Darkness and Dawn

Texts:  Isaiah 9:1-7; 2 Kings 15:27-29; Matthew 4:12-17

“REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM of heaven is near!”

Is this good news for you, or bad news, or no news at all?

The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and every kingdom must have a king.  The King is coming!  Will you rejoice, will you cower in fear, or will you ignore Him and go about your business?

But this King you can’t ignore.  A governor or president serves at the will of the people.  His term ends in a few years and then he has to give up his office.  Dictators usurp power and cling to it until they die, but eventually their lives do end and their hold over the people ends, too.  Modern-day kings and queens hold ceremonial roles.  But the King of the Kingdom of Heaven truly reigns over all, He assumes His power by right, on His own authority, and His rule will never, ever end.  Get ready, repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near, and you are a subject of that kingdom whether you want to be or not.

       Nearly two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth returned to His home country of Galilee making just that proclamation.  Gradually He would reveal that He Himself was the King of the kingdom, the one to whom, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, every knee must bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.  But the people of Galilee don’t know that yet.  That is what Jesus is getting ready to prove.

What kind of king will He be?  Will His reign bring joy or fear, darkness or light?

St. Matthew writes his gospel primarily to Jews, Jews who were expecting the kingdom of heaven.  Because he is writing to Jews, who hold the name of the Lord especially sacred, he avoids the term “kingdom of God.”  But we can assume that Jesus used both expressions and they both mean the same.  The coming of the kingdom of heaven or of God meant that everything on earth would finally bow the knee to God, from the widest galaxy down to the thoughts of every human heart.  It’s Matthew’s purpose to prove that the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the King of the heavenly Kingdom, the long-expected Messiah who Himself is Lord and God.

To prove this Matthew cites texts from the Old Testament prophets.  “See!” he says, “The Word of the Lord said the coming King would do all these things, and this is exactly what this Jesus has done!”

And so in our passage from Matthew chapter 4 the evangelist cites Isaiah 9, verses 1 and 2.  He paraphrases, he doesn’t quote word for word, but his message is this: For those who were dwelling in darkness, the light has come.  The King comes as the bringer of daylight and dawn.  So repent!

  The first verse of this passage from Isaiah 9 evoked deep and painful memories in the hearts of the ancient Jewish people.  They are our spiritual ancestors and we need to put ourselves in their place and understand what the problem was– and still is.

For that we turn to our reading from II Kings.  The name I want you to notice first is that of Jeroboam son of Nebat, at the end of verse 28.  Jeroboam was one of King Solomon’s officials who rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam back in the later part of the tenth century before Christ.  Ahijah the prophet, speaking in the name of the Lord, had said that God would give the ten northern tribes to him and if he kept God’s commands he would be granted an earthly dynasty as enduring as the one the Lord had promised David.  But even after God kept His promise and Israel was in Jeroboam’s hands, he didn’t listen.  He sinned by setting up golden calves in the northern cities of Bethel and Dan.  He said to his people, “Here are the gods who brought you up out of Egypt.”  And the people worshipped them there, instead of worshipping the Lord in the Temple in Jerusalem.

The great sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat was idolatry.  It was blaspheming the Lord by giving false gods the glory for the salvation God alone had accomplished.

And the Israelite kings after him followed his pattern, down to Pekah king of Israel, mentioned in verse 27, who reigned from around 749 to 730 BC.  He kept up the same old idolatry.  It was politically expedient, you see.  Wouldn’t want the northern tribes going down to Judah for Passover and thinking about reuniting, now would we?  On top of that the people committed all the usual sins we human beings commit when we turn our backs on God.

For their sins the Lord God brought the Assyrians against Israel. He had sworn to Moses that if they did not keep His commands He would wipe them out of the land He was giving them and hold them to account just as He had the Canaanites before them.  So as the writer of II Kings tells us,  “in the time of Pekah king of Israel, about 734 BC, Tiglath Pileser [III], king of Assyria, came and conquered the northern Israelite cites of Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, and Hazor,” in Zebulun and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and you can see their ruins to this day.  “He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.”

This was a time of great darkness in the history of Israel and Judah.  Before there had been the darkness of willful sin; now add to that the darkness of war, famine, conquest, exile, and shame.  About this time, down in Jerusalem in Judah, the word of the Lord came to Isaiah the prophet.  God revealed it was not Tiglath-Pileser of his own will who had humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, he had only been an instrument in the hand of the Lord, to execute His just vengeance for sin.

The Lord speaking through Isaiah describes the people remaining in Galilee as “walking” and “living” in darkness.  Matthew in his paraphrase rendered both these words as “living” or “sitting” in darkness.  The point is the same.  Both the remaining native Israelites and the foreign people Assyria brought in were living without the light of the Lord.  They continued on in their sins, or if they were aware of them, they saw no hope of salvation.  The favor of the Lord all seemed to rest on Judah in the south, on Jerusalem.

About ten years later the rest of Israel was deported to Assyria.  Finally in 586 BC Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and Judah went into exile, too.
The Lord had mercy on them, and seventy years later the Judeans, that is, the Jews, were allowed to come back to the land and rebuild Jerusalem.  But things were never the same.  In the days our Lord walked this earth the whole land from south to north was under the control of Rome.  In His day the Jewish people from Judea to Galilee longed for the coming of the Messiah, the One who would save them from the darkness of sin and oppression.

But it was always considered that Judea had the edge when it came to readiness and righteousness.  That’s where the revived religion was the most pure, where the Pharisees were the most righteous.  When God’s Messiah came preaching the good news of the kingdom of heaven, surely He would do it on the streets of Jerusalem, or at least somewhere close by.

John the Baptist preached and baptised in the Desert of Judea, and our Lord was baptised there.  We even read in John’s Gospel that Jesus performed many miraculous signs in Jerusalem during the first Passover of His ministry.  He and His disciples went out into the Judean countryside (John 3:22) and baptised there, at the same time that John was still carrying on his ministry by the Jordan.  Surely it would be Judea and Jerusalem that would be the first to be blessed, not the second-rate, Gentile-infected lands to the north.

But the word of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah came true after John the Baptist was put in prison.  At that time Jesus returned to Galilee, to the land of those dwelling in darkness, to the place traditionally overrun by Gentiles, and made His first formal announcement that the night was over and the dawn had come: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”  He didn’t go where people were the most “deserving,” He went first to the place of greatest need.

. . . on those living in the land of the shadow of death,
a light has dawned.

That is the kind of Saviour He is.  But does He say, “There, there, all is well, go on doing what you’ve always done, it’s okay?”  No, Jesus commands the people to repent.  Reject the apathy, the idolatry, the immorality.  Turn back to the Lord your God for salvation and healing.  Stop loving darkness and come into the light.

This is Christ’s message for us today, though the kingdom has progressed since then.  Since then Jesus has died for our sins and been raised for our justification.  Since then He has poured out His Spirit and formed His Church out of all the peoples of the world.  Even so, He commands us, Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is no longer merely near, it is here among us in the Church He has called.  The day is fast approaching when all His elect will be gathered in and the kingdom of heaven will indeed come in its fulness.  At that time every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  As the hymn says, the Lord our God will surely “come and take His harvest home:

. . . from His field shall in that day
all offenses purge away.

Therefore He calls us His people to live as kingdom citizens, as children of light, as we turn from the sins of this world to the love of Him who died to make us His own.

This world is not as bad as it can be.  But the darkness looms over us and daily it’s getting worse.  Overseas and even in America radical Islamic groups are brutally killing Christians simply because they are Christians. Here in America men we’ve looked up to as models turn out to be the worst of sinners, and our citizens justify riot and murder for the sake of their cause.  More and more, people would rather spend another day shopping and acquiring rather than taking time to give thanks to God.  And it isn’t just other people.  The darkness of sin still keeps a foothold in our hearts, and we, too, need to hear Christ’s message: Repent– for the kingdom of heaven is here.

Jesus the Son of God was born for you, He died for you, He rose for you, that you might come out of darkness and live in the light of His heavenly kingdom.  He is the King who was to come, the King you can’t ignore, the

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
  Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Forever He will reign over you, me, and all the universe, and of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ came like the breaking dawn to save us, that all who believe in Him might live in His light and peace.  He will come again in the full light of His glory to judge the world.  For those who love darkness, that will be a day of wrath and distress.  But for those who love Him, those whose ears are opened by the Holy Spirit and heed His call, it will be a day of joy and celebration that will last forever.

This Advent season, heed the call of your Lord and King.  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come to you.  By His grace, may this be the best news you will ever hear.  Amen.

One Spirit, One People, One Peace

Texts:  Isaiah 2:1-5; Ephesians 2:11-22

WHEN I WAS A FRESHMAN IN college, I met a guy at a party who introduced me to the concept of world citizenship.  He said he was working with a group who were lobbying the UN to make my hometown of Kansas City a "city of the world."  Somehow, the very mention of this filled me with excitement.  There was something so big and thrilling about the idea, something larger and grander and more hopeful than anything I'd conceived of before, and the thought that I myself might be involved in it made it all the more amazing.

Well, nothing came of this plan as far as I know, and it's been a long time since I thought that humanity united under a single human government is a good thing.  Still, there's something inherently appealing about the idea of human oneness and unity.  How wonderful it would be-- No barriers, no conflicts, just perfect communication and peace between man and man.

But that's not how things are in this world.  In fact, it seems like parties, opinion groups, and factions are more polarized and more in opposition than ever before in human history.  You probably have friends you don't talk to much any more because every time you get together, you end up in an argument about some issue or other.  With some people you can't even talk about the weather without things getting political!  It wouldn't be so bad if people would stick to evidence and facts, but the dividing walls of hostility are erected so high and so thick things too often end up in name-calling and insults.  So we stay in our own camps with that figurative wall standing between us, and human oneness is only a dream-- if we think it's a good thing at all.

With the way things are today, it should give us perspective on the polarization between the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman world, as we read in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  But their conflict concerned more than current issues; it cut to the heart of created reality, for was over who or what should be worshipped as the true God and what that deity requires of us as humans.

This question is way bigger than the debate over, say, global warming or government-run health care.  In such matters let us take our stands based on the facts as we know them, but allow that more information may prove us to be wrong.  But in this matter of Jew vs. Gentile-- or, rather, Jew vs. pagan, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to who was and is right, or at least, more right, in this conflict.  The Jews absolutely were, before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only people on the face of this earth who worshipped the true Lord and Creator of the universe, while the gods of the pagans were useless idols.  The Jews were the only ones who'd been given His laws to follow, the only ones whom the Lord had made His people through solemn covenant, the only ones to whom He had powerfully revealed Himself with unshakeable promises of blessing. And although the prophets spoke of a Messiah to come who would somehow bring benefit to the nations as well, they were also clear that it was through Israel alone that this Savior would come. When it came to the divisions between Jews and pagans, it was not a matter of each side giving up a little on the human level and coming to a friendly compromise.  Compromise was something Israel could not do and remain Israel.  For whenever Israel compromised with the Gentile nations, that's when they got into deep trouble.

No, as Paul writes in verse 12, time was when we who were born Gentiles were

separated from Christ [that is, the Messiah of Israel], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

In fact, for many centuries the dividing wall of hostility was a necessary barrier to preserve Israel from total disobedience and dissolution before the Messiah could come.   It was essential that the pagans and their evil influence be kept at a safe distance from the commonwealth of Israel, and the further off the better.  But, Paul says, the time has come for the dividing wall to be taken down.  Better than that, the time has come when it has been taken down, and the two indeed have become one.

How?  By us holding interfaith councils and agreeing that all religions lead to the same god?  By us avoiding controversial subjects and just talking about puppies and kittens and blue balloons instead?

No.  It took Jesus Christ Himself to break it down and bring Jews and Gentiles together.  For as we see in verses 14 and 15,

He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances . . .

Now when we read that Jesus has "abolished . . . the law of commandments and ordinances," we might conclude that the Jews were wrong all along and we can indulge in and celebrate all sorts of immoral behavior and do it with Jesus' blessing.  That'd save a lot of arguments, for sure!  But we'd be wrong if we did.  For Paul has just finished, up in verse 10, saying that God has created-- recreated, actually-- us in Jesus Christ for good works.  And all the Scripture tells us that a godly life is the only way to please our Creator.  So what is this abolition?

In such a case, it helps to look at the original Greek. The word translated "abolish" literally means "down-un-acting" and, in the case of this verse, scholars interpret it as "made ineffectual or powerless; nullified; invalidated."  So what was the law considered to be effectual or valid for previous to Christ?  Well, the Jews looked to keeping the Law as an effectual and valid way to please God and be justified in His presence.  And that is what Moses had said by the Spirit in Leviticus, "The man who does these things will live by them"-- that is, have life, peace, and fellowship with the Lord of life.  But by the same Spirit he also said in Deuteronomy, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."  And who can live up to that?  The Jews never could.  Certainly the Gentiles could not.  We cannot.  The Law which reflected the holiness of God only served to prove how unholy we all were.  But in His flesh-- in His perfect obedience in life and His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the commands of the Law in our place and set it aside as the way to peace and fellowship with God.

And as Paul writes in verse 13, in Christ Jesus we (and we're included with the Gentile Ephesians here) who were far off from Israel and alienated from God's promises have been brought near by the blood of Christ, shed for us all on Calvary's cross.  In Christ the vision of Isaiah is fulfilled, when the nations would miraculously stream up to Mount Zion and know peace walking in the ways of the God of Jacob.

I've heard that outside the United Nations building in New York there's a sculpture called "Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares," frankly taking its title from the verses from Isaiah 2 that read,

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks.

In other words, let's bring about peace on earth.  Well, people, if you're trying to achieve that by what goes on in that building, good luck.  You'll be at it a long, weary time.  No, the Scripture is clear: Man cannot end hostility: Our peace is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.  In Him is the one and only peace that can make Jew and Gentile one and create one new man out of the two warring peoples.  It took the Son of God made Man to make peace between God's covenant people and those who before had been excluded from His covenant, and He did it by His atoning death.

But His death accomplished even more.  As wonderful as it was that Jesus should make one people out of the warring human factions of Jew and Gentile,  He also reconciled humanity to Almighty God.

And we all needed reconciliation to God.  Because as we can read in Ephesians 2:3, by nature-- fallen human nature-- we are all children of wrath.  In our natural sinful state we are at war with God and God is at war with us.  But in Christ and through Christ and because of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God who is rich in mercy chose us in love to be saved through Him.  And so now, as verse 16 says, He has reconciled both groups "to God in one body through the cross, bringing the hostility to an end."

But how does this come to be true for you and me?  Verse 18 answers that question: it is the work of the Holy Spirit who gives us access to the Father through Jesus Christ our mutual Lord.  By His gracious work we're no longer illegal aliens who deserve no amnesty; God Himself as in Psalm 87 has declared us to be born citizens of the heavenly Zion and by Christ His living Word it is so.  In Jesus we are made fellow-citizens with the saints-- and by that Paul would have meant the holy men and women of faithful Israel-- and members of the household of God.  In Christ the earthly nation of Israel is redeemed and rebuilt together with the elect Gentiles into the spiritual Zion, founded upon the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the head and cornerstone.  The dividing wall has been broken down, and in its place one building rises under His power.  Together we are that building, and it is no ordinary house: it is a holy temple intended for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I hope you have a sense of how beautiful this is!  But beyond that I want us all to understand the power these beautiful truths must have for our lives in this fallen world.

First of all, we were not saved to be lone-wolf, individualized Christ-followers.  Back up in verse 11, the apostle begins this passage with the word "therefore."  In the previous verses he was reminding us of our salvation in Christ and God's will for our lives in consequence of that.  But we are not on our own.  God raised us up in Christ to be incorporated into one holy people by the ministry of one Spirit.  It is absolutely false that you can be a perfectly good Christian without being part of Christ's church.  Membership in Christ's church is a fundamental part of what you were saved for.  Indeed, everyone who has been reconciled to God in Jesus Christ is a member of His Church whether he or she is able to sit in a pew or not.  Therefore, let us support and build up and act in love towards one another, for Jesus Christ is our peace.  In Him and in the power of His Spirit we can demonstrate that we are one new man, as we look out for the good of on another just as we would for ourselves.

Second, we cannot take our position as citizens of the heavenly Zion for granted, as something that simply comes with our living in our particular time and place.  No, for if things had kept on going as they had for hundreds of years, we who are not ethnic Jews would have remained strangers and aliens, unforgiven sinners, with no hope and without God in the world.  It is by grace you have been saved, just as it is by grace that the Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah have by grace come to know that reality.  This should give us all a sense of humility before God and a heart of compassion towards our unsaved pagan neighbors.  For we were once as they are, and the blood of Christ that brought us near to God will, in His mercy, one day bring them in as members of the household of faith, too.  So let us conduct our lives in the power of the Spirit so Christ indeed will be seen in us, that through us others might also be reconciled to the God who made them.

This brings us to the third and final truth I believe we should take from our Scripture readings today.  Despite our compassion, there will always be plenty of people around us who are perfectly content to be without God in this world.  We Christians, they charge, are the ones who are unenlightened.  Indeed, when we conduct ourselves as citizens of God's holy nation and stand up for His righteousness in this world, we will be reviled as fools, bigots, even as enemies of humanity.  It can be hard living as a Christian in this world, the way things are going.  It may threaten your position, your income, and your reputation.  But you are members of Christ's one holy nation, and our heavenly citizenship takes precedence over all other loyalties.  Yes, let us be good Americans, good members of our political parties, good trade union members, good service club members, good members of our families.  But when any direction or practice or mindset of our nation, party, union, club, yes, even of our own families contradicts the will and nature of God as we know it from His revealed Word, He calls and commands us to stand firm in the Spirit and hold fast to the truth of Christ.

It won't be easy, but we can do it.  We can do it because we are God's one new people through His one Holy Spirit.  And the one peace we rest in is Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the Peace that will always last and never fail.  He has already accomplished the cosmic work of making peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both of us and God.  And so we can find our peace in Him, no matter what our conflict with the world may be.  Rejoice, Church of God!  We are His people, bought with His blood and brought together by His Spirit.  We are God's holy temple, His dwelling place on earth, and He will see to it that His temple, His spiritual Zion, stands forever, to the glory of His name.

What Is God For?

Texts:  Isaiah 40:18-31; Ephesians 1:3-14

I'M SURE YOU'D HEARD that tornados hit the Oklahoma City area again Friday night.  We prayed for the victims during our prayers this morning, for those who were hurt, for those who lost property, for those who lost loved ones.  But we know that as sure as this world turns there are going to be tornados in the Midwest in the spring, and sure as that world is fallen and sinful, there will be those who use that fact as an excuse to insult and mock God and those who believe in Him.

If you ever want to get totally fed up with that, go online and read the comments after any news article about any natural disaster. You'll have people writing that tornados and floods and hurricanes prove that God could not exist.  If the disaster takes place in the Bible Belt, they'll say with great glee that God must be punishing those stupid Christians, or insist that the disaster shows God can't be relied on, since He didn't come through as expected and protect His believers from loss and harm.

What can you say to such people?  Assuming they'd even begin to listen?  As believers in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can say that if that's the kind of god they believe in, these scoffers and mockers are right, because that kind of God doesn't exist.  If they think God is the Great Vending Machine in the Sky that's there to make sure our lives remain prosperous and comfortable, providing we drop in a few dollars worth of good works from time to time, that's a figment of the human imagination and it should be made fun of.

Atheists and people who believe in other religions have a distorted view of what we Christians think about who God is and what He is for.  No surprise.  The real problem is that too many Christians-- or people who call themselves Christians-- carry around the same false ideas about God and live their lives according to those false ideas.

It's gotten so bad that studies have shown that the majority of Christian teenagers-- and many, many Christian adults as well, don't really believe in classic Christianity; they hold to a religion that's been called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  This modern faith says yes, there's a god, of some sort: that's the Deism part.  What this god is really like in him or itself doesn't really matter, the thing that matters is that he or it is benevolent and kind and well-meaning towards human beings and wants them to be happy, however they define happiness.  If I'm a believer in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, I'd tell you this deity expects people to be nice and fair to other people, but he pretty much leaves it up to each person to decide what niceness and fairness is.  And so when I'm nice and do nice things, I can expect to be rewarded with this god's protection and favor.  That's Moralism.  And the most desirable way for him to reward and protect me is for him to solve all my problems, get rid of all the trouble, turmoil, and stress in my life, and make my sojourn here on earth comfortable and uncomplicated.  That's the Therapeutic part.  This god-- this false god-- makes no demands for his own sake; what he's for is to make me feel good about myself.  Otherwise, what good is he?

Brothers and sisters, is that what God is for?  Is that the deity we should be raising our children to pray to and depend upon?  Does the god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism bear any resemblance to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?  What do the Scriptures say?

The Lord God had a lot to say about Himself in chapter 40 of the prophecy of Isaiah.  We read that God is incomparable and unique.  He is high and holy.  To Him, people are like grasshoppers and the whole expanse of heaven is like a tent you might live in on a camping trip.  Governments and rulers reign only as long as He allows them; the mere breath from His mouth sweeps them away like chaff.  He marshals the stars and maintains them in their courses; nothing is outside His rulership or beyond His control-- and that would include tornados, floods, and hurricanes.

Does that sound like the spineless god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, that deity who is at our beck and call, that we obligate and control by our good works?  Not in the least.  However, the Lord certainly is benevolent and merciful towards His people Israel.  He assures them that their trouble is known to Him.  He reminds them that He is the God who gives strength to the weary, even when the young and the strong are collapsing by the roadside.  He tells them that those who hope in the Lord will

. . . renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Is this like the therapeutic relief so many expect from God these days?

No, not really.  For as we've seen, the modern expectation is that God is supposed to be good to me for my good.  The eternal reality is that God is good for His own glory.  And it is not our good, moralistic works He wants, it's putting our hope in Him; that is, our total dependence on His greatness and power.

But maybe that's just the Old Testament talking.  Many people will tell you that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are two different beings.  Or maybe that the Old Testament writers got God wrong, and all this business about His holiness and majesty can be discarded; what we really want to concern ourselves with is His love and affection and how wonderful it makes us feel.

And the New Testament does tell us how much God loves  us.  But so does the Old.  And the Old Testament does tell us about God's glory and majesty.  But so does the New.  Both parts of God's holy Scriptures tell us who God is and what He is for.  And what it all says together might be a surprise to the self-satisfied atheists who comment on news websites and YouTube videos, and to many Christians as well.

What did we read in Paul's letter to the Ephesians?  Who is God, and what is He for?

First of all, He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom all praise is due.  Jesus Christ the Son of God is the One who died to take away our sins by the express purpose and will of His Father in heaven.  No concept of God that leaves out Jesus Christ the God-Man can claim any kind of reality.  Beside the triune God of the Scriptures there is no God.

This same God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  No, we are not promised an easy life on this earth.  God never says He will divert tornados to keep His people out of their path, or always let us have the job we want, or grant us continual good health and prosperity on this earth.  What He does promise, what He is for, is our sharing in His very nature through Jesus Christ our Lord.  He's for us knowing union with Him: tasting a little of it now in this life, but enjoying it perfectly in the life to come.

We who believe in Jesus were chosen for this.  Before the creation of the world, St. Paul writes, God chose us-- not to be privileged, not to be perpetually safe and secure, not even to be serene and without turmoil in our minds-- but to be holy and blameless in His sight.  I don't know about you, but I know that in myself I am not holy and blameless in the sight of God.  I suspect you know the same about yourself.  So has God's choice failed, or are we outside His choice?  Not at all, for it is in Christ and Christ alone that we lose our guilt before God and deserve to stand in His holy presence, and God has ordained, He has predestined us to be in Christ, to be adopted as His very sons and Jesus' own siblings.  Being in Christ!  Sharing in His nature and His union with the Father!  You can't get more holy and blameless than that.

And what for?  God does it all for and according to His good pleasure and will.  Just think, God is pleased when His elect people are joined in union with His Son Jesus Christ!  But see, it is God's will and pleasure that come first, not ours.  If the it were left us to us to determine what would be the highest good for ourselves and the universe, how shabby and shallow that good would be!  But God has done everything according to His will, not ours, that His glorious grace might be praised as it deserves.

This grace is not some vague benevolence, it is that salvation He has granted us in Jesus Christ, His beloved Son.  It is the redemption we have in Christ's blood and the forgiveness of our sins.  The modern world isn't too big on the concept of sin: if people talk about sin at all, they define it as things like eating chocolate or not approving of any and all sexual relationships or praying in a public school.  But according to the riches of God's grace lavished on us in His wisdom and understanding, the blood of Christ purchased for us forgiveness of real sins, the ones that had us under God's righteous wrath and kept us from fellowship with Him.

What is God for?  God is for working out the mystery of His will-- again, according to His good pleasure.  Not just His will to save us but more than that, His will to exalt His Son Jesus Christ to the highest place, bringing all heaven and earth together under the sole headship of Christ.

And yes, God is for us.  He is for us in Christ.  He is for us because He is first and foremost for Himself, for the purpose of His will.  God's purpose for us is that we might be for the praise of His glory.  By birth, by sin, by our natural bent we were not for God and we did not want to serve Him.  We were for our own glory, and we expected Him, if He existed, to serve us.

But by the power of the gospel preached to us God changed our hearts and turned them away from our own purposes and raised them up to love and appreciate His.  God gave us His Holy Spirit so we can know by fellowship with Him that the spiritual blessings promised to us are faithful and secure.  God has promised us an inheritance in Christ, and the Spirit is our guarantee that it surely will be ours.  When?  When all God's chosen possession, His predestined saints, shall have been redeemed.

That day surely will come, and as it does, what is God for?  Again, He is for the praise of His glory.  If God were an ordinary human like you or me, this would be obnoxious.  Insufferable.  How full of himself that person is! we'd say.  But God is God:  High, majestic, holy and incomparable.  He is no vague deity whose sole purpose is to tell us what good children we are and make things all better for us.  He is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory; He acts and operates according to the highest wisdom, understanding, and might. He has not left the welfare of the universe up to us and our sinful wills; rather, His good and gracious will works everything out to His good pleasure, and we can know that in His good pleasure we will receive everything we need for hope, purpose, and fulfillment in Him.

What is God for?  God is for Himself, and therefore in Christ God is for you.  Even in the worst of times, even when your life has been flattened and the mockers of God and the mockers of His people are shouting their insults and lies at full volume, you can have faith that the true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is your Help and Redeemer.  What He chooses nothing can discard; what He predestines nothing can change; what He wills, nothing can sway from His purpose.  Trust in Him, for He who is the Creator of the world also raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and He will do for you all His has promised, to the praise of His glory.  Amen.

Sought and Found

Texts:  Isaiah 49:1-7; Matthew 2:1-12

THERE'S A HYMN IN THE 1933 Presbyterian hymnal that goes like this:

I sought the Lord, 
            and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, 
            seeking me;
It was not I that found, 
            O Saviour true;
No, I was found of Thee.

These words came to mind as I was studying our passage in Matthew chapter 2, and considering what the Holy Spirit wanted me to bring to you from it on this Feast of the Epiphany.

This story of the Wise Men visiting the Child Jesus is an old, familiar one, but the wonderful thing about God's holy Word is that He always has more to bring to us even out of the passages we know and love best.  We can see in these verses how Jesus is the high King of heaven whom the great ones of the earth worship and adore.  They show us how God begins to include the Gentiles in the kingdom of His Christ.  They move us to glory in the light of God's revelation, and to mourn over the blindness of His ancient covenant people, the Jews.  But this year I was struck by the theme of seeking and finding.

It runs all through our Matthew passage.  The strange men from the East come seeking the Child who is born King of the Jews.  Herod seeks to know where the Christ is to be born, and the priests and teachers of the Law find the answer in the book of the prophet Micah.  Herod seeks to know exactly when the star appeared, and commands the Magi to search carefully for the Child.  The Magi continue their search and at last find the Child Jesus and present Him with the gifts they have brought.  They then return to their own country by another route, leaving Herod without the information he wanted to find.

For the Wise Men in particular, the whole journey is an effort of seeking and finding. And we're used to regarding them in that way. Occasionally by the side of the road somebody will put up a signboard that says

                   Wise Men Still Seek Him

And everyone one knows exactly which wise men it's talking about, and Who it was they sought. But what I want us to ask ourselves today is, "Why?"  I mean, why did they go looking for Jesus?  How did they know they should?  Why on earth should a group of Gentile astrologers-- of all people!-- be interested in the infant King of the Jews?  Why should they be watching for His star-- and how is it possible they even knew this new heavenly body was His star?  And once they saw it, and why should they take the trouble to go hundreds of miles from what is now Iraq to pay Him homage?  Let's not take their journey for granted!  After all, what did the King of the Jews have to do with them?  There was no earthly reason these powerful and influential pagan men should have taken all that effort to seek and find the Messiah of Israel who was born in a barn, but they did.  Why?

We can find part of our answer in the course of human history.  Chaldea, where the order of the Magi flourished, was the heart of the old Babylonian empire, where the Jews had been taken in exile six hundred years before.  Even at the start of the 1st century Jews lived in those regions, and they had planted there a strong tradition of their Scriptures and of the knowledge of the God of Israel.  And so we see that these Wise Men, who were dedicated to seeking out ancient truth, came to know the tradition of the great King of the Jews who was to come.

But it didn't follow that this information would be personally  significant for them.  Humanly-speaking, there really was no reason why these Gentiles should search out the Child Jesus and be so full of joy when they found Him.  Let's understand this: It really wasn't their idea, it was God's.  It wasn't as if the Wise Men one day decided to go find the Incarnate God because it'd be the wise thing to do; they sought Him because God Himself in His purpose and wisdom from all eternity from had decided that's what they would do.  The Magi sought Christ because Christ, as the everlasting Son of God, first sought and found them.

Please keep in mind that we're speaking figuratively. The all-knowing, all wise God doesn't have to "seek" for any of us, because we're always present to Him and He knows exactly where we are at every moment.  But as He works in the hearts of His elect to bring us to Himself, the language of seeking and finding is a very appropriate.

The Wise Men needed God to seek them out before they could seek Him.  And the same goes for every last one of us.  Why?  Because naturally we are lost, wandering, and alone, without God and without hope in the world.  Because as Isaiah says in chapter 9, naturally we are people walking in darkness.  Because as St. Paul says in Ephesians, naturally we are dead in trespasses and sins.  We need God to seek us out by His grace, to find us, enlighten us, and make us alive.  We talk about "making a decision for Christ," and it feels like that's what we do.  But none of us can do any such thing unless God first has made a decision for us.  Look at the chief priests and the teachers of the law in our Matthew reading.  They knew God's Word backwards and forwards.  They didn't have to do any special research to tell Herod where the Christ Child was to be born-- they could quote Micah 5:2 from memory.  But their minds were darkened.  It meant nothing to them that this prophecy was possibly being fulfilled right then, five miles down the road in Bethlehem.  Why did God not choose to break through their darkness and unbelief?  It hasn't been given to us to know that.  But it is given to us, to you and to me, to know that the fact that you and I can be here worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful gift we could never deserve, a gift of pure grace.  God our Creator and Redeemer has sought us and found us, and He will never lose us from this day.

How do we know this?  How can we trust that God's grace will always find what it seeks?  Turn to our reading in Isaiah 49.  Here we see the Servant of the Lord taking up His commission.  He somehow is identified with God's people Israel, but He isn't the nation, because part of His task will be to redeem and restore the tribes of Jacob.  This Servant is the Israel that Israel could never be, the Messiah, the perfect and holy Son of God.  He is, as verse 3 puts it, God's servant Israel, in whom the Lord will display His splendor.  And though it seems as if the task He is given is impossible (for the sinful human heart is harder than any rock), still what is due Him for all His labor "is in the Lord's hand, and [His] reward is with [His] God."  Do you know what that reward is?  It's you who believe in Him and all His faithful saints, whom the Father has given the Son.  The success of Christ in saving us is certain, for God the Father Himself has promised to reward His Son by giving Him all those He has chosen for salvation.

God prepared His Son perfectly for His mission of salvation-- He was like a polished arrow in the quiver of God, and once He was set to the bowstring He would never fail to hit the mark God intended.  Verse 2 says the Lord "concealed me in his quiver," and for long centuries God's plan for salvation was hidden from human knowledge.  Who would have thought that the Saviour would be God Himself come to earth as a helpless Child?  Who could have conceived that the Lord of life would die on a cross to atone our sins?  But that's exactly what He did, and we could never see it or look for it or accept it if God did not reveal it to us.  His grace had to seek us out, so we could believe the good news of Jesus Christ and seek the One who had already found us.

It would have made sense if this wonderful salvation had only applied to the Jews.  Truly, when God sent His Servant the Messiah, it was first and foremost His purpose to redeem the chosen remnant of His ancient people.  Jesus was "formed in the womb," verse 5 says, "to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to Himself."  As Christ said during His ministry, He was sent to seek out the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  But hear what the Lord says to my Lord:

"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
    to restore the tribes of Jacob
    and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
    that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."

A light to the Gentiles, the Christ would be!  And even as a tiny Child our Lord Jesus was fulfilling that prophecy, as His Holy Spirit sought out those Gentiles from the East, Wise Men, nobles, princes of their people.  God found them and enlightened them and drew them to His Son.  And so these words of the prophet began to be fulfilled:

"Kings will see you and rise up,
    princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
    the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."

And the Magi were only the beginning.  We sitting here are Gentiles who have been given the light of Christ, because of the faithfulness of the Lord.  We are chosen in Him, God's beloved Son, Child of Mary, the true Israel and God's holy Servant, in whom the Lord displays His splendor.  In Christ the light of God is revealed to those who were in darkness.  In Christ the grace of God seeks and finds those who would never think of looking for Him.

And He invites us to His Table.  As we eat the bread and drink the cup we do so in remembrance of Jesus Christ who for us died and rose again.  But remember that in this sacrament God Himself does something for us.  Here at this Table God seeks to give us Christ and all His benefits: His love, His mercy, His forgiveness, His assurance, His grace-- all the overwhelming riches of Jesus our Lord, more precious than any gold, frankincense, or myrrh.  Receive Him here by faith. Like the Magi, bow before Him with gratitude and great joy. What you seek is here, for God Himself has first sought you, and what He seeks, He finds.

What Now?

Texts:  Isaiah 51:9-16; Matthew 2:13-23

THE PRESENTS ARE OPENED, THE DINNER is eaten, the relatives are on their way home.  You may be thinking about taking down the Christmas tree-- if you haven't already.  For all intents and purposes, Christmas 2012 has come and gone.  But has it made any difference?  What now?

In our Christmastide Scripture readings, Mary has brought forth her Child, the angels have sung, and the shepherds have come and gone.  Even in our Matthew account, today's reading comes after the visit of the Magi.  They've worshipped the holy Babe and returned to their own country by another route.  Christ is born, and what now?

Even in our own time, we ask what difference does Christmas make?  It's a little over two weeks since the atrocious slaughter of twenty innocent children and six brave teachers and staff at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, and the emotional wounds are still open and raw.  What difference did Christmas make for them?  What about the dozens of innocent children that are victims of random gang violence in cities like Chicago and Boston and even our own Hill District and Homewood?  Not to mention the depredations of cruel rulers like the president of Syria, killing his own people for his political ends.  Shouldn't the birth of the Son of God have changed all that?  He was the newborn King, wasn't He?  He sits in glory at the right hand of God the Father Almighty right now, doesn't He?  So why do we have to put up with evil any longer?  Why are crimes still committed?  Why aren't vicious people restrained?  The night of the Connecticut massacre, I heard a radio commentator insist that atrocities like that have to make you question God and His goodness.  Why didn't God stop that shooter?  Couldn't He stop him?  Christ is born: shouldn't things be all better and different now?

Questions like these have been asked around this country the past two weeks, and they're asked every time a war, a plague, or a crime wreaks its destruction in this weary world.  But I hope and trust that you, my Christian brothers and sisters, know that despair and disbelief are not the answer.  The Apostle Matthew knew they were not the answer.  In the very passage where he recounts the disasters and woes that followed the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, he also assures us that our heavenly Father was working out His gracious plan even as the powers of Hell were trying to do their worst.  None of these events caught God unawares, and none of them diminishes God's goodness and glory.  To show this, Matthew accompanies each of them-- the Flight into Egypt, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the retreat to Galilee-- with a citation from the prophets.  The guilt of King Herod and his sons remains on their own heads, but the King of kings in His providence worked through these events, so the mission of His Son could be fulfilled and mankind could be saved.

Mary and Joseph were forced to take Jesus and flee to Egypt.  What a disastrous end to the beautiful scene of royal adoration!  To help us understand, Matthew cites Hosea 11:1.  It says, "Out of Egypt I called my son."  In Hosea the son is God's people Israel, chosen to inherit all the divine blessings and benefits and to be a light to the Gentiles.  But Hosea and the other prophets tell us that Israel failed at being God's son.  They rebelled against Him and broke His covenant.  God cannot go back on His promise, for He has sworn an unbreakable oath to father Abraham.  But He cannot bless a disobedient people.  What can God do?

He elected His own eternal Son, Jesus Christ, to be born into the world to be the holy Israel that Israel could never be.  That's who this Child is, and Matthew wants us to see that from the start.   In Jesus God recapitulates Israel's history, including the sojourn in Egypt, but this time, Jesus as God's human Son gets it right.  And because Jesus gets it right as the New Israel, we who believe in Him can share in all the blessings of divine sonship, too.   It was necessary for the Son of God to be led into Egypt and be called out from there again, so He could identify wholly with God's covenant people.  Our heavenly Father used the threats and paranoia of King Herod to accomplish His goal, though Herod knew it not.

But what of the Slaughter of the Innocents?  Historically, this was only one more of King Herod's tally of atrocities.  It was said it was safer to be Herod's pig than his son, because as a half-Jew he wouldn't eat pork, but he had no compunction about assassinating his wives and children if he thought they might be plotting against his throne.  So the extermination of maybe seven to twenty Bethlehemite infants and toddlers wouldn't give him a second thought.

But the deaths of these innocents gave their parents and families more than second thoughts.  And St. Matthew wants us to grieve with them, even as we continue in hope.  He quotes Jeremiah 31:15, where the prophet writes,

  A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.

Six hundred years before Christ, the Babylonians overran Judah. They slaughtered most of the Jews, and took a bare remnant into captivity in Babylon. Ramah, a town about five miles north of Jerusalem, was where the exiles, including Jeremiah, were assembled for deportation.  Jeremiah in his day used Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife, as a symbol for the entire grieving nation.  All of its dead and deported children were like Joseph and Benjamin, who you'll remember both spent time in captivity in Egypt and were both given up for dead.   Rachel was also identified with Bethlehem, because Jewish tradition said she was buried near there.  Matthew sees the fate of the little boys of Bethlehem and the lamenting of their mothers as a latter-day echo of what happened to the Jewish children during the Babylonian invasion.  But now it is worse.  In Jeremiah's time, the nation was being judged by God for their sin.  But the children of Bethlehem by any human standard were truly innocent, they had done no wrong.

But the passage in Jeremiah goes on to say,

This is what the LORD says: 
"Restrain your voice from weeping 
and your eyes from tears, 
for your work will be rewarded," 
declares the LORD. 
"They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your future," 
declares the LORD. 
"Your children will return to their own land."

The innocents of Bethlehem were dead, but they were not removed or exiled from the care of Almighty God.  In Jesus' infancy they died for Him, but in His manhood He gave His life for them and for all whom God has chosen, whether they lived before Him or after, that they might have eternal life in the kingdom of God.

We're naturally appalled at the death of the innocent.  But shall we not be even more outraged at the cruel and unjust death of the only human being who was ever truly and wholly innocent, the sinless Son of God?  Yet He willingly suffered crucifixion for us, the guilty, the rebellious, the condemned, that we might be made innocent in Him.  We question God when young lives are cut off by crime, accident,  and disease, but how much more should we be afraid for those who are heading for eternal death in Hell because they do not know or believe in the Son of God?  Physical death is not the worst that can happen to us, and the souls of the holy innocents of Bethlehem are in the loving hands of God.  And so are the souls of the children of Newtown, Connecticut, and all other innocent victims of human cruelty and injustice.  For God Himself was born on this earth to share our pain.  On His cross He bore all our griefs, even the worst, and His resurrection proves that He is able to bring us through all suffering into the joy and blessing of God.

Jesus shared not only the crises of our lives, He also shared the drudgery and obscurity.  It's hard for us to understand how much the average Judean looked down on people from the north, on Galileans.  Matthew doesn't mention that Mary and Joseph were from Galilee in the first place, because he wants us to understand how God in His wisdom made sure that His Christ would be raised in a place like that.

For if it hadn't been for Herod, Jesus might have grown up in Bethlehem, just a few miles from Jerusalem.  From a human point of view, that could have been the ideal environment for an up-and-coming young rabbi!  Think of all the great teachers He would have had, and how much He could have learned!  Going from the age of the children Herod slaughters, and from the fact that the Magi visit Jesus in a house and not in the stable, we can conclude that the Holy Family remained in Bethlehem for quite awhile after Jesus was born.  Joseph was of the lineage of David, he probably found relatives there once the confusion of the census was over, and as a skilled, industrious man he would logically set up shop there.  But then the Holy Family had to flee.  And even when it was safe to come back to the land of Israel, they didn't dare resettle in Bethlehem because of Archelaus, who apparently was as bad as his father Herod.  So goodbye to being in the center of things near the capital, and hello again to little old remote Nazareth.

About this Matthew says, "So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: ‘He will be called a Nazarene.'" This saying is harder to trace than the ones from Hosea and Jeremiah.  But it's very possible that he may have in mind a couple of places in Isaiah.  In Isaiah chapter 9 the prophet writes,

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan--
  The people walking in darkness 
have seen a great light; 
on those living in the land of the shadow of death 
a light has dawned.

Thus beyond all expectation, the prophet predicts that remote and humbled Galilee of the Gentiles will be where the light of God's Messiah will first have its dawn.  And in Isaiah 53:3 it is written,

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

We read in John's gospel that "Nazarene" was a byword for one who was despised.  And so Jesus was underrated, rejected, and persecuted in His lifetime by the religious and secular authorities, and at last even the people called for His crucifixion.  Jesus knew humiliation and scorn so He could become our sympathetic and gentle high priest.  As it says in Hebrews, He has been tempted in every way just as we are-- yet was without sin.  In His humanity Jesus experienced the everyday trials of human existence, so He can identify with us in all our griefs and bring meaning to all our sufferings.

But the question still cries out for an answer: Why do we have to go through suffering in the first place?  Especially why do the innocent suffer?  Couldn't God just stop it?  Couldn't God have stopped Herod, or the shooter in Connecticut, or any of the innumerable human monsters down through history?

We can ask that, but then we'd have to ask why God doesn't stop all evil-- including the evil we do every day.  Why didn't God stop you the time you punched your brother in the face as a kid?  Why didn't He stop you from passing on that cruel gossip against your best friend?  Why didn't He stop me the other day when I screamed at my dog for pulling food off the counter?  Why, oh why, didn't He stop Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Brothers and sisters, whether we understand it or not, God made this a world where our actions have consequences.  Rarely, our Lord intervenes with a miracle, but most of the time the laws of physics keep on working and causes have their effects, even when the effects are bad.  To stop it all would mean stopping the whole show.  One day our Lord will come in judgment and all transgression will cease, but until then it's inevitable that so much of what goes on in this fallen and broken world will be tragic and full of pain.

But the Son of God has been born into the world to redeem the world.  He came to experience our humanity and carry our griefs.  Jesus is God's beloved Son, the New Israel, who invites us to join Him in eternal sonship towards God the Father.  Jesus is the ultimate Holy Innocent, slain by evil but rising from the tomb in triumph over sin, death, and hell.  Jesus was obscure, despised, and rejected, and see, He sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, glorified forever more.

All this He did for us, by God's eternal pleasure and good will. Christian friends, what now? What now!  Oh, give God glory, live in faith, rejoice in hope, and serve in love, for Christ was born, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.  This is the difference Christmas makes, and nothing will ever be the same.

God's Right to Choose

Texts:    Isaiah 41:8-14; John 6:28-51

     SERMON TITLES ARE TRICKY things.  For awhile I thought I'd call this message, "Whose Right to Choose?"  But that might've been a distraction.  Some of you might've spent first two-thirds of the service thinking, "Oh, goodness, is she going to preach on That subject?" and I wouldn't have blamed you one bit.  Even if you thought I might be upholding the position you take yourself, you still might've wondered why on earth I'd march in here and raise such a controversial matter.

    So instead, the sermon title is "God's Right to Choose."  And even though this message won't tackle the subject of abortion, we will be exploring another subject that's been just as controversial in the history of the Church.  And that's the doctrine of God's sovereign right to choose who shall be saved.

    But with all the issues facing the Church these days, especially with all the divisions and troubles facing us in the PC(USA), why bring up a matter nobody cares about any more?  Ask any average Christian about how we get saved, and they'll say you have to make a decision for Christ.  That God gives us evidence about who Jesus is, but it's up to our own free wills whether we come to him or not.  Only those hyper-intellectual folks in the Reformed camp keep pushing the idea that salvation is all up to God.  Right?  Isn't that the popular opinion?  So why should I rake up the matter?  Why not just let sleeping dogs lie?

    First of all, dear friends, because our Gospel reading from St. John clearly teaches that we made our decision for Christ because God the Father first made His decision for us.  Second, because if we take the credit for bringing ourselves to faith we rob God of His rightful glory.  And third, if we go around thinking it was up to us to get ourselves saved, we might well worry about whether we can keep ourselves saved.  No, we need more assurance than that, and it is only the doctrine of God's sovereign choice that is faithful to Scripture, that gives Him the glory, and can keep us happy and secure through the temptations and perils of this earthly life.

    Our text from John 6 is a portion of Jesus' Bread of Life discourse.  You remember that He fed the 5,000 on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and how the crowds chased after Him.  They wanted to make Him king so He could keep on feeding them with miraculous physical bread the rest of their lives.  He must be the Messiah! they think, and that's what the Messiah should do.  Jesus is no politician.  He bluntly tells them they're wrong.  No, He tells them rather to work for the food of eternal life, which He, the Son of Man will give them.  For He is the Son of Man who has God the Father's approval.

    The people conclude that to have eternal life, you must have the Father's approval.  This is true.  And to get God's approval, they assume, you have to do some kind of work to please Him. Well, we'll see about that.

    So at the beginning of our reading the spokesmen ask, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"  Another way to putting this is, "What must I do to be saved?" or "How can I earn eternal life."  Jesus' answer is, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

    Did you notice how our Lord put that?  It wasn't, "The work God requires from you is to believe in Me."  No, it's "the work of God."  Right here we see that belief in Christ is the only way to eternal life, but that belief is not something we do for ourselves, it's all God's sovereign work and grace.

    The crowd wasn't comfortable with that.  They understood that Jesus was referring to Himself.  But if they were going to accept Him as the bringer of eternal life, they weren't going to be hornswoggled, no, not them!  Hey, Jesus, you gave us earthly bread, can you give us some physical bread from heaven?  Let's have some manna and see you outdo Moses, if you can!

    Jesus teaches them, and us, that the true bread from heaven is not the manna God gave through Moses in the wilderness long ago.  The true bread of heaven is Jesus Himself, whom the Father has given.

    We need to remember that and take it to heart.  Too often people see Christianity merely as something that'll make life better for us in this world, and then, oh yes, fire insurance when we die.  And when Christians suffer in this life, unbelievers jeer that our religion "doesn't work."  Or we ourselves wonder if God doesn't love us any more.  No!  No matter how much we may lack the bread of this world, no matter how much we may suffer from grief or want or trouble, God Himself gives us Jesus Christ, the Bread of Heaven, and Jesus has given us life that can never be diminished and never be taken away.  As our Lord says in verse 35, "He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

    We must come to Him if we are to have eternal satisfaction and eternal life.  Again, in verse 40 Jesus says, "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life."  But how can we come?  How can we look to Him and believe?  It's our sinful human nature to reject Him!  Jesus says to the people, "You have seen me and still you do not believe."  In verses 41 and 42 they grumble and complain that He dared to claim He was the Bread from heaven.  Wasn't He just the son of Joseph the carpenter?  Never mind the multitude He fed yesterday with a few loaves and fishes.  Never mind all His healings and exorcisms and the dead people He'd raised!  They were too clever to believe He was able to give them eternal life!

    Let's not deceive ourselves.  If we'd witnessed for ourselves what Jesus did we wouldn't automatically believe.  It takes more than great information about Jesus to bring us to faith in Him.  Even some atheists are willing to look at the historical evidence and admit that Jesus really did do miracles and He really did rise from the dead.  But those facts aren't enough to compel them to believe in Him and be saved.

    No.  Salvation is the singlehanded work of God the Father.  "All that the Father gives me will come to me," says Jesus.  To be saved, we must be given to Christ by the Father.  In verse 44 Jesus states, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."  And the word translated "draw" doesn't mean to attract or to woo, it means to drag a dead weight, like hauling a wrecked car out of a ditch, or even to pull someone against their will, like dragging a lawbreaker off the jail.  Because when it comes to Jesus and salvation, we are dead weights.  We are criminal offenders against the holy law of God.  We cannot help ourselves into salvation.  Until God's saving grace comes upon us, we don't really want to be saved.  Eternal life in Christ is the gift of God and comes from Him alone.  Moreover, the choice of  who will inherit eternal life belongs to God and God alone.  He alone has the right to choose.

    But why does the Father choose to save some and passes others by?  The exact choice of who shall be elect and who not is hidden in the mind of God.  But in various places in Scripture, such as Romans 9, we read that His purpose is to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, even us, whom He has called.  God works out His purpose in the mystery of election, and it will bring Him the praise and glory that is His due.

    Some preachers can be heavy-handed with this doctrine. Believe me, I know. I sat under a preacher like that for several months just after I graduated from college.  He probably didn't mean to, but I and a lot of other members of the congregation got the idea that the world was full of people just yearning for a chance to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved, but God arbitrarily chose some for heaven and purposely sent the rest to hell, even if they were seeking for heaven with all their might.  And this was supposed to bring God glory.

    The fact is, we don't start out good, or even neutral.  St. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that all of us were born dead in trespasses and sins; like everyone else, we were the proper objects of God's righteous wrath.  Jesus Himself in John 3 tells Nicodemus that "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed."

    Brothers and sisters, God does not need to choose for anybody to go to Hell!  The Scripture says nothing about God electing anyone to be lost.  Why?  Because tragically, it would be redundant.  God doesn't need to condemn us; we condemn ourselves by our sinfulness and our sins.  The people of this world demand justice.  O, let me never demand justice, for if God exercised His justice on us not one of us could be saved. Our entire salvation depends on the injustice of the sinless Son of God dying in our place!

    No, the thorny question is not, "How could a loving God choose some to be condemned?" but "How could a holy God choose any to be saved?"  As Charles Wesley wrote in his hymn,  "Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?"

    But some will worry, "If salvation all depends on God and there's nothing I can do about it, how how can I know if I'm chosen?  How do I know if I'm saved?"  To you I say, "Do you want to be saved?  Do you believe not merely that Jesus died and rose again, but that He died and rose again for you?  Do you look at your past attitudes and actions, especially those things you thought were going to put God in your debt, and see how foolish and wrong they were?  Do you want to do better, not because God will punish you if you don't, but to show how thankful you are for Jesus and what He's done for you?  That is the Father drawing you, dragging you from death to your new life in Christ."

    And because your salvation had nothing to do with your goodness or anything you deserved, the Father worked it according to His sovereign choice, you how can relax and be confident in His love.  Jesus says in verse 37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away."  God is not going to change His mind tomorrow about giving you to Christ!  In verse 39 our Savior says, "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."   Our Lord repeats this promise in verse 40 and 44. God's choice of you is forever!  By His choice He saves us, He keeps us, and one day, by His unchanging choice He will raise us up in glory in His heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

    We have this sure and certain hope of the resurrection, because God chose Jesus Christ to be the living bread who came down from heaven.  For the bread of life is His flesh, which He gave for the life of the world.  Whoever comes to Him will not hunger, and whoever believes in Him will not thirst.  God has exercised His right to choose, and all satisfaction, all joy, all fulfillment of life and bliss of heaven are found in Jesus Christ our crucified and risen Lord.  In Him we are chosen, in Him we are saved, in Him we find eternal life.  Be at peace, for by God's gracious choice He will keep you in Jesus His Son, and Jesus  will surely raise you up at the last day.

One Mission, One Love, One Glory

Texts:    Isaiah 6:1-8; John 16:12-25; 17:20-26

        DOES IT REALLY MATTER what sort of Being we believe God is?  Our Christian confessions teach us to worship one God in three Persons, eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But what does that have to do with daily life? With all the confusion, turmoil, and economic upheaval of our times, with all the cares and responsibilities we have on our shoulders, why not simply think of God as God and not worry about theology?  Shouldn't we just love our neighbor and try to make ourselves worthy of spending eternity in God's presence, whatever we conceive God to be?  After all, doesn't getting too picky about doctrine just make trouble with other people and add more stress we can't afford?

    . . . In case you might be wondering if I think we should give in to this way of thinking, let me make it very clear that I do not.  The fact that God is a Trinity is crucial for our life in this world and our hope for the next.  We Christian believers all must reject any other way of thinking about God first of all because He Himself has revealed Himself to be one God in three Persons.  And the Scriptures make it clear that it's only because the one, true, creator God of the universe is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it's only due to the wonderful reality of who and what He actually is, that He is able to redeem, renew, comfort, and guide us as we travel through this painful and perilous world.

    Why do people so often say it doesn't matter how we imagine God?  It's because we have a mistaken and distorted imagination of ourselves.  We're inclined to consider ourselves pretty good people at heart, and all we need from our deity is a little encouragement and reward to make us even better.  The job description for a god like that isn't very strict.  Any old god will do, providing he, she, or it is nice enough.

    It's not just unbelievers who're prone to think this way.  That's what we were born believing about ourselves and God, too.  But then the genuine Triune God bursts in on our darkness and we discover a whole lot of things about our sinfulness and His holiness that shock and disturb us terribly.  We learn that only a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can rescue us from the mess we're in and transform us into the glorious human creatures He intended us to be.

    Remember what happened to Isaiah.  Compared to most people of his time, he was a righteous man.  He was God's prophet.  But that day in the temple the Triune God chose to open Isaiah's eyes to what divine holiness really is.  He revealed Himself to Isaiah-- as the Scripture says, "I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple."  Isaiah saw the seraphim and heard them cry that the Lord is not merely "Holy!" but "Holy, holy, holy!"  The doorposts and thresholds shook with the power of their voices and the whole temple was filled with the smoke, the incense of God's glorious presence.

    What a wonder, to be granted a vision of the living God!  But at the same time the Lord God revealed Isaiah to himself-- and he was devastated.  He, who seemed to be so righteous and good, was convicted of his utter wretchedness and sin. "Woe to me," he cried.  "For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!"

    What is Isaiah to do?  The very holiness of God condemns him!  "Unclean lips"--Bad language-- speaking slightingly of his neighbor-- grumbling about the gifts God has given-- that doesn't seem very bad, does it?  But Isaiah understands that his unclean lips are the fruit of an unclean heart, and under the vision of the threefold holiness of God he stands utterly and justly condemned.

    But one of the seraphim touches Isaiah's lips with a live coal from the altar of sacrifice.  He declares, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."  How?  Could a man have been saved by a piece of glowing charcoal from the high altar of the temple in Jerusalem?  No, but the fire represents the atoning sacrifices offered on the altar and those animal sacrifices looked forward to the final and totally sufficient sacrifice that 700 years later was to be offered by the Son of God Himself on the altar of the cross.  Isaiah is redeemed in advance by the second person of the Trinity, and called to take God's message to his world.

    What is the mission the Triune God gives Isaiah?  Initially his job will be to show to the people their sin in light of God's holiness.  But when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will send Isaiah with the good news of the love of the Father to be shown to Israel and all the world.  That love will come in the person of a Son, a Servant who is a Man, but who can claim all the rights and prerogatives of God.  The Lord's ultimate goal is to cleanse His chosen ones from their sin, that we might live with Him and see His glory.

    By the power of the Holy Spirit, we have faith that this promised Messiah was the Man Jesus of Nazareth.  Again, those who do not believe, those who underestimate the terror of their sins, think that Jesus was simply a good man who came along to urge us to try a little harder.  And that doctrines like the Trinity were just made up by theologians to confuse laypeople.  Our readings from St. John show us how false this is.

    What does Jesus say of Himself?  In chapter 17 our Lord is concluding the great prayer He prayed for all His disciples in the Upper Room, before He was arrested and crucified.  In verses 20-26 He is interceding not only for the eleven apostles and the other disciples who had followed Him up to then, but also for those who would believe in Him thereafter.  That's us!  Jesus is praying that we-- us-- might participate fully in the life of the Godhead, be incorporated, wrapped in, enfolded into the glorious reality of who God is, now and forever.   Think on this, next time life hardly seems worth it, when this world seems meaningless and even those you love don't seem to care.  Jesus declares that He was sent by God the Father to bring you into total union with Himself! 

    But how can we, mere fleshly human beings doomed to die, think of being one with the everlasting God unless one who is both God and Man comes to bring the divine and the human together?  And how can Jesus claim to be in the Father and the Father in Him if He Himself is just a good man and not Himself God?  It would be impossible!  God in His holiness is so far above the best of us, we could never approach Him in our own power without being totally destroyed.

    But Jesus Christ the Son of Mary declares that He has this union with the everlasting Father God.  He claims that in Him all who believe the good news about Him are able to enter the unity that is the One and enjoy the community that is the Three.   He prays that even now among ourselves, in our everyday lives as members of His church, we will begin to taste the delights of the blissful fellowship that is Almighty God! 

    He prays that as we are brought to complete unity with Him and with one another, we will be loved by God the Father even as He loves the Son, and the world, the unbelieving, God-rejecting world-- will be forced to sit up and take notice. 

    And again in verse 24, Jesus prays that we would share His divine glory, the glory given to the Son in the Father's love before the creation of the world.

    Brothers and sisters, if Jesus is not God; if God isn't Trinity, this prayer is meaningless.  It would even be blasphemy.  Jesus would have no claim on the Father and no divine glory to reveal.  In Isaiah 42:8 the Sovereign Lord says, "I will not give my glory to another, or my praise to idols."  But Jesus has the right to God's glory, for He is one with the Father.  He didn't just say this, He proved it by rising from the dead.

    And what of God the Holy Spirit?  In our passage from John 16, Jesus declares that the Spirit of truth will take what belongs to Himself-- His truth, His mercy, His power to save, His resurrection life-- all the benefits we have in Jesus-- He the Spirit will bring this to us and so bring glory to Christ, glory that is His by the will of the Father. 

    Jesus' will is that we should see His divine glory, and love and worship Him all the more as we are drawn by the Spirit closer into the heart of our Father God.  But didn't Isaiah see God's glory, and didn't it nearly destroy him in misery and fear?  What has changed?

    What has changed is that as He prays Jesus the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, is preparing to go to the cross.  There He would offer Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice to God for the sins of the world.  Because He is Man, He could die for us.  Because He is God, He could perfectly satisfy the holiness of the Father.  Because the Holy Spirit is God, He can bring all the good of Christ's atoning death to you, to save you and cleanse you from all that makes you unclean.  You don't have to struggle for God's favor-- God the Son has gained it for you!  You don't have to worry that God would never accept you-- Jesus has made you one with Him and therefore one with the Father.  God the Holy Spirit comes to remind you of these things.  He is the Spirit of Christ within you, keeping you in God's love and care even when you're so upset you can't even pray for fear.  The Spirit makes Christ known to us, even as Christ reveals to us the Father, that the love the Father has for Him might be in us and Christ Himself might fill us in every part of our being.

    Does it matter whether we believe that God is Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  It matters; yes, it matters more than anything else in all of life ever can.  Reject this truth about God, and we worship nothing but an idol of our own making; we will be excluded from His presence.  Accept the Triune God, and know unity with Him who has no beginning and no end. God the Father sent His Son into the world to show His love to His chosen children, that we might see His glory.  Receive His gracious love by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing us truth in the word of the apostles.  God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, holy and blessed Trinity.  He dwells forever in joyful, glorious unity, and He invites you together with all believers to enter in and find your salvation, delight, and eternal glory in Him.