The Unexpected Christmas Gift (Matthew 10:34)

Audio available here

Snowfall created a crisis in our area last weekend. Not only did we have to cancel church, but the bigger news story was how the retail industry would be crippled because shoppers couldn’t get out on the day after Christmas. On that day, typically shoppers rush out to stores for two reasons. For one, they want to buy all of next year’s Christmas items at a reduced price; and they head out to return all the gifts they received but really didn’t want. I’ve been on both ends of that whole “unwanted gift” thing before. We gave some presents to a friend of our children, and when he had opened it, he said, “I really don’t like these; they’re not what I wanted.” And I’ve had those moments where I opened something and wanted to say that, but like a polite grownup I smile and say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” What I really mean is, “Seriously, you SHOULDN’T have.” Of course, sometimes you receive a gift that you really wanted, but once you unbox it and begin to make use of it, there is something unexpectedly disappointing about it. It doesn’t fit like you thought it would; the quality is poorer than you expected; it doesn’t have the features you were hoping it would have.

Now, we all know that Christmas is not about the gifts we give to each other, but about the Gift that God has given to each of us in Jesus Christ. And yet, it seems that as we acquaint ourselves with this wondrous Gift, we are sometimes disappointed, or at least surprised by something we never expected. Are you shocked to hear me say that? Don’t be, for God surely knows that we have all thought it; therefore it is no shame to just come out with it. Surely all of us have had those moments where we were faced with a reality that we never expected following Christ would entail. That has happened to every person who has ever begun to follow Jesus, beginning with the apostles and continuing on to this very day. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with Jesus; He is who He is, and He is glorious in all of His divine perfections. But sometimes there is something off-kilter in our expectations or understanding that gets whiplashed as we come to discover more about the Christ to whom we have pledged ourselves by faith. And so we come to realize that He is an unexpected Christmas gift.

In our text today we find an instance where we are perhaps taken aback by the words of Jesus. He says in Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth.” Peace? Where would we have gotten a silly idea like that? Oh I remember now, that is what we were told His coming would bring to the world! You remember how the angels said in Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” These very words were inscribed on precisely 72.8% of the Christmas cards I received this year (OK I made that part up to make it sound more convincing, but those words were on a lot of cards). Surely the coming of Christ means peace on earth. But no, Jesus says, “Do not think I came to bring peace on the earth.” Well, if He didn’t come to bring peace, He must have come to bring something similar to peace. Maybe it is one of those “Greek word” things where we translate it one way but it really can also mean something similar but different. So what did He really come to bring? He said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Well, now if this isn’t the ultimate bait and switch! This is worse than my last visit to Best Buy. I went in to buy a computer that was listed in the paper, and was told that they didn’t have them and couldn’t get them but they could sell me one that was half as good for the same price. When I called to complain about that, they told me that the offer in the paper only applied to residents of Brooklyn, New York. That was bad, but this is worse. We were promised peace, but then Jesus shows up and says, “No, I didn’t come to bring peace! I came to bring a sword.” I think we’re going to need to talk to the Manager or something about this! This is not what we expected!

So in order to understand all this, we need to look at the peace that was promised and the sword that was sent and see how this Christmas gift that we never expected actually proves to be for our good and for God’s glory in the world.

I. Reexamining the peace that was promised.

Throughout the Old Testament, the people of God were promised a time of peace that was coming. The Hebrew word Shalom encapsulates so much more than just the absence of warfare. It carried the idea of completeness, wholeness, a state of perfect well-being in which all would be right in the world. It was clear that this day had been promised and that Messiah was the One who would bring it about. When Isaiah spoke of the coming of the Messiah, He said that he would be called the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and said that there would be no end to the increase of His government or of peace (9:7). Isaiah spoke of the days in which Messiah would reign, and the people would beat their swords into plowshares, and nations would no longer lift up swords against one another, and never again would they learn war (2:4). Surely the angels who made their announcement to the shepherds in the fields in Luke 2:14 were not lying when they said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace....”

Now, because of our familiarity with the King James Version, and moreover because we have memorized Christmas carols that are based on the King James text, we tend to think of Luke 2:14 as saying, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men.” But, in fact, this is not the best translation of that verse. Quite literally it means, “peace on earth to men of good will,” that is, “to those on whom God’s favor rests,” men of His good will; not peace and good will to all men everywhere. It is those who receive Christ and the promise of salvation who receive peace.

Jesus told His disciples, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” The kind of peace that Jesus gave to His followers in His first coming was a peace between God and man that results from deliverance from sin. Because of sin, humanity is at war with God, and it is a war that we cannot win. But Christ’s coming is the offer of peace. God Himself comes to dwell among us as a man in the person of Jesus to take the penalty of our sin upon Himself, so that in Christ we may be at peace with God. Paul says in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith,” that is, having been made righteous through faith in Christ on the basis of His sinless life, His substitutionary death, and His glorious resurrection, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The sin that separated us from Him has been overcome by the blood of His cross and we have been reconciled to Him in this grace of salvation. So, indeed, Jesus came to bring peace to those on whom God’s favor, His saving grace, rests.

But, the coming of Christ which we celebrate at Christmas makes no such promise of peace and good will to all people everywhere on the earth. Christ made this clear, and the promises and prophecies made this clear. For every promise that had been made of a coming peace, there were also promises of vengeance and wrath, promises of hardship that would be endured by the faithful people of God, promises of strife that would arise for the sake of the name of Christ. So when Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace,” the word which is translated as bring in our Bibles is the Greek word ballo, from which we get the word “ball.” It means to throw, to cast, to hurl, if you will. Jesus is saying, “I did not come to cast peace over the whole earth.” Though such a universal peace has been promised, it is for now postponed until His second coming. This was not the purpose of His first coming which we celebrate at Christmas. There is a peace with God that can be experienced individually by those who call upon Him, a peace with God that issues forth in peaceful relations between men where His grace flows through those who belong to Him by faith. But that peace has not been comprehended or experienced by all, and therefore, universal peace will continue to elude our grasp until He returns. When that day arrives, all evil and all sin will be vanquished by His glorious power, and the perfect state of Shalom, the perfect peace of His eternal reign will be cast over the whole earth. But it is yet future. Do not think that He came to bring that kind of peace at Christmas. For that we still wait; but here and now we can have personal peace with God by believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ which says that He lived the righteous life we cannot, and died the sinners’ death in our place, that we might be forgiven, redeemed, made righteous, and adopted as sons and daughters in the family of God. And if we lose sight of the distinction between these two kinds of peace, we may become disappointed and find Christ to be a most unexpected Christmas gift.

II. Considering the Sword that was Sent

I am for better and for worse something of a creature of habit, and for the last ten years or so, one of my habits at this time of year has been to reread C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The land of Narnia sits under the control of the White Witch and she has made it so that it is always winter and never Christmas. But Aslan, the mighty lion who represents Christ, is coming to set things aright in Narnia. The ancient Narnian prophecy had foretold: “Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight; at the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, when he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, and when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

Before the children of the story meet him, they meet Father Christmas, the preferred name among the British for Santa Claus. It is he who announces to the children that “Aslan is on the move.” The appearance of Father Christmas indicates that the witch’s spell is breaking and that Christmas will come to Narnia; Aslan will arrive on the scene at the perfect moment, just as Christ arrived on earth in the fullness of time. When Father Christmas gives the children their presents, to Peter, the eldest, he gives a sword and a shield. Lewis says that Peter “was silent and solemn as he received these gifts, for he felt they were a very serious kind of present.” Before peace could be established in Narnia, there would be a great battle, and Peter would have to make use of the gift he had received.

The biblical imagery of Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles is hard to miss. Just as Peter received the unexpected gift of a sword from Father Christmas, so Jesus says that He did not come to bring peace but a sword. And similarly, we understand this to mean that before there can be the universal peace of Messiah’s reign, there must be a battle to vanquish evil. That battle has been raging since sin first entered the world and it will continue until Christ returns. However, when Jesus came in His first Advent, the battle began to intensify. He came, He said, to bring a sword.

People will ask me from time to time if I interpret the Bible literally. That is really a misguided question, for the Bible, like all literature, contains passages that are literally stated and those that are figuratively stated. There are twin errors that arise when someone wants to interpret all of its passages with strict literalism or with strict figurativism. Usually, when figurative language is present, it is quite obvious, and this is one of those times. We know that Jesus does not mean that He came to bring a literal sword to the earth. First, the earth already had plenty of swords; second, we have no historical record of Jesus ever using a sword; third, when Peter drew his sword to defend Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebuked him; we could go on, but it is plain to see that Jesus is using “sword” here in a figurative way. But what does this figure of speech mean? Like most figurative language, there are many possibilities. In the Bible, a sword is sometimes used to speak of war, and sometimes of violence and bloodshed. While the Quran uses the idea of the sword to teach these things, the teachings of Jesus clearly indicate that this is not what He means when He says He came to bring a sword. There are passages that speak of the sword as an instrument of judgment, wielded both by the state (in the sense of capital punishment) and by the Lord. But divine judgment is something that is promised for the second Advent, not the first. There are also some passages that use the figurative language of a sword to describe the Word of God, and certainly Jesus not only came to proclaim the Word, but He also IS the incarnate Word of God. Yet, context here does not point to this meaning either. The symbolism here seems to point to the idea of a sword that divides.

In 1836, Colonel William Barrett Travis stood in front of the Alamo and took his sword and drew a line in the sand, saying, “I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with to come across this line.” This is the same idea that we find here with the sword that Christ brings to the world. He comes to divide those who are with Him and those who are against Him. He eliminates all potential for a middle-ground. In Matthew 12:30, He says, “He who is not with Me is against Me.” And here in this text, He gives a stern warning to His followers.

We who have chosen to be with Him, to believe in Him by faith, will feel the sharp slice of the sword that He came to bring as we find ourselves divided from even our closest relationships. He says in the very next verse, “I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” The point here is not that Jesus calls us to make enemies with those people. No, the Bible is clear that the people of God are to love, honor, respect and care for their family members, even those who are unbelievers. Rather, Jesus’ point is that we must not be surprised when those family members cut us off from their company and turn away from us because of our faith in Him. We must understand that this kind of division is inevitable, and though it is as painful as the stab of a sword, we must endure it for the sake of His kingdom.

This is the point of what He says in verses 37-39. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy or Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Are we willing for the faith that binds us to Jesus to sever us from earthly ties? Does the threat of that sword cause us to want to shrink back from following Christ? If so, then Jesus says we are not worthy of Him, for we have not truly grasped the eternal severity of following Him, nor have we fully committed ourselves to Him. He says, “He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” Because we do not daily see crucifixion happening, these words have lost their sting in our day. Jesus’ original hearers understood full-well that when Jesus spoke of taking your cross, He meant death. If we are not willing to follow Christ to the point of death, suffering every earthly loss it may entail, including the loss of our very lives, then we have not comprehended the all-surpassing glory of Christ. The loss of earthly ties may seem mild compared to the bloody death of a cross that both Christ and many of His followers have had to endure. But we must be prepared to suffer both if we choose to follow Him.

But then He says, “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” If our existence is all about preserving our own luxuries and comforts so that we have a more enjoyable life here and now, then all that we seek to maintain in the present will be lost when this life comes to an end. What does it profit a man, Jesus said, to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? But if our faith in Christ is sincere enough to suffer the loss of earthly relationships, luxuries, comforts and privileges in order to hold fast to His name, then we will find that we have lost nothing in this life that is not more than compensated for in the life to come when we see Him face to face. The sword that Christ brings is much like the surgeon’s scalpel – it cuts us painfully and draws blood, but it cuts us to heal us. And when we awake to see His face in glory, our healing will be complete … First John 3 says that when we see Him, we will be like Him. And all the pain that the Christmas sword caused will fade from memory altogether, and there will be joy, glory, and ultimately peace like we have never known before.

Today I’d like to conclude by asking you if you have received this Christmas gift of Jesus Christ and the salvation that He lived and died to provide for you? As you follow Him, you may be surprised at what He calls you to and commands of you. The sacrifices you may be called to make may be quite unexpected; some of what He has promised may be postponed for a later day. But He will be faithful to His promises, and in Him alone is salvation found. So, though the bells of Christmas have ceased from ringing, the ultimate gift of Christmas is still available to all who will receive Him. We invite you today to receive Christ as God’s gift to you by calling upon Him as your Lord and Savior.

And in other news ...

I got a call this afternoon from Kristin Nelson at WGHP FOX 8 asking for a comment about the threat of snow this weekend and how that might affect our plans for Sunday service, and what canceling a service means for a church's offerings. I thought it was a great question, and I responded by saying that our members' well-being is more important than the offerings, and we simply trust God to provide for what our church needs, even if we have to miss a Sunday from time to time. She asked if she could come by and do an interview on camera with me, and I agreed. She and the videographer with her were very pleasant and we had a nice chat in the sanctuary about these and other questions.

I reiterated in the interview much of what I had said over the phone. The point I wanted to make clear in the piece was that God controls the weather, and He is the one we trust to provide for us. Therefore, if the weather causes us to close for a Sunday, we don't believe that we will suffer financially for that. I hope that is what came across when the story aired. But I am not sure it does.

The frustration I have had with journalists over the years, and the reason why I usually don't grant interviews or return phone calls, is that the final product is in the hands of an editor. Like some preachers who take the Bible out of context to prop up a point that they want to make, so some journalists will cut and paste and splice a conversation to support the premise that they went into the story to advance. While this was one of my more enjoyable media encounters, there were a couple of misrepresented statements made by the reporter in the piece that aired. For starters, I never said that I was praying for little or no precipitation. I am not going to put God' response or lack thereof to my prayers on the hook for what does or doesn't fall from the sky. Personally, I love snow, and I love the idea of a white Christmas, but I confess that I do not look forward to having to make a weather decision for Sunday. Moreover, her voiceover in the piece in which she says, "...otherwise they'll have to cancel Sunday services and miss out on donations," reflects nothing of what was said in our interview. My point was precisely the opposite ... we don't mind canceling the service for the sake of the safety of our members, BECAUSE we trust God to provide.

I want to think the best of the intentions of those who put this story together, and not read anything into their motives, it does seem that there was a desire going into this story to paint a picture of a church that needs its people's money so desperately that the threat of bad weather instills panic in our hearts as we head toward the weekend. Where my statements failed to support that thesis, a voiceover had to suffice.

My desire here is not to begrudge or belittle hardworking journalists trying to put together a quality piece of news reporting. But I am disappointed in the finished product, particularly how it was edited to convey the exact opposite sentiment of what I said. If you are in journalism, please don't do this. Don't edit and voiceover in an editorialized way. But I am also reminded of the tendency that we all have to spin things the way we want them to be. I am certainly guilty of doing this from time to time as well I suppose.

Most of all, I am also reminded of the tendency that some have to do this with the Bible. When what it says doesn't correspond to the preconceived notion in our own minds, we may feel tempted to spin it, read something into it, insert a speculation or an opinion, omit certain key thoughts and words, so that we come away from it feeling like our presupposition has been validated. As frustrated as I am when this happens to me in the paper or on TV, I must think of the disappointment God must feel when we do the same to His word. If our opinions are not confirmed by the facts, our opinions need adjusting, but we mustn't spin the facts.

The FOX 8 story can be found online here: http://www.myfox8.com/news/wghp-story-christmas-snow-101222,0,7495312.story

The Fullness of Time

If you could be born at any time in history, when would it be? Perhaps we might say biblical times, or in the prime of some ancient empire, or during a period such as the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Victorian Era, Colonial days, etc. We might even look forward and choose the future, when perhaps there will be a cure for cancer, or even a better economy! Of course, though we can make many choices in our lives, we are not able to choose the time in which we were born. That was determined by the sovereignty of God. Acts 17:26-27 says, "He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God." According to that truth, God placed us when (historically) and where (geographically) He chose us to exist for His own purposes, namely that we might be most sensitive to Him, and seek Him like we would in no other period of time. But it is fun to imagine what life would be like in another time or place, isn't it?

What about Jesus? If you could determine the time and place for Him to be born, when and where would that be? When it comes to the exact day and year of His birth, there is much uncertainty. The story of how Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25, and the year of His birth as Year 0 (Zero), is complicated and somewhat embarrassing. Most scholars are convinced that He was not born on this date, and many propose a more probable date of the fall season (perhaps in proximity to the Feast of Tabernacles), in the range of 4 to 6 BC. But, though we may never know this side of heaven (and it will hardly matter on the other side) the precise date of His birth, we know that when it occurred, it was the precisely perfect time in history. Just as God sovereignly determines our appointed times and the boundaries of our habitation, so He sovereignly determined the moment that the incarnation would occur. In Galatians 4, Paul says that God sent forth His Son "when the fullness of time came." It is as if all of human history was pregnant, and when it had reached full-term, the incarnate Christ was born to the virgin.

At that time, there was an unprecedented spiritual hunger and religious upheaval in the world. Because of the scattering of Israel across the nations, the idea of monotheism was gaining traction among multitudes who had been previously devoted to the worship of many deities. In most of the world's major cities, there were synagogues where Jews gathered for worship and teaching from the Hebrew Bible. But by this time, most were making use, not of a Hebrew Bible, but a Greek one. Because of the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Hellenization of the world (the spread of Greek language and culture), Greek was the lingua franca of nearly the entire world. By 200 BC, the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) had been translated into Greek (the Septuagint), so most of the world could read, hear, and know about this one true God whom the Israelites worshiped. Greek was also the language in which the New Testament was written, and the language by which the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus began to permeate the globe. To facilitate the spread of this message, God had providentially allowed the Roman Empire to unite the world under a common peace, the Pax Romana, and connect the world through an intricate system of roads and trade routes. So the time when Christ came was the ideal time in all of past and future times for Him to be made known in the world.

We might be tempted to think that the day in which we live would be more opportune for Christ to come. If Jesus was on the earth today, He could make use of the great technological advances that we enjoy today to spread His message. His birth, His teaching sessions, even His death and the events surrounding His resurrection could be simulcast via satellite all over the world. He could write a blog that could be read all over the world, and translated via Google services into almost any language. He could have a podcast that disseminated MP3s of His sermons globally. Can you imagine downloading the Sermon on the Mount onto your iPhone? He could have a Twitter account that would rival Conan O'Brien's in number of followers and buzz created. He could have a facebook page for all of His followers to connect on, and He could share pictures immediately. Think of it ... James could upload a picture of Lazarus coming out of the tomb! Peter could have uploaded video of the transfiguration to YouTube, or better, in High Definition on Vimeo! Surely God must see the technological tower that we have built for ourselves in this day and second guess His own timing of the incarnation! No, perish that thought. God's ways and His timing are always perfect, and when Christ came, it was the fullness of time.

When Jesus walked the earth, His message was heard by sometimes three, sometimes twelve, sometimes a few dozen, a few hundred, and at the apex, perhaps 20,000 or more. With the push of a few buttons and a few mouse clicks, today one can publish a message (like this one I am writing now) that can be seen, heard, and viewed by millions, if not billions! I maintain this blog which has been visited some 18,000 people on every continent since its inception. I have a facebook page with over 300 "friends," and a twitter account that is "followed" by 160 people, some of whom I don't even know. And my numbers are small compared to countless others who are far more important than me. But we, like all humanity, will be swept away in death one day. The keystrokes will fall silent; URLs will expire; a server will crash, something new will come along that renders the sites and services we use today irrelevant, and our words and ideas will turn to dust along with our decomposing carcasses. But, two-thousand years after Jesus walked the earth, He is still creating a buzz, though He made no use of any of these technologies.

These things should affect us deeply in several ways. First, we should become instantly aware of how unnecessary these things are. We are thankful for them, and we should steward them wisely, but God doesn't need them to carry out His task. Second, we should be reminded of both our own fleeting influence, and the ever-enduring influence of Jesus. Whatever splash we make in the world through our online presence and tech-savvy is microscopic (if that!) compared to the wake that continues to follow Jesus. Third, we must consider that God is able to work in "small things" perhaps even more than we imagine that He could in "big things." Our aim should not be for greatness in the world's eyes, but for the world to know the greatness of Jesus. If God could do that before electricity, internet, and air travel, He can still do it without us creating empires for ourselves today. Finally, we must be mindful to avoid what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." We must not think that we live in a utopian age because of all of our advances, nor must we daydream of returning to a simpler society in which we shun all of these advances. While God did not need the printing press, we are certainly grateful for its existence and we have made much good use of it for the spread of the Gospel. The same could be said of the technology we enjoy today. It has arisen under the providence and common grace of God, and if we would use it well, we would use it to spread the glory and fame of Jesus, not ourselves. Christ is the Word made Flesh. Heaven and earth, and all who dwell upon the earth, and Google and Facebook, and Twitter and YouTube, and HDTV and Skype, and all the rest will all pass away. But God's Word will never pass away. And the Word made Flesh in Jesus will continue to spread His glory in all the earth until He returns.

Longing for the Lord to Come Down (Isaiah 64)

Audio available here

A few weeks ago, I was at home alone, and decided to have a frozen meal for dinner. I opened the box and read the directions, and it said, “Microwave on high for five minutes.” And do you know what thought went through my head? “Five minutes?!? That is an awfully long time!” And instantly I caught myself in the midst of that complaint. Has it really come to this? Have the advances in our technology and society really spoiled me that much that a five minute wait seems unbearable? A couple of decades ago, that same meal I ate in five minutes would have taken hours to prepare. But today we live in a society of instant gratification, and I for one have grown impatient with waiting. Maybe you have too.

The Advent season has a lot to do with waiting. During Advent, we think back to the centuries that Israel waited for the coming of the Messiah who had been promised. Since the first sin of humanity, God had continually reminded His people that He would, in His own way, in His own time, bring about the deliverance of His people through the Messiah. Days, weeks, months, years, decades, generations, centuries, even millennia came and went, and no Messiah came. Some hardened their hearts in impatience, while others held onto hope that God would do what He said. They were longing for the Lord to come. And in God’s perfect time, and in God’s perfect way, He did not just send a Savior, but He became a Savior, taking human flesh upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ to deliver humanity from the bondage to sin. He did this through His perfect life, His substitutionary death, and His glorious resurrection. During Advent, we look back and reflect on what it would have been like to wait with longing and expectation for the Lord to come.

But during Advent we also look ahead. The prophets foretold what the Messiah would accomplish when He came, and when Jesus died, there were things that had been promised which had not yet been fulfilled and still remain unfulfilled today. Jesus explained to His followers that there was more that would occur in the future. He spoke of a return, a second coming, in which the remainder of these things would take place. The Israelites who originally heard and read those Messianic prophecies did not understand that there was a first or second coming. It was all still future to them. It was like looking at a mountain range from far away, and you see several peaks in the distance. You don’t recognize until you get closer to them that they are miles apart. The Old Testament saints looked at the promise of salvation and the promise of final judgment that Messiah would bring, but they saw it from a distance as one thing, not two. It was not until His first coming did it become clear that there would be a second coming. So, though our longing for salvation has been satisfied in the coming of Christ into the world, still we wait for Him to return with that same sort of longing that they had. As we look at this broken world which is devastated by sin, we cry out with those Old Testament saints, “Oh that You would rend the heavens and come down!” We cry with the martyrs of the book of Revelation, “How long O Lord?”

Today I want to focus on the first coming of Christ and the desire of Israel for the coming of the Messiah which had been promised and find in this text the reasons why there was such a longing for His coming. As we do so, we will also consider how the satisfaction of that longing in the coming of Christ affects us today as we live between the first and second advent of Jesus.

I. The coming of the Messiah means hope for the nations (vv1-4)

The second Psalm opens with a question concerning the state of global affairs that existed in ancient days: “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their their cords from us.’” Thousands of years later, we see that, in spite of all the changes in the world, this state of affairs remains unchanged. The nations continue to rage; tyrants continue to take bold stands and act aggressively toward one another, and conspire together to lead their people away from the will of God. They posture themselves as enemies of peace, enemies of justice, enemies of righteousness, which amounts to a warfare against the Lord Himself.

The longing of the people of God was that the Lord might come down from heaven and remedy this situation. Though they longed for judgment to come upon the enemies of the Lord “as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil” (v2a), there was also a note of compassion in their longing. They understood that the reason why these nations were adversaries of the Lord was that they did not know Him. They longed for the Lord to come, saying in verse 2, “to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence.” While Israel had known and experienced the power of God, while they had received the promises of the Word of God and the blessings of God’s favor, the nations warred against a God they did not know. Verse 4 says that they “have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” It was not that they did not have gods of their own whom they worshiped and served. Every nation of the ancient world, just as every nation of our own day, had deities to whom they prayed and sacrificed and served. But their gods were false idols, figments of a depraved imagination, fashioned in attempt to quench their nagging spiritual hunger and their corrupted fancies. And it was with their gods’ seeming approval that they committed atrocities against humanity and blasphemy against the one true God. After all, their deities had not forbidden them from acting in such ways. They had not punished them for so doing. They had not warned them to change their ways. Their gods were of no help to them at all.

Psalm 115 says that “their idols are silver and gold, the work of man’s hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; they have eyes but the cannot see; they have ears but they cannot hear; they have noses but they cannot smell; they have hands but they cannot feel; they have feet, but they cannot walk; they cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.” Isaiah 44 says that they cut down a cedar, and they take part of it and make a fire to bake bread and warm themselves, and the other part they craft into a god and worship it; they pray to it and say, “Deliver me, for you are my god.” Isaiah 45:20 says that “they pray to a god who cannot save.” Isaiah 46 says that they hire a goldsmith to craft gold and silver into a god, and they bow down and worship it. “They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it; they set it in its place and it stands there. It does not move from its place. Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer; it cannot deliver him from his distress.”

Why do they do this? It is because they have not heard of the name of the one True God; they have neither heard nor seen of Him. And they devote themselves therefore to hollow idolatry which cannot help them here and now, and which leads them into the pursuit of their sinful desires, and which will ultimately lead them to the destruction of judgment and hell. Now, in Israel’s cry of longing, there is a subtle confession, an indictment if you will. What they are crying for the Lord to come and do, God had already commissioned them to do! Surely it is accurate to say that Israel was God’s chosen people, but the question must be asked, “Chosen for what?” Israel was never chosen that they alone may the participants in the gracious favor of God in His covenant! They were chosen to be a light to the nations, that all nations may hear and know of this God who saves as Israel lived and testified before them. But they failed in that mission. They kept God to themselves, and they were surprised to find the nations resorting to idolatry, when in fact the nations simply did not know any better.

Christ has come into the world now, and in His life and ministry, He demonstrated that God is concerned for the nations as much as He is for Israel. Our longing for the coming of the Lord has been satisfied in Jesus, and He has brought hope for the nations. Yet today, of the world’s 11,588 people groups, more than half of them (6,426) are considered unreached, having less than 2% of their populations as evangelical Christians. Some 3,724 of these people groups are considered unengaged, that is, there is no access to the gospel at all among them. If we were to cry out like Israel did, “Oh Lord, that You would rend the heavens and come down!” it would mean destruction and judgment upon those nations where Christ has not been named. He has already come to bring hope to the nations and to bring the message of salvation to them. He will not come again for that purpose, but to bring judgment. But He has entrusted the mission of sharing the hope of His promise of salvation with the nations to His church, to you and me.

All over this world there are entire nations of people warring against God and against His anointed Christ. We see it on the news – the acts of terror and aggression that demonstrate no concern for humanity, no recognition that mankind bears the image of its Maker. We see images of idols to which people who can scarcely afford their basic life necessities make costly sacrifices. And they do this because they have no knowledge of the God who is there and the Savior we have in Jesus Christ. We say, “Oh Lord, come that these nations might know You!” And the Lord would respond to us, “I have come. You celebrate My coming for this purpose every December. But what have you done to share that message with these who are lost in ignorance of My saving power?” If the nations would know of the hope that the coming of Christ brings, it must be us who do something about it! We must pray! We must give to support the spread of the gospel! We must sacrifice luxuries and comforts so that the world may know of Christ! And we must be willing to go to the hard places, to send our children and our grandchildren when we cannot go ourselves, and to make Christ known among these nations who will otherwise never have the opportunity to know of Him before they stand before Him at His second coming in judgment. The coming of the Messiah means hope for the nations, but it is up to us to share that hope with them.

II. The coming of the Messiah means salvation for those who believe. (vv5-11)

As the Israelites cried out with longing for the coming of the Messiah, they did not just have the nations in view. They were also thinking of themselves. For the nations, there was a cry for judgment, but also an awareness of the ignorance of the nations concerning the Lord. But when they looked into the mirror and saw their own spiritual condition, they realized that, even though they were aware of the Lord and had received His blessings and His promises, they were also deserving of judgment. If God would come to bring judgment upon the nations who sinned because they had no knowledge of the Lord, what would He do to those who knew of Him and yet persisted in sin? Surely, verse 5 states a fact when it says, “You meet Him who rejoices in righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways.” But Israel was aware that these words did not describe themselves. “Behold,” they say, “You were angry, for we sinned. We continued in them a long time.” And so the question on their mind as they considered the promised coming of the Lord was not just, “What will You do to the nations when You come?” but also, “Shall we be saved?” (v5).

They recognized that they were radically corrupted by sin. Notice the description in verses 6-7: unclean, taken away by iniquity, no one who calls on the name of the Lord. Even their efforts to do right, they recognized, were totally corrupted by their sinfulness for they say, “All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.” And their sin had corrupted not only themselves but their surroundings. Verses 10 and 11 speak of how the holy cities had become a wilderness and Jerusalem a desolation; the temple burned by fire and the precious things ruined. God had not preserved their cherished places and things while they continued in sin. Israel’s own sin that made their surroundings desolate. In such a pitiable state, the best that Israel could do as they called out for the coming of the Lord was to plead for mercy, and this they did in vv8-9. “We are the clay, and You our potter.” That indicates that they are aware of His sovereignty; they are aware that God can and will do as He pleases with them. But they pray, “Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever.” This is not what they deserve, but it is what they desire, and if God chooses to show mercy upon them, they may be saved.

Friends, in these words, we find a description of our own true condition. Like them, we too are radically corrupted by sin. It has affected us to the core, such that the best we can do is still filthy rags, unacceptable before a perfectly holy God. Our sin has corrupted our lives, our relationships and our surroundings. We are at the mercy of a sovereign God who can do with us as He pleases. And what has He been pleased to do? He has become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins. He united our human nature to His divine nature in the virgin birth; He lived the sinless life that He requires of us but which we are powerless to live; He died the death that we deserve because of our sins; and He conquered death through His resurrection. As a result, our sins and their penalty have been dealt with fully and finally in this Christ whose coming we celebrate at Christmas, and we who believe upon Him have been covered in His righteousness. Thus, the great gulf that separates us from God has been bridged by Christ, and we who believe upon Him have been saved because He has come. The angel said to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, “You shall call His name Jesus (a name which means “salvation”), for He will save His people from their sins.”

The first coming of Christ into the world means good news for sinners. For those who persist in pretending that they have it all together, and do not need saving, those who would rather stand before God and boast of their own merits and their own righteousness, Christmas is a meaningless holiday. But for us who are willing to see ourselves as sinners in need of a Savior, we can rejoice that God in His mercy has rent the heavens and come down to save us.

III. The coming of the Messiah means that God’s silence has been broken (v12)

“Will you keep silent?” That was the question on the hearts of the Israelites as they considered their own state of affairs and that of the nations surrounding them. This world is in a mess; we are wrecked by sin. Oh God, will you keep silent in the midst of all this? God had not been silent before; He had sent His prophets calling His people back to Himself from their sins, but they had neither listened nor responded in repentance. And so came the final Old Testament prophet Malachi, and when God had spoken through Him, the heavens fell silent for centuries. Sin continued on in Israel and among the nations, but there was no new word from God – only silence. Four hundred years came and went with heaven being silent. But that silence was broken with the coming of Christ into the world.

The words of John’s Gospel are very familiar to us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” And in Jesus Christ, we are told, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The writer of Hebrews said that God had spoken in the past in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son. The coming of Christ is the shattering of heaven’s silence as God spoke salvation to the world in Jesus. The longing of all the nations and every generation to hear a word of grace and mercy from God, to hear a word of promise concerning redemption and salvation, was satisfied in the coming of this child into the world, for He would not only speak salvation, but would accomplish it through His life and through His death.

And so today, when we look at our lives and the world around us, we too may ask, “Oh God, will You keep silent?” And the answer from heaven is a resounding “No!” God has spoken. And the Word He has spoken is Jesus. There is no need for us to wait for another Word to be spoken. The final Word is Jesus. The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us; the incarnate Word of God has borne our sins to the cross and conquered them forever. Heaven is not silent! Heaven and nature sings the name of Jesus, and the entire cosmos repeats the sounding joy, for there is salvation in no one else and no other name by which we must be saved than this final Word that God has spoken, the name of Jesus.

The long expected One has come. In Christ, Immanuel has come, God with us. He is the joy of man’s desiring, the satisfaction of all our longing. Humanity cries out to God, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and the come down,” that the nations may have hope, that Your people may be saved, and that the silence may be broken. And in Christ God has done just this. He has pronounced hope to the nations. He has spoken salvation to those who will call upon Christ to save them. And at Advent we remember that He has come, and that He is coming again. So our lives are lived between these two divine bookends of time. And we must live these days in the reality of His first coming, that we might be prepared for His second coming, and we must tell of His coming far and wide so that all may hear and believe, that all may be saved when He returns. That begins here, should there be anyone present who has never received the Lord Jesus as Savior. Will you this day receive the Christmas gift that God has given to you in the person of Jesus – salvation from sin, the covering of Christ’s righteousness, and life abundant and eternal? And it continues as we leave here. If you have received Christ, will you share the good news of His salvation with those whom you know, and will you do what you can in prayer, in giving, in going and in sending to make this news of Jesus known among the nations?

Looking Back and Looking Forward with Thanksgiving (1 Cor 11:23-26)

Audio available here

Today marks the beginning of the liturgical season of Advent. Christians all over the world have for centuries observed this season of the four Sundays prior to Christmas as a time of reflection, introspection, anticipation, and celebration. The word Advent means “coming,” and as anyone familiar with New Testament teachings is aware, there are two senses in which we can speak of Christ coming: there was His first advent which we commemorate at Christmas, and there is a second advent for which we are still waiting. Each of these aspects of the “coming of Christ” were emphasized during Advent by Christians in different times and places historically. As Christianity spread into Northern and Western Europe, Advent traditions focused on waiting and preparing oneself for the Lord Jesus Christ to return. Meanwhile in Rome, Advent was a joyful and festive celebration of the birth of Christ in His first Advent. Over a period of centuries, these two streams of tradition began to blend, and Advent became a season that marked both the end of the Christian year, with its theme of waiting for the return of the Lord, as well as the beginning of the new Christian year, with its theme of celebrating the coming of Christ in His incarnation.

So, Advent is a season that looks in two directions at one time. It looks back in remembrance of what Christ has done, and it looks forward to what Christ is going to do. The righteous people of God in the Old Testament era were waiting for a Savior to come. In Christ, we believe that He has come into the world. But, like those Old Testament saints, we are also awaiting with great expectation His second coming. And the Lord’s Supper is the observance that Jesus has given to His church to help us look in both directions.

While the Lord’s Supper has been called by various names throughout Church History, one of the earliest names for it was the Eucharist. Around 100 AD, a document called the Didache was published to aid the teaching the basics of Christian faith and practice in the church, and in this document, the Lord’s Supper is referred to as the Eucharist. They obviously drew this term from the Lord’s Supper passages in the New Testament which use this Greek word to describe how Jesus “gave thanks” for the bread and the cup as He blessed them and gave them to the disciples to share. The word Eucharist has to do with the thankfulness we express to God for the good gift of His grace. Therefore, since we have just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday in America, and because we stand at the threshold of the Advent season, it is most fitting for us to mark this day with the observance of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper. For in the Lord’s Supper, we look back at Christ’s first coming, and we look forward to His second coming, and we do so with thanksgiving for His grace that has saved us.

Paul sets forth his instruction on the Lord’s Supper in this passage, and he reminds the Corinthians that partaking of the Lord’s Supper is about looking back and looking forward at the same time. As we read and apply these words in our own day, we are admonished to do the same thing, which is what Advent is really all about.

I. In the Lord’s Supper, we look back with thanksgiving (vv23-25)

Haven’t you always heard that hindsight is 20/20? Certainly we can look back on things that have happened and see them with far more clarity than we could see them before they occurred or even as they were transpiring. This fact of human nature has informed the practices of the people of God since the earliest days of biblical history. The Passover meal, for instance, was a call for Israel to look back on what God had done for them, lest they forget about His nature and His work. As the Israelites observed Passover, they remembered God’s deliverance of His people from bondage in Egypt during the Exodus. It was at a Passover meal with His disciples on the night before His death when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. He had come to be the fulfillment of that which was foreshadowed in the Exodus: God’s deliverance of His people from bondage to sin. And it is with this new understanding that Jesus commands His followers to continue observing the Lord’s Supper until He returns.

Though Jesus spoke with His disciples often about His real mission and purpose, how He would suffer, die, and rise again to break the shackles of sin, they were slow to understand. On one occasion, Peter even rebuked the Lord for saying such things. Shortly after the Passover meal, Peter even took up a sword to fight against those who came to deliver Jesus over to death. Was He even paying attention during the Passover? Or did he think that he could accomplish something Jesus could not? Or did he simply forget what Jesus had said so many times, even up to the hours prior to His arrest in the garden?

Twice in these verses we are admonished to remember. The Lord’s Supper was instituted as a meal of remembrance to remind us of the mission of Jesus to deliver us from sin. Because of our sinful nature, like Peter, we will be inclined to forget or to adopt what we think are “better plans” for Christ and His Kingdom. But as we take the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper, we are called to remember why He came during His first Advent and what He did to accomplish our deliverance from sin.

With incredible simplicity, Jesus used two symbols to illustrate to His disciples what was about to happen to Him. The events that they were about to witness were not to be viewed as a tragic accident, but rather as the fulfillment of His divine mission. He took a piece of bread and gave thanks to His Father, and then He said, “This is My body.” You and I don’t get the full picture of this dramatic visualization for two reasons. First, when we think of bread, we usually think of a big loaf of bread like we would buy in the supermarket or bake in our ovens. Second, when we take the Lord’s Supper, we use these little wafers that are manufactured and packaged for use in church observances, which are not much like what Jesus held up for His disciples to see. The unleavened bread of the Passover, also called Matzo, was a flat piece of bread, similar in substance to a cracker. That bread was cooked until it was crisp, and some pieces got burned in the cooking, so that the color was uneven. Much of it would be sort of off-white, while other pieces were black from the burning. And to keep the bread from rising, it was punctured with straight lines of perforations. So when Jesus held this bread up and said, “This is My body,” the bread that the disciples saw appeared to be bruised, pierced, and striped. This is a picture of what Isaiah 53 said would happen to the Messiah when He came: He was pierced through for our transgressions, and as the King James Version translates the Hebrew, “He was bruised for our iniquities” and “with His stripes we are healed.” And then He broke the bread and gave it to the disciples to eat. So this bread was actually a visible demonstration of what was about to happen to Jesus. He would be beaten, scourged, nailed to the cross, and His body broken apart. But He told them, “It is for you.” It is as if Jesus is saying to His disciples, “Whenever you see this bread, bruised, striped with punctures, and broken to pieces, you are to remember what you are about to witness happening to My body; and you are to remember that I was beaten, whipped, pierced with nails and broken apart for you and for your salvation.”

And then Jesus took the cup “in the same way.” That is, He gave thanks for the cup which He held, and He said to them, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.” Now, anyone who wants to use this passage to defend the Christian’s use of alcohol is guilty of a tragic case of missing the point. First, does it not cheapen the intense gravity of what is going on here to make that even a trivial point of personal application? Second, while we are certain that wine was in that cup, it is of interest that neither of the Greek words for wine is used in any passage concerning the Lord’s Supper. The word gleukos, which only occurs once in the New Testament, seems to refer to fermented wine, but the word oinos, which is far more common, is used to describe both fermented and unfermented wine. But neither word is used in Eucharistic texts. We find the word “cup” as we do here, and “fruit of the vine,” as in the Gospels. The presence or absence of alcoholic beverages at this meal is an issue of complete biblical silence. Third, if the use of unleavened bread was important to symbolize the sinless body of Jesus, how then would the use of leavened, or fermented, wine be an appropriate symbol of His sinless blood? It would seem that a Christian who wants to defend his or her use of alcohol would have a difficult time using this text to do so.

The importance of the symbol was both its color and its historical significance. In its deep red color, the juice of a crushed red grape was a visual analogy of the blood of Jesus that was going to be shed as He suffered and died on the cross. But this was no ordinary cup; it was a particular cup that had a particular significance. Typically during a Passover meal, there were four cups offered at various points in the meal. The first cup was the cup of consecration which they drank at the beginning of the meal, indicating that God had consecrated Israel as His people. The second was the cup of affliction, indicating the plagues that were poured out on Egypt. The third cup was the cup of redemption reminding the people of the deliverance from their bondage. The fourth cup was called, “the cup of praise,” and was shared to indicate that the Passover meal was completed. So, which cup did Jesus offer His disciples as a symbol of His blood? It was the third cup, the cup of redemption. This was the cup which would be offered immediately following the eating of the food of the Passover. As Jesus took this cup and gave thanks, He did not say, “This is the blood of the Lamb which was slain in Egypt.” He rather pointed to the events that were about to unfold and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.”

Just as every covenant was sealed with the shedding of blood, so this covenant would be as well. This covenant was sealed with very blood of its Maker. By the shedding of His blood on the cross, He became the substitute who died in our place and bore the wrath that our sins deserve so that we might be forgiven, declared righteous in Him, and reconciled to God. By this blood we are bound to God in the new covenant of Christ. This is the price of our redemption, His blood, depicted in this cup. And each time we drink it, we are called to remember what He did for us in this sacrifice that seals our covenant with Him.

These symbols were difficult for the disciples to understand at that moment, as evidenced by what they did in the hours to follow. First they tried to fight, then they all fled. But we look on these things with hindsight. We look back in remembrance at the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood. This was the purpose of His coming in the first Advent. He came to bear our sins to the cross that we might be saved. And as we look back on what He did for us there, we look back with thanksgiving.

II. In the Lord’s Supper, we look forward with thanksgiving (vv23-25)

If the cup which Jesus used to symbolize His shed blood was the third cup of the Passover, the cup of redemption, then what about the fourth cup, the cup of praise? Interestingly, in Mark 14:25, we read that after Jesus shared this cup with His disciples, He said, “Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” He foregoes the fourth and final cup, essentially leaving the Passover meal unfinished. And we see Him upholding His vow to never again drink from the fruit of the vine when, on the cross, He was offered wine mixed with myrrh as an anesthetic, but He refused it. It was not yet time for the drinking of the final cup.

The redemption of humanity from sin would not be fully accomplished until He was dead. And it was there as He died that Jesus uttered His final word: Tetelestai, a Greek word translated in our Bibles, “It is Finished!” And then, John tells us in his Gospel, Jesus bowed His head and gave up His spirit. Now the redemption that seals us in the new covenant has been fully completed. But still we wait. We wait throughout all these centuries and generations for the day when He returns and consummates the covenant in establishing His perfect and righteous Kingdom on the Earth. We wait through days and months and years of trials and suffering in this fallen world, having His Spirit within us as a pledge of His promise. And we know that in His own time, according to His own perfect purpose, the day is coming when He will return and gather His covenant people to Himself. And when John was given the glorious vision of eternity in the book of Revelation, he tells us that the consummation of this covenant and the Kingdom of Christ will be celebrated at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And then and there, when all the elect of God have been gathered into the fold, and the wrongs have all been righted, and the Lord has executed His perfect judgment and those things which we now behold by faith become sight, the fourth and final cup of the covenant meal will be enjoyed together anew with the Lord Jesus in His everlasting Kingdom. Then and there, we will drink together with the Lord the cup of praise.

But until then, we gather together regularly and partake of these tokens, these symbolic elements: the bread that represents His broken body; and the cup of redemption representing His shed blood for our sins. And Paul says, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.” We are proclaiming with these simple symbols that God has done a miraculous work in the past in Christ to reconcile us to Himself; but we are also announcing that Christ is coming again. We take the small symbols of this meal on faith that the grander feast is yet to come.

The second Advent is still future. And while we wait, we remember what He has done, and we remember what He has promised, and we give thanks. These symbols of the bread and the cup are reminders for us. As we partake of them, we do so with self-examination, knowing that the Lord is coming again in judgment. This is Paul’s point in verses 27-32. We examine ourselves, and as we discover sin in our lives, ruptured relationships in our fellowship, things that are displeasing to the Lord, we repent of them on the basis of what He accomplished for us in the first Advent, and in anticipation of the day when we stand face-to-face before Him at the second Advent.

And so today, with the Thanksgiving holiday fresh in our memory, we give thanks to God for the greatest blessing of all … the salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ because of His sinless life, His substitutionary death and His glorious resurrection. And we begin our preparations for the Christmas holiday by reflecting on His coming into the world, in which God took upon Himself a human body with human blood pulsing through His veins in the person of Jesus Christ. And we also prepare ourselves for His return by examining our relationship with Him and with others.

In this moment of prayerful preparation, let us consider these things, and receive the bread and the cup with thanksgiving, with remembrance of what Christ has done, and with a renewed commitment to walk with Him by faith until He returns. If you have never trusted Christ as Lord and Savior, we would welcome you to turn to Him by faith today. He lived the life you and I cannot live, a life of sinless perfection; and He died the death that you and I deserve to die, bearing God’s wrath for our sins; and He conquered our sins and their penalty in His resurrection. Let your sin rest on Him, and His righteousness will rest on you in exchange. We’d love to pray with you as you receive Him as Lord and Savior today.

Others perhaps have another need, a sin that needs confessing to the Lord, or a commitment that needs to be made to restore a broken relationship, or rededication of faith to Christ on the basis of what He has done and what He has promised. How is the Lord leading you to respond to what He has said and done, as we look back, and look forward, with thanksgiving?