Monday, March 18, 2013

In the Grip of Christ’s Love


2 Corinthians 5:14-15

INTRODUCTION

This is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, the most important week in the year for those of us who are followers of Jesus.
There’s a lot to remember for this week.
Today many sermons will be devoted to what is called the “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem.

On that Sunday Jesus’s disciples—many more than just the 12 apostles—many men and women who had come up to Jerusalem and people who joined in on the outskirts of the city—and they processed into the city waving their palm branches and singing praises to their King.

I read of a church in Brooklyn that each year re-enacts the scene by renting a donkey for a procession through the streets of the city to the church. When they get to the church, they have a testimony time and share their stories of what it has meant to them to have Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

Palm Sunday was the beginning of Holy Week. The next day Jesus went to the Temple and drove the merchants out of the Temple courtyard. This angered the religious and political leaders of the nation so much that they decided to kill Jesus that they decided then and there to kill Jesus.

We read the story of the poor widow who cast her two tiny coins—all her living—into the Temple treasury and how Jesus said, “She cast in more than all of them, because they contributed out of their abundance, but she cast in all she had to live on.”

We read how Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus with her precious ointment.

When we get to Thursday we have the story of how Jesus washed his disciples feet and about the Last Supper.
We read his farewell discourses when he said: “Let not your hearts be troubled. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may be also.”

Then we have the account of how Jesus spent the night in the Garden of Gethsemane begging God to take away the cup of suffering…
the treachery of Judas
the arrest and trial—and how he was spit upon, flogged, decked out in a purple cloak and a crown of thorns, led through the streets and finally nailed upon a cross.

We read how the bystanders mocked him and taunted him, and how his enemies said, “Ha! He saved others, but he couldn’t save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”

We read about how he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
How he said to the bandit on the cross beside him: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
We hear his terrible cry of forsakenness: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We read that when Jesus finally breathed his last and the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, the Roman centurion looking on exclaimed: “Truly this man was the son of God!”

These are some of the things that happened this week in history.

But what difference does it make? Why do we say this is the most important week in history?
And what difference does it make to you and me?
I. St. Paul wrote, “The love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5: 14-15).

I have known the story of Passion Week, Good Friday, as long as I can remember. Since I was taken to church from the time I was born, I must have heard it as soon as I could understand anything.
And I always believed it. I never doubted that this is what happened
Our church had communion every Sunday, and every Sunday someone would tell some aspect of this great and important story.

But even though I knew the story and believed it, it never really changed my life until much later.
I was 18 years old when I really realized what it meant that Jesus died for me and rose again. Then I realized the truth of what I just read from 2 Corinthians:
“The love of Christ controls me.”
And, “He died for all so that we who live might live no longer for ourselves but for him who for our sake died and rose again.”

II. First I want to talk about the second part of that first verse I read: “We are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”

A. Jesus died for all. We read in the Bible that God is not willing that any should perish. “For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I suspect that every one of us learned that verse before we were five years old.

Jesus died for you. Jesus died for me. Jesus died for everyone. Because Jesus was not only man but also God, his death counts for all of us.

B. Then we read “…therefore all have died.”

So what does Paul mean when he says all have died.
What Paul is telling us here is that Jesus died as our representative. He died on our behalf.
When we believe in Jesus, when we trust him for salvation, when we give ourselves to him body and soul we become in a way united with him.
The Bible says that we are in Christ and he is in us.
Because we have become one with Christ, what was true of him is also true of us.
So his death becomes our death, and his life from the dead becomes our life from the dead.

This is a deep doctrine. I have read books about it.
I won’t try to explain it now, but just tell you that this is what the Bible teaches, and this is what Christians believe.
This is why we put crosses on our churches, and some of us wear them around out necks.

This is why the we worship by taking the loaf and cup—the body and blood of the Savior—in our most solemn worship services.
That is why we sing hymns like “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”
We do these things to remind ourselves that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus our Lord makes all the difference.
Nothing could be as important as this: Jesus died for me, rose again, and invites me to himself.

III. Now I want to go back to the beginning of the verse. This is part I want especially to talk about today: “The Love of Christ controls us…”

A. Here are some others ways that line has been translated:

“The love of Christ constraineth us.” (King James Bible)
 “The love of Christ urges us on.” (NRSV)
“The love of Christ compels us.” (NIV)
“The love of Christ overwhelms us.” (New Jerusalem Bible)
The line could also be translated: “The love of Christ holds us in its grip.”

The idea is that when I really understand what Jesus has done for me, I will never get over it.
I will keep thinking about how much Jesus loved me, and I will never get over it.
Other people have loved me, but no one else has ever died for me.
And if someone else had died for me, it could never equal what Jesus did for me at Calvary.

Think back over Holy Week. This is the greatest love story the world has ever known.
I’ve heard of people who gave their lives to save a friend from physical death—perhaps on the battlefield, or from drowning, or something like that.
But Jesus suffered and died, not just so that we could go on living a little longer on this earth but so that we could live forever with him in his Father’s House.
And Jesus’s death was not merely physical death, but an infinite death that bore all the sin of the world.

And that’s why when it finally soaked into my mind that Jesus died for me, his love got a hold of me and life has never been the same since.

B. The next line continues this thought: “And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and rose again.”

This reminds me of a verse in another letter Paul wrote that has the same thought. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote:

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live,
yet not I but Christ lives in me,
and the life that I now live
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me.”

CONCLUSION

A missionary was examining some candidates for baptism, and fearing to frighten and embarrass an elderly Korean woman with difficult questions, he said quietly, “Tell me a story about Jesus.”
The Korean woman—her face glowing—began to tell simply the story of Calvary. She told it all bravely until the time came when the nails were driven into Jesus’s feet and hands. Then she broke down completely, and with sobs and in a broken voice, she murmured, “I can’t tell that part. It breaks my heart.”

Does the story of what Jesus has done for you on the cross break your heart?
Does it make you want to live for Jesus?
Does the love of Christ hold you in its grip?

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