Luke 1:67-79 Zechariah Speaks

 

Zechariah has been silent for more than 9 months now, unable to speak a single word because he doubted the angel’s announcement that he and his wife Elizabeth, both well past the age of having babies, are going to have a baby boy. Now honestly, if God would have come in a dream or vision, I could understand doubting what I heard, but Zechariah was in the Holy of Holies in the temple, the place where you would expect to meet God, so why doubt then when God does show up? Zechariah has grown up on the stories of Abraham and Sarah, and other special births, and still doubts. It makes me wonder how many of us doubt that God can still do amazing things through us, even though we’ve also grown up on the stories of Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Is this why we have a hard time talking about our faith with others and inviting them to follow Jesus with us? Something to think about. God’s not far away, he’s active, even now, why do we doubt God can build his kingdom through us, through our sharing Jesus with others. Have we such little faith in the moving of the Holy Spirit?

It’s not until after Zechariah’s son’s birth that Zechariah gets his voice back. It’s circumcision day, and also the day that the parents reveal the baby’s name. Everyone’s waiting to hear the name, who are the parents going to name the baby after, one of the fathers, a hero from the past, maybe a favourite uncle. The time comes, and since Zechariah can’t speak, Elizabeth makes the grand announcement, “He is to be called John.” The family is thinking, “Huh? John, where did that come from?” All eyes turn to Zechariah, so he writes on a tablet, “His name is John.” Because Zechariah has had 9 months to learn to trust in God and what God can do, Zechariah’s voice returns and the first thing he does in praise God! The church has named Zechariah’s prophecy the Benedictus, which is Latin for benediction or blessed. It’s a prayer that many monks now pray every morning to begin their day. It comes from St Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible called the Vulgate who translated the first line of Zechariah’s prophecy, “Benedictus esto Dominus Deus Israelis,” which in English is, “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel.”

I would have been bursting to talk about my new son, but Zechariah is so God centered that the first words he speaks come from the Holy Spirit and are a prophecy that begins with a blessing to God! Now we think of prophecy as pointing to the future, but most prophecy is what we call “forthcoming,” which means the words being spoken are all about what God is doing right now. They are meant to help us see God at work around us and in us.

From the blessing, Zechariah goes straight into telling everyone that, “God has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David.” Did you hear that? God has come, not God is coming! The word come in Greek is the word used to describe a doctor coming to visit a patient; God has come to bring healing! God has come as a child in Mary’s womb, come to experience the brokenness and hurt of the world in order to bring healing and hope. God is redeeming his people already by becoming human in Mary. Jesus has come to save his people, he’s come as the horn of salvation, an image of power and strength. Just as Jesus is a human baby still being formed in Mary’s womb, he also the Son of God. Revelation 5 shows Jesus as a slain lamb with 7 horns and 7 eyes, a powerful image of strength that sees everything that’s happening on earth. Revelation 19 pictures Jesus as a warrior on a white horse riding out to do battle against Satan and the beast that brings destruction.

Zechariah picks up on the horn mentioned in Psalm 132, “Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for my anointed one.” Jesus is coming as the descendant of the warrior King David to save his people from their enemies and the hand of all who hate them. As I hear Zechariah’s prophecy talking about the “hand of all who hate us,” I look around and see how much hatred there is in the world today towards the Jews. Anti-Semitism is alive and well and found all over, even in our own province. Historically, even the church has, at times, hated and persecuted the Jewish people.

All the people at Zechariah’s house would have heard him as referring to the Romans, but Jesus has come to fight much more powerful and deadly enemies: Satan and death. The battle is on for the salvation of God’s people. Not long after Jesus’ birth, Satan works through Herod to kill Jesus by murdering all the children under two years old in Bethlehem. Satan directly challenges Jesus in the wilderness at the start of Jesus’ ministry, tempting Jesus to do things the easy way rather than God’s way. Jesus puts on the armour of God, as described in Ephesians, and counters Satan’s temptations with the sword of the word of God. Jesus knows he’s in a battle and at state are the souls of all God’s people.

We’re part of the same battle Jesus fights against Satan. This is something we need to keep front and center in our ministry: that as Bethel Church, we follow Jesus, love others, serve our community in order to express the love of Jesus, and share our faith so the Holy Spirit can use us to save souls by leading others to Jesus. God fulfills his promises to send a Messiah who will crush the head of the serpent and save God’s people. God remembers his holy covenant to Abraham to rescues us from the hands of our enemies. Jesus enters this battle is so that we can serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness all our days. We serve God by engaging in the good works he has prepared for us to do, by working for justice and a healthy community, working to build people up and help them be whom God has created them to be and come to know Jesus.

Zechariah now turns to the role his son John is going to play for Jesus, “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” John is the advance troops for Jesus’ coming, getting everything ready so that when Jesus comes with the message that the kingdom of heaven is near, the people are ready to receive his message and accept his invitation to follow him and find freedom and salvation rather than follow Herod or Caesar or the temple leadership who found salvation in rule following rather than in faith in God.

But what a kingdom Jesus is bringing in; a kingdom where salvation and freedom is found through forgiveness of our sins rather than with swords and battle axes. Our enemies are not governments or our culture, but the things and people that draw us into sin, including our own hearts. John the Baptist’s message is going to be a call to repentance and a return to God as the way to prepare for Jesus’ coming. John points to the kingdom of heaven as a heart kingdom where loyalty is to God over everything else, including our own wants and desires; a kingdom where we are servants of God who serve rather than to be served and obey Jesus’ call in Matthew 5 to “be perfect as God is perfect.” We are called to be holy as God is holy, meaning that we are set apart for God’s use.

As Melissa Overmyer writes, “Holiness is possible: God, by his mercy and grace, has made it possible for each of us to be holy. He actually promised it to us. This is the good news that we are to proclaim. May we follow the example of John and take to heart the words Zachariah spoke about him: “Go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” When we share this good news, “the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace." 

Jesus enters into the world take on Satan and death and redeem us and save us and bring peace. Jesus is more than a gentle shepherd; he’s more like the warrior King David who fought lions and bears to protect his sheep, who fought giants to protect his people, who pays the ultimate price of being separated from God on the cross for us so that we never have to be separated from God our father. Like light brings hope into the darkness, so Jesus, in defeating Satan and death on the cross shines hope into our hearts and calls us to shine his hope into the world through his resurrection!

These are words of hope that we bring to those living in the darkness of fear, anxiety, guilt, shame and doubt, that Jesus has come for us to shine his light into our darkness, to lift us up and bring us strength and peace. We are called to let Jesus’ light shine through us into the world, into people who are seeking hope and a way through life where they can find healing and flourish into the people God has created them to be.

Luke 1:46-55 Mary Sings

 

Pastor David Lose, in an online post, talks about singing as an act of resistance. I had never really thought of singing that way, but when I took some time to think about it, I thought about the Black spirituals sung by the Black slaves as they worked in the fields and kitchens of their owners. Their hymns were their way of pushing back against their masters and how they treated them like animals instead of people, buying and selling them like cattle, using and abusing them, never acknowledging the image of God in them. The Black slaves responded by creating and singing these spirituals filled with hope and longing for heaven, reminding themselves that they were beloved children of God and that heaven was their reward too.

Music often ends up as a battle ground between generations because music is connected with independence and new ways of expressing dreams, hopes and values; for better or worse. It doesn’t surprise me anymore that parents and kids don’t agree on music because, as parents, our own dreams and values change and we often become more cynical about life and give up our idealism for a more pragmatic approach to life. Music is often how our kids hold onto a sense that the world can be a better place, or they go in the other direction and focus on the brokenness and injustice in the world.

Mary sings her song and it’s filled with the reality that the world’s not the way it’s supposed to be; her song is an act of resistance against the way things are, but it’s also a song of hope as she sings of a God who turns our world upside down. Mary’s song is often called the “Magnificat,” which means “Praise.” The name comes from the first word in the Latin translation of the Bible. “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” which translates “My soul praises the Lord.” Mary’s song is all about God’s faithfulness, a theme that runs all the way through Luke’s gospel. As you listen to Mary’s song you can hear her soul praising God for his faithfulness to his people.

The God who saves pays attention to her humble state, it’s hard for us to imagine just what God is doing here. He’s using a young bride of a poor carpenter from a nothing town to be the mother of the Messiah, the mother of God. Mary, the one favoured by God over princesses, will be the one called blessed. Just as God told the prophet Samuel to not judge Jesse’s sons by how strong and powerful they were, so God doesn’t look at how important, wealthy or powerful Mary’s family is when he chooses her, he looks at her heart and sees what he’s looking for; a faithful daughter of God.

God, through Mary’s child, is coming to turn the world upside-down. Jesus is coming into a broken world to bring healing. We look at the world in Jesus’ time and we see the great Roman Empire, one of the greatest empires of all time, who has created the conditions for the coming of the Messiah by putting in place the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. They have criss-crossed the empire with safe roads, brought in a code of justice, and a common language, Kione Greek, to make sure trade can flow easily across the empire and to the corners of the known world. And still it was a broken world, just as ours is still broken in so many ways still today and all need the peace that only Jesus can bring.

Mary sings, “His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.” In our series on family, we discussed the importance of faith being at the core of our families and our church so that we can experience the blessings and mercy of God from one generation to the next. As we listen to Mary’s song, we see that faith at the core of her family as she sings those themes of God’s justice and faithfulness. Mary sings of God’s mercy. Mercy, pity and compassion are all ways that the word Mary uses here can be translated, and we often hear the Scriptures talk of God’s mercy, and when Jesus comes, it almost becomes a refrain as over and over again the gospel writers say, “And Jesus saw them and had compassion on them,” or “Jesus took pity on them.” This is God’s heart, Jesus’ heart responding to us, seeing our brokenness and hurt and responding with hope and healing. No parent enjoys seeing their children suffer and will often go to extraordinary lengths to be there for their kids, even if it’s just to hold their hands to let them know that they’re not alone. God’s like that too.

Now Mary gets into the upside-down part of her song of resistance. “He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.” “Inmost thoughts” can also be translated as “heart attitudes,” and I think gets at what Mary is singing about a bit better. Heart attitudes shape us and how we interact with others and when our hearts are shaped by pride, we tend to get full of ourselves and we look down on others, making them small. Yet anything we might achieve on our own is really small when you compare it to God’s mighty deeds. God created the heavens and earth, he created humanity in his own image, he delivered his people from the most powerful nation of the time when he brought Israel out of Egypt. He settled his people in land that was claimed by multiple other nations and protected them again and again, and he brought his people out of exile in Babylon. So, what have you accomplished lately compared to that, is the tone of Mary’s song?

It’s also a dig at Rome, powerful proud Rome. Mary sings, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.” The echoes to the Old Testament take us to proud Pharaoh and how he ended up at the bottom of the Red Sea, it takes us to Nebuchadnezzar who ends up eating grass like a cow, and it reminds us that no matter how powerful Satan might be, even though he’s even referred to as the ruler of this world in John 12, and Prince of the power of the air in Ephesians 2, Jesus knocks Satan off his throne by taking the sin of the world to the cross and dying for us so that we can receive new life through Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Compare Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Satan to Jesus, born to a simple couple from a simple place, born in a stable and a refugee soon after birth. Philippians 2 reminds us, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Because of Jesus’ humility and obedience, Paul continues in this song from Philippians, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Every knee, even the most powerful will kneel to Jesus, whether Caesar, Trump or Putin, all power will be on their knees before Mary’s child!

Mary’s song continues pointing to a world that will be turned upside down, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” The first echo I heard was the echo to Jesus’ parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. Lazarus ends up in heaven while the rich man ends up in hell, desperate for a drop of water to ease his burning tongue while Lazarus is with Abraham in heaven. While on earth the rich man had a great life but ignored the poor right outside his own gates, while Lazarus was the sore covered beggar at the gates desperate for the crumbs off the rich man’s table. In Jesus’ upside-down kingdom the beggar is raised up while the clueless rich man is brought down.

I also hear the echo to the Beatitudes, an early picture of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, where Jesus tells his listeners that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. If your heart aches for those who oppressed, for the poor, the widowed, orphaned, homeless, outsider, Jesus will you with his strength and courage to work towards creating a world shaped with the shalom of God. There is a quiet warning here in Mary’s song to be careful that our focus on earth’s comforts and wealth doesn’t consume us, becoming gods in our lives who take Jesus’ place.

Mary’s song ends with God’s mercy to his people as he promised so many years earlier. God is a promise keeper, a God who never abandons his people, a God who saves his people, all through this child that is now growing in Mary, the child who calls us to go make disciples of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom.

 

Luke 1:26-38 Gabriel Announces

 

Advent has begun; a time of waiting shaped by excitement and anticipation, even during a time of pandemic. As I walk through our neighbourhood, a lot of people are putting their lights and trees up early, needing an early boost of hope this year. Christmas and advent are a time of hope where, for a short time we try to lay the burdens of the rest of the year aside, looking to the baby in a manger to give us the hope we all need. This advent our theme is “A Saviour Made Known,” a theme that will keep pointing us to the Christ child who has come to make sense of this world, to bring the healing and grace that is so needed. We begin with a heavenly visitor and a young woman engaged to be married to a humble carpenter.

This is such a familiar story to us; God sending his messenger Gabriel to a small nothing town and an ordinary simple girl Mary, and yet we keep wanting to hear it again every year. As we listen to the story of Gabriel and Mary, we can almost feel Mary’s fear, wonder and awe-filled confusion at what’s happening as this creature from heaven appears to her. While Mary is really important to this story, the main story here is God at work fulfilling his promise of a saviour, how his plan to bring the promised saviour is going to happen.

God doesn’t hide his plan from Mary, he announces exactly what he’s doing through Gabriel, giving Mary the opportunity to say “yes,” knowing what lies ahead for her. Saying “yes” means that Mary will face disgrace from her parents and community since she and Joseph aren’t completely married yet, she will be shamed in her town as an unwed mother, and she’s got to be wondering what Joseph is going to say and do when he finds out; you can only hide a pregnancy for so long. When Mary asks, “How will this be since I’m a virgin,” she’s showing Gabriel that she realizes her baby is not going to be Joseph’s son.

Gabriel reminds Mary that nothing is impossible with God, or how the NIV 2011 translates it, “For no word from God will ever fail.” He goes on to tell Mary that “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” We hear a number of echoes here to other times in Scripture. The first is when the Spirit of God filled the tabernacle in Exodus 40 once Moses finishes it, “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” God does the same thing when Solomon dedicates the temple to God in 2 Chronicles 7, “When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it.” These are powerful moments when God shows his presence in clear ways.

But there is also the echo forward to when Jesus goes to the mountaintop with Peter, James and John in Matthew 17, “After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The picture of God overshadowing indicates God personal presence, this is what Mary is hearing when Gabriel tells her the Holy Spirit will overshadow her: God is right here.

But again, this is not about Mary, but about the son Mary is having. Gabriel tells Mary who her son is going to be. Her son is to be called Jesus, which means ‘the Lord saves,’ and “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, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Jesus is the Son of the Most High, which means that Mary will be the mother of God; she truly is favoured by God! Gabriel is pointing to Jesus’ divinity, revealing that Jesus will be God’s own son. Jesus is not going to be half god and half human like the children in Greek and Roman mythology, humans with super powers; but Jesus is fully God, and through Mary, fully human.

The wonder in this story is not that Mary is going to have a baby as a virgin, the wonder is that God is becoming a baby, is becoming vulnerable and helpless, is only going to be able to survive because of a human couple willing to become a butt of local jokes, willing to be shamed because God becomes one of us. There is nothing that can compare to this ever. We can try to craft stories of princes becoming paupers, but even those stories only hint at what God is doing, becoming one of us in order to save us.

Jesus comes to save us, not from Rome, but from our sin. As God, Jesus is powerful and strong enough to carry all our sins to the cross, but as human, Jesus is able to take our punishment on himself for the entire human race. The cradle leads to the cross, to the grave and resurrection and then the throne at the right hand of God. Jesus is going to be a king even greater than Caesar as Jesus is the king of the kingdom of heaven that encompasses all of creation, not just an empire with boundaries. Christmas depends on Good Friday and Easter for its meaning and importance.

Mary answers Gabriel, “I am the Lord’s servant, may your word to me be fulfilled.” In churches, we often focus on the second part of what Mary says, “may your word to me be fulfilled,” and it’s a powerful response that echoes Jesus’ words to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, where just before his crucifixion, Jesus asks God for another path to follow instead of the cross, but in the end, Jesus tells God, “Not my will, but yours be done.” We focus on Mary’s decision to follow God’s plan; it sounds to us as if it’s her choice to follow God’s plan or not.

But when we listen to Mary through the first part of her response, we get a different picture, “I am the Lord’s servant.” The word Mary uses is doulos and means servant or slave. As God’s slave, something that Paul later often calls himself, Mary doesn’t have a choice to have the baby Jesus, instead she’s acknowledging that God’s plans for her life take priority over her original plans for her life, that God has the power to do as he desires and she will be obedient to God’s plan. I realize how this sounds in our culture today with all the abuse against women and the #MeToo revelations of men using their power against women, yet Mary, as we shall see in her song next week, completely trusts in the faithfulness of her God to her. This is an echo of the trust that Ruth places in Boaz the night she appears at the threshing floor and offers herself to Boaz. Throughout Israel’s history, God has shown himself to be trustworthy and faithful to his people, even when they have not been faithful to him.

So, when we hear Mary say, “may your word to me be fulfilled,” Mary is being obedient to God’s call and plans for her life, to the word from God. She’s telling God she is his faithful servant and accepts the responsibility to give birth to God’s son and raise him to know God and be faithful to his heavenly father.

The word from God spoken to Mary is the same word spoken at the beginning of creation. This same word is now creating a new life in Mary, the Word, as John says at the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The light comes as a baby born in a stable in a dark time of Israel’s history, bringing new life and hope to all the nations of the world, bringing light still to us today, bringing hope and new life to everyone willing to accept Jesus as your king and become his slave to continue the work of the kingdom of heaven. Are you willing to become a slave of Jesus?

Jeremiah 35:18-19; 2 Timothy 1:1-5 A Legacy That Lasts

 

When you get to a certain age in life, you start doing some looking back and wondering what your legacy is going to be, what difference have you made in the world, what are people going to remember you for, are you even going to be remembered by anyone other than family? Legacies might be something like a statue or a street named after you because you contributed to the community in a special way, it might be a scholarship at a school or university because you believe it contributes great value to the community, it might be knowledge that you leave behind, this past week a neuroscientist died in Edmonton and his colleagues talked about some of the breakthroughs he had made. Sometimes your legacy is your kindness and spirit of service like Joey Moss in Edmonton.

Sports teams talk about creating a legacy of winning so that when the team does go through hard times, it has a goal to work towards, a legacy to inspire them. But it takes hard work and dedication to create a winning legacy, because legacies can also be negative, teams that never measure up to their potential, families that seem to have a legacy of addiction or failure, and others.

The Bible doesn’t use the word legacy, but the idea is there when the Bible talks about a lasting influence that carries on in certain families through the generations. God says to Moses in Exodus 34, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” In Genesis 17, God tells Abram, “I will be your God and the God of your descendants,” calling them to be faithful to him. This is legacy language and imagery.

The story of Jehonadab is a story of legacy. We first come across Jehonadab in 2 Kings 10 where he joins Jehu in overthrowing the evil King Ahab. Jehu has taken care of Ahab’s wife Queen Jezebel, and now he’s going after Ahab and the worship of Baal in Israel. Jehonadab joins Jehu in killing all the ministers of Baal and destroying the temple of Baal. Jehonadab is passionately devoted to following God. As part of his devotion to God, Jehonadab commands his children to not drink wine, to live in tents and not become farmers, and trust God to provide. For a people who have extremely close ties to the land, these commands will set his family apart from most others as a sign of their faith and trust in God. We don’t find out about these commands to his family until hundreds of years later.

After helping Jehu, Jehonadab and his family disappear from the story until God mentions Jehonadab’s family to Jeremiah, hundreds of years later. God is talking to Israel through Jeremiah and he’s not happy. Israel keeps rejecting him, keeps embracing other gods and all the disgusting practices that come with following those gods. Read through Ezekiel to discover some of the disgusting things the Israelites would do in the temple; it just might turn your stomach. God sees Jehonadab’s children and uses their obedience to their father as a comparison to the disobedience of Israel to their father in heaven, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘Will you not learn a lesson and obey my words?’ declares the Lord. ‘Jehonadab son of Rekab ordered his descendants not to drink wine and this command has been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me. Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They said, “Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have given to you and your ancestors.” But you have not paid attention or listened to me. The descendants of Jehonadab son of Rekab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.” This is legacy impact, it’s who the children of Jehonadab have become, their identity.

A legacy of faith; I pray this is what we want, not just as individuals, but also as a church family. There’re a number of beautiful things to who we are that are legacy kinds of things: planting churches such as Ponoka and Wolf Creek and some wonderful support type of ministries such as Friendship and Circle of Friends. But these are simply the outward signs of a deeper legacy: a church family committed to faith and obedience to Jesus; to building lives centered on following Jesus wherever he leads us, placing Jesus first in our lives and keeping Jesus at the center of all our ministry. This doesn’t just happen, it takes deliberate choices to follow Jesus, to obey him in every area of our lives.

A legacy like this begins with a family commitment to God; a commitment to passing down the faith through teaching and modelling Jesus in every aspect of our lives. We see this in Timothy’s life, as Paul says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” Yet it’s not just Timothy’s grandmother and mother who has been important in passing on the faith to Timothy, Paul has also invested in Timothy. If we desire to create a legacy of faith here in Bethel, it will take all of us as a family of faith investing in our children, youth and young adults; each of us taking personal responsibility for building supportive relationships with them, encouraging them to explore their God given gifts, sharing with them our stories of faith and God working in and through us, and helping them see where God is at in their lives.

It takes obedience. Jesus tells us that if we truly love him, we will keep his commands, yet most people find obedience hard. This began already with Adam and Eve who couldn’t keep one simple command, “Don’t eat from that tree.” Ever since, our first impulse is to do things our way rather than Jesus’ way because our way feels like it gets us more than God’s way. Our way feels more fun than God’s way, which is probably why our ways tend to get us in so much trouble and leads so often to unhappiness and brokenness. This is why God hi-lights Jehonadab’s descendants for their obedience, because it’s not common. Be honest, do you give every thought, desire and action over to Jesus to shape and guide them? A faith legacy is rooted in dedicated obedience to Jesus. This is a deliberately chosen life.

This leads to the next step in creating a strong faith legacy: it’s lived it out in our day to day lives, we make our faith an everyday everywhere faith. This means that Jesus’ commands become more than rules, they become our life, living them out deeply in every relationship, shaping everything we do; shaping our thoughts, words and actions. This is why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the laws of Israel and tells the people that following the laws isn’t enough, we have to follow the heart of the law, we need to think about why God has given us these laws, who God is shaping us to be through the laws. This is why anger gets equaled with murder, lust gets equally with adultery, why mocking your brother and calling him fool gets you on the road to hell instead of heaven. It’s not easy, but Jesus never promises easy, he promises hard but valuable. A legacy of faith is deeply valuable.

I’m reminded of what Wayne Gretzky learned after losing to the New York Islanders in the finals, “Walking past the dressing room of the Islanders after having lost the Stanley Cup, we looked in and saw the Islanders lying on massage tables, in ice baths, getting heat wraps from the trainers and then it hit me what kind of a sacrifice it takes to win.” It’s the same with creating a faith legacy, it takes hard work, always focused on Jesus. Jehonadab told his children to not drink wine and not to live in houses. He realized that as soon as we become comfortable, the pressure is off to keep focused on God. Jehonadab wanted his children and grandchildren to never get comfortable so that they would stay focused on God. I wonder what that would look like today for us.

A faith legacy is about investing in our children, young people and young adults; mentoring and discipling them in real meaningful relationships where faith is shared and modelled and those who are older humbly learn from our youth and young adults about how culture and society has changed and the new challenges in living a faith rooted in Jesus. We also need to be open and honest with our own struggles, not appearing perfect, but rather being seen as forgiven sinners in the hands of a gracious God. A living legacy is consistent hard work with a laser like focus.

Proverbs 22:1-6; Ephesians 6:1-4 Meet the Parents

 

“Like father, like son,” is a common proverb I am finding out is truer every day as I look at who I am as a person, a husband, and father. Many of my habits, beliefs and character come directly from my dad and grandfather. I will admit that I sometimes cringe at this, because I have inherited some of my dad’s weirdest habits, along with the good stuff. Sorry youth, I always said I wouldn’t become like my dad, but I have, and as you get older, you will also look more and more like your mom or dad too! Yet with all the weird and good mixed together, my parents tried hard to be faithful to God’s call to them to make raising kids who love God their first priority. They wanted us all to be successful in all areas of life, but faith and character where their priorities, as for most Christian parents.

To all the parents and grandparents out there this morning, can you relate to this comment made by an anonymous pastor, “Sometimes we are so involved with simply living life day to day and week to week that we fail to keep the big picture in mind; that we parents are shaping a whole new generation.” Our passages from Proverbs and Ephesians this morning remind us again of what our first priority needs to be as parents: to raise them to know and love the Lord above all else in wisdom. In the Bible, wisdom is about learning to live well with God, each other, ourselves and creation. Wisdom is outward looking, living to bless others and the community. Wisdom usually leads to sacrificial living; parenting is all about sacrificial living, determining what is best for our children rather than focusing on what they want. Wisdom is about developing biblical character.

Our passage this morning from Proverbs connects together through verses 1 and 6. When you read scripture, to figure where a story or passage begins and ends, or to figure out the main theme, you look for repetition of words or ideas. These verses are a smaller section within a larger section that stretches from verses 1-16 and that main theme is training our children that character is better than gold and silver. Verse 1 begins with, “A good name is more desirable than great riches,” while verse 6 is more well-known to many of us, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” Wisdom literature says that if you live this way, if you walk this way, normally this is what will happen. This is why some of us as parents live with the heartbreak of children who have walked away from God, even though we raised them to know and love Jesus.

A good name comes from our parents, a gift we hand down to our children. Ecclesiastes 7:1 tells us that, “A good name is better than fine perfume.” Another way to translate it is, “A good reputation is more desirable than fine oil.” There is an echo forward here to the woman who arrives at a dinner Jesus is at and pours a jar of precious perfume over his feet and then washes his feet with her hair. Fine oils were used for anointing and special occasions, making them valuable and desirable, but our family name and reputation is even more important according to Solomon. The wisdom and character needed to have a good name is found in the next few verses. We’re called to value people because we are all created in the image of God, we’re not to judge a person by how much money they have. We just need to look at Jesus’ life to see how Jesus honoured many people that the wealthy and influential looked down on, hanging out with those on the fringes of society rather than with those in power. Wisdom gives us the ability to recognize danger and deal with it well, this is why Jesus calls us to follow him and calls himself ‘the way’ to show us how to live wisely. A humble heart is wiser than a proud heart. One of the things Jesus taught was to serve rather than be served.

When I hear the warning about snares and pitfalls, I hear the echo to Psalm 1, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” Wicked often seems exciting and appealing and it never lives up to its promises, it always ends up taking from us emotionally, spiritually and even physically. This is why parents need to be aware of their children’s friends and activities so that they have those discussions on what wisdom looks like in their friendships.

This is why Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Talking about God needs to happen regularly as part of our normal daily lives. In Deuteronomy 4, Moses gets the grandparents involved too, telling us to pay attention to our own lives, “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.”

It’s becoming more and more important that as parents, we teach our children wisdom around social media. It’s not only about safety, but also about character and a Christ-like presence on social media. How do we show our children and grandchildren how to be a positive presence that builds others up instead of tearing people down, that brings peace and hope rather than anger and rage, how to recognize wisdom and truth rather than the loudest rage that attracts the most clicks and likes? This means as parents we need to be aware of our presence online and how we respond. Kevin DeYoung writes, “Brothers and sisters, it’s OK to have an unarticulated thought. It’s OK to go about our lives in quiet worship and obedience. It’s OK to do your homework, read your Bible, raise your kids, and make your private thoughts prayers instead of posts.”

In Ephesians 6, Paul addresses the children, reminding them to obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honour your father and mother”—which is the first command with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on earth.” Parents are important, they’re a gift from God who love you, take care of you, put up with you when you’re crabby, they also are the ones who are going to invest in you more than anyone else ever will, they willing sacrifice themselves for you, even though you don’t often recognize it; this is why God calls us to honour our parents. Your parents work hard at modelling faith in Jesus to you, showing you in words and actions that Jesus is number 1 in their lives and you are probably a really high number 2. Parents teach us how to forgive, how to offer grace and mercy, while also holding us accountable for our actions and how to live life wisely.

God is our example of fatherhood and parenthood. He is both righteous and just, teaching us right from wrong and punishing us when we sin so that we learn what a healthy full life looks like in Jesus. That’s what parents do because they want the best for us. Following Jesus is about personal continual change, about character in action, about living life shaped by Jesus, it’s for our children’s sake, but also our own.

God guides us, teaches us what our lives should look like so that we can keep his name good; parents pass on to their children a good name to keep, as well as passing on Jesus’ name to them as we carry the name Jesus, the best name! God is merciful and gracious, teaching us the cost of forgiveness in sending Jesus, his son, to take our punishment on himself so that we can experience new life and reconciliation with God our father. That’s also what parents do, they want healthy close loving relationships with their children and are willing to sacrifice greatly to make that happen, just as God our father wants.

Parenting is the most important responsibility you will ever be given, but parents cannot raise their children alone, this is why at baptism, we promise as a church to help raise all our children to know the Lord, to follow Jesus and carry his good name and keep it good. We need the church to help parents raise their children in the Lord. So, whether you are married with children, married without children, or single, we all have the responsibility to raise our children in the Lord. This is an amazing witness to our communities when we join together to invest in our children as parents, and as a church family, to raise hope-filled children and young adults who know their call to live for Jesus.

Joshua 24:15; Acts 16:32-34 It Takes a Family

 

The story of Joshua is too often overlooked in favour of other great men and women in the Bible. Noah, Moses, Samson, David, Solomon, Peter and others seem to capture our attention the most while Joshua remains in the background. The others seem to have lived much more exciting lives! I believe part of it is his unshakeable faithfulness in his commitment to following God. For Joshua, as we are reminded in this verse, a verse often found on plaques in many Christian homes, faith is a family affair, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua is near the end of his life, and what a life it was! He was born in Egypt, saw God save his people from Egypt’s slavery, saw God part the waters of the Red Sea, and then destroy Pharaoh's army so Israel could feel truly safe and unafraid because God is on their side. Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies sent into the Promised Land to scout it out that trusted God to help them win the land, and Joshua wandered with the Israelites for 40 years before being chosen to lead Israel after Moses’ death, leading Israel into the promised Land and helping them to settle in the land and conquer the peoples living there.

Now Joshua gathers the leaders in Israel; the elders, leaders, judges, and officials, and reminds them of who God is and who they are as God’s people, calling them to stay true to the Lord. Joshua now challenges them to choose: are they going to follow the idol gods of the nations they’ve just defeated or are they going to follow Yahweh who has chosen them as his people? Joshua clearly states where he and his family stand, “But as for me and my household we will serve the Lord.” Joshua’s decision is for himself and his entire household, it’s a family affair. Family is more than just parents and kids, it’s the entire family: aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins and those who have become part of the family even if they aren’t blood related. 

Fathers and mothers, are you declaring publicly with words and actions that you and your family are serving the Lord only, that you’re putting aside your other gods? God chooses us, we need to choose him. As a family, is Jesus central to the choices and decisions you make, is Jesus central to your life and how you live? Aunts and uncles, how are you modeling Jesus in your life, how are you investing in the faith of your nieces and nephews and showing them how to live a Jesus centered life? Older brothers and sisters, how are you helping your younger brothers and sister choose to serve Jesus first? If you have no family here in Bethel, if you’re a single person here, how are you investing in your church family, helping others to choose Jesus first, investing in the children, youth, families, or seniors here to grow in their faith? church, how are you enfolding our singles into your families? 

Just as Joshua declares that he and his household will serve the Lord, we see something similar happening in the story of the Philippian jailor. Unlike Joshua, the jailor didn’t have the opportunity to see God at work in mighty ways, defeating powerful kingdoms, providing for the needs of his people for 40 years. Instead the jailor sees the faithfulness and grace of Paul and Silas in not escaping from the jail when their chains were loosened and the prison doors opened. Paul and Silas saved his life in not escaping when they had the opportunity, and in their actions, the jailor knows there’s something missing in his life and so he cries out to Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” The answer? “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

There’s something going on here, can someone who doesn’t believe be saved just because they belong to the right family? Is that what Paul and Silas is saying? In the jailor’s time, when the father converted, the entire family would convert. The household knew the importance of faith together. They knew the importance of parental leadership for the entire family; we’ll get more into that next week. Our children need to be taught how to make wise decisions, but the choice to follow Jesus begins as a family decision by the parents, sometimes it begins with one parent deciding for the family to follow Jesus. It all starts with faith in Jesus Christ. It’s about taking Jesus seriously, after-all he took us seriously, going to the cross and the grave for us and rising up from the dead so we can have new life. Jesus takes us seriously, getting us to carry on the work he begun to bring the gospel into the world, going so far to tell his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

What makes faith a family affair? It’s the support, encouragement, and family wisdom that makes faith a family affair. It’s grandparents helping out their children to pass the faith on to the grandchildren. It’s the uncles and aunts coming alongside their sibling to help teach the faith to their nephews and nieces and show how faith works in real life, how Jesus’ forgiveness and grace brings new life and the challenge to dedicate ourselves completely to Jesus. It’s how the extended family and close friends who are like family, are there to encourage, teach, and model commitment to Jesus through the wisdom gained through living life; holding each other accountable to their faith commitment to Jesus, sharing their stories of failures and victories in following Jesus and how their faith carried them after messing up and how Jesus gave them the strength to confess and then change. In Galatians 6, Paul says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” There is that connection we have to each other, no matter what our bloodline is, Jesus’ blood trumps everyone else’s.

One of the positives I see coming out of these times is how families are worshipping together as families, all sitting together and worshipping together as a family rather then scattering throughout the sanctuary or building. With slower schedules, more families are taking the time for family devotions again. When we were in Ontario for our nephew’s wedding a few weeks back, one of the great things was gathering together as a broader family to eat and pray together. As families together, we learn and model how to pray and listen to God and the working of the Holy Spirit. We model together as a church family for the children and youth of our church how to spend time in prayer; talking and listening to God and responding to God. We have this commitment to each other through Jesus, as Paul reminds us in Romans 12, “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

Following Jesus as families and households helps us to understand and practice forgiveness and grace. There is no family that has no opportunities to practice forgiveness. In practicing forgiveness, we help each other to understand God’s forgiveness; when we suffer the consequences of how we sometimes treat each other, we understand better the cross as the consequence of what we’ve done. Because it’s Jesus on the cross instead of us, we learn what grace looks like. When we live this out in the context of the church family, we become a powerful witness for what new life in Jesus can look like to others.

Within the household of faith, we’re better able to live out a joy-filled faith that’s rooted in Jesus, trusting in God, and listening to the Holy Spirit; a relationship based on commitment and trust in God and in each other. We never need to walk alone. Even when we cannot be with each other in person, we know that we’re not forgotten because the household of faith keeps reaching out to make sure no one feels forgotten or alone in times such as these; we remind each other that Jesus promises that he is with us always. Today encouragement might come through the phone, messenger, Zoom, Facebook live, Instagram, or even through TikTok. Some of us need to learn how to use these tools better so we can also use them to help each other continue to grow in our faith, in our relationship with Jesus, and with each other as families joined together as a church family rooted in Jesus.

Matthew 9:35-38 The Workers are Few

 

Jesus is in Galilee, travelling among the villages and towns of the area. Galilee is in the north, in the area of the Sea of Galilee, north of the area of Samaria and Judea. Jesus is proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and as a sign that his ministry is from God, Jesus is healing every disease and sickness with power that can only come from God. In chapters 8 and 9, Jesus heals a leper, Peter’s mother-in-law, casts out demons, calms a storm, heals a paralytic and a woman who bled for 12 years without finding a cure until Jesus. Jesus raises a young girl from the dead, gives sight to a blind man and a voice to a mute man, and casts out demons. One after another, Matthew in rapid fire, tells of one healing or miracle right after another. It’s almost overwhelming as you read through these two chapters.

This follows Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where Jesus lays out what life looks like in the kingdom of heaven, how the values of the kingdom of heaven, and how we understand the reality of life, is different from the world around us. Jesus reveals a kingdom focused on community and helping others flourish, while our world encourages us to normally focus on serving ourselves first; the kingdom of heaven focuses on purity and holiness while our world focuses on pleasure, power, and gathering stuff for ourselves first. An English Literature class in a Texas university was given the Sermon on the Mount and asked to write a response to it. The professor was surprised at the anger the Sermon on the Mount created in many of the students. One student wrote, “It is completely unrealistic and unreasonable that anyone would expect people to live by such outrageous standards. They are impossible to follow.” The gospel does create high expectations for those who choose to follow Jesus.

Matthew now shows Jesus moving into the next stage of his ministry. Jesus is travelling through the towns and villages of Galilee, a more agricultural area in the north by the Sea of Galilee, calling the people to repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is near. Galilee is a place of regular people who work hard, raise their families to know God and follow him. Their faith has made them passionate though for the coming of the promised Messiah, and this led them to produce a number of revolutionaries who fought against the rule of Rome. The Zealots, which Peter and Judas Iscariot sympathized with, had their roots in Galilee. Wikipedia describes them this way, “The Zealots objected to Roman rule and violently sought to eradicate it by generally targeting Romans and Greeks.” Rome fought back, once crucifying 2,000 rebels at one time. At the same time, Jerusalem and the people of Judea looked down their noses at Galilee as a backwater of ignorant uneducated people. This created a lot of uneasiness in the land, which increased the hope for the Messiah. This is the context Jesus is bringing the gospel news in.

Crowds of people keep coming out to hear Jesus and get healed. There’s a searching for hope, life is often hard under Rome. Jesus brings a message of hope. Jesus sees that they are harassed and helpless, disrespected by both Rome and Jerusalem; like sheep without a shepherd and he has compassion on them. The people were looking for someone to follow who would care for them. We hear echoes back to the Old Testament prophets; Ezekiel 34:23–24, “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.” The prophet Micaiah prophesied in 1 Kings 22:17, ^“I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.”

Jesus comes as the Good Shepherd, the compassionate shepherd who protects his sheep, who has come to lead them to places of safety where they can rest and flourish. In Matthew’s story here, Jesus moves from sheep imagery to farming and a picture of harvest time. Galilee is a farming community, and as Jesus is walking the roads, the roads are lined with fields of grain and wheat and barley. It must have been harvest time as Jesus is walking through the area and he uses the image of a harvest to encourage his followers to see and recognize the opportunity to bring the people hope, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.”  

I wonder if the disciples scratched their heads at what Jesus has just told them? It’s easy for us to see how Jesus creates the conditions in our hearts where the seed of faith is able to grow and flourish. The church, our families, Christian schools and Christian groups in public schools, friendships, and more are all part of how our seeds of faith grow and we’re able to flourish as followers of Jesus. But the kingdom of heaven has a way of turning our worlds and lives upside down; in order to really flourish in our faith, we are called to die to ourselves and our wants and desires.

In John, Jesus talks about wheat producing many seeds, John 12:24, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Jesus is the Shepherd who gives us the seed of faith as a gift to grow in our hearts, but Jesus is also the shepherd who gives his life for his sheep so that the seeds to faith may produce many more seeds, where his sheep can go and bring many more sheep into the shepherd’s care. Jesus dies so we can be free from the punishment our sin deserves, Jesus’ resurrection offers us new life. We’re then called to die to our own wants and desires and to care for the things and people Jesus cares for.

Jesus’ teaching, miracles and compassion have soaked into the people’s hearts. The soil has been prepared, the seeds planted and nourished, and now the fields are ripe for harvest. Right after Jesus tells the disciples the harvest is plentiful; he gives them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Jesus gives them these orders, “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” The disciples are to call the people to “Repent and believe for the kingdom is near,” the same message Jesus brought and the power is a sign they are bringing God’s message. The disciples are to call the people to follow Jesus and accept him and the harvest is plentiful.

The situation today is not that different from Jesus’ time. COVID, conspiracy theories, political systems gone haywire, a tendency to conflict and division have all combined to create a sense of anxiety, frustration, confusion, fear, and more in many people today. One study recently has said that up to 60% of the people in Alberta have seen a negative downturn in their mental health and I would add, that there are many people wondering if there is anyone left who really cares about them instead of just using them. People are searching for something, or someone they can trust and rely on to guide them through this time in a healthy way. I see the Holy Spirit at work preparing the people’ hearts for the gospel news of Jesus Christ and we are the workers the Spirit is using to bring in the harvest.

We follow a God who cares, a God who understands our fears and anxieties because Jesus became human just like us. This is the hope we offer, a compassionate Jesus who has placed his people here to bring the gospel news into our anxious, divided society and create safe communities where people can find rest and renewal in these troubled times in Jesus. I like how Karen Ehman puts it, “You know, when we get to heaven someday, I like to imagine what the Lord will say to us. I don’t think we are going to be congratulated on our successes in our careers or even applauded for our parenting. Do you know what I imagine the Lord saying to us? The same thing I say to my son when I notice that he and the shoe pile have arrived at our place. “Oh, hey. You’re home! Who’d you bring with ya?”

Who’d you bring with ya?