What Difference Does It Make That Jesus Is Alive?

John 20.19-20 

INTRODUCTION

What does it mean to you that Jesus is alive?

If you thought that Jesus was still in his grave, what kind of person would you be?
How would you think about yourself? How would you think about other people?

Would you still have the same interests? The same pleasures? The same concerns?

How would you spend your money if you didn’t know Jesus?

How would you face your coming death? Would you just try not to think about it?

This is Easter. Jesus is alive!—and that makes all the difference.

One of the Easter stories is recorded in John 20:19-20:

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

I. Let’s look in on the little gathering in that locked room.

A. Jesus’s disciples were disappointed, discouraged, and afraid.

The eleven chosen disciples felt terrible about how they had behaved in the garden when they had all run away, leaving Jesus in the hands of his enemies.

Peter, especially, was ashamed and embarrassed because after his act of bravado in the garden when he attacked the slave of the High Priest with his sword, he had not only run away but also denied three times that he even knew Jesus.

The One they had looked to as their Savior was gone.

For three years they had been preparing themselves to rule with Jesus in his Kingdom—and now that wasn’t going to happen because Jesus was dead.

What to do? Should they go back to their fishing and other occupations?

Was there anything they could salvage from the lost cause?

B. They were also confused because some of the women among the disciples had come with stories of having seen Jesus at the tomb. According to Luke, Cleopas and his companion had arrived with a story of meeting Jesus that afternoon on the road to Emmaus. And Peter said he had seen the Lord.

But women tend to be emotional and excitable, and maybe they were seeing things.

The stories seemed impossible. Remember, people believed in ghosts in those days.

It was very confusing. They didn’t know what to think.

II. Then Jesus showed up—he came right through the locked door—or through the wall—or maybe he just appeared in their midst.

A. Luke tells us that when the disciples saw Jesus appear before them “they were terrified and frightened and supposed that they saw a spirit.”

B. So the first thing Jesus said was, “Peace be with you!”

“Peace be with you, ” was the common greeting and farewell in those days. It served both for “Hello” and “Good bye.”

But when Jesus said “Peace be with you!” it had a deeper meaning.

The night of Jesus’s betrayal, Jesus had said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:21) 

One thing Jesus’s friends needed now was peace.

Their hearts were in turmoil; they needed peace, and Jesus was here to give them such a peace as the world can’t give and the world can’t take away.

And when Jesus says, “Peace!” it’s not just a wish; his presence makes peace. We can only imagine with what joy they greeted this announcement.

C. Then Jesus showed them the scars in his hands and side.

If there was any doubt in their minds, the sight of those wounds convinced them.

When the disciples saw those scars, they were convinced. They weren’t just seeing things. Jesus was really with them!

D. “Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”

At that moment all the doubters were filled with joy. They had gone from despair to gladness.

Have you seen Jesus?

We don’t see Jesus with our eyes as they did, but we see can him with the eyes of faith, and when we see him, we also are filled with joy.

That’s one reason we come to church—to see Jesus. We see Jesus in each other, and we see Jesus with the eyes of faith as we read the gospels.

And I look forward to that day—not so far off when I will see Jesus face to face—and I will be glad—with a gladness unimaginable now on this earth.

Here’s a riddle: What will we see in heaven that was made on earth?

The answer: The scars in Jesus’s hands.

As a hymn has it—

“I shall know him, I shall know him,

And redeemed by his side I shall stand,

I shall know him, I shall know him

by the print of the nails in his hand.”

When we see Jesus in glory, we may be overcome by his splendor—but we will still see those marks in his hands.

Those scars that will tell us of the depths of love.

Jesus will wear them for all eternity.

ALTERNATE CONCLUSION

Heidi Newmark was pastor of a Lutheran church in the South Bronx, perhaps the poorest of all the poor neighborhoods in America.

The leaders and officers of her congregation included former addicts and undocumented aliens, the unemployed and the homeless.

During Holy Week several years ago, this congregation decided to reenact the highlights of the story of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter.

They rented a donkey and one of them played the part of Jesus, riding on the donkey.

They formed a parade—a long procession around the block of shabby storefronts and rundown apartments—shouting “Hosanna! Hosanna!”

They had got almost around the block when they ran into a street demonstration protesting police brutality. The cries of “Hosanna!” and the cries of the demonstrators mingled in a cacophony of voices.

A passer-by saw the confusion, got alarmed, and called the police.

The arrival of the police added to the color and drama.

Finally they managed to make it inside the church where they enacted the events of the trial, condemnation, and execution of Jesus.

Then they reenacted the Easter story.

The women returned from the tomb with the news: “He is risen!”

The actors playing the disciples remained true to the Bible record, pooh-poohing the women’s tale.

Then the script called for three members of the congregation to stand up and give testimony—like bearing witness in court to the truth of the resurrection. Each was to begin with “I know that he is alive…”

Angie was the first. “I know that he is alive,” she said, “because he is alive in me.” She then told how she was abused by her father, how she fell into despair and alcoholism, became HIV positive. But then she responded to the welcome of the church, started attending worship, then a Bible study, and bit-by-bit she rose from the grave of her life. Now she is a seminary student, studying to be a pastor.

“I am now alive because Jesus Christ lives in me and through me,” Angie said—her face aglow. “I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

The two other witnesses stood in turn, each reciting the assigned part of the script: “I know that he is alive because…” and they told their stories.

Then that portion of the play was done, and it was time to move on. But the testimony would not stop.

Others in the sanctuary began to rise spontaneously. “I know that he is alive,” they would say, “because he is alive in me.”

Homeless people, addicts now clean, stood one by one. Nothing could stop them.

“I know that he is alive,” they shouted, all giving corroborating testimony to the witness of Jesus, adding their own word to the great witness of Easter, telling the truth about what they had seen and heard.

(Adapted from Robert G. Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, pp30-31)

ALTERNATE CONCLUSION

Several weeks ago our senior-in-high-school granddaughter Hannah asked me if I had ever had an unusual proof of God.

I told her that several years ago, in the middle of the night, I felt myself suddenly to be in the presence of God. Glory seemed to be rushing toward me. I was incredibly excited. I was overwhelmed and shouted for joy. I said, “Wow! I’ll never doubt again!” The next morning I asked Charlotte whether she had heard me shout in the night. She said she hadn’t. It had been a dream.

But I told Hannah that the most convincing proof of God to me is that I had seen Jesus in the lives of several people I had known. These people may have seemed ordinary to other people, but I have seen Jesus in their lives.

I can’t explain their holiness, their love, their goodness any way except that Jesus was in their lives.

And then in December of 1948 during my freshman year at the University of Kansas, Jesus came into my life too. I had heard about Jesus all my life. I knew all the stories. But now I felt that I had met him personally. It was as if he just got up off the pages of the Gospels and began to walk through life with me.

In Korea, one night as the Chinese overran our position, I thought it might be my last night on earth—but I felt peace. I knew God was with me.

During a catastrophic illness in our family, I began to doubt God, but the faith and kindness of fellow church members got me through that experience and Jesus seemed more real than ever.

I was unemployed and worried that I wouldn’t find work to support our family, but God was with me.

Now I am old now. I have had two kinds of cancer. I know that it won’t be long before I go through that door that leads to the next world.

I don’t know how I will deal with death. I hope and pray that my faith will not falter, but that as I exit this world I will still feel the assurance that the Jesus is alive and he is still my companion, and that he is waiting to welcome me into glory.

“It Is Finished”

John 19:28-30

INTRODUCTION

The story is told of a young soldier in Italy who jumped into a foxhole just ahead of the explosion of an artillery round. His hand touched metal, and he brought up a silver crucifix, left. It must have been left behind by the man who dug the foxhole.

A moment later his chaplain landed beside him in the foxhole.

Holding out the crucifix, the first soldier gasped: “Am I glad to see you! How do you work this thing?”

We laugh at that story because we know that this precious symbol of our faith isn’t a good luck charm.

It has no magical powers. But it represents the most important event in the history of the world.

And it is the event that makes all the difference.

Our Christian faith is well-represented by the image of the cross on which Christ died.

I never met my great grandfather Sommerville. He died long before I was born.

But from the stories told in our family, he was a beloved and godly man.

The family he was born into was desperately poor. As a child in Scotland he never got an education.

He was born hard-of-hearing.

When he was seven he was sent to school. But he was sent home two weeks later with a note from his teacher: “Don’t send Willie to school any more. He’s so hard of hearing that he can’t hear anything. I can’t teach him.”

So he went to work at the coal mine nearby.

When Great Grandpa grew up, he married and brought his wife and three children to the United States.

I don’t know much about his working life, but from the stories I’ve heard he was an enthusiastic Christian. He knew his Bible and could preach.

My other great grandfather on my father’s side founded a tent and awning factory. He was a successful businessman.

He hired Great Grandpa Sommerville as janitor in his factory.

He told Great Grandpa that he didn’t want him to spend too much time pushing the broom.

What he really wanted him to do was to go to the women who ran the sewing machines and talk to them about the Lord.

So Great Grandpa Sommerville would push his broom and go from woman to woman. He was friendly and they enjoyed his attention.

He would coax the ladies to learn Bible verses.

But there was one woman who resisted his efforts to get her to learn verses.

She was a Catholic, and in those days many Catholics believed that Protestants surely weren’t on their way to heaven; and it was common among Protestants to believe that Catholics were living in spiritual darkness.

In those days, so my father said, only Catholics wore crosses. It was sort a badge of their faith.

So this woman came to work one day wearing a large cross on a chain around her neck.

She thought her cross would warn Great Grandpa Sommerville to leave her alone.

But, so the story goes, that when Great Grandpa came to her machine and saw the cross, he came up to her and took the cross in his fingers and said, “That is the most beautiful thing in all the world. That is the thing in all the world that I love the most.”

And he told her in very few words just how he felt about the cross and its meaning—and moved on.

From that time on she was his friend and learned her verses every day.

Because the cross of Christ is at the heart of our faith, and because next week is the beginning of passion week—the week during which Jesus gave his life for us on the cross—I think it is fitting to talk about Christ’s death for us.

John 19:26-30: “After this, when Jesus knew that all was finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of vinegar was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the vinegar on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

I. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus “gave a loud cry and breathed his last.” John tells us that Jesus said, “It is finished,” then “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

A. This word “It is finished,” as it came to the ears of spectators must have had different meanings.

To Jesus’s enemies, “It is finished” would have meant that the troublemaker had now silenced and they could breathe a sigh of relief—things would go back to the way they were before this upstart from Galilee had upset their domination of the religious life of the nation.

To the Enemy of our Souls, “It is finished” it may have meant that he had won. Finally, God’s purposes to redeem the world from sin and darkness had come to nothing.

To Jesus’s friends, “It is finished” meant that all their hopes and dreams were over. The one they had put their faith in as their Lord and Savior was gone. The one they had loved and followed and who had brought forgiveness, new life, and hope into their lives was gone. All that made life worth living was gone.

To Jesus, “It is finished” must have meant that he had completed to work God had sent him into the world to do. He had been faithful unto the end.

B. According to Matthew’s gospel, “at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom…” (Matthew 27:31).

The temple curtain represented the separation of sinful humans from God’s presence. When the Temple curtain was torn in two, that meant that Jesus’s death had opened up the way for sinners to come into the presence of God.

So to God, “It is finished” meant that the work of reconciliation between God and the world was done. St. Paul would express it this way: “Through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

II. We remember that according to Matthew and Mark as Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out in his agony: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

A. We see from this how terrible Jesus’s death was to him.

He was quoting the first words of Psalm 22, a psalm written by a godly man who was suffering such torment that he was in despair.

We believe that that Psalm was in Jesus’s mind as he suffered because there are so many expressions in it that Psalm that fit the situation.

B. But the end of Psalm 22 is a hymn of triumph.

So, according to John, some time after that cry of desolation, Jesus uttered a cry of triumph—the words we have just read: “It is finished!”

We can believe that after Jesus cried out in despair: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he was strengthened to see his death as the triumph that it was—a triumphant victory over sin and death and hell.

III. A story

My mother’s father came to America from Russia as a young man.

Long ago, my Grandfather Altergott told me the story of how he found assurance of salvation.

Not long after he arrived in the United States Grandpa was working in a tailor shop in Kansas City.

One Monday, before beginning his work, Grandpa fished out of his pocket a Sunday school paper he had received at church the day before.

Do you remember Sunday school papers?

We got them every Sunday. It always had a picture, a verse to memorize, a puzzle, a story from the Bible, and maybe another story about faith.

Grandpa got out his Sunday school paper and spread it out on the table before him before he began cutting his cloth.

Then he read this story he read that changed his life.

Long ago there lived somewhere in Europe a young nobleman.

He was a fine important young man, admired by many, but he lived a careless and wicked life.

As time went by, he began to feel bad about his evil life, and he looked for a way to make amends.

He learned that there was a monastery in a country 700 miles away, which was famous for the rigorous life it imposed on the monks who lived there.

The young nobleman determined to join that monastery and try, by suffering and acts of devotion, to find the forgiveness he craved. He journeyed for many days on horseback and finally reached the monastery.

He knocked at the door, and an old monk came and opened the door

The young man told the old monk of his willingness to endure any penance to clear his conscience and find forgiveness.

The old monk looked at him with his face beaming and said, “You’re too late!”

The nobleman was shocked, but the old monk went on: “You’re too late to atone for your sins because Jesus has already done it for you. When Jesus died he said, “It is finished!” And in a simple way the monk explained the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross.

When Grandpa read that story he finally understood the truth about salvation, and there at the cutting table in the tailor shop he put his faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

When he told me the story, Grandpa chuckled and said, “That young man traveled 700 miles to find Christ, but I had to come 7000!”

CONCLUSION

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” we are to understand that now the work of redemption is complete. The hardest part is done. The price has been paid. The suffering is over. The victory is won. Everything is different. It is only for us to give ourselves to Jesus and accept the gift of salvation.

And that is what we are to remember when we look at a cross.

The Lawyer’s Question

Luke 10:20-37

INTRODUCTION

You have heard many sermons on Jesus’s Parable of the Good Samaritan. That’s because it is such an important story.

But in this message I want to especially focus on the lawyer who asked the question to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?”

Behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do your read there?”

And the lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

And Jesus said to him, “You have answered right; do this and you will live.”

But the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

This lawyer was sharp. His answer to Jesus was the same answer that Jesus gave some Pharisees when they asked him which of the commandments was the greatest.

The lawyer wasn’t asking because he wanted to know the answer, but because he wanted “to put Jesus to the test.”

He wanted to see how good Jesus was at theology.

So he asked the big, number one question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

But Jesus’s answer to the lawyer’s question has always made me wonder.

Jesus pointed him to the Law.

Isn’t that odd? When the jailer at Philippi asked, Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

When some people asked Jesus: “What must we do to perform the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).

So why didn’t Jesus tell him just to believe? He could have said, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Why did Jesus point the lawyer to the Law, which we know from the rest of the New Testament can never save anyone?

I. When Jesus says, “What is written in the law?” he is answering the lawyer’s question with another question. This is a common technique of Jesus and all good teachers. People get understanding by building on what they already know.

A. The first part of the answer—“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul….strength…and…mind”—was a scripture from Deuteronomy 6 that the lawyer, like all good Jews, would have recited twice each day. It is called the “Shema.”

The second part of the lawyer’s answer comes from Leviticus (19:18)—from the middle of a chapter that contains 39 rules for living—some insignificant, some very important.

B. Jesus’s response to the lawyer’s answer was to challenge him to live out the truth that he had recited from the Old Testament Bible.

God is never concerned to give us information just to satisfy our curiosity. That is why we have so many unanswered questions about the Bible and faith. It isn’t important that we know all the answers; it is important that we live up to what we know.

The scribe was enjoying himself now, so he asked the next question: “And who is my neighbor?”

This could get to be a big discussion—a discussion the lawyer was looking forward to.

Maybe the lawyer expected Jesus to say, “Your neighbor is your neighbor Jew.” Or maybe his neighbor was his fellow church member.

Could we extend “neighbor” to good Gentiles? Or maybe—just possibly—to everyone who crosses my path or whose path I cross?

Jesus answered with a story—a story that will make the lawyer think.

And this story will make us think too, and even change our thinking—and we hope it will change our behavior.

II. This is the story:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where the injured man was: and when he saw him, he had compassion, pouring on oil and wine: then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back.”

Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”

The Lawyer said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, ”Go and do likewise.”

A. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was only 17 miles. It could be walked in a day. It was a commonly-traveled road. Jesus walked this road many times.

But going from Jerusalem to Jericho one descended 3,300 feet. It would have been much easier going to Jericho—downhill all the way—than going from Jericho to Jerusalem—uphill all the way.

It is a winding, meandering road. It was dangerous. There were lots of places for robbers to hide.

This poor man had been attacked, robbed, and left half-dead.

The priest and the Levite, saw him but passed by on the other side.

They certainly knew the law about loving their neighbor, but they didn’t want to get involved.

To have stopped would have been to take a big risk. Suppose the robbers were lurking nearby?

I read once of an account of a young man and woman who were driving on a country road and came upon a car pulled off the road.

They stopped to see whether they could help.

It was a ruse. Thugs attacked the young man and the girl, robbed them, and killed them.

Those young people followed the example of the Good Samaritan and it cost them their lives.

It may have been a hard decision for the priest or Levite, or anyone, to get involved in this situation. How could they tell what it might involve?

This is the same thing that keeps us sometimes from doing what is right. We don’t want to get involved. We might not want to see it through.

B. The striking thing about the story is that its hero is a Samaritan.

Samaritans were despised by the Jews. They called Samaritans “dogs.” They believed that even to touch them was to become polluted.

The reason goes back a long time before Jesus.

When the Assyrians conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel more than 700 years before Christ, they deported many of the Israelites and settled them in other lands. Then the Assyrians brought in pagans and settled them among the remaining Israelites.

These pagans adopted the religion of Israel and the two groups intermarried.

The Jews from Judea considered the Samaritans heretics, half-breeds, and had nothing to do with them. Sometimes there was even bloodshed.

If Jesus were to tell the parable to us today, he would perhaps make the hero of his story a Muslim. Can you imagine how that would go over in your church?

“The Parable of the Good Muslim.” Of “The Parable of the Good Hindu.”

For all I know the story is a true one. Things like this happen.

The Samaritan is a hero because he took a big risk.

He got involved. He doctored the man, put him on his donkey, and took him to an inn along the road.

But he went even farther. He took care of him in the inn.

And when the time came to depart, he left two denarii with the innkeeper for the man’s keep. Two denarii was two day’s wages for a working man—think, $150-$200 dollars.

And, as he left the inn, he promised the innkeeper that he would be back to pay whatever else it cost to get the man on his feet again.

C. When Jesus asked, “Which of these, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” there was only one answer possible for the lawyer: “The one who showed mercy.”

APPLICATION

When we read, “Love your neighbor,” we think of having a feeling of fondness toward our neighbor.

Jesus is thinking of costly love, the kind of love that steps in and helps, in whatever way is in our power.

So sometimes we take credit for loving our friends—as if that is a virtue.

Jesus said (Luke 6:32-33): “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”

Sometimes we limit the people we are willing to love.

I was on a church missions committee. During one of our meetings one of our members said, “I don’t think we should be sending money overseas. There are plenty of people in our country we can be helping.”

Some people are willing to help the poor—but they limit their willingness to the “deserving poor.”

Some people are willing to help but they expect an expression of thanks.

People should be grateful and express their appreciation, but that won’t always happen, and we don’t need to expect it.

We don’t know whether the man the Samaritan saved ever thanked his benefactor. Perhaps he hated being indebted to a despised Samaritan.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36).

If we don’t get thanked here in this life, God has promised to thank us someday—isn’t that enough?

Proverbs 19:17: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.”

CONCLUSION

When I was a child, I used to collect stamps. I would save up my nickels from my weekly allowance of 5 cents a week and go to the dime store and buy stamps for my collection.

I loved to mount the stamps in my book and study their designs.

I noticed that many of the stamps from Belgium had a picture of a Roman soldier sitting on a horse with a beggar facing him.

The soldier was cutting his cloak in two with his sword.

I learned that this was St. Martin, the patron saint of Belgium.

The story is that Martin was a Christian soldier in the Roman army.

One cold winter day Martin was riding his horse when a beggar stopped him. Martin had no money, but the beggar was shivering.

Martin was moved with compassion, so he took off his cloak, cut it in two, and gave half of it to the beggar. The beggar blessed him and they parted.

That night Martin had a dream. He saw all the angels of heaven and Jesus sitting among them wearing the torn half of Martin’s cloak.

One of the angels asked the Lord, “Master, who clothed you thus?”

And Jesus answered softly “It was my servant Martin.”

Jesus said that when we serve his poor, we are serving him.

I heard of a person who works in a mission feeding the homeless who prays, when the homeless people line up to receive their meals: “Lord, help me to be kind to you when you come through this line today.”

Jesus comes to us in our neighbor, the one who is poor, the one who is lonely, the one who is discouraged, the one who needs a listening ear, a friend, a compliment, a loan, a smile.

Maybe a fellow resident of this facility…

Sometimes it costs little to love our neighbor; sometimes it costs a lot.

Are we willing to pay the price of love?

“You Are the Salt of the Earth”

Matthew 5:13

INTRODUCTION

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot.”

What an odd saying! We know that salt is necessary, but it is also cheap. Doctors keep telling us to eat less salt. Salt causes high blood pressure. We need to avoid it.

But in ancient times people looked at salt in a different way. For one thing salt was expensive.

We get our salt out of salt mines. In our home state of Kansas we have salt mines, and it’s easy and cheap to just dig it out of the ground. Salt is one of the cheapest things at the store—35 cents for a box that will last months.

When we say someone’s not worth his salt, we mean he’s not worth much.

 But in ancient times people made salt from seawater. The Dead Sea, in Palestine, is a good place to get salt. They run salt into shallow pools around the Dead Sea, then let it dry out in the sun, and what was left was salt, which they could scoop up and sell.

Salt is still scarce in some parts of the world. I remember seeing pictures in The National Geographic of camel caravans carrying salt over the desert. Great slabs of salt were strapped to the sides of the camels and transported to places where it was needed.

In some parts of the world, salt has been used for money.

Roman soldiers received part of their salary in salt—in fact the word “salary” comes from the word salarium, which is the Latin word for salt.

So when Jesus compared his disciples to salt he was comparing them to something very important, and valuable, and necessary.

There’s one other thing that might puzzle us about this verse. How could salt lose its savor? Actually, salt will always be salty. But the salt made out of the salty water of the Dead Sea had many minerals in it besides sodium chloride. There are calcium compounds and potassium compounds and manganese compounds and other minerals. And if the “salt” got damp maybe the real salt would disappear and only the other minerals would remain. And they wouldn’t taste salty at all. So it seemed that the “salt” had lost its savor.

I. Here are some reasons why salt was so important in the ancient world.

A. First of all, salt was necessary for preservation of food.

Before canning and freezing humans had no way to preserve perishable food.

Fish or other meat will spoil quickly and become dangerous and uneatable. But if the meat is soaked in brine, it will keep a long time.

So ancient people—and even until recent times—people ate lots of salted meat.

B. Salt is also necessary for bringing out the taste of food.

It’s even in the Bible. In the Book of Job (6:6), Job says, “Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt.”

You might know that the tongue can only detect four flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. All the rest of what we call “flavor” comes to us from our sense of smell.

If you cook oatmeal and leave out that pinch of salt, you can hardly believe how bad it tastes. It tastes like the pan.

At our house we eat lots of bread. We have a breadmaker, and we make about four loaves of bread each week. It only takes a teaspoon of salt for a loaf of bread—not enough to make the bread taste salty. But a few times I have left out the salt out of the bread, and it tastes bad.

Do you remember those advertisements for Morton’s salt: “Every watermelon worth its salt is worth Mortons”? I don’t put salt on my watermelon, but it’s true that a few grains of salt do make the watermelon taste sweeter.

C. In ancient times salt also had a sort of mystical meaning.

I suppose that because salt kills germs and pathogens, salt became a symbol for purity. The Old Testament rules specified that all sacrifices offered at the Tabernacle of Temple were to be seasoned with salt.

In Bible times salt was used to seal covenants. Still in the Arab countries, I understand that to eat salt with someone is to commit oneself to faithful friendship.

II. So when Jesus told his followers that they were “the salt of the earth,” it was a metaphor that would have had deep meaning for them. It also has deep meaning for us.

A. Christian believers, if they are living for Jesus, are a good influence in an evil world.

There are a lot of evil things going on in the world, but we who are followers of Jesus are a good influence—at least we should be. Godly people create goodness in the world.

Salt isn’t noisy. It doesn’t bubble up in our food, or change its color. In fact—unless we use too much—we can’t usually even taste it.

We Christians aren’t supposed to be noisy or obnoxious. We do our best work when we do it quietly.

It doesn’t take a multitude of Christians to change a conversation—

…just one person not laughing at an off-color joke.

…just one person sticking up for a person being criticized.

…just one person with a word of faith.

Many books have been published recently about evils of religion.

People have done terrible things in the name of Christianity—persecutions, wars, bigotry, hypocrisy, self-righteous judging—and it a shame such things happen.

But at the same time, much good has been done in the name of Jesus.

In our city both hospitals were founded by Christian people—Catholics founded Mercy, and Methodists founded St. Luke’s

Our two colleges were also founded by Christians.

Food pantries and homeless shelters are mostly run by Christians.

I read an article by an atheist praising the good work of various Christian missions in Africa—healing the sick, caring for orphans, educating children, combating evil customs…

We should be constantly looking for ways that we can express the love of Jesus to needy people—and, as you know, there are plenty of needy people in this building.

Some people say they have quit going to church because they don’t get anything out of it.

Those people don’t understand the real reason why people go to church. We don’t go to church for ourselves but for others. I am sure that in days gone by in your churches you found many ways to serve your fellow believers—teaching, cooking, cleaning, singing, encouraging—sometimes “rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep.”

We Christians should be the nicest people in the world. We should be constantly thinking about how we can cheer other people—by courtesy and consideration, honest compliments, a listening ear, kind words…

But it’s not enough to be only “nice.” Someone observed that Jesus didn’t say, “You are the honey of the earth” but “You are the salt of the earth.”

Sometimes telling the truth hurts. Sometimes faithfulness means correction—but if we ever think we need to correct someone let us be sure that we do it with gentleness, with consideration for the other person’s feelings.

In Ephesians (4:15) we read that we are to speak the truth in love. If we can’t speak the truth in love, we’d better keep quiet until we can.

In Colossians 4:6 St. Paul writes, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.”

Speech that is “seasoned with salt” is speech that is gracious, considerate, compassionate, helpful.

We can’t all be clever, but we can all be gracious.

Some of us talk too much. And when we do our speech becomes insipid, dull, tasteless.

B. But if salt loses its savor it is useless. And there’s nothing so useless as a useless religious person. (I won’t say “useless Christian” because “useless Christian” is a contradiction of terms.)

Useless religious people actually do more harm in the world than unbelievers because people look at them and say, “If that’s what Christians are, I don’t want to be one.”

A so-called “Christian” who has no savor of Christ about him or her is doing the devil’s work of turning people away from God.

To be no influence for good is to be an influence for evil.

When Jesus tells us that savorless salt is no good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot he is warning us about the dreadful consequences of uselessness.

In another passage Jesus compared his followers to branches of a grape vine. He said, “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:6).

CONCLUSION

You and I have no idea how many people have influenced us for good. Sometimes it was simply a word of encouragement or a kind action. The kind actions have been long forgotten, but they have changed us.

Children copy the people they admire unconsciously. Did you ever notice how children adopt the mannerisms and attitudes of their parents? If you have lived for God you have influenced many people for good whether you know it or not. I believe that when you get to heaven you may be surprised at how much good you have done in the world without knowing it.

That is why salt is such a good metaphor for what Jesus is talking about. Salt is subtle. It is usually not noticed. But when it is absent—in the oatmeal or in the bread—it is noticed. A schoolboy said, “Salt is the stuff that when you don’t put it in the oatmeal, it makes it taste nasty.”

Did you ever receive a compliment or a kind word that just made your day?

I’ve heard people say, when they received a compliment or a kind word: “Thanks, I needed that.” That’s what we all need from one another—some indication that we are important to them.

We want other people to know that we care about them—because that’s what we all want, for people to care about us.

Too many people go through life looking for what they can get out of it. But useful people go through life looking for what they can give to others.

And that’s what we’re here for, to serve God by serving others.

Some of us may become discouraged because we look back and see no great things that we’ve done for God. I remember the saying of Mother Teresa: “We can do no great things for God; we can only do little things with great love.”

I’ve been told of short film entitled Packy. In it God talks with Packy Rowe, a gruff, good-hearted man who has died thinking he didn’t amount to much spiritually. God tells him otherwise. “You spread me around like butter,” God says. “You might have been happier with yourself if you had known how happy I was with you.”