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.”
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Cross of Christ: John 1:29, 35-37: “Behold the Lamb of God…”
Does it seem odd that in the Bible and in hymns Jesus is so often called a “Lamb”? Wouldn’t “Lion” be more appropriate? Today we’re going to consider why “the Lamb” is such an appropriate name for Jesus.
JOHN 1:29, 35-37: “BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD…”
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever noticed how many hymns refer to Jesus as “The Lamb” or “The Lamb of God”?
We sang a hymn that began:
“My faith looks up to thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Savior divine…”
We all remember the great invitation hymn,
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou biddst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
In Matthew and Luke we first meet Jesus as a little baby.
In Mark we first meet Jesus when he begins his ministry. He comes to John the Baptist for baptism, and we hear the voice from heaven.
But the first time we see Jesus in John’s gospel is when John sees Jesus coming from his Temptation.
We read that John was standing with some of his disciples when he saw Jesus.
I can see him pointing to that lonely figure in the distance.
And John says to his disciples: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Then John explains what had happened when he had baptized him in the Jordan River and seen the Holy Spirit descending upon him from heaven.
Isn’t it odd that John the Baptist introduces Jesus in John’s gospel as the “Lamb of God”?
He’s not a lion, the king of beasts, or an eagle, that flies into the heavens, but as a lamb?
Thirty-two times in the New Testament Jesus is called a “Lamb.”
Here is one of them from 1 Peter: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot….Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:18-19, 21).
I. Lambs were very important to the worship of the ancient Hebrews.
A. Do you remember the story about when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt?
The night of the Passover, the day when God would deliver his people from the Egyptians, he sent an angel of death to the Egyptians to compel them to let his people go.
Each household was told to take a lamb, without blemish, one year old, and kill it on a certain day.
They would take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and lintel of their houses.
They would roast the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, eat it all that evening, and prepare for their escape from Egypt the next day.
This was the origin of the Passover Feast that the Israelites would celebrate every year until the Temple was destroyed about 40 years after the time of Jesus.
Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover—probably every year.
This feast was a very important act of worship and loyalty to God.
Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples the night before he died.
That last Passover dinner that Jesus ate with his disciples was joined to the Lord’s Supper, that we celebrate in our churches still.
Some call it Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Mass.
The Lord’s Supper is the way Jesus gave us to remember his death for our sins.
“The Lord Jesus, on the same night he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this is remembrance of me.
In the same way also the cup,after supper,
saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
In many churches the minister or priest uses these words: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Grant us thy peace.” This is called the Agnus Dei.
For Christians, the Communion Service corresponds to the Passover for the Jews.
On that first Passover the Hebrews were set free from slavery in Egypt.
On a Passover, many years later, Jesus died, as our Passover Lamb, and set us free from the bondage to sin.
B. But the lamb wasn’t only for Passover. Every morning and every evening two lambs was offered in the Temple of God in Jerusalem: one lamb was offered in the morning and one in the evening.
To offer an animal in the worship of God seems to us very odd—even repulsive.
But all of the ancient people I have read about worshiped their gods by offering animals.
Some primitive peoples still do.
I don’t know what these sacrifices represented in other nations, but in Israel the offerings were the way that God gave his people to recognize his Lordship over them and to atone for their sins.
The Israelites offered other kinds of animals—not just lambs. They also offered rams and goats and bulls and heifers, and sometimes doves or pigeons.
The Bible is very clear that the sacrifice of the animals didn’t by itself cleanse away their sins, but the offering of the animals was the way God gave them to remind them of the seriousness of sin.
The offerings of animals were a way for worshipers to express their faith in their God.
The daily offering of the lambs at the temple symbolized Israel’s willingness to belong to God and to obey him.
The New Testament looks back to the lambs were offered daily at the Temple as a symbol of the One who would someday come and offer himself to bring us to God.
The lambs were offered daily at the Temple, but our Lamb was offered only once—an eternal sacrifice—sufficient for all people, until the end of the world.
C. I have spoken of the Lamb of the Passover and the Lambs of the daily offering at the Temple. But there is another reference to the Lamb—which is Jesus—in the Old Testament.
In Isaiah 53, the prophet writes of the Suffering Servant who would make himself an offering for our sins” (v10). We read:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.”
When John pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” these are the things that were in his mind:
the lamb of the Passover,
the lambs that were offered daily at the Temple,
and the lamb that was the Suffering Servant—foretold by the prophet—who “was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities,” and on whom the Lord laid the iniquity of us all.
So Jesus, as the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world—your sins, my sins, and all the sin that has made our world such a broken and sorrowful place.
II. Then we read: “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:35-37).
When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” he didn’t just mean “take a look over there.”
He didn’t mean just to glance at Jesus. He means a steady, serious kind of looking.
He means to look at Jesus with faith and understanding.
To look to Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
The two disciples understood that, and that is why, when they heard John say this, they left John and followed Jesus.
Let’s follow the example of the two disciples in the story. Let’s behold and then follow.
CONCLUSION
The story is told of a popular monk in the Middle Ages who announced at the morning service that in that evening he would preach a sermon on the love of God. The people gathered and stood in silence, waiting for the service while the sunlight streamed through the beautiful windows.
When the last bit of color had faded from the windows, the old monk went up to the candelabrum, took a lighted candle and walking to the life-sized statue of Christ on the cross, he held the light beneath the wounds on Christ’s feet, then at Christ’s hand, then at his side. Then, still without a word, the monk let the light shine on the thorn-crowned brow. That was the sermon.
The people stood in silence and wept, everyone knowing that they were at the center of a mystery beyond their knowing, that they were indeed looking at the supreme expression of the love of God—a love so deep, so wide, so eternal, that no wonder could express it, and no mind could measure it. This is the GREAT ACT of Christianity—that God’s love gave to the world what was most precious to him: his only Son.
The reason I spoke to you today about Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, is to encourage us all to look at him with the eyes of faith.
In one of our hymns we sing these words,
“Upon the cross of Jesus, mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of one who suffered there for me,
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess—
The wonder of his glorious love and my unworthiness.”
In some churches they use the symbol of the cross with the dying Jesus on it.
Let us—in our mind’s eye—see our Savior, the Lamb of God, on that cross dying for us.
Jesus said before he died, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Let us keep our eyes on our Lord Jesus. And let us love him and make him our Savior and our companion and follow him in his death and resurrection and into Eternal Life.
JOHN 1:29, 35-37: “BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD…”
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever noticed how many hymns refer to Jesus as “The Lamb” or “The Lamb of God”?
We sang a hymn that began:
“My faith looks up to thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Savior divine…”
We all remember the great invitation hymn,
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou biddst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
In Matthew and Luke we first meet Jesus as a little baby.
In Mark we first meet Jesus when he begins his ministry. He comes to John the Baptist for baptism, and we hear the voice from heaven.
But the first time we see Jesus in John’s gospel is when John sees Jesus coming from his Temptation.
We read that John was standing with some of his disciples when he saw Jesus.
I can see him pointing to that lonely figure in the distance.
And John says to his disciples: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Then John explains what had happened when he had baptized him in the Jordan River and seen the Holy Spirit descending upon him from heaven.
Isn’t it odd that John the Baptist introduces Jesus in John’s gospel as the “Lamb of God”?
He’s not a lion, the king of beasts, or an eagle, that flies into the heavens, but as a lamb?
Thirty-two times in the New Testament Jesus is called a “Lamb.”
Here is one of them from 1 Peter: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot….Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:18-19, 21).
I. Lambs were very important to the worship of the ancient Hebrews.
A. Do you remember the story about when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt?
The night of the Passover, the day when God would deliver his people from the Egyptians, he sent an angel of death to the Egyptians to compel them to let his people go.
Each household was told to take a lamb, without blemish, one year old, and kill it on a certain day.
They would take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and lintel of their houses.
They would roast the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, eat it all that evening, and prepare for their escape from Egypt the next day.
This was the origin of the Passover Feast that the Israelites would celebrate every year until the Temple was destroyed about 40 years after the time of Jesus.
Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover—probably every year.
This feast was a very important act of worship and loyalty to God.
Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples the night before he died.
That last Passover dinner that Jesus ate with his disciples was joined to the Lord’s Supper, that we celebrate in our churches still.
Some call it Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Mass.
The Lord’s Supper is the way Jesus gave us to remember his death for our sins.
“The Lord Jesus, on the same night he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this is remembrance of me.
In the same way also the cup,after supper,
saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
In many churches the minister or priest uses these words: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Grant us thy peace.” This is called the Agnus Dei.
For Christians, the Communion Service corresponds to the Passover for the Jews.
On that first Passover the Hebrews were set free from slavery in Egypt.
On a Passover, many years later, Jesus died, as our Passover Lamb, and set us free from the bondage to sin.
B. But the lamb wasn’t only for Passover. Every morning and every evening two lambs was offered in the Temple of God in Jerusalem: one lamb was offered in the morning and one in the evening.
To offer an animal in the worship of God seems to us very odd—even repulsive.
But all of the ancient people I have read about worshiped their gods by offering animals.
Some primitive peoples still do.
I don’t know what these sacrifices represented in other nations, but in Israel the offerings were the way that God gave his people to recognize his Lordship over them and to atone for their sins.
The Israelites offered other kinds of animals—not just lambs. They also offered rams and goats and bulls and heifers, and sometimes doves or pigeons.
The Bible is very clear that the sacrifice of the animals didn’t by itself cleanse away their sins, but the offering of the animals was the way God gave them to remind them of the seriousness of sin.
The offerings of animals were a way for worshipers to express their faith in their God.
The daily offering of the lambs at the temple symbolized Israel’s willingness to belong to God and to obey him.
The New Testament looks back to the lambs were offered daily at the Temple as a symbol of the One who would someday come and offer himself to bring us to God.
The lambs were offered daily at the Temple, but our Lamb was offered only once—an eternal sacrifice—sufficient for all people, until the end of the world.
C. I have spoken of the Lamb of the Passover and the Lambs of the daily offering at the Temple. But there is another reference to the Lamb—which is Jesus—in the Old Testament.
In Isaiah 53, the prophet writes of the Suffering Servant who would make himself an offering for our sins” (v10). We read:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.”
When John pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” these are the things that were in his mind:
the lamb of the Passover,
the lambs that were offered daily at the Temple,
and the lamb that was the Suffering Servant—foretold by the prophet—who “was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities,” and on whom the Lord laid the iniquity of us all.
So Jesus, as the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world—your sins, my sins, and all the sin that has made our world such a broken and sorrowful place.
II. Then we read: “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:35-37).
When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” he didn’t just mean “take a look over there.”
He didn’t mean just to glance at Jesus. He means a steady, serious kind of looking.
He means to look at Jesus with faith and understanding.
To look to Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
The two disciples understood that, and that is why, when they heard John say this, they left John and followed Jesus.
Let’s follow the example of the two disciples in the story. Let’s behold and then follow.
CONCLUSION
The story is told of a popular monk in the Middle Ages who announced at the morning service that in that evening he would preach a sermon on the love of God. The people gathered and stood in silence, waiting for the service while the sunlight streamed through the beautiful windows.
When the last bit of color had faded from the windows, the old monk went up to the candelabrum, took a lighted candle and walking to the life-sized statue of Christ on the cross, he held the light beneath the wounds on Christ’s feet, then at Christ’s hand, then at his side. Then, still without a word, the monk let the light shine on the thorn-crowned brow. That was the sermon.
The people stood in silence and wept, everyone knowing that they were at the center of a mystery beyond their knowing, that they were indeed looking at the supreme expression of the love of God—a love so deep, so wide, so eternal, that no wonder could express it, and no mind could measure it. This is the GREAT ACT of Christianity—that God’s love gave to the world what was most precious to him: his only Son.
The reason I spoke to you today about Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, is to encourage us all to look at him with the eyes of faith.
In one of our hymns we sing these words,
“Upon the cross of Jesus, mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of one who suffered there for me,
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess—
The wonder of his glorious love and my unworthiness.”
In some churches they use the symbol of the cross with the dying Jesus on it.
Let us—in our mind’s eye—see our Savior, the Lamb of God, on that cross dying for us.
Jesus said before he died, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Let us keep our eyes on our Lord Jesus. And let us love him and make him our Savior and our companion and follow him in his death and resurrection and into Eternal Life.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Experiencing God’s Love: Luke 15:11-32: The Two Sons and the Waiting Father
Everyone knows what a loser is. A loser can’t seem to accomplish anything worthwhile. Whatever he does is a disaster. No one respects a loser, and he can’t respect himself. He’s constantly in trouble and can’t change his life no matter how much he wishes he could.
Jesus came into the world for the “losers.” Would it surprise you to know that he also came into the world for the “winners”?
LUKE 15:11-32: THE TWO SONS AND THE WAITING FATHER
INTRODUCTION:
A number of years ago when we lived in Mt. Pleasant I conducted a Bible study in the state prison there.
The most enthusiastic member of our study was in inmate named Jim.
Jim had been a career criminal. That was the 9th time he had been locked up. He had a rap sheet with 45 crimes listed on it. But that was just a fraction of the thefts and burglaries and other wicked things he had done without getting caught.
Jim had enjoyed his life of crime. With it came the admiration of his criminal buddies and the excitement of an eventful life.
But finally Jim hit bottom.
Because he was drunk so much of the time, he kept getting caught. He screwed up his first marriage, then his second. He had let down his three children. He had broken his mother’s heart.
He decided to quit drinking and to quit thieving. But try as he might, he couldn’t. He was trapped by his evil habits.
He thought of all the pain people were going through because of him, and he realized that the whole world would be better off if he had never been born.
Jim was a loser and he knew it. He became despondent.
He tried to kill himself and couldn’t. He tried again and failed again.
He tried to hang himself in his cell and passed out.
When he came to, he was in the psychiatric ward of a Davenport hospital. An elderly lady in a nurse’s uniform was sitting in the room knitting. He was on suicide watch.
Jim thought to himself: To try to kill yourself is weak. To try to kill yourself and fail is worse than weak.
In his desperation, Jim looked up at the ceiling and said, “God, if you are real, do something with me. I quit. If something doesn’t change inside my head, inside my heart, then I’m just going back to the joint and kill myself.”
Jim says that there was no lightning flash, no angels. But it just seemed like a load had lifted off him.
Jim says, “I just gave it up. It didn’t belong to me any more. I was not responsible. I wasn’t going to try. I wasn’t going to do anything. I just mellowed out.”
And that was the beginning of Jim’s new life as a believer.
He said to himself, kind of sarcastically, “If I’m going to be a man of God, I need to find out about it.” He started praying—just talking to God. God began talking to him—not in an audible voice he could hear in his ears, but something he knew in his heart.
He told God about all the different people coming into the prison claiming to represent God and said, “How am I to know who’s real and who isn’t? How can I tell the fakes from the real?”
And God said, “Just read the Bible.” Jim began reading, and in three days he had read the New Testament—Matthew through Revelation. It was a thrill. It made sense.
He was so thrilled about his newfound faith that he used to wake his friends up to tell them about his discoveries in the Word. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t as excited as he was. Then the Lord told him, “Hey, this is for you, not them.”
Jim didn’t want to go to the prison chapel because most of the inmates that hung around the chapel were child molesters, murderers, square Johns, and snitches, people with no friends anywhere else.
But God told him to go. He started going to Bible study. That’s when I met Jim, in Bible study, about three months after he had met Jesus.
We had a great time studying the word together. Jim was hungry to know God. He was upfront about his faith. His fellow inmates called him a “Jesus freak,” but he didn’t care.
Some of them listened to him and believed.
Jim has been out of prison now for many years. He has worked steadily, he is active in his union, he has been active in his neighborhood association, he is a good husband and a good father. He is busy serving in his church. For many years he visited the jail in Minneapolis every Wednesday to conduct Bible studies, one with the men and another with the women. He and his wife, Ginny, have welcomed several homeless ex-offenders into their home for extended stays. Ginny told me that one of the women they had kept and is now living on her own, told her a few days ago: “When I stayed with you and Jim, that was the first time I ever experienced unconditional love.”
I told you the story of my friend Jim because it’s the story of a loser who found Jesus.
Jesus told a story like that. It’s in Luke 15, and I’m sure you’ve heard it.
Read: Luke 15:15-32.
I. First, I want to talk about the younger son, in the story, the one people call the “prodigal son.”
A. It was a shameful thing this boy did. He disgraced his father and his family. We don’t read anything about his mother, but she must have been weeping in the background.
It’s like he said, “Dad, I can’t wait until you die to get my hands on my inheritance. Just give it to me now and I’m outta here. I want to get away from you and Mom and do some livin’.”
Now the incredible thing is that the father said, “Okay,” and gave him the money he would have inherited.
That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, but it’s a story, and Jesus told the story this way to make a point.
B. The foolish young man headed into the far country to have a good time, far away from his father and any responsibilities.
And you know how that worked out. He had his good time—until the money ran out.
He sampled every pleasure he craved—no doubt wine, women, and song.
And he had lots of friends—until the money ran out.
And after that, famine came to that land. There was nothing to eat and no decent work to do.
And then the foolish young man hit bottom—the absolute bottom.
He finally found a job feeding hogs.
For a Jew, this was really the limit. Pigs were unclean animals. The Jews didn’t eat pigs. They didn’t have anything to do with pigs.
It was such a lousy job that he didn’t even get enough wages to buy food for himself. He wanted to eat the pods the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
C. By this time the old home place didn’t look so bad any more. In fact, it looked mighty good.
He said to himself, Far better to be a hired servant at my father’s farm than to starve like this.
So he swallowed his pride and set out for home.
He had his speech all ready: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”
That would be as much as he could hope for. But it would be like heaven compared to starving with the pigs.
D. Now comes the amazing part of the story, the part everyone likes.
In spite of the shabby way he’s been treated, the father never stopped loving his wayward son.
He sees the boy a long way off, trudging up the road.
Forgetting his dignity—and forgetting how the boy has hurt him—the father runs down the road embraces him and kisses him.
The son begins his speech, but never finishes it. The boy never gets to say, “Make me as one of your hired servants.”
He is interrupted by the father who says, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
I don’t understand the father. It seems to me that the father should at least wait for an apology, for some expression of remorse, for his son to promise to straighten up and fly right.
But the father just welcomes him—no strings attached.
Jesus tells the story this way to illustrate the overwhelming grace of God.
Some people say that it isn’t the story about the prodigal son; it’s the story of the prodigal father.
“Prodigal” means lavish, wasteful, extravagant expenditure. That’s what we see in the father in the parable. The prodigality of the father in the parable represents the extravagant grace of God to us poor sinners—sinners like Jim, and like you and me.
II. But the story doesn’t end there. The most important part comes after the party for the younger son gets under way.
A. The older son, we read, was in the field, and as he drew near the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and learned that his brother had returned from the far country and that his father had killed the fatted calf and thrown this homecoming party for him.
And the older son was angry. And I, for one, can understand his anger.
This younger brother had insulted his father, disgraced the family, and wasted part of the father’s wealth. And the father just welcomes him back with open arms! It’s not fair, is it?
When his father came out, he expressed his anger and refused to go in.
The older son said, “Lo, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came—he doesn’t say ‘my brother’—who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!”
His father remonstrates with him: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”
B. In a way, this older son was just as estranged from his father as the younger son had been when he was in the far country.
He had worked like a slave, but he had never enjoyed his father’s companionship.
It appears that he had never asked his father for anything, not even a little goat to make a party for his friends.
The father had loved this son as much as he did the naughty one, but this older son had never learned to love his father.
If he had loved his father, he would have rejoiced with his father when his brother returned.
C. Jesus doesn’t say what happened next. But I know what I hope happened. I hope the older son accepted the rebuke from his father, said he was sorry, and went to join the party.
I hope the older son learned to love his father and his brother.
If that happened, the father would have received two sons back from the dead that day.
APPLICATION:
I said that the older son was, for us, the most important part of the story. For Jesus’s listeners that day, the older brother was the point of the story because the people Jesus told the story to were religious people. They were the Pharisees and scribes, the “good” people, the respectable people, the admired people.
These scribes and Pharisees had been criticizing Jesus because, they said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
They resented the welcome Jesus gave to the sinners, the disreputable people of his day—the losers like my friend Jim.
When Jesus told this story he was inviting his critics to see themselves in the older brother.
He left the ending open, so that they could respond to the Father’s love and come to the feast, if they would.
Whenever I read about the scribes and Pharisees in the gospels I think, I myself am a lot like those people.
I was raised in a believing home.
I have gone to church at least once a week for 80 years.
I read my Bible. I pray. I try to help people. I give money.
And I’ll admit, I sometimes feel superior to people who don’t do these things.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am a sinner too. I need Jesus just as much as anyone does.
We can do a lot of good things and be blind to our sins of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness and feelings of superiority.
I had a friend who told me she didn’t believe in forgiveness. She didn’t believe that she was a “sinner.”
She said, “I’ve always done the best I could. If that’s not good enough, that’s just too bad.”
She spoke the truth. She was, by ordinary standards, a good person.
But Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
And until we take our place with the sinners, Jesus can’t be our Savior.
Because, whether our sins are big, prominent ones like my friend Jim’s, or little, inconspicuous ones that only God can see, they are still sins.
And God doesn’t look at sin like we do. What we call little sins, are the most serious in God’s eyes.
People who do big sins like lying, cheating, and stealing are aware of their sins.
People who are proud and judgmental, or bitter and complaining may not be aware of their sins.
Anything that draws us away from God, anything that keeps us from loving others as we ought to love them is sin.
The first lesson from the story of the two sons is that no matter how far we stray from our Heavenly Father, he is always waiting, ready to welcome us home.
And the second lesson from the story is to make sure that I am loving God and enjoying the love of my Heavenly Father and the companionship of my Savior and to make sure that whatever I do is for love of Jesus and not because it makes me feel that I am better than other people.
The thought I want to leave you with today is that, winners or losers, we are all sinners, and we all meet Jesus at the foot of the cross.
Jesus came into the world for the “losers.” Would it surprise you to know that he also came into the world for the “winners”?
LUKE 15:11-32: THE TWO SONS AND THE WAITING FATHER
INTRODUCTION:
A number of years ago when we lived in Mt. Pleasant I conducted a Bible study in the state prison there.
The most enthusiastic member of our study was in inmate named Jim.
Jim had been a career criminal. That was the 9th time he had been locked up. He had a rap sheet with 45 crimes listed on it. But that was just a fraction of the thefts and burglaries and other wicked things he had done without getting caught.
Jim had enjoyed his life of crime. With it came the admiration of his criminal buddies and the excitement of an eventful life.
But finally Jim hit bottom.
Because he was drunk so much of the time, he kept getting caught. He screwed up his first marriage, then his second. He had let down his three children. He had broken his mother’s heart.
He decided to quit drinking and to quit thieving. But try as he might, he couldn’t. He was trapped by his evil habits.
He thought of all the pain people were going through because of him, and he realized that the whole world would be better off if he had never been born.
Jim was a loser and he knew it. He became despondent.
He tried to kill himself and couldn’t. He tried again and failed again.
He tried to hang himself in his cell and passed out.
When he came to, he was in the psychiatric ward of a Davenport hospital. An elderly lady in a nurse’s uniform was sitting in the room knitting. He was on suicide watch.
Jim thought to himself: To try to kill yourself is weak. To try to kill yourself and fail is worse than weak.
In his desperation, Jim looked up at the ceiling and said, “God, if you are real, do something with me. I quit. If something doesn’t change inside my head, inside my heart, then I’m just going back to the joint and kill myself.”
Jim says that there was no lightning flash, no angels. But it just seemed like a load had lifted off him.
Jim says, “I just gave it up. It didn’t belong to me any more. I was not responsible. I wasn’t going to try. I wasn’t going to do anything. I just mellowed out.”
And that was the beginning of Jim’s new life as a believer.
He said to himself, kind of sarcastically, “If I’m going to be a man of God, I need to find out about it.” He started praying—just talking to God. God began talking to him—not in an audible voice he could hear in his ears, but something he knew in his heart.
He told God about all the different people coming into the prison claiming to represent God and said, “How am I to know who’s real and who isn’t? How can I tell the fakes from the real?”
And God said, “Just read the Bible.” Jim began reading, and in three days he had read the New Testament—Matthew through Revelation. It was a thrill. It made sense.
He was so thrilled about his newfound faith that he used to wake his friends up to tell them about his discoveries in the Word. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t as excited as he was. Then the Lord told him, “Hey, this is for you, not them.”
Jim didn’t want to go to the prison chapel because most of the inmates that hung around the chapel were child molesters, murderers, square Johns, and snitches, people with no friends anywhere else.
But God told him to go. He started going to Bible study. That’s when I met Jim, in Bible study, about three months after he had met Jesus.
We had a great time studying the word together. Jim was hungry to know God. He was upfront about his faith. His fellow inmates called him a “Jesus freak,” but he didn’t care.
Some of them listened to him and believed.
Jim has been out of prison now for many years. He has worked steadily, he is active in his union, he has been active in his neighborhood association, he is a good husband and a good father. He is busy serving in his church. For many years he visited the jail in Minneapolis every Wednesday to conduct Bible studies, one with the men and another with the women. He and his wife, Ginny, have welcomed several homeless ex-offenders into their home for extended stays. Ginny told me that one of the women they had kept and is now living on her own, told her a few days ago: “When I stayed with you and Jim, that was the first time I ever experienced unconditional love.”
I told you the story of my friend Jim because it’s the story of a loser who found Jesus.
Jesus told a story like that. It’s in Luke 15, and I’m sure you’ve heard it.
Read: Luke 15:15-32.
I. First, I want to talk about the younger son, in the story, the one people call the “prodigal son.”
A. It was a shameful thing this boy did. He disgraced his father and his family. We don’t read anything about his mother, but she must have been weeping in the background.
It’s like he said, “Dad, I can’t wait until you die to get my hands on my inheritance. Just give it to me now and I’m outta here. I want to get away from you and Mom and do some livin’.”
Now the incredible thing is that the father said, “Okay,” and gave him the money he would have inherited.
That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, but it’s a story, and Jesus told the story this way to make a point.
B. The foolish young man headed into the far country to have a good time, far away from his father and any responsibilities.
And you know how that worked out. He had his good time—until the money ran out.
He sampled every pleasure he craved—no doubt wine, women, and song.
And he had lots of friends—until the money ran out.
And after that, famine came to that land. There was nothing to eat and no decent work to do.
And then the foolish young man hit bottom—the absolute bottom.
He finally found a job feeding hogs.
For a Jew, this was really the limit. Pigs were unclean animals. The Jews didn’t eat pigs. They didn’t have anything to do with pigs.
It was such a lousy job that he didn’t even get enough wages to buy food for himself. He wanted to eat the pods the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
C. By this time the old home place didn’t look so bad any more. In fact, it looked mighty good.
He said to himself, Far better to be a hired servant at my father’s farm than to starve like this.
So he swallowed his pride and set out for home.
He had his speech all ready: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”
That would be as much as he could hope for. But it would be like heaven compared to starving with the pigs.
D. Now comes the amazing part of the story, the part everyone likes.
In spite of the shabby way he’s been treated, the father never stopped loving his wayward son.
He sees the boy a long way off, trudging up the road.
Forgetting his dignity—and forgetting how the boy has hurt him—the father runs down the road embraces him and kisses him.
The son begins his speech, but never finishes it. The boy never gets to say, “Make me as one of your hired servants.”
He is interrupted by the father who says, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
I don’t understand the father. It seems to me that the father should at least wait for an apology, for some expression of remorse, for his son to promise to straighten up and fly right.
But the father just welcomes him—no strings attached.
Jesus tells the story this way to illustrate the overwhelming grace of God.
Some people say that it isn’t the story about the prodigal son; it’s the story of the prodigal father.
“Prodigal” means lavish, wasteful, extravagant expenditure. That’s what we see in the father in the parable. The prodigality of the father in the parable represents the extravagant grace of God to us poor sinners—sinners like Jim, and like you and me.
II. But the story doesn’t end there. The most important part comes after the party for the younger son gets under way.
A. The older son, we read, was in the field, and as he drew near the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and learned that his brother had returned from the far country and that his father had killed the fatted calf and thrown this homecoming party for him.
And the older son was angry. And I, for one, can understand his anger.
This younger brother had insulted his father, disgraced the family, and wasted part of the father’s wealth. And the father just welcomes him back with open arms! It’s not fair, is it?
When his father came out, he expressed his anger and refused to go in.
The older son said, “Lo, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came—he doesn’t say ‘my brother’—who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!”
His father remonstrates with him: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”
B. In a way, this older son was just as estranged from his father as the younger son had been when he was in the far country.
He had worked like a slave, but he had never enjoyed his father’s companionship.
It appears that he had never asked his father for anything, not even a little goat to make a party for his friends.
The father had loved this son as much as he did the naughty one, but this older son had never learned to love his father.
If he had loved his father, he would have rejoiced with his father when his brother returned.
C. Jesus doesn’t say what happened next. But I know what I hope happened. I hope the older son accepted the rebuke from his father, said he was sorry, and went to join the party.
I hope the older son learned to love his father and his brother.
If that happened, the father would have received two sons back from the dead that day.
APPLICATION:
I said that the older son was, for us, the most important part of the story. For Jesus’s listeners that day, the older brother was the point of the story because the people Jesus told the story to were religious people. They were the Pharisees and scribes, the “good” people, the respectable people, the admired people.
These scribes and Pharisees had been criticizing Jesus because, they said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
They resented the welcome Jesus gave to the sinners, the disreputable people of his day—the losers like my friend Jim.
When Jesus told this story he was inviting his critics to see themselves in the older brother.
He left the ending open, so that they could respond to the Father’s love and come to the feast, if they would.
Whenever I read about the scribes and Pharisees in the gospels I think, I myself am a lot like those people.
I was raised in a believing home.
I have gone to church at least once a week for 80 years.
I read my Bible. I pray. I try to help people. I give money.
And I’ll admit, I sometimes feel superior to people who don’t do these things.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am a sinner too. I need Jesus just as much as anyone does.
We can do a lot of good things and be blind to our sins of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness and feelings of superiority.
I had a friend who told me she didn’t believe in forgiveness. She didn’t believe that she was a “sinner.”
She said, “I’ve always done the best I could. If that’s not good enough, that’s just too bad.”
She spoke the truth. She was, by ordinary standards, a good person.
But Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
And until we take our place with the sinners, Jesus can’t be our Savior.
Because, whether our sins are big, prominent ones like my friend Jim’s, or little, inconspicuous ones that only God can see, they are still sins.
And God doesn’t look at sin like we do. What we call little sins, are the most serious in God’s eyes.
People who do big sins like lying, cheating, and stealing are aware of their sins.
People who are proud and judgmental, or bitter and complaining may not be aware of their sins.
Anything that draws us away from God, anything that keeps us from loving others as we ought to love them is sin.
The first lesson from the story of the two sons is that no matter how far we stray from our Heavenly Father, he is always waiting, ready to welcome us home.
And the second lesson from the story is to make sure that I am loving God and enjoying the love of my Heavenly Father and the companionship of my Savior and to make sure that whatever I do is for love of Jesus and not because it makes me feel that I am better than other people.
The thought I want to leave you with today is that, winners or losers, we are all sinners, and we all meet Jesus at the foot of the cross.
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