Pastoral Search - Following Pastors Jeff and Chelsea Lampen's announcement of their call to serve as missionaries in Germany, Fairview Reformed Church has entered into the pastoral search process....

Following Pastors Jeff and Chelsea Lampen's announcement of their call to serve as missionaries in Germany, Fairview Reformed Church has entered into the pastoral search process.  More information is available at www.rca.org/jobs.

Sermon on Luke 1:46b-55

This morning during the Children’s Sermon, we added the figures of Mary and Joseph to the nativity scene.  Time and time again over the past few weeks, as we’ve added more and more figures to the nativity scene, we’ve impressed upon the kids the broad scope of all those who were waiting for this Savior: as we placed the animals, we talked about how all of Creation had been yearning for a Savior; as we placed the shepherds and wise men, we talked about how all kinds of people need a Savior; as we placed the angel, we talked about how all of the heavenly beings have been watching for the Savior.  This full and long experience of waiting is shared by all of Creation - animals, humans, and angelic beings; from supernovas millions of lightyears away to the bacteria living in your gut.  All of Creation stands amazed at this moment, as the Creator wraps himself with Creation, declaring his kingdom come.

            But though everything was yearning for God’s coming, and though his Kingdom is truly universal, Mary and Joseph won’t let us forget that Jesus’ arrival was intensely personal.  Jesus was conceived within Mary’s womb.  He shared her DNA.  As he grew within her, Mary experienced morning sickness and round ligament pain and a sore back and cravings, not to mention the worries and anxiety about whether everything would go okay.  Joseph, too, was deeply affected: the expectation of a simple, good life with Mary was flipped on its head by God’s Son growing in his fiancee’s belly.  It’s scary enough to care for your own child, much less to try to care for and protect and teach and raise God’s.  When the child who is the Hope of the Universe is kicking your bladder, is causing contractions, is being born and taking his first breaths and crying and is wholly dependent on you for food, warmth, and love, God’s plan of salvation becomes intensely personal.  It’s not a thing you can hold at a distance, He’s there in your arms, staring you in the face, demanding more than you ever thought you could give.

            We’ll come back to this theme of the intensely personal connection with Jesus in a moment, but first I would like to share with you Mary’s prophetic words from Luke 1 as she enters her pregnant relative Elizabeth’s home months before the birth of Jesus.  John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth poured out blessing on “the mother of [her] Lord”, and Mary let loose a song for the ages.  Listen for the Word of the Lord.

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.  From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me - holy is his name.  His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.  He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.”

Earlier this week, I read someone pondering how our understanding of biblical womanhood would change if we took this scene seriously, where two pregnant women celebrate God’s pending overthrow of the world order.  Mary cheers on God, as he reaches out in love and mercy to those whose hearts and hopes are set on him, to those mindful of their own smallness, to those who are hungry and poor, and as he scatters those who are proud, unceremoniously dumps the rulers out of their thrones, and sends the rich away empty handed.  As hilarious as it might be to picture Mary and Elizabeth as gleefully plotting revolutionaries, Mary does remind us of a truth that is far too easy to forget: the world as it stands today, ruled by the proud, the arrogant, the greedy, the selfish, and the egotistical, is not how it was meant to be; God’s kingdom, when it is fully established, will flourish under the administration of the humble and those who long to serve him by compassionately caring for his people.

What do Mary’s words mean for us today?  Are they just some kind of hippie pipe dream, or merely a glimpse of heaven one day?  No.  They’re an invitation to join in the work of establishing God’s kingdom in this world.  Not by some sort of armed revolution or militant takeover or political maneuvering and backroom dealing, those are the ways of this flawed world.  Instead, by humbly embracing God, deeply mindful of our own poverty and dependance on him, we begin to fulfill our roles in God’s kingdom even as we live and breathe today.  We become merciful, as he is merciful.  We become loving, as he is loving.  We’re no longer fooled by the pursuit of pride and arrogance and meanness.  Instead, our hearts become tuned to give, because we have received so richly from God’s hand.

In Mary and Joseph, we see not only a broad, universal need for a Savior, but we see the profound personal impact of Jesus’ coming into the world.  Just as this woman and this man had their lives rocked and turned upside down by the arrival of the Christchild, so our own lives will be rocked and turned upside down by his arrival within us.  Instead of hoarding treasures for ourselves, we provide for those in need.  Instead of reminding ourselves of the ways we’ve been hurt, we forgive, and then we comfort those who have experienced the same kind of hurt we have.  Instead of puffing ourselves up, we sit down with the sick, the lonely, the unstable, the sad and we listen, and we pray, and by God’s grace we heal.  Because on Christmas day, that’s what Jesus, God in the flesh, did for each one of us.  Amen.

Sermon on Isaiah 64:1-9

  Sometimes, we get the idea that it would have been easier to be a person of faith if we lived in Bible times.  If we saw miracles with our own eyes, if we had been the ones to walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, if we had been able to drink the water flowing from the rock, if we had seen the walls of Jericho come tumbling down, it would be so much easier to trust God with our own struggles.  If only we had seen Moses’ plagues, or how David triumphed over Goliath, or saw the fire that Elijah called down, then faith would be so much simpler.

            As silly as it sounds, people in Bible times often wished that they were people who lived in Bible times.  What I mean to say is that the vast majority of people who lived in the Holy Land during the thousand years that the stories of the Bible played out never saw a miracle occur.  Hundreds of thousands or millions of people lived out their lives just as you and I do: hearing the stories passed down over hundreds of years by generations of their predecessors and trying to make the most out of life given what they knew and what they had been told.  And it is out of that blind and desperate faith that the prophet writes in Isaiah 64:1-9:

            Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!  As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!  For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.  Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.  You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. 

            The prophet begs God to come down and make Himself known, so that all of the surrounding nations that are abusing God’s people will quake and tremble and fall on their knees before God and that justice would be done.  The prophet remembers the stories of Egypt being brought to its knees 500 years before, “Do it again, Oh Lord!  Save us like you did before!”

            But then, he remembers why God has seemed distant, why enemies seemed to surround them on every side, why hope seemed like a dream.  And he says:

But when we continued to sin against [your ways], you were angry.  How then can we be saved?  All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. 

It was easy for the prophet and his neighbors to see the problems that faced them on the surface: tyrannical foreign empires kicking them out of their homes, and threatening them with death if they refused.  It was harder to acknowledge the problems that faced them within: their own hearts rebelling against God’s calls for justice and mercy, their own greed insatiably hungry for what others had, their own pride insisting they, not God, are the center.  And as they continuously attempt to fill the holes inside their hearts with money and pride and good times, they waste away more and more and more.

But through the poisonous haze of sin separating the people from their God, the prophet shouts out a cry for help:

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.  We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.  Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever.  Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.

Beset by troubles both outside themselves and within their own hearts, God’s people were desperate for help.  They needed someone beyond themselves to show up and make everything better.  They needed a Savior.

As we’ve said, today is the first day of Advent - the season of eager expectation at the start of our church year.  And once again, we are brought to a place of awareness of our own need.  Like the prophet, we’ve all been aware of exterior struggles this year: the looming threats of war in Ukraine and Israel, tension simmering here in the U.S., our own personal struggles with sickness and age.  And the reality of our own sin is always staring us in the face: the harsh words we use with those we profess to love, our own greed, or avoidance of responsibility, or pride, or racism, or backbiting, or whatever it is.  We, too, are beset by troubles both outside ourselves and within our own hearts.  And we know we need help from a Savior. 

Our prayers can echo those of the prophet: “God, can’t you just come down and stop the war in Ukraine, can’t you just make peace in the Middle East, can’t you just come and take away my pain and take away my addiction and take away my anger and take away my grief?” 

And in the dark, and in the quiet that fills our hearts as we wait, we catch the smallest glimmer of light.  For when God shows up and looks upon his people, he rarely does so to take all the hurts away - no, not yet; instead he comes, joining us in our hurt, sharing our burdens, and offering his own body and blood to sustain us as we continue to wait in the dark.  Amen.