The Divine Crash

My deepest apologies.  Yet another week has come and gone where just too much has happened.  Here is Sunday’s sermon.  You can read the notes here and at the end listen to the sermon.  Or you can go to iTunes and subscribe as a podcast and they will download automatically.  

Holy God, pour your spirit on these lost, lonely, hurting; the happy, the content, those coming to this building today, and send us out again

Scripture: Genesis 1:1

From the very beginning the Israelites made incredibly radical political statements.  Moses writes that this God is the God who made the whole universe.

Ezekiel 1:14 God shows up in a place that Ezekiel thought was impossible.

If I get a motorcycle this is the kind I want that has rims that are “high and awesome”

Ezekiel’s writing in Hebrew is very disjointed, Ezekiel is seeing God for the first time and it is almost as if he is stuttering and can’t find the words to say.

Ezekiel was a priest.  He had been trained his entire life to work in the temple.

- Ezekiel has been taken away when the Babylonians captured Israel and sent them back to Babylon.

- No the temple is destroyed.

- Ever planned to do something great and then had your dreams destroyed.  This was Ezekiel.

- As a priest he knew that God only resided in the temple in Jerusalem.

- The temple gets destroyed.  Ezekiel’s connection to God is lost.

- Ezekiel feels as though God has left them.

- The culture of the world said that where you lived determined your God.

- The chief Babylonian god is Ishtar and Ezekiel would have walked through the “Gate of Ishtar” and would believe they were now totally cut off from God and left alone in the land of Ishtar.

- Suddenly God shows up. God shows up in a very dramatic fashion

- With rims that are “high and awesome”

- In this moment God shows up and says that things may look bad but I am the God of all and I will make sure you are taken care of.

Ever been where Ezekiel is?

- Everything you hoped for is gone.

- Everything you knew is thousands of miles away

- New house, new routine, and new surroundings

- You have been taken from God and everywhere you thought God lived has been destroyed.

Jeremiah has been there.  He writes in Lamentations 1:3 “Judah has gone into captivity, Under affliction and hard servitude; She dwells among the nations, She finds no rest; All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.”

Jesus has been there.  On the cross he screams “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

For Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Jesus God bursts into the scene with great splendor and says “I am the only God, and I am in control.”

God shows up in the midst of the pain and says “Things may look bleak now, but I am in charge and I will take care of it.”

So then, when things look bleak and hard God is telling another story.  A story of hope, grace, redemption, and of love.

As a result of God showing up and telling a different story Ezekiel becomes filled with passion and begins preaching to people in all sorts of ways and images.

Jeremiah proclaims to the people left in Israel that God will restore the nation.

Jesus resurrects and ushers in a new creation in the midst of this world that everyone can take part in.

So then, when the story looks bad there is a different story that God is telling.

In Paul’s letters he writes that Jesus is the Lord.

- In the time of Paul the Roman guards would come out and ask you “Who is Lord?” If you responded with anything other than “Caesar” you would be killed.

In Acts 4:12 “There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved accept that of Jesus.”

- This was a Roman saying that ended with “Caesar”

- To say something else was punishable by death

Before the Romans would take over a city they would send an Evangelical messenger to proclaim the Gospel of Caesar if the people would confess that Caesar is Lord then the Roman Government would make the area an Ekklesia or church of Rome.

The early Christians understood that just because the story looked bleak and looked to be hopeless that God was writing another story, a bigger story, a story that would set all things right and that no one was able to destroy.

The church then is a political community because we understand that no matter who gets elected, what issues arise, what battles are fought, that Jesus is Lord and that God is over all, no matter what anyone else tries to say or do.

Sermon Audio

 

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