Sifted

"Sifted"
Luke 3:15-17

I don’t know about you, but when I’m baking, I always sift the flour.  I know the bags of flour these days says “Pre-sifted”.  But, come on, they are just words.  If Nick Squires got a load of oak lumber and it said, “pre-sanded” do you think he’s going to leave it at that.  No way.

The reason I sift the flour is not just because the flour gets all packed down during shipment.  Sifting is important for that reason, and you can measure your ingredients by weight, rather than by the cup.  The reason I sift is because there are usually clumps of who knows what in the flour.  I sift to get these clumps of surprise ingredients out of my mixture.  I never investigate what those clumps are.  I just immediately toss them in the trash.  Separate the good from the bad.

Continuing the flour metaphor, but in its raw form of wheat, I think that’s the same thoughts people have when they read that Jesus is going to separate the wheat from the chaff.  There’s a good part of the wheat, and there’s a bad part of the wheat, and you want to make sure you only keep the good part.  The bad part gets burned.

So this is a one sentence parable and it’s all about judgment, right?  Separating the good people from the bad people.  Holding on to the good people.  Burning the bad people up in an unquenchable fire.  Salvation or damnation.  Rising or roasting.  Either, or.  That’s what Jesus is getting at, right?

Well, let’s call in an expert.  A real wheat farmer, who knows everything there is to know about wheat.  Farmer Brad Pagenkopf.  (Get him a mic.)  I want you to tell us everything you know about wheat in five minutes or less.  Actually, tell us just about the husk.  What is the purpose of the husk in the growth process of the wheat?

(Talk back and forth with Brad about this.)

So what you’re saying is, the husk isn’t bad.  It’s absolutely necessary up to a certain point in the wheat’s development.  If there was no husk, the “berry” of wheat would not be protected from the elements, nor would it develop.  The wheat would be worthless, if each kernel were not protected by the husk.

But then, in the use of the kernels of wheat, the husk is no longer needed.  It has to be discarded back into the soil so the wheat berries can be ground into flour, or used for whatever.  No husk, no grains of wheat, no flour made out of those grains.

At least for human consumption, the husk is useless.  We can’t digest the husk.  It just passes through.  But the wheat is extremely useful in so many products that we eat.  But like I keep saying, we wouldn’t have the multi-useful grain unless the husk protected that grain while it was developing.

So, let’s look at this verse again, this statement by John the baptizer made about Jesus:  “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clean out his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.”

The process went this way.  A large cloth would be laid on the threshing room floor.  Or the floor would be made out of hard-packed clay.  The bundles of wheat stalks would be brought in and thrown on the threshing floor to a certain height.  Those stalks would be pounded with a shovel until the wheat grains had been loosened from the husks.  Then, with a forked shovel, the whole mess would be thrown in the air.  The wind would blow the lighter chaff (stalks and husks) away, but the heavier seeds of wheat would fall back down on the threshing floor.  After doing this several times, only the wheat was left.  It would be shoveled into clay containers and stored in the barn.  This process was called sifting.

So let’s take what we learned from farmer Brad and combine it with this ancient way of sifting out the wheat.

The hull or husk, at one time, was vitally important to the wheat.  But at the time of the harvest and sifting, it isn’t important any more.  It’s pretty well useless other than for burning, using for cattle fodder, or plowing back into the ground.  So, it’s not a matter of the husk being bad and the wheat being good.  The analogy doesn’t hold.  This statement isn’t about judgement.

This is a statement about having something useful, something important, at one point in your life.  And then, at another point, it’s just not useful anymore.  It’s not needed anymore.  It served it’s purpose.  But now it’s time to let it go.  Even throw it in the fire if need be.  That’s the sifting process.

Maybe we should call it the life-sifting process.  And here comes the hard part.  If this were merely about judgement, it would be easy.  Christians and non-Christians do it all the time.  Who’s in and who’s out?  Who’s good and who’s bad?  Who should burn in hell and who gets to go to heaven?  We try to make those distinctions and divisions and judgements all the time, and for my part, I’m sick of it.

So let’s make this harder than that.  If the statement is about the sifting process, taking that which was at one time strategic, but then isn’t important anymore, then John’s statement is about taking a hard look at our own life and beliefs.  It’s about doing a fearless personal inventory of our lives and beliefs and identifying that which might have been important at one time, but is useless now.  If it is useless, we have to get rid of it.  Burn it.  Expunge it once and for all.  Not let it be a part of our lives anymore.

Now that’s harder.  Now we’ll have to deal with all kinds of self-created hooey as we try to justify why we’re holding on to husks—stuff that has no life value.  Could be as big as a job that isn’t enhancing your life in the least.  Could be a relationship that you keep trying to find some kind of value there, when there’s none.  It could be a belief, even a so-called "Christian" belief, that doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus at all.

It could be some form of self-punishment for something you’re not proud of out of your past.  Something that, whenever it crosses your mind, all you feel is guilt and shame.  It’s a handful of husk you think you have to hold on to so you can be reminded about how bad you are.  And you won’t let God blow it all away.  Blow it into the fire so God can fill your hand with grace and embrace you, and you can embrace God back.  But you can't do that if your hands and heart are full of husks.

Now I’m going to make this harder yet.  You don’t get to decide what is husk and what is wheat.  Nor do you for someone else.  Nor someone else about you.  Only  Jesus can do that.  That’s what John says:   “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clean out his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.”  This sifting task, of going through your life and deciding what is kept and what is tossed is up to Jesus.  You can bellyache and complain and try to talk Jesus out of discarding certain parts of your life and beliefs, but ultimately it is Jesus’ work, Jesus’ decision.

You know what that means, don’t you?  Get ready to be sifted.  Get ready to lose.  Get ready to watch some things you valued as strategic to who you are get thrown on the burn pile.

I like how The Message Bible has two of the Beatitudes in the Sermon of the Mount.  These are the first two:

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.  (Or we could say, with less husks there's more room for God and Gods grace.)

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.  (In other words, some of that which we hold so dear is not worth holding on to anymore.  And only Jesus can let us know what those things are.)

The sifting process is about making more space for God, “the One most dear to you.”  That’s the wheat that needs to be kept.  The only way to do that is to get rid of hokey beliefs, values, and ways of being that have long served their purpose.  It’s time to let them go.  Make room for God.  Sift them out.

But only Jesus can do that, because only Jesus knows what is worth keeping and what is worthless.  You have to let him do it.  You have to let him sift you.

Like Father, Like Son

"Like Father, Like Son"

John 1:14-18

“No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father's side, he has shown us what God is like."  (John 1:18 TEV)

This is a picture of me when I was in my early 30's--I think 32 or 33.  (I really haven't changed much, have I?)  This was taken at a wedding rehearsal.  The invitation said, "Tux not required, but tennis shoes are."  The bride's mother couldn't quite figure me out.  I had just arrived at Colby, KS as their Pastor.

Anyway, what I want you to look at in this picture is my face, rather than all the other distracting stuff.  Now, here's another picture of my son, Ryan, at the same age, 32—the age he is now.

I don't know if you (the person running the computer/projector) can go back and forth between the two pictures, but there is a striking similarity, is there not?  They could both be me; or they could both be him when we were 32.

I don't know what you'd learn about me by looking at Ryan.  Probably not much.  Ryan's intelligence is off the charts.  Mine barely makes the charts.  We both sound a like.  We both love watching college basketball and text back and forth during KU games.  We both want to make an impact on the world, and affect people's lives for the better.  We are both patient, but about different things and situations.   He is thoroughly focused on all he does.  I used to be, but have lost that focus in ways, of late.

In many ways, like father, like son.  And in just as many other ways, Ryan is his own man.  I'm so proud of that fact.  Of both those facts, I should say.

What spurred all this musing was verse 18 from John 1, read this morning:  "No one has ever seen God.  The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father's side, he has made him known."  I was thinking about that in relation to Ryan and me and you and your children.  If you had never known me, but you met Ryan, what would you learn about me?  If I had never known you, but I met your children, what would I then know about you?

The same with Jesus and God.  No one living, past or present, has seen God.  That’s what John tells us.  But if we believe Jesus is the only Son of God (as verse 14 and 18 state) then what can we see of God in Jesus?  John has given us a lot of qualities of God that we get to see in Jesus.  That, according to John, if we really know Jesus, we will also know God.  And notice, John’s statement assumes we can know Jesus, no matter when you are alive.

So, let’s look at what John tells us about Jesus, so we can get to know God better.

First, John wrote that Jesus is God who became a human being.  John doesn’t have a story of Jesus’ birth.  John only has this statement, that Jesus is God in the flesh.  The big word we use for this is the Incarnation--which means, "in the flesh."  It’s the hardest part about Jesus to get your head around.  But you have to start there, because everything else John is going to tell us about Jesus uses “God-as-human-being” as it’s foundation.  The Incarnation is one of the most bedrock pieces of our faith.  It is the biggest leap of faith you will be asked to make about anything you believe.  There is nothing you or I can do to prove the truth of this belief that Jesus is God in-the-flesh.  You just have to believe it or not:  Jesus is God as a human being.  Creator become creation.  There it is.

Secondly, John tells us that Jesus—God as a human being—lived among us.  The Message version of the Bible translates this phrase as “moved into the neighborhood.”  Imagine God living in your neighborhood.

It’s an interesting word in the Greek that John wrote.  It literally means, “tented.”  That Jesus, as God as a human being, tented with us.  To understand that you have to go back to the time when the Ark of the Covenant was made by the Jewish people.  It was that gold box with a winged angel made out of gold sitting on each end of the box.  Inside the box was the Ten Commandments, etched on stone by the finger of God.

The Ark of the Covenant moved around with the people of God as they traveled.  There was no Temple built at this time.  But the Ark had it’s own tent.  That tent was pitched in the center of a circle of all the tents of the people.  And it was believed that wherever the Ark was, God was.  God “tented” with the people of God.

So when John wrote that Jesus “tents” with us, that’s what John is alluding to—the time when God was with the people wherever they were.  It’s a great image, isn’t it?  Maybe we should wear little tents on the end of necklace chains, instead of a cross.  Because wherever you are, wherever you go, God is with you.  What we learn about God through Jesus is that we have a God who wants and desires to be with us in a real and visible and intimate way. Through Jesus, God is tenting with you, putting up His tent wherever you are.  Whether it be the hospital or a motel.  Whether it be on an airplane or when you’re driving in your car.  Whether you are at work or on vacation.  Wherever you go, Jesus is God tenting with you.

Thirdly, John says we see God’s glory in Jesus.  And then, as if anticipating our question, John tells us what that glory of God is that we see in Jesus:  grace and truth.  Glory has to do with God's grace and truth.  They are two great words.  And he uses the two words twice, so we know they are important for John in describing who Jesus is.

Grace is a two directional kind of word.  The first and foremost direction is God’s loving, forgiving, embracing activity on our hearts.  God’s actions are always primary.  As John will write later in his first letter, “We love because God first loved us”  (1 John 4:19).  We don’t love God or love others because we are naturally capable of that kind of loving.  We needed a model.  We needed to know what it is like to be loved—to be really loved—before we can love back.  The only true model of that love and grace is from God through Jesus.

Then comes the other direction.  Once we have been loved and received grace from God through Jesus Christ, we respond with devotion, obedience and gratitude.  Our responsive gratitude is the sure sign we have received and understood Jesus’ loving grace.  By experiencing this grace from Jesus we find out what God is like and what God really wants our relationship to be like with him and with each other.

The second great word that shows us the glory of God in Jesus Christ is truth.  This is a special word in the Greek language John wrote in.  It means what is always true.  It doesn’t mean something that is true only in certain circumstances.  As Mark Twain once said, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”  Not so with Jesus.  The truth of Jesus is always true in every situation and circumstance of life.  That “always truth” is part of what God’s glory is all about.

One profile on a dating site read, “I am 32, 6 feet tall, handsome, well-built, athletic, intelligent, absolutely amazing and completely perfect in every way.  I’d like to meet a woman who will humor me when I get like this.”  When you experience the glory of God in Jesus, what you are facing and dealing with is the truth.  Jesus will humor you only with the truth.  So you have to be ready to face the truth when you give yourself to Jesus.

When we experience Jesus’ grace and truth, what we are actually experiencing is the glory of God.  Only in Jesus can we see and know what God’s glory is all about.

And lastly, Jesus is about “fullness.”  John used this word twice in these verses in describing Jesus, so it must be an important word for John in relation to who Jesus is.  There are a couple of nuances to this word.  First, fullness means that which has been filled.  Whatever the container is, it doesn’t come full; it is filled.  And secondly, whatever is filled is full to the amount equal to the container.  The glass, in this case isn’t half full or half empty.  If it experiences fullness, it is totally full to the brim.

Maybe you’ve heard the example of the science teacher who took out a big jar and set it on the table in front of her.  She put in some big rocks up to the top of the jar.  She asked the class if the jar was full.  Many said yes.

Then the teacher poured in some gravel that fell in-between the larger rocks.  The gravel came to the top of the jar.  She asked, “Is the jar now full?”  Now, more of the students said yes.

Out came a container of sand and the teacher poured the sand slowly into the jar.  It made its way between the smaller spaces left by the gravel.  When it was full to the top, she asked, “Is the jar full?”  Every student replied, Yes.

But then she took out a pitcher of water and poured that in the jar all the way to the top.  “Now is it full?” she asked.  And, yes, agreed the students.  Now it is full.

That’s what John is telling us about Jesus.  When we look at Jesus, we are seeing someone who is totally and completely full of God.  God to the brim.  Not just a bit of God.  But absolutely full of God with no space left over.

But that’s not all.  Jesus’ fullness of God keeps getting filled.  The reason that is so, says John, is because, “From Jesus’ fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (vs. 16).  Jesus is filled with the grace of God that we talked about in relation to God’s glory.  Jesus shares that grace with us out of his fullness.  We receive that grace.

The word for “receive” literally means in the Greek, “keep on receiving.”  It’s a continual act of receiving.  We keep receiving from Jesus because he keeps giving out of his fullness.  Jesus can keep on giving out of his fulness because he is God, and God is never emptied of himself.  God never runs out of himself, his grace, his fullness.  We receive all that from Jesus because Jesus is God.

And so it is:  Like Father, like Son.  God has never been seen nor even close to be comprehended by the human mind and heart.  Only through Jesus can we get a glimpse of what God is like.  May this New Year be a year that you draw close to Jesus, and thereby draw close to God.

You Will Soon Be Set Free (part 4)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free" (part 4)

Luke 21:28a

You know what I've heard ever since 9th grade?  That's when I grew from 5'5" to 6'5".  What do you think I've heard?  "Stand up straight."  

After growing another 4 inches in high school, then I really heard it.  "Don't stoop!"  "Be proud of your height"!  I would reply something like, "I can't help but stoop and bend over--I have to talk to all you short people."

Former basketball great Wilt Chamberlain was proud of his height--even arrogant about it.  One time, when he was traveling with the 76'ers, he was on an elevator at the hotel.  A lady looked up at him and said, "How's the weather up there, Wilt?"  He looked down on her, spit on her, and said, "It's raining."  Evidently he had heard enough of that weather line.

It's hard to remember to stand up straight.  Sometimes I think I am.  Then I see a picture of me, and my shoulders are rounded, my neck is bent down, and I'm not straight.

When I was in seminary, some old guy, a retired pastor was visiting the seminary.  He was very tall.  He struck up a conversation with me and one of the first things he said was, "Stand up straight."  He told me I should stick my thumbs out away from my body--that was a trick he used to stand up straight.  I was in my early twenties.  I didn't need to be told by some old geezer how to keep my thumbs out and stand up straight. Do you know what that looks like—how dweebish it is—walking around with your thumbs out!?  Now I'm an old geezer and I still don't stand straight.  And I never kept my thumbs out, either.

II

Posture is important, though.  Not just standing straight.  But what our posture, our body language, is communicating to others.

There’s a lot of posturing going on in our world these days.  It doesn’t matter if it's a basketball player dunking on his defenders head then strutting back down the court; or, Russia and Turkey putting troops on each other’s boarders; or one of the Republican candidates at the latest debate trying to appear tough and commanding.

We all do a bit of posturing, don’t we—trying to convey a false impression.  Posing is another word for it.  Posing and posturing.  Trying to impress or mislead others about who we are simply through our posture.

We do that because we all realize how our posture conveys what we are feeling, or how we are feeling about ourselves, about others, or our situation in life.  If you pay attention to posture and body language you can discern a lot about other people.  The reason you need to pay attention to body language and posture is that we communicate more with our bodies than with our words.  The truth is, our bodies never lie even when our words are.

III

I have been directing your attention, this Advent, to Jesus’ Second Coming as contrasted to his First Coming.  I talked two weeks ago about the state of the world that Jesus first came into, and the state of the world when he will come again.

At his Second Coming, Jesus says our posture should change.  When Jesus comes again we should straighten up, stand up, lift up our heads, rise to our feet.  At the first coming, people’s posture was different.  Then, people kneeled before the Savior Child.  Before this awesome visage of humble power, God in a baby, people could do no other than fall to a kneeling posture.

But when Jesus comes again, it is time to get up.  It’s time to get on our feet, straighten up, and lift our faces.

If people are to rise and straighten up when Jesus comes again, what does that tell us about people’s posture before that Second Coming?  What truth were people’s bodies and posture conveying before Jesus comes again?

First, they are bent over.  Maybe bent over in defeat.  Dani Canaan put up a video on her Facebook site this week.  It was the last point of the volleyball match between #1 USC and 9th ranked KU.  That last point seemed to go on forever.  KU won the point and won the match.  The difference in posture between the two teams was amazing.  The USC team had stunned, blank looks on their faces, with shoulders rolled in.  Just standing still.  Unable even to talk.  They were bent over by defeat.  That’s how people look before Jesus will come back—bent over in defeat.  Like they were fighting to keep their place in the world and didn’t make it.  Feeling like losers.

Imagine a world of people feeling like losers.  How many millions of people are feeling bent over.  Defeated by life’s harsher circumstances.  Hunger.  Grief.  Oppression.  Homelessness.  Refugees.  Poverty.  Addictions.  Jobless.  Chronic or terminal illness.  Victims of terrorists.  All bent over and defeated.

Secondly, when Christ comes again, if people are to lift their heads, they must have been going through life with heads down.  Facing the ground.  Maybe eyes closed.  Feeling depressed.  Not looking where they were going, especially.  Just shuffling along.  Putting one foot in front of the other.  No sense of mission or purpose in life.  Watching their round-toed shoes slowly stepping forward, right, shuffle, left, shuffle, right, shuffle, left, shuffle.

When you are trying to assess someone’s body language while having a conversation, particularly when the other person won’t look you in the eyes, how are you reading that?  Especially if they always look down and never look up.  What are they saying about how they feel about themselves?  Think about a world of people who feel so worthless about themselves, so aimless, so purposeless, they can’t and won’t lift their faces to look at other people in the eye, or look around and see the world.

Imagine the burden it is to carry the feeling that you are not important to anyone.  That no one cares.  The feeling of being alone.  That if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.  And you’re not even sure if you are up to the task of looking after yourself.  Those kinds of feelings keep you looking down, neck bent with the weight of self-resignation or despair.  Even humiliation.

IV

Combine those two postures into one body.  (Do this.) Bent over.  Shoulders hunched and rolled inwards.  Neck bent down.  Face parallel to the ground.  It’s as if their body is boxed in—bent and compressed to fit the space of the box which is called misery.  They are in the box and unable to get out, or even want to get out.  Unable to free themselves, they are stuck in the cramped box of depression and burden and exhaustion and defeat.  Nothing to be proud about.  No one proud of them.

One of the words in the Bible for sin literally means to be boxed in.  To be compressed, to be squeezed down upon, and totally constricted.

That’s how the world of people is.  People may not look like that.  We are good at pretending.  Look around at people, and pay attention to their bodies; you will see the signs of the betrayal of their seemingly happy words—shoulders slightly rounded, faces down more than looking up, the loss of a lightness to their step.  Pay attention; you will see it.  God does.  And that’s why Christ must come again, to straighten people up, to lift up their faces once and for all.

V

When Christ will come, all people will finally be able to raise up.  They will become unbent.  The poet, Ranier Maria Rilke, in one of his poems, wrote:

I want to unfold

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded,

there I am a lie…

I like those lines because they describe for me what Christ will do when he comes.  Not just in the Second Coming, but also when Jesus comes to us at all times.  Jesus will “unfold” us.  (Do this.) Jesus will first get us out of the cramped space we have been folded into—that we most likely have folded ourselves into—and release us from those boxes.  And then Jesus will begin the slow and amazing process of unfolding us so we can stand up straight again.  So we can lift our faces again and look him in the eyes, face-to-face, and never hang our head again.

Because, as the poet Rilke has in his poem, when we are folded up human beings, we are “a lie.”  That is, we aren’t who we are.  We aren’t who we can and should be in the name of Jesus.  Our lives are no where near where they should be when we are folded up.  We are living a lie.

Folded up, we have fallen for the lie that this is all we can amount to.

We have fallen for the lie that there is no mission in life to which we can give ourselves to.

We have fallen for the lie that we can be nothing great, nor do great things as God’s human beings.

We have fallen for the lie that Jesus can do nothing with us now that we have allowed ourselves to be folded and boxed.

That is all a lie.

Jesus doesn’t want us to live that lie.  That lie must be broken for all human beings who have been bent over, face down, and folded up.  That is why Jesus has come and will come again.  Now that Jesus has come, and when Jesus comes again, and however many more times Jesus must come until we get it, he is extending us his hand.  Once we touch that hand we feel a new backbone forming.  We are given a new set of eyes that aren’t afraid to look into another’s eyes.  We feel ourselves unfolding, straightening up, face up, standing tall, poised, and ready to live the Jesus life.  Brave.  Poised.  Strong.  Confident.  Elated, even.

Stand up straight.  Raise your heads.  Jesus is coming.

You Will Soon Be Set Free. (Part 3)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free". (Part 3)

Luke 21:27

Writer and musician Spike Milligan has been attributed with the quote, “Everybody has to be somewhere.”  It makes sense, does it not?  You can’t say, “I’m in the middle of nowhere,” because nowhere doesn’t exist.

Do you know what the word, “utopia” literally means?  It is the combination of two Greek words.  “Eu” means “no.”  “Topos” means “place.”  So utopia literally means “no place.”  A utopia doesn’t exist.  It is a no place.

Which means that Jesus was born in a utopia.  The story of his birth in Luke says there was “no place” for Mary to have her baby.  No place.

Oh, there was a place.  As I started this message, everyone has to be somewhere.  Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem.  That’s definitely a place.  It was a small town.  Still is.  But it was even smaller back then.  Evidently only one inn.  The story tells us there was “no place in the inn,” not, “no place in an inn.”

No place.  No tucked away corner.  No scrap of a place on the floor some where.  No storeroom.  No back hallway.  No place.

What’s even sadder is, this is not just about an inn with no place.  Remember why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem.  There was a census going on.  The Roman government wanted to make sure it was getting all the taxes they thought they deserved.  In order to be counted and therefore appropriately taxed by the occupational army and provisional Roman government, a person had to go back to their family home of origin.

What that means is that, for Joseph and Mary, all their extended family would be in Bethlehem as well.  Aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, nieces and nephews.  All of Joseph and Mary’s family would be there.  Which begs the question:  Why did Joseph and Mary have to find no place in an inn?  Why didn’t a second or third or first cousin give a pregnant relative a place?  Why was there no welcome given to Joseph and Mary so that they could have a place where their baby could be born?

How could the famous middle eastern ethic of hospitality break down, so that even a pregnant relative could find “no place?”  Even among the middle eastern bedouins, if a stranger wandered into their camp, and the bedouin took that stranger into their tent out of hospitality, the bedouin was bound to protect their guest with their life.  That was the unwritten rule of hospitality.  To offer no hospitality, which literally means to take a stranger in and give them a place, give them protection, to offer no hospitality was a huge insult.  Mary and Joseph, and eventually a baby, were given “no place.”

To treat someone as such is to make them invisible.  To give them “no place” is to make them invisible.  So when Jesus came into the world, offered no hospitality, no room, no home, no extended family gathered round, no place, it was as if he were invisible to the rest of that place.  Even, as we shall see, when the shepherds came, all they found was Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus.  No one else.  At a “no place” stable cave.  Mostly invisible to the rest of that little town, and entirely invisible to the rest of the world.

II

But, when Jesus comes again, he will come on the clouds.

There are two reasons Jesus will come on the clouds.  First, a cloud was symbolic for the presence of God.  Remember during the Exodus, when the Hebrew slaves were taken out of Egypt by Moses?  As they crossed the wilderness a pillar of cloud led them in the right direction during the day time—the cloud of God’s presence.

When Moses went up on the mountain to receive the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them, a cloud descended upon the mountain—the cloud of the presence of God.

When Jesus was transfigured and met with Moses and Elijah, they were enveloped in a cloud—the cloud of the presence God.  When Jesus ascended into heaven after the Resurrection, he did so on a cloud—the cloud of the presence of God.

That Jesus, in his Second Coming will come on the clouds means that he will come in and with the full presence of God.

And the second reason Jesus will come again on the clouds is, unlike the first coming in the stable, he will be totally visible to the whole world.  John the Divine tells us in the book of Revelation,

Riding the clouds, he’ll be seen by every eye…

People from all nations and all times.  (Revelation 1:7)

No longer invisible, where there is “no place” for him, Jesus will come again and there will be no place that won’t see him this time.  The angels told the shepherds that the Savior will be for all people.  But not all people saw.  Not all people believed.  In the Second Coming, all will see, and all will be challenged to believe because of what they will see.

III

In the first coming, at the birth of Jesus, the Savior had a manger for a bed.  A feed trough.  Remember how you were with your first child.  So over-protective.  Not letting just anyone hold your baby.  Trying to protect them from germs.  Thinking that you could provide a protective barrier for your new baby against the grit and grime of the world.

Imagine Mary and Joseph holding the new born baby Jesus, looking for someplace to lay him down for a nap.  And you spy the manger.  The feeding trough.  The place where coarse food—the entire corn plant and other silage—was placed for the horses and cattle.  The place where those animals would chew over and slobber into.  Years of build up of animal drool and bits of leftover stalks and leaves.  That’s the only place to lay their baby—the Savior of the world.

Not a very glorious place, by a long shot.  No velvet blankets to wrap the babe in.  Only swaddling cloths, a thin layer of wrap to protect your newborn from the detritus of a feeding trough.  Not regal at all.  No one would see anything of dignity in a baby wrapped in stripped pieces of cloth, and sleeping in a manger.  Could this really be the Savior of the world?

But, when Jesus comes again, he will come with “great glory.”  Instead of a dingy, dark and dank cattle cave, Jesus will come again in eye shielding brightness and brilliance.  Instead of the indignity of a no place, Jesus will come again with overpowering majesty.  Instead of having to be laid in a cattle crib on top of chewed up bits and orts, Jesus will come again with the magnificence as if he were a King upon a resplendent throne.  Instead of appearing as a nobody in a no place, Jesus will come again, preeminent above all and over all.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,”

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

What he’s saying is that all of us are being fitted for heaven.  Some day we will have heavenly bodies, that, if we saw them now, we would be in awe.  Multiply that by the thousands in relation to Jesus.  In the first coming, in the first Advent, Jesus and his surroundings seemed dull and uninteresting.  Jesus was just an ordinary baby in a less than ordinary cattle cave sleeping in a stall.

But in the Second Coming, the Second Advent, Jesus will be seen in all his glory.  No mere mortal, but the glorious, magnificent and majestic Savior and Son of God, so bright we will be unable to look upon him.  In the first coming people looked at Jesus and turned away, not really seeing anything they thought worth looking at.  In the Second Coming no one will be able to look away from him.

IV

In the first coming, Jesus seemed to be totally powerless.  Certainly, babies are powerless.  They are completely dependent on their parents for everything.  There is nothing they can do for themselves other than cry hoping someone will pay attention to them.

Jesus was born, not to a wealthy family, but a peasant couple, who themselves had no personal power.  Repeatedly they were turned away.  As I’ve mentioned, they were people who had no place, and thus no power.

Joseph and Mary were doormats, and that made Jesus a doormat.  According to Bill Farmer's newspaper column, J. Upton Dickson was a fun-loving fellow who said he was writing a book entitled Cower Power. He also founded a group of submissive people. It was called DOORMATS. That stands for “Dependent Organization of Really Meek And Timid Souls”.  They hope people like the name of their group…unless there are any objections? Their motto is: “The meek shall inherit the earth”—if that's okay with everybody.  Their symbol is the yellow traffic light.

That’s how Jesus came into the world—a powerless doormat.  But when Jesus comes again, it will be with power.  This word power in Greek is the word dunamis—the same word we get the word dynamite from.  Explosive power.  Earth Crushing power.

It’s also the kind of power that is inherent in a thing or person.  Most people gain power because it is given to them or they earn it.  Prince Charles is next in line to be King of England, not because he is an inherently kingly person, but simply because of the family he was born into.  His power has been conferred upon him.

But the power Jesus has when he comes again will be a power that resides in himself just by virtue of his nature—his nature as God.  God may be the only being in the universe that has not had power conferred upon him, but is power inherent.  Jesus, God in the flesh, will come again into the world with that same natural power.

The irony is that in the first Advent, Jesus had that same power within himself, but people didn’t see it.  Nor did Jesus totally exercise it—a miracle here or there.  For the most part, as Isaiah the prophet described the coming Savior, centuries before the first Advent: 

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  (Isaiah 53:3)

Jesus was treated as if he had no power, displaying his ultimate powerlessness by being crucified.

But in the second coming, that irony will be erased.  The one people considered powerless will be displayed with explosive and mighty power.  And then we will know.

The same Savior, coming two different times, in two entirely different ways, but with the same intention:  to set the people of this world free.

You Will Soon Be Set Free (part 2)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free"  (part 2)

Luke 21:25-26

What’s going to happen in the future?

Ten years ago, as you looked into the future, is today what you saw?  Is the person you are now the person you envisioned you would be from back then?  Is the world we live in now the world you envisioned 10 years ago?  What about 25 years ago?  50 years ago?

What’s going to happen this afternoon?  Tomorrow?  I try to keep a thorough calendar of future days.  I look at my calendar and it tells me what appointments and events will be coming up.  I look forward with anticipation to some of those events on my calendar.  Not so much anticipation with others.  But at least I know.  Each item on each day of my calendar is going to happen, right?

My calendar gives me a sense that the future is predictable.  Probably about 95% of the time, what I have on my calendar happens.  But there are times when things I didn’t expect to happen, happens.  Or things I expected to happen get canceled.  I get surprises.  Some times they aren’t good surprises.  I’m sure Betsy and Larry Koontz weren’t happy about coming home this week, surprised to see a huge branch crashed through their roof and into their bedroom.  Couldn't have seen that one coming, or had it on the calendar.  Most of the time events are just what they are.

We like to have a sense of control over our future.  We want that predictability.  Whenever we speak a sentence that begins with the words, “I will…” it has to do with what we want to happen in our future.

The futurist Robert Prehoda once wrote:

Unless you believe in a totally fixed and immutable time-stream (in which case it doesn’t matter what you do, everything’s frozen in cement already) then the future must be a series of events that have not yet happened, and therefore can be altered, changed, diverted, moved, shaped by myriad of individual decisions.  There is no one certain future; there are countless possible futures, with every moment bringing new opportunities to hand.

But, look back through this statement by Jesus and see how many times the word “will” comes up:

“Strange things will happen…”

“The nations on earth will be afraid…”

“People will be so frightened…”

“Every power in the sky will be shaken.”

“…the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud…”

“You will soon be set free.”

Six times.

Let’s look at that word, “will” and what it infers.  Because from what Jesus said, it doesn't appear there are a lot of options.  If something “will” happen it means whatever is to happen is expected.  Not only expected—it’s supposed to happen.  There is no shade of doubt.  There is certainty.  There aren’t “countless possible futures,” as Prehoda wrote.  There is only one.

Also, behind these “will” statements of Jesus is a sense of determination.  Determined in two meanings of the word.  First, determined as in predestined.  If something will happen, and there is certainty about it happening, it means it is fated, or determined and fixed that it will happen.  And nothing will be able to derail that fate.  If it will happen, it has been set.

Determination also has the sense of volition behind it.  If I make an “I will” statement it means I am being deliberate in my choices and actions.  I am exercising my own purposes.  I am determined.  “I will make this happen.”

Coupled with that is fact that in order to say you will make such-and-such happen, you must have the power to make it happen.  I can’t say something like, “I will make Donald Trump close his mouth and drop out of the presidential election.”  I could show all the determination I want about that statement, but I just don’t have the power to pull it off.  So if you say you will do something, you better have the power to make it happen.

One other part of this statement Jesus makes about all the things that will happen has to do with design.  Some things will happen simply because that is the way they are designed.  That’s the feeling we get when we read Jesus’ six “will” statements—that this is the way the future is designed, and that future can’t do other than how it has been designed to play out.  Thus we get back to fate or determinism.  We may not like the way certain things about life are designed, but that’s tough.  There are some things about the design we don’t get to have a say in.

The ultimate destination of our future, or the future of the world, is one of those.  At least according to this statement of Jesus.

The other unsettling part of these six “will” statements is that they are open-ended.  We can be sure that they will happen.  We just don’t know when.  Most of our “I will” statements that we make we try to be close-ended.  “I will buy a different car next week.”  “I will write a book in 2016.”  “I will drink some oolong tea with my lunch today.”

Not so with Jesus’ statements.  The Second Coming, and these events, could start happening this afternoon.  Or 50 years from now.  It’s already been over 2000 years since Jesus made this statement.  So when?  We don’t know.

I was having breakfast with Alan and Rex Thursday morning at the Servateria.  A lady walked up to our booth and started preaching to us.  She said Jesus was going to come back soon because of all those blankety-blank Islamatists and what's happening in Jerusalem.  She said her husband told her to keep her mouth shut and I told her I might agree with him, but that the guys in the next booth over would love to hear what she had to say.  She moved on.

I admit, I was a bit crass.  But I get tired of people who say they know stuff about the Second Coming, when Jesus himself said he didn't know when it was going to happen.  We don't know.

The timing of either the first or second coming of Christ isn't what's important.  What is important is understanding the why of both the first and second coming.  And the why has to do with the kind of world that God is entering through Christ.

Look at how the world is described in these verses about the Second Coming.  Every power in the sky--sun, moon and stars--will shake.  In ancient times people believed the stars to be spiritual powers.  So even the powers in the skies, that had once been unmoving and constant, would suddenly become unstable.

The nations of the earth are living in fear and they won't know what to do about their fear.  Isn't our world currently being held in fear by terrorists, unstable and unruly nations ruled by unstable leaders?  The human-to-human atrocities are mind boggling!  We are bombarded with barbaric images from around our world of human cruelty and craziness.  Which city will be next?  Which innocent person will be next?  If we get used to those images or numbed to these inhuman actions, shame on us.

There is fear of climate change.  Of scarce water supplies.  Of antibiotic resistant bacteria.  And on and on.  The number one reality of our world is fear, and we have no idea what to do about it.

Fear is so bad, says these words of Jesus, that people will faint because of what's happening.  Imagine this prophetic picture portraying life prior to and during Christ's return.  As the events of his Second Coming unfold, a sense of dread, discouragement and perplexity closes down upon the world like the lid of a casket.

In one Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy is lying in his doghouse.  He is thinking to himself, "It's nice to wake up in the morning with a feeling well-being...to know that even though there's snow on the ground and it's a little chilly outside, basically life is good, and that you personally are..."  At that point, Snoopy stopped in mid-sentence and looked up.  Above him, hanging from the eave of the house, is one of the largest icicles he has ever seen.  Not knowing when it might fall on his little doghouse, Snoopy finishes his sentence, "...life is good, and that you are personally DOOMED!"

We have some of those kind of icicles hanging over our lives and over our world at the present time.  The unknowing of when they will fall paralyzes us from action or simple reaction.

As this Peanuts cartoon continues, Snoopy is looking up at the menacing spike of ice poised directly above him and his doghouse.  He's thinking to himself, "It's silly to be trapped in a doghouse by an icicle!"  Looking out straight ahead of him he continues to think, "I think I'll just make a run for it!  Just zoom out of here!"  The next frame shows Snoopy with a look of determination on his face as he talks to himself into making a bold move out of his precarious position:  "I think I'll just leap up and zoom right out!"  Then he looked up at the icicle and settles back down, feeling like a captive to his situation:  "I think I'll just lie here for the rest of my life!"

That's the dread that comes through the picture of the world at the time of Christ's second Advent.  The people of the world are discouraged and have a sense of bewilderment as to what is happening.  There is a certain reality that the people of the world are totally out of control--those who are the victimizers and those who are the victims.  The icicles over our lives and over the people of the world loom too large, and our avenues of escape seem to be all dead ends.  We give up.  We become fatalists.  We just lay down under our growing sense of doom.

On top of that is the image in these verses of the chaotic and untamed seas.  Throughout the Bible, the sea is a symbol for the troubled world.  The Psalmist cried out to God, "All thy breakers and thy waves have rolled over me" (Psalm 42:7).  And in another Psalm, David cried,

"Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life.

I have sunk where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters,

and a flood overflows me!"  (Psalm 69:1-2)

If anyone has swam in the ocean and felt the waves crash against them, they know what the psalmist is describing.  No matter how firmly you think you are standing, when that wave hits, you are down.  And you may feel the dangerous undertow tugging you down.  It's fun when you are playing with the waves.  It is not fun when they hit when you didn't expect it, or when they hit with such a ferocity that can knock the wind out of you for a time.

This is the picture of human life just prior to Christ's second Advent--wave upon wave of battering experiences, making the people of the world unable to get up before the next wave hits.  Our news is full of such waves.

This chaotic and untamable sea of human events makes us wonder where history is going.  When the rumors and possibilities of the icicle world events loom over us, we have the expectation that the worst is yet to come.  We just know it's all going to come crashing down upon us, so we just lay there, cringing, like Snoopy in the doghouse, overpowered by despair.

Is there any hope for us, for the people of our world?

In the final installment of Snoopy's icy predicament, Charlie Brown and Lucy put a pizza out on the snow.  Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "I'm doing just what the man from the humane society said to do."  Snoopy, laying in his doghouse sniffs the air catching the scent of the pizza.  Then, just as the icicle falls and destroys the doghouse, Snoopy zooms out to eat the pizza.  Charlie Brown and Lucy cheer, "SAVED BY A PIZZA!"  Snoopy thinks to himself, "Good Grief!"

Humanity won't be saved by pizza.  But salvation is on the way.

You Will Soon Be Free

"You Will Soon Be Free"

Luke 21:25-28

What’s going to happen in the future?

Ten years ago, as you looked into the future, is today what you saw?  Is the person you are now the person you envisioned back then?  What about 25 years ago?  50 years ago?

What’s going to happen this afternoon?  Tomorrow?  I try to keep a thorough calendar of future days.  I look at my calendar and it tells me what appointments and events will be coming up.  I look forward with anticipation to some of those events on my calendar.  Not so much anticipation with others.  But at least I know.  Each item on each day of my calendar is going to happen, right?

My calendar gives me a sense that the future is predictable.  Probably about 95% of the time, what I have on my calendar happens.  But there are times when things I didn’t expect to happen, happens.  Or things I expected to happen get canceled.  I get surprises.  Some times they aren’t good surprises.

We like to have a sense of control over our future.  We want that predictability.  Whenever we speak a sentence that begins with the words, “I will…” it has to do with what we want to happen in our future.  Earlier this week, as a number of you invited me to spend Thanksgiving with you and your families, I replied, “I will be going to Wichita for a couple of days to spend Thanksgiving with my son, his wife and her family.”  But looking at the weather I didn’t know if I would be able to say, “I will be coming home on Friday.”  If the weather said, “I will be dumping an inch of ice all over the land,” then the weather’s “I will,” just might have precedence over my, “I will.”

Whenever we start a sentence with, “I will…” it means we haven’t done it yet, or experienced it yet.  It’s something that will happen in the future.  But because we say it, we assume it will happen.  It means I have made a choice and it’s my intention to make that choice happen.

I’ve always thought that life is about choices.  And the choices are about all those, “I will…” statements we make.  But the more I thought about it this week, I wondered more and more if my “I will…” statements really have my personal power in them.

Here’s what I mean by that.  I am not the only person who is saying, “I will… do such and such.”  Everyone else is making their own, “I will…” statements.  Some of those are bound to encroach into my own “I will…” statements.  Everyone is trying to build their own future with their own “I will…” statements at the same time.  What happens when some of those future plans collide?

Certainly you and your spouse have had those kinds of conversations.  How do you handle it when your two separate “I will…” statements collide or are incompatible?  What happens when what you will be doing, even for just the next hour or the rest of the day doesn’t quite fit with what your spouse or your kids envision what they will be doing?

Or what if the two clashing “I will…” statements go something like this:  You say, “I will be going to the France-Germany soccer match tonight and I will sing and chant my voice hoarse for the French team.”  That sounds like a fun and memorable, “I will…” statement about your future.

But unbeknownst to you, there is another group of young men who are arming themselves with automatic rifles and stating, “I will go to the France-Germany soccer game and I will shoot to kill as many spectators as I can in the name of my religion.”  You who were going to the soccer game as a spectator had no idea there was another whose “I will…” statement was going to clash with yours in such a deadly way.

Thankfully, not all “I will…” statements clash in such a hideous and ugly way.

But I think we don’t stop and realize how most our choices, most of our “I will…” statements end up being negotiations, because we don’t consider how our choice will impact others, and other’s choices will impact ours.

Which brings me to one of the points in this message, Our futures are always negotiable.  Our choices are all negotiable with the others who are also making choices, and “I will…” statements, that may not mesh well with our own.

So maybe, life isn’t about choices, or the sum total of all the choices we make.  Maybe life is more about the sum of all of our negotiations that flow out of our choices and our “I will…” statements.  Think about it.  There is a huge invisible web out there that connects all of us through those negotiations that are woven by every one of our “I will…” statements.

The futurist Robert Prehoda once wrote:

Unless you believe in a totally fixed and immutable time-stream (in which case it doesn’t matter what you do, everything’s frozen in cement already) then the future must be a series of events that have not yet happened, and therefore can be altered, changed, diverted, moved, shaped by myriad of individual decisions.  There is no one certain future; there are countless possible futures, with every moment bringing new opportunities to hand.

That’s the way life works:  we make choices based on our, “I will…” statements, and we negotiate those choices within the web of relationships that we hold dear.  Then we move into our future, molded by those negotiations.

Except in one instance.  There is one future that is not negotiated.  When God says, “I will…” our only response is to like or not.  But even if we don’t like it, we don’t get to negotiate with God.  Only a couple of times did God allow negotiation according to the Bible:  when Abraham negotiated with God about any righteous people who might be in Sodom and Gomorrah; and when the people of Ninevah negotiated with God through their repentance, and God changed from the “I will destroy Ninevah in 40 days” statement.

Here, in Luke, we have one of those “I will” statements.  It is by this statement that we find out there are times in the history of the world that all our “I will” statements will be suspended; another’s “I will…” statement will take absolute precedence and there is no negotiation.

Look back through this statement by Jesus and see how many times the word “will” comes up:

“Strange things will happen…”

“The nations on earth will be afraid…”

“People will be so frightened…”

“Every power in the sky will be shaken.”

“…the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud…”

“You will soon be set free.”

Six times.

Let’s look at that word, “will” and what it infers.  If something “will” happen it means whatever is to happen is expected.  Not only expected—it’s supposed to happen.  There is no shade of doubt.  There is certainty.

Also, behind an “I will…” statement is a sense of determination.  Determined in two meanings of the word.  First, determined as in predestined.  If something will happen, and there is certainty about it happening, it means it is fated, or determined that it will happen.  And nothing will be able to derail that fate.  If it will happen, it has been set.

Determination also has the sense of volition behind it.  If I make an “I will” statement it means I am being deliberate in my choices and actions.  I am exercising my own purposes.  I am determined.  “I will make this happen.”

Coupled with that is fact that in order to say you will make such-and-such happen, you must have the power to make it happen.  I can’t say something like, “I will make Donald Trump drop out of the presidential election.”  I could show all the determination I want about that statement, but I just don’t have the power to pull it off.  So if you say you will do something, you better have the power to make it happen.

One other part of this statement Jesus makes about all the things that will happen has to do with design.  Some things will happen simply because that is the way they are designed.  That’s the feeling we get when we read Jesus’ six “will” statements—that this is the way the future is designed, and that future can’t do other than how it has been designed to play out.  Thus we get back to fate or determinism.  We may not like the way certain things about life are designed, but that’s tough.  There are some things about the design we don’t get to have a say in.

The ultimate destination of our future, or the future of the world, is one of those.  At least according to this statement of Jesus.

The other dissettling part of these six will statements is that they are open-ended.  We can be sure that they will happen.  We just don’t know when.  Most of our “I will” statements that we make we try to be close-ended.  “I will buy a different car next week.”  “I will write a book in the month of November.”  “I will drink some oolong tea with my lunch today.”

Not so with Jesus’ statements.  The Second Coming, and these events, could start happening this afternoon.  Or 50 years from now.  It’s already been over 2000 years since Jesus made this statement.  So when?  We don’t know.

There were “will” statements made about the first coming of the Savior for thousands of years.  And then, as Luke states in the Nativity story, “Suddenly there were angels in the sky singing…”  The Savior was here.  “Suddenly.”

In the coming weeks of Advent I will look at what has happened with the first coming of the Savior, and compare that with what will happen when the Savior comes again.  “I will” do that.  Unless the Lord breaks in and the sea starts roaring and the stars start shaking out of the sky.  My “I will” must bow to Christ’s.

The Two Lingering Scents

"The Two Lingering Scents"

Mark 14:3-6

Believe it or not, there are people who devote their entire lives to studying stinky, smelly things. Take Dr. George Preti, for example.

Preti has been studying odors for just under 40 years, primarily at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.  Once, he accidentally knocked over a flask filled with concentrated armpit extract, which shattered on the floor of his lab and splattered all over. He cleaned the mess and put his shoes in a plastic bag, thinking he had contained the odor.

“But it’s like when you work in a restaurant where they’re cooking something really pungent,” Preti said. “After you’ve been there for awhile, you don’t smell the odor anymore.”

Preti took the train home, getting more than a few dirty looks from his fellow commuters, and was picked up at the station by his wife. “As soon as I got in the car, my wife said, ‘You smell like a street person!’ She was just overwhelmed with the odor, and I couldn’t smell anything,” he says. Preti later calculated that he had spilled the equivalent of “about 600,000 people’s armpits” onto his sneakers and pants.  “I threw the shoes and pants out,” he said. “There’s no way I could’ve neutralized the smell.”

Smells and odors can be overpowering.  In fact, the sense of smell is, of the five senses, the one most linked to memory.  We remember the experiences of smells much more easily than things we see, touch, taste or hear.  Especially if it’s the smell of 600,000 armpits.

On the other end of extreme odors from armpits, would be nard.  Nard is the extract from a Spikenard plant grown in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, China, and India.   The underground stems of the flower are crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatically pleasing amber-colored essential oil.  Nard oil is used as a perfume, an incense, a sedative, and an herbal medicine said to fight insomnia, birth difficulties, and other minor ailments.  When the oil is used as a perfume, it is usually mixed with some kind of ointment.

When the nard oil is mixed with an ointment to make a perfume, a small jar of the ointment—back in the time of Jesus—would cost a person’s entire annual income.  Imagine spending your annual income on a small jar of perfume.  I wonder how much the concentrated extract of 600,000 armpits cost Dr. Preti when he accidentally spilled it.

There are so many questions surrounding this story of the woman and her nard ointment.  Such as, Who was she?  We aren’t told her name or given any hint about her identity.  She could have been a prostitute, since prostitutes would often carry vials of perfume around their neck on a string.  If that’s who this woman was, it might explain some of the outrage of the guests.

It would also be telling concerning spending a years wages of a prostitute to buy the nard and then spill it all out on Jesus’ head.  Jesus told the guests the woman had done “something wonderful.”  Maybe Jesus wasn't talking about how she poured the ointment on his head.  Maybe she turned her life around from the “world’s oldest profession” and was making something new with her life.  Maybe hearing the gospel of God’s love from Jesus, she came to a place of significant change where she totally reordered her life.  Out of gratitude to Jesus, she symbolically poured out the proceeds of her past life upon Jesus so she could become someone new.

Isn’t that what Jesus is all about?  Having our past human failings poured upon him so they become his to carry and not ours anymore?  So that we can be free of those failings, free of our past.  Even when those pasts have reaped for us what we thought were valuable rewards.  Which is why we continue to hold on to them.  Only by pouring out all that upon Jesus’ head, all the wages of our failings, all that bottled up stuff, will it be reckoned to us as “something wonderful” by the Lord.

Others identify this mysterious woman as Mary, Lazarus and Martha’s sister.  They were close personal friends of Jesus.  Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  You will remember that when Jesus told Martha to have her brother’s tomb opened she replied there would be an awful stench.  It would have been an interesting connection to this story of the woman and her nard—if it was sister Mary.

In the other notable story, Jesus visited the home of Mary and Martha.  Martha was in the kitchen banging pots and pans around, preparing a meal, while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet in adoration and attention.  Martha, indignant, came out from the kitchen and demanded Jesus tell Mary to get in the kitchen and help.  Jesus’ reply to Martha:  “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.  One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it…” (Luke 10:41)

If this mystery woman is indeed Mary, Martha’s sister, then she continues to choose the essential thing:  complete devotion to Jesus.  In the first instance, it was her sister Martha who misunderstood her sister’s devotion.  Martha thought duty should trump all other activity.  Including devotion to Jesus.  In this second instance it is those around the table who misunderstand Mary’s devotion, thinking duty to the poor is more important than any other activity.  Including devotion to Jesus.

Each time, if this is indeed Mary, her actions are misrepresented.  But Jesus comes to her rescue—both with Martha and with those sitting around the table.  The word that describes the criticism of the woman by those around the table literally means, “snort with anger.”  It’s a funny picture of a bunch of men snorting their disdain of the woman like a sty full of pigs.  But Jesus commends her for her courageous devotion.  Mary keeps choosing the “good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

The other mystery people are those sitting at the table with Jesus.  Is it the disciples?  Is it some other Jewish religious leaders?  We don’t know.  The only thing we know about them is that they saw the woman’s actions as a “waste.”  What does that tell us?  What does that tell us about what these mysterious guests thought about Jesus?  What does that tell us about what these men thought of this woman?  What does it tell us about what they thought of this woman’s actions?  “Why was this waste of the ointment made?” they snorted.

In answer to the first question, the guests statement tells us they didn’t think Jesus was worth it.  That Jesus isn’t worth spilling out one of the most expensive perfumes in the known world.  That Jesus wasn’t worth being honored in that way.  That Jesus wasn’t worthy of such a lavish outpouring of devotion.

We don't know much about the host of this gathering.  We know his name is Simon.  We know Simon was a leper.  Was--past tense.  If Simon were still a leper, he wouldn't be in his home.  He would be in a colony of other lepers.  The fact that he was a leper and is no longer means he had been healed.  Which didn't happen.  Ever.

Unless Simon had been healed.  By Jesus.  And maybe that's why Jesus was at Simon's home.  Out of gratitude for being healed, Simon invited Jesus to his home for a celebration of that healing, and showing gratitude for Jesus.

So, what is startling is the snorting and comments by the men gathered--including Simon the healed leper host--that Jesus isn't worth the waste of the poured out nard ointment.  If we are right here in assuming Simon was healed from a death sentence disease, wouldn't you think he'd think Jesus was worth it!?  Evidently not.

With the same snorts the men must not have thought much about the woman either.  This stupid woman evidently had no concept of the value of the perfume she just poured out to the last drop on Jesus' head.  What was she thinking!?  If she was going to get rid of the nard ointment, she could have at least sold it for a boatload of money and use that for the poor!  Why waste it in such a stupid action by a stupid woman by pouring it on Jesus?  Snort, snort, snort.

But Jesus has to reframe their snorting for them so they can see what's really happening:  "Let her alone.  Why are you giving her a hard time?  She has just done something wonderfully significant for me."  Notice Jesus didn't reprimand the other guests for their evaluation that he, Jesus, wasn't worth the sacrificial waste of the perfume.  He wasn't worried about what they thought of him.  But he was concerned about their snorting disdain of the woman who poured out the ointment of nard.

It made me think of Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard.  The workers who worked only for an hour got paid the same amount as those who worked all day in the heat of the sun.  The workers who worked longer snorted at the vineyard owner for paying everyone the same.  The vineyard owner's response:  "Do you give me the evil eye because of my generosity?" (Matthew 20:15)

Wouldn't the mystery woman be able to say the same thing to these judgmental and snorting men around the table?  Wouldn't she be on the same ground as Jesus to ask, "Are you judging me because I choose to show my generous devotion by pouring this lotion upon Jesus?  Is it not mine to do with what I want?"

I don't know if the Gospel writer Mark intended this or not, but this story of the unknown woman showing her fragrant devotion to Jesus, is sandwiched between the stench-filled stories of the Jewish religious leaders plotting to kill Jesus, and then the beginnings of Judas' betrayal of Jesus.  What we have is this rose of a woman showing scent-ual devotion to Jesus, surrounded by the thorns of plotting, jealous, and murderous leaders, and the back-stabbing of one of his own disciples.

That is the mix of our world--beautiful, sacrificial acts done in the midst of horrific human atrocities.  As I waded through all the articles about the terrorist attacks in Paris, I was looking for something specifically.  I was looking for just one story of someone stepping up, in a selfless way, to risk stopping the shooting.  Especially in the full house venue of the rock concert or the soccer game.  I was expecting to find at least one story of someone, like the marines on the train a month earlier who took that risk and stopped a bomber.  But I found none.  I found no stories of valor or heroism in the midst of humans being the worst that a human can be.  So often, one act of beauty can overpower even the most sneering acts of ugliness.  I was looking for at least one story of beauty, but found none.

In the home of Simon that day, there were two scents.  The nard lotion, once freed from its alabaster jar would have filled that house with an amazingly beautiful scent.  It would have cascaded out the windows into the homes nearby.

But there was another scent being given off by the men around the table.  From their snorting they would have created an "air" of resentment and bitterness.  And just plain being a small and shriveled human being.

Which scent would be stronger?  Which of the two scents would overpower the other?  The scent emanating and wafting from the beauty and devotion of the mystery woman's act with the nard lotion flowing down Jesus' head?  Or the sneering and snorting stench from the ungracious men around the table?

Which of the two scents do you put off, as you move in and around and through your day?  Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthian church:

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.  And who is adequate for these things?  (2 Corinthians 2:15-16, NASB)

What is the aroma you put off?  The aroma of life?  Or the aroma of death?  You are adequate to do either.  I say, choose the aroma of life and beauty, all wrapped up in your devotion to Christ.  Snnnnniiiiiiffffff!