It's all about Jesus Jan. 11

IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS!

Matthew 3:13-17

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.”

In every town and city, the people have their local legends. In Princeton, NJ, you might hear of the time that Albert Einstein was walking in front of a local hotel there. A fancy car pulled up, a dowager of much means saw Dr. Einstein, yet did not know who he was. She assumed he was a bell boy, and she ordered him to carry her luggage into the hotel. Einstein did as he was told. He was given a small tip for his efforts. He then went back to ponderings of the mysteries of the universe.

This little story may be true or may not be true, but it does have something to teach us about Jesus. Because we can look backward in time, you and I know what the dowager does not: the somewhat disheveled-looking, scruffy and unassuming, small-in-stature man is one of the most celebrated intellects of the modern era.

Another disheveled looking scruffy man was rumbling about in the wilderness near the Jordan River shouting, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The kingdom of heaven was what the Israelites had been waiting for since they escaped from Egypt in the middle of the night a thousand-plus years earlier, so they heard John’s message was good news. They took off for the river to confess their sins, be washed clean, and made ready to witness the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven.  If there’s a kingdom coming, then there must be a king coming. They all had grand ideas of what this king would look like—big and brawny and powerful, dressed to the hilt, riding with his entourage in invincible chariots of fire.

Like the dowager, nobody at the riverside recognized the king in their company. Jesus did not look like the king from heaven any more than Einstein looked like the smartest man in the world. The confessors went down to the river to pray for forgiveness, to be washed clean and made ready to rejoice at the arrival of God’s kingdom.

We need to remember that these folks were believers who were baptized before Jesus died on the cross. Think of that period in history as a time of transition. When the sinners were baptized, they were looking FORWARD in faith to “what we now look backward on in faith to the forgiveness and deliverance that Christ would bring.”[1] From our knowledge and position today, we can know from the beginning what the river “repenters” did not: It’s all about Jesus. He was not the carpenter’s son; he was God’s son.

Yet, my question today is, do WE know—really know—it’s all about Jesus?

Jesus’ baptism is a great place to come to a deep understanding of our Christian faith—it’s all about the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Life.  John wanted to refuse to baptize Jesus, but Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (v 15). Catch the importance of Christ’s baptism here: even though Jesus’ life is without sin, it is here his obedience to God through his willingness to be identified with sinners that fulfills all righteousness. The good news is that Jesus’ righteousness is credited to our account. The righteousness of God can be fulfilled in us because Jesus fulfilled all righteousness.

The Death. Christians do well to remember that the baptism includes the symbolism of death. Sam Houston “was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life he made a commitment to Christ and Sam was baptized in a river. When Sam came up out of the water, the preacher said to him, “Sam your sins are washed away.” Houston replied, “God help the fish.”[2] Fish are made to live under the water, but we are not.

Being under water figuratively means that one is weighed down, crushed under, and prevented from living for one reason or another. There is no air to breathe; we are trapped, we are completely and utterly alone. Sin does that to us. It’s like death. The good news is that when Jesus was completely immersed under the water: sin and death were conquered. Jesus’ death his blood washes away our sin. His gift of salvation is credited to our account.

The Resurrection. Not timidly, not weak, nor shaken, but with energy and purpose, that’s what I think Matthew means when he writes, “Immediately he went up from the water….” Jesus’ baptism marks the beginning of his public ministry and he is eager to get to it. There’s not much time and a whole world to reach. Likewise, when Jesus came out of the tomb, he didn’t wait around for people to show up to see him alive, he abandoned the tomb and took off to reach them, and there wasn’t much time. This too is good news.

In Romans 6, Paul asks us, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life” (vv 3-4).

The baptism of Jesus Christ is our baptism, too. When we arise and understand that our lives, our faith, our daily bread are all about Jesus, and then we also arise to the same heavenly welcome and delight that God spoke of his son Jesus by the river that day. Imagine: The heavens are opened and God from above will say, “You are my beloved [child], with whom I am well pleased” (v 17). Long for that day, my friends. Live a life that’s all about Jesus, and these very words, “You are my beloved [child], with whom I am well pleased” shall be added to your account, forever. Amen.

January 11, 2015/First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME/The Rev Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] DeMoss, Nancy Leigh. “The Incomparable Christ.” www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/revive-our-hearts/the-baptism-of-Christ/

[2] King Duncan. “Collected Sermons.” www.Sermons.com.

Crossing a border Jan. 4

CROSSING A BORDER

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:13-18

“Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you…”

God and his glory cannot be separated. Glory is all over the nativity, the miraculous birth of a child, the angels, and the visit of the wisemen. Glory is the magnificence, splendor, majesty, grandeur, and great beauty of God’s will fulfilled:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

After the splendor of “God with us,” just where is God’s glory when Joseph is warned in a dream to “rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt … for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (MT 2:13b)?

God’s glory is in the warning. As odd as that sounds, let’s look more closely at the action that God calls Joseph to take and then see what we can learn of God’s glory for us.

We have all read and heard—more times than we can count—the story of the holy family’s emergency night flight from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the brutality of the insanely jealous king, Herod.

Reading this story for the umpteenth time, however, I began to think about this escape to Egypt and its possible meaning for us today. I realized that this escape required crossing a border.

This border crossing was not like going from here into New Hampshire—maybe a five-minute walk. No, this border crossing involved escaping under the cover of darkness to another country! From Bethlehem to Egypt, we are talking a distance of 300 to 400 miles.

That’s like going from Chicago to Minneapolis or from Boston to Philadelphia (the long way). The journey would take between 5 to 7 hours to drive—depending on the traffic, of course!—but what if we had to walk the entire way, like Joseph and Mary did? Add in a royal pursuit to slaughter your child, and you’ve got a recipe for thick darkness.

Most of us have not been burdened in our lives with that kind of fear—when someone is out to kill us.

The Lost Boys of Sudan did know that immense fear. Driven out of their villages by a brutal civil war…their parents murdered…their sisters enslaved, these boys

“walked for days, then weeks, then months and finally for over a year. They walked anywhere from 700 to 1,000 miles, first to Ethiopia, then back to Sudan, then south to Kenya, looking for safety. Ten and eleven year olds were the elders. Seven and eight year olds became each others' parents, binding one another's wounds, sharing sips of muddy water (or urine), burying their dead.”[1]

One “Lost Boy” named Abraham Yel Nhial, relocated to Chicago was asked about having carried his Bible for years, through all his border crossings and his time in refugee camps. He answered, “Yes, It is my life. I have been called a lost boy. But I’m not lost from God.”[2]

In both of these real-life stories, crossing borders was literally about saving lives. In the United States of America, we are immensely privileged and relatively safe. What about in the church? Here we also have a call from God to cross border and save lives, eternal lives.

One of the new insights I received after going through this passage is that faith, true faith, will require of the believer, at some point in time, crossing a border.

There are many instances of crossing a border in the Hebrew Bible.

• Adam and Eve were evicted from Eden and were never allowed to cross its border again.
• Abraham was called from his homeland to go to a place God would show him; Abraham went.
• The Israelites crossed Canaan’s borders to take possession of the land god had promised them.

There are some impossible crossings that could not have happened without God’s help. Some that come to mind is Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea (Ex 14:22); the Jordan River (Joshua 3:13, 15-17; II Kings 2:8 and II Kings 2:14).

Jumping to the New Testament we have the crossing of land and water borders—regions of Tyre and Sidon, Samaria and the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus intercepted nature’s borders with the

• calming of the storm;
• turning water into wine;
• feeding 5000 with five loaves and two fishes;
• healing the sick and raising the dead and
• challenging the religious establishment and
• appearing transfigured on the mountain and
• washing the feet of his disciples and
• dying on the cross for the forgiveness of all our sins.

The ultimate crossing of the ultimate border of our faith is the Resurrection. Unless Christ has crossed the border from death to life, we would all be lost boys, lost girls.

It is the time of year for the making (and unfortunately, the breaking) of resolutions. Perhaps we should think of resolutions in terms of border crossings. Is there a relationship that needs mending? Is there a debt you need to retire? Is there a goal that needs to be reached? Rise up, take what and who you need, and cross that border this year.

As your pastor, I challenge you to join me, to walk or run or flee with me, to cross a border for Jesus this year. This crossing is about rising and shining; this border is about crossing out of the thick darkness and into God’s great light.

The greatest border this church can cross is the one between our relationships with each other and our relationship with Jesus Christ. It’s to cross from same-old-same-old to rise and shine in God’s glory.

Sure, there will be times of darkness, fear, and feeling incredibly lost. That is why we must work together. We will cover more distance when we ALL pray together and ask the Lord for help crossing this border.

• What is God’s plan for us: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1).
• How will Jesus teach us about crossing a border? “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men [and women]” (MT 4:19).
• And how will the Holy Spirit lead us? The Spirit of truth “will guide you into all the truth” (JN 16:14).

Resolve with me to cross a great border this year: arise, shine, and give God the glory, from which we need never be lost or separated again. We are never lost from God.

May God’s will be fulfilled in us this year. Amen.

January 4, 2015/First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME/The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] “The Lost Boys of Sudan in Chicago.” Copyright © 2004-2009 BCDEnterprises.

[2] CBS News. “Lost Boys of Sudan 12 Years Later” 60 Minutes.

Who will prepare the way Dec. 14

WHO WILL PREPARE THE WAY?

Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8

The texts before us today tell a tale of two deserts: The literal desert that stretched from Egypt to Israel, and the spiritual desert that turns and twists between God and humanity.  We know that the first desert was about wanderings, wars, and willful disobediences. The second desert is about making the spiritual path between the Christian and God straight, not crooked; smooth, not rough.

It took 40 years for the Israelites to cross that desert, but even after reaching the  Promised Land generation after generation continued to stumble and sin until finally sent them into Exile. Looking back, following God’s way was easier for the Israelites in the first desert—God was very apparent to them in pillars of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day; they had the parting of the seas and manna from heaven and water from stones to assist them on their journey. 

The second desert, the spiritual one, seems so much harder to cross. Gone is the pillar of fire; haven’t noticed lately any tendency of the Atlantic Ocean to part itself. Manna is in short supply, and water comes from a faucet, not a stone. Those miracles worked in a physical desert, but what will work for us who stand in a spiritual one? Is there still a voice of one crying in the wilderness to help us find our way to God’s promises?

 The time is right to ask these questions because we are now in this place called Advent: a holy season of waiting and watching, listening and longing for the voice of one. The voice does not say here are the solutions to your challenges and hurts; this voice cries directly into our spirit’s own wilderness:  “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Some of you may know that my brother Robert and my niece Kaylee are living with me at this time. My brother works 3 twelve hour days on weekends and Mondays, so for a while he was home for four days.  Kaylee was spending everyday sleeping and playing with her X-box. When she had a friend over, the same thing happened with them.

One day I realized it was really bugging me that I was going out the door to work every morning, and there were people at my home, hanging out—and not contributing. So that night when I got home, I announced to my niece in front of her friend who’d been there for three days and as far as I know never moved from the recliner, “Anybody who lives in this house must have a job.”

Well, Kaylee’s friend left the next day, Kaylee was “wander-some” for a few days. That’s when it occurred to me that perhaps my niece did not know how to go about getting a job. She was unprepared for the challenge.

I started leaving her notes in the morning before I left the house. Monday: go to at least three places in the area or at the mall and pick up an application. She went to seven places. Tuesday my note said, “Apply for at least three of those jobs.” And she did, with most of the applications being completed on line. She continued to work on applications Wednesday and Thursday.  Friday she had an interview. And Monday she had a job. And, boy, is she dedicated to it! You have to be to get yourself to work by 4 am in time to make the donuts!

In today’s passage, the Israelites are captives in exile. In their darkest, emptiest moments the prophet Isaiah who speaks the word of the Lord, “Comfort!” And then Isaiah speaks the message of hope from God again—“O Comfort, my people.”

Every time I encounter those words, I feel a blanket of relief cover me. And I KNOW that the God who spoke “tenderly to Jerusalem” is still speaking to his children today. Yet the noise of guns shooting, bombs dropping, children dying, women crying, men breaking, earth choking, money draining and nations warring is enough to deafen us to the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Comfort, O Comfort, my people… prepare the way of the Lord.”

The Way, we know the Way, do we not? We hear of it, read it, study it, speak it. The Way is Jesus, the Way is righteousness; the Way is to love God and one another. My observation is, however, that though we Christians work very hard at serving in churches that are struggling with various challenges related to our exile, there is still something that is getting in the way of The Way. And I wonder if that something has to do with not knowing how to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

A task cannot be accomplished if we do not know where to start. When it comes to faith in Jesus Christ in the 21^st century, I am beginning to believe that many of us are unprepared to prepare—the roads are rough—we live in an era when society has become hostile to Christianity—Christians are exiled from the mainstream. We have never been this way before, is there anything we can do?

The voice tells us to prepare a way for the Lord: the Lord is coming; we are told to prepare a high way for our God. In the spiritual desert there is no physical highway to be traveled, so the voice must be talking of a different kind of highway—a spiritual high way. What might that high way be? The Message of Advent is to make a permanent room for Jesus in our hearts, for He is coming. 

Our hearts have rough places and crooked paths; they get rough by grudges and grief, apathy and anger. Our spirits are made crooked by disobedience, ignorance, lethargy. To prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts is to address the sins and to clear the heart of all the things that get in the way between us and the Lord. Make room for him in your inn, because there are many in our communities who have lost their way; the light of Christ in you and me is the lamp they need to find their way home again.

Even in the midst of the darkest days of the year, we who are aware of the Lord mustearnestly prepare our hearts, for others are suffering because they have no hope—they jump in front of trains to die; they want the police officers to shoot them dead.

Advent is not just a time of watching and waiting; it is also a time of preparing our hearts to receive the Lord.  Christ needs our hearts prepared now to serve and receive those who cannot feel the blanket of his comfort. There are those who cannot hear how tenderly the Lord speaks to those who are still wandering in the spiritual desert with no idea which way to turn. They endure a bleak midwinter.

“In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk,
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air -
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him -
Give my heart.

Making paths straight and rough places smooth is what Advent is for. Let us not neglect to prepare our hearts for the presence of Jesus Christ. Christ is waiting; souls are waiting. All earth is waiting. Will you be one who prepares a way for the Lord in your heart? Amen.

Angels and Dreams - Dec 21

ANGELS AND DREAMS

Matthew 1:18-25

“But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream….”

Nobel prize-winning biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi said: “A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind” [source: Szent-Györgyi]. History is replete with the stories of incidents and accidents—and some of the greatest discoveries happen by accident—from X-Rays to Post-It Notes, from the Slinky to Silly Putty, and Play-Doh to dynamite. Who knew that one of America's first beloved cereals was invented by accident?

Every one of us has had Will Keith Kellogg’s forgetful mishap on our tables. Will’s brother worked as a doctor at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, and he assisted his brother with patients and their diets. Responsible for making bread dough one day, Kellogg accidentally left his main ingredient -- boiled wheat -- sitting out for several hours. When he came back to roll the ingredient into dough, the wheat became flaky.

Curious to see what would happen, Kellogg baked the flaky dough anyway, creating a crunchy and flaky snack. The flakes were a hit with patients, and soon Kellogg launched his business, 'The Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company,' in 1906. Good thing! Where would we be today without…. Froot Loops, Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Special K, Cocoa Krispies, Keebler, Pringles, Pop-Tarts, Kashi, Cheez-It, Eggo, Nutri-Grain, and Morningstar Farms![1]

The birth of Jesus Christ did not happen by accident. And though many would like to think the blessed event is secondary to everything that surrounds December 25, Jesus’ birth happened on purpose exactly when it was supposed to, where it was supposed to, how it was supposed to, to whom it was supposed to, and for whom it was supposed to.

Luke’s version of the Nativity is a lot more interesting for it includes kings, decrees, and taxes; shepherds, sheep and angels; mangers, cows, and overcrowded inns: not to mention three different songs of praise about God from Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary’s Magnificat—the Lord has done a wonderful and impossible thing.

God had planned the marriage of heaven and earth from the very beginning of creation. The salvation of humankind was in the works ever since Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise, and the entrance of the Christ definitely was not a last resort to save the world. God knew it the whole time.

Matthew often is excluded from the telling of how the birth of the Christ child came to pass, I guess because he starts of with some pretty boring—important—information, but boring to the 21^st-century churchgoer. Verses 1 through 17 list, by name, the 14 generations from Abraham to David, the 14 generations from David to the Babylonian deportation generations, and the 14 generations from the Deportation to the Christ.

Matthew, however, is not as concerned with all the players in the pageant, even though the cast contains a real, live baby in the manger (which thrills us!), as he is about the birth of the Messiah: the Anointed One, the Savior, Emmanuel, God with us. Without heavenly angels speaking holy messages about God’s divine plan, there is no case for the miracle of the incarnation: Jesus is fully God, fully human.

• He could have come as a full-grown man; instead, He came as a baby.
• He could have stayed in a palace; instead, He stayed in a dirty manger.
• He could have been rich or a prince; instead, He was born into poverty.
• He could have been born in a city like Jerusalem; instead, He was born in little Bethlehem.
• He could have sent angels to tell everybody he was here; instead, He just told some shepherds.[2]

Nobody who wanted to launch a plan to save the world would have done it the way Jesus did. And Matthew wants to make sure we know God pulled off the impossible!

Matthew writes, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ. It took place in this way:  “Before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” Before he went to sleep Joseph, true to his righteous character, decided what he should do. Then, the Angel appeared in his dream and told him what God wanted him to do.

Angels and dreams come together over the years for Joseph until the time he gets Mary and Jesus safely to Nazareth. In this morning’s lesson, the angel appears in a dream and tells Joseph that his role in the birth of Jesus the Messiah is to give the child its name.

And it’s not just any family name, like Corn Flakes or Frosted Flakes or Special K; nor is it like those ancestral names Matthew listed at the beginning of his gospel. No: it’s a special name, and it has an extraordinary meaning. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (MT 1:21b).

Could angels still bring messages of salvation in dreams to people like you and like me?

• I think, yes…if we choose to dream God’s dreams.
• I think, yes… if we hold present in our hearts the tidings of great JOY that is for all people;
• and I think, yes…if we not only accept but also marvel at the conundrums of the Nativity:
• that “the one who is sleeping among the donkeys is the same one who ‘upholds the universe by the word of his power’ (Hebrews 1:3);
• and even while he nurses at Mary’s breast, it remains true that ‘in him all things hold together’ (Colossians 1:17).”[3]

Human beings could not even dream this stuff up; it comes from God, and it is accomplished by God, and only God can do it. May this Christmas bring angels to our dreams that instruct and inspire us to give our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is possible for us to march to the conundrum of the Nativity: because with God all things are possible.

May our minds be prepared to live God’s dream, as we discover what it means to be Christian.

Let us be messengers to a hurting world that needs to hear from us what one unnamed angel told Joseph so many years ago, “His name is Jesus, and he will save the people from their sins.”

December 21, 2014

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] Wikipedia.

[2] Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Mary’s Song. December 19, 2014. www.reviveourhearts.com.

[3] Ibid.