Every day is unique, every time is new. Never before have
these same things happened, never again will this moment
come. But the one who made this day, the one who is ever
new, knows this moment. And knew that moment in which
all things would be fulfilled.
Each day is a gift. And each time an opportunity. Never
before had this happened, never again will it happen in
this way. But the one who is beyond time, the one who
is timeless and yet acts within time, the one who made
time, knew that moment. And knew it as a moment for
us.
In the beginning was the Word. That Word brooded over the
inky darkness of nothing, calling nothing to become
something, calling disorder to become order, calling waste
and void to become fruitful and multiplied. In the beginning,
the Word created.
But in that same beginning the Word spoke clearly both
of fellowship and of sin, of both relationship and
brokenness. In that same beginning the Word
commanded, “Thou shalt not” and then whispered, “For
I love you.” “It is not that I wish to make life hard for
you. It is that I wish to make life possible for you.
Freedom – you must have freedom. If you are not free,
you cannot love me as the author and giver of your life.
If you are not free, I cannot love you and lead you. You
must be free.” In the beginning, the Word created.
Brothers and sisters, we are created in a strange land. We
are planted in a place not of our own making. But it is home.
If we are created here and called here, it is home, even when
it feels strange to us. From home we have chosen to
wander, from home to go to foreign lands whose customs
are alien and whose way of life leads only to death. Still we
are prone to wander, prone to leave the one who loves us.
Into desert places we stumble, thinking they are oases of
delight. But they are not. There danger lies and death.
And in those foreign lands where we have gone, we
found ourselves ill at ease, sick of heart, in misery.
Where we had thought we might delight in fleshpots
and frivolity, we came to ourselves and found that it was
vanity, emptiness, distortion, and pain. In those foreign
lands where we have gone, we cried out to go back
home, but could not find the way. Home was again a
strange land. It could not be seen. Yet we knew – we
knew – that this foreign land, this land of exile, this land
of stupid self-indulgence – was not our heart’s home.
Who would deliver us from this body of death?
In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God,
and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him ... He was in the
world, yet the world did not know him. In the heart of God,
from the dawn of our history, God intended to bring us back
home. To bring us home by settling us in strange lands,
letting us wander in foreign lands, but finally calling us to
lands of promise, lands of open expanse and unclouded day,
lands where we could live in peace and fulfillment.
Let us give thanks for the promised land to which we
are called. But let us remember that we must be
discerning and obedient to God’s call. And let us
remember as well the strange lands and the foreign
lands through which we must travel before we arrive at
the promised land.
God called Abraham into a strange land. “Go from your
father’s house into a land which I will show you.” And
Abraham believed God, struck his tent in Haran, and set out
for a land whose boundaries he did not know, whose people
he did not understand, and whose resources were not his to
own. But Abraham believed God and responded when God
called him to a strange land. “I will make of you a great
people, a blessing to all nations.” That call gave Abraham
courage to be in a land not his by birthright.
God called Isaac into this same strange land. Isaac, the
child long awaited. Isaac, the child whose mother could
not wait and whose father would not wait. Isaac, led to
the mountainside, the altar of sacrifice, kindling, a
sharpened blade. How awesome! Is this all there is? Is
this to be the end of all our hopes? Is this the night of
our worst fears? Cut short?
But no. God called Abraham and Isaac and then Jacob.
That struggler. That wrestler. That warrior at the Brook
Jabbok. That tenacious soul who would not give up; who
wanted more, always more; who made his bed in this strange
land, with a stone for a pillow, dreaming of angels,
clambering up ladders, knowing that just over there was the
gate of heaven, awesome and open, yet somehow closed,
beyond reach, beyond grasp.
A strange land. Where we made our home. Yet a
restless place, a land where all was not at peace, nor
was the heart content. Abraham and Sarah, faithful, and
yet purveyors of fraud and impatience. Isaac and
Rebekah, chosen and yet weak, unfair, driving a wedge
between brothers. Jacob and Leah, Jacob and Rachel,
with a brood becoming a nation, yet permitting among
them braggarts and brigands, hatred and harm. Surely
this is not what God intended! Surely this is not the
fullness of our salvation!
So next the foreign land. Egypt. For food; for the flesh; for
what seemed to be fulfillment. For fanciful freedom and for
an end to restraints. For an intoxicating new experience and
for the thrill of living in the shadow of the palace and of
naming all the right names. From the strange land to the
foreign land, to Egypt.
Ah, but no foreign land is as alluring by day as it seems
by night. For in the harsh glaring light of high noon,
there are prices to be paid. There are pains to be
suffered. There are fights to be fought and often lost.
In the foreign land, there is slavery. Oppression
creeping up unseen, without warning. Bondage and
hard labor. Making bricks without straw. Sleeping
fitfully, afraid of the terrors of the night and anxious for
the labors of the dawn. It is Egypt. It is foreign. It is
not home. It is not peace. And it is not of God.
Strange land, foreign land, promised land. What of the
promise of the God of Abraham? What of the word, “Of you
I will make a great nation, and from you shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed”? A cruel irony? A coward’s lie? A
will-of-the-wisp? A dream?
A dream. But not merely a dream in the eyes of
suffering slaves of Israel. Not merely a dream in the
heart of a wailing mother whose children are being
ripped from her breast. Nor merely a dream in the mind
of a young prince, raised as Pharaoh’s daughter. But a
dream, a hope, nay, an intention in the heart of God.
For what He wills, He does. And what He does, He does
well, and when He will, for a thousand years in His sight
are but as a day when it is past.
God spoke. The Word spoke. As that Word had spoken at
the moment of creation and called forth worlds upon worlds
into being, so that Word spoke now, in this moment, this
filled-up moment, and called, “Let my people go.”
Let my people go into freedom; for freedom I have made
them, and freedom shall they have.
Let my people go from other gods, other visions, for I only
am the Lord God. They shall have no other gods before me.
Let my people go to worship me, for they are mine, and
must be with me. They shall not open for themselves
any self-indulgent paths.
Let my people go from foolish fantasies and self-centered
servitude, for they shall not take life or property, they shall
not covet what is not theirs, they shall not want. Let my
people go!
The promised land, how glorious and yet how difficult!
It was not theirs for the taking. Promise though it was,
it was to be entered only through a struggle of
obedience. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Deborah, Samuel –
obedient and disobedient, faithful and faithless.
Judges, prophets, kings -- drifting farther away,
forgetting the dream, mingling fear with hope. How
long, O Lord, how long, until we dwell in peace? How
long?
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen
generations. Strange land, foreign land, promised land. And
after David, the man after God’s own heart, who stole
another man’s wife, and sinned. And after Solomon, the
wisest of men, blessed by God with honor and riches, but
who threw it all away on things foreign to God’s way. And
after Rehoboam, the divider of Israel, not content with the
inheritance of his father. And after Uzziah the statesman
and Hezekiah the pray-er of half-hearted prayers and Josiah
the young zealot for the Lord, after these, darkness. After
these, exile. After these, Babylon. After these, a foreign
land.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there
we wept when we remembered Zion.
And the voices, the voices. The Word’s voices. Micah of
Moresheth, the voice, “He has told you what is good. What
does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Amos of Tekoa, that Word, the voice, “Let justice roll
down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing
stream.”
Hosea, broken-hearted Hosea, hurrying to the slave market
to redeem his own beloved, “How can I give you up? How
can I let you go?”
The voices, the voice with the word of mystery, Isaiah of
Jerusalem, “The people who walked in darkness have
seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep
darkness, on them light has shined ... for a child has
been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon
his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
So the generations from David to the deportation to Babylon,
fourteen generations. Strange land, foreign land. When
shall I see that place of promise? When shall we return,
when find home, when know where we belong? How long, O
Lord, how long?
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah was the
father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of
Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and
Abiud – Eliakim – Azor – Zadok – in unbroken line until ..
until God, who knows all moments, who knows this
moment, who knew the right moment, called. Until
Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born,
who is called the Messiah.
Until out of heaven’s majesty would God call the Word, to
dwell in sordid earth a while. Strange land, foreign land.
Until out of infinite knowledge and ultimate power would God
call the Word, to dwell in finite space and to walk in limited
strength, where we are. The promised land? Still distant.
Still unseen.
And He made Himself of no reputation, but took on
Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of man. And being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of a cross.
As Abraham was called to go from his father’s house into a
land strange to him, so Messiah was called to go from His
Father’s mansions to a barren and hostile land.
As Isaac was called to be obedient for the mountain of
sacrifice, the sharpened knives and the kindling wood,
so Messiah was called to be obedient for Calvary’s
mournful mountain, a land of death foreign to Him who
was all life.
As Jacob was called to wrestle with his own heart and to
father the tribes of Israel, so Messiah was called to struggle
with His humanity and to summon others to His side.
“Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.”
As prophets and kings, priests and people, men and
women, young and old, sojourners all, sought His face,
today, in this moment, in this hour, into this land, He
comes. And make this strange land, this foreign land,
into the promised land.
Before Abraham was, I am.
Before Isaac was conceived, I am.
Before Jacob set out, I am.
Before, and after. After, and before. I am.
So .. from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah,
fourteen generations.
These are the generations of them that seek Thy face,
that seek Thy face, O God of Bethel, God of Zion, God of
Calvary.
These are the generations of those who feel strangely not at
home, but are in a world that does not feel quite right. It is
not theirs, but they are here planted, and can do no other
than to live out their years within it. They hope for more;
they fear what they have. O Word of God, is there more? Is
there a land of promise?
These are the generations of those who hoped -- who
hoped they might find release in foreign lands. Who
earned degrees, thinking they might feel they are
somebody. Who labored for money, thinking that
pleasure was happiness. Who let their feelings lead
them, hoping that stolen caresses might become
authentic love.
These are the generations of those who feared – who feared
death on foreign shores, who feared there would not be
enough, who feared no one would care for them or hold them
up. Who deadened their feelings, fearing that venturing too
far might be costly.
In the fullness of time, God sent His son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under that law. To bring hope to the fearful and to offer
the fear of God to the hopeful.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee
tonight.
