C, Easter 4 - Revelation 7:16-17 "Hunger and Thirst"

Revelation 7:16–17 (ESV)  “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The transfer of power happens in many ways.  At its most elementary is the transmission of creative power that occurs to produce the following generation.  Man gives of himself in marriage to the woman; woman gives of herself carrying and giving birth to a child.  They both give to the child as a family and then the child grows and does the same with someone else’s  adult child.

Therefore, one generation serves the following generation.  They continue the creative process which God began and sustains in every generation since.  God gives each successive generation breath, having first breathed life into Adam.

From this first transmission of life in Adam comes all other transmissions of power between humans —  their empires, in politics and business, in sport, society, institutionally, sexually, and family. Where power passing began and was broken between Adam and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel.

The transfer of power can occur chaotically with bloodshed, or with order.  However, just because it occurs with bloodshed does not mean it’s bad, and similarly just because it occurs with order doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. The transfer of power between humans is corrupted.   

Because of our sinful nature, it’s hard to tell if bloodshed or order has been ordained by God.  Yet at the cross bloodshed and order that brings eternal peace are bound together in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom all in the heavenly realm glorifies, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10 ESV)

The reality is the Lamb of God is our Shepherd, and to him belongs salvation.  This is the truth and love by which God works in our sinful world through his bloodshed and peace, rather than our perceived truths or the peace and order in which we take pleasure, and love.

Last week and today we’ve heard from Revelation of the Lamb’s sevenfold worthiness, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12 ESV)

The transfer of power from God’s perspective, as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, sees that these seven elements of worthiness always remain with him.

We can see the corruption within ourselves and within the world when we see ourselves and others seize these seven elements of worthiness, as God’s alone, and steal them for ourselves.

Like the world, we hunger and thirst with desire to bask in our own power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing.  But when this occurs within a believer, they know it’s sin, and in having the knowledge of sin within revealed, they flee to him to whom salvation truly belongs — the God of truth and love.

When Simon Peter is called to the death of a disciple, Tabitha, or Dorcas, he is met by widows displaying her works.  She is dead and has been bathed for presentation to those who’ve come to pay their last respects before her burial.  Why has Peter been invited to come by the disciples who mourn her death?  We’re not told! 

This event in Acts occurs between Peter healing Aeneas, paralysed and bedridden for eight years, and the call of Cornelius’ a Gentile, and the conversion of him and his family, the giving of the Holy Spirit and their baptism into God’s church.

Although we don’t know why Peter was called to Tabitha’s side in her death, what happens on this occasion and the events before and after, calls us the hearers of God’s word, to understand the transfer of God’s power works contrary to transference of power everywhere else.

Living in our society today, I am pleasantly surprised, when hearing of Jesus’ healing in the Gospels, God is glorified and not Jesus.  Most didn’t know Jesus was God’s Son, so they didn’t know they were glorifying Jesus when they glorified God!  Now when we hear of Peter’s work in his healing, preaching, and raising of the dead, those who witness don’t believe in Peter, but believe in the Lord.

God’s transfer of power stands out, way ahead of the rest of the world.  When power is passed on in our world, the glory passes onto the next generation.  It matters not much whether there is order or bloodshed in this passing of power, glory does not remain with those who were before.  Sporting finals fade as future finals come and go, politicians riding the wave of an election win are put to pasture, corporates sway and institutional supremacy falls and rebuilds elsewhere, and a family’s fortune is usually inherited by the next generation. 

The power and glory pass on, and the previous powerful party is relegated “to history” as they pass away in death.  In today’s climate, history is not always looked upon favourably.  Unless you’re a keen genealogist, most would not be able to name our ancestors beyond our grandparents, at best.  Their glory and power have been drained down to us.

The transfer of God’s power is different!  This is because the hunger and thirst stay with God; those who believe, hunger and thirst for salvation that comes from God.  Or, to put it another way, God satisfies the hunger and thirst of those who hunger and thirst for him.  The Shepherd satisfies the sheep, because the Shepherd causes his sheep to remain in places where they’re caused to be fed and watered, producing restoration and righteousness within, through the worthiness of God’s name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For those who hear God’s Word, and respond to his call within it, receive the transition of power just as Peter received it and passed it on to Tabitha. However, the transfer of God’s power from Jesus to Peter, Peter to Tabitha, and Tabitha to those who witnessed her resurrection, didn’t transfer the power from God, so that God passes away, becomes unglorified, and forgotten. 

This is what the devil, the world, and our sinful human nature wants.  They want the hearer of God’s Word to forget everything comes from God’s kingdom, power, and glory, and for the hearer to return to believing in themselves and the world.  The devil, the world, and our sinful selves tempt us to transfer all power to ourselves; to believe salvation doesn’t belong to God alone.

In his nature as God the Son, Jesus didn’t hinder the glory from going to God in his ministry.  Yet when he was born and baptised into his ministry the Holy Spirit was given to him.  This demonstrated to his disciples, and us, that Jesus became the same as us.  Jesus put aside his Godliness, and relied on the Holy Spirit, as we too, need the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Not because we have a divine nature like Jesus to put off!  But in Adam’s transfer of corrupted power, we have lost the original ability to see our salvation in God alone.

Peter and the disciples saw the Holy Spirit’s work in Jesus, and even so, didn’t receive the transfer of power without misunderstanding and misuse.  After Jesus’ resurrection they needed continual acts of the Holy Spirit, so they could act in the stead of Christ.  Because of the Holy Spirit, they served as Jesus served and allowed all worthiness to be recognised in Christ alone.

Two thousand years on from Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the worthiness of the Shepherd’s salvation, sees all power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing remain with him, who together with our Father and the Holy Spirit are worshipped and glorified!  As we so often pray.

If the Holy Spirit was not given, Peter, nor you or I, would be able to receive the sevenfold worthiness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and would not allow this Lamb to be our Shepherd, nor pass on his truth or love.

Jesus taught us to pray, for our Father’s kingdom to come, because salvation belongs to God. The Holy Spirit empowers us to pass on the power of God’s truth and love, through our daily baptismal bloodshed in Jesus’ death, and resurrection in repentant peace, having had our hunger and thirst satisfied in our salvation through Jesus’ body and blood.

For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, are in the Shepherd.  He satisfies the hunger of his sheep with his pleasing pastures, and he quenches the thirst of his lambs with springs of living water.  Amen.

C, Palm/Passion - Philippians 2:5–11 "Cross the Crevasse"

Philippians 2:5–11 (ESV) Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The world is in trouble!  Everyone is running for their lives.  As people run, they cut adrift anything that might slow their efforts in escaping the trouble that looms large, like ominous storm clouds building and swirling.  You too, run for your life!  You see others lightening their loads and running on ahead, you contemplate doing the same thing.  You overtake a person who has stopped to cut away excess weight.  Soon, they too run past, with less on their backs than you.

Up ahead, those who have run ahead have stopped, they appear frantic and helpless, like chickens in a chook house invaded by a hungry fox.  You arrive with those who are milling around like startled sheep swirling and shunting each other in the yard.  Then it comes into view, a dirty great big crevasse has opened up in the earth. 

The world is trembling and in the violence of its quaking and shaking, the ground has opened up.  No one can work out how to get across.  It’s too far to jump, and it’s too deep to scale down, cross, and climb the other side.  Anyone who tries is a dead man. Furthermore, at the bottom bubbling larva boils and surges up from eternal depths, turning everything to ash before it even reaches the liquid orange fire.  You can feel its intention to incinerate you, just looking over the edge. 

Others arrive seeking their escape from the same erupting earthquake and melting mountains making their way to meet the molten abyss.  At the edge they gather with you, sandwiched between certain death on every side.  It’s a picture not unlike Moses and the Israelites trapped between Egypt and the Red Sea.  But this red sea is not a sea of water, it’s a sea of red fire!

Great minds gathered with children.  Youthful strength gathered with the elderly.  A unity of military might, greater than that of the United States and China combined, all gather at the edge nervously awaiting their fate.  There’s absolutely nothing they can do.  There’s not a desire or a piece of earthly wisdom that can help this situation!

But from what is humanity running?  And towards what is the chasm they’re running?  It all sounds like a farfetched action movie where the hero pulls off the impossible.  It sounds like an epic battle between humankind and mother nature’s climate change, or a menace from outer space! But it’s not!  It’s much simpler than that.  

The trouble in the world from which humanity is seeking to escape, and the horror to which it arrives is the abyss of ourselves, our humanity, our mortality.  It’s not a make-believe movie script, but the very real everyday struggle of your existence.  Human beings being human means we’re mortal. What are synonyms for being mortal?  In short, human existence is deadly, terminal, transient, temporary, or fatal. 

It matters not how many scientists hypothesise! Nor how many sports or militaries amount might! Nor how many wordsmiths philosophise! Nor how many theologians divide and dilute the Word of God! Nor how much makeup we try to manicure and beautify our being! From the greatest to the least, we cannot escape being human, being mortal!  The greatest fear in a human being, is not being anymore!   

In Philippians chapter two Paul demonstrates how Jesus has crossed the ravine of impossibility, and calls each of us to trust in him alone to cross the crevasse for our salvation.  We hear, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 2:5 ESV)

What is yours in Christ Jesus is a “ God-given-gut-discernment” since “mind” here comes from a Greek word meaning midriff.  This “gut instinct” is not born of your feelings though. Rather, in Jesus Christ, you have been given the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of God’s Word in this troubled world.  Jesus’ gut instinct to look to our Father alone, is now yours.

Paul continues, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”. (Philippians 2:6 ESV)

The form of God, or morph of God, means Jesus shares in the divine nature of God, and therefore, is God.  He is the second member of the eternal Trinity!  Yet, he didn’t equal himself with God.  Unlike Adam and Eve, he didn’t seek to be “like God” and allow desire within, to take a hold of his divine nature, and grasp it, as they took a hold of fruit from the tree of knowledge and evil.

Instead of grasping his divine right, he did the opposite and emptied himself and willingly allowed himself to be born “like man”, in the likeness of man.  But even lower than man, he willingly allowed himself to be pushed through the birth canal of suffering, to walk the way of death as the servant slave of all people.  Jesus emptied himself and became the Son of Man.

Then Paul says, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8 ESV)

Picture that! Being knowingly and willingly born into flesh that is fatally flawed.  Just like us caught between the fatality of birth and the hellish chasm of death, Jesus knowingly allowed himself to be born into the shadow of death under Herod the Great and the suffering and death of the cross, to not only endure the human birth canal but to be pushed further and deeper into the depths of hell.

Then we hear, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”. (Philippians 2:9 ESV)

God “highly exalted” him, in the Greek is a single word with two parts meaning to “over elevate”.  Both parts of the Greek word have their origins in the Greek word “hyper”. 

One could say that after Jesus allowing the two steps of humiliation to occur, being born into death, and then being delivered over to death, albeit innocently and without sin, God then “hyper hypered” him in a two-part exaltation, as it were!  Jesus’ faithfulness to God as a Son and his faithfulness to us as the fatal servant Son of Man is the reason for God’s hyper exaltation of Jesus and his name!

 After all, Jesus is “the One” who calmly walks through convulsing crowds of panicking people.  He was born and baptised into mortality; to be a human in the face of death, that we’re not.  In fact, Jesus Christ was the only human ever born for the sole purpose to die.  A human being, intentionally being human without the fear of his humanity.  Jesus feared our Heavenly Father more than his humanity and its death and was faithful to his Father unto death.

This is why he calmly walked to the edge of humanity and allowed himself to be lifted up in hellishness on the cross, before being delivered into death’s dominion and separation from God, at his descent into hell. 

However, the innocence of his suffering and death, his holy humanity, was a light not even the darkness of hell’s death could extinguish.  Therefore, God raised him to his right hand, on the other side of the ravine of eternal death.  The mortal is now swallowed by immortality, death is swallowed by true life.

There will come a time when all people shall kneel at the name of Jesus Christ and confess him, to the glory of God the Father.  Those who have bowed to him will continue doing so with eternal joy.  But those who have trusted in their humanity, cutting Christ from their lives to flee immediate troubles, cutting back God’s Word to work their own ways, seemingly cutting off Christ for shallow success, will moan that they didn’t seek him before their mortality failed to save them.

As Paul says to the Philippians, I say to you, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

God has now implanted in you the knowledge of Jesus Christ, while you live in a world that’s in trouble.  Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you with God’s Word, what to discard, as you advance to the edge of your mortality. Don’t cut off Christ and the cross he calls you to carry.  Work out you salvation with fear and trembling, discarding your deadly understanding of good and evil, and in its place allow a Holy Spirit guided knowledge of what makes your humanity eternal — to cross the crevasse with Christ. Amen.

B, Lent 4 - Numbers 21:4-7 "Serpents, Sin, & Salvation"

God is patient.  He takes the long way round.  If he took the path of least resistance, humanity would have long been annihilated.

God is patient with humanity.  In the days of disobedience before the flood, God was patient.  God was patient with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  While the Israelites lived in Egypt, God was patient for four hundred years.  In the wilderness after the Israelites were exiled from Egypt, God continued to be patient.  Today, God continues to be patient with his church, and he continues to be patient with you!

So, what is it with — me, you, the church, the Israelites — all of humanity, that God needs to be patient?  What is it that allows all of humanity to stand as one before God’s patience?

God is patient with our lack of patience.  Our impatience can come from various things, but at its root is our displeasure with suffering.  Therefore, God suffers with our lack of endurance in suffering.

Ultimately, God sent his only begotten Son to suffer in our place!  Yet in this life, you and I will still struggle with suffering.  Nevertheless, God is pleased to be patient with us.  He takes the long way round, he takes the way of patience, the patient path.  And we can be very thankful for that!

When God lifted Israel out of bondage in Egypt, he could have marched them into Canaan in a relatively short amount of time.  But he took the patient path, leading Israel forty years, his way in the Sinai wilderness, the way of suffering that led to salvation in the land of milk and honey.

The bronze serpent story gives us a window into God’s patience and his mega-work of humanity’s salvation.  

The Israelites became impatient with the way of God!  They spoke against God and his servant Moses!  So, God sends fiery serpents amongst them.

Let’s take a moment to take this in!  God sends fiery poisonous serpents to bite his people.  Not only do the serpents look fiery, a bronze coppery colour, they are fiery, wielding the rod of God’s wrath.  Their mouths are fiery, in that their venom inflicts a hellish bite leading to agony and certain death. 

The Israelite’s impatience with God, his providence in the wilderness, and with Moses, was instantly removed by the Israelite’s immediate need for a remedy against the forced death from the fierce fangs of serpents sent by God.

Snakes are animals that cause fear.  Since Satan spoke from a serpent in the garden of Eden, snakes have been feared by humans.  Moses ran from his staff that turned into a serpent when God commanded him to throw it on the ground (Exodus 4:3).   So, there’s no doubt the venomous snakes got their attention.

The wilderness is a place of serpents.  The Israelites would have seen plenty as they walked the way of freedom!  Up until this event, we can assume God would have protected them from serpents, just as he protected them from other dangers as he led them out of Egypt.  So, God patiently works his way to will his people from their impatience.

When it comes to snakes, not many of us are heroes.  The thought of being faced with an infestation of fiery serpents is chilling!  Do you remember Indiana Jones encircled by stirred up serpents?  Or imagine the reality of being buried in a box of snakes, slithering over you in the dark.  As they do on the television show, “I’m a celebrity get me out of here”.  That’s truly the stuff of nightmares!

This is the living nightmare of the Israelites, and we can fully understand their fear!  Not only were the snakes just present in their vicinity, but they were sent by God to discipline their disobedience.

Can you see the people begging Moses?  Remorseful for being impatient!  Penitent for their impatience against God’s providence, saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” (Numbers 21:5 ESV)

In Ecclesiastes seven verse eight, it is written, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8 ESV) 

God removed their pride when the serpents began to bite.  They cried out to Moses, for it to end, saying, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” (Numbers 21:7 ESV)

Moses prayed but the end of it was not the removal of the serpents.  Instead, God said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” (Numbers 21:8 ESV)

So, God sends the serpent, and he doesn’t take them away, but rather gets Moses to put the pest up on a pole.   This is the patient path consistent with God’s way.

Imagine if God did remove the snakes!  As soon as they lost sight of the serpents, their impatience and pride would have returned even more so!   But the serpents remained, and God added yet another serpent, calling them to turn and trust God’s way, even in the midst of their suffering. 

Knowing what human nature is like, some would have tested God on this.  The fiery serpent is sent to bite.  It does its job.  The tester is tested.  Do they turn to the serpent up on the stick, or do they stick to their digs and remain in rebellion?   It’s a life-or-death decision.

Now, this might seem like a pretty simple decision to make.  Yet many continue to choose the decision that leads to death.

Jesus says, “…as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14–15 ESV)

Not only are people impatient with God,  but now many also fail to acknowledge God’s existence.   Some think they know God, but they choose to create their own idea of God to suit their way through the wilderness of this world.  But when suffering of death comes, and it always does, crying out to a false god cannot save from death.

God is patient with humanity, but Paul warns God shows no partiality, saying, “…do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  He will render to each one according to his works:  to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life;  but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”  (Romans 2:4,6–8 ESV)

The serpents of sin and suffering still exist.  This sin and suffering left unattended by God will lead to eternal death.  Yet God is patient, he wants to save, and not condemn. 

The good work of God within us, exposes our sin, wills us into confession, keeps us repentant and enduring in belief of our forgiveness, as well as makes us patient.  This happens through the work of the Holy Spirit despite living in the reality of fiery sin serpents still biting and wounding us, causing suffering. 

However, the good works of repentance and belief in the forgiveness of our deadly sins lets us see God's patient reality!   We see our sin, but we see the Servant of Man saving us from sin, lifted up like the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness.

The irony in all of this is that sin came into the world through the deception of a serpent.  Satan, the old snake, also sought to seduce Jesus to sin in the wilderness but failed.  Then at the cross he thought he had won, seeing Jesus nailed to a cursed sinner’s cross.

But death lost its eternal sting at the cross.  The devil was double-crossed.  The great injustice and evil of the cross became the hallmark of mercy and holy goodness stamped on those who allow the light of God to expose and forgive. 

Jesus steals the serpent from Satan and attaches the sin of humanity to it.  He becomes the sin, the serpent, and is lifted up guiltless for the guilty.  He takes the curse of your sin, exposing it in his broken body and spilt blood, and swaps it with his victory over death, for you!

Just as God sent serpents, and then placed one on a pole to save the Israelites, God allows us to suffer as a result of our sinful being and its deeds.  God wants us to see our sin, but even more he wants us to see our sin on Jesus, lifted up on the cross. 

Just as the Israelite’s saw and feared the reality of the serpents that bit them, we too see our reality too.  We can allow the Holy Spirit to continue the patient work of peeling the layers back, to expose the greater depths of our sin.  But in the suffering of that exposure, the Spirit will show us the endlessness and patience of God’s love, who takes our sin and makes our sin – crucify Christ on the cross. 

God is patient with you.  God hates your suffering.  Yet despite this he would rather you suffer in short through confession of your evil works, exposing them in the true light of God’s love and suffering on the cross.

We are reminded by Jesus in John three verse twenty-one that, “whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been carried out in God.” 

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts to work in us the good works of confession of our sin in daily repentance and belief in the forgiveness of sins.  Thankyou for sending your Son Jesus Christ to bear the slipperiness of our sinful being and its deeds on the cross, which should have been our cross.  Help us to patiently bear our cross with the help of the Holy Spirit with full expectation of our resurrection to eternal life with you.  Amen.

  

C, Advent 4 - Hebrews 10:5-7,10 "God's Mighty Arms"

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.  Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”   And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (Hebrews 10:5–7,10 ESV)

These are the strengths of God in our lives: For Jesus to save us, and the Holy Spirit to help us!

From his mighty arms he gives us all we need in this life.  Salvation and sanctification are two arms of love outstretched toward us, from the Father of light, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  For God to save us and make us holy, is his will for all people on earth.  God’s will is your forgiveness of sin, and his will is for you to believe you are forgiven.

Not only is salvation through Jesus and being made holy by the Holy Spirit, God’s strength in our lives; it also pleases God when we take every opportunity to immerse ourselves in his salvation and holiness. 

When we do this, it’s a “win win” situation for us.  When one is immersed in salvation and holiness, God the Father is justified in his power and plan, and we are forgiven.  This forgiveness comes through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of his Son, Jesus Christ.  And the Holy Spirit continues bringing forgiveness, first at Pentecost, then through the Word of God and through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection and through his body and blood in the bread and wine.

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “your will be done”, it pleases God no end, to hinder and defeat every evil scheme and purpose of the world, the devil, and the old Adam within us.  In fact, when God’s will is done in heaven, he forgives us, sin is conquered by Jesus in his death and resurrection. He has victoriously ascended to the right hand of God the Father, finishing our separation from our Father in heaven.  Jesus now stands as the embodiment of the resurrection as the first born from the dead for all people who trust in him.  This includes you and me!

Although God’s will is done in heaven by God forgiving us our sin, and the devil has been conquered and thrown out of God’s presence, the devil still has limited power on earth.  And because of this, God’s will continues to be done on earth.

This makes earth the testing ground for humanity, where within each of us the battle rages between the will of God and the will of fallen humanity.  With his plan and power of salvation and holiness, God seeks to work forgiveness and good will as we live together.  Yet, the old Adam within each of us struggles to dominate with its knowledge of good and evil, driven by the devil.  And the devil is delirious and riddled with rage because he knows he is judged and is heading for eternal destruction with limited time left to deceive the world.

However, the contest between the devil and God is unbalanced.  God is not going to lose.  He is going to win, and it pleases him when we choose to remain with him.  It’s no wonder evil causes so much fury within those who desire to be in control and do not want to be delivered from evil by God into eternal holiness.

Not only is the devil on the losing side and is limited for a brief time in the restricted realm of creation amongst humanity, but he can only be in one place at one time.  On the other hand, God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.  This means God is present everywhere, he knows all things and he is all-powerful.  And the devil is not, nor is humanity, nor is the old Adam within each of us.

Furthermore, this evil axis of the devil, the world, and our sinful self, is up against the three-fold divinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Trinity is all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere in creation and outside of it.

Since God’s will is done in heaven, we know it is done on earth.  Jesus is at the right hand of the Father doing his work of interceding on behalf of you and me.  The Holy Spirit is at the left hand of the Father being our help, giving us the words to pray and leading us into knowledge of our sin and salvation in God’s Word.  The Holy Spirit also brings us into fellowship with the Father through Jesus Christ and with each other.

The good news for you and me is that the Triune God embraces all who trust in him with the steadfast love of salvation, intercession, and holy help.  And this pleases God when we allow him to love us with his Trinitarian holy hug.

Mary says of God, “for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy.” (Luke 1:49–54 ESV)

Mary declares God’s love as an embrace of mercy.  Mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation… in remembrance of his mercy.  In his mercy, he helps, fills, and exalts those who look to him.  But dismisses those who won’t receive his mercy, but rather, trust in their thoughts, thrones, and treasures.

But, our thoughts, our thrones, and our treasures all come from God in the first place!  It doesn’t please God when we trust in them instead of him.  Nor does it please him if we give him what he first gave us as a sacrifice for our salvation. 

Both trusting, in what God has given us, and, giving it back to him, is a feeble attempt to justify the human spirit, the old Adam within or the collective spirituality of worldly humanity.  And it’s a deception of the devil seeking to have us believe we can deliver ourselves out of evil into the holiness of God by doing such things!

But God has a Mighty Righthand Man praying for us.  Jesus Christ is the almighty power of God’s right hand!  God has fought and won the battle with the strength of Jesus’ love, faithfulness, and submission unto death.  And even despite God giving the knockout punch to sin and death in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father and the Son to help us, and deal with the human spirit with which the old Adam seeks to control and deliver us into self-destruction and death.

God’s will for you is to give you life, today and into eternity!  Psalm 80 testifies to God’s righthand man, the son of man, Jesus Christ, who is made strong for God’s good pleasure, for our salvation, and for goodwill amongst humanity. 

Yet, in our existence it might not always be apparent that God’s will for you is to give you life.  In fact, most of the time it appears God has delivered us over to death and decay.  

Similarly, when you look at Jesus’ ordinary entrance into the world, his life of struggle and opposition received, it looks like Jesus was not God’s righthand man.  That God had left him to die and decay also. 

Still, as Jesus stared death in the face, as the cross and crucifixion awaited him, he was faithful and steadfast towards God’s will, which is your forgiveness.

You too are called to faithfulness and steadfastness, despite what might appear as if you have been left for dead.  But just as Jesus was raised, you too are called to see your resurrection in Jesus’ resurrection.  It pleases God when you see and hear his plan for your salvation fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

For God to give you life, he needs to show you darkness, destruction, and death within yourself, so you might willingly receive his restoration and let his face shine on your darkness so you might be saved. 

Hear Psalm 80… But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!  Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!  Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!  Let your face shine, that we may be saved!  (Psalm 80:17–19 ESV)

Jesus now shepherds you in his forgiveness.  His face shines on you in his good pleasure.  But it also shines in the darkness to show the way of peace.  Jesus, together with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit to guide you and help you remain within his boundaries and to live, the life he won for you, in peace. 

God promises Jesus will shepherd you in his church.  The prophet Micah declares on God’s behalf, “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.  And he shall be their peace.” (Micah 5:4–5a ESV)

In God’s mighty arms there is peace and love, to the ends of the earth.  Amen.

C, Advent 2 - Luke 1:76-80 "Salvation Through Forgiveness"

Luke 1:76–80 (ESV) And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,  because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

There was silence in the land of Judah for four hundred years.  God was absent since the days of the prophets when Malachi was called to petition problematic priestly practices. Now Zechariah stood in the temple at Jerusalem to fulfil his priestly duties.

The glory days of Israel and its kings were long past.  The Jews, a fragmented dispersed people, after the rule of Alexander the Great and his Greco-Macedonian government,  now were being ruled by Rome and their appointment of Herod as the subordinate King of Judah.  To the displeasure of the Jews, Herod was not a Jew but an Edomite.

Zechariah came about his turn of duty in the temple through being chosen by lot.  Zechariah would have been honoured to have been chosen to perform this task.  His life would have been a quiet existence and this service at the temple would have been a high point even though events at the temple would have been far less grand than during the time of David and Solomon. Little did Zechariah know things were about to change.

And change things did!  Four hundred years of silence from God and then an angelic messenger speaks to him while he is in service to God.  Now having heard the message, Zechariah is struck with silence as a result of not believing he and his barren wife, Elizabeth, were to have a son and name him John. 

The angel says of John, “He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,  and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:16–17 ESV)

Four hundred years beforehand, Malachi had proclaimed similar. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.  And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” (Malachi 4:5–6a ESV)

The silence of God for four hundred years is broken.  Now Zechariah endures nine months of silence, knowing God was to announce the Christ through his son which his wife, Elizabeth, was carrying. 

After John’s birth and at the time of his circumcision, full of the Holy Spirit, Zechariah’s lips are loosed, the silence is broken.  Zechariah praises God for John and what John was born to do. To be the messenger of God preparing the people for the way of the Lord.

Here again, Malachi had announced this, some four hundred years beforehand, saying, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 3:1 ESV)

Even during Jesus’ journey to the cross, he points to what Malachi had prophesied about the witness of John the Baptist. Jesus says, “What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.  This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’  I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke 7:26–28 ESV)

But before Jesus’ ministry began, John had also been silenced.  He grew and became strong in the Holy Spirit, but he was consigned to a place in the wilderness until it was time to fulfil God’s mission to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins… to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:77& 79 ESV)

So, in God’s time, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ” (Luke 3: 2b–6 ESV)

When Zechariah’s lips were loosed, he reveals how John was going to prepare people for Jesus. This is by a knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.  Sin was put on the agenda.  John was proclaiming and giving a baptism of repentance to all who heard his call. John the Baptist was showing people that they were in darkness and needed a light.

We too are being prepared for Jesus’ coming!  Advent is a time of light in the darkness.  John the Baptist was called to be a messenger of light in the darkness, today as we travel through Advent towards the celebration of Jesus’ birth at Christmas, we too are called to see the shining light in the midst of our darkness.

However, what most of us seek for a saviour is not Jesus.  There are so many other things in the world that promise empowerment, luciferous light, and love.  It seems since we have seen the salvation of God, we struggle to stay in the light, and hinder hearing the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus through his word to us increasing faith.

We live in a dark world.   But we are further deceived when we relegate the darkness as something we are without, as if we are not contributors to the darkness.  We live in a dark world because of the darkness within!  Within each of us burns the light of human desire that seeks to make us shine as lights of the world. 

We all do well to determine what kind of light we are seeking to shine.  Are we reflecting and shining knowledge of salvation?  Or are we shining a knowledge of our good and evil? 

This light of good and evil is a little light of Lucifer.  It is a deception leading one away from the light of God. Many are finding themselves and many more will find themselves in complete darkness and all alone. This light of Lucifer is a temporary temptation to follow a light that’s transitory then terminates. This light does not give us the gift of the knowledge of salvation.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5–10 ESV)

It’s time for us as the church of God to allow the light to shine on sin. It’s time to practice the truth!  Just as people came to John the Baptist confessing their sin, and received a baptism of repentance, we too are called to return in repentance to our baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Know and believe you have the light of Christ within you, willing you to confess your sin, so you receive the forgiveness of sin.  The Holy Spirit is shining the light of Jesus in the darkness within you, so you can stand before God without the consequences of sin. We have had our darkness demolished and it continues to be destroyed with the love and light of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, when we seek relief from long-felt grief turn us to the light of Jesus. When temptations come alluring, send your Holy Spirit to make us patient and enduring; guide our feet into the way of peace show us that bright shore where we weep no more. Amen.