God's Target Audience

The Super Bowl was last Sunday.  Maybe you were interested in it, maybe it weren’t.  Some people are absolute fanatics about the Super Bowl.  They watched the pre-game shows for the Super Bowl for over a week before the game was played.  Other people could not care less, did not watch even one minute of it, and could not even tell you who the teams were that played in it.  And of course, lots of people fall at points in between those two extremes.

One thing that sometimes gets people who are not interested to watch the game is the commercials.  Lots of companies spend lots of money to create special commercials for the Super Bowl.  Some of those commercials will be seen for months to come.  Others will never be seen again.  There are special shows that are dedicated to Super Bowl commercials.  Surveys are taken to see which ones people liked the best.  Super Bowl commercials are, for some people, more important than the game itself.

As I get older, I’ve noticed something about the commercials.  I don’t understand them.  Well, some of them I do, but a lot of them I don’t.  There are a lot of times I look at the commercials and say, “What was that supposed to be?”  Sometimes I can’t even figure out what it is the product is that they’re promoting.

There’s a reason for that.  The reason is that I’m sixty-one years old.  Advertisers on the Super Bowl are not targeting sixty-one-year-olds.  They’re targeting young people.  The theory is that young people do not yet have their buying habits established, and so can be persuaded to switch to a different product or to try a product they’ve not tried yet.  People my age and older are assumed to have our buying habits established, and we’re not likely to change our minds no matter how attractive the advertising is.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with that.  It’s just the way it is.  Companies, for the most part, don’t try to reach everybody.  Their products, for the most part, are not for everybody.  They’re for a certain group of people, so they target their advertising to reach that certain group of people.

But thankfully, God does not work that way.  God’s “product”, if you want to call it that, is salvation.  And salvation is available to everyone.  God does not target a certain group of people, nor does God exclude any group of people.  God wants everyone to accept the salvation and eternal life God offers through faith in Jesus Christ.  God targets everyone with that message.

And that’s what the church needs to do.  Yes, there are sometimes certain ways we can adapt God’s message so that it’s more easily understandable to certain groups.  But the message itself remains the same.  God does not give one message to young people and another to old people.  God does not give one message to men and another to women.  God does not give different messages to different ethnic groups.  God gives one message:  the way to salvation and eternal life is through faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And that needs to be the church’s message, too.

If you watched the Super Bowl, and you didn’t understand the ads, that’s okay.  It probably means the ads weren’t aimed at you.  But God’s message is.  We are all part of the group God wants to reach.  Every one of us.

Trust the Message

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, February 2, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:22-40.

            Today is a Christian holiday.  Does anyone know what it is?

            No, Groundhog Day does not count.  Neither does Super Bowl Sunday.  Neither does World Ukulele Day.  No, today is Candlemas. 

            Candlemas is celebrated forty days after the birth of Jesus, and this year is happens to fall on a Sunday.  Today.  Under Jewish law, a woman who gave birth to a male child had to wait forty days to be “purified” and be allowed to enter the temple.  To really celebrate it properly, you bring candles to the church, which are blessed and used at home throughout the year.  The candles symbolize Jesus, who of course we call “the light of the world”.

            Our Bible reading for today takes place forty days after Jesus was born, and it takes place at the temple in Jerusalem.  So, at some point in those forty days, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus must have made the trip from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  

Now, that was not a long trip--it was about six miles.  But, of course, Mary and Joseph would’ve had to walk it, carrying Jesus, so it’s not like it was really easy.  You and I would probably be really upset if we had to walk six miles carrying a baby.  But back then, it was just the way things were.  People were used to walking everywhere they needed to go.  It was no big deal.

So Mary and Joseph walk the six miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and then walk some more until they get to the temple.  They buy the required sacrifice.  And while they’re there, they meet two people.

The first was a man named Simeon.  Simeon lived in Jerusalem, and he had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the Savior.  This day, this day when Mary and Joseph are presenting Jesus at the temple, the Holy Spirit told him to go to the temple courts.  We don’t know if the Spirit told him why, but he went there.  And he saw Jesus.  And as soon as he saw Jesus, Simeon knew.  We don’t know how he knew, but he knew.  He knew that this was, in fact, the Savior he had been kept alive to see.

And when we read what Simeon said, it sounds like Simeon understood, far better than most people at that time, just who the Savior was going to be.  As we said last week, most people at that time thought the Savior would be a great king, someone who would return Israel to power as a great nation.  But look at how Simeon describes Jesus:  “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”  And then he tells Mary:  “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

Simeon understood that Jesus was not going to be a political leader.  He was going to bring salvation to both the Gentiles and the Jews, but that salvation would be spiritual salvation, not a political salvation.  And he would cause “the thoughts of many hearts” to be revealed, both for better and for worse.  Simeon understood exactly what kind of Savior Jesus was going to be.

And then we meet Anna.  Anna was a prophet.  She was eighty-four years old.  We’re told she had lived with her husband for seven years after their marriage and had been a widow ever since.  Assuming she was married young, as was often the case at that time, Anna may have been a widow for sixty years or more.  I know there are people here who’ve lost spouses, but think of that.  To be a widow or a widower for sixty years.  That’s a long time to be alone.

We’re told that she never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.  We don’t know how long she’d been doing that.  It was not necessarily for the whole time she’d been a widow, or even for most of that time.  But it seems like it must have been a while.  And just as Simeon finishes talking, Anna comes up, gives thanks to God, and starts telling everyone about this child who’s going to be the Savior.

So what’s the point?  Why is this story in the Bible?  Is it just an interesting story, a little piece of the life of Jesus, or is there more to it?  What are we supposed to learn from this?

Well, I’m sure there’s more than one thing we can learn from it.  There almost always is, when we read the Bible.  But here’s the one I want to focus on today.

Have you ever had a time when you felt like God was giving you a message?  Or, have you ever felt like the Holy Spirit was leading you to do something, or to say something, or to go somewhere?  Or maybe you did not recognize it as the Holy Spirit, but you just felt like there was something inside you telling you that you needed to talk to some specific person, or go to some specific place, or do some specific thing.  You did not know why, but you just had this strong feeling that this was what you were supposed to do.  

Have you ever had that?  I think probably most of us have, at one time or another.  And probably most of us have followed that prompting, at least some of the time.

But here’s the thing.  Sometimes, we get that message, or we follow that prompting--we do what we’re led to do, we go where we’re led to go, we say what we’re led to say--and it seems like nothing happens.  And some time goes on, and nothing continues to happen.  And we start to wonder.  Did God really give me a message?  Was the Holy Spirit really leading me to do that, or say that, or go there?  Or was it something I made up, something I imagined, something that came out of my own head or from someone else and I just fooled myself into thinking it was from God?

When that happens, we want some confirmation.  We want to get some kind of a signal, some kind of sign.  We want something to encourage us to stay the course, something to let us know that yes, we really did get that message from God.  We really were led by the Holy Spirit.  God really did speak to us, and God really is going to be faithful and keep the words God said.

God does not always give us that confirmation, but sometimes God does.  Even when God does, though, it sometimes takes a while.  Look at Mary and Joseph.  The angel Gabriel had told them that their child was the divine Son of God.  They’d listened, and they’d believed.  They’d gone everywhere they were supposed to go, they’d done everything they were supposed to do.  But still, they had to wonder.  It had been several months, at least, since they’d heard from Gabriel about who this baby was going to be.  They had to be thinking, you know, our baby looks like any other baby.  He acts like any other baby.  Is he really going to be that special?  Are we really going to be raising the Savior of the world?  

But even so, they continued to trust.  They continued to have faith.  And then, when they take Jesus to the temple, here come Simeon and Anna.  And they say, yes.  Yes, your child is going to be that special.  You really are going to be raising the Savior of the world.  All that stuff that Gabriel said is really true.  You really have received a message from God, and God will be faithful to God’s word.  That had to be a huge relief to them.  It had to feel so wonderful, to have someone come along and confirm that they really had received a message from God, that things were going the way they were supposed to go, and that they really could trust God’s promises.

Simeon probably felt that, too.  He also had been given a message from God, a message that he would see the Savior before he died.  But time had passed, and he was getting older, and older, and nothing had happened.  Was he really going to see the Savior?  Had God really made that promise to him?  Or had he just imagined the whole thing?

But even so, he continued to trust, too.  He continued to have faith.  And then, suddenly, here he is.  He really did see the Savior.  It had to feel so wonderful, to actually have it happen, to actually have God’s message confirmed.

And you and I have been given messages from God, too.  There are places were supposed to go, words we’re supposed to say, things we’re supposed to do.  And we try to be faithful to that.  But then, sometimes, we don’t seem to see any results.  We wish a Simeon, or an Anna, or someone would come and confirm God’s message for us.  We wish they’d come and tell us that we did not imagine this, that we really have received a message from God.  We wish they’d say things are going the way they’re supposed to go, that we really can trust God’s promises.

And sometimes we get that.  But sometimes we don’t.  At least not right away.  Sometimes it takes a long time for that confirmation to come.  Time passes, and we start to doubt.  We start to wonder if it’s ever going to come.  We wonder if maybe we were just fooling ourselves, that we just believed we’d heard a message because it was wanted to hear, rather than truly hearing an actual message from God.

And that’s when we have to decide.  Can we continue to trust?  Can we continue to have faith?  Can we persevere despite our doubts, trusting that God will be faithful to God’s word?  Can we trust that God is there, and that God is doing things, even if we cannot see them?  Can we remember all the times God has been faithful to us and trust that God will be faithful again?  Can we trust that, if we do our best to stay faithful to God, God will bless what we do, even if we don’t see any evidence of it right away?  Or will we give up on God?

Mary and Joseph continued to believe that their son was the divine Son of God.  God rewarded their faith.  Simeon continued to believe that he would see the Savior before he died.  God rewarded his faith.  If you and I continue to believe, and continue to trust God, God will be faithful to the promises God has made to us.  We’ll find that God will bless what we’ve done and reward our faith, too.  And we will see that Jesus truly is the light of the world.

What Do You Want?

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Mark 10:35-52.

Do you pray regularly?

I hope you do.  If you’ve ever been to any church anywhere, you know how much churches believe in prayer.  We believe everyone should pray.  But here’s the question:  why?

Do you ever think about that?  When you come right down to it, why do we really need to pray?  After all, the Bible says that God knows our every thought.  The Bible says God knows what we need before we ask.  So, if God already knows how we feel, and if God already knows what we need, why should we bother to pray?”

            It's a legitimate question, but I think there is an answer to it.  Actually, there's probably more than one answer, but there's one I want to give tonight.  Even though God already knows what how we feel and what we need, we still need to pray because one of the things the act of praying does for us is it clarifies our own faith.  It reveals to us what we really think about God.

             I think our Bible reading for tonight shows that.  We heard two little stories.  Those stories are often dealt with separately, and there's value from doing that, but I also think they come back-to-back in the gospel of Mark for a reason.  There are things the two stories have in common, and so I think there's also value to be gained by looking at them together.

             In both of them, we have people asking Jesus for something.  James and John come up to Jesus and ask for something, and Bartimaeus comes up to Jesus and asks for something.

            But of course, the way they ask is completely different, right?  James and John come up to Jesus and almost demand that he do something for them.  They say to Jesus, “We want you to do whatever we ask.”  Bartimaeus, on the other hand, goes to Jesus and says, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”

            Now, that's two totally different ways of approaching Jesus.  James and John seem to feel like they’re entitled to Jesus' help.  They call him “Teacher”, but at the same time, they talk to him more like he's their servant.  That's sometimes called the vending machine approach to prayer.  We make our requests, we push the button, and boom, God is supposed to give us what we asked for.

            Bartimaeus, on the other hand, does not seem to feel entitled to anything.  He's begging.  He's pleading.  He's hoping desperately that Jesus will hear him and will do what he asks.  He does not act like Jesus owes it to him to help.  But he knows that the only chance he has is if Jesus somehow, for some reason, decides to have mercy on him and help him.

            Two completely different ways of asking.  And yet, Jesus' response to them is exactly the same.  In both cases, he asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”

            Does that seem like kind of an odd question to you?  It does to me.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  Jesus surely knew what they wanted, right?  Jesus is God, the divine Son.  It seems like he'd have known what they were going to say before they said it.

            And yet, Jesus asked the question.  Even though he already knew what they wanted, he wanted to hear it from their own lips.  Why?

            I don't know the whole answer.  But here's something for us to think about.

            Have you ever had a thought or an idea or something like that in your head, and it made sense to you while it was in your head, but then you went to tell somebody else about it, and when you did it sounded totally different when you said it out loud than it did when it was still in your head?  I've done that.  I've gone to say something, and all of a sudden this thought or this idea, this thing that seemed like it was totally reasonable and sensible when it was in my head, sounded really stupid or arrogant or hurtful when I put it into words and said it to somebody else.  It happens because I really have not thought through all the meanings and implications of what I'm thinking.  And when I have to explain it to someone else, all of a sudden those meanings and implications become clear.  And it's not always a very pleasant experience.

I think that's one of the reasons Jesus asked “What do you want me to do for you?”  It's one of the reasons we need to pray, too.  We need to put our feelings into words.  We need to put our requests of God into words.  We need to do that so we can fully understand them.  We need to do that so we can really understand the meanings and implications of what we're asking of God.

I wonder, when James and John actually said to Jesus, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory,” how did they feel?  When they actually said that out loud, when they had to put it into words and say it to Jesus, were they proud of themselves?  Or were they a little ashamed of themselves, suddenly hearing what it sounded like when they said it?  Did they realize that this demand, which sounded so good and reasonable in their heads, sounded really arrogant and almost condescending to Jesus when they said it out loud?  I mean, here they were, telling Jesus they wanted him to put them above all the other disciples and to put them into positions of power and glory.  Did they realize how that was going to sound to Jesus and to the others?  The act of having to put their request into words revealed what they really thought about Jesus, and it did not sound particularly good.

Now, Bartimaeus did not have that same problem.  What he asked for did not sound stupid or arrogant or hurtful.  Still, it revealed what he really thought about Jesus, too.

Bartimaeus does not say to Jesus, “I want you to do whatever I ask.”  He just says, “Have mercy on me.”  Bartimaeus does not think Jesus owes him anything.  He has no real reason to think Jesus will do anything for him.  He does not even know whether Jesus will pay any attention to him.  After all, he'd never met Jesus.  As far as Jesus was concerned, he'd just be some guy on the side of the road, trying desperately to get Jesus to notice him.

When Jesus stopped and said he'd talk to Bartimaeus, how do you think Bartimaeus felt?  Was he excited?  Was he scared?  Probably both, and some other things, too.  He had no idea what Jesus was going to say.  For all he knew, Jesus might be going to chew him out.  He might be going to say, “Who do you think you are, yelling at me like this?  Get out of here.”

But Bartimaeus came up to Jesus.  And Jesus asked him the same question.  “What do you want me to do for you?”

That must have seemed to Bartimaeus like a really odd thing for Jesus to say.  I wonder if anybody'd ever asked him that question before.  You know, blind people were not treated very well in that society.  They were pretty much shunned by everyone.  They were considered to have been cursed by God in some way.  Once in a while someone might've take pity on Bartimaeus and given him something, but no one, at least no one respectable, would become his friend.  No one would've cared about Bartimaeus to ask him what he wanted.

But Jesus did.  Bartimaeus must have been stunned.  It probably took him a second or two to react at all.  He'd been so desperate just to get Jesus' attention that he probably had not really thought about what he'd actually say to Jesus if he got the chance.  He probably had an idea, but he'd never put it into words before, even in his head.  What did he really want Jesus to do for him?

Finally, he stammered it out.  He said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

Again, the act of having to put his request into words revealed what he really thought about Jesus.  He believed that Jesus had power that came from God.  He may not have known exactly what that meant, he may not have known that Jesus was truly the divine Son of God and all that, but he knew that Jesus was a man of God in some way.  He truly believed that Jesus could make him see.  And he knew that the only reason Jesus would do that is if Jesus had mercy on him.

So, what do you want Jesus to do for you?  And what do I want Jesus to do for me?  Our answer to that question reveals what you and I really think about Jesus.

Do we come to Jesus arrogantly?  Do we come to him demanding that Jesus give us whatever we ask, acting as if Jesus somehow owes that to us?  Or do we come to Jesus desperately, knowing that Jesus owes us nothing, and that the only reason Jesus would pay any attention to us at all, much less do what we ask, is because of the great love and mercy that Jesus has for us?

            Jesus did not give James and John what they asked for.  In fact, he said he could not give it to them.  He did not get mad at them, and he did not give up on them.  But he did use the chance to give them a lesson about humility and what greatness is really all about. 

            Jesus did give Bartimaeus what he asked for.  I have to think that Bartimaeus’ attitude, which truly was an attitude of humility, had something to do with that.

            Yes, God knows our every thought, and God knows what we need before we ask.  But our prayers reveal what we think about God.  They clarify what we actually believe and what we really want.  And that’s one of the reasons why we need to pray.

It Can Melt Away

We’ve had a lot of foggy days recently.  I’m not a big fan of fog, but one thing it does is put frost on the trees.  It makes them look really pretty, especially when the sun comes out and shines on them.  

But of course, the beauty only lasts for a little while.  The sun may make the frost-covered trees look pretty, but it also melts the frost.  Which means that if you want to see that beautiful sight, you have to be looking at the right time.  If you don’t, you’ll miss it.

It reminded me of when God gave the people of Israel manna.  Remember that story from Exodus?  Everyone was supposed to gather as much as they needed for the day--no more, but no less.  If they were not ready at the right time, we’re told, “When the sun grew hot, it melted away.”

God provides what we need when we need it.  No more, but no less, either.  But the thing is, we need to be ready to receive it.  Because if we’re not ready at the right time, what God has provided may melt away.  God may give us a second chance--God did provide more manna the next day, after all.  But getting a second chance--in anything--does not always make up for the first chance that we missed.  And if we still aren’t ready, we’ll miss that second chance, too.  And at some point, we run out of chances.  Not because God is not good, but because that’s simply the way life works.

So, we need to be ready.  All the time.  How do we do that?  Well, for one thing, we need to pray.  Pray for God’s will to be done, rather than our own will.  Pray that we will be open to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.  Pray that we will be willing to go where God leads us to go and to do what God leads us to do.

And no matter what your situation, you can always do something.  You can be a friend to someone who needs one.  You can listen when someone needs to talk.  You can just sit with someone when they just need to know someone’s there.  You can give a smile to someone who may not have seen one today.  You can give an encouraging word to someone who’s having a bad day.  There are all kinds of things you can do, no matter what your situation.

And here’s one other thing to pray for.  Pray that God will give you chances to serve Him.  My experience is that this is a prayer that God will always answer.  And usually, God answers it pretty quickly, and in a way that we were never expecting.  But again, we have to be ready for the chances to serve that God gives us.  If we’re not, those chances will melt away.

So let’s pray.  And let’s be ready to serve God.  Let’s not let any more chances melt away. 

The Power of God's Voice

We had another storm a couple of weeks ago.  Not much snow that time, but lots and lots of wind and very cold.  Thankfully, the power never went out.  Also thankfully, there were no fires--that would’ve been awful, to try to fight a fire in that wind and cold.  

It was bad enough, though.  It made travel very dangerous.  The wind has incredible power.  And it should, when you think about it.  The wind was created by God.  And we know that God has incredible power.

Whenever I think about that, I think of Psalm 29.  That psalm is about the power of God.  Let me just quote a few verses of it:

            The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

            the God of glory thunders,

            the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

            the voice of the Lord is majestic.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

            the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

The voice of the Lord strikes

            with flashes of lightning.

The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;

            the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord twists the oaks

            and strips the forests bare.

That’s a lot of power!  And you know what’s really remarkable?  God does that with just God’s voice!  Think of what God could do if God really rolled up His sleeves and went to work!

God has tremendous power.  God has more power than we can imagine.  And I guess this should not come as a surprise to us.  After all, what are we told in the first chapter of the Bible?  God said, “let there be light” and there was light.  God said for the earth to be created and it was.  God created the universe and everything in it just by using God’s voice.  So the power God has, and especially the power in God’s voice, is something we should know well.

You and I can never fully understand God’s power.  If we could, we might be scared to death.  But we really would not need to be.  Because the really amazing thing about God is that God uses His amazing power for our good.  God would not have to do that, you know.  God can do anything God chooses.  That’s what makes God, well, God.  But God loves us.  And God does not just love humans as an anonymous group, either.  God loves each of us as an individual.  God loves you.  God loves me.  Despite who we are, despite everything we do, despite the fact that God is so far above us that we cannot even imagine how far above us God is, God loves each one of us.  God loves you.  God loves me.  And God uses God’s amazing power for our good, because God loves us that much.

God has incredible power.  And God uses God’s power for our good, because God loves us.  The next time there’s a storm--or the next time you feel like there’s a storm in your personal life--remember that.  And be grateful.

Focus on the Good

As I write this, it’s cold.  I don’t like that.  I don’t know anyone who does.  All summer I hear from people who say they love cold weather, but when we actually get cold weather, they all disappear.  People may like cool weather, they may even like it when it gets down into the twenties or even the teens, but once it gets below zero nobody likes it.

Well, maybe not nobody.  There are some animals that like cold weather.  When I was a kid we had a big dog that just loved it when it got cold like this.  The colder the better, as far as he was concerned.  Dad would leave a shed open for him to sleep in at night, with some old blankets and such, but he wouldn’t go into it.  He wouldn’t even stay close to a building for a windbreak.  He’d sleep right out in the open, right on the snow.  When we’d come out to do chores, he’d be bouncing around, wanting us to play with him.  He couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to spend time with him enjoying that “beautiful weather”.

But most humans don’t like it much.  And as I said, I’m among those humans who don’t like it.  But, on the other hand, I choose to live here in north-central South Dakota.  I’ve lived in South Dakota my entire life, and every January that I can remember has been cold.  And climate change or not, I don’t think January is going to stop being cold in my lifetime.  So, if I don’t like it, there’s only one thing I can do.  Move.  But I don’t want to move.  So, I’m going to have to put up with the cold.

Actually, there is one other thing I can do.  I can complain.  And I used to do that a lot.  I’d complain about the cold weather.  I’d whine about it, probably to the point where people got tired of hearing it.  And you know what?  It didn’t change a thing.  It didn’t raise the temperature by as much as one degree.  All it did was make me feel bad, because I was focusing on what I did not like.

So, I’ve stopped complaining about the cold weather.  Oh, I might slip once in a while, but for the most part, I’ve stopped.  Now, it’s probably easier for me to do that than for some, because it’s not like I have to work out in it.  I have great sympathy for those who do.  But even so, complaining about it is not going to change it.  So there’s no point to doing it.  Instead of focusing on the weather, which only makes me unhappy, I try to focus on things that do make me happy.

And that’s true of a lot of things besides the weather.  Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  If there’s a bad situation, and there’s something we can do to make it better, we should.  And we need to focus on the bad situation to make it better.  But if there’s nothing we can do, then focusing on it is a waste of time and energy.  It doesn’t help.  It just makes us feel bad.  So, we might as well stop doing it.

What’s a situation in your life that you don’t like?  Can you do something to make it better?  If so, then do it.  If not, though, focus on something else.  The chances are it’ll make you happier.

Not the Savior We're Looking For

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, January 26, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 9:1-7.

            Have you ever had someone tell you they had a surprise for you?  And you wondered what it was, and they would not tell you, but they told you it was something you were going to really like.  And so all kinds of thoughts went through your head as to what it might be.  And you keep asking about it, and they give you a few hints, but nothing more.  And so you keep speculating as to what it might be.  And time goes on, and your speculations get bigger, and they get grander.  And you can hardly wait to get this wonderful surprise you’ve been promised.

            And then the day comes!  And you finally get your awesome surprise!  And—it’s not really what you expected.  In fact, it’s nothing like you expected.  In fact, you’re not really sure what to make of it.  I mean, it’s nice and all.  But it’s really not the kind of thing you were thinking it would be.

            Our Bible reading for today is an Old Testament prophecy about the coming of Jesus.  It’s one of several prophecies in the Old Testament that said a King, a Savior, a Messiah, was going to be born.  The people of Israel knew all those prophecies.  They’d believed in them for hundreds of years.  But if you look at it, those prophecies really only kind of gave hints about who this Savior was going to be. 

            They talked about how the Savior was going to be born of a virgin, how he would be born in Bethlehem, and how he would be a descendant of King David.  And, of course, we talked about how each one of those prophecies came true.  But none of that tells anything about the person himself.  Just who was this Savior going to be?  What’s this Savior going to do?  Well, save people, I suppose, that’s why he’s called a savior, but how?  How are we going to be saved?  What does it even mean to say we’re going to be saved?  Saved from what?

           Look at what our reading from Isaiah today tells us.  The Savior is going to lead people out of the darkness and into the light.  The Savior is going to take away our burdens, shatter them.  The Savior will govern over everyone and bring peace.  And there will be no end to his governing or to the peace he’s going to bring.  He will reign with justice and righteousness forever.

            And the people of Israel heard that, and no one had a clue what it really meant.  You cannot blame them, really.  After all, the only frame of reference they had for interpreting this was human rulers and human governments.  They heard about a person who was going to reign on David’s throne, a person who would govern and bring justice and peace, and they got excited.  And they started speculating about this, and as time went on their speculations got bigger and grander.  They assumed this Savior would be someone who was going to take over on earth.  They assumed this would be an earthly king who would take over, wipe out the bad guys, put Israel back in control of the Promised Land, and make everything the way it should be on earth.  And they could hardly wait to get that wonderful Savior they’d been promised.

            An earthly Savior was not just the kind of Savior they expected, it was the kind of Savior they wanted.  And again, it’s hard to blame them.  These Old Testament prophecies of a Savior came when the Nation of Israel was in trouble, about to be taken over by a foreign country or to be sent into exile or something.  When you’re in that kind of trouble, what do you want?  What do you look for?  You look for some kind of a leader who can save you, someone who can take care of you.  You look for someone who can defeat the enemy, put things right, and solve all your problems, someone who will usher in a new Golden Age of prosperity and peace and justice.  That’s what the people of Israel wanted the Savior to be.

            And sometimes, that’s still what we want the Savior to be.  We look at the world, and there’s a whole lot of stuff going on, stuff that does not seem right to us.  We look at the country, and we see all kinds of arguments, a lot of anger, sometimes turning violent.  We look at our area, and see all kinds of problems in agriculture, with some crops from last year still out in the field.  We even see a lot of trouble within the United Methodist church right now—not this particular church, but the church as a whole.

            And a lot of times, what we really want is a Savior to come along and take care of the trouble.  We want a Savior who will come along and defeat the enemy, whatever we think the enemy happens to be.  We want someone who can make everything right, someone who can solve all the problems and user in a new Golden Age of prosperity and peace and justice for our country.  Sometimes that’s who we want our Savior to be, too.

            But that’s not who the Savior is.  At least not now.  The Bible tells us that Jesus is going to come again, and at that point there will be a day of judgment.  There will, eventually, be the coming of the new earth and the New Jerusalem and everything will be as it should be.  The Savior will do that, someday.  But not now.  For right now, that’s not who the Savior is.

            When Jesus came, he was not who the people of Israel assumed he would be.  And he was not who the people of Israel wanted him to be.  And so, when he came, a lot of the people of Israel missed it.  They looked somewhere else for the Savior, not even noticing that the Savior they had been looking for all these centuries was right there with them.  That’s a really sad thing, when you think about it.

            But you know, even the people who were there with Jesus, and recognized him as the Savior, missed it in a way, too.  Because even though they believed in Jesus as the Savior, they still were trying to make Jesus into the Savior they wanted him to be, rather than the Savior he was.  They kept trying to make him fight, to make him take power.  James and John asked Jesus to seat them at his right and left when he took control.  When Jesus told his disciples that he was about to be arrested, the disciples looked around for swords to fight back with.  Some people think one of the reasons Judas betrayed Jesus was to try to force Jesus to use his power to defeat their enemies and take power on earth.  They kept trying to make Jesus into the Savior they wanted him to be, rather than the Savior he came to be, the Savior he was.

            And we still, too often, try to make Jesus into the Savior we want him to be, rather than the Savior he came to be.  We want Jesus to take power on earth, to make everything the way we think it’s supposed to be.  But that’s not who Jesus is.  That’s who Satan wanted him to be.  Remember, that was the biggest temptation Jesus faced in the wilderness, the temptation to take power on earth.  And Jesus refused.

Jesus could’ve taken power that way.  Jesus could’ve raised an army, taken power, and ruled on earth.  Or, really, Jesus would not have needed to raise an army.  He probably could’ve just commanded and everyone would’ve had no choice but to obey.  But if he had done that, Jesus would’ve taken power by brute force.  And that’s not the kind of Savior Jesus is.

            I think one of reasons why that’s not the kind of Savior Jesus is, is that the most important thing to Jesus is love.  Jesus came to earth and lived among us out of love.  Jesus said the most important commandments are to love God and love others.  Jesus died for the forgiveness out of sins.  Jesus is a Savior of love.

            And brute force cannot result in love.  It can result in fear.  It can result in obedience.  But it cannot result in love.  In fact, it results in the exact opposite.  It’s pretty hard to truly love someone we fear.  And when we’re forced to do things against our will and without choice, we usually will come to resent whoever it is that’s forcing us to do it.  And the first chance we get, we rebel.  Brute force can require obedience, but it cannot result in love.

           Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  That’s what Isaiah called him, and that’s what he was and what he is.  And brute force cannot result in peace.  Only love can. 

So that’s how Jesus takes power—through love.  Jesus takes power through loving us.  Jesus takes power by loving us so much that he died so our sins would be forgiven.  And Jesus takes power when we open our hearts to him.  Jesus takes power when the Holy Spirit fills our hearts.  Jesus takes power when we feel his love and return his love and share his love with others.

That’s the kind of power Jesus wants—power over our hearts.  And that’s how Jesus saves us—when we give him that power.  When we give Jesus power over our hearts, we’re saved from fear.  We’re saved from worry.  We’re saved from anxiety.  We’re saved from selfishness and greed.  That’s not to say bad things won’t happen to us sometimes—those things are still part of life.  But when we give Jesus power over our hearts, we’re saved.  We know that no matter what happens, God will be with us and God will see us through it.  We’re saved.  Saved for a life of love in this world, and saved for eternal life and eternal love in heaven.

The Savior who came was not the Savior the people of Israel wanted.  And sometimes he’s not the Savior we want, either.  He’s better.  He’s not a Savior through the power of force.  He’s a Savior through the power of love.  And there will never be anything stronger than the power of Jesus’ love.