Jesus the Messiah

 Jesus the Messiah

Matthew 1:18-25[1]

The assumption that everyone you meet has a similar notion of God is not one you can make these days. We live in a world in which people increasingly view the notion of “God” as irrelevant. They’ve grown up, lived their whole lives, and may be at the point of facing the end of life, all without any reference whatsoever to God. And we are living in a time when children are being raised by parents who have lived without any faith in God (in some cases grandparents). When you’re looking at the third generation of people who live their lives without any reference to God, it’s hard to find common ground as a basis for sharing the good news of Jesus’ birth.

Even the church, we can’t assume that everyone shares the same view of God. We believe in a God who loves us all unconditionally, undeniably, and irrevocably—from eternity past, throughout time, to all eternity. Most Christians would agree with that statement. But for many, God’s love is reserved only for those who do all the right things, say all the right words, and look acceptably “Christian.” Those who fail to “live up” to a particular standard are simply excluded from God’s love. And they believe that happens by design and for all eternity. I don’t know about you, but I find the idea that God only loves people who look and think and talk and act a certain way pretty scary!

Still others have been raised in a setting in which God comes off as anything but a loving father. The foundation for their whole framework of faith is not God’s love, but rather human sin. When you grow up in a church that constantly hammers into you that God disapproves not only of what you do but who you are, it can be hard to even want to have anything much to do with God. If your “faith” beats you down on a regular basis, it should come as no surprise that those who have a choice about whether or not to participate walk away from it. I wouldn’t want to subject myself to that kind of treatment either. It’s toxic!

One thing we have to understand about the story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew’s Gospel is that it is about reframing our view of God. What you may not know is that Jesus completely redefined the way in which people understood God. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a very different view of God in some books of the Bible. The sacrificial system was based in part on the belief that they had to kill an animal in order to keep from being killed by God, who was angry with them for their sins. The very idea of getting “close” to God was the opposite of what people believed: if you got too close to God you could wind up dead!

That understanding about who God is was literally set in stone at the Temple. The very walls of the Temple were there to keep the “wrong” people from getting too close to God. And only certain people, following certain rigidly prescribed procedures, could even dare to think about entering God’s presence. That was a privilege reserved for a select few, while most people could only watch from a distance, if they were even permitted to do that. In a very real sense, Jesus came to tear down the walls that had been built up around God by the Jewish religion and its leaders. He came to open the doors to God’s presence to everyone.

That was his role according to Matthew’s Gospel. And Matthew explains all of this by calling Jesus “Messiah,” “Savior,” and “Immanuel.” These ideas weren’t new in that day, but Jesus filled them with new meaning that most people didn’t expect. When the people of his day looked for a “Messiah,” they expected someone who would ascend to the throne of David. That was what Isaiah looked forward to: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isa 9:6-7, ESV).

Given our traditions of worship at Christmas, we naturally assume that Isaiah was predicting the coming of Jesus. But Isaiah was speaking to people living 700 years before Jesus was born. It seems clear that Isaiah was talking about the birth of a king who would lead the nation of Judah to freedom by establishing peace and justice. But even the best kings were only human. The promises God made to his people through the prophet were never fully realized. And that gave rise to the hope for one who would truly and finally bring peace to the Jewish people.

Given the fact that Jesus didn’t exactly follow the “script” people were expecting, we might wonder why Matthew would make such an effort to identify Jesus as the “Messiah.” Part of the answer is that Jesus also redefined what it meant to be the Messiah.[2] And, as we saw last week, this was about what Jesus did, not about trying to figure out the theological problem of Jesus as God and man. Jesus fulfilled the role of the Messiah by carrying out the promises of salvation, promises like “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt 11:4-5). Matthew called those actions the “deeds of the Messiah” (Mt 11:2). Jesus was the Messiah because of what he was doing: he was acting to “save his people,” just like the Angel told Joseph in his dream.

But just as important was the fact that Jesus the Messiah was also “Immanuel,” or “God is with us.” Jesus also fulfilled this role by what he did. As he engaged in his ministry, he broke through all the boundaries that the Jewish religious leaders had thrown up to keep “undesirable” people away from God’s blessings. Jesus’ preference for spending time with the “common people” became such a scandal that he came to be known as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19). That was not a good thing! What really turned the tables on them was the fact that Jesus shared meals with “unclean” people.

All of this was simply Jesus carrying out his role as “Immanuel,” “God-who-is-with-us.” It redefined not only their expectations about a Messiah, but also their prejudices about who was “acceptable” and who was “outcast.” By sharing God’s love with those who were despised and rejected, Jesus demonstrated that not only God’s love, but also God’s presence and God’s blessings could not be limited by the narrow constraints of those who were smugly “holier-than-thou.” As Jesus would tell them all, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45). This was Jesus fulfilling the role of “Immanuel,” the one who definitively and once and for all made it clear that God is “God-who-is-with-us,” and that includes all of us![3] 

When I think about the many ways people either misconstrue who God is or ignore God altogether, I’m comforted by the news of Jesus’ birth as “Messiah” and “Immanuel.” It reminds me of something that the Study Catechism that we use in Confirmation class tells us: that “God does not will to be God without us.”[4] Because of God’s very nature, God seeks us all out through Jesus.[5] And that means that no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, God is with us, loving us to all eternity. Whether we joyfully celebrate the embrace of a loving God, or we cringe  and shrink back from a God we fear will punish us, or we go about our lives without giving God a second thought, God is with us. Jesus made that clear just by being born. But he also made it clear by the way he lived, by carrying out the “deeds of the Messiah” in his ministry, by dying on the cross and rising again to new life, and by promising that “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20).

---

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/18/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KD-rPMjNnJI

[2] Cf. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII:270: “To say that Jesus is the Christ is not only to say something about Jesus, but to transform the meaning of Christ as well” (emphasis original).

[3] Cf. Boring, “Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII: 138: “for Matthew, the story of Jesus is a way of talking about God.  In Jesus and his story, God is with us.”

[4] The Study Catechism, 1988 (question 88 in the full version, question 66 in the confirmation version). This originated with Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2:735: “God does not will to be without us, but, no matter who and what we may be, to be with us, that He Himself is always ‘God with us,’ Emmanuel.” 

[5] Cf. Desmond Tutu, Made for Goodness, 198: “For Christians, finding our way home to God is not a ‘self-help’ project. Jesus Christ is our hope for complete wholeness, for healing that is salvation. And that hope has already been accomplished. So we are constantly called to experience the truth about us: that we are beloved of God.”

Living Joyfully

 Living Joyfully

Matthew 11:2-19[1]

I think finding a way to enjoy life is perhaps one of the most fundamental human pursuits. One of the reasons I believe that is because we have become more cut off from the very ordinary sources that humanity has looked to for joy over the ages. With that loss of “ordinary joy,” we turn to the extraordinary, to “special events,” in our search for happiness. We plan bigger and grander vacations. We mark milestone events with “over the top” gestures that we then have to try to “outdo” next time. We find ways to extend our “celebrations” of birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays as long as possible to get “the most” out of them. But with all that energy and effort going toward making it more “special,” I wonder if it gets in the way of finding joy in the “ordinariness” that has always been a part of human life.

At the same time, I think we try to keep our distance from the extraordinary. The smartest student in the class is often viewed as “freakishly smart.” We honor the soldier who goes over the hill first, risking life and limb, but we want our loved ones to avoid “playing the hero.” When it comes to religion, I think we still have remnants of the old Roman Catholic reverence for “saints.” Because we both admire and fear them, we put those who have lived extraordinary lives of devotion to Christ on pedestals high enough to keep our distance. We do so to prevent their “extraordinary” piety from “rubbing off” on us and removing us from being comfortably “normal.”

I think something like this was going on with John the Baptist. The fact that he carried out his ministry in the “wilderness” was not “normal.” And then there was his lifestyle: he wore clothing made of camel’s hair and ate a strange diet of locusts and wild honey. But the real “clincher” that marked John off as extraordinary was his message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2). But he went beyond that: “the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I …. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:11). This was very different from what people were used to hearing.

That last part became one of most important ways of identifying John the Baptist in the Christian tradition. He was the “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’” (Mt 3:3). That marked him off as a “prophet” in the eyes of most people. That this was the way people identified him not only expressed that conviction, it reinforced it. That was because the very words came from the prophet Isaiah. That people would take a page from Isaiah and apply it to John only elevated him even higher on their religious pedestals. And like us, the people of that day both admired and feared anyone who behaved like a prophet.

Here was John, his message one that led many people to expect that he was the one to announce and even bring in the hopes the people had cherished for centuries. In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus endorsed the rumors that must have been going around: “if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Mt 11:14). And yet, Jesus seemed to say both that John was special, and that John was nothing special. He said it this way: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt 11:11). I would say that Jesus’ point was simple: John was indeed extraordinary, and he played a special role in the fulfillment of God’s purpose. John was the one who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah. But literally in the same breath Jesus said that John was also ordinary, no greater than the “least” of those who had the faith to follow Jesus.

I think we see John’s “ordinariness” in that John asked Jesus a surprising question. At least it’s surprising to hear it from a “prophet,” the one who was the “voice crying in the wilderness” to prepare for the coming Messiah. Matthew tells us that “When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” (Mt 11:2, NIV). Wait, what? How could John doubt whether Jesus was “the one who is to come”? It doesn’t make sense. I think this gives us a glimpse of the “ordinariness” of even one so “extraordinary.” For all of his unique devotion to God, John remained a man. And Jesus wasn’t behaving in the way that anyone expected from the “Messiah.” John included.

And that brings us to the fact that there is more going on in this Gospel lesson than just answering the question who John the Baptist was. More importantly, it’s about answering the question who Jesus was and is. When John’s disciples asked Jesus the question, “are you the one?”, he answered in a way that they might not have understood in the moment: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt 11:4-5). I would say that’s the closest thing we have in Matthew’s Gospel to Jesus claiming that he was indeed the Messiah.

But the way he demonstrates this is by pointing to what John already knows: that Jesus was doing the “deeds of the Messiah” (Mt 11:2, NIV). What follows is in one sense simply a summary of what Matthew had already reported about Jesus: healing and restoring people, raising the dead, and proclaiming the good news.[2] But it’s also a summary of the promises of salvation found especially in the book of the prophet Isaiah.[3] We heard some of those promises in our lesson for today: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isa 35:5-6). But not only does Isaiah promise healing. He says that all those who have been “ransomed” by the Lord will have “everlasting joy”; “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa 35:10). Jesus called John to rejoice because he was indeed fulfilling the promises of God’s salvation.

That’s where all this fits in with our ability to live with joy. Recognizing that Jesus did indeed come as the Messiah to fulfill the promises of God’s salvation is cause for joy. And the joy of God’s salvation in the process of being fulfilled by Jesus the Messiah can serve as the foundation for a life of joy. While it’s true that we still deal with “sorrow and sighing,” we have in Jesus the demonstration of the beginning of God’s salvation. And I would say that Jesus’ whole life serves as a demonstration of God’s intent to complete the work of salvation. When that kind of “everlasting” joy serves as the foundation for our lives, I believe it sets us free from trying to grasp at joy in ways that may be artificial. It sets us free to live joyfully in all the “ordinary” ways that are available to us every day.

---

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/11/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/vWDLT5ggoJA .

[2] Cleansing a leper: Mt 8:1-4; healing the lame: Mt 8:5-13; Mt 9:2-8; raising the dead: Mt 9:18-23; restoring sight to the blind: Mt 9:27-31; restoring hearing (and speech) to a mute: Mt 9:32-33; proclaiming the good news: Mt 9:35-36.

[3] Isa 26:19: “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise”; Isa 29:18: “On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a scroll, and freed from gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see”; Isa 35:5-6:

Fill The Whole World With Peace

 Fill The Whole World With Peace

Isaiah 11:1-10[1]

This is the time of year when our thoughts turn toward “peace on earth.” It was, after all, the promise the angels made to the shepherds on that night so long ago. I must confess that I’m not sure we want true peace, lasting peace, peace that benefits everyone equally. I think most of us at this time of year just want a little “peace of mind.” And there’s a big difference between peace that benefits everyone equally and a little peace of mind. We can find a little peace of mind by simply watching TV, or working in the garden, or reading a good book, or listening to relaxing music, or taking a nice hot bath or shower. But true peace, lasting peace, peace that benefits everyone equally takes a lot more work than that.

For many of us, peace at this time of the year means that we lose our cares and worries, our fears and frustrations in the distractions of decorating and cooking and shopping and entertaining ourselves and others with Christmas festivities. And I get that. We all need to take a breather from time to time from the pressures we feel in our lives. When we face head-on the problems in our families, in our community, and in our world, it can all be whole lot more than a little overwhelming. Think about it: a housing market that’s priced a lot of people out of housing. Grocery bills that have gone up, or grocery lists that have had to be shortened considerably. More and more mass shootings, in schools and stores and workplaces. The feeling that we’re a nation badly irreparably divided against one another. A war with no end in sight. I honestly don’t blame anyone for wanting to take a break from all that right now.

But at some point, we’re going to have to think about true peace. Surely all of us want what the writer of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” said: we want God to come and “fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.”[2] But I think we get hung up because true peace comes at a cost. As Pope Paul VI said on January 1, 1972, “if you want peace, work for justice.” Those of us who were alive at that time remember that it was a time very similar to this one. We were at the end of the Vietnam War, which had severely divided this country, setting family members against one another. Peace was not something that seemed any easier to achieve at that time than it does today. And I don’t think the Pope meant to suggest it would be easy, because achieving peace through justice takes hard work.

Our lesson from the prophet Isaiah for today addresses the peace that comes from justice. The prophet looks forward to a “branch” coming from the “root” of David’s family who will ^“give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited” (Isa 11:4, NLT). He speaks of one who would come to lighten people’s burdens, to right the wrongs, to restore all things in such a way that makes it possible for everyone to live the lives God intended.[3] This promise was spoken to the Jewish people when there were threats looming on the horizon. They were still relatively safe at home; they had not yet reached their darkest point in exile. But all was not well. The prophets like Isaiah pointed their fingers at the Jewish leaders for neglecting their duties when it came to caring for the least and the last and the left out in society, duties spelled out in our Psalm reading for today.[4] Instead the leaders relished their power and prestige and forgot about the widows and orphans and immigrants in their midst. And we know, as Martin Luther King said, “injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.”[5]

That’s why Isaiah spoke of the coming of one who would set things right. And the result of the justice the coming one brings would be peace: “Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with knowledge of the Lord” (Isa 11:9). The idea is that the coming one will teach the people the “knowledge of the Lord” so well that they will live in peace with one another. And the prophet said this peace would not only be for the Jewish people, but that all the nations would benefit as well: “In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place” (Isa 11:10, NLT).[6]

But more than that, the prophet speaking in the name of the Lord promised that the peace brought by the coming one would also restore the world of nature. Isaiah says, “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all” (Isa 11:6, NLT). In a very real sense, Isaiah looked for a time when the peace found in the garden of Eden would fill the whole world. And that kind of peace would reunite even the natural world. Can you imagine a world where wolves lie down with lambs, taking care of them as if they were their own young? I think the prophet Isaiah could, and he believed that when the coming one brings true justice and lasting peace, it will change the face of the whole world. The peace he will bring to Israel will embrace all the nations, and it will even restore harmony to all creation.

All that may sound just too good to be true. And I understand that, because that kind of justice and that kind of peace is beyond what any of us can do. Filling the whole world with peace is a God-sized task. It will take the power of God, working through Jesus Christ, to bring about that kind of world. But I would say we still have a part to play in all of this. Those of us who know the “peace” that God has brought to the human family in Jesus Christ are called to be peacemakers in this world. And I believe that peace is “contagious,” like kindness. When you spread it around, it just keeps going. As Dr. King also said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[7] When we treat people with a little more respect, a little more kindness, a little more dignity, perhaps they’ll “pay it forward.” When respond that way even to those whom we may view as a threat, I think it might just change the world.

---

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/4/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/dfgpUBt06sc .

[2] See the history of the English versions of  “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Come,_O_Come,_Emmanuel , accessed on 12/1/2022.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 121: “God’s justice and righteousness brings shalom [peace] to both his people and land.” 

[4] That this is to be the role of the King in Israelite society is made clear by the Psalm lesson from Ps. 72, especially Ps. 72:4 “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”  Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:963: “Everything said about or wished for the king depends ultimately on God’s justice ... and God’s righteousness.  Justice and righteousness are first and foremost characteristic of God’s reign ....  In short, the role of the king is to enact God’s rule” (emphasis original).

[5] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 16 April 1963. Accessed at https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html on 12/3/2022.

[6] This is essentially St. Paul’s point in the reading from Romans 15:4-13 (especially 15:8-12).  Cf. N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” New Interpreters Bible X:747: “It is not that God has done one thing for Jews, and another thing for Gentiles; God has designed mercy for all (11:28-32).”  Referring to God fulfilling his promises, he adds, “The promises were both to Israel and through Israel to the world” (emphasis original).”

[7] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love, p. 47. Cf. a similar statement in Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” SCLC Presidential Address, 1967 (Quoted from J. M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 249): “Through violence you may murder a liar but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”