The future is not a place toward which we are being dragged, kicking and screaming all the way. No. The future is a place we are creating by the choices we make everyday.
In the initial installment of the Harry Potter series, Professor Dumbledore, in teaching young Harry, says to him: "Harry, it is the choices we make, not our abilities, that determine the difference we will make."
In the scripture today, we learn that Jesus, now some 30 years of age and maturing in his self-awareness of who he is and his calling in life, is baptized by John in the River Jordan. At this unusual cross roads event, Jesus is affirmed in some mysterious manner by the Creator of the Universe, a dove like movement from above, a voice from the heavens. He then retreats to the wilderness where he struggles with the varied alternative choices of what was next to come.
This experience took place in no mountaintop retreat center where Jesus formulated his five-year plan for the church. The wilderness was barren and dangerous and isolated. "For forty days," a phrase like Elijah and Moses' forty days was a way of describing a long period of time. Jesus was in a wasteland, threatened by wild beasts and tempted by Satan, the personification of evil. Jesus knew what it was like to be alone, weak, needy, isolated, in danger, tempted to give in just as you and I are.
I observed an amusing sign in front of an automobile repair and beauty shop in central Alabama, which described well the services they offered. It read: "Come on in! Let us shock, tire, break and exhaust you." One stop – shop & save – come on in – let us make you beautiful.
The wilderness experience was designed to shock, tire, break and exhaust Jesus, to wear down his faith in God and to confuse his mission. Jesus knew he was to be God’s chosen instrument of proclaiming the Kingdom of God, the reign of God in human history, but how to do this best became his human dilemma and ultimately his choice.
Although Mark tells the story very quickly, in rapid-fire script, Matthew and Luke go into great detail. Some of you would have loved Mark's style when it came to short sermons. He told you like it was and let the chips fall as they may, but thank heavens for Luke and Matthew’s gifts to this narrative. In the event of the wilderness experience, Matthew and Luke inform us that Jesus confronts the devil's luring offering “of the ways of magic, power, and authority":
"Turn these stones into bread"—magic
"Leap off of the highest pinnacle of the temple"—power
"Command the armies of the entire world"—authority
In successive responses of rejection, Jesus now a student of the Hebrew scriptures, recalls the teachings of Israel:
"Man shall not live by bread alone."
"You shall worship the Lord your God and him alone shall you serve."
"You shall not tempt the Lord your God."
Here Jesus faced Satan's arsenal and he did it by relying solely on God's word in the Bible. I encourage you to read the Bible and to be very careful to keep the ordinances of God.
I like Matthew's final statement, "Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him." But I find intriguing Luke's final statement: "And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until a more opportune time."
Jesus made choices during this soul-searching wilderness retreat, which would later reflect the very nature of his message. He was to tell of God's love, and the gifts of God that come to those who submit themselves obediently to God's ways. Therefore, the ways of magic, authority, power, which were incongruent with God’s message were rejected. For Jesus, the end did not justify the means, but the means reflected the very nature of the end.
For a moment, let me walk with you and talk with you about Jesus' decision. The way, which he chose was not the way of magic, power, and authority, but rather the way of the "Suffering Servant". Remember he would say: "I am among you as one who serves."
Today if you were to visit in Israel, and stand beside me on the shores of the Dead Sea, I could point in one direction where only a mile a way to the archeological discovery of the Essenes’ community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And then I could point in another direction only eight miles away to the desert mountain-wilderness of Judea where Jesus retreated after his Baptism in the Jordan. Strange thing about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the one book that was discovered in its entirety was the Scroll of Isaiah. So many of the teachings of Jesus would come from Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives."
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; Surely he has borne our grief's and carried our sorrows, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:3)
I have often wondered when I have traveled in the Dead Sea area of the Mid East, if perhaps Jesus didn't, in that "forty day period,” spend time with some Essene teacher who, unlike the devil, presented him a better way - the way of the "suffering servant." However, that is mere speculation. What is important here is that Jesus made some choices after his baptism, at the age of 30, at the beginning of his ministry, which would shape his life and teachings.
Perhaps today you are making choices that will shape the rest of your life. You will make some this week, because no day comes without the challenge of daily decisions.
There have been some in our community who have made some very public choices: The young King boys, Alex and Derek, and Ricky Chavis, their adult co-conspirator, made some choices, horrible choices which will shape their lives forever.
Willie Junior, former county commissioner, has confessed to having made some choices that ended a lifetime of community service.
Emmit Smith made some choices when he was growing up here in Pensacola, while a kid his own age just down the street made some opposite kinds of choices. Choices have consequences! Some reap rewards, in the case of Emmit Smith and his friend, one very good reward, and the other very bad consequences. One is in a debt free luxury home today while the other is in a jail cell provided by the state. Choices, more than abilities shape the future.
Today, on the first Sunday of Lent, we recall the wilderness retreat in which Jesus made some lifestyle choices. For Jesus, that period in his life was a crossroads event. He could have turned down any one of many alternative routes. And so can you!
As you stand at the crossroads of your journey, I present to you the way of Jesus Christ. Choose Jesus and you will be blessed. You will find abundant life in the here and now and eternal life after death. Choose any other way and you are at risk of destruction.
Choose the way of dishonesty, and you will arrive at the city of mistrust.
Choose the way of violence and you will die by the sword.
Choose the way of laziness, an unmotivated couch potato, and you will arrive nowhere, because you are not going anywhere.
Choose the way of Jesus Christ. Remember how he said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life!"
In our choices lies our destiny. Who we are ten years from now will be decided by the choices we make today. But no choice is more crucial, more central, or more influential than our choice to follow Christ. It will affect our priorities, our values, our plans, our attitude, and will determine our future more than any other choice we will ever make.
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side, some great cause, God’s new memorial offering each the bloom or blight and the choice goes by forever – with the darkness and the truth.” — James Russell Lowell
3,800 years ago, God told Abraham to get out of Iraq. Of course it was not then called Iraq, but Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers. And God didn't tell him to get out of Mesopotamia, but rather he called him to leave his homeland in order to go to a new land that God would show him.
The Lord made Abraham four promises:
That he and his
people would become a great nation.
That He would covenant
to be their God.
That his descendants
would have a land to call their own.
And through those
descendants, God would bring blessings to all the families of the earth.
God made this pack with Abraham and his descendants, not because he was impressed with their moral character or religious faithfulness, but because he was God and God can do whatever God wants to do.
Now From the perspective of 38 hundred years, not to be disrespectful or critical, but one has to wonder about God's wisdom in his choice of Abraham and his descendents.
Abraham and Sara and their offspring, have not been the best of examples. They have had some commendable moments, but not many. Their first reaction was not to believe. After all, Abraham was 99 years old when he was told that he was to become a father. Sarah breaks down in uncontrollable laughter; Abraham flatly contradicts what he is hearing. These religious forbearer of ours in the faith were not made the recipients of God's promise because they were religious people. As a matter of fact they were raw recruits and not very religious at all, and as we discover as we read their story, they really didn't have much character. Abraham has a child out of wedlock with a slave girl and the child is named Ishmael, and this would lead to nothing but jealousy on Sarah's part even though it was Sarah's idea in the first place. Finally, Sarah had the slave and child thrown out of the home, and Abraham leaves the mother and child in the desert to die. This was to be the father of the Muslim/Arab people, who still remember this ugly act of abandonment. During Ramadan, which has recently ended, thousands of Muslims on pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca, in a desert area, scurry back and forth between two mountain ranges in living memory reenacting Hagar’s desperate search for water for her infant son. The end of the story was that she stubbed her toe on a rock and it rolled over only to reveal a bubbling spring of water and she and the child were saved. (God always provides water in the desert for his people.)
Abraham, for the Jewish people, is thus regarded as the father of Isaac and the Jews through Isaac claim the land. Abraham is regarded as the father of the Arab people through his slaves' child, Ishmael, through whom they claim the land.
To follow the development of Abraham through Isaac is to discover no hall of fame material, Isaac's son Jacob deceived his father to inherit the land, Moses’ followers would betray God's rule of one God and no graven images and then Moses would have them all killed, and King David was to have a soldier placed on the front line because of adulterous affair. I could go on but it gets embarrassing airing one's dirty laundry.
The sons of Ishmael, faired no better. For hundreds of years they took the lives of anybody who disagreed with them, and in some places still do.
So, consequently what you have today in the Mid East is a family feud between the descendents of two half brothers-Isaac and Ishmael. A real Hatfield and the McCoy's family feud that is so old that no one can quite remember all the real reasons why the people hate one another, but they do hate one another.
No, God didn't choose Abraham and Sarah nor Isaac nor Ishmael because they were great religious people, nor persons of outstanding moral character, but nevertheless, he did chose them that they might participate in the salvation of the World.
As one looks at the worst examples of the blood descendants of Abraham, which today can easily be found in the Muslim terrorists, personified by Osama Bin Laden and the Israeli Zionists, personified by Sharon, and the Christians, who have over the years had their embarrassing moments in the Crusades and today are ready to "kill for Jesus," you are driven to conclude that God made an awful mistake 38 hundred years ago when he chose to get involved with Abraham.
And to follow up on that, as you look at some of the petty, selfish, sinful kinds of things that we who are Christians today get involved in, you begin to think that if we are God's only hope, there is little to be hopeful about.
Many of us started this century off in great hope that we had developed into a society when war would be eliminated as an instrument of peace. We knew police actions would be prevalent, but not war.
This past Wednesday, in the village of Said, 25 miles northeast of TelAviv, an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian were killed. This means that for the past 29 months there have been daily bloody encounters between the sons and daughters of Abraham in his homeland. And my worst fear is that the Iraq war will be conceived as a cultural battle between the Christian West and the Muslim East.
One of the many tragedies of our current situation as a nation, is that the unity which we as citizens experienced on Sept. 12, 2001, is now gone. There are divisions, which separate Americans today that we haven't seen in a long time. Two Christians got in a fistfight outside of their church last week because the preacher had prayed for the enemies of America, in obedience to Jesus' admonition, "Pray for your enemies". There are editorials daily in the newspapers of America affirming our march to war. Cat Stevens, now a converted Muslim, sings about a "Peace Train that someday its going to come” while others sing in praise of our Marines. Tonight Patriots for Peace will rally and next week the rally for America will continue. We are so divided. It is so sad.
If you squint your eyes and look at us in a mirror, maybe you could conclude that although, we are not people of great faith and obedience to all of the ordinances of God, we are at least as good as Abraham, which is not a great compliment. And secondly, it might be a stretch, but you might conclude that if God used the likes of Abraham and his offspring, he may also use the likes of us to accomplish his transforming work of the world.
This could very well happen if, and only if, we penetrate the meanings of Jesus' teachings in the scripture today:
”If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
”Whosoever would save his life will lose it; and whosoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will find it.”
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”
There Is A threefold movement to the decision to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and it is the same movement that Jesus himself had to experience in order to fulfill his own vocation. "Self-denial," "cross-bearing," and "following" constitute this movement of the spiritual life.
Self-denial does not mean self-hatred. It means taking self (ego) off the throne of my life in order that I may lose my self-centeredness and thus find my true self in God. ...It is not about me, it is about God.
And when it is not about God, it is about others.
Historic ways to penetrate our inherent selfishness are tithing, fasting, or giving someone something we desire.
One of my most cherished possessions in the whole world is a small piece of my granddaughter’s security blanket, which she cut off and brought to me when I was in the intensive care area of the hospital some years ago. She gave away what was most precious.
Self-denial is tough.
One of our marines in Kuwait, with the agreement of his wife, shipped out two weeks ago, while his newborn daughter was in the neonatal unit of the hospital—service to country and love of family often calls into question our ability to deny ourselves.
"Taking up the cross" was a very specific act for Jesus. It can be no less specific for his followers. For Jesus, it meant accepting suffering and death, not stoically and in resignation, but consciously and freely as an act of consecration to doing the will of God. It was that act of freedom, which transformed the cross into something redemptive rather than something ultimately destructive.
Someone whom I helped locate in Favor House for abused women, said to me some years ago, “For the sake of my children, I am getting out of this destructive marriage.”
Someone else said to me, “I have fallen in love with someone else, but for the sake of the children in my family, I am going to make this passionless marriage work.”
Taking up one's cross is always very specific and sometimes very hard.
The word "follow" is Mark's special word for discipleship. A disciple is one who follows Jesus. ... "To follow Jesus" means to take the same road, "The Road Less traveled", to make the same kinds of choices, to face the possibility of the same end he did. For his earliest disciples, that often meant following to their own deaths as martyrs. For [many of] us, who live in a much more tolerant society, at least in the west, it may not mean execution in a literal sense, but it must be given specific content. ... If you can see no shadow of a cross on the road you are traveling, you may be on the wrong road, following some other leader other than Jesus.
There is this mythological story about Jesus going to heaven after his resurrection and having this conversation with the saints of God and one of the saints is pretty amazed about the stories about Jesus' selection of the disciples: Peter, a hothead who would draw a sword in a heartbeat, Matthew, a tax collector, Thomas, who had more doubts than he had beliefs, Judas who betrayed him and took his own life before Jesus died; and the saint says to Jesus: "Do you tell me that you left the church in the hands of those kind of people?" And Jesus said, "Well yes, that's my plan and I have no other."
Frankly, if God's choice is people like us, the descendents of Abraham, and that we are God's only hope, and there is no other plan - then God help us. Knowing what I know, I'm not very confident or hopeful right now for the survival of humankind, at least not in any desirable format that I will be comfortable in. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I just know too much. Maybe I'm wrong.
I will tell you this for sure; I am grateful, beyond measure, that this is the season of Lent, a season of repentance. Of seeking God's will and changing our ways. May God forgive us, we who by faith, are the descendents of Abraham, and reform us according to his desires. Let us pray with the Psalmist: "Create in me a clean heart, O God and put a new and right spirit within me. Amen.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" The Apostle Paul first raised this question when dealing with the earthly powers of the Roman occupation of the Mid East after the resurrection of Jesus, but he was also dealing with principalities and powers of the spirit: tribulation, distress, and persecution. He concluded, in answer to his own question, “Can anything prevail against us when God is for us,” his answer was, “No, No, No a thousand times No!”
Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" It is a question with an implied answer. No one!
It is a question, which is raised in the minds of all America as today we are once again in a battle between what is perceived as a struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, the powers of darkness and the powers of light. We have been here before. It didn't feel good then and it doesn't feel good now.
Part of the troubling nature of so many of our conflicts of late, is that opposing factions, seems to march under a banner which reads "God is on our side." One has to ask, isn’t it logically impossible for two warring factions to both have God on their side? Both may claim God's favor, but one of us has to be wrong. The truth of the matter is that no nation, no group of people, and no individual can lay absolute claim to God's blessing in the time of war. On the contrary, history teaches that humanity usually fights against God's principals. By our very nature, most of our everyday transactions as well as our global wars are to often the product of limited vision, self-seeking, and often sinful desires. At times like that, God may very well be against all of us.
Surely no one today can doubt the military strength and fire power of the United States and if they do, they just are not very smart. No one can prevail against the strength of the American Armed Services, which is unparallel in history. There can be no doubt that no one can stand against the unrestrained military power of the United States of America today. Who can stand against us? No one is the clear answer.
But the question for Christians in America is not "Who Can Stand against us?, but rather is God on our side when we take a stand against another individual or groups or another nation. And as you think about it, "Is God on our side?" is not even the question, but rather as Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of these United States, posed: "Are we on God's Side?" And only history will one day be able to answer that perplexing current question.
Our situation is that our president is armed with the military strength of the American Armed services and he is now using it! President Bush is a United Methodist, which as you well know, deals primarily with the Wesleyan theology of personal transformation and social holiness through the practice of spiritual disciplines." Of late, the President has been sounding more like a Calvinist with a "divine plan" which is laid out by a sovereign God. Recently he was quoted as saying: "We can be confident in the ways of Providence. Behind all of life and all of history, there's a purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God." Our president needs our support and our prayers during these hard times.
The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 13:1 "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God."
Let us be supportive of our elected leaders, after all, who are we to say that it is not the will of the Creator that this particular President, who came to office on a 49% popular vote in the strangest of circumstances, at a time the cold war was over, was not placed there by the providence of God and is in the process of accomplishing things, which you nor I nor even President Bush quite understands. Only history will tell us.
For sure, as President, he is in a position to know things, which we are not privileged to know, and thus equipped, he has to make decisions on behalf of you and me and also, now, on behalf of the entire free world, which affects us all.
Our role, at this time, is to pray for our leaders and the women and men in the armed forces and for innocent civilians, pleading with God that His ways will prevail, and to believe that God's will can be accomplished!
So we will pray in the name of Jesus, remembering how he said: "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing that you have received it, it will be yours."
In the prelude of today's scripture in Romans 8, Paul writes: "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him." And I, just like all of you, am trying real hard to hold on to this truth in these perilous times.
If you want testimony to support your wavering confidence that God's Will will prevail in these war torn days, then ask those who have lived in times past for sometimes only history can reveal the movement of one’s time. Ask Mandela, ask Hitler, ask Gandhi, ask Stalin, ask Caesar, ask Jesus, yes, ask Jesus, who was crucified, dead, and buried and rose again on the third day and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Yes, ask Jesus if God's Will doesn't prevail.
Check out the story of the slaves of Egypt's mighty Pharaoh, but don't forget that they crossed through the sea on dry land. Pharaoh and all of his armies could not hold captive those whom God destined to be free.
Check out the Goliath story, the strong man of the Philistines, but don't forget young David who could operate a slingshot to distinct advantage.
So the question which we must now ask is not "Is God on our Side", but rather "Are We on God's Side?".
Let me simply remind you that The Bible clearly tells us how to know when we are on God's side. It teaches us saying:
If you steal, you are not on God's side.
If you lie about someone else (bear false witness), you are not on God's side.
If you are careful not to curse in God's name and you keep the Sabbath, then you are on God's side.
If you are pure in heart, merciful, a peacemaker, you are on God's side.
If you Bring God's tithe into the storehouse of God's Kingdom, you are on God's side. And when you do not you rob God and you are not on his side.
The Bible says: "If you commit adultery, and are not faithful to your marriage relationship, then you are not on God's side.
The Bible says: "Feed the hungry, visit the sick" and when you do, you are on God's side.
Do you want to get even or do you want to go the second mile? Your answer will reveal if you are on God's side or not.
When thought of in terms of what the Bible teaches, deciding if we are on God's side or not, is no big deal. It is pretty simple really. Do what God has told you in the commandments and in his teachings and you will have no uncertainty.
Look back at your checkbook for a couple of months and you will know whose side you are on.
The Bible teaches us to encourage one another and to build one another up. Think back over your conversation of late. And ask yourself if you have built up someone or torn him or her down, and this will tell you pretty clearly whose side you are on.
Do you seek to live daily in love and harmony with your neighbors? Do you seek God's will first in your life? Your answers will reveal whose side you are on.
The question of the Apostle Paul, "If God is for us?" Is clearly answered by the long history of humanity, which reveals that when we are on the side of God, no one can prevail against us.
Yes, when you are obedient to the ways of God, no one can stand against you. There is no evil power, which will ultimately prevail against the forces of truth and justice and freedom. If God is for us, no one can stand against us! Here is one of the great promises of God for his people for these troubled times.
The OT scripture today tells of the difficult desert journey for the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to the land of Canaan, 1200 years before the birth of Christ.
Canaan was described as a land flowing with milk and honey, meaning goat's milk, which would mean herds of animals; and honey, the product of bees, which would mean agricultural products.
But for forty years, Canaan was a long way off and the desert was their home. The Israelites were wandering nomads in a trackless desert and the desert was a harsh place of drought and sand storms, excruciating heat and bitter cold. We are told that our best estimate of the numbers traveling with Moses was over a million people. This would have necessitated a supply convoy four times the supply system of our men and women in the Armed services now in the arid lands of Iraq. You figure the logistical nightmare of supplying that many people with food and water for forty years. In addition to the harsh climate and sacristy of supplies, there were snakes. In the words of Indiana Jones, "Not snakes, anything, but not snakes."
And yet,
When they were hungry, God provided food.
When they were thirsty, God provided water. And when they were struck by the
fiery serpents of the desert, God provided healing.
Although we don't understand totally this rather mystical business of a bronze snake that a snakebite victim would look at and be healed, nevertheless, it was a way the storyteller was communicating the message of God's providence. Look up at the serpent high and lifted up. Maybe the key was to look up! Look Up To God And He will provide!
That's the lesson to be learned from all of these stories in Exodus and Numbers. God will provide. God will take care of you.
It is interesting to note that the image of the snake is the image which is used today to symbolize the healing profession. On the diploma of every one of our doctors, there is the image of the serpent. It is an image which comes from Greek mythology.
In Greek mythology, Aesculapius, son of Apollo, (often referred to as the god of medicine or healing) was a Greek healer and was a famous physician. Shrines and temples of healing known as Aesculapius were erected throughout Greece where the sick would come to worship and seek cures for their ills. Harmless serpents were kept in these temples of healing, lovingly tended by Aesculapius’ daughter, Hygeia, the personification of health. Snakes were held sacred by Aesculapius and he himself was thought to sometimes appear in the form of a snake. Patients who saw snakes in their dreams believed that the god of healing himself had come to their aid. The staff of Aesculapius with a coiled serpent became the traditional symbol of medicine.
The staff of
Aesculapius and the Caduceus.
Note: the modern winged
staff, or caduceus, showing twin snakes around a
single slim staff (wand of Hermes), was the staff of Hermes, or Mercury, in
Greek and Roman mythology. It was a symbol of heralds and commerce, and
is Not the traditional symbol of medicine.
(Hermes was also the god of thieves.) It is however found today in various
styles in medical, veterinary, chiropractic and dental symbols.
The correct symbol
the staff of Aesculapius, has one serpent, instead of
two. This staff is the only true symbol of medicine.
The caduceus with its winged staff and intertwined serpents, frequently
used as a medical emblem, is without medical
relevance. It represents the magic wand of Hermes, or
Mercury, the messenger of the gods and the patron of
trade.
The only history of the serpent in Hebrew Scriptures, until this incident read today about the wilderness journey, was when the serpent enticed Eve and Adam to eat of the apple in the Garden of Eden. Here the serpent is redeemed and now becomes a symbol of healing and God's providence.
The lesson to be learned is that God provides for his people! In the mornings in the desert, God provided a wafer, bread like substance, which came from the secretion of some desert plant. God provided meat from the quails found in the grass of the oasis areas in the desert. And when they were without water, Moses struck the sands of the desert with his shepherd’s staff and discovered streams of water. It was not so much a miracle that these products could be found in the desert, for they are always there, but the timing of their discovery is the miracle. They came in the nick of time. At the points of exhaustion of the hungry, thirsty, sick, for the Israelites, it was then that help came. The former slaves, now nomads in the desert, were being taught to trust in the providence of God. He will take care of you, but you have to trust him.
The N.T. was to teach God's providence. Jesus would teach in the Lord's Prayer that we would pray: "Lord, give us today our daily bread” but by far the most significant way God would ultimately take care of us would be through the gift of his son Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him shall never perish, but shall have eternal life."
God will take care of you; here is the message of the Holy Scriptures.
"Be not dismayed whatever be tide,
beneath his wings of love abide, God will take care of you.
Through days of toil when heart doth fail, when dangers fierce your path assail, God will take care of you.
No matter what may be the test,
Lean, weary one, upon his breast, God will take care of you."