Christmas: Luke 2:25-38: They Saw God’s Salvation from Afar

You may have seen pictures of Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus in the temple. In these pictures an old man is holding Jesus and an old woman is looking on. So what were these two doing? And why are they important in the Christmas story?

LUKE 2:25-38: THEY SAW GOD’S SALVATION FROM AFAR

INTRODUCTION

Today we are going to talk about something that happened after Christmas.
Mary and Joseph were devoted to their spiritual heritage. Eight days after Jesus was born they had a priest come to circumcise him.
In this way they dedicated him to God, according to the requirements of the law of the Old Testament.
At that time they gave him his name. It was a name of great significance. It was not a name they chose.
It was the name the angel gave to Mary, when the angel came to her, and then to Joseph, when the angel visited Joseph in a dream.
The angel told Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The name, in the Hebrew language, was Joshua—or “Yehoshuah” which means “The Lord Saves.”

But there were two other important rituals

And that is our story for today.

Read: Luke 25-38.

I. Forty days after the child’s birth the family would come to the Temple for the redemption of the firstborn and the purification of the mother.

A. Do you remember the story of the Exodus—how the Angel of Death killed the firstborn sons of the Egyptians?

Ever after that the Israelites redeemed their firstborn sons with a gift of 5 shekels of silver.
This was to keep the story of their liberation from slavery in their memories.

B. The ritual they called the Purification of the Mother involved a sacrifice of a lamb or—if the family was poor—two pigeons or turtledoves.

Joseph and Mary were poor, so their offering was two turtledoves or pigeons.

C. Picture what we are talking about when we say, “They went to the Temple.”

Ordinary people didn’t go into the Temple building; only priests entered the building.
But around the Temple was a great courtyard—30 acres of courtyard.
All around the courtyard was a colonnade, covered porches under which people could assemble and where the rabbis taught.

II. After Joseph and Mary had given their gift of 5 shekels and offered the two birds, something unexpected happened—

A. An old man approached the little family and took the baby Jesus into his arms. His name was Simeon.

Simeon was a righteous and godly man who for years had meditated on the promises God had made to his people long ago.
Even when the people of Judah were captives in faraway Babylon, God had sent a prophet to promise that God would visit his people and deliver them from captivity and from all evil.
We can read the promise in the book of Isaiah:

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-5).

And again, God is speaking to Israel…

“Listen! your watchmen lift up their voice,
together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion,
Break forth together into singing…
for the Lord has comforted his people…
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isaiah 52:8-10).

Simeon was one of those Jews who had kept this hope alive in his heart, meditating on the promise of God to send his Messiah into the world and fulfill these prophecies.
Evidently he understood that God had appointed him as the watchman Isaiah spoke of.
God had promised him that he would see God’s Salvation before he died.
That explains his words,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”

Notice that Simeon says, “My eyes have seen your salvation.”
When Simeon looked at that baby in his arms, he saw in the little baby Jesus, God’s salvation!
Jesus would become the Savior, not only for Israel, but also for the whole world.

How excited Mary and Joseph must have been to hear this pronouncement of the destiny of their precious baby boy—a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people Israel.

Then before handing Mary back her baby, he had another prophecy to make—words that prepared Mary for the cost to her of bearing the Savior of the world. He said,

“Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
and for a sign that is spoken against
(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
that thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

B. But Simeon had a counterpart, another prophet named Anna, to whom God had also revealed the destiny of this little baby boy.

Anna, we read, was an old woman who had been a widow most of her life.
Anna was a familiar figure to all who came to worship in the Temple.
We read that day and night she was there worshiping and fasting and praying.
As a prophetess, that is where Anna would be, praising the Lord.
When people went home after worship, they would remember this old woman who was a fixture at the temple, constantly praying and praising God.

Anna saw Mary and Joseph and Simeon with the baby, and she joined them, taking the baby into her arms.
It doesn’t say she took him into her arms, but I know that is what she did, because that is what women do.
And when she got the baby Jesus into her arms she blessed him, and she praised God like she never had before.
And “She spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

APPLICATION

Have we seen God’s salvation? Or do we, like most of the world, just see a baby?
This time of year we are surrounded by images of the baby Jesus. Maybe we forget why he came.
Some people, at Christmastime, think only about the baby in the manger, but that was just the beginning. We should think more of what that baby did with his life--
Jesus didn’t come to be a baby. The Bible tells us hardly anything about the baby.

Jesus came to live among poor and needy, sick and suffering people, and, in the end, to be rejected by those he loved and to give his life.
Jesus came to be our Savior. That is what thrilled Anna and Simeon.

Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins and to rise again to give us life.
Jesus came to be our constant companion and friend of all who love him.

That’s what we mean when we say, “Jesus is my Savior.”

Simeon and Anna, when they had welcomed the Savior, were ready to go to God.
And so we—when we have welcomed Jesus as our Savior and Lord—are ready to go to God.

In one of his most beautiful cantatas (BWV 82), the great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, places himself in the place of Simeon. He gives the baritone soloist these words:

“For me, it is enough.
I have taken the Savior, the faithful one, into my arms.
For me, it is enough!
I have seen him.
My faith has clasped Jesus to my heart.
Now I desire this very day joyfully to depart this earth.
For me it is enough.”

Christmas: John 8:1 & Matthew 5:14: The Light of the World

One of the most exciting things about Christmas is all the lights. Did you ever wonder why we use so many lights and candles at Christmas?

JOHN 8:1 AND MATTHEW 5:14: THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION

We are now in the Christmas season. Everywhere we see the Christmas lights. Lights have been used to celebrate Jesus all through the ages. It used to be candles. Churches were full of candles. I have heard about churches where each worshiper would bring his or her candle into the dark church and when everyone arrived and was seated the church would be ablaze with light.
These candles have a deep spiritual significance. To understand their significance will help us to celebrate Christmas as it ought to be celebrated.
I have two texts for today’s message. The first is John 8:1: Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” And the second is Matthew 5:14: Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.”
We will take up each of these ideas in turn and see how they help us understand what God has done for us and what he expects of us.
I hope that these thoughts will help us prepare spiritually to celebrate Christmas as it ought to be celebrated.

I. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”

A. You know that John begins his story of Jesus long before Bethlehem, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men. John begins his story of Jesus before the beginning of time—in the eternity before there was even a world.

Here is how John begins his story of Jesus:

“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God;
all things were made by him,
and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-14).

Just as we express ourselves with words, so God expresses himself with his “Word,” which is Jesus.
Jesus came into the world to show us in a human life the heart of God.
Probably one of the first Bible verses we learned in Sunday school was, “God so loved the world, that he sent his only-begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
When John wrote: “In him was life and the life was the light of men,” he is telling us two most important things about the Lord Jesus.

Jesus is life and Jesus is light: true life, life that never ends, and the light of the knowledge of God.

John is not picturing for us the sunlight that turns the night into day when he says Jesus was “The light shining in the darkness.”
Do you remember when a carnival used to come to town how they would shine those great spotlights into the air?
They didn’t light up the sky, but they pierced the sky with a bright shaft piercing the darkness.

Or imagine yourself on a pitch-dark day out at sea with only the stars above twinkling with a faint light.
And then you see a lighthouse. And the lighthouse cutting a hole in the blackness with its bright bar of light.

B. John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

I can remember as a child being lost in the darkness.
The night was much darker when we were children and we didn’t have lights all around us.
The farm where Charlotte grew up had no electricity. The night was really dark and the outhouse was some distance from the house.
The nights were dark, even in the city, where I lived
I lived in the city, but I remember gazing at the Milky Way from my cot on the sleeping porch.

In ancient cities darkness could be terrifying.
A few days ago I read in a history book about the danger of life in ancient Rome.
Night was a time of great danger. Criminals abounded in the darkness.
When dark came people locked themselves in their houses.
Shops were closed and chains drawn across the doors.
If rich people went outside they took slaves with them carrying torches.

So for John, darkness is a good metaphor for a world full of sin and sorrow and evil and danger.
And the darkness—the Bible tells us—is not only all around us in the world; it is also in our own hearts, if they are without God.

But “light,” in the Bible represents peace and joy and holiness and love.
These are the qualities that Jesus brings into our world and into the life of everyone who receives him as Lord and Savior.
We have experienced this.
Even when we experience disappointments and illness and sadness, God dwells within and cheers us with his light.

So when you see the candles and all the bright lights this Christmas, remember that they represent Jesus, the light in a dark world.

II. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to his followers: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

A. Isn’t that interesting; not only is Jesus the Light of the World, but you and I—if we are followers of Jesus—are also lights in the world.

Jesus is present in our world mainly in the lives of his people.
The people of the world can no longer see Jesus, but they can see you and me.
And our job in the world is to reflect the light of Jesus to those around us.
And Jesus says that the way to do that is by our “good works”—works of kindness and generosity and compassion.

B. We Christians believers need to consider how we can be lights in a dark world.

Here is a conversation a teacher overheard on the playground:
One boy said to another, “None of us ever wants to play with Mike. He’s such a nerd. But whenever the coach asks us to choose a partner for doubles, you always choose to play with Mike. Nobody will play with Mike. Why do you play with him?”
The other boy responded quietly, “That’s why I play with him.”
That boy was reflecting the light of Jesus in the world.

A girl in the seventh grade went to a school party. But nobody greeted her or talked to her. She sat by herself in a corner wishing she hadn’t come. A wise teacher noticed and came over to her and pointed out to her that there were other lonely people at the party just like her. She said, “Why don’t you go over and talk to some of them?”
She spent the rest of the evening seeking out the wall-flowers and offering them her friendship. By the time the party was over she had had a wonderful time.
That girl was serving Jesus. That girl was letting her light shine in the world.
She had begun to come to Sunday school all by herself, but in the end she won her entire family to Christ.

My Aunt Ruth lived to be over 100. She spent the last years in a nursing home in Dallas. In order to share her faith with others in the nursing home she ordered multiple copies of the devotional booklet, The Upper Room. When the housekeeper or nurse aides came into her room, she would offer them a copy. It got so that some of the employees of the home looked forward to receiving these little devotional booklets and would come in and ask for them. This was Aunt Ruth’s way of letting the light of Jesus shine in her life.

In Ephesians 5:8 we read: “Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.”
Last week we sang in church a beautiful hymn. It began like this:
“I want to walk as a child of the light;
I want to follow Jesus.”

CONCLUSION

A small girl in a church junior choir was chosen to lead the procession for a Christmas candlelight service. After the service, she said to her mother: “I looked back and saw all those people coming behind me, and I was scared!”
Each of us is in a procession of believers that has been processing through history and will continue until Jesus returns.
Each of us is following a procession. But each of us is also leading a procession—children, younger friends, students, younger friends.

How we live influences the lives and decisions of all who follow us.

Think about how much you owe in your walk with God to those who came before you and taught you by their example. And take seriously your role as a light-bearer for Jesus.

“Jesus bids us shine with a clear pure light,
Like a little candle burning in the night.
In this world of darkness so let us shine.
You in your small corner, and I in mine.”

Strength for the Journey: 2 Corinthians 4:6-7: Treasure in Earthen Vessels

As we grow older we become more and more aware of our weakness, but the good news is that even in our weak selves, God has hidden a precious jewel.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:6-7: TREASURE IN EARTHEN VESSELS

INTRODUCTION

This is an earthen vessel, or we could call it a clay pot. It isn’t very valuable. It didn’t cost very much. It is made out of nothing but clay from the ground.
Probably the clay with which this pot is made cost less than a dime. But the potter who made it did a nice job, didn’t he. He made something beautiful and useful.

In Bible times they used earthenware pots for many things.

They used clay jars where we would use cans, bottles, cardboard boxes, and crates.
They stored grain and olive oil, ointment, perfume, and wine in clay jars.
Their lamps were little closed dishes with two openings in the top, one for putting in the oil and one for the wick to come through.
They used clay jars to draw water with and store water in.
The Dead Sea scrolls were stored in large clay jars.

The main things that archeologists dig up as they explore ancient sites are not coins or statues or ornaments, but pieces of pottery. The sites of ancient cities are full of pieces of pottery.
Archeologists date their other findings by the style of the pottery.

In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul used the clay pot—the earthen vessel—to teach us a very important lesson.

2 Corinthians 4:6-7:
For it is God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.

I. Why do you think Paul compares us to earthen vessels?

A. Earthen vessels are not very strong. If we drop them, they break.

Even the strongest man or woman on earth, can be made helpless by a little germ, or by falling down the stairs, or by some malfunction of a tiny organ or nerve in our body.

We are like clay pots because we are not strong in ourselves.
We need to depend on God. Only God can give us the strength we need to live.

Do you know why all the heroes in the Bible have serious flaws?
It’s because weak, flawed people are all God has to work with. All the perfect people are in heaven.

B. Another way we are like earthen vessels is that we are made of the same materials as the dirt under our feet.

On the second page of the Bible we read: “The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
Whenever we get to thinking we’re somebody, we need to remember that we are dust.
In the next chapter, the Lord God tells Adam: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

But if knowing that we come from the dust humbles us, it can also encourage us.

In Psalm 103 we read these comforting words:

“God does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor requite us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father pities his children,
so the Lord pities those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust” (vv10-14).

It is a comfort to me to know that God knows my weakness. He remembers that I am dust.

C. Earthen vessels aren’t very valuable. A porcelain vase may be valuable, but an earthen vessel is pretty cheap.

The clay they are made of is dug from the earth.
If you have ever seen a potter working at his wheel?
You know how fast they can make a pot. They call it “throwing” and I’ve seen potters make beautiful pots in a five minutes.
That’s why earthenware is usually inexpensive.
Maybe Paul is reminding us that in ourselves we aren’t precious. When God made man, he wasn’t precious until God breathed into him the breath of life. Then he became a living soul.

The important thing isn’t what we’re made of. The important thing is that God breathed into us the breath of life.

Within our bodies---made of clay—is the breath of life.
And that makes us precious, doesn’t it?

II. But that’s not the treasure Paul is telling us about.

A. Look at the first part that I read: “It is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

What is so valuable that is held within the little clay pot?
Paul calls it “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.”

In the third sentence in the Bible God says, “Let there be light.” That was the light that gives life to everything on earth.
But there’s another kind of light. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, the one who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

To have Jesus in my life is to have light in my life—the light of salvation—and all that that light brings into my life—hope of glory, peace, joy, love…

Our spiritual life is the most precious thing in the world to you and me.
Our spiritual life is like a precious jewel we hold within the clay pot that is our life.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
One day he found one of such beauty and value that he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
To know Jesus and have the assurance of eternal life is of more value than everything else we own, even if we were multi-billionaires.
Never let anything allow you to lose you hold on this most precious possession.

We must give attention to nurturing our spiritual life, so that we can be always close to God and the flame of his love will burn brightly in our lives.
We have talked about these things many times: prayer, fellowship with other believers, church attendance, Bible reading, conversing with others about our faith.

III. But there’s one thing more to learn from our text: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.” Some versions say, “the surpassing greatness of his power,” “this extraordinary power,” “the immensity of the power.”

A. We always need to remember that the power comes from God.

Of all people, we should know our weakness. In ourselves we are weak.
We depend on God for life and strength.
We depend on God for strength to live for him.
In ourselves we are weak and sinful.

It is only by God’s power in us that we can love as we ought to love.
It is only with God’s help that we can live obedient lives, faithful to God’s word.
It is only with God’s help that we can be patient in the midst of trouble.
It is only by leaning on God that we can keep trusting in him through the times of weakness and pain.
It is only by holding God in our hearts that we can keep hope bright.
It is only by God’s love shining in us that we can draw others to Jesus.

B. Paul calls it the “transcendent power” because the power of God goes beyond anything we can experience on our own. God’s power is so great that words cannot express it.

Sometimes young Christians wonder why so many of the most intelligent and learned and powerful people in the world are not believers.
Paul wrote this in one of his letters: “Consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

We must never take credit for what God has done for us.
This teaches us to be humble.
It teaches us to give God the credit.
If you haven’t made some of the mistakes other people have made…
if you aren’t guilty of some of the sins you see around you,
if you begin to see holiness coming into your life…
if you have a sweet sense of God in your life…
remember that all this comes from God.
This should keep us humble, thankful, dependent.

CONCLUSION

There is a legend preachers often use. You may have heard it.
The story is that after Jesus returned to glory after his resurrection on earth, the angel Gabriel approached him and asked, “Master, do they know all about how you loved them and what you did for them?”
“No,” replied Jesus, “not yet. Right now only a few people in Palestine know.”
Gabriel was perplexed: “What have you done to get out the word?”
Jesus said, “I’ve asked Peter and John and Mary and Martha and a bunch of others to tell about me. They will tell some, and the ones they tell will pass the word to others, and eventually the whole world will hear.
Gabriel looked skeptical. He knew about what poor stuff men and women were made of. He said, “What if Peter denies you again? What if they all run away again when danger comes? What if they grow weary? Do you have another plan?”
Jesus answered, “No, I don’t have another plan. I’m counting on them.”

And Jesus is counting on you and me too.

We have a treasure, the gospel of the glory of God.
As we live for Jesus, the light of the gospel shines out and others can see the gift.
Let’s make sure they do.

Living for Jesus: Colossians 4:6: Be Careful What You Say.

There is an old proverb: “A bird is known by its note; a man by his talk.” Another old saying is “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But it’s not true: words can hurt—and words can also heal.

COLOSSIANS 4:6: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY

INTRODUCTION

Scientists who have studied the matter tell us that the average adult speaks about 13,500 words each day. Of course there are great differences between us. Teachers, barbers, and salespeople talk much more than farmers, accountants, and bus drivers.
But suppose you speak 13,500 words every day of your life. That would be almost 5 million words per year. In a lifetime of 80 years you might speak nearly 400 million words.
An ordinary novel contains 250 words per page. Think of a book with 250 pages, with 250 words on each page. That would be 60,000 words.
If an average person speaks 13,500 words each day for 80 years, he or she would say enough words to fill 4867 books.
Imagine if all the words you had ever spoken were printed in books and those books were lined up on shelves—that would be quite a roomful of books!

One day, when our son John was a little boy, he told us that someone had said something hurtful to him.
I told him: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
He said, “But Daddy, they do hurt.”
That’s true. Words can hurt, and they can also heal and comfort and encourage.

A little girl knelt beside her bed and said this to Jesus, “Dear Jesus, make all the good people nice.”
Sometimes we forget that being nice is part of being good.
And the main way we have of being “nice” is by kind words.

How we use talk to help one another and to express our faith in God is an important subject in the Bible.

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians we read these words:

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt,
so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.”

I. How can our speech be gracious and seasoned with salt?

A. Gracious speech is speech that is comforting, encouraging, and full of gratitude.

We speak graciously when we offer a sincere compliment…when we notice something good in another person.
We speak graciously when we thank someone for a little act of kindness—even if it is part of their job.
We speak graciously when we sympathize with one who is hurting. Compassion is feeling the hurt in another person’s heart. Compassion also includes doing something—even if it is just a sympathizing word.
Sometimes speaking graciously might even mean refraining from speech and just listening. For some of us listening is hard to do. I often feel that I just must talk or I will burst. But I won’t burst. I need to discipline my speech and listen more.

Ungracious speech includes ridiculing, correcting and contradicting, gossiping and tale-bearing.

We were in a church once in which the men had a habit of kidding one another. I felt that much of the kidding was unkind, they sometimes hurt each other, pretending it was humor.

In Ephesians Paul wrote this, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
That is gracious talk; talk that builds up the other person, talk that imparts grace to the one who hears.

In the same letter Paul tells us to speak the truth in love. We may say something that is true, but we must also speak in love. That means that some things we might like to say—we don’t. It means that we are always thinking about the other person’s feelings rather than our own.

Do you remember when you said something dumb or unkind and your mother told you: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”?

Someone suggests that everything we say should pass through three sieves: “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”
If we all followed that rule, the world would be a lot quieter. It would also be happier.

Here are some of the ways we can make love with our voices:

“Let me help you.”
“You’ve been a good friend.”
“Those are the words I needed to hear.”
“You’ve made my day.”
“Here, use mine.”
“Are you comfortable?”
“I’ll wait for you.”
”Thank you.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.”
“What a beautiful sweater!”
“You’re fun to be around.”
”Here’s something just for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for your visit.”
“You’re a good listener.”
“Something you told me the other day has been an encouragement to me.”
“Tell me about your grandchildren.”
“You seem troubled today; can I help?”

These are examples of gracious speech.

B. But what does the apostle mean when he says our speech should be “seasoned with salt”?

A little salt enhances the flavor in food.

I eat oatmeal for breakfast. If I forget to put about ¼ teaspoon of salt in it, it tastes like the pan.
We make bread at our house. For a loaf of bread we use 1 teaspoon of salt. When we eat the bread we can’t taste that bit of salt, but if we forget to put in the salt, the bread tastes insipid.

Speech seasoned with salt is speech that is interesting or helpful.
That requires thinking before we speak.

We need to learn and think, so that when we open our mouths something useful comes out. But we remember that what’s interesting to us may not be interesting to others.
Someone said, “Ideas are like children; our own are very wonderful.”
That is why it is more important to be good listeners than good talkers.

But for ancient people, salt was more important as a preservative than as a seasoning.

People in Bible times didn’t have canning or freezing.
The only way to keep meat or fish eatable was to salt it.
So people thought of salt as that which preserves.
When Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth,” he means that we are to preserve goodness in society.
If we are to be the salt of the earth, our speech should reflect that goodness that preserves and protects rather than destroying and hurting.
When St. Paul says that our speech is to be “seasoned with salt,” he means that it is to be wholesome and helpful.

II. If we love Jesus, our love for him should show up in our talk.

A. Whatever we love and whatever is important to us, we talk about. Loyalty to our Lord must go beyond being kind and considerate.

It is easy to give the impression that we are “religious.” People see that we go to church. They may see us bow our heads to give thanks for our food; they may see our Bible on our table or the Bible verse on our wall. Those things speak of what is important to us.

But sometimes we will have to say something.

B. Our text says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.”

One answer is appropriate for one person, and another answer is appropriate for another.
For example, if the one I am speaking to is not a fellow believer, or if I don’t know about my friend’s feelings about God, I need to be sensitive.

Some people are frightened by talk about God or salvation.
We need a tender heart and a humble mind when we mention God’s love and our assurance of eternal life.

But when someone shares a sorrow, we listen with sympathy.
Maybe you tell her, “I’ll remember you in my prayers.
Hardly anyone is offended by knowing that we are praying for them—even if they don’t believe in God.
If someone shares a disappointment with you, you may say, “When my world fell apart, it was a comfort to know that God loves me and will never let me go.”
And whenever anyone asks you about your source of contentment, be ready to tell them what God has done for you.
If someone does us a kindness, we might say, “Thank you so much. May God bless you.”
Most people are happy to receive your blessing, and it may help draw them to God.

If our friend is a fellow believer we can be very direct. They will enjoy talking with us about salvation, the blessings in our lives, and our expectation of heaven.
As a believer, to hear someone talk about God in their lives is a great comfort and strength.
All of us struggle with faith sometimes. To hear my friend talk about the reality of God helps me to believe more firmly.
It’s true that we Christian people hold on to one another’s faith.

CONCLUSION

I read a story not long ago that illustrates the healing power of thoughtful words.

Mary Ann Bird was born with multiple birth defects: deaf in one ear, a cleft palate, a disfigured face, a crooked nose, lopsided feet. As a child she suffered not only the physical impairments but also the thoughtless comments of other children. “Oh, Mary Ann,” her classmates would say, “what happened to your lip?”
Mary Ann would lie: “I cut it on a piece of glass.”
For Mary Ann one of the worst experiences at school was the day of the annual hearing test. The teacher would call each child to her desk, and the child would cover first one ear, and then the other. The teacher would whisper something to the child like “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” This was the whisper test”: if the child could repeat the teacher’s whispered sentence, he or she passed the whisper test. To avoid the humiliation of failure, Mary Ann always cheated on the test by secretly cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she could still hear what the teacher said.
One year Mary Ann was in the class of Miss Leonard, one of the most beloved teachers in the school. Every student, including Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by her, wanted her affection. Then came the day of the dreaded hearing test.
When her turn came, Mary Ann was called to the teacher’s desk. As Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear, Miss Leonard leaned forward to whisper. “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “which God must have put into her mouth, those seven words which changed my life.” Miss Leonard did not say “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” What she whispered was “I wish you were my little girl.”
Those words changed Mary Ann Bird’s life. She went on to become a teacher herself, a person of inner beauty and great kindness.

That time when her beloved teacher told her “I wish you were my little girl” was so important to Mary Ann Bird that when she wrote the story of her life in her memoir, she titled it “The Whisper Test.” (Thomas G. Long, Testimony, p86)

Living for Jesus: Luke 18:9-14: The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Jesus told a story about two men who went up to the Temple to pray. One was a good man, the other, a bad man. But at the end of the story, the bad man is the one who is our example.

LUKE 18:9-14: THE PARABLE OF THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR

INTRODUCTION

Last week I read this in a book by one of my favorite authors (C. S. Lewis): “When Christianity does not make a man very much better, it makes him very much worse.”
We know that having God in my life should make me a better person than I would be otherwise. We expect that faith in Jesus Christ should make me more loving, kind, generous, more just.
But how could having God in my life make me worse?

Jesus told a parable about that in Luke 18:9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I. Jesus didn’t go into detail about what these two men were like. The terms “Pharisee” and “tax collector” told his listeners all they needed to know about the character of these two men.

A. Historians tell us that the Pharisees were “good people.”

Our Pharisee was an asset to his community.
Pharisees was people who took their religion seriously. They didn’t just “talk the talk,” they “walked the walk.”
Pharisees loved their Bibles. They knew large portions of it by heart. And they tried hard to live by its principles.
Pharisees never missed church. (They called it synagogue.)
Pharisees held the correct beliefs.
Pharisees prayed every day and they prayed long.
Pharisees practiced self-denial.
Pharisees avoided the company of wicked people.
These are characteristics of good people.

When the Pharisee reminds God in his prayer that he fasts twice a week and that he gives away a tenth of his income he is just giving God a sample of the good things in his life.

Pharisees were admired by the people of the country.
We need to get out of our minds that the Pharisees were self-righteous prigs who went around alienating people by acting holier-than-thou.
No, Pharisees were looked up to. Mothers would be proud if their sons grew up to be Pharisees.

B. But what kind of people were the tax collectors?

In the Roman world they were called “publicans,” and that is the term we remember from our old Bibles.

Get out of your mind that the publicans were humble fellows who were comfortable to be around.
Publicans were tough guys who didn’t care what other people thought.
They made their living by helping the Romans oppress their fellow Jewish countrymen.
Publicans collected the hard-earned money of the Jews. Often they cheated them by asking for more than they really owed. The extra they kept for themselves. What they didn’t keep for themselves was sent to Rome to support the armies, build palaces for the emperor, and provide amusements for the idle population of Rome.
No one would have wanted to be a publican except that it was a good living. Publicans were wealthy. This publican in our story was probably wealthier than the Pharisee.
Publicans weren’t welcomed in the synagogues or at community gatherings.
They were on the same social level as prostitutes, adulterers, ex-convicts, and people who made no pretence of religion.
Their only friends were other tax collectors and rejects from society.
No mothers wanted their sons to grow up to be publicans.

II. Jesus calls our attention to is the prayer of each of these men.

A. The Pharisee’s prayer was all thanksgiving.

I see some good things in the Pharisee’s prayer.
He thanks God for the good work God has done in his life.
In his prayer he recognizes that he is what he is by the grace of God.
God has helped him overcome bad habits and discipline his life.
God has moved his heart to obedience and generosity.
The Pharisee sees himself as a fine fellow, and he gives the credit to God.

B. The publican’s prayer was all confession.

The Publican stood “far off,” in a corner somewhere.
He didn’t look up and stretch out his arms to heaven as was the custom in those days.
He is feeling so guilty that he knelt in his corner as he beat his chest and cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” The text implies that he continued saying this over and over: “God me merciful to me, a sinner! God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
He may have had many needs in his life, but his overwhelming need was to get right with God.

Jesus liked this man’s prayer and tells us that he went down to his house justified—which means forgiven, made clean, offered a new start—in fact, a new life.
We don’t know whether this publican’s repentance was deep or shallow, but we hope that this was a new life of obedience, faith, and love.
We don’t know whether he kept his occupation of tax collector, but if did he would have had to figure out a way to use his position to help people rather than cheat them.

C. So what was wrong with the Pharisee’s prayer?

What’s wrong comes right at the beginning, when he says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people…”
His sin was measuring himself by looking down at people less good than he, rather than by looking up toward God and realizing how far short he fell of being what he ought to be.
Although he thought he was thanking God, he was really congratulating himself.
In his mind he was sitting up there, a little below his God but far above sinners like the publican. He is, as he says, “not like other men.”

The gospel writer gives us the key to the Pharisee’s problem at the beginning when he says, “Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.”
Someone commented: “He had just enough religion to make him virtuous but not enough to make him humble.”

D. Why is the publican’s prayer accepted?

- because he admitted to his sin and need for mercy. He had a crushing sense of his own sinfulness.
- because he had given up on himself. Only God could help.
- because he knew he didn’t deserve anything from God.
- because he didn’t take it for granted that God is waiting for him to say the word, so that he can forgive him.
- because he knows that for forgiveness to happen, he has to ask for it.


APPLICATION

When I look at my heart I see a Pharisee lurking there.
God has forgiven me and given me a new life.
I rejoice in my salvation.
I read my Bible. I pray. I go to church. I give money. I live for God.

And then the devil sneaks these little thoughts into my mind: “See how far you’ve come.” “See how much better you are than other people.”

And I begin to notice the faults of other people. There is nothing that feeds my good opinion of myself as much as noticing the faults of other people.
That’s one reason we notice the faults of other people—it makes us feel so righteous.

But here is something I have noticed.
Everyone I know has faults. I notice them. I can’t help noticing them. They are so obvious.

Have you ever wondered why other people are so oblivious of their faults?
I say to myself, “Doesn’t he know how sharp his tongue is?”
“Doesn’t she realize that the very thing she is criticizing in her friend is the thing she is guilty of?”

Does that tell you something?
It tells me that, just as their faults are hidden from them, so many of mine must be hidden from me.

Have you ever wondered why people get so much pleasure out of discussing the faults of other people?
Can it be that noticing the faults of others helps us feel superior?

But God sees us, not as we wish we were, or as we think we are, but as we really are.

I suspect that if I could see myself as God sees me I would be so depressed.
It would be a revelation.
But I can see enough of my sin to cry out to God: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

I can say, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Another hymn that does me good goes like this:

“Depth of mercy can there be,
mercy still reserved for me?
Can my Lord his wrath forbear;
me the chief of sinners spare?”

I think that I have in me both the Pharisee and the tax collector. And whenever I begin to trust in my righteousness and notice how much better I’ve become—and when I begin to notice the sins of other people, I remind myself that that feeling of superiority is a sin.

And I say again, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

I was drafted into the army and sent to Korea during that war.
One day I was digging a hole. We dug a lot of holes in Korea.
I was digging away in the hard ground when I hit something hard.
I thought it was a rock.
I kept banging on it and trying to dig it out, but suddenly I realized that it was an unexploded mortar round.
I very carefully covered it up and dug my hole in another place.
Suppose that mortar round could have spoken. It might have said, “Why are you afraid of me? I’ve never done anything to you.”
I could have answered, “It’s not what you’ve done. It’s what you’ve got inside you.”

That illustrates my heart—and maybe yours.
We look good on the outside—I hope we do.
But God knows our hearts.
That’s why we all need to pray the publican’s prayer: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Stories of Jesus: Luke 5:27-32: Jesus Calls Levi

Levi had a nasty job. The decent people shunned him. But Jesus was different. Jesus found a friend in Levi and Levi found a friend in Jesus. In this story we learn something about ourselves and even more about Jesus.

LUKE 5:27-32: JESUS CALLS LEVI

INTRODUCTION

Hardly anyone has a good word to say about the taxman. Through the ages people have over and over expressed dislike for and often rebelled against the people who collected the taxes.

One man said that although he knew his next door neighbor well, he never seemed to be able to find out what the man did for a living. Then somehow he learned why his neighbor didn’t talk about his work. His neighbor worked for the IRS. He feared that if people found out what he did for a living, they wouldn’t like him.

In the early days of our nation, when we were still colonies of England, the protests against taxes sometimes led to tarring and feathering the revenue agents who worked for the English government.
And when the United States became a nation, the people began protesting against the taxes the new government tried to collect.

Levi had a nasty job. He was the tax collector who collected taxes for the Roman occupiers of Galilee.

Read: Luke 5:27-32. (Levi evidently had two names. He is called Matthew in Matthew’s gospel.)

I. Levi was a tax collector.

A. Here is how the Roman’s tax system worked.

A prominent man would bid to collect the taxes in a certain district. He was known as a “tax farmer.”
He would agree to pay the Romans what they required and then collect from the people whatever he could, taking the extra for himself.
But the people who actually did the dirty work of shaking down the people for their taxes were Jews the tax farmer hired to work under him.
These men also had to make a living, so they also would ask for more than was actually owed.
It was like the Mafia collecting the taxes.
Tax collectors such as Levi were considered to be in the same class as prostitutes and robbers and adulterers. They weren’t allowed to attend synagogue worship. They had no part in the community life of the town.
They were especially shunned by the religious people, the Pharisees and scribes.
If you can imagine a Norwegian or a Frenchman working for the Nazis by collecting taxes from his countrymen, you can imagine the hatred that Levi and his fellow tax collectors felt from their fellow Jews.

B. Levi lived in Capernaum. Capernaum had become Jesus’s “hometown” after he left Nazareth to begin his ministry.

This is the city where Peter’s house was. You remember that it was here that Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.
Capernaum was the city where Jesus was when the paralyzed man came through the roof to meet Jesus.
Capernaum was where Jesus healed the nobleman’s son.

Capernaum lay on the road running along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.
It was near the border between two provinces in the Roman Empire.
One of the ways Romans collected taxes in their empire was to collect import and export duties on goods that were carried across borders.
So Levi’s tax booth was a busy place.

C. Because Jesus was often in Capernaum and did many miracles there, Levi had no doubt heard about Jesus’s miracles and heard some of his teaching.

Jesus had dropped by tax booth and become acquainted with Levi.
Jesus was friendly, even with tax collectors. Levi appreciated that.
Somewhere along the way, Levi came to faith.
Jesus saw in Levi the qualities that would make him a good disciple and apostle.
So when one day Jesus dropped by the tax booth and invited Levi to follow him, Levi was ready to go.

D. We read that Levi “got up and left everything and followed him.”

We’re not to suppose that Levi just left the money in the drawer and walked off his job. Surely he let his supervisor know that he was quitting.

What the gospel writers want us to understand is that Levi didn’t hesitate to give up all his possessions and all his security and all his riches and become a follower of Jesus.

Levi’s decision was more dramatic than that of James or John or Peter or Andrew. They were fishermen, and they could go back to their former occupation any time they wanted to. And sometimes they did go back to fishing, even one time after Jesus’s resurrection.
But Levi had burnt his bridges behind him.
He had nothing to go back to.

We wish we knew more about Levi’s career as an apostle, but apart from this story we know nothing. We do have the tradition that he wrote the gospel of Matthew. Islam has preserved a tradition that Matthew and Andrew carried the gospel to Ethiopia.

II. But the most interesting part of the story is what happened after Levi’s call.

A. Jesus told his fishermen disciples to follow him, and he would make them fishers of people.

Levi lost no time in starting his “fishing for people.”
He gave a party and invited all his low-life buddies: “Then Levi made him a great feast in his house; and there was a large company of tax collectors and others sitting at table with them.”
I can imagine a rowdy crowd of tax collectors and other sinners and their girl friends.
Evidently when Levi liquidated his assets to followJesus, he set aside some of the money for this banquet with which to introduce his friends to Jesus.

B. Jesus loved to be in the company of sinners, outcasts of society, and others who decent people avoided.

But he didn’t love them in their sin. He loved them because he had a better life to offer them.
When Jesus won the friendship of rogues and thieves and loose women and people in trouble, it wasn’t to leave them in their misery.
His mission was to call them to repentance—as we saw in the last verse I read.
Jesus never supposed that a relationship with him was enough. He was always calling sinners to repentance.

In his book, Loving God, Charles Colson tells the story of a Hollywood gangster named Mickey Cohen, who attended a Billy Graham crusade and decided to “accept Christ.”
Later, when one of Graham’s associates told him that as a new Christian he needed to cut his mob ties, Mickey was incredulous.
“You never told me that I had to give up my career. You never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what is the matter with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all that—if that’s Christianity—count me out.”

I don’t know how much Jesus enjoyed the company with the losers of the world.
I worked with convicts in prison and with mental patients and addicts in a mental hospital and with people in poverty. I didn’t find many kindred spirits among them.
They weren’t people I would naturally seek out for my friends. But it was an opportunity to love people who needed love. It was an opportunity to serve them and to express to them the love that Jesus had for them. Some of them became close friends.
That’s what Jesus was doing at Levi’s party.

A childhood friend of mine was a kid named Warren. Warren grew up to become a committed Christian.
One of the things he did was start a mission in San Francisco to minister to the prostitutes and pimps and workers in the strip joints.
Warren didn’t go to those places because he enjoyed the atmosphere there. He went to those places because he loved those people and wanted to win them for Jesus.
He told me that one time he as explaining the way of salvation to the owner of owner of these striptease clubs.
As he was explaining God’s gift of eternal life to the owner of the club, the man he was talking to was—as he listened—working the dials controlling the lights playing on the dancer on the stage.

Jesus called sinners but he didn’t leave them that way. When they responded to his love, their lives were changed.

C. But Levi’s party got Jesus into trouble.

The “good people,” the religious people, the church people—they were called Pharisees in those days—thought it was awful for Jesus to friendly with these sinners.
Their idea of holiness was to quarantine themselves from evil by avoiding having anything to do with sinners.
But Jesus had another idea. His idea was to go to the sinners and become their friend—not so that he could be like them, but so that he could show them the way back to God.
When the righteous people criticized Jesus for keeping company with bad people, Jesus had an answer for them.
He told them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (vv31-32).
Jesus compared himself to a doctor, and doctors go where the sick people are.

Actually, we all need Jesus because none of us is truly righteous.
Those in his day who thought they were righteous needed Jesus, but they just didn’t know it.
Levi and his buddies knew it. They knew they needed what Jesus had to offer.
They needed forgiveness. They needed salvation.

CONCLUSION

When Jesus says, “I have not come to all the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” he is inviting you and me to examine ourselves and see that we also are ”sick” and need to repent.
This is the lesson for us from the story of Levi’s call.
Sometimes we good people congratulate ourselves because we have responded to Jesus’s call.
We’ve learned about God. We’ve prayed. We’ve read our Bibles. We’ve overcome some bad habits. We’ve become better people. And when we see that we are advancing in holiness, we are in great danger of congratulating ourselves.

Righteous people, discerning people, knowledgeable people, people who love the truth are in trouble when they use their discernment and their wisdom to feel superior and to point to the faults of other people.
No matter how holy we become, we can still be proud, unloving, critical, complaining, and all wrapped up in ourselves. And those are sins. So we always need to repent and come to Jesus for forgiveness.

Stories of Jesus: John 11:17-44: How Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life

One of the most memorable sayings of Jesus is “I am the resurrection and the life.” It is a great saying, and it comes with a story that illustrates its truth. It is the story of a tragedy in the little family of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus and how sorrow turned to joy in the little town of Bethany, near Jerusalem.

JOHN 11:17-44: HOW JESUS IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

INTRODUCTION

How often we hear someone make a statement of regret that begins “If only…”
“If only she had gone to the doctor sooner…”
“If only he had studied harder…”
“If only I had listened to my mother…”
“If only they had left two minutes earlier—or two minutes later…”
“If only I had known then what I know now…”
“If only I had kept my mouth shut…”

We hear that regretful remark two times over in one of the most famous stories of Jesus.

First of all I will give you the background to the story.
There was a little family in Bethany that was dear to the Lord Jesus.
It was the family of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—2 sisters and their brother.

We read more about Martha and Mary than about Lazarus. I picture Lazarus as the younger brother of the two sisters.
There seems to have been no parent in this household because we read in Luke that it was Martha’s house.
It appears that Jesus was often a guest in that home, even up until a few days before his arrest and death on the cross.
This story takes place not long before that event.

Lazarus had fallen deathly ill, and the sisters sent word to Jesus—“Lord, he whom you love is ill”—hoping that he would come and heal their brother.

But Jesus didn’t come…and he didn’t come…and days went by and Lazarus died and was buried.
More days passed, and then Jesus finally showed up.

Read John 11:17-27

I. The sisters had been grieving for four days.

A. We can only imagine how many times Martha and Mary had said to one another and to their friends: “If only Jesus had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died…”
“If only Jesus had been here, he would have healed him.”

When Martha learned that Jesus was finally on the way, she left her sister and the other mourners and ran to meet him.
And those are the first words out of Martha’s mouth when Jesus arrived:
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And then she added something odd.
She said, “…And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
Why did she say that?
We know that she didn’t expect Jesus to raise her brother from the dead because when later he goes to the tomb, she warns him not to take away the stone because there will be a smell.
I think that somehow those words just bubbled up from Martha’s faith-filled heart.

Martha is a lesson to us about prayer.
The psalmist wrote

“Trust in the Lord at all times, O people.
Pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8).

Martha knew how to pour out her heart before the Lord.

B. Then Jesus said: “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha naturally took those words only as words of comfort.
Most Jews at that time firmly believed that sometime in the future the righteous dead would rise to live with God in Paradise.

Martha believed in the resurrection, just as we believe in the resurrection. We believe with all out hearts—yet we are sad when a loved one dies, and we may be fearful when our time comes to go through that door that leads to another world.

Then Jesus surprised her with one of the strangest sayings in the gospels:
“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Martha answers, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”

C. When Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life…” he puts the matter into a new perspective.

Martha believed the truth of the resurrection, just as we believe the truth of the resurrection.
But Jesus is urging Martha to think of the resurrection to eternal life, not as a doctrine but as a Person…and that Person is standing right in front of her.
Jesus is leading her into a fuller faith, a faith not in doctrines, but a relationship of faithful trust in himself.
Jesus is urging her—and urging us—to think of Jesus himself as the embodiment of Eternal Life.
Someone said, “Jesus is heaven’s bank. If we have him, we have everything.”

D. Let’s look at the rest of the sentence: “…he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Jesus is telling Martha—and us—that to be in relationship with Jesus—to be united to him in love and faith—is to participate in the eternal life that belongs to God alone.
To know Jesus—to cling to Jesus with faith—is to triumph over death.
We will die, in the physical sense, but our true self will never die.
When that time comes to go through that door, my body falls away, but my true self goes right into the arms of Jesus.
And then comes the resurrection into glory.
This is our hope.
This is our confidence.
This is what we have bet our life on.

II. So what happened next? Let’s read vv28-44.

A. Martha doesn’t stand around talking. She runs to her sister Mary, who is at home with their friends grieving.

She tells Mary, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

Mary runs to Jesus and falls at his feet weeping.
Mary is more emotional, less self-possessed than her sister. She collapses in front of Jesus.
But her speech is the same: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

B. On the way to the tomb we read that Jesus is troubled, and he bursts into tears. Here’s the first Bible verse you learned in Sunday school: “Jesus wept.”

Jesus knew what he was going to do, but he wept anyway. Jesus wept because in the presence of death and all those sorrowing people, he is thinking of the endless sorrow caused by death in our world.
He thinks of the sorrow of all those who have grieved in the presence of death from the beginning of time to the end of time—and his heart is broken.

C. So they all go to the tomb, and Jesus tells them to take away the stone.

Martha objects: “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

Charlotte and I visited a beautiful old cathedral in Burgundy, in France.
It is the Cathedral of St. Lazarus, in Autun.
At the entrance is a statue of St. Lazarus—with a crown on his head—and at his sides his two lovely sisters.
(I think the cathedral should be the Cathedral of St. Martha.)
At a museum nearby there is a life-sized statue of Martha.
She is pictured at this moment in the story.
How do I know that this is a statue of Martha?
She is holding a handkerchief to her nose.

But when they rolled the stone away from the entrance of the cave—there was no smell!
Lazarus’s body hadn’t decayed after all. It was in there waiting to come to life again.
And Jesus called: “Lazarus, come out!” here came Lazarus, walking—or floating—out of the tomb—his hands and feet were bound with bandages.
And Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.”
And that is the end of the story.

CONCLUSION

The story is an acted parable of a great truth.
Back in v3 we read that while Jesus was a way across the Jordan the sisters had sent the message: “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.”
In v36, when the visitors see Jesus weeping, they say, “See how he loved him!”

In this story Lazarus stands for you and me, and for everyone who Jesus loves and who loves Jesus.

The resurrection of Lazarus from the dead represents your and my resurrection from the dead—an event we can look forward to with gladness.

Lazarus had to die again—but I don’t think that was a sad time for Lazarus because he knew what was on the other side.
He was glad to get back to Paradise.

Let’s take comfort from Jesus’s words to Martha concerning himself:

“I am the Resurrection and the Life;
those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live,
And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?”

And everybody said, “Amen! Yes, Lord, we believe.”

Here is a Quote for the Day: “No matter how old you are, your life has scarcely begun; real life begins soon.”

Stories of Jesus: Luke 8:26-39: The Story of Legion

Some parts of the Bible are really difficult to understand. Some parts we will never understand, at least, not while we are on this earth. But sometimes, if we are patient and diligent, we will find something important for our lives in the most difficult parts.

LUKE 8.26-39: THE STORY OF A MAN CALLED “LEGION”:
OR HOW A MADMAN BECAME A MESSENGER

INTRODUCTION

In his great book, In the Beginning, Chaim Potok tells the story of David, a young Jewish boy in New York who is hungry for knowledge.
He is studying the Hebrew Bible with a wise man named Mr. Bader.
At one point in the story David becomes very troubled by a passage in Genesis that he doesn’t understand. It is something in the story of Noah. David has read the commentaries ad the scholars disagree violently.
David is tells his father of his frustration. His father then shares something he learned long ago. The father says, “It is as important to learn the important questions as it is the important answers. It is especially important to learn the questions to which there may not be good answers. We have to learn to live with questions….I am glad that Mr. Bader is a good teacher, and I am glad that he tells you truthfully that he does not have answers to all our questions.”

The story we are going to talk about today is one that I have always wondered about because there are things in it that I don’t understand at all.
But sometimes the most difficult parts of the Bible are the ones from which we can learn the most if we are just patient and willing to learn even from stories we don’t understand completely.

It is the story of the man Jesus met who said that he had within him a whole mob of demons.

Read: Luke 8:26-39

I. First, let’s think about the sad predicament of the poor mad man who rushed to Jesus, just as he got off the boat.

A. Picture the scene: The man was naked. He was crazy. He was dangerous. He was dirty and disheveled. He lived by himself in a graveyard. According to Mark’s version of the story he was “always howling and bruising himself with stones.”

The man fell down before Jesus and cried out: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.”

“For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.”

The man has named Jesus; now Jesus asks him for his name.
“Legion!” he screams. He believes he is possessed by thousands of demons.

B. A little background…

The man was what we would call a maniac.
He lives among the tombs.
Graves were considered “unclean” by the Jews. They whitewashed their sepulchers so that no one would accidentally touch one because if you did, you would become unclean too
The man is violent. The authorities have arrested him, put him under guard, bound him with chains, but he has always escaped and been driven into the deserted area by his demons.
There he lives, naked, by himself, feared by all.
He is so tormented that he thinks that he has thousands of demons inside him. (A legion is 5-6000 Roman soldiers. His country was occupied and controlled by hated Roman legions. In the eyes of the conquered people they were evil. It’s like he has an army of these monsters inside him making him crazy.)

C. Now my mind is filled with questions:

1. Were there really demons inside this man, or did he have what we call schizophrenia?

2. Why did the man rush at Jesus and fall at his feet? He acts like he wants Jesus to go away and yet he comes to him and falls to the ground before him.

3. Did the demons really go into the pigs? And did the demons really drown themselves?

4. Why did Jesus send the man away after he had begged to follow him? Remember, he told the leper, “Don’t tell anyone.” But he told this man to go home and tell what had happened to him.

II. So how can we understand the story?

A. If we saw this man in Cedar Rapids today we would say he was mentally ill. He had delusions. His mind was unhinged from reality.

Charlotte and I worked in a mental hospital. We saw many patients who in Jesus’s time would have been considered “demon-possessed.”
They were violent. Sometimes they had to be restrained to keep them from hurting themselves or others.
With the proper medications they would become calm, and often the symptoms of the disease would disappear.
Once, on the theory that a patient was demon-possessed, I remember that once some church people came into the hospital to get the demon out by prayer. I don’t think they had any success.

But people who visit other cultures tell convincing stories about possession and cures through prayer.

Let me share with you an account that came in a letter the just two days ago from a mission that works with the Dimasa tribe in North India.
The gospel has only recently come to these people.
New Christians in that tribe are now translating a primer for teaching their people to read.
One of the translators is Gbisni.
Gbisni’s sister was possessed with 12 evil spirits.
The Hindu priests wouldn’t help. They were using her as a medium to communicate with these spirits.
Gbsini’s parents took her to an Imam at a mosque to see if he could help their daughter, but the evil spirits were too powerful: the girl ended up biting the Imam who then freed himself with a cutting tool, injuring her badly.
Finally, Gbisni took his sister to some Christians nearby. He informed the Hindu priests that if the God of the Christians could free his sister, he would convert to Christianity and would take baptism.
He also told the Hindu priests that he would remain a Hindu forever if they could free his sister.
The God of the Christians freed his sister from the evil spirits and Gbisni became a faithful follower of Jesus.

Jesus saw the powers of evil behind all sorts of physical and mental suffering. We are so used to looking for natural causes that we are usually unaware of the role Satan plays in the troubles of the world.
This story is a powerful parable of how Jesus battles back the forces of evil to bring about peace and goodness in a world of suffering and sin.

People in ancient times lived in a dangerous world. Besides earthquakes, floods, famines, disease, and war, they had the fear that the world around them was thickly populated with demonic powers. They were convinced that the demons could enter ones body through his ears, nose or mouth. They used amulets, magic, sacrifices, and rituals to appease or escape these spiritual powers.
This story would assure the early Christian believers that Jesus was more powerful than these horrible powers. It was a comfort to know that Jesus Christ had conquered the “principalities and powers.”

B. And why did the man rush up to Jesus, and yet cry out as if he wanted Jesus to go away?

I believe that the man rushed up to Jesus and threw himself down because he wanted deliverance, but at the same time the evil spirit inside him cried out against Jesus.
But notice that his cry came after Jesus had ordered the demons to be gone.
I believe that Jesus was responding to the man’s need and even the shred of faith that the man possessed.

Pigs were, to Jews, unclean, filthy beasts. They help us see the horribleness of the scene: the violent, naked man, living among unclean tombs, tormented by an army or horrible evil spirits, and an enormous herd of filthy pigs. The whole picture is depressing, and as such it is an environment in which Jesus can impressively show his power and goodness.
Some people—trying to read between the lines—say that maybe the man, in his violence hurled himself against the pigs and set them into the stampede. If this is so, it served God’s purpose in assuring the man that his filthy tormentors were indeed gone forever and would never come back.

III. As you can see, we don’t have answers to all my questions, but what is the point of the story? What is in it that is important for you and me?

A. Every one of Jesus’s miracles was a “sign.” Jesus didn’t just do impossible things to amaze people, or even just to prove that he was God.

Jesus opened the eyes of the blind to show that he is the light of the world.
Jesus unstopped the ears of the deaf to show how he opens our ears to hear God’s truth.
Jesus makes the lame to walk to show how he gives us wisdom to walk in the paths of righteousness.
Jesus cleansed the leper to show how he cleanses us from the uncleanness of sin.
Jesus raised the dead to show that he is the Resurrection and the Life.
Jesus stilled storms at sea to show how he calms the storms in our lives.
Jesus fed the multitudes with miraculously-produced bread to illustrate that he is the “Bread of Life.”
So the expelling of the demons afflicting poor Legion shows that Jesus is even more powerful than the evil that infects and afflicts the world.
So each of these miracles was an act of compassion and also a sign of God’s kingdom breaking into the world.
Each miracle was also a parable of how Christ works in your life and mine.

B. It might surprise us to see that the townspeople were afraid, when they came and saw the man they had feared, now clothed and in his right mind. They were probably glad that the poor crazy man was healed, but the didn’t approve of the destruction of all those pigs. So they begged Jesus to please go away.

But Jesus teaches us the relative value of money and lives. Jesus says, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his soul?”
Someone said, “All down through the ages the world has been refusing Jesus because the world prefers pigs.”

C. But I think the most interesting part of the story, and the most instructive part is the ending.

See the man sitting at the feet of Jesus (v35). He has become a disciple. He is now in the learner’s pose. Sitting there listening and learning.
And he had a lot to learn in a short time because although he begged to go with Jesus, Jesus has something more important for him to do. He’s going to be Jesus’s first missionary to the Gentile world!

“Return to your home,” he says, “and declare how much God has done for you.”

Maybe Legion didn’t know much, but he had a great story. And sometimes the most effective evangelist is not the one who has the most theology but the one who has the best story.

You don’t need to know much theology to “declare how much God has done for you.”

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of our story I told you that I didn’t have all the answers.
And now you know that that’s true.
But, you see, we don’t have to have all the answers to hear God talking to us.
And I hear God telling us in this story that Jesus can heal, and he can deliver us from all those things that torment us.

And I hear God telling us: “Declare how much God has done for you.”

I’ll leave you with these words from 1 Peter 2:9:

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Stories of Jesus: Luke 7:1-10: The Man Who Astonished Jesus

Probably we all have disappointed Jesus, maybe many times. But do you know that it’s also possible to pleasantly surprise Jesus too? In Luke we have the story of a man who astonished Jesus, and that man is an example for all of us.

LUKE 7:1-10: THE MAN WHO ASTONISHED JESUS

INTRODUCTION

When I was in Korea serving in the artillery during the Korean War, the captain of our battery was a man we called “The Hook.” I don’t remember his real name, but we always called him “The Hook,” because he was so mean. Of course, he never knew we called him that; if we ever had occasion to address him, it was always “Sir” or “Captain.” But we hardly ever had occasion to speak to him because we avoided him whenever possible. If we saw the captain approaching we would walk behind a tent or change our direction to avoid him.
Maybe our captain believed he was obliged to behave in this harsh, abusive way because we were a bunch of draftees who hated the army and all it stood for and only longed to go home and be away from the war and the army.
I should add that not all battery commanders were cruel. We had another one who was considerate, and we appreciated him. But he was unusual.
In the story from the gospel that I am going to read to you the hero is a Roman centurion. A centurion was the commander of 100 troops. He had the same responsibility as our battery commander or a captain in the infantry.

Read Luke 7:1-10

I. Notice how unusual this centurion was.

A. The first thing we notice about the centurion is that he was kind. He loved his slave.

My version says he “had a slave who was dear to him.”
Some translations read he “had a slave who was valuable to him.”
The Greek word can mean “honored” or “respected,” or it can mean “precious” or “valuable.”
We might suppose that this slave had some special skill that made his master prize him. Maybe he was good at keeping accounts or repairing armor.
But I think my translation is the right one. I believe that the centurion loved his slave.
Everything we read about this military man is positive, and the fact that Jesus responded to him so warmly convinces me that he was the kind of master who loved his servants.
And the slave evidently loved his master, and that made him valuable to him.

B. The second thing we notice is that he is God-fearing.

Most Gentiles didn’t like Jews. They considered Jews “different.” I don’t know just why Jews were disliked; maybe it was because they were so different.
They had odd customs. They ate different food. They refused to take part in the pagan festivals. They were clannish. They tried to avoid having anything to do with Gentiles unless it was absolutely necessary.
There were certain foods the Jews were forbidden to eat. The effect of their dietary laws was to keep the Jews separate from the Gentiles. They couldn’t eat with Gentiles because then they would have been obliged them to eat pork or other foods that were forbidden. Jews didn’t even enter the homes of Gentiles.

But some Greeks and Romans were attracted to Jewish ways. They were disgusted with the vice and immorality of their pagan society. They understood the beauty of holy living as taught in the Old Testament.
Without becoming Jews themselves, these Romans or Greeks would go to the synagogues and learn about the God of Israel and try to follow the Jewish way of life that was so much superior to the idolatrous ways of their own people.
They were called “God fearers.” We meet some of these God fearers in the book of Acts. Cornelius was one. Lydia was another. Often the most eager converts to Christianity in those early days were these God fearing Gentiles. They already knew the Old Testament stories and they were ready to believe that Jesus was the Promised Savior.

C. The third thing we notice about this man is that he was loved by the people of the city.

This was unusual for a Roman military man to be loved by Jews in a land the Romans were occupying. Jews generally hated the Roman conquerors. When a Jew came upon a Roman in the street, he might spit on the ground to show his contempt.
Jewish terrorists would murder Roman soldiers if they could get away with it.
But when this centurion’s servant was dying, the Jewish elders of the city went to Jesus to intercede for the centurion.

D. The fourth thing we notice about the centurion is his generosity.

So this Centurion’s generosity combined with his piety to led him to use his own funds to build a meeting house—a synagogue—in the important city where he and his soldiers were stationed, Capernaum.

The elders tell Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.”
Love and generosity always go together. You can’t love without being generous if it is in your power to do something for the one you love.

This centurion reminds me of a story Viktor Frankl tells in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jew and was an inmate in a concentration camp during World War 2.
The camp was a cruel place and most of the prisoners died. But Frankl survived.
Frankl tells about the SS commander of the camp he was in just before the liberation.
This man was a Nazi, but unknown to all of the camp inmates except the Jewish doctor, this Nazi had been using his own money to buy medicine for the treatment of sick prisoners.
At the end of the war the prisoners learned of his kindness, and three Hungarian Jews hid the Nazi in the Bavarian woods. Then they went to the American commander, who was very anxious to capture the man. The Hungarian Jews told the American general that they would tell where this Nazi was, but only if he would promise that absolutely no harm would come to the man.
After a while, the general promised the young Jews that the SS commander would be kept safe from harm. And he kept his word.
A surprising story? Not more surprising than the story of a Roman centurion who loved and helped the conquered people his army was there to subdue.

II. Two other things stand out about this Roman that make him unique in the stories of Jesus. And these are the point of the story.

A. First of all, his humility. Military commanders are not noted for their humility. It isn’t a trait that helps they get ahead.

The Jewish elders told Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”

But when Jesus set out to come to him, the centurion sent this message to Jesus: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…”

Did you know that in the time of Jesus pagans didn’t think of humility as a virtue?
One of the things the pagan philosophers held against Christianity was that it welcomed slaves and poor people and uneducated and uncultured people. They thought that these humble Christians must have no self-respect.
Celsus was a second century pagan who wrote books attacking the Christians. To him the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was utterly blasphemous. It was one of the things he held against Christians that they were so low minded as to picture God, not only as crucified, but also washing people’s dirty feet.

But the centurion had learned from the Hebrew scriptures that he was unworthy of God’s mercy.

There was another reason why the centurion discouraged Jesus from coming to his house.
The Jews believed that it was offensive to enter a Gentile house, just as it would have been offensive to invite a Gentile into one of their houses.
The centurion knew that if Jesus entered his house, Jesus would have been criticized.
It was his sensitivity and his courtesy to Jesus that led him to send his friends to urge Jesus just to say the word of healing and not come into his house.

B. But what really surprised and amazed and pleased Jesus was the man’s faith.

We read of only one other time that Jesus was amazed. It was when he visited his hometown of Nazareth, and, we read, “he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-6). If anyone should have been able to believe in Jesus, it seems that it would be those who knew him best.

This godly centurion had a deep insight into the ways of God that Jesus’s Jewish listeners lacked.
He said, “Say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’”

He had figured out that God was Lord of heaven and earth. And he had figured out that in this man Jesus, God was personally present and active.
So he drew the connection between the delegated authority he exercised in commanding his soldiers and the authority God had given Jesus to do these wonderful works.
And that was the faith that amazed Jesus.

Jesus was used to rewarding the faith of people who had a very low-grade kind of faith. Remember the woman who crept up behind Jesus because she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Her faith was a sort of superstitious faith, but Jesus honored it. In that case, Jesus singled her out and made sure that she understood that it was her faith that healed her and not some kind of magic that came from his clothes.
He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34).

But the centurion had the most shining, splendid faith; he invited Jesus to cure his slave at a distance.
And Jesus marveled. He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

CONCLUSION

This centurion is an example to us.
He was humble. He knew he didn’t deserve anything.
He was loving and generous—beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected of him.
And especially he believed.

Faith is not optimism. Faith is not hoping hard. Faith is believing God.

I can’t tell you how to get faith.
The only thing I know is that the more I pray, and reflect on God’s Word, and the more I try to please God in what I do, the stronger my faith becomes.

My prayer for myself and for you is that God will give us strong faith, faith so strong and real that God is as real to us as the person sitting beside us.

I doubt that we will ever amaze God with our faith, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did?

Resurrection of Christ: Matthew 28:1-10: The Glory of Resurrection Morning

The day Jesus rose from the dead had to be the most exciting day in the life of the world. Only a few people in an obscure corner of the world knew about the event, but it changed the world.

MATTHEW 28:1-10: THE GLORY OF RESURRECTION MORNING

INTRODUCTION

Thomas Jefferson was a great president, and he had a great respect for the gospel stories. Jefferson liked the teachings of Jesus about love and forgiveness, and he liked the parts where Jesus scolded the Pharisees. But he didn’t believe in miracles. So Thomas Jefferson made his own personal copy of the gospels. He took two printed New Testaments and with a razor cut out all the parts about healing and stilling storms and angels and demons. He ended up with a little Bible of 17 chapters with 89 pages. His Bible starts with Bethlehem, but there are no angels or shepherds or wise men. There is no Temptation or Transfiguration, and—especially—there is no resurrection.

Jefferson translated his little Bible into French, Latin, and Greek and had it printed up. If you want one, you can still buy a copy. Or you can read it on the Internet.

Jefferson’s Bible ends with these words: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden was a new sepulcher wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus. And they rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.”
And that’s the ending of the Jefferson Bible.

Aren’t you glad that that is not the way our gospel story ends? St. Paul says it for us in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (vv17-19).

I. Today, I would like to look with you at the story of what happened on Resurrection Sunday according to the Gospel of Matthew 28:1-10.

A. The first thing that strikes you is how dramatic the event was.

The two women go to the tomb and “behold, there was a great earthquake!”
An angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls back the stone, and sits upon it.
His appearance is like lightning and his clothes white as snow.
The guards tremble and become like dead men.
Then the angel says to the women—what angels always say in the Bible—“Fear not!”
I can imagine that the two women were as afraid as the guards were—and as you or I would be if we saw an angel shining like lightning in front of us.

And the angel said, “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come; see the place where he lay.”

Now I want you to notice that it doesn’t say the angel rolled the stone away so that Jesus could escape from the tomb.

No, Jesus has already risen. He has gone. The angel rolled the stone away so the women could see the place where he had been laid. God wanted eyewitnesses to the empty tomb.

And the angel told the women: “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo I have told you.”

“So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”

“Fear and great joy!” Fear because they had experienced an earthquake and seen an angel: an experience like that would overwhelm all the senses. They were afraid.
But they were overjoyed too. The fear may have been “great,” but the joy was greater.
In just a few minutes they had gone from the deepest sadness of their lives to the greatest joy imaginable.
Can’t you just see those ladies running down the road, their skirts flying, as they carry the great good news they had to share?

B. And then Jesus himself meets them!

Jesus says, according to my Bible, “Hail!” This is the Greek word for “rejoice,” and it was the common word for “Greetings,” or, as we say, “Hello.”
Then the women take hold of Jesus’s feet and worship him.
That word for “worship” means literally to prostrate oneself before someone—like a great king or a god.
Matthew likes to show people worshiping Jesus. The wise men worshiped the baby Jesus.
After Jesus stilled the storm, his disciples worshiped him.
A leper knelt before him and made his request—it’s the same word—and also Jairus, the synagogue ruler, and the Canaanite woman. Again at the end of Matthew in v17 when the disciples see Jesus, they worship him.

That’s what we are supposed to be doing. That’s why we come together—more than any other reason—to worship Jesus with our praise and thanksgiving.

And Jesus says, “Fear not; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

C. Now here is something amazing! Jesus was unusual among the important men of his time, in that he had so much respect for women.

Women are usually in the background in the gospel stories, but they are much more prominent in the gospels than they would have been in the general society of the day.
When the disciples got back from Samaria with the provisions we read that they “marveled that he was talking with a woman.”
When Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus’s feet and he taught her; that would have been unusual.
Other rabbis didn’t think that women had the mental capacity to be taught the things of God.
We know the names of several of Jesus’s female friends: Susanna, Joanna, Martha, Salome, and at least three Marys besides his mother.
And there are several who are unnamed but have important parts in the various stories: the woman who crept up behind Jesus to touch his clothes and be healed; the Caananite woman, of whom he said, “O woman, great is your faith!”; and the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet and washed them with her tears.

But in those days a woman was simply not a credible witness. Her woman’s testimony was useless in a court of law.
That is why it is remarkable that Jesus chose women to be the first witnesses to his resurrection and sent them to be apostles to the apostles.
Jesus could have just as well appeared to any of the male apostles, but he chose to appear first to women.
I think it was because the women loved him best.
That is why the women were there at the tomb that Sunday morning. We know what the men were doing: they were hiding somewhere in the city with the doors locked.

II. Now I want to tell you what struck me most about this story as I was studying it.

A. The story of the crucifixion is a straightforward narrative, told in matter-of-fact language.
Each one includes different details, but they all fit together neatly.
We can see Calvary in our minds. We can imagine we are there.

B. But the stories of Resurrection Morning are so different that we are hard-pressed to try to fit them together into one narrative.

In Matthew—2 women—Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph come to the tomb. Jesus meets them on the road. We don’t read why they came except to see the sepulcher. Matthew is the only one who tells about the earthquake, the guards, and the angel whose appearance was like lightning.
In Mark—3 women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome come with spices to anoint the body. The see the open tomb, enter and see a young man sitting arrayed in a white robe who gives them the news about Jesus.
In Luke—even more women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women come with spices. They entered the tomb and find two men in dazzling apparel who give them the news.
In John--only Mary Magdalene. She sees the stone rolled away and runs and brings Peter and John back. Then Peter and John enter the tomb, see that it's empty, and go home, Mary lingers weeping and sees two angels in white sitting inside the tomb. They ask her why she is weeping. Then she turns and sees Jesus.

Historians say that the differences actually prove that these are honest reports. If Jesus’s friends had gotten together to invent a story to publish to the world, they would have made one up, and everything would have fit together.
The fact that there were different versions means that it is like eyewitness accounts of events in real life.

I believe that the reason why the details vary in the different accounts is because of the overwhelming excitement of the event. The experiences were so unexpected and so amazing that the participants had different stories to tell.
As they told their stories, the stories were told and retold and different elements were emphasized.
But there was never any doubt about the main event among the Christian community: the tomb was empty and Jesus was alive!

But all of the gospel accounts of the Resurrection agree on these main things:
Jesus was alive.
The stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
An angel announced the news of the Resurrection.
It was women who first saw Jesus and carried the good news to the apostles.
It was an overwhelming experience.
It wasn’t visions they were having. What the believers were seeing wasn’t something just in their minds.
I believe that if you had been there with a camera, you could have taken a picture of Jesus.

II. So what difference does it make to us?

A. By raising Jesus from the dead in such a public way, God shows us what the death of Jesus means: victory over sin and death and the devil.

God could have just taken Jesus from the tomb to heaven, but then we would have thought—like poor Thomas Jefferson—that that was the end of the story.

B. By raising Jesus from the dead, God teaches us that all of us who are united with Christ in faith will rise from our deaths to eternal life with our Lord in Glory.

In Galatians 2:20 St. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

1 Peter 1.1-3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

CONCLUSION

In old Russia a service was held every Easter Sunday afternoon in each village cemetery. After a service in the chapel, the people went to the graves of their loved ones.
Each family stood by the family plot in the cemetery beside the graves of their loved family members.
Then the priest, accompanied by the acolytes and choir led a procession through the cemetery singing the resurrection song: “Christ is Risen.”
The procession would circle the cemetery, stopping at each grave, and the priest would proclaim to the family members there: “Christ is risen!”
And each group joyfully repeated back to the priest: “Truly, he is risen!”

This is the point: Because Jesus rose from the dead, we rise with him.
Because Jesus rose to eternal life, so we rise with him to eternal life.

This is an old Celtic prayer I like to use:

“I rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with me.
As the oil of gladness pours upon you, it trickles onto me.
As the fire of love burns within you, it warms my heart.
As the breath of eternal life fills your body, I know that I shall live forever.
As you reach out to bless the world, I feel your embrace drawing me close.
I rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with me.”