Restored!

 Message given to my church on December 12, 2021

Psalm 19:14 - Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  Amen.

Restored

Several years ago, I was asked by my friend to come and play piano at her church in the summer when the regular organist was not available to play.  It seems like a simple question, will you play?  But it was a difficult answer for me, because I had left a previous church after a painful breach, and had not attended any church in well over a year.  Although I occasionally watched a service online, I didn’t know whether I would ever attend any church again on a regular basis.  

My faith in God never wavered, God is and was at the center of my life, my foundation for everything - but my faith in my fellow Christians was definitely in question.  I was disillusioned, broken down, my desire to worship with others was destroyed.  Satan had, at least for that moment, won, but I didn’t realize it because I was lost in the wreckage.

I thought about it for a few days, and really struggled with two sides of the issue.  On the one hand, I love to share my God given musical gift with people - it is my personal ministry - and that is very important to me.  On the other hand, my anger and hurt were still raw, and I didn’t know if I could attend a church without feeling like a hypocrite.

In the end, I opted to try it one Sunday,  just to see how it went.  On the day, I was quite nervous.  I didn’t know what emotions I would feel, or how it would all go.  Walking in the door made me shake, because church had become a place where I felt unsafe and unwanted, and I didn’t know how to get past those feelings.

I was welcomed by everyone, of course.  My church is a warm and welcoming place, and I certainly felt that and appreciated it enormously.  But there was a particular turning point for me that morning which I will never forget, one which happened during the passing of the peace (which I normally don’t like!)

I am a reserved and somewhat shy person at first, but during the passing of the peace, one person blasted past my natural reserve, walked right up to me, grabbed both of my hands, looked me straight in the eye with genuine joy, and said, “I am SO glad you are here.  Welcome.”

It was personal.  It was utterly disarming.  It was obviously genuine.  I recognized that she was for real.  And it changed me inside.  In an instant, I was restored.  I believe God gave me that moment in order to call me back to a full life of worshipping him, to renew my spirit, to revitalize the joyful part of my soul, and to restore my faith, which I didn’t even realize had faltered.

To restore something means to return it to its original condition.  Sometimes you need to use new parts, sometimes you can rehabilitate parts that are there but worn out. God did a little of both with me that morning.  He took the faith I always had, but which was fraying around the edges, and gave me a new setting where I could rebuild on a new foundation what had been destroyed.  Satan destroys, God restores.  That is what he did for me that day through his presence in the heart and action of one of his people.

We are born into sin.  Our very nature is built on the destructive path of sin that started with Adam and Eve and continues in each person.  Jesus was sent to restore us to God, casting away our old, sinful natures and rendering us new with his grace through the cross.

That sinful nature was exemplified in today’s gospel.  The religious authorities and crowds who came to hear Jesus were waiting for a different kind of savior, one who was grand and glorious and obvious, someone who lived like a king in a palace instead of born in a manger and ministering to the lowest in society.  They weren’t listening to Jesus, they had closed their hearts and minds, lost in their own expectations of how things should be, instead of looking at how God wanted them to be. 

But Jesus reminded them that the least in the kingdom is greater than a prophet who came to prepare them for the savior of the world.  He quietly restored ordinary people’s lives while the Pharisees argued and the lawyers looked for the loopholes.  Where they saw vice, Jesus saw opportunity, and brought a whole new message of salvation.  Where they saw hopeless failure, Jesus taught the only successful way to eternal reward.  If only they had the eyes and the heart to see and understand it - but they rejected it because it wasn’t what they were expecting.  Satan saw the opening and he jumped right in, as he always does.  But restoration came to those who were open to it and willing to hear.

Advent is a waiting period, a watching period.  But, while it is a period of preparation for the celebrations that are to come, in truth, we are no longer waiting.  God has already restored us through the life, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.  We are fully and completely restored to him, not because we deserve it, certainly not because we understand it, but because he longs for us to be in full communion with him.

The only road block comes from us, not from him.  We need only open our hearts to him, repent, and he is there with his ever present grace.  Restoration is his free gift, available all the time.

Acts 3:19-21:  Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

Each Advent season, I reflect on that restorative love and grace, and realize anew that our God is recklessly, unceasingly, in love with each one of us.  And I have realized since that first time I came to play at my church that worshipping him together is more than just a passing communal experience, nice, but not really necessary.  God reveals himself through the actions and gifts we each bring to the table, and each one of us is needed to complete the picture.  Restoration happens in group mode, as well as individually, and you never know when you are going to be the instrument of God’s restorative grace in the life of another of his children.  You don’t need to be a John the Baptist for God to work through you - you can just be you, and that is enough.

God is present, right here, right now, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we see him at work through our actions.  God doesn’t need us to commune together so much as we need to worship him together to be the best body of Christ that we can be.  When a piece goes missing, the whole is incomplete.  Jesus exhorted us to search for the one, even if it meant leaving the 99.  God will always seek us out, pursue us, love us, and one of the ways he does this is through the presence of other believers.

Our God is more than a passive presence.  Jesus came to restore God’s people both spiritually and physically.

1 Peter 5:10:  And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.

He restored sight to the blind, he restored movement to the lame, he restored food to the hungry, he restored life to the dead and he restored salvation to the sinner.  Advent is the beginning of his story; his resurrection is the beginning of ours.

Although it may seem like the wrong season, I think its the best possible time to remember HE IS RISEN!  And through his resurrection we are restored.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.