Go Tell John What you See and Hear

Sermon   December 15  2013    Go tell John what you See and What you Hear 

Isaiah 35:1-10

In the early sixth century B.C.E. Judah experienced the catastrophe that the prophet Isaiah had threatened, and many people were taken into exile.

Now the prophet foretells a coming day when Judah will be restored.  The desert wilderness that currently produces only enough grass to support a few sheep will “burst into bloom”(v2).

People in exile who are discouraged will be delivered.  Those who are in despair will have their hope restored.   These great acts of God will open the eyes of those who are currently unable to see the hand of God at work, and will cause people to rejoice and praise God.

Those who have been cut off from Jerusalem will be able to return safely.  Their despair will turn to joy!

Like the people of Judah, do we have  difficulty  seeing God’s hand of transformation at work in our world and in our lives?

UMH 199 Canticle of Mary (Magnificat)  Luke 1:47-55

James 5:7-10

Be patient, …until the coming of the Lord. Like the farm is patient waiting on the seed s to produce a crop. 

Strengthen your hears knowing that the coming of the Lord is near.

Do not grumble against one another.

The suffering and patience of the prophets is an example.

Patience is a virture.

In this busy season observe people while they are out shopping. Some people have patience to wait and wait and wait in a line.  Others get nasty and grumble and make mean and nasty comments to cashiers and waitresses.  They are doing the best they can. Be patient with them and show them the glow of God in your life. Be an example and a shining light in the chaos.

One way you strengthen your heart is to avoid “grumbling against one another”.  What an odd and yet appropriate exhortation.

Survival over the long haul requires patience, not only with the Lord who WiLL return in God’s own time, but with each other, lest you destroy the community that holds you up during the waiting.

Some of the worst behavior I have seen is shown by Christians in a restaurant to waitresses.  What if that was your daughter or son?  What kind of testimony do you leave when grumbling out loudly to them? Or in the line at Target or K Mart, or Walmart. 

You are an Ambassador for Christ in the world around you wherever you find yourself. When you are ugly or have a fowl mouth how can you witness to that person after behaving in such a manner?

Matthew 11:2-11

The Gospels report that those who encountered Jesus were regularly confused about who he really was.  Jesus himself eventually asked his disciples.

“Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:13).  Those whose existence is bound up with that of Jesus’ end up posing the same question about themselves:  Who am I really?

Such questions of identity come to the front in Matthew 11:2-11.

John wonders who Jesus really is, and Jesus notes that the crowd wonders who John really is.  Jesus alone can bring clarity to both questions.

The Gospels depict John as the first of Jesus’ contemporaries to recognize him as Israel’s long –awaited Messiah.

Remember Jesus asked John to baptize him and John was reluctant until Jesus told him it must be done.

Later John is in prison wondering I am sure why he is about to be behead.

You see when we feel God leading us we may find ourselves in situations that cause us to question our actions.  Following God we think the bands are going to play, the angels will burst out in song. The world will recognize just how powerful and wonderful we are.

True discipleship is never first a question of our efforts to make Christ known to ourselves or others.  The focus never falls first on our achievements, worldly ambitions, or prophetic utterances.

A true disciple knows how easily we substitute the vain imaginations of our heart in place of the living Christ.  A true disciple knows that he or she is still learning how to follow Jesus. 

A true disciple understands the process of spiritual growth and maturity.

If we truly want to receive with joy the long-awaited Prince of Peace, the one who comes at an unexpected hour, we must accept the invitation to walk expectantly in the light of the Lord, each and every day of our lives.

Jesus said:  “ I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.”  Only step by step, and stage by stage, can you proceed, in your journey upward.

The thing to be sure of is that it is a journey with Jesus. 

Jesus may ask you to sit silent before Him.  He may speak no words for you to write.  Yet all the while that waiting with Him will bring comfort and peace.  Only friends who understand and love each other can wait silent in each other’s presence.

“Who am I?” asked Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a poem from prison only a few months before the Nazis hanged him.  Despite all his efforts to live faithfully, he wondered whether he was just a hypocrite or a weakling.  “

Who am I? every Christian sometimes asks.

In John the Baptist we find an answer:  to be a disciple is o longer to look at oneself, but rather to look at Christ.

In pointing to him alone, the disciple’s own identity finally becomes clear: “Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.”

Go tell the world what you see and hear.

Jesus lived.  Jesus died. Jesus rose again from the dead. That is our hope that we base our life on. The eternal life that Christ made possible and offers to us when we trust in Him.