Wilderness Wanderings

"Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come" (Psalm 71:18).

I read about a Christian leader whose office walls are covered with pictures of those who, as he put it, "have finished strong". He has pictures of Mother Teresa, C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Francis Schaeffer.

When I took a course on leadership some years ago, one of the units was on "finishing well." At times I ponder the question, "What does it mean to finish well?"

It is known that Billy Graham once said to his daughter, "All my life, I've been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old." One thing I have observed. Growing old is not easy. Psalm 71 gives us a sage testimony that can sustain us along the way.

Interestingly, my first intensive experience with Psalm 71 was as a preaching text for a Cadet Sunday (Cadet's is a club for boys ages 9-13). I doubt it was the Cadets themselves which choose the text since the Psalm was originally composed by an old person who was probably struggling with some life ending disease. There is a sense that the psalmist was feeling shunted to the side, no longer useful.

How does this poem help us finish well? There is a deep and abiding confidence in God woven into this song. "But as for me, I will always have hope...Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter; you will restore my life again" (14, 20).

It is not uncommon for Christians to wonder if "their faith will stick". We worry we will backslide, and death will come upon us in a season of doubt or unbelief or ungodliness.

The psalmist has no such fear, and we don't need to live with it either. We put way too much stock in our own abilities or too much doubt in our lack of them. Here, the scripture reminds us that our hope is not in ourselves, but in our God. The God who calls us is the God who will keep us. Whatever life might hold, He will always be there with us.

Finishing well is not dependent on us, but on God fulfilling His promise to be with us to the end. Our salvation is not dependent on our holiness but in the holiness of Jesus Christ. As He, in obedience to His Father, suffered and died for us, our redemption was secured.

But sometimes we doubt all of this. True. Then we need to pray Psalm 71. We join the psalmist in voicing our doubts and our disappointments. As we lay all of them out before the Lord, we discover that our hope increases, and our doubts begin to fade.

As we pray through this psalm, we also find within us a growing desire to witness to the goodness of God. It is in such praying that we remember the greatness of God and we are filled with a need to declare it to the next generation.

Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Messiah,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come." (Matthew 24:4-6)

This month, I have been struck, through the assault on the US Capitol, the protests against lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, and the prevalence of numerous conspiracy theories from QAnon and other sources swirling through the internet feeds of people we know—I have been struck through all this that we perhaps haven't been talking enough about the 'end times' in church.

The words of Jesus from Matthew 24 have sprung to my mind numerous times this past month as I've begun more and more to witness the distinctly religious character of some of the disinformation, conspiracy theories, and protests out there, to say nothing of the quite religious way that some hold to these beliefs. A number of these threads of disinformation lay a nearly ultimate claim on truth or knowledge that really is the realm of faith more than civics.

Some threads are even more overt. Some evangelical leaders in the States have claimed for the past five years that Donald Trump is/was the "Lord's anointed," which in Hebrew is "messiah." Hence my reflections on our true Messiah's words from Matthew 24 where Jesus explicitly warns us, a few times across the chapter, against the deception of false messiah figures.

Now, it can be easy to get caught up in some of these threads of disinformation, especially when we feel distrustful of authorities, feel unheard, have been hurt by those in authority, or receive this stuff as a recommendation from a friend we trust. Being an insider to some secret or sensational reality can return to us a feeling of a sense of control over an otherwise chaotic world or can add fuel to our already simmering dislike of those in power.

But the truth is rarely so sensational—it's often much more commonplace, sad, or even boring. So when we hear of troubling evils in this world or sensational rumors as many of us are right now, Jesus cautions us to hold our ground. "Don't be deceived and don't be alarmed," he says.

All this comes in Jesus' comments on the end times, something that has tended in Christian circles to generate quite a bit of sensational speculation itself. But, I don't believe that was Jesus' intent. I appreciate how commentator Dale Bruner puts it. He says:

"The signs of the end are not so much decipherable political events (with the single exception of the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in AD 70) as they are warnings to be level-headed, clear-thinking, and warmly loving Christians in difficult times. Jesus does not so much charge the air with signs as he charges disciples with sobriety. Jesus' sermon does not intend to create apocalyptic seers but to create spiritual long-distance runners; it does not so much give disciples supernatural knowledge of coming events as it supplies disciples with supernatural endurance for any coming events."

So, hold the line, friends, come what may. These are challenging times. Tiring times. Times when, as Jesus will say just a few verses later, the love of many will grow cold. But the truth remains: Jesus is the Lord's anointed, and no other. He is the one who saves us. And he is the one who will ultimately set things right and heal our every disease. He is our hope in the end. So hold firm and place your trust, not in any sensational internet phenomena, but in Jesus.

And let's continue to talk with and support each other through this time too as we all seek to hold faithful to the truth, together, in faith.

But the following morning when they got up, they saw the statue of Dagon. There it was, lying on the ground again! It had fallen on its face in front of the ark of the Lord. Its head and hands had been broken off. Only the body of the statue was left. Its head and hands were lying in the doorway of the temple (1 Samuel 5:4).

These were some of the darkest days for this new fledging nation called Israel. Their original duo of leaders, Moses and then Joshua, were both dead and buried; memory of both fading fast. A succession of leaders had followed, propelling Israel from one calamity to another. Meanwhile, the Philistines and their god Dagon gained influence and power.

These Philistines made their weapons and armour from new and stronger metals. Controlling the mining and manufacturing of these metals, their army was nearly invincible. It was time to make a statement, the memory of Israel would be wiped from the map. With their metal instruments of war gleaming in the morning sun, they made quick work of the Israelites with their wooden farm tools. They took the ark of Israel's God, hauling it back to Philistine territory where they put it in Dagon's temple as a trophy of war. Israel and her God were finished. The Israelites knew it. The Philistines knew it. It was party time.

Except, the next morning, when the Philistines went to pay their respects to Dagon, there he was, fallen from his throne, laying prostrate before the ark of Israel's God. That was humiliating. Assuming their god needed a little help (maybe he had drunk too much the night before), the priests hoisted Dagon back onto his throne.

But the following morning, it was even worse. There was Dagon flat on the ground in front of Israel's God again, his head and hands knocked right off his body coming to rest in the doorway. The priests were mortified. Israel's God had left Dagon powerless in his own temple. It was unthinkable. And then the complaints started coming in: rats running wild in the town and people afflicted with tumors. We're not sure what that means, but one of the more persistent theories is that it refers to hemorrhoids resulting from dysentery.

Can you imagine all those iron clad soldiers not able to remove their armour fast enough? Yes. Use your imagination to consider what that would be like. Does that seem irreverent to you? Well, as I said, this is one of the darker periods in Israel's history. Israel thought she was finished; her covenant God had finally been defeated. They were done for.

But in that darkness and apparent defeat, God asserts himself as undefeated and powerful, not just powerful in Israel, but in the very temple of the Philistine god Dagon. And God has a little fun doing it. Dagon lies broken, powerless in his own temple. Rats invest his city. And his people are being wasted by these tumors.

These people decide Israel's God cannot stay. And so, he is passed around from Philistine city to Philistine city like a hot potato. And each gets burned. They finally decide to send the ark back. What do they put on the cart beside the Ark: golden rats and golden tumors! Without lifting a sword, God lays low these mighty Philistines, demonstrating to both them and to Israel that they way underestimated him. And he has some fun doing it.

No one can manipulate or control this God simply by obtaining possession of his ark. He is sovereign and free. He is not chained to his throne. He is too big.

Is it only darkness that you see? Read 1 Samuel 5, and chuckle along with God as he reveals himself. And know this, this is the same power Jesus revealed when he faced the forces of chaos, centuries later. Trust him, the darkness cannot last, He has defeated it.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:3-4)

Yesterday's sermon talked about how the Song of Songs looks forward to the restoration of the relationship we had with God and one another in the Garden of Eden. Some of that picture is captured again here in Revelation 21.

It's the culmination of the Bible's long love story—the story of God's passionate pursuit of his people. At the end of all things, all of our anger, frustration, sadness and shouting at God's apparent absence and silence melts away in the blessed embrace of a long-lost lover's reunion. At long last, God's dwelling place is here, with us. He comes home and so do we: close enough to touch as he wipes the tears from our eyes. Never to be separated again.

Not only that, but the creation and our very bodies are renewed to fullness of life, no longer knowing pain, disease, decay, or death: only the vibrant living joy of life itself. And with it: intimacy. Love. Vulnerability without shame. Knowing and being known, seeing and being seen, and still loving and being loved even though we are fully known and fully seen. God's perfect love finally drives out all fear on that day as we find ourselves finally at rest and peace.

This full depth of intimacy we were created to know and experience only exists in the first and the last two chapters of the Bible, with only glimpses and hints in between: like in the Song of Songs, the best pictures of the prophets, or in the presence, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus.

But even now, I think we still catch glimpses of that day when we'll be reunited with Christ. Maybe those glimpses are further and fewer between in these days of pandemic lockdown, stuck at home or out with half our faces covered, but I think they're still there.

C.S. Lewis talked about those glimpses as something we might call nostalgia. A song that transports us to a different place, if even just for a moment. A scent of a flower or fresh baking that brings us back to a home we haven't seen in ages. A connection with someone, however brief, that melts our anxieties and fears away.

Sometimes it takes some work to attend to those moments to see in them a glimpse of that long-lost intimacy we really long for, and to let that fleeting moment do its work in us to lift our eyes to Christ and his coming. But that's the intimacy our hearts pine after and that all those moments and all our lives point forward to.

When you catch them—through the Spirit, at the Lord's Super, in a song or a call from an old friend—savour them, and let them draw your heart to prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

A special, extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Song of Songs 1:1-2:13 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection or discussion!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. How is your love life with God?

2. What has been your understanding of the Song of Songs? Is it the most out of place book in the Bible? Or the pinnacle of theology? Why?

3.Do you find anything in Pastor Anthony's description of our current world being one where our humanity and sensory/sensual experience of the world is diminished and flattened? If so, where does that idea connect with your own experience?

4. What connection is there be between the Lord's Supper and the love poetry of the Song of Songs? How might they each serve to enliven our experience of God's grace and presence?

5. Would there be anything like intimacy that you'd describe in your love life with God? Try to describe it if so. Is that kind of intimacy with God something you desire? Where does that desire rank among the other desires of your heart?

6. The imagery of the Garden of Eden that flows through the Song of Songs gives us a glimpse to quicken our hearts and imagination for the restoration of intimacy with God and the setting right of all our relationships. What hope might that picture, confirmed by our participation in the Lord's Supper, offer to guide you through the week ahead?

As God's co-workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, 'In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you'. I tell you, now is the time of God's favour, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

Today, I invite you back to 2 Corinthians and follow on the heals of what Pastor Anthony brought to us yesterday. He spoke about reconciliation, which happens through repentance and forgiveness. First, we are reconciled with God when we repent and ask him to forgive us. He always does. But then we are to go out to tell this story and to live it. And to invite others into it.

In the verses of our text, Paul puts a bit of fire under the boots of his listeners. Get going, he says, don't receive God's grace in vain. What does he mean by that?

Well, to validate this urgency, he quotes from Isaiah 49:8, which is part of a larger theme in the Bible. This theme is rooted in the story of Israel coming out of Egypt. What is the repeated refrain of that story? The people didn't trust God. They didn't believe he could fulfill his promise to give them the promised land. In the end, they refused to go in.

As a result, God would not bring them in. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and died. They forfeited his salvation.

Throughout the rest of the Bible this becomes a parable for what happens when God's people refuse to trust him. Psalm 95 is one of the stronger passages in this narrative, saying rather bluntly: "Don't be like that."

The writer to the Hebrews picks it up when he writes: "Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (Hebrews 3:13). In the New Testament, the 'day of salvation' or 'Today', is now. Jesus death and resurrection were God's great acts of salvation to reconcile us to himself. We must respond now, today.

The response is always two-fold. On the one hand, we must receive reconciliation from God. We receive his grace. On the other hand, we must reach out with grace and reconciliation to those who have wronged us. These two cannot be separated. That is why Jesus followed the Lord's prayer with, "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14-15).

We cannot receive grace without passing it on. If you are not sure how to begin becoming an ambassador of reconciliation, then begin at home. Begin with those that you need to forgive. Stop holding grudges. Stop making people pay for their wrongs. Break down the walls.

Is this easy? Not at all. But remember, the God who calls us to this has also reconciled us to himself and gives us the grace to reconcile with others.

Paul's urges his listeners, in Corinth and in Hamilton, to get to it.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

As Pastor Michael noted yesterday, God's saving work in Christ gives us a new identity, a way to walk, and the equipping of the Spirit to walk in that way. And as we learn to walk in this way of Christ, we discover that one of the fundamental cadences that begins to mark our steps is confession and forgiveness. The way of reconciliation.

That's not strange, it was God who first reconciled us to Himself through Christ. While we were still sinners, Christ forgave us through his taking of our place on the cross. The initiative was God's, and still to this day, that forgiving initiative of God is what invites us out of our hiding places to honestly confess and receive that which is ours in Christ: forgiveness and restoration to full relationship with God. His forgiveness leads and disarms us, our confession follows, and we are reconciled.

This is the power of the Kingdom of God, and it is the power that God authorizes all of us as the ambassadors of his kingdom to utilize fully as we walk in his ways among our family, neighbours, and friends. Digitally and in person.

Each of us walk with this diplomatic communique of the Kingdom in our hand. It is God's invitation to the world to receive his forgiveness so that they can be reconciled to God.

It's more than that though: in a very real way, we ourselves are that communique of the Kingdom. We are called to live it too: to forgive as we have been forgiven. To confess openly and honestly when we're in the wrong or have wronged someone else, because we've been forgiven. Not only is that a diplomatically attractive way to display the walk of our citizenship in the Kingdom, it also carries power with it: to draw poison from wounds, to heal, and to restore.

Many today are angry with government leaders, health leaders, neighbours from the other side of the political aisle, or even fellow Christians who navigate this pandemic differently. Some of that anger has boiled over in harsh statements on social media, in slanderous, dishonest gossip, and even in violence like the attack on the US Capitol last week.

But harsh words and harsh actions are not the power of the Kingdom. Forgiveness is. And forgiveness has the power not only to heal our hurts and our anger, but perhaps also our relationships, our political divides, and our world.

How might you respond to God's radical diplomacy of forgiveness today?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old had gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).

It used to be, and might still be, that the first skill a soldier learns in the Army is how to walk! That's right! Before ever learning to fire a weapon, dig a fox hole, or survive in combat, a soldier must first learn to walk. After all, marching is nothing more than walking in a certain way. A soldier learns to walk to the rhythm being set by the leader. Thereby, learning to walk in the same direction in which the leader is heading and to walk according to the leader's cadence.

Our Christian life is much the same. When we become soldiers for the Lord, the first thing we do is learn to walk according to His cadence. Disciples listen intently to the voice of the master and walk in the dignity and uprightness of the Lord we serve.

But notice something important here. It is the first thing after; after we come to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus. We must never forget that process of coming to know Him. And as we learn to walk in his rhythms we must always return there. Our text says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God… God works first. He reconciles us to Himself and gives us a new identity. We are His sons and daughters.

As his daughters and sons, we are gifted with the Holy Spirit who is our comforter, encourager and teacher and the source of our spiritual energy. Only because we have been made new in Christ and only because we are empowered by the Spirit can we learn how to walk.

I think we make two mistakes here. On the one hand, we think we must learn how-to walk-in step with Jesus before God will claim us as his own. God always claims us first, then we learn how to walk. And here is the second mistake, we do not start walking in a new direction nor to a new cadence. Because we are now in Christ, reconciled to God, we need to start walking differently.

Our new identity in Christ and our new rhythm for life go together. We cannot have one without the other.

Many of us come to the Christian life with a lot of negative baggage, and some us of pick-up stuff along the way. When we hear this teaching of being a new creation, we think that Jesus should just get rid of it all, giving us a clean slate. But that rarely happens. As Ann LaMott once wrote, "Give up hope of having a better past." We cannot fix the past. But in Jesus we can have a better future which is free from the hurts of the past. In Jesus we have a new identity. The old is gone, the new has come. Let's walk!

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. (Psalm 23:1-3)

This Psalm holds forth promises that many a Christian has held onto in life and in death. We picture it as our art does: the good shepherd gazing on as we, his sheep lie in lush, abundant rolling hills of green with a cool brook babbling by in the foreground.

But that image, while lovely, is found no where in the land that King David walked. The land of Bethlehem and the hill country of Judea that David roamed is rocky and harsh. Only a step removed from the desert wasteland of the open wilderness. And yet, good shepherds graze their flocks there to this day.

The thing is: our lives are not lived out in rolling fields of green with abundant waters and straight paths. The soil of this world is hard, as it is in the middle east. And we feel it. School, work, shopping, and friendship all transacted online in this world locked down. More and more of our community of friends and loved ones are coming into contact with this virus, and many more are facing really hard journeys with their health. I'm thinking particularly of James, Kelly, and Al, but there are others too.

For many of us, it does not feel right now that the pastures are green or that the waters are quiet or that the paths are right.

But this Psalm is not about the pastures, the waters, or the paths: it's about the shepherd. The shepherd who knows how to guide his sheep to just enough stubs of grass for each day, to help them find just enough pools of water in the sheer-cliff valleys, and to help them walk just the meandering paths to get there.

The pastures are green, the waters quiet, and the paths right not because of the situation of our wilderness living, but because of the God who shepherds us through the wilderness. He is the one who refreshes our souls. Today I pray: come, Lord Jesus, to do just that. Refresh our souls.

"Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God? Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever (Psalm 52:1,5,8).

David is hiding from King Saul and his murderous paranoia. When the priest Ahimelech gives David refuge, Doeg tattles on him. Having volunteered to kill the priest, Doeg kills Ahimelech and 83 of his clan. When he's done, he feels pretty macho: a warrior to be reckoned with. This prompts David's sarcastic line, "Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?" (Psalm 52:1).

The Bible traces this "Big Lie" from the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the Lake of Fire in Revelation.

The "Big Lie" can be understood in various ways. It is the lie that we have created ourselves; that we are gods; that we command our own destiny; that we are self sufficient and autonomous; that the meaning of life is pleasure, self fulfilment, or independence.

When we live out the "Big Lie" we deceive and manipulate people for our own ends. We make ourselves the centre of our universe. We live out one question: "What's in it for me?" Cut off from God's goodness, we become evil in our intentions, feeding on our own selfishness.

God comes to shatter the "Big Lie" that started in the Garden. When Adam and Eve fell, they did not become like gods, as Satan promised. Instead, they simply found themselves naked and jumped into the bushes. There, God confronted them, showed them their sin, executed His judgment, throwing them out of the Garden to wander across the earth.

We are still tempted, however, to live without God, but He doesn't leave us alone. He comes with warning and then judgment to show us our choices. We have only two: live with Him in the truth or live without Him in the "Big Lie." This Psalm addresses these choices.

The psalm exposes the stupidity of the "mighty person" who trusts in herself or in his money, choosing evil rather than God's goodness. Such a person loves lying and has a "deceitful tongue" to cover up their evil.

God will bring such people to ruin. The righteous will be in awe and laugh at such stupidity. The psalmist will be among them in God's house, worshipping and waiting on the Lord. Rather than finding life's meaning in himself, he finds it in the mercy of God and the goodness of His name.

But doesn't a little of Doeg live in all of us? Jesus has the cure for doegishness: "Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5).