Fifth Sunday in Lent
25 March 2007
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee live. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by, yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting Light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
I know it much be strange to hear a Christmas carol, however much love, just two weeks before Easter. However, pay special attention to that last line – that line that speaks about the “hopes” and “fears” of all the years.
That is truly what anticipation is all about, isn’t it? Hopes and fears.
A couple is expecting a baby. There are certainly lots of hopes, lots of dreams, for that baby. Already in womb, the parents start to imagine what the child will be when he or she grows up. Lots of hopes. But at least I have never met a father, whether this is his first child or his fifth child, who hasn’t worried about how to pay for that child.
A woman has just received a big promotion. There’s lots of excitement, lots of hopes: moving on up the employment ladder, making a name for herself. There are also fears: what if she doesn’t like the new position?; what if she misses her co-workers?; will people who had formerly been friends now treat her differently?
The handbell quintet from Concordia University Irvine is a result of anticipation, a result of hopes and fears. The hopes revolved around Southern California Lutherans who desired a Lutheran college in Southern California which could center itself upon the Great Commission and be a training location for missionaries, particularly to the countries of Central and South America and the Pacific Rim. The fears revolved around the two words “What If....?”
Anticipation. There’s plenty of it in our Scripture readings today.
When the Children of Israel got to the edge of the Red Sea [Exodus 14] and saw Moses raise his staff and saw the waters part and heard the command to start marching across the sea on dry ground, there would have been much anticipation. There would have been many hopes. After all, through that passage would have been escape for them from the advancing army of Pharaoh. Through that passage was their Promised Land, that Land abundantly flowing with milk and honey. There were also certainly some fears. There must have been fears about Moses himself. After all, he was an unproven leader. He was a murderer on the run. And, by God, he stuttered. There also had to be fears about walking through a sea: when would those held-back waves come tumbling back in?; would the dry ground really be dry all the way across or would they get stuck in the sea bottom half way across?
Hopes and fears are what St. Paul was all about [Philippians 3:4b-14]. Due to his birth of status and his strict Jewish upbringing, he held many hopes. He was respected. He was a person of status and position. However, for the sake and because of the call of Jesus Christ, Paul set all that status aside, to press on to something even greater, to press on to a blissful eternity guaranteed him by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was a bold step. As much as we hail St. Paul to this day, his name even being a part of the official name of this congregation, he must have encountered some fears through the years, some fears like the rest of us have, about the truthfulness and reliability of the claims about Jesus, whether He really lived, whether He really died, whether He really rose again and whether He can really bring us to that place where He has first gone [John 14].
Anticipation. There was plenty of it in Bethany in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Along with the twelve disciples, they had seen Jesus do plenty of miracles, the most recently notable was the raising of Lazarus from the dead after he head already been dead and buried four days. The hopes of those in that room were high. What was ahead for them? How could they “market” Jesus, maybe setting up a roadside venue, like Barnum and Bailey, charging just a little admission, maybe even without Jesus knowing, for people to watch Jesus change water into wine or heal a crippled man. Or, maybe even better, Jesus would lead a protest and overthrow the Roman government and take His own rightful place on David’s throne. Then came the expensive perfume and Jesus words that Mary was anointing Him for burial. Then came the fears, the fears about having to go back to being simple fishermen, the fears about having to go back to manual labor, the fears about being laughed at by family and friends, the fears about having to live without Jesus.
There is much comfort and much safety in the status quo, isn’t there?. Just ask that couple having that baby or that woman with the promotion or those who bear the burden of dreaming big dreams. It’s often safer and more comfortable not to rock the boat, not to change the equation. But often the status quo keeps us from where God wants us to be. If the disciples had successfully contained Jesus within the home and Mary, Martha and Lazarus, fighting for and defending Him till their own very deaths, they would have never come face to face with His empty tomb and the power it held for them and the power it holds for us.
A question that I labor with here regularly as your pastor is “How do we honor our rich history and the heritage and the traditions of our past, many of them we are very comfortable with, while also making sure that we as individuals and we as a congregation are where God wants us to be, doing what God wants us to do, reaching the people God wants us to reach.
Stepping out like that, both corporately as a congregation and individually as the people of God, can be a scary, fearful thing. It sometimes means we must step out in faith and commit resources we don’t have. It sometimes means angering others who don’t care for change or who at least don’t agree with the changes we’re making.
Going where God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do and reaching the people God wants us to reach can sometimes be very lonesome events, but there we find God. We find Him with all of His promises to never leave or forsake, to never let us walk alone, to provide for all our needs, to strengthen and help us, to conquer sin, death and the devil, to sit down and reign victoriously over all things in Heaven and earth and hell, to hear His words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But we never get to experience any of that if we stay in the safe place where we might prefer to stay.
I started with a Christmas song and I will end with an Easter song: “How sweet to hold, a newborn baby, and feel the pride and joy it brings, but sweeter still, the calm assurance, this child can face uncertain days because He lives. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena