Coram Deo

Posted on 20 July 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Exodus 33, Psalm 27, Ephesians 1:15-23)

Exodus 33 begins immediately after the first great national sin in the history of the people of Israel, which is recorded in chapter 32. Moses had been up on Mount Sinai, meeting with God, receiving the Law; unfortunately, he was up there so long that the Israelites got restless. Restless people tend to do stupid things, and they were no exception; they talked Moses’ brother Aaron into making them an idol, a golden statue of a cow, that they could worship and pretend it was the Lord. That might seem odd, but golden cows are safe, and this God of theirs had already proven himself anything but. Their action, of course, infuriated God, who judged them harshly for their sin. (Aaron, who had allowed the whole thing, escaped judgment despite offering perhaps the dumbest excuse in recorded history; when Moses took him to task for his actions, Aaron’s response was twofold: one, “Don’t blame me, blame them, they’re wicked people,” which is bad enough, but then two, “They gave me the gold, I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” Honest, that’s a direct quote from Exodus 32:24. “I didn’t make the calf, it just happened!” Reminds me of some of the excuses I’ve gotten from my children.)

After this, God told Moses to tell his people, “Go on up to the land I promised Abraham I would give you, and I’ll send my angel before you, but I won’t go with you, or I would destroy you on the way; for you are a stiff-necked people.” At that, the people went into mourning, and Moses began to plead with God to reverse this decision, for the sake of his people, and for Moses’ sake. Notice the reason for their concern. It’s not that God won’t bless them—he’s still promising to give them the land, and victory over the people who currently live there, and all the good things he’d already said he’d give them; it’s that he’s refusing to go with them. He’s keeping his presence from them, promising only to send an angel with them to do all this rather than going with them to do it himself.

The NIV calls this statement “these distressing words,” but the English Standard Version is blunter: they’re “disastrous.” God’s blessings are nice, but having his presence with them means far more; that’s what sets them apart from the other nations as his people. Without that, without God going with them, they were no different from anyone else, either to themselves or to any other nation. Thus when God says in verse 14, “Don’t worry, Moses, I’ll still be with you and give you rest,” Moses responds, “That’s not good enough. Either go with all of your people, or don’t bother.” Nothing else will do—not for Moses and not for Israel, and ultimately, not for God, either. After all, what would it do for God’s reputation to lead his people out of Egypt and then leave them in the desert? In response, God says, “All right, Moses—for your sake, I’ll do as you ask.”

At this point, Moses does something extraordinary. You can understand why he does it—he’s probably giddy with relief, for one thing; but more than that, God had just made him a promise, and he wants confirmation, and so he asks, “Show me your glory.” This might not sound like a big request, until we remember that Moses had been spending considerable time with God on the mountain—he was up there for eleven chapters of Exodus before the Israelites decided they’d rather worship a golden cow; he’d seen quite a bit of God, in fact, and now he’s clearly asking for something more. He’s talked with God, he’s seen demonstrations of God’s power and glory; now he wants to see God.

And God says, “I can’t do that, because you wouldn’t survive it. No human being can see my face and live.” God is infinite, and we’re finite; he’s perfectly holy, and we’re sinful. The gap between us is great, and the attempt to cross it, to experience the full reality of the infinite God, is simply more than we can bear. And so God tells Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, Yahweh; I will put you in a crack in the rock and cover you with my hand while my glory passes by, then I will remove my hand, and you may see my back; but my face you shall not see.” Now, I don’t know what this looked like to Moses; I’m not sure what exactly God meant by his “back”; but what’s clear is that God told Moses, “I won’t show you my face, but I’ll show you who I am; I’ll reveal my character and my goodness to you.”

That would have to be enough for Moses, and for everyone else; but the desire for more, the desire to see God face to face, persisted. We see this in Psalm 27, which is a psalm of David—which is valuable to know with this psalm, because David, like Moses, was one of God’s special servants, someone who got as close to God as it was possible to get. The Lord truly was his light and salvation, his refuge and stronghold; he’d had armies encamped against him more than once, and evil men working overtime to kill him, and he’d learned that as long as he was on God’s side, he had nothing to worry about. He was unquestionably a man who could write a psalm like this and mean every word.

Out of David’s great confidence in God comes great loyalty and devotion, which we see in this extraordinary statement in verse 4: “One thing I have asked of the LORD, this one thing will I seek: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life.” Psalm 84 makes a somewhat similar statement—“How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! . . . Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere”—but this takes things to a whole new level. It’s not that this is the only thing David wants—this psalm is, after all, a prayer for victory over his enemies—but this is his one thing: it’s his focus, his primary concern, his primary desire. It’s what he wants to order his life and make sense of everything else; his prayer is that he would live his life as much in the presence of God as if he were always in the temple offering worship and sacrifice to God.

Now, trying to keep that focus is hard, and it was hard for David, too; but at the core, his great desire is to experience the presence of God. There are two reasons for this. The second one mentioned is “to inquire in his temple,” which is to say, to seek guidance from God for his decisions; he wants to live in God’s presence in order to come to know and do what God would have him to do. He understands that we can’t make godly decisions with any sort of regularity if the only time we spend with God is an hour a week on Sunday mornings. But as important as this second reason is, the first is more striking: “to behold the beauty of the LORD.” This is starting to get into the same territory as Moses—it isn’t quite the same, but David’s moving that way: he wants to see God.

That comes out in full force in verses 8 and 9: “‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’ Your face, O LORD, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me.” It’s a prayer that can’t be fully answered, but still, the longing is there. And it should be—it means a lot to be face to face with those we love. I discovered just how much during my last semester in college, when Sara went off to Scotland, to Aberdeen. (In that case, not only could I not see her, I couldn’t even hear her voice, since I couldn’t afford international long distance rates.) I learned then that there’s a degree of real intimacy and knowledge in talking with someone we love face to face, in the openness of their facial expressions and body language and the immediacy of reaction; we can know someone more fully face to face than at a distance. David wanted to know God in that way.

These texts are the backdrop against which Jesus tells his disciples, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip was probably studying to be a rabbi, so he knew all this stuff; but when Jesus said that, he couldn’t help himself, and he burst out, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” He knows they can’t—he knows how God answered Moses, and no doubt he expects much the same response— and so maybe we may hear in Philip’s plea an edge of disappointment, that ultimately Jesus can’t quite give them what he’s promising.

Jesus responds with gentle exasperation: “Philip, haven’t you been paying attention all these years? Have you been with me this long, and you still don’t know who I am?” And then this staggering, world-shaking statement: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” No one could see God and live; we could not leap across that chasm and even hope to survive the jump; so God crossed it from his side. The glory, grace and truth of God were too much for our eyes, until the coming of Jesus; when he came to earth, God took on a human face and allowed his people to look him in the eyes; and through those eyes, and through his words, and through his actions, his glory, grace and truth shone unveiled and undimmed. As John put this point earlier in his gospel, at the end of his prologue, in 1:18, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” We cannot see God and live—unless God makes it possible; and in Jesus, he has, and we have.

This is why we can pray as we do. We don’t have to approach God behind a veil of smoke, because Jesus made a way for us. We see God’s face in him and do not die because he took that death, and every other death, on himself; he came down to us, and through his death, resurrection and ascension he became the way to God. We in our sinfulness still could never survive the sort of revelation Moses wanted, but in the words and deeds of Jesus recorded in the gospels, and through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, we can see God in ways that he never could; in worship, in study and in prayer, God invites us into his presence to seek his face, as David longed to do.

That’s why the church could adopt the motto Coram Deo, which means, “in the presence of God”—because that’s where we as the church are supposed to live. That’s the key to kingdom-centered prayer. It’s not the subject—I hope I didn’t give anyone the idea last week that praying for our needs or the needs of others can’t be kingdom-centered, because it can, if our overall approach to prayer is focused on God and centered on the work of his kingdom. That approach and that focus are the key, that though we pray for ourselves and others, our prayer is fundamentally about God and concerned with his will. The foundational prayer is that of Moses and David: God, let me see your face, let me live each day in your presence, consciously aware of your presence. It’s not about trying to make God do what we want, but about letting go of such efforts—letting God be God and ourselves just be his children—and seeking to know him as he is. This isn’t something that just happens; seeking means looking hard and earnestly, and it takes intention, concentration, and thought. It takes real effort and commitment, not because God’s trying to hide from us, but rather because there’s a part of us that’s always trying to hide from God; to seek God’s face, we need to fight that down and consciously bend ourselves to his will. So let’s concentrate on seeking God’s face this morning, the face of Jesus our Lord, in the presence of his Holy Spirit, in song, in the confession of our faith, and in prayer.

God-Focused

Posted on 13 July 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Nehemiah 1, Psalm 2; Acts 4:23-31)

When you take out your prayer list a little later on in the service, you’ll notice there’s some heavy stuff on there. There are a lot of people with a lot of hurt, of various sorts, and a lot of challenging things going on. We say, “It never rains but it pours”; Richard Adams, in the novel Watership Down, writes that the rabbit version of that proverb is “One cloud feels lonely”; but however you want to say it, we do seem to have a lot of spiritual clouds overhead, and a fair bit of rain coming down just at the moment, even if the day outside is bright. Throw in the fact that our income is currently well below our outgo, such that we’re burning through a lot of our savings just to stay afloat, and even though it’s summertime, the living ain’t easy. I’ve even had a few people apologize to me, as if I should have had the right to expect a church with no issues and no problems. I just keep telling them, there aren’t any of those, and I had no such expectations; but I won’t deny the stress, and I won’t pretend to be unaffected by the challenges we face.

I will, however, tell you this: if when you think about this congregation, and you consider its future, you look first at those challenges, you’re facing the wrong way. What is first relevant to this body and to where we’re going isn’t that we have some difficulties to overcome, it isn’t that we have some limitations holding us back, it isn’t that we’ve taken some hits lately; what’s relevant is that it’s God who’s leading us there, and God who’s going to get us there—not in our power, not in our strength, but in his.

Now, I’m not saying that to minimize the challenges; they’re real, and we have to take them seriously. To take one example, I don’t think it’s news to anyone that one of the great strengths of this church is its musicians, or that one of the key people in that respect has been Chara Sonntag. I’ve been in a lot of churches in my life, and the odds that you’ll ever find another church pianist who contributes as much to the worship of the people of God as she does are really pretty low. You may find people who have an edge technically, or in experience, or in some other facet, but when it comes to making a real contribution to the worship of the church, you probably won’t. God led her here for a time to bless this church—and hopefully her, too, and her family—and now he’s leading her on into the next phase of ministry he has for her, and he’s leading us on as well. But here’s the key: God is still leading us. He knew Chara would move on in his time, he’s been planning for it, and he will work through that to accomplish his purposes in and for and through us, just as he works through everything else that happens.

All of which is to say, pick a challenge, any challenge: no matter what it is, the most important thing we can do in response is the same. Whatever concerns you most, stop and think about it for a minute. Got it fixed in your mind? Good. Now listen to me: God knows about it, and he has planned for it in his plan for us. There is nothing we face that has come as a surprise to God, and nothing that he isn’t big enough to overcome in and through us. The God who led the Israelites through the Red Sea and the children of Jacob out of exile is plenty big enough to lead us through whatever hardships we might face. All we have to do is follow where he leads, and we’ll get to the other side.

In other words, as we try to figure out how to lead this church, how to grow this church, how to deal with the rough times, and how to build on our strengths, our focus shouldn’t be on us and on what we can and can’t do—our focus needs to be on God, and what he intends to do, and wants us to do, because this isn’t our church, it’s his church. Which means we need to begin by adding another layer to our prayers as a church; on top of the praying we do that’s all about caring for and supporting one another, which is a critically important part of the life and work of the people of God, we also need to pray in ways that focus us on God and how we’re a part of his plan. As Tim Keller, the senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, puts it, “the one non-negotiable, universal ingredient in times of spiritual renewal is . . . kingdom-centered prayer.”

Which raises the question: what do we mean by kingdom-centered prayer? We’ll be talking about that over the next few weeks, looking at some of the specifics; at its core, though, kingdom-centered prayer is all about flipping our perspective. When we pray, we tend to ask God to get in on what we’re doing, to bless our plans and help us accomplish what we want to accomplish. As good as our ideas and intentions might be, that sort of prayer is, in a very real way, us-centered. Kingdom-centered prayer, by contrast, asks God how we can get in on what he’s doing, what our place and our part is in his plan, and how he wants us to contribute to what he’s going to accomplish. It’s about recognizing that our work is not redemptive, and that our work doesn’t build the church; only the work of God in Christ through his Holy Spirit does that. That’s why, without a kingdom focus, all our work is fruitless, because it’s only our work. With that, anything is possible, because in God, all things are possible.

You can see that in our passages this morning. Nehemiah—he’s risen to a position of great influence in the Persian empire (the cupbearer was a trusted senior aide to the emperor), so as an individual, he’s doing fine; but his people aren’t in such good shape. The exile is officially over, and some of the Jews have gone back to Jerusalem to re-establish their nation, but things aren’t going well, and the odds are heavily stacked against them; any outside observer would tell you the fragile new community re-rooting itself in Jerusalem is probably doomed, and sooner rather than later. Or how about the disciples in Acts 4—not such a small band anymore, since they’ve made lots of converts, but they’re still a tiny minority facing all the weight of the Establishment, which has already shown itself more than willing to do anything to crush them. New religions spring up all the time; most of them go nowhere, especially if the authorities are willing to bring the army down on their heads. Seen any Branch Davidians around lately?

The world looks at these sorts of situations and says, in the cynical old line, “the race goes not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet”; but what Nehemiah and the early disciples show us is that when we pray boldly and God moves in power, all bets are off. This isn’t, however, just a matter of boldly asking for whatever we want; prayer is not magic, nor is it a means of manipulating God. Rather, the boldness of Nehemiah and the apostles was rooted in their knowledge of God, and in the fact that they were focused on him, not on themselves. Specifically, they were rooted in the fact of God’s presence—that God was with them in their circumstances, and that the God who was with them had the power to overcome those circumstances, and had faithfully promised to take care of his people—and they were focused on God’s kingdom, not their own, on accomplishing his purposes, not their own. If we pray that God will do what he wants to do, that’s a prayer to which he will always say “Yes”; and if we re-member that God is always at work for our good, it’s a prayer we can offer gladly. As such, these prayers can and should be models for our own.

In particular, I think there are three things worth noting here. The first is an awareness of the significance of our sin and of the holiness of God. It might seem strange to you that Nehemiah confesses the sins of the whole nation, since he was clearly a godly and righteous man; whatever other Jews might have done, it wasn’t his fault. It wouldn’t, however, have seemed strange to him at all; the blessings and sorrows of the people affected the whole people, and so the sins, and the faithfulness, of the people were everyone’s concern. We see this same concern in Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9, and for the same reason. Both men understood that the sins of the nation were getting in the way of God blessing his people, because those sins were opposed to the blessings and purposes God had for his people, as sin always is; they understood that in asking for his blessing, they needed to begin with confession. Our boldness in prayer doesn’t rest on our own worthiness, because we aren’t worthy, and we need to recognize that; rather, it rests on God’s character, on his faithfulness to his people whom he loves, and on the grace he has shown us in the past and continues to show us. Thus, prayer which is truly God-focused begins with humble confession of our sinfulness and our need for his grace.

Second, we can see in these prayers a deep desire that God should glorify himself in his people. Part of this is a great love for the people of God. Nehemiah doesn’t just pray “Bless me,” or even “Bless me and my family and friends,” as we so often do; he doesn’t even ask God to bless all the righteous folks and leave the rest alone. Instead, he prays that God would bless all his people, that he would forgive all of them for their sin and bless them all in the land of Israel which God had given them. He loves his people and he wants to see them prosper, and he wants to see God receive the glory for that. We see this same desire for God’s glory in Acts 4. Jesus’ disciples don’t pray that God would protect them, nor do they pray for vengeance on the people who killed Jesus and threatened them; instead, they pray, “Consider their threats and”—what?—“enable us to preach even more boldly.” In other words, “God, don’t let threats scare us into backing off even a little bit—give us even more boldness and even more power to preach the truth right into the face of these threats; and what’s more, do great miracles through us so that everyone can see we’re preaching what you want us to preach.”

Third, these prayers rest on an absolute confidence in the power of God. You can see this in Psalm 2, which the disciples reference in their prayer in Acts 4: the nations hatch their various schemes, and the peoples of the earth plot together to defeat God and his people—and God just laughs at them. Originally, this psalm was referring to the one God had anointed as king in Jerusalem; ultimately, it applied to Jesus and his enemies. In each case, the point is clear: no matter what anyone might come up with, God will not be defeated, and neither will his chosen ones. The apostles pray with complete confidence, not that God will keep them safe—that’s not what they’re after—but that if they ask him for power and boldness to proclaim his word, he’ll give it, and he’ll back it up. Individually, they didn’t all find the same degree of what the world considers success; some were greater than others, and some were killed young, while others lived long lives. As a group, however, God answered their prayer with power as they went out to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to all the world. Our existence testifies to that.

As Nehemiah prayed, as the apostles prayed, so God wants us to pray: fixing our eyes on him, focusing our attention on his kingdom, and trusting him for his faithfulness. If we look at our problems, it’s easy to start to wonder if we can overcome them. If we look at our abilities, we end up trying to solve our problems in our own way, in our own strength, for our own benefit. But if we look at God, if we seek his face and put our trust in his power and his faithfulness to us, then we put ourselves in position for him to work in us—and when God works in us and through us, anything is possible, far beyond what we could possibly imagine for ourselves. So I would encourage you again, as I have before, to be praying for this church, as Nehemiah prayed for Israel, as the apostles prayed for the early church, that God would glorify himself in us. If you signed up to pray for an hour a week, please continue to be faithful in doing that; if you haven’t, please find a time to do so each week; if you need a sheet to guide you in praying for the church, please let me know and I’ll get you one. Whatever you do, please pray for this church; it’s the only way we’ll ever be the church God wants us to be.

What’s a Sermon For?

Posted on 29 June 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Isaiah 55:6-11; Ephesians 4:11-16, 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

I wonder sometimes, as I stand up here, what it is that you think I think I’m trying to accomplish. Do you think I expect you to remember every point of every sermon? Do you imagine I’d like to test you on how much you remember? That would appeal to some pastors, I’m sure. I know one of my favorite professors in seminary, the brilliant New Testament scholar Gordon Fee, started out as a pastor; he told us he became a professor because “I got ‘em three days a week instead of one and I could give ‘em tests!” But then, that’s clearly where God wanted him, which no doubt had something to do with it. But can you see me giving tests?

Honestly, I don’t have any illusions as to how much you, or I, or anyone else, can consciously remember. Cleophus LaRue, who teaches preaching at Princeton, tells the story of going to preach one time in a church which sat right across the street from the state penitentiary. During his sermon, there was a prison break, and the alarms went off and the lights went on—the congregation, it appears, was used to this, but he wasn’t, and it quite unsettled him. As a result, he forgot to keep any record of what sermon he had preached. As it happened, he was back there a year or so later, and he began his message by noting that he might be repeating himself, because with all the commotion, he didn’t remember what he had preached about on his last visit. When he said that, someone in the congregation piped up, “That’s okay, preacher, neither do we!”

Now, some of my colleagues might be a little scandalized to hear me admit that; it’s the sort of story preachers tell other preachers, but not something I’ve often heard in church. Truth is, though, that while we might be so foolish as to consider this some sort of guild secret, I don’t think it’s anything of the sort. I’ve heard that a number of years ago, a man wrote the following letter to the British Weekly: “Dear Sir: It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for thirty years and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I cannot remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent elsewhere?”

Now, this letter caused quite a storm, with more letters flurrying back and forth, until finally another one appeared which silenced the debate. That letter read, “Dear Sir: I have been married for thirty years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals—mostly my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I received nourishment from every one of them. I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago.”

That, surely, is the point of preaching. It’s not that you memorize what I say, or that you take notes and keep files. The primary purpose of preaching is to nourish your spirit, in the same way that food nourishes your body. I stand here to proclaim the word of God, to the best of my ability, in the confidence that when God’s word is spoken, it carries with it his purpose and the power of his Spirit. I may not always know what he intends to do—in fact, I can never fully know, because each sermon is going to affect everybody somewhat differently—but that’s really not what matters in the long run. What matters is that God accomplishes his purposes, and we may be sure that he will.

Of course, this requires a lively faith both in the value of the word of God and in the value of preaching, because it means preaching the word of God. Not every preacher has such faith any more, and so many don’t do that; some preach, but draw from things besides God’s word, while others stick to the Scriptures but have thrown out preaching. It seems to me, though, that the first approach substitutes human wisdom for God’s wisdom—and since human wisdom gave us the wars and tyrannies which marred the previous century, that doesn’t impress me much; while the second approach seeks to honor Scripture while ignoring its counsel. Paul tells Timothy, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (that’s in 1 Timothy 4:13), and again, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage, with great patience and careful instruction.” Why? Because “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.”

In other words, the Spirit of God breathed into—in-spirited, you might say, inspired—the authors of Scripture, and he continues to speak through the words of Scripture to us, and to all the people of God, wherever we may be and whatever issues and circumstances we might face; and as such, by the power of the Spirit in its authors as they wrote, in our eyes as we read and in our ears as we listen, these words do us good. They show us what is true, and correct us when our beliefs about God and this world are false; they also correct our behavior, convicting us of the sins in our lives, and show us how God calls us to live. The Spirit speaking through the text does the work; my job is simply to help you open your ears to his voice, to help you better understand the word of God so that you may hear more clearly “what the Spirit is saying to the church.”

There are three parts to that. First, faithful and diligent interpretation. My job is to take whatever texts we’re using and draw the meaning out so that we can see it clearly. That may mean focusing on a single passage and digging deeply into it; sometimes, like this morning, it means fitting several texts together. Both approaches are necessary, because we need to understand Scripture deeply, and we need to understand it as a whole, as a web of interlocking texts. Either way, however, my call is only to teach what Scripture teaches me, to follow where it leads and nowhere else, because only Scripture is inspired by God, and only it is sure to be useful; for anything else, there are no guarantees.

The second part is application, because if truth stays in your head instead of going to your hands and feet, there isn’t much value to that. You’ll notice that 2 Timothy says that Scripture is useful for these things “so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Similarly, Ephesians tells us that God gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” God doesn’t tell us things just so we’ll know them, he tells us so that they’ll change how we live. To learn truth and never put it into practice is like eating and eating and never exercising—all it does is make you fat. God doesn’t call us to spiritual obesity, he calls us to be spiritual athletes, as teaching feeds action; the truths we learn are to be truths we live.

The third part is time and persistence. Do I expect you to memorize everything I say? No, and no pastor with any sense would, though I do hope that at least one thing of importance sticks with you as you leave here each Sunday; but over time, as I am faithful in preaching and you are faithful in listening, by the grace of God, the steady exposure to his word will cause us to grow. As we speak his truth together in love, we will, slowly but surely, grow to maturity in Christ, who is our head. The more we spend time with the truth of God’s word, the more we spend time looking through his word at who he is and what he’s like, the more we will look like him.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

Posted on 15 June 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 4:16-21)

At various points in the second part of the book of Isaiah, we have the appearance of the Servant of the Lord; these passages are usually referred to as the Servant Songs. The Servant is the one who will bring about God’s justice on the earth, and carry his salvation not only to Israel, but beyond, to the whole world; and in Isaiah 53, we see that the Servant will accomplish this through his suffering. Now, here in Isaiah 61, we have I believe the last appearance of the Servant, promising the day when God will make everything right. The Servant speaks both as a prophet—that’s the meaning of “the Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me”—and as a king—that’s the significance of “the LORD has anointed me”—so he has power both from God and on earth to bring this about. He has been given, as God’s chosen prophet and king, the mission to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to set captives and prisoners free, to comfort those who mourn, and to raise up the oppressed so that they may restore all that has been lost and rebuild all that has been destroyed.

The keystone of this passage comes in verse 2: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me . . . to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God.” In our day and age, we think we can control time—we have atomic clocks, and we do business at all hours of the day and night, and we have computer calendars that keep our schedules months into the future—and so we use time words very precisely, because for us, time is about precision. For the ancient Hebrews, it wasn’t, and so we shouldn’t take this “year” and “day” language in that way; rather, this is typical Hebrew parallelism, pairing a time of God’s favor with a time of his vengeance. The significance of this is that they’re not two separate times—they’re the same time. The year of the LORD’s favor is the day of vengeance of our God. There are folks who think that’s strange, that there must be something wrong with that; but if you’ve ever been oppressed, if you’ve ever been done unjustly, you know better. To bring good news to the oppressed means bringing vengeance on their oppressors; healing the brokenhearted means judging those who broke their hearts; setting the captives free means breaking the power of those who hold them captive. These two things go together; the world cannot be put right until those who put it wrong have been judged.

Which is the interesting thing about Jesus’ reading of this passage: he gets as far as “proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,” and then he stops. He takes these two things that go together, and he splits them; and then he says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” This is an incredible thing, because it opens an incredible opportunity: in Jesus, you can miss out on the vengeance of God. We all need God’s vengeance on others, because we’ve all been done wrong; but we all have it coming on ourselves, because we’ve all done others wrong, too. We have been victims of injustice, but we’ve also done injustice, when we’ve gotten the chance. As much as we need the year of God’s favor, the day of his vengeance is a perilous time for us—and so Jesus came to create a space between them. In Jesus, the year of the LORD’s favor has already begun, but his vengeance is held off, to give us a chance to respond to his offer and escape judgment; this is God’s grace. That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6, “Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation.”

Gotta Serve Somebody

Posted on 1 June 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Malachi 3:6-15; Luke 12:22-34, Luke 16:10-13)

I took the title of this sermon from Bob Dylan. “Gotta Serve Somebody” is the best song on a great album, Slow Train Coming, which unfortunately has been largely forgotten because of its explicitly Christian character; and while I think Dylan’s reputation as a poet and thinker is somewhat overinflated, his song makes a pretty important theological point: no matter who you are, how low or how high, “you’re gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” That’s a truth we don’t often want to hear. In the Bible, those closest to God are described as his servants, but it’s easy to see that as a negative thing, in part because we see it as serving God versus being free, serving no one.

What Scripture understands, and Dylan saw, and we too often don’t is that this is a false picture, because everyone is serving somebody; it’s just that some know it and some don’t. Without God, we aren’t free—we’re slaves to sin. That might look like freedom, because the desires which enslave us are in some sense our own; but just try to break a habit, just try to rein in one of those desires, and most people discover just how free we aren’t. If we vaunt our independence and our freedom to do whatever we please, it just shows that we don’t realize that “whatever we please” is really running the show—which means we’re at the devil’s mercy, because we’ve given him lots of strings to pull.

This is just as true of money as it is of anything else—and maybe truer, since money is essential to the fulfillment of most of those desires. That’s part of the reason Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is the root of all evil”—yes, that’s hyperbole, but still: between evil acts committed to gain money, and evil acts which require money, that’s a pretty high percentage of the evil that people do. And then you get into the rest of life, because there’s not much these days that doesn’t require money; I know they say “the best things in life are free,” but whether that’s true or not, the basic things sure aren’t. Food, clothing, shelter, gas, none of that is free. The result of all this is that most people’s lives are dominated by money; the great poet William Wordsworth wrote in 1807, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” and it’s at least as true now as it was then. Too often, it’s money that drives our decisions and sets our priorities.

Over against this, God calls us to serve him with our money, and with all the other gifts he’s given us. We talked about this two weeks ago, that everything we have, we hold in trust for God, and he has instructions for us as to how we’re to use it. I suspect that a lot of the time, we don’t take that very seriously, as the Israelites didn’t; but God did, and does, and we need to remember that. It’s easy to think that what we do with our money isn’t a spiritual issue, but it is, because of what Jesus says in Luke 16:13: “You can’t serve both God and money.” In the last analysis, either following God is going to be a higher priority than having, making, spending money, or money will be a higher priority than God; and for us as Christians, it had better be the former.

Tithing is a way of making sure that that’s the case, disciplining ourselves to make sure that we put God first in the use of our money by setting aside part of it for his use before we do anything else with it. If we don’t do that, if we don’t give at all or we just give whatever is convenient—which is to say, whatever amount doesn’t affect all the other things we want to do with our money—then we’re really putting money, getting it and spending it, ahead of obeying and serving him; which means that in the last analysis, we’re serving money, not God.

The irony in all this is that God wants to take care of us and bless us, if we would just trust him to do so and be faithful to put him first; if we aren’t willing to take the “risk” of tithing because we don’t feel we can afford it, then we don’t give him that opportunity. It’s not easy to depend on God to provide; I spent long enough making little or no money, I know how hard it is. I confess, to my shame, that I didn’t tithe then, because I was afraid of not having enough. I still believed up here that God would provide for us if I did, but I didn’t believe it down here enough to act on that. I trusted him, but not that much, and I still regret that. God provides for the ravens, who were the most despised of all birds, and he provides for the grass, which is here today and gone tomorrow; why didn’t I trust him to provide for me? Why didn’t I have the faith God gives the flowers?—they don’t conserve themselves, they simply bloom, spending their beauty extrava-gantly on all who pass, and trust him to take care of them. That’s the sort of faith God wants us to have, that we will give beyond what’s convenient, even beyond what seems safe, and trust that he will provide for us—and that we will live richer lives as a result.

It should also be said that God will not reward unfaithfulness and disobedience; if we decide to use the things he’s given us to bless ourselves, rather than being faithful to use them as he calls us to use them, he’s not going to bless that. If we remember that everything we have is God’s and use it accordingly, if we’re faithful with worldly wealth, then he’ll give us the riches of the kingdom; but if we aren’t, he won’t. This doesn’t mean we won’t be saved, but it seems clearly to mean that our reward will be less than if we had used our gifts faithfully to serve God rather than ourselves.

Now, since God calls us to tithe for the sake of the work of the church, this all places a heavy responsibility on me, on our elders, and on all those whom God has chosen to lead his people. We are accountable, not just to you but to God, for how we use your gifts. We’re responsible to pray, to seek his will, so that we use the gifts you give in ways that honor his name and build up the church—which is to say, each of you, and all of you together; and if we were to spend the money you give unwisely, or in ways which were counterproductive or dishonoring to his name, then we would be guilty of sin and accountable to God for our actions. It’s a heavy responsibility indeed; and while we aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I’m proud of our elders for the way they carry it out. We want to do more than we’re doing, of course—there is always more to be done, and we could always do it better—and as we have more resources to work with, we will do more; but though like all people, we make mistakes, in general, to the best of our ability, I believe we’re faithful to the charge God has given us.

If that sounded like a commercial for this church, I suppose it was; but note well, if it’s a commercial for this church, it’s a commercial for each of you—and for good reason. I believe in you. I see what you’re already doing and how much more you have the potential to do; I see what you have the ability to accomplish in your lives and in the life of this community. And if I tell you I believe in this church, it’s for exactly that reason, that I believe in you; I’m calling you, as God is calling you, to open your hearts, to take risks, to trust him enough to give freely—of your money, of your time, of your gifts, of yourself—because I believe you’ll be amazed at what will happen. You’ll be amazed, and maybe you’ll even amaze me, at what you can accomplish for the kingdom of God, and what an absolute blessing that will be; but you know what? God won’t be amazed, because he already knows what you can do, and what he can do in and through you, if you’re only willing to let him.

Of course, to take that step, you have to believe that God is going to act; that’s where the Israelites of Malachi’s day fell short. They had already made up their minds that whether they kept his commands or not, it didn’t matter, because he didn’t do anything either way. They thought his commands were irrelevant and obeying them was useless. From that perspective, it’s no wonder they didn’t tithe—why would they, if they didn’t think it would make any difference? They didn’t even understand why they were offending God, because they weren’t talking about him at all; they failed to realize that that was precisely why he was offended. God said, “Test me—bring in your tithes, and watch me bless you,” but they had already concluded that he wouldn’t. I suspect that often, when we don’t give, it’s for something of the same reason: we really don’t believe that God will keep his promises if we do. To that, he simply says, “Try me. Try me and see what I will do”; and we need to step forward and do just that.

We need to do that, because the bottom line here is simple: are you serving God with your money, or are you serving your money? Jesus tells us there are only the two choices. Are you building up treasures for yourself in heaven, where they’re eternal and you’ll enjoy them for eternity, or are you storing them up here on earth, where a flood could wash them out and you’ll have to leave them behind when you die anyway? No, there’s nothing wrong with having things; God commanded the Israelites to give 10% of their income, not 100%; but is that where your treasure is? Because if it is, then that’s where your heart is, and that’s what you’re serving. Store up treasures for yourself in heaven, in the coming kingdom of God, for it is the Father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom—the whole thing; store up an unfailing treasure in heaven, with him, by giving freely of all that you have and all that you are, by serving him freely with your earthly treasure, your time on this earth, and the talents you have been given; for where your treasure is, there is your heart.

Where Is Your Heart?

Posted on 18 May 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Malachi 3:6-15; Matthew 6:19-24, 2 Corinthians 9:6-12)

It’s funny, the things that stick in the back of your mind. I remember, for in-stance, going to a sleepover for the birthday of one of my classmates, Robert Gelinas; it was maybe sixth grade, and I have no idea why I was invited. We weren’t friends particularly, and I really don’t know why I was there. I enjoyed it, though. I remember we watched a couple of movies—Fletch, and a Richard Pryor movie called Brewster’s Millions—and that we went out at some point; I want to say it was to Pizza Hut, but I wouldn’t swear to that. I remember that particularly, though, because it was as we were getting ready to leave that Mr. Gelinas made a point of telling me (and maybe one other kid) that there are three things you don’t talk about in public: religion, sex, and politics. Now, I can assure you I wouldn’t have been talking about sex, but back then I was just a trifle opinionated, and I think maybe he didn’t trust me on the other two, because he made it very clear they were off limits.

These days, you’re probably more likely to get away with talking about sex in public; religion and politics, maybe, but if you pick the wrong time, the results are likely to be a lot worse. My dad lost one of his oldest and dearest friends a couple years back when he unwisely forwarded an e-mail that was political in nature. But even as conten-tious as political conversations can be these days, I don’t think they’re the biggest no-no out there—that would be one Mr. Gelinas didn’t even mention: money. I’m not sure there’s any bigger taboo in our culture than asking someone how much money they make, except under certain conditions. With a lot of people, you’ll get a better response asking nosy questions about their sex life than you will prying into their finances.

This affects how the church does business, too; there are exceptions, churches and preachers that talk about money all the time, largely so they can ask people to give them more of it, but they only make the rest of us even more hesitant to talk about it. After all, it feels personal, and pushy, and we’d all really rather believe that the Good Church Budget Fairy comes along and leaves the money we need under the nearest cabbage, since there are plenty of other things that we’d far rather talk about; but as much as we might like to avoid talking about money, we can’t do that. We can’t do it for two reasons. The first would be what Carolyn and Gene have told you recently; by my back-of-the-envelope calculation, it costs over $3500 just to pay for this service we’re having here this morning, when you figure in my salary package, and the salaries of everyone else who contributes, and the cost of having this building, and the cost of the bulletins and all the other materials we use, and we don’t take in anywhere near that much per week. Indeed, when you factor in the preschool and the other missions we support, we’d need to double our giving and more just to get to the point where we’re no longer burning principal on our endowment; to get to the point where our giving covered everything and we could begin using the interest on the endowment for new ministries, we’d have to triple our giving. Obviously, this is more than just a stewardship issue, it’s a growth issue—we need to draw in a fair bit more people to reach that point; but still, as a practical matter, we can’t avoid talking about money. We’re living on borrowed time as it is.

That aspect of things is Carolyn and Gene’s job to worry about, at least primarily, and you’re lucky to have them. My main concern this morning is the second reason we can’t avoid talking about money, which is that the Bible spends a fair bit of time talking about it, and for good reason. We spent a while earlier this year considering what it means to be the church, and part of what it means to be the church is that we’re all in this together, committed to each other in God and to what God is doing in and through us. If that’s a real commitment, if we’re really on board with that, then it’s not enough to stand and say the creed together, it’s not enough to stand and sing the words of our great hymns—we need to live out what we say we believe, and the way we use our money (and for that matter, our time, our abilities, and everything else God has given us) needs to reflect that. It’s not enough to say that Jesus is Lord—our bankbook needs to show it, too.

Unfortunately, there are a couple factors which tend to work against that. The first is our false understanding of our money—a false understanding which is inherent in the fact that we call it our money to begin with. We look at the money in our accounts and think it belongs to us to use for our own purposes, and thus that whether or not we give to the church, and how much, is our own decision, to be made on the basis of whatever criteria seem appropriate to us. That view of money breeds a lack of trust in God, because if our money really does belong to us, then it’s entirely our responsibility to use it to provide for ourselves. We might talk about trusting God, and relying on God, but in the last analysis, in our bank balance we trust. If that’s so, then giving is a luxury, something we can choose to do once we’re sure we can afford it and know how much we’re going to spend on everything else; it’s simply one more option for our money, depending on what we want to do and how much we feel we can afford given the standard of living we want to maintain. It’s purely our choice, purely a matter of our own priorities.

To this idea, God says, “NO.” As we talked about three weeks ago, everything in this world belongs to him, even the clothes on our back—even our very bodies—because he made everything. It isn’t our money, it’s his—it isn’t our time, it’s his—they aren’t our abilities and talents, they’re his; indeed, everything we have isn’t ours, it’s God’s. Stop and think about that for a moment; let that sink in. Everything we have belongs to God. We aren’t owners, we’re stewards to whom God has entrusted his wealth, and in the end, we will have to give an account of what we’ve done with it. If we’re going to live lives pleasing to God, as individuals and as a people, we need to bear that fact in mind, and it needs to make a difference in what we do with our money.

Out of this truth flow three important points. First, giving isn’t optional. It isn’t up to us, it isn’t a matter of whether or not we want to, it isn’t something God would like us to do if we think we have a little room in the budget—God commands us to give. Indeed, the Old Testament law commanded the people of Israel to tithe, to give 10% of their income, to the temple—and that wasn’t supposed to be the limit of what they gave, but the minimum, which is why we have the phrase “tithes and offerings.” Again, this is based on the fact that all the world is God’s; he’s given his people everything they have, and he commands that they give back 10% of what he’s given them. To withhold some of that 10%, then, to give less than God had commanded, would be to refuse to give God what belongs to him—and that is nothing less than theft.

Now, does that mean that if we don’t tithe, we’re guilty of stealing from God? I don’t think so, since this commandment isn’t repeated in the New Testament, nor is Malachi’s language echoed anywhere. It’s hard to say for sure, since so many of the early Christians were either Jews or God-fearing Gentiles, and probably kept on tithing after converting to follow Christ; and we know from Acts that the first group of believers, in Jerusalem, gave far more than 10%, contributing great sums to the church for the sake of the poor and powerless among them. Still, if the early church had seen tithing as a requirement, I think we’d have something—perhaps in one of Paul’s letters—stressing the necessity of giving 10% of one’s income to the church; and that just isn’t there.

I wonder, though, if that isn’t the wrong question in a lot of ways. Saying, “Do we have to tithe, or can we get away with less?” isn’t the question of someone looking to honor God with their money—it’s the question of someone trying to justify giving as little as possible. It’s the question, we might say, of someone who doesn’t trust God enough to give freely and generously—who assumes that if they do, they’ll be poorer and worse off for it—and to that way of thinking, God says, “Try me.” Through Malachi, he tells his people, “Bring your full tithes, put me to the test; see if I don’t send rain to bless your crops, and keep back the bugs that destroy the fruit of your labors.” This isn’t an individual promise here, that if you, personally, tithe, God will make you rich; but if the nation as a whole will give God what he requires, he will bless the nation and everybody will have enough, without having to fight so hard to survive.

Then in 2 Corinthians, Paul takes this and develops it in a more individual direction. “You know how it works,” he says: “you reap what you sow. If you only sow a little seed, you only get a small harvest, but if you sow a great deal of seed, you reap a huge harvest.” Of course, with fruit, like olives, what you eat and what you plant are different parts of the fruit, but with grain, they’re one and the same; so there’s always the tension, especially in poor areas, between how much you eat and how much you sow back into the ground for next year. You can’t sow it all, obviously, or you’ll have nothing to eat this year; but if you eat too much of the harvest, then your harvest next year is guaranteed to be poor, because you can’t reap the benefits of seed you didn’t sow.

Giving, Paul says, is the same way. We need to remember, first, that God owns everything, including all that is ours to use, and thus that he is ultimately the one who gives us success in our labors, not we ourselves; and second, that not only is he able to bless us with all good things, he wants to do so. Thus Paul says in verse 8, “God is able to provide you with every kind of blessing in abundance, so that in every circumstance you may always have everything you need and still have ample resources for every kind of good work.” The word “blessing” here is the word kharis, the word “grace”; thus the blessings in view here aren’t only material but also spiritual. This isn’t a promise of material wealth, but it is a promise that those who give freely, generously and gladly to God will always have enough; and it’s a promise as well of all the spiritual blessings that make life good, and that empower us to do the good works God calls us to do.

Note again that “freely, generously and gladly” really does matter—how much we give matters, but so do why and how we give. Thus Paul tells the Corinthians, “If you really don’t want to give, or if you’re only giving under pressure or because you’re worried what others will think, then don’t; for it’s the cheerful and open-hearted giver that God loves.” The call is to give generously and gladly back to God from what he has given us, in gratitude for all the ways in which he has blessed us, believing that if we do so, he will continue to bless us and provide for all our needs. The key here is trust: are we willing to stake our lives on trust in God rather than trust in our own sweat and our own wits? That kind of trust, that kind of faith, is what God wants from us.

Finally, we need to understand our money the same way the farmer understands seed. Yes, we need to use some of it for food (and also clothing and shelter), but just as the basic purpose of seed is to be planted so that it can grow and produce a crop, so the basic purpose of money in this life is to be invested to produce treasure in the next, in the kingdom of God. This isn’t the investment plan the world recommends—the world, after all, wants things it can quantify, and the First National Bank of Heaven doesn’t send out bank statements, nor can one put a number and a label on the promises of God—but there are advantages; thus Jesus says, “Don’t store up your treasures on earth, where hurricanes, financial scandals, and stock market crashes can wipe them away, where floods can ruin them, or thieves can break in and steal them” (that’s a loose translation); “instead, store up your treasures in heaven, where they’re safe from all those things.” Our earthly investments might be quantifiable and might seem far more certain, but in truth, they are far more vulnerable to destruction; only God’s promises are truly secure.

Of course, giving to the church, in our community and around the world, is just a start; even if we tithe—as I believe we’re still called to do; Sara and I do—that doesn’t mean the other 90% of our income is ours to do with whatever we please, for it too belongs to God. Giving to the church is just the beginning of a biblical approach to money, one which involves making all our decisions—what we spend and where we spend it, what we invest and where we invest it, and so on—in light of the fact that it’s all God’s, and that in the end, we’ll have to turn all our books over to him for the audit of a lifetime.

So I would encourage you to start preparing for that audit: go home and take a look at your finances, and ask yourself if what you see there honors God. Does your giving honor God? Does it proclaim that you know that everything you have belongs to him, and that you trust him to provide for you—or does it say that you only give him the leftovers? How about your spending? Could you honestly say that the things you spend money on give honor to God and reflect his priorities, or would you have to admit that they don’t? If you have investments, are they investments which honor God and build up his kingdom, or is your money at work for other purposes? These are questions you need to ask seriously of yourselves, and which you need to answer honestly; and if the answers tell you that you need to make some changes, then I encourage you strongly to step out in faith, in trust, and make those changes, that you might be, that we all might be, faithful stewards of the great bounty God has given us.

“Breathe Deep the Breath of God”

Posted on 11 May 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Genesis 2:4b-7, Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-13)

When you say the word “Pentecost,” most people probably think of Pentecostals; and if they know the stereotypes, that’s probably where their minds go, to images of people jumping over pews and swinging from the chandeliers. Like most stereotypes, that one has at least a grain of truth to it—I remember a service at a Pentecostal church in Queens in which, while our friend Ralph Johnson was preaching, one of the choir members jumped up, let out a scream, and took off running, doing laps around the sanctuary. The fact that Ralph just kept on preaching as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening suggested that, in fact, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. That sort of thing, if not usually that extreme, does tend to happen in churches that emphasize the power and work of the Holy Spirit, if they’re open to such occurrences; and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as the leaders are careful and diligent to weed out things which aren’t of God, rather than letting services devolve into “anything goes.”

The problem comes when, as too often happens, people begin to associate the work of the Spirit only with the more flamboyant phenomena, such as speaking in tongues. I don’t disbelieve in such things, and I don’t see that Scripture does either, but they’re only a very small and particular part of the Spirit’s work; to focus on them, to say that it’s only when people are speaking in tongues and falling over that the Spirit is moving, is to have a very skewed view of the matter. Unfortunately, that sort of view is all too common in some parts of the church—and just as unfortunately, it has tended to push others in the church into the equal and opposite error of denying the work of the Spirit. You can hardly blame folks for saying, “Well, if that’s what the Spirit does, I don’t want any part of it; I’ll just stick with God and Jesus, thanks”; but that, too, misses the real work of the Spirit, and skews our view of God, ourselves, and the church.

You see, as we’ve been talking about the fact that the work of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection was only completed in his ascension, we’ve also been pointing to another truth: the work of his ascension was only completed at Pentecost, when he poured out his Spirit on all who believed in him. In Jesus’ crucifixion, the price was paid for all our sin, leaving no penalty or punishment remaining; in his resurrection, the power of sin and death over this world and over us was broken, freeing us to receive the life of Christ; in his ascension, Jesus opened the way for us as human beings to enter heaven, and took up his place as the one who intercedes for us before the throne of God; and in giving us his Spirit, at Pentecost, everything he did became for us, applied specifically to each of us. It is by the presence and power of the Spirit that the work of Christ becomes real in our lives, that it becomes not just redemption in general, but our redemption.

To understand why that is, think about breathing for a minute. I imagine there are a lot of folks here who never do; breathing is automatic, just something your body does while you’re focusing on other things. I assure you that’s not the case for an asthmatic, or for others in this church. For some of us here this morning, breathing is far less easy, far less of a given. There can be any number of reasons for that—for me it’s nothing major, just a combination of mild asthma, allergies, and sinus problems—but they all come down to the same thing: the experience of fighting for breath, of working hard to get enough air in, and the need for air that begins to build in the body. Breathing becomes, at least at times, a matter of conscious effort; you are aware of your body as you inhale and exhale, and you feel the air flow in and out as your diaphragm tenses and relaxes. And if you’ve ever been there, you never take breathing quite as much for granted again.

Indeed, if you’ve ever had a time when you were unable to breathe, it becomes very easy to understand why the ancient Hebrews equated breath with life, and why in Hebrew—and also in Greek—one word means both “breath” and “spirit” (and also means “wind”). The Greek word is pneuma, from which we get words like “pneumatic” and “pneumonia”; its Hebrew equivalent is ruach. Whichever word you use, though, the concept is the same—this is what is essential for life. It is the ruach that gives life, that turns the body from a dead lump of clay into a living being; and when death comes, it is the pneuma that is no longer present. Thus in Genesis 2:7, God breathes the ruach of life into the first human being, and he becomes flesh and gets up; and thus we have this extraordinary image in Ezekiel 37.

You see, the people of Israel were in exile—for their sin, God had allowed them to be conquered and hauled off to Babylon—and they were crying out for salvation, which they defined as a return home. What God understood, though, was that their problem ran far deeper than just their physical distance from the heartland of Israel; their real problem was their spiritual distance from the heart of God. That was why they were in exile in the first place, and without anything to change the situation, their return home would ultimately end with them getting dragged off into exile all over again. For the people of God to really be the people of God, they needed a lot more than merely a new address—they needed a whole new life, a whole new spirit, to enable them to live in a new relationship with God. And so through Ezekiel, through this extraordinary acted parable of the valley of dry bones, he tells Israel, “I will put my ruach within you, and you shall live.” Nothing less would solve the problem. And so at Pentecost, when all was ready at last, God fulfilled his promise, and his Holy Spirit came upon his people in power.

Jesus had told his disciples before he left that this moment was coming, and coming soon, and so they set about preparing themselves for it. As part of that, they gathered together regularly to pray, and so they were all together on the day of Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks, which is one of the high festivals of the Jewish calendar. Luke doesn’t tell us explicitly where they were when this happened, but it seems to me that they must have been in the temple, because where else would a crowd of devout Jews been on such a day? Not just the disciples themselves, but all the other devout Jews who heard them speaking. What’s more, the Spirit of God shouldn’t be kept under cover in a back room somewhere; when God poured out his Spirit on all his people as he had long promised, where else should it have been than right there in the Temple, the center of his people’s worship and the heart of their life as a nation?

The results were astonishing, as they tend to be when the Spirit is powerfully at work. Suddenly there was a sound like a high wind—a vast pneuma—and Acts says “it filled the whole house where they were sitting.” It might seem odd for Luke to use the word “house” to describe so great a building as the Temple, but it was often called the house of God, so his word choice does make sense. In any case, the emphasis is on the sound—on the size of the sound, if you will, that it filled the entire space. Along with a sound like a great wind came what looked like tongues of fire; and just as the wind is associated with the Spirit, so too fire is associated with God’s appearances. During the Exodus, he led Israel with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night; and when he appeared to them on Sinai, we are told that “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD had descended on it in fire.” In other words, these were unmistakable signs to the Jews that God had just entered the building, and that he had come in power.

Note what happened: when the Spirit filled them, Jesus’ followers began to talk about God in many different languages. In fact, they began to preach the gospel, to proclaim the wonderful things that God had done, so that everyone who was there in the temple could understand the message—and there were a lot of people there from a lot of different places. In modern terms, we would say there were people from Iran, Iraq, Tur-key, Egypt, Libya, Greece, and the Arabian peninsula, as well as the capital city of Rome. Now, all of these people would have spoken either Aramaic or Greek, or possibly both, but this was something else: there in Jerusalem, where those were the languages they needed to communicate, suddenly they heard people speaking their own language.

And such people! Galileans! Now, to understand their reaction, you have to understand how Galileans were regarded by the people of Jerusalem. I think about the closest you can come is to think of the way many people in America think of the rural poor in the backcountry South; and that fits in two ways. One, if Jeff Foxworthy, with his “You might be a redneck if . . .” schtick, had been a first-century Jew, he would have been a Galilean. They didn’t quite match up with the rather cruel stereotype we get in jokes about people marrying their cousins, but there was definitely the sense that Galileans were hicks, less educated and less sophisticated, out of the cultural mainstream—certainly not the sort of people who would have studied foreign languages.

And even if they had, they weren’t the sort of people who could have spoken them intelligibly. Just as some people mock Southern accents, while others find the accents of the rural South hard to understand, Galileans were known for their difficult and rather mushy way of speaking, with consonants disappearing or indistinct, and a rather . . . different approach to vowels. So to hear Galileans speaking their own languages, and doing so clearly and fluently—well, these were people they thought of as uneducated, unsophisticated, and incomprehensible at the best of times, suddenly speaking the equivalent of flawless BBC English.

In other words, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples suddenly had the ability to tell people about Jesus and carry on his ministry in ways they could never have done before; they were empowered to do things as agents of his grace that they could never have done on their own. It’s not always as flamboyant as all that—indeed, it wasn’t for the disciples, either—but at bottom, that’s what the Spirit is on about. The Spirit isn’t with us, fundamentally, to do weird stuff, as if he liked to see how strange he can make us look or feel; rather, the Spirit is with us as the one through whom we receive and live in the life of God, that we might be his children, and the power of God, that we might do his work on this earth.

What happened that day in the temple was unimaginably great, a seismic shift in human existence; but it was also, in a way, a very simple thing. Before that day, only a small handful of people lived in the presence of the Spirit of God; most of God’s people had to do without. Spiritually speaking, they had no breath—they couldn’t breathe, because they were airless, living in a spiritual vacuum. That’s why, as we talked about a few weeks ago, they had to have the priests to pray for them. On that Pentecost in the temple, however, everything changed. There was a sound like a mighty wind, as the Spirit blew on Jesus’ followers, and they breathed in, and for the first time, God’s Holy Spirit filled all his people; and when they breathed out, they spoke words of life in every language. They had prepared themselves for his coming, clearing the decks for his work by committing to the work of unity and prayer, committing to integrity, and now all they had to do was breathe. It was that simple, for the Spirit of God—the breath of God—had filled them and had become their breath; the life of God had become their life. All they had to do was to be there and to be open, and the Spirit did the rest.

It’s the same way for us. Pentecost was a one-time event; on that day, God for the first time gave his Spirit to the whole church, not just a select few. What God calls us to is just to let go, to relax, and breathe deep—to breathe deep the breath of God, as a song I know puts it—so that the Spirit can give us his life; he calls us to open ourselves to his work and pay attention, and to let him move in us, changing us and stirring our hearts. We breathe in through prayer and worship, whether alone or together—most especially when we are together, when we can draw strength from and reinforce what the Spirit is doing in those around us, but also as we learn to worship and pray in and through the acts and moments of our everyday lives. And as we breathe in, we also breathe out, as the Spirit moves us to speak the words of Jesus Christ to those around us, and to love them with his love for them. Everything we do as Christians, we do in and by the Spirit of God; indeed, everything we do as Christians, we do only in and by the Spirit of God.

Understand this. It’s the Spirit who enables us to understand God’s Word, because it’s the Spirit who speaks to us through his Word. It’s the Spirit who is the power of that Word in our lives, carrying what we hear into our minds and hearts and using it to change us, bit by bit, day by day, from the inside out. It’s the Spirit who carries our prayers to Jesus, where he presents them to the Father, and the Spirit who brings his words to us in return. It’s the Spirit who is alive and active in this world, through whom God is with us every moment, guiding us, protecting us, speaking to us, strengthening us, shaping our lives, and growing us up to full maturity. It’s the Spirit who gives us the ability to resist temptation, if we ask, and the Spirit who inspires us to talk to our neighbors and friends, however haltingly, about Jesus.

I don’t, incidentally, just mean those who aren’t saved and don’t know him; I don’t just mean evangelism, as important as that is. I also mean those who go to church and have some relationship with Jesus, and the sorts of conversations that build us up in the body of Christ. You see, the Spirit loves the Father and the Son, and loves to talk about them; and when the Spirit is moving in us, so do we. But it’s all by the Spirit of God; it’s only by the Spirit of God, and none of it in our own strength. It’s the Spirit who is our wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour and the living of these days; it’s the Spirit who gives us power to love and follow Jesus. It’s the Spirit, indeed, who gives us breath to live at all.

Bought With a Price

Posted on 4 May 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Psalm 47, Jeremiah 32:1-15; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

The situation was grim. The Babylonian armies were closing in on Jerusalem; barring a miraculous deliverance from God, it was only a matter of time before the capital city, the city of the Temple of God, fell—and God had made it very clear that no deliverance was coming. Through Jeremiah, in fact, he had promised Zedekiah the king that he would be captured and taken to Babylon to face King Nebuchadnezzer, and there was nothing he could do to avoid it; any effort he might make to fight Babylon was doomed to inevitable failure. That prophecy, by the way, that Zedekiah quotes here is found in Jeremiah 34—the book is not arranged in chronological order—and the details of the prophet’s imprisonment are relayed in chapters 37 and 38. Jeremiah was originally locked up for leaving the city, on charges that he was deserting to the Babylonians, which tells you how bad the situation was; but though the king transferred him to a sort of protective custody in the courtyard of the guard, he refused to set him free, because Jeremiah refused to give him a better word from God. So Jeremiah remained in custody, in a doomed city, held there by a doomed king, as the Babylonians closed in and the country fell into their hands.

It was a dark day indeed; not the sort of economic or political climate that tends to encourage things like buying property. And yet, it was in just these times, with the country dying and its independence hanging by a slender thread, that God said to his prophet, “Your cousin’s going to come and ask you to buy his field back in your hometown of Anathoth, because you’re his kinsman-redeemer. Buy it.” To explain this a little bit, “kinsman-redeemer”—the Hebrew word is go’el—is an important legal term. We’ll talk about this more later when we look at the story of Ruth, in which this plays a major part, but a go’el had several responsibilities. Most basically, under the Old Testament law, land had to stay within the family—every tribe and every family had been given its share of the land, and you weren’t allowed to permanently deprive your family of part of that inheritance by selling it outside the family—so if a person had to sell part of their inheritance, part of the family land, to make ends meet, a close relative who had the necessary resources would act as a go’el, a kinsman-redeemer, to buy the land and keep it in the family. That’s the role Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel wants him to play.

Now, under ordinary circumstances, that would be a completely reasonable thing to do; but these aren’t ordinary circumstances, because Jeremiah’s in prison, the country’s being conquered, folks are already being taken off into exile—what on earth is Jeremiah going to be able to do with that land? Nothing, that’s what. He might as well take his money and throw it over the walls of Jerusalem into the valley of the Kidron for all the good buying that land will do him, because he’s never going to see a single benefit from his purchase; what’s more, from a human perspective, it seems likely that no one else will, either. What’s the point in upholding the law and keeping the land in the family when the family’s about to be dragged off to Babylon? What are the odds they ever come back? From the world’s perspective, somewhere between slim and none. And if they don’t, who cares who was last to own a field at Anathoth anyway?

And yet God tells Jeremiah, “Buy the field”; and so when cousin Hanamel shows up and says, “I need money—buy my field,” Jeremiah buys it. I imagine Hanamel was surprised, but that didn’t stop him from going through with the sale. Jeremiah pays seventeen shekels of silver—whether that was a fair price or not, we don’t know, since we have no idea how big the field was or what it would normally have been worth—and goes through all the proper forms of purchase; then, at God’s command, he has the documents of sale placed in a clay jar and sealed so that they will last for generations. At a time when most people would have been buying stock in Babylon, Inc., Jeremiah invests in the future of Israel. Of course, this isn’t his own idea, but God’s; it isn’t really a business transaction at all, it’s an acted parable. Jeremiah buys the field as an act of faith, as a sign of God’s promise that the exile won’t last forever—that against all earthly odds, the people of Israel will return home, and they will once again buy and sell homes and fields and vineyards; in God’s time, someone will benefit from Jeremiah’s purchase of that land. It won’t be Jeremiah—he won’t live to see it—but someone of his blood will. His investment, ultimately, is in the faithfulness of God to keep his promise.

In a way, that’s what Jesus did, too. There’s a form of biblical interpretation called typological interpretation—we see it used in the Bible itself, especially by Paul—which looks for parallels and links between events in the history of God’s people and the facts and truths of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus Christ; in the standard language, the original event is the type and the truth to which it points is called the antitype. You have to be careful reading the Bible in this way, because it’s easy to go too far; but as we see in Paul’s letters, properly used, it can help us as we seek to know God and to understand his ways. Such, I think, is the case here.

Jeremiah’s purchase of the field is a type of what Christ did for us. Jeremiah was in the city of the Temple of God, Jerusalem; his home, Anathoth, was occupied territory; he bought a field in occupied territory as a sign of God’s promise that he would reclaim that territory and his people would be restored to their home in it, and preserved the deeds in a clay jar to bear witness to that promise. In the same way, Jesus left the heavenly temple to buy a field in occupied territory—the field of our flesh; in our flesh, he bought the title to our flesh, to our very lives, with his death. We have been bought with a price. In his resurrection, gave us a sign of God’s promise that one day he will reclaim this territory and restore us to our proper home in it. And in his ascension, he took the clay jar of our flesh up into heaven with him, carrying that title deed, holding that sure hope of the fulfillment of God’s promise where nothing this world can do can get at it, or keep him from returning to fulfill that promise.

In this world, we’re under foreign occupation by the powers of sin and death; even those of us who follow Christ still fight the strong pull of sin in our lives, and our bodies still die. While we live, some of us do well under that occupation, but even then, that’s subject to change at any time; at any time, we could lose all that we hold dear. But we have this hope: this will end. The Babylonians, if you will, are not going to be here forever. The day will come when Jesus will return in power, the forces that occupy this world will be swept away, and everything, including us, will be remade new, and all will be as it is supposed to be. The people of God will live in the land he has promised us, and at the name of Jesus every knee will bow to our proper king, and everything will be, finally, right.

Search and Rescue

Posted on 27 April 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Psalm 24, Ezekiel 34:11-16; John 14:1-7)

“The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it”; the world, and those who live in it, belong to him. In the Hebrew, just to make the point as clear as possible, the opening words of the psalm are “The LORD’s”; we might render that, “The LORD’s, the earth is.” It’s an emphatic statement of the truth that is the foundation of everything else, all other truths, everything we believe: the Lord God rules over everything that is, because he owns all of it. There are no other claims to ownership, and no other claims to authority, that can stand against him; all such claims are secondary. The only valid earthly powers are those which God has established, which derive their authority from his authority, and they’re only fully valid as far as they acknowledge his authority and conform themselves to his will. As for our claims to ownership of this, or that, or the other thing, all are temporary, matters of convenience only, not reality. God owns everything always—he merely lets us use some of it for a little while, and he holds us accountable for how we use it. We are stewards, managers caring for someone else’s property, nothing more.

On what basis does God make such a sweeping claim? On the best basis of all—he made all of it, including all of us. We sometimes describe people as “self-made,” but in truth there’s no such thing; everyone is God-made. In our laws, we recognize intellectual property rights, through such things as copyright law; if you write a book, or a song, or a computer program, that’s yours, and you have the right to control what’s done with it, unless you sell those rights. You also, of course, have the right to profit from it, and anyone who deprives you of that profit without your consent is a thief and may be prosecuted as such. In a way, we might think of the universe as God’s intellectual property, because all of it began existence as a thought in his mind, and came into being when he spoke the word; nothing of anything would exist otherwise.

Now, one could scarcely blame such a powerful God if he didn’t care tuppence about us one way or the other. After all, to take a human analogy, how many human authors actually care about all the characters they write? The Scriptures make clear, however, that God does care about us, and indeed that he created the world primarily in order to create us, so that he could invite us into the circle of his love. Unfortunately, we fouled that up, rebelling against his authority and breaking our relationship with him; and so while God still seeks to draw us close, now there’s a problem.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?” writes the psalmist, “And who shall stand in his holy place?” Who is fit to enter the temple, the place on earth where God made his home, and to stand in his presence? It’s an important question, with a daunting answer: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who don’t put their trust in what is false”—this might refer to idols and idol-worship here; it might also mean “falsehood,” and thus people who trust in lies and dishonest schemes—“or swear deceitfully.” This is a description of a person who is innocent of wrong against God and against other people, who is committed to truth and free of any sort of deception, and who worships and serves God alone. That is the kind of person who is welcome in the presence of God.

Now, does that describe anyone you know? I’m sure you can think of people who are a lot like that, at least some of the time, but do you know anyone who’s all the way like that all of the time? It’s a high standard. In fact, it’s impossibly high. No one can live up to that. That’s why in the Old Testament, there was the whole sacrificial system we talked about last week; people sacrificed animals to pay the price for their sin, a few sins at a time, so that they would be pure enough for God for a little while. But that was only a temporary system at best, and a limited one, enabling people to do nothing more than go to the Temple to worship God from a distance; to get closer, to actually enter the presence of God, was still impossible, for all but the high priest once a year, and not even the high priest could do so with confidence and peace of mind. The barrier between us and God had been breached, but it still stood; to restore the relationship sin had destroyed required more. It required a permanent solution.

What it required was something unprecedented, and to that point unimagined, in human history. The human idea of religion always boils down in the end to us seeking God, which casts us in the role of independent agents using our own wisdom and strength to find and please whatever deity we identify; but the biblical picture is a very different one, indeed. So far from portraying us in this light, the Bible shows us as sheep, dumb fuzzies so focused on the grass we’re eating that we’re forever wandering away from God. Not only are we not capable of pleasing God on our own, not only are we unable to earn his favor, we aren’t even capable of guiding or protecting ourselves properly—we need his guidance and his care. We aren’t making our way toward heaven, we’re lost on the open hills, unsure which way is home, or how far we have to go to get there.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter, because it isn’t up to us; if we’re like sheep who’ve wandered away from the flock, our God is a good shepherd. Even after sending his people into exile as a judgment for their sins, scattering them by his own hand, he still promised to gather them back to himself and bring them back to their own good pasture. This he did, by his own hand, coming down himself as the man Jesus of Nazareth to seek and save the lost, to gather in the lost sheep of Israel—and not only of Israel, but through them, the whole world. He didn’t sit up in heaven waiting for humanity to work its way back to him, which is what the religions of the world expected; instead, he came down to us, going out on the hills as the good shepherd in a search-and-rescue mission to find his lost sheep, to bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured, and to strengthen the weak, fulfilling the promise he had made through Ezekiel.

And then he went home, to take the next step in that process. Note Jesus’ words in John 14—his promise to his disciples isn’t based on what he’s taught them so far, or even on his crucifixion and resurrection, but on the fact that he’s going to leave them. It’s his going away that makes the fulfillment of his promise possible.

Note why he goes. First, he says, “I go to prepare a place for you,” a place in “my Father’s house.” There are two aspects to this. One, from his place at the Father’s side, he would continue to prepare his disciples for their place in heaven, in the kingdom of God, through the Holy Spirit; this is the transforming work of God that we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks, which is the Spirit’s job. Christ, being human, could only be in one place at a time, but the Spirit can and does work in all of us at once, making us ready for our place in the kingdom. Beyond that, though, Jesus also returned to the Father’s side in order to make room for us there, to make a place for us. Some of that we talked about a few weeks ago, that in bringing our humanity into the presence of God, Christ made it possible for us to enter his presence in our full humanity; he made a place for us in that sense. Beyond that, we don’t know what exactly Jesus means by this, what exactly he’s doing for us in this respect; but we know his purpose, that he is making a place ready in heaven for each and every one of his people, that none of us might be left out.

Second, even as he goes to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house, Christ goes before us to make the way there. Jesus tells his disciples, “You know the way to the place where I am going,” and Thomas immediately shoots back, “No, we don’t. We don’t even know where you’re going—how can we know the way?” There’s the tendency here, as later, to pile on Thomas a bit for his question—sort of a “there goes Doubting Thomas again” reaction—but if you stop to think about it, he’s just being honest. The disciples know roughly what Jesus is talking about, but at the most basic level, they don’t know where he’s going, and they don’t know how to get there—because they can’t. None of us can, on our own; no human being is capable of knowing how to get to where God is, much less walking that road. It’s beyond our capacity. Thus Jesus responds to Thomas by saying, essentially, “Yes, you do, because you know me, and I am the way.” The only way to God the Father is through Jesus, who is the truth incarnate—the only visible revelation of the God who is the goal of the journey—and the only source of the true life possessed by all who stand in the presence of God. And so Jesus goes ahead of us, returning to heaven, in order to be the way for us to enter heaven as well.

The key in all of this is that when Jesus ascended, when he returned to heaven, he wasn’t leaving us, he was leading us, going ahead of us to prepare our way, to show us the way, to be our way. That’s why he says, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, there you may also be”; and that’s one reason why he sent us his Spirit, as the agent through whom he leads and guides us in this life, on the way toward the kingdom of his Father. Remember, “the earth is the LORD’s, and all that is in it,” and he’s actively at work in all of it—and that includes speaking to us and guiding us.

Most basically, of course, and most importantly, God speaks to us through the words he inspired, which include the record of the life he lived for us on this earth; it’s through the Bible first and foremost that Jesus leads us by his Spirit, as he continues to speak to us by his Spirit through these words, and he will not say anything that contradicts what he has already said. But that’s not the only way he speaks to us; it’s not the only way he guides us. He speaks through us sometimes as we talk with each other, making us agents of his wisdom; sometimes he may speak truth to us through people outside the church; he touches our minds and hearts through his creation, the natural world; and sometimes he speaks to us directly, in the back of our minds and the quiet of our hearts. I’ll never forget one time I was absolutely furious at someone—a couple someones, actually—and in my mind I heard Jesus say, “Show them grace.” I knew it was God, since it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I protested angrily, “They don’t deserve it.” To which he responded, “I know. That’s why it’s called grace.”

To be sure, it’s not always easy to recognize his leading—though that time was pretty obvious—but even when we’re not sure how or where Christ is leading us, we can always trust that he is, and that he’s good enough at what he’s doing that he won’t foul it up. We simply need to spend time reading his word, since it’s the main way we come to know him and recognize his voice, and in prayer—not just talking to him, though that’s important, but spending time being silent, listening for his voice—so that we learn to know him when he speaks; and we need to learn to expect him to speak, because he is at work leading us by his Spirit every day, in every moment. Christ came down to seek us out in our sin and rescue us from the power of death, and he’s busy right now bringing us home; and what he starts, he finishes. Period.

Christ Our Great High Priest

Posted on 20 April 200818 October 2015 by Rob Harrison | No Comments

(Deuteronomy 33:8-10; Hebrews 7:23-8:2, Hebrews 10:19-25)

One of the problems with being Protestant is that most of us don’t understand priests. We don’t really know who they are, or what they do, or even what the whole priesthood thing is about—the whole idea is unfamiliar to us. One reason for this, of course, is that we aren’t Catholic (though a few of us used to be), and so we don’t have priests. We know the Catholic church down the street has a priest, but for most of us, that’s just external knowledge, not a matter of experience; while we know that the pastor there has the title “priest” and is addressed as “Father,” most of us don’t really know what that means, because it’s never been a meaningful part of our lives. Never having had priests, we don’t understand priests.

That being the case, though, it also needs to be said that even that would only get you so far, because Catholics don’t understand priests the same way the Old Testament did. There are some clear similarities, I will grant, but also some very real and significant differences. The biggest difference, of course, is the whole sacrificial system—to my knowledge, no Catholic priest has ever sacrificed so much as a pigeon, let alone a cow. This is no criticism of the Catholic Church, but it does mean that even understanding the Catholic priesthood is of limited value in understanding the Old Testament priesthood.

Which is unfortunate, because if we don’t understand what the Old Testament is on about, we’re going to have a hard time understanding a fair bit of the New Testament, and most especially the book of Hebrews. There’s some pretty important stuff going on here, but so much of it has to do with the priesthood and Christ’s priestly role that if you don’t understand priests, you’re not going to understand Hebrews—and that would be a real loss, for Hebrews has a lot to tell us about what Christ has done for us that we don’t find in the rest of the New Testament. Among other things, and of particular importance for the purpose of this sermon series, Hebrews is quite important in helping us to understand the meaning and significance of Jesus’ ascension.

Now, it isn’t possible to find one text that says, “This is why we have priests, this is what they’re for, and this is what they do”; to really lay things out, we’d be here a long time reading chunk after chunk of the Old Testament, and while I’m sure you all (and particularly Dr. Kavanaugh) would be patient with me, I don’t want to push it. But this little bit from Deuteronomy, from Moses’ blessing on the priestly tribe of Levi, captures the essence of the priestly role, if you look at it closely. In verse 10, you can see the two parts of the priest’s work, and the two directions in which that work moved. First, “They teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law.” This is the work of representing God to Israel, of teaching them the will and the ways of God and proclaiming God’s word to them, and this part of the job we know; it’s the same thing, in essence, as I’m doing right now. So that, we’re familiar with.

But then take a look at the second half of that verse: “they place incense before you, and whole burnt offerings on your altar.” This is the work of representing Israel before God. The biblical term that gets used of the priestly role is “mediator.” We see that going one way in the task of preaching, as the priest (or the pastor, for that matter) mediates the word of God to the people of God—God speaks through the one who preaches rather than speaking directly. In the act of sacrifice, however, we see that mediation going the other direction. The people of Israel couldn’t go directly to God to ask forgiveness, because their sin got in the way; they had to go through the priests, and so they would bring their offerings of animals and grain to the priests and the priests would then offer them to God on behalf of the people. Every sacrifice was a prayer, and it was a prayer you couldn’t pray yourself; the priest had to pray it for you, because they were the only ones who were allowed to do so. They were sort of professional holy people—you might even call them professional pray-ers.

Now, obviously, our relationship with God works very differently. You all can pray for yourselves and for each other, by yourselves or together. When you sin against God, you don’t have to come to me and have me pray for you in order for you to be forgiven—you can do that yourself. When you have a need, I’m certainly glad to pray for you, but God will take care of you whether you ask me to pray or not—his action isn’t dependent on me one way or the other. I’m not a priest, I’m just a pastor. Or rather, I am a priest, but only in the same sense as each of you is a priest, that all of us who belong to Jesus are called to be priests to each other in the name of Christ.

This is a huge change from the way things were back in the Old Testament, and the reason for that change is much of what the book of Hebrews is talking about. Again, we could have read a lot more from Hebrews than we did this morning—it’s a book that rewards deep study—but for the moment, I just grabbed a couple key passages to highlight the key ideas here. The book of Hebrews presents Jesus as the great high priest, the one who fulfills and completes the whole priestly system and thus brings the need for earthly sacrifices to an end, replacing them with something better. How did he do that? Well, first, he lived a perfect, sinless life—a life completely and unfailingly in accordance with God’s will. As such, he had no need to offer sacrifices for himself, for he had committed no sin for which he needed to atone; being perfect, he was therefore able to offer a perfect sacrifice. Second, that’s exactly what he did—he offered himself, his own blood, on our behalf as the sacrifice for our sin; he offered for us a sacrifice of infinite value, one sufficient to cover all our sin. In this way, in his death on the cross, Jesus made all the other sacrifices—the daily offerings, the sin offerings, the guilt offerings, and so on—unnecessary; he died once for all, and that was enough for everything.

And then third—and here’s where it gets a little foreign to our normal way of thinking, even as Christians—he took that sacrifice into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God. You see, under the Old Testament system, the most important day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. That was the day, once a year, when the high priest offered the prescribed sacrifices for the sin of the nation—all of it—and then brought the blood into the Holy of Holies, the place of the presence of God on earth, and sprinkled it there, presenting it to God. In the same way, Christ offered himself on the cross as the sacrifice, rose from the dead, and then ascended into the very presence of God to present his sacrifice to the Father. You can see this in Hebrews 9:11-12: “When Christ came as a high priest . . . he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” It wasn’t enough just to offer the sacrifice, you had to present the sacrifice to God—and this, Hebrews tells us, Jesus did in his ascension, returning to the throne of God as our high priest who offered the sacrifice which has redeemed and purified us forever and always.

Now, I’m sure that sounds strange and foreign to many of you—we just don’t think that way in this day and age—but it’s important. It’s important because it helps us better understand what Jesus did for us, but no less because it helps us understand what he’s doing for us right now. I think many of us tend to have this idea that Jesus came down to earth, did his thing, then left and turned the work over to the Spirit, and that he’s just resting right now until it’s time for him to come again. But Hebrews gives us a very different picture: Jesus is our great high priest, and he is at work now in that role on our behalf. What were the priests? They were the ones who presented the prayers of the people to God. And Jesus? Jesus is doing the same. We pray, and the Spirit of God carries our prayers to him, and he presents them to the Father, interceding on our behalf, pleading our case for us. When we pray, then, we do not pray alone, or relying on our own merits—Jesus prays with us and for us, and we rely on his merits. This is why we pray in Jesus’ name; indeed, this is what it means to pray in Jesus’ name.

And this is why, as Hebrews 10 says, we have confidence to enter the heavenly sanctuary—the holy place, the presence of the living God—by the blood of Jesus. In the great temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies was separated off by a thick curtain, a curtain that divided the small part of the world that contained the presence of God from the rest of the planet; at the time of Jesus’ death, that curtain tore in two, from top to bottom, because that separation was over. In his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus opened a way for us through the curtain, into the presence of God. Because Jesus ascended to the Father’s side, we are free through the Spirit to approach the holy and almighty God of all creation and present our prayers to him through his Son, our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, in full assurance of faith.

Now, we’ve grown used to that fact, but in truth, it’s an amazing gift; though familiarity has dulled our eyes and ears to just how incredible this is, prayer is no small, safe, domesticated thing. Those of you who were here for my installation last Sunday afternoon will recall my friend Wayne quoting the writer Annie Dillard; it’s one of my favorite passages anywhere outside the Bible, one I think he first heard from me. For those who weren’t here, listen to what she has to say:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

Prayer is nothing less than that. It is having the sheer nerve to stand before the one who created everything that is just by speaking, and whose will keeps everything going, and say, “Daddy, I want to talk”—and to do so in the complete certainty that he does, too, and that in fact he will not take offense, because he loves us that much. When you really think about it, this is an incredible gift—who and what are we, to be given such a privilege?—and so Hebrews urges us not to take it lightly, but instead to take advantage of it! Draw near to God in prayer, in the certain faith that your prayers are heard—no prayer ever bounces off the ceiling, or gets lost in the background noise, because Jesus takes every one and presents it to the Father on our behalf. God may not always give you the answer you want, but none of your prayers are ever ignored, and none go without any answer at all—and even though he doesn’t always say yes, God takes our prayers into account in everything he does. Stand firm in your faith, hold fast to this hope; Christ died and rose again for you and now intercedes for you before the throne of God, and therefore your salvation and ultimate victory is sure, regardless of what that may come along the way. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.