Isaiah 65:17–25 The Garden Place

 

We’re here today to say goodbye to dad, a little delayed, but still an important time for us as a family to remember a good father who worked hard and taught us about honour and faithfulness. When I asked my siblings about what Dad’s favourite Bible verses were, we couldn’t think of any specific verse or verses because our dad’s faith was a quiet faith; more lived out than spoken. Dad wanted us to know Jesus, wanted us to have a good relationship with God. He worked extra jobs to make sure that we could go to the Christian school, he faithfully supported the church, and he spent many hours using his gifts of woodworking and handyman skills to help out anyone who needed an extra hand. One of dad’s biggest regrets is that he was never asked to serve on any church council. He had always wanted to have the opportunity to serve the church this way, especially as a deacon, but the churches never recognized his passion for the church, or his talents this way.

Dad loved the outdoors. He was a fisherman, a hunter, and later on in life, a gardener. This was a big part of the reason he and mom bought their place out on Highway 597. It allowed him to build a huge workshop and have a small farm. He spent a lot of time working on those acres, improving them, and creating a safe place for the entire family. This image in Isaiah 65 describes Dad’s image of heaven as a home, a place to work hard, enjoy the fruits of your labour, and to be with loved ones sharing a good meal and a glass of Bokma gin at the end of the day, not quite the fruit of the vineyard, but close. This passage in Isaiah is a picture of what shalom looks like, good relationships with God, with each other, with ourselves, and with creation around us.

Vineyards and gardens are a great example of God providing, of flourishing, and of plenty. We see it starting in the Garden of Eden, where God placed Adam and Eve to care for it. Gardens are places we create and maintain today to provide food and to grow beautiful plants that bring joy, such as the plants and flowers we fill our homes with and give to others to show them that we are thinking about them. Dad loved gardening, especially in his later years; growing kale and garlic with Caroline for the market garden where people were eager to buy his produce because of its high quality. It was also a time where Dad could meet and chat with others who enjoyed gardening like he did. The garden was a place of peace for Dad.

Verses 20 and 23 talks about children dying before having an opportunity to really know life, of adults dying young, and about children of misfortune. Dad and Mom dedicated their lives and our family to give children who didn’t have a safe place, a place of safety that they could call home, a place where they could have family when their own families weren’t always a safe place. Fostering was a big part of who Dad and Mom were and they taught us that family is all about relationship more so than blood.

Our two sisters, Theresa and Toni came into our family through adoption, but they were never treated as less, but always as full family, along with Glennie, who came into our family at just a few days old and spent his entire life as part of the Boer clan. Toni and Glennie went home too early, as Isaiah talks about here, but God used Dad and Mom to welcome them into our mixed up, sometimes messed up, family. It always helped me to understand that being an adopted child of God is all about belonging and being accepted as precious and dearly loved.  

But this passage also reminds us that sin infects us all, that there are infants who do only live a few days, that there are wars and sounds of weeping and crying, that sin is why we’re here today because sin brought death to us as a penalty for our sin. We know Dad wasn’t a perfect man, he had his challenges with anger and frustration at times and wasn’t always able to articulate his anger well. Yet he always acted out of deep love for his family and wanted the best for us, even if we didn’t always appreciate it.

Isaiah writes, “They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.” These verses remind me of the house Dad built in Murillo, and there are lots of stories of building this house with Dad, running on the rafters, almost falling through, knocking a box of roofing nails into the gravel around the house and having to pick them all up again, and the joy of living in a small village with good family friends close by. But Dad and Mom couldn’t afford to keep the house and had to sell. I can picture Dad on a plot of land right now looking it over and planning out the house he’s going to build next and the garden plot in the back.

We mourn with hope because Jesus came to take our sin on himself so that we can know the peace that comes from being set free from our sin, that death is now a door we walk through to go to heaven. When Dad went home to the Lord last fall, Jesus was right there with him, as he tells his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus came to escort Dad to the place that was ready for him in God’s mansion; a place at the banquet table where Jesus is the host, and our loved ones who have gone on before Dad are there with him.

Dad is with Jesus now, in a place where he’s home and healed and his dementia is gone and he can enjoy his new life and the use again the gifts God has given him for creating beauty with wood, and growing his garden, watered by the river of the water of life, and at the end of the day, sitting on the bank with a fishing rod in his hand as we see in Revelation 22:1–4, “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.”

The day will come when we will see Dad and Mom again, until that time, we are the fruit that they have created, families who know and follow Jesus and work to create places of shalom around us that reflect Jesus’ love and grace to others.

Joshua 24:1-28 Worship—Renewing our relationship with God

Two weeks ago, we began our series on worship, seeing worship as a time to hear God’s promises to us and to express our faith together as a community of people who are committed to following God. Last week we reflected on Nehemiah and how the people came to worship God and engaged in a time of deep confession and repentance. This week we’re going back to the time of Joshua when he called the people together to remember God’s faithfulness and to call them to renew their relationship with God. This is near the end of Joshua’s life, he’s led Israel in a time of conquest over the nations living in the Promised Land, claiming the land for God and Israel. Joshua didn’t completely succeed in conquering the entire land, but it’s time to end the warfare and to settle into the land and build homes, plant fields, and raise families. Joshua calls the people together in a time of worship and remembrance of God’s faithfulness.

Joshua begins by reminding the people of their history, reminding with them of God’s love, patience, mercy, and guidance from the time of Abraham until now. Remembering is a big part of worship for it gives us the reason and strength to trust God today, we look back to help us believe and trust today. Joshua reminds the people that the reason they’re in the Promised Land right now, getting ready to settle down is all because of God’s commitment to the promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s a faithful God, making even pagan prophets bless Israel while delivering the Israelites out of Balak’s power. Joshua wraps up his telling of God’s story with Israel by declaring, "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

Joshua doesn’t just tell God’s story with Israel, he challenges the people to make a choice, “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.” Joshua’s challenge fascinates me because we see that even though God has done amazing things in providing for his people: leading them out of slavery, protecting them from the nations around them, giving them the gift of the Law, and an identity as his people, the Israelites were still attracted to the gods and idols of the other nations, even hanging onto idols they’ve gathered along the way to the Promised Land!

Joshua even suggests that serving the Lord might be undesirable to them after everything God has done for them! “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’” With everything God has done for them, how can they choose against God, yet I hear echoes here of Adam and Eve who were in a garden they didn’t plant, where life was good and God proved for them in everything, and yet they still listened to Satan over God.

It makes me wonder if there are idols and gods in our own lives that we might be carrying around in our hearts, perhaps not even realizing that they’re there, slowly draining away our commitment and love for Jesus? When we look at the things we spend most of our money, time, energy, and thoughts on, are they the things God is concerned about and engaged in, or they focused more on things that make our lives more comfortable and easier while ignoring many of the needs and brokenness around us? Tim Keller talks about how the good things that God gives us easily become small gods for us, crowding God out of our lives slowly, often without us even realizing it. Adam and Eve saw the fruit was good and desirable because God creates good things; the knowledge that Satan promised them wasn’t a bad thing, knowledge helps us make wise choices.

The problem was that Adam and Eve didn’t trust God’s love for them, didn’t trust that God knew what was best for them, weren’t patient enough to allow God to give them the knowledge they really needed. It’s like when your mother tells you not to do something, but it’s something you really want to do, so you don’t trust your mother’s wisdom or her concern for what’s best for you, and you do it anyway. How often don’t we learn the hard way that our mothers are much wiser than we were or are?

This is all happening in the context of worship, Joshua and the people are gathered together, worshipping God through remembering his goodness and blessings, being challenged to stay true to God and commit themselves to God alone. The people respond to God, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.” Worship is not simply hearing the stories of God and Jesus, of hearing how Jesus came to earth from heaven to take our sin in himself in order to make us right with God, of how he died and rose again and gave us his Spirit so we can choose him over all other gods out there; we’re called to respond and recommit ourselves to following Jesus, to committing to allow the Holy Spirit to shape our lives, our hearts, and minds.

In worship we recommit ourselves to God and Jesus because we’re God’s children, we’re the body of Jesus placed here in this community to show God’s love for our community, and to serve our community to tells them the stories of Jesus. For Joshua and the Israelites, it means throwing away their idols and recommitting to serve the Lord and serving him with all faithfulness, because he’s God. This looks like recommitting ourselves to obeying Jesus’ call to follow him and to learn to see, love, and bless the people around us.

But Joshua pushes back on the people. Pastor Howard Vanderwell writes, “The people respond to God in verses 16-24. Note the dialog, including both the exhortation and challenge that takes place. "We will serve the Lord” …. “But he is holy and jealous and you have sinned” …. “But we will serve him” … “Then throw away the other gods” … “We will obey him!" Imagine the drama and strength in that dialog!” The people commit to serving the Lord, but Joshua reminds them that the Lord is holy and jealous and they’re sinners, and the people recommit to serving the Lord. Joshua tells them to throw away their other gods, and finally the people go deeper and commit to obeying the Lord. The people move from promising simple service to obedience, to embracing who God is calling them to be as his people by remembering the stories of God’s faithfulness to them.

Joshua makes a new covenant between the people and God and sets up a large stone as a reminder. Every time they see the stone, they’ll remember their promise to obey God and remember all that God has done for them. This is part of our worship services most weeks. We come together, confess our sins, hear the words of God’s forgiveness through Jesus, and then commit together to seek God’s will for our lives. This is the importance, the beauty, and the wonder of worship. In worship, we find encouragement and challenge from each other as we share our stories of how and where God is working in and through our lives.

So how does this all help us as we walk through the days and weeks of our lives? Knowing that God is with us every moment of the day and actively working around us, allows us to walk with confidence that even when things don’t go well. Even when we get things wrong, Jesus is there because he promised to be with us all the time. Even when we end up not being faithful, Jesus remains faithful to us. By renewing our promises to God each week in worship, we remind ourselves that we are God’s people and followers of Jesus who have been called to be witnesses to God’s grace, forgiveness, and acceptance, and to tell the story of Jesus to our world today.

 

 

Nehemiah 9:1-15; 26-37 Worship—Confession and Honesty

 

In our passage this morning, we’re entering the story of Ezra and Nehemiah at an important moment in their story. Nehemiah has led a large group of Israelites back to Israel and they’ve rebuilt the walls of the city, rebuilt the temple, even though it wasn’t as majestic as Solomon’s, and now Nehemiah calls the people to celebrate, and as part of the celebration, the priest Ezra begins reading to the people from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, while the Levites explain what Ezra is reading, “They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.” The people began to weep as they listen to the words of the Law. They realize how far away from following God’s Law they’ve drifted. They hear about the Feast of Tabernacles and so they build booths to live in to remember how God provided for the people in the wilderness for 40 years.

During the entire festival, Ezra reads from the Word of God and a revival begins as the people reflect on their relationship with God and how they have, or have not been following God’s will and Laws. The day before our passage, many of the men who had married foreign women had separated themselves from their wives and children because the Law they just heard read, spoke against such marriages. Ezra 10:3, “Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law.” The wives and children are sent away, just as Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away hundreds of years earlier. So much brokenness. The people gather together and for 3 hours they listen to the Book of the Law and then they spend another 3 hours confessing their sins and worshipping the Lord. This is an intense time!

The history in Ezra and Nehemiah is hard to hear. Husbands set aside their families because they made a choice to marry foreign women, which God has warned against in Deuteronomy 7:1–4, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.  Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.”

We saw this happen with even wise Solomon, who turned away from worshipping God alone, and even built temples and altars to foreign gods, going as far as even kneeling before these altars with his wives. The prophet Malachi, who was a prophet at the same time as Ezra and Nehemiah, talks about God’s purity, but he also talks about God’s dislike of divorce. One thing is really clear, going against God’s ways brings lots of hurt and brokenness.

In their confession, the leaders and people first focus on God’s greatness and goodness; how God is the God who created the universe and all life in it. God chose Abram and made promises to him to give Abraham the land they’re now in, and God kept his promises. In the years afterwards, God protected and provided for his people, revealing his own greatness while doing so. God gives them the gift of the Law to shape and form them into a people who reflect God and the kingdom of heaven.

Now the people go into an intense time of confession. They confess their disobedience, their times of rebellion against God, confessing that God’s gift of the Law was ignored over and over again. The people keep running after other gods and even when God punishes them, as soon as their punishment is over, they run back to their sins again, and then when God allows their enemies to defeat them, as soon as the Israelites cry out to God, he saves them again and again. God sends prophet after prophet, but in this prayer in Nehemiah, they confess that they didn’t pay them a whole lot of attention, just going about their lives doing what they wanted, rather than focusing on God and his Law. One of the themes that shines through in the people’s confession is the acknowledgement that their sin has consequences and that God is perfectly justified in punishing them. They did not make excuses for the mess they’re in, they’re perfectly honest about their sin. Confession is not confession when you’re trying to make excuses about what you’ve done; that’s just trying to shift the blame away from what you’ve done. As the people confess, “In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly.”

Israel’s problem usually wasn’t confession, we see Israel coming back to God and confessing their sin over and over again, even being brutally honest about their sin, but there is one thing their confession doesn’t lead to; to repentance and lasting heart and life change. It’s easy to confess our sin, there are actually a number of people who seem to take great joy in confessing their sins, and then going back and repeating them all over again. There are those who believe that it’s Jesus’ and God’s responsibility to forgive our sins. As long as we confess our sin, we’re alright and can go back to what we were doing. Then there are those who believe that if we’re going to sin, then we should sin boldly, as Martin Luther says, by the way, he’s misquoted, so that God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin is seen to be even greater and glorious. Paul deals with this amazingly twisted way of thinking in Romans 6, “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? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

Sin is powerful in its ability to destroy and twist things so out of shape that they’re no longer recognizable, especially our hearts. Repentance is turning away from sin and evil and turning towards God. John the Baptist is one of the most powerful preachers of repentance, hear his words to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Repentance leads to a changed heart and life, a life shaped by obedience; an obedience that needs to flow out of our relationship with Jesus and is based on trust, love, and a desire to please Jesus, not out of a sense of obligation or guilt. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus wants us to want to keep his commandments because of our love for him, not because we’re afraid of punishment or rejection, but because we belong to him. For John the Baptist, repentance looks like what Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 where people are feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, caring about the people around them. John tells them in Luke 3 to give their extra coat to someone in need, and share their money with the poor. He urges them to make sure they run their business fairly, treating everyone with honour. John calls us to not cheat others. Repentance means living Jesus’ way in everything we do.

Repentance is not just feeling sorry, or getting comfortable with God. It’s about changing the way we live our lives in the world. It’s a wonderful, free life living for God’s kingdom of justice and righteousness and peace in the spirit of love of God and neighbour rather than for ourselves.

Psalm 81 Worship-Our Relationship with God-Built on Promises

 

Worship is such an important part of our relationship with God, and in our relationship with each other, as we come together each week to worship God. The past couple of years have been an unusual time when it comes to worshipping God together. We’ve been blessed by being able to live-stream our services, but there’s still something missing when we worship alone in our homes. In the past, in times of persecution, there were many times that people were unable to gather together and they were only able to worship alone or in small groups, but the desire and pull from the Holy Spirit is always there to join together with others whenever possible. Our relationship with God is personal, but it’s also lived out together as the body of Jesus in the family of God. Like Paul tells us in Romans 12:5, “so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Miroslav Volk, in talking about the importance of relationships with each other in the church, writes, “We are the church” doesn’t mean “We meet occasionally” or “We cooperate in a current project.” Instead, we actually become part of one another.” For those of you unable to come together in person, I encourage you to invite at least one other person or family to join you on Sunday in your home.

In Psalm 81, the first three verses are a command for the people of Israel to come together to worship God. This is a time of joy and celebration, an exciting time of lifting our praise and worship to God. “Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin the music, strike the timbrel, play the melodious harp and lyre. Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival; this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.” Music and song are our heart responses to God, able to express our deepest emotions. The psalms are a large part of the songbook of scripture, helping us to come to God, no matter what our circumstances. These songs take us through the highs and lows of life, leading us to praise and trust in God and his love and grace to us. Worship is not a time for the social club to gather, it’s not school or entertainment, it’s not a passive time, but a time of being with our God, as his people and children. It’s family time where we each have our own roles and place. John Witvliet, a Calvin Seminary professor of worship writes, “We need to be challenged to see worship as a deeply participational, relational activity, in which we are listeners, speakers, promise-receivers, and promise-givers.”

The psalmist then moves into the second part of the psalm, a sermon from God. In worship, we remember the stories of scripture for this is where God reveals himself to us. Scripture reminds us who we are, for better or for worse. The psalmist here takes us back to the stories in Exodus when God rescued Israel from their Egyptian slave-masters, setting them free to follow and worship God. The people called out to God and God acted, he answered them out of a thundercloud. The thundercloud points to power, but also to the hiddenness of God; all the people heard was God’s voice, but they couldn’t see him. The Hebrew word for thundercloud points to secrecy and protection. By speaking from the thundercloud, God was protecting the people from himself. This Psalm reminds the people of Mount Sinai and how only Moses and the elders were allowed on the mountain, and only Moses was invited into God’s presence. Moses speaks to their fear in Exodus 20, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” Worship reminds us that we follow a holy God, a powerful God who calls us to be his and to be holy, dedicated only to him and not turn the good things he gives us into gods.

The psalmist goes on in remembering Mount Sinai, how the people are called into a relationship with only God! “Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—if you would only listen to me, Israel! You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.” God chose Israel as his people in order to bless the nations of the world by bringing the promised Messiah through Israel. God chose Israel to give the nations a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven by calling them to a way of life that showed them who God is.

When they listen to God, God promises to fill their mouths, to provide for them. While those who are against God will be punished, the psalmist reminds the people, “But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” The echoes to how God provided for his people in the wilderness for 40 years and brought them into the Promised Land are loud and clear here. Every morning, except for the Sabbath day, the people woke up to bread on the ground and God provided quail to the people when they complained about a lack of meat. As you read the stories of Israel in the wilderness and in the Promised Land, it becomes clear that the people were seldom satisfied with how God provided food for their bodies or their souls. They complained over and over again. They disobeyed the Law God gave them to shape their lives and hearts into his people over and over and again, often chasing after foreign gods.

Mark D. Roberts writes in The High Calling blog, “The human tendency to follow our own paths is nothing new. In Psalm 81, God laments that his people have been "living according to their own ideas" rather than following God's laws. The result has been dismal. Israel has fallen into all measure of suffering because they prized their own ideas rather than the ways of God. Thus, through the psalm writer, God says, "Oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!" If only Israel would abide by God's ideas rather than their own, then they would be delivered from their enemies and satisfied with God's richest blessings.”

God deeply desires a relationship with us; worship is one of the main ways we express our relationship with God, a time to be with God as family. God sends Jesus to call us to repent and believe and come back to God, since we keep doing our thing instead of God’s thing. We often believe we know better how to live our lives than God does, so we ignore God’s commands and Jesus’ teaching and commands and do what we figure is better, listening more to the voices of our time, rather than to Scripture. Do you really trust that God’s knows what is best for you? Do you really believe that God understands our culture and that his ways are still best for us today?

Worship draws us back to God, reminding us of God’s promises to be our God and that we are his people: that he will provide for us, protect us, and save us. In worship, we come knowing that our relationship with God is not something we have because of how good we are, but because of how good Jesus is, and how in his goodness, he takes God’s wrath on himself in our place. God sent Jesus to fulfill his promise to save us from our sin and make us right with God again. In worship we recommit ourselves to Jesus.

We hear the call in Hebrews to come close to God and stay strong in the faith, Hebrews 10:19–25, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

We don’t come to church to make God love us more. We come together to enjoy and express the faith and hope we have in Jesus through our worship. We come to hear God’s promises, and to promise to follow him, and to encourage and bless each other. Our worship doesn’t end at the final blessing, but it carries on into the week as we spur each other on toward love and good deeds as a part of our worship of God in our families and community.

Mark 16:1-8 Good News-He is Risen

 

The cross is empty. Jesus was crucified, rejected by humanity and God in our place. After that horrific moment when Jesus breathed his last breath, everything changed. Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate to ask him for Jesus’ body. Pilate’s surprised that Jesus died so quickly, so he asks the centurion if it’s true that Jesus is dead. The centurion confirms that Jesus is dead, so Pilate gives Joseph Jesus’ dead body. Mark mentions a number of times that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James see Jesus die and where he’s buried. Tim Keller, quoting Richard Bauckman, writes that “this is another way that Mark is letting us know that he’s recording a historical account, not writing a legend.” Mentioning the women by name so often is Mark’s way of telling his readers to go talk to them and check out the truth of what he’s writing.

But now what? The cross may be empty, but Jesus is dead and his body, along with their hope, lay in a dark tomb. When you don't know what to do, it's easiest to simply do the practical thing right in front of you; so, the women get together to go and anoint Jesus' body with aromatic spices.

But there’s a large stone in front of the tomb. How are they going to roll it away? They don't let their worries stop them. They'll figure out what to do when they get there; simple practical decisions, figuring things out one step at a time. Imagine their surprise when they arrive at the tomb and it's open already. I wonder what goes through their minds as they see the stone rolled away. They go into the tomb with perhaps a sense of fear, of hope, of worry about what they might see, or maybe what they might not see? I'm certain they didn't expect to see a young man dressed in white, sitting on the right side of the tomb.

Mark calls us to respond in amazement at who Jesus is. The women are alarmed, but in their alarm, they're also amazed and overwhelmed with wonder at this young man and his message. These emotions are wrapped together, much like it is for us still today as we follow Jesus and encounter him. This is a normal human reaction to encountering the sacred, the unknown, the unexpected. We often find it so hard to change or adapt because we first need to deal with all the emotions swirling around inside us as we encounter the sacred, the unknown or the unexpected. Listening and opening ourselves up to the unexpected, the possibilities that the unknown and sacred hold makes it easier.

The young man speaks, "Don't be alarmed, you're looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him!" Jesus isn’t there! Jesus is risen, he's alive! The disciples are told to go to Galilee and meet him there. They're told to remember what he had told them. Here’s a call to trust and believe what Jesus has taught them and to respond in faith and go. Jesus' followers have mourned, they've grieved. It's hard to remember what Jesus taught in times of darkness and suffering. Loss goes deep, especially the loss of relationships, of those we love or have loved. The present may feel dark, Scripture encourages us to then look back to remember and believe as you look for where God was so that you can find hope for right now and the future. The women have walked through the darkness of hopelessness and loss, but now light is beginning to shine through, and just as the sunrise marked the beginning of a new day, this young man in shining white robes offers the light of hope to the women.

"But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" The ones being called to come see Jesus are the very ones who abandoned and denied Jesus; they’re being called to come see the one who is more powerful than death. "Tell his disciples and Peter," Peter’s singled out by the messenger. You know why, brash bold Peter couldn't live up to his boasts, brave Peter turned out not to be so brave after all and now he cowers in shame and embarrassment, but that's not Jesus' desire for Peter or for you, he offers us renewal and forgiveness.

Jesus' death and resurrection brings freedom from sin, but it's also about new life, free from our old identity shaped by shame and guilt and given a new identity shaped by the image of God we're created in; disciples and followers of Jesus striving to look more and more like Jesus as we embrace his teachings, his life and his Spirit. Jesus' death and resurrection is confirmation of God's deepest love and commitment to us. God never gives up on us and is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to show us that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord," as Paul writes in Romans 8.

"Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." The tomb is empty and the call is to go see Jesus. They’re trembling and bewildered; the words used also mean they’re astonished and amazed; wonder at what they've learned merges into fear because of the unexpected and unknown. They're told to look for him somewhere else because he’s no longer dead, but alive and well and waiting for them, can this be true? Are they afraid of getting their hopes up only to be dashed again as they were a few short days ago?

The women's voices are silenced by their fear. Is it fear because of the awe and reverence that comes from meeting a messenger from God, or maybe it’s the fear that comes from fearing that with Jesus gone, it’s all over? Perhaps it’s the fear that comes because they don’t think they will be believed, but mocked because of who they are. Fear’s powerful, fear takes away confidence and strength, fear creates doubt and more fear, and here, even with glorious news, fear takes away their voices.

Does fear silence you? Does it prevent you from going out and inviting others to come and see, to go with you to find Jesus and follow the one raised from the grave? At some point you need to choose to work through it or allow yourself to be stopped dead in your tracks because of it. Running often seems like a good response to fear, but fear is like your shadow; it follows you wherever you go. You can run but you can’t hide from your fear, you cannot let it silence you forever. The women do find their voice again as we discover in the other Gospels, and the disciples learn of the empty grave and hear the command to go see Jesus.

How can we deal with fear? Begin by admitting your fear honestly, calling it what it is. You can voice your fear straight to God in prayer, or gather a small group of trusted people together where you can be honest about your fear and how it stops you from really following Jesus and trusting Jesus completely with your life. This is why God has given us the gift of the church; a place where followers of Jesus can share their fear and find hope, encouragement, direction and strength and be reminded of the good news that we follow a living God in Jesus.

When we begin to face our fear, we discover that the Holy Spirit is with us, helping us find our voices again. As the young man in the tomb reminds the women of Jesus' words, so the Holy Spirit reminds us of who Jesus is; the risen Son of God, our Saviour and Redeemer. The Holy Spirit guides us to Jesus as we look for him, so that you can see him and how he’s with you through the Spirit and the church. The Spirit reassures us of the truth of Jesus' death and resurrection, of the restoration and forgiveness that’s found in the empty cross and tomb. This builds our trust and hope in Jesus.

Catherine Marshall sums up the benefits of trusting in God when she writes, “There is only one way to get rid of fear; like any sin, we must recognize it, confess it in true repentance, claim God’s sure promise of forgiveness, cleansing and renewal, accept these gifts, rise and get on with life. Not only new confidence, but real growth in character, follows this facing up to what we fear, provided we are acting under God’s direction.” The empty cross and tomb call us to step forward in faith and trust to declare to the world the good news that Jesus is risen and is Lord and Saviour of all; inviting the world to join us in following the risen Lord where they too can find hope, grace, healing, peace, forgiveness and acceptance into God's family.

 

Zechariah 9:9-13; Acts 2:39 Good News: Even Better Than Expected

 

Baptism and Palm Sunday are celebration days, both filled with promises and God acting among his people in special ways, pointing us to who he is and who we are. In baptism, we’re reminded of God’s saving grace and the claim he places on us as his children. Palm Sunday, reminds us that Jesus is our king. Both days are filled with good news pointing to the good news that rests in Jesus as our king and saviour; the one who frees us from slavery and oppression.

Zechariah was born in Babylon and returned with the exiles to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zechariah is sent to rebuke the people of Judah and push them to finish rebuilding the temple. The people have returned, rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, were building their homes and had begun rebuilding the temple, but daily life things kept getting in the way of finishing it, so Zechariah has to keep pushing them to remember the Lord is with them even though there is opposition to their rebuilding the temple from the people around them. In Zechariah 4:6 we hear, “So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” Here the Lord is reassuring Zerubbabel that even though he doesn’t feel strong, the Lord is powerful enough to accomplish all his plans to re-establish the people back in the Promised Land.

The people of Israel aren’t much different than we are, it’s not uncommon for us to have all kinds of good intentions to do things for Jesus, even start them, and then find ourselves repeatedly distracted and sidetracked from actually finishing them. We’re not building a new temple here, though we did do a pretty great reno, but how often do we put off inviting our neighbour to come to church with us, or to have that first or second faith conversation, or maybe it’s something else that we’ve been planning to do, or an area of our own faith life that we keep meaning to work on.

Zechariah talks a lot about the coming Messiah: that he’ll come in lowliness, about his humanity, rejection and betrayal for 30 pieces of silver, his crucifixion, priesthood, kingship, and more. In this passage that Brad and Grace chose, we’re told that the Messiah will come like a king, but not a warrior king, but a king who will bring peace, renewal, and restoration of the kingdom. Zechariah 9:9–10, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

Zechariah is contrasting the coming Messiah with the military strength of Babylon, a mighty empire who conquered numerous nations, often dispersing the people throughout the various nations in its empire so that the conquered peoples would marry among the other nations, losing their identity except for their identity as part of the Babylonian empire. Israel’s messiah king is riding a donkey, a humble work animal. Israel’s messiah king is going to break the military might of Israel and Judah, bringing universal peace rather than war. We hear the contrast between the ways of the Lord and the ways of empire and power where the Babylonians’ unjust ways are condemned. But the coming Messiah is also a king who calls his people to find their identity in him and his kingdom.

This is where we hear the echo ahead to Palm Sunday and the account in all 4 Gospels of Jesus riding into Jerusalem as the Passover is about to begin, riding in on a donkey rather than a horse as a sign he comes as a king of peace rather than a conquering king. Israel was placing its hope in a Messiah in the tradition of David or Solomon, kings of power and strength but Jesus is about bringing shalom and peace to the nations, not only Israel, and establishing his kingdom to the ends of the earth. As king, Jesus comes to reconcile us to God, as we hear in Romans 5:10, ^“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” We quickly think of others being enemies of God, especially those who don’t live according to God’s and Jesus’ teaching in the Bible, but Paul reminds us that we were all enemies of God and Jesus came to reconcile us to God through his death, through the blood of his covenant that God talks about in Zechariah 9:11, the blood that frees the prisoners from the waterless pit.

As Jesus comes as a king of shalom and peace. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the cross he’s riding towards on Palm Sunday, brings us peace and reconciliation with God, that kingdom of peace talked about by the prophets in the Old Testament. Jesus comes to save us from our sins; to bring the people back to God so we can experience peace that is more than an absence of conflict, a peace that brings hope, that encourages us to come together in order to bless, a peace that brings growth and flourishing. What a huge reason to be a people of celebration!

This is why the people were so excited when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields, as Mark tells us. As Jesus rode the donkey to Jerusalem, the crowds shouted “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” These shouts of joy echo back to Psalm 118. The people were crying out for salvation from the Roman occupation. The crowd expected the Messiah to be an earthly king who will sit on David’s throne. While they were wrong about the kind of king Jesus is, they were right to connect Psalm 118 to Jesus. Psalm 118:25–29 cries out, “Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you… With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, and I will exalt you.”

Jesus rides in as king. He’s not just any king, he’s the King of kings and Lord of lords, as we are reminded of in Revelation 17:14, “They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.” Jesus’ kingdom stands in sharp contrast to the kingdoms of the day. We hear this is Jesus’ response to Pilate in John, “Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” … Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

 Rather than an earthly kingdom built through sword and might, Jesus comes humbly as a king of shalom, a king who comes to protect his people from the prince of this world, who is Satan. Satan brings chaos and condemnation; King Jesus brings renewal and forgiveness. Timothy Keller writes about this passage from Zechariah, “This odd juxtaposition that Jesus was King, but that he didn’t fit the world’s categories of kingship. He brought together majesty and meekness.” Keller goes on to refer to a sermon by Jonathan Edwards where Edwards writes, “In Jesus we find infinite majesty yet complete humility, perfect justice yet boundless grace, absolute sovereignty yet utter submission, all-sufficiency in himself yet entire trust and dependence on God. But in Jesus the result of these extremes of character is not mental and emotional breakdown. Jesus’ personality is a complete and beautiful whole. Watch this mighty King ride a little donkey into Jerusalem and deal with what he finds there.”

The good news of the gospel for us today is that Jesus saves us from our sins even while he’s with us in our struggles. We can cry out “Hosanna!” to him, “Save us,” and know that he will. As Peter remind us in Acts 2:39, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” This calls for celebration!

 

John 12:20-33 Good News For All

Jesus is preparing his followers and disciples for his death which is coming close. He’s in the temple teaching, perhaps in the area where the Gentiles aren’t allowed to be. We often think that the only ones who worshipped Yahweh, or God, were the Jews, but there were many Gentiles who were attracted to the belief that there is only one God, called monotheism, to the morals in the Jewish faith and what God stands for in his justice, righteousness, and mercy, while at the same time hating the nationalism of the Jewish faith. They would come to the Jewish festivals to worship and learn more through the festivals who God is and who God wants his people to be.

The Passover is about to be celebrated and so there are a number of Greeks who show up to celebrate the festival. While they’re there in Jerusalem, it’s almost impossible not to hear about Jesus, how he raised Lazarus from the dead, rode into Jerusalem as a king, drove out the animals and money changers from the temple, and who is teaching about God. They go to Philip, since he has a Greek name and comes from the northern Galilee area where a number of Greek cities had been built, since they likely felt more comfortable coming up to him, and ask, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Just a side note, many churches have this request carved into the pulpit for the preacher to read before they begin to preach.

These Greeks want to see Jesus, to come close to him to hear him teach, to ask him their questions, and to experience being in Jesus’ presence. Faith is both knowledge of Jesus and the experience of being with Jesus. It’s like when your mom and dad first started to get to know each other; they began by asking friends and other people about each other and getting to know about each other, but they really started to get to know each other by spending time together, talking about what they liked and didn’t like, the things they’d done and things they hoped to do. This is what the Greeks want to do to get to know Jesus in that personal way. This is still true today. When you share your faith, when you invite someone to follow Jesus with you, they don’t want to know facts about Jesus, they want to meet and experience Jesus with you. This is Holy Spirit work, but the Spirit uses our experiences of meeting Jesus to help others to meet him too.

One of the things that interests me is that at the beginning of Jesus’ life, wise men come from the east to meet Jesus, and now near the end of his life, men come from the west to meet Jesus. It gives us a glimpse in Jesus’ life how people from all the nations are drawn to Jesus, that the good news is for all humanity, not just one small nation in the Middle East. After the Greeks ask Philip to help them to see and meet Jesus, Philip goes to tell his brother Andrew about the Greek’s request and they go to Jesus and tell him that there’s a group of Greeks who would like to see him.

But it’s like Jesus completely ignores what Philip and Andrew have just told him and starts talking about kernels of wheat, loving life, and glorifying God’s name. Jesus is focused in on his coming death and preparing his disciples for the coming time, helping them understand why he has to die. Jesus realizes that what he’s telling the disciples isn’t going to be understood by them right away, that it’s only going to start to make sense after they witness his death and resurrection. The disciples aren’t a whole lot different then we are; there’s a lot of what we read in the Bible that we don’t always understand at first when we start following Jesus and dig into the Bible, but the more we read the Bible, study it together, talk to Jesus in prayer, and learn to see the world around us through God’s eyes, the more we start to understand why Jesus came and had to die the way he did. Jesus came to take the curse that comes from our sin and is ours to carry, but Jesus takes it on himself in order to destroy that curse on the cross so that we don’t have to walk that journey. Jesus’ death brings us new life, as we reflected on last week.

Jesus tells Philip and Andrew and all those around him, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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 does, it produces many seeds.” Jesus sees his coming death as a way of being glorified, of bringing glory and honour to God. Last week we saw that Jesus’ reference to himself being the Son of Man looks back to Daniel’s vision of the promised Messiah coming down from heaven to earth. It’s a vision of power and strength, not of weakness, Daniel 7:13–14, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

Jesus talks about dying, but it’s a death that’s going to produce a whole lot of fruit because of the death. You can use the kernel of wheat and grind it to make flour for bread, or you can place it in the ground and it will produce many more seeds, some of which can be made into bread while more seeds can be planted to create even more seeds. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, a movement began that is still around and still growing even today; this movement is what we call the church and it’s still on the move today. We often mourn about how the church in Canada is getting smaller and less influential than it was in the past, but perhaps the church here needs to do some dying to parts of who we were, and maybe even still are today, in order to grow again. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that we are a church called to share the good news of Jesus by serving on our knees with humility and grace. We want to be relevant, but relevance doesn’t mean being just like everyone around us, it’s about answering the questions and hurt today by pointing to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit who is active in the world.

John’s hearers of his gospel lived in a shame and honour society, and it’s good to listen to what Jesus is saying here through those lenses. Death shows commitment and a willingness to die for a higher cause, which brings honour, important in that culture. By dying for sin of the world, Jesus receives honour from God. We hear this is God’s response to Jesus’ cry, “Father’ glorify your name!” when he says, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” This is why martyrdom has had such a powerful effect on the church, the honour in dying for Jesus has always strengthened the church and grown the church, especially in the majority world, reflecting back to Jesus’ parable on the dying of the kernel of wheat in order to grow more kernels of wheat. In talking about loving or hating their life, Jesus is talking about commitment here; for those committed only to their own life, a selfish life, they will lose their life since their have separated themselves from Jesus, while those who are committed to offering their life to Jesus, to shaping our lives around his teaching, will gain eternal life with Jesus. The call is to follow Jesus as a servant. As we humble ourselves in service to Jesus, the Father will honour us.

In Jesus’ day, people were divided by ethnicity, gender, and social and economic class. The Pharisees liked to keep people in their place and were disturbed at how Jesus upset the social order. Our culture today is still divided. In this passage, Jesus tells us that when he is lifted up on the cross, all will be drawn to him. In a world of division, we’re reminded that Jesus draws all people to himself. The divisions today may be different, today those on the outside may be First Nations, LGBTQ, those battling addictions, those from different cultures, or whoever we choose to keep away so we feel safe and unchallenged. I’ve been wondering all week on how do we understand Jesus when he says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Jesus draws all people to himself through his death on the cross; through the forgiveness, grace and new life he offers all those who believe in him. Life change comes when we are drawn to him, life change we model to the world which then draws others to Jesus. How are we drawing all those in our community to Jesus, to the good news of salvation?