In Job 36:26, Elihu says of God-

Behold, God is great, and we know him not;
the number of his years is unsearchable.

I have 3 comments-

1. Behold!  We need to look, to SEE God, as He is revealed in His Word, the Bible, and through Jesus, God Incarnate, Emmanuel, God With Us!
2. God is indeed great!  In our search to KNOW God, it is good to remember that we will never fully know and understand Him.  That doesn’t mean that we give up and don’t try to know Him, but our finite minds will never have the capacity to completely know our infinite God.
3. God is eternal! We don’t box God into time.

Ok.  At this point, I’m pretty clear that I misunderstood what Scott Cairns was saying about sin.

I read “… turning away from sin is, without question, one way to apprehend the call to repentance; but I glimpse, even so, in the desert fathers … a healthier characterization of this necessary turn — specifically, that we turn not so much away as toward.”  And I read this as instead of turning away from our sin, we turn toward it.  What I didn’t fully process came two paragraphs later:  “Our specific hope lies in turning toward.  As a result, the sin we suffered is behind us just the same, but that sin is no longer the power that occassioned our turn.”  He adds later ”… we must … cultivate an awareness of how near the Holy One bides, how immediaely he accompanies our every moment, how sweetly he attends our every breath.  When we turn toward him .. that change is not so much precipitated by aversion as by love … [that has] … brought God with us.”

So it’s an awareness of God’s presence in our lives and a turning towards the sweetness of God, rather than turning away from our sin, that is being suggested.  And as I see this, I immediately think about the difference between church styles.  Many churches focus on our sin and our need to repent as our entry into holy living.  What I would term sacramental churches, among which the Episcopal Church is one, focus on the goodness of God as found in the sacraments (special things like the bread and wine of communion and the water and oil of baptism through which we approach our God) and the sacramental (the things of God’s creation, in general, through which we can see and approach God).  There are arguments for both.  And you can argue we’re all seeing the same half full/empty glass.  But I have a strong preference for the sacramental.  It feeds me.

And of course, once I see this, I begin to see it everywhere.  I reread this section just before I said Morning Prayer.  And in the psalm this morning  (Psalm 119 in verses 57 - 59) I read ” … you only are my portion, O God … I entreat you with all my heart … I have … turned my feet toward your decrees.”  And in the canticle from Julian of Norwich (used in the St. Helena Breviary during Advent) I read ” … Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, our trespass and our humiliations … Christ protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need … we are all  bound to God by nature; we are all bound to God by grace.”  And in the Advent hymn I read ” … the Lamb descends from heaven above to conquer sin with freest love …”  All of these seem to talk about sin and turning towards God.

And this makes sense to me.

I’m not sure if I’ve really thought of it as a response to sin before.  I’ve thought of turning towards the loving grace of God in my sinfulness.  But I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about turning towards the loving grace of God as an immediate response to a particular sin.  I think my immediate response has (at least generally) been to turn away from my sin, rather than towards my God.

I’m thinking turning towards God is a good idea.

Thanks, Scott, and all your teachers.

Well, Advent got off to the best start for me I’ve ever had.  And yet as I round the corner into the third week of Advent, I find myself humbled.  Many of the things I have started are no longer happening as I had envisioned them.  Between the extra histories and holy days in the book and some slippage of discipline on my part, I am no longer a week ahead in my reading of “God With Us.”  I am current.  And I only did the extra scripture readings associated with that book for roughly the first week (though most of them are familiar enough without rereading).  My exercising is no longer daily (though it continues).  I’ve done less with the Anglican Rosary than I had hoped.  And no, Susan, we have not really had any discussion together about our readings of “God With Us.”  I knew that first week was a gift.  But still, I had expected more (of myself).

It’s not that I haven’t been receiving, mind you.  I’ve had plenty of food for thought (whether it’s reading Scott Cairns talking about the idea of turning into our sins rather than turning away from them, or noticing the feast of the conception of the Virgin Mary for the very first time).  I’ve had things to share, and they have enriched my preaching.  And I still have a sharper sense of Advent, this year, than I expect I will again.  I even have a Benedictine Weekend Experience to look forward to this Friday through Sunday!

So, really not unexpectedly, life and work have caught up with me.  But not completely.  For which I still give thanks.  I still have some sense of walking with the sacred in my daily experience of Advent, beyond what I have experienced in the past, and which I expect I will be able to maintain, and even grow as the season continues.  I’m still experiencing the season in a new way.  It’s vitalizing.  And I’m grateful.  Thank you Jesus for coming into my life this Advent as you have.  Thank you for the gift of your sustaining presence.  Help me be present for you, as you are for me.

I was thinking about this again as I get ready to head to IWS in January.  All of history is God’s story and worship is the way we retell and re-enact that story.  And by worship, I not only mean our gatherings on the weekend, but our lives.  We have the opportunity to see how our small story is being woven into the larger, cosmic story of God in the world.  Actually, Tim Keller says it better so I’ll let him take over…

…we usually read the Bible as a series of disconnected stories, each with a ‘moral’ for how we should live our lives. It is not. Rather, it comprises a single story, telling us how the human race got into its present condition, and how God through Jesus Christ has come and will come to put things right. In other words, the Bible doesn’t give us a god at the top of a moral ladder saying, ‘If you try hard to summon up your strength and live right, you can make it up!’ Instead, the Bible repeatedly shows us weak people who don’t deserve God’s grace, don’t seek it, and don’t appreciate it even after they have received it. If that is the great biblical story arc into which every individual scriptural narrative fits, then what do we learn from this story?  -Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods, pp. 36-37 (emphasis mine)

Memorial to Makayla Sitton and Raymonde Joseph

Many of us enjoyed the blessing of the Thanksgiving dinner with friends, family and invited guests.  It was a wonderful time for many but for some this time of year brings memories of painful past experiences or relationships.

For the Sitton and Joseph families it began as a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  Seventeen family members and friends gathered at Jim and Muriel Sitton’s home in Jupiter, Fl.  There was food, Makayla sharing memorized Bible verses, the singing of worship songs, and the giving of thanks and unfortunately later in the night GUN FIRE.

As the night wore on one of the family members left the house briefly and returned with a gun.  He stood over his father and said “I have wanted to do this for years”.  The gun misfired as he attempted to shoot his father so he turned the gun on his mother, Raymonde, his twin sisters (one was pregnant) killing all three.  Then in execution style went to Makayla’s bedroom and while she slept shot her point blank in the head, chest and three other places killing this precious and special 6 year old daughter of Jim and Muriel.

Known to us

We heard of this tragedy Thanksgiving night and as it unfolded on Friday and the names were revealed Sharon went white.  She and the First Care Pregnancy Resources Centers knew Jim, Muriel and Makayla well.  Jim a videographer for our local NBC TV channel and supporter of First Care filmed and produced several videos for First Care.  They were at last year’s Walk for Life getting background film for the video he planned to produce for the next Walk.

Remembering the Joy

On Saturday Dec. 5^th and one day before Makayla’s 7^th birthday hundreds gathered in a local high school auditorium to pay their respects to these two people.  Sharon and I were both blessed and sadness to serve as greeter and usher for the memorial.  Hundreds filed into the auditorium under intense police protection as the killer is still on the loose and had threatened to come back and finish the job.  Plain closed police, SWAT, uniformed police as well as snipers were present.  As we left the ceremony I saw a sniper dressed in black descending from the school’s roof.

From Sharon’s position as greeter she watched all the grieving people entering the room while I was positioned on the isle where the families entered after all others were seated.  As the family came in Jim and Muriel walked right next to me.  Both were suffering deeply and it appeared like Jim was actually holding Muriel up so she would not collapse.  I wanted to reach out and hug them.  I wanted to say something to them.  But, I simply watched them as they walked to their seats at the front of auditorium where they would continue to mourn with the rest of us.

Pure evil

What happened that night on Thanksgiving was the act of a man filled with pure evil.  Living in a fallen world, trapped between the Garden of Eden and heaven suffering and evil exist.  Yet, as I listened to the people speaking at the memorial as well as Jim and Muriel via videotape they said loud and clearly what I remember saying and what we read in Gen 50:20 where Joseph says to his brothers “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today”.  David was referring to the saving of the Israelite people but I and the 500+ assembled heard Jim and Muriel saying the same thing.  Where the killer meant it for evil and had planned his evil act for years, God meant it for good, His good according to His definition of goodness.

Saw more

Muriel and Jim will never be the same.  Their suffering will last the rest of their life as they lost their only child that night and Muriel lost her mother.  A child described as special and deeply devoted to the Lord even at such a young age and a mother/grandmother who was deeply devoted to the Lord and her family.  Yet they saw more….  They saw the unseen God working according to His character, love, sovereignty, goodness, mercy and grace in the midst of evil, and the acts of a madman.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 12:18 NIV

Adverto Coram Deo

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It doesn’t seem like Christmas.  It should.  I LOVE Christmas!  Our Christmas lights are up, stockings are hanging over the fireplace and the Christmas tunes are playing non-stop.  We even hung garland on my daughter’s canopy bed!  It SHOULD FEEL LIKE CHRISTMAS!  But it doesn’t…

Is it the warm weather?
Is it the lack of snow?
Is it crazy life circumstances that keep me running around from event to event like a totally, crazy man?

Maybe.

Whatever the reason, Advent is slowly helping me get ready for it.  Advent (and the Jesse Tree) is forcing me to bypass the crazy, Christmas sales, the lack of snow and the hectic schedule.  It’s forcing me to focus on God’s story throughout history and as I do; I am again seeing God’s heart.  For God so loved the world that he wouldn’t let it continue to fall apart because of sin.  He sent his only Son to become flesh to reach out of the needy and help the poor.  He came to take care of the wickedness in OUR hearts once and for all.  And he did that by giving us His righteousness and faithfulness.

That goes far beyond tinsel and music.  Speaking of music…can you hear that?  That is God’s little voice calling you and me to join him in this cosmic mission to show the whole world what it means to be flesh and blood and have the spirit of God inside of you.  He is calling us to reach out to the needy and help the poor.  He is calling us to take care of the wickedness in our own hearts through His sacrifice.  He is calling you to accept His righteousness and faithfulness.

Become like a little child and see how amazing this season is…as my daughter likes to say, “Dad! LOOK!…IT’S A MIRACLE!”  And it is…God sent us the God-baby, Jesus.

I’m still not ready for Christmas…but I’m getting there.

John Piper, in a sermon, “A Year-End Look at Jesus Christ”

The voice says in [Revelation 1] v. 11, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches.” This means that the vision John is about to get is meant not just for him but for us as well. And the point of writing it down is to transmit to us the same kind of experience of seeing Jesus that he had.

“Write What You See” 

This is not easy to do—”write what you see.” It is easy to write words that you hear. But it is not easy to write in words glorious things that you see with your eyes. But it is possible, because Jesus said to do it. Jesus does not intend to come to each of the seven churches the way he came to John. He could have appeared to each congregation with this same vision. But he doesn’t. He appears to John and says, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches.” John gets the vision. We get the book.

But this is not because Christ wants to be distant and impersonal with his churches. It is because he wants to come to us in and through his Word. He wants us to seek him in his Word, and know him by his Word, and gaze upon him steadily through his Word. And when we do, the Lord stands forth from his Word in ways beyond the merely rational and intellectual possibilities of reading.

The primary way of gazing on Christ today is through his Word. That is the clear implication of these words in verse 11, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the . . . churches.” Why else write in a book what he saw except to transmit to the readers some of that same experience.

Take a few minutes each day to record your thoughts in your journey.   As you do this, ponder and record how you were able to see the hand of God that day in your life.   As you do this, your love of God will increase in abundance.

Well, Alana DeBare’s blog has me remembering.

I grew up in the church.  I was an acolyte, and in the choir, and in the youth group, and on the worship committee, and on (something unique called) the “associate” vestry, and a delegate to diocesan convention …  The list goes on.

But I also left the church.  This happened after diocesan convention.  Where we refused to spend any time looking at women’s ordination and the Vietnam War.  And we parodied each other’s points of view (rather viciously) even as we refused to look at the major issues of our day.  I came back and reported this to my congregation.  And I remember this even as we’ve faced difficult times addressing difficult issues in the Episcopal Church today.  We’ve lost some members.  And it’s been difficult.  But it’s been a real attempt to address (not duck) the difficult issues of our day.  And much of the time we’ve avoided calling each other names.

In truth, that precipitated things for me.  But it was far from the only thing involved.  I was pretty sure I didn’t believe some of the God talk in common usage around me.  I didn’t believe about God or in God the way it seemed I was expected to believe.  I guess I’d have to say that though the idea of God was important to me, and did a lot to shape my life, I didn’t have what I would have considered a personal experience of God.  I took a lot of flack from evangelicals who dismissed my beliefs.  Though I did my best to stand up for my God when a street preacher made a mockery of my faith telling students at U C Irvine that there were the Christians and the pigs, and we were all pigs.  I told him that I considered myself a Christian.  And for the first time in my life, he had made me embarrassed to admit it.

Anyway, at a certain point, I left the Episcopal Church.  I was involved through AFSC in a summer project of peace education and civil disobedience (around the war in Vietnam).  And the only vestige of church contact I had was occassional attendance at a Friends Meeting.  Silent worship made no intellectual demands on me.  The silence nurtured me, even if I was pretty sure I no longer believed in God.  But I didn’t feel like I had to believe in God to be welcome there.  And this was a pretty occassional thing.

I’d been shaped by the church.  I thought the values I’d internalized were good values.  I thought it was worth living as though I believed in God.  But I’m pretty sure I didn’t believe in God any longer.

Really, it was after the summer working for AFSC that I had a revelation.

There was something lacking in my life.  Something that had sustained me was missing.  It was missing in my life.  I couldn’t define it very well.  But it seemed to have something to do with God.

Mind you, God still wasn’t personal for me at that time in my life.  It was more like a force.  And it came to be a way of looking at the world that gave it coherence for me.

I went to seminary because it seemed to me that I needed to learn how to read the Bible.  I needed to learn how the Bible could be a guide for my life — not simply a place I looked for quotations to support what I already believed.

For me, God only became personal while I was attending seminary.  And not, I might add, because of what I was learning at seminary.  But in a time of deep depression, while I was driving away from the seminary, God came to me.  Or so I understand the experience.  Suddenly there were all these people from my life who loved me present in that car with me.  Most of them were not physically anywhere near where I was living.  Some of them I knew were dead.  Some of them I couldn’t even identify.  But these people loved me.  And their love held me up.  And I knew, as I experienced their love, that their love was just a part of how God loved me.  And somehow that God who loved me was Jesus.

Now, I didn’t go looking for God.  Not in a personal sense anyway.  But God found me.  And Jesus lifted me out of my depression.  I’d been trying to do that for myself, with no success.  But it was as though a switch had been turned on.  One minute I was depressed.  The next minute I was, no, not happy, but I was no longer depressed.  And I moved into happiness.

Now this may be a particularly Christian way of finding God.  Our God, after all, in Jesus was born into this world and lived a human life.  But I know that sense of a personal God is present in Buber’s “I and Thou.”  And I rather suspect that hassidic leaders in some way represent and put a face on God for some Jews.  And I know that mystics of many faiths have very personal encounters with the divine, however they language it, in their many varied experiences.

I think I need to be careful here.  I don’t think that my experience of my faith is better than someone else’s experience because I encounter God as a person or because I am a Christian.  A personal God is better for me.  The Christian path is also better for me.  But I have friends on different paths.  And I’m pretty sure my God has children on more paths that I could ever imagine.

Anyway, she got me thinking.

Our series for Christmas is titled, The Root, The Shoot and the Fruit. We are kicking off Advent by using the picture of Jesus as a shoot of Jesse.  Oh by the way if you’re an ECC-er, make sure you pick up your copy of the Jesse Tree Project book in the lobby or you can download it here (click on the link on the right sidebar)  It will walk you through what we are talking about…but let me give you the basic idea here…

The Jesse Tree is a way for us to tell the story of Jesus, the Root, Shoot and Fruit of Jesse.  The name comes from Isaiah 11:1:

A shoot will spring forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots.

As the season progresses we will  see the story of God in the Old Testament, and connect Advent with the faithfulness of God across 4,000 years of history. The Branch is a biblical sign of newness out of discouragement or new life, which became a way to talk about the expected messiah.  The prophet Jeremiah writes,

Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;
And He will reign as king and act wisely
And do justice and righteousness in the land.

So the branch is a good symbol of Jesus, who is the Messiah from the line of David and who will come again as king.

We know the rest of that story. God was faithful to that promise, and a new King was born in Bethlehem. So we can exclaim with the old man Simeon: “My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before all people, a light of revelation to the nations, and for glory to your people Israel!” (Luke 2:30-32).

We look for the full reign of the King, and the Kingdom of Peace that He will bring.  So, while we celebrate the birth of the Branch, the new shoot from the stump of Jesse, we still anticipate with hope the Second Coming (Advent), and await the completion of the promise.  I can’t wait…

I think it’s my son’s fault.  Having a new baby forces you to slow down and re-evaluate what you’re doing.  In other words, my son is messing up our family routines and schedules forcing us to sacrifice and adapt to his schedule.   It’s all his fault.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way because he’s forcing me out of my comfort zone again to find what God has for me.   So many times I can get busy and restless and tense about anything and nothing at all.   So when I recently read these words from Henri Nouwen in his book, Seeds of Hope, they struck a chord with me.

What most strikes me, being back in the United States, is the full force of the restlessness, the loneliness, and the tension that holds so many people. The conversations I had today were about spiritual survival. So many of my friends feel overwhelmed by the many demands made on them; few feel the inner peace and joy they so much desire.

He goes on to say that many of us think that community, creation, love and God’s goodness are just ideals that are hard to achieve.  And he has a point. Stuck in the cycle of to-do lists, work demands and family schedules, it’s hard to find those things we so desperately desire.  There is so much to distract us from that still, small voice of God.  For me, having a baby has smashed many of my life routines.  Things are totally different now and that forces me to evaluate what I’m doing and to work even harder to find time for prayer, silence (sometimes at 1 AM while walking Silas!), listening, adoration of God, and lasting friendships.  Speaking of friendships, we have received cards, meals and gifts from many of you and we are overwhelmed by your friendship.   I am really humbled because I don’t deserve this level of love and care.   God is touching us through you.  This what many of us want and Silas is forcing me to learn that lesson all over again.  It’s all his fault.   And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As I mentioned last week, WE’RE GETTING A NEW BABY AND THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT IS…we’re still waiting.  No news.  But in this week of waiting, I’ve been thinking about new life.  My child is getting ready to come into the world and that brings so many biblical pictures to mind…

First,God is the giver of life.

Secondly, we know that children are a gift from God.

Thirdly, Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children we will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Lastly, I’m reminded that Satan is on a mission to destroy this world and everything that is good, pure and godly.  That includes children and life in all it’s forms.  Satan wants to make us all into orphans.  He wants to separate us from our earthly parents and from our heavenly Father.  He wants to devour us and drag us down with himself.

That is why this next week is so exciting for me.  It starts this Sunday in the 11:15 AM service as 10 people will reject Satan and sin to join the family of God as forgiven sons and daughters washed clean by the blood of Jesus.  As Dan Cuver writes, “When we were on the outside without hope and home, Jesus brought us into his family (Ephesians 2:12-13, 19). What Jesus did for us is the Gospel.”  Baptizing 10 people into the family of God is the GOSPEL in real life!  This is LIFE AS WORSHIP!  Don’t miss this…10 people are going to stand up and publicly enter into a life of worship following Jesus as a son or daughter of God.

Hopefully next week, we will also welcome a new little baby into the Ward family.  We want to give orphans hope.  And when we bring orphans into our families, we again reenact the Gospel.

I will be truly excited to welcome new brothers and sisters this Sunday…and I can’t wait to see my baby for the first time.  This is life in all it’s forms.

Many decisions that ought to be taken are not taken due to one of the following reasons:
1. we try to rationalize the situation assuming that our finite and limited human minds has infinite comprehension and abilities or
2. we think of the consequences of the decision and are paralyzed for fear of life or fear of being ridiculed.

In today’s text, taken from the book of Exodus, we will look at Moses, who chose to refuse the pleasures and treasures NO MATTER WHAT.

As a backdrop to this character, Moses who was raised the prince of Egypt, by Pharaoh’s own daughter, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He instead chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. The consequences of Moses’ action meant that he would now have to give up what many others would aspire to have, he would have to go up against Pharaoh himself to seek deliverance for the people of God, and more importantly, his own life would now be in jeopardy. Moses  nonetheless refused the pleasures and treasures NO MATTER WHAT the consequences would be.

If Moses had rationalized or thought of the consequences, he would have possibly ended up as a successor of Pharaoh in Egypt, merely gaining ephemeral passing pleasures and temporary treasures. His life history may or may not be recorded in history books and with his death, he would be soon forgotten. His act of refusal to accept the things the world offered, and to stand for the people of God, not only solidified his friendship with God (Exodus 33:11) but also earned him an entry into the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11:24),  and gave him the privilege of being one who is recorded to have seen the invisible God. (Deuteronomy 34:10, Hebrews 11:27). Our refusal of the pleasures and treasures this world has to offer, makes our heart focus on the people and things of God and with the purification work of the Holy Spirit of God in us, we can expect to see God. Jesus Christ will reveal himself unto them whose hearts are pure, who refuse to be corrupted by the pleasures and treasures of this world. Only those who are pure in heart can see God (Matthew 5:8).

Points to ponder:

1. What is God asking of you and me today to refuse?
2. Can we take the step to refuse the pleasures and treasures this world has to offer, without rationalizing or thinking of the consequences, NO MATTER WHAT?

One of the good things about being less than full time is that I get to visit other congregations and see what they’re doing.  I think it was the end of last month I visited All Saints in Sacramento (as supply) and really enjoyed meeting the people.  Things were just enough different to keep me on my toes.  I enjoyed it.

Tonight I visited the contemplative Eucharist done 7:15 PM Sundays at Trinity in Folsom.  They had a congregation of around 20 for this (still relatively) new service.  Gentle lighting, candles, silence and bells set the tone.  And they have a very nice period for healing prayers built into the service.  I enjoyed it.  And since I wasn’t the celebrant, I could just sit back and let the service flow over me.

These are both Episcopal Churches.  But on vacation (of one kind or another) I have visited Friends Meetings, Methodist and Lutherans, as well as Episcopalians.  For various professional and personal reasons, I know I have also visited Baptists and Roman Catholics and Assemblies of God and Orthodox congregations.  I’m sure I’ve been to other Christian Churches.  (The list keeps getting longer, but I’m going to stop here.)  Ive been to synagogue services several times.  (I was having surgery on my knee when we made arrangements to visit a local mosque.  So I missed that opportunity.  But we have had visitors from that mosque at two churches I have served.)  I do have some definite preferences (I am Episcopalian for a reason).  But I have been enriched by these experiences, and have probably learned things at every visit.  I don’t remember visiting Budhists at worship.  But I have benefited from reading and hearing a number of Budhists.  (My original contemplative practice of sitting meditation came out of a Budhist book, many years ago.)

I am glad to be at St. George’s.  I enjoy both of our services — though they are quite different.  I’m not sure there’s anyplace I’d rather worship — which is probably a good thing!  But experiencing the different approaches so many of God’s children have to their worship is a gift that has blessed me.  And I am grateful.

John Piper, in a sermon, “The Ascent of Joy” Text: Luke 24:50-53

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. We believe, Jesus, that you died for our sins, rose on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and that you are coming again. I beg of you, help us to see and feel what that means: that you will be revealed in unspeakable cosmic glory, that you will roll up the sky like a scroll and throw it away, you will cleave the earth and sweep it clean with worldwide judgment, and you will make a new heaven and a new earth in a universe of righteousness and holiness. For before you, all the nations are as dust, and lighter than dust; in the scales they go up. Our biggest bombs are like caps in your pistol; our computers are the tinker toys of heaven. O God, have mercy on our blindness; forgive us that we are so easily enamored by the big, the novel, the flashy works of man and so little awed by the power at work in Jesus Christ. Frustrate the god of this world and tear the veil apart that we might see the worldwide, indeed the universal, significance of the ascension of our Lord Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen….

…Jesus Christ is the king of the universe, and there is nothing Satan can do about it. But he can do this: he can try to put a veil over your mind so that a hundred things, which will all pass away, seem to shine more brightly than the kingship of Jesus. Resist him firm in your faith! Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. He will take the veil away that you might see the ascension of Jesus for what it really is: the homecoming and coronation of the Son of God, the validation of the sufficiency of his sacrifice for sin, the inauguration of his eternal intercessory work, and his installation as the sovereign God-man over all the enemies of the church. O, that we might always be a people who worship Jesus and make our way obediently to Jerusalem rejoicing and saying continually:

Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And forget not all the benefits of his ascension!

Well, stuff keeps coming up.  The same stuff.  Isn’t that the way it goes?

In this morning’s gospel (Episcopal Daily Office Lectionary) Jesus says, “Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.”

He says other things too.  But that’s really enough for today.  I don’t know if this challenges you the way it challenges me.  But it is a challenge for me.

I know there is a Jewish tradition that you must give to everyone who asks for your help.  And I suspect Jesus was in this tradition.  The tradition doesn’t (as I understand it) require you to make someone completely whole.  But the expectation is that you will do something to help.  I think the thought is that if everyone does a little something, it will add up to enough.  But I’m guessing.

I find myself wanting to give help in a way that has a chance of changing a life.  I don’t want to buy a loaf of bread today (or a bottle of wine) that leaves someone hungry tomorrow, repeating the same cycle like Groundhog Day.  I really want to target the help in a program or circumstances where there seems to be some hope of breaking the cycle and letting someone move on to a new life where this won’t be a daily, repeated reality.  Doing less seems wasteful.  It seems like bad stewardship.  But not responding to the immediate need seems stingy.  (And there is even a part of me that says that if I were on the street, and wanted some booze to leave behind the reality of my life, it shouldn’t be anybody else’s business.)

So I’m torn.

And I probably always will be.

But Jesus does say, here (Matthew 5:42) and elsewhere, to give to everyone who begs from me.  He does say that when I give to someone like this, I really give to Jesus himself.  And when I don’t give, it is Jesus himself I refuse.

Speaking only for myself, this makes me uncomfortable.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

John Piper, in a sermon “What Faith Knows and Hopes For”

Here is an analogy at the physical level. A few years ago one of the rages was hidden 3-D images. These are pieces of art that, on one level, are one thing, but at another level are something quite different. At first glance all you see is the surface presentation. But if you let your eyes focus more deeply, or more distantly, you may see a train or a boxing kangaroo or a globe not only appearing, but actually standing up off the page. Now some people stare at these pages for several minutes and see nothing but color and chaos. But others almost immediately see the head of Beethoven or a lamb. If someone says, “How do you know a lamb is there?” the answer is, “I see it.” Your seeing is the evidence. They may not see it, but that won’t change your mind.

Now this is what it is like for some to look at God’s creation. Some see color and chaos. Others have a deeper view and suddenly God’s fingerprints come into focus. What evidence can they offer? They see it. It is as undoubted as a lamb in a 3-D image. No one can talk you out of it.

You may ask, “Should that be called faith?” Didn’t Paul say (in 2 Corinthians 5:7), “We walk by faith and not by sight”? How can faith be “sight”? Paul meant that Christ is not present physically on earth to see with physical eyes, but is in heaven. He did not mean that there is no spiritual perception of God’s reality. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the conviction – or better, the evidence – of things not seen.” And then the writer illustrates this in verse 3 when he says that “we understand by faith” that God created the world. In other words, faith is not just a responding act of the soul; it is also a grasping or perceiving or understanding act. It is a spiritual act that sees the fingerprints of God. This does not mean that you believe them into being. That would be wishful thinking – the power of positive thinking. That is not authentic faith. Real faith is based on real Truth. It looks deeply at the world God has made – looks through it, so to speak – and by the grace of God, it sees the glory of God (as Psalm 19:1 says) standing forth off the creation like a 3-D image.

To read or listen to the rest of this sermon, click here:

In the rear-view mirror, I see my daughter gazing at me.  She doesn’t understand and has been asking questions for weeks.  She also has that same look at other times when she is trying to figure out what I’m thinking or saying.  Her eyes are questioning.  I can see the wheels in her mind turning.  She says,

“Who are are going to play with?”

“We’re going to meet some new friends and there will be two kids for you to play with, honey,” I say.

How do you explain meeting another family that might soon be connected with us through a new life?  I don’t know.  But as we drive down the road towards that meeting in a park with KFC on the picnic table between us, I flash back in my mind to the first time I met my daughter in the hospital.

She was so little.  She was so beautiful and fragile.  Her arms up over her head as if just ordered to “put those hands up where I can see them”.  Sara and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes as if to say, “Well, here we go”.  And then we opened the door of the hospital nursery.  We opened the door to what God was calling us to do and be.  We opened the door to the gospel lived out day after day.  That is what adoption is for us.  It’s the gospel.

I don’t know what your experience with adoption may be.  You might know someone who has adopted or have a family member who joined your family through adoption.  Maybe you’ve thought about adoption for yourself or maybe you haven’t really considered it.  Wherever you are, let me share a little bit of my experience and maybe you’ll start to see adoption in a new light.  Because all of us who look to Jesus as Savior and Lord can also claim Him as a big brother through adoption.

The Bible tells us that Father God designed the family to reflect Himself and His family.  Eph 3:14-15 states,

…I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom his whole family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name.

In other words, we know what a family is supposed to look like and what Fathers are supposed to look like because of who God is.  He is the first and ultimate father.  Any fatherhood I show my daughter is because of God, the Father.  That is challenging to me because the opposite is also true.  My understanding of God as Father is influenced by my earthly Dad.  And the same is true for my daughter.  She is probably learning more about God from watching me than from the Bible stories we read together at the dinner table.  And that is gospel.

Through the family, and especially adoption, we learn about our identity in Christ.  We are adopted sons and daughters of the Most High God.  This is who we are and because of that we have an eternal inheritance waiting for us.  It also tells us what we are supposed to be doing…what our mission is now.

I had such a sense of mission as we met with this other family over the picnic table.  This meeting wasn’t about me.  It wasn’t about my wife.  It wasn’t about the birth-parents.  It was about a little, unborn child we all wanted to be loved and have grow up in a family environment.  Jesus and God the Father have helped me know who I am.  I trust them with my soul and so I’m going to trust them in this too.  I am here to bring this one little life into an earthly family.

I hope and pray this child comes into God’s family too.  And that is adoption as mission.  That is adoption as gospel.

It might sound all wonderful and exalted, but the reality is many times it’s messy, dirty and strange.  Probably much like your family.  What do you say to birth-parents when you meet them at the park over fried chicken?  What do you tell your 3 year old daughter about meeting these other kids?  I’ve done it and I’m still not sure.  This is what I wrote last night as I reflected on the day:

Unsure what to say,

our kids play…foreshadowing…

“You work second shift?”

All I know is that God is using this experience to change me in profound and radical ways.  It’s changing the way I see the scriptures, view my banking account, think about fatherhood and view the world of the unfortunate and hopeless.  I hope reading this has helped change you a little bit too.  Not that you would be called to adopt (although I pray that also), but that you would understand that in the midst of your messy, dirty life God sent you a big brother named Jesus to bring you into His family.  You didn’t deserve it.  In fact most people would look at you as the dirty, dysfunctional, dangerous unwanted orphan of sin.  But not God, your Father.  He looks at you even now and calls you “son” or “daughter” with love in His eyes.  That is adoption as gospel.

Life is speeding up and starting to get crazy!  I write an article like this around this time of year thinking, “Next year will be different!”  But here I am again feeling the pressure of Fall closing in.  If you’re like our family, you’ve spent the last week or so battling the cold that just won’t go away.  Many of us have their kids back in school and are still adjusting to new schedules.  Also, this week we have had a number of people in the ministry impacted by the suicides of people they know.  And that’s just the things I’m aware of…I’m sure you’re facing other situations that make your life speed fast and faster and yet the light at the end of the tunnel seems darker and darker.

In the midst of this crazy chaos, I’m glad that God has something to say about chaos and darkness.  I’m doing a little study on the picture of “light” in scriptures and am holding to some truths about God in this crazy time.  As you know, God created light in the beginning.  He did this before he created the sun or moon too…did you catch that?  God separated light from darkness and there still was no sun or moon.  Many understand this to be God defeating the darkness and bring life/light into being by the power of His word.  This then becomes a metaphor all the way through the Bible.  Sin is seen as a form of darkness and Satan is even called “the Prince of Darkness”.  David talked about how God’s word is like a lamp to his feet and a light to his path.  Isaiah tells us the a new light is dawning as he prophecies of the coming Messiah.  Jesus, that same Messiah, says, “I am the light of the world” and calls us to be light in a dark world.  In Revelation, we go back to that first day of creation in the new heavens and new earth.  Revelation 22:5 says, “There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

Now that’s a super-sonic fly-by of the light metaphor in scripture, but I hope you catch the message.  Your life might be speeding out of control in the darkness.  You might feel like you’re driving by the braille method just hoping to feel the rumble strips before you crash off the road of life.  But in the midst of all that, God is telling us that he brings meaning to the chaos and light to the darkness.  I don’t totally understand it.  But when the first light of morning comes up over the trees, I am reminded that God is light, that his mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23) and this new day will have meaning if I look for His light on my path.

Let me encourage you to trust Him in the darkness and look for His light/life/mercy that is new every morning.  And as you do, maybe you will help shine some more light in this dark, crazy world for someone else too.

John Piper, in a sermon on Isaiah 6, “Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord of Hosts”

Isaiah invites us to share his vision of God in Isaiah 6:1–4.

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

Seven glimpses of God I see in these four verses, at least seven.

1. God Is Alive 

First, he is alive. Uzziah is dead, but God lives on. “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:2). God was the living God when this universe banged into existence. He was the living God when Socrates drank his poison. He was the living God when William Bradford governed Plymouth Colony. He was the living God in 1966 when Thomas Altizer proclaimed him dead and Time magazine put it on the front cover. And he will be living ten trillion ages from now when all the puny potshots against his reality will have sunk into oblivion like BB’s at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord.” There is not a single head of state in all the world who will be there in fifty years. The turnover in world leadership is 100%. In a brief 110 years this planet will be populated by ten billion brand new people and all four billion of us alive today will have vanished off the earth like Uzziah. But not God. He never had a beginning and therefore depends on nothing for his existence. He always has been and always will be alive.

2. God Is Authoritative 

Second, he is authoritative. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” No vision of heaven has ever caught a glimpse of God plowing a field, or cutting his grass or shining shoes or filling out reports or loading a truck. Heaven is not coming apart at the seams. God is never at wits’ end with his heavenly realm. He sits. And he sits on a throne. All is at peace and he has control.

The throne is his right to rule the world. We do not give God authority over our lives. He has it whether we like it or not. What utter folly it is to act as though we had any rights at all to call God into question! We need to hear now and then blunt words like those of Virginia Stem Owens who said in last month’s Reformed Journal,

Let us get this one thing straight. God can do anything he damn well pleases, including damn well. And if it pleases him to damn, then it is done, ipso facto, well. God’s activity is what it is. There isn’t anything else. Without it there would be no being, including human beings presuming to judge the Creator of everything that is.

Few things are more humbling, few things give us that sense of raw majesty, as the truth that God is utterly authoritative. He is the Supreme Court, the Legislature, and the Chief Executive. After him, no appeal.

3. God Is Omnipotent 

Third, God is omnipotent. The throne of his authority is not one among many. It is high and lifted up. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up.” That God’s throne is higher than every other throne signifies God’s superior power to exercise his authority. No opposing authority can nullify the decrees of God. What he purposes, he accomplishes. “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). “He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand” (Daniel 4:35). To be gripped by the omnipotence (or sovereignty) of God is either marvelous because he is for us or terrifying because he is against us. Indifference to his omnipotence simply means we haven’t seen it for what it is. The sovereign authority of the living God is a refuge full of joy and power for those who keep his covenant.

4. God Is Resplendent 

Fourth, God is resplendent. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” You have seen pictures of brides whose dresses are gathered around them covering the steps and the platform. What would the meaning be if the train filled the aisles and covered the seats and the choir loft, woven all of one piece? That God’s robe fills the entire heavenly temple means that he is a God of incomparable splendor. The fullness of God’s splendor shows itself in a thousand ways. For one little example, the January Ranger Rick has an article on species of fish who live deep in the dark sea and have their own built-in lights—some have lamps hanging from their chins, some have luminescent noses, some have beacons under their eyes. There are a thousand kinds of self-lighted fish who live deep in the ocean where none of us can see and marvel. They are spectacularly weird and beautiful. Why are they there? Why not just a dozen or so efficient streamlined models? Because God is lavish in splendor. His creative fullness spills over in excessive beauty. And if that’s the way the world is, how much more resplendent must be the Lord who thought it up and made it!

5. God Is Revered 

Fifth, God is revered. “Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.” No one knows what these strange six-winged creatures with feet and eyes and intelligence are. They never appear again in the Bible—at least not under the name seraphim. Given the grandeur of the scene and the power of the angelic hosts, we had best not picture chubby winged babies fluttering about the Lord’s ears. According to verse 4, when one of them speaks, the foundations of the temple shake. We would do better to think of the Blue Angels diving in formation before the presidential entourage and cracking the sound barrier just before his face. There are no puny or silly creatures in heaven. Only magnificent ones.

And the point is: not even they can look upon the Lord nor do they feel worthy even to leave their feet exposed in his presence. Great and good as they are, untainted by human sin, they revere their Maker in great humility. An angel terrifies a man with his brilliance and power. But angels themselves hide in holy fear and reverence from the splendor of God. How much more will we shudder and quake in his presence who cannot even endure the splendor of his angels!

6. God Is Holy 

Sixth, God is holy. “And one called to another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!’ Remember how Reepicheep, the gallant mouse, at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sailed to the end of the world in his little coracle? Well, the word “holy” is the little boat in which we reach the world’s end in the ocean of language. The possibilities of language to carry the meaning of God eventually run out and spill over the edge of the world into a vast unknown. “Holiness” carries us to the brink, and from there on the experience of God is beyond words.

The reason I say this is that every effort to define the holiness of God ultimately winds up by saying: God is holy means God is God. Let me illustrate. The root meaning of holy is probably to cut or separate. A holy thing is cut off from and separated from common (we would say secular) use. Earthly things and persons are holy as they are distinct from the world and devoted to God. So the Bible speaks of holy ground (Exodus 3:5), holy assemblies (Exodus 12:16), holy sabbaths (Exodus 16:23), a holy nation (Exodus 19:6); holy garments (Exodus 28:2), a holy city (Nehemiah 11:1), holy promises (Psalm 105:42), holy men (2 Peter 1:21) and women (1 Peter 3:5), holy scriptures (2 Timothy 3:15), holy hands (1 Timothy 2:8), a holy kiss (Romans 16:16), and a holy faith (Jude 20). Almost anything can become holy if it is separated from the common and devoted to God.

But notice what happens when this definition is applied to God himself. From what can you separate God to make him holy? The very god-ness of God means that he is separate from all that is not God. There is an infinite qualitative difference between Creator and creature. God is one of a kind. Sui generis. In a class by himself. In that sense he is utterly holy. But then you have said no more than that he is God.

Or if the holiness of a man derives from being separated from the world and devoted to God, to whom is God devoted so as to derive his holiness? To no one but himself. It is blasphemy to say that there is a higher reality than God to which he must conform in order to be holy. God is the absolute reality beyond which is only more of God. When asked for his name in Exodus 3:14, he said, “I am who I am.” His being and his character are utterly undetermined by anything outside himself. He is not holy because he keeps the rules. He wrote the rules! God is not holy because he keeps the law. The law is holy because it reveals God. God is absolute. Everything else is derivative.

What then is his holiness? Listen to three texts. 1 Samuel 2:2, “There is none holy like the Lord, there is none besides thee.” Isaiah 40:25, “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.” Hosea 11:9, “I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.” In the end God is holy in that he is God and not man. (Compare Leviticus 19:2 and 20:7. Note the parallel structure of Isaiah 5:16.) He is incomparable. His holiness is his utterly unique divine essence. It determines all that he is and does and is determined by no one. His holiness is what he is as God which no one else is or ever will be. Call it his majesty, his divinity, his greatness, his value as the pearl of great price. In the end language runs out. In the word “holy” we have sailed to the world’s end in the utter silence of reverence and wonder and awe. There may yet be more to know of God, but that will be beyond words. “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (Habakkuk 2:20).

7. God Is Glorious 

But before the silence and the shaking of the foundations and the all-concealing smoke we learn a seventh final thing about God. God is glorious. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.” The glory of God is the manifestation of his holiness. God’s holiness is the incomparable perfection of his divine nature; his glory is the display of that holiness. “God is glorious” means: God’s holiness has gone public. His glory is the open revelation of the secret of his holiness. In Leviticus 10:3 God says, “I will show myself holy among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.” When God shows himself to be holy, what we see is glory. The holiness of God is his concealed glory. The glory of God is his revealed holiness.

When the Seraphim say, “The whole earth is full of his glory,” it is because from the heights of heaven you can see the end of the world. From down here the view of the glory of God is limited. But it’s limited largely by our foolish preference for frills. To use a parable of Søren Kierkegaard, we are like people who ride our carriage at night into the country to see the glory of God. But above us, on either side of the carriage seat, burns a gas lantern. As long as our head is surrounded by this artificial light, the sky overhead is empty of glory. But if some gracious wind of the Spirit blows out our earthly lights, then in our darkness God’s heavens are filled with stars.

Some day God will blow and turn away every competing glory and make his holiness known in awesome splendor to every humble creature. But there is no need to wait. Job, Isaiah, Charles Colson, and many of you have humbled yourselves to go hard after the Holy God and have developed a taste for his majesty. To you and all the rest who are just beginning to feel it, I hold out this promise from God, who is ever alive, authoritative, omnipotent, resplendent, revered, holy, and glorious: “You will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me (go hard after me) with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:12–13).

To read or listen to the rest of Piper’s sermon, click here:

We’ve had a photo contest this summer here at ECC to coincide with the sermon series on Psalm 23.  The photo posted here is our overall winner by Darren & Lynette Smith and was submitted in the “Protection” category to fit with this piece of the psalm…

Even though I walk

through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You can see all the submissions here.

2Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ~ 1 John 3

I was pondering this verse a bit and wondering why “seeing God as he is” implies that the knowledge of our future state and being “like him”. Another verse from 2 Corinthians came mind from a teaching I had listened to and seemed to shed a little light on the matter.

18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. ~ 2 Corinthians 3

3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ~ 2 Corinthians 4

Our transformation, even in our current state of life, comes from beholding the glory of God, and particularly the glory of God in the gospel of grace through Jesus Christ. As we see more and more of God, and understand who he is, our lives are transformed. And so, at his coming, we know that we will be transformed to be like him as we see, as fully as possible, God, as he is.

20But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. ~ Philippians 3

(all references in ESV, all emphases added)