An Answer for the Ethiopian

3. Despicable Him

Isaiah 53: 1-3

There was a story on the news last week about Villanova University – and it had nothing to do with their men’s basketball team. As a matter of fact, with all due respect to Jay Wright and his Wildcats, it is a far more important story.

You see, a public road cuts right though the Villanova campus. And there is a bridge over that road, allowing students safe access to both sides of the campus. And there are crosses on that bridge. That’s not unusual, since Villanova is a Catholic university.

Well, a group called the Freedom From Religion Society (note that I said ‘from,’ not ‘of’), assuming that Penn Dot was in charge of the bridge, complained to Penn Dot that tax money was being used to promote religion.

Well, God bless Penn Dot, because not many governmental agencies stand up for freedom of religion. They told this group that the bridge was built, maintained, and owned by Villanova University, and so they could put up anything on the bridge that they wanted to.

That story struck me. Now I suppose this group would protest a Star of David or a Muslim crescent or a figure of the Buddha as well. But this story reminded me of the fact that many people in our society don’t just ignore ; they reject Him. Some obviously; others surreptitiously.

Which all takes us back to that spot somewhere on the road from to Ethiopia. Back to that man, treasurer to the queen, struggling to understand the words of Isaiah.

And back to Philip, a follower of , who, led by the , was ready to tell this Ethiopian all about his Lord. Who probably would not be too surprised that people were rejecting his Lord. Isaiah wouldn’t have been either.

He was despised and rejected. Tough words, aren’t they? Ugly, too. But that is exactly why there is a cross – the ultimate in rejection.

And Isaiah brings us to that point in several ways.

A root out of dry ground.

Well, just imagine if you were wandering in a desert, the hot sun beating down; no sign of water or life for miles. And as you wandered, you came upon a head of iceberg lettuce, full of life, just growing in the dust. You would look at that and ask yourself: “Now where did that come from?”

Hardly what you would expect to find in a desert!

And yet, there it is. No vision. No hallucination. A reality beyond believing.

And that’s what Isaiah calls the one we refer to as the suffering servant. Someone we never would have expected. Someone who couldn’t possibly be.

After all, why would God send a savior in the midst of the spiritual desert of , an oppressed nation, overcome and overrun by the Romans? A man of no power, wealth, influence, anything that would suggest He was worth paying attention to? And how would He get His story told? As the song from Jesus Christ, Superstar asks: “Why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land? If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4BC had no mass communication!”

Good question. And yet, there He is. That root out of dry ground, a tender shoot in the wilderness. Offering to us the way out of the desert.

But He was rejected! Despised. Thrown out with the trash (for Calvary had once been Jerusalem’s garbage dump!)

And over the years so many people, so many cultures, so many societies have tried to duplicate that root out of dry ground. The world has expended every effort to force a replacement, a reasonable facsimile, someone as good as, or almost as good as, this one.

The problem the world has is that while He offers much, He expects much.

There are two words in Hebrew that we translate as create. Yatsar means to create from existing material. Bara means to create from nothing – to start from scratch.

And that’s what the root out of dry ground expects of us – to be willing to start from scratch. To readjust all ideas and priorities and prejudices and begin anew. Which is hard work.

Much easier to let a reasonable facsimile offer us less as long as he, she, or it expects less. No wonder the world despises and rejects this one. Who wants to start all over?

I wonder if at this time, the Ethiopian in the was having second thoughts about throwing in his loyalty with the one Isaiah was talking about.

And the arm of God has been revealed.

Earlier this week, I read an article about actress Octavia Spenser. She plays God the Father in the recently released movie, The Shack, based on the best-selling book. The author of the article, however, says that she plays a guide to a lost soul. I guess that to say she plays God might have been politically incorrect and might have offended someone.

Well, God the Father was a guide to a lost soul in the movie, but was also far more. I just might write a letter to the magazine I read the article in and tell the editor that using the word ‘guide’ cheapened the whole meaning of the book and the movie. Actually, it cheapens the whole meaning of God. Replacing the Almighty with a ‘reasonable facsimile!

Of course, I suppose a guide is a reasonable facsimile that the world would prefer.

But no guide could reveal His arm in the way that God the Father did.

When God created (the Hebrew word in Genesis is definitely bara), He just called it all into being. He just said: Let there be light, land, sea, earth, Heaven, vegetation, animals, humanity. He hardly had to lift a finger or break a sweat. But when He chose to save all the lost souls of the world – which is, after all, all of us - well, He revealed His arm – or as we might say it: He rolled up His sleeves and got to work!

And He did! From the time Adam and Eve ate that fruit, through centuries of intervention, until He reached a manger, then a Cross, then an empty tomb. Hard work, but He was willing to do it to save our lost souls.

Only as He offers much, He expects much. He expects us to turn over our lost souls not for a brief tune up or a quick superficial paint job, but a complete rebuilding of everything we are. Not a yatsar creation, but a bara creation.

No wonder the world looks for a reasonable facsimile, just a guide to help find the way. And if the way, isn’t found, then, oh well, just muddle along.

No wonder the world despises and rejects the One who came into it and brought with Him the bared arm of God. He costs too much!

And I wonder if the Ethiopian is now thinking that maybe he should just take off and head home!

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Not His sorrows and grief. Although He had them.

But our sorrows and grief. All the things that break our souls and shatter them into countless pieces.

And He didn’t enter the world to find out what they were or how they were or when they were. But why they were.

I once heard of a psychiatrist who had a thriving practice. And at $100 an hour, he made a good living.

But he gave up his practice to become a minister (and didn’t continue to make $100 an hour!)

When asked why by those he knew, He told them. “When people came to see me as a psychiatrist with all their brokenness, I could only tell them so much. But as a minister, I can tell them what they really need to know – that their distance from God is what really ails them. That their souls are broken because their relationship with God is broken. That their sorrows and griefs are caused by their refusal to walk His way and trust in Him.”

If that’s the kind of advice he gave to his clients as a psychiatrist, he probably would have been sued for malpractice. Or have his license taken away.

You see, he knew that no matter how effective he was as a psychiatrist, he was only offering a reasonable facsimile of what the real answer is. How to get past the sorrows and griefs.

Which is what Jesus said to His disciples in the Upper Room, especially as John records it. “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Believe in God, believe also in me. Peace I leave with you; not as the world gives do I give to you. I will send a Comforter who will guide you in all truth. Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” Of course, in offering those words of victory over sorrows and grief, Jesus was reminding His disciples that they would have to be recreated, deep into their souls. A bara re-creation, not a yatsar one.

And a yatsar one is SO MUCH EASIER. It costs so much less. And if the world can find a reasonable facsimile – and it so often tries to – then so much the better.

Until the sorrows and grief become so heavy, there is no way out.

But even so, the world despises and rejects the only one who can help. And seeks reasonable facsimiles.

Which may be why the Ethiopian didn’t head for home. Because he realized that all of his reasonable facsimiles had been totally unreasonable. And until Philip met him on the road, he had found nothing yet to fill his empty soul.

A root out of dry ground. A God with a bared arm. A man of our sorrows, acquainted with our grief.

Despised and rejected. It makes no sense. But there it is. And would have the world leave it that way. He’d be ok with us leaving it that way, too. We wouldn’t bother him then.

But is that where we want to be? That really is the question we must ask ourselves as we too gaze upon this One Isaiah speaks of.

Mahatma Gandhi once said to a group of Christians: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!

I can probably think of a couple dozen reasons why Gandhi said those words. But perhaps one of the most important reasons is this: too often, we have handed the world – the people of the world who enter into our lives – a reasonable facsimile of the truth. We have failed to show in our deeds, failed to tell in our words, failed to express in our attitudes, failed to bear witness in our lives the message of grace He holds out to us. We have been satisfied with offering a yatsar re-creation instead of a bara one.

Which is why it is incumbent upon us to be the living message of Jesus Christ to a world that has too often rejected Him. To shine His light into every dark corner. To be the kind of Christians who are like Christ, not unlike Him.

The truth is – the job of getting the world to undespise Christ, to unreject Him, starts not with Him or God or the Holy Spirit; it starts with us. As someone once said: God gets involved only when we get involved. Besides Satan is already involved and we sure don’t want to give in to him!

May all our words and deeds and attitudes have this imprint: You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

No matter the cost.

Reasonable facsimiles cost a great deal more. They cost the life of the human soul. Worship

March 19, 2017

Call: Litany

Assurance: Litany

Children’s Message – the box

Prayer:

God our God, thank you for offering to us the real truth that sets us free. Thank you for filling us with blessings that make us whole. Thank you for sharing with us the glory that surrounds you. Thank you for teaching us that all things are possible with you. Thank you for bringing us through all of our darkness and into the light. Thank you for touching us with healing and wholeness. Thank you for loving us so much that you would send your own Son to redeem is, restore us, re-create us, and release us. Thank you, God our God, that you always will be the One who gives us a life that matters, for this day and all days. And may we share those blessings with all we meet, showing all the world that in you, sand only in you, there is victory. Needs, etc.

LORD’S PRAYER