Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, "How many years have you lived?" So Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning." Genesis 47:7-9 (NASB) No hymns this week, I forgot to bring my hymnal to school. When asked about his age, Jacob described his life as a sojourning. This idea comes up fairly frequently in scripture, that our time on Earth is just a period of passing through, that this is not really our home. There is a sense in which it is--the new Heavens and new Earth where we dwell with God is a restoration of that which already exists, which means we will live forever on this very Earth after it has been renewed--but we cannot allow ourselves to see only this passing age of death and sin and turmoil as where we ultimately belong. This world cannot hold our affections, certainly not our allegiance, as it is not our true home, and we will not be here for long. “Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Selah. “Surely every man walks about as a phantom; Surely they make an uproar for nothing; He amasses riches and does not know who will gather them. Psalm 39:5-6 (NASB) But we have been granted something greater than Earthly experience and wealth. Christ has given us a new home, a kingdom that Hebrews states Jacob and his fathers longed after. A kingdom that Christ proclaims our access to and affiliation with in Matthew 16, speaking to Peter regarding the church that would be built with him.
How would we interact with this world, with its affections and concerns and obsessions, with its nations and its peoples, if we truly understood ourselves to be sojourners in a world that is passing away? If we truly understood what it is that Christ has done by giving us a new home, a new identity, and a new status? I think we do a great disservice to ourselves and our God and our world when we try to divorce the doctrines of the Kingdom and the church from each other. After all, how can we ever bring the glories of our home to the land in which we sojourn, if we do not consider what the glories of our home actually are?
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And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: "Blessed [be] the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant-- As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old-- Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. Luke 1:67-75 (NASB) Hymn: "The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns" trans. John Brownlie The Incarnation is a fundamentally historical event. I don't mean that in the sense that it definitely happened as a real event in history, though that is true; what I mean is that it did not happen in a vacuum. The coming of Christ was wrapped up in so much history and so much covenant language that it is impossible to grasp it with significant depth if we don't understand what came before. For the record, this is one of the reasons I feel as strongly as I do about Advent, that it is a time specifically targeted toward understanding the context into which Jesus was born. How often do we go back to the Old Testament during Advent? How often do our churches focus all their sermon series on the New Testament alone? How often do we give new believers a New Testament, maybe with the Psalms and Proverbs thrown in, instead of the fullness of God's word? Consider Zacharias' song, sometimes called the Benedictus. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, he looks forward to the coming Christ by looking backward to the promises God made to His people and the terrible circumstances where they learned the value of those promises. I fear sometimes that we are so used to the idea that God is among us that we miss how shocking it really is that God would dwell with us. How wonderful must these words have sounded to those who first heard them! Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US." Matthew 1:22-23 (NASB) In western churches, we celebrate Christmas tomorrow. Today, let us go back to the Old Testament and consider what it must have been like to receive the promise of Christmas for the first time.
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." Then He touched their eyes, saying, "It shall be done to you according to your faith." And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: "See that no one knows [about this!]" But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land. Matthew 9:27-31 (NASB) Hymn: "Come, Thou Precious Ransom, Come" Johann Gottfried Olearius, trans. August Crull I commented a year or so ago, on a different platform, that I enjoyed the Advent season for a variety of reasons, but one of those was the hymns, and my favorite of those hymns was "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." In that comment, I noted that I felt there was quite a lot of the Christian life that can be summarized simply by singing "rejoice, rejoice!" in a minor key, so often a style choice made to express despair. This has apparently resonated well with at least one friend of mine; I think of it now because she quoted me on it earlier this week on Facebook. One of the most fascinating things that happens in scripture is the commands to rejoice in the Lord. Not that it is odd that we should be expected to worship, but that we would need to be told. Consider these blind men. Now, Jesus had His reasons for telling them not to tell people about their healing at that time, and we don't need to deal with the sequential nature of His plan at this time. But even when Christ Himself told them to keep quiet about the blessing that had come into their lives, they couldn't contain their joy. Can we? What is blindness compared to spiritual death, that we would react more stoically to His work in our lives than they did? But rejoicing does get hard in this long, dark season, when the world seems cold and unforgiving, when the light is so slow to appear and quick to vanish. I understand that Christ was probably not born in December, but it feels hard to consider it a mistake or coincidence that we celebrate the season of Advent in this season, in this age. I have been hanging heavy here on the idea that Advent is important lately, at least partly because of how few churches I've been involved with that honor it. But remember that the point of remembering the waiting, the point of coming to a place of eager anticipation, is to restore a heart of worship in us. After all, consider in the Old Testament, how often the promises that Israel would rejoice appear alongside promises that the nation would wait, in distress or turmoil or anguish, longing for the deliverance of God. And how greatly they would rejoice when it comes! Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, "The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob." Isaiah 48:20 (NASB) Let is be a people of rejoicing, for the great deliverance that has come! And let us be a people, even if only for a season, who will look forward to the final day of deliverance and find in our waiting an eager joy to last us through the year.
I am a companion of all those who fear You, And of those who keep Your precepts. The earth is full of Your lovingkindness, O LORD; Teach me Your statutes. Psalm 119:63-64 (NASB) Hymn: "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" John G. Whittier, Frederick C. Maker Regardless of whether or not one believes we have a choice in becoming a Christian in the first place, the Bible is abundantly clear that the Christian life is made up of frequent and consistent decisions. At the core of most of these is actually just one question: will we prioritize God, or the world? The world, in this matter, can take a variety of forms. In Luke 9, Zaccheus is shown choosing to honor God over money, and the people watching are invited to choose to be where Christ is rather than submit to social norms concerning the tax collector. In Psalm 119:65-72, the author chooses to trust in God's purposes over comfort, safety, and riches. At the end of Matthew 10, Christ urges us to follow him even at the cost of one's own family, even if it puts us at odds with earthly authority, even if we lose our very lives. Conversely, Hosea 13:4-14:3 is a scathing condemnation for choosing to trust in earthly security over serving God, complete with a warning that if we will not know God as Lord, we will know Him as judge.
But consider the promise that comes with this! Christ proclaims of Zaccheus, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:9-10 NASB). To the church of Laodicea He promises, "He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne" (Revelation 3:21 NASB). But more importantly, He promises throughout scripture that He will be with His people. Those who seek Him shall find Him, those who choose Him will have Him. In His strength, for His glory, let us find our joy in choosing God above all else. "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me [something] to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me [something] to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' " Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You [something] to drink? 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, [even] the least [of them,] you did it to Me.' Matthew 25:34-40 (NASB) Hymn: "God the Omnipotent!" Henry F. Chorley, John Ellerton, Alexis F. Lwoff This has been a frequent enough issue lately that I feel certain some people in my life, if they see this, will suspect I am writing it at them. I would remind them that I do not choose my daily readings, but take them from two sources unrelated to each other, and trust God to say what He will say through it. Today's reading included, among others, the entire Letter to Philemon, the beginning of Deuteronomy 15, and the end of Matthew 25. These three in particular shared a theme: the work of the righteous, when interacting with those around them, is to bless those who they are in a position to bless. In Philemon, this was directed largely at Philemon himself, who had the opportunity to release his recently-saved slave from his service, either as a brother in Christ in his own environment or to work with Paul. Paul urges Philemon to do what is right, both to Onesimus and to Paul, by giving Onesimus his freedom. The other two passages are more generalized, one urging the people of Israel to be a blessing to the poor among them, the other providing insight into the judgement of Christ and how it reflects our treatment of others people. The message, here and elsewhere, is clear: the people of God, in service to God, must be known for their generosity. We are to give freely and without reproach to those to whom we can be a blessing, even if it costs us some comfort or security or social status. There are not conditions given, there is no exception we may claim on the grounds of our own desires or needs, our own rights or property, our own plans or hopes. When a brother is in need of food, and we have food, we are to give him food. When a sister is in need of clothing, and we have clothing, we are to give her clothing. It doesn't say to take time and determine what they will do with it. We aren't told to skip over the homeless person we think will use the money for drugs, or to let the unemployed wallow in their misery. "But oh," comes the refrain, "Who is my brother? Who is my sister? I'm comfortable sharing within the family I know, whether physical or spiritual, but you can't expect me to apply this to everyone." I can't, that is correct, I don't have the authority to demand that of you. But when Jesus was approached with that same question, when He was asked "Who is my neighbor?" in regard to who was covered under loving one's neighbor as oneself, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan. His answer could not have been more clear to His original hearers: think of the person you would least like to consider your neighbor, and consider them your neighbor. See, when we want to draw a line on this matter, it is only so we can have peace knowing that the people we don't want to serve are on the other side of it. But this is wholly unacceptable to Christ. We must find who we would consider the worst, the person least deserving or suitable to receive our blessings, and graciously bless them anyway. As I write this, for many in the church (based on what is posted online), this would be our political opponents, or the terrorists who seek to destroy our nation, or the refugee who comes to the border offering nothing but an empty hand and calloused feet and tear-filled eyes. We want so badly to condemn them, to turn them away, to protect the sanctity of our land against those who would just take and take and maybe never give back. And that may be the wise choice for a secular government to take, if their concern is primarily about self-preservation and resource management. But oh Christian, that option is not left available to us. Whatever the world may do, whatever the government may desire, whatever the threat to some fleeting national identity may exist, we are called, commanded, and warned that we must be a blessing to those around us, regardless of their social value or their intentions toward us. If we will use the name of Christ to offer the same curse the world gives to these people, we cannot be surprised when we find ourselves standing among the accursed before the throne of God. After all, if we cannot see Christ in the faces of His image-bearers, can we truly say we ever really knew Him? God the All-merciful! Earth hath forsaken Meekness and mercy, and slighted Thy Word; Let not Thy wrath in its terrors awaken; Give to us peace in our time, O Lord. "God the Omnipotent!" Verse 2, written by John Ellerton |
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation
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