When God Doesn't Meet Our Expectations

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 11:2-11
If this morning’s Gospel lesson has given you a bad case of spiritual whiplash, it’s understandable.

Last week, on the Second Sunday of Advent, we heard John the Baptist’s confident proclamation of the impending appearance of God’s promised Anointed King—what the Hebrew of the Old Testament calls the Messiah and the Greek of the New Testament calls the Christ. In the coming Christ, John told the crowds who heard him preach in the wilderness, God was getting ready to re-establish His reign over a sinful, rebellious world.

When Jesus later showed up to be baptized by John, in a passage not a part of last Sunday’s lesson, John must have felt that all his preaching had been vindicated. Jesus was the Messiah for whom he had been waiting!

When we fast forward to the Gospel lesson for this Third Sunday of Advent, we come to a very different scene.

Now, if John was like most of the Jews of his day, his expectations would have been that the Messiah, the King of kings, was going to push the bloodthirsty, corrupt Judean kings—the Herodian line—off of their thrones, would save the people from their foreign overlords, the Romans, and would take away the power and prominence the vain and faithless rulers of Judea’s religious life—the priests and teachers of the law. John probably expected a clean sweep of what we would call church and state. And the Messiah, he undoubtedly thought, would make everything in society right.

Instead, since John's encounter with Jesus at the Jordan River, Jesus had undertaken a ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and miracle working. Great stuff, but not exactly what John had expected! Herod, the Romans, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees were still in charge and, as we meet up with John the Baptist today, he’s in prison, wrestling with disappointment and doubt. With a probable death sentence hanging over him and with the reign of God—the kingdom of God—seeming no nearer than it had been when he first began his ministry, John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the One Who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

John wanted to hope in Jesus, but this King in Whom he had reposed so much hope didn’t seem to be meeting John’s expectations. John wondered, “Is Jesus the Savior?”

Have you ever been there?

Have the promises of Jesus to hear and answer your prayers sometimes mocked your faith?

Have your life circumstances cast your faith in a sovereign, loving God in doubt?

Have questions pressed on you as you’ve watched loved ones suffer or die, or you’ve struggled with health issues, financial issues, or when your sense of purpose in life has disappeared?

Have you played by God’s rules and watched people who ignore them seem to skate through life as you face troubles and difficulties?

The truth, if we’re honest I think, is that we have all been there in the prison of doubt and uncertainty John experienced in that prison cell.

And so, John did what millions of people have done through the centuries when wrestling with their questions and doubts. He turned to Jesus. He asked Jesus, in effect, “Are You the One in Whom I can place the full measure of my trust and hope? Or do I need to look elsewhere for hope?” (People do that, you know. God disappoints them or turns out to be different from what they expect and they turn from God, never to return. They turn to false gospels that promise them wealth or health or a free pass to perpetrate their favorite sins with the full favor of God.)

Jesus’ response to John’s question in today’s Gospel lesson is not just for John the Baptist, it’s for all of us who have ever doubted, who have wrestled to understand God’s plans in the midst of unbearable pain or indecipherable situations.

Please pull out the Celebrate insert and look at Matthew 11, verses 4 to 6, to see what Jesus said:

Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. 

Jesus didn’t deny that He was the King Who would bring judgment on the unbelieving world. And He would confirm His role as judge of the world many times. In answer to John’s question though, Jesus simply pointed John to all the signs that showed Him to be not just the Messiah, but the Lord of all creation, Who can speak a word and create life where there was death, wholeness where there was brokenness.

To John’s doubt and disappointment, Jesus says, “Consider the evidence. I’m doing the things that God told the prophets He would do when His kingdom came into this fallen world.”

There’s another message in Jesus’ words, though. It’s this: Change your expectations of the Messiah. Change your expectations of God.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that there is any limit to God’s power or to God’s willingness to hear prayers offered in Jesus’ Name. In Jesus, we meet the sovereign, almighty God of the universe Who made us, Who can violate the natural laws He Himself created by performing miracles (and does), Who is committed to bringing injustice to an end, Who will allow those who refuse to trust in Him to go their own ways for eternity, and Who, by His cross and resurrection, has destroyed the power of sin and death for all eternity for those who believe in Christ!

Everything that Jesus did, including His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His rising from the dead, show us Who Jesus is and the good plans God has for those who repent and believe in Jesus.

But Jesus’ kingdom hasn’t come in its fullness yet.

Right now, you and l live in a world in which bad things happen to faithful people. It can cause us to question, just as it did John the Baptist.

The week before she died, Karen, a member of our former parish and a friend of Ann’s and mine, wrestling with her suffering, holding onto Jesus in the midst of it all, confided to me, “I keep wondering what it is God wants me to learn from all of this.” Though deeply faithful—I would say because she was so faithful, because she so believed in Jesus—Karen wondered, as John the Baptist had wondered, when Jesus was going to act decisively. When would God finally act to bring about the promise given by God through the prophet Isaiah and repeated in the New Testament book of Revelation: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…”?

That promise will come to pass. The God Who has never broken a promise will make it happen. The God Who was born in a stable, lived among us, died for us, and rose to give us life can be counted on to make things right.

Until then, He gives us, He gives the Church, and He gives the world this current life in which, as Jesus says, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

This life, with all its troubles, is God’s gift to us. But we know that God gives new life. So, why doesn’t God set things perfectly, totally, completely right for us now? Please turn to page 707 in the Bibles that are in the pew racks. There, you’ll find Second Peter, chapter 3, verse 9. Read that verse aloud with me, if you would,

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 

Every day we live in this world is an opportunity to do exactly what Jesus invited John to do: To look to Jesus; to see what He has done and understand the compassionate, powerful God Who has done incredible things for His people…Who is still doing them.

If we’re inclined to see Jesus as a hedge against the nasty realities of life, a cosmic Santa Claus who makes life just go away, we need to change our expectations. As was true for Jesus, before our resurrections, there will be challenges to face, hurdles to overcome, crosses to bear.

But God doesn’t let us have pain, hardship, or uncertainty because God is slow in acting or because God lacks the power to act. God is giving us the gift of time:

• Time for us to repent and surrender to Him; 
• Time for us to share the good news of the baby born in a manger who went to a cross and rose from the dead for all sinners; 
• Time for us to serve others in Jesus’ Name; 
• Time for us to grow as believers who are fit for eternity with God

Today, Jesus invites you and me to seize the days we have, one by one, and to live this life fully: to turn from sin, to live for Jesus, and, just like Jesus, to spread His love by what we do and who we are. And when, like John the Baptist, we wrestle with our questions, Jesus calls us to focus our hopes on Him, and not anyone or anything else.

Ann’s and my friend, Karen, who I mentioned earlier and of whom I’ve spoken before, left a note for me to read after her death. (She had written notes for many people to read after she died.) She said, in part, “Please help everyone to know that just because I have died doesn’t mean that their prayers did not ‘work.’ Healing is so much more than having a whole and perfect body…I’ll be seeing you again—then we can forget all of this sadness…”

While we await the return of the Messiah Who came to our world on the first Christmas, we can live in this uncertain and sometimes sad world with the absolute certainty that Jesus will make all His promises good for all who trust in Him. When we let that certainty fill us, we can face everything with joy and peace, the very blessings of which the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth.

May we join their song every day we live and on into eternity with God! Amen
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Here's a video featuring the incomparable Carolyn Arends, singing her song, 'Seize the Day.' Arends' music was important to Karen, the woman mentioned in the sermon. We played Arends' song, 'All is Well,' during Karen's funeral in 1999.

Repentance: Orienting Our Lives to Christ

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Matthew 3:1-12
As a seven year old who usually found worship less than exciting, young Jim Cymbala nonetheless found himself impressed by a preacher named Howard Goss. As Cymbala explains it, Goss, unlike many of the preachers who came to the Pentecostal church of his childhood, “didn’t rant and rave to make a point. Nor did he use emotional gimmicks as he delivered the Word of God. He simply explained the truths of Scripture in an easy, conversational tone.” Yet, something about Goss’ personal faith impressed the seven-year old Cymbala far more than anything Goss said.

Years later, himself by now a Pentecostal pastor, Cymbala met the son of Howard Goss. The younger man remembered “a big camp meeting” held in Canada when he was a kid. Every prominent preacher of their tradition was there and the event attracted huge numbers of people to the morning, afternoon, and evening preaching services.

As Goss’ son recollected, all the preachers jockeyed to be picked to preach at the evening events, when the crowds were bigger and the prestige greater. “Suddenly,” Howard Goss’ son remembered, “one of the leaders asked where my father was. He was…highly respected by everyone. They wanted to consult him [about the preaching schedule]…They finally heard that he was last seen in the kitchen and dining hall area, so [the son recalled] I went with them to find him. They could scarcely believe their eyes when they got to the kitchen. There was my dad on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor with some of the…workers!”

When told that the prominent preachers wanted to know what his preferences were on the preaching schedule, Goss demurred. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he told them, “But I found out that they’re short of help here in the kitchen so I thought I’d lend a hand.”

Here was a man, the direction of whose life was altogether different from what we see in the lives of most people in the world…maybe even in the Church. Most people allow the directions of their lives to be dictated by the sinful orientations with which each of us is born. As we cave in to these sinful orientations or impulses, we wander farther and farther from God, like the lost sheep that wander from the shepherd in Jesus’ famous parable. In these Advent and Christmas seasons, we remember that God has acted as a good shepherd seeking those who have wandered from Him and Who, through His death and resurrection, has done everything necessary to bring us back under the gracious rule of God, where we can experience life forever with God.

But, as I’ve said before, God does not force His eternal kingdom on anyone! Nor can it be earned by acts of religious piety. Nor can it be claimed simply because we were raised in the church, or held high offices—whether as clergy or laypeople—in the church, or because we were nice, polite people, or because we were in worship every single week. The people who enter God’s kingdom are like Howard Goss: They turn from the sin to which they are naturally oriented and they turn in faith to the God Who came into the world on the first Christmas in Jesus Christ!

Of course, when Jesus was born, few in the world took notice of it. He lived in obscurity until God the Father signaled that it was the right time for Him to begin a ministry that would culminate in His crucifixion and resurrection. Matthew 3:1-12. our Gospel lesson for today, the Second Sunday of Advent, finds John the Baptizer preparing the people of Judea and the world for the disclosure of the long-awaited Messiah. Today, John’s words can prepare us for the return of that Messiah, the crucified and risen Jesus, Who, at a time known only by God the Father, will come back to this world to fully establish His eternal kingdom. John was telling His original hearers and you and me to get ready to meet Jesus.

But how do we get ready? John says—in words similar to those Jesus Himself would later deliver in His own sermons: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Turn from your sinful orientations and turn to God so that God transforms you from an enemy of God to a friend of God, John is saying.

It’s interesting, too, that the word, “Repent” in the original Greek of Matthew’s Gospel is in the present tense, meaning that repentance isn’t a one-and-done phenomenon. Repentance, constant reorientation to the rule and will of God, is to be part of the daily life style of a Jesus-Follower. This is no doubt why Martin Luther, who taught clearly that we cannot earn our salvation by obeying God’s commandments, nonetheless began The Small Catechism with a discussion of the Ten Commandments. Every grateful follower of Jesus will want to turn each day to God, asking God to show them where they have disobeyed God, so that they don’t, slowly and ignorantly, wander away from the gifts of God’s grace and salvation.

To repent then, is much more than to be sorry for one’s sins. In fact, it’s possible to feel sorry for a sin and not be repentant. Years ago, I met a woman in a nursing home. She was then in her eighties. But she had done something wrong when she was seventeen for which she still felt life-crushing shame. She refused to receive Holy Communion when it was offered to her because she was sure that God could not and would not forgive her. She acknowledged her guilt, but she would not reorient her life to the loving Lordship of Jesus over her life. She would not accept God's offer of forgiveness. It was incredibly sad! Repentance entails both the recognition of one's need of God's forgiveness AND the willingness to receive that forgiveness. For some reason, that woman saw her need of forgiveness, but couldn't accept it. She was like a person dying of thirst on the rim of an unseen oasis.

I sometimes try to explain what it is to repent in this way. In space, when a satellite wanders or gets knocked from its orbital path, the satellite must be re-oriented in order to avoid trouble, things like collisions with other objects or falling into the gravitational pull of the earth, resulting in a crash. But with a simple radio signal from ground control, the satellite can be re-oriented, put back into its orbit around the earth.

Each time we turn to God, asking God to show us our sins, to help us to turn from those sins, and to live differently, we’re responding to a signal from God’s Holy Spirit and, in repenting, God corrects the course of our lives, keeping us in orbit around Jesus Christ, “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the only pathway to God.  

Repentance then, is no small matter. Not to chase anyone away from the centrally important discipline of regular worship attendance, Mark Allan Powell, a professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, points out that repentance is even more important than worship. In a book on the subject of worship, he writes:

…if worship is an appropriate response, it is not the ideal one. [Through Matthew’s gospel, we see that] the ideal response to [all that God has done for us] is repentance…[In fact,] Jesus never upbraids people for failing to worship or give thanks in this gospel…but he does upbraid those who have witnessed his mighty works and not repented…We know from Jesus' teaching in Matthew that people can worship God with their lips even when their deeds demonstrate that their hearts are far from God…

That’s exactly what John the Baptizer seems to accuse the religious leaders, members of the Judean sects of Pharisees and Sadducees, of doing in our lesson as they join the crowds flocking to the Jordan River to undergo John’s baptism of repentance.

“You brood of vipers!” he says to them. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that is worthy of repentance.” When we orient our lives to the Lordship of Jesus and the will of God, rather than our own sinful desires, our lives will bear fruit. There will be something different about us. We’ll swim against the cultural tide. Our values won’t be the same as the surrounding world. We’ll be in Jesus’ orbit.

Sometimes, the world will count us as weird as John the Baptizer must have seemed to the people of his day, foraging for locusts and wild honey, living in the wilderness that ancient Israel once escaped by crossing the very river in which he baptized.

How weird are you willing to be for Jesus? In his wonderful book, Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa: 17 Surprising Steps for Godly Living in the 21st Century, theologian and historian Leonard Sweet writes that driving our cars has, for many, become war by other means. So, why not engage in spiritual warfare when you drive?

“Other people talk on their cell phones…” Sweet says, “I talk to God. I know people think I’m crazy: sometimes I’m crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes talking out loud, sometimes lavishing impassioned outbursts into empty space.”

“In spite of the double takes” we may get from others, Sweet urges, “make drive time devotion time.”

In the end, how high a price is it to be considered strange or undesirable by a world ticketed for destruction, while remaining in the hands of Lord Jesus Who has conquered sin and death for those who trust in Him?

A song many of us were taught as kids tells us, “If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.” On the banks of the Jordan, John the Baptizer taught a similar lesson, “If you’re repentant and you know it, then your life will show it. You will bear the fruits of repentance.”

This doesn’t mean that you’ll be some holier-than-thou snob! It means that your humility before God, your surrender to Christ, and your submission to the Word of God and the will of God will show up in how you live.

It might find you on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor of someone else’s kitchen.

It might find you telling fellow sinners where forgiveness and life can be found.

And it most certainly will find you, each and every day, turning to the God we know in Christ, praying with the psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart…See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

It’s those who daily and authentically ask God to orient their lives to Him who are truly prepared for the kingdom of heaven, truly ready to meet Jesus! May we be prepared. May we live in daily repentance!