How to Get Rich Quick (or, Making a Living vs. Having Life)

Texts: Colossians 3:1-4, 12-17; Luke 12:13-21

I MAY HAVE MENTIONED WHEN I was here before that I did my theological training at an Anglican seminary.

It was an excellent education. But one thing was deficient about it: We never learned how to come up with sermon titles. Anglicans and Episcopalians don’t bother with sermon titles. I wish I didn’t have to bother with them, either.

I really wish I didn’t have to bother with them because of events like this past week’s.

The sermon title in the bulletin is "How to Get Rich Quick." That made a lot of sense when I was planning worship two or three weeks ago. But things have changed. If you like sermon titles, allow me to make a substitution. This message should better be called, "Making a Living vs. Having Life."

Our reading from Luke deals with both those basics of the human condition: Making a living and having life. Or, looking at it from the other side, not being able to make a living and not having life--that is, death. The events of this past week brought those realities home to us in a gut-wrenching way.

Last Wednesday in Minneapolis, there were maybe 150 cars on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River. Most of those people were returning home after working hard all day making their livings. Some of them, truckers and delivery men and the bridge construction workers, were hard at work even then. They were doing what they needed to do to keep body and soul together, to have something left over to be comfortable, and maybe end up wealthy besides. They were taking the road they thought they needed do to accomplish that. And for them at 6:04 PM on August 1st, that road literally meant the I-35W bridge.

But for some of them, that course in life, that bridge, led them to death. They just wanted to make a living! But they ended up dying instead.

It doesn’t take a bridge collapse for that to happen. In fact, it happens all the time. We see it in our passage from St. Luke.

Luke 12:13 begins with someone in the crowd yelling out to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!" There it is: death and the need to make a living. This man’s father has died. And he can’t make a living, because his brother won’t divide the inheritance.

The longstanding rule in ancient Israel was that the eldest son inherited a double portion of his dead father’s property, and the rest of it was divided equally between any younger sons. The land itself couldn’t be sold outside the family; that was against the law of Moses. In extreme circumstances, as in the case of the Prodigal Son, land and livestock could be sold off, ideally to a relative, and the younger brother would get the cash proceeds of his share. But ordinarily, the eldest son was supposed to partition off part of the family farm for his younger brothers and give them their share of the sheep, cattle, and so on, so they and their families could live.

But in this case, the eldest son hasn’t done his duty by his younger brother. He’s hogging all the land and livestock to himself and won’t give his brother the wherewithal to make his living.

Don’t know about you, but before I studied this passage, my reaction was, "You silly man, what are you bothering Jesus about that for? Hasn’t He just been talking about how you can trust the Holy Spirit to keep you and preserve you when you’re being persecuted for following Him? Didn’t He just say you can rely on Him even through death and the end of the world?"

That’s my first impulse. It might even be a right impulse. But it’d be a hypocritical one. I’m unemployed myself just now, and if anyone should be able to sympathize with this man’s predicament, it’s I. This man has effectively been fired by his brother. With no land and no livestock, he has no work to do. There’s a good chance his brother has tossed him off the family homestead altogether. Or has told him he can stay-- if he’s willing to work for slave wages. Maybe he’s got a wife and children to feed. What are they going to do? This man in the crowd is worried. He’s distressed. He’s afraid.

Humanly-speaking, he’s got a right to be afraid. Lack of material sustenance, the lack of a living, is the next worse thing to lack of life itself. Lack of material sustenance is a little death. Lack of material sustenance can lead to actual death.

Looking at it that way, I now want to say, "Jesus, how could You be so insensitive! You say you refuse to be a judge or arbiter between this man and his brother, but then you go on and make this judgmental statement about him being greedy! I heard you! You said, ‘Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his material possessions’! Lord, that man didn’t want anything extra, he just wants what he needs to make a living! He just doesn’t want to starve and die!"

But if I say that, I haven’t heard my Lord Jesus. I haven’t heard Him at all. I-- you-- all of us had better listen to Him more closely, listen carefully to the parable He now tells.

He tells of a rich man who does very well out of his land. He’s got so much yield he can sell it for cash money and put it away in his treasury. He can buy goods and merchandise far over what he needs for survival and decency. He’s got so much, he can build two miles of grain elevators and put his excess grain in them and live off the proceeds for the rest of his earthly life. And by gad, he plans that that life shall be easy, well-fed, and fun.

This rich man has made a fatal error. He has confused his living with his life. He has confused life on this earth with Life itself.

And you know what, God almighty agrees with him about him having everything he’ll need for the rest of his life. God’s Spirit speaks to his heart and says, "You fool! You equated material goods with life, did you? You thought you’d have enough to last you till you died, did you? Well, you were right. You’re going to die tonight, and never need any material goods again. Tonight I will demand your earthly life from you, and you will discover just how frightfully poor and lifeless and dead you are."

Let’s understand what Jesus is saying! He's telling the radical truth when He says it’s not His job to arbitrate the dispute between the man and his brother. There were civil magistrates for that! His job on earth was to be a judge and arbiter between mankind and God. His job was to show us our sinfulness compared to God’s perfect holiness-- and to make a way for that sin to be overcome.

The man in the crowd was infected with the greed of poverty. Maybe he imagined that if he were as rich as the man in the parable, he’d be set up for life and never have to worry about making a living again. The fool in the parable was guilty of the greed of abundance. He thought life and all its goodness were forever his.

Greed is the inordinate desire to have and possess. It’s a deadly sin that separates us from our God. Have we misunderstood it? I think we have! To hear Jesus, real greed, deadly greed, is equating material goods or making a living with life. It’s confusing this earthly life with life in God. Friends, you can be rich as Bill Gates and be utterly poor towards God; you can be poor as the most destitute refugee in Darfur, and be revelling in the wealth and life of your heavenly Father.

But what does this have to do with the bridge collapse last Wednesday? Am I saying those people died because they were not rich towards God?

No, I’m calling all of us to look at ourselves because people did die unexpectedly and suddenly in that bridge collapse, people who were only trying to make their livings.

It’s inevitable at times like this to say, "God, why were those people killed? Why didn’t you save them, as You did the children on that bus? It’s so unfair!"

It was inappropriate for Jesus to be judge over that man’s inheritance. Even less should we try to be judge over God. We are ignorant and blind; He is all-knowing and all-seeing. We are sinful; He is utterly righteous. Someday all of us will die; He lives forever. God knows the lifespan He has set for every last one of us. If there is human fault in that bridge collapse, it will be discovered and perhaps punished. But whatever human agency may have been at work, God had every sovereign right to demand the souls of those people last Wednesday evening.

The real question for you and me is, "Am I rich towards God? If God should demand my soul of me tonight, will I be ready?"

There are bridges all over these three counties. A lot of them are rated "Structurally Deficient." If one of them gave way under you tomorrow, could you stand before God Almighty and claim your share in His eternal kingdom? Or for you, does making a living equal "life" and does "life" only mean what happens to your body?

Speaking from our dead, sinful souls, that’s exactly what it does mean. But that’s not what life and riches has to mean, or should mean. Hear what Christ’s apostle Paul says in his letter to the Colossians:

"Since . . . you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, . . . not on things below." Things below-- that’s the greed of poverty and the greed of riches; that’s letting worry and fear drive wedges between us and our brother and between us and our God. No, there’s nothing wrong with making an honest living! It’s our duty in this world, and can give us honest joy. But we’re not to "set our hearts" on it. We are not to confuse making a living with having a life, and we’re not to confuse this temporary life on earth with the eternal life God will give us through His Son!

No, the Holy Spirit invites us to be rich towards God! To set our hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand!

But how can we? What am I going to do if I don’t have a new job when the unemployment runs out? What are you going to do if your retirement funds aren’t enough to cover taxes and medical and all? We all fear death. And if we can’t support ourselves, we’ll die!

But it’s simple, really. You overcome the fear of death by realizing that you have already died.

Yes, that’s right. You’re dead. If you have been crucified with Christ, your old self has been put to death on His cross--that old sin nature that frets and worries about not having enough. The old sinful Me, Me, Me that thinks everything will be all right if it can just get rich enough. The old flesh that’s sure that this life is all there is and rebels when the body fails and it’s time to go.

Christians, take comfort! For you, that old sin nature is history! You’re already dead! Death cannot hurt you ever again! Your old sinful nature is dead and buried in Jesus’ tomb; at the same time, your new life in Him is risen and is sitting in heaven with Him at God’s right hand in glory! Jesus Christ Himself is your life! Jesus Christ Himself is your riches towards God!

How rich are you? This rich: You are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved by Him. Jesus your Elder Brother will certainly divide the inheritance with you, on the great day when you appear with Him in glory.

You may go through times when your outer clothing is old and unfashionable. But inwardly you can be clothed with every rich virtue that belongs to Jesus your Lord. Your life may be plagued by trouble and grief, sickness and physical death. But the peace of Christ can rule in your heart. You may be tempted to be angry with your brother, your neighbor, your fellow-Christian. But you are a member of the one Body of Christ who sits enthroned in heaven, and you can show His heavenly peace to anyone who troubles you. You can be rich towards God and have no fear of death, because Christ your Life has claimed you as His treasure and keeps you for His own.

The table spread for us today is proof that His promise is sure. Come to this table in peace with your brother and sister. Come taste the bounty of death overcome. Come, be renewed and enriched in the life and living Jesus won for you on His cross. His body is your sustenance. His blood is your life.

Whatever happens to you, to your living, or to your life, sing with gratitude! The inheritance is yours! Your storehouse is full to bursting! You are rich towards God-- through Jesus Christ: our life, our living, and our glorious crown. To Him be all power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing, now and forever. Amen.

The Perfect Marriage

Texts: Hosea 2:2-20; Luke 11:1-4, 9-13

YOU’VE HEARD THEM BEFORE, those sad love songs they play on the radio.

I’m thinking especially of the ballads from the ’50s and ’60s. Like the Supremes singing in "Baby Love":

But all you do is treat me bad,
Break my heart, and leave me sad.
Tell me, what did I do wrong,
To make you stay away so long? *

Or the Hank Williams’ song that goes:

Today I passed you on the street
And my heart fell at your feet;
I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you.

Somebody else stood by your side,
And he looked so satisfied.
I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you. **

When I was a kid I thought heartbreak songs like this were sad in a romantic, far-off sort of way. Singing them was a bittersweet indulgence. But then I got older and found out what heartbreak was all about, first hand. I found out that real heartbreak was about as sweet and indulgent as starving or being smothered to death. I found out that the pain in songs like this wasn’t sentimental and romantic, it was ugly, miserable, and hard.

The Old Testament book of Hosea is that sort of heartbreak song. It’s the story of love gone bad, of a good husband done wrong and hurt mortally by his no-good, cheating wife.
It’s about a wife who only loves her husband for the luxuries he can give her, and when she thinks he’s not keeping her in the style she wants, she finds other lovers she thinks will. It’s a song about a woman who’s unfaithful because she doesn’t have faith in a husband who is always faithful to provide her everything she needs, about a husband who loves her too much to finally let her go.

The book of Hosea is a heartbreak song about God’s love for His people Israel. The marriage of the prophet Hosea himself was that heartbreak song acted out for all Israel and Judah to see. God said to Hosea, "Go, marry a woman who is known to be promiscuous." Hosea obeyed, and married Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she started having children that didn’t look like him. I imagine people laughed at the prophet, and said, "Well, what did you think would happen if you married a slut like her? Aren’t you the sentimental fool!"

But those people were the fools. They and their countrymen were the faithless, adulterous wife who’d cheated on their husband, the Lord God of Israel. Our passage cries out with Israel’s sin. She has been shallow, vain, greedy, and selfish. She is faithless, because she had no faith in her husband who was always faithful to her.

Verse 5 says,

She said, "I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink."

But in verse 8 the Lord says,

She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold."

The Lord was taking care of Israel all along! All along, God was keeping His covenant promise to provide for His people and make them prosperous and strong. But Israel hankered after the gods of other nations. They wanted gods they could see and carry about and touch. They wanted gods they could control and bribe, gods like the Baals, who were gods of the forces of nature, gods of wind and rain and fertility.

The Lord says,

[I] lavished on her the silver and gold--
which they used for Baal.

They used God’s gifts to serve Baal!! You married people, those of you who are engaged to be married-- how would you like it if, say, you gave your spouse an expensive car and he or she took the keys, picked up a lover, and drove off to Cancun? Gentlemen, how would you like it if on top of that, your wife called that lover her "master and husband"? After all, that’s what the word "Baal" means! You’d be hurt, heartbroken, and angry, wouldn’t you? And ladies, you’d be angry and upset if your husband did the equivalent thing to you.

These days, the adult thing is for you to control yourself, keep calm and try to work out a reconciliation. If that doesn’t work, you get a quiet divorce and get on with life without the one who was so unfaithful. Only the socially immature engage in revenge and public jealousy.

And that’s right for us humans. Because when any marriage goes bad, the right and wrong are never all on one side or the other. Any stones we throw at our spouses are likely to bounce back and hit us.

But when it comes to the marriage between God and His people, God has a right to be publicly angry. He has a right to punish. The Lord our God is completely faithful and true. He is the source of all goodness; He is Goodness itself. No matter how difficult our lives become, we cannot honestly say, "God, I stopped worshipping You because You abandoned me." God never turns His love from those who belong to Him. He never stops being faithful to His covenant with His people.

But willful sin on our part is not part of the covenant. God’s holiness will not let Him put up with sin. If God’s people are going to do evil and throw it in His face, He has to do something about it in order for the marriage to go on.

The Lord says,

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.

God was going to make unfaithfulness so frustrating to Israel that she’d get sick of it. He was no longer going to let it pay. The Lord declares that He will show Israel it was His hand that had really given her all her good things:

I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.

In the day of His judgement He will take all her luxuries and sustenance away, and no so-called Baal will be able to keep her from losing it all.

A human husband would have no right to do what the Lord does to Israel. A human husband would have sins of his own to atone for, whether his wife had cheated on him or not.

But God has the right to punish us for our sins, down to the last unspoken evil thought. He made us, He keeps us alive, He determines the exact length of our days.

But does God punish Israel’s sin because He’s standing on His rights? No, God punishes Israel because otherwise He’ll lose her to the false gods altogether. She has to be shocked into realizing that He has been her provider all this time. Israel has to learn that her covenant with God isn’t about getting stuff out of Him, it’s about knowing and loving God Himself. It’s about the faithfulness the Lord would show to Israel His bride and the utter trust she should have in Him, about the perfect marriage she will have if she lives with Him in faithfulness and love.

And so, after punishing her, says the Lord, He will court Israel all over again, as if they were back in the wilderness in the days of the Exodus. He will speak tenderly to her, and she will again sing Him love songs of pleasure and joy.

"In that day," declares the Lord,
"you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’"

That is, Israel will no longer call Yahweh "my baal." Technically, Yahweh was Israel’s particular divine master or "Baal." But when they called Yahweh their ‘Baal,’ it was too easy for them to confuse Him with all the other ‘baals,’ with all the other so-called masters or gods of the nations round about.

This was not to happen any more. The Lord God was and is the only lord, and His people are not to confuse Him with any other deity, ever again. Never again shall they call Him ‘my Baal.’ From now on, they are to call Him ‘my husband.’ In Hebrew this word is ‘Ishi.’ And in everyday Hebrew this simply means ‘my man.’

I call this astounding. The Lord will not play the domineering master to Israel His bride; no, He will be ‘her man’! As it says in verses 19 and 20,

I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.

That is, Israel will know Yahweh her God--and it’s significant that this word ‘acknowledge’ or ‘know’ in Hebrew is also the word for the knowledge a husband and wife have of one another in their most intimate moments.

But now, what about us? Are we just looking at someone else’s marital troubles, that have nothing to do with us? Is the song of Hosea like those golden oldie love songs we listened to when we were very young and didn’t really understand?

No, what God says to Israel He says for our benefit. When He talks to Israel, He speaks also to us, His Church. When He rebukes Israel for her unfaithfulness, He rebukes us also for going astray after other gods. When He promises to bring her back to Himself in faithfulness and love, He makes that promise to us as well.

How can this be? I’m sure it hinges on that one little word, "ish,’ or man. God said His Bride was to call Him "my Man." And so we do. God Himself came down to all humanity as the Man Jesus Christ, who was and is the Lord God in human flesh. And we are His bride, the new Israel, the Church. We have not replaced the old Israel the Jews; no, we have been joined in with them and made new and clean by the gift of Christ’s human blood, shed on the cross. We have been engaged to Him by His perfect obedience and love.

Christ the Son of Man came to us to show us that ultimately, life with God is about more than the good things God can give us: the grain, the wine, and the oil, the wool and the linen, the cars and the houses, the continual health. It’s about knowing Him in faithfulness and love. It’s about trusting Him to give us the highest gift, the only gift we really need-- which is Himself. It’s about the bliss of perfect unity with Him.

And so, in Luke’s Gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. "Lord, teach us how to ask for the things we really should ask for."

And Jesus teaches them the prayer we pray over and over, the Lord’s Prayer we so often rattle off and take for granted. See what our Lord is telling us to ask for. This prayer is for the things that will keep us in faithful relationship with God and our neighbor. This prayer trusts God to give us what we really need: Food for our bodies, protection from sin and wandering after false gods, and most of all, a joyous knowledge of who God is and of His gracious will.

Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find." Too often, we think that means "ask for obedient children or a bigger car," and immediately, that's what we'll have.

Well, maybe God does want you to have obedient children or a bigger car. Maybe. But focussing on that in these verses is like ancient Israel treating the Lord like one of the Baals, using Him only to get earthly physical stuff. No, when Jesus tells us to "ask and it will be given to you," He wants us to trust God for a much better thing than that.

Jesus likens it to a human father looking out for his son. He says, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

That is the gift God wants to give us: The gift of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift we are to desire and pray for: The gift of knowing Him personally, truly, intimately, and faithfully, like a husband and wife know one another in a perfect marriage.

I dislike having to admit this, but I read Jesus’ words and I think, "Yeah, Lord, the Holy Spirit is great, but give me a high-paying job first." And I see just how unfaithful and mercenary I am.

May the Lord forgive me for that, and may He forgive us all when we want anything or anybody more than we want Him.

The good news is that Jesus knows our weakness. He knows our greediness and our lack of faith. He took it all on Himself on the cross. He covered Himself with our sin and God in that one terrible eternal moment turned away from His Son the way a good man would turn away from his sluttish, cheating wife. But Jesus’ obedience and goodness overcame your sin and it overcame mine. Jesus engages us to Himself in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. He joins us to Himself so fully that when God looks at us, He sees not our sin, but the faithfulness of His crucified and risen Son.

God does want to give you good things. He wants to give you everything you need to bring you to His side to live with Him forever. Most of all, He wants to give you a perfect marriage with Himself. That is His will for us; may it be done on earth, as it will be done in heaven. Amen.

*"Baby Love," by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Edward Holland, Jr., 1964

**"I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" by Hank Williams, 1962 (?)

Water from the Rock

Texts: Exodus 17:1-7; John 7:37-44

HOW MANY OF YOU HERE came to Vacation Bible School last week?

This message is for you. But we’ll let the grownups listen in, won’t we?

It was a wet week, wasn’t it? You explored the "Great Bible Reef"!

On Monday, you learned about how the mother of Baby Moses put him in a basket in the Nile River so he wouldn’t be killed, and how he was rescued by the daughter of King Pharaoh.

On Tuesday, you heard how General Naaman was sick with a terrible skin disease, and how God healed him when he plunged seven times into the Jordan River.

On Wednesday, you discovered how Jesus sat in a fishing boat and taught the people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And how afterwards, He told the fishermen to let down their nets to fish. And how an enormous catch of fish came up, so the fishermen were really scared, and Jesus said, "Don’t be afraid, but come with Me, and I’ll teach you how to catch people!"

On Thursday, you saw how Jesus healed a blind man by putting mud on his eyes and having him wash it off in the Pool of Siloam.

And on Friday, you found out how if you build on sand, the floods will come and wash your house away. But if you lay your foundation all the way down to rock, your house will stand firm. Was Jesus just talking about houses to live in? No, He was teaching us how to live. That if you listen to God and do what He says, even if you do have trouble, He will make sure everything comes out all right for you. But if you don’t, the bad things that happen in life will crash down like a terrible storm and your life will be ruined.

So what is that? Two rivers, one lake or sea, one pool, and one terrible flood. That’s a lot of water! And you had one rescue, two healings, one calling of disciples, and one lesson on how to listen to God and live. That’s a lot of things happening with water!

But do you ever think about what it would be like to go without water? I mean, to have no water at all?

You might say, "I’d drink Coke or Pepsi instead!" But what if there was no water to make Coke or Pepsi? What if there was no water, so the cows all died and there wasn’t any milk? What if the trees all dried up, so there was no orange juice or lemonade?

That would be horrible, wouldn’t it? You’d be so, so thirsty! And if you didn’t get something to drink, you’d die, too!

Well, a long, long time ago, God’s people Israel were really thirsty. They were afraid they were going to die. I’ll tell you how it happened:

Remember Baby Moses in the Nile River in Egypt? The Egyptians were really mean to God’s people. The Israelites had to work as slaves all day in the hot sun. They didn’t get to rest and their Egyptian masters whipped and beat them and treated them cruelly!

When Moses grew up, God told him to go tell King Pharaoh to let God’s people go free. Moses foster-mother Pharaoh’s daughter was dead, and her father the old Pharaoh was dead, and the new Pharaoh didn’t want to listen to Moses and he didn’t want to listen to God. But God did all sorts of awesome and marvellous miracles and He showed the Egyptians He meant business! So Moses led God’s people Israel out of Egypt.

God promised that He would bring them to a new country were they would be free and have everything they needed. But first, they had to go through the desert. A great, dry, terrible desert. The Israelites couldn’t find water anywhere. No water for themselves, or their children, or for their cattle or their sheep.

So they complained. And griped. And moaned. They said, "Moses, why did you bring us out of Egypt to make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst?" They were so mad, they wanted to kill Moses!

Would you have complained, too? Would you have been mad because you were thirsty? That would have been very foolish! All those people knew what God can do! He defeated the Egyptians, and the Egyptians were the strongest people in the world back then! If God can do that, He surely can get His people a drink of water!

And He did. He told Moses to walk ahead and take some of the elders with him. Do we have any elders here today? Raise your hands! Moses took people like that with him. God said, "Go to the big rock at Mount Horeb, and I’ll be standing there in front of you. Strike that rock with your leader’s staff, and water will come out of it for the people to drink."

Moses obeyed, and that’s what happened. Enough water came out of that rock for everyone to drink as much as they wanted, and their sheep and cows drank all they wanted, too.

God told Moses, "Every Fall, I command the people to celebrate a special holiday. It will be called the Feast of Tabernacles ("tabernacle" is another word for "tent"), because I had My people live in tents in the desert." God wanted His people to remember how He’d taken care of them in the desert.

So God’s people came into their own Land, and every year they would get together in Jerusalem and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This holiday lasted eight days. On the last day, the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem would pour out a great big jar of water, all down the front steps of the Temple. The people would see the running water and be happy and joyful. They would remember how God gave them water out of that rock in the desert. They would thank God for giving them rain in the Promised Land, so they could grow food and eat. They praised Him because He gave them water so they could have life.

Do you ever remember to thank God for the gift of running water? You can just turn on a faucet, and there it is! But if God doesn’t send the rain and the snow, there wouldn’t be any water in the pipes! We should always thank God for giving us water, so we can drink and live.

But God has another kind of water for us, too. He gives us water for our spirits, so our spirits can live. He calls it "living water." Do you know how to get living water? Listen, and I’ll tell you how.

One year at the Feast of Tabernacles, something very exciting and different happened. Jesus the great Teacher was there, teaching at the feast. Now, those people didn’t really know who Jesus was. They didn’t know He was the Son of God. They didn’t know He was going to die for their sins, because He hadn’t done it yet. But they knew He was special, and the people liked to listen to Him tell them about God.

Well. On the last day of the feast, the priests were about to pour the water down the front stairs, to celebrate the water coming out of the rock in the desert. And Jesus stood up and called out really loud, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!"

Jesus was telling everybody, "I’m like that rock at Mount Horeb that Moses hit and the water came out for everyone to drink! Come to Me, and you’ll have water for your souls!"

You’re young now, and maybe you don’t know yet what it’s like to be dry and thirsty in your soul. It’s like you want something, but you don’t know what. Nothing can make you happy. You’re sad a lot. You work and work, but nothing seems to matter and nothing seems to do any good.

Everybody gets dry and thirsty in their souls, and only spiritual water can make that thirst go away.

And Jesus is the only one who can give you spiritual water. "Come to Me and drink!" He says.
Do you know how to come to Jesus? You say to Jesus, "Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe You died to take the punishment for my sins. I trust You to love me and take care of me all the rest of my life. I believe that someday You will bring me to live with You in heaven, no matter what happens to me here on earth." Jesus is like that great Rock in the desert, that Moses hit and the water came out of. He will give you His living water, so your soul feels like you’ve just had a long drink of cold, clear water.

But Jesus promises you more than that! He also said, "Whoever believes in me, . . . streams of living water will flow from within him!" Jesus’ disciple John (he wrote our Gospel lesson today) says Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the living water we need for our souls. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to us when our hearts are thirsty and dry and the Spirit gives us life. He’s like a cold drink of water on a hot summer afternoon.

And what do you think? When the Spirit gives us Himself to drink, is there only enough for us, or is there plenty of the Holy Spirit left over?

There’s plenty left over, of course, because the Holy Spirit is God and you can never run out of God. Jesus says, "Whoever believes in me, streams of living water-- [that is, the Holy Spirit]-- will flow out of him." You get the living water Holy Spirit from Jesus, and the Spirit flows out of your heart and helps other people, too. He gives you His love and peace, and then you can tell other people about His love and peace, too.

God reminded His people Israel at the Feast of Tabernacles how He’d taken away their thirst in the desert. Can you think of two ways God uses something wet to remind us of what He has done by sending His Son Jesus to die for us?

Yes, He gave us the water of baptism, to show how Jesus washed away our sins and to remind us that He has given us the living water of the Holy Spirit.

And He gave us the wine of the Lord’s Supper. We drink it and we know that Jesus takes away the thirst in our souls. He is the living Rock that gives us the living water of the Holy Spirit, so we can believe in Him and live.

I’m glad God gives us ordinary water, aren’t you? But I’m even more glad that He gives us the living water of the Holy Spirit. Believe in Jesus. Drink the water He gives, and your soul will never have to be thirsty again.

(Preached on Vacation Bible School Assembly Sunday)

Clothed and in Our Right Minds

Texts: Galatians 3:22-29; Luke 8:26-39

EVERY TIME YOU GET DRESSED, DID you know you’re making a theological statement?

You could be dressing for work or for a party. But whenever you put on a decent, suitable set of clothes, you’re agreeing with God that’s He’s right about the sort of creature you are and what you need from Him.

Back in the Garden of Eden, people didn’t need clothes. Adam and his wife Eve were created naked, and they felt no shame. They had nothing to be ashamed of! They lived with God in sinless innocence. Their relations with one another were those of pure marriage. They lived in harmony with creation, and didn’t need to be protected from it. Their unashamed nakedness was a sign of their openness and freedom with their Creator and one another.

But then, Adam and Eve sinned. They cast off the one restraint God had put on them, not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and tried to get wisdom and knowledge He had forbidden them to have. And when they’d been "made wise," what did they find out? That they were naked! And that suddenly, it was something to be ashamed of. So they tried to make themselves clothing out of fig leaves, and they hid from the Lord God that evening when He manifested Himself in the Garden.

But the clothes they made for themselves weren’t adequate. Adam and Eve’s efforts didn’t cover what’d gone wrong between themselves and God, between the man and the woman themselves, and between humanity and nature. The Lord God made garments of animal skins and clothed them Himself. That covering wasn’t just for their bodies; it was symbolic of the covering that needed to be made for their sin.

When we human creatures wear clothes, we’re acknowledging we’re not sufficient unto ourselves. Without clothing, we’re naked, cold, defenseless, and vulnerable. We’re at the mercy of the elements and other people. To be stripped naked is to be violated and shamed.

But even when the weather is perfectly fine, even when there’s nothing to fear from those around us, the fact that we go around clothed testifies that our human freedom and innocence are gone. Things aren’t the way they should be between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and others. We really do have something to be ashamed of. Not just our bodies, but our thoughts, our emotions, and our inclinations need covering and restraint.

But occasionally you’ll hear of people who don’t believe that. They say there’s nothing wrong with human nakedness, and to prove it, they go out in public with nothing on just to prove they can. I recently read about bike riders in sixty different cities around the world who rode naked two weeks ago, to quote, "Protest oil dependency and showcase your gorgeous self-love." Well, you know, it’s that "gorgeous self-love" that got us in the mess we’re in. People do things like that to assert their freedom, but they don’t realize that we’re not morally free. We operate at the whim of our sinful desires, unless God steps in and overmasters them. Deliberately to go naked is really to rebel against God.

So it’s significant in our reading from St. Luke that the demon-possessed man has not worn clothes for a long time. He is a demonstration of the ultimate rebellion. He has cast off all restrait from society and God and opened himself up to control by God’s enemies, the demons.

When did it start for this man? Maybe when he was a boy he rebelled against the influence of his parents and teachers. Maybe as a teenager he started dabbling in dark mysteries and the occult. Maybe he got involved in alcohol abuse and sexual sin. But in the name of self-expression, he cast off morality, social structure, his home, his clothing, and his sanity. In the name of freedom from God and His rule, this poor man ended up possessed and hounded by his demons, driven naked to live like a wild beast among the tombs.

He was so possessed, so enslaved, that he no longer had any identity of his own. It’s not just that we don’t know his name; that’s common for people whom Jesus meets and heals. It’s that in verse 29, Jesus commands the evil spirit to come out of him, and he cries out, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!"

Who’s this "me"? This man of Geresa doesn’t know Jesus of Nazareth. He doesn’t know Jesus is the Son of God Most High. He doesn’t know our Lord has power over the demons of Hell!

But the demons do. And they won’t let the man answer for himself. Naked, bleeding, living cold and crazy among the tombs, this poor fragment of humanity no longer has any self to answer with.

Now here’s something that never fails to amaze me: Every time there’s an encounter between our Lord Jesus and a demon, it’s always the demons who are quaking and afraid. Jesus is always the one in control. Jesus asks, "What is your name?"

Can this man be called back to a sense of himself? Or has his personality been stripped away from him as thoroughly as the clothing and fetters he couldn’t help but shed?

"Legion," is the reply. (A legion was a Roman battalion of 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers). No, there seems to be nothing left of what once was a human being.

But the legion of demons know that’s about to change. With Jesus there, it has to change. And they beg and beg Jesus not to send them into the Abyss, to the Lake of Fire prepared for the Devil and his angels, where they will be naked before the wrath of God for all eternity. The demons have more sense than a lot of us human beings! They didn’t want to be unclothed!

So they beg Jesus to allow them to go into the herd of pigs feeding nearby, and we know the result. Sorry, you stupid demons, you’ve just driven the pigs mad, they’ve rushed down the hill into the lake and drowned, and it’s off to the Abyss with you, after all.

Do you feel sorry for the pigs? Or for the swineherds? Surely, it was a terrible economic loss. Though if they were Jews who owned them, they had no business investing in pork! But let’s not miss the point of what Jesus has just accomplished. There were witnesses to this scene, not just the disciples, but also citizens of that region. It was important for them to have proof of what Jesus can do. It’s one thing for a priest or a healer to say, "Demons, be gone!" The demons might lie low, then break out against their victim worse than ever after the exorcist has departed the scene. But when the exorcist says, "Go!" and immediately a peaceful herd of pigs goes thundering down the hillside, you know the cure is effective. The demons are really gone.

By the time the people in the town and from the countryside gather, there the man is, no longer possessed. He’s sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind. Jesus has restored him to a right sense of who he is and who God is for him. For the demons, it was "God Most High," the old pagan name for the distant all-powerful great Spirit who was only to be feared. But now, the man knows Jesus, come to minister God’s love and mercy to him. He was free in a perverse way when he raged naked among the tombs, breaking off his fetters. But now Jesus has claimed him for His own, now he belongs to Christ, and he’s never been so free in his born days.

How do the people of that region react to that? They’re overcome with fear at Jesus and what He’d done. It wasn’t just about the pigs. The thing that scared them most was the change He’d worked in that one man.

It can be scary when Jesus gets ahold of someone who used to be really bad. If we know somebody who’s really out there, who’s really wicked, who’s really far gone, we can say, "Well, I’m not like him! I must be okay." But then, Jesus makes a shocking, radical change in the wicked person’s life. He or she truly becomes good, pure, and merciful. We see up close and personal what the power of Christ can do, and all our own excuses for our own attitudes and behavior start to look pretty shabby. We’re forced to see how poor, rebellious, enslaved, and unclothed we really are.

That’s hard to face. "Jesus, go away," we say. "I want to celebrate me and my gorgeous self-love. Stop scaring me with the idea of my guilt and shame. Stop shaming me with your white-hot goodness." We hug to ourselves the rags of our good works, or our social position, or our nice temperament, and try not to see that we need Jesus to deliver us and clothe us in His righteousness, too.

When I was first exploring my call to the ministry, I submitted the usual written material about my understanding of a pastor’s duties, my sense of call, and so on. My senior pastor at the time was theologically liberal, and he objected to the orthodox, Biblically-based way I’d put things. I still remember sitting in his office and having him tell me, "You have to get rid of all that religious baggage and stand naked before God!" I wish I knew then what I know now: That none of us can stand naked before God. That if we did, the blazing fire of His purity would consume us right away.

No, the only way we can stand before God, the only way we can sit at Jesus’ feet, is if we’re clothed and in our right minds. That is, if we are clothed with Christ Himself. Until Jesus Himself clothes us, we are prisoners of sin, prisoners of our rebellion, prisoners of our enormous, raggedy self-love. As we read in Galatians, until Jesus clothes us, we are prisoners of the roles and categories the world puts upon us: Jew vs. Gentile, slave vs. free, male vs. female, rich vs. poor. But when Jesus clothes us with His redemption and righteousness, there’s only one category for us, and that’s beloved child of God and heir to His blessed promises in His only begotten Son.

St. Paul says that these promises are given to those who believe. Believe what?

Ah, there’s the sad, joyful, and astounding part. We must believe that the perfect, eternal Son of God laid aside the garment of His own power in heaven and permitted Himself to be clothed in a body of human flesh. We must believe that in that flesh He condescended to be taken captive, stripped naked, and nailed to a tree, to gasp out His life’s breath in agony and shame. That just as God slew those animals to make skin coverings for Adam and Eve, Jesus the Lamb of God shed His blood to provide the covering for our sins. That just as those pigs died to prove that the demon-possessed man was free, Jesus took on our uncleanness to deliver us from sin and the Devil.

We must believe that Jesus in His perfect purity and obedience totally defeated the powers of Hell, that He burst the prison house of death, and rose to glorious and everlasting life.

And we have to believe that Jesus did all that for us, to restore to us the joy and fellowship that Adam our father and Eve our mother knew with God in that long-lost garden.

But not to walk naked. Never again to walk naked. Rather, to be clothed with Christ, sitting at His feet, in our right minds, blessed, confident, open, and free. In His name, I invite you, put on the garment of His love, and be at peace.

The Ultimate Prophet

Texts: I Kings 17:17-24; Luke 7:11-17

WHAT IS A PROPHET? What does he or she do?

When I was in seminary, sometimes I'd go to the nearest big city to shop or attend a meeting or a concert or whatever.

On one of the main streets you were sure to see a certain character. He carried a placard, like a gigantic chalkboard, with words written on it in various colors. It was always the same message, and it said something like, "The wrath of God is coming! Don't eat cow, pig, beans, bird! Repent!" There was a lot more to it, against sex, drugs, violence and all, but that's the part I remember, how he called poultry "bird" and ranked "eating beans" as an abomination against God.

Is that a prophet? Is that what a prophet does?

But maybe a prophet is more somebody who predicts the future. Like your aunt who said you'd end up marrying that person you didn't like at first--and you did. Or the theorist who looks at the signs and predicts what the climate will be like in a hundred years, or when the next big war will occur.

Preachers of doom. Predictors of the future: That's how the general public thinks of prophets these days. We Christians would also point to prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah who spoke the word of the Lord and really could foretell the future, because God Himself was telling them what was to come. And we might debate whether prophets like that are around any more.

But I think we'd be pretty well agreed that being a prophet is about speaking a certain message, and that message is generally about what'll happen in the future. That's why it's called prophecy, right?

Which is why it might seem odd to hear the reaction of the crowd at Nain when Jesus raises the widow's son from the dead. He didn't preach, He didn't predict. But the people were all filled with awe and said, "A great prophet has risen among us!"

We might be tempted to ask, "Hey, folks, don't you mean 'a great miracle worker'? Where's the message from God in what Jesus just did?"

But the people of Nain were right in their reaction, more right than they knew, themselves. And it all comes down to what a prophet; that is, a prophet of God, really is.

In the Book of Numbers, the Lord says, "When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams." A prophet is one with whom the Lord truly communicates.

In Deuteronomy, the Lord declares, "If a prophet . . . appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder . . . takes place, and he says, 'Let us follow other gods . . . and . . . worship them,' you must not listen to that prophet." A true prophet of God will always give glory to God. He or she is faithful, and will never contradict what the Lord has handed down in His Word.

Also in Deuteronomy, the Lord speaks of a prophet to come and says, "I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will bring him to account." A prophet of God makes God's will known to the people.

In Zechariah, the Lord says, "[D]id not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? Then they repented and said, 'The Lord Almighty has done to us just what our ways and practices deserved, just as he determined to do.'" A prophet calls people to repentance and declares what the Lord will do if they do not obey Him.

And in 2 Kings, a young Israelite slave girl tells her mistress about the prophet Elisha, saying, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." God demonstrates His presence and power through His prophets by the working of miracles.

In all these things, the true prophet is there for God's sake, and not for his own. A true prophet is sent to give us what God knows we need, not what we think we want. The true prophet is there to show God to us, that He might be worshipped and glorified.

The people of Nain knew that. They knew that God demonstrated His presence and love through His prophets and the miracles they worked. When they saw what Jesus did for the widow and her son, they gave God praise and said, "A great prophet has risen among us. God has looked favorably on his people!" They recognised that Jesus was a true prophet.

They saw it in His godly compassion. Luke says that when the Lord saw the widow walking in front of the bier of her only son, His heart went out to her, and He acted on her behalf.

They recognised it in His calm authority when He told her, "Do not weep." Jesus can say that because He can do something about the cause of her grief. For you or me to come up to a mother who's lost her only child and say, "Don't cry!" would be an obscenity and an imposition. Of course she should cry in the face of death! But Jesus can face death down. He has a right to say, "Do not weep!"

Then Jesus reaches out His hand and touches the bier. I wonder, did any of His disciples or any one in the crowd think, "Oh, no, Teacher, you mustn't pollute yourself by touching a dead body!"? If they did, it didn't matter, because life and cleanness were about to overcome death and corruption.

Jesus commands the corpse, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" He does; and Jesus, who has just given him new life, gives him back to his mother.

The townspeople are rightly filled with the fear of God. They rightly understand, as the Greek says, that "God has visited his people." It's significant that Luke the physician uses "visit" in the sense of a doctor coming to heal a patient, not "visit" in the sense of a judge coming to pass sentence. They recognise in Jesus a great prophet, like Elijah, coming in the Spirit, love, and life-giving power of the Lord.

Elijah was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. He was the prophet against whom all other prophets were measured. Elijah spoke God's judgement before kings and performed mighty wonders. Elijah brought God near to His people Israel, whether they wanted Him near or not. It is certain that when Jesus raised the widow's son at Nain, the onlookers immediately thought of the widow and her son at Zarephath and what had been done for them by the great Elijah.

But there's something they likely missed in their awe and praise. When Elijah raised the son of the widow of Zarephath, he had to ask God for the boy's life back. It was all up to the Lord. Elijah had no power of himself to restore life; he was an ordinary mortal like any of us. The boy was raised only when the Lord heard and acted on Elijah's prayer.

But Jesus can simply say, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" and the dead man sits up alive and healthy and begins to speak! Jesus can do that because He does have power in Himself to give life!

Jesus can do that because He is not merely a prophet, He is the ultimate prophet. He is the Word of God spoken directly from the mouth of God, incarnate among us. He is the Law of God lived out in all its purity here on this earth. He is the power and compassion of God demonstrated in signs and wonders among the people. Yes, God had come to help and heal His people! He was doing it in person, and His name was Jesus of Nazareth. No prophet before or since could ever be the Prophet that He is.

But in our hearts we wonder: if Jesus is the ultimate Prophet, and if He demonstrated the power of God by miracles like raising the widow's son at Nain, why didn't He go on to raise all widows' sons, and their daughters, too? Why doesn't He look down from heaven and immediately banish pain, suffering, and grief from all our loved ones?

If you're going through a hardship like this, I can't answer that question for you in your particular case. But taking the bigger picture, I would suggest that if Jesus did that, He wouldn't be the Prophet we need Him to be. No matter how we feed it, heal it, or prolong it, this earthly life of ours will come to an end. These mortal bodies will die and decay. They are infected with sin and never can be the perfect lives we all wish we had. They can never be worthy to stand in the presence of the perfect, holy God. Jesus healed bodies to give us a sample, a taste, of what life will be like in that day when He heals body and soul together.

And truly, God our Father knows what it is like to have an only Son die young. Jesus was the only innocent human being who ever lived. He is the only one of whom we can say, "He didn't deserve to die like that." Jesus didn't deserve to die at all!

But He did die, and God raised Him from the dead. His resurrection is the ultimate sign of God present with us. Already, if you have Him living in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, He's given you new life in your inmost being. Think of it: Jesus our Lord has already raised your spirit from the dead, and in His perfect time He will give you an undying body and make you perfectly whole.

The prophets of old represented the life and power and righteousness to God's people Israel. And even now, our Lord Jesus displays the power of God to us. He is the presence of God with us. He is the ultimate Prophet, Emmanuel, Christ the Lord.

All praise, honor, and glory be to you, Lord Christ, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

[Preached Thursday, 7 June, and Sunday, 10 June 2007]

Seeing Who's There

Texts: Proverbs 8:1-5, 22-36; John 14:8-21

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED HOW HARD it is to see things that are really close to you?

Like last month when I went to the dentist for some fillings. I couldn't see the Novocaine needle. I couldn't see the drill. I couldn't see the little mould for the filling being fitted on my teeth. Same with the filling goop and the tool the dentist used to put it in. Couldn't see any of it.

No, it wasn't because I had my eyes shut. They were wide open, just like my mouth. I couldn't see any of these things, because they were Just Too Close.

You might say, "Good. When I go to the dentist's I don't want to see any of those things, either. In fact, I don't want to hear them or feel them, as well!"

If that's your opinion, I don't blame you. But there are some important things we had better see, but we don't because we're too close to them. Even something as important as God and who He is and what He wants for our lives.

Today is Trinity Sunday. It's the day the Church particularly celebrates the great truth that God has revealed Himself to humanity as God in Three Persons. This God isn't just "our" God or "the God of the Christians"; He's the one and only, true and living God. This Truine God is the Holy One who made heaven and earth and everything in them. He's the God in whom we live and move and have our being. He's the God before whom every knee will someday bow, whether they want to or not. This God calls out to us to open the eyes of our hearts and see Him as He really is.

But a lot of people say that the doctrine of God as Trinity is irrelevant. It's irrelevant, they say, because it's incomprehensible. How can a being be three, and also be one? They say it doesn't make sense, and no one can expect them to believe it. Not just pagans say this, but also people who call themselves Christians. But you go down that road, and you're not only failing to see the God who is actually there, you're also losing out on who you can be in relation to Him.

The doctrine of the Trinity is far from irrelevant; it's the framework for our creation, our redemption, and all our hope for meaning and joy. As our hearts begin to understand it, God enables us to step back and see Who is really there.

In our reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus is gathered with His disciples in the Upper Room. They have finished their last supper together, and the Lord is preparing them for what will happen as He goes to the cross. He comforts them, letting them know that He is the way to God the Father, and that He's going away to make it possible for them to come to the Father as well.

But Philip doesn't want doctrine, he wants experience. What does all this talk about Jesus going away and returning again have to do with knowing the Father? He says, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

Meaning, "Teacher, show us the all-powerful Divine Being who is Out There Somewhere. Be like Moses who brought the Law down from Sinai a long time ago, like Moses who saw God's back and lived."

We can't blame Philip. We would probably have been just as blind. Jesus answers him, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."

Did you get that? That is doctrine that illuminates experience! An ordinary human being could have said, "I'll point you to God." An ordinary teacher could have said, "I'll give you an example of how God wants you to live." Jesus says, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." For He isn't just an ordinary human being. He's God in human flesh. He's the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, standing right in front of them!

If He isn't God, if the Muslims are right and, quote, "Allah has no son," then what Jesus said about Himself was either totally crazy or totally depraved.

But even our Lord's enemies have to admit that He comes off as the most sane, sensible Man who ever lived. This sane, sensible Man declares that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In fact, He is so identified with God that there is really no separation between them.

The disciples had been so close to Jesus, they hadn't seen this. They got so used to marvelling over His miracles, they hadn't really understood what they meant, what they demonstrated about who Jesus was.

But now they must begin to understand and see. So Jesus introduces the disciples to another divine Person who will be given to them by the Father and the Son, the Holy Comforter, the Spirit of truth. He tells them the Spirit already lives in them and will be with them forever. The disciples don't yet realize that they already know the Spirit, but the day is coming when they will. They will see who's there.

But the unbelieving world cannot see the Holy Spirit or know Him. Even if they think they do, they don't understand who He is. They say He's an impersonal force, or an extension of their own human spirits. They don't recognise that the Holy Spirit is true God, working in power in the world. His particular work is to call people to Christ and salvation in His shed blood. By His divine power Christians see and understand exactly who Jesus is and are built up in the loving obedience of faith.

A lot of people-- the author Dan Brown, say-- think the doctrine of the Trinity is something a bunch of theologians made up in the 4th century to grab power or to confuse people. Not at all! Rather, the writers of the New Testament books knew God and what He was like. So did the apostles and teachers of the Church who came after them. These men and women knew that Yahweh was the one and only God, and apart from Him there is no other. But they saw what Jesus did in His miracles and they heard what He preached and taught. They saw Him raised from the dead. And they had to conclude that He was true God, come to earth to live among us. And they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. They felt His power. They understood that to go against the Spirit's leading was to go against God Himself, because the Spirit was and is God.
How could they put all this together? They had to conclude that God was both One and Three. That He was God in Three Persons, God the blessed Trinity.

And they studied the Old Testament with the new, open eyes that the Holy Spirit gave them. And they saw that this truth about the triune nature of God was nothing new. It was there in the old writings all along.

In so many places in the Old Testament we read of the Spirit of God being sent by God to do His will. We read of God Himself promising to come to earth in person to straighten things out and bring in His kingdom of righteousness. And we have passages like today's in Proverbs 8, all about the call of divine Wisdom.

Please don't be distracted by the fact that Solomon has cast Wisdom as a noble lady. The Book of Proverbs is not really a book of human rules to live by, it's a call to live in covenant relationship with the God of Israel. In the first nine chapters Solomon sets the stage by contrasting holy Lady Wisdom with wicked Lady Folly. Holy Wisdom is the way to God and blessedness. Folly-- by which is meant all kinds of sin-- is the way to Hell and damnation.

But here's something interesting. Lady Wisdom is constantly portrayed as a distinctive person, not just as an idealized principle. She asserts that she existed before the dawn of time. She rejoices that she was there working with God when all things were created. She claims that to find her is to find life and favor from the Lord.

Who is this personage? Is she the so-called goddess Sophia or "Woman Wisdom" that the feminists are always going on about?

No. Rather, the Holy Spirit led our ancestors in the faith to understand that this picture of Wisdom in Proverbs is truly a picture of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians we read that He is the Wisdom of God. In Colossians we learn that He is supreme over all creation, and that all things were created by Him and for Him. In the Gospels He cries out to men and women to believe in Him and be saved. And in our John passage, Jesus declares that He is the one way to find life and love in our heavenly Father, the Lord.

Christ our Wisdom calls out to us to hear and understand. He calls us to stop listening to our human wisdom that says the Trinity is irrelevant, and listen to the Wisdom of God instead. Christ our Wisdom teaches us to stop taking Him for granted as a great moral teacher or a good example, but to step back and see Him for who He really is-- God in human flesh, crucified for our sins, and the one and only way to the Father.

The truth about God is right here in front of us. It is close as the Bible on your nightstand, that testifies to Christ and all His works. It is as close as God the Holy Spirit witnessing in your heart that this Word is true. Jesus our crucified Saviour can show us the Father, because He is God. The Holy Spirit can show us the risen Christ, because He is God. Every promise Jesus made to us is faithful and sure, because every last one is the promise of God.

The doctrine of the Trinity helps us step back and see who is really there. And the doctrine of the Trinity helps us step forward again into deeper fellowship with our Lord and God. Other religions tell us to love God but they don't tell us how. Other religions say we should do good, but our best is never good enough.

But our faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit assures us that we can love God because He first loved us. We know because He died for us, to save us from our sins! We can keep His commands because Jesus the Son of God kept God's commands perfectly for us. We're assured of a place at the the Lord's great eternal banquet, we join in the divine everlasting dance that is God, because the Spirit of truth has united us with Christ and brought us into the fellowship of the One, Holy, Blessed, and Undivided Trinity.

Don't fret if you cannot understand how God can be Three in One and One in Three. God and His nature is too big for our human minds to comprehend. But what He does for us and who He is for us, God has given us that to see. Let the Holy Spirit open your eyes and your heart. See and understand that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as He has revealed Himself to be. See that your life and hope in this world and the next depend on God being who He is-- not one god all alone, not three gods working together, but One God in three Persons.

See who is there. With the eyes of faith, look upon your triune Lord, and give Him all worship, adoration, honor, obedience, and love.

What God Had in Mind at Pentecost

Texts: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15; Acts 2:1-41

I’VE GOT AN IDEA. Today is Pentecost, but it’s also Memorial Day weekend. You might have a family get-together in the works, and maybe you’re looking for a fun new game to play.

Well, how about the game of Rewrite the Bible? What you do, you take a Bible passage and you and your group make it say whatever you want it to say.

The game’s been around for years! The writers of books like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas had fun with it centuries ago. President Jefferson played it in the late 1700s; he cut all Jesus’ miracles out of the Gospels and left only the moral teachings. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons played it in the 19th century. In the last twenty years or so, the liberal scholars of the Jesus Seminar have had a good time voting on what they think Jesus really, truly said vs. they say the Church made up later. So you see, it’s a really popular game.

So why shouldn’t Presbyterians play, too? So let’s take our reading from Acts, and play a few rounds!

Round 1: "When the day of Pentecost came, the disciples were all together in one place. They discussing Jesus’ death and resurrection and how those events related to the old Scriptures.

Then Peter stood up and said, ‘Brothers, Jesus did command us to tell people they should believe that God raised Him from the dead. I suggest we come up with a Bible-based proof that will convince everyone.’ The disciples said, ‘What a good idea!’ So they studied and debated the Scriptures and several weeks later, their proof was done. It was a beautiful thing. Not only was the argument infallible and logical, it was excruciatingly faithful to Scripture. The strictest rabbi in Jerusalem couldn’t’ve picked a hole in it.

"So they took this beautiful proof of the Resurrection out into the streets (which weren’t crowded any more, since the Pentecost holiday was long past). They went up to people and stared debating the Scriptures with them. A few people said, ‘Yes, that sounds interesting. I’ll have to think about that some more.’ But most people said, ‘That’s beyond me,’ or ‘Stop beating me over the head with the Bible’ and kept on walking. So the disciples went back in the house frustrated and resumed their discussion. Maybe they’d try proving the Resurrection again later. Not today."

Wasn’t that fun? All right, Round 2: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, talking about how wonderful old days, when they walked with Jesus. Gosh, they missed Him! How secure and beloved He’d made them all feel! Then, gradually, something like a warm tropical breeze began to steal into the room. They saw what seemed to be goosedown duvets settling softly over each of them. All of them were filled with an overwhelming sense of well-being-- just as they’d felt when Jesus was with them.

"Then Peter roused himself and said, ‘Brothers, this must be the Comforter Jesus told us He would send! Don’t you feel comfortable? I sure do!’ The disciples all agreed-- they felt so comfortable they promptly lay down and fell sound asleep. And not even the noise from the Pentecost crowds in the street could disturb their slumber."

That version really made me feel good! But let’s play Round 3. It could go like this: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. They remembered that Jesus had commanded them to tell others about Him and His resurrection. But, well, the authorities had crucified the Lord for being offensive. The disciples really didn’t want to risk going out and being offensive, too!

Finally, Peter said, ‘Come on, brothers! Sure, Jesus was crucified, but then God raised Him, right? Didn’t it change our lives when we all saw Him risen? Did it make us feel good? We had that experience! Nobody can argue with that! So let’s get out there and tell people about our experience!’

"So some of the disciples bravely followed Peter into the street. They picked out some pedestrians who didn’t look threatening and said, ‘Um, I’ve seen Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead. It really changed my life. Would you like a wonderful life-changing experience like that, too?’ And they were right-- nobody argued with them. No, people simply said, ‘You’re deluded,’ or ‘Don’t bother me.’ And several evilly suggested that the disciples had better stop talking about that rabble-rouser Jesus, unless they wanted the chief priests arresting them, too.

"So the disciples went back inside and locked the door and said it was too bad that the world out there didn’t want to hear about Christ risen from the dead. They prayed to the Lord, saying ‘Lord, we wish we could’ve got people to listen to your Good News. But you can’t blame us: We tried. We really tried.’"

All right, just one more round. How’s this: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

"Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And by the time the disciples poured into the street, all the visitors and all the residents of Jerusalem were filled with the Holy Spirit, too. Even foreigners who’d never before heard of Rabbi Jesus were declaring that God had raised Him from the dead. Even the High Priest was proclaiming he’d just been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

"Then Peter stood up and said, ‘Hallelujah! Looks like we’ve got a real Holy Ghost revival here!" And they all began to have a wonderful praise and worship service that lasted for days. Nobody went back into their houses, for the news come in that the whole world had been converted by the Holy Spirit without the preaching of a single word. And in less than a week the Lord returned, the new heavens and the new earth were established, and they all lived happily and eternally ever after."

Well. We’ve just played four rounds of Rewrite the Bible. Do we have a winner yet?

No, we don’t have a winner. Nobody ever wins playing Rewrite the Bible. Still, everyone does it. The messed-up versions of Acts 2 I just gave you are common in Christian churches all over.

What’s wrong with them? To put it bluntly, they aren’t what God had in mind at Pentecost. Let’s take them apart and see what’s wrong.

Round 1 starts out all right. The disciples want to convince the crowds of Jesus’ resurrection by using proofs from the Old Testament Scriptures. But they do it without the Holy Spirit. They do it on their own, in their human wisdom. You try to preach Christ without the Spirit behind you, nobody’s going to care. Nobody’s going to listen. The Word doesn’t work without the Spirit!

But thank God that’s not the way it really happened on Pentecost. No, the Holy Spirit drove Peter and the others out onto the street and by the power of the Holy Spirit the inspired word of the prophets became the inspired word of the apostle.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter proclaimed the word of truth concerning Jesus Christ. Crucifixion was and is a horror and a disgrace. But as Peter preached the crowd began to understand that for Jesus the shame of the cross was God’s way of preparing him for the glory of resurrection. It was the Father’s vindication of His servant. Again the Spirit leads Peter to quote from the Scriptures, this time King David’s words in Psalm 16. He quotes, "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay." By the Spirit Peter applies these words to Jesus Christ. And through Psalm 110 Peter declares that this crucified Man Jesus was now sitting in triumph at the right hand of God.

The Jews there in the street knew these passages. But now on Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit behind them, people understood for the first time what those Scriptures really meant. The Spirit had always spoken through the prophets. But now He was unstopping the people’s ears so they could hear and respond to what the prophets had to say. The Word of God had always been living and active. But the people’s spirits were dead, and now the Spirit was bringing them to life. They accept Peter’s declaration that Jesus is alive and approved by God, and that He has ascended to God’s right hand on high. They trust the word preached to them, that God has made this Jesus, whom they crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Without the Holy Spirit, our hearts are dead. Without the Holy Spirit, the Word of God is a dead letter to us. But with the Spirit, the Word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Together, the Spirit and the Word give life. This is what God had in mind at Pentecost.

But what about our Round 2 version, the Holy Spirit as divine Comforter? Okay, I was exaggerating. I’m sure that nobody here really imagines God the Holy Spirit as a spiritual duvet. But don’t we act like it sometimes? Don’t we sometimes think that if we have the Holy Spirit in us, He’ll insulate us from any spiritual struggle or moral anguish or pain?

Then when we go through trouble, we feel He’s let us down.

No, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, it is in and through our troubles that the Holy Spirit brings us the comfort of Christ. How does He comfort us? Actually, by uniting us to Jesus and His sufferings, so we can be united to Jesus and His resurrection! The Spirit confirms our Lord’s promise to be with us and keep us forever. He reassures us that whatever we have to go through in this life, our loving heavenly Father will work it out for our ultimate good, because the Spirit has called us to belong to Jesus Christ, according to the Father’s purpose.

Friends, there is no Holy Comforter for Christians who seek only to be comfortable. But if you will call upon the Spirit whom God has given you, He will be there, whatever you might have to suffer. He will uphold you, refine you, and bring you through to triumph and joy. That is what God had in mind by giving us His Spirit at Pentecost!

But what’s wrong with our Round 3 version of Rewrite the Bible? That’s the one where the disciples went out and told people about their experience of the risen Christ. This is the one that good-hearted Christians are most likely to fall into. What’s wrong with telling unbelievers about our experience?

Nothing. Just don’t confuse it with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our salvation experiences might be a way to get an unbeliever interested. But your experience or mine isn’t going to save anyone. What saves is Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on that bloody cross 1977 years ago. What saves is the Word of Christ preached and proclaimed. What saves is the Holy Spirit working on hard human hearts and convincing them that Jesus really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him.

God never expected Peter and the others to go out into the street or into the world armed only with their experiences. He gave them the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth, to build them up in the Word. To give them courage and hope when the authorities said they could either shut up about this Jesus or die. I couldn’t face violent death for the sake of my conversion experience. But with the Holy Spirit working in me, for the sake of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, I believe I could. That is what God had in mind at Pentecost!

But what about our final round? Gosh, the Holy Spirit gets all the glory there!

And yes, God could have sent the Holy Spirit all at once on everyone in the world. He could have convinced all mankind instantly that Jesus is the Christ and everyone should bow down to Him.

But He didn’t. Instead, He chose to spread His gospel message by the foolishness of preaching. He willed that His gift of the Holy Spirit would be spread throughout the world by the witness of His Church. Yes, that same weak, stumbling, sinful church we’re part of today. Not very efficient, maybe. But God likes to use bodies as well as spirits to get His work done. God the Son came to us in the flesh as Jesus Christ. He proclaimed His salvation by the mouth of His apostles. And now He spreads His salvation in the flesh by His Spirit-filled Church-- that is, you and me.

That’s what God had in mind at Pentecost: The mighty deeds of Christ are recorded in His Word, and proclaimed by His Church-- all under the blessing and power of His Holy Spirit. Christ, Scripture, Spirit, Church: There is no separation. This is the way He calls people to Himself. That’s the way He did it at Pentecost. This is the way He does it now. This is how He calls us to do it in His name until Jesus comes in glory. Alleluia, amen.