“Preparing for the Day”

Scripture: Isaiah 40:3-5, 1 Peter 2:18-21, John 8:21-30

Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, which, of course, is a time for the faithful to prepare to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection, and his promise of new life for all who believe. This time of year is about cleansing our lives from the ways we had always lived, those ways of earth, those ways that take us away from the grace of our Almighty God.

Lent is a time for focusing on the ways of God, through any number of spiritual disciplines, primarily that of self-denial, such as in fasting. But shouldn’t there be more?

Read Isaiah 40:3-5

Through the prophet, the Lord is calling the people of earth to return from the desert wastelands that this life imposes on us and to prepare the way for the Lord to come into our lives - that nothing might get in the way of our welcoming the coming glory of God. No twists, no turns, no false paths, no heights, no depths - that nothing in all of creation might separate us from the love and passion of our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

And why must this life change within us? We are told that the world isn’t ready to receive Christ – at least, not yet! Preparation for Christ’s return is an ongoing thing! As we read the prophet’s message, it becomes apparent that this preparation isn’t God’s – it is ours. Jesus Christ has already done his part - he opened the way for humanity to come to God by faith. The curtain has been torn, the power of sin has been broken, salvation through the Law of Moses has been overturned, but the problem is that we have yet to do our part. We have yet to claim the atoning power of the Blood that was shed by Jesus Christ.

The ancients knew that life was held in the blood – the power, the intelligence, the breath, the ability, the LIFE! The blood of an animal, the blood of a conquered but previously victorious enemy – their blood was highly cherished, and sacrifice was centered on that fact. But then Jesus arrived on the scene, and true power and authority was finally revealed in the Blood of his sacrifice. The Blood of Jesus was the gift that only had to be given once; the Blood of Jesus far surpassed the power and wisdom of any created being; the Blood of Jesus held more than just life – it now held ETERNAL life. The blood of creation no longer holds any importance for the world. It is by the Blood of Jesus Christ that the glory and the Person of God is revealed for all who have the eyes to see and the “ears to hear”. (Mark 4:21-25)

Read 1 Peter 2:18-21

We are all under some authority in this life, even while we may have some over others. It may be our manager at work, it may be the demands of our job, it could be our financial problems, it could be the needs of our family, it may even be the expectations of service that the Church places upon us. Whatever it may be, the Lord tells us that we are to submit to all of the authority that places demands on our lives. And just because we may not like the way it governs, just because we don’t agree with its demands, we can either accept it and comply, or we can move on and leave its influence behind. The one option that no one has is to remain under that authority while we refuse to follow its demands – or at least we won’t stay for long!

But when it comes to the authority of God, we don’t have those choices – the only ones we have are: 1) to accept and follow the way, the authority, and the commandments of our God, or 2) to accept the consequences of our disobedience. There is no leaving the power of that authority! But Peter isn’t focusing on either our worldly subjugation OR our spiritual servitude – he is looking at them together. And many times, we have to choose which one will take precedence over our lives! Will we follow the lessons of scripture, or will we work to follow the example of our cultural norms? That can be a difficult decision at times, but it is by the example of Jesus Christ that our answer is revealed.

In the second part of verse 20, Peter asks the question - What if you are punished for doing good – what if you follow the commands of God, and still suffer under the world’s authority for not observing their ways? We read that God will commend our actions, even if the earth does not. Think about Jesus for a moment – when his teaching had come to the point of pushing Israel’s authorities over the brink of propriety, he could have backed off a bit on his condemnation of their ideas. He wouldn’t have had to suffer the humiliations, the false judgments, the beatings, the crucifixion, and death, but then he would not have been commendable before his Father. He chose the eternal way of God, in contrast to the limited and temporary way of earth.

And the same must be true for each and every one of us!

Read John 8:21-25

Jesus tells us that if we choose the authority of the world over the authority of God, it will not go well for us at the Judgment. So what do those choices involve? The truth of the matter is that it all hinges on who and what we are prepared to accept as the true authority for our lives! Of course, we have to read down through this entire passage to get to the punch line, that the real test of our choice is if we believe that Jesus is who he has said he is, if we accept his commandments, as they were given and not as we want them to be. And if we don’t want it his way?
The bottom line is in the first verse of our passage - verse 21 – “you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” There’s no half way, no fence straggling, no bargaining – it will be the Lord’s way, either way. Period.

So where should we look for the Lord? We can look with all our effort, with all our intelligence, with all our ingrained abilities, and still, we will never find him on our own. John tells us that our vision is too worldly, that we look only in the lowly places of earth, but then, that is the only place we know! But John’s gospel would encourage us to look in a direction that isn’t all that comfortable, a direction that goes beyond our own understanding. It would seem that we need to trust in the Lord before we ever find him, and that is about as uncomfortable a task as we will ever have. But when we find, or rather discover, that he has been right with us all the time, his joy will finally be ours.

Read John 8:26-30

Jesus offers a dig against nonbelievers – he says you just don’t get it! You don’t understand that faith in God’s Gift is the key, and not your ability to understand per se. But he doesn’t leave us there, foundering in our ignorance. He tells us that he will give us an unmistakable sign, one that we cannot miss, but one that we can still choose to ignore. And the sign will be his crucifixion, and without saying so, his resurrection. And the message that the sign will point toward?

The Lord tells us that it is two-fold. First, that he has been telling us the truth about himself all along, and second, that he has been depending totally on what he has been learning from his Father. During his life among us, these were the major stumbling blocks for the leaders of his day. They not only didn’t believe that he was who he was, they believed that his words were heresy, that they violated all that they taught about God, that they were nothing more than sinful utterances, and therefore could never be the word of God for their lives.

And people of today still have trouble with that second part. If Jesus is God, why did he have to be taught anything? We tend to forget that not only was Jesus fully God, he was also fully human. He learned to trust God and the call that was upon him early in life.
We all remember the story of when Jesus was twelve years old, and his parents had taken him to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. When the time came for the family to return home, the boy Jesus wasn’t there, and his absence wasn’t noticed until the next day. Mary & Joseph frantically searched for him for three days, and they finally discovered that he had been in the temple all the time, amazing the elders with his pointed questions, as well as the marvelous answers he offered to their questions.
When Mary asked him why he had worried them so much, he replied “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” By the age of twelve, he was beginning to understand who he was and what the call on his life was all about. But he also understood that there was a lot that he, the human Jesus, had to learn about his Father God. The story concludes with the thought that he was obedient to his earthly parents, without neglecting his obedience and growth in the ways of his heavenly Father. (Luke 2:41-52)

Obedience to the Father, and his plan for Jesus’ mission to earth, is what brought him joy, while he rejoiced in showing Godly love to the needy of this world. Jesus had to make a very intentional choice between obedience to earth, and obedience to heaven, and his love of both God and the people was, indeed, the choice he made. We are his choice!

Jesus is our example. He chose to love both God and creation, even while he followed the ways of his glorious Father – a difficult balance, to say the least, and yet, that is the very choice that we must make as we enter this time of Lent. We don’t have all of the answers, we don’t always make the right decisions, we find Jesus’ way of perfect love and perfect obedience nearly impossible to attain. And that is why we have this time of preparation – a time of prayer and meditation, a time of personal reflection, a time of self-denial, a time of seeking the Lord in new and spiritual ways.

May this Lenten season be a time of great blessing through great discovery, for each and every one!