Advent 4
December 18, 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart
THREE
LITTLE WORDS
Good
morning. Welcome to our 4th
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.
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