Trinity Blog

Psalm 46

To the leader. Of the Korahites. According to Alamoth. A Song.

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
³ though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
⁵ God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
    God will help it when the morning dawns.
⁶ The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
⁷ The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

⁸ Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations,
    I am exalted in the earth.”
¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

2021 is not looking any better.  I said this to myself yesterday as I heard reports of violence at the very seat of American government.  We endured in 2020 the pandemic and must endure more in 2021.  We endured economic turmoil in ‘20 and ‘21 seems to include more of the same.  We endured political upheaval in ’20 with a summer of protests, riots and the blame game and as I stared at the news feed on my phone, I thought to myself, ’21 is not looking any better than ’20.  I feel sick in my stomach, my anxieties about the future cause my hands to shake, I find myself continuously affixed to the news to see what else can go wrong and in particularly the way things are going, I am expecting Godzilla to show up or the Zombie Apocalypse.  I am worried and filled with fear in such an uncertain time as this.

This is the soil into which the Word of God spoke this morning and the Word spoken is this, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore, we will not fear.  The Psalmist sung those words to the people of Israel in a time when the very cities were threatened with destruction, calamity, and upheaval.  While the anxiety and worry were quite palpable and the abyss of stress and uncertainty unfathomable, the Psalmist plants a different idea into the ground of fear: faith.  The Psalmist does not deny the reality of confusion and helplessness, nor the uncertainty and powerless, the Psalmist inserts God into that reality.  Into the worries of their time, God is the refuge amid calamities.  Into the impotency of national politics and insurrection, God is the greater strength than rebellion or protest.  Into the helplessness and overwhelming losses, God is the present help in time of trouble.  In the face of sorrow and fear, the Psalmist plants the faithfulness and power of God.

For the nation of Israel one of the greatest threats was the natural disaster: the changing earth, the mountains shaking in the heart of the sea, the waters roaring and foaming, the mountains trembling.  This was the daily reality of the people, the uncontrollable aspects of creation. We too in the modern age have the uncontrollable aspects of creation.  The record setting number of hurricanes this past season, the eruption of volcanoes, the polar vortexes, thirty-two inches of snow and global warming.  But amid the uncontrollable forces of creation, we are reminded that the City of God is not going to be moved, because God is stronger than the hurricane.  God is amid the city, what volcano can obliterate the God who created the volcano.? The river of God makes the city glad, what global warming can evaporate the Life of God?  God will help the City of God when the morning dawns upon it, what virus can dawn upon the creation, that can overpower the Might of God?  Creation can certainly take life away, but what can rival or threaten the One who rose again from the dead?

But the other great threat for the nation of Israel was the political disaster.  The nation of Israel and its people were always under the boot of another greater country: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, the Barbarians, the Turks, the Mongols, et. al.  Into oppression and occupation, invaders and infiltrators, coups and new regimes, the Psalmist sings, the nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totters.  Well, America is certainly in an uproar, and America is certainly tottering.  But, amid them, the City of God is not moved, because the LORD of hosts is with us the God of Jacob is our refuge.  What army can vanquish God’s army?  What mob can annihilate God’s host?  What nation or kingdom can match or equal the Kingdom of God and God’s Messiah?  Nation or kingdom can certainly invade and destroy, but what can rival or threaten the One who sits on the throne of God’s Kingdom?

What war can creation make definitively against the One who makes wars cease to the end of the earth?  What weapons can be leveled against the One who breaks bows, shatter spears and burns shields with fire?  What power exists in creation that equals God in power or is greater in strength than the strength of God?  If the answer is nothing, then have some faith in God.  Trust that all things work out for God’s purposes.  Trust that you and your families are in good hands.  Trust that God will bring you through this difficult time.  Trust that our country and its institutions and purposes are under the capable Guidance and Governorship of Christ.  Be still and know that God is God, and you do not have to be!  Let this iron brick of anxiety be moved from our stomachs.  Let the peace of Christ calm the tremors in our hands.  Let the assurance of faith wash over our futures.  Let the faithfulness and love of God almighty move us to exalt God among the nations and in all the earth.  Let the ground of our fears be planted deeply and richly with the Word of Faith; and grow some faith to counter your fears!

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we have much that troubles us, but our God is greater still than them all.  Let us then not surrender our hearts and minds to the devil’s antics but let us instead surrender our hearts and minds to the Word of our God.  Let our fears be planted with faith in the Word of God and let us rest in and under the One who is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble.  Amen. 

Scripture

Luke 1: 57-66
⁵⁷ Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. ⁵⁸ Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

⁵⁹ On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. ⁶⁰ But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” ⁶¹ They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” ⁶² Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. ⁶³ He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. ⁶⁴ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. ⁶⁵ Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. ⁶⁶ All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

Devotion
There is no possible way that I am a father of a sixteen-year-old.  These are the thoughts and feelings rummaging around in my head as I write this blog.  Today is my son’s sixteenth birthday.  Sixteen years, where did that come from?  Where did they go?  Last time I looked we were teaching him how to walk and write letters, now I must teach him to drive, I do not think so.  I sit here in disbelief, that the reality staring at me in the face is that I am a middle-aged father of a coming-of-age young man.  My jaw is now firmly on the floor in incredulity and denial.  Disbelief.

So too was Zechariah in disbelief.  His problem was not that he has an almost adult child, his problem was that he had no children and he and his wife Elizabeth were beyond the childbearing age.  So, when the angel Gabriel tells him he is going to have a Son who will return the people to God and prepare the way for God’s Messiah, Zechariah cannot and will not believe it.  His response is not one of acceptance that God can create as God’s good pleasure and will choose, his response is one of astonishment that certainly two old people cannot make a baby.  Unlike Mary who will graciously accept the Word of God, Zechariah mentally rejects that same Word of God as something completely impossible and untrue.  Where did this come from?  How could that happen?  I do not think so.  Disbelief.

We all have a little Zechariah, or perhaps a lot, inside of us.  We hear the Word of God and instead of accepting it like Mary, we reject it like Zechariah.  There is no way that God could make me into a saint.  There is no way that God could forgive me.  There is no way that I could learn a new way of life.  There is no way that I am a sinner.  There is no way that the Word became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.  There is no way that that Jesus rose again from the dead.  There is no way that….  We are after all living in the world of the scientific method, where miracles are excluded due their unprovability, where reason reigns as Lord over creation, where mathematics, physics and history have theorems and laws that must be respected and believed in more so than the power and good pleasure of the Word of God to re-create and to rule.  Disbelief like Zechariah instead of faith like Mary.

However, the Word of God is more than capable not only of enabling Elizabeth and Mary to conceive but also of enabling of Zechariah and us of believing.  For Zechariah, the method of teaching him the power and good pleasure of the Word of God is the curse of being unable to speak.  Until the day of the baby’s circumcision, Zechariah cannot speak.  Until the day, that Zechariah acknowledges the Word of God spoken to him, that Elizabeth will conceive a son, and that Son has s Godly destiny prepared by God and for God.  Until Zechariah believes and accepts the Word of God by naming the baby “Yohanan”, which means “God has shown favor” in Hebrew, Zechariah cannot speak.  His muteness is teaching him that God can do anything God chooses to do.  The important lesson is that the God through God’s Word can and does teach and transform Zechariah into a believer.  At the end he gets it, by believing in God like Mary believes in God, and he not only talks again, but gives God words of praise instead of denial. Faith.

Can the Word of God not do the same for us?  Do we not have the same lesson to learn?  Will God not also succeed?  The answer is always yes.  We might be like Zechariah, but the Word of God can and does change us from disbelieving “Zechariah’s” into believing “Mary’s.”  The tool of that creating and transforming Word of God, is the testimony about the miracles of God, the written and spoken Word of God.  We read of miracles of speaking people becoming mute and speaking again, all at the Word’s behest and will.  We read of miracles about barren women, conceiving, carrying, birthing, nursing, and circumcising Sons of Destiny, all at the Word’s behest and will.  We read of miracles about the crucifixion and resurrection of that same Word of God made flesh, all at the behest and will of the same Word.  And the only possible result is the transformation of us from disbelief into saving and justifying faith: all because the Word wants to and can!

As we begin this Christmas Season Proper, perhaps we need to be reminded of the miraculous nature of God’s saving work, both in John and in Jesus.  But more than being reminded of the nature of Christmas miracles, we need to be reminded of the purpose of such things: to bring doubters and disbelievers into the sphere of the faithful elect.  The purpose of the miracles of Christmas is to change us from the skeptic into the disciple.  The Word of God did it in and to Zechariah, may the Word become flesh in Jesus Christ, do it in and to us.  This is a time of Christmas miracles, may the miracles of John and Jesus, lead to the miracle of faith in you and in me!  Amen. 

Prayer

Dear God of Grace and God of Glory, we praise you for the gift of miracles this Christmas Season.  Use the miraculous to create in us not only a sense of awe and respect for your creative power but use them to create in us the same acceptance and belief that Zechariah and Elizabeth and Joseph and Mary had by being miraculous parents of the Sons of Destiny.  By the power of your Word become flesh, help our flesh to believe and accept your will for our lives.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. 

Mark 1: 1-8

¹ The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

² As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
      See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
            who will prepare your way;
      ³ the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
  ‘         ‘prepare the way of the Lord,
            make his paths straight,’”

⁴ John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸ I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Devotion
I like to bake.  Whether the result is a pie or cookies, I enjoy the entire process of baking.  But any good baker, which I do not consider myself to be, will tell you that before you begin baking, you must first prepare things.  You must first find a recipe, then you must purchase or root through your pantry to find the flour and sugar, then you must determine if you have the right equipment, a mixer, the right pan, and utensils.  Only then after the ingredients are present, the mixer has the beaters in, the oven is pre-heated, then you can crack the eggs, scoop the flour, and soften the butter.  To be a good baker is to be good in the preparations.

Just as it is with baking needing preparations, so too is it with the coming of Christ.  Before the coming of Christ, preparations need to be made.  In the Gospel of Mark, the book begins with a beginning, and we are told that the Gospel is going to be about the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  This is the pie that is going to be created, but it is not a delicious pumpkin pie, the work that is begun is God’s work of salvation in his only beloved Son, Jesus Christ.  But like a pie, preparations need to be made, before the work proper can begin.  In this case, that work is not the purchasing of ingredients or the warming of the oven, but the preparations made by John the Baptist.

Mark uses the prophet Isaiah to characterize the work of the Baptist in preparation: See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; ³ the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John’s work of preparation is about speaking a message.  The preparer is a messenger with a message to be messaged in the wilderness.  The road of the Lord is be straight because the Lord is coming.  In a sense, John’s message is to begin some “roadwork.”  The crooked roads are to be graded straight.  The hilly roads are to be paved flat, the potholes to be filled in.  So, God will have an easy path to get to his people.  The people were to make God’s road or “way” easy, so God had no obstacles in reaching and arriving at his destination, the people.

We can imagine the people putting up orange barrels, firing up the bulldozer to grade the rough places smooth and a backhoe to fill in the holes, and even the paver putting down miles of blacktop followed by the roller to smooth things out.  But the roadwork John calls the people to do is not a literal road, but a metaphorical one.  The pathway is not a spatial path, but a spiritual path.  The path is not from Babylon to Canaan, the path is from Heaven to the human heart.  The distance to be covered is not a location to another location, but a spiritual distance to be covered from a heart far away from God to a heart filled by God.  That is the road the people were to pave, to make the journey easy for God to come back to his people, to come closer to the human heart.

Perhaps, this explains why John transforms the preparing the way of the Lord to a repentance towards the forgiveness of sins.  The exile was not a literal distance from God to people, but a spiritual distance from people towards God.  People leave God, exiling themselves from God’s presence and lordship.  To symbolize the returning of God to the people, John reminds the people, that to confirm the returning of God, the people need to return to God.  The hill that needs to be brought low is human rebellion.  The hole that needs filled in is idolatry.  The curve that needs straightened is self-determination.  The slavery that needs abolished is of our own creation, a slavery to sin and death by our own daily choosing.  God will come and God will come to save, but our hearts need to be ready for such a gracious deliverance. 

As we make our final preparations for this Christmas season and for a new year, we also need to remember that in addition to getting more chocolate for that fudge, or another tube of wrapping paper, or mailing another card, we also need to do some preparations in our hearts to get them ready for Christ.  The road into our hearts needs some paving work: a little less guilt a little more forgiveness, a little less resistance, a little more acknowledgment, a little less self-concern a little more generosity, a little less despair a little more hope, a little less hate a little more love.  But perhaps the greatest roadwork that needs to be done, is our seasonal need to turn away from the world and ourselves and to repent or return to God.  To cease running away and closing ourselves off from God and to run towards and open ourselves to the coming one, Jesus Christ our Lord.  We all have some preparations to make for the coming of Christ we need more faith, more hope, and more love.  My friends, let the way to our hearts be made straight for the coming of the Son of God, to whom be the glory and praises of his people unto the ages of ages, Amen!

Prayer
O God of Grace and Glory, we thank you for the coming presence of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  In this time of anticipation and waiting for his arrival, help us to prepare ourselves for his coming.  Empty us of what is displeasing to you, change us to become more and more into your children, fill us with every good and perfect gift as we prepare ourselves for you.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.