The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on February 2nd, 1986. The title is, His Blessings or His Presence? 

If you don't already have it before you, let me ask you to turn with me to the Gospel reading that we just heard. Luke chapter 4, I think you'll find it on page 892. of the Bibles in the pew backs.

We're picking right up in the middle of the story that was begun last week in which Jesus came to the synagogue in his own hometown, read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the 61st chapter, a messianic passage, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he has anointed me to do miraculous things. And we looked at that last week, the way that Jesus claimed that for himself, that he took that as a kind of declaration of who he is and what he's come to do. And we saw last week that that's a definition of Spirit-anointed ministry.

That if that was true for Jesus, then by implication, it ought to be, at least to some extent, true for us as well. If He was the anointed one, every time we call ourselves Christians, we're daring, perhaps we're presuming, To say that we are the little anointed ones, Christianios, the anointed ones, just as Christ is the anointed one. So if this is a definition of his ministry, to some extent at least, it ought to be a definition of ours.

If he moved in the power of the Holy Spirit to release captives and give sight to the blind and cleanse lepers, indeed raise the dead then to some extent we ought to be seeing those things in our life in our ministry as well yes but yes but scripture is remarkable in the way it does that to us it makes a point the Lord makes a point Jesus makes a point one of the apostles makes a point And just at the point you're about to run off with that and let it be the whole truth, it says, yes, but there's another aspect to this. I love having a lectionary. It's a discipline to us.

It doesn't allow us simply to always ride our own hobby horse. It forces us to deal with the whole counsel of God. And at the very point where we are getting excited in this particular church, at this particular moment, about the ministry of signs and wonders, and I believe God is doing marvelous new things, we have a yes but to deal with.

Now the way this passage is usually read is this, that at the point that Jesus gave His very first sermon, in the synagogue in Nazareth. He claimed to be the Messiah, as we've just said. And people went crazy.

They went wild. Who are you to presume to claim to be the Messiah? And they tried to kill Him.

But if you look more closely, you'll see that that's not at all the way that day unfolded. As a matter of fact, this was not Jesus' first sermon by a very long shot. Look back at verses 14 and 15.

Immediately upon His being anointed by the Spirit at the time of His baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus went off into the wilderness for 40 days to fast, to pray, to seek the face of God. And in the midst of that circumstance, you remember that He met with temptation from the evil one. And he faced up to that temptation.

And verse 14 says that when that was over, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country, and he taught in their synagogues, plural, being glorified by all. That's before he got back to Nazareth. Jesus came out of that wilderness experience and went throughout the whole of the Galilee region and taught in their synagogues.

And He was glorified. He was magnified. He was praised. He was exalted.

People were buzzing with His reputation. Hold your finger here for a minute and look back at Matthew chapter 4, the very last paragraph of chapter 4. There's a much fuller statement of the same thing.

Matthew 4 verse 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. So His fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them. and great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan this was not merely a preaching ministry he preached in all their synagogues but everywhere he went signs and wonders endorsed and accompanied the preaching and tremendous crowds were gathering His fame was spreading like wildfire throughout the area.

In fact, we won't bother to look at it now, but if you double-checked Mark's account of the same thing, he says that as Jesus came into a particular town or a village or a city, the crowds were so great that more often than not, he couldn't even come into the downtown area. He had to stay out in the countryside where there were open spaces and enough room for people to gather. all that prior to getting back to Nazareth he's preaching he's healing he's casting out demons and his fame is spreading throughout the whole area not only Galilee Syria to the north the Decapolis which is a set of Gentile cities beyond the Jordan, Jerusalem, Judea and folks back home have been hearing about this for a very long time.

And on everybody's lips is the obvious question, can this be the one? Is this Messiah? Can it be that one of our own hometown boys is the one that God has anointed with His Spirit as Messiah, the one we've been waiting for for centuries?

Now you better believe that when he got home, the whole town turned out. Wouldn't you? I mean, that synagogue was packed from side to side.

I want you to feel the electricity of it. As he comes in, has to probably elbow his way through a standing room only crowd, comes up in front and they hand him the scroll. of the prophet Isaiah.

Now that is not remarkable in itself. Any adult male could be called upon to read from the Scriptures and certainly if you'd been a resident of the city and you're away for a time, they might honor you with that privilege. Jesus receives the scroll, opens up to Isaiah 61, so far so good, reads the passage in question and then obviously lays claim to it for himself.

This day, these words are fulfilled in your hearing. Notice the reaction of the crowd. Verse 22, And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.

They weren't angry at his claim to be Messiah. That's not what upset them. They got angry at what followed immediately afterward.

The hometown folks were quite prepared to have Jesus turn out to be the expected one from God. In fact, they wanted Him to prove it. And that's the problem.

How about a couple of healings, Jesus? I mean, everybody showed up this morning. How about casting out a couple of demons before lunch?

You see, he says, there's an enormous difference between the eagerness to be titillated by the supernatural or to be entertained by the miraculous. There's an enormous difference between that and genuine faith. The book of Hebrews puts it this way, whoever would draw near to God must believe that He is and that He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Whoever would draw near to God must believe that He is and that He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And the eagerness to see a sign or a wonder may be a far cry from diligently seeking Him. Are you with me?

I was telling somebody just a few days ago about an experience probably about 15 years ago. Rennie Scott and I were up in New Hampshire on New Year's Eve. Had a bunch of students from all over New England, prep schoolers and collegians.

And we were up there for a house party, as we called it. We'd go off skiing during the day and then come back at night, gather around the fireplace, and we'd talk about the gospel. Most of these kids were not yet committed Christians.

They were looking. And this particular evening, the program had ended. We were waiting for midnight to welcome the new year.

Rennie and I were off in a little side room just chatting. And in comes this rather spacey co-ed from Trinity College in Hartford. And she says, I'd like to know whether God exists.

Good question. So we began to chat with her, and she had one question after another. In fact, we'd hardly get into one, and another one would pop up.

Have you ever had that experience? You begin to sense that it's not real questions. They're more like defenses, right?

And this went on for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. and finally Rennie said, look, we've answered all your questions. Why don't you just ask Jesus to come into your life?

And she said, okay. So we bowed our heads and nothing. Finally I looked up.

I thought she had died. Nothing. Nothing.

I said, go ahead. Ask him to come into your life. And finally she said, Oh God, send me a sign.

And at that moment the door opened. Literally, at that moment the door opened and these two guys came in. They were going to set up the banquet table for this big New Year's Day feast.

And they were making it out of two sawhorses and a billboard. Literally, it was six feet high, about 12 feet long. Come into the room at that very moment, Ronnie and I looked up, and in come these two guys with this sign.

And we began laughing, you know. And she looks at us, and she looks at those guys, you know, and looks... I didn't mean that kind of a sign.

I said, you've got to be specific, you know. Neil told me that this next story has made it all over New England. It's my story.

It's gone through many revolutions here, but this actually happened. A friend of mine, when I was in college, in an astronomy course, we had to go out and make sightings of the heavens, you know, what was going on in a given evening. And a friend of mine went out as particularly clear night, beautiful visibility, and he looked up at the sky and looked at the Big Dipper, and he said, oh God, if you're really there, send a shooting star through the Big Dipper.

And immediately, this shooting star went blazing through the middle of the Big Dipper, and he said, son of a gun, what a coincidence. You see, those are both true stories. Both of those folks were looking for signs, and somehow neither of them saw the sign.

You got it? They saw it, but it wasn't a sign to them. It was a coincidence.

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it's a devastating story. Remember the rich man who has always mistreated this beggar outside his gate, and they both die? And lo and behold, it's Lazarus who goes to heaven, and he's in the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man goes to hell, and he begs God to let Lazarus come, and he says, just let him dip his finger in the water and sprinkle a couple of drops on my lips.

And God says, no, that's not going to be possible. And he says, well then please send him to my brothers, and let him warn them lest they make the same mistakes that I've made. And Jesus says, if they do not believe Moses and the prophets, Neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

That's strong, isn't it? Anticipating His own resurrection. If you don't believe the book, you're not going to believe it if you see a resurrection.

And folks didn't. Some folks. A sign isn't a sign. Unless your heart is right.

There's a difference between seeking a sign and seeking the living God. On the night before his crucifixion, when Pilate realized that Jesus was from Nazareth, and he said, boy, I can get rid of this problem, I'll send him to Herod. It's in his jurisdiction.

We read that Herod was very glad to see Jesus because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. Only there wasn't any sign that night. At least none that Herod could recognize.

Perhaps the most devastating comment of all, Jesus said, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And so here he is back in Nazareth with this incredible reputation preceding him. And the whole town is turned out hoping to see a few little parlor tricks to be entertained.

And Jesus castigates his friends and neighbors. And he compares them to earlier generations of Israelites who had had the form of religion and yet received nothing from God. While their Gentile neighbors, who they despised and looked down on, did receive healings and blessings and signs and wonders, perhaps because they believed that God is and He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Jesus says, in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there came a great famine over all the land. Many widows who were in the midst of that famine, who thought they were right with God, who were begging for relief from those terrible problems, and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian and that's the point at which they get angry see it's not a problem that he claims to be Messiah it's a problem that he won't prove it and the reason that he won't prove it is he says your hearts are desperately wrong you're not diligently seeking after God you just want signs and wonders see why I say yes but yes but here we are as a parish seeing God move in our midst in marvelous new ways giving us signs and wonders and I am tremendously excited about that and I believe we've just begun to taste what God has in store for us.

He's able to do far more abundantly than anything we've ever asked or imagined. And yet, here comes this sobering word to us that there's a difference between seeking after signs and wonders and seeking after the Lord Himself. Job said, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

You ready for that? Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. I pray God for meeting my need.

I'll eagerly look for Him moving in power. I'm excited about the miraculous, but if He slays me, yet will I trust Him. Because there's something more important than the signs that God does, and that's God Himself.

At our vestry meeting on Tuesday evening, we were meditating upon Moses' prayer in Exodus 33. God has delivered the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt. He's led them dry-shod through the Red Sea.

They've gotten into the Sinai Peninsula and turned south. They've gone to the foot of Mount Sinai. God has delivered the Ten Commandments.

And He's renewed the promise to Moses. I'm going to lead your people into the land of promise. I'm going to give you the land of Canaan.

My angel is going to go before you. And Moses says, that's not good enough. It's an extraordinary prayer.

If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. An angel is not good enough. If you won't go yourself, I'm not going.

For how shall it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and thy people, from all other people that are upon the face of the earth? you get it what is it that makes us different from anybody else is it the fact that our prayers are always immediately perfectly answered in exactly the form we pray them no is it that we walk in perfect health never experiencing illness awful lot of folks preach that on television is that our distinctiveness no Is it that we have unbroken success and live in prosperity?

No. It's that God is in the midst of us and He goes with us into whatever our circumstances might be. Is it not in Thy going with us so that we are distinct, I and all Thy people from all other people that are on the face of the earth? And the Lord Himself turns that around and speaks it back to us in Isaiah 43.

He says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. It doesn't say if, perhaps, should that possibly come to pass. No, He says when.

Sooner or later, you're going to be passing through deep and troubled waters. And when you pass through the waters, I'll be with you. they shall not overwhelm you when you walk through the fire not if sooner or later you're going to face the fire of affliction and he says when you walk through it you'll not be burned the flame shall not utterly consume you for I am your God fear not I am with you so I think we need to ask ourselves I need to ask myself, what is it I'm really seeking?

God's blessing or God Himself? God's miracles or His presence? The supernatural or His fellowship in the midst of my circumstances, whatever they might be?

Or, put it another way, have I come to the place and have you? Well, we've begun to discover that God's greatest blessing is himself. Let's bow our heads together.

Father God, we would not be like those in the synagogue in Nazareth. eager to see only your signs and wonders but we would be eager to be those who come to know you more and more deeply trust you more and more fully and find you making yourself real to us in the midst of our circumstances for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Amen.