Matthew 1:18-25
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho …
With trumpets a-blaring for six days …
And on the seventh day, with one loud long blast of the trumpets and a mighty shout of the people, the walls came tumbling down.
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho.
And with sword and shield, fought his way across Canaan, to make a home for the people of God …
Joshua is a Hebrew name, and its means, Yahweh will save.
Translated into Greek?
Iesous … Jesus.
Born of Mary.
In a tiny stable in a tiny town in a tiny country under the iron rule of Rome and the tyranny of King Herod, who would brook no threat to his throne.
When Herod gets wind of a possible claimant to his title, a child born in Bethlehem, Herod unleashes a brutal attack and kills all the children two and under in and around Bethlehem.
Mary and Joseph and Jesus, warned in a dream, hightail it out of there to Egypt, and there they stay, until Herod dies.
And only then do they return, but not Bethlehem … that’s too close to Herod’s kin … so they go to Galilee instead, and in Galilee Jesus is raised …
Of his upbringing, we know nothing …
Luke reports an incident in the temple when Jesus is 12 … but other than that, silence.
Until his 30th birthday or thereabouts … when a rabbi is old enough to begin teaching.
Jesus travels south to the Jordan, just above the Dead Sea, and is confirmed by John the Baptist in the rite of washing, the rite of baptism.
And a voice from heaven: This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.
By water and by word …
Jesus, Son of God.
God with us.
Joshua is his name.
Yahweh will save!
What does it mean to be saved?
For a long time, Christians were taught that being saved means going to heaven when we die.
And before we die, to live a righteous life.
And for most American Christians, the righteous life has been defined by frontier preachers from the early part of the 1800s … Kentucky and Tennessee … with their emphasis upon the sins they saw: drinking, smoking, cussing, card-playing and theater-attendance.
These frontier preachers saw families being ripped apart and social coherence unraveling on the rough and wooly frontier.
Baptists and Methodists and a few Presbyterians crossed the Appalachians and headed west into America’s frontier, preaching the gospel and planting churches.
They held giant camp meetings, lasting days on end.
Folks traveled from afar to gather together and learn of Christ.
Those were hard days, and people were desperate for hope and meaning and the consolation of God’s love.
Infant mortality rates were high, and if anyone made it to their 10th birthday, life expectancy was just under 60.
Women died in childbirth.
Men were killed on the farm.
People needed the gospel.
The revivals were intense.
The frontier preachers used lurid images of hellfire and brimstone, and folks responded with emotional outpourings and dramatic signs … probably baptized in a nearby river, swearing off the sins of the day, and promising to live a better life … with an eye on heaven – pearly gates and golden streets, and mansions in the sky.
What does it mean to be saved?
Life for us these days is considerably easier than it was on the frontier.
And no one seems to be particularly bothered by anything, and we’re not likely to mention sin.
American Christians are not likely to hear much hellfire and brimstone these days.
If we’re evangelical Christians, we’re likely to hear a good many therapeutic sermons dealing with anxiety, fear, addictions and sermons about success and achievement and goal-setting and marriage and family.
If we’re mainline Christians, we’re likely to hear sermons about justice and social responsibility … and the big issues of poverty and health care and war.
If we’re conservative Christians, we’re likely to hear doctrinal sermons … such things as substitutionary atonement, original sin, the two-fold nature of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, the trinity and sanctification and justification and predestination.
So, what does it mean to be saved?
It means a lot of things.
Because God is very big, and so is the world.
And the needs are enormous.
Clean water for the world and healthy souls and fair wages and loving homes where children are safe and good schools and the pursuit of peace and protection for endangered species and feeding the hungry and clothing the poor and preaching the gospel and teaching what Jesus teaches and loving one another and giving ourselves away and singing and praying and bagging groceries at the LAX Food Pantry and serving rice and beans at the Catholic Workers’ Soup Kitchen downtown … it means quite moments with Jesus, it means tons of Bible study and lots of fellowship dinners and committee meetings and hymnbooks and choirs and baptism and the LORD's Supper and preaching and repentance and sorrow and gladness and praise and laughter in the joy of the LORD and tears for the passion of it all
What does it mean to be saved?
It means a lot of things.
Because God is really big.
And the needs of the world are huge.
For God so loved the world, that’s why God gives us the Son.
For the sake of the world.
And for whatever reason, known but to God, the Holy Spirit has moved in our lives, and makes it possible for us to be a part of Jesus Christ, and for Christ to be the anchor of our soul.
He is the first and he is the last, the Alpha and the Omega.
The reality greater than everything else.
Our all-in-all.
To him we belong, now and forever more.
In life and in death.
In body and in soul.
In such a way that not a hair can fall from our heads without our Father’s will … because God is at work in all things for good … and we are ambassadors of God’s love to the world.
What does it mean to be saved?
It means a lot of things.
With Jesus Christ at the center.
His words and his life.
His cross and his death.
His tomb and his resurrection.
His ascension to the right hand of God, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Day.
What does it mean to be saved?
It means to be rescued.
Rescued from ourselves.
From out little tiny worlds.
From upside values.
Vengeance and jealousy and foolish pride and the love of money and violence and greed and graft and the abuse of people for our own pleasure and needs.
God rescues us from the darkness of our own shadow.
From our relentless self-interest.
From our feeble attempts to put ourselves on the throne of our soul …
God takes us out of the darkness and brings us into the kingdom of light.
God restores our spiritual orientation.
And gives us the LORD's Prayer … Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name … not my name, nor the million names of any given moment … but your name be hallowed, O God … your name, and your name alone!
What does it mean to be saved?
It means a million things.
It’s deeply emotional and its profoundly intellectual and tearful and joyful and transformational.
What does it mean to be saved?
It is whatever it is for any of us, in the characteristics of our life …
Salvation is tailor-made for each of us.
Salvation is one thing for my wife and one thing for me and one thing for my children …
It means something slightly different for Presbyterians and Lutherans and Pentecostals and Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox … for a small congregation in Nebraska and a megachurch in Nashville … for folks in Haiti and folks in Marin County … for farmers in Central America and engineers in the aerospace industry … for Christians who live in a culture where Christianity is dominant and for Christians who live in cultures shaped by other religious traditions.
What does it mean to be saved?
I think there are some bottom-line realities for all us.
To be saved is to gather together for worship.
Because there is strength in the company of fellow-believers.
Jesus never calls us by ourselves, but calls us into fellowship with one another.
To love one another as he loves us.
We study the Bible.
It’s our book.
We’re people of the book.
Genesis and Exodus, and Jeremiah and Hosea and the Gospel according to Matthew and Paul’s letter to the Romans and the Letter of James and the wonderful book of Revelation.
We serve … we put our faith into action … so the world can see our faith.
We make a difference.
We strive for justice and for peace.
Because this is our Father’s world … and we cannot rest if there’s but one lost sheep … one lost coin … or one lost soul.
We confess our sins with confidence in the forgiveness of God.
We’re humble in our achievements, for everything is a gift from the hand of God.
We’re merciful toward one another, for all of us have weakness and sadness and dark materials.
Salvation in all of its glory, works its way through each of us, just as we are.
Some of us are deeply moved by theology.
Some of us love to study.
Some of us are gifted with putting our faith into words.
Some of us are motivated by mission trips and the hard work of Habitat for Humanity.
Some of us spend a lot of time on our knees.
Some of us spend a lot of time in picket lines and social action.
When I lived in Michigan, a friend and I would travel once a year to the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, the abbey where Thomas Merton did his work.
It’s Trappist Monastery, a place of deep silence, 150 years old, filled with the prayers of the monks over the decades … the chanted psalms and the hymns and meditation and reading and thinking and good cheese and incredible bourbon fudge.
The day begins at 3:00 in the morning, and as the rest of the world sleeps, the monks are in prayer, for it’s in the night that the world faces its greatest danger.
These monks are called by God – for a life of prayer and chanting the Psalms …
Some are called to a life of writing …
Some are called to be evangelists …
Some are sent to the mission field.
Some are called to preach.
Some are called to sing … to teach Sunday School … to be elders and deacons.
Because the world is huge with many needs.
And God sees to it that salvation in each of our lives meets a need somewhere in this world.
And wherever we are, in the classroom or the lab, behind a desk or behind a wheel, we are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
To let our light so shine that others will see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
And in the center of it all?
Jesus, born of Mary, suffering under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried and raised on the third day and ascended into heaven, at the right hand of God, from then he shall come again to judge the living and the dead.
It is he, this Jesus, who leads us into the Promised Land and gives us life.
Who leads with a sword, not of steel, but of grace.
Who takes down walls – not of brick and stone, but the walls of prejudice and hatred and fear.
Who conquers, not with might and force, but with love and mercy and forgiveness and the giving away of his life for all the world.
And his name is Joshua.
His name is Jesus.
Our LORD and our Savior.
Amen and amen!
