Scripture: Jeremiah 31: 7-17; Matthew 2:13-23; Text: Mt. 2:18. “Comforting the Inconsolable.”
What a terrible turn of events, worse than a stock market crash! Here we go swiftly from the joy and peace of Christmas to a grizzly scene of multiple, brutal murders. Which story tells the truth better: the peaceful, snowy scene on a Christmas card, or this horrible criminal event in Matthew 2?
This story! It is a war story. When Mary gave birth to the saviour of the world, God reasserts his dominion in this world, a world which Satan wants to control and to destroy. The warfare is between God who wants to restore his beautiful creation with the kingdom of justice, grace and peace, and the devil whose rule is violent, brutal and destructive. God is moving to a new creation, and the evil one desire to have everything end in hell.
The evil is personified here in the person of Herod. Herod was some piece of work, let me tell you. When his own children got in his way, he killed them. Ditto for his wife. What a paranoid, power-hungry dirt bag he was. No one who knew Herod would be in the least surprised that when he heard about another king, that he thought nothing of putting all the boys under 2 in the city of Bethlehem to death.
I hate to say it, but children and women are too often the first to suffer at the hands of the powerful. The fact that these were babes or toddlers who had done nothing to deserve this doesn’t seem to bother the Herods of this world. In NA there are well over a million abortions per year. In Alberta about 1 in every 7 children live in poverty. Somewhere right now a child is dying from starvation. This battle between the God of the kingdom and the evil one is always in the background whenever people are persecuted for their faith. And on it goes.
So one morning, the citizens of Bethlehem heard the hooves of horses, and saw puffs of dust on the horizon. Soldiers! What do they want? When they come, it is not good news. Soon there is weeping throughout the city. It is hard to imagine it, but soon all these little boys are dead.
What is going on, so soon after the birth of the Saviour, Messiah? What is so threatening about one little boy? And even with all of these dead children, Herod did not get the one he wanted dead: Jesus. Joseph had been warned in a dream about Herod’s raging, and told to flee. Just on time!
Matthew does not need to describe at length what has happened. One quotation from Jeremiah says it all. This happened to fulfil the prophet Jeremiah’s words, and exceptional words they are.
Matthew and Jeremiah speak about the response of the mothers: they refuse to be comforted.
Remarkable words, those. They speak about the depth of their grief. To lose a child through sickness is terrible. You never forget. To lose a child through an accident is possibly worse, especially if mom or dad feels that it is somehow their fault. How unspeakable when a child murdered by a pervert. But this? Those in governing authorities should be the protectors of the people, especially of children. But now: all those dead babies at the hands of the governing authority, Herod. No wonder these mothers refuse to be comforted.
At the same time, it is truly terrible to have a grief for which you refuse to be consoled. How can you then get on with your life? If we refuse to be consoled, don’t we than get totally stuck right in the centre of the event that caused such pain?
Sometimes we cannot find comfort. We wish the pain would go away, so we can live again. Often others do not understand our sorrow, and offer well-meant but cheap sounding words. But what happens when we refuse to be comforted? One author suggests that now everything is experienced through the pain of loss. It is possible that these mothers, and probably dads, too, found their faith questioned deeply beyond words, with the result that now life has no meaning and God seems too remote to be trusted. Should God not have prevented the deaths of these children? The question is so painful, and who knows the answer to it?
Another possibility presents itself. I wonder if these mourners refuse to be comforted because it would seem like a betrayal of their children? For them to say something like this “now I am comforted,” might feel like you’re letting these children behind. Refusing to be comforted might then mean that it is never right, always reprehensible and unforgiveable that people do such things. They cannot forgive the perpetrators of the crime because not makes it right. But if we cannot come to terms with the horrible deeds of others, do we not become their victims for as long as we live?
Should we reprimand people who refuse to be comforted for their stubbornness? I would not do that. I might say something like this: if some day you reach a point in your life where these terrible people who killed all those children no longer haunt and torment your spirit, then you will have received a wonderful gift of compassion, of healing, of getting the barbs out of your soul.
This healing ointment for people who suffer the very worst that can happen is in fact exactly what Matthew is after.
Please follow me as we think through how Matthew might have intended that.
Matthew quotes words from Jeremiah. But notice, often when New Testament writers quote words from the First Testament, they mean for us to be mindful of the entire unit of thought from which the quotation comes. Here’s a for instance: when Jesus says on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, he quotes from Psalm 22, just a few words. But Psalm 22 not only speaks about feeling abandoned, t it tells us that our ancestors trusted in the Lord, “and were not put to shame,” vs. 5. So Jesus speaks of great pain but also great confidence, as he hangs on the cross.
If we do the same for the quotation in our text, and look at the entire chapter of Jeremiah, chapter 31, then we see the prophet expressing the most profound awareness of human pain. However, he speaks about this in the context of great deeds that God will do and is doing. In chapter 31 we read about God renewing the covenant promises, and deepening them, in fact.
The chapter is full of the glorious deeds God will do. Here are a few snippets:
The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
And immediately after our text we read:
Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears;
for there is a reward for your work,
says the Lord:
they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future,
says the Lord:
your children shall come back to their own country.
In summary, Jeremiah 31 is about God making a new covenant with his people. He begins anew with them. This includes the forgiveness of sin on the basis of God’s goodness, not on their merit.
It speaks of a new heart, too, since the big problem that causes people do to the terrible things we mentioned is heart trouble. And it moves beyond that to a new exodus, a new way of setting people free from the many things which hold us in bondage.
God does not engage in these acts of mercy and deliverance because of our goodness, but because God sees our great need, and our inability to deliver ourselves. God does not intend the powers of evil to win, and overcomes them without our help, often against our own inclinations and character.
This forms the faith perspective for understanding our lives and our world, especially the suffering and sin in this world. If we look at life’s worst only from what we can see, then perhaps we might all either simply resign ourselves to despair and hopelessness, or respond with a sorrow so deep we cannot be consoled, or even as in this text, where we refuse to be comforted.
But now what would happen if we were to view our lives from the perspective of the message and deeds of God? Now the Herods of this world don’t rule after all. And the comfort of God embraces even those who steadfastly refuse to be comforted.
Many parents know what it is like to have a colicky baby. Nothing you do seems to be good enough to stop your baby’s maddening howling. It can try a parent’s patience till you are driven around the bend. You pull out your hair in desperation. But most of the time, parents hold on to their child. They want to help their child, and bring them comfort.
And so it is that God holds on in his sovereign embrace people who see no way out, who have given up, who resign themselves, who cannot find consolation, and who even refuse to be comforted.
Don’t let your assessment of life be determined by what you see happening around you, but by what the ear of faith hears in the Word of the Lord.
I don’t know how long these mothers refused to be comforted. If Matthew knew, he doesn’t say.
I don’t know what happen to Paul, how long or arduous the journey, before he discovered God’s ability to comfort. But somewhere in his difficult journey, with nakedness, peril, shipwreck and beatings, he learned to say:
“Blessed be the God and Father of mercy, and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction…”
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Mary: Willing Servant
Ps. 116:12-19; Luke 1:26-38. Mary: Willing Servant.
All of us are called to serve God. Often, however, we find excuses for not obeying our call. Moses said he did not have sufficient gifts as a speaker. Jeremiah said he was too young. Saul simply went into hiding. We claim we are too busy or we don’t have the talents necessary for it.
We can understand the reluctance to serve. It is so natural to put self first. So much in our culture urges us to take care of yourself above all. But anyone who does not intentionally serve the Lord needs to repent, for we are not in tune with God. God has work to be done, and needs his people to get the work done. God even presses ordinary people into his service for the great event of the birth of the Messiah. During this time God drafted Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary to serve the cause of grace and truth which is the Kingdom of God.
When she has heard God's plan and will for her life, she humbly submits to it. She said: "Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your Word.” It is like Isaiah, who heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah said: “Here I am; send me.”
Mary is not a slave pressed into service unwillingly, because she understands that when God calls, we need to respond in obedience, whether it happens to be convenient or not. Perhaps she knows that in the Bible, the call to serve is always a positive. Responding to the call to serve does not make us slaves; instead it calls us to our true purpose in life. Loving God motivates our willingness to serve. David declares his love for God in Ps. 116, and that is why he can say in this same psalm: “O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.” Thus, serving the Lord is the opposite of slavery.
So Mary willingly gives herself to do what is asked of her. Thomas a Kempis wrote that to have a heart at peace, care neither for human praise nor blame. We will have free consciences if we care only about being in harmony with God's plan for our lives. By this standard, Mary is at peace.
This is not necessarily easy. Some of you know how hard it is to serve the Lord in your place of employment; for some it is tough to serve the Lord even at home. It is not about an easy life; it is about a good life, in harmony with God.
Several episodes in Mary's life make clear that she did not fully understand what the cause was all about to which she gave herself. However, she trusted the message and the messenger. She knew that the master would see that all would turn out well, and so Mary gave herself as servant. "Use me in accordance with the word you have spoken,” she said.
1. What makes the need for willing servants so urgent? To understand this, we need to be aware of how great the need of human beings is, for the work God undertakes is the response of the grace of God to the deepest needs of the world. Think of it:
• The persecuted church waits for justice.
• Multitudes of poor, sick and homeless are
longing for food and drink.
• Many men, women and children live amongst
the tangled wrecks of bombed out houses,
fearing the next bomb may end their lives.
They look for peace.
• Many believe, but struggle with unbelief, waiting to see the promises fulfilled. We live with an awareness that there are only skeleton reminders of what the world was and should be.
• Many lived in fear because their rulers are warlords who place little value on ordinary lives.
• We are like blind people who grope towards
meaning and hope, looking for someone to take us by the hand and guide us.
• and then, mostly urgently and basically, there is our need to be set free from the death of sin into a new life with God.
As Christians weknow that maxing out our credit cards gives only the thinnest, flimsiest satisfaction. And we who have become attentive to life as it is for the neediest know that our heavenly Father is even more attentive and alert to the orphaned, to the oppressed, the hungering and thirsting than we are.
2. Believers celebrate Advent and look forward to Christmas because we are convinced that God knows our needs, and hears our afflictions and sufferings. He knows our sin that brought this on us. And God acts!
God speaks to us through messengers like Gabriel! We believe that he hears, knows and takes action. For this reason, God’s messenger, God's Word and God’s actions are the center of this event, the birth of Christ. Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary, are only servants, mostly passive, unable to bring about what happens. Sin and guilt are enemies of being servants. All are under the power of sin, and none of us is righteous, Romans 3.
So what happened to Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary is the power of God at work: this is what our God can and will do. That's our hope. This story puts God at the center, and God puts Jesus at the center. Mary knows that: she said: let it be to me according to the Word of God.
Mary has just heard the message of God's salvation from the angel Gabriel. She has heard that God's favor rests on her, and that God is with her. It takes her by surprise to hear these words, but she may accept hem at face value, just as you and I may do when we begin our services of worship with similar greetings.
3. Now the greeting to Mary is not special, but the content of the message. Gabriel tells Mary that God is going to carry on his work in a unique way; after all, there is only one Jesus, and one mother of Jesus. The one of virgin born is an iron wedge from God to cleave our darkness. Who Mary is, and how she became pregnant, and how she and Joseph can be the parent of a child born by the power of the Spirit -- these are truly secondary.
Let's listen to the most important part of the message, words in which Gabriel identifies the person and purpose of this child. Advent waiting in a needy world needs a special one, needs a clear statement about the Christ. Otherwise Christmas celebrations are only an opiate to dull the pain, but not the message of deliverance or a new creation.
The child is gift from God, from above. Mary did not conceive through the will of a man, says John's gospel. Jesus' identity is clear: he will be called Son of the Most High. No one else deserves such self-identity, not even Mary. It singles Jesus out as the presence of Holy God in a vicious, sin-loving world. The Son of the Most High has come to the place where death is king. This is Jesus: most astonishing: God with us, God with us. Holy Son of God in a paradise reduced to a pigsty. That's who he is.
Why did God bring him to this world? He receives the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob, over all the lineage of Abraham, really. There had been other kings but their kingdoms ended, usually after a few decades, sometimes less. But of the son of Mary Son of the Most High it is said: His kingdom shall never end.
Through Jesus, God asserts his kingship over all creation. He is the King of the kings of the world. He defeats Satan and his pretended dominion. He brings the Kingdom of peace and justice. This is what makes Jesus special.
What child is this, who laid to rest,
on Mary's lap lies sleeping?
This is Christ the king.
How shall we respond?
Begin by remembering humanity’s deepest poverty and pain. Remember a world full of men and women who hurt terribly, who want to believe, but need help with their unbelief. Pay attention to just the one person, perhaps. For example: Canada has lost 100 soldiers in Afghanistan. But think of just the one dad and the one mom who lost their only son in this war. Many have lost family members in war. But never did this family lose this son, this daughter!
Advent shows us God's knowledge of our misery, and the loving action God has taken in coming to our assistance.
Imagine this: the Son of the Most High on earth!
The Son of the Most High, living in the hearts of the people of God. God in the woes of earth, to bring people the joy of the kingdom.
Pray for God to deal with all of us according to the promises of his word. That is light, peace and joy.
That is the eternal kingdom, our home now and always.
Prayer:
Dear God, you have helped your servant people in remembrance of your mercy, according to the promise you made to our ancestors and their descendants forever. Thank you for your faithful love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
All of us are called to serve God. Often, however, we find excuses for not obeying our call. Moses said he did not have sufficient gifts as a speaker. Jeremiah said he was too young. Saul simply went into hiding. We claim we are too busy or we don’t have the talents necessary for it.
We can understand the reluctance to serve. It is so natural to put self first. So much in our culture urges us to take care of yourself above all. But anyone who does not intentionally serve the Lord needs to repent, for we are not in tune with God. God has work to be done, and needs his people to get the work done. God even presses ordinary people into his service for the great event of the birth of the Messiah. During this time God drafted Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary to serve the cause of grace and truth which is the Kingdom of God.
When she has heard God's plan and will for her life, she humbly submits to it. She said: "Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your Word.” It is like Isaiah, who heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah said: “Here I am; send me.”
Mary is not a slave pressed into service unwillingly, because she understands that when God calls, we need to respond in obedience, whether it happens to be convenient or not. Perhaps she knows that in the Bible, the call to serve is always a positive. Responding to the call to serve does not make us slaves; instead it calls us to our true purpose in life. Loving God motivates our willingness to serve. David declares his love for God in Ps. 116, and that is why he can say in this same psalm: “O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.” Thus, serving the Lord is the opposite of slavery.
So Mary willingly gives herself to do what is asked of her. Thomas a Kempis wrote that to have a heart at peace, care neither for human praise nor blame. We will have free consciences if we care only about being in harmony with God's plan for our lives. By this standard, Mary is at peace.
This is not necessarily easy. Some of you know how hard it is to serve the Lord in your place of employment; for some it is tough to serve the Lord even at home. It is not about an easy life; it is about a good life, in harmony with God.
Several episodes in Mary's life make clear that she did not fully understand what the cause was all about to which she gave herself. However, she trusted the message and the messenger. She knew that the master would see that all would turn out well, and so Mary gave herself as servant. "Use me in accordance with the word you have spoken,” she said.
1. What makes the need for willing servants so urgent? To understand this, we need to be aware of how great the need of human beings is, for the work God undertakes is the response of the grace of God to the deepest needs of the world. Think of it:
• The persecuted church waits for justice.
• Multitudes of poor, sick and homeless are
longing for food and drink.
• Many men, women and children live amongst
the tangled wrecks of bombed out houses,
fearing the next bomb may end their lives.
They look for peace.
• Many believe, but struggle with unbelief, waiting to see the promises fulfilled. We live with an awareness that there are only skeleton reminders of what the world was and should be.
• Many lived in fear because their rulers are warlords who place little value on ordinary lives.
• We are like blind people who grope towards
meaning and hope, looking for someone to take us by the hand and guide us.
• and then, mostly urgently and basically, there is our need to be set free from the death of sin into a new life with God.
As Christians weknow that maxing out our credit cards gives only the thinnest, flimsiest satisfaction. And we who have become attentive to life as it is for the neediest know that our heavenly Father is even more attentive and alert to the orphaned, to the oppressed, the hungering and thirsting than we are.
2. Believers celebrate Advent and look forward to Christmas because we are convinced that God knows our needs, and hears our afflictions and sufferings. He knows our sin that brought this on us. And God acts!
God speaks to us through messengers like Gabriel! We believe that he hears, knows and takes action. For this reason, God’s messenger, God's Word and God’s actions are the center of this event, the birth of Christ. Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary, are only servants, mostly passive, unable to bring about what happens. Sin and guilt are enemies of being servants. All are under the power of sin, and none of us is righteous, Romans 3.
So what happened to Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary is the power of God at work: this is what our God can and will do. That's our hope. This story puts God at the center, and God puts Jesus at the center. Mary knows that: she said: let it be to me according to the Word of God.
Mary has just heard the message of God's salvation from the angel Gabriel. She has heard that God's favor rests on her, and that God is with her. It takes her by surprise to hear these words, but she may accept hem at face value, just as you and I may do when we begin our services of worship with similar greetings.
3. Now the greeting to Mary is not special, but the content of the message. Gabriel tells Mary that God is going to carry on his work in a unique way; after all, there is only one Jesus, and one mother of Jesus. The one of virgin born is an iron wedge from God to cleave our darkness. Who Mary is, and how she became pregnant, and how she and Joseph can be the parent of a child born by the power of the Spirit -- these are truly secondary.
Let's listen to the most important part of the message, words in which Gabriel identifies the person and purpose of this child. Advent waiting in a needy world needs a special one, needs a clear statement about the Christ. Otherwise Christmas celebrations are only an opiate to dull the pain, but not the message of deliverance or a new creation.
The child is gift from God, from above. Mary did not conceive through the will of a man, says John's gospel. Jesus' identity is clear: he will be called Son of the Most High. No one else deserves such self-identity, not even Mary. It singles Jesus out as the presence of Holy God in a vicious, sin-loving world. The Son of the Most High has come to the place where death is king. This is Jesus: most astonishing: God with us, God with us. Holy Son of God in a paradise reduced to a pigsty. That's who he is.
Why did God bring him to this world? He receives the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob, over all the lineage of Abraham, really. There had been other kings but their kingdoms ended, usually after a few decades, sometimes less. But of the son of Mary Son of the Most High it is said: His kingdom shall never end.
Through Jesus, God asserts his kingship over all creation. He is the King of the kings of the world. He defeats Satan and his pretended dominion. He brings the Kingdom of peace and justice. This is what makes Jesus special.
What child is this, who laid to rest,
on Mary's lap lies sleeping?
This is Christ the king.
How shall we respond?
Begin by remembering humanity’s deepest poverty and pain. Remember a world full of men and women who hurt terribly, who want to believe, but need help with their unbelief. Pay attention to just the one person, perhaps. For example: Canada has lost 100 soldiers in Afghanistan. But think of just the one dad and the one mom who lost their only son in this war. Many have lost family members in war. But never did this family lose this son, this daughter!
Advent shows us God's knowledge of our misery, and the loving action God has taken in coming to our assistance.
Imagine this: the Son of the Most High on earth!
The Son of the Most High, living in the hearts of the people of God. God in the woes of earth, to bring people the joy of the kingdom.
Pray for God to deal with all of us according to the promises of his word. That is light, peace and joy.
That is the eternal kingdom, our home now and always.
Prayer:
Dear God, you have helped your servant people in remembrance of your mercy, according to the promise you made to our ancestors and their descendants forever. Thank you for your faithful love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)