Lent Five: Through Fire and Water

Our theme today is “perseverance” – finding hope and joy in the obstacles of life. We take the 40 days of Lent (plus the six feast days), remembering the dangers of temptation and fasting, which creates in us an awareness of God’s protection and safety.

The last time I preached, I recalled the experience of getting lost in the woods. Today, I go a year further back. May 29, 1968. We had just finished our last exam of my freshman year, and I and my friend Dale went canoeing on the creek that flows through Messiah College. I could tell the full story of our trip down the creek, but a brief resume is enough – tipping the canoe, my holding on to the canoe while Dale ran along the road to the next bridge, and finally two men who were fishing at a spot a half hour downstream from where we tipped. The fishers came in and became fishers of men (or at least, one young man, me).

I don’t swim, and I still don’t know how I did not drown. Dale thought he would be carrying the news of my death to my parents, and he wondered what he would tell them. Instead, God preserved me, and Dale and I walked back to the campus from the place of my rescue. We thought that I was in terminal danger, and in fact I was completely safe and secure, even in the waters. Join me this morning in exploring the dangers we live with, which point us to our ultimate safety, resting in God’s care.

Texts

Isaiah 43

We turn to the prophet Isaiah. Chapters 40 to 45 function to give Israel in exile hope for the future. Chapter 43 begins with a reminder of the way that God preserved the Children of Israel in the exodus (verses 2 and 3): “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

The prophet then looks ahead to the salvation of all God’s People at the end of time (verses 3-7): I will bring your children from the east and from the west. I will say to the north and to the south, “Give them back!” “Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.” This salvation is prefigured in the return of God’s People from exile in Babylon.

Verses 8 to 13 picture this salvation graphically as something that no one could have foretold. God’s salvation demonstrates the reality of God, and the Children of Israel are witnesses to both the salvation and reality of God. These verses are the background to Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8, “When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be my witnesses.”

Then come the verses we read:

·         Verses 16 and 17 recall the passage through the Red Sea. God fought for the Children of Israel, setting them free from the Egyptian Army, the most powerful of its day. God would also set them free from the Babylonians.

·         This salvation would be something new – not just a replay of the Exodus. God is ready to make everything new and to bring life to the desert (verses 18 and 19).

·         All creation will praise God, with God’s people, as they see what God’s mighty saving action.

From this passage, anticipating God’s salvation for God’s people bound in exile in Babylon, we turn to Paul’s words in Philippians 3.

Philippians 3: 1b-14

We read chapter 2 often in this church, with Paul’s call to humility, imitating the example of Jesus. We read chapter 3 less often. Paul starts the chapter with “further”, which signals a repetition of Paul’s concern that the Philippians know God’s joy: “Rejoice in the Lord!” Then Paul restates his opposition to those who make circumcision necessary for salvation, using the kind of language that I do not want to repeat from the pulpit. His strong language leads to a redefinition of circumcision as a spiritual act of worshipping God fully.

Paul objects so strongly to circumcision as a path to salvation because it relies on human efforts to fix our problems – what Paul calls “relying on the flesh”. In the verses we read, Paul observes that he had many human reasons to feel confident in God’s presence (verses 4 to 6). Paul was a good Pharisee – from his own physical circumcision, to his membership in the People of God, to his personal efforts to keep the Law of God fully.

Verses 7 to 11 contrast a complete reliance on God with this human effort. Our own efforts are garbage (verse 8) compared with God’s work in Christ. In Christ, God gives us righteousness. In Christ, God gives us faith. In Christ, God gives us the “fellowship of sharing in his sufferings”, which in turn leads to sharing in the power of his resurrection.

Verses 12 to 14 close this section with Paul’s resolution to hold on to Christ and to hold on to God’s salvation. (That’s our theme of perseverance!) Holding on to Christ, he – and we – can forget the failures of the past and press on towards the goodness and joy God has for us, living with God in eternity.

Our Stones

We bring these two passages together into a basic lesson for today. Our health and salvation rest in God’s gracious love and care. We can do nothing to save ourselves; God in Christ does all that can be done. When I was floating down the Minnemingo Creek, hanging on to a canoe, I needed help. Without the man who came in and took me to the shore, I would have died. Without God’s love and care, we die.

We see this truth in Paul’s words. He states clearly that we cannot save ourselves in this life. We can do a lot, but we cannot live the way God wants us to live, or reach the end of our lives safely, or go to Heaven when we die unless God works within us.

We see this truth in the Children of Israel’s experience – recalled by the prophet in Isaiah 43. Trapped between the sea and the Egyptian army, they were dead unless God saved them. Isaiah used the memory of that experience to help them see that, trapped in exile in Babylon, they were dead, unless God saved them. Further, he made it clear that God would save them.

Their experience is a type of what God always does in our lives. We cannot survive the attacks of people around us, unless God helps us. We cannot survive the terrors of illness and death, unless God helps us. We cannot deal with being cut off and isolated, unless God helps us.

We can turn also to the events of our world. We cannot end the abuse of marginalized peoples in our world, unless God helps us. We cannot deal with the problems of climate change, unless God helps us. We cannot end poverty in our community, unless God helps us. We cannot heal the wounds of political and religious extremism, unless God helps us.

None of this means that we leave salvation to God in the sense that we do not take the action we are called to take. The Children of Israel fled to the Sea before God acted to save them. Paul pursued God’s righteousness (although obedience to the Law could not provide it) both before and after God made him righteous (by grace through faith). We know what God wants us to do, and we do it.

In spite of our best efforts, however, our efforts often fail. We try to mend relationships with a friend, and our efforts go awry. I remember a close friend who broke our relationship about nine years ago. He thought I was to blame for something that was not my fault and was so hurt that he broke off all communication. I made several efforts to meet and restore our relationship, without success. Our efforts – whatever they are – often fail. God does not always step in and fix the problem.

Then what happens? Our passages turn us to God. God pours out God’s Spirit in our lives and brings healing and new life, even if the actual problem that overwhelmed us remains. We turn to God in our distress, and there we find safety and wholeness.

It’s time for this morning’s symbolic act. The stones have been built into an altar to God. We seek God’s presence in our lives, which come together as an altar symbolizing our commitment to be the place where God’s Spirit falls and to be the people on whom God’s Spirit falls.

[Walk down to the altar carrying a vessel of olive oil. Pour the oil into the altar as a symbol of God’s renewing Spirit.]

Another Story

What I have been describing is in fact the normal path for Christians, indeed, for human beings in general. We do our best to make things good, and somehow in the struggle we find that life gets so hard that we survive day by day. What I am calling for is a constant return to God, opening ourselves to God’s Spirit to pour out the oil of renewal in our lives.

I teach missions, so when I think of such experiences, I often think of missionaries I have known (or studied). They are not unique creatures, such that we cannot be like them. Rather, they are like us – or we are like them. We can learn from their stories, because their stories are our stories.

Frances Davidson was one of the first Brethren in Christ missionaries, who went to Zimbabwe in 1898. She was a remarkable woman. In a time when most BICs did not go beyond Grade 8, she did a Master’s Degree. In a time when most BICs lived in the countryside, she taught German Literature at McPherson College in Kansas. In a time when most women kept silence in church, she was ready to speak her mind and follow God’s leading wherever that took her. When a young man showed his interest in her, she was attracted to him, but she also realised that he had no call to follow God wherever God led. So she ended the relationship.

In 1896, she received her call call to follow God in overseas missionary work. Here is how she described it.

… the Lord came to me, as it were, in the midst of the class work, in the midst of other plans for the future, and swept away my books, reserving only the Bible. In reality He showed me Christ lifted up for a lost world. He filled me with an unutterable love for every soul who had not heard of Him, and with a passionate longing to go to worst parts of the earth, away from civilization, away from other mission bodies, and spend the rest of my life in telling the story of the Cross.

All of her joy and determination in doing God’s work meant that she often came in conflict with the men who supervised her work. I have read my grandfather’s comments about working with her; they are not complimentary! Further, the man she appreciated most was her fellow pioneer, Jesse Engle. Engle was 62 years old when the first missionary party sailed to Africa. He died after two years of hard work in Zimbabwe, one of the young country’s first White settlers, living in rugged conditions and without the medical supplies to protect himself from the tropical diseases there. In 1899, there were six missionaries at Matopo Mission, as George and Sara Cress joined the party. By 1900, Frances Davidson and Alice Heise were the only survivors. Then, in 1901 a young man named Isaac Lehman and a young woman named Adda Engle joined them. But while they waited for these workers to come from North America, the year 1900 was hard, as Frances Davidson and Alice Heise held the mission open.

I could say much more about that work and about the first Ndebele converts, who truly planted the BIC church in Zimbabwe, but this morning I am noting simply the struggle with Davidson’s soul. In February she wrote in her diary, “There is joy along the way these days and I praise God for continual victory in the Holy Ghost.” Good! Not long after, in April, she wrote more bitterly. I suspect that the struggle following Jesse Engle’s death was part of her despair.

Lord thou knowest thy purposes in bringing me out here and leaving me so utterly alone yes alone except thy wondrous sustaining Power. But how thou hast so utterly separated me from all human help and sympathy Thou alone knowest. Surrounded by those for the past three years who seem so determined to misunderstand me—shall I say?—or so unable to understand me. Instead of being better in outward H. Frances Davidson surroundings it seems to be almost worse and yet Lord thy promises are sweeter thy companionship sweeter. Thou alone knoweth the secrets of my heart and the travail of my soul. May I learn Thy lessons thoroughly and in patience. Thou knowest Thine own purposes in thus placing me. Oh! help me to live so on the Mountain tops with Thee that these things will cease to be trials that they will continually be real stepping-stones to mount to the summit. Dear Lord whatever is base in me purge out, whatever of self destroy utterly root and branch. Not like many who claim to have it destroyed when so often shows itself most hideous, but Lord I really want it dead in even the smallest particular and keep me patient under thy purifying fire though it should be ten times hotter than hitherto if that were possible. In many ways the future looks dark and trying, I can only see one step before me, but Lord hold my hand so firmly in thy powerful one that I may not even stumble in the darkness.

My Father do keep me sweet, loving, patient, trusting through it all. It is Thy will that I should be thus hold my faith fixed on Thee. I am so weak, Lord, but Thou art strong, I am so unworthy but thou art worthy. I am so lacking in all that Thou desireth me to be, but Thou hast an abundant storehouse, do Thou supply every lack and to Thee will be all the praise throughout eternity.

You can hear how she was struggling inside – with the survival of the mission, with conflicts she experienced, with her co-workers, and indeed with God himself. You hear also how her words turn from lament to praise, much as the psalmist pours out his soul in distress and then finishes with praises to God.

We might think that she was a missionary, a saint of the 19^th century unlike us. Actually, she was just like us. This is path we walk, through the fire and water of troubles in our lives, into the safety of God’s eternal care – as we pour out our troubles to God and discover God’s closeness and care and love and protection in all the dangers of this life.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

7 April 2019

Lent Five

Focus Statement: When we are worn out with the familiar and lack of progress, Jesus calls us to the heights and we press on with joy.

Our focus word: Perseverance.

Movement – We add oil to the altar of stones.

Texts: Isaiah 43:16-21 Philippians 3:4-14

Texts

Isaiah 43: 16-21

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, ¹⁷ who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: ¹⁸ Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.

¹⁹ I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ²⁰ The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

Philippians 3: 1b-14

Breaking with the Past

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

² Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! ³ For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— ⁴ even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Pressing toward the Goal

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Never Give Up

Introduction

This morning I will reflect primarily on Hebrews 10. To set the stage, I refer briefly to 1 Samuel and to Mark’s gospel. Then we look at the Letter to the Hebrews and ask what God is saying to us today.

1 Samuel 1:4-20. The story of Hannah’s barrenness and the birth of Samuel is a basic part of God’s mighty saving acts in the history of Israel. You remember how Hannah had no child, although Peninnah had several. So she went to the tabernacle at Shiloh to pray for a child. Eli, the priest there, thought at first that she was drunk, watching her pray silently and desperately to God. When he understood her real desire for a child, he sent her home with the promise of a son. The son was born, and she named him Samuel (sounds like: God hears). Later she gave her son to God to serve him there at Shiloh, and he became the priest in Eli’s place and the judge of all Israel (7:16-17).

One notes Hannah’s persistence in prayer, which can serve as a model for our theme this morning: Never give up. One notes also that God brought salvation to Israel through the marginalized, which is the way that God has often acted in human affairs. Hannah’s song in chapter 2 serves as a model for Mary’s song at the birth of Jesus.

One notes finally that the tabernacle represents the dwelling of God, so that what is done in the Tabernacle is done before God’s face. We will return to this idea.

Mark 13:1-8. In the gospel reading, Jesus has been teaching near or in the Temple—watching people make their offerings in the passage we read last week. As they left the Temple one of his followers commented on the wonder and appearance of the Temple (built by Herod to please the Jewish people). Jesus replied that the Temple is only temporary. It points beyond itself to the End of all things, when it will be destroyed. He continued with warnings about “the beginning of birth pains”, which bring in the End.

Two thoughts: One is that the disciples were headed into dark troubles, which are reflected in the context of the Letter to the Hebrews. Two is that the Tabernacle was a copy of God’s presence in Heaven, and the Temple was a more permanent Tabernacle. Both in the end fade before the coming of Jesus, who is the very presence of God. As the physical Temple is destroyed, the church becomes the place where God lives on earth.

The Letter to the Hebrews

We don’t know who wrote this letter. You can research possible authors for yourself—from the traditional answer of Paul to the contemporary answer of Priscilla. We have a better idea of who the letter was written to: Jewish Christians, perhaps in Jerusalem. (I am unconvinced of the location: Jerusalem makes sense in terms of the content, but the quality of Greek suggests a writer and an audience in some place outside of Jerusalem, such as Rome.)

The letter was written to encourage Jewish Christians who were wavering in their faith not to relapse into Judaism, but to hold on to Christ. To achieve this purpose, the writer makes the case that Jesus is the perfect High Priest—better than Aaron or any of his successors, “after the order of Melchizedek” (that is, called directly by God). Jesus the High Priest is “the exact representation of God’s being”. Jesus the High Priest is also one with the human race. He understands us and brings us fully into God’s presence.

Look at the verses we heard read this morning.

Verses 11-14: The priests in the Levitical priesthood repeated their sacrifices for sins every day, because they did not really work. The fact that they remain standing is a way of emphasizing the fact that they had to repeat the sacrifices endlessly. Jesus, in contrast, sacrificed his own body “once for all”, after which he sat down at the right hand of God. With that sacrifice Jesus also brought us into the perfect relationship with God that the Levitical sacrifices were unable to achieve.

Verses 15-18: This action is sealed by the Holy Spirit, fulfilling the promise of Jeremiah 31 to write the new covenant on human hearts. We no longer need to participate in the sacrificial system in the Temple, because Jesus has made the perfect sacrifice. [This line of argument is part of the evidence for an audience living in Jerusalem before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.—they were people who could have participated in the Levitical system.]

Verses 19-25: Therefore we can live as people who enter God’s presence thanks to the sacrifice Jesus has made for us. As people who walk with God, we can hold on to the promises of God. [This was the temptation that “the Hebrews” faced: To leave their walk as ones saved by Jesus, “walking in the resurrection” and to re-enter the old system that does not actually work.]

Therefore also we “provoke one another to good works”, and we continue to meet together regularly to worship God in Christ. Especially as we anticipate the end of all things. [Unlike Peninnah in 1 Samuel, who provoked Hannah by jeering at her, we “provoke” each other by encouraging each other to do better.]

We see in this argument the truth that human efforts do not save us, but they do enable us to participate in God’s work, which does save us. In 1 Samuel 1, we meet Hannah in the Tabernacle, praying to God in a shadow of the eternal Tabernacle in Heaven (Hebrews 8:5). The Temple (in Mark 13) appeared more permanent than the old Tent of the Tabernacle, but in truth it also would be thrown down. Jesus then enters the true Tabernacle, the presence of the eternal God (Hebrews 9:24). The sacrifice of Jesus’ body on the cross replaces the old shadow and the system attached to it and brings in a new covenant with God, written on the hearts God’s people.

Application

One can find a variety of applications as we think of these passages in our world today—copying Hannah in our readiness to take our situation to God; the way that God so often works through unexpected and humanly marginalized people; the importance of being ready for the End; the fact that problems in our world remind us that the End is coming [so that, for example, the terrible news of this past Friday in Paris is part of the “beginning of birthpains”—that is, signs of the coming End]. I have chosen one theme that relates to these and other themes.

If they had heard the critique in Hebrews, the Levitical priests could have felt that they were wasting their time offering sacrifices that could not take away sin. But of course they were doing what God called them to do. There was a time for the shadow or copy of the Heavenly Tabernacle to do its work. Those sacrifices were not wasted, even if they were ineffective.

If nothing else (and I think there is a great deal more than only this point), they helped prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. The priests—who had to keep standing because their work was never done—were faithful to what God called them to do. In the End of all things, God will reward them for their faithfulness. Perhaps God already has.

We find ourselves in a similar situation. We believe God has called us to do certain things. In worship we gather and pray and read Scripture and encourage each other. These are all good, but sometimes we may wonder how much they really matter. Our text suggests that they matter because they are a copy or a shadow of the real thing in Heaven, and they prepare us to participate in the real thing in Eternity.

Our society has a fixation on efficiency and effectiveness. We want to know what works. If something does not work quickly and effectively, we are inclined to stop it. So we come together in worship, and sometimes you will hear someone say, “What did you get out the service this morning?” But this emphasis on getting something out of the service is a short-sighted emphasis on results, giving in to our society’s obsession with technique and effectiveness.

So the writer to the Hebrews says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (verses 24-25). We gather as a weekly discipline, whether we see results or not. We gather together each Sunday to sing and pray and encourage each other. The reason that it works is that what we do is a copy or a shadow of the gathering of the saints before the throne in Heaven.

Some days the service works wonderfully. We feel God’s presence. God’s Holy Spirit touches us inside, where no one else can see, and we say, “That was such a good service!’ Maybe we give credit to the music, or the singing of hymns, or the special music, or the prayer time, or the presence of friends, or even the sermon. The truth is that, when the service “works”, it does so because God is here, and we are participating in Christ’s perfect act of sacrifice and worship and praise. Some days the service seems more like a formality. We can’t put our finger on the cause or identify what is missing, but we feel as though we are going through the motions. That’s okay. Go through the motions. Keep on with the routine. We are still acting out the copy or shadow of the gathering of the saints before the throne in Heaven. We are still participating in Christ’s perfect act of sacrifice and worship and praise.

Do any of you exercise regularly? You know that some days you will feel as though the running or exercise routine is wonderful, and other times you will have to push yourself to finish. But every time that you work out, you are getting stronger, moving towards the goal of greater physical fitness. Similarly, every time we continue meeting together, copying our Lord in worship and praise, God is growing greater spiritual strength in us.

A Sample Case: Relationship between worship and social action

Ron Sider has written about the importance of Christian faith for maintaining a strong commitment to social action. He writes about his own journey:

In 1979 I spent two wonderful weeks lecturing in South Africa. One of the most fascinating persons I met was a young university student named James. He came to the annual conference of an evangelical university movement where I was speaking about Jesus’ concern for the poor and his resurrection on the third day. Like most other parts of the South African church then, this evangelical movement had split into four groups: white Afrikaans-speaking, white English-speaking, colored, and black. The students at the conference were mostly white English-speaking.

James was not a Christian. He was Jewish and an ardent social activist. His passion in life was the struggle against apartheid. Somehow, however, these devout white Christians had caught his attention. James and I quickly became friends during the conference, talking about South African politics hour after hour.

Abruptly one evening after a three-hour conversation, James said: “Ron, I’m burned out.” I wasn’t surprised. He was trying to be a full-time activist and a full-time student, but his next comment startled me: “God told me that if I would come to this conference, I would learn something about his Son.”

I looked at James and replied, “James, I believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for you.”

He paused for a second and then astonished me again: “I believe all of that, Ron, I really do.”

Still he held back. Something obviously was blocking his acceptance of Christ. After a moment he said quietly, “I don’t want to be like these white Christians here. They sing about the love of Jesus and the joy of heaven, but they don’t care about justice in South Africa. If I become a Christian, will I have to give up the struggle?”

“Goodness no, James. Jesus wants to strengthen your passion for justice …”

I waited quietly for a moment and then added, “I’m not in any hurry, but if you’d like to pray together, I’d be glad to do that.” … He prayed a beautiful prayer, confessing his sins and accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.

After I finished praying, I looked at James, and his face was shining. I’m sure mine was too. …

…

During that same period [1981], I happened to meet on a plane one day a man who had been a key leader in ecumenical social action circles in the sixties. He had done great work fighting for civil rights. As we talked, however, I realized that he was no longer a Christian. During seminary he had lost all belief in historic Christian orthodoxy. All he had left was the ethics of Jesus, so he threw himself passionately into the civil rights movement and became a leader in social action for mainline Protestants. But by the time I met him around 1981, he was discouraged. He had lost his hope and his faith.

Good News and Good Works, 15-17.

The basic point for our purposes in Sider’s narrative is this link between continuing to do God’s work in a broken and failing world. If we think primarily of effectiveness and what works, we turn into disillusioned pragmatists. The writer to the Hebrews directs our attention back to Christ. How do “provoke one another to good works”? One way is by continuing to meet together and to act out our copy of God’s great work in our world. We may fail. We may find ourselves as helpless as the Levitical priests who could not really deal with sin. But we keep on keep on copying our Lord, following our Lord, resting in the great work of salvation that Jesus has already done. “Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art. I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart.”

Never give up. Not when terror strikes in the heart of the French capital. Not when the bombs explode in Beirut and Baghdad. Not when Syria and Iraq struggle to hold together as States. Not when the University of Missouri experiences hatred and racism. Not when we hear again of problems in the North End, or in our own homes. We live in a world that no human action can redeem, but God can and does. In our worship together this morning we are participating in Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, in anticipation of Eternity with God.

Grace Bible Church, 15 November 2015

Texts: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8