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Robert Woodyard

What Child Is This? Elkanah and Hannah’s Son, Samuel

Passage: 1 Samuel 1:1-20

Even in the best of years, and 2020 is not one of them, even in the best of years Christmas can be a mixed blessing for some people and some families. There are tensions that may have a lid on them most of the year, that boil over at family gatherings. The black sheep of the family comes home. A loved one is missing at the festivities. Loneliness is felt more sharply especially as one sees other families gathering and enjoying time together. COVID-19 limits family gatherings. Holidays are not always happy days even in the best of times and in the best of families. That was certainly the experience of Hannah. Every year the annual pilgrimage to Shiloh for the big religious celebration was spoiled for her. While everyone else was enjoying the festivities she was sobbing and had no desire to enter in, and no appetite for the big feast.

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What Child Is This? Amram and Jochebed’s Son, Moses

Passage: Exodus 2:1-10

What child is this? A child is born. What we are noticing in this advent season is at critical moments in God’s salvation plan when God wants to do something really big, really important, He does something really small, a miraculous birth takes place, a child is born who will change the world or prepare the world for something greater. Exodus 1, background. Exodus begins with God’s people suffering. They have been suffering for a very long time, almost 400 years. They are slaves in Egypt suffering under the rule of severe taskmasters. They are abused, oppressed. Exodus 1:11, 13-14 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. … 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. Think Jews in Germany under Hitler; Muslims in Myanmar and China, Christians in northern Nigeria. And then to add insult to injury, it gets worse, Pharaoh decrees to kill the Hebrew sons.

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What Child Is This? Abraham and Sarah’s Son, Isaac

Passage: Genesis 21:1-22

Advent means anticipation, expectation, coming, it’s this short season when we prepare for celebrating the coming of Jesus into the world, when we prepare for the coming of the centuries long promise of God to send a Messiah, when we prepare for the fulfilment His redemptive purposes He announced and started way back in the garden of Eden when God said the seed of woman will crush the head of the serpent. The first promise of salvation in the Bible included babies. That promised seed of woman who would crush the head of the serpent comes in the form of babies. The Bible is full of babies, God-sent babies, babies who influenced and changed the world. Out of the mouths of babes and infants God has spoken and shown Himself. This advent season we will reflect on five babies God used to influence or change not just world history, but salvation history and eternity. They are Isaac, Moses, Samuel, John the Baptist and Jesus. These are babies God used to prepare the way to crush the serpent.

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Giving Thanks Even in 2020

Passage: Psalms

This has been a challenging year for all of us and for me as a pastor. I have been pushed to the limits. But I want to be clear about something. I have not ceased to give thanks to God for you. I love you and I thank God for you and for the privilege of being your pastor. How do you give thanks in a year like 2020? 2020 will go down in the history books as one of the worst years ever, not the worst, there are several contenders for that title, but certainly one of the worst, and perhaps the worst in most of our life-times, with the possible exception of those of you who endured the Nazi occupation of Holland. But back to my question, how do we give thanks for a year like 2020? Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should write-off 2020 like a bad investment and try to forget about it. Maybe we should just look forward to 2021. How do you give thanks in the midst of disappointments, heartaches, fears, losses, health challenges, loss of loved ones, discouragements of all kinds for all the things we couldn’t do. How we give thanks for 2020 will depend on our theology, on what we believe about God, on how we understand the sovereignty and providence of God.

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One Said Thank You

Passage: Luke 17:11-19

I feel I can relate to the plight of these ten lepers more now than ever before. In our house we
have felt like we need to walk around saying unclean, unclean. Keep your social distance. In
fact many of us can sympathize with this text in new ways.
We will look at this text in two parts.

We are reminded of the humanity of Jesus, walking on the way to His final trip to Jerusalem
well aware of what awaits Him there. We are reminded that the world Jesus walked in is much
like ours as He walks along the borders of Samaria and Galilee, a region divided by race and
racism.
We are reminded that Jesus experienced life much like we do. You are making your way
through your day and then stuff happens, interruptions, sickness, Covid, people with serious
problems, death staring you in the face, the messiness of life.
This is life, this is Jesus’ life. Jesus doesn’t look away, skirt the issue, say He is too busy, or
that He doesn’t have time because He has to be some place. He is the with us God. Wherever
we are, whatever we are doing, however hard or complicated or stressful He is right there.

Leprosy was a horrible, disfiguring disease, there can hardly be a more miserable condition. It
was a cause of great humiliation and shame. They had to walk about calling out unclean. They
could not work and were completely dependent on charity. Besides the painful physical effects,
there were huge psychological effects on one’s mental health from the isolation.
This was the ultimate quarantine situation. Lepers were social distanced from everyone else,
cast outside the community, alone. Cut off from all human contact.
Do we think 6 feet is annoying? One source says the distance for lepers was 50 yards. Can you
imagine lines every 50 yards at Safeway or Costco or here?

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Zacchaeus Out on a Limb

Passage: Luke 19:1-10

What an interesting week? We never know what a day will hold do we? I was observing this with the men Thursday night in our Men’s Study on Job. We never know what a day may hold. Job woke up the greatest man of the east, a righteous man and fabulously wealthy, and went to bed the poorest man in the east, utterly miserable. What a difference a day makes. Zacchaeus woke up the richest man in Jericho, a notorious sinner and fabulously wealthy, and went to bed considerably poorer, and never happier. What a difference a day makes. Luke 19:1, Context. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem for the last time. As He was making His way south through Samaria and Galilee He was approached by a very rich ruler who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life. Seeing the place money had in his heart, Jesus told him to give all his money to the poor. This man went away very sad because he was extremely rich. Jesus observed how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle. Hang on to your hats, folks, you are about to witness a camel passing through the eye of a needle. What is impossible with man is possible with God.

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Paul Persecuted But Not Forsaken

Passage: Acts 14:9-28

You will recall from last week Paul and Barnabas were barely able to keep the people of Lystra from sacrificing to them as gods. Don’t miss the irony here. They are stoning their gods. It was with great difficulty that Paul and Barnabas restrained the people from making sacrifices to them as gods. It was with no difficulty that some Jews from Antioch and Iconium persuaded them to stone Paul and Barnabas. One day they were sacrificed to, the next day they were the sacrifice. One day they are ready to bow down and submit to anything they say, the next day they hate what they have to say and stone him to silence him. Crowds are fickle, mobs are easily manipulated. Today they shout hosanna, tomorrow they shout crucify. We usually read over this passage quickly and casually. What was it like to be stoned, to be pummeled by rocks, bruised and battered, in terrible pain until mercifully he finally went unconscious? There is more than just the physical pain, there is the mental anguish and utter humiliation. Then to be dragged out of town and thrown on the town trash dump for dead.

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Apostles Vilified and Deified

Passage: Acts 14:1-18

What is the hardest thing you have to do? What is your biggest challenge week in and week out? What presents you with the most daunting obstacles? Is it seeking to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, or resisting some sin or temptation, or loving someone hard to love, or striving for a Christ-centered marriage, or raising godly children in the home, or doing your work with integrity, or serving others, or engaging the culture in a war for morality and truth, or taking the Gospel to the lost? The most serious challenges we face in life are never just one skirmish or one battle, it’s continual warfare. To quote my favorite motto: “It is a sore fight to the end, laddie, a sore fight to the end.” It is a hard fought battle and it is to the death.

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