If you watched the Super Bowl then you likely saw the ad from He Gets Us. He Gets Us is a campaign to invite people to consider Jesus and why he matters today. The campaign is not affiliated with any church, political party, or ideological movement. It gets criticism from those who think money shouldn’t be spent on an expensive ad at the Super Bowl. Perhaps, but where else can you get such a wide audience? They’ve put an ad or two on every year for the last few years.
This year’s as is called, “Is there more to life than more?” Here it is: https://hegetsus.com/videos
The ad may leave you with many questions. I think that is its intention. But it definitely calls out our tendency to always want more; thinking that having more will somehow mean we have a better life or feel more fulfilled.
I talked about this in the sermon a couple weeks ago. We always want more. Give us the luxury of cold running water and we want hot running water. Then we want central heat. We want computers, internet, personal transportation, and more and more entertainment. We convince ourselves that whatever we happen to current have is somehow lacking and therefore not only can we have more, but that we should have/deserve to have more. All of this leads to a rat race of consumption that leaves us empty and drains the earth of precious resources. It’s all very guilt inducing. Heidi Griffith, our former music director said on a few occasions, “Why didn’t God wait for a better species than humans to evolve before sending Christ?” Indeed, we humans are fully undeserving of God’s choosing. And yet that proves the real power of God’s grace. God sacrifices greatly for a creature fundamentally flawed and undeserving.
My intention with this introduction is not to put us back into a place of guilt. It is to draw our attention to what may have been an obscure part of our gospel reading. Yet that obscure part is the first time Matthew introduces the key challenge the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus creates.
The scene was 12:38-42. There some scribes and Pharisees say to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he replied, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to us except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”
That is referring to the death and resurrection of Jesus. The death and resurrection of Jesus really is the core of it all. Do you believe it, or not? And if you do believe it, then how do you live it?
Earlier in the gospel John the Baptist proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Then later when John goes to prison Jesus picks up the same message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” What does that mean? What does it mean that the kingdom of heaven has come near? What do we mean when we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come”?
Many today say that the coming of the kingdom of heaven does not refer to the future at all. But that it refers to God’s own reign alive and working here on earth. Thus, when Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” He means it literally.
Yet others will say that the coming of the kingdom of God refers to the future entirely. God’s kingdom will come about at the end of time. Only then will it be fulfilled. Thus the Lord’s Prayer is an appeal to God to hasten that day; so that the misery and problems caused by us unworthy humans will be ended.
Both of these points of view have merit and both have their place. The typical Lutheran response to, “Is the kingdom of God now or in the future?” is, “Yes.”
When the coming kingdom of God has been taught to be exclusively about the future it was often used to justify abuse. Poor people, suffering people, and enslaved people were told that God’s will was for them to suffer in this life so as to be rewarded in the future. Therefore they should just keep their heads down, be content, and quietly work hard as others exploit them. Clearly that is not what Jesus intended.
But a mess also happens when the kingdom of God is too much a ‘hear and now’ thing. Among many social justice minded Christians it has become a rally cry they use to claim the moral high ground for themselves. They say that Jesus attacked the rich and powerful for their greed and raised up the poor and lowly for their innocence and purity. They make Jesus into the image of a social justice advocate of today. What gets lost on them is what Jesus says in Luke 13 and 18 where he calls even his closest followers faithless sinners. These are people who were among the poor and oppressed. He reminds them that they have no moral superiority over their oppressors. The only difference is that their oppressors are in power and they are not. But that the coming of the kingdom of God will not somehow put them on top because they’d just be different oppressors.
No, the coming of the kingdom of God is both present and future. Both ideas must be held if the image is to work properly.
So, it also goes for the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you have it be just a future thing then you are disregarding the present world. God loves this flawed transitory world enough to be marred and die for it. You can’t just say it’s all temporary and so it ultimately doesn’t matter. At the same time, if your life is driven by this life and this life only, then you are being shortsighted about eternity. The resurrection of Christ is a promise for us too. What does it mean to live for both the present and for eternity?
I think it gives us a perspective, or perhaps a lens to view everything. It is helpful if we regularly ask ourselves if our decisions make sense in light of both the importance of the present and for eternity. The Super Bowl ad asked, “Is there more to life than more?” More money. More stuff. More security. More power. More life. What are all these things? They are all trivialities in light of eternity. It has been often studied and proven that once your most basic bodily needs are met having more does not significantly improve the quality of your life. Those who are driven to have more will never be satisfied. Whereas those who find fullness in Christ are already satisfied in this life and for eternity.
What is the eternal fate of those who just endlessly consume and want ever more; exploiting many and doing all sorts of harmful things in the process? I don’t know. That’s God’s question to answer. What I do know is that the eternal fate of those who believe and trust in the resurrection of Jesus have a rock solid identity that can weather any storm and give contentment no matter what life’s circumstances are.
Consider many things in light of eternity. Do many of the things we worry about most days really matter? Nope. And also consider all the things that we are apt to fill our days with. Are they really building God’s kingdom now or are they just our own dead-end consumption? Building God’s kingdom is always worthwhile; although it may not often be easy.
I am surprised by the advice of lawyer and financial planner Toby Mathis. He has a YouTube channel with about 600 thousand subscribers. So he isn’t truly big time, but he is influential. He always advises giving 10% of your income away to some good cause. That’s not the usual kind of advice you’d expect from a financial planner. But he says it’s important to living a satisfied life. He also teaches that having more is not more. Ultimately he finds the most satisfied people are people who are living well below their means. They have found that with a meaningful job, civic engagement, and sizeable charitable giving they are content. And if he says if you truly don’t have enough money to give any away then you need to make the time to volunteer somewhere. Because working all the time just to get ahead is not ever going to lead to getting ahead. Though he is a secular financial planner, his advice fits for a person of faith who is living the resurrection promises of Jesus.
The people of Jesus asked for a sign from him. He said the only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah, which meant the resurrection. The resurrection remains the key promise that all of our faith revolves around. It is a promise that goes for life today and for eternity. Begin every day by reminding yourself of the resurrection. Go to bed at night reminding yourself of the resurrection. When you are suffering, remember that no matter how long it may endure, it is nothing as compared to eternity. And when everything is going well and you are feeling great, realize that lasting joy and hope only come from Christ.
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