3-18-18 What Prints in the Sand?

Scripture:  Matthew 16:21-27

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND

One night I dreamed a dream as I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings. when you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."

Life’s journey is not always that sweet. We have bad things happen, we do bad things, we sometimes walk by faith and other times walk in our own strength…

BUTTPRINTS IN THE SAND

One night I had a wonderous dream, one set of foot prints there was seen;

The footsteps of my precious Lord, but mine were not along the shore.

But then some stranger prints appeared, and I ask the Lord, “What have we here?”

Those prints are large and round and neat, “but Lord, they are too big for feet.”

“My child,” he said in somber tones, “for miles I carried you alone.

I challenged you to walk in faith, but you refused and made me wait.”

“You disobeyed, you would not grow, the walk of faith you would not know.

So, I got tired, I got fed up, and there I dropped you on your butt.”

“Because in life there comes a time, when must fight and one must climb;

When one must rise and take a stand, or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

JESUS’ JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM

Jerusalem was occupied by Rome. For the Jews, Rome was the New Egypt. (Jesus had been to Egypt and knew the stories and knew what it meant to the Jews) When the Jews lived in Egypt, they flourished but eventually were under an oppressive government that used them as slaves. The Romans were more crafty to give the illusion of freedom but were just as oppressive to the Jews. In Egypt, God came through Moses to make all things new – to set his people free and take them into the promised land, of which Jerusalem was at the heart. When Rome became so strong, the Jews now, instead of being beholden to a government in a foreign land were beholden to a foreign government in their own land. It would require a new Moses to lead them out of Roman oppression in to the promised land of God.

Jerusalem was the place where the presence of Rome was most notable with Roman soldiers present everywhere. Religiously, all male Jews 13 and older were to come to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, the feast of Weeks, and the feast of tabernacles. The families in the area would have done this. Those who lived farther would come for only one – most to Passover and those who were poor or lived even farther may only come once in a lifetime to the holy city of Jerusalem.

It was unlike anything most people had ever seen. It would be like if you lived your life in Oak Harbor or a Genoa and never traveled outside that area and had no internet or tv and at age 13 went to New York city. That may have been Jesus’ experience at age 12. People traveled in caravans for safety in numbers with people from their own towns. They would have camped all over outside the city with its massive glorious buildings, complexes and walls. Herod had built the city into a place of glory and splendor, the centerpiece of which was the Temple. On the same day every family would have gone to the temple to sacrifice a lamb (one they brought with them or one they bought there) and have it slaughtered for their Passover meal to remind them that God had freed their people in Egypt when they put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their houses so the angel of death would Passover them and destroy their oppressors, the Egyptians.

With Rome being such a strong overlord, they would have been very much in mind as the Jews participated in Passover – looking for God to free them from their oppressors once again. Camped outside the city you could gaze on the magnificent temple but once near the city, the walls would block your view. The sounds of people speaking many languages would only be drowned out by those selling everything from food to trinkets, maps, furniture, bedding and clothing. The sights and sounds could frighten anyone coming from a small city – even I was frightened on my first visit to Jerusalem. (Christ Prison Souvenirs – owner: Hassan El-Ansari The address is Via Dolorosa 40).

          This journey to Jerusalem was not just a journey for Jesus, rather a journey for the disciples – a journey for you and me.

Our text for today is a perfect example of how we can go form having  footprints in the sand to having butt prints in the sand. RETELL: “Who do you say that I am?...”  That was the footprints T H E N we come to the buttprints…

Matthew 16:21-27

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed (betrayed by a friend, arrested, falsely tried & convicted, sentenced to death, stripped, flogged, spat upon, beaten, ridiculed, brow crushed with thorns, carried cross beam through streets, mocked, hands and feet pierced with nails, hung on a cross, publicly humiliated, crucified to death, spear thrust in side, placed in a borrowed tomb),  and on the third day be raised to life.  ///  Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Buttprints)

          24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

THE WAY

The way to Jerusalem looks suspiciously like Interstate 75,

and the pilgrims look suspiciously like you and me.

I expected the road to Jerusalem to be crowded with holy people …

Pastors and saints … people who have kindness wrinkled in their faces and comfort lingering in their voices’.

But this is more like rush hour … Horns blowing, people pushing, voices cursing … This is not what I envisioned!

O God, I’ve only begun and already I feel I’ve lost my way.

Surely this is not the road and surely these are not the ones to travel with me.

This Lenten journey calls for Holy retreat, for reflection and repentance.

Instead of holiness the highway is crammed with the cacophony of chaos.

Is there no back road to Jerusalem?

No quiet path where angels tend to weary travelers?

No sanctuary from the noise of the world?

Just this? Can this hectic highway be the highway to heaven?                           …by Ann Weems

         

Indeed, the way to heaven is by daily picking up our cross and following in the foot steps of Jesus – occasionally we will mis-step and to set us right he will have to drop us on our butt and other times we will be too weary to walk and he will carry us – beside him, sitting in the sand or being carried by him one thing is true – Jesus is with us always, to the very end of the age.