Reading my Youth

 

I have just finished reading Anthony Thomas’ biography of Cecil John Rhodes, Rhodes: The Race for Africa. A few have heard of the Rhodes scholarships to Oxford University. Fewer today have heard of the man whose estate established those scholarships. But I grew up with his name in my ears and his fame in my heart.

C.J. Rhodes founded the countries of Southern and Northern Rhodesia. I was born in Northern Rhodesia, and grew up in Southern Rhodesia. Today these countries are known as Zambia and Zimbabwe, quite different from what I knew growing up.

I grew up, then, as a White Rhodesian, moulded by the ideas and heritage of Rhodes—son of an English clergyman; briefly a farmer in South Africa; best known for his success in the diamond mines of Kimberley and (to a lesser extent) in the gold mines of Johannesburg. He founded the De Beers Diamond Company. As the Wikipedia entry puts it: “De Beers is a cartel of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond hops, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors.” All going back to Rhodes in 1888.

His representatives pursued actions that led to the annexation (or conquest) of Zimbabwe, displacing the local rulers—Lobengula, the king of the Ndebele people, and many local chiefs who led the Shona people. The wars of 1893 and 1896 in which Ndebele and Shona power was broken were called by the Shona “Chimurenga”. And the Chimurenga did not end in 1896, but were resumed in the 1970s, leading to the end of White rule, as ZANU and ZAPU deposed the party and power of Ian Smith.

Of course, as a White Rhodesian I learned a different story. I (with all my White friends) revered Rhodes. His statue stood in the middle of Bulawayo. He was a colossus! A true hero of the British Empire!

Over 40 years ago I left those ideas behind, but early patterns remain ingrained in one’s gut. Reading Thomas’ dispassionate accounting of Rhodes—seeing the single-minded willingness to crush anyone who stood in his way—clearly Rhodes was no hero. That knowledge hurts, as I must again refuse my own instincts to praise and admire him. Ironically, the modern Zimbabwean most like him in his ruthless quest for power is Zimbabwe’s current president, R.G.M. Rhodes the dictator has been succeeded now by Mugabe the dictator.

 

There was much to admire in the best of the White Rhodesians. Garfield Todd and his daughter, Judith, are among the best that White Rhodesia produced. But I am on a life-long quest to not be who my first country taught me to be. (Taking Zimbabwe to be the first country in which I made my own conscious choices about the kind of person I want to be.)

A postscript: As I work on a history of the Brethren in Christ Missions, I know that I must also read accounts of Zimbabwe by other Brethren in Christ writers. At least two of them are close friends, but as Black Zimbabweans they tell a story I find hard to hear. I know that I must listen to their voices more carefully than any others; but the task is not easy. I want what I know from my childhood to be good, and much of it is. But truth is more important than sentiment, and continued growth requires more and more truth. All the truth.

I Am…The Bread of Life

19 January 2014                                                                    Steinbach Mennonite Church
Text
Jesus the Bread of Life
²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” ²⁶ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

³⁰ So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” ³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴ “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷ All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰ For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Introduction

Yesterday I went to Chuck’s funeral, held at the E Free church. Chuck was my colleague and friend, and we carpooled to school and back for many years. Thirty-three years ago I went to another funeral—for the fiancé of Rose, one of my classmates in seminary at AMBS. He died at about age 30 from a disease of the blood. As we grieved together, we sang #472: “I am the Bread of Life. He who believes in me shall never die.” So I always associate this passage with the death of close friends.

I don’t think you ever get used to death, whether you’re 30, or 60, or older. But Jesus turns our thoughts in a radical direction: Even while our bodies die, we live forever! Physical bread, such as Lois baked in our house yesterday, sustains physical life; but for real life, eternal life, you need the “bread of Heaven”. Let’s talk about that together.

The Whole Series

Last week Randy started our series with John 8: Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”

Jesus is intentionally echoing God’s words to Moses in Exodus 3. Moses asked, “Who should I say sent me? God replied: “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” So when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am!” the people hear him say, “Before Abraham, God!

Randy reinforced the point with the way that John 1 echoes Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created …”, which becomes in John, “In the beginning was the Word…. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” Jesus is the Word of God, who is one with God. In chapter 8 Jesus makes this same point about himself.

John then uses this formulation, “I am”, repeatedly through his gospel in order to tell us who God is, as revealed by Jesus. Others will explore these attributes of God as we move through the coming Sundays of Winter. This morning, we explore what it means to be “the Bread that came down from heaven”, “the Bread of Life”.

John 6

John 6 begins with the feeding of the 5,000. This miracle appears in all four gospels. In Matthew Jesus healed the people, then fed them. In Mark Jesus taught the people. Then fed them. In Luke Jesus healed and taught the people, then fed them. But here in John we don’t know what Jesus did when the people came to hear and see him. They came because of the miracles of healing they had heard about, but John’s account moves directly to the problem of a crowd without food.

In verse 5 Jesus asks Phillip to consider the problem of finding enough bread to feed the crowd (5,000—just counting the men). This question focusses the theme of the chapter on bread. The question that runs underneath the narrative is: What is your bread? What do you live on? You remember the way that the disciples wrestle (unsuccessfully) with the issue of feeding the people, and how Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish to feed everyone.

One lesson from the event is that Jesus can meet our physical needs, but that is not the primary lesson that Jesus wants us to learn, so he keeps going. Between the feeding of the 5,000 and our passage, the disciples try to sail across the lake in their fishing boat. Jesus comes to them through a storm, walking across the water. A basic point in this event is the way that Jesus reinforces his nature as being more than simply human.

So we come to our passage this morning. The crowd has been looking for Jesus and they find him and the following conversation ensues.

25-29: The crowd wonder what Jesus is doing. He tells them that they are looking for his physical blessings (healings and the bread and fish); instead they should look for God’s food: eternal life. The people ask, “What is God’s food?” Jesus tells them that it is to believe on the one God has sent (namely, himself). 30-34: They ask for a sign, remembering the sign of manna in the dessert, which showed that Moses was truly God’s leader in the Exodus. Jesus says that Moses only brought manna; but the Father gives “the bread of Heaven”. They ask for this bread—setting the scene for Jesus to reveal himself more fully. 35-40: Jesus replies, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty… For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

There is more here for us to look at. In the rest of the chapter the Jews wonder how Joseph’s son could be this divine ambassador, and Jesus repeats his identity (51, 53-58). The identification of the bread from Heaven with his own flesh makes it clear that he sees himself as a divine sacrifice for the sins of the people. Many desert him, because they recognize his claim to be one with God. Jesus asks the 12 if they will leave him also, and Peter makes his bold response: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Comment
But we leave the rest aside and come back to this basic assertion, “I am the Bread of Life.” Jesus tells us that in him there is life, and without him there is only death. There are two basic thoughts that this leads me to.

1) Sometimes you may hear people say, “Jesus was a wonderful teacher, but since his time Christians have turned what he said about himself into the claim that he is God. He was really just a good man and a good teacher. This passage is one of the basic responses to that claim.

C.S. Lewis has observed that Jesus made such outrageous claims about himself that there are only three real possibilities. One: He was a lunatic, on the level of someone who claims to be a poached egg. Two: he was a liar and therefore a terrible scoundrel, a really bad man. Three: he was telling the truth.

Consider: If he was a lunatic, then the crowds would not have followed him. All of his teaching and all of his miracles made a powerful impression on people. They knew that whatever else was true about him, here was a man in possession of his senses. He was no lunatic.

Further, if he was a liar, how could he teach the way that he did? The man who taught in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5 to 7) was no liar. Non-Christians also recognize the power of his teaching, so that Gandhi could model aspects of his own life on the teachings of Jesus. There is depth and wisdom and divinity itself in his teachings. He was no liar.

The only remaining possibility is that he was telling the truth. He was sent from God, one with the Father, the “Bread of Heaven.” I saw a quotation from Aristotle in a series of detective books that I enjoy (by Dorothy Sayers): “The probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.” Now this is not a proof of the impossible, but shows how we might think of these three options.

That Jesus was a liar is possible, but it is improbable. It doesn’t fit the facts
That Jesus was a lunatic is possible, but it is improbable. It doesn’t fit the facts.
That Jesus was who he said he was—the One sent from God whom John calls “the Only Begotten Son of God—this is impossible, but it is probable. It fits all the facts.

To put it another way, we balk at admitting that Jesus brings God directly into our lives because we can’t see how that it possible. But the more that we get to know him, the more we walk with him and listen to him and see what he does in our lives, the more we begin to realize, he is exactly who he says he is.

2) So much for our first thought; the second thought is this: Jesus risks everything that he has gained with the crowds to help them meet God by “feeding on him”. What does that mean? It means that he wants them to follow him in everything. In the synoptic gospels, whenever someone asked Jesus how to get to heaven, he said, “Follow me.” This is the same thing in John’s gospel.

Jesus wants the same thing for you and for me. It is not enough to admit that Jesus is the unique Son of God, “the Bread of Heaven”, the one who can call himself “I am”. Jesus wants you and me to meet him, and give ourselves completely to him, and follow him in every part of our lives.

Over the Christmas break I read a collection of biographies by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom. It was called Clouds of Witnesses, about great Christians from Africa and Asia. A common theme in their life stories was that they encountered God so powerfully that they could do nothing else than follow Jesus in every area of their lives.

That is what Jesus wants for you and for me today, here in Steinbach. We used to get at such things by encouraging people to come down to the altar and, as we put it, “Pray through.” I don’t think we necessarily need those old forms for our encounters with God today. I do know that we must meet him. Today and every day. In the morning and in the evening. Always and forever.

In the passage we read, the Jews were ready to be satisfied with the wonders Jesus showed them—some healings and the multiplied bread and fish. Jesus wants them to go deeper. Just as in John 4, the Samaritan woman is ready to be satisfied with especially good water, and Jesus leads her deeper, to find the “water of life”.

Jesus wants us not to be satisfied with the physical blessings he gives us. They are good—a hot bath on a cold morning, toast and marmalade, good coffee. These are wonderful things, but God has something greater and more wonderful waiting for us. He wants us to be ready to live with him forever, to share “eternal life”, to become filled with his Spirit and joy and power. And we’re satisfied with so little!

C.S. Lewis again has said it: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (From “The Weight of Glory”.) In the sermon that these words come from, Lewis is considering the imagery that the New Testament uses about heaven, but his words apply here as well. We are indeed “far too easily pleased.”

Concluding Thoughts

Bring this all back round to where we started. We are surprised and frightened by death. I wept because my friend Chuck died. I grieved when my classmate’s fiancé died. Jesus does not turn us away from death, even with words that promise life.

Rather Jesus allows us to meet and embrace our physical death, because it is the door to the fuller life of eternity spent with him. Chuck was 74. During the last week of his life, as he lay in the hospital bed in palliative care, a friend told me that Chuck would wake up, look round and say: “There’s the hospital. There you (Sue, his wife) are. Shoot, I’m still here!” Death was hard, but his last words were, “Thank you, God.” Now we are not promised a peaceful death; but I can tell you where Chuck’s peace at the end came from. He followed Christ all his life, and so he was already living the life that God gives.

Everyone is searching for something. Some people pour themselves into the search for fun—they party hard and look for the latest greatest pleasure. But the only thing that can satisfy what they are looking for is Christ. Some people pour themselves into their job—they work hard, make good money, and retire early. But the only thing that can give meaning to their life of hard work is Christ. Some people accumulate power—they want to influence people and events. But in the end their search fails; only Christ can meet what they need.

I am reading the biography of Cecil John Rhodes, a man who accumulated millions in the diamond and gold fields of South Africa in the late 1800s. He pursued wealth so as to pursue his dream of expanding the reach of the British Empire throughout Africa. I grew up thinking that Rhodes was a wonderful man, whose heroic work led to the founding of the countries I grew up in (Northern and Southern Rhodesia). In fact, I discover that he was a thoroughly bad man, a villain and a scoundrel.

The problem was that he replaced God with the dream of Empire. His father was a vicar in England, and he thought of following his father into pastoral ministry, but the pursuit of power seduced him, and his actions have led to great problems and pain in modern South Africa and Zimbabwe. Curiously, the people who opposed him the most were the missionaries—those people who were following the dream of preaching the gospel to every person in the world. While Rhodes was acting on his racism and devaluation of Black People, they did all in their power to bring the gospel to the people of Africa. This is always the choice we face: We serve either our own dreams—which lead in the end to despair, or we follow Jesus.

“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus said. Look for him everywhere you go. I have met Jesus in a special ways at several times in my life: When I was a 12-year old in a Baptist Church in Zimbabwe; when I was an 18-year old praying over a water cooler with a friend in college; when I was a 24-year old teaching with the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe; when I was a 58-year old teaching at Providence. Each encounter was unique. Each encounter was just what I needed for the years that followed.

Search for Jesus. Keep your ears and mind and your heart open as you read the Bible, and pray, and go to work, and do whatever goes on in your life. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Bread sustains life—not just physical bread, which gives physical life—but real life, deeper life, life that lasts forever, life that continues even when you die. Feed on Jesus. He is the Bread of Life.

Christmas Eve 2013

We sit in rows of simple church-like chairs
In sacred space made common with singing;
Projected words our sign to form a choir,
Wordless picture signs our silence, listening

To words and songs from others' throats and lips.
I've heard too much divine made commonplace,
Carols and poems--their meaning slowly slips
Out of mindless sitting in sacred space.

Wordless picture shows a common theme--
Joseph's arm steals round the blessed mother
As mother holds her baby. How dare he?
So intimate with Ultimate Other?

   The common song shattered by simple care,
   Fragments of awe, divinity laid bare.

Joseph: More Mystery

I just finished shovelling the snow off the driveway. As I worked, I thought more about Joseph, following yesterday's sermon.

Joseph was a dreamer. Each of his actions followed a word from God sent by an angel in a dream we know Joseph the dreamer in the OT too. Joseph, son of Jacob, appears in Genesis 30 as one whose birth means that God is adding to Jacob's family. He begins life as part of a bizarre contest (bizarre at least to our way of thinking) between Leah and Rachel to see who can have more children. But he begins known as the dreamer, the one whose dreams--and whose ability to interpret dreams--lead to the salvation of Jacob's family, "the Children of Israel".

Joseph, husband of Mary, appears in Matthew 1:16, as the son of Jacob. So when he starts hearing from God in dreams, we can expect salvation to come to Israel. Here is where the story changes from its clear OT parallel.

Matthew likes to make subtle points through simple stylistic variations. So in Matthew 2 he makes the point that King Jesus supplants King Herod with a simple stylistic change in the way he refers to Herod. He calls Herod "King", until the magi find and worship the baby Jesus. After that he refers to Herod only as "Herod". Jesus is king, and Herod is dethroned.

So when Matthew never records any words from Joseph's mouth, we can assume that is an important point of style. Matthew sets Joseph up to be important--son of Jacob; God's words in dreams. We expect Joseph to do something! But he says nothing. He does what he is told, like a servant who hears and obeys. He has added the family into which Jesus is born, and then fades into obscurity.

Why? Because the focus is on Jesus--the one who saves, not on Joseph--the one who is added. Think of what happens to the light bulb when the sun comes up. It almost disappears in the light of the sun. Jesus is the light of the world, and all other sources of power fade into obscurity.

There's much more in the story than this; but I was done shovelling the driveway, and that's enough for now.

The Mystery Man: Joseph

Preached at SMC for the Third Sunday in Advent, 2013

Text

Matthew 1:18-25
Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son
¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Introduction

Last July our son got married. Lois and I were delighted. We love our son, and we love our daughter-in-law. The wedding was wonderful—held under a tent beside a cornfield, with lots of hymn singing (eight hymns), followed by a reception in the barn overlooking the field. At the wedding I learned again what I had discovered four years before when Nevin got married: The father of the groom is the least visible person at the wedding. Everyone is looking at the bride and the groom, as they should be. The father of the bride is often close to tears during the father-daughter dance, as is the mother dancing with her son. The father of the groom dances with no one. At Vaughn’s wedding Lois and I walked down the aisle with him to release him into this new relationship, and then Lauren’s parents walked down the aisle with her to do the same. But in the end the father of the groom is almost invisible. As he should be.

Joseph

Joseph reminds me of the father of the groom. He is almost invisible. You remember Mary: When the angel came to her they talked, and afterwards she sang her wonderful “Magnificat”. Joseph? He said nothing. The angel did all the talking. Joseph is the quiet one who does what he’s told. Go over the story with me again. The facts are clear enough, but may surprise us.

·         Mary and Joseph were “pledged to be married”. As Marg said last week, this suggests that Mary was a young teen. Joseph could have been any age. Some commentators suggest that he was an older man who had been married before. The text doesn’t say so, but it doesn’t rule it out either. He could have been a young man himself. This seems more likely, given the travelling they did; but again, the text doesn’t say.

·         The time between a pledge and the marriage could be a year, but often these come close together, and today normally come in the same ceremony. In this space of time, Mary conceived a child. When Joseph found out, he was naturally upset; but rather than humiliate Mary, he decided “to divorce her quietly”. This decision is a surprise: Their culture was a shame and honour culture. You may have heard of a family in Ontario in the recent past, in which the brothers apparently killed their sister because she was in love with someone from outside their community. She had brought shame on the family. So Joseph was acting very much against his culture by seeking not to embarrass her.

·         Joseph was “faithful to the law”. The King James says: “a righteous man”. The original word means “just”, usually in the sense of one who keeps the law. Some commentators take it to mean “righteous” in the sense of “good” or “kind”. That makes sense of Joseph’s desire not to hurt Mary.

·         As Joseph thought all of this through, an angel appeared. You notice that Mary had Gabriel the archangel (Luke 1). Joseph just got an angel. When Gabriel came to Mary, he inspired fear and began with the words, “Don’t be afraid!” Joseph’s angel was more practical: “Don’t be afraid to marry her.” The comments above about shame and honour explain what Joseph is afraid of: The shame Mary has brought on them.

·         The angel gave his reason: “She is pregnant because God (the Holy Spirit) made her pregnant.” Who would blame Joseph for being skeptical? The angel continues: “Name him Jesus”, a name that means “God saves”. Matthew doesn’t give us Joseph’s response; he just explains that all of this fulfills prophecies given long before. The fact that Joseph was asleep—a vision in a dream—reminds us of Joseph the dreamer in the OT.

·         The last verse says it all: When he awoke, Joseph did as he was told. I went to our NT professor at Providence and asked him what he could tell me about Joseph. He replied, “Joseph did what he was told.” That could be his epitaph.

Matthew 2

We meet Joseph again in chapter 2. The magi—wise men from the East—came looking for the baby boy. They found Mary and the baby in Bethlehem. No mention of Joseph, of course. In verse 12, an angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream and told him to get up and go to Egypt to escape from Herod. Joseph didn’t say anything. He just got up and took Mary and the baby to Egypt. He did what he was told.

At the end of the chapter, Herod died, and another angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him to go back to Israel. The text is to the point: “So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.” He didn’t even wait until morning. In a further dream an angel warns him of possible trouble from Archelaus, so the family went to Galilee, to Nazareth.

We could go through Luke 2, in which Joseph is present at all the same things as Mary—taking her to Bethlehem; watching the shepherds come. Mary pondered all that had happened and treasured them in her heart (2:19). Joseph didn’t say anything. Jesus is named. Usually the father would give the name, as Zechariah did for John in Luke 1. But Joseph doesn’t even get credit for that—Luke 2:21 says, “He was named Jesus.”  He is there when Jesus was circumcised. He is there when Jesus stayed behind in the temple in Jerusalem. But when they go back and find him, Mary is the one to talk to Jesus and ask what he had been doing. Joseph didn’t say anything. He just did what he was told. Joseph disappears from the story after that. Mary is there during his ministry and at the cross. Maybe he died; at any rate we hear no more of him. People thought he was the father of Jesus; but he knew better. He was the invisible man in the background, the one you tend not to notice at the wedding.

So What’s the Mystery of Joseph?

Out theme is “mystery”—the mystery of Mary and Joseph and the baby, this incredible mystery when God comes in a human baby. What mystery is there about this invisible man? He fades out of the picture; what else is there to say?

Joseph could have failed the salvation project at many points. If he had not gotten the family up in the middle of the night, Herod’s soldiers might have caught them. If he had been less careful in their return Archelaus might have finished the job his father started. If he had been too afraid to take Mary as his wife, he could have failed right at the beginning. But Joseph did as he was told, and the salvation project went ahead the way God intended.

That’s the mystery—that God regularly chooses the least likely people to do the biggest things. The sort of thing described in “Lord of the Rings” when a hobbit has to carry the ring of power into the land of Mordor to destroy it in the mountain of fire. As one of the characters (Elrond) says, “Who of the wise could have foreseen it?” None, especially if they were really wise!

Paul says the same thing in the language of Scripture:

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:26-31)

God works through the weak and the foolish to do what God chooses to do. That’s the mystery and the wonder of Joseph! He is sometimes called “the hidden saint”, because his life disappears from the gospel records. When did he die? We don’t know. Some suggest that he died when Jesus was a teenager, and they note that he would have died in Mary’s arms with Jesus by his side—a blessed death! But that is speculation. The text tells us nothing. His life is hidden.

Some Examples

Many people who do God’s will are almost invisible. God delights to work through the weak and the foolish. I found a sermon on Joseph by a Catholic priest named James Martin. He says:

During the first few months of my Jesuit novitiate, I worked at Youville Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, run by the Grey Nuns, a small Catholic order, which tended to the seriously ill. Those who lived there suffered from a variety of illnesses: cancer, dementia, degenerative muscular diseases. Many were surprisingly young. For example, young men who had suffered brain injuries resulting from car or motorcycle accidents. One mother used to come by daily to visit her 20-year-old son, to feed him, read to him and sit by his bed. Here was a life entirely hidden from the world, in a lonely hospital that few knew about, even in the area. (“Youville? Where’s that?” I was asked by even long-time Bostonians.) One winter’s afternoon I came in to find the mother combing her son’s hair. “Doesn’t he look handsome today?” she said with a radiant smile.

There you see the hidden saint: A mother combing her disabled son’s hair. In my first pastorate I also had a hidden saint; her name was Bessie. Bessie was a bit cranky and very strong-willed. She had a son named Billy. Billy had cerebral palsy and was confined to his bed. I used to visit Bessie and Billy, and she would tell him about his life. She said that the doctors had told her that Billy would live only to his 20s. But she was stubborn and would not take him to a hospital to live out his days. She cared for him in their home, caring for him and talking with him. I listened to their conversations. I have no idea what Billy said—I couldn’t understand anything. But Bessie and Billy understood each other very well, and she would interpret for me. The doctors may have said that Billy would live into his 20s, but when I knew them, he was over 40 years old. Bessie and Billy: Saints from my first church, hidden from the world, but completely visible to God.

The Takeaway

I said that the father of the groom in a wedding is almost invisible. You do what you’re told. You carry chairs, help with decorations, roll the silverware—whatever is there to do, you do. The parallel is Joseph’s lesson to us. We do what God tells us to do. One reason that Joseph could do this is that he was remarkably tuned into God. Like Joseph in the OT, he was open to God’s voice in dreams. When the angel came to him, he didn’t need the reassurance: “Don’t be afraid.” The only fear he had to overcome was the fear of doing what he should do. When God spoke to him, he obeyed. That’s the takeaway from our sermon this morning: Be in touch with God. Walk so closely with God that when God speaks to you, you’re ready. You hear, and do. The hiddenness of Joseph reminds us that God’s actors in our church are not necessarily the visible people here this morning. Some of us are preaching, leading singing, leading worship, standing up at the front in one way or another. I don’t think Joseph is up here. He’s standing somewhere in the background waiting for God to speak. When God speaks, he does what he’s told.

This is only one note in the great mystery of the gospel. God’s call comes more than just through dreams. We need community. We need a deep awareness of God’s Word Written. We need each other. And we need the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. But running through all of these like an invisible thread of vitality is the mystery of God’s work at the margins, God’s presence in our weakness and helplessness.

Robert Southwell has expressed this truth in a wonderful Christmas poem, set to music by Benjamin Britten. Southwell was a Catholic priest in England from 1586 to 1595. Because the monarchy was trying to stamp out the Catholic Church in England, to be a priest was to be in constant hiding, knowing that every time he went to hear confession from someone, he might be arrested. Indeed, in 1592 he was caught, and tortured, and executed in 1595 at 33 years old. The reality of his hidden life gives special poignancy to the words of his poem, “New Heaven, New War”. Here are some of the words:

This little Babe so few days old is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise the gates of hell he will surprise.

….

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight, stick to the tents that he hath pight [pitched].
Within his crib is surest ward, this little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

Southwell expresses the mystery of the gospel, found where human strength and success would never look. When we go to that place, we find God at work in a baby, and we find Joseph, the hidden saint, the man who did what he was told. Will you be like Joseph? Will you be so close to God, that when God speaks, you do what you’re told?

My Life as a White African (Providence Chapel: 27 November 2013)

Our semester theme is journeys, and today I want you to travel with me through a journey of identity.

I am a White African. I was born in Zambia 63 years ago and moved to Zimbabwe when I was four. My grandparents went from Pennsylvania to Zimbabwe in 1921, so my father also grew up there. I have lived in Zambia and Zimbabwe for 22 years of my life—including the first 15. At the core of my identity I am a White Zimbabwean, who now lives as an American and Canadian in Manitoba.

What does it mean to be a White African? At one level, it is simply to be human. What I say of myself all of us may be able to say. To be an African is to be human, like Asians and Europeans and Australasians and Americans. We are all sinners, and we are all created as God’s images in the world. At another level, this is my particular version of the human story.

 

1. To be a White African is to be broken.

Zimbabwe is a broken country today. The past five years have stabilized somewhat, but the first decade of this century saw inflation rise to several million percent a year—such numbers are almost meaningless: they mean that the price of anything would double every day. The present government is filled with corruption and violence. Politically and economically we are broken. I am a White Zimbabwean, which means also that I am a White Rhodesian. About 120 years ago White Settlers moved into Zimbabwe and took over the country. Over the next five years the indigenous people of Zimbabwe fought two wars to throw the settlers out; but the outcome was over 80 years of White rule.

 

When I was seven years old, I went to boarding school with the children of White commercial farmers in Rhodesia. The settlers had many good qualities, but they were also deeply racist. I imbibed that racism freely until I was 15 years old. To a great extent I have learned new ways of thinking, but I know that deep down all of us live with a personal story that shapes us in ways that we can’t even see. When I refer to the problems of the present, I know that I belong to the White Settler history that created the conditions for today. I grew up with people who assumed that Black people were children, and that they needed White people’s help to grow up. The problems of the present have roots in the past, and I am part of that past.

 

Zambia’s history is different, but the White contribution to its history is similar. The two countries were known as Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and the White minority ruled both countries. Northern Rhodesia received its independence in 1964 and took the name Zambia; Southern Rhodesia had to wait another 16 years for independence in 1980. Zambia is further down the road to economic and political health, but it has had its own share of problems from the colonial past. To be a White African is to be broken, to know that the evil I condemn has its roots in my own being.

 

2. To be a White African is to be proud of my country.

Zambia and Zimbabwe share many cultural themes with the rest of southern and south-central Africa. One of the best known of these themes is the concept of Ubuntu. Roughly translated Ubuntu means Humanness. A common proverb in Zimbabwe says, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”: roughly paraphrased as “a person becomes fully human only in and through community.” I need you to make me a real person. You need me to make you a real person. The individual is not the centre of society; people in community are the centre.

 

Some years ago our nine-year old son expressed a desire to move back to Zimbabwe, which we had left when he was five years old. I asked him, “What’s the difference between Zimbabwe and Indiana?” He replied, “Well, in Zimbabwe they treat people like people.” Wow! He nailed it.

 

In North America we live in isolation, and sometimes we help others. We can be very generous, but in the end we are a calculating culture. In Africa we live in community. When someone we know needs help, we don’t ask how we can help; we just help. I asked a friend how you know when to stop helping. He said, “You don’t ask. You just keep helping out, and when they refuse your help you know they no longer need it.”

 

I have a Zimbabwean friend in Winnipeg. More precisely, my parents and his parents were good friends, but that ties us together. His wife died a week and a half ago. Last week I went in to visit, while they make plans for the funeral. The difference between how we face death in Africa and in North America strikes me. In Africa, we face death together. When someone dies, you do not leave the bereaved person alone; we all grieve together. When the one who died is buried, we lower the casket into the grave and fill up the grave ourselves, each one taking turns. Here we leave the bereaved alone with their grief—we say, “They need their space.” And at the graveside we commit the body to the grave and leave, so that the professionals can lower the casket and fill in the grave.

 

Both North America and Africa have their strengths and their weaknesses. One strength of being an African is our emphasis on the person in community. Our orientation to the importance of person over the importance of task is a valuable lesson for task-oriented Western culture; just as the West’s preoccupation with procedures can help Africa overcome systemic corruption.

 

I could draw out other themes, but this is enough to say: To be a White African—to be an African—is to be proud of the people and place I call home.

 

3. To be a White African is to know that our real home is in Heaven.

A well-known song in Zimbabwe goes like this: “We are pilgrims on this earth. We are going to our home in Heaven. Even if our life on this earth is full of trouble, we are going to our home in Heaven.” One of the implications of this truth is that we can live by the standards of Heaven, we can live in God’s reign here and now on earth, because we know that Heaven is the ultimate reality, and the violence and oppression of this world is only temporary. This is a profound truth—that pilgrims of God walking through our earthly homes can live well regardless of the trouble around us.

 

You see, all of us from Africa are Africans—Black Africans indigenous to the continent; Asian Africans who came down the east coast; White Africans who came from the West; Lebanese Africans who came from the Middle East. We are what Johnny Clegg calls “Scatterlings of Africa”, gathered together on this continent and now scattered out across the earth to all the continents of the world. And scattered across the world we bear the gifts of Africa—especially the gift that we become truly human when we are bound together in community.

 

This is a reality that comes to fullness in the church, in the family of God, the body of Christ. That’s why I asked for Ephesians 2 to be read earlier—out of the two people of Zimbabwe (Black and White) God has made something new and united: the People of God. This is our reality on the most Christian continent in the world.

 

I think of the church that I come from in Zimbabwe. Our name in English is “Brethren in Christ”, taken from Paul’s greeting in Colossians 1: “To the faithful brethren in Christ in Colosse” (KJV). But in Ndebele this name takes on deeper meaning: Abazalwane bakaChristu”. Literally, “Brethren in Christ”, but this word “abazalwane” means more than just BIC. If I call someone umzalwane, I mean that this person who comes from the same womb as I do. Abazalwane: “people from the same womb”—in Christ.

 

You look at my skin and at the skin of a Black Zimbabwean, manifestly from different mothers. But we are from the same womb in Christ. We are truly brothers and sisters, bound together at the deepest most fundamental level possible—in Christ.

 

You see, I met Jesus in Zimbabwe in 1962, in a White Baptist Church in Bulawayo among people who loved the Lord but were racist to the core. I was baptized into the church in Bulawayo in 1964, in a Black BIC Church with 30 some other Black young people. In 1974 I grew greatly in the presence and filling of the Holy Spirit as I knelt with over 100 black brothers and sisters as we sang, “Woza Moya oyingcwele”: Come Holy Spirit. Four years later one of those black brothers (S. Ndlovu) stood beside me as one of the groomsmen at my wedding.

 

I became a pastor in Bulawayo in 1988 in a Black BIC Church with my brothers and sisters there. In 1992 we returned to the USA to stay, which meant that I was leaving home. It was the preaching of Shadrack Maloka, a Black South African, at our General Conference that helped me to lay aside my desire to stay in my Zimbabwean home, as we sang together words from the Lord’s Prayer, “Mayenziwe intando yakho”—Let your will be done in my life.

 

Conclusion

To be a White African is not the same experience for every White person from Africa. For me, it is to be broken, to be aware of great good in the people around me, and to be brought into the presence of God’s healing power that makes all of us one family, children from the same womb. It is really, then, simply to be human—because all of us in every country and culture are broken, aware of goodness, and needing God’s healing. I thank God for healing me and giving me himself through Africa.

Who is this guy?

Texts
Luke 1: 68-79
⁶⁸ “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. ⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), ⁷¹ salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—⁷² to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath he swore to our father Abraham: ⁷⁴ to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶ And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, ⁷⁷ to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven ⁷⁹ to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Luke 23: 32-43
³² Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” ³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” ³⁸ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Colossians 1: 9-20
⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

 

The essential question in these passages concerns the identity of Jesus. Zechariah’s song lets us know that someone is coming; something is about to happen. The cross show several responses to the one who came. Paul tells us clearly who Jesus is and what hinges on knowing him.

Luke’s Gospel

When John was born, Zechariah names him, and at that moment receives his sight back. His song is a prophecy sent from God concerning John, and concerning the one whose way he prepares—Jesus the Messiah.

Zechariah sings: God has come to his people to redeem them, to save them, to rescue them and enable them to serve him through David’s line. The note of “David’s House” lets us know that this refers to the coming Messiah. We hear this song as it applies to us—that God is here to redeem, rescue, and save us, and to empower us for service. John, then, will be a prophet of God to prepare the way for God’s Messiah, the son of David, to come, so that people will know him and his salvation and so that they will see his light.

Zechariah’s song sets us up for the question that recurs in the gospels: “Who is this man?” In Luke 3:15-16 and 21 Luke implies that John introduced Jesus to his followers. In Matthew 3:13 and Mark 1:9 the identification is stated more clearly; it is stated most clearly in John 1:29-34. This introduction begins the question that Jesus repeatedly forced on those who met him: Who is he?

Luke answers the question in chapter 3 with John’s implied statement that Jesus is the Messiah, and with the baptism and genealogy, which show that Jesus is the Son of God. The question recurs then in Jesus’ ministry over and over.

5:20-21—Jesus heals the paralyzed man, and the Pharisees wonder, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy?”

6:11—Jesus heals the man with the shrivelled hand; the Pharisees and teachers of the law begin to plot against him. They had started to answer the question with rejection.

7:6-9—The centurion answers the question with his affirmation that Jesus has been sent by God.

7:16—Jesus raises the widow’s son. The crowds answer the question with the affirmation that Jesus is a mighty prophet.

7:39,49—The Pharisee questions his identity as a prophet, but the other guests are wondering about his ability to forgive sins and may go further that saying he is a prophet.

8:22-25—Even his disciples begin to wonder, “Who is this who commands even the winds and the waves and they obey him?”

Chapter 9 comes to the climax: “¹⁸ Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’ ¹⁹ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.’ ^20 ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered, ‘God’s Messiah.’”

The road to Jerusalem (which begins in Luke 9:51) is then the road to the resolution of this question, asked over and over again: Who is this man? Who is he? Finally in Luke 23:33 we meet the two criminals who were crucified. One of them says: Can’t you save us? (Implying that he was a fraud.) The other says: Remember me when you come into your kingdom. (Accepting that he is the king of the Universe.) This is the question for us today as well. Who is this man? Is he the centre of reality, as he claimed, or was he a teacher who said some good things, but who was for the First Century only? 

Colossians 1

Paul tells us what the early church understood all of this to mean, as they reflected back on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This passage stands along the other great Christological passages of the NT in John 1, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 1.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus is the one who shows the invisible God to us. Jesus is the one in whom God’s creation takes place—cf John 1: “In the beginning was the Word … By him all things were created.” Jesus is the one who sustains and preserves the whole of creation. If you know Jesus, you know God. If you do not know Jesus, you do not know God!

Verse 17 is wonderful: “In him all things hold together.” Some translations say, “cohere”. One translation that I found renders this phrase as “in him everything makes sense.” God in Christ is the one who makes sense of life for us and brings everything into a coherent whole.

Competitors

Some people today say that there is no organizing principle to reality, but nobody lives as though there is none. Everyone lives as though life is about something. What’s life about? What’s going in our universe?

Agnosticism/Atheism: Some say that material physical life is all you have. There is no God; there is no religion based on reality. You have what you feel and think, and that’s all you have. I wonder if anyone can truly live their life on this foundation. If I am the centre of the universe, and everything was made for me, I conclude quite quickly that life really is meaningless. I know that I am too small and unimportant to serve as the lynchpin of reality. Some people say that they can’t accept Christian (or any other) faith unless it jives with their own beliefs and preferences. That approach really does make reality revolve around me. Narcissism is a psychologically unhealthy characteristic and a philosophically unsound approach to life.

Some people say that they can’t accept Christianity because of the tragedies they see around them: What we sometimes call the problem of evil and suffering. C.S. Lewis has observed that the problem of suffering is a difficult problem for the Christian to deal with, but that the problem of good is even harder for the atheist or agnostic. If God is not there, and if God is not involved in our world, where does beauty and good come from? At a Steve Bell concert recently we listened to Steve singing, “Why do we hunger for beauty?” An amazing song, and a vital question.

A friend of mine on the Internet posted a moving video from 1988 of a BBC show that told of Sir Nicholas Winton, a man who personally saved 669 Jewish children from death under the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. Where does such courage and goodness come from, if there is no God? If there is no source of beauty, where does beauty come from? If there is no source of goodness, where does good come from?

Other Religions: I teach World Religions. There is much to admire in Buddhism and Islam and Judaism. I find Hinduism more puzzling. There are also major problems with each—in my own estimation there are more problems with each one than there are with Christianity.

As a simple example, I find Islam profoundly moving in many ways, with a devotion to God that is compelling and beautiful. But the simple fact remains that its founder was a warrior, as compared with its close relative, the Baha’i faith, whose founder was a pacifist. In a world racked with war, a warrior founder is problematic. I could go through each religion in some detail, noting its strengths and weaknesses; but my concern is to lift up Jesus—not to lift up Christianity, but to lift up Christ.

Chasing the Question Today

The fact is, of course, that we can’t deal with these issues adequately in this setting. We need a different setting in which advocates of different worldviews present their own position as favourably as possible, with each of us listening sympathetically and critically. We need to avoid the kind of response to each other that Dawkins specializes in—seeking to ridicule the other rather than engage what they say. All of us are tempted to such ridicule, as if we can end the discussion with a brief and witty bomb that blows the other’s position to bits.

I believe that when one does truly begin to seek truth, one finds Jesus in the path waiting for us. I do not make this as a claim that one can prove beyond all doubt, but as the conclusion that many people have found. Alister McGrath began his academic life as an atheist, who in the pursuit of truth found God. We just saw the 50^th anniversary of the death of CS Lewis, who is another example of one whose pursuit of truth and beauty led to God.

Lewis, JFK, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day. Peter Kreeft has written an imaginative construction of the three of them in the waiting room of heaven (Waiting for Heaven)—Lewis the Christian, Kennedy the humanist, and Huxley the mystic. As they wait for the door to what lies beyond to open, they discuss the merits of their views of reality. It is a penetrating analysis of these three options.

Our society has made Christian faith profoundly unpopular. I know a Philosophy professor who kept his Christian faith quiet until after he achieved tenure, recognizing the problems that openly expressed faith creates in today’s academy. You may recall the sociological study of parenting outcomes and sexual orientation done by Mark Regnerus last year. Much of the condemnation of his study came for ideological reasons condemning Christian faith and traditional family roles. I am not saying anything about the merits of the study; the discipline of sociology will repeat and refine his research and over time observe its strengths and weakness. I am observing only the hostility to Christian faith found in much of the academy and of our society.

How do we respond to such hostility? The way forward is not to fight—to fight atheists, or fight other Christians, or fight Muslims, or fight anyone, but to search together for God and for truth. Let me give you an example of someone who found Christ, completely against the run of her beliefs and expectations. The following is excerpted from the November issue of Christianity Today.

Kirsten Powers is a Democratic commentator at Fox News: Just seven years ago …. if there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion—especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt. …. After college I worked as an appointee in the Clinton administration from 1992 to 1998. The White House surrounded me with intellectual people who, if they had any deep faith in God, never expressed it. Later, when I moved to New York, where I worked in Democratic politics, my world became aggressively secular. Everyone I knew was politically left-leaning, and my group of friends was overwhelmingly atheist. …. Life … seemed pretty wonderful, filled with opportunity and good conversation and privilege. ….

To the extent that I encountered Christians …. they were saying something about gay people or feminists. …. So when I began dating a man who was into Jesus, I was not looking for God. …. I remember exactly where I was sitting in my West Village apartment when he said, “Do you believe Jesus is your Savior?” …. Oh no, was my first thought. He’s crazy. When I answered no, he asked, “Do you think you could ever believe it?” He explained that he was at a point in life when he wanted to get married and felt that I could be that person, but he couldn’t marry a non-Christian. I said I didn’t want to mislead him—that I would never believe in Jesus. Then he said the magic words for a liberal: “Do you think you could keep an open mind about it?” Well, of course. “I’m very open-minded!” Even though I wasn’t at all. ….

A few weeks later I went to church with him. …. When we arrived at the Upper East Side service of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, I was shocked and repelled by what I saw. …. We were meeting in an auditorium with a band playing what I later learned was “praise music.” I thought, How am I going to tell him I can never come back? But then the pastor preached. I was fascinated. I had never heard a pastor talk about the things he did. Tim Keller’s sermon was intellectually rigorous, weaving in art and history and philosophy. I decided to come back to hear him again. …. Any person who is familiar with Keller’s preaching knows that he usually brings Jesus in at the end of the sermon to tie his points together. For the first few months, I left feeling frustrated: Why did he have to ruin a perfectly good talk with this Jesus nonsense?

Each week, Keller made the case for Christianity. He also made the case against atheism and agnosticism. He expertly exposed the intellectual weaknesses of a purely secular worldview. I came to realize that even if Christianity wasn’t the real thing, neither was atheism. I began to read the Bible. …. After about eight months of going to hear Keller, I concluded that the weight of evidence was on the side of Christianity. But I didn’t feel any connection to God, and frankly, I was fine with that. …. Then one night in 2006, on a trip to Taiwan, I woke up in what felt like a strange cross between a dream and reality. Jesus came to me and said, “Here I am.” It felt so real. I didn’t know what to make of it. I called my boyfriend, but before I had time to tell him about it, he told me he had been praying the night before and felt we were supposed to break up. So we did. Honestly, while I was upset, I was more traumatized by Jesus visiting me. …. When I returned to New York a few days later, I was lost. I suddenly felt God everywhere and it was terrifying. More important, it was unwelcome. It felt like an invasion. I started to fear I was going crazy. I didn’t know what to do, so I spoke with writer Eric Metaxas …. “You need to be in a Bible study,” he said. “And Kathy Keller’s Bible study is the one you need to be in.” I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was desperate. My whole world was imploding. ….

I remember walking into the Bible study. I had a knot in my stomach. In my mind, only weirdoes and zealots went to Bible studies. …. When I left, everything had changed. I’ll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, “It’s true. It’s completely true.” The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy. The horror of the prospect of being a devout Christian crept back in almost immediately. I spent the next few months doing my best to wrestle away from God. It was pointless. Everywhere I turned, there he was. Slowly there was less fear and more joy. The Hound of Heaven had pursued me and caught me—whether I liked it or not.

 

Conclusion

That is the great gift of the seasons ahead of us—Advent and Christmas, when we celebrate the coming of Jesus as a baby into our world and anticipate his return at the end of all things. As C.S. Lewis puts it in the closing lines of his remarkable novel, Till We Have Faces, “I ended my first book with the words ‘no answer.’ I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

When Everything Goes Wrong

Isaiah 65: 17-25
New Heavens and a New Earth
¹⁷ “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. ¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

²⁰ “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. ²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. ²³ They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.

²⁴ Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. ²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

Luke 21: 5-19

The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times
⁵ Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ⁶ “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” ⁷ “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” ⁸ He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

¹⁰ Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ¹¹ There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. ¹² “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. ¹³ And so you will bear testimony to me. ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.

Introduction

The Sundays in November immediately preceding Advent share a common theme—that of preparing for the End. Last week we read from Haggai and 2 Thessalonians, hearing the reminder that God’s coming at the End of All Things will shake the nations and bring in God’s reign in all its power and glory.

We said last week that the End is what gives meaning to the present, and that preparing for the End means living rightly in the present. Our texts today have similar themes. Today we build on what we said last week to explore further how we live today, when so much is wrong and God’s presence is so hard to see, given the reality that Jesus is coming again. Life is hard and full of suffering, and many people conclude that God is either not there, or God is a source of pain, not to be trusted.

Some Situations

The year was 1986. John and Jane were expecting triplets after years of trying for children. The doctor had given Jane pills to release several eggs at one time, and she conceived triplets. Then in May they were born—too early. We learned that there were actually four babies. One was still born, and the second died that first day. I was their pastor, and together we held a brief funeral and committed the small bodies to the earth. A week later the third baby died, and two weeks after that the last baby died also.

What do you say at the committal service, as you lay the body of the last baby in the grave? I had no words then. I have no words now. John and Jane have since had three more children, and they have a good family; but the losses they experienced remain. Jane told us much later that it took her several years to stop being angry with God. I don’t blame her. I thank God she and John have come through that time with their faith in God intact.

We ask, “Why should they experience such loss?” Sometimes we try to the answer the question with logic: “Medical researchers developed the treatment for infertility; they chose to use it. If God had intervened and stopped the natural processes to avoid the tragedy, on what grounds should God intervene? If we believe in human free will, when do we decide that someone should not experience the consequence of their choice?

But the question is not really a plea for understanding. The question is a cry of pain, and a plea for mercy and strength and comfort. We respond not with some attempt to answer the question, but with our presence, grieving and weeping and suffering together.

We need go no further than this year, this month—to the Philippines and Typhoon Haiyan. At last count around 3,600 are known to be dead, with up to 9 million affected by the typhoon (one in 10 of the people in the Philippines). The scale of this catastrophe is almost beyond description, and relief agencies and governments are scrambling to make any appreciable impact on the devastation there.

Again people wonder why this happened. Again we can answer with logic: Perhaps typhoons are more serious now given the problems with overpopulation we are experiencing around the world and given the impact of human activity on the climate. But the questions are not really a search for full understanding. Rather they are our humanity showing through. We cry out in pain together and we weep together. We hurt with the people of the Philippines, and we send what aid we can, because what hurts them hurts us all. And the question of why God allows such things continues to echo in the background as we struggle to deal with the hardships of life.

Our Passages

Isaiah 65 pictures the End of all things as a time when all such hardships are done away with. He does not see the End as something to do with the Second Coming, because he does not have a picture of two comings of the Messiah in his mind. You notice that Isaiah’s language pictures a revived earth, continuous with our own history. As the picture becomes clearer in the NT, we see a return of the Messiah, which brings all things to their conclusion.

In Luke 21 the disciples ask Jesus if the coming of his kingdom is at hand. Jesus replies, “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

You heard this same note last week. Paul told the Thessalonians (who thought that the anti-Christ had come) not to let themselves be deceived. We want to jump ahead to the end and skip this life. Jesus tells his disciples “¹³And so you will bear testimony to me. ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.”

We have a task to do before the End: To witness to Jesus in all that we say and do—in spite of the certainty of suffering that we face; and to stand firm whatever happens to us.

Living with the Pain of Today

So how do we live today? How do we encounter the kind of loss John and Jane faced? How do we respond when typhoons and other disasters strike? Given what we have been saying, let me suggest some simple steps.

1. The kind of opposition that Jesus describes is unlikely to come our way. We are not likely to be hauled up before the courts of Winnipeg and threatened with death if we maintain our allegiance to Jesus. But we live with constant opposition nonetheless. If you read the comments on news stories on the Internet, you often see such comments as this (in response to CNN’s report on the Typhoon):

"The Biggest Threat to all Religions…………………..Da Truth! Common Denominator between All Religions………..$$$$$$."

"What do you expect from one of the most corrupt/evil organizations that has ever been?"

"Lawyers that are willing to protect pedophiles don't come cheap."

There is a concerted effort by many people—including parts of the media—to picture religion in general as the source of our world’s evil. They would respond to John and Jane by saying, “Abandon religion! There’s nothing good in it!” They respond to the Typhoon with cynicism and abuse. Jesus says in reply: Don’t fight them, and don’t give in to them. Do what is right. Speak what is right. Stand firm!

2. So much for those who have come to hate religion, especially Christianity. But those who love the Lord can be just as bad in their way. Instead of using tragedy as a reason to attack religion, they give consolation too quickly. When Jesus said, “Stand firm”, he did not mean, “Tell people that tragedy doesn’t hurt.” When Isaiah looks forward to the new heavens and earth, he does not mean that present problems are meaningless. The Bible is full of lament that shows us how to grieve; the truth of future good does not simply remove present pain.

So we avoid false sympathy or easy answers. Present pain still hurts, and standing firm does not pretend otherwise. Let me suggest two ways that we stand firm:

·         In your own ties of suffering, walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Walk all the way through. Don’t try to shortcut the pain that we experience. If you experience the kind of devastating loss brought by the typhoon, the valley of death’s shadow will be long and hard. The experience of those who suffer from post-traumatic stress is evidence of how long and hard the valley is. Walk the whole way through it. There is no other path that comes out the other side.

·         When it comes to other people’s times of suffering, walk with them as far as you can. As Paul puts it, “Weep with those who weep. Grieve with those who grieve.” No easy answers. No false sympathy. Simply walk through the valley with those whom we know are there.

I think that you actually know all of this as well as I, perhaps better. My first Sunday preaching here was a Thanksgiving Sunday four years ago. I remember the empty seats in the middle of the sanctuary where people who had been part of one body once sat. The hurt that you felt, and that I shared that morning, was too deep to describe properly. We have experienced healing; but the path through valley of death’s shadow is long and hard.

I could name other experiences from within, but you already know them. We know within ourselves that life can be amazingly hard; and we know that the only way through suffering is the road ahead—to walk one step at a time the path God lays out for us.

3. To repeat the point from last week, we can hope, because we know the End of the story. The End of a story tells us what the beginning and middle mean. When the detective gathers the characters of the story around and identifies the culprit, everything else that happens in the story begins to make sense. As the detective unravels all the different parts of the action, you begin to see how everything fits together.

I need to know the end in order to enjoy the rest of the story, so I read the end of detective stories first—just as I watch the end of movies first. The End tells you what the rest means! When you read Isaiah 65, you see that God’s plan is for our complete health and joy. When you read Luke 21, you see that we have a hard path to walk until the End. These two realities are basic to the way that we read the story of our lives. Seen from one perspective we have the reality of suffering that so distresses us; seen from another perspective God is working out his purposes in our lives and in our world.

God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year:

God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near;
Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

March we forth in the strength of God, with the banner of Christ unfurled,

That the light of the glorious gospel of truth may shine throughout the world:
Fight we the fight with sorrow and sin to set their captives free,
That earth may filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

A Closing Word

I remember once reading a conversation with some African Christians during the apartheid years in South Africa. The White apartheid government appeared to be so strong that the struggle against it was hopeless. The African Christians were asked, “How do you keep on going in the struggle against apartheid?” They replied, “We know that God is good, and we know that apartheid is evil. What is evil cannot last in the presence of God’s eternal goodness, so we know that apartheid will die, no matter how strong it appears.”

They were right. Apartheid is gone, dead, and buried. Injustice still continues in South Africa, and the valley of death’s shadow can be a long walk indeed, but we can walk that valley with courage, experiencing the worst that life can throw against us in this world. Because we know the End of the story. We know that God wins in the End.