In just a few days, we will experience our annual winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year. This Thursday brings a mere nine hours of daylight and whopping 15 hours of darkness.
Our worship this morning is a Service for Our Longest Nights – a time to recognize the darkness that people experience in their lives because of grief, sadness, and loss. For many, those feelings make it hard to “deck the halls,” sing fa-la-la-la-la, and participate in all the usual holiday celebrations. For many, there’s no “joy to the world,” and those “herald angels” can just take all their “harking” somewhere else.
So, we extend particular welcome this morning to all those who are living a “blue Christmas.” We come alongside all of you who yearn for light and hope on these longest of nights. Be assured that you are not alone. The Lord and the community of faith are with you.
On this fifth Sunday of Advent, we stand with the downtrodden and light a candle of comfort – for those bending low under the weight of our grief, exhaustion, and stress. May God’s comfort find them now.
May this time together be our holiday gift to one another – our holy moment to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the command of Christ Jesus. Praying with or for one another is one of faith’s most powerful experiences. Thus we lift up our hearts to the Lord: In your mercy, hear our prayers. Come, thou long expected Jesus …
A word for the weary, adapted from a poem by the Rev. Sarah Speed:
Weariness feels like an ache in your bones, or a slow leak from the heart — a leak that causes hope to pool at your feet.
Weariness feels like the wind knocked out of you — all of a sudden, it’s impossible to breathe.
Weariness feels like an oversized coat. It catches on door handles and knocks over water glasses.
You turn into a clumsy mess.
Weariness can hit you all at once — when the phone rings, when the bill arrives, when the news outlet pings you with a breaking-news alert.
But weariness can also hem and haw its way into your life, bit by bit, chipping away at resolve.
And one short poem cannot change this truth — the weary state of our grief-stricken hearts.
But one short poem can remind you the one thing we so often forget: that I can wear your jacket for a while.
And we can try to stop the leak in your heart.
And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll stand under the night sky to look at the stars and remember that we do not walk this valley alone.
Thus, the Holy Spirit speaks the groans of our hearts – perhaps giving voice through the psalmist to words too painful to speak:
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. (Psalm 121)
Let us be together in a place of prayer:
God of our joy, God of our weariness, we have brought our worn-down hearts to you this morning — broken hearts full of grief, anxious hearts carrying fear, aching hearts too tender to touch.
We have brought our weariness to you, because we know that you walk with us in the valleys. You make rough places plain and crooked paths straight. We know that you were born into our silent nights, so surely our tears are familiar.
So, remain with us on our journeys. Stay by our side; make low the hills and fill in the valleys. Reach down your hand and lift us from our pits. For we cannot move from weariness to joy without you.
With honesty and gratitude, we offer these prayers of our hearts — those spoken and left unspoken. We give them all to you – by the power of the Spirit, in Jesus’s name. Amen.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the fifth Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent is running for five weeks instead of the usual four.“ How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent and draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org. News photos in the video are among the pictures of the year selected by Reuters.“Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” is by Chris Tomlin and Christy Nockels.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message at the graveside service for Vicki M. Gluck on December 12, 2023, at Oakland Cemetery in Waukon, Iowa. Reflection by Stacy Lowe informs parts the message.
When God seems far away – like when death comes calling and steals away someone we love, the candle of our hope is easily snuffed out.
It surely doesn’t help when death strikes in the midst of the holidays and early winter’s bone-chilling cold. You feel icy and isolated in tear-filled darkness. You covet the warmth of God’s love to rekindle the flame, renew your hope, and reassure your faith.
In that spirit of healing and wholeness, we now gather here on holy ground to lean on one another, to support one another, and to commit Vicki’s body to a place of rest – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
As the story’s told, an intrepid young photographer once crawled out of bed in the pre-dawn hours, grabbed her camera, and headed to a nearby beach.
The date was January 1, and she planned to mark the occasion with a picture of the New Year sun rising over the ocean.
Her teeth chattering, her body shivering, her hands and feet quickly numbing, she waited patiently in the early morning cold for the sun to peek over the horizon. But as the minutes ticked by and the light of day began to break, all she saw was a thick blanket of soupy gray.
The sight for which she’d been waiting – the bright, colorful hues of dawn’s yellow, orange, and red – was nowhere to be found. And it quickly became painfully obvious that she wasn’t going to see the sun that morning much less make the photograph she envisioned.
Disappointment flooded her heart. She’d set January 1 as the start of a yearlong photography project, and now her idea for the perfect “Day 1” photo fell far short of plan.
Then she finally noticed something that was readily apparent: The sun still came up. She couldn’t see it, of course. Like a heavy veil, the clouds obscured its rays. But if the sun wasn’t there, tucked behind that dimming mist, she never could have seen anything else. Sunlight surrounded her, but she almost missed it – simply because the sun didn’t show up the way she wanted it to.
So also it goes it God.
It’s easy to feel God’s presence when life goes exactly as you want. You thank the Lord for his blessing and move on with the rest of your day. Problem is, that’s usually not how life goes. More often than not, plans are interrupted; schedules are rearranged, and in trying to keep up with it all, your head spins like a whirling dervish: Perhaps wondering where God is in the midst of it all, perhaps pondering what God is up to, perhaps even questioning if the Lord God is anywhere to be found in the neighborhood!
Yet none of those confusing, disappointing, often heartbreaking moments escapes God’s notice. Through it all, God remains at your side – abiding, as always, in the ways of grace and mercy. The mouth of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah thunders with such Good News:
All is well!
We are surrounded by the strong walls of your salvation, holy God! Open the gates to all who are righteous; allow the faithful to enter. You keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! You are a God who does what is right, and you smooth out the path ahead of your people. (Isaiah 26:1-3, 7)
Keeping your gaze fixed on God broadens one’s perspective, allowing you to see beyond the obvious. Staying focused on the Lord provides daily reminder that your purpose as well as mine is not to satisfy our own agendas but to perform faithfully our carefully orchestrated parts in heaven’s song of renewal, redemption, and resurrection.
And suddenly – when you do just that, the perfect peace of which Isaiah speaks floods your heart, and your eyes ever spy the Lord in each and every moment – even if and especially when those moments look nothing like you’d hoped or imagined.
When Vicki was born, in no way did she come into the world as her parents planned or expected.
Nonetheless, God was and still is a God of light and life, and Vicki’s was a life well lived in God’s light. To riff on an anonymous poet:
A life well lived is a precious gift of hope and strength and grace, From someone who has made our world a brighter, better place. It’s filled with moments, sweet and sad; with smiles and sometimes tears; With friendships formed, and good times shared, and laughter through the years.
A life well lived is a legacy of joy and pride and pleasure, A living, lasting memory our grateful hearts will treasure Whenever we see that the sun’s coming out.
“The sun’s coming out!” That was Vicki’s favorite phrase – perhaps singing in perfect pitch with writer of an Old Testament psalm:
O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end, and I am still with you. (Selected verses of Psalm 139)
Vicki loved singing along with the music on “The Lawrence Welk Show.” So, I leave you with this unorthodox benediction, the perennial ending to each Welk episode:
Goodnight, goodnight, until we meet again, Adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen ’til then. And though it’s always sweet sorrow to part, You know you’ll always remain in my heart
Goodnight, sleep tight, and pleasant dreams to you. Here’s a wish and a prayer that every dream comes true. And now ’til we meet again, adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen.
Here in this place, we have begun our fourth week of Advent. Let this prayer provide warm nourishment for your spiritual hunger as you continue your Advent journey toward Bethlehem with Mary and Joseph. It is adapted from a prayer by the Reverend Sarah (Are) Speed, SanctifiedArt.org
God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
I breathe deeply and fill my lungs with your Spirit. For I sense that you are here, with me as I pray, listening and responding, celebrating and comforting, restoring and healing. With gratitude, I join my voice with Mary’s:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. (Luke 1:46-49)
With rejoicing, I join my voice with Zechariah’s:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” (Luke 1:68-71)
Some days, Lord, a person just has to sing with gratitude for what exists. So, thank you for filling our days with beauty – like candlelight and freshly baked bread, evergreen trees and holiday lights, family dinners and neighborhood parties, creases in a good book, carolers joining the heavenly hosts, the sound of the dog running to greet me, the comfort of a bed beneath my weary bones.
Mary and Zechariah sing songs of protest that declare what the world could be, would be, should be. So, I too lift prophetic prayers of hope: Turn injustice on its head. Raise up the poor, the hungry, and the downtrodden. Comfort the sick and the aching. Tend the lonely and the lost.
And then, ignite a fire in my heart to do the same.
The miracles surrounding the birth of Jesus begin to pop and sizzle long before that cold, dark night in a manger stall.
Months earlier, an angel visits a man named Zechariah and shares astounding word that he and his wife, Elizabeth – long past her child-bearing years and like Zechariah long resigned to being childless – will at long last become parents. Zechariah doubts the angel’s good news, which literally leaves him speechless for the duration of Elizabeth’s surprising pregnancy.
As soon as Zechariah’s voice returns – another miracle in the story of Jesus’s birth, his first words are gratitude for divine blessing. With lyrics that now are ours to sing, Zechariah croons a story of praise and thanksgiving for God’s protection and promise. Zechariah then showers blessing upon his newborn son, John, destined to be the baptist who sets up shop on the banks of the Jordan to prepare the way of the Lord.
As we did earlier in this morning’s service, Zechariah carols a thrill of hope – reason for a weary world to rejoice. But he’s not the first. Others have sung similar melodies along the long, difficult road to Bethlehem.
A few paragraphs earlier in Luke 1, it is reunion with her distant relative Elizabeth that heartens Mary to rejoice: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
With the splendor of a cardinal singing from high in a snow-covered pine, Mary warbles sweetly of a liberating God who pulls the powerful from their thrones, who lifts up the lowly from their pits, whose Kingdom of interwoven justice and mercy will have no end.
On this fourth Sunday of God’s Advent to us, let us join Zechariah and Mary in singing stories of hope, justice, and mercy.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken, listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the Voice that began Creation, listen even if you don’t understand.
Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
“His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)
Fun fact:
Gravitational waves from the creation of the universe are rippling through the background of time and space. In other words, according to the folks who study such things, the whole of the cosmos is singing. One writer describes it thus –
“Every proton and neutron in every atom from the tip of your toes to the top of your head is shifting, shuttling, and vibrating in a collective purr within which the entire history of the universe is implicated. And if you put your hand down on a chair or table or anything else nearby, that object, too, is dancing that slow waltz.
“All of a sudden, we know that we are humming in tune with the entire universe, that each of us contains the signature of everything that has ever been. It’s all within us, around us, pushing us to and fro as we hurtle through the cosmos.”
Consider, then, how the act of singing is so vitally important – perhaps even irresistible – for Mary and for Zechariah. Imagine songs of praise and thanksgiving changing them – and us. Picture music transforming your experience and understanding of God in Christ Jesus.
Envision familiar notes and choruses preparing and nourishing your body, mind, and soul for the “what’s next” in your life – even and especially when you have absolutely no blessed clue what that next chapter looks like.
Thanks be to God – by the power of Christ’s Spirit, Mary and Zechariah – you and I – are together singing the precise words we need to hear at precisely the right moments!
So, hear a gracious invitation of close attention to the lyrics we’re singing together this morning. Songs we love to sing swing open the door and invite us into holiday celebration: “Mortals, join the mighty chorus which the morning stars began; love divine is reigning o’er us, binding all within its span.”
How does a weary world rejoice? We sing stories of hope! We find joy in connection and re-connection!
How does a weary world rejoice? We acknowledge our weariness. And we allow ourselves to be amazed.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken, listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the Voice that began Creation, listen even if you don’t understand.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the fourth Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent is running for five weeks instead of the usual four.“ How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent. It draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Cecelia D. Armstrong, Lisle Gwinn Garrity, and Nicolette Peñaranda inform the message.
For a toddler, a caterpillar is a miracle. For a kindergartener, a tall pine is a modern marvel. For any kid wearing galoshes, water is as much for joy as it is for survival.
Then, somewhere in our childhood – in adolescence, maybe – peer pressure mounts to outgrow such youthful feelings of awe and wonder. Shunning such foolishness, nominally mature adults obsess over facts and drill deep into data. Grown-ups admire those who provide common-sense answers and worship those offering practical solutions. Awe and wonder are zero-sum games, and dreaming big is for fools.
And further spreads the gaping, manmade breach between us and the Lord.
But in honest confession of our tendency to keep God at arm’s length, our prayers fill the gap that our wonderless-ness and anemic dreaming have spawned. To riff on the novel and the movie:
Folks think pleasing you is all you care about, God of the Manger. But any fool living in the world can see you always trying to please us back. Yes, I say. You are always making little surprises and springing them on us when we least expect.
So forgive us, God of Bethlehem, for regularly “walk[ing] by the color purple in a field somewhere and [not noticing] it.” Teach us again the ways of awe and wonder. Remind us that the kingdom of God belongs to those who with child-like vision see the world differently.
And just like that: Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The Holy Spirit reorients our focus. Hearts and minds flowing with awe and wonder gaze upon a broken and fearful world and easily spot God’s constant springing of surprises. Souls and spirits, renewed by fresh possibility, dream of even greater things to come.
You can’t help but join the psalmist in rejoicing – seeing the world differently, as with the eyes of an eager child:
When the LORD brought home his exiled people, it was like a dream!
We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the LORD has done for them.”Yes, the LORD has done amazing things for us! What joy! Restore our fortunes, LORD, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest. (Psalm 126:1-6)
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
How does a weary world rejoice? By allowing ourselves to be amazed! You sow in tears and reap shouts of joy. God is more than able: In Christ, offering true promise of further refreshment for the weary; by the Spirit, stirring and enlivening new possibility through pipe dreams.
So, dream big, my friends! Find reason to rejoice in Advent’s hope and assurance! Listen to the Word that God has spoken, as we continue the lead-up-to-Christmas story of Elizabeth’s unexpected pregnancy and the return of her husband Zechariah’s voice.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken, listen to the One who is close at hand.
Listen to the Voice that began Creation, listen even if you don’t understand.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No! He is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
“Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel. (Luke 1:57-80)
Last month, after enjoying a weeklong retreat for pastors in Little Rock, Arkansas, my trip home included a swing through Memphis to visit the Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
The hallowed site is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum, and I spent an afternoon learning from its exhibits – including one dedicated to what arguably is Dr. King’s most famous speech.
He didn’t make it up on the spot. He intended to use snippets of earlier sermons or speeches – often one and the same with Dr. King. He began speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and his close colleagues instantly recognized familiar tones and cadences from earlier messages.
But just then, before throngs of civil rights supporters stretching far into distance of the Washington Monument, Dr. King’s colleagues standing behind him urged him off script. “Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream!”
And thus they began to flow – some of the most famously lyric words in all of human oratory: “I have a dream.”
The next moments unspooled the contours of that dream. And it began to feel less like a dream and more like an achievable reality – a thrill of hope, a reason to rejoice. The crowd’s vigor and energy were tangible and palpable.
And when Dr. King finally capped what we now know as his “I Have a Dream” speech, when he insisted that the words of an old, Negro spiritual soon would be realized, “Free at last! Free at last! Thanks God Almighty we are free at last” – well, simply letting those lyrics wash over the weary and downtrodden made everyone there that day already feel a little more free.
Dreams tend to do just that. Which is what the psalmist – and later, Elizabeth and Zechariah – knew by firsthand experience:
“Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their bumper crop of sheaves.”
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the third Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. “How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent. It draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Cecelia D. Armstrong, Lisle Gwinn Garrity, Scott Hoezee, and Alice Walker inform the message. In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent will last five weeks instead of the usual four.
The question for our Advent is as honest as it is challenging, looming large over heart, body, mind, soul, and spirit: How does a weary world rejoice, when everything in and around feels like it’s coming apart at the seams and flying off the rails?
It’s a confusing paradox of faith: God designs joy to abide faithfully in a house filled to the rafters with raw emotion, dashed hopes, and shattered dreams. By heaven’s grace, thrills of hope enter Creation’s brokenness to disturb our grief, rage, weariness, and hopelessness, and suddenly, a weary world really does find reason to rejoice.
The next line of the familiar carol explains why: “For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!” The first rays of that new day’s dawning begin to pierce our darkness only if and when we name our weariness.
Atop that astonishing news, the angel Gabriel further announces that this child will prepare the way of the Lord. Thanks be to God, a new and glorious morning lies just below the horizon in the coming birth of Jesus.
As we re-enter the story this morning, the angel Gabriel again swoops down with more news of unexpected pregnancy. This time around, a teenage girl, Mary, discovers that she is God’s favored one – full of grace, “the Lord with thee.” Blessed among women, and “blessed is the fruit of thy womb”
Let a refrain of song quicken your attention to the advent of God’s Good News:
Listen to the word that God has spoken; listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the voice that began creation; listen even if you don’t understand.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:26-45)
When you’re weary, expressing joy is hard.
That, in turn, makes sharing space with others a heavy lift, because your weariness saps your joy, and you have no inclination to join the heavenly hosts in singing fa-la-la-la-la.
Sure, you can be joy-filled all by your lonesome, but the thing that gives joy its true delight is sharing the joy of the moment with another. Meaningful connection outside yourself magnifies exponentially the joy you experience within.
Joy is fundamentally rooted in connection, but those ties that bind expand beyond mere human relationship. Joy arises through feelings of deep connection to ourselves and our loved ones, to God and to nature, and to the whole cosmos that spins and swirls all around us. Shared joy thus provides another reason for a weary world to rejoice, and the uniting of Elizabeth and Mary offers but one example of that truth.
Elizabeth has spent five months in seclusion. Luke doesn’t explain why, so speculation is the best we can do. Perhaps Elizabeth’s isolation rises for the same reason that Zechariah is silenced. She, too, must be asking is disbelief, “Year after disappointing year we’ve wanted children, but a baby never arrives. And now, long past my years of child-bearing, NOW I am pregnant?”
The shame of Elizabeth’s barren womb delivers only weariness. So, just exactly how is she supposed to rejoice?
Though we hear not her agonizing, we nonetheless hear her resolve to move forward in faith, even if she doesn’t fully understand: “This is what the Lord has done for me, when he looked favorably on me, and took away the disgrace of childlessness that I have endured among my people.”
Into Elizabeth’s maternal weariness steps Mary.
She undertakes a long, arduous journey to seek clarity and understanding about her own encounter with the Gabriel. Mary questions the angel – wondering how this can be, because she is a virgin, but we hear nothing of her pondering while on the road to Elizabeth’s home.
Imagination suggests, “Does the Lord know how young I am? I’ve yet to marry, and NOW I’m pregnant?” The shame of being with child without first being married creates weariness, so Mary finds little reason to rejoice. Yet her determined resolve to visit Elizabeth – a force unto itself – is on full display.
That’s because, in community, our joy expands. When we can’t rejoice because of our own circumstance, we still can revel in each other’s joy. That’s what Elizabeth and Mary do for each other. The Good News begins to take shape in Elizabeth’s womb, but Scripture says she stays secluded, hiding her pregnancy from others – that is, until Mary arrives at her door, also unexpectedly pregnant.
The takeaway we’ve gleaned from the pulpit for years is Elizabeth’s provision of sanctuary for Mary.
But perhaps Mary’s arrival is what pulls Elizabeth from her seclusion, allowing her to experience the fullness of joy and delight. Even if neither can feel joy for herself, both experience joy for each other. And that mutuality of shared joy and spiritual connection gives rise to rejoicing. When the field of joy lies barren and fallow, joy blossoms and flourishes when another provides its sowing and nurturing.
Mary’s arrival is the inbreaking that changes everything for Elizabeth. For in that moment, her child leaps in her womb, and she is filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth can’t help but rejoice. Her joy is contagious and wraps around Mary like the warm hug of a woolen blanket.
Through the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, God speaks such tender words of comfort. This is the same comfort we give to each other – and receive from one another, during seasons of Advent waiting and surprise:
“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.
Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, ‘Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!’”
A voice said, “Shout!” I asked, “What should I shout?”
“Shout that people are like the grass. Their beauty fades as quickly as the flowers in a field. The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the LORD. And so it is with people. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.
“O Zion, messenger of good news, shout from the mountaintops! Shout it louder, O Jerusalem. Shout, and do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah, ‘Your God is coming!’ Yes, the Sovereign LORD is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.’” (Isaiah 40:1-11)
Listen to the word that God has spoken; listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the voice that began creation; listen even if you don’t understand.
For the Lord has spoken!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the second Sunday of Advent, November 26, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. “How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent. It draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org.In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent will last five weeks instead of the usual four.
The Lord God sometimes – oftentimes – appears in unlikely places to share the unexpected gift of undeserved grace.
Whenever that happens – whenever the joy of heaven to earth comes down, great, beautiful, and wonderful things begin to happen: Shadow becomes light. Darkness gives way to brightness. Wee hours dawn a brand-spanking new day, fertile with fresh mercy and infinite possibility. All things that go bump in the night mercifully fall silent at long last.
And from the deafening quiet arises the still small voice of heaven bearing good news – a thrill of hope! And as a familiar carol proclaims, a weary world rejoices.
Yet the nagging question looms large over heart, body, mind, soul, and spirit: How does a weary world rejoice? Just exactly how do the pale and downtrodden – everyday folks like you and I – find good reason to shout for joy and bang the drums? Particularly so when everything in and around feels anemic, worn out, and bound for hell in handbasket!
As we begin another season of Advent – a few weeks earlier than most, I rather sense that our best starting point is a place of daring honesty that acknowledges the grief, the rage, the weariness, and the hopelessness that we all carry and endure in various ways, shapes, and forms. You might be blissfully unaware of such heavy burdens – or maybe you are! Or you simply don’t possess the wherewithal to enter into your own brokenness – much less the brokenness of world around you.
But as God answers our fervent pleas for relief, as the Lord begins working unto good amid the deep wounds of our present and the lasting scars of our past, those with eyes to see discover hints and glimpses of healing grace that spur singing with the herald angels in affirmation that God really did create us for joy. It is the confusing paradox of faith: To riff on the words of another, God designed joy to abide faithfully in a full house of raw emotion.
Thus this morning we cross the threshold into the household of Elizabeth and Zechariah, our starting point for retelling an old, old, story – a birth story, the story of Jesus’s birth.
The aging couple has long battled infertility, but they somehow manage to remain steadfast in faith. Nevertheless, Elizabeth and Zechariah also feel the weight of dashed hopes and shattered dreams. Though an angel brings a sturdy promise of new life, Zechariah struggles to wrap his head around these events. He ponders in his heart all that is happening: “How can this be?”
No sooner does his query cross his lips when he’s thrown headlong into stunned silence for the duration of Elizabeth’s surprising pregnancy. Thanks to that lone angel bearing word of pregnancy, hopelessness gives way to hope, even as stilled tongue creates reason for evermore frustration and weariness.
And so it goes. Icy, bitter-cold feelings easily harden hearts, muddle minds, and prevent body, soul, and spirit from living the fullness of life that God intends. Daily living forever seems an uphill battle – a long, hard slog of deep wounds and painful blisters. You are tired, weak, and worn – weary, scarred, and scared.
That’s how many of us show up for Advent.
So let us acknowledge the vicious ways in which disbelief shatters hope, even as we make our Advent pleas for restoration, “Come, thou long-expected Jesus.”
Listen to the Word that God has spoken; listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the voice that began creation; listen even if you don’t understand.
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside.
Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.
“He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”
Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak.
When his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” (Luke 1:5-25)
Any number of forces always manage to wear us down bit by bit:
Weariness by age or illness. Weariness in constant waiting. Weariness of isolation. Weariness from mind-numbing routine that offers no blessed sign of relief.
Thus you wonder if you’re forever trapped in weariness, never to exchange its chronic burden for constant hope, forever searching for ways to acknowledge your weariness while simultaneously insisting on the blessed hope that is to come.
“How can I be sure of this?” asks Zechariah in our sted. “How can this possibly be?”
When you’re weary, you tend to seek clarity through question and answer, rather than living in the moment and insisting on the sufficiency of God’s grace to transform the proverbial glass from half empty to half full. For Zechariah such doubt creates stunned silence. Speechlessness becomes the muting consequence of weariness fueling disbelief and hopelessness.
We cry out in similar silence for restoration of hope – for God’s face to shine, for rescue to arrive, for the light at the end of the tunnel to appear – and hopefully that light isn’t an oncoming train. With the author of Psalm 80, we seek hope that sustains during weary times and provides occasion for rejoicing:
Please listen, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph’s descendants like a flock.
O God, enthroned above the cherubim, display your radiant glory. Show us your mighty power, and come to our rescue. Turn us again to yourself, O God. Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, how long will your anger smolder against our prayers? Sorrow is our food, and tears by the bucket our drink. You’ve allowed us to be the scorn of neighboring nations. Our enemies treat us as a joke. Turn us again to yourself, O God of Heaven’s Armies. Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
Strengthen the one you love, the child of your choice. Then we will never abandon you again. Revive us so we can call on your name once more. Turn us again to yourself, O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies. Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
Salvation wasn’t necessarily on my mind a couple weeks ago when I hit the road to attend a retreat for “late career” Presbyterian pastors.
Thirty of us gathered at Ferncliff – a Presbyterian camp and conference center nestled in the wooded hills and well-ferned bluffs just west of Little Rock, Arkansas. Though we differed by geography and culture, it soon became painfully apparent that one of the things uniting us was a shared sense of weariness – a strong need for restoration and renewal by which we might be sustained in life and ministry.
A healthy serving of the grace that became my respite revealed itself, surprisingly, in my solitary, weeklong activity that I dubbed “turtle-watching.”
A small lake adjacent to our lodging was home to fish, ducks, geese, heron, and turtles. Whenever the conference schedule afforded “personal time,” I’d take my seat on one of the wooden benches surrounding the lake and watch for turtles.
Sometimes turtle-watching came easy.
Like when one or two awkwardly foisted themselves up onto a fallen log poking above the waterline to bask in the warm comfort of a late-autumn afternoon. Every now and then, the quack of a duck or honk of a goose rippled gently across the still waters, breaking the silence for an instant or two, but surely not ruining the moment.
And a weary world rejoices.
Other times, turtle-watching required a little more attention and effort – and a lot more patience.
A turtle would swim its way to the surface and poke just its head above the water, leaving the rest of its shelled body concealed in stealth underwater. And if I watched carefully and closely, with eyes scanning the often smooth-as-glass lake water, I’d spy with my little eye a turtle’s head poking up from down below.
The sightings were short-lived. The turtles surfaced just long enough to catch another breath and fill their lungs with crisp air ripe with the smell of dried leaves. Then their tiny heads submerged as quickly as they emerged, only to resurface somewhere else a minute or two later to repeat their respiration. It became somewhat of a game: Guessing where a turtle’s head might next appear, dead-reckoning where that watery spot would be.
But gradually, reluctantly, I had to admit that, while I was good at turtle-watching, I wasn’t a very adept at turtle-tracking.
When I felt absolutely convinced that one would surely reappear near shore, a turtle head – or two – instead sprouted smackdab in the middle of the lake. Or a ways down the shoreline. Or not at all!
Yet, though frustrated and disappointed by my apparent shortcomings in turtle-tracking, I still managed to discover something of God. More specifically, those intermittent turtle-sightings offered poignant reminder of Lord’s seemingly preferred way of working among us.
As much as we’d prefer God’s presence to be readily apparent – as in burning bushes, or pillars of fire, or turtles lounging on logs, God more often than not pops up quietly and gently, in ways and places we’d least expect – like the sudden, unpredictable appearance of a turtle’s head. Or an angel popping by bearing incredibly good news, entering one’s weariness when least expected.
And a weary world rejoices.
Maybe, then, Zechariah being left speechless is really a blessing in disguise.
For it is often in those quiet moments when the Lord unpredictably appears as the gentle voice of hope amid the weariness of our days – the random turtle’s head breaking the water’s surface to offer much-needed respite, most-welcome refreshment, and much-appreciated renewal.
Welcome to another Advent. As we begin decking the halls, and baking the cookies, and wrapping the presents, please join me in making time and space for some turtle-watching. And be prepared to receive the unexpected gift of undeserved grace – a fresh, new taste of God in Christ served up by angels unaware.
And a weary world rejoices.
Listen to the word that God has spoken; listen to the One who is close at hand. Listen to the voice that began creation; listen even if you don’t understand.
Only then will we be saved.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the first Sunday of Advent, November 19, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. “How does a weary world rejoice?” is the theme for this year’s Advent. It draws on resources from SantifiedArt.org.In the early Church, Advent, like Lent, lasted 40 days. Known as the “Nativity Fast” or “Winter Lent,” those 40 days began in early November. Drawing on that tradition, our Advent will last five weeks instead of the usual four.
Midsummer brought the start of our Sunday morning walk of faith through the Ten Commandments. At every step of the way, my unwavering encouragement has been simple:
You must view the Commandments through the lens of Jesus.
That means you read God’s Law with eyes of love, and you embody God’s Law with a heart of compassion.
As it turns out – through, with, and in Christ, God’s love is not conditional on good behavior but unconditional in spite of our bad behavior – particularly so for those repentant saints who receive in their souls and spirits extra measures of healing and forgiving grace. That alone is sufficient to preserve your life in this world and the next!
Bottom line, we love God, because God loved us first, and no other god even comes close to granting that kind of undeserved favor. And thus rises the Good News of the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. I have forgiven your iniquity, and I remember your sin no more. What I require of you will be written on your hearts.” (Exodus 20:2-3, Jeremiah 31:33-34)
By the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, we abide in such tender love, extending it graciously and generously not only to the Lord but also to his people – friend, neighbor, and stranger, just as nonother than Jesus himself commands. I’m reading to you from the Gospel of Matthew:
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, [who put no stock in God’s oral delivery of the Ten Commandments], the Pharisees, [a rival sect to the Sadducees], met together to question Jesus again.
One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap Jesus by asking, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as you yourself want to be loved.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:34-40 NLT)
If the twofold Command to love is your wellspring of being, then obeying the Second Commandment – do not worship false idols – ought to come naturally.
The Lord sees no need for us to spend our precious time mooning after mere pictures of him or fawning over superstars of stage, screen, and ballfield. Because he is the One who are with us every moment of every day! Close as the nearest prayer! Nearer my God to thee than flesh is to fingernails and white is to rice! The blessing of such divine proximity empowers our loving and serving of God, God’s people, and God’s purposes.
If the twofold Command to love is your font of every blessing, then living the Third Commandment – do not take the Lord’s name in vain – should be instinctive.
Even as we rebuke those who use the Lord’s name in profane speech, we within the Church need to make very certain – whenever we ourselves invoke Yahweh’s holy name, whenever we display the symbols of our faith – that we do so in ways that mirror the Gospel’s core of grace, love, mercy, and compassion.
If the twofold Command to love is a lamp unto your feet, then following the Fourth Commandment – keep the Lord’s Day special – becomes a natural reaction.
If you really are a faithful worker who carries out your God-given calling and vocation as best you can during the week, then with relative ease you eagerly leave those pursuits and pastimes for a while, too.
Like on Sundays – the Sabbath Day. The Lord’s Day! The Day of Creation and Redemption! The Day of Resurrection!
If the twofold Command to love governs your relationships, then God’s Fifth Word – honor your parents, the only Commandment to come with a promise – predicts a long life of fruitful living.
No, our moms and dads aren’t always the parents for whom we hope or need them to be. But, by grace, even a broken mirror reflects light. Thus, our attention to others serves up heaping helpings of refreshing patience with their failings – and with our own individual brokenness.
In addition to frowning upon self-harm and reckless endangerment, God just as soon prefers you not belittle, hate, insult, or kill anyone – not by your thoughts, not by your words, not by your looks or gestures, and certainly not be actual murder. The Lord further intends we not be parties to those spiritual felonies, which include high crimes like the desire for revenge and the de facto state of anger that rages every which way.
Sadly, we’re still a long way from integrating sexuality and spirituality in fully healthy ways and fruitful means. Our souls and spirits are yet works in progress, and each of us works out his or her own salvation with fear and trembling.
But, easy and tempting though it might be, before you start passing of scarlet letters of shame and judgement, remember that in the end it’s baptism – and its mark of new life in Christ Jesus – that should make the difference when it comes to how you view yourself, your body, and one another.
If the twofold Command to love governs the economics of your household, then your business dealings and financial affairs will align with the Seventh Commandment’s prohibition of theft.
Ill-gotten gain is wrong, but so is self-centered use of even well-earned reward. No. 8 rises from our human propensity to grab more than our fair share through devious, duplicitous, and in the end disastrous means – sometimes, without even realizing it. Thus, God’s Eighth Word spurs us to generosity, encourages us to share, give, donate, and offer freely and joyously, and balances the opposing poles of wrong-taking and right-possessing.
If the twofold Command to love maintains the honesty and integrity of your speech, then God’s Nine Commandment against lying steers you away from twisting words to suit your own selfish ends.
Some people are so desperate to control others that they tie the truth in knots to fit their own purposes. Thus, thou shall not take cheap shots, or sit in judgement until thou has done thy best to understand – therefore earning you your right to disagree. In our cheap-shot society, far too many speak first and think later, which never serves well the Gospel as loving witness.
And finally, if the twofold Command to love incents you to seek peace, then the Tenth Commandment definitely has been written on your heart.
The prohibition of coveting what others have is designed to foster reconciliation and maintain peace. No. 10 intends to prevent the shedding the blood of our relationships on hills that really aren’t worth dying for and the stymieing of God’s efforts to redeem the world. “Thou shall not covet” informs the Lord’s desire to provide for the needs of everyone through the generosity of our time, talent, and treasure.
Every now and then, someone fires up a full head of steam for erecting a monument of the Ten Commandments in the public square – on the courthouse lawn or the classroom wall.
Such efforts always feel – to me anyway – a whole lot more political than spiritual. I worry that reverence of such displays comes dangerously close to the idol worship that the Second Commandment shuns. But maybe that’s just me.
What better fits my mind, heart, soul, and spirit is a sign, by Bryan Stavnak, that reads something like this:
Some kids are smarter than you.
Some kids have cooler clothes than you.
Some kids are better at sports than you.
It doesn’t matter. You have your thing, too.
Be the kid who can get along. Be the kid who is generous. Be the kid who is happy for others.
Be the kid who does the right thing. Be the nice kid. To which I’d make this editorial addition:
Be the kid – and the teenager, and the adult – whose every moment of living, breathing, and doing embodies the Greatest Commandment to love and serve. That would be a better testament to faith, a far better way to heal the world and rid it of fear, a far, far better way of living together in the community that God in Christ comes to establish.
“‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on All Saints Sunday, October 29, 2023. It is the 13th in his current series on The Ten Commandments.
Technically speaking, God’s Tenth Word tackles coveting.
“Thou shall not covet” your neighbor’s house, or your neighbor’s spouse. Not another’s servants or hired help. Not a donkey or an ox – or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. Or a friend, and even a stranger.
Just so we’re all on the same page, to covet means you spot something that’s not yours, but boy, oh boy, you really, really wish it were: Life certainly would be better if you drove a sweet ride like Dylan does. All my troubles would be over if I just had a cushy job like Meredith’s. Must be nice to spend a hot summer afternoon with your pontoon boat nosed into the wide beach of a river sandbar.
As another observes, coveting is seeing the world through the spyglass of “if only … .” If only your children’s teeth were straight and white as the Williamson kids’s. If only your house were a little larger, if only your abs a little flatter, if only your hairline a little thicker and forehead a little smaller, then life would be grand – every day a dance of circadian rhythm, “Tra, la-la, la-la!”
For the most part, you and I covet in silent invisibility.
You may well be the biggest, most-chronic coveter in Allamakee County and all of northeast Iowa. But it won’t necessarily lead to any obviously heinous, Commandment-breaking behaviors. What it will do, however, is make you very, very unhappy. Which makes coveting a catch-all category for our instinctive tendencies to detour God’s direction, thwart God’s will, and dwell apart from God and God’s people.
Thus the mournful lyrics of a song we like to sing give voice to our lament: “I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well; In a blaze of light you wandered off, to find where demons dwell.”
The problem with desperately wanting something that someone else now has is the ever-present danger that coveting will rip-out your moral guardrails. When you’re navigating from a mindset of coveting, there’s no solid, yellow line to keep you from swerving too far left; no white fog-line to keep you from veering too far right; no caution tape to keep you from harm’s way; no orange-and-white-striped barricade to stop you from creating chaos.
Indeed, coveting can be a silent, invisible sin – an affair of the heart, a dis-ease of the mind, darkness overshadowing one’s soul. But it can also incite theft, lure you into unfaithful relationships, lead you to spew endless litanies of lies, and just generally give all the Commandments a thorough beating.
Coveting can and will pour more volatile stress upon an already-furious pace of life. It’ll further fan the flames of rabid fear of missing out – such that, dare I say, you ignore the Sabbath, and separate yourself from the blessing of caring community, and abdicate your call to holy service on what is, after all, supposed to be the Lord’s Day.
Bottom line, coveting can and will entice you to break every other blessed law and commandment that the Lord ever gave – including the Greatest to love and serve God and neighbor – friend and stranger – as you yourself would want to be loved and served.
But even if you’re going a bang-up job respecting God’s other Words, the core problem with coveting is that it slays joy – that elusive sense of Eden’s paradise for which we all grope and grasp with desperate hope.
And thus to Eden we turn for our Scripture lesson: Genesis 3, a biblical story that serves as its own illustration and life application.
To lure Eve into biting the forbidden fruit, the serpent first must make her want something. The serpent of Eden’s Garden never says that the fruit in question will be juicier or tastier – more organic and locally sourced – than any other food. Evil doesn’t try to make Eve rebel against the very notion of having to follow some rules.
No, the evil serpent steers Eve’s coveting toward some vague destination where some intangible brand of otherworldly knowledge might be discovered and acquired. Once Eve finds herself coveting such supernatural wisdom, she convinces herself that her life is lacking, coming up short, not aligning with culture’s template of worthiness.
The irony of it all is that Eve already has it all! She’s wanting even more in her place of already-abundant paradise. That the devil can make her restless amid such perfection is chilling. If even in Eden men, women, and children are vulnerable to desiring more than they already have, the rest of us who now live east of Eden can be well-assured that this temptation remains quite muscular, and we constantly struggle and grapple against its brawn.
Then again, if it seems ridiculous to think about someone in Paradise becoming restless for more, just think how equally ridiculous it is for us to feel this way, given the vast blessings you and I receive from God. Most of us, much of the time, are neck-deep in blessing! And there are more than a few saints here in this place who view their daily, uphill slogs and personal challenges with such Kingdom vision.
In this way, Genesis 3 becomes a great passage to illustrate the idea that covetousness really can lead us to breach the peace in a variety of ways – shedding the blood of our relationships on hills that really aren’t worth dying on, stymieing God’s efforts to redeem the world, and crimping our generosity of time, talent, and treasure.
Listen for the Word of the Lord.
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made.
One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” She replied, “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God told us, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it. If you do, you will die.’”
“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
Eve was convinced. She saw that the tree in the middle of the garden was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So, she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, Adam, who was with her. And he ate it, too.
At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, Adam and Eve heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees. (Genesis 3:1-8 NLT)
In the woods, cowering in fear, behind an autumn-hued sugar maple – with absolutely no desire to “see God in nature,” let alone let God find you:
Not exactly a picture of another day in paradise!
Or is it?
You and I seek the holy grail of perfection, and God’s Commandments sketch out the shapes and contours of that goal. But even the best runner of earth’s moral marathon only moves inches closer to the finish line of perfection. This Tenth Word – and the other nine Words of prequel – never let us forget the grim fact that – despite all our blood, sweat, and tears – we’re moving toward perfection at a snail’s pace, slower than molasses in our upcoming January.
Yet, Jesus is enough. Grace is enough. You are enough!
And forget not these assurances from the New Testament book of Hebrews:
“Since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. Jesus, our brother, knows and understands our every weakness, because he faced all the same trials, testings, and temptations that we do. Yet he did not sin. So come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, where you will receive heaven’s mercy and find grace to help when you need it the most.” (Hebrews 4:14-16 NLT)
Ancient words, ever true! The Word of the Lord! Thanks be to God!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, October 15, 2023. It is the 12th in his current series on The Ten Commandments. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee and Jen Wilkin inform the message.
Among the many, many descriptors assigned to God, you likely would be surprised to see “risk-taker” on the list.
The Lord God definitely rolls the dice when he, in our Creation, gives humans the ability to speak and the power of speech. God well knew then what we’re only just now beginning to grasp: Words matter, because words have power.
Unless I missed the breaking news alert, we are the planet’s only creatures who can talk – and think ahead of time what we’re going to say. Those abilities reflect the image of God in men, women, and children. God, the Bible declares, creates the entire universe through an explosion of powerful speech. “God said, and it was.” Now, as mini-but-imperfect incarnations of God, we, too, can create whole worlds through what we say.
Perhaps that’s why Peter – in this morning’s Scripture lesson, in the light of the Ninth Commandment – joins other New Testament writers who advise followers of Jesus to regard their every spoken word and act of speech as though the Lord himself was doing the talking.
When you and I open our mouths, what comes out should be the words we believe the Lord would say, sizing up this person or that situation with the truthful clarity and compassionate grace of God’s Gospel in Christ Jesus. In your speech, you try to adopt the Lord’s perspective – seeing things through divine eyes and reporting events with objective depth, the way that God conveys the truth of the matter, which includes the indisputable fact of our physical, spiritual, and emotional brokenness. The healing recipe for speaking in God’s sted is equal measures what Jesus would do and what Jesus would say.
Because, in the end, only God in Community – the Holy Three in One – is the Creator of reality.
The rest of us are merely reporters of that reality, and everything we say and how we present those truths are said and done in God’s immediate presence. The challenge is whether our words line up with who God is and what God says: Is this what God would say? Does this accurately reflect what God knows and does?
To ignore this tempts creation of alternate truths, false worlds, and fake news – all of which are well-used tools in evil’s toolbox of ploys. Remember when evil approaches Eve in the Garden of Eden? The serpent’s first order of business is casting doubt upon God’s word: “Did God really say you mustn’t eat that fruit, my dear?” Once evil sows that seed of doubt in the fertile soil of Eve’s mind, the serpent greases the skids to more-brazen creations of falsehood: “You won’t die. You’ll improve, get better, become more like God, which is certainly something God would want for you, isn’t it?”
Well, yes and no. Keeping the Ninth Commandment means casting our speech in the merciful tone and cadence of God’s speech. The words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts together really are supposed to be pleasing and acceptable in God’s sight. And creating the conditions for such faithful stewardship of God’s grace definitely is not high on the devil’s to-do list.
We lie for lots of reasons. Because we’re scared. Because we’re ashamed.
Or because we don’t like someone, forever cunning and conniving to make ourselves look better and to make the other look worse.
We lie hoping to spare someone’s feelings and surely also to assuage our own emotions and conceal our own darkness. Because you sometimes don’t so much like the truth about certain aspects of yourself. You and I lie, because we surely don’t feel any need to tip our hands and offer a peek at what’s inside our broken souls and spirits.
Still worse, lying is a double-edged sword: We lie to keep things the way they are, because we sense that, if the truth about such-and-such gets out, it’ll mess up everything. But we also lie to change the way things are – particularly if such progress strokes our egos, or lines our pockets, or puts a thumb on the scales.
Regardless of motivation, when you and I lie, we’re trying to play God. Our lies strive to shape reality for another. Your world will be shaped by the lies I choose to tell. And by keeping you in darkness, you will proceed forward in life operating on a set of assumptions that are faulty, incomplete, or just plain wrong. But you don’t know that, because I’ve created a false world for you.
In other words, lying can make a person feel powerful.
Like any number of voices in the public square these days, if I as a preacher take to my pulpit 46 Sundays a year and knowingly, willfully lie to you about something or anything, I’d be reaching into the minds of maybe 100 people all at once, sending you back out into the world after coffee and doughnuts with an idea that I created for you – probably to serve my interests, not yours, and certainly not God’s. If my lie concerns another, and if any of you cross paths with her or him some point this week, you’ll treat that person according to how I’ve falsely framed the picture.
Each of us has a limited grasp on reality at any given moment. None of us is wise enough to know all that there is to know. That alone is God’s place. The best that even the brightest and the best among us can do is to know some truths, some facts about life. But we can’t know everything; some things remain veiled, particularly as they relate to the Lord and his plans for salvation. And be grateful for the Holy Spirit! Through her you ought to find the humility to admit that and the curiosity to set the record straight.
You’ll have your work cut out for you.
A good deal of what we do know comes from others. We depend on being given information that accurately and fairly reflects the world in which we now live, which feels rife with white lies, half-truths, gossip, rumor-mongering, and the like. God’s Ninth Word is uncompromising in its insistence that every form of deceit and deception comes straight from the devil’s lair, part and parcel of evil’s systematic attempt to dismantle the world God created in order to supplant it with a world that better suits evil’s tastes.
The Ninth Commandment warns against twisting the words of others. And the sad fact these days is there are many who make a comfortable living by twisting other people’s words. They’re called pundits and spin-doctors. Their trafficking makes for good ratings, but for followers of Jesus, we dare not enter that market ourselves.
No. 9 also warns against condemning anyone without permitting time for a thorough investigation and a hearing out of the person’s stance. We need to guard and advance our neighbor’s good name, and among other things that calls us to shun black-and-white caricatures of other’s ideas – the kinds of things that make for catchy, sharable sound bites but are only snippets of a larger truth – not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
In an article a couple years ago, one contemporary theologian wrote what could be called the 11th commandment, but it really serves as a corollary to the ninth. He wrote, “Thou shalt not take cheap shots. Thou must not sit in judgment until thou has done thy best to understand. Thou must earn the right to disagree.”
In a cheap-shot society, far too many folks today speak first and think later – if even then. Though you have the right to say it, such flimsy, anemic, and dangerous speech never serves well the Gospel as loving witness.
Listen for the Words of heaven in the first letter of the apostle Peter.
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.
You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.
But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does. The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.
Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:1-11)
Flattery is as much art as it is science, and plenty of authors make comfortable livings writing scads of books about how to be a good flatterer.
For instance, as one such writer suggests, if you met up with actor Tom Hanks and wanted to flatter your way into his good graces, it wouldn’t be enough merely to gush, “Oh, Mr. Hanks, you’re a great actor!” No, no. A deep dive into specifics shows you’re being thoughtful: “I was moved to tears by that scene in Saving Private Ryan when your chin quivered with emotion ever so slightly.”
What’s more, it’s good form to flatter people behind their backs. If word of your glowing praise gets back to the person, she or he will be that much more likely to respond in kind. But don’t overdo it. If you tell me that my sermons make Billy Graham sound like a seminary student, gee thanks, but sorry, I’m not buying it. But if you say, “Your message touched my heart and gave me some things to think about,” take comfort in knowing that you are a sincere and honest flatterer.
Flattery, Benjamin Franklin once noted, is a safe game. When you flatter, you never look ridiculous, because the one you flatter will always take you seriously! After all, as Dale Carnegie famously said, the secret to flattery is sincerity. And once you can fake sincerity, you can get away with anything!
Mr. Carnegie died in 1955, but his observation still cuts to the quick for these our days. Our entire society – top to bottom, north to south, east to west – fakes sincerity all the time! The modern-day cult of celebrities and wannabes, pundits and politicians, Instagram influencers and posers for holy pictures gorges itself on flattery – liking and commenting over and again about how great we all are.
And everyone gets a trophy!
Yet, it’s all so desperately shallow, floating and bobbing tenuously on the surface of personality rather than arising fruitfully from the depth of character and sincerity of faith. But it’s not just celebrities who exist in such a world. Ever more we all do.
As an Enlightenment-era philosopher noted long ago, people in the modern era increasingly exist in the opinions of other people. We form our sense of personal worthwhileness based on what everybody else thinks about us. “Image is everything,” the advertising world tells us. “You’re only as good as your last customer service review says.” The measure of your life is “likes,” “shares,” and “re-tweets.” And we’ve taken the bait – hook, line, and sinker.
It’s all about surveys, and opinion polls, and professional evaluations. Sooner or later we all get a crack at evaluating a professor, a pastor, a boss, an employee, a co-worker, a president. Over time we all get asked our opinion, motivated by pollsters who’ve convinced their clients that such statistics are the most reliable indicators – the do all and end all – of how that person is supposed to feel about him- or herself.
But when you feed off of the opinions of others, you become desperate to control those opinions. And in that lust to control, we always run the risk of twisting the truth to fit our own purposes. But God’s Ninth Commandment straightens things out.
“Do you have the gift of speaking?” Peter wonders. “Then speak as though the Lord God himself was speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Then [serve] them with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Thus everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ [and the Holy Spirit]. All glory and power to the One who reigns forever and ever! Amen.” (1 Peter 4:11)
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, October 8, 2023. It is the 11th in his current series on The Ten Commandments. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Andrew Carnegie, Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau Richard Stengel Nicholas Wolterstorff inform the message.
