WEEKLY SERMON
PENTECOST 14 – September 6, 2009
Pastor Thomas Kneser
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
Did you ever see someone who’s really good at pantomime? Those are
entertainers who act out scenes without words or props.
One of the most famous mimes was Marcel Marseau.
For his act a mime might pretend that he’s in a box, and then,
only with his hands, his body language and the expressions on his face,
show that he’s trying to escape from that box.
It can really be humorous and entertaining.
For awhile my son was really into doing pantomime.
The whole premise of being a mime is to get the audience to
imagine the scene in their minds even when there’s nothing to see or
hear other than the mime.
Now the words before us don’t talk about mimes entertaining us, but the
writer of this letter to the Hebrews uses a phrase here, talking about
the great leader Moses, that he
persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Moses was fashioning his life
around something he could not see, around promises and stories that were
merely handed down from generation to generation among God’s people.
He was living simply by faith.
That’s what this whole eleventh chapter was about.
It’s a listing of the great heroes of faith among God’s OT
people. And the first verse
of chap. 11 says it all, Now
faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not
see. As Christians we
are most definitely people of faith.
That leads us to ponder the question, as if we were watching a
mime:
DO YOU SEE WHAT IS INVISIBLE, DO YOU SEE THE UNSEEN?
First let’s talk about we can see, then what we can’t see.
For Moses, what he could see, first of all, was the very special
place God had given him early in life.
Despite the fact that he was a Hebrew God had directed events in
Moses’ life so that he was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
Pharaoh was the supreme ruler in all of Egypt, so Moses had all
the physical necessities and luxuries of life.
He grew up in the palace, had the finest education.
He could have indulged in all the sensual and material excesses
of that day and no one would have batted an eye because that’s the way
royalty lived. He had it
all going for him in life – wealth, power – everything this world has to
offer, all right there before his eyes to be used and enjoyed.
He also could see how the Egyptians were treating the Hebrews,
God’s chosen people. The
Israelites over the years had become the servants and slaves of the
Egyptians. God’s people
were forced into hard labor, building the cities and storehouses.
They were mistreated and afflicted.
But God blessed them and they continued to grow in numbers and in
strength. And Moses knew
that he was one of them, that he was a Hebrew.
So what did he do?
By faith, when he had grown up,
Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value
than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he
persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
At God’s calling Moses gave up what could have been an easy
and pleasant life for one of hardship and persecution.
We heard about the anger of the Pharaoh in our OT reading, how he
refused to let the Israelites leave and go back to Palestine.
That’s why God was unleashing a series of plagues on Egypt, to
show Pharaoh who really was in charge.
But Pharaoh hardened his heart in stubborn unbelief, until God
finally sent the angel of death who killed all the firstborn among the
Egyptians. But up to that
point, Moses is the one who felt the brunt of Pharaoh’s anger and wrath.
That’s what he could hear and see and feel because he was God’s
representative.
What do we see in our lives, when we look at the world around us
and our place in it? We see
the cares and pleasures of this world, things that are very enticing to
our natural desires, things we can put our hands on, things we can enjoy
and indulge in. We see what
can be achieved and earned by determination and hard work, by using our
talents and abilities to their fullest.
We see all the hopes and dreams of mankind for making this life
the very best it can be where there will be no problems, no poverty, no
suffering, no injustice and hatred – a utopian kind of world.
But we also see the false teachings that are out there, the doing
away with God and the Bible, his direction for life.
We and our children are exposed to the materialism and greed, the
self-indulgence, the immorality and the call for toleration when it
comes to any and every idea, regardless of whether it squares with God’s
word or not. We see the
philosophies, even outright atheism, that says God is irrelevant or even
non-existent, that human beings can shape their own destiny, worship
whatever they want or even nothing at all.
And because of those anti-Christian and anti-Bible philosophies
we see and feel persecution and ridicule because we are followers of
Christ. We get labeled as
fanatics and extremists and being judgmental because we are following a
different path, not the one that is only seen with the eyes of this life
and this world. We are
seeing in our minds’ eye and holding dear in our hearts something,
someone, who, by and large, is invisible.
II.
But Moses knew who that Invisible One is.
He learned and knew the promises that God had given his people,
given to the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Those promises - promises of a land where God’s people would live
and be blessed by their Lord, promises of God’s protection and love
because they were his special people, and especially promises about the
coming of the Messiah – those promises were precious to him.
God was precious to him.
He regarded disgrace for
the sake of Christ as of greater value…
He was looking ahead to his reward…
He saw him was is invisible.
Now, in a certain sense God was not invisible to Moses.
He spoke to him and appeared to him in several different ways and
at different times. The
LORD was in that burning bush on Mt. Horeb which was not destroyed.
That’s when God called Moses to lead his people out of their
slavery in Egypt. He also
led the Children of Israel in the form of a blazing pillar – a pillar of
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
He spoke from the summit of Mt. Sinai when he gave them the Ten
Commandments and taught them what it meant to be his chosen people.
So for Moses and the Israelites God was hardly an invisible
being. They could see his
presence among them day after day.
But it was by faith in that powerful God that they could look
into the future and see things that were still to come.
God had promised that he would drive out their enemies from the
Promised Land so that it would be their permanent home.
That’s why he had brought them out of Egypt.
Though many of them wavered in their faith and never made it
because of their unbelief, Moses never gave up.
He continued to lead them even when they grumbled and complained,
because he could see with the eyes of faith that God would keep his
promise.
It says here that Moses also saw the promised Savior of the world
and believed that the Lord would deliver on that as well.
That Savior was vividly pictured for Moses and all the Jews in
the ceremony of the Passover with the sprinkling of blood.
On that festival day they were to kill a perfect lamb and
sprinkle its blood on their door frames so that the angel of death would
pass over their home. With
that act of faith they were showing that they also believed the promises
of God that one day he would send the perfect Lamb, the one who would
sprinkle his blood and deliver all mankind from eternal death in hell.
Every time Moses led the Israelites in the Passover ceremonies
they were seeing with the eyes of faith what could not be seen with
normal vision – the coming of the Savior who would bring them to the
perfect Promised Land, their home in heaven.
So the life of Moses was shaped by his faith in that powerful God
and the promises of the future that the LORD made to him and to the
people. Moses put his faith
and trust, his eternal future, in the hands of the invisible God, the
God who makes and keeps his promises.
Are we continually doing the same, seeing with the eyes of faith
the one who is invisible, yet very real and more meaningful than
anything or anyone? Or do
we live as if there is no God who knows us, who sees us, who loves us?
Think of the advantages we have over Moses and the Israelites.
We have the good news that God kept all those promises about the
coming of a Savior. On the
pages of the Bible we have report after report of his life, his death,
his triumphant resurrection.
Eyewitnesses of his life – Mary, Peter, John, Matthew and others,
they record for us how Jesus came and lived a life free from sin, how he
used his power as God the Son to deal compassionately with those who
were hurting and suffering under the crushing effects of sin.
He healed, he touched, he taught, he loved.
And then he sacrificed his life on the cross, the perfect Lamb of
God pouring out his lifeblood so that the curse of sin and death would
not be hanging over our heads.
Though we deserved punishment for our sins of grumbling and
complaining, for our selfishness and immorality, our lack of faith and
love for God, though we deserved hell, instead we have the sure hope of
heaven. Jesus secured that
for us by his perfect sacrifice, that sprinkling of blood that keeps the
destroyer from touching us forever.
We see with eyes of faith, but a faith built on the accounts of
the gospel, that Jesus was real, that he was the Son of God, our Savior
from sin.
Sadly, there are many who don’t see that, who just can’t believe
that that man whose existence as a real human being can’t be denied,
they just can’t believe that his life and death have value and meaning
for them. Many will admit
that Jesus was a good teacher, that he demonstrated what love and
sacrifice for others is all about.
But that’s all that they see in him.
His claims to be God, his call to believe in him as the only
source of eternal salvation in heaven, that is too much for many people.
Christ’s statement that he is the way, the truth and the life,
that no one comes to the Father except through him, for many they just
can’t see that. And so
Jesus and heaven and the blessings of eternal life remain invisible for
them and will always remain so.
But for you and me, through Spirit-worked faith we see Jesus as
our all-forgiving Savior and Lord.
We see him as the one who loves and cares for us each and every
day as we progress through this life.
We live by faith in those promises that he is with us always to
the very end of the age, that he works all things for the good of those
who love him. Though we
cannot see him with our eyes we see his hand at work in our lives day
after day, even in the so-called little things.
He supplies us with our daily needs.
He gives us family and friends with whom we share the joys and
triumphs of life, as well as the trials and setbacks.
His promises shape and mold the decisions we make, the course of
action we follow day after day.
And ultimately, those promises even comfort us as we see our
lives in this world coming to an end.
We know and believe, we see with the eyes of faith that place,
that promised reward that awaits us – our eternal home in heaven with
our Savior.
So we persevere as Moses did. We
refuse to go along with the ways of the world, as inviting and tempting
as they may seem at times.
We don’t get consumed in the drive to pile up material things because we
have the greatest treasure in our relationship with our Savior.
We will even suffer disgrace from the pagans around us, face
their ridicule and disdain, because we are led by him whose name is most
precious to us. We keep our
spiritual eyes focused on something that may not be visible to our
physical eyes. But it is no
mirage. It’s not just
pantomime. It’s very real.
It’s very comforting. It’s
something we rejoice in day after day as people of God.
We see the unseen, him who is invisible, yet who fingerprints are
all around us, whose hand guides and directs us every day, and whose
love for us will soon bring us home, face to face with him, our Savior,
Jesus. AMEN.