A, The Fourth Sunday in Lent - Ephesians 5:10 "A God Pleasing Person"

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:10 ESV)

What is the will of God? How do we know what God wants?  Where do we go to find this out?  “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven” Jesus teaches us to pray! (Matthew 6:10)  So we pray for his will to be done. But how do I know it’s being done?  Where do I look to check?  How do I know?  Is it a certain feeling or is that feeling just a bad case of spiritual indigestion — self-justification set to repeat on me?

How we discern, find out, work out, or prove something has moved folk throughout the ages into great explorations, expeditions, across oceans, deep into the unknown, to illuminate our human desire to know.

The desire for knowledge drives one to search.  Science searches the unknown in laboratories as well as in locations that have kept their existence covered in mystery.  Medical science searches to uncover the truth of the human body.  Humanity likes to uncover all sorts of things in its desire for knowledge.

From not long after we’re born, we want to learn.  We learn to walk, to talk, to read, to explore and discover.   But what’s the purpose of finding out?  Why do we study these things? 

Mostly the study of “unknown stuff” helps us gain knowledge to do certain things.  In our eyes we seek knowledge for our own good, or the good of others, or the “greater good”.  It’s been this way since Adam and Eve were tempted to know what God knew!  However, their discernment was not pleasing to the Lord!

Our search to prove, to understand, to fathom, to distinguish, to learn, also means we misunderstand, misread, mishear, misfit, mistake, misjudge and misuse when we want to know.  The end result is  that we often find our desire to know makes us miss the mark.  Our knowledge for good or the “greater good” ends up being practised in bad ways.  Why is this so?  Why do we have the desire to do good, but when it comes to doing it, it’s not all that good at all.

Human desire is geared for pleasure.  Originally that pleasure was intended to please God but now it misses the mark and is used to please ourselves.  As a result, the pleasures of the human heart are now clouded with darkness.  When Adam and Eve got up to mischief in the garden, their mischief was literally a bad head, turning from God their head to their own heads through the deception of Satan.

Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter fifteen tells us that, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 ESV)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in contemplation over these words of Jesus says, “It is the deep night that hovers over the sources of all human action, even over all noble and devout impulses.” (Life Together: 31)  

We see in our readings today how easy the desires of the human heart can lead a person astray. 

Samuel was brooding over God’s rejection of King Saul. 

How often do we find ourselves brooding and fretting over the way things have gone when the good, we’ve sought, usually for ourselves, has gone bad for us.  I imagine Samuel’s grief was caused by him being turned in on himself, seeing only his actions rather than the bigger picture of what was pleasing to the Lord.

Even though God regretted with a deep sigh over Saul, he calls Samuel out of his grief over Saul to do his work of anointing a new king.  

But on entering Bethlehem to anoint a new king, Samuel’s desires were misplaced as he looked on Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, to be the new king.  Yet we hear, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV)

Even as we walk as children of the light, there’s still within us a longing to slip back into the darkness of our human desires.  Samuel was there only by God’s will, and it pleased God to bring an unseen son to light for Samuel to anoint.  Samuel brooded in darkness, and in the darkness of his heart he could not see as God saw, until God brought the light of his will to light.

The disciples of Jesus could not see the truth of a man born blind from birth.  But then again, how could they see by their own desires?  So, they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1–5 ESV)

Human desire creates human blindness.  Ironically the gospel reading begins with a blind man, and the blind understanding of the disciples, and after the healing of the blind man Jesus announces, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39 ESV)

In other words, a person whose desires once stopped them from seeing what pleased God will be able to see and please God, and those who see what pleases God and don’t please him will become blind and remain in their guilt!

So, it’s important to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. But how does one do this without becoming blinded by our own darkness of sight? God’s will, God’s desire, God’s pleasure is done on earth and in heaven by Jesus Christ.  We can only please God through Jesus Christ!

The blindness of the disciples was exposed during Jesus’ earthly ministry.  In Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples witnessed the fulfilment of God’s pleasure to forgive humanity.  In the wake of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit continues to fulfil the pleasure of our Father in heaven, as humans are led to lay down their arms through repentance and daily grow in understanding the costly price Christ made to please the Father.   And, the Holy Spirit continues to work within helping believers forgive as each of us have been forgiven.

This all centres on Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s work within.  When we turn in on ourselves we return to our desires clouded by darkness, and once again become blind.  This is like a blind man deliberately gouging out his own eyes after receiving his sight from Jesus.  Or, like after God chose to anoint David, Samuel decides, “No! I believe Eliab is the one” and anoints him instead.

In Paul’s encouragement to discern what pleases the Lord as a child of God he commands you, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:17 ESV)

And the only way possible for this to occur within us and between us is to, “be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18b,20–21 ESV)

You and I are not the light of the world.  We shouldn’t expect to be able to please God through what we desire to do.  When we take it on ourselves to please God by thinking we can be our own rays of eternal light and life, the only light we emit is the deceptive light of Lucifer.

However, in submitting to Christ as the only Light of this world, we please God by allowing the Holy Spirit to work the daily death of self and resurrection in Jesus Christ through repentance and the forgiveness of sin and our forgiving of sin.

This reverence for Christ is not a fear that’s afraid of him or of what the world thinks when we confess, are forgiven, and forgive through repentance  No! It’s reverence and desire to please God and be in his holy presence knowing he’s invited us into fellowship with him, through the Light of Life, his Son Jesus Christ. 

When you allow the Holy Spirit to make Jesus Christ the “Light of your world!”  Know you are his child invited by Jesus to “come and follow me!” ­— to repent and forgive as he has forgiven, is forgiving, and will forgive you! 

Jesus promises us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV)

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13 ESV)

Let the Spirit lead you from yourself to Jesus!  God the Father will reveal the mystery of doing and being a God pleasing person.  Amen. 

A, The Second Sunday after Christmas - Ephesians 1:3-14 "The Ephesian Experience"

The hatred humanity has for itself has manifested itself in peculiar ways in our society today.  As some hate their created self, they seek a change that pits their feelings against their minds—their feelings  against their bodies. 

In a twist of human perversion against God, folk who through the love of God speak the truth in love, are now accused of hate crimes against those who hate their created bodies, and the positions in which they are placed by God in our modern society. 

Truth has become subjective to the point where right has become wrong, and wrong has become right.  One objective truth outside “the feeling-self” is seen as evil, but a subjective truth from “the feeling-individual-self” is worshipped as the ultimate good.  The ludicrousness of our society today has become a place where people can be charged for hate crimes if someone’s feelings get hurt, while the hurt person actually hates what they were created to be.

This bitterness of humanity’s self has swept through society, and unfortunately the church has opened its doors to this bitterness.  That might seem good and loving to some.  The thought is that by bringing the world in and loving their feelings of hatred against themselves, the church can love them into not hating themselves and the darkness that dwells within.

However, this style of mission is not the mission to which God calls us in his word.  Rather, it’s self-centred, lazy, apathetic, and non-biblical.  The tide is running the wrong way.  A tsunami of spiritual darkness is welcomed into the church, and it destroys the church by severing the sovereignty of its one, holy, head—Jesus Christ.   

Scripture clearly calls God’s church to be cleansed of its sin through the work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who are sent by God the Father so that the body is grafted back into its head.  As Christ the head was sent into the world, likewise, we having been covered by God’s holiness, are sent into the darkness, as the light of Christ in a fallen world.  

Instead, the church is joining humanity in its deception that the self is sovereign, and God, if he is allowed to exist at all, is no longer supreme nor transcendent, but rather is made subject to how the individual self feels. 

Jesus was sent by God the Father.  Of Jesus we hear, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” (John 1:1–5, 9–10 ESV)

John the Baptist was sent by the Holy Spirit.  Of him we hear, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” (John 1:6–8 ESV)

As God’s church, we are sent as disciples to disciple the world having been forgiven and fed by the apostolic teaching of those who witnessed Jesus being sent to suffer on the cross for our sin, and was raised to life, as the non-extinguishable light of eternal life.

God’s congregation in Ephesus stands as a lighthouse, warning God’s church—yesterday, today, and tomorrow—as it sails through the darkness of humanity’s hatred of God and itself.  Unfortunately, most denominations, including world-wide Lutheranism has not understood the light shining in the darkness, is not receiving the warning, and is being shipwrecked and broken up on the rocks of human desires.  It’s occurring through navigation using the deceptive maps of human love and feelings, which is really hatred of the human self and God’s placement of humanity through the Holy Spirit.

The Ephesian congregation was led by Saint Paul from the synagogue in Ephesus after three months of reasoning with the unbelieving Jews of the city.  The congregation moved to the hall of Tyrannus, which is the hall of the “supreme ruler” from where we get the English word “tyrant”.  But rather than becoming a tyrant to the Ephesians, Paul daily proclaims the supreme rule of Jesus Christ to both Jews and Gentiles for over two years.

Paul does not proclaim the domination of Christ at Ephesus, but rather the inheritance and predestination of those who trust in Jesus having heard of his salvation.  Paul says, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:11–14 ESV)

In Acts we hear how the Holy Spirit powerfully worked through Paul at Ephesus, healing many in the purpose of God’s will.  On the other hand, seven sons of a Jewish priest called Sceva were exposed as powerless when attempting to exorcise a demon which turned, attacked, and shamed them. 

The supreme power of Jesus Christ did not dwell amongst the Jews without their trust that Jesus Christ was the head.  This is demonstrated by the sons who sought to invoke the name of Jesus outside the counsel of God’s will, without the sealing faith of the Holy Spirit.

At the other extreme in Ephesus was the “heavenly place of Artemis”, a popular pagan female worship cult that enticed and tempted the church in Ephesus to welcome the deception of worshipping a rock that fell from the sky.  The Artemis cult loomed large over Ephesus as the town clerk is reported as saying in the book of Acts, “the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?”  (Acts 19:35 ESV)

A commotion had broken out amongst the metalsmiths who forged silver idols (literally: dwellings) of Artemis.  After Paul’s proclamation of Christ these craftsmen were losing business throughout Asia Minor and Ephesus. So, they whipped up a mob to oppose the truth of Paul’s proclamation knowing that “gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.” (Acts 19:26–27 ESV)

Paul was in Ephesus just shy of three years, after he left, he still had cause to caution them against the powers and principalities of the Artemis cult and to refocus them on Christ as the heavenly place, tabernacling or dwelling amongst them as the only true heavenly place, rather than leaving them in the bitterness of false female idolatry.

What Paul says from the outset of his letter to the Ephesians is of crucial importance and throughout the rest of his letter Paul repeats and restates what he says here at the start,  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight.” (Ephesians 1:3–8 ESV)

We, like the Ephesian church, are called to accept the wisdom and insight of God and return to the heavenly place where we gather around Christ, inside and outside of time—the holy catholic and apostolic church.  We are called out of the world, so we can be sent as the light of Christ into the world, to expose the dark desires of the world, and show them the forgiveness under which we live.  We have the blessing as God’s beloved, to love as Christ, our Beloved, loves us. 

When God spoke through Paul to the Ephesians and then to Timothy, the pastor who served at Ephesus after him, God’s wisdom and prudence was omniscient­—all-knowing.  He knew then that the church would be tempted by Artemis worship today, as it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow!

We can thank God that Artemis is nothing. And the temple where the stone fell from heaven is desolate.  And we can thank God that he calls us to see the warning signs given to us through the Ephesian experience. We are reminded by Luke in his God-inspired record of the Holy Spirit’s work at Ephesus in the book of Acts, from Paul’s letters to the Ephesian congregation and Pastor Timothy, and Jesus’ call of repentance to the Ephesus church in John’s Revelation. 

We can also see the Holy Spirit’s warning to us through the science of biology where the bitterness of Artemis has been assigned to a genus of daisy plants named by Artemisia II of Caria .  One of which is “artemisia vulgaris” or “mugwort” from where the city of Chernobyl gets its name and now stands as a desolate radioactive warning in the modern world, and to a church tempted to follow the world in its woke Artemis faith idolatries that hates God’s ordering of one’s place in society, that rejects the designation of our human biology, and hates the fact that God is our Creator.

The Holy Spirit also calls us back into the word of God where another genus of artemisia stands as a warning to the world-wide church following the wide path to destruction.  This is “Wormwood” or  “artemisia absinthium”.

Uncannily similar to the report of Artemis in Acts nineteen, John prophesies in Revelation chapter eight, “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.” (Revelation 8:10–11 ESV)

Artemis has fallen and wormwood will fall on those who no longer listen to God.  Jesus Christ is the one and only blazing holy star of God raised up into the heavenly realm to his right hand. Now by the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to split from his church those who welcome an unholy wormwood or bitter Artemis into its midst.    He calls us from the worship of human desires and flesh in all its various perversities to receive Jesus—the Word made flesh.  He leads us from those who invoke Jesus’ name without a faith empowered by the Holy Spirit, and away from baptismal waters that have been poisoned by fruits of vulgar Artemis. 

In the maturity of Jesus Christ, God splits from his church those who’ve embittered the Holy Spirit with a false unionism rather than a unity of oneness in the Holy Spirit to which the obedient church follows—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:5–6 ESV)

Let us pray.  Lord Jesus you are the only one who has ascended to God the Father as God the Son.  When you ascended on high you led a host of captives in your holy train.  Continue to cleanse your faithful captives with your blood as we’re daily led to repentance by the Holy Spirit.  Thankyou for the gifts of your word and sacraments that are given to sustain us in your life as male and female disciples of faith, so that we might love those whose lives are full of hateful desires towards you, hate where you have placed them, and hate the identity you have given to them. Amen. 

A, The First Sunday after Christmas - Matthew 2:13-23 "The Prophetic Fulfilment"

Herod and his brother Phasael were tetrarchs of Judea, or deputies, under John Hyrcanus II, the Judean leader and Jewish priest appointed by Mark Antony, the Roman politician and general.  When Hyrcanus II was ousted by his nephew with the help of the Parthians (geographically where the old Persian Empire ruled, or ancient Iran), Herod fled to Rome to have Hyrcanus II restored to power.  But instead, the Roman Senate appointed Herod as king of Judea.

On his return to Judea, Herod battled with and won the throne from Antigonus, Hyrcanus II’s nephew, also married Hyrcanus II’s granddaughter in a bid to win favour with the Jews.  Herod’s win ended the one-hundred-year Hasmonean dynasty in Judea, ushering in what is historically known as the Herodian Dynasty.

Herod the Great was not liked by the Jews, despite his marrying the Hasmonean priest and ruler’s granddaughter and his rebuilding of the second temple in Jerusalem.  To the Jews, Herod the Great was an Idumean, an Edomite, despite being raised as a Jew.  He is also remembered for his tyrannical authority, as a tax farmer, and as a client king for the Romans. Herod the Great was not well received by the Jewish Sanhedrin for his brutality, and the wider Jewish community despised the decadence oozing from the Herodian palace.

The political and religious turmoil that swirled around Jerusalem during Herod’s reign meant he constantly lived with one eye over his shoulder keeping watch for uprisings against his leadership.  The birth of Jesus, proclaimed as the King of the Jews by the Magi from the east, was a threat to Herod.  This political king needed to quickly quell any talk of a true son of David returning to the throne.

We hear, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” (Matthew 2:1–8 ESV)

Worshipping this new Christ child was the last thing on Herod’s mind.  He and all Jerusalem were troubled by the news of the Magi.   The Jewish priests were also caught out and had egg on their faces since the Holy Spirit had side stepped them and revealed the coming of Christ the King, to pagan magicians from the east.  It was only after the Magi came enquiring that they were forced to find the prophecy written in the books of Micah and Ezekiel (Micah 5:2, Ezekiel 34:23).

With political instability and the disapproval of the Judean countrymen, any news of a genuine Jewish king being born in the line of David was frightening to Herod as he sought to maintain his leadership.  This is the background into which Jesus was born at Bethlehem, the town of David!

Today Matthew’s gospel account is the only one out of the four Gospels that records the coming of the Magi from the east, and Herod the Great’s dismay that a king had been born.  If it weren’t for Matthew’s account, we would only hear of Herod’s progeny who ruled after his death. 

The events reported from Matthew’s Gospel not only give us a picture of the political mischief in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s birth.  It also works as a bridge that connects the Christian church and the New Testament back to the Jewish faith when God spoke through the prophets in the Old Testament.

Herod the Great proved to be the tyrant that he was over his people.  Any threats to his kingship were quickly quashed.  The babies of Bethlehem are only one example of his treachery.  Herod was a paranoid person, in addition to the babies of Bethlehem he murdered forty-six members of the Sanhedrin, killed any surviving members from the Hasmonean family including his own wife, and some of his children.

However, such tyranny and murderous intent did not hinder the life of Jesus Christ.   It might seem as though it would be a simple thing to track down and exterminate a family that lived in weakness. After all, they were unprotected and relatively poor against the might and resources of Herod’s treachery. 

The faithfulness of God the Father comes to the fore as the Magi and Joseph are warned by angels of the Lord, faithful messengers.  And Matthew, a tax collector, called as a disciple and apostle, faithfully connects the dots between the old and new covenant, reporting to us in his Gospel this continuity in God’s plan of salvation, through and despite Herod’s horrific actions.

The humble circumstances through which our Saviour entered the world, are equally matched with a tax collector being the one through whom God chose to be a disciple, apostle, and writer of this “segue” Gospel.  Matthew, who formerly took tax from his people on behalf of the Romans, not unlike Herod, now gives a testimony to catechise and teach God’s chosen people that Jesus Christ is the true king of Israel, whom the prophets spoke of throughout the scriptures of the Old Testament.

In the story of the Magi, Herod’s response, and Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’ escape to Egypt we hear a repeated phrase, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” (Matthew 2:15 ESV) In fact, similar words are common right the way through Matthew’s Gospel, some twelve times including Jesus’ own testimony in Matthew chapter five where Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17 ESV)

The hardship of Israel can be seen as carried and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  He went to Egypt as did Joseph, Jacob, and their family.  He came out of Egypt with his parents as did Israel.  He wandered and suffered in the wilderness for forty days, after being baptised in the Jordan.  He then walked the way of the cross to be the Passover Lamb, reversing what happened to Israel who left Egypt after the Passover and tenth plague of death, a reversal of Herod’s plague of death at Bethlehem, and Israel was led in the Sinai wilderness by Moses under the Law for forty years.  The Israelites were saved by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) at the Jordan when they crossed over into Canaan, conquering the land of milk and honey, with God’s leadership through Joshua calling him to be bold and courageous.

When the Jews heard the Gospel of Matthew, they were called to see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of David, Immanuel, as proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah.  When we hear the Gospel of Matthew, we too are called to see the Messiah in this Christ Child, that he is the Son of David, that he is the Son of God, that he is our Servant King crucified on the cross.  Jesus is the holy sacrifice, and High Priest fulfilling all righteousness as he proclaimed to John the Baptist, compelling John to baptise him at the Jordan River into God’s plan of salvation for you, me, the Gentiles and the Jews.

In these days of confusion and trial, inside and outside the church, you and I are called to see that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of God’s plan for salvation as written in the Old and New Testaments — the word of God.  That despite the treachery of our times and the times yet to come, this Jesus of whom the prophets spoke and waited, is God with us, Immanuel, in our lives. 

Jesus is seeking to fulfil all righteousness in you, and his holy church, through his holy gifts. Amen.

Let us pray.

Keep each of us in your word Lord God Heavenly Father. So, the Holy Spirit can fulfil all righteousness within us. So, we are not caught out and left out when Jesus Christ, our Holy King returns to finally finish your holy plan of salvation, Amen.

A, The Birth of our Lord, Christmas Day- Isaiah 62:6-12 "The Sign for all Times"

Isaiah 62:6–12 (ESV) On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have laboured; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.” Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

Growing up outside towns, country kids ride their bikes on rural roads and over rough tricky terrain.  Many of us have childhood memories of negotiating our way along tracks around sticks, stones, and soft sandy soils.  There was nothing worse than the bike being jolted after hitting an obstacle only to feel its effect on your bottom as the bump shot up through the saddle of the bike seat.  Or, the strain on your legs to keep pedalling when the wheels of your bike sank in sand almost bringing you to a standstill.

When growing up on the farm riding a bicycle, I often dreamt and wished I lived in town.  Oh, how wonderful it would be to ride roads of bitumen and footpaths of cement where my backside could savour the smoothness of the highways and byways prepared for smooth sailing on a bicycle!

We are reminded of this as Isaiah calls God to prepare a way for his people in Zion — a restored Jerusalem. Isaiah calls God to, “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

Ah, how nice it would be not to hit stones with my wheels, not to struggle in sandy soils, and to ride like a royal on repaired roads of hot-mix and concrete!

Though, this is not just a picture of a childhood dream! It’s a picture of Zion, a new Jerusalem.  What is this Jerusalem, this Zion?  It’s not just a place of pleasant highways and byways!  It’s a place where all roads lead to the righteousness of God!  Where humanity can once again live with God in peace, as God originally intended when he created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden!

For us it is not the city of Jerusalem as such, but the place where heaven and earth, God and humanity, meet together in holy fellowship, where sin is atoned for, where salvation is realised in the recompense and reward of God.

But see what Isaiah says of Jerusalem­—of this holy Zion!  A strange thing occurs in this Jerusalem where God and humanity will meet.  The watchmen don’t merely watch and report what happens outside the city.  Rather, they are heralds, crying out to him who is outside the gates to come and cleanse the place.

The watchmen are called not to watch but to call God himself to remember Jerusalem.  This is unexpected, watchmen exposing the city, but for what purpose?  Watchmen should stand guard and protect the place against the enemy, not uncover the reality of a place to outsiders!

God had become an outsider in Jerusalem.  He had been thrown out of his own holy habitation.  His own people, chosen to be a holy nation turned their back on God; severing themselves from his presence at the temple, its Holy Place, and the Holies of Holies!  But Isaiah does not call the people back, to repent!  No! He calls God to come and establish Jerusalem and make it a praise in the earth.

In God’s eyes Jerusalem and its people had become wearisome to him rather than a praise in the earth.  

Of Judah and Jerusalem Isaiah speaks on God’s behalf, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” (Isaiah 1:2–4 ESV)

God’s people opposed him!  They made themselves his enemy, yet God sought to reconcile them to himself, “‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.” (Isaiah 1:18–21 ESV)

So, God became the outsider, the enemy.  Now God engages faithful watchmen of the city to call God back into the city and restore it.  “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

So, from behind the curtain of holy eternity a signal was sent.  Like a white flag is a sign of surrender the sign came.  However, it wasn’t a sign of surrender, but a sign of salvation was waved by God’s watchmen.  And God’s watchmen still wave this flag of salvation today, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12 ESV)

Shepherds became the first watchmen of God’s renewed kingdom.  Unclean men outside the gates of Jerusalem heard, saw, and witnessed baby Jesus who would become “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles”. (1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV)

This baby Jesus would become both, “a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 8:14 ESV)

The call goes out this Christmas, for the church to allow Christ in from outside to rightfully take his place back into the heart of Christmas.  For the church to be the Jerusalem of God, to be the sanctuary where God and humanity gather around the throne of grace.

Jerusalem and the temple mound still stand as the testimony from God to Christians and Jews that God removes the stones from his pathway of salvation.  It continues to be so, but worse will happen to Jerusalem at an appointed time by God as a sign so God’s church turns from its sin from which Isaiah was calling Jerusalem and Judah. The desolation that Isaiah proclaims of Jerusalem, will make Chernobyl’s radiation look like a light sunburn.  The brokenness and rock-strewn path of Jerusalem, of Mugwort[1], will be cleared by God’s Son when he returns to put right the salvation of God, proclaimed by Isaiah

Like a child on a bike picturing a perfect pathway on which to ride, God sent his Son to reform the road of righteousness back to his holy presence.  The curtain of temple of God’s holiness has long been torn asunder, and the temple is gone, yet the cornerstone of our salvation remains in Christ Jesus.

The Son of God is now our sign.  From the crucifix the Christ child is risen and comes back into the most desolate of godless places and offers to restore hearts, people, and nations back into fellowship with God our Heavenly Father.  He is our peace through his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of our Father, and he is coming again.  Come Lord Jesus come!

Daughter of Zion, know your master’s manger! See the signs! Repent and allow for the restoration work of the Holy Spirit!  Let understanding be with a Holy Spirit-filled understanding within us, your church.  Let us stand firm in faith under God’s word, or not at all! 

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit harness us, your church, call Christ into its Jerusalem and cleanse the stones from Christ’s holy highway.  Let the cross of Christ’s birth and resurrection be raised up as our eternal sign in the world.  Thank you for making your faithful church holy through his sinless blood.   Remove all nuclear reactivity from your church, stop us from split from you and fuse within us renewed righteousness and clear salvation in Jesus Christ alone.  Amen.

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[1] Mugwort is “artemisia vulgaris,” (see Acts 19:23-41, where the Ephesian church followed Christ under the constant shadow of the common vulgar female Artemis cult). Mugwort is from where the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl gets its name. See Paul’s written call for the Ephesians to remain in the “heavenly place” in Jesus Christ and not other “heavenly places” throughout his letter to the Ephesians. (Eph 1:3,10,20,  2:6, 3:10,15 4:10, 6:9,12)  Chernobyl stands as a modern-day sign for the church to reject the worldly vulgarity and the commonness of “Artemis type heavenly places”.  Jerusalem in the next generation will become Mugwort, a radioactive sign, for the church, greater than Chernobyl, even greater than Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:9).  God was prepared to make a similar sacrifice of Israel to save Judah from falling. (Isaiah 7)   Similarly, God will reveal his power to a church that has rejected his Son, the Christ Child - Immanuel, in the future desolation of Jerusalem as a sign calling his people back to him, before the day when Christ will cleanse Mugwort of its radiation with his light of eternal life at his second coming.  It’s the church’s mission to proclaimed Christ crucified to both Jews and Gentiles so some might repent and be saved.