The Baptism Of Our Lord
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle C
Object:
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Isaiah 43:1-7 (C)
This section of Deutero-Isaiah is a collection of poems written by an anonymous poet some 150 years after Isaiah of Jerusalem. This portion beautifully captures the belief that God will accompany the people of Israel through all their difficulties. "When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you will not be burned, and the flame will not consume you." The poet assures the people of God's unfailing promise. "Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, I love you."
There are other sentiments, some not quite so lofty, as when the poet-prophet assumes God to promise, "I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life." This reflects the idea of a chosen people with others as enemies of the people and therefore enemies of God. Nonetheless, this is grand poetry and a powerful expression of one man's faith.
One survivor of the Holocaust told of watching a line of people filing into the gas furnaces at one of the death camps in Poland. As they were about to enter, an old man put his hand gently on the shoulder of a little boy, leaned over and whispered something to him, then pointed to the sky. That kind of faith, courageous in the face of unimaginable mistreatment, epitomizes the faith of a people who have suffered cruelty through the ages, yet have remained free and strong, because God in ways not yet quite understandable to us, is keeping that promise: "I will be with you."
Lesson 1: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 (RC), Isaiah 42:1-9 (E)
In this Second Isaiah passage, the author bespeaks God's election of Israel as the messenger of the divine intention which is to call all the nations to a new faithfulness. He will empower this emissary, Israel, promising that the enormous task to which "he" is called will be brought within "his" power by the empowerment of God. Nor will this messenger be heavy-handed or intolerant. Obviously, while those of other faiths have not yet discovered the nature of the one God, yet many of them search in sincerity for a true faith. That small beginning will be respected -- "a bruised reed he will not break." This missionary undertaking is to be done, not with clamorous call to repentance and return, but gently, quietly. Also, it is to be done by a people who themselves have embraced the demands of the righteous life so that they may bring justice to other nations. So, called by the God of creation, the one who has brought into being the heavens and the earth, who has given life to the hearers, Israel is now to announce to all who will listen "the new things I now declare."
This is the first of the four Servant Songs, a promise by God that his Servant will have the gift of the divine spirit and that he will bring justice upon the earth, and he will do so gently, never becoming discouraged, until justice finally prevails. In preaching, one might emphasize that while justice is a long way from prevailing, it can prevail in my life or yours if we ourselves are just in our dealings with others. And also it can prevail in our lives if we work to see to justice for those whom we can help.
Lesson 2: Acts 8:14-17 (C)
We remember that the Samaritans were disliked by the Israelites, looked down upon by them in fact. If we recall the story of "The Good Samaritan" we are reminded that the import of that story lay in the fact that it was a social outcast who did the good deed, after the supposedly acceptable people had passed up the opportunity.
What we have here is the announcement that the Samaritans who were earlier baptized in the name of Jesus have now been given the Holy Spirit. That means they have been accepted as equal in every respect to the Jews and, as Paul would declare, to the Gentiles as well. This would not have come easily to some of the Jews who, like the rest of us, find it hard to give up our prejudices. Just as the relationships between Blacks and Whites (African Americans and Caucasians, if you wish) have been painful and the growing feelings of equality of long duration, so we must imagine that otherwise good people found this difficult in Jesus' time as well.
In preaching, it might be well to talk about prejudice, about the harm it does, both to the victim and to the prejudiced person. This passage reminds us that God refuses to make the kind of ethnic and social distinctions which most of us make. And let's be honest, we all struggle with this. Black people, Jews, Hispanics, short people, fat people, handicapped people who carry either physical, intellectual, or emotional handicaps, old people, poor people, all these have suffered prejudice and mistreatment of one kind or another. And the rest have not always fared well either. White middle class males have come in for a lot of bad-mouthing recently. So have wealthy people, though they may feel less troubled than the rest of us. Women, generally cared for by men through the earlier centuries, have decided in recent times that they've had a raw deal too.
Lesson 2: Acts 10:34-38 (RC, E)
(See The Resurrection Of Our Lord [Easter Day])
Gospel: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (C); Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 (RC, E)
Professor John Miller in a provocative book titled Jesus At Thirty proposes an interesting thesis regarding the baptism of Jesus. His book is really an effort to do a psychological profile of Jesus. In brief, he believes that the evidence supports the probability that Jesus' father Joseph died while Jesus was a small boy. He argues that Jesus was traumatized by this loss, and by the fact that he was thereby required to assume the role of eldest son among his many siblings, responsible for the income and welfare of the family. He suffered a terrible sense of loss (according to this thesis) and eventually found in John the Baptist a father figure to whom he felt deeply attached. Miller proposes the idea that being baptized by John was more than a traditional religious experience. It was a profound emotional and psychological experience. He further contends that until this time, Jesus didn't really have a recognized sense of vocation, that in the experience of baptism, that recognition burst upon Jesus the man, revealing that he was, indeed, called to a special and unique mission by God. Because of the loss of a father, Jesus then felt a special closeness to this new Father, God. That, says Miller, is why Jesus used the name of Father for God, and why he used stories about fathers in his teaching and preaching.
I don't suppose we would wish to go into all of this in a sermon, but it doesn't hurt us to hear such provocative scholarship as we try to understand what really happened here. My own belief is that Luke has used poetic imagery in describing what happened to Jesus. Obviously, there is no way to recapture the moment, nor to arbitrate between those who wish to think of this as a literal report and those who think of this as I do, as a poetic description of a marvelous inward emotional and spiritual experience on the part of Jesus. Since Jesus is never quoted about this himself, we must do our best with what we have.
The main theme here is twofold. One, Jesus is the Son of God, specifically called to that role by God; and two, he will bring judgment to the people, and there will be consequences to wrongdoing. Assuming that we have preached on the divinity of Jesus at some point during the Advent and Christmas seasons, my choice would be to preach about judgment.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "God With Us"
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7
Theme: So this promise, given to all whom God loves, is a promise made to us. One might turn to the third chapter of Daniel and retell the wonderful story of Daniel in which the three men, faithful to God, are shoved into a blazing pit of fire. To the amazement of the watching people, the men who threw them in the fire were consumed by its heat, whereas the three men were unscathed, and afterward, witnesses reported that not three but four people were visible in the fire.
1. God has promised to accompany us through our difficult trials. I can certainly witness to this as can many of you. Through the loss of mother, father, brother, and wife in death, I have often been distressed, but never deserted by that promise.
2. There was an implied covenant: loyalty to God. We can't expect to dash willy-nilly through life and be guarded in all we do. God surely doesn't cooperate in any kind of wrong doing, although he certainly does forgive where there is remorse, and he does understand as we walk wayward paths until the right one is found.
3. The promise is a promise of empowerment in trouble. It is not a promise of avoidance of trouble. We must all expect to deal with rejection, grief, failure, pain, injustice -- suffering of many kinds. What God seems to promise here is not that we can avoid the fires of life, but that "the flame shall not consume you."
Title: "Prejudice And The Christian Spirit"
Text: Acts 8:14-17
Theme: God does not make the kinds of distinctions we tragically make among our own neighbors. However, I for one doubt that there is a single person alive today who is free of such prejudice. I concede my guilt. I don't like it. I resist it. My wife and I chide each other about it. But it's there. For instance, I avoid people with bad table manners. In truth, mine aren't all that great either I imagine. But I fail to make allowances for the fact that some people were not properly taught as children and after a certain age, that's hard to learn. Same with bad grammar. Same with the guy down the street who lets his yard look terrible while everyone else works hard to keep the neighborhood looking nice. How can I know what health or financial or, for that matter, what emotional problems he faces?
I have, however, come to believe in my heart of hearts that the people mentioned in the discussion of this passage are in every way my equals in the eyes of God, just as I am theirs. We are brothers and sisters together, and if we wish to honor God, we must pray for a loving spirit toward people of different backgrounds, different colors, different styles.
1. We are all brothers and sisters under God. Prejudice is a spiritual illness. Carried too far, it can destroy one. The Klan, the people who are burning down little churches all over America, people who are avidly anti-semitic, anti-Catholics, anti-Protestants, militant anti-abortionists (as opposed to those who earnestly oppose abortion), homophobics, the people who recently sprayed paint on the front of a clothing store which sells furs near here, on and on. Whoever hates someone simply because of natural selection or choice does himself far more harm than is done to the one who is hated.
2. As Christians, we are to honor our differences. That doesn't mean we have to accept dishonorable or disrespectful or dishonest conduct. But it does mean we are to honor each other as we would wish to be honored.
3. We are to love those others. That doesn't mean we are to feel some sort of affection. That's impossible in some cases. It does, however, mean we are obliged to wish for and work for the best interests of those others.
Title: "We'll Have To Answer For It"
Text: Luke 3:15-17
Theme: A universe without consequences which result from our actions and our words would be, in the end, meaningless. Maybe as we read this most of us have a set of ethics which will lead us to do what is right no matter what. Someone has defined character as doing right when no one will know. But we feel this way because we have already accepted the teachings of the Christian faith. A God who would say at the end, "Oh well, you're a good person in spite of all the bad things you did and said, so we'll just overlook all of that. Run along, now," would be a weak God and it would be grossly unfair to those who did live righteous lives. The truth is, there are consequences of our conduct. John here has promised that.
1. There is judgment in this life. It isn't always just or perfect, but we are judged by other people. I'll refrain from political commentary, but on the national scene we have seen the disgust which people can feel when once respected leaders reveal evidence of selfish, petty conduct. We are also judged by the law. Maybe the most exquisite form of judgment is that which we make about ourselves. Guilt. Professor Hobart Mower, who once headed the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois, in an address given many years ago contended that all mental illness is one way or another related to guilt feelings. Certainly depression, low self-esteem, headaches, self-destructive actions are clearly related to guilt feelings. Suicide can often be traced there. As for God, the promise is that judgment will be up to us.
2. God's judgments are generous. We have to believe that God, having created us with many failings and foibles, has some sympathy for us when we err. Part of life is the process of seeing these things in ourselves and making the effort to overcome our character faults. A recent book argues that lying is a necessary part of human relationships, all the way from the husband who tells his wife he likes her new hair style, to the woman who explains to the neighbor she doesn't like that she will be unable to attend the neighborhood house party because she has "a commitment she just can't get out of" -- which she does not. No doubt some of us will argue this point, but I'm guessing we all do it (I heard an atrocious public address some time ago and told the speaker how much I enjoyed him. I hope God looks upon that as a harmless bit of dishonesty).
3. Nonetheless, someone pays. Every hurtful lie, every dishonest action, every failure to do what I promised, every betrayal hurts someone. Sometimes the hurts are minimal. Sometimes they are horrendous. But each hurt which we inflict on someone else is inflicted on Jesus as well. If someone hurts my child, I suffer terribly. If someone is unkind to my wife, I am both angry and hurt. Why? Because I love them. And since Jesus loves you and me deeply, every hurt we suffer hurts him deeply as well. When we get that truth into our heads and our hearts, then we genuinely begin to change.
4. The final judgment. I'm convinced will not be some hoary old judge saying, "Bring me Carver's file." It will be me having to see what I have become, see the hurts I have inflicted, see how much better it would have been had I been faithful at all times, and see at last what I did to Jesus, my beloved Lord. And most painful of all, if I am genuinely sorry, and have genuinely changed, even at the end, he will forgive me. That will be horribly painful, and wonderfully redeeming.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
"The man who maintains that only he has the power
To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul --
A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty."
-- Sophocles
____________
Two young middle school boys were killed recently while riding a moped. Inexperienced, the poor boys loved to ride across a field and through a parking lot. But they accidentally ran out onto a road and were struck by a truck. One boy survived briefly, and a motorcycle rider happened by. A big fellow, wearing a leather jacket, bearded, the sort of person some of us avoid. The man stopped, cradled the head of one boy in his arms as the child died. That motorcyclist visited the family. He remained in Indianapolis, though he lived elsewhere. He bought a suit so he could attend the funeral. So much for some of our judgments of people based on pre-conceived prejudices.
____________
An ancient Oriental legend tells of the man who died and went to heaven. As the escorting angel was leading him to the place where he would live, they passed a room and the man glanced in and saw what at first appeared to be stacks of mushrooms. But a closer look revealed that they were ears. He inquired about this of the angel, who explained: "These are the ears of believers who heard the word of God and believed. But they did nothing about their beliefs. So their ears came to heaven and the rest of them went somewhere else."
____________
Ernest Shackleton was one of Britain's most distinguished explorers, having helped develop human knowledge of the Antarctic during the early part of the twentieth century. His ship was once imprisoned by Antarctic ice. It was being crushed by the immeasurable weight. Hurriedly, he and his crew abandoned ship, getting away with all the provisions they could carry in small boats. They made their way to the Elephant Islands where Shackelton left most of his party in relative safety while he and two companions left to seek help. Under incredibly brutal conditions, in some of the world's worst weather, they crossed over a thousand miles of ice and open water. Finally, after an historic effort, they reached New Georgia Island. Because of their expertise under these conditions, they reached their destination, but on the wrong side of the island. They still found themselves shut off from the rest of humanity by a nine thousand foot mountain range. With a strength born of fiery determination, they began to struggle up the ice sheathed slope, and finally -- sailors, not mountain men -- by what they would later describe as a miracle, they reached the peak by the following night.
What followed is guaranteed to freeze the blood of any outdoorsman. With only minimum equipment, their provisions nearly gone, their strength almost spent, they now found it necessary to descend a slope of mountain covered with glare ice. Acting by blind faith, they used their scaling ropes to fashion a makeshift sled. Seating themselves on this flimsy sled, the three men joined arms, said a fervent prayer, and launched themselves down the slope. By supreme good fortune, they made their way safely to the base of the mountain.
Shackleton wittily commented later that a person ought not to try something like that too often. Then, their strength nearly gone, yet heartened by their safe descent, the men staggered the last few miles to the New Georgia Weather Station and safety. Afterwards, when Shackleton wrote of his experiences, he included a strange observation. He said that as the three of them had struggled through their frightful journey, walking, sailing, climbing, descending, he had the strange feeling that a fourth person had accompanied them. He said that out of embarrassment, he kept this feeling to himself until one of his companions said to him, "Boss, I had a funny feeling during our trip that someone else was with us, someone I couldn't see or recognize." Shackleton felt a thrill as this other man confirmed his sensation of a strange presence. As a final test, they asked the third man if, by chance, he'd had any strange sensation such as that. Yes, he said. He said he felt he shouldn't discuss this with them but he, too, had sensed the presence of another.
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 29 -- "Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings."
Prayer Of The Day
Arm us for the fight ahead, O God; the fight against tyranny, both that tyranny which besets the world from without, and that private tyranny which seeks to override our inner goodness, which would cause us to judge and disdain those whom we have not come to love. Forgive us as we fall short, we pray, yet empower us as we seek to win this essential victory of the human soul. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 43:1-7 (C)
This section of Deutero-Isaiah is a collection of poems written by an anonymous poet some 150 years after Isaiah of Jerusalem. This portion beautifully captures the belief that God will accompany the people of Israel through all their difficulties. "When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you will not be burned, and the flame will not consume you." The poet assures the people of God's unfailing promise. "Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, I love you."
There are other sentiments, some not quite so lofty, as when the poet-prophet assumes God to promise, "I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life." This reflects the idea of a chosen people with others as enemies of the people and therefore enemies of God. Nonetheless, this is grand poetry and a powerful expression of one man's faith.
One survivor of the Holocaust told of watching a line of people filing into the gas furnaces at one of the death camps in Poland. As they were about to enter, an old man put his hand gently on the shoulder of a little boy, leaned over and whispered something to him, then pointed to the sky. That kind of faith, courageous in the face of unimaginable mistreatment, epitomizes the faith of a people who have suffered cruelty through the ages, yet have remained free and strong, because God in ways not yet quite understandable to us, is keeping that promise: "I will be with you."
Lesson 1: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 (RC), Isaiah 42:1-9 (E)
In this Second Isaiah passage, the author bespeaks God's election of Israel as the messenger of the divine intention which is to call all the nations to a new faithfulness. He will empower this emissary, Israel, promising that the enormous task to which "he" is called will be brought within "his" power by the empowerment of God. Nor will this messenger be heavy-handed or intolerant. Obviously, while those of other faiths have not yet discovered the nature of the one God, yet many of them search in sincerity for a true faith. That small beginning will be respected -- "a bruised reed he will not break." This missionary undertaking is to be done, not with clamorous call to repentance and return, but gently, quietly. Also, it is to be done by a people who themselves have embraced the demands of the righteous life so that they may bring justice to other nations. So, called by the God of creation, the one who has brought into being the heavens and the earth, who has given life to the hearers, Israel is now to announce to all who will listen "the new things I now declare."
This is the first of the four Servant Songs, a promise by God that his Servant will have the gift of the divine spirit and that he will bring justice upon the earth, and he will do so gently, never becoming discouraged, until justice finally prevails. In preaching, one might emphasize that while justice is a long way from prevailing, it can prevail in my life or yours if we ourselves are just in our dealings with others. And also it can prevail in our lives if we work to see to justice for those whom we can help.
Lesson 2: Acts 8:14-17 (C)
We remember that the Samaritans were disliked by the Israelites, looked down upon by them in fact. If we recall the story of "The Good Samaritan" we are reminded that the import of that story lay in the fact that it was a social outcast who did the good deed, after the supposedly acceptable people had passed up the opportunity.
What we have here is the announcement that the Samaritans who were earlier baptized in the name of Jesus have now been given the Holy Spirit. That means they have been accepted as equal in every respect to the Jews and, as Paul would declare, to the Gentiles as well. This would not have come easily to some of the Jews who, like the rest of us, find it hard to give up our prejudices. Just as the relationships between Blacks and Whites (African Americans and Caucasians, if you wish) have been painful and the growing feelings of equality of long duration, so we must imagine that otherwise good people found this difficult in Jesus' time as well.
In preaching, it might be well to talk about prejudice, about the harm it does, both to the victim and to the prejudiced person. This passage reminds us that God refuses to make the kind of ethnic and social distinctions which most of us make. And let's be honest, we all struggle with this. Black people, Jews, Hispanics, short people, fat people, handicapped people who carry either physical, intellectual, or emotional handicaps, old people, poor people, all these have suffered prejudice and mistreatment of one kind or another. And the rest have not always fared well either. White middle class males have come in for a lot of bad-mouthing recently. So have wealthy people, though they may feel less troubled than the rest of us. Women, generally cared for by men through the earlier centuries, have decided in recent times that they've had a raw deal too.
Lesson 2: Acts 10:34-38 (RC, E)
(See The Resurrection Of Our Lord [Easter Day])
Gospel: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (C); Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 (RC, E)
Professor John Miller in a provocative book titled Jesus At Thirty proposes an interesting thesis regarding the baptism of Jesus. His book is really an effort to do a psychological profile of Jesus. In brief, he believes that the evidence supports the probability that Jesus' father Joseph died while Jesus was a small boy. He argues that Jesus was traumatized by this loss, and by the fact that he was thereby required to assume the role of eldest son among his many siblings, responsible for the income and welfare of the family. He suffered a terrible sense of loss (according to this thesis) and eventually found in John the Baptist a father figure to whom he felt deeply attached. Miller proposes the idea that being baptized by John was more than a traditional religious experience. It was a profound emotional and psychological experience. He further contends that until this time, Jesus didn't really have a recognized sense of vocation, that in the experience of baptism, that recognition burst upon Jesus the man, revealing that he was, indeed, called to a special and unique mission by God. Because of the loss of a father, Jesus then felt a special closeness to this new Father, God. That, says Miller, is why Jesus used the name of Father for God, and why he used stories about fathers in his teaching and preaching.
I don't suppose we would wish to go into all of this in a sermon, but it doesn't hurt us to hear such provocative scholarship as we try to understand what really happened here. My own belief is that Luke has used poetic imagery in describing what happened to Jesus. Obviously, there is no way to recapture the moment, nor to arbitrate between those who wish to think of this as a literal report and those who think of this as I do, as a poetic description of a marvelous inward emotional and spiritual experience on the part of Jesus. Since Jesus is never quoted about this himself, we must do our best with what we have.
The main theme here is twofold. One, Jesus is the Son of God, specifically called to that role by God; and two, he will bring judgment to the people, and there will be consequences to wrongdoing. Assuming that we have preached on the divinity of Jesus at some point during the Advent and Christmas seasons, my choice would be to preach about judgment.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "God With Us"
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7
Theme: So this promise, given to all whom God loves, is a promise made to us. One might turn to the third chapter of Daniel and retell the wonderful story of Daniel in which the three men, faithful to God, are shoved into a blazing pit of fire. To the amazement of the watching people, the men who threw them in the fire were consumed by its heat, whereas the three men were unscathed, and afterward, witnesses reported that not three but four people were visible in the fire.
1. God has promised to accompany us through our difficult trials. I can certainly witness to this as can many of you. Through the loss of mother, father, brother, and wife in death, I have often been distressed, but never deserted by that promise.
2. There was an implied covenant: loyalty to God. We can't expect to dash willy-nilly through life and be guarded in all we do. God surely doesn't cooperate in any kind of wrong doing, although he certainly does forgive where there is remorse, and he does understand as we walk wayward paths until the right one is found.
3. The promise is a promise of empowerment in trouble. It is not a promise of avoidance of trouble. We must all expect to deal with rejection, grief, failure, pain, injustice -- suffering of many kinds. What God seems to promise here is not that we can avoid the fires of life, but that "the flame shall not consume you."
Title: "Prejudice And The Christian Spirit"
Text: Acts 8:14-17
Theme: God does not make the kinds of distinctions we tragically make among our own neighbors. However, I for one doubt that there is a single person alive today who is free of such prejudice. I concede my guilt. I don't like it. I resist it. My wife and I chide each other about it. But it's there. For instance, I avoid people with bad table manners. In truth, mine aren't all that great either I imagine. But I fail to make allowances for the fact that some people were not properly taught as children and after a certain age, that's hard to learn. Same with bad grammar. Same with the guy down the street who lets his yard look terrible while everyone else works hard to keep the neighborhood looking nice. How can I know what health or financial or, for that matter, what emotional problems he faces?
I have, however, come to believe in my heart of hearts that the people mentioned in the discussion of this passage are in every way my equals in the eyes of God, just as I am theirs. We are brothers and sisters together, and if we wish to honor God, we must pray for a loving spirit toward people of different backgrounds, different colors, different styles.
1. We are all brothers and sisters under God. Prejudice is a spiritual illness. Carried too far, it can destroy one. The Klan, the people who are burning down little churches all over America, people who are avidly anti-semitic, anti-Catholics, anti-Protestants, militant anti-abortionists (as opposed to those who earnestly oppose abortion), homophobics, the people who recently sprayed paint on the front of a clothing store which sells furs near here, on and on. Whoever hates someone simply because of natural selection or choice does himself far more harm than is done to the one who is hated.
2. As Christians, we are to honor our differences. That doesn't mean we have to accept dishonorable or disrespectful or dishonest conduct. But it does mean we are to honor each other as we would wish to be honored.
3. We are to love those others. That doesn't mean we are to feel some sort of affection. That's impossible in some cases. It does, however, mean we are obliged to wish for and work for the best interests of those others.
Title: "We'll Have To Answer For It"
Text: Luke 3:15-17
Theme: A universe without consequences which result from our actions and our words would be, in the end, meaningless. Maybe as we read this most of us have a set of ethics which will lead us to do what is right no matter what. Someone has defined character as doing right when no one will know. But we feel this way because we have already accepted the teachings of the Christian faith. A God who would say at the end, "Oh well, you're a good person in spite of all the bad things you did and said, so we'll just overlook all of that. Run along, now," would be a weak God and it would be grossly unfair to those who did live righteous lives. The truth is, there are consequences of our conduct. John here has promised that.
1. There is judgment in this life. It isn't always just or perfect, but we are judged by other people. I'll refrain from political commentary, but on the national scene we have seen the disgust which people can feel when once respected leaders reveal evidence of selfish, petty conduct. We are also judged by the law. Maybe the most exquisite form of judgment is that which we make about ourselves. Guilt. Professor Hobart Mower, who once headed the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois, in an address given many years ago contended that all mental illness is one way or another related to guilt feelings. Certainly depression, low self-esteem, headaches, self-destructive actions are clearly related to guilt feelings. Suicide can often be traced there. As for God, the promise is that judgment will be up to us.
2. God's judgments are generous. We have to believe that God, having created us with many failings and foibles, has some sympathy for us when we err. Part of life is the process of seeing these things in ourselves and making the effort to overcome our character faults. A recent book argues that lying is a necessary part of human relationships, all the way from the husband who tells his wife he likes her new hair style, to the woman who explains to the neighbor she doesn't like that she will be unable to attend the neighborhood house party because she has "a commitment she just can't get out of" -- which she does not. No doubt some of us will argue this point, but I'm guessing we all do it (I heard an atrocious public address some time ago and told the speaker how much I enjoyed him. I hope God looks upon that as a harmless bit of dishonesty).
3. Nonetheless, someone pays. Every hurtful lie, every dishonest action, every failure to do what I promised, every betrayal hurts someone. Sometimes the hurts are minimal. Sometimes they are horrendous. But each hurt which we inflict on someone else is inflicted on Jesus as well. If someone hurts my child, I suffer terribly. If someone is unkind to my wife, I am both angry and hurt. Why? Because I love them. And since Jesus loves you and me deeply, every hurt we suffer hurts him deeply as well. When we get that truth into our heads and our hearts, then we genuinely begin to change.
4. The final judgment. I'm convinced will not be some hoary old judge saying, "Bring me Carver's file." It will be me having to see what I have become, see the hurts I have inflicted, see how much better it would have been had I been faithful at all times, and see at last what I did to Jesus, my beloved Lord. And most painful of all, if I am genuinely sorry, and have genuinely changed, even at the end, he will forgive me. That will be horribly painful, and wonderfully redeeming.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
"The man who maintains that only he has the power
To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul --
A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty."
-- Sophocles
____________
Two young middle school boys were killed recently while riding a moped. Inexperienced, the poor boys loved to ride across a field and through a parking lot. But they accidentally ran out onto a road and were struck by a truck. One boy survived briefly, and a motorcycle rider happened by. A big fellow, wearing a leather jacket, bearded, the sort of person some of us avoid. The man stopped, cradled the head of one boy in his arms as the child died. That motorcyclist visited the family. He remained in Indianapolis, though he lived elsewhere. He bought a suit so he could attend the funeral. So much for some of our judgments of people based on pre-conceived prejudices.
____________
An ancient Oriental legend tells of the man who died and went to heaven. As the escorting angel was leading him to the place where he would live, they passed a room and the man glanced in and saw what at first appeared to be stacks of mushrooms. But a closer look revealed that they were ears. He inquired about this of the angel, who explained: "These are the ears of believers who heard the word of God and believed. But they did nothing about their beliefs. So their ears came to heaven and the rest of them went somewhere else."
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Ernest Shackleton was one of Britain's most distinguished explorers, having helped develop human knowledge of the Antarctic during the early part of the twentieth century. His ship was once imprisoned by Antarctic ice. It was being crushed by the immeasurable weight. Hurriedly, he and his crew abandoned ship, getting away with all the provisions they could carry in small boats. They made their way to the Elephant Islands where Shackelton left most of his party in relative safety while he and two companions left to seek help. Under incredibly brutal conditions, in some of the world's worst weather, they crossed over a thousand miles of ice and open water. Finally, after an historic effort, they reached New Georgia Island. Because of their expertise under these conditions, they reached their destination, but on the wrong side of the island. They still found themselves shut off from the rest of humanity by a nine thousand foot mountain range. With a strength born of fiery determination, they began to struggle up the ice sheathed slope, and finally -- sailors, not mountain men -- by what they would later describe as a miracle, they reached the peak by the following night.
What followed is guaranteed to freeze the blood of any outdoorsman. With only minimum equipment, their provisions nearly gone, their strength almost spent, they now found it necessary to descend a slope of mountain covered with glare ice. Acting by blind faith, they used their scaling ropes to fashion a makeshift sled. Seating themselves on this flimsy sled, the three men joined arms, said a fervent prayer, and launched themselves down the slope. By supreme good fortune, they made their way safely to the base of the mountain.
Shackleton wittily commented later that a person ought not to try something like that too often. Then, their strength nearly gone, yet heartened by their safe descent, the men staggered the last few miles to the New Georgia Weather Station and safety. Afterwards, when Shackleton wrote of his experiences, he included a strange observation. He said that as the three of them had struggled through their frightful journey, walking, sailing, climbing, descending, he had the strange feeling that a fourth person had accompanied them. He said that out of embarrassment, he kept this feeling to himself until one of his companions said to him, "Boss, I had a funny feeling during our trip that someone else was with us, someone I couldn't see or recognize." Shackleton felt a thrill as this other man confirmed his sensation of a strange presence. As a final test, they asked the third man if, by chance, he'd had any strange sensation such as that. Yes, he said. He said he felt he shouldn't discuss this with them but he, too, had sensed the presence of another.
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Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 29 -- "Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings."
Prayer Of The Day
Arm us for the fight ahead, O God; the fight against tyranny, both that tyranny which besets the world from without, and that private tyranny which seeks to override our inner goodness, which would cause us to judge and disdain those whom we have not come to love. Forgive us as we fall short, we pray, yet empower us as we seek to win this essential victory of the human soul. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
