Putting Things Back to Normal

Reference Isaiah 35:5-8

This passage from Isaiah seems to me to be a calling back to creation as it was when it was first created. It describes a time when things will be back to “normal” back to perfection. The eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf opened, the lame shall leap like a deer, water in the desert and nobody can go astray. This is what Jesus does when he comes into our world. His healing miracles are about putting things back to the way they were in creation.

Jesus himself speaks of this in Matthew 11 “Now when John (that is John the Baptist) heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. All those magnificent acts of healing done by our Lord and Savior when he walked this earth, restoring God’s creation bit by bit to how it was created to be, perfect.

Now certainly God is not the one who screwed up creation, we did, and we could not and cannot fix it, so God interceded with Jesus to fix it.

Have you ever screwed up and tried to fix it. I’m immediately brought back to my childhood when my brothers and I ruined countless things, the record player, the lawn mower, the camera, and probably dozens of light bulbs, yes I learned very early on how to change a light bulb in order to stay out of trouble. Sometimes things worked sometimes they didn’t. Once when my brother threw a baseball through a hall closet door, we simply taped a picture over it, thinking our parents would never think to look under it. They’d appreciate the new found art, yeah, that lasted about 4 minutes.

Trying to fix problems beyond our ability reminded me of this clip from Dennis the Menace…

Watch Dennis the Menace from 36:40-39:20

Dennis screwed up. He ruined Mr. Wilson’s dentures and he did the best he could to fix the problem, but Chicklets just didn’t cut it and he ended up getting caught and in trouble.

We see this in humanity every day. When Adam and Eve first sinned, they hid and sewed fig leaves to hide their nakedness. When we sin, we hide our face from God hoping he won’t notice how we screwed up this time. When we forget something for our spouse, friends, or family we do our best to cover our mistake, but when it comes to salvation, we cannot fix the problem. We’re stuck like Dennis, needing teeth when all we have is Chicklets and who are we going to fool? Certainly not God.

But God knows how stuck we are. He knows we are blind, deaf, lame, and mute and he comes into our world with His own Son and relieves all those shortcomings. Not only does he relieve them, he makes them perfect, knowing full well that we can’t do it ourselves. More than that, he dies for us, because he knows that because of our sin we will die some day and by ourselves, we’d never be able to attain the resurrection from the dead, but through Christ and his resurrection eternal life is ours through our risen Lord and Savior.

God fixes the problems in our world that we have caused knowing we can’t fix them, knowing the mess we create when we try to fix the problems. And he cleans up the mess for us in one fell swoop by sending His Son Jesus to die for us.

Why Would I Want Your Burden Jesus?

Delivered July 2, 2008

Reference Matthew 11:25-30

This text has always been one that is quoted by my friends and family and myself when others around are having a rough time with life. When people are weary, burdened, heavy laden etc. Jesus invites them to come to Him and find rest in Him, because his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Until last week, I found this to be unequivocally true and a very necessary and comforting message to hear, but then I started thinking a bit about Jesus burden and realized something. His burden is absolutely not light. How can a person of the Triune God come to earth, become human, take on the sins of the whole world as a burden, while not sinning himself and still say that His burden is light. It doesn’t make sense. Jesus Christ had the heaviest burden of any person of any time ever. Why in the world would I take his yoke upon myself, his yoke can’t be easy. And so I began for the first time in my life to truly struggle with this text.

And so I began to study a few things, and the understanding I gained was this:
The burden Jesus carries to the cross is not his burden. It is ours. He took it from us and gave us his burden, his yoke; which are easy and light, whereas our burden and yoke are heavy and strenuous due to sin.

Jesus speaks to those who are burdening and wearying themselves by putting demands of the law on themselves because they think that’s what is needed accomplish salvation, and Jesus is speaking to those who are being loaded down by other people telling them what they need to do to gain salvation. He is saying, Come to me to all of you. I have a better solution.

Burden exists because of sin, and constantly striving to be saved by what we do. Jesus says to us, no take my burden. Take my nonexistent burden because I have never sinned, and I’ll take away your burdens. Christ says “I will make my burden heavy so yours can be light.”
And this is all done that we may rest. Christ does not come to give us more commands. He does not come to pile on more burdens. He comes to silence them. He comes to give this all to us as a gift – to give relief and rest – to take away our burdens and weariness.
Earthly life may not be easy, but access to salvation is. It is accomplished in Christ’s death and resurrection.
For a connection to the text, we are going to watch a short clip from the first Lord of the Rings movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring”
The fellowship is in trouble. Gandalf, their leader was recently taken from them. They’re all quite sad and uncertain what to do next. They’ve found their way into the safest place they could find, perhaps the safest place left in Middle Earth, Lothlorien. Where the Lady Galadriel speaks to the 8 remaining members of the fellowship.

Watch Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring extended edition, disk 2, from 48:15-51:30.

It’s always interesting when movies quote Scripture. In this case Galadriel quotes John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” She knows they are weary and burdened. They are burdened with sorrow for losing Gandalf, but moreover, they all feel as though the salvation of Middle Earth depends upon them. And if they fail, it will be to the ruin of all. And they’re right. The pressure comes internally from themselves and externally from all who know of their quest.

And yet she tells them that they will sleep in peace.

All of the members of the Fellowship were feeling the burden and weight of accomplishing deliverance from evil for all people. Their purpose is to destroy the One Ring, but how can they now, without their leader?

If this were a straight allegory, Galadriel would take the ring, destroy it herself and all would live happily ever after, but this is not the case, there is still 8 or 9 hours of movie to watch!

If you continue watching for a few minutes, Galadriel lets Frodo know it’s all on him. He’s carrying the ring. He must find a way to destroy it or no one will.

This just goes to show how our God is so great. How he humbles himself to take our burdens and exchange our heavy burden for his light burden. How he secures salvation for us, instead of giving us advice on how to get the job done ourselves. We can’t get the job done ourselves.
God intersects our lives in the person Jesus Christ to complete salvation for us by dying on the cross and bursting forth from the empty tomb on the third day.
Because of this we know that we can indeed come to our Savior and Lord and truly find rest.