the light came into the world, but that the world rejected the light. We loved the darkness. We loved sin. Israel longed for a King, a deliverer, but the minute he was born, we were already trying to kill him. And as soon as Joseph found out Mary was pregnant he was already trying to shrug her off. But the angel showed up and set things straight. Where would we be if it wasn’t for angels? Ever think about that? Only a few people saw the moment for what it was – thanks to angels and a star: a few wise men and some shepherds came to worship “Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” – a baby boy lying in a feeding trough.
The human soul is restless; it longs for deeper fulfillment, but most of the time it is like a raging storm that knows no boundaries, and no peace. Herod wanted total power. Joseph wanted a secure reputation. Mary – well, I’m sure she had other plans for her life than bearing a child at her age. We too have many longings and hopes. As a child I was consumed by desires for stuff, stuff and more stuff. I remember not being able to sleep, during this time of the year, because of my anticipation for the presents under the tree. As a young teenage boy, I was possessed by other wants and desires. Once I discovered the alluring beauty of the other half of the population, it took all my energy to not think about them all the time. Like I said, humans are filled with desires and longings. Is this a good thing? Is this the way God created us, or is this part of our fallen nature?
I’m convinced that our nature, as desiring humans, is part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The problem is that our longings and desires are often more like a loose cannon, than a creative stream. Early Christian pastors often spoke about the Christian’s spiritual life as a kind of athletic training. They wrote that Christian spirituality is about training our hearts to desire God.
The training ground for the human soul is found in each situation and in each relationship. In marriage, we’re supposed train our hearts to love selflessly. In parenthood, we’re supposed to train our hearts in vulnerability and trust. In friendship, we’re supposed to train our hearts for sacrifice and commitment. In work and play, we train our hearts for creativity and beauty. Why train our hearts? Well, because our life’s end is about spending an eternity with God. Our longings and our desires need training. Of course, this training in Christian spirituality transforms us if, and only if, the Holy Spirit is present and the main actor. We don’t accomplish this training on our own. In all these areas of training, the Holy Spirit is the coach, the energizing power that transforms us.
Our restlessness needs direction. It’s why parents keep reminding their children about the true meaning of Christmas. Without this yearly reminder, we’d think that the real meaning of Christmas is found at family gatherings and underneath pine trees. Our desires need to be properly ordered; it’s why we celebrate marriage as a gift from God to bring order to the loose cannon of human sexuality. Our human longings and our human restlessness will find its fulfillment, ultimately, when we’re united with God – when God is fully with us.
The promise of redemption sounds great when things are difficult – when we’re experiencing pain and anxiety. It was during their exile in Babylon that the Israelites needed a liberator. In their weak status under Rome, they needed a King who could throw the princes off their thrones. But this promise is not only for those who are going through rough times.
For some of you, life is terrific. Things couldn’t be going better for you. It’s at these high points that it is easy to forget. When things are going well, it’s easy to think that our longing and restlessness has found its goal. I encourage you to allow the Christmas story to transform your desires. I encourage you to disrupt this year’s usually calm celebration with a radical act of hospitality. Disturb your usual luxury with a challenging display of generosity. Give your soul an athletic work-out, and make your spiritual muscles sore. May your Christmas experience feel more like a marathon than a soothing glass of eggnog; because it’s then that you know that you’re being pointed back to the baby boy who was worshiped as King.
And for many of you, life isn’t terrific. Life is difficult. For many of you, things could be going a whole lot better. For you it is painfully obvious that the hope and joy of Christmas is a complicated one at best. I can preach as much as I want about joy, peace, and glad tidings – for you, this Christmas is going to be a painful rehearsal of loneliness and brokenness, conflict and anxiety. You have much in common with the main actors of our story. You know what Israel felt like. You know what it feels like to be a stranger: alone and deserted. When I preach about Immanuel: God is with us, all you can say is: are you sure? Marco, are you really sure that God is with us? Would my life be falling to pieces like this if God were with me? Are you sure you want to call him Immanuel? For many of you, you need the promise of Immanuel to go deeper than what you’re experiencing. You need that prophecy to have another layer of fulfillment.
There are no easy answers for you. But the Spirit of God is powerful. In times of despair, the Holy Spirit has spoken words of comfort and promise to God’s people. Even after Jesus victoriously rose from the grave, and ascended to heaven, life for God’s people continued in struggle. Under the rule of Roman Emperors, many early Christians were tortured and brutally killed. Emperor Domition would light Christians on fire, as Candles, in order to give light to his garden parties. Christians were like sheep in a field of vicious wolves. And into that painful reality, the Holy Spirit spoke a word of promise to a man named John, who was exiled onto the island of Patmos. In the final part of his vision, John wrote about a time when God would no longer be shrouded in mystery. He wrote,
Revelation 21:1-3 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them
In the midst of their ongoing persecution, the Holy Spirit spoke a word of promise: God will be with you. Even after the prophecy about Immanuel was fulfilled in Jesus, we hear this promise again. God is with you, and one day God will be at home among mortals. Whether you are in a good space this season, or your entire world seems to be on the brink of collapse: the promise of Immanuel is for us today. Christmas doesn’t mean that Jesus came and now everything’s fine. Things aren’t always fine. Sometimes our lives feel like they’re falling apart. But this Advent we’re pointed towards the hope: that this year God’s Spirit is still fulfilling the promise of Immanuel. God is still choosing to be with us
God is with us – He’s committed to us, from beginning to end. The promise of Immanuel comes amidst brokenness, and despite this chaos, you can choose to respond to God in faith like Mary & Joseph. This Christmas, our brokenness does not crush us; it does not keep us from being able to commit. We can join Mary and say – may it be with me according to your will! And what does God will? Immanuel! I’m with you all the way!
Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25
The Bible ends as it begins. The story of God’s journey with humanity began in a garden, a time when Adam and Eve could hear God walking around in the garden (Gen 3:8). In Revelation, we read about the fulfillment of this story – not the end of the story – and it is a time when God is, once again, at home among mortals. God sets up camp in the middle of the holy city, and the light that emanates from God’s being replaces the light of the Sun (Rev 21:23). The story begins with “Immanuel: God is with us”, and the story finds its fulfillment in a time when God will live with us in the new Jerusalem.
Immanuel: God-with-us! This is the promise we heard about in both the reading from Isaiah and in the Christmas story in Matthew. It is the promise that drives the human soul. Our soul is a moving thing – it desires, it longs, it anticipates. Being created in the image of our Living God, our own soul, too, is a Living thing that desires. And in the Bible we learn that our soul’s desire is to be fulfilled in God; to be with God, and for God to be united with us. Early Christian pastor, Augustine of Hippo, wrote that a person’s heart is restless until it finds its rest in God. This restlessness is part of how we’re created. But this restlessness is also easily misdirected.
For me, as a child, the season of Advent had one purpose alone; it was a time to anticipate gifts and family gatherings. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that the hope of Immanuel has really invaded my longings at Christmastime and throughout the year. God’s gift in Jesus brings me real joy & hope. It fulfills a deep longing.
The Israelites had a deep longing for God’s presence. Their peace, their hope, and their joy was sinking. Their enemies had taken them into captivity – and their soul’s desire – to sing the joyful songs of Zion – went unsatisfied. To this disheartened community, Isaiah spoke a word of prophecy. He said that God would send a child to deliver them. His name was to be Immanuel, God with us. There’s a bit of a debate among Christian scholars as to whether Isaiah was pointing us to Jesus, or whether he already had a person in mind, who was living at the time. After all, it was Cyrus, the King of the Persians, who delivered Israel from captivity in Babylon. Was the original prophecy fulfilled by Cyrus’ deliverance, or was it fulfilled in Jesus?
I believe that the prophecy was fulfilled in both. A prophecy can be fulfilled at one time, and then reach another level of fulfillment, and then reach an even deeper level of completion. When the Holy Spirit speaks a Word to a prophet, that prophet relays that message to the people, but the Spirit also has the infinite capacity to speak again and again through that same Word.
The Bible is a great example of this. Human experience is as various as the grains of sand on the beach; and yet, the Holy Spirit can and will use one Bible to speak a fresh Word of God into each situation. Another example of this is what happens every Sunday when I preach. Inevitably I’ll get a comment from one of you saying, “Marco… I really liked how you said this about this-or-that topic”… and then, in my mind, I’ll think: “you know what, I didn’t even say anything about that!” It’s like the Holy Spirit does something to the words between the time when I preach them and when those words hit your ears. In other words, the Spirit of God has the infinite capacity to speak something fresh through an earlier message.
King Cyrus, and his deliverance of the captives in Babylon, was God’s way of being with Israel – it was God’s way of being Immanuel to His people. And yet, even Isaiah recognized that his prophecy would have an even deeper fulfillment someday. In Isaiah 9:6, we read the prophecy: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This is a prophecy that Isaiah would not have made in direct relation to King Cyrus – Cyrus may have been God’s instrument, but he was not the “Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This layer of fulfilment to God’s deliverance would only come later.
This is where we come to Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth. Jesus was the true Immanuel in a way that King Cyrus could only faintly resemble. Once again, the context of the angel’s message to Joseph was that of persecution and exile. God’s people were under Roman rule. King Herod was a puppet for Rome, and Israel was still living in exile. For the Israelite, true peace and freedom could only come when they lived under God’s rule in the promised land. They longed for Zion to be restored and for unhindered worship and allegiance to God. Instead, they were ‘permitted’ to live in the holy land by the decree of Caesar and forced to pay tribute to rulers that considered themselves divine.
Into this world of idolatry, and amidst Israel’s deep longings for redemption, the angel proclaimed: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew was quick to point out that this Jesus was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus is Immanuel: God with us. Once again, as God’s people faced political destruction, and spiritual decay, God was determined to be with his people.
With the fulfillment of this prophecy, you think history would’ve come to an end. If the entire purpose of God’s creation was that God and humans were to be united in loving fellowship, then you think the Incarnation would have been the final chapter. God had done for us what none of us could accomplish on our own – God had closed the gap between Creator and created; God had assumed flesh.
But, as I said earlier, the human soul is restless. The gospel of John tells us that the light came into the world, but that the world rejected the light. We loved the darkness. We loved sin. Israel longed for a King, a deliverer, but the minute he was born, we were already trying to kill him. And as soon as Joseph found out Mary was pregnant he was already trying to shrug her off. But the angel showed up and set things straight. Where would we be if it wasn’t for angels? Ever think about that? Only a few people saw the moment for what it was – thanks to angels and a star: a few wise men and some shepherds came to worship “Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” – a baby boy lying in a feeding trough.
The human soul is restless; it longs for deeper fulfillment, but most of the time it is like a raging storm that knows no boundaries, and no peace. Herod wanted total power. Joseph wanted a secure reputation. Mary – well, I’m sure she had other plans for her life than bearing a child at her age. We too have many longings and hopes. As a child I was consumed by desires for stuff, stuff and more stuff. I remember not being able to sleep, during this time of the year, because of my anticipation for the presents under the tree. As a young teenage boy, I was possessed by other wants and desires. Once I discovered the alluring beauty of the other half of the population, it took all my energy to not think about them all the time. Like I said, humans are filled with desires and longings. Is this a good thing? Is this the way God created us, or is this part of our fallen nature?
I’m convinced that our nature, as desiring humans, is part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The problem is that our longings and desires are often more like a loose cannon, than a creative stream. Early Christian pastors often spoke about the Christian’s spiritual life as a kind of athletic training. They wrote that Christian spirituality is about training our hearts to desire God.
The training ground for the human soul is found in each situation and in each relationship. In marriage, we’re supposed train our hearts to love selflessly. In parenthood, we’re supposed to train our hearts in vulnerability and trust. In friendship, we’re supposed to train our hearts for sacrifice and commitment. In work and play, we train our hearts for creativity and beauty. Why train our hearts? Well, because our life’s end is about spending an eternity with God. Our longings and our desires need training. Of course, this training in Christian spirituality transforms us if, and only if, the Holy Spirit is present and the main actor. We don’t accomplish this training on our own. In all these areas of training, the Holy Spirit is the coach, the energizing power that transforms us.
Our restlessness needs direction. It’s why parents keep reminding their children about the true meaning of Christmas. Without this yearly reminder, we’d think that the real meaning of Christmas is found at family gatherings and underneath pine trees. Our desires need to be properly ordered; it’s why we celebrate marriage as a gift from God to bring order to the loose cannon of human sexuality. Our human longings and our human restlessness will find its fulfillment, ultimately, when we’re united with God – when God is fully with us.
The promise of redemption sounds great when things are difficult – when we’re experiencing pain and anxiety. It was during their exile in Babylon that the Israelites needed a liberator. In their weak status under Rome, they needed a King who could throw the princes off their thrones. But this promise is not only for those who are going through rough times.
For some of you, life is terrific. Things couldn’t be going better for you. It’s at these high points that it is easy to forget. When things are going well, it’s easy to think that our longing and restlessness has found its goal. I encourage you to allow the Christmas story to transform your desires. I encourage you to disrupt this year’s usually calm celebration with a radical act of hospitality. Disturb your usual luxury with a challenging display of generosity. Give your soul an athletic work-out, and make your spiritual muscles sore. May your Christmas experience feel more like a marathon than a soothing glass of eggnog; because it’s then that you know that you’re being pointed back to the baby boy who was worshiped as King.
And for many of you, life isn’t terrific. Life is difficult. For many of you, things could be going a whole lot better. For you it is painfully obvious that the hope and joy of Christmas is a complicated one at best. I can preach as much as I want about joy, peace, and glad tidings – for you, this Christmas is going to be a painful rehearsal of loneliness and brokenness, conflict and anxiety. You have much in common with the main actors of our story. You know what Israel felt like. You know what it feels like to be a stranger: alone and deserted. When I preach about Immanuel: God is with us, all you can say is: are you sure? Marco, are you really sure that God is with us? Would my life be falling to pieces like this if God were with me? Are you sure you want to call him Immanuel? For many of you, you need the promise of Immanuel to go deeper than what you’re experiencing. You need that prophecy to have another layer of fulfillment.
There are no easy answers for you. But the Spirit of God is powerful. In times of despair, the Holy Spirit has spoken words of comfort and promise to God’s people. Even after Jesus victoriously rose from the grave, and ascended to heaven, life for God’s people continued in struggle. Under the rule of Roman Emperors, many early Christians were tortured and brutally killed. Emperor Domition would light Christians on fire, as Candles, in order to give light to his garden parties. Christians were like sheep in a field of vicious wolves. And into that painful reality, the Holy Spirit spoke a word of promise to a man named John, who was exiled onto the island of Patmos. In the final part of his vision, John wrote about a time when God would no longer be shrouded in mystery. He wrote,
Revelation 21:1-3 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them
In the midst of their ongoing persecution, the Holy Spirit spoke a word of promise: God will be with you. Even after the prophecy about Immanuel was fulfilled in Jesus, we hear this promise again. God is with you, and one day God will be at home among mortals. Whether you are in a good space this season, or your entire world seems to be on the brink of collapse: the promise of Immanuel is for us today. Christmas doesn’t mean that Jesus came and now everything’s fine. Things aren’t always fine. Sometimes our lives feel like they’re falling apart. But this Advent we’re pointed towards the hope: that this year God’s Spirit is still fulfilling the promise of Immanuel. God is still choosing to be with us
God is with us – He’s committed to us, from beginning to end. The promise of Immanuel comes amidst brokenness, and despite this chaos, you can choose to respond to God in faith like Mary & Joseph. This Christmas, our brokenness does not crush us; it does not keep us from being able to commit. We can join Mary and say – may it be with me according to your will! And what does God will? Immanuel! I’m with you all the way!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Go and Proclaim!
Sermon planned for 3rd Advent Sunday, December 12th, 2010
Texts: Matthew 11:2-15; James 5:7-10
I want to start by reading a segment of a letter written by early Anabaptist Maeyken Wens. Maeyken Wens was married to her husband Mattheus Wens, and she was the mother of two sons, Adriaen and Hans. She wrote numerous letters to her family while she was in prison, awaiting her execution for being an Anabaptist Christian. These letters have been published in the early Anabaptist Martyr’s Mirror, an anthology of martyr stories compiled by Thielemann van Braght in 1660. In a letter to her husband Maeyken Wens writes, “after all these words of greeting, I want to let you know that I’m still doing tolerably well, in terms of my bodily health, and even better in my spiritual life… we should thank the Lord in our struggles just as we thank Him in times of plenty; because the stuff that God takes away from us is the same stuff that he gave to us as a gift. If only I could thank the Lord as joyfully in times of struggle as I do in times of plenty – then we would be truly thankful indeed! Oh how I miss you, my dear friend, I never thought that saying goodbye would be as hard on me as it has been. To be sure, the imprisonment hasn’t been easy, but that’s because I’m being treated so brutishly; but saying goodbye to you and the boys is hardest of all.” (adapted from Martyr’s Mirror, 981)
I’ve read Maeyken’s story several times since I first bought my copy of the Martyr’s Mirror. I’m impressed with her story because it’s so personally touching. There’s numerous stories, like Maeyken’s, where you can read a parent writing a goodbye letter to their spouse and children. It’s heartbreaking, but also immensely powerful and moving.
It’s hard for me to imagine what prison life is like. Even after spending three years participating a prison inmate visitation program in Saskatchewan, prison life still is a bit of a mystery to me. Every month I would join a van-full of Mennonite men and we would drive forty-five minutes to Prince Albert, where we’d spend the evening visiting prison inmates in a maximum security penitentiary. I visited with Dwight Friday; a man in his mid thirties who was handed a life sentence for murder when he was nineteen years old. I got a small taste of what prison life was like. I visited with Dwight for two hours, once a month, and played Scrabble with him – I lost every game except once. But every time our visit came to an end, I knew that I didn’t really understand what my friend Dwight was going through. I could leave whenever I wanted to. He could not.
We don’t really know what was going through Maeyken Wens’ mind, but her letter to her husband and sons gives us a glimpse. And what do we see? We see hope; some despair, but mostly hope and joyful longing for a deeper fellowship with God. The obvious difference between Maeyken and my friend Dwight is that Maeyken was on death row, sentenced to be burned to death, with her mouth clamped shut and her tongue screwed down. During her ordeal, her sons fainted as they watched her being tied to the stake – and when they woke up, she was already gone. Her older son, Adrian, sifted through her ashes and found the tongue screw. He picked it up and kept it in memory of his mother’s testimony to Jesus. Dwight, on the other hand, will not be executed. We don’t execute prisoners in Canada anymore – although we still find creative reasons to kill others – including our enemies and unwanted children.
But why am I telling you about my friend Dwight and about our sister Maeyken Wens? Well, because they both help me to understand what was happening with John the Baptist, while he was locked-up in prison. King Herod had put him in jail. John’s situation was similar to Maeyken’s in that his sentence ended in death. But his sentence was also different than Maeyken’s in an important way. John the Baptist died before Jesus’ death and resurrection, while Maeyken died as a baptized Christian. She had heard the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, while John had been the one to point to the gospel. John was the forerunner. He pointed people to Jesus. Maeyken could read about the Resurrection, while John could only hope for it. John the Baptist hoped that Jesus was the promised Messiah, who would bring a revival to God’s people. That revival wasn’t taking off as quickly as John thought it should.
So why did John send out his disciples to question Jesus? Why was he mixed up about Jesus’ identity? It seems that, at first, John was clear about Jesus, about his identity, his Messianic mission, and his divine origin. But now, in our passage from Matthew 11, we get the sense that John doubted. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Although we as readers know something important – we know that Jesus’ deeds prove his identity as Messiah – John the Baptist himself was out of the loop. He expected a quick time of judgment. After all, last week we heard my friend Patricia tell us about John’s expectation. John proclaimed that God’s final Day of Judgment was imminent – it was just around the corner. The axe lies at the root of the tree, and all the unfaithful will be burnt up like the chaff on a farmer’s field. John’s expectations weren’t being met; and now that he was stuck in prison, his doubts were really starting to get to him.
Life in prison often becomes a life of confusion. I once asked my friend Dwight if he had any friends in prison – he chuckled. He then went on to tell me that friendship was discouraged among inmates and even actively undermined by the guards and the Warden. He told me that every friendship he had made in prison was broken-apart by rumours. It’s as if the inmates were being isolated from one another. The only community that could resist these tactics were the gangs, whose social ties were based more on fear than on love and care. So, on the one hand, you have the institution telling my friend Dwight that he should re-socialize and prepare to re-enter society, where friendship and community are key; and on the other hand, you have guards and Wardens actively undermining friendship and community between inmates. I’m sure the guards figured they had good reason to isolate inmates – after all, building distrust among inmates would decrease the chances of a mob mentality. It would decrease the chances of a prison riot. Nevertheless, these mixed messages lent themselves to a very confusing life for the inmates at Prince Albert Penitentiary.
We also find confusion in the story of John the Baptist. John, who was so sure about Jesus’ messianic identity, was now questioning his earlier judgment. “Are you the one to come, or should we wait for another.” What caused this confusion? I’m sure it was something different than what happened to my friend Dwight. The confusion that gripped John had everything to do with John’s expectations about what kind of Messiah Jesus would be.
In the beginning of Matthew, we hear John speak about a Messiah whose “winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” This is what John the Baptist expected of Jesus. And yet, when Jesus came, he healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, calmed the stormy seas, casted out demons and he fed the hungry; he brought peace between the zealot fighter and the sell-out tax collector. This was not quite what John had envisioned. Or, at least, something about his time in prison confused him about Jesus’ identity.
One thing that I realized, pretty quickly, when visiting Dwight in prison, was that there wasn’t all that much difference between him and myself. At first, when I went to the prison to visit, I thought I was going to see a room full of evil men, with blood still on their hands – and that I, a twenty-three year old Christian pastor, would come in and speak words of healing and hope to these brutish men. But what I found was a room full of guys who loved to laugh, tell stories, share jokes and even tear-up with emotion. I met a room full of guys, some of them Christian others not; some of them kind, and others were jerks – just like the rest of us. These guys were stuck behind prison walls, but that didn’t make them all that different from you and me. They dealt with some of the same questions you and I deal with. If all this bad stuff is happening to me, where is God in all of this mess? I know I’ve done something wrong; can I ever be forgiven for what I did? Does God love me even though I committed this horrible sin?
When we’re thrown into times of struggle, we all end up behaving similarly, whether we’re stuck in jail for murder or whether we’re ‘free’ on the outside. When life throws us sour grapes, we all find ourselves asking questions like John the Baptist? God, are you really who you say you are? Are you really powerful, righteous, good and just? Are you here close by, or are you distant from me? Why are you letting this happen to me? Are you really the Great Creator of our world, or should we be looking for another? Last week, my friend Patricia told you about some of her struggle, after her daughter Morgan died of cancer. Andy and Trish wrestled hard – they struggled with God; kind of like Jacob wrestling with God at the river. That’s what we as humans do when we face impossible pain and anguish. It’s what happened with John the Baptist; and it’s the same thing that I saw in the faces of many men in Prince Albert Penitentiary.
You may be facing a struggle or a pain in your life, and you may be asking similar questions about God. I want you to know that you’re ok. You’re not wrong – you are not sinning when you struggle hard with God, with who He is. If we learn anything from our bible about how to survive a personal crisis, we learn that we can be absolutely honest with God about how we feel, about what we want from God; about what kind of Savior we want Him to be for us. We’re allowed to ask God to be what we want Him to be.
John the Baptist wanted Jesus to come as a fiery Judge, ready to sweep all the sinners into the fire pit. And to be sure, in Jesus we come face to face with God’s “NO” to us. In Jesus, we hear the clear call to repent and turn from sin; to repent and turn towards the life of discipleship; to repent and become a child of light, leaving behind the ways of darkness. To be sure, in Jesus we come face to face with Judgment. But that’s not all folks. In Jesus, we also come face to face with God’s “YES” to us, his mercy and grace. Just like you and me, John was allowed to ask this from Jesus – to ask for a fiery Judge; and admit it, there’s days we want this from Jesus too. We want Jesus to smite the evildoers of our world. Like John, we want a Jesus that helps clear the threshing floor. And we’re allowed to want that.
In the raw human experience of pain and suffering, we’re allowed to be completely honest with God. But don’t think, not even for a second, that our own wants, needs, and desires are determinative for who God really is. Our wants don’t define God. We are allowed to want a Savior who stands up for us against all our enemies – we’re allowed to desire a territorial god, God doesn’t forbid us our emotional response – but that has nothing to do with who God is, and the kind of God He chooses to be for us.
In Jesus, we get the clearest picture to date – not of what we want Him to be for us but of what kind of God He is. And when Jesus described his own mission – his own identity as Messiah – he focused on passages and prophecies that spoke about healing the sick, setting prisoners free, cancelling financial debts, forgiving sins, cleansing lepers, comforting widows & orphans, and preaching good news to the poor. All year long we’re allowed to tell God what kind of God we want Him to be for us. We’re allowed to be completely honest with God in our struggles and pain. We want God to heal Matthew. We want God to bring peace to our conflicts, our relationships and our marriages. We want God to be who we need Him to be. But this Advent we hear about Jesus; we hear the same report that was sent back to John the Baptist: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” We can want God to be and do all kinds of things – but in Jesus we come to see who God is.
Maeyken Wens, John the Baptist, Dwight Friday… they’re not all that different from us. Sure, you and I may not be stuck behind bars… we may not be on death row; but we’re all human. We’re all bombarded with suffering, brokenness, with physical or mental illness, with grief, the chains of addiction, with the monstrosity of abuse, both sexual and otherwise, from strangers and even from our own parents. We may not live in a high security prison, but even some of the relationships we share can feel like lock-down. A father-son relationship can be more like Guantanamo than a picture of God’s love for us. And in that difficult space, we need to be honest with God. John expressed his doubt and confusion: “are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
John may have been confused about Jesus, but Jesus wasn’t confused about John. After he sent John’s disciples back with a report, Jesus went on to tell his followers about who John really was – John was really Elijah who was to come. We may be confused with God at times; we may wonder whether God has our interests in mind. Let me tell you some good news: God is not at all confused about us. God is not at all confused about the kind of God He wants to be for us. There is no confusion about the kind of God that He has chosen to be for us in Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel – God is with us! We may be 100% sure of where criminals belong; we may think we know how God feels about those who commit crimes and how they should be punished. Let me tell you some good news: God’s care and love for the prison inmate is not at all determined by our feelings towards them; just like God’s grace and love for us is not at all determined by whether or not we have sinned. Sinners and Saints, criminals or not, He loves us the same. His name is Immanuel, and he has come to set the captives free – to forgive sins and proclaim good news to the poor.
Maeyken Wens knew this good news. She couldn’t stop talking about it, even in a goodbye letter to her husband and her sons. May you hear this good news as well – AND PROCLAIM IT! And as you suffer, or find your life fractured with pain and brokenness, may you see this woman as an example. May you hear the good Word from James, who tells us to strengthen our hearts, for Jesus’ coming is near. Come Lord Jesus, come soon!
Texts: Matthew 11:2-15; James 5:7-10
I want to start by reading a segment of a letter written by early Anabaptist Maeyken Wens. Maeyken Wens was married to her husband Mattheus Wens, and she was the mother of two sons, Adriaen and Hans. She wrote numerous letters to her family while she was in prison, awaiting her execution for being an Anabaptist Christian. These letters have been published in the early Anabaptist Martyr’s Mirror, an anthology of martyr stories compiled by Thielemann van Braght in 1660. In a letter to her husband Maeyken Wens writes, “after all these words of greeting, I want to let you know that I’m still doing tolerably well, in terms of my bodily health, and even better in my spiritual life… we should thank the Lord in our struggles just as we thank Him in times of plenty; because the stuff that God takes away from us is the same stuff that he gave to us as a gift. If only I could thank the Lord as joyfully in times of struggle as I do in times of plenty – then we would be truly thankful indeed! Oh how I miss you, my dear friend, I never thought that saying goodbye would be as hard on me as it has been. To be sure, the imprisonment hasn’t been easy, but that’s because I’m being treated so brutishly; but saying goodbye to you and the boys is hardest of all.” (adapted from Martyr’s Mirror, 981)
I’ve read Maeyken’s story several times since I first bought my copy of the Martyr’s Mirror. I’m impressed with her story because it’s so personally touching. There’s numerous stories, like Maeyken’s, where you can read a parent writing a goodbye letter to their spouse and children. It’s heartbreaking, but also immensely powerful and moving.
It’s hard for me to imagine what prison life is like. Even after spending three years participating a prison inmate visitation program in Saskatchewan, prison life still is a bit of a mystery to me. Every month I would join a van-full of Mennonite men and we would drive forty-five minutes to Prince Albert, where we’d spend the evening visiting prison inmates in a maximum security penitentiary. I visited with Dwight Friday; a man in his mid thirties who was handed a life sentence for murder when he was nineteen years old. I got a small taste of what prison life was like. I visited with Dwight for two hours, once a month, and played Scrabble with him – I lost every game except once. But every time our visit came to an end, I knew that I didn’t really understand what my friend Dwight was going through. I could leave whenever I wanted to. He could not.
We don’t really know what was going through Maeyken Wens’ mind, but her letter to her husband and sons gives us a glimpse. And what do we see? We see hope; some despair, but mostly hope and joyful longing for a deeper fellowship with God. The obvious difference between Maeyken and my friend Dwight is that Maeyken was on death row, sentenced to be burned to death, with her mouth clamped shut and her tongue screwed down. During her ordeal, her sons fainted as they watched her being tied to the stake – and when they woke up, she was already gone. Her older son, Adrian, sifted through her ashes and found the tongue screw. He picked it up and kept it in memory of his mother’s testimony to Jesus. Dwight, on the other hand, will not be executed. We don’t execute prisoners in Canada anymore – although we still find creative reasons to kill others – including our enemies and unwanted children.
But why am I telling you about my friend Dwight and about our sister Maeyken Wens? Well, because they both help me to understand what was happening with John the Baptist, while he was locked-up in prison. King Herod had put him in jail. John’s situation was similar to Maeyken’s in that his sentence ended in death. But his sentence was also different than Maeyken’s in an important way. John the Baptist died before Jesus’ death and resurrection, while Maeyken died as a baptized Christian. She had heard the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, while John had been the one to point to the gospel. John was the forerunner. He pointed people to Jesus. Maeyken could read about the Resurrection, while John could only hope for it. John the Baptist hoped that Jesus was the promised Messiah, who would bring a revival to God’s people. That revival wasn’t taking off as quickly as John thought it should.
So why did John send out his disciples to question Jesus? Why was he mixed up about Jesus’ identity? It seems that, at first, John was clear about Jesus, about his identity, his Messianic mission, and his divine origin. But now, in our passage from Matthew 11, we get the sense that John doubted. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Although we as readers know something important – we know that Jesus’ deeds prove his identity as Messiah – John the Baptist himself was out of the loop. He expected a quick time of judgment. After all, last week we heard my friend Patricia tell us about John’s expectation. John proclaimed that God’s final Day of Judgment was imminent – it was just around the corner. The axe lies at the root of the tree, and all the unfaithful will be burnt up like the chaff on a farmer’s field. John’s expectations weren’t being met; and now that he was stuck in prison, his doubts were really starting to get to him.
Life in prison often becomes a life of confusion. I once asked my friend Dwight if he had any friends in prison – he chuckled. He then went on to tell me that friendship was discouraged among inmates and even actively undermined by the guards and the Warden. He told me that every friendship he had made in prison was broken-apart by rumours. It’s as if the inmates were being isolated from one another. The only community that could resist these tactics were the gangs, whose social ties were based more on fear than on love and care. So, on the one hand, you have the institution telling my friend Dwight that he should re-socialize and prepare to re-enter society, where friendship and community are key; and on the other hand, you have guards and Wardens actively undermining friendship and community between inmates. I’m sure the guards figured they had good reason to isolate inmates – after all, building distrust among inmates would decrease the chances of a mob mentality. It would decrease the chances of a prison riot. Nevertheless, these mixed messages lent themselves to a very confusing life for the inmates at Prince Albert Penitentiary.
We also find confusion in the story of John the Baptist. John, who was so sure about Jesus’ messianic identity, was now questioning his earlier judgment. “Are you the one to come, or should we wait for another.” What caused this confusion? I’m sure it was something different than what happened to my friend Dwight. The confusion that gripped John had everything to do with John’s expectations about what kind of Messiah Jesus would be.
In the beginning of Matthew, we hear John speak about a Messiah whose “winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” This is what John the Baptist expected of Jesus. And yet, when Jesus came, he healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, calmed the stormy seas, casted out demons and he fed the hungry; he brought peace between the zealot fighter and the sell-out tax collector. This was not quite what John had envisioned. Or, at least, something about his time in prison confused him about Jesus’ identity.
One thing that I realized, pretty quickly, when visiting Dwight in prison, was that there wasn’t all that much difference between him and myself. At first, when I went to the prison to visit, I thought I was going to see a room full of evil men, with blood still on their hands – and that I, a twenty-three year old Christian pastor, would come in and speak words of healing and hope to these brutish men. But what I found was a room full of guys who loved to laugh, tell stories, share jokes and even tear-up with emotion. I met a room full of guys, some of them Christian others not; some of them kind, and others were jerks – just like the rest of us. These guys were stuck behind prison walls, but that didn’t make them all that different from you and me. They dealt with some of the same questions you and I deal with. If all this bad stuff is happening to me, where is God in all of this mess? I know I’ve done something wrong; can I ever be forgiven for what I did? Does God love me even though I committed this horrible sin?
When we’re thrown into times of struggle, we all end up behaving similarly, whether we’re stuck in jail for murder or whether we’re ‘free’ on the outside. When life throws us sour grapes, we all find ourselves asking questions like John the Baptist? God, are you really who you say you are? Are you really powerful, righteous, good and just? Are you here close by, or are you distant from me? Why are you letting this happen to me? Are you really the Great Creator of our world, or should we be looking for another? Last week, my friend Patricia told you about some of her struggle, after her daughter Morgan died of cancer. Andy and Trish wrestled hard – they struggled with God; kind of like Jacob wrestling with God at the river. That’s what we as humans do when we face impossible pain and anguish. It’s what happened with John the Baptist; and it’s the same thing that I saw in the faces of many men in Prince Albert Penitentiary.
You may be facing a struggle or a pain in your life, and you may be asking similar questions about God. I want you to know that you’re ok. You’re not wrong – you are not sinning when you struggle hard with God, with who He is. If we learn anything from our bible about how to survive a personal crisis, we learn that we can be absolutely honest with God about how we feel, about what we want from God; about what kind of Savior we want Him to be for us. We’re allowed to ask God to be what we want Him to be.
John the Baptist wanted Jesus to come as a fiery Judge, ready to sweep all the sinners into the fire pit. And to be sure, in Jesus we come face to face with God’s “NO” to us. In Jesus, we hear the clear call to repent and turn from sin; to repent and turn towards the life of discipleship; to repent and become a child of light, leaving behind the ways of darkness. To be sure, in Jesus we come face to face with Judgment. But that’s not all folks. In Jesus, we also come face to face with God’s “YES” to us, his mercy and grace. Just like you and me, John was allowed to ask this from Jesus – to ask for a fiery Judge; and admit it, there’s days we want this from Jesus too. We want Jesus to smite the evildoers of our world. Like John, we want a Jesus that helps clear the threshing floor. And we’re allowed to want that.
In the raw human experience of pain and suffering, we’re allowed to be completely honest with God. But don’t think, not even for a second, that our own wants, needs, and desires are determinative for who God really is. Our wants don’t define God. We are allowed to want a Savior who stands up for us against all our enemies – we’re allowed to desire a territorial god, God doesn’t forbid us our emotional response – but that has nothing to do with who God is, and the kind of God He chooses to be for us.
In Jesus, we get the clearest picture to date – not of what we want Him to be for us but of what kind of God He is. And when Jesus described his own mission – his own identity as Messiah – he focused on passages and prophecies that spoke about healing the sick, setting prisoners free, cancelling financial debts, forgiving sins, cleansing lepers, comforting widows & orphans, and preaching good news to the poor. All year long we’re allowed to tell God what kind of God we want Him to be for us. We’re allowed to be completely honest with God in our struggles and pain. We want God to heal Matthew. We want God to bring peace to our conflicts, our relationships and our marriages. We want God to be who we need Him to be. But this Advent we hear about Jesus; we hear the same report that was sent back to John the Baptist: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” We can want God to be and do all kinds of things – but in Jesus we come to see who God is.
Maeyken Wens, John the Baptist, Dwight Friday… they’re not all that different from us. Sure, you and I may not be stuck behind bars… we may not be on death row; but we’re all human. We’re all bombarded with suffering, brokenness, with physical or mental illness, with grief, the chains of addiction, with the monstrosity of abuse, both sexual and otherwise, from strangers and even from our own parents. We may not live in a high security prison, but even some of the relationships we share can feel like lock-down. A father-son relationship can be more like Guantanamo than a picture of God’s love for us. And in that difficult space, we need to be honest with God. John expressed his doubt and confusion: “are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
John may have been confused about Jesus, but Jesus wasn’t confused about John. After he sent John’s disciples back with a report, Jesus went on to tell his followers about who John really was – John was really Elijah who was to come. We may be confused with God at times; we may wonder whether God has our interests in mind. Let me tell you some good news: God is not at all confused about us. God is not at all confused about the kind of God He wants to be for us. There is no confusion about the kind of God that He has chosen to be for us in Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel – God is with us! We may be 100% sure of where criminals belong; we may think we know how God feels about those who commit crimes and how they should be punished. Let me tell you some good news: God’s care and love for the prison inmate is not at all determined by our feelings towards them; just like God’s grace and love for us is not at all determined by whether or not we have sinned. Sinners and Saints, criminals or not, He loves us the same. His name is Immanuel, and he has come to set the captives free – to forgive sins and proclaim good news to the poor.
Maeyken Wens knew this good news. She couldn’t stop talking about it, even in a goodbye letter to her husband and her sons. May you hear this good news as well – AND PROCLAIM IT! And as you suffer, or find your life fractured with pain and brokenness, may you see this woman as an example. May you hear the good Word from James, who tells us to strengthen our hearts, for Jesus’ coming is near. Come Lord Jesus, come soon!
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