First Sunday of Advent - A Shoot from a Stump—A Sign of Hope - Isaiah 11:1–9, Psalm 72:1–7, 12–19, Luke 1:26–38

The church often turns to the prophet Isaiah in Advent. Isaiah comes just before the conquest of Judah by Babylon, a time of unrest, injustice where the rich are getting richer and more powerful, the poor, widows, and oppressed are ignored, and compassion is hard to find. Isaiah warns of God’s judgment against his own rebellious people, but also against the nations that defy God.

Psalm 72 is a prayer that reflects the desire of the people for a king whose reign will be shaped by justice and righteousness; the virtues of a faithful king, faithful to God and to his people. The Hebrew word ṣeḏeq, which is translated righteousness, probably comes from Arabic meaning ‘straightness.’ The basis of righteousness in the Old Testament is relationship, both between God and man, and between man and man. Righteous is about promoting the well-being and peace of the community. For the prophets, righteousness includes the idea of helping the poor and needy. In terms of the relationship between God and men, righteousness points toward a correct relationship to the will of God shaped by Israel’s covenant with God.

 Righteous action flows out of God’s election of Israel and according to his covenants. God is a righteous judge who acts for his people and whose righteousness his people depend on for deliverance and protection. Psalm 72 is praying for a righteous king, praying that God will send the promised Messiah king to bring freedom. In the time of Isaiah and the psalmist, God sees and hears the people that the rich and powerful fail to see, except as a means to grow their own power and wealth. For those looking for a righteous king, for a Messiah, there seems to be little hope to hang onto. But the prophets keep pointing the people back to God, reminding them that the weak and needy are precious to him; he hears their prayers for a king that will have God’s heart for them. The hope for God’s people is that a king will come from the line of David, son of Jesse. Isaiah’s looking ahead to a time when it will look like David’s family tree has been cut down with only a stump left.

Today it’s easy to be pessimistic about life and wonder, as Israel often did in the time of Isaiah, is there any reason to hold onto hope. Jesus still hasn’t returned and it’s hard for so many today. The gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow larger, so many corporations have lost any sense of social responsibility and are focused on making the greatest profit they can for their share-holders, even if it’s on the back of the less fortunate. This week a new report came in that 25% of Canadians are suffering from food insecurity, meaning there’s a growing number of people going hungry, needing to access food banks to feed their families. More families are literally living from pay-cheque to pay-cheque, frightened of even one unexpected bill or sickness, while the very wealthy don’t seem to see or care. There are wars, rumours of war, the number of refugees in the world grows daily, and more and more countries want no part of welcoming them in. Persecution and oppression occur around the world and our brothers and sisters in the faith often suffer greatly for following Jesus. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Karr said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

With defeat at the hands of the Babylonian empire coming close, Isaiah offers a burst of hope, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.” This shoot will do the two things everyone wants from their leaders: with righteousness he will lead with compassion and care for the least among us, and punish the wicked.

Isaiah’s a prophet of hope, pointing the people to the promises of God that he’ll send a Messiah; the Lord’s servant who will rescue them from both political and spiritual oppression. Isaiah points ahead to a shoot coming up from a stump; revealing that the seemingly dead stump’s roots are still filled with life, and a Branch will grow up and bear fruit again. This Messiah’s often referred to as the Lord’s servant, but unexpectedly, a suffering servant who will bring justice and rule in righteousness while experiencing injustice himself.

Isaiah points to a renewed creation where all of creation is at peace within itself. There’ll be no more survival of the fittest, but instead peace and flourishing for all creatures. Predators and prey will sleep side by side in safety, a beautiful picture of what justice and righteousness looks like in the kingdom of God; relationships of shalom with all the meaning of this Hebrew word where there will be peace within creation, flourishing among all people and with all creatures, where there’ll be building up rather than destruction, and the earth will know the Lord within a covenantal relationship of faithfulness. This image occurs repeatedly in Scripture: Ezekiel 34:25–27 ^“‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.  I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them.”

The Bible closes with a picture of the renewed creation and the second advent when Jesus returns, Revelation 22:1–5 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

Yet God’s people experience 400 years of silence after the return from exile. But hope wasn’t dead, just as it’s not dead today. An angel comes to a young virgin in Nazareth, a small town in a small country under foreign rule and tells the young girl Mary, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Judah’s under Roman rule, things are hard, oppressors have come and gone. They were free for a time under the Maccabees, but that’s long gone. Messiahs have come and gone, usually making things even harder for the people. Herod’s built a beautiful temple, but he’s cruel and unjust, only in it for himself. Now an angel comes with amazing news for Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most-High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” Her son will be born through the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the holy one, will be called the “Son of God.”

With the coming of the shoot from the stump of Jesse, this Branch has begun to gather people around him from all nations. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:10, God’s plan is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” In our world filled with failed flawed leaders, Jesus is returning to bring in a renewed kingdom of justice and righteousness under God, the king-child born of Mary, raised, and crucified in a small oppressed country, raised from the dead for our sin, and returning to deliver the needy, defend the oppressed, and hold the wicked to account for their actions for failing to care for the people. Jesus comes to transform hearts, to create a new people shaped in his image, and to call us to follow him as our Lord.

We’re the body of Christ, part of the already/not-yet kingdom of heaven, a sign of hope to the world. Until Jesus returns, we’re called to be shaped by his values of justice and righteousness, to answer as Mary does, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Righteousness and justice are personal, lived out in relationship with our neighbours. Where can we, as a church, as individuals, or families can be involved in acting justly, seeing and walking alongside the poor, the orphans, the widows, and foreigners among us, offering the hope of Christ, sharing the new life found in Jesus? Go, sharing the hope of Jesus with words and actions this week.

Keep in God’s Love - Jude

                     

The world has changed a lot in the past 30 years. It used to be when we talked about a virus, it was about our physical health, now when we talk about a virus, it’s because our computers, phones, cars, or anything electronic has become infected with a virus that can shut things down and make our devices useless. In a similar way, false teaching can infect our spiritual lives, leading us into unhealthy ways of living, of relating with each other, and with God. Jude’s warning the people that false teachers have crept into the church and are giving the people wrong and unhealthy ways of understanding who God is and what Jesus has done for us. It’s not just Jude who writes the churches about this, Peter warns against false teachers in his second letter, and Paul warns about the same thing in a number of his letters. Jesus also warned about false teachers and shepherds showing up for their own benefit.

Jude calls us to fight for what we believe, for what we’ve been taught in Scripture and Jesus; listening to God’s voice over the clamour of voices in our world trying to lead our hearts away from God. He knows that when we contend for the faith, it becomes more real to us. Jude warns them, “They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” God’s grace is seen as permission to do whatever they want, depending on God’s grace to forgive them. The word Jude uses, “pervert,” means “to change or transfer.” In Jude’s situation, the immorality he’s warning against is sexual immorality and perversion. These false teachers are changing what God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice are really about. They’re teaching that you can embrace the sexual morals and practices of the people around you and God’s grace will give forgiveness and there’ll be no judgment for their sin.

Paul gets angry in Romans 6 over the same attitude, verses1–2, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Paul, and Jude, are countering the false teaching that God owes us forgiveness and that obedience to God’s laws and Jesus’ teachings and way are not important. False teachers ignore that God is a just God and punishes deliberate disobedience. They fail to acknowledge that deliberate disobedience means that you’ve failed to truly accept Jesus as your Lord, that you still see yourself as your lord rather than confessing that you belong, body and soul, in life and in death to Jesus and follow his ways out of gratitude and thankfulness for all he’s done for your salvation.

Jude uses the Greek word “ekporneuw” for sexual immorality, where our word pornography comes from. Pornography is rooted in lust and self-centered desire. It’s often about exerting power over others, treating them as objects to be controlled or manipulated sexually, believing that you’re in control when actually, your desires are what’s in control. In the 60s, the idea that free love would bring joy and freedom hasn’t worked out that way. Instead, it’s brought more brokenness, more shallowness, more regrets and hurt, than joy or freedom into relationships. Today, young adults and teens are looking for a stronger deeper foundation to relationships than the free love mantra of the boomer generation because they’ve seen the brokenness in their grandparents’ and parents’ relationships because of the lack of relational commitment, leading to the increase in pornography and casual sex. The thing with immorality is that it begins small, like looking at images, which makes it easier for Satan to take you deeper into sin.

Immorality and sexual sin have many roots: many think that lust is the root cause of immorality, but often lust is rooted in anger; anger at others for perceived or actual actions, or self-anger from a lack of self-respect and self-condemnation for not being enough, for not measuring up to your own or other’s expectations, or from rejection. The hook-up culture and affairs are often rooted in the belief that sex will build connections and relationships which will provide fulfillment in who you are, it’s often rooted in wanting to be accepted or to belong. The reality is that these relationships create emptiness instead of fulfillment, broken relationships rather than stronger relationships, regret instead of joy, and rejection instead of acceptance.

Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 6:18–20, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” We are the body of Christ in the world and sexual immortality impacts others, not just yourself. It impacts the person you sin with because if you’re honest with yourself, you’re focused on your own pleasure over the other person’s. It creates brokenness within the church body as we’re the body together and unfaithfulness hurts us all. It hurts God and creates brokenness with God because it’s about you rather than about God, creating spiritual sickness. God is pure, so as his children, as the body of Christ, we’re called to imitate Jesus and seek purity.

Our culture confuses lust and sex with love. Love is rooted in how we treat each other, showing respect for the other person, putting their needs above your own, about patience, protecting, trusting, about depth, kindness, truth, perseverance, and hope. Marriage and commitment look different in our culture, marriage has many different forms in our culture, often shaped more as a contract rather than a permanent covenant filled with deep commitment. If it takes too much work, leave and pay the penalty, and then make a new contract with someone else who will fill your empty spot, who will make you whole. The problem is we place so much responsibility on someone else to make us whole, something that only God can do. John Calvin talks about a God-sized hole in each of us, but false teachers tell us that the right person can fill this hole instead of God.

What’s the cure to this spiritual virus? We acknowledge that marriage is a gift from God, and mirrors God’s relationship within himself where the Father pours into the Son and Spirit, the Son pours into the Father and Spirit, and the Spirit pours into the Father and Son; that sexual purity reflects our relationship with God. Jude shows us the cure in the beginning and end of his letter, “To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ,”  ending with “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.” Being kept for Jesus, the one who’s able to protect us from virus thinking, who’s able to keep us safe because we’re in him, kept safe by the love of God through faith in Jesus.

Old Testament laws around sex focused on purity, on being an example to the nations around Israel of what healthy relationships look like and that our relationships with each other are a reflection of our relationship with Jesus. Lev 18:1-5 is a chapter that lays out unhealthy ways of relating to each other sexually. These laws are given to build healthy relationships that are healthy and help each other grow more into the image of God. Purity shows health, brings health into our relationships.

God pours his love and gifts into us; marriage imitates God by pouring into the other, building the other up, helping the other to grow into the person God’s created them to be. Marriage and sex are about giving to the other rather than taking for yourself. In Genesis 2:23-25, God creates Adam and Eve and Adam marvels at Eve, “The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Sex is a beautiful gift, it joins us together in marriage, becoming one flesh; a life-long relationship that is other-focused, building each other up to become who God has called them to be. It’s intimate, God-given, and exclusive. Paul uses marriage as an example of Jesus’ relationship with us, a life-long commitment to build each other up to be who God’s created us to be. Sex and sexuality are a gift of beauty and wonder, given to create intimate safe relationships; it’s about purity and holiness reflecting God to the world.

We’re created by God for intimate relationships within committed marriage relationships; sex is a gift to help us grow in intimacy. He gives us marriage as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman; our very bodies are designed for this intimacy. Jesus’ teaching always points us to trust in God’s ways. It takes trust and faith that God knows what’s best for us. We may not always understand the why of God’s ways and rules, yet we walk in faith, trusting that his way shapes us more into the image of Jesus, keeping in his love virus-free.