John: look up 12/11/16 RUMC

John: look up

12/11/16

RUMC

 How many of you have a dog, or had a dog at one time? <<<>>>> Pet’s are special to us… and the dog… well the fact that they have been called “man’s best friend” says it all.

C.S. Lewis asks us to imagine for the moment, that the dog you have come to love, and every dog in the world, is in great pain. Then he asks something like, if it would help all the dogs in the world, would you be willing to become a dog?

Would you

•           put down your human nature,

•           leave your loved ones,

•           your job,

•           hobbies,

•           your art,

•           and literature,

•           and music, and

choose instead … the poor substitute of… wagging your tail, if it meant ending the suffering of every dog in the world?

  “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God gave up the thing that was most precious to God. God gave up part of Godself by becoming human, in order to help human beings who were suffering in sin.

That is the essence of John’s message in what we call the Prologue, or what I want to call John’s Christmas story.

•           Matthew started with the genealogy: grounding us in history and prophecy. 

•           Mark, like John, starts with the words “In the beginning” and goes on to tell of the anticipation and preparation for Christ, calling us to live our lives anticipating and preparing as well.

As we come to John, we realize again (like Mark) that there is no Mary, or Joseph, or baby, or wise men. We ask where is John’s Christmas story? It is right there in front of us.

John starts his Gospel with a beautiful poem that plumbs the heights and depths of the theology of incarnation; or as I like to say “skincarnation” because God came to earth in the skin of a little human baby.

•           John starts long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem in 4 BC.  He starts long before Israel was a nation.  He starts long before the Old Testament was written.  He starts long before the dinosaurs and  long before creation.

  John even starts long before the Big Bang saying, “In the beginning.”

This beginning is not the beginning of the world, or the beginning of time. It is before anything else began. So we might say, “Before the beginning, was the word”

 Those first three words “In the beginning,” or as I said, “Before the beginning,” point us to the first lesson in John’s Christmas story.

This story is about the eternal Christ.

•           Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was not the beginning of the story.

•           The angel appearing to Mary to announce her pregnancy was not the beginning of the story.

•           The beginning of the story is in the farthest reaches of God’s existence before anything else existed. Before the beginning of anything we know.

Jesus must have been the oldest baby ever born. I mean his human body was that of a newborn, but his Christness was much older than that. We often say of our children something like they are 5 going on 15. Jesus was a newborn, going on eternal.

Picture Jesus’ existence as this rope. Except imagine that there is no end to the rope. I could pull and pull and never find the end. The part we know about and have in the Bible is just this red part here.  And Christmas is just the black line on the end of this red part. The beginning of Jesus is way back there somewhere… in John’s words “in the beginning”

 Then John adds, “Was the word.” We have heard it so many times (In the beginning was the word) that we are accustomed to hearing it. Think how confusing that is to the first time hearer.

So what in the world did John mean when he called Jesus “the word?”

         The original Greek word for WORD was “logos.” To the Greeks, the LOGOS was the means by which God created and communicated. The WORD is the way God acts.

Let’s go back to the creation story where we first find the words “in the beginning.” How did God bring creation into existence?

•           A magic wand?

•           An erector set?

•           A box of crayons?

•           NO, God SAID let there be light.

•           God SAID let there be a dome.

•           God SAID let there be oceans.

•           God SAID let there be the sun, moon, and stars.

•           God SAID let there be animals in the waters.

•           God SAID let there be animals on the land.

•           God SAID let there be human beings.

God SPOKE creation in to existence using words. It is through God’s WORD that creation came to be. Doesn’t John say that? All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. The Word.

To call Jesus the WORD means that he is the living God, ACTING in creation

         To the Hebrews, WORD was the self-revelation of God.

•           The WORD is God’s reflection in creation,

•           the WORD of God came to Noah,

•           THE WORD of God called  Abraham, and

•           the WORD said to Moses, “Tell them ‘I AM’ sent you.”

Look at me.  What am I thinking? You don’t have any idea do you. You don’t have the faintest idea what my brain is thinking about… If I use words and say, “Oreo ice cream” my words reveal something about myself.

Think about meeting someone for the first time. You can imagine who they are and what is important to them. But until you spend time talking, or exchanging words with them, you don’t really know them at all. To Call Jesus the WORD is to say that he perfect revelation of God.

•           SO IF WE PUT THOSE TOGETHER WE CAN SAY THAT THE WORD OF GOD IS GOD’S ACTIVE SELF-REVELATION TO THE WORLD.

Jesus is God’s ACTIVE SELF- REVELATION to people like us.

All of that is very nice,

•           Jesus existed before the beginning

•           Jesus is God’s active self-revelation

 That is not all, however. There is at least one more twist here. And this is the heart of John’s Christmas story, “THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US.” Jesus Christ is the eternal God took on human flesh to act in our lives and reveal God’s true nature to us.

You have heard me say before I love the Message translation “God put on skin and moved into the neighborhood.” 

•           God was done writing commandments

•           God was done saying look here I am, let’s go this way.

•           God was done speaking to people whose ears were stopped and hearts were hard,

•           In Jesus Christ God decisively acted in human history in a unique once and for all way by becoming human.

•           And in Jesus Christ, we have the perfect self-revelation of God in all that Jesus was, and all that Jesus did. The WORD became flesh and dwelt among us.

Philippians puts it this way, though he was in the form of God,(Jesus) did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 John’s Christmas story is eight words long. “THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US.” That is John’s Christmas story. Everything before leads up to that, and everything after supports it.

•           He starts with the eternal Christ preexistent before creation.

•           Reminds us that God has always acted and been revealed as the WORD of God.

•           And then John brings it right tot the manger, and the stable saying that the preexistent, active self-revelation of God put on skin and moved into the neighborhood.

Remember I asked you if you would give up the benefits of being human, if by becoming a dog, you could save all the dogs in the world? 

Christmas is God’s answer to the question “Does God love us enough to give up the pleasures of divinity in order to take on human flesh and be revealed to us once and for all?” Here’s your answer.

And the Word	And Mary
Became flesh	gave birth to her firstborn son
And dwelt among us	And wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

AMEN

Mark: looking forward Advent week 2 2016 RUMC

Mark: looking forward

Advent week 2 2016

RUMC

 TRUE or FALSE:  Jesus was born on December 25

 FLASE: Jesus was more likely born in April or at least in the springtime. It was the year 336 before we started celebrating on December 25 and a few years later Pope Julian made it official.

 TRUE or FALSE:  Jesus was born in the year 0 AD

 FALSE:  Jesus was not born in the year 0 or 1 as people assume. Herod the great is named as the ruler when Jesus was born, and we know Herod died in 4bc. You can blame a 6th century Monk named Dionysiuys for choosing the wrong year to split the calendar into AD and BC.

 TRUE OR FALSE: Mary and Joseph are the primary characters in Mark’s telling of the Christmas story. 

 FALSE:  Mary and Joseph never appear in the gospel of Mark. Look as hard as you will through all 16 chapters of the gospel of Mark, but you will find no Mary or Joseph, no shepherds or angels, no stable and no manger and certainly no baby. Mark has no nativity story at all.

While it is true that Matthew and Luke tell the nativity story, John tells the incarnation story, and Mark has neither of those, I still see a Christmas story in the Gospel of Mark. Let me show you what I see. 

 As the gospel of Mark opens we don‘t see shepherds and angels, but we see a title. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

The Greek word behind “good news” is Gospel. Gospel is the announcement of good news. It is helpful to know that the word gospel has not always been a strictly religious word. During the time when Mark was written, it was used secularly to announce the birth of an heir to the Roman throne. Mark’s readers would have been expecting to hear in a birth announcement from the royal family.

There are two words in that sentence, however that throw a monkey wrench into that:  “Jesus” and “Christ.” Stuck right in the middle of what would have been perhaps a pretty ho-hum announcement to most people, are two words that turn the announcement on its head.

This is not a routine announcement. This is not the emperor’s son. This is not a baby born in Rome, but a fellow named Jesus born in a little out of the way corner, of a little out of the way country, occupied by the Roman Empire. Furthermore, it says that he is “Christ” in Hebrew “messiah” or anointed one for whom we have been waiting for generations! This uniquely Jewish concept of the Messiah turns this whole announcement on its head. This is no routine announcement. This is the story of the fulfillment of the dreams and hopes of the Jewish people who sat in darkness. (To borrow John’s phrase) This is a story different from any other story, and we better keep our hands and feet inside the ride at all times because it could be a wild ride. So get ready.

 Mark goes on to quote two Old Testament prophets: Isaiah and Malachi. The prophecies are considered messianic, but not directly. These prophecies are about getting ready for the messiah. They anticipate an Elijah type character, who will get the people ready. Mark writes, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

    make his paths straight,’”

 John the Baptist is that Elijah character. He even dresses like Elijah. From the moment he appears on the scene, he is urgently calling ‘REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF God IS HT HAND.” “REPENT AND BE BAPTIZED BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE”  “REPENT AND PREPARE FOR THE ONE WHO IS GREATER THAN I “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will  baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” So… Get ready NOW!

That’s exactly what Mark’s Christmas story is all about: getting ready. Perhaps he left out the details about Mary and Joseph,  because the other gospels did a fine job with that story, and he wanted to  focus more on preparing ourselves, our hearts, our lives, our spirits  for the coming of the Christ- the Messiah in our lives. Not just get ready… get ready NOW! Over and over” Four times in the first chapter alone mark used the word “immediately.” 42 times in the 16 chapters he wrote. Mark’s Christmas message is “GET READY… GET READY NOW”

In our culture, getting ready for Christmas begins for the retailers about July. For the rest of us in earnest about thanksgiving. That preparation, however, consists of being deluged by commercials and ads telling us that in order to be ready for Christmas we have to buy things we can’t afford for people who don’t need them. We have to decorate our houses better than the neighbors do. We have to decorate our trees to look like we cut them out of Martha Stewart Living magazine. Sure, we bake and we cook, and we gather with and family, but the clear message of the culture is that preparation for Christmas is about cramming as much stuff in our month, and our credit cards as is humanly possible.

I don’t buy it. I am not against gifts. I like a present as much as the next guy does. I am not against decorations, as long as someone else puts them up. I am not against parties, although I am not much of a party animal. However, what does any of that have to do with preparing a way in our lives, and making our paths straight for Christ to dwell in us?

Mark’s Christmas message is a call to preparation on a whole different level. It is not on a doing level… it is on being level. Not what do we have to do to be ready, but what do we have to BE to be ready for Christ to swell anew in our hearts.

 I have some suggestions. First, be generous as God is generous, not out of guilt or one upsmanship, but out of love. When God gave us that first Christmas gift, wrapped in a blanket and laying in a manger, it was pure and simple love and grace. It was an overflowing of God’s generous heart. That is the attitude we ought to have. That is the spirit of Christmas giving that started the whole thing. 

I am not saying that we can’t give gifts… Christmas is about the greatest gift of all time. But I am saying that we need to examine our motivation, rejecting guilt and cultural pressure, to give as God gives, out of love and grace.

 Second, give as God gave, until the wise men came there were no material gifts on that first Christmas. … God’s gift was a simple homemade baby… God’s gift was himself. The gift God really wants in return, therefore, is not wrapped in paper, but wrapped in skin… your skin. Prepare for Christmas by giving yourself. Give yourself to God in worship, devotion, study, and praise.

Don’t’ get so wrapped up in the craziness of the season that you forget the reason we have this season. Stop and have a silent night moment.  “With the angels let us sing, …Alleluia to our King; … Christ the Savior is born, …Christ the Savior is born!”

 Finally, expand your vision of Christmas. Jesus didn’t come just for the kings and wealthy. He came to a poor pregnant teenager, and her scared husband; to shepherds who were minding their own business, to blind men, and adulterous women.

Consider this… For every dollar you spend on gifts for friends and family, put a dollar toward someone who really needs it like the folks who will be shopping at Christmas in Grundy next week, or any of our great mission projects, or Doug and Kelly, or the pediatric department at a hospital, or the society of saint Andrew or any of a million places where your gift goes to someone not usually on your Christmas list.  Dollar for dollar may sound crazy, but is it? Not really… not if you give as God gave.

And if it is not money, give stuff, or time. Make this the Christmas that you took Christmas out of the fancy box and gave it to someone who really needed it. 

 I know this can be a busy time of the year. Actually, the church calendar slows down a little to allow you time to do the family things. But don’t schedule every minute, stress over every gift, worry about every detail and fall down in exhaustion on Christmas afternoon. Take time to look up and see what is coming and prepare. Get ready… get ready now.

Prepare the way… by preparing with a generous heart.

Make the paths straight… by focusing on God so Jesus can come anew into your lives

The kingdom of God is at hand… remember the poor and treat them the way Jesus would treat them

Get ready… get ready NOW.

AMEN

“Matthew: looking back” Advent #1 November 27, 2016

“Matthew: looking back”

Advent #1

November 27, 2016

My one claim to fame is that my great (x6) uncle was Thomas McKean a politician from Delaware. If you look very carefully at the declaration of independence, at the bottom of the row to the right of John Hancock’s famous signature, you will see my great (x6) uncle Tom’s signature.

I take some pride in being related to one of our founding fathers and a signer of the declaration of independence. Of course, if you look further in the family tree I am sure it contains its share of scoundrels and horse thieves too.

 Jesus family tree is no different. It has a few surprises too… but I get ahead of myself.

The gospel of Matthew starts with Jesus family tree. I did not have Robyn read it this morning for two reasons. First, I didn’t want you to fall asleep before I started. Second, because I was afraid to find out what I would have for lunch if I made Robyn read 50 ancient Israelite names this morning.

I’ll admit the “begat passages” are not the most exciting parts of the bible. JB Phillips, in fact, thought they were somewhat boring so he left the genealogies out of his translation of the Bible when he first printed it. He got so much criticism that he put them back in. I’ll admit. I do it too. I get to a bunch of “begats” and my tendency is, like yours, to skip over them. Sometimes that doesn’t hurt anything, but let’s not do that today.

When I write a sermon, I try to start with something kind of interesting or amusing to get us into the message of the day. It would never occur to me to start my sermon with a bunch of names we can’t pronounce separated by a bunch of “begats.” It just wouldn’t. So why does Matthew start there?

 As we read Matthew, we have to remember that it was written by a first century Jewish person for first century Jewish people. Matthew’s genealogy makes a lot more sense if we ask ourselves, “What would a first century Jewish person think as they read this?”

 Matthew’s readers lived in a culture that was much more aware of history than ours is. One’s family tree determined inheritance, taxation patterns, kinsmanship laws, property rights, and even the kind of jobs one could have. If Matthew started with the birth narrative that Robyn read for us today, a first century person reading this would be asking, “Who is this Jesus and to what family does he belong?” The genealogy would ground them in the story by grounding the story in the history of a family, and (as you can see) the history of the nation. The genealogy would almost be like a compass helping them to get their bearings as the story begins.

Therefore, Matthew starts writing, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

In just that sentence, Matthew tells us something very important.  This is about a person who is a full-blooded Israelite through and through because he can trace his lineage right back to Abraham.  Furthermore, this is not just an ordinary Israelite. This is the story of one who is born into the lineage of the great King David.

That is very important because it immediately reminds us of the passage from Isaiah that the Chessman’s read for us this morning. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.

That passage from Isaiah 9 is one of about 14 passages in the Old Testament that say that the Messiah will be a descendent of David. Matthew wants to prove right up front that since Jesus is Joseph’s son, he qualifies, first, as one of the children of Israel (starting with Abraham) and second, as a legal descendent of king David.

Now, there is another genealogy of Jesus in Luke chapter 3. It starts with Adam, moves thorough Abraham and David. After King David, it is completely different from this genealogy in Matthew.  Why? Because Luke traces Jesus genetic family tree through Mary and she is also a descendent of King David.

 Since Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, Luke traces Jesus’ genetic family tree back through David’s son Nathan. Matthew traces Jesus legal family tree back to David through his son, Solomon, because legal rights follow the paternal lineage. Since Joseph adopted Jesus, he is legally in line for the Davidic throne. So 13 generations back Jesus grandfathers were brothers. More importantly, no matter how you look at it; Luke’s bloodline, or Matthew’s legal inheritance, Jesus is a rightful heir to the throne of David, and in the eyes of Matthew’s first century audience, that qualifies him to be the messiah.

So you see the genealogy is really very important to proving that Jesus is who Matthew claims him to be: “the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

 The second thing the genealogy would remind the first century Jew, is that God’s hand has been preparing for this moment for a long time. Think about how many times the whole train could have come off the track! Not everyone in this family story is a good guy. There were some real bad guys. Take for instance the last king in the second group of 14 Jechoniah, he and his brothers were judged so evil that the whole nation was exiled to Babylon.

 In spite of how messy the story has been, we see how God has kept the train on the track chugging toward the salvation of the world. In other words, through all of history, God HAS BEEN AT WORK GETTING READY FOR THIS MOMENT. God has been at work preparing the world for his incarnation. No matter how messy the lower story becomes, no matter how ugly the lower story becomes, no matter how unlike God the lower story might be, God is still working generation by generation, person by person, day by day and minute by minute to bring the world toward salvation in him. The lower story is a mess, but God’s upper story knows exactly where it is going. God patiently and lovingly steers us in that direction… even when we can’t see it. Matthew is saying this birth of Jesus is a work of God… this birth of Jesus is a miracle of the most high… this birth of Jesus is nothing less than an act of God reaching out of the upper story right into the mess of our lower story to change history.

 There is one other lesson we see in the genealogy. It is really quite remarkable that women show up in the genealogy. For the most part women’s names were lost to history and never appeared in a genealogy. YET in addition to Mary, 4 women do appear in Jesus’ genealogy.

 Tamar was a scheming tramp who disguised herself as a prostitute to get her father in law to have sex with her. .

 Rahab was a foreign prostitute who harbored Israelite spies during the siege of Jericho.

 Ruth was a foreigner from the country of Moab who followed her Israelite mother in law Naomi back to Bethlehem.

 Bathsheba was an adulteress and co-conspirator in her husband’s death.

Really? That is kind of messed up isn’t it?

Yet Matthew makes a special point to include these 4 women in Jesus’ family tree. WHY? Why does Matthew make a special point of pointing out that Jesus’ family tree is just as messed up as some of ours? His family was not perfect. In fact, sometimes they were all too human.

I think there is one very good reason.

By including foreigners like Cannanites and Moabites in Jesus family tree, and including schemers, prostitutes, and adulteresses in the family tree, Matthew is saying that EVERY PERSON MATTERS TO God, EVERY PERSON CAN BE USED BY God, and Jesus came to all people.   Even us.

Canaanites, and Moabites, and tramps, prostitutes, and adulteresses, and Jesus even comes for the least and the lost like the poor foreign widow, Ruth, who would have been so easy to overlook. None of these people is outside of Jesus’ circle of salvation.

You see, like us, the Israelites tended to draw their circle pretty small. Mostly good people who were like them. But Jesus comes to all people. Like us and unlike us. The rich and powerful, and the poor and powerless. No matter the color of your skin, your nationality, the language you speak, the choices you make, the mistakes you make, mo matter how badly life has beaten you down…no matter what, Jesus came for all of these people.

 John says, “For God so loved who?... THE WORLD (including Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba and you and me) that he became incarnate in Jesus the Christ and gave his only begotten son so that we ALL might have life.

 Bottom line is Matthew asks us to take a look back over our shoulder and see what has lead up to this pivotal moment in human history. We see promises fulfilled, God’s hand working, and we see that God has never given up on people like us. And that IS good news.

The birth of Jesus does not just pop up out of nowhere, as God’s backup plan to try to pick up the broken pieces of creation. The birth of Jesus, in incarnation of God in this world, was from the beginning and is for us the greatest miracle God would ever perform.

•        Who would have expected that into this human story filled with kings and prophets, God would come as a baby.

•        Who would have expected that all this time in spite of the brokenness and sin in the world, God has been patiently working day and night preparing for this moment.

•        Who would have expected that God would go through all of that for people like us?

Even more than that, who would have expected that we would learn these important lessons from a bunch of boring begats?

AMEN