Creekside Church Sermon of January 13, 2008 "When God Gets Through" Matthew 3:13-17	Rev. David Bibbee
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But how far back must we go to find the "good old days?" The g.o.d. (good old days) came before cell phones, email, text messaging, jam-packed schedules and over-programmed kids. The "good old days" preceded under-a-buck-a-gallon gasoline -- and times when air travel was actually fun, and cholesterol hadn't been invented, and Notre Dame had an elite football program.

The "good old days" means different things to different generations, but each shares an assumption that life was better in the past than the present. How good it would be to reel in the years, uncomplicate our crazy lives and embrace central certainties once again. How good it would be, reeling in the years -- going back, back, back to when God mattered and people lived as though they mattered to God. How much easier it would have been back then to stand on the promises and not pay attention the insights of science, psychology, the modern world-view, or other explanations for events attributed to God.

Retrieve the centuries -- back, back, back to when the world abounded with unambiguous signs that God was real and that God gave a "hoot" about us. If only we could have been around when angels made house calls and God appeared in burning bushes.

Back then it must have been easier for God to get through back in those days, and easier to believe and be faithful followers. But the biblical record shows that in the golden olden days, spectacular signs didn't leave lasting impressions. At the end of the day, people were still people. They either didn't care or forgot to notice, or they pretended not to notice because of pressing business -- like living as they saw fit without the interference of outside influences, spiritual or otherwise.

What happened to signs and heavenly intrusions? Were they only operative once upon Bible times? Did the circus leave town because of our lack of attention? Absolutely not! God is God. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. The Ancient of Days is changeless and timeless. God is a "revealing" God whose method of revelation is the same as it has always been.

What if the problem isn't God's, but ours? There is something that we do not easily admit to each other, even though all of us, at one time or another has thought it. What we wouldn't give to hear a voice calling our name from a burning bush. What a wonder it would be for that voice to utter a clear direction about where we should go and what we should do. What if it has happened and we didn't notice?

In our lesson from Matthew, Jesus has such an experience. The center of spiritual attention had shifted from Jerusalem out to the wilderness around the Jordan River. John the Baptist was preaching repentance and baptizing people for the remission of sins and preparing them for the coming of Messiah. Someone yelled at him from the riverbank, "Are you the one we've been waiting for?" "No way!" he shouted back. "I'm not fit to untie the man's shoelaces. When I baptize, people get wet. But he will baptize with the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit and people will burn."

A long, single file line snaked its way to the river. "Next," John said. Then he immersed another. "Next." Then another and another. "Next." Then it was His turn -- the One John had waited for. All it took was one look and he knew. "I should be next," John told Jesus, but Jesus insisted that John do the honors. And when Jesus came from the river dripping wet, John said, "Next."

I don't know if you could have told by looking, but God got through to Jesus. As he climbed out of the water, an opening was torn into the veil of heaven that let the Spirit in. It descended like a big bird. It landed on Jesus' head and a voice reverberated in Jesus' head, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am very pleased." Had you been there I don't know if you would have noticed anything. The text says, "Jesus saw it." It was an intensely personal experience that confirmed Jesus' identity and affirmed God's love.

We know story. We can tell why this was a significant moment for Jesus. But do we KNOW it? Is there anything in our experience that we can identify as an experience of the presence of God?

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant French mathematician and philosopher who lived during the 1600's. He was also a devout Christian. Throughout his life he struggled with finding answers to life's persisting, perplexing questions. Years after Pascal's death someone discovered a piece of paper that had been sewn into the lining of his coat. On it he had written: "Not the God of the philosophers, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Fire! Fire! Fire!" It wasn't a fire that destroyed. It was the fire that John said Jesus would have in his arsenal.

Have you experienced a mystical moment with God? It's not something we expect. The writer Annie Dillard says that too often what happens on Sunday morning is our attempt to keep God at bay. She writes: "On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea of the power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning."

God is beyond comprehension. Language is inadequate to convey a fraction of what "God" implies. Our best analogies, metaphors, hymns, poems, psalms, and the writings of all the world's religions combined are like the sounds of leaves blowing in the wind when it comes to describing God. Nothing is like unto God who was before the Big Bang and will be after the final curtain.

Yet there is a power that is even greater, and it is sobering to realize that we possess it. We can prevent the omnipotent God from getting through. We can exercise the freedom by saying "No." We cannot make ourselves invisible to God who knows every thought and every move we make. We cannot make ourselves invisible, but we can make ourselves inaccessible.

We have our defenses against God. They have names: hurry, busy, full schedule, things to do, places to go, commitments to be honored. There is a part of us that wants to encounter God's presence. But we get wrapped up in other things. There's a burning bush over there, but we look the other way, or we pretend we don't see, and we swat at the dove that tries to land on our heads.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: "Earth's crammed with heaven, each common bush aflame with God. Yet only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest set around and pick blackberries." Earth's crammed with heaven, and we organize the closet, watch American Idol, or read about someone else's experience with God.

Barbara Taylor tells about her friend who takes long walks. She has never seen the Holy Spirit falling from the sky, nor has she seen burning bushes, but she has been known to talk with trees. One day she was in the woods fretting about how she ought to be and the things she should try to change about herself when a big poplar said, "Hey, why do you worry so much? Watch me be a tree." She just stood there a minute or two and watched the tree be a perfectly acceptable tree. "Okay," the tree said, "Now you go be you." And she did.

I spoke with someone about something that happened during an anointing service in this sanctuary. She didn't particularly want to come to church that day. The weather was lousy and it would have been easy to just stay at home, but she got dressed and came any way. On the way she felt a conflicting urge to be here and not be here. As worship progressed she looked at the sermon title, wondering what it could mean and thinking about what it meant to her.

The sermon wasn't so hot, but apparently I said something that got her thinking. It wasn't what "I" said but what the Spirit did with my feeble offering that made her squirm, not in a uncomfortable, finger pointing way, but like an invitation to something she wasn't at all sure of. Those who desired anointing we asked to come forward. Much to her surprise and her fear, her feet had taken her up front before her head had time say otherwise.

As I moved closer she eavesdropped on what I said to the others, wondering what I might say when I got to her. I couldn't recall my words, and it wasn't the words that were important. It is what she allowed to happen. She was swept away. All of her elaborate defenses designed to protect her were washed away like a sandcastle at high tide. The walls crumbled, the heaviness she carried so long was swept away by rivers of tears she swore that no one would ever she her shed.

The heavens opened, the Spirit descended, the load was lifted, God managed to get through.

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