The
Is With Us!
Sermon for Sunday February 8, 2009
1. Good morning.
Let’s pray. O Lord,
may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: I thought of a new title for the Book I want
to write one of these days. It’s “Hey,
the World IS NOT Flat!” Ha! I have images of myself as a modern day
Galileo!
You know I’m only half
joking! . . . about
the Galileo part – but not about the title of the book. I’m convinced that we Christians have been
sitting on top of a powder keg of such sublime and majestic proportions that
when it explodes it’s going to put every atomic bomb ever exploded to
shame!
To quote Annie Dillard – and
most of you have heard this before:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of
power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I
suspect, does no one believe a word of it?
The churches are children playing on the floor
with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday
morning. It is madness to wear ladies’
straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash
helmets. Ushers should issue life
preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and
take offense or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
If you and I could see beyond
the veil of our own very limited imaginings of this world and of who we are and
of who God is we would be utterly blown away – both terrified by the teeming
demonic dangers all about us and blessed beyond imaginings by the angelic beings
who protect us every minute of every day!
This morning, I believe, God wants to remind us that His Kingdom has come
to earth – Heaven has come to earth and is with us – and He wants to encourage
us to open the eyes of our sanctified imaginations – the eyes of our faith - to His heavenly
Kingdom here and now on Terra Firma!
3. The Flat World. So many of us – and I include Christians in
this – so many of us - live out our lives in the hovels of our limited
imaginings of who we are, who God is and what He has called us to!
The world really has been flattened by the
rationalism of our materialistic culture!
For many of us our dreams have been defined only by what we can see and
hear and touch and smell and control!
But this is such an impoverished understanding of what real reality is!
Writers and poets and painters and sculptors have sought throughout human
history to tease us out and beyond the flat world of the reductionism of
rationalism into the rich multi-layered, multi-faceted miraculous world of
God’s Kingdom!
·
The rationalist sees the sun setting the poet sees God’s heart melting
into the primordial waters of the universe.
·
The rationalist lusts after sexual power the heavenly lover loves beyond
life his or her beloved.
·
The rationalist sees what is and says “It is what it is” but the man or
woman of faith looks beyond the veil of the visible and sees the resurrected
Lord calling them to greater and greater acts of sacrificial love that will in
time bring magnificent redemption!
In our Scripture readings we hear Job overwhelmed with the flatness of
his world – bemoaning his sorry state.
Listen to his tiredness and depression:
I’m going to read from the Message this time:
Job 7:1
“Human life is a struggle, isn’t it? It’s a life sentence to hard
labor. 2 Like field hands longing
for quitting time and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday, 3 I’m given
a life that meanders and goes nowhere—months of aimlessness, nights of misery! 4 I go to bed
and think, ‘How long till I can get up?’ I toss and turn as the night drags
on—and I’m fed up! 6 My days come and go swifter than the click of
knitting needles, and then the yarn runs out—an unfinished life! 7 “God,
don’t forget that I’m only a puff of air! These eyes have had their last look at
goodness.
The good news is that Job is still talking to God – wining but at least in communication! That’s the good news but his view of his life is flat – it is what it is and that’s it. No mystery, no miracles, no transcendence! No dreaming – no hoping! No wonder! . . . no worship!!!
No God! No God who cares enough to enter our world and transform this flatness into life and life abundant!
No God!
Ah! Isn’t that what Advent is all
about – God with us - Immanuel! God
incarnate came into our midst and with Him came His Kingdom. The
Isaiah! Listen to what Jesus read at the Synagogue in
Luke 4:16 He went
to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into
the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah
was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to
release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The
eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to
them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
These are signs of the
My old professor Dr. Gordon Fee yelled at us
all – if there is one thing you get from your three years here it’s this – The
Kingdom of God HAS COME – to earth!
It’s here in our midst – He’s here in our
midst! Jesus, God incarnate – is here in
our midst and He’s not only calling us to become just like Him but He’s also
giving us the power to do just that! The
same power that enabled Him to enter fully into His inheritance is now
available to us – for we are His heirs!
Now listen once again to the Gospel – listen
for these sounds and signs of the coming of the Kingdom!
Mark 1:29
Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and
Andrew’s house, accompanied by James and John.
30 Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever.
They told Jesus. 31 He went to
her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she
was up fixing dinner for them. 32
That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and
evil-afflicted people to him,
33 the whole city lined up at his door! 34 He cured their sick bodies and
tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity,…
These signs are
proof that the Kingdom has come!!!
Listen to the
In John 14:12 Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has
faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than
these, because I am going to the Father."
Since the
We see those signs every Sunday:
·
when people are
healed.
·
when the bread
becomes the Body of Christ and the wine becomes His Blood!
·
when one of us
turns around and experiences the miraculous transformation of God’s Presence in
their lives.
The world is NOT
FLAT! God is all about us – open
your eyes – open the eyes of your heart and look for Him – He will be found and
He will bless you beyond all measure as you discover Him in the big and small
things of your daily lives!
Jesus
lives – He was resurrected – Yes! He
died but then He came back to life! The
YOUR World is not
flat. You life is not bound by your job
description or your bank balance or you debt!
NO! God’s world – your world – is
so so so much more majestic
and sublime than only what you can see.
There
is so much waiting for your faith to reach through the veil to take hold of it
and usher it into the visible world. But
to do that you need to hope – and believe that what you know in your heart is
fact - is in fact fact – simply reach through the
veil and take a hold of it – and it will come.
But
make sure that it’s what Jesus wants and not just what you want.
Truly the song of
the one who knows this is that of David:
Ps 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
(R.) Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
Praise the
LORD, for he is good;
sing praise to our God, for he is
gracious;
it is fitting to praise him.
The LORD
rebuilds
the dispersed of
(R.) Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
He heals the
brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He tells the
number of the stars;
he calls each by name.
(R.) Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
Great is our
Lord and mighty in power;
to his wisdom there is no limit.
The LORD
sustains the lowly;
the wicked he casts to the ground.
(R.) Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
Is this the song of your
heart right now.
It should be. It’s our song. It’s the song of every believer in God!
If it’s not the song of
your heart then it should be – it must be – for your good and for the good of
those around you.
If you and I aren’t
filled with a joyful hope then stop and listen for the whisper of our Lord – He
will inspire you once again. You are His
and He is yours. You’ve simply forgotten
– and we all forget – it’s OK – but don’t linger any longer than you have to in
the flat – dull – uninspiring landscape of this one dimensional world – there’s
so so much more awaiting all of us!
Amen and Amen!
Let’s pray . . .