What Greatness Is

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday night, January 12, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Mark 9:30-37.

            Jesus was called a lot of things while he was on this earth.  He was called Rabbi, he was called Immanuel, God with us, he often called himself Son of Man.  But one of the things he was often called was “Teacher”.

            That is, of course, one of the reasons Jesus came to earth--to teach us.  It’s not the only reason, obviously.  Jesus came to save us from having to take the punishment for our sins.  But Jesus also came to teach us.  He taught us with words and He taught us by his example.  Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever walked on the earth.

            One of the things about being a teacher—and if you’ve ever tried to teach anyone anything you know this—one of the things about being a teacher is that a teacher has to have a ton of patience.  A teacher has to go over stuff, and then go over it again, and then go over it again.  A teacher has to present the same stuff in different ways, at different times, hoping desperately that one of these approaches will get through and the student will finally get it.  And then, just when the teacher thinks maybe the student really is starting to get it, the student does something or says something and the teacher’s heart just sinks, because the teacher knows the student still really does not have a clue.  It takes a ton of patience to be a teacher.

            I suspect that sort of thing happened to Jesus a lot.  He’d tell the disciples something, and then he’d tell them again, and then he’d show them, and then he’d go over it one more time just to make sure, and he’d think they were getting it, and then they’d do something or say something that showed that they were nowhere near getting it.  It had to be very frustrating for the divine Teacher to have to work with students as dull as the disciples.

            Our reading today described one of those times.  It starts with the disciples having an argument.  Now, that in and of itself is not so bad.  Even the best of friends will get into an argument once in a while.  But here, we’re told that the disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest.

            When Jesus found that out, he must have just shaken his head.  Of all the things for Jesus’ disciples to argue about.  He’d told them so many times about needing to be servants.  He’d told them so many times about how they needed to be humble and how they needed to put others ahead of themselves.  And there they are, arguing about which one of them is the greatest.

            But, Jesus was a teacher.  He had patience.  And so, Jesus tries to teach them again.  He tells them, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

            And then, the way this is written, you can just see Jesus thinking, “Telling these guys is not going to be enough.  I have to show them.  I have to give them an illustration, or an example, or something.”  So, he takes a little kid who’s there, he picks him up and he says to the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

            We’re not told how the disciples reacted to that.  Mark leaves the story there and moves on to talk about something else.  Did they get it, do you think?  Do you think this time they really understood what Jesus was telling them?  For that matter, do we?

            We understand that Jesus tells us to be humble.  But there’s more to it than that.  Let’s think about this for a minute.

What are little children?  Little children, by definition, are people who can do nothing for you.  I mean, that’s not their fault.  They cannot help being little kids.  They’ll grow, and they’ll learn, and they’ll be able to do stuff.  But a little kid, one or two or three years old, cannot do anything for you.  I mean, yes, we can get love and affection from them, and that can make us feel good.  But from a practical, real-world standpoint, a little kid cannot do anything for you.  There’s no advantage to be gained by being kind to a little kid.  They cannot help you financially, they cannot help you socially, they cannot help you accomplish anything.  And this was especially true in the society in which Jesus lived, where little kids were not considered of any value at all until they got old enough to work.

            So, when we welcome a child, when we’re kind to a child, when we help a child, we’re doing something for someone who cannot return the favor.  We’re acting with no selfish motives whatsoever.  We’re acting simply and purely out of selflessness and love.

            That’s what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples to do.  It’s what he tells us to do, too.  To act with no selfish motives.  To do things for people with no thought about whether they can do anything for us.  To act simply and purely out of selflessness and love.

            But Jesus does not just leave it there.  He goes on to say, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.”

            When we see a little child, we are seeing Jesus.  When we look into the face of a little child, we’re looking into Jesus’ face.

            Now some of you, if you have to deal with little kids every day, may be a little skeptical of this.  Because we all know that little kids do not always appear to us to be like Jesus.  Little kids don’t always do what they’re told.  Little kids misbehave sometimes.  In fact, sometimes little kids can get into big trouble.

            But you know, that might not be so unlike Jesus after all.  You know, Jesus was a little kid once, too.  We’re not told much about what Jesus was like when he was a little kid, but I would not be surprised if, when he was two or three years old, Jesus did not always do what Joseph and Mary told him to.  I would not be surprised if Jesus misbehaved sometimes.  I’m not saying Jesus sinned, because he was the divine Son of God, but a two- or three-year-old kid misbehaving is not sinning.  They’re just doing what two- or three-year-old kids do.  

            Jesus said that when we do something for a little kid, we’re doing it for him.  But that’s not all.  Jesus went on to say that we’re not just doing it for him.  When we do something for a little kid, we’re also doing it for God the Father.

            That’s pretty awesome, because you know, it usually seems like there’s really nothing we can do for God.  I mean, God is all-powerful.  God is all-mighty.  God sees everything and knows everything and can do anything.  What can we do for God?

            Well, this is what we can do for God.  Love people.  Especially love people who cannot do anything for us in return.  That’s how we do something for God.  

Yes, God can love them, too, and God does, but God asks us to love them as well.  And when you think about it in this context, this is an honor from God.  We are given the honor of being allowed to do something for God.  God could do it without us, but God chooses to do it with us.  That’s a privilege!  That’s an honor!  The all-powerful, all-mighty God who sees everything and knows everything and can do anything allows us to do this for God.  That’s an awesome thing, when you think about it.  God does not need our help, but God allows us to help.  What an incredible honor that is.  

The disciples wanted to become great.  And Jesus said yes, you can become great.  Here’s how.  You can become great by taking advantage of the opportunity God gives you to serve God by loving the people God created.  And you can especially become great by loving the people God created who cannot do anything for you in return.  Those are the people God especially wants you to love and to help and to welcome among you.  Jesus said, whenever you do that, you’re doing it for me.  And when you do it for me, you’re doing it for God the Father, too.

We don’t know how the disciples reacted.  Maybe, this time, they finally got it.  More likely, they again did not understand.  Or, if they did understand, it was just for a little while, and then they went back to being who they were before.  Because that’s what usually happened with the disciples.  No matter how many times the Teacher tried to explain things to them, they never really seemed to understand.

And so often, we don’t understand, either.  But the Teacher keeps working with us, just like he worked with the disciples.  We’re allowed to read and re-read the Bible, so that eventually we can get the message.  And the Holy Spirit works on our hearts, too, so that we truly can understand and be changed people, God’s people, people who accept the honor of doing things for God the Son and for God the Father.

When we look into the face of someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re looking into the face of God.  When we do something for someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re doing something for God.  When we love someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re loving God.  And when we do that, then we truly become great in the eyes of God.

A Poem About Greatness

When I was a kid I used to dream

About becoming a famous person

An actor, a comic, a dancer, a singer,

An athlete (although that was less certain)

I’d dream of being on the Tonight Show

Being interviewed by Johnny Carson

Telling him about my latest show

I was sure I would be a star soon

As I got older my dreams made some changes

Just as they usually do

But I still had hopes of being great at something

Though what wasn’t always in view

And I got older still and I understood

That greatness would not be my fate

I might get good, or at least half-way decent

But I would certainly never be great

But then I looked at what Jesus said

And my thoughts about greatness changed

They no longer were about fortune or fame

My ideas became rearranged

Jesus said greatness is found in service

Of putting others before yourself

The way to be first is to put yourself last

That’s where we find the true wealth

I’m not saying I’ve done that yet

I still have a long way to go

But I’ve made a start, and I sometimes succeed

And maybe I can make that start grow

I’ll keep working on it, and I might get better

I don’t know if I’ll ever be best

But I’ll ask for God’s help and I’ll do what I can

And trust God to take care of the rest

Spirit Happens

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, January 12, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 3:13-17.

One of the best things I get to do as a pastor--maybe the best thing I get to do--is to do baptisms.  I really love to do baptisms.  I’ve done them for people everywhere from a month old to eighty-four years old.  I’ve done baptisms in filled churches and I’ve done baptisms where there were just a few people there.  And no matter how many people are there, and no matter what the circumstances are, a baptism is always a special and wonderful thing.  In fact, I can honestly say that every time I’ve done a baptism, I’ve felt the presence of God.  

Now don’t take that the wrong way.  I don’t mean that to be arrogant statement at all.  God does not show up because of anything I do.  In fact, the first time I did a baptism, I really felt like kind of a fraud.  I mean, there I was pouring out some water and reading some words and then putting a little of that water on someone’s head, and I thought something was going to happen because of that?  Who did I think I was?  

And yet, somehow, despite all my flaws, and in also despite the fact that in that first baptism I really was not too sure what I was doing or if I was going to do it right, I still felt the presence of God.  God was there, not because of me, but in spite of me.  God was there because showing up for a Christian baptism is what God does.

            In our Bible reading for today, we learn about Jesus’ baptism.  And that was a special and wonderful thing, too.  And obviously, God was present there, and everyone there felt God’s presence.  So let’s take a look at it.

            John the Baptist was out by the Jordan River.  He was baptizing people.  In fact, he had baptized lots of people before Jesus came to the river.  I mean, obviously:  that’s why he was called John the Baptist.  John had attracted quite a following with his baptisms.  He was pretty well-known in the area at the time.  People from all over were coming to see him.

            And you know, he was kind of a sight to see.  If you remember the description of John the Baptist, he’s a guy who’s living out in the wilderness, wearing clothes made of camel’s hair, eating locusts.  Saying things like, “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.”  Telling people they needed to repent and be baptized so their sins could be forgiven.

            He was a sight to see, but people clearly did not just come to see the show.  Somehow, this strange dude with the funny clothes and weird diet was really effective.  In the gospel of Mark, we’re told that “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” went out to him, confessed their sins, and were baptized by John.  Even allowing for the possibility that this is a generalization, that’s still a whole lot of people baptized by John.

            And then Jesus comes out to be baptized by John.  And the immediate question that comes to mind is:  why?  Why would Jesus feel that he needed to go out to the Jordan River to be baptized by John?

            Remember, the point of John’s baptism was repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  What sins did Jesus have to repent of?  What sins did Jesus need to be forgiven for?  Jesus was the divine Son of God.  Why would Jesus need to be baptized?

            It cannot have been that he was being baptized for the forgiveness of our sins.  That was the point of Jesus’ death on the cross.  If being baptized could’ve gotten forgiveness or our sins, Jesus would not have had to be crucified.  There may have been times Jesus wished it could’ve worked that way, but apparently it could not.  It appears that Jesus had to die so that our sins could be forgiven.  He could not be baptized so that our sins could be forgiven.  There had to be something else going on here.

            It was not simply to follow Jewish ritual and tradition, either.  Baptism was not a particularly important or necessary ritual in Jewish culture.  You can find some roots of it there, in the cleansing rituals that Jewish people had, but there was no thought that people had to be baptized so their sins could be forgiven and they could get right with God.  So that’s no answer, either.

            Some have suggested that Jesus was baptized by John to demonstrate that he and John were allies, that Jesus’ ministry was aligned with and was in fact the fulfillment of John’s ministry.  And of course, it does demonstrate that.  The thing is, though, that’s only something that really becomes clear when we look at it from a future perspective.

As we read the story now, we can see it showing that Jesus’ ministry was the fulfillment of John’s statement that “after me comes the one more powerful than I” and “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”.  We can see that now, but there’s no reason to think people saw it then.  Remember, at this time, Jesus had not yet started his ministry.  He was nobody special.  There was no big deal made of it when Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by John.  Nobody said, “Wow, Jesus is here!”  He was just one of the crowd, another guy standing in line, one of the many people coming to John to be baptized.

I looked at several explanations for Jesus’ baptism as I was preparing this message, and quite honestly I did not find any of them convincing.  I’m not saying they were a bunch of baloney or anything.  Many of the explanations people suggest may have been a factor in it.  But none of them seem to really answer the question.

The fact is that we really don’t know why Jesus decided to be baptized by John.  I think it’s possible that even Jesus did not fully understand it.  Did Jesus know what was going to happen when he went to the Jordan River to be baptized?  Did he know that, as Matthew tells us, heaven would be opened and the Spirit of God would descend like a dove and alight on him?  Did Jesus know that a voice was going to come from heaven saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”?

He may have known all that, of course.  After all, he was Jesus, the divine Son of God.  He may have known exactly how all this was going to play out.

But I think it’s at least possible that he did not know.  I think it’s possible that Jesus, himself, did not really know why he needed to go to John and be baptized.  It’s possible that he did not know what was going to happen when he was baptized.  He just knew, somehow, that it was something he needed to do.  It’s possible that he just knew he needed to do this and he knew that something was going to happen when he did it.  It’s possible that he knew that somehow, in some way, he knew he was going to feel the presence of God the Father through this baptism ritual, even if he did not know how that was going to happen.

And when you think about it, a lot of times that’s how we approach baptism today, too.  We bring children to be baptized.  Sometimes we wait until they’re teenagers for them to be baptized.  Sometimes we wait until we’re adults to be baptized.  Sometimes we baptized by sprinkling, sometimes by pouring, sometimes by immersion.  We baptize at all kinds of ages and in all kinds of ways.

And yet, we cannot explain exactly what happens and how it happens when we do that.  I’m the one standing up here doing it, and I cannot explain it.  People take some vows, I pour some water into a basin, I say some words, I put some of the water on someone’s head.  Think about this:  suppose you had no knowledge of what baptism was, and you walked in here and saw me doing that stuff I just described.  You’d probably wonder what kind of weird people were in this place, right?  You’d think this was a really strange ritual of some sort.

But still, we do it.  We do it, and we expect something to happen as a result of it.  And something does happen as a result.  We cannot explain how, exactly, but it does.

As United Methodists, we believe, as do many other denominations, that baptism is one of God’s “means of grace”.  What does that mean?  It means baptism is one of the ways God gives us grace, and it’s one of the ways we receive grace from God.

In other words, when we are baptized, God shows up.  God’s holy presence is there.  God’s Holy Spirit descends on us, just like it descended on Jesus at his baptism.  Now, I’ve never seen a dove come down from heaven when I’ve baptized someone.  I’ve never heard a voice from heaven, either.  But each of us is a child of God.  Each of us is loved by God.  And each of us has God’s Spirit in our hearts and in our souls.  And one of the ways that happens for us is through baptism.

We may not fully understand that.  But that’s okay.  Nowhere in the Bible does God tell us that we have to understand everything.  The Bible tells us to trust.  The Bible tells us to have faith.  The Bible tells us to love.  The Bible tells us to follow.  It does not tell us we always have to understand.

We may not understand everything, but we understand enough.  We understand, as Jesus did, that we need to be baptized.  We may not fully understand why.  We may not fully understand what happens when we’re baptized.  But we understand that we need to be.  And we understand that when we are, somehow, in some way, God is going to be present.  God’s Holy Spirit is going to descend on us.  And then, even if we don’t see a dove, and even if we don’t hear a voice, we will know.  Somewhere inside us, we will know.  We’ll know that we are children of God.  We’ll know that we are loved by God.  We’ll know that God’s Spirit is in our hearts and in our souls.  And as long as we do our best to listen to God’s Spirit and to follow God’s Spirit, God will be well-pleased with us.

Life Turned Upside Down

This is the message given in the Sunday night service of the Gettysburg United Methodist church on January 5, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 2:13-23.

            So Christmas has come and gone.  I mean, we’re still kind of in the Christmas season.  We still have the decorations up.  The kids are still on vacation from school.  

But really, we’re kind of moving on from it.  The presents have all been opened.  The kids have broken half the toys and are getting bored with the other half.  At least, that’s how it was when I was a kid.  People are planning their New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Wanda and I might get crazy and stay up clear past ten o’clock.  And then it’ll be time for everyone’s life to get back to normal. 

After that first Christmas, Joseph and Mary probably wanted their lives to get back to normal, too.  But that’s not how it worked out.  In fact, it was going to be a long time before their lives got back to normal again.  

We don’t know how long Joseph and Mary stayed in Bethlehem after Jesus was born.  Long enough for the wise men to find them there, anyway.  We always put the wise men in our nativity scenes, but most people think it was quite some time before they actually got to Bethlehem.  

But now, as we pick up the story tonight, the wise men have gone home.  And Joseph and Mary are ready to go home, too.  But it does not work out that way.  An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to go to Egypt instead.  And the reason is that Herod is looking for Jesus and wants to kill him.

Imagine that you’re Joseph or Mary, and you hear this.  What’s your reaction going to be?

I think mine would’ve been confusion.  I mean, here you are, the earthly parents of the Messiah, the Savior.  Just that, in and of itself, would be a pretty heavy responsibility.  And then, it turned out that this Messiah, this Savior, was born in a barn a hundred miles from home.  Okay, that’s kind of strange.  You wonder why God would let things happen that way.  But okay, we got through that.  We’ve been in Bethlehem for a while.  The census is over.  We can go home and get started raising this holy child the right way, or at least as best as we can.

Except no.  We cannot go home.  We’ve got to go...to Egypt?  To a foreign country?  A place where we don’t know anyone?  They may not have even spoken the language there.  And we’ve got to go with nothing more than what we can carry?  

All that would’ve been enough right there.  But oh, by the way, the reason you’ve got to go there is because King Herod wants to kill your son the Messiah.  And if he has to kill you to get to him, well, that’s no big deal to him.  You’re not just going to a foreign country with the Savior, you’re doing it on the run for your lives.

Your head would be spinning, right?  You mean God, the almighty God, is going to have you raise the Savior, the Messiah, the one your people, the Jews, have been waiting for forever, in a foreign country?  How’s that gonna work?  What are you supposed to do for housing there?  What are you supposed to use for money?  How are you even going to get anything to eat?  

I mean, this is crazy, right?  This makes no sense.  But your only alternative is to try to hide from Herod where you are, and you know that’s not gonna work.  Herod might be a ruthless dictator, but he’s very thorough.  He’s going to have his people going everywhere, house to house, village to village, and all through the countryside as well.  If you don’t leave, Herod is going to find you.  And he’s going to kill Jesus, and probably you, too.

So, you go.  But you have to wondering, don’t you, what in the world God can be up to?  After all, this is the all-powerful God we’re talking about here.  This is the one who arranged this whole virgin birth thing in the first place.  That God cannot protect the Messiah from Herod’s soldiers?  You have to take him to Egypt instead?  

Well, as little sense as it makes to you, that seems to be the plan.  So you go.  You go to Egypt.  And you’re glad you did, because Herod sure enough would’ve killed Jesus if you’d stayed.  He killed all the boys who were two years old or less.  What a horror.  Again, why did God not stop that?  Why did God allow all those innocent children to be slaughtered?  You don’t know.  None of it makes any sense at all.

But you’re in Egypt, and you make the best of it.  You make your way, somehow, through all the hazards and problems and pitfalls that come from living in a foreign country.  And you start to get used to it.  You go about raising the Savior as best you can.  Life starts to have a certain kind of normalcy to it after all.  If this is how it’s going to go, well, it could be worse.

Except it’s not going to go that way at all.  That normalcy you thought you were starting to have?  Forget it.  The angel shows up, and you can just imagine Joseph thinking “Not you again.”  But it is the angel again, and this time the message is that it’s time to go back home.  And so, Joseph and Mary take Jesus on another long, arduous trip.  But they finally do get home.  And since the Bible leaves the story there, we assume that they finally were able to have a more or less normal life.  That is, if it’s possible to have a normal life when the child you’re raising is the Savior, the Messiah, the divine Son of God.

The thing is, we do a disservice to Joseph and Mary if we just stop the Christmas story with the baby in the manger with shepherds and wise men around.  That’s a nice, peaceful, happy ending, but the years after that were anything but peaceful for Joseph and Mary.

Think of the number of times God deliberately turned their lives upside down.  The first time, of course, was just the circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy.  We don’t know how many people Joseph and Mary might have told about those circumstances, but it’s a pretty safe bet that anyone they did tell was pretty skeptical at best.  And then, having to travel to Bethlehem with Mary almost ready to give birth.  You can say that was not God’s fault, that was because of the census, but still, God was the one who timed the birth to come during the census.  And then, when they thought they could go home, they had to go to Egypt instead.  And then, just as they’re getting settled in Egypt, they have to hit the road again, heading back to Egypt.

And notice, God did not give Joseph and Mary any knowledge of what the overall plan was.  When the angel first appeared to Mary and then to Joseph, that angel never said anything about a birth in a stable, or about a trip to Egypt, or anything else.  And when the angel told them to go to Egypt, the angel said nothing about how long they might be there.  It might have been the rest of their lives for all Joseph and Mary knew.  Joseph and Mary were asked to do all these hard, almost impossible things, without any clue about what the ultimate plan might be.  They just knew they were supposed to do something, and so they did it.

Have you had times when it felt like your life was being turned upside down?  I suspect you have.  Most of us have, usually more than once.  Just like Joseph and Mary, we’re going along with our lives, thinking everything is fine, thinking we know how life is going to go.  Then, suddenly, something happens, and all of a sudden we don’t have a clue how life’s going to go.  Then, just about the time it seems like we’ve gotten through the tough time and things are getting back to normal, boom, our lives are turned upside down again.  And then we’re about through that, and bam, it happens again.

Now, I’m not saying that every time our lives get turned upside down it’s because God caused it.  Sometimes it’s the result of choices we make.  Sometimes it’s just the way circumstances work out, and we don’t know why.  But it happens to all of us at some point.  Maybe you’re going through it now.  If you’re not, the chances are you will at some point.

So if it feels like your life is upside down right now, or the next time it does feel that way, think about where God might be in it.  Because, you know, God can be in it even if God did not cause it.  Romans Eight, Twenty-eight tells us that God can work all things for the good of those who love him.  So the chances are that, when our lives are being turned upside down, God is in it somewhere.

Think about where God might be.  Think about why God might be allowing it to happen.  Is there something you’re supposed to do as a result of this?  Is there somewhere you’re supposed to go?  Is there something you’re supposed to learn?  Is there someone you’re supposed to go to?  Where might God be?

Joseph and Mary’s lives were turned upside down, over and over again.  But God was always with them.  They did not always understand, but they trusted God.  And God saw them through it all.

Our lives will get turned upside down, too.  Maybe over and over again.  But God will be with us.  We may not always understand.  But if you and I trust God, God will see us through it all, too.

The Power of Music

You probably know that I love music.  I listen to a little of the newer music, but the music I really like is the music I grew up with, the music of the ‘70s.  I suspect that’s true of most of us--our favorite music tends to be the music we grew up with.

The funny thing is, I can hear a song from that era that I haven’t heard in years, and I can still sing along with it.  I still know all the words.  It may have been years since I even thought about that song, and yet it still stuck with me.

Maybe you’re that way, too.  Music does that to us.  Music sticks with us in a way that nothing else does.  I don’t remember a bit of the calculus that I took in the ‘70s, stuff that I actually studied, but I still remember the words to the songs even though I don’t remember studying them at all.

The thing is, there’s nothing new about that.  It’s a part of human nature.  Remember last week, when I mentioned I was reading the book of Deuteronomy?  There was something else in there that struck me about that book that I thought I would share with you.

Deuteronomy Chapter 32 is mostly a song that Moses sang.  It’s a song of praise to God, but it’s also a warning.  It’s a warning to stay faithful to God, and a statement of what’s going to happen to them if they don’t.  

But here’s what’s interesting to me about it.  Before Moses sings the song, God says this to him:  

Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them.  When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their ancestors, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.  And when many disasters and calamities come on them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.”  So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.

God knew the people were going to forget what He had said.  God knew the people were

going to forget the commandments.  They were going to forget all the things God had done for them.  They were going to forget their own history.  But they would not forget the song.  They would not forget the song Moses had taught them.  They would not forget the words of God contained in that song.  That song would stick with them, even if they forgot everything else.

That’s why it’s important that we learn some Christian music.  I don’t care whether it’s old, traditional hymns, gospel bluegrass songs, contemporary Christian music, or something else.  We need that Christian music.  We need it to become a part of us.  Because if it does, we’ll remember it.  We’ll remember it long after we’ve forgotten everything else.

It’s good to read the Bible.  It’s good to study the Bible.  It’s good to try to memorize some verses.  But if we know “Amazing Grace” or “Jesus Loves Me” or “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, those words will stick with us long after we’ve forgotten part of the Twenty-third Psalm or the Ten Commandments.  And we’ll know the love and grace of Jesus.  Not only will we know it, we’ll feel it.  We’ll feel that love and grace of Jesus even if we’ve forgotten everything else.

So find a way to listen to some Christian music.  Sing along with it.  Make it part of you.  You’ll strengthen your faith.  And you’ll probably really enjoy it, too.

The Why

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, January 4, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 2:10-18.

             On Christmas Eve we told the Christmas story.  And we should have, obviously.  But you know, sometimes, when we tell that story, we get a little too bogged down in the details.  And I’m as guilty of that as anyone.  But we love to hear about the Joseph and Mary being turned away from the inn and going out to the stable.  We love to sing about how Jesus was born there and was placed in a manger.  And then we love the part about the angels and the shepherds and the star and the wise men.

            And that’s all great.  I’m not criticizing it at all.  But the thing is that we sometimes focus too much on the “what” of the story.  What we don’t focus on enough, sometimes, is the “why”.  Why did God do this?  Why did God send Jesus, the divine Son, to earth in the first place?  Why, in short, is this story such a big deal to us?  That’s why, today, instead of reading about the wise men or about Jesus’ circumcision or about any of the other things that happened shortly after Jesus’ birth, we have a reading from the book of Hebrews.  

The book of Hebrews is really a remarkable book.  Someday we may do a sermon series just on the book of Hebrews, because there’s a lot of really good stuff in it.  We don’t actually know who wrote it.  Traditionally it was attributed to the Apostle Paul, and some sources still give him credit for it, but most scholars don’t think he actually wrote it.  We don’t know who did.  But whoever it was, was an excellent writer, because he or she could say an awful lot in just a few words.

Look at the first sentence of our reading for today.  “In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.”

Let’s break that down.  “God, for whom and through whom everything exists”.  Think about that.  We talk a lot, as Christians about how everything was created by God.  But Hebrews does not just say that it is through God that everything was created.  It also says that everything was created for God.

In other words, all of creation exists for God.  It exists to give glory to God.  Everything.  The animals.  The birds.  The trees.  The rocks.  The snow.  The sky.  All of creation exists for the glory of God.  That’s why you’ll read things in the psalms like “The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.”  That’s in Psalm 19.  “Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult and everything in it!  Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord.”  That’s in Psalm 96.  We read something similar in Psalm 98, too.  And there are lots of other examples.  “God, for whom...everything exists.”  All of creation exists for the glory of God.

And that includes you.  And it includes me.  You and I exist for the glory of God.  And sometimes, we try to give glory to God.  And sometimes we even succeed.  But of course, you and I are fallen, broken, sinful people.  We may succeed in giving glory to God sometimes, but there are a lot of times when we fail.  As the Apostle Paul says in Romans Three, Twenty-three, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So God’s goal, as the first phrase in our reading says, was to “bring many sons and daughters to glory.”  Now, in using that word many, I don’t think the writer was saying that God purposely wanted to exclude some.  I have no doubt that God would like to bring all human beings to glory.  But God knew that some people were going to reject him.  The only way to avoid that would be for God to take away our free will, to take away our ability to make our own choices, and God does not do that.  So, God knew that all human beings were not going to be brought to glory.  But God still wanted to bring, “many” to glory, as many as possible.

So, what was the best way, the “fitting” way, as our reading from Hebrews puts it, for God to do this?  It was to become one of us.  Jesus, “God the Son”, would become human.

And it’s important that we understand that.  Jesus was, in fact, fully human.  Yes, he was still the divine Son of God.  But he was also fully human.  As verse seventeen of our reading for today says, he was “made like them, fully human in every way.”  

There are a lot of things that means, but one of them is that when Jesus died on the cross, he truly did experience death.  Jesus truly died, just as you and I will die.  And that had to happen, because the purpose for Jesus coming was, as it also says in verse seventeen, to “make atonement for the sins of the people.”  Jesus, by dying on the cross, took the punishment that should go to us for our sins.

But there’s more to it than that.  I mean, that would be awesome enough, to have our sins forgiven by the death of Jesus, but there’s more to it than that.  Go back to verse eleven.  Listen to what it says.  “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

Think about that.  The one who makes people holy--Jesus--and those who are made holy--you and me, through our faith in Jesus--are of the same family.  Jesus is not ashamed to call us, you and me, brothers and sisters.

Is that not incredible?  By the life and death of Jesus Christ, you and I are on the same level as Jesus himself.  We are his brothers and sisters.  Jesus himself calls us that.  In verse twelve, Jesus is quoted as saying to God, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters.”  That’s you and me.  

You and I are Jesus’ brothers and sisters.  There’s no way we deserve that.  There’s no way we’re worthy of it.  I mean, you and I don’t belong in the same area code with Jesus Christ.  And yet, Jesus calls us his brothers and sisters.  Jesus, who was and is completely holy, makes us holy, too.  And it’s all because God, out of God’s tremendous, unbelievable love for us, wanted to bring us, you and me, to glory.

That’s the why.  That’s the point of the Christmas story.  That’s why Jesus came to earth as a human being.  He could not come as an angel because he did not come to save angels.  He could not come as a spirit because he did not come to save spirits.  Jesus came as a human being because he came to save human beings.

Listen to how the letter to the Hebrews sums it up:

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.  Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

This was such an incredible sacrifice Jesus made.  Think of it:  to give up his life in heaven.  To give up, even if temporarily, his part in the trinity.  To sacrifice all that, in order to save us.  And to come as someone who, as the letter to the Hebrews says, was fully human in every way.  To start out as a baby, completely helpless.  To be a toddler.  To have to learn how to walk and talk and use a spoon and learn all the things that little kids have to learn.  To grow, to change.  To go through being a young person, learning about the world.  To be a teenager, to be a young adult.  To learn a trade.  To learn how to find his place in society.  And then, eventually, to leave home, to leave his family, to leave the only life on earth he’d ever known, so that he could truly be the Savior that he was sent here to be.  And then, ultimately, to be killed, murdered, to take the punishment that should have gone to us for our sins.

That is love.  That is incredible love.  That’s a love beyond our ability to understand love.  And it’s the love God has for you and for me and for everyone.

The Christmas story is an awesome story.  But let’s not just think about the shepherds and the wise men and the baby in the manger.  Let’s go beyond the “what” of the Christmas story.  Let’s remember the “why”.  And let’s be grateful to God every single day of our lives for the incredible love that God has for us.

A Time to Rejoice

Recently I was reading in the Book of Deuteronomy.  Now, Deuteronomy is not exactly the most popular book of the Bible.  A lot of it is a recap of what happened in the four books of the Bible that came before it.  What’s not a recap is mostly a listing of Old Testament law.  Reading current law books isn’t exactly thrilling.  Reading Old Testament law can be even less interesting.

But I was reading it anyway, and I saw something that struck me.  I’m going to quote a bit of it, from Deuteronomy Chapter Sixteen.  See if you can figure out what it was that struck me about it:

Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.

Did you figure it out?  Well, here’s what it is.  Apparently, there was a specific time and place each year at which the people of Israel were supposed to rejoice before the Lord.

We don’t really think of “rejoicing” in that way, do we?  We think of rejoicing, of feeling joy, as something that needs to be spontaneous.  It has to come from the heart.  It has to be something we really feel.  But that’s not what the people of Israel were told.  They were told to plan their rejoicing.  They were told that it was to happen at a certain time and at a certain place.

I find that fascinating.  These laws, after all, came from God.  God was telling the people of Israel that every year, at a certain time, the people of Israel were supposed to plan their rejoicing.  They were supposed to come to a certain place at a certain time and rejoice.  There was nothing spontaneous about it.  God did not say “come and rejoice if you feel like it”.  God did not say “come and rejoice if you think you had a really good year”.  God said they were to come, and they were to rejoice.  Period.

Why would God do that?  Well, I don’t know God’s mind, but I can think of one reason.  What happens over and over again in the Old Testament?  God blesses the people of Israel.  The people of Israel prosper.  Then, the people of Israel take God’s blessings for granted.  They drift away from God.  God withdraws God’s blessings.  The people of Israel suffer.  They turn back to God and ask for forgiveness.  God forgives them and blesses them again.  And the cycle starts again.

I suspect one of the reasons the people of Israel were told to come together and rejoice was to try to break that cycle.  They were to take some time to really think about how God had blessed them over the past year.  It was an attempt to keep people from taking God for granted, and instead to be grateful for what God had done for them.  Even if it hadn’t been a perfect year--even if it hadn’t felt like a particularly good year--there were still things that God had done for them, ways that God had blessed them, and they were to take the time to think about it and be grateful for it.

That applies to us, too.  I don’t know how your year went.  For some of us it went better than for others of us.  Some of us had lots of good things happen.  Others of us suffered losses of various types.  For most of us, the year was a combination of good and bad, because that’s how life works.

But now, as we come to the end of the old year and the start of a new year, I encourage you to do what the people of Israel were told to do.  Rejoice!  Rejoice even if you don’t feel like it.  Rejoice even if you don’t think the year was all that good.  Because no matter how your year went, there are still things God did for you.  There are still ways God has blessed you.  After all, God does not owe it to us to do anything for us.  So anything positive that happened was a blessing from God.  Take time to think about those things, and be grateful for them.

That’s a good way to end the year.  It’s a good way to start the year, too.  No matter what’s going on in your life right now, think of ways God has blessed you.  Be grateful to God for that.  And rejoice!  God will appreciate it.  And I suspect you’ll feel better, too.