The Resurrection of Jesus Changes Us!

April 26 2020

Acts 3

         At our house for the past month or so, at two a-clock in the afternoon  everyone gathers round for the latest press conference concerning the corona pandemic. This is where we hear from Governor Mike Dewine, Lieutenant Governor John Husted and Director of Health for the State of Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton. Now, what has impressed me most about these daily conferences is the authority that Dr. Acton commands and rightfully so. She is a doctor who knows an unbelievable amount of knowledge about public health and safety and she uses that information to make strategies and formulate decisions that we as Ohioans can feel confident about. What is also special about her authority is that she is able to communicate the reasons for her decisions that affect all of us in a way that is understandable and caring.

         As I mediated on this weeks message and this idea of authority came to the forefront, I couldn’t help but think of Dr. Acton. She has knowledge, wisdom and decisiveness which are all aspects of authority. Authority is the power and the right to make decisions, give orders and enforce decisions. These are the very qualities that Dr. Acton has yet when it comes to enforcing obedience she does so because she educates those affected by her decisions so that through understanding her reasoning, they are more willingly to comply with what she is asking. Now, you’re probably wondering why this theme of authority seems to be such a big deal when the scripture for today doesn’t even mention authority. The reason is simply the way our scripture has been translated.As I will hopefully show, there are about eight different ways the word I translate as “authority” are found in the many versions of the Bible. But before we tackle that we first have to know the situation in which that word is used.

         Here at the beginning of the third chapter of Acts, Peter and John are going to pray at the Temple during the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. This in our language would have been around three a-clock in the afternoon. This we must remember was the same hour that the gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus died upon the cross. Now, as they were walking a man who was lame from birth was asking for alms.  He asked Peter and John for alms to which Peter told the man to look at them. The man did so hoping that in doing so he would receive some help. Peter told the man” I have no silver or gold but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Peter took the man and pulled him up and immediately the mans limbs were strong. The man leapt in the air and entered the Temple walking and leaping and praising God. Of course the people who had walked by this man for years were filled with wonder and amazement and this was exactly the point. With the people’s attention focused on him, Peter begins to address them. What is interesting is what Peter emphasizes because he asks the people why do you wonder at a man who was born lame who suddenly is found leaping around praising God, or why do you stare at James or me just because this man was healed when we walked by. In all humility, Peter admits it was not their piety, their devotion to God, now was it their own power as if now filled with the Holy Spirit that they had turned into some kind of superheroes. No, the healing of this man who had been lame from birth was a minor miracle in comparison to the greatest miracle of the resurrection of Jesus. We get this understanding right from when Peter begins to speak about God and he calls God the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Why is this significant you might wonder? Well, we find the answer in the twenty second chapter of Matthew, the thirty first verse, Jesus in rebuking a Sadducee who refused to believe in the resurrection told him “As for the resurrection  of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but the living.”Peter may have remembered this lesson because it is the resurrection of Jesus that he is hoping that the people of the temple will at last believe in.

         Peter continued “The God of our fathers, the God of the living not the dead, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous one. This is similar to the title Peter declared Jesus to be in the sixth chapter of John where he declared Jesus to be the Holy One Of God. Peter continues saying “You asked for a murderer, (referring to Barrabas) to be granted to you and you killed the Author of Life. It is the Greek word “archegos”, translated here as the word “Author”, that causes translators so many headaches. It has been translated not only as author but also leader, source, ruler and prince some of which seem to be similar but some do not.Yet, I believe, that this is an important term for us to understand.Last week we saw that because of the resurrection we now know that Jesus is king over everyone. He is king because he was willing to become a slave and come to earth as one of us and die the most humiliating death. Now, he lives and his name is exalted above every other name and every knee shall bow before him. We are Christ’s slaves of righteousness because his love for us constrains us in shackles of love.

         Today, in similar fashion, I want to explore further this title Peter had for Jesus, Authority of Life. This title seems fitting for one who had defeated death, doesn’t it? Well, there is more to this title than just that. In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we learn why the term “authority” is the most appropriate translation of the Greek word “archegos”. Let us remember that to be an authority is to be one who has the power and right to give orders, to make decisions and to enforce obedience. Now, listen to what Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of John starting with the twenty first verse “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will…..whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. They do not come into judgment but have passed from death to life. I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God  and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” Jesus is the Authority of Life because he is the one has been given the ability to make the decisions, to give the orders and enforce their obedience through the action of judgment in matters pertaining to life. You see, the Father has given the Son the right to do the very same actions that the Father does most importantly the ability to raise the dead and give them life.Yet, if you listen carefully to what Jesus tells us it is not just the physically dead to which this raising of the dead and the giving to them life, occurs. It is those who hear the word of Jesus and believe in the Heavenly Father, these are the ones who do not come into judgment but have passed from death to life. So, what this is saying is those who have have not heard the word of Jesus, those who have refused the word of Jesus and those who will not place their faith in their Heavenly Father, these people, according to what Jesus himself tells us, are in fact dead.This is the concern of Peter as he addresses those gathered around him that day in the Temple because they are in fact very dead.

         One of the side things that was shared by Dr. Actons this week was something written by Victor Frankl. He is a survivor of the Holocausts and wrote a famous book based on his experiences entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning”. One thing he learned in the death chambers was that in order to have a hope that is sustainable a person must have a realistic grasp of where they were at at the moment. Without knowing the grim reality of where they were at many set unrealistic hopes that were unachievable and when their hopes were found to be unachievable this set the bearers of hope to a more hopeless place than where they had originally began. Now, I was intrigued by this idea because I believe that a lot of people think of either themselves, or their family members or their friend and their relationship with God as being somewhere between being a very good person or that this friend or family member is a very bad person. This is, I believe, is a very wrong way to view reality at least knowing what Jesus tells us about people. The reality is that people are either dead or people are alive. They either have heard the voice of Jesus and have placed their faith in their Heavenly Father or they have not. The reason that we have this understanding is when we have a good/ bad sense of reality then we care about the people in our life we quite naturally went them to be better people. Not surprising, Jesus understood this and taught us about it. Found in the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives two common ways that people try and reform the wayward people in their life. The first method is to be judgmental,  to try and remove from another person’s life all the stuff that prevents the light and love of God from getting through. The only problem as Jesus points out is that we have the very same stuff in our life that also needs removed first before we can even first think bout helping anyone else.

         So, ok, if trying to pick out all the negative stuff that keeps the light of God from getting through, if this won’t work because we have too much stuff in our own lives that keeps the light from getting through then how about we give them some of God’s light through scriptural advice. That will work won’t it? The problem is that anytime we do this it is really hard to not be condescending when we do it. When we use scripture to help someone we come off as the smart one helping out the not so smart one. And if they are in darkness then it is doubtful they will even be able to understand what is trying to tell them. People of the receiving end of such scriptural advice often get irritated much like hungry pigs being fed a bushel of pearls. The pearls may be precious to us but to them they are just rocks that do not satisfy their hunger.

         So what are we to do? We are to ask, seek and knock on the door of heaven and plead on the goodness of our Heavenly Father. What are we to ask our Heavenly Father to do, what is it that we are to seek from his hand, what is it that would be so important that we would bang on the door of the house of God just so we might have an audience with him? The answer is life. You see the first two approaches deal with a wrong way to view reality, as a continuum between very bad to very good with the idea to change people being to move them closer to very good. Jesus knew reality as either dead or alive and only God can take one who is dead and lift them up to new life. Instead of trying to remove the negative elements of life which block the light of God and instead of trying to bring the light of God to others through scripture we are to ask, seek and knock on the house of God that he might place his life, his light in a person that we know is far from him. If you remember the parable of the Prodigal Son, the reason for the party for the lost son at the end of the story is that as his Father exclaimed, his son was dead but now he is alive. The party was not because the son had been bad and now he was a good boy. Praying for others to have God in essence resurrect them from the place of death in their life follows the reasoning of the Prodigal Son.

  This is why the title that Peter used for Jesus that day in the Temple, that Jesus was the Authority of Life is so important. As the early church moved from Jerusalem to Judaea, to Samaria and on out to the ends of the world each member of the body of Christ had to understand how it was that people were transformed. They were not going to be transformed by judgmental people pointing out all the negatives about the people they encountered. They were not going to be transformed by using snippets of scripture and advice, pearls of wisdom because this too simply would not work. What would work is that the early church would be a church that prayed, they would be a house of prayer. They would ask God, and seek God and knock on the doors of the house of God so that his light and his life might come upon the people God would lead them to. This is how people would at last fulfill the hope of all the law and the prophets that people might love their neighbor as themselves, to see in others people just like them who wanted to be loved more than they wanted to be judged; people who desired to be met right where they we at not feeling as people others had condescend to in order to share their wisdom.

         We can never forget that becoming people of love is not some side project to bringing people to experience the eternal life that Jesus offers. The first letter of John, the third chapter explains it so well “We know we that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love abides in death” These verses, I have to admit, disturb me very much. We live in a society where hating others is not only acceptable it is a common way of life. I shudder when I see professing Christians get caught up in this culture of hatred and I wonder if they know that in doing so they are putting their eternal security in danger. You see, in our story of Peter at the Temple, we cannot forget that Peter is addressing the very people who chose a murderer over his best friend, crying out Barabbas! Barrabas! These are the people who wanted Jesus killed because he would not satisfy their longings of revolt against the Roman army. Yet here we find Peter, at the very same hour Jesus his beloved teacher died upon the cross forgiving the very people whose hands shed the blood of Jesus. Peter tells them that they had acted out of ignorance. Peter instead of spewing out a string of hatred and anger as many often find acceptable instead pleads with his audience to repent to come home because their heavenly Father’s arms were open and waiting for their return.Peter offered them hope that their sins would be blotted out forgotten forever, and they would experience a great time of refreshing, a time when all would be made new, alive. As Peter told them, Jesus was indeed the prophet spoken about by Moses in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, who would be raised up from the people of Israel. They were to listen to every word Jesus had spoke because the prophecies of Jesus had all come true. Three times Jesus had predicted that he would die upon the cross and then three days later he would be resurrected and this most certainly happened. So, knowing this there was no reason for them to not hear the words of Jesus, and believe that he was sent by God the Father and move from death to life.As Peter told them, God had told Abraham that through the offspring of Abraham all the world would be blessed. This blessing is not only that God would forgive the sins of their past as we are told in the first two verses of Psalm thirty two, but God also desires to bless the all the families of earth, giving them eternal life so that they no longer live under the fear of judgment but can now live in the present with a living hope.

         This is what Peter desired for everyone to experience, the one who is the Authority of Life, the one called Jesus. It is this life of Jesus that poured out from heaven and healed the lame man giving a clear witness that this life was there for anyone in need of healing, wholeness and life. This life as Peter demonstrated is a life of love and concern for everyone even those we consider to be our enemies. We must every day take an inventory of our hearts and ask ourselves if there is anyone that we would refuse to share the gospel with solely because of the hatred in our hearts. If we find this is the case then we must get on our knees, repent once again and ask God to fill us with his love and his life. We must attune our ears to hear the word of Jesus, his command to love and place our faith in our Heavenly Father who sent Jesus to us. We must also consider praying for those who like the prodigal son find themselves in a far country, far from the Heavenly Father who loves them. We must ask, seek and knock on the door of our Heavenly Father and ask him to give them the very best good gift from above, the gift of life. This is the way the lost are found, the far off come home, the enemies of God are transformed into his servants. This is the power and work of Jesus, the one Peter knew and the one we should know as the Authority of Life. Amen 

Acting as if the resurrection changes everything!

April 19 2020

Acts 1:1-11

         Well,Easter is over. If you had any Easter decorations put out, I’m sure that they are tucked away for another year. This year because of the pandemic we didn’t have to figure out what to do with all the leftover Easter eggs. I mean just how many days can you eat deviled eggs? Sometimes as we move on from these yearly celebrations we often forget the importance of what we just celebrated. Last week we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus. He defeated death and he lives forever more. That is something that we can not just move on from.The Easter miracle is one that we need to consider for a while and see just how the greatest miracle ever impacts our life changing the way we speak and act. This is why in the next several weeks, we are going to take a look at the book, The Acts of the Apostles. If you want to join me in going a little deeper into the Acts of the Apostles, I recommend two books which are the inspiration for this message series. The first is “True to Faith: Acts of the Apostles” by David Gooding. What he found is that Luke, the author of the book of Acts, put six clear breaks in his manuscript. The reason Luke did this is that each section of the book of Acts is answering a question. The early church were in a process of figuring out just who they were, just what set them apart from their Jewish neighbors. So, in Acts we first must figure out “Who is Jesus?”The second issue was the issue of the worship and service of God. Were they to restrict their worship to the Temple or was their something different that they were to do? Then their was the issue as to which people were righteous before God and just how were these new Christians to know who was in and who was not. Then another issue cropped up concerning just what is required for new converts to be made right with God. Other issues that the early church had to wrestle with is just how people entered the kingdom of God and the authority and understanding of scripture. Now the interesting thing was that when the church did figure out a little more just who they were, Luke writes that that there was an increase in their numbers. The better they understood who they were the more likely that others wanted to be apart of the early church. So, there are some great lessons to be learned for us today, as we, the church, can no longer meet together. The questions we need to ask ourselves is church a place we go to or is it people we are united with through the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit? Like the book of Acts we need to take time to wrestle with and find answers to just who we are as followers of Christ.

         The second book this message series is based on is “The Hope of Israel: The Resurrection of Christ in the Acts of the Apostles” by Brandon Crowe.  The premise of this book is that the central message of the book of Acts is the resurrection of Jesus.It is the resurrection that is preached, it is the resurrection that is taught and lived throughout the pages of Acts. Now as I read these two books it was easy to see that they belong together because the answers to the questions that the early church were asking have their answer in the resurrection of Jesus. It doesn’t take much thought to see that the answer to who Jesus is lies solely in the resurrection. The answer to worship and service to God is found in the promise of Jesus that in three days he would raise up a new temple. The resurrected Jesus is the judge and we are justified by his resurrection. Through baptism we enter into his resurrection to live in his kingdom. And the only way to understand scripture is to let the light of the resurrection shine upon them for they all point to God’s greatest miracle and promise.

         This is is all of what is behind this ridiculously long message title “Acting as if the resurrection of Jesus changed everything”  because this is how the early church, recorded in the book of Acts, lived their lives and so should we. Easter is not something we should just pack away with the decorations but is the the experience that should ground our life and answer our questions. Today’s scripture is from the first chapter of Acts. What we need to keep in mind is that Luke is not only the author of the gospel of his name but s the author of the book of Acts. So, Acts is like Luke, the saga continues kind of thing. In fact there are several themes that run through Luke and are again found here in this first chapter of Acts. One of these is the redemption of Israel. At the beginning of Luke’s gospel in the first chapter, the sixty seventh verse, we hear John’s father, Zechariah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit cry out, ‘Blessed be the God of Israel for he has visited and redeem his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David” Zechariah speaks the hope of his people that now would be the time when God would be faithful to his servant David and raise up a king whose reign would be everlasting. We hold onto that thought and turn to the twenty fourth chapter of Luke and Luke records one early Sunday morning a man named Cleopas and his wife are walking home to their town of Emmaus. Two days earlier they had witnessed the man they had believed in, a man named Jesus die upon a Roman cross. Their hopes were gone; their hearts were crushed. They were going home to try and forget about it all. On their way home, they were met by a stranger who asked them what they were discussing as they walked. They told him they were talking about the one named Jesus, the one from Nazareth. He was the one they had hoped would redeem Israel. There is that hope of redemption popping up again. Redemption is to be set free from slavery, to have someone pay a price necessary to procure ones freedom. In Israel’s history it conjured up images of God sending Moses down to Egypt so that the people of Israel could be set free from their bitter slavery. Redemption for them was understandably a personal issue. In the days of Jesus they found themselves under Roman occupation, to them they were slaves once again in need of redemption. Like many even today, the longing for freedom is constant drive of ones soul. People were protesting this week against what they felt were undo restrictions put on their freedom due to the quarantine to deal with the pandemic.So, this longing in for freedom is one that both universal and historical, unchanging always present in the human heart. Perhaps even today people still might say “We thought Jesus was the one to redeem us, to set us free, now we are not so sure.” 

         These thoughts arise once again in the first chapter of the book of Acts. The resurrected Jesus spent forty days after his resurrection to teach his disciples about the kingdom of God. As he is finishing up his time here on Earth, his disciples ask Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” Now when I read this I have to say that Jesus has a lot more patience in dealing with people then I will ever have. I mean Jesus has just been teaching his disciples for forty days on the kingdom of God and after he wraps up his teaching, he opens up his teaching session for a little question and answer time, and their question is, okay, Jesus tell us plain when are you going to restore thee kingdom of Israel. I mean all you have talked incessantly about for over a month is the kingdom of God and all your students want to know is when are you going to get to the kingdom of Israel.  It is the same issue found in the gospel of Luke, the redemption of Israel, the throwing off of Roman rule, the freedom of self-determination. They had read the stories of David how he was a mighty warrior, how Israel became a great nation under him now here was Jesus, resurrected from the grave, obviously anointed by God, obviously the one who was the one who is the everlasting king of the house of Israel.

         Now, Jesus does not give his disciples a yes or no answer to their question but rather focuses in on the fact that it was not for them to know the seasons or times that the Father has fixed by his authority. This, I believe, was Jesus subtlety reminding them of who they were in the big scheme of things, people who were ever at the mercy of their Heavenly Father. When Jesus tells us that his Father is the one who sets the seasons and the times by his authority, we have to realize that the Father can do this because he is outside of time. As the God who lives outside of time he is also the Creator and this is, I believe, what Jesus is pointing to because in the next breath, Jesus begins speaking about the coming Holy Spirit, the power, the promise of the Father. The Spirit is the one who, in the beginning, hovered over the primordial chaos, the nothingness and out of the nothingness a creation came forth. That same Spirit was once again going to be sent by the Father to hover over the chaos which was the lives of these followers of Jesus. This action of the Holy Spirit would create in them a new heart and God would put a new spirit within them, his spirit, the Holy Spirit. The poor spirit within them that was unable to overcome the sinful impulses of their flesh would be replaced by the very Spirit of God who would empower them to put to death their flesh and live through the power and presence of the Spirit. When these disciples asked the question concerning the kingdom of Israel, they revealed that they focused solely on themselves, on their own people concerned only for their own country. God though had a much larger vision, a global vision of a world set free from the power of sin.The people of Israel had forgotten the promise God had made to their forefather Abraham that he was chosen by God so that through him all of the families would be blessed. This blessing that was to be given to all the families of the earth is found in the thirty second Psalm, the first and second verse, where we read, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” This is the blessed message that the apostles would preach to the ends of the Earth, that God has forgiven their sin through the death of Jesus upon the cross. His blood cleansed away our sin so that we in Christ could enter the most holy presence of God. This is what the apostles would witness to, not just the cross but the resurrection as well. The life which puts to death the power of the flesh finds a new power of life, the power of the resurrection.

         This is how the kingdom of God grows and spreads around the globe as one by one people come under the kingship of Jesus and through the Holy Spirit put to death the flesh and find life through the power of the Spirit. Now so often we want to just see the kingship of Jesus as a spiritual ruler and believe somehow Jesus can rule the spiritual side of life while our earthly rulers can rule the here and now of our existence. Nothing can be further from the truth. Jesus is either ruler over all or he is ruler over none; each of us must decide which it is and our choice has eternal consequences. In the book of Acts, the seventeenth chapter, we see the real life consequences of making Jesus our king. There a mob jealous at the success of Paul and Silas brought charges against some of their new converts saying “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here and Jason has received them and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king Jesus.” While we must have some allegiance to our leaders we can never forget that there is a king even over our president, our members of Congress and our judges. If they decree that we do something that goes against the rule of Christ we must out of our ultimate allegiance defy that decree even if there are consequences. That we cannot always do what the rest of the world feels free to do points out one of the most unusual aspects of the kingship of Jesus and that is  that only as we are constrained can we be truly free. Paul speaks about this in his second letter to the Corinthians, where he writes “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the knowledge of him everywhere.” Paul uses the image of a king who has won a battle and has brought back the spoils of war, prisoners captured by a triumphant king. This is an unusual way for us to consider ourselves, no doubt, as people who long incessantly for freedom. Yet we can better understand this image if we turn to the fifth chapter of this same letter, where we read “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we have concluded this; that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” This is why Jesus, our king, deserves our ultimate allegiance because we once were dead and now we are alive all because our king died to give us life. So, now it is love which constrains us controls we might even say enslaves us. This is hard for us to fathom when this longing for freedom is such a big part of life. The truth is that in our life in the here and now is a life of slavery, doesn’t that take you back a bit? Listen to what Paul writes in the sixth chapter of Romans “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of these things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God , the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” Yes, we are slaves to righteousness but our slavery leads to our ever increasing holiness and this gives us hope of eternal life where we will be free from sin and death.

         This is the message that the apostles would witness to in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and to all the ends of the Earth. The whole world would receive the blessing of the knowledge that God through Jesus has forgiven their sin but in hearing of this forgiveness would come the knowledge that in their sin they were dead. Jesus died for us when we were dead and through his death and rising again we find ourselves alive. How can we not have such a love for him that he would forever rule our hearts? It is this word, this message of Christ’s love which sets us free from the death grip of sin. This is what Jesus tells us in the eighth chapter of the gospel of John where we read “”If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will no the truth and the truth will set you free” and further in that same passage Jesus continues by saying “ Truly, truly, I say to you; everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So, if the son sets you free you will be free indeed.” The freedom Jesus offers is a freedom from sin, so that we are no longer a slave of sin. This freedom comes from us allowing our love for what Jesus has done for us to constrain us, to control us to make us into slaves of righteousness. This is when Jesus is our king and when the kingdom of God comes on earth just as it is in heaven.

         Yes, it does seem strange that freedom is found through being a slave but this was the life of Jesus, the reason he is declared to be our king. Paul wonderfully sings the song in the second chapter of the letter of Philippians where we read “ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did to count equality with God a thing to be grasped or seized but he made himself nothing, taking the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death upon the cross. Therefore, God God has exalted him and bestowed the name that is above every name so at the name of Jesus every name shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus, the anointed one of God is king, to the glory of God.” This is the end hope found in the first chapter of Acts. God desires that every tongue confess that Jesus is indeed the risen and ascended king. He is the one we bow before in humble adoration. As Jesus first humbled himself and became a slave, we follow suit and become his slave, people constrained by love of the one who died to give us life.

         The disciples much like us had a hard time grasping the global vision that the kingship of Jesus is supposed to be. Yet if we acknowledge that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, not just the sins of America, or the sins of Europe or Asia or fill in the blank then his forgiveness is for everyone. Christ died for the sins of the world therefore he is the king of the world. He is only our king though as our love for him controls our every thought, our every word, our every action. This is is how we answer the question “Who is Jesus?” By answering he is our king because he has captured us and constrained by love to serve only him, truly slaves of righteousness. Even though we proudly state that we are slaves of righteousness we do so knowing that Christ has set us free, free from being a slave to sin whose wages are death. Now we are slaves of righteousness growing everyday more in the likeness of Christ, serving as he did. Even though he calls us his children we take the form of slaves to love as Jesus loved so that more and more people might come to know the king who became a slave to give them life.  This is how we witness to Jesus beginning where we are at and going out in ever widening circles so that the world may know and find life in Jesus. To his praise! Amen

Celebrating the Truth of Easter!

April 12 2020

Mark 16: 1-8

        The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!What a great Easter tradition that I picked up from my time as a Moravian. Easter always meant rising early on Easter morning to head down to Schoenbrunn Village, to God’s Acre and the Sunrise service with many others from all over the county. The way every Sunrise service starts is with the presiding pastor exclaiming “The Lord is Risen!” Followed by the rest of us echoing back, “The Lord is Risen Indeed!” This year of course will be different with the pandemic concerns, social distancing and flattening the curve and doing all we can not to contract the corona virus. With a holiday so steeped in tradition, it is hard to have this Easter feel like Easter. It is hard to think that there will be no putting on of the Easter finery, no “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” sung at maximum volume, no Easter lilies and hyacinths filling the sanctuary with their perfume and no hiding eggs for the Easter egg hunt. There will be no having the family over for the Easter ham and carrot cake. No, this year will be strangely different. As hard as it may seem to say it, perhaps this might be a good thing and here is why I say that; this pandemic has brought to the forefront of our lives the real elements of Easter, what this day is all about in a way no one could imagine. This is why I say that it is a good thing at least for this reason. You see, what this pandemic has done is to make us realize just how weak the flesh is, the biblical term for the power we believe we have as people. There was nothing we could do to stop this virus from migrating from China across the world like some invisible firestorm. No amount of money thrown at this problem really helped either except than to save some lives. This corona virus in other words, made us come face to face with our own vulnerability, with our own finitude, with the fact that we are mortal beings who need to number our days. Now this may not sound very positive however it is only when we admit the weakness of our flesh that we then turn to find strength in our faith. This is the silver lining around the cloud of this pandemic. In this moment is when faith can be rediscovered, and the power of that faith is what Easter is really all about.

         All during Lent we have seeing these forty days as a journey, a pilgrimage to Mount Zion. Using the verse from the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, we kept our focus, this heavenly city of Jerusalem, the city of the living God, to so many angels you simply cannot count them all gathered round to celebrate the festival, to the firstborn all assembled together in heaven, to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous perfected and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. This is where Lent is to lead us because this is a panoramic view of our resurrection hope. Our hope is that one day heaven and earth will be gloriously united and on earth it will be as it is in heaven. This hope is grounded in our faith because as the writer of Hebrews also writes in the first verses of the eleventh chapter, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So, our journey to the heavenly city is a pilgrimage of faith, a conviction that even though as of yet we do not see heaven and earth united in a festival gathering one day we most certainly will see just that. We have this faith because Jesus had this faith. This is the faith he clung to when they mocked him, beat him and nailed him to the cross. It was this faith that could ask for the cup to be taken from him and then in the same breath say but not my will be done. Jesus was not able to see heaven and earth united in joyful worship while here on earth but he was convicted that they way to that place lay beyond the horrors of the cross and that is why he yielded his life to the Holy Spirit to offer himself up as a sacrifice without blemish.

With these thoughts in mind, we come to our scripture for today from the gospel of Mark. Mark’s account of the resurrection is perhaps the most unusual of all of the gospel accounts because it is among other things, the shortest account. It is shorter because in Mark we have no risen Jesus sightings only second-hand accounts that Jesus has risen from the dead. Mark’s account also ends abruptly which disturbed some translators so much that they decided to add to Mark’s account to make it more satisfying. What has most likely happened is that the rest of Marks gospel account was torn off of the original and lost. Yet if that is true, it is not a total loss because we can learn much from what we have. Mark as usual gives us literary clues to enhance his story. He writes that “early on the first day of the week”, which is similar to how the creation story begins so this is our first clue. Mark is saying that what is witnessed to in the resurrection of Jesus is nothing less than a new creation. Mark goes on to say that the women went there to anoint the body of Jesus when the sun had risen. This harkens back to what Malachi wrote in the fourth chapter of his book, that says “for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” This is one of the descriptions Malachi uses to speak of the day of the Lord which Mark understands the resurrection to be. With the resurrection of Jesus, there would be healing in its light because at long last the power of God’s promises would be revealed. The women, of course suspecting nothing, were concerned about who would roll away the heavy stone which closed the entrance to the tomb. Yet when they arrived at the tomb much to their surprise the stone had been rolled away. Not only that but when they entered the tomb there was inside the tomb, a young man all dressed in white. To say they were alarmed is probably an understatement. The young man told them that Jesus was not there that he had risen. They could look at where Jesus had been laid and clearly see that he was gone. The young man went on to tell them that they were to go, and tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus went ahead of them to Galilee. It is at Galilee that they would see him, just as he had told them. Mark then records that the women went out of the tomb and fled. Trembling and astonishment had seized them. Then Mark also records that they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. This is how Marks account ends, with more of a thud then with an exclamation mark.It is a story that is more troubling the more you meditate on it. We do not know where the disciples are, we do not know what has become of Peter after his disastrous night of betraying Jesus. The women who were to relay the message about Jesus were to go to the disciples and Peter to let them know that he is risen and here they are too afraid to say anything to anyone; end of story. What Mark has essentially done is to give us a cliff-hanger much like the ones we see at a shows season ending episode that hopefully be resolved at the beginning of the next season. We can almost hear the promo’s for Mark’s cliff-hanger: Will the women ever get up the nerve to tell their story? Will the disciples ever know that Jesus has gotten out of town and is headed for Galilee? Will Peter ever get over the night of his betrayal and become the leader Jesus thought he could be? These and more will be answered in season two. Only there is no season two. It is right here that it should dawn on us what Mark may want us to do. At the end of this story, when all seems to have come to nothing, Mark wants his readers to use what the whole gospel has been hopefully trying to instill in them, faith. Mark wants to make it perfectly clear that the way that the church began was only through the power and promises of God, nothing else. The human side of things were pretty much a mess. The disciples were AWOL, Peter has not been heard of in days and the women entrusted with the message have all clammed up. Yet, in spite of such beginnings, there is a church. How is that possible? Marks answer is only God. Only God can take the nothingness that is recorded about that first Easter morning and create the body of his anointed one. So, out of Mark’s account of the resurrection of Jesus, Mark desires his readers to come away with resurrection faith which was the whole point of Jesus being raised from the dead in the first place.

To understand this resurrection faith we turn to Paul who wrote extensively about it. In the third chapter of Romans, Paul writes “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness  of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” Now, this all sounds good so far but just what does it mean to have faith in Jesus Christ? Does it mean that we believe its true that Jesus died for our sins on the cross and three days later walked out of the tomb? Or does it perhaps mean something more? Paul would say that yes, to have faith in Jesus is not just to agree with what Jesus has done in his death and resurrection but further that we should have the same faith as Jesus, the faith that led him to offer himself upon the cross, the faith that was vindicated on Easter morning. So often when we say we have faith in God’s grace its kind of vague just what it is that we are saying that we believe in. Sure we say we trust God but what do we trust him to do or to be? To help clarify just what is meant by placing our faith in God, Paul retells the story of Abraham who Paul tells us is the father of our faith. Paul writes in the fourth chapter of Romans, that “the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith” To be heir of the world means that Abraham and his descendants would receive an inheritance of a the world, the world to come, the life everlasting. This would be theirs not through any work or effort on their part but rather it would be theirs because of their faith, this is how God tells us that we can have a right relationship with him. So, now we need to define just what does it mean to have faith? Paul continues by telling us this “This promise of an inheritance is given to the one who shares the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all, as it is written “I have made you the father of many nations”-in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” To have faith in God means that we know that our God can give life to the dead, that our God can take nothing and out of nothing create something. This is why God is our Creator because out of the nothingness of the primordial chaos God called forth his creation, a creation which was an order where life flourished. Faith in God is then the ability to see nothing, to be confronted with nothingness and know out of that absolute emptiness God can speak a word and call forth life. This is the faith of Jesus, the faith that held him to the cross, the faith that denounced any trust in his flesh, his ability, his human power and wisdom. His blood poured out was a visual denouncement against the god of our age of the belief in human potency and power. Jesus instead trusted his Heavenly Father, knowing that he is the source of all life, the one who could but speak a word and the seen could spring forth from the unseen. To a watching world the cross was a resounding defeat; to a watching heaven the cross was a stunning victory. Jesus died as he had lived never placing any trust in his flesh, always leaning on the power of the Spirit. Jesus never went where he saw fit but rather he would only work where he saw his heavenly Father working. The resurrection of Jesus proved the righteousness of Jesus,so often questioned by the Pharisees, and Temple authorities who felt that through their own efforts they could be right with God. No, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus witness to us that it is trusting in God, trusting that our God can take the nothingness of our life, lost in sin and call forth a life in right relationship with him.This is what Paul writes at the end of the fourth chapter of Romans, “Righteousness will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Our faith is in the God whose power was displayed in glory as  he lifted Jesus out of the nothingness of death and raised him up into life.

It is this faith, faith in a God who can call order out of chaos that we need so much right now in this time of pandemic crisis.This spreading disease has stripped away all our illusions of grandeur.So much of life that we thought we just could not live without we are suddenly living without. Yet this is a good thing because it exposes the weakness of our flesh. We have come to the place where we must confess our vulnerability which was there all along just not willingly admitted. You see it is this vulnerability to loss, death and damage that leads to fear. This fear in turn causes us to be overly protective which in turn cause people to become violent and aggressive, and to do things like hoard toilet paper. In much the same way, when we find ourselves in a state of weakness we often can be led to become overly ambitious, to become envious, narcissistic, jealous, self-conscious with a sense of guilt and shame to give the rest of the world we are stronger than we really are.This is why a life lived by the powers of the flesh leads people to be pleasure seekers to compensate for the pain associated with their weakness. This of course leads to a desire for wealth and greed  and the cruelty involved with obtaining these. You see sin and evil find their roots in people living by their fleshly power who are trying to compensate for their own weakness and vulnerability. Yet God knows all this and he understands. Paul tells us in the eighth chapter of Romans that God “sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…” All of the sinful behavior that comes from trying to compensate for the vulnerability and weakness of our flesh, this is what Jesus condemns through his death upon the cross. There upon the cross, Jesus was vulnerable fully naked, spread out upon a cross fully exposed to the all the pain a world could hurl at him. On the cross Jesus was weak, beaten down by the blows of Roman centurions, crushed by the weight of the cross he carried, debilitated by the pain of piercing nails. Yet he did not yield to the temptation to compensate for his vulnerability and weakness through any effort of his flesh. He could resist that temptation because of one thing, his faith in his Heavenly Father. Jesus could face his death with the knowledge that his Heavenly Father could take the nothingness and chaos of his death and call forth life, his life made new. This faith of Jesus was vindicated on Easter morning as he stepped out of the tomb.

This is why this Easter in the midst of this corona virus pandemic we need the truth of Easter far more than we need the traditions of Easter. We are vulnerable. We can social distance ourselves, we can wear our masks but we still deep down realize that this unseen enemy is out there. We do feel our weakness. We watch as our economy, an emblem for so long of our strength as a nation, has been destroyed by overwhelming unemployment. Over six million people are out of work. We experience our weakness as we realize that we are powerless to stave off the effects of a global pandemic.It is right now, in this time of a healthy awareness of who we have always been, that we once again understand that we need resurrection faith more than ever. Instead of letting this vulnerability and weakness lead us to be driven by fear and self-protection, we should face the chaos of our situation with faith in the God who can call life out of our despair.In this way we can find hope in bleak days because our faith is the assurance of the things we hope for. This faith in the God who can raise the dead to life will also then work itself out in love. When we no longer let fear turn us inward in an attempt to protect ourselves, when we embrace our weakness as a sign of our common humanity, then through the Spirit of God, the love of God which led Jesus to the bear our sins will lead us to bear the burdens of others. It is at this dark time that the light of such love will shine ever the more brighter.This is when God will be glorified when we become people whose lives demonstrate the same steadfast love and faithfulness that God has always shown to us.

So often the resurrection of Jesus is only seen as a hope for our future reality of the assurance of everlasting life which is ours by faith. While this is true, the resurrection of Jesus is meant to be us so much more. The resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of the faith of Jesus, a faith that can be ours to establish our lives in the here and now. Rather than putting any trust in the flesh trying in vain to compensate for the vulnerability and weakness of our flesh by actions of the flesh we instead can have faith in the God who gives life to the dead and who calls into existence the things that do do not exist. This is the power God promises us are ours through faith. As the writer of Hebrews put it so well from the sixth chapter of his letter we read “the promises of God are a sure and steadfast anchor for our soul, our life.” So when the storms of life come, whether they be the threat of the pandemic or the threat of economic loss, whatever storms life throws at us we have an anchor to hold us steady, to give us confidence in the face of chaos. These promises we know are true because of Jesus who also believed in these same promises and faced the cross anchored firmly against the storm of death. Three days later the world discovered that the anchor held, the promises were sure and our God is a God who can call forth life out of death. The resurrection is our witness that these promises can be our anchor in the storms of life that we face today. This is why because he lives we can not only face tomorrow we can face today as well. I hope that if anyone has not placed their faith in the faith of Jesus that they do so today; when there is an anchor for life offered to us why would we not want to accept this gift to secure our life?All God asks is that we believe with the same faith of Jesus. This faith of Jesus is a faith in the God who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, a resurrection faith which is our power for life! Amen!

Welcome to the New Passover

April 5 2020

Mark 11:1-11

  One of the effects of the corona pandemic is that so much of life has been turned upside down. Even little things are affected such as the phrase we would often say about a popular video or tweet, that it had gone “viral”, is just not something people want to say anymore after experiencing what going viral really means. I so want to use those phrase “going viral” today on this Palm Sunday, to put into modern terms just what has happened to the reputation of Jesus. As Jesus enters into Jerusalem, riding just as the prophet Zechariah has foretold, on a colt, crowds gather round him, the news of his arrival has traveled throughout the countryside and from all over people have come to Jerusalem to celebrate what they hope will be the arrival of the long awaited king who will set them free from Roman oppression. 

One thing that we must be clear about though is that this Jerusalem is not the city that we are headed to on our Lenten journey. All during Lent the city that we long for is the heavenly Jerusalem that us described to us in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews where we hear about the angels too many in number to count all gathered for the festival, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant  and to the sprinkled blood which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. In our scripture for today though we do see some similarities, as the people of Judaea have come to the earthly Jerusalem to gather and celebrate the festival of Passover. The heavenly image has its roots in an earthly reality but it goes beyond that reality to the hope which is our anchor of life here on earth. That hope is the hope of the resurrection where at long last earth and heaven are no longer divided but through the work of Christ have become united. The plea of the prayer Jesus taught, that what is done in heaven is done on earth, will at last be answered. Yet to get to that reality what must happen is that Jesus must endure the cross. The week that begins with shouts of “Hosanna” will end with cries of “Crucify him”. Yet Jesus knew that it must be like this. Three times he has told his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem to walk the way of the cross. Jesus could endure the cross, he could despise the shame because of the joy set before him. This is what the writer of Hebrews tells us because this is how we too can carry our cross. The joy that is spoken of is that day when earth and heaven are at long last united, the day of resurrection, the day of the great festival gathering in the heavenly Jerusalem. Now, the writer of Hebrews does not tell us just which festival it is that is being celebrated but I believe that perhaps as an echo of his last days on earth, I wonder if the festival being celebrated is the New Passover. In Mark’s account of the last week of Jesus’ ministry, the people of the earthly Jerusalem are preparing to gather together in the great feast of remembrance, the Passover. What is interesting about the festival of Passover is that when you have some understanding of what this festival is about then you begin to realize that this festival is also a way for us to understand, in a profound way, the death of Jesus on the cross. What Jesus accomplished on the cross is, I believe, like our new Passover, and this is why I believe that this is the festival we will celebrate for all eternity, because what Jesus accomplished on the cross will be our song of praise forever.

Now,  most people do not really have any clue about what Passover is or even why this ancient Jewish festival would have any importance for us as Christians today. So, what is Passover? Well, to understand what Passover is we have to go back to the beginning of the history of the people of Israel. Israel began with a man named Abraham who was called by God. Abraham had Issac who in turn had Jacob who God renamed Israel. Israel  lived in Canaan and he had twelve sons, one named Joseph. Joseph ended up being hauled off to Egypt where he ended up being second in command.  During a severe drought, Israel and his family went down to Egypt to live because Joseph had prepared for this famine by storing up food during the plentiful years. Okay, fast forward, two hundred years, Israels family now numbers in the thousands, and the kings of Egypt, the Pharaohs, afraid that the people Israel would overpower them, decided to make the people of Israel their slaves. So, the people of Israel in their slavery cry out to God and God heard their cry, God felt their pain and God called a man named Moses. Moses goes down to Egypt and confronts the Pharaoh and tells him to let the people of Israel go free. Pharaoh a believer in pagan gods, the powers seen in nature, had a hard time understanding that the God of Moses was the one true God, creator of all. To convince the Pharaoh that the God of Moses was nothing like the gods Pharaoh thought were gods, God sent a series of plagues upon Egypt. Pharaoh watched as the Nile turned to blood, as frogs and lice overwhelmed his nation, as the cattle died and the people of Egypt suffered with horrible boils.  Finally, with a plague of hail, the Pharaoh confessed his sin and there was a glimmer of hope that the suffering of God’s people was at an end. Yet, when the hail ceased the Pharaoh changed his mind, his heart was hardened and he refused to let Gods people go free. So, God sends a plague of locusts which destroys all of the food in Egypt. And still Pharaoh would not let God’s people go. God then sent the plague of darkness which lasted three days. This was to show God’s power over the sun god worshipped in Egypt. And Pharaoh still would not let God’s people go. So, God announced that there would be one last plague. This is where at last we hear about the Passover. God through Moses told Pharaoh that at midnight all of the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the slave girl to the firstborn of the cattle, all of these would die. The result God told Pharaoh is that he, the king of Egypt, would come and bow down before God and plead for him to take his people and leave Egypt.

Now on this same evening, the people of Israel were commanded by God to take a male lamb, one year old and they were to kill this lamb at sundown. Then they were to take the blood of this lamb and put this blood on the doorposts and the doorframe on the houses where the lamb was going to be eaten. The lamb was to be roasted because the people were to be ready to move as soon as Pharaoh said they could go. They were to eat with their sandals on and their staff in their hand. The importance of the blood is that when God saw the blood he would pass over that house and the plague that killed the firstborn of Egypt would not destroy the firstborn of the people of Israel.

This then is a plain account of what Passover is but if you dig a little deeper you begin to see the power of what was happening. If you look at the gods that the Egyptians worshipped, what you find is that they worshipped a god named Khnum who had the head of a ram. Khnum was the god who was thought to be the creator of the bodies of children. So, imagine the people of Egypt watch as the people of Israel slaughter young rams and blatantly smear the blood of what they considered to be a god all over the entrance of their home? What the people of Israel did was an act of defiance, a blatant killing of what the Egyptians held sacred. To take and paint the blood upon their doorway was a way of saying that inside the houses of the people of Israel were those who had chosen the one true living God; all others were dead to them. When the people of Israel crossed their thresholds they crossed a line, they had made a choice they were saying that they were the people of God.

On that night, remembered at Festival of Passover, death came to every house in Egypt including the house of Pharaoh. Pharaoh summoned Moses and told him to go out from the people of Egypt, him and the people Israel. At long last, the people of Israel were set free from their bondage. This is what they remembered every year, the bitterness of their slavery and how God had told them to kill the lamb, put their blood upon their doorways, to eat in haste and how at midnight death had passed over them but had devastated the Egyptians resulting in their freedom. 

What is important to remember, is that when we read in scripture about our redemption, Passover is the event that is being referenced to. For example, when Paul writes in the third chapter of Romans that “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”, Paul in speaking of redemption is speaking of Passover. Redemption is a word that means setting a slave free just as what happened with the people of Israel. Yet, with Jesus and his death upon the cross, the redemption Jesus made possible was not a liberation from a superpower nation but instead the superpower of sin. As Paul explains in the sixth chapter of Romans, the sixth and seventh verses, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For the one who has died has been set free from sin.” Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world went to the cross to shed his blood so that his blood might cover over us just like the blood of the Lamb upon the doorposts, and under this protection we might have life and freedom.

The blood of Jesus represented his life, the life of the flesh. The importance of remembering this is what Paul tells us in the third verse of the eighth chapter of Romans that “God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh.” When the blood of Jesus was poured out, it revealed that Jesus did not live his life in the power of the flesh but lived solely through the power of the Holy Spirit. The writer of Hebrews in the ninth chapter of his letter, the fourteenth verse, states that it was through the Spirit that Jesus offered himself to God.”  So, as the blood of the first Passover portrayed the death of the Egyptian idol so too the blood of Jesus portrays the death of the root of all idolatry, the reliance upon the power of our flesh. To trust in our own strength, to seek ways to make our own selves stronger this is the source of all idolatry. God calls us to instead rely solely upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Only through the power of the Spirit can we, like Jesus, offer ourselves without blemish to God.

The purpose of the first Passover was so that the people of Israel would be free to serve and worship God. Passover, the event that established the people of Israel as God’s people was to lead to where Israel could meet with Godard establish a relationship with him. This is why after the people of Israel entered into a covenant with God at Mt. Sinai, the first thing God told Moses was that Moses was to build was the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting. Here, in this Tent of Meeting, Moses could meet face to face with God. The place where this encounter happened is in the inner most chamber of the Tabernacle, the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested. The Ark of the Covenant was gold plated wood box which held the Ten Commandments (Side note: If you want to see a Hollywood version of the Ark check out the movie Riders of the Lost Ark). The cover of the ark had a special name. In English it is often called “The Mercy Seat” yet it is not technically a seat. In Hebrew, this Ark cover was called the kapporeth. This name comes from a root word which means to cleanse or purge. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sin offering and sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat. This would purify the sanctuary so the place where God’s glory came to dwell could be kept pure. This place, this kapporeth, was the place where heaven and earth met in covenant bond.This is where God met with his people and the priest knew that in order for a holy God to meet there the place had to be cleansed from all pollution. The cleansing agent was blood which symbolized a life poured out, a life offered up.        

The cross where the Lamb of God was offered up was the place of our redemption, our Passover. The cross was where Jesus put to death the power of the flesh symbolized by his blood poured out. When we are crucified with him, putting to death our flesh, we are no longer enslaved to sin; we have been redeemed. Yet the cross of Christ, like Passover, was meant to do more. The Cross of Christ is not only to set us free from sin but it is also to lead to a meeting together of heaven and earth, God with us in relationship. After Paul writes about the redemption in Christ Jesus, in the third chapter of Romans, the twenty fourth verse, he goes on to that God put forth Jesus as a propitiation by his blood. The word translated as “propitiation” is the Greek word for kapporeth. It is not hard to understand Paul’s train of thought once we know that he has used the Hebrew word for the purified, cleansed, place where God and people meet. Paul is saying that it is Jesus is the new kapporeth, the place cleansed by his own blood where God and people can meet in relationship.

In the book of Deuteronomy, what is a constant concern throughout this book is the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. No matter how clearly God spelled out the demands of their relationship, Israel simply could not be respond with a steadfast love for God. This unfaithfulness of the people was always a constant in their relationship with God. Looking back on the waywardness of the people of Israel throughout history it should come as no surprise that in the end they would cry for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be crucified. Yet, in the book of Deuteronomy, we find that there was hope that Israel could one day be transformed and be the faithful obedient God expected. In the thirtieth chapter we read, “ And the Lord shall purge your heart, and the heart of your children, to love the Lord your God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that you might live.” What was humanly impossible was going to be made possible through an act of God. The word purge in this promise is similar to the cleansing that happens at the meeting place, the kapporeth. The hope of this promise of Deuteronomy then seems to imply that one day God would cleanse our heart so that they might be the new kapporeth, the meeting place where heaven and earth could meet. This hope that God would one day purge the hearts of his wayward children became a reality in the life and death of Jesus. What cleanses our hearts is the unbelievable faithfulness of Jesus who remained faithful to his Heavenly Father even unto death. When in the light the faithfulness of Jesus upon the cross we come face to face with our own unfaithfulness, and in this moment our hearts are crushed by our unworthiness of such a great mercy, all for us. The powerful truth Jesus always taught, that those who are forgiven much, love much becomes a reality for us. At the cross what we suddenly realize is that all of us have been forgiven much than we ever could have imagined. In this way, the mercy of Christ puts a desire within us to be merciful. It is here, at the point of mercy, where God’s mercy creates in us a heart of mercy, that heaven meets earth. Here in our hearts, cleansed by the blood of Jesus, heavens mercy comes to life in our earthly acts of mercy. In this way, our hearts become the new kapporeth, the new meeting place made possible by the blood of Jesus. So, we have not only been redeemed, set free from the slavery of sin, in the New Passover, but this same blood has cleansed our hearts by his mercy. Through his mercy, we become merciful; having been forgiven much, we now love much. 

This is the victory of the king who rode into Jerusalem that day on the back of a colt to the shouts of “Hosanna” , which is a cry for someone to came and save us, please!” This cry of “Hosanna” was a part of the hundred and eighteenth psalm which was sung as the pilgrims came into Jerusalem. What is interesting is that the very next line after “Hosanna” was “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.  Here was Jesus hearing the cries of the people, crying out for someone please come and save them, and here was Jesus the very one who came in the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord was his very essence, his unchangeable character, which throughout scripture was always steadfast love and faithfulness. Jesus is the one who came in the name of the Lord. Jesus came in steadfast love, the greater love which lays down their life for their friends to set them free from the slavery of sin. Jesus came in faithfulness to do the will of his Heavenly Father, faithful even unto death. This is why in Jesus we are blessed. To bless is to kneel, to lower oneself in order to present a gift and the gift Jesus gave upon the cross is life. Jesus the king, did save us. He was a king who did not come to liberate his people from their enemy, the Roman army. Jesus was the king  who won the victory over a far greater enemy, the enemy of sin. The freedom this king won came upon a cross at the cost of his very blood. This blood condemned sin in the flesh redeeming those enslaved by sin. This blood was the blood of the Lamb of God, the Lamb of the New Passover, the blood which covers us so that death might pass over us. This blood was the life of Christ poured out, showing that he was faithful unto death, willing to withhold nothing to prove his mercy to us. In the light of his faithfulness, we can see how truly unfaithful we are and how much we stand in need of his great mercy. When we gaze upon the cross, we know ourselves as those who are forgiven much and now by the mercy of Christ we will have treasure become those who love much. This is the victory of the king who walks the way of the cross. May we be faithful to always follow him in this way. Amen!