WEBVTT 00:04.600 --> 00:08.300 Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and from our Lord and 00:08.300 --> 00:10.000 Savior Jesus Christ. 00:10.200 --> 00:10.700 Amen. 00:12.300 --> 00:14.800 From June through September 00:15.400 --> 00:22.500 you're able to see these small purple flowers that grow by railroad 00:22.500 --> 00:28.900 tracks and in abandoned lots. These purple flowers are called Rose Bay 00:29.200 --> 00:30.900 rosebay willow-herb. 00:33.000 --> 00:36.800 Rose Bay grows to be about 5 feet tall. 00:36.900 --> 00:42.500 It's on a very very slender stalk that puts out a profusion of 00:42.500 --> 00:43.200 flowers. 00:44.600 --> 00:50.200 And when you look at the flowers themselves, they are delicately 00:50.200 --> 00:51.300 complex. 00:52.500 --> 00:58.500 They're composed of eight petals, a pair of 4 and 4. 4 of the petals are 00:58.600 --> 01:05.000 long and thin and sharp like a needle on a Douglas fir, and they form 01:05.099 --> 01:11.500 a cross and the other four petals, they're soft and rounded like 01:11.500 --> 01:12.300 saucers. 01:12.300 --> 01:15.200 They almost look like a Dogwood blossom. 01:16.200 --> 01:21.700 And so you have the cross and you have the blossom superimposed on one 01:21.700 --> 01:23.700 another and it almost and 01:24.000 --> 01:29.400 it almost makes you believe that the cross is beginning to blossom. 01:31.000 --> 01:33.000 Rose Bay Willow herb. 01:34.100 --> 01:36.100 Of course, that's not the only name 01:36.100 --> 01:40.300 the flower is known by. The other names are not as beautiful. 01:40.300 --> 01:46.700 It's known in the Pacific Northwest as Fireweed and in England, it's 01:46.700 --> 01:48.800 called bomb weed. 01:49.300 --> 01:54.900 So we've got fire weed and bomb weed, fire and bombs, why are we 01:54.900 --> 02:02.900 associating this flower with death and destruction. May Watts a American 02:02.900 --> 02:03.700 naturalist 02:03.800 --> 02:09.000 has written a book called reading the landscape of Europe. And in 02:09.000 --> 02:11.500 her book, she explains the connection. 02:11.500 --> 02:18.000 You see, Rose Bay is one of the very first flowers to grow 02:18.400 --> 02:22.200 after a landscape has been devastated. 02:22.900 --> 02:26.200 After a forest fire that has reduced everything to ash. 02:27.900 --> 02:32.600 After a bomb has fallen out of the sky and destroyed your home. 02:32.700 --> 02:38.300 So we're your family used to live, all you have is a crater and that 02:38.300 --> 02:42.800 bomb has revealed the mineral soil and it's covered with ash and in 02:42.800 --> 02:48.100 that place in that place, Rose Bay grows. 02:49.500 --> 02:51.400 So after death and destruction 02:51.400 --> 02:56.800 one of the first things you will see in the middle of a crater, is a 02:56.800 --> 02:59.800 purple flower. 03:00.000 --> 03:02.300 Craters of destruction 03:03.700 --> 03:08.200 can become the cradle of a new creation. 03:11.100 --> 03:14.900 I thought of that flower, when I read the text for this morning, 03:16.200 --> 03:22.600 because John the baptizer is dying in a crater of destruction. 03:23.700 --> 03:27.000 And Jesus offers him a word 03:28.200 --> 03:33.100 that transforms that crater into a cradle of New Life. 03:34.600 --> 03:39.700 John is in a crater of destruction. John the fiery prophet who lived 03:39.700 --> 03:41.300 out in the wilderness, right, 03:41.300 --> 03:45.700 eating locusts and wild honey. John, who was preparing the way for the 03:45.700 --> 03:50.100 Lord. Who is preparing people for the coming Judgment of God. 03:50.200 --> 03:54.100 He said the ax was already laid to the root of the tree and that when 03:54.100 --> 03:57.500 this Lord came when this Lord came, he would have in his hand a 03:57.500 --> 04:00.500 winnowing fork, he would gather all of the wheat and burn 04:00.500 --> 04:04.200 the chaff with fire. John had seen this Lord. 04:04.400 --> 04:05.300 John that seen this Jesus. 04:05.300 --> 04:06.100 The heaven 04:06.100 --> 04:08.300 tore open a spirit descended. 04:08.300 --> 04:09.200 He heard a voice 04:09.200 --> 04:12.800 declaring that this was her Father's beloved Son. 04:13.100 --> 04:16.700 And now now John is in prison. 04:17.100 --> 04:18.300 Where is the fire? 04:18.300 --> 04:20.000 Where is the Judgment? 04:20.000 --> 04:23.300 Where is the death of all of the evil in this world? 04:23.300 --> 04:30.200 Instead John finds himself in a crater of destruction and this fiery 04:30.200 --> 04:31.000 prophet 04:32.200 --> 04:35.100 is now just a smoldering wick. 04:36.900 --> 04:44.500 And out of that jail, you can see the smoke of that wick as it offers 04:44.500 --> 04:47.200 one last cry. 04:48.400 --> 04:52.800 John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, are you the one who is to 04:52.800 --> 04:53.400 come 04:54.800 --> 04:56.300 or should we wait for another? 04:57.600 --> 04:59.600 Are you the one who is to come? 04:59.600 --> 05:03.900 John is questioning the identity of Jesus. 05:03.900 --> 05:09.700 Now, many of us, many of us would see this as an act of unbelief, but 05:09.700 --> 05:12.800 I don't, I see it as a struggle. 05:13.900 --> 05:19.200 A struggle with the power of evil and the promises of God. 05:20.400 --> 05:25.600 Jesus has not come in the way that John expected him. 05:26.900 --> 05:33.900 But notice what John does, he doesn't give up. John holds on to the 05:33.900 --> 05:38.300 promises of God, when the person of God is not meeting his 05:38.300 --> 05:39.600 expectations. 05:39.900 --> 05:40.900 Did you hear what he said? 05:40.900 --> 05:46.900 He said, are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? 05:47.600 --> 05:47.900 Notice 05:47.900 --> 05:51.500 he does not say, are you the one who is to come, or is it all just a 05:51.500 --> 05:52.700 pack of lies? 05:54.200 --> 05:57.700 Are you the one who is to come or should we take matters into our own 05:57.700 --> 05:58.300 hands? 05:59.600 --> 05:59.800 Are 06:00.000 --> 06:01.100 you the one who is to come or 06:01.100 --> 06:04.800 should we throw our lot in the, with the wicked? No. What John says 06:04.800 --> 06:05.000 is 06:05.000 --> 06:09.700 are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? For 06:09.700 --> 06:10.400 John 06:10.400 --> 06:16.000 if Jesus doesn't meet the promises of God, there will come someone who 06:16.000 --> 06:23.200 will. John holds on to the promises of God, when the person of Jesus 06:23.200 --> 06:26.000 does not meet his expectations. 06:28.200 --> 06:29.000 And Jesus. 06:30.400 --> 06:34.300 Jesus, does the most compassionate thing. 06:36.600 --> 06:41.000 Jesus responds to John's disciples by pointing them 06:41.000 --> 06:41.500 where? 06:42.900 --> 06:49.100 To the promises, the promises that John holds on to. 06:51.200 --> 06:57.300 Jesus tells the disciples tell him that the lame walk, the blind 06:57.300 --> 06:59.800 see, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed. 06:59.800 --> 07:04.400 The dead are raised and the poor have the good news preached to them. 07:04.700 --> 07:07.300 Jesus is opening up for John 07:07.300 --> 07:13.300 a vision that in this crater of destruction you can begin to see small 07:13.300 --> 07:15.800 glimpses of a new creation. 07:16.900 --> 07:19.200 But that's actually the problem, right? 07:19.900 --> 07:25.200 Because John sees these small glimpses of new creation, but he doesn't 07:25.200 --> 07:27.500 see them happening for him. 07:29.100 --> 07:33.300 John is still in prison, and Jesus doesn't include the promise 07:33.300 --> 07:35.200 that the captives will have liberty. 07:35.500 --> 07:39.300 Jesus doesn't include the promise that the prisoners will be set free. 07:39.300 --> 07:42.600 In fact that Jesus says it ever since the time of John till 07:42.600 --> 07:45.600 now, the Kingdom of Heaven are suffered violence. 07:45.700 --> 07:50.400 And the violent are seizing it which is what they're doing with John. 07:50.400 --> 07:55.100 And so John is in that awkward position where he sees the promises 07:55.100 --> 07:57.000 coming true for some 07:58.400 --> 08:01.600 but not for him in this life. 08:03.200 --> 08:09.300 Makes you think of those people who are sick that didn't get healed in 08:09.300 --> 08:10.600 Jesus ministry. 08:11.900 --> 08:14.000 He goes to the pool of Bethesda 08:14.000 --> 08:18.800 remember, so crowded, so crowded that a man who's been there for 35 08:18.800 --> 08:20.100 years can never get in. 08:21.300 --> 08:23.200 So crowded and Jesus comes 08:23.200 --> 08:24.100 and what does he do? 08:24.700 --> 08:26.000 He heals one man. 08:27.500 --> 08:29.000 What about all of the others? 08:30.300 --> 08:35.200 What is it like to see a promise of healing for one and not receive 08:35.200 --> 08:36.700 it for yourself? 08:37.799 --> 08:39.799 These craters of destruction 08:39.799 --> 08:43.500 they happen in the oddest places. 08:45.200 --> 08:47.200 You're in the hospital with your sister. 08:47.200 --> 08:51.000 She was supposed to have had this some outpatient operation, it was 08:51.000 --> 08:52.900 going to be fine happens all the time. 08:52.900 --> 08:57.300 She was going to recover within a week and she developed a fever and 08:57.300 --> 08:58.700 the fever kept getting worse. 08:58.700 --> 08:59.800 And so you took her into the 09:00.100 --> 09:03.300 emergency room where you sat there for seven hours, surrounded by 09:03.300 --> 09:05.300 people, vomiting in buckets. 09:05.400 --> 09:08.500 And then finally, they brought her into an emergency room and she was 09:08.500 --> 09:13.100 there all night as they try to diagnose that the source of this fever, 09:13.100 --> 09:15.800 they finally got a blood culture after 48 hours. 09:16.000 --> 09:19.400 Now, they said she has a strep bacterial infection in her blood and 09:19.400 --> 09:23.300 she's developing into sepsis. And people are coming to you and telling 09:23.300 --> 09:27.600 you the the miracle stories of how God can do something here. God has 09:27.600 --> 09:29.900 delivered people from this. That God has 09:30.000 --> 09:34.300 given us the wisdom of medicine and that we can pray for a miracle and 09:34.300 --> 09:40.800 you pray. You pray and you see that healing come to others but not to 09:40.800 --> 09:41.200 her. 09:42.500 --> 09:43.300 Not today. 09:45.300 --> 09:49.200 And so, John is in a crater of destruction. 09:50.900 --> 09:55.700 Holding on to promises of God, when the person of Jesus doesn't meet 09:55.800 --> 10:01.100 his expectations and that's when Jesus does one thing more. 10:02.500 --> 10:04.000 He has a word for John. 10:05.600 --> 10:09.000 He has all of these other promises, but now he has one promise for 10:09.000 --> 10:16.900 John and he says blessed is the one who does not fall away on account 10:16.900 --> 10:17.500 of me. 10:18.600 --> 10:22.900 Think of that early in the ministry, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus 10:22.900 --> 10:24.500 is sitting on a mountainside 10:24.500 --> 10:25.100 right? 10:25.400 --> 10:31.200 Surrounded by people offering blessings to all. Blessed, are the poor 10:31.200 --> 10:31.800 in spirit. 10:31.800 --> 10:34.800 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. Blessed are the morning. 10:34.900 --> 10:38.200 Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the meek Jesus on a 10:38.500 --> 10:41.300 mountaintop offering blessings to all. 10:41.300 --> 10:47.400 But now in Matthew 11, Jesus has crawled into a crater of destruction 10:48.400 --> 10:51.400 to give one blessing to one man. 10:51.900 --> 10:58.600 A man who knows how to hold on to promises. Blessed, are you 10:59.900 --> 11:02.700 if you don't fall away because of me. 11:04.400 --> 11:12.200 Craters of destruction, by the power of Jesus can become cradles of a 11:12.200 --> 11:13.800 new creation. 11:16.900 --> 11:21.500 I remember, when I first saw Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. 11:22.500 --> 11:25.900 It was a movie that when I saw it, I knew I would never watch it 11:25.900 --> 11:26.500 again. 11:26.800 --> 11:28.500 That is, I would never watch the whole thing. 11:28.500 --> 11:34.000 It was much too bloody and horrific for me and too emotional. 11:35.100 --> 11:40.000 But after I left the theater, the first thing I did was buy a copy. I 11:40.000 --> 11:41.100 bought a copy of a movie 11:41.100 --> 11:42.400 I would never watch again. 11:42.400 --> 11:42.900 Why? 11:43.200 --> 11:48.100 Because there was one scene one scene that kept playing in my head. 11:49.300 --> 11:53.400 It said, imagine scene of Jesus carrying his cross through the Way of 11:53.400 --> 11:54.300 Sorrows, right? 11:54.300 --> 11:59.400 He falls for the third time and Mary, his mother sees him and as she 11:59.400 --> 11:59.900 sees him. 12:00.000 --> 12:03.500 She remembers what it was like when he was a child and he fell down. 12:03.500 --> 12:07.300 And she ran, and she took him and she comforted in her arms. 12:07.300 --> 12:12.900 And so she runs to Jesus but she cannot grasp him and that's when 12:12.900 --> 12:18.500 Jesus comforts her. You've got the wood of the cross in the 12:18.500 --> 12:19.100 background. 12:19.100 --> 12:24.200 This bloody disfigured face of Jesus, but then you see his eyes 12:24.800 --> 12:29.600 looking at Mary and saying, behold I make 12:30.000 --> 12:36.200 all things new. In the death and resurrection of Jesus 12:36.200 --> 12:40.800 He has claimed every crater of destruction. 12:41.300 --> 12:47.900 And now in his kingdom, they are cradles of a new creation so his 12:47.900 --> 12:52.000 people can live boldly in hope. 12:54.300 --> 12:55.100 That's a message 12:55.100 --> 12:56.500 Jesus has for John. 12:57.500 --> 12:58.300 That's a message 12:58.300 --> 13:00.800 Jesus has asked me to share with you today. 13:02.500 --> 13:04.800 Because sometimes we need a message like that. 13:06.300 --> 13:07.800 I've taught here for many years. 13:07.800 --> 13:11.200 I still remember when I first started teaching here, the counseling 13:11.200 --> 13:16.000 classes had some exercise where they made a genogram. 13:16.100 --> 13:17.300 Is that the right Mark 13:17.300 --> 13:19.000 is that how you pronounce it? A genogram right, 13:19.000 --> 13:21.700 it was. I'd never heard of it, such a thing and I don't know very much 13:21.700 --> 13:22.200 about it. 13:22.200 --> 13:25.100 You can check with Mark to see if I'm right or not, but it was like 13:25.400 --> 13:28.900 this map of your physical family relationships, right? 13:28.900 --> 13:33.500 So you have parents and siblings and divorces and remarriages and 13:33.500 --> 13:36.000 cohabitation and all of the things are just 13:36.100 --> 13:40.200 mapped out on this diagram. And it doesn't just map physical 13:40.200 --> 13:41.100 relationships. 13:41.100 --> 13:43.500 It also maps, emotional relationships. 13:43.500 --> 13:48.200 So you have like these colored markers that join these relationships 13:48.200 --> 13:54.500 and I think green was meant for a good close intimate relationship 13:54.500 --> 13:59.500 and red was meant for hostility. I was teaching in Wyneken 204, 13:59.500 --> 14:00.700 you know, that classroom. 14:00.700 --> 14:03.100 It has the door right in the front. 14:03.300 --> 14:05.900 So if you come late, it's everybody 14:06.100 --> 14:07.000 sees you, right? 14:07.000 --> 14:09.700 And so I was teaching in there in a student came in. 14:09.700 --> 14:10.600 It was like he was late. 14:10.600 --> 14:13.600 He was kind of hustling to get to his chair. He had books 14:13.600 --> 14:16.400 in one arm and he had this big poster board in the other. 14:16.400 --> 14:19.900 And as he was moving the poster board, hit something think it was a 14:20.200 --> 14:21.600 overhead projector. 14:22.100 --> 14:24.000 I've been here a long time. So 14:26.900 --> 14:30.000 the poster board hit this overhead projector and fell on the floor and 14:30.000 --> 14:30.600 he picks it up. 14:30.600 --> 14:33.100 Why I've never seen one of these before I said, what's that? 14:33.400 --> 14:36.600 He said, oh, that's my genogram, and I'm like, okay, what's 14:36.600 --> 14:37.300 that? 14:38.600 --> 14:41.000 And he's like, well, that's the family relationships. 14:41.000 --> 14:44.800 I said, oh, okay, I said, well, what's all the red and he said, oh, 14:44.800 --> 14:47.600 those are conflicted relationships. 14:47.600 --> 14:51.300 And one of the guys I think he was a friend, you know, said to him 14:51.600 --> 14:53.300 man, it looks like a stop sign 14:53.300 --> 14:54.500 you got there. 14:56.200 --> 14:59.800 And we all, we all laughed, except the student. 15:02.000 --> 15:04.800 He just went to the seat. 15:05.700 --> 15:09.600 And took that poster board and faced it to the wall. 15:11.100 --> 15:14.100 And year after year, I've seen students do that. 15:16.000 --> 15:19.000 Take their bombed-out family relationships 15:20.300 --> 15:21.700 and turn them to the wall. 15:22.600 --> 15:29.600 Sometimes we are born into craters of destruction. 15:31.000 --> 15:35.300 And we come to a seminary like this and we can we can feel somewhat 15:35.300 --> 15:36.900 ashamed, right? 15:38.100 --> 15:41.800 Because the Seminary rightly the Seminary rightly Tom I'm saying this, 15:41.800 --> 15:46.800 we rightly emphasize beautiful, Christian, wholesome families. 15:46.800 --> 15:51.200 We rightly emphasize how church worker families have produced future, 15:51.200 --> 15:55.300 church workers. And we have these articles, these profiles of students 15:55.300 --> 15:58.700 and it's wonderful, but sometimes you can read those and you could 15:58.700 --> 16:00.700 say, I wish I lived in that 16:00.800 --> 16:04.900 that zip code because that's not your family. 16:06.400 --> 16:09.400 And you wonder, do you even fit in here? 16:10.500 --> 16:13.200 I remember one student one time, I was, you know, his family was a 16:13.200 --> 16:14.100 little complicated. 16:14.100 --> 16:15.600 I was trying to find something nice. 16:15.600 --> 16:17.200 I thought I'll go back two generations. 16:17.200 --> 16:20.200 I said, well, how about your grandparents and he says, oh my grandma 16:20.200 --> 16:22.000 made meth in a bathtub. 16:23.000 --> 16:24.800 I mean, that's not a, can you see that 16:24.800 --> 16:28.200 as the opening line of the student profile, my grandmother made meth 16:28.200 --> 16:29.300 in a bathtub, right? 16:29.700 --> 16:32.600 It's just we, we hide these things, right? 16:33.200 --> 16:37.800 Everybody's excited about going home for Christmas except you because 16:37.800 --> 16:40.600 you're afraid your brother's going to go on another alcoholic 16:40.600 --> 16:44.300 binge. Your father's been married, three times you joke about it with 16:44.300 --> 16:46.700 your brother but nobody around here would find that funny. 16:47.600 --> 16:52.600 Your sister has come out as gay and you hear you hear all of the ways 16:52.800 --> 16:56.100 in which we talked about how the culture is destroying the Christian 16:56.100 --> 16:56.500 family. 16:56.500 --> 17:02.700 And you think that's me, well know, this, you don't need to turn that 17:02.700 --> 17:08.500 to face the wall. Because Jesus Christ has come here today to tell you 17:09.300 --> 17:13.200 that he can take any crater of destruction 17:15.200 --> 17:21.200 and make it a cradle of a new creation, including you. 17:22.099 --> 17:27.900 So blessed, are you when you do not fall away on account of him. 17:28.900 --> 17:29.300 Amen.