"But They Laughed at Him"

Texts:    1 Corinthians 1:18-25; Mark 5:21-43

        PEOPLE LAUGH AT GOD THESE days. How absurd that anyone should believe in a Deity we've probably "just made up in our own heads."  We reply that our God could be seen and heard and felt when He lived on earth as the Man Jesus Christ, but the unbelieving world thinks that's a terrific joke.  How could a man be God in human flesh?!  How could one Man's death deal with the problem of our sins?!  Most hilarious of all, where do we Christians get off saying that people have any sin problem in the first place?  People laugh at Jesus, and they laugh at us.

    Maybe if we could go back in time and walk with Jesus in Roman-occupied Israel, we'd find that nobody laughed at God like that.  Everyone would respect Jesus and take Him seriously.  After all, Jesus was the Messiah, the Holy One of God.  And as His disciples, people would respect us take us seriously, too.  No one would dare to laugh, or say that Jesus-- or we ourselves-- was a fool.

    But we know that's not true.   We know it from our Scripture readings this morning.  Just as now, people in the 1st century had no trouble laughing at Jesus and laughing at Christians.  Why?  Because from this fallen world's point of view, Jesus seemed to go about His work in a very foolish way.  He didn't do things the way that was prescribed or expected.  Not even the religious people approved of what He did and why He did it.  Jesus deliberately went around turning things upside down.

    Now, not always.  In our reading from St. Mark's gospel, we see Jesus surrounded by a large crowd.  That's the way it was supposed to be--the famous rabbi, with the crowds hanging onto His every word.  And suddenly through the throng comes the respected Jairus, a ruler of the local synagogue, beseeching Jesus' help.  The man's little daughter is dying-- please, Rabbi, come and heal her.  Ah, yes, the high and respected ones look up to Jesus.  That's right.  And Jesus goes with the man to heal his daughter.  That's the way it's supposed to be, too.  And the pressing crowds enthusiastically come along.

    But what's this?  Suddenly Jesus stops dead, looks around, and asks, "Who touched my clothes?"  Even His disciples think this is an odd thing for Him to say.  Good grief, Lord, the people are all crowding against You!  Why ask who in particular touched Your clothes?  Jesus' modern detractors would say this proves He wasn't really God, because God knows everything, so Jesus should have known who had touched Him. They fail to comprehend what God gave up to become a Man, and so they laugh.

    But that day in the crowd by the Sea of Galilee, nobody was laughing.  They waited, and out of the crowd crept a woman who fell at Jesus' feet.  You can imagine the whispers that would have flown from ear to ear.  "Heavens!  Isn't that Hannah bat Itzak?  Doesn't she have some sort of bleeding trouble?"  "How dare she appear in public?"  "How dare she touch the Rabbi, even His clothes!"  Then, "Blood!  Blood!  Unclean blood!"  Nobody's pressing around Jesus anymore.  They've all drawn themselves and their garments back, lest they be rendered ceremonially unclean, just like this afflicted woman.

    And under the Old Covenant law they were right.  Back then our worthiness to approach God in worship depended upon our following certain rules of ritual cleanliness.  Why isn't Jesus following the Law and avoiding this woman?  Doesn't He know her history?  And even if He didn't before, He does now, because she tells Him of her twelve years of bleeding and suffering and isolation.  Does He draw back in horror?  No!  Jesus looks on her with compassion and says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."  Sorry, Jesus, it doesn't make sense!

    Besides, Jesus, what about poor Jairus and his dying child?  Even while Jesus was still talking to the woman, men from the synagogue ruler's house came and reported that his daughter was dead.  No call for Jesus to come now.  Maybe if He'd ignored that unclean creature He would have been on time, but now, forget it.

    But Jesus won't forget it.  He tells the grieving father, "Don't be afraid; just believe."  What an odd thing to say!  But Jairus doesn't laugh.  He goes with Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John, back to his home where his daughter lies dead.  Already at the door the hired mourners are at work, weeping and wailing in honor of the dead child.  Jesus, really, isn't it too late?

    But our Lord says, "Why all this commotion and wailing?  The child is not dead but asleep."

    But they laughed at Him.  From every reasonable point of view, they had a right to laugh at Him.  You didn't need to be a professional mourner in that day to know what a dead body looked like.  The girl was dead.  Enough with the sick jokes, Rabbi.  You make us laugh.

    But Jesus isn't working from human reason.  He's working from the wisdom of God.  He isn't bound by the limitations of human strength, He's filled with the strength of God.  Jesus isn't controlled by the powers of death, He Himself is the everlasting Life of God.  He can confound all human expectations.  Taking the child by the hand, He commands, "Talitha, koum!" or, in English, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!"  And this twelve-year-old child gets up, walks around fully alive, and ready for something to eat.

    What?  Who is this who by the speaking of His word can restore life in what was dead?

    It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man.  He is the Savior of Israel and hope of the nations, great David's greater Son.  He came in fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies, but even those who claimed to be waiting for Him didn't recognize Him when He came and laughed at Him as a fool.

    In Jesus' day, good religious Jews were expecting God to act to save them, through a human Messiah.  But God chose to come to earth Himself, as the Man Jesus Christ, fully human and fully God.   Can our human minds get around how this can be?  No, but the mind of God can and did make it happen.  And so Jesus lived and served among us, and demonstrated His full humanity by accepting our limitations.  He was willing to be like us, getting hungry, thirsty, and tired.  He accepted that at times His Father would hide some things from Him, such as the identity of the woman who deliberately touched Him in the crowd.  But He was also eternal God, with power over life and death, whose very clothes carried the power to heal those who reached out in faith.

    But then Jesus was hung on a cross and killed.  Now where was the glorious divine kingdom He was supposed to bring?  The Romans mocked and the Jewish authorities scoffed.  They laughed at Him as He hung there.  Where were all His godlike pretensions now?

    But we know what happened on the third day.  God the Father vindicated His Son by raising Him from the dead.  God had the last laugh.  What a reversal!  See all the wisdom and disdain of the world turned upside down!

    But amazing as the resurrection is, as much as it upsets everything we assume about the way things are supposed to be, the cross of Christ challenges our worldly assumptions even more.  For as St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, to those who are perishing-- that is, to all who do not believe in Jesus Christ-- the message of the cross is foolishness.  For what was a Roman cross but a mark of defeat, death, and shame?  To be hung on a cross meant disgrace and weakness, the end of everything you stood for and the end of you.  But God in Christ took that shameful instrument and made it the only sign of the world's hope, glory, and life.  The only sign, I say, because God in His wisdom and power has ordained that only through the cross of Christ can anyone anywhere gain access to Him and enjoy life everlasting.

    The unbelieving world laughs at this.  It laughed in Paul's day and it laughs in ours.  Everybody knows you're in charge of your own salvation, say those who are perishing.   First century Greeks insisted that intellectual enlightenment was the way to union with God.  The Jews of that day were waiting for Jesus to do a miraculous sign that would come up to their standards.  Make all the Romans suddenly drop dead in the streets, perhaps.  And in our time, it's common wisdom that if there is a God you please Him by obeying the rules and making sure your good deeds outweigh your bad!  You're laughed at if you say otherwise.

    But God our Father steadfastly points all mankind to Christ and Him crucified.  All the derision, all the disdain of the world cannot change the eternal fact that it's only through the broken body and blood of Christ that anyone at all can be saved.  Just as Jesus took the corpse of Jairus' daughter by the hand and called her spirit back into her, so the Holy Spirit of Christ entered into us while we were dead in trespasses and sins.  He raised us up in God's strength and enlightens our minds with God's wisdom.

    And so, brothers and sisters, the world may laugh at Jesus and it may laugh at you, but let the cross of Christ be your unchanging message and your eternal hope.  On this good news we take our stand unshaken, even when so much that is good is being torn down and denigrated, even when laughter at the crucified Christ comes from the heart of the church.

    But what if those who laugh and scorn are those we love?  What if our friends and family call us fools and worse for trusting a dead and risen God?  We do them no favors by compromising God's truth to make them feel better about their worldly wisdom.  Stand firm in Christ; love them, pray for them, be always ready to give a reason for the divine hope that is in you.  Remember, there was a time when you, too, couldn't believe that Christ's death was enough to save you, maybe a time when you didn't think you needed to be saved.  The Holy Spirit made you wise with the wisdom of God; He can raise and enlighten and enliven those you care for, too.

    Jesus Christ came to earth as God in human flesh, to die and rise again that we might be raised by the power of God.  The Supper here spread confirms this reality to and in us.  Come to our Lord's Table and eat and drink unto eternal life.  And laugh, brothers and sisters, laugh, no longer in derision, but in holy, exalted, and overflowing joy.  Amen.

Clean and Whole

Texts:    Leviticus 13:9-22; 45-46; Mark 1:40-45

    WHAT WOULD IT HAVE BEEN like to have been one of God's ancient chosen people?  As an Israelite you'd experience the overwhelming joy of knowing that the Creator God of heaven and earth was your God.  You'd enjoy the prosperity and blessing He'd bring you.  You'd be able to trust Him to fight your battles with foreign powers.  You could hear His very words from the mouth of His prophets.  No other nation had such blessings and privileges.  How wonderful it must have been!

    On the other hand, with all those privileges you'd have heavy responsibilities.  Or perhaps I should say, you had one great heavy responsibility:  As an ancient Israelite, from the time you were old enough to understand, it was up to you and to all of your fellow Hebrews to be a testimony to the nations.  Since the Lord God was your Father, all Israel together was the son of God on earth, and you were expected, as a nation and as individuals, to live up to the image and character of the Lord God Himself, that He might be glorified on earth and all nations be blessed through you. 

    God spelled out exactly how you were to reflect His image and glory, in the Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.

    There were three parts to it:  the moral law, which defines how people everywhere should treat one another and themselves; the civil law, which laid down how Israel was to govern itself as a nation; and the ceremonial law, which dictated how the Israelites were to relate to God and glorify Him on this earth.  The ceremonial law went beyond how and Whom you worshipped.  In pretty much everything you did your life was to be a proclamation of the wholeness, purity, and integrity of the Lord.

    The creed of God's people Israel was this:

    Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

The whole purpose of the ceremonial law was to present Israel to the world as a people who reflected the perfect oneness and unity of the Lord our God.  They were to be holy as He is holy.  Pure as He is pure.  Clean and whole as the Lord is clean and whole.

    So, no wearing clothes made out of more than one kind of  fiber.  No sowing your field with more than one kind of seed.  No plowing that field with two different kinds of animals under the yoke.  No violating the integrity of your skin by getting tattoos or cutting yourself as a sign of mourning for the dead. No eating of beasts that wouldn't be acceptable to God as a sacrifice.

    Why?  Because mixture and confusion was a sign of the sinful brokenness of this fallen world.  Your daily life had to stand against that and testify to the pure and undivided character of God.

    As an Israelite you might think, "I don't totally understand all this, but it's something I can try to do.  Just like I can do my best to avoid sin by keeping the moral law."

    But then you'd come to the commands set forth in our reading from Leviticus 13.  And read that if any of God's people should break out with a defiling skin disease, and the priest should determine that it is
chronic and spreading, then that person is to be ostracized from the community.  As it says in 13:45-46,

    Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!'  As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

And possibly you'd think, "How is it my fault, or the fault of my family, if any of us should contract a disease like this?  I'd never choose to have running sores break out all over my body!  I'd never ask to have my skin go all flaky and scaly all over!  Why must I be separated from God's people?  Why must I cover my mouth as if I were mourning for the dead?"

    That'd be easy to answer if the Bible really was talking about leprosy, what today we call Hansen's disease.  True leprosy eventually eats the structure of your extremities away and it's terribly contagious.  You could understand why a Hansen's disease sufferer would be permanently quarantined.  But this isn't what is being described in Leviticus.  Archaeological evidence from the ancient Middle East shows that true leprosy wasn't prevalent there till the fifth century after Christ.  It occurred from time to time, and the ancient Greeks had a word for it, elephantiasis.  The word lepra or lepros, which we find in our Mark passage, refers to other sorts of diseases affecting the skin.  Same with the Hebrew word tsara'at, the term Moses used in Leviticus.  Here's where the 2011 updated version of the New International Version is a real improvement.  This word tsara'at doesn't necessarily mean a skin disease that is infectious, but it definitely signifies one that is defiling according to God's ceremonial law.

    So, what skin diseases could get you ostracized from the camp and later the towns of Israel?  Given the descriptions in Leviticus, it'd be conditions like favus, a disease prevalent in the Near East and northern Africa that affects the scalp.  Or chronic psoriasis.  Or eczema.  Yes, the same skin diseases some of you may have struggled with.  Talk about "The heartbreak of psoriasis"!  Not only would you be perpetually unclean, so that you were excluded from worshipping God at His Tabernacle, any undiseased person other than the priest who touched you would be rendered temporarily unclean, too.

    You'll notice in verses 12-13 of our Leviticus passage, that if a person's skin disease spreads so that he turns white all over, the priest can pronounce him clean.  It wasn't the disease itself that excluded a person from the presence of God, it was the visible confusion and unwholesomeness evident on his skin.  The Lord's people were to be holy, clean, and whole outside as well as in, inside as well as out.  They were to be visible models of the purity and wholeness of God, and an Israelite walking the streets with his skin red and white and flaking where he should be a nice even brown would testify instead to sin, degeneration, and death.

    And it's true, no one would choose to look like that.  But when it comes down to it, none of us chose to be infected with the sin of Adam, either.  None of us woke up one day and said, "Hey, I think I'd like to be dead in trespasses and sins!"   We were born into this fallen condition-- but we can't claim innocence.  Because every day by our own sin we confirm that we go along with it.  Under God's covenant with Israel, psoriasis and other chronic defiling skin diseases were a sign of the inward, inborn sin of mankind breaking out and flaunting itself on the outside of a person.  They proclaimed the broken, unwholesome, unclean state of this world that sets itself against the purity and oneness of the Lord our God.

    It seems very hard and even unfair, the fate of the person with a defiling skin disease under the Old Covenant.  But in His holiness God had an eternal plan and purpose that would be fulfilled through the Law working in His people Israel, a plan that would more than justify the discomfort suffered by any human being on this earth, a plan that would bring restore all who were cast out and heal all who suffer from the mortal disease of sin. God called Israel to be His son on this earth, to grow up to reflect the integrity of His holiness.  We know from the Scriptures that the Jews failed miserably at this task.  We know from our own hearts that if we'd been in their position, we would have miserably failed, too.

    But at the right time there came a Man from Nazareth, a Man born of an ordinary woman of the house of David, of the people of Israel, yet conceived by the Holy Spirit and so born without sin.  From the very start of his gospel our writer St. Mark proclaims this Man Jesus to be the Son of God.  Jesus Christ will succeed where Israel failed.  He will be the One who truly reflects God's cleanliness and wholeness standing against a defiled and sin-broken world, and through Him the purpose of Israel will be fulfilled.  This Man Jesus was not merely whole and clean and holy in Himself, He had the power to impart wholeness, cleanliness, and purity to others who were in every sense filthy and defiled.

    And so in verses 40 through 45 of Mark chapter 1 we read how a man suffering from one of these defiling skin diseases, not necessarily leprosy, approaches Jesus, probably in the countryside outside one of the villages of Galilee.  He's heard about Jesus' power to heal, but he hasn't dared come into town and join the crowd waiting around Jesus' lodgings.  He falls to his scabby knees and begs, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."

    St. Mark writes that Jesus is filled with compassion.  It's not that Jesus feels sorry for the man because he is excluded from society and heals him so he can go back to his home and family.  No, Jesus feels for him from the heart because this sufferer is excluded from the household of God by the defilement of sin, and his skin disease is only a symptom of that estrangement.  Jesus replies, "I am willing."  He touches the man-- actually touches his loathsome flesh--and He declares, "Be clean!" and by the creative power of His word He makes it so.  By this mighty work of mercy Jesus shows that He is in His own flesh the One who is eternally whole and clean, the One Whom no contact with evil can defile, the One Who makes the broken whole and before Whom defilement flees.

    But until the New Covenant is sealed in His shed blood on the cross, the Old Covenant is still in effect.  So Jesus orders the cured man to go to the priest and offer the sacrifices Moses ordered for those who were cleansed of defiling skin diseases.  We can read about those sacrifices and the ritual of making them in Leviticus 14.  They were, as Jesus says, to serve as a testimony to all the people of what God had done in His mercy to make the broken whole and the impure clean.  But the healed man does not head for Jerusalem to make the prescribed offerings.  No,  throughout the countryside he spreads the news that God was at work in Jesus of Nazareth, that here was a Man who could touch a leper and cleanse him and not Himself be defiled.

    As Mark writes, this was fame Jesus wasn't seeking, and it made it impossible for Him to minister in the towns any more.  But it didn't matter: People streamed out into the wilderness to hear Him and be healed by Him, no matter were He might be.

    Brothers and sisters, for the ancient Jews skin diseases were only an outward sign of the sin that defiles us all from the heart.  If we appeared to each other the way our sin makes us appear to God, no horror movie special effects could depict the terrors we would see.  But Jesus Christ was and is the only-begotten Son of God who was willing to take the loathsomeness of our sins on Himself on the cross, even though for awhile it caused His Father to turn His face from Him.   He atoned for our sins and wiped them out totally so that we might be clean.  In the place of your old brokenness and defilement, Jesus Christ gives you His wholeness, His purity, His integrity.  And now when God turns His face towards you, He sees the glorious and holy face of Jesus Christ, the new Israel, His beloved Son who is the perfect image of the Father's righteous splendor.

    This promise is for you and your children and for all the Lord our God shall call.  If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, repent and turn to Him now, and He will cleanse you from your sins and give you His righteousness.  If you have turned to Him in faith and are sealed to Him in baptism, keep relying on His saving health day by day.  The old earthly nature within us is still defiled and diseased, and it fights against the wholesome new heavenly nature Christ has put within us.  But day by day, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ.  More and more we are being revealed as citizens of the New Israel whom Jesus shed His blood to create.  Just like the Israelites under the Old Covenant, we New Covenant believers are called upon to reflect the wholeness and purity of God in the midst of a degenerate and defiled world.  But be encouraged: Jesus by His power has cleansed us, Jesus by His power will keep us, and Jesus by His power will present us clean and whole before the God who is His Father and our own.

    Now to him who has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation, be praise, honor, majesty, and power, now and forever more.  Amen.

Last Things First

Texts:    Isaiah 64:1-9;  Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

    WHAT IS OUR HOPE as Christians?  What is the goal and object of our faith?

    To hear some people talk, you'd think it was to make us nicer, more fulfilled individuals, with better marriages, families, and careers in this life.  And with higher self-esteem, too.  In such an understanding of Christianity, the Baby in the manger at Bethlehem is a nice encouragement, but the Son of Man coming again to judge all humanity is not to be thought of at all.  After all, in this world we're taught to put first things first.  But the Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, isn't interested in the teaching of this world.  After he greets the saints, about the first subject he mentions is the second coming of their Lord and ours, Jesus Christ.  Hear what he says in verses 7 and 8:

    . . . [Y]ou do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The church in Corinth was eagerly waiting for Jesus Christ to be revealed.  And so they stood in the tradition of the true people of God, for this is the object of our Christian faith: that the great day of the Lord will surely come, when Christ will return as King, the heavens and the earth will be made new, and we will enjoy the kingdom of God in all its perfection.  These things-- The end of the age, the second coming of Christ, the Judgement, and so on-- are known as the Last Things.  And St. Mark, St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, and all the New Testament writers follow their Master Jesus in urging us Christians to keep Last Things first.

        But why? 

    Because when we keep our focus on the second coming of Christ, we keep our eyes on God's goal for all creation, and when we keep our eyes on God's goal for all creation, we maintain and strengthen our hope in Christ, even in the midst of the troubles and worries of this world.

    And we need hope in this world.  Not the hope that consists in wishful thinking, but the firm and sure hope that depends upon a promise made by Someone we can trust now and into all eternity.  In our Gospel reading from St. Mark, our Lord Jesus declares that the time will come when

    . . . men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man in this discourse.  And thus the disciples know that He is the coming King the prophet Daniel saw in his vision of the Last Things in Daniel 7.  But more than that, the title "Son of Man" tells us that it will be His own human Self, Immanuel, the Child born of Mary who rose from the tomb, who will sit on the throne of God.  And He is God, for the angels are His, and it is His to command them to "gather his elect" from wherever they may be.  That's us, who by the grace of God, have been called by the Holy Spirit into faith in our crucified and risen Savior, all of us in every time and place who have been washed clean by His blood.

    But not all of humanity shares this hope.  Not everyone knows that their eternal happiness depends on their keeping Last Things first. 

    Some don't believe there will be any Last Things at all.  I heard an interview the other night with a man they called an expert on the subject of the Apocalypse.  He admitted that cultures all over the world for the past three thousand years have had prophecies and stories that someday the world as we know it will be destroyed and then made new.  But, he said, all that was false; it was never going to happen.  No, he said, all talk about the end times is just a way for priests and rulers and others in authority to keep people focussed on some future state of perfection, instead of working and maybe fighting and rebelling to make things perfect here and now.

    What do we say to such a man and those who believe like him?  Do we let him undermine our hope, so we stop keeping Last Things first?  He quoted the famous atheist Richard Dawkins, to the effect that it's only some outgrown evolutionary stage that makes people look forward to a end to this age and the birth of one that is new.  Do we tie ourselves in knots trying to prove Richard Dawkins wrong?  There are people who have the gift of apologetics, and God strengthen them as they exercise it.  But there's something even better we can show.  When we speak of the second advent of our Lord and the end of this age, we're not just passing along some gut feeling or old tribal legend.  No, we are quoting the very words of the Son of God.  This Man told His disciples that He would be crucified by the authorities during His next visit to Jerusalem, and that three days later, He would be raised from the dead.  You could say it was inevitable that Jesus would be crucified sooner or later.  But no mere man, not even the wisest and cleverest, can say that He will rise again-- and actually do it.  It is not in the power of any ordinary man to make such a thing happen.

    But Jesus our Lord foretold His resurrection and it did happen, not in myth, not in legend, but in real history, under the authority of a Roman bureaucrat named Pontius Pilate.  When Someone like that tells us that He certainly will return and that by His power death and hell will flee away, you can believe Him.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will never pass away.

    But others, while they may believe this world will end someday, aren't looking forward to it in hope. They can't imagine a better existence than they might achieve in this present age, and the idea of living in fellowship with the Son of God means nothing to them.  Why would they keep Last Things first?  Any second advent of Christ would ruin their whole day!

    And indeed, when we think of our sin, and the judgement to come on the world, how should creatures like us hope and pray for the day of the Lord?  In Isaiah 64 God's people plead that He would come save them in their day of distress.

        Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
               that the mountains would tremble before you!

They look forward to the Lord taking vengeance on His enemies and theirs--

        [C]ome down to make your name known to your enemies
           and cause the nations to quake before you!

But there's a problem.  God's people have been acting like His enemies themselves.  True,

        [the Lord] comes to the help of those who gladly do right,
        who remember your ways.

But Israel has not gladly done right.  They've continued to sin against Him.  "How then," Isaiah asks in behalf of the nation, "can we be saved?"

    What do you do when the One who is your only hope is also the One you most need to fear?  Not because God is some kind of abusive father, but because we have been like adult children who have taken advantage of and robbed and harmed and disgraced Him.  For know this, this passage in Isaiah is not simply about an incident in the history of ancient Israel, it also describes our position before God when we forget Him and go our own way.  In our selfishness and idolatry even our attempts at righteousness are like filthy rags.  How can we who neglect to call on the name of the Lord, who fail to lay hold on God and His goodness find hope in the coming of Christ?  Why should we want to put Last Things first?

    Because the Lord our God is our Father.  He is our Father because like a potter He has formed and made us.  But even more, He is our Father because He has remade us in the image of His Son Jesus Christ.  To cite St. Paul in 1 Corinthians again, thanksgiving can be made for us because of the grace that has been given us in Christ Jesus.  In our sins we were ragged and filthy, we blew away like dried-up leaves.  But in Christ we "have been enriched in every way."  Perhaps not in the material ways this passing world values, but in speaking and knowledge, in ways that build one another up in the faith of the Gospel of Christ.

    Or have we?  This was true of the Corinthians.  Whatever problems they may have had in other areas, they recognised and used the spiritual gifts God had given them.  Paul is saying that God the Father will keep them strong and faithful in the use of these gifts, so they might be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus.

    God has given us gifts by the Holy Spirit to serve Him in the Church as well, till Christ comes.  You do not need to take a spiritual gift inventory to find out what yours is.  Whatever the Holy Spirit is urging you to do, and you know it's the Holy Spirit's urging because it is confirmed by the Word of God, do it!

    This is what our Lord means by saying in Mark that we're like servants a master going on a trip has put in charge of various jobs to do while he's away.  So let's do them!  Let's put Last Things first by loving our neighbor with food and clothing and shelter.  Let us tell them that Jesus died for them just like He did for us, and invite them to church where they can hear the saving good news of eternal life in Him.  Let us do our daily work in ways that benefit others and glorify God, the Master Workman over all.  Let us live holy and gracious lives in the midst of this perverted and wicked world, so that when Jesus comes again we will have no cause to feel ashamed.

    Jesus says, "Keep watch!"  So live the life He has given you on earth to His praise and glory, always with an eye open and an ear tuned to His footstep at the door.  He may come tomorrow; He may for His good purpose delay another thousand years.  But it is the promise of Christ's second advent that gives all our work in this world its meaning and gives our earthly existence its hope.  This life is not one endless grind of things going on the way they always have; it has a purpose and a goal.  Christ came into this world as the Baby of Bethlehem to bear our sins and keep God's righteous commands for us the way we never could.  He will come again as the glorious Son of Man to gather His own that we may be with Him forever.

    Live in this blessed hope.  By His Spirit's power, serve Him in all you do.  And always remember to put the Last Things first.

The Word of the Shepherd King

 Texts:    Acts 9:1-6; Galatians 6:7-10; Matthew 25:31-46

     IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A lot like Christmas!  At least, the merchants have had the decorations up for the past three weeks or more.  And up where I live in B--, some people already have their wreaths up in their windows.  However you feel about rushing things like this, in five weeks Christmas will be here.

        But there may be signs something else is coming soon, too.  A lot of people are asking, "Could we be getting closer to the end of the world?"  It's not just false prophets like Harold Camping and chatter about the Mayan calendar and December 2012.  We've got natural disasters coming so thick and heavy.  Civil unrest all over the world, especially in our own streets.  Our whole economic system seems to be headed for collapse, with greed and selfishness championed all the way up and down the economic ladder.  Our moral standards are getting worse and worse, faith is growing cold in many hearts, and even those who call themselves Christians proudly follow their own devices and desires instead of clinging to Jesus their Lord.

    Could these all be signs of the end?

    Maybe, maybe not.  As Christians, we need to be ready for our Lord's return as King and Judge no matter when it occurs.  In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus' disciples asked Him what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.  He told them, and us, that no one knows that day or hour, and that He, the Son of Man, would come as a thief in the night.  Therefore, we must be prepared.  But prepared for what?  Beginning in the 31st verse of Matthew 25, Jesus our coming King tells us what will happen when He returns.

    First of all, Jesus will come as King, King of kings and Lord of lords.  And He will come as the Son of Man.  He will sit on the throne of the universe as a glorified Human Being, in the same flesh He brought with Him resurrected from the tomb.  In Christ, for our sakes, God has become Man forever!  He will sit on His throne as King in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him.  All the nations.  Not just the so-called Christian nations, but all of them, regardless of what religions they professed here on earth.  All people will learn that Christ is King, and Christ alone.

    But what does Jesus mean by "the nations"?  Remember, God ordained that Jesus should be born a Jew.  Jesus was speaking to Jewish disciples in a Jewish context.  For a Jew, the word "nations" (ethne in Greek and goyim in Hebrew) meant the Gentiles.  That is, everyone who wasn't a part of God's chosen people Israel.  The disciples would assume-- and assume rightly-- that God's faithful remnant would find blessedness when Israel's Messiah and King came as Judge.  But what was going to happen to all those other people Out There?

    Something the disciples would not have suspected.  Jesus says He will take the people of the nations and separate them from one another, and some He will put on the right as sheep, and some on His left as goats.  That tells us first that all mankind are under His staff as the universal Shepherd, whether they ever confess faith in Him or not.  In verses 37 and 44 we see that all the dead acknowledge that, they all call Him "Lord."  When Christ sits on His glorious throne, all nations will bow the knee and every tongue will confess that He is King and Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  But on that day He will sort out some who did not visibly belong to His chosen Israel, and He will put them with His chosen ones, with the sheep He loves. 

    These days, we often assume that almost anyone can be saved, if only they're nice enough.  For good 1st century Jews like Jesus' disciples, it would have shocked them to think any Gentiles who didn't convert to Judaism could get into the kingdom at all!

    To these unexpected sheep Jesus the King will say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."  Who could have thought it?  Ever since the world began God had included these sheep from the nations in His glorious kingdom, along with His chosen people Israel!

    But why?  On what basis?  Because He was hungry and they fed Him; He was thirsty and they gave Him something to drink; He was a stranger and they invited Him in; He needed clothes and they clothed Him; He was sick and they tended to Him; He was in prison and they came to visit Him.

    These righteous from the nations are amazed.  They don't understand how they could have rendered all these good services to Him, the Lord of glory.  And the King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

    We think we understand this.  But again, Jesus is out to undermine our modern understanding of how things will be at the Judgement, just as much as much as His word subverted the ideas of the typical 1st century Jew.  Here's the question: Who are Jesus' brothers?  Who are His sisters?  Who are this family with whom He identifies so closely?

    Two thousand years ago, the assumption would be that since He was the Jewish Messiah, His brothers and sisters would be the nation of Israel, people who were born Jews by blood.  But over and over again in His teaching Jesus kept letting everyone know that the true Israel was not those who attempted to keep the law in their own righteousness; rather, His brothers and sisters are those who do the will of His Father in heaven, as we read in Matthew 12.  And what is the will of the Father?  St. John tells us that the Father's will is that we believe in the One He has sent, the Man Jesus Christ.

    The consistent teaching of the New Testament is this:  that Christ's brothers and sisters are His believers, the Church.  They-- or rather, we-- are His Body, the New Israel made up of ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles alike, formed by the new covenant in His blood, shed on the cross.

    So in Acts 9 the risen Christ casts Saul of Tarsus down on the road to Damascus and demands, "Why are you persecuting Me?"  Like the righteous from the nations at the Judgement, Saul can't understand.  He'd been attacking a rabble of Nazarene heretics, not this heavenly Being he now had to call Lord!  But Jesus identifies with His Church and says, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  To do evil to His disciples is to do evil to Him; to do good to His disciples is to do good to Him.

    And who are "the least of these"?  Please note that this doesn't mean "only the least of these."  No, Jesus is saying that the surprised  righteous have done good to Christians even when those believers were so humble no earthly credit could possibly come from it.  Jesus taught us in Matthew 18 that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven are those who humbly repent and become like little children and follow Him.  In Luke 12 Jesus calls His disciples His "little flock" and says that the Father has been pleased to give them the kingdom.  Jesus exalts the humble in His kingdom, and at the judgement the nations will share in their exaltation.

    I realize that this goes against much popular thought on what this passage in Matthew means.  The usual interpretation is that some people will enter the kingdom by believing in Christ, while others can get in by doing good to the financially poor.  But nowhere does the Scripture hold out any possibility of any man or woman entering eternal life on the strength of his or her own good works.  It is only through the blood of Christ shed for us that we can inherit blessedness forever with Him.

    Yes, you might say, but if "the nations" in this passage are those who didn't identify with Christ's Church in their lifetimes, doesn't it sound like they can earn their way in by good deeds done to those who belong to Him?

    Well, think of it this way: When are Jesus' disciples most likely to be hungry, thirsty, refugees, naked, sick, or in prison?  In times of persecution for the faith.  Today, particularly in Muslim and Hindu countries, Christians are being harried, arrested, burned out of their homes, put to death-- all because they dare to confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  Now think of yourself as a Muslim neighbor of one of these despised Christians.  Everyone else is pouring on the violence.  But something moves you to step out and help the followers of Christ.  Even though your friends will shun you for it; even though you could be arrested yourself as a Christian sympathizer, you go ahead and open your home to the refugees.  You visit the tortured pastor in prison and work for his release.  You make sure those orphan Christian children are fed and clothed, and you don't pressure them to convert to Islam. Whether you realize it or not, you're identifying with the believers and identifying with Christ.

    In Matthew 10 Jesus sends His disciples out with the good news of the kingdom, warning them they'll face danger and hardship for His sake.  But in all this, He says, "He who receives you receives me," and "anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward," and "if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

    At the Judgement there will be many who never considered themselves to be part of Christ's flock the Church, but they sympathized so strongly and actively with Christians because they were Christians that Jesus will recognise them as His sheep themselves.  To their surprise they will receive eternal life, the righteous man's reward.

    But what about those on the left, the "goats" who did not minister to Christ's faithful in their need?   To say they didn't identify Christians with Christ will be no excuse.  When they see the King enthroned in glory it's too late to say, "Oh, my Lord, I'd do anything for you!"  What about that insignificant Christian they saw beaten, tortured, starving, or simply slandered out of a job, and they did nothing to intervene?  The King will reply, "If you did it not for the least of these my brothers, you didn't do it for Me."

    So.  Here we are, and we belong to Christ's church on earth. Can we sit satisfied and sure we'll go to the King's right hand in the Judgement?  Not necessarily.  This passage is a warning to us, too.  A lot of people are members of Jesus' New Israel on paper, but actually they belong to the unbelieving nations.
    We have to examine ourselves!  How do we treat our fellow members in the Church?  The truly committed disciple will feed and clothe and help and heal their fellow Christian precisely because he or she is a fellow Christian.  A true believer in our Shepherd King will strive in the Spirit to see and serve Christ in everyone in the congregation, no matter how humble or struggling that other believer may be. 

    In the course of my life I've seen too many churches and church people focus all their ministry on those outside the church.  And yes, like Christ Himself we do extend the love and grace of God to all.  But sitting all around you are brothers and sisters who are hurting.  They're struggling with troubles of body, mind, and spirit.  They need someone to help them repair their house, to watch their kids for an afternoon, to sit for awhile and just listen.  But there's this assumption in the Church today that as soon as someone becomes a believer, they're set up for life and have all they need.  No!  Jesus calls us into His little flock because we do need each other, and He expects us to minister to one another for His sake.  As St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers."

    Remember, Paul puts the command for Christians to do good in the context of judgement.  If we take one another for granted, if we live to please our sinful natures, we will reap destruction.  Goats all along we will show ourselves to be, and as Jesus says, we'll go into eternal punishment.  But if we follow the Spirit of Christ who has saved us and do good to one another, we will show that we are His sheep. We will reap eternal life and enter into the blessed inheritance prepared for us by our heavenly Father before the creation of the world.

    As baptised believers, we no longer belong to the nations; we are citizens of Christ's new chosen people and sheep of His little flock.  Since this is true, let us strive in the Spirit to do the things that belong to Christ.  Do good to all, but especially to your brothers and sisters in the faith, from the greatest to the least.  Care for, help, and build up one another because you belong to Christ.  And so by His grace, His judgment at the end of the age will bring no fear for you, but only exultation, blessedness, and joy as together with all the saints you enter the realm of your Shepherd King.

Higher Than the Angels

Texts:   Hebrews 2:5-18; Matthew 22:15-33
 

IS THE RESURRECTION OF THE dead and the life of the world to come essential to Christianity?  Would following Christ be any less worthwhile if we had no hope of personally rising again at all?

    The Scripture teaches us absolutely, yes, without this hope, our faith would have no worth at all.  As St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:19, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."  And in verse 32 of that same chapter he says, "If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" Isaiah, St. Peter, St. John, St. Jude, and many more of the inspired writers of God's word also agree that we are meant for a life in God that does not end with our last breath, but continues in the power of the risen Christ forever more. 

    In the same way, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews  wants us to realize that Jesus Christ in His own body made the ultimate, perfect sacrifice in order that we might be raised with Him and live forever in the very presence of God.  Jesus' whole purpose on this earth was to live and die so He could destroy death for us, His brothers and sisters, and bring all of us together with Him into the glory of the kingdom of heaven.

     The Sadducees knew that the resurrection of the dead was key to our Lord's teaching, though they didn't believe in it at all.  If they could undermine Jesus' doctrine of bodily resurrection, they could demolish Him and His entire ministry.  St. Matthew records the encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees in chapter 22 of his gospel.

    You'll remember that Jesus is teaching in the Temple the day after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem And that the Sadducees weren't the first to come at Him that day with what they thought were sure-fire "gotcha" questions.  The Pharisees and the Herodians had failed, but the Sadducees thought they could do better.  Again, this Jewish sect didn't believe in life after death.  They denied the existence of angels and demons.  They maintained that only the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy:; that is, the Torah, were authoritative for God's people Israel.  They claimed to be more faithful to the exact words of Moses than the Pharisees were with their oral law.

    So that same day at the Temple, Matthew tells us, the Sadducees came to Jesus to challenge Him on the resurrection of the dead.  Their question was designed to make the doctrine-- and Jesus-- look so ridiculous and even so immoral as to blow Him and it away like chaff in the wind.  The question is based on the Mosaic law about levirate marriage.

    Briefly, levirate marriage (from the Latin word levir, meaning "husband's brother) was instituted by God to make sure that no Hebrew line would die out or lose their inheritance in the Promised Land.  Remember, under the old covenant given at Sinai, the promises of God were centered around possession of the land.  Here's how the command reads in Deuteronomy 25:5-6:

    If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

    Usually, marrying your brother's widow could count as incest, but in this case, the need to maintain the family line took priority in the sight of God.

    Given all this, the Sadducees raised a hypothetical question concerning a whole family of seven brothers, none of whom can manage to beget children.  All of them in turn try to do their levirate duty towards one wife and widow, and all die childless.  Hey, Jesus, what about that?  "At the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?"

    They think they've got Him.  Jesus will have to deny the law of levirate marriage as given by God to Moses.  Or He'll have to overturn the principle that God makes marriages, as written in Genesis.  Or He'll condemn Himself by approving a vile incestuous arrangement where one woman has relations forever with seven husbands at once.

    Jesus confounds this immediately:  "You are in error, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God!"

    Where were the Sadducees so wrong?  They were assuming that people who believed in life after death were looking forward to a mere continuation of this earthly existence, but without the disease, deprivations, and troubles.  The Sadducees claimed to be ever so exact and careful about the word of God as recorded by Moses, but they really didn't understand it at all.  If they'd really known the Scriptures, they would have seen God's wondrous power recorded there and recognised His ability to bless and favor His chosen people in ways they could never have imagined ahead of time.  They would even have discovered hints that man made in the image of God does not end when his body is consigned to the dust.

    No, responds Jesus, the life of the world to come will be wonderful, new, and different.  "At the resurrection," He says, "people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."  Moreover, the same Torah that the Sadducees accept and claim to defend itself testifies that God's saints live on after physical death.  Had they not read what God said to them in Exodus 3:6?  The Lord testified to Moses at the burning bush, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."  Not, "I was," but "I am now and ever shall be their God," How?  Because by God's power His saints yet live.  So, declares our Lord Jesus, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living!"

    Isn't it satisfying to see Jesus defeat His enemies?  May it satisfy us even more to hear Him uphold our hope for eternal life and blessing with Him.  When Jesus extinguished the argument of the Sadducees, He did it for us, and for all who believe in His name.  As Hebrews tells us, Christ was born and died to bring many sons to glory; that is, to resurrection life.  He claims you and me and all who believe as His brothers and sisters, and makes us holy like Himself.  We will be raised again in perfectly renewed bodies like His own, and then He will proudly present us to His Father and ours:   "‘Here am I,'" He will say, "‘and the children God has given me.'"

    Hebrews 2:14 says that by His death on the cross Jesus destroyed our fear of death.  Not as if to say, "Don't worry, death's nothing to be afraid of, it's only like a dreamless sleep." Rather, He gives us a firm and certain hope of new life with Him in glory.  How?  By Jesus' sacrifice of Himself, wherein He made perfect atonement for the sins of God's people.  Sin handed us over to the devil.  Sin brought upon us the wrath of God and condemned us to die.  But like a faithful high priest Jesus has ministered the sacrifice of His own body to God in our behalf, that our sins might be taken away and we might share in His life that nothing can destroy.

    The Sadducees erred with their limited, distorted view of what resurrection life would be.  But frequently, sincere Christians also carry around a mistaken view of the life of the world to come.  Again, in Matthew 22:30 Jesus told the Sadducees, "At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."  And from this many people mistakenly conclude that human beings are transformed into angels when they die.

    Should a preacher say anything against this?  After all, if it gives someone comfort to believe that his or her deceased loved one is an angel in heaven, why disturb it?

    But I must disturb that belief, because God's promises to us in the resurrection of the dead are so much greater, so much more marvellous, so much more comforting, that I would fail both God and you if I didn't tell you about them, if I caused you to miss out on the peace the Lord has for you, or robbed Him of the praise He is due.

    When Jesus says the resurrected saints will be like the angels in heaven, He is telling us that in the world to come, there will be no need of marriage.  The joy and communion happy married couples experience is only a foretaste of the holy union of spirit that all of us will know with God and one another when our bodies are raised and made new.  This is the joy the angels know now, and we will know then.

    But the writer to the Hebrews says even more about human beings and angels.  In 2:5 he reminds us that it wasn't to angels that God subjected the world to come.  No, it was to Man, to the Man Jesus and to all the human beings who like you and me are included in Him.  In verses 6 through 8 he quotes Psalm 8, which we used as our Call to Worship.  This psalm reminds us that at creation we were made a little lower than the angels-- which is to say we were different from angels, but still ranked very high in God's estimation indeed.  Everything was put under the feet of our first parents-- but as we know, they sinned.  So our Lord came from heaven and was born as the Son of Man.  He who was the King of angels was found in human flesh and became a little lower than they.  And now through His obedience unto death He is highly exalted, higher than all angels, archangels, principalities, and powers, crowned with honor and glory.

  Jesus has regained for mankind the rank we had at the beginning, and brought us higher still.  Jesus our Lord did not become an angel when He rose again, and neither shall we.  No, we become something better: glorified and honored human beings, whom Jesus the Son of God is not ashamed to call brothers and sisters, members of His holy family.

    And see what it says in verse 16 of this chapter: "For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants."  Remember, all who receive the promise of God in faith are children of Abraham, and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that includes us.  Again, "It is not angels [Jesus] helps." Knowing that, is there anyone who would still wish to become an angel when they die?  Do they not want to be helped by Jesus who died for them?  Do they not want to live forever in a renewed and glorified human body like His own?  The blood of Christ was never intended for the fallen angels, the demons, and them it cannot save.  The holy angels are without sin, and don't need a Savior.  But we are frail and fallen human beings, born in sin and doomed to die.  We do need His sacrifice and for us-- for you!-- He shed His blood that you might be raised to new and eternal human life in Him. 

    Claim your humanity!  Wear it proudly, for your risen Lord sits in heaven forever as the glorified Son of Man, and you are His flesh and blood, a member of His own family.  Honor the holy angels and accept with thankfulness their ministry to you, but do not worship them or desire to take their place.  No, the place you have in Christ is so much better, so much higher, so much closer to the heart of God.  For you are His redeemed, born again to give Him eternal praise and glory, and in the resurrection His power will create for you a new life more wonderful, blessed, and truly human than anything we can think, conceive, or imagine.

    To Christ who sits on the throne be all honor, glory and majesty, with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen.