Last Week's Sermon

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20

Corinthians 8: 1-13

Mark 1: 21-28

 A Journey To The Promised Land

A few years ago I read the autobiography of Ronald Reagan, titled “An American Life” In the opening pages, my favorite cowboy says, I was raised to believe that God had a plan for everyone and that seemingly random twists of fate are all a part of that plan. Reagan also gives credit to his mother whom he describes as a small woman with a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos, he said mom always told him that everything in life happened for a purpose and that God had a plan for everyone who trusted in Him. If something went wrong, she said, you didn’t let it get you down, you stepped away from it, stepped over it, and moved on. Later on, she added, something good will happen. After he lost a job at Montgomery Ward, Reagan left home again in search of work. Although I didn’t know it then, he writes, I was beginning a journey that would take me a long way from where I had been wondering, and this journey would fulfill all my dreams and then some. My mother, as usual, was right. It is true, moms are usually right, and God is never wrong. In the Old Testament reading from the book of Deuteronomy, God’s people are also on the verge of a new journey. The Israelites had traveled from Egypt to Sinai and from Sinai to Kadish and after forty years of wondering they went north into the plains of Moab where we find them standing on the edge of freedom, gazing west into the Promised Land, and trust me they knew that in all their travels they had never been this way before. The Jordan valley must have looked like a never-ending obis, with hills, holes, and hiding places were an unknown enemy could dig in and wait for an opportunity to ambush. They must have known that even as they stood looking at their inheritance, the journey forward, just like so much of our lives today would not be easy. Before taking Israel into the land promised to Abraham and his decedents, Moses sent explorers ahead to scout the area; he must have known that even with the promise of peace and prosperity this trip would not be without grief and suffering. The bible tells us that the reconnaissance team reported, it was a land that devours its inhabitants. Could this be your life they were talking about? Is that the way you see tomorrow or next week? Moses and his followers were weary and now going the rest of the way through the Jordan River Valley certainly presented problems, and if they made it, the journey would not end there, Jericho with its walls of stone was looming in the immediate future.

How many times have you thought I made it through today, or I guess the news wasn’t that bad, but what about tomorrow? Even with the promise of eternal life, and God’s ever-present care, you and I will still face grief and suffering. There is never a shortage of those who are lying in wait and willing to disrupt the trip. For Moses and the weary wonders with him, the devil was active and alive, even as they stood and looked into the Promised Land, the bible tells us that many of their enemies were poised to attack them: “The Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites, Israel’s enemies were there on the high ground ready to attack, not to mention the Canaanites who had occupied the land for centuries and certainly were not willing to give it up without a fight. Israel now stands on the edge of passing into a new creation, putting behind them the fear and frustration of being a nation without a home, yet the road that lay ahead was unplowed. Even as God had dwelt among them, they stood fearful and frightful of tomorrow. You may know that same sinking feeling, you come to church week in and week out, you pray, you hear the message of God’s love and His promise to rescue you from your sins, yet you are still frightened and fear the future. Maybe it was the thought of bringing a new child home from the hospital for the first time or maybe the pain of watching your last child leave the nest. Maybe today you are facing a situation with a friend or a loved one that has you upset. Maybe it is your health, your job, your retirement or your marriage, that stands between you and peace, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Some of you are facing a journey that is so painful and so private that only you and God know about it. Wherever you stand today, as you too look across your own Jordan Valley you may be saying to yourself, I have been wondering through life for many years but “I have never been on this route before.” It is right here at the crossroads of life that many people seek peace and comfort from oh so many places that just won’t work. When we turn to our own insecurities and impulses we are left lonely and empty, and we will wonder aimlessly. When we are forced to cross into uncharted territory it is difficult to stand firm in our faith even as we know God’s love and His promises have been fulfilled when His own Son walked in the shadows of His own valley, the Via Dolorosa, the way of grief and suffering. A way which took our Lord from the judgment hall of Pontius Pilot, to a horrific crucifixion, so that your sins and mine could be forgiven, so that you too can walk through your own grief and suffering, knowing that when God is ready you shall pass through the valley of the shadow of death without fear, knowing that when you will spend all of eternity in the eternal Promised Land flanked by those saints who have gone before you. Listen to the words of Moses as God tells the Israelites how to face their unknown challenges: “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, He said, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations”, he then goes on the list all the evil temptation of the time, and believe me they were no different than today. One of mans greatest temptations is to seek direction in ways that can only hurt and harm himself instead of turning to the Eternal Word of God, Jesus the Christ. Again it is at the crossroads of life that Satan uses your insecurities and will tempt you to turn and travel the road to ruin, he will lie and tell you that his way is the safe way and if you listen to him, peace and pleasure can be yours. Then he will work on your fears and tell you to expect the worst. I read somewhere that when dealing with the devil we need to triple-lock all the doors so we can protect ourselves from a tight radius of wont’s, don’ts, cant’s, and quits as we quickly think about every danger, and worry ourselves to death.

Throughout the forty years spent wondering in the desert, the devil was there at every turn, he was there to distract and mislead, yet God used Moses to pick His people up, to guide, lead and protect them and even in the midst of your trials today God is with you, He speaks to you in words of absolution and peace. He is the Holy one of God, the one who even the demons of this world are forced to confess, the Holy One whose physical presence is with you today as you bend your knees at His altar of grace and feast with angels and arc-angels and all the company of heaven. God speaks to us by the lips of Moses who said: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet”. And so He has, when Moses reached the end of his journey, God brought him home peacefully and quietly; Israel must have felt abandoned and left to fend for themselves, I can only imagine that this is the feeling of anyone who has been left here lonely by the loss of a faithful spouse. Yet you are not alone, at your baptism you were given the sign of the cross and you were marked as one who has been redeemed by Christ the crucified, you became a precious child of God and seriously God has never left His children to fend for themselves. I once heard someone say God helps those who help themselves, but St Paul said: “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not, but if anyone loves God, God knows him. After Moses went to heaven God promised He would raise up prophets and put the truth in their mouths, and He did. Prophets, priests and kings were raised up, and then in the fullness of time, when no one else could speak the truth, when all seemed to be lost, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is greater than every Prophet, Priest and even King.

Earlier I said that my favorite cowboy pointed to his mother as the one whose voice he could follow and that when the Israelites needed a voice the Lord gave them the voice of Moses and Aaron and when our life needs direction, comfort and peace, we say Lord to whom shall we turn, You have the words of eternal life.

And indeed He does!

In Jesus Name!

Amen!