Tag: trust

Baptism of the Lord

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Taking a Sunday each year at this time to consider the baptism of our Lord Jesus is a regular staple in the Christian Calendar.  Christ’s baptism is a theologically profound event that announces the fact of his divinity in a dramatic way; it helps us understand our Lord’s identity, as well as his mission.
 
Because God the Father acknowledged Jesus as God the Son, we know that through Christ’s words and actions that we are encountering God’s will for us.  Jesus is the hinge upon which all history turns.  The centrality of Jesus for everything we say and do is confirmed and expected through this event of his baptism.
 
Jesus came to be baptized by John in the Jordan River not because he personally needed to repent of sin.  Rather, through his baptism Jesus identified with us as humans and signaled that he will be the true way of life for all people.  With the Father’s affirmation of Christ, the Lord Jesus is our authority.  All authority on heaven and earth has been given to him.  He is the author and finisher of our faith.  So we must pay careful attention to Jesus.
 
It just may well be that the name of Jesus is so familiar to us that we actually end up ignoring him.  Or, we might be so disappointed with Jesus that, over time, we simply slide away from him.  That this is a clear possibility is why the author of the book of Hebrews exhorted:  We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? (Hebrews 2:1-3). 
 
            Heaven was “torn” open (Mark 1:10) at Christ’s baptism; it is the strongest possible of words to communicate the striking reality that God does not remain far away, but has come near to us in his Son, the Lord Jesus. In Hebrews, a book saturated with the centrality and superiority of Jesus, we are confronted with the importance of Christ:  In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Hebrews 1:1-3).
 
            This term for heaven being “torn” open appears again at the death of Christ.  The curtain of the Temple that separated the inner sanctuary from everything else was ripped in two from top to bottom – signifying that once for all God is near to us and has become close to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
 
            Since Jesus is the rightful ruler of the universe; since he has authority over all things; since he is a faithful high priest always living to intercede for us; since he has the power to transform and give new life; since deliverance can only be found through Christ our Lord; our proper response is confession, repentance, and the expectation of change.
 
            Our Lord’s baptism exposes all the things we rely on other than Jesus:  our own ability to set goals and accomplish them through sheer willpower; our own ingenuity; our own experience; our own ideas to work things out.  Any person on earth can attempt these things, but only Jesus can change us (and our own heart transformation is what is needed).  Rather than expecting everyone and every circumstance to change, God calls usto change through the empowering presence of the Spirit, the same Spirit given to Jesus.
 
            Instead of relying on other things or people, we are to rely on Jesus.  We might think that personal change is not necessary – that there is plenty of evil in the world that needs to turn around, and lots of people worse off than us that need transformation.  But if you find yourself complaining more than being thankful; if you spend more time on social media than in prayer; if being a good person is more important than asking God for help; if you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself more than helping others; if you think this blog post is more for other people than yourself; then, today the baptism of Jesus calls us to confession, repentance, and inner change.
 

 

            Just as it took humility for Jesus to be baptized by John in the Jordan, so it takes humility for us to come to Christ and admit our need for help and for inner transformation.  May it be so, to the glory of our Lord Christ.

Exodus 2:11-25

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Faith is not some static phenomena that one possesses or not.  It is more like a muscle that must be exercised and developed in order to be strengthened.  Moses needed to learn and grow in faith just as much or more than the rest of us.  The fact that he was eighty years old before he became the human agent of God’s deliverance, after a forty year stint in the backside of the desert, tells us that it took him awhile to mature.  Even though Moses may have had a sense that the Israelites needed freedom from slavery, and acted on that sense by killing a ruthless Egyptian, his sense of timing was not good.
 
            There is a time for everything, said the writer of Ecclesiastes.  Wisdom, the ability to apply faith in concrete situations, is often in the timing of things.  To know when to speak and when to listen, when to act and when to wait, is an important facet of faith.  The ancient Israelites were slaves in Egypt for a long time.  Moses knew they were suffering and he acted.  But it was not yet time.  Eventually, the Jewish cry came up to God, and God heard them.  He remembered his covenant with them.  Why God did not act sooner, or use Moses earlier, is information that is only privy within God himself.
 
            What this means for us is that if we are to develop in faith and gain a wise sense of timing, we will need to rely on God.  Trusting in ourselves, our own efforts, and our own perceived timing of how things ought to proceed will usually not end well.  We may find ourselves taking a “time out” from God in obscurity until we learn to wait on him.
 
            In the fullness of time, Paul said to the Galatians, Jesus came, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law.  God knows what he is doing, even though it might seem like he is sometimes slow to act.  God sees.  God delivers.  But he does it in his timing – not ours.
            Redeeming God, you control all things, including the clock.  Give me wisdom so that my sense of timing might reflect your will and your way.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

Mary

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Most of life is lived in the mundane.  For the most part our everyday lives are the same, going about our business and dealing with the daily grind.  Occasionally the monotony is broken up with holidays, seeing old friends, vacations, or the rare surprise.  We are common ordinary people.  So, we can especially relate to Mary, at the conception of Jesus, because she is quite plain.  Mary is in junior high. She wears consignment store clothing. She can’t read because girls of her day rarely did. Her parents make all the decisions that affect her life, including the one that she should be married to an older man named Joseph. We don’t know if she even liked him. She lives in a small town that most people can’t point to on a map. 
 
            One night, into the bedroom of this young girl comes the brightly beaming divine messenger Gabriel whose name means, “God has shown himself mighty” (Luke 1:26-38). Mary stands there in her flannel nightgown, her life very quickly moving from the ordinary to extraordinary.  The juxtaposition could not be more pronounced:  mighty angel and a plain teen-ager; messenger of the Most High God and a girl barely past puberty; holy angelic light in a simple candlelit bedroom; awesome power and complete vulnerability.
 
Mary, compared to Gabriel, is defenseless, fragile, and overwhelmed.  She is in over her head.  That is why we can relate to her. We can get our human arms around Mary. She’s like us. She has faced life with little power to make it turn out the way she planned. Forces beyond her have rearranged her life and altered it forever. She is the Matron Saint of the Ordinary. We can totally understand why Mary responds the way she does.
 
Mary’s initial reaction was to be greatly troubled.  She was disturbed and shaking in her ratty old slippers.  The angel confidently told Mary that she had found favor with God.  In other words Mary was quite literally “graced” by God.  The situation was not that Mary had some extreme spirituality but that God simply chose her to be the mother of Jesus.  And Mary needed to come to grips with what was happening to her.  This was not what she was looking for.  Becoming pregnant with the Savior of the world was not an answer to prayer for Mary.  This was not on her agenda. 
 
Mary immediately sensed the crazy disconnect between what was being told to her and who she was.  After all, she was a plain ordinary girl from the hick town of Nazareth and she was being told that she would raise a king.  Maybe somebody in heaven screwed up.  Maybe Gabriel got the wrong girl.  Maybe his Google map popped up the wrong town to visit.  Relating to Mary, we can totally understand that she would question how in the world all this was going to happen.  Not only is Mary ordinary and far from royalty, but she is also very much a virgin.  None of this made any sense.
 
But the angel lets Mary know that God specializes in the impossible.  We do not always get straightforward answers to our questions about God, but Mary asked a question and got a straight answer:  she really can be pregnant with Jesus because the Holy Spirit will come upon her, will overshadow her with power.  If the story were to end here it would be a great story.  But to me the most astonishing part of this narrative is Mary’s response to what was happening to her.
 
Mary believed the message, and having believed submitted herself completely to God’s will for her life.  I think we would totally understand if Mary simply said in her ordinary way that she was not prepared for this.  We would completely get it if Mary pushed back on what the angel said to her.  We could relate if Mary just dismissed it all, like Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, with the angel and his message being all humbug as if it were just “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.  There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
 
But Mary not only believes, she humbly submits herself to what is happening.  And this is what we need to relate to most about Mary – not her being just a plain ordinary person in a non-descript village, but stepping up to the calling she received.  We, too, have received a calling in our lives.  We, too, have been given the power of the Holy Spirit.  We, too, are ordinary people who have been given a very extraordinary task. 
 
Mary responded to God’s revelation with faith, choosing to fully participate in what God was doing.  “I am the Lord’s servant” is to be our confession, as well.  “May it be to me as you have said” is to be our cry, along with Mary.  The message we proclaim is that Jesus saves – he delivers from sin and Satan and will restore all things.
 

 

            None of us needs to be extraordinary in order to be used of God.  We just need a simple faith that God will do exactly what he said he will do.  The church has a beautiful message of grace not only for this season, but all through the year.  Let us embrace it, embody it, and share it.  

Habakkuk 3:13-19

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Tucked away in the Old Testament is the little prophecy of Habakkuk.  Yet it packs a punch of a message.  The prophet, Habakkuk, was distressed over the corruption of his people, Israel.  So, he complained to God about it.  God responded by informing Habakkuk that judgment was coming to sinful Israel through the pagan Babylonians.  This was not what Habakkuk expected.  The prophet grumbled even more about the fact that the Babylonians were much more evil than the Israelites.  The Babylonians needed judgment, too!  The rest of this little book then unpacks Habakkuk’s struggle to come to terms with what God was doing.
 
            The conclusion that Habakkuk finally came to was this:  “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield not food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”  Even though the circumstances were bad, even dire, yet the prophet chose to rejoice in the Lord.
 
            One of the most significant faith experiences we can ever have is to come to the point of complete trust in God so that our happiness is not dependent upon good circumstances.  The truth is that the Christian’s joy and spiritual security is independent of what is going on around us.  Even though situations might be difficult and even evil, believers can still rejoice because we do not need everything to go our way in order to experience happiness.
 
            Joy is neither cheap, nor easy.  Total trust in God can only really come through a serious and open engagement, even argument, with God.  The place of contentment comes from a consistent, persevering, and constant interaction with God in his Word and through prayer – just like Habakkuk.
            Gracious God, bring me to the point of joy despite my circumstances so that my soul is not divided and unable to praise you.  May I delight in Jesus every day through the fellowship of the Spirit.  Amen.