Sympathy for Our Weakness

Hebrews 4.14-16

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The dictionary defines a priest as “a mediatory agent between humans and God.” To be a mediator is to negotiate between two parties who have a disagreement. Throughout history priests have represented the gods’ displeasure with human beings. Since many of the gods were incarnate in Pharaohs and Caesars, priests served to tell the people what to do if they wanted to receive the bounties (including a possible afterlife) from these “gods.” Hebrew religious figures were a little different. Do you remember Moses begging God to forgive the people who had worshipped the golden calf? How about Abraham pleading with God to spare Sodom if there are just ten righteous people in the city? Or what about the time when God is more generous than his messenger Jonah, and spares the people of Nineveh?

The relationship of this Hebrew God with his people and his mediators is a lot different than those of the gods incarnate in the Pharaohs and Caesars that the world was used to. This God cares for people even people who have no power, even people who sin, even for people who have not mediator to truly represent them. “The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” – Psalm 145:9

But we still don’t get it. We think God ought to favor our family, or our country, or our values, or our religion. And we think God is all about isolating and punishing the people who don’t measure up. And so, we will only help those who are “truly deserving.” And just like the people of old we are fascinated by wealth and fame and power. We respect empire. We want a god like Pharaoh or Caesar who is awesome and bigger than those other peoples’ gods.

So God, to get his point across, has to become incarnate for real this time – not in a mighty warrior, or a great judge, or a superman with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. God comes to us in Jesus, a helpless infant, born of parents so poor they must find shelter for him in a stable, in an occupied country which has little chance of throwing off the oppressor’s yoke. Here is one who can understand our weakness. He has been there. And he has drawn upon the God within him for such strength that he can empower our poverty, heal our weakness, and even forgive us as we crucify him. Here is the perfect priest, tested as we are, yet responding to life and to us only with compassion, nurture and healing, for he represents a God whose steadfast love endures forever, a God from whom we will always receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Prayer: God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, thank you for showering us with mercy and grace. Thank you for showing us that you are for us and with us even in our weakness. Fill us with your strength, that your steadfast love might surround us and flow through us. Make us agents of your mercy and grace that we might help those around us in their time of need as you have helped us in ours. We pray this in the name of the one who lived to demonstrate your way of peace on earth, good will to all, Jesus, our priest and our king, forever. Amen.

Rev. Tom Downing, Minister to Senior Adults

Cravings

John 6:35-40

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

What is your favorite food?  For me, I absolutely love tacos.  Simple, sure, but I am almost always ready to eat a taco(s) for lunch, dinner, a late night snack… Okay I think you get it.  Now think of the most delicious meal you have ever had.  Imagine if we craved a relationship with Jesus Christ that much, or even more. 

In these verses Jesus does a few things.  He says that He is the bread of life.  Food is very much necessary for our own survival.  We need it every day.  But only Jesus can provide us with the spiritual sustenance necessary to truly live.  This bread is not something that we should eat only on Sundays.  It is not something that we should overly indulge on only on Easter, Christmas, or during the Advent season.  We need Jesus in our lives every day.  He should be our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, our appetizer, main course, and dessert.  If we center our lives around Him in such a way, Jesus tells us that He will not only sustain us, He will never drive us away.  This kind of love is barely comprehensible in its scope and beauty, yet Jesus came to all of us over 2,000 years ago to show us just how much we mean to God.  He has been preparing this feast for eternity and all we have to do is accept, take, and eat.  So this Advent season, and every season of your life, make room for Jesus Christ in your heart, mind, and soul as His love sustains, fills, and lasts forever.

Jon Reed, Director of UrbanLife

God’s Kingdom Breaks In

Isaiah 64:1-4

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!  When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.


One of my favorite fictional characters is Father Tim, the priest of Lord’s Chapel, in Jan Karon’s series of books about the small town of Mitford.  As I have read and reread the Mitford books, Father Tim has become for me a role model of how God calls us to be in the world.  He is a person who consistently recognizes God’s kingdom breaking in all around him, who acknowledges It when he sees It, and acts to further It when he can.  His daily conversations are sprinkled with phrases like, “Thanks be to God,” “Hallelujah,” and “He restoreth my soul.”

The author of today’s verses from Isaiah ups the ante and focuses on the Kingdom breaking in on a grand scale. In his description, mountains quake and brushwood kindles. Could there be a grander description of God’s power to break into our human world?  Could there be a promise more powerful, as we wait, than that we can anticipate with certainty God’s presence here with us? 

Although God’s power and promise are enormous, he works through us on a human scale.  During this Advent season we focus on a quiet event, the birth of a baby, to a young woman who recognized her chance to play a role in God’s Kingdom breaking in.  A quiet event at which any of us might have said “Thanks be to God” if, in the midst of our humanness, we were focusing on God and his Kingdom, and which, over time, would have the metaphorical power of mountains quaking and brushwood igniting.

And so, this Advent season, look around you for God’s Kingdom trying to break in, whether in ways big or small.  Acknowledge It and try to further It if you can.  Mary did.  The Wise Men did.  The fictional Father Tim does.  And, like them, we can too.

Diane Bricker, Chair, FUMC Adult Education Council