We are in the season for “Dear Santa” letters. “Dear Santa,
I’d like this and this and this and this. Be careful that it’s this one and not
that one. Make it just so.” Everybody knows that Santa is the giver of good
gifts. Christians know that God is the giver or all good things. James, in his
letter, says, “Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the lights, who does not change or shift like a
shadow.” God alone is good, as Jesus says. If anything is good, then, it comes
from him. And so might we write our own “Dear God” letters? “Dear God, I’d like
this and this and this and this.” What might we put on that list? Better
health? More money? More glory? Less sadness? There are a lot of things that
boys and girls of all ages want. There are also a lot of things that folks
don’t want, too, but that might be what they get. Are these things like coal in
the stocking?
Even those we know God approves of, get from him things to
which we might say, “Yuck! Keep that away from me.” Do you suppose that John
the Baptist wrote a letter that said, “Dear God, I’d like to be put in prison.
I’d like to be afflicted with doubt. I’d like to have my head chopped off
because of a stupid dare that some girl made at a drinking party”? Sounds weird
doesn’t it?
Or consider the author of our epistle reading, Paul. Do you
suppose that he wrote a letter that said, “Dear God, I’d like to be stoned and
left for dead. I’d like to be chased and harassed from one city to the next.
I’d like to be shipwrecked. I’d like to be given a thorn in my flesh, a
messenger of Satan, which you refuse to remove. Oh, and after all this, I’d
like my head to be chopped off too.”
This can all sound ridiculous because of a principle that we
are hardwired to accept. The principle is that this life is everything. If this
life is everything, then you better hold on to every possibility for pleasure
that comes your way and don’t let a single one escape. Fight for what is yours.
Don’t make trouble for yourself. If trouble or suffering or hardship come your
way, then you better figure out a way to get rid of it, otherwise your life
will not be worth living.
From a perspective such as this, the Christian life that is
filled with suffering looks like the stupidest thing anybody could ever do.
Paul would agree with you. In 1 Cor. 15 he addresses the resurrection from the
dead. Some of the people in Corinth were saying that there was no such thing as
the resurrection from the dead. When Paul responds to them he says that if
there is no such thing as the resurrection from the dead, then Christians are
to be pitied above all people. All that sacrificing and suffering would be to
no purpose. If this life is everything, then it only makes sense to try to suck
everything out of it that you possibly can. Those who don’t are fools!
Paul kind of embraced this label as being a fool. Several
times in his letters he calls himself a fool. If people wanted to think that he
was a fool, then there wasn’t much that he could do about that. He wasn’t
bothered by it because the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.
The weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men. Christ is the power
of God and the wisdom of God. In Christ Paul has redemption from the devil and
the adoption of being a child of God. In Christ Paul has the resurrection from
the dead to live an infinitely better life than the one that we have in this
sinful flesh. That was why Paul was free to love and thereby also suffer as a
Christian. There was nothing that he gave up or sacrificed that would not be
given back to him a hundred fold in the life to come. He aspired to live for
love—for the good of others—rather than for himself. So if people think he is
foolish for living the way he did, then they would also have to think that
Christ is foolish and that God is foolish, for God is love.
It is not foolish, though, to live for love. Quite the
opposite, actually. In our reading from Isaiah it said, “A voice is saying,
‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry out?’” By speaking in this way, by
“crying out” you can see God’s urgency for what he has to say. What he
has to say is something that has to be forcefully impressed upon those who hear.
They won’t otherwise hear it. And so God gives the message that is to be cried
out: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like a flower in the field.
Grass withers, flowers fade, when the breath of the Lord blows upon them.
Surely the people are grass. Grass withers, flowers fade, but the Word of our
God endures forever.”
This is a striking message about our mortality. Grass grows
up in the spring. By November it is dead and brown. The flower blooms, but if
you get a stiff breeze it is all tattered or gone altogether. So why do you
work for what cannot endure? What difference does it make if you have a
mountain of money? It cannot prolong your life for even a single hour. The
works that are done in a Christian life of love, however, live on. Several
weeks ago we heard about how we would be judged. God will not judge you favorably
for having this and this and this and this. He will not be impressed by even a
whole mountain range of money. Insofar as you did it to the least of Jesus’s
brothers, you did it unto him. Insofar as you didn’t do it to the least of
Jesus’s brothers you did not do it unto him. It is not our money that lives on
after us, but the deeds that we have done in the flesh. He will bring to
light whatever is hidden in darkness and also reveal the intentions of hearts.
In contrast to the fleeting nature of our earthly life where
we are alive one minute and dead the next, we are told, “The Word of our God
endures forever.” The Word of God is given to us to make us wise. It tells
us what’s what. It interprets our lives and diagnoses us and tells us what is
in store for us and all people. It therefore gives us a different perspective
than what we would otherwise have. This different perspective might make some
people call us fools, but time will tell with that. If there is no resurrection
from the dead, then they are right. But if there is a resurrection from the
dead, then they are wrong. Believing and unbelieving will no longer be applicable.
Faith will then be replaced by knowledge.
Until that time there will remain believers and unbelievers.
They will remain opposed to one another because practically every facet of life
looks different from God’s perspective, from the perspective of eternity.
Suffering and sacrifice will be shunned by the one side; praised by the other.
Riches will be prized by the one side and be neither here nor there for the
other. God’s Word will be embraced by the one side and scoffed at by the other.
Ultimately the difference between believers and unbelievers
comes down to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. How is this regarded?
Believers will cherish it as God’s great message of love, forgiveness, and
salvation. On my heart imprint Thine image, blessed Jesus King of grace, that
life’s riches, cares, and pleasures, have no power Thee to efface. This the
superscription be: Jesus crucified for me. Is my life, my hope’s foundation,
and my glory and salvation. Believers say, “On my heart imprint Thine image.” I
don’t know how unbelievers look at the cross of Christ. Probably in many
different ways, but certainly not as their source of everlasting life, and the
pattern of love by which we are to live as God’s creatures.
Because of these two very different outlooks on life that
has as its center the cross of Christ, there will always be enmity of
unbelievers towards believers. Paul, in 2 Cor. 2, says that Christians are a
sweet smelling sacrifice to God. It’s the fragrance of Christ. Those who are
being saved recognize it as a fragrance of life that is a prelude to life everlasting.
Those who do not believe regard it as an odor of death that is a prelude to eternal
death. something of our eternal destinies is already revealed with the presence
of Christians.
It is not actually that great of a surprise, therefore, that
we find Christians being persecuted. Herod hated John the Baptist because John
convicted him of a sin whereby he would be judged. Both Jews and Gentiles hated
Paul because the Jews refused to believe in the Savior and the Gentiles wanted
to believe that this life is everything.
Persecution does not need to be so dramatic as having one’s
head chopped off though. There are subtler and arguably more effective ways to
frighten Christians from testifying to their neighbor. Christian teenagers are
regarded as being “not cool.” It seems that we hardly ever outgrow high school,
for the embarrassment remains. Friends, young and old, turn cold if talk should
turn to the life of the world to come. People might roll their eyes or refuse
to look you in the eye if the topic turns hot, but that is unusual. Perhaps the
commonest and also deadliest of all reactions to the proclamation of the Gospel
is that polite silence. They wait patiently until you’ve done your spiel. Then
we can get back to things that are less divisive, more socially acceptable.
One of the very important reasons for Christians to
congregate is so that we can help and support one another when we have been
rejected. This is not something for the pastor alone to do, but you should do
this for one another. Help from a fellow Christian who is not a pastor is often
more effective than the encouragement that a pastor can give, because people
assume that the pastor has to say what he says because that’s his job. And
there’s some truth in that. Talk with one another—not just about the
weather—but about your problems. You are all fully equipped as Christians.
There is nothing that I have as a pastor that you don’t also have. Let’s help
one another. Let’s bear one another’s burdens.
Another reason to congregate is to hear God’s Word. Our Old
Testament reading is helpful for what we have been talking about today. It says
that all flesh is grass and its beauty is like the flowers of the field. It
does not skimp on this truth. But it also says, “Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.” God’s will toward us is not an unhappy message.
Now, just a second: Mark one of the devil’s lies here.
Immediately he will rise up and say, “Oh yeah? What about all this all flesh is
grass stuff? That’s not very comforting. I can tell you a tale that is a whole
lot safer and more comforting than that!” But what is always the essence of
this tale? Is it not the same thing he said to Eve: “You won’t surely die. Just
ignore that nasty frightening talk.” But you know what this is. It’s a lie. It’s
the deadliest lie ever told, because all people would rather believe that, than
believe the truth. People would rather remain in darkness than have their sins
exposed. But coming into the light is not evil, but good.
When God says, “Comfort, comfort my people,” it is
with full knowledge of your mortality. It is with full knowledge of your sin.
And yet there is comfort and goodness for the sinner. In order to fight and
defeat death, to fight and defeat sin, God, in love, sacrificed his Son, his
dearest treasure. God suffered and sacrificed to secure for everyone
everlasting life. We don’t have to believe in lies for our comfort. Believe in
Jesus. Through faith in him all your enemies are defeated—even if they seem to
triumph in this life. Your guilt is fully paid for. For each one of your sins,
God gives you double goodness. With this last statement we are close to
contradicting Paul when he rhetorically asks, “Should we then sin, that
grace may abound?” That is not what God is saying here, but he wants you to
know and to believe that your sins do not prevent him from having a good
relationship with you, from being gracious to you. The basis of your
relationship with God is not what you have done and left undone. The basis of
your relationship is Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Let us not be ashamed, then, of the Gospel. It is the power
of God unto salvation for all who believe. Let us resolve to sacrifice and
suffer all—even our head, if need be—rather than deny our Lord Jesus Christ.
May God grant it.
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