A new babe

 As we begin worship this week, we read

Isaiah 9:6

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Many a young father has paced the waiting room floor, waiting for the doctor to arrive with the news.  All of creation waited for this day, when the Redeemer would be born.  Barred from the Garden and unable to remove the effect of the Fall, it waited.  But no more!

This is no ordinary birth.  This is a royal birth.  This child will have dominion (misrah).  Only from this position, can redemption come.

Then as the family gathers around a new born, the conversation quickly turns from who does the baby look like, to what they will be like, to what they will do.

We see in this babe:

• Both the comforting counsel of the Holy Spirit and the all-powerful hand of the God the Father.
• Both the origin of all eternity and the executor of its peace.

God's Wage

 This morning as we begin to worship we receive a challenge:

Go on up to a high mountain,

    O Zion, herald of good news;

lift up your voice with strength,

    O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

    lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

    “Behold your God!”

This advent we are challenged to let the world know.  Instead of the false gods that people erect, we are to point them to the one true God.  Notice please we are not simply telling them of "our God" with "our voice".  The subject switches so we are telling them of their true God.

Behold, the Lord God comes with might,

    and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

    and his recompense before him. 

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

    he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

    and gently lead those that are with young.

In creation, six days God worked.  In this beautiful pair of verses we are shown His wages.  All that work is for those He has already gathered and those He will yet gather in.  

If you have not already, cry with joy for those around you with young.  Then take this advent opportunity to introduce them to their God.

Peace has a Name

 For the second week of Advent, we start worship reading:

Micah 5:1-5

Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops;

    siege is laid against us;

with a rod they strike the judge of Israel

    on the cheek.

Last week we saw the nations stream toward Israel for its justice as a way to peace.  But rather than aligning with that law they rail against it.  For any law they would want applied to others to obtain justice would be applied to them.

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

    one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

    from ancient days.

Instead of a judge, now a ruler will be sent. A judge administers the law.  A ruler writes the law.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time

    when she who is in labor has given birth;

then the rest of his brothers shall return

    to the people of Israel.

And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,

    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great

    to the ends of the earth.

But this ruler is not a warlord, but rather a shepherd who gathers.

And he shall be their peace.

Instead of using war, or diplomacy, to obtain peace.  This ruler will use . . . himself.  For the law that He authored will be applied to Himself on our behalf.  

Our peace has a name.

 

Peace

This first week of Advent, we start with:

 Isaiah 2:2-5

It shall come to pass in the latter days

    that the mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

    and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and all the nations shall flow to it,

    and many peoples shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

    to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

    and that we may walk in his paths.”

Visiting the Netherlands my family experienced a pedestrian-jam.  Imagine a street where cars are not allowed.  Imagine too, the need to do maintenance like on any other street.  People still needed to get where they where going and filled shoulder to shoulder by the workman shuffling in a continuous stream toward their goal.  This passage speaks of a goal so wonderful that the nations would stream to it.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

What are they seeking?  They seek the law.  They want to be taught how to worship God and to live in justice.

He shall judge between the nations,

    and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

    and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

    neither shall they learn war anymore.

Be careful to note that this is not a world government.  National identity is still preserved.  This is not a single race.  Racial identity is preserved.  But each willingly streams to Zion for what we all crave and that is peace, the end of war.

O house of Jacob,

    come, let us walk

    in the light of the Lord.

During Advent we light candles.  We worship a baby who is "the Light of the World".  Understand that peace and justice can only occur in this light.  Darkness hides.  What is hidden cannot be brought to justice.  

So starting with ourselves let us join this wonderful stream and walk toward that light.

Wearing your heart

 This week our worship starts with:

Psalm 30:11-12 

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

A few weeks back we looked at this Psalm (Weeping may tarry for the night) and understood that while it was sung at the dedication of the temple, rather than bringing any glory to its builder, it brought glory to the LORD, the source of David's restoration after a terrible fail of character.

In these concluding verses we hear his transformation of his heart, demonstrated in his actions:

• mourning - This is not the quiet and subdued mourning of western culture.  This is the gut-wrenching wailing of the middle east.
• dancing - Please recall the unabashed joy expressed by David in 2 Samuel 6:14-22, when he danced as-if-no-one-was-watching to the chagrin of his wife Michal.

And then in his garment:

• sackcloth - A scratchy, ill-fitting, and improvised garment made of the temporary cloth weaved of husks and other fibers to hold grain for transport.
• gladness - Rather than a physical festal garment, this is raw joy.

To take a phrase from Shakespeare, David is "wearing his heart on his sleeve".  He is so full of joy that he cannot hide it from anyone around him.  

And it is this joy that he claims as "my glory" (kabowd).  It was not the silent abundance of his treasury, or the clattering armor of his army, or the awe inspiring temple in which they stood.  David's glory was the praise he brought his God.

From fear to favor

Today we begin worship with:

Acts 2:46-47

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Let’s recall when these days were. Acts 2 happens just a short 50 days after the horrific events of the Passion of Christ.  Mobs, shouting, soldiers, fear.  During the days immediately following the Resurrection the disciples regularly locked themselves in a room out fear of the Jews (John 20).

What changed?  What took them from fear to favor?

Did they remain quiet so no one would be offended?  No.

Acts 2:14

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.

Was what they said pleasant and seeker-friendly?  No.

Acts 2:23

this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

So what was it that brought them favor with all the people? It was a change of heart.  They now had a “glad and generous” heart. 

Ezekiel 36:26-27

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Let us indeed walk in gratitude for what we have been given and seek daily how to be generous with it, for that is the rule we must follow.

In that day . . .

Today we begin worship with:

Isaiah 26:3-4

You keep him in perfect peace

    whose mind is stayed on you,

    because he trusts in you.

Trust in the Lord forever,

    for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

“Perfect peace” is literally “peace peace”.  Repeated words are an ancient form of highlighter.  This passage is very much about peace, but a peace that is happening on a very dark day.

Isaiah 26:5

For he has humbled

    the inhabitants of the height,

    the lofty city.

He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,

    casts it to the dust.

God in His sovereignty is executing judgement and we are told to temporarily hide.

Isaiah 26:20

Come, my people, enter your chambers,

    and shut your doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

    until the fury has passed by.

But look where!  It is not somewhere made by us that might fail.

Isaiah 26:1

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;

    he sets up salvation

    as walls and bulwarks.

It is in a city God has made, whose walls will not fail, whose gates are open to us that we may enter in and be safe. 

Break the rule

 We begin worship this week with:

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

This verse starts with an odd phrase that repeats itself.  Why was Paul being so emphatic about freedom?  The Galatians were doing something nonsensical.  They were wasting the freedom given by Christ and returning to the familiarity of enslavement.

Galatians 5:7 

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

We live in a freedom-loving country.  We abhor the idea of slavery.  We love movies where the hero breaks free from the yoke of oppression.  We would never fall into such a trap.  Or would we?

If we are honest with ourselves, freedom scares us.  If we are free to decide, then we have to . . . decide.  If we decide, we could get it wrong.  If only there were a set of rules we could follow, then we would know that we are doing the right thing.  Our shoulders actually yearn for the familiarity of the yoke.

Paul takes one of those rules and shatters the yoke.  

Galatians 5:6

For in Christ Jesus neither ________ nor ________ counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Paul did not replace the rule that you must be circumcised with a new rule that you must not be circumcised.  He threw away the rule.

In the verse above, I left the rule blank.  Think for a moment, what rule you cherish, to which you are yoked, that prevents you from showing the love of Christ.  Then break it,

A Sharp Edge

 This week we begin worship with:

John 6:63

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

When spoken, these words were not readily received.  In fact, the whole passage was meant to be divisive, because Jesus was separating and sifting his disciples.

John 6:66

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

Today we celebrate the Reformation, which likewise divided the church.

Luther's conversion came late one night reading:

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

That night, he came to understand what Christ had so divisively said "the flesh is no help at all".  It was the "righteousness of God" that was revealed in the Gospel and never our own.  Our righteous acts are never enough and it is by faith we put on the righteousness of Christ.

It is against this sharp edge of the Word of God that the church has been divided.

Deepest Thought

 This week we begin our worship with this foundation:

Hebrews 3:4

 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)

It is a parenthetical statement that forms the foundation of the surrounding argument, where the writer of Hebrews is making the case that Jesus is greater than Moses.  

When building a house or an argument, there is nothing deeper than its foundation.  Let's find it . . .

Some attempt to use science to eliminate the builder.  While man cannot breed a new species, many place their hope on the process of reproduction and chance as the origin of all species.  But go deeper and you will see the need for a perfectly designed reproductive process used by all species that replicates their design.

Genesis 1:24

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

But to truly eliminate the builder, they must go deeper.  Their hope is built on the ultimate chaotic event, popularly called the "Big Bang", an explosive event so massive that its energy produced all matter in the universe following Einstein's famous formula E=mc2.

But go deeper and you will see the need for that small letter "c" in the formula.  It is the speed of light.

Genesis 1:3

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

There must be a builder.

It is our deepest thought.  It is the foundation.

Outside the gate

 Today we start worship with:

Hebrews 13:12

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

There were five types of offerings and sacrifices in the Levitical system (Leviticus 1-7).  Three were designed for worship, one for restitution, and one for atonement.  Our verse this morning speaks of the later.

Unlike the others, in this sacrifice the body of the animal was not eaten or offered to God.  It was burned outside the camp.  Our Lord Jesus Christ was that sacrifice. 

The writer of Hebrews goes on to invite us to replace the other four sacrifices.

First vertically:

Hebrews 13:15

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Then horizontally:

Hebrews 13:16 

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Let us do likewise this morning and all through the week.