Let the Nations Tremble
Pastor Mathew Magera – 3/3/19 – Sermon 332
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
We are ending the Epiphany
season with a high and we are also ending the Epiphany season with a high
calling. Christ Jesus has been revealing himself in many ways to us, his
Church. We’ve seen him call disciples. We’ve seen him heal. We’ve heard him
teach and preach. Today, it gets so big, so grand, so fulfilling that we see
him shining bright on the mountain top. What a captivating, visual expression
of his glory; a revelation of God’s power and God’s will that Jesus would be
the long-awaited Messiah.
This mountain-top experience
is what also prepares us for our Lenten journey as we, and the disciples follow
Jesus to the cross. This is the beginning of that time when we reflect on
ourselves as the Church, as disciples. This is when we ask ourselves what it
really means to follow Jesus. This is when we look around to see what Jesus
might be calling us to be and do in order to share his glory with those around
us. The transfiguration not only shows us Jesus in his full glory but it
reminds us that He is working a continual transfiguration of our faith that we
would be made new by him.
I love the opening of our
Psalm today, Psalm 99. It says, “The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he
sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.” I just love those
words. The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. I looked up the word tremble
in the dictionary this week. As anticipated, I found that the word tremble
means to shake involuntarily by no action or desire of your own. Have you ever
trembled before? Have you ever shaken involuntarily?
There is, right now, this
very moment, a widespread cultural earthquake taking place. There is an
earthquake that is moving the whole earth and it is moving in such a way that
the Church has started to shake. The Church has begun to shake by no desire of
its own. The Church has begun to tremble. The Church is experiencing a great
culture shock.
Some of you know that
earlier this week, I was keeping a close eye on the United Methodist Church as
their General Conference met in St. Louis to debate their stance on human
sexuality. I literally felt as if I were back in 2009 again, when I was
volunteering on the floor of the ELCA National Gathering in Minneapolis.
However, where the ELCA voted to move away from Scripture, the United Methodist
Church stood firm in their biblical beliefs, no doubt thanks to the fact that
the UMC is a global denomination and not just American. But, the result of that
decision will still produce aftershocks similar to that of 2009. This shows me
that no matter what decisions are made, the Church continues to be shaken by
this cultural earthquake that rages on. The Church continues to tremble and
this culture shock is more than just this one issue.
There is great fear in the
Church these days. There is fear passing through the large city churches all
the way to the small country ones. Fear displayed by the often-cited statistics
of fewer and fewer people in the pews. One of the main reasons for this
stagnation or decline is that we are being told the Church is no longer
relevant. It’s no longer relevant to attend a church that is stuck in the past.
It is no longer relevant to attend a church that is not progressing with the
times.
We can see it too. The
Church, as it is embodied in rural western Michigan, is not the same as it was.
There has been some drastic downsizing. There has not been the growth and thriving
there once was. Even though we are here, even though we have a beautiful and
well-maintained building, colorful stained glass windows, a steeple, community
outreach, Bible studies, even though we have all these things people are not
coming. It’s not like it once was in the earlier parts of the 20th
century. People are not coming to church and one reason we hear constantly is
that the church is no longer relevant. It has become disconnected with what is
going on. The Church, as a result, is trembling out of fear, fear of its own
slow and seemingly certain death. The shock of this cultural earthquake around
us demands that more relevancy will put more people in the pews and the Church
feels caught in this great quake and begins to be shaken.
I want you to hear what I’m
about to say. The Church should not be trembling because of this cultural
earthquake. The only reason the Church should be trembling is because, as
Scripture says, God reigns! The only reason the Church should be trembling is
because God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are reigning over their
great kingdom. We should not fear this cultural earthquake because God is above
it. Our trembling should come from the awesome power of God reigning over us.
Even when it feels like this quake could bring down the Church and crush it to
pieces, we should not tremble because of it. The only reason the Church should
tremble today is because God reigns!
How do we battle this
automatic response? How do we stop this temptation to tremble at what appears
to have the power to bring down the Church? Behold, we have the message of the
transfiguration. What’s the answer? It couldn’t be any plainer or simpler than
to look to Jesus. Peter, James, and John up there on that mountain, awakened by
Jesus in his shining glory, then left with their eyes fixed on him as God the
Father calls them to listen to Jesus. Hear what he’s saying, what he’s
teaching, what he’s preaching. Watch what he’s doing, how he’s healing, how
he’s reaching.
Did you know that we, the
Church, are called to be relevant? Yes, we may have our roots firmly planted in
the past, and for good reason, but so did Jesus and that didn’t stop him from
being relevant. The Church is called to be relevant to the culture, to be
closely connected with the community. The problem is the understanding of what
it means to be relevant. Popular opinion says that for the Church to be
relevant we have to assimilate into and become part of the culture around us.
But, this is not what we are called to do and this is definitely not what Jesus
did. The Church, in its call to be relevant, is to become connected with the
culture in such a way that the Church can influence the culture. The Church’s
call lies in the purpose of introducing people to the kingdom of God,
cultivating people into disciples, and then reproducing this process over and
over and over again. Jesus did not assimilate himself into the culture around
him. He connected himself with that culture. He got to know it. Knowing it, he
knew how to speak to it. Speaking to it, he knew how to create hope and healing
from it. Jesus connected with the culture in such a way that he could influence
that culture.
This Lent we will be
answering that calling that God gave to Peter, James, and John to listen to Jesus,
to fully immerse themselves into and be observant of the ministry of Jesus. We
are going to be answering that call to witness how he shocked the culture
around him by what he did and what said, and how he continues to shock the
Church today. How can we be relevant? How can we be His Church? How do we
connect with the culture closely enough where we haven’t assimilated ourselves
into it yet not far enough where we end up disconnected from it? It may involve
re-thinking who and what we are. And if it calls us out of our comfort zone we
must remember the call to be continually fixed on Jesus because we can trust
him to lead us.
Remember, because we are
God’s people we are a chosen people. God chose us. We are children of the same
God who was Lord over the disciples, the prophets, the kings of the Old
Testament. We are in a special place in that we have been redeemed by the same
Word that redeemed all of these figures in our biblical past and we have been
sealed by the same Holy Spirit. We are empowered and equipped because we have
that Holy Spirit. That same Spirit that moved over the waters in Genesis. That
same Spirit that transfigured Jesus before the eyes of Peter, James, and John.
That same Spirit who came to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. That same
Spirit that is moving in our midst today.
We can move forward without
being shaken by that cultural earthquake around us, this culture shock. Though
the earth may be quaking, the kingdom of God remains steadfast and immovable.
Instead of fearing and shaking as a result of it, we should be moving,
trembling, as the Church, in such a way that we are producing our own
earthquakes. The culture around us can shake the church, yes, but because God
reigns this also means that the Church can shake the culture. We should,
therefore, live lives in such ways, so full of praise that we make the earth
move in Jesus’ name.
Jesus didn’t just come to be
relevant to the culture around him, he came to shake it, to shock it. He shocked
it when he called 12 ordinary and unqualified men to be his closest followers.
He shocked the culture when he spoke about loving your enemies instead of
retaliating against them. He shocked them by capturing the lifestyle of the
faithful as being poor, the mournful, the persecuted. He shocked them when his
family, welcomed the Magi, adherents to a false religion, into their home.
There is no doubt Jesus was not only relevant by connecting to the culture, he
absolutely shocked it.
Jesus came to shock us, the
Church, also. He came to shock us with forgiveness but he also came to shock us
with new life, a new way of living life. It’s not always the ideal life. It’s a
life that struggles, a life that questions. It’s a life that’s obscure and
different. It’s a life that continues to call for change and adaptation, for
relevancy. Jesus shocks us so that we, in turn, can shock the world.
We, like Peter, James, and
John, need to be reawakened to God’s bright presence, his shining glory among
us that we may do the same thing in his name. God will get us through our
trials. God will get us through Lent, to Jerusalem, to the cross, to the tomb
and to the third day. God will get us there. God will get us through this
cultural earthquake, this culture shock. Through it all, may we tremble,
because, as Psalm 99 says, God reigns. That is the only trembling we should be
doing. Let God’s reign make you tremble this Lent as Jesus shakes and shocks
us, the Church, to new life, that we may shock the world with his glorious
presence and love.
When we, as the Church, can
begin to become a relevant Church by looking at Jesus and caring for our
neighbor, then we will no longer be shaken by the culture shock around us, we
will not tremble for the integrity of this institution, but instead we will
tremble because He reigns, we will tremble because Jesus is our Savior, we will
tremble because he is our God. The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble.
Indeed, let His Church tremble today. To God be the glory, now and always.
Amen.