"God's Preposterous Promise!"
Sermon Transcript for November 28, 2004
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 64:1-7; Mark 1:1-8; Revelation 21:1-7
By Rev. Mike Beck
If it sounds too good to be true, it is. We’ve all heard that warning to be on guard against scam artists and false advertising. And because we see such deception in the world, and unfortunately at times we see it even in the Christian community, if we are not careful we kind of insulate ourselves from truly believing the promises contained in the gospel story. In a world that’s filled with evil, that is marred by sin and suffering, God’s message of grace, of unmerited love, of redemption, of eternal life, it can sound just “too good to be true”.
So we often stand at the outer edge of the Advent story and we king of keep our options open lest we be deceived. But God invites us to listen closely to the story…to move closer to the light…and in doing so, to allow our doubts and our fears to evaporate like the morning mist. In the message of the Advent Season, we are invited to believe the preposterous promise that the God who made all that is, clothed himself in human flesh, was born in a manger, lived among us, experienced every grief, heartache, temptation that we face, died on the cross for our sins and rose triumphantly from the tomb that we might be clothed in His righteousness.
God chose to reveal Himself to us over 2,000 years in the stories and the writings in this book we call the Bible. Those stores are rooted in human events. As we pick up the scripture we read about Moses, we see ourselves—they are timeless in nature. And the stories of scripture point to a time in history that what is called the Kingdom of God will be fully consummated. In pages of God’s Word, we learn from people like Abraham and Moses and David and Peter and Saul, who in his great conversion would become the Apostle Paul. People like you and me, in the writings of people like Paul we gain insight, we gain purpose for our daily lives. And in these pages we find hope for life abundant now but also the hope of life eternal. So I invite you on this first Sunday of Advent, to claim anew some of the promises of God that are contained in three passages of scripture that relate to the Advent Season.
I have chosen this morning to use the translation of your pew Bibles, “The Good News” version so you may want to each grab one of those red pew Bibles so that you can follow along with me. The words will also be on the screen. First of all, in the Old Testament found on page 748, these words from the prophet Isaiah. Let me share the context with you. The glory days of King David and Solomon have come to an end. Many of the people of Israel, because of their sin and their disobedience, have been taken captive into Babylon. And as the Psalmist wrote in the first verse of the 131st Psalm, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.” And for many of you, as you anticipate this season of Advent and Christmas, in the midst of the joy of the season there may also be some tears as you remember what has been lost or of hopes and dreams not realized. If that is true for you, I invite you through the Holy Spirit to be filled with hope as we read these words from Isaiah 64 written some 2700 years ago. We sometimes feel like he begins the 64th chapter, he says, “God, why don’t you tear the sky open and come down? The mountains would see you and shake with fear. They would tremble like water boiling over a hot fire. Come and reveal your power to your enemies, and make the nations tremble at your presence! There was a time when you came and did terrifying things that we did not expect; the mountains saw you and shook with fear. No one has ever seen or heard of a God like you, who does such deeds for those who put their hope in him. You welcome those who find joy in doing what is right, those who remember how you want them to live. You were angry with us, but we went on sinning; in spite of your great anger we have continued to do wrong since ancient times. All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through. Because of our sins we are like leaves that wither and are blown away by the wind. No one turns to you in prayer; no one goes to you for help. You have hidden yourself from us and have abandoned us because of our sins.”
Don’t we sometimes feel the way the writer Isaiah feels there? We wonder because God seems for the moment to be silent. Advent is a time of waiting and we never like to be in a waiting room of life. We are action people. We want it to happen now. But as we wait we become aware of our need of God. You have often heard me say that one of the most important words of scripture are the simple three-letter word—but. Notice verse 8; it begins with the word “but”. It is a statement of faith. “But you are our father, Lord. We are like clay, and you are like the potter. You created us so do not be too angry with us or hold our sins against us forever. We are your people; be merciful to us.” Statements of faith, “but you are our father”. And as we think about the clay on the potter’s wheel, we think back to Bill Early’s wonderful message on the 31st of October in which he talked about the potter and the wheel and the clay. But isn’t it true that the clay on the potter’s wheel is often taken for a very wild, hard ride? And then when it has been formed, it is placed in the blazing hot fire of the potter’s oven. But the end result is something of great beauty. And so it is with us as we journey through life. But again notice the statement made at the beginning and the end of those last two versus. Verse 8 begins, “But you are our Father, Lord” and ends with these words, “Be merciful to us”.
As we stand at the beginning of Advent, let me read these words from Grace Adolphsen Brame in her book, Faith, the Yes of the Heart. She writes, “Luther wrote, ‘Faith is the Yes of the heart’. It is confidence on which one stakes their very life. It’s not just our words or the creeds we confess, the prayers we say, the way we argue on faith or what we say in teaching our children. It’s not just our words and our deeds, our faithful attendance at church, our participation on committees, or our acts of love for others as important as all of those things are.” But she goes on to say that, “Yes is an inner assent of the will. It can be so deep and far reaching as to cause a real conversion in life, a real repentance, a turning around to go in a completely new direction. It always involves,” says Luther, “the daily death of the person we have been in order to fulfill our reason for being alive which is to accomplish God’s will in our time and our place.” And as we stand at the beginning of Advent, are you willing to put that kind of trust in the promises of God?
A verse of scripture, which you all ought to have memorized because it bridges the Old and New Testament. Those of you that have taken Disciple Bible Study and studied the Old Testament, you realize that it represents time and culture very different than our own. It contains some stories that are difficult for us in the 21st Century America to read. But God is slowly and progressively revealing Himself so that the verse you should have memorized, Paul says in Galatians 4:4, “In the fullness of time, God sent His Son…” When 2000 years of object lessons were over, God became a man.
So I invite you to turn to the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament. The pages begin to be renumbered; it’s found on page 44 in the New Testament. I want to read the first eight versus in Mark’s Gospel. Mark and John contain no Christmas story. Mark begins this way. He writes, “This is the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It began as the prophet Isaiah had written: ‘God said, ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you to open the way for you.’ Someone is shouting in the desert, ‘Get the road ready for the Lord; make a straight path for him to travel!’ So John appeared in the desert, baptizing and preaching. ‘Turn away from your sins and be baptized’, he told the people, ‘and God will forgive your sins.’ Many people from the province of Judea and the city of Jerusalem went out to hear John. They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan River. John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. He announced to the people, ‘The man who will come after me is much greater than I am; I am not good enough even to bend down and untie his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’”
Good news! Good news! But John tells us, “Repent of our sins. Believe the Gospel.” If you don’t remember, John was Jesus’ first cousin. And he must have made a most unusual sight standing there on the banks of the Jordan River. In fact, when I think of John the Baptist, my favorite gospel group is the Gaither Vocal Band. And in the Gaither Vocal Band, one of the singers is Guy Penrod. And I kind of in my mind imagine John the Baptist looking a little bit like Guy Penrod. If you’ve never seen him, he’s quite tall. He’s got white hair that hangs all the way to the middle of his back. He always wears blue jeans. He’s a good reminder to us, “Don’t judge a person as to whether or not they are a Christian by their outward appearance”. Guy Penrod is a great man of God, but he looks a little strange. John looked a little strange.
John taught me this lesson. He has invited me in every hour of every day, not just the times that I’m at church, to be aware of the presence of God in unexpected places, in unexpected ways through unexpected persons. And as you go through the season of Advent, be looking for signs of Christ in unexpected ways. John came to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. He would later tell his disciples, he said, “Now you’ve got to follow Him.” He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Have you claimed those precious promises of Jesus that we call “the good news of the gospel”? Does Christ live in your heart today through the person of the Holy Spirit? If not, wouldn’t this Advent Season be a good time to claim those promises as your own? Make this prayer from the 16th Century your own: “Believe the Gospel. That is, believe the joyful news of the divine grace through Jesus Christ. Cease from sin; manifest repentance for your past lives. Submit obediently to the Word and the will of God and you will become companions, citizens, children, heirs of the new and heavenly Jerusalem. Walk according to the Spirit not according to the flesh.”
As we think of those words, I want us to turn to page 329 to the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation to some of the most glorious promises of hope ever written as John gets a glimpse of what heaven is like. John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband. And I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: ‘Now God’s home is with mankind! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared.’ Then the one who sits on the throne said, ‘And now I make all things new!’ He also said to me, ‘Write this, because these words are true and can be trusted.’ And he said, ‘It is done! I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it. Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me: I will be his God, and he will be my son.’” (Revelation 21:1-7)
What glorious promises of hope are contained in those wonderful versus. And if I may share a personal illustration with you, this wonderful season of the year is a little tougher for our family this year because we had anticipated that when we gathered for Thanksgiving we would be celebrating a new grandson--the first child born to Adam and Shana. But unfortunately, Gavin came ten weeks early and despite a hopeful beginning, fourteen hours after his birth he slipped away from the bonds of this earth. We had gone up to Kokomo a few days after the funeral to be with Adam and Shana. Adam and I were on our way out to get pizza; and Adam turned to me, I can tell you the exact place in the road, but he turned and he looked at me and he said, “Dad, he looked a lot like me didn’t he?” And I had to admit that as I held that beautiful but lifeless little boy shortly after midnight there at St. Vincent’s Hospital, he did look like his dad. It was a couple of weeks later, in the Christian Believer Class that we were talking about the providence of God. That God is in control, that God has the power to do all things. And many of you were praying that day for Gavin; and as we talked about that doctrine, which is so marvelous, we said nevertheless it is clouded in mystery and just exactly how God is acting in human history. But then someone made this comment and a light bulb came on in my mind. They made the comment about the timelessness of God in relation to eternity. You see, time has meaning for us as we live in this earthly world. But time has no meaning to God. And therefore, as we think of the providence of God, God already sees Gavin reunited with his parents, with his grandparents. (Some of transcript loss due to tape change.)
God is saying that in Jesus, that in the end, everything will be all right. Nothing can harm you permanently. No suffering is irrevocable. No loss is lasting. No defeat is more than transitory. No disappointment is inclusive. Jesus did not deny the reality of suffering, discouragement, disappointment, frustration, and even death. He simply stated that the Kingdom of God would conquer all of these storms. That Father’s love is so prodigal can possibly resist it.
And so I invite you in faith on this first Sunday of Advent, in the company of hundreds of thousands of Christian believers down through the centuries, I invite you to claim, not at the outer edge but close to the light, the preposterous promises of God! And in doing so, your life will be transformed.
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