“Wisdom From on High”

Advent Hour – December 17, 2011

Revelation 5:8-12/Psalm 19:7-14/Matthew 12:38-42

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

In our lives, we should desire to be the closest to God and not to further us away. The youth should be in the front of the Sanctuary because they are too important to be in the back.  The youth should be the strongest, the ones coming to the front; not the wimpiest and the weakest.  The youth should know in their lives that they are too important to the Church and to the kingdom of God because the youth is where the zeal and the strength are.

Let us get close to God as we can.  This is wisdom. I don’t understand why people want to be so far away from the Altar.  Why do you come if you barely want to be in the door?  Wisdom is: we want to be close to God.  For the youth, you have that to have in your mind because that is the most important thing that you can have in your life.  It is not your friendship, the education, but closeness to God.  This is wisdom.

The gospel today tells us about wisdom.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees were asking for a sign. The word of Christ to them was, “I am not giving a sign to an ungodly generation.  If you think we need a sign before we move, God does not give signs to the ungodly.”  It doesn’t mean that He doesn’t give signs because He does give signs. He has given us many signs, but He doesn’t specifically speak to those who have rejected God over and over again.

God speaks and shares with us those things which He wants us to respond to.  He talks about how that there was the response of Ninevah because of Jonah going to Ninevah. Ninevah repented and heard the Word.   Jesus said, “I gave you a sign – Jonah and the whale; three days in the whale.”  He was telling them, “I am going to rise up like Jonah did.  When I do, it should be that your response is even more intense than the response of Ninevah.  Someone greater is here.”

Jesus talks about the Queen of South, hearing of the wisdom of Solomon, came to see for herself.  She did not stay far away. She came as close as she could get and she brought riches with her to honor the greatness of the wisdom of Solomon.  The gospel says, “There is Someone greater who is here now.”  It should say to us that this is the wisdom that comes from God to us.  We should be responding with all that we have to Him. It confronts us.  I asked you to get up close to the Altar because the response is at the Table. This is where we meet God.  We don’t want to be far from the Altar because to do so is to be in destruction.  It is to be in pain and to be in sorrow.

The Altar is the hope and the center of our lives.  In Revelation, it speaks to us about the throne of God, showing us a picture of the Church.  It is showing us the very imagery of the throne of God.  Christ is sitting on the throne in our behalf, and the response of those in heaven was to gather around the throne. They brought the incense which was not only prayer, but was also respect and honor.  The angels were there with their harps.  What does it say of the people that came to that throne?  They bowed their knees before God. They saw the value of this Man and what He had done for us as the Son of Man and as the Son of God.   They honored Him and brought their attentions to Him.

Revelations 11 says, “Myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands were coming before His throne.” The throne is the picture of the Church today.  It shows us today that the Altar is the center of our lives, the only hope that we have.  We will not have hope in a government.  Look at our government.  We are falling apart; we are divided; we are attacking one another; we are putting each other down.  Nobody trusts anybody.  It is not only us, but the governments of United States, the Middle East, and Europe are all falling apart because we have come to a point where we do not put our trust in anyone except ourselves.

The Altar is wisdom.  It is the only place where we are going to find guidance for life.  It is the only place where we are going to find hope for today and tomorrow.  It is the place, the only place where we get security, guidance, direction, and all that we need.  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all the other things will be added to you.”

Why are we seeking all the other things and barely have enough time for Him?  We don’t give Him the time.  We give our time to our education because we’ve got to earn a living.  He said, “Seek Me first and I will add your living.  You won’t have to struggle for it.  I will give it to you.”  It doesn’t mean that we won’t have a profession; it doesn’t mean that we won’t work; but that will not be the center of our lives.  The center of our lives is in the Altar.

The Altar is wisdom. You cannot escape this.  You cannot get away from it.  It will not come from any university because I do not know of a university on the face of this earth that has a Department of Wisdom.   There is no wisdom in the university. The only thing that they have is information, theory. There is no theory in the Altar; the Altar is truth.  This gives to us guidance, direction, response, reaction, character, life and eternity. There is no other place you can find wisdom.

We begin the Advent Hour by making the declaration and the proclamation: the Altar is the center of life.  The Altar is life itself.  Without it, there is no life; there is frustration, pain, anxiety and all kinds of stress.  There is sickness, disease, and death.  In the Altar is life forever, fullness, joy, peace, security.  In the Altar is the fullness of Christ which is the only thing that we have.  In the Altar is our ability.

For some reason, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees of old, we are waiting for a sign. The sign has come.  Who has conquered death?  Who has died and come back and live among us and brought life to us?  Who has conquered sin, death, and the grave?  Who has created all that is around us?  Why would we seek guidance from sources who think they know when God is the One who created and He is the One who formed it?  He knows how it functions – no theory.  He has the truth.

God and God alone has the truth, but yet we give ourselves to other sources.  We struggle and we battle to get information and knowledge about other sources of false hope, of false direction, and of false peace.  Tell me any peace that man has made that work.  They can sign all the treaties they want, but eventually, they fall apart because the only peace that is real comes from God, This is wisdom.

Other things are foolishness.  They will not last.  They will only deceive us, but in the Altar is our life.  The Altar is wisdom. You want to know how to handle your problems?  God guides us and it is most of the time exactly the opposite of what the world says.  The world says to get revenge; fight back.  Wisdom says to love your enemy.  If he is hungry, feed him.  If he is thirsty, give him to drink.  This is wisdom. You destroy your enemy by your kindness, by your love.

Prosperity comes not in collecting, not in storing.  Ecclesiastes and Proverbs tell us that it is the evil ones who have been assigned to collect and store.  I do not want to be evil.  I do not want that category about me.  The prosperity comes when we are the givers, when we are those who reach out to meet the needs of others.  This is wisdom.

We begin the Advent Hour by looking at the Source of wisdom.  It is God. It is the Table of the Lord.  This is our life.  For some, it is only a piece of bread and a little bit of wine.  This is not true.  This is not what you get from this Table.  From this Table, you get the Body and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reality; truth; life itself; wholeness; completeness. The Table is the reality.

We focus on the Altar, not only for today.  You are going to find that we are going to start focusing more on the Altar than we ever have in our whole life.  We have missed the value of the life given to us.  The Altar is our hope and all that we have to be.  Without the Altar, we have nothing.

You have heard me say before, “The Church cannot be a Church unless the Eucharist is there.”  It is what gave us life and took away our sin and brought us to the family of God.  It has to be the center of our lives.  Today, we point to that fact in Advent, in preparing ourselves.  Here is the center of our existence: wisdom from on high.  It doesn’t come from earth, but from Him.  We focus our direction on Him and bring our trust to Him.