Have you ever had someone tell
you they had a surprise for you? And you
wondered what it was, and they would not tell you, but they told you it was
something you were going to really like.
And so all kinds of thoughts went through your head as to what it might
be. And you keep asking about it, and
they give you a few hints, but nothing more.
And so you keep speculating as to what it might be. And time goes on, and your speculations get
bigger, and they get grander. And you
can hardly wait to get this wonderful surprise you’ve been promised.
And then the day comes!
And you finally get your awesome surprise! And—it’s not really what you expected. In fact, it’s nothing like you expected. In fact, you’re not really sure what to make
of it. I mean, it’s nice and all. But it’s really not the kind of thing you
were thinking it would be.
Our Bible reading for today is an Old Testament prophecy
about the coming of Jesus. It’s one of
several prophecies in the Old Testament that said a King, a Savior, a Messiah,
was going to be born. The people of
Israel knew all those prophecies. They’d
believed in them for hundreds of years.
But if you look at it, those prophecies really only kind of gave hints
about who this Savior was going to be.
They talked about how the Savior was going to be born of
a virgin, how he would be born in Bethlehem, and how he would be a descendant
of King David. And, of course, we talked about how each one of those
prophecies came true. But none of that
tells anything about the person himself. Just who was this Savior going
to be? What’s this Savior going to do? Well, save people, I
suppose, that’s why he’s called a savior, but how? How are we going to be
saved? What does it even mean to say we’re going to be saved? Saved
from what?
Look
at what our reading from Isaiah today tells us. The Savior is going to
lead people out of the darkness and into the light. The Savior is going
to take away our burdens, shatter them. The Savior will govern over
everyone and bring peace. And there will be no end to his governing or to
the peace he’s going to bring. He will reign with justice and righteousness
forever.
And the people of Israel heard that, and no one had a clue what it really
meant. You cannot blame them, really. After all, the only frame of
reference they had for interpreting this was human rulers and human
governments. They heard about a person who was going to reign on David’s
throne, a person who would govern and bring justice and peace, and they got
excited. And they started speculating
about this, and as time went on their speculations got bigger and grander. They assumed this Savior would be someone who
was going to take over on earth. They assumed this would be an earthly
king who would take over, wipe out the bad guys, put Israel back in control of
the Promised Land, and make everything the way it should be on earth. And they could hardly wait to get that
wonderful Savior they’d been promised.
An earthly Savior was not just the kind of Savior they expected, it was the
kind of Savior they wanted. And again, it’s hard to blame them. These
Old Testament prophecies of a Savior came when the Nation of Israel was in
trouble, about to be taken over by a foreign country or to be sent into exile
or something. When you’re in that kind of trouble, what do you
want? What do you look for? You look for some kind of a leader who
can save you, someone who can take care of you. You look for someone who
can defeat the enemy, put things right, and solve all your problems, someone
who will usher in a new Golden Age of prosperity and peace and justice.
That’s what the people of Israel wanted the Savior to be.
And sometimes, that’s still what we want the Savior to be. We look at the
world, and there’s a whole lot of stuff going on, stuff that does not seem
right to us. We look at the country, and
we see all kinds of arguments, a lot of anger, sometimes turning violent. We look at our area, and see all kinds of
problems in agriculture, with some crops from last year still out in the field. We even see a lot of trouble within the
United Methodist church right now—not this particular church, but the church as
a whole.
And a lot of times, what we really want is a Savior to come along and take care
of the trouble. We want a Savior who will come along and defeat the
enemy, whatever we think the enemy happens to be. We want someone who can
make everything right, someone who can solve all the problems and user in a new
Golden Age of prosperity and peace and justice for our country. Sometimes
that’s who we want our Savior to be, too.
But that’s not who the Savior is. At least not now. The Bible tells
us that Jesus is going to come again, and at that point there will be a day of
judgment. There will, eventually, be the coming of the new earth and the New
Jerusalem and everything will be as it should be. The Savior will do
that, someday. But not now. For right now, that’s not who the
Savior is.
When Jesus came, he was not who the people of Israel assumed he would be.
And he was not who the people of Israel wanted him to be. And so, when he
came, a lot of the people of Israel missed it. They looked somewhere else
for the Savior, not even noticing that the Savior they had been looking for all
these centuries was right there with them. That’s a really sad thing,
when you think about it.
But you know, even the people who were there with Jesus, and recognized him as
the Savior, missed it in a way, too. Because even though they believed in
Jesus as the Savior, they still were trying to make Jesus into the Savior they
wanted him to be, rather than the Savior he was. They kept trying to make
him fight, to make him take power. James and John asked Jesus to seat
them at his right and left when he took control. When Jesus told his
disciples that he was about to be arrested, the disciples looked around for
swords to fight back with. Some people think one of the reasons Judas
betrayed Jesus was to try to force Jesus to use his power to defeat their
enemies and take power on earth. They kept trying to make Jesus into the
Savior they wanted him to be, rather than the Savior he came to be, the Savior
he was.
And we still, too often, try to make Jesus into the Savior we want him to be,
rather than the Savior he came to be. We want Jesus to take power on
earth, to make everything the way we think it’s supposed to be. But
that’s not who Jesus is. That’s who Satan wanted him to be.
Remember, that was the biggest temptation Jesus faced in the wilderness, the
temptation to take power on earth. And Jesus refused.
Jesus could’ve
taken power that way. Jesus could’ve raised an army, taken power, and
ruled on earth. Or, really, Jesus would not have needed to raise an
army. He probably could’ve just commanded and everyone would’ve had no
choice but to obey. But if he had done that, Jesus would’ve taken power
by brute force. And that’s not the kind of Savior Jesus is.
I think one of reasons why that’s not the kind of Savior Jesus is, is that the
most important thing to Jesus is love. Jesus came to earth and lived
among us out of love. Jesus said the most important commandments are to
love God and love others. Jesus died for the forgiveness out of
sins. Jesus is a Savior of love.
And brute force cannot result in love. It can result in fear. It
can result in obedience. But it cannot result in love. In fact, it
results in the exact opposite. It’s pretty hard to truly love someone we
fear. And when we’re forced to do things against our will and without
choice, we usually will come to resent whoever it is that’s forcing us to do
it. And the first chance we get, we rebel. Brute force can require
obedience, but it cannot result in love.
Jesus
is the Prince of Peace. That’s what Isaiah called him, and that’s what he
was and what he is. And brute force cannot result in peace. Only
love can.
So that’s how
Jesus takes power—through love. Jesus takes power through loving
us. Jesus takes power by loving us so much that he died so our sins would
be forgiven. And Jesus takes power when we open our hearts to him.
Jesus takes power when the Holy Spirit fills our hearts. Jesus takes
power when we feel his love and return his love and share his love with others.
That’s the
kind of power Jesus wants—power over our hearts. And that’s how Jesus saves us—when we give
him that power. When we give Jesus power
over our hearts, we’re saved from fear.
We’re saved from worry. We’re
saved from anxiety. We’re saved from
selfishness and greed. That’s not to say
bad things won’t happen to us sometimes—those things are still part of life. But when we give Jesus power over our hearts,
we’re saved. We know that no matter what
happens, God will be with us and God will see us through it. We’re saved.
Saved for a life of love in this world, and saved for eternal life and
eternal love in heaven.
The Savior who
came was not the Savior the people of Israel wanted. And sometimes
he’s not the Savior we want, either. He’s better. He’s
not a Savior through the power of force. He’s a Savior through the
power of love. And there will never be anything stronger than the
power of Jesus’ love.
No comments:
Post a Comment