Sermon
of November 27, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson:
I
Corinthians 1:3-9
“Why the World Needed Jesus"
The Advent
season, of course, is the time we prepare for celebrating the birth of Jesus. We
are filled with all kind of different preparations, everything from decorations
to rituals such as the Advent wreath, and we’re beginning to sing different
music as carols begin to replace traditional hymns in the weeks ahead. We listen
to that story that, no matter how old we are, can fill us with love, the story
of the shepherds and Magi and the road to
I think it’s also important to remember not just that Jesus was a baby but why Jesus was needed in our world – why God saw the need to send a child to be born into our world and touch our lives in a way that never before was done. Why was that needed? The answer, I think, lies in the scripture lesson that we read from Isaiah that we read earlier in the service and the letter from first Corinthians that we heard now. So I want to work with those two and think about why our world needed Jesus.
One reason is that the world needed Jesus so we would have the message that God really is always nearby. It was an important message for the world to hear in those days, just as it is for us today. But remember the verse that we read at the beginning of the responsive reading. It starts off, “O, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down.” When we’re reading those words I sometimes pay attention to how to say them and don’t always catch the meaning or the power behind them as much. “O, that You would rend the heavens and come down.” There’s this plea from Isaiah on behalf of the people that God would open things up in the sky and come down and really be with us. There was a need on the part of God’s people to believe that God would be really present, nearby, all the time in the world. It was a deep need of the people, but it’s not the way people perceived God at that time. People perceived that God was sometimes in one place for a specific amount of time and then God was gone again.
Think
about all those stories we heard earlier this year, in the summer and fall, from
Exodus, where God is sometimes in a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire or in a
burning bush up on Mount Sinai, and later on God would be in the temple in the
holy of holies, maybe in the Ark of the Covenant. God moves from place to place
but the people imagine that God is only in that one place at that time. The
people grow nervous down below at
It’s kind of hinted at in Paul’s letter, where he says I give thanks always to God for you because in every way you are enriched in God through Christ Jesus and you were not lacking in any spiritual gift and you were called to the fellowship of Jesus Christ. All of these things suggest that God, through Christ, because near to people all the time, enriching people, opening up their spiritual gifts to them, being in fellowship with them. People needed to hear that, in Jesus, that’s what happened. It wasn’t about the momentary birth of the baby in the manger; it was about who the child became and the message the child brought as a man: God is with you always, in many wonderful ways.
A couple of nights ago I saw the movie “Walk the Line,” a story about Johnny Cash and his life. It’s really about a short portion of his life where he really struggled with drug and alcohol addiction as he became more and more popular. There’s one major moment where he has developed a close friendship with June Carter, who later he was married to I think for 35 years, and she has finally put her foot down and decided that the guy who has been bringing him pills is not going to do it any more. She and her parents are at his house and the guy drives up with pills in a bag, more pills for Johnny Cash. Before he can get to the door, June Carter came out of the house and screamed for the guy to get out of there and never come back. Then her father comes out with a shotgun and her mother does too. He gets in the car and takes off, and he’s never coming back again. It didn’t say this in the movie, but I know Johnny Cash believed that that was God working in his life, that God was near to him through June and her parents who supported him at a difficult time in his life. That part of the message that Jesus brought was that God is near to us at all times and in all places, and sometimes God is revealed in the people who help us and get us through difficult times and support us and turn us in the right direction. God did rend the heavens and come down with a message, through Jesus, that he would be with us everywhere, at all times.
The other thing that the world needed to hear was that people, human beings, are worthy. There is so much unworthiness in this Isaiah passage. Isaiah writes that, “in our sins we have been a long time, we have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Even the good things we do aren’t very good. We are so unworthy, so sinful. People felt unworthy before God in those days, and people needed to hear a different message, that they are worthy, even in our imperfect state, even when we do the things we shouldn’t do or don’t do the things we should. God still considers us worthy. Jesus preached that over and over again, when he chastised those who came to him with a woman and wanting to stone her. People asked for stories and he told about Samaritans and people who had been rejected by society as a whole. People who were considered unclean, people who were sick or who often were pushed to the outer reaches of society. Women in those days were told they weren’t worthy to go as far into the temple as men. There was a whole culture of unworthiness for different categories of people. Jesus came and said no. Bring me the woman who you called a sinner and I will tell you not to stone her. Bring me the Samarian and I will accept him. Bring me the person who is sick or ill and I will heal them and bring them back into society. Jesus’ message is that all God’s people are worthy. It’s kind of hinted at in Paul’s letter where he speaks of being guiltless in God’s eyes. Not perfect, but worthy. Jesus came with that message – that we are worthy in God’s eyes.
I went to a seminar a few weeks ago about change in the congregation. I was sitting at lunch with the leader of the seminar who was telling stories about his experiences consulting with congregations. He told about a new minister who had come into a church and as he was at worship service for the first time, he noticed a stand with a Bible on it that he thought was not in a convenient location, so he moved it to the side and took his place behind the pulpit. At which time an elder or senior member of the church came up and moved the stand back to where it had been. As the first hymn began to play, the minister walked over and put the stand back to where it had been. And as he walked back, the elder went back and moved it again. The consultant told us that it got to the point where eventually they were both holding on to one side of the Bible, tugging, and they called the police to come and break it up. Only God probably knows what was going on inside those two human beings who were supposed to be God’s servants. But somehow Jesus’ message is that even when people get as bizarre as that, they are still worthy before God. They might have had to explain some things and take some responsibility for their actions, but Jesus’ message is that even those crazed people are worthy before God. That was the message that I think the world needed to hear.
The last part of the message Jesus brought is that God is not a God of anger, but a God of mercy and forgiveness and grace. It’s kind of trite sometimes to say that the God of the Old Testament is a God of anger and wrath and the God of the New Testament is a God of love, but there is a way that is portrayed often in the Bible, and even Isaiah has us thinking, that God is that way. For Isaiah writes, “be not exceedingly angry, O Lord, but Thou wast angry; we sinned, we have become like the ones who were unclean.” He said, “Thou hast hid thy face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.” This is an angry, wrathful God that Isaiah is presenting, and the world needed a message that that’s not the only God we know. Maybe that’s not God at all; I don’t know. That’s how Isaiah saw God. But Jesus came with the message that God is not the one who wreaks havoc when you are not at your best, but God is one who extends loving arms of grace to you at those moments. Paul very clearly writes that in his letter in First Corinthians, where he begins by saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ.” Grace to you, from God. God is a God of grace and mercy, not of wrath and retribution. The world needed to hear that. The faith that was being taught and preached in those days was often full of God’s wrath and God’s anger. That’s not to say that God isn’t angry at some of the things we do and God doesn’t want us to change our ways. But in the midst of all that, Jesus came to say that God is a God of grace and mercy and offers new life to us.
If it was
Isaiah wrapping up this sermon today, he’d say you’re all worthless and
there’s no hope and God is up in the heavens and will stay there. But you’re
not getting this from Isaiah, you’re getting this hopefully from God through
Jesus through me, that there’s good
news today. There’s more to the story than a wonderful baby being born in