All Our Needs and Desires

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 40:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

For more than 20 years at 5 radio stations, I was the production director and copywriter. I wrote and recorded the ads and promos heard on the station. As such I found that there are many reasons to advertise: to simply let people know your business exists, to let them know what you have to offer, and to tell them how to visit or contact your business. But mainly you want to encourage the listener to buy your goods and services. If what you supply fills a basic need, that helps. Everyone needs food, clothes, transportation, and a good doctor. Then you just have to show that what you offer is more attractive than that of your competition. You might offer more convenience or friendlier service or other extras. In Key West just having free parking is a big plus.

But what if your product or service is not something anyone actually needs? Then instead you want to create a desire for what you offer. You can do this by making it seem cool or fun. For example, nobody really needs to drink soda or beer. In fact we all would be healthier if we didn't. Since ads can't talk about the actual effects of the drinks, they show people having fun and doing things with friends while holding a can or bottle of the beverage. Of course, you can have fun without drinking but they don't want you to think about that. They want you to associate their product with good things.

Sometimes advertisers go farther and try to make a desire feel like a need. They make it seem as if you must have the latest cool gadget or you will feel left out by all your friends who do have it. If you don't use this product you will be seen as less attractive, less sexy, less informed, less competent, less cool and less a part of the group you wish to belong to. The idea is to make something that you actually can do without feel like a necessity. They want you to feel that you lack something that will make you happy.

This works on kids. They see a new toy and whine that they need it. But it also works on adults. Look at how people will line up for the latest smartphone which has new features that they have never needed before or even knew existed. Part of it is that we desire novelty. So much so that one guy took rocks, put them in cardboard boxes with care and training booklets, called them Pet Rocks and became a millionaire. Right now someone is doing that with Labubu dolls, as they did with Cabbage Patch dolls and Beanie Babies. And we think that Orcas wearing dead fish on their heads are silly.

“I have something you need” is the subtext of every sales pitch, whether it is from a company, a politician or a cult leader. You need to ask yourself if what they are offering really is a need or just a desire. Not all desires are bad. But you should be suspicious of those who deliberately try to confuse the two. For instance, in today's world having a cellphone is practically a necessity. But do you really need one that will allow you to make studio quality videos or that folds or that has A.I.?

In the same way, politicians always say we need to increase our military budget though we spend more on our military than the next 9 countries combined do on theirs. They don't need to spend more; they just want to. CEOs will always say their company needs to make more money, no matter how many millions or billions in profits they already make. Folks running pyramid schemes always want more people to join and invest. Although, actually, a pyramid scheme does need that or the whole thing collapses.

Lots of cults are pyramid schemes. So cult leaders create and exploit an insatiable spiritual hunger in their followers. They convince them that they need more and deeper spiritual knowledge, which only the leader or his system can provide. They create tiers or levels that they encourage their followers to ascend if they really want to be enlightened. And leveling up costs the followers in money, time and labor.

Which makes for an interesting contrast with what Paul says in our passage from 1st Corinthians. He writes to the church that he gives thanks to God “because of the grace that has been given to you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul is not saying “You need to purchase my special course on spiritual gifts for just $29.99.” No, he is saying in Christ you have all the gifts you need to live until he comes again. No add-ons or upgrades required.

And this is “because of the grace that has been given to you in Christ Jesus.” Roman gods did not really care for humans. They were like mafia dons who offered protection and favors in return for loyalty and sacrifices. But the God revealed in Jesus Christ is gracious. He is not transactional. He gives what we do not deserve and cannot earn: his grace. When he created us he gave us gifts of greater intelligence and language and dexterity and persistence. We have used them to harm and dominate and exploit our fellow human beings. And so he gives us his Son, who in turn gives his life to save us from a situation that is our own doing. And all he asks is that we respond to his love by loving him back and by loving all other people, because he loves them too.

Knowing that good news enriches our lives in every way. The world can be scary. Knowing that God loves you lets you trust him and not shrink from life and its challenges. It reframes the way you look at your life and at the people you encounter. They are all people created in the image of God. They are all people for whom Christ died, whether they know it or not. Letting them know about God's love through what you say and what you do gives your life purpose. Knowing that God intends to restore the world to the paradise he intended it to be gives our lives meaning. It also gives us something to do with the talents and gifts he has given us. John Cleese said he did not go into comedy with any greater sense of purpose but when he met soldiers who had fought for their homeland in Kosovo, he found out that every night, after the shooting and bombing stopped, they would hang up a sheet and project Monty Python shows and movies. These comedians gave them the much needed gift of laughter in hard times.

When Paul says that “you are not lacking in any gift” he is not talking to individuals. The word “you” is plural in the Greek. He is talking to the church as a whole. No one is good at everything. Nobody has every gift necessary for the body of Christ on earth to function. (1 Corinthians 12:29-30) Later in this letter, Paul says, “Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are different ministries but the same Lord. And there are different results, but the same God produces all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7) In this letter and in Romans 12 and in Ephesians 4 Paul gives lists of some of the spiritual gifts. But nobody is left out and nobody should be envious of the gifts of others. Paul reminds us that “Now it is one and the same Spirit who is active in all these things, individually distributing them to each person as he wills.” (1 Corinthians 12:11)

The ultimate purpose of God's grace and his giving us these gifts is to strengthen the body of Christ, and cause us to stand firm until the very end. By each of us employing our gifts to help and serve our community of faith we can stand up to and meet the challenges we face as Christians.

And we are assured we can do this because “God is faithful...” We can trust him. As it says in 2 Timothy, “This saying is trustworthy: If we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, since he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-13) God cannot go against his very nature. So we can stand on his promises, especially that he will never leave us or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5; Deuteronomy 31:6) That promise alone is a gift that gives us strength.

Another reason to trust God is that by him “you were called into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Unlike a Bond villain, God does not abandon or betray those he called to be his partners. He upholds and equips us. He wants us to be good partners.

And how mind-blowing is it that we are called into partnership with Jesus! He does not need us but chooses to have us work with him. It's like that day when your parent trusts you to help work with them on building their pet project or making their special dish. Jesus calls and equips us to continue his mission to spread the kingdom of God. He doesn't tell us to force others to convert but to plant and nurture the seeds of the good news of God's love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Paul says to the church in Corinth, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6) We have our work to do but it is God who brings the results.

When I was a copywriter, one thing I could not guarantee was results. We could present the offer in the most attractive way possible but we could not make people buy. The best way to run a successful business is to offer people what they want at a price they're willing to pay. But even reasonable offers can be turned down by some people.

Sadly, not everyone wants to be saved. I saw that as a nurse. Some patients did not want to be healed. Maybe they thought they were just fine, despite evidence to the contrary. Maybe they liked having people pity them and cut them slack for their pain. Or maybe they thought the price—changing their diet or lifestyle or having to undergo the pain and inconvenience of surgery and recovery—was too high. I saw people with new hips or new knees who did not want to do the physical therapy that would permit them to walk again.

God has done his part. He has taken on the infinitely greater pain of redeeming us from the consequences of our sins. Jesus has offered us new life at the cost of his own. All he asks is that we put our trust in him. And, like learning to walk again after having your broken legs fixed, as I can tell you from personal experience, there will be some pain. So, yes, we must take up our cross daily and follow him. But it is nothing like the pain of the actual cross he endured.

And the benefits of walking with him are immeasurable. We receive forgiveness of our sins, a new start, help in facing the challenges of life and a loving community to support us and help us withstand the storms we all must face. Plus we find peace in having a faithful God as our constant companion. We find purpose and meaning serving him through serving others. We find assurance that this life, no matter how hard or painful, is not the only life we live. We find hope in the risen Jesus who will come to set things right, fill the world with true justice and real mercy and amazing grace, make all things new and wipe away every tear as he abolishes pain and death and mourning. (Revelation 21:4)

The greatest satisfaction comes when you find something that not only meets a need but also fulfills a desire. We all need the love of someone trustworthy to help us survive. But we also desire that love and faithfulness so that we can thrive. In the loving and faithful God revealed in Jesus, we find both. And so we can join our psalm in saying, “May your steadfast love and your truth continually keep me safe.”

Word

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29 and Acts 10:34-43.

When I was a kid, I was taught that what separated humans from other animals was (1) our opposable thumbs, (2) our tool making, and (3) our use of language. Since then those supposedly unique traits have been diminished. Other primates and mammals also have opposable digits, though our thumbs are larger and allow for more dexterity. Other animals use sticks and rocks as tools, though none of them have ever created anything like a Swiss Army knife or a computer. And other animals do communicate vocally, though nowhere in the world is a non-human delivering a sermon. It seems to me that the difference between humans and other animals is not found in exclusive categories but in the much greater degree of complexity with which we have or can do these things.

I want to focus on one aspect in particular: words. While researchers have taught apes to use sign language and other animals to press buttons with symbols to indicate what they want, these things do not arise spontaneously in nonhumans. And there is the question of whether these animals actually understand what they are communicating, or do they just know that to get a treat or a toy from a human they have to perform this trick in this way. Perhaps these things were a more elaborate version of the Clever Hans effect. This is named for a horse in Germany a century ago who seemed to be able to do math problems by stamping his hoof the proper number of times. When investigated, it was found that the horse simply kept stamping until his trainer unwittingly indicated he had gotten to the correct number by relaxing. Then the horse would stop. A more sophisticated version of this might account for the apparent intelligence of AI. They are simply doing what they are programmed to do. They will not spontaneously wax poetic or philosophical. They just respond to prompts by scanning their database and stringing together words by using rules of grammar and normal usage. Google's AI is forever trying to correct my quotes from the Bible when they don't match its programmed style.

Our ability to use words is amazing. We can give precise descriptions, issue specific instructions, make logical arguments, tell jokes, create metaphors and create things that don't exist, like a plaid elephant. And now that you've read those two words, I have created a picture in your mind. More than that, I have caused synapses in your brain to make physical connections that didn't exist before. That is an astounding power for mere sounds or symbols on a page to have.

Last week in John's gospel we read about how Jesus is the living Word of God. We saw how in Genesis God created everything simply by speaking it into existence. In the second to last book of Narnia, The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis describes how the Christ-figure of his books, Aslan, calls things into creation by singing. He recreates the magic of the first chapter of Genesis by using a different form of vocal expression.

Human attempts at magic also use words. The problem is that, unlike God, we cannot create reality just by speaking. But what we can do is reframe reality in people's minds using words. We can persuade people to help us in altering aspects of reality. We can tell people how to do things. We can explain problems and suggest solutions. We can start a movement using words. As we've seen, a person skillfully using words can get people to do things and change the world. That can seem like magic.

But like all powerful things, words can do great good and great harm. A person can disseminate truth or lies. Cult leaders, internet influencers and politicians can use the power of words to deceive. If they are charismatic enough, they can even get people to believe things that go against logic, common sense and even the evidence before their own eyes. George Orwell in his novel 1984 called this doublespeak. In the book the government's Ministry of Peace conducts wars, its Ministry of Love performs torture, its Ministry of Plenty obscures famine and its Ministry of Truth puts out propaganda. It uses slogans like “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.” He nailed how authoritarian leaders misuse the power of words to deceive people.

Words can do great good as well. I think that's what Psalm 29 is about. The power of the voice of the Lord is the power of his words, the ideas he has expressed. We see them in our passage from Isaiah. Using images of verbal expression, God says, “I have called you in righteousness...new things I declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

Of course, what is important is the content of what is said. In our passage in Isaiah, God is talking about his servant who will “bring forth justice to the nations.” When we think of justice, we mainly think of bringing punishment to the bad guys. But the picture we get here is not of someone who swaggers around, dishing out God's wrath. Rather he “will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.” This is someone who is gentle. The imagery of a bruised reed and a barely burning wick represent people who are almost broken and whose lives are on the verge of being snuffed out. In other words, these are the poor and the weak, those who are oppressed. The justice he will bring is restorative justice. It is about making things right.

Addressing the servant of the Lord, God says, “I have given you as a covenant to the people...” This is odd. The Hebrew for “you” in the singular. It is an individual. How is a person a covenant? A covenant is an agreement. In what way can a person be an agreement? It could if the person is Jesus Christ, who is both fully God and fully human, and who sealed his new covenant with his blood. When you make an agreement, you give your word and in this new covenant God gives us his Word, his Son, as the promise that he will do what he says: bring about his kingdom where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. God expresses who he is in his Word. He is both just and merciful. As such Jesus is “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from prison those who sit in darkness.”

This Word from God is good news. And in our passage from Acts, Peter gives us a great summary of that good news. He is speaking to Cornelius, a centurion, and his household. This is the first group of Gentiles he has been called to preach the gospel to and baptize. First, Peter says that God shows no partiality when it comes to people. He accepts all people, whatever their nationality, provided they respect him and do what is right.

Then he gets right to the heart of the good news. “You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.” The Greek word for peace apparently comes from the word “to join or tie together into a whole.” So the message is preaching wholeness through Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of all. Last week in Ephesians and in John's gospel, we looked at how God's plan is to bring together everything in Christ, through whom all things were made and who is the ultimate pattern and design of all creation. Jesus Christ is the God who is love Incarnate. The creation is to reflect this love, which is the glory of God.

Peter goes on to say, “That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Peter shows the power of the message in 2 ways. First, it is a good enough message to spread beyond Galilee, which was, in the eyes of Judeans, a somewhat suspect region where there are too many Gentiles and which held no great centers of Jewish learning. On the other hand Jerusalem, the city of David, where God's temple, the center of the Jewish faith, stood, was in Judea. Yet this message, about a handyman from an obscure town never mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures, spread all the way to the city of God.

Secondly, the content of this message was powerful. Jesus was anointed (the meaning of the word Messiah and its Greek version, Christ) with the Holy Spirit and with power. And how did he use this power? To make himself king? To make himself rich? No, instead, he went about doing good and healing people. He did not use his power to conquer others but to liberate those oppressed by the devil, the essence of evil. Jesus made people better, both physically and spiritually. Because God was with him. This last phrase seems to hint at the prophecy from Isaiah that predicts a child who is named Immanuel, which means “God is with us.”

The message is powerful because Jesus is powerful. In fact, Jesus is the message. As we saw in John's gospel, Jesus is the living Word of God. You can't have the gospel, the good news, without Jesus. He is the expression of the God who is love. And that expression is not simply in what he says but what he does: doing good and healing people.

After establishing that Peter and the apostles are not repeating hearsay but are eyewitnesses to Jesus and his ministry, Peter then says, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree...” As we've discussed a few weeks ago, the Romans frequently saved themselves the trouble of making a whole cross by simply stripping a tree of its branches and then attaching a crossbar, and the condemned criminal, to it. But Peter may also be referring to Deuteronomy 21:23, which says that a person executed and hung on a tree is cursed by God. So this man who was anointed by God's Spirit because God was with him becomes cursed by God? Yes, and paradoxically Jesus turns this curse into a blessing by redeeming us from our slavery to sin, to the things that harm us, others and our relationship to God.

That is not the end of the story, however. Peter says, “But God raised him on the third day.” Many people have died for their faith in God. What makes Jesus special is that God raised him from the dead. This marks him out as more than a mere prophet. When prophets die, they stay dead like any human being. Jesus' resurrection vindicates his message. It shows that God is indeed with him and that the Spirit and power with which God anointed him are still active in him.

Peter says that this was no illusion or metaphorical resurrection but that the apostles “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” They were chosen by God to be witnesses to not only Jesus' teachings but his life, death and resurrection. “He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.” That is quite an exalted position. How could a mere man be able to judge accurately the fate of every individual? He couldn't. He couldn't know everything everybody did or know what the intentions of their hearts were. But God could. In other words, Jesus is not merely a man but God as well. He knows every human's secrets but he also knows what it is like to be human. He will judge us with justice and mercy.

Finally Peter says, “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Jesus is the anointed prophet, priest and king the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures predicted. As God, only he has the authority to forgive sins. And you can't earn forgiveness. What you have done cannot be undone. Forgiveness is more than mercy; it is an act of grace. You don't deserve it. When it is offered, you can only accept it humbly.

Notice that Jesus did not send out his followers to fight for him or to establish any kingdoms in his name or to shed the blood of others. That is the way sinful humans spread their power. No, Jesus commanded us to testify about him. We are to use words, not fists, not swords, not guns. He calls us to be witnesses, not warriors. Which is why the Greek word for “witness”—martus—eventually came to mean “one who dies for a cause,”: a martyr. The greatest testimony is to trust Jesus with your life even when it can cost you your life.

When Paul lists the equipment of the armor of God, all of it defensive—except for one thing. He tells us to take up “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17) Words are powerful. They can change hearts and minds. They can rally people to a cause. They can also do great damage if we let them. Let us only use words that do good and that heal and that liberate people who are oppressed by evil. And the only words that can do that are the words of God, coming from the living Word of God. As Jesus said, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” (John 6:63) 

One

The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 1:1-18.

The world is so large and complex that it is impossible for any one human being to comprehend it all. So early peoples attributed control of each aspect of nature to a different deity. If you wanted good weather you prayed to one god. If you wanted your crops or your spouse to be fertile you prayed to a specific goddess. If you wanted healing you went to the shrine of a particular god who had that power.

In addition every city and nation had its own god. When nations fought, it reflected a cosmic battle between the gods. If it sounds chaotic, it was. There might be a chief god but he couldn't always control his family of gods. And he usually wasn't the creator god or goddess. In fact, the chief god might have fought the creator and the earth may have been made out of his or her body. Basically the chief god got to his position the way a human king might have: by overthrowing or murdering his rival. Often this was the chief god's father or mother. That's how polytheism worked. The people of earth were violent and divided and they projected that onto the powers that controlled the earth.

The God revealed in the Bible is different. He both created everything and is in charge of everything. The disunity of peoples is not attributed to various competing gods but to the sinfulness and short-sighted attitudes of humans who compete with one another over God's gifts instead of cooperating for the good of all.

So what does God do to restore things to what they should be? Because he gave us the ability to choose, he must use persuasion. He chooses to work through a man and his descendants. As he says to Abraham, “In you will all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3) Seeing how a people committed to a covenant with God lives that out is supposed to convince the world to come around to the one true God.

Of course, the repeated failures of the people of Israel to honor their part of the covenant and demonstrate righteousness, justice and compassion for the poor and oppressed is a constant theme throughout much of the Old Testament. So God resolves to make a new covenant, one where, as he says in Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) This is the covenant God makes through his son, Jesus Christ. That sets up the main theme of Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is Disciple Dojo, in which Bible scholar James Michael Smith does deep dives on scripture and theology. He brings in other Bible scholars, reviews books and study Bibles, and answers viewers' questions. When he looks at a particular book of the Bible or passage, he goes into the original Greek or Hebrew behind the text. But you don't have to be an expert yourself to follow what he says. This last year, in discussing the letter to the Ephesians, he pointed out something I had never noticed before, namely, how often the phrase “in Christ” pops up in this letter. In the 11 verses of our passage alone, the phrase “in Christ” or “in him” occurs 8 times. It occurs another 11 times in the next few chapters.

What does the phrase “in Christ” mean? This varies a bit depending on the context but generally it means “in our union with Christ.” The theme of Ephesians is that the one God wants to bring all peoples into one community united by their trust in Jesus. That has been God's plan all along.

And as he promised, being united in Christ brings blessings. God chose us in love to be holy and blameless before him, to be adopted as his children, to be redeemed through his blood and have our sins forgiven, to know his plan to gather up everything in Christ, to obtain an inheritance, and to be marked with the Holy Spirit. He does all of this out of the riches of his grace, God's undeserved, unreserved goodness toward us.

Paul calls God's plan a mystery. Paul is probably playing off of the idea of the mystery religions that were popular in the Roman empire. Like various cults we have today, these mystery religions appealed to people's desires to have secret knowledge about the world that others didn't. They had initiation rituals and some had levels through which initiates had to pass to rise within the religion. Basically it comes from the idea that knowledge is power and this secret knowledge, kept from the duller, ordinary people, makes the members of the mystery cult superior to the uninitiated.

But Paul is essentially saying that the “mystery” revealed by God is in fact an open secret: the gospel of salvation. Not only do Christians not have to keep this good news a secret, they are to proclaim it to the world. Because ultimately God wants to redeem the world and restore it to what he intended it to be. As it says in 2 Peter, God “does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) The gospel is not exclusionary; it is not for the elite or for people who are smarter or better than others. All people are equal before God. (Proverbs 22:2; Romans 2:11; Acts 10:34) We all have been created in God's image. (Genesis 1:27) Yet we have decided we know better than God and so we fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 2:12; 3:23) And Jesus died to redeem all of us, whether we know it or acknowledge it. (1 John 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:15)

After coming to Jesus, no one is superior to others. In another letter Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The oneness Paul is talking about is unity, not uniformity. Elsewhere he compares us to parts of one body, all with different features and functions yet none of us is nonessential. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

And that is what we are talking about in verse 10 of today's passage. God's plan to gather up all things in heaven and on earth in Christ does not mean we are all mashed together like a ball of clay or that we lose our individuality like a drop of water when it falls into the ocean. Instead we find our special place in God's universe. We use the unique gifts he has given to each of us to serve him, each other and the whole of creation with love.

Serving with love is the key part because God is love. (1 John 4:8) God sent his Son to us out of love. (John 3:16) But this doesn't mean Jesus was merely an instrument. Instead what we see in him is the whole goal of creation. He is the organizing principle. That is what is meant in our passage from John's gospel in which he is called the Word.

Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish contemporary of Jesus who tried to reconcile Greek philosophy with Jewish theology. He seized upon the idea that the divine principle that brings all things into existence was called the Logos by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. And in Genesis God brings all of creation into existence by his word. “God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light!” (Genesis 1:3) And God calls into existence all the other aspects of the universe by speaking. Now the Greek term for “word, speech and reason” is logos. Philo called this Logos, which was common to both Jewish and Greek thought, “the first-born of God.” The Logos was the design for creation, which also pervades the world and supports it. The Logos was the “high priest” who expiated sins and is the mediator and advocate for humanity before God. The Logos interprets and “announces God's designs to humankind, acting in this respect as prophet and priest.” The Logos illuminates the human soul, “nourishing it with spiritual food, like the manna...” (Thanks to Wikipedia as the source of this paragraph.)

Philo's Logos is just an philosophical idea for tying together the great thoughts of the Greeks and the Jews. However, the gospel of John says that the Logos is not merely an abstract notion. Yes, the Logos or Word of God was in the beginning and all things were created through him. Yes, the Logos is the light that illuminates all people. But “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” (v.14)

How does the Logos or Word reveal God's glory? If a person is honest, his word reveals who and what he is. God's Word is the expression of who and what God is. In Jesus we have the fullest revelation of God. God, as we said, is love. To be in love with someone is to be in harmony with them. We were created in the image of the God who is love. When we choose to love him back, we come into harmony with him. When we come in harmony with God, we come into harmony with the other people created in his image and redeemed by his Son. And we come into harmony with the rest of his creation.

That's God's plan. We keep trying to replace his plan with our own plans. We keep trying to replace his love with money or technology or power over others. It's like trying to replace a good diet with junk food. In 2012 a British teen was hospitalized for breathing problems, anemia, vitamin deficiencies, and malnutrition. And the cause was that she had been eating nothing but chicken nuggets, fries, chips and toast for 15 years. We may not be as bad as this teen but our society does eat a lot more junk food these days. The problem is it doesn't do the job properly and it degrades the health of the people who are trying to survive on it. The same is true of all the things we try to nourish and fuel our lives with other than the love of God.

Colossians is another letter that takes a cosmic view of Christ. In it we read “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him—all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—all things were created through him and for him. He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him. He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (Colossians 1:15-20)

In both of these letters the point is not merely to reveal interesting theological ideas. Paul goes on to say, “And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him...” (Colossians 1:21-22) In Ephesians we see the same theme of being reconciled to God and to one another. To a church made up of Jews and Gentiles, Paul says, “For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed.” (Ephesians 2:14-16)

In his prayer before his arrest, Jesus prayed for the church, saying “Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one....I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on the behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you....” (John 17:11, 20-21) Just earlier that evening he said, “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

There aren't a bunch of gods but one God, who is love. And there aren't a bunch of human species but one human race. But how are people to know that if we don't act that way? How are people to know the good news of God's love revealed in Jesus Christ if those who say they are his followers don't show that love? Jesus didn't say we had to agree on absolutely everything. We just need to agree on the essentials of who he is, what he has done for us, what he is doing in us and how we should respond. As for that response, he said we have to love one another the way he loved us—self-sacrificially. He took up his cross for us and we need to take up our crosses daily for him. He came to reconcile us with God and with each other. The church needs to demonstrate that unity, that coming together of people of every tribe, nation and language into one body, the body of Christ on earth, carrying on his mission until the day when God's plan to bring everything back together will be fully realized and “Christ is all in all.” (Colossians 3:11)

Balance

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 63:7-9, Hebrews 2:10-18 and Matthew 2:13-23.

I am not a fan of sports in general but I love gymnastics. I love to watch people do things gracefully, perhaps because I am not graceful. I am especially amazed by people on the balance beam, doing back flips and landing on the beam and yet not swaying back and forth because they have such an exquisite sense of balance.

We all need balance simply to stand and to walk. One of the things I evaluated on patients I visited as a home health nurse was their gait, that is, how they walked. Falls are the leading cause of death among the elderly. Every second of every day at least one person aged 65 or older falls. 36 million of such falls are reported every year, resulting in 3 million ER visits and 30,000 deaths. One out of five falls causes an injury like a fracture or a head injury. More than 95% of hip fractures are caused by falls, usually by falling sideways. (Stats from nellis.tricare.mil) Sometimes older people trip but sometimes it is a matter of the person simply losing their sense of balance.

If you think of it, much of our life is about balance. We need to eat. Eat too little and you're malnourished. Eat too much and you get obese. And what you eat must be balanced between fats, carbohydrates, proteins and fiber. In addition to the starches and meat you love, you need to eat fruits and vegetables, just like your mom said.

In the same way your life needs to be balanced between activity and rest. We are more sedentary these days and sitting too much raises the risk of heart disease, obesity, stroke and even certain cancers.

Your thinking should also be balanced. We are seeing the imbalance in our society due to people who are too extreme in their political thinking, allowing for no nuance and no consideration of other viewpoints. Religious thinking also needs to be balanced. Jesus criticized his critics for having their priorities out of balance. He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24) And you see this today: supposedly religious people who make a big fuss about relatively trivial things—like saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy holidays”—but ignore more important matters like being just in their dealings with others, being merciful to those who need it and being faithful in following Jesus. In the parallel passage in Luke, Jesus adds “the love of God” as something badly neglected. (Luke 11:42) As it says in 1 John, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God for God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:7-9)

Famously when asked for the greatest commandment in the Torah, Jesus added a second. We are not only to love God with all we are and all we have but we are also to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Matthew 22:34-40) We must balance our duty to God with our duty to our fellow human beings, who are created in the image of God. Tip the balance too far in one direction or the other and you get either a religion that neglects people and their needs or a philosophy that has no firm moral grounding and entertains any and all human desires as valid. As it says in Deuteronomy, “So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you...” (Deuteronomy 5:32-33) It's like driving on US-1. Veer too far to the right and you end up in the mangroves or the water. Veer too far to the left and you run into oncoming traffic. As someone who passed out and did exactly that, I do not recommend it.

Our center of balance should be Jesus. He is both fully God and fully human. As our passage from Hebrews reminds us, he knows what our life is like. He was not born in a palace. He was not born rich and privileged. He was not born into an empire that recognized that all humans are created equal or had rights. He was not born invulnerable to pain or death. He followed God even when it meant running into opposition from religious leaders who should have been his allies. He followed God even when it meant he would be misunderstood and literally demonized. He followed God even when it put him in the crosshairs of officials who ignored justice and used their power to punish and eliminate their enemies. And yet he kept his balance. He rebuked a follower who tried to defend him with violence and healed the wounded member of the arresting party. He prayed for the people who were in the process of executing him. He made provision for his mother's care as he was dying. He assured the condemned man on the cross next to his that he would welcome him into paradise. He showed grace under fire.

For God so loved the world that, as we read in our passage from Isaiah, he didn't send a messenger or an angel to save us. It was “his presence that saved them; in his love and pity it was he who redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” As it says, “he became their savior in all their distress.” And as Hebrews tells us, “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

That is comforting. When this world tests our strength, our character, our resolve to follow Jesus, we know that we are not alone. Jesus has been tried and tested by this world and he will stand with us. As Paul writes, “No trial has taken hold of you except what is common to humanity. Now God is faithful and will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able to bear. But with the test, he will provide the way to escape so you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) The Greek word for “test” can also mean “temptation.” Sometimes the way to escape temptation is just to say no. When the Nazis lined up innocent villagers to shoot, some of the soldiers refused to. They would not follow orders to kill civilians and noncombatants. And sometimes they were lined up with the villagers and shot. Which is why it is part of US military code that soldiers not only may but must refuse to follow illegal orders. And it is part of the general orders for Sheriff's deputies as well. Killing innocents is the mark of folks like Hitler and Herod.

We often forget that when tempted we can say no and walk away. But here again we can rely on Jesus. As Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.” You may say, “Well, of course he didn't sin; he was God.” But he was also human. That means that when Jesus was hit, slapped and beaten, he was tempted to strike back but didn't. That means when he was preaching to prostitutes, he was tempted to use their services but didn't. That means when a rich young man wanted to become his follower, he was tempted to tell him to give him all his money but instead told him to give all he had to the poor. That means that when he was offered all the kingdoms in this world if he just worshiped God's adversary, he was tempted but didn't. Being tempted is not sin; giving in to it is. It is deliberately deciding to throw off your balance and fall.

Through Jesus we can regain our balance. We can have restored to us a sense of what is too little, what is too much and what is just right in each situation. Jesus knew when to go along with the ceremonial laws of his Jewish culture and faith and when not to, like when people needed to be healed even on the Sabbath. He knew when to pay to Caesar what is Caesar's and when to give to God what is God's. He knew when to use his powers to heal and help and when to refuse people who just wanted to see something miraculous. He knew when people needed physical nourishment and when they needed spiritual nourishment.

In medicine, the body's ability to maintain a healthy balance is called homeostasis. We have internal systems that try to keep our internal temperature from being too low or too high. Our body tries to keep our internal chemistry from being too acid or too alkaline. It keeps our blood sugar from being too high or too low. There is a healthy range for everything, as you see whenever you get the results of a blood test.

Just so, to stay healthy spiritually, we need to keep a balance. We need to maintain a good relationship with God and a healthy relationship with other people. We need to study the Bible and we need to put what we learn into practice. We need to pray for things we need to serve God properly and we need to do what we should to obtain them. We need to serve God in the world and we need a day to rest and simply enjoy God and his gifts. We need to be in the world but not of the world, in the same way that to get somewhere in a boat it needs to be in the water but you don't want water getting into the boat.

We live in a fine-tuned universe. Like homeostasis in the body, the elements in the universe exist within parameters that make life possible. If the strength of gravity, electromagnetism, the mass of the electron, and the rate of cosmic expansion, among other things, were greater or smaller than they are, then stars, elements and stable matter would be unable to form. The fact that all of these basics are just right is considered highly improbable to have occurred by accident. God made a stable and balanced universe in which we could exist.

But our world is unbalanced and it is obviously our fault. We have tried to use the gifts God gave us to remake the world without regard to what God has said about how we are to take care of his creation and each other. Some people use their gifts to make more money than they can possibly spend in a lifetime but don't use it to help those who have too little to live on. Some people use their gifts to gain lots of power and then indulge their desires and passions rather than use it to make society more just and merciful. Some people who don't have money or power will use their brains or brawn to gain more for themselves by exploiting others as bad off or worse than they are. Some folks withdraw from the world, neither helping nor actively harming others with their gifts, but just letting things get gradually worse. There are no physical restraints that are keeping us from remedying these problems, just our spiritual and moral neglect. We don't want to make the effort or the sacrifices necessary to do what's right.

So God has made that effort and that sacrifice. He has entered the world himself to show us who he is and what we can become if we change our minds and our lives and follow him. As Paul wrote, “You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be clung to, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8) You may say, “Isn't that going a bit far in one direction?” Yes, but he did it to counterbalance a world that has been going full-tilt toward destruction. We have way too many people pursuing only their own good. Jesus came to tip the world back to one in which people seek the good of all. Every person who follows him helps restore the balance.

Jesus is the fulcrum of history. He is the pivot point, the center of gravity, the perfect balance between humanity and divinity, the person in whom heaven and earth meet. He restores our spiritual equilibrium and keeps us upright and moving in the right direction, neither veering to the left or to the right. Through his Holy Spirit, he helps us walk with him on the straight and narrow path as we journey towards our goal: to be with him and to be like him, children of our heavenly Father, becoming perfect images of the God who is love.

Foreshadowing

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 7:10-16, Romans 1-1-7 and Matthew 1:18-25.

Often a writer will drop clues or hints for what will happen later in a story. It's called foreshadowing and you've seen it in many great stories and movies. I hate to spoil films but one that came out more than a quarter of a century ago has one of the best examples of foreshadowing you can find. In The Sixth Sense young Cole tells the psychiatrist Dr. Crowe that he sees dead people. But what he adds foreshadows the movie's startling plot twist: “They don't know they're dead.” My wife was one of the few people who figured out the ending by the midpoint in the film.

Another example of foreshadowing is found in the movie The Incredibles. When Mr. Incredible goes to Edna Mode for a new costume she vehemently refuses to add a cape, citing how many disasters have come to superheroes who had capes. And in the climax of the movie, the villain finds out for himself why having a cape is a bad idea.

Agatha Christie must hold the record for the earliest possible example of foreshadowing. Usually as people are murdered in her novels, it narrows the possibilities as to which of the survivors is the killer. But in one of her books, just as in the nursery rhyme that predicts how each will be killed, everyone ends up dead. We only learn who did it in a letter left by the murderer, who is also dead. But the title foreshadows the surprising finale. It's called And Then There Were None. (Unfortunately the ending had to be changed when the novel was made into a play and then a film, so that someone could survive to figure out who was responsible.)

The Bible also has foreshadowing. Sometimes it's subtle. Humankind's fall involves a tree, as we see in Genesis chapter 3. But so does humanity's redemption. In defying the Sanhedrin's command that they stop preaching about Jesus, Peter and the apostles say, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 5:30) The Greek word xulon could mean tree or anything made of wood. It's used here and in 4 other passages in the New Testament to refer to the cross. Paul says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'” (Galatians 3:13, cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23) And this usage could be literal because the Romans experimented with different methods of making crosses, including by stripping a tree of branches and using it as the upright to which a crossbar was affixed. So in a sense the cross on which Christ died becomes the tree of life which is also mentioned in Genesis.

Sometimes the foreshadowing in the Bible is explicit, as in prophecy. In today's passage from Isaiah, God is assuring King Ahaz of Judah that he need not worry about the military coalition of Israelites and Arameans threatening him. As a sign, a maiden will have a son named Immanuel. By the time the child knows good from evil, the threat will be gone. And that's what happened then.

This however is an example of a prophecy that has more than one fulfillment. Matthew picks up on this in his account of Jesus' birth. In this case the child is not merely named Emmanuel, but actually embodies the meaning of the name: “God is with us.” And it is often true with these double-barrelled prophecies that the second fulfillment is deeper and more significant. Originally this was a sign that God would remove a military power that threatens everyone in Ahaz's kingdom. But when Jesus was born, it signals the beginning of the Son of Man's mission to remove the power of sin and death from those who voluntarily become citizens of God's kingdom.

By the way, if you are disturbed by the fact that the Hebrew mentions a young woman but Matthew quotes it as referring to a virgin, you needn't be. The Hebrew word almah does basically mean a young woman, which includes virgins. Matthew is quoting the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible most Jews read at that time. It used parthenos, the Greek word for virgin, which reveals the deeper fulfillment this time around. As Mark Twain pointed out, history does not literally repeat itself but it does rhyme.

It is important to realize that in the first century, the only scriptures were what we call the Old Testament. The New Testament was in the process of being written beginning with the letters of Paul. When Jesus taught the disciples what was written about him he was using the Torah, the prophets and the Psalms. And there was plenty there about him.

This one in Isaiah is significant but there are others that are even more so. Later in Isaiah, we are told that “in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles...” (Isaiah 9:1) Who will do this? Is it God or perhaps a future king of David's line? Maybe both. About this king, we read, “For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; and the government will be on his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his dominion and peace there will be no end. He will reign upon David's throne and over his kingdom to order and establish it with justice and righteous acts from that time forward and forever.” (Isaiah 9:6-7) Those are some pretty spectacular names and claims for a human king.

Some scholars argue that this refers to a traditional Davidic king, perhaps Hezekiah, Ahaz's son, and that these are simply royal titles. But there is nowhere in scripture any king given these titles. Hezekiah's name means “God gives strength.” It does not use the same words translated “Mighty God.” Elsewhere in Isaiah we are told “This also comes from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.” (Isaiah 28:29) God is the Wonderful Counselor, not any man. Also it is more typical to call God our father, and no mortal is everlasting. And while Judah was not conquered by the Assyrians, Hezekiah did pay them tribute by stripping the gold off the doors of God's temple. And he did fight against the Philistines, so the peace he brought was bought with the temple's gold and the blood of his enemies. Would that be appropriate for someone called the Prince of Peace?

Though Hezekiah was one of the best of the kings of Judah, the titles in Isaiah 9 seem excessive even for him. And despite all the good he did, getting rid of pagan shrines and reopening and cleansing God's temple, Hezekiah was arrogant. (2 Chronicles 32:25) When he showed off his treasures to the Babylonians, he essentially invited them to come back and conquer Judah. He didn't mind, though, because there would be peace in his lifetime. (2 Kings 20:12-19) That was neither humble nor wise.

This prophecy begs a greater fulfillment and Jesus, who is the everlasting God, is one with the Father, never fought a war but brings peace to his followers, and is a wonderfully wise counselor and thinker, is a better fit.

Then of course there are the prophecies of God's suffering servant, whom we read about in Isaiah chapters 49-53. It is difficult to read these passages and not think of Jesus, who was despised and rejected (Isaiah 53:3), was beaten, mocked and spit upon (Isaiah 50:6), was killed among transgressors (Isaiah 53:12), was buried in a rich man's tomb (Isaiah 53:9) and suffered for the sins of others (Isaiah 53:5, 8). To whom, other than Jesus, could these prophecies possibly refer?

Altogether scholars have counted more than 100 prophecies scattered throughout the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus. That's too many to be a coincidence. Some think the gospel writers invented things about Jesus to make them fit. But those referring to his death are so weirdly specific. And we know his crucifixion wasn't invented. Non-Christian historians like Josephus and Tacitus confirm his execution under Pontius Pilate. A Greek satirist mocks Christians for following a crucified leader. An early example of graffiti shows a man worshiping a crucified God. And why would anyone make up the idea that their leader died an humiliating death just to fit some old prophecies? It was not a good selling point. Paul said that the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews and seemed like nonsense to the Greeks. (1 Corinthians 1:23) Jesus' death was in the earliest Christian writings because it did happen, just as foreshadowed in the Hebrew Bible.

Scholar N.T. Wright points out one interesting fact about the gospels: all of the references to the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus' first coming end with his burial. The gospel writers did not quote any eerily specific passages that foreshadowed his resurrection. Yes, there were a few references to a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the present evil era. (Job 19:25-27; Psalm 49:15 and 71:20; Daniel 12:2; Isaiah 26:19) But you have to look hard to see those that apply specifically to the Messiah. (Psalm 16:9-10 and 49:15) The reason we don't see this as easily in the Old Testament is that this is God doing something new. Christ's resurrection is not clearly predicted by anyone but Jesus himself. The disciples could not anticipate it because it made no sense to them. They knew that the dead stayed dead. And they were not quick to believe in it even after his tomb was found to be empty. Just as you and I would in that situation, they had to see and touch and eat with their risen friend before they could accept it to be true. After they were convinced, they could not stop talking about it, even when facing death.

There are prophecies about Jesus that have not been fulfilled. They are the ones about Jesus' second coming. One key passage in Daniel says, “In my vision at night I looked, and there was before me one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) That has not yet been fully realized. Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a seed, something which starts small and grows. (Matthew 13) Jesus also said to his followers that the “kingdom of God is within you” or “in your midst.” (Luke 17:21) The church, as N.T. Wright puts it, is to be a small-scale, working model of the new creation. So God's kingdom is something that exists today but not yet in its final form. It's like a butterfly which starts as a caterpillar and ends up as a creature whose beautiful wings let it fly.

When we say that God has a plan, we are not making it up. It is laid out in the Bible, including the long portion that was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. But like a lot of foreshadowing, we only see it after it has happened. Only after the plot twist has taken place, do we say, “Oh, yeah! Remember what we were told earlier!” Only after Jesus was crucified, died, was buried and then rose again were the disciples able to see that this was God's plan all along. It came as a surprise at first but later they realized it was inevitable. They just didn't see how God was going to bring it about.

But what does that have to do with us? We are all part of God's plan. We all have our roles to play. When I acted in plays in high school, college and community theater, I and my fellow actors were the most visible, of course, because people saw us on stage. But behind the scenes were the people who made the costumes, who built the sets, who created and collected the props, who did the sound, who did the lights, who sold the tickets, who did the publicity, and who ushered people to their seats. All of those people were necessary. Without them we would be stumbling around in the dark, unable to see or be seen, with no audience to even hear us.

Or think of it this way: We are God's Mission Impossible team. Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt could not save the day without the help of Luther, the computer guy, and Benji, the techie, and Ilsa, the spy, and even Grace, the pickpocket. Not to mention superiors who trust him and who provide the finances and equipment for him to carry out his mission.

God could do it all by himself but he loves us and lets us be part of it, the way Mom gives the kids things to do to get ready for Christmas dinner. Because there is another foreshadowing right in the first chapter of the Bible. In Genesis we read “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) God intended for us to be his vice-regents, ruling under him. But we decided to ignore his command and do things our way. Yet through Jesus, who is both fully human and fully divine, he has set it up so that “they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6) And all we have to do is say “Yes” to his offer. And “Thanks!”

The Forgotten Virtue

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 35:1-10, James 5:7-10, and Matthew 11:2-11.

When I was a kid adults would often tell us to be patient. “Patience is a virtue,” they would say. But nobody likes to be told to wait for something. And today, with a lot of things, you don't have to be patient. Want to buy something? In the old days—my youth—you would go to the store, shop around, buy it, and take it home. Today you can do it on Amazon with 1 click. And if you are buying an e-book, you can have it instantly. Or a movie. In the old days, you looked in the newspaper to see what films were playing where, got in the car, drove to the theater, got your popcorn, sat and waited through the short subjects, and finally the movie started. If you had to go to the bathroom, you had to wait until there was a part of the film you could miss and then sprint to the restrooms. If you wanted to watch your favorite TV show, you looked in the TV Guide to confirm the day and time it played. If you missed the episode, you had to wait for the summer reruns. Now you can watch movies and TV shows instantly, on your phone if you like. Want a meal? Rather than taking hours to prepare it, you can order it on Uber Eats or pop it in the microwave.

And the consequence is that people have less patience than before. We expect instant gratification of our needs and desires and instant solutions to our problems. But that's not how big, complicated and important things are accomplished. Making stuff takes time and some of it can't be rushed. That movie you downloaded in an instant took years of preproduction planning, several months to hire the cast and crew, more months to film and the better part of a year to edit the scenes, create and insert the computer effects, compose and add the music, and then publicize and get the finished product out. It took a lot of people working long and hard to create it. That's why the credits at the end take forever. The only thing that got faster was its delivery to you. Remember: the five seasons of Stranger Things took ten years or more to make.

I think that is the attraction of magic. We would love to have what we want without all the time and, let's face it, hard work that is involved in real life. Much of the stuff that the wizards do in Harry Potter's world can be done by us, not with a wand but with machines and hard work. Mind you, I wish my broken bones could have been repaired by magic and chocolate as was done to Harry. But in the real world I was in the hospital for 40 days and in the rehab center learning to walk again for 100 days. And then physical therapy at home for months. As a nurse, I knew it would take perseverance and hard work to get better. And it made me a more patient person.

Our impatience also leads us to prefer fast and simple solutions. But to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, for every complex problem there is a simple solution—and it's wrong! Complex problems usually require complex solutions. I think the reason we don't seem to be making the giant strides in medicine today that we were in the 20^th century is that then we were targeting low-hanging fruit. In the last century we discovered antibiotics as well as anti-rejection drugs that enabled us to transplant organs. We created vaccines that greatly increased life expectancy and in the last decade of that century, we mapped out DNA. What we are left with are conditions that involve several genes, epigenetics, a complex immune system and multiple organ systems. We are still discovering new things about our bodies and we are doing it with brains that we have only begun to explore and using our consciousness which we don't even understand.

If the the elements involved in keeping our bodies healthy are so complex, and fixing them is so time-consuming, why do we expect quick and simple solutions to spiritual problems? To be sure, the broad outlines of being spiritually healthy are fairly simple, as are those of being physically healthy. For the body, it is a matter of eating healthy foods in healthy amounts, drinking plenty of water, not ingesting harmful drugs, not engaging in harmful activities, getting exercise, and getting enough rest and sleep. And since we are both physical and spiritual beings, not taking care of your body can negatively impact you spiritually. An unhealthy body and lifestyle can make it hard to remain spiritually healthy. If you are exhausted, if your brain is addled by substances, if you are not getting adequate rest and sleep, it can affect your ability to perceive things from God's perspective and to follow Jesus. You can become irritable and veer off into angry outbursts or periods of despair and severe doubt. When Jesus saw how overwhelmed his disciples were, he took them off to a solitary place to rest. (Mark 6:31-32) Jesus took naps when he could, even in a boat during a storm. (Matthew 8:24)

For the spirit, the basics are also easily stated. We are to be disciples of Jesus, in whom we see both what God is like and what we can become. “Disciple” is just another word for “student.” When you are learning a skill, you need both to understand the principles behind it and to put them into practice. We learn the principles by reading the text, in this case scripture, and we apply them to the situations in our lives. It also helps to communicate with the teacher, which means praying and listening to the Spirit who guides us into all truth. (John 16:13-15) It means self-examination, evaluating what you are doing, seeing where you are doing well, and what you need to improve. It helps to have a study group, and that is the church. A good church is full of people also intent on learning to be like Jesus. Other students can share what they learned in living out the Christian life. They can help you understand difficult Bible passages and concepts by sharing their learning and insights. We keep up school spirit by meeting together to celebrate God and sing songs of encouragement. We also come together as a community when we eat and drink the meal that Jesus commanded us to observe, where the body of Christ on earth shares the body and blood of Christ, feeding on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

But just as it took my broken body a while to get to the point where I could physically walk again, it takes some time to get good at walking in the Spirit. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like grain which is sown. It starts by growing in the ground unseen and it takes a while before it emerges and is visible. Even then it has to continue to grow and develop the features which show that it is mature. (Mark 4:26-29) So being a Christian is a growing process and it takes time. It usually takes a lifetime.

Multiply that by the number of Christians in the world. They are all at different stages in their growth. Not all of them are growing in the best soil. (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23) And there are weeds among the wheat, churchgoers who say they are following Jesus but who aren't. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) Getting the world ready for the King and the culmination of his kingdom in its fullness will take time. And all these complications make it a complex process. We need to have patience until his coming, as James says.

Still, even John the Baptist was getting impatient, as we see in our gospel reading. Stuck in jail, he began to wonder if Jesus was in fact the one sent to usher in God's kingdom. John knew he was probably facing execution. Why hadn't Jesus rallied his followers, overthrown the wicked powers of this earth and rescued him? No doubt John was thinking of those passages in the scriptures, like verse 4 in our reading from Isaiah where it says, “Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” John's preaching was primarily about God's coming judgment. There is evil in the world and John couldn't wait for the Messiah to start taking names and kicking butt. So why wasn't Jesus doing that?

If when Jesus first came, he started dispensing strict justice, there would be an end to all evil on earth—because every human being would be ended! As Paul says, “There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12) In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, the farmer doesn't want to pull up the weeds before harvest time because that can also uproot the wheat. (Matthew 13:29) Getting rid of evil people is even more complicated because unlike bad plants, bad people can be redeemed and become good people. Jesus isn't going to end the process before the right time comes. The Bible says, “God is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) God is being patient for our sake so we should also be patient.

But Jesus is also looking at the other part of the prophecy like verses 5 and 6 in our reading from Isaiah, where it says, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” So he tells John's disciples to pay attention to the positive things he is doing. Jesus is not simply interested in opposing evil; he actively does what is good. He heals, he forgives, he brings good news to those who desperately need it. And by this he will convince more people to trust him and turn back to God.

In Advent, as we said last week, we anticipate both the comings of Christ. The first was to redeem us and plant the seeds of the kingdom of God. The second is the harvest time, when the weeds and wheat will be separated, when evil will be judged and punished and good will be rewarded. John was only thinking of judgment. But that had to be prepared for. A good teacher knows that it is not enough to tell their students about the wrong way to do things; they must demonstrate the right way as well. Jesus came the first time to demonstrate the right way to live for God and treat other people. The next time he comes, he will see who has been learning and applying what he taught them properly. He will see who has let his Spirit teach them and produce in them the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

In contrast to the fruit of the Spirit, Paul points out that “The actions of human nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, divisions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and other things like these. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21) It's not because God is a killjoy; it's because these attitudes and actions are not healthy for individuals and certainly not healthy for any community that wants to last. You can't have a peaceable kingdom of God unless you have people who have been transformed into the spiritual and moral likeness of Christ. And the transformation of lots of people will take time.

In the meantime, we will have to put up with the painful process of people (including us) changing their lives as well as the resistance of people who don't want to change. Some people like and even encourage chaos. It gives them the opportunity to exploit others who are willing to give up their freedom in exchange for promises that things will be easy and safe. Letting things go on as they are, even though they will fall apart, is a lot easier than building them up and maintaining what is good. The irony is that what is easy at first—not doing the hard work of doing what's good—makes things much more difficult later. And when you don't keep things in good shape, they become unsafe.

Life is hard no matter what you do. You have to choose which kind of hardness you want to deal with. It is hard to do what's right but it is also hard to live with the consequences of not doing things right. It is hard to treat others as you would like to be treated but it is also hard dealing with the consequences of treating people badly. It is hard to love and obey God but it is also hard to deal with the consequences of rejecting his love, forgiveness and healing. And trying to create an adequate substitute for the source of all that is good is doomed to failure.

We need to rediscover the virtues of patience and perseverance. Jesus never promised that his way would be easy. He said instead we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him. (Luke 9:23) He also said “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) And he made a lot of promises to “the one who overcomes.” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:8, 12, 21) But we can only overcome our ordeals through Jesus. (Romans 8:37) Paul said “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) As Jesus said before he endured the cross and conquered death, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Better Than Jesus?

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72, and Matthew 3:1-12.

I originally started this sermon relating how I went to Wendy's and found that the voice on the speaker was Artificial Intelligence rather than a real person. But that almost completed sermon was completely erased by my computer and replaced by 7 pages of hashtags, even though I had clicked on the Save icon. Which illustrates the point I was making. As someone said, to err is human; to really screw things up takes a computer.

Despite what the tech bros say, A.I. is not going to be our savior, partly because there is not now, and several experts think there will never be, what they call General Artificial Intelligence. Computer programs can do certain specific tasks better and faster than humans but they cannot do things like use common sense, or rely on lived experience, or understand how other people think, or have a sense of humor or doubt themselves. Because they don't actually think. They scan what others have done and then do a summary or make something similar, like make a picture in a particular style.

Yet the tech bros think they can replace any human activity with A.I. A lot of the stuff you read, hear and see on the internet is computer generated. In Germany and Japan they are working on making robot nurses. In Kyoto, Japan they have a cute anime-style Buddhist robot/priest who preaches sermons. In 2017 to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, an exhibition in Wittenberg, Germany created a clunky robot that gave blessings in 5 languages and would even print them out. Neither of these are a substitute for a person. They can't listen or empathize or speak from experience.

The problem is that not only can't we duplicate what God has created, we are flawed and biased and so our flaws and biases end up in whatever we create. Elon Musk tweaked his A.I. Grok to only say complementary things about him. When people on his platform X (formerly Twitter) found out, they asked questions about how he compared to other people. It said he was better than any person in any field of endeavor, even athletes like Le Bron or Simone Biles. Grok even said that Musk was a better role model than Jesus and better at resurrection in that he could rise from the dead faster! I'd pay to see that.

A.I. is just the latest attempt by humanity to create a better world without resorting to God, or as N.T. Wright puts it, to get the fruits without the roots. At least the people who were flocking to John the Baptist knew what to look for. His message, as we read in today's gospel, is “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Nor was he talking about the afterlife. Matthew's gospel appears to have been written to Jewish believers and to keep from offending them by overusing God's name, he said “kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God” as all the other gospels do. And Jesus' own message echoes John's. Jesus said, “The time has come and the kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

Unfortunately, the people then, like some people today, were thinking of a kingdom like any other, only holy. They were thinking of a kingdom with boundaries and a political system. Their idea of a Messiah was a holy warrior king like David who would defeat the Romans and expel them. The problem is they didn't even learn from their own history. David's kingdom split up after his son Solomon died. The northern kingdom of Israel was run by bad kings until it was conquered by the Assyrians and the people were taken into exile in 722 BC. The southern kingdom of Judah survived under kings descended from David, some good and some bad. That kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians and they went into exile in 586 BC. They were allowed to come back 70 years later under the Persians and then the Greeks. They became independent for about 100 years and then came under Roman rule. All earthly kingdoms, empires and nations rise and fall.

Earthly kingdoms take up specific areas of land and offer earthly resources and power. So earthly rulers want to keep what they have and gain more if they can. The people living on the land are only relevant as a workforce and taxpayers. There are leaders who would gladly rule over a land of robots. They would be less troublesome.

Jesus famously told Pilate that his kingdom did not come from this world. For one thing, his followers weren't warriors, fighting for Jesus. (John 18:36) What earthly kingdom doesn't have a military? And in what sense can that be a kingdom?

In both Greek and Hebrew the word usually translated “kingdom” meant first of all the authority to rule as king and secondly a realm over which he ruled. A better translation might be the royal reign of God. That makes the specific patch of land almost irrelevant. After all, as the psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” (Psalm 24:1) So God reigns everywhere. But like the tenants in one of Jesus' parables a lot of its inhabitants don't acknowledge that. (Matthew 21:33-44) They think they can run the world without the need of God.

16 of the 40 recorded parables of Jesus are about the kingdom of God. (Matthew 13:3-52; 18:23-34; 20:1-16; 21:28-44; 22:2-14; 25:1-30; Mark 4:26-29) Each gives us a glimpse of some aspect of the kingdom. Using everyday examples from a world in which 90% of the people were subsistence farmers, Jesus compares it to the sowing of seed on various soils, to a field where weeds and wheat grow up together, to a tiny seed that grows into a huge shrub, and to something that grows gradually almost without you noticing it. No doubt drawing upon his experience making things for people of various classes and professions, he compares it to workers in a vineyard, to a fishing net, to cooking with yeast, and to a wedding banquet, a joyful event to which everyone in a village is invited.

But the fullest examination of the kingdom of God is the Sermon on the Mount. God's kingdom is one where its citizens realize how impoverished they are without God, where those who mourn find comfort and courage, where the world is given to the gentle, where those who hunger and thirst for the right relationship with God are satisfied, where mercy is rewarded in kind, where hearts are purified by the vision of God, where God adopts those who make peace, and where loyalty to God is rewarded despite how badly it is treated by others. Those who let God reign in their lives preserve the world like salt and their deeds shine like a beacon in a dark world. They obey God in the smallest thing. They do not harm others either physically or with angry words. They understand that it is not enough to love God without also loving their neighbors. They know not to sin with their actions or with their intentional thoughts. They are willing to cut out things that they used to think of as a part of themselves if they are coming between them and God. They keep their promises, say what they mean and mean what they say. They don't retaliate. They go the extra mile. They are generous to those in need. They love all who are created in God's image, including their enemies. They strive to be completely good just as God is. (Matthew 5)

Those who obey God as their king do not make a performance out of their piety. When they pray, they acknowledge God's holiness. They ask for his kingdom to become a reality in this life and that his will be done here as it is in heaven. They ask for their daily needs and ask that he forgive their failures to do what is right to the same extent that they forgive others for their failures to do right by them. They ask not to undergo times of testing and for protection from the evil one. They keep their sacrifices to themselves and do not try to amass treasures that don't last but seek treasures that last beyond this life. They keep their eyes open to what is good and don't let their perspective become warped or dark. They realize that they cannot serve both God and money and so trust God for what they require and don't let tomorrow's anxieties take their mind off of the priorities of God's kingdom. (Matthew 6)

Those who take God's royal authority seriously don't usurp it by passing verdicts on other people. They take care of their faults before helping with those of others. They value what is sacred and treat it as such. They keep asking and seeking after the good gifts God shares. They treat people well, the same way they would like to be treated. They don't go along with the crowd but realize that the path God wants them to follow will come with difficulties. They are on guard against false prophets, and see what kind of behavior their teachings result in. They know that God isn't impressed by fancy words or flashy feats but by the person who actually obeys God's will. They build their faith on the firm foundation of Jesus' words, knowing they will be able to weather whatever storms come their way. (Matthew 7)

This is why the kingdom of God needs no borders. Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered in his name, Jesus is there and reigns in their midst. (Matthew 18:20; Luke 17:21) We are his ambassadors, obeying him and passing on his message in whatever place we happen to be. (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Part of that message is in what we say and part of it is in what we do. We negate the message when we do the opposite of what we say we should do. But how are we to be completely good in the way our heavenly Father is? We are not perfect. We screw up. But as Jesus said, “What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God.” (Luke 18:27) Which is why when we accept Jesus as our king, he sends his Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, to help us become the people God intended us to be. The Spirit helps us with those things we find so hard to do, like believe (Acts 10:44-48), repent (Psalm 51:10-12), obey (Ezekiel 36:26-27), pray (Romans 8:26-27) and love (Romans 5:5). The Spirit gives us talents and abilities to share with others. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11) The Spirit produces moral and spiritual qualities in us. (Galatians 5:22-23) It is the Spirit who allows us to be citizens of the kingdom of God worthy of the name.

People will never be able to create something on their own that transcends their flaws and biases. And we will never be able to make a nation that pleases God simply by taking the reins of power and trying to force people to be godly through following laws. Paul, a zealous Pharisee, realized that the law cannot save us; it can only show us what we are supposed to do. It cannot give us the power to do those things. Only God's Spirit can. (Romans 8:3-14)

In Advent we anticipate Jesus' first coming as one of us, and his second coming as the triumphant king who is returning to set up his kingdom, not just as a spiritual realm but as heaven on earth. Because in Jesus, God and humanity come together. The perfect kingdom that we hope for but cannot achieve on our own will be established forever by the only person who can bring it off. Unlike A.I. Jesus understands us. He knows what it's like to be human, to be misunderstood, to have people say you're wrong when you are right, to have your family not believe you, to be betrayed by a friend, and to have your other friends abandon you when you are facing the worst thing that has ever happened to you. And yet he forgives those who are in the process of executing him and gives Peter 3 opportunities to acknowledge his love after he denied Jesus 3 times. When he comes again, Jesus will judge the world with justice but also with mercy.

So Advent is also a minor penitential season. We examine ourselves and confess our sins and rededicate ourselves to the process of becoming like Jesus. Contrary to what any A.I. says, there is no one who compares with Christ. And if it could truly think, rather than parrot what it is programmed to say, it would admit it.

We are not brainless machines. We have the ability to think. We have common sense. We can have insights. We can make choices. So the question is: why do we resist the obvious? Why do we look for salvation in any other person or system or technology? Jesus is what we are looking for. Accept no substitutes.