No Matter What

Watch out that no one deceives you. These are Jesus’ words to his disciples as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem to be crucified. And they are great words for us in the church today. Watch out that no one deceives you…. We live in the ‘information age’. anything you want to find out you can look it up on the internet. And you can find any answer you want…. So you ask a question, and you keep looking until you find an answer that you agree with. May not be correct, but it is on the internet so it must be true - right? And since I agree with it - it reinforces what I think.
Jesus is very concerned about us being deceived. He’s very concerned about our getting to that place where whatever I think is OK. In fact he not only warns his disciples about being deceived, later on as Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest, Jesus prays for his disciples - prays for us - that we might not be deceived.
But it is so easy in this time of information overload and constant media and billboards and signs and decorations on cars to get confused and to be deceived. How do we really know what the truth is? Who can we believe and how do we figure that out?
It is tough. And what happens is that we hear so many differing positions on things that eventually we just make up our own mind as to what we are going to believe. And that can be a dangerous thing as well.
We of course can’t have a message without mentioning the Hebrews of the Old Testament at least once. But today we are not on our wilderness journey but we are in a period of history where the Hebrews have made it through the desert and are living in the Promised Land - the land we would call Israel; it was called Canaan back then. What God had intended was that his people, the Hebrews, would live in the promised land and only depend on God. They didn’t need a government to take care of them, they were just going to rely on God, knowing that God would care for them and protect them. And if everyone would have done that, all would have gone well. However, being human, if there is not someone holding them accountable - someone a little closer than heaven, people just naturally drift away from the ways of God. This idea that the people were just going to do what God wanted them to do, to live together, following the law God had given them, all on their own just didn’t work. Before too long we have that passage from Judges we heard at the beginning of the service - “And everyone did what was right in their own eyes” and you can well imagine what began to happen. Instead of living for God, everyone started living for themselves and deciding for themselves what was best; picking and choosing which regulations of God they wanted to follow and which ones they didn’t…… and the intention God had for his people just broke down.
Because that is what happens when we try to decide for ourselves what we want to believe and what we don’t want to believe; when we start picking and choosing who we want to believe and who we don’t; when we look things up on the internet and read 5 different takes on something and just pick the one we like best….
Instead of really listening to and learning from and following the true source - the words of God.
But there is a problem with that, too. What we have to be very careful with is reading a verse out of context and then pronouncing with full assurance that this is what God says. What we have to be very careful with is listening to someone else who has taken a verse out of context who with great authority declares that his is how it is and we believe them.
Both scripture texts from Mark and Hebrews today are passages that are often misunderstood. I think they jumped out at me because I took my car to the KIA dealer last week and as I sat in my car waiting to be called in for service, I sat behind a van that had in big letters on all three sides of the van - “The end is near. Are you ready?”
And I am sure that you have seen this phrase all over the place. Billboards, license plates, signs, TV shows. There are people whose life work is putting on seminars where they are going to ‘prove’ that the end is near. It is this passage in Mark which is the basis of this notion that the end is near and we can predict when it will be - forgetting that in about 20 more verses Jesus says “No one knows the time.”. So lets look at it a little to see if we can understand what Jesus is really trying to teach us.
Jesus is near his death. He is trying to get his disciples to understand that he is going to die and he’s going to leave and they are going to be in charge.
So here they are at the temple and Jesus is very good and using whatever he sees around him as an example and since they are at the temple that is what he uses.
Part of what Jesus’ message has been all through his ministry is an attempt to try and get people away from the worship of the Temple. God’s people had gotten away from actually worshiping God, to worshipping the worship of God. The people had become so tied into coming to the temple in Jerusalem, and doing all the proper rituals, and saying all the proper prayers, that they had completely forgotten why they were doing it - and they had this notion that the only place they could talk to God, the only place they could worship was the Temple and even there they had to do it just right.
They no longer came to the temple to truly worship God, but they came to the temple because that was what they were suppose to do and there were certain things they were to do when they were there. Being ‘saved’ and loved by God became dependent on how they worshipped; on making sure they did all the right things the right ways.
So Jesus says, one of these days the temple is going to be destroyed - and it was 70 years later by the Romans - what is going to happen then? How will you worship then? If your worship depends on being in the temple and your worship depends on doing all the right things in the temple, what are you going to do when the temple is gone? How will you worship then?
So Jesus goes on by saying, “Time is going to pass. And just like there has always been, there will be wars and famines and earthquakes and hardship. Life is going to be life. There have always been and there will always be wars and famines and earthquakes and hardship. Can you think of a time, ever, when there wasn’t? Can you picture a time in this world that there won’t be? Then Jesus says, people will come who will try and deceive you. Be careful. Don’t be deceived.
And one of the greatest deceptions is that the end is near and we have to get ourselves ready…. How do you get yourselves ready? Do you start doing more good deeds or going to church more or reading your Bible more? None of that is bad and they are all things we should do, but is that going to get us ready?
No. The good news in all of this, and the good news that I think is very hard for us is that as we don’t have to do anything at all to be ready. As we heard in the passage from Hebrews, Jesus has done everything necessary to get us ready. We don’t have to worry about ‘being ready’ because in Jesus Christ we are.
It is like being a small child. You never had to worry about getting ready. Your parents always put you in the proper clothes, packed everything you would need. You were ready because they did everything to make you ready. And that is what Jesus Christ has done for us.
That passage in Hebrews talked a lot about priests and temples and things we are unfamiliar with because we are not a Hebrew who was use to worshipping in the Temple. But in essence it says that Jesus fulfilled all the things that priests would have to do over and over once and for all. There is no need any more for a temple or a high priest or any of the rituals because Jesus took care of all of that. Done.
So everyone here is ready. Whether the end is tomorrow or 4000 years from now you don’t have to worry about it. You are God’s people and Jesus took care of you once and forever. Regardless of what you have done or might do or will do or might think about doing, it is all taken care of.
Don’t be deceived. Don’t let anyone tell you that you gotta do X, Y or Z, don’t let anyone put some kind of guilt trip on you because of something you may have done. And don’t let yourself get so confused that you just make up your mind that something is so without really learning and studying what God really says.
Don’t be deceived just know that whenever the end may be, you are ready. No matter what, because you are the people of God.

Amen!

The Commandments for Us

God’s people in the Old Testament often reflect our own experience with God. Some days we do really well with God - we try to do the right thing, we pray, we read our Bibles; we feel connected. But then there are those days when we are much more likely to not really think about God at all. We do things we know we shouldn’t and we don’t do things we should. We neglect our prayer and our Bible…. And all through the Old Testament we find God’s people doing the same thing - only their experience is usually a little more extreme than ours!
Reading about God’s people in the Old Testament we see times when they do exactly as God directs them - they worship, they live as they should and what they find is that during these times they are living lives of peace. But it seems that the better things go for them, the quicker they fall away from God. What the Old Testament says is “Everyone began to do what was right in their own eyes.” In other words, instead of living the way that God had directed them, they began to do whatever they wanted and it seems that every time they fell away from God, some great tragedy happened to them usually in the form of a neighboring government invading their country and enslaving them. Then God’s people would straighten up and life would get good again and the cycle would repeat itself.
Finally God gets tired of this doing what was right, falling away, doing what was right, falling away, cycle and he allows Babylon to invade and capture God’s people and take them all to Babylon and in the process Babylon reduces Jerusalem to rubble - including the beloved Temple. In Babylon God’s people fell into a great depression - many of the Psalms were written then and to read them is just heart breaking. You can feel their agony over being separated from their land. Up until this time God’s people had not put together what we would call the Old Testament - they had some random scrolls with parts of what we would recognize as the Old Testament but there was nothing collected and organized. Most of the stories were memorized by the people and the scribes began to worry that they would all die off in Babylon and these stories would be lost. So during this Babylonian captivity, most of the Old Testament is put together. There are a few documents that would be added later - some of the prophets and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah - but for the most part the story of God’s people came together during this captivity.
Eventually God’s people are allowed to return to Jerusalem and they are devastated because everything is gone. Their beloved city is just gone - and even worse - the cherished Temple of God has been decimated. The description we get is that ‘there is not one stone left upon another’. And so God’s people fell again into a great depression - we can understand that and we can’t really criticize them for that. They waited 70 years in Babylon to get back home and when they did - home was gone.
One day Ezra the priest gathered God’s people together and he had a copy of what the scribes had put together in Babylon - God’s words - the book of the Law.
Now we need to stop here for a minute and remember that for these Hebrews, the ‘Law’ refers to the first 5 books of the Old Testament. It is not a reference to the 10 Commandments but to the whole writings found in those first 5 books - so when you hear that term - whether it be in the Old Testament or the New Testament - know that what they are talking when the term ‘The Law, is used is about the entire writing of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
So Ezra gathers God’s people and begins to read to them ‘the Law’ - the first 5 books of the Old Testament and the people are in awe. They are captivated by these words from God. But then they realize how they have not lived up to God’s instructions in the law, they begin to weep. They are overcome with emotion as they hear how God has cared for them in the stories recorded in these words and they think about how far they are removed from living as God has called them to live.
But the priest says to them - “Don’t grieve. Don’t be sad. This is a special day because you were able to hear God’s word. You are special to God and God loves you. Go home and celebrate


because God loves you enough to give you his instruction. Have a feast… Have a party….. Enjoy the knowledge of how much God loves you because he has given you these rules to live by.”
How often do you celebrate because you have rules to follow? Most of us don’t like rules. I especially don’t like rules I don’t understand. I - like most people - would like to pick and choose which rules I would like to follow and which ones I wouldn’t. But we know that would never work out if we all just lived by the rules we wanted to and disregarded the laws we didn’t like; there would be anarchy.
Let’s go back into the history of God’s people to the time, probably 600 or 700 years before this return from Babylon and God’s people have been freed from Egypt and are wondering in the desert and end up at Mt. Sinai. At Mt Sinai Moses goes up the mountain and spends 40 days with God writing down laws. Not only those 10 rules we call the 10 commandments - but 613 rules that we have recorded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. 613 rules to live by. Can we even imagine that many rules that govern every aspect of our lives? Our thoughts immediately begin to worry about oppression and restricting what we can do and limiting our lives and our hackles go up…..
But God, who is always good, meant these rules not for oppression; not so he could keep his thumb securely placed on his people to restrict what they could do; to just be a dictator - but God meant for all these rules to help his people live a productive and peaceful life.
This is how we are to think about these laws - Imagine if everyone followed all the laws of our communities all the time. What would that be like? No one would steal; no one would speed and cause accidents; no one would murder anyone; everyone would be trustworthy; What would life be like then? Sounds wonderful doesn’t it…..
If you start looking at these 613 rules God gave his people, we begin to see that their purpose was to create an orderly society. If everyone follows these laws, then God’s people can live together peacefully. Many of the laws were health laws - things that we know today that were not known in that time. Simple things like washing your hands after you use the rest room. We take that for granted as something that we do - right? In the time of Moses, no one ever heard of such a thing. But God knows that we aThe Commandments for Us

God’s people in the Old Testament often reflect our own experience with God. Some days we do really well with God - we try to do the right thing, we pray, we read our Bibles; we feel connected. But then there are those days when we are much more likely to not really think about God at all. We do things we know we shouldn’t and we don’t do things we should. We neglect our prayer and our Bible…. And all through the Old Testament we find God’s people doing the same thing - only their experience is usually a little more extreme than ours!
Reading about God’s people in the Old Testament we see times when they do exactly as God directs them - they worship, they live as they should and what they find is that during these times they are living lives of peace. But it seems that the better things go for them, the quicker they fall away from God. What the Old Testament says is “Everyone began to do what was right in their own eyes.” In other words, instead of living the way that God had directed them, they began to do whatever they wanted and it seems that every time they fell away from God, some great tragedy happened to them usually in the form of a neighboring government invading their country and enslaving them. Then God’s people would straighten up and life would get good again and the cycle would repeat itself.
Finally God gets tired of this doing what was right, falling away, doing what was right, falling away, cycle and he allows Babylon to invade and capture God’s people and take them all to Babylon and in the process Babylon reduces Jerusalem to rubble - including the beloved Temple. In Babylon God’s people fell into a great depression - many of the Psalms were written then and to read them is just heart breaking. You can feel their agony over being separated from their land. Up until this time God’s people had not put together what we would call the Old Testament - they had some random scrolls with parts of what we would recognize as the Old Testament but there was nothing collected and organized. Most of the stories were memorized by the people and the scribes began to worry that they would all die off in Babylon and these stories would be lost. So during this Babylonian captivity, most of the Old Testament is put together. There are a few documents that would be added later - some of the prophets and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah - but for the most part the story of God’s people came together during this captivity.
Eventually God’s people are allowed to return to Jerusalem and they are devastated because everything is gone. Their beloved city is just gone - and even worse - the cherished Temple of God has been decimated. The description we get is that ‘there is not one stone left upon another’. And so God’s people fell again into a great depression - we can understand that and we can’t really criticize them for that. They waited 70 years in Babylon to get back home and when they did - home was gone.
One day Ezra the priest gathered God’s people together and he had a copy of what the scribes had put together in Babylon - God’s words - the book of the Law.
Now we need to stop here for a minute and remember that for these Hebrews, the ‘Law’ refers to the first 5 books of the Old Testament. It is not a reference to the 10 Commandments but to the whole writings found in those first 5 books - so when you hear that term - whether it be in the Old Testament or the New Testament - know that what they are talking when the term ‘The Law, is used is about the entire writing of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
So Ezra gathers God’s people and begins to read to them ‘the Law’ - the first 5 books of the Old Testament and the people are in awe. They are captivated by these words from God. But then they realize how they have not lived up to God’s instructions in the law, they begin to weep. They are overcome with emotion as they hear how God has cared for them in the stories recorded in these words and they think about how far they are removed from living as God has called them to live.
But the priest says to them - “Don’t grieve. Don’t be sad. This is a special day because you were able to hear God’s word. You are special to God and God loves you. Go home and celebrate


because God loves you enough to give you his instruction. Have a feast… Have a party….. Enjoy the knowledge of how much God loves you because he has given you these rules to live by.”
How often do you celebrate because you have rules to follow? Most of us don’t like rules. I especially don’t like rules I don’t understand. I - like most people - would like to pick and choose which rules I would like to follow and which ones I wouldn’t. But we know that would never work out if we all just lived by the rules we wanted to and disregarded the laws we didn’t like; there would be anarchy.
Let’s go back into the history of God’s people to the time, probably 600 or 700 years before this return from Babylon and God’s people have been freed from Egypt and are wondering in the desert and end up at Mt. Sinai. At Mt Sinai Moses goes up the mountain and spends 40 days with God writing down laws. Not only those 10 rules we call the 10 commandments - but 613 rules that we have recorded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. 613 rules to live by. Can we even imagine that many rules that govern every aspect of our lives? Our thoughts immediately begin to worry about oppression and restricting what we can do and limiting our lives and our hackles go up…..
But God, who is always good, meant these rules not for oppression; not so he could keep his thumb securely placed on his people to restrict what they could do; to just be a dictator - but God meant for all these rules to help his people live a productive and peaceful life.
This is how we are to think about these laws - Imagine if everyone followed all the laws of our communities all the time. What would that be like? No one would steal; no one would speed and cause accidents; no one would murder anyone; everyone would be trustworthy; What would life be like then? Sounds wonderful doesn’t it…..
If you start looking at these 613 rules God gave his people, we begin to see that their purpose was to create an orderly society. If everyone follows these laws, then God’s people can live together peacefully. Many of the laws were health laws - things that we know today that were not known in that time. Simple things like washing your hands after you use the rest room. We take that for granted as something that we do - right? In the time of Moses, no one ever heard of such a thing. But God knows that we are much healthier if we wash our hands and so the Hebrews became hand washers - the only group of people during that time that did something like that and as a result they were a more robust people. They weren’t to eat pork - because during that time period there was no method to cook pork correctly so that it didn’t make you sick. The Hebrews didn’t know why God didn’t want them to eat pork - but it was for their own good.
The result of these laws turned out to have two results - the Hebrews were thriving and it made the Hebrews different. No other culture lived as they did - washing hands and watching what they ate and treating each other fairly, so they stood out. They became an example of what life could be if one followed the laws of God. Life was good - simply because they followed the rules. We don't worry so much about those levitical laws today because science has taught healthy ways to live.
But we still have those 10 commandments and they still have the same purpose today they had back in the days of Moses and during the reading of the Old Testament by Ezra - their purpose is not to restrict us; their purpose is not so that God sitting up in heaven on his throne can use it to indict us - “Look at him - he broke rules 3, 5, and 8 today. I’m writing that down and holding it against him.” God does not do that.
The 10 commandments are for us today exactly the same as they were for God’s people thousands of years ago - they are a way to live in a peaceful, orderly society. Again, think about life if everyone lived by these principles - not in a legalistic sense - but simply as a way of life. What a different world it would be. As much as anything else, these commandments produce an attitude of love and respect for ourselves, for each other and for God.
Now we get to the hard part - which is the part where God says to us that he really does expect us to live by these rules, all of them; not just the ones we like or the ones that fit into our lives - again not so that he can hold it against us when we fail - but so that we will be different.
Our job is not to expect others to live by these rules but to live by them ourselves so that people see that our life is different than the rest of our culture. Our job is not to point fingers because others are not following these rules, but to strive every day to try and keep these rules close to our heart so that we can show people there is a better way to live.
Is it hard? Goodness yes. Is it possible to follow these rules exactly as God intended? Not really; not all the time - but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do our best to try and intentionally live as God calls us to.
The people of God wandering in the desert; the people of God weeping as Ezra read to them - realized that these rules were a gift from God. A gift that would give us a better life; a gift so that we could be an example to others about how things could be if we just put the things of God first. Amen. re much healthier if we wash our hands and so the Hebrews became hand washers - the only group of people during that time that did something like that and as a result they were a more robust people. They weren’t to eat pork - because during that time period there was no method to cook pork correctly so that it didn’t make you sick. The Hebrews didn’t know why God didn’t want them to eat pork - but it was for their own good.
The result of these laws turned out to have two results - the Hebrews were thriving and it made the Hebrews different. No other culture lived as they did - washing hands and watching what they ate and treating each other fairly, so they stood out. They became an example of what life could be if one followed the laws of God. Life was good - simply because they followed the rules. We don't worry so much about those levitical laws today because science has taught healthy ways to live.
But we still have those 10 commandments and they still have the same purpose today they had back in the days of Moses and during the reading of the Old Testament by Ezra - their purpose is not to restrict us; their purpose is not so that God sitting up in heaven on his throne can use it to indict us - “Look at him - he broke rules 3, 5, and 8 today. I’m writing that down and holding it against him.” God does not do that.
The 10 commandments are for us today exactly the same as they were for God’s people thousands of years ago - they are a way to live in a peaceful, orderly society. Again, think about life if everyone lived by these principles - not in a legalistic sense - but simply as a way of life. What a different world it would be. As much as anything else, these commandments produce an attitude of love and respect for ourselves, for each other and for God.
Now we get to the hard part - which is the part where God says to us that he really does expect us to live by these rules, all of them; not just the ones we like or the ones that fit into our lives - again not so that he can hold it against us when we fail - but so that we will be different.
Our job is not to expect others to live by these rules but to live by them ourselves so that people see that our life is different than the rest of our culture. Our job is not to point fingers because others are not following these rules, but to strive every day to try and keep these rules close to our heart so that we can show people there is a better way to live.
Is it hard? Goodness yes. Is it possible to follow these rules exactly as God intended? Not really; not all the time - but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do our best to try and intentionally live as God calls us to.
The people of God wandering in the desert; the people of God weeping as Ezra read to them - realized that these rules were a gift from God. A gift that would give us a better life; a gift so that we could be an example to others about how things could be if we just put the things of God first. Amen.

I’VE FOUND THE MESSIAH!

You’ve heard it said that behind every great man is a great woman! But I’m here this morning to change that a little and say that behind every Christian is a great person who told them about Christ. Every Christian, no matter how famous, or how learned or how average, was told about Christ by someone. Think about your own life and think who you would credit with telling you about Jesus - not so much the Bible Stories and lessons, but really about Christ - about Christ as Messiah - about Christ as the one who offers you the true message of salvation through his death and resurrection - who modeled for you what a transformed life is all about. Most likely, it wasn’t someone great or someone famous or even of high standing in the community. It was probably an average, hard working person of Christ; a person of great personal faith; a person that we see around our community of faith every time we gather. One of the countless, nameless saints who are really the ones who are responsible for the spread of the message of Jesus in this world.
If you read the faith stories of some of our most famous Christian leaders and theologians, they will tell you of those behind the scenes people who were so important in their understanding of The Christ - yet they were people we never heard of. And without these average, everyday, faithful people, we would not have the contribution of these great Christian leaders.
St Augustine, who lived in the 4th century, was one of the great early preachers and theologians. He emphasized the love and grace of God - mainly because he understood from his mother there that was how God related to his people. Augustine was a rather ‘bad boy’ in his early life; he lived a life of partying and immorality. His mother had patiently taught him about Jesus from his childhood and one day as he was recovering from yet another party, realized what his Mother had been trying to teach him. He went to her and told her he was finally ready to claim the grace and love of God. For Augustine, it was his mother Monica who brought the message of Christ and it is from Augustine that we have received much of the basic understanding of the theology of Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther, actually the father of Protestant Christianity and the founder of the Lutheran church, was already a believer, but he credits his professor of Bible at Whittenberg, for his finally grasping what Christianity was all about - about grace; about a spiritual relationship with God; You’ve all heard of Martin Luther, but not about Johann Staupitz, who opened the door so that Luther could finally realize what the Bible actually taught so Luther set out not to found a new Denomination but begin to reverse the abuses of the church.
William Farel, another guy whom you have probably never heard of, is the one who led John Calvin to have a devotion in Jesus Christ that helped give Calvin the courage to write his Institutes of Theology which became the standard for reformed protestant churches like our own.
John Wesley, who was instrumental in the founding of the Methodist church, talks of Peter Boehler, who led Wesley to understand the personal nature of a relationship with Christ. It was from Boehler’s leading that Wesley became the evangelist he was.
And I could go on. Behind every great preacher and theologian and teacher; behind every single person here, is someone who taught and encouraged and led them and you to a true understanding of who the Messiah is in their life and in what direction God has lead them - to bring understanding in your life to the direction God is leading you.
We have to think of this for ourselves on the other end as well - for we never know how our working with each other, encouraging, teaching, helping, may lead someone to discover their greater gift and become a great disciple of Christ. It can come from simple things we do, a smile to someone who has had a bad week, a hug to someone who is lonely, your example of faithfulness in being here - it is in the little things, the routine things, the way Jesus is just such a normal part of your life where people can see your faith and commitment to Jesus and to his church.
Within Jesus’ group of disciples, there was one such person. A disciple that we probably know the name of, but who we never think much of; he was not in the inner circle of James, and John and Peter who we do hear a lot about. Yet, there is a disciple who does a lot to lead several of the other disciples to Christ and continued to lead people to Christ throughout his life - and even if scripture doesn’t emphasize him very much, we know that the disciple Andrew had a great full ministry of leading people to the understanding of Jesus Christ throughout his life.
Andrew was the son of a man from Bethsaida of Galilee named Jonah. He was a simple fisherman, although he must have been pretty successful for he not only had a home in Bethsaida but also one in Capernaum, which is the house Jesus used as a ‘base’ when Jesus began his ministry in that area.
Andrew had first been a disciple of John the Baptist. Several people who came to hear John’s message and receive his baptism stayed to learn more from John and they became John’s helpers to help John with the large number of people who were coming out to the wilderness area to be baptized in the Jordan River.
It was John the Baptist who pointed out to Andrew who Jesus really was. Then a few days after Jesus was baptized, John looked at Andrew and pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. John added as he talked about Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease”. Andrew understood that John was telling him that he was no longer to be John’s disciple - but should go and meet this Jesus and begin to follow him.
Andrew leaves John and goes and begins to follow Jesus. Jesus realized Andrew was walking behind him and turned around and said to Andrew, “What do you want?” and Andrew answered that he wanted to know where Jesus lived. Jesus said to Andrew, “Come with me and see”. So Andrew went with Jesus and Jesus began to talk with him and it didn’t take Andrew long to realized Jesus was truly the Messiah.
This is why Andrew is called ‘the first disciple’ of Christ. Excited about what he had found, Andrew immediately ran home and found his brother Simon (Jesus would later rename him Peter). “I”ve found the Messiah!” Andrew exclaimed to his brother Simon. “Come with me and see!” Andrew took Peter to see Jesus and Jesus received Peter as his disciple. And as we know of the two, Peter is the disciple who we all come to know and who plays a great role in the spread of the church after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The two brothers went back to their fishing business for a while and then Jesus came to them and called them into full time discipleship.
Andrew did have his 15 minutes of fame during a time when Jesus was preaching and it came time to eat. The crowd was far from anywhere to get food for all the people when Andrew brought a small boy to Jesus who had 5 loaves and 2 fishes. While the other disciples scoffed at Andrew, Andrew showed faith in what Jesus could do and we remember that story of the feeding of the 5000 because Andrew was willing to bring a small boy to Jesus.
Andrew is one who is always working behind the scenes. He is one who inspires by his own faith. He is one who in his own quiet way, points to Jesus as the Messiah. Whether it be by taking his brother to see Jesus, or by showing faith in what Jesus could do, Andrew points to Christ as the Messiah.
After the resurrection of Jesus, when the disciples were all sent out to spread the Gospel to the world, Andrew went to Greece. There he preached the gospel continually until he was put to death on a cross. It wasn’t a cross like Jesus, but a cross shaped like an X. He was tied to the cross, not nailed because the ropes would prolong his agony. However, this backfired in a way because legend says that many people came by to see him and he continued to preach from the cross until he finally died there! Legend also says that during his ministry, Andrew also went to parts of Russia and spread Jesus’ message there!
After Andrews death, his bones were carried to Scotland which is why Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. St. Andrews golf course is supposedly the place where his bones were brought and that is how the golf course got its name. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland which is why their flag has a big X across the front - the X represents the cross Andrew was crucified on. The evangelist who carried the bones of Andrew to Scotland built the first Christian church there and began to preach the gospel to the people of Scotland.
So even in his death, Andrew was behind the scenes carrying the message of the Messiah to the people. From the very beginning of the story of his life, we see him carrying that message of the Messiah, first to his brother and then to others who would become disciples of Christ. We see him sharing his great faith as he takes the loaves and fishes to Jesus to feed the 5000. Andrew is the one who is the true ‘fisher of men’ as Jesus called him. No one flashy, no one who ever became really well known, yet responsible for helping others to take the message of the Messiah.
And we too can become Andrews - working behind the scene, teaching others about the message of Christ. We don’t have to do anything heroic or spectacular, it is just a matter of letting people know, through our words and our actions, our choices and our decisions that reflect a life of someone who has ‘found the Messiah’. It is just in living our lives that we let people see that God is important in our life.
Andrew challenges each one of us here - whether it is to tell someone about the Gospel who doesn’t know Jesus or to remind those who have let their association with Jesus and the church fall to the wayside because of COVID or other circumstances in their lives. Each one of us here can do the work of Andrew but just letting others know the importance and the value of allowing Christ and Christ’s church to be an active part of their lives. You do the initial work and rely on the Holy Spirit to do the rest.
From Andrew, we can see the power of the Holy Spirit, working through him to produce more followers, who produce more followers who produce more followers. Not by anything great, but just by letting people know, “I have found the Messiah!”

Amen!

Baptism of the Lord

We spent Advent listening to the Christmas stories of Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds. We celebrated the birth of the Christ child, remembered the coming of the Wise Men to worship the little boy Jesus. After spending some time in Egypt, Joseph and Mary and their family move back to Nazareth where Jesus grows up much like any young Jewish boy. Down the road at the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, John is also growing up. We don’t know much about these years. Studying the average life of a small town Jewish family says that most likely they grew up and lived like anyone else would have. Nothing spectacular, nothing overly miraculous. We do know that Jesus grew up going to the weekly Synagogue services and participating in all of the Jewish festivals and Holy days. We know that Jesus had a good knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures. That wouldn’t have been unusual because Hebrew boys spent time daily in Hebrew school learning and memorizing the teachings of what we call the Old Testament. All we know for sure is that some time before Jesus’ 30th birthday, John, who was about 6 months older than Jesus, began to teach and preach on the banks of the Jordan river in an area called The Wilderness – a little south of Jerusalem. John was preaching to the Jews a message to try and get them ready to understand that when Jesus shows up, they are to follow him because he is the Messiah they have been waiting for so long. John was trying to get the people to start thinking about God again, to make God a priority in their life, to begin to live as the people of God as God had directed them. When he called them to “Repent” – this is what he had in mind. The word “Repent” here simply means to refocus – to realign your life; to do exactly what John was trying to get the people to do when Jesus shows up on the scene. Because what God knows, what John knew – is that if your life is not focused on living as God calls you to live, if Jesus is not an important part of all you do, then you are going to miss what he is doing in your life; just as the people did during the life and ministry of Jesus. Think of all the people who heard what Jesus had to say, who saw him do his miracles, who saw him heal the blind and the deaf and the sick and still missed who he was. Of all the thousands who heard and saw Jesus, there were only about 100 followers by the time Jesus was resurrected. The reason being that people hadn’t turned their lives around to really make the things of God a priority. They hadn’t refocused their lives so they missed who Jesus was. What John was calling the people to do, to repent, isn’t simply a call to ‘clean your life’ up and quit doing those immoral and destructive activities but repenting is more a call to start doing those things that will bring you closer to a relationship with Jesus Christ – things like an active prayer life, daily Bible reading, group Bible study – because if you do those things, not only will you get closer to Jesus, but those messy parts of your life will naturally began to clean themselves up.
This is what John was trying to do as he preached on the side of the river, as he baptized people in the Jordan. Was this the same kind of baptism that we experience as children or adults? No. John’s baptism was simply a way for people to outwardly show that they were going to turn their life around, that they were going to follow through with their determination to begin to refocus their lives so they could recognize the Messiah when he shows up. John’s baptism was a lot like a moment at the end of a Billy Graham crusade when they have the altar call and Billy Graham invites all of those who have been touched by his message to come forward. When you go forward at a crusade, essentially what happens is that a counselor talks with you, prays with you and then challenges you to begin to attend a local church regularly and gives you material to help guide you in a daily prayer time and daily Bible reading. Their objective is to try and get the person who came forward to refocus their lives on living as God desires – a life focused on following the teachings of Jesus. Just like what John was doing in the wilderness.
Just like what we are called to do today. Today is one of the many special Sundays we will have over the next couple of months. Today we remember the baptism of Jesus. When he is about 30, Jesus shows up at the place where John is teaching and preaching and baptizing. And Jesus is baptized – but it is not the dunking down in water that we remember today, it is what happened after that baptism that is significant. As Jesus comes up out of the water, the voice of God is heard saying “This is my son in whom I am well pleased” and then the spirit of God – what we call the Holy Spirit – descends in the form of a dove and lands on Jesus – filling him with God’s spirit. Then Jesus sets off on his ministry – the work God has called him to do.
Water baptism has become a major part of what we do as the people of God. It is one of two sacraments that are a part of our practices as the church of Jesus Christ. In the Presbyterian Church we recognize 2 sacraments that are essential to our work and worship. A sacrament is a special act that Jesus told us to do as his followers. But we also believe that these sacraments are not just empty rituals – but acts filled with the power of the Holy Spirit; acts that give us that same power Jesus received that day as he came up out of the water and the dove descended on him. As we take communion – receive the body and blood, we take into our bodies the spirit of Christ – a spirit that helps us live and grow into the true people of God. So every time you eat the bread and drink the juice, you receive a spiritual nourishment. It is something that is real and necessary to live and grow as God desires.
The sacrament of Baptism becomes a little more complicated and is the source of great dissention in the church. As Presbyterians, we look at baptism almost in two stages. The water baptism we associate with baptizing babies is an act where babies are sealed by God as part of his family and part of the family of the church. As Paul states in one of his epistles, water baptism is the same act as circumcision was for a Jew – it is the act where God’s mark is placed on us. However we also have to remember the words of John and the words of Jesus in regards to the act of baptism – John says “I will baptize you with water – he, meaning Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Then Jesus says as he gathers his disciples right before he ascends into heaven, “John baptized you with water, but I will baptize you with the holy spirit.” You are baptized as a child with water as an act to bring you into the family of God – but the important baptism, is when you make that decision that you are going to commit your life to Jesus Christ – when you decide it is time for you to repent and refocus your life. It is then, you receive that baptism of the Holy Spirit – when the spirit of God comes and lives within you – and that is the baptism that really counts, the one that will turn your life around and transform you into the one God knows you can be.
Amen!

The Wisdom of the Wise Men

I remember a teacher at one point during my early years as an elementary student who would each week teach us what she called her “50 cent word’. A fifty cent word was either a big word or a word that was not used routinely in conversation. So today we are going to learn a 50 cent word - the word ‘theophany’. A ‘theophany’ is a vision or a manifestation of God. The word applies today because this is Epiphany Sunday. I guess ‘Epiphany’ is another 50 cent word. The word is Greek for manifestation or appearance and specifically applies to the appearance of God in the form of Jesus Christ which is revealed to Gentiles who we know as the Magi or the Wise Men.
In many cultures, Epiphany is the 12th day of Christmas - as in the famous song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. In many cultures, unlike us who put all our presents under the Christmas tree to open on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, they give presents each day from Dec 25 until Jan 6 - one present for each of the 12 days of Christmas.
Epiphany is also the Sunday commemorated as the day to remember the visit of the Wise Men to Jesus - a visit which in reality has big implications in our understanding the purpose of the coming of God in Jesus Christ.
A couple of important points about this visit if you follow closely the biblical account of the story of the Magi:
First - the Wise Men did not come to the stable to visit the baby Jesus as we portray in all of our nativity sets. We are clearly told that the Magi visit Jesus in a house. We are also told that they visited the ‘boy’ Jesus - the greek word for a young boy not a baby. With all their sources and calculations, theologians figure the Wise Men show up to see Jesus about 2 years after he was born. The other myth we have to bust is that we don’t know how many wise men there are. There could be 2 or 20. The only reason we traditionally talk about 3 wise men is that there were 3 gifts. They also weren’t kings - but a combination of priest and scientist. They were proficient in the science of astrology - they studied the stars for patterns and changes and movements which they believed were the way in which gods revealed themselves to people. These Magi were also experts in studying other religions and tried to work out the prophecies in all the major religions of that time. They lived in the area of Babylon and remember the Jews were held captive in Bablyon. While the Jews were there, one of the things that happened was that the Jewish scribes assembled their writings into what we would know as the Old Testament. So the Magi had access to the Jewish writings and all the prophecies included in those writings. So when they see this new star appear in the sky and they remember the Jewish prophecies about a star announcing the arrival of the King of the Jews, they decided they needed to go to the land of the Jews - Jerusalem - and check this out.
Accounts of events in the Bible are recorded not only to teach us the history of our faith; to help us see how God has worked in and through people, but also to teach us something about how we are live as God’s people.
The Magi represent for us God’s directive to be seekers and learners. They had apparently been searching the heavens for years for signs of something unique and significant occurring in their world. They were open to new wisdom and truth - more than this - they searched for it. They were not simply content to get along with that which they already knew. So, when they saw a new star in the heavens, they sensed in their hearts that it was a sign from God.
Jesus later will tell us that if we seek, we will find, if we knock, the door shall be opened to us, if we ask, we will receive. But how often do we actually seek for wisdom? For new truth? For guidance? For more information about God and Christ and what is actually recorded in scripture?
Think of assembling all those new toys and tools that appeared this Christmas. How many people actually looked at the directions before beginning to assemble them? How many tried to put something together relying on the knowledge they already had - only to find that it was not good enough? The wise men gained their wisdom because they were seekers - they were looking for new things, new insights, new signs. They read their manuals; they researched their documents; they searched the heavens for signs and wonders. And so should we. We have a wealth of instruction in our scriptures and we are told by God we need to read and learn and study what is there. 2bTimothy 3:16 - “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”
Once these Magi figured out that the prophecies led them to Jerusalem, they immediately began to pack to head off on what was going to be a very long and difficult journey. The journey would take a year and would go through treacherous and dangerous territory - which they knew about when they headed out on the journey. The wise men had faith that this journey was going to lead them to something important and didn't hesitate to begin the journey.
Faith by definition involves the idea of making a journey - of venturing forth - of risking one's very self in a new activity. The living God cannot be found by proxy. We can’t come to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ through someone else. The magi had to travel from a foreign land. They did not know where the star would lead them, how long it would take, or what the end result would be for them. They only knew that it was important for them to follow that star to wherever it lead. It was a personal quest and the result was an opportunity to worship the one who would be king of kings and Lord of Lords.
This may well be the most important truth for us in the Epiphany story. A story of faith with Jesus has to be a personal story, a personal quest, a journey of faith. It is not enough to know all kinds of facts about Jesus Christ. One must encounter the wonder of God's grace and then make a personal decision to commit their lives to living with Christ. One must decide to learn the way Christ has taught us to live and then do so. No one else can do that for us. Faith is not inherited from someone else- nor can it come from simply knowing what others have said about it. Faith is like the difference between having read about how to make a cake and actually making one. One can know all there is to know about cooking, one may well have memorized the recipe for the cake that he or she wants to make - but until one actually gets out the ingredients and mixes them together and puts the
results in the oven - it means absolutely nothing. Faith is acting like the wise men - stepping out into the unknown knowing that Jesus will be there no matter how long and hard the journey.
The wise men went off on their journey - knowing that the prophecy told them that the star would lead them to a king. They knew what a king was like - the same picture we would have of a king - crowns and royal robes; palaces and servants and wealth. Then they end up in Bethlehem at the home of a poor carpenter.There are no costly treasures in the house, no purple robes, no gold rings, nothing in fact to show that they are in the presence of person destined to be a great king. Only the star stood overhead to indicate that anything special at all was going on. And they accept this. Although all the outward signs, save one,
are telling them that they are in the wrong place, they accept that single sign - the sign of God that they have been following for so long.
So many of us have a hard time accepting what God has given in the form that he gives it. Because we are waiting for something spectacular from God - we look for great miracles, instant healings, signs and wonders. We may pray to God for a special blessing and miss what the blessing really is. We have this idea fixed in our minds that God does not appear to us in the ordinary aspects of our life. We do not expect God to show up while we are at work, or doing dishes at the kitchen sink or just relaxing in front of the TV. The Magi found what they were looking for in a humble home in a small insignificant town.
We have a hard time considering that God's answers to our questions can be found in a 2000 year old book, or from something that happens during an ordinary day, or a dream we have had during a long and troubled night that is in fact, a message from God.
The wisdom of the wise men was and is simply this
- they sought wisdom,
- they were willing to journey in faith to personally discover what God was doing,
- they accepted what they found - even though it clearly was not what they expected - and believed in it.
Simple stuff really - but wisdom normally is simple stuff.
Simple - but when used - as the wisemen used it, it leads us closer to God.

Amen!