Jwquaker's Blog
Sermon
What Then Shall We Do?
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
December 12, 2021
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Luke 3:7–18 (ESV)
7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” 15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
We all look forward to Christmas. If you happen to have presents already wrapped and under the tree, you might have an urge to open just one. If you happen to have a child you have probably said no to the question of opening one every evening since you put them out there. This is a symbol in that. There is a recognition of the holy anxiety seen within our secular traditions. We know that there is something in the future. We know that there is something exciting and desirable. We do not know exactly what that is, but we know that we want it.
There was a longing in the ancient world as well. They were not waiting for Father Christmas to come visit their homes, but there were other longings. For many within the Jewish community they longed for Messiah. This term is something that is a bit of a mystery to many of us. We have heard it our entire life so we assume we know what those ancient people meant by the term. The word Messiah simply means anointed one. This term was often used while speaking of the kings. Saul was messiah, David was Messiah.
As time went on and the kings of Israel failed to reflect the anointing of God, the prophets began to be characterized as the anointed. We do not really like what prophets have to say, because prophets tell us what we do not really want to hear. The prophets would speak to the kings and let them know that they were no longer anointed. Who really wants to know that? Who wants to have some prophet coming over to a party only to stand there saying this king is nothing, but you know what the real guy he’s coming later.
A few years go by and everyone realizes after they have been shipped off to Babylon, that the prophet was right. That king was not what we thought, but hey maybe the prophet is also right about the true anointed one coming later, I wish we would not have killed that guy before we asked a few more questions.
This is the mindset. There is this anticipation. This waiting, hoping, longing, but there is also this desire that nothing changes. We want something life altering, something that will change our entire course of life, and yet we do not want to change.
John the Baptist was out on the banks of the Jordan. He was out there preaching. I want us to get a good idea of who this guy really is. His dad is Zachariah. Zachariah was a prominent priest serving in the temple. Priest like that are not as common as we might think. You have to be someone of importance to have that job. You work your entire life for that opportunity, and then you wait for a random lot to be drawn. Zachariah got that chance. He goes into the temple and he does the priestly thing. And he is in there a bit too long. The others do not really know what to think at this point, because there are rules about this sort of thing. You do not go into the temple without doing everything right. You have to make proper sacrifices, you have to put blood on specific pieces of furniture, so that the sacred space is not infected with the corruption of humankind. And if something is not done properly the priest could die.
Zachariah is in the temple a bit too long. And when he comes out, he cannot talk. Everyone knows that something spectacular has happened. It is pretty amazing with anyone serving as clergy is unable to speak when you ask a question about something going on in their place of worship. We all like to speak about it, yet John’s dad is speechless and the entire community knows this. He remains speechless until he writes the name John down during the circumcision ceremony nine months and eight days after Zachariah spoke his last word.
John was known. People would have been watching John as he grew, and then something weird happened. Right when this celebrity priest son is supposed to be following in his father’s footsteps, he goes into the wilderness. And no one really knows why.
I want us to think about this for a moment. He had everything going for him. And he leaves. Only to show up dressed in camels’ hair and a belt, with honey and locus on his breath. He is out on the banks of the Jordan preaching. This part does not really sound all that weird, but where he is preaching is. He is basically standing outside the promised land calling people out to the water. He is basically telling those that are listening that they are not worthy of being in the land their ancestors inhabited. They are not really who they say that they are.
People come out of the cities to hear what this man has to say. “He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’”
In Luke, John says this to the generic crowds, but in Matthew’s account he says this to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. This means that these people were not just random people within the community. These were educated religious leaders, and John looks at them and calls them a brood of vipers.
I want us to consider what John is saying to these people. You probably should not go around saying this sort of thing to people. This phrase instantly congers images in our mind. Images that are not exactly pleasant. A viper is not exactly a creature you would want to encounter in the wild. I am not saying this because in my mind every snake is a potential risk to my life, I am saying this because they are literally a risk to your life. But this is not a single snake, but a brood. A brood of vipers is a nest. There might be a number of reasons for multiple snakes to congregate in one area. One might be they had recently hatched from their eggs; another might be that adults have gathered together for mating, and a third might be that they are congregating in a single place to hibernate. I am not a scientist that studies these sorts of things but those are the reasons that I have come up with. In any case, coming across a brood of vipers in any of those cases would not exactly be healthy.
The venom of a newly hatched snake is more potent than that of an adult, and the baby is apt to be more aggressive because it is vulnerable. This vulnerability causes these vipers to be unpredictable, they do not necessarily act like they would in any other situation. This makes it even more dangerous. The same could be said about the other two scenarios. In most cases snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them, the rattle snake will generally give a warning before it strikes, but if this same snake is in a vulnerable position, it might strike first, seemingly without even thinking.
This is a brood of vipers approaching John. Most scholars will liken this phrase to the nest of offspring and claim that John is calling the approaching scholars of Torah the offspring of vipers. Let that sink in for a bit. These religious leaders are the offspring of vipers.
I have mentioned often that the religious environment of the first century is interesting. The worship of Israel’s God is a big deal. The temple was not something small and insignificant, but it was one of the greatest and most richly adorned religious complexes within ancient Rome. People from across the empire would make pilgrimages to this one temple to offer sacrifices and give alms. In fact, it was required by Jewish Law that three times a year a devout practitioner of the faith would come to the temple for this very reason. This was an important complex. And the priests within the complex were efficient and profitable. They had the courts of the Gentiles filled with booths of moneychangers and livestock vendors. This was important because they were not going to allow anything unclean to enter the holy place. You had to exchange your roman currency into the only form of currency accepted within the temple, and if you have ever had to exchange money you know that the exchange rate varies. And since this was the only place that the currency was accepted chances are great that the odds were in the temple’s favor not the worshipers. Then you had to have perfect animals to offer. You could bring your own offering, but what if you happen upon a corrupt priest that is getting a portion of the profits of one of the vendors selling sacrificial animals? It might be safer to just purchase an animal once you got to the temple. This massive complex that required all people worshipers to come to worship three times a year and investing a great deal of money each time was efficient and effective. This temple is probably the most efficient complex of worship known to humankind. And the leaders within this system were walking to the banks of the Jordan to speak with the priest’s son that walked away.
Let us consider the pharisees for a moment. We often see these people in a negative light, and it is justifiable since people like John and Jesus call them a brood of vipers. But I want us to really consider who these men are. During the exile in Babylon when there was no temple for the worshipers of the one true God to bring their offerings and say their prayers, what were the people supposed to do? It was the Pharisees, well their forebears that preserved the faith during that time. They were the ones that basically formed what we now know as rabbinical Judaism of which all contemporary expressions of Jewish faith today can trace their roots, and if we want to be fully honest all churches as well, because our faith is a form of Rabbinical Judaism. The pharisees were teachers, they were preachers, they had scripture memorized and were able to pass that knowledge to the greater population. The pharisees were the people within the community that devoted their lives completely to a lifestyle of faith. These are the people that you would want to be in your synagogue because they were the ones that made things work. The Sadducees were similar to the Pharisees, except they expressed things a bit differently. The Pharisees were more charismatic they like things like the writings of the prophets and some of the books we might call the apocrypha today, where the Sadducees might have taken a different approach. They tended to only accept the Torah as scripture and the rest of the writings were not as important.
Even within the ancient Jewish religion there was denominationalism going on. But there was one thing that they did agree on, the temple. Everyone that could trace their linage back to certain people within their history and had performed all the correct rites could worship at the temple.
And yet they come out to see this runaway priest in the desert. And he says, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” God can raise up children for Abraham. How many of us have stopped and considered what John said at that point? We often get the idea that the Hebrew faith is one of heredity, but that is not at all what it is about. God has always accepted converts. If you were to look at the history of Israel you can see this throughout. Some of the greatest names within are children of people that if heredity was the most important aspect of the religion, never should have been there. The great king David was the grandson of Ruth, a Moabite woman. Their greatest king, the man that God said was after his own heart was the grandson of a convert. John the Baptist is telling the people, this brood of vipers that their interpretation of the Law is wrong. If God can raise up children for Abraham from stones, what else can God do?
You brood of vipers. You offspring of the serpent. Do you catch the glimpse of what is being said? The wording sends our attention back to our first parents and the garden. It speaks of all the failure of humanity and even of Israel the chosen nation of God. It tells us that even the most devout and educated among us can be deceived and can become instruments of destruction instead of harbingers of truth. Even the most righteous can be the offspring of the deceptive serpent.
This is not a storybook. This is not a hallmark holiday classic. These words are not the words that would be broadcast on most religious networks. These are the words of accusation and condemnation. John is not out there in the wilderness to make friends; he is being brutally honest. And it is no wonder that this type of honesty cost him his head.
The crowds look at John. They hear what he is saying. They are not comfortable with the concept that they might be as much of the problem within the world as their Gentile overlords. They know that the prophets said that the anointed one is coming. They had been hoping for this day for centuries. They had been taught that Messiah will come just as soon as everyone got their act together and worshipped correctly. This is the major arguments between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But John is saying that that is the problem. It is not that the gentiles are corrupting the land it is us, we are the poisonous venom that plagues the nation. And they cry out “What then shall we do?”
That is the question. What then shall we do? Even today we look at the world around us, we listen to the news. We hear reports of earthquakes and wars. We see the culture seemingly turning into a rubbish heap. And we have religious leaders from all over giving us the answers. Some tell us not to worry because Christ is coming. Others tell us we need to get more active in social justice. Others just tell us to have more faith and we can have everything we dream of. John is telling us that we are a brood of vipers, vulnerable and filled with venom. How many people want to cuddle up to that?
John’s words stab me in the heart. These words cause me to question everything I have done my entire adult life, because I have been a pastor for most of that time. I stand here today like that crowd; I listen to those words like those that listened to them on that day. And I ask the same question. What then shall I do?
John tells them to bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Several people from many walks of life came out to John that day: people with means, tax collectors, teachers, and even soldiers. Its baffling when you really consider who is there. These people represent all of society, and the message is clear all aspects of culture need to bear fruit in accordance to repentance. If you have two tunics you should share the excess. If you have an abundance of food, share. If you are a government official you should not take more than authorized, and there is a double-edged aspect to that. Tax collectors are authorized to do just about anything they deem necessary. So what John is telling these government officials is that we should be mindful of what we are doing and the burden we are causing to those around us. The solders are the strong arm of the government. Interesting to note that. We basically have employers, government officials, and the police. These keepers of the peace are told not to extort money or falsely accuse. He is saying do not go out looking for reasons to use your power, simply do what you are paid to do, serve and protect.
What John is saying is that if you claim to be a child of Abraham then live like it. Your mind should be focused on the things that God deems important not the things that we think are important. I have sat with this over the past few years. What is most important to God? When God scattered the nations after the third catastrophic sinful event of Genesis, he handed the nations over to the sons of God, but he called Abraham to become his inheritance. God gave away the entire world and chose a person. And from that person He was going to build what was necessary. It is the people that God deems as important. People that are willing to listen to His voice and follow Him. Abraham was blessed because he listened to God. Not because Abraham was great but because Abraham’s God was. What is important to God is that his people listen and act according to the example that God revealed to us.
We sit here in anticipation wanting to see the great future that God has instore for us. We long from his day to come in the clouds. And we wonder why has it not yet happened? Israel longed for their Messiah they taught if only we were good enough, so they went around teaching the law because they saw that it was the neglect of the law that caused the exile, if we are good enough then God will send the anointed. We are never good enough, even the Pharisees and the Sadducees could not agree about scripture and they had a couple thousand-year head start before Catholics and Orthodox, who had a thousand-year head start to the Protestants, who had a half of a century head start to most of us Evangelicals. We are still arguing about what we should do, and yet it is has been right there in front of us the whole time. God wants us. He wants us to love Him with everything that we have and all that we are. And he wants us to love our neighbor just as much as we love ourselves.
How do we do this? We admit that we are wrong. We admit that the vast majority of our actions are based on our own selfish desires and we repent. Then we examine our lives with the assistance of God. We look at how we are living and what we are doing and we try to turn every aspect in our lives into a way to bring honor and glory to God and not ourselves. It means we come up with ways that we can become a blessing to other. It means we recognize the value others have to God and we honor that of God in them. It means we stop thinking about our rights and we begin to think of the rights of others instead. And guess what that is hard. It’s impossible in ourselves. And John knows that when he said that he baptizes with water but the one that comes after him, he is so great that even John is not fit to loosen the straps of his sandals. We cannot do what God wants us to do without God’s leading and direction. We cannot do it without his strength and his resources. But if we come together in his name. If we encourage each other to become a people Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, and Living the Love of Christ with Others, we are unstoppable. What then shall we do?
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The Pathway Through the Wilderness
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
December 5, 2021
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Today like every day we wait in anticipation. Today we hope to see the glory of God. Today like every day we look forward to the day of the Lord. Yet, like most days we are left seemingly in the same place we have always been.
This is what life with God is like. There are moments where we have great hope, and then there are moments where God is like a figment of our imagination. We want to believe but what is the use?
This is why this season is so important. This is why I actually take the time to take the approach that is a bit nontraditional among Friends to remember the church calendar. I think it is important for us to recognize the seasons, to feel the emotions, to join with ancient history and the universal confessional church in remembrance of the life of Jesus.
The church calendar was developed in a time of history where bibles were not readily available and even if they were available very few people could read the words inside. Yet during this time the church grew. There was not fancy PowerPoint presentations, there were not church bands, there were not programs for the students and adults to deepen their understanding of scripture. There were just lives lived and people telling the story.
They told the story in many ways. Some were gifted with artistic abilities so they would paint pictures on the walls of their meeting places. These icons of worship were more than decoration they were carefully devised depictions of the story, and these icons were used to aid in the teaching of those with the inability to read. Even to this day there are people that have dedicated their lives to this special art form, even though they are painting a picture the process is called writing. These Icon Writers prayerfully consider the story of the person or event and they incorporate as much of the complete story in the symbolic representation they are painting. As the art form has evolved over the past two thousand years we can see common themes. For instance, the perspective is usually off. The hands are small and the heads are larger. They do this because when viewing an icon they want us to know we are looking into a different perspective or a different realm then our own. In our world things that are at a distance appear smaller and they appear larger as they are moved closer. In an Icon the perspective is reversed, the deeper into the painting the larger things appear and the closer they are to the viewer the smaller they appear.
Why do I say this? Why do I even care? These works of art connect us to the mind and the thoughts of people throughout the ages. We can see how they considered things and what their hopes were. But we are living in an age where Scripture is widely available, and most of us can read. We even have scripture available in multiple languages, and even several translations within one language to give us a greater understanding of what those inspired writers intended on saying. And every year as people study we gain even more understanding. You would think after studying for two thousand years we would know all we need to know, but the reality is that we have forgotten our history and at times our perspectives have been misplaced.
This does not change the core message of scripture. From the very first book to the last there is an expressed longing for the restoration of what was lost. When we first open the pages of scripture we have a story of God creating. We are told that God created everything from the light, the water, the soil, the various animals that inhabit the regions of the earth, and finally humanity. When this process is complete God says it is very good.
Our first parents were placed in a garden, called Eden, they were given a commission to go into all the earth, naming the animals, and bringing the earth into submission. Basically they were to become stewards of the earth so that the whole world would become like Eden. But soon after they were given this commission spiritual beings that were created to assist God, much like humanity, deceived our first parents into thinking that God was not giving them all the information they needed to perform their duties. Our first parents desired to do their job well, so they listened to these deceptive beings and they sought the knowledge that they were neglected from. Sin enters the world. In a moment we no longer had trust in God, we even lost trust of ourselves. We went from doing everything for the honor and glory of God, to vain striving where we can only trust our own observations. Adam could only trust himself, Eve could only trust herself. They might be working together but they were not able to fully trust anyone else because no one can know the inner mind of another without the other person revealing their mind. And it is difficult to reveal your mind if you do not know how the other people will react. In our desire to gain the knowledge we cut ourselves off from relationships and we allow fear to reign in us.
The sin of our first parents is more than breaking a rule. Sin is misplaced trust, sin is the lack of trust, sin is allowing fear to rule our lives instead of entrusting what we have to the will of our creator. We lack trust and yet we have this longing to be known. It is one of our greatest desires. One could say that it is an expression of our animalistic desires to propagate our genetic material, but it is more than that. We need companionship. This goes beyond a mere mate. We need friendships, we need community.
We divide into groups. Sometimes these groups are based on common heritage, at other times the groupings are based on similar ideologies. We have formed these communities on our own ideas and concepts. We have developed nations or people groups. We have developed ideologies and stereotypes to distinguish the differences between various groups and communities. And from these ideologies we have developed defenses, yet deep within each of these communities is a primeval desire of unity. We want the entire world to be like our group. This is a skewed view of that original commission given to our first parents.
We desire a greater community. We want the whole world to be united and yet in this desire for unity we have instituted more and greater violence. We trust only our group, those outsiders we hold in suspicion. Why, because they are not like us. They may not have the same goals and desires as we have. They might not have the same political leanings. They might not give me what I want. The cycles continue. And yet we desire the restoration.
This is advent. This season of holy anxiety allows us to recognize this desire for restoration, while we also recognize that if left to our own devices we can deeper into rebellion. The fall of humanity happened early in the Genesis, but the interesting thing is God did not give up. Even though Cain brought in violence, God used the children of Cain for his purposes just as much as he used the children of Seth. It was through Cain that the concepts of civilization were brought about. Cain’s lineage had the technology, and these ideas influenced even righteous. heirs of Seth. To the point that when Noah was called to build the ark, he was the only righteous man left.
Cain shows us the heritage of humanity’s striving. We can develop wonderful societies, massive cities, outstanding technologies, but what is the cost? There is constant mistrust. There is fear that someone may not care enough about me. Cain’s punishment was to live after he killed his brother Abel. Cain lived but he carried a mark, we are not told what this mark actually was. There are some pretty interesting concepts that have been brought about throughout history, but in reality not a single one stands to scrutiny. I personally think the mark is not something tangible. I think the mark of Cain is suspicion. Cain did not trust, he was afraid that everyone was out to kill him so he withdrew and only let in people that he came to trust. The mark of Cain resides on us all, because we are all suspicious people. This suspicion is what drives our civilization, this suspicion is why we have nations, racism, and politics.
God uses this to build his restoration. Even after the flood sin was not abolished and Eden was not restored. Civilizations were once again established and God scattered them. This scattering only deepened our suspicious nature. Wars began to be fought and empires were formed. This continues even to this day. Yet there was one group that was called out of all the nations to follow a different path.
God the Most High, the creator of all things visible and invisible, in his desire to restore his creation left all the people to their own devises but he called one old man, Abraham. And through this one man He revealed the truth. There is one coming that will provide the way to restoration, and through Him God will restore all things.
For most of history, the idea of restoration was similar to the rest of the nations. We will establish a kingdom, a nation of land with boarders and will expand our influence in that manner. Israel obtained their promised land, and they lost their promised land due to their own rebellion. This tells us something about God and land. His dominion is greater than our concepts, yet he will use our concepts to teach us something greater. They had land, just as they were promised, but land can be lost and gained in war.
Even when God had no physical nation, no land he still had influence. Even when his people were in exile he still ruled. Yet the people longed for a land. We need a place to call home, we need our garden of Eden. The place we feel safe, secure, accepted and known. Through the language of longing and restoration of the nation we get some insight into this anticipation of hope.
Malachi 3:1–4 (ESV)
1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Then in the second temple period they began to listen to the writings of Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch and he said:
Baruch 5:1–9 (NRSV)
1 Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. 2 Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; 3 for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven. 4 For God will give you evermore the name, “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.” 5 Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. 6 For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne. 7 For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. 8 The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command. 9 For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Then as the people became established once again in the land they continued to have a longing the father of John the Baptist is recorded as saying:
Luke 1:68–79 (ESV)
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people 69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; 72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
They have their nation, they have been delivered from their enemies yet there is still a deeper longing. “To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The restoration of humanity is more than a nation, but it is a change of perspective. It is turning away from the manners and methods of men and taking on a redeemed lifestyle. Not just for Israel but for all flesh.
Luke 3:1–6 (ESV)
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
What do we make of these words? His paths straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways? Is God about to make the entire earth as flat as the prairies of Kansas? No, these are illustrations telling us that the struggles we face under the mark of Cain, the suspicious nature of humanity will no longer be what motivate and divide us. The things once thought to be impossible can be done because of the influence of God. Mountain ranges and river valleys are the natural boundaries we use in determining boarders. Mexico is south of a river and the United States is north and Canada is on the other side of the great lakes. Missouri is on the Eastern bank of the Missouri River and Kansas is on the west. And the original western boarder the Kansas territory went all the way to the Rocky Mountains.
The language that the prophet is using is telling us that the things we once used to divide will no longer matter. We will no longer be living under the mark of Cain, but the mark of Christ. Paul says this to the people of Philippi
Philippians 1:3–11 (ESV)
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
The longing of the season is that we seek Jesus in a greater way. That we continue to move toward him. We sit in this period of holy anxiety where we realize that we and those around us continue to governed by the ways of men, yet we long for the days were we can leave our fear behind us and live free in Christ. There is a pathway through the wilderness. There is a trail through the mountains. Our hope and our God lived among us and his spirit guides us. Who will we listen to, and who will we follow?
If you would like to help support the continued Ministry of Willow Creek Friends Church please consider donating online:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/nlcsJT87/Willow-Creek-Friends-Church/
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.
The Beginning is Near
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
November 28, 2021
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Luke 21:25–36 (ESV)
25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29 And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. 30 As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
We are told that this is the most wonderful time of the year. It has been playing on the radio for a month now and will be for the next month. But what do we really know about this time of the year?
The holiday season is one of the most stress filled times of the year. There are year end deadlines, there is holiday shopping, and for many mandatory overtime. The stress of the season is only increased because the human body is naturally predisposed to be less active during these darkest days of the year. Our human development has had thousands of years where this is the season to chill. Crops are not actively growing, its dark longer than it is light, and there really is not a reason to go out unless you happen to be the parent of a hockey player. Only in the most recent generations has the fourth quarter of the year become something so active.
This festive season is filled with anxiety. This affects us all differently. Some of us have the benefit of having family near by so even though the stress of this season increases they have healthy relationships that allow them to cope with the season. But what about those that live away from home? What about those whose families might live across the state or worse, on the other side of an ocean?
This is what I hope we consider this holiday season, this advent. Advent is the time of year I like to call holy anxiety. I do not know if I like to call it this but I think it is fitting. It is a time of stress and hope. It is a time where many wonder how things will ever work, and a time where we realize that it does. It is necessary for us to consider this season. This season of longing and anticipation, so that we are able to recognize the hope that is available to us all.
The first thing we need to realize is that we live in a world of struggle. I want each of us to look around this room today. What do you see? For those that are only watching online you see me, and maybe those that sit close to the front of our meetinghouse. But for those of us in this room we see several people that look like they are glad to be here. I am certain they are glad to be here, otherwise they would be somewhere else. But why do we come to this place? Why do we come to meet to worship every Sunday? Have we ever really thought about it?
I have been a part of the church my entire life. And there have been times where I do not want to attend. I do not always feel like singing songs of praise. There are times where I do not even want to hear the scripture read or listen to what God is speaking through the people that gather to worship. I do not always want to be here. I say this even as a pastor. Yet it is rare for me to miss worship on a Sunday morning. Even when I am on vacation I am usually worshiping on Sunday.
The reason I am here is not because I have something profound to say. It is not because I am filled with joy all the time. I am here most of the time because I am a mess. I am here because my life is not in order. I am here because I need help.
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
These are not exactly the words most of us think of as we enter the most wonderful time of the year. Yet this is often what we feel. That is what this season is all about. Jesus spoke these words near the end of his ministry. And I think it is important for us to consider the literary and cultural landscape before we move forward.
Israel was in a unique place. Politically they were being ruled by others, yet religiously they were probably functioning better than they had ever functioned in their entire history. Their temple was profound. It was a wonder within the entire Empire. They were relatively free yet at any moment all that they knew could be laid to waste. Today’s passage was Jesus’s comments about that precarious situation they were in.
We live in a place like this. All across Facebook we are beginning to see memes about the war on Christmas. We get upset about the term happy holidays. And we begin to feel as if there is a something going on. But do we really know what Jesus is speaking about here?
When Jesus says that there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress. What is he saying? These apocalyptic passages are scarry. They are the stuff of nightmares. Movies are filmed and books are published using these story lines. Yet they are meant to be words of encouragement. How encouraged do you feel?
These words insight fear because it speaks of where and in what our faith is in. Sun, moon, and stars are the things that we perceive to be endless. Things that will never fail. What happens when the things we trust do not meet our expectations?
Jerusalem in Jesus’s day was thought by the religious as an everlasting place. If they continued to zealously follow God, God would protect them. They trusted their faith, and they had every right to do so. The feast of dedication that is recorded in scriptures is the feast we know as Hanukkah or the festival of lights. It is a celebration that was dedicated to the faithfulness of God, who preserved the oil in the lamps, keeping them burning within the temple while they priests worked to rededicate it to God after the abomination that caused desecration. God provided for them, so God had returned and honored them. They had spent generations in exile, they had suffered and they persevered. They believed that God would continue to honor them as long as they honored God in their worship. Yet Jesus is saying these words to the people within the city.
They were putting their faith in the temple, not in the God whose footstool stood within that temple.
We can get distracted at times. We can get comfortable in life as we have known it. Then seemingly all at once something changes. Someone kneels at a football game instead of standing for the national anthem and we go nuts. Suddenly our world begins to shake.
I took an Art History class when I was in school. I love art. I cannot make art myself, but I love watching art being created. I like talking with artist about what they have done, and I enjoy watching people as they look at art. When I took this class, my teacher loved the art of ancient Egypt. And he said something interesting about Egypt when I was in this class, according to the art there was never a bad pharaoh of Egypt. Even when the rest of history might say something contrary to what is depicted in those ancient tombs, every pharaoh was great. These artists knew that some pharaohs were not great, some of these pharaohs had not even lived long enough to even have a chance to be bad let alone great, yet their art said they were great. Why, because they wanted it to be true. If the artists were to tell the truth, then their entire society would come crumbling down around them. Their faith was in their pharaoh. And their society would not allow the artists to speak the truth because they did not know what might happen if they did not believe that their pharaoh was perfect.
Our world shakes at times. Truth does not change that. The truth is that companies fail when poor decisions are made. The truth is that governments at times make poor decisions and their people suffer because of it. The truth is even religious organizations can get distracted from what is most important, and we sense a shaking in the foundation of who we thought we were. Our world seems to shake because we have put our trust in things that should not bear that weight.
Jesus is telling the people of Jerusalem in this section of the gospel that their city will fall. He is telling them that the very temple you have put so much cultic devotion into and towards will fall. Everything they trust, everything they believe, everything they hold as important to who they are, will only last a short time. History shows us this time and time again. Jerusalem did fall within a generation of Jesus’s ministry. Many of the people that listened to these words being spoken were alive to see its demise, and many were probably within the walls of Masada during their last stand. But there is something that remains even after the dust of war settles, people.
“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Jesus tells them the absolute worst story to be told and then he tells them to lift their heads up. It sounds ridiculous. And he would have received the exact same response by us in this room today as he received in Jerusalem then. When Jesus told Peter that he was going to be killed in Jerusalem Peter told him to shut up. He did not believe a word Jesus was saying. In his mind it would never happen. Jesus told Peter that day, get behind me Satan. The people of Jerusalem had the same feelings. Our city would never fall, we will prevent it. We will do whatever we can to defend the honor of our people. And yet Jerusalem fell.
Jesus tells them exactly what to do. He does not tell them to take up arms against Rome. He does not tell them to withdraw into the wilderness or to burn the fields. He tells them to straighten up and raise their heads. He tells them this because our faith should not be in the works of men, but in God. Our faith should be in the God that created the entire world out of his great love. Our faith should be in the God that did not give up even when his creation, both spiritual and physical, rebelled against him. The God who preserved humanity through one family when the entire rest of the world chased after other gods. The God that continued to love humanity enough to call Abraham out of Ur, to bring about a nation for himself. God never gave up. Even when this nation, his nation, rebelled against him, he preserved a remnant so that through them He could redeem all humanity, and all of creation. Jesus tells them to lift up your heads and stand up straight because our hope is not in the things of men.
He continues, “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
Growing up on a farm, I know the signs of spring. It is a rhythm of life for us. We slow down as the days shorten, but we do not stop. During those dark days we are still at work making repairs on the equipment that we will need in the future. Every day there is work to do so that when that day comes, we are ready. When I first moved here to Kansas City, I worked for a lawn care company. We would start early in the morning and would often work till the sun went down. Making sure that the grass would be green in our city. But when winter came, 2/3rds of my coworkers were laid off. The other third spent the winter repairing all the trucks. We tore every truck apart completely; we tore down every pump and replaced every part we could. We did this because soon spring would come. For those that were laid off it was a dark time. For those that continued to work it was an anxious time. The entire year’s wages depended on the ability to get back out there when the sun shined again.
So much of the religious community is focused on the distractions of the world. We are focused on the things of politics instead of what is most important. Does it really matter if people say happy holidays or Merry Christmas? No. We should instead be focused on something greater. Spring is coming. The Kingdom is near. And what does Jesus say about the kingdom? It is not of this world.
What remains after the war? What remains after the stock market crash? What remains when a company closes? People; your friends and coworkers. The neighbor down the street. The teacher in you child’s classroom, and the children on your daughter’s soccer team. The people that do not have the means to move remain even when the world crashes down around them. This is what Jesus wants us to focus on. These are the ones that Jesus called blessed in his sermons.
The kingdom of God is not of this world even though it works within this world. The kingdom of God is all around us because it resides within the people who believe. We so often think of kingdoms as nations with borders, but kingdoms are a scope of influence. God’s kingdom expands not by might of armies, but by the lives lived with others.
We live in anxious times. The things we once revered as unshakeable show signs of weakness and we fear. People we once regarded as great have their humanity revealed, and we are afraid that our world is about to collapse. The news reports earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, pandemic variants, and civil unrest and we think that the end is near. Jesus is looking at us and telling us to stand up straight, raise our heads, and roll up our sleeves because we have work to do.
Our ancestors might not have done things right in the past, that is the truth and we cannot change it by denying it or covering it up. What matters is how we live now. The things men have placed their trust in are shaking and they are looking at us, will we show them where our hope comes from? There are marginalized portions of our population that have been systematically pushed out of participation in society, will we offer them hope? The darkness closes in and we might not feel like singing, but we are here. We are here because our hope is not in the things of men. Our hope is in God, and we know that when we come together as a community we are renewed. When we gather, we tell the world that our hope is not in the governments. Our hope is not in the economies driven by consumption. But our hope is in God. Our God left his throne in heaven and was born of the virgin. Our God lived within a family, grew, and worked alongside them in their business. Our God grew in the knowledge and wisdom of God and men and taught us how to live within that wisdom daily. Our incarnate God was unjustly tried and executed, suffering the very worst humanity could offer. He was buried and on the third day our God rose from the grave. After forty day our God ascended back to his throne and the spirit of God came to dwell in us. We are the temple of God. We are His kingdom. And when the powers of the world fail, we remain.
This season can be filled with hope and despair. It can be filled with joy and depression. Some within our community might be struggling, and others might be having the best days of their lives. We come together so that we can share. We come together so that those that struggle will know that this is only for a season, spring will come. For those that rejoice we rejoice with you, and we remind you that this too is only a season. We come because we need each other. We come because we are all a mess in our own way, and together we cry out to the lord for our redemption. And Jesus tells us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” When the dust settles around us, we will rebuild with what we have. When the world trembles look at the fig tree, and all the trees and let us be found preparing for the spring. The beginning is near and we have work to do.
If you would like to help support the continued Ministry of Willow Creek Friends Church please consider donating online:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/nlcsJT87/Willow-Creek-Friends-Church/
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.