Good shepherd, good news

To listen:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/johnnewton/goodnews.mp3


I want to begin by introducing myself and saying what a pleasure it is to be with you tonight at St. Mark’s Between the Bayous. My name is John Newton, and I currently serve as the Bishop’s Canon for Lifelong Christian Formation. Thank you so much for having me – it is really great to be with you.


There’s a question I’d like to reflect on tonight. What makes us valuable? In other words, why are we important? What makes us special? What gives us worth? Well, I want to begin answering these questions by reading you the first paragraph of an article entitled, “450 Sheep Jump to their deaths in Turkey,” which the Associated Press ran back in 2005. In case you’re wondering, the article’s about how 450 sheep jumped to their death in Turkey. This is how it begins. “First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the cliff. In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned.”

In tonight’s Gospel when Jesus likens us to sheep – it’s not really a complement. You see most animals when released will either go wild or just find their way back home. But sheep are different. The truth is, they’re not very smart, and sheep have absolutely no sense of direction. That’s why a good shepherd doesn’t leave his sheep because if he does they jump off a cliff.

And so in the ancient near east – which was Jesus’ world – a sheep with no shepherd or a sheep with an incompetent shepherd was completely hopeless and vulnerable. And so to speak of Jesus as our shepherd – this isn’t really a sentimental image. But it is a powerful one. Perhaps you’ve heard the 23rd psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. He revives my soul, and guides me along right paths.” What makes this psalm so powerful is that it speaks to the deepest desire of the human heart. I mean, isn’t that what we all yearn for – someone to take care of us that knows us better than we know ourselves and that wants to give us abundant life? A Shepherd who, in the midst of a world full of fear and anxiety and uncertainty and war and death and disease, longs to lead us to calm places so we feel safe and satisfied and at peace. I don’t know about you, but for me this image awakens something so deep within. Because I would submit that we’re all following someone; that each one of us is tuning in to someone’s voice – or to multiple voices, which are probably contradictory and scattered – to make sense of who we are and what gives us value. Tonight, I’d like to focus on Jesus’s voice, and to tune in to what he says about value.

That word value – it’s a word tied to worth and importance. In other words, to say that we’re valuable is to say that we’re important – that we’re “worth something,” which let’s face it, is something we all need to know. There’s no depression like the depression of thinking our life isn’t valuable, and even though I seriously doubt that’s where most of us are, that doesn’t mean we don’t ask the question, if only at the subconscious level. Why am I important? What makes me special? What gives me worth?

Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Denial of Death, which he begins by making the claim that a child’s need for self-worth “is the condition of his life.” And God knows we seek that worth from whoever we think can give it to us. I know I do. As Brene Brown puts it, we “steal worth.” We become the funny one or the attractive one or the athletic one or the rich one or the smart one or the successful one because if we’re not that then who are we?

Well, at the heart of the Christian Gospel is an answer to this question – this question of what makes us valuable. Remember, that word Gospel means good news, which is not the way we always feel about our relationship with God. Far too often we get stuck in that dead paradigm that says Jesus came to offer us good advice – advice on how to be good or to get in good with God – but Jesus did not turn the world upside down by offering good advice. No, His Kingdom revolution began when he went public with some very good news – good news that’s captured in part by something he says tonight. “I call my own sheep by name.” I’ll say that again. “I call my own sheep by name.”

What makes us important? What makes us special? What gives us worth? Here’s what I think tonight’s Gospel is getting at. What makes us valuable, what makes us important, what gives us a “name” has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Jesus’s call. We matter not because we’re good but because God is; not because we’re lovely but because we’re loved; not because of what we do but because of what Jesus did on our behalf. “I lay down my life for my sheep.” What gives us a “name” has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Jesus’s call.

But hearing that call and re-learning how to live this life deeply centered in that call – that’s a different story. After all, there are so many wolves and hired hands and incompetent shepherds and thieves out there, and they’re all out to steal, kill and destroy our real sense of worth by offering us a false one. “Try harder. Follow the rules. Lose ten pounds. Be good. It’s a dog eat dog world. If you want someone to scratch your back then scratch someone else’s. Be funny. Be smart. Be pretty. Don’t be boring. Nothing in life is free. Obey your thirst. Just do it.” There’s a lot of bad advice out there, and Jesus doesn’t have time for any of it. When it comes to that question of what gives us worth Jesus refuses to offer advice. But he does offer us news. Good news. “I know my own. I call each sheep by name. I know my sheep. I love my sheep. I lay down my life for my sheep.”


I want to go back to that article and read you some quotes from the shepherds themselves. “There’s nothing we can do.” “They’re all wasted.” “It’s going to be hard for us.” You see what these quotes capture is how devastating the loss of these sheep was to the shepherds. Because like in Jesus’ world, these sheep weren’t pets. They were the shepherd’s life! You see a shepherd’s wealth, livelihood, and glory were bound up with the safety and care of his flock, and what tonight’s Gospel is trying to get at is simply this – that Jesus, the One for whom and the One through all things were created – feels this way about each one of us. There’s this great verse from Ephesians, where Paul prays that we’d know the riches of Jesus’ glorious inheritance among the saints. Most people, when they hear that verse, mistakenly assume that Paul prays that we would know that Jesus is our inheritance and be thrilled with how great that all is, but that isn’t at all what text actually says. It doesn’t say that Jesus is our inheritance. It says that we are Jesus’ inheritance. And that’s what Paul wants us to see – that Jesus sees us, that He calls us by name – because we are His inheritance. And to me that is so important, because before we can ever live for Jesus we have to know that Jesus lives for us. We are His wealth. We are His livelihood. We are His glory.

And so I’m not going to end this sermon by offering any advice. There’s far too much of that already, but I will give you some good news – news that perhaps you’ve never heard, or that you may just need to hear again. You are not your reputation. You are not what you feel. You are not your mistakes. You are not your achievements. You are not your portfolio. You are not your IQ. Your name – your worth – has nothing to do with that. Because you – you are Jesus’ inheritance. You are worth dying for. You are his wealth. You are his livelihood. You are his glory. The God of the universe knows your name. And because of that, you are far more precious than you could ever dare dream.

living water

TO LISTEN ONLINE:


http://traffic.libsyn.com/johnnewton/living_water.mp3




“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

In Philadelphia on the east bank of the Schuylkill (skoo-kel) River there’s a statue of a pilgrim with a Bible, and by that pilgrim is a stream that flows down a really steep hill into the River. And by the stream is a path that leads up the hill, and by hiking up the hill you find the stream’s source – a spring of water. And by that spring is a stone, and on that stone an inscription, which says this: “Whosoever drink of this water will surely thirst again.” Of course, this is a reference to tonight’s Gospel where Jesus Christ says, “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again.”

We are spiritually thirsty people. We thirst for love, for acceptance, for purpose. We thirst to be at home – at home in this world, at home with ourselves, at home with God. It is our spiritual thirst, and the many ways we seek to satiate that thirst that Jesus addresses in tonight’s Gospel. “From what well,” Jesus asks us, “are you drinking?”


One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalm 42:1. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul thirsts for you, O God.” It reminds me of Augustine’s famous prayer, “Our souls are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.” You see Jesus knows how restless we are, because we’re always trying to satiate that deep spiritual thirst ourselves. The message of our world is clear. “Nothing in life is free. It’s a dog eat dog world. You only get what you give.” In other words, if you want to be loved then be lovable. If you want to be accepted then perform. If you want your life to have purpose then create it. Be funny or smart or successful or attractive or popular. Be the best in your field. Roll up your sleeves, hike up that hill and find the water yourself! That’s the world’s message, to which Jesus gently replies – “whosoever drink of that water will certainly be thirsty again.” But “the water that I will give them will become a gushing and eternal spring, and whoever drinks of My water – the Living Water – will never be thirsty again.”


Before we talk about the only thing that’s ever going to satisfy our deep spiritual thirst – the living water Jesus offers us – we need to acknowledge how conditioned we are to believe that the living water is something we merit – something we earn. It start’s early. “Good boy” our parents told us, when we did something good. Our teachers “graded” us – we were classified and ranked based on our intellect and performance. Our peers classified and ranked us based on how attractive we were or how funny we were or how athletic we were. As one author puts it, “When every person in every situation in every day of our lives treats us on the basis of how we look, act, and perform, it is difficult not to project that onto God.” And so regardless of what we say we believe about grace, it is so easy for our hearts to believe that God’s love, God’s acceptance, are tied to our moral performance. If only at a subconscious level, we assume the living water must be earned. Well tonight, Jesus shatters that assumption. “If you knew the gift,” Jesus says, “if you just knew the gift of God,” you’d never be thirsty again.


That’s what’s so amazing about the woman in tonight’s Gospel. According to the cultural and religious rules of the day, no one deserved God’s love less than she did. First, she’s a Samaritan – a group that melded Judaism with paganism. No Jew in Jesus’ day liked Samaritans – no Jew, that is, except for one. Second, she’s a woman and women in Jesus’ world had no status. No respectable rabbi would ever address a woman in public – no rabbi, that is, except for one. Third, she’s alone, coming to the well at the hottest part of the day when no one else is around. Back in the day women went to the well to draw water in groups. It was the place to see and be seen, and so why is she alone? Because she’s an outcast, a moral failure. She doesn’t want to see anyone and no one wants to see her – no one, that is, except for Jesus. This woman has done nothing to deserve God’s love – she knows it, the disciples know it, and Jesus knows it. “But if you knew the gift,” Jesus told her, “you’d see that the love of God has nothing to do with what we deserve.



CS Lewis was once asked by a group of his colleagues what made Christianity different from all the other religions of the world. Lewis responded with a single word. “Grace.” Christianity is about grace. It’s not about us hiking up some hill to find water. It’s about God hiking down to give water to us. You see the good news of the Gospel is not merely that God forgives us, although that is certainly true. The good news of the Christian Gospel is that in Christ God celebrates us; that He lives for us; that God thirsts for us. As Richard Foster puts it, “the heart of God is an open wound of love. He longs for our presence.” In other words, psalm 42 talks about how we thirst for God but the living water – what Jesus is talking about tonight – is that God thirsts for us. That is the living water! The gift! Our call – the whole point of our faith – is to know that gift; to drink of the truth of how deeply we’re loved so that we can share God’s gift with the world like this woman. Of course, the question is how – how do we know the gift of God? How do we taste the living water that only Jesus can give?


Well first, we need to be honest about the empty wells we keep drawing from. For this woman it was men. You see, when Jesus says, “Go and get your husband” he isn’t being mean. After all, Jesus likes this woman and he would never try and shame her. That just isn’t Jesus’ way. But what Jesus does do is ask her to look at where she keeps dropping the bucket of her soul – at where she’s seeking to satisfy the deepest longings of her heart, and for her it’s men. Jesus takes this woman to a very vulnerable place. Has he taken us yet – to that vulnerable place? Have we let him? Now just for a second, imagine yourself standing at that well in the presence of Jesus. And to everyone’s surprise, even your own, He likes you. He wants to talk. Jesus shows you his thirst. But then, he shifts gears and tries to show your own – your own spiritual thirst and the broken cisterns you keep drinking from to satiate that thirst. To the woman he said “go and get your husband.” What is Jesus saying to you? “Go and get your career. Go and get your family. Go and get your need to be liked, your need to be in control, your need to be appreciated. Go and get your obsession with appearance, knowledge, competence, notoriety, success, friends, pleasure, wealth, status. Go and get it and put it right next to me,” Jesus says, “because it can never give you what I can.” To taste the living water we first have to stop drinking from empty wells.


Now, that being said, there’s a second piece we need to look at, because the gift of God isn’t ultimately about our thirst at all – it’s about Jesus’ thirst. You see the only reason this woman had an encounter with Jesus that changed her life was because, practically speaking, Jesus was thirsty. I mean, that’s why Jesus stopped at the well and said “give me a drink” in the first place. But in the Gospel of John, which is loaded with symbols, everything has a double meaning. You see twice in the Gospel of John Jesus says that he’s thirsty. The first we heard read tonight. The second we’ll hear read on Good Friday, where Jesus cries out in agony from the cross, “I thirst.” And that thirst was the great thirst. For on the cross not only did Jesus experience that cosmic thirst we rightly deserve for our sins, but as he stretched out his arms on that cross, Jesus showed us just how deep God’s thirst for us goes.


The psalmist tells us that there “is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” By those streams is a path, which leads up Golgotha hill. And if you hike up that hill you’ll find streams Source – the Son of God crucified thirsting for the world. God give us grace to know that gift and to ask Jesus to give us the living water, and to hear yet again the word of our Lord: “come to me all you that are weary and heavy burdened and I will refresh you.”

jesus' glory

TO DOWNLOAD THE MP3

http://traffic.libsyn.com/johnnewton/significance.mp3


Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’


I’d like to begin my sermon with a question. What makes our life significant? In other words, what gives it worth? Why do we matter? I have to say, this is a question our world is desperate to answer. There’s a famous song by the Righteous Brothers – “You’re My Soul and Inspiration” – and one line in particular captures what I’m talking about. “You’re all I’ve got to get me by; you’re my soul and my life’s inspiration; without you baby, what good am I?” How would you answer that question? Without blank, what good am I?

You see today’s Gospel raises that question because it’s about the glory of Jesus, which is a Biblical word that describes something of infinite worth and significance. “O God,” we prayed in our collect, “who before the passion of your Son revealed his glory upon the mountain.” The Transfiguration is about Jesus’ glory, about His infinite worth and significance. But not only that, it’s about Jesus wanting his disciples to know his significance and to know that their significance is tied to Him.

Now, you may be wondering – didn’t they already know? After all, Matthew begins by telling us this event took place “six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ.” In other words, Peter has already been tested on the doctrine of Christ, and Peter got an A! Intellectually speaking, Peter knows – he knows that Jesus is the Son of God. But, Peter doesn’t know. You see, we can know something intellectually without that knowledge taking hold of our heart. We “know” we should eat better, but until we have a heart attack or heart surgery that knowledge might not change our life. Today’s Gospel is about God giving Jesus’ disciples a little heart attack. According to Matthew, “they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.” In a way they hadn’t yet experienced, Peter, James and John felt Jesus’ weight. His significance. His glory. For the first time in their life they knew.

But didn’t they already know? Well, let me ask you this – do we? You see, what Peter tried to do is something we all do – put Jesus on a shelf. Peter’s up on this mountain, Jesus starts to glow and then suddenly Moses and Elijah show up! “Lord, this is great – you’re here, Moses is here, Elijah’s here – we’ve got the hall of fame! So I’ll build three booths and you can sit here right next to Moses.” And in response to Peter’s foolishness comes a Voice. “This is my Son! He won’t fit in a booth! He’s not another prophet seeking God; He’s the God the prophets have all been seeking. This is my Son – my weighty, significant, Son – take him off the shelf. Listen to him!”

I’m afraid that far too often we try and keep Jesus on a shelf, in a booth. We give him a spot – maybe a Sunday morning spot – and we put him right next to everything else in our life we think makes us significant – next to our career, our reputation, our family, our need to be liked, our need to be right, our need to be in control, our need to be comfortable, our need to be successful – we put him on a shelf. We balance our devotion to him with our devotion to other things. Like Peter, we’ve confessed Him to be the Christ. Intellectually speaking, we know He’s the Son of God, but that knowledge hasn’t fully taken hold of our hearts. For instance, why are we so hurt by criticism? We can we be so anxious and irritable? Why are we always trying to prove ourselves? Why are we so harsh and unsympathetic and critical? And the answer, which is a really hard thing to admit, is that the opinions of others are often more real to us than the opinion of God. It’s that our sense of worth is tied more to what we achieve and how we look and what people think than to what God says about us and what He’s done for us.

You see today’s Gospel doesn’t give us any new information about God. But don’t you see information is not what we need. What we need is to be up on that mountain, for Jesus’ grace to knock us to the ground. What we need is to know Jesus’ glory – to have who He is and what He’s done be more real, more weighty, and more significant than anything else in our life. And so with that being said – two questions I think we need to ask. Where does that happen and how does that happen?


First, where – where does Jesus’ love become more real to our hearts than all the anxiety and fear that we carry around? Well, Peter was not on that mountain alone. He was with James and John. Our relationship with Christ may be personal, but it definitely isn’t private. You see in a matter of moments we’re going to baptize Antonio and Alivia and Angel and Saya and Lily into the Body of Christ, and as far as I know, they didn’t have to take a test or prove themselves or demonstrate their competency before coming here. And yet, we’re going to mark them as Christ’s own forever. We’re going to tell them they’re significant – that they matter – not because of who they are, but because of Who God is; not because of what they do, but because of what God’s done; not because they’re good but because God is. And today isn’t for them only, it’s for us! Not only will we take a vow to do everything in our power to support them in their new life with Christ, but we’ll reaffirm our own baptismal vows, which our way of reminding ourselves that our primary calling as a church is to provide a definitive answer to that question – that question our world is desperate to answer. What makes our life significant? Why do we matter? Baptism is our answer to that question. We matter because Christ has freely chosen to claim us as his own.

Can you feel the weight of what’s about to happen, the significance of what we’re about to do? The word God spoke to Jesus on that mountain is the same word He speaks to us in baptism. This is my son! This is my daughter! You’re now a part of my family. In baptism, God makes that promise, and so where do we gather to know that promise? Right here, this community, we’re on that mountain now!

Of course, this raises another question – how? How does Jesus become more real to our hearts than all the idols on that shelf we’ve put him next to? The answer’s hidden in the last verse. We have to follow him down the mountain. Peter wanted to stay there, but not Jesus. Because what Jesus wanted more than anything was for his disciples to know – to know that their worth is tied to His; that their significance is found in Him.

Without blank, what good am I? What makes our life significant? The answer to that question – it has nothing to do with what happened to Jesus on top of a mountain, but what happened to him on a little hill – a tiny little hill outside of Jerusalem. You see on the mountain Jesus was revealed in glory, but on that hill he was revealed in shame. On the mountain his clothes were shining; but on that hill his clothes were stripped. On the mountain Jesus is with Moses and Elijah; but on that hill he’s with two criminals. On the mountain a bright cloud overshadowed him; but on that hill darkness covered the land. On the mountain Peter blurts out how great it all is; but on that hill Peter’s nowhere to be found. On the mountain the Father speaks a word of blessing – “This is my Son;” but on the hill the Father was silent.

In his letter to the Romans St. Paul asks a question. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Do you not know? The reason the church exists – our only purpose – is to answer Paul’s question with a definitive yes. Our purpose is to know – not intellectually but in our hearts – that life has no significance apart from the cross of Jesus Christ, and that because of Jesus’ cross, all things have significance – that in spite of our failing and fears and fumbling, we matter tremendously.

Confess the faith of Christ crucified – let his cross be more real and more weighty and more significant than anything else in your life. Listen to what He says. “Don’t be afraid. Get up. I’ve claimed you as my own. Let’s go down the mountain – follow me to the hill and watch what happens there – because even though you believe what I want more than anything is for you to know.”

can a mother forget?

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing-child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.


I want to begin by introducing myself and saying what a pleasure it is to be with you this morning at Holy Trinity, Dickinson. My name is John Newton, and I currently serve as the Bishop’s Canon for Lifelong Christian Formation. I am so honored to be with you this morning – thank you so much for having me – it is really great to be with you.

I’d like to begin this morning by acknowledging something that we all really know, but don’t like to admit. Faith is hard. Staking our lives on the faithfulness of God is really, really hard. You see, there’s an enemy – an enemy that lurks like a lion and is always on the prowl. And that enemy isn’t science. Or consumerism. Or the media. Or “the culture.” No, the greatest threat to our faith is despondency. Despondency is what happens when the brokenness of life breaks us – it’s what happens when we lose hope. And knowing that faith is hard, and that it’s often threatened by this lurking enemy of hopelessness, we need to address this question: When we feel despondent, what assurance do we have that God loves us, that He’s with us, that – as Revelation puts it – He’s at work “making all things new?” What is our assurance as Christians?

You see this is the question the people of Israel are asking in today’s reading from the Book of Isaiah, and in the first five verses, it’s God that does all the talking. He’s responding to the people’s fear and to their real sense of loss that comes with being exiled. You see Israel’s temple had just been destroyed and that temple was their assurance – their assurance that God loved them, that God was with them, and that God would never forsake them. And when the Babylonians demolished their temple, they demolished their assurance. So in the first five verses, God tries to comfort them. “The prisoners,” He says, “are going to be set free one day. The people in darkness will come into the light. My kingdom will be established and people from all over the world will flock to be a part of it.” And in verse 13 God really takes it up a notch. “What I’m about to do,” God says, “is so amazing – so amazing – that even the mountains will break forth into song!” But the people of Israel are too despondent to care and they interrupt God. “The Lord has forsaken me,” they say, “My Lord has forgotten me!” But here’s what they’re really saying. “You say you love us, that everything’s going to work out fine. But we feel forgotten, and for all we know it’s just a bunch of talk. How can we be so sure?”

Now, before we look at God’s response we need to pause. At some point in our life we’ve felt like this. We’ve all had those moments – and if we haven’t yet we will – when the brokenness of life threatens to break us. We get divorced. The prognosis is bad. Someone we love dies. We get depressed. We lose our job. We lose our hair. We lose our confidence. We see the failings within and the pain without. We turn on the news – nothing but war, earthquakes and crooked politicians. We all have those moments, and it’s those moments that make faith hard! Yes, we know the promises of God, but we want assurance! “God says He loves us – that everything’s going to work out fine. But we feel forgotten, and for all we know it’s just a bunch of talk. How can we be so sure?”

Well, God begins answering our question by asking one of His own. “Can a woman forget her nursing child?” Now, this won’t shock anyone but I don’t know a whole lot about nursing a child. But what I do know is that no image more tender can be found. You see in all human relationships a certain level of give and take is required – a friendship, a marriage, a business partner – both parties have to give and take. That’s just how our relationships work, they’re conditional – that is, of course, except for one; the relationship of a nursing mother to her child. This relationship is unconditional – the mother gives everything! But not only that, it’s a relationship where the mother’s physical and emotional comfort is tied to her ability to nurse. Now, I did some research, and I now know about prolactins. When a mother nurses her child, her body releases chemicals that fill her with an overwhelming sense of delight and contentment, and if a mother should forget, or stop nursing, her own body’s going to start to hurt. In other words, both emotionally speaking and physically speaking – it is impossible for a nursing mother to forget her child. What God wants Israel to know – and what God wants us to know – is that His love for us is like that – unconditional. It’s a relationship where God gives everything, where God feels an overwhelming sense of delight and contentment when He can feed us, and where God feels incredible pain when He can’t. As a 17th century Puritan by the name of Matthew Henry put it, “God’s compassions to his people infinitely exceed those of the tenderest parents towards their children.”

Now, I’m not sure if you noticed or not but I still haven’t answered the question. As moving as this image is, at the end of the day, it’s still just an image – more talk – and our God is a God of action. Well, in the final verse, what God says is astounding – “I’ve inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” Now, in Isaiah’s day a master would sometimes tattoo his own name of the palms of his servant but never would a master tattoo the name of his servant on his own palms. For one, it would be beneath him, a master would never lower himself in the sight of his servant like that. But second, it would hurt. The English may say inscribe but the Hebrew says engrave. In Hebrew the word literally means to “cut into something with a hammer or a chisel.” Imagine a spike being methodically driven into someone’s hands. Now, think about this. Engraving someone’s name on your palms isn’t just painful, it’s permanent. Laser scar removal technology wasn’t around in Isaiah’s day. If you engraved someone’s name on your palms, that name would be there forever.

Well, centuries after Isaiah was written there was this guy named Thomas, and Thomas was despondent. Thomas had lost his best friend and he had lost his hope. “My Lord has forsaken me,” he said, “My God has forgotten me.” Of course, Thomas’ friends were all saying “he is risen, he is risen, he is risen!” but Thomas was too despondent to care. He felt forgotten, and for all he knew it was just a bunch of talk – how could he be so sure? Well, Jesus appeared to Thomas and what Jesus did next was so significant. He showed him his palms – palms that have been cut into with a hammer and a chisel, palms that recently had been driven into with spikes, palms that had been engraved. “Thomas!” he said, “Here is your assurance. I will never leave you or forsake you. Your name is engraved on my palms.”

What makes Christianity unique isn’t our belief that in the face of human despondency God speaks a grace-filled word – it’s our belief that in the person of Jesus Christ, that Word became flesh, was nailed to a cross, and embraced all the world’s despondency both with us and for us. Our God is not a God of talk! He’s a God of action. Yes, we’re going to have those moments – those moments that threaten to break us. But, our assurance lies in the knowledge that on the cross our Master was broken for us, and that He was broken in a way that allows us to be made new.

“Faith,” says the author of Hebrews “is the assurance of things hoped for.” What, exactly, is that nature of that assurance? It’s that our names are permanently engraved on the palms of God; it’s that it would be more likely for a nursing mother to forget her child than for God to forget about us; it’s that on the cross God gave everything! Let the heavens sing, and the mountains break forth into song. For the Lord has comforted his people.

choose life

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.


I want to begin by introducing myself and saying what a pleasure it is to be with you this morning at St. Mark’s, Rosenberg. My name is John Newton, and I just began working as the Bishop’s Canon for Lifelong Christian Formation, which means that I have the privilege of thinking and praying about how all of God’s people can be formed into the image of Jesus Christ. That is, after all, what faith should so – form us into people filled with Jesus’ love, mercy, and compassion – into people filled with His life. Formation is about life. The Bible is about life. Salvation is about eternal life. In today’s reading from Deuteronomy Moses pleads with the Israelites: “choose life.” Even Jesus describes his mission by saying, “I’ve come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” This plea in Deuteronomy to “choose life” brings to mind a couple of questions I want to wrestle with this morning: Is embracing the life that God offers us hard or is it easy? Is God’s bar of salvation high or is it low?

Now, people in Moses’ day thought that finding a new life was hard. There was a myth that everybody would have known about at this time – an ancient myth in every culture about an epic story of humans seeking life from the gods. The myth went something like this: Only the gods hold the key to life, but the gods are hard to find. They lived up in heaven or beyond the sea and trying to find these gods was incredibly dangerous. But across these myths, in every culture, a daring hero built a tower to the sky or crossed a great sea to wrestle life from the gods. The real story behind these myths, the logic that drove them, was that something as precious as eternal life had to be earned. Sure, one could find eternal life but first he had to prove himself worthy. This is the myth that everyone believed in Moses’ day: finding life was hard and only the worthy could attain it.

Now, the Israelites knew about this myth, and they may have started to believe this myth, especially after forty years of wandering in the desert, which is the background of our reading from Deuteronomy. They would have known, for example, the story of Gilgamesh, who courageously crossed the sea to bring back the secret of eternal life from the gods. And so I imagine they started to wonder – “Moses is great, but it’s been forty years, we may need someone like Gilgamesh to go to heaven to get life for us.” So, Moses corrects them, “Look – the life that God offers isn’t that hard and it’s not that far away. It’s not in heaven,” he says, “You don’t have to scale a wall to get it. It’s not across the ocean,” he says, “You don’t need to cross the sea. The life God offers is very near. And so choose life.” But I’m not sure the Israelites got it because what Moses was saying was so easy it was hard.

Now, there’s a story from II Kings that illustrates this perfectly – the story of Naaman, a Syrian general diagnosed with a terminal case of leprosy. Naaman is desperate, and so when he gets word that the God of Israel can heal, he sets out on an epic, Gilgamesh like quest, which leads him to the house of Elisha. Well, Elisha doesn’t even answer the door – his intern does, and here’s a paraphrase of what the intern says. “Go wash in the Jordan seven times and you’ll be healed, it’s just that easy.” Well, Naaman gets furious – absolutely furious – and this is what his servants tell him. “If you had been asked to do something difficult, you would have done it. So why not do something so easy?” You see, what’s difficult for Naaman is the simplicity of what’s being asked because Naaman, in his own eyes, is a great man, and he came ready to prove it. You see Naaman thinks he’s on one of those epic quests seeking life from the God of Israel, and Naaman came ready to earn that life – to climb to heaven to get it, to cross the sea to find it. But what Elisha tells him to do is something a child could do. Wash in the Jordan? What God, he wonders, has a bar of salvation so low? The life God offered Naaman was so easy it was hard.

You see what makes faith hard isn’t the law but grace – the bar of salvation is so low, it is so low, that in order to crawl under it we have to drop everything, which is what Naaman couldn’t do. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “grace is free, but it certainly isn’t cheap.” And just so there’s no confusion, God has always related to His people on the basis of grace – grace isn’t a New Testament innovation, it’s how God has always worked. And so this morning Moses isn’t saying that if you keep the Law you’ll have life. After all, God didn’t give Israel the law and then save them. No, first God saved them, He bound Himself to Israel and made an irrevocable promise, and only then did he give them a blueprint on how to live. God has always related to His people on the basis of grace, the life He gives has always been a gift, but there is something about God’s terms that threaten us. After all, God didn’t save Israel because they were worthy. No, God chose Israel because by all human standards they were the least worthy.

God doesn’t give us life because we’re worthy – that’s the ancient myth. God gives us life because He’s good, because we’re not worthy; because apart from Him we have absolutely no worth. And that may sound simple, but admitting it and living it – that’s hard, because salvation by grace is a deathblow to our ego. It shatters the illusion that we’re in control of our life, or that God owes us anything, or that we have any kind of claim on God at all. To put it differently, if everything is a gift – if apart from God we really have no value – then is there anything He can’t ask of us?

Now, I want to tell you why all of this is relevant. The ancient Israelites were tempted to buy into a myth that said life had to be earned or achieved or that life was rewarded only to heroic people at the end of some epic quest. This myth is still alive and far too often our hearts buy into it. You see, we may say that God loves us and that in Christ He delights is us, but then we go and make our life about some other quest – some quest to find meaning outside of God. In the words of Moses, “we bow down to other gods and serve them” – the gods of money and success and approval and sex; a million different gods we think will give us life. I’m sure you’ve seen the first Rocky movie. It’s the night before the big fight and Adrianne doesn’t want him to go through with it, but this is what Rocky tells her. “I’m a nobody. I really don’t care if this guy splits open my head ‘cause all I want to do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, I’m going to know for the first time in my life I’m not just another bum.” Going the distance with Creed, that was Rocky’s quest, where he thought he’d find life. What’s yours?

You see whether embracing the life that God offers us is hard or easy – well, that all depends on how we answer the question, whose quest is it? It is ours? Is life, meaning, value, salvation, forgiveness something we have to achieve? Is it our courage and our effort and our performance that matter? Is our life ultimately about our quest to know we’re not a bum? Or, is our life found in Jesus’ quest for us? You see, that’s the difference between that ancient myth we’ve been talking about and the Gospel. The myth says we’ve got to climb up to heaven. The Gospel says Jesus climbed down. The myth says we’ve got to get life from the gods. The Gospel says God wants to give life to us. The myth is about us going the distance. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ going the distance – all the way to a cross – to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Which one of these two very different stories are we living?

The last verse of our reading from Deuteronomy says “love the Lord your God for that means to you life,” but after doing some research it’s become clear we have a pretty poor translation. This is how America’s leading Hebrew scholar, and just about every other Bible, translates this last verse. “Love the Lord your God, heed his voice, cling to him, for He is your life.” Jesus said, “I came that they might have life.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus is here. He wants to form us into people filled with his love, mercy, and compassion – into people filled with His life. The hardest thing about embracing that life is how easy it actually is. Jesus’ bar of salvation is so low we have to drop everything and cling to Him alone to crawl under it.

becoming a priest

Last Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at Jimmy Abbott’s ordination to the priesthood. Here were my thoughts …


“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.”


I just want to begin by thanking Jimmy for the honor of standing before you today. Jimmy, I am so grateful for the privilege of preaching the Gospel at your ordination to the priesthood. Thank you.


For those who don’t know me my name is John Newton and I serve as the Missioner of the Episcopal Student Center at the University of Texas, which is where Jimmy and I met about seven years ago. The Student Center is also the community where both of us heard God’s call to the priesthood, and so it’s a really special place for both of us. My relationship with Jimmy always seems to be in transition. In the last seven years I’ve been Jimmy’s classmate, his program coordinator, his classmate again, his flag football coach, his sponsoring priest, and most recently, because God’s funny, his premarital counselor – but throughout it all Jimmy’s always been a great friend, and today, I’m proud to say, he’ll be my colleague. Jimmy, you’re about to be ordained a priest in Christ’s church. We have to ask – what are you getting into? But seriously – what does it mean to be a priest? And a second question, which can’t ever be separated from the first – what does it mean to be the church?


A lot of people answer the priest question differently. When I was ordained one of my best friends gave me a huge hug and said, with all sincerity, “John, congratulations. You have no idea how blessed you are. I just don’t know anyone else,” he said, “who else gets paid full time to work two hour weeks.” I guess that’s one take on the priesthood, but perhaps we can find another.


Tonight, I want to reflect on the last verse of tonight’s Gospel from John: “for I have come down from heaven,” Jesus says, “not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” In this verse we discover what it means to be a priest and what it means to be the church. “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me.”


First – Jesus says, “I have come down from heaven.” As Christians this is where our faith begins – with Jesus “coming down,” with God Himself freely choosing to enter our lives. The incarnation – it’s where our faith begins, where the priesthood begins, where the church begins.


Jimmy, tonight you’re being ordained to model for the people of God a life of “coming down” – to joyfully do for God’s people what Jesus Christ has done for us. God freely chose to enter our world. The privilege of a priest is to do the exact same thing – to choose to enter the lives of God’s people and to love them with the same spirit that Christ loves us. In other words, the priest’s privilege is to model the incarnation. Eugene Peterson wrote that the priest’s call is, and I quote, to “take people seriously just the way they are and look at them, enter into conversation with them and see the glory that takes place right there, in that person’s world, the glory of God present in them.” In other words, the priest’s call is to reflect Jesus back to God’s people – that is to love people, not because they’re lovely but in order to make them lovely. A priest can’t be distant or aloof or detached. After all, God wasn’t. Jimmy, you’re being ordained to enter the lives of God’s people and love them, not because they’re lovely, but in order to make them lovely.


Now, practically speaking – what does it mean to model the incarnation; that is to enter people’s lives and love them to make them lovely? Well, it doesn’t mean a life of spiritual hospice work. A priest’s job is not to take away people’s pain, which we’re always tempted to do. The work of a priest is much harder. It’s about entering people’s lives to empower them for mission. It’s not to shield them from the world but to equip them to become missionaries within the world. In the words of Henry Nouwen, “The spiritual life doesn’t remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.” So Jimmy, you do well to remember that we priests are not the primary ministers of the church, but it’s the people God entrusts to us – the people whose lives we’re invited to enter – they, more than us, are the primary ministers sent into the world to spread the Gospel. Love your people in a way that empowers them for their mission. After all, the church isn’t a building. It’s not a club. It’s not a social gathering of like-minded individuals. In fact, the word church comes from the Greek ekklesia, which literally means “called out.” To be the church is to be “called out” into the world with a mission. Jesus had a mission, which began with His choice to come down from heaven. We too must come down – from what’s comfortable and what’s familiar – and build God’s Kingdom in the world. In other words, the church has the privilege of telling people that life is found in Jesus – people that don’t know or don’t care or don’t believe; people that are angry and hurt and scared; people that need grace – and then to embody Jesus’ mercy and love and compassion, so that our message is credible and our presence worth following.


You see, a non-missional church isn’t a church at all. Mission – its just in our DNA.
The church’s privilege is to be in the world, in people’s lives, for the sake of sharing the Gospel, which means that the privilege of a priest is to model for God’s people what this incarnational, reaching-out-kind-of-love looks like. In today’s epistle Paul is bold. He tells the Philippians, “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.” Jimmy, I know this is scary, but a priest’s job is to be able to say the exact same thing. Reach out to God’s people in a way that empowers them to reach out to others. Jesus reached out to you – He came down from heaven. Come down for your people, and I promise, they’ll come down from their place of comfort and serve the world in Christ’s name.


That being said, it’s not enough to just enter people’s lives. After all, the incarnation alone is not good news. There’s an ancient Greek myth about Zeus and Hermes, who wanted to know just how committed people were to the gods. So, as the story goes, they came down to earth disguised as slaves, but after getting the info they needed, threw off their rags and revealed themselves in all their Olympian glory. Did Zeus and Hermes take the form of a slave? Sure, but it was only a disguise. The Gospel is different – the Gospel says that when God became human in the person of Jesus, he didn’t disguise who God is. He revealed who God is – the Most Humble Person in the entire universe. For the Gospel is not merely that God entered our world – it’s that He entered with a certain character; that He entered with a certain mission. “Not to do my own will,” Jesus says, “but the will of Him who sent me.” Jimmy, we’re not ordained priests to do our own will. We’re ordained to do the will of God, who by the way, just happens to be the Most Humble Person in the entire universe.


So what does that look like – submitting to the will of the Most Humble Person in the universe? Well, in the context of John’s Gospel the people have just tried to make Jesus their King, but Jesus refuses. The people want Jesus to take power. But Jesus – he refuses to seize power – for His Father’s will wasn’t for Him to take power but to lose it.


You see all that stuff I was saying about reaching out and loving people – you know, entering people’s world not because they’re lovely but to make them lovely – that’s hard and vulnerable work, and we’ll find very quickly that if we do it well we’ll get hurt. In Jesus’ own words, “only those willing to lose their life are going to save it.” Jimmy, the will of the One who sends you is to find your life in the ministry by losing it – to love people so deeply and so fully that you allow your heart to be broken. “I have come not to do my own will,” Jesus said, “but the will of Him who sent me.”


You see there’s just something within us that craves the very power that Jesus refused. Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” We ask him, “Can I sit at your right hand in your kingdom?” In fact, perhaps the greatest tragedy of Christian history is how often our leaders gave in to their craving for power – political power, military power, economic power, spiritual power – all in name of Jesus, who didn’t cling to His divine power but came down from heaven to do His Father’s will. So we need to be honest – power is a lot easier than love. It’s easier to be God than to love God; to control people than to love them; to seek a throne than embrace a cross. Jimmy, the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life. Why? Because it’s the road of choosing love over power. It’s the road of saying, day in and day out, “I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.”


To be a priest, to be the church, is to live a life of humility, which isn’t a life of self-depreciation or of feeling unworthy or of being a doormat – but a life of saying what John the Baptist did with respect to Jesus: “He must increase but I must decrease.” You see Jesus decreased himself until nothing but His Father’s will mattered. Our life, our effectiveness, our joy, our salvation, our ability to be a good priest, our ability to be the church, is found in decreasing ourselves just like Jesus did – in decreasing our own story until nothing matters but Jesus’ story. To quote Paul “we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God.” Humility happens when the smallness of our own story gets lost in the largeness of Jesus’ story. Our life cannot define Him. Jesus’ life must always define us.


A couple weeks ago a friend handed me a note, which I wrote ten years ago – my senior of high school – to my “future self” in response to this question: What do you want your life to look like in ten years? I missed my ten-year reunion, but a friend was kind enough to grab it for me, and I’d like to share what I wrote. “I’ll be somewhere in Texas practicing law with a beautiful wife, a nice house, a young family, lots of money and my whole life ahead of me … or at least I better be.” Jimmy – I don’t know how you would have answered that question, but I imagine this wasn’t your plan – standing before the church, the bishop and God and taking a vow to serve Christ faithfully as His priest. But at the same time, I also know you wouldn’t be here right now unless you were called – unless God interrupted your life to say “get behind me,” and I know how grateful you are that God did.


Standing here today talking about what you’re getting into, I need to be honest: Jimmy, today doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to Christ, because they all do. Your life is found in Jesus. He must increase; you must decrease. Allow yourself to fall so deeply in love with Him that you don’t think twice about following Jesus wherever he leads. Your best days as a priest will be the ones when you think of yourself the least – when its Jesus’ story that defines your life, when you come down like He did and have the faith to choose love over power.


I’m going to ask you to stand.


Jimmy, congratulations. You have no idea how blessed you are. I just don’t know anyone else who gets paid full time to lose their lives in the only story that matters, and to empower God’s people to embody the Gospel story in the world. So really quickly, before you’re ordained, turn around and take one last look at the people of God. Jimmy – love them, not because they’re lovely, but to make them lovely, for you are called – not to do your own will but the will of the One who sends you.

expecting to be offended

To listen to this teaching online please copy/paste the following link:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/johnnewton/expectjesus.mp3


When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

A man dies and, before being allowed to enter heaven, has to walk down a hallway past holding rooms filled with people not quite ready for heaven. Approaching the Pearly Gates the man notices the first holding room on his left. “St. Peter,” he asks, “who are they?” “Well, these were not good Baptists, and as you may expect, they were known to dance.” The man kept walking and noticed another room. “And who are they?” “These misfits belonged to the Church of Christ, and as you may expect they used instruments during worship.” Well, the man was intrigued and decided to stop at one last room. “These people look miserable,” he said, “Who are they and what on earth did they do?” St. Peter just shook his head. “These were not good Episcopalians,” he sighed, “They ate their salad with a dessert fork.”

I guess that’s an Advent joke because Advent is about expectation, which is what today’s Gospel is about as well. You see something about today’s Gospel forces us to ask – when it comes to Jesus and the salvation He brings what do we expect? Jesus once asked James and John, “what do you want me to do for you?” In other words, what’s your expectation here? You see we all have expectations that impact our experience of God, whether for good or for ill. Baptists – we expect no dancing. Church of Christ – we expect no music. Episcopalians – we expect good table manners. We’re wired to expect. We expect certain things from certain people, and when things turn out differently than we expect, we’re sometimes offended. Well, that’s kind of what’s happening in today’s Gospel. John the Baptist is disappointed because Jesus isn’t what he expects. “Are you the one who is to come,” he asks, “or should we wait for another?” But can you hear what’s behind John’s question? “Jesus – this isn’t what I expected.”

Jesus did not meet John’s expectations. You see John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, was Jesus’ biggest backer, at least at first. In fact, a lot of Jesus’ disciples used to follow John, who at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel is the sensation of the nation. Before the crowds came to Jesus they all came to John, but now John’s in prison. He feels irrelevant and forgotten, and because He believes Jesus is the Messiah He expects Jesus to fix it. “How much longer must I wait?” He’s starting to wonder. “Hey Jesus – you going to fix this, or should I wait for someone else?”

We don’t typically think of John the Baptist as a sentimental guy, but He is. Like most Jews of Jesus’ day He expected a Messiah different from Jesus – someone to bring back the glory days when David was king, the pagans were punished, and the law of God was kept. That was John’s view – John’s expectation – of salvation. In other words, John had a very narrow script he thought the Messiah should live into and Jesus refused to adapt. Was Jesus’ fame growing? Yes. But not for what John had expected. Not only was Jesus befriending the people John expected him to punish, but even worse, Jesus’ focus seemed to be a cross and he kept saying things about desiring sacrifice and how to lose your life with him and for him. A cross – that seemed to be Jesus’ focus – and when John hears about that he gets offended. So, he sends his disciples to Jesus with a question – are you the Messiah or not? John found Jesus offensive. In fact, the Greek word used is skandalidzo, which is where we get the word scandal. When John first heard the message of the cross he was scandalized.

Now, what about us? You see Advent is the church’s way of inviting us to come to terms with our expectations – who do we expect Jesus to be? What do we want Jesus to do for us? Are we bringing Jesus a prewritten script and asking Him to adapt to us? Or, do we see that Jesus has a script of His own and that our life is found in adapting to Him?

You see John the Baptist, he just did what all of us do. John had a very specific view of what salvation looked like – which for John was a restored kingdom with all the riffraff thrown out – and John expected Jesus to adapt to his own narrow agenda. And when Jesus didn’t do what John expected him to do, well, he got confused. Once again, John just did what we’re all prone to do – he told Jesus how to do his job. John brought a very narrow script to Jesus and said, “Here, this is what needs to happen for me to feel whole. Jesus, here – this is what I expect. Would you mind adapting to me?”

Now, I know we all have strong opinions as to what we need to be whole, to be complete, to feel saved. “Lord, give me that job. Give me that girl. Give me confidence. Give me peace. Give me warm weather. Give me so and so’s respect. Lord, give me this. Lord, get me that, because then I’ll be okay. God I promise – give me this and I’ll be okay!” And how does Jesus respond? In a way that is so loving, and so offensive. “Whoever doesn’t take up the cross and follow me,” He says, “isn’t worthy of me. Those who find their life – who write their own script and ask me to adapt – will lose it. But those who lose their life with me and for me, they” he says, “will find it.” Is that something we expect to hear from Jesus Christ when we wake up each morning – lessons in losing? If not, perhaps we need to ask – when it comes to Jesus and the salvation He brings, what do we expect?

So, here’s the question – if we making loving Jesus the central aim of our life, what should we expect? What I get from today’s Gospel is this – we should expect an encounter with the real Jesus to offend us. Not all the time, but sometimes. You see from time to time for Jesus to love us He has to take our script, wad it up and tell us to get behind him. He has to remind us that Christianity is about losing our lives. And as the sentimentality of our culture reaches its peak, this is something we do well to remember. Yes, I know – it’s the most wonderful time of the year. There’s eggnog and mistletoe and candy canes and lights. But Advent is about preparing ourselves for a gift – for the gift of Jesus himself. And if we think of Jesus’ birth and feel nothing but warmth and jolly good cheer, well, maybe its time we wrestle, yet again, with the scandal of the cross – because the cross, before its ever anything else, is offensive.

You see some gifts just can’t be appreciated until we first understand they’re offensive. For example, if you give me a book for Christmas and tell me it’s going to change my life, but the title happens to be, How to Overcome Your Problem of Social Awkwardness – well, before I ever appreciate your gift, I’ll first feel offended. Why? Because your gift will expose a very embarrassing need. Some gifts just can’t be appreciated until we first understand they’re offensive, and the cross of Christ is one of them. The birth of Jesus is one of them, because before Christ reveals anything meaningful to us about God’s love, He first exposes the depth of our need and tragedy of our sin. So in this season of Advent, don’t get swept away by music and mistletoe and mistake the fuzziness of what you feel for the fullness of God’s love. The love of God, before it’s anything else, is offensive. Why? Because the love of God is revealed most fully in the scandal of the cross. Do you understand now why Jesus has to say, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” It’s because Jesus knows that when we understand His mission, offense is the first thing we feel.

And so as you go out into the world this week here’s what I’d suggest. Throw away your script, because the question John asks Jesus is the same one we’re all asking – “are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait?” And the answer is both. Jesus Christ has already come. He’s brought salvation. Everything, already, has changed! And we should expect – here and now – to be living in the already available grace that floods this world. And yet, let’s not forget, we still have to wait – for all the blind don’t yet see, and all the lepers aren’t yet cleansed, and all our chains are not yet broken. And we should expect to feel the pain that comes with waiting to be let out of prison. If we want to be faithful, we have to throw away our script, because Jesus’ is so much better. Yes, at times we’ll feel like John – a little unsure exactly what Jesus has in store. But Advent – it’s also a season of hope. “Eye hasn’t seen nor ear heard.” Whatever Jesus is up to – it’s so much more than we could ever possibly expect.