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Sermons For Advent, Christmas And Epiphany
Have you ever had news to tell someone that you were afraid to tell them because you really didn't know how they would respond? You don't want to tell them, but you know eventually you will have to? In my mind, that is how it happened.
All the way back from the well, Mary stewed. Would he be angry or sad, or say nothing at all? Would he go away, or stay here? For months he had been paying close attention to everything John had been doing. He had questioned every traveler through town for news of John, the baptizer. Mary didn't understand the deep interest, but something inside told her it would lead to no good. But she didn't know what to do about it. And she didn't know how to tell him now that John had been arrested and thrown into prison.
It began innocently enough with Herod Antipas making a trip to Rome. Why he went doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that while there he met a girl. The fact that the girl was the wife of his brother, as well as Herod's niece (the Herod family tree is a nightmare to behold), and the fact that he seduced her and ended up marrying her is what matters. Did I mention that Herod already had a wife back home he had to divorce first? Well, the whole thing broke nearly every rule relating to marriage and family relations in the Jewish law books. However, all the Jewish law teachers knew enough to keep quiet and let Mr. Herod do pretty well whatever he wanted to do, whether they approved of it or not. So no one said a word. No one except John, and he said several words.
Herod was not the kind of man to forget an enemy, and although it took him some time, and some "official" excuse, the day came when he finally had John arrested. While the official charge was the worry that John's influence was growing so great that he might lead the people to rebellion, the real charge was airing Herod's family laundry without a license.
For Herod it was a pleasure. For John, it was a nightmare. He was placed in the prison of Machaerus in the mountains east of the Dead Sea. The man who had wandered the deserts and open spaces preaching, was now thrown in a sealed dungeon cell. How would he handle that?
But Mary was more worried about how her Jesus would handle the news. She didn't have any idea of how to break it to him, but just like you and I have done, she did. From there it was his move.
I tell you all this to lead up to one sentence. There comes a time when you are finally handed the keys.
That may sound like nonsense, but it is true. There comes a time when all your preparation, all your dreaming and planning, all your waiting, comes to a crashing end, and everyone turns to you and says, "Okay, now it's your turn to drive."
The young woman has dreamed all her life of becoming a school teacher. She has been to college, taken all those education classes, like Lesson Planning 101 and "Kiddie Lit." She has spent a semester student teaching under the guidance of an older "pro," and has survived a series of interviews for her first position. Then comes that morning when they hand her the keys to the south door of the building and she walks down the hall into "her" room. She steps inside, looks around at the walls that cry for some decoration, and it hits her, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they like me? Will I be able to teach them anything? O Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
The young couple walk through the front door of their little house, carrying their newborn baby daughter. They have prepared for this day. They waited until they were finished with the college degrees and most of the loans were paid. They read the books, attended childbirth classes, and rented the videos at the library on parenting. They had talked about how they would make decisions together, and how they would not push their child "like they had been pushed," and had even fully stocked the nursery all in preparation for this day. They walk in the house, close the door, and stand in the middle of the living room holding a baby in their arms. They are excited. They are also wondering if they can really pull this off. "Can we do this? Can we really do this? Where do we begin? Will she like me? Will I be able to teach her anything? What if she gets sick? Can I handle that? Oh Lord, what have we gotten ourselves into?"
He has worked 40 years for this day. Oh, it has been a good 40 years, but in the back of his mind he always had one eye on this day, when it would come to an end. He had worked hard and built a good reputation. He had made many friends. He had put back enough so that money would not be short for the two of them when the time came. He had read the books his wife had bought for him on how to deal with the new lifestyle. He was ready. But as he stood there in the cafeteria looking at the gold watch in his hand, and hearing the applause of his former co-workers, he heard himself wondering, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? What if it doesn't work out like we have planned? Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
I have to wonder if, when he was handed the keys to take charge, any of this went through Jesus' mind. Matthew makes it all sound so easy. Here in 12 short verses Matthew takes Jesus from a safe second position to a preaching Messiah followed by four disciples, and makes it look painless. I really wonder about that. I'm not questioning Jesus' strength, or his ability, but I wonder, since he really was one of us, if he looked at the new keys in his hand and wondered?
It was a big decision to move from Nazareth to Capernaum. The distance between the two is geographically small, but the distance has to be measured in more than miles. In Nazareth he was home. His family was there for security. In small towns like Nazareth, no matter what else Jesus might do or say he would always be Joseph's boy from down at the carpentry shop. There was a security in that "home town advantage" even if it did cause problems for prophets. Nazareth was also fairly invisible. You could live there, and preach there, for a long time and never get quoted in the Tiberias Times. The town is never mentioned in the Old Testament, but it was there! Nazareth was safe.
But Capernaum! Capernaum was visible. A good-sized fishing village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, with highways running by the edge of town and a huge synagogue right in the middle. You could preach in Capernaum and be heard all the way to Jerusalem. In Capernaum he would not be from a carpenter's shop, he would be from God. He would no longer be "Joseph's boy" but would live, and perhaps die, as God's Son. It was a long way from Nazareth to Capernaum, and I wonder if Jesus, when he heard the news about John, stood there in Nazareth looking eastward toward Capernaum, hearing himself ask "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they follow me? Will I be able to teach them anything?"
But moving to Capernaum wasn't the only question. What would he preach once he was there? He had attended school at the synagogue and had studied the law and the prophets. He had listened to John's message and agreed that it had to be continued. He was prepared to pick up John's words and add to them what only God's own Son could add to them. But when John's voice was actually silenced in that prison cell, and Jesus was actually handed the keys, I wonder if he wondered, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? If I preach these words I will end up right where John ended up, or worse! I could temper it a bit and get a nice pulpit in a synagogue in some quiet little village and let someone else speak John's words. Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
And calling disciples. Matthew makes it sound so easy. It sounds easy for both Jesus and the new followers. But I have to wonder if it really was that easy? If Jesus called disciples, he was claiming to be someone worth following, someone worth paying attention to. It would put him, even more, in that spotlight that sometimes gets so bright it burns you. I have to wonder if when he got up that morning and walked beside the Sea of Galilee he was asking himself, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they really follow me? Can I really teach them anything? O Father, what have I gotten myself into?"
And I wonder if Simon, Andrew, James and John asked the same thing. Matthew makes it sound so easy for them. "At once they left their nets and followed him." They also left their families, a pretty good-sized fishing business, their home, and whatever plans they had made for their future. I have to wonder if as they followed him out of town they didn't look at each other, kind of awkwardly, and wonder inside, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where is this going to end up? What about the boats? What about the family? Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
I have to be honest with you and admit that I don't know if any of these men questioned any of this. Matthew never even hints that it happened. He does admit that Jesus asked a few questions later in the Garden of Gethsemane, but not now. So, for those who feel I am walking pretty near blasphemy with all these ideas, you may be right. But I hope not. I hope there were questions. I hope that the move from Nazareth to Capernaum was a difficult one. I hope that deciding what to preach was something that kept Jesus up late and woke him up early. I really hope that the decision to call disciples, and to be disciples, was frightening. Because they did it anyway. The questions could not stop them.
I find myself being stopped time and time again by the questions. Do I go here? Do I say this? Do I go along with that? Can I really teach them anything? What if they don't like me? Can I really pull this off? Where do I begin? Do I follow, or not? Oh Lord, how did I get myself into this? I hope they did ask some of these things. Because they went anyway. It would mean so much to be reminded that the questions don't really have the power to stop me.
It would mean a lot.
All the way back from the well, Mary stewed. Would he be angry or sad, or say nothing at all? Would he go away, or stay here? For months he had been paying close attention to everything John had been doing. He had questioned every traveler through town for news of John, the baptizer. Mary didn't understand the deep interest, but something inside told her it would lead to no good. But she didn't know what to do about it. And she didn't know how to tell him now that John had been arrested and thrown into prison.
It began innocently enough with Herod Antipas making a trip to Rome. Why he went doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that while there he met a girl. The fact that the girl was the wife of his brother, as well as Herod's niece (the Herod family tree is a nightmare to behold), and the fact that he seduced her and ended up marrying her is what matters. Did I mention that Herod already had a wife back home he had to divorce first? Well, the whole thing broke nearly every rule relating to marriage and family relations in the Jewish law books. However, all the Jewish law teachers knew enough to keep quiet and let Mr. Herod do pretty well whatever he wanted to do, whether they approved of it or not. So no one said a word. No one except John, and he said several words.
Herod was not the kind of man to forget an enemy, and although it took him some time, and some "official" excuse, the day came when he finally had John arrested. While the official charge was the worry that John's influence was growing so great that he might lead the people to rebellion, the real charge was airing Herod's family laundry without a license.
For Herod it was a pleasure. For John, it was a nightmare. He was placed in the prison of Machaerus in the mountains east of the Dead Sea. The man who had wandered the deserts and open spaces preaching, was now thrown in a sealed dungeon cell. How would he handle that?
But Mary was more worried about how her Jesus would handle the news. She didn't have any idea of how to break it to him, but just like you and I have done, she did. From there it was his move.
I tell you all this to lead up to one sentence. There comes a time when you are finally handed the keys.
That may sound like nonsense, but it is true. There comes a time when all your preparation, all your dreaming and planning, all your waiting, comes to a crashing end, and everyone turns to you and says, "Okay, now it's your turn to drive."
The young woman has dreamed all her life of becoming a school teacher. She has been to college, taken all those education classes, like Lesson Planning 101 and "Kiddie Lit." She has spent a semester student teaching under the guidance of an older "pro," and has survived a series of interviews for her first position. Then comes that morning when they hand her the keys to the south door of the building and she walks down the hall into "her" room. She steps inside, looks around at the walls that cry for some decoration, and it hits her, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they like me? Will I be able to teach them anything? O Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
The young couple walk through the front door of their little house, carrying their newborn baby daughter. They have prepared for this day. They waited until they were finished with the college degrees and most of the loans were paid. They read the books, attended childbirth classes, and rented the videos at the library on parenting. They had talked about how they would make decisions together, and how they would not push their child "like they had been pushed," and had even fully stocked the nursery all in preparation for this day. They walk in the house, close the door, and stand in the middle of the living room holding a baby in their arms. They are excited. They are also wondering if they can really pull this off. "Can we do this? Can we really do this? Where do we begin? Will she like me? Will I be able to teach her anything? What if she gets sick? Can I handle that? Oh Lord, what have we gotten ourselves into?"
He has worked 40 years for this day. Oh, it has been a good 40 years, but in the back of his mind he always had one eye on this day, when it would come to an end. He had worked hard and built a good reputation. He had made many friends. He had put back enough so that money would not be short for the two of them when the time came. He had read the books his wife had bought for him on how to deal with the new lifestyle. He was ready. But as he stood there in the cafeteria looking at the gold watch in his hand, and hearing the applause of his former co-workers, he heard himself wondering, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? What if it doesn't work out like we have planned? Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
I have to wonder if, when he was handed the keys to take charge, any of this went through Jesus' mind. Matthew makes it all sound so easy. Here in 12 short verses Matthew takes Jesus from a safe second position to a preaching Messiah followed by four disciples, and makes it look painless. I really wonder about that. I'm not questioning Jesus' strength, or his ability, but I wonder, since he really was one of us, if he looked at the new keys in his hand and wondered?
It was a big decision to move from Nazareth to Capernaum. The distance between the two is geographically small, but the distance has to be measured in more than miles. In Nazareth he was home. His family was there for security. In small towns like Nazareth, no matter what else Jesus might do or say he would always be Joseph's boy from down at the carpentry shop. There was a security in that "home town advantage" even if it did cause problems for prophets. Nazareth was also fairly invisible. You could live there, and preach there, for a long time and never get quoted in the Tiberias Times. The town is never mentioned in the Old Testament, but it was there! Nazareth was safe.
But Capernaum! Capernaum was visible. A good-sized fishing village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, with highways running by the edge of town and a huge synagogue right in the middle. You could preach in Capernaum and be heard all the way to Jerusalem. In Capernaum he would not be from a carpenter's shop, he would be from God. He would no longer be "Joseph's boy" but would live, and perhaps die, as God's Son. It was a long way from Nazareth to Capernaum, and I wonder if Jesus, when he heard the news about John, stood there in Nazareth looking eastward toward Capernaum, hearing himself ask "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they follow me? Will I be able to teach them anything?"
But moving to Capernaum wasn't the only question. What would he preach once he was there? He had attended school at the synagogue and had studied the law and the prophets. He had listened to John's message and agreed that it had to be continued. He was prepared to pick up John's words and add to them what only God's own Son could add to them. But when John's voice was actually silenced in that prison cell, and Jesus was actually handed the keys, I wonder if he wondered, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? If I preach these words I will end up right where John ended up, or worse! I could temper it a bit and get a nice pulpit in a synagogue in some quiet little village and let someone else speak John's words. Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
And calling disciples. Matthew makes it sound so easy. It sounds easy for both Jesus and the new followers. But I have to wonder if it really was that easy? If Jesus called disciples, he was claiming to be someone worth following, someone worth paying attention to. It would put him, even more, in that spotlight that sometimes gets so bright it burns you. I have to wonder if when he got up that morning and walked beside the Sea of Galilee he was asking himself, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where do I begin? Will they really follow me? Can I really teach them anything? O Father, what have I gotten myself into?"
And I wonder if Simon, Andrew, James and John asked the same thing. Matthew makes it sound so easy for them. "At once they left their nets and followed him." They also left their families, a pretty good-sized fishing business, their home, and whatever plans they had made for their future. I have to wonder if as they followed him out of town they didn't look at each other, kind of awkwardly, and wonder inside, "Can I do this? Can I really do this? Where is this going to end up? What about the boats? What about the family? Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"
I have to be honest with you and admit that I don't know if any of these men questioned any of this. Matthew never even hints that it happened. He does admit that Jesus asked a few questions later in the Garden of Gethsemane, but not now. So, for those who feel I am walking pretty near blasphemy with all these ideas, you may be right. But I hope not. I hope there were questions. I hope that the move from Nazareth to Capernaum was a difficult one. I hope that deciding what to preach was something that kept Jesus up late and woke him up early. I really hope that the decision to call disciples, and to be disciples, was frightening. Because they did it anyway. The questions could not stop them.
I find myself being stopped time and time again by the questions. Do I go here? Do I say this? Do I go along with that? Can I really teach them anything? What if they don't like me? Can I really pull this off? Where do I begin? Do I follow, or not? Oh Lord, how did I get myself into this? I hope they did ask some of these things. Because they went anyway. It would mean so much to be reminded that the questions don't really have the power to stop me.
It would mean a lot.
