About 60 miles off the coast of Greece in the Mediterranean Sea is a beautiful island called Crete. Today tourists flock to Crete for its stunning beaches. Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul made a stop on Crete. He wasn’t there for the beaches. He was there with a young co-worker named Titus. They were there to spread the good news about Jesus. They were engaged in Gospel ministry.
It was Saturday in Nazareth. The Sabbath Day. And the faithful sons of Abraham gathered where they did every Sabbath. They gathered at the synagogue. They were in the right place! Here in the synagogue the scrolls of the Old Testament, what they called the tanakh, were read and expounded. Here they heard the Word of Jehovah. In the synagogue they would hear the prophecies of the Messiah who was to come and bring salvation. Indeed, they were in the right place! Because of the Word of God present there the synagogue was the gate to heaven!
You have all likely heard of “euphemisms.” Euphemisms are nice, polite ways to say things that might sound harsh or unpleasant. For example, companies speak of “downsizing” rather than firing people. A person is said to be “vertically challenged” instead of “short.” Something strange is said to be “interesting.” And one I heard recently: “death” was called “successfully completing retirement.”
I remember preaching on this text, Psalm 46, back on Sunday, September 16, 2001. That was the first Sunday after 9/11. Many of you here today remember that week well. For some of you, 9/11 is only a history lesson. We were a nation that had been attacked. We were reeling. We had seen something never before seen. Skyscrapers collapse upon themselves! It seemed surreal, like we were living a dream. Psalm 46 seemed like the perfect text for the moment. It is a psalm that describes calamity and catastrophe and chaos, and then calm. It is a psalm in which we hear our God say those words we were desperate to hear, Be still. (v. 10)
The state of Wisconsin right now is like a huge object lesson on the Kingdom of God. I say that because all over our state farmers are planting their crops. Everywhere they are putting the seeds in the ground. Wheat and corn and soybeans and alfalfa. Drive anywhere and you will likely pass a field where you will see the corn now sprouted and well on its way to being “knee high by the 4th of July.”
The scene in the Garden of Eden is crushing. There are Adam and Eve – the crowning glory of God’s creation – hiding in the bushes. They are hiding because – of all things – they heard the sound of the Lord God in the garden coming to talk to them! They are hiding because they are crushed…crushed beneath feelings of guilt and shame.
In order to appreciate our text this morning, we need to have a little knowledge about the Jewish concept of “sabbath.” The word “sabbath” means “rest.” It is a concept the Lord wanted to deeply impress on his Old Testament people. The Lord gave Israel her calendar with these instructions: Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 20:8-11) Thus the “Sabbath day” was born for Israel.
Trivia question: What do the following actors all have in common? Groucho Marx. George Burns. Whoopi Goldberg. Morgan Freeman. Rodney Dangerfield. If you guessed that all these actors have portrayed God in the movies, you are correct. I think that is significant. The persons mentioned tend to be comedy actors. Each of their portrayals of God made God out to be a bit quirky, a bit silly, a bit of an oddball. In typical human and Hollywood fashion, it is an irreverent and unserious portrayal of God.
Of all the stories recorded in the Bible, are there any more spectacular and spell-binding than when someone is raised from the dead? I remember Bible history class when I was a child in school. I remember how the stories of Jesus raising people to life really captured my attention. I remember how intensely I listened to the stories of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter, and raising the widow’s son in the village of Nain, and I remember listening with rapt attention as Jesus stood outside the tomb of his friend Lazarus and called, Lazarus, come forth! And out came Lazarus alive!
One of the early lessons Christian parents teach their children is how to pray. We may take their little hands as they sit in their high chair and hold them together and teach them to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for this food. Amen.” Another time we teach them to pray is at bedtime. We teach them a “nighttime” prayer.
