Reading: Micah 5.2-5a
How do you like the new $20 notes? I don't know why they had to bring out a glossy coloured leaflet to tell us all about its good features! Is it, perhaps, that this plastic money has had its own problems for us? Its springiness, its feel - is it more durable than the paper version? How well does it stand up to the washing machine? Why can't they use the new money in the automatic teller machines? But, we are told, it is more secure. With its clear panel and laser image it is harder to counterfeit. That is the biggest concern.
A few years ago someone went into a shop in Brisbane, bought a portable photocopier and a particular blue toner and took the train to Townsville. At the Townsville Races next weekend hundreds of fake $100 notes were passed out. At police direction, that particular toner was removed from the market. The company that tells this story was proud of the quality of their single-colour copiers!
We can't afford to have fakes. Probably the best-known children's story about a fake is "The Wizard of Oz". Poor Dorothy and her friends! The wizard turns out to be a big pretender. He is embarrassed that they have succeeded in the impossible task he has given them and is quite unable to give them the promised help. Tin man, lion and scare-crow seem satisfied enough, but he has no way to get Dorothy back to Kansas - except with his balloon, and that fails too.
Of course, it is all just one big flight of imagination - from a knock on the head in the storm. Dorothy has to love and care about the real people whom she meets and lives with in the real world day by day and not put her trust in every passing gypsy who might promise her the world.
The Bible is about the real world and real people. It tells it like it is - clearly and frankly!
Right at the heart of the Bible's message is God's love for people. John tells us in his letter that God is love. That is his nature. That is what he is through and through. It is not just that he is loving - God is love!
Go back to Genesis. God creating everything, then saying, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us…" (Gen.1.26). God did that because he is love and as we read on into Genesis we note that God wanted to share his companionship and love with Adam and Eve - God walking with them in the garden in the cool of the evening.
That is how God intended human life to be. But it was broken when Adam and Eve chose to disobey - to have a life independent of God. There was now a pain in knowing God. There was guilt and shame, separation and judgement. The relationship with God was on a new basis. Although God still loved them, there was no way they could experience that love without something happening about the wrong they had done. In fact, two things needed to happen. First, there needed to be a real admission (and sadness) for what they had done. (That wasn't their attitude at first, was it? "It was this woman who gave me to eat." "It was this snake who tempted me.") Second, there had to be a sacrifice - their punishment taken by another creature and acceptable to God. (This is a theme throughout the Bible, though the reference in Genesis 3 isn't direct about it. We simply have the statement (v.21), "And the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them".)
God loves and keeps on loving - God is love! In Jeremiah, we hear the Lord saying, "People of Israel, I have always loved you, so I continue to show you my constant love" (31.3). Even when the people were facing judgement for their rejection of God and his ways, we hear him pleading with them through Ezekiel, "Turn away from all the evil you are doing, and don't let your sin destroy you. Give up all the evil you have been doing, and get yourselves new minds and hearts. Why do you Israelites want to die? I do not want anyone to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn away from your sins and live" (18.30b-32). Isn't that beautiful? "I do not want anyone to die!" God keeps on loving. Judgement will be very real if they don't turn back to him. But he loves and keeps on loving, for he is love!
Psalm 32 David gives this graphic description, "When I did not confess my sins, I was worn out from crying all day long. Day and night you punished me, Lord; my strength was completely drained, as moisture is dried up by the summer heat. Then I confessed my sins to you; I did not conceal my wrongdoings. I decided to confess them to you, and you forgave all my sins" (vv.3-5).
Psalm 23 David expresses the positive security, help and comfort received from God's love.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever. (NIV)
But love isn't some warm fuzzy feeling. Sometimes our main concern is that we "feel nice" towards God or towards some other person. We are not really talking about love! True love is positive and active for the well-being of the person we love.
John tells us in his letter, not only that God is love, but that true love comes from God. True love, therefore, is his kind of love - love in action! Some writers on raising children have spoken about the need for "tough love". We have this false idea of love as a kind of gooey sentimentality that gives in to every little request. God's love certainly wasn't like that. Rebellion and sin were serious matters. Something had to be done. God would do it and they would have to respond.
We see this in our reading from Micah 5. God was making a promise to do something, to send someone - that special one they called the Messiah. Until that time (some 800 years later!) the nation would experience trouble.
"So the Lord will abandon his people to their enemies until the woman who is to give birth has her son. Then his fellow-countrymen who are in exile will be reunited with their own people. When he (the son) comes, he will rule his people with the strength that comes from the Lord and with the majesty of the Lord God himself. His people will live in safety because people all over the earth will acknowledge his greatness, and he will bring peace" (vv.3-5a).
God loves you and he is at work. In our time-table we want action and we want it now. But the deep and genuine work that God is planning will come at his right time.
Part of that promise is quite specific - God really is going to do something. Listen to this, "Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times" (v.2).
The ancient name Ephrathah (meaning "fruitful") is added to Bethlehem ("house of bread") to distinguish it from another Bethlehem in Zebulun which we read about in Joshua 19.15. Near Bethlehem, Benjamin was born and Rachel buried. Here Ruth cleaned. Here David was born. Later it was fortified by the Philistines and by Rehoboam. Yet it had always remained a small town. It is not named among the more than hundred cities allotted to Judah in Joshua 15. Yet the Lord, who usually chooses the small and insignificant to work his miracles, had selected this little town of Bethlehem as the birthplace of the incarnate Son of God.
God's love is no counterfeit. It is the standard by which we measure love. And God, in his love, not just for Israel but for the whole human race, was sending his own Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for our sins and to call us to repent and come back into his family.
What do you say to that?
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