His Name Is Rod of Jesse

Of the many names for Jesus, the one you very-rarely-if-ever call on is “Rod of Jesse.”

Yet, there it is – perched awkwardly atop a stanza of a familiar Advent carol: Rod of Jesse. “O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny.”

We lift up the unusual name “Rod of Jesse,” in passionate melody, during the darkening days of every Advent season – and so also too, indirectly, in our fervent prayers for ourselves and our world that better, less-tyrannical, more-peaceful days will lie ahead: “From depths of hell thy people save, and give them victory o’er the grave.”

Let’s do a little unpacking of the uncommon-yet-holy name “Rod of Jesse.”

First, “rod” – a shoot, a stem; literally sprouting from a dead stump, unexpectedly budding as a sapling branch from roots long thought to be dried-up and lifeless. Those roots belong to Jesse, father of the Old Testament’s much-beloved King David, an earthly ruler over God’s people known far and wide for being fair, just, righteous, and God-fearing – though not without imperfection. David’s royal heirs, because of their sins, eventually get themselves booted out of the line of royal succession. Yet God promises David that his seed, however cracked and flawed, will indeed establish God’s rule forever.

And thus they do – the legal right to David’s throne flowing through the generations and finally coming to rest in Jesus, a wise and just ruler like his ancestor David. Jesus is Emmanuel, God With Us, the very Son of both God and Man, brimming with both divinity and humanity.

Plus, God’s Holy Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and reverence rests upon him by baptism. And bearing those gifts, Jesus, Desire of Nations, comes to clean house, take charge, and re-establish justice.

Jesus brings hope to the remnant of God’s people who find themselves living in their own brand of bleak midwinter, a leaderless place, desperately holding on for dear life in a time when everything’s spinning out of control! Even more terrifying, the sharp ax of God’s judgment is coming, and the nation will be left with nothing but a seemingly lifeless “stump.”

But the Dayspring, the morning dawn, one day will break to renew the face of the earth and the hearts of its people. What surely now seems a dead, decaying stump will bring forth new life in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who vows to come again one day, and to wipe away every evil and every tear once and for all.

Listen for that Good News in the Word of the Lord from the pen of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.

And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

He will delight in obeying the LORD. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on hearsay. He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment.

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. The cow will graze near the bear. The cub and the calf will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the LORD.

In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place. (Isaiah 11:1-10)

The wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster recently picked “gaslighting” as their word of the year.

In this our age of misinformation – of “fake news,” conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes, “gaslighting” – “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone for one’s own advantage” – fuels widespread disorientation and rampant mistrust.

Here’s how gaslighting erodes our confidence: Basically, if you hear a lie relentlessly told over and over and over, its repetitive bombardment upon your conscience mind unconsciously transforms fiction into fact, alternate truth, despite the lack of solid, reliable evidence to back up those claims. Gaslighting is what stirs your desperate cry: “I just don’t know what to believe anymore!”

And then, into your confusion parachutes the prophet Isaiah, with most-welcome word of better days ahead, of reconciliation for the estranged, all stemming from a surprising sprout of truth: Fresh, new life arising from stone-cold death, a different vision of community cut from wholly different cloth, a glorious fabric woven tightly with vibrant threads of peace, justice, and the long-awaited righting of wrongs.

So, let’s paint that picture and set the record straight:

It is not true that Creation and humanity are doomed to destruction and loss. This is true: Father, Son, and Spirit so loved the world they created, that God gives us the only Son, that whoever believes in that Son shall never-ever perish but have everlasting life.

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction. This is true: “I have come,” Jesus declares, “that they may have abundant life.”

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever. This is true: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. His name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world. This is true: “To me is given authority in heaven and on earth,” Jesus shouts, “and lo, I am with you, even until the end of the world.”

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, prophets of the Church, before we can be peacemakers. This is true: “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your young men and women shall see visions, and your old men and women shall dream dreams.”

It is not true that our hopes for the full liberation of humanity – for justice, dignity, and respect for all life – are not meant for this earth and for this history. This is true: “I knew you before you were born; I knit you together in your mother’s womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made!”

So let’s keep slogging through Advent in hope, toward the manger in hope against hope.

Let us see visions of love, and peace, and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, and with courage: the Christ Child of Bethlehem truly is the life of the world. And indeed, our prayers have been answered: “O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny. From depths of hell thy people save, and give them victory o’er the grave.”

May it be so, sooner rather than later: Come, Lord Jesus. O come, thou Rod of Jesse. For Scripture also understands “rod” as the hook of rescue, the staff carried affectionately by a caring Shepherd. Therefore, we sing a song of David in our morning psalm:

The LORD is my shepherd; I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23)

Which is why, in another carol, we sing of the glory that lies ahead: “Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing; O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, December 11, 2022, the fifth Sunday of Advent at First Presbyterian Church. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Allan Boesak and Gene M. Tucker inform the message.

His Name is Desire of Nations

Advent sings of Emmanuel: God With Us, the very Son of God in our very midst, Jesus.

As early-winter skies croon with reds, pinks, blues, and purples, Advent further carols the Dayspring, the morning dawn of daily mercies potent and fertile with the fresh possibilities of heaven.

This morning, lyrics of Advent chant another name for God’s promised Messiah – a name that rises from the heart, because it sincerely speaks of that which stirs the restlessness of our spirits: Desire. “O come, Desire of Nations, bind all people in one heart and mind” – a desperate plea quite appropriate for these days of Red and Blue lines being drawn in the sinking sands of division.

Though our mid-Advent draws neigh and the manger beckons us ever closer to Bethlehem, our New Testament lesson that drags us kicking and screaming into the long shadows of death that lie ahead on a dark Good Friday. Within its hard-to-hear verses lies our desired hope for resurrection. Listen for the Word of the Lord.

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.

Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matthew 27:45-56)

Jesus is dead. His body is in the tomb. Traumatic death has pushed the living to the edge.

And you surely know what that feels like: Standing there knock-kneed, gingerly toeing the borderline of understanding that you cannot go back to the way things once were. Like it or not – in this case not, life has changed drastically.

A cherished friend is no more. A mature relationship has ended. A cancer has attacked. A loved one has died. A dream is shattered forever, broken and blown away like so much dust in the wind. Life so carefully planned and executed has come unglued and is falling apart. The walls of security have been breached; the show’s final curtain has fallen. What used to be is no longer. Which leaves nothing to go back to.

That’s life on the edge: Miserable, bleak, dismal, hopeless.

On that Good Friday, amid its chaos of emotion, the disciples cower in fear over the unknowns that lie beyond the sharp, jagged edge of change. So also do we – in our own foot-of-the-Cross moments – feel the stabbing pain of an inflection point, a hinge point.

The Church names that edgy turning point “Holy Saturday,” bookended on one side by the darkened skies and trembling earth of a Friday we call “good,” and on the other by the hope of Easter’s new life and resurrection. But it’s not yet Easter. And when such profound loss and grief, pain and suffering, come crashing down upon a poor, hapless soul, Easter surely seems a long way off.

Like Holy Saturday’s time of waiting for a new day, during Advent we stand on identical holy ground: A time of knowing yet not knowing, a time of silence and sighs. In Matthew’s telling, the women – “looking on from a distance” – say nothing, do nothing, obviously stunned and paralyzed. A few verses down the page, Joseph of Arimathea stammers a few words, asking for the body. He cares for it, then leaves, quietly, sympathetically, as if treading the shells of eggs. There’s little else to say or do – other than moving on with life and reluctantly reliving the trauma like clockwork with the coming of each gloomy night.

The way forward is unclear; God for reasons unknown is not making way, which reflects the harsh reality of nowhere to go. Your entire world, it seems, has become a tomb – a cold, damp and dark cave, yes, yet somehow strangely safe and oddly secure – not sealed by stone or guarded by posted soldiers, but locked up tight by your own overwhelming sense of heartache. That uncomfortable feeling, however natural and understandable, tells you nothing about how to escape your tomb.

The silence of Advent parallels our stunned speechlessness, no good words to be uttered, apparently nothing happening, just staring into the gaping hole of the unknown and its uncertain future.  Beneath the silence and stillness of our Advent, Holy Saturday’s death trembles, and hell cries out in terror.

“Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this”:

No matter how securely we build our tombs, or how highly we build our walls, neither will never-ever separate us from the love of God in Christ. The depth of God’s love is every bit as deep as the graves we dig for ourselves and as bottomless as the pits into which we are thrown.

And during Advent, the abundant life of Christ descends into our depths, into the hell of our living, into the sin and brokenness of our world, snapping the bonds of death, and setting free the captives. The grace and peace of Jesus – the abundant love of God in Christ – fill each of our vaults, permeating its walls and unexpectedly morphing its deadly darkness into a womb of new birth.

Without Christmas, there is no Easter, and Christ’s triumph is not apart from death, but within death, ironically trampling down death by death and giving life to those buried deep up to their necks – to ordinary folks like you and me, all and only for love’s good and for Christ’s sake.

He lives! Jesus lives! The first fruit after conquering death bursting forth the graves of those saints of old. Only after the Child of Bethlehem rises do the saints rise, welcomed with the hospitality of heaven in the embrace of loved ones from long ago, sleepy-eyed saints all pointing to greater resurrection that lies ahead; living, breathing precursors of what is to come.

Jesus doesn’t tease these saints with life just to send them back into death. No, they join the Lord in his ascension from earth back to heaven, giving direct access to God the Father through a curtain now torn in two, dying but once and never to die again. Finally resident of that holy place, they are with the Lord, in full assurance and confidence in his earlier-spoken Word: “I will shake all the nations, so that the precious desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with the glory of resurrection.”

What I now share is the voice of God through the pen of the Old Testament prophet Haggai:

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:

Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts. (Haggai 2:1-9)

“And in this place, I will give prosperity – peace, wholeness, salvation, says the LORD of hosts.“

Every Saturday night of his youth, Fred and his siblings dressed up in their best clothes, which also happened to be their most uncomfortable clothes.

And in a living room starched as white as a fresh, stiff collar, the children of European descent all sat up straight as arrows, eyes to the front, speaking only when spoken to. Then, a couple neighbors came over, then a few more, and suddenly, their numbers circled the living room. Folks were taking turns reading aloud the Bible, then singing songs from old, spiral-bound songbooks: “Bringing in the Sheaves,” “Standing on the Promises,” “Up from the Grave He Arose.” 

Because he long pondered these things, though never discovered even a faint hint about the weekly goings-on, Fred once asked his mother why their living room always provided the place of gathering. “Well, son,” his mother said, “we don’t live close enough to a church to actually attend. But some day we might, and so for now we’re practicing.”

“And in this place, I will give prosperity – peace, wholeness, salvation, says the LORD of hosts.”

One of the regular attendees at “practice church” was a neighbor, an African-American man named Will.

The presence of cocoa-brown skin in this mostly white household was the exception not the rule, limited to the obligatory Saturday-night gatherings, somehow or other making Will an intimidating-but-not-unwelcome houseguest. Thus, young Fred one day turned up the dial of courage and blurted out the question weighing heavy on his heart and mind:

“Will, you ever been in a real church?” “Hundreds,” came Will’s reply.

“Well, what’s it like?” “Well, I’ll tell you,” the man said. “First off, don’t go by appearances.  Cuz’ sometimes you’ll see some little, old white clapboard church up on cinderblocks out in the middle of nowhere, and maybe the shutters are sagging a bit and all. But don’t go by that. Cuz’ sometimes the Lord disguises his goodness – hiding heaven’s best stuff in little, old, no-account places like that. But just go inside one of those, and you’ll see.” 

“See what?” the now-mesmerized Fred anxiously wondered? “Well, when you look up at the ceiling, you’ll see it’s a deep, deep blue. And the stars shine, and the angels sing and, well, you’ll just have to see for yourself someday, young man!”

“And in this place, I will give prosperity – peace, wholeness, salvation, says the LORD of hosts.”

In due time, the boy grew in spirit and became strong in faith, alongside old Will, whose still vigorous, beating soul was living in an aging, ever-more-worn-out body. And then he died. Young Fred and his family attended Will’s funeral in one of those little, no-account churches that God for whatever reason plants in the middle of nowhere.

When Fred got inside, he was disappointed. It was nothing like what Will had described. The paint was peeling. No stars were shining. No angels were on display.

But then the funeral started. The choir got to singing and swaying. The congregation joined in, and all of a sudden, somewhere in the core of all the singing, and the swaying, and the praising, Fred looked up.  And the ceiling was blue. And the stars were shining.  And the ministry of angels was singing Will to his rest.

If you understand that Jesus is the “desired of all nations,” then you understand what happened that day. Jesus claims that he is the new temple, the place where God dwells among of God’s people. The glory of Jesus is “greater than this present house” or the temple of Solomon. Because in his person and work, Jesus grants peace.  The place where God dwelt among his people in Old Testament times has been replaced by the person in whom all the fullness of the God-head now dwells, even to this very day!

And in this place – through, with, and in the Christ Child, I will give prosperity – peace, wholeness, salvation, says the LORD of hosts.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, December 4, 2022, the fourth Sunday of Advent at First Presbyterian Church. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by M. Eugene Boring, Doug Bratt, Fred Craddock, Scott Hoezee, W. Eugene March, and Mike Marsh inform the message.

His Name Is Dayspring

In his salad days, Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf served as a draftee in the Yugoslavian army. But his hitch brought him no honor.

Mr. Volf mustered in with two strikes against him already on the board: He was married to American; worse yet, he was a Christian. Thus, the communist army suspected him a traitor, and Mr. Volf endured endless torment under the soul-crushing weight of false accusation. His time in the military was marked by brutal interrogations that left lasting impressions.

If the idea of evil and the desire for justice were merely vague, theoretical concepts before Mr. Volf served in the army, they became concrete reality by the time he mustered out and returned to civilian life. His book The End of Memory chronicles his efforts to practice and extend forgiveness whenever traumatic memories bubbled to the surface to stir recollection of being intentionally victimized – simply for being who he was: The husband of an American, and a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Extending forgiveness of another’s trespasses many times requires no heavy lifting. Your day isn’t ruined if someone accidentally steps on your foot in a crowded elevator and apologizes in typical Midwestern fashion with an “Ope, sorry.” Your response, “No worries,” feels less like merciful forgiveness and more so merely overlooking a literal misstep. Certain offenses are easily excused when the transgression is a mistake or a misunderstanding, or the result of poor judgment.

But other times, the wrongdoings you suffer are more sinister and cannot be brushed off so easily. Defrauding the elderly or trafficking in women and children is not a mistake. The casual disregard for human life on display during the days of slavery in the United States – or the second-class status that we for centuries have given to women and minorities – is not dismissible as a misunderstanding. The internment of Japanese-Americans and the reservation corralling of Native Americans cannot be written off to poor judgment.

Our timid and tame labels for sin – mistake, error, mishap, accident, and the like – all-too-often whitewash evil and injustice. And our Old Testament lesson from the prophet Malachi intends to reassure people facing malicious unfairness and hateful discrimination that better times lie ahead.

Malachi’s words might seem harsh to those who take justice for granted, but they are reassuring to those who are feeling the pain of injustice. The passage’s prediction of purifying fire turning evildoers into ashes generates fear for some, even as it reassures those who’ve long been crying out for the righting of chronic wrongs. God promises to deliver, and those suffering devastating unfairness will, one day, see their circumstances set right.

I now share with you the Word of the Lord. Listen as if your life depends on it – because it does.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.

The day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.

Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:1-6)

Life experience greatly affects your reaction to Malachi’s forecast.

If you’ve experienced the prompt administration of justice, and if you believe that people in positions of power and influence will behave well, then you likely have a bone to pick with Malachi. Because you bear no expectation of unfair treatment, no fear of persecution, and always assume that communication and compromise will triumph over disagreement and indifference.

Thus, in your heart and mind, God’s work of reclaiming Creation should be more like a “fine tuning” – a little nip and tuck here and there, rather than a drastic overhaul of the current world order. The comfort of your current situation leaves little room for anxious anticipation that the fullness of God’s Kingdom is on its way!

If that’s you, please remember that oppression and injustice are more common than many of us want to admit. Even if you’ve been treated fairly and justly most of your life, large segments of the community experience the complete opposite: Oppression and injustice as daily rule rather than exception. And if you’re among those who experience oppression and injustice firsthand, day in and day out, then Malachi’s indictment of wrongdoers is a breath of fresh air.

If you’ve endured mistreatment like that which Miroslav Volf experienced as a Yugoslavian soldier, then the image of a drastic overhaul brings the relief of vindication.  If you’ve been the victim of oppression – or struggled with chronic illness, depression, poverty, bullying, or exploitation, then it surely seems like the world that allows such cruelty and harshness needs the kind of heavy overhaul that Malachi describes. To those who have been hurt, Malachi’s are words of mercy and hope that the Day of the Lord will set all things right.

The dawning of that Day of the Lord – the Dayspring of such new life – is close at hand. And in the miraculous birth of his son, who matures to become John the Baptist, Zechariah sees the first rays of Dayspring’s grace and mercy brilliantly lighting a path to repentance and the eventual flourishing of justice.

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 1:67-80)

Someone once said that visits always bring pleasure, because, even if the arrival of a certain visitor doesn’t make you happy, his or her departure will!

Maybe Santa Claus has the right idea: You should visit people only once a year.

Regarding a visit as welcome or unwelcome sometimes depends on who the visitor is. There are those whom you always enjoy seeing, and others whose visits you frankly could do without. But other times, your attitude of a given visit is colored not by the visitor but by your situation.

For instance, let’s suppose that we’re all in school. And one day, after school, your mother announces that the principal just called and will be stopping by after supper. What do you think about that?

Well, if you’re facing double-naught secret probation, because you did something you weren’t supposed to do at school that day, then Ms. Garin’s impending visit makes you very nervous very fast. But if you knew that you recently entered a national scholastic competition on behalf of your school, you might become very excited at the thought of perhaps you had won, and the principal is coming over to make the big announcement in person. 

In both scenarios, the visitor is the same person, but your situation determines whether her visit will be lovely or ugly, bane or blessing.

Zechariah is singing about a divine visit of momentous proportion: A visit his son, John, the future fiery Baptist, will prepare the world to receive properly. The impending visit that the adult John will one day announce is packed tightly with grace – in the way that you might extend grace by visiting a shut-in or help a widow or orphan in distress. Yours is a healing kind of visit, motivated by an awareness that someone is hurting and God is calling you to help.

God in Jesus Christ visits this broken and fearful world with a deep-seated desire to help.

Problem is, you and I aren’t entirely ready to receive his visit properly and correctly. Because no matter how well-motivated a given visit might be, the person on the receiving end must be in the right frame of mind. 

Now on one level, perhaps that’s a real yawner. But think about it: Of all the pre-holiday time that you spend preparing to pay visits to others or receive visits when guests ring your doorbell, when was the last time you thought of Jesus himself as a kind of visitor from the outside? 

We devote long hours during Advent preparing for the visits of others: baking cookies, washing the sheets on the guest bed, purchasing presents for those out-of-town friends and relatives who’ll be dropping by. But how much thought, time, or energy do you devote to that one Visitor, without whom there would be no reason to deck the halls in the first place?

Maybe that still seems off-the-mark, because Jesus is no visitor. He resides and abides in your heart all the time. When your spouse comes home from work each evening, or the kids get off the school bus, you don’t see them as visitors, because they live in that house. So also with our Lord: For those of us who believe in him all the time anyway, it’s difficult to regard Jesus on a par with Aunt Maude from North Carolina who visits just once a year.

Fair enough, there is something to that line of thought. Nevertheless, let me suggest that seeing Jesus as a kind of holy Visitor just might help you cut through the layers of familiar holiday routine and thus return yourself to the core of Advent. Because too often we forget that the incarnation of God’s only Son is a kind of invasion of this world.

And when Jesus pays his ultimate return visit to this world – to those experiencing iniquity and to those inflicting iniquity, that dual meaning of “visit” is self-evident: Depending on who a given person is, and how he or she receives Jesus, the Lord’s visit could result in either great joy or intense sorrow.

Yet, over the centuries, even the Church has allowed the message of Advent to become mostly about joy at the expense of any talk of divine judgment and justice.

Indeed, talk of salvation fills Zechariah’s song, but the Good News nestles gently alongside muscular talk of punishment for God’s enemies – the ones who stand to lose their death grip on power and control and rather enjoy living on the dark side.

That’s why all four Gospels include John the Baptist and his blistering message of repentance. Two of the four Gospels make no mention of Jesus’s birth. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all recognize that no Gospel is complete without John the Baptist. You can skip Bethlehem, but you cannot bypass John. Because as Zechariah already realized when John was just 8 days old, God taps John as the necessary advance man to prepare the world to receive Jesus.

Jesus plants the mustard seed of the Kingdom into the soil of this world, as another preacher suggests, and John the Baptist is the one who’ll do the hard work of plowing the soil to prepare for planting. John is the one whose plow blade cuts deep into human hearts – the spiritual equivalent of a parched field where dirt had long ago hardened into something resembling concrete. Jesus is God’s divine Visitor to this world, and John is the one sent to prepare the way.

As with a visit from the school principal, so also with the visit of God’s Son: How you receive the visit depends heavily on your circumstances.

If you’re eager to hear the Good News that God’s tender mercies are available to forgive your sins, then you’ll be overjoyed at the Dayspring that arises from the lips of Christ. But if you don’t think you have a problem with sin, then the visit by the Son of God becomes merely an annoying waste of time.

What the world, and sadly also the Church, too often tries to celebrate is the arrival of God’s Son in our world but without letting John the Baptist come first and giving him his full due.  None of us wants Christmas guests showing up at our homes before we’ve prepared for the visit by cleaning, baking, and decorating. Yet we seem quite willing at times to let Jesus visit us without first letting John the Baptist clean house for us as God sent him to do.

We know Jesus as Immanuel, God with Us.

We know him as Son of God, backed by the power and authority of heaven.

And we know him as Dayspring, the dawn of a new day – if we welcome his visit in the spirit of the Old Testament’s Malachi and allow him to cast out our sin, enter in, and be born again in us today.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, November 27, 2022, the third Sunday of Advent at First Presbyterian Church. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by R. Alan Culpepper, Scott Hoezee, Luke Timothy Johnson, Eileen M. Schuller, and Bill Sytsma inform the message.

His Name Is Son of God

Jesus. Immanuel. Immanuel. Jesus.

You cannot speak of one without invoking the other.

Jesus equals Immanuel. Immanuel equals God with us. Thus, Jesus equals God with Us. Your middle school algebra teacher was correct: A=B, and B=C, therefore A=C.

Indeed, the math adds up: Amid profound brokenness and paralyzing fear, you can count on God’s protection, because Jesus is Immanuel – God with Us. Ever and always, Jesus looks straight into your mind, heart, and soul with his two good eyes, and he does so not only when you can smile back but most certainly also when your own eyes are full of tears.

Jesus, Immanuel, “God with you,” even when you are so angry with the Lord that you refuse to meet his glance. But even when you feel like you can’t look at him, he never looks away from you. Thanks be to God!

That’s where we left the Word of the Lord last Sunday. And our annual Advent pilgrimage toward Bethlehem continues this morning with a second, equally breathtaking name for Jesus: “Son of God.” To sense the powerful wallop that the name “Son of God” is packing, we first turn to the Old Testament’s Samuel and a passage that’s been called the mother of all predictions foretelling the coming of God’s Christ.

God in heaven, of course, is the main actor in the story of salvation, and the supporting cast of this chapter includes a mighty king – David, the writer of psalms, and a humble prophet, Nathan, the interpreter of heaven’s message. And the story finds it climax in a sacred covenant, a holy agreement, that God establishes with David.

The Lord makes his binding promise in what for David are the best of times, when the grace of great things from God doesn’t seem necessary. The everlasting promise will be fulfilled in the worst of times, when such heavenly provision of second chances doesn’t seem possible. And it all hinges on the idea of “house.”

King David is sitting fat and sassy, safely and successfully ensconced in his own house, a palace of cedar. After years of brawls and fisticuffs with enemies both foreign and domestic, David finally enjoys some peace and quiet: His tired, aching feet propped upon a footstool, a glass of fine red wine in one hand, and a good cigar in the other.

But David is neither lazy nor unthankful.

He knows that his military and political successes come from the Lord, and David desires not to be shy in expressing his gratitude – maybe even somehow, someway repaying the favor and covering the debt of his faithful, heavenly King. It just seems like the right thing to do: “God’s done so much for me, now I’m going to do something for God.”

Nathan somehow lays eyes upon David’s architectural and structural plans, and wanting to please the king, and assuming that the king’s plans will succeed, (because “the Lord is with you”), Nathan signs off on the building project: “Whatever David has in mind, it’s all good!”  “Go ahead, and do it, man.” How can building a house for God be a bad idea? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, here’s what: As it turns out, the Lord himself is less than thrilled with David’s largesse. As Jenny Stegen shares our Old Testament lesson, trust that the Holy Spirit will help you hear the Word of the Lord that satisfies your Advent hunger and quenches your pilgrim thirst.

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan,

“See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan:

Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”

Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.

And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:1-16)

What could possibly go wrong? Well, God might revoke the permit and kibosh the whole idea!

Which is precisely what God does!

Dissatisfied with simply pulling the plug on the project, God further terminates the builder!

After years of depending completely on God, for anything and everything, David’s gotten a big head; he’s thinking a little too highly of himself. From his lofty perch, David conjures up a role reversal. Whereas God took such good care of David, David will now take such good care of God – the Lord God of Heaven and Earth!

As you ought to expect, God wants absolutely nothing from David, who receives a stern dressing-down in a harsh reminder that God is the Maker of kings, and that David remains God’s lowly servant. Lest you forget, let me be crystal clear:

I am your Savior and Lord, always have been, always will be. Never, ever think, or speak, or act, as though you can reverse reality, turn the tables, and start taking care of me.

Laid out carefully and precisely on God’s drawing board are blueprints for a house built not with cedar but with ancestry – lineage, heritage; a dynasty; a familial house of rule and reign, crown and scepter, guaranteed to stretch like elastic cord far beyond the seams of David’s earthly life and reign.

Just as King Charles III and his mother before him, Queen Elizabeth II, belong to the royal house of Windsor, God’s Messiah – God’s Savior, God’s Christ; Immanuel, God with Us – will belong to the royal house of David.

Even as God scores a double reversal and pins David to the mat when anxiety and hubris made him think that he could, should, and would do something for God, God will reverse the reversal of sin and brokenness that has overtaken the world, calming fear and shining light into our darkness, where, like David, we equate ourselves with the divine: Greatest of All Time! Ironically, living in a time when barely a scant few are still longing and searching for redemption.

Then, it happens!

The angel Gabriel visits a newly minted, meek and mild teen-ager named Mary. His Advent promise to her is the exact promise made to David generations ago. You are listening to and looking at a scene from Luke chapter 1.

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. (Luke 1:26-38)

Mary had the little lamb.

Mary had the little Lamb, who lived before his birth;
Self-existent Son of God, from heaven he came to earth.

Mary had the little Lamb; see him in yonder stall —
Virgin-born Son of God, to save man from the Fall.

Mary had the little Lamb, obedient Son of God;
Everywhere the Father led, his feet were sure to trod.

Mary had the little Lamb, crucified on the tree;
The rejected Son of God, he died to set us free.

Mary had the little Lamb — men placed him in the grave,
Thinking they were done with him; but to death he was no slave!

Mary had the little Lamb, ascended now is he;
All work on Earth is ended, our Advocate to be.

Mary had the little Lamb — mystery to behold!
From the Lamb of Calvary, a Lion will unfold!

And when his star rises again, of this be very sure:
It won’t be lamb-like silence, but rather a lion’s roar.

And quite the loud roar it was! The Son of God’s last cry from the Cross? “It is finished!”

Finished – as in something’s ready, completed. Jesus declares his saving work “finished” on the cross, and he means that it is completed, whole, ready to go. But in the U.K., to a Briton “finished” conveys depletion – all gone, and that’s sometimes how you and I act: As though Jesus didn’t really wrap it all up. He did a lot, though, taking the work as far as he could before getting whacked by the Romans. And then he was “finished,” depleted, and now it’s our turn to refill the tank and top off the gas.

Don’t be so fast, friends. Make haste slowly! Deliberately! Carefully! Prayerfully!

Sometimes a good book or heartwarming movie stages a scene featuring a son who’s long been estranged from his father, and the son is told that his dad has died. Which cues an actor’s line always something to the effect of, “Did Papa mention me before he died? Did Daddy say my name? Did he remember me?”

Sandwiched thick between the lines of such questions is the frantic, desperate hope that the words of a dead man, made on his deathbed, just might retroactively re-make the past, mercifully cork the throbbing hemorrhage of emotion, finally suture up the deep wounds of stabbing pain and grave trauma.

Having become one of us – the Son of God also becoming the Son of Man, Jesus knows full well that every last one of us has, at times – in days and nights of grief and loss – groped for the feeble words of someone dead, in hopes of re-visioning the past to be rosier than it really was.

Thus, our present is ever running – crazy busy; go, go go, trying desperately to hit on the winning formula that’ll make the present better by healing the past, forever running a brutal, grueling marathon toward a blurry finish line far up ahead, where our grit and stamina will miraculously make things better by healing the past. Extending life to give ourselves more time might just be the real American pastime.

According to the brilliant women and men who study and write about such things, breakthroughs in genetic medicine might let folks in the near-future live vibrant lives well until they are 150. Maybe such prospects sound good to all those old folks who look back on the regrets of their past and conclude, “There just wasn’t enough time. If only I had a little more time, I could fix this or that, reconcile with him or her.”

But in the end, it doesn’t come down to a matter of time.

People will always yearn for five minutes more, and nothing will change or be transformed. We need something more, something else, to fix what’s broken. We need Jesus. We need his Cross. Which is why we need Advent’s preparation and the Yuletide’s assurance – the courage of Christmas, without which there’d be no Good Friday, no opportunity to join Jesus on that Cross, and to get over ourselves and let go of who once were. All so the Lord can raise us up again. And he will – standing shoulder to shoulder in lockstep with God and the Holy Spirit!

Don’t let yourself become mired in muck, but keep right on moving to your final destination in Jesus Christ. Gaze not upon the manger, and see the Cross, and timidly wonder if Jesus remembers you. “Did Jesus mention me? Did Jesus say my name?”

Yes, absolutely! He did! And he said you could stop running. “It is finished.”

Let there be no doubt: The dazzling display of Advent heralds the incredible joy and amazing grace of Christmas, the Son of God appearing among us to destroy the works of the devil, and to wash away, forever, the stain of sin, at long last restoring all people and things to the ways Father, Son, and Spirit meant them to be in their creation.

That great day of new Advent is coming. No one knows when, but it’s getting ever nearer. It’ll probably be here before you know it, when your world has been turned upside down, and you can’t win for losing, and God’s promises seem to ring hallow. That’s precisely when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth will reverse our course in the return the Son to restore peace on earth and goodwill to all.

Glory to the newborn King. Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, November 20, 2022, the second Sunday of Advent at First Presbyterian Church. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Bruce C. Birch, Nick Cady, Richard Lischer, and Stan Mast inform the message. The author of Mary Had the Little Lamb is unknown.

His Name is Immanuel

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign – daily living is full of signs.

Two black digits painted on white, metal rectangle display a highway’s legal speed limit. A pair of arches signals the availability of fast food ahead. And hopefully you’re not too hungry, because bold lettering on an orange diamond shape warns of road work ahead, and another sets the expectation of long back-ups and traffic delays.

Take the next exit, and yet another bumper-crop of signs awaits your arrival. The figure with pants on a restroom door identifies the men’s room; a skirted figure, the women’s room. Above the restroom sink hangs the requirement for employees to wash their hands before returning to work. (Proper hand hygiene is essential for customers, too.) And the straight-and-to-the-point “order here” cues the line for Big Macs and fries.

Signs point, indicate, and direct. A green arrow governs the northbound turn off Main and onto Allamakee. An index finger lifted skyward announces your favorite sports team as No. 1. The descending motion of a music director’s baton marks the downbeat.

Some signs wield great power. If you’re Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, making the sign of the Cross recalls the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the sacrifice of Christ. In wicked covens of Nazi eras past and present, the straight-armed salute of millions perversely reveres Adolph Hitler as god.

When the Lord gives Ahaz a much-needed sign in this morning’s Old Testament lesson, the anxious and fretful king is quivering and fluttering like an aspen leaf in a cyclone.

And with good reason: The kingdom over which Ahaz reigns suffers under military assault. Enemies threaten Judah from no less than three sides – rather like Canada and Mexico both declaring war on the United States, even as battleships of the British navy lay siege to the East Coast.

When the chips are down – way down, national leaders generally opt for political and military solutions. Thus King Ahaz rushes to make a solidarity pact with the mighty Neo-Assyrian Empire. 

God, however, understands that such supposedly common-sense martial alliances only provide temporary relief and uneasy peace. And the Lord offers a better way forward – a juggernaut of a battleplan driven by heaven’s furious pursuit for justice, righteousness, reconciliation, and lasting peace. God through Isaiah tells Ahaz to fear not the enemies knocking loudly and viciously on three national doors, the brutal foes more than ready to snuff out Ahaz and his court with the ease of blowing out a lit match.

Therefore, the questions have lethal implications: Can Ahaz truly rely on God’s protection? Must the king really trust in something as flimsy-sounding and intangible as God’s mere promises? Might God send the besieged king a sign of hope?

Those are the kinds of questions that you and I face every day – maybe not staring down the reality of military invasion but certainly worried about prospects for armed insurrection and nuclear attack.

Or definitely mourning the loss of activity and security as age advances and health declines.

Or living daily with the specter of shaky finances and tenuous employment.

Or, en route from algebra to biology, running the gauntlet of taunts and slurs from school-hallway bullies and muscle-bound apes.

In the midst of such profound brokenness and profound fear, can you count on God’s protection?

Or must you join forces in uneasy alliance with other powerful forces? Depending and counting on the addition of their strength to tip the scales in your favor and save your hide? All the while feeling like you’ve made a pact with the devil?

See yourself in the tense exchange between Ahaz and Isaiah, as you listen for the Word of the Lord in the Old Testament lesson.

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying,

Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test. Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

“For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah – the king of Assyria.” (Isaiah 7:10-17)

Human beings are hard-wired for self-preservation.

Finding salvation in tranquil reliance on God’s promises of eternal provision feels, well, naïve.

But on this Sunday, as another Advent begins – at least for us anyway, Isaiah pledges that supreme confidence comes from the generous delivery of God’s unfailing love. God in love supplies everything that’s needed and essential for those who receive the Lord’s grace and peace with total and complete trust in God’s ever-sure promises.

So powerful and majestic is the Lord’s unfailing, unconditional love that heaven itself names it: Immanuel, God with Us – a most-welcome sign of God’s sure presence that seals the deal on God’s eternal promise.

Like Ahaz, you and I easily and foolish assume that well-healed movers and shakers, well-funded politicians and multinational corporations, and well-armed militias supported by great flotillas of ships will end the violent clashes between armies and navies, ideologies and cultures, them and us.

But the Lord God of heaven and earth stands far bigger and taller than even the supposedly most mighty of people, parties, and principalities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is ultimate ruler over absolutely everything. God is in charge – Lord of all Creation, of all its history, and of all its future.

And fulfillment of Immanuel’s promises is the hope lies ahead.

Continue to rely on the Holy Spirit’s presence as you listen and watch for the fulfillment of those promises in the Gospel of Matthew and his simple account of the birth of Jesus.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1:18-25)

Suppose, if you will, that you’re reading a story in which an elderly woman is talking to her pregnant granddaughter.

“Now listen, my dear,” the old woman says, “I ask that you name this child after your grandfather, Clarence.” And let’s say that the mother-to-be agrees.

“OK, Grandma, his name will be Clarence.” But you’d be scratching your head in confusion if the storyline continued like this: “And so this fulfilled a prediction once made by the pregnant woman’s father that her firstborn would be named ‘Arnold.’”

Well, which is it: Clarence or Arnold? And if it ends up being Clarence, then what does Arnold have to do with anything?

And so it goes here in the Gospel of Matthew: An angel orders the baby’s name to be “Jesus,” then Matthew does a 180 and says, “That’s right: he’ll be little baby Immanuel.” No sooner does Matthew throw that naming wrench into the plot, when the baby is born, and Joseph does as he’s been told and names the little bundle of joy “Jesus.”

Jesus. Immanuel. Immanuel. Jesus. I’m confused! What gives? Must we choose?!

No.

Apparently, you cannot speak of one without invoking the other. Jesus equals Immanuel. Jesus equals God with Us – just one of the many names of Jesus that we’ll be hearing in our Scripture lessons this Advent season.

Jesus. Immanuel. God with Us.

God with Us in all our flesh-and-blood realities and messiness; God with Us in all our hunger, poverty, and homelessness.

God with Us wearing diapers; God with Us nursing at Mary’s breast.

God with Us learning to eat small pieces of bread and drink from a sippy-cup without dribbling milk all down his chin.

“Christ among the pots and pans” as the great mystic Teresa of Avila puts it.

Christ among the barn animals, as another preacher describes it, and then among those quirky, star-following astrologers from the east, and then among all the rest of the Gospel’s curious cast of motley characters.

Jesus. Immanuel. God with the prostitutes, and the lepers, and the tax collectors, and the many other outcasts, and marginalized, and disenfranchised in whose company Jesus always delights and never tires.

God at the dinner table with a piece of spinach stuck between his incisors and a corn hull wedged between two molars.

God breaking the bread with his hands and lifting the cup to his lips.

God eating a little too much turkey and mashed potatoes and hankering for a nap.

Jesus. Immanuel. God with Us.

God enduring the pain of bearing new life. God smiling when a proud new mother shows off her newborn. God with the little children whose tiny hands he holds, whose soft cheeks he caresses, whose warm brows he touches and blesses.

God with Us, in all our ordinary times and days, even unto the end of the ages. Always. With us. Immanuel.

Immanuel is God with Us in the exam room when the doctor delivers the N-stage diagnosis.

Immanuel is God with Us in the clinic as chemo and radiation burn away malignant cells, and in the nursing home where bodies slump pitifully in wheelchairs pushed up against the hallway walls.

Immanuel is God with Us in hospice, when life’s last breath slips between a loved one’s lips.

Immanuel is God with Us when the pink slip makes this week’s paycheck the last for the foreseeable future, when the verbal slurs and smears slice deeply, when the beloved child sneers, “I hate you!”

Immanuel is God with Us when you pack away the holiday decorations and, with an aching heart, you realize once again that your one son who’s distant and estranged never did call over the holidays. Not once. No holiday card, either!

Immanuel is God with Us when your dear spouse or parent stares at you through the thick fog of Alzheimer’s and absently asks, “What was your name again, dear?”

Ever and always, Jesus stares straight into you with his two good eyes, and he does so not only when you can smile back but most certainly also when your own eyes are full of tears. In fact, Jesus is Immanuel, “God with you,” even in those times when you are so angry with the Lord that you refuse to meet his glance.

But even when you feel like you can’t look at him, he never looks away from you.

He can’t. His name says it all. Immanuel. God with Us.

As you and I once again begin our annual pilgrimage toward Bethlehem, perhaps you and I can only receive the birth of Immanuel with a solemn plea, “Lord God, Immanuel, always with us, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

Because, after all, though we don’t deserve the grace of forgiveness, our loving God nevertheless offers it in great abundance. And that’s your sign.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign – of Jesus, of Immanuel, of God with Us, forgiving us and resurrecting us.

Gloria in excelsis Deo! Glory to God in the highest! Hosanna and praise!

And peace to God’s people on earth! Amen, and amen.

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, November 13, 2022, the first Sunday of Advent at First Presbyterian Church. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by M. Eugene Boring, Doug Bratt, Scott Hoezee, Stan Mast, and Gene M. Tucker inform the message.

The Wait

It took us the better part of a year, but we’re finally there. Our cover-to cover, high-altitude survey of the Bible has reached its end.

We took our first steps in January, naturally beginning in the beginning, with the story of God’s big bang of grace that created the cosmos and everything in it: Every bird of the air, every fish of the sea, every creature on the dry land.

As the cleansing winds of the Spirit’s breath blew across the chaos and calmed the storm, God and the Word who was with God in the beginning – the Son, Jesus Christ – fashioned us and made us, vowed to protect us and stay with us, and promised to guide us unto the end of our days.

But all was not well in paradise. Life quickly careened out of control and flew off the rails. The forces of evil attacked with the force of mutant ninjas – laying siege to God’s good Creation with loadstones of sin and brokenness, illness and dis-ease, darkness and fear.

Rather than look away in disgust, we jumped in head first, into the deep end of temptation, sucked into murky darkness by none other than the devil himself, then deciding that ya, OK, wandering off to find where demons dwell maybe isn’t so bad.

Truth be told, we rather enjoy living on the dark side. So, let’s dig in our heels, hunker down, and stay put, hard-headed and stiff-necked to the bitter end no matter the cost.

The Lord, of course, tried speaking to his people through judges and prophets, but those intrepid women and men were talking to brick walls.

Entirely fed up with our foolishness, God decides to take matters literally into his own hands, coming in Jesus the Christ to pitch his tent among us, holding us close to his heart; so close, in fact, that our tent ropes form a crisscross web of faith and belief. Perhaps less web and more safety net, to catch us when we stumble and fall – which we will, just as we always have, much to the sorrow and consternation of the Lord.

God in Jesus grew and became strong in spirit, along the way experiencing everything that you and I experience – skinned knees, dirty fingernails, and aching joints; homeless days and sleepless nights; betrayal, rejection, and loneliness, to name but a few. Our lived experience – with all its pain and suffering, with all its joy and blessing – became the Lord’s lived experience, too.

Ever and always along for the ride, the devil tempts Jesus into sin, but the Christ always pushes back with an emphatic no.

But in those moments, I believe, Jesus Son of Man empathizes with us, and loves us all the more – so much so that Heaven’s Unconditional Love lets himself be nailed to a cross and buried in a tomb. As our creeds proclaim, Jesus descended to the dead; Jesus tumbled down into hell itself, Light of the World by darkness slain.

Riffing on the lyrics of the same freedom-themed song that we love to sing, “Then bursting forth, on glorious day, up from the grave [Jesus Son of God] rose again,”

And incredible as it sounds, even a morsel of faith that believes in all that is sufficient assurance that your sins are forgiven.

And your turning away from sin unlocks the door to repentance that leads to everlasting life. Which establishes once and for all the power of unending love and the authority of amazing grace.

In the meantime, while we wait, in thanksgiving for the new heaven and earth that await those whom Christ has claimed, we trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life, as another of our creeds proclaims.

In a broken and fearful world, God the Holy Spirit in Christ gives us both example and courage to pray without ceasing, example and courage to share the Good News with all, example and courage to unmask the idols and false gods that we worship, example and courage to hear the voices of peoples long silenced and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.

“In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives, even as we watch for God’s new heaven and new earth,” with gracious permission to lift up to heaven our honest eruptions of emotional, physical and spiritual pain using three simple words: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

“Come, Lord Jesus!” This morning’s Scripture lesson from the last chapter of the Bible offers a foretaste of heaven’s answer to our mournful cries: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Listen for the Word of the Lord, written by the apostle John and first sent to a people experiencing the worst of times. Listen for God speaking to you, and to all who live their days seasick and adrift on oceans of utter dismay.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Nothing accursed will be found there anymore.

But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. …

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” (Selected verses of Revelation 22)

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. …

The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

Scripture thus begins where it ends.

The story of God with us begins with fallen Eden and ends with recreated Eden, from paradise lost and to paradise regained. Imagine it now with all your senses:

A place where God’s people enjoy an eternal Kingdom – God’s final Kingdom. And unlike the limited duration of the millennia, this party never ends.

A place where God’s people picnic under the tree of life and trek paths with gentle guardrails of bright coneflowers, purple clover, black-eyed susans. Toxic soil gets washed away; walls and fences separate no longer.

Imagine a place where God’s people drink clean, clear water from environments free of corruption and pollution, and springs of new life – both hot and cold – bubble and gurgle ever louder and stronger.

A place where God’s people inhale deep breaths of crisp, fresh air that’s alive and teeming with truth – the winds of heavenly change and transformation finally, at long last, blowing away the putrid stench of lies and falsehoods; the rotten specter of fear, hate and violence; the reeking cesspool of greed, selfishness, and idol-worship.

Imagine a place where God’s people savor the restoration of healthy intimacy and the resumption of sacred authority – one nation under God more fully realized not by law but by grace, by humility and service.

A place where God’s people feel the curse of sin and the crushing load of brokenness fully and completely lifted off their backs; bodies once hunched and stooped by the burden of time stand straight and tall.

It is, as another suggests, the perfect consummation:

No more curse – perfect restoration!

Throne in their midst – perfect administration!

Servants shall serve – perfect subordination!

Shall see his face – perfect transformation!

Name on foreheads – perfect identification!

God is the light – perfect Illumination, forever and ever!

Amen, indeed! Let it be so!

In Christ, by the Spirit, it IS possible: New creation for all the world, refreshment and resurrection for all the saints in light. Along the way, yes, birthing pains will strike and smack. Such painful cramping and contracting are part and parcel of birthing new life – always have been, always will be.

But for people like us infused with the Holy Spirit, deep labor pains never hinder or diminish our many and varied good works that contribute to the revelation of the Kingdom – never in the fullness of grace that John envisions, but nevertheless in the here and now, a community that reflects God’s coming paradise.

Impatiently, the wait for that continues. And ours is to simply-yet-richly offer foretasting glimpses of the paradise that lies ahead when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and he answers, “Here I am.” The world sorely needs more holy spaces and kinder hearts, and the real holy spaces and kindest of hearts are within the body of Jesus.

The story of God with us has ended in these final verses of Revelation’s book, even as the everlasting story of God with us knows no ending.

Ancient words, ever true! Thanks be to God, you and I are becoming disciples!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, November 6, 2022, as last message of his sermon series, “Becoming Disciples: The Story of God with Us.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by David Guzik and Christopher C. Rowland inform the message.

Coming Together for the Better

To say that the Corinthians have a “problem” is a gross understatement.

This motley crew of haphazard diners is a dysfunctional family of faith drowning in a swirling cesspool of sin and brokenness.

For starters, whenever they get together for the Lord’s Supper – the centerpiece of this morning’s Scripture lesson, these Christians-in-name-only gorge themselves on bread and get drunk on the communion wine. Then, to make matters worse, the boozy soiree twists itself into a drunken orgy: Sex with family members and prostitutes, other decadence too unseemly to name in polite company.

A weekend bachelor party in Las Vegas is a well-mannered tea party compared to the antics and shenanigans of these knuckleheads, who also are waging class warfare, setting up divisions between rich and poor, thus treating with contempt and hypocrisy the Lord’s Supper, that joyful feast of the people of God ordained in the Upper Room by Jesus himself – as a memorial of his death, as a celebration of his resurrection, and as a reassurance of his promise to come again.

Celebrating holy communion is all that and more, but most definitely not a perverse opportunity for the upper class to flex the muscles of their self-imposed superiority right up in the faces of the famished, underprivileged, and disconnected.

Never one to be at a loss for words, or to be tolerant of misbehavior in the Church, the apostle Paul dives head first into the putrid muck and mire of Corinthian depravity. The congregation at Corinth has become a festering, bubbling slough, and Paul courageously wades in up to his neck to drain the swamp.

Listen, then, for the Word of the Lord, given to us in love, to proclaim the story of God with us.

Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.

For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.

What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come. (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)

Meet Marty. Marty Van Beek.

One of the 300-or-so kids who, like me, spent grade school, junior high school, and high school together as the Class of 1979 in a mostly all-Dutch village in northeast Wisconsin.

Marty was a snot, and I didn’t like him. Nobody did.

He wasn’t a bully in the classic sense of the word. Marty was more like the mosquito that’s been buzzing around your ear for the last three hours, or like the shivering sound of nails on a chalkboard over, and over, and over.

Marty was an annoyance, a mischief-maker, an irritatingly different soul who seemed to rub most everyone the wrong way.

He was the guy who’d help himself to your lunch.

He was the punk who’d knock your books to the floor as he strutted or slunk by your classroom desk.

He was the scalawag who’d snatch the winter stocking hat off your head and bury it in a snowbank.

You get the idea: Marty, always the windshield, never the bug.

Our high school graduation, in early June of 1979, was the last time I saw Marty – until years passed, and time came for our 20th class reunion. I arrived and bellied up to the bar for a cocktail, then made my way across the hotel ballroom and joined a group of high school chums who’d taken their places lining a long banquet table.

The place-setting across me was vacant. Sweet! Maybe I can score the uneaten dessert! But who sits down at the last minute – right as the staff are trying to serve the meal? Yup, you guessed it, it was Marty. Marty Van Beek. The rogue bad-boy of our many years in public schools. Marty Van Beek. The snot. The burr in the saddle blanket of scholastic life.

This will not go well, I thought. It might even get dangerous, I predicted, as I tried to decide whether to bean Marty in the head with a dinner roll, sneeze on his entrée of banquet chicken with steamed vegetables, or “accidently” spill his bottle of Miller Lite into his lap.

Decisions, decisions! But it was Marty who broke the awkward silence and started the uncomfortable conversation.

“I was a real horse’s a** when we were in school,” Marty confessed to the old gang gathered around the table. “Sorry about that. I’m surprised more of you didn’t punch me in the face.”

And in the blink of an eye, in the laughter that erupted from Marty’s candid self-assessment of his childish transgressions, more than a decade of schoolyard injustices were made right in Marty’s admission of guilt. Forgiveness was sought, and forgiveness was granted – around the table, as bread was broken, together, worthily.

And so it goes: Sitting down to dinner with friends and family – or old acquaintances – can be and often is risky business, dangerous territory, but you do it anyway, despite the unknowns. Because it’s worth the risk!

Which is one of spiritual points that Paul makes in a valiant attempt to save the Corinthians from themselves and end the mockery they’re making of the Lord Supper.

To be clear, Paul is NOT saying that Christians who are “unworthy” should refrain from taking the Lord’s Supper. After all, every Christian is unworthy, and since that is so, none of us is truly worthy of savoring the joyful feast of the Lord. Paul is not saying that these Corinthian Christians are “unworthy” of taking the Lord’s Supper but rather that Christians who take the Lord’s Supper in an “unworthy manner” should step away from the buffet. Pronto!

That is, if they’re going to be hypocrites – and they are, they should refrain from participating, lest they overturn the Table of the Lord with their disruptive mockery.

“Worthily” does mean deserving grace, but rather knowing that you stand where you do because of grace and knowing where you stand on the path of spiritual maturity. “Worthily” is looking in the mirror and doing some brutally honest self-assessment. “Worthily” is picking up the junky mess we’ve made of our lives and our world, and letting go of all excess baggage to which we cling, the stuff that’s slowing us down, holding us back, and getting us nowhere.

This should be an ongoing process in our lives – this spiritual housecleaning that lets in a breath of fresh air.

But since none other than Jesus himself has given us the sacrament of communion, the Lord invites us into deep preparation, before dinner – a time to take stock of our discipleship with candor and frankness, and to bring whatever sin and brokenness we unearth with us to the Lord’s Table.

And to offer it there, and to leave the meal pointed in a more faithful direction and following a more Christ-like path, encouraged and nourished by the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper.

Deep, spiritual housecleaning that tears open the shudders and throws up the sash reflects on the day that is, or the week that was, or the last couple months that were, using a powerful magnifying glass that allows you to see everything that’s gone on, examining your actions and your attitudes, your inaction and indifference, the hateful and untrue words that you failed to self-censor.

Sometimes, your sin will stand out like a sore thumb: The yelling that you might have done in anger; some act of gossip, greed or lust, or something along those lines. Sometimes your less-than-Christ-like actions are clear as day, even as other times a derecho of evil pummels your heart, but you don’t do a blessed thing to clean up the broken limbs and sweep up all the debris. All those trespasses swirling deep inside, both actions and attitudes – think through these things!

And then, with the help of the Holy Spirit given to you in baptism, repent: Turn away from evil, confess those sins to the Lord, look away in sorrow and disgust – not just because what you did or didn’t do was bad and wrong, unhelpful and destructive, and you kinda, sorta need to apologize, begrudgingly. Even more so, you turn away from sin and evil, because they horrify you, and you desperately want to seek safe shelter in the Lord. Turn to Jesus in faith, repent from your sins, and rely on the Spirit of Christ to make all things new.

The Lord’s Supper, then, is supposed to produce results – spiritual fruit, as Paul elsewhere names it:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23), descriptors of Christ’s death on the Cross yes but far more than mere example. When Jesus Christ, on the Cross, gives up his life for you, and for me, and for all the saints in light, the Lord does for us what we never-ever could have done for ourselves – and what we still can never do for ourselves.

The Gospel promises that all who look to the Cross of Christ, in faith, will be saved from sin and death, by faith – believing, even with the faith of a tiny mustard seed, that the fruit of believing in the Gospel is a life that’s transformed by the Gospel. We don’t transform our lives in hopes that we might then be made “worthy” and saved by the Cross and Empty Tomb. No, transformation leads to salvation! It is the fruit, the result of salvation – living sacrificially toward one another, as we remember Christ’s broken body and shed blood, one with Jesus in his death, one with Christ in his resurrection.

As we wait on one another, as we for one another, the Lord calls us to live hospitably toward one another. We are to provide for one another, as we remember how Christ took us into his own family, and punched our admission ticket into his glorious kingdom, even when we were yet sinners, children of wrath, condemned of rebellion against Almighty God.

We’re not breaking bread and pouring the cup this morning. But we will next Sunday!

So, please make time this week, with the Lord’s Supper so close on the horizon, to reflect upon the extent to which you graciously share Christ Jesus’s love, hospitality, and provision with others. Trust the Spirit to reveal the burdens you might carry for another, or the encouragement you might offer, or the reconciliation that is possible.

Where might mercy be sought and extended? Where might forgiveness repair the breaches of relationship, with God and with one another? Where and how might you use your riches and your strength to benefit others in the way that Christ did by living? Not selfishly, but for the sake, and the benefits, and the building up, of those friends, neighbors, and strangers who make up the Body of Christ. For in eating the bread, we proclaim Christ as “for” believers, “on our side,” and in pouring the cup, we share intimately with Jesus, who calls us to share intimately with others.

As for Marty, Marty Van Beek, the snot, the scalawag, we didn’t become fast friends or bosom buddies.

That apparently wasn’t the Lord’s intent in bringing us together for a meal. I haven’t seen him since that surprising night of our reunion and reconciliation.

And that’s OK. Because I’m still feasting on the leftovers, and remembering that the Table is a dangerous place, and doing my best to accept heaven’s sacred invitation to dive deep into my soul, heart, and mind – measuring how closely and richly my life aligns with Jesus Christ, and giving thanks for the power of love that ties me to the Lord and to others.

Time will tell, but I think I passed the test – at least as it relates to Marty. Marty Van Beek. The snot. Forgiveness sought. Mercy given. Repentance made. Renewal celebrated. At the table, of a class reunion. And so too at the Table of the Lord, pleading the body of Christ broken for us and the blood of Christ shed for us, as our precious summons into the Kingdom of God.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, October 30, 2022, as part of his current sermon series, “Becoming Disciples: The Story of God with Us.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Jacob Gerber, Karl Jacobson, and J. Paul Sampley, inform the message.

Doers of the Word

Let’s just jump right into the story of God with us: James, Faith, Action!

Listen for the Word of the Lord, as I read to you from the New Testament book of James. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be holy, acceptable, and pleasing to the Lord God Almighty.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 1:27-2:17)

Jefferson Bible Source books open to cut-up pages to show the missing pieces

A creative seminarian once conducted a cutting-edge experiment – literally.

He took hold of a scissors and cut from the Bible every text about the poor. As author Jim Wallis tells the story, excising the poor from the pages of Scripture took the seminarian a very, very long time.

When the snippy seminarian was done slashing and burning, that sacred collection of ancient-but-true words barely could hold itself together. So sliced up was Scripture that it actually was falling apart. The seminarian had fashioned a Bible full of holes – big holes; really, really big holes. Which surely evokes some visual thinking of a holy Bible without references to the poor as a book so “holey” that it collapses under its own weight.

Yet even the most faithful of Christians, as they have for generations, find it tempting to gut our Bibles with razor-sharp scalpels. And in so surgically overlooking and disregarding God’s crystal-clear concern for the poor, we essentially censor Scripture’s many loud calls to care for people who are needy – poor in body, mind, or spirit. In the words of another, by ignoring God’s special fondness toward those who have been excluded from the banquet of life and the table of blessing, we basically annihilate God’s Word and blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

Before I go any further, let’s lay out the varieties of poverty from which all manner of people suffer.

Obviously, poverty is financial, struggling to stretch a dollar or two until payday, barely two nickels to rub together. With that, poverty is material – no clothes on your back or roof over your head. Poverty is nutritional – possibly blessed with clothing and shelter but lacking any food in the cupboard or a chicken in every pot. And also poverty is relational, having no one with whom to eat that meal or fondly identify as “friend” or “neighbor.”

Some suffer with poverty of community, the absence of a place of safe welcome and assurance of belonging, even as others wrestle with poverty of security, the inability to sit on one’s front porch without stray bullets whizzing every which way like lethal mosquitoes on an otherwise-balmy summer’s night. Up the block is poverty of physical health, and around every corner is poverty of mental health. In both central cities and rural America, poverty of educational and vocational opportunities limit human potential.

Clouding such scarcity and deficiency like a large, black umbrella is spiritual poverty, the stubborn disinclination to receive the gifts of the Spirit and the chronic inability to produce spiritual fruit – as the apostle Paul described it for us a few Sundays ago: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The supply chain of those commodities most assuredly has been disrupted.

Heck, why not just rip off the Band Aid: In one or more ways, means, or fashions, nary a one of us enjoys full liberty from poverty.

And into such rampant fear and utter brokenness steps God, in Jesus, to pitch his tent among us, to experience our full poverty of our humanity, and to die as the Christ and rise as the Savior. So, ya, the poor and impoverished enjoy a sweet spot in the generous heart of the Lord. Sadly, though, James – the elder brother of Jesus – first writes to Christians with the exactly opposite preference.

As James calls it and sees it, one day, when their worship service is just getting started, two people walk in as the pastor is sharing the community news and making the church announcements. One of the two people strolling into the sanctuary clearly is rolling in the dough, and he’s wrapped himself in trendy clothes and topped it off with a $100 haircut. He even smells a bit like money! The other visitor obviously is financially and materially poor, with little money to spend on haberdashery, haircut, or hygiene. Truth be told, he smelled more like moldy cheese than beaucoup bucks.

Since it’s not a very big church, the spectacle of polar opposites is on full display. Everyone sees the head usher fawn all over rich man: Enthusiastically greeting him, handing him a bulletin, and showing him a good seat. Maybe you didn’t see it right, but did the usher even elbow a few people out of the way to make space on the aisle for the rich man?

Then, those with eyes to see watch aghast as the same usher flashes the “Sorry, we’re full-up” sign to the poor vagabond, promptly escorting him to standing room way in the back, near the door, the “back of the bus,” as it were.

You can almost picture the church: All the wealthy people with Ph.D.s, and nice homes, and fancy cars, all spread out across the front of the church, where everyone can see them.  But their employees and students, their staff and servants, their distant neighbors living on the other side of the tracks, are all packed like sardines in the way-way back, dark, dank corners of church with the rest of “the help.”

Like everyone else on hand that day, James also notices the inhospitable shenanigans. So apparently, he rushes home, grabs his pen, and scratches out a letter of protest to the church’s leadership and membership: “My brothers in our glorious Lord Jesus,” he grieves. “Don’t play favorites – ever!”

When you welcome the rich and shun the poor, you are discriminating among yourselves and judging with impure thoughts.

When God, through James, forbids discrimination against the poor and prods us to inclusion over exclusion, God graciously disrupts our natural ways of treating the friends, neighbors, and strangers who are most vulnerable. When the Lord calls us to welcome the poor as warmly as heaven welcomes us, God invites us into the gracious joy of imitating God. When the Lord calls us to shelter the poor as warmly as mercy shelters us, God summons us into the privilege of being the hands and feet of Christ Jesus. When the Lord calls us to clothe the poor as warmly as grace clothes us, God sends to us the Holy Spirit to stoke the fires of action and light the way forward.

And what lies ahead on the journey of faith is this: God’s mustering of our concern for the poor goes even deeper and far beyond just calling God’s children to welcome their siblings into the church. Some of James’s contemporaries apparently believe that faith is more a matter of what we believe than of what we do. In fact, he suggests that some of his fellow Christians are contradicting what they say they believe by what they actually do and say.

In an old Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown and Linus trudge through the snow wearing fur-lined boots and bundled in wooly hats, scarves, and mittens.

As they battle the elements, the gang meets Snoopy, standing forlornly in front of his doghouse, looking just plain miserable and every bit the orphaned waif.

But Charlie Brown does nothing for a shivering Snoopy but tell him, “Be of good cheer.” And Linus chimes in affirmatively, “Yes, Snoopy, be of good cheer.” Then they continue on their merry way, leaving Snoopy with what someone described as “a wonderful, quizzical look on his face.”

God won’t let James’s readers simply walk past people who are poor in whatever form, leaving them only our flowery words and “thoughts and prayers.” God reminds James’s readers that true religion is not just a matter of what we believe or even the rituals we practice. It’s certainly not just a matter of the nice words we sometimes say to people who are needy.  God insists that true religion is also about how we treat each other, especially those whom society so easily and callously marginalizes.

In fact, God goes so far as to say through James that faith without Christlike activity is, in fact, dead.

Religious practice on Sunday, or partaking in communion, or being baptized, or checking off the box of confirmation – without faithful living the other six days of the week – is basically worthless and meaningless. Instead of faithfully receiving God’s grace that grants eternal life, too many of us perversely prefer to perpetuate spiritual death.

Thankfully, then, the faith that God graciously gives God’s adopted sons and daughters is a living faith – a faith that doesn’t just say and know all the right things about God, God’s world, and God’s creatures. James insists that the faith God graciously gives us is a faith that, among other things, actively cares for the poor.

James implicitly asks how the ways that the church treats people differ from the ways that society often treats people. Christians must view the poor the way Jesus did: As unique and precious reflections of the God who created them, never measured by society’s standards for prestige and success. Neglect the poor at your own peril, for in so doing, you effectively render a holy Bible “holey.”

In the end, “thoughts and prayers” really aren’t enough, really little more than incredibly inadequate responses to really basic-but-dire human needs. Certainly, we need to be in prayer for those who are hurting. Certainly, we need to be mindful of those who are suffering. But to believe that prayer alone relieves us of a responsibility to act renders mute the Word of the Lord and pours cold water on the fires of the Gospel – the Gospel we claim to believe, the hook onto which we hang our hope of salvation. If faith doesn’t act, if faith doesn’t live out its core belief, that, James says, isn’t really faith at all. It is spiritual death.

For “thoughts and prayers” to bear any lifesaving, game-changing spiritual power, we must listen carefully for God’s answers to our prayers, rely solely on the mind of Christ in our hearing, and trust wholeheartedly in the Holy Spirit to equip us for service to our Lord and enactment of his living Word – walking the road the saints have trod, and giving thanks in one accord, to the One who calls us all to be Disciples of the Lord.

For Christ’s sake, amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, October 23, 2022, as part of his current sermon series, “Becoming Disciples: The Story of God with Us.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Luke Timothy Johnson, Graham Jones, Stan Mast, and Jim Wallis inform the message.

All the Lonely People

Way back in 1966, The Beatles released a hit song titled “Eleanor Rigby.” The classic tune paints a sad picture of lonely people who live on the remote edges of the wider world.

As the lyrics go, Eleanor Rigby is the caretaker of a ramshackle country church – the one who sweeps up the rice after the weddings have come and gone, the one who rakes up the leaves in the parish cemetery come fall and sweeps off the snow from the walks come winter. The church’s pastor, Father McKenzie, writes the words to sermons that no one will hear because “no one comes near.” 

Sadly, in the end, Eleanor Rigby dies in the church and is buried “along with her name. Nobody came.” And the song’s somber chorus wonders: “All the lonely people: Where do they all come from? All the lonely people: Where do they all belong?”

Indeed, look around in the world and in our community – maybe even here in this place, and if you’ve got eyes to see and compassion in your heart, you won’t have a hard time picking out all the lonely, aimless, marginalized folks whom no one ever talks to much less cares about.

A lot of us treasure our “alone time,” myself included. We create space in our busy schedules to unplug and decompress from the demands of everyday life and living. But what if “a table for one” is your daily reality?

What if you never go anywhere or do anything, because your phone never rings or vibrates with an invitation to “hang out”?

What if your postal mail, email, and social media never bring heart-warming contact from friends and family wondering how you’re doing and inviting you to catch up over lunch or dinner?

What if you and your life partner can sit in the same room but nevertheless feel like you’re a million miles apart?

What if you really and truly feel isolated and marooned all the time?

There are people like that here, there and everywhere – sad, miserable, and/or bullied souls who feel alone in a crowd 24/7/365! Maybe you’re one of them – maybe not lonely all the time, but surely feeling left to fend for yourself far more often than you’d like.

In our Scripture lesson this morning, the apostle Peter shares some good news for “all the lonely people” no matter where they come from. Peter offers hope for anyone and everyone who feels like a forgotten non-person.

As you grow and nourish your discipleship, drink in the spiritual truth that is the word of the Lord, as the story of God with us marches forward.

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:1-10)

“Once you were not a people.”

“Once you were no-people.”

“Once you were nobody” – a real nowhere man, as go the lyrics of another Beatles classic.

A real nowhere women, a real nowhere teen-ager, a real nowhere kid, sitting in his nowhere land, making all her nowhere plans for nobody, no point of view, no idea where you’re going to.

That, Peter says, is who they once were – maybe even a bit like you and me in the darkest moments of our most desolate of days: Nobodies belonging to no one in particular and going nowhere special in life.  No-people, standing alone on the fringes and feeling like valueless naughts and meaningless cyphers who are ignored and forgotten, teased and belittled.

Peter’s sharp pen stabs the heart with the pain of quarantine and agony of isolation – long before COVID made those words familiar parts of our daily vocabulary. And if you take stock of the huddled masses who count themselves among the world’s most forlorn and rejected people, then you have to count Jesus among their number.

Jesus – the stone whom the builders rejected – really was the lonely man of his day. And the music continues its siren song: All the lonely people – where do they all belong?

Sure, Jesus always seems to be surrounded by people much of the time – his apostles, his other followers, the curious craning their necks to catch a glimpse of God among us, the hungry straining their ears to hear a tender morsel of his life-saving Word.

Yet, no one really understands him – not his mother, nor his family, not even his closest friends. Jesus is the lonely one, the man from whom plenty of folks turn away. Jesus is the one who knows deep in his soul exactly what it feels like to be counted among no-people nobodies.

But God doesn’t leave Jesus alone in the nowhere land of nobodies. 

God picks up that rejected stone and morphs it into living stone. God, in heaven’s great mercy, takes what looked like a throw-away rock and turns it into a precious jewel. And this living stone that is Christ Jesus the Lord has, since then, been doing exactly the same thing for as many other rejected and lonely ones as he can grab and grace with his mercy.

“Once you were no-people.  But now you are the people of God. You belong to me!”

In that belonging, we, too, by grace and mercy, become living stones, flowering stones – like lithops, succulent plants native to South Africa. Lithops look like living, breathing, colorful stones – miracles of God’s creative goodness. When they flower, the “stones” break open and burst forth with color.

Faith flowering from broken-open hearts: The Gospel declares in no uncertain terms that this is very-much possible and that it absolutely happens all the time. Nobodies become somebodies. The lost and isolated are found and included – invited to participation in something grand, and new, and known as the people of God.

The once-lonely who used to cry themselves to sleep, or who have grown accustomed to drifting off to sleep watching endless TikTok snippets more nights than not, they are the ones who receive mercy.

It’s what they’ve hungered and yearned for all along!

Every time they sob in loneliness, every time they see a couple strolling by hand in hand, every time they stifle a cry when they spy a happy family pass by on the sidewalk, it reminds them all over again how all alone they are by comparison. Their tears are loud cries – Lord have mercy! – even if they don’t realize it.

“Once you had NOT received mercy,” Peter writes, “but now you have received mercy.” For all the lonely people who know deep down that being lonely is not the way God intends things to be – for all those who weep and mourn for lack or loss of relationship, the Gospel of Jesus, the rejected one, is this:

Those who are no-people – those who cry for a mercy they’ve not yet found – are the very ones who will be the first to be lifted up to gaze eye to eye into Jesus’s loving face. Just one look into those eyes, and you’ll know in an instant that he understands.

Jesus comes to all the lonely people – and surely to the lonely person who finally lives in unwarranted seclusion deep in the heart of each one of us. Loneliness pours into our cracked, broken hearts like rainwater gushes through a leaky roof – it always finds a way in, no matter how hard we try to patch the leak.

And Jesus comes to these friendless, isolated people whose phones never ring, whose social calendars echo with empty space, whose numbers never seem to come up, whose names never get called. And in his great mercy, Jesus invites them – and all of us – to his holy table of relationship: “I was wondering, would you like to have dinner with me?”

All who know that once they were a no-people can respond to Christ’s gracious invitation in just one way: “Yes, Lord, I’d love to have dinner with you. I think that would be very lovely indeed. I would love to taste and see that your goodness comes in knowing that you are mine and I am yours.”

Taste and see that good news whenever you come to the Lord’s Table.

Hear and believe that good news when we sing “Be Not Afraid” in a few moments.

For loneliness rears its ugly head in lots of different ways, and some of the loneliest people out there might just be the ones who most need to hear the great mystery of faith: “This my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you. Be not afraid.”

All the lonely people, where do they all come from? From north, south, east and west to gather around the Table of abundant mercy.

All the lonely people, where do they all belong? Here in this place, where the Lord’s hospitable love welcomes all in the breaking of bread and the pouring of juice, in the streaming waters of baptism, in the assurance that all are welcome in this place – no matter who you are, no matter whom you love, no matter whose campaign signs dot your front lawn.

Ancient words, ever true, particularly in these our days, when those fields of faith into which we’ve been planted seem littered with landmines and choked with rocks. But ours is not a time to cast away stones but to gather them together. Ours is not a time for exclusion but for inclusion.

Set yourself close to Jesus – lean upon the Christ. Lay down your life in the loving, compassion hands of the Lord. For whoever believes in him will never-ever be disappointed or put to shame.

All the lonely people: Where do they all belong? Right here, right now – counted among the beloved members of the community that just is the body of Christ.

Amen, and amen.

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, October 16 2022, as part of his current sermon series, “Becoming Disciples: The Story of God with Us.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by David L. Bartlett, Scott Hoezee, and John C. Tittle inform the message. “Eleanor Rigby” written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. “Be Not Afraid” by Bob Dufford and Theophane Hytreak, © 1975, 1978 Robert J. Dufford and New Dawn Music, sung by John Michael Talbot.

Jesus Felt and Feels

Three earthy, relatable characters – a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer – played important roles in last Sunday’s Scripture lesson.

Writing ancient-but-ever-true words to his young protégé Timothy, the apostle Paul lifts up a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer as images of what it means to become a devoted follower of Jesus and to live a spiritual life of discipleship in Christ.

A soldier doesn’t forget a soldier’s purpose. A soldier understands that, if a battle is to be survived and its objectives reached, then she or he must remain laser-focused on the task at hand and disciplined in making choices and following orders. So also with discipleship in Jesus – laser-focused on the task at hand, disciplined in making choices, eager and willing to follow heaven’s orders.

An athlete, like a soldier, is disciplined in action and never underestimates the effort it takes to stay on top of one’s game. Athletic dedication and strength of character provide the wisdom to cross the finish line of a well-lived life of discipleship in Christ!

A farmer, never simply focused on the chores at hand and work of the day, but appreciating the importance of always training attention on the end result: the harvest. So it is with the wise follower of Christ Jesus who never forgets that spiritual labor toughens a disciple for the hard work of growing and harvesting a bin-buster of wisdom and a bumper crop of spiritual fruit.

And if you’re fruitfully wise, you’ll remember. You’ll never forget and always remember Jesus Christ, enabled by the Holy Spirit to use your senses to fuel your mind and bring into your heart the presence of who and what you are remembering, a calling to and letting in the very presence of our Lord and Savior.

That thought — Jesus, risen from the dead — must always be in our remembrance. Because if and when you do remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, then who he is and his victory over death will reorder your life, transform you more and more into his image, and align your priorities with his.

That’s a lot to take in and unpack, I know, and it’s tempting to leave it at that.

But no, the journey of discipleship – the story of God with us – keeps moving forward. And one mighty big assumption is driving this morning’s passage through Scripture. And that assumption is this: For a relationship to exist between God and God’s people, as well as among groups and between individuals, plenty of interpersonal infrastructure needs repair and replacement. And our lesson from the New Testament book of Hebrews insists that the only way for all that long-overdue reconciliation and restoration to happen is if God does it, in Christ alone, by the breath of the Spirit.

Listen for the Lord speaking to you this day.

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness. And because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” As he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)

Harriet was slip-sliding away from the church.

A baby-boomer like a lot of us, a life-long Presbyterian like some of us, Harriet was gradually losing her grip on the faith of her childhood.

The many alternative faiths in the marketplace of 21st-century America were starting to sound attractive, but she wasn’t comfortable with her drift,so she sought out some help.

The expected advice was no surprise – almost cliché, if it weren’t so true: Keep your eyes glued to the cross, and keep your heart fixed on Jesus.

Her response was startling. “Jesus scares me,” she said. “Always has. I don’t like to think about Jesus. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t.”

Perhaps her trouble lay in the fact that there is something undeniably unhelpful in this idea of Jesus as “the great high priest.” High priests are a particular kind of mediator – in the Jewish world of Jesus’s day, the only kind of mediator who could make things right between sinful humans and a holy God.

Jews like Jesus understood the life-saving role that the high priest played in one’s salvation hopes. But for most of us today, the idea of a “great high priest” sounds like gibberish –certainly not something you have to have for daily living in right relationship with God.

Harriet, for one, hated such talk.

“I don’t like to think about myself as sinful, and I don’t think of God as holy.” Even though she was raised to believe such things, she was drifting away from those beliefs now.

If a baptized “child of God’s promise” like Harriet had such reservations, it’s no wonder that those raised outside the Christian faith find this whole idea of a high priest quaint. For some, the idea that Jesus is the only mediator who can make peace between you and God is downright offensive. But for Harriet, such talk was frightening. And who could blame her.

To hear our lesson tell it, the Word of God – Jesus Christ – is living and active. As another preacher puts it, this living Word doesn’t just make a point – it is sharper than any double-edged sword. This living Word doesn’t just tickle your imagination – it penetrates to the depths of your being. This living Word isn’t something you can hear and forget –it uncovers the secrets of your heart. This living Word isn’t something you can make judgments about – it will judge you.

Experience tells me that, when people are thinking of deserting the faith, they often hide their thoughts – even from themselves.

Harriet’s openness was the exception, though at first even she didn’t understand where her thoughts were taking her.

Our Hebrews lesson warns that we can’t hide our thoughts of desertion from God.God knows what you and I are thinking; our thoughts are “laid bare.” The Greek word used in the original text of the Bible draws the gruesome picture of a person with his head yanked back, so that his jugular vein is fully exposed, and the executioner’s sword is poised to slice it open.

Zoinks! This whole living Word of God thing is nothing to trifle with.

Then, thanks be to God, comes the “therefore.”

“Therefore, since then, because” we have such a wonderful high priest who comes to us from heaven, we must hold on tight to what we believe.

Unlike the Jewish high priests who went through the veil into the temple’s Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for the sins of their people, Jesus has gone through the heavens into the very presence of God, where he remains today.

Unlike Jewish high priests who are the merely human descendants of a priestly lineage, Jesus is the very Son of God. So, my friend Harriet, why would you let go of your faith in such an awesome mediator who works things out between you and God?

That’s a hard question to answer, and that’s not where Harriet wanted to go. But that’s exactly where our Hebrews lesson finally goes.

It isn’t just the majesty of Jesus that’s such a big deal but also the sympathy of Jesus that makes him such a wonderful high priest. Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses, because Jesus has been tempted in every way that you and I are tempted, YET – unlike you and I – Jesus was without sin.

Jesus “gets it” – he gets you, gets your struggles, gets your failings, and because he “gets it,” Jesus sympathizes and empathizes with the whole sordid mess that sin and evil try to make of your life.

And because he “gets it,” Jesus is merciful and compassionate to you and me, because he knows first-hand just how hard evil is poking, prodding and punching you and me and working overtime to try and rattle the foundations of our faith and knock us off our solid rock.

You don’t think Jesus was ever tempted to leave the God he loved?

Think back to his wilderness temptations – those classic temptations in the desert we always hear during Lent that sum up every temptation you’ve ever faced. Each one of them tempted Jesus to turn away from total reliance on God.

Think back to that moment in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is tempted to turn his back on God’s whole enterprise of salvation.

Think back to that moment on the cross when Jesus thinks his Father has left him for dead:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus didn’t give in to evil, of course, but he was surely tempted in every way, just as we are.

And yes, that includes the temptation to step away from trust in God.

Harriet needed to understood that.

If she had, she might have been able to talk more openly to Jesus about her doubts and questions. She could talk with a friend, because she thought her trusted confidant was very human and compassionate. How much more is that true of Jesus? The very essence of the once-in-very-human-flesh-and-compassionate  God!

Because of Jesus, God felt and feels with us.

Because of Jesus, God suffered and suffers with us – whether it’s the misery of sorrow, or the prickle of fear, or the nausea of sickness, or the agony of temptation, or the intensity of depression, or the lure of addiction, or the empty-hollowness of loneliness.

That’s the incredible miracle of the Incarnation – God coming to us and living among us as one of us, the miracle of a great, sympathetic high priest who is Jesus, the Son of God, who knows, understands and sympathizes with our every weakness, because he’s walked way farther than just a mile in our shoes.

That’s the Good News we declare whenever we proclaim “Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” We declare and proclaim that, because of Jesus Christ, God knows how hard it is to be one of us – how incredibly challenging it is to turn away from sin, and to resist temptation, and to live faithfully.

And because God knows, understands and sympathizes, you and I can feel free to rush to the Lord in every time of trouble and doubt, and with bold honesty, confess to God every failure, every shortcoming, every stumble, every fall, EVERY SIN, and with full confidence, we can expect to receive grace and mercy – all because God “gets it.”

That is the promise of God for you, and for me, and for all the Harriets whom the Lord knows by name and won’t ever let slip-slide away into oblivion.

Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, October 2, 2022, as part of his current sermon series, “Becoming Disciples: The Story of God with Us.” Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Scott Hoezee, and Stan Mast inform the message.