Sermon

December 28, 2008

Fulfillment of prophecies, looking ahead to the New Year

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable and blessed Christmas. I want to thank everyone who came to our Christmas services the other day, as both services on Christmas Eve were extremely moving. The one on Christmas Eve in the evening was one of the best liturgies of this year.

I received a Christmas card last week that spoke of all about Prophecies. The card read as follows: Hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, God had spoken many prophecies about His coming. He spoke them through men like Moses, David, Isaiah, and Micah. In order for Jesus to be the true Messiah, He had to fulfill every prophecy that was ever spoken and written…and He did. Every single one.

He would be born of a Virgin (Isaiah 7:14), fulfilled in Matthew 1: 18-25. He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) fulfilled in Matthew 2: 1-6. He would be taken to Egypt (Hosea 11:1), fulfilled in Matthew 2:15. He would heal the sick and make people whole (Isaiah 53) fulfilled in Matthew 8. He would be crucified (Psalm 22: 14-17) fulfilled in Matthew 27:31. He would die for our sins (Isaiah 53) fulfilled in all four of the Gospels. He would be raised from the dead (Psalm 16:10), fulfilled in all four of the Gospels.

The card concluded, “The many prophecies about Jesus’ second coming have not yet been fulfilled. .but one day they will be. Every single one! In celebration of His birth, His life, His death, His Resurrection, and in anticipation of all that we have to look forward to when He returns! Merry Christmas!”

So not just a Christmas card, but a theology lesson and I thank the family who sent that to me because that not only offered me a nice Christmas greeting but the genesis for this morning’s sermon.

Let’s examine for a moment, the history of humanity before the Incarnation of Christ. First, there was the creation of the world—created by an eternally existing God in Trinity. This is a mystery in itself. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God is uncreated. And He created the world from nothing. His motive in creating the world was love, and a desire to share that love. So He created a world where everything was in harmony and perfect love. He created mankind in His image and likeness. And mankind was in perfect harmony with God and with his environment. God gave man one rule to follow, and that was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Before eating of the tree, man knew only the good, man only wanted the good, there was no evil in the world. But mankind fell by eating from that tree, and discovered evil, discovered what it was like to go against God. And he discovered that evil had its own allure, that for a little while it felt good to do bad things. But man learned quickly that bad things had consequences, and that by discovering evil, the relationship between man and God that was in perfect harmony before, became damaged. And the relationship between man and his environment, the creation and the people in it, that was in perfect harmony before, became damaged.

So the first chapter of human history is the creation. And the second chapter of human history is the fall of humanity. Which opened the third chapter of human history, the chapter of expectation of a Messiah to deliver the people from their sins that resulted from the fall. God made a plan to redeem the world that had fallen through sin. His reason again was love—He didn’t want humanity to forever live in a state of disharmony with Him. But when would this plan of redemption take place? Another mystery. In St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, He uses the phrase, “When the fullness of time had come.” Meaning, when God deemed the world ready to received Christ. In every generation after the fall of Adam, God sent forth prophets, righteous people, to talk to His people, to pave the way, so to speak, for the Messiah to come. And this is where we get the prophecies alluded to in the Christmas card that I mentioned above. There are hundreds, if not more, prophecies in the Old Testament that foretell of the coming of Christ. There are hundreds of verses in the Old Testament that if you pull them out of their respective books and arrange them, you will have almost the entire New Testament told in the Old Testament. God wanted to make sure that when the Nativity took place, there would be a people prepared to receive the Christ—they would know the signs and would recognize Christ, or at least some of them would.

St. Paul tells us that Christ had to be made in every way like us. So He was fully man, with the full range of human emotions—in the Gospels we see Christ experience all the human emotions—joy, anger, sadness, loneliness, fulfillment, love. Christ is also called the Second Adam, meaning that He was perfect, like the first Adam, but stayed in harmony with God because He never succumbed to temptation. And interestingly, a lot of His life was a reflection of the third chapter of expectation. He was born in Bethlehem, as the Prophets wrote, the least among the princes of Judah, the least of the cities. Long before Christ, the Prophet Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans, a place of relative obscurity in the world of that time. Following the visit of the Magi, an angel told Joseph to take Jesus and His mother to Egypt, to flee the impending wrath of Herod that resulted in the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. The slaughter of the innocents was foretold in the Prophecy of Jeremiah. Interesting, however, that the place where Joseph was told to flee was Egypt, the same place the children of Israel fled to escape famine and certain death in the book of Genesis. And after a period of time, when Herod had died, Joseph was told to leave Egypt and go back into Israel. This fulfilled a prophecy, “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” But it also retraced a piece of history, as God’s people, with Moses leading them, came out of Egypt and returned again to the land of Israel.

The birth of Christ opens the fourth chapter, if you will, in the book of human history, following the age of Creation, the fall and the age of expectation. The birth of Christ opens the chapter of redemption. The Communion Hymn of Christmas announces for us, “Lutrosin apesteilen o Kyrios ton laon autou.” “The Lord has sent redemption to His people.” And throughout the 33 years of Christ’s earthly ministry, every prophecy about Him from the Old Testament was fulfilled, culminating in the Crucifixion and the Resurrection and the chance for redemption and salvation for all of God’s people. With the Ascension following the Resurrection, thus began the fifth chapter, if you will, in the book of human history, the second age of expectation. This age of expectation is similar to the first one—We expect Christ to return in glory, but we do not know when. Just as in the first age of expectation, there are righteous people in every generation who encourage the faithful followers of the Lord to remain faithful. There are righteous people, saints, who speak with prophetic voices, encouraging us to remain faithful to the Lord as we await His return. There are generations of people who remain faithful to the Lord despite not knowing of the time of return, just like there were generations of faithful people who faithfully waited for the first coming of Christ.

The sixth and final chapter of humanity will be written when Christ comes again to earth to judge the living and the dead. When He comes, it will not be in humility, the way He came at the Nativity, but is will be in glory. Everyone will know indeed that this is the Christ come again. However, just as with the first coming, people will be caught unaware and unprepared. Despite the many prophecies that were fulfilled in plain sight of the people by Jesus Christ, people were still unconvinced and very few received Him. Christ Himself has prophesied about how He will return again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and how those who are righteous will inherit eternal life and those who are unrighteous will inherit eternal punishment. While His return will be recognizable by everyone, those who are caught unprepared for His return will be numbered among the condemned. That’s why it is incumbent for each of us to be prepared at all times. Jesus tells us in the Gospels, “many are called, but few are chosen.” He tells us that when the end of the world comes, it will be like a thief coming in the middle of the night—the one who is vigilantly watching will be rewarded. He tells us that we will be judged on how much we’ve loved God and loved our neighbor, and how much we’ve used our talents to His glory. St. Paul, the greatest of the Apostles and writers of the church, tells us that our salvation is tied to faith, manifested in our works, and is ultimately an act of God’s grace. And the Orthodox Church provides us the opportunity to participate in a continuous foreshadowing of God’s Kingdom through the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and other services and sacraments. Just as in the first age of expectation, all of the signs are here—it just seems that fewer and fewer people are picking up on them. Perhaps that is because we are so concerned with life in the age in which we live, that we don’t think of life in the age to come. I read some of the Pope’s comments on the feast of Christmas and he spoke about human greed. The age in which we now live is an age of greed—as a society, collectively, our primary concern is on individual wealth and achievement. When Christ speaks of the age to come, He speaks of an age of love, and age of glory, an age of eternal righteousness. How then does one reach the kingdom of God and the age of glory if one spends his or her existence on earth living in an age of greed? We simply cannot—this isn’t theology as much as it is common sense.

I was reading Newsweek and Sports Illustrated, two magazines to which I subscribe, each of which put out its year-end edition this week. Both magazines had extensive obituary articles on people who passed away this year. Most of those people we did not think we would lose at the beginning of last year. There are people in this community who passed away this year that I never gave a second thought to the fact we might lose them in 2008. There will be people in our nation, and in our church community, maybe even people sitting in church this morning, whom we will lose in the next year, and nobody, especially not them, have any clue that it is coming. That’s why we all need to be ready at all times, to enter the chapter of glory, which we cannot reach if our lives are stuck in a chapter of greed.

This year, as we mark the ending of one year and the beginning of another, it is another point of demarcation for us, another opportunity to look back at the year that is past and an opportunity to prepare for the year ahead. As we set goals to exercise and eat better, as we make plans for our children, as we assess where we are in our jobs, and take stock of our finances, this is also a time when we should make some spiritual reflection as well as spiritual resolutions. It’s so amazing that when God created the world, in the first chapter of humanity, he created planets, moons and stars that serve for us as signs and seasons. Every 365 days (and this year 366), there is an opportunity to make a new start. Come midnight this Wednesday, NO ONE will have made a mistake in the new year. No one will have used foul language, or made a bad decision. Come midnight on Wednesday, it will be up to you how long it will be until you make a bad decision, use a bad word, or do a bad thing. Thursday morning, there will be Divine Liturgy at 10:00 a.m., to both commemorate the feast of St. Basil as well as to ring in the New Year with prayer and Communion with God. Will you be here to ask for His blessings this year? I can’t imagine beginning the year any other way.

2008 will probably be remembered as the year the economy took a serious dive. How will we remember 2009? When you look at your family life, your personal life, your spiritual life, how will you remember 2008? Was it a year of spiritual growth, did you make improvements in your personal life, did your marriage experience growth or decline? Will 2009 be a year your make improvements in spiritual things, in personal things? An overused expression I’ve heard on commercials is that “people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.” No one, I don’t think is planning on failing when it comes to personal growth, relationships or salvation. But failure to plan can lead to failure in any area of our life. That’s why it’s important to continually examine and tweak our plans so that we are on the road to success, both in this life, and for eternal life. I encourage you, between now and Thursday, to take out a sheet of paper, write down some goals for yourself for this year, and put the list in a place where you can refer to it on a regular basis. For those who are married, sit down with your spouse and put down some goals for each of you as individuals and for both of you as a couple. And come Thursday morning, say a prayer as you look at your list and from that day forward, pray every day about the things on that list, and see how good your year will end up.

We live in an age of expectation. Rather than put our hopes on the stock market, or the economy, or even the new President, let’s shift our focus and our hope on the things of God. What of the world today will be part of the sixth chapter of humanity, the age of eternal glory? It won’t be the stocks you have, the home in which you live, your job or any secular achievement. It will be what is written in your heart and soul—it will be your faith that will open the door to that last and most important chapter of our world. I wish each of you a Happy and Healthy New Year 2009, and I pray that this New Year will be a time of continued spiritual growth for our community and each member of it. Happy New Year!