Many of us are, by now, familiar with the 2003 Pixar animated movie “Finding Nemo” in which Marlin, an overprotective, single, clown fish father, pursues his son, Nemo, across the dangers of the vast Pacific Ocean in hopes of rescuing him from the scuba divers that captured him. It’s a good story. But despite the similarity of the name in the title, Nemo is not what we are looking for. Our story for today begins with an ending. At the end of Moses’ life, knowing that he will never set foot in the Promised Land that he has pursued for most of his adult life, he finds himself, not in the Pacific Ocean with a small clownfish named Nemo, but at the top of a mountain named Nebo. And, in an odd sort of way, we discover that, as the followers of Jesus Christ, we too are spending ourselves in pursuit of finding Nebo. As I said before, we begin this morning with an ending in Deuteronomy 34:1-12 where it says:

^34:1 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, ² all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, ³ the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

⁵ And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. ⁶ He buried himin Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. ⁷ Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone. ⁸ The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

⁹ Now Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spiritof wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So, the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰ Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, ¹¹ who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. ¹² For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

When you make the journey to visit Israel, once the present violence ends and peace returns, you will find that Israel is surprisingly small. For us in the United States we can compare it in our minds knowing that Israel is smaller than Massachusetts and slightly smaller than New Jersey. If you could make a non-stop road trip along its main highway, you could travel its entire length in less than six hours. And so, while there is, perhaps, some exaggeration in the account that we read in Deuteronomy, probably not much. From the top of Mount Nebo, with good visibility, Moses would have seen a great deal of the Promised Land that Israel was about to inherit. But Moses wasn’t going. He had come this far, but his time on earth was finished and, although God allowed him to see the land of Israel, he would never cross the Jordan River and set his feet upon it. Instead, Moses would be buried somewhere in Moab on the slopes of Mount Nebo and make a different crossing into his heavenly inheritance with God. Moses never crossed over into the Promised Land, but Moses’ legacy was that he listened to the call of God, obeyed the instructions of God, and led his family, his tribe, his community, and his people into God’s promise.

But God’s promise to his people was about more than land. As Israel had struggled during their captivity in Egypt, they cried out to God for a rescuer that would carry them out of Egypt to freedom. And God heard the prayers of his people, and sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt, across the desert, through the years of wandering in the wilderness, and right the edge of the Promised Land. But throughout many years of suffering, in the land of Israel, under the yoke of other oppressive nations such as Babylon, Greece, Egypt, and Rome, the people of Israel again prayed to God and looked for a rescuer, a messiah, that would, once again, bring them freedom and prosperity. The seeds of that hope for a messiah were contained in the writings of the prophets, but it was not always understood how it would happen, or who the messiah would be. And that’s how Jesus can ask a question that stumped the biblical scholars of his day when they come to him to present a question with which they hope to test him in Matthew 22:34-46 where we read this:

³⁴ Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

⁴¹ While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴² “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

⁴⁴ “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
    under your feet.”’

⁴⁵ If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶ No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The puzzle that Jesus puts to the Pharisees is the kind of a problem that often causes us to get stuck in the twenty-first century. While Jesus’ question seems simple to us it was a serious problem to these biblical scholars because it required that they get past their own cultural biases to answer it. In a culturally patriarchal system of honor, it was understood that fathers were always greater in prestige and honor than their sons. If a grandfather or great-grandfather could have, somehow, come back from the dead, that elderly person would automatically become the head of an entire clan of his descendants and all his sons, grandsons, and everyone else would be expected to defer to them and honor them. But although the scholars know that the Messiah would be a living descendant of David, referred to as “the son of David,” their cultural bias prevents them from understanding how, in Psalm 110, David refers to his descendant as his Lord, and thereby gives his descendant honor and defers to him as someone greater than the greatest king that Israel ever had. The Pharisees could simply not understand how a son of David could be greater than David and so, they misunderstood what, and who, the messiah would be. For us, although we have our own cultural blind spots, we understand that Jesus was, and is, God’s promised Messiah, he is the son of David, and he is David’s lord because he is the son of God.

But, twenty-one centuries later, what does that mean for us? If we follow God as Moses did, and we accept Jesus as our lord, and follow him, then what why does all that matter? It matters because, like Moses, we are trying to find our mountain top, our Nebo, but like the Pharisees, we can’t quite figure out what that means. But Paul did, and he explains it to the church in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, saying…

^2:1 You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results. ² We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition. ³ For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. ⁴ On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. ⁵ You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. ⁶ We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. ⁷ Instead, we were like young children among you.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, ⁸so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

Paul’s message is that life wasn’t perfect. Everyone knew that sometimes the lives of Paul and his associates had faced some significant suffering. They had been arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison on many occasions. But despite their suffering, with the help of God, they dared to continue telling others the story of the gospel regardless of the opposition that they faced. Their motivation wasn’t to trick anyone, to get rich, or for any other impure motive, but simply to share the message with which they had been entrusted by God. Their goal was to share the gospel, and their lives, with the people to whom God had led them.

Moses, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and many others were seeking to find their Nebo, to lead their family, their tribe, their community, and their people into God’s promise, which they now understood as the promise of Jesus Christ. And that’s the mission that has been passed down to us. Because we are the people who, like Paul, have been entrusted with the gospel, the people who have met Jesus, and who have believed in him and have put our trust in him, we too are seeking our Nebo. As we have been reminded on this All-Saints Day, our time on earth is short and won’t last forever and one day we too will cross over into God’s promise as Moses did, and as these saints of the church have done.

Our mission, our hope, and our calling is to lead our people to God’s promise through the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ…

…before it’s our turn to cross over.

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™