Right Place, Right Time

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:8-20.

            You know, we’ve gotten so used to the Christmas story as it is that we sometimes forget all the really strange things that went into making it happen.  God actually went to a lot of trouble to make sure the birth of Jesus was no ordinary, common place event.  He was born to a virgin–that, in and of itself, made it unique.  Further, the virgin was, as far as we can tell, just a common, ordinary person, although clearly a person of great faith.  With a soon-to-be husband who was also just a common, ordinary person, although also a person of great faith.  And then, having Jesus is born when this couple is a long way from home, apparently with no one around to help them.  And of course, Jesus is born in a stable, again with no family around, no friends around, just a bunch of animals.

            But none of these unusual circumstances would’ve meant much if nobody knew about them, right?  So, God had to make sure that someone did know about it, and that they would spread the story far and wide.  Enter the shepherds.  The shepherds were the ones who were going to make sure everyone knew about the strange, unusual birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

So the question is, why shepherds?  And why these shepherds?  Why would God choose them as the messengers, as the ones who were going to spread the word about the coming of the Messiah?

            We’ve talked about this before, but shepherds were not exactly among the most respected people in society.  It was a tough job.  You were out in the elements all the time, from the heat of the summer to the cold of the winter, and even though they were in a desert area it still got cold.  You had to be on the lookout constantly, to protect the sheep from wild animals.  You also had to be on the lookout to protect them from thieves and robbers. 

            Being a shepherd was not a highly sought-after position.  Very few kids grew up wanting to be a shepherd.  It was basically a job you took if you could not find a better job.  It was better than being a beggar, but that’s about it.  And these are the people God chose to be the ones who would make sure the story of the birth of Jesus Christ was remembered.

            And the thing is, the Bible gives no indication that these particular shepherds were at all special or unusual in any way.  They do not appear to have been any better than any other shepherds.  They don’t seem to have been any smarter, or any more virtuous, or any more faithful.  In fact, we’re really told nothing about them.  The Bible gives no indication that they were chosen for any specific reason at all, other than the fact that they happened to be close to Bethlehem, close enough that they could get to the stable to see Jesus while he was still lying in the manger.

            So again the question is, why shepherds?  And why these shepherds?  Why were they the ones that were chosen to spread the word about the birth of the Messiah?

           One reason might be their very ordinariness.  They may have been chosen partly because of their low status.  Now, I don’t think it’s true to say, as some do, that Jesus came specifically for the poor and downtrodden.  Jesus came for everybody, from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich.  But I do think God may have wanted to emphasize that “everybody” includes people of low status.

            In the society of Jesus’ time, class and status were incredibly important.  They still have meaning now, too, of course.  But back then it was even more so.  The religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the priests and the teachers of the law--most of them clearly thought that they were better than everyone else, that they were a little closer to God than the rest of the people were.  Shepherds may well have been chosen to be God’s messengers specifically because they had low status.  God may have wanted to make it clear that the Messiah had come to save everyone, not just the wealthy and the religious leaders and the other “respectable” people of the time.

            Another reason shepherds may have been chosen is that they might be more believable, simply because they had nothing to gain by lying about it.  I mean, think about this story they were telling.  “We were out in the field one night, and all of a sudden this angel came and told us the Savior of the world had been born in a barn and was lying in a manger in Bethlehem.  And then a whole host of angels came and sang praises to God.  So we went to Bethlehem and there the Savior was.  He was a baby, and you know what?  He was lying in a manger.  That’s how we saw the Savior of the world”

            I mean, that’s a pretty unbelievable story, right?  How was it going to help the shepherds any to make up a story like that?  What possible motive could they have? 

Now, if one of the Pharisees or the chief priests had told a story like that, you could see where he might have made it up.  He might be trying to gain status, telling people that an angel had talked to him.  He might be trying to get people to think of him as a prophet or something.  It would seem like having something like this happen to a Pharisee or a chief priest would definitely help advance their career.

But shepherds?  How was it going to help shepherds to make up a story like this?  It was not going to make people think better of them.  It was not going to help them get better jobs or more money.  In fact, they were risking ridicule by telling this story.  “An angel came to you?  The heavenly host appeared to you?  Have you been getting into the wineskins or something?”  The shepherds had absolutely nothing to gain by making a story like this up.  The only reason they would tell it is if it was true.

            Another reason why shepherds may have been chosen is that shepherds, by the nature of their work, traveled a lot.  They were constantly on the move, looking for green pastures.  After all, again, a lot of this was desert country.  There was not a lot of good grass around.  So, because shepherds traveled, they would go to different towns and see different people.  And that would give them more chances to tell their story, to spread the word about the birth of the divine Savior, Jesus Christ.

            Those are all reasons God might have chosen shepherds.  But as for why these particular shepherds, I really don’t think we can even speculate.  Again, we are told nothing about them.  We don’t even know their names. 

As far as we can tell, there is no specific reason these shepherds were chosen.  There may have been, but if there was, the Bible gives us no indication of it.  As far as we can tell, they were simply in the right place at the right time.

I wonder if the shepherds ever thought about it.  It seems like they must have.  Surely they must have thought, “Why us?  Why would God choose us to be the ones to be the first ones, other than his parents, to see the Savior of the World on earth?”

If they did, I don’t suppose they ever came up with much of an answer.  But even so, they did not let that stop them.  The one thing we know about those shepherds is that they did what God wanted them to do.  They went to Bethlehem and saw the baby.  Then they went and spread the word.  They spread the word so well that we still know the story over two thousand years later.  For whatever reason, God had chosen them to do this, and they did not let God down.

God has chosen you to do something, too.  Maybe you know what it is.  Maybe you don’t, yet.  Maybe you know what it is, but you’re hesitant to do it.  Maybe you’re thinking, “But I’m nobody special.  I’m just a common, ordinary person.  There’s no reason for God to choose me.  I’m not smarter than anyone else.  I’m not more virtuous than anyone else.  I’m not more faithful than anyone else.  Why would God choose me?  Why me?”

Maybe, at some point, you’ll come up with an answer.  Or, maybe you won’t.  Maybe there isn’t a good answer.  Maybe, like the shepherds, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.  But the thing is, that’s not the question.  The question is not “Why you?”  The question is, “What are you going to do about it?”  And of course, I need to ask that question of myself, too.  What am I going to do about it?

Are we going to shirk our responsibility?  Are we going to come up with excuses?  Or are we going to do what God wants us to do?  Are we going to follow God, and trust God, even if we don’t understand “Why me?”

The shepherds, as far as we can tell, never did understand why they were chosen.  But they did not let that stop them.  They did what God wanted them to do.  They did not let God down.

Will you?  Will I?

 

Faith Takes Courage

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, December 26, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 2:1-18.

It’s the day after Christmas.  We’ve opened the presents.  We’ve had some good meals.  We’ve enjoyed some time with family and friends.  At this time of year, we want to enjoy the afterglow.  And part of that is to hear a nice, warm, fuzzy Christmas story.

The trouble is that the time right after the first Christmas was not nice, or warm, or fuzzy.  It was a bad time, a dangerous time.  Really, an evil time.  And we hear about that in our Bible reading today, the story of the wise men. 

The magi–the wise men–are one of the staples of the Christmas story.  Every nativity scene has them in it.  And yet we really know almost nothing about them.  This story, from the gospel of Matthew, is the only time they are mentioned in the Bible at all.

            We don’t know where they came from, other than “the east”.  We don’t know how many of them there were–we traditionally have three of them in the nativity scene, but the Bible does not say there were three of them.  It just says that they left three gifts–gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  

            They knew that the star they had seen was a sign that the King of the Jews had been born.  But they clearly did not know exactly where that would be.  They came to Jerusalem and asked around.  Eventually, word got to Herod of these wise men asking about a king of the Jews, and Herod, after consultation with the chief priests, is the one who actually told the wise men to go to Bethlehem.  One wonders if, without Herod, the wise men would have even found the Savior.

            They did, of course.  And they worshiped him, and they left the gifts.  Herod had wanted them to come back to him after they found the Savior, but an angel told them not to do that, so they went back home.  And we never hear about the wise men again.

            And a lot of times, that’s where we leave the story.  We don’t want to deal with what comes next.  Because what comes next is Joseph, Mary and Jesus on the run.  They are trying to escape Herod, because Herod wants to kill Jesus.  And just to make sure he gets Jesus, Herod orders the death of every male child in and around Bethlehem who was two years old or younger.

            We’re not going to put that in the kids’ Christmas program, are we?  Think what a terrible thing that would be.  You’re at home with your family.  You have a young son, a baby, maybe a toddler.  Just a typical day, a day to be with the ones you love.  

Then you hear some sort of commotion outside.  It gets louder, nearer.  Shouting.  Crying.  Destruction.  You wonder what in the world could be happening.  You wonder if you should look out to see what’s going on, if you should hide, if you should run.  You don’t know what to do.  Suddenly, there’s a crash.  Roman soldiers have broken down your door.  They don’t say a word.  You stand there, frozen.  They find your son.  They take him.  And they kill him.  And then they leave, moving on to the next house.  The whole thing takes about two minutes.

Can you imagine what that would be like?  The mix of emotions.  The anger.  The guilt.  The wondering why.  The complete irrationality of what just happened.  And overriding all of that, the incredible sense of grief over what just happened.

But as with all stories in the Bible, a question we need to ask is:  Why is this in the Bible?  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning whether it actually happened.  But there are lots of things that happened during Jesus’ life that the Bible does not tell us about.  In fact, we have only one story about him from the time he was a baby until the time he started his ministry when he was about thirty.  So apart from just historical accuracy, why is this story in the Bible?  Why did Matthew, under the divine inspiration of God, decide we need to know about it?  What is it that we’re supposed to learn from this story?

Well, there are probably a lot of things we could learn.  One of them is that God was there to protect Jesus and his family.  God made sure the wise men did not tell Herod where Jesus was.  God made sure Joseph knew to take his family and get out of Bethlehem before the Roman soldiers came.  God made sure that His divine Son would live and be able to fulfill the mission He had been sent to earth for.

But God did not protect the other children in Bethlehem.  Why not?  Why did God allow these other children to be killed?  Why did God not do something to stop it?

It seems like it would’ve been simple to stop it, especially when you’re God.  For one thing, if the wise men had not gone to Jerusalem and asked about the birth of the King of the Jews, Herod would never even have known about it.  Why not keep them from going there?  Why not send an angel to let the wise men know where Jesus was?  Or why not send angels to the other families in town, like God did for Joseph, to tell them to get out of town, too?  Or why not do something to keep the soldiers from going to Bethlehem?  There had to be dozens of ways God could’ve prevented this from happening.

The Bible tells us this was to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy, so in one way that’s an answer, but it still kind of begs the question, right?  The Old Testament prophecy came from God.  God could’ve had the prophecy be different, and have it fulfilled in a different way.  Again, God could’ve prevented this.  And God did not.

One thing this story shows us, I think, is the powerful presence of evil in our world.  Because that’s what this is, right?  Complete, total evil.  I mean, wanting to kill just one young boy would be evil.  Killing all boys two years old or younger, just to make sure you kill the one you want to kill–that’s hard to even imagine.  It’s hard to even comprehend the thought process that would make someone do that.  But the way it sounds, Herod had absolutely no hesitancy in doing this.  

It also shows how easy it is for a powerful person to get others to go along with evil.  Because the way it sounds, nobody who was close to Herod questioned what Herod was doing.  Now, it’s possible that someone did, because the Bible does not specifically say they did not.  But we don’t read of anyone who said “Hey, Herod, this is not right.  You should not be doing this.  It’s just wrong to kill these little boys, no matter what your reason is.”

Would it have taken courage to do that?  Yes, it would.  It would have taken a lot of courage.  If someone had stood up to Herod, Herod could easily have had them killed, too.  And the way it sounds, Herod would not even have thought twice about doing it.

And maybe that’s one of the most important lessons we can take from this story.  It takes courage to be a Christian.  It takes courage to stand up for our faith.  It takes courage to say, hey, this is wrong.  We should not do this.  We cannot do this.

And that courage is not just involved when we’re talking to people in power.  For most of us, that won’t happen very often.  Courage is also when we’re in a group, and someone says something or does something that we know is not right.  Peer pressure is not just something that affects kids, you know.  It affects adults, too.  We all want to be liked.  We all want to have friends.  It takes courage to say, hey, we should not be doing this.  We should not be talking badly about this person.  We should not be spreading gossip about people.  It’s not easy to do that, especially when we’re in a group of people we consider our friends.  It takes courage to stand up for our faith in those situations.

But of course, standing up for our faith does not always involve stopping things.  Sometimes it involves starting things.  Sometimes, standing up for our faith takes the courage to say, hey, we should do this.  We should be helping this person.  We should be praying for these people.  We should talk about Jesus when we’re out in public.  Not only should we do those things, we need to do those things.  But sometimes, those are things a lot of people don’t want to do.  Sometimes they’re things we, ourselves, don’t want to do.  It takes courage to say, hey, we need to do them, even if we’d rather not, because these are the things Jesus wants us to do.

Maybe you have that courage.  Maybe you’ve shown that courage.  Maybe you show it every day.  It’s not my job to judge you.  I just know that I do not show that courage nearly as often as I should.  It’s something I need to work on and pray about.  And I suspect I’m not the only one.

Evil is a powerful presence in the world, and it takes lots of forms.  Some of them are big, and some of them are small.  Standing up to it takes courage.  With God’s help, may we all have the courage to stand up for our Christian faith, no matter what the consequences may be.

 

God Will See You Through

The message from the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:1-7.

            What we read this evening was the part of the story of the first Christmas Eve.  At the time, of course, no one knew it was Christmas Eve.  Nobody knew it was anything.  It was just another day, a day just like any other day, as far as anyone knew.

            Now for Mary and Joseph, it was not just another day.  It was the day their baby, their first child, was going to be born.  And you know, it’s interesting, considering how big Christmas is for us today, that the Bible really does not make a big deal out of it.  The gospels of Mark and John don’t even deal with it.  We don’t get any of Jesus’ birth story there.  Matthew just deals with it very briefly, about eight verses.  Luke is the only one of the gospel writers that goes into any detail at all about that first Christmas.  And when you really look at this story, you realize that there are a lot of things about it that we don’t know.  There are also some things we think we know that the Bible does not actually say.

            We know that Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem shortly before Jesus was born.  That was a trip of about seventy or eighty miles.  It’s estimated that it would’ve taken them at least four days, on foot, to make that trip.  Of course, Mary was not far from giving birth, so she may have needed to rest more frequently, which would’ve made the trip longer.  We always illustrate their trip with Mary riding a donkey, but the Bible does not mention a donkey.  For all we know, Mary and Joseph may have both walked all the way, carrying whatever provisions they could.

            The Bible does not say anything about whether they were traveling with anyone or if they were on their own.  It makes sense that there might have been some others there.  The road from Nazareth to Bethlehem was a dangerous one, with both wild animals and human criminals lying in wait for travelers.  There’d be safety in numbers.  Besides, Mary and Joseph cannot have been the only ones who had to travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, for the census.  It seems like there would have to have been some others.  If so, they probably would’ve traveled together.

            We always imagine Jesus’ birth as having come the first night after Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem.  And that may be how it worked out, but the Bible does not say so.  Luke simply says, “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.”  They may have already been in Bethlehem for a while, we don’t know.  We don’t know that Jesus was born at night, either.  We know the angel appeared the shepherds at night, but that does not necessarily mean the baby was born then.  

The chances are that Joseph and Mary were not the only ones who could not find a room, either.  Bethlehem was a small town.  And of course, back then there was no such thing as a hotel the way we think of them now.  There were people who had a few rooms they would rent out.  There probably were not a whole lot of rooms available under the best circumstances, and of course there was no way for people to call ahead and make a reservation.  I would imagine there were lots of other people who took whatever shelter they could find.  Some probably could not find any, and simply had to camp out in the open.  Joseph and Mary may have been among the lucky ones, really.  At least they had shelter.

            So why am I going through all this?  Well, a couple of reasons.  One of them is to just make the point that when we read the Bible, we need to be a little bit careful.  There are a lot of times when we assume things that the Bible does not actually say.  Sometimes our assumptions may be justified, but sometimes they’re not.  And when they’re not, when we start thinking that the Bible says things it does not actually say, we can run into trouble.  And I’ve been guilty of that, too, sometimes.  I’m trying to get better about it, but it’s something most of us do sometimes.  And it’s a trap, because it can lead us to think we’re following God’s word when we’re not.

            But the other point is one we’ve made before.  When we read these stories in the Bible, we need to not get bogged down in all the little details.  Instead, we need to always keep a few questions in mind.  Why is this story in the Bible?  What am I supposed to learn from it?  What does this story teach me about God and about faith in Jesus Christ?

            So, what do you think the answers are?  Because this story could easily have been left out of the Bible.  As I said, Mark and John do leave it out.  Matthew deals with it very briefly.  So why is the story of Jesus’ birth in the Bible?  What are we supposed to learn from it?  What does this story teach us about God and about faith in Jesus Christ?

            I’m sure I don’t have the whole answer.  But here’s what I think is at least part of the answer.

            Jesus truly was born as a human being.  He was not an angel.  He was not a supernatural being.  Yes, he had some special powers as the divine Son of God, but he was also fully human.  And he was not born to wealthy people living in a palace.  He was not born to people who were important or well-known or special.  He was born to ordinary people, who lived ordinary lives.  And in fact, he was born in conditions that were not very pleasant at all.

            Why is that important?  Because all this tells us one thing about Jesus Christ:  he understands.  He knows what it’s like to leave as a human being.  He knows what it’s like to live an ordinary human life.  He knows what it’s like to have to work hard.  He knows what it’s like to have to struggle.  He knows what it’s like to be a kid.  He knows what it’s like to be an adolescent.  He knows what it’s like to be an adult.  Jesus knows what all of that is like, because he experienced it himself.  Jesus understands the things we go through as human beings.

            And because Jesus was human, Jesus also understands our emotions.  He understands our feelings.  He knows what it’s like to be angry or frustrated.  He knows what it’s like to be depressed.  He knows what it’s like to feel alone.  He also knows what it’s like to be happy.  He knows what it’s like to feel love.  He knows what it’s like to be happy or sad, to laugh or to cry.  Jesus knows all those things, because he went through them all himself.  Jesus understands everything we feel as human beings.

            And because Jesus understands that, we know that God understands it, too.  Because Jesus is God--God the Son.  Anything Jesus knows, God knows.  Anything Jesus understands, God understands.  So whatever you’re going through, know that God understands it.

            But why is that important?  I mean, it’s nice, I guess.  It’s nice to know that God understands what we’re going through.  But how does that help?  How does God’s understanding change anything?  After all, we still have to go through what we’re going through.  What difference does God understanding it make?

            Well, in a sense, we all have to answer that question for ourselves.  Because what our answer is depends on how we see God and on how much faith we have in God.  If we think God really does not care about us much, if we think God just sits in heaven observing things and not doing anything about them, if we think God is not involved in our day-to-day lives, then it probably makes no difference at all.  We’ll still think we have to get through whatever we’re going through on our own.

            But if we believe that God does care about us, if we believe that God loves us, and if we believe that God does get involved in our day-to-day lives, then it makes all the difference in the world.  It does not mean that God will magically take us out of tough situations and solve all our problems.  But it does mean that, whatever we’re going through, we can count on God to help us get through it.  God will help us get through and God will see us through to the other side.  It’s like what it says in the Twenty-third Psalm.  “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”  God does not promise to keep us out of the dark valleys.  God just promises to be with us when we’re in those dark valleys and help us get through them into the light.

            We think, now, that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are supposed to be days of joy.  But they were not completely days of joy for Joseph and Mary.  Yes, I’m sure they were happy that their son was born and that he was okay, but the circumstances of Jesus’ birth were not exactly what first-time parents would have in mind.

            Joseph and Mary went through some tough times.  What we read today was only part of it.  But through all their tough times, they knew that God was with them.  They knew God would help them get through their tough times, and that God would ultimately bring them into the light.  And God will do that for you and me, too.

            I hope this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are days of joy for you.  But if they’re not, know that God understands.  Know that God will be there for you.  And know that, whatever you may be going through, God will see you through it.

 

The Light

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, December 19, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 9:2-7.

            In our reading for today, Isaiah says, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.”

            Some of us have heard those words before.  And we’re familiar with the phrase, “Jesus is the light of the world.”  Jesus referred to himself that way.  In John Chapter Eight, verse twelve, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

            We’ve heard these things, but I don’t know if we really think about them.  And even if we do think about them, we don’t necessarily relate to them the way people did in Jesus’ time.

            We live in a world where we don’t have that much darkness.  I mean, yes, the sun goes down around five o’clock, and some of don’t like that.  The development of electricity changed everything in regard to darkness, at least in a physical sense.  We all have plenty of light in our homes.  You go outside and you see streetlights.  Even out in the country, every farm has security lights.  The only way we’re going to be in physical darkness is when we choose to be.

            Or unless the power goes out.  Our world looks completely different when that happens, right?  I remember a time when we lived in Wessington Springs, and the power was out for about four days.  You’d go uptown at night, and it looked completely different.  You could see stars you’d never seen before.  They jumped out at you.  It was an amazing sight.

            But even then, those stars, and the moon, provided some light.  Imagine being in total darkness.  Wanda and I did experience that, too, during that power outage–at the time we lived in a basement apartment with no windows.  When you’re in total darkness, you really appreciate light.  Any kind of light.  A flashlight.  A candle.  A match.  Anything.  The smallest light seems huge when you’re in total darkness.

            But there’s another kind of darkness, too.  And some of us have experienced that kind of darkness.  I’m talking about a spiritual darkness.  I’m talking about an emotional darkness.  I’m talking about feeling like everything is wrong, and it will never be right again.  I’m talking about a feeling of hopelessness.  I’m talking about a feeling of despair.  “Despair” is not a word we use a lot in conversation, but it’s a feeling that things are bad and there is zero chance that they will ever get better.  Not a small chance, but no chance.  Things are bad, they’re going to get worse, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.

            I know there are people in our parish who have been there.  It’s an awful feeling.  It’s about as awful a feeling as there could ever be.  To be completely without hope.  To feel that things are miserable and always will be miserable.  There’s no chance that they will ever be better.  That’s really living in total darkness.

            When you’re in that kind of darkness, you’re desperate for a light.  Any light.  Any hope.  Anything that can give you some reason to think that maybe, possibly, there is a chance that things can get better.  Anything, even the smallest light, that might help you believe that there is a way out of the darkness.

            Isaiah tells us that God provides us that way out.  But that way out is not some small, little light.  Isaiah describes it as a “great light”.  It is a beacon, shining the way.  It’s the light of Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

            And the thing is, it’s a permanent light.  That light, the light of Jesus Christ, will never go out.  Many people have tried.  Throughout history, over and over again, various groups have tried to put out the light of Jesus Christ.  And they’re still trying.  In fact, Satan himself is trying.  But none of them has succeeded.  None of them ever will succeed.  The combined forces of darkness cannot succeed against the light that is Jesus Christ.

            But here’s the thing.  When we’re living in emotional darkness, when we’re living in spiritual darkness, it can be hard to see the light.  And it can be hard to trust the light.  Even a great light.  Even a light as bright as the sun.  When you’ve been in darkness, that kind of light can even be scary.

            Maybe that idea sounds strange to you.  After all, I just said that when you’re in darkness you’re desperate for a light, and now I’m saying that when you’re in darkness light can be scary.  But both can be true.

            When you’re in darkness, well, you kind of get used to it.  Not that you like it, but–it starts to seem normal to you.  It’s just the way things are.  It seems like it’s the way things are supposed to be.  And so, when the light comes–can I trust that?  It’s different.  It’s strange.  It’s unusual.  Most of us are resistant to change, even positive change.  The darkness, even though it’s not good, is something you’re used to.  You know how to handle that, how to deal with it.  The light–well, what’s that?  What’s it going to lead me to?  You want to get out of the darkness and into the light, you really do.  It’s just–you’ve been disappointed too many times.  You’ve thought you were finding light, only to find yourself plunged into darkness again.  And so, again, when the true light comes–you’re hesitant.  You’re unsure.  You’re afraid to trust it, because you might be disappointed and plunged into darkness again.

            And that’s where the rest of us, the people who say we’re followers of Jesus, come into it.  I said earlier that Jesus called himself the light of the world, and that’s exactly true.  But Jesus made a few statements about the light of the world.  In John, Chapter Nine, verse five, Jesus says, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  But Jesus knew he would not be in the world forever.  He knew the time was coming when he would go back to heaven.  And so, Jesus also said this in Matthew Chapter Five, verse fourteen.  Jesus said to his followers, “You are the light of the world.”

            Jesus came to be the light.  The true light that gives light to everyone, as the Apostle John puts it.  But you and I, as Jesus representatives, need to be that light, too.  We need to be the light of the world.  Not that we can be Jesus–there is only one Savior, only one Messiah, only one divine Son of God.  But you and I are called by Jesus to be the smaller lights.  Lights that reflect that great light.  

We need to go to people who are in darkness.  We need to shine the light of Jesus on those people.  We need to show them the true light, the light of Christ.  We need to let them know they can trust that light.  We need to show them that the light of Christ will never let them down.  We need to do everything we can, by word and by deed, to let people know that they don’t need to be scared of the light of Christ.  That light is a light they can trust.  That light is a light they can count on.  It is a great light, not just because it is a bright light, but because it is a good light, a noble light.  It is the light of love, and that love will never let them down.  That’s the message you and I, as followers of Jesus, need to give to people who are in darkness.

That’s the job Jesus gave us to do, not just at Christmastime but always.  It’s not an easy job, sometimes.  But here’s the thing–we don’t do it alone.  Jesus said that when he went back to heaven, God’s Holy Spirit would come.  And God’s Holy Spirit would teach us, and lead us, and guide us.  God’s Holy Spirit will show us where to go and tell us what to say and do.

If we had to do this ourselves, we never could.  But we don’t.  All we need to do is to do our part.  God will accomplish the rest.  As Isaiah says, “the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

And that’s a good thing.  Because we don’t want people to follow us.  We don’t want people following our lesser lights.  We want people to follow the great light, just as we follow the great light.  The light of Christ.  A light that will never go out or even grow dim.  A light that will always lead us out of the darkness and into salvation and eternal life.

“On those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”  May each of us see the light of Christ.  May each of us trust the light of Christ.  May each of us follow the light of Christ.  And may each of us do whatever we can to share that light with others.  May the whole world live in the light of Christ, not just at Christmas, but always.

 

The Good and the Bad

Hope and Trust

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Zephaniah 3:14-20.

            God decided to send the Savior into the world a little over two thousand years ago.  Did you ever wonder why God chose that particular time to send the Savior?

We’re not told--the Bible does not say why God chose that particular time.  We assume God must have had reasons.  I don’t think God ever does anything for no reason, and God certainly would not have let the coming of the Savior be done at random.  There must have been some way in which the conditions were just right for the Savior to come into the world at that specific time.

I’m sure God took all kinds of things into consideration in making the decision to send the Savior to the world right then.  But it seems to me that one of the things God took into consideration had to be that the world would be ready for the Savior.  In other words, there had to be a significant number of people who would be willing to accept a Savior when He came.  Not everyone, of course.  Everyone did not accept Jesus then, just as everyone does not accept Jesus now.  But a significant number.  Enough to be able to spread the word about Jesus, and to continue to spread the word after Jesus went back to heaven.

And one of the things necessary for people to be willing to accept a Savior, would seem to be that people knew they needed a Savior.  And maybe we think, well, everyone should know they need a Savior, but if we think about it, we know that’s not true.  There are plenty of people today who don’t realize they need a Savior.  That’s probably always been the case in human history.

How do you make sure people know they need a Savior?  By letting some things go wrong.  Maybe letting a lot of things go wrong.  And that’s what God did.  Israel was allowed to be taken over by other countries.  So was Judah.  They were allowed to be subject to oppressive political leaders and systems.  Their economy went bad.  They were sent into exile.  All kinds of bad things happened to God’s people, the people of Israel and Judah.

Now, understand, I’m not saying God deliberately caused bad things to happen.  What I think God did is make the people of Israel and Judah to deal with the consequences of what they’d done.  They’d abandoned God.  They’d chased after other gods.  They thought they did not need God anymore.  They became arrogant.  And their arrogance, and their abandonment of God, caused them to make mistakes.  Their political opponents took advantage of their arrogance and their mistakes, and a lot of bad things happened as a result.

When these bad things happened, people reacted.  At first, they did not understand.  But God spoke to them through the Old Testament prophets.  God explained why things had happened as they had.  But, God said, things will not be like this forever.  There will come a day when things change.  God wanted them to know that, as bad as their situation was, it was not hopeless.  In fact, with God, our situations are never hopeless.  God is hope, just as surely as God is love.

God, speaking through Zephaniah, tells the people better days are coming.  There will be a day when the people of Israel and Judah sing and shout.  God will take away their punishment and turn back their enemies.  The Lord is described as a mighty warrior, and God, speaking through Zephaniah, tells people what that mighty warrior will do.

God will “deal with all who oppressed you”.  God will rescue the lame.  Gather the exiles.  Gather them and bring them home.  God will “restore your very fortunes before your eyes.”

That had to all sound good to the people of Israel and Judah.  But the thing is, God never said when God was going to do all this.  In our reading for tonight, we keep reading phrases like “on that day” and “at that time”.  But God never said when “that day” or “that time” were going to be.  

God made a promise to the people of Israel and Judah--but God did not say when that promise would be fulfilled.  God gave them no idea about that.  It might be soon, it might be a long time in the future.  It might be in their time, it might be in their great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren’s time.  Or later.  They had no way to know.

God gave them hope.  God gave them hope that things would not always be the way there were at that time.  God gave them hope--God gave them a promise--that things would get better.  But that’s all God gave them.  I’m sure people wanted things to get better right now--we all want things to get better right now--but that’s not how it had to happen.  They had to wait.  They had to hold onto that hope, and that promise, and wait.

But it was not just a matter of waiting.  It was a matter of trusting.  Trusting not only that God would keep God’s promise, but a trusting that God would keep it at the right time.  Again, I’m sure people wanted God to keep that promise right now.  I’m sure they did not understand why God was not keeping God’s promise right now.  But when God did not act right now, they needed to trust that whatever time God chose to keep God’s promise would be the right time, even if they did not understand.

That’s when we find out whether we really have faith in God--when we keep trusting God even when we don’t understand.  When we continue to believe God will keep God’s promises even when God does not act when we want God to act.  When we continue to trust that whatever time God chooses to act will be the right time, even when it seems to us that the right time is now.

A lot of us look around at our world now, and we see a lot of things going wrong.  And please, don’t take that in a political sense.  No matter what our political beliefs are, we can all agree that there are a lot of things going on in the world that don’t seem right.  And we wonder why God is not doing something about that.  We wonder why God is letting things be as they are, and in fact why God seems to be letting things get worse.  A lot of people are praying to God, asking God to do something, but God does not seem to be doing anything.  We wonder why not.

And I wonder, too.  And I cannot give you the answer–I don’t claim to know the mind of God.  But I think two things are possible.  Well, there are probably more than two things that are possible, but two that came to my mind.  One is that, just as with the coming of Jesus, God is getting us ready.  Maybe God is waiting to act until people are ready to recognize that it is God that’s acting.  Again, I’m not saying God is causing the bad things to happen.  But God may be allowing them to happen so that we will realize that we need God to act, and that the only way things will get better is when God acts.

Another possibility, of course, is that God is acting now, and we just don’t see it.  God may be doing all kinds of things right now that we’re not aware of.  After all, think about what happened when Jesus came to earth on that first Christmas night.  How many people knew what was happening?  Mary and Joseph, of course.  Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth.  The wise men.  Herod, once the wise men told him.  The shepherds, on the night that it happened.

And that’s it.  That’s the list.  How many people is that?  Ten?  Twenty?  Out of the hundreds of millions of people living on earth two thousand years ago, these few people, not even a handful of people, knew what was happening.  Those few people were the only ones who knew that the Savior of the world was being born.

For all we know, something similar may be happening now.  Not the Savior coming to earth again–the Bible makes it pretty clear that when Jesus comes again, he’s going to come in glory and everyone’s going to know about it.  But God may have started something that’s going to be huge, momentous, world-changing, and we just don’t know about it yet.  And we may not know about it for some time yet.  But eventually, we will know.  Everyone will know.  And it will be awesome.

Until that happens, remember this:  God never acts at random.  God has reasons for everything that God does.  We may not know the reasons, we may never understand the reasons, but God has them.  That’s true of the times God acts, and it’s true of the times God waits to act.  

God acted to bring the Savior to the world at just the right time.  God acts in our world at just the right time.  God acts in our lives at just the right time, too.  And God will send the Savior back to the world at just the right time.  That’s the promise we have from God.  That’s the hope we have from God.  Hold onto that promise.  Hold onto that hope.  Wait.  And Trust.  God is always faithful.

 

The Fruit of Repentance

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 3:1-18.

            John the Baptist is one of my favorite Bible characters.  He plays a very important part in the story of Jesus, and yet, we know very little about him.

            We’re told John’s birth story in Luke Chapter One, how he was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Zechariah was a priest.  Elizabeth, his wife, was a relative of Mary, Jesus’ mother.  We’re told that the angel Gabriel visited Mary in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, so we assume John must have been about six months older than Jesus.  We’re told that, shortly after Gabriel’s visit to Mary, Mary went to visit Elizabeth, and that John the Baptist “leaped for joy” in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greeted her.

            And then we hear nothing more about John until he received a call from God in our reading for tonight.  We’re told that “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”

            I never thought about this before.  We know that, when he was baptizing people and preaching about repentance, John was out in the wilderness.  But John apparently was already in the wilderness before that.  The word of God came to John while he was already in the wilderness.

            I wonder what he was doing there.  Was John one of these guys who just enjoyed living off the land, eating whatever plants he could find and whatever animals he could kill?  Was he out there on some sort of religious experience, fasting and praying?  Did John deliberately go into the wilderness, hoping to receive a word from God?  

            We have no way to know.  We’re not told why John was out there, but he was there.  And he received the word of God there.  

            And it was quite a word.  John was to be the one the prophet Isaiah had talked about.  He was the one who was going to prepare the way for the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

            That’s a big job, you know?  I mean, it would be an honor to be called to do something like that, of course.  But--just exactly how do you do that?  How do you prepare people for the coming of the Savior?  And what if you mess it up?  What if you don’t do it right?  What’s going to happen if people are not, in fact, prepared for the coming of the Savior?

            Did John ask about stuff like that?  When the word of God came, did the word tell John how to do this?  Did the word fill John with confidence that he could?  We don’t know.  What we do know is that he went out and did it.  From his place in the wilderness, John started preparing the way for the coming of the Savior.  And we’re told he did that by “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

            And we’ll get back to that, but again, I’m just fascinated by the person of John and how all this actually worked.  Did people know who John was?  Did they recognize him as the son of Zechariah the Priest?  Did they remember the remarkable circumstances of his birth, how John’s birth had been foretold by an angel, how Zechariah was unable to speak from the time the angel spoke to him until John was born, how Elizabeth was past her childbearing years and yet still gave birth?  Did all that give John credibility, so that people believed him?

            And how did John get started?  I mean, yes, John was to be a voice crying in the wilderness, as Isaiah had prophesied, but he could not have just stood out there in the wilderness with no one around.  Somehow, John had to go to where some people were, or get them to come to him.  I mean, yes, once he got rolling, people came out to the Jordan to be baptized by him.  But that had to start somehow.  Who were the first people to come out to him?  And how did they learn about him and know to go out there?

            We’re not told any of that.  All we know is that, somehow, John attracted a following.  And again, he did so by “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

            We know that, as the Apostle Paul said, we are all sinners.  We don’t like to think about that, sometimes, but we know it’s true.  And we know that we need to ask God for forgiveness of our sins.

            But too often, we stop there.  We ask God for forgiveness, we assume that, because God loves us, God will forgive us, and we go on our way.  Asking God for forgiveness is a good first step, but that’s all it is, a first step.  We need to do more than that.

            And that’s what John the Baptist told people.  He told them--and us--that it’s not enough to just ask for forgiveness of our sins.  We need to repent of them.  We need to change.  And our lives need to show that we’ve repented.  Our lives need to show that we’ve changed.  As John puts it, you and I need to “produce fruit in keeping with [our] repentance.”

            And that’s where it gets tricky.  Because the fact is that most of us--including me--don’t really want to change our lives.  Most of us are pretty happy with our lives the way they are.  And even if we’re not all that happy with our lives, well, we’re used to them.  Our life may not be perfect, but it’s comfortable.  We know how to handle it.  We know how to deal with it.  If we really change our lives, if we really decide to produce fruit in keeping with our repentance, well, we don’t know where that will lead.  And it scares us.

            I wonder if it scared John the Baptist.  Again, we don’t know what his life was like before he received the word of God.  But I’m pretty sure that, whatever it was like, receiving the word of God changed it.  Once he heard that word, his life was not easy at all.  He ate locusts and wild honey.  He wore clothing made of camel’s hair.  And he also got into a lot of trouble.  He got on the wrong side of Herod, who had him thrown in prison and eventually had him killed.  John the Baptist lived his faith.  It may have scared him to do that--we don’t know--but he did it anyway.  If he was scared, the Lord was able to help him overcome his fear.  He followed the word of God he received, even to his death.

            It’s okay if changing our lives scares us.  It’s okay if we’re hesitant.  But God wants to help us overcome our fear.  God wants us to receive His word, too.  No matter what the consequences of following might be.  As John said, we need to show fruit in keeping with our repentance.  If our lives don’t show that fruit, can we truly say that we’ve repented?

            This is important.  Because listen to what John says is going to happen when the Savior comes:  “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

            That sounds like there’s no middle ground.  That sounds like our half-way measures are not good enough.  We need to truly repent, and our lives need to show that we’ve truly repented.

            Now, I do want to make one thing clear.  I am not saying that we need to be good so we can earn our way into heaven.  We don’t earn our way into heaven.  We never could.  We could never be good enough to earn our way into heaven.  

            What I am saying, and what I think John was saying, is that we are called to repent of our sins.  And if we truly have repented, our lives should show that we have repented.  If we have, then we’re part of the wheat the Lord will gather into the barn.  But if we’re not, we may be part of the chaff that is burned in the fire.

            Asking for forgiveness is easy.  Anyone can do that.  But truly repenting of our sins, truly changing our lives, truly showing that fruit that’s in keeping with our repentance, that’s hard.  

            But this is advent.  This is the time when we prepare for the coming of the Savior.  We need to prepare for Jesus’ second coming just as much as John the Baptist needed to prepare people for that first coming.  And our preparation needs to include repentance, just as it did for the people preparing for Jesus’ first coming.

            So let’s look at our lives.  Let’s see if our lives, as they are, “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”  And if they don’t, let’s open our hearts to God.  Let’s ask God to help us produce that fruit.  Let’s do what we can to make sure we’re the wheat, and not the chaff.  Let’s be the people God wants us to be.

 

Joy--If We Believe

The Sunday morning sermon in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Malachi 3:1-7.

            We think of the birth of the Savior as an incredibly joyful event.  After all, the angel said to the shepherds, “I bring you good tidings of great joy.”  One of our favorite Christmas hymns, which we’re going to sing at the end of the service, is “Joy to the World”.  Another hymn, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, has the chorus “tidings of comfort and joy”.  Next week’s advent candle is considered the candle of joy.  Joy is a constant theme running through the Christmas story.

            And of course, it is a joyous event.  It is God--God the Son--coming to earth in the form of a human being.  And not just in the form of a human being--God the Son, Jesus Christ, actually was fully human.  He was fully divine, too, of course, even while He was on earth, but while He was on earth Jesus felt all the things we feel.  Joy was one of those things.  But also pain.  Hunger.  Loneliness.  But also friendship and love.  Jesus felt everything that a human being can feel, because again, He was fully human while He was on earth.  What an incredible thing for God to do.

            And of course, the greatest joy of all is what God the Son came here to do.  He came here to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.  And because Jesus took that punishment for us, we don’t have to take it for ourselves.  You and I can avoid that punishment, if we just believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Not only can we avoid punishment, but if we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, we can have salvation and eternal life with God in heaven.  It does not get any more joyous than that.

            But there’s that word in there--”If”.  “If we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior”.  That’s a choice each of us will have to make--whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  If we do, the birth of the Savior is, indeed, a cause for incredible joy.  But if we don’t, the birth of the Savior is not a cause for joy at all.  It does nothing for us.  If we don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior, we are not saved from anything.  We will have to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.

            In our Bible reading for today, the prophet Malachi tells us that the Savior is coming.  But, he asks, “Who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?”

Malachi goes on to say that the Savior will come as a fire, refining and purifying.  Think about what happens in the process of refining and purifying.  That which is not pure is destroyed, right?  It’s taken away.  Now, if you’re the part that’s pure, that’s great news.  The pure becomes even more pure.  But if you’re the part that’s not pure, if you’re one of the impurities, it’s not good news at all.  The impurities are lost.  They’re burned up.  There’s no second chance for them.

            Malachi says that’s how it’s going to be.  We will either be refined or burned.  We’ll either be purified or destroyed.  There’s no middle ground.  There’s no second chance.  When the Savior comes, we go one way or the other.  Period.

            Does that sound harsh?  Maybe it does.  A lot of us don’t like it.  Maybe you don’t like it.  I cannot say that I particularly like it, myself.  I don’t like to think of anyone losing their chance for salvation.  I don’t like to think of anyone missing out on eternal life in heaven.  And if you take the concept of hell seriously, you would never want anyone to go there.  The whole concept is one that a lot of us don’t like at all.

            And so, a lot of people try to find ways around it.  They say, well, but God is love.  God loves everyone.  A loving God would never let anyone go to hell.  Besides, when Jesus came, he threw out all that Old Testament stuff about judgment.  We’re not under the law anymore, we’re under grace.  And grace applies to everyone, because God’s love applies to everyone.  So we don’t have to worry about all that judgment stuff.  God is love, and love always wins in the end.

            That sounds nice.  It sounds plausible.  It’s what we’d like to believe.  And so, a lot of us do believe it, because we all have a tendency to believe what we want to believe.  I’d like to believe it, too.  But I cannot and do not believe it, because it’s not what the Bible says.  It’s also not what Jesus said.

            In Matthew Chapter Three, we read about John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus.  And he describes Jesus in similar words to those of Malachi.  He says that Jesus will “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  Again, as Malachi said, it’s either one or the other.  Either we’re part of the wheat that’s gathered into the barn, or we’re part of the chaff that’s burned up.  No middle ground.  No second chances.  When the Savior comes, we either go one way or the other.  Period.

            You know, we love to quote John Three, Sixteen:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  A great verse.  I love it, too.   I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with loving it.  And sometimes we go on to quote the next verse, John Three, Seventeen:  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  Another great verse.  I love that one, too.  And again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with loving it.

            But the thing is, we like to stop there.  Jesus did not stop there.  Here’s the next verse, John Three, Eighteen:  “Whoever believes is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

            Jesus does not say everyone goes to heaven.  Jesus does not say he came to save everyone.  What he says is that he came to give everyone the chance to be saved.  If we believe in him, we shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.  If we do not believe, we are condemned.  Not because Jesus condemned us, but because we were already condemned through our unbelief.

            All of us--each and everyone--deserves to be condemned, because we are all sinners.  But Jesus came to give us the chance to avoid that condemnation.  If we believe in Him, we can avoid the condemnation we deserve.  In fact, we do more than avoid condemnation, we receive salvation and eternal life.  But if we do not believe, we receive the condemnation we deserve.  Not because God does not love us.  But because we failed to accept the way to salvation that God offered us through the life and death of Jesus Christ.

            I hope that everyone hearing my voice today believes in Jesus Christ.  I hope everyone hearing my voice today will not perish, but will have eternal life.  If there’s anyone who does not believe, please let me know so we can talk about it.  

            But even if everyone hearing my voice does believe, we know there are people in our community who do not.  We don’t like to talk about that.  We don’t like to think about that.  But we know it’s true.  It may be people we know personally, or it may not.  But out of this many people, we know there are some who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  That means there are some people in our community who will perish, and who will not have eternal life.

            That’s a sad thing.  It makes me sad, thinking about that.  It probably makes you sad, too.  I’m sure it also makes God sad.  But the question is, are we just going to be sad?  Or are we going to try to do something about it?

            Now, we obviously cannot force people to believe in Jesus.  But there are things we can do.  We can let people know what we believe.  We can let people know why we believe it.  We can let people know the difference our belief has made in our lives.  We can live our lives in such a way that shows the difference our belief has made in our lives.

            Not only can we do those things, we need to do those things.  Partly because Jesus told us to--Jesus told us to go and make disciples.  But also because it’s a way of showing love.  

            A lot of times we don’t think of it that way.  When we say we need to show love to people, we think of things like giving to missions, or helping out the food pantry, or even working on a project to help someone in need.  And don’t get me wrong, those are all good things to do.  And there are a lot of other good things we can do.  But that sort of thing, as good as it is, only helps people while they’re on earth.  And our time on earth, even if we live a long time, is short.  It’s certainly short compared to eternity.  So, as good as those things are, the best way we can show love to someone is to do whatever we can to help people believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  The best way we can show love to someone is to help people have salvation and eternal life.

            For believers, the birth of the Savior is an incredibly joyful event.  We want it to be a joyful event for everyone.  So let’s do what we can to help everyone believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Then, the birth of the Savior can be “tidings of great joy”.  Not just for us, but for everyone.