the cross over the manger

Some time ago, I was “multi-tasking” in the Bible. I was planning Advent Bible studies, reading through the birth stories and making notes. And later that same day, hoping to write a devotion for the Lenten season, I read the Good Friday texts. Reading both the birth and death stories, something really struck me.

Luke 2:12 ESV

“and you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger”

Luke 23: 52-53 {Joseph of Arimathea} went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down {from the Cross} and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.”

the baby wrapped well is a sign that he was well cared for. Newborns like to be wrapped up, it helps them to feel secure.

That Jesus' body was wrapped in linen after his death was also a sign that he was being cared for, even though there was no time for the women to prepare the body with the oils and spices.

But there is obviously something more to these details! The parallels in both stories are there for a purpose. They remind us that the shadow of the cross lies over the manger. We love the Christmas story, we feel all warm and fuzzy when the children sing Away In A Manger. But Jesus didn't come just for us to feel warm and fuzzy! Jesus came-- God with us. And came as an infant! (The God of all creation!) just from love, from desire for complete relationship with us, His creation! And the only way to that complete relationship was the cross.

Jesus' mission was the cross. The One who would never sin was wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger, would grow up to take ALL our sin, all the things that distract us from God for even an instant....upon Himself on the cross.

Can we remember this as we go through Advent and Christmas, can we remember to honor our Lord and do better caring for others, now and always? As we watch the children's programs, wrap the gifts, sing the songs, bake the cookies—remember, the Cross over the manger.

Thomas-From Doubt to Devotion

sermon i gave when guest-preaching at Rochester, WI

Thomas: From Doubt to Devotion

John 20
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of anyone, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Some Questions
Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are going dead?

When the French swear do they say pardon my English?

Why doesn’t glue stick to the bottle?

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

We do check the wet paint don't we? I know I do! And isn't that almost what Thomas wanted to do? He just wanted tangible proof. Sure he had been with the disciples for 3 years, sure he knew they were reliable..or well maybe knowing them for 3 years is precisely why Thomas wanted tangible proof for himself!

Can you imagine this scene? The disciples were locked in the house. They had seen Jesus arrested, knew he had been beaten and killed, they were convinced they were next! They were terrified of the authorities. And suddenly Jesus appears in their midst, saying Peace be with you!

Thomas was not with the disciples at this first appearance. We are not told why. We are told that Thomas was also called the Twin. But whose twin?! We do not know. He could have been a twin or a look-alike sibling of one of the other disciples or someone else close to Jesus. There is some belief that Thomas may have been one of Jesus' brothers, or rather half brother. We just do not know.

Thomas was not present at the first appearance of Jesus. We are not told where he was, why he was not there. But we do know that a week later when Thomas was with the others, Jesus again appeared! And again just turned up in their midst in the locked house! Saying “peace be with you” and Jesus said specifically to Thomas, put your finger here..see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Jesus is not condemning Thomas, he is saying go ahead, touch the scars, see for yourself! Maybe Jesus recognized that needing hard proof was just the way Thomas was. Only after that did He say, “stop doubting and believe”

the words used here for doubt and belief have more than one meaning. Or perhaps I should say there are layers of meaning here. Remember that the languages of the Bible, Primarily Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New, have many fewer words than English does. So one word in these languages may have more than one meaning, or shades of meaning. These shades of meaning would be more apparent in context, with vocal inflection. So we lose a little bit in translation. What strikes me about the word for “Believe” is that the meanings of it include faith and belief, having confidence in, and trust. Trust is a key component of faith. And yet that can be one of the hardest things we manage. Perhaps Thomas believed in Jesus, but did not quite trust the words of the others. Could Jesus be saying, just have trust!!!

Author Brennan Manning writes in “The Ragamuffin Gospel” In earlier times it did not take faith to believe that God existed--almost everybody took that for granted. Rather, faith had to do with one's relationship to God--whether one trusted in God. The difference between faith as "belief in something that may or may not exist" and faith as "trusting in God" is enormous. The first is a matter of the head, the second a matter of the heart. The first can leave us unchanged, the second intrinsically brings change.”

we live in a time and a society in which we tend to have to 'See it to believe it” and to have proof. We want documentation, facts and figures. We may find it hard to believe—to trust, without hard proof. So faith can be a real challenge for us. When we want proof & documentation of everything else, why should we believe in a resurrected Jesus! I must admit, if I had been in that room, I might have had to touch the nail-scars myself.

Actually when I was much younger, I had been “born again”,and yet I did not act on my belief. In fact most of the time, I did not act like a Christian at all. I knew someone with a profound faith, my Aunt, and I envied her faith. Her faith and trust in the Lord saw her thru some hard times and illness, and gave her hope, no matter what. I never thought that I was capable of that depth of belief and trust in an invisible Saviour. One of my 'issues' is that i am a person who needs to see feel, touch, to experience something in order to believe. So I see a bit of myself in Thomas...doubting Thomas. But fortunately, faith is not something static, it can change. Our faith life is a progression..that is why we refer to our “walk of faith' we may not always “walk” in faith....some of us stumble, and maybe even crawl rather than walk. I finally understood that I can pray for more faith. That is a prayer that I believe God LOVES to answer!

At some point in our journey thru life, we need to experience the Living Christ for ourselves, just as Thomas and the other disciples did. Maybe that is a scar that we all bear...needing proof. And we all do have our own issues or scars, do we not!? Some of them big, some not so big. We may have issues in a relationship, with a temper, addictions or illness. Maybe we obsess over appearances, or maybe we just don't care! These are our scars, the invisible scars that we carry every day. Scars that may keep us from realizing the truth of Jesus, as Thomas' lack of faith and trust did until he saw and felt and heard for himself.

The scars of anger and bitterness can keep us from forgiving one another. This is what Jesus told the disciples; “If you forgive the sins of anyone, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Jesus first breathed the Holy Spirit on the disciples, then spoke to them of forgiveness. It is through the Spirit that we can comprehend the love of Jesus, and begin the process of forgiveness. If we begin to understand ourselves as the Lord understands, we will learn.

Author Brennan Manning again;”Faith is a code to accept that Jesus knows my whole life story, every skeleton in my closet, every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty, degradedness darkening my past. Right now he knows my shallow faith, my feeble prayer life, my inconsistent discipleship, and he comes beside me and he says, I dare you to trust. I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are and not as you should be, because you're never going to be as you should be.”

Through this trust and love, we realize that each of us has acted out of the pain of our own scars and wounded others, and through the Spirit we learn that those who hurt us acted out of their own pain. When we recognize our own flaws, issues, wounded-ness, then we realize that others are acting out of theirs. Again through prayer, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we learn compassion and thru compassion, we learn to forgive. This is a part of our faith journey- We are forgiven as we forgive. When we forgive another, we are more fully accepting the Lord's forgiveness of us!


So while we, like Thomas, may wish we had tangible proof of Christ, if not for ourselves but for those near us who have doubts, we can accept on faith that Jesus is real, that Jesus did rise, even tho we can not touch the scars on his hands and his side.

The end of our Gospel lesson today is this:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.--that we may have life...today in Jesus and for eternity with him in Heaven.

...the other day I was reading an article that says that the vast majority of people do not believe in heaven. But there are those who have seen heaven and come bck to tell us about it! There is a book that is on the best seller lists right now about a little boy who saw heaven when he was 3 years old.. and told his parents about it as he got older and was able to talk about it.

there is a book titled 90 minutes in Heaven, by Don Piper.

He was in a horrible car accident-pronounced dead at the scene, and revived 90 min. later, by a man praying for him.

Don told about being at the gates of heaven. And the incredible, beautiful music there,...and seeing diseased loved ones. He said he was met by his great grandmother. And that as he knew her through his life, she had wrinkles and trouble with her teeth. When she met him at the gates of heaven, she had no lines at all in her face, and when she smiled at him her teeth sparkled!

Heaven is real...the bible says so! And we will have a renewed, perfect body, with no wrinkles, sparkly teeth, and no aches and pains..Hallelujah! We will not have any of that, because Jesus has the scars in his hands and his side. He, who was perfect, without sin, and became sin for us....for each of us, has the scars so we won't have to!!

The scriptures, all the Word of God are given that we may believe! We may want more-we have deep questions borne of life struggles. Jesus validated Thomas' struggle to believe by showing him the scars, and you deserve to have your struggles validated as well. If you are struggling with doubts, unforgiveness or just struggling with faith, it is ok. It has happened to me, and to most believers. Even Mother Teresa had struggles. Jesus Loves YOU without reservation. Let's celebrate this love together.

Let us pray, Our Lord and God, you know our doubts, our questions and struggles and still you love us. Today we pray for each of us who has a doubt, and we pray for compassion to help us forgive. thank you for the love and forgiveness shown through Jesus Christ.

sermon from Ecumenical Lenten service Mar 16, 2011

Texts: First Reading Deuteronomy 9:13-21

¹³Furthermore the LORD said to me, “I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people. ¹⁴Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”

¹⁵So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the LORD your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had been quick to turn from the way that the LORD had commanded you. ¹⁷So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. ¹⁸Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the LORD by doing what was evil in his sight. ¹⁹For I was afraid that the anger that the LORD bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also. ²⁰The LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. ²¹Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs down the mountain.

Second Reading Hebrews 3:12-19

¹²Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵As it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
¹⁶Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? ¹⁷But with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Lent, a time of preparation for Easter, 40 days, to commemorate the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness.

Giving up something for Lent, is about giving up something that obstructs, interferes, deters, blocks our relationship with God. Last week, Pastor Ian spoke about the word “repent” meaning “to turn around”-making a U-turn. Both of our texts talk about turning away from God, ideally what we give up for Lent is something that turns us away from a full relationship with God.

“taking up” something for Lent of course is about helping to promote our relationship with God.

Richard Foster Life With God

Pay attention to the recurring themes of the stories of the Bible: God loves human beings; human beings always seem to want what they can’t have; God is grieved and angered when human beings rebel but pursues them and forgives them anyway; God is involved not just in the lives of the chosen people, but in the lives of all peoples, and in the concerns of every living thing in creation.

Hebrews text Unbelief ==faith + trust.

Both texts refer to 'turning away' from God. Remember last week, Ian talked about the word Repent meaning to turn around. Once we have repented, turned around, to face God, we need to remember to stay aligned or turned in with God. If we turn away, we will stray.

Moses—40 years in the desert...on the mountain with God for 40 days, then when he came down...the people had strayed, they turned toward other beliefs.

Then Moses went back and fasted before the Lord, for 40 days and 40 nights! That struck me when reading this. Jesus' fasting in the wilderness was an echo to Moses 40 years and 40 days.

The number 40 appears a lot in the Bible and generally refers to a time of testing and cleansing. Like rain for 40 days and 40 nights. And at the end of the 40 days or 40 years, there is a reminder of the Lord's presence. A rainbow, a covenant, the Word of God turning away Satan!

So Moses lay prostrate before the Lord, fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, to repent not for himself, but for the sins of the people!

Jesus' time in the wilderness was not for himself, but for His people. Jesus had no sin, he was God incarnate, therefore incapable of sin. So his fasting was not for a time of testing and trial for Himself, but for us, since we are so very capable of sin.

OK now we don't like to think of ourselves as “sinners”. We keep the 10 Commandments, honor our father and mother (well we mostly did, there was a time or two in our teens...) We give to our churches and to charity, we live good lives. But are we FOCUSED on God? Do we really TRUST in God?!

You see trust is a big aspect of faith. The word in the bible that is translated faith, also means trust. It seems that the people lost trust in God pretty fast while Moses was up on the mountain! And this was after being fed by manna every day, by finding water in a rock, by having God with them in a cloud by day....for protection, and a pillar of fire by night. For light and protection. After 40 years of God's faithfulness, the people failed to trust for only 40 days!

I guess that is why our Hebrews text tells us to “exhort one another every day.” we need reminders of God's faithfulness every day, don't we. Well maybe you don't. But someone does! That is why we have daily devotions, special readings during Lent, daily bible reading plans....If faith were a one shot deal and we are done, well we wouldn't need a Bible or church at all would we!?

as we go through this Lenten season, we are deepening our relationship with God. And when our relationship with God is healthier,

And we crave that health for others. As we crave this, we crave it for our community and our world. So as we work toward being right with God, as individuals, we crave, and work toward, and pray for, a world that is right with God. That is turned toward God, focused on God.

That can be hard in today's' world. It was hard in Moses time and they didn't have TV, internet, to distract them from a focus on God. Today we have so many distractions! endless advertising telling us we need more money, fancier car, smaller electronics, better insurance, tastier snacks, softer pillows and harder exercise. We have 24 hours news that focuses not on Godly things, but on personalities! whiny celebrities, brutish opinions, the scariest depictions of news stories....how do we stay focused on God with all of this?!

Well we are here, aren't we. We are here this evening to worship. To spend time with God's word, to sing a few hymns, pray, give a donation to local groups who help people in need. To spend time together. That together time is such a blessing. We are exhorting, encouraging one another to be here this evening and to attend the other lenten services. To experience other worship styles, to hear music and speakers besides the ones we hear every Sunday. What a beautiful way to put aside the distractions and temptations of the rest of the world. What a beautiful way to 'Exhort' one another to stay focused on God.

The Hebrews text says we are to exhort one another. What exactly does that mean? To exhort means literally to walk alongside. The word used in the original Greek means to call to one's side. It is related to the word Paraklete, the word for the Holy Spirit. So to 'exhort” one another, in Christ, we can call upon the holy spirit for guidance. So we can say a prayer for help from the Spirit, to help us to walk alongside one another, to help us all stay turned toward God.

There is a difference between Godly 'exhorting” which is encouragement --walking alongside...and condemnation! Sometimes people get caught up in wanting to convey a message and they come on too strong, and come across in a condemning way, or a way that does not encourage, but lays blame.

We tend to want an explanation when bad stuff happens. And that explanation may come across in a way that unintentionally hurts. For example, one pastor who wrote a book on prayer said that one of his parishioners survived a disaster because she prayed so hard. That implies that the people who died in that disaster did not pray as hard, or their loved ones did not....we have to be careful that what we say bring encouragement, not hurt. Jesus never blamed victims for their troubles. But he did say we must repent...turn around. We must maintain our focus on God. Not just in Lent but always.

Author Eric Kolbell in What Jesus Meant, the Beatitudes and a Meaningful Life...I do not believe it is God's benevolence when we escape suffering any more than it is his malevolence when we don't. God does not spook a horse, inflict one man with AIDS and spare another, is no more responsible for famines in Saharan Africa than for overflowing wheat silos in central Kansas, and did not lead some people into and others out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Life is arbitrary but God is not; God is not in the business of loading guns, breaking hearts, bankrupting families, dissolving once loving relationships, or destroying homes with a clap of thunder or a rush of rain. No, God does not engineer suffering and loss but rather calls us to redeem it.

We live in hard times. The news is terribly discouraging. Unrest so many places, divisiveness in governing bodies, the disaster of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, with incomprehensible destruction. I have to admit, I have been glued to the coverage. I imagine some of you are too. And I know we are praying too. Praying for the people affected, that they would know that God had not forsaken them! That even those who have lost everything, that God is with them, that there is hope!

You see that is the message of the Bible, that God is with us no matter what! And so we are never to give up hope!

You may wonder why should we worry about disasters overseas when we have problems here. The Bible says God created the heavens and the earth. The WHOLE earth. Not just Beloit, not just Wisconsin, not just the USA, not just North America...but the whole world. God also created Japan, and Afghanistan, Bahrain and Libya. And all people everywhere are God's Children, even if they do not know Christ. if we turn away from any of Gods creation or God’s children, even those who have not come to Christ, we are turning away from God. taking care of one another is one of the things that is stated over and over in the Bible, OT and NT. and of course we are the Body, and if one part of the body suffers, all suffer. So until all parts of the Body are cared for, no part of the Body will be well.

If we turn away from others, we turn away from God.

In Lent we turn away from some of the habits that may keep us from God. We take up another to help us keep turned towards God.

Bible, prayer, devotional time, church,....these things help us to stay in The Word, to keep God first.

Richard Foster in Life With God The Bible does not simply tell us of the presence of God; it shows us the active presence of God deeply and permanently embedded in all the smells, tastes, touches, sights, and sounds of human life. Over and over, this reality is played out in stories, poems, carefully preserved histories, records of cultural systems, details of prophetic revelations, speeches, letters, songs, and prayers. The Scripture weaves the involvement of God through the intimacies of birth and death, lovemaking and betrayal, weddings and funerals, labor and rest, warring and peacemaking, wealth and poverty, hunger and thirst, tears and laughter. Across thousands of years, with wave upon wave of names and faces and recurring events, the Bible threads God’s patient words of love and faithfulness: I am with you.

God with us give us hope. We recognize that Love and faithfulness when we turn toward God and we keep it close when we stay turned toward God. If we turn away, we lose hope. God created the heavens and the earth. And God created humans to be in relationship, God promises to be with us, always, even to the end of time.

The Love of God gives us hope. The Love of God WITH US was lived out in the life and ministry, teaching, preaching and healing of Jesus Christ. As Jesus journeyed to the Cross, and we journey along through this Lenten season, let us turn more completely to that divine Love. And let us never stray! The love of God was shown to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Turn toward the Love of God-- turn toward Christ. Turn toward Him and You will be guided to hope, love and trust.