The Waking Dreamer: Jesus Christ

Showing posts with label Jesus Christ. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

The Great Mystery

Colossians 1:15-28[1]

One of the blessings and curses of our culture is the way we put everything in a “box.” That was how philosophers and scientists taught us to make sense out of the explosion of knowledge that began a couple of hundred years ago. We might not even be aware of the “categories” we use to understand our world, but of course it is the role of philosophers and scientists to point out these things to us. Some of us are familiar with the mail-order catalogues that used to come from department stores like Sears and Roebuck or J C Penney. I’m not talking about the flimsy little ones we get these days. These were catalogues that included “everything, including the kitchen sink”! They were the “Amazon” of their day. But unlike Amazon, where you can just start typing what you’re looking for into a search box, those massive catalogues had a huge index at the back. That’s how you found what you were looking for. The index was an alphabetical listing of all the items for sale with an indication of the page number where you could find what you wanted. But even the index was so big it was divided into categories.

I think most of us have just become used to looking that the world through the lens of a huge “catalogue.” It just seems “natural” to us to break things down into their parts and sort them into the “right” categories. But there are other cultures that emphasize the connections all things and all beings have with one another. It’s a different way of looking at the world. I would say the world into which Paul wrote the lesson from Colossians for today was more like that than like our world. I think that’s especially the case with the way Paul connects Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord with everything and everyone. Because he is the “is the visible image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15, NLT), he’s connected to all of creation. That includes not only the world and everything and everyone in it, but the entire universe. I know that’s hard for us to wrap our heads around, but Paul can say not only that “through him God created everything” but also that “he holds all creation together” (Col 1:17, NLT). Paul’s view of Jesus Christ goes far beyond the simple teacher from Nazareth who died on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. He’s that, but he’s also so much more.

What makes the difference here is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his ascension to the right hand of God. That pointed the Apostles back to Jesus’ existence as God’s son from all eternity, and therefore his role in the work of creation. But it also convinced them that Jesus is the one who rules over all things in God’s name now, and who one day will bring all God’s plans to fulfillment. This is the “great mystery” that belongs to Jesus the Christ. We see this in our lesson from Colossians as well: the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection was for God to “reconcile everything to himself” (Col 1:20, NLT), or as version we read for today puts it, “so that all beings in heaven and on earth would be brought back to God” (Col 1:20, CEV). We might say, “all beings in the whole universe.”[2]

Again, that language might sound strange to us. There are some places in the New Testament where the language of the Gospel, including Paul’s preaching and teaching, seems to limit salvation to only a few. In the Jewish world, salvation was for Jewish people, and only for Jewish people. All the gentiles, or the “heathen,” were condemned for their ignorance. Unfortunately, there have been many theologians up to this day who have promoted that mindset. Tertullian, a Third-Century teacher said it first, “extra ecclesia nulla salus est.” That means “outside the church there is no salvation.” Only those in the church experience salvation, and no one else. That line of thinking was carried on by some of the most influential theologians in the history of our faith, and many believe it to be the “received truth” of the Christian faith to this day.

But there have always been other Christian scholars and teachers who have taken the language of our lesson for today more at face value. While we cannot ignore Jesus’ real humanity, there is much more to who Jesus Christ is. Paul alludes to this in our lesson for today when he tells gentile believers that God’s “wonderful and glorious mystery” is that “Christ lives in you, and he is your hope of sharing in God’s glory” (Col. 1:27, CEV). What we may have a hard time imagining is just how hard it would have been for any Jewish person living in the First Century to say that about any Gentile person. I agree with a number of others who think that the fact that people who would have been assumed to be permanent outsiders responded to the Gospel in faith made the Apostles rethink a lot about their faith, especially whom they included and whom they excluded.

For too many people, the church in our culture has been known primarily for whom we exclude, especially to those who are outside the church. I would say this is another reason why some people avoid church so much these days. But I believe that we can take seriously the hints that in Jesus Christ, God is up to something bigger than perhaps we’ve ever dared to imagine or dream. That “something bigger” is nothing less than fulfilling the promise of the resurrection that says that “In Adam all of us die. In the same way, in Christ all of us will be made alive again” (1 Cor 15:22, NCV). Paul says it a little differently elsewhere: “Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone” (Rom 5:18, NLT). And in our lesson from Colossians for today, we hear the astounding statement that the Gospel ultimately extends to everyone and everything in the whole universe! Paul calls this the “mystery of Christ.”[3]

What difference does this “great mystery” about God’s work through Jesus Christ make for us in our daily lives? Well, for one thing I think it calls us to be open to the fact that our faith contains more than we can put into our “boxes.” God is bigger than we can imagine or conceive. And in our lesson for today, we learn that so is Jesus Christ! Despite what the psalmsinger said, God does not resolve the problem of injustice in our world by “breaking down forever” the villains (Ps 52:5). In Jesus Christ, God resolves the problem of injustice by reconciling all things to God. God undoes the evil of those who arrogantly presume to abuse their power, as the prophet Amos describes. But he does so by “making peace” through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Essentially, he brings us all, oppressed and oppressors alike, back to God. That version of salvation is hard to put into any “box.”

I would say another important lesson for us is that that we, as members of Christ’s “body” on earth, all participate in this “great mystery” right now. And more than that, we all have a role in fulfilling God’s big plan to save the whole creation. If you doubt that, perhaps your Jesus is too small.[4] Part of this great mystery is that every time we act with integrity and kindness, every time we seek to make love for God and love for others the principle of our lives, everything we do in this world to spread just a little of the justice, freedom, and peace of God’s kingdom to someone who needs it, we’re contributing to the fulfillment of God’s big plan. That’s not because we’re anything special, but rather it’s because Jesus Christ who reigns over all things as Lord even now is working in and through us to fulfill God’s big plan to save the whole creation. It may be hard for us to wrap our heads around all this, but I think our Scripture lesson calls us to marvel at the wonder of it all, and to be grateful that we have the chance to participate in something so awe-inspiring!

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.3:756 speaks of “the alteration of the whole situation of man and his cosmos as already accomplished in Jesus Christ” as he is in the process of fulfilling God’s determination ” to reconcile everything to himself” (Col. 1:20). Some would dispute this theme in Barth’s Dogmatics. It’s true that he takes a different approach in the earlier volumes. But it seems unavoidable to recognize it in volume 4. It would seem that Barth underwent a transition in his thinking about the extent of salvation during the twenty plus years of writing the Dogmatics.

[3] Jürgen Moltmann in Sun of Righteousness, Arise!: God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth, 140, quotes Christoph Blumhardt, a 19^th century German theologian who believed the impact of God’s redemption extended beyond individual salvation, as saying that this is his “confession of hope”: “That God might give up anything or anyone in the whole world—about that there can be no question, neither today nor in all eternity … The end has to be: Behold, everything is God’s!”

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, 276: “in personal faith a rebirth is experienced which will one day extend to heaven and earth; and the church prefigures and foreshadows the temple of the Holy Spirit which the whole cosmos is destined to become. It is only the cosmic dimension which gives the human, historical experiences of Christ their all-embracing meaning. We can only think of Christ inclusively. Anyone who thinks of Christ exclusively, not for other people but against them, has not understood the Reconciler of the world” (emphasis original). Cf. also ibid., 278: “Christology can only arrive at its completion at all in a cosmic christology. All other christologies fall short and do not provide an adequate content for the experiences of the Easter witnesses with the risen Christ. If Christ is the first-born from the dead, then he cannot be merely ‘the new Adam’ of a new humanity. He must also be understood as the first-born of the whole creation.” He continues to discuss Karl Barth’s “cautious consideration” of this “possibility” in the passage cited above and intentionally “develops” it. As a result, he concludes, ibid., 285: “the church must be seen as the beginning of the reconciled cosmos which has arrived at peace.”

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Making a Difference

Hebrews 4:14-5:10[1]

I believe most of us want to make a difference in this world. As we’re growing up, we try to figure out a way to do that with our lives. We choose a career based on our interests. Whether our job takes us in a direction that we feel like we’re actually making a difference in others’ lives, I would say that we do so just by the way we show up and treat people. Even if our job isn’t one that seems to “make a real difference,” most of us get involved in other activities like sports leagues or community clubs so that we can give back to the people around us. I think one of the challenges we face is that we have a hard time recognizing all the ways we contribute to the lives of other people. It seems to be wired into who we are as human beings to want to make a difference.

The most fulfilling experiences of my life have come from the opportunities I’ve had to make a difference in someone’s life. That’s why I started down the path of ministry at the ripe old age of 17. That’s why I’ve worked all my life to learn all I can about the Bible, Theology, History, Philosophy, and life in general. And that’s what still keeps me going over 45 years later. What energizes me is making a difference in someone’s life. It may sound strange, but that’s why I find it fulfilling to be with those who are hurting. Especially at the end of a loved one’s life. Yes, those times can be challenging and hard, but those are the times when I feel like I’m truly making a difference.

Of course, not everyone is called to be a pastor. We need all kinds of people doing all kinds of things for the world to work. But I think we all want to make a difference. One problem with trying to make a difference, however, is that when we put ourselves out there to help others, we’re putting ourselves in a position to wind up getting hurt. We’re opening ourselves to criticism, some of which may not be so fair or kind or respectful. Those who have been in a position where you’ve put yourself out there to help other people know what I’m talking about. Any time we try to make a difference in the lives of people around us, we’re at risk of our motives or our actions (or both!) being misinterpreted or perhaps even misrepresented. The bottom line is that whenever we try to make a contribution to others, we are likely going to have to endure some kind of unfair or hurtful treatment.

I think this aspect of our lives relates to our scripture lesson from Hebrews for today. It talks about how Jesus made a difference for all of us by what he did. In giving his life for us on the cross, he shows us who God is: the one who’s willing to take all the suffering of the world into himself. More than that, what Jesus did shows us what God is doing in the world: God is in the process of restoring everyone and everything. By dying on the cross, Jesus was fulfilling God’s desire for the whole human family to be restored to him. And in so doing, our lesson says that he has become the source of “eternal salvation” for all who turn to him in “trusting-obedience” (Heb 5:8-9 MSG). All that sounds good to us. But the lesson also says something that may sound strange to our ears. It says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered” (Heb 5:8, NLT) That sounds more than strange. It’s shocking: why would Jesus need to “learn obedience”? Wasn’t his whole life, in fact his whole existence, one of obedience to God? So why did he have to “learn obedience”?

I think the answer has to do with what happened when the Son of God became a human being. It’s not like he was inherently willful and disobedient and had to be taught by the consequences of his actions how to obey God. The very act of becoming a human being was an expression of his obedience to God. But I think what Jesus learned was a first-hand experience of what it means to live as a fully human person.[2] And part of what that means is that anyone who wants to make a difference in the lives of others is probably going to suffer criticism, or undergo attack, or perhaps even in his case give up his life. There have been many who sought to make a difference in this world who have given up their lives because of it. In his obedience to God, Jesus had to learn what human suffering is like. And the ultimate expression of his trust in God as well as his obedience to God was to give his life for us all on the cross.

While it’s not necessary to restrict what our Scripture lesson says about Jesus to this one event, it’s natural to think of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. I find it wonderfully reassuring that, when faced with one of the cruelest methods of executing a person ever devised, Jesus asked God to deliver him from it! It’s hard to imagine Jesus being truly human and not facing the cross with feelings of anguish and praying “with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7). And yet, the end result of his prayer struggle in that garden was that he decided to go through all of it in order to fulfill God’s desire to make a real difference in all of our lives.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the lessons for us to take away here is that the process of God becoming flesh in Jesus of Nazareth is not just about showing us who God is, it’s also about showing us that God is working to restore us all. Throughout the ages many have wondered why God went to all that trouble. Why not just “say the word” and make everything right again? I think one answer to that question is that the only way to truly make a difference in human life is to take the risk of getting involved that person’s life. The only way to truly help anyone is to enter fully into their experience and pour into it the love that can change them. That’s what Jesus was doing on the cross. As one of our confessions of faith puts it, he went into the abyss of human suffering in order to redeem all of us who have been trapped there.[3] There’s no depth of suffering in human experience that Jesus did not reach. And the profound love he poured out for us all at the cross changes everything! By entering fully into our experience, Jesus truly made the difference for us all.

I think it’s part of our identity as human beings that we all want to make a difference. But making a difference will very likely cost us something, just as it cost Jesus. When we doubt whether Jesus makes a difference in our lives, I think we should remember the friends and loved ones who have made such a difference in our lives. While we may not be able to relate to Jesus as directly as we can to them, we can remember what he went through, and that he did it precisely to make a difference for us. It’s a bit like the way the friends and loved ones we’ve lost still make a difference in our lives today. And when we doubt whether we’re making a difference in anyone’s life, we should also remember the friends and loved ones we’ve lost and how much we miss them. No less than they did when they were with us, we all make a difference in the lives of others just by being who we are.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.2:158: “the New Testament has treated the vere homo [truly human] so seriously that it has portrayed the obedience of Jesus throughout as a genuine struggle to obey, as a seeking and finding.”

[3] The Study Catechism, 1998, q. 45.

Tuesday, October 08, 2024

Stamped

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-10; Mark 10:13-16[1]

When it comes to parenting, the debate about nature versus nurture is an old one. The question is whether children are “stamped” with their personality from birth or whether their personality is shaped by the nurture they receive from their families. I think it’s always been a combination, myself. I think children have their own identities from the start, and that parents can either enhance or short-circuit that identity. Of course, at the end of the day, everyone makes their own choices, including our children, and those choices also have a way of defining our life path as well as who we are and who our family is.

One of the aspects of “nature” in this discussion has to be family resemblances. It’s not hard to see the likeness between my oldest son Derek and me. My daughter Carolyn likes to say that he’s a “clone” of me. I like to say, not that he’s a “mini-me,” but rather he’s a bigger and better “me.” He is 6’2”! You can see that family resemblance, not just is appearance, but also in mannerisms, in my son, myself, my father, my grandfather, even going back to my great-great-grandfather! About 15 years ago I stumbled upon a genealogy site run by a guy in Omaha who had some ties to the Brehm family. He had a picture of my great-great grandparents that I’d never seen. But when I took a good look at my great-great grandfather’s eyes, I saw my own, and my son’s as well.

We also take on the image of those who are influential in our lives. Those who are our mentors, whether family or teachers or supervisors, tend to influence how conduct ourselves. Sometimes those mentors can be more influential than our families. One of my professors in Seminary asked me to work with him as a graduate assistant, and I did that for three years. I graded his papers, and I taught his classes when he was away. It should come as no surprise to you that the way I taught my classes as a professor looked a lot like the way he taught his classes.

Our Scripture reading from Hebrews for today talks about a “resemblance” that’s even stronger than that. It talks about the way in which Jesus shows us what God is like. The Scripture describes Jesus as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3, NLT). The language used in the Greek text calls to mind the idea that Jesus is a ray of light from the very being of God. He’s the “radiance of the glory of God.” It also suggests that, like a coin is stamped in the image of the one who issues it, Jesus is “stamped” in the image of God. He’s the “exact imprint of God’s nature.”

What the author of the letter to the Hebrews is talking about is Jesus’ nature as the “Son” of God. And we cannot help but think about the notion of the “incarnation” of Jesus when we hear this language. In these days there are some who think themselves too sophisticated to buy into antiquated concepts like God being incarnate in a human being. But the doctrine of incarnation is not about the biology of where children come from. It’s an affirmation that Jesus really and truly does show us what God is like.[2] We can look at Jesus, his life, his teaching, his mercy, his justice, and we can be confident that we’re seeing a true likeness of God. Or as the author of the letter to the Hebrews puts it, Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being.”

What kind of “image” of God do we see in Jesus? In the Gospels we see him embracing the ones nobody else would embrace. We see him confronting the religious people with the falseness of their self-righteousness. We see him forgiving sinners and restoring people to themselves and to their communities. We see him teaching people to follow the commandments by loving God whole-heartedly and loving others sincerely. And in today’s Gospel lesson we see Jesus welcoming little children.

Most of us are familiar with this story. We cherish it, but I think we also sterilize it a bit. Think about the children in your lives. They are energy personified. They have the capacity to laugh, cry, dance, and shout—all without any inhibitions whatsoever! As much as we love our children, however, we may have trouble fully seeing them as human beings. After all, what do children do? When they’re not sleeping or eating, they play. Many adults think that they’re too busy to waste precious time playing with children.

That’s why I think we sterilize this story. The typical “Sunday School” image is of calm, smiling, obedient children gathered around Jesus, admiring his presence, listening attentively and soaking in all that he has to say. But we know that most children aren’t like that. At least my grandchildren certainly aren’t! They’re fidgety, they’re impulsive; they can actually speak out of turn and interrupt what’s going on! I think if we’re going to do justice to this Gospel lesson, we should imagine Jesus interacting with real group of children—active, exuberant, noisy! What do you do with a group of children like that? You don’t try to make them “be still” so you can teach them a lesson. You jump right into the middle of the fray and play with them!

Does Jesus really show us what God is like by playing with children? Is something so seemingly mundane really an aspect of what it means that Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being”? Surely it must be incidental, simply a part of the narrative “coloring” that keeps us interested in the really “important” stuff. But in our lesson for today Jesus says that children define the character of what it means to be a part of God’s kingdom, God’s saving reign, God’s new creation. I think he most definitely showed us who God is when he played with those children!

The author of the letter to the Hebrews insists over and over that Jesus shows us what God is like. He’s like a ray of light from God’s very being. He’s “stamped” with God’s image like a coin is stamped with the image of the one who made it. But because we’re also made in the image of God, as our lesson from the Psalms for today reminds us, then there’s a sense in which Jesus also shows us what we’re created to be. We’re not only “stamped” with certain character traits, habits, and quirks that we inherited from our families or learned from our mentors. We’re also “stamped” with the image of God. And as we follow Jesus more and more faithfully, we are more and more transformed into his image (2 Cor 3:18). As we learn to practice the ways of God’s kingdom, the ways of faith, hope, and love, the ways of peace, justice, and freedom, we become “stamped” with Jesus’ image ourselves. And the more we become like him, the more we reflect the image of our loving God to those around us.

[2] Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 114-118, says that the incarnation is part of the “eternally self-communicating love of God” that constitutes the “foundation of the new creation,” or the “perfecting of creation.”

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Compelling

Mark 1:14-20[1]

There are some people we encounter who are unique. They have a quality about them that draws us to them. It may be their ability to make us feel at ease. Or it may be the fact that they seem to be able to make friends with anyone. Or it may be their gift of making conversation with just about anyone on just about any topic. I could go on and on. We’re drawn to people like this for reasons as varied as their individual personalities. There was a time when we called this quality “charisma.” That’s a good word for it, but it doesn’t make it any easier to define. Suffice it to say that these people tend to be the ones toward whom we are naturally drawn, and they wind up being the center of attention, or the “life of the party,” wherever they go. They also tend to be the ones who wind up in leadership positions simply because they have a gift for it, whether they’re aware of it or not.

As we’re looking at the witness of Mark’s Gospel to Jesus as the “Son of God,” I think there was a compelling quality about him that drew others. He had this same quality that we find so hard to put into words today. In Mark’s Gospel, it’s called “authority.” I don’t think that was referring to any formal authority, but rather the fact that his words, his actions, his very person had the power to influence the people around him. In fact, the word in the original Greek text can also be translated “power.” Again, I don’t believe that was referring to any kind of force that Jesus wielded like a club. Rather, his words, his actions, his very person had the power to influence the people around him. People were drawn to him. They responded to him. Although he rarely sought the center of attention, he often wound up there, at times surrounded by a crowd of thousands. They came to him because he had a compelling quality that drew them to him.

I think we see this reflected in our Gospel lesson for today. It’s the story of Jesus meeting four fishermen and inviting them to follow him. We know the outcome because we’ve heard it before so many times: they left their boats and their nets and their families and they followed Jesus. But if we think about this episode as if we were hearing it for the first time, I would say it’s reasonable to ask why they made such a radical change in their lives just because he asked them to. The Revised Common Lectionary organizes our Gospel readings this year in a way that’s intended to make us think this wasn’t their first encounter with Jesus. Last week we heard about John the Baptist pointing out Jesus to Andrew and Simon Peter in John’s Gospel. But Mark’s Gospel doesn’t tell us that story. In Mark’s Gospel, they “immediately” leave everything behind to follow him, and we’re left to simply wonder why they would do that.

They aren’t the only ones who responded to Jesus in that way. To be sure, not everyone who met Jesus was drawn to him. There were many who saw him as a threat and a danger. But there were many others who were drawn to Jesus just as the four fisherman in our lesson for today. Mark tells us that on one evening in Capernaum the people brought all who were suffering to him so that “the whole city” was gathered (Mk. 1:33)! Historians estimate the population of Capernaum at that time to have been around 1500 people. Mark also tells about a time when he was teaching beside the sea of Galilee, and such a large crowd had gathered that Jesus had to get in a boat and push out from shore to be able to address them all. At one point, when Jesus and his disciples were trying to get some time away from the crowds, Mark tells us that over 5000 people met him when he came ashore, and after teaching them he fed the whole group with five loaves and two fish.

Again, I think it’s a fair question to ask what drew all these people to Jesus. One part of the answer is that his “fame” was spreading throughout Galilee (Mk 1:28). But I don’t think that was all there was to it. People don’t stay in a deserted place without food and shelter just because they’ve heard about someone famous and they want to get a glimpse for themselves. His “fame” may have brought them to Jesus, but there was something more that kept them there. Especially in a deserted place where there wasn’t enough food for them all! If it had been nothing more than curiosity, they wouldn’t have stayed too long to get back to food and lodging. Certainly not families with children! His message about God’s love for them and God’s promise to set things right was something many of them longed to hear. Again, I would say that it was Jesus’ words, his deeds, and more than that his very person that compelled them to stay.

In one sense, the whole New Testament was written to try to define this compelling quality the first Christians encountered in Jesus. They used terms like “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “Savior” to try to express who Jesus was. But there are many, many other ways they tried to define this “quality” he had. One interesting episode is when Peter was preaching to Gentiles for the first time in the book of Acts, in the household of the Roman Centurion Cornelius. I think it’s interesting because up to that point, they were speaking to Jewish crowds, and they used Jewish concepts. But when he tried to explain who Jesus was to Gentiles for the first time, Peter said that Jesus was the one whom God had “anointed” with “the Holy Spirit and power,” and that he “went about doing good” and healing all who were suffering (Acts 10:38). And he explained this not only by the power with which God had “anointed” Jesus. He also explained it by insisting that “God was with him.”

I think that’s a pretty good way of explaining this mysterious quality about Jesus that was so hard for people to define: when people met Jesus they sensed that God was with him. But there’s another interesting episode where the disciples described this quality of Jesus in a different way. In Luke’s story about the disciples who met the risen Jesus as they were on the road to Emmaus, after Jesus revealed himself to them—that is, after their “eyes were opened” and they were able to recognize him—they said, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” (Lk 24:32). I’ve always liked that way of describing the impact of Jesus. When we have eyes to see the truth and ears to hear what Jesus is saying to us, our hearts burn within us. St. Paul describes this experience as the Spirit of God in our hearts crying out “Abba, Father!” (Gal 4:6; cf. Rom 8:15-16). In other words, we recognize in our own hearts that we are encountering God when we encounter Jesus.

I mention these last examples because there may be a tendency among us today to think that we don’t have the same direct access to this compelling quality of Jesus that the people of ancient times had. They had their encounters with Jesus firsthand, like the fishermen in our lesson today; we only have their stories, and the stories of those who have gone before us. But that doesn’t mean that our faith in Jesus is only “secondhand.” Jesus’ words and the stories about his deeds still cause our hearts to “burn” within us with the conviction that there’s something there that’s life-changing for us as well. And we have the Spirit of God in our hearts no less than they did, so that we too can recognize that when we encounter Jesus, we’re encountering God, and our hearts cry out, “Abba, Father!” No less than the first disciples, Jesus’ words, his actions, his very person still have the power to influence us today. We only need the eyes to see and the ears to hear that Jesus is among us still, calling us to follow him.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Unprecedented

Mark 1:1-11[1]

This is the time of year when people think about what will be “new” about the “New Year.” But for those of us who have made more than a few trips around the sun, turning over the calendar may just mark another day. We may find ourselves thinking along with the “preacher” of Ecclesiastes that “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Or to put it in a more familiar way, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It’s the moral of the story of Sisyphus, the mythological Greek figure who thought he could outsmart the gods and even cheat death. As a result, he was sentenced to push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again, over and over and over. In both cases, the idea is that all our efforts are in vain.

This sentiment has been around for a long time—for millennia in fact! The myth of Sisyphus goes back to ancient Greece, and Ecclesiastes may be one of the older books in the Hebrew Bible. And yet, there are genuinely “new” things that happen for some of us. Students graduate from High School and move on to the next level. Or they complete their studies and start a career. Couples get married and start their lives together. Or they have children, which changes everything! Those are exciting times for all who are involved. But after a while, even a “new” career falls into a routine. Couples and even families can deal with the same thing. As the years continue to roll around, they may start to feel like every year turns into a repeat of the last one. Monotony sets in, and that leads to boredom. Our flourishing entertainment industry gives ample evidence of the fact that many of us, despite whatever “new” things come our way, feel like our lives are just an endless loop of the same old thing, day by day, month by month, and year after year.

To some extent, that’s a normal part of our human experience. Seasons come and seasons go. We rely on that. Our days and nights and weeks and months and years tend to follow a pattern. That’s not all bad. It’s comforting to know, for example, that the sun will actually come up tomorrow. Having a “normal” life gives us a sense of stability. But when stability turns into monotony, and boredom sets in, we can find ourselves struggling with the idea that none of it really matters. And that leads to despair, a state of mind and heart and soul that results from losing hope that anything we do or say makes any difference at all. More than that, despair cancels out any kind of faith: in God, in life, in the future, in anything. When we lose hope, and we lose faith, we also lose the heart and the will to truly live and love and find joy in doing so.

The message of the Bible, despite the pessimistic declaration of the “preacher” of Ecclesiastes, is a very different one. As the prophet Isaiah declares in the name of the Lord, “I am about to do a new thing” (Isa 43:19). In fact, the new thing that God promised to do would change everything. As the prophet said in the name of the Lord, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa 65:17). In that setting, the prophet was primarily talking about what God was going to do to set his people free from their captivity in Babylon. The promise was that God was going to change everything; in fact, God’s work was going to change even the heavens and the earth! As we’ve discussed, when the people returned from exile, the reality they faced wasn’t as “new” and as all-encompassing as they expected. There was a lot that stayed the same.

Some might think that God didn’t fulfill his promise after all. But the reason why things didn’t turn out quite the way they expected was because God wasn’t finished fulfilling his promise. The “good news” that the prophet Isaiah proclaimed almost three thousand years ago was a sweeping vision that included all God has in store for his precious creation. And, of course, the essential piece of that “good news” had to do with the birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ as Lord! We get a glimpse of that “good news” in our Gospel lesson for today. Not only does Mark tell us that the events surrounding Jesus’ birth were part of the fulfillment of God’s promises through the prophet Isaiah. He also demonstrates in several ways that the story of Jesus is the “good news” about the “Son of God.” Now there had been others before Jesus who were called “sons” of God, but Jesus fulfilled that role uniquely.

That’s the point of the affirmation that the Gospel of Mark opens with: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). One of the ironies about Mark’s Gospel is that the only person who truly recognizes Jesus as the “Son of God” is the Roman Centurion who witnessed his death on the cross. Nobody else truly recognizes Jesus as the “Son of God” in Mark’s Gospel. I think the reason for this is that Mark believed people could only truly understand what it meant that Jesus was the “Son of God” in light of the fact that he suffered and died on the cross. In that day, “Sons of God” were supposed to do miraculous deeds, draw huge crowds of followers, enjoy tremendous success, and be recognized by one and all! “Sons of God” in the ancient world were the “stuff of legend,” the focus of mythical stories. But Jesus demonstrated that he was the true “Son of God” by following through with God’s purpose: he took all the suffering of the world onto himself by dying on the cross.

As important as it is that Jesus was born as “God-who-is-with-us,” as important as it is that Jesus died as “God-who-is-for-us,” as important as it is that Jesus was raised to new life and ascended to the right hand of God to reign over all things, as Mark reminds us, this is the “beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The change that God made in Jesus was only the beginning. The work of fulfilling the promise of making a whole new heaven and a whole earth would continue through the first Christians, as the New Testament tells us. Through those who were bold enough to declare the news that in Jesus Christ God had begun working to change the whole world, the “good news” continued to be fulfilled in the lives of all who heard the message and took it to heart.

I think what I want to emphasize today is that the “good news” is that God isn’t finished with his work even now. The “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” is still in the process of being fulfilled. And God will not stop working to make all things new until he has changed everything and everyone by the power of his unfailing love. To those who say, “there is nothing new under the sun,” I say that through Jesus Christ God is continually doing something new among us, even now. To those who say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” I say that it’s time to open your eyes to see the light of God’s love in Jesus Christ that is still shining on us all to this day. To those who say that the promises of the Bible are just a lot of wishful thinking because life doesn’t ever really change, I say that it’s time to break the chains of hopelessness and despair. It’s time to open our hearts to the faith that the God who loves us will not stop changing everything until his work is finished, and it’s time to celebrate with joy the signs of God’s work that are all around us. In Jesus, God did something truly new and unprecedented. And he continues to do so among us and through us to this day.

Monday, January 02, 2023

To You is Born a Savior

Luke 2:1-20[1]

I saw a sign several days ago that said to “keep Christ in Christmas.” It’s a slogan that’s been around for a long time. It originated as a protest against the phrase “Merry Xmas.” So “keeping Christ in Christmas” meant spelling out the whole word, Christmas. But I really don’t know what it means more than that. It’s one of those slogans that’s been so overused I’m not sure it means anything anymore. Some of us might think it’s obvious what “keeping Christ in Christmas” means. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ, or the Messiah. So, keeping “Christ” in Christmas means making the celebration of Jesus’ birth the focus of Christmas. But I’m not sure a worn-out slogan can tell us much about how we’re supposed to do that.

In our lesson from the Gospel of Luke we heard the angel’s announcement to the shepherds, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” That helps us, because it tells us that Jesus was born as the “Messiah” or the “Christ” and that means he’s the Savior. Those of us who are connected with a church have at least an understanding that we need a Savior, and we celebrate Jesus’ birth because he came to be our Savior. And the angel said this message was meant to be “good news of great joy for all the people” (Lk 2:10-11). But there are a lot of folks these days who don’t see that they have any need for a “Savior.” In fact, the very language of looking for someone to “save” us or “rescue” us, is considered to be unhealthy in relationships. And rightly so. It’s a mark of health to recognize that we’re all responsible for our emotional well-being.

But while it’s good to be self-responsible, you can take a good thing too far. When we turn it into the attitude that it’s up to me whether I thrive in this world, it can lead us to think we can dispense with “God” or any thoughts of a “Savior.” When we do that, we may believe we can live our lives, make our choices, and engage in our own pursuits without giving God or Jesus Christ a second thought. But living that way is an illusion. It really amounts to an effort to avoid facing hard truths. We may succeed for the time being at avoiding what we don’t want to deal with but living our lives without any reference to God will leave us facing a deep emptiness.

I don’t believe the point of our lesson from the Gospel of Luke is to “keep Christ in Christmas.” I think it goes far beyond that. Celebrating the birth of Jesus as our Savior means “keeping” Christ as the focus for all of life. We “keep” Christ in our lives when we recognize that the only way to truly thrive is through the hope and peace and joy and love that Jesus brings us. We “keep” Christ in our lives when we recognize that we do not live our lives to ourselves alone, or solely by our own efforts. Rather we live in a world that overflows with God’s loving presence. That’s why we celebrate the birth of Jesus as our Savior. He came to fulfill the promise of “Immanuel,” or “God-who-is-with-us.” He’s our Savior because he brought us the assurance that we are never alone in this world. No matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done, because of Jesus—his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his continuing presence in our lives—we are never alone, but rather we are constantly surrounded and embraced by the love of God. That’s what it means to celebrate the birth of Jesus as our Savior on this night!

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A Christmas meditation delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/24/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/5cHGVLyZwmo

Friday, December 23, 2022

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.”

Monday, December 12, 2022

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:

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

God's Love Overflowing

God’s Love Overflowing

Proverbs 8:1-11, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15[1]

When you think about religion as our human efforts to worship and serve God, you would think that a concept so basic to the human experience would be consistent across the board. But the opposite is true. The cultures of the world throughout history have held many beliefs about “God.” In ancient religions, the “gods” were simply a picture of human impulses on a large scale. But while the “gods” may have embodied the best human qualities, they also embodied the worst. Other cultures have approached their understanding of “God” through nature, and some even found their way to a “benevolent” notion of God. But our notions of “God” have always been as varied as the human family is.

Even in the Christian faith there are very different images of God. Some see God as a stickler for rules, always eager to punish those who go astray. And in many cases, those who understand God like that have come up with all kinds of things you have to do in order to stay on God’s “good side” so you can go to heaven when you die. Others have such a casual view of God that they turn the creator of the vast universe into their “buddy.” And they think this “buddy” of theirs is a personal “genie in a bottle” who will make their every wish come true. How you understand God makes a difference!

That’s why we observe “Trinity Sunday.” It’s a day for us to recall that there are important reasons we worship one God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I realize that may sound like a “stretch” to some. A lot of people these days think it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you have some kind of faith. But I would insist that the Bible bears witness to God in this unique way of understanding that we call “Trinity.” And it’s not just about making sure we follow the Bible. Believing in, worshipping, and serving God as “Trinity” makes a big difference in what your faith and your life look like.

Our scripture lessons for today point out some of the reasons why it’s important that we understand God in this way. In our lesson from Proverbs, we get a better glimpse of what it means to say “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” There is something intimidating about the notion that God created all the galaxies we can see with the new James Webb Space Telescope. But our lesson shows us a different side: God enjoying creation and delighting in the human family. Creation was not only an expression of God’s power, but also of God’s love, overflowing in the beauty of the world that is “very good” (Gen 1:31). Part of what it means to believe in “Trinity” is that we see God not only as all-powerful but also as one who takes great delight in loving all creation.

Our lesson from John’s Gospel reminds us of what it means to say, “I believe in Jesus Christ God’s only Son our Lord.” As we’ve seen in our journey through John’s Gospel during Easter, Jesus’ whole life was one act of demonstrating God’s love for us. By coming in human flesh, he showed us what God’s love looks like. By serving “the least of these” (Mt 25:40), he demonstrated God’s love for everyone. And by giving his life on the cross, Jesus revealed just how far God is willing to go to draw us into the embrace of love shared eternally by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Part of what it means to believe in “Trinity” is that we know God’s love for us through Jesus Christ.

Our lesson from Romans reminds us of what it means to say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” God not only poured out his love when he created all things “very good.” And God not only poured out his love by sending Jesus to show us what love looks like in real life. God also continually pours out his love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Again, as we have seen in John’s Gospel, the Spirit is our constant companion, the one who leads us to faith, who shows us the truth of what God is doing in and among us, and who guides us daily. Part of what it means to believe in “Trinity” is that we trust that God’s love for us means that he continually accompanies, guides, sustains, and empowers us.

In the Bible, it takes all three, God the Creator, Jesus the Redeemer, and the Spirit who sustains us, to fully understand who God is. If it’s true that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), it should come as no surprise that the one God who is three—Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer—exists in a relationship of love and community. This is the image of God in the Bible: God in relationship, God in community, God involved in our lives. This is central to our faith, because the love shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the basis for everything God does in our lives, for all that God does in our community of faith, and for all that God does through us as we serve others.

The point of the Trinity is that God is a God of love—not just love that observes from afar, but love that reaches out to us and seeks a relationship with us. The God who creates and redeems and sustains us is a God who shows us a love that is constantly present among us, that gets involved in our lives, and that takes action to fill our lives with love. About twenty years ago, the PCUSA commissioned a study of our understanding of God as “Trinity.” That doesn’t take any kind of stretch of imagination! The (inevitable) report encouraged churches to explore ways to include affirmations of our faith in God as “Trinity,” using the range of expressions in the Bible and in the history of the Church. And the overarching theme was framed in the title of the report: “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing.” I can think of no better way to understand God: love overflowing in and through all creation and in and through every one of our lives!

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm Ph. D. on 6/12/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. For a video recording of this sermon, check out my Pastor Alan YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/q6bP3CkiA0Q

Thursday, March 03, 2022

Winning

Luke 9:28-36[1]

Nobody comes to church to hear about how hard it is to follow Jesus. We have all kinds of reasons for being here, but that’s probably not on the list. We come for an emotional and spiritual “boost” to help us make it through the coming week. We come looking for assurance in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. We come to find encouragement to lighten the burdens we carry. We come to hear some good news, to hold onto the hope that we can feel at least a little bit of joy to brighten our day. We want to know that somehow, someway, God is working in our lives to help us win the struggles we face.

Luke’s Gospel gives us the good news, but as we’ve already seen, it’s a version of the good news with an “edge” to it. Jesus’ message is one of turning the tables, of the first being last and the last first. And Luke’s Gospel doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to making plain the demand that the good news makes of us. Jesus set the example as to what seeking first God’s intentions for this world demands of us. He did that by obeying God to the point of giving up his life. And Jesus didn’t hesitate to say that if we want to follow him in seeking first God’s kingdom, we’ll have to give up our lives as well.

That may seem like a strange way to introduce our Gospel lesson for today. After all, we’re talking about the “transfiguration.” It was a “high point” for the disciples. It was a “mountaintop experience,” and Peter made it clear that he wanted to stay there. Like the other Gospels, Luke tells us Peter didn’t know what he was saying (Lk 9:33). I’m not sure I would have done any better. But the voice of God that came from the cloud broke the spell of Peter’s euphoria. It may not be obvious at first glance, but I think God was telling him and the others to go back down the mountain and get back to work among the people who needed their help!

But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The story behind all of this is about the amazing transformation of Jesus’ appearance that Peter, James, and John witnessed. What’s more, they not only saw Moses and Elijah with Jesus, but they also got to “overhear” their conversation. And the “voice from the cloud” came to confirm for them Jesus’ identity as it had been revealed to him at his baptism (Lk 3:22): “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Lk 9:35). I can only imagine what it was like for them to wonder what all that meant as they followed Jesus down the mountain!

I think it might help to take a closer look at what the voice said. It began with “this is my son.” Many have assumed this is an affirmation that Jesus was the divine Son of God. But the title “Son of God” in the Bible refers to someone God has chosen to fulfill God’s work. That’s what the voice announced: Jesus is the one who will carry out the work of God’s kingdom. “My chosen one” refers to the “Servant of the Lord” in Isaiah. We’ve already seen that Jesus announced he had come to carry out that role: to “bring good news to the poor,” to “proclaim release to the captives,” and “to let the oppressed go free” (Lk 4:18). And the last part, “listen to him,” recalls a promise Moses made to the people: that God would raise up a prophet like himself who would make God’s purpose clear to them.

All of this refers to Jesus’ identity in terms of the mission he would fulfill. We should take note that Moses and Elijah were said to be discussing with Jesus “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9:31). The idea here is that the transfiguration pointed forward to the way Jesus would effect the “release” that God intended to bring into this world. He would do it by going to Jerusalem, where he would face hostile opposition and ultimately sacrifice his life. That’s how he would win the “victory of God,” as some have called it, by giving up his life for others.[2] But as we know, Jesus’ death was not the last word. The “glory” that Luke says the disciples saw on the mountain also points forward: not only to Jesus’ resurrection, but also to his ascension to reign at the right hand of God, and his final coming with power in the end.

I think it’s important for us to understand that all of this is the full story of how Jesus would accomplish God’s purpose in this world. He would bring release to all who suffer by sacrificing his life. But that wasn’t the end of the story; his death would lead through resurrection to new life and the promise of God’s final victory in the end.[2] Even though the voice from the cloud instructed the disciples to “listen” to Jesus, I don’t think they could really hear that the way the Jesus would win “release” for the whole world was by giving up his life. And they certainly couldn’t hear Jesus saying they could only follow him if they were willing to give up their lives for the sake of others.

It all seems backwards: we “win” by “losing”! We experience the “release” of God’s kingdom by giving up our lives for others. We gain the hope and joy and new life that we seek by getting involved in the struggles people face. As Peter, James, and John were sent back down the mountain, so Jesus calls us to follow him to a world full of hurting people. I don’t think any of us will ever do that perfectly. I believe Jesus accepts us where we are as we strive to live up to this high calling. And he promised to be with us to enable us to give up our lives for others, which will take the best we have to offer.

[2] Cf. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God.

[3] Cf. F. Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1-9:50, 376: “Luke knows that [death] is not God’s last word. Jesus’ journey leads from Good Friday to Easter, and finally to the ascension.” I would add the return of Christ as well.

The Waking Dreamer