It's Hard For God to Get Through to Us
Sermon
THE HAPPY HOUR
SERMONS FOR ADVENT, CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY (SUNDAYS 1-8 IN ORDINARY TIME)
Advent requires us to experience a vision from God in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, and for that vision to bring hope and the possibilities of the coming of the King who will bring peace.
Recently I picked up the novel, Cold Heaven, by Brian Moore, from the public library. It was the story of Marie Davenport, a successful physician's wife who was having an affair with another doctor. Neither of these persons was religious or spiritual, and both considered Christianity sheer nonsense. One day, after Marie had met her lover, she left the motel up at Big Sur and was walking along the cliffs. Suddenly she had a vision which she described this way: "And then I felt something very strange. It was a sort of silence, as if the sea wasn't moving, as though everything was still. Then the branches of the cypresses rustled and shook, and someone came out through the trees below me. It was a young girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. It was a cloudy day. Did I say that? There was no sun at all and yet she was surrounded by a little golden path of light. She said to me, 'Marie, I am your mother. I am the Virgin Immaculate.' " Every time Marie told of her vision, she always prefaced and concluded it with, "I do not believe in miracles. I do not believe in the Virgin Mary. I don't believe in any religion."
Several weeks later, while she and her husband, Alex, were attending a medical convention in Europe, Alex, swimming in the Bay of Angels at Nice, was run over by a motorboat, which smashed his skull. He was rushed to the hospital, but even the skill of famous French doctors couldn't save him. He was pronounced dead and taken to the morgue. The next day his body disappeared. No one could understand it. Truly, someone must have stolen his body! By some strange phenomenon that he himself could not understand, he came back to life, put on an intern jacket, and escaped without anyone seeing him, walking out of the hospital. Morgues always have an escape handle inside the freezer, in case an attendant gets locked in. We don't usually have to worry about people who are in morgues getting out.
Alex makes his way back to America. Though he dies periodically when his heart stops, he always comes back to life. He keeps a medical record of his subnormal temperatures - their intervals and lengths - in a diary. But he doesn't want anyone to know that he has recovered or that he has had these experiences, because he says, "I don't want people to see me as a medical freak instead of a doctor." Neither Marie nor her husband, Alex, want to acknowledge that they have experienced any special, indescribable interventions. They both want to remain quiet about it, keep it a secret, because they are afraid it will interfere with their lives. They are fearful that this so-called vision or intervention would cause their lives to be changed.
So Marie, who couldn't deny the vision which she thought God gave to her for a purpose, never told anyone about it except two priests. Later, she met a very devout, saintly nun. This nun had dreams constantly, for years, of this same vision. So Marie carried her to the exact spot. The very pious nun experienced the same apparition. Now Marie was free, because she could say that this revelation or good news she had wasn't just hers, it was also Sister Anna's. Because Sister Anna was a pious woman, she was willing to surrender her life to that vision. Now Marie could let Sister Anna have it and forget it. Her conscience wouldn't haunt her any longer. As Marie made her way back up the hill to the motel at Big Sur to tell her husband that she was going to leave him for another man, the last words of the book say this: "She had been returned to her ordinary life, to its burdens, to its consequences, for someone else had had the vision."
God tires of us, I am sure. He tries to get through to us in many ways, to break through to us and we, like Marie and her husband, try to ward off, to deny God's intrusion. We are glad to let Jeremiah or the shepherds have an experience for us; for that kind of intrusion would make too drastic a change in our life. We sing "O come, O come, Immanuel" but we really don't mean it!
Let's look at this biblical text for Advent. Examine Jeremiah, who had the experience and who didn't deny his vision as we probably deny many of ours. The Lord sent this vision or message to Jeremiah, while he was still in jail and Jerusalem was under siege by the great Babylonian army. This vision was about the hopes and promises of the future. The good that God would do for Judah and Israel was that He would bring to the throne, to rule with justice and peace, the "true son of David." Jeremiah, like Marie, couldn't deny his vision but hoped that God would give it to someone older.
Only thirty-six years before 622 B.C., Josiah had brought a great reformation with the "Back to the Bible" movement. But, after the big revival, everyone went back to their old wicked ways.
Now I am sure God exposed his special apparition or vision to many other persons besides Jeremiah, but he was the only one who would acknowledge and affirm this vision and message. God must surely tire of trying to get through to us! To acknowledge his revelation will change our lives, make us different from those around us. It will interrupt our lives as it did Jeremiah's. The vision was visible to all, yet only a few responded to it. The possibility of joy and hope to a world content with things as they are is never a popular message. Furthermore, it is always misinterpreted as a judgment.
For example, we have the same situation 600 years later, recorded in Luke 2:1-20. The vision that appeared to Jeremiah in the darkness of his jail cell appeared to a group of shepherds on the hillside.
In fact, Jeremiah is saying this King will bring "Shalom" which means "salvation from lostness and destruction." This means peace that comes through hope.
I. A Vision From God On High
"Glory to God in the highest." That is the first thing in a vision. Every vision, experiencing God, in the Bible was almost the same. When Isaiah had his experience in the temple, what did he see? "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts." How did Jesus say you should pray indicating you had the experience? "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." You see, you have got to get right. You must begin by acknowledging that you have received a revelation from the transcendent God, the Heavenly Father.
Unless we catch that vision of glory to God in the highest, we will never find the motivation or the sustaining power to bring peace on earth and good will to all humankind. It is imperative that you experience and acknowledge the transcendent God and His revelation, not try to deny it like Marie and Alex and a thousand others. God cannot ever become imminent in your life until first of all you have experienced Him transcendentally; that you have known Him as glory to God in the highest.
If our being "human" is not the result of our relationship with God as a child of God, then we are no more important than an amoeba, a puppy dog, or a cow. It is only because we have experienced God that we then assume the goal of ourselves and our fellow human beings.
II. On Earth Peace and Good Will Toward Men
Jeremiah uses the term "Yahweh - our - Integrity," which is the symbolic messianic name for Jerusalem. Actually, the name Jerusalem means the place of Shalom or Peace. "Jeru" means "site or foundation of" and "Shalom" means "Peace" or "Peace, Good Will to Men." So Jeremiah is saying that to experience the vision he experienced from God will bring Shalom or, as we call it, peace on earth and goodwill to man "even in our immediate predicaments."
Peace on earth and good will toward all humankind can't take place unless you first experience the heavenly host. Do you understand that? You are wasting your time if you think that you can have peace on earth and good will toward all humankind, unless you have first found the one and only power who can bring that to pass.
Today we are more prepared for war than peace, aren't we? We are a lot better prepared to fight than we are to make peace. Both America's and Russia's largest industries are selling arms to other nations. As a boy, I went to see the cowboy movies on Saturdays and, if someone was caught selling arms to Indians, he was executed. We talk about serious penalties for people who sell drugs or any other kinds of killing agents to humankind. I agree that we ought to have strict punishment for drug dealing. My God, what should the world do to any of us who sell weapons to the rest of the world.? It ought to be as serious an offense as to those who sell drugs or other destructive materials. I have people say to me, "You are just an idealistic preacher. Get down to reality." You say peace isn't realistic. I tell you: you are wrong! We are living in a fantasy world if we think peace is unrealistic. If we think violence and nuclear war are realistic, we really need to be in a psychiatric ward. There is nothing realistic about that, nothing realistic about nuclear explosion. Peace is the only realistic thing there is. Nuclear explosion and war are unrealistic.
We have got to learn how to drop the Spirit of Retaliation to meet it and overcome it. We must move beyond dealing with it philosophically. Non-violence refuses to give a person a reason to hurt you, and the whole root - which is the reality of violence -surfaces and has to be faced.
Let me read to you from the diary of a young black girl who was the first one of the blacks to sit at the lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, an event which made history. She writes: "A man grabbed me, twisted my arm and pushed me against the wall. It was my first experience with violence. I saw his fear and anguish in his eyes. As I thought what fear could make a man treat a defenseless girl like this, suddenly the peace of Jesus came over me. I knew for the first time violence could be taken and triumphed over." Jeremiah writes, "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: the Lord is our righteousness."
What do we mean by peace and good will to all mankind? One Sunday while I was preaching, an eleven-year-old lad, who is an identical twin, decided, thank God, that he had something more important to do than listen to one of my sermons. He had what I call a vision. You can call it what you want - insight, inspiration, revelation - but I call it a vision. The boy composed a prayer during church and on the way home, and he read the prayer at his family's table at lunch. "Lord, thank you for the food you have blessed our lives with and thank you for the good things you have done for us. Please help ... "Then he listed the people in the bulletin who were in the hospital. He continued, "Please help the children who are being abused and neglected. Please help us with our family relationships. Also, please help the needy families in Kenya and the hungry, poor and sick around the world." The family had passed an old beat-up wreck of a car. So he ended his prayer with this sentence: "Please help us with our reactions toward people having trouble with their cars." God has a hard time finding persons who will receive His vision and acknowledge it!
Jeremiah 33:14-15:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
Recently I picked up the novel, Cold Heaven, by Brian Moore, from the public library. It was the story of Marie Davenport, a successful physician's wife who was having an affair with another doctor. Neither of these persons was religious or spiritual, and both considered Christianity sheer nonsense. One day, after Marie had met her lover, she left the motel up at Big Sur and was walking along the cliffs. Suddenly she had a vision which she described this way: "And then I felt something very strange. It was a sort of silence, as if the sea wasn't moving, as though everything was still. Then the branches of the cypresses rustled and shook, and someone came out through the trees below me. It was a young girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. It was a cloudy day. Did I say that? There was no sun at all and yet she was surrounded by a little golden path of light. She said to me, 'Marie, I am your mother. I am the Virgin Immaculate.' " Every time Marie told of her vision, she always prefaced and concluded it with, "I do not believe in miracles. I do not believe in the Virgin Mary. I don't believe in any religion."
Several weeks later, while she and her husband, Alex, were attending a medical convention in Europe, Alex, swimming in the Bay of Angels at Nice, was run over by a motorboat, which smashed his skull. He was rushed to the hospital, but even the skill of famous French doctors couldn't save him. He was pronounced dead and taken to the morgue. The next day his body disappeared. No one could understand it. Truly, someone must have stolen his body! By some strange phenomenon that he himself could not understand, he came back to life, put on an intern jacket, and escaped without anyone seeing him, walking out of the hospital. Morgues always have an escape handle inside the freezer, in case an attendant gets locked in. We don't usually have to worry about people who are in morgues getting out.
Alex makes his way back to America. Though he dies periodically when his heart stops, he always comes back to life. He keeps a medical record of his subnormal temperatures - their intervals and lengths - in a diary. But he doesn't want anyone to know that he has recovered or that he has had these experiences, because he says, "I don't want people to see me as a medical freak instead of a doctor." Neither Marie nor her husband, Alex, want to acknowledge that they have experienced any special, indescribable interventions. They both want to remain quiet about it, keep it a secret, because they are afraid it will interfere with their lives. They are fearful that this so-called vision or intervention would cause their lives to be changed.
So Marie, who couldn't deny the vision which she thought God gave to her for a purpose, never told anyone about it except two priests. Later, she met a very devout, saintly nun. This nun had dreams constantly, for years, of this same vision. So Marie carried her to the exact spot. The very pious nun experienced the same apparition. Now Marie was free, because she could say that this revelation or good news she had wasn't just hers, it was also Sister Anna's. Because Sister Anna was a pious woman, she was willing to surrender her life to that vision. Now Marie could let Sister Anna have it and forget it. Her conscience wouldn't haunt her any longer. As Marie made her way back up the hill to the motel at Big Sur to tell her husband that she was going to leave him for another man, the last words of the book say this: "She had been returned to her ordinary life, to its burdens, to its consequences, for someone else had had the vision."
God tires of us, I am sure. He tries to get through to us in many ways, to break through to us and we, like Marie and her husband, try to ward off, to deny God's intrusion. We are glad to let Jeremiah or the shepherds have an experience for us; for that kind of intrusion would make too drastic a change in our life. We sing "O come, O come, Immanuel" but we really don't mean it!
Let's look at this biblical text for Advent. Examine Jeremiah, who had the experience and who didn't deny his vision as we probably deny many of ours. The Lord sent this vision or message to Jeremiah, while he was still in jail and Jerusalem was under siege by the great Babylonian army. This vision was about the hopes and promises of the future. The good that God would do for Judah and Israel was that He would bring to the throne, to rule with justice and peace, the "true son of David." Jeremiah, like Marie, couldn't deny his vision but hoped that God would give it to someone older.
Only thirty-six years before 622 B.C., Josiah had brought a great reformation with the "Back to the Bible" movement. But, after the big revival, everyone went back to their old wicked ways.
Now I am sure God exposed his special apparition or vision to many other persons besides Jeremiah, but he was the only one who would acknowledge and affirm this vision and message. God must surely tire of trying to get through to us! To acknowledge his revelation will change our lives, make us different from those around us. It will interrupt our lives as it did Jeremiah's. The vision was visible to all, yet only a few responded to it. The possibility of joy and hope to a world content with things as they are is never a popular message. Furthermore, it is always misinterpreted as a judgment.
For example, we have the same situation 600 years later, recorded in Luke 2:1-20. The vision that appeared to Jeremiah in the darkness of his jail cell appeared to a group of shepherds on the hillside.
In fact, Jeremiah is saying this King will bring "Shalom" which means "salvation from lostness and destruction." This means peace that comes through hope.
I. A Vision From God On High
"Glory to God in the highest." That is the first thing in a vision. Every vision, experiencing God, in the Bible was almost the same. When Isaiah had his experience in the temple, what did he see? "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts." How did Jesus say you should pray indicating you had the experience? "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." You see, you have got to get right. You must begin by acknowledging that you have received a revelation from the transcendent God, the Heavenly Father.
Unless we catch that vision of glory to God in the highest, we will never find the motivation or the sustaining power to bring peace on earth and good will to all humankind. It is imperative that you experience and acknowledge the transcendent God and His revelation, not try to deny it like Marie and Alex and a thousand others. God cannot ever become imminent in your life until first of all you have experienced Him transcendentally; that you have known Him as glory to God in the highest.
If our being "human" is not the result of our relationship with God as a child of God, then we are no more important than an amoeba, a puppy dog, or a cow. It is only because we have experienced God that we then assume the goal of ourselves and our fellow human beings.
II. On Earth Peace and Good Will Toward Men
Jeremiah uses the term "Yahweh - our - Integrity," which is the symbolic messianic name for Jerusalem. Actually, the name Jerusalem means the place of Shalom or Peace. "Jeru" means "site or foundation of" and "Shalom" means "Peace" or "Peace, Good Will to Men." So Jeremiah is saying that to experience the vision he experienced from God will bring Shalom or, as we call it, peace on earth and goodwill to man "even in our immediate predicaments."
Peace on earth and good will toward all humankind can't take place unless you first experience the heavenly host. Do you understand that? You are wasting your time if you think that you can have peace on earth and good will toward all humankind, unless you have first found the one and only power who can bring that to pass.
Today we are more prepared for war than peace, aren't we? We are a lot better prepared to fight than we are to make peace. Both America's and Russia's largest industries are selling arms to other nations. As a boy, I went to see the cowboy movies on Saturdays and, if someone was caught selling arms to Indians, he was executed. We talk about serious penalties for people who sell drugs or any other kinds of killing agents to humankind. I agree that we ought to have strict punishment for drug dealing. My God, what should the world do to any of us who sell weapons to the rest of the world.? It ought to be as serious an offense as to those who sell drugs or other destructive materials. I have people say to me, "You are just an idealistic preacher. Get down to reality." You say peace isn't realistic. I tell you: you are wrong! We are living in a fantasy world if we think peace is unrealistic. If we think violence and nuclear war are realistic, we really need to be in a psychiatric ward. There is nothing realistic about that, nothing realistic about nuclear explosion. Peace is the only realistic thing there is. Nuclear explosion and war are unrealistic.
We have got to learn how to drop the Spirit of Retaliation to meet it and overcome it. We must move beyond dealing with it philosophically. Non-violence refuses to give a person a reason to hurt you, and the whole root - which is the reality of violence -surfaces and has to be faced.
Let me read to you from the diary of a young black girl who was the first one of the blacks to sit at the lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, an event which made history. She writes: "A man grabbed me, twisted my arm and pushed me against the wall. It was my first experience with violence. I saw his fear and anguish in his eyes. As I thought what fear could make a man treat a defenseless girl like this, suddenly the peace of Jesus came over me. I knew for the first time violence could be taken and triumphed over." Jeremiah writes, "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: the Lord is our righteousness."
What do we mean by peace and good will to all mankind? One Sunday while I was preaching, an eleven-year-old lad, who is an identical twin, decided, thank God, that he had something more important to do than listen to one of my sermons. He had what I call a vision. You can call it what you want - insight, inspiration, revelation - but I call it a vision. The boy composed a prayer during church and on the way home, and he read the prayer at his family's table at lunch. "Lord, thank you for the food you have blessed our lives with and thank you for the good things you have done for us. Please help ... "Then he listed the people in the bulletin who were in the hospital. He continued, "Please help the children who are being abused and neglected. Please help us with our family relationships. Also, please help the needy families in Kenya and the hungry, poor and sick around the world." The family had passed an old beat-up wreck of a car. So he ended his prayer with this sentence: "Please help us with our reactions toward people having trouble with their cars." God has a hard time finding persons who will receive His vision and acknowledge it!
Jeremiah 33:14-15:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
