Mary's Boy Child

Luke 2:1-7

Christmas is a time for music.  People who never sing find themselves singing along with the carols and songs being played on the radio or in the department stores.  

There’s a Christmas song you’re bound to hear that you won’t find in many hymnals.  No, it’s not Santa Claus Is Coming to Town or Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Those are not in any hymnals, I hope.  As best as I can determine, the song I’m talking about is found in only four hymnals. One of them is generically Evangelical, one is Church of England, one is Dutch Reformed, and one is from a fellowship in Singapore.  I guess that shows it has a fairly wide appeal even if it’s not found everywhere.

I’m talking about Mary’s Boy Child.

It was written by a man named Jester Hairston.  Jester was born in Atlanta in 1901, grew up in Pittsburgh, and briefly attended Julliard.  But he was bitten by the acting bug and headed off to Hollywood.  From 1936 to the late-1990s he stayed busy in movies and on TV, but it’s his music that we probably remember most, even if we never heard his name.  

Throughout his life he continued to lead choirs and write music.  In 1963, he wrote the song “Amen” that Sydney Poitier “sang” in Lilies of the Field; actually, Hairston sang it and it was dubbed for the scene.  A few years earlier, in 1956, he was asked by a friend to write a Christmas song.  He decided to give the song a Calypso beat.  So, he wrote Mary’s Boy Child.  The lively song was being sung by a choir when Harry Belafonte heard it.  He got permission to record it and the song became a hit.

I going to let that song guide my remarks this morning.  I’m not going to sing it, so you can relax but I’ll just kind of offer some observations.

The song begins simply

Long time ago in Bethlehem,

So the Holy Bible say,

Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ,

Was born on Christmas day,

We’ve heard that so much that we have become immune to the wonder of what it says.  At a particular time in history and at a particular place in this world, God acted.  When we look into “the Holy Bible,” we find that both Matthew and Luke are very specific about the time of Jesus’ birth.  

This was important because the earliest Christians saw those events as the culmination of promises God had given centuries before.  In time, one of the most-often creeds of the church would tie Jesus to real time-space history when it says Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” 

This tying Christ’s birth to history not only reminds us that God keeps his promises, it reminds us that God has not left us alone.  He is not a remote deity who is content to observe the messes we get ourselves into and then do nothing.  He is willing to act.  In fact, he is willing to enter history himself, to walk among us as one of us.

The song goes on…

Now, Joseph and his wife, Mary,

Come to bethlehem that night,

They found no place to bear her child,

Not a single room was in sight.

By and by, they find a little nook,

In a stable all forlorn,

And in a manger cold and dark,

Mary's little Boy was born!

When God entered our world, when he became one of us, he did not come to live in an opulent palace, he came to live as the Child in a peasant family.  Hairston depicts the announcement to the shepherds this way:  “Hark, now hear the angels sing,

A newborn King today….”  Have you ever thought of the mind-boggling message the angels gave the shepherds?  The angels said, “Today your Savior is born in the city  of David. He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you:You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger….” You can imagine the shepherds saying, “Excuse me.  Savior, manger.  That doesn’t make sense.”  Let’s face it, people who are going to change the world aren’t born in barns.  It’s just not the way it’s supposed to be.

Years after his birth, some of Jesus’ critics would sneer at his humble origins, discounting what he said because he was merely “Joseph’s son.”  One man who would become a follower, on being invited to meet Jesus, muttered a common prejudice, “He’s from Nazareth? What is he, some kind of hillbilly?  What good ever came out of Nazareth?”  Ok, that’s from the “reading between the lines” version.

The point is, he didn’t come to overwhelm us with his good looks, his wealth, his style; he impressed people with his goodness, integrity, and wisdom.  

There’s a phrase, not one I especially like, but admit to using:  “It is what it is.”  It was chosen as USA Today’s “cliche of the year” in 2004 but you still hear it.  Cliches often live long and prosper.  And, even when it goes unspoken, the idea is there.  Things are bad and they’re not going to change.   It suggests a spirit of helplessness and hopelessness.  And it’s contagious. I have Christian friends who cannot imagine any scenario in which the church does not become a meaningless relic of a far-off past, a dinosaur that makes no real difference in the world.  Actually, the dinosaurs help provide fodder for sci-fi movies.  The church, however, is not going to be so lucky.  Of course, that runs contrary to one of my fundamental truths for understanding the history of the church: It is always too soon to publish the church’s obituary.  

The message of the prophets’s could, at times, have been described as “ It is what it is but it won’t be forever.”

The birth of Mary’s Baby Boy made all the difference.

Did you hear President Obama’s speech at the lighting of the national Christmas tree?  In this time of political correctness, it was remarkable.  He spoke of Christ healing people, caring for the poor, and lifting up the outcasts, introducing his comments this way.

"More than 2,000 years ago, a child was born to two faithful travelers who could find rest only in a stable, among the cattle and the sheep. But this was not just any child. Christ’s birth made the angels rejoice and attracted shepherds and kings from afar. He was a manifestation of God’s love for us.”

Okay, he left out a lot and he did try to equate Christianity and other religions but what he did say could inspire a lot of discussion.  So could the refrain of Hairston’s simple song:

Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ,

Was born on Christmas day,

Hark, now hear the angels sing,

A newborn King today,

And man will live forevermore,

Because of Christmas day.

Trumpets sound and angels sing,

Listen to what they say,

That Man will live forevermore,

Because of Christmas day.

That refrain that you hear and may even tap your foot to, begs the question:  Why should the birth of any child have had that impact?

One of the most common complaints Christians make this time of year it that Christmas has become so secularized that we’ve forgotten about Christ.  So, every year some good people put signs on our buses that say “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.”  I’ve always thought that the average adult will say, “What’s your point.”  Knowing the historical origins of the Christmas holiday is not the same as understanding its significance for us.  

People who won’t go to a cantata or hear a Christmas sermon, will hear this peppy little song.  And it contains a seed of the gospel:  “Man will live forevermore, Because of Christmas day.”  We can pray, that somehow, someway people listening to the words might begin to ask “Why?”

Of course, “Mary’s Boy Child” leaves a lot of blanks.  It doesn’t touch on much beyond Bethlehem, the manger, and the shepherds.

When Pat suggested I take a look at this song, I discovered there was a later version sung by a Jamaican group, popular during the disco era, called Boney M.  For some reason, their version of the song has a little more theology in it.  I don't know why they felt the need for more theology but it's there.

Here’s how their version ends:

Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,

And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.

Mary's boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.

Oh a moment still worth was a glow, all the bells rang out

there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted

"let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace".

Oh my Lord

You sent your son to save us

Oh my Lord

Your very self you gave us

Oh my Lord

That sin may not enslave us

And love may reign once more 

Oh my Lord

when in the crib they found him

Oh my Lord

A golden halo crowned him

Oh my Lord

They gathered all around him

To see him and adore

Did you hear those words?  If they don’t fill in the blanks, they open the way to discuss the “why” of Christ’s Birth.

“You sent your Son to save us.”  Save us from what?

“Your very self you gave us.” What does that say about the identity of that Child?  How would he give himself?

“That sin might not enslave us.”  What is sin?  How did the Child born on Christmas deal with sin?

“They gathered all around him/to see him and adore.”  Why should we adore him?  What does that mean for how we are to live?

And don’t miss this:

…all the bells rang out

there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted

"let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace".

That’s a great image: Excited people dashing about telling about Mary’s Baby Boy.  It just seems right.  It’s a story worth telling—at least we think so.  Luke says the shepherds overflowed with excitement about what they had seen.  We can’t imagine anyone telling the shepherds to hush because they might offend someone.  Or can we?

Because we can’t put Nativity scenes on the court house lawn, because our children enjoy “winter” break not Christmas break, because our elected officials must temper any good word about Christ with an equally good word about any other religious leader, we think we have been silenced.

But this little song that has found a home in so few hymnals, can be a starting place.  Actually, my point is if we want to “let everyone know,” we can find a way.  

There’s a great little phrase in Mark 7:24 in the Authorized Version.  It tells of how Jesus had sought privacy in a home near the border of Tyre and Sidon.  Then Mark adds, “…but he could not be hid.”

The only way people around us will miss the point about Christmas is if we forget to tell them that we may “live forevermore because of Christmas day.”

Of course, it’s important for me to ask if you somehow may have missed the point of Christmas.

So, ask yourself:  Have I received God’s Gift?  If you haven’t, there’s no better time to accept his offer of life.

New Song

I did not post a sermon this week because our choir presented a special Christmas concert on Sunday.  It was a delightful celebration of the message of Christ’s Advent.

The theme was “Christmas Around the World.”  We heard songs from Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.  Our church has a special relationship with the Filipino Christian Fellowship that meets at our site to worship and study the Bible.  The group joins us each Sunday for a joint worship service.  This year they joined our choir for part of the concert, singing what was a new song to most of us.

The Fellowship choir presented a Christmas song popular in the Philippines, especially since the nation suffered such damage in recent days.  It's called Tuloy Na Tuloy Parin Ang Pasko.  They sang in Tagalog, providing a written translation for us to follow.

The first stanza of the song, says:

When Christmas comes, it makes me wonder why,

Everyone’s is irritable being caught up with the holiday rush.

Not so sure about giving, when life is challenging;

Will there be caroling and Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Feast)?

When there’s lack and money is barely enough, it’s embarrassing

to bail out again on the gift your god-children expect this Christmas.

I found the second verse a little whimsical, especially since ham is not one of my favorite foods and I’m allergic to shrimp.

Last year was a lot better’ The spread had ham and all the good stuff.

New Year celebration might get dropped for reason now that life is so tough. I guess instead of that juicy ham, we’ll just settle for that salty shrimp paste (a mixture of ground shrimp and krill—look it up, I did).

When Pastor Manuel Badar explained the song, he referred to the resilience of the Filipino people how they would come back.  And, of course, as we might expect from the people of the only Christian nation in Asia, the true foundation of hope is in the One who’s birth is celebrated at Christmas.  The refrain of the song goes:

But come what may, as long as love rules the day,

It’s enough to know Jesus is with us.  Christmas will go on.

The “new song” is really an echo of an old song, one that included the words “Peace on earth….”  What may be the oldest Christmas carol in English is “The First Nowell.”  There’s a debate online about the word “nowell.”  Many believe it comes from the French word Noel or Christmas.  Others insist the word is of English origin and represents an abbreviation for “Now all is well.”  I’d like that to be true but I’m not sure history supports the claim.  Anyway, while the linguistics may be shaky, the theology behind the idea is pretty solid.  

Christ’s birth gives a new perspective to everything.  Whether we face tough times or good times, His birth reminds us of God’s faithfulness and love.

Galatians: A Study of Christian Freedom Lesson 7: Curses.

Galatians 3:10-14

Curses—

This passage, which will be the last we look at before the beginning of the new year, is crucial for understanding Paul’s view of the human condition and what Christ’s work involved.  The ideas will be expanded in his other writings, especially Romans.   It helps us answer the question, What happened on the cross?

Curses—Ours

¹⁰ For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; 

This is a clear warning to those who might be tempted to listen to the false teachers who were wooing away the faithful in the Galatian churches.  Rather than being a path to winning God’s favor, relying on  “the works of the law,” that is our keeping the demands of the law leads to being  “being under a curse.”

Decades ago, Robertson said this curse hung over the believer like the sword of Damocles.  Paul was certainly suggesting that we sinners lived with the reality of impending doom.  

To put the matter simply, the person who is under a curse should expect God’s worst, not God’s best. The cursed one experiences the awful wrath of God.  For the Gentiles who may have been hearing the words of this epistle, the notion of the wrath of God (or the gods) would have been familiar.  Much of their religious practice, from formal sacrifices to the daily rituals that marked their every activity were intended to ward off the wrath of one god or another.  This was hardly a new view of God but Paul was about to present a new view of God.

For now, however, Paul makes it clear that despite our best intentions, setting out to win God’s favor by our good works will fail.

for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.” 

Why should this be?  The problem isn’t that the Law isn’t good; the problem is we aren’t good.  Even the best of us have failed to keep the Law.  William MacDonald explains:

It is not enough to keep the law for a day, or a month, or a year. One must continue to keep it. Obedience must be complete. It is not enough to keep just the Ten Commandments. All six hundred and some laws in the five books of Moses must be obeyed!

But it gets worse.  Remember Jesus’ discussion of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount.  He demonstrated that the Law’s demands went beyond the mere “letter of the Law.”  For example, the prohibition against murder carries a prohibition against hatred; the prohibition against adultery means no lusting.

Let me try a simple experiment.  Are you a liar?  Accuse most of people of being a liar and they will respond with anger, indignation.  In some times and places you might have found yourself challenged to a dual.

But have you ever told a lie?  I don’t mean this week or last month, I mean at any time during your life.  Lying is so much a part of our human makeup that if you say, “I’ve never told a lie,” most people will be ready to call you a liar.  Now, how many lies does it take to be a liar?

Ok, there’s no fixed figure.  But if you say, “A few lies hardly makes a person a liar; you’d have to make lying a habit before you could be called a ‘liar’.”  That makes sense but what if we ask the opinion of that man, woman, or child you lied to, that person who had the reasonable expectation of hearing the truth from you?  

At heart here is our picture of God.  If Paul had introduced a picture of God as One who counts our faith for righteousness, he was by no means denying the old view of God as One who is holy and intolerant of sin.  Speaking of this attribute of God, Charles Hodge wrote, “Holiness, on the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil; and, upon the other, absolute moral perfection.”

In a vision, the prophet Isaiah found himself in the throne room of heaven.  There he heard the angelic host chanting, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.” Specialists in Hebrew literature tell us that when anything is repeated we should pay special attention (consider Jesus introducing some of his remarks with “Verily, Verily” or “Truly, Truly” since Jesus didn’t speak King James English) and when something is repeated three times, you had better pay extra special attention.   Isaiah’s responded to this vision of a “holy, holy, holy” God by crying, “I’m doomed.”  

Now, Isaiah was not necessarily what we would call a bad guy.  Compared to many in the nation at the time he might have stood out as an example of uprightness.  After all, he appears to have been at worship when he received this call to be a prophet.  Yet, when this good guy had the occasion to view himself compared to God, any pretensions of personal rectitude melted away and he saw himself as “unclean,” no better than the people whose lives belied their identity as God’s people.

Paul will better explain the role of the law later in the letter but now he seems to be answering that person who might complain, “No fair, if none of us can keep the law well enough to earn God’s favor, then the fix is in from the beginning.”

¹¹ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law; for “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” 

Now the Jews hearing Paul’s words read would have known that no one ever really kept the law perfectly.  That was why Judaism included the elaborate sacrificial system; it was intended to deal with the moral failure of the people as a whole and of individuals.  But it was always tempting to think that somehow, someway just being Jewish provided a a moral edge.  

To counter any such thinking, Paul returns to the principle he explored earlier:  the only way to be justified before God to any degree is through faith.  On the one hand, our incessant failure to keep the law should make us recognize the imperative of relying on God's promise to justify those who have faith.  Then, too, if any who rely on the law should be able to attain a right standing with God, the principle found in the words "the righteous will live by faith" cannot be universal as Paul seems to say it must be.

Even if we should grant that justification by works is theoretically possible, human experience makes it clear that it has not happened.  

12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, "The person who does these things will live by them."

The very nature of the law is contrary to the principle of faith.  Faith is about trust, the law is about doing.  When it comes to the law, the words of the Jedi master apply, "Do or do not, three is no 'try.'"  The law-way to salvation does not involve resting trust, it involves constant activity.  Resting is foreign to the law way of salvation.  The law way of salvation involves the constant anxiety of wondering if you have done enough.

I first heard this story shortly after Mother Theresa’s death.  A woman came into the office one morning with red eyes and looking for a strong cup of coffee.  As she stood with her colleagues, one of them asked, “What’s wrong?  You look like you haven’t slept.” 

“I had a terrible dream,” the woman said, “I dreamed I had died and gone to heaven. And I was in a long line of people waiting for St Peter to review our lives to see if we had done enough good works to get in.”

“Wow,” her co-worker said, “that’s weird but you’re a pretty good person.  You give to charities and go to church pretty often.”

“But you haven’t heard the rest,” the worried woman said, “Mother Theresa was standing in the line in front of me.”

“Ah,” another co-worker said, “that would be a little scary but I still say your a good person and would have nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t understand,” the anxious woman said, “after St Peter reviewed Mother Theresa’s life, he looked at her and said, ‘You could have done more.’”

The demands of the law don’t lend themselves to a restful piety.  But God hasn't left us there.

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— 

Paul offers a vivid image of Christ’s work on our behalf.  The word “redeemed” suggests a situation in which a slave’s freedom is purchased by another, sometimes at great cost.  Christ paid the price to free us from the curse of the law.  Just what this “curse of the law” has been debated but it seems reasonable to conclude it must include the punishment that comes from failing to keep the law.  For our sake, he became accursed.  

This would have been new to the Gentiles.  A God who exploded in wrath they could understand but this was a God who became the object of his own wrath.  

Paul doesn’t go into great detail in explaining this; instead, he cites a verse from Deuteronomy:  “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”  The verse refers to a practice which the Bible does not so much endorse as control.  It was a custom to hang the body of any person who had been executed as a criminal on a tree for all to see.  (The practice was followed in many nations for centuries—including medieval England where bodies hung from London Bridge for weeks.)  Those who hung on the tree were not cursed because they were hung on the tree; they were hung on the tree because they were seen as cursed.  In first century, Judea being “hung on a tree” was something of a synonym for being crucified.  So, Jesus being crucified was evidence of his having been cursed.

In Romans, Paul will explain that the cross allowed God to be both “just” (true to his holy demands) and a “justifier” (One who honors the faith of those who trusted him).  So, the cross becomes both a reminder of the heinousness of sin and the depth of God’s love.  Of course, God’s solution was by no means partial or in anyway deficient.  

Again, Paul was silencing the false teachers who were disturbing the peace of the Galatian Christians.  

Welsh preacher Cynddylan Jones says:

The Galatians [influenced by the false teachers] imagined that Christ only half purchased them, and that they had to purchase the rest by their submission to circumcision and other Jewish rites and ceremonies. Hence their readiness to be led away by false teachers and to mix up Christianity and Judaism. Paul says here: (according to the Welsh translation) “Christ hath wholly purchased us from the curse of the law.”

The implications of Paul’s claim were stunning.  He could have easily taught the Galatians the little chorus popular a few years ago:  “I owed a debt I could not pay, he paid a debt he did not owe.”  

The prepositions Paul uses allows us to picture this in away that shows the dynamic of Christ’s work.

According to verst 10 we were “under” (Gk hypo) the curse of the law.  Christ became a curse “above” (Gk hyper) us and even took us “from,” literally “out-from” under the curse. The Contemporary English Version attempts to capture these images:  “But Christ rescued us from the Law’s curse, when he became a curse in our place.”  So did the Living Bible paraphrase:  “But Christ has bought us out from under the doom of that impossible system by taking the curse for our wrongdoing upon himself.”

This is why Christians speak of Christ being our substitute.  He took the wrath that was coming our way.  This resulted, as one writer puts it, in a situation in which “God was satisfied forever; the law was silenced forever; and the believer is saved forever.”

¹⁴ in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 

The Judaizer’s insistence on being circumcised to be a Christian would have made no sense if Paul were addressing only Jewish-Christians.  He was addressing Gentile-Christians as well.  The blessing of justification by faith was being extended to the Gentiles.  They did not have to submit to circumcision and their Jewish brothers and sisters did not have to resubmit to the tedious dietary and social taboos that had distinguished their lives prior to coming to Christ.

Paul returns to a point that began this section: the basis of the believer’s receiving the Spirit (the token of being a Christian).  Paul had angrily asked, “Did you receive the Spirit by following the demands of the law or by believing the gospel?”  The implied answer, of course, was through their faith.  So, receiving the Spirit and its potential for intimacy with God is a blessing extended to those who had once been considered especially cursed by God, the Gentiles.

This truth reminds us of an old saying that “God had only one Son and he made him a missionary.”

Observations:  As we reflect on the Advent season and all the blessings of Christmas, we need to remind ourselves that what made Christmas necessary was a curse.

Lord, Pentecost Us Again 

Acts 2:1-4, 13-21

Text Introduction:  During December many Baptist churches focus attention on missions.  While international outreach is always an important part of the church's work, we can never forget the obligation to be open to the Spirit's work in empowering us to reach our own neighbors.

******

Even though it involved a motley crew of fishermen, tax-collectors, peasants, and socially-powerless women it would be hard to overstate the significance of the events Luke describes in this passage.  This was a world-changing moment.  Theologians argue about whether or not it is proper to call this the birthday of the church, but certainly it was day the church read its birth certificate and discovered its true identity.  

The church, from this point forward, would be God’s fifth column challenging a world-system which had turned its back on its Creator. 

Listen to Ernest Baker’s description of that day:

“One hundred and twenty disciples of the Lord Jesus were suddenly baptized in the Holy Spirit.  their characters were wonderfully enriched.  New gifts of speech, insight, and argument were conferred upon them.  A great accession of zeal, and love, and devotion was added to their motive powers.  Within a few hours 3,000 men and women were converted.  The Christian Church was constituted.  Every day conversions took place;  sometimes scores, hundreds, and even thousands, were added to the ranks of the disciples.  The work continued for years in Jerusalem itself.  It was not the event of a season.  It also spread abroad.  The revival created missionaries, who went out in all directions.  Revivals in other centers followed.  Every city of any considerable importance in the Roman Empire felt the influence of the movement during the next few years.”

How does this compare with today’s church?

Well, it depends upon the breadth of your perspective.  In the minds of many people the church is dying.  They point to the fact there is little real growth, that conversions seem to be declining, that many people just don’t take the church seriously anymore.

Those whose visions look beyond the west, however, see something very different.  They see that in the so-called Global South Christianity is rapidly growing. They see that in sub-Saharan Africa Christianity is the fastest growing religion.  They see that there are millions of new Christian converts in China every year.  And they see that even in Muslim nations there are many who risk their very lives to become take Christ’s name.  

How can this be?  Western churches have the money.  Western churches have the technology—some of our churches even own radio and television stations.  Western churches have the universities and seminaries.  Western churches have the most highly trained clergy in the world.  Yet, the Western church seems to be dying.

When we look at those non-Western churches, one thing stands out.  They have no choice but to rely on the Holy Spirit.  

There may be other differences but one must be the role the Holy Spirit played in the lives of these non-Western Christians. 

The late John Stott reminded us of what too many in the West have forgotten:

“Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible.  There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit and no effective witness without his power.  As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead.

Compare that with the attitude expressed in a statement cited by Os Guinness in which one modern church leader commented that the early church needed the Spirit because it did not know about mass marketing techniques like we do.

It’s time the church prayed, “Lord, Pentecost us again.”

As Christians, we speak of the Holy Spirit but our focus is usually on how the Spirit works in the life of the individual.  And that’s important.  The New Testament has some beautiful language to describe the relationship of the believer to God’s Spirit.  The New Testament speaks of “baptism in the Spirit,” “being filled with the Spirit,” “walking in the Spirit,” and simply being “in the Spirit.”  We probably don’t need to draw too much distinction between these terms, but remember they all speak of an intimacy with God through the Spirit.  It is an experience the believer should cherish.  

There’s no doubt the individual believer needs the Spirit.  But so does the church.  In the first chapter of Acts, Luke reminds us that Jesus had told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Spirit.  After reminding them of the great work they would do in spreading the gospel, Jesus said, “… stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” 

Jesus knew that partnership with God, through the Spirit, was essential if the church was to do his work.  The church always needs Pentecost.

I

WE NEED TO PRAY “LORD, PENTECOST US AGAIN”

BECAUSE THE SPIRIT

ENABLES US TO MINISTER WITH EFFECTIVE POWER.

Only a few days before Pentecost Jesus told the disciples to await this power.

You probably know the word “power” comes from “dunamis”, the same word from which we get “dynamite.”  Elsewhere it’s translated as “miracle” and implies a power which is effective.  It characterized the ministry of the early church.

Listen to Luke’s report in Acts 4:33, remembering that this report followed the first threats against the church by the authorities.

“AC 4:33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the 

 resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. “

It was like a spiritual earthquake.

Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake.  That is the earthquake that occurred early on December 26, 2004; it resulted in a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that took almost 280,000 lives.  The quake was the third most powerful ever recorded on a seismograph and shifting lasted almost ten minutes.  The entire earth shook and other quakes were triggered thousands of miles away in Alaska.

 The revivals that shook Great Britain and America during the 18^th century had that kind of power.

Yet, it’s probably a mistake to think of the Spirit’s power solely in terms of its explosive impact.  One popular attraction in the Texas Panhandle is Palo Duro Canyon, just outside Canyon, Texas.  Palo Duro Canyon the second largest canyon in the United States.  Along the floor of the canyon meanders Palo Duro creek.  The boys and I have wadded a good distance up that creek.  It’s not very deep and not much to look at but that creek help to create the canyon through steady erosion.   The process may not have been as dramatic as an earthquake but it was, nonetheless, powerful.

Sometimes the Spirit’s power works the same way.  Slowly, steadily the Spirit erodes a pathway for the gospel into the heart of an individual or a culture.  

Today’s church needs both kinds of power.

II

WE NEED TO PRAY “LORD, PENTECOST US AGAIN”

BECAUSE THE SPIRIT

ENABLES US TO COOPERATE WITH UNEXPECTED UNITY.

 One of the most amazing things about the early church, noted by friends and foes alike, was its social makeup.   Observers could hardly believe the reports of how rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, educated and uneducated, slave and free, worshipped together on the Lord’s Day.  

That should have hardly been surprising when we consider the nature of the prophecy fulfilled that Pentecost.

This promise had a universal character as the words translated “all flesh” could be translated “all humanity.”

This promise transcended gender barriers:  “your sons and your daughters will prophesy.”

This promise transcended age barriers:  “young men will dream…old men will see visions.”

This promise transcended economic barriers as it included slaves.

This promise even overcame ethnic barriers because the words translated as “slaves” or “servants” were words reserved for Gentile slaves.

Joel’s prophecy anticipated a blessing which would know no boundaries and out of that came a church which continually crossed boundaries.

As the sun set on the Day of Pentecost, the newborn church had some 3,000 members from as many as fifteen nations.  Within a few more years, the church rolls would include not only those born as Jews, but also those born as Gentiles.  

In the middle of the last century church leaders concerned about racism in the church complained that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in American life.  Ironically, by the end of the first century, in the class-conscious Roman Empire, it could be said that the hour of worship on the Lord’s Day was the most integrated hour of the week.    

This sense of unity had a practical expression.  When the Jewish-Christians in Palestine suffered a great famine, the Greek Christians of Philippi, Corinth, and elsewhere contribute to their needs.   They didn’t balk because there were differences in customs, language, and skin-tone.   Writing to the wealthy Philemon about the runaway slave Onesimus, Paul dared to call them both “brother.” 

How was such a phenomenon possible?  Paul gives us a clue in his Epistle to the Ephesians.  He calls on the Ephesians to “maintain the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting-bond of peace.”  (4:3) Paul knew the Holy Spirit created the remarkable unity of the Christian church.  Such unity was nothing short of miraculous.

Probably no other institution has done more to bring people together than the church of Jesus Christ.   

III

WE NEED TO PRAY “LORD, PENTECOST US AGAIN”

BECAUSE THE SPIRIT

ENABLES US TO LIVE WITH JOYOUS FREEDOM.

B. L. Davis, former Director of Missions for the Amarillo Baptist Association was attending the Baptist General Convention of Texas that was meeting in El Paso.  After one of the evening sessions, he got together with some fellow-pastors at the hotel restaurant for a bite to eat and some reminiscing.  The longer they talked over their iced tea and coffee, the louder their laughter became.  Finally, a waitress walked over and said, “Look, we’ve got lots of Baptist preachers staying here tonight, you drunks have got to quiet down!”

Folks who have trouble with worship becoming too enthusiastic, would probably prefer to forget this passage completely.  Imagine the scandal, the participants in the first worship service of the Christian Church are accused of being drunk.  

Sometimes we get so involved debating about “speaking in tongues’ we miss how an enthusiastic worship service became an evangelistic crusade.   Praising God led to proclaiming the gospel.  Joy roused the curiosity of the crowd.

The Holy Spirit energizes Christian worship.  In Ephesians 5:18-20 Paul links being filled or submitted to the Spirit to joyous worship.

…be filled with the Spirit,

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

always giving thanks for all things in the name of 

our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father…  

When the Pentecost dynamic is at work, the Spirit informs our praying, drives home the message of preaching, challenges unbelieving listeners to respond to the claims of Christ, and sends believers into the world with a sense of God’s presence.  Out of that sense of God’s presence should come an overflowing joy.

We’re told that our age is one without a lot of hope.  It’s been that way for some time.  Remember the term “beat generation?”  I always thought it had to do with the kind of music popular in the fifties and sixties.  It doesn’t.  The “beat” generation was that generation which came to maturity following World War II, that generation which was emotionally and spiritually running on empty, exhausted, beat.  

From the beat generation to the members of generation X that same emptiness and despair has been passed on from generation to generation.  It doesn’t impact every individual in the same way but there’s still a great need for Christians to model the genuine joy which comes from their relationship with Christ, the joy which is a fruit of the Spirit.

IV

WE NEED TO PRAY “LORD, PENTECOST US AGAIN”

BECAUSE THE SPIRIT

ENABLES US TO FOLLOW JESUS WITH INTEGRITY.

Luke offers a sidebar on the day’s events:

AC 2:42 [The new Christians] devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the 

fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…. 

[44] All the believers were together and had everything in common. 

[45] Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. …

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere 

hearts, [47] praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the 

Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The Twentieth Century NT renders “enjoying the favor of all the people” as “winning the respect of all the people.”   That respect was won, in part, as the Christians lived their lives with integrity before the watching world.  Even if we don’t always agree with someone, we generally admire integrity when we see it.  Such authenticity is appealing.

In time, the crowds would turn against the church but that would be because of the false rumors spread about Christians by the authorities.  Still, the impact of the average Christian’s life was amazing.

The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the Spirit of Christ.  This title refers not only to the Spirit’s being Christ’s gift to the church, but to how the Spirit endeavors to make us increasingly like Christ.  Paul speaks of how Christians are transformed “as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18)

We live in an age when men and women who have not embraced Christ’s claims are disinclined to listen to our words.  But these men and women who might never attend a church to hear a sermon are attracted to a life of integrity.  Only after they have seen the authenticity of our lives are they persuaded to hear what we have to say.  We have an ongoing need for the Holy Spirit’s help.

CONCLUSION

We recently sent a special book to our grandson Kieran. I hadn’t seen anything like it in years.  It was basically a small flannel-graph.  You remember them, you could tell a story by placing paper figures on a flannel covered board.  Your imagination was the limit.  

 Some Sunday Schools are beginning to use flannel-graphs again.  They have to dust them off but they’re using them.  It seems these low-tech devices fascinate some children.

Now I believe a church should make use of every legitimate means to share its message but there is a lesson here.  Sometimes we have to look back to discover how we might better do our work.

That’s true at a very fundamental level.  The Holy Spirit, Christ’s parting gift to his people, is a Gift that has never become obsolete.  That’s why we always should be ready to pray, “Lord, Pentecost us again.”

Time for Thanksgiving

Not all of the material on Abraham Lincoln was presented during the sermon.  I find his pilgrimage interesting and have included it for those who may not know this aspect of the famous President's life.  

Psalm 100

We can only imagine how many turkeys have gone into our ovens and how many pumpkin pies have been doused with whipped cream in the past 150 years since Abraham Lincoln first proposed last Thursday of November, 1863, as a day for the nation to give thanks to God for his blessings and for the victory at Gettysburg.  Andrew Johnson made the last Thursday of November an annual day of thanksgiving.   

In 1939, on the advice of Fred Lazarus, Jr, Franklin Roosevelt moved it to the third Thursday to extend the Christmas shopping season.  That created so much flak about a third of the states refused to celebrate “Franksgiving;” insisting on celebrating the traditional last thursday. Of course, the other two thirds of the states celebrated on the third Thursday.  Texas couldn’t decide so the legislature declared both the third and fourth Thursdays to be holidays that year. 

In  December1941, the US Congress finally established the fourth Thursday as the date for Thanksgiving, even on those occasions when November had five Thursdays.  For a few years, some states continued to insist on celebrating on the final Thursday but to day everyone seems to have agreed to celebrate on that fourth Thursday.  

In all of the political wrangling and stubborn clinging to  tradition, every one seemed to agree there should be a time for thanksgiving.  Even though the nation faced the prospects of another war, they believed there should be time for thanksgiving.

[What must Lincoln have been thinking when he made that proclamation?  Gettysburg had been a great victory, but the war was far from over.  His wife Mary continued to show signs of mental instability.  Most significant, Lincoln’s beloved son Willie had died scarcely a year before.  Was it painful for him to even think of giving thanks?

It may be asking too much for us to try to guess that.  Historians are divided on the issue of Lincoln’s spiritual commitment.   A few believe he was converted while in the White House (a belief I share).  There seems to be little doubt that he appreciated the Bible and had considerable spiritual insight.  

He supposedly told a minister from Illinois:

When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. 

While we can’t speak with absolute certainty about Lincoln’s personal faith, his Thanksgiving  Proclamation seems to have assumed people would be giving thanks to God.  Given today’s climate, a presidential proclamation regarding thanksgiving might be greeted with protest.   there would be demands that Congress investigate to see if the president had ties to the cranberry industry or if the turkey lobby might have contributed heavily to a reelection campaign.

Before we move on, let me share one more bit of historic trivia.  As Lincoln’s body lay in state in Springfield the military band played “Old One Hundred” the tune to which this psalm has been sung for hundreds of years.  Lincoln had almost certainly read the psalm;  perhaps its message reminded him of the importance of giving thanks to God for his blessings.]

This psalm has a long history in Christian worship.  Listen to this paraphrase from the Scottish Psalter.

All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;

Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell!

Come ye before Him and rejoice.

Know that the Lord is God indeed;

Without our aid He did us make;

We are His flock, He doth us feed,

And for His sheep, He doth us take.

Oh, enter then His gates with praise

Approach with joy His courts unto;

Praise, laud, and bless His name always,

For it is seemly so to do.

For why? the Lord our God is good,

His mercy is forever sure;

His truth at all times firmly stood,

And shall from age to age endure.

What does it say to us about thanksgiving?

It is Time for Thanksgiving Because of Who We Are

The psalm begins with an invitation to join in a time of thanksgiving to God.  The recipients of that invitation depend on how you translate the first verse.  The words might mean “all the land,” meaning all Israel, or they might mean “all the earth,” meaning “everyone on earth”.  A Jewish psalmist, familiar with the traditions of Biblical religion, could have written either.  The psalmist never sees God as being limited or territorial.  He yearns for the Lord to be worshipped by all humankind.

Certainly the glory and blessings of God are not limited to any one place or to any one nation.  Praise recognizing that glory and thanksgiving inspired by those blessings can be offered in any language, by any perceptive worshipper.  As the psalm progresses, the psalmist begins to focus on the temple setting.  This is a reminder that those who know God best should be especially eager to participate in a celebration of gratitude.  

Listen to the psalm’s description of those he calls to give thanks.

He made us, and we belong to him.
We are his people.
We are the sheep belonging to his flock.

These are words that point to the identity we have as God’s people.  That gives us meaning and purpose.  To be “the sheep belonging to his flock” doesn’t mean God looks at us like livestock.  We don’t exist to provide him with wool or mutton.  The idea is that God the shepherd had dcommitted himself to care for us and protect us.  Centuries later, Jesus would remind his followers that they knew the same privileges and protections when he told them, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

How should we respond?

While we often interpret “joyful noise” as enthusiastic singing, it is more likely to have been a kind of “shout” of joyous praise (Hallelujah, perhaps?).  It’s an interesting thought.  Wherever Christianity has gone, it has introduced one Hebrew word into almost every culture:  Hallelujah.  In a sense, what this and other psalms anticipate has happened, men and women all around the world have found the Lord and the joy which comes from knowing him.  And they can’t keep silent.

 The psalmist calls us to “worship the Lord with gladness,” or as the Good New Bible says, “Worship the Lord with joy; come before him with happy songs!”  The verb “serve” implies worship.  A token of that gladness is seen in our coming before God with songs of praise.  Singing is often mentioned as part of Biblical worship.  But, who sang?  Choirs seemingly made up of priests and Levites are mentioned, but was there any kind of congregational singing?  It’s not clear in the OT but Paul clearly encourages churches to sing.  Believers—musically gifted or not—may raise their voices in concerted praise—praise which God welcomes.  It’s one of the unique blessings of Christianity.

It is Time for Thanksgiving Because God is Still the Same

The fourth verse pictures a procession of worshippers moving into the temple, all the while giving thanks to God.  While the psalm sets the act of giving thanks within the setting of corporate worship, the same spirit of gratitude may be exhibited by the individual worshipper.

What is the reason for this thanksgiving and praise?  It is grounded in the very nature and character of God.  We are to thank him and praise his Name.  We should be thankful for who he is and what he has done for us.

The psalmist presents a cluster of reasons to offer thanks to God.

-He made us.  He is our creator;  we are his, despite all the freedom we may enjoy.  The idea is that we are not independent, we belong to him, we need him.  Though God “owns” us, he has chosen not to treat us as mere property or chattel.  This is seen in the second reason we ought to give thanks.

-We may have a special relationship to him.  This psalm may have been specially addressed to the people of Israel but it applies to all who, by faith in Christ, have entered into a relationship with God.  He behaves toward us as a caring shepherd would toward a flock.  Though we are creatures, God has chose to have a relationship with us.  

We need to remember that.  Sometimes we tend to point to things to explain why we are thankful.  We ought to be grateful for our “daily bread,” but we ought to be especially grateful that the Giver of that bread allows himself to be called “Our Father.”

--Above all, we should be thankful that God is God.  That fact alone—when we fully perceive what it means—is grounds to worship, praise, and thank him. 

The psalmist expands on this thought by focusing on some aspects of God’s character:  The ground for our thanksgiving.  The three clauses are packed with implications.

“The Lord is good.”  The notion relates not simply to God’s character but to his intentions toward us.  He will never act capriciously to harm us.  Even if he should bring us through a trial, is goal is our good. (Jer. 29:11)

“His steadfast love endures forever.”  His reliable love is reliable.  The word translates checed (hesed) which suggest loving mercy, marked by endurance and kindness.  It is roughly equivalent to the New Testament notion of grace.  We live in a world where love may last only as long as we do the right thing, say the right words, think  the right thought—but God loves us even when we blow it.  A reason to be thankful, right?

“His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.”  Because God is true he will be faithful to fulfill his promises.  There is no reason to look back to the “good old days” because with God every day is a good day.

Conclusion

In one sense, Thanksgiving calls us to thank God for who he is:  A God who love us and yearns to bless those who honor him.

Listen to Lincoln’s proclamation.  It reflects a great theological maturity.  Remember, Lincoln believed God was chastising both the South and the North for so long allowing the crime of slavery.  Still, Americans had reason to give thanks.

They [the growth and blessings America enjoyed] are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

Many Thanksgivings have come and gone since Lincoln’s proclamation.  But God is still faithful, still good, still loving.  It is still wise to pray for him to heal our nation.  And proper to thank him for his blessings.