O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
I would like to repeat two phrases from the reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah this morning. Listen to them. Listen to what God says to the people of Israel while they are in exile in Babylon. Listen to what God says to his servant Jacob.
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
And a couple of verses later
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.
Fear Not.
Do not be Afraid, these are some of the most common words in scripture, found over 70 times in the bible.
They are words spoken by Angels and by prophets at the command of God to his people, to his servants.
And they are words spoken by Jesus - over and over again - words spoken more often by him than by anyone else - to his disciples and followers - to us.
Why should we not be afraid?
Especially when you consider the charges that can be brought against us? The charges that John the Baptist alludes to when he calls the people to repent of their sins? The charges that the prophets made when they accuse the kings and the common people of Israel of idolatry? The charges that Jesus himself makes when he speaks of how we should not only not sin with our bodies, but how we should also keep the law within our hearts and our minds - the law concerning adultery, the law concerning murder - the law concerning calling other people fools, the law concerning loving God with all of our mind, heart, soul, and strength and our neighbours as ourselves..
We are a sorry lot. Not only are our hands dirty and need cleaning, but so are our hearts and minds.
What an unpleasant truth this is. A truth that no amount of wishful thinking can erase. A truth that no self-improvement program or new age optimism can eradicate.
We are flawed. Each one of us. Not one of us is without sin.
So why should we not be afraid when God speaks to us?
- The Holy to the unholy?
- The giver of the law to the breakers of the law?
Why should we not be afraid - not only because of those things within us, those things that lead us to do ill instead of good - but because of those things that others would do to us - things threaten our very existence? Things that threaten to destroy our families, our community, our nation, much as the Babylonian captivity threatened to bring to an end the people of Israel at the time of Isaiah?
Why should we not be afraid?
The answer my broters and sisters-in-Christ is found in today's reading from the prophet Isaiah, and demonstrated to us in the baptism that Jesus received at the hands of John, that baptism which ends with the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus in bodily form like a dove and a voice from heaven saying to him: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
Look back with me to the words God gave to Isaiah to say, the words that follow the statement:
"When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."
The text goes on to say:
For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honoured in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.
I am the Lord your God, your Saviour. You are precious and honoured in my sight. And because I love you....
"Because I love you" -- that's the key to it all.
Because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, people in exchange for your life.
Because God loves us - we need not fear.
Because God loves us - he has redeemed us
Because God loves us - he has bought us back from our slavery to sin,
Because God loves us - he has given himself - he has given Jesus - in exchange for us.
One hand washes the other.
In this case a holy hand, a holy hand from heaven, enters into the dust and ashes of our mortal frames, and washes us and proclaims us to be clean and that God is pleased by it.
God is pleased with his Son whom he loves as he begins the ministry that will cause him to pass the waters of death and to enter into the fires of hell. God is pleased because God loves us and knows that if we are to be washed clean that he must come to us and wash us.
I really like this image of one hand washing the other - and I really want to commend it to you this day. It says so much about what the gospel proclaims - concerning Jesus and what he has done, and is doing, and will yet do, so much about what the church proclaims- concerning how God is with us and for us.
We need not fear the waters for God is with us - the rivers will not sweep over us. We need not fear the fire for God is with us - we will not be burned, the flames will not set us ablaze.
Because he loves us, because we are precious and honoured in God's sight, he will gather us, as he gathered Israel, from those places where judgement and where evil have scattered us to - those places of the heart and soul in which we hide or to which others have consigned us.
He is our Redeemer, our Saviour. We need not be afraid - for he is with us.
How does the Christmas Story begin?
Be not afraid Mary - God has favoured you. You will conceive and bear a son and you will call him Jesus - for he will save his people, Emmanuel, for God is with us.
That story is meant to be heard by all of us because God is with us.
Be not afraid Hockman,
be not afraid Andrew,
be not afraid Carmen,
be not afraid Sam,
I have called you by name, you are mine.
You will not perish in the waters or in the fire.
Because I love you Tammy,
because I love you Cindy,
because I love you Aaron,
I have given Jesus for you - Jesus who descended into the waters of the river and who was drowned, Jesus who entered into the fires of hell and preached to the souls there I have given Jesus for you - and he was, in the end, not swept away by the waters of death nor set ablaze by the fires of hell.
Be not afraid because I have come to, because I have given Jesus for you, because I have lifted him up out of the grave and glorified him.
Sin and Evil do not have the last word. Be not afraid.
Powerful, wonderful stuff this. One hand washes the other - because God loves us - because we are precious in his sight.
And what does it mean for us today.
It means it is never too late.
It means that we do not have to carry our sin around with us for all of eternity.
It means that we can begin afresh - no matter what others may say about us, no matter what others might do to us, no matter what we feel about ourselves.
And it means we should approach God - that we should come to God much as the prodigal son approached his Father,with humility and with hope: the humility to know that we are not worthy - and the hope to believe that God will, at the very least, treat us as one of the least of his servants and feed us and watch over us far better than we can do on our own.
Far better, it says in the Eighty-Fourth Psalm, to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. Better indeed is one day in His courts than a thousand elsewhere.
The scriptures fit together so well - the old and the new. And their message is one and the same throughout - return to God.
Repent and return to God for he loves us and does not want us to be destroyed. Join yourself to the holy one who has come to cleanse you and redeem and make you safe. Allow Christ to baptise you with water and fire and the fullness of the Spirit. Live by him and through him as a brother to him - as a sister to him - for now and for eternity.
You know that Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels are all the rage these days and have been since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls some years ago.
Our modern day gnostics, some parading about as followers of Christ, even though the Church of Christ rejected the Gnostic Gospels during the early years of the age, tell us that we do not need the baptism of which I have been speaking today - that we do not need, and never did need, Jesus to undergo the agony of the cross and the darkness of the grave - that no one needed to be given in exchange for us - that a Saviour is not necessary for our salvation.
They tell us that all that is needed to be made whole is the proper attitude, the realization that God dwells in all of us, and the wisdom to heed the still small voice that is found in us and in nature around us.
There is truth to some of the claims of Gnosticism.
God does dwell within us, and a proper attitude is important to have, but mostly what you hear in Television shows and read in books about Gnosticism or study in seminars regarding Spiritual Fulfilment is false - or at best, terribly inadequate.
It is not knowledge or a proper attitude that makes us fit for dwelling in the presence of God forever.
It is not insight or the whispers of the Spirit that dwells within that makes us holy or pure or beautiful.
Rather it is the active and powerful love of God for each one of us that saves us.
It is God coming among us as one of us that saves us, it is the life and the actions of Christ that heals us, and the sacrifice of Jesus that delivers us from sin and death.
It is a dynamic love that redeems us, the kind of love a parent has for a child, the love that says - I will stand in front of my beloved and shield her from all harm, the love that says - I will forgive and give my son another chance the love that says - I will take my child's place - and suffer the injury meant for her, the love that says - I will defend him against all accusers - even as I chastise him myself, and I will give to her the tools she needs so that she does not offend over and over again.
New age spirituality or old age Gnosticism - it is all the same, it takes the truth and the power out of the story, the story of how Jesus was immersed in the waters that would sweep us away, and how he walked through the fire that would set us ablaze.
Because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth - everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." Amen!
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