When we lived in Lowell, Ohio, just outside of Marietta on the Muskingum River, I planted 50 seedless grape vines. A neighbor plowed a strip of land along the front of my property, and then we put two rows of grapevines down. We planted the vines about 8 feet apart, and strung four wires between posts, drawing the wires tight. As the grapevines grew, they were trained on the wires. During the second winter, I pruned the vines back so they came up out of the ground on a solid stalk and then had a double T shape on the top and the second wires.
I found out that there are certain important things to being successful with grapevines. First is the pruning. All the dead branches are cut off. But even the fruiting branches are pruned. Grapevines need to be heavily pruned every winter, leaving only the stalk and the main horizontal T for best results. All the rest is cut and rolled up to make grapevine wreaths from. This is because the fruit only grows on last year’s wood, not this year’s wood. So it is important to get rid of the extra vines that take up energy and leave only the heavy, main vine. You literally cut out 90% of the vine every year. If your grapevine isn’t producing, it’s probably because you didn’t prune it back enough last winter.
The second thing is to spray the vine twice. Once during the late winter with vegetable oil, because this suffocates the eggs that insects laid during the fall. The second spray is an anti-fungal spray in early May when the tiny flowers are beginning to come out so fungus spores will not take hold and later destroy the fruit.
Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8
Finally, it is important to walk the vines during the summer, removing dying leaves, bad grapes, and even removing extra leaves near the grape clusters to give plenty of ventilation to keep the grapes dry so mold and rot won’t grow on them.
There are also two things you don’t need to do with grapes.
First, you don’t need to fertilize grapes – they have very deep roots and will find all the nutrients they need as those roots go 7 or 10 feet into the ground. As many of you know, it is nearly impossible to kill an established grapevine, short of just the right type of Roundup herbicide or removing the old vine with a backhoe!
But that also means that after the first summer, you won’t need to water grapevines because of those deep roots. And you probably won’t need to water them much even that first summer. Those deep roots keep them going!
We harvested nearly 400 pounds of grapes that first harvest. We ate them at the table and made grape juice by pressing them. Gallons of grape juice.
Our grapes were not wine grapes. Oh, you can make wine from any grape juice – just add some yeast and wait a few months – but the French grapes that most wine is made from have a couple of problems growing around here.
First, we get too cold in the winter. French grapes simply can’t take temperatures below zero, and we get there every couple of years. And so they die.
Second, there is a little bug native to America that burrows into grapevine roots and with those little holes comes a fungus that almost wiped out the European wine industry a couple of hundred years ago. Today, all of the French wine grapes – even in France - are grafted onto North American grape roots, which are resistant to this fungus.
Grafting is an interesting process. You take one plant that has the roots you like and you put a cutting from a plant that has the grapes you like on top. You cut them, slicing them a particular way, and then wrap them up snuggly to give them time to grow together. And the next year, the grapes you wanted grow on top of the roots you wanted. This is absolutely necessary to grow good wine grapes today.
In ancient times, grafting was used for other reasons. Perhaps most importantly was the fact that grapevines live for hundreds and even thousands of years. There are grapevines at Mount Vernon that were planted by George Washington. If you want to change grape varieties, simply graft new vines to the old vine rootstock that's already established. And these old grapevines can be remarkably fruitful when you graft the right vine onto them, because they already have an established root system that gathers plenty of water and nutrients. Remember – in the Middle East, the top few feet of soil can be very dry, so it can be difficult to plant a new grapevine and get it started until it gets deep enough to find water on its own.
Jesus talked about the grapevine.
After the Last Supper, as He and His disciples left the Upper Room, they walked past a grapevine on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was then that He called their attention to the vine and said:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Jesus calls Himself the “true vine”. He says that God the Father is the gardener. Any part of the body of Christ – the church – that does not bear fruit is cut off. And we have seen this around us – churches that stopped baptizing people twenty years ago are closing all around us. If we don’t bring people to know the Lord, if we don’t bear fruit, we will be cut off by God.
We are being somewhat fruitful here. We have good years and bad years. We have programs, processes, and people who work to bring people to the Lord. Some things we do are very fruitful, like Pioneer Club and REFIT. Other things we do are not very fruitful. It is interesting – people want to be involved with and support fruitful ministries. People don’t want to support ministries that are not fruitful. We have ministries that have slowly declined over the years because they were not fruitful. And when they have died, nobody really noticed. God had pruned them, allowing the energy to flow to those ministries that were fruitful. That’s why our policy toward new ministries has been “Sure, let’s do it! What do you need from us?” For we realize that if God is behind a ministry idea, we’d better do it or God will just start up that ministry at another nearby church. And if God isn’t behind it, it won’t go anywhere, like several ministries we’ve tried in the last few years.
Sometimes a ministry just needs the right people involved – the ministry idea was good, but the team just wasn’t there yet, or there needed to have more Christ in the idea. It’s like getting the right vine grafted onto the right rootstock – and God will not support ministry without the True Vine, Jesus Christ, under the ministry.
Christ told the disciples to remain in Him, as He remained in them. He pointed out that you can’t just take a branch hanging on trellis and expect it to bear fruit by itself – It must be connected to the main vine, to the roots.
This is why many social ministries fail. A food pantry without Christ is just a cheap grocery store, unprofitable, unfruitful, a drain of money. But a food pantry connected to Christ, where Jesus is glorified, where prayers are sent up for people every day, where the love of Christ is demonstrated - that food pantry changes lives. A ministry must bear fruit for the Kingdom or it will be pruned and cut off – or it will just die.
Jesus continued, talking to His followers:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Jesus is telling us that we must remain connected to Christ, and if we will, we will bear much fruit.
How do we stay in Christ and how does Christ stay in us?
Think back to the structure of the vine. In the vine, there is the woody outside that gives strength to the connection, the tubes that are connected inside for water and nutrients to flow within – and there is the flowing water and energy and nutrients themselves.
When we first recognize Christ is the Son of God, worthy to be followed, and we believe and step forward to receive the gift of eternal life from Him, a connection is made. Our heart becomes connected with Jesus’ heart and that missing hole in our heart begins to fill. The graft is made. Yet, more is needed for that life to flow.
As we step forward to receive the baptism of water and the Holy Spirit, a fluid begins to flow through the graft. It is the life-giving fluid that is the Holy Spirit, the Living Water of Christ. Where before we were slowly dying, wilting, dry in our spirit, with baptism the graft that was barely connected with our belief now flows full of that Living Water that will sustain us even though our body physically dies, as the true vine sustains the grafted in parts of the vine even though the leaves may die for a time, for they will spring back anew with the life-giving power of the vine.
As we learn to read the Word of God and listen to the Holy Spirit, we allow that life-giving Living Water to flow throughout our body that is the grafted in vine, and buds form, buds form that turn into flowers and then fruit. Just like the grapevine, Christ does not need to be watered or fertilized Himself, for His roots are deep, beyond even the soil of Creation. Eventually, with support and the light that flows from God the Father, our fruit is ready to be harvested and the cycle is repeated again and again.
But if we stop reading the Word, if we cut off the Holy Spirit from our mind, then we are cutting off the true vine from our graft and we will surely die, falling victim to the rot and decay of the world, eventually pruned and tossed into the fire.
But what is the fruit Jesus is talking about?
The fruit is the rescue of souls from the certain walk into Hell, the falling down into the fire that many people have chosen. But let me be clear – I don’t believe that God throws people into Hell. Instead, God simply gives people what they have asked for all their lives – a chance to be left alone by God, a chance to do their will, not God’s will, a chance to be independent and avoid bowing their head to God. For you see, it is Heaven and the New Jerusalem that is the special place while Hell is the default choice. If we make no choice, we get to avoid God, going to a place where other creatures have gone who wanted to avoid God have gone – creatures like Satan, yes, but other creatures like Adolph Hitler, Mussolini, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussain, Nero, and others like them, the ordinary people who simply refused to submit to God – God, Our ever polite Creator lets people get what they said they wanted – a world where they make the rules, a land where they can compete with others who wanted the same thing, a playroom with the others who felt they were smarter, stronger, self-reliant enough to demand special treatment.
God does not send people to Hell – God allows people to avoid God. If you do not want to be part of God’s Kingdom, ruled by Christ, then you can argue with all those other souls about who is in charge. Who knows? You might be able to establish your own kingdom and defeat all the other rogues of history. You might be craftier and more ruthless that Hitler, than Nero, that Ghengis Khan, than Saddam Hussain, than Al Capone and all the others that rejected God. You just might be the strongest, the smartest, the most ruthless.
But our job is to bear fruit, helping people avoid that fate and instead live in a New Jerusalem where a just and merciful ruler rules, where the Tree of Life bears a different fruit every month of the year, where God’s presence is seen, where Jesus walks among us and his other followers.
Jesus said:
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
Remember when you were first grafted into Christ. Remember when you first believed. Some of you don’t remember, it happened when you were so young, you are so blessed. But others can remember exactly what happened – for some it was a sudden realization that the connection was made and for others, it was a slow realization as the connection was gently made and then you looked up one day and realized that you had indeed believed for days, weeks, months, years, even decades.
The Living Water began to flow through you and you became aware that God was paying attention to you, to you in your life as little signs added up, as certain decisions were made, small and large, and you found yourself walking in certain ways, meeting certain people, seeing certain things, experiencing other things, not experiencing other activities, but always there was a hand on your shoulder, guiding you, and perhaps that hand became a voice as you listened and watched ever more carefully for that gentle, soft whisper of the Holy Spirit flowing through your life.
And then, you began to realize that this life was not about you, but it was about what the true vine was leading you to, the people you were encountering, the ones that broke your heart, the hurt that you saw in the world and the Spirit flowing through you was telling you, “Look. Look at these people, these children, these older people and think about what you can do.”
At first you turned away, but then you began to give. You gave some money, you gave some time, you thought about what you might be able to do, you turned away again because it really was a struggle between you, your family, and the hurting ones, but you began to do more. Someone asked you for a donation, someone else asked you for some time. And the Spirit said, “I can help, but I need you to speak and do. I need you to speak and do.”
And some of you began to speak, others began to do, and still others began to both speak and do.
And the more you gave, the more you did, the more you speak, the more you have felt the Living Water flowing through you from the true vine. And flowers have begun to blossom, perhaps even fruit has begun to appear.
Jesus said:
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
And as the graft has taken, as you have grown stronger in the connection with the true vine, you have begun to realize that this is true – now that you know what to ask for, the right things to ask for, the proper goals in this world, whatever you ask for will be done for you. And your vine begins to bend toward the sun, and the fruit begins to show and your life becomes meaningful and fulfilling and joyous and wonderful!
The True Vine spoke and said:
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
In a fully developed grapevine, the graft is as strong or stronger than the original parts of the vine, just as a good weld is as strong or stronger than the original material.
With Christ, our goal is to become so in tune with God’s will for us as transmitted to us through the Word of God which is both the Bible and the Son, and given to us by the gentle coursing of the Holy Spirit through our minds. We are to be so in tune that there is no conflict between what God asks of us and what we desire to do. In that way, we are like the fully developed grafted grapevine – it is hard to tell where the true vine ends and the graft begins. How hard is it to tell where Christ ends and you begin?
Before Christ, we were dead. We just didn’t know it at the time. Now that we have been grafted into Christ, into Christ’s body, we are alive again. But there is this deep question: Will we accept the Living Water flowing into us, giving us life? Or will we fight against God’s will, against the graft, complaining about what Christ asks us to do, arguing against Beauty because it is difficult, fighting against speaking because it is uncomfortable, debating about paths because our pride would rather win than accept the wisdom of Christ, asking for special treatment because we think we are deserving of it from the God who has led more than a billion souls into eternal life?
If you have not accepted the leadership of Christ in your life, accept Him today in prayer.
If you have not let the Living Water flow through your life and received the Holy Spirit in water baptism, talk to me or your local pastor about being baptized on Mother’s Day, as four other people are planning.
If you continue to argue and drag your heels and fight against the will of Christ for your life, look up in prayer and say, “So be it, Jesus, I will surrender to you and do your will. I will stop fighting You today.”
And if you have done these things, bow in prayer and ask that Jesus, the True Vine, might successfully graft another person or a dozen dying souls onto Him, that they might live eternally in Christ, as you are living in Him.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
The Holiness of the Resurrection
Earlier this week, I was watching a Midsomer Murders mystery on Netflix. As the climax of the movie arrived, we found that a boy we’d thought dead had not died at all, but came back to life “just like Jesus!” - as the now-grown boy explained. And so, I thought, it might be that because of the emotional power of the Resurrection, so many writers have decided to include a resurrection scene in so many movies and so many books that the Resurrection has lost its holiness.
After all, today almost every superhero movie has the hero or heroine coming back from a state of certain death. Ironman died and came back to life. Superman has come back to life again. Phil Coulson’s miraculous resurrection is the basis of the first couple of seasons of Agents of Shield. Poor Wolverine has been resurrected several times.
In a more evil turn, zombies regularly walk after their death in The Walking Dead. More classic movies such as The Lord of the Rings, Part III have the hobbits essentially killed and spirited off to the heaven of the elves by the eagles, where elven medical care brings them back to life. In the world of cartoons, of course, Daffy Duck must hold the record for resurrections – unless it is Wile E Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons.
Even so-called ordinary tv shows have resurrections – Who can forget Bobby Ewing died on Dallas and came back alive the next season as the writers decided the season was all Pam’s dream? In the new Roseanne, her husband, who died in the last season, is back from the dead. And the ability of soap opera characters to come back from the dead multiple time is legendary.
Acts 3:12-19, Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36-48
And as a plot device - how many medical shows have a touching moment when the beloved patient dies on the table – but the skilled doctors bring him or her back? How many times is a good cop or detective shot and killed in a season-ending climatic scene – only to reappear, healed when the show comes back in September? Or, the sidekick we thought was dead shoots dead the villain, who is about to kill the hero, and we see the sidekick bandaged in the final scene?
The most ingenious resurrection twist I ever saw in a television series was a short-lived series from the 1970’s called Nichols, about a town and a man named, appropriately Nichols – played by James Garner. At the end of the first season, with the writers planning a retooling of the low rated show, Frank Nichols is killed off at the beginning of the season-ending episode. His twin brother, Jim Nichols soon arrives to revenge his brother. Jim is also played by James Garner, now wearing a mustache. We kept waiting for Jim to strip off his mustache and reveal himself to be Frank in disguise. But he never did – the hero of the series had truly been killed. But the plan was for the new Nichols to have a different personality for the second season so they could gain better ratings. But the new resurrected Nichols wasn’t enough to resurrect the dead series. It died…and stayed dead.
Yet in our real world, there are people who are truly dying every day. They die – and they don’t come back to life. And the world seems to focus upon this horrible idea of death – nothing is worse than death, we think. Death is the end, we think. We argue about how to "reduce" deaths – and for a minute, we forget that death is something we humans can’t stop – only postpone.
But there is One who truly reduced the number of deaths – because He defeated death upon the cross and was truly Resurrected. There is an important message here – we have been given the gift of defeating death for ourselves – if only we will accept that gift. And we can help others receive that gift - and truly reduce the number of deaths, for those who follow Christ will live forever.
So let’s look at the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and some related ideas:
First of all, let’s distinguish between the Resurrection – and a resuscitation. A resuscitation is when someone’s heart stops and the doctors are able to get it running again with a combination of CPR, those ever-present electric defibrillator paddles, and possibly some appropriate drugs.
Fifty years ago, when these techniques were coming about, there was great debate over whether a person died when their heart stopped beating. Now, brain activity is considered the standard. Death occurs when the brain activity stops.
Our doctors have found that after three or four minutes without good pumping action, the brain begins to die, suffering damage, and is almost surely dead after 8 or 10 minutes. Other parts of the body begin to die even if blood flow is restored after about 15 to 20 minutes, and their death will release poisons into the blood that will cause the dominos to fall over the next few days even with intensive treatment.
What the television shows don’t tell us is that most patients whose heart has stopped for five or six minutes will die within a few days, even if resuscitated to regain consciousness for a few hours. And those few people who are successfully resuscitated, have weeks of hospital and nursing home recovery time ahead of them. In this, the TV shows that have our formerly physically fit heroes mostly recovering from their wounds over the three-month summer break – and still being physically weak when the new season begins - are accurate.
Jesus was dead on the cross for an extended time – at least a half hour and possible a few hours. He had lost significant blood from the beatings he endured, the nail wounds, and after his death from the spear thrust into his lungs and heart. He was not resuscitated. Something else happened.
In addition, we should always remember that the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection record a vigorous man who walked miles on that Easter Sunday, a man who had not just survived, but was better than new!
Jesus was not resuscitated. Something more powerful happened.
In the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we see that both Jesus and the Apostles bring others back from the dead. In the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha bring people back from the dead. These are rightly portrayed as miracles, for these men did far more than simply give medical care to people. Yet skeptics try to pretend that Jesus, the prophets, and the Apostles simply have some EMT training that the general populace doesn’t have.
Take Lazarus, for instance. First, Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick. Jesus waits for several days. Then, word comes to Jesus that Lazarus has died. It is only then that Jesus decides to take the hundred mile walk to Bethany.
When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. People are still mourning him – not just his two sisters, but crowds of people. They are so sure of his death, that when Jesus asks for the tomb to be opened, Martha feels the need to remind Jesus that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days and he will be stinking like a dead dear beside the road.
But Jesus does not enter the tomb. He stands in front of the tomb and prays. He then yells for Lazarus to “Come forth!” and Lazarus comes out of the tomb.
Where was the special EMT medicine? Where are the electric paddles. Where is the oxygen?
Nowhere to be seen.
A week later, Lazarus and Jesus are the guests of honor at a banquet.
There is something special about this, just as the other times people were raised from the dead by Jesus, the prophets, or the Apostles.
But there is still something even more special about Jesus’ own Resurrection, something that sets it far above Lazarus, for tradition has it that Lazarus lived a normal life and died as bishop on the island of Cyprus. Lazarus died twice. For Lazarus, this "raising" by Jesus was not the final resurrection. One day Lazarus will be given his final Resurrection. In the meantime, these raisings from the dead are somewhere between a resuscitation – and the final Resurrection.
For there is the Resurrection of Jesus. It is far, far different from these “raisings”.
Jesus was beaten badly. His skin was ripped off his back by the cat-o’nine tails, a multiple part whip with glass and nails and sharp rocks embedded that ripped human flesh like cat’s claws rip. He was beaten about the head and the crown of thorns punctured the skin on his head so it bled. His wrists and ankles were nailed to the cross with nails that were perhaps a foot long or more. And finally, after he was already dead, the spear was stuck into his side and out poured blood and water.
Yet on Resurrection morning, Mary thinks that Jesus is the strong gardener until he turns to her. And then she is joyful. Later that day, Jesus walks to Emmaus – a village about 5 or 6 miles from Jerusalem and looks fine – just different, somehow. That evening, Jesus appears to the ten disciples and eats some fish with them. The next week, he appears to all Eleven including Thomas and shows off his scars. It is clear that he is not a ghost, not a spirit, not just an image but is fully present – mind, body, and soul.
Jesus’ old body has been made new. His old body has been fully repaired, but the scars are still there. The healing process has apparently progressed at a rate a hundred times faster than normal. But he clearly has a body – he is not a spirit being, for he eats and talks and later he even cooks breakfast for a group of disciples. Broiled fish is what He eats. He cooks a breakfast of fish over a wood fire on the beach for his disciples. There is something special about fish.
In Revelation, Jesus is seen as a strong, fit powerful man with white hair, signifying his great wisdom. He is not described as we would describe an old man except for the hair.
And he is still alive, even though nearly 2000 years have passed.
There is something different, something special, something holy about the Resurrection of Jesus. And that is well, for we know that Jesus is holy. But what does it mean to be holy?
The Greek word that is used is hagios. The root meaning of this word is “separate” or “apart”. So holy essentially means to be separate or apart. The word is the root of "against".
God is holy. God is separate.
Items become holy when we place them separate from the regular world. We have holy plates up here to receive offerings. We have holy candles. We have a holy Bible. We have holy communion cups.
They have all been kept separate from the regular world and so they are holy.
The ancient Temple in Jerusalem had degrees of holiness. Outermost was the court of the Gentiles in which anyone could enter. Then, as we moved inward were areas where only Jews could walk, then only Jewish men, then only Levites, then only priests, and finally, the Holy of Holies, where only God and the high priest could be together – and a rope was tied around the high priest’s ankle in case God found that the priest was not holy enough, struck him dead and forced his friends to drag him out. It had happened before! Holiness – separation from the world – is a matter of degree.
As we look at people coming back from the dead, we find something special with those people whose hearts stopped and then were restarted. We find something more special with those who were dead for hours or days and we raised from the dead by Jesus or a prophet or an Apostle. But there was something very unworldly, something different, something holy about Jesus’ Resurrection.
“Be holy, because I am holy.”
God – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit – is holy. God is separate from the world. Jesus inherently came back from the dead because Jesus had remained separate from the world.
It is like walking upon a group of children playing a game of cops and robbers with toy guns. “Bang! You’re dead” says Bobby, one of the children, to his younger brother Johnny, who falls down and then tearfully runs to his mother, crying that “Bobby shot me dead!”
Billy, the oldest, wisest child watches the game. His younger brother Bobby also shoots him with his toy gun. “Bang! You’re dead” Bobby says to the older brother Billy. Brother Billy falls dead. But then, after a minute or two, he stands up and walks over to the adults watching the game.
“I thought you were dead,” his father says.
And Billy replies, “Dad, I know I can’t be harmed by his toy gun. I’m alive.”
And so it is with us. We must step outside the game like Billy does, or we will not realize that our death is only temporary.
Are you in the world’s game that Satan has put people into, beginning with Adam and Eve, fearing death? Or have you chosen to step outside the game, choosing to follow Jesus to the world of the spiritual adults where death is just a transition, not an ending?
Be holy. Separate yourself from the world and follow Jesus along the path of holiness.
But how do we follow Jesus?
The first step is to read the four Gospels. Read cover to cover the four books Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and discover what Jesus did, what Jesus said, what Jesus commanded us. Start with the Gospel of Mark, then read the other three. John will be very different from the others.
Notice as you read the following key things:
· Have you learned to love all people – and I mean every single person you encounter?
· Are you gentle to broken people, to the struggling, to those who need friends? Do you stand up to the cruel, the strong, the powerful, the arrogant – yet strive to help them also?
· Are you willing to do what God says to do, even if it means spending some time to speak to people about His son?
That last one is the most difficult. We want to serve God on our terms. We signed on to be the cook – we don’t want to greet guests. We signed on to be the trustee – we don’t want to read scripture. We signed on to be a greeter at the front door – we don’t want to deliver a sermon. We signed on to serve on our terms – we don’t want to do what God needs us to do.
It is like we’ve chosen to work a job at Disney World. We want to be Snow White or Mickey Mouse or sell tickets or sweep up trash. We want to maintain the rides, play trombone in the band or load people in the carts on the Mad Hatter ride. We want to sell shirts in an air-conditioned shop because we don't like the mid-Florida heat and humidity, or we want to be the drum major.
But imagine a day when evil attacks the park. What jobs will we do?
After all, today almost every superhero movie has the hero or heroine coming back from a state of certain death. Ironman died and came back to life. Superman has come back to life again. Phil Coulson’s miraculous resurrection is the basis of the first couple of seasons of Agents of Shield. Poor Wolverine has been resurrected several times.
In a more evil turn, zombies regularly walk after their death in The Walking Dead. More classic movies such as The Lord of the Rings, Part III have the hobbits essentially killed and spirited off to the heaven of the elves by the eagles, where elven medical care brings them back to life. In the world of cartoons, of course, Daffy Duck must hold the record for resurrections – unless it is Wile E Coyote from the Road Runner cartoons.
Even so-called ordinary tv shows have resurrections – Who can forget Bobby Ewing died on Dallas and came back alive the next season as the writers decided the season was all Pam’s dream? In the new Roseanne, her husband, who died in the last season, is back from the dead. And the ability of soap opera characters to come back from the dead multiple time is legendary.
Acts 3:12-19, Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36-48
And as a plot device - how many medical shows have a touching moment when the beloved patient dies on the table – but the skilled doctors bring him or her back? How many times is a good cop or detective shot and killed in a season-ending climatic scene – only to reappear, healed when the show comes back in September? Or, the sidekick we thought was dead shoots dead the villain, who is about to kill the hero, and we see the sidekick bandaged in the final scene?
The most ingenious resurrection twist I ever saw in a television series was a short-lived series from the 1970’s called Nichols, about a town and a man named, appropriately Nichols – played by James Garner. At the end of the first season, with the writers planning a retooling of the low rated show, Frank Nichols is killed off at the beginning of the season-ending episode. His twin brother, Jim Nichols soon arrives to revenge his brother. Jim is also played by James Garner, now wearing a mustache. We kept waiting for Jim to strip off his mustache and reveal himself to be Frank in disguise. But he never did – the hero of the series had truly been killed. But the plan was for the new Nichols to have a different personality for the second season so they could gain better ratings. But the new resurrected Nichols wasn’t enough to resurrect the dead series. It died…and stayed dead.
Yet in our real world, there are people who are truly dying every day. They die – and they don’t come back to life. And the world seems to focus upon this horrible idea of death – nothing is worse than death, we think. Death is the end, we think. We argue about how to "reduce" deaths – and for a minute, we forget that death is something we humans can’t stop – only postpone.
But there is One who truly reduced the number of deaths – because He defeated death upon the cross and was truly Resurrected. There is an important message here – we have been given the gift of defeating death for ourselves – if only we will accept that gift. And we can help others receive that gift - and truly reduce the number of deaths, for those who follow Christ will live forever.
So let’s look at the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and some related ideas:
First of all, let’s distinguish between the Resurrection – and a resuscitation. A resuscitation is when someone’s heart stops and the doctors are able to get it running again with a combination of CPR, those ever-present electric defibrillator paddles, and possibly some appropriate drugs.
Fifty years ago, when these techniques were coming about, there was great debate over whether a person died when their heart stopped beating. Now, brain activity is considered the standard. Death occurs when the brain activity stops.
Our doctors have found that after three or four minutes without good pumping action, the brain begins to die, suffering damage, and is almost surely dead after 8 or 10 minutes. Other parts of the body begin to die even if blood flow is restored after about 15 to 20 minutes, and their death will release poisons into the blood that will cause the dominos to fall over the next few days even with intensive treatment.
What the television shows don’t tell us is that most patients whose heart has stopped for five or six minutes will die within a few days, even if resuscitated to regain consciousness for a few hours. And those few people who are successfully resuscitated, have weeks of hospital and nursing home recovery time ahead of them. In this, the TV shows that have our formerly physically fit heroes mostly recovering from their wounds over the three-month summer break – and still being physically weak when the new season begins - are accurate.
Jesus was dead on the cross for an extended time – at least a half hour and possible a few hours. He had lost significant blood from the beatings he endured, the nail wounds, and after his death from the spear thrust into his lungs and heart. He was not resuscitated. Something else happened.
In addition, we should always remember that the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection record a vigorous man who walked miles on that Easter Sunday, a man who had not just survived, but was better than new!
Jesus was not resuscitated. Something more powerful happened.
In the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we see that both Jesus and the Apostles bring others back from the dead. In the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha bring people back from the dead. These are rightly portrayed as miracles, for these men did far more than simply give medical care to people. Yet skeptics try to pretend that Jesus, the prophets, and the Apostles simply have some EMT training that the general populace doesn’t have.
Take Lazarus, for instance. First, Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick. Jesus waits for several days. Then, word comes to Jesus that Lazarus has died. It is only then that Jesus decides to take the hundred mile walk to Bethany.
When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. People are still mourning him – not just his two sisters, but crowds of people. They are so sure of his death, that when Jesus asks for the tomb to be opened, Martha feels the need to remind Jesus that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days and he will be stinking like a dead dear beside the road.
But Jesus does not enter the tomb. He stands in front of the tomb and prays. He then yells for Lazarus to “Come forth!” and Lazarus comes out of the tomb.
Where was the special EMT medicine? Where are the electric paddles. Where is the oxygen?
Nowhere to be seen.
A week later, Lazarus and Jesus are the guests of honor at a banquet.
There is something special about this, just as the other times people were raised from the dead by Jesus, the prophets, or the Apostles.
But there is still something even more special about Jesus’ own Resurrection, something that sets it far above Lazarus, for tradition has it that Lazarus lived a normal life and died as bishop on the island of Cyprus. Lazarus died twice. For Lazarus, this "raising" by Jesus was not the final resurrection. One day Lazarus will be given his final Resurrection. In the meantime, these raisings from the dead are somewhere between a resuscitation – and the final Resurrection.
For there is the Resurrection of Jesus. It is far, far different from these “raisings”.
Jesus was beaten badly. His skin was ripped off his back by the cat-o’nine tails, a multiple part whip with glass and nails and sharp rocks embedded that ripped human flesh like cat’s claws rip. He was beaten about the head and the crown of thorns punctured the skin on his head so it bled. His wrists and ankles were nailed to the cross with nails that were perhaps a foot long or more. And finally, after he was already dead, the spear was stuck into his side and out poured blood and water.
Yet on Resurrection morning, Mary thinks that Jesus is the strong gardener until he turns to her. And then she is joyful. Later that day, Jesus walks to Emmaus – a village about 5 or 6 miles from Jerusalem and looks fine – just different, somehow. That evening, Jesus appears to the ten disciples and eats some fish with them. The next week, he appears to all Eleven including Thomas and shows off his scars. It is clear that he is not a ghost, not a spirit, not just an image but is fully present – mind, body, and soul.
Jesus’ old body has been made new. His old body has been fully repaired, but the scars are still there. The healing process has apparently progressed at a rate a hundred times faster than normal. But he clearly has a body – he is not a spirit being, for he eats and talks and later he even cooks breakfast for a group of disciples. Broiled fish is what He eats. He cooks a breakfast of fish over a wood fire on the beach for his disciples. There is something special about fish.
In Revelation, Jesus is seen as a strong, fit powerful man with white hair, signifying his great wisdom. He is not described as we would describe an old man except for the hair.
And he is still alive, even though nearly 2000 years have passed.
There is something different, something special, something holy about the Resurrection of Jesus. And that is well, for we know that Jesus is holy. But what does it mean to be holy?
The Greek word that is used is hagios. The root meaning of this word is “separate” or “apart”. So holy essentially means to be separate or apart. The word is the root of "against".
God is holy. God is separate.
Items become holy when we place them separate from the regular world. We have holy plates up here to receive offerings. We have holy candles. We have a holy Bible. We have holy communion cups.
They have all been kept separate from the regular world and so they are holy.
The ancient Temple in Jerusalem had degrees of holiness. Outermost was the court of the Gentiles in which anyone could enter. Then, as we moved inward were areas where only Jews could walk, then only Jewish men, then only Levites, then only priests, and finally, the Holy of Holies, where only God and the high priest could be together – and a rope was tied around the high priest’s ankle in case God found that the priest was not holy enough, struck him dead and forced his friends to drag him out. It had happened before! Holiness – separation from the world – is a matter of degree.
As we look at people coming back from the dead, we find something special with those people whose hearts stopped and then were restarted. We find something more special with those who were dead for hours or days and we raised from the dead by Jesus or a prophet or an Apostle. But there was something very unworldly, something different, something holy about Jesus’ Resurrection.
- Perhaps it was the fact that he predicted his death and Resurrection.
- Perhaps it was the fact that his body was so completely injured and yet He arose.
- Perhaps it was the fact that no one was there with Him – no one of this earth, that is. Perhaps it was the fact that God alone was with Jesus and therefore it was God’s will that lifted Jesus from death that makes his Resurrection so holy.
“Be holy, because I am holy.”
God – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit – is holy. God is separate from the world. Jesus inherently came back from the dead because Jesus had remained separate from the world.
It is like walking upon a group of children playing a game of cops and robbers with toy guns. “Bang! You’re dead” says Bobby, one of the children, to his younger brother Johnny, who falls down and then tearfully runs to his mother, crying that “Bobby shot me dead!”
Billy, the oldest, wisest child watches the game. His younger brother Bobby also shoots him with his toy gun. “Bang! You’re dead” Bobby says to the older brother Billy. Brother Billy falls dead. But then, after a minute or two, he stands up and walks over to the adults watching the game.
“I thought you were dead,” his father says.
And Billy replies, “Dad, I know I can’t be harmed by his toy gun. I’m alive.”
And so it is with us. We must step outside the game like Billy does, or we will not realize that our death is only temporary.
Are you in the world’s game that Satan has put people into, beginning with Adam and Eve, fearing death? Or have you chosen to step outside the game, choosing to follow Jesus to the world of the spiritual adults where death is just a transition, not an ending?
Be holy. Separate yourself from the world and follow Jesus along the path of holiness.
But how do we follow Jesus?
The first step is to read the four Gospels. Read cover to cover the four books Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and discover what Jesus did, what Jesus said, what Jesus commanded us. Start with the Gospel of Mark, then read the other three. John will be very different from the others.
Notice as you read the following key things:
- God loves everyone and expect us to learn to love everyone.
- Jesus is gentle to the broken and stands up to the haughty, the strong, the powerful.
- Jesus is absolutely willing to do what God says – even when it is unpopular and painful for him personally.
· Have you learned to love all people – and I mean every single person you encounter?
· Are you gentle to broken people, to the struggling, to those who need friends? Do you stand up to the cruel, the strong, the powerful, the arrogant – yet strive to help them also?
· Are you willing to do what God says to do, even if it means spending some time to speak to people about His son?
That last one is the most difficult. We want to serve God on our terms. We signed on to be the cook – we don’t want to greet guests. We signed on to be the trustee – we don’t want to read scripture. We signed on to be a greeter at the front door – we don’t want to deliver a sermon. We signed on to serve on our terms – we don’t want to do what God needs us to do.
It is like we’ve chosen to work a job at Disney World. We want to be Snow White or Mickey Mouse or sell tickets or sweep up trash. We want to maintain the rides, play trombone in the band or load people in the carts on the Mad Hatter ride. We want to sell shirts in an air-conditioned shop because we don't like the mid-Florida heat and humidity, or we want to be the drum major.
But imagine a day when evil attacks the park. What jobs will we do?
On the day when evil attacks the park, everyone is called upon to give first aid, to get people to safety, to help everyone get home safe and sound. The park employees are in the park, but they are not guests of the park.
And that is what God asks of us to be holy. We are in the world but not of the world.
For every day, evil is attacking this world. Everyday, people need spiritual first aid. Every day, there are people who are headed into evil who need to be shown the safe way out of this world. Everyday, we are called by God to get everyone home to God, safe and sound. And it doesn’t matter what we wanted to do that day. Everything is different when eternal life hangs in the balance.
Service is a key to becoming holy. Following Jesus can not be limited to a part time job, a specialty calling, a service where we only serve certain people. Following Jesus is something we must do every waking minute, for people are falling dead out there every minute. And we hold the keys to safety - a holy Resurrection. We are the spiritual adults who know the toy guns and game deaths are not final.
And you? If you follow Jesus, you will also be resurrected one day – not resuscitated, not just raised from the dead, but fully and completely resurrected, with a new resurrected body in New Jerusalem, a magical kingdom, the land where the spiritual adults live, the land where God and Christ rule directly.
And that is what God asks of us to be holy. We are in the world but not of the world.
For every day, evil is attacking this world. Everyday, people need spiritual first aid. Every day, there are people who are headed into evil who need to be shown the safe way out of this world. Everyday, we are called by God to get everyone home to God, safe and sound. And it doesn’t matter what we wanted to do that day. Everything is different when eternal life hangs in the balance.
Service is a key to becoming holy. Following Jesus can not be limited to a part time job, a specialty calling, a service where we only serve certain people. Following Jesus is something we must do every waking minute, for people are falling dead out there every minute. And we hold the keys to safety - a holy Resurrection. We are the spiritual adults who know the toy guns and game deaths are not final.
And you? If you follow Jesus, you will also be resurrected one day – not resuscitated, not just raised from the dead, but fully and completely resurrected, with a new resurrected body in New Jerusalem, a magical kingdom, the land where the spiritual adults live, the land where God and Christ rule directly.
So join me in giving thanks to the One who stepped forward, stood up to the evil attacking the world, and through His sacrifice allowed us to become eligible for that holy resurrection. Give thanks to Jesus the Christ!
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
The Hole in the Heart
It is great to be back after Holy Week and Easter. Last week, we started Thursday night with the Last Supper and walked out to the Garden of Gethsemane. Friday, we picked up in the Garden, had Jesus arrested, tried, beaten, and dead on the cross. We saw the centurion verify Jesus was dead by taking his spear and stabbing him through his side into his heart…we saw the blood and water come gushing out. We saw Jesus buried and the Tomb sealed.
And then on Easter morning, we saw the women go to the tomb to clean and wrap the body in spices, but the stone was missing and they were greeted by a man who told them that Jesus had risen. And Mary Magdalene hung around the tomb and then saw Jesus risen! And all the earth rejoiced!
Our first reading today is from the Acts of the Apostles. It is a wonderful description of the early church a few months later.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
It is a description of a wonderful community, a community of believers who understood what was important…and what was not important. They understood that spreading the Gospel had eternal consequences…and that owning extra land and houses did not.
Acts 4:32-35, Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31
The early believers understood that personal wealth – the extra land and houses they owned, the barns full of wheat, the extra items they had – it was all a form of misplaced security. We put money into our 401k plan so we can live securely in our old age, we hold onto that old lawnmower so we can fix it someday if our good lawnmower breaks down, we hold onto those extra acres so we can keep people at a distance and perhaps sell the property to raise cash if we need to someday.
In extreme cases, we hold onto boxes and bags of old clothing, boxes of old appliances, spare beds, extra furniture, old shoes, broken chairs, random pieces of fabric and metal because somewhere, a long time ago, we were taught that all these items might become useful and valuable again some day. And they might. We hold onto all these things – money, property, and goods – because we have a terrible fear that we will need something someday and we’ll never be able to get back what we give away. We become hoarders and misers.
But all these things that might be valuable and useful for us someday - they would be valuable or useful to someone else today. Our fear keeps us from being generous. Our fear keeps us from helping others. Our fear keeps us from spreading the Good News of Christ.
Our churches have had superb leadership in the past who understood that God loves us. Our two churches are highly unusual, I’ve found out. For we keep our doors unlocked. We trust in the Lord to protect our buildings. We trust in our neighbors and welcome them all. We trust that our generosity will protect us. But most of all, we rely upon the Lord to handle anything that might happen.
Other churches don’t have this trust. They lock their doors – even during the daylight. They install alarm systems. They worry about their neighbors – they don’t trust their neighbors. And so they build up a mutual distrust in their neighborhoods. The people around the don’t feel welcome, the people around see the glances of mistrust, the neighbors feel shut out from God’s house. And all because these Christians don’t believe God will protect their buildings – instead, they trust in their locks and their alarms. I would rather trust in the power of God.
The early believers recognized that they had nothing to fear. They recognized that even if they were killed, Jesus would just raise them from the dead one day. And so they became generous, particularly within their community, and that mutual generosity, that mutual sharing of possessions, gave each member a security which allowed them to put aside their fear and speak to other people about the love of God and the Resurrection of Christ.
It wasn’t limited to the New Testament church. That feeling of community was found at times in the Old Testament. Look at our Psalm 133, which is a Psalm of ascents, a song sung as the people walked up the mountain out of the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem:
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
A good way to do this is through tithing. Increase your giving – pay God first – and see what happens. Some people feel that if they were to give their money to God first, their entire budget might collapse. Try it this month and see what happens. It builds your trust in God and that has great benefits.
Another way is to step forward and do something that terrifies you. Offer to read scripture on a Sunday morning. Offer to help in Children’s church or co-teach a Sunday School class. Sing in the choir. Play the piano. Offer to maintain some landscaping for the church this year. Talk to someone new. Talk to someone you’ve held a grudge against for months or years.
OK, you’ve done those things, but now you need to really trust God. Take the Lay Servant’s course. Start a new program or meeting or outreach at the church. Take on a foster child. Commit to talking to twelve people a week about Christ. Start a business. Do something you know you can't do by yourself, but do something you know God wants you to do. Ask for God's help and step forward.
Stepping on the tightrope builds our trust in God – and in God working with us through the Body of Christ, the Church. Our security level goes up as we realize that God is with us, supporting us each day. And as more and more of us do these sorts of things, our community becomes even more attractive to others.
Take Thomas the Apostle, Doubting Thomas as he is called. Thomas did not trust the other Apostles, the men he had walked with for three years. Why? Perhaps they had teased him too many times. Perhaps he had been too gullible for their April Fools jokes over the years. Perhaps he was skeptical of wild claims. Perhaps he felt his friends were the ones who were too gullible, too easily tricked into believing wishful thinking. Whatever it was, Thomas did not believe his friends when they told him that Jesus was alive. He did not trust them.
Thomas demanded proof. Thomas said he would not believe unless he saw the nail marks on Jesus’ wrists and feet and put his hand in the hole in his side where the spear had stabbed Jesus to his heart and the blood and water had gushed out.
And so Jesus steps in and shows Thomas the truth. And Thomas believes.
Peace comes when we know the Truth.
Sometimes we need God’s help in understanding things, things we can will ourselves to accept by faith, but something about us still needs proof. And so I’ll tell you a way to recognize truth – if you are a baptized believer and have received the Holy Spirit.
Blaise Pascal, the mathematician and theologian, once wrote something in his book “Pensees” – the French word means “Thoughts” - about a hole in our heart that can only be filled with God. Here is the complete quote from the Penguin edition of Pensees.
"What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself" (148/428).
When this hole in our heart, this empty footprint is filled with God and God’s Holy Spirit, we can recognize Truth. Until this footprint is filled, like someone trying to make pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit, we will try to make everything false and temporary in this life fit the print – but nothing has the footprint of God except God. And until that print has been filled by God, we will have a hole in our heart that sucks air and creates pain and unease and suffering and torment.
But once we have God’s foot back in that print, the hole is gone. And then we can look at the world around us with peace and security, trusting in God, and we will know what is false and what is true. For the hole in our heart is gone, the leak of blood and water is plugged, we are no longer dying – instead, we are living forever! Peace comes when we recognize Truth.
And with that peace comes the ability to love others instead of the desire to use others. A community filled with people who have had their heart holes plugged is a community that can turn their attention to people who are bleeding out, who are dying, who are desperately trying to fill that footprint of God with everything and anything – money, ambition, power, chemicals, lust, worry.
The Apostle John equated God with light and sin with darkness. Since we know that God is truth and sin is a lie, part of our reading from I John makes since to us.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
John does not claim that one who knows God is sinless. Unlike some people, John doesn’t claim that a Christian automatically becomes sinless. John wants us to avoid sin, but recognizes that we will still sin – in fact, claiming to be without sin is a lie. But Jesus will speak to the Father when we sin and our sins will be forgiven.
Let this be a sign to you. When you fear, when you worry, when you hurt another because of your fears and worries – you have not yet allowed God’s foot to completely fill the print that is in your heart. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, you have allowed the hole in your heart to become unplugged. You have believed in lies instead of Truth.
And so, the solution to fear, the solution to worry, the solution to those times when we hurt others is to call once again to Jesus and ask Him to bring us closer to God, for God to forgive our sins, and to remember once more that God has this covered, that God loves us, that God will make all things work out well in the end – maybe not today, maybe not even next year, maybe not even in this life, but in the end. Peace comes when we know the Truth.
It is the same way that those who followed Jesus to Golgotha and the cross thought all was lost when the centurion stuck the spear into Jesus’ side and made a hole in Jesus’ heart, allowing the blood and water to spill out just because the centurion wanted to be sure Jesus was dead. His fear led him away from the Truth. The disciples' fears led them away from the Truth.
Yet, by the end of the weekend, their grief had turned to joy, for they had found the Truth in that Sunday evening meeting when Jesus arrived. A week later, even Thomas was on his face worshiping Jesus as God walking upon the earth. He had found the Truth and the hole in his heart was plugged.
When God is involved – and God is always involved when people worship God’s Son Jesus – things always turn out great in the end.
If you need to ask Jesus to repair the hole in your heart, to bring God’s foot back into the print that is in your heart, if you need to ask for help for yourself or another, it is as simple as asking Christ to fill your heart with God, to listen to the words of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, to recognize that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and worthy to be followed.
And then on Easter morning, we saw the women go to the tomb to clean and wrap the body in spices, but the stone was missing and they were greeted by a man who told them that Jesus had risen. And Mary Magdalene hung around the tomb and then saw Jesus risen! And all the earth rejoiced!
Our first reading today is from the Acts of the Apostles. It is a wonderful description of the early church a few months later.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
It is a description of a wonderful community, a community of believers who understood what was important…and what was not important. They understood that spreading the Gospel had eternal consequences…and that owning extra land and houses did not.
Acts 4:32-35, Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31
The early believers understood that personal wealth – the extra land and houses they owned, the barns full of wheat, the extra items they had – it was all a form of misplaced security. We put money into our 401k plan so we can live securely in our old age, we hold onto that old lawnmower so we can fix it someday if our good lawnmower breaks down, we hold onto those extra acres so we can keep people at a distance and perhaps sell the property to raise cash if we need to someday.
In extreme cases, we hold onto boxes and bags of old clothing, boxes of old appliances, spare beds, extra furniture, old shoes, broken chairs, random pieces of fabric and metal because somewhere, a long time ago, we were taught that all these items might become useful and valuable again some day. And they might. We hold onto all these things – money, property, and goods – because we have a terrible fear that we will need something someday and we’ll never be able to get back what we give away. We become hoarders and misers.
But all these things that might be valuable and useful for us someday - they would be valuable or useful to someone else today. Our fear keeps us from being generous. Our fear keeps us from helping others. Our fear keeps us from spreading the Good News of Christ.
Our churches have had superb leadership in the past who understood that God loves us. Our two churches are highly unusual, I’ve found out. For we keep our doors unlocked. We trust in the Lord to protect our buildings. We trust in our neighbors and welcome them all. We trust that our generosity will protect us. But most of all, we rely upon the Lord to handle anything that might happen.
Other churches don’t have this trust. They lock their doors – even during the daylight. They install alarm systems. They worry about their neighbors – they don’t trust their neighbors. And so they build up a mutual distrust in their neighborhoods. The people around the don’t feel welcome, the people around see the glances of mistrust, the neighbors feel shut out from God’s house. And all because these Christians don’t believe God will protect their buildings – instead, they trust in their locks and their alarms. I would rather trust in the power of God.
The early believers recognized that they had nothing to fear. They recognized that even if they were killed, Jesus would just raise them from the dead one day. And so they became generous, particularly within their community, and that mutual generosity, that mutual sharing of possessions, gave each member a security which allowed them to put aside their fear and speak to other people about the love of God and the Resurrection of Christ.
It wasn’t limited to the New Testament church. That feeling of community was found at times in the Old Testament. Look at our Psalm 133, which is a Psalm of ascents, a song sung as the people walked up the mountain out of the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem:
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
The dew of Hermon – Mount Hermon was and is the great mountain north of Galilee, snow-topped, the mountain where Jesus and three of his disciples climbed for the Transfiguration. Hermon was known for its clean life-giving water, put on the mountain through rain and fog and dew and snow, water that flows down into the freshwater Sea of Galilee, and then down the Jordan River to the Dead Sea of salt. Even today, Mount Hermon provides much of the water for the Galilee region.
And the oil on Aaron’s head and beard – a symbol of abundance in a land where olive oil meant food and lamp oil and healing oil. Who could afford to waste oil such that it ran down the beard onto the robe except a secure, generous, wealthy person?
And so it is when a community – not just a church, but an entire community comes together in unity and trust. I have a rototiller – you have extra seeds. Let’s both have a good garden this year. I have a box of children’s books – you have children – we both benefit when your children love to read. You have a healthy teenager who is bored, I have a yard that needs mowing and can afford a few dollars a week.
But all of this requires two things – security and trust.
How can we have security?
When we take what we know in our heads about Jesus Christ and move it into our hearts.
We know that we will be resurrected. We know that God will take care of us. We know that God considers us more valuable than sparrows, yet God feeds the sparrows. Why aren’t we secure? Why are we anxious? Why do we need pills for our anxiety?
It is because we still haven’t taken this head knowledge about Jesus and God and moved it into our heart.
But how do we make that knowledge move?
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
The dew of Hermon – Mount Hermon was and is the great mountain north of Galilee, snow-topped, the mountain where Jesus and three of his disciples climbed for the Transfiguration. Hermon was known for its clean life-giving water, put on the mountain through rain and fog and dew and snow, water that flows down into the freshwater Sea of Galilee, and then down the Jordan River to the Dead Sea of salt. Even today, Mount Hermon provides much of the water for the Galilee region.
And the oil on Aaron’s head and beard – a symbol of abundance in a land where olive oil meant food and lamp oil and healing oil. Who could afford to waste oil such that it ran down the beard onto the robe except a secure, generous, wealthy person?
And so it is when a community – not just a church, but an entire community comes together in unity and trust. I have a rototiller – you have extra seeds. Let’s both have a good garden this year. I have a box of children’s books – you have children – we both benefit when your children love to read. You have a healthy teenager who is bored, I have a yard that needs mowing and can afford a few dollars a week.
But all of this requires two things – security and trust.
How can we have security?
When we take what we know in our heads about Jesus Christ and move it into our hearts.
We know that we will be resurrected. We know that God will take care of us. We know that God considers us more valuable than sparrows, yet God feeds the sparrows. Why aren’t we secure? Why are we anxious? Why do we need pills for our anxiety?
It is because we still haven’t taken this head knowledge about Jesus and God and moved it into our heart.
But how do we make that knowledge move?
We have to take a chance, we have to practice our faith, we have to step on the tightrope and trust that God will protect us.
A good way to do this is through tithing. Increase your giving – pay God first – and see what happens. Some people feel that if they were to give their money to God first, their entire budget might collapse. Try it this month and see what happens. It builds your trust in God and that has great benefits.
Another way is to step forward and do something that terrifies you. Offer to read scripture on a Sunday morning. Offer to help in Children’s church or co-teach a Sunday School class. Sing in the choir. Play the piano. Offer to maintain some landscaping for the church this year. Talk to someone new. Talk to someone you’ve held a grudge against for months or years.
OK, you’ve done those things, but now you need to really trust God. Take the Lay Servant’s course. Start a new program or meeting or outreach at the church. Take on a foster child. Commit to talking to twelve people a week about Christ. Start a business. Do something you know you can't do by yourself, but do something you know God wants you to do. Ask for God's help and step forward.
Stepping on the tightrope builds our trust in God – and in God working with us through the Body of Christ, the Church. Our security level goes up as we realize that God is with us, supporting us each day. And as more and more of us do these sorts of things, our community becomes even more attractive to others.
Take Thomas the Apostle, Doubting Thomas as he is called. Thomas did not trust the other Apostles, the men he had walked with for three years. Why? Perhaps they had teased him too many times. Perhaps he had been too gullible for their April Fools jokes over the years. Perhaps he was skeptical of wild claims. Perhaps he felt his friends were the ones who were too gullible, too easily tricked into believing wishful thinking. Whatever it was, Thomas did not believe his friends when they told him that Jesus was alive. He did not trust them.
Thomas demanded proof. Thomas said he would not believe unless he saw the nail marks on Jesus’ wrists and feet and put his hand in the hole in his side where the spear had stabbed Jesus to his heart and the blood and water had gushed out.
And so Jesus steps in and shows Thomas the truth. And Thomas believes.
Peace comes when we know the Truth.
Sometimes we need God’s help in understanding things, things we can will ourselves to accept by faith, but something about us still needs proof. And so I’ll tell you a way to recognize truth – if you are a baptized believer and have received the Holy Spirit.
Blaise Pascal, the mathematician and theologian, once wrote something in his book “Pensees” – the French word means “Thoughts” - about a hole in our heart that can only be filled with God. Here is the complete quote from the Penguin edition of Pensees.
"What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself" (148/428).
When this hole in our heart, this empty footprint is filled with God and God’s Holy Spirit, we can recognize Truth. Until this footprint is filled, like someone trying to make pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit, we will try to make everything false and temporary in this life fit the print – but nothing has the footprint of God except God. And until that print has been filled by God, we will have a hole in our heart that sucks air and creates pain and unease and suffering and torment.
But once we have God’s foot back in that print, the hole is gone. And then we can look at the world around us with peace and security, trusting in God, and we will know what is false and what is true. For the hole in our heart is gone, the leak of blood and water is plugged, we are no longer dying – instead, we are living forever! Peace comes when we recognize Truth.
And with that peace comes the ability to love others instead of the desire to use others. A community filled with people who have had their heart holes plugged is a community that can turn their attention to people who are bleeding out, who are dying, who are desperately trying to fill that footprint of God with everything and anything – money, ambition, power, chemicals, lust, worry.
The Apostle John equated God with light and sin with darkness. Since we know that God is truth and sin is a lie, part of our reading from I John makes since to us.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
John does not claim that one who knows God is sinless. Unlike some people, John doesn’t claim that a Christian automatically becomes sinless. John wants us to avoid sin, but recognizes that we will still sin – in fact, claiming to be without sin is a lie. But Jesus will speak to the Father when we sin and our sins will be forgiven.
Let this be a sign to you. When you fear, when you worry, when you hurt another because of your fears and worries – you have not yet allowed God’s foot to completely fill the print that is in your heart. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, you have allowed the hole in your heart to become unplugged. You have believed in lies instead of Truth.
And so, the solution to fear, the solution to worry, the solution to those times when we hurt others is to call once again to Jesus and ask Him to bring us closer to God, for God to forgive our sins, and to remember once more that God has this covered, that God loves us, that God will make all things work out well in the end – maybe not today, maybe not even next year, maybe not even in this life, but in the end. Peace comes when we know the Truth.
It is the same way that those who followed Jesus to Golgotha and the cross thought all was lost when the centurion stuck the spear into Jesus’ side and made a hole in Jesus’ heart, allowing the blood and water to spill out just because the centurion wanted to be sure Jesus was dead. His fear led him away from the Truth. The disciples' fears led them away from the Truth.
Yet, by the end of the weekend, their grief had turned to joy, for they had found the Truth in that Sunday evening meeting when Jesus arrived. A week later, even Thomas was on his face worshiping Jesus as God walking upon the earth. He had found the Truth and the hole in his heart was plugged.
When God is involved – and God is always involved when people worship God’s Son Jesus – things always turn out great in the end.
If you need to ask Jesus to repair the hole in your heart, to bring God’s foot back into the print that is in your heart, if you need to ask for help for yourself or another, it is as simple as asking Christ to fill your heart with God, to listen to the words of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, to recognize that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and worthy to be followed.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Welcome to the New World
As Saundra, our Shih Tzu puppy Brownie, and I are preparing to move, we’ve had some serious sorting and packing to do. Our new parsonage is nice, with a bit more living space than this one, but it has considerably less storage space. So we have been giving away books to the Lost Creek Library, giving Andy spare furniture, selling some items, donating a lot of stuff to the mission and Helping Hands House, and filling up multiple trash bags. Our dog Brownie has been very upset with the activities.
Did I say I’m sore and my back hurts?
In addition, there are other ways we have to get ready for the move. We’ve cut back on grocery purchases so we can reduce the amount of food we move. I’ve been in contact both with Brian Plum at my new churches and Nathan Weaver, your incoming pastor, to make sure the transitions are smooth. And then, there’s Brownie.
Brownie has gotten a bit scruffy over the winter. Her hair has grown long – I wish I could say it is sleek, but it isn’t. It’s tangled and matted and even after repeated washings, it’s dirty. Her nails have grown long because they haven’t been trimmed since last year. I’d like to say to her, “Clean yourself up!”, but she isn’t a cat, she can’t trim her claws, she can’t cut her hair, and she can’t comb it out.
Since I’ll need to walk Brownie around the new neighborhood on a leash – there isn’t any nice big, safe yard for her like there is here – I figure she’ll need to be cute. Nothing like walking a cute dog in the neighborhood to meet people. So we’ve begun to trim off hair, grooming her.
But Brownie doesn’t like being groomed. Brownie is extremely good in setting boundaries. You can trim some hair off her back, a bit around the eyes, but you are not to do anything near her tail or feet or tummy – and she is very clear about that. So the other day, I gently pinned her down, holding her tightly and talking quietly to her while Saundra attempted to use the clippers on her.
Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Mark 16:1-8
It didn’t work. First of all, Brownie began with a low rumble. Then a more open mouthed growl. Then she jerked and snapped – and my finger was the target! So we decided she could look grungy for a while longer...
Folks, when we live in this life, left to ourselves, we start out all cute and fairly clean. But as the rough times of life come, we begin to look scruffy. Our souls become tangled and matted and dirty. We are more likely to scratch others with the claws that have developed on our souls.
We need to be groomed. We need to be cleaned up. We need trimmed.
But what soul can clean itself?
We need someone who is ready and willing to groom and bath us. We need someone who is gentle and kind and yet firm and strong who can remove the tangled, dirty mats that have found their way into our souls.
And so God sent part of Himself to earth as Jesus Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem.
Jesus grew in wisdom and statue over the next thirty years. And then, He began to conduct His mission.
He taught us a different way. He taught us that God was not a gruff, hateful God who wanted to destroy us. He taught us that God is a loving Father who wants a good, close, pleasant, gentle, relationship with each of us. In fact, Jesus used the same word a Jewish child uses in talking to His Father – On the night Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to his “Abba”, his Daddy.
And throughout His teaching, Jesus repeatedly told the people around him that He was the same as God. Sometimes it was subtle, like the days he forgave people their sins against God. Other times, it was a bit stronger, like when he would say, “I am”, which was short for “I am that I am”, the holy name that God had answered Moses with when Moses asked the talking, burning bush His name. And sometimes it was very blatant, like in John 10:30, when Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”
Most of the time, the people weren’t happy. They’d pick up stones to stone him or try to grab him and push him off a cliff. They understood exactly what he was claiming and considered it blasphemous. And so, when he was arrested and told the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish council, that they would see him sitting at the right hand of God, they took him to the Roman governor to be sentenced to death. And eventually he was executed on the cross on Passover Friday for the crime of claiming to be God. He died around 3 pm and his body was taken down in a hurry and placed in a tomb before sundown, for Jewish Law required this. A two-thousand pound disk-shaped stone was rolled down into a trench in front of the tomb to block the entrance, while Pilate’s wax seal was placed on the stone and a 16 man guard was established.
The next day, the Jewish Sabbath, was uneventful. His followers laid low.
And the next morning early, as our reading as well as sections of the other Gospels tells us, the women went to the tomb. In the rush to put Jesus in the tomb on Friday evening, certain things had not been done. So these women went to the tomb, intending on unwrapping the linen mummy wrap around him, washing his body, coating him with embalming spices, and rewrapping his body. It was a grim task, but the task of the loved ones. But they were worried that they wouldn’t be able to open the tomb because of the heavy stone. “Who will roll away the stone?” they asked each other.
When they arrived, things were not as they expected. The stone was rolled away. Mark tells us his account:
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
The Apostle John adds in his account that Mary Magdalene stayed in the cemetery garden weeping. She ran into the man she thought was the gardener and asked him where they had taken Jesus’ body. The gardener turned to her and said one simple word. “Mary”.
Such a simple word. The most common woman’s name at the time. Just a couple of syllables. Just the most basic way to address someone. But it instantly told her something.
It told her that this man knew her. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem that weekend, this man knew her name. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem that weekend, this gardener that she thought she’d never met before knew who she was. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem that weekend, that voice and that single word told Mary that a new world had begun, that everything was turned upside down, that her grief instantly became joy because the gardener was Jesus walking around!
Mary grabbed Jesus and looked into His face. She yelled “Teacher!” And Jesus told her to tell Peter and the rest of the disciples that he was still with them.
And she did.
Later that day, a couple of disciples met Jesus walking along a road. Still later, most of the disciples were visited by Jesus. The next week, even Thomas, the one who had doubted the first stories, was met by Jesus. Later on, others met Jesus – five hundred people saw the risen Jesus. In eleven separate appearances to different people at different times and in different places, over five hundred people saw the risen Jesus. They saw him, talked with him, saw him eat some fish, and even had breakfast cooked by him.
And they told people. The disciples saw Jesus ascend to Heaven. They replaced Judas the traitor. And Seven weeks after Easter, on the festival day of Pentecost, miracles happened and the assembled twelve disciples testified as a body to the people of Jerusalem what they had seen, and over three thousand people believed and were baptized.
After that, the movement grew and grew. There were persecutions, a believer named Stephen was killed while a man named Saul looked on. Saul later encountered Jesus, changed his name to Paul, and began to preach and teach and establish congregations across Turkey and Greece and Cyprus. Paul spoke of the gospel, the good news, about Jesus Christ. Paul wrote letters, one of which, in part reads this way:
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
that he was buried,
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures
(Paul was counting Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday)
and that he appeared to Cephas (the Aramaic name we translate as Peter),
and then to the Twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
(How much more sinful can you be than to persecute and kill people simply because they are Christians? Look how what we've done pales in comparison to Paul's sin!)
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
(He’s saying that God changed him for the better.)
Whether, then, it is I or they (the apostles), this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
And this is what most Christians have believed throughout history and today.
We have found that our souls are scruffy because we are trying to stay clean ourselves. But we can’t clean our souls by ourselves – we need a Groomer.
And because of Jesus’ words and deeds, we know that God is a gentle Groomer who wants to clean our souls, to allow us to live in this new neighborhood in which we find ourselves, in this new world.
Everyone here walked in with scruffy, dirty, matted and tangled souls. We all needed our claws trimmed back. We all had a tendency to bark and growl and bite at those who were just trying to help us – even the gentle Groomer, God. Most of us are still being groomed. It takes decades to properly groom a soul.
Whether, then, it is I or they (the apostles), this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
And this is what most Christians have believed throughout history and today.
- Jesus died as the payment for our sins.
- He was buried and came back to life, proving He was indeed God as He had claimed.
- Hundreds of people saw Jesus, multiple, credible witnesses who were willing to die before changing their story.
We have found that our souls are scruffy because we are trying to stay clean ourselves. But we can’t clean our souls by ourselves – we need a Groomer.
And because of Jesus’ words and deeds, we know that God is a gentle Groomer who wants to clean our souls, to allow us to live in this new neighborhood in which we find ourselves, in this new world.
Everyone here walked in with scruffy, dirty, matted and tangled souls. We all needed our claws trimmed back. We all had a tendency to bark and growl and bite at those who were just trying to help us – even the gentle Groomer, God. Most of us are still being groomed. It takes decades to properly groom a soul.
- But by coming to church every week, we learn to hear God’s voice.
- By coming to church every week, we learn to know what God wants of us.
- By coming to church every week, we find out that God wants us to have peace, sunshine, and joy in our lives – and we find out how to get to that new world of peace, sunshine and joy.
- Is your soul looking and feeling a bit frazzled?
- Have you been scratching those who love you a bit too often, a bit too much?
- Are there those around you who would love to give you a gentle petting, but you are so irritable, so angry at the world that you growl and bark and even bite back?
- Are your children beginning to lose their cuteness and become a bit scruffy?
And in all that flying fur as it is clipped off, that snipping of claws, that soaping and bathing and removal of dirt from our souls, we hope you’ll find new friends here, as we look with worship to our great Groomer.
Monday, March 26, 2018
The Gates of the Righteous
In our world today, there are two concepts at war with each other.
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.
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.
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.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Covenants and Priests
The NCAA March Madness is going on as I write this. More than a hundred basketball games will determine the college basketball champions.
Imagine sitting on the bench during a game. The first string is playing, a couple more players go in and out, substituting as needed. But you are the ninth or tenth player on the team. You can't wait to get into the game...but will the coach have the confidence to call upon you? Will you have what it takes if the best players foul out and the coach calls upon you?
Jeremiah was definitely one of God's first string, a Prophet of God, giving everything he had for God.
Very soon after this, in 586 or 587 BC, the army of Babylon conquered Jerusalem and took away many of the people, particularly the sons and daughters of the noble families, including Daniel, and took them to serve in Babylon. Jeremiah, speaking on behalf of God, told them that they would serve 70 years.
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 119:9-16; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33
And then, in Jeremiah, Chapter 31, God sends, once again through Jeremiah, a message of hope.
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
God is not happy with the Israelites who broke God's covenant repeatedly.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
And we read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah of the return from Babylon of the people of Israel under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah.
It was soon after that, that Ezra and Nehemiah led the people of Israel to unite one day and swear once again to the covenant with God, to obey God and follow God’s commands. The people of Israel decided to hold to the old covenant with God.
But it was not until the time of Jesus that another new covenant was made.
Up until the time of Jesus, the covenant between God and the Jewish nation extended only to the Jewish nation. God would protect them and they would abide by the commandments that God had given them through Moses.
But with Jesus, things changed.
In fact, the change was recognized on the very day of our Gospel reading by Jesus Himself.
According to John, Jesus and His disciples were at Jerusalem just after the great triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
The word used, hellenes, clearly means Greeks - those who claimed descent from Helen. Hellenes were those people who spoke Greek as their primary language, who followed Greek culture, and who generally worshiped the many gods and goddesses of the Greeks. It is also possible that these were Jews who lived in the Greek world, which at that time stretched from Babylon across Turkey through Greece up into Albania and much of today’s Serbia. As well, there were Greek cities in Palestine and even in Egypt. Cleopatra was Greek, as were many of the people who lived in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Greeks came to Philip. Philip was named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon, the kingdom just north of Greece that had conquered Greece during Philip’s reign. Alexander, of course, had conquered lands that stretched from Macedonia to Egypt and far to the east through Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan to modern day Pakistan.
Philip was from Bethsaida in Galilee, a town which was on the road around the north of the lake. With travelers passing through town, Philip likely spoke some Greek. He went to Andrew, Peter’s brother. Andrew must have had some Greek ancestry also, for the name Andrew means “manly” in the Greek language. And then, these two Greek-leaning Hebrew men went to speak to Jesus.
They probably expected a reaction like, “Sure, I’ll talk with them.” Or perhaps, “Tell them to come and visit after dark, when the crowds have gone away.” But Jesus apparently becomes agitated, for he immediately begins talking about his death and glorification.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Why did a simple request to see Jesus by these men trigger such a response? What was so unusual about it that Jesus began to talk about his death and glorification?
To understand, we need to go way, way back in time.
The time is about 450 years before Moses and the Passover escape from Egypt by the Israelites. Israel – the other name of the man Jacob – has not been born yet. His father Isaac has not been born. Instead, the Genesis 14 story is focused upon Abraham – who is still called Abram.
Abram receives word that his nephew Lot has been taken for ransom by a group of cattle rustlers, along with all of Lot’s livestock. Abram organizes a rescue party and posse that goes to retrieve Lot and his livestock, as well as a bunch of other loot that was taken by the bandits from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot was living. Abram and his men win the battle and bring back the captives, as well as much loot.
In Genesis 14:18, the king of Salem – the city whose name means “peace”, the city that would eventually become known as Jerusalem – the king comes out of his city bringing bread and wine. The king’s name is Melchizedek, and he is described as the Priest of God Most High. He blesses Abram, saying:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
And praise be to God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
There are some interesting themes in this meeting, beside being the first recorded tithe.
There is the king of peace that brings us bread and wine. Who else do you know that freely gives us bread and wine?
The writer of Hebrews is certain. He writes:
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
And we read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah of the return from Babylon of the people of Israel under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah.
It was soon after that, that Ezra and Nehemiah led the people of Israel to unite one day and swear once again to the covenant with God, to obey God and follow God’s commands. The people of Israel decided to hold to the old covenant with God.
But it was not until the time of Jesus that another new covenant was made.
Up until the time of Jesus, the covenant between God and the Jewish nation extended only to the Jewish nation. God would protect them and they would abide by the commandments that God had given them through Moses.
But with Jesus, things changed.
In fact, the change was recognized on the very day of our Gospel reading by Jesus Himself.
According to John, Jesus and His disciples were at Jerusalem just after the great triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
The word used, hellenes, clearly means Greeks - those who claimed descent from Helen. Hellenes were those people who spoke Greek as their primary language, who followed Greek culture, and who generally worshiped the many gods and goddesses of the Greeks. It is also possible that these were Jews who lived in the Greek world, which at that time stretched from Babylon across Turkey through Greece up into Albania and much of today’s Serbia. As well, there were Greek cities in Palestine and even in Egypt. Cleopatra was Greek, as were many of the people who lived in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Greeks came to Philip. Philip was named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon, the kingdom just north of Greece that had conquered Greece during Philip’s reign. Alexander, of course, had conquered lands that stretched from Macedonia to Egypt and far to the east through Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan to modern day Pakistan.
Philip was from Bethsaida in Galilee, a town which was on the road around the north of the lake. With travelers passing through town, Philip likely spoke some Greek. He went to Andrew, Peter’s brother. Andrew must have had some Greek ancestry also, for the name Andrew means “manly” in the Greek language. And then, these two Greek-leaning Hebrew men went to speak to Jesus.
They probably expected a reaction like, “Sure, I’ll talk with them.” Or perhaps, “Tell them to come and visit after dark, when the crowds have gone away.” But Jesus apparently becomes agitated, for he immediately begins talking about his death and glorification.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Why did a simple request to see Jesus by these men trigger such a response? What was so unusual about it that Jesus began to talk about his death and glorification?
To understand, we need to go way, way back in time.
The time is about 450 years before Moses and the Passover escape from Egypt by the Israelites. Israel – the other name of the man Jacob – has not been born yet. His father Isaac has not been born. Instead, the Genesis 14 story is focused upon Abraham – who is still called Abram.
Abram receives word that his nephew Lot has been taken for ransom by a group of cattle rustlers, along with all of Lot’s livestock. Abram organizes a rescue party and posse that goes to retrieve Lot and his livestock, as well as a bunch of other loot that was taken by the bandits from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot was living. Abram and his men win the battle and bring back the captives, as well as much loot.
In Genesis 14:18, the king of Salem – the city whose name means “peace”, the city that would eventually become known as Jerusalem – the king comes out of his city bringing bread and wine. The king’s name is Melchizedek, and he is described as the Priest of God Most High. He blesses Abram, saying:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
And praise be to God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
There are some interesting themes in this meeting, beside being the first recorded tithe.
There is the king of peace that brings us bread and wine. Who else do you know that freely gives us bread and wine?
The writer of Hebrews is certain. He writes:
In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him,
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.”
And he says in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”
And then, the writer goes even further and claims about Jesus:
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
In the Old Testament, there are two orders of priests written about:
There is the Levitical priesthood, the priests who are descended from Jacob’s son Levi, in the same tribe as Aaron, the priests who served in the Temple of God, performing the sacrifices, slaying the bulls, the cattle, the sheep, the doves, receiving the grain offerings, making the music, and even controlling the doors of the Temple. The Levitical priesthood continued to perform these sacrifices and duties - with a few breaks - from the time of Moses to 70 AD, when the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem. As long as there was a Tabernacle or Temple, the Levitical priesthood served.
Even today, when the time comes to read scripture in an orthodox Jewish synagogue, a kohen, a direct male descendant of Aaron is given first priority, then a Levite is selected to read what is left. Thus, the Levitical/Aaronite priesthood is still present, awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple to begin the sacrifices once again.
But there is a second order of priests. It is the order of Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the king of Peace, the priest of God most High who brings bread and wine to Abram and blesses Abram.
What makes this order of Melchizedek different from the Levites, is that the Levites were only sent to serve in the Temple of God, a single place on earth, and in the local ceremonies of a single people, the descendants of Israel, the man also know as Jacob, the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham.
But Melchizedek serves God on behalf of all people of the world.
Some of the ancient rabbis identified Melchizedek as Shem, Noah’s son who was still alive at the time, but most Christian commentators identify Melchizedek as the Christ on earth, the high priest to God of all people.
That day in Jerusalem when the Greeks came to Philip and Andrew, and they brought those men to meet Jesus, Jesus recognized that the world outside of the Jews had recognized his ministry. Imagine that we are standing there with Jesus and the disciples that final week in Jerusalem…
Jesus continues:
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Do you love your life? If so, you will lose it someday. Do you hate this life in this world? Lose it and leave it behind, change to a new life in Christ, and you will gain an eternal life.
Jesus says: Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.”
And he says in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”
And then, the writer goes even further and claims about Jesus:
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
In the Old Testament, there are two orders of priests written about:
There is the Levitical priesthood, the priests who are descended from Jacob’s son Levi, in the same tribe as Aaron, the priests who served in the Temple of God, performing the sacrifices, slaying the bulls, the cattle, the sheep, the doves, receiving the grain offerings, making the music, and even controlling the doors of the Temple. The Levitical priesthood continued to perform these sacrifices and duties - with a few breaks - from the time of Moses to 70 AD, when the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem. As long as there was a Tabernacle or Temple, the Levitical priesthood served.
Even today, when the time comes to read scripture in an orthodox Jewish synagogue, a kohen, a direct male descendant of Aaron is given first priority, then a Levite is selected to read what is left. Thus, the Levitical/Aaronite priesthood is still present, awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple to begin the sacrifices once again.
But there is a second order of priests. It is the order of Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the king of Peace, the priest of God most High who brings bread and wine to Abram and blesses Abram.
What makes this order of Melchizedek different from the Levites, is that the Levites were only sent to serve in the Temple of God, a single place on earth, and in the local ceremonies of a single people, the descendants of Israel, the man also know as Jacob, the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham.
But Melchizedek serves God on behalf of all people of the world.
Some of the ancient rabbis identified Melchizedek as Shem, Noah’s son who was still alive at the time, but most Christian commentators identify Melchizedek as the Christ on earth, the high priest to God of all people.
That day in Jerusalem when the Greeks came to Philip and Andrew, and they brought those men to meet Jesus, Jesus recognized that the world outside of the Jews had recognized his ministry. Imagine that we are standing there with Jesus and the disciples that final week in Jerusalem…
- Now, the Greeks would spread word of Jesus outside of Judea.
- Now, the Greeks would tell the stories of Jesus to the world from Iran to Egypt through Roman Turkey into Greece.
- Now, the Gospel story of Jesus’ sacrifice would travel throughout the world and not remain in Jerusalem.
Jesus continues:
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Do you love your life? If so, you will lose it someday. Do you hate this life in this world? Lose it and leave it behind, change to a new life in Christ, and you will gain an eternal life.
Jesus says: Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
God ... is ready to send you into the game!
Will you follow Jesus or just watch Jesus this Easter season. As you watch Jesus teach us and then sacrifice for us, will you follow Him to the foot of the cross or will you return to Galilee to take up your old life? Will you step forward as Lucian did to carry the cross, or will you disappear as Thomas did? The Father will honor the man or woman who follows Jesus and serves Him.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Will you follow Jesus or just watch Jesus this Easter season. As you watch Jesus teach us and then sacrifice for us, will you follow Him to the foot of the cross or will you return to Galilee to take up your old life? Will you step forward as Lucian did to carry the cross, or will you disappear as Thomas did? The Father will honor the man or woman who follows Jesus and serves Him.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Here, Jesus' words are almost the same as Esther's words when she stepped forward to save the Jews from destruction. But Jesus will save all people - not just one nation. And Jesus continues: Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
And then John comments: He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
When Jesus died upon the Cross, He not only sacrificed Himself for our sins, but He also died as that wheat seed dies, to undergo a transformation that leads to a vast multiplication of God’s love for all people through the Holy Spirit. For we must remember that in the original languages, Spirit and Breath and Wind are the same word. There is no difference between these three words in the original Greek.
For when Jesus returned, He brought the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath of God back and breathed it upon the disciples. And on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind of God blew upon all the assembled people and then began to multiply. By the end of that day, over 3000 people had been baptized, receiving the Holy Spirit, and had been given new life by the Holy Breath of God.
And then, there was born the third priesthood, the priesthood of all people, the priesthood of the Holy Spirit, like wheat seed spreading over the earth.
When you have chosen to believe and be baptized, you receive the Holy Spirit – and you have the same Holy Spirit in you that spoke to Jeremiah, the same Spirit that spoke to Philip the Evangelist, the same Spirit that burned at Pentecost.
The Apostle Peter wrote in I Peter 2:9 - But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
Look around you. Say to your neighbor: “Neighbor, you are a priest of God”.
The great problem with the church today is that we are afraid to listen and believe in the Holy Spirit which is even now speaking to us. We look at ourselves, our powers and our limitations far too much, and we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit enough. We don’t believe in the Holy Spirit – most of us are blessed that we believe in God and maybe Jesus. But God knows what God can do with a Christ-following believer who listens and believes in the Holy Spirit. And if you will admit it, each of you who has been baptized has received the Holy Spirit, that direct connection to God and the power of God that can change things in this world and send Satan running.
Take upon you this honor….and power….and glory with the humbleness that those who truly understand how high and mighty God is – and with the awe of understanding that God has entrusted His children to become that strange group of people called Christian, those people with the Holy Wind of God at their backs. God has called your number and is ready to send you into the game!
If you would take upon you this priesthood, there are a handful of things you’ll need to do. It involves speaking to God and listening.
First of all, say to God, “Why me, O Lord?”
And then LISTEN for God's response!
Second, recognize that this is the doing of the King of the Universe and not our doing. Think of what that means about God’s confidence in you. God knows you can do it! Take a moment and consider...
But how do you know what God is asking of you?
The answer is that it tears you up inside, it makes you want to cry, it is a voice that tells you that you can make a difference and a vision that shows you what you are to do to make a difference. You may feel that people dying without God is terrible, you may feel that children growing up without encouragement is horrible, you may feel that older people living by themselves and lonely is the worst thing, you may feel that poverty should never happen, you may feel that our world needs more people to share your artistic passions, you may feel that it is a terrible shame, all those people in Japan or Europe or Asia or Africa who will die without knowing the Love of Jesus.
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
And then John comments: He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
When Jesus died upon the Cross, He not only sacrificed Himself for our sins, but He also died as that wheat seed dies, to undergo a transformation that leads to a vast multiplication of God’s love for all people through the Holy Spirit. For we must remember that in the original languages, Spirit and Breath and Wind are the same word. There is no difference between these three words in the original Greek.
For when Jesus returned, He brought the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath of God back and breathed it upon the disciples. And on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind of God blew upon all the assembled people and then began to multiply. By the end of that day, over 3000 people had been baptized, receiving the Holy Spirit, and had been given new life by the Holy Breath of God.
And then, there was born the third priesthood, the priesthood of all people, the priesthood of the Holy Spirit, like wheat seed spreading over the earth.
When you have chosen to believe and be baptized, you receive the Holy Spirit – and you have the same Holy Spirit in you that spoke to Jeremiah, the same Spirit that spoke to Philip the Evangelist, the same Spirit that burned at Pentecost.
The Apostle Peter wrote in I Peter 2:9 - But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
Look around you. Say to your neighbor: “Neighbor, you are a priest of God”.
The great problem with the church today is that we are afraid to listen and believe in the Holy Spirit which is even now speaking to us. We look at ourselves, our powers and our limitations far too much, and we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit enough. We don’t believe in the Holy Spirit – most of us are blessed that we believe in God and maybe Jesus. But God knows what God can do with a Christ-following believer who listens and believes in the Holy Spirit. And if you will admit it, each of you who has been baptized has received the Holy Spirit, that direct connection to God and the power of God that can change things in this world and send Satan running.
Take upon you this honor….and power….and glory with the humbleness that those who truly understand how high and mighty God is – and with the awe of understanding that God has entrusted His children to become that strange group of people called Christian, those people with the Holy Wind of God at their backs. God has called your number and is ready to send you into the game!
If you would take upon you this priesthood, there are a handful of things you’ll need to do. It involves speaking to God and listening.
First of all, say to God, “Why me, O Lord?”
And then LISTEN for God's response!
Second, recognize that this is the doing of the King of the Universe and not our doing. Think of what that means about God’s confidence in you. God knows you can do it! Take a moment and consider...
But how do you know what God is asking of you?
The answer is that it tears you up inside, it makes you want to cry, it is a voice that tells you that you can make a difference and a vision that shows you what you are to do to make a difference. You may feel that people dying without God is terrible, you may feel that children growing up without encouragement is horrible, you may feel that older people living by themselves and lonely is the worst thing, you may feel that poverty should never happen, you may feel that our world needs more people to share your artistic passions, you may feel that it is a terrible shame, all those people in Japan or Europe or Asia or Africa who will die without knowing the Love of Jesus.
If the voice inside you makes you want to cry because this particular problem is so terrible – it is probably the Holy Spirit speaking to you and God is standing there ready to help you accomplish great things for God’s mission, great things that will go a long way toward fixing that particular problem of the world, the problem that your weep over. Think of what that means about God’s confidence in you – and what God is ready to do through you...
Third, come forward to pray and ask the King of the Universe to speak to you – and then listen for God’s response.
There is one final task God asks of you today. Go into the world and do what God has asked of you – knowing that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will always be with you. CHANGE…THE…WORLD!!!
Third, come forward to pray and ask the King of the Universe to speak to you – and then listen for God’s response.
There is one final task God asks of you today. Go into the world and do what God has asked of you – knowing that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will always be with you. CHANGE…THE…WORLD!!!
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