{"id":8561,"date":"2022-12-27T10:49:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T17:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8561"},"modified":"2022-12-27T10:53:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T17:53:26","slug":"born-not-of-the-will-of-man-but-of-god-john-113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8561","title":{"rendered":"
\u201cBorn . . . not of the will of man, but of God\u201d (John 1:13)<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon for the Sunday before Epiphany<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ephesians 3:1-12<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day it is a little lighter. In a few days, January 6th, it will be Epiphany, the coming of the light. Epiphany is a minor festival for those of us in the Western Church, even though for those in the Eastern Church (three hundred million of them), Epiphany is the most important celebration next to Easter. We forget that what we call Christmas did not become a holiday in the Western Church until 336 A.D., more than three hundred years after Christ died and rose again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Epiphany?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about light and darkness, we know in physics that light is simply that which overcomes darkness. Darkness is simply not having enough light. The same with cold and heat. It\u2019s just a physical thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to realize, without going into a lot about ancient religion, that it\u2019s really about good and evil. For us the problem today is that among us evil isn\u2019t really real. This denial of evil shows itself in two ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first way is the blank slate idea, that is, when we\u2019re born we\u2019re blank slates. We can call that being innocent, but it is surely not good and evil. What is said by most people is that everything is basically good. It amounts to saying that evil is only evil if you think it\u2019s evil. We see this expressed in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago there was a movement called Transactional Analysis, whose motto was: \u201cI\u2019m O.K., you\u2019re O.K.\u201d Today, of course, we have the idea that God is nice, we are nice, isn\u2019t that nice. After all, it\u2019s just how you think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a larger way this is what Buddhism is about. Buddhism is basically atheism. It\u2019s all a matter of your thinking. Modern psychologists talk about reframing a problem; it\u2019s all a matter of how you think. There\u2019s no real evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we have the computer world of virtual reality. Someone has said that evil is just the shadow side of the good. It is a matter of how you think about it. Just so you manage it. That\u2019s the blank slate understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second way is the tower of Babel. In Genesis 11 they build a tower to reach into heaven so that then they can get God under control.  In short, there\u2019s no real evil but there is incompleteness. There is finitude. We haven\u2019t been able to control everything yet. But we will. But for now we can put God in those places we haven\u2019t figured out yet. That\u2019s called the god of the gaps, but as we fill in the gaps, we, like the Tower of Babel, will take care of heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of the progress we\u2019ve had. Small pox was terrible. It killed 30% of the people who got it. In a similar way polio was devastating. Yet it has been wiped out except for some places in Asia. We make progress in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you go to the self-help section of book stores, there are literally thousands of books on how to fix all kinds of problems. If you go online, there is no end to the YouTube videos that show you how to fix something and solve problems of all kinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Twain famously said: \u201cHistory doesn\u2019t repeat itself but human nature remains the same.\u201d To that some say: \u201cThen we will change human nature.\u201d Harvard professor Steven Pinker wrote a book in which he claimed we are solving problems today that seemed impossible to solve only a few years ago. The book is greatly disputed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is a minority report to those two ways of thinking, although they represent what many people today just assume is the case, either the blank slate or the Tower of Babel reaching into heaven itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does the minority report say? A professor, Martin Seligman, who for many years was head of the American Psychological Association, wrote an article in the Washington Post<\/em> a few years ago. He is a specialist in abnormal psychology. He\u2019s not a Christian and probably not even religious. Yet he wrote: \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between being crazy and being evil. One can be crazy. One can be evil. One can be neither. One can be both. But the label \u2018evil\u2019 is not mysterious and not derived from a belief in the Devil.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s not all psychological. Evil is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve had a wake-up call in our society. Many have had relatives who served in World War II. This war really went from 1914 to 1945. Someone has called World Wars I and II the Thirty-One Years War, a play on the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648. Before this Thirty-One Years War, ideas of progress and optimism were widespread. But World War I blew that apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came Stalin, who was directly responsible for at least forty million deaths and probably many more. Then came Mao, who was responsible for at least sixty million deaths and probably a hundred million. Then there were a couple of million slaughtered in Cambodia, and the list goes on. Pretty soon we have to ask: What about evil?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recall the Nineteenth Century French poet Charles Baudelaire, who wrote that the Devil\u2019s first trick is to convince us that he doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Twentieth Century C. S. Lewis, who is most well-known as the author of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, also wrote an even more important book, The Screwtape Letters<\/em>, in which a senior devil coaches a junior devil on how to entrap people.When someone suggested to Lewis that he write a second volume of such letters, he said he just couldn\u2019t; it was too draining writing about evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What our text basically says is: Something new has come. Something that was not there before. This newness makes all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the New Testament saying? First of all, Mark 2:17: \u201cOnly sinners can be saved.\u201d Only those who are ill need a physician. If you\u2019re not a sinner, no salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Romans 3:9-20 Paul writes about being under the power of sin. Twelve verses are too long to read now, but we will read two of them: \u201cNone is righteous, no not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Mark Twain wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s not the verses in the Bible I don\u2019t understand that bother me, it\u2019s the ones I do understand!\u201d There\u2019s really no lack of clarity here: \u201cNone is righteous, no, not one\u201d (Romans 3:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d we say, \u201cwe have to discuss that. After all, we\u2019re innocent until proven guilty. We hold to the presumption of innocence. After all, God, if you\u2019re going to judge me, then I will judge you!\u201d When we say these things out loud, we realize how ridiculous they are, and yet that\u2019s the way we think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see this thinking when we sing the well-loved hymn, \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d You know how it goes: \u201cAmazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saves a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see.\u201d People sing it with gusto, but they think of some wretch over there. They don\u2019t really think they are wretches. They don\u2019t think of themselves as lost. They think: \u201cI\u2019m not perfect. I\u2019m not blind. I know what\u2019s going on. Those people over there are big problem, but not me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all settled by one thing: the cross. That\u2019s what this passage in Ephesians 3:1-12 is talking about: The cross says evil is real, and it\u2019s so real that when God saw it, he solved it this way in spite of us. It wasn\u2019t something that we could handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think: The cross was like a charade, a drama God put on for us to show us that he loved us. Or it was all an idea, and if we just hold that idea in our heads, then that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the confession of the Christian Church is: This is what God has done; this is what God is doing here now in the sacrament. This is his body and his blood \u201cfor you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian Church spent four hundred years dealing with the question of Christ until finally in 529 A.D. the Second Synod of Orange defined that sin is real, sin is basic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Prologue to the Gospel of John this is spelled out. John 1:5: \u201cThe light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it and doesn\u2019t overcome it.\u201d It goes on in John 1:9-11: \u201cThe true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. . . . yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.\u201d Then John 1:13: \u201c. . . who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of us. We are caught in this real problem called sin, death and evil, and it\u2019s not just how we think about it, and it\u2019s not something we can handle. God has done it and that makes all the difference. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sermon for the Sunday before Epiphany<\/p>\n

Ephesians 3:1-12<\/p>\n

Every day it is a little lighter. In a few days, January 6th, it will be Epiphany, the coming of the light. Epiphany is a minor festival for those of us in the Western Church, even though for those in the Eastern Church (three hundred million of them), Epiphany is the most important celebration next to Easter. We forget that what we call Christmas did not become a holiday in the Western Church until 336 A.D., more than three hundred years after Christ died and rose again.<\/p>\n

What is Epiphany?<\/p>\n

When we talk about light and darkness, we know in physics that light is simply that which overcomes darkness. Darkness is simply not having enough light. The same with cold and heat. It\u2019s just a physical thing.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8578,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions\/8578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}