Some parts of the Bible are really difficult to understand. Some parts we will never understand, at least, not while we are on this earth. But sometimes, if we are patient and diligent, we will find something important for our lives in the most difficult parts.
LUKE 8.26-39: THE STORY OF A MAN CALLED “LEGION”:
OR HOW A MADMAN BECAME A MESSENGER
INTRODUCTION
In his great book, In the Beginning, Chaim Potok tells the story of David, a young Jewish boy in New York who is hungry for knowledge.
He is studying the Hebrew Bible with a wise man named Mr. Bader.
At one point in the story David becomes very troubled by a passage in Genesis that he doesn’t understand. It is something in the story of Noah. David has read the commentaries ad the scholars disagree violently.
David is tells his father of his frustration. His father then shares something he learned long ago. The father says, “It is as important to learn the important questions as it is the important answers. It is especially important to learn the questions to which there may not be good answers. We have to learn to live with questions….I am glad that Mr. Bader is a good teacher, and I am glad that he tells you truthfully that he does not have answers to all our questions.”
The story we are going to talk about today is one that I have always wondered about because there are things in it that I don’t understand at all.
But sometimes the most difficult parts of the Bible are the ones from which we can learn the most if we are just patient and willing to learn even from stories we don’t understand completely.
It is the story of the man Jesus met who said that he had within him a whole mob of demons.
Read: Luke 8:26-39
I. First, let’s think about the sad predicament of the poor mad man who rushed to Jesus, just as he got off the boat.
A. Picture the scene: The man was naked. He was crazy. He was dangerous. He was dirty and disheveled. He lived by himself in a graveyard. According to Mark’s version of the story he was “always howling and bruising himself with stones.”
The man fell down before Jesus and cried out: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.”
“For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.”
The man has named Jesus; now Jesus asks him for his name.
“Legion!” he screams. He believes he is possessed by thousands of demons.
B. A little background…
The man was what we would call a maniac.
He lives among the tombs.
Graves were considered “unclean” by the Jews. They whitewashed their sepulchers so that no one would accidentally touch one because if you did, you would become unclean too
The man is violent. The authorities have arrested him, put him under guard, bound him with chains, but he has always escaped and been driven into the deserted area by his demons.
There he lives, naked, by himself, feared by all.
He is so tormented that he thinks that he has thousands of demons inside him. (A legion is 5-6000 Roman soldiers. His country was occupied and controlled by hated Roman legions. In the eyes of the conquered people they were evil. It’s like he has an army of these monsters inside him making him crazy.)
C. Now my mind is filled with questions:
1. Were there really demons inside this man, or did he have what we call schizophrenia?
2. Why did the man rush at Jesus and fall at his feet? He acts like he wants Jesus to go away and yet he comes to him and falls to the ground before him.
3. Did the demons really go into the pigs? And did the demons really drown themselves?
4. Why did Jesus send the man away after he had begged to follow him? Remember, he told the leper, “Don’t tell anyone.” But he told this man to go home and tell what had happened to him.
II. So how can we understand the story?
A. If we saw this man in Cedar Rapids today we would say he was mentally ill. He had delusions. His mind was unhinged from reality.
Charlotte and I worked in a mental hospital. We saw many patients who in Jesus’s time would have been considered “demon-possessed.”
They were violent. Sometimes they had to be restrained to keep them from hurting themselves or others.
With the proper medications they would become calm, and often the symptoms of the disease would disappear.
Once, on the theory that a patient was demon-possessed, I remember that once some church people came into the hospital to get the demon out by prayer. I don’t think they had any success.
But people who visit other cultures tell convincing stories about possession and cures through prayer.
Let me share with you an account that came in a letter the just two days ago from a mission that works with the Dimasa tribe in North India.
The gospel has only recently come to these people.
New Christians in that tribe are now translating a primer for teaching their people to read.
One of the translators is Gbisni.
Gbisni’s sister was possessed with 12 evil spirits.
The Hindu priests wouldn’t help. They were using her as a medium to communicate with these spirits.
Gbsini’s parents took her to an Imam at a mosque to see if he could help their daughter, but the evil spirits were too powerful: the girl ended up biting the Imam who then freed himself with a cutting tool, injuring her badly.
Finally, Gbisni took his sister to some Christians nearby. He informed the Hindu priests that if the God of the Christians could free his sister, he would convert to Christianity and would take baptism.
He also told the Hindu priests that he would remain a Hindu forever if they could free his sister.
The God of the Christians freed his sister from the evil spirits and Gbisni became a faithful follower of Jesus.
Jesus saw the powers of evil behind all sorts of physical and mental suffering. We are so used to looking for natural causes that we are usually unaware of the role Satan plays in the troubles of the world.
This story is a powerful parable of how Jesus battles back the forces of evil to bring about peace and goodness in a world of suffering and sin.
People in ancient times lived in a dangerous world. Besides earthquakes, floods, famines, disease, and war, they had the fear that the world around them was thickly populated with demonic powers. They were convinced that the demons could enter ones body through his ears, nose or mouth. They used amulets, magic, sacrifices, and rituals to appease or escape these spiritual powers.
This story would assure the early Christian believers that Jesus was more powerful than these horrible powers. It was a comfort to know that Jesus Christ had conquered the “principalities and powers.”
B. And why did the man rush up to Jesus, and yet cry out as if he wanted Jesus to go away?
I believe that the man rushed up to Jesus and threw himself down because he wanted deliverance, but at the same time the evil spirit inside him cried out against Jesus.
But notice that his cry came after Jesus had ordered the demons to be gone.
I believe that Jesus was responding to the man’s need and even the shred of faith that the man possessed.
Pigs were, to Jews, unclean, filthy beasts. They help us see the horribleness of the scene: the violent, naked man, living among unclean tombs, tormented by an army or horrible evil spirits, and an enormous herd of filthy pigs. The whole picture is depressing, and as such it is an environment in which Jesus can impressively show his power and goodness.
Some people—trying to read between the lines—say that maybe the man, in his violence hurled himself against the pigs and set them into the stampede. If this is so, it served God’s purpose in assuring the man that his filthy tormentors were indeed gone forever and would never come back.
III. As you can see, we don’t have answers to all my questions, but what is the point of the story? What is in it that is important for you and me?
A. Every one of Jesus’s miracles was a “sign.” Jesus didn’t just do impossible things to amaze people, or even just to prove that he was God.
Jesus opened the eyes of the blind to show that he is the light of the world.
Jesus unstopped the ears of the deaf to show how he opens our ears to hear God’s truth.
Jesus makes the lame to walk to show how he gives us wisdom to walk in the paths of righteousness.
Jesus cleansed the leper to show how he cleanses us from the uncleanness of sin.
Jesus raised the dead to show that he is the Resurrection and the Life.
Jesus stilled storms at sea to show how he calms the storms in our lives.
Jesus fed the multitudes with miraculously-produced bread to illustrate that he is the “Bread of Life.”
So the expelling of the demons afflicting poor Legion shows that Jesus is even more powerful than the evil that infects and afflicts the world.
So each of these miracles was an act of compassion and also a sign of God’s kingdom breaking into the world.
Each miracle was also a parable of how Christ works in your life and mine.
B. It might surprise us to see that the townspeople were afraid, when they came and saw the man they had feared, now clothed and in his right mind. They were probably glad that the poor crazy man was healed, but the didn’t approve of the destruction of all those pigs. So they begged Jesus to please go away.
But Jesus teaches us the relative value of money and lives. Jesus says, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his soul?”
Someone said, “All down through the ages the world has been refusing Jesus because the world prefers pigs.”
C. But I think the most interesting part of the story, and the most instructive part is the ending.
See the man sitting at the feet of Jesus (v35). He has become a disciple. He is now in the learner’s pose. Sitting there listening and learning.
And he had a lot to learn in a short time because although he begged to go with Jesus, Jesus has something more important for him to do. He’s going to be Jesus’s first missionary to the Gentile world!
“Return to your home,” he says, “and declare how much God has done for you.”
Maybe Legion didn’t know much, but he had a great story. And sometimes the most effective evangelist is not the one who has the most theology but the one who has the best story.
You don’t need to know much theology to “declare how much God has done for you.”
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of our story I told you that I didn’t have all the answers.
And now you know that that’s true.
But, you see, we don’t have to have all the answers to hear God talking to us.
And I hear God telling us in this story that Jesus can heal, and he can deliver us from all those things that torment us.
And I hear God telling us: “Declare how much God has done for you.”
I’ll leave you with these words from 1 Peter 2:9:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Stories of Jesus: Luke 7:1-10: The Man Who Astonished Jesus
Probably we all have disappointed Jesus, maybe many times. But do you know that it’s also possible to pleasantly surprise Jesus too? In Luke we have the story of a man who astonished Jesus, and that man is an example for all of us.
LUKE 7:1-10: THE MAN WHO ASTONISHED JESUS
INTRODUCTION
When I was in Korea serving in the artillery during the Korean War, the captain of our battery was a man we called “The Hook.” I don’t remember his real name, but we always called him “The Hook,” because he was so mean. Of course, he never knew we called him that; if we ever had occasion to address him, it was always “Sir” or “Captain.” But we hardly ever had occasion to speak to him because we avoided him whenever possible. If we saw the captain approaching we would walk behind a tent or change our direction to avoid him.
Maybe our captain believed he was obliged to behave in this harsh, abusive way because we were a bunch of draftees who hated the army and all it stood for and only longed to go home and be away from the war and the army.
I should add that not all battery commanders were cruel. We had another one who was considerate, and we appreciated him. But he was unusual.
In the story from the gospel that I am going to read to you the hero is a Roman centurion. A centurion was the commander of 100 troops. He had the same responsibility as our battery commander or a captain in the infantry.
Read Luke 7:1-10
I. Notice how unusual this centurion was.
A. The first thing we notice about the centurion is that he was kind. He loved his slave.
My version says he “had a slave who was dear to him.”
Some translations read he “had a slave who was valuable to him.”
The Greek word can mean “honored” or “respected,” or it can mean “precious” or “valuable.”
We might suppose that this slave had some special skill that made his master prize him. Maybe he was good at keeping accounts or repairing armor.
But I think my translation is the right one. I believe that the centurion loved his slave.
Everything we read about this military man is positive, and the fact that Jesus responded to him so warmly convinces me that he was the kind of master who loved his servants.
And the slave evidently loved his master, and that made him valuable to him.
B. The second thing we notice is that he is God-fearing.
Most Gentiles didn’t like Jews. They considered Jews “different.” I don’t know just why Jews were disliked; maybe it was because they were so different.
They had odd customs. They ate different food. They refused to take part in the pagan festivals. They were clannish. They tried to avoid having anything to do with Gentiles unless it was absolutely necessary.
There were certain foods the Jews were forbidden to eat. The effect of their dietary laws was to keep the Jews separate from the Gentiles. They couldn’t eat with Gentiles because then they would have been obliged them to eat pork or other foods that were forbidden. Jews didn’t even enter the homes of Gentiles.
But some Greeks and Romans were attracted to Jewish ways. They were disgusted with the vice and immorality of their pagan society. They understood the beauty of holy living as taught in the Old Testament.
Without becoming Jews themselves, these Romans or Greeks would go to the synagogues and learn about the God of Israel and try to follow the Jewish way of life that was so much superior to the idolatrous ways of their own people.
They were called “God fearers.” We meet some of these God fearers in the book of Acts. Cornelius was one. Lydia was another. Often the most eager converts to Christianity in those early days were these God fearing Gentiles. They already knew the Old Testament stories and they were ready to believe that Jesus was the Promised Savior.
C. The third thing we notice about this man is that he was loved by the people of the city.
This was unusual for a Roman military man to be loved by Jews in a land the Romans were occupying. Jews generally hated the Roman conquerors. When a Jew came upon a Roman in the street, he might spit on the ground to show his contempt.
Jewish terrorists would murder Roman soldiers if they could get away with it.
But when this centurion’s servant was dying, the Jewish elders of the city went to Jesus to intercede for the centurion.
D. The fourth thing we notice about the centurion is his generosity.
So this Centurion’s generosity combined with his piety to led him to use his own funds to build a meeting house—a synagogue—in the important city where he and his soldiers were stationed, Capernaum.
The elders tell Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.”
Love and generosity always go together. You can’t love without being generous if it is in your power to do something for the one you love.
This centurion reminds me of a story Viktor Frankl tells in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jew and was an inmate in a concentration camp during World War 2.
The camp was a cruel place and most of the prisoners died. But Frankl survived.
Frankl tells about the SS commander of the camp he was in just before the liberation.
This man was a Nazi, but unknown to all of the camp inmates except the Jewish doctor, this Nazi had been using his own money to buy medicine for the treatment of sick prisoners.
At the end of the war the prisoners learned of his kindness, and three Hungarian Jews hid the Nazi in the Bavarian woods. Then they went to the American commander, who was very anxious to capture the man. The Hungarian Jews told the American general that they would tell where this Nazi was, but only if he would promise that absolutely no harm would come to the man.
After a while, the general promised the young Jews that the SS commander would be kept safe from harm. And he kept his word.
A surprising story? Not more surprising than the story of a Roman centurion who loved and helped the conquered people his army was there to subdue.
II. Two other things stand out about this Roman that make him unique in the stories of Jesus. And these are the point of the story.
A. First of all, his humility. Military commanders are not noted for their humility. It isn’t a trait that helps they get ahead.
The Jewish elders told Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”
But when Jesus set out to come to him, the centurion sent this message to Jesus: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…”
Did you know that in the time of Jesus pagans didn’t think of humility as a virtue?
One of the things the pagan philosophers held against Christianity was that it welcomed slaves and poor people and uneducated and uncultured people. They thought that these humble Christians must have no self-respect.
Celsus was a second century pagan who wrote books attacking the Christians. To him the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was utterly blasphemous. It was one of the things he held against Christians that they were so low minded as to picture God, not only as crucified, but also washing people’s dirty feet.
But the centurion had learned from the Hebrew scriptures that he was unworthy of God’s mercy.
There was another reason why the centurion discouraged Jesus from coming to his house.
The Jews believed that it was offensive to enter a Gentile house, just as it would have been offensive to invite a Gentile into one of their houses.
The centurion knew that if Jesus entered his house, Jesus would have been criticized.
It was his sensitivity and his courtesy to Jesus that led him to send his friends to urge Jesus just to say the word of healing and not come into his house.
B. But what really surprised and amazed and pleased Jesus was the man’s faith.
We read of only one other time that Jesus was amazed. It was when he visited his hometown of Nazareth, and, we read, “he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-6). If anyone should have been able to believe in Jesus, it seems that it would be those who knew him best.
This godly centurion had a deep insight into the ways of God that Jesus’s Jewish listeners lacked.
He said, “Say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’”
He had figured out that God was Lord of heaven and earth. And he had figured out that in this man Jesus, God was personally present and active.
So he drew the connection between the delegated authority he exercised in commanding his soldiers and the authority God had given Jesus to do these wonderful works.
And that was the faith that amazed Jesus.
Jesus was used to rewarding the faith of people who had a very low-grade kind of faith. Remember the woman who crept up behind Jesus because she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Her faith was a sort of superstitious faith, but Jesus honored it. In that case, Jesus singled her out and made sure that she understood that it was her faith that healed her and not some kind of magic that came from his clothes.
He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34).
But the centurion had the most shining, splendid faith; he invited Jesus to cure his slave at a distance.
And Jesus marveled. He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”
CONCLUSION
This centurion is an example to us.
He was humble. He knew he didn’t deserve anything.
He was loving and generous—beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected of him.
And especially he believed.
Faith is not optimism. Faith is not hoping hard. Faith is believing God.
I can’t tell you how to get faith.
The only thing I know is that the more I pray, and reflect on God’s Word, and the more I try to please God in what I do, the stronger my faith becomes.
My prayer for myself and for you is that God will give us strong faith, faith so strong and real that God is as real to us as the person sitting beside us.
I doubt that we will ever amaze God with our faith, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did?
LUKE 7:1-10: THE MAN WHO ASTONISHED JESUS
INTRODUCTION
When I was in Korea serving in the artillery during the Korean War, the captain of our battery was a man we called “The Hook.” I don’t remember his real name, but we always called him “The Hook,” because he was so mean. Of course, he never knew we called him that; if we ever had occasion to address him, it was always “Sir” or “Captain.” But we hardly ever had occasion to speak to him because we avoided him whenever possible. If we saw the captain approaching we would walk behind a tent or change our direction to avoid him.
Maybe our captain believed he was obliged to behave in this harsh, abusive way because we were a bunch of draftees who hated the army and all it stood for and only longed to go home and be away from the war and the army.
I should add that not all battery commanders were cruel. We had another one who was considerate, and we appreciated him. But he was unusual.
In the story from the gospel that I am going to read to you the hero is a Roman centurion. A centurion was the commander of 100 troops. He had the same responsibility as our battery commander or a captain in the infantry.
Read Luke 7:1-10
I. Notice how unusual this centurion was.
A. The first thing we notice about the centurion is that he was kind. He loved his slave.
My version says he “had a slave who was dear to him.”
Some translations read he “had a slave who was valuable to him.”
The Greek word can mean “honored” or “respected,” or it can mean “precious” or “valuable.”
We might suppose that this slave had some special skill that made his master prize him. Maybe he was good at keeping accounts or repairing armor.
But I think my translation is the right one. I believe that the centurion loved his slave.
Everything we read about this military man is positive, and the fact that Jesus responded to him so warmly convinces me that he was the kind of master who loved his servants.
And the slave evidently loved his master, and that made him valuable to him.
B. The second thing we notice is that he is God-fearing.
Most Gentiles didn’t like Jews. They considered Jews “different.” I don’t know just why Jews were disliked; maybe it was because they were so different.
They had odd customs. They ate different food. They refused to take part in the pagan festivals. They were clannish. They tried to avoid having anything to do with Gentiles unless it was absolutely necessary.
There were certain foods the Jews were forbidden to eat. The effect of their dietary laws was to keep the Jews separate from the Gentiles. They couldn’t eat with Gentiles because then they would have been obliged them to eat pork or other foods that were forbidden. Jews didn’t even enter the homes of Gentiles.
But some Greeks and Romans were attracted to Jewish ways. They were disgusted with the vice and immorality of their pagan society. They understood the beauty of holy living as taught in the Old Testament.
Without becoming Jews themselves, these Romans or Greeks would go to the synagogues and learn about the God of Israel and try to follow the Jewish way of life that was so much superior to the idolatrous ways of their own people.
They were called “God fearers.” We meet some of these God fearers in the book of Acts. Cornelius was one. Lydia was another. Often the most eager converts to Christianity in those early days were these God fearing Gentiles. They already knew the Old Testament stories and they were ready to believe that Jesus was the Promised Savior.
C. The third thing we notice about this man is that he was loved by the people of the city.
This was unusual for a Roman military man to be loved by Jews in a land the Romans were occupying. Jews generally hated the Roman conquerors. When a Jew came upon a Roman in the street, he might spit on the ground to show his contempt.
Jewish terrorists would murder Roman soldiers if they could get away with it.
But when this centurion’s servant was dying, the Jewish elders of the city went to Jesus to intercede for the centurion.
D. The fourth thing we notice about the centurion is his generosity.
So this Centurion’s generosity combined with his piety to led him to use his own funds to build a meeting house—a synagogue—in the important city where he and his soldiers were stationed, Capernaum.
The elders tell Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.”
Love and generosity always go together. You can’t love without being generous if it is in your power to do something for the one you love.
This centurion reminds me of a story Viktor Frankl tells in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jew and was an inmate in a concentration camp during World War 2.
The camp was a cruel place and most of the prisoners died. But Frankl survived.
Frankl tells about the SS commander of the camp he was in just before the liberation.
This man was a Nazi, but unknown to all of the camp inmates except the Jewish doctor, this Nazi had been using his own money to buy medicine for the treatment of sick prisoners.
At the end of the war the prisoners learned of his kindness, and three Hungarian Jews hid the Nazi in the Bavarian woods. Then they went to the American commander, who was very anxious to capture the man. The Hungarian Jews told the American general that they would tell where this Nazi was, but only if he would promise that absolutely no harm would come to the man.
After a while, the general promised the young Jews that the SS commander would be kept safe from harm. And he kept his word.
A surprising story? Not more surprising than the story of a Roman centurion who loved and helped the conquered people his army was there to subdue.
II. Two other things stand out about this Roman that make him unique in the stories of Jesus. And these are the point of the story.
A. First of all, his humility. Military commanders are not noted for their humility. It isn’t a trait that helps they get ahead.
The Jewish elders told Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”
But when Jesus set out to come to him, the centurion sent this message to Jesus: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…”
Did you know that in the time of Jesus pagans didn’t think of humility as a virtue?
One of the things the pagan philosophers held against Christianity was that it welcomed slaves and poor people and uneducated and uncultured people. They thought that these humble Christians must have no self-respect.
Celsus was a second century pagan who wrote books attacking the Christians. To him the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet was utterly blasphemous. It was one of the things he held against Christians that they were so low minded as to picture God, not only as crucified, but also washing people’s dirty feet.
But the centurion had learned from the Hebrew scriptures that he was unworthy of God’s mercy.
There was another reason why the centurion discouraged Jesus from coming to his house.
The Jews believed that it was offensive to enter a Gentile house, just as it would have been offensive to invite a Gentile into one of their houses.
The centurion knew that if Jesus entered his house, Jesus would have been criticized.
It was his sensitivity and his courtesy to Jesus that led him to send his friends to urge Jesus just to say the word of healing and not come into his house.
B. But what really surprised and amazed and pleased Jesus was the man’s faith.
We read of only one other time that Jesus was amazed. It was when he visited his hometown of Nazareth, and, we read, “he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5-6). If anyone should have been able to believe in Jesus, it seems that it would be those who knew him best.
This godly centurion had a deep insight into the ways of God that Jesus’s Jewish listeners lacked.
He said, “Say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’”
He had figured out that God was Lord of heaven and earth. And he had figured out that in this man Jesus, God was personally present and active.
So he drew the connection between the delegated authority he exercised in commanding his soldiers and the authority God had given Jesus to do these wonderful works.
And that was the faith that amazed Jesus.
Jesus was used to rewarding the faith of people who had a very low-grade kind of faith. Remember the woman who crept up behind Jesus because she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Her faith was a sort of superstitious faith, but Jesus honored it. In that case, Jesus singled her out and made sure that she understood that it was her faith that healed her and not some kind of magic that came from his clothes.
He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34).
But the centurion had the most shining, splendid faith; he invited Jesus to cure his slave at a distance.
And Jesus marveled. He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”
CONCLUSION
This centurion is an example to us.
He was humble. He knew he didn’t deserve anything.
He was loving and generous—beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected of him.
And especially he believed.
Faith is not optimism. Faith is not hoping hard. Faith is believing God.
I can’t tell you how to get faith.
The only thing I know is that the more I pray, and reflect on God’s Word, and the more I try to please God in what I do, the stronger my faith becomes.
My prayer for myself and for you is that God will give us strong faith, faith so strong and real that God is as real to us as the person sitting beside us.
I doubt that we will ever amaze God with our faith, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Resurrection of Christ: Matthew 28:1-10: The Glory of Resurrection Morning
The day Jesus rose from the dead had to be the most exciting day in the life of the world. Only a few people in an obscure corner of the world knew about the event, but it changed the world.
MATTHEW 28:1-10: THE GLORY OF RESURRECTION MORNING
INTRODUCTION
Thomas Jefferson was a great president, and he had a great respect for the gospel stories. Jefferson liked the teachings of Jesus about love and forgiveness, and he liked the parts where Jesus scolded the Pharisees. But he didn’t believe in miracles. So Thomas Jefferson made his own personal copy of the gospels. He took two printed New Testaments and with a razor cut out all the parts about healing and stilling storms and angels and demons. He ended up with a little Bible of 17 chapters with 89 pages. His Bible starts with Bethlehem, but there are no angels or shepherds or wise men. There is no Temptation or Transfiguration, and—especially—there is no resurrection.
Jefferson translated his little Bible into French, Latin, and Greek and had it printed up. If you want one, you can still buy a copy. Or you can read it on the Internet.
Jefferson’s Bible ends with these words: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden was a new sepulcher wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus. And they rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.”
And that’s the ending of the Jefferson Bible.
Aren’t you glad that that is not the way our gospel story ends? St. Paul says it for us in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (vv17-19).
I. Today, I would like to look with you at the story of what happened on Resurrection Sunday according to the Gospel of Matthew 28:1-10.
A. The first thing that strikes you is how dramatic the event was.
The two women go to the tomb and “behold, there was a great earthquake!”
An angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls back the stone, and sits upon it.
His appearance is like lightning and his clothes white as snow.
The guards tremble and become like dead men.
Then the angel says to the women—what angels always say in the Bible—“Fear not!”
I can imagine that the two women were as afraid as the guards were—and as you or I would be if we saw an angel shining like lightning in front of us.
And the angel said, “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come; see the place where he lay.”
Now I want you to notice that it doesn’t say the angel rolled the stone away so that Jesus could escape from the tomb.
No, Jesus has already risen. He has gone. The angel rolled the stone away so the women could see the place where he had been laid. God wanted eyewitnesses to the empty tomb.
And the angel told the women: “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo I have told you.”
“So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”
“Fear and great joy!” Fear because they had experienced an earthquake and seen an angel: an experience like that would overwhelm all the senses. They were afraid.
But they were overjoyed too. The fear may have been “great,” but the joy was greater.
In just a few minutes they had gone from the deepest sadness of their lives to the greatest joy imaginable.
Can’t you just see those ladies running down the road, their skirts flying, as they carry the great good news they had to share?
B. And then Jesus himself meets them!
Jesus says, according to my Bible, “Hail!” This is the Greek word for “rejoice,” and it was the common word for “Greetings,” or, as we say, “Hello.”
Then the women take hold of Jesus’s feet and worship him.
That word for “worship” means literally to prostrate oneself before someone—like a great king or a god.
Matthew likes to show people worshiping Jesus. The wise men worshiped the baby Jesus.
After Jesus stilled the storm, his disciples worshiped him.
A leper knelt before him and made his request—it’s the same word—and also Jairus, the synagogue ruler, and the Canaanite woman. Again at the end of Matthew in v17 when the disciples see Jesus, they worship him.
That’s what we are supposed to be doing. That’s why we come together—more than any other reason—to worship Jesus with our praise and thanksgiving.
And Jesus says, “Fear not; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
C. Now here is something amazing! Jesus was unusual among the important men of his time, in that he had so much respect for women.
Women are usually in the background in the gospel stories, but they are much more prominent in the gospels than they would have been in the general society of the day.
When the disciples got back from Samaria with the provisions we read that they “marveled that he was talking with a woman.”
When Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus’s feet and he taught her; that would have been unusual.
Other rabbis didn’t think that women had the mental capacity to be taught the things of God.
We know the names of several of Jesus’s female friends: Susanna, Joanna, Martha, Salome, and at least three Marys besides his mother.
And there are several who are unnamed but have important parts in the various stories: the woman who crept up behind Jesus to touch his clothes and be healed; the Caananite woman, of whom he said, “O woman, great is your faith!”; and the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet and washed them with her tears.
But in those days a woman was simply not a credible witness. Her woman’s testimony was useless in a court of law.
That is why it is remarkable that Jesus chose women to be the first witnesses to his resurrection and sent them to be apostles to the apostles.
Jesus could have just as well appeared to any of the male apostles, but he chose to appear first to women.
I think it was because the women loved him best.
That is why the women were there at the tomb that Sunday morning. We know what the men were doing: they were hiding somewhere in the city with the doors locked.
II. Now I want to tell you what struck me most about this story as I was studying it.
A. The story of the crucifixion is a straightforward narrative, told in matter-of-fact language.
Each one includes different details, but they all fit together neatly.
We can see Calvary in our minds. We can imagine we are there.
B. But the stories of Resurrection Morning are so different that we are hard-pressed to try to fit them together into one narrative.
In Matthew—2 women—Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph come to the tomb. Jesus meets them on the road. We don’t read why they came except to see the sepulcher. Matthew is the only one who tells about the earthquake, the guards, and the angel whose appearance was like lightning.
In Mark—3 women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome come with spices to anoint the body. The see the open tomb, enter and see a young man sitting arrayed in a white robe who gives them the news about Jesus.
In Luke—even more women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women come with spices. They entered the tomb and find two men in dazzling apparel who give them the news.
In John--only Mary Magdalene. She sees the stone rolled away and runs and brings Peter and John back. Then Peter and John enter the tomb, see that it's empty, and go home, Mary lingers weeping and sees two angels in white sitting inside the tomb. They ask her why she is weeping. Then she turns and sees Jesus.
Historians say that the differences actually prove that these are honest reports. If Jesus’s friends had gotten together to invent a story to publish to the world, they would have made one up, and everything would have fit together.
The fact that there were different versions means that it is like eyewitness accounts of events in real life.
I believe that the reason why the details vary in the different accounts is because of the overwhelming excitement of the event. The experiences were so unexpected and so amazing that the participants had different stories to tell.
As they told their stories, the stories were told and retold and different elements were emphasized.
But there was never any doubt about the main event among the Christian community: the tomb was empty and Jesus was alive!
But all of the gospel accounts of the Resurrection agree on these main things:
Jesus was alive.
The stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
An angel announced the news of the Resurrection.
It was women who first saw Jesus and carried the good news to the apostles.
It was an overwhelming experience.
It wasn’t visions they were having. What the believers were seeing wasn’t something just in their minds.
I believe that if you had been there with a camera, you could have taken a picture of Jesus.
II. So what difference does it make to us?
A. By raising Jesus from the dead in such a public way, God shows us what the death of Jesus means: victory over sin and death and the devil.
God could have just taken Jesus from the tomb to heaven, but then we would have thought—like poor Thomas Jefferson—that that was the end of the story.
B. By raising Jesus from the dead, God teaches us that all of us who are united with Christ in faith will rise from our deaths to eternal life with our Lord in Glory.
In Galatians 2:20 St. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
1 Peter 1.1-3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
CONCLUSION
In old Russia a service was held every Easter Sunday afternoon in each village cemetery. After a service in the chapel, the people went to the graves of their loved ones.
Each family stood by the family plot in the cemetery beside the graves of their loved family members.
Then the priest, accompanied by the acolytes and choir led a procession through the cemetery singing the resurrection song: “Christ is Risen.”
The procession would circle the cemetery, stopping at each grave, and the priest would proclaim to the family members there: “Christ is risen!”
And each group joyfully repeated back to the priest: “Truly, he is risen!”
This is the point: Because Jesus rose from the dead, we rise with him.
Because Jesus rose to eternal life, so we rise with him to eternal life.
This is an old Celtic prayer I like to use:
“I rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with me.
As the oil of gladness pours upon you, it trickles onto me.
As the fire of love burns within you, it warms my heart.
As the breath of eternal life fills your body, I know that I shall live forever.
As you reach out to bless the world, I feel your embrace drawing me close.
I rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with me.”
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.”
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.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Living for Jesus: John 13:1-5, 12-17: When Jesus Washed the Feet of His Friends
Did you ever know someone who seemed to live for others? Not as a martyr, but as one whose greatest happiness in life is to make other people happy? Jesus was like that.
JOHN 13:1-5, 12-17: WHEN JESUS WASHED THE FEET OF HIS FRIENDS
INTRODUCTION
One of the favorite people in my life was my granny. She lived in Kansas City in a big three-story house. We loved to go there because she was such a loving person and because her house was so interesting. She had unusual toys to play with, a harmonium, and a third story with a dormer window you could look out of at what seemed like a great height. She had a radio with push-button tuning, something so one else we knew had. When we had breakfast at her house, she invited us children to go into her pantry, each to choose a jar of jam from her collection of jams for our breakfast toast.
One thing I remember about Granny’s house was a framed Bible verse above the steps to the second story. The letters appeared to be made of pearl. The verse was Romans 15:3: “Even Christ pleased not himself.”
I wondered about that verse. It seemed to say that even Jesus thought he fell short in some way.
But later I came to realize that what the verse meant was that Jesus was always thinking of pleasing other people, rather than himself. I know why Granny had that verse there—because that was how she tried to be—always thinking about the happiness of others.
I have been thinking about Jesus in this way.
When Jesus was arrested, he told his captors, “If you are looking for me, let these go.” And so he spared his disciples from sharing the tragedy he was facing (John 18:8).
When Jesus was carrying his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, some sympathetic women followed mourning and wailing for him. We read that Jesus turned and said to them, “Don’t weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children because of the disaster that will come on Jerusalem” (Luke 23:28).
When the soldiers had nailed Jesus to the cross, even in his terrible pain he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23; 34).
When the repentant thief turned to Jesus and asked to be remembered when Jesus came into his kingdom, Jesus kindly promised him: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
And then Jesus turned to his mother who was standing beneath the cross weeping and committed her to the care of his beloved disciple John: “Woman, here is your son…Son, here is your mother.” And the disciple took her to his home to spare her from the pain of seeing the death and to care for her for the rest of her life.
But I think the story of Jesus that illustrates this beautiful trait most clearly is the story of how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the last supper.
John 13:1-5 and 12-17
I. In that time the roads weren’t generally paved and people went barefooted or with only sandals on their feet.
A. When a guest came to a house, the host would typically assign a slave to do the kindness of washing the dirt and grime of the road from the feet of his guests. The cool water would not only cleanse away the dirt but would feel refreshing to the tired feet.
Sometimes if the host wanted to particularly honor a guest, he might bathe the guest’s feet himself.
This time Jesus is both the host and the slave. The action he does is both a kind gesture and a lesson with deep meaning for his disciples.
B. Picture the scene.
At a Passover dinner—which his was—the guests would recline on couches to eat.
They propped up their heads on their left hand and took the food or drink with their right one.
In this way their heads were close together, and their feet would be away from the table.
Jesus, we read, took off his outer garment and wrapped a towel around his waist.
He is now attired like a slave.
He takes a pitcher of water and a basin and goes from one to another, washing the feet of each of his disciples.
I don’t know whether the company gathered in that room was only the 12 disciples, whose names we read or whether some of the other disciples were there also, including the women who followed and served him.
I like to think that some of the women were there too.
C. Then Jesus used the opportunity to teach his friends something important about life.
He said, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (vv14-15).
If Jesus, the King of Glory, showed his Divine Majesty by washing the feet of his human brothers, how much more we should count it a privilege to serve others.
Jesus uses this opportunity to show his disciples what it means to be great in the kingdom of God. To be the greatest in the Kingdom of God is to be the servant of all.
Someone said, “When Jesus put on the towel and took up the pitcher and basin, it was not only to wash the dirt from their feet but also the proud feelings from their hearts.”
In the kingdoms of the world the greatest ones are the ones who have the most people serving them. In God’s kingdom the greatest ones are the servants.
It’s not natural to want to be a servant. It’s not natural but it’s beautiful.
If we as Christian believers are willing to serve others—even in difficult or humble ways—that is a great witness to the truth of the gospel.
I heard about a believer who, whenever he had a guest, shined the guest’s shoes. He had the right idea.
You who were wives can remember how many times you served your guests as you practiced the art of hospitality. If you did it cheerfully and with love, it was a ministry that pleased Jesus.
II. But there’s another even deeper meaning in the story.
A. This happened at the last supper, just before the part where Jesus took the bread and wine and offered it to the disciples as symbols of his body and blood given for them.
When Jesus took the bread and said, “This is my body,” and when he took the cup and said, “This is the blood of the covenant,” he was, in a sense, giving himself to them as their sin bearer.
He was illustrating the meaning of his soon coming death.
B. John doesn’t tell us the story of the last supper, but I think the account of Jesus washing the feet has something of the same meaning.
His action in washing their feet is symbolic of the service he would do by laying down his life for them.
Just as Jesus—in giving them bread and the cup—showed his friends how he would give himself for them on the Cross.
So he showed them—by washing the dirt from their feet—that he would cleanse their souls from sin by his death.
This story is about being loved by Jesus. In the first verse we read: “Jesus knew that his hour had come…having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
CONCLUSION
People like to boast about what sets them above other people, but the pleasure of believers is in the opportunities we have to serve.
I know that in your long lives you have had many opportunities to serve others—in the home, at work, in the church, and in your neighborhood.
I want you to know how pleased God is with your service because, when you served others, you were like Jesus.
A STORY
A young woman took a job in a long-term care facility as a nurse or nurse aide.
One of her first patients was a woman named Eileen. Eileen’s major health problem was that she had had an aneurysm burst in her brain, leaving her totally unconscious to the observing eye, and apparently unaware of anything that was going on around her. It was necessary to turn Eileen every hour to prevent bedsores, and she had to be fed through her stomach tube twice a day. Eileen never had visitors--there was no one who cared about her.
One of the other nurses said, "When it's this bad, you have to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation…." As a result, more and more Eileen came to be treated as a thing, with people just going in and doing their work and then leaving again as quickly as they could.
But this young nurse decided that she, in living out her Christian faith, would treat this woman differently. She talked to Eileen, sang to her, said encouraging things to her, and even brought her little gifts.
On Thanksgiving Day, however, the young nurse came to work reluctantly, wanting to be home on the holiday. As she entered Eileen's room, she knew she would be doing the normal tasks with no thanks whatsoever. So she decided to talk to Eileen. She said, "I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because it was supposed to be a day off. But now that I'm here, I'm glad. I came. I wouldn't have wanted to miss seeing you on Thanksgiving Day. Do you know that this is Thanksgiving Day?”
Just then the telephone rang and the nurse turned away from the bed to answer it. As she was talking, she turned to look back at Eileen.
Suddenly, she saw that Eileen was looking at her, crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she was shaking all over.”
That was the only emotion that Eileen ever showed, but it was enough to change the attitude of the entire staff toward her. Not much later Eileen died.
The young nurse said, "I keep thinking about her….It occurred to me that I owe her an awful lot. Except for Eileen, I might never have known what it's like to give myself to someone who can't give back.”
I like the story of Eileen and the young nurse because it illustrates what Jesus was trying to teach us in when he washed his disciples’ feet.
It gives us an idea of what it means to love like Jesus loved.
It gives us an idea of what it means to serve Jesus by serving others.
A Prayer
“Blessed Jesus,
who didst use thine own most precious life
for the redemption of thy human brothers and sisters,
giving no thought to ease or pleasure or worldly enrichment,
but filling up all thine hours and days
with deeds of self-denying love.
Give me the grace today to follow the road thou didn’t first tread,
and to thy name be all the glory and praise,
even to the very end.”
(John Baillie, Diary of Prayer, day 2, morning)
JOHN 13:1-5, 12-17: WHEN JESUS WASHED THE FEET OF HIS FRIENDS
INTRODUCTION
One of the favorite people in my life was my granny. She lived in Kansas City in a big three-story house. We loved to go there because she was such a loving person and because her house was so interesting. She had unusual toys to play with, a harmonium, and a third story with a dormer window you could look out of at what seemed like a great height. She had a radio with push-button tuning, something so one else we knew had. When we had breakfast at her house, she invited us children to go into her pantry, each to choose a jar of jam from her collection of jams for our breakfast toast.
One thing I remember about Granny’s house was a framed Bible verse above the steps to the second story. The letters appeared to be made of pearl. The verse was Romans 15:3: “Even Christ pleased not himself.”
I wondered about that verse. It seemed to say that even Jesus thought he fell short in some way.
But later I came to realize that what the verse meant was that Jesus was always thinking of pleasing other people, rather than himself. I know why Granny had that verse there—because that was how she tried to be—always thinking about the happiness of others.
I have been thinking about Jesus in this way.
When Jesus was arrested, he told his captors, “If you are looking for me, let these go.” And so he spared his disciples from sharing the tragedy he was facing (John 18:8).
When Jesus was carrying his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, some sympathetic women followed mourning and wailing for him. We read that Jesus turned and said to them, “Don’t weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children because of the disaster that will come on Jerusalem” (Luke 23:28).
When the soldiers had nailed Jesus to the cross, even in his terrible pain he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23; 34).
When the repentant thief turned to Jesus and asked to be remembered when Jesus came into his kingdom, Jesus kindly promised him: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
And then Jesus turned to his mother who was standing beneath the cross weeping and committed her to the care of his beloved disciple John: “Woman, here is your son…Son, here is your mother.” And the disciple took her to his home to spare her from the pain of seeing the death and to care for her for the rest of her life.
But I think the story of Jesus that illustrates this beautiful trait most clearly is the story of how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the last supper.
John 13:1-5 and 12-17
I. In that time the roads weren’t generally paved and people went barefooted or with only sandals on their feet.
A. When a guest came to a house, the host would typically assign a slave to do the kindness of washing the dirt and grime of the road from the feet of his guests. The cool water would not only cleanse away the dirt but would feel refreshing to the tired feet.
Sometimes if the host wanted to particularly honor a guest, he might bathe the guest’s feet himself.
This time Jesus is both the host and the slave. The action he does is both a kind gesture and a lesson with deep meaning for his disciples.
B. Picture the scene.
At a Passover dinner—which his was—the guests would recline on couches to eat.
They propped up their heads on their left hand and took the food or drink with their right one.
In this way their heads were close together, and their feet would be away from the table.
Jesus, we read, took off his outer garment and wrapped a towel around his waist.
He is now attired like a slave.
He takes a pitcher of water and a basin and goes from one to another, washing the feet of each of his disciples.
I don’t know whether the company gathered in that room was only the 12 disciples, whose names we read or whether some of the other disciples were there also, including the women who followed and served him.
I like to think that some of the women were there too.
C. Then Jesus used the opportunity to teach his friends something important about life.
He said, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (vv14-15).
If Jesus, the King of Glory, showed his Divine Majesty by washing the feet of his human brothers, how much more we should count it a privilege to serve others.
Jesus uses this opportunity to show his disciples what it means to be great in the kingdom of God. To be the greatest in the Kingdom of God is to be the servant of all.
Someone said, “When Jesus put on the towel and took up the pitcher and basin, it was not only to wash the dirt from their feet but also the proud feelings from their hearts.”
In the kingdoms of the world the greatest ones are the ones who have the most people serving them. In God’s kingdom the greatest ones are the servants.
It’s not natural to want to be a servant. It’s not natural but it’s beautiful.
If we as Christian believers are willing to serve others—even in difficult or humble ways—that is a great witness to the truth of the gospel.
I heard about a believer who, whenever he had a guest, shined the guest’s shoes. He had the right idea.
You who were wives can remember how many times you served your guests as you practiced the art of hospitality. If you did it cheerfully and with love, it was a ministry that pleased Jesus.
II. But there’s another even deeper meaning in the story.
A. This happened at the last supper, just before the part where Jesus took the bread and wine and offered it to the disciples as symbols of his body and blood given for them.
When Jesus took the bread and said, “This is my body,” and when he took the cup and said, “This is the blood of the covenant,” he was, in a sense, giving himself to them as their sin bearer.
He was illustrating the meaning of his soon coming death.
B. John doesn’t tell us the story of the last supper, but I think the account of Jesus washing the feet has something of the same meaning.
His action in washing their feet is symbolic of the service he would do by laying down his life for them.
Just as Jesus—in giving them bread and the cup—showed his friends how he would give himself for them on the Cross.
So he showed them—by washing the dirt from their feet—that he would cleanse their souls from sin by his death.
This story is about being loved by Jesus. In the first verse we read: “Jesus knew that his hour had come…having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
CONCLUSION
People like to boast about what sets them above other people, but the pleasure of believers is in the opportunities we have to serve.
I know that in your long lives you have had many opportunities to serve others—in the home, at work, in the church, and in your neighborhood.
I want you to know how pleased God is with your service because, when you served others, you were like Jesus.
A STORY
A young woman took a job in a long-term care facility as a nurse or nurse aide.
One of her first patients was a woman named Eileen. Eileen’s major health problem was that she had had an aneurysm burst in her brain, leaving her totally unconscious to the observing eye, and apparently unaware of anything that was going on around her. It was necessary to turn Eileen every hour to prevent bedsores, and she had to be fed through her stomach tube twice a day. Eileen never had visitors--there was no one who cared about her.
One of the other nurses said, "When it's this bad, you have to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation…." As a result, more and more Eileen came to be treated as a thing, with people just going in and doing their work and then leaving again as quickly as they could.
But this young nurse decided that she, in living out her Christian faith, would treat this woman differently. She talked to Eileen, sang to her, said encouraging things to her, and even brought her little gifts.
On Thanksgiving Day, however, the young nurse came to work reluctantly, wanting to be home on the holiday. As she entered Eileen's room, she knew she would be doing the normal tasks with no thanks whatsoever. So she decided to talk to Eileen. She said, "I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because it was supposed to be a day off. But now that I'm here, I'm glad. I came. I wouldn't have wanted to miss seeing you on Thanksgiving Day. Do you know that this is Thanksgiving Day?”
Just then the telephone rang and the nurse turned away from the bed to answer it. As she was talking, she turned to look back at Eileen.
Suddenly, she saw that Eileen was looking at her, crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she was shaking all over.”
That was the only emotion that Eileen ever showed, but it was enough to change the attitude of the entire staff toward her. Not much later Eileen died.
The young nurse said, "I keep thinking about her….It occurred to me that I owe her an awful lot. Except for Eileen, I might never have known what it's like to give myself to someone who can't give back.”
I like the story of Eileen and the young nurse because it illustrates what Jesus was trying to teach us in when he washed his disciples’ feet.
It gives us an idea of what it means to love like Jesus loved.
It gives us an idea of what it means to serve Jesus by serving others.
A Prayer
“Blessed Jesus,
who didst use thine own most precious life
for the redemption of thy human brothers and sisters,
giving no thought to ease or pleasure or worldly enrichment,
but filling up all thine hours and days
with deeds of self-denying love.
Give me the grace today to follow the road thou didn’t first tread,
and to thy name be all the glory and praise,
even to the very end.”
(John Baillie, Diary of Prayer, day 2, morning)
Friday, January 21, 2011
It Happened Last Sunday
This is not a sermon, but something interesting that happened at our service last Sunday that encouraged me.
It is my habit to greet everyone personally before each service, using the names of the residents I know and introducing myself to the ones I haven’t met before. Sunday there was new woman on the front row. She had a blank look on her face and was unresponsive to my greeting. The name “Anna” was written on her sweater, so I said, “Hello Anna, we’re glad you came. I’m Jim.” She still didn’t respond.
We began the service, and she began to show expression. After my message, as we were singing more hymns, I looked at her, and she was looking straight at me with an incredibly sweet, happy expression on her face. She was just beaming as she sang. In her expression I could see the happy little girl she had been 90 years ago. Her happiness lingered after the service.
We never know when something we do or say at our service will reach down deep into someone’s heart and bring to the surface memories and feelings from long ago. That is why we sing the old hymns and always repeat together the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm and sing the Doxology and the Gloria Patri.
And that is why we are always happy to have residents from "Memory Care” share our worship.
Jim
It is my habit to greet everyone personally before each service, using the names of the residents I know and introducing myself to the ones I haven’t met before. Sunday there was new woman on the front row. She had a blank look on her face and was unresponsive to my greeting. The name “Anna” was written on her sweater, so I said, “Hello Anna, we’re glad you came. I’m Jim.” She still didn’t respond.
We began the service, and she began to show expression. After my message, as we were singing more hymns, I looked at her, and she was looking straight at me with an incredibly sweet, happy expression on her face. She was just beaming as she sang. In her expression I could see the happy little girl she had been 90 years ago. Her happiness lingered after the service.
We never know when something we do or say at our service will reach down deep into someone’s heart and bring to the surface memories and feelings from long ago. That is why we sing the old hymns and always repeat together the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm and sing the Doxology and the Gloria Patri.
And that is why we are always happy to have residents from "Memory Care” share our worship.
Jim
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