Epiphany Series 4 - How Now Shall We Live?

 Epiphany IV
Jan 29, 2023
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

How Now Shall We Live?

 

 

Have you ever considered Newsweek a prophetic source?

 

Let me quote...

 

”Every age has its illusions. Ours has been this fervent belief in the

power of prosperity. Our pillars of faith are now cracking about us. We

are discovering that we cannot, as we had once supposed, create

prosperity at will... Worse, we are learning that even great amounts of

prosperity won’t solve all our social problems. Our Good Society is

disfigured by huge blemishes: entrenched poverty, persistent racial

tension, the breakdown of the family, and staggering budget

deficits. We are being rudely disavowed of our vision of the future.

The result of a deep crisis of spirit that fills American’s growing self-

doubt, cynicism with politics, and confusion about our global role.”

 

Any wild guesses on when that was written?

 

March, 1992!

 

 

Moral leadership is rare today! 3 or 4 decades ago, the then Secretary of Health and Human Services called for a “renewed sense of personal

responsibility,” in a lecture at Yale University. He spoke about

America’s unwise choices concerning morality and our national

sense of values. There was a “diminishing confidence in our

willingness and ability as a society and individuals to make sound

judgements about healthy human behavior and lifestyles.”

 

He urged the University to work towards a revitalized “culture of

character.” a return to old-fashioned values: “self-discipline,

integrity, responsibility for one’s actions, perseverance, moderation,

commitment to serve others.”

 

Does that sound familiar? Does it ring any bells for us as The Church?

 

Perhaps we, first of all, should BE the change we want to SEE! 30 plus

years on, we are further down the rabbit hole than ever before. The

words of Paul from Romans 1 ring in our ears with amazing loudness and clarity today...

 

“... because they thought it was worthless to embrace the true

knowledge of God, God gave them over to a worthless mind-set, to

break all rules of proper conduct.

Although they are fully aware of God’s laws and proper order, and

knowing that those who do all of these things deserve to die, yet they

still go headlong into darkness, encouraging others to do the same

and applauding them when they do!”

Romans 1:28 & 32 TPT

 

Friends, it seems the more the world changes, the more it stays the same.

These words of Paul’s were about 1^st century Rome! Not Chicago or LA,

or New York or Denver! But we’re there ... we’re here, today, in a

culture that is fulfilling the worst that we can be! Our ambition is upside

down and inside out! We’re flying upside down at night. We’ve lost our

bearings! We’re on a course for a fiery crash into our consequences!

 

So what do we do? As Francis Schaeffer asked, “How Shall We Now Live? “

I think the answer presented in this “Letter to the American Church” is for us to look at Bonhoeffer or to an Anglican examble, Sir William Wilberforce.  Have you seen the movie, “Amazing Grace?”  There is a scene there in which Wilberforce goes to his mentor, John Newton, Slave ship captain, now become priest in the CofE.  Wilberforce is struggling with his call to politics over that of the priesthood, and to his destiny of helping England deal once and for all with the slave trade.

The call to be involved in the political system for Wilberforce was a holy calling, no less that that of John Newton to the humble station of a priest. 

Likewise we must discern what God is calling us to DO in the face of our present societal ills.  Will we stand up?  Will we say, “NO?”

Bonhoeffer tells us that the Church is the conscience of a society, of a state.  How do we live that out?  Write letters to congress-people; sign petitions; make calls?   How many do even that?  Come with me to the State House for a day or even a few hours of prayer.

Attend the local school board where you live.  Listen to what is being said, what is being talked about, what is being taught in our elementary, middle and high schools. 

You parents may need to find an alternative to public education.  We’re already talking about that with our kids about a 2 ½ year old grand-daughter and an unborn grandson!  Any day now!  As a grandparent you may have to put your money where your mouth is.  Turn over a 401-K for a couple years of education in a Charter or Private school.

I know that the one thing that Wilberforce brought to the table was his willingness to be tenacious in his cause.  That is in fact the single quality that has been of use in the decline of our society – The other side is tenacious!  Wilberforce came back with a new bill, every year – year after year after year.  Tenacity and perseverance is what gives power in the realm of politics.  Interestingly, it also gives power to us.  To The Church. 

And the other prominent feature is Single-minded Unity.

Like the builders of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament, the Lord saw that they were unified by one language, and He noted that “Nothing shall be impossible to them.” 

 The unified use of language is our third arena of power in the culture.  We see that in a “controlled-narrative” in today’s news media.  Language is used to create reality. Lies are repeated until they become “truth.”  Usually truth that is hollow; truth that has no substance in it – no reality behind it. You can literally “see through it.”  If you take the time to look.

 I would recommend a cursory read of the book, “1984” by George Orwell.  Eerily it rings in our ears, as we look up from the book and watch the evening newscast, or listen to the White House Press secretary briefings.  Orwell only missed it by about 25 years, cause we’ve been at this for at least 25 years now.

 Let me close with another quote, from Metaxas’ book:  In his next to the last chapter, titled “Religionless Christianity,” Metaxas says “we need a true and a deep Christianity, one that is not merely “religious,” one that does not lie to God [like Adam and Eve] with “fig leaves” of theological statements and creeds, but that understands that we are to live out our faith with every atom of our being with every second we have on this earth, and with every breath God gives us to breathe.

 He concludes the chapter with these words:

 “We need to act as though Truth is a Person who knows no bounds, who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, and who died that we who are the crowns of God’s creation might at last live in true freedom, with the authority He gave us when He died and rose from the grave!”

 

Let us pray:

 

a prayer of self-dedication                     William Temple

 

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Epiphany 3 - Truth In Love

 Epiphany 3
Jan 22, 2023
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Telling Truth in Love

 

In the 4^th chapter of Ephesians Paul gives instructions for the growth and maturity of the believers in the Church.  Among many repeatable phrases is one that I want to center on this morning:  Eph 4:15

¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Truthing is a way it could be translated.  Speaking TRUTH is a verb!

Have you noticed that we live in a culture that has manipulated at best, the truth for its own purposes, and at worst is leading us into a moral morass of darkness based on out and out lies.

“A man can become a woman and vice versa.”

“Abortion is women’s healthcare.”

I was listening to Colorado Public Radio for their classical music this past week and there is an ad that is running talking about the dirth of child pre-natal services for the African-American community. 

I had an idea!  Why don’t you turn the Planned Parenthood “clinics” into pre-natal care clinics – so that they give ACTUAL help to prospective parents, without killing preborn children.  How about that?  I would gladly help fund that with my tax money!

Today is Celebration of Life Sunday and there was a March for Life in Washington last week, on Friday.  It marked the 50^th Anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court and is Year ONE of creating a new culture of LIFE across the US.  And we have our work cut out for us here in Colorado!  We were the first to abort babies and in the face of the upcoming threat to RvW, in the last legislative session, Colorado passed one of the most aggressive pro-abortion bills in history, in which we only narrowly avoided the “infanticide bill” that was recently passed in California.  Parents can kill their child up to 28 days after birth now in California.

 

This is madness – absolute lawlessness – and it is a crime against humanity.  Let me be perfectly clear.  If I’m going to preach about speaking the truth, this had better be the first truth I speak to our culture!  Let us turn the tide of insanity.  We have to speak the truth to our culture friends – not the “truth” they want to hear – that everything is relative (my truth is my truth and your truth is your truth), but that there is one Truth and that Truth is a PERSON!

That TRUTH is GOD in JESUS CHRIST.  The Way, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE, was how Jesus himself put it when describing himself to his disciples. 

Our culture is like a child that will no longer hear the truth.  I want what I want and I want it NOW!!  No tradition, no law, no constitution can stand in my way to having my own way!

I want to hold my hand over the candle!  But there’s pain when I do that – it’s the natural consequence of holding your hand over a flame!

Pain is a protective mechanism given us by GOD in creation to give us natural boundaries for our behavior!  Something is WRONG HERE, pain tells us.  DON’T DO THIS ANY LONGER!  But our culture’s solution is not to agree with the pain to but drug it or, I have an idea, let’s sever the nerve surgically!  VIOLA, no more pain!  Hold your hand in the fire all you want!  We love you!  We care about you and your well-being!

Now I grew up in Burlington.  It has feed lots on both the north and the south sides of town now.  I’ve been to Greeley, the home of Monfort Cattle Co.  Can anyone tell me what the predominant smell is in Greeley or when the wind is right in Burlington?  Two letters?!!

 

BS!

 

It’s simple.  Truth is simple. Truth is often self-evident.  Boys are boys, girls are girls, there are self-evident differences.  It’s simple.  When we cut our ship away from the anchor of simple truth, we are subjected to the force of the wind.

James tells us that we will be “driven and tossed by the wind,” unable to receive “truth” from the Lord, “unstable in all our ways.” 

A perfect description of our culture today.

 

But speaking naked truth is often harsh and can be destructive.  We hesitate to speak out because we will not be heard. Truth is too hard to receive, too harsh, too stark.  That’s why the formula Paul offers is one which adds an essential ingredient:  LOVE.

In our book, Metaxas is clear that you can’t have one without the other.  Have you ever spun a coin on a table.  If you’re successful at it the coin starts to look like a sphere – it’s hard to distinguish either side from the other.  Truth and love are joined like that.  IN GOD.

“To declare any truth in a way that steps away from God’s Love is to speak no truth at all, as well as to step away from the One who IS TRUTH.  But to claim that we are being loving when we step away from the truth of God is not to love at all, but only to fool ourselves into thinking we are being loving.” (Metaxas, P.89)

The whole of the coin is at play – both sides:  Truth and Love.  God Himself is both!  Jesus said He was both- simultaneously.  Anything less is inadequate for the need of our times.

Paul completes his thought on this in Ephesians 4:16…

¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Paul goes on to describe the world around him in graphic terms:

futility of their minds

darkened in their understanding

alienated from the life of God

hardness of heart

they’ve become callous

 given themselves up to sensuality

greedy to practice every kind of impurity

 

Headlines for today!  The more we go on, the more we remain the same!   We get an even fuller picture in Romans 1, as Paul describes his culture:

²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Paul calls us -  Jesus calls us to speak truth to this culture in love!  The cost to speak is going to be high today.  We have experienced the cost to speak out in our own church – as we were forced to walk away from buildings and roots to begin something new.  We were called names and accused of abandoning ship.  Our first Archbishop Bob Duncan once said, “When the horse you are riding is dead, it may be time to dismount!”

 

Friends, God is love.  His Son Jesus is THE TRUTH.  They cannot be divided or separated. Truth in Love is what we are called to speak to our culture, just as Paul was called to speak, just a Jesus spoke. 

Because we believe that the chief end of Mankind – Humankind is to Love God and to Enjoy Him forever!  And our motivation while on this small planet is to Glorify Him in all we do and say.  To that end we must stand and speak out, in love, to all who will listen and those who won’t, about the truth of God and His Word to us through Scripture.  Not beating people over the head with the 90# family bible, but opening it with them, like a dinner invitation.  Come and dine.

There’s something more that God has for you.  Come and See.

 

Let us pray together again the collect at the beginning of the day:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Epiphany 2023 Series II - WALKING IN THE LIGHT

 Second Epiphany
January 15, 2023
Fr. Phil Eberhart

Walking in the Light

 

 

This morning we are graced with the Baptism of our dear precious, Lucy Adeline Wallace.  Once again I get to come full circle, and one of the girls whose hands made this baptismal stole, is the mom and presenter of her own child for baptism.  And I think that Grandma was the one who was responsible for the idea to do the stole in the first place!!  That blame goes to Trish Brereton, proud grandma.

 

This morning I want to continue with a series of sermons for Epiphany, with the title:  Walking in the Light.   I mentioned the practice last week, in the East African Revival of the early 20^th century, of “walking in the light.”  That practice was what fueled the revival across all of the East African countries, from Rwanda, to Uganda, to Kenya, and round to Tanzania and Burundi.  Like a wild fire, the Spirit of the Lord was poured out on the countryside and it’s primary feature was indigenous worship, captured in the songs, and especially the song Tukutendereza, and the practice of ‘walking in the light.’

 

Walking in the light refers to 1 John 1:7 where John says, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” 

I mentioned this last week, in reference to the practice of reconciliation with each other before the Holy Eucharist.  That is the purpose of the “Passing of the Peace.”  It isn’t just half time, Virginia!

We share the Peace of Christ, after Confession, to make sure that our relationships are clear; our hearts are clean, before coming to the Lord’s Table!  We reaffirm our love for and to one another before coming to the Table together.

Have you ever been at a holiday meal with tension in your family? Isn’t that the height of fun?!!  Eating with people you would rather not be with.  And with family that’s especially fun!

But this kind of thing is not to be so as we come in the Family of God to the Table of the Lord!  Why?  Because it is here that we come with our faces unveiled.  It’s here that we come to meet with God, face to Face!  It’s here that we apprehend and receive the GRACE of God and are transformed from glory to glory, as we reflect the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ!  Passing the peace with each other is simply polishing our mirror!  As we look at Jesus, the HOST AT THIS TABLE, we reflect His glory and are transformed into His image, from one degree of glory to the next.

 

But the glory of the Lord isn’t just to be held among us, it’s to be shared out from us!  How does that happen?

Do you have interactions with people during the week?  And what do people experience when they come in contact with you and your life?

 

I’ll never forget one of the children’s stories we did when we were first at St. George’s, and I think Melissa and Natalie were in the group of kids that morning.  We took a pitcher of water, and cup and a bowl and a dry sponge.  Pouring the water from the pitcher into the cup, we saw how God wants to pour his Life, His Spirit, into our cup!  But when the cup was full the pitcher kept pouring! Oh OH!  So we put the cup inside the bowl. And it just sat there and overflowed. Till the bowl was full too.  Then we dropped the dry sponge into the bowl and it floated. What did it need?  To be baptized!  Immersed, Sunk into the bowl.  Why?  Because it needed to be filled up to be useful!  Then what happened?  It was full of water (the Spirit) and when it got squeezed, everyone got wet!  When we get squeezed what comes out of us?  Unless we are filled with the Spirit, we are dry and crusty.  Not really useful as a sponge, but what happens when we are filled?  We become soft and pliable – “flexible” in the hand of God. Ready to be used by Him, filled with the water of the Spirit – ready for what he intends for us.

Here ends the Children’s Sermon!

 

What we have here, friends, was never intended to stay here!  This morning as you come to communion, dip your finger in the Baptismal Water and think about the sponge!  If you’ve been baptized, you’re a candidate for filling … and filling … and filling again.   And you’re a candidate for going and changing the world.  A sponge is for cleaning up messes!

Do you believe that the world is in a mess?  Duh!  Who’s going to clean up?  God is … using us!   Are you ready?  Sometimes its grimy and sometimes its sticky, but water does wonders!  Oh, and “elbow grease!”  Yeah.  There’s some work involved.

Paul talked about that when he said that we are God’s workmanship; that we are intended to be deployed!  Salt and light!  When I clean up after dinner, sometime there’s a burned on mess in the pan, (especially if I’ve been cooking), and Val tells me to add salt and scrub harder!  It becomes a cleansing agent, not just a seasoning, or a preservative!

 

The point here is that we are not to keep what we find here to ourselves.  And that is the point of Bonhoeffer’s “Letter to the American Church.”  We cannot just be spectators any more, watching the world go by us on the news channels.  So many of us moan and complain about the state of the world right now but do nothing to change even the smallest mess!

 

If we are willing to engage in the clean up, the messes will present themselves!  Right?  Preparedness meets The Mess and a “suddenly” happens:  Suddenly you have an opportunity to make a difference.

And small differences add up. 

 

When the Church of Germany entered into the Nazi Regime, there were about 16,000 pastors there.  About 2,000 signed on with the Nazi party’s platform at first;  there were about that same number who signed The Barmen Declaration, that rejected the Nazi agenda, and many of those died in prison, like Bonhoeffer himself.  But there were 12,000 who stayed quiet. 

 

Have you ever noticed that SILENCE HAS A COST?  Metaxas writes of the Spiral of Silence:

          “When people fail to speak, the price of speaking rises.  As the
          price to speak rises, fewer still speak out, which further causes
          the price to rise, so that fewer people yet will speak out, until
          a whole culture or nation is silenced.”

Today we call it The “Cancel Culture.”  More and more today are speaking out, but the silence is deafening!  And the cost is real.
We are asked in the book, “Are we willing to pay the price of speaking and acting.”  It’s really not enough to complain, to cry or even to pray, though that is a great starting point.  We MUST move to action.  If we don’t very soon we are going to find that our freedoms to “live and move and have our being” as Christians in this country are being curtailed.  In point of fact, they are already being diminished, bite by bite.

 

The secret that our friends across the aisle have learned is the secret of eating an elephant!  One bite at a time.  And it is the secret we need to learn as well. 

One of my favorite quotes by a President came from Calvin Coolidge:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

What would happen if we mounted a persistent campaign of witness in the world around us?

What would happen if we made ourselves available to the God who wants to clean up messes and change lives?  Could we change life on this planet?  Yep !  That is the whole Christian message and the whole program that Jesus set out for us.  All it takes is our three little words:

 

Willingness

 

Availability

 

Obedience

 

And a bucket of Persistence.

 

Let me pray the collect of St. Andrew this morning over us:

 

Almighty God, you gave such grace to your apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give us, who are called by your holy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Epiphany 2023 Series I - SALT & LIGHT

 

Epiphany 1
Jan 8, 2023
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Salt and Light

 

This morning begins a rare adventure for me and for us together.  I will be speaking to the church from the pulpit for the next 6 weeks, the majority of Epiphany.  I feel that there is both a sense of urgency and a sense of breakthrough in the air right now.  As I pray and as we share with other pastors in the area, God is talking about our first love, about a RESET / REBOOT, about the need to be courageous in the face of increasing darkness and ungodliness in our culture.  Indeed, as we enter this season of Epiphany, to be the LIGHT THAT WE ARE!

 

Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, refers to the Church as both Salt and as Light, telling us in Matt 5: 16 to Let your (our) light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.

I’m reminded of the story that Del Tacket tells in the Truth Project videos about doing the experiment with his son’ closet.  He opened the door and the light rushed into the dark closet!  He closed the door and did it again:  Once more the light rushed into the closet.  Several more time he opened and closed the door and not ONCE – NOT ONCE – did the darkness ever fall out of the closet as he opened the door!  The Light Always WON. 

John, in his preamble to his Gospel, says it this way:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life,^[a] and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

 

Some time back with PromiseKeepers was still doing stadium events, this may have been at Mile Hi with 80,000 men there, one of the teachers, said that the reason the world is so dark is not a problem with the dark, it’s a problem with the light – the world is a dark place by its nature.  It’s just dark being dark!  The issue is with THE LIGHT.  That’s US!  Dark isn’t something!  It’s nothing.  If the dimmest candle is lit and lifted up, the dark is gone! 

The dark never falls out of the closet!  So the question is how can we be light?

HOW CAN WE BE LIGHT IN OUR WORLD TODAY?

 

Light is first of all PRESENCE.  If no light is there, then there is darkness.   It’s a simple fact.   If those who are light or who have the light, choose to not be present, then the darkness wins.  But the light we bring isn’t just our presence, it is HIS PRESENCE.

In my work with Transform World and Ed Silvoso, he has been known to say that we, the church, are “Mobile Arks of the Covenant!”  As the curtain was torn from top to bottom at the death of Jesus Christ, God gave us access, full and final, into His Presence, but more than that happened 50 days later, as the Fire of God came to rest on each one in the upper room at Pentecost.

Peter, that day quoted the prophet Joel, as he explained what was happening on the steps of the temple:

¹⁷ “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams;
¹⁸ even on my male servants and female servants
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

 

 

 

Paul urges us to be “transformed from glory to glory” as we “reflect the light of Christ with “unveiled faces:”

¹⁶ But when one^[c] turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord^[d] is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,^[e] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.^[f] For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

 

John tells us that “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” and further that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all sin.”

 

When I was instituted as the Rector of the this church, the preacher was the canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Colorado, Canon Burt.  His message was that 99% of the effectiveness of most of ministry was involved with just being present – showing up!

 

Friends, it is time for us to “show up” in our world.

 

This series is going to be taking it cues from a book I’m reading right now by Eric Metaxes, called “A Letter to the American Church.”  I urge you to get your own copy, and we’ll place a link in this Thursday’s Constant Contact.  Much remains to be seen in our country but we are on a path that is getting more and more dangerous, every step of the way.   Let me just share a single quote from one of the chapters, attributed loosely to Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  “

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil!  Not to speak, is to speak.  Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”

Over the next few weeks I will consider with you, ways in which God may be calling us to be LIGHT and SALT.  There are ways in which we are seeing breakthrough right now, but there, as the song goes, “ is a long way to go, and a short time to get there!”  We as the Church of Jesus Christ are being called to let our light, the Light of Christ, reflected in and from our lives, shine before the world around us, in very real ways.  Welcome to Epiphany!  Arise, Shine, for your light has come!

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…

Amen

Christmas Eve / Christmas Day 2022

 Christmas Eve 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Christmas Eve / Christmas Day

 

So happy to see you out on Christmas.  It is the only time of the year that you can be driving along in your car and suddenly the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah comes on the radio – and you almost want to stop the car to stand up! 

 

The wonder of Christmas and the Christmas message is what fills our hearts these days.  The message of God’s love and God’s over-whelming commitment to us all in coming as a baby, being born in a back-water barn, laying in a manger – a feed stall, surrounded by the animals, and all that juxtaposed with the angels, the shepherds, and the visit from the Magi.  It’s a lot to take in.  Ask Mary!

 

When John the Baptist, 30 years later, recognized Jesus, his cousin, coming to be baptized, he said to those around him , “Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world.”

 

John passed on a truth that I want us to think about this season:  This season wasn’t the last ditch effort, plan Z, of a God who was out of options in dealing with mankind.  The birth of Jesus, his life and death were plan A in a story that began “before the foundation of the world.”  You see God is God, and by definition, knows the end from the beginning!  He sees all of history, past, present and future as one piece!!  He knows our choices, all of our ways, our mistakes and sins, from beginning to end.  And God has chosen to love us.  And further, He came to live among us – John said, “God became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Later in his letters, he wrote,  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. “

 

A lot of people look at the Christmas story as a kind of fairy tale!   There’s lots of cute-ness in the story, if it weren’t so real.  Kind of down and dirty:  a stable (have you ever been in a stable?), farm animals, sheep, cows, camels, probably some chickens too!  It wasn’t fairy tale like.  It was earthy.  God was willing to get his hands dirty!

He worked in a carpenter shop with his father for 30 years!  Being the savior was his second career!  He was a late bloomer as a rabbi!

 

All of this, all the churches, all the songs, all the festivities, almost a third of the population of the planet today who follow Jesus and more every day, growing by more than the day of Pentecost (3000) every day… all of this, from that manger in Bethlehem!  As one preacher put it…

 

"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.

 

"He never wrote a book. He never                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.

 

"He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood. While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. Another betrayed him.

 

"He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying, and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

 

“Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.

 

"I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life."

 

One Solitary Life!

That is the LIFE that we celebrate tonight!  That LIFE is what all the hubbub is about!  Whether we recognize it or not.  It all came from the manger in Bethlehem!  And it all ended on a cross outside Jerusalem!  And then it started again three days later when the Son of God was raised from the dead and the empty tomb remains so today.

One Solitary Life!   An Unending, Indestructible Life.  That is given to us as a gift tonight

Advent IV - Three Little Words: GOD WITH US

 Advent 4
December 18, 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

THREE LITTLE WORDS

 

Good morning.  Welcome to our 4^th Sunday of Advent!  The spell check when I was typing began to spell out ADVENTURE!  I truly believe that that is the actual meaning of Advent!  God is inviting us into an advent-ure!! As we are waiting on His coming, both commemorating Jesus’ birth and His second coming, we are caught in the in-between time – what is called The Church Age!  But you know that we have a secret sauce! A secret ingredient.  We aren’t left as orphans… we’re not alone.

 

Jesus gives us a great clue when he says to the disciples, “Apart from … ME … you can do nothing!”  Jesus is our secret sauce!!  He is the One who lives His life both IN and THROUGH us!  COOL??  So this morning, I will be just talking about THREE LITTLE WORDS.

 

GOD … WITH … US

 

Malcolm Muggeridge is quoted as saying, “the biggest challenge we have in praying, is apprehending WHO it is that we’re praying to!”

GOD.  Who is God?  That is the question of the ages, isn’t it?  Many are not even sure that there is a God! 

God is WHOLLY OTHER.  Nothing like us, but in Whose Image we are created. 

God is the UNCAUSED CAUSE.  The One who said “Let there be Light, and there was light.”  He spoke and BANG, “the universe was.”  We are still discovering the extent of the universe more and more these days through our space telescopes and other means;  and the Bible simply says, “He also created the stars.”  

C.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Paul tells us that the stars and creation speak, in total silence, yet louder than we can hear!  Rom 1:¹⁹    For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

God communicates Himself to us in many, many ways.  But always in ways that will require us to have FAITH…  and Believe.  These are active qualities for us, not simply assent to precepts, but knowledge of a person – God, our Father.   Relationship.

 

“OUR FATHER.”

Who taught us that phrase?  Jesus did.  As He was teaching His disciples to pray, He introduced them to the Love of the Father, both through His example and through His teachings.  In another letter to the Church in Colosse, Paul wrote that Jesus is, “the visible image of the invisible God … For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, …  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  Later on,  in Romans, he writes:  “from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

 

One of our favorite songs is called “You are My All in All”.   All In All.

From Him and Through Him and To Him are all things!

 

It is almost incomprehensible that a God who is bigger than the universe; the One who quizzed Job with questions like…

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Or…

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
    and caused the dawn to know its place, or…

“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
    and where is the place of darkness, or …

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
    or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, or …

Have you an arm like God,
    and can you thunder with a voice like his?

 

So we have some idea of how BIG GOD is. But the next (last) word catches us off guard. 

 

WITH…

What?  We’re talking about God … right?  And the one thing that we need most of all, is immediately available to us, in Jesus, the Son.  It’s His Presence.  God is WITH.  What does that mean? GOD IS WITH…

Right next to us, sure.  St Patrick’s Breastplate says it this way:

 

4 Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

 

With … in every way … in every circumstance … in all our victory and in all our pain… in all our comfort and all our brokenness.  God is WITH.

 

This past week we had the joy of having Deacon Aaron Eime from Christ Church, Jerusalem on our Diocesan Zoom Call.  Aaron has been here at REZ and is a great Hebrew scholar.  He said to our clergy this week that as the Israelites were building the Tabernacle in Exodus 25 and 26, God clearly directed the making of the Holy of Holies, where He would dwell… that it would be made of Skins.  All the rest of the structure was made of curtains, cloth and gold and silver.  But God directed SKIN to be where He dwells among men.  And further, that the construction of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness took 9 Months!!

Any parallels there?

Hmmmmmm.

But additionally, the Hebrew word that is used to dwell WITH can also be translated DWELL IN!  God With, becomes GOD IN!

In what?   In whom?

Well… US!

 

US… um… that’s you and me … AND … you and me together!  Wherever two or three of you come together, I will be there in your midst!

GOD ( Yeah, HIM) WITH/IN … say it:   US!

 

Jesus, said, “I am with you and I will be IN you!” (14:17)

 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

 

Paul later said to his friends in Phillipi: 

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

 I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

I would say to all of us, the door is open… open wide!

Nothing stands in our way… but us!  Jesus Christ has cleared the way through to a relationship with His Father, God, and proven God’s unfailing love for us in his self-sacrifice on the Cross.  As our prayer goes:  God extended His arms of Love on the hard wood of the Cross, that everyone might come into the reach of His loving embrace!! 

And that is the call that comes with the invitation of Jesus…  I AM WITH YOU AND I AM IN YOU! 

Paul said it this way:  “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Three Little Words:   God … With… Us

Immanuel … Immanuel … Your Name is called:   Immanuel
God With Us … Revealed in Us.  Your Name is called Immanuel!

 

God With Us… Revealed In Us.

 

“Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might withing the reach of your saving embrace;  So clothe us with your Spirit, that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know You, to the knowledge and love of You, for the honor of Your Name!”  Amen.