Let Me Introduce You

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 15, 2010

Let Me Introduce You

Isaiah 43:1-2

“On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning,

as well as a thick cloud on the mountain,

and a blast of a trumpet so loud

that all the people who were in the camp trembled.

Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God.

…Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder. …

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning,

the sounds of the trumpet,

and the mountain smoking,

they were afraid and trembled

and stood at a distance, and said to Moses,

“You speak to us, and we will listen;

but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.”

Exodus, chapters 19 and 20.

“Whoever does not know love

does not know God,

for God is love.

…Those who abide in love, abide in God

and God abides in them.”

The first letter of John, chapter 4.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me,

from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day,

but you do not answer,

and by night, but find no rest.”

Psalm 22

“As a mother comforts her child,

so I will comfort you.”

Isaiah, chapter 66.

“I am who I am.”

Exodus, chapter3

The Bible is filled with many different portraits of God,

each so different,

each conveying a very different personality:

thundering, smoking, loud, fearful;

gentle, loving;

disinterested, absent, uncaring;

nurturing, tender;

Mysterious, enigmatic.

Which portrait is the most accurate?

Which portrait reveals God most completely?

We want to know; we need to know,

not only for ourselves,

but also because we just made a promise

to Jordan and Ryan to introduce them to God,

to help them to know God.

Who is it that we are going to introduce them to?

The short-tempered, frightening, thundering God of Exodus?

The loving and gentle God of John’s letter?

The absent uncaring God of the Psalmist?

The nurturing, tender God of Isaiah?

We have had a tendency over the centuries to separate

the God  of the Old Testament

from the God we read about in the New Testament.

We have been way too quick

to say that the God of the Old Testament

is the God we find in Exodus,

the God who leaves us shaking and trembling.

And we’ve been way too quick

to say that God of the New Testament,

the God revealed in Jesus Christ,

is just the opposite.

We want to introduce Jordan and Ryan,

and all our children,

to the God the Bible reveals in its entirety,

the God our Lord Jesus Christ reveals,

and that means we will introduce Jordan and Ryan

to the God who incorporates all the different pictures

we find throughout the Bible,

in both Old and New Testament.

Now certainly God is not a thundering, smoking God,

but there’s no question

Jesus had his moments of temper and impatience.

Who doesn’t recall how he kicked  over

all the tables in the Temple

as he chased away the money changers?

But that certainly wasn’t the only time in which Jesus

displayed his anger and his outrage.

Now of course we don’t want to Jordan and Ryan,

or any of God’s children, to be afraid of God.

We want them to know of God’s love for them.

And we don’t have to skip past the Old Testament         

to find examples of God’s tender love

for all his children.

Long before the birth of our Lord Jesus,

God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, saying:

“But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
[for]…you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you…”

(Isaiah 43:1ff)

This is the God we want Jordan and Ryan to know.

This is the God made flesh in Jesus Christ.

the God who dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

This is the God who loves Jordan and Ryan,

loves them unconditionally,

and will love them always.

Jordan and Ryan are precious in God’s sight now,

and they will always be precious in God’s sight.

We want them to know this God

whose love for them is so strong,

so absolute, that even if they stray far from God

God’s love for them will never waver,

never falter,

never weaken.

We want Jordan and Ryan to know the God

the story of the Prodigal Son reveals.

It is a story that was written not just for them,

but for all of us, to assure us

that even if we do stray

God will be there waiting for us, for them,

welcoming them, welcoming us back with open arms,

open heart,

waiting to embrace us again with love.

We want them to know the God

the Psalmist who wrote our Prayer of Confession

was thinking of as he wrote the Psalm,

the God they can turn to with all their problems,

to whom they can confess their sins,

knowing that this God, our God

will respond with forgiveness and mercy:

“While I kept silent” –

while I kept my sins within me,

my body wasted away,

through my groaning all night long.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and I did not hide my iniquity

…and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”                           

(Psalm 32)

We also want Jordan and Ryan to know that God,

like any loving, caring parent, has expectations for them,

has expectations for each of us.

God created them,

just as God created each of his children,

and God has given us all gifts through the Spirit,

which God expects us to use fully.

To use fully not to pile up money for ourselves,

not to obsess about building a life of comfort and security.

                 

Rather, God expects us to use our gifts to build his Kingdom

as we share his love, his mercy, and his goodness.

We want Jordan and Ryan to know

that if it is peace, comfort, and security they seek in life,

they will find them only in God.

As Jordan and Ryan learn about God,

get to know God,

we want them to teach them another phrase

an Old Testament phrase,

one that we struggle with, but which is so important:

We want them to learn to live “in fear of the Lord.”

Now of course, we don’t want them to be afraid of God

trembling and shaking in God’s presence

as the children of Israel were

when Moses brought them to Mount Sinai.

No, the Hebrew word we translate as “fear”

means to stand in awe,

and we should stand in awe of God,

to marvel not just at God’s goodness, God’s love

but God’s mercy, God’s greatness,

God’s magnificence.

When we learn to stand in awe of God

we learn to stand humbly;

when we stand in awe of God, we learn humility,

genuine humility grounded in Christ’s teaching to us,

Christ’s example to us.

We want Jordan and Ryan to learn that

standing in awe of God we learn respect for God’s creation,

We learn that this earth and all that is in it belongs to God,

not us,

and that God looks to us

to take care of it for future generations.

We want to introduce Jordan and Ryan to the God

who will always have his “everlasting arms around them.”

(Deuteronomy 33:27)

And they will know this God

this magnificent God, this loving God,

if they know our Lord Jesus Christ.

For through Jesus, they will know all of God’s goodness,

all God’s mercy, kindness, and tenderness,

even as they also learn of God’s expectations for them.

Our calling in our promise is to teach them about Jesus.

Now of course we do that partly by teaching them

the many stories of Jesus we find in the Bible,

the stories we love so much.

        

But more important,

we are to teach them about Jesus

by the example of our own lives

by how we live,

how we talk to one another,

how we treat strangers, the weak, the different,

how we act not just on Sunday here at church,

but in all places at all times.

We can teach Jordan and Ryan and all our children

about Jesus if we follow the guidance given us

by the apostle Paul:

“be of the same mind, having the same love,

being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,

but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

Let each of you look not to your own interests,

but to the interests of others.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death

-- even death on a cross.”

(Philippians 2:2ff)

Through their baptisms,

Jordan and Ryan have become members of

Christ’s holy catholic church,

the church universal.

This brother and sister have become our brother and our sister,

and they now have as brothers and sisters

every follower of Jesus Christ in every denomination,

every nation, every language, every culture.

Through their baptism, they’ve begun a journey

that will end “in the arms of God

and the community of the saints.”

We have made a promise to walk with them on their journey

to help them learn about God,

to help them learn about the God revealed in Jesus Christ,

so that their lives will know love,

the love that comes from God through Christ.

For it is true:

“God is love,

and those who abide in love

abide in God,

and God abides in them.”
AMEN