Out Of Egypt - Matthew 2:13-23

I want to begin by having you listen to the beginning of a song by Rich Mullins. It is a song that talks about Jesus’ humanity, comparing it to the humanity that we live with each and every day.

You was a baby like I was once, You was cryin’ in the early mornin’

You was born in a stable Lord, Reid Memorial is where I was born

They wrapped ;you in swaddling clothes, me they dressed in baby blue

I was twelve years old in the meeting house, listening to the old men pray

I was tryin’ hard to figure out what it was that they was tryin’ to say

There you were in the temple, they said You weren’t old enough

To know the things You knew

Did you grow up hungry, did you grow up fast?

Did the little girls giggle when you walked past?

Did you wonder what it was that made them laugh?

Did they tell you stories about the saints of old? Stories about their faith?

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold,

stories like that make a man walk straight

You was a boy like I was once, but was you a boy like me

I grew up around Indiana, You grew up around Galilee

And if I ever really do grow up, Lord I want to grow up and be just like You

It’s kinda hard to imagine that the God we serve spent time here on this earth, living the same life that we live. It’s easy to let the time and culture get in the way of the fact that Jesus grew up in much the same way that we grew up. He experienced the things that we experience. All the mundane things that we take for granted, that make this life special… Jesus experienced these things. As the song asks, “what did Jesus do when he scraped his knee?”

I. Horror and Terror

I’m sorry I have to say this, I’m sorry to ruin your day, but Christmas is not yet over. I know you’re sick of the music and the trees cannot handle it much longer, but Christmas has just begun. Yes, the store are tearing down their Christmas decorations as we speak and massively discounting their Christmas merchandise. The radio stations have thrown out all their Christmas music until next Thanksgiving. But Christmas is not over. Christmas is the beginning of the celebration of God with us. It is the beginning of the celebration of the Divine becoming human. It is the celebration of the incarnation. And that incarnation began with Jesus as a baby, but it continued with Jesus growing, living as a child, working as a carpenter, and then beginning a life of ministry at about age 30. The incarnation doesn’t end there, but we see God work very actively in the world as Jesus tells stories and brings healing to those around him, as Jesus teaches and shares God’s truth with his disciples. And the incarnation is seen at its greatest and most humble when Jesus offers up his life on the cross for the sins of the world. So Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation, is not yet over… it has just begun. But that doesn’t mean that the joy of Christmastime, as we celebrate together and open presents and spend time with family will constantly be there. For the Christmas story is not only filled with joy and love, it also finds hatred and pain in it.

One of the most joyful events in the Bible, the birth of Christ, is followed by one of the most horrible, one which we tend to ignore and gloss over. Jesus is born, God becomes man, and the sinful world just cannot handle it. And so we find ourselves with a horrible event at Jesus’ birth as children around Bethlehem are all slaughtered by Herod to keep a baby from becoming a king. What a horrible thing to see happen at the birth of the Christ. Now legend says that 1000 boys were killed by Herod at this time, but we know that it was probably much less. But Herod is known for killing even his own children to protect his place as king, so however many were killed, Herod was willing.

No matter how many were killed, though, we know it was a horrible event. And one that I believe shows how evil our world can be. It shows that good is repaid in this world by evil. It shows that power and greed again and again fight against love and peace.

This is the very kind of thing that feeds that part of each of us, and of me personally, that likes to be a cynic. It meets our lowered expectations. Of course, the earthly ruler is going to feel threatened by our heavenly king. Of course, the good of Jesus’ birth is going to be followed by the bad of the death of children throughout the countryside. This is what we’ve come to expect. Let’s face it, it’s what we deserve.

But that is not the case. And don’t let your inner cynic have too much control here. For cynicism is what made the Pharisees and Sadducees and temple leaders into what they were. They came to expect the worst from people and therefore didn’t open up to sinners. They assumed that evil would constantly contaminate the good, so they avoided everyone who they feared might be evil. They avoided being contaminated. They didn’t rely on God to deliver them from evil, they felt they needed to do it themselves.

They understood sin and evil much the same way that we do. They avoided it because they were afraid that it might contaminate them. They stayed away from sinners because they were afraid that the sinners might make them into sinners. But Jesus knew something that they didn’t know. Yes, evil is contagious. It spreads in a horrible way… but good is contagious also. And so, in Jesus’ ministry he was not afraid of evil because he knew that the good that came from God would contaminate the evil. And so we have prostitutes who give up their lives of prostitution and follow him. We have tax collectors who give up their thieving ways and follow him. We have sick people who are freed from their sickness and know health once again. Instead of being afraid of catching what the sick have, Jesus gives them a chance to catch what it is that he has. Evil cannot contaminate good the same way that good contaminates evil. Good can come in and take a horrible situation and make it glorious. And you don’t need to worry about evil getting the best of you because God protects his own. God protected Jesus. God protected Joseph and Mary. God made sure that they got out of there before harm came to them.

II. Into Egypt

And so, Jesus at the youngest age, is forced to live the life of exile. Joseph and Mary take him down to Egypt so that they can be safe from Herod. And he continues his life the way he began it, as a refugee. Not an auspicious way to begin life for our Savior.

But we have to realize that this all happened for a reason, not just to fulfill a quote from the Old Testament that isn’t really talking about the Messiah at all but rather is commenting on Israel’s past as slaves in Egypt. I think there are a couple things that come from Jesus’ journey to Egypt.

First, this time in Egypt meant that Jesus, in his earliest years, was raised around gentiles. Prejudices that his fellow Israelites grew up with would be foreign to him because he had to live surrounded by people who weren’t the same as him. And therefore, Jesus learned in a practical way that God’s love is for everyone, Jew and Gentile. It’s one thing to say that, it’s another thing to live it. God’s love is for everyone. God’s love is for the lovable and the unlovable. It is for those that we think deserve it and those we don’t think deserve it. It is for the terrorist and child molester as well as the church-goer and saint. It is for everyone. Even for those who have done horrible things. Even, in Jesus’ case, for the nation that once held your people captive as slaves.

The second thing this trip to Egypt did for Jesus was that it put him in the place of his people. Jesus lived out a piece of what his people had gone through: coming out of Egypt and entering Israel as God’s people. Jesus came out of Egypt and entered Nazareth as God’s son. Jesus lived out a part of what God’s people went through and therefore was better able to understand what it was they were going through. This is so much what the incarnation is about. It is about God living in human flesh. It is about God experiencing the things that we experience; God understanding the things that we understand. By coming out of Egypt, Jesus learned a piece of what all of Israel learned when they came out of Egypt during the Exodus. By growing up as a boy in Nazareth, Jesus learned what it meant to grow up as a child, what childhood and growing were all about. By working as a carpenter, Jesus knew what it meant to hold down a job and make the ends meet. Jesus experienced life. He experienced the same life that we experience. Oh, there are definite differences in the life he had and the lives we have, but they are more minor than you would think.

But why would God want to experience the things that we experience? Why would God want to put himself through the pains and joys that we deal with on a daily basis? There’s really a simple answer to this… Love! My wife, Lisa, when we were dating, would sit down and read some of my comic books when I got them. At first I was confused, because I thought she liked comic books. But then it became clear. She was learning about me by learning about my interests. She was willing to do things that I wanted to do, and participate in the things that are important to me because she wanted to know me better. And she wanted to know me better because, crazy woman that she is, she loved me.

God loves us and he wants to know us better. And so he gave us Jesus, allowing him to experience the things that we experience. Jesus identified with the people of Israel. Jesus identifies with us. He knows what it is that we go through. He knows the joys and fears that we face. He has been one of us. He has dealt with the things that each of us have dealt with.

We don’t serve a distant God. We don’t worship a God who watches from afar. Our God is close. He is personal. He became one of us. He knows us intimately.

What a message we have to share. God became man. The Creator allowed himself to become a part of his creation. O what wondrous love.

As Christians we are called to share the Gospel. Usually we take this to mean that we are to remind the world that they are all sinners and they need to repent. This is part of the Gospel, but it is only a part of it. And unfortunately it is usually all anyone hears. Gospel means good news. There is good news to share with the world around us.

Now I’m not saying to water down the gospel and pretend there is nothing about repenting. But we need to treat the Gospel like the good news that it is. We need to speak it in a language that those around us will hear. We need to let everyone know that God loves them. He loves them for who they are, even in the mist of their world; sins and all. He loves them so much that he allowed himself to become human, to incarnate into the midst of the world that they are in. He allowed himself to experience the same pains and problems that they experience. And he experienced pain to the greatest when he went to the cross, not out of spite but out of love. Don’t you want to get to know this God who loves you so much that he has gotten to know you. Oh yes, once you get to know this God, you will find that your life will change. He will change it. But his goal isn’t to take away all your fun. It isn’t to take all the joy out of your life. No, he wants to present a richer and fuller life to you, and one that won’t end here on earth but will continue throughout all eternity.

This is the good news. This is the Gospel. It is a different way to frame the important message that we share, but it is the same message. Let us share this message with those around us. We can do so in words, we can do so in actions, we can do so with our lives. Let us reach out to the world that needs to hear this important message and let us tell them that God loves them too. Amen.

Christmas Eve - Believe in Christ

At Christmas time, I find myself inspired by the children’s story, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson where a group of rough around the edges, bullying kids teach a church community about the power of the Christmas story by seeing it in a fresh light. The Herdmans are a group of six kids on child welfare who leave much to be desired. They lie, cheat, steal and even smoke cigars. As they decide to take over a Sunday School Christmas Program, bullying their way into all the lead roles, they come in contact with the Christmas story for the first time. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever reminds us that a story that is so common to us, one which we have made so clean is an absolutely amazing story filled with wonder and awe. Mary isn’t with child, she’s pregnant. The Herdman wise men don’t give jeweled boxes, they give their Christmas turkey, something that means something to them. And Mary and Joseph are seen as a couple of refugees covered with the dirt of travel and exhausted from their journey.

We are surrounded by the wonder of Christmas. We have many different traditions that inform the way we read the Christmas story, and sometimes they detract from what that very story is. We have heard the Christmas story so many times that we tend to take it for granted. So, let us go back 2000 years and see a group of people who live in a captive land. Let us go back to a woman about to give birth to a child that does not belong to her new husband and let us see something about the humility of God.

Mary and Joseph were refugees. They were told to leave their home town of Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem so that they could be counted in a census. I’m sure that they were tired from their journey and worn out. And here they are, not even able to have the baby in a house, but in a stable. Go out to one of the barns around this town to see what that might be like. No, it wouldn’t have been as cold, but it would have been something, nonetheless. Not exactly the most ideal place to have a baby. Talk about God’s humility. Let alone the fact that God is born as a baby. When babies are born, they are completely dependant, they are unable to care for themselves, they need to trust others. Jesus, when he was born, needed to rely on Mary and on Joseph and allow them to care for him. Humility. And this began a life of humility for Jesus. For throughout his life Jesus continued to live humbly. He begins his ministry by giving up a place to live and becoming a traveling teacher, with no place to lay his head at night. Again relying on the care of others. And his life ends in total humility with his death on the cross, dying for a crime that he did not commit.

But in the midst of that humility, there is glory and wonder. When we read the Christmas story we do not wonder that we have spent the last 2000 years celebrating Jesus’ birth. There is a star in the sky that shouldn’t be there. There are stately foreigners traveling great distances to greet new royalty. There are angels filling the sky with glory, singing and praising God. There is a special birth, the birth of Jesus… the beginning of Jesus’ life and ministry on this earth. The Christmas story prepares us for that which we will celebrate in three months… the death and resurrection of Christ. It is the prologue of the story… it begins us on a journey that will take us through Jesus’ ministry to the point that seems to be total defeat. This baby, born in such a way will be killed thirty-three years later. But then he will come back. He will come back in glory, having conquered death.

And so we have the humility and we have the glory. And they come together in this night as we celebrate Jesus’ birth: A humble birth, born to refugees in a stable. A glorious birth, sung about by the heavenly host.

We like to focus on the glorious part of Jesus’ birth; and face it, we like to focus on the glorious part of Jesus’ life. But the story that the Herdman children tell reminds us of the humble part of Jesus’ life and birth. But why did Jesus’ life have to begin in such a humble way? What is the meaning behind this? I think he was setting an example for each of us even at his birth. One which I’m not sure we always notice at Christmas.

Here in the United States, I think we’ve taken Christmas and Americanized it about as much as you can. Walk into any store at Christmas time and you will instantly realize what I am talking about. We have made the time where Jesus’ humility and glory are to be celebrated and turned it in to a time of stress. We have taken Jesus’ example of relying on others and turned it into a celebration of getting presents. Oh, I remember very clearly when I was a child and discovered that I enjoyed watching someone open a present that I had gotten them more than opening my own presents, but there is still a part of me that feels let down after the wrapping has come off and I didn’t get that book I wanted. In typical American fashion, we have taken the example that Jesus made of giving and we have turned it into our consumerist celebration of receiving. We don’t ask “what did you give for Christmas” but “what did you receive?”

God gave his Son. He gave Jesus, born in a stable, lying in a manger. This season leading up to Christmas, I have spent a lot of time focusing on belief. Though we talked about a number of different aspects of belief, the one thing that is most important is that for belief to be real, for it to matter, it needs to affect how you live. It’s one thing to believe that Jesus slept in a manger 2000 years ago. It’s another thing to allow that truth to inhabit you; to fill you; to change you; to make you a better person. When I see God’s glory, when I see God’s humility, it makes me want to live differently. It makes me want to celebrate Christmas differently. It makes the presents a bit less important. It changes what I’m about as a Christian. Jesus spent his whole life serving others, relying on the care of those around him, repaying hate with love, sacrificing himself for his people. This was God’s humility. This was God’s glory. This changes who I am, for I want to be like my God. I want to live the humility that Christ lived. I want to experience the glory that Christ experienced. I want to believe. It’s not just about assenting to the facts that Christmas presents to us. It’s about believing, it’s about allowing that Christ child who was born in a stable to be born in you, to be reborn in you. It’s about giving him the control in your life. I know that many of you have asked him into your hearts, but have you truly allowed your belief to affect every part of your life? Have you truly given him control? I know that I haven’t as much as I would like. But I also know that God is willing to hear me and answer me and take control of those areas of my life that I have not yet given him. He can do the same for you. Invite the Christ child in. Believe in Jesus. Amen.

Believe in Angels - Luke 2:8-15

The vast majority of Christian art gives us angels that are just a little too sweet for my taste. You have cherubs which look like chubby little babies with wings. You have angels with halos and harps sitting on clouds talking about what it used to be like when they were humans. And yet the Bible describes angels as fierce and holy beings. When a cherub is described in the Bible it is with a flaming sword, it is a part of a heavenly army. There are Seraphim in the Bible which have six wings and surround the throne of God. There are heavenly beings described in the Bible that don’t have human form. Whenever angels appear the first words out of their mouths are “do not be afraid” which tells me that those who come in contact with them have much to be afraid for. I’m not sure I’d want to come in contact with an angel. The terror that people experience when they come in contact with them would probably be a bit too much for me. And worse, if an angel appeared to me, this angel would probably have a message for me; a message from God. And there’s something intimidating about hearing from God in such a direct and obvious way.

So no, I’d much rather just listen and hear God the regular ways, through scripture, prayer, Christian community and church. No angels for me, thank you.

But there is something powerful about the idea of receiving a message from an angel. There is something powerful about having that direct connection to God. So, if God did choose to speak to me through an angel, I know I would be terrified. I know that I would freak out. But I also know that I would be changed, I would be made new, and I would have to follow whatever message the angel gave me.

I. Messengers from God

This advent season we are talking about what it means to believe. We have focused on belief in God and his promises. We have reminded ourselves that belief is more than just accepting a group of facts about him as being true. Belief is trusting God. It is changing the way you live because you trust God. It is accepting his word and his promises at face value. Belief is living the life of trust, the life of hope, the life of love. Belief is trusting God to work not only in this world but work in you and through you.

Today, as we prepare for Christmas this coming Saturday, I want to talk about one of the staples of the Christmas story: the angels. There’s something about angels that captures the imagination: the wings, the radiance, having been in God’s very presence. There’s something spectacular about them, and the Christmas story is one of the places where they are most obvious in the Bible. And it just wouldn’t be complete without a couple angels in it.

But before we begin to talk about the angels and the shepherds, I need to do something which I don’t like to do. I’m going to talk about language, and I’m going to ruin a word for you. And it’s an important word, too. What do you think of when I say the word angel? I already described some of the things that go with our ideas of angels: wings, halos, harps, white robes, radiance and glory. But technically, we need to look at what an angel is as described in the Bible, and we will discover that many of these things melt away. At its most basic, an angel is a messenger from God. That is what the word means, and whenever the heavenly host are described in the Bible as angels they are bringing a message from God. The appearance of the heavenly host in the Bible are too many to list, but lets look at a couple examples. In Genesis 3 we see Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden after disobeying the only command the God has given them. And we all know that angels are set up at the edges of the garden to keep them out with flaming swords, right? Well, these heavenly beings are not bringing a message so they are not referred to as angels in Genesis 3, but as Cherubim. Abraham is visited by angels regularly throughout his life, sometimes they have messages for him, sometimes it is the Lord himself who appears to Abraham. But more often than not, these heavenly messengers are called angels by the Bible. In Genesis 19 angels come to Sodom to rescue Lot from the destruction that will appear. Here again they are bringing a message so they are referred to as angels. Some of the prophets saw angels throughout their ministries and were given messages from God by them, others saw up into heaven and saw God sitting on the throne with heavenly beings serving him there, they were referred to as Cherubim and Seraphim. In the Christmas story we come across angels a number of times. Gabriel (described as an angel) appears to Zechariah to tell him about his coming son. Gabriel also comes to Mary and we are told that an angel appears to Joseph as well (we aren’t told whether this is Gabriel also). An angel comes to tell the shepherds about Jesus’ birth and an angel warns Joseph to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Notice that each of these angels brought a message from God. At the resurrection, we see angels share the news with the disciples at the gravesite: letting the world know that he has risen. And when Jesus ascends into heaven, angels tell the disciples to disperse.

Angels are messengers. If we truly believe the Bible, we believe that there are heavenly beings. There is no question of that. But the word angel really shouldn’t be the catch-all phrase to talk about them. Instead, we should refer to them as the heavenly host or heavenly beings or something.

What’s the point of this distinction? Why am I spending so much energy on this? Because we let ourselves get caught up in the messenger instead of listening to the message. The heavenly host aren’t the important thing. What is important is the message they bring. They make this clear again and again. So whenever you are reading your Bible and it mentions angels, look for a message from God. Instead of focusing on the miracle of seeing an angel… focus on the miracle of the message that the angel brings. This changes our reading of the Bible. In Matthew 4, when Jesus is tempted, we are told that after the devil failed and left Jesus, angels came and attended him. I always took this to mean that heavenly being came and offered comfort and strength after a grueling fast and a difficult bout with the devil. I pictured the angels like the trainers in a boxing match who came up to him afterward and bandaged his wounds. No, they are referred to as angels here, they are bringing Jesus a message from God. We aren’t told what this message is, but we know there is one. Even Jesus needed to hear a message from God some times, and when he did, God sent his messengers, angels.

But here, in the scripture we read this morning, we have probably one of the most famous stories of angels that we find in the Bible. Here we have a group of shepherds hanging out in their fields at night, watching over their sheep. And an angel appears. So, let us focus not on the fact that angels are appearing and instead let us look at what it is that the angel is saying: “Do not be afraid.” He needs to get that out of the way first of all. “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” The angel is sharing the message from God with a group of shepherds. Now shepherds were not the most reliable people of the day, they were probably given to boredom and were definitely known for making up stories. So a group of shepherds going around telling people what they had heard probably were dismissed by most people as being outlandish. But that doesn’t make what they shared any less real. It doesn’t make the message that they received any less important. God chose, at the birth of Jesus, to share this information with a group of shepherds. Someone needed to celebrate this wonderful even in the life of the world. God becoming man, Jesus being born was too important to just slip by without any fanfare. But at the same time there was a humility in the way the Jesus was born that cannot be denied, so God sent his heavenly beings to be angels, messengers, to these shepherds. And the outcast celebrated at the birth of Jesus.

II. Praising God

There is something else that happens when we play this semantics game, when we pay attention to what the Bible is calling the heavenly beings as they show up on earth. It helps us understand what was going on on Christmas night a bit better. These shepherds were out in their fields and a single angel comes and gives them a message. But then a great company of the heavenly host appear with the angel, and they begin praising God. They aren’t called angels at this point. They aren’t bringing a message from God. They’re just there praising God, and the shepherds have the opportunity to see this. This gathering of heavenly beings is not a show. It is not a concert. The heavenly choir did not practice and prepare for their big night where they would be presenting a concert to a group of shepherds. No, what is happening here is that the heavenly host are praising God through song, something that happens quite regularly throughout the Bible, and the shepherds are just getting the opportunity to see it. The shepherds have been invited to a heavenly worship service. The shepherds are getting a taste of the joy of heaven, they are experiencing something that is real, that is unrehearsed, that is a part of heavenly celebration. The heavenly host celebrated when Jesus was born. They partied. They sang. They knew something big was going on and they responded by praising God. The angels were singing their praise songs and the shepherds were excited by the opportunity to listen.

And the shepherds felt the need to follow up on the message that they had been given. They felt the need to see this thing that the angel had told them about. They went to meet the baby king, the Messiah, lying in a manger.

Now verse 15 sorta messes with the semantics by referring to them all as angels after they had left, but even if they weren’t specifically sharing a message, even if they were just celebrating, the fact that the shepherds could see them allowed a message to be made known through them. Our worship services aren’t evangelistic in nature. They aren’t designed to get people to know Christ. They are designed for those who already know God to worship, praise and pray to him. They are designed so that those who know God can learn about how to better follow him. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the ability to reach out to those who need to hear God’s message.

III. Being God’s Messengers

My confirmation students and I were talking about the resurrection last Sunday and we talked about the fact that we aren’t going to be turning into angels when we died. We aren’t going to get wings and harps and little halos over our heads. We aren’t going to sit around on clouds all day wearing togas made of white sheets. We don’t go from being earthly beings to heavenly beings. We remain as human beings. We will have physical bodies, resurrected bodies, but they will be different, they will be glorious. But in explaining this to my Confirmation class, I made a grave error, for I told them that we would not, could not, be angels. I was wrong. You see, we are all called to be angels at times. And we don’t need to wait until we die to do this. We are called as God’s people to share the message of God with those around us. We are called as God’s people to be angels. And I think we are given a good example in the story of the Christmas night as to how to do this. The angels didn’t go to kings, they didn’t go to businessmen, they didn’t come to the innkeeper or priests or anyone important. They came to outcasts, they came to the working men out in the fields. These are the people they shared their message with. We are called to do the same. We are called to share the message that God gives us with those who are outcast, those who need to hear the message. We aren’t ordered to go to those who will be believed, we aren’t ordered to go to the important people. Sometimes, as God’s messengers, we are called to go to those who we do not see as important, to those who will never be believed. God cares about the outcast. God cares about those who need him. And yet, these are the people we want nothing to do with. But these are the kind of people the angels came to at the birth of Jesus.

Throughout his life, Jesus continued to surprise those who he came in contact with because he didn’t pay attention to the rules that the world had set up. He spent time with prostitutes and tax collectors. He ate with sinners. Good people aren’t supposed to do this, but Jesus did anyway. This is such an important part of Jesus’ ministry that it cannot be underestimated. And it is something that began at his birth as God’s messengers came to outcasts to share with them the good news of Jesus’ birth.

Are we going to be God’s messengers? Are we going to learn from the message of the angels? Are we going to share God’s good news with all those around us who need to hear it? So, today I ask you to believe in angels, to believe in God’s messengers. And more than that, believe that you can be one of God’s messengers. You can share his word with the world around you, in the most unlikely of places. He will give you the message. He will give you the strength. Be a messenger with the Good News of what God has done for you, of what God has done for this world. Amen.

Believe in your Purpose - Luke 1:8-25, 57-66

It is amazing how things we go through can prepare us for things we have to deal with later. Some of these things are simple, some are much bigger and grander. We go to school and learn to read, write and do math and therefore we find ourselves able to participate in things in the world that we just wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. Learning to read was difficult for me when I started out. I was low in my class for many years and struggled with it greatly. But my teachers and my parents worked with me and eventually I got it, and found that I loved it. And struggling through trying to learn how to read allowed me to do things that are important for me. I was able to follow God’s call on my life and go to seminary, something that I would not have been able to do if I hadn’t struggled with reading as a young child. This is a simple example but there are much more difficult ones. What if we lose something or someone close to us? How does this prepare us for life later? Does this help us to be there for others when they struggle with loss? Or what if we face a trial that we barely can make it through? Does this teach us how to rely on God and trust in him instead of ourselves?

The secret to looking at this and understanding it is not to ask whether what you are going through was done to you on purpose by a malicious God, but rather what is it that I can do with what I have been given. How can I learn from what I have gone through? How can I allow this to be something that strengthens me and opens me up to those around me who need my help? Does my difficulty allow me to be able to be there for someone who is going through something similar? Does my pain help me to understand the pain of those around me? Am I going to let the difficulties of this world close me up and pull into myself or am I going to learn from them, use them, and see where God is working in each of them? Am I going to believe that God has a purpose in the midst of all I am going through? And am I going to do my best to make sure that that purpose is not wasted?

I. Believing and Serving

This advent season we are talking about what it means to believe. We have focused on belief in God and his promises. We have reminded ourselves that belief is more than just accepting a group of facts about him as being true. Belief is trusting God. It is changing the way you live because you trust God. It is accepting his word and his promises at face value. Belief is living the life of trust and the life of hope. Belief is remembering the joy that comes when we rely on God and not on ourselves.

But there is something else that happens when we truly believe God; when we believe that there is a God who works in this world; when we believe that there is a God who touches this world. If we believe that God works in this world, we believe that he works in us; and we begin to believe new things about ourselves. We believe that we can follow. We believe that we can grow. We believe that God has a purpose for our lives, a reason for our being. Not only are we supposed to believe something unusual about God. We are called and gifted to believe something unusual about ourselves. We have a purpose. We have a mission. There is a reason for who we are and what we do. God is very clear with some of us about what this purpose, what this mission is. And for some of us it is a little more difficult to see where God is guiding.

Zechariah is probably someone who spent most of his life with it being more hazy, more difficult to see where God was guiding him. But then he had an experience where God’s leadership and God’s purpose for him and his wife became very clear. And when this happened, Zechariah didn’t know exactly what to do.

Zechariah was a priest. It wasn’t a job he chose, but one that was chosen for him. At the time, the priests were born into their positions, and this is true for him. We know he took his work, his mission seriously. We are told in verse six that Zechariah and his wife lived holy and upright lives. They observed the commandments and regulations blamelessly. They were good people who wanted a child, but couldn’t have one. And so Zechariah served. He believed. He followed. But his service was one filled with fear and it was one filled with disappointment. He followed, he believed, but his life wasn’t fulfilled. And without him believing and without him serving, none of what followed would have happened.

It’s easy to believe when an angel appears before you. It’s much harder to believe when you don’t see the obvious signs. And, truthfully, most of us spend most of our lives believing and serving without ever seeing anything hugely clear. Oh, we get that glimpse of truth, we get that flash that tell us that we’re on the right track. But these fade, and we may even begin to wonder if we made them up in our head.

When I was in high school we had a prayer group and powerful stuff was happening during that prayer time. And I was in touch with the spiritual in a way that I haven’t been since. It was a very emotional and powerful experience for me. I could feel the spiritual world in my soul. I didn’t have to believe because the spiritual world was so clear to me. It was fact. I was turning into a Pentecostal. But then these things went away and I haven’t had an experience of the supernatural in the same way since. And since that time I have even questioned at times whether that was real or if it was my mind and heart playing tricks on me. Oh, I know it was real. I believe it was real. But it is something else to follow Christ when you don’t feel close to him. This is what Zechariah’s life was. This is what most of our lives are. This is difficult, but it is life and it is what it means to follow Christ. And the way we are able to do it is to believe that God has a purpose for us, a reason for who we are and where we are.

II. Believing and Hearing

Zechariah held on to his faith. He followed and he trusted and he believed and he served. And then the miraculous happened. He was visited by the angel Gabriel and a son was promised to him. The angel promised that Zechariah’s prayers would be heard. Gabriel gave Zechariah the good news that all his service and all his belief had a purpose. And Gabriel gave Zechariah some instructions, fairly basic ones: he is to name his son John; his son is to not take wine or fermented drink. The avoidance of alcohol was to set John apart as a prophet and so was his name.

Now, here’s the crazy part of the story. Zechariah, who remained faithful throughout his life, who believed without seeing, who served God faithfully at home and in his work, had an experience that is so great and so holy and at this point he begins to doubt. In verse 18 we see Zechariah question Gabriel. We see him wonder at the possibility of what is being promised. What does this tell us? It tells us that Zechariah is quite a bit like us. You see, we feel that it is fairly easy to believe in God. We are even willing to believe that God worked in the world 2000 years ago. We’re even willing to accept the virgin birth and the resurrection from the dead. But we don’t expect God to do something through us. We don’t expect him to work miraculously in our lives. That era is over, we think. The people back then needed the miraculous, we don’t. We’ve advanced and can take care of ourselves. It’s easy to talk about him doing it then, but now?

Zechariah could believe in God, but he couldn’t believe that God had a purpose for him, even when an angel appeared to share that purpose with him. And so, Zechariah is struck mute by that angel, because he did not believe. Now, we tend to look at things like this and think of them as punishments. Zechariah is being punished for his disbelief. And it’s kind of an arbitrary punishment. But God’s punishments are never just punishment, they also have an aspect of teaching in them. God never punishes just to punish, he punishes to teach, to help people know him and themselves better. And so, I truly believe that Zechariah going mute was something that was for his own good. And I believe, for Zechariah, it was to teach him to listen.

III. Believing and Obeying

And so, Zechariah spent nine months listening. He spent nine months not able to speak. And then his baby was born. And at this point Zechariah was given a choice. Was he going to follow the angel’s instructions? Was he going to accept the purpose that God had given him, the purpose that God had given his son? Of course, Zechariah was a man of faith and of belief. And so, though the friends unknowingly tried to lead him astray, he followed the instructions that he had been given and he named his son John.

It was in obedience that Zechariah proved his faith. It was in following his purpose that Zechariah found his meaning. Zechariah had an important job. He worked in the temple, he served before God. This was a holy endeavor that he was to perform. It made him special. Not many priests had the opportunity to do what he did. He was a man of ministry, serving before God. You would think that this, his job, was his purpose… but God had a greater purpose for him; God had a greater opportunity for him. God’s purpose for Zechariah was something that he had been prepared for. And it was a great purpose: to have a son; to raise that son to be faithful to God; to prepare that son for a difficult life of ministry. This was not a purpose that Zechariah expected, especially as late in life as he was. It was a purpose that God had prepared him for.

God has a purpose for each of us as well. For some of us, he may have revealed it already. For others, it might still be coming. God may be preparing you for a new purpose, one which might grow out of your old one. Things in your life may not make sense, they may not be understandable, but God has a purpose for them and God has a purpose for you.

Now this is not to say that there is one thing that God has set up for you to do. Our purposes change and they are changed. When I was in high school, I felt invulnerable. I knew that nothing could happen to me because God had a purpose for me. I knew that I hadn’t made a difference in enough lives for my mission to be done. Then I spent a summer working for Child Evangelism Fellowship. I taught children about God’s love for them and was used by the Holy Spirit to bring a number of kids to Christ. Now, did this mean that my purpose had been met? That everything I was meant to do had been done? Of course not. It was my purpose at the time, but God had other things set up for me later. So, whatever season of your life you are in, look at how God can use you. Don’t think that he is just going to do the same thing with you that he has been doing. Be ready to hear the angel that just may tell you that God has a new and wonderful purpose for you. Be ready to discover that all you have gone through has just been preparing you for a new step, a wonderful step. A step that you can follow if you live the life of belief.

So, yes, believe in God. Believe the Bible. Believe that God did miracles 2000 years ago. But believe that God is also working today, in this world. And believe that God is working in you. Live the life of trust. Live the life of obedience. Live the life of service. And when God makes known to you your purpose, hear him, trust him and follow where he leads. Amen.

Believe the Promise - Isaiah 9:2-7

There is a promise made when a Christmas tree goes up in a house. As the tree goes up and the decorations begin, you know that there are going to be presents under it. You know that come Christmas, there will be a time spent with your family opening them. For some of us that is Christmas Eve, for others it is Christmas Morn and still for others, it is whenever the family can get together. I remember as a kid being too excited the days leading up to Christmas to do much of anything. My parents realized that Christmas Eve was just too much for my sister and me, so we would go out snow-skiing on Christmas Eve and this would keep our minds off the presents under the tree. It would also wear us out so we could actually sleep Christmas Eve. We saw those boxes wrapped in wrapping paper and we saw those bows and we knew that we would be opening them on Christmas morning. The promise was there and we trusted in it.

My mom, when we were in high school and college, had difficulty finding gifts that we liked, particularly with my sister. So she would often give gift certificates. But she didn’t want us to know that they were gift certificates. So she would wrap them in an envelope and then put that envelope in a big box and wrap it and put it under the tree. And so my sister and I would open these big boxes to find out what they were and we’d discover that they just had an envelope in them; a good trick, and not terribly disappointing, for we got to spend money on things we wanted this way. But I wonder what would happen if I opened a Christmas package and found that it was empty. Would I be hurt? Would I feel betrayed? Would I think that a promise made me had been broken?

Advent is all about looking at the wrapped presents. It’s all about waiting for Christmas. For centuries, the people of Israel waited for a Messiah. They waited for a savior. They had a wrapped present under their tree and they waited for Christmas until they could open it. But when they did open it, they discovered that the Messiah wasn’t exactly the gift they were expecting. He was better.

I. People Walking in Darkness

This advent season we are talking about what it means to believe. We are reminded throughout the Bible the importance of belief. And we are reminded that belief isn’t just about accepting a certain group of facts as true… it has a deeper meaning. Believing is trusting. Believing is following. Believing is allowing yourself to live differently because of what you trust and know to be true.

Belief is living the life of hope. Trusting that what God has promised will come true.

For the people of Israel, this life of belief was a long and difficult road. They went through much and waited and waited for a Messiah. In the scripture we read this morning we hear one of the promises that they are given in the midst of that long and difficult road. It begins by describing them where they are at, “The people walking in darkness…” Their lives are difficult. They don’t seem to be going where they want. The world around them seems to be conspiring against them to make life as difficult as possible for them. They are walking in darkness. But the promise is here right at the beginning of the passage, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” Though you are walking in darkness, though you are dealing with the problems that this world has to offer, though you are living in a land that does not know peace, though you deal with death on a daily basis; there is hope, there is light, there is promise.

The scripture tells the people of Israel that they will have reason to rejoice because the yoke that is over them, that burdens them shall be broken. And they will rejoice as they rejoice when bringing in the harvest. They will rejoice as they rejoice when they go through the plunder after a battle. They will be able to throw away all their clothes designed for war, they will no longer need them.

This is the darkness they faced: constant warring, constant battle, subjugation under other nations who mistreated them. But this darkness would not last. It would not remain. They would see it end. Peace would reign when their Messiah would come.

And so, the people of Israel kept their present under the tree and waited and waited. This promise that they had of a Messiah was that war would end and they would find peace. But as they sat with their present under the tree, life continued to become more difficult for them. We see them taken into captivity in Babylon, and then released. We see a group of people set to destroy their race completely, and a queen is just barely able to save them through her faithfulness. We see them then conquered by Alexander the Great and watch as under the rulers that followed him, they are persecuted for their faith and faithfulness. Many are martyred for their faith in God. Others turn away from God completely. We see a family that leads a rebellion and re-dedicates the temple (which is celebrated each year at Hanukah). We then see them conquered by the Roman Empire. And through all this darkness, they wait with the present under their tree. For they know that the great light is coming.

II. Unto us a Child is Born

And the great light that is coming is also described in this passage. It is a person. It is a king. It is God made man. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The promise does something powerful here, and yet it is so minor. As it described the people living in darkness it described them in 3^rd person. It referred to them as “they” and “them”. It is easy for us, 2500 years after this was written, to talk about “they” and “them” and focus on what God had done. But here all of a sudden, it switches into 1^st person. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” For those this was written for 2500 years ago it was telling them that the child, the son, the Messiah was for them even in that day, 500 years before he came. For us, as we read this we realize that this child, this son, this Messiah is for us as well as for them. And we realize that as he brought light to the darkness of those who lived 500 years before he came, he brings light to us as well.

But Jesus wasn’t exactly the present that the people of Israel expected. And as you read this promise, you discover that there are aspects of it that don’t seem to be fulfilled quite yet. When it promises that there will no longer be a need for warrior clothing, we see that this just hasn’t happened yet. We have seen that very clearly this last year.

And so, though we fully and completely believe that Jesus is the answer to this promise, though we believe that the child described in this scripture is Jesus, we realize that he hasn’t yet completed the fulfillment of this promise. So this is a promise that we not only look back on but that we also look forward to.

We look forward to the increase of his government and we look forward to peace. We also wait for the fulfillment of this promise. And we also have more throughout scripture telling us of what this promise has in store for us.

III. Justice and Righteousness

We know that Jesus is going to return. In Revelation particularly, we have that return described to us. And, oh, it will be a glorious return. He will return from the sky on horseback and the whole world will see him and he will bring his kingdom. He will create a new heaven and a new earth and we will live in his presence forever more. But sometimes we seem to think that we are just to wait until that kingdom comes. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” and we think that means that we are praying for the end of the world so that Jesus can return. But Jesus’ kingdom is more than that which we have to look forward to. It is here and now and we are to be sharing it with those around us. We are to be telling people that they don’t need to wait to open all their presents. They can open them now, for the kingdom is here. But where is it? We still don’t see it in the midst of darkness. The kingdom is found where we find justice and righteousness. These are the things that uphold Jesus’ kingdom. These are the things that will show it so that we can see it. And it is also found in love.

So, lets not wait too long for Jesus to fulfill that promise. He has already begun to do so. And we are to be the fulfillment of that promise for each other and for the world, and even for the people of Israel. We are to live lives of justice and lives of righteousness. We are to live lives of love. This is how we will find ourselves as a part of Jesus’ kingdom. This is how we will find ourselves as a part of the promise.

We believe that Jesus fulfilled the promises that God made in Isaiah. We believe that he answered the needs of his people. But we also believe that he continues to fulfill that promise. We also believe that the promise is for us and we can wait on the Lord to bring his kingdom to this earth. When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, asking God’s kingdom to come here on earth, know that you are a part of that kingdom. When you receive communion, Jesus’ body and blood, know that you are receiving a piece of the promise that God has made to you. And what a promise:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Believe the promise… it will change you. Amen

Nov 28, 2004 Believe the Impossible Matt 1:18-25

When I was in grade school I wasn’t a great speller. Actually, I’m still not a great speller, but computers have this nice feature called spell check that helps me out a lot. But anyway, when I was in grade school I got tested on my spelling and never really did that good. But I remember one time where it was my pastor who caused me to do bad on my test. You see, one of the words I had to spell for a spelling test was believe. B-E-L-I-E-V-E. And I remember having the pastor give a children’s sermon or something where he talked about how we would find the word live in the word believe. He talked about how it was important that we believe if we really wanted to live and this could be seen in the way that believe was spelled. Amazingly, that very next week, we were tested in spelling and the word “believe” came up. I remembered what had been said on Sunday morning (amazingly) and spelled out “be-live” B-E-L-I-V-E. I got it wrong—obviously, my pastor’s fault. Now I just need to come up with an excuse for all the other words I spelled wrong.

Though my pastor’s grammar left something to be desired, his theology was sound. It is worth noting that there is a powerful connection between living and believing. If we truly want to live life to its fullest, if we truly want to let our lives fill with God’s blessing, then we need to learn the importance of belief.

I want to begin by having you think about a question. How do you describe what it means to be a Christian? Is it being sure that you go to church every Sunday? Is it being sure that you do your best to obey the commandments? Is it trying to live as good as the person next to you, trying to be a decent person? Is it living a life of belief?

These all are parts of the Christian life, sort of, but none of them are the center of what it means to be a Christian. We hear again and again that we are to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but what does that mean to you? How is that lived out? How is that seen in our lives?

In this advent season I want to look at one part of that answer. I want to focus on how we live out our Christian faith in a personal relationship with Jesus. And to do this I want to focus on what it means to believe.

So often when we hear about belief, we think it is about assent to a certain group of beliefs or ideas about something. Do you believe that something happened? Do you believe that someone exists? But to truly believe in Christ is much greater than this.

So often when we hear about belief, we think it is about whether we believe that what the Bible says is true. Was Jonah swallowed by a giant fish? Did Moses lead the Israelites through the Red Sea? But to truly believe in Christ is much greater than this.

So often when we hear about belief, we think it is about being gullible. Are we going to take things on faith? Are we going to trust things that we cannot prove? But to truly believe in Christ is much greater than this.

So what is belief, then? What is it that we are called to do when we are told that we are to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we will be saved? I think the best way to look at this belief is to see a radical example of it. And some of the best examples of people living lives of faith and belief can be found in the Bible. And so today I want to look at someone who is a huge part of the Christmas story but whom we tend to look over. And yet this is someone who lived a life of faith and belief that many of us could never attain.

Joseph, the man who raised Jesus as his own son even though he wasn’t. Joseph, Mary’s husband. Joseph, a real man of belief.

Joseph is a man of faith and belief because of what he doesn’t do and because of what he does do. He is a man of faith and belief because when the impossible presents itself to him, he accepts it at face value and lives faithfully.

Joseph has the world turn against him very quickly when he is about to get married, but then he finds out that his fiancée is pregnant. Joseph is presented with the unthinkable. He has the impossible put in front of him and he could easily decide to ignore it, to assume the worst. But he doesn’t. He accepts that God is able to do the impossible. He accepts the word of his wife. He believes, and because of this the world is changed.

As we read this morning, Joseph and Mary were engaged to be married. But Mary had gotten pregnant. We see right away Joseph’s character because he could have, by law, taken her out and have her stoned. He could have had her killed for sleeping with someone before she was married, for cheating on him when they were engaged. But he automatically decided that he wouldn’t do that. Instead he thought it would be best to divorce her quietly and move on with life. So, he wasn’t willing keep the marriage going, for obviously, she had cheated on him… but at the same time, he didn’t want to make an ordeal out of her situation, so a quiet divorce was the option that presented itself. Not the best option, but perhaps the best for a difficult set of circumstances.

Mary may have even told him about what had happened to her, about the angel that had appeared to her to tell her that she would be carrying God’s son. But is that truly something that someone would believe? If someone told you that, you wouldn’t accept it.

But then Joseph had an angel appear to him in a dream and tell him the same thing. An angel told him to go ahead and marry Mary because she did not cheat on him. Instead, the baby in her womb had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. And the angel told him to name the baby Jesus. We all know the story, but have we really thought about it. Imagine you were in Joseph’s shoes. Imagine you found out that the person you loved had cheated on you, and then you have a dream, a dream that tells you that they didn’t really do so. Would you believe that dream? Would you accept it as reality, even though what the dream was telling you was impossible? Or would you think that you may have imagined it, made it up in your head, tried to make an excuse for yourself subconsciously?

Why would you accept that the impossible happened when it sounds so much like an excuse? And if you did accept it, would you do what the dream asked of you? You see, even if the dream was real, even if the angel was telling the truth, Joseph would still be looked upon poorly by those around him. They would look at the situation and know there was more to it than it seemed. They would do the math and look at him as weak. And Joseph would be raising a son who was not his own, and all those around him would know it. Is it worth living this way? Is it something that you would be able to do? Would you be able to live with this situation?

Well Joseph was and he did. He not only accepted the truth of the dream that he had, he followed the instructions given to him by this angel, and Jesus was raised with a good, strong father throughout his childhood. We see later that Joseph continued to listen to his dreams, for after the Magi visit he is warned in a dream to drop everything he is doing and go to Egypt to protect his son from Herod. And again, he follows the wisdom of the dream. And when Herod dies, another dream tells him that it is safe to return to Israel, and Joseph again does as the dream commands, and so Jesus grows up in Nazareth.

So, using Joseph as an example, does that mean to believe is to follow your dreams, to take them seriously and follow where they lead? Not really. If that were the case, I’d have really tried some stupid things, for some of my favorite dreams are flying dreams or jumping dreams, and I don’t do either of these in real life. Though in Joseph’s case, this is what living the life of faith entailed. We don’t need to pay attention to our dreams and worry about what they mean and how they speak to us, at least not usually. Instead, we can learn from Joseph’s believing in God’s power to do the impossible and Joseph’s faithfulness to following God’s commands.

When we say that we believe in God, in Jesus, are we saying that we truly believe in the power of God to do the impossible? Are we willing to allow God to work miraculously in our lives and the lives of those around us? Or do we just say that we believe that he exists, but we don’t really expect him to work miracles? If we don’t expect God to work in this world, what good is believing in him? This is something that I’ve never understood. There are those who see God as some great being who created the world, set it up, set up all the laws that this world has to abide to and then went off and paid attention to other things that seem more important to him. Basically, he is a great clock-maker who put together a beautiful clock, wound it up and then let it do its thing. This is called deism. You believe in God. You believe that he created the world… but he isn’t really active in it now. He’s done his thing and now it is all up to us. What’s the point of this? If you truly believe this, what’s the point of coming together to worship? It doesn’t affect him. What’s the point of praying? It isn’t going to make a difference. What’s the point of believing? He’s not going to care one way or another.

And yet, so many of us, when we look at what we believe and how we live, this is where we fall, if not in the way we think than in the way we act. Do we really believe that God can work in this world? Do we really believe that God can do a miracle in this day and age? Do we believe that God is intimately involved in the workings of this world? When we pray do we think that God just may answer us?

Joseph’s belief allowed him to accept that his fiancée could be pregnant and also be a virgin. He believed that God could work in his world. He accepted that God is greater than what we expect and how we live. He knew that the gifts that God give are greater than our understanding.

Joseph believed these things but he also allowed them to affect how he lived. He also allowed them to affect what he did. He believed that God was able to work in his world and do the impossible. He believed that God gives great gifts to his people. And he therefore changed his life to respond to the work that God was doing.

How do we let our belief in God affect the way we live? Are we going to change what we do because of our faith in Christ? Are we going to allow him to direct our lives, to allow him to take us down paths that may take us places that will be uncomfortable for us? Or are we going to allow ourselves to play it safe, to take the easy way out. Do we just want to continue with the lives we have, or do we want to enter into that special relationship where we allow God to guide us; where we let God change us; where we are affected by him and his will on our lives?

What does it mean to believe? It means that we are willing to let God do the impossible in our lives. It means that we are ready to be moved and changed and directed by God. It means that God can work in this world and in our lives and through our lives to do great and impossible things.

Do you believe?

Believe

This Christmas season, as happens each year, there are movies that come out to talk about the meaning of Christmas. So often we are treated to an important message that tells us that Christmas really doesn’t have anything to do with the trappings that the stores are trying to sell us. We are reminded that Christmas is about something more than presents and toys and lawn ornaments and receiving gifts. Unfortunately, these movies tend to be somewhat vague about what Christmas is really about and end up focusing on peace on earth and family. They don’t want to offend anyone.

The Polar Express, this year’s first foray into the Christmas market, is a delightful animated movie starring Tom Hanks in about five different roles. It tells of a boy who is taken by train up to the North Pole to see Santa Clause, who he no longer believes exists. It is a fun kids movie with a number of memorable characters and moments. It also has a moral to it that is not the usual Christmas moral. Instead, it focuses on the idea of belief and what it means to believe in something that you cannot see.

The message of the movie is good for it focuses on the importance of believing, but it also lacks something, because that belief is wasted on an imaginary guy with a white beard and a red suit. Again, we are shown that it is not as important what you believe in as long as you believe in something.

But we have a different Christmas message for the world. We see that it is important to believe. It is vital! But it is also important that what we believe in is real. We have a story to share with those around us that will give them something powerful to believe in as well.
We believe that this world is loved so much by God that he sent his only son into this world. We believe that he could have come as a king, but instead he was born to refugees in a barn. We believe that he did amazing things on this world and was crucified and then rose from the dead.

It is important to believe these things. It is central to what we are as Christians. But it isn’t just our belief that makes them important. It is important to believe these things because they are true. Our belief has power because it is belief in something that is real.

So, this Christmas let us focus on the importance of believing. But let us remember that what it is that we believe in is more important than just whether we believe in something. We believe in Jesus! And this is why Christmas is so important.