"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Thursday, 31 December 2009 | |||
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Recipe for Courage | |||
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As we sit on the brink of a new year, I'm not sure I've ever
been so happy to see an old year go. A car wreck, a flooded church
building, and a raft of busted appliances at home are the memories I take
away from the last quarter of 2009. Maybe the earlier part of the year
was better. It's just hard for me to remember right now. So I'm really
ready to enter 2010. It seems likely that the Israelites were even more ready for the change in their situation reflected in Joshua 1. After forty years of aimless life in the wilderness, they were now being prepared to enter the land that God was giving them. The opening chapter of Joshua displays the hand over of leadership from Moses to Joshua, the commission to enter and possess the land, and a four-times repeated charge to be "strong and courageous." Yet the courage asked of Joshua and Israel does not seem to center so much around bravery in battle, though military action was ahead. Instead, verses 7 and 8 call for a steadfast and courageous observance of the law of God given through Moses. The foundation of Israel's success was to be spiritual, not military. As verses 2 and 3 make clear, the land was to be (and in a sense already was) a gift from God, not the product of Israelite military prowess. To be successful in this situation meant to retain a strong devotion and commitment to the Lord who gave them their land. One other theme of the text touches my own heart as the new year begins. The theme of "rest" appears in verses 13 and 15, both times understood, like the land, as God's gift. Entering into the promised land was to bring God's people a promised rest from struggle and strife. Yet the rest promised under Joshua's leadership is superceded by the promise in Hebrews 4:8-11 of a final and complete Sabbath rest for the people of God through the grace of Christ. So though I hope for better times and some rest in the new year, I ultimately look for those gifts where they are to be truly found, in the gracious blessing of knowing Jesus Christ. | |||
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 | |||
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Be Holy Until Then | |||
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What would a Christmas shopping list for the Lord look like?
At first it seems like it might be a good idea. Instead of expending so
much effort on shopping for family and friends, why not try to procure
gifts for God? But what would be on the list? Repentance from my sins More love toward others More gifts given to people in need Time sacrificed in service and prayer Time given to humble meditation on the Word Elimination of a bad habit or two Yes, a Christmas list for God is an odd-looking affair. And then we come to our text this Sunday, Hebrews 10:5-10, which begins with a quotation from Psalm 40:6-8, the beginning of which is: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, with burnt offerings and sin offerings The Old Testament system of agricultural sacrifices is no more--that's part of the point of the text--but we might do well to remember that even in Old Testament we learn that God is not placated or pleased with the mere offering of gifts. The emphasis, as we ought to remember at Christmas, is not on the gifts we give, but on the Gift He has given us. This passage from Hebrews is difficult because the end of verse 5 quotes not the Hebrew Old Testament, but the Greek translation of it known as the Septuagint. Psalm 40:6 says, "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have opened. . ." In the Psalm the point is that obedience, listening to and doing God's will, is better and more important than sacrifice. It's a point Jesus and James also made. Yet the Greek version of the psalm talks about "a body you prepared for me." It's hard to make good sense out of that phrase in the original context, but the New Testament writer to the Hebrews clearly saw it as a reference to the sacrifice of Christ's body (see verse 10). It's not sacrifices, it's not even obedience that will please God. Ultimately, it's only His own perfect Gift, offered not by us, but on our behalf by Jesus Himself that will allows to be what God wants us to be, to be holy. So the strange history of the transmission of Old Testament biblical text through the Greek language allows a progression in understanding the depth of God's grace. What we give or do is always secondary to what God gives and does for us in Jesus. Our holiness is ultimately His gift, given through the sacrifice of Christ. Yet there is a still a call to be holy, to accept and live according to the gift we've been given. I can't redeem myself, I can't please God by my own efforts, but I can please and honor Him by receiving and living by the Gift. That's exactly what Mary did in our text from Luke 1:38, as she echoes Hebrews 10:9 (which is understood to be Jesus speaking), "Here I am. I have come to do your will" with her own, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me according to your word." Our holiness is always like Mary's, a reception of grace and a willing acquiescence in God's will. May that Gift be to all of us this Christmas, according to His Word. | |||
Wednesday, 09 December 2009 | |||
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Rejoice Until Then | |||
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We light the pink candle this Sunday. There are three
purples and one pink on the Advent wreath. Just how this tradition took
its present form is shrouded in the clouds of history, but it's generally
understood that this third Sunday of the season is different, the Sunday
of Joy. As I understand the thought behind the pink candle, it's that a
basically penitential season (marked by the color purple) is interrupted
with a sign of the joy that is always ours in Christ. We have a great text for this third Sunday in Advent: Philippians 4:4-9 (I've extended it to pick up verses 8 and 9, gorgeous words). It begins with the call to rejoice and seemingly realizes that our rejoicing as Christians happens as the Advent wreath pictures it, sometimes right in the middle of sorrow and anxiety. In the text, the call to rejoice is coupled with the promise of peace. We rejoice because we enjoy the peace of God which transcends all our immediate circumstances and comprehension of them. It's in the receiving of His peace that we have real joy. Yet peace and joy can seem hard to come by in this season. Certainly anxiety rises as we try to add Christmas preparation, even of the best and most spiritual kind, to already full daily schedules. And for some of us, the season is often tinged with various sadnesses, whether for someone who no longer with us to celebrate or for hurts or other losses that Christmas brings to mind. The text offers what I think is the route to experiencing some Christmas joy, a course of contemplation or meditation in verse 8 of thinking about all the best things in our lives. Specifically in relation to Advent and Christmas, I would offer. . . [It's at this point I took a 2-hour break away from writing this post to visit a family and came back to my church office to discover the whole building (offices, youth room, fellowship space) 1-2 inches deep in water from a frozen pipe that broke in the ceiling.] So this is going to be a real test of what I'm suggesting as I sit in the middle of a mess, with workmen around me tearing off the baseboards to dry out our walls, to try and contemplate joyfully the things that Paul suggests in verse 8 in relation to Christmas: Whatever is: True - The Son of God did in fact come to us, to me, as an infant child. Noble - That He sacrificed the glory of heaven for the humility of a stable. Right - Mary and Joseph did exactly what the Lord asked of them. Pure - The Virgin Mother and her quiet devotion to her Child. Lovely - A sky full of angels singing God's praise. Admirable - The shepherds who believed the angel's message. Excellent - The saving grace of God. Praiseworthy - Our Savior who came to be with us and still is with us, because: Verse 9 closes the text blessing us not only with verse 7's "the peace of God," but "the God of peace will be with you." He's with us. Let me think about that awhile today. jjj | |||
Wednesday, 02 December 2009 | |||
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Be Confident Until Then | |||
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Thirty years ago I was fairly confident of my ability to
lift the hood on a car that wasn't running, understand what I was looking
at, puzzle out the problem and possibly even fix it. More recently, I
might still say much the same about a misbehaving computer (as long as
it's not a Mac). Yet the complexity of automobile mechanics has now
diminished my confidence and computer software and hardware are rapidly
getting away from me. Now I often put my confidence in someone else for
auto repair and the day is coming when I will do the same with our
computers. In our text this week, Paul tells how his confidence in himself diminished in regard to the greatest matters in his life. In Philippians 3:1-11, we learn that Paul switched his confidence from his own personal pedigree, good behavior and zeal, and learned to place confidence in Jesus Christ. There's nothing wrong (I hope) with a little self-confidence in practical living, whether it be auto repair, cooking or personal communication. Yet our records of brokenness and failure mean that we will ultimately be overwhelmed if we trust in our own skills to sort out, repair and deal with every area of life. In particular, self-confidence is not particularly desirable in spiritual matters and may lead to a false sense of security and pride in relationship to God and one's spiritual condition. Much better to learn with Paul to count all those sources of personal confidence as a loss (verse 7) in order to base confidence more strongly in the secure gift of grace that comes to us through Christ. Such reliance on the Lord may come easily when we are feeling overwhelmed by life, just as it's easy for me to take my car to a professional mechanic when I realize a problem is over my head. But Paul shows us that it's important to focus our reliance on Jesus even when we seem to be handling life pretty well. His recitation of his own resources and competencies in verses 4-6 is only to teach us that such things can offer a false sense of security and hope. In Advent, we are especially called to be confident only in that which will stand us in good stead in the Day of the Lord, the day of Judgment, the Day of Resurrection, when we all stand before God to give account of ourselves. Such confidence is only available in and through the grace of Christ. | |||
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I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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