The Quest for Jesus

 April 25 2021

Acts 8:26-40

         The way that God led me into the ministry was through doing ministry with youth. Yes, what a surprise, I used to be young. I could actually stay up to three in the morning until the last rowdy child decided to go to bed. Needless to say I have a lot of great memories from loving on the young people of the church. One of the memories that this weeks scripture brought to mind had to do with helping with a youth camp when my son, Matt was in eighth grade. This was a Moravian church camp and because I was a Moravian for twenty years, I was asked to do the program for this week long camp because there weren’t any Moravian pastors able to do so that week. So, I and my long time friend, Dan, who also was a Moravian at the time, put together a program and off we went to spend a week with a group of middle schoolers in the muggy heat of June. Well, when you say yes to God, God seems to always bless your willingness and Dan and I were abundantly blessed that week. We still laugh and talk about how God showed up in so many ways. One of the strange things that happened is that one young man on Wednesday of the week came up to me and said that he wanted to be baptized.  Now, I don’t know how things work in your world but in my world at church camp kids don’t randomly ask to be baptized. I wasn’t sure what to do; nothing like this had ever happened to me so I had no frame of reference as to what to do. I spoke with the camp counselors that were from his church about this boys request and they thought that I should just let his pastor baptize him at his home church. So, I thought I will let him know what the people from his church thought was best and that would be the end of it. Well, that wasn’t the end of it because he was not satisfied with that plan and insisted that he wanted to be baptized in the lake that was the focal point of the campgrounds. Finally, the last day of the camp arrived and of course as we are loading up the vehicles to head home, sure enough this young man came and asked me once more if I would baptize him in the lake. Fortunately for me, I had been talking with one of the camp counselors at the moment when this boy made his request and as I hemmed and hawed around this counselor quoted from our scripture for today, adapting the question that this Ethiopian man had asked Philip, “See, here is water! What prevents him from being baptized?” And so with that, this camp counselor, this boy and I went wading into the water, and in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit this young man was baptized. Just like the Ethiopian in our story, I don’t know what ever became of this young man, whether or not the baptism that he desired so much made any lasting impact on his life but I do know that I, like Philip, was following the Spirit’s lead.

         The Spirit’s leading is what begins our scripture story for today. The book of Acts is actually called the Acts of the Apostles but it just as easily could be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit because over and over again it is the Holy Spirit who is causing the action. While the story begins with Philip hearing a message from an angel make no mistake the Holy Spirit is very involved. The message Philip hears is that he was to get up and go south, south from Samaria, south past Jerusalem to Gaza, close to the Egyptian border. Now, it seems like this shouldn’t haven’t been to big a deal until you study a map and find that this is an eighty mile journey to be covered by foot. But even so, there was no hesitation on the part of Philip; he just got up and went.What is amazing is that what we learn as we go along in the story is that what God is doing is bringing together two people who are separated by eighty miles that had to be walked by foot so that God might be able to reveal himself to one of them. We have to be in awe of the way God is able to put in motion plans that may just bring one more person closer to the reality of his love for them. What we see in this story is the truth of what we state the Church of the Nazarene believes, that God and his favor is at work in the lives of people before they ever come to have a right relationship with him. This is what is called prevenient grace, the grace of God working in the lives of people drawing them ever closer to a love relationship with himself. Now, what is also revealed in our scripture story is that one of the ways that God’s grace touches the people that are far from him is through the people who are already in a right relationship with him. You and I can be used in a very similar way that God used Philip. We can be bearers of God’s grace which is something all of us should think long and hard about.

         Well, the person God sent Philip to intersect with is a man from Ethiopia, the country just below Egypt. This man was a court official in the court of the Queen of Ethiopia, a trusted official who was in charge of her treasury. We are told that this man had traveled to Jerusalem to worship. Here we have to push the pause button because when we understand that this man was a eunuch, a man who had been mutilated in order to ensure the Queen’s safety, then we also know that in the twenty first chapter of Deuteronomy that he would not have been allowed to be part of the assembly who worshipped in the Temple. We have to wonder if this man had known this fact or had he traveled a very long distance only to find himself on the outside looking in? While the Law seems rather cruel it isn’t hard to figure out that the reason for not allowing those who had been mutilated to be part of the Temple worship was that the Temple and its worship was supposed to be a picture of a perfect world that God was trying to bring about, one where the people are whole and holy with God dwelling in the midst of his people. 

So, after what had to be a disappointing journey, this man from Ethiopia was headed back home. There is much speculation if this man was a Jew or a Gentile however knowing that he desired to worship in Jerusalem and the fact that he had the sacred scroll from which he was reading from, all of this points us to the real possibility that he as indeed a Jew. He may have been a descendant of the part of the people of Israel who had gone down to Egypt as recorded in the book of Jeremiah. Its important to remember this because it is implied that this man had heard the story of the suffering servant from the book of Isaiah but no matter how many times he had heard it, the story made no headway in his mind. So, he decides that on his way home he would study this story of the suffering servant once again. It is precisely at this moment that the Holy Spirit tells Philip to go over and join the chariot of this Ethiopian. It is as Philip is running alongside the chariot that he over hears the Ethiopian speaking the words from the book of Isaiah.The encounter between this Ethiopian and Philip thus begins with a question asked by Philip, “Do you understand what you are reading?” I can only imagine how fast the chariot came to a halt after hearing this voice of a total stranger who seems to understand what has been a most difficult passage of Scripture. The Ethiopian in response tells Philip, “How can I understand unless someone guides me? This question tells us that the Ethiopian was humble enough to ask for help, to seek guidance in order to understand the prophecies of God. So, he invites Philip, a total stranger, to come up into the chariot and sit beside him and teach him. The passage of Scripture that confused this Ethiopian was from the fifty third chapter of Isaiah, the seventh and eighth verses which stated, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” What the Ethiopian could not figure out is just who is the subject of this passage? Just who is this one who was like a sheep, who complacently accepted the injustice against him? Just who was it that had been humiliated, who was denied justice, whose very life was taken without cause? Was this Isaiah describing his own experience or was this written about someone else? What the Ethiopian was lacking was the key that unlocked the scriptures of the scroll, the key called Jesus. It was only in the light of the cross that so much of the scriptures suddenly became clear. This good news of Jesus is what Philip told to this traveler from Ethiopia. When looking at the different versions of the fifty third chapter of Isaiah, it also becomes somewhat understandable why these verses, may have been of greater interest for this Ethiopian. What Isaiah was saying in the eighth verse of this fifty third chapter is that the suffering servant experienced the dishonor of being unable to have children. This is what was meant by stating about  the suffering servant that as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living. The word translated as “generation” refers to one’s lineage so what is implied is that what has been taken from the suffering servant was that he was left without children and no one even gave this fact any thought. The people around the suffering servant were unaware of the tragedy of the servant having been left without any legacy and not only that they were also unaware that the reason for this was the fact that he was sacrificing himself in obedience to God. I believe that it was this fact that the suffering servant was willing to sacrifice himself even to the point of giving up having children this is what touched this man who had been rendered unable to have children himself. This man from Ethiopia had experienced an injustice just as this suffering servant had. So, in some way, this verse was helping this man see how God might take his brokenness and use his brokenness to further the work of God. This was a hopeful idea for a man who had been unable to worship in the assembly at Jerusalem.

Well, as Philip would have helped to explain just how it was Jesus who was the suffering servant that Isaiah had prophesied about, it is highly likely that Philip would have continued on in the fifty third chapter. It is in the following verses in the tenth and eleventh verses that the reasoning behind the servants suffering is revealed. There we read, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, it was the Lord who put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days.Out of the anguish of his soul he will see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant make many to be accounted to be righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” Here it is explained that what God desired to come out of the servant’s suffering is that he would be an offering for the guilt felt by those who felt far from God’s people just like the man from Ethiopia. How relieved and amazed he must have been that even though he was not able to enter the Temple to offer the required guilt offerings for his sins, those things that came between him and God, now in this suffering servant God had made a way for his guilt to be dealt with. Here in verse ten the prophet Isaiah speaks directly to the one reading his prophesy and he tells him that if the Servant’s suffering is to have any meaning at all then what has to be done is that each one of us must take this broken Servant and offer him back to God to stand in our place.What has happened to the Servant, the dishonor he felt when he was cut off from having a living legacy, the dishonor of being buried with the wicked, all of this only makes sense when we learn that he was willing to suffer all of this even unto death because of us, to be the way that our consciences might be healed of its guilt, once and for all. How amazed the Ethiopian must have been to learn that the brokenness of this Servant, the Servant whose name was Jesus, could be used by God for such a healing purpose. And if this was true for this Servant of God then perhaps God could even take and use his brokenness as well.

Isaiah also prophesied that not only will the Servant’s suffering and death be for all people the necessary guilt offering but when this offering is accepted  then instead of a barren life now the life of the Servant will be fruitful.  Isaiah tells us that the Servant will see his offspring; he will make many to be righteous just as he is righteous.This is the whole point of the fifty third chapter, that, yes, the Servant described here suffers horribly, and dies without receiving justice but what gives purpose and meaning to the suffering and death of the Servant is that God is willing to allow the Servant to be an offering for us and when this offering is accepted then we are told, that the Servant is satisfied. Our acceptance of his work on our behalf is what made all of what the Servant had to endure worth everything. What satisfies Jesus, the suffering Servant, is the knowledge that what he endured, the shame, the suffering, the loss and the cross is knowing that what he accomplished through this is that many have become righteous because of him, that the iniquities of the many have most certainly been borne away.

The Ethiopian upon hearing of how the suffering Servant had allowed himself to be cut off from the land of the living, to endure the shame of having no living legacy in order to be true to what God demanded of him this must have certainly be especially understood by one from whom this had been taken from him as well. Yet to go further, to understand that this servant gave up so much, that he suffered so much, that he willingly went unto death as a sheep to the shearer, that the Servant did this all to be an offering to God for the guilt of our sin, this must have most assuredly broke this Ethiopian. Then to read further how what the suffering Servant endured only has meaning and purpose if you and I accept what he took upon himself and believe that this he has done for us, this the Ethiopian rightly understood, demanded a response. The response required, Philip explained, is baptism, the washing of the water symbolizing a death and a beginning. As Paul so powerfully explains in the beginning of the sixth chapter of Romans, “Do you not know that all who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” What we die to is a life that is ignorant of what Jesus our suffering servant has accomplished for us through his willingness to suffer and die in order that he might be for the world God’s chosen offering for the guilt of sin. Now that we know what Jesus has done, that he is the one who is offered in our place in order to satisfy God, now if his suffering and dying is to have any meaning and purpose then we must believe that this offering was for our guilt. When we place our faith in this offering, this gift given to us by God, a gift we know as grace, then as Isaiah tells us we become one of the many accounted as righteous because of the Servant. This is the newness of life proclaimed after the baptism waters wash over us. This newness of life, a life now accounted righteous because of our acknowledgement and belief in what our suffering Servant Jesus has done for us, this is what that Ethiopian man experienced that day at the hands of Philip, the God sent stranger who helped bring him into the grace of God.

The author of the book of Acts, Luke had a very important reason for telling this story of this Ethiopian eunuch at this place in this book because I believe that he wanted his readers to recognize the prophecies of Isaiah were coming true just as God had promised. But there is more because as we read further in the book of Isaiah , in the fifty sixth chapter we read this, “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,’ The Lord will certainly separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say, ‘I am a dry tree.’For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name, better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” What God is saying here is that no longer do those who are broken have to focus on their brokenness but rather through the one who was broken for them, there is a better future than we can even ask or imagine. Jesus our suffering servant through being our offering for the guilt of our sin has given a new life to not only Ethiopian eunuchs, but also to all those who are alienated and foreign to God, so that through Jesus, everyone can at last come home to the God who loves them. To God be the glory! Amen.!

A Life lived by Power or by Promise

 April 18 2021

Acts 6:8-15, 7:44-60

         Have you ever thought about what it might be like to be the first to achieve something? I mean what must have it been like to be Magellan and be the first to sail completely around the world in a sailing ship? Or what kind of thrill must it have been for Sir Hilary to lay claim that he was the first one to climb to the top of Mount Everest? And we all remember that it was Alexander Graham Bell who was the first to send a voice message through the wires changing our world forever. There is something about being first that people quite naturally are in awe of. We all remember Neil Armstrong’s one small step for a man one giant leap for mankind as he was the first to step foot on the moon on a day in the summer of 1969 that none of us will forget. It is when something is first this is when that particular event is seared into our memories. I mean can anyone recall the second time someone stepped foot on the moon? Or does any one remember the name of the second person to reach the summit of Mount Everest? No, the ones who are remembered are the ones who went first, the ones who changed the course of history, the ones who expanded what we as humanity considered to be possible.

         Now, with all of this in mind we turn our thoughts to what is a first in the life of the church, the martyrdom of Stephen. We have to all admit it, don’t we, that this death of Stephen, the first death that happened because of a person’s faith in Jesus Christ, that this first seems vastly different from all of the other firsts that we celebrate, doesn’t it? I mean if we polled good church going folk as to just who was the first martyr of the church most of them I suspect probably could not name him and even if they could name him I suspect that they would not know why it was all that important to even know who had the distinction of being first. Yet, regardless of whether people recognize Stephen or not what is important in his death is that here was someone whose death perfectly echoed the death of Jesus. So, just as all the worldly firsts expand the range of human possibility, here in Stephen the range of human possibility is also expanded so that now we understood that not only could one live like Jesus but even more, one could also die like Jesus, offering themselves up willingly with forgiveness upon their lips. The importance of such a first is that it was a first that did not come about through power, through human efforts as so many of the firsts we remember have happened, but instead this was a first that happened because of faith in the rock solid promise of God. Stephen’s first then was one that happened through promise not power and that is why we should be in awe of his witness.

         What led to this witness of Stephen, what we call his martyrdom, which is merely the Greek word for witness, is what we read about in our scripture for today. The story begins with a good problem that the early church was facing, that being that there was an increase in the number of disciples.  This caught the early church off guard and they found that there were people who were being neglected not because of any meanness on anyone’s part but rather just because the church found themselves overwhelmed. Now, the ones who brought forth the complaint of neglect we are told is the group of Greek-speaking Jews. These were Jews who had previously lived in the many numerous countries that had been conquered by Greece and had taken up the habits and language of the Greeks. These Jews were contrasted with the group of Jews referred to as the Hebrews. These were the Jews who, so to speak, had never left home, people firmly planted in the land of Judaea. These were people who as their name suggests spoke the Hebrew language and were faithful Temple attendees unlike the Greek speaking Jews who found it difficult to make it back to Jerusalem to worship simply because of the distance involved. Yet, despite how difficult it was to travel to Jerusalem some made it back there and would live there and it was these elderly Greek speaking Jews who found themselves on the short end of the stick so to speak in the early churches efforts to show the love of Jesus. So, the twelve apostles called a church meeting and told the church to pick out seven men who could see to it that the poor would get fed regardless of whether they spoke Hebrew or Greek. Now, interestingly enough the men who were chosen to serve were all Greek speaking Jews perhaps as a nod to the fact that the complaint was brought up by Greek speaking Jews and therefore the problem would be solved by the calling forth of Greek speaking Jews. Stephen was one of the seven men who was chosen. What is also interesting is that what might seem to us to be a menial task without much spiritual significance was for the early church thought of much differently. They said that the men who would serve the food had to be those who had a good reputation, men who were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.The early church obviously understood that there was something extremely spiritual about serving food to others, that perhaps in the midst of waiting tables there was perhaps deeper conversations happening, perhaps even healings occurring as the poor came to receive their food. This is what is implied when we read that Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great signs and wonders among the people.  Now, in performing these miracles Stephen made himself an object of other peoples attention, people who did not understand that with the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus the whole world had been transformed. Now, the Holy Spirit that had anointed Jesus anointed all who professed faith in him. This Holy Spirit was the promised power from on high that Jesus had taught was going to be poured out on all people. It was this power that anointed Stephen and it was this power that it seems was the cause of those Jews, who were not believers in Jesus, to be irritated by what Stephen was doing. Most likely they knew that if people experienced this power for themselves than more and more people would come to be part of this Jesus movement leaving their old Jewish ways behind. The problem was that this same Holy Spirit that gave the power to heal others was also a power that gave Stephen the ability to refute the arguments of those who brought complaints against him. So, these evil men who had come against Stephen began to stir up trouble finding false witnesses to give a report that Stephen spoke against the holy place, the Temple and that Stephen spoke against the Law. They reportedly got this idea from what Stephen had spoke about Jesus, that Jesus had said that he would destroy the Temple and that Jesus was going to change the customs that Moses had given to them. Now, Jesus had never said any of these things. As we read in the second chapter of John, Jesus said destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up, referring to the Temple of his body. And in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus also said that he came not to destroy the Law but instead to fulfill the Law. So, we know that these men who were resentful at the power resting upon Stephen had twisted the very words of Jesus in order to condemn Stephen.

         Well, at least Stephen was given the chance to try and defend himself. The way he does this is to give a rather lengthy sermon which traces the history of the people of Israel from the days of Abraham forward. Now, to reach the proper conclusion as to the point Stephen was trying to make from his lecture on the history of the people of Israel we need to fast forward to the end where Stephen condemns his condemners by telling them that they are stiff-necked people who were uncircumcised in heart and ears, people who always resist the Holy Spirit just as their fathers had done. When we understand this is the reason for his lengthy telling of the history of the people of Israel then we cannot but be in wonder that the Holy Spirit had always been present in the life of God’s people. We have to ask ourselves then just what the Holy Spirit was doing down through history that was constantly being rejected?  Perhaps what Paul wrote in the second chapter of his first letter to the church at Corinth may help us figure out what the Holy Spirit’s purpose was. There we read, “What God has prepared for those who love him God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything; even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit that is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given to us by God.” This teaching of Paul helps us understand that what the history of the people of Israel could be thought of was God continually revealing himself to them in an ever greater degree. Even though he chose one man, Abraham, out of the world his hope always was that through this one man and his offspring the whole world would be no longer under the curse but instead experience the full blessing of God. What Abraham would discover is that this life of blessing came through trusting in the promise of God even in the face of uncertainty. What God was revealing to Abraham then was that he was a God who gives life to the dead and brings into existence those things which do not exist. Out of a man one hundred years old God brought a son who would be the beginning of the nation of Israel. What we see then throughout the life of the history of the descendants of Abraham is that in every situation God reveals himself to be a God who is to be trusted no matter how dire the circumstances. When Joseph found himself far from home, and afflicted in Egypt could God rescue him? The answer is that God did rescue him and God also gave Joseph favor and wisdom before Pharaoh. Then much later, God’s people found themselves enslaved by the Egyptians and they cried out to God and they wondered, could God set them free? The answer is yes, God could set them free and create a new people from them. Yet in spite of God’s continual demonstration of his power and his faithfulness to his promise, God’s people refused to place their trust in what the Holy Spirit had revealed to them. The people of Israel again and again refused to have faith in the God who was ever faithful to them. God desired that they would trust and obey him; this was more important to God than any empty worship ritual.

         Finally, Stephen gets to the mention of how the prophets had announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, the coming of Jesus. This just as God had done many times before was the Holy Spirit revealing the innermost depths of the heart of God, a God who desired to save all of the people of his creation. This revelation was given in its fullest and clearest vision in the life of Daniel. There in the seventh chapter of the book named for him is where we read of the one called the Son of Man. The reason that this vision is so important in understanding the promise and plan of God is that as you study the gospels, Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man more times than any other title, even titles such as the Son of God and Christ or Messiah. Jesus again and again points his disciples back to the revelation given to Daniel. In his vision, Daniel saw the one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. The phrase, “coming on the clouds of heaven” was a way of speaking about God because only God could ride the clouds like a chariot. So, what Daniel saw could best be described as a divine human. This divine human Daniel records came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. The Ancient of Days was again another way of speaking of the God of Israel. Then Daniel records that the Ancient of Days gave dominion, and glory  and a kingdom to this Son of Man so that all peoples, nations and languages might serve him. The dominion of this Son of Man, as Daniel records it, is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. As Stephen was about to be stoned to death, what was revealed to him through the Holy Spirit was a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God and when Stephen saw this he exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”You see, there in a moment, the faith of Stephen became sight. He had faith that this Jesus who had been crucified and raised from the dead was the very same one that Daniel had seen in his vision. Stephen believed in what the Holy Spirit had revealed that Jesus was indeed the divine man who had  come from heaven and had been received back to heaven to stand before the Ancient of Days. It was this profession of faith by Stephen which outraged his accusers causing them to cast him out of the city and stone him.

         With the anger of this mob, Stephen then became the first witness, the first martyr of the church. Stephen endured the horrible pain of his death not by any feat of great human power but only through the faithfulness of the promise of God. You see, the reason the vision of the Son of Man was given to Daniel was that he and the people of Israel were enduring great suffering on account of their faith. The stories of Daniel include the faithful being thrown into the fiery furnace, and being thrown into the lion’s den. What gave hope to Daniel in these difficult days was the promise that the kingdom of the Son of Man was going to be the last kingdom standing. Not only that but what is also revealed to Daniel was that the kingdom of the Son of Man was going to be given to the saints of the most high. This is what Stephen believed. Stephen had faith that beyond these days of suffering and persecution there would be endless days for him and all the saints in the kingdom ruled by the Son of Man. Even though this kingdom did not yet exist in all its fullness, Stephen knew that his God was the God who could bring into existence those things which do not exist. This is what the Holy Spirit had continually revealed throughout the history of the people of Israel. This is what the Holy Spirit revealed in Stephens life, what could only be described as a foretaste of the glorious future to come. So, Stephen knew the promise of God was certain and therefore he had no reason to use his power to create any other outcome than to let his life be a witness to the faithfulness of the promises of God.

         What this story of the church’s first martyr, the story of Stephen, does then is to cause us to ask ourselves just what is it that drives our life, our own power or the faith we have in God? Does our life witness to the fact that God is bringing about a kingdom that will out last every other kingdom, that we have nothing to be afraid of because we know that even though we may not see this kingdom in the here and now we have the certainty that God is the God who most assuredly brings into existence those things which at present do not exist?  This is what Stephen had placed his faith upon, the unshakeable certainty of the promise of God. This is why he would not be shaken when faced with suffering and death because he knew that as this suffering and death had happened to Jesus it was always a possibility for those who followed him. Yet this was not all because as Jesus had also conquered the grave so too those who placed their faith in Jesus would also rise from the dead in the final resurrection and as Daniel records these saints, the holy ones of God, these too shall serve the Son of Man before the throne of of the Ancient of Days. Knowing the certainty of this promise we, like Stephen, can say let this world do what it may because the best is yet to come. To God be the glory! Amen.

Recognizing Jesus

 April 11 2021

Luke 24:13-35

         It is hard to believe that the coronavirus has been impacting our lives for over a year now. Regardless of how we feel about all that must be done to keep from ending being sick with the coronavirus, washing our hands after being out and about, staying at least six feet from the people we meet and of course, wearing a mask, all these things which seemed so hard to get use to are now just a part of life. Now it seems weird to go somewhere with out a mask instead of having to wear one one we first started. And while wearing a mask has become second nature, there is this little problem with wearing a mask which is that it is really hard to recognize people when you and they have one on. Our nose and our smile and maybe perhaps our chins all play a part in helping others figure out who we are. The other week as Jennifer andI were coming out of the grocery store I saw a long time family friend so I said ,”Hi”, which was followed by a blank stare. I quickly figured out that he had no clue who I was because of the mask so I said who I was which quickly resolved the problem. Now I am sure that I or other people I know have probably known each other but did not stop to say hello simply because our brains just did not recognize each other because half of our face was covered up. I mean it used to be bad enough that when I saw someone that looked familiar but I could not for the life of me recall their name but now very few people are even familiar to me at all. This may be the only upside to wearing a mask that now, I no longer have to awkwardly try and figure out just who it was that I just ran into so as not to embarrass myself.

         So, this facial recognition, something that computers have figured out how to do fairly well even if we still struggle at it is kind of a big deal in life.  What is true for us today was just as true in the days of Jesus and his disciples as we hear in our scripture for today. We are told that these two rejected disciples had eyes that were kept from recognizing Jesus when he came long side of them as they walked the long road home. As usual, Luke has given us important clues to help us understand the story. The first of these clues is that there were two of them. Now why would this little detail be so important? Well, earlier in the ministry of Jesus, as recorded in the tenth chapter of Luke, we are told that Jesus, appointed seventy two others and sent them on ahead of him, in pairs, two by two, into every place he was about to go. These were the laborers for the harvest Jesus explains.  The number seventy two is often thought to represent the nations other than Judah. The number seventy two also corresponds closely to the elders chosen by Moses to assist him when the burden of caring for the people of Israel became to great. God instructed Moses to bring them to the tent of meeting and then God would take a portion of the Spirit which anointed Moses and pour it out upon those elders so they might be empowered for service. This is important to hold on to because the seventy two that Jesus sent out had two primary works they were to do. One was the healing of the sick and the second was to announce that the kingdom of God had come near.The implication was that the Spirit that anointed Jesus was now going to be anointing the empowering them to be agents of healing. Now, I believe, that is important that we understand that these two disciples had this previous experience in order that we might know that they had been the announcers to all they had met that the kingdom of God had arrived. So, imagine how humiliated they must have felt when the king of this kingdom ended up being executed by the Roman authorities, not even attempting to fight them, or call for his followers to join him in an insurrection and overthrow of the occupying forces but instead peacefully allowing the Romans to do their very worse to him. How horrified they must have been to be in the crowd, to watch and hear as their king was nailed to the dreaded cross beam then hoisted up to leave him hang there gasping for air until he breathed his last. How odd it must have been his words spoken in among his panting, words of forgiveness and at the last, an announcement that it was finished. This they must have surely agreed with, for to them it was finished, all of their hopes, their dreams and the longings of their nation once again wiped away by the cruel hand of Rome.

         All of this is what weighed down their hearts as they left Jerusalem and turned toward home, to go back to Emmaus and hope that no one connected them to their criminal king and decide that their just might be a cross for them as well. Luke records that as they walked and talked together, these two suddenly realized that someone else had come along side of them rather unexpectedly. No, social distancing here I’m afraid. Now, our scripture says something very curious, in that the eyes of these men were kept from recognizing Jesus much like our eyes keep us from recognizing people who have a mask on. There was something about them that prevented them from understanding just who this was sauntering beside them, which was none other than their risen king, Jesus. Jesus asked them what it was they were talking about so intently as the walked along to which they replied, “Are you the only visitor, literally, an outsider, who does not know the things that have happened in these days?” And to even frustrate them more, Jesus replies, “What things?” Its almost comical how Jesus plays these mind games with them but I think he wants them to honestly open up about how they perceived his death and resurrection. What they told him was very interesting because they told him that they were talking about him, Jesus of Nazareth but then they go on to describe him as a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all people. This is the same way that Moses was described which meant that they understood Jesus to be in some way a new Moses that God had raised up for them.Then they went on to describe how it was their own chief priests and rulers who had delivered this Jesus up to be condemned to death and it was they who had crucified him. So far so good but then we come to the “but” in their story, but they went on, they had hoped he would be the one who would redeem, better translated as liberate or deliver Israel. Yet they continued , there was more because just that morning when the women had gone to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus they found the tomb empty and then had a vision of angels who told them that Jesus was alive. These two Emmaus bound travelers told Jesus that they had gone to the tomb but they had not seen Jesus and so they were just left wondering what all of this was about. Here again is this problem of being able to see, to have eyes that could be able to see the risen Jesus. Now, listen closely to what Jesus says next because I believe that he is directly addressing just what it is that is keeping them from being able to see. Jesus tells them “O, foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that God’s anointed one should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” We can only wonder just what the reaction was for these two disciples when this complete stranger responds to their grief stricken story by calling them you stupid people who have zero understanding. Ouch! Yet for as rude as he seemed this outsider appeared to know what was in the books of the Prophets and he knew that the reason that this Jesus on which they had placed their hope had to suffer was to fulfill the prophecies about him. What Jesus did was to start with Moses and then working his way through the prophets interpreted the scriptures which explained all that had to happen. What Jesus was showing his traveling companions was something he had earlier taught about as found at the end of the fifth chapter of the gospel of John where we hear Jesus tell a group of Pharisees, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these Scriptures that bear witness to me yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” You see what the Scriptures are all about is Jesus. Period. What the people of Jesus’ day thought the Scriptures were all about how to have a God like life through their own efforts, you might say the ultimate self-help book. But nothing could be further from the truth because the Scriptures purpose is to do nothing more than to speak to the truth of Jesus, the one who is the very giver of life. The reason that these two disciples were blind to just who it is that walked beside them is that they were of the belief that they were able to save themselves with God’s help. This prevented them from seeing Jesus who can only be seen by those who know they are unable to save themselves and are totally counting on God to be there to deliver them. The first will seek to use their own effort fighting and destroying whatever is necessary to create their own version of heaven on earth. The second will trust in the promise of God that those willing to love as he does will certainly live like he does. It is they who, by doing the will of God, loving as God loves, these are the ones who bring heaven upon the earth. There is an old saying that you cannot find what you are not looking for and never was that more true than when searching the scriptures. If one believes that all God is good for is to bring success to ones life then they will probably find scriptures that support this idea but they most assuredly will miss out finding Jesus. If on the other hand, one has come to the end of themselves, their efforts, their dreams, their goals and is looking for some kind of hope to shine upon their hopeless life then they most assuredly will find Jesus staring at them from the pages of Scripture. They have to come to the place where it is Jesus or nothing else because to accept Jesus is to accept his version of life, a life that loves like God loves which means a refusal to retaliate, to seek revenge and to go further and to pray and care for those who persecute you and those who may even seek your life. This is why Jesus, God’s anointed one, had to suffer because he faithfully bore the name of God, the very characteristic of God a life full of steadfast love and faithfulness.  If God loved with steadfast love but was not faithful to extend this love to all he could not be a God who loved the whole world choosing to love a mere chosen few. If God were faithful without us knowing that he was faithful because of steadfast love we would be tempted to seek ways of getting God to be faithful to us alone. But as God is both we know that God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, faithful to extend steadfast love to all because of who God is not because of who we are. This is a love willing to suffer at the hands of those who oppose him. This is why throughout the Old Testament, especially in the book of Isaiah we read about the suffering of God’s servant. We hear it in the fiftieth chapter of Isaiah where the servant of God states, “The Lord has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.But the Lord helps me ; therefore I am not disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.” After you read these words does this sound like anyone you might know? Does any of this ring a bell? This same servant Isaiah continues to write about in the fifty second chapter where we read, “He was despised and rejected by men , a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised and we esteemed him not.Surely he has borne our griefs and our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions and he was crushed for iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed.” I wonder what those disciples thought when this stranger whose identity was hid from their eyes, just what was going through their minds as scriptures such as these from Isaiah were presented to them on that road to Emmaus. I mean how could anyone not connect with what happened with Jesus on that day he died with these profound images from the pages of Isaiah. And yet Luke records that even as scripture upon scripture were opened to them by this stranger these two disciples still had no clue as to who he was.

         Well, at last the journey had reached its end and as these two disciples went into their home, they saw how the stranger who had enlightened their hearts and minds about how the servant of God must suffer, they saw how he kept on going down the road. Well, as they saw the sun setting low in the sky they yelled at him to come and join them for the evening. The stranger stopped and turned back, entering into the home of these two disciples. Luke records that the stranger abided with them, sounding much like the accounts of John’s gospel, where in the fourteenth chapter we read verses like this, “if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love them  and we will come to them and abide with them.” This is exactly what Jesus was doing, he had given these disciples his word, the truth about him from the scriptures and now he was going to abide with them and not only him but his Heavenly Father would also be there with them. So, as he sat at the table with these two disciples, it was this stranger who takes hold of the loaf of bread upon the table. Imagine that someone had invited you over for dinner and then you began serving the food to everyone at the table. Now you can understand the awkwardness of the moment. But Jesus broke all the rules because it had come time for him to heal their blindness. As Jesus took the bread, and then he blessed the bread and then he broke the bread and as he gave the bread something within the hearts of those disciples was no longer broken. There in those four movements their was recognition of the strangest sort. Since it was in these movements that their ability to recognize Jesus was at last restored it seems that we must meditate just why this is so. I believe that these four movements are the very way of Christ, how he relates to us, how we are to understand ourselves. You see, it is Jesus who has taken us, out of the world. In the seventh chapter of John we hear the prayer of Jesus. Jesus states the disciples were the Father’s and it was his Father who had given them to Jesus out of the world.  So the disciples were taken and then like the bread they were blessed or consecrated for a holy purpose. In the same way those the Father had given to Jesus were consecrated, set aside for holy use because they trusted in the faithfulness of the word of God. Then, as we remember, once the bread was taken and blessed it was broken. Those who whom Jesus has taken out of the world and blessed or consecrated for a holy purpose must also be broken. They must come to the end of their own efforts,  to be broken of their own selfish ambition to become like Christ, servants of God, loving others by serving others. Only as the ones Jesus has taken out of the world have been broken of their selfishness can they can experience oneness not only with each other but with God. Then the bread that was taken, and blessed, and then broken in the hands of Jesus, this bread was then given. This idea of bread that is given is reminiscent of what Jesus said about himself saying that the bread that he gives for the life of the world is his flesh. This is what it means to be given, to allow Jesus to take our life and use it to bring life to the world. You see, when we understand ourselves as people who have been taken out of the world into the hands of Jesus and that it is he who takes us and blesses us, sets us aside for a holy purpose through the faithfulness of his word, and when we allow him to break us, to create in us a heart of servanthood  and we then yield our very lives to him for service or to sacrifice what happens is that our very lives can be used by God to bring more life to the world. In this way, as those disciples witnessed, Jesus is seen. This is life which shines forth with the wisdom of God for as we learn in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, it is the wise that shall be raised up on the last day as Jesus has been raised up on the first day of the new creation.

         As the church we are the body of Christ, we are the one loaf, the bread of life. May we never forget that it is only as we remember that it is Christ who has taken us out of the world into his hands, only as he has blessed us, setting us apart for God’s holy purpose and only as Christ breaks us of our selfish desires and then as he gives us for the life of the world, this is when the resurrected Christ is seen in our midst for all the world to see. This is what the scriptures witness to and may it be what our lives witness to as well. To God be the glory! Amen!

An Empty Tomb, A Full Faith

 April 4 2021

Luke 24:1-12

         The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Yes, indeed death could not hold our Lord and Savior and on this Easter morning we praise our God and we celebrate the truth that Jesus is alive and because he lives those who place their in him will live forever with him!

         Now, it is quite natural for us to set our minds on the eternal on this the most glorious of days. After all, we hold fast to the confession, Christ in us is our hope of glory. So, yes, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the very ground of our hope but I believe that we have to ask ourselves is this all that the resurrection of Jesus is about? I mean any time it seems that Paul wrote of the hope we have in Jesus and his victory over death, he always seemed to make sure that faith and love were right there with what he had to say about hope. And so this morning, I want  us to think about just what does the resurrection of Jesus, his wondrous victory over sin, death and the grave, what does this truth have to do with our faith? If that weren’t enough of a stretch, then I think that we also have to wonder does this great story that we celebrate today, that Jesus is not hanging out with the dead but is certainly on the side of the living, does this speak at all to how we love? You see, I do believe that the resurrection of Jesus does change eternity for all who place their hope in it, but there is a problem if we become so heavenly focused that we become no earthly good. This is a problem because what Jesus died and rose again for was to create a new creation one where the people he called into being would love God and work together with him doing good, the good that can overcome evil in the here and the now.

         So, we can’t lose sight of the big picture as we take a look at our scripture for today, the resurrection story as recorded by Luke. Luke begins by telling us that it is the first day of the week, which is Luke’s way of stating that this is the eighth day, a day that symbolized the new creation, the old creation having been made in the first seven days. On this first day of the new creation, Luke tells us that “they” went to the tomb, and who he is referring to is the women who had followed Jesus, which we later learn were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. It was they who knew that it was their work to go to the tomb early, before the heat of the day, and rub embalming spices upon the dead body of Jesus whom they loved. Now, imagine their surprise when there in the dim light of the early dawn they discover that the huge rock which had sealed the hollowed out rock which was the final resting place of Jesus, this huge rock had been moved. Now, in their minds this could have only meant one thing that someone had come and stolen the body of Jesus. Why else would anyone exert that much effort to open the tomb? So, they rush in to the dark dank tomb sorrowful at the thought that someone would have done such an awful thing. Sure enough, the body of Jesus was gone.Luke tells us that while they were at a loss to know what to do next, suddenly right before them were two men. Their dazzling clothes, we are told, dispelled the darkness. The story tells us that the women were frightened which was probably an understatement. They fell to their knees  and bowed their heads to the ground because these women knew that these were messengers who had come from the throne of God. And as these women knelt in trembling adoration, the next thing they heard was a very strange question: Why do you seek the living among the dead? It was if these heavenly beings picked a time like this to try out a little humor. The women must have thought what in the world kind of question is this. Then came the explanation to this angelic question, an even stranger statement for they told these women that the Jesus was not there because he had risen from the dead. Now, I am not sure who was more surprised at this moment because these messengers were kind of wondering why this was some new idea to these women, I mean after all, hadn’t Jesus himself told them how it was all going to happen. Yes, these women must have thought, it was all coming back to them. They may have remembered that day, as Luke records in the ninth chapter of his gospel, how Jesus point blank asked his disciples just who did they think he was and after much hemming and hawing Simon Peter blurted out that Jesus was the one, the long awaited Messiah. It was right after this most wondrous moment that Jesus began to speak like a madman because he told those he followed him that he was going to have suffer many things and he was going to be killed and on the third day he would be raised. Yet as these women pondered these words of Jesus over in their minds they also remembered that this was not just some solitary moment of absurdity, no, he had said the same thing again. It happened as Jesus and the crowd that followed him were coming into Jericho, the final stretch of their trip to Jerusalem and Jesus pulled the twelve away and spoke to them. Jesus told them that when they got to Jerusalem all that was written about the Son of Man by the prophets was going to happen just as they said it would. This meant that Jesus was going to be handed over to the people of the nations, the Romans, he was going to be mocked, shamefully treated and spit upon. After they flogged him they were going to kill him and on the third day he would rise. Perhaps these women at the tomb would have remembered the disciples babbling on about what Jesus had said but they would also would have remembered that none of them had any clue as to what Jesus meant. It may have been that the truth that Jesus had spoken to them was just so far a field from their expectations that they held for the Messiah but whatever the reason, the truth that Jesus spoke to them that day only met with confusion in the minds of the disciples. So, these women at the tomb had to reluctantly agree with these angelic messengers that stood before them that yes, Jesus had indeed told them of not only his death but also that he would rise again. Perhaps the point of these messengers shaking the cobwebs out of the memories of these women was so that they might begin to understand that the resurrection of Jesus is about the need to trust in the word of God which was uttered on the lips of Jesus. Jesus spoke the truth and the truth happened exactly as Jesus said it would. The resurrection of Jesus should have caught no one off guard because Jesus had talked to them about it and if that were not enough Jesus himself told them that everything that was going to happen just as the prophets who had lived over six hundred years earlier had predicted would happen. Again, since they were supposed to have known what was contained in the law and the prophets none of what was happening that early Sunday should have been a surprise. Yet, it was just that, a surprise, a shock. Death was such a certainty to them that even if they might attempt to hope beyond hope that Jesus was somehow going to be raised to life they just did not have the faith to make their hope a reality. It made no difference that they all knew that their God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a way of speaking of their spiritual ancestors as if they were very much alive, even so how did such truth help them in the here and now believe that God reigns over death.But this is exactly the news that these dazzling beings were giving to these terrified women on that first Easter.

         This news of Jesus, that he had been raised from the dead, that he now was among the living and not the dead, this news was too good of news for these women to keep to themselves. They went and they found the eleven faithful followers of Jesus and of course, these men, just like these women, remembered the words that Jesus spoke to them and it all suddenly clicked for them. Well, maybe not. No, when the disciples learned that Jesus had been raised from the dead from the very women who had been there and done that they dismissed what they had been told as being a bunch of nonsense, a story that simply was too full of fantasy to be believed. Yet in spite of such a rude response to the good news that the women had brought back from the tomb, Peter reconsiders and decides to go and check things out for himself. Luke records that after Peter saw the empty tomb for himself he went home marveling. The word translated as “marveling” might be better understood as being awestruck, as in to be personally and powerfully struck. We might say that the emptiness of the tomb hit Peter right upside the head. I think that in that moment Peter realized something that Paul also realized as he records it in the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. There Paul, writing about the resurrection of Jesus, argues that if Christ has not been raised then our faith is in vain, better translated as empty. In other words if the tomb was not empty then our faith would be empty but since the tomb is empty then our faith is full, it has substance. Paul goes on to say that if Christ has not been raised then our faith has no purpose and we are still in our sins which is a remarkable thing to consider. What Paul is implying is that the cross and the empty grave cannot be separated; both are equally necessary for our salvation. There at the cross the world saw the perfect love of God in human form in what appeared to all to be a sure defeat at the hands of the enemies of Jesus. How could one insist that loving our enemies in such a manner that this is the life we were created to live all because this is a life which perfectly reflects the perfect love of God. Such a life sure seems like a life that one would find hard to believe in.  If all we had was a cross on Calvarys hill it would be almost impossible to have faith that the life of Jesus is the life all of us were created to live, a life of perfect love. But praise be to God, there was an empty tomb so now our faith can be made sure and our purpose, the purpose we hold on to by faith, a purpose defined by perfect love this we now know is the life of victory. This is how Paul concludes his work on the resurrection that in the end, in a twinkling of an eye the dead shall be raised imperishable and what is prophesied in the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah will at last come true; death will be swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O, death where is your sting? The sting of death is sin  and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! With the raising of Jesus from the tomb, the battle has been won, victory is at hand this we can be sure of, this is what Paul wants us to be perfectly clear about. Yet what is surprising is that in his next breath Paul does not turn our attention to the future but rather his focus is on the present. Paul doesn’t mention anything about our eternity being forever secure as well we know it will be but instead Paul tells us now that we know that the victory has been won by our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to be steadfast, immovable  always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that our work is not in vain. You see Paul is speaking about life right here and right now, this is where the empty tomb is supposed to make all the difference. The word translated as “vain” describing our work in the Lord is again the Greek word for empty. So, it is the empty tomb this is the reason that we are able to abound in that work God calls us to do, to not come up empty in our effort, one might say. And what this all leads us to is just what is work that we are to do? Well, what is interesting in what Paul writes here is that he uses two distinct words for work or labor. The first is simply means work or action but the second word translated often as labor actually means to strike or to toil. From this it is not hard to hear the words of Paul from his second letter to the church of Corinth, the fourth chapter, where he states that he is afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Jesus might be evident. The death of Jesus, this willingness to suffer rather than seek vengeance upon those who seek to harm us because we understand that our purpose is to perfectly love as our Heavenly Father perfectly loves, this is the labor which is not empty. It is not empty because when we labor to love what we find is the power of the risen life of Christ working in us. Yes, because of Jesus we may find ourselves afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down what Jesus meant by having to carry our cross, in order to follow him. Yet, no matter how difficult is this labor, what we find because of the resurrection of Jesus is that we aren’t crushed, we aren’t driven to despair, we are never forsaken nor are we destroyed. This is our victory given to us through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is faith in the resurrection of Jesus, this is what is meant by putting our roots down deep into the living waters, the very life of God, this is what empowers us to not whither nor stumble when faced with suffering and persecution because of the word of God planted in our hearts. 

         So, yes we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus for the hope of eternity that lives with in our hearts but we also celebrate that because of the empty tomb our faith is not empty; our faith has purpose and meaning because Christ has been raised from the dead. Not only that but because of the victory over death Jesus displayed when he stepped out of the tomb to be with the living and not the dead now we can be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord all because that in the Lord, our labor, a labor that might cause us to suffer on account of loving others as God loves them, this labor will not be empty all because the tomb on Easter was found to be empty.  This is the good news we declare, now and until Jesus comes again! Praise be to God. Amen

The King of Peace in Pieces

 March 28 2021

Luke 19:29-44, 22:7-20

         Well, our Lenten journey to Jerusalem finishes up today on this Sunday what we normally call Palm Sunday. This is the day we recall the entry of Jesus into the city amongst shouts of praise and loud Hosannas. It’s kind of funny, that this is the only Sunday most of us sing Hosanna and probably never realize that we are singing a Hebrew word and that this word comes from the only place that it is found in the Old Testament which is the One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm. What we are saying when we shout Hosanna is very simply, “God save us”. This is what the king who is sung about in the One Hundredth and Eighteenth Psalm is saying as he is in the heat of the battle, God secure the victory for us. So, when we understand all of this it becomes clear that shouts of Hosanna are very appropriate today as we celebrate the coming of Jesus, the King, into Jerusalem.

         Now, another interesting thing found in todays scripture is that even though we say that today is Palm Sunday, in fact our story records no palms at all. In fact, there is only one gospel account, the gospel of John which records that there were palms being waved along the processional route where Jesus rode.  No, instead of palms what Luke does record is that the people threw their cloaks upon the ground so that the colt or donkey upon which Jesus rode would not step upon the ground. There is only one other recorded time that such a thing was done and this is found in the ninth chapter of Second Kings where Jehu was anointed king and we are told that every man through down their cloak for the new king to ride upon. What we have to keep in mind as we read of such a gesture is that most of the people in the days of Jesus only had two articles of clothing, their tunic which was like an undershirt and their cloak which was heavier and was necessary to keep them warm. A person’s cloak could also serve as a tent if needed. So, this gesture of throwing down their cloaks would not have been done lightly. This was their way of stating their loyalty to Jesus, the one they knew was the long awaited king given to them by God. Throwing their cloaks down was an act of submission and humility and you have to imagine how much road dirt and donkey dirt their cloaks would have had on them when all was said and done.

         The importance of all this pomp and circumstances of this entry of Jesus into Jerusalem then was to make certain that most everyone was in agreement that this Jesus was supposed to be the king. After months of telling his disciples to not say anything to anybody about what his true identity, here is Jesus at last going public with what people everywhere had long suspected. Luke records that the triumphant arrival of Jesus and his entourage into Jerusalem but the story actually begins with Jesus telling two of his disciples to go into the village, either Bethany or Bethphage, we are not told which one, and upon entering they would find a colt tied up. You can only imagine the look on those disciples at such obscure instructions.Then after they find this colt they are basically supposed to just take it and if anyone asks them what in the world they are doing, they are just supposed to say rather nonchalantly, “The Lord has need of it.” Its pretty clear that these disciples had to have some measure of faith that this way of acquiring of a steed for Jesus was going to all work out alright. And it did work out as Luke records, they went found the colt, took it, the owners of course wondered why and when they were told that the Lord had need of it they just let their colt walk away with two unknown strangers which all seems a little strange.We have to wonder just why is it so important for us to know so much about the animal Jesus is going to ride into Jerusalem on? The answer is found in the book of Zechariah, the ninth chapter where were are told of a prophecy, which states, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” You see, Luke wants his readers to make no mistake that it is Jesus that this prophecy of Zechariah is referring to. Jesus is this king, the one who is riding on this young donkey, a donkey not a warhorse because this king is coming in peace, not in haughty arrogance but in true humility. There is another reason that Luke wants to point to this prophecy found in the book of Zechariah and that is not only is Jesus the king spoken of there but also once people would make that connection they would go on to read about what God was going to do through that king. God told Zechariah that He was going to cut off the chariot from Euphrates and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off and this king shall speak peace to the nations.” Yes, Jesus is the king prophesied about so long ago but in keeping with that same prophesy he was also going to be a king who was not going to be about warhorses and battle bows but instead he was a king who was going to be messenger of peace to all the world. This would have been good news if this had been the kind of king you were expecting but for most of the people of Jerusalem this was not the king they were looking for. This helps explain what the Pharisees cried out for Jesus to rebuke his followers for making such a ruckus. To them Jesus was nothing but an imposter, a wanna be who most assuredly was no king, at least not the king they were looking for. The Pharisees represented the rich ruling class who longed for a king who would clear their land of Roman occupation making it once again holy ground. They were not alone because as we follow Jesus in the time that follows his triumphant entrance we find that most of Jerusalem would reject Jesus as being their king once they found out that he was a king that was going to bring about peace not war. War is what they longed for and they were just certain, that because God’s temple stood at the heart of their city and their life then he would be obliged to come to their aid and secure their victory against the Romans. This gives those cries of Hosanna a different ring doesn’t it? When they cried out for God to save them, to give them the victory as Jesus rode into town, they weren’t thinking of the enemy within they were of course, thinking of the enemy that opposed them and their plans; to them this was the Romans, to us it could be any number of people.This is why Jesus had to make sure that everyone knew that he was king right from the beginning so in the end they would remember just who they had forsaken in their frenzy for destruction instead of seeking peace. This is why when Jesus drew near to the city that he wept aloud, with wails of anguish, and he cried out, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes! The people of Jerusalem, God’s own people, the people who had the holy scriptures, the people who marked out holy time with their Sabbaths and their feasts, the people who knew of holy worship at the Temple, these people of all people did not know the things which made for peace. These people so saturated in the very things of God had hearts full of hatred, bitterness and anger which proved that they were ruled not by the God they professed to know and love but rather they were ruled by the one who ruled the world, Satan himself. But praise be to God for Jesus knew that he had come to Jerusalem to cast out the ruler of this world so that the true king might once again reign.

         This coming reign of the king was the importance of the second entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. You see, even though Jesus had come with much fanfare into Jerusalem the reality was that it was not safe for him to stay there. So, even though every day he came to teach at the Temple at night he would withdraw to the Mount of Olives to rest there until it was the right time for God’s salvation to be revealed. That time was the Festival of Passover, the time when the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed. This is when Jesus entered into Jerusalem a second time under much less spectacle. Once again, strange orders are given, this time to Peter and John, to go and prepare the Passover. But where pray tell, Jesus, should this Passover take place they wondered. So, Jesus tells them that when they enter into Jerusalem you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house that he enters. Nothing weird here so far! Then they were to tell the Master of the house, “The Teacher says to you, ‘Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? The Master of the house will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” As in the obtaining of the colt to ride on, here also strange directions that required faith in order to succeed. And, as we are told it all worked out. The rom was found just as Jesus said it would be and Peter and John prepared the Passover. So, the time came for Jesus and his disciples to share in the Passover meal. Now, as we can read in the book of Deuteronomy, Passover is a feast in the Jewish calendar which remembered the freeing of the people of Israel from slavery down in Egypt. As God had commanded them, on that night, a lamb was killed, one for every family unit, and the blood of this lamb was smeared upon the doorposts as a sign of that families allegiance to God. On that night, those who opposed God, the Egyptians who refused to let God’s people go, they were visited by one last plague, the death of all their firstborn, the death of all their future leaders and thus their future.So, this was a night for the people of Israel every year to stop and remember the faithfulness of God who had heard the cries of his people enslaved in Egypt and, as he had promised, set them free from their bondage. With these themes of enslavement, freedom and God’s faithfulness swirling in the air it isn’t hard to understand why it was this festival that Jesus wanted to share with his disciples before he had to suffer. How confusing it must have been to their ears for him to tell them that he would not eat of this meal again until this meal found its full realization in the kingdom of God. Then Jesus took a cup of wine, one of the four that would have been normally served during the Passover meal, and after he had given thanks for it, we are told that Jesus spoke something new to his disciples. He told them “Take this cup and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom comes.” How very mysterious these words of Jesus must have been. They knew, of course that he was king but just when was it that he would at last set up his kingdom? The answer was not really given but was rather something they would have to seek. Then once again Jesus did something very out of the ordinary. He took the customary unleavened bread, the matzah, and after he had given thanks for it he took it in his hands and broke it into pieces and he gave it to his disciples, telling them, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” No, longer merely remembering the deliverance from slavery down in Egypt now the meal was to be a way to remember Jesus. Obviously, they had to wonder just where it was that he was going. Then, after they had drunk the cup after they had eaten, Jesus told them, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which on your behalf is going to be poured out.” At this point perhaps it became clearer that Jesus was speaking to them of his death yet how his death, how the pouring of his blood, not the blood of an animal could be what sealed a new covenant that God was going to make with them. 

All theses strange teachings of Jesus that he taught to his disciples on that Passover night would not have become clear until they saw Jesus upon the cross.  The unthinkable for them had happened. Jesus who very clearly had wanted them to know that he was indeed the king was now dying the death of a criminal. Was this all some kind of cruel joke they must have wondered? Yet what they could not forget in this most very human tragedy was the mystery that this Jesus in some way was not merely human but in fact was God himself with us. What this God would do when faced with his enemies had already been revealed in this life of Jesus because as he had taught his disciples their God was a God who had love for even his enemies. He was a God who made the sun rise on the evil and the good; he was the God who made the rain pour out on the just and the unjust. If Jesus told us this is who God is then what could God do when those same evil and unjust people rejected his Son, whipped him, beat him and nailed him to a tree? The answer is that this God would continue to love them, as seen when Jesus, with his last breath, asking for these enemies to be forgiven for what they had done. We have to wonder if when the soldiers offered Jesus some sour wine, was this his drinking of the fruit of the vine, there upon the cross, was this when his kingdom had come? For there was the king and his victory was at hand. And what of the new covenant Jesus had spoken of the one sealed by his blood? A covenant speaks of a bond of trust between two parties, a bond built upon promise. This is the faithfulness of the love of God which never wavered even as the Father watched the very life flow out of his own dear Son. This unyielding faithfulness of God to love even in the face of the worst that this world could do, this is what Paul calls the righteousness of God. This faithfulness of God cries out to us to meet him there at the mercy seat of the cross and there yield ourselves in faith to one so unbelievably faithful. In this way the righteousness of God becomes our righteousness, a righteousness by faith. As Paul writes in the fifth chapter of Romans, “Therefore since we have been made right by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here then is our king who has won the victory through his death so that now we have peace with God. Yet this is not all because as we learn in the tenth chapter of Hebrews that by this single offering upon the cross Jesus has perfected for all time those who are being made holy.How can this be, we might ask, that we who God is making holy could be perfected right there on the cross of Calvary? The answer is that the perfect love of Jesus shown forth in his unwavering faithfulness unto death comes into our hearts and removes every bit of fear. It is this perfect love which empowers us to love with a perfect love, the perfect love of God that loves ones enemies faithfully even in the face of the worst that this world can do. This is the way we are consecrated, set apart for the holy work of God fulfilling the promise of the new covenant. This holy work that God has for us as Jesus explains is that we would peacemakers just as Jesus brought us to peace with God upon the cross.It is when we are people who seek to make peace through the perfect love of Christ shown to us at the cross, this is when we too are called sons and daughters of the most high God.

All of this is what we are called to remember any time we remember Jesus, the Lamb of God. It is because Jesus was faithful to who he was, the Son of God, that he allowed his body to be broken, broken by the whips, the thorns the nails, the sword.It was because Jesus, out of love, loved his enemies, the evil and unjust of which all of us must acknowledge we have been apart of. It is because of us that  he tasted death to show us his unwavering faithfulness to us. It is his faithfulness that creates faith in us; it is his perfect love that is given so that we might love each other with the perfect love of God. This is why Jesus is the king who comes riding on an animal of peace fulfilling the prophecy as the one who speaks peace to all the world. The question only you can answer is this; Have you experienced peace with God through faith in the blood of Jesus which has set you right in the eyes of God? If you cannot say that you have peace with God then today is the day for you to come to the cross, to see the faithfulness of God in the figure of Jesus and allow him to create in you a heart of faith. Another question that only you can answer is have you experienced the holiness without which no one will see the Lord and is your heart filled with the perfect love of Jesus, a love which loves those you consider your enemies? If this is something that is not true about you then today, come to the cross and seek this second blessing. Let Christ pour his perfect love in your heart by faith. To God be the glory Amen!

The God Possibility

 March 21 2021

Luke 19:1-10

         As I’ve said before, I love to read. The hard part, as any reader knows is picking out the right book. There is nothing worse than starting a book and getting half way through it only to find out that it is a story that you could care less about. Then you have to decide if you are going to forge ahead and attempt to finish it or just quit and have to live never knowing just how the story ends. So, choosing the right book is really an important decision if you don’t want to end up wasting your time. Reading the reviews can be helpful but you have to always keep in mind that opinions can be pretty subjective; what one person thinks is great material another might find that same material to be pretty awful. Perhaps it is better to do as I have heard one reader does and read the last chapter of the book that way if you know the book ends well you can be pretty sure the rest of the story is going to be alright.

         It might be hard for us to realize, but in our story about Zacchaeus what we are in fact doing is reading the last chapter of a story, seeing the final act of a play, you might say, that Luke crafted together. As we can tell, the story of Zacchaeus is a pretty great story, an ending that tells us that the rest of the story must also therefore be pretty good and so it is. Midway through this story what we also find is that Jesus once again tells his disciples that he must be delivered over to the Gentiles and that he was going to be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And, Jesus continues, he was also going to be flogged then they would kill him but on the third day he would rise. We don’t have to wonder just what his disciples thought of such depressing news because Luke tells us that none of them understood what Jesus was talking about; what Jesus had said was hidden from them and they just could not grasp what he was saying.Yet we still have to ask why would Jesus tell them of his coming demise here, in the middle of these events that Luke has formed into a cohesive story? The answer obviously is that there is something here that Jesus wants his disciples to remember when on that fateful day that these words of Jesus suddenly become clear. On that day they would almost assuredly remember also that Jesus had told him that they too had to be prepared to carry their own cross. So, on that day their thoughts would hopefully go back to this time when they were going through Jericho preparing themselves to walk the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem. This is why this story is important for us as well because during this season of Lent we too are journeying with Jesus and the disciples toward Jerusalem. We too once again hear the words of Jesus that we like him must be prepared to carry our cross day by day if we are to be his followers. Once again we are called to remember how Jesus taught that for us to not be tripped up by the possibility of persecution and suffering on account of the word which Jesus has planted in our hearts then we must have a deep rooted faith in the God we profess to believe in. It is not for us to merely be joyous in our new found relationship with Jesus; no, we must also be ready in the heat of the moment if we are to endure to the end. This is why Lent is so important for us as those who call ourselves Christian. Now is the time to examine our hearts and to ask the tough question are we really ready to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, to pay the price of the loyalty we confess to give to Jesus, to suffer at the hands of our enemies because love will not let us do anything more than that? 

         We remember how our journey began on the mountainside where Jesus shone with his eternal glory and the Father spoke telling the disciples to listen to Jesus for he was the very beloved Son of God. This meant that in order to love God we must also love others which is the command of Jesus. Then as we went along we learned that God has set us free through his grace in order that we might be responsible to love all that we meet. This teaching begged the question just why would we love with such an extravagant love and the answer that we discovered in the parable of the prodigal son was that what motivates us is that we treasure our relationship with our Heavenly Father more than anything also in the world. Finally, we learned of how our actions of today affect our future destiny. God compels us to use what he has given us to act righteously so that we are united together in a peace that lasts for all eternity. It is because we treasure God that we take the treasures he gives and use them to treasure others by caring for them. And with all of that we come to the story of Zacchaeus which as we said earlier is really just the last part of an intricate story that Luke has put together.

         The place where this story begins is at the beginning of the eighteenth chapter where Luke records of how Jesus once again tells his disciple a parable, a story that helps explain real life events. What we have to keep in mind is that Luke often uses opposites to develop contrasting ideas. Luke as we recall, had the parable of the prodigal son which was the parable of two sons, one who treasured his relationship with his Father and one who did not. Then Luke told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, a poor man who ended up with two very opposite destinies. Today again, Luke is using the same technique and it begins with this parable of Jesus about a Pharisee and a tax-collector. Both of these men went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed like this, “O dear God I am so thankful that I am not like all these other scumbags in the world. I am so thankful that I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my wife, and I don’t cheat the people I deal with like so many others do. I’m a great guy. I fast twice a week, I give my tithe of all I get” With that we come to the tax-collector who stood apart from everybody else, not even lifting his eyes to heaven but instead he beat his hands upon his chest crying out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” Jesus concluded that it was the tax-collector not the Pharisee who went home accepted and approved by God. Jesus ends the parable by saying for the one who lifts himself up will be humbled but the humble one will be lifted up. Now we have to hang on to what we have heard here because it sets the stage for what happens in the rest of the story.

         The next thing Luke records is that people were bringing infants to Jesus and the disciples were a little weirded out by this and that began to tell people to go home and take your babies with you because of course what they were doing was big boy stuff. But Jesus told them to stop that, let the children come he said because the kingdom of God belongs to children because this is how the kingdom is entered, just like a child. Once again, hold on to this because it is important to what occurs later in the story. What we must also do is to think just what does it mean for us to enter the kingdom like a child?

         So, without much ado, Luke tells us that a ruler came to Jesus to ask him just what is it that he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. Now in order to understand the contrasting opposites that Luke is setting up here we must know that the Greek word for “ruler”, arch, found here is almost the exact same word used to describe Zacchaeus who was the chief or in the Greek, “arch” tax-collector. So, Luke is contrasting two people of authority, people who might be thought of as being some of the most difficult people for God to save because it is hard to bring one who has authority to sit under the authority of God. One more thing we can observe as Jesus begins to talk to this ruler is what Luke wants us to not forget, that those who are lifted up will be humbled and those who are humbled will be lifted up. Now to be lifted up is the same as being prideful and this pride comes from being impressed by the things that we do. And what do we hear the young ruler ask Jesus? Jesus, what is it that I must do? This, at its core is a prideful question. Jesus recognizes this and Jesus also knows that when this ruler calls Jesus good he is hoping that Jesus will extend to him the same favor and declare him good as well which Jesus, of course does not do instead pointing out the fact that God alone is good. Jesus is telling this man the good you think you are is nothing in comparison to the good that God is and always has been. In other words, let the humbling begin. Jesus goes on to ask if he knows the commandments which of course he does, come on Jesus what kind of question is that. All these commandments the ruler tells Jesus he has faithfully kept since he was just a pup. So, once again,  the pride in his accomplishments becomes oh so evident. Jesus replies to this man’s pride filled statement of himself that if he wanted to inherit eternal life all he had to do is to sell all that he had and to come and follow Jesus.Now, we have to pause our story here to ask just what is Jesus up to? I don’t think he is stating a blanket statement that in order to be a disciple of Jesus that one has to sell all that they have. I believe that he is instead telling this man to do so in order to bring him at last to the place where he is able to enter the kingdom as a child. Now, there are many things this statement could possibly mean but I believe the most important fact about being a child is that they depend entirely upon a parent to take care of them. What a humble existence to be unable to do anything for yourself and to have to rely upon someone else to do everything for you. This is where Jesus knew that he had to bring the ruler, to a place where once again he remembered that he, like a child, needed to rely upon God for everything. This ruler had to learn that life was not about what he could do but rather what God could do for him.This is why Jesus told his disciples that it was so difficult for rich people to enter the kingdom of God because they most of all have a tough time not making life all about what they have done. This is why when people heard Jesus say how difficult it was for people to enter the kingdom of God they wondered just who can be saved. Jesus answered them saying, “That what is impossible for men is possible for God. In other words, people can no more save themselves than a child can go to town buy some groceries and take them home and make themselves a meal. Now, it is right here that Luke is setting the stage for what is coming next. Luke is getting ready to present what seems like an impossible person to save and how God made it possible for this man to be saved.

         So, in the first act we had a story of a Pharisee who took great pride in just how great and wonderful he was and if you had any doubts just ask him. That was the jist of his prayer to God. Then we had the tax-collector who simply prayed for God to be merciful to him because he knew there was nothing he could to set himself right with God.It was this tax collector who we are told went home alright in the eyes of God. Then the second act was the encounter with the ruler who was pretty impressed with what he could do, he was good and he wouldn’t mind if you told him that he was good. He had done everything right since he could not remember.He was so good he even thought he could save himself all he needed was to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus burst his bubble by telling him he had to get back to a child’s state of mind. To do so meant he would have to take all he owned and give it away and follow Jesus.The rich man found that to do as Jesus had told him to do was for him the real impossibility. 

So, with all this we at last come to the third act the story of Zacchaeus. The story begins as Jesus and his followers are entering Jericho. There they encounter a blind man who cried out for mercy much like the tax collector we heard of earlier. Jesus heard this man’s plea for mercy and he stopped and commanded that this man be brought to him. Jesus very politely asked the blind man just what he wanted Jesus to do. The blind man replied that he wanted to recover his sight. Jesus told him to recover his sight because his faith had made him well. This theme of sight and seeing is important because as Jesus and his troupe continued on their way they encountered a man named Zacchaeus who also wanted to see, but what he wanted to see was this man called Jesus. The only problem was that Zacchaeus was a little short. And as we know all so well, what Zacchaeus does next is that he runs on ahead and he climbs a sycamore tree. Now, I believe that Luke in giving us the details that he does is making it clear just what the status of Zacchaeus is, I mean think about it, he is short, he runs and he climbs trees, it sounds rather obviously like a description of a kid. The other thing about Zacchaeus climbing a tree is that it would be very humbling for a grown man wearing a robe to start shimmying up the nearest tree.But Zacchaeus does so because there was something about Jesus he just had to see. Just what was it about this man that so many were clamoring on about? Why did this very ordinary guy seem to draw crowds where ever he went?Whatever the reason as to why Zacchaeus climbed the tree what was evident was the fact that he had a deep unanswered longing, a longing that his riches and his title of being the chief of the tax collectors simply did not satisfy.This is perhaps what Jesus sensed when he looked over and saw a man dangling from a tree limb. Jesus pleaded with Zacchaeus to come down because he had to stay at his house that very day.We have to wonder just why Jesus told Zacchaeus that it was absolutely necessary for him to stay at his house? What was the urgency, the necessity of it all? The answer is that as we are told in the end of Luke’s story, that this is what Jesus came to do, to seek and to save the lost. Unlike the eldest brother in the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus was an older brother who knew the heart of his Heavenly Father. Jesus knew how his Father’s heart ached and yearned for the children that he loved to come home. Jesus knew that his Heavenly Father had cared for each person whether they acknowledged him or not and he waited patiently for the day when at last they would at last come home to him.All this must have been what Jesus talked to Zacchaeus over dinner. We know this to be true because we learn that Zacchaeus declared to Jesus that he was going to give one half of all he owned to the poor and to those he may have defrauded he would give them back four times the amount that he took from them. Just why would Zacchaeus do such a crazy act of charity? Zacchaeus gave away the treasures that he had because he at last understood that he had a Heavenly Father who treasured him. Now, instead of needing wealth to prove how great a little man could be he understood that he had always been great in the eyes of God.

You see, what is impossible for us to do as people is to change our hearts, the place where true change begins. The original sin of pride this desire to lift ourselves up has its roots in our original anxiety, the worry of sustaining life in the face of death. The only cure is that we know that we have a Heavenly Father who values us above everything else in this world, a Father who understands our needs before we even utter them, more willing to forgive than we dare imagine. This is a Heavenly Father who prepares a place for us to draw close to him, this is what is meant when the scriptures speak of mercy. There in that place where we can draw close to our Father, hearing that his heart beats for us is where at last our hearts are healed. This is why Jesus came from the very heart of our Heavenly Father to seek us out and to take us there, to live where in that place we can hear the heart of God which beats for us. This is where we know we can enter God’s kingdom like a child, crying Abba, Father.

So, in this story of the story of Zacchaeus we see that he is contrasted with the ruler who was seeking to appease his anxiety through what he could do which as Jesus told is an impossibility. No matter what you do on the outside the heart is left unchanged. Jesus who came from the heart of God came with the story on his lips of a Heavenly Father who treasures us, who seeks us and who saves us. Jesus went to the cross to prove just how much we can trust our Heavenly Father, that he can be trusted even unto death. There on the cross Jesus condemned the prideful efforts we try to save ourselves in order that we might see three days later that only by trusting the Father are we forever secure and safe. Life out of death is impossible for us but what is impossible for us is always possible for God. Amen!