There is a beautiful story told about George Friedrich Handel. He was at the height of his career. He had been summoned to Italy by the Medici Prince Cosmo the third. While there, he wrote his great Italian operas Rodrigo and Agrippino. With all the success, he was not happy with his music. He thought it lacked the dimension of depth that he strove for and could not attain.

One sleepless night, he heard the most beautiful song coming through his open window. It was a song of a Nightingale. But it was more beautiful than that of any other Nightingale he had ever heard before. For the first time you heard a song that had that certain something that he had been struggling to produce throughout his life. It had totally evaded him. For the first time, he was experiencing the very essence of true music that had evaded him for so long. All of a sudden, the beautiful song stopped. There was a long silence. Handel waited with bated breath for the song to continue, for he felt the song had only just begun. He had experienced ecstasy the likes of which he had never experienced before. Just when he was getting the feel of the song in his heart, the song stopped. His heart became empty and void.

The next morning very early he went into the garden. He tried to position himself at the very place where the Nightingale seemed to be. Suddenly at his feet he saw the lifeless body of a little bird that had touched him so deeply with his song. Suddenly it dawned on him that he had listened to the death song of the nightingale. He picked up the lifeless body and caressed it with his tender hands. This little bird had taught him the deepest lesson. He had learned the essence of true music. One really cannot really feel the song and sing it until one has suffered deeply.

Handel did not know that the song of this beautiful little nightingale was the gift to him that would soon help him produce the kind of music he longed to produce. He did not know that the dimension and depth of feeling would only come when his own life had been deeply crushed, as he walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. His fame soon brought him to England, where he became director of the Royal Academy of music under his patron George III. As the years went on, Handel began to burnout. Other musicians pushed him and out of the center of things. In 1737, he found himself bankrupt, with scarcely enough money to keep body and soul together. To make things worse, he suffered a massive stroke.

Friends took him to a Aix-De-Chappelle on the French Riviera. He hoped to die in peace. Instead, his friend nursed him back to health. He returned to England and he received one last commission from the King to compose a religious oratorio for the Coronation of his son George IV. He worked day and night for six weeks and produced his great masterpiece: “The Messiah.” The score of the music was not his best. But for the first time in “The Messiah,” he captured the soul of his music. His music had the dimension of depth and feeling he had sought now attained. The true song came after his life had been poured into the Crucible of suffering.

This morning I want to talk about Mary’s song, which I call the first Christmas Carol. The song has been called the “Magnificat of Mary.” The word Magnificat is a Greek word that has been translated as “magnifies the Lord.” A better translation of the first line of the song is “my soul sings out the greatness of the Lord, in my spirit finds delight in God my savior.”

There’s been a great deal of discussion of the authenticity of this song. Luke puts it in the mouth of the young maiden Mary, who has been singled out by God to be the mother of the Messiah. However, the song is such depth and background of knowledge that it just does not seem to fit the setting. Mary’s experience was limited at that time, for her to produce a song with dimension and depth, but that is in the story.  

Scholars have concluded that Luke found this song somewhere and he fit it into the story. But no one has come up with a possible author for this song other than Mary. I do not have any problems with the idea that the writer Luke, who is perhaps the best writer in the New Testament, would put this song into the mouth of Mary the words may have been those of an early Christian poet, and Luke put the words on lips of the Madonna.

But I would like to suggest another possibility. I got this idea a year and a half ago as I stood before Michelangelo’s beautiful pieta that stands in the narthex of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. This is the most beautiful sculpture in all the world and for all time. How Michelangelo could take a chisel and a hammer to a block of marble and portray the beauty and feelings that come through in this sculpture is beyond comprehension. Most of us know the sculpture. The body of the crucified Christ has been taken down from the cross and has been placed in loving arms of his mother, so she can hold her son for the last time. As you look at the sculpture, you literally experience the deep feelings that seem to be going back and forth between the mother and her son now dead. It seems to you can see a tear trickle down the right cheek of the holy mother.

Suddenly, it dawned on me this may have been the moment of rebirth for Mary, parallel to the moment of rebirth in the life of Handel, when he heard the Nightingale song and experienced the pain in his crushing moment. Mary surely become one of the pillars in the early church. I’m sure she broke down some of her feelings and perhaps later in her life she wrote this beautiful song. Maybe Luke discovered this song during his research, and he decided to include it in the story where it really fits. In fact, it may have been like the Nightingale song for Mary. She had to experience the pangs of death and the pangs of crucifixion, before she really understood what the Christmas story was about.

In her beautiful song Mary shows that she knew the Old Testament story of Hannah. She captured the old Israel story and related it beautifully to the Christmas story. She modeled her song after the beautiful song of Hannah in the Old Testament. Somehow new beginnings for God always begins with the birth of a baby. Hannah’s baby was one of those children. Hannah had felt deep pain when she wrote her song. She had been childless and close to the end time of her childbearing years. Women in her day women were considered under the curse of God if they were childless. They were made to feel they had let down their husbands and not giving him a posterity. The father needed a son to carry on his name. So, she went to the only place she knew that held possible hope, the temple of Yahweh. She prayed to be entrusted to have a son, and God answered her prayer. Therefore, she wrote a beautiful song that told how Yahweh had delivered her from her moment of barrenness, disappointment, and shame. You can find this beautiful song of liberation in the Old Testament in Samuel 2 verses 1-8.

The Mary story has been a source of inspiration for many in the 20th century who have worked with the oppressed. Fifty years ago, Dr. E. Stanley Jones was working with the oppressed in India, as a second Gandhi. Some called him a Christian Gandhi. He brought the Christians of India and the whole Church of India to a social consciousness that the church could not live in an ivory tower. It must be an advocate of the oppressed among its people. He saw Mary annunciate the three great revolutions of mankind in her beautiful song.

1. He was scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts, this is for him the great moral revolution. Christianity is the death of pride. When Christ becomes the Lord of all life, he enables the individual to put away false pride and to look with eyes of compassion on the needs of humankind in the world. Self-centeredness gives way to life to love, love that reaches beyond the self to bring our other selves into the secret circle of love. This circle is all inclusive.

2. He cast down the mighty—he exalts the humble. This is the social revolution. Christ puts away the world of false labels and false prestige. Centers the concern of the world on the poor and the oppressed, the humble, the left-out ones. Mary herself was one of the left-out ones until Christ came along and lifted her to the place of honor.

3. He was filled with those who are hungry, those who are rich he sent away hungry. This is the economic revolution. It is the sharing time in the world. Jesus has set the focus of the world on the have nots. So, open the hearts of the haves to not grab after more, but to open their hearts and their hands and give what they have to the poor and the needy.

Some of the great women theologians of our time see Mary’s song as the hymn of liberation for all oppressed and especially for women. The Theologian Letty Russell has perhaps the best interpretation of Mary’s song comes from the gospel writer Matthew. He sees Mary as a lark typical of the Virgin Mary of Israel. She represents the deepest and best of Israel. The true Israel of the prophets, who never gave in to the appeal of the false gods of greed avarice and self-centeredness. This is the real Israel that produced the Christ child/Messiah in the moment of Israel’s deepest pain. She is mother of Israel who sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

This is also the story of the early church and perhaps of the first Christian Carol. The early Christian oppressed on every hand, with the Romans breathing down their neck. They had been called to be the children of God by the son of God. Harvey Cox in his book Feast of Fools talks about the celebration being the way of the oppressed people to bear their oppression. LIke Handel, life is empty until we find our song. Christmas is the time to find our song. Mary’s song can give us the clue to come to the manager of Bethlehem and empty ourselves and let him in.

Mary’s Song
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
   he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
  but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
   but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors.”
(Luke 1: 46-55)

Christmas centers in the story told from the heart and not from the head. It is totally left brain. It has stimulated poets and artist’s brushes as no other story has. The story of the baby Jesus is told to the delight of little children. The story is also loved by parents and the grandparents, who retell the story as it was told to them.

It is evident the story about the shepherds abiding in the fields at night would have never lived on if the shepherds had not retold their story over-and-over again. It’s also quite evident that the Magi did not remain silent after they saw the Christ child in Bethlehem. True, they did not go back to tell Herod. The fact that their story is still told throughout the world bears testimony to the fact they were not bashful about telling their story.

The Christmas story is still future tense. There is the story of the Magi following a star hoping to find the baby who will become their King, their long-looked for Messiah. Shepherds hear Angels tell about a baby about to be born, and they go to Bethlehem to find that baby. In a real sense, the story of the baby is a story told in future tense. The baby is not yet the Messiah. His born to be the Messiah. He is not yet the words sent from God. He is born to be the words sent from God. He is not yet the crucified Christ, but he is the baby born to be crucified. His not yet the baby born for the resurrection from the dead, but he is born to fulfill that purpose.

This past week we in the Northwest have been going out into the backyards after nightfall to discover the planets Jupiter and Mars in a constellation that they may have been in the very moment the Magi were searching for the baby. We look at the constellation as it moves and changes each night, and our hearts are fulfilled with hope. Our hope is that this indeed affirms the story to be true. We come in from the night with some of the wonder in our eyes that the Magi must have had when the constellation of planets first appeared to them.

Many years ago, an anonymous poet put it this way: “We travel bravely by 1000 roads, some broad and lined with palaces, some steep and some hard and lonely, some that blindly twist through tangled jungles where there is no light. And mostly they are traveled thoughtlessly. But once a year an ancient question comes to every traveler passing on his way. A question that can stab and burn and bless. Where is the road that leads to Bethlehem?

Today our scripture lesson is found in the gospel according to Luke. Luke centers the Christmas story around a young woman called Mary. This might not be an accident but by design. There is much speculation that the gospel writer Luke drew much of his unique material from a primary source written by a woman. Luke contains 40 passages involving a woman, many more than the other gospel writers. About half of the women stories in Luke appear in no other gospel.

Luke has Mary speak to God and the people through a beautiful poem we have come to call the Magnificat. She begins the poem with these words:

My heart praises the Lord;
My heart is glad because of God my savior,
For this for he has remembered me his lowly servant,
From now on all people will call me blessed,
because of the great things the mighty one
has done for me.

One of America’s great women theologians Letty Russell has paraphrased this Magnificat in this way: “Oh god I’m so happy because you have taken me who is nobody and you have made me a somebody.” Last week we studied the genealogy of Jesus as it was reported by the gospel writer Matthew. One of the things we discovered was that Jesus was adopted into the genealogical line of David by Joseph adopting Jesus. Of himself Jesus was a nobody insofar as genealogy was concerned and of course neither was Mary. Normally women did not appear in the genealogical tables.

There was a time when the biblical scholars explained the difference in the genealogical table concerning Jesus. in Luke from that in Matthew by saying the one in Luke was a genealogical table of Mary’s ancestry. We know now that this was indeed another tracing of Joseph’s genealogy.

Luke begins the actual birth story with a decree by the emperor Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. Though his decree has never been found in Palestine, a similar decree dating about the same time was found in Egypt and it reads:

Gaius Vibius Maximus Prefect of Egypt orders: Seeing that the time has come for the house-to-house census, it is necessary to compel all those who are for any cause whatsoever residing outside their districts to return to their homes that they may both carry out the regular order of the census and may also diligently attend to the cultivation of their allotments.

It could be this was the worldwide decree that called for the same census in Egypt as it did in the Roman province of Judea.

Luke also has the Angels coming to the shepherds. In his marvelous little commentary, the great English Bible scholar James Barclay points out that it is a wonderful thing that the story should tell that the first announcement from God should come to the shepherds. In the day of Jesus, the shepherds were considered the lowest of the low. In fact, they were despised by all the Orthodox Jews, because they could not keep to the minute details of the ceremonial laws and ablutions required by strict Jewish law. They could not even keep their laws of the Sabbath, because their sheep required their attention on the Sabbath the same as on any other day. It was these despised and simple shepherds to which the message of the birth of the Messiah first came.

But these shepherds were not just shepherds. It happens that the shepherd fields of Bethlehem where the nearest to Jerusalem and were reserved for those raising sheep for the sacrifices at the temple. They were the shepherds who were responsible for seeing that the perfect unblemished lambs were always ready for the evening sacrifice and for the sacrifices made on the day of atonement and other holy days. It is beautiful to think these shepherds who were responsible for raising the sacrificial lambs would be there to receive the news that the true Lamb of God was to be born in their own city.

In a real sense the story of the shepherds can be paraphrased: “Me a nobody he has been made a somebody.” Even today at Christmas time, the children vie to be the shepherds in their Christmas pageant. In fact, I can still remember the odd wonder in my heart as a boy, when I was a shepherd and I knelt before where the Christ child lay.

Luke has two other people to appear in the story of the Christ child. These people were important because they recognized the Christ child as Messiah when they saw him. These people were Simon and Anna. We know very little about either one but reading between the lines we can say these two were nobody’s.

We know that the temple in those days was a place of refuge for many older people who had no family. They would work as volunteers with the Levites, by doing the many chores in the temple area. Remember the temple square was a highly developed religious community comprising some 90 acres. Some of these volunteers even aided the priests in their religious duties.

Simeon was perhaps one of these. The fact is Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to receive the customary blessing bestowed on children’s who survived the first 8 days of life, and in those days that was an accomplishment. The fact that Simeon administered the blessing indicates he was a volunteer who could perform priestly duties.

Luke records that Simeon received the message from the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the long-looked for Messiah. You can imagine the excitement in the temple that day. Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and suddenly felt the thrill he knew in his heart that this was indeed the baby who was to be the Messiah.

We again see the Christmas story in future tense. Simeon would never live to see the Messiah work his wonders in Israel. But for the old man, Simeon, that was not important. He saw the child’s promise. As he held the baby, he felt the warmth of the baby permeating his own body. He knew this was the warmth of God that would permeate the world through him.

Ana too was a volunteer who lived and worked in the temple. She probably had no family and no other place to go. She likely was a member of a religious order of prophets and prophetesses. She is called a prophetess by Luke. She was standing by Simeon when he blessed the child. She too felt the warmth of the baby coursing through her. She too knew this was the long awaited for baby, who would be the savior of Israel. She too was fulfilled with joy and felt the real purpose of her life was now fulfilled. She was a witness to the blessing of the Messiah and could now bear witness to him in the world in her generation and through Luke’s record, she bears witness today.

In Simeon and Anna, we again have two people for whom Letty Russell’s paraphrase of the Magnificat holds true. They were nobody’s who had become somebody’s because of the Christ child. Yet they would never really saw the Messiah in action. They only saw him through the eyes of hope tempered by their deep faith that God would send his Messiah and he would do great things to restore Israel as the people of God. They really were part of the story that was future tense.

Now we are reliving the Christmas story in the year of our Lord 1986. The world of our time is not changed very much. We still have the same kind of world with those who have too much of those who have too little, with those who are oppressed and with those who are oppressors, and with those who rule in injustice and those who are enslaved. When we go to the manger in Bethlehem, we are looking into the face of a baby who is not yet come into his own. Our religious dreams and hopes are of the “not yet” variety. We are still witnesses to the story that is future tense. We still look at the Christ who will save the world from the results of its own sins, its own greed and avarice.

Realization of the Christmas Story is still future tense. We are still living in the world of the “not yet.” As the Apostle Paul wrote: “All things are not yet but under his feet.” Like the Magi we still follow his star hoping it will lead us to the world of Shalom, where Christ shall have Dominion over the land and sea and all the people will follow him and call him blessed.

But once in a while, Christmas comes true in our time. These incidents are the seeds of hope that keep us going. Jesus walked in the streets of Calcutta this Christmas and Mother Teresa and her mendicant nuns walk through the streets to pick up the sick and the dying off the streets, to bring them to the hostel that they may die in dignity.

This week I read a story of a pensioner in Los Angeles by the name of Jesus Santiago. Jesus is a Mexican American Christian who lives in the Watts district in Los Angeles. Much of this former black district of LA is now populated by Mexicans. Many are illegal immigrants, living in abject poverty and in constant fear immigration officers will knock on their door and arrest them and deport them to even greater poverty than which they now live. Jesus spends his life and his pension ministering to the needs of these people. He works with the street gangs and tries to direct these young people’s lives into more productive channels. He ministers to those in abject poverty steering them through the channels to places they can find help. Many times, the first help comes from his own pocketbook.

For weeks before Christmas, he works through Catholic Church channels to gather special gifts for people. For people who have names. He knows their needs. He matches the gifts to their specific needs. Each Christmas Eve he takes his old 1960 vintage truck filled with the gifts and dressed in a Santa Claus suit makes his deliveries to each home, carefully watching no one is overlooked. His name is Jesus translated into English means he is truly a gift from God to so many of these people.

You see Christmas can become present tense in our lives in our day. Christmas can become present tense when the Christ spirit becomes a reality in our day, in our time, and in our lives. Christmas is the time we can go with the shepherds and the Magi and follow our Angels and our star until we come to the birthing place of our Christ. This can happen for us today. Then filled with all the spirit of the Christ child, we too can go out in the world to make the Christ story a reality, and then Christ will become our contemporary.  

The other day I was leisurely reading the Prophet Isaiah, when suddenly words I read many times, which I know from memory, suddenly leapt out at me from the biblical page and became alive. By the way, I suggest that you rarely have an experience like this reading any other book. The verse that excited me so was the one in our Old Testament lesson Isaiah 40 verse 3.

“A voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert the highway for our God.”

The great insight that suddenly startled me was this: This beautiful literature, these great prophetic insights of Isaiah are words from wilderness. The prophet’s big job is to inspire the Hebrew people in the desert experience.

What is the significance of this? Why was Israel in the wilderness? The answer is that Israel, the people of God, become disobedient people. They had been sentenced to the wilderness of Babylon because they succumbed to the evil around them. In fact, they committed spiritual adultery by worshipping the gods of Babylon’s fertility cult.

To understand this story, we must look at the two contrasting biblical stories from the ancient Hebrew. In the story of Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve were driven from the inhabited land, the garden of Eden, into the wilderness or desert land. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain killed Abel and was driven from the habitual homeland into the desert, away from man. Interestingly, Cain built the first city there in the desert, where urban life was looked upon as desert life.

Now, the urban land was the living land of milk and honey, the habitable land where values abide, righteousness rules, laws are kept, and God’s order prevails. The desert land is the evil place. There is no seed, no grapes, no figs, no vines, and no water to drink. For Israel the desert was the terrible place, the land of drought, the land of serpents and scorpions. The desert was the land of nettles, thorns, and thistles? In the Genesis story, the land of nettles, thorns, and thistles is the land of the curse, where the blessing is lacking. Whoever wanders there is led astray for there is no highway there?

In the life of Jesus, he goes out to into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In the wilderness, he is tempted to misuse his power to turn bread into stone. He is also tempted to bow down to Satan and succumb to evil and gain the world. He is tempted to gain the world by making a name for himself by putting on a big show and jumping off the pinnacle of the temple.

In Isaiah, Israel is in the same wilderness of the curse in a lonely exile in Babylon. But it is here the great servant Messiah is going to come to transform the desert into a habitable place. A voice cries in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The voice the tells how the desert is to be transformed. Every valley shall be lifted, and every mountain shall be made low. The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all the flash shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

With this background, let us look at the New Testament lesson about what happens in the respect to the Christmas story. Jesus, the son of God, leaves the inhabited land, emptied himself, and comes to the land of the curse. In Galatians 3 verse 13, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.” Jesus ministers too those who are under the curse with broken lives, the sinners. Christ goes into the wilderness to do battle with the devil. He works in the world to prepare the way for God. He makes his way straight into the desert, a highway for our God. He goes all the way to taking the curse upon himself.

What are the implications for us? Christ sends us as his disciples out into the world, into the desert place. This is in a real sense the second advent, the people of God following the second Adam, who is Christ, to transform the desert into a habitable place.

The first Adam went out into the desert place, the place of the curse, in disgrace and under a curse. The second Adam went out into the desert, the place of the curse, where he gloriously opened the door of life in the resurrection. The first people of God were banished to the wilderness in Babylon like their father the first Adam. The second people of God, the church, followed their champion into the wellness of the world, to redeem it from the curse and make it habitable place.

Now what does the Christmas story mean to us? A voice cries in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert the highway for our God.” We go to church to meet with Christ and live in discipleship. We study and worship to prepare ourselves to go out into the desert of the world.

Remember, Cain built the first city in the world. In our city, we serve Thanksgiving dinner at the to so many people, victims of automation, victims of our urban way of life. We serve to the homeless, the poor, the tax collectors, and the prostitutes. We can no longer afford to only associate with only the nice people.

Christ came to save the lost and to transform the wilderness. We must go where we cross the different ways of life, where sound the cries of race and clan, above the sound selfish strife, we hear the voice of the Son of Man. We must go in haunts of wretchedness and need, and on shadow thresholds dark with fears, from paths where hide the lures of greed, we catch the vision of thy tears.

Advent says, Christ came into this world to save sinners and to transform the wilderness into a habitable place. Israel was called to transform the dirty land of the Canaanites and the desert into the city of our God.

For the salesman, what does it mean to turn the jungle of double talk into the habitable land of integrity? For young people lost in the desert, the dropouts who are lost in the world of automation, the beat down what does it mean to be lost in darkness without God? We must go into the desert to help them. We must go to the desert of politics like our Representative John Dellenback who is a committed Christian laymen. The work he is doing in our House of Representatives to talk with President Eisenhauer about the petty politics of the machine shop at Boeing. Howard Steward’s Office of Economic Opportunities is addressing the pockets of priorities in our community to make the desert of poverty a habitable place.

A voice cries in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Last week, we left the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. There were no signposts to guide them. There was no real security to comfort them. At best, they had Mana and quail to eat. There was always enough for today, but when they had enough, the Mana melted and quail disappeared. The only assurance was this: God had spoken to Moses from the burning bush and they were led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

We talked about our wilderness experience today. There’s never been a Day in History when the foundations of life have been shaken so badly as today. Today we have coined a new term “the credibility gap.” This term describes what was supposed to be told to the American people about Vietnam and what the real Vietnam story is. Did you ever stop to think there may be a gap between what our State Department knew and what was true on the ground? 

The credibility gap is only one of the gaps of our day. One of the great gaps in this wilderness is the generation gap. We used cycle generations approximately every 33 years, but now changes are taking place so fast that an equivalent cycle for a generation is 4 years. It is so hard to communicate with our children today, because they are five and six generations removed from us. I’ve been out of college 24 years. My boys are studying subjects and courses that weren’t even invented in my college days. 

Another great gap is the ever-growing gap between the haves and the have nots. Our gross national product, our wealth, our living standards are growing so fast that the gap between us and Africa has increased tenfold since World War Two. There is another great gap between production and distribution. How do we distribute our plenty to the have nots? How do we distribute our plenty to the hungry and starving in India? These are uncharted courses in our wilderness experience.

Now we come to today’s concern. At last, the children of Israel encountered the Jordan River. Behind them is the bondage in Egypt. Behind them are the hardships of the wilderness. Ahead is the promised land. The people had a great idea. Let’s send spies to check out the new land. In fact, they got the idea from God. So, they picked the headman from each tribe and sent them across the River Jordan into the promised land. 

A strange thing happened when the spies came back. They all brought back a good report about the productivity of the land. Indeed, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. But from here on out the report was split down the middle. Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, said: “Let’s go in at once and occupy the land. We can do it. Sure, it’s going to be tough for us, but if the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us.” 

But the majority report was entirely different. The people in the promised land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. The sons of Anak is a tribe of giants. They are guarding the cities. We just don’t have it. We could never conquer the promised land. And sure, enough the children of Israel were ready to accept the majority report. They’d rather stay in the wilderness than go into the promised land. Better still they want to go back to the good old days of Egypt.

Today, I believe our Jordan River is ahead of us. On the other side of that River stands the promised land. There are fearsome things in our promised land. Some spies have gone across and have brought a distressing report. This is the day of Armageddon. We now have a world for the first time divided and two armed camps. We now have the ultimate weapons to destroy mankind. 

One need only listen to some of the preachers today, to hear these prophecies of doom. There is the playwright of “On the Beach.” We see banners streaming in the wind: “There is still time brother,” while dust and paper are blowing in the empty world, where the last man has been annihilated. 

Look at it from the standpoint of population explosion. We live in a limited spaceship world. We have an economy totally based on using the atmosphere and crust of the earth to survive. Population growth seems limitless and the resources are very limited, which can lead to the ultimate destruction for all of us.

Then there is the world of depersonalization. We are moving towards a world much like the large prisons, where every man is given a number when he enters, and it stays with him until the end of his term. He no longer needs a name. All he needs is a number. 

Young people know something about this in our computerized schools. Last spring, one boy got a report card that said he had flunked lunch. This is what some of these spies are saying today. 

Thank God there are still the Calebs and Joshuas today. For Caleb and Joshua, God was the Lord of history. They were the pilgrim people led by God. He brought them through the wilderness, and he would lead them into the promised land. Sure, the cities were strong and fortified. There are the Nephilim who are giants, and the people are many and fierce. But the possibilities of the promised land are unlimited. The fruit was so plentiful it took two men to carry the samples. Whoever thought of these possibilities in our world? 

Today in our world, for the first time, we are looking at a world where all people have good health. Last night I heard a physician say that from new research in medicine, we might learn to treat the disease in unborn children. Think of the unbelievable strides we have made in medicine. My boyhood fear was polio. There was not one case in Oregon last year. Think of the possibilities of a world neighborhood. War may be abandoned because we just cannot afford the risk. Think of the possibilities, for example, think of each person truly having a meaningful vocation. We are in the verge of matching every person to a job that is perfectly suited for them through vocational testing. We could have the full employment of people who work in their vocation of choice. Think of the possibilities. What if everyone could have a real vacation each year, a time for leisure where everybody could have time for contemplation, continuing education, and recreation. Think of the possibilities of people being whole people again.

Let me give you a beautiful model for what may be. “Revelation: The Book of the New People of God.” This is a model for new people who are in the wilderness of the world. The beast is trying to crush them out of the world. But these people bet their life on the Lamb of God. The big question in Revelation is: “Will the church survive the mad Holocaust of the Roman persecution?” But how does the Book of Revelation end? The Lamb becomes the Lion and the tribe of Judah. This Lion of the tribe of Judah is Christ, on whom the church has bet their lives. He has come down riding his white charger at the head of an army of people of God. The beast is destroyed and at the end of the book the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven among men on earth. 

Now the New Jerusalem is set up on earth, where the beast of Rome had destroyed the old Jerusalem. The dwelling place of God is with men. And he will wipe away all the tears from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for these former things are now passed away. 

We miss the boat when we think it is the prophet speaking of heaven here. This is the great philosophy of history of the church. We the church have bet our life on the Lord of history. We must go out into the world following our Lord on his White Horse of righteousness. There can be no mistaking it. The early church had the event of the resurrection to prove it. The future was the resurrected Christ and they had bet their lives on him. No beast of Rome could take this hope away from them. 

We stand on the verge of a new promised land. This could be the promised land of all promised lands. May no Nephilim, no sons of Anak, no Giants or walled city deter us. May no beast of Rome intimidate us. Christ is still the Lord of history. He rides again on his charger of white out into the world. May we follow in his train until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. And our New Jerusalem comes down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. 

Now we can cry out, “Behold the dwelling place of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them and they shall be his people and he will be their God.” 

Last week we drew startling parallels between the bondage in which children of Israel found themselves in good old Egypt’s land and the predicament of enslavement we find ourselves in today.

You remember we talked about how the Israelites became enslaved in Egypt for economic reasons. They needed food and security. It was better to be enslaved in the security and plenty of Egypt than to risk the unknown wilderness that led to their promised land. As individuals, we have become hooked on the ways of a spiraling economic order:

• We have spent next year’s salary already.
• We have even cut into the salaries of the years ahead.
• We have bound ourselves in luxuries that have become necessities.

We are also like the children of Israel and that we have become dependent on the gods of Egypt.

• The power of wealth
• Security of materialism
• The sweet smell of status
• The quest for security in our old age

These are the gods of Egypt that we carry with us in our packsack.

But something happened to the chosen people. In a sense, a great event happened in the wilderness, where a young man named Moses was hiding from the frightening things happening in bondage.

To describe the scene, the voice says: “Take the shoes from off your feet for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground. I have seen the reflection of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry come. I will send you to bring forth my people the sons of Israel out of Egypt.”

Moses answered: “Who am I that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?”

Finally, God convinced him from the burning bush that he was the only one who could lead his people out of the bondage.

But the job was only a third through. When Moses got back to Egypt, he had a lot of convincing to do. First, he had to convince his own people. That was not an easy job.

His own people said: “Who do you think you are that you can lead us back to the promised land?”

Now, that was embarrassing. All he could say was this: “The God of our fathers came to me in a burning bush way out in the desert and told me he had seen the affliction of the people and heard their cry. He is now calling on me to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage into the promised land.”

Remember from last week, the Hebrew people during the 400 years sojourn in Egypt had actually forgotten the name of their God. They said: “What is the name of the God who told you this? Moses said: “He only identified himself as I AM.”

Now what a name for God, “I AM.” Finally, they gave Moses the impossible as an alternative: “If you are able to convince the Pharaoh to let us go, we will follow you.” They never dreamed he would be able to do this.

To accomplish convincing the Pharaoh really took some effort. First, he had to turn the Nile River into blood. Then, he brought a horde of frogs out of the River and overwhelmed the land. Then, he brought a plague of pesky gnats to infest the land. Have you ever got into a swarm of gnats? Then, he brought a plague of flies. The Egyptian animals were struck with the horrible disease. Soon, there was an epidemic of boils among the people. Then, the plague hit.

(As I was reading this last item reminded me of my days in Nebraska.) There was even a plague of locusts. Finally, darkness enveloped the land, and the Angel of death struck the first born. The Pharaoh was then ready to let the people go.

So, there they go the people many thousands strong fleeing from a land of plagues with only the voice of the burning bush as their guide.

Now there’s a strange problem in this story for us day. There are voices of prophets today that are like Moses saying: “We have heard the voice of God from a burning bush. He is saying lead my people out into the wilderness of the world. There they will find a way to the promised land.”

Now, it’s very hard to convince the church that they should do this. Where too are hooked by our Egypt. We like the security of the leaks and garlic of Egypt. We have a nice, easy security of the fact that we and our family are within the Ark. Let’s have a nice, easy religion where we can feel ourselves saved with our families.

Don’t ask us to go out into the wilderness of the world. We might have to get our hands dirty with that community poverty program. Don’t get me involved in civil rights. The church ought to keep out of politics. Besides, didn’t you know that “God is Dead” and we have forgotten who God is. Who is this God that is sending you and commanding us?

But then comes the plagues, World War II when the whole country drips with the blood of 6 million Jews. When the most civilized nation on earth drops two atomic bombs on another nation, and the fire literally hails from heaven. Then, comes the plague of hunger. Too little food and too many people. There is ferment in our streets. Watts burned and the San Fernando Valley took up arms. During the Watts riots, the gun shops of Southern California were sold out.

Finally, the Pharaohs of today are becoming convinced the people of God must launch out in this wilderness. In a meeting with scientists and theologians at Chicago University a few years ago, we learned that we created a monster in our nuclear weapons that threaten our destruction. We were asked, “What directions can you give us?”

What more terrible possibilities will come from modern science? As a collection of individuals, we’re literally taking our planet in our hand and looking at it. We see the infiltration of the FBI CIA with new possibilities of electronic bugging. What direction does the Christian gospel give to the world? What do we say to the world where the landmark of one’s neighbor is being wiped out to where there may be no such thing as a private again?

Did I say anything about the plague of disease that is still with us? Do we follow the great physicians?

Let me tell you an exciting thing. This past week at the Portland Council Churches meeting we heard a young man speak who is chairman of the Interreligious council of the city of Los Angeles. Now they have some plagues staring them in the face. Not only the tragedy of Watts district multiplied many times, there are predictions that by 1978 smog will take over at LA and it will become inhabitable. On a day in 1980, the last car will enter the freeway, and everything will grind to a stop. From mobility to solidarity, they are on a collision course.

What can you do with the city’s projected populations 20,000,000 by 1980? The LA city leaders have called the church and their Interreligious Council for help, with everyone from conservative Baptists to Unitarians to Jews to Roman Catholics to Mormons Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals. The church was called to help. The church was called to help the city draw its blueprint for tomorrow for a city of 20,000,000 people.

Then, the Hebrews went into the wilderness. The Red Sea looms ahead. The Egyptians suddenly feel they made a mistake in letting them go, so they pursue them. They are caught on the route between the Red Sea and the pressing Egyptian army. But God opened the way through the Red Sea, like an Indiana tornado, creating a road across the river. The winds of God were blowing and that day they crossed the Red Sea. There are no signposts and no caches of food for tomorrow. All they had to had to go by was a leader who had heard God in the burning bush.

A cloud that led them by day and a pillar of fire by night. God the Lord of history. The “I AM” was their God. He was the leading them through the wilderness into the Promised Land. Here we go.

Many times, the pressure is on and ahead is the Red Sea with no seeming way through. Breathing hard on our neck may be the bondage in Egypt. The wilderness ahead as no signposts in it. But we have the voice from the burning bush. The God, the Lord of history, the “I AM” is at the helm. There may only be a cloud by day and clouds can vanish with the wind. And there may be a pillar of fire in the night that could be quenched by any rain. But God is calling us. We are like Moses and God is waiting for to make a high road through the Red Sea.

Today, we can be travelers in the wilderness, and our destination is the Promised Land.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 Thessalonians 5 vs. 6
“Everything give thanks.” King James Version

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, there comes to me a challenge from across the years. This challenge goes like this: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” 

Now you might suspect these were the words of a man who lived in a very easy life. Nobody who really tasted the Cup of Life to its bittersweet dregs would ever make such a statement. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Give thanks in sickness and bereavement. Give thanks when unemployment crowds in upon you and the bills pile up. Give thanks when your best friend lets you down. Give thanks when you have pulled a boner that has let your best friend down. These words are certainly that of unrealistic dreamer. 

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” Be realistic man. Take off your grey flannel suit. Come down out of your ivory tower. Be a realist! 

However, to the contrary, these are not the words of a man who lived in a grey flannel suit in a penthouse in an ivory tower. These are the words of a man who was not always prone to thanksgiving. At one time, he felt self-sufficient. He wanted to turn the world upside down all by himself. He singled himself out as a great defender of the faith, heritage, and nationhood of his fathers. He single-handedly was going to wipe out every threat to the heritage in his life. He started by wiping out the followers of the Nazarene. But he did not conquer the lonely Nazarene. Instead, he was conquered by this one who came to him as Christ the Son of God and savior of the world and his life. 

You say be a realist—how can you give thanks in every circumstance? But these are the words of the realist, if there ever was one. He tested life as few men have. These are the words a man who on his first witness to his faith became hated by his former friends and suspected by those with whom he now identified with. At the outset, they had to spirit him away and let him down over a wall in a basket that he might escape. These are the words of a man who had to flee for his life from Iconium and then from Lystra, where he was stoned and dragged out of the city. In Philippi, he was left for dead in prison after a severe beating. In Ephesus, he was the center of a riot. He was arrested in his native Jerusalem, sent to Rome as a prisoner. He was shipwrecked in Malta and was bitten by a poisonous viper. Finally, in Rome he languished in prison for a long time and ultimately was beheaded. 

Nor was this all. He was afflicted with an eye disease that made him obnoxious to look upon. He was the victim of jealous friends, who criticized him and tried to discredit his work. He was the center of much controversy, because of his burning zeal to take the gospel to the gentiles. However, in all this, he could say: “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

I have a Greek word that Paul uses here in this phrase, which is very interesting. The word is somewhat familiar. The word is EUCHARISTEO from which we get the word for the Lord’s Supper or the eucharist. This word is made up of two words EU and CHARIS. The word EU means good, well, or well done. The word CHARIS means grace, which is God’s free favor shown to us. In a sense, thanksgiving is our holding up of our hands in a cheer to God, saying well done for the good things that came from your hand. More than this the Greek word EUCHARISTEO is in the present tense. The present tense in the Greek conveys the idea of action continually going on in the present time. In other words, a good translation of this phrase would be: “Keep on giving thanks in all circumstances.” 

There is a great deal of theology behind this verse. We have to go back to the 8th chapter of Romans at hear Paul say: “We know that in everything God works for good, and for those who love him we are called according to his purpose.” Again, in Philippians he says: “Not that I complain for want, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to be abounded in any and all circumstances. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all these things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4 verses 11-13.) In that same book: “I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” (Philippians 1 verse 12.)

Why? Because God is at work in our lives for good. What is happening to us is really for the advance of the gospel.

Now really, this great spirit of Paul is certainly deeply rooted in our heritage. This week we will go back in our history to the great day of the Pilgrims. Don’t think for a moment these Pilgrims had an easy time. As soon as they landed in this land of milk and honey, they struggled. Governor Bradford wrote: “The whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue. If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean, which they had passed and now was a main gulf and a bar to separate them from all civil parts of this world. What could sustain them but the Spirit of God and his grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our fathers who came over the great ocean and were not ready to perish in the wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he heard their voices and looked on their adversity. Let them therefore praise the Lord because he is good, and his mercies endure forever. “

Stand with that group of thin, emaciated prisoners in the hellish Dachau prison camp, which was the worst horror that Hitler could invent. It is Christmas 1944. When Christmas is celebrated in prison by half-starved, diseased, and dying men, it is the dismal affair. Martin Niemoller, a sunken-eyed, thin hungry, and sick man stands up to speak to the prisoners, who are just as tragically broken as he is. Then, he recalls the names of Jesus, Emmanuel, and God and his eye carries a new client of courage and his voice vibrates with new strength. Hear him as he speaks: “We are not alone amid the horrors of the years, cut off as we are from the outside world, we are in the hands of the God of Jesus Christ who is with us in this dismal and lonely place to uphold and comfort us and keep hope alive in our hearts.” 

“In all circumstances, Give Thanks!”

Susie M. Best put it well in the following poem:

Thanksgiving

Lord I give thanks! 
Last year thou knowest my ambitions failed, 
My backward scourging of defeat was flailed; 
My eyes fell off the sharp, salt wash of tears, 
My gueridon blessed the tireless toil of years,
Fast in the snares my helpless feet were tied, 
Yet in my woes thou didst with me abide. 
Lord I give thanks 

In Lord I give thanks! 
Last year my one lone ship came back to me, 
Around wreck of what she used to be, 
No cargo in her hold, storm-stained and scarred, 
Oh, Lord, thou knowest that it was hard, was hard, 
To watch her drifting Hulk with hopeless eyes, 
Yet, in the desolation thou wert nigh. 
Lord I give thanks!

Lord I give thanks! 
Last year the one I love the dearest died,
In like the desert waste became the wide,
And weary world. Loves last star went out, 
Blackness of darkness wrapped me round about, 
Yet in the midst of my mad misery, 
Thou let us thy road and staff rod and staff to comfort me.
Lord I give thanks!

During World War Two, St Phillips church in London was shattered by bombs. There were many who thought the church could never be rebuilt, for there was so little to salvage. But brave and dedicated people went to work. Soon out of the ruins, there once again rose a spire, with its cross bearing testimony to all the world. At the rededication of the rebuilt cathedral, there was a drama given as part of the service. The prologue of the drama sounded these words:

There lives a beauty that men cannot kill, yea that shall kill all ugliness at last.
Yes, God lives! Let him who works for good, who longs for truth and hopes for right 
give thanks. Our struggles will not end in defeat our sacrifices will not be lost. 
God lives! God is the victory!

Let us look again at our own lives. “Give thanks in all circumstances,” says the Apostle Paul. The other day I heard someone say: “I just can’t think of a thing for which I can be thankful.” Here was a man living in a fine house, with a good family, a job, a church, and just about everything the average American could want. Yet, he could not find a thing for which to be thankful. Someone has described our generation of people like I herd a swine: “Gutted, gorged, and full.” We have taken life for granted, entirely. In our plenty with our ease and our luxury, we have become a generation of grumblers. 

Someone said to me the other day: “You know, down at work I get so depressed. All people talk about is depression and low wages. They gripe—gripe—gripe. Certainly, this attitude is telling of our generation. We are killing more with our automobiles than were ever killed in war. We have developed more new diseases in our generation than a world ever dreamed of. Mental illness is now the chronic disease of our time. I could go on. 

What is our trouble? I think the chronic trouble of our times is just what Paul was driving at. We have lost faith in God, a God who is working out all the things for good in our lives, even when we are imprisoned, beaten, deprived, and suffer want. I want you to know, brethren, that all that has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. 

We are the children of the Pilgrims. See them as they leave the Mayflower to stand on a new shore with all the perils and hardships. The food was running low. Scurvy threatened them. Indians lurked in the Woods. But they built their altar as Noah did when he left the Ark. They gave thanks to God who brought them this far, and they believe he would see them through. 

As we go into Advent season this week, the central theme is, “His name shall be called Immanuel,” which means God is with us. He is walking down the road with us. In all things his hand is leading. All things are working together for good. Therefore, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

There is something about this kind of Thanksgiving that does something to us. It takes the frown off our face, the fear out of our eyes, and the grumbling off our lips. It puts a confidence and boisterousness in our lives that makes all the difference. It is the kind of boisterousness and high spirit that gives us faith and makes for a healthy personality. It puts our heart to the center and back in our lives. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” 

I think I can hear Paul say, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” The ultimate victory is assured. He caught the vision that he later saw at Patmos when he said: “And John saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God.” Paul could say, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness.” 

Victor Hugo caught the vision when he wrote: “For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse. But I feel I have not said a thousandth part what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say like many others, I have finished my day’s work, but I cannot say, I have finished my life. My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the Twilight. It opens on the dawn.”

This is a faith by which we live. It is a faith in God and in Christ who is bringing in his eternal Kingdom. We are together sharing in that work. The Kingdom may be slow in coming. Our task may be discouraging. Our burden may be heavy. But ever in our eyes, there glimmers that eternal light. We pray with real faith, may that Kingdom come, knowing that it will, for God is at work in our lives and in our world. He will accomplish his task. This makes our burdens lighter and our task easier—for these are for the advance of the gospel—we are the heralds of his Kingdom—so—”We give thanks in all circumstances, for God is at work and all our lives.”

The history of man has moved in a strange rhythm over-and-over from the downbeat of bondage to the upbeat of freedom. In this strange cycle, man is his own greatest enemy. He is hell-bent for his own destruction. Despite the many options for freedom that he is presented with, man has an incredulous ability to get entangled, once and again, in the yoke of bondage. Let’s look at the record. 

Man’s story begins on the upbeat of freedom. In Genesis 1 and 2, man emerges from his creator’s hand as a being made in God’s image placed in dominion over the world. He lives in a beautiful garden, where he can walk about in freedom, fulfilling himself in creativity, and enjoying the extreme ecstasy of communion with God. In the cool of the evening God comes down into the garden and walks with man. In one fell swoop, man goofs everything up. 

His sin was not so much that he ate the forbidden fruit, as that he doubted the integrity of his God who created him. Soon, he found himself driven from his garden of freedom. His work that was to be his creative fulfillment turned out to be his curse. This curse enslaved him. 

Man now ate bread by the sweat of his brow, until he returned to the ground from which he came. His iniquity was visited on his children. Cain’s anger was kindled against God and his brother. He murdered his brother. He was driven by his guilt to run from God as a fugitive and a wanderer without roots. It is interesting that Cain builds the first city, trying to bring people near to him again. Trying to find roots. Man tried to escape from the bondage of estrangement from God and other men that resulted in the bondage of loneliness. God tried to rewrite the story of man with a new beginning with Abraham. 

He calls on Abraham to take his family and go to a new land. God will lead him to the new land. This new land would be a new beginning and a new Eden. Before long, this new people find themselves in bondage in Egypt. How did they become enslaved there? 

It is an interesting enslavement that came out of economic necessity. The sons of Jacob, Abraham’s great-grandchildren, found themselves in the midst of famine. The people of God were enslaved because they needed bread. They made their pilgrimage to Egypt and into slavery to obtain their bread, and by the sweat of their brow, they were eating bread. The people of God were enslaved by a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. They were enslaved by the body politic. The people of God were reduced to slavery by the political despotism of the Pharaoh, who was totally selfish. 

They grew used to the good life of Egypt. They were frightened by the wilderness through which they must pass to obtain their freedom in the promised land. It is quite evident as they were enslaved, they had lost the name of their God, the one existing God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had succumbed to the Egyptian gods of fertility and materialism. When Moses led them out of Egypt, they took some of the Egyptian gods with them for insurance, in case Yahweh the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob failed them.  

I now suggest that you and I are in bondage today as the people of God, the same as the people Moses took out of bondage in Egypt. You remember what caused the children to go into Egypt in the first place, famine. The famine was brought on by the law of supply and demand, economic necessity. They sold their soul for a mess of pottage. 

There is one thing that the rebellious ones, the younger generation, the hippies and the hang loose ones are trying to tell us. They ask, “Don’t you see you are enslaved by the economic system, by the spiral towards status.”

Now many people are working at jobs today they wouldn’t be caught dead working at, if it were not for the salary they pay. Economic necessity has enslaved many of us. More than that, we are hooked by the leeks and garlic of Egypt the same as the Hebrews were. We are like the Hebrews who were the forced labor of Egypt. We move in the strange spiral of the luxury of yesterday and the necessities of today. Are we not all hurt by the spiral in economic order? 

Many of us today are living on next year’s salary. We have spent our salary of this year and the year after that for our luxuries of today. When we finance a car for four years, we are actually spending our salary for the next four years. This cycle of luxury that becomes necessity, and we become enslaved. We could no longer tithe, because we have already spent it. We can no longer do the things we ought to do. We live because of the economic enslavement. We miss contributing to the important things. This behavior means less than ever in the church. 

We live in a world of “economic distribution” enslavement. Today, there are many haves and many more have nots. We are faced with oversupply and overproduction in America and Europe. Yet, there are many who live in poverty, starvation, and underdevelopment in the rest of the world. The gap widens more every year. 

We live in a slavery of political alliances. There is the Vietnam issue. There’s not an American who does not wish we were out of Vietnam. There is no way out. There is the sterility of the old parties and the old ways, as Adam Clayton Powell says, “man serving his own ends with no solutions for poverty and racism.” What do we do with our suffering minorities, our Hebrews in Goshen?

 We live in a bondage of disease. People are dying before their time. Just when you get to know someone, they deteriorate and die of a new disease. We live in the bondage of people who are in disunity and fragmentation. How sick the children of God must seem to the world. 

We have adopted the gods of the Egyptians. In our world, might has become right and we are frustrated in our alliances. Education has become a fetish, a sort of sacred cow. The computer and the irresistible power of automation gives us the powers to produce more and to destroy more. These have become our false gods enslaving us. 

One day the Hebrews walked out of Egypt into the sheer wilderness. They followed Moses, who was led by God. They were pilgrims once again. They had no signposts. They had no highways in the desert. The Egyptians was chasing them. The Red Sea was ahead. But God was leading Moses, and Moses was leading them. This is where Abraham’s people found themselves, free and in the wilderness. In the Exodus from Egypt, God was calling them to become a new people, the new children of God called Israel. The Exodus was being led by God and he was leading them out of Egypt. This became their confession of faith. 

“And, he went a little farther, and fell on his face and prayed, praying, 0 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39)

Spiritual stagnation is a most tragic reality in the experience of many church members and people of the modern world. This is indeed strange, when we consider that progress has become the watchword of our generation. We have seen the world advance from the day of the horse and buggy, the coal-oil lamp, silent movies, the Gramophone, and the Nickelodeon, to the luxury liner, limousine, airplane, fluorescent lighting, radio and television, computers, and the great sound movies of our day. 

But, what great spiritual advance have we made in our generation? In what way have we fortified our inner life and strengthened our spiritual resources to prepare ourselves for the shock and the stress of this new age? It amazes me to find out how many people have a mental age of twenty and a spiritual age of two. In this IQ conscious age, is it not strange that parents are so flustered if their child’s IQ is below ninety, yet they care little if their spiritual IQ is in the moron bracket or lower?

We have all laughed at the educated fool, who was educated above his capacity. Did you ever realize that the same individual is a glowing effigy of this world in which we live? What is the basic trouble in this world? It is very simple to dispose. We are educated beyond our capacity. Our generation is like a child playing with a razor blade. A razor blade is a very handy and useful thing, but a child does not have the intelligence, experience or coordination to use it properly. Modern science and culture have placed many things in our hands that are perfectly good things, but we do not have the spiritual qualifications or inner wisdom to use them properly. Because of this, advancements have become the companion of danger. Progress has become the edge of our pending annihilation. We have unlocked doors to the great power of nature, but we have opened these resources to the trigger-itchy fingers in the world, who threaten our destruction.

Is it not high time that we paid more attention to spiritual advances? Dare we continue to combat the forces of evil in an atomic age, with a horse and buggy religious experience? Will we forever be content with mental giants and spiritual morons and with a generation that finds a value and a use for everything but life itself?

Thank God there was once a man who was spiritually advanced beyond his age. In fact, he was spiritually advanced beyond the moral and spiritual needs of any age. He was a spiritual giant who dwarfs all others in the things of God. For indeed, he was God in the flesh.

It is so strange, but still so true. To learn the real values of life and obtain the religious and moral fortitude so necessary to give us the poise and direction in this new age, we must return to the shores of Galilee, the plains of Nazareth, the vineyards of Gethsemane, the busy little street of Old Jerusalem, and to Golgotha, on Calvary’s brow, the place of a skull. There we must walk with the stranger, sit with the teacher, follow the lonely burden-bearer as he makes his way from the manger to the cross. Only there can we learn the real meaning of life for our day. Only there can we find wisdom, strength and salvation to save us from our modern madness.

Let us join hands and set off in search of that little band of disciples, who we may sit with and with them learn from the Master. The Holy week is draw­ing to a close. It is Thursday night. A few days earlier was the day that Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The mob had acclaimed him with their mighty hosannas. They had strewn palm branches, and cloaks to prepare his way. They were ready to proclaim him King in Jerusalem. 

Now five days have passed. The tone of things is different in Jerusalem. The rulers of the Jews have hatched their cruel plot to slay this self-styled Messiah, who now threatens their position. Already, they have sent their men into the busy, festival-crowded streets to incite them against this Jesus of Nazareth. Their whispering campaign has been a tremendous success. A few well-chosen rumors were all that was needed. The rumors had spread from mouth to mouth like wildfire. The arrangement has already been made with Judas. For thirty pieces of silver he will deliver his master to the rulers. That fateful Passover supper had been eaten with his disciples. And, Judas went out into the night, yes into the night of tragedy and despair-to betray his Lord.

Then, the Lord arose from the table and took his three beloved disciples with him and made his way out through the city gate into the beautiful vineyards beyond the brook of Kedron. As they moved silently along, the pitter pat of foiling dew, the distant roan of the night-owl, and the wailful tone of the whippoorwill melted into the grand and harmonious symphony of the night. They were all tired. This had been a busy end to a hard week. It was the week of the feast of Passover. Many thousands of pilgrims jammed the narrow streets of Jerusalem. Whenever the master went out into the street, he was followed by the multitude-some needful, some curious, others maliciously stalking their prey. There was the strain of the impending. The disciples had heard the rumors. The Master knew his hour had come.

Now in the quietness of the night, the strain seems to lift. At last they are alone. The disciples were overcome with fatigue. Peter was perhaps the first to speak, “Master let us stop here and rest.” How unmindful were they of the tremendous struggle that was going on with the bosom of the master? This was D-Day. This was zero hour. Etched across the horizon or that dark night stood three crosses and the center cross was his. The other two disciples soon added their plea to that of Peter. Finally, the Master stopped and turned to his disciples and said: “Alright, you stop here and watch and pray.” It did not take then long to find a dry place, under the many olive trees. Jesus did not stop. He went a little farther, and there alone in the stillness of the night, he fell on his face before his God. The struggle that was within his heart now burst their confining bonds.

We will never fathom the depth of the experience in the garden that night. We read that he sweat great drops of blood, and he returned to find his disciples sleeping. We heard his awful cry of despair: “0 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

But the awfulness of the darkness of that night cannot be comprehended by our shallow minds: “But, none of the ransomed ever knew. How deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, ere he found his sheep that were lost?”

We do know this one thing. It was there in the garden he was alone in his awful struggle. It was there the master obtained the strength to go to his cross. Before he left that lonely spot, he was able to pray: “O my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it. Thy will be done.”

Luke says: “And there appeared an Angel from Heaven, strengthening him.”

By that strength, he was able to stand the awful shock of the betrayer’s kiss, the terror of Pilate’s court, the indecency of the Roman Mock Trial, and the crowning shame. He endured the Stigma of the Cross and the guilt of human sin, which was his lot as the scapegoat of mankind.

He even went a little farther. Yes, he only removed himself a stone’s throw. But, on the Spiritual Pathway, he went a long, long way past the sleeping disciples. Have you ever noted the actions of Christ’s disciples on the day of the cross? They were a pitiful bunch of characters. They were totally unprepared for the tremendous shock, that was to be theirs. They were not even able to foresee nor comprehend, when it was all over. They were crest-fallen, dejected, bewildered, and hopeless. All that they had was nailed to that cruel tree.

What a contrast the disciples were to the Master. Every word he spoke had meaning. Every action, every silent moment, every gesture made sense. Even in the awful hours of agony on his cross, he never lost that perspective, that sense of destiny and direction, that quiet of the soul that comes when one’s mind is fixed on the purpose of carrying out the will of God. And, he cried out, with a loud voice: “It is finished!” He bowed his head and gave up the ghost. In this action, you cannot help but feel this was the hour of a most meaningful triumph for him.

Let us never cease to be thankful that he did not sleep that night with disciples and flounder in bewilderment with them on the day of the cross. Instead, he went on a little farther. He went on a great deal farther-into the sanctuary of aloneness with God. There he gained the strength and perspective for the struggle that was already in his soul and would soon be a physical reality.

But you say that he paid a tremendous cost for that spiritual poise and perspective. Indeed, he did. While his disciples were enjoying that much needed rest, he was sweating in the agony of blood. While they were at peace, he was beset by a turmoil too great to even comprehend. He paid a great price, but he purchased a great possession. “It is the little farther that costs, but it is the little farther that counts.”

I am reminded of an experience in my boyhood. It was in the day before the football had valves in them. In fact, the bladder of the ball was not even rubber, but was garnered at a nearby slaughterhouse. Before the game, it was our job to pump up the football, with our human bellows. The whole team would stand around to help. The smallest fellow would start the blowing up the ball with his mouth. After he burned out his best breath, the ball was passed on to another. Each one had to blow a little harder. Finally, it was passed to big burly Tubby Avery. He was the one who could blow the hardest. I shall never forget how his cheeks bulged, his face grew red, and eyes almost popped from their sockets as he gave his last blow. But it was his last blow that really counted. It gave the ball the resilience that was especially needed for a ball in a good old game of Canadian Rugby. It was the last blow that really cost, but it was the last blow that really counted. And that is even more true in Christian experience. “It is the little farther that costs, but it is the little farther that counts.”

What does this world need most? What is the one thing our Church needs most? Our Church needs men and women, who are willing to pay the cost of going on a little farther with God. Before we could play that Rugby game, we had to reckon with the cost of the game. We had to expend our energy to blow up the ball. I know it is a poor analogy, but are we really ready to play the game of life? 

For our lives are to have the true perspective, poise and foresight in our struggle with the great dilemmas through which we are passing in the modern world, we must go on a little farther into our Garden of Gethsemane. We must be willing to leave the rest of the disciples to have their nap, if necessary, and go on alone to blaze a trail of spiritual foresight and leadership in our day.

The great French philosopher Henri Bergson pointed out in his last book that “society in itself is static, and without the foresight of a great leader it will lapse into a state of stagnation.” Each generation has produced its great mystics and leaders, who catch a vision of the possibilities of the great unreached. Stimulated by that vision they step out boldly on the untried path of progress, and the common people follow in their footsteps. Thus, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

From the scientific point of view, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Edison, Ford and many others have been stirred by unattainable possibilities and potentialities that has caused them to strike out in untried fields, and by hard work and struggle, they attained new heights and left the masses in their wake. Their job was done by wholehearted surrender and dedication to their task.

From the philosophic point of view, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Descartes, Kant and many other men of philosophic foresight, lead their contemporar­ies down the avenue of progress in thought and reflection. So also in the religious and moral realm, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin and a whole band of others, were people of vision who boldly followed the guiding hand of God, and lead their world and ours to new heights of spiritual reality and religious experience.

But how did they reach these new heights themselves? There is only one road. It leads through the garden of Gethsemane. Through prayer and tears, struggle and faith, and finally victory and strength from and the Angel of God. This path is the only formula. Great spiritual leaders have always been close friends of Christ, walking the lonely road from the manger to the cross with him.

What does our church need most? I say we need more spiritual leaders. I do no not merely mean, men and women who can teach a Sunday School Class, or lead the choir, or lead a discussion group, or give direction to a drive for new members in the church. I mean real spiritual leaders: men and woman who have been crucified with Christ, who have walked long hours of fellowship with the Master. Men and women of prayer and of the Word of God. Men and women who have really struggled against the forces of evil and of self in their own soul. In other words, men and woman who have paid the cost of “Going a little farther with Christ and are now ready to Count for him in the Kingdom.”

Paul could say to the Christians at Rome: “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

That’s the thing I am talking about this morning. Our need is men and women who are willing to place their lives unreservedly on the altar of God, as vessels consecrated for the Master’s use, alone. For there is really, no halfway with God. 

“We either crown him Lord of All, or we do not crown him Lord at all.” Will you pay the price, and make your life count for God in this world?

“It seems to me that the theme of the New Testament is one of joy. I’m somewhat disappointed that ministers do not preach on the theme very often. I feel that this is one of the best antidotes for depression.”  These are the words a member of our congregation, Dr. Howard Dewey. He said these words in a dialogue on depression a few months ago. The words hit me like a bolt of lightning. There and then I was determined to preach on the theme of joy at my earliest opportunity. 

I realized the interesting thing is that the word joy has almost disappeared from our vocabulary today. Not so with the New Testament. The Greek word “xapa” is equal to joy and appears 52 times in the testament. The verb “rejoice” is an equivalent to six different words in the New Testament and these words appear 67 times in the New Testament. Why do we not use the word “joy” or “rejoice” today? 

This question fascinates me. Perhaps we can find the answer in the meaning of the word. The American College dictionary says “joy” means an emotion of keen and lively pleasure rising from present or expected good. Exultant satisfaction. Great gladness. 

The Greek word for joy “xapa” is an exultant feeling of joy or gladness brought about by the Holy Spirit resident in one’s life. 

When you ruminate on the meaning of joy, you realize it is the opposite of anxiety. Probably, the reason we do not have joy in our lives is we have anxiety instead. Our anxiety destroys our joy. I’m sure that is why Jesus kept saying over and again, “Don’t be anxious, don’t be anxious.” Anxiety takes all the joy out of life. 

Think of the anxieties that bug us. Like our anxiety about health that makes us hypochondriacs with our many imagined illnesses. Like the anxiety about wealth that takes all the joy out of giving. It is disconcerting to read through the cards of those who did not to participate in the $50M fund. There were two stacks: those who cannot give and those who gave. There were those whose anxiety about wealth was so high they could not find joy of giving. 

Jesus said be not anxious about tomorrow, for your father knows that you have needs for these things and that you have anxiety about self-giving. Some people can give of themselves easily. They never seem to run out of energy.  

But now let’s flip the coin over. What is joy? The parable Jesus present of the hidden treasure is again about the kingdom of heaven as the treasure hidden in the field. The man found the treasure covered up. In joy, he goes and sells all he has to buy the field with the treasure (Matthew 13:44). 

This is a most exciting story. It contains for us the words that centers around the word “hidden treasures.” Think of the many stories centered around buried treasure. We are thrilled by the story of Long John Silver in the Treasure Island. The story Jesus tells is an exciting one about a plowman, who perhaps is a sharecropper of the field. He lives in Palestine where often the land beholds hidden treasures, because of invasions. When the land was invaded, a farmer or rich landowner would bury all they had in the ground for safekeeping, until they returned. Sometimes the person would die in exile and their treasures would remain buried. 

As the plowman was plowing, he would suddenly turn up a hidden treasure. He quietly covered up the treasure and ran and sold all he had and bought the field. Now the treasure was his. With great rejoicing, he dug up the treasure and it became his cherished possession. 

The next parable of Jesus is in a similar vein. “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like the merchant man, seeking goodly pearls, who when he found a pearl of a great price, he went and sold all he had and bought it” (Matthew 13 44:45). This story is about a rich man, a connoisseur of pearls, one day in the marketplace stumbles on a pearl of great value. He goes and sells all he has, and to his great joy, buys the pearl. 

In both cases they found the find of a lifetime and their lives were filled with joy. 

Now why did Jesus tell these parables? They are parables of the “Kingdom of Heaven.” He was saying to his disciples that, “I’m offering you the Kingdom of Heaven.” I am here to offer the life of faith that I am living. Follow me and find the way. You have stumbled onto the richest and most satisfying treasure that life can give. I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. 

You see the gospel was the treasure. Christ was the supreme joy. Look at the effects of the gospel and early church. Peter was a fisherman, who was a man with a hard, drab job. He was always a man with more than his share anxieties. One day his brother Andrew came to him and said, “Come quick, I’ve found the long-looked for Messiah.” Peter followed his Lord through thick and thin, all the way to Calvary, through the resurrection and Pentecost, and through service ultimately to martyrdom. Listen to him exclaim, “Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his mercy gave us new birth into living hope by the resurrection of Jesus. The inheritance to which we are born is one that nothing can destroy or spoil or whither.” This is the cause for great joy. Even though you smart for a little while, if you need be under trials of many kinds, yet you love him and are trusting of him. You are transported with joy too great for words. 

Let’s take one more biblical example. Paul was so anxious and threatened by Christianity that he not only gave assent to Saint Stephen’s death, he got the commission from the high priest to go down Damascus and wipe out all the Christian church. Then, he met Christ. His life was changed. Now, he is writing from prison to the church at Philippi. What does he say from his own prison cell? “I wish you all joy in the Lord”. Have no anxiety, but in everything make your request known to God in prayer and petition with the thanksgiving. Then, the peace of God, which is beyond our outmost understanding, will keep guard over your hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus.” From that same prison cell, he writes to the Thessalonians, “Be always joyful.” To the Corinthians he writes, “Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him.” 

What happened to these men? They were plowing the field, when suddenly they turned up a pearl of great price? A hidden treasure, which was the great savior our Lord. They went and sold all they had, threw anxiety to the wind and bought the great treasure. They gave all their lives to Christ.

There was a young man in France, who was a philosopher, musical master, and a medical doctor. He was a great mind walking through the ancient slave market in southern France. He owed a great debt to Christ and to Africa. His name was Albert Schweitzer. Hear his message as he speaks.

“He comes to us as an unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside. He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: Follow thou me! And, he sets us to the tasks he must fulfill in our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they are wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his followership, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is. You see the ultimate that anyone can say about the living God is this: I have encountered him: he has reached me: has stood at my door and knocked, and when I open the door he came in and communed with me.”

And when he really comes in, anxiety goes out and joy replaces it. Suddenly we are fused into Gods will and the Kingdom of God is within. We find our “raison d’etre”, our reason for being. With joy we draw water out of the wells of Salvation.

Living Light 

Lift me up oh Lord, into the living light 
Thy radiant presence filling all my soul 
Speak through the gloom, the anguish of the night 
Help me see thee and thy gleaming goal

Darkness descends upon my well-loved land 
Low burn the lights made dim by earth-wide wrong. 
Foundations shake. Men’s rocks are windblown sand. 
Thou only, Lord, art now and always strong. 

Now lifting of thy law, oh Lord, I ask, 
No swift release from consequences of sin. 
Grant me thy mercy Lord and then some task 
to share with thee to bring thy Kingdom in.

And while I serve thee as I may 
Help me to know what gift thou findest best 
Words, earthly goods, the labor of each day 
Myself I give and leave with thee the rest. 

Lift me, O Lord unto thy living light 
Make strong my soul with common steadfast joy. 
Then shall my faltering steps, my clouded sight 
In thee find power that nothing can destroy.