Incarnation: He’s Our Savior

You know that I rarely tell jokes. So today I’m going to start with a joke. Not only that, it’s one I’m sure you’ve heard before.

There’s a fellow who lives by a river, and one spring day there comes a huge rain, and the river keeps rising. A deputy in a Jeep pulls up to the house and says, “You’ve got to evacuate right now. Hop in.”

But the homeowner says, “No, thanks. I have faith that God will save me.”

Not much later, the water has risen high enough that he has to run upstairs to stay dry. Now a rescuer in a boat shows up and says, “You’ve got to evacuate now while you’ve got a chance.”

And the homeowner says, “I’ll be OK. I’m sure God will save me.”

Finally the water is so high that the man has to crawl up on his roof. He’s clinging to the chimney when a helicopter spots him and starts to lower a rope ladder. But he waves it off, yelling, “God will save me.”

The helicopter moves on, the water keeps rising, and the man is swept away and drowns. At the pearly gates, he complains to God: “I had faith in you. Why didn’t you save me?”

God replies: “I sent you a Jeep and a boat and a helicopter. What more do you want?”

We all need a savior, don’t we? We can’t save ourselves, and much of the time we’re too blind to see and too stubborn to accept salvation when it’s offered to us.

This is the second week of Advent. Our guide to the season this year is Adam Hamilton’s book Incarnation. We can’t begin to fathom how God becomes human in Jesus, Adam says, so we’re exploring some of the reasons why God does it. We’re doing that by looking at some of the titles that scripture gives Jesus.

Last week we looked at Messiah and King. This week we’re exploring the title Savior.

Salvation is so important a concept that the New Testament mentions it 150 times. So it’s no accident that the One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas was named Jesus – in Hebrew, Yeshua. The name means “God saves.”

That’s why Mary and Joseph are both told, “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:31). On the night of his birth, angels tell shepherds: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)

The whole Christian witness may be summarized in 1 John 4:14: “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be Savior of the world.”

“Are you saved?” Ever been the target of that accusatory question?

I was in a supermarket one day when an earnest looking young man shoved his face very close to mine and asked, “Are you saved?”

He meant well, I suppose, but I wanted to say, “God save me from the likes of you.”

Another time, I was sitting in an airport restaurant with my family when another young man came flying by, slapping a yellow card on each table. It was this “Get out of hell free” card. That and a couple bucks will get you a cup of coffee some places.

I am so sick of people selling Jesus as fire insurance. The great comedian Groucho Marx used to have a TV game show called “You Bet Your Life.” He’d tell contestants, “Say the secret word, and the duck will come down,” and you’ll win a prize. So many Christians today have turned salvation into a tawdry game show. “Say the magic prayer and the dove will come down,” and you win eternal salvation!

I cringe every time I see those signs on the highway: “Do you know where you will spend eternity?” Not, I hope, in the earthly hell created by some churches and their cheap chatter about salvation. It’s too important a thing to be belittled by such nonsense.

We are being saved from sin, of course. We’ve cheapened that word, too. We say, “That coconut cream pie was sinfully delicious.” Eating sugary pie may be bad for your health, but it’s not a sin. In the Bible, sin is frequently described as straying from the path or missing the mark.

Ever been hiking and got on the wrong trail? Sometimes it’s easy to find your way back. Sometimes you have to pray the sun doesn’t go down while you’re still lost. Not all paths lead to the same place. You need to be on the right path if you want to reach the right destination.

We’re all “prone to wander,” as the old hymn has it. It’s not that we want to, or are even conscious of wandering while we’re doing it, but suddenly we realize we’re not where we expected to be and not where we want to be. That’s knowledge of sin.

“Missing the mark” is another biblical description of sin. It’s comes from the world of archery. Ever sight down an arrow at the target and let fly and then wonder why the arrow didn’t go anywhere near where you were aiming? Same thing in golf. Here you are, ready to tee off, and there’s the flag at the pin way down there. Do you really think you can hit the ball close to it?

These colorful descriptions are meant to suggest how we get into sin, but don’t let them distract you from the seriousness of it. Sin is the human condition, and the condition is deadly. We use the word “sin” two ways. “Sin” singular refers to our state of being, a predisposition to do what’s wrong. “Sins” plural are those wrong acts. What makes them wrong? They reveal a lack of love. They harm others.

So you can define sin, if you like, as an inescapable tendency to do unloving things that harm others. We all do it all the time. James W. Moore wrote a book titled Yes, Lord, I Have Sinned, But I Have Several Excellent Excuses. We all have great excuses, don’t we, but none of them is good enough.

Salvation from sin has several dimensions, and in the Bible the word “salvation” can have several meanings. It can mean healing. It can mean rescue. It can mean deliverance. It can mean forgiveness.

Salvation from sin means release from the guilt of it, though not necessarily of all its consequences. You may be forgiven for defrauding or stealing from someone, but you still may serve prison time for the deed.

Perhaps most importantly, salvation changes your relationship with God. When you sin, you feel guilty and you have no interest at all in communing with God. You feel alienated from God. You feel like there’s nothing you can do to regain God’s favor.

In fact, you never lost God’s favor. God may be momentarily disappointed in you, but God will never stop loving you. Salvation removes that barrier between you and God that was always there in your mind only. God saves you from the illusion that God hates you. God restores you to favor by reminding you that you were loved all along.

More than 50 years ago, Kansas City jeweler Barnett Helzberg started giving away little red buttons that said “I Am Loved.” It’s a wonderful way to remember the point of it all: You are loved. God loves you.

God loves you, and God wants to save you from whatever guilt is holding you down; whatever shame keeps you from stepping out of the darkness into the light; whatever hopelessness keeps you awake at night; whatever despair nags at you every moment; whatever sense of meaninglessness you have that tries to tell you, “You’re nothing – you’re worthless.”

It’s a lie! God loves you, God wants to forgive you, and God wants you to turn away from all the lies that hold you down and turn toward the salvation that God has for you.

Last week I said that Advent has three dimensions: past, present, and future. Salvation is similar. Salvation is not just a single act once upon a time in your life. Salvation is a dynamic, continuous action in your life. You are saved. You are being saved. You will be saved.

Saying “yes” to Jesus is a bit like saying “I do” at your wedding or a citizenship ceremony or a swearing-in for public office. You’re making a commitment, but you’ve got to live it out. You may be forgiven now, at this moment, but you’re going to need constant forgiveness from this point on.

Happily, as 1 John 1:9 tells us, we know that God is faithful and just, and if we confess our sins, God will forgive us and keep cleansing us anew.

Salvation is a daily growth in grace. You are not where you should be. You are not where you want to be. But you are being remade into what God created you to be, and one day you’ll look back with great satisfaction and say, “Thank you, Jesus, for saving me, again and again and again.”

Everyone loves to quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Don’t forget the next verse, John 3:17, which says, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,” but to save it.

Jesus saves our world by being born into it, accepting our limitations as his own, living here as one of us, taking a stand for us, and dying for us – but even more than that, being raised to new life for us and ascending to his Father’s side to forever be Emmanuel, God with us.

Or as the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, quoting a hymn that already appears to be familiar to believers:

“Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11

The name Jesus means “God saves,” and Jesus is our Savior. We meditate on that and other names for Jesus as we prepare during Advent for the coming of Jesus. We prepare to celebrate his birth on December 25, and his rebirth in our hearts every day, and one day his return to set all things right, to complete our salvation.

Jesus doesn’t need a Jeep or a boat or a helicopter. But don’t scoff if you’re in a tough spot and one comes by offering help, because one way or another, Jesus really wants to save you.

Amen.

This message was delivered online December 6, 2020, to Edgerton Untied Methodist Church.

Giving Thanks Giving

As we approach Thanksgiving 2020, many people are asking, what in the world have we got to be thankful for this year?

The holiday itself will be much different than any other in memory. So many gatherings have been canceled. So many of us will not see family except by FaceTime or Skype or Zoom.

The deadly virus that has stalked us for nine months did, briefly, appear to be tamed, but now it has roared back with a vengeance. Such an unsettling year – so many dead, so many still sick, so many jobless because our economy is in tatters, so many people hurting in so many ways.

On top of this layer a bitterly contested election season, and a president who lives in a bizarre fantasyland and won’t peaceably pass the baton to his duly elected successor.

The election results only certify what many of us have known for a long time – that we are a divided nation. We may occupy the same physical space, but we live in different worlds. Such division cannot be good for our future. There is talk of civil war – both among those who don’t want it, and among those who do.

Meantime, the clock of global warming ticks on. We are in the midst of the most active hurricane season on record. Drought and gigantic forest fires threaten the landscapes we love. Every day we don’t act to stop it, catastrophe moves closer – and we may already have reached the tipping point, beyond which only more bad things happen.

We have so many losses to grieve – loss of friends and loved ones to the virus, loss of confidence, loss of feeling secure, loss of hope.

So we have to ask, what in the world have we got to be thankful for this year?

At the risk of stating the obvious, let’s start with the obvious. Let’s start at home. I presume that all of you viewing or reading this message are doing so from a snug, dry and warm house that is connected to a safe water supply and a good wastewater system. I also presume that you have enough to eat, that you are not seriously ill, that you have some source of income, though you may feel sorely stretched at this time.

All told, that’s a pretty good foundation for thankfulness, don’t you think? Millions of people around the world would be deliriously thankful if they had even half those things.

Let’s dig a little deeper. We’ve heard a lot of speculation recently about the possible presence of water on the moon and on the planet Mars. Water is one of those things that makes life as we know it possible. Whether there is – or at one time was – life on the moon or on Mars, we should be thankful that the conditions have been right for life to flourish on planet earth.

Beginning with the creation stories in the book of Genesis, the witness of the Bible is that we humans are not a random accident but the gift of a generous Creator who has fashioned this world with us in mind and gives us the resources to survive and thrive in it. That doesn’t mean that life isn’t sometimes difficult, but that it’s always possible, and that purely because of the grace of God.

For these things are others, we give God thanks and praise. In a common table blessing, we say “God is great, God is good.” We give thanks because of who God is – God is great – and because of what God provides for us – God is good. We conclude that prayer by saying, “Let us thank God for our food.” It’s a table blessing, so we usually we don’t bother to mention everything else that God gives us.

We give God thanks for what God gives us. For us, giving is always an act of thanks, and thanks is always an act of giving.

That statement is a little dense, so let me unpack it. First, giving is always an act of thanks. We give in gratitude for what we have to give. You might think that if we had more, we would give more. But sadly, that’s not necessarily so. Those who have the least are often the most willing to give the most to others, while those who have the most often give the least, and then begrudgingly.

It’s a matter of gratitude, of being thankful for what you have. Somehow living in plenty can dull your sense of gratitude. It’s as if the more you have, the more you think you deserve it all. And the least you have, the more you understand that everything you have is a gift from God.

It’s like grace itself, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:9. It’s a gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

Yes, your hard work may have something to do with what you have, but please don’t live in the delusion that you are a self-made man or a self-made woman. So much of what you have is pure gift, a matter of time and circumstance over which you had no control.

If giving is always an act of thanks, then thanks is always an act of giving. So many people find it hard to say a simple “Thank you” that it’s a major act of self-revelation and self-giving for them to do so. Whereas, so many of us say “Thank you” so glibly, so easily, that you wonder if we really mean it, even when we do.

Last week I read that in Korean churches, people have the habit of giving not only their tithes and extra offerings but also special offerings to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, job promotions – whenever something good happens in their lives. It’s like the “happy dollar” that members of Rotary and Kiwanis and other service clubs give to celebrate things that make them happy. Such giving is truly an act of thanks.

That’s the human dimension of thanksgiving. The divine dimension is different. God’s giving to us comes not from thanks but from love, the source of all things. And God does not thank us for our giving, though surely God exults in it. Every time we give freely, God must shout, “Hey, he gets it! Look, she understands!”

The whole witness of Scripture is that we ought to give thanks to God.

A clear refrain runs throughout the Old Testament. “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” You’ll find that multiple times in the Psalms especially, but also in the Chronicles and in the books of the prophets.

Give thanks to God, for God is good and God’s steadfast love endures forever. In the New Testament, Jesus models behavior that affirms that saying, and the Apostle Paul encourages it in his letters to various churches.

To the Thessalonians, he writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Note especially two things. Note first, that Paul says we should give thanks in all circumstances. No matter how good or how bad things are for us as the moment, we should give thanks for all the good we have been given.

Note second, that Paul does not say “give thanks to God for all circumstances.” He says we ought to give thanks in the midst of all circumstances, but he does not say that we should give thanks for all circumstances.

Paul is no masochist. He recognizes that good things come from God but not all things that come to us are good or from God. You’d think that would be obvious, but some Christians deny it. Some Christians are trapped in an awful theology that says that God controls everything, God determines each and every event, so that every act of pain in your life and mine is God’s doing, and we ought to thank God for it, good and bad alike.

You can believe that if you like, but I think it’s absolute rot. I do not believe that God causes us pain to teach us spiritual lessons. It is true that God teaches us spiritual lessons through our pain, because God always works to produce good from bad. But God does not micromanage our lives, and God is no more a masochist than Paul is.

There is one place where Paul appears to say that we ought to give thanks for everything. That’s Ephesians 5:20, but I think here he’s talking about giving thanks for everything for which we ought to give thanks – that is, everything that’s good.

I think that’s the attitude he shows elsewhere. In Colossians 3:16, he says: “With gratitude in your hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” In Philippians 4:6, he says, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

I think the best statement about gratitude comes from James the brother of Jesus. In James 1:17, he says: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…”

Every good and perfect gift is from above. The bad stuff comes from elsewhere. The good is a gift from God. Or, as Amy Grant says in her song titled “Hope Set High,” “When it all comes down, if there’s anything good that happens in life, it’s from Jesus.”

For sure, 2020 has been a crummy year. God may yet work some good from it, as God works for good in all circumstances. But overall this has not been a good year. Can we still say “thanks” on Thursday? Yes! Because we truly have so much to be thankful for. If nothing else, we have so far survived this crummy year. And because we have survived, we have learned that we can still give God praise, even in the midst of difficulty.

O give thanks to the Lord, for God is great and God is good, and God’s love endures forever. And if anything good happens in our lives, it comes from Jesus.

Amen.

This Sunday was delivered remotely on November 22, 2020, the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Incarnation: Messiah and King

The King is coming!

That’s the theme of Advent. The word Advent means “coming.” Advent is our season of preparation for the coming of Jesus. It’s a three-dimensional season. Its three dimensions are past, present and future.

First, we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. That was 2,000 years ago, and we’re still celebrating. Second, we pray for the spirit of Christ to be reborn in us today, both as we prepare to celebrate his birth and – this is that third dimension – as we look forward to that day when he will return to establish his kingdom in full.

Three dimensions: First Coming, rebirth in us today, Second Coming.

So often we celebrate the First Coming with gusto but somehow miss having Christ reborn in us – and, as to his Second Coming, we either ignore the possibility altogether or we focus so closely on it that we lose all contact with our present reality.

A truly three-dimensional Advent balances all three. We want to celebrate that event in Bethlehem two millennia ago, but we also want to make room in our hearts for Jesus to be reborn today, and we want to stay open to the possibility of his return at any moment, aware that we cannot know that moment ahead of time.

We sure need Advent and the promise of Christmas right now, don’t we?

Have you noticed? Even before Thanksgiving, a lot of people put up their outdoor Christmas lights and had them blazing away every night. We need those lights to shine hope into the darkness of our days and nights.

Think of all that has happened in the last month alone. On Nov. 1, we turned the clocks back an hour. I’m still not used to it being dark at 5 o’clock. The nights seem so long already! Is that what lies ahead this winter?

Two days after changing the clocks, we had local, state and national elections. But our current president, whom some call the sorest loser in American history, still insists that he won, still insists on sowing chaos and discord in everything he does.

As if we didn’t have enough of that already, thanks to the global pandemic! Strangely, some people still deny its reality. Yet more than 261,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 or its complications, and the toll of infection and death continues to spiral ever higher.

So many of us just celebrated Thanksgiving without seeing beloved family members, and we wonder if Christmas will be the same. And because Thanksgiving falls so late this year, Christmas will be upon us even faster than usual. Our life today is like riding a roller coaster that keeps speeding up!

Don’t you think it’s about time for our King to make an appearance? Don’t you think it’s high time for our Savior to show up? Don’t you think it’s the right time for the Light of the World to shine his light brightly over all creation?

Our King is coming! We know that. We place our trust in that promise. But are we ready for it? Not likely. Advent is the time we have to get ready.

Our guide to Advent this year is Adam Hamilton’s book titled Incarnation. Sadly, we won’t be able to offer a small group study of it, but I will try to represent it fairly in my messages, though you know I’ll go my own way when I feel prompted.

What does it mean to say that Jesus is God incarnate? How does God become embodied, enfleshed, in Jesus? How is Jesus both divine and human? Ultimately, Adam says, the how is a mystery. It’s something beyond our comprehension. Yet we can celebrate the mystery of how while we explore the why of it. Why would God come to us as Jesus? What is God’s purpose in doing this?

Adam explores these questions in terms of seven titles given to Jesus in the Bible. The first two are Messiah and King.

We call Jesus the Christ. What does that mean? Christ is the English version of christos, which is the Greek version of the Hebrew word mashiach, or Messiah.

Mashiach Yeshua, we say – Christ Jesus, or Messiah Jesus.

Messiah means God’s Anointed One. In the Hebrew Bible, both priests and kings are anointed with oil as a sign of commissioning to their office by God.

You may remember the story from 1 Samuel chapter 16. God sends the prophet Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the new king of Israel. One by one, seven of Jesse’s sons pass by, and each time God tells Samuel, “Nope, not him.”

Finally Samuel asks Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And Jesse says, “Well, there’s the youngest one. He’s out keeping the sheep.” “Fetch him now,” Samuel says. And God tells the prophet, “Anoint him. He’s the one.” And, our narrator says, “the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:1-13).

David became Israel’s greatest king. He was the standard against whom all later kings were judged and found to be deficient. Yet God promised that one greater than David would one day rule Israel, and David’s throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:16).

The prophet Jeremiah writes: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David” (Jeremiah 23:5).

Jesus is that righteous branch. He is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks: “A child has been born for us, a son given to us. Authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

It is really hard for us to imagine a king, let alone a king of peace. Happily, our experience with kings and other strongmen is mostly second-hand. But we’ve seen the damage they do in other countries. How would you like to live under the rule of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, or Kim in North Korea, or Putin in Russia?

The Jews of Jesus’ day wished for an ideal king, but what specific ideals he would embody were widely debated. Some wanted a military hero like David who could free his people from domination by the Romans. Some wanted a poet and philosopher like David, someone who was close to God’s heart, as David was said to be, and would lead his people to spiritual freedom, if not political freedom as well.

Jesus could not fulfill all expectations, and he did not even try. As Adam says in his book, he didn’t campaign for lower taxes, more jobs and a chicken in every pot. He never promised to make Israel great again.

He stayed true to himself and to his Heavenly Father. He avoided flawed human conceptions of power and authority. He spoke of welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick. And for these things he had to die, because he was a Messiah nobody wanted.

In Advent, we prepare to welcome him as our King. But before we do that we need to get something straight in our heads. Jesus is King, and no other.

Adam says that Advent puts all our political wrangling into perspective. “Whatever Christians think about their president,” he says, “and whoever we voted for in the various elections, we are meant to know that there is only one King. It is to him we give our highest allegiance.”

He continues: “Advent beckons all who consider themselves Christians – regardless of whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians or Independents – to come to the stable and there fall on our knees as the shepherds surely did, yielding our allegiances, our hearts and our will to the newborn king.”

Jesus is king, and Jesus alone. No president is, or ever can be our king, and no president can ever claim our highest allegiance.

We hear a lot about “Christian nationalism” these days. It’s an idolatrous mixing of loyalties. There is no such thing as Christian nationalism because elevating nation above all else is simply not Christian.

“Follow me,” Jesus says. That’s all he asks, and he does ask all. If Jesus is not first in your life, you’re not a follower of Jesus.

If you are American first and Christian second, you’re not Christian. If you are Republican first and Christian second, you’re not Christian. If you are Democrat first and Christian second, you’re not Christian. If you are anything first and Christian second, you may be a something but you’re not Christian.

If your highest loyalty is not to Christ your King, then you’re a traitor to Christ. You cannot claim Christ as king if you serve any other master. For, as Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. You’ll always hate the one and love the other. You’ll be devoted to one and despise the other. (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13)

Now do you better appreciate what it means to say Christ is my King?

Our King is coming! That’s what this Advent season is all about. Our King is coming. He came once, he is coming again today in our hearts, and one day he will return. Our King is coming. His name is Mashiach Yeshua, Messiah Jesus, Christ Jesus, King Jesus.

He’s our King. He’s the only King we’ll ever need. He’s the only true King we’ll ever have. If he’s not your King today, I invite you to make him so. Lift up Jesus as your King. Welcome to new life. Welcome to true life. And on this first Sunday of Advent, we say, Maranatha, come King Jesus!

Amen.

This message was delivered remotely November 29, 2020, on the First Sunday of Advent.

To Hell and Back

Even before it was an Audie Murphy war movie or a Maven Morris country song, the phrase “to hell and back” had a certain meaning: “I’ve been to hell and back, and I survived, so don’t mess with me.”

Well, I’ve been to the gates of hell, not to mention the battlefield at end of the world, and I’ve lived to tell the story. My story is part travelogue, part history, part geography, and all gospel, though maybe not the distorted gospel that you may be used to hearing.

Before we go to hell, let’s go to the site of what some people think is the battle at the end of the world. It’s mentioned once by name in the book of Revelation (16:16). It’s Armageddon. In Hebrew, that’s Har-Megeddon. It means Mount of Megiddo.

Trouble is, there is no mount at Megiddo. There are several mountains visible in the distance, but the ancient city of Megiddo is on a large flat plain. The only mountain here is a tell, a pile of ruined cities 20 or more deep. Why would anyone think that a decisive battle would be fought here?

This is where geography comes in. Here’s a map of the ancient Near East showing the Fertile Crescent. This is where human civilization begins because here the conditions are right for large-scale agriculture.

The fertile crescent stretches from the Nile Valley in Egypt to the fertile lands around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia. At both ends of the crescent, great kingdoms flourish – Egypt to the south and to the east Sumer and Babylon and Assyria and Persia.

As they grow larger and jostle with their neighbors, these kingdoms often clash. They have no common border, only some space in between that’s occupied by a small kingdom called Israel. When they come to Israel to fight each other, they follow a road along the Mediterranean Sea called the Via Maris, the Way of the Sea.

The road is guarded by the fortress city of Megiddo, shown here by a red dot. Given its location, Megiddo is of great strategic value to any superpower in the Mideast.

Thutmose III and The Battle of Megiddo – Battle of Megiddo Facts

It is said that more battles have been fought here than at any other place in the world – 34 battles, by one estimate. The earliest recorded major battle in history took place here. About 1,500 years before the time of Christ, Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt led 1,000 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers to a decisive victory over a coalition of Canaanite armies.

That was just the beginning. Joshua attacked Megiddo during the Israelite conquest of the Holy Land. Israelite heroes Gideon and Barak and Deborah fought major battles here. Israelite kings Solomon and Ahab built up the city’s fortifications. Israelite kings Ahaziah and Josiah died in battles here. Napoleon fought here in 1799, and remarked that it was a splendid place for a battle. British Gen. Edmund Allenby defeated the Turks here in 1917. Israelis used it as a base during the war of 1948.

Twenty times the city was built, and 20 times it was destroyed and rebuilt, one city on top of another. One day people said, “Enough. It’s just not safe to live here.” By the time of Jesus, Megiddo was a ghost town. But it was a symbol of great battles – a symbol like the Alamo, like Waterloo, like the beaches of Dunkirk and Normandy.

Today it’s a popular tourist destination. Here are a few photos from my trips there. The tell is an oval covering about 15 acres at the top. It rises 70 feet from ground level. The ruins of 20 cities are compacted into that 70 feet. You begin your ascent along an ancient stairway.

From the top you can see the vast plain of the Jezreel Valley and the mountains beyond. Jezreel means “God sows.” The Jezreel Valley is a vast and bountiful cropland. The road at the base of the photo here follows the route of the ancient Via Maris, the Way of the Sea.

You can see the ruins of the stables where a thousand or more horses could be kept, and some of their stone feeding boxes.

If you’re sure of foot and don’t mind enclosed spaces, you also take a stairway 120 feet down to a long horizontal tunnel leading to a spring. This secure water source is the reason Megiddo is where it is, and it was carefully protected from enemies who might try to block it during a siege.

Looking out over the Jezreel Valley where God sows, you can see why it was such a storied place, and perhaps understand why it’s favored as the site of a final epic battle in the book of Revelation.

Though the name is mentioned only once, the battle itself is mentioned several times in Revelation. That’s because Revelation is not, as is so often thought, a straightforward, continuous, narrative. It’s a narrative that circles back on itself several times to tell the same story over and over again from different viewpoints.

And the reference to a final battle is not necessarily to be taken literally. In fact, very little in Revelation should be taken at face value. It’s all symbolic. That’s what John of Patmos announces in the very first verse of his account. He says that God made everything known to him through symbols. God “signified” the message to him, the best translation says – that is, relayed it through signs and symbols.

If you read Revelation carefully, you’ll notice how carefully John says that what he sees in his visions are “like” this or that. Not that they are this or that, but that they are like them. They are symbols of reality, but not literally that reality.

Though Revelation mentions it by name in chapter 16, the battle at Armageddon isn’t narrated until chapter 19. The armies of evil line up against the armies of good led by Jesus on a white horse – but there is no battle. Jesus simply declares victory. There’s evidence of a great slaughter, but no battle. Jesus conquers by the sword of his mouth, the sword of his word.

Whatever it may mean for the future, this story has a personal meaning for all of us. Armageddon is symbolic of all battles between good and evil that we all fight every day. Armageddon isn’t just a battle at the end of time. It’s an everyday battle of everyday people. God wins when we recognize that Jesus is on our side, and any victory belongs to him.

Now it’s time for us to go to hell. I’ve been there, too. Well, to the outskirts of it, anyway – the gates of it, you might say.

The word “hell” does not appear in the Bible. It may appear in your Bible, and if it does, it’s because of a serious mistranslation. I don’t care how many sermons you’ve heard about hell from fire-breathing preachers, the word “hell” was invented long after the Bible was written.

Jesus never said a word about hell – not one word. What Jesus refers to several times is Gehenna. That’s a way of saying the Valley of Hinnom. It’s one of the many valleys in and around Jerusalem.

Here’s a photo of what it looks like today – a rather pleasant place, don’t you think? This is as close as I’ve gotten, and as close as most tourist guides will take you. But there’s a small part of the valley that has been cursed for thousands of years.

On a narrow ledge above a rock cliff is the Convent of Onuphrious. It was built in 1892 on the site of the Akeldama, the Field of Blood. It’s called that because it was purchased with the blood money paid to Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus.

Judas hanged himself here. Originally a field where potters dug for clay, it became the burial ground for those who had no one to bury them.

The place was cursed a long time before that. Down in the valley below was Topheth, where children were burned to death as a sacrifice to pagan deities.

How do you remember a thing like that without honoring the memory of it? It’s a question we ask ourselves today when we think about the horrors of slavery in this country and statues honoring those who fought to maintain slavery.

The great reformer King Josiah knew how to mark the memory of murderous idolatry. Before he got himself killed in a battle at Megiddo, Josiah turned this place into a garbage dump. This is, as Jesus later said, the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where “the worm never dies and the fire never goes out” (Matthew 8:12, Mark 9:48).

Got some refuse that you need to dispose of? Haul it to the ledge over the Valley of Hinnom. Over it goes! Got some sewage you don’t want to pour out in the street? Take it to Gehenna, and over it goes! Got a corpse you don’t want to bury? Off to Gehenna, and over it goes!

That’s probably what happened to the bodies of the two criminals who were executed with Jesus. It’s probably what would have happened to Jesus’ body as well, if Joseph of Arimathea hadn’t sought permission to bury it. This is also where the bodies of thousands of residents of Jerusalem were thrown after the Romans destroyed the city 40 years later.

Gehenna was a horrible place with a horrible reputation. I have some friends who were stationed in Japan while in the military. They say Tokyo once had – may still have, for all I know – a burning dump like Gehenna, and when the wind is in the wrong direction, life us, uh, hell.

The fire has gone out, but Gehenna is still a nasty place today – almost impossible to get to, guarded by a tall chain-link fence, and a depository for filth from the cliff above.

This is where you’re bound, Jesus says, if you call someone a fool. This is where you’re bound if you don’t rid yourself of a hand or a foot or an eye that causes you to sin. Don’t fear those who can merely kill your body, he says. Rather, fear God, who can toss your body and your spirit into fiery Gehenna. (Matthew 5.22, Mark 9:43-47, Matthew 10:28.)

Jesus often speaks in colorful, exaggerated metaphors, and sometimes it’s hard to know how literally to take him. One thing’s for sure. Whether it happens in this life or the next, you don’t want to go to Gehenna.

Sometime a few hundred years after Jesus, the idea of Gehenna got mixed up with pagan notions of Hades and Tartarus, and we wound up with the notion that when you die you either go to heaven or to a place of everlasting torment that’s called hell.

As I said, hell isn’t in the Bible. If you’ve ever heard a sermon about hell, probably very little of it came from the Bible. Probably most of it came from The Inferno. That’s a vivid and perverse 14th-century epic poem by Dante Alighieri. Many pastors preach Dante thinking it’s the Bible. It’s not. Many pastors use the notion of hell to scare people into faith. That’s theological and pastoral malpractice.

Like Armageddon, Gehenna is a metaphor for a spiritual reality. We condemn ourselves to Gehenna and live in outer darkness when we fail to love as we were made to love.

We could talk about that a lot more, and maybe will somebody, but now it’s time to bring to a close this travelogue that’s a lesson in history, geography and gospel.

Have you heard the gospel in it?

Don’t you know that the armies of good and evil march with you every day, and the place where you struggle is called Armageddon? Don’t you know that bad decisions can

And don’t you know that the key to victory is keeping your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1)?

Well, now you know. Don’t say you haven’t been told.

This message was delivered November 15, 2020 at Edgerton United Methodist Church in Edgerton, Kansas. After four months of in-person worship, the church now closes until at last the end of the year because of a surge in coronavirus infection in our area.

Event Horizon

Unsure of the outcome of the election and unsure of what to say in any case, I turned to the lectionary for guidance on what to preach about today. The lectionary is a list of carefully chosen texts that guides many preachers week after week. I find its chief value is that it keeps you on track with the progress of the Christian year.

The start of the season of Advent is still several weeks away, but this is very much an Advent text because it speaks of the coming, or advent, of Jesus. Specifically, it speaks of the Parousia of Jesus, what we often call the Second Coming of Jesus.

It’s significant that this is one of the earliest writings in the New Testament. Paul first writes to the church at Thessalonica somewhere around the year 50, or only about 20 years after the death of Jesus. Expectation is high that Jesus will return any day, and believers in this Greek port city have a concern.

Some of their loved ones have died since giving their hearts to Jesus. Does this mean they’ll miss out when Jesus returns? Because they have died before Jesus returns, will they miss the benefits of resurrection life that he brings with him on his return?

Paul writes to reassure them about their hope for eternal life. He doesn’t want them to grieve like those who have no hope. You have great hope, he says. You need to understand that when Jesus returns, he’ll bring with him all who have died trusting in him.

I’m not just making this up, Paul is quick to say. This is an authoritative teaching. This is “a message from the Lord.” How Paul received this message, he doesn’t say. But he’s confident to say that it comes from Jesus.

He’s also confident that he’ll be around to see it. He speaks of “we who are alive and still around at the Lord’s coming.” Paul is sure he’ll be alive to witness this Second Coming.

This is how it will happen, he says. The Lord will descend from heaven with a shout from God’s top-ranking angel and a blast from God’s trumpet. Those who have died in Christ will rise from the dead. We who are living will be taken up with them into the clouds to meet with the Lord in the air. Thereafter we will always be with him.

Knowing that this Advent is truly coming, we should not only feel encouraged as individuals, Paul says, but we should actively encourage one another. These are encouraging words, but they are easily misinterpreted, and they have been frequently and greatly misinterpreted, especially in the last 200 years.

Note, first, that this passage is not about anybody going to heaven. This is about heaven coming down to us on earth. This is about Jesus returning to earth and bringing heaven with him.

In other words, this is no Rapture. The Rapture is a purely fictional event in which believers are secretly zapped up to heaven so they’ll escape some coming tribulation. Note that Paul speaks of no coming tribulation and no zapping up to heaven. What he says is that when Jesus comes down from heaven, we will meet him and be with him forever.

That’s why we call it the Second Coming. It’s the second time he comes to earth. But he doesn’t take people back to heaven with him. He stays on earth, as Emmanuel, God with us, forever.

The Rapture, the notion that we’re zapped up to heaven secretly, is a story that was cut from the whole cloth in 1830 by a one-time Anglican priest named John Nelson Darby. His teachings are followed today in Dispensationalist, or “Left Behind” teachings. Sadly, those teachings have infected a lot of otherwise sound minds.

Funny thing about this “secret” Rapture. If there’s a shout from God’s top-ranking angel and a blast from God’s trumpet, how can anyone miss that? How can anyone sleep through all that noise? There can be no bumper sticker saying, “In case of Rapture, wake me up.” The noise of Jesus’ return will be tremendous. You won’t be sleeping throuogh it.

This passage offers no notion of anyone leaving or anyone being left behind. What we have here is a very loud and hard-to-miss event that Paul describes as a Parousia. What’s a Parousia? In first-century thinking, it’s the celebration that happens when the emperor or a king or some other high authority comes to town.

The king arrives in a colorful parade, with an impressive entourage. He rides a magnificent white horse or maybe a chariot pulled by four magnificent white horses. Trumpets blare and soldiers march in precision formation. The whole city goes out to view the spectacle and to cheer and welcome the king, then follow him into the heart of the city for a big party.

That’s the kind of thing Paul envisions, only he stages it in the clouds. When Jesus returns, he says, we’ll all go out to meet him and welcome him home to stay. You don’t have to take Paul’s imagery literally to understand or accept what he’s saying. It will be a celebration like no other.

Talk of meeting Jesus “in the clouds” is familiar picture language. Throughout the Old Testament, when God makes a spectacular appearance similar to what happens in this scene, God does not ride a two-wheeled chariot pulled by horses, or anything like it. God rides the clouds.

During his mock “trial” before the religious authorities, when the high priest asks Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus answers, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62-62).

Again, it’s stereotyped language not meant to be taken literally. It’s unlikely that the high priest ever did see Jesus seated at the right hand of God or coming with the clouds. But he understands perfectly well what Jesus means by saying that he will, and he is outraged. God rides the clouds. Here humans don’t.

In fact, Paul got the timing all wrong. He was sure Jesus would return in his lifetime. It didn’t happen, at least in the way Paul thought about. Jesus is with us today, not in physical form but in a form that Paul knew about, the form of the Holy Spirit. Read Acts chapter 2 for the story of the Spirit’s Parousia at Pentecost. There were plenty of wind and fire pyrotechnics on that day to announce the Lord’s coming.

In many ways, we are like those believers in the church at Thessalonica. We believe Jesus is coming someday. We are encouraged by Paul’s assurances that it will be a great event. But we have no clue as to when it will happen, and we’re really not too sure what will happen when it does.

Sure, lots of people say they know when it’s going to happen, and they’re mistaken. Lots of people also say they know precisely what’s coming next, and they’re most likely mistaken, too.

In physics there’s something called an event horizon. When you approach a black hole in space, you near a horizon that once you cross, there’s no going back. Beyond this horizon is nothing. There are no more events. Beyond this point, everything gets sucked into the black hole. Even light disappears.

Many people think that death is an event horizon, beyond which there is nothing. Believers in Christ, though, know that the horizon of death is like any other horizon we are familiar with.

When you watch a ship sail out to sea, it gets smaller and smaller and then, in an instant, it pops over the rim and disappears. It’s still there, but you can’t see it anymore. Same thing with a sharp corner in a forest or the mountains. When a car goes around the corner, you can’t see it anymore. It’s still there. It’s just gone around the corner. Same thing when a door closes, or you just can’t see beyond it for some reason. Death is not the end. There is an event beyond the horizon of death. We just can’t see it from here.

Heaven isn’t the end, either. Heaven is the abode of God. It’s where God “lives,” to use language that’s very misleading because God actually “lives” everywhere, not just in one place.

Heaven may be where we go immediately or shortly after death, but it’s not our final destination. Our final destination is resurrection life. That’s life after we are resurrected – after we are raised from our graves, as Paul describes in this passage.

After Jesus returns, we’ll be with him forever, here on earth – or, as the book of Revelation says, on a transformed earth. We can’t imagine what such life would be like, and I think that’s just fine. Our imaginations are often outrageous but altogether too limited when it comes to such things.

As Paul says in Ephesians 3:20, God is “able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” Whatever you can ask or imagine, it’s not good enough. Whatever you can ask or imagine, God can do better. Whatever you can ask or imagine, God will do better.

So don’t worry about when it’s going to happen. Jesus will return in God’s own good time, and God doesn’t need you to waste time and effort speculating on when it’s going to happen. Just know that it will happen. When you approach that horizon called death, know that there is something beyond. And one day Jesus will return across that horizon, riding the clouds in triumph. We will all hail his return, and we will be with him forever and ever.

Amen.

This message was delivered November 8, 2020, at Edgerton United Methodist Church, from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.