Christmas Sunday: On the Road to Rejoicing

Christmas Day has come and gone, and we gather together on Christmas Sunday. Advent comes to its conclusion today in this place, and we enter the season of Epiphany (the time when we mark the coming of the Magi). Our final word for the season is “Rejoicing”. We travel the road of redemption to its destination, the joy of receiving the Messiah, the one who brings life and hope to all people in our world. We consider our Scripture passages together and examine the shape and nature of this overwhelming joy.

Isaiah 61-62

The last chapters of Isaiah have an eschatological focus. They point to the way things will be at the end of all things, encouraging us to live today with the hope of ultimate salvation. The passage assures us that in the end God will make all things right. Isaiah was writing to people who saw how bad things were. They had been carried off into exile in Babylon. They had experienced restoration, but the new reality was not much better than the old. Although they were back home in Judah, life was hard and uncertain. In their distress, Isaiah says clearly, “God will make everything right, and the whole world will see it.”

We live in times that “try our souls”. We see things going wrong. I hear regularly from people who think that our world is doomed and that we can to nothing to save ourselves. God speaks to us also: “For as the soil makes the young plant come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” He adds: “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; … You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”

In these times, we see God’s salvation. In these times, we rejoice that God is with us. In these times, we celebrate God’s grace and goodness in our lives.

Luke 2

Luke 2 tells how two more people who had been waiting for God’s salvation recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Simeon was “righteous and devout” and spent much time in the temple. When Jesus was taken to the temple for circumcising, Simeon was there. He saw the baby and him in his arms and prophesied over him. He identified Jesus as the salvation of God’s people, and he told Mary that opposition to Jesus would pierce her soul as well. (One wonders what about Joseph; perhaps his words indicate that Joseph would die before the events he was prophesying.)

Then we meet Anna, a woman 84 years old, who had lived in the temple since her husband died – perhaps 60 years earlier. She also prophesied over the child, calling him “the redemption of Israel.” What is going on in these prophecies? They identify Jesus as the coming Messiah, and they point to his future ministry as the Messiah. Is there anything else?

I think that there is. Simeon is an old man (his age is not stated, but it is implied). Anna is an old woman. Both had spent their lives waiting for God to redeem Israel. Both are confident that Jesus is the Messiah who will bring salvation to God’s people. They join the growing crowd of witnesses in the text to Jesus’ identity. In Luke 2, we meet the shepherds and the angels. In Matthew 2, we meet the magi from the East. Here we meet representatives of the temple. They complete the crowd of witnesses, making the point that Jesus came for everyone – young and old, Jew and Gentile, men and women, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. Jesus comes with salvation for everyone. We rejoice, because Jesus came for each one of us. Nobody stands outside of Jesus’ saving embrace, except by their own choice.

The Shape of Celebration

One observes that the conditions of Jesus’ day looked no more hopeful than the conditions of the passage in Isaiah 61. We can expect, then, that the conditions of our day are equally the context in which God comes to us with salvation and a context that appears almost hopeless. The reason that we have hope is twofold: One, God is here, whatever our circumstances look like; and two the end of all things is certain. Remember that the season of Advent always prepares for the birth of Jesus and anticipates the return of Jesus at the end of all things. As someone has put the message of the book of Revelation, “God wins in the End.” That truth permeates everything we do now, and so we can rejoice.

Consider our theme song with which we have started each service this Advent. We began with it today as well. “We come,” anticipating what lies ahead. Why did we sing it today? We might have sung instead, “We’ve arrived.” But you see, we do not sing that final song of arrival until we stand in God’s presence in the New Heavens and New Earth. Our destination this Christmas is really just a way stop on the journey of our lives. We sing this truth in a Zulu song, “Singabahambayo thina kolumhlaba; siyekhaya ezulwini – we are pilgrims on this earth; we are on our way to Heaven.” We sing this truth in the old song, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through. … If Heaven is not my home, Then Lord, what will I do?”

In my own field of mission studies, we call this truth “the Pilgrim Principle” of Christian living. We balance it with something else called “the Indigenous Principle”, which tells us that God lives fully in every culture and every people on earth. Both principles are true: God lives with us wherever we are, fully at home in our culture; and God calls us to our final home in the New Heavens and Earth.

The importance of these two truths is that they make us able to live with joy here and now, even when the situation around us is falling apart. We belong to God, and we live with the joy of the Lord wherever we are and whatever is happening.

Have you ever met someone who seems to rise above the troubles around them? Have you wondered what their secret was? Sometimes it is simply a matter of personality. Some people have a good digestion and nothing they eat ever seems to bother them. Some people have a good disposition and respond equably and calmly when trouble is bubbling all around them. Is that all there is to it? Can we learn to live out of the depths of God’s goodness and love, even when our external situation is hard?

Living for Heaven

Basic to the gospel is that we are called to live by the standards of God’s Reign on earth. That is, we live on the basis of the New Heaven and Earth, promised in Isaiah and reaffirmed in the New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s Gospel with parallels in Luke’s Gospel) is the clearest exposition of what it means to live this way. How do we move in this direction, when everything around us conspires to “press us into the world’s mould”?

Romans 12 (from which I took the phrase above) says that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. The two people in today’s reading from Luke had their own way of doing just this. Simeon was moved by the Spirit to go into the temple. We can assume that this movement was not unusual in his life: He lived a life of worship. Anna “never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.” She lived a life of worship. I suggest that this stance in their personal lives prepared them to recognize Jesus when he came. They could live by the end of all things in their own context, because they lived in the presence of God, who sees the end from the beginning.

How can we do the same? We participate in communal worship, and we engage in personal and private worship. We pray together, and we pray when we are alone. We spend time hearing God’s Written Word read aloud, and we spend time reading alone. The world is telling us its story all the time – a story of injustice and distress, a story of unfairness and darkness, a story intended to drive us to despair and to act selfishly and greedily in our own lives. We respond by spending time dwelling in God’s story, learning to recognize God’s presence in every situation, even in “this present darkness”. When we see God, we can rejoice.

We know this truth well enough. Let me illustrate with a simple example from my own life. Lois and I have been married for over 43 years. Even before we were married, we knew that we both loved to play Scrabble. We have been playing games of Scrabble – one after the other – for over 43 years now! When we finish one game, the tiles go back in the bag and we draw to start a new game. The board is open on our dining room table as I speak this morning.

Sometimes I draw good tiles, making it easy to find high scoring plays. Sometimes I draw bad tiles, making it hard to find anything to play. When I draw good tiles, all is sweetness and light. When I draw bad tiles, I may complain ever so slightly for just a moment. Well … maybe for more than a moment and maybe not so slightly. Once in a while, Lois suggests that we just stop playing while I calm down.

I don’t want to complain about difficult tiles – it detracts from the pleasure of playing the game, but it has become a deeply ingrained habit. How do I change that habit? Not by saying, “Stop it!” Not by complaining that I complain too much! The only way I know to break a pattern of acting or feeling that I don’t want is to replace it with a new and better pattern. The only to break a bad habit is to replace it with a new good habit. If you have similar struggles, you know what I mean. You can’t stop losing your temper with a driver who cuts you off by telling yourself to be nice, but you can learn new ways to respond when something happens that you don’t like. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes God’s Spirit working in you to give you the ability to keep going. But you and I can change; we can become people who live by God’s standards all the time.

Some Examples

I think of communities that have tried to incarnate God’s Reign in their lives together on earth. Reba Place Fellowship in Chicago is one such. Since 1957, a number of people have gathered together in intentional communities to encourage and support each other. In the process, they have experienced social struggles and personality conflicts and charismatic revival. What marks them, in my estimation, is their persistence in seeking to create new patterns of kingdom behaviour in place of the patterns that characterize Chicago as a whole.

I think of revival movements (as we sometimes call them) such as one that broke out at Asbury College and Seminary in the 1970. It lasted for several years and transformed lives quite remarkably. I was able to see the effects of the revival in my own student experience at Asbury Seminary over 20 years later. What marked the revival most, in my estimation, is the way that God moved in the hearts and lives of those who were waiting for God to enter their lives.

[As a sidelight, I would add that you cannot “plan” a revival. I have been in many such services, when people have tried to coerce God’s Spirit into doing what they think they need. It doesn’t work that way. We wait for God to move in our lives – and like Anna and Simeon we rejoice when God comes down.]

I think of a missionary friend who grew up in a broken home and left home to join the navy. He lived a rough and difficult life, rebelling against all that we would see as good. His lifestyle led him to the end of his own resources, and through a Christian friend he found new life in Christ. I knew him in Zimbabwe as an adult. He was unfailingly cheerful, facing difficult situation with grace and humour. I only discovered how difficult his early life was when I read his life story, written by his wife. What marked him, in my estimation, was the way that new patterns and new life were so deeply ingrained in him that the old ways were completely squeezed out.

What’s the point? We are on the road to God’s Kingdom. This Christmas Sunday, we have come to the end of Advent, from where we can see our destination. We see Jesus, the baby and the Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel. Jesus is also our Messiah, our redemption. We give ourselves to Jesus individually and corporately. We worship him together and individually. And we work out the implications of this corporate and individual relationship by living out God’s Reign in our lives.

As C.S. Lewis puts, “Aim for Heaven, and you will get earth thrown in. Aim for earth, and you will get neither.” Jesus brings Heaven down to us, and we embrace him and his reign on this earth.

 

Christmas Sunday          Steinbach Mennonite Church          27 December 2020

Focus: Walking the road of revelation results in overwhelming joy. The waiting is over. Jesus has come! We rejoice in the incarnation—God in the flesh—God with us!

Going Deeper Questions:

·         How do we celebrate “God With Us”? Which celebrations mean the most to you?

·         How can we connect our Christmas celebration with daily life?

·         How can we keep the good things we say at Christmas from becoming bromides, nice things that we say but they don’t really mean anything?

·         How can we help those who simply cannot rejoice in this season?

Texts

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ¹¹ For as the soil makes the young plant come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

62 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. ² The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. ³ You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

 Luke 2:22-40

Jesus presented in the temple

²² When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons’.

²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

²⁹ ‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. ³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: ³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.’

³³ The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, ³⁵ so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸ Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. 

³⁹ When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

Isn't That Wonderful! Isn't That Amazing!

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

Nine Lessons and Carols 

Christmas Day 2020

Christmas Day! Christmas and Easter stand at the centre of our faith. The service we are following this year is drawn from the annual “Nine Lessons and Carols” used in the Anglican Church. We have used carols more familiar in our own tradition, and we have heard the Scriptures used each year by the Anglicans.

The Scriptures tell the gospel story through selected passages. They help us hear the big story that undergirds all of Scripture. God made us as part of a good creation. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God and were separated from God. God worked through the patriarchs and the covenant with Abraham to create a people who would represent God in the world. At the right time, then, Jesus was born into this people as the Saviour of the World, the one who came to restore fallen humanity’s relationship with God. Now we celebrate that coming into the world at Christmas, and we anticipate Christ’s return in the second advent, when the whole story comes to its triumphant conclusion.

This story is the foundation of our faith. All of our worship throughout the year tells us parts of the story and reminds us to live our own lives within this story. At the centre of the story is the fact that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God. The passage that Lee will read for us shortly is called “St. John unfolds the great mystery of the incarnation.” It is a mystery indeed – that God, the Creator of all matter and energy and worlds and space should come into our lives as one of us, this is a mystery beyond explanation!

We could speak together for many hours and not grasp the depth and power of the incarnation. All that we can do this morning is thank God that God came down into our world, that God became one of us and took our pain and suffering, that God brings us life and light so that we can become one of God’s children. Two and a half years ago, my father lay dying. Two days before he died, my sister visited him. She asked, “Dad, would you like me to read to you from the Bible.” Dad replied, “Yes.” She asked, “What should I read?” He said, “John’s Gospel.” She asked which chapter, and he said briefly, “Start at the beginning.”

She started reading, “In the beginning was the Word, and thew Word was with God, and the Word was God.” She came to the climax of this first passage in John, “And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” As she read these words, Dad raised himself and said, “Isn’t that amazing! Isn’t that wonderful!” His last words to me, mediated by my sister: “Isn’t that amazing! Isn’t that wonderful!” The Son of God became the son of Mary so that you and I and every person can become one with God.

“He came to his own people, and his own people did not accept him; but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power – the right – to become children of God.” As an early church father (Athanasius) put it – perhaps with some hyperbole, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” Isn’t that amazing! Isn’t that wonderful!

Steinbach Mennonite Church

25 December 2020 

On the Road to Revelation: Arriving

 We are near the end of the road. We have had three words already: Readiness, Repentance, and Restoration. The road goes ever, ever on (in Tolkien’s phrase), but the road also has a destination. The destination of our road is the revelation of God’s presence in our lives. God came to earth in the first advent; God will return in the last advent. As we wait for Christmas, God reveals God’s self to us again. We open ourselves to God, the baby born in Bethlehem.

2 Samuel 7

What is this revelation? That God is with us, Immanuel. The whole point of Christmas is that, whatever the situation around us, God is with us. How does the passage from 2 Samuel 7 show us this revelation? David became king of Israel in a troubled and difficult time. The Israelites – today, we would say “the Israelis” – were surrounded by people who were stronger than they were, and they faced the continual threat of being subjugated or even exterminated. Saul had tried to force back their enemies, with limited success. David picked up where Saul left off, and he was successful, making Israel strong and united, the pre-eminent power in the region.

When he felt secure, David began to reflect on their condition. “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.” Then God spoke to David and told him that he should not be the one to build God “a house of cedar”. Instead, God makes several promises concerning the future security of the Israelites. These promises stand in tension with the history that follows, in which Israel rebels against God and is eventually carried off into exile. This tension gives the promises a final fulfillment at the end of time: God will indeed give God’s people final and ultimate security in the perfect Reign of God that comes with “the New Heavens and the New Earth” (compare Isaiah 65 and 66 and Revelation 21 and 22). The “already … not yet” of God’s Reign.

Then God gives the Messianic promise that concerns us most clearly: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” The House of David is established in the coming of the Son of David. The Jews anticipated this figure, the Son of David, the Anointed One whose advent would set God’s people free forever. Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah. This prophecy in 2 Samuel points us to the passage in Luke 1.

Luke 1

Roughly a thousand years later, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. Messianic expectation was high in Israel of her day. The exile to Babylon was ancient history. The Seleucid Empire, which replaced Babylon and its heir Persia, controlled the Jewish homeland for a time. Under the Maccabees, 160 years earlier, the Jews had achieved independence again, but that tenuous freedom was swallowed up by the Roman Empire about 60 years before the events in Luke 1. 

Freedom from foreign domination was still a living memory. They expected the Messiah to come and throw out their Roman rulers, fulfilling the prophecies that they read regularly in the synagogue. Then Gabriel appeared to Mary: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Naturally, Mary’s heart and mind turned to the promises of David’s Kingdom restored. Throughout Jesus’ lifetime, he worked to reshape the people’s expectation of a political Messiah. He came to establish God’s Reign, but what that meant was something they did not yet understand. 

In this setting, Mary responded to Gabriel’s promise: “‘I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” She embraced the promise and became the Messiah’s “earthly sanctuary”. Then she sings the Magnificat, “Mary’s Song”, modelled on Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2. We see the theme that God lifts up the humble and puts down the proud. We see the theme that the poor are filled with good things and the rich are sent away with nothing. The whole song reminds us of the letter to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3): “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.”

In Mary’s mind, then, the salvation she expected was social and political, but the core of her song, the salvation she sings of, is something deeper. God came into the people’s lives in Israel to be with them; God comes into our lives in the same way. “God with us.” Immanuel. The beginning of salvation is the realisation that we cannot save ourselves in any meaningful sense of the word. We really are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked”. We depend on God for everything, and we have nothing in and of ourselves.

Synthesis

We bring these passages together and ask, “What is God’s revelation to us today?” The answer is fairly straightforward: God is with us. God “establishes our house.” Our future is in God’s hands and our safety is found in God. All of this comes through the person of Jesus, the baby born of Mary. He is our Saviour. He is the one caring for us. He is the one revealed as “God with us”.

This straightforward truth is revealed in a startling way, taking us away from what David expected and from what Mary expected. We have referred to this movement before, especially last Sunday as we talked about the way that John the Baptist came baptizing. When the investigating team from the Pharisees asked him who he was, John said that he was a voice preparing the way for the Messiah, who was one of the people around them. The people around them included many who were marginal to society. That is the sideways move we want to explore further this morning.

Salvation from the Margins

We can overstate the case that Jesus comes from the margins. He was the son of a carpenter, and as such may have had some status in Nazareth. [Exactly what “carpenter means is open to discussion. At the least, we can say that Jesus was probably trained in a craft that involved building, perhaps with stone and using some wood. In any case, it did not involve high social status but was also not at the bottom of the social ladder.] He was able to gather a group of disciples, and people regularly referred to him as rabbi – teacher – a sign of respect.

The descriptions around Mary’s song reinforce this mixed picture. On the one hand, Mary was related to Elizabeth, who was married to the priest, Zacharias. Jesus was at least related to the priests, who had significant religious status in Jerusalem. On the other hand, he lived in Galilee, where no one of social importance lived; the important people were all down in Jerusalem. When we add details from the other birth narratives, the same mixture emerges. The genealogies make it clear that Jesus comes from the line of King David, well worth noting. But when Joseph and Mary travel to be included in the census (Luke 2), they cannot even find a room to stay in and end up in a stable. In Matthew’s account, when Jesus is born, nobody seems to notice until wise men (magi) come from the East looking for him.

Mary’s song itself makes the low status of Jesus explicit: “And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. … He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” Our questions come to an end. Jesus came as an outsider to save outsiders. Jesus identified with the marginalized to save marginalized people. Jesus – Immanuel – God with us comes as a weak and helpless baby to save weak and helpless people.

Working it Out

What does this mean for us this advent season? What do we do with the information that God brings salvation by appearing with us in the margins of our lives? I try to get at these ideas with the “Going Deeper Questions”, especially these three:

·         In what sense might we say that we are still on the road, even after we arrive, even after we receive the revelation of God’s presence with us?

·         What does it mean to live with the presence of God in the continuing troubles and events of our lives?

·         What does it mean to experience “God with us” this Advent Season in 2020?

I won’t try to answer these questions fully now. We need something to talk about during “Going Deeper”! I will, however, begin the process of answering by considering especially the presence of God, “Immanuel”, in our troubles. Last week, Lee spoke about the difficulty of being on the road during the pandemic. As we talked about this reality during the Zoom Sunday School class, it occurred to me that the pandemic has marginalized all of us. We have all become home bound, and we all experience a sense of being pushed to the edge of our existence.

Many of us have not really suffered; we have stable incomes and warm homes, so we are not suffering in the way that some are, who have no fixed address. But all of us have discovered the reality that we are not in control of what is happening to us. One of our friends, mother of a young child, commented that she never expected to see the pandemic influence her child’s social development so radically. Another friend counted the number of acquaintances who have died from the coronavirus: Twelve. We know people who are struggling to keep their business open until the pandemic is over. A month ago, when the positivity rate hit 40% in Steinbach, we were out of control, and we could not hide that truth from ourselves or from anyone else.

We respond to all of this in at least two ways. On the one hand, we take steps to reduce the spread of the virus. We wear masks and we keep our distance. We wash our hands regularly and we avoid gathering in large crowds. Christmas Dinner will look a lot different this year as we join family members virtually. Lois and I are considering how to do our annual “white elephant” gift exchange when the various members of her family of origin are in five different places (more, when you add the children). We do all this because the best medical advice we receive recommends it. We do our part.

On the other hand, at the same time as we seek to avoid the physical effect of the virus, we allow it to do its spiritual work in us. By showing us how helpless we are, it does no more than remind us of what has always been true. We may think of someone who suddenly discovers that he has heart disease and becomes aware of his own limitations (that’s me, in case you don’t get the reference), or we may think of someone who realises that the structural problems that bind our society are intractable – unsolvable by human effort. In every case, we embrace our helplessness and seek God’s presence within the problems of our lives.

Conclusion

A story from a friend’s missionary experience illustrates what I’m trying to describe. John and Anne (pseudonyms) went to Peru 60 or so years ago to work with the Quechua people in the Andes. The people of the village that they moved to had never seen “white” people before, and at first they refused to believe that John and Anne were really people at all. This young couple fresh from the U.K. were so pale that the people thought they were ghosts.

John and Anne tried to describe what they were doing – “We have come to tell you the stories of God” – but nobody would listen. Why would you listen to ghosts? As the weeks passed without any progress, John tried different approaches; none worked. They were ghosts and didn’t matter to the people of the village. Then John decided to try something. He decided to build a hut for them to live in, like the huts that the people of the village built. The people took long straight poles and planted them in a circle in the ground, then filled in the space between the poles with mud and leaves and so on. Add a roof and a door, and you have a place to live.

He went out to find some straight trees to cut down and use for their hut. He found them quite quickly, surprisingly nearby. But when he started to chop them down with his axe, a stream of small biting ants was knocked out of the tree. They landed on him and started biting fiercely. He ran back through the village to Anne, who helped pick them off his body while the people stood around laughing. The people said, “Well, we know he’s not a ghost. The ants couldn’t bite a ghost. He must be a halfwit! Every child knows that ants infest those trees. Even a child would know not to cut them down!”

Here’s the kicker. The people of the village also believed that when someone was as they called him “a halfwit”, it was because God had touched them in the head. You would not expect any wisdom from them, except when they talked about God. Suddenly, the road was open for John and Anne to “tell the stories of God”, and the people listened joyfully.

God works in and through our brokenness – whether we think of personal salvation or of God’s work in the structures of society. Salvation comes through brokenness to broken people. If we want God’s salvation, we must embrace our own brokenness. That is good news. That is the good news of Christmas.

 

Advent Four: Steinbach Mennonite Church

20 December 2020

Focus: On the road to revelation, if we have faith and a willing spirit, God will show us the way. What is this revelation? That God is with us, Immanuel. The whole point of Christmas is precisely that God is with us, whatever we feel like and whatever the situation around us. God’s word to us is, “I am with you; do not be afraid.”

Going Deeper Questions:

·         Mary’s Song lifts up the humble and puts down the powerful. How can we be lifted up when we are among the rich to whom she refers?

·         David receives the promise of the Messiah when he has successfully defeated Israel’s enemies. How do we bring Mary’s Song and the promise made to David together?

·         We have used the image of “on the road” throughout Advent. Sometimes we say, “To journey is better than to arrive.” Now we are arriving. In what sense might we say that we are still on the road, even after we arrive, even after we receive the revelation of God’s presence with us?

·         What does it mean to live with the presence of God in the continuing troubles and events of our lives?

·         What does it mean to experience “God with us” this Advent Season in 2020?

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16:

God’s promise to David

7 After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, ² he said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.’ ³ Nathan replied to the king, ‘Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.’

⁴ But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: ⁵ ‘Go and tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord says: are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? ⁶ I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. ⁷ Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”

⁸ ‘Now then, tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. ⁹ I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. ¹⁰ And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people shall not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning ¹¹ and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. … ¹⁶ Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”’

 Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55

The birth of Jesus foretold

²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’

²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants for ever; his kingdom will never end.’

³⁴ ‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ ³⁵ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.’

³⁸ ‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her. …

Mary’s song

⁴⁶ And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, ⁴⁸ for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name. 

⁵⁰ His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. ⁵² He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. ⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful ⁵⁵ to Abraham and his descendants for ever, just as he promised our ancestors.’

Now Advent Can Begin!

Just as Christmas cannot begin (for some people) until the Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College, Cambridge have been read and sung, so I cannot begin Advent until I have heard the Nine Lessons and Carols at St Johns College (also Cambridge). I listened to them today on the BBC Radio Three. 

The high mark of the service (for me) is the singing of the wonderful advent hymn, "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending" (at roughly the 90 minute mark of the service). Each year in my Worldview and Culture class, I introduce my students to this hymn, with its linking of the birth of the baby with the return of the King in power and great glory.

Lo! he comes with clouds descending, once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! God appears, on earth to reign.

 

Every eye shall now behold him robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at nought and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, Deeply wailing, Deeply wailing, Shall the true Messiah see.

 

Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation to his ransomed worshippers:
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture, gaze we on those glorious scars!

 

Yea, Amen! let all adore thee, high on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory: claim the kingdom for thine own:
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Alleluia! Come, Lord, come!

 

As I tell my students, this hymn contains possibly the most terrifying lines in English: "Those who set at naught and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see." My BIC and Mennonite training shrinks from the image of God's judgment, but Scripture holds divine love and wrath together in a seamless whole -- and so must we.

In Charles Wesley's original, there were more verses: how many, I am not sure. This website gives seven. In my class, I contrast verse three above with Penn State fight songs. [For context, in the previous period I had introduced my students to the phenomenon of school spirit via university songs -- a phenomenon that leaves my Canadian students, for whom school spirit is an alien concept, shaking their heads.] "Fight on State" contains the words, "we'll hit that line, roll up the score, fight on for victory ever more, fight on, Penn State!" I have a recording of the Men's Glee Club singing vigorously at Homecoming, and it is stirring stuff!

Contrast this ethos -- when you're ahead, finish 'em off! -- with the hymn: "Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body wears." God's omnipotence revealed through Christ's ultimate weakness. "With what rapture gaze we on those glorious scars!" In the recent American election, Trump's refusal to concede flows from a conviction that any weakness is unacceptable. In the hymn, God's power glories in Christ's death! Weakness is in our blood. We rejoice in and embrace our own weakness as Christ takes it into his own death.

I could go on, but close with some links to youtube versions of this wonderful advent hymn:

The Cambridge Singers (a wonderful rendition with brass, but omitting verse three)

Saint John's College (1994: perhaps the original that I first heard, but omitting verse three)

Saint John's College (2015: with verse three, and with a descant that blew me away)

Life after Death: The bread and butter of Christian Faith

Today we begin a three-part series on death and dying. I begin this morning, and Lee will develop the theme further in parts two and three. We conclude on the afternoon of November 22 with another “foodless faspa”.

One might say that the purpose of Christian living – indeed, of human living – is to learn how to die. Everyone who has gone before has lived and died. All of us in our turn will complete our lives by dying. It is the Christian belief that the hard passage of death, which is sometimes felt as a curse, is in fact God’s great gift to us. Death is the door to eternity, with the offer that eternity is filled with God, what one songwriter has called “the land without tears”.

If this is the case, then in Paul’s words we “walk in the resurrection”. We live the way God wants us to live now, because resurrection life is already bubbling inside of us. We explore this foundational idea this morning through two Scripture passages and ask what it means for the way that we live.

Job 19

These verses from Job 19 are best known for the wonderful aria in Handel’s Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” – just after the Hallelujah chorus. They are interesting in that Job speaks them in the midst of complaints. This chapter begins with the words, “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” Job is speaking here of his friends, who are not helpful in their efforts to explain what is happening, but just before the verses we read, he says, “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.” Then Job turns and a song of unlikely praise and hope breaks out: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

This is an affirmation of pure hope, but it is a hope that proves to be true. Within the Old Testament we find little about the afterlife; people did not think much about what we call “eternity”. Even in Jesus’ own time, when the Pharisees had begun to teach the reality of the resurrection, many still believed that after death there was only “the grave”, Sheol, a place where the dead are … well, dead. When faced with his own death, Job breaks out in assurance that somehow – even if his troubles kill him – he will be alive with God. God is his Redeemer.

1 Corinthians 15

Paul spells out the foundation of that hope in 1 Corinthians 15. The first eleven verses of the chapter provide a summary of basic Christian belief: Christ died for our sins; Christ was raised; Christ lives, and we can know him. In much of our preaching and Bible study, we emphasize the teachings and ministry of Jesus; Paul reminds us that his life and teaching rest on the foundation of his death and resurrection. Christ died, and Christ was raised: This is the beginning of our lives in Christ.

Verses 12 to 19 of our text make the point clearly. If there is no such thing as resurrection (as the Sadducees claimed in Judaism), then even Jesus was not raised. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, our preaching and faith are useless. Everything hangs on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without that, we are bound by the patterns and structures of sin, in which we live our lives. Paul puts it this way: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Verses 20 to 28 develop the point.

·         Christ has been raised from the dead

·         Everyone died in Adam’s sin; everyone rises in Christ’s resurrection

·         Christ wins the victory [over sin and death] first for himself, and then for all who belong to him

·         When Christ rules over every other authority and power in the universe, he will hand his authority over to the Father.

·         The last “enemy” to be defeated is death

·         The final two verses are complicated. I read them to mean: Christ’s final victory re-establishes perfect order in the world, in which God the Father reigns through God the Son and all people take their place in God’s “New Heaven and New Earth”.

 Bringing the Scripture into our Conversation

What does all of this have to do with us today? I know a Mennonite who is attending a Catholic Church. I asked him if he could become a Catholic. He replied, “The trouble is I would have to affirm that I believe the whole of the church’s doctrine, and I don’t think I can. As I Mennonite, I promise to do something, and I can do that!” I would disagree with him: Mennonites also “believe something”, but he is right that we emphasise Christian living over Christian believing.

That being the case, what does it mean for our daily lives to believe in the resurrection of Jesus? We will pursue this question more deeply in the Going Deeper time, but I give one consequence of this belief for us to consider.

We all live on the basis of what we believe is most important in life or fundamentally true. One of the best ways to find out what a person really believe is true is to consider what that person actually does. If someone says, “I believe that we should love everyone and help anybody who is in need when they are in need”, but we observe that person acting in a hateful way, exercising a destructive power over the person in need, then we can conclude that  their real belief is something different. By their actions, they have proclaimed, “I believe in using power to benefit myself before anyone else.”

What does a life lived in the truth of the resurrection look like – both the resurrection of Jesus and our own death and resurrection? In Romans 6, Paul writes:

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

We walk in newness of life. We walk in the resurrection. We have “died to sin”, and we live in his resurrection. Let me list some possible ways that we can “walk in the resurrection”.

·         People in our world live fearfully. We are taking measures to deal with the threat offered by Covid-19, including holding our Going Deeper class as a Zoom session this afternoon, instead of meeting in the sanctuary. We take proper precautions, but we know that God is “King of the universe”. A Zulu song we used to sing in Zimbabwe says, “Even though we walk in danger and evil on this earth, we are going to Heaven.” We do not need to be paralyzed by fear, whatever we face.

·         Unfettered individualism is a strong value for most people in Canada. Although we value our individual freedom and the equality that God has placed within us, we do not insist on our absolute right to do whatever we want to do. We recognize that we live in mutual submission as brothers and sisters, children of God. We do not rule over each other, but we do care deeply for each other.

·         Most people in North America believe in what peace teachers call “the myth of redemptive violence”. When one is attacked, the idea goes, a righteous person may respond with violence. It is wrong, they say, to attack other people first, but, like Popeye defending Olive Oyl, the good guy is justified in demolishing the bad guy. We follow the teachings of Jesus. As we “walk in the resurrection”, we recognize that we do not fear what may happen to us if we pursue peace. We can live for peace in everything that we do – in our families and in our jobs and in our nation and in our relationships. Another Zulu hymn says, “Peace in this world of sin: the blood of Jesus pours out peace.” Amen! As we sang earlier, “We are people of God’s peace as a new creation.” We live for peace and remember the peace of God on this Peace Sunday in Canada.

·         Many people are willing to cheat on a deal if it gives them an advantage, or to cut corners on a job if they can get away with it, or take something that they want without paying if no one is looking. We follow the teachings of Jesus. Our “yes” is yes, and our “no” is no. We do what is right when people are watching and when they are not. We walk in the resurrection.

 

In short, we live by the standards and values of God’s Reign, even while we are in this life. If the resurrection is real, if we have died to sin and live “in newness of life”, we look different than people around us. We act the way Jesus teaches us to act, filled with his Spirit.

 

The Personal Side

As I work on this sermon, I have been diagnosed with unstable angina. I feel the precariousness of human physical life. How does this message about the resurrection and life after death speak to me in my human frailty? I speak cautiously now. It is easy to say that God comforts us in our weakness. It is harder to face that weakness squarely.

 

Note how Job speaks. “My heart faints within me.” I know what he means! Note how Paul speaks. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The problems and troubles of this world are real. Jesus warned his disciples just before his crucifixion, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Jesus was speaking especially about the persecution that they would face as his followers, but the truth applies more broadly.

 

I have referred several times to Zulu hymns. African hymnody often picks up the theme of the trouble we face in this world – “this world of trouble”, “this world of sin”, and so on. They have it right: Life is hard, and death is harder. Death would make us fear and turn against God if it could. Then we read the whole verse and we see, “in me you may have peace.” We hear Jesus, “take courage; I have conquered the world!” Death may be God’s enemy, but in the resurrection, Jesus brings us the death of death. We are enabled to walk in the resurrection, knowing that even death cannot finish us.

 

This is a great truth, and this is a hard truth. Death teaches us to rely on God. As someone said in our Going Deeper Time a few weeks ago, death forces us to rely on God. We cannot overcome death, but we can rest in God, who has conquered death. This is the reason that Paul says (1
Thessalonians 4: 13f): “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” We grieve at death, but we know that Jesus rose from the dead and will bring us also with him at the end of time. We will rise with Jesus and live forever with Jesus.

 

Conclusion

This then is the hope of Christian living – that we live and die in Christ, so that we do not need to fear death. We can live in this life the way God wants us to, and when the end comes, we can die in Christ – and live forever.

 

I think of the words of another great hymn, “Abide with me”. This was written by a pastor who was near the end of his life. It is essentially his last words to his congregation.

1. Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
   When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
2. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
   Change and decay in all around I see—O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
3. I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
   Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
4. I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
   Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
5. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
   Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

8 November 2020

Going Deeper Questions:

·         What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? Why is it important?

·         Mennonites have emphasised the importance of how we live, not just of what we believe. What difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in the way that we actually live day to day?

·         How do you feel about the fact that each of us will die? Paul calls death the last enemy to be defeated. If death is God’s enemy, how can we welcome death as a friend?

·         What are your favourite Scriptures that speak about death and dying?

 

Texts:

Job 19: 23-29

²³ “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! ²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; ²⁶ and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, ²⁷ whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me! ²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’; ²⁹ be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”

 

1 Corinthians 15: 12-28

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; ¹⁴ and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷ If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹ For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

 

The Land Without Tears (Ralph Carmichael)

Thru the night of regret and sorrow flow my shameless tears

Lost from sight was that glad tomorrow, naught but wasted years.

In my weakness I knelt to pray

In his kindness I heard him say:

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”

 

Now I know he’ll walk beside me thru the darkest night,

As go, he’ll be there to guide me in the path that’s right.

When I come to the close of day, when he speaks I will hear him say,

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way 

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”