Clayton Presbyterian Church
December 17, 2006
Pop singer Madonna has never shied away from controversy, and her 2006 Confessions world tour continued that trend. As part of the show, the 48-year-old entertainer staged a mock-crucifixion—singing "Live to Tell" while wearing a crown of thorns and strapped to a mirrored cross.
Not surprisingly, many religious groups protested the routine as an offense to their faith. Madonna answered her critics through a statement released following the tour's final show in Japan.
"There seems to be many misinterpretations about my appearance on the cross, and I wanted to explain it myself once and for all. It is no different than a person wearing a cross or 'taking up the cross,' as it says in the Bible. My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious, or blasphemous. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole."
She later added, "I believe in my heart that, if Jesus were alive today, he would be doing the same thing." (Houston Chronicle, Sept. 21, 2006)
According to this statement, Madonna believes that Jesus’ mission was to encourage people to be nice to one another, and to view everyone else as someone to whom you are connected. She believes that if he were to come back, then this is what he would be doing. This is what she believes to be his mission. Now, this may have been part, but is it the whole story?
Madonna is certainly entitled to her opinion. But we must ask whether this is what the Bible says about him? If not, then Madonna is guilty of just painting Jesus into who see wants him to be, into her image, as it were. Do the Scriptures say that Christmas is about Jesus the well-wisher? Or, do they say something else? If we are going to be honest, intellectually honest, we can’t go by what we wish to be the case, we have to go by what the evidence says. And the clearest evidence that we have reports that Jesus says that he came to fulfill the promises in the Old Testament. We have been looking at many of those promises in the last weeks, and we shall see them summed up today.
23 They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people . . .
I am going to stop right there. As you are listening to this, you probably aren’t real sure what I just read. It is not a story that you can follow. And without some context one verse probably blends into the next. I want to give you some context for you and I think that you will see what an incredible passage that this is.
These words were spoken to God’s people, the Jews, as they were in exile. They were in the Kingdom of Babylon, present-day, Iraq, and far from home. The nation of Israel had foolishly rebelled against the Babylonians, the superpower of their age. The Babylonian army laid siege to Jerusalem, and finally conquered it. And when they did, they unleashed their fury upon it. They tore down the walls so that there could be no more resistance from this city. But they did something else, something far more devastating, they destroyed the temple.
It would be very difficult to overstate the impact that this had on the Jews. The temple was the place where God dwelt. It was the place where they went to connect with God, to sacrifice and get right with God. It was where they went to pray. It was the center of their religious life, and now it was no more. The power of the nations seemed to be greater than the power of their God.
Moreover, the invasion ended the line of kings that descended from David. Plus, so many of the Israelites had died. And so many others had been taken away from their homeland into Babylon.
Now, all of this is bad enough, but for these Jews, it is even worse. To see why, I want to take you back to the promises that we have been looking at over the last few weeks.
In week one God made a promise to Adam and Eve that the power of sin and evil would not reign forever, that the consequences of their sin would not go on without end. Remember they used to walk with God. They used to live closely with God. This would happen again.
God made several promises to Abraham: to make give him a multitude of descendents, to give them a land of their own, and to bless them with a blessing so great that all of the families of the earth would be blessed.
After bringing the people out of slavery in Egypt, God promised the Israelites that they would have a mediator between him and them. They made a covenant together that they would have a relationship with each other. The Lord would be their God and they would be his faithful people.
Later, during their reign of King David, they were promised that a descendent of David would sit on the throne and rule with the very justice and peace of God.
So, if you were a Jew sitting in exile in Babylon, and you heard me read this list, you would feel as if all of these promises were worthless.
They feel abandoned by God and without hope. Maybe you can relate? Have you felt as if God led you down a path and then left you there? Maybe you feel like God’s words are empty. Or, you used to feel close to God but now you feel far away.
Now I will read the text. These are the words that God speaks into their lives as they sit in exile without hope, and for you too.
23 They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 24 My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. 25 They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children's children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. 27 My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.(NRSV)
What you have just heard is God reiterating his promises to his people. He is saying, even though they have been faithless, he will be faithful. All of the promises that we have looked at are in here.
He begins by echoing the promise that he made to Adam and Eve, that he will take care of their sin and their idolatry. In verse 27, he says that he will dwell with them, just as he had with Adam and Eve. In verse 25, he says that they will indeed live in the land that he gave to Jacob. He says that the king like David will rule over them. In verse 26, he says that he will make a new covenant with them, but it will not be like the one that they made with Moses was their mediator, this covenant which they broke. This will be an everlasting covenant. He also says that he will multiply them and once again make them numerous, and he rounds out the promises that he made to Abraham as he promises to bless them. He will bless them so much that all of the nations will know the Lord.
Now, if we have read these verses several weeks ago, they might not have seemed that special, or even a bit confusing. But, you have to admit that now that we have looked at all of these promises, that they are all here. In these few verses God gathers up all of this history and even in spite of his apparent defeat or apathy, he is still God and he is still going to accomplish his purposes. What must have these verses meant to his people? Could the Jews believe that they would still be fulfilled? Or, would they just seem too good to be true?
The amazing thing is that they were not just true for them. They are true for us as well. We are so much like them. We lack faith. We give in to fear. We lean on things other than God. And yet, all of these promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
He put an end to our guilt and the consequences of our sin. He came and dwelt among us. He walked with us and indeed even today he walks with us in our daily lives.
He fulfilled these promises but he did so in a way so different, so unexpected, and so altogether more wonderful than they could have realized. For instance, he did come as a king in a line of David, but he exercised his humility and love rather than power. He did reestablish the people of God and make a new covenant, but it was no longer based on blood. It is now based upon faith, so than anyone who trusts in Christ is called a child of God. In the same way, he transformed the promised land, from a narrow strip along the Mediterranean Sea to now include the whole world. And so everywhere that the people of God gather in his name, there God is to be found. It doesn’t take a trip to a temple anymore. And finally, through his birth and death people in every nation know the good news because the good news is good for all people.
Moreover, what Jesus accomplished is good for all time. His new covenant cannot be broken by our unfaithfulness. God will not withdraw his presence from us. Jesus says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Anyone who receives Christ, it says in John, chapter 1, he gives the right and privilege to become part of his spiritual family. And his power lives in us and overcomes, slowly but surely, the power of sin in our lives. Until one day, when he will come to bring us home. Just as he made these promises to the Israelites, so he makes them to us, to you and me. We can have the power and the presence of God in our lives. The sad part of it is that too few of us take him up on it.
Did you know that according to the Consumer Reports National Research Center, one out of every five gift-card recipients never used their cards last year? That represents about $972 million in unredeemed cards.
The top reasons for not using gift cards include:
In the same way we are the people who have been given such a gift, but we haven’t used it. We haven’t redeemed it. We haven’t believed God for all of the promises and goodness that he wants to bring into our lives. We haven’t relied on him.
For this is the reason why Jesus came. Jesus said that I came to fulfill all of these promises.
It is far more than telling people to be nicer. To say that that is why Jesus came would be like prescribing two aspirin a day if they have a brain tumor. It is so inadequate. Jesus came to meet the world’s deepest needs and to fix its deepest problems, our alienation from God which results in our alienation from one another. It is not enough, in the face of the world’s problems, to say, “Let’s all just be a little nicer to one another. Let’s all just get along.” The problem of our sin that has kept us from God and one another is far to deep for that.
It is far more than any of us could ask or imagine. That is really what Christmas is really about. That is the purpose for which Jesus came, not to just encourage people to be a little better, which at the end of the day would be pretty depressing. He came to fix the world’s deep, deep brokenness. This brokenness is not just “out there,” but it is also inside of our lives, to heal our brokenness. He came to touch all of the ways that we are broken, in our own neediness, in our broken relationships with one another, and mainly in our relationships with him. So that once again we can walk with God present in our lives, with his power. We can have hope in him for today, for tomorrow and forever, because God always keeps his promises.
That is the good news.