In our world today, there are two understandings of the Universe at war with each other.
Yet these two concepts, these two understandings of the Universe are not what you might think.
We identify two labels. There is Good and there is Evil. For centuries, we have looked around the world that we see and we have identified one group of people, one philosophy, one understanding of the Universe, one nation as Good.
And we have looked around the world that we see and we have identified one group of people, another philosophy, an understanding of the Universe, a nation as Evil.
And it is simple, it is easy, it is not that difficult, it is something we do almost without thinking. Throughout history, men and women and boys and girls have almost always noticed something, which if we think about it is really amazing. Almost all of us are on the side of Good. Almost none of us believes we are on the Evil side.
- Look at the recent teacher strike.
- Look at last year’s elections.
- Look at a recent basketball or football game.
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; John 12:12-16
It unconsciously happens, doesn’t it? Unless we carefully think about it, in our hearts, deep down, we believe that we are on the side of Good and our opponent is on the side of Evil. Amazing that it happens almost all the time, isn't it?
Republican or Democrat. Liberal or Conservative. WVU or Marshal. RCB or Bridgeport or South Harrison High School.
Notice that it doesn’t take much to get us to focus upon the Other as the Bad Guys!
Even our kids, when they play, they split up teams. Good Guys and Bad Guys. We declare our team to be the Good Guys and the other Team must therefore be the Bad Guys.
But as adults looking on, we realize that these children playing are not all Good and these other children playing are not all Bad. But, it’s funny…we have a hard time stepping above our own games to realize that our side isn’t the completely Good Guys and the other side isn’t the completely Bad Guys.
It was the same in ancient Israel.
In ancient Israel at the time of Christ, there we several groups of people – parties, if you will.
The most familiar to us were the Pharisees. Jesus is always criticizing the Pharisees, for they were the men who believed so strongly in following the Laws of Moses. In particular, they were concerned about the behavior laws.
They dressed the right way, the way the Law of Moses said to dress. They wrote Bible verses on scraps of paper and put them on their walls, and in little charms on their body. They made sure they had tassels on their garments, they made sure they never did any work after Sunday on Friday until sundown on Saturday. They never ate pork or shrimp or lobster. They never stole or murdered or committed adultery. They were quick to stone those who blasphemed or committed other sins that the Law said deserved stoning. They did this because they were adamant about following the commands of God.
And they became very stringent in eliminating any gray areas in the law, for they spent much time debating the Law of Moses to get things right. Some asked, "What if someone needed water on the Sabbath? Drawing water is work, so must they just survive without water?" The Pharisees replied, "NO! Drawing water is woman’s work, so it is okay for a man to draw water on the Sabbath because it is not his work."
Is it okay to use the Law to take another man’s property? Yes, as long as you follow the Law. If a judge agrees, you might get your neighbor’s property – and it isn’t stealing, just because the judge is your brother-in-law.
The Law says to remove all yeast from the home during the Passover. It says we are not to have any yeast at all. But can’t yeast get stuck in the tiny cracks in an old pot? Yes, it can, so we’ll need to sell our old pots and buy new ones for the Passover. OK, but I loved that old pot that my grandfather made. Well, then, sell the pot to a non-Jewish neighbor you trust before Passover and then buy it back afterwards. This is the way the Pharisees looked at the Law – is there a way around it that we can agree upon so we can go ahead and do what we want anyway?
The Pharisees believed that you became righteous by your daily actions and behavior. How well can you play the Law game? Remember – there are 613 different commandments in the Old Testament. Can you remember them all and avoid breaking any one of them?
Jesus made it repeatedly clear He didn’t like the way the Pharisees were living. Just read any of the Gospels to find out the details.
So Jesus must have wanted a different party. Another group must have been the Good Guys. How about the second major party, the Sadducees?
The Sadducees were the clan that operated the Temple. They were concerned that you carefully follow the sacrificial laws, for that meant the Temple was important. "Come to the Temple with your lamb for sacrifice. And when you arrive, we’ll need to inspect the lamb – oh dear, it has a tiny little spot here." “That’s mud from the road!” "I’m sorry, it’s still a spot, so you’ll need a better lamb." “I just walked here from Galilee, a hundred miles!” "So sorry – my cousin over there may be able to sell you a better lamb."
And people went to buy the lamb from the cousin. “Here’s a lamb my cousin will pass. “That lamb’s skin looks like a checkerboard!” Perhaps, but my cousin will pass it. “OK, how much?” Five denari" - five days wages. ”That’s outrageous! “Perhaps, but it’s better than missing the sacrifice and God being angry at you! “OK, here’s some silver. “I’m sorry, but you have Greek money. I can only accept Temple coins. “Where do I get Temple coins?” "See my nephew at the table over there who changes money."
And people went to the money-changing table. “I’ll need five Temple denari.” "You have Greek money? That’’ll be ten Greek denari." And the people paid it, because the other option was no sacrifice.
Is it any wonder that Jesus threw over the tables at the Temple and chased the merchants out with a whip? It was the Sadducees who ran the Temple. Yet the Apostle John mentions that he knew Sadducees who let him observe Jesus’ trial by the High Priest, who was a Sadducee.
So perhaps Jesus liked the Zealots instead. Maybe they were the Good Guys.
The Zealots were patriotic. The Zealots believed that the Bad Guys were the Romans. And so, the Zealots believed in a slow campaign against the Romans. They killed individual Roman soldiers in back alleys. They ambushed small groups of Romans in the countryside. They overlapped with another group, the sicari, which means “those who use the dagger”, a group of people who killed Jews suspected of being collaborators with the Romans, for many Jews recognized the power of Rome and simply preferred peace.
Eventually, the Zealots led a revolt against the Romans in the year 66, but were defeated by the Romans in 70. It is said in the Babylonian Talmud, a major rabbinic work, that the Zealots actually destroyed decades worth of food and firewood that had been stockpiled over the years to force the other Jews into fighting the Romans during the siege.
In 70, when the Romans finally entered Jerusalem, the Temple was burned and destroyed along with most of the city. Tens of thousands of Jews died. And the Zealots were largely responsible for the revolt.
Yet Jesus had a disciple known as Simon the Zealot.
Another group at the time were the Essenes. The Essenes are never named as such in the New Testament, but Jewish historians mention them repeatedly. It is thought that the Essenes were a pious group who were almost like monks, withdrawing from the world at their center known as Qumran near the northern end of the Dead Sea. It is their collection of scrolls that we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some scholars think that John the Baptist spent time with the Essenes, or perhaps even Jesus spent some time with them.
The Essenes stayed away from Jerusalem mostly. The picture we have of them was that they studied scripture apart from everyone else. It is easy to paint them as these wonderful people – for a while, some scholars even thought of them as the earliest Christians – but it is worth noting that they just disappeared when their monastery was destroyed during the Roman war. They had little impact on the world – and they certainly were not the Christian community that the Book of Acts describes. So they might have been Good Guys, but they appear to have made little difference in the world.
Finally, we have the Romans. The Romans are always present and easy to see in our movies about the period, because they always wear red armor with crested helmets. The Romans are the occupying soldiers, they are the men who drag people away to jail or execution, they are the men with the swords. But the Romans of the day were from many towns and cities all over the Mediterranean world. Many were from Italy, but some were from France, some from Spain, some from Greece or Egypt, some even from the northern border with the Germans. And, as the Bible shows us, some came to Jesus or later the Apostle Peter for help. Most of the Romans were simply concerned with order in the society – no riots, no bandits, no trouble!
So who were the Good Guys? Who were the Bad Guys?
We so want to decide about people. We want to assign the label to them – Good or Bad.
Why?
It is so important for us, because we always want to be the Good Guys. We want to be on the right side of God. We know that throughout history, people will look back and tell stories about us, deciding whether, for example, Andrew Jackson was a good guy who took an aristocratic United States and made it into a true democratic republic – or a Bad Guy who hated Native Americans and Blacks and was terrible to them. Was George Washington a Good Guy? Or was George an evil slaveholder? More currently, was Winston Churchill the Good Guy who led Britain to defeat the German Bad Guys – or was Churchill a depressed drunkard Bad Guy who withheld knowledge of the concentration camps from the world press until the end of the war?
And the discussions about people – and particularly leaders of people – goes on to this day, even about people in office today.
So what’s wrong with trying to become sin-free?
How much disagreement or moral issues move a person from “Good Guy” to “Bad Guy”? How much can you tolerate from your friend before you unfriend him or her? What makes a person a “Good Guy” or a “Bad Guy”?
And the Bible has a term for the “Good Guys”. It is "the Righteous". Throughout the Bible, throughout all the authors who are influenced by the Holy Spirit, one word keeps recurring as the ultimate in praise. It is the word, “righteous”.
In our Psalm 118 today, we find these two verses:
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
Abram/Abraham was declared righteous by God. What makes a person righteous? How can we become righteous?
Perhaps it is by not committing any sin. If so, then wouldn’t Jesus have commended the Pharisees for their pursuit of the sin-free life?
No, Jesus repeatedly verbally tore up the Pharisees. So what’s wrong with trying to become sin-free?
The first problem is that a certain pride develops in those who are able to overcome sin on their own. Think of the woman who has quit smoking. She did it – why can’t everyone else? Everyone knows that smoking is bad – I guess the woman who has stopped smoking is just better than the man who keeps smoking – at least in her mind.
And this pride from overcoming sin leads us to focus upon what we have done right, the sins we have avoided or stopped – bit we ignore those dozens of other bad things we do. For example, our AA group rightly celebrates their victories over alcohol or opioid addiction – but many members will point out that many have exchanged their drinking for smoking- and others will point out that they just feel irritable and angry when they are sober.
We win against a single sin and we declare victory. That’s about like an army who defeats a single enemy tank and declares victory. There are so many tanks to go! There’s always another sin to work on!
The second major problem with trying to become totally sin-free is that we fall into the trap of trying to get around the law. If we decide not to work on the Sabbath – we have to decide what is the Sabbath – Saturday or Sunday? What is work? Is eating out permitted? Is shopping permitted? Is going to the movies permitted? – notice that each of these last three questions imply that we really want to allow ourselves to go out shopping and eating out and going to the movies. And do we really have to give up BBQ and shrimp?
Surely this maze of law interpretations leads us in circles – and we turn inward, away from God!
The third with focusing on a Pharisaic focus on sin is if we finally win the battle, if we succeed in truly becoming sin-less – we don’t need God, do we? We’ll carry our cross by ourselves. And so, as we become more and more confident that we are can handle our sins ourselves – we ignore God more and more.
So the Sadducees – did they have the way to become righteous? – what’s wrong with focusing upon group worship, upon the Temple? The problem is the Temple becomes worshiped, not the God that the Temple is devoted to. How many of us would be upset or disturbed if we moved our worship service to a different building – or even to the pavilion shelter out back? Oh, it would be fine for a change – but how many of us would vote to tear down this building and build a new one? Why does it bother us? Because we are beginning to worship the building, the room, even the property.
And we worship our style of worship, too, don’t we? I know that many of you like a change every now and again in our music. But I also know that if we went 100% K-LOVE or 100% classical in our music, about half of you would leave. Why? Because we don’t like change. Yet most people who have never attended church before are confused and, frankly, bored by the hymns we use. Have we chosen to worship our worship style in preference to leading people to Christ?
And the Zealots – how can patriotism be bad? Aren’t patriots righteous? Let me ask you a question: can you see the cross for the flag that is in front of it?
I’ll tell you a story. One November, Saundra and I managed to talk a group of a dozen International students from Marietta College into attending church with us. A young lady from Japan, a young man from Vietnam, a man from Brazil, and nine young men and women from China came with us that morning. As I sat down, I looked at the bulletin and realized I’d made a major mistake. It was a Veteran’s Day service that celebrated men and women who had served in the Armed Forces. And the format was to honor these veterans by anouncing “John Smith, who fought against the Japanese in World War II” “Bill Jones who fought against the Communists in Vietnam.” Etc. Instead of a celebration of the peace that comes with Christ, we had walked into a celebration of the American Armed Forces! That day, our worship was offensive to the very people I was trying to lead to Christ, for we had combined our worship of Christ with our worship of the American soldier.
Folks, I’m glad I live in America. I’ve traveled to nine other countries and found that, while they are interesting to visit, this is the best place to live because our system, flawed as it is, is still better than all the other systems. But we must remember that Christianity is not the American religion – Christianity is a worldwide religion which happens to include many Americans. Nowhere in the Bible is America even mentioned. We are to worship Christ – not our patriotic symbols, not even our country.
Why? For when we become too focused upon our country, we tend to look at people from other countries as the enemy. In contrast, Christ was welcoming to Romans, Greeks, and Samaritans – the outsiders of the day.
And furthermore – and this is a subtle point to tie this even tighter to the Zealot example, those men and women who equated the nation of Israel with the worship of God – we are not asked to promote Christianity, but we are asked to guide people into a relationship with Christ. We are not asked to have a patriotic defense even of Christianity – we are to promote the loving relationship with Christ instead to all people. It is not the system, but the Person that we worship.
So what about the Essennes? Can we become righteous by going off alone in peace and quiet and worshiping God? What’s wrong with piety, focusing upon our own relationship to God?
There has always been a strain of religious person who goes off to the monastery, the retreat, the Walden pond, and tries to get closer to God away from everyone else. The world can be a place which overloads us, and it is often good to take a hike in the woods, to sit in a deer stand for a day, to find a cabin and stay there for a week or so.
But the mission of God is for all people to use their gifts to spread the Gospel to all people in the world. After a few weeks or months in the monastery, we must all go into the world. Christ Himself commanded this in Mathew 28. Like a Father who has many children, although our Father wants a good one-on-one relationship with us, Father also wants a healthy family with healthy relationships between each member, guided by Father’s relationship with each of us. We are all to work together to bring us – all of us – into a harmonious relationship with Father and each of us.
And then, perhaps the Romans, those soldiers who just wanted order in their society. Are they righteous? Can we become righteous by simply trying for order in our society? After all, order and peace and security are all good things, aren’t they? Yes, but the exact opposite of perfect order is unlimited freedom for the individual, the opposite of perfect peace is change, the opposite of security is the excitement of changing things for the better.
For fifteen centuries, the most stable government in the world was the Chinese empire. Arguably, it provided the most order and peace and security for their people of any government. The Confucian system was so focused upon stability that it stamped out any form of disruption, any form of freedom, any form of technological change. In 1200 AD, the Chinese culture was the most technologically advanced culture in the world. By 1600 AD, it had fallen behind and was being overrun by the tiny countries of England, Portugal, and The Netherlands. They had focused so much on order and peace and security that new inventions were ignored or even suppressed. For some people become insecure when a new company is founded, established orderly markets are disrupted when someone invents a new invention, peace is broken when the people rebel against a corrupt ruler, and order is sacrificed if you allow people to truly decide who should be their leaders. Progress is the opposite of stability.
Consider the iPhone – it has completely disrupted the music industry – only 17% of music industry sales last year were in physical media such as CD’s or vinyl records. Over 60% of sales were to streaming services such as Spotify, Youtube, or Pandora. If you made CD’s – you’ve got to be upset with Apple. There is always a tradeoff between stability and progress.
The Romans were the greatest opponents of Christ – executing Him in the name of stability – and then two hundred years later, a Roman emperor made Christianity the preferred religion of the Roman Empire. The great force for stability became the great force for change. Were the Romans Good Guys or Bad Guys?
In all things, there are tradeoffs – good things and bad things.
And so the mature Christian realizes that there is a place for the Law – to lead us to understand our own shortcomings. There is a place for intense worship – but it is to worship God, not to satisfy our own comforts. There is a place for patriotism – as long as we do not make it an object of worship. There is a place for going to the quiet places to study God – if we also realize that after some time in study and contemplation we are to go back into the world with the Gospel message. And there are both places for stability and change. Knowing which is needed is wisdom.
And in this we may begin to see that all of these Good things have some Evil if taken too far, if distorted, if focused upon too much.
And even those individuals who most would agree are evil believe in their own minds that they are doing good.
So what do we learn from this?
How much disagreement or moral issues move a person from “Good Guy” to “Bad Guy”? How much can you tolerate from your friend before you unfriend him or her? What makes a person a “Good Guy” or a “Bad Guy”?
And the Bible has a term for the “Good Guys”. It is "the Righteous". Throughout the Bible, throughout all the authors who are influenced by the Holy Spirit, one word keeps recurring as the ultimate in praise. It is the word, “righteous”.
In our Psalm 118 today, we find these two verses:
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
Abram/Abraham was declared righteous by God. What makes a person righteous? How can we become righteous?
Perhaps it is by not committing any sin. If so, then wouldn’t Jesus have commended the Pharisees for their pursuit of the sin-free life?
No, Jesus repeatedly verbally tore up the Pharisees. So what’s wrong with trying to become sin-free?
The first problem is that a certain pride develops in those who are able to overcome sin on their own. Think of the woman who has quit smoking. She did it – why can’t everyone else? Everyone knows that smoking is bad – I guess the woman who has stopped smoking is just better than the man who keeps smoking – at least in her mind.
And this pride from overcoming sin leads us to focus upon what we have done right, the sins we have avoided or stopped – bit we ignore those dozens of other bad things we do. For example, our AA group rightly celebrates their victories over alcohol or opioid addiction – but many members will point out that many have exchanged their drinking for smoking- and others will point out that they just feel irritable and angry when they are sober.
We win against a single sin and we declare victory. That’s about like an army who defeats a single enemy tank and declares victory. There are so many tanks to go! There’s always another sin to work on!
The second major problem with trying to become totally sin-free is that we fall into the trap of trying to get around the law. If we decide not to work on the Sabbath – we have to decide what is the Sabbath – Saturday or Sunday? What is work? Is eating out permitted? Is shopping permitted? Is going to the movies permitted? – notice that each of these last three questions imply that we really want to allow ourselves to go out shopping and eating out and going to the movies. And do we really have to give up BBQ and shrimp?
Surely this maze of law interpretations leads us in circles – and we turn inward, away from God!
The third with focusing on a Pharisaic focus on sin is if we finally win the battle, if we succeed in truly becoming sin-less – we don’t need God, do we? We’ll carry our cross by ourselves. And so, as we become more and more confident that we are can handle our sins ourselves – we ignore God more and more.
So the Sadducees – did they have the way to become righteous? – what’s wrong with focusing upon group worship, upon the Temple? The problem is the Temple becomes worshiped, not the God that the Temple is devoted to. How many of us would be upset or disturbed if we moved our worship service to a different building – or even to the pavilion shelter out back? Oh, it would be fine for a change – but how many of us would vote to tear down this building and build a new one? Why does it bother us? Because we are beginning to worship the building, the room, even the property.
And we worship our style of worship, too, don’t we? I know that many of you like a change every now and again in our music. But I also know that if we went 100% K-LOVE or 100% classical in our music, about half of you would leave. Why? Because we don’t like change. Yet most people who have never attended church before are confused and, frankly, bored by the hymns we use. Have we chosen to worship our worship style in preference to leading people to Christ?
And the Zealots – how can patriotism be bad? Aren’t patriots righteous? Let me ask you a question: can you see the cross for the flag that is in front of it?
I’ll tell you a story. One November, Saundra and I managed to talk a group of a dozen International students from Marietta College into attending church with us. A young lady from Japan, a young man from Vietnam, a man from Brazil, and nine young men and women from China came with us that morning. As I sat down, I looked at the bulletin and realized I’d made a major mistake. It was a Veteran’s Day service that celebrated men and women who had served in the Armed Forces. And the format was to honor these veterans by anouncing “John Smith, who fought against the Japanese in World War II” “Bill Jones who fought against the Communists in Vietnam.” Etc. Instead of a celebration of the peace that comes with Christ, we had walked into a celebration of the American Armed Forces! That day, our worship was offensive to the very people I was trying to lead to Christ, for we had combined our worship of Christ with our worship of the American soldier.
Folks, I’m glad I live in America. I’ve traveled to nine other countries and found that, while they are interesting to visit, this is the best place to live because our system, flawed as it is, is still better than all the other systems. But we must remember that Christianity is not the American religion – Christianity is a worldwide religion which happens to include many Americans. Nowhere in the Bible is America even mentioned. We are to worship Christ – not our patriotic symbols, not even our country.
Why? For when we become too focused upon our country, we tend to look at people from other countries as the enemy. In contrast, Christ was welcoming to Romans, Greeks, and Samaritans – the outsiders of the day.
And furthermore – and this is a subtle point to tie this even tighter to the Zealot example, those men and women who equated the nation of Israel with the worship of God – we are not asked to promote Christianity, but we are asked to guide people into a relationship with Christ. We are not asked to have a patriotic defense even of Christianity – we are to promote the loving relationship with Christ instead to all people. It is not the system, but the Person that we worship.
So what about the Essennes? Can we become righteous by going off alone in peace and quiet and worshiping God? What’s wrong with piety, focusing upon our own relationship to God?
There has always been a strain of religious person who goes off to the monastery, the retreat, the Walden pond, and tries to get closer to God away from everyone else. The world can be a place which overloads us, and it is often good to take a hike in the woods, to sit in a deer stand for a day, to find a cabin and stay there for a week or so.
But the mission of God is for all people to use their gifts to spread the Gospel to all people in the world. After a few weeks or months in the monastery, we must all go into the world. Christ Himself commanded this in Mathew 28. Like a Father who has many children, although our Father wants a good one-on-one relationship with us, Father also wants a healthy family with healthy relationships between each member, guided by Father’s relationship with each of us. We are all to work together to bring us – all of us – into a harmonious relationship with Father and each of us.
And then, perhaps the Romans, those soldiers who just wanted order in their society. Are they righteous? Can we become righteous by simply trying for order in our society? After all, order and peace and security are all good things, aren’t they? Yes, but the exact opposite of perfect order is unlimited freedom for the individual, the opposite of perfect peace is change, the opposite of security is the excitement of changing things for the better.
For fifteen centuries, the most stable government in the world was the Chinese empire. Arguably, it provided the most order and peace and security for their people of any government. The Confucian system was so focused upon stability that it stamped out any form of disruption, any form of freedom, any form of technological change. In 1200 AD, the Chinese culture was the most technologically advanced culture in the world. By 1600 AD, it had fallen behind and was being overrun by the tiny countries of England, Portugal, and The Netherlands. They had focused so much on order and peace and security that new inventions were ignored or even suppressed. For some people become insecure when a new company is founded, established orderly markets are disrupted when someone invents a new invention, peace is broken when the people rebel against a corrupt ruler, and order is sacrificed if you allow people to truly decide who should be their leaders. Progress is the opposite of stability.
Consider the iPhone – it has completely disrupted the music industry – only 17% of music industry sales last year were in physical media such as CD’s or vinyl records. Over 60% of sales were to streaming services such as Spotify, Youtube, or Pandora. If you made CD’s – you’ve got to be upset with Apple. There is always a tradeoff between stability and progress.
The Romans were the greatest opponents of Christ – executing Him in the name of stability – and then two hundred years later, a Roman emperor made Christianity the preferred religion of the Roman Empire. The great force for stability became the great force for change. Were the Romans Good Guys or Bad Guys?
In all things, there are tradeoffs – good things and bad things.
And so the mature Christian realizes that there is a place for the Law – to lead us to understand our own shortcomings. There is a place for intense worship – but it is to worship God, not to satisfy our own comforts. There is a place for patriotism – as long as we do not make it an object of worship. There is a place for going to the quiet places to study God – if we also realize that after some time in study and contemplation we are to go back into the world with the Gospel message. And there are both places for stability and change. Knowing which is needed is wisdom.
And in this we may begin to see that all of these Good things have some Evil if taken too far, if distorted, if focused upon too much.
And even those individuals who most would agree are evil believe in their own minds that they are doing good.
So what do we learn from this?
That day, Jesus was the Good Guy. Thousands cheered for him. But just a few days later, on Good Friday, Jesus was the Bad Guy. Thousands chanted for His execution.
The Psalm says:
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
We must become righteous. But how do we become righteous?
“Abram believe in the promises of God and was credited as righteous.”
If you wish to be righteous, it can only be had through a deep and full family relationship with God, learning to believe in God' promises completely.. Look at what the Psalmist says, just after the verses on the righteous:
I will give You thanks, for You answered me;
You have become my salvation.
We enter the gates of the righteous when we lean upon God for our salvation, not on the Law, not on our worship, not on our patriotism, not on our piety. Never forget that God is a Person – not a set of laws, or a form or place of worship, or a system, or even a one-on-one study.
The next verse is:
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
This verse is widely recognized as referring to Jesus the Christ. The builders, the rulers of Israel, made a decision – they had the Romans execute Christ. And Christ became the cornerstone of the worship of God. The rulers of Israel – Jews and Romans – wanted stability and order. But God wanted change. And so change happened.
This is the day we celebrate the great triumphal entry into Jerusalem of Jesus, His disciples, and His other followers. The people walking with Jesus quoted this very Psalm that day:
The Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The Psalm says:
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
We must become righteous. But how do we become righteous?
“Abram believe in the promises of God and was credited as righteous.”
If you wish to be righteous, it can only be had through a deep and full family relationship with God, learning to believe in God' promises completely.. Look at what the Psalmist says, just after the verses on the righteous:
I will give You thanks, for You answered me;
You have become my salvation.
We enter the gates of the righteous when we lean upon God for our salvation, not on the Law, not on our worship, not on our patriotism, not on our piety. Never forget that God is a Person – not a set of laws, or a form or place of worship, or a system, or even a one-on-one study.
The next verse is:
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
This verse is widely recognized as referring to Jesus the Christ. The builders, the rulers of Israel, made a decision – they had the Romans execute Christ. And Christ became the cornerstone of the worship of God. The rulers of Israel – Jews and Romans – wanted stability and order. But God wanted change. And so change happened.
This is the day we celebrate the great triumphal entry into Jerusalem of Jesus, His disciples, and His other followers. The people walking with Jesus quoted this very Psalm that day:
The Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The Lord has done it this very day;
let us rejoice today and be glad.
Lord, Hosanna!
Lord, grant us success!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you.
The Lord is God,
and He has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise You;
You are my God, and I will exalt You.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His love endures forever.
That day, Jesus was the Good Guy. Thousands cheered for him.
But just a few days later, on Good Friday, Jesus was the Bad Guy. Thousands chanted for His execution.
We humans are a fickle lot. One day we love someone and cheer for them as our Messiah, our Savior, come to deliver us from the Bad Guys.
The next day, that very same person is the personification of evil, the ultimate Bad Guy.
At the beginning of this sermon, I said that there are two concepts at war with each other. And then, I pointed out we separate into the two camps – the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Good and Evil.
But the two concepts at war are not Good and Evil. At war are the concepts of self-sufficiency – and dependence upon God.
For Evil naturally follows when we try to save ourselves, for we don’t have the power to save ourselves. And when we do try to save ourselves, we naturally reach out and grasp for the power of others – their money, their property, their fighting strength, their allies – and we make up a team to defend ourselves or take things from the others. Even as we die, we take resources from others to keep us alive just a little bit longer, for we realize that we can’t come back from death ourselves.
But when we depend upon God... God lends us God’s strength and wisdom, we feel the peace at knowing that God is there to help us through everything – loss of a job, loss of health, loss of a loved one, even our own loss of life.
Our own tendency to work to save ourselves works against our need to depend upon God – and working to save ourselves is what leads us to become Pharisees toward the Law, Sadducees toward worship, Zealots in patriotism, Essenes in piety, and Roman soldiers in our desire for order. If only we could be good enough to be righteous ourselves! But then we would not need God.
Join us this week. Thursday at 6 pm, Friday at 6 pm, Saturday at 7 pm, and, of course, Easter morning at 6 am and 9:45 am.
But for now, join me in prayer if you have fallen into one of the five traps of self-sufficienct – working toward perfect behavior, toward perfect worship, toward perfect Christian patriotism, toward perfect piety, worshiping stability. Instead, become dependent upon God, believe in the promises of God and Christ, doing as the Father asks through the whispering of the Holy Spirit, and fall into the arms of the Christ, letting God and Christ and Holy Spirit handle your life.
let us rejoice today and be glad.
Lord, Hosanna!
Lord, grant us success!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you.
The Lord is God,
and He has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise You;
You are my God, and I will exalt You.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His love endures forever.
That day, Jesus was the Good Guy. Thousands cheered for him.
But just a few days later, on Good Friday, Jesus was the Bad Guy. Thousands chanted for His execution.
We humans are a fickle lot. One day we love someone and cheer for them as our Messiah, our Savior, come to deliver us from the Bad Guys.
The next day, that very same person is the personification of evil, the ultimate Bad Guy.
At the beginning of this sermon, I said that there are two concepts at war with each other. And then, I pointed out we separate into the two camps – the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Good and Evil.
But the two concepts at war are not Good and Evil. At war are the concepts of self-sufficiency – and dependence upon God.
For Evil naturally follows when we try to save ourselves, for we don’t have the power to save ourselves. And when we do try to save ourselves, we naturally reach out and grasp for the power of others – their money, their property, their fighting strength, their allies – and we make up a team to defend ourselves or take things from the others. Even as we die, we take resources from others to keep us alive just a little bit longer, for we realize that we can’t come back from death ourselves.
But when we depend upon God... God lends us God’s strength and wisdom, we feel the peace at knowing that God is there to help us through everything – loss of a job, loss of health, loss of a loved one, even our own loss of life.
Our own tendency to work to save ourselves works against our need to depend upon God – and working to save ourselves is what leads us to become Pharisees toward the Law, Sadducees toward worship, Zealots in patriotism, Essenes in piety, and Roman soldiers in our desire for order. If only we could be good enough to be righteous ourselves! But then we would not need God.
- God, the One who created us.
- God, the One who loves us.
- God, the One who is there for us.
Join us this week. Thursday at 6 pm, Friday at 6 pm, Saturday at 7 pm, and, of course, Easter morning at 6 am and 9:45 am.
But for now, join me in prayer if you have fallen into one of the five traps of self-sufficienct – working toward perfect behavior, toward perfect worship, toward perfect Christian patriotism, toward perfect piety, worshiping stability. Instead, become dependent upon God, believe in the promises of God and Christ, doing as the Father asks through the whispering of the Holy Spirit, and fall into the arms of the Christ, letting God and Christ and Holy Spirit handle your life.
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