FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS WHAT THE HOLY LAND CAN TEL US Scripture Lessons: Judges 7:108; Acts 10:23b-26, 12:20-23 This sermon was preached by Dr. L. Holton Siegling, Jr. on Sunday, January 13, 2019 at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. On Peter s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshipped him. But Peter made him get up, saying, Stand up; I am only a mortal. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over Blastus, the king s chamberlain, they asked for a reconciliation, because their country depended on the king s country for food. On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them. The people kept shouting, The voice of a god, and not of a mortal! And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. Leader: People: This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let us pray Almighty and Everlasting God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be pleasing, acceptable, and even joyful in your sight, for you are our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. As many of you already know, 56 members and friends of our church family will be leaving this Thursday for a two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Danny Massie and I began planning this journey to Israel and select sites in Jordan and Egypt nearly a year ago and we are certainly not bashful when it comes to soliciting prayers for our entire team while we are away. We call it a pilgrimage because, by following in the footsteps of Jesus, ours steps will be, by God s grace, a very spiritual journey; one whereby we will grow not only as individuals, but also, together, as members of the Body of Christ. 1
At the heart of our pilgrimage is a most wonderfully illustrated version of our Biblical heritage the Land! In fact, over the years, the Land has come to be affectionately dubbed: "The Fifth Gospel, and as such, the Land is, for all of us, an expression of the richness of God s grace. If you have ever been to the Holy Land yourself, then you already have some sense how a person s understanding of the Biblical witness has been profoundly influenced by the places where so many of the stories that we have known since we were young actually took place. From the outset, I want to share with you that we will be visiting all of the sites that I will reference in this morning s sermon. I also want you to know that there is a particular word that our Holy Land pilgrims will come to know very well by the time our journey is over, the word tel, spelled t-e-l. A tel refers to a mound of earth - something resembling a great big hill - and under it are quite literally layers upon layers of archeological evidence bearing witness to any number of generations of people having lived and built upon the same spot. Take the place called Megiddo, for example. Archaeologists have excavated the earth at Megiddo in such a way that some of the 27 layers of occupation can be seen layers one on top of another. It's like looking at the layers of a cake, if you will. There's evidence of the Period of Conquest when Joshua defeated the King of Megiddo. There's also evidence of the Period of the Judges when Deborah and Barak defeated Sisera and his armies. While there's hardly anything left of Megiddo today, it certainly isn't relegated to antiquity. On the contrary, when we read the Book of Revelation we eventually run across the word that had been translated "Armageddon," which finds its root in the name Megiddo. So, clearly, there appears to be more to come as far as that site is concerned, and especially as it relates to God's story of salvation. It has been my experience that the Holy Land, whether we are there or reading about it in the Word of God written, it functions very much like a tel in the sense that we can see so many things so much history so many Biblical connections. I dare say that, in much the same way, our lives function much like a tel, because just below the surface of who we are lies the milieu of where we have been, the vast foundational layers of people and places and things upon which our lives have been built. Now, as Christians, we know and believe that Christ is our truest foundation, and so it should come as no surprise to hear me say that, at the end of the day, our tel will always look decidedly different from an earthen tel. And the reason for this is because the loving claims of the Gospel, they will not tarnish the promises of God in your life and in mine, they will not erode with the passing of time! For this reason, when someone looks at the life of a child of God (when they look at you and me), oh, I suspect that they ll see a temporal accumulation of stuff - layers of dust and debris which mark the perishable. But more to the point, what they will also behold is a cumulative and enduring and living witness - a very spiritual legacy! And 2
this happens by none other than God s grace, and when our life's foundation is God, when the cornerstone of one s existence is Jesus Christ, our Lord! But that is not always our inclination, is it? You see, too often we start with ourselves, with our attitudes and activities; we have become an idol, and God has something to say about this for it was on Mt. Sinai that God revealed himself to Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments. In doing so, God made it abundantly clear that, "[We] shall have no other God's before [Him]." This divine imperative was coming from the one Living God who also says: "For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God..." In other words, God is absolutely determined to be first in your life and in mine. This reality really hit home for me when, some years ago, I found myself standing on top of Mt. Nebo. At the top of that mountain a visitor can look out and see something of what Moses saw some 3000 years ago the Promised Land! What is particularly humbling about standing in that place, however, is the realization that Moses would see no more of the Promised Land than that which he could see from that vantage point, for God had decided that Moses would not enter. And why is that? Why did God say in the book of Numbers 20:12: "Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them. Why did God say that? Well, to make a long story short, there was a time when God's people were in desperate need of water, and the Lord told Moses to speak and that water would come forth from a rock. We know from the Scriptures that Moses struck the rock instead of simply speaking as he had been commanded. What s more, church history has also located the essence of the problem in what Moses said just before the miracle took place. He said, "Listen, you rebels, shall we (referring to Moses himself and Aaron) "...shall we bring water for you out of this rock? As if Moses and Aaron had such power! Oh, to be clear, water coming from a rock was an amazing miracle, and a lifesaving miracle; but, it was not Moses' miracle, it was God's! Oh, Moses played a significant role in leading God's people out of bondage, but the children of God would enter into God's future, not because of Moses did, but because of what God had done! Think back, if you will, to the Transfiguration, that occasion when Jesus' ascended Mt. Tabor with Peter and James and John. It was on the top of that mountain that Jesus' appearance changed and his clothes became a dazzling white, and Jesus is seen in the company of Moses and Elijah. 3
Peter is moved to commemorate the moment and offers to build three booths, one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus. But "while he was still speaking," the Bible says, a voice came from heaven saying: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" At that, the disciples fall to the ground, and when they finally look up again...they see no one but Jesus himself, alone. Simply put, God in Christ is not going to be upstaged by anyone or anything at any time! Consider again this morning's Old Testament Lesson. The location of this story is called Herod's Spring. This was the backdrop for that occasion when Gideon was going up against the Midianites and he had an army at his command, a large army, some 32,000 soldiers! But that proved to be too large a number for God's purposes, and so God declared: "The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, My own hand has delivered me. " And so God began a process whereby that number was whittled down. The final number was determined by the men who lapped up the water of the spring like a dog...and this left a mere 300 soldiers - nothing more than a gnat in the face of the Midianite Army, an army which we are told, "lay along the valley as thick as locusts." God's people won the battle that day, but the real victor was undoubtedly God! This was not altogether different from the time when young David showed up to face Goliath in the Valley of Elah. There they were, the Israelites on one hill and the Philistines on another, and it was on that field of battle that David said: "This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand...so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel." Indeed, praise be to "God" from whom all blessings flow; yet, oh, how difficult that is for us to remember! Oh how often does "tel" of our lives - that cumulative and living witness that is ours - ends up revealing who we are, rather than who God is! And when that happens, our life of faith becomes like that proverbial house built upon the sand, because when the rains fall - and they will fall - the sandy sediment of our assumed sovereignty, it begins to wash right away, and each layer of our lives begins to blend with the previous level, basically leaving us with a muddy, convoluted mess...with each chapter of our life nearly indistinguishable from the one before or the one after. But, there is a better way, and it happens when our lives are lived with humility when we worship God not on a mountain or in a valley, but in spirit and in truth - when every moment that we have is spent pointing away from ourselves and toward God. Consider the differences between Herod and Peter in our two readings from the book of Acts this morning? Notice what sets them apart? Believe me, it s not just the mere 300 yards that set them apart geographically. There in Caesarea s ancient theater, the people praised Herod 4
Agrippa, who is described as having "the voice of a god, and not of a mortal!" and yet it was also there, and, according to the Bible: "because Herod had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. But the other place, very nearby, is the place where Peter had been - he had come to the home of a Roman Centurion, whose name was Cornelius. The Bible tells us that Cornelius fell at Peter's feet and worshipped him. But, unlike Herod, who received a similar kind of praise but offered no word of correction; listen again to what Peter says, "Stand up; I am only a mortal. Now I seriously doubt that anyone is ever going to confuse us for gods! Ours will not be the problem like the one Paul and Barnabas experienced when the people of Lystra mistook them for member of the Greek Pantheon. But tell me, will there never be those occasions when people will commend us on perhaps how we have come through the wilderness, or praise us for having defeated some giant obstacle in our life, or celebrate our accomplishments as individuals or as a church family? When that happens, is it not also a time for us to say, as Paul and Barnabas declared to the people in Lystra: "Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you..." Oh, there is but one who is worthy of our praise; only one upon whom the foundation of our lives can be built, and that is the Christ who gave his life for us, he died for our sins and rose again, so that we might have life, and have it abundantly! One of the things I am very much looking forward to about our upcoming pilgrimage, is taking time, for those who are interested, to reaffirm our baptismal vows in the River Jordan. We will be in the general area where Jesus himself was baptized, that place where he identified with us with humanity never asking us to do something that he wasn t willing to do himself. Likewise, in the sacrament of Baptism, we mark our identity as children of God and we say to the world that God loves us, and that Jesus Christ is utterly and completely foundational to our life. Friends, when our lives are founded upon that eternal bedrock, and when the adhesive that holds each layer of our life together is God's Holy Spirit, and when our lives become more about God and less about us, that is when the tel of our lives will truly prove to be not some space we occupy not some archaeological site. No! Ours will be part of the narrative of God s grace - - the stories that God is determined to tell! 5
Let us pray Lord, as we live grateful lives for the stories of the Bible and the places where they happened, may we know and believe that there is nowhere we can be where you are not, even in the humblest of human hearts. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. *The following sermon has not been edited by the author; therefore, there may be discrepancies. When in doubt please refer to the audio version of the sermon on this website. 6