1/7/68

Scripture: Read Luke 2: 41-52; John 1: 29-36.

We have just been through the season of the year when we think of Jesus as the babe at Bethlehem. We are reminded of those who came to see him -- humble shepherds, wise Orientals (sometimes called kings), ordinary and extraordinary people. Some came to wonder, to adore, to offer gifts. A governor tried to find out about the baby in order to eliminate him as a possible threat to the throne.

One of the Scripture readings which was read for today is the one from Luke which describes Jesus in his boyhood at the age of twelve. The family had fled to Egypt, returned to Nazareth, and now came to the capital city of Jerusalem, for the feast of the Passover. When they were ready to go home, it was supposed that the boy was somewhere with the crowd that was traveling back up to the province of Galilee. Joseph and Mary did not know that he had stayed behind in Jerusalem, listening to the temple teachers, asking them questions, amazing them with his understanding. He himself was astonished at Joseph and Mary when they had finally found him and upbraided him for causing them all that anxiety. It had seemed natural to him to be interested in what he called his “Father’s business.” Mother Mary had quite a bit to think over and ponder in her heart. People noticed this lad. They were drawn to an unusual person. And it continued as Jesus increased in wisdom, in growth, in favor with God and mankind.

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There came the time, when he was close to 30 years of age, that Jesus was ready for that brief, intensified, three year ministry toward which he had been growing. He had become thoroughly familiar with the Scripture of his people -- we call it the Old Testament. And he had a feeling that he must do some things to fulfill what had been written and learned and lived. When his cousin John (who was six months older than he, and often called the Baptist) was attracting people out into the wilderness to hear John’s preaching and to be baptized, Jesus one day went and presented himself for baptism. John felt that this was hardly the proper thing for him to be doing; but Jesus insisted that he wanted to be baptized as a kind of fulfillment; and so it was done. Twice John called attention to Jesus in a special way. He said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The second time he said it, two disciples wanted to follow Jesus right away.

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As with gladness, people came to the place of his birth to see the baby Jesus; as they gladly saw and talked with the boy Jesus in the temple; so there were people who gladly gave up their other pursuits to follow him as he began his ministry. Others followed him in gladness. Many heard him eagerly. Some remained with him through the danger of his trial and up to his death on a cross. Countless more men, women and children have gladly become followers of the living Christ in the centuries since. To hosts of us, he is still the hope of the world.

Through the ages, men have tried to codify beliefs. Religious convictions have been expressed in creeds, in statements of principle, in philosophical formulations. Inquirers sometimes expect that the Christian religion is a body of materials to be learned, a knowledge to be defined and communicated. There is something to be said for acquaintance with religious history; for acquaintance with the philosophies and theologies of religious belief, and a great deal to be said for a thorough knowledge of the Bible. But the Christian faith focuses upon a person. It is not so much a series of statements as the recognition of somebody, a real person who lived in a real tough old world and whose spirit still lives in a world that is still real tough!

There is some inspiration in an old psalm that goes like this:

What is man that thou are mindful of him?

or the son of man, that thou carest for him? [Psalm 8: 4].

It describes what seems to be God’s purpose, crowning the man that he has created with glory and honor at last, putting all nature in subjection to man; establishing man’s intelligent, ethical control over the world. It is a sublime picture -- but we are a long way from that ideal yet. Not all things are controlled by man; and some things are quite badly controlled by some of us.

It is a hopeful corrective to our failures and mis-directions that we look toward one who does so much better than the rest of us at living the way life can be lived in the spirit. It changes our negative outlook when we see Jesus. Here is one who came and actually lived a mortal life on this earth, with an immortal quality. As such, he is “the pioneer” of our own salvation. In this wild world, so much of life uncivilized, too much uncontrolled and misdirected, there is a “trail-blazer” -- a person, Jesus, the Christ of our hope. It makes a difference when he comes.

Once medicine lacked a lot of the essential scientific knowledge it now has. There was no “germ theory” of disease. Then came Louis Pasteur. Once there was no competent nursing for the sick. Then came Florence Nightingale.

Once religion was concerned with duty in its most rigorous and minutely-detailed demand. Then came loving concern in the form of a person! No wonder that Jesus has had such immeasurable influence on such vast numbers of lives!

Some time ago there was a student who had his doubts about the whole sphere of religion. In fact he threw overboard most of what he supposed his religion to be. He had decided that religion was not reasonable. About the time he became a college sophomore, he could hardly have been dragged to church with a tractor! He told his family that he was going to clear God out of his universe and begin all over again to see what he could find. But there, walking across the college campus was a man (a teacher, I guess) named William Newton Clark. The young student knew that this man, Clark, knew a lot more about modern thinking than the student had yet begun to know. And yet William Newton Clark was a Christian --- an intelligent, forward-looking, intellectually honest Christian! His very presence seemed to say: “Essential Christianity is not an opposite to modern knowledge --- it is a part of it; he who is afraid to face facts does not really believe in God; come, the truth shall make you free.” The student was Harry Emerson Fosdick, who not only addressed himself to faith in God and to being a follower of Christ; but who entered the ministry with such dynamic persuasion that hundreds of thousands came to enjoy Christian faith with him.

That writer of many of the New Testament letters --- Paul, who was an educated, highly trained man, well acquainted with doctrinal beliefs, whose thinking gets pretty involved for a lot of us readers, nevertheless has a striking phrase which sums up his faith. He says, “I know whom I have believed.” [II Timothy 1: 12]. He doesn’t say, I know what to believe. He says, “I know whom I have believed” -- a real person. That is Christianity! We are invited to see Christ, his revealing of God, his basic principles, his way of life, his spirit and quality. He is our answer; he is the everlasting truth. It is he who inspires personal devotion. It is he who demands a quality of life far above the average. It is he who asks his followers to be “light in the world;” “salt of the earth.” It is he who looks upon his followers with poignant affection, even when we stumble, and have to pick up our offending feet again. It is he of whom it is possible to say:

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy presence can avail to make.

Men came to see him at his birth and went away rejoicing. People crowded around him as he asked youthful questions in the temple, and marveled. Disciples learned to trust him and to follow him through all kinds of hardship and spiritual triumph for the joy of living. And we still look to him for the peace that passes mortal understanding.

Today is one of those occasions, more rare with us than with some churches, when we gather round a table in remembrance of the mortal Jesus, and where we rededicate our spirits to the immortal Christ in whom we believe. As Jesus sat with his disciples in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem, he passed out his heart to them. Their faith in him was engendered by his faith in them. He believes in you too -- and in me, imperfect as are we all. He did not, at the table, review what he had taught to see how well they had mastered an idea. He just said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” [Luke 22: 15]. And as the meal ended, and the farewell drew near, his gratitude overflowed. “You are those who have continued with me in my trials.” [Luke 22: 28].

Jesus had tried to prepare those disciples for opposition, for rejection, for sacrifice, and to share with them adequate resources of inner power to see them through rightly. He sought to supply to them the deep resources to meet heavy demands. He has been doing that ever since!

Gathering about his table today, let each of us open our lives to him --- not to an opinion nor a creed so much as to a person --- the One Person who can do more for each of us than any other person.

“Behold the Lamb of God” that, somehow, takes away the sin of the world --- and be joyful.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 7, 1968.

Also at Wood County Infirmary, January 10, 1968 (pp. 1-8).

Also at Kalahikiola Church, February 2, 1969.

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, December 26, 1971 (pp. 1-8).

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, January 2, 1972 (last 2 pages).