Friday, April 18, 2025
Why Good Friday Is Good: Reflections on Mark 15
Why is Good Friday, “Good”? I will answer that question with a question, “Why does Jesus cry out saying, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Why has thou left me? “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”
There are many who see Isaiah 52:13 through the end of chapter 55 as a “controlling narrative” when it comes to the cross. They see the prophecy of the man of sorrows fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. There are some who do not and though I greatly value the naysayers point of view and believe that it has almost incalculably furthered the discussion, I agree with those who find Isaiah in the gospels and particularly in Jesus’ death on the cross. For numerous reasons it would seem that the Hebrew of Isaiah is alluded to time and time again in the gospels, particularly when it comes to the cross. However, because the prominence of the Septuagint, those allusions are “work-arounds” i.e. not direct scriptural quotations, pointing hearers to the Hebrew. It’s a way to show the way to the Hebrew behind the Septuagint. Be that as it may, we see when we read these chapters in Isaiah that nowhere is the suffering servant “left.” God the Father does not forsake the man of sorrows. In fact, it’s clear that this man of sorrows is loved down to his toes! “Behold my slave shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled and very high.” (52:13) The good pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” (10) When Isaiah “sums up” this vision in chapter 55, we hear “For as the rain comes down and snow from heaven and returns not but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud, to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty but shall accomplish that which I please and prosper…because ye shall go forth with joy…the mountains and the hills…the trees shall clap hands.” (55:10-13) Moreover, good pleasure suffuses the entire poem. We certainly see this reflected in the gospels. It is clear that it was out of God’s good pleasure that he sent his only begotten son. “Behold I bring you good news of a great joy which which is for all the people…Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to Men of Delight!” Such is God’s delight in sending his only begotten son that men have acquired a new nickname! Once upon a time Adam gave the woman a new nickname as well, “Chaya” or “Eve,” meaning life. He was correct to nickname her this and no doubt God is quite right to give man his new nickname as well! It is God the Father’s good pleasure and intention that Jesus would suffer and die on a cross, carrying away our sins.
In Mark 15 we see this victory clearly in Barabbas, as other commentators have noted, Barabbas was on death row. He is literally a dead man walking, but the Lord Jesus’ cross literally frees Barabbas. He goes from death to life. He was the first but not last. We too were dead in our trespasses and sins,” You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient…but God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead through our trespasses made us together alive in the Anointed One.” (Ephesians 2:1-5, translation mine)
Now here, a caveat in Mark’s gospel especially we do see something that might indicate the grief of the Father. This is after all his beloved Son. We see darkness cover the whole earth from noon until three o’clock. In Ezekiel we see that lamentation, “keening” and darkness covering the whole earth go hand in hand. I think we can say that our heavenly Father knows what it is like to lose a child. And yet, the “good pleasure” overwhelms it. To illustrate, I think were we to come to God the Father in tears to say “I am sorry!” The Father’s answer is “It was my joy.” As we read in Nehemiah 8:10, “the joy of the Lord will be your strength.” This isn’t their joy, but His! The good pleasure of the Lord to put his son to grief in order to give him the victory over sin and death and the devil overwhelms his grief like the sun overwhelms a lightbulb.
But if God is so pleased why does he withdraw himself? The answer lies in something we have become aware of since WWII, it’s called “midrash,” or more specifically in this case, “stringing pearls.” Something I call, “magnetic points.” Look at Psalm 22. When Jesus cries out to God, he is quoting its first line. Here is Psalm 22 in full:
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.
11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
23 Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations.
29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.
What we see in Psalm 22 is that it has “magnetic points” to many places in the Song of the Man of Sorrow and indeed, throughout the entire Psalm we see a suffering servant ahead of time. What are these “magnetic points”? Consider the use of the world affliction we see it in Isaiah and we see it Psalm 22. There are numerous “join-up” places, pearls that are joined with pearls because of their likeness. In other words, the prophecy of Isaiah joins itself to Psalm 22. They hold hands and work together. This is why Jesus is scorned and mocked in the way that he is. This is why his clothes are divided, something never mentioned by Isaiah. Isaiah’s song of the man of sorrows is filled out with Psalm 22, magnetic point to magnetic point. In other words, part of being the man of sorrows is the withdrawal of God but in neither place, neither Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53 through the end of chapter 55 is any displeasure indicated. Indeed, it is quite the contrary.
I remember when my mother was in the hospital she said to me, I feel that God has left me. I don’t feel his presence. Now, many times we can imagine all sorts of wrong things about God. I certainly do, but to illustrate what I am saying above concretely through a pastoral example, we see now, with this new information that we need not be so quick to deny people’s feelings. Now we can say, “You might or might not be right, but even if you are right, even if God has withdrawn himself from you, this is the story of the cross!” At this point the sufferer will of course want to know more…and quick! One might go on then and say, “Jesus was left by his Father but not because his father didn’t love him. God the Father loved Jesus right down to his toes. Jesus was not left because God was displeased about anything but to fulfill the promise, the full promise of the suffering servant. You may be also carrying your cross and God loves you more than anything. He is pleased with you and pleased with what he has given you and the whole world through this suffering.” Much talk after this will probably ensue. But there is one thing that we really need to know at this point; we need to look at the Psalm once again and carefully. Look at the turn in the Psalm. Here it is again beginning at verse 21.
Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
23 Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Look especially at the last verse here, verse 24. In Isaiah we see how the man of sorrows is despised, how the people hide their faces from him but now God, here in Psalm 22 is saying, “Not me!” The psalmist is telling us “though they may despise the affliction of the afflicted, He will not. Though they may hide their faces from the sufferer, He will not.” In fact, when God the Father hears the cry of the sufferer, He will hear. To put this in concrete terms, when he hears you call, he comes running back into the room. He hears. When Jesus cried, Eloi, Eloi…God the Father ran back into the room. Is this not confirmed in Hebrews? “He offered up prayers..with cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard.” As Psalm 22 says, “the Kingdom is the Lord’s” now and his righteousness declared to a people yet unborn, that he has done this, it is finished.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
The Lust of Jesus: "With Craving, Have I Craved This Passover"
Dear Friends, beloved of the Lord,
Jesus says, in Luke 22:15, “ I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you.” But actually, what Jesus says literally is—“with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you,” or you could put it even more radically this way, “craving I have craved to eat this Passover” or even “with lust I have lusted to eat this Passover with you.” In many places in both the greek and hebrew these words are interchangeable. In fact, the word that Jesus uses here is the same used in the command “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
Today I went online and looked up craving in a handbook used by doctors called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, the DMV-5. I googled the word “craving” and I noticed that this books so important to doctors today, definitely “throws shade” on craving. Craving is in the shadow, cast in a bad light.
Not so in the Bible. Craving, lusting, coveting…these are actually positive things in the Bible. Jesus craves. Craving isn’t bad, it’s good, it’s only WHAT you crave, the OBJECT of desire that makes it bad.
Remember those three American soldiers on leave in France who thwarted that terrible attack? Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos. Spencer Stone was napping on board the train, he was awakened by his friend Alek’s hand on his soldier, a man was coming down the train aisle with an AK-47. The three were able to tackle the pin down the would be murderer and disarm him.
And the reason? As Spencer Stone said, “we wanted to survive, we wanted our friends to live, the people on the train to live.” This is an example of wonderful desire, a wonderful craving, a lust that propelled these three men into instant action.
There are some philosophies that say that the thing is to avoid, immoderate desires, as long as you don’t desire anything too much you avoid sin. The Bible disagrees. It says go ahead and desire, covet, lust after something immoderately!
Jesus desires to eat the Passover feast with his friends immoderately!
The Bible tells us that the devil lusts after murder, that’s bad but the lust is not. A man is not to lust after his neighbor’s wife, not because desire, even immoderate desire is bad but because of the object of that desire, wanting to take away maybe the only good thing that a guy has going in this world other than the Lord, his wife.
I have a confession, well, it’s really not a confession in the usual sense. I love second hand smoke. Farhad (my husband) loves it too. Now we don’t smoke but we really really love the smell of cigarette smoke especially on cold winter days. There is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with craving cigarette smoke, what’s wrong is when we abuse tobacco, when we use it to comfort ourselves but as the Lakota and other native tribes knew, tobacco is a sacred plant. There is nothing wrong with desiring to share perhaps the peace pipe, to seal the peace in this way. We would be right to earnestly crave this!
Part 2, Back to Our Text
What does Jesus crave so greatly? He craves the Passover. Why? Because the food is awesome! Of course, there's more to it but let's pause here just to say: There is nothing wrong with craving a good meal with your friends! In other part of the Bible the sons of God, yes, "the sons of God" crave the meat of the festival, nothing wrong with craving a good hamburger or any number of yummy things. This is a positive in the Bible!
But let’s go deeper.
What is Passover? Answer: It’s a remembrance; it’s remembering the Lord and who he is.
Exodus 13: 3 —Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the LORD brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.
Think of what it means to remember, to know the Lord…who he is, so different than what we might imagine. Think of the gods of death in Egypt, the gods of the old religions, gods who hate us, to whom we are annoyances… but that’s not God, the one God, the one who loves us, and he is faithful, and he enfaiths his Messiah. Our God is not like all these others. And he gives good gifts to his children
—-the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control
That’s what is at stake here, this is what Jesus covets. He covets, he craves that the knowledge of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. Jesus craves love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness..and a good meal too!— good food, friendship, amity, brotherly love.
Part 3, one more thing…
In our passage today Jesus says, “This is my body” As Markus Barth pointed out, Jesus is answering the question traditionally posed by one of the children in the family at Passover.
That child might lift up the unleavened bread and ask, “What is this?” “What is the meaning of this non-fluffy bread!” And the father would answer (and here of course I am paraphrasing quite freely) “Well Son, we left in haste, God did this thing so quickly, God freed us with an upraised right arm, and so on that night was no time to ferment, to leaven, the bread. This is the meaning, my son.” To shorten it down to it’s essence, the boy asks, “What is this?” and the Papa replies: “This is the Exodus”
Jesus too answers this unstated question, but in a new way. He says “This is my body.” In other words, “What is the meaning of this?” And Jesus answering as a teacher replies, “This is the Exodus, not the Exodus out of Egypt but rather, the Exodus at Jerusalem.” The way out, the greater Exodus is his dead body “hanging on a tree”; it is us dying to sin. The great Exodus at Jerusalem is the way out for both Jews and Gentiles. It is him carrying away our sins, it’s him defeating death. When we celebrate communion we are remembering all these things. We are remembering the eternal covenant of Isaiah 55 and 53, the gift of faith, “the just my slave, will make many just.”
“With craving he has craved the Passover, " As Isaiah 26 tells us:
"Yes Lord, in the path of your judgments we waited you for your name and for your remembrance is the desire the lust of our soul with my soul I crave for you in the night yes with my spirit with me I diligently seek you for when you judgment are in the earth the inhabitants of the earth learn what is right to to make the wrong right."
Today as I went to Stillwater, I listened to MPR. The guest, the author of The Sixth Extinction was sighing over the death of the bees, so many birds, frogs…as well she might. Many sighs, tears and work are in order. The host, Kerry Miller, talked about all the creatures that had gone extinct, creatures that she had never seen and would never see…whole species... “winking out.” But I would like to add something… there are whole peoples that are "winking out." Governments have destroyed people groups off the face of the earth. The very builders of America, the descendants of slaves are not reproducing themselves. You need an average of two children to reproduce yourself but black people, those who built America with their sweat and tears and blood are “winking out.” And not just this, the honor and dignity, the last remnants of the freedom of man, all these things are winking out all over the earth.
And yet, we do not despair. Far from it! The good news is, this “winking out” of the light has no future, death has no future. Jesus is our "bully boy" as they used to say (like in the 1890's!)...remember those photos of Winston Churchill, sticking out his lower lip, determined and stubborn, “never surrender!” Our king of kings...he sticks out his lower lip. He is alive and he desires the passover. He craves all that is right; he craves with an immoderate, over the top craving, life, freedom, joy peace… and he will get it. It is a done deal. And so, in Jesus, life is our inheritance. We have got it in the bag. The right— the righting of all that is so wrong is our inheritance, the knowledge of the Lord and his remembrance is our possession in the Lord Jesus...he is our friend and our savior... Holy God.
So we look to Jesus and we desire, we DESIRE, the knowledge of the Lord, we DESIRE and CRAVE hamburgers, feasts, the full meal communion, the little meal communion; we covet life! —and you know what? One more thing. We will fight for it.
We will fight them on the beaches, the hills, the fields, we will never surrender, to quote that other bully boy, Winston…and even if we are thrown back that just makes the glory greater…and we will continue, we will keep on..and we will be saved,
because the forces of THE new world, the world that is from heaven but FOR this earth will come to our aid, “heaven will reel and rock” and God will come down (to quote the Psalm) Yes, He and all His angels, He will come and save us at just the right time. Friends, the day is ours!, because the day star is ours. Even now we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Jesus says, in Luke 22:15, “ I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you.” But actually, what Jesus says literally is—“with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you,” or you could put it even more radically this way, “craving I have craved to eat this Passover” or even “with lust I have lusted to eat this Passover with you.” In many places in both the greek and hebrew these words are interchangeable. In fact, the word that Jesus uses here is the same used in the command “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
Today I went online and looked up craving in a handbook used by doctors called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, the DMV-5. I googled the word “craving” and I noticed that this books so important to doctors today, definitely “throws shade” on craving. Craving is in the shadow, cast in a bad light.
Not so in the Bible. Craving, lusting, coveting…these are actually positive things in the Bible. Jesus craves. Craving isn’t bad, it’s good, it’s only WHAT you crave, the OBJECT of desire that makes it bad.
Remember those three American soldiers on leave in France who thwarted that terrible attack? Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos. Spencer Stone was napping on board the train, he was awakened by his friend Alek’s hand on his soldier, a man was coming down the train aisle with an AK-47. The three were able to tackle the pin down the would be murderer and disarm him.
And the reason? As Spencer Stone said, “we wanted to survive, we wanted our friends to live, the people on the train to live.” This is an example of wonderful desire, a wonderful craving, a lust that propelled these three men into instant action.
There are some philosophies that say that the thing is to avoid, immoderate desires, as long as you don’t desire anything too much you avoid sin. The Bible disagrees. It says go ahead and desire, covet, lust after something immoderately!
Jesus desires to eat the Passover feast with his friends immoderately!
The Bible tells us that the devil lusts after murder, that’s bad but the lust is not. A man is not to lust after his neighbor’s wife, not because desire, even immoderate desire is bad but because of the object of that desire, wanting to take away maybe the only good thing that a guy has going in this world other than the Lord, his wife.
I have a confession, well, it’s really not a confession in the usual sense. I love second hand smoke. Farhad (my husband) loves it too. Now we don’t smoke but we really really love the smell of cigarette smoke especially on cold winter days. There is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with craving cigarette smoke, what’s wrong is when we abuse tobacco, when we use it to comfort ourselves but as the Lakota and other native tribes knew, tobacco is a sacred plant. There is nothing wrong with desiring to share perhaps the peace pipe, to seal the peace in this way. We would be right to earnestly crave this!
Part 2, Back to Our Text
What does Jesus crave so greatly? He craves the Passover. Why? Because the food is awesome! Of course, there's more to it but let's pause here just to say: There is nothing wrong with craving a good meal with your friends! In other part of the Bible the sons of God, yes, "the sons of God" crave the meat of the festival, nothing wrong with craving a good hamburger or any number of yummy things. This is a positive in the Bible!
But let’s go deeper.
What is Passover? Answer: It’s a remembrance; it’s remembering the Lord and who he is.
Exodus 13: 3 —Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the LORD brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.
Think of what it means to remember, to know the Lord…who he is, so different than what we might imagine. Think of the gods of death in Egypt, the gods of the old religions, gods who hate us, to whom we are annoyances… but that’s not God, the one God, the one who loves us, and he is faithful, and he enfaiths his Messiah. Our God is not like all these others. And he gives good gifts to his children
—-the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control
That’s what is at stake here, this is what Jesus covets. He covets, he craves that the knowledge of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. Jesus craves love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness..and a good meal too!— good food, friendship, amity, brotherly love.
Part 3, one more thing…
In our passage today Jesus says, “This is my body” As Markus Barth pointed out, Jesus is answering the question traditionally posed by one of the children in the family at Passover.
That child might lift up the unleavened bread and ask, “What is this?” “What is the meaning of this non-fluffy bread!” And the father would answer (and here of course I am paraphrasing quite freely) “Well Son, we left in haste, God did this thing so quickly, God freed us with an upraised right arm, and so on that night was no time to ferment, to leaven, the bread. This is the meaning, my son.” To shorten it down to it’s essence, the boy asks, “What is this?” and the Papa replies: “This is the Exodus”
Jesus too answers this unstated question, but in a new way. He says “This is my body.” In other words, “What is the meaning of this?” And Jesus answering as a teacher replies, “This is the Exodus, not the Exodus out of Egypt but rather, the Exodus at Jerusalem.” The way out, the greater Exodus is his dead body “hanging on a tree”; it is us dying to sin. The great Exodus at Jerusalem is the way out for both Jews and Gentiles. It is him carrying away our sins, it’s him defeating death. When we celebrate communion we are remembering all these things. We are remembering the eternal covenant of Isaiah 55 and 53, the gift of faith, “the just my slave, will make many just.”
“With craving he has craved the Passover, " As Isaiah 26 tells us:
"Yes Lord, in the path of your judgments we waited you for your name and for your remembrance is the desire the lust of our soul with my soul I crave for you in the night yes with my spirit with me I diligently seek you for when you judgment are in the earth the inhabitants of the earth learn what is right to to make the wrong right."
Today as I went to Stillwater, I listened to MPR. The guest, the author of The Sixth Extinction was sighing over the death of the bees, so many birds, frogs…as well she might. Many sighs, tears and work are in order. The host, Kerry Miller, talked about all the creatures that had gone extinct, creatures that she had never seen and would never see…whole species... “winking out.” But I would like to add something… there are whole peoples that are "winking out." Governments have destroyed people groups off the face of the earth. The very builders of America, the descendants of slaves are not reproducing themselves. You need an average of two children to reproduce yourself but black people, those who built America with their sweat and tears and blood are “winking out.” And not just this, the honor and dignity, the last remnants of the freedom of man, all these things are winking out all over the earth.
And yet, we do not despair. Far from it! The good news is, this “winking out” of the light has no future, death has no future. Jesus is our "bully boy" as they used to say (like in the 1890's!)...remember those photos of Winston Churchill, sticking out his lower lip, determined and stubborn, “never surrender!” Our king of kings...he sticks out his lower lip. He is alive and he desires the passover. He craves all that is right; he craves with an immoderate, over the top craving, life, freedom, joy peace… and he will get it. It is a done deal. And so, in Jesus, life is our inheritance. We have got it in the bag. The right— the righting of all that is so wrong is our inheritance, the knowledge of the Lord and his remembrance is our possession in the Lord Jesus...he is our friend and our savior... Holy God.
So we look to Jesus and we desire, we DESIRE, the knowledge of the Lord, we DESIRE and CRAVE hamburgers, feasts, the full meal communion, the little meal communion; we covet life! —and you know what? One more thing. We will fight for it.
We will fight them on the beaches, the hills, the fields, we will never surrender, to quote that other bully boy, Winston…and even if we are thrown back that just makes the glory greater…and we will continue, we will keep on..and we will be saved,
because the forces of THE new world, the world that is from heaven but FOR this earth will come to our aid, “heaven will reel and rock” and God will come down (to quote the Psalm) Yes, He and all His angels, He will come and save us at just the right time. Friends, the day is ours!, because the day star is ours. Even now we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Luke 8:1-21 Community Bible Study
Luke 8:1-21 Ecumenical Bible Study
Points of Interest: Notice that both men and women follow Jesus vss 2-3
In verse 3, the women “ministered” to Jesus. In the original language, Greek, this word come from diakonos. In Acts 7, the apostles chose seven deacons, one of whom was Stephen.
1)What is the role of women in this chapter?
2)Why do you think Jesus not call women to ministry in the same way as he had called the twelve?
Let’s go on in the chapter, Jesus now tells the parable of the seeds.
Points of Interest: Look in the Old Testament to Isaiah 55, the word of God is compared to a a seed. Jesus is alluding to this place in the Bible when he tells his parable.
Look also at Isaiah 6, Jesus quotes this passage when he is explaining to his disciples about the parable. In Isaiah 6 God hardens the peoples’ hearts until a certain time. Our schedules are not the Lord’s schedule. He is never early but he is never late. To Abraham and Sarah, who wanted a baby God may have appeared late, but we see that Isaac was given at just the right time. Not only did Abraham and Sarah receive a child, they also learned about God who does what is impossible.
3)Why does Jesus tell this parable? see vs. 10
4)This parable and its explanation is a comfort to the disciples. Why do you think it might console them?
Let’s go to the Jesus speaking about his mother and brothers
Point of Interest: It seems that Jesus’ mother and brothers do not believe in Jesus at this point (see Mark 3:21). They want to take him away because they think he is crazy.
5)
Who does Jesus call is Mother and brothers? Why does he not call them “family”?
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Revelation 15, Song of the Lamb (Sermon)
Dear Friends, beloved of the Lord,
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and them that gotten victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark... standing by the sea of glass...singing”. I want to pause a moment because you see, this is the Exodus. The Israelites were led out of Egypt, through the sea and they stood on the far side of the Red Sea and they sang. So it is with the people of God here in Revelation 15. Only we will have an even greater Exodus. Our triumph will be even greater. How so? Because even in our suffering, even in our deaths, we will win the battle.
What do I mean by this? Do you remember Corrie Ten Boom? I have spoken of her before. She and her family loved the Jewish people, and during WWII hid them and helped them. The Ten Boom family was put into prison and then into the camps. Corrie survived and went throughout the world preaching the good news and teaching wise things to the churches. Once she told the following story: "When I was a little girl, "I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ." "Tell me," said Father, “When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? Three weeks before?"
"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength. Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ. He will supply all you need – just in time…"
They say, when it comes to suffering, “every man has his breaking point.” I have a friend from Iran. He is a convert to Jesus and by law if he were to go back to Iran he could be imprisoned. He cannot help but wonder from time to time how he would do. Would he give in to the pressure? Would he be able to withstand torture without denying Jesus? I am sure we have all had thoughts like these. But the Bible gives us a new thought. “Yes,” it says, “every man has his breaking point, but you are not everybody.” The same strength that Jesus was given in the Garden and on the cross, the same strength and power that raised him from the dead (faith, Acts 13) will be given to you and you will have the victory. You are not everybody. Jesus says, “Fear not little flock,” fear not even through the valley of the shadow of death,” for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Now let’s go on in the chapter: The saints are singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God the Almighty, just and true are your ways, king of the nations...” Let’s just pause here and consider that phrase, the song of the Lamb.
It’s seems like a small detail but it turns out to be very important. So often we have something like the following picture in our minds of how it went in heaven before Jesus came to earth, “O Father,” the Son says, “please let me go down to earth and save these totally non-deserving people, let me die on a cross for them, and soak up all your wrath on them...take it to myself that they might saved!” And the Father’s grumbling and reluctant reply, “Well...if you really want to...sigh”
But this is a false picture. The Father is not reluctant about saving us. It was his great work to save the world. The Father sings with delight over what he has done in Jesus. The Lamb has a song to praise the work of the Father.
Sometimes we think of our Father in heaven and we identify our fathers with him. Some fathers were grumpy and cruel and so we think the Father is grumpy and cruel too. But this is wrong. The Father is not who we think he is. His thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. Why because his thoughts are so filled with mercy and faith. (Isaiah 55:3)
Now let’s go on and see one more beautiful thing here. “Great and wonderful are thy deeds O Lord God the Almighty just and true are thy ways. Who shall not fear and glorify thy name, O Lord? For thou alone art holy, all nations shall come and worship thee because thy righteous acts will be revealed.”
I want to hight light this last sentence: All the nations will come and worship you because thy righteous acts will be revealed
This is very surprising. When John writes of the nations, he is talking about the “ethnicities.” He is talking about the various ethnicities of the Roman empire who were hounding the Christians. He is talking about the persecutors. And yet, “all...will come and worship you.” How do we understand this?
Think of it this way: God is unchanging. It is a great heresy to think that God somehow changes from the Old Testament to the New.
In Luke’s gospel, Zechariah says,”Blessed b the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”
God saves us from our enemies, not just in the Old Testament but in the New as well.
Jesus isn’t a “kinder gentler” God who avoids warfare; this too is nothing but dimwittedness. Jesus very well could have overthrown Rome, he is the Messiah, the warrior king.
But here’s the rub: Rome was not the problem. Ask yourself, would overthrowing Rome have helped the Pharisees? Would it have saved them? No. How much less than would it have saved anybody else, “all sought after their own way.” Jesus made war on something much more powerful than Rome. Jesus made war on the real enemy. Our enemies of sin, death and the devil.
Throughout Revelation thus far, God HAS saved his people from the various ethnicities of the Roman Empire. We see God pouring out his wrath on them, on the mobs and local officials and groups who come round beating, imprisoning, killing the church people. We have seen God rain down destruction on them.
God is good at vengeance. God is good all the time, all the time God is good. I have actually seen God’s vengeance on the persecutors and it is terrifying beyond belief.
God saves us from our enemies, just as in the Old Testament, so it is in the New. But in this chapter we see something different, though it is just a glimpse. God is angry at the nations but he also loves them, and when they see how good he is. How beautiful all his deeds are, how right he is in the defense of his people. When they see the victory of the people of God, their hearts will be turned to the good. They will see God and love him back.
“So, Pastor Amy,” you are probably asking yourselves,” who will be save and who will be damned to eternal fire?” My answer? I DON’T KNOW. And that’s exactly the way God means it to be when it comes to this question.
Don’t get me wrong: “Those who conquer will inherit all things, but as for the cowards, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, the second death.” This is clear there will be no cowards in the New Jerusalem, no faithless ones, no murderers, no immoral people. “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” We will be free from destroyers like these. But the question is “Will there be in any cowards, will there be any murderers, will there be any immoral?” (Markus Barth) In the light of the face of Jesus, in view of the justice of his decisions will not hearts be revived and the coldest heart of stone because one that loves and is true and brave and honest?
We don’t know the answer to this question. Hell certainly won’t be empty but how big will salvation be? We don’t know. And I think this is a good thing. A very good thing indeed. Because look here, if we knew all about how it was going to end, if we knew every move God was going to make and how it would all work out, we would get to thinking that we could control things. Always, always, from Eve to Babel, to Absolom, to Jezebel, to Peter, we try to control things, do things our own way. Eve wanted to get all knowledge, all at once, all by herself by her own hand, under her own steam, by her own power. And Adam went right along with it, without even a second thought. In the New Testament, Peter rebukes Jesus. He doesn’t want Jesus to suffer on a cross, to be “hanged on tree.” Peter wanted the restoration of the kingdom to Israel allright but in his own way, not Jesus’ way. Thank God we don’t know everything. Thank God we can’t control things. God has something much bigger and much better for us than we could ever imagine, “what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has in store for those who love him.”
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and them that gotten victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark... standing by the sea of glass...singing”. I want to pause a moment because you see, this is the Exodus. The Israelites were led out of Egypt, through the sea and they stood on the far side of the Red Sea and they sang. So it is with the people of God here in Revelation 15. Only we will have an even greater Exodus. Our triumph will be even greater. How so? Because even in our suffering, even in our deaths, we will win the battle.
What do I mean by this? Do you remember Corrie Ten Boom? I have spoken of her before. She and her family loved the Jewish people, and during WWII hid them and helped them. The Ten Boom family was put into prison and then into the camps. Corrie survived and went throughout the world preaching the good news and teaching wise things to the churches. Once she told the following story: "When I was a little girl, "I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ." "Tell me," said Father, “When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? Three weeks before?"
"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength. Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ. He will supply all you need – just in time…"
They say, when it comes to suffering, “every man has his breaking point.” I have a friend from Iran. He is a convert to Jesus and by law if he were to go back to Iran he could be imprisoned. He cannot help but wonder from time to time how he would do. Would he give in to the pressure? Would he be able to withstand torture without denying Jesus? I am sure we have all had thoughts like these. But the Bible gives us a new thought. “Yes,” it says, “every man has his breaking point, but you are not everybody.” The same strength that Jesus was given in the Garden and on the cross, the same strength and power that raised him from the dead (faith, Acts 13) will be given to you and you will have the victory. You are not everybody. Jesus says, “Fear not little flock,” fear not even through the valley of the shadow of death,” for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Now let’s go on in the chapter: The saints are singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God the Almighty, just and true are your ways, king of the nations...” Let’s just pause here and consider that phrase, the song of the Lamb.
It’s seems like a small detail but it turns out to be very important. So often we have something like the following picture in our minds of how it went in heaven before Jesus came to earth, “O Father,” the Son says, “please let me go down to earth and save these totally non-deserving people, let me die on a cross for them, and soak up all your wrath on them...take it to myself that they might saved!” And the Father’s grumbling and reluctant reply, “Well...if you really want to...sigh”
But this is a false picture. The Father is not reluctant about saving us. It was his great work to save the world. The Father sings with delight over what he has done in Jesus. The Lamb has a song to praise the work of the Father.
Sometimes we think of our Father in heaven and we identify our fathers with him. Some fathers were grumpy and cruel and so we think the Father is grumpy and cruel too. But this is wrong. The Father is not who we think he is. His thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. Why because his thoughts are so filled with mercy and faith. (Isaiah 55:3)
Now let’s go on and see one more beautiful thing here. “Great and wonderful are thy deeds O Lord God the Almighty just and true are thy ways. Who shall not fear and glorify thy name, O Lord? For thou alone art holy, all nations shall come and worship thee because thy righteous acts will be revealed.”
I want to hight light this last sentence: All the nations will come and worship you because thy righteous acts will be revealed
This is very surprising. When John writes of the nations, he is talking about the “ethnicities.” He is talking about the various ethnicities of the Roman empire who were hounding the Christians. He is talking about the persecutors. And yet, “all...will come and worship you.” How do we understand this?
Think of it this way: God is unchanging. It is a great heresy to think that God somehow changes from the Old Testament to the New.
In Luke’s gospel, Zechariah says,”Blessed b the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”
God saves us from our enemies, not just in the Old Testament but in the New as well.
Jesus isn’t a “kinder gentler” God who avoids warfare; this too is nothing but dimwittedness. Jesus very well could have overthrown Rome, he is the Messiah, the warrior king.
But here’s the rub: Rome was not the problem. Ask yourself, would overthrowing Rome have helped the Pharisees? Would it have saved them? No. How much less than would it have saved anybody else, “all sought after their own way.” Jesus made war on something much more powerful than Rome. Jesus made war on the real enemy. Our enemies of sin, death and the devil.
Throughout Revelation thus far, God HAS saved his people from the various ethnicities of the Roman Empire. We see God pouring out his wrath on them, on the mobs and local officials and groups who come round beating, imprisoning, killing the church people. We have seen God rain down destruction on them.
God is good at vengeance. God is good all the time, all the time God is good. I have actually seen God’s vengeance on the persecutors and it is terrifying beyond belief.
God saves us from our enemies, just as in the Old Testament, so it is in the New. But in this chapter we see something different, though it is just a glimpse. God is angry at the nations but he also loves them, and when they see how good he is. How beautiful all his deeds are, how right he is in the defense of his people. When they see the victory of the people of God, their hearts will be turned to the good. They will see God and love him back.
“So, Pastor Amy,” you are probably asking yourselves,” who will be save and who will be damned to eternal fire?” My answer? I DON’T KNOW. And that’s exactly the way God means it to be when it comes to this question.
Don’t get me wrong: “Those who conquer will inherit all things, but as for the cowards, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, the second death.” This is clear there will be no cowards in the New Jerusalem, no faithless ones, no murderers, no immoral people. “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” We will be free from destroyers like these. But the question is “Will there be in any cowards, will there be any murderers, will there be any immoral?” (Markus Barth) In the light of the face of Jesus, in view of the justice of his decisions will not hearts be revived and the coldest heart of stone because one that loves and is true and brave and honest?
We don’t know the answer to this question. Hell certainly won’t be empty but how big will salvation be? We don’t know. And I think this is a good thing. A very good thing indeed. Because look here, if we knew all about how it was going to end, if we knew every move God was going to make and how it would all work out, we would get to thinking that we could control things. Always, always, from Eve to Babel, to Absolom, to Jezebel, to Peter, we try to control things, do things our own way. Eve wanted to get all knowledge, all at once, all by herself by her own hand, under her own steam, by her own power. And Adam went right along with it, without even a second thought. In the New Testament, Peter rebukes Jesus. He doesn’t want Jesus to suffer on a cross, to be “hanged on tree.” Peter wanted the restoration of the kingdom to Israel allright but in his own way, not Jesus’ way. Thank God we don’t know everything. Thank God we can’t control things. God has something much bigger and much better for us than we could ever imagine, “what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has in store for those who love him.”
Friday, November 30, 2012
We Are The Nine
Many people are familiar with the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17. The lepers call out to Jesus from afar, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” The passage continues, "when Jesus saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.” Their disease has been healed, their skin is whole and sound. But after this miracle, only one of the ten returns to praise God and give thanks.
The first thing to understand here is that giving thanks is not a requirement. Jesus does not say to the ten lepers, “If you give thanks and praise the Lord, I will heal you.” Of course not. Jesus sees a need and fills it. Think of Abram back in Genesis 15. God did not tell Abram, "I will make your descendants as many as the stars in heaven, IF you believe in me." No, rather God saw that Abram was troubled, he had no heir, he was all alone, far from his kindred. God saw a problem and he fixed it by giving his friend Abram innumerable sons and daughters.
I saw a video once of a young woman pulling back a man who was just about to step into the street. He would have been hit by a car but she pulled him back just in time. She did not do this thing so that he would thank her, she did it because she did not want her fellow human being to be hurt or worse! This is why God saves us and helps us. It’s because we are in trouble and he loves us, not because he is expecting something out of us.
Giving thanks is not a requirement but certainly when we fail to give thanks we fall into many troubles. Giving thanks to God helps us to remember him. We are so prone to forget, and when we forget, we start to worship other gods. We all believe in something it is only a matter of what. We become like what we believe in. If we depend upon and trust in cold hard cash, we become, cold, hard and in the end, as easily destroyed as paper money. When we worship other gods we end up hurting ourselves and all those around us. Think of the Israelites who, in the end, were sacrificing their own children to gods of stone and wood! God’s anger goes out against oppressors like these. It is just the same today as it was then. He handed over the murderous Israelites to their enemies and he can hand us over as well. I would argue that he has already done it! As the theologians, Richard Hays and N.T. Wright remind us, the Lord hands us over to spiritual enemies who come to vanquish and burn us even more than the Philistines did the Israelites. We can read about the effects of these spiritual enemies in the “vice list” of Romans 1. But God raised up King David to vanquish the enemy and give his people rest. And now God has raised up Jesus, our Living Savior and Lord to utterly vanquish those spiritual enemies that attack the souls, minds and hearts of men and women. In his grace and might he has rescued us as individuals, communities and whole societies from "hands too strong for us." And he is not done! Moreover, God in his grace gathers us together in assembly each Sunday, each Lord’s day so that we may “mutually encourage one another in the faith.” Or to say the same thing in different words, he gathers us that we may remind one another of God’s faithfulness and Jesus’ resulting victory on the cross and how we have become through all of this, “more than conquerors” through him who loved us. He does this in his great mercy that we might not forget and go astray and hurt ourselves and others.
But so often we do not give thanks, we are like the nine.
Do we really understand what it means when the Bible says, “by his stripes we are healed”? Do we say when we are enjoying good health, “I am happy today, because Jesus was scourged with whips”? Let me be the first to answer, “I don’t! The philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard wrote “one man is a theologian because another man got nailed of the cross.” Do we give thanks for all the shining insights that we have and remember that it is all because of our Lord suffered for us? In this and in so many ways we completely miss the boat.
But the wonderful and totally surprising thing is, God is the savior of the thankless. He is the savior of people precisely like us. Consider how thankless and thoughtless Jacob was even in the face of God’s great assurances and promises in Isaiah 43. What is God’s response? How will he fix this problem? God's answer is abrupt, without lead in, without introduction, “I, I am he, who blots our your transgressions.” How he will do this is not discussed, we only learn how it will be later; the messiah will come, a tender plant, a root out of dry ground and how he will bear our sins (Isaiah 53).
So often we go astray. How thankless I have been, but how good God is! Or as Paul puts it, “wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Many people are familiar with the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17. The lepers call out to Jesus from afar, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” The passage continues, "when Jesus saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.” Their disease has been healed, their skin is whole and sound. But after this miracle, only one of the ten returns to praise God and give thanks.
The first thing to understand here is that giving thanks is not a requirement. Jesus does not say to the ten lepers, “If you give thanks and praise the Lord, I will heal you.” Of course not. Jesus sees a need and fills it. Think of Abram back in Genesis 15. God did not tell Abram, "I will make your descendants as many as the stars in heaven, IF you believe in me." No, rather God saw that Abram was troubled, he had no heir, he was all alone, far from his kindred. God saw a problem and he fixed it by giving his friend Abram innumerable sons and daughters.
I saw a video once of a young woman pulling back a man who was just about to step into the street. He would have been hit by a car but she pulled him back just in time. She did not do this thing so that he would thank her, she did it because she did not want her fellow human being to be hurt or worse! This is why God saves us and helps us. It’s because we are in trouble and he loves us, not because he is expecting something out of us.
Giving thanks is not a requirement but certainly when we fail to give thanks we fall into many troubles. Giving thanks to God helps us to remember him. We are so prone to forget, and when we forget, we start to worship other gods. We all believe in something it is only a matter of what. We become like what we believe in. If we depend upon and trust in cold hard cash, we become, cold, hard and in the end, as easily destroyed as paper money. When we worship other gods we end up hurting ourselves and all those around us. Think of the Israelites who, in the end, were sacrificing their own children to gods of stone and wood! God’s anger goes out against oppressors like these. It is just the same today as it was then. He handed over the murderous Israelites to their enemies and he can hand us over as well. I would argue that he has already done it! As the theologians, Richard Hays and N.T. Wright remind us, the Lord hands us over to spiritual enemies who come to vanquish and burn us even more than the Philistines did the Israelites. We can read about the effects of these spiritual enemies in the “vice list” of Romans 1. But God raised up King David to vanquish the enemy and give his people rest. And now God has raised up Jesus, our Living Savior and Lord to utterly vanquish those spiritual enemies that attack the souls, minds and hearts of men and women. In his grace and might he has rescued us as individuals, communities and whole societies from "hands too strong for us." And he is not done! Moreover, God in his grace gathers us together in assembly each Sunday, each Lord’s day so that we may “mutually encourage one another in the faith.” Or to say the same thing in different words, he gathers us that we may remind one another of God’s faithfulness and Jesus’ resulting victory on the cross and how we have become through all of this, “more than conquerors” through him who loved us. He does this in his great mercy that we might not forget and go astray and hurt ourselves and others.
But so often we do not give thanks, we are like the nine.
Do we really understand what it means when the Bible says, “by his stripes we are healed”? Do we say when we are enjoying good health, “I am happy today, because Jesus was scourged with whips”? Let me be the first to answer, “I don’t! The philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard wrote “one man is a theologian because another man got nailed of the cross.” Do we give thanks for all the shining insights that we have and remember that it is all because of our Lord suffered for us? In this and in so many ways we completely miss the boat.
But the wonderful and totally surprising thing is, God is the savior of the thankless. He is the savior of people precisely like us. Consider how thankless and thoughtless Jacob was even in the face of God’s great assurances and promises in Isaiah 43. What is God’s response? How will he fix this problem? God's answer is abrupt, without lead in, without introduction, “I, I am he, who blots our your transgressions.” How he will do this is not discussed, we only learn how it will be later; the messiah will come, a tender plant, a root out of dry ground and how he will bear our sins (Isaiah 53).
So often we go astray. How thankless I have been, but how good God is! Or as Paul puts it, “wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Footwashing, The Lord Gets His Hands Dirty and We Get Clean, John 13
Beloved of the Lord,
I want to talk about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Notice all the detail. John wants to call our attention to a very simple fact. Jesus is actually washing feet. What Jesus is doing here is not just an idea, an abstraction, Jesus is taking off his outer garments, girding himself, the basin, the water, and washing the mire and the muck off the feet of his followers. So before we get to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as a symbol, as an example, first let’s just examine the bare fact: Jesus washing feet.
In those days a real need. Many went barefoot on unpaved roads, roads with all manner of mire and gook. When you came into a hospitable house, the master would direct a slave to wash your feet. Comforting to get all the dust off, maybe blood too from the stones, caked mire...get that off, ready to enjoy the party.
And before we go on I just want to pause and notice that God was always this way. God does come all the way down. God gets his hands dirty literally. Think of the very beginning, how God made Adam out of clay, getting his hands dirty. it says in Jeremiah, a prophecy of messiah, in that day Lord, you will do justice in the clay, in the dirt, in the earth. And we see that, Jesus remember how he spits in the dirt and makes clay and puts it in the blind man’s eyes, just a few chapters ago in John 9. Does justice literally in the earth.
But I just want to emphasize one more time, that it was always so, God walks in the garden, not floating, walks in the dust, God walks in the desert with his people Israel.
Example: Geography of Jerusalem not just with maps but under our feet. Good to do, God does it.
Example: Twitter, email, facebook, it’s the easy way of connecting, but we have to use it not be abused by it. Use it to make real friendship, the kind where there is sight and smell and touch. God didn’t wash the disciples feet by remote control, he got down there, on his knees, hands on their feet, fingers between their toes and cleaned them.
Now this is a symbol, but we have to understand what a symbol is. Sym bol, throw with, it’s like the first ball of a ball game, it is a sign of the rest. Better for me, (Barth) “audiovisual”. Communion helps. John’s gospel has the washing of the disciples feet instead of the Lord’s supper, but both things are audiovisuals forever audiovisuals, both things both communion and foot washing are audiovisuals of the cross, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, you are going to wash my feet? Jesus answered, “you do not see what I am doing now but after these things you will know. After these things, “these things” are Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. After these things, you will understand what I am doing now. Washing the disciples feet is an audiovisual of the cross, just like communion is our audiovisual of the cross.
Picture the Lord’s supper in the early church, a full meal, picture a table filled with good things, delicious roast beef, steaming mashed potatoes, hot rolls and butter, good fresh salads with tomato and avocado. Think of it the shared cup of wine that began the meal then the meal and then in the midst of the hilarity, the minister, takes the bread and gives all a touch of solemnity, this is my body broken for you and then the shared cup after the meal to close it all off, this is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood. This meal that I am describing is the symbol of what God has given on the cross. It’s an audiovisual of the cross. Isn’t that amazing. I am very grateful for the communion we have now
Example:(experience at Seminary....) it too is an audiovisual, it too is a symbol but maybe more like a symbol of a symbol
footwashing is an audiovisual of the cross. God comes all the way down, he not just rolls up his sleeves he takes off his shirt to slave for us, to cleanse us. And he does it. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.
Pause
Now-- why don’t we have foot washing like we have communion? Peoples feet aren’t dirty. Sacrament on the margins. However, there might be some places in Africa that have real foot washing. the people come in dusty from the road in their flip flops or bare feet, maybe the elders, ready got their towels, stripped to waist, got the basin and maybe that’s the way they begin church. Beautiful I’d say were I visiting, what they’ve got going is the cross not explained in some sermon, but explained through action. The word of God not just in a sermon but in deed.
Close by saying it is an example: now we can’t do foot washing yet in U.S. Example: Benny Hinn, got down with hankie and dusted, moving, but a little misleading, not the cross,
but we learn from foot washing
God joyfully cleanses our filthy feet and he joyfully cleanse our filthy selves on the cross. This is our Messiah. And so, we need not be afraid in our churches in our denomination to be janitors
Example at my Dad’s church, dust, scrub, pick up cake crumbs, sewers overflowed my dad left with dry guck and stench. In our denomination there may be a lot of stinky things that we are called into, but God will not give us more than we can handle and he will enable us to handle the things he gives us. Presbyterians, realm of ideas, but now we may, in his grace, be called to be janitors.
Example: the terrible smell in Dad’s church’s basement: guck, he knew of this enzymatic cleaner, ate up the guck, no smell, God is going to give us enzymatic cleaner to clean up all spiritual enemies, inside and out. Fear not little children it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, fear not for I have overcome ( the mire, the deep filth) the world.
I want to talk about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Notice all the detail. John wants to call our attention to a very simple fact. Jesus is actually washing feet. What Jesus is doing here is not just an idea, an abstraction, Jesus is taking off his outer garments, girding himself, the basin, the water, and washing the mire and the muck off the feet of his followers. So before we get to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as a symbol, as an example, first let’s just examine the bare fact: Jesus washing feet.
In those days a real need. Many went barefoot on unpaved roads, roads with all manner of mire and gook. When you came into a hospitable house, the master would direct a slave to wash your feet. Comforting to get all the dust off, maybe blood too from the stones, caked mire...get that off, ready to enjoy the party.
And before we go on I just want to pause and notice that God was always this way. God does come all the way down. God gets his hands dirty literally. Think of the very beginning, how God made Adam out of clay, getting his hands dirty. it says in Jeremiah, a prophecy of messiah, in that day Lord, you will do justice in the clay, in the dirt, in the earth. And we see that, Jesus remember how he spits in the dirt and makes clay and puts it in the blind man’s eyes, just a few chapters ago in John 9. Does justice literally in the earth.
But I just want to emphasize one more time, that it was always so, God walks in the garden, not floating, walks in the dust, God walks in the desert with his people Israel.
Example: Geography of Jerusalem not just with maps but under our feet. Good to do, God does it.
Example: Twitter, email, facebook, it’s the easy way of connecting, but we have to use it not be abused by it. Use it to make real friendship, the kind where there is sight and smell and touch. God didn’t wash the disciples feet by remote control, he got down there, on his knees, hands on their feet, fingers between their toes and cleaned them.
Now this is a symbol, but we have to understand what a symbol is. Sym bol, throw with, it’s like the first ball of a ball game, it is a sign of the rest. Better for me, (Barth) “audiovisual”. Communion helps. John’s gospel has the washing of the disciples feet instead of the Lord’s supper, but both things are audiovisuals forever audiovisuals, both things both communion and foot washing are audiovisuals of the cross, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, you are going to wash my feet? Jesus answered, “you do not see what I am doing now but after these things you will know. After these things, “these things” are Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. After these things, you will understand what I am doing now. Washing the disciples feet is an audiovisual of the cross, just like communion is our audiovisual of the cross.
Picture the Lord’s supper in the early church, a full meal, picture a table filled with good things, delicious roast beef, steaming mashed potatoes, hot rolls and butter, good fresh salads with tomato and avocado. Think of it the shared cup of wine that began the meal then the meal and then in the midst of the hilarity, the minister, takes the bread and gives all a touch of solemnity, this is my body broken for you and then the shared cup after the meal to close it all off, this is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood. This meal that I am describing is the symbol of what God has given on the cross. It’s an audiovisual of the cross. Isn’t that amazing. I am very grateful for the communion we have now
Example:(experience at Seminary....) it too is an audiovisual, it too is a symbol but maybe more like a symbol of a symbol
footwashing is an audiovisual of the cross. God comes all the way down, he not just rolls up his sleeves he takes off his shirt to slave for us, to cleanse us. And he does it. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.
Pause
Now-- why don’t we have foot washing like we have communion? Peoples feet aren’t dirty. Sacrament on the margins. However, there might be some places in Africa that have real foot washing. the people come in dusty from the road in their flip flops or bare feet, maybe the elders, ready got their towels, stripped to waist, got the basin and maybe that’s the way they begin church. Beautiful I’d say were I visiting, what they’ve got going is the cross not explained in some sermon, but explained through action. The word of God not just in a sermon but in deed.
Close by saying it is an example: now we can’t do foot washing yet in U.S. Example: Benny Hinn, got down with hankie and dusted, moving, but a little misleading, not the cross,
but we learn from foot washing
God joyfully cleanses our filthy feet and he joyfully cleanse our filthy selves on the cross. This is our Messiah. And so, we need not be afraid in our churches in our denomination to be janitors
Example at my Dad’s church, dust, scrub, pick up cake crumbs, sewers overflowed my dad left with dry guck and stench. In our denomination there may be a lot of stinky things that we are called into, but God will not give us more than we can handle and he will enable us to handle the things he gives us. Presbyterians, realm of ideas, but now we may, in his grace, be called to be janitors.
Example: the terrible smell in Dad’s church’s basement: guck, he knew of this enzymatic cleaner, ate up the guck, no smell, God is going to give us enzymatic cleaner to clean up all spiritual enemies, inside and out. Fear not little children it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, fear not for I have overcome ( the mire, the deep filth) the world.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Galatians 6:1-10 , On Restoration, Sunday, March 13th 2011
Dear friends, brethren, saints,
Today, really, I just want to talk about the first two verses of Galatians 6. And here we have Paul giving some very practical advice. Down to earth advice that comes straight from the kingdom of heaven. He says, “brothers if indeed a man is overtaken in some transgression you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourselves that you are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Anointed.” First things first, let’s go point by point. What does that mean overtaken in some transgression? Yes, it means overwhelmed by sin, but it also means caught in some sin. I think first of all the woman caught in adultery. Her sin caught her, caught up with her. She’s been "outted", exposed.
But being caught in sin, having your sin exposed can be more subtle too. I think of Zacchaeus, the little man, the tax collector who goes up the tree to see Jesus. Remember him? Zacchaeus’ sin and treachery are certainly known but the exposure, his being “caught” is more subtle but just as clear. He has done wrong that’s why he’s trying to make up for it, by turning his life around, giving to the poor, returning four fold what he has stolen. Or another case, Peter-- Peter denied Jesus three times, and remember at the end of John Jesus asks him three times, do you love me.? Peter’s sin, denying Jesus has clearly caught up to him. If we had forgotten that Peter had denied Jesus three times, when Jesus asks him three times “Do you love me?”...at that point, we remember it.
In our own day, I can think of two prominent preachers who were overwhelmed by their sin and caught in their sin: Jimmy Swaggart, a popular evangelist, Ted Haggard, megachurch pastor, very influential. Jimmy Swaggart was messing around with a call girl or call girls back in the 80s and Ted Haggard was messing around with a call-guy and it all came out. Their sin caught up to them. So what does Paul say to do when dealing with those whose sins have caught up to them--- Real practical words but kind of a surprise to me at least. He says, You who are spiritual one should restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. Notice the details. Those are attempting to restore the person should have the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna need it.
I spoke of Ted Haggard, was a prominent minister who had done some very immoral things, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, evangelical group, he said, I can’t do it, too much a commitment. Good for James Dobson, restoration is serious business, not for those who aren’t able to commit to it.
For instance, there are different remedies for different diseases, and you need the Holy Spirit to know 1) the different diseases and 2) the different remedies. For Zacchaeus the remedy is to give to the poor and restore fourfold, for the rich young ruler? -- sell all that you have give to the poor and follow me. For Peter, it was Jesus making breakfast, breaking Peter’s heart in the gentlest way, do you love me, Lord you know I love you, feed my sheep. Different strokes for different folks.
And look at Paul’s next sentence: more than that, Watch yourself that you not also be tempted. What does Paul mean? Counseling, the work of reconciliation takes a toll. Let’s say you are trying to restore someone who took millions of dollars and she’s describing the homes, the vacation homes, the spas, the boats, the minks. You might get to thinking, I need a new coat, maybe it wouldn’t be wrong to fudge some of those numbers on my tax return. Or you’re hearing as you do the work of restoration with someone, you hear about the depths to which they have fallen, maybe you come out of a session, you feel rotten, your mind has been poisoned with bleech. Now, when Paul says to look to yourself, he’s not just saying examine yourself. Remember that verse that says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling because it is God at work within you”? That’s what is going on here. Look to yourself, look to God’s word within you. Look to God’s word. As the Corinthians learned, even if you are filled with the Holy Spirit you need to be in the word of God. In fact, the Holy Spirit leads us and counsels us to open this book and guides us once we are in it and unlocks the most wonderful secrets and discoveries to renew your heart, but as with the Corinthians, we are all too ready to go off on our own tangents, lean on our own strength so Paul says be in the Spirit and look to the word, as Scripture says of God, morning by morning he wakens my ear. To deal with the poisons, the dregs that are being poured into our ear as we counsel people, we need a purifier too, everyday, the word of God goin’ in the other ear. Then we’ll be able to walk tall and straight.
and this restoration is done in meekness. Think of Moses, Moses had so much of the holy spirit, a small part of his spirit was given to the 70 elders and it filled them and they were prophesying and they ate and drank before God. Moses was filled with the Holy Spirit and he was the meekest of all men on earth.
--You know I was reading on Jimmy Swaggart’s webpage.... now he’s got a ministry and he seems to be doing well but he wrote this about the time when he was caught and exposed before the whole world and it has wisdom
Aside -- this was the surprise part for me, I want to punish the well to do and the well known but for Paul, when somebody’s down and out, punishment is not what’s called for.
Second Aside-- Now there is a time not to be gentle, Two examples....man who was weary of well doing, and Mary or Mom example...when somebody’s about to throw himself off the cliff, bar the door!
From Jimmy Swaggart’s website: “When a person is down, and can do nothing to defend himself, and anyone can do any negative thing to him they so desire, and will not only not be reprimanded, but rather applauded, then one finds out just how many true Christians there really are.
When a man has been caught in some sin, and he’s down and out, can do nothing to defend himself, that’s the time for meekness and gentleness on the part of his counselors.
And we see this in Jesus.
The woman caught in adultery, how gentle Jesus' restoration of her is and yet, how piercing,
John 8--The pharisees are testing Jesus... Rabbi, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a one. What do you say? But notice what Jesus does, he bends down and begins to write in the earth in the dust. There is a secret to what Jesus is doing.
In Jeremiah we hear this
"O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake thee shall be ashamed and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise"
Do you see what Jesus is "saying" to the elders and pharisees ringed about? He makes it even clearer when he says, "he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." And Jesus at this again stoops down and writes in the dust. And the pharisees and scribes go away... one by one... beginning with the eldest.
And Jesus straightens up and says Woman, where are they, has no one judged you? No one Lord. And Jesus replies "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." The woman had been privy to Jesus as he wrote on the ground. Not only is he speaking to the pharisees and scribes, asking them in effect, "Are you dust and ashes, departed from the Lord, cut off from living water?" He had also asked the woman this. Writing in the dust is just the same as saying to her, "Are you dry dust?" Do you need the waters of life? And then his words, "neither do I condemn you, Go and sin no more" "God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world would be saved"." It is God's goodness that leads us to repentance and we see that in Jesus' restoration of the woman caught in adultery.
And all of the this leads to what is undergirding these verses in Galatians--restoration. For Jimmy Swaggart, there was no serious attempt at restoration... and Ted Haggard, too little an attempt, I commend the attempt, but still... too little. Fact is, we don’t care about restoring people... but not God. God is in the business of restoration. “And he shall restore the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the heart of the sons to the fathers. Mal 3:7
Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and uphold within me a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Psalm 51:10
Psalm 88 (Sept) David--restored again and again as the moon.
Psalm 67 (Sept) O God thou wilt grant to thine inheritance rain, for it was weary but thou didst refresh it.
Isaiah 1:26ff And I will return your judges as at first; and your advisors, as at the beginning; then you shall be called righteousness city, faithful town. Zion with judgment shall be redeemed and her returnees with righteousness
Jeremiah 30 For I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord because they called thee an Outcast.
God restores Zion, the land, hearts, souls, communities, countries, creation, all things Acts 3:19ff
How is this possible?
You see the new covenant, the everlasting covenant that is given to us in Jesus is all about restoration, healing, making right.
I will restore health unto thee, I will heal thee of thy wounds
What is after all,the center of the good news, “by his stripes we are healed” restored...
Yes, the church is hospital because its leader, the church’s one pastor, is Jesus the Great Physician. By his stripes we are healed
THIS is the law that Paul is talking about in the last clause here, "thus fulfill the law of Jesus of Anointed." What is the law of Jesus? It’s the everlasting covenant. Law, covenant,-- same thing, the new covenant. Restoration is God’s business and he makes it and is making it... ours. God says I will give you the faithful pities of the David Messiah, I will give you the faith, the love...everything so you can be like Jesus, Jesus the healer, Jesus the restorer, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
_____Please note that my quotations are from the KJV, the NIV, and many times they are my own translation based on the Greek.
Today, really, I just want to talk about the first two verses of Galatians 6. And here we have Paul giving some very practical advice. Down to earth advice that comes straight from the kingdom of heaven. He says, “brothers if indeed a man is overtaken in some transgression you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourselves that you are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Anointed.” First things first, let’s go point by point. What does that mean overtaken in some transgression? Yes, it means overwhelmed by sin, but it also means caught in some sin. I think first of all the woman caught in adultery. Her sin caught her, caught up with her. She’s been "outted", exposed.
But being caught in sin, having your sin exposed can be more subtle too. I think of Zacchaeus, the little man, the tax collector who goes up the tree to see Jesus. Remember him? Zacchaeus’ sin and treachery are certainly known but the exposure, his being “caught” is more subtle but just as clear. He has done wrong that’s why he’s trying to make up for it, by turning his life around, giving to the poor, returning four fold what he has stolen. Or another case, Peter-- Peter denied Jesus three times, and remember at the end of John Jesus asks him three times, do you love me.? Peter’s sin, denying Jesus has clearly caught up to him. If we had forgotten that Peter had denied Jesus three times, when Jesus asks him three times “Do you love me?”...at that point, we remember it.
In our own day, I can think of two prominent preachers who were overwhelmed by their sin and caught in their sin: Jimmy Swaggart, a popular evangelist, Ted Haggard, megachurch pastor, very influential. Jimmy Swaggart was messing around with a call girl or call girls back in the 80s and Ted Haggard was messing around with a call-guy and it all came out. Their sin caught up to them. So what does Paul say to do when dealing with those whose sins have caught up to them--- Real practical words but kind of a surprise to me at least. He says, You who are spiritual one should restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. Notice the details. Those are attempting to restore the person should have the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna need it.
I spoke of Ted Haggard, was a prominent minister who had done some very immoral things, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, evangelical group, he said, I can’t do it, too much a commitment. Good for James Dobson, restoration is serious business, not for those who aren’t able to commit to it.
For instance, there are different remedies for different diseases, and you need the Holy Spirit to know 1) the different diseases and 2) the different remedies. For Zacchaeus the remedy is to give to the poor and restore fourfold, for the rich young ruler? -- sell all that you have give to the poor and follow me. For Peter, it was Jesus making breakfast, breaking Peter’s heart in the gentlest way, do you love me, Lord you know I love you, feed my sheep. Different strokes for different folks.
And look at Paul’s next sentence: more than that, Watch yourself that you not also be tempted. What does Paul mean? Counseling, the work of reconciliation takes a toll. Let’s say you are trying to restore someone who took millions of dollars and she’s describing the homes, the vacation homes, the spas, the boats, the minks. You might get to thinking, I need a new coat, maybe it wouldn’t be wrong to fudge some of those numbers on my tax return. Or you’re hearing as you do the work of restoration with someone, you hear about the depths to which they have fallen, maybe you come out of a session, you feel rotten, your mind has been poisoned with bleech. Now, when Paul says to look to yourself, he’s not just saying examine yourself. Remember that verse that says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling because it is God at work within you”? That’s what is going on here. Look to yourself, look to God’s word within you. Look to God’s word. As the Corinthians learned, even if you are filled with the Holy Spirit you need to be in the word of God. In fact, the Holy Spirit leads us and counsels us to open this book and guides us once we are in it and unlocks the most wonderful secrets and discoveries to renew your heart, but as with the Corinthians, we are all too ready to go off on our own tangents, lean on our own strength so Paul says be in the Spirit and look to the word, as Scripture says of God, morning by morning he wakens my ear. To deal with the poisons, the dregs that are being poured into our ear as we counsel people, we need a purifier too, everyday, the word of God goin’ in the other ear. Then we’ll be able to walk tall and straight.
and this restoration is done in meekness. Think of Moses, Moses had so much of the holy spirit, a small part of his spirit was given to the 70 elders and it filled them and they were prophesying and they ate and drank before God. Moses was filled with the Holy Spirit and he was the meekest of all men on earth.
--You know I was reading on Jimmy Swaggart’s webpage.... now he’s got a ministry and he seems to be doing well but he wrote this about the time when he was caught and exposed before the whole world and it has wisdom
Aside -- this was the surprise part for me, I want to punish the well to do and the well known but for Paul, when somebody’s down and out, punishment is not what’s called for.
Second Aside-- Now there is a time not to be gentle, Two examples....man who was weary of well doing, and Mary or Mom example...when somebody’s about to throw himself off the cliff, bar the door!
From Jimmy Swaggart’s website: “When a person is down, and can do nothing to defend himself, and anyone can do any negative thing to him they so desire, and will not only not be reprimanded, but rather applauded, then one finds out just how many true Christians there really are.
When a man has been caught in some sin, and he’s down and out, can do nothing to defend himself, that’s the time for meekness and gentleness on the part of his counselors.
And we see this in Jesus.
The woman caught in adultery, how gentle Jesus' restoration of her is and yet, how piercing,
John 8--The pharisees are testing Jesus... Rabbi, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such a one. What do you say? But notice what Jesus does, he bends down and begins to write in the earth in the dust. There is a secret to what Jesus is doing.
In Jeremiah we hear this
"O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake thee shall be ashamed and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise"
Do you see what Jesus is "saying" to the elders and pharisees ringed about? He makes it even clearer when he says, "he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." And Jesus at this again stoops down and writes in the dust. And the pharisees and scribes go away... one by one... beginning with the eldest.
And Jesus straightens up and says Woman, where are they, has no one judged you? No one Lord. And Jesus replies "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." The woman had been privy to Jesus as he wrote on the ground. Not only is he speaking to the pharisees and scribes, asking them in effect, "Are you dust and ashes, departed from the Lord, cut off from living water?" He had also asked the woman this. Writing in the dust is just the same as saying to her, "Are you dry dust?" Do you need the waters of life? And then his words, "neither do I condemn you, Go and sin no more" "God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world would be saved"." It is God's goodness that leads us to repentance and we see that in Jesus' restoration of the woman caught in adultery.
And all of the this leads to what is undergirding these verses in Galatians--restoration. For Jimmy Swaggart, there was no serious attempt at restoration... and Ted Haggard, too little an attempt, I commend the attempt, but still... too little. Fact is, we don’t care about restoring people... but not God. God is in the business of restoration. “And he shall restore the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the heart of the sons to the fathers. Mal 3:7
Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and uphold within me a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Psalm 51:10
Psalm 88 (Sept) David--restored again and again as the moon.
Psalm 67 (Sept) O God thou wilt grant to thine inheritance rain, for it was weary but thou didst refresh it.
Isaiah 1:26ff And I will return your judges as at first; and your advisors, as at the beginning; then you shall be called righteousness city, faithful town. Zion with judgment shall be redeemed and her returnees with righteousness
Jeremiah 30 For I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord because they called thee an Outcast.
God restores Zion, the land, hearts, souls, communities, countries, creation, all things Acts 3:19ff
How is this possible?
You see the new covenant, the everlasting covenant that is given to us in Jesus is all about restoration, healing, making right.
I will restore health unto thee, I will heal thee of thy wounds
What is after all,the center of the good news, “by his stripes we are healed” restored...
Yes, the church is hospital because its leader, the church’s one pastor, is Jesus the Great Physician. By his stripes we are healed
THIS is the law that Paul is talking about in the last clause here, "thus fulfill the law of Jesus of Anointed." What is the law of Jesus? It’s the everlasting covenant. Law, covenant,-- same thing, the new covenant. Restoration is God’s business and he makes it and is making it... ours. God says I will give you the faithful pities of the David Messiah, I will give you the faith, the love...everything so you can be like Jesus, Jesus the healer, Jesus the restorer, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
_____Please note that my quotations are from the KJV, the NIV, and many times they are my own translation based on the Greek.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Genesis 6: Noah and Moses
Elie Wiesel, in his book "Sages and Dreamers" sums it up this way, with the flood, God was "starting all over, another draft." God preserves Noah and his family but abandons the rest of creation to the flood. It's interesting to me then that the children of Israel refuse to be abandoned, they cry out to God, they put off all their jewelry in mourning, they plead...and...their cause is upheld by the Lord. They are original squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Israel had sinned. God, who seems to have had it up to here with them, proposes that a glorious angel will lead them to the Promised Land...instead of him. He's had enough. The people respond with a might outcry; ice cream is no substitute for true love and an angel, however glorious, is no substitute for God.
Something has changed between Noah and Moses, and the Bible wants to let us in on it. Not only will Israel not be abandoned by God, they don't even have to accept a beautiful substitute. God's faithfulness seems to be coming into sharper and sharper focus, its glory is growing. We will see the glory of his faithfulness and love most in his son, Jesus Anointed, whom he sends because he refuses to abandon the world ("God so loved the world"). Nor will he send a substitute ("God saw that there was no man...he himself brought the victory." Is. 59:16), instead "the word became flesh and tented among us."
Elie Wiesel, in his book "Sages and Dreamers" sums it up this way, with the flood, God was "starting all over, another draft." God preserves Noah and his family but abandons the rest of creation to the flood. It's interesting to me then that the children of Israel refuse to be abandoned, they cry out to God, they put off all their jewelry in mourning, they plead...and...their cause is upheld by the Lord. They are original squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Israel had sinned. God, who seems to have had it up to here with them, proposes that a glorious angel will lead them to the Promised Land...instead of him. He's had enough. The people respond with a might outcry; ice cream is no substitute for true love and an angel, however glorious, is no substitute for God.
Something has changed between Noah and Moses, and the Bible wants to let us in on it. Not only will Israel not be abandoned by God, they don't even have to accept a beautiful substitute. God's faithfulness seems to be coming into sharper and sharper focus, its glory is growing. We will see the glory of his faithfulness and love most in his son, Jesus Anointed, whom he sends because he refuses to abandon the world ("God so loved the world"). Nor will he send a substitute ("God saw that there was no man...he himself brought the victory." Is. 59:16), instead "the word became flesh and tented among us."
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Wrath and Love of God and Prop. 8
In Judges 2:14 we read that because the Israelites turned to other gods, “the anger of the Lord was kindled...he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them; and he sold them into the power of their enemies round about so t hat they could no longer withstand their enemies.” But then, just a verse later, we read that in response to the suffering of Israel, God in his pity “raised up judges who saved them out of the power of those who plundered them” (vs. 16). It is interesting here that instead of withdrawing the Philistines and the other enemies of Israel, to whom God himself had handed them over, he raises up both judges and kings to stand against and defeat the enemies of Israel.
This is what is happening in the encounter between David and Goliath, the story of the young shepherd boy who defeats the giant Goliath and rouses the discouraged army of Israel so that with a great shout they rise up to pursue their oppressors and drive them from the land.
And this is the background to Romans 1, a chapter that in recent days invites much controversy.
In Romans 1:18-2:3, we learn that all society is thankless, we do not count our many blessings, and so, as he did with the Israelites, God hands us over to our enemies, not enemies of flesh and blood like the Philistines, but enemies that are ethereal but even more powerful. “We fight not against flesh and blood but the powers and principalities." Paul lists those enemies in his “vice catalogue” that begins in verse 1:24: “therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts...women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.” But of course this catalogue of vices does not end there but goes to encompass envy and murder, strife and deceit, malignity and gossiping, slander and hating God, to name a few.
This understanding of Romans 1, helps me as a minister to answer some the questions that have been asked of me, especially as the debate grew heated around Proposition 8 in California.
Many have asked over the years if I thought men and women are “born that way” as ”lesbians or homosexuals.” The answer is is, yes of course that is possible. On the other there are also a large number of people, some known to me personally, who chose sometime in early adulthood to reject the opposite sex. But whether people have a genetic predisposition to it or whether they chose to go a certain way makes no difference to the apostle Paul. God can hands over ALL society even the littlest child in the womb to sins that range from passion for those of their own sex to a predisposition for deceit. Just as the littlest one in Israel was oppressed by the cruel and continual raids on Israel by the Philistines so from the littlest to the oldest we are all harassed and harried by the vices that attack us constantly.
And here I must emphasize that it is ALL society, including you and me, that have been thankless. ALL of us have been handed over to the vices that the Apostle Paul lists in Romans 1. Chief among them to be sure, is the unnatural relations between men and men, women and women. These unnatural relations stand like a Goliath above all the others but we must remember an entire army of giants is behind him! Perhaps we love and admire the opposite sex, we are not perhaps DIRECTLY oppressed by this “Goliath” of a vice, but we necessarily fall prey to one of the other giants on the list. If we are not envious, we are faithless; if we are not disobedient to parents, we are heartless; if we are not liars we are gossips. Not one of us can avoid the cruelties of the enemy that lies within and without.
But is this bad news? No! and no again I say!
When God in his anger against our thanklessness betrays us into the hands our enemies, in his pity he raises up a savior to stand against these enemies and give us the victory! God has raised up such a savior and his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth!
He is our victory over all our enemies, including the Goliath of unnatural relations that we meet everywhere and know so intimately. But it is not just Goliath who is felled, but his many brethren. I can testify personally, I was, and am and would be in the power of many of the vices listed EXCEPT for Jesus. Except for Jesus I am bossy and mean to name just a few of my sins (some of which I believe I was born with), but that “except” makes all the difference in the world.
Many among my friends and extended family have told me that they believe there to be “nothing wrong” with so-called “gay marriage.” They say, “why not live and let live? No one is harmed.” I completely understand their point of view because I was once of the same opinion. But the Lord Jesus knows better. The Bible is as the theologian N.T. Wright points out “a love story.” How true that is, not just between Adam and Eve, but also between the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and “Lady Zion” of Isaiah 54, between Jesus and his bride the church. There is no other book that cares so much about men and women liking and loving one another. In fact, the gospel itself is inseparable from the romance between God and Zion. We cannot proclaim the cross without proclaiming the love a man (God, the suffering servant) for a woman (Zion, the church).
Sometimes our troubles seem and indeed are, overwhelming. Our enemies, Paul’s entire catalogue of vice, poison our lives. But we are no different from the army of Israel standing utterly cowed before Goliath and their powerful enemies... and then comes someone entirely unexpected, a young shepherd going down to the stream to pick out five smooth stones for his slingshot. And suddenly when no expects it the giant falls flat, dead. And we rise up with a shout of victory, driving the cruel armies of the Philistines away. If it was such with Shepherd David, how much more is it with the Shepherd Jesus? The Israelites chased the enemy to their own gates, but with the Lord Jesus, even the “gates of hell shall not prevail.”
This is what is happening in the encounter between David and Goliath, the story of the young shepherd boy who defeats the giant Goliath and rouses the discouraged army of Israel so that with a great shout they rise up to pursue their oppressors and drive them from the land.
And this is the background to Romans 1, a chapter that in recent days invites much controversy.
In Romans 1:18-2:3, we learn that all society is thankless, we do not count our many blessings, and so, as he did with the Israelites, God hands us over to our enemies, not enemies of flesh and blood like the Philistines, but enemies that are ethereal but even more powerful. “We fight not against flesh and blood but the powers and principalities." Paul lists those enemies in his “vice catalogue” that begins in verse 1:24: “therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts...women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.” But of course this catalogue of vices does not end there but goes to encompass envy and murder, strife and deceit, malignity and gossiping, slander and hating God, to name a few.
This understanding of Romans 1, helps me as a minister to answer some the questions that have been asked of me, especially as the debate grew heated around Proposition 8 in California.
Many have asked over the years if I thought men and women are “born that way” as ”lesbians or homosexuals.” The answer is is, yes of course that is possible. On the other there are also a large number of people, some known to me personally, who chose sometime in early adulthood to reject the opposite sex. But whether people have a genetic predisposition to it or whether they chose to go a certain way makes no difference to the apostle Paul. God can hands over ALL society even the littlest child in the womb to sins that range from passion for those of their own sex to a predisposition for deceit. Just as the littlest one in Israel was oppressed by the cruel and continual raids on Israel by the Philistines so from the littlest to the oldest we are all harassed and harried by the vices that attack us constantly.
And here I must emphasize that it is ALL society, including you and me, that have been thankless. ALL of us have been handed over to the vices that the Apostle Paul lists in Romans 1. Chief among them to be sure, is the unnatural relations between men and men, women and women. These unnatural relations stand like a Goliath above all the others but we must remember an entire army of giants is behind him! Perhaps we love and admire the opposite sex, we are not perhaps DIRECTLY oppressed by this “Goliath” of a vice, but we necessarily fall prey to one of the other giants on the list. If we are not envious, we are faithless; if we are not disobedient to parents, we are heartless; if we are not liars we are gossips. Not one of us can avoid the cruelties of the enemy that lies within and without.
But is this bad news? No! and no again I say!
When God in his anger against our thanklessness betrays us into the hands our enemies, in his pity he raises up a savior to stand against these enemies and give us the victory! God has raised up such a savior and his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth!
He is our victory over all our enemies, including the Goliath of unnatural relations that we meet everywhere and know so intimately. But it is not just Goliath who is felled, but his many brethren. I can testify personally, I was, and am and would be in the power of many of the vices listed EXCEPT for Jesus. Except for Jesus I am bossy and mean to name just a few of my sins (some of which I believe I was born with), but that “except” makes all the difference in the world.
Many among my friends and extended family have told me that they believe there to be “nothing wrong” with so-called “gay marriage.” They say, “why not live and let live? No one is harmed.” I completely understand their point of view because I was once of the same opinion. But the Lord Jesus knows better. The Bible is as the theologian N.T. Wright points out “a love story.” How true that is, not just between Adam and Eve, but also between the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and “Lady Zion” of Isaiah 54, between Jesus and his bride the church. There is no other book that cares so much about men and women liking and loving one another. In fact, the gospel itself is inseparable from the romance between God and Zion. We cannot proclaim the cross without proclaiming the love a man (God, the suffering servant) for a woman (Zion, the church).
Sometimes our troubles seem and indeed are, overwhelming. Our enemies, Paul’s entire catalogue of vice, poison our lives. But we are no different from the army of Israel standing utterly cowed before Goliath and their powerful enemies... and then comes someone entirely unexpected, a young shepherd going down to the stream to pick out five smooth stones for his slingshot. And suddenly when no expects it the giant falls flat, dead. And we rise up with a shout of victory, driving the cruel armies of the Philistines away. If it was such with Shepherd David, how much more is it with the Shepherd Jesus? The Israelites chased the enemy to their own gates, but with the Lord Jesus, even the “gates of hell shall not prevail.”
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Little Poems for Little Ones
The Red Sea
The Lord led Israel out to the Sea
He wanted those slaves to be happy and free.
The Israelites were scared, they thought they were stuck!
But the Egyptians instead got stuck in the muck.
The Israelites were saved! They stood on the shore!
But the cruel Egyptians were no more!
And in God and Moses they were believin’
Because of the wonders their eyes were seein’
Jonah
Jonah was mad ‘cause God was so kind
“God would forgive those Ninevites!” “Was He blind?”
So out on the sea Jonah set sail at once
“No! I won’t prophesy”
“I’m no dunce!”
But our good Lord had other plans
A storm was brewin’ to beat the band.
And the prophet Jonah was thrown into the sea
He sat in the belly of the whale
days, one two and three!
And when he got out, Jonah was sent
To warn the Ninevites, they had to repent.
And the Ninevites did, both great and small
And Jonah learned something about God’s love for us all.
The Call
Fishermen, fishing on the sea
But Jesus said, Follow me!
When they heard his voice, they followed him then
He would make them fishers of men.
Jesus Rules the Sea
The waves of the sea crashed up and down
The great storm made a horrible sound!
The disciples were scared, “We’re going to die!”
And to Jesus asleep, they did fly.
And Jesus awoke and heard their plea
They didn’t know: God rules the sea!
Then Jesus stilled the storm, made the wind cease.
And all around was perfect peace.
Jesus, Our Friend
Jesus came down to the seaside that night
And helped the disciples in their plight
No fish had they caught, they were lost indeed
Silently they prayed, “Help us please!”
And Jesus came and stood on the shore
“Cast in your net, you’ll find fish galore!”
And he gave them breakfast there on the sand
And told them all about his good plans.
That all the world might be happy and free
It all started there on the sea of Galilee.
God’s Throne
God’s throne sits on a crystalline sea
He watches over us all, for he loves you and me.
The Lord led Israel out to the Sea
He wanted those slaves to be happy and free.
The Israelites were scared, they thought they were stuck!
But the Egyptians instead got stuck in the muck.
The Israelites were saved! They stood on the shore!
But the cruel Egyptians were no more!
And in God and Moses they were believin’
Because of the wonders their eyes were seein’
Jonah
Jonah was mad ‘cause God was so kind
“God would forgive those Ninevites!” “Was He blind?”
So out on the sea Jonah set sail at once
“No! I won’t prophesy”
“I’m no dunce!”
But our good Lord had other plans
A storm was brewin’ to beat the band.
And the prophet Jonah was thrown into the sea
He sat in the belly of the whale
days, one two and three!
And when he got out, Jonah was sent
To warn the Ninevites, they had to repent.
And the Ninevites did, both great and small
And Jonah learned something about God’s love for us all.
The Call
Fishermen, fishing on the sea
But Jesus said, Follow me!
When they heard his voice, they followed him then
He would make them fishers of men.
Jesus Rules the Sea
The waves of the sea crashed up and down
The great storm made a horrible sound!
The disciples were scared, “We’re going to die!”
And to Jesus asleep, they did fly.
And Jesus awoke and heard their plea
They didn’t know: God rules the sea!
Then Jesus stilled the storm, made the wind cease.
And all around was perfect peace.
Jesus, Our Friend
Jesus came down to the seaside that night
And helped the disciples in their plight
No fish had they caught, they were lost indeed
Silently they prayed, “Help us please!”
And Jesus came and stood on the shore
“Cast in your net, you’ll find fish galore!”
And he gave them breakfast there on the sand
And told them all about his good plans.
That all the world might be happy and free
It all started there on the sea of Galilee.
God’s Throne
God’s throne sits on a crystalline sea
He watches over us all, for he loves you and me.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A Letter to the Presbyterian Layman newspaper
Brothers and sisters,
Jesus said on the night he was betrayed, "Fear not, I have overcome
the world." That is the word for us Presbyterians in this dark night
following the actions of the most recent General Assembly.
Presbyters, elders, deacons, deaconnesses, janitors, PW members,
ministers, do not be afraid! Let nothing terrify you! Stand! Stay
in your presbyteries, resist the temptation of non-geographical
presbyteries where we can give one another false comfort, saying to
one another, "peace, peace," where there is no peace. These are the
troubles of the world today and we are not of the world but we are FOR
the world.
Remember the story in 2nd Samuel 10, Joab told Abishai his brother,
"If the Syrians are too storng for me, then you shall save me, and if
the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and save you.
Be of good courage and let us play the man for our people and for the
cities of our God; and may the Lord do what seems good to him."
Presbyterians,we must be soldiers like Joab and Abishai now. So let us
play the man, back to back, fighting the good fight. This is no time
to grow weary. I'm in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities, come and
save me from powers and principalities that are destroying it...and I
will come and with God's help, save you right back! May God do what
seems good to him!
Amy Flack, minister Ellsworth and Hager City Wisconsin
Jesus said on the night he was betrayed, "Fear not, I have overcome
the world." That is the word for us Presbyterians in this dark night
following the actions of the most recent General Assembly.
Presbyters, elders, deacons, deaconnesses, janitors, PW members,
ministers, do not be afraid! Let nothing terrify you! Stand! Stay
in your presbyteries, resist the temptation of non-geographical
presbyteries where we can give one another false comfort, saying to
one another, "peace, peace," where there is no peace. These are the
troubles of the world today and we are not of the world but we are FOR
the world.
Remember the story in 2nd Samuel 10, Joab told Abishai his brother,
"If the Syrians are too storng for me, then you shall save me, and if
the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and save you.
Be of good courage and let us play the man for our people and for the
cities of our God; and may the Lord do what seems good to him."
Presbyterians,we must be soldiers like Joab and Abishai now. So let us
play the man, back to back, fighting the good fight. This is no time
to grow weary. I'm in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities, come and
save me from powers and principalities that are destroying it...and I
will come and with God's help, save you right back! May God do what
seems good to him!
Amy Flack, minister Ellsworth and Hager City Wisconsin
Friday, May 2, 2008
A Special Providence--Article
A Special Providence
Talking with a friend the other day, I happened to ask
him how he dealt with worry. His answer was
interesting. He said, "I know that if things don't
work out in my life, God has something better in mind
for me.” A noble thought, but is there something
lacking in it? God does have something better in mind
for us always, but that “better” must include “the
fall of a sparrow.”
Think of Hamlet. What is it he says in the last act
of the play? He says, “there is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.” In the final scene he
goes to the fencing match with Laertes, not knowing
that the king, his uncle, has contrived with Laertes
to poison the tip of the foil. Somehow Hamlet half
senses the evil that the king means for him. But what
Hamlet has learned in the course of the play is that
in “the fall of the sparrow” too, there is the grace
of God. It is around this understanding of suffering
that the play revolves. Should Hamlet immediately
revenge the murder of his father or not? Christianity
wars with the old pagan ways. Educated by the church,
Hamlet knows not which way to turn, to the old pagan
ways of vengeance, the old way of “fairies and
witches” or to the new way begun by “our Saviour’s
birth.” (Act I, Scene I) He does not know whether to
“suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,”
or to revenge himself, or in despair to commit suicide
over his inability to do either. But I think it is
Jesus and the Biblical understanding of suffering that
is victorious in Hamlet’s heart and mind. Yes, in
open combat he does slay his murdering uncle before
dying under the poison foil; there is a time for war,
as the Bible says, but Hamlet has also seen that
sometimes the suffering and the oppression of the
enemy is the loving will of God for us, a “special
providence.” In suffering his uncle to live, in
suffering under oppression, Hamlet has played the part
of Jesus on the cross. Moreover in these sorrows he
is loved, not hated by God. God does not mean
Hamlet’s sufferings as a curse but as a blessing upon
him and his kingdom. “There is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow;” this is a truth that comes
only in Jesus.
Let’s remember again what my friend said, “if things
don't work out in my life, God has something better
for me.” Yes, but only if part of that “better”
includes a cross. As I understand the cross in light
of Isaiah 53, the suffering and death of the man of
sorrows is not reflective of the anger and displeasure
of God, but rather his “good pleasure.” In other
words, God is not angry with the man of sorrows but
loves him deeply. God loved Joseph but sent him into
slavery and jail, that through his sufferings all
Israel might be saved. Yes, Joseph’s brothers
“meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
God meant Joseph to be in that prison cell, where he
would have his dreams, where he predict the future.
His prison cell was a necessary part of the salvation
of Israel and even the world. It is the same with
Jesus. It is the same with Hamlet and with us.
Without Jesus, we could well imagine our sufferings
are a curse, the displeasure of fate or the gods, or
of God himself. But with Jesus opening scripture to
us, then can we understand and even rejoice in our
sorrows. We do not suffer “the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune” but rather we are Joseph in his
prison cell in Egypt, we are Abraham and Sarah in
their long wait for a son, Samson in his death, Moses
in his suffering in the wilderness, Jeremiah in his
cry of grief, Jesus on his cross; all these, these
who were at every moment delighted in, truly loved by
God. They were put into the shadow of death on
purpose and for a purpose, a beautiful purpose by the
God who so loves the world. "What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has in store for those who wait on him."
Talking with a friend the other day, I happened to ask
him how he dealt with worry. His answer was
interesting. He said, "I know that if things don't
work out in my life, God has something better in mind
for me.” A noble thought, but is there something
lacking in it? God does have something better in mind
for us always, but that “better” must include “the
fall of a sparrow.”
Think of Hamlet. What is it he says in the last act
of the play? He says, “there is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.” In the final scene he
goes to the fencing match with Laertes, not knowing
that the king, his uncle, has contrived with Laertes
to poison the tip of the foil. Somehow Hamlet half
senses the evil that the king means for him. But what
Hamlet has learned in the course of the play is that
in “the fall of the sparrow” too, there is the grace
of God. It is around this understanding of suffering
that the play revolves. Should Hamlet immediately
revenge the murder of his father or not? Christianity
wars with the old pagan ways. Educated by the church,
Hamlet knows not which way to turn, to the old pagan
ways of vengeance, the old way of “fairies and
witches” or to the new way begun by “our Saviour’s
birth.” (Act I, Scene I) He does not know whether to
“suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,”
or to revenge himself, or in despair to commit suicide
over his inability to do either. But I think it is
Jesus and the Biblical understanding of suffering that
is victorious in Hamlet’s heart and mind. Yes, in
open combat he does slay his murdering uncle before
dying under the poison foil; there is a time for war,
as the Bible says, but Hamlet has also seen that
sometimes the suffering and the oppression of the
enemy is the loving will of God for us, a “special
providence.” In suffering his uncle to live, in
suffering under oppression, Hamlet has played the part
of Jesus on the cross. Moreover in these sorrows he
is loved, not hated by God. God does not mean
Hamlet’s sufferings as a curse but as a blessing upon
him and his kingdom. “There is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow;” this is a truth that comes
only in Jesus.
Let’s remember again what my friend said, “if things
don't work out in my life, God has something better
for me.” Yes, but only if part of that “better”
includes a cross. As I understand the cross in light
of Isaiah 53, the suffering and death of the man of
sorrows is not reflective of the anger and displeasure
of God, but rather his “good pleasure.” In other
words, God is not angry with the man of sorrows but
loves him deeply. God loved Joseph but sent him into
slavery and jail, that through his sufferings all
Israel might be saved. Yes, Joseph’s brothers
“meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
God meant Joseph to be in that prison cell, where he
would have his dreams, where he predict the future.
His prison cell was a necessary part of the salvation
of Israel and even the world. It is the same with
Jesus. It is the same with Hamlet and with us.
Without Jesus, we could well imagine our sufferings
are a curse, the displeasure of fate or the gods, or
of God himself. But with Jesus opening scripture to
us, then can we understand and even rejoice in our
sorrows. We do not suffer “the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune” but rather we are Joseph in his
prison cell in Egypt, we are Abraham and Sarah in
their long wait for a son, Samson in his death, Moses
in his suffering in the wilderness, Jeremiah in his
cry of grief, Jesus on his cross; all these, these
who were at every moment delighted in, truly loved by
God. They were put into the shadow of death on
purpose and for a purpose, a beautiful purpose by the
God who so loves the world. "What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has in store for those who wait on him."
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Beauty is Truth?--Article
Beauty
Did you know that scientists have discovered tiny
chips of paint on the great statues of the ancient
western world? We are inclined to think of Greek and
Roman statues as bone white, unpainted, but it turns
out the statues were definitely done up in glorious
color. And now scientists and scholars have been able
to recreate the way they looked originally. In the
new show at Harvard, we see a copy of the statue of
the goddess Athena. She is dressed in bright green and
yellow. With golden hair and determined eyes she looks
strong, wise and terrifying. A bust of the Emperor
Caligula is also recreated. In color we are able to
see the look of sheer cruelty and perversion on his
petulant yet supremely regal face.
To go into any of the temples and see these statues
must have been overwhelming. The unpainted statues
were beautiful, but painted their beauty is rachetted
up several notches, they become truly awe-inspiring.
It was the Greek belief that in the faces of these
statues one could truly experience the divine. Seeing
the restored versions, I begin to see their point.
It was a painted statue that the cruel Antiochus
Epiphanes(“The Shining One”--215-164 B.C.) put into
the temple at Jerusalem. Let’s look at the situation
for a moment from the Greek point of view. To quote
Keats memorializing this belief in his poem “Ode on a
Grecian Urn”, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty-- that is
all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”
Antiochus Epiphanes probably really believed that he
was saving the Jewish nation through the sheer
loveliness of the statues of the gods. He believed he
was force for the enlightenment of the whole earth,
bringing truth and glory to benighted Israel. He
despised their lack of imagery, their silly rules for
the Sabbath and their strange belief that pork eating
was forbidden. He would show them what civilization
really meant, and so into the sanctuary he brought the
“abomination of desolation.”
Antiochus Epiphanes did not understand or accept
Israel’s critique of the whole notion of beauty as
something of supreme value. The Greeks and the Romans
believed that beauty was “where it was at.” It was
this belief in beauty that helped to cause so much
confusion in the ancient world. In Sparta for
instance, women were lovers of other women and men
with men, because marriage between a man and a woman
did not matter much. It was a low thing in fact. The
Spartans seemed to have believed that beauty
transcended any relationship between the two genders.
It was beauty alone in either man or woman which was
to be worshipped and adored as the pathway to truth.
We can see the same viewpoint in the great Socratic
dialogue, “The Symposium” and throughout the great
writings of the ancient Western world.
Where does the Bible stand? We find that it has
something very surprising to say on this issue.
Beauty is demoted. In what must have seemed almost
inconceivable to the ancient world, to Israel what is
of prime importance is relationship between men and
women. God puts humble Adam and Eve, Jesus and his
bride the church front and center; it is Jesus who is
“the Way, the Truth and the Life” and his first order
of business is to bring truth and life to “Lady
Jerusalem” . In his suffering and death, he carries
away our sins, and makes a sad and grieving woman
(Zion) happy at last (see Isaiah 53 and 54). The
apostle Paul speaks of Jesus and his bride the church
whom he will one day present to himself “a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any other such
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”
(Ephesians 5:27).
God’s critique of the sophisticated Greeks works
itself out into everyday life. We read in Proverbs
31, “charm is a delusion and beauty is vain.” It is
the woman who knows the great goodness of the Lord
that is to be honored, not the Paris Hilton
look-alike. To the pilgrim on his way to visit the
gods and goddesses of Olympus, their images might well
have caused his knees to buckle and his breath to come
short so inspiring were they, but the Bible says these
things are vanity, dust and ashes.
It is the trustworthy woman “who sees that her
business goes well, who buys a field and plants a
vineyard out of her earnings...who reaches out her
hands to the poor” that is truly beautiful. Not to a
statue of Aphrodite does a man sing praises but rather
to his loving wife (Proverbs 31:27).
In the clash between Jerusalem and Athens, and even in
the societal clashes today God is teaching us how to
see. What is truly of value is the woman of Proverbs
31; then as now, it is the not the Playboy bunny
transfixed on glossy magazine pages, but the living
breathing woman who is to be adored and cared for, a
real non-airbrushed woman not a painted image. It is
in the love and liking between men and women that we
see a reflection of God’s glory, not in the beautiful
golden, stoney-hearted Athena.
Did you know that scientists have discovered tiny
chips of paint on the great statues of the ancient
western world? We are inclined to think of Greek and
Roman statues as bone white, unpainted, but it turns
out the statues were definitely done up in glorious
color. And now scientists and scholars have been able
to recreate the way they looked originally. In the
new show at Harvard, we see a copy of the statue of
the goddess Athena. She is dressed in bright green and
yellow. With golden hair and determined eyes she looks
strong, wise and terrifying. A bust of the Emperor
Caligula is also recreated. In color we are able to
see the look of sheer cruelty and perversion on his
petulant yet supremely regal face.
To go into any of the temples and see these statues
must have been overwhelming. The unpainted statues
were beautiful, but painted their beauty is rachetted
up several notches, they become truly awe-inspiring.
It was the Greek belief that in the faces of these
statues one could truly experience the divine. Seeing
the restored versions, I begin to see their point.
It was a painted statue that the cruel Antiochus
Epiphanes(“The Shining One”--215-164 B.C.) put into
the temple at Jerusalem. Let’s look at the situation
for a moment from the Greek point of view. To quote
Keats memorializing this belief in his poem “Ode on a
Grecian Urn”, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty-- that is
all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”
Antiochus Epiphanes probably really believed that he
was saving the Jewish nation through the sheer
loveliness of the statues of the gods. He believed he
was force for the enlightenment of the whole earth,
bringing truth and glory to benighted Israel. He
despised their lack of imagery, their silly rules for
the Sabbath and their strange belief that pork eating
was forbidden. He would show them what civilization
really meant, and so into the sanctuary he brought the
“abomination of desolation.”
Antiochus Epiphanes did not understand or accept
Israel’s critique of the whole notion of beauty as
something of supreme value. The Greeks and the Romans
believed that beauty was “where it was at.” It was
this belief in beauty that helped to cause so much
confusion in the ancient world. In Sparta for
instance, women were lovers of other women and men
with men, because marriage between a man and a woman
did not matter much. It was a low thing in fact. The
Spartans seemed to have believed that beauty
transcended any relationship between the two genders.
It was beauty alone in either man or woman which was
to be worshipped and adored as the pathway to truth.
We can see the same viewpoint in the great Socratic
dialogue, “The Symposium” and throughout the great
writings of the ancient Western world.
Where does the Bible stand? We find that it has
something very surprising to say on this issue.
Beauty is demoted. In what must have seemed almost
inconceivable to the ancient world, to Israel what is
of prime importance is relationship between men and
women. God puts humble Adam and Eve, Jesus and his
bride the church front and center; it is Jesus who is
“the Way, the Truth and the Life” and his first order
of business is to bring truth and life to “Lady
Jerusalem” . In his suffering and death, he carries
away our sins, and makes a sad and grieving woman
(Zion) happy at last (see Isaiah 53 and 54). The
apostle Paul speaks of Jesus and his bride the church
whom he will one day present to himself “a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any other such
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”
(Ephesians 5:27).
God’s critique of the sophisticated Greeks works
itself out into everyday life. We read in Proverbs
31, “charm is a delusion and beauty is vain.” It is
the woman who knows the great goodness of the Lord
that is to be honored, not the Paris Hilton
look-alike. To the pilgrim on his way to visit the
gods and goddesses of Olympus, their images might well
have caused his knees to buckle and his breath to come
short so inspiring were they, but the Bible says these
things are vanity, dust and ashes.
It is the trustworthy woman “who sees that her
business goes well, who buys a field and plants a
vineyard out of her earnings...who reaches out her
hands to the poor” that is truly beautiful. Not to a
statue of Aphrodite does a man sing praises but rather
to his loving wife (Proverbs 31:27).
In the clash between Jerusalem and Athens, and even in
the societal clashes today God is teaching us how to
see. What is truly of value is the woman of Proverbs
31; then as now, it is the not the Playboy bunny
transfixed on glossy magazine pages, but the living
breathing woman who is to be adored and cared for, a
real non-airbrushed woman not a painted image. It is
in the love and liking between men and women that we
see a reflection of God’s glory, not in the beautiful
golden, stoney-hearted Athena.
Thoughts on Saturday's Special Presbytery Meeting-- Essay
I really am praising God; listening to Dr. Capetz'
answers and the comments upstairs helped me
tremendously in understanding this issue Biblically.
I didn't understand before Saturday WHY the apostle
Paul speaks the way he does in Romans 1 and 2. Paul
does not speak the way he does because he is
a)homophobic or b) relying on traditional Jewish
attitudes towards homosexuals but rather, he speaks
the way he does because he has met Jesus on the road
to Damascus!
On the road to Damascus, Paul meets the Lord God,
Jesus who had died on a cross. This fact, effectively
forces Paul to open the Bible to Isaiah 53, where Paul
reads about a suffering servant. But the direct
result of the sorrows of this God and man is 1) the
justification of "many" and 2) (and here's the kicker)
the happiness and freedom of Jerusalem who is pictured
as a woman. Basically we are getting an updated
version of Adam and Eve here. Turns out, Adam and Eve
are not only in Genesis but in 2nd Isaiah!
Where the rubber meets the road in all of this is that
far from being an issue of relative unimportance,
right relationship, indeed, healed relationship
between men and women is at the very heart of the
Bible, hand in hand with the cross itself, not to
mention justice and mercy.
I just have to say how amazing this is; in an earlier
time I was a classics student and you know, there is
simply no other book in the world that centers on
making a woman happy and free and victorious. Oy vey,
that's for sure.
Believe me, Socrates had absolutely no idea of making
any woman happy and Sappho had no idea that a man
could ever possibly do this! There is simply no
precedent in any of the ancient writings for "this
now is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone"
It was only in the car ride home on Saturday that this
all started to sink it...and there's a lot more to go.
I think we've just begun to mine all the treasures.
answers and the comments upstairs helped me
tremendously in understanding this issue Biblically.
I didn't understand before Saturday WHY the apostle
Paul speaks the way he does in Romans 1 and 2. Paul
does not speak the way he does because he is
a)homophobic or b) relying on traditional Jewish
attitudes towards homosexuals but rather, he speaks
the way he does because he has met Jesus on the road
to Damascus!
On the road to Damascus, Paul meets the Lord God,
Jesus who had died on a cross. This fact, effectively
forces Paul to open the Bible to Isaiah 53, where Paul
reads about a suffering servant. But the direct
result of the sorrows of this God and man is 1) the
justification of "many" and 2) (and here's the kicker)
the happiness and freedom of Jerusalem who is pictured
as a woman. Basically we are getting an updated
version of Adam and Eve here. Turns out, Adam and Eve
are not only in Genesis but in 2nd Isaiah!
Where the rubber meets the road in all of this is that
far from being an issue of relative unimportance,
right relationship, indeed, healed relationship
between men and women is at the very heart of the
Bible, hand in hand with the cross itself, not to
mention justice and mercy.
I just have to say how amazing this is; in an earlier
time I was a classics student and you know, there is
simply no other book in the world that centers on
making a woman happy and free and victorious. Oy vey,
that's for sure.
Believe me, Socrates had absolutely no idea of making
any woman happy and Sappho had no idea that a man
could ever possibly do this! There is simply no
precedent in any of the ancient writings for "this
now is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone"
It was only in the car ride home on Saturday that this
all started to sink it...and there's a lot more to go.
I think we've just begun to mine all the treasures.
Letter
An Appeal to My Presbytery, the Presbytery of the Twin
Cities Area
On Saturday, Professor Paul Capetz’ asserted that
affirming “chastity in singleness” (Book of Order
G-6.0106b) was tantamount to taking a vow of celibacy.
This assertion at its heart calls into question the
words of the angel Gabriel, “with God nothing will be
impossible” (Luke 1:37, RSV). As Jesus reiterated,
“with men it is impossible, but with God all things
are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
And yet, in restoring Professor Capetz as minister
member in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, we
say to the church and the world that there is at least
one thing that is impossible with God, namely,
redemption for men who desire men and women who desire
women (see Romans 1:26-27).
That “homosexual orientation” is unchangeable goes
largely unquestioned in Western society today, but God
mercifully calls into question all our
impossibilities. Romans 1 tells us that our savior,
Jesus, “the just who shall live by faith” lives in
order to save us from our enemies. (Romans 1:17). As
King David saved the ancient Israelites from the
Philistines, themselves sent as a manifestation of
God’s wrath (see Judges 2:14, Romans 1:18), so the
clear implication of Romans is that the King of Kings,
Jesus, saves us from enemies far more terrible than
the Philistines, enemies not of flesh and blood, but
the powers and principalities of this world. God’s
mercy does and must abound in his son Jesus.
Romans chapter 1 shows us the glory of just Jesus
against the black background of universal sin (all we
like sheep had gone astray). But the just Jesus is
also the justifying Jesus. Romans 1 begins with the
resurrection of the dead and this is no accident. The
resurrection of the dead is inseparable from
restoration of right relationship between men and
women (R. 1:4,17ff).
Remember the woman of the city who was “forgiven
much” and therefore “loved much” bathing Jesus’ feet
with her tears, anointing him with precious oil (Luke
7:37-50). Somewhere she had heard the word of
forgiveness and in the gospel stories we see a woman
redeemed, transformed. Jesus said of such a one,
“wherever the gospel is preached this will be told in
memory of her” (Mark 14:9). Simon the Pharisee called
this woman a sinner as her tears fell on Jesus’ feet.
One could well guess that in Simon’s view it was
impossible that this woman be anything but what she
was known to be, one whose body and soul were corrupt
But what is inconceivable and well nigh impossible
with men is more than conceivable and do-able by the
word of God. As Luther said, “the word, the word, the
word will do it.” God the father delights, “sings
with joy” over what he has done and is doing in Jesus
(Zephaniah 3:17).
But not only that, it is “these sinners” who go
first into the kingdom and in so doing provide a
shining hope for us all. For when these are saved,
those to whom salvation was accounted by church and
society an “impossibility,” then hope springs up in
our own hearts; perhaps we in the pews and pulpits
and choir lofts too can be saved from our innumerable
miseries, weaknesses, sins and burdens that have grown
to heavy for us to bear. Our heart rejoices in Jesus,
the Anointed One, anointed both by God and by the
sinner who “once was lost but now is found.” Who can
doubt that that unnamed woman is now crowned in light
at the throne of the Lord of hosts?
Beloved brothers and sisters of the Presbytery of the
Twin Cities Area, I appeal to you by the mercies of
God. Let us not be conformed to this age but
transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Amy Flack (Minister Member of the Presbytery of the
Twin Cities Area, Ellsworth and Hager City, Wisconsin)
Cities Area
On Saturday, Professor Paul Capetz’ asserted that
affirming “chastity in singleness” (Book of Order
G-6.0106b) was tantamount to taking a vow of celibacy.
This assertion at its heart calls into question the
words of the angel Gabriel, “with God nothing will be
impossible” (Luke 1:37, RSV). As Jesus reiterated,
“with men it is impossible, but with God all things
are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
And yet, in restoring Professor Capetz as minister
member in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, we
say to the church and the world that there is at least
one thing that is impossible with God, namely,
redemption for men who desire men and women who desire
women (see Romans 1:26-27).
That “homosexual orientation” is unchangeable goes
largely unquestioned in Western society today, but God
mercifully calls into question all our
impossibilities. Romans 1 tells us that our savior,
Jesus, “the just who shall live by faith” lives in
order to save us from our enemies. (Romans 1:17). As
King David saved the ancient Israelites from the
Philistines, themselves sent as a manifestation of
God’s wrath (see Judges 2:14, Romans 1:18), so the
clear implication of Romans is that the King of Kings,
Jesus, saves us from enemies far more terrible than
the Philistines, enemies not of flesh and blood, but
the powers and principalities of this world. God’s
mercy does and must abound in his son Jesus.
Romans chapter 1 shows us the glory of just Jesus
against the black background of universal sin (all we
like sheep had gone astray). But the just Jesus is
also the justifying Jesus. Romans 1 begins with the
resurrection of the dead and this is no accident. The
resurrection of the dead is inseparable from
restoration of right relationship between men and
women (R. 1:4,17ff).
Remember the woman of the city who was “forgiven
much” and therefore “loved much” bathing Jesus’ feet
with her tears, anointing him with precious oil (Luke
7:37-50). Somewhere she had heard the word of
forgiveness and in the gospel stories we see a woman
redeemed, transformed. Jesus said of such a one,
“wherever the gospel is preached this will be told in
memory of her” (Mark 14:9). Simon the Pharisee called
this woman a sinner as her tears fell on Jesus’ feet.
One could well guess that in Simon’s view it was
impossible that this woman be anything but what she
was known to be, one whose body and soul were corrupt
But what is inconceivable and well nigh impossible
with men is more than conceivable and do-able by the
word of God. As Luther said, “the word, the word, the
word will do it.” God the father delights, “sings
with joy” over what he has done and is doing in Jesus
(Zephaniah 3:17).
But not only that, it is “these sinners” who go
first into the kingdom and in so doing provide a
shining hope for us all. For when these are saved,
those to whom salvation was accounted by church and
society an “impossibility,” then hope springs up in
our own hearts; perhaps we in the pews and pulpits
and choir lofts too can be saved from our innumerable
miseries, weaknesses, sins and burdens that have grown
to heavy for us to bear. Our heart rejoices in Jesus,
the Anointed One, anointed both by God and by the
sinner who “once was lost but now is found.” Who can
doubt that that unnamed woman is now crowned in light
at the throne of the Lord of hosts?
Beloved brothers and sisters of the Presbytery of the
Twin Cities Area, I appeal to you by the mercies of
God. Let us not be conformed to this age but
transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Amy Flack (Minister Member of the Presbytery of the
Twin Cities Area, Ellsworth and Hager City, Wisconsin)
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