OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORSHIP, STUDY AND SERVICE
THIS WEEK
Tuesday, November 30 ...
7:00 pm Bible study
8: 00 Choir
Wednesday, December 1 ...
7:00 PM Pilgrim Circle Meeting in Parsonagwe
Thursday, December 2 ...
7:00 PM Choir
Sunday, December 5 ...
9:15 Sunday School Opening
9:30 Sunday School
10:30 Worship & Holy Communion
6:00 Youth Fellowship
BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK
Saturday, December 4 ... Brenda Truell
THIS PASTOR'S VIEWPOINT
John H. Bigelow
For the week of November 28, 2010
There was a beautiful “contemporary folksong” sung many years ago I believe by Glen Yarbrough, one of the better known members of a group called the Limelighters. I believe the title was “How Easy We Forget.” It used different alliterations to begin each verse, such as “Give me a rose in the wintertime,” “Tell me of peace when there’s talk of war,” and “Give me your love in the autumn years,” but each verse was completed by the phrase “How easy we forget.”
I was reminded of this song in reading what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:1 (NLT) “I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, what happened to our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. God guided them all … and he brought them all safely through the waters of the sea on dry ground.” This event is certainly one of the most vivid accounts of God’s intervention in the affairs of his people for their welfare.
Indeed, without God’s guiding presence and the parting of the Red Sea, it is hard to imagine a successful outcome of the Hebrew’s escape from Egypt. The entire episode was told and retold down through the years so that it is unlikely that there were any who did not know of what God had done and was still capable of doing for his people.
Yet, how easily the Hebrews forgot. How quickly we, too, turn from the experiences of the past, those lessons learned in times of real trial by either ourselves or those who came before, and think we can do things “our” way.
Paul exhorts us to not forget, or to turn from following God and his leadership. As God delivered his people by the parting of the sea, he delivers us by the blood of his Son shed upon the cross.
Perhaps a new verse might be added to the folk song that would go something like this, “Tell me of Christ when the times are hard, or when I’m feeling low. Tell me of Christ and his promises, I’ve got nowhere else to go. God is good, most any time and yet, So tell me of Christ when the times are hard, how easy I forget."
Sermon, November 28, 2010, First Sunday of Advent
HUNGRY FOR GOD
Sermon Text: Isaiah 64:1 9 (NIV)
Bible scholar E. Schuyler English received a phone call one day.
A woman’s voice said, “Dr. English, I am calling from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The hand of God is here.”
Excuse me? thought Dr. English. The hand of God is at the museum?
Then Dr. English recalled that several months before, he had ordered a replica of Rodin’s sculpture, The Hand of God, from the museum gift shop. It had finally arrived.
The prophet Isaiah was eager to see the hand of God at work among his people. He implores the Almighty, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you . . .”
Welcome, on this first Sunday of Advent the season of the church year set aside to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord. This is also a season of anticipation and joy. ------ The world waits to celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down . . .”
Arthur Gordon tells of a friend of his, an Episcopal minister, who was deaf and almost blind, but he was also a person of great faith and joy. It was Christmas time.
Gordon and his friend went into a crowded drugstore. On the back of the entrance door was a mirror. This mirror was placed so that as they turned to leave, his friend’s reflection came forward to meet him.
Thinking that someone else was approaching, the kindly, but the almost blind clergyman stepped aside. So, naturally, did the image.
Again Gordon’s friend moved forward and once more met himself. Again the old pastor retreated. A hush fell on spectators in the store who did not know quite what to say or do.
On his third advance, Gordon’s companion realized he was facing a mirror. “Why!” he cried, “it’s only me!” He made a grand bow to his reflection. “Good to see you, old boy! Merry Christmas!”
The whole store exploded in delighted laughter and one bystander said, ‘That man really has what it takes.”
Advent is a season of surprises. We await the celebration of Christ’s birth, and we wait for the fullness of God to be revealed.
Isaiah lived in a time when God seemed to be conspicuously absent. It was he who wrote that “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” (9:2) Darkness was a good description of the people’s plight in Isaiah’s time. Had God forsaken them? Isaiah longed for some sign of God’s presence and power. The absence of God speaks almost as loudly as does God’s presence.
When you have been separated from the presence of God for too long, you either stop caring about it, or you hunger for a move from God that is so earth-shaking that it leaves no room for doubt or apathy.
In this passage, Isaiah is reacting to the absence of God among the people of Israel. You and I can appreciate that. Many of us hunger for God to show Himself in our lives. Was there ever a time when you yearned to know that God was with you?
Maybe there was a season of your life when doubt and anxiety crowded your every thought. You had to convince yourself to get out of bed in the morning. You tried to pray, and the words just wouldn’t come. Have you ever sent up a desperate prayer like this, “God, just show me that You are real. Just show me that you are there. I can’t make it without You.”
Christian singer Chris Rice begins a song about searching for God with these words: “I would take ‘no’ for an answer, just to know I’d heard your voice.”
But why would God remove His presence from His chosen people, the people of Israel?
This was the same God who had led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt; at one time this God had been a constant, visible presence in their lives. He had taken the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to guide and protect them in the wilderness. He had sent manna, food, every day so that the people would not have to worry about their physical needs. He had sent numerous prophets, judges, priests, and kings to lead the people and administer God’s justice. Why would God, who had shown such constant attention and care before, seemingly turn His back on God’s people?
We see the answer in the second half of verse 5: “But when we continued to sin against [God’s ways], you were angry . . . you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.”
So here is one answer to the absence of God: Our sins separate us from God and keep us from experiencing God’s presence.
When we knowingly and repeatedly do that which we know is not God’s will for our lives, we feel ourselves separated from God. Let me say very clearly that not every instance of the absence of God is due to some sin in our lives. Those of you who are extremely conscientious don’t need to use this Bible passage as luggage for your guilt trip.
But in many cases, we fail to experience God’s presence and power because we have allowed un-confessed sin to separate us from God. We have turned from God….not he from us!
A newspaper reporter researched a story on pilot training in the Air Force. I found this particularly interesting as Sue’s nephew was an F-15 fighter pilot and just recently retired from active duty. The reporter wrote that in these training sessions pilots are warned about “hypoxia,” or lack of oxygen to the brain.
The pilots are put in a simulation chamber that simulates the atmospheric conditions at 30,000 feet in the air. Then, the pilots are told to remove their oxygen masks. Next, they are asked to write out the answers to a few questions. Within a minute after they begin writing, their partner in the training exercise will move quickly to force the oxygen mask back on the would-be pilot’s head. Why?
Well, of course they don’t want to kill pilots in training but … moments after receiving the oxygen, the pilot looks down at his paper and is shocked to discover that his answers are illegible. Here’s what unnerves him. He thought he was writing clearly.
Similarly, spiritually starved people may not know anything is wrong, but unless someone explains how to obtain the ‘breath of life,’ those disconnected from God will never gain spiritual ‘consciousness.’
The people of Israel were so caught up in their sins that they had lost spiritual consciousness. Isaiah was begging God to revive them. At this time, the people of Israel had wandered into idolatry, worshiping foreign gods. Many of them had abandoned the guidelines for purity that had marked them as a chosen people.
Widows, orphans, strangers, and poor people had once been protected among the Israelites. Now, they were exploited and oppressed.
In Isaiah chapter 30, the prophet declares, “These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!’” (vs. 9-11). (NIV)
“Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.” This is a vivid picture of a people who are on spiritual life support. They are very near death. They prefer lies to the truth. They know that they are living in sin, and they don’t want to be reminded of the danger they are in.
A preacher once compared the hardening effects of sin to an athlete’s calluses. He used the game of baseball as an example. He noted that “at the beginning of the season when you begin swinging the bat in practice, you soon develop blisters and have to stop. But a good thing you can do is come back the next day and swing the bat a few times again. Then come back the next day and swing a few more times. Before you know it, by swinging the bat over and over, you will develop calluses and be able to hit home runs all day without hurting your hands.”
He went on to say, “In the same way, when we repeat a type of sin day after day, we grow hardened to it. Our hearts callous over, and we sin without even feeling it anymore.” “We have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away… ”
The people are dying from their sins, and still they don’t want to turn away. The prophet Isaiah, who was called by God to bring the people back to Him, fears that God will completely abandon them. And so he cries out that God will show His hand: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.”
Maybe you have felt that same desperation. You, too, have prayed that you might see any sign of God’s work in your life. The silence was deafening. And you wondered, is there any reason left to have hope? And the answer is, yes.
Because God made us, God can also save us. As long as we are in God’s hands, there is still hope.
After all these words of despair, we come to verses 8 and 9: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.”
In these two verses, Isaiah tells us that we cannot save ourselves from our sins. But God, as a loving Father, can and will do so. We can be re-created in God’s image. Just like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel, we may lose our shape temporarily. But so long as we stay in the potters’ hands, we can still be molded into something worthwhile.
Some Sundays ago I told of often visiting the shop of a friend who is potter and I was puzzled by one operation which seemed to have little purpose. Norman was beating a lump of clay with a large mallet. It looked as if nothing was happening, so naturally I asked, “Why are you doing that?”
“Just wait and watch the results; then you’ll understand,” was the reply. Heeding the advice I soon noted that the top of the lump of clay began to quiver and swell as little bumps formed on its surface.
“Now you can see the need for the pounding,” he pointed out. “I could never shape the clay into a worthwhile vessel if these bubbles remained in it, so I must gradually work them out.”
Have you ever experienced God working out the bubbles in your life? Sometimes it’s not pretty, but it is necessary. The hand of God is at work seeking to save that which was lost.
And that is the meaning of Advent: “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” (II Corinthians 5:18)
Pastor Richard Exley tells of a Puerto Rican woman called Black Evie who found Jesus when she had hit the bottom of the barrel. Evie was a drug addict.
One day, Evie came down from a three-day high to find her infant daughter dead. ------ Evie had no idea what had happened to her child. Not long afterwards, Evie suffered a mental breakdown and was sentenced to a hospital for the criminally insane. She descended into a catatonic, uncommunicative state.
A local pastor began visiting Evie in the hospital. Every day, he read Bible verses to her. She sat and stared straight ahead, not responding in any way. Seven months passed before the pastor broke through to Evie.
One day, as he read to her from God’s Word, a tear trickled down Evie’s face. By the end of the week, Evie was out of her catatonic state. She prayed with the pastor and gave her life to Jesus. Today, Evie became the director of a rehabilitation program in Puerto Rico.
God has come to us in the babe of Bethlehem. We may not see the heavens rend or the mountains tremble. But God is at work in the lives of those who open themselves to Him.
Advent… A time of preparation …. A time to open ourselves and be ready for His coming.
Amen.
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