Oursaviorhawaii.com



Many of you know I’m a big fan of the movie, The Princess Bride and there are certain catch phrases that are epic. Every time the bad guy Vizzini’s evil plan is thwarted he says, “inconceivable.” After several of these outbursts Inigo Montoya says, “you keep using that word - I don’t think it means what you think it means.” What does the word “God” mean to you? How about “sacred” “holy?” And I suppose we should throw in “Gospel,” “saved” and “sin.” What does it mean to align our lives, families and churches with the Word and Will of God? Opening words from the Gospel of St. Mark: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” In today’s world “God” doesn’t mean much - between all the superheroes and Avengers and the bestowal of the title god on anyone who does something remotely interesting in the tech world - no one would raise an eyebrow today at, “the Son of God.”One of my favorite scenes from the Avenger’s movie is when Thor’s evil half-brother Loki has almost taken over the world. The Avengers are still fighting and Loki stands defiantly before them and says, “Enough! You are all beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I shall not be bullied by...” That’s when the Hulk grabs him, slams him around like a rag doll and leaves him bleeding and dazed in a crater in the floor. As the Hulk walks away he says, “puny god.” Hulk has a proper understanding of the word “God.”When the church says Advent is the season leading up to Christmas - it’s not entirely accurate. It is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. But what good is a season of expectation and anticipation if you don’t know what Christmas is? To know that it helps to know who God is. And to know that you have ask: Why is God? What does He have that I need? And if your answer is salvation - then you have to ask “save me from what?” And that leads to: How is He going to save me? When is He going to save me? Can He save me? Will He save me?Advent is misunderstood and lost on a lot of people because Christmas is something very, very different than what the Bible says it is. When St. Matthew quotes Jesus who says, “there will wars and rumors of wars” - the people hear “there will be sales and rumors of sales.” When the Prophet Joel says, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares” - the people hear, “they shall beat their plastic cards into lots and lots of presents.” In Psalm 122 when King David says, “I was glad when they said unto me ‘let us go unto the house of the Lord...’ ” the people hear, “let us go unto the house of Lord and Taylor and Macy’s and Amazon.” And even children don’t worry about Jesus coming back - instead they just hope the milk and cookies will make up for all their naughty behavior so they can still get everything on their wish list.While Saints Matthew, Luke and John are the most read at Christmas time - especially in the King James - I think most people are more comfortable with Mark’s Gospel. Matthew, Luke and John talk about angels, wisemen, shepherds, evil kings, no room in the inn, a census, a virgin birth, the murder of innocent children and a baby being born in a stable. Mark just says, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” A lot of people are willing to suspend their personal beliefs for one night a year - showing up on Christmas Eve and listening to the story of angels, wisemen, shepherds, evil kings, no room in the inn, a census, a virgin birth, the murder of innocent children and a baby being born in a stable and they get to hold a candle and sing Silent Night and wish everyone a Merry Christmas before going home and opening up all their presents and start planning what they are going to buy for themselves in all the after Christmas sales. The other 364 days out of the year the Christmas Gospels are too inconceivable for them.I was in a leadership class a long time ago and the speaker said, “Once someone is right about something, they stop taking in new information.” I wrote it down along with the rest of my notes. A few years later I realized the speaker wasn’t quite right - it’s more “once someone THINKS they are right about something, they stop taking in new information.” And that is the problem the church is facing with Advent, Christmas and Jesus Christ the Son of God. Jesus and the Real Christmas and Heaven is so inconceivable they stopped listening.If you could ask for anything this Christmas - what would it be? And by anything - I mean there are no limits. Peace on earth. More money than Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg combined? COVID19 to be over? The Broncos to win the Superbowl? What would it be? And why?When our ears and hearts already know a story - we skip words and pages because we know how it’s going to end. And the end is the only thing that matters - right? Once you know who is going to win and who is going to lose and who dies and who lives and whether they ride off into the sunset and live happily everafter - do you really need to read the whole story again - or can you just stick to the parts you like? Last week Jesus told us to stay awake and be alert. Most of the time when I preached on that text it came out as, “make sure you are in church or reading your Bible or listening to Billy Graham sermons online when Jesus returns!” While I didn’t actually say those things - it is how it came across. There is nothing wrong with those things - but when you read the life stories of the Heroes of the Faith - you realize Martha had to clean house, King David had to go off to war, Joseph had to deal with a dysfunctional family, Abraham was into BBQ, Peter went fishing, Esther had to do queen stuff, Amos had to take care of the fig farm and sheep and Noah had to build a big boat. In other words - even the most faithful didn’t spend every moment of every day in prayer and worship and reading the Bible - they had a life to live outside of church. So - maybe being awake and alert - and being all expectant and anticipatory during Advent has less to do with being super religious and more to do with living out our faith - no matter how inconceivable it might be. And that means we don’t have to be experts at theology and worship and prayer and being all holy - it’s really about proving the grace of God. On a scale of 1 - 100 - how much uncertainty is there in your life right now? I’m somewhere in the high 70’s, low 80’s. I don’t mind telling you pre-COVID I was in the high 30’s, low 40’s. Even though I’ve spent more time working through God’s Word - I haven’t been able to reduce my level of anxiety and uncertainty. It doesn’t keep me awake at night - most of the time. It obviously hasn’t affected my appetite. Haven’t missed any work. But it’s there - in the back of my mind as I ask questions like, “what happens if - or what about - or maybe if...” And the answers are completely and totally unknowable - at least for now - and that’s probably why my uncertainty level is so high.This gets played out in the tension between Mark’s simple, “this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” and Matthew, Luke and John’s angels, wisemen, virgin birth, special stars and God getting born in a stable. As inconceivable as it may seem - I need Matthew, Luke, John AND Mark. The God I want - the God I need has the power to save me. And if I’m honest - I need Him to save me from more than eating too many of those amazing peanut butter cookies with the chocolate Kiss in the middle or spending too much money for gifts on Amazon or jacking up my electricity bill because of too many decorations or violating the COVID laws by inviting too many neighbors over for an Advent Party. He could save me from all those things - but that’s not enough. If that’s all He can do - He’s a puny God. I need angels and stars and the inconceivable because that’s what makes Him God.The Psalmist says, “God’s salvation is very near those who fear Him.” Isaiah cries out, “Comfort, Comfort, these My people.” I realize my level of uncertainty is not about the things I don’t have - but the things I do have. In this season of COVID19 we have already sacrificed so much - we’ve lost friends and loved ones and jobs and health and confidence and peace. In many ways we lost our innocence and discovered a truth we’d kept hidden about how fragile life and the economy and the world really is. And my level of uncertainty comes from asking, “how much more do we have to give?” - and I realize we still have a lot - in spite of all we’ve given we really still have a lot - and that’s what scares me. When St. Peter says, “The heavens will be on fire and be dissolved, and all the elements will melt with the heat until the whole earth is consumed...” - my first reaction is - that’s inconceivable. My second reaction - I also thought a pandemic in my lifetime was inconceivable.Just as I started to panic over all the inconceivable things that are actually conceivable - Advent arrives. A season of expectation and anticipation. And I realize it is for just such a world as the one we are living in. This is who St. John put it in his first letter: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Just in case propitiation was not your word for the day - it means “to appease, to atone for, to redeem, to save.”God didn’t send His Son into the world to save us from Christmas calories and debt. He didn’t send Jesus to eradicate COVID so we could go back to the life we complained about before COVID. He didn’t send His Son to save us so we could live 30, 40, 70 or 90 years and then just cease to exist while all the stuff we hoarded and earned and saved and were so proud of goes to Goodwill or the dump. God sent His Son to love us - as inconceivable as that may seem.Instead of a Christmas wish list - I started making an Advent wish list. A Christmas list is stuff we want Santa to bring us - an Advent list is about God helping us to hold tightly to the stuff that is eternal and hold everything else in an open hand.Peter’s prophecy of a new heaven and a new earth - which the Book of Revelation says will be perfect with no sin or pain or tragedy or loss - means this messed up one has to go - and while that should be easy, it isn’t. When the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is told, most people just go straight to the part about why the cities were destroyed and leave it at that. But there is moment that takes place a little earlier - when Lot and his wife are leaving at the strong encouragement of angels. They get outside the city and Lot is focused on getting away - but his wife stops and sits down and starts to cry - longing for what she is leaving behind. Given what we know about Sodom - she should have been happy to run as fast as she could away from there. But the truth is - even with all the pain and evil - there were other moments that made it hard to leave. Torn between what was with all the darkness - and what can be filled with light - and as much as we would love to say it’s an easy decision - it’s not.Which is why it is so important for God to teach us the inconceivable practice of holding tightly to the eternal and holding everything else in an open hand. That’s what He’s doing in Jesus. He’s holding the entire universe in an open hand - but holding tightly to us. He’s willing to sacrifice everything to save us. As we listen to the Advent story - we need to resist the temptation to jump to the end. We may have heard the story a hundred or more times - and yes, we do know how it ends - on a cross and outside an empty tomb and on a hill as our Risen Lord heads home to heaven to get a place ready for us when it’s time. But if we set aside our assumptions. If we’re willing to listen with open ears and hearts. I guarantee we will experience God's surprising grace. Because even though we know how it ends - we are still living out the part between the “beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” and the part where we go home to heaven forever.Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Shepherds ad Wisemen - even Herod, the Temple Priests, the people of Bethlehem and Judea had all heard the story of the coming Messiah a hundred or more times. They never thought they could experience it - be caught up in the midst of it - and yet there they were - angels, special stars and God getting born in a stable. This is the kind of grace that knocks the wind out of you - that changes everything - that reminds you that even though the end has been written - the story still has some amazing twists and turns.Under a deep blue Advent darkness may God envelop you in the surprising story of His sacrificial love - held out to you in His open, nailed-scarred hand. One of the things that makes this whole season so inconceivable is that God knows your name - knows everything about you - and He loves you so much He is willing to give up the entire universe - all of it - to save you. He loves you so much He is willing to create a new heaven and a new earth without all the sin and pain and loss so you can finally experience life the way it was meant to be. The whole reason for God getting born in a stable and the shepherds, special star, wisemen, and angels was to remove any uncertainty you might have about how much He loves you. And as inconceivable as that might seem to us - for God it’s not nearly as inconceivable as an eternity without you - in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download