"Nagging Questions"
Sermon Transcript for December 5, 2004
Scripture Reading: John 3:16; Luke 1:1-4; 1:26-55; 2:10-15; Hebrews 10:22-25
By Rev. Dan Sinkhorn
One hundred sixty years ago Henry David Thoreau suggested that most people lead lives of quiet desperation. There seems to be a very sense of desperation in the world these days particularly in this country. And I’m not talking about the kind of desperation that causes the housewife to fall off their stilettos into the neighbor’s bed or to drop their towels in front of Terrell Owens on the promo for ABC’s Monday night football. I’m not talking about that kind of desperation. I’m not going to talk about the kind of desperation that causes blue people in red states to start inquiring about the possibility of moving to Canada. Do you know that in the aftermath of the recent elections that Jeffrey Abrams, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, says his office is overwhelmed by that? But people are buying property in Mexico and New Zealand. And according to a Republican Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute, it’s nothing new. Republicans did the same kind of things during the Clinton era. According to Caldara, “Democrats will flee the country but Republicans just drink.” I don’t think that’s true. But it does prove that that kind of desperation brings out the worse in us.
The truth is, there are people out there with good reason to be desperate. There are demographic groups of desperation that involve, well, people whose sons and daughters are in places like Mosul and Fallujah staring down AK-47s. Or there are the millions of desperate people who are over-leveraged; under-funded, and mortgaged to the hilt consumers that have no idea how they are going to pay for their Christmas this year. There are desperate people who are grieving and who have lost loved ones in the last year or so and this time of year brings out all that pain. There are desperate people in hospitals. There are desperate people whose jobs are in danger like the airline industry people who are facing severe cutbacks. There are desperate people who this time of year suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have a mild case of that myself. I’ve got to tell you, I’m up with the sun and down with the sun. Consequently, these short days are pretty tough on me. It took a lot of energy for me to get over here this morning, Mike.
Some of us have good reason to be desperate. So maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that a television show that parodies desperation, like the Desperate Housewives show, that’s so popular now. This story of some wacky women who are desperate, maybe it touches something in our life because we realize that we have desperation in our own lives. Do you know that during October, the second game of the World Series had fewer viewers than Desperate Housewives? Maybe it’s because people watch a show like that and they say, if only to themselves, “Yeah, I’m desperate too.”
Well, welcome to the club. You’re not alone. And, in fact, this time of year is a great time for us. It is the perfect opportunity really to recognize that God has seen our desperation. And if I could be so bold I would say that God is a desperate God who has taken desperate measures for a desperate people. Listen to what the Gospel of John, Chapter 3, Verse 16 says. You know this verse. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This story of God’s desperation to save us and the desperate measures He took as told in the Gospels as God Himself came to dwell among us. And the story is told to us. I like especially the way it is told in the Gospel of Luke who begins telling the story this way: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus (or “friend of God”), so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
If you listen carefully, you can hear written between the lines the author’s realization that we “friends of God” or Christians are plagued with relentless nagging questions. Questions like, “How do I know that all of this is true? How do I know that God really is guiding me? How do I know that God will provide for me? How will I know that God has forgiven me? How will I know that God loves me on a personal basis as an individual? How will I know? How will I know? You could start getting your answers the same way that the shepherds did on that first Christmas Eve. Listen again to the Gospel of Luke. “But the angel of the Lord said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’” (Luke 2:10-15 (NIV)
Do you see what they did? “Let’s check it out!” they said. “Let’s take the Lord at His word!” You know, more sophisticated people might have been tempted to think that it was excellent special effects they had just experienced. More sophisticated people might have doubted what they were seeing and asked a lot of senseless questions. But the beautiful thing about the shepherds, who where the first to receive the news, was that they were simple men and boys who were untainted by sophistication. So listen carefully to what I consider the turning point on this message. If we are honest about our desperate questions, we are going to realize that they are a response to fear to our lack of faith. I’d like to say that again. If we are honest about our desperate questions, then we are going to realize that they are a response of fear to our lack of faith.
So what should we do? Well, let’s look to the Bible again in the Gospel of Luke. This time let’s look at Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah. Luke says, “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.’ ‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.’ Listen carefully to Mary’s response. ‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said.’ Then the angel left her. I suppose a more sophisticated person would have drilled the angel with a half a dozen more questions. But what did Mary do? She listened; she asked what seemed the most perfect question; and she accepted. Listen again. “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!’”
What should we do? We should do what Mary, Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah did; we should continue on living our life. We should pray and serve and listen. And as we continue our disciplined listening—now you know what disciplined listening is don’t you? It’s the kind of listening where you don’t talk. You just listen; you think about what you are being told. So as we continue our disciplined listening for the voice of God, we will be called to remember that God does care, that God provides for us often in wonderful ways and often even as we don’t even know.
You know, God has provided the answer to all of our questions. The answer is a person named Jesus, that baby born to Mary. We know that she and the saints before her acted out of extraordinary faith. But thanks be to God, because of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, all we have to do is say, “I trust you Lord”. That’s all we have to do and our walk will never be a walk of lonely desperation. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews put it this way, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
In my Bible, the word “Day “ is capitalized because it is referring to what I believe Advent is all about for us. We’re not anticipating the commemoration of Jesus’ birth as much as we are anticipating the “Day” of his return. This letter to the Hebrews says that we have significant privileges associated with our new life in Christ. This is God’s answer to your question.
1. We have personal access to God through Christ and can draw near to him without an elaborate system. (Hebrews 10:22)
2. We may grow in faith, overcome doubts and questions, and deepen our relationship with God (Hebrews 10:23)
3. We may enjoy encouragement from one another (Hebrews 10:24); and we may worship God together (Hebrew 10:25).
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