All Saints Anglican Church Sermons

Preach the Gospel, Die, and Be Forgotten

A Homily for Epiphany I

January 12, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            Shortly after the rise of the puritan movement in England and America, a movement known as the German Pietists arose in mainland Europe. Out of this group came what are now known as the Moravians. Like their English counter parts, the German pietists were interested in personal holiness and a robust pursuit of knowing God.

One of the leaders of the Pietists was a man named Count Nikolaus Von Zinzendorf. His adherence to holiness and the pursuit of the intimate relationship with Jesus helped the Wesley’s develop Wesleyan theology, which lead to the formation of the Methodist church. However the thing many remember him for more than anything else is the following phrase:

            Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.

            This little sentence is perhaps the most beautiful prescription for the Christian. We are not called to be concerned about our brand, to be concerned about the number of bodies we have in church, to be concerned about what kind of car we drive, how cool we are, or whether we have the right friends, no we are called to preach the gospel at all times and in all places. We are called to go out, to make disciples, and to bring them into the covenant of Christ through baptism.

            We are called to share with our friends, neighbors, and loved ones what Christ is doing in our lives and what he has done in our lives, we are called to share how is redeeming us from sin, drawing us away from those things that destroy our souls, how Christ has washed us clean from the sin which we were born with, how Christ has healed us from our deepest pain and giving us our deepest joy.

            We are called to unashamedly share our lives, to show the ways in which Christ has healed us and is healing us, to show the love of Christ to those in our community that so need love.

            Unless Christ returns we will all face death – now Count Zinzendorf is not saying – forget about your loved ones who have died, he is not saying you need to not remember them. Please don’t hear that. Rather – his sentiment is so wonderfully summarized by Rich Mullins, the faithful and thoroughly sincere early nineties Christian singer when he wrote:

 

If my life is motivated by my ambition to leave a legacy, what I’ll probably leave as a legacy is ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of the Spirt in me, if I live with the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to guide my actions, to guide my motives, those sort of things, That is the only time I think we really leave a great legacy.

 

            In other words: preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.

 

Our calling is that when we go to our eternal rest – that we are forgotten, not because we are so forgettable, but because Christ became so important to us – that all else fades in our lives. Instead of being motivated the self – we are motivated by a deep desire to glorify God in all we do. Instead of being motivated by getting as much treasure in the here and now – we store our treasure in eternity – we make our concern for eternal things.

            I remember for some time “developing one’s brand” was a rather popular sentiment, most peculiarly with pastors – people wanted to show off who they were as individuals, and make sure everything was presented perfectly and painted a unique picture.

            This was troubling to say the least.

            Yesterday, as the class I was attending this past week wrapped up, I was chatting with the professor. I think it will be the last class I’ll have with him, and as we lamented this, I asked him if he would survive without me to blurt out random thoughts in the middle of his lecture. He said that he suspected someone else would fill that hole for me. It was then I remembered this great comfort – the church doesn’t need me. (but how deeply I need the church!)

            That is to say: your salvation, your spiritual growth, your sanctification does not depend upon me – but depends upon Christ and Christ alone. Yes – I am called to point you to Christ over and over again. I am called to remind you of who he is, I am called to exhort you to repentance when you have sinned, and comfort you when you’re wounded. I am called to encourage, strengthen, admonish, and direct, but the reality is Christ can use whoever he pleases to accomplish this, but I am so grateful that I get to do this for you all, but still I must remember that ultimately it is Christ who is working in you.

 

vestments

            Traditional, liturgical churches are thoughtfully designed to reorient us, and remind us of this fact. For the priest – my vestments should keep me humble. Our first layer is the cassock, as you can see it is dark black and reminds me that I am spiritual dead – that without Christ, apart from God’s grace and mercy, I have no life in me. Then I put on the surplice, which reminds me of how we are washed white in the blood of Christ,

and finally the scarf, or tippet for the daily offices, that is Morning and Evening Prayer or for communion I wear the stole. This reminds us that we are yoked to Christ, that we have authority to preach, teach, exhort, to administer the sacraments but that authority only comes from Christ.

 

            My friends – while I have authority – it is not my own, but only Christ’s, it is borrowed, and I am to use it as a servant.

            But, we are all called to live this life of self-giving, of death to self.

            We have put such an emphasis on making a mark and a difference and finding our true calling that we sometimes forget that our calling – is to let our light shine wherever God has placed us.

If you are here this morning – you are here by the grace of God, you are here because God brought you here. God does move us in and out of things, but I have spent an incredible amount of time comforting young Christians who feel lost because they can’t articulate their calling.

            Our calling, if we are followers of Christ – is to glorify him,

our calling – if we are not yet His follower is to become followers of Christ, to let Him minister to you, to let his mercy envelop you so that we may all glorify Him and love others as He loves us. Yes – he may call you to some great task that will shape the world, or he might call you to simply be a good husband, a good wife, a good brother, a good sister, a good friend, a good parent, or a good child. But let us be first concerned with loving Him and loving others as He first loved us.

            The Magi present for us such a calling. The lore and thoughts around them is seemingly unending. For example – we do not know how many of them there were. The western tradition tells us that there were three, and this is a fine number, for there were three gifts – but there could have only been two or their could have been 102, though the fact that they seemingly all went into a middle eastern house, makes an extremely large number rather unlikely. All we know is that the word Magi is plural in the text, and so there could have been many. In fact, the eastern church disagrees with the west and has settled on 12 magi to be parallel with the twelve tribes of Israel, this is as fine a number as three, but still unprovable.

            Next we know very little of who they were. Some traditions tell us that they were kings – in fact this is where those names we hear from time to time – Gaspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar come from. Each of these men were legendary kings from India, Persia, and Arabia and while they were certainly from the east, there is no evidence to suggest that these were actually the men who visited the infant Jesus or even that they were kings.   

            The term Magi is particularly interesting – and it does give us a hint into who these men were. They were probably a special class of people in the ancient near east who were interested in religion and lore and the pursuit of wisdom, who were something like the combination of a pagan priest and the local wise man, having given their life to study of the ways of the world and also given to leading local religious ceremonies. This does seem to be the most likely explanation as this would mean they would therefore be aware of the world around them, and then having seen Jesus’ star and because they knew where to look they would have known something amazing had happened.

            Ultimately, we got lost when we get anxious about who these men were. The point of the story is not that Gaspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar or for that matter Joe, Frank, and Bob took a long journey together – the point is that these men who were not Jewish recognized that God had been born among us and came to worship Him.

            Here we get a hint that the magi knew that Christ was more than a man – for they came to worship Jesus, king of the Jews.

When we confront those who deny the divinity of Christ, here is one place that they get stuck. We might say to them, “but look! The wisemen came to worship Jesus,” to which they will respond, “but they shouldn’t have.” In fact, in their mind, the wisemen are not heroes of faith, but anti-heroes. They do not believe the wisemen show us the way to life as we believe, but rather a way towards death.

            There is an error in their thought here – first scripture makes it perfectly clear that these men worshipped Christ, there is no other way to read the text. Secondly, when worship is wrongly prescribed in the Word of God, we see this in particularly with angels – the text tells us that this is a wrong thing to do, tells us do not worship Angels!

No, we worship no one but the one true God who is revealed to us in triune form – and whose second person became incarnate in Jesus Christ our Lord. No, if it was wrong for the magi  to worship Jesus, we would know. Rather – they are wise and anonymous forerunners. They tell us – it is good and right to worship Jesus as our God, and we know from later revelations in scripture to worship him as our savior.

            Now, let us compare Herod and the religious leaders of Jerusalem’s reaction to the news of the birth of Jesus with that of the Magi. Herod and all of Jerusalem with him was troubled – but the Magi “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” when God revealed the place of the house where Jesus was to them.

            What is our reaction to new people visiting our church, what is our reaction to the to the opportunity to love upon someone destitute, to the migrant, to the one who is not like us but so desperately needs to know the love of Christ? Has it occurred to us that perhaps these people are angels, sent to give us an opportunity to ministry as the author of Hebrews tells us? That these people are images of the Christ, whom we have  the opportunity to love upon?

 

            My friends – you so often do a beautiful job of welcoming those who are unknown, but sometimes I grow distressed when I look out and I see someone new sitting alone. One day, I looked out and a man was visiting for the first time and it was as though he had the plague, he sat alone in a pew and no one was even in the pew in front of him!

            I know at other times we are amazing at welcoming strangers in amongst us, and I know you all to be profoundly loving – but let us become even better at loving the stranger, let us not be afraid of him or her – for yes, we live in scary times, yes we live in times of deep hate and distrust, but we cannot combat hate with more hate, but only with the divine love of Christ, the sacrificial love of Christ. Let us great each person who enters this building, enters into our life with this love.

            Someone posted this past year the three rules of engagement her and her husband have for when they are at church:

            First: An alone person in our gathering (that is their worship service) is an emergency.

            Second: Friends can wait.

            Third: Introduce a new comer to someone else.

            My beloved – please – if you see someone alone – even if church has started, even if it is half way through the service, and I know it is awkward, but get up, leave your friends, and quietly introduce yourself and ask if you can sit with them. I have chosen to attend churches because someone has done just that for me. I pray that the love of Christ abounds within our community, may we rejoice greatly when we see someone new.

            But here is the second question – to follow Christ is a calling to a continual dying to ourselves. Here is a place I struggle too – when Christ calls us into deeper intimacy, calls us to the death to ourselves, calls us to leave behind some idol of the heart and beckons us into something deeper and more profound with him – are we troubled like Herod, or do we explode forth with joy like the magi?

 

            When Christ calls us to live in a place of deeper faith with him may we rejoice – not be dismayed. May our hearts cry out with joy and not trouble, for how good it is to know Christ!

            For in meeting Christ, in being drawn into a relationship with him, we are called to be ill at ease with the status quo, to be ill at ease with the way the world is and anxious for the way the world will be after the great re-creation. T.S. Elliot summarizes the Christian tension we feel in a poem he wrote for Epiphany, it is written from the view of the wisemen sometime after their great journey to worship the Christ:

            All this was a long time ago, I remember,

            And I would do it again, but set down

            This set down

            This: were we led all that way for

            Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly

            We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

            But had thought they were different; this Birth was

            Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

            We returned to our palaces, these Kingdoms,

            But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation

            With alien people clutching their gods.

            I should be glad of another death.

Christ’s birth in our hearts calls us to shake up our lives, to shake out the old dead gods of our paganism and worldliness – calls us to live deeply profound and intimate lives with Christ and with the people of God. Our lives should not reflect the culture around us, but we should be transformed people, we should be a community that God’s love abounds in.

            The wise men, though undoubtedly deeply educated, lacked the formal training of the religious leaders of Jerusalem. In this we are reminded that we are not called to trust in our upbringing or heritage. We are called to trust in Christ alone.

            Too often as Anglicans we say “well, I was a cradle Episcopalian,” as though this brings us some status. It is so good to run the race faithfully, to have never turned our back on Christ, but we are not saved because we have attended church for our whole lives – no we are saved because we are in Christ’s covenant with us, because we have a deep and intimate relationship with Him, because every day we die to ourselves, and are born again in Him.  

            My friends – I am so thankful for the witness of those of you who have not veered from the path that Christ has laid before them, that have walked a life that glorifies God from Birth until this moment. Your witness is beautiful, but trust not in your witness but in Christ and Christ alone.

            We see in this text – that the ones who showed true faith in Christ were foreigners, were the outsiders, while the insiders schemed and were troubled by the news. So too, I am thankful for those who lived rough lives, who stumbled and fell hard, and Christ came in and radically changed their hearts.

            I remember talking to a friend who had lived a hard, rough and tumble life – and met Christ in jail. He confessed that he often felt intimidated in clergy gatherings because of his past.

Yet – he knew Christ, and His power in such a profound way, a way that many of us can barely imagine – because he knew how damaging sin was, he knew both Christ and sin so intimately. Let us rejoice when the prostitute, the criminal, and the drug-addict come to know Christ, not judging them for who they were but rejoicing exceedingly with great joy for what Christ has done. And let us not take for granted our lives because we were born into a Christian home – but take Christ’s saving grace as our own, and abide richly in that.

            The wisemen finally arrive at the house where Mary and the child are, and they worship the child and lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Here again the wisemen point us to the fact that this child was more than a baby lying in the arms of his mother, an interesting child, no, my friends - he is king and God.

            Both the fact that they worshipped Him and brought these gifts – point us to this incredible truth. For gold, frankincense, and myrrh are gifts are only fit for the incarnate God. They are gifts fit for the one true God born to be amongst us.

            It is easy for us to grow popular lore around these wisemen, but in reality they call us to live a life of faith, they set for us an example of Count Zinzendorf call that we may preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten, for they saw an amazing thing happening and set out in faith, were amongst the first to worship the incarnate God, were obedient to God, and went home, and were in the sight of history forgotten.

            The great evangelical Anglican bishop J.C. Ryle summarized it perfectly when he wrote:

The conduct of the wise men described in this chapter is a splendid example of spiritual diligence. What trouble it must have cost them to travel from their homes to the house where Jesus was born! How many weary miles they must have journeyed! The fatigues of an Eastern traveler are far greater than we in England can at all understand. The time that such a journey would occupy must necessarily have been very great. The dangers to be encountered were neither few nor small. But none of these things moved them. They had set their hearts on seeing Him “that was born King of the Jews;” and they never rested till they saw Him. They proved to us the truth of the old saying, “where there is a will there is a way.

            It would be well for all professing Christians if they were more ready to follow the wise men’s example. Where is our self-denial? What pains we take about our souls? What diligence do we show about following Christ/ What does our religion cost us? These are serious questions. They deserve serious questions.

 

My beloved friends – I know that most of us are likely to be concerned with our legacy, to be concerned with the mark that we leave on the world, and I would be lying if I told you that I was not. I too care and can find myself lost in the wrong questions – am I liked? Do they want me around? Am I good enough? Am I capable of building this church? And what of my reputation?

            If we grow too consumed with worldly questions we lose this call to diligence, this call to a death to ourselves, and life in Christ.

            May instead we live as the magi, as Count Zinzendorf, as Rich Mullins, and as J.C. Ryle both lived and in doing so call us to live – may we preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten, that we leave not a legacy of self but that all might be drawn unto Christ.

            In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

The Obedience of Joseph

A Homily for Christmas II

January 5, 2020

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Matthew 2:19-23

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen

 

            Some of you know about my little adventure this past week. My hope and plan had been to go for a long drive and visit a couple of places around Arizona that I am yet to see, to have some time to think, and relax a little after the busy-ness of the holiday season. I often find these drives peaceful, life giving, relaxing, and joy-filled. They give me time to listen to music and think about life. I had all these lofty and romanticized visions of my time away, to draw nearer to God, and find some quietness.

            The Lord and my car conspired to make different plans for me – and if I am honest, what I really needed to be reminded to rest in the Lord always.

            As I got close to my first stop my battery light came on, as a good millennial the first thing I did was google what this could mean and google faithfully told me that it was most likely my alternator dying. Having had more than one alternator die on me, once in inner city Chicago, I knew that this would not be the fun day I had envisioned. Being the resolutely independent person that I am, I turned around and started to drive home. As time passed more and more lights on my dashboard came on, telling me that, in all likelihood my battery was draining.

            As I got close to the 17, I decided it would be unwise for me to see what would happen if I pressed on, so I stopped and called AAA and waited. I sat in my car reading, trying to relax.

            As the time passed I started to get more panicky. “How am I going to do these things I had planned?” “Wait, alternators are expensive, yikes!” “I had such a perfect budget for this month, there goes that!”

            Somewhere in that wild train of thought, I also realized the Lord was calling me to simply trust him, trust that everything will be okay, and be vulnerable and ask my friends for help. I’d like to say that after all the ways I’ve seen God’s faithfulness in scripture and in life, I am amazing at trusting Him, and after experiencing the incredible love of this community and the friends I’ve made around town I’m better at asking for help, but I am more often than not bad at both of these things.

            Yet God calls us to depend fully upon him. So this question confronts us, we are asked, time and again – will we trust God with he little things? Will we trust God with the big things? Will we trust God with our finances? Our health? Our friendships and relationships? Will we respond if God calls us to move across the county, across the state, across the country? Across the world?

            As the new year begins – these are the good questions to ask ourselves. Sure, it is good to resolve to lose some weight, to be better with our money in 2020 than in 2019, to spend more time with family or friends, or to delight more deeply in God’s great creation, or whatever resolutions of betterment we have made – but as Christians one of the chief things we need to ask ourselves is are we faithfully trusting the Lord in all of our lives? With every aspect or are these just fanciful ideas in our mind?

            In some ways, I think it is easier to trust God to do big amazing things like moving us into other cultures or across the country or the world, but harder to trust God when we hit a little bump in the road, like a dead alternator.

            I would like to be able to tell you that I handled my little adventure with all the grace in the world, I’d like to say that as the panic swelled in me, I took a deep breath, smiled and said “yes, Lord, I know you’ve got this,” sat back and read my book while I waited for the tow truck. But instead I very much felt the sentiment of St. Theresa of Avail when she penned “Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!”

            Theresa, wrote this pithy little statement after falling into a stream and nearly getting swept away. She complained to God and God’s response to her was “Do not complain, daughter, for it is ever thus that I treat My friends.”

            We want life to be easy, and we want sanctification, that is when our sin, our brokenness, and our struggles are removed to be without a struggle, but it rarely is, in more likelihood, as we grow, we are called all the more to step out in faith, and trust that the Lord is good in the storms, and trials we are faced with, and though he seems to be calling us into something hard, and something mysterious, he is calling us into something good, into deeper intimacy with him, into a life of joy-filled Faith. Such is the case with Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of God who was incarnate in Jesus Christ our Lord.

            In our gospel passage – Joseph the carpenter takes centerstage. We know very little about this man, and if it were not for his position, he would be an unimportant blip in scripture, but we do know that he faithfully set to raising Jesus as his own, in fact later when Christ starts his formal ministry and returns to Nazareth, everyone wonders how this son of a carpenter could presume to teach with such force, and such knowledge.

            We know from when he finds out that his fiancé is with child that he was a righteous man and most likely a kind man. We can only guess what his reaction might have been in finding out that Mary was pregnant. I do not think that it would be farfetched to assume that if he was not righteous and kind, and if the angel had not intervened he would have not only put Mary away he would have put her to public shame, but even here we are forced to hypothesize based on scant evidence from the text and what we know of the culture of the time. But scripture tells us he was righteous, and implies that he was kind.

            It has also been hypothesized that Joseph died sometime between Jesus’ birth and the commencement of Christ’s public ministry. This is because once Christ’s ministry starts we hear nothing of Joseph, though we occasionally hear of Mary, and of Jesus’ siblings.

            The final thing we know about Joseph was that he was obedient to the Lord – obedient to the Lord’s calling in his life. We see this first, when he learns of Mary’s pregnancy, and the angel of the Lord tells him to take Mary as his wife because she had conceived from the Holy Spirit.

            As we consider Joseph, we first must take care not to read the skepticism of our age into the text, but recognize that heaven and earth seemed much closer to the people of Christ’s time than to us. That is to say – miracles happened, it was natural to see God interacting with the world, and prayer worked. Skepticism is such a strong force in our current culture, that we even see it infiltrate the church, and in how we approach scripture, and all of life. We do not imagine that an angel might come to us with instructions, and just as we do not imagine that the flutter on the water is an angel flying over.

I once heard a story of when two of my undergrad professors were out golfing. One was the head of the biology department, and the other a theologian. As they walked along – they saw a ripple across pond, the scientist said, “oh, look a minnow!” I suspect with a bit of excitement. The theologian responded, “yes, perhaps, but it could have been an angel.” In our modern times, we tend to forget how deeply interlaced the world of angels and demons, of the Holy Spirit and our soul, of God and man are and so, though the world may scoff, miracles still happen, and prayers still work, just as powerfully as they did in the time of Christ.

None-the-less, in the world of Christ, the immanence of all this was much more prominent, much more real in the minds of men and women, and so to hear of Joseph’s obedience to the angel is not all that surprising. Yet, it is hard to believe that Joseph was totally calm about the situation he found himself in, for it was  not as though the Lord was calling him to something simple. Still, having experienced the angel of the Lord he faithfully stepped out and cared for Mary well, cared for her as a good husband and soon to be father would.

            Then sometime after the famous registration of the first Christmas Joseph is told to flee to Egypt, by another Angel, for the sake of the new born baby, for Herod sought to kill the child. Again, Joseph forsook his home, and presumably left behind all that he knew and fled to the foreign land as the Lord has commanded him. Again, we can only imagine the fear that he had. It is scary enough to move across country – I can’t imagine running to land with a vicious tyrant at your back who wants to murder the baby in your care.

            And now we meet him yet again. The vignette that we read today is the last time he is mentioned by name as being actively involved  in the life of Christ. Yet – Joseph sets for us a model of faithfulness, a model of trusting the Lord’s calling in our lives.

            He had taken for himself as a wife a woman who was pregnant with child, he lived by faith that as the Lord had said to him the child was conceived of the Holy Spirit and not out of immorality, he had fled to Egypt on the command of the Lord, and now he is returning. Do we have this faithfulness? Are we willing to step out and believe what the Lord has called us to?

            As we think carefully about the passage we read this morning we see that Joseph perfectly blends two amazing things – he was faithful to God’s call and was faithful to the duties that scripture set out for him. We can easily do one of two things – we can know what it means to be a good father, a good mother, a good husband, or a good wife, a good presbyter, a good man, a good woman, or a good Christian – and the spirit will never bend what this is – but we can become so ridged in this calling that we don’t do it out of love, but out of some harsh sense of duty. Or we can become so obsessed with being spirit driven that we lose site of the simple call to obedience to the word of God.

            Joseph does not lose sight of this – No, the Lord tells him to return to the land of Israel and Joseph obediently follows this command. Yet he hears that the child may still be in danger in Judea, and so he goes to where he knows it will be safe.

            We often find ourselves wanting to hear from the Lord all the time on all things, and we can over correct. We can either – become obsessed with this, needing spirit driven answers to every little question – or we can give up, never pray and never ask for the Lord’s guidance.

            A better way is the way of Joseph – know what it means to glorify God in our calling – are we good at math and numbers, then use that to the glory of God! Are we a good writer? A good thinker? Do we play music well? Do we serve our community? Then do those things to the glory of God!

            Scripture outlines perfectly clearly what a good and sound Christian life looks like, so we are called to become saturated with scripture so that we have guidance at all times. One of my favorite prayers is the prayer for Advent 2:

“blessed Lord, who has caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”

            In other words – dear Lord – may your word so saturate our life such that it is our life and love and total strength for us in all things, such that it is our very sustenance and food for living.

            But what of the big choices and crisis that we face in our life? We are called to start with prayer! Back to my thoughts on skepticism of our age – a simpler example of starting with prayer: if we have an ache, a pain, if we don’t feel well, so often the first thing we do is call the doctor. Friends, as Christians the first thing we should do is pray! Yes, call the doctor! Please don’t be one of those folks that forsakes modern medicine, do both! And then the doctor gives you antibiotics and you feel better, give thanks for the skill of the doctor and to the Lord for his faithfulness in healing you! It is not an either or.

            And here is the key: pray always about all things. Pray for the Lord’s guidance through the day, that the Lord would introduce you to the people you need to meet that day, that the Lord would guide you, that the Lord would show you what the day holds.

            Joseph models for us the perfect balance between being completely faithful to the prompting of the spirit and knowing what scripture says our duty is. This is what we are called to in our day in and day out.

            As the new year starts, perhaps a better place to start than the resolution to eat more vegetables, or floss more is to simply ask God to help us all become more faithful, to be more aware of when and how we fail to live in a way that glorifies him, to learn from these times to trust him all the more with every aspect of our lives.

            My friends, we live in a scary and tumultuous world, but we serve a good, and faithful God. When we hear of rumors of war, and of war, of natural disasters, and famine, and when life throws us a curve ball, when we have hardship and heartache, let us not grow despondent but trust that the Lord has all things under control.

            To end my story – I safely made it back to town, because I drive a lot, I have a fairly robust towing plan from AAA, several friends, including several of you offered to help me, and did help me, and all has worked out and on Saturday I drove my little car to Kingman without incident to visit old friends from college who were in Vegas for the weekend. In the end, despite myself, God revealed to me and reminded me of His faithfulness in all things.

            God reveals to us in scripture and throughout our lives, time and again that he is faithful, he is good, he has given us guidance on how to live, and will faithfully provide for us, even when we behave as rambunctious and faithless children. So in this coming year, may we grow to trust in His provision all the more, may we give all things to Him in prayer, may we become all the more saturated in His word, and may we walk with the faith of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of God, Jesus Christ our Lord – in obedience to the word of God, in love for those who are in our lives, and in faithfulness to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

            In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Incarnation is the Reason for the Season

That Low Estate

Hope in the Coming

Rejoice In The Lord, Oh Ye Righteous

A Homily for Advent 3

December 15, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

This past week a beautiful friend of mine went to her eternal rest. I’ve been thinking a lot about her the past few days. She was like very few others I have known in this life. She radiated joy and kindness with the way in which she lived. There are few people who I remember the first time I met them, and yet, my memory of meeting her is vivid and one of my most pleasant, and laughter filled first encounters.

She saw God’s love and proclaimed it gently and kindly to her husband, her children, her family, and her friends in this world that is often wild and unkind.

            Her death, was not a surprise, in many ways it was more surprising that she lived as long as she did, perhaps, this was simply due to the fact that so many held her up in prayer. For several weeks ago she was given two weeks to live, and yet she pressed on, and loved well even in that. But, finally, that awful curse of Adam came for her, and all who loved her, and love her family wept.

Still, as well as she lived, she died equally well.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The death of a saint is one of those odd things, for our lives are richer for having known them, their joy, their kindness, their wisdom, their peace encourages us, calls to us to run harder in the race that is in front of us, to live more boldly for Christ. So, when we finally say good-bye to them, we can’t help but to cry, but there’s a joy too, for we know they’ve been set free from their sin, set free from their bondage, from the pains of this world, and set free from their corrupted body that is breaking down, that they may look forward to the recreated, and renewed body of eternity.

My friend now rests in the glory of God, the glory of God which was lost in the fall. It is this glory that we all look forward to regaining when our race is finally over. But for now:

rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

            I tell you of my friend in the hopes that I may honor her one last time, for she lived a beautiful life, and left behind many whom she touched and blessed, I tell you of her because she did something so few of us are good at doing. In the face of incredible adversity – she rejoiced, for she was righteous in Christ. I know that she was not perfect but Christ resided in her life and in her his love abounded well and few who met her could deny this. I tell you of my friend, because I hope that just as she encouraged me and hundreds of others, that she may encourage you as well.

 

            This Sunday is commonly called Gaudete Sunday, or sometimes Rose Sunday, or if you feel punchy as I sometimes do, pink Sunday, but I think Gaudete is most appropriate. It is named that for the traditionally used introit, or opening Psalm, that is found in many older liturgies. The introit has mostly been replaced with an opening hymn in reformed and more modern liturgies. However, I thought it would be wise if today we read that introit for our Psalm today which starts with Gaudete – or in the English Rejoice,

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

            This command to rejoice stands in sharp contrast to the opening of our gospel lesson in which we learn that John the Baptist is in prison. While there are some who read of John’s request of his disciples not as fear in the face of death, but as equipping them for the trials they will face after their death. It seems like a better reading is that he was wondering, pondering if Jesus really was the Christ.

Remember last week? When we heard of John who jumped for joy in his moth’s womb at the coming of Christ? This is the same John we read of this week as he approach his death. It is the same John who served God, and glorified him in all he did, the same John who pointed to Christ with his whole life. But, now he sends forth the question – are you, are you really him?

The reality is, we can read John’s question in a few ways but we also need to acknowledge the fact that for each of us as we approach the door of death we may have the courage and bravery of so many saints that came before us, or we could feel tremulous and fear, or it could just come for us with a blink of an eye. For me, I pray for bravery, and goodness, and that God would be glorified, just as I pray he is glorified in my life.

As I thought about my friend this week, I thought of the many saints that God has given strength and courage at the eve of their death, the martyrs who went to their death for the sake of Christ, not simply willingly, but joyfully. I thought of a story I once read of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, it is said, dreamt of finally meeting Christ on the eve of his execution and he was emboldened before his death. And yet regardless of how this comes to us the command of this Sunday stands –

rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

I suspect that if Christ had responded to John the Baptist in this way – he would have been as the sad comforter such as Job’s friends. Too often when a beloved one finds themselves in pain we tend to be like Job’s friends. We offer weak sympathy or tell them to buck up.
            God created mankind to be in community with one another. One of the ways in which humanity is truly unique compared to the rest of creation is how this community is manifested in our ability to have advanced communication with one another. Our ability to communicate with syntax, emotion, and nuances is special and unique to humanity.

From time to time we hear of animals doing amazing things. Once, someone taught a primate sign language. He was able to learn a surprising number of words and phrases, yet he could not express his own unique thoughts. On the other hand a child starts to be able to uniquely express herself at a very young age. One of the most amazing things is seeing a young one start to take on their own unique personality.

 We were created to be communicators. Sometimes we do it well, and some times we do it poorly. And this encourages us to:

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous – for God is the good creator.

Yet, this creation – this ability to communicate can be a curse when we are called to comfort, because we so desire to take away the pain of our loved ones, our beloved who struggle. So, often we want to tell them “it’ll be okay,” but maybe it won’t be okay in the way we want it to, maybe it’ll be hard, maybe it’ll be painful. In many cases, we are called to be present, called to simply listen, called to not insert our own opinions and advice, but simply be present.

There is an art to loving well, to knowing when to say words of comfort, when to give advice, and when to say nothing at all. It is often when someone is hurting the most deeply that if we do not take care we can do the most damage.

But, Christ in his divine wisdom knows exactly what to say to John and his disciples. He does not say to them “rejoice,” though it is implied, he says “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, and lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.”

And we are reminded: Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Christ points to the prophets who told of His coming, and says – these things that these men had predicted would happen when I come are happening. There is a power in not simply saying what you want to communicate but telling a story.

I have a friend who is particularly good at this. When talking about struggles, he simply tells a story, and yet that story has the power to evoke thoughts in my mind, or push me to repentance. We see this with David and Nathan as well. Instead of walking into the kings chamber and yelling at him that he had sinned grievously, Nathan tells a simple story. Oh, and how it pushes the king to repentance, how the king sees his own wickedness!

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

We might think, it would have been easier for Christ to have said to his beloved relative “yes! I assure you I am!” But in our tumult, how much more power is it to hear “see this evidence, now be comforted.” Christ knows the words to say and gives John and his disciples the comfort that they need in their darkest hour.

And what is that comfort?

The blind receive their sight – we read of Christ’s ability to heal the physical ailments of those who came to him. Yet – he also heals the spiritual ill. The author of amazing grace captured this when he penned that once “I was blind but now I see.” Outside of Christ, we live in blindness. The great Christmas promise is that of the Gospel according to St. John the Evangelist who wrote that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” When we are in Christ, Christ becomes the light by which we see the world, Christ is the way in which our spiritual blindness is relieved.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The lame walk – we are enlivened for service, not because we are intrinsically good people but because Christ has given us His spirit, because in Christ we are given the ability to walk with God. As humanity lost this privilege in Adam, so we regain it in Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Lepers are cleansed – spiritually we come to Christ tarnished and ill, and Christ cleans us of our sin, cleans us of our past, cleans us of all that has gone wrong in the world that has gone by, cleans us of that which separates us from God’s community and reunites us.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The deaf hear – I was reading about one of the psalms some time ago, and the Psalmist asks God to help him hear his law. I read one commentary that said the word was more than simply help us to hear, but something along the lines of asking God to drill open a hole in order for us to be able to hear him. I appreciate this understanding – because often I feel as though I have a thick skull and it takes God being more aggressive with me than me simply needing a little assistance in hearing Him. Sometimes we need God to drill open holes in our ears so we can hear him better. Yet, in Christ – the spiritually deaf, like me, hear.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The dead are raised – we know of Christ raising Lazarus, and this makes us wonder if there were others who were raised and we do not know. But, regardless, WE are spiritually raised from the dead, and we know on the last day we will enjoy the resurrection. In fact, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, this second resurrection is what gives us hope and helps us to persevere. It is this second, final resurrection in which we can rejoice. We have been given life, and we will be given life.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The poor have good news preached to them – we can over correct in our reading of this and make this strictly a social gospel reading or make it purely spiritual. Instead, I think it better that we make it both – that the spiritual poor are made spiritual rich in Christ, and in this they come to a place where they care for the poor of spirit and poor of material. We are called to care for both, as Christ cared for both.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Christ testified to John the Baptist by showing him is works, the Church testifies to the world, by doing the same. We say, look at all that Christ has done for us – we were blind but now we see, we were lame, but now we walk by faith in the light of Christ, we were spiritually dirty, but Christ has cleansed us, we were deaf but now we hear God’s truth, we were dead in our transgressions but now we live, we were poor, but now we are rich beyond our wildest imaginations. This is what Christ has done for me may that reality be a living testimony.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

And blessed is the one who is not offended by Christ. We are blessed when we proclaim Christ boldly in our lives, we are blessed when we live for Christ and live in Christ. Men and women are blessed when they come to know who Christ truly is, and so we do not become offended by him, but we are called to:

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Then Jesus turns his attention to the crowds and asks them what they went into the wilderness to see – what they thought of John. We can ask the same of why you come to Church on Sunday.

Recently, I have been thinking a fair amount of the entertainment culture in which we live in, and the need for instant gratification, the need to have everything we want now.

On Monday of this past week, I was asked to make a presentation in one of my classes and a part of this – was an intentional call to myself to slow down. Too often I want to build a sky scraper and I want it to be built yesterday. I like the idea of doing grandiose things, so long as these things can be completed in a blink of an eye.

But there’s a goodness in taking time, there’s a goodness in starting a project and trusting that God will see it to the end, even if you can’t see it. Friedrich Nietzsche of all people coined the phrase: A long obedience in the same direction – yet, it succinctly captures our call to the Christian life.

So, the question can be asked – why do you come to church? For some instant comfort? To rub elbows with your friends? To be entertained?

Or to hear Christ proclaimed? To undertake that long, slow, beautiful, good process of sanctification?

We are not called to have everything done immediately, we are not called to provide a cheep comfort, but we are called to grow in Christ, to take a step forward, and when the waves of life knock us down to not be discouraged but to persevere.

We are called to: rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Our reading ends with Christ affirming John the Baptist’s ministry, affirming what John did for the people – he prepared the way for Christ to come in, for Christ to come o heal, and make free those who are oppressed by the world and sin.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh ye Righteous.

The Christian life is called to be a life of Joy – not because life is easier with Christ, but because life has meaning, because Christ has freed us from so much, because Christ has done and is doing a good thing in our life and is preparing us for an eternity spent in the glory of God.

The call of Gaudete Sunday, though it feels jarring against the story of John the Baptist on the eve of his death, and against the reality of the world in which we live in, is a good calling. It is a call to rejoice because Christ has revealed to us who he is. So, let us be a people who are transformed by Christ, let us be a people not prone to grumbly but are prone to joy in the face of adversity. Let us be a people who honor the saints who have gone before us demonstrating the love and joy of Christ, by doing the same.

Let us people a people who rejoice in the Lord, because Christ’s righteousness dwells within us.

IN the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

On The Incarnation

A Homily for Advent 2

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

December 8, 2019

 

Text: Luke 1:26-56

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            One of the things that I truly love about our town are the Christmas time festivities. The city really does pull out all the stops, it is beautiful, and amazing, and we are so fortunate and rich to live in such a place.

            Last night, I stood on the court house square with a handful of friends, and probably several thousand others in the drizzling rain, as a man read the same passage of the Gospels According to St. Luke which we read this morning, the reading last night was intertwined with many of the children from the town singing classic, beautiful Christmas carols.

            This moment stood in stark contrast to two other events this past week. The first was some Christmas movie that I put on the background while I cleaned, to be honest, I can’t remember what it was, or even the plot of the movie, but I remember thinking about the third thing that happened because, although the movie was about Christmas, it had nothing to do with Christ, it had nothing to do with what we will celebrate here in a couple short weeks.

            The other event was more shocking, and more interesting. This past week we had a guest lecturer visit our class who works at a camp, he was discussing the generation that some are calling Generation Z, those young people who are under the age of 20 or so. It seems that at least some consider them to be the first truly-post Christian generation. That does not mean that there aren’t Christian in that generation but it means that the majority of them have never been exposed to any genuine Christian teachings.

One of the litmus tests the lecturer, who was about my age, was giving for this was the fact that he and his peers grew up watching that great Peanuts Christmas Special in which Linus gets up and reads this same passage which was read last night, and again this morning and reminds everyone what Christmas is all about. In this special Linus wraps up with this:

            “For unto you is born this day, in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace good will toward men!’

“… that’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”

            New secular Christmas entertainment now rarely has anything to do with Christ, and the exposure to the gospels is so very limited. However, I do not wish for you to grow despondent. Our reaction can be indignation, or we can have hope. I was talking to a friend about this later on, and we agreed that one of two things may happen – God may kindle in the hearts of the people a spiritual awakening, which will be beautiful and we will get to see, or Jesus may return, which will be beautiful and we will finally be free from our sins – so do not be sorrowful about these things – but pray earnestly for a spiritual awakening, pray that we would love well, even those who are not like us, for the need for healing power of Christ is great.

 

I remember some time ago, I was attending a Bible study at a friends church. My friend was an peaceable chap, but rather more theologically liberal than me. Still, I enjoyed his company, and he was always good for an interesting conversation. I found myself talking to a woman I had never met or seen around. That evening we were discussing the Nicene Creed and out of the blue she said “well, I mean no one actually believes this stuff, it’s just something that’s nice to say.”

I was rather shocked by the statement, I was young, and it was one of the first times I was exposed to someone who flat out denied the creeds of the church. Since then I have heard numerous other stories about this. Perhaps the most shocking stories are that of when progressive ministers retool the story we heard this morning to be about unexpected teenage pregnancy. That some how Mary was fooling around with someone, and became pregnant and then cooked up the story of the virgin birth.

Friends, this is not what is going on here, the text does not support it, we will delve into this a little in a minute, but for now, all you need to know is this type of skeptical approach to the text is not even remotely accurate or true to what is being said.

I want to make a quick side note. While we believe and affirm that traditional sexual ethics are thoroughly biblical and something that we are called to live in, that is to say, sex is only appropriate within the context of a man and a woman who are married, we recognize that this mold gets broken. We know that this isn’t always the case, we know that people make mistakes, get tripped up, stumble and fall. We know, too well that we have all sinned.

Because of the inordinate grace which we experience in Christ for our own sins, we are called to love those people who have struggles, whether their sins are like ours, or different. We are called to love the single mothers, be open, and kind to them, We are called to show Christ’s love in this dark and dying world. This is one of the reasons we support organizations like Community Pregnancy Center that provides a whole plethora of services to women and men who find themselves in such situations. We love and affirm all life, and we desire God world be glorified in all things.

Now back to Mary and back to the skeptics, some have argued that the word used which has traditionally been translated virgin could mean young woman, and they aren’t wrong in this. In fact it does, sometimes, mean a young woman of a marriageable age. However, it does not simply mean that she is of marriageable age, it has specifically to do with the chastity of the young woman, in reality then it means a woman of marriageable age who had never known a man and in reading the whole narrative we can take this word to mean nothing else.

So it is that the text really is talking about a young virgin who had been legally promised in marriage to a man of the house of David, named Joseph.

Now, another objection that occasionally arises is that this story was just stolen from pagan stories, that some how Christ’s miraculous and divine birth comes from those stories of when the pagan gods would come down and reproducing with human women. The most striking difference between these stories and the gospel message is that it in pagan lore it was never viewed as a moral act.

The most interesting example of this was one story which I found early on in preparing this sermon and couldn’t find later was of one of the gods destroying her partner, and then recreated a son for herself out of his parts. I thought it was one of the Egyptian gods, but frustratingly, I was unable to find it. Although this myth is a more extreme example of the pagan god stories, when examined critically, there ends up being almost no comparison between the narrative of the birth of Christ, and the pagan stories.

But here is the important question – does it really matter? Is the virgin birth as big of a deal as we claim that it is, or is it, as some have claimed some superstitious thing that Christians make a big to do about?

Let me give you a spoiler before I unpack it further – yes – it matters tremendously.

One of the interesting things about the Generation Z presentation was that where Modernist might be skeptical about the Virgin Birth or the resurrection, the young people of generation Z seem to be lest skeptical, but more concerned with why it might matter, and so while it is important for our own souls that we understand and accept this, it is equally important for the sake of our witness.

First – the virgin conception of Jesus reveals the incredible uniqueness of Christ, never before, nor since, has a man walked this earth who was conceived of a virgin. Right away we see that this is a truly unique position for this man to be in. We all know how children come into existence and so we know how scandalous this truly is.

Secondly – this conception created a special relationship between God-the-father and Christ, his son. In fact, in our reading this morning you see the entire Trinity already starting to act out its role in the salvific plan for humanity – an Angel was sent from God (the Father), to announce the birth of Jesus (the son), which would be made possible by the Holy Spirit. Each member of the trinity worked in perfect cooperation for Christ to be born,

to live his life without fault in a dark and sinful world,

to die willfully on the cross that sinners such as you and I might have eternal life,

and be raised to new life, that we too could be raised with him on that last day.

Third – Along the same lines, the virgin birth tells us the our salvation is a work of God. I have been contemplating this incredible grace as of late. I don’t believe that I can emphasize this enough: we do not save ourselves, we are not cooperators,

but submitting subjects to our king and Lord in the act of our salvation and the process of our sanctification.

God begins and ends the work in us.

In the same way the virgin birth was a complete work of God. Mary only submitted to His will for her. While some of our beloved friends in other churches believe Mary was somehow sinless as well, this simply cannot be supported in scripture, but rather the virgin birth points to the amazing fact that God, and God alone, did this work.

God started the work of our salvation, and God has completed it.

Fourth – likewise – the virgin conception is a sign that God’s final salvation has come. There had been types and foreshadowing of this coming in the Old Testament, we saw some of them as we did our survey over the last year, but the real and fullest miraculous birth has now happened. Finally, the Christ, the one who would crush the serpents head, the son of Eve had come to set his captive people free.

In fact, we could argue that the birth of John the Baptist was the final miraculous foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. For, like others before, John was born of a mother, who was far too old to conceive, and yet he was conceived. It was after the conception of John that Mary got her own visit from Gabriel, and finally, all that was promised was beginning to be fulfilled.[1]

The final reason the virgin conception is of such importance is that it testifies to the incarnation. This amazing fact that God was made man, that God truly condescended, and lived a perfect, a fully human life – that means – that from the commencement of his gestation to his death and resurrection – he was fully and perfectly human and yet he is God.

I realize that this last sentence may sound overly technical – but it gives me chills for two reasons – first, I spent several years working in animal reproductive sciences, I have watched mice embryos develop from semination, through various cellular stages, there’s something amazing to think that God came and was briefly a sing celled human embryo, and then a two celled, and a four celled, developing as you and I developed in the womb growing and maturing until his birth.

That fact baffles me, the vulnerability, the love, that this act must have taken is staggering and beautiful.

Secondly, we live in a time when those early cells of humanity aren’t considered human, but considered, well simply that, just cells. They can be tossed away as easily as the next thing. Yet, the God incarnate lived each and every gestational moment that you and I lived in our mothers wombs. Surely, this must foster in us an awe of the preciousness of life. If it were not enough that each human being is created in the image of God – the fact that God himself – the second person of the Trinity went through each scientific stage of development should drive us to wonder and respect for the sanctity of life.

Now, I want to read you a section from Knowing God, which we’ve been reading from Christian Education because J.I. Packer summarizes the astounding fact of the incarnation exceedingly eloquently:

“The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man – that the second person of the Godhead became the ‘second man,’ determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human…

“It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ‘the Word became flesh;’ God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.

“ and there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.”[2]

 

No other point of theology within the Christian tradition is as important, is as critical, is as amazing as the incarnation. Packer’s words point us to this, remind us, enliven us, encourage us, and help us to remember that very fact. What we read what was announced this morning to a young, scared girl in Galilee some two-thousand years ago was earth shattering, and altered the direction of humanity forever.

And why does the incarnation matter?

Like all points of theology it is easy to become overly heady, or God forbid become puffed up in our own knowledge, becoming conceited that we know something others don’t. But first and foremost, the incarnation should make us humble. For like the reality of the virgin birth, it points to the fact that it is God that saves, that salvation is not a work of man, it is God who condescended to us, and lived among us, he starts and he ends the work in us. It is not us, but Him alone.

Secondly, the incarnation is a fact spelled out and testified to in scripture. I think we’ve talked about C.S. Lewis’s proof of Christ where he argues that Christ is either “Lord, Lunatic, or Liar.” If we read the Gospel accounts attentively, we realize that Jesus believed he was special, believed that he was in fact God. If you were walking down the street and met someone who believed that he was Lord of the universe – you would be forced to come to one of three conclusions – this man is crazy, this man is not telling us the truth, or this man is telling us the truth, and you are in the presence of someone great.

The evidence with Christ does not point that he is crazy, nor that he is deceptive, therefore Jesus must be Lord, Jesus must be king of kings. The incarnation both makes this all the more believable but this is also testified to by the incarnation.

Third – the fact that Jesus is God incarnation tells us it was God on the cross dying for our sins. The more I’ve contemplated the incarnation these past few days while getting ready for this sermon, the more in awe I am of this incredible fact – and I know I’ve said this at least twice already – but I am simply amazed by salvation, amazed how thoroughly God centered our salvation is – it is not you, nor I that made it possible, but from the very beginning it was God and it is God.

It is God who held himself to the cross on that cross, it wasn’t just a good man, or some excellent teacher like Socrates dying that, it was the incarnate Lord who suffered there for all to see.

Fourth – the resurrection tends to be another one of those modernist hang-ups but if Christ truly was incarnate, then of course he could be raised from the dead, and of course he WOULD be raised from the dead. Because how could the author of life possibly be contained in the grave?

The incarnation testified to the reality of the resurrection, as the resurrection testified to the reality of the incarnation.

The second half of this morning’s lesson ends with incredible joy and praise. Elizabeth, Mary’s older relative now heavy with child, greets Mary with joy for the baby in her womb jumps gladness as even he realizes who he’s in the presence of. Somehow Elizabeth and her unborn child already knows that Jesus is the Lord.

This brings us to one final theological point. Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of her Lord. There was a major Christological controversy in the 5^th century when a theologian objected to the term “Theotokos,” or God-bearer for Mary because he was afraid that this elevated Mary to a position another human shouldn’t hold. Yet, this is what Mary is, she truly is bearing in her womb the incarnate God. Even in this mornings readings we see that Elizabeth recognizes this. It is important we recognize that as Christ is God, and there was never a point where Jesus was not God and with hat in mind Mary can be nothing less than the Theotokos, the God-bearer.

We close the lesson this morning with the hymn which we call the Magnificat. Those who do Evening Prayer at home or join us for Evensong during the week are familiar with this beautiful song of praise. Mary is moved to awe by all she is seeing, and learning, and experiencing the little child growing in her. While the song “Mary Did you Know?” Sometimes seems a little pedantic, and we want to say “of course she knew! The angel told her!” I suspect that this is uncharitable to the song writer. It seems likely that in one sense, of course she knew, but in another – very real sense, it was only slowly sinking in, slowly realizing that something amazing, something so much bigger than her was happening in her womb.

How could she possible know and imagine that she would be the one to tend to, and care for that incarnate Lord who was a vulnerable baby in her womb, who was wrapped in swaddling cloth, who cried when he was hungry, who needed love and nurturing.

How could she possibly realize that in it’s fullness?

I realize – this morning we delved into some pretty deep and profoundly important theology. I hope and pray that I presented it in such a way that it enlivened your hearts, and brought you into a place of incredible awe at the grace of our God, at the tender care he gives his children, at the love that he has poured out for us.

I hope that you have been reminded of this incredible truth of the incarnation that you hearts have been brought to a place of praise that the same Lord who came, who truly lived, who truly died, who truly rose again, and who will return on that last day was conceived of the virgin Mary, and in her womb grew as every child has ever grown and yet he was truly man and fully God.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

[1] Some points taken from class notes, Systematic Theology 2, Steve Tracy.

[2] J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973, 53.

A Homily for 1 Advent 2019

A Homily for 23 Trinity

A Homily for The Sunday Next Before Advent

November 24, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Jeremiah 3:14-18

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            This morning we end our year of studying the Old Testament. I hope and pray that you’ve seen God acting consistently throughout all times, you have seen that it is not as though there is one God in the Old Testament and another in the New, as some have said, but rather that there are two covenants, the first foretelling the second and God’s actions in those are thoroughly consistent. You have seen prophecies about Christ, you have seen types or foreshadows of Christ in some of those who came before him. You have, I pray, seen how important the Old Testament is to the Christian faith.

            After this morning we will shift our focus to the gospel accounts. As we study these, It is my prayer that we will grow in our knowledge of Christ, grow in knowing our prophet, priest, and king, grow in knowing our Lord and savior and draw into a deeper relationship with him.

            This morning we end with the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Our short reading is packed with significance for us as Christians as we enter into the season of Advent, the season of preparing for our coming king, but it is also packed with significance for us as a small but growing church.

            Jeremiah sits at the cusp of the fall of Jerusalem. Someone once told me  if we were to summarize Jeremiah into one sentence it would be “you will be taken but, even in that, God will remain faithful to His people.” The promise to Israel through Jeremiah, isn’t so much that they will be okay – but that God’s judgment will finally fall upon them. However bleak the judgment may seem at that point in time, God is always faithful to His people, His judgement upon His people is always to draw them back, to encourage them to repent and cease trusting in false gods.

            For Israel – and for many people – the temptation seems to be towards idolatry, I have been reading a little bit about idolatry recently and it is interesting both Jewish theologians around Christ’s time and St. Paul saw the same downward spiral in people who committed idolatry – for the Jewish thinkers and teachers the cause was a failure to rationalize ones self to the one true God, for St. Paul it was not a failed intellectual ascent, but God’s judgment upon the idolater.

            Yet, both of them saw the same pattern, idolatry leads to greater and greater sin. So, for the historic nation of Israel in the Old Testament it started with idolatry but then lead into social injustice, lead to treating people poorly, it lead to rampant sexual immorality, and it lead to corruption and wickedness within individuals and within society. For this reason Jeremiah cries out – return, O faithless children! Return to the Lord who is good, who provides, who will care for you and all your needs, return to Him who is your master. 

            This call to repentance is never an allowance or acceptance of their sin, but a reminder of the cost of their depravity, a call to turn away from it. We live in a time and place where it is unseemly to talk about sin, unseemly to call darkness dark. We do no one any favors by pretending that which is wrong is right, though we also must remember that we are all sinners set free by the grace of God. We must call sin what it is – death – but we must do out of love, not out of a sense of self-righteousness, or unkindness. While we call what is wrong – wrong, and what is right – right, let us also be beacons of hope, and healing, for there is a tremendous amount of pain and hopelessness in the world.

            One of my favorite descriptions of repentance comes from the Anglican theologians J.I. Packer – perhaps simply because I enjoy listening to his grandfatherly British accent. In a short video he describes repentance as a turning around. He describes it is as though we are in an army and God has called for an about face march, Packer says, and so we fully turn around and march in the opposite direction. A complete 180 degree turn.

            My friends, repentance is not a slight turning away, or a minor shift in focus. Repentance is not doing less of the thing – repentance is a full turning away from whatever our sin may be – whether it be sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, or things like these.

This list comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians – and there are many like it in his letters. But I wanted to read it, because we will soon see the fruit of this turning away – we will soon see the fruit of residing in the Spirit, but first we must turn away from these works of the flesh and turn back to God.

            The puritan theologian John Owen warns against a works based repentance – he says “all other ways of mortification (that is repentance and fleeing from sin) are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the spirit… mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.”

            Repentance is a part of the Christian life – this is why we have the confession of sins in both Morning and Evening Prayer and as such we are called to repent of our sins daily, this is why the season of Advent and Lent refocus us upon the need for repentance, calling us to seek our hearts to see our own failings. This is why we confess our sins every time we gather together. Repentance is the turning away from death and the turning to life.

            All of that is to say – the unease of our conscience, the uncomfortableness we get when someone talks about a sin we struggle with, all of this is the Holy Spirit urging us to repentance, and it is in trusting Christ, it is in longing more deeply for an intimate relationship with Him, through the Holy Spirit, that we grow and turn and flee from our sin. So, today if you hear God’s voice – calling you to repentance, do not hardness your heart, but cling all the more to Him.

            God is faithful – in the case of Jeremiah – he is faithful to a small number. Think for a moment what the Jeremiah says here – “I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.” He is not taking the whole of the people, but a tiny percentage. A couple from a family, or just one from each city. Of course, we are not meant to read this literally – but throughout scripture, when things get bad, we see a remnant remains. We see a small group remaining faithful to God’s words and promises and no matter what culture says they stand firm, they do not sway.

            Here we get the first part of the lesson for us as a small church – we are not a remnant in Christendom – but we could argue that we are within American Anglicanism. Still the mainline church persists, heading down a more and more wild path of idolatry, and sensuality – and we pray for them. Still, they are large and financially well off. It would be easy to look over and say “ahh, maybe if we capitulated on this or that things would be better.”

            But friends, we are called to stand firm, stand firm in the orthodox Christian faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. As Richard Mullins wrote in his song about the creed – we do not make it but it is what makes us – So, though the world may say over and over again – capitulate! We will do no such thing, rather by the grace of God we will stand for Christ, we will rest in His word, we will proclaim his word. Our goal is not to grow to be some huge cathedral – but rather to remain faithful to the end. By the grace of God may we do that.

            He goes on to promise good shepherds – the description of a good shepherd here is important – we often tend to have a worldly definition of our spiritual leaders. We ask – is he charismatic? Does he speak well? Does he have a great visionary plan for 2020? What is it that God says – the good shepherd is one who is after God’s own heart and he feeds God’s people with knowledge and understanding.

            Christ, of course, was the best shepherd, the true good shepherd. He both followed the model of Psalm 23 – his rod and his staff comforted God’s people – he beat away the wolves with the rod, calling selfish teachers vipers, and pointing out self-righteousness as it occurred. His staff drew in those who had wandered. Not with soft words, but with words of Love, with words that revealed the nature of the heart, called it to repentance and then showed the even greater nature of God’s grace in which those broke by their sin and the cruelty of the world found hope.

            Christ being fully God and fully man had the heart of God, in his humanity he longed for nothing more than to be fully united with God and as such he followed God perfectly in the way in which we faith to do. He is the perfect man after God’s own heart.

            Even secularist see the wisdom of Christ – see that he taught well, even pagans know that he taught as one who had shocking authority – though they wouldn’t use such language. Christ taught with the authority of God that the people would know God, would understand His ways, would grow in His ways, Christ taught them and teaches us to turn away from the world and turn to the kingdom of heaven.

            Likewise, as the body of Christ we all must desire to have God’s own heart. It is critical for our leaders, for myself, the bishops, other priests, and deacons of the Anglican Province of America to long for God’s heart, to prayerfully be men who follow God’s ways and desire what He desires, but it is equally critical for our leaders at All Saints to long for the same thing, we elect godly men and women to our vestry to make critical temporal decisions for the church, and appoint godly leaders for our lay lead ministries. But same is true for each and every one of you – I pray that each individual person at All Saints is growing in this longing, growing in the desire to know God, to know and do His will.

            Therefore, our spiritual food is knowledge and understanding, the spiritual food I hope and pray that I feed you is not fluff, but substantial, that leaves you feeling full, that leaves you in a deeper knowledge of who God is, what he desires for you and all people, and how to walk more intimately with Him. I pray this earnestly for all people, for I am far from perfect, but I hope and pray the Holy Spirit is working in all of you in this.

            Recently, I have been working on eating better. I really like pizza and macaroni and cheese, but in eating the right amount of the right things, like veggies, and not cheese, I have noticed that I have more energy, and I am generally in a better mood. The same in true for our spiritual food – if we eat junk, we will feel the effects of it, if we have a solid diet of spiritual pizza, we will not grow, but if we have a theologically rich and healthy diet – we will grow – we will become stronger for the kingdom – we will have more energy for the sake of Christ.

            Now, the fruit of this growth is this, Jeremiah says, that we will be multiplied, we will grow – but what does this mean?

            It is easy to think – if I remain faithful to God’s word and will, God will bless me with material possessions or in some physical way. That is to say we buy into one form of the prosperity gospel or another – the first fruits of faithfulness to God isn’t getting everything we want – the first fruits of faithfulness to God is getting what we need – spiritual growth.

            I do pray that God continue to add to our numbers at All Saints, I pray that we see more people coming through our doors, I pray that we see men and women’s hearts converted to Christ – but first I pray for you all, I pray that the words I say, the direction I give, the fellowship that is had, the love that is shared between us all – builds you up, calls you all to Christ, deepens your trust in Him. Not because I am brilliant, or we are somehow magical or special, but because we reside in the Holy Spirit and he sanctifies our actions and deeds. To us, in our faithfulness given by the Spirit, God is faithful and he gives us spiritual growth, spiritual multiplication.

            Secondly, and I think we have hit on this a bit already – but we remain faithful to the word of God because God remains faithful to us. God is faithful and good – but it can be tempting in a world of plurality and sensuality to go light, to tickle people’s ears with easy words – to preach a sermon about self-help, give people “ten steps to a better Christian you.” But we have seen the fruit of this moralistic therapeutic deism, and it isn’t good. No, we are called to stay faithful to the word of God, and God will be faithful to us.

            Perhaps, in our faithfulness God will continue to grow His church, and if so, glory to God, or perhaps we will plug along remaining a small church, with a small voice in the community, and if that be God’s will for us – then glory be to God! Let us give glory to God, not by what we can measure in numbers, but by what he is doing in His people’s hearts and life.

            And what of this fruit? What do we pray He is doing in our hearts, and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

            Earlier I read a small portion from Galatians five where St. Paul describes to works of the flesh – he continues, first about these fleshly doings, and then about the fruit of the Spirit, he says, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things (that is the sin list from earlier) will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

            For St. Paul – the Christian life requires a sharp turn away from the ways of the flesh, and towards the way of the Spirit, but we notice – that like what Owen said – this turning away is not one of our own works, but it is one in which we keep in step with the Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives us the growth. As we grow in Christ we put away our fleshly ways, we put away our childish ways, we turn away from those destructive desires that so often held us before we knew Christ, and we keep in step with the spirit. In our Spirit enabled faithfulness, we will see these fruits grow in our hearts and be manifested in our lives – we will see: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Not as ones who are perfect, but as ones whose hearts have already been captured, and look forward to our sanctification and eternal rest in Christ.

            Now we have this peculiar phrase from Jeremiah “they will no more say, ‘the ark of the covenant of the Lord.’”

            Does any one remember the Indian Jones movie series? There was one, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, I believe, where Indian Jones battles Nazis to find the Ark of the Covenant first. In her history Israel makes a mistake and trusts not in God, but in the gift from God. The Covenant, and the ark in which it was kept was a gift from God for his chosen people, and it was a reminder to them when of God’s faithfulness. But at some point they saw whenever they carried the ark into war that they won, and they started to think “ah, well, we have the ark, so we will always be victorious.” The villains in the Indian Jones movie present a perfect representation of the problem. They also thought, “ah-ha, if I have this ark which guaranteed God’s people victory, then we will have victory.”

            The movie is kind of silly – and certainly completely lacking in any semblance of theological soundness and has almost no basis in historical reality – but it does a strangely good job at telling us how easy it is to trust in the gifts God has given us. The power did not lay with the ark, but with God’s faithfulness to His people.

I wonder – is there something in your life – a good gift that God has given you – that you are trusting in? This might be a good thing to pray about this week – especially as we come upon thanksgiving. Ask God if there are areas that you are trusting in His gifts to you, instead of trusting in Him as the author and giver of life, the giver of every good thing.

            If we see that we are trusting in the wrong things – repentance necessary for it isn’t simply turning away from our overtly sinful actions but a turning away from internally sinful actions, turning away from those things that we trust in that aren’t God. As we grow – we will become quicker to recognize those things, and quicker to turn away from them, and turn to God. I pray that we would all be this way. I pray that we would be quick to turn from our sins, and quick to rest in God.

            Now Jeremiah describes a new Jerusalem – we get another description of a New Jerusalem in the Revelation of St. John – which picks up on this theme. The theme of exiles waiting for the return to their home land. For we are all exiles, we are all waiting for the New Heaven and the New Earth. We are waiting for this new Jerusalem – which will be adorn like a bride – the bride for Christ. But the best thing about the new Jerusalem will be this – she, we, her residents will dwell with God!

            No longer will we be separated from God, no longer will our sin and strife be impediments that make such a great chasm – but God will dwell with us, and we with him. For in eternity we will be finally, fully freed from our sins. Finally, we will worship God with every other nation, and people from every other tongue, and how beautiful will that be? How good will that be?

            In these latter days the church has become fragmented, some estimates say there are over 30 thousand denominations and too often these denominations do not get along, and these numbers don’t even include all of the independent churches. God’s vision for his people is quite clear – it is not for a schismatic people, but rather one united people. This vision for unity is part of the reason why we pray for other local, gospel centered churches, as many of them pray for us. This is why on some days you might find me downtown having a cup of coffee with one of the pastors from these other churches. This is why we must be charitable to God’s people and love them well.

            There are reasons I am Anglican – I think Anglican theology is thoroughly biblical, I think it is healthy, right, good, and Biblical to have episcopal oversight of parishes, I think Anglican worship is in line with how the church has worshipped for nearly two-thousand years. I am an Anglican by conviction. But, my dear friend who is a Baptist is so by conviction – for very similar reasons I just mentioned for myself, my dear friends who are Presbyterian or Lutheran, or independent are so for the same reasons. So, we talk about our differences, but we do so in love, and we extend each other charity.  We seek Christian fellowship with other orthodox believers.

            Friends – let us love our brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of what their denominations, or lack there of are, for one day John 17 will come to be, and we will all be one, by the grace of God, in Christ.

            This morning Jeremiah calls the people to repentance – calls God’s people to faithfulness. We saw that God is faithful to his people, we saw God wants to draw us in, and that God will bless our faithfulness. So as we enter this season of Advent next week let us turn from our sins, let us remain faithful, and let us look forward to the day when we will all be one on Christ. For Christ came into the world to save sinners, for Christ came, died, and rose again, and on that great last day He will come again.

            In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A Homily for Trinity 22

A Homily for Trinity XXII

November 17, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Isaiah 66

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            For whatever reason, when I’m thinking about the season of Advent I tend to confuse it with Lent, not anything about the actual season but the words themselves. Perhaps it is because both seasons are purple, perhaps because they rhyme, or perhaps because they are similar in nature. But where in Lent we are repenting and drawing towards our need for our death to self to be reborn in Christ, in Advent we are preparing – preparing to remember Christ’s incarnation, preparing our hearts to be a continual dwelling place for Christ, and preparing with joy-filled expectation for the return of Christ.

            In two weeks we’ll enter into this season of Advent, which in our prayer book and lectionary it starts the new church year. I have often thought of the church year as being a lot like breathing, it provides life to the church but it just sort of happens, and if you don’t pay attention the year goes by without much thought. It is easy enough to sit in the pew and never really notice it. Realistically, there’s not much you need to do about it, just check the calendar and the next day comes. Yet, to cut the church year out, is to lose a beautiful opportunity walk through the life of Christ, to prepare for his birth, remembering his childhood, his ministry, his own preparation for his death, the last supper, his death itself, and his rising again, then we learn again to live as the spirit endowed church, and to look forward to Christ’s return.

The calendar gives the opportunity to reflect Christ’s life, and to meditate upon in. As Advent approaches we look forward to his birth. Yet – we don’t simply look back, as we prepare our mind, souls, and bodies for our celebration of the birth of Christ we also celebrate and recommit ourselves to Christ coming into our lives. Finally, we look forward to the return of Christ.

Last week we asked ourselves the pertinent question – do we long for Christ’s return?

As we read the lessons and come closer to Advent and into the season itself, you will notice that the lessons start to look more and more eagerly forward to this coming of Christ, this completion of the kingdom of heaven, when all will be made right, when “all flesh shall come to worship before (the Lord).” So, this is why we’ve turned our eyes to the prophets in the last few weeks of our year in the Old Testament. This is why each lesson lately seems to be doubling down on the last and drawing us closer to this eager expectation of the return of Christ. This is why we are being reminded again, and again to pray “come Lord Jesus, come.” 

In our Christian sub-culture we don’t often talk about the return of Christ. I think this is another one of those side effects of modernism or perhaps of the abundance in which we live, though I am less sure than on other subjects, but if you think about it, it makes sense. The return of Christ first means a disruption of our modern comforts, and an entrance into something unknown. It is also a stumbling block for the knowledgeable. It is supernatural and as such it does not fit into Bultmann’s schema of demythization.

But the return of Christ has been the hope of the Church since its inception, the return of Christ is the hope and prayer of the martyrs who cry out, “how long oh Lord, how long!” The return of Christ is the hope of all those who suffer for the kingdom’s sake, the return of Christ is the fulfilment of his promise for all those who seek to live the beatitudes, the return of Christ is the hope of the poor in spirit, the persecuted, the humble and humbled, the return of Christ is our hope, and so we join the martyrs in that great pleading song and prayer and ask “how long O Lord, how long.”

And why is that?

This morning we get another vision from Isaiah – Isaiah who has spelled out the things that will happen without repentance, without a turning back to the Lord. But, we read the final chapter, and it ends with a note of hope, a firm note of judgment, and then the end in which all shall be well.

We are first reminded that the Lord is not concerned with the works of our hands, but with the posture of our heart. Let us face the reality, it is far easier to make a haughty building, or a conceited statue, or some proud efface than it is to humble our hearts before the Lord.

There is a goodness in creating beauty to the glory of the Lord. For centuries the Christian church made beautiful cathedrals, and lovely churches that dot European cities and towns. Many of these are marvels of engineering and artistry. All of this stemming out of an age we too often call dark, but this misnomer comes from those who called themselves enlightened. The age was anything but dark.

The medieval period was known for these buildings that were built to the glory of the Lord – but if we read this lesson seriously – should they never have been built? I think it depends on the posture of their heart. Again, and again, the Lord blesses and endorses human creativity that is done to the glory of God, that is done to point mankind’s eyes upward, that reminds us of a greater and more beautiful truth than anything we can find within ourselves.

We need Christian Artists, story tellers, poets, and craftsman that participate in creating this beauty, that point us towards that deeper truth, that don’t create trite and empty fiction, but that speak to the truths of life, of beauty and suffering, of love and heartache, of contentment in our gifts, but excitement for the future. We need creatives to speak to the deeper truths in life.

But the heart of the creative, and all people are to be hearts of humility, we are not to have a heart of pride. It is far easier to create something beautiful and be proud and say “look what I have done with my own hands and my own talent,” than it is to say God has given us the gifts – whether it be a gift with numbers, or words, a paintbrush or potters soil or clay – all our works, whether of hand or mind, all our ability whether it be of strength or thought, and even all our inability, all of it is a gift from God so that we might glorify Him, and have life abundantly.

But what does God prefer? I hope it is becoming clear, does God prefer that we create audacious works of grandeur, puffing ourselves up? Or does God prefer that we remain relatively unknown, slowly fading into the background of life?

If we must choose, choose humility. If we cannot create beauty without becoming proud, then chose humility, your humble life will create more genuine beauty than the greatest artist could ever do with his sculptor’s chisels or painter’s brush.  

And why?

“heaven is (the Lord’s) throne, and earth (his) footstool, all these things (his) hand has made and so all these things came to be!”

My life has been a life of inordinate privilege – I lived along the rocky coast of Maine, I could walk to the ocean in a few minutes and sit on the shoreline and contemplate life. I had a house in the beauty of Appalachia where I could watch the clouds and fog dance around mountain peaks while I sipped my morning coffee. I’ve spent entire summers in national parks, and sought to see the beauty of God’s creative nature. My friends, if you haven’t noticed how profoundly beautiful this created world is – please take a moment this week, drive through our mountains and let your eyes and hearts be filled with awe as you feast upon that beauty. And now think of this – if this earth is only God’s footstool – can you imagine the beauty of God’s heavenly throne? Surely – even our most noble acts of creation will pale and be dull in comparison.

Let us humble our hearts before his heavenly throne, so we will one day know the exulted beauty of Him who made all things – who made the humble ant and the mighty mountain, who designed every bird to fly with perfection and the deer to frolic with grace, who planted the trees, and made dry the deserts, and who stitched together each and everyone us. Oh for the beauty!

 

Here, our lectionary jumps forward to verse ten where God tells us to “rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all  you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her.” Within the literature of the church, it is not uncommon to read these passages metaphorically, looking at Jerusalem as a type of the church – that Jerusalem acts as a prefiguration of the church, and the church as a prefiguration of the New Jerusalem which we look forward to dwelling within.

So, we rejoice, and mourn for the church, mourn when we hear of her sin, and see her suffering, rejoice when we see her victories, when we hear of new people turn away from their sins and coming to Christ. Rejoice when we hear and see Christ’s love poured out from within the spiritual walls of Christ’s body, and mourn when we see her fail or wounded.

And why should we rejoice? The Lord “will extend peace to her like a river.”

It was interesting to me, while visiting Israel earlier – our tour guide, an older Israeli man, noted to us, with a hint of mourning that the name Jerusalem means “the city of peace.” The name had never really occurred to me. There are a couple of these promises in the Old Testament that point to something greater – something deeper than simply a temporal and earthly promise.

The first is the promise that God will put a descendent of David on the throne forever – but the throne is gone, and there is none that are enthroned – except, that is for Christ, who is a descendant of David and his ascended to his rightful throne in heavenly where he will come from to judge the living and the dead and will rightly remain forever.

Another is this promise of peace, this promise that He will rejoice for Jerusalem will be a place of peace.

Our tour guide noted that after World War II and various reorganizations of the land, the UN had hoped that Jerusalem would become an international city, controlled by multiple governments, but we know that didn’t work out. Now, Israel soldiers regularly patrol the streets.

I heard once, and I don’t think this anecdote is true, but it does help us get a deeper understanding, that Israel was once tremendously verdant, but the tromp of soldiers’ boots over the millennium had so worn out the soil that it is now far more arid. I’m not sure that this is the cause for the desert-like ecosystem we now know Israel for, but it does remind us of how conflict ridden that territory has been.

So, is this promise void?

No! absolutely not, rather we are waiting, eagerly and excitedly for the coming of the new heaven and new earth – when all God’s people will dwell in peace in the new Jerusalem, the new city of God’s peace for humanity.

And how will God bring about this radical shift? It will be the day of judgment.

We live in a time when judgment is a dirty word – when we think “how could God possibly be loving and judge. Perhaps, simply because we have all been the victims of unjust judgment, or perhaps because we all know too well how badly it hurts to be told we are wrong.

But, we know we fall dramatically short of the glory of God, dramatically short of that which God calls us to do. We know that there is a little part of us that creates something amazing and we think “man, I’m good,” even if we created it to the glory of God and so in all of this our hearts and consciences condemn us and we dread this idea of judgment.

Yet – it is Christ faithfully dwelling in us that frees us from this judgment, and it is the Holy Spirit that sanctifies us and draws us nearer and nearer to God.

So – God’s judgment frees the faithful to look forward to the future, frees us to empty ourselves of pride, vainglory, arrogance, and all things that condemn us, and allows us to trust in God wholly. At the same time – we know personally, or from watching the world that there is unspeakable evil that lurks and walks through the land. We know that this cannot be how it is supposed to be. It is God’s judgment that will drive that out.

And we know his judgment is not arbitrary or impersonal. Sometime ago I was thinking about karma as opposed to God’s judgment. The judgment we are promised from God is often delayed as we watch the wicked flourish and the just suffer and so we wonder about it, but God’s judgment is right because he knows each and ever person, he knows their hearts, minds, and souls, he knows our motivations, this is confirmed in our reading this morning. Karma, as I understand it, is merely a force, an accountants ledger, if you will, and at the end of the day all things must be balanced out, it is impersonal and uncaring for a force cannot care.

No, I think I prefer the personal judgment of God to something so impersonal. I prefer the sanctifying fires of one who knows my broken and sinful heart and who loves me, to the actions of an ambivalent actuary, or a force that must balance its books. God’s judgment is not arbitrary, but it is thoroughly fair and in that he can make all things right, as only one who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent can. God’s judgment is an act of love and care, not some cosmic balance sheet.

My friends, I hope you’ve seen and understand in all this that God’s judgment is personal, intimate, and most importantly – it is good and right.

Finally, God will make all things new, he promises in the last days that he will restore creation – and give redeemed humanity new heavens and a new earth. The beauty of this new heaven and new earth will be that all will worship God all the time.

Our lesson this morning ends with this poetic statement “from the new moon to new moon, and from the sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.” This promise is echoed in the book of Revelation when St. John tells us that all will confess, and every nation shall come to worship the Lord. Those things that divide us now will no longer, and we will be one people under God, one people walking with the Lord in all things.

I think when we say this – that we will worship God all the time – it is much more than simply what we do on Sunday mornings, though that will be a part of it, but that all our actions will be acts of worship, as we strive to do in the present.

The mystic Julian of Norwich, once on death’s door had an apocalyptic dream which she recorded in her little book “Revelation of Divine Love.” In this comes her famous line, which if you’ve probably heard me say.

She wrote “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This world can be fleeting, scary, and stressful, it can feel overwhelming, but in God’s love – in his apocalyptic and sanctifying fire – in his coming which we look forward to

 – all shall be well – and all manner of things shall be made well.

Let us, therefore, look forward to this, let us be eager for this, let us persevere in all things for Christ’s coming in the last days and the re-creation of the New heavens and the new earth all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.