Wilderness Wanderings

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. (Psalm 118:22-24)

Anyone familiar with the New Testament will know that these verses from Psalm 118 about Jesus being the cornerstone show up all over. Verse 24 is also where our song "This is the Day that the Lord has Made" comes from. The Palm Sunday shout of "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" also comes from this Psalm. So, there's a lot going on here.

The most significant theme that resonates throughout is how the Lord is the one who saves. "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans," the psalmist says. And later: "I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done." The Lord is the one who saves from death, calamity, and sin. He is the only one, in fact. The psalmist couldn't do it alone and is convinced that no one else can either. But because the Lord is good and because "his love endures forever," we are able to trust that the Lord will not give us over to death either, even when we face death.

Of course, all of this good foundational theology was made flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus. He was the one who came in the name of the Lord. He was one who faced death unjustly and entrusted himself to the Father for salvation. He did not attempt to save himself. His hopes were well placed. On the third day he was vindicated by the Father and rose from the dead, able to say once and for all with Psalm 118: "I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done." All of us who trust in Jesus are able now to say the same thing.

But of course, this all looked rather like weakness. Jesus didn't put up a fight. He got himself bloodied and bruised. He got himself killed. Builders do not choose weak stones to be the foundational cornerstones. Builders do not choose broken stones to become the foundational cornerstones. Nor do they choose stones that they cannot put to their own uses. By that criteria too, Jesus was rejected.

But God vindicated Jesus. Not only by overturning Pilate and the Religious Leader's unjust verdicts against him, not only by raising him to life and so nullifying the sentence of death carried out against him, but also by raising Jesus to the highest place in the throne room of heaven—making him the King, the foundation, the base upon which the Kingdom of God, the Church, and all God's people would be built. This weak one becomes the strength of God. This broken one becomes the restored face of the entire edifice. This one who could not be put to use by the will of man becomes the one who empowers any worthy use any of us can set our lives to.

Jesus is our cornerstone. The only name in which life and salvation can be found. The only worthy foundation upon which to build our lives. So today, let us rejoice and be glad in him.

"Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord" (Psalm 117).

I remember that Psalm 117 was once our weekly memory work. We were excited: so short. Shortly after, the minister read it as his sermon text. The preaching lasted a long time for so short a psalm.

We are reminded that God does not require long prayers (or sermons). The issue is not the length or the words, but the intention of our hearts. For this reason, Jesus warned us about elaborate praying, believing that we are heard for our many words (Matthew 6:7). Brief praise is enough when it expresses our relationship with the Lord.

And that is what this brief psalm does. Its a simple yet powerful statement about the relationship between Israel and her God. In ancient Israel, it was recited towards the end of the Passover celebration. It was part of her thanksgiving to God for redeeming her, recited with a goblet of wine in hand.

As we echo Israel and recite, `Praise the Lord,' we declare our intention to praise God. And it is an invitation for others of all nations to join us.

The second stanza begins with the preposition 'for'. We praise the Lord 'because'. There is a reason for praise. The question is 'because why'. And the psalmist answers for us: because of the Lord's love and faithfulness towards us. These are two of God's self-descriptive words to Moses in Exodus 34:6.

Since that time God had shown himself to be true to his word. The psalm doesn't linger here but does invite us to fill in our story of God's love and faithfulness. Our story begins with Jesus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). With this beginning, we tell our own story of redemption.

Like Psalm 117, this verse expands our focus to those not yet part of the worshipping community. An essential element of worship is to declare the greatness of our God, not for those praising, but for those listening in. The uniqueness of this short prayer is that it is focussed on the Gentiles. They too are upon God's heart. They too need to know Him. But how will they know him if no one tells them? He is the Creator of all, and He will become the Redeemer of all.

The fulfilment of this psalm now rests in the church carrying out the Great Commission. Jesus commands the apostles to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18-20). Obedience to this command is essential for the church's life. God wants those from every tongue and tribe and nation before His throne.

Our neglect to send missionaries or go ourselves is disobedience. Only as we witness to the world can we pray this psalm with integrity. This is a short prayer for a missionary heart. Witness begins with declaring the praises of our God.

The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: "Lord, save me!" … For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 116:3-4, 8-9)

Death and life. It shows up all over the Bible, not just in the story of Jesus and his death on the cross. I hope you don't feel that I'm unduly belaboring the point from Sunday's sermon, but death and life is one of the most central threads through the scriptures.

There are perhaps two things worth underscoring here in Psalm 116. Firstly, that it is God that saves us from death. And he does it precisely at the moment when we give up all of our hopes in any other form of salvation and simply cry out to him: "Lord, save me!"

This is the story of any journey of repentance we have ever been on, but it is also the story of any other spiritual journey we can be on. This is the journey of learning to forgive. This is the journey of grieving. This is the journey of love and of marriage, and of so many other things that require more of us than we can actually give or do. In each of these cases there comes a moment when we say: I cannot love this person again, not after what they did, unless it is by your grace—Lord, save me! Or, I cannot carry on without this person I loved unless it is by your grace—Lord, save me!

Each of these are moments of death and surrender. Moments of dying with Jesus. But those are also the moments when we meet Jesus most profoundly. Because he comes. He delivers us from death, he is present with us in our sorrow, he gives us the grace to forgive, or to love, or to be transformed, or to turn away from sin. He gives us, in other words, new life. He saves us.

And this is the second thing to underscore. Dying with Jesus is not just about dying. If it's only about that part—it sounds too hard and masochistic, frankly. Thankfully it's not only about dying. It is about that fact that it is in death that we find new life. In those little moments of death, the new life of Christ is also born within us as he saves us again. Brings us more fully into the land of the living where we experience yet another taste of that "life to the full" that Jesus promises.

I don't know what else to call this other than a paradox. But it is why the Christian church has chosen to mark itself with an instrument of death as its identity symbol all these years. We are marked by the cross. It is the symbol of Christianity--because Christians know that this cross means far more than just death. It means life, true life, full life. The only kind of life that is life: the life lived by those who have faced death, surrendered themselves to God, and have been raised on the other side to new life in Christ.

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness" (Psalm 115:1).

Today, we return to the Psalms. After our 28 Days of Prayer, we come back to Israel's prayer book (it should be our primary prayer book as well).

This psalm poses a question: How do we react when God doesn't do what we want Him to do?

Among the Israelites, the Lord's love and faithfulness seem in a land, "Far, Far Away". Israel's existence is bleak. So, the nations are taunting her, "Where is your God?" (2). We might have a small sense of this in our culture, but for many of our Christian family in other parts of the world, this is very real.

What do we do when God doesn't do what we want Him to do? Now, let's analysis the question a little. The way I have phrased it, it is all about me: what do I want? God is under no obligation to do what I or you want.

When God doesn't do what we want Him to do, then we need only Psalm 115:1. When life is about what I want than I am most important, and I want the glory. This verse knocks us off our rotting pedestal and bluntly reminds that life is about God, not me.

However, Psalm 115 is about God's love and faithfulness. When these things are not in evidence than the problem is real because God is under full obligation to be true to Himself. That's when we need the rest of the psalm. It offers us two responses.

First, we can go find a different god. And this we have done. Our lives are filled with idols that are of our own making. But, as the psalmist points out, these idols have no voice, no vision, no hearing, no senses of smell or feeling. They cannot walk, and they cannot utter a single sound.

They are merely idols - the house, the boat, the car, the fine jewellery, the awards and recognition, the high-paying job, the self-help method. No matter what we offer them, they have nothing for us. They only stand in the corner collecting dust as we slowly kill ourselves sacrificing to them.

What ultimately matters, what lasts, is the God of the house of Israel, whose blessings extend beyond our own earthly existence to those who come after us. And thus, we may declare, along with all the generations of the faithful, that we will praise the Lord from now and for all time (18).

Thus, the second response this psalm offers us is this: to gather with God's people to declare the praise of God. To do so in the firm hope that God is our help and shield (9). We praise Him, convinced that we will experience God's love and faithfulness. In response to this psalm, God's people gather to worship Him. We worship to remember who is God! He is the God of love and faithfulness. He will be true to his promises.

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is John 12:20-36 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

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. Where in your life do you most long to see Jesus? Where in your life do you feel most lonely or abandoned in the face of what seems like the silence of Jesus?
2. What leaves you unsettled about church these days? What are your fears for the church? What is your own relationship and commitment to being a part of the church or a church?
3. What pulls do you feel toward a better or more perfect church that might actually turn out to be mirages or worse, idolatries?
4. What might Jesus be saying to us and to the church today? Where might he be found?
5. What is the promise for those who take up their cross and follow Jesus, even into dying to themselves?
6. How will you die to yourself today and in this week ahead? What within you needs to die? And, where do you suspect the new and fruitful life of Jesus might be found on the other side?

Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:3-4)

Followers of the Prince of Peace are called to be peacemakers, promoting harmony and order and restoring what is broken. We call on our governments to work for peace and to restore just relationships. We deplore the spread of weapons in our world… We pledge to walk in ways of peace, confessing that our world belongs to God; he is our sure defence. (OWBTG 54)

Followers of the Prayer Guide will notice that I've chosen Saturday's texts for today. On Remembrance Day, it seemed more fitting to talk about our Prince of Peace.

Here in Isaiah is a vision of the Kingdom of God where the nations no longer take up weapons against one another or train for war anymore. Conflict ceases. The rein of the Prince of Peace comes. Surely this is a vision of what the world will look like when Jesus comes again—but to what extent is it a vision that is or can be realized today? Because the Kingdom of God has already broken into this world, has it not?

It has. And we as God's people are called to be peacemakers. "Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus says in his beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, "for they will be called children of God." We are given the power of forgiveness, love, and a Spirit-fired witness to the self-denying ways of God's Kingdom as our tools to implore people everywhere to be reconciled to God and one another.

We are also given power as citizens of a democratic government to speak into government. In what ways do we advocate for peace in our city, province, nation, and world? The churches in Canada have asked that question together and created Project Ploughshares based on that mandate from this very text from Isaiah 2:4. This organization is "the peace research institute of The Canadian Council of Churches that works with churches, governments, and civil society, in Canada and abroad, to advance policies and actions to prevent war and armed violence and build peace." They regularly speak into the proceedings of the UN on our behalf (yes, the CRCNA is a member).

As you intercede for peace this Remembrance Day in your life, family, community, city, and world, perhaps check out the Autumn edition of Project Ploughshares quarterly publication, the "Ploughshares Monitor". There you can find articles that speak to the state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Digital Surveillance, Outer Space Security, and one that details exactly how many weapons and armaments Canada exports, including to countries involved in conflict and human rights abuses. Let it inform your prayers for peace.

Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:12-15).

Contemporary Testimony: Our World Belongs to God -- Rest and leisure are gifts from God that relax us and set us free to discover and to explore. But we confess that often our addiction to busyness allows our tools and toys to invade our rest and that an internet world with its temptations distorts our leisure (49).

The Christian church has a wide spectrum of interpretation on Sabbath keeping. We run the gamut from ignoring it totally all the way over to keeping it as literally as possible. For today, let's pay attention to the unique contribution Deuteronomy makes to this Biblical theme.

"Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there…" Remembering is a key aspect of Sabbath in the Bible. Two things are mentioned here: "You were slaves" and "God set you free".

The language of Exodus 1 suggests that Pharoah was working the Israelites to death, literally. God liberated them from certain death and told them not to be like the Egyptians or to go back there. They should not act like Egyptians, but like God. God set them free, they should set others free.

Jesus pursued this dimension of the Sabbath. He set people free. Have you noticed many of his miracles happened on the Sabbath? The man with an evil spirit (Mark 1:21), the man with the twisted hand (Matthew 12:10), the disabled woman (Luke 13:14), the man lame for 38 years (John 5:1-10) and the blind man (John 9:14). All healed on the Sabbath.

He was setting people free just as God set Israel free. These miracles were signs that the kingdom of God had arrived; the Shalom of God was being brought to the earth; the curse of sin was being undone. Jesus' resurrection, his victory over evil, took place on the first day of the week. A new Sabbath had arrived; soon Jesus' followers began to gather on the first day to remember that Jesus had set them free from the dominion of Satan.

Interestingly, as part of its reflection on the "Mission of God's People", the Contemporary Testimony reflects on Sabbath keeping with these words: Rest and leisure are gifts from God that relax us and set us free to discover and to explore. But we confess that often our addiction to busyness allows our tools and toys to invade our rest and that an internet world with its temptations distorts our leisure (49).

How true is that? The very things that should give us rest, enslave us, and rob us of the rest. Years ago, the Heidelberg Catechism was already onto this. We are given Sabbath, it says, so "that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through his Spirit, and so begin already in this life the eternal Sabbath" (A 103).

This echoes Paul's words in Galatians 5, "Christ has set us free to enjoy our freedom. So, remain strong in the faith. Don't let the chains of slavery hold you again" (5:1).

Let us pray that we may all learn to enter God's rest (Hebrews 4:10-11).

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

Jesus Christ rules over all. To follow this Lord is to serve him wherever we are without fitting in, light in darkness, salt in a spoiling world (OWBTG 43).

I'm watching election results roll in from the US midterm elections as I write this on Tuesday evening. Nothing is yet certain, except that there is much division in the air. Perhaps it has always been so in ebbs and flows across history. But this is the moment we live in, and what we do know for certain is that it's worse than it has been in a while.

So how are we as Christians to be salt and light in this present moment?

For Jesus to be Lord over all means that he is Lord over ALL. There is no square inch that he does not claim as his own. That includes every square inch of a divided church, of divided societies and countries—every square inch even in a divided world. And if that is true, how can the Lord Jesus and his work on the cross not be powerful enough to reconcile his diverse and divided people within the church into one, single, family of God?

I continue to believe that the single most potent way for Christians to be different, to offer the flavourful and illuminating light of the Gospel to our present cultural moment is to make visible this unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace that Christ has won for us through his cross. Despite our disagreements even on the hottest and most contentious political, theological, and ethical issues—because of the cross of Christ: we remain one.

If the church, across all its differences, was able to broadcast that single message to our neighbours and the world around us—that despite all our deep and grievous, intractable differences, we remain humbly, gently, patiently, and lovingly united as siblings in Christ—well: that might just witness them right into this counter-cultural kingdom of God themselves. For, as Jesus prayed in John 17, it is when we are one as he and the Father are one that the world comes to know Jesus as the Son of God. Isn't that a message that tastes good and shines bright?

As you pray your prayers of intercession today, do remember to pray for the church to keep and visibly manifest that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

Contemporary Testimony: In a world estranged from God, where happiness and peace are offered in many names and millions face confusing choices, we witness-with respect for followers of other ways-to the only one in whose name salvation is found: Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God reconciles the world to himself. God loves all creation; his compassion knows no bounds (42).

What do you think our text means? Here it is again, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. What is being said here?

My first thought was this: the only way to get sins forgiven and to get into heaven is through faith in Jesus Christ. I suspect that many of you had similar thoughts.

But then I wondered if this is correct, so I read the context. Acts 3 & 4 is one narrative, which begins with the delightful story of Peter and John healing a lame man. Thus, we sing that wonderful ditty, "he went walking and leaping and praising God."

Peter went on to tell the gathering crowd about Jesus Christ. He called on them to repent of their sins trusting that, as promised, God was going to restore all things. For this Peter and John were arrested. The next day they were brought before the Jewish leadership body, who wanted to know by what power they had healed the man? Our text is part of their defense.

Peter understands this healing as a demonstration of the salvation that Jesus is bringing to this world. Certainly, forgiveness of sins and entrance into heaven are part of it; yet, in the Bible salvation always seems to be more. Its wholistic. It's the whole universe, 'all things' are restored within God's salvation.

With the environment and democracy unravelling somewhat before our eyes, we need this reminder. A narrow understanding of salvation allows us to be uninvolved in society. It says that this world doesn't really matter. But this is simply not true. As the Testimony says so succinctly, "In Jesus, God reconciles the world to himself."

This echoes Colossians 1, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (19, 20). If God cares for all things, so must we. Our proclamation of salvation must be as broad and far reaching as God's reconciliation.

Belligerent and angry are two adjectives often associated with Christian evangelists. On many occasions, we have not been nice people and our strategies of evangelism have done more harm than good. The Testimony offers us a better way forward. It says, "God loves all creation, and his compassion knows no bounds." Surely this allows us to respect people of other faiths, rather than tearing them down and seeing them as the enemy. The manner and attitude in which we proclaim salvation matters.

Peter says, "Salvation is found in no one else"? Do we believe this? 2000 years after Christ's ascension and in light of the mess the church has often caused, its not so easy to believe. But this is the heart of our faith: God is reconciling all things through Christ. If we believe this to be true, then we can engage in our society and with winsome tones tell the story of our Redeemer.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19)

The Spirit calls all members to embrace God's mission in their neighborhoods and in the world: to feed the hungry, bring water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and free the prisoner. (OWBTG 41)

Our theme this week is the mission of God's people, which begins, of course, with God's own mission. We are blessed by God to be a blessing to others. We are loved by God in Christ and commanded to both return that love and offer it to our neighbours and selves. We are forgiven and told to forgive. But we are also equipped for more specific bits of mission, and we catch a glimpse of those particularities in Jesus' statement of his own mission in Luke 4.

He is a Messiah who not only preaches and teaches a spiritual word of salvation for souls (though he does do that!): he is a Messiah who is anointed to carry out real action in the world: setting the oppressed free. That's good news indeed for the financially oppressed poor, for the physically oppressed blind and imprisoned, and really for any person oppressed by anything.

The church is called to follow its Lord into his mission, which means we are called to both the spiritual acts of enacting freedom—like forgiveness—but also the very practical acts of enacting freedom: like addressing poverty, racial injustice, homelessness, health care, and so much more.

We cannot so easily divide the spiritual bits of our faith from the lived bits. Jesus lived, healed, taught, freed, died, rose, and ascended quite really and truly in this world. It enacted spiritual freedom from sin and death, but also began to effect freedom from very real physical, fiscal, and practical bonds of oppression. The blind saw, the lame walked, the dead were raised to life. This was his mission.

Sin has broken not only the spiritual relationship between God and the souls of humankind, but also the operations of every business, bank, school, government, church, and family. So, salvation in Christ plays on every plane, both spiritual and concrete. This is the salvation we receive in Christ: not just from sin, but also from the real-world impacts and effects of sin. In turn, this is the very real freedom that we then proclaim and seek to bring into this world and into the lives of our neighbours.

Take time to intercede in prayer for those people and situations who may have come to mind in this devotion today, and then see how you might participate with God in answer to those very same prayers because that is God's mission.