Month: June 2007

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The Way of Joy

Text: Luke 1:57-80
Date: Nativity of John the Baptist + 6/24/07

     This day we are reminded that there remain exactly six months until Christmas Eve. We are reminded not, of course, in order that we might begin Christmas shopping quite yet. We’ve only recently gotten out the barbecue grill, swim suits and fishing poles. No, this reminder is yet another one of those times when the Church imitates the actual passage of time of a Biblical event; here the commemoration of the Nativity, the birth, circumcision and naming of the forerunner of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist. He is remembered with special devotion as, at once, the last prophet of the Old Testament and the first evangelist of the New. He is the promised Elijah-figure, as the prophet Malachi said it some 400 years earlier, who is sent “before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes,” who “will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:5-6; Mt. 11:13-14). In one way this day is even more important than Christmas for, whereas only two of the New Testament Gospels, Matthew and Luke, begin with the Christmas story, all four of them begin with the arrival of John the Baptist! He is mentioned 100 times in the New Testament, more than any other person except Jesus, Peter, and Paul.

     The account of his miraculous birth in Luke’s Gospel precedes and parallels the miraculous birth of Jesus. It was by a very special favor of God that the angel Gabriel was sent to announce to Zechariah that he and his wife Elizabeth were to have a son, even in their old age. As with Jesus, the angel commanded that this child would have a God-given name, John, which means, “The Lord is gracious.” “He will be a joy and delight to you,” said the angel, “and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord…and filled with the Holy Spirit…and he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah…to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Lk. 1:14-17). The note of joy and rejoicing surrounds the story of John the Baptist because of the great good news he was called and sent to announce.
Continue reading “The Way of Joy”

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Come, for Everything is Now Ready

Text: Luke 14:16-24
Date: Pentecost III + 6/17/07

     It is the age-old story…the tale of the native spiritual blindness of the fallen nature of all men; the account of the God of love who has done everything that needed to be done to restore, to redeem, to save his fallen creation from the devastation of sin, death and the devil—the Gospel which, when it is published and proclaimed, nevertheless is irrationally ignored, rejected, treated as something of secondary importance at best when compared to all the other details of our busy little lives, our frenetic strivings for possessions, for all those things that we have determined make for happiness, success, fame and fulfillment. It is a story Jesus told to the Pharisees. The urgency of the issue may be hidden unless and until you notice that little detail of the story, how the master who had prepared the banquet became angry when his invitation was so flippantly rejected, and precisely by those for whom it was intended as first in line. Jesus knew their blindness, their hardness of heart, even their animosity and refusal to hear, to really hear the Gospel, the good news He came to deliver. If it’s possible to be angry without sin (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26) you can hear the sharp edge of Jesus’ words in telling this little story. If the Pharisees caught the connection, would they repent and turn and listen and believe and be saved? Or would they be offended the more, intent on silencing this “troubler of Israel” (1 Kings 18:17)? Well, repentance hurts. It is never easy, comfortable. For repentance means something in us has to die, as when surgery cuts or chemotherapy burns out the deadly threat lodged deeply within. Continue reading “Come, for Everything is Now Ready”

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Hear, Repent, and Believe–Today!

Text: Luke 16:19-31
Date: Pentecost II + 6/10/07

     The first half of Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is simple and should stun us as to its striking reality of our own experience, the universal contrast between the rich and the poor, selfish indulgence and neglect of those in need, especially those right on our own doorstep. But the second half of the story needs to be handled in a parabolic way since it involves communication and dialog between heaven and hell, between the saints and the damned, something denied by the rest of scripture (Isaiah 63:16) and, indeed, by Jesus’ words themselves when he speaks of the “great chasm fixed” between heaven and hell (v. 26). The main point of Jesus’ “story” is, clearly, the need of men to hear and discover the truth of our sin, to repent of our sins and to believe God’s plan of salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ by listening to and hearing the Holy Scriptures, the Divine Truth revealed in the Bible.

     Now it strikes me that this has been a main theme of most of my sermons in the past few years. These days I’m drawn to constant harping (as my dad used to say) on the fundamental truths not only because there are an ever-increasing number of people who haven’t heard the truth of the Bible, but it seems there is an ever-increasing number of people even in the Church who, in the words with which the Lord commanded Isaiah to preach, “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive,” whose hearts have grown dull, their ears heavy, their eyes shut, who truly have forgotten (if they ever knew) what it means to “turn and be healed,” to hear the Word, to repent and to believe (Is. 6:9-10). Repentance, like believing, is not just a one-time thing. Repentance and faith is to be a daily thing, a life style. I’m referring to the many instances of conflict, disagreement, anger, division, holding grudges, gossip and refusal to forgive going on in the church today. It is evident in almost every parish as well as on the regional and national levels of the church. It is evident in angry words of judgment, refusal to forgive or be reconciled, or in just giving up and staying away. Continue reading “Hear, Repent, and Believe–Today!”