A Christmas Present - Advent Day 2

What Do You Really Want for Christmas? 

Revelation 21:2, 4a    2“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 4a…and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be mourning or crying or pain.” 

II Corinthians 11:2-3  2For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. 3But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. 

Paul says to the church at Corinth, “I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ, that I might present you as a pure virgin.” In the here and now we are betrothed to God in Christ. The day will come when our knowledge of Him and our relationship to Him will be complete, but until then we may be left with a sense of longing that we can better understand by looking at the Hebrew customs of betrothal and marriage. 

When a man and woman were betrothed to each other, they made a public commitment to marry, usually within a year. Betrothal was not a time of trying out the relationship. It was a time for building it. The couple spent lots of time with each other. They shared their possessions and chores. They learned about one another, they grew closer, got to learn each other’s quirks and habits. The man and woman had a commitment to one another that was binding, but they still lived in separate homes, and they did not consummate the commitment until after the marriage ceremony. Betrothal described a relationship where there was commitment but not completion. 

Similarly, we are left with a longing for more than we have presently received from our relationship to God. Though this longing can be a friend to our faith, it can become a foe if we grow dissatisfied with our lack of fulfillment and seek our satisfaction elsewhere. 

Our longing for God is not to be played down or solved. Our longing need not make us uncomfortable. If anything, our longing is the mark of God’s touch. We long to know Him completely because we have known Him in part. We have been betrothed and we know that nothing will satisfy us except for the final completion that our marriage to Him will one day bring. Our longing for God can be the fuel for staying true to the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Christ, provided we remember the simplicity and purity of God’s devotion to us. That is the message of Christmas. We cannot have completion in our relationship to God, but we do have God’s complete commitment to us. 

Christmas is the visible expression of God’s invisible commitment to you and me. If we look around us, at the injustices and tragedies of life, if we look within us at the weaknesses that undermine us and the self-destructive habits that bind us, we may wonder about God’s commitment to us, or be tempted to dismiss God altogether. 

But when we look in the manger, at that small vulnerable baby, the life of His Son, given to our world, there can be no doubt of God’s commitment – a commitment that literally made the heavens sing and humans bow in awe. He placed His life in our hands, even as He calls us to place our life in His hands. 

In Jesus, God is with us in our living, and God is with us in our dying, not only in physical death but the dying that comes with any broken relationship, or disappointment of defeat. And, in Jesus, God is with us beyond our death in the life and completion that awaits us. “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. …and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be mourning or crying or pain.” There shall be only the marriage feast prepared for you and me from the beginning of time. 

Christmas celebrates God’s commitment to us in Jesus Christ, even as it calls us to look with longing for that day when our relationship to God will be complete. The word became flesh and lived among us. May Jesus be alive in your life, guiding your way, enlightening your mind and working miracles in your soul. 

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 1

Virgin Born  

Isaiah 7:10-17    ¹⁰Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, ¹¹"Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights."  ¹²But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test."  ¹³Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?  ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:  The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  ¹⁵He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.  ¹⁶But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.  ¹⁷The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria."

Luke 1:26-38    ²⁶In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.  The virgin's name was Mary.  ²⁸The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you."  ²⁹Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  ³⁰But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  ³¹You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  ³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."  ³⁴"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"  ³⁵The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.  ³⁶Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.  ³⁷For nothing is impossible with God."  ³⁸"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered.  "May it be to me as you have said."  Then the angel left her.

The Jesus who was born in Bethlehem was meant to be born in each of us. Because of His birth in Bethlehem Jesus is and can be born in us today. That birth in Bethlehem began not with an act of human will, but with an announcement from an angelic visitor. “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.” The Virgin Birth says, “If you are going to be saved, it will not be by your own effort. You are helpless.” The Virgin Birth is hard to believe because it confronts us with a truth about ourselves that is hard to accept. It is the truth about the limits of our control, about a basic helplessness that only God can do something about. We need to recognize the dark side of all our doing and our activity. It keeps up the façade of our control. It can feed our ego and it can shut us off from the truth that in many respects we are really helpless. Is there any feeling we hate worse than feeling we are helpless? Are there any words we dread to hear more than “There is nothing you can do about it.” We are a nation and a people who are spinning with the intoxication of being in charge and in control. No other people have ever known the level of control that we have over the forces of nature and over the affairs of our daily lives.

God’s creative work can happen at any time and any place. Certainly it can topple us from our pinnacles of pride. But God’s creative work seems to come most often into the darkness of our helplessness. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Virgin Birth is about a power that can reach us, and touch us and create new life within us. The Virgin Birth says that no self-centeredness is so strong that God cannot penetrate it with His life giving power. No façade of control and confidence is so impregnable that it can keep God out. No life can be so far gone into self-destruction that God cannot draw it back. No separation is so wide that God cannot connect with us and plant the seed of life.

This is the grand and glorious truth that the Virgin Birth beckons us to believe. And the season of Christmas will reach out to us to help us experience this truth in a real way. The stories stir in us a sense of life that seems to have been lost. The carols touch our spirits with a spark of life. It is to the helpless that the angel speaks, “For nothing is impossible with God.” When we face the truth of our helplessness our hearts are fertile for hope to happen. In situations of hopelessness, frustrations, and aggravations hear the angel’s announcement:  “For with God nothing will be impossible.”

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

copyright Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 245 - What’s the Use?

John 5:1-9  (NIV)  ¹ Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”  ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”  ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

  

The healing of the lame man by the pool of Bethesda is a miracle by Jesus. What is the message of this miracle? Most of us have lived our lives in times of medical hope in new treatments, procedures, and of some new discovery on the horizon. This was not the case for the people languishing around the pool of Bethesda. In the eyes of society and in their own eyes, they were a lost cause.

In this world it is easy to give up and to give in. Jesus said to the man do you want to get well meaning are you willing to be well. That question challenges some of our basic beliefs that blind us and bind us to feel helpless. Behind our behaviors, whether health food nuts or junk food junkies, joggers or homebodies, are basic beliefs that shape and determine our life. Do you want to get well is a direct affront to these background beliefs that are so crucial to our make up, but here is our hope - Jesus’ words cut through the lame excuses, demolish the doomed mindset, stir an unknown power within, and the warmth of life begins to return to the soul.

Power for change is fairly rare. Only one person by the pool of Bethesda found and felt that power for life and hope. With the power of Christ we are not to succumb to the threats or be pressured back into futility, blind to the truth we see in Jesus. The truth is, most of us already have more of the power of Christ within us than we ever spend. We are misers of miracles, penny-pinching guardians of grace.  But, remember, this miraculous healing was a sign, and the sign says this power is real and is available.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope March 2, 1986

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 244 - The Life of the Party

John 2:1-10 (NIV) ¹ On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” ⁴ “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.  ⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.  ⁸ Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, ⁹ and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”  

At a wedding in Cana, Jesus turned six jugs of water into wine. At first glance this miracle seems to have little socially redeeming value. There where thousands lost in their rebellion against God, hundreds caught in the web of legalism, many going to bed hurting and hungry, and the first sign we have of the miracles of Jesus is this: helping a host out of a small social embarrassment.

This miracle makes no sense to the rest of Jesus’ ministry unless it is pointing to something more basic and more important to His work than simply making sure everyone had enough at the party. “The wine has run out” is still a way we say that joy has left and disappointment has set in. This disappointment is a common experience for those who follow some utopian dream or some great person who is believed to have the power to pull it off.

Disappointment takes its toll on our life, dampening our confidence while kindling a spirit of uncaring disobedience. Disappointment can erode our hopes until humanly speaking we have only the human best to hope for – that we will live out our life in something like peace and with the ones we love. Indeed this was probably the underlying spirit at the wedding in Cana. The people had a dream of a promised Messiah who was going to bring all sorts of good things to God’s chosen people. But that dream had been shattered again and again until it had become only a fond wish. Pilate and the Pharisees declared that the party was over for the disciples that Friday when Jesus was crucified. The disciples experienced disappointment. The wine ran out of their life with Jesus, and the party was over – but it wasn’t. The party had come to a close, but not an end. And Jesus turned the bitter water into the wine of life and gladness.

The promise of this miracle is that Jesus will pour his life of joy and gladness into those moments of disappointment.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 16, 1986

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

Day 243 - Roots and Wings

Isaiah 55:8-11  (NIV) ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, ¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

II Timothy 3:12-17 (NRSV) ¹² Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

The Scriptures root our life in the truth of God so that we might stand strong and resistant to the pressure of false trends and continue in a steady course. There is the battle for the good life, the promise that more will make us happier and that we can live by bread alone and be completely satisfied. The battle is waged on many fronts, not the least of which is the human mind and heart.

The Scriptures also give us wings. All Scriptures are profitable for training in righteousness, that the people of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Righteousness means putting things right. It means conforming life to the way God meant for it to be. Wielding the very power of God, we have been given wings to fly into the destructive storms that twist and distort life. Neither the size of the gale nor the audaciousness of the task should deter us. We have been given truth to confront the works of the lie, to cast out demons of self-interest, to exorcize false confidence in violence, to cleanse those possessed of the spirit of desire driving them to exhaustion, and to raise those who are dead in spirit and in conscience. Who is going to debunk the myths of materialism if not those who have learned to enjoy God’s gifts with gratitude. Who is going to know the things that make for peace if not those who follow the Prince of Peace. Who is going to assert God’s final victory over disease, death, fear, and pride if not those who have learned of God’s will from Scripture and seen God’s will fulfilled in the lives of God’s people.

We can resist with heart and mind, but slowly the message and the spirit of the Scriptures are invested in our lives and become a part of who we are, how we think, and how we act.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 242 - Should We Enlist in the Culture War?

I Thessalonians 2:4 (NIV) ⁴ On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.

I Thessalonians 15, 19-22 (NIV)  ¹⁵ Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.  ¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰ Do not treat prophecies with contempt ²¹ but test them all; hold on to what is good, ²² reject every kind of evil.

I John 4:1-3a (NIV) ¹ Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

Paul’s word to the church in Thessalonika is basic: TEST EVERYTHING. The mind of the Christian is not meant to be soft. Faith is not gullibility, but neither is it to see if everything agrees with our opinions, our views, or our faith. Our culture has a strong Religious Right and a Religious Left. The two groups differ in their views about everything from abortion to euthanasia, from what is taught in public schools to what rights people have in their private homes. Who or what really causes us to say yes or no to what we hear?

The traditional source of authority for Christians is the written word of Scripture and the living word given by the Holy Spirit. When we turn to the written word, we hear John tell by what standard we should test everything: test the spirits to see if they are of God; and, this is how we will know if the spirit is of God: confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and is of God.

The history of the church is replete with voices confessing that Jesus is a reliable standard to help us decide what is truth and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. We test what we know of Jesus Christ against what is being said, and what we believe. Do we find this too narrow? Can we trust One person who lived 2000 years ago to give us the answers to complex issues today? Is the test too subjective? Is it too easy to confuse our own prejudices with the words of Jesus Christ? Test everything to see if they make public the mind and spirit of Jesus Christ.

There is one more part of this test we need to know, and here is our hope. While we are testing to see if beliefs and statements are of God, God is testing us. It may be that we say, “I had always been taught, but when I actually read the Bible I found out … “ Or, “I was raised to believe and then one day I discovered that God…” The church fathers called this “a holy disturbance.”  Convictions tested by God in Jesus Christ come through to us clear and strong. We are to test what we hear and what we believe against Jesus Christ. And equally important is to know that God is testing us.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope September 17, 1995

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 241 - The Peril and Promise of Self-Denial

Luke 9:23-25 (NIV)  ²³ Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. ²⁵ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

James 4:1-3, 5-10 (NIV)  ¹ What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. ⁵ Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? ⁶ But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” ⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

The value of self-denial has always been difficult, but it has been made more difficult by the increasing value our culture has put on self-fulfillment. The notion is that we should affirm ourselves. We should express ourselves, actualize ourselves and assert ourselves. The values of duty, obligation and self-sacrifice are seen as being repressive and a severe limit to our need to be free and expressive and full of satisfaction in life. So, for example, love as sacrifice or as subordination to another is seen as offensive, as unhealthy, and as an affront to common sense.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God,” James said, and that is what Jesus meant when He said we should deny ourselves and take up our Cross. And, here are some of the things we will need to do: resist the devil who tries to make us think that denying ourselves is groveling and derogatory; cleanse our minds of the clutter of wanting so many different things that we are left feeling strained and stressed; purify our hearts and focus our minds and hearts on what God wants for us.

And then James says God gives grace. God gives both the responsibilities that are ours and the wisdom to say “no” to those that are not. God gives us the pleasures we need. God gives the relationships and success that we need, and God gives the gift of orchestrating our inner desires and our whole lives so that everything finds its place and it just fits rights. When our lives have been touched by the love of God in Jesus, when we have discovered a small portion of God’s fierce commitment to us in Jesus, then submission to God becomes our most pressing need and our highest value.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope September 24, 1995

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell