A Kingdom Not of This World

Texts:  2 Samuel 23:1-7; Romans 1:1-6; John 18:33-37

WHAT KIND OF KING DO we want?

As good Americans, of course we will reply we don't want a king.  That's why we fought a revolution.

All right, then, what kind of president do we want?  What kind of leader do we want at our head to guide us and guard us and make decisions in our behalf?

Well, taking it from history and recent events, typically we want rulers with the common touch.  We want someone who can sympathize with our needs, aspirations, and desires-- and help fulfill them.  Someone who can identify with us as his fellow human beings. He should be down here and present with us.  We want his kingdom to be a kingdom of this world.

At the same time, we want our leader to be a little better than we are, just like us but more so.  Accomplished and superior enough so we can look up to him, but not so high that he's totally detached.  We want him to symbolize our own aspirations for power and greatness, because we want to think of ourselves as great.

We want our leader to be accountable to us.  Even the most powerful of emperors could be taken down by a vote of his nobles, or by a palace coup.  We want him to bear in mind that with all his power and riches and fame, he's only our ruler as long as we allow him to be.  We want him to reign over a kingdom of this world and answer to us, because we're very much of this world.  That's the kind of king we want.

So how does Jesus Christ fit into this?  Today is Christ the King Sunday, the day when the Church has traditionally celebrated our Lord's exalted status as king of heaven and earth. Is He the kind of king we traditionally want?

In some ways, yes.  In 2 Samuel 23 we have a valedictory psalm of David, his official last words.  In it, among other things, he celebrates that God has made with his house and family an everlasting covenant.  This refers to the fact that the Lord God promised that there would never fail to be a descendant of David sitting on the throne of Israel. And who was David?  He was the despised shepherd boy whom God had raised up to shepherd His people Israel.  And who is Jesus?  As St. Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 1, Jesus is the descendant or son of David.  Jesus has humble family origins.  We can identify with Him.

And also in Romans 1, the apostle speaks of Jesus' human nature. Jesus as He walked this earth and proclaimed His coming kingdom was a human being just like we are.  He was subject to the physical laws of this earth.  He needed food and sleep.  The rain wet Him and the dust of the road dirtied His feet.  Jesus shares our humanity.  Very good, He's like us.

In His ministry we see how Jesus definitely had the common touch.  He gently and tenderly dealt with those who were sick and hungry and hurting.  Mothers eagerly brought their children to Him to be blessed.  He stood up for the poor and oppressed and defended them against the powerful.  His heart was with the people and their needs, and His actions were, too.

In all these ways and more, Jesus seemed to be the kind of king people traditionally want.  A king of a kingdom of this world, taking care of our worldly needs and desires.  Think of what St. John tells us about the crowd after Jesus fed the 5,000, how they wanted to take Jesus and make Him king by force.  They knew a good candidate when they saw Him!

But even in His time, people knew that if Jesus was a king, He wasn't the ordinary kind.  He was also fulfilling the expectations for the great king who would be the special Anointed One, the Messiah of Israel.  Through Him God would work in a unique way.  It was only to be expected that Jesus should identify with the people by performing signs and wonders and miracles for their sake.  At least, they figured it was all for their sake. What else?  The crowds were filled with admiration at how the powers of nature took a back seat to this Man whenever He spoke a word.  They were thrilled at the authority with which He taught.  And they delighted in how He overturned the pretensions of the religious leaders who opposed Him.  Jesus was that ruler who could be looked up to and admired.  As David sang long ago in his farewell psalm, Jesus the Son of David was One through whom the Spirit of the Lord spoke.  He ruled over men in righteousness, and in His day He was like the light of the morning sunrise to those who labored under oppression of every kind.

So far, Jesus was and is the kind of king we humans naturally want.  But there's a problem.  Jesus refused to be bound by our desires and expectations.  Yes, He fulfills our need for a king who is like us and from among us, One who sympathizes with our weaknesses because He has known them Himself.  But Jesus came to be a far greater king than that, and His kingdom is not a kingdom of this world.

We see this starkly in our reading from John 18.  Here we have Jesus standing His trial before Pilate, the Roman governor.   "Are you the king of the Jews?" Pilate asks Him.  Is he asking a serious question?  Of course not.  The idea that this beaten and battered Man before him could be the king of anything is absurd.  Something else must be going on.  So Pilate asks, "What it is you have done?"  And Jesus replies, "My kingdom is not of this world."  And just in those words we have the basis of the religious authorities' charges against Him.  He refused to be the king of a mere earthly kingdom; He asserted ultimate divine power.  His kingdom is not of this world, and as such He and it were an offense not only to the Jewish leaders, He is an offense to what we are in our natural sinful state.

For now Jesus is really claiming to have control and authority even over the terrible situation He finds Himself in.  Pilate has pointed out that the Jewish people and chief priests have handed Him over to him.  Jesus replies that the very fact that His servants didn't fight to prevent His arrest is proof that His kingdom is from another place, and doesn't follow the rules of kingdoms here.  Maybe Jesus was including the disciples among His "servants" in this verse, but much more likely He's referring to the holy angels.  As He reminded Peter in Matthew 26:52-53, when the apostle drew his sword to try to protect Jesus from arrest, "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" But He did not put in the call, because like a good king and general He was working out His plan to bring in His kingdom which is not of this world.  If an ordinary man made this kind of divine claim we'd laugh at him.  And it's true, people laugh at Jesus and His royal talk, too. But they're forgetting the innumerable displays of power over nature, sickness, Satan, and sin He displayed throughout His ministry.  They're ignoring all the times the authorities tried to seize Him and He miraculously eluded their grasp.  No, the very fact that Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested showed that He was in charge of a plan that went beyond simply bringing in a new earthly kingdom.

Pilate, in his worldly cynicism, responds, "You are a king, then!"  Like, "Sure, right, tell me a new one."  Jesus, however, takes the governor's bare words and confirms the truth of them.  "You are right in saying I am a king."  I'm a substitute teacher, and sometimes a kid will say something to be funny or sarcastic that is more true than they know.  You have to latch onto that and confirm it to snap them out of their silliness and bring them face to face with true knowledge.  Yes, Pilate, it's true.  I, Jesus of Nazareth, am a king.  As king my first duty is to testify to the truth.  Those who are on the side of truth listen to me and are my natural subjects.

Our gospel passage leaves out Pilate's flippant reply, "What is truth?"  But it's worth answering.  According to the Scriptures, truth first and foremost is God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Truth is all God says and all God does.  Truth is His word communicated to us in Holy Scripture.  And truth supremely is the testimony that, as John records in chapter 3, that "Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil," but "whoever by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."  And how do we come into the light?  As Peter writes in his first epistle, it is God Himself (and God alone) who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. We need to be ruled by something or someone outside of this world for us to be part of Christ's kingdom, and His divine power reaches in and conquers our souls for our own good.

Pilate made a flippant reply about truth because he was the mighty Roman governor dealing with a prisoner who was totally at his mercy.  But when we in our sin make belittling comments about Jesus and His truth, we show our discomfort that with the fact that Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.  His kingdom of Truth shows up all our dishonesty and lies.  Jesus the King of Truth convicts us of our sins and calls us to repent and believe in Him, who is the Truth.  As heavenly King He has the ultimate right to judge, for He answers to no earthly constitution and is accountable to no earthly court.

This is not like the kings and kingdoms of this world!  And see how Jesus the King ascends to His throne-- through the cross!  The servants of an earthly king would fight to protect His person and His realm.  But Jesus the Son of God goes forward to fight and die alone to win for Himself a kingdom that is not of this world.  As Jesus says in John 12, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."  Some He will draw for salvation, some for condemnation, but by His death Jesus won the right to be the eternal ruler and King.

In our natural sinful way of thinking, Jesus is not the kind of king we want.  He claims to be in control of the forces of history-- and in control over us.  He claims to personify Truth-- and His truth judges not only our sin, but also our goodness, and finds it wanting.  Jesus claims that His kingdom is not of this world-- and refuses to let us co-opt Him and it for our own earthly purposes.  In short, He asserts that in all His humanity, in all His status as the Son of David, in all His sympathy with us and our needs,.He is more than that and beyond all that.  He was, as Paul says in Romans, "through the Spirit of holiness . . . declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead."  But the glorious and comforting thing is that on His cross Jesus won the victory over sin and death, and that included our sin and our death.  Jesus our King has removed the blindness from our eyes and the stubbornness from our hearts, so that we can recognise Him and long for Him as our true and only King, whose kingdom is not of this world.

What does this mean for our every day lives?  For one thing, it would keep us from confusing our own government or any other earthly system with the kingdom of Christ.  Bad earthly rulership does not tear God's kingdom down, neither does good human government cause God's kingdom to come.  All is in the Father's control, and His kingdom will prevail when every human administration has passed away.

And since we are not merely subjects, but also children and heirs of Christ's kingdom, we know that whatever happens to us in this world we belong to  a heavenly commonwealth that will never be destroyed.  This world is a wonderful place to travel through, but it's even better to know that one day we're going home.

And because Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, we know that He will definitely succeed in His ultimate purpose, to call us with all His saints to the perfect obedience that comes by faith.  We have been called to belong to Jesus Christ, and King Jesus will not fail to transform you into His image, no matter how guilty and sinful you feel you are.  He is the King whose kingdom is not of this world, and He can and will do it.
So let us depend on Him for all things and honor Him in all we think and do and say.  He is your Lord and King-- mighty, powerful, high and lifted up-- but also humble, gracious, and able to sympathize with your every sorrow and need.  Give Him praise and glory, for Jesus Christ is just the King we truly want and truly need.  Amen.

What Kind of King, What Kind of Kingdom?

Texts: Psalm 75; Mark 10:32-45

    HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED to you?  There's a person you admire, a family member, a teacher, a political figure, anybody.  You know his character, his opinions, the principles he bases his actions on.  You're sure you know what to expect from him as he lives his life.  But one day, you think you hear him say something that doesn't fit with what you know about him.  He'll say something is not a certain way when you'd expect him to say it is.  Well, maybe you misheard.  Forget about it.

    But then he says something else along the same lines.  What?  Well, maybe he just misspoke.  And you let it go.  But then he says or does it again, and it wasn't a slip.  You admire him, you respect him-- gosh darn it, you know him!  So automatically your mind works to make this new, contradictory information harmonize with your image of him.  And you go on like that, until the time comes when you have to face facts: These new, disturbing things really reflect who your hero is, and the image you had of him or her up to now is false, or at least inadequate.  Something has to give: Your allegiance to that person-- or the deficient idea about him you previously held.

    Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance.  That's when two things you think you know are out of tune with one another, but you do your best to make them harmonize because you don't want to give up what you basically believe on the matter.  We've all experienced it at some time or the other.  In our passage from Mark chapter 10, this lack of harmony engulfs the disciples, the Twelve, and especially the brothers James and John.  They think they know all about Jesus and His role and mission on this earth and they want to keep on relating to Him according to that knowledge.  But Jesus knows they don't have the whole story about Who He is and what He came to do.  The entire gospel according to St. Mark records how Jesus worked to make them-- and us-- give up our inadequate image of Him and embrace the real Jesus and His real kingdom, so we can turn to Him and be saved.

    Humanly-speaking, we can't blame the disciples for their deficient ideas.  After all, hear what it says in Mark 1:14-15:

    After John was put on prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  "The time has come," he said.  "The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news."

Jesus' basic message was about the kingdom of God: the blessed time when the righteous would be rewarded and the wicked punished and the Lord God Himself would reign in the person of His promised Messiah.  By His proclamation Jesus made it clear that He was the One who was bringing the kingdom in.
    And hear what the Scriptures say in the seventh chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel:

        As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. . . . 

        In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

    Here we see the glorious Son of Man, and by that title the promised Messiah would be known.  The eternal kingdom, that is, the kingdom of God, would be given to Him to rule over, and it would never be destroyed. 

    So what do we hear Jesus of Nazareth calling Himself?  In Mark 2:10 He says: "That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . " And in Mark 2:28: "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."  And so on through the Gospel of Mark, not to mention many other times Jesus takes that title to Himself in Matthew, Luke, and John.  So Jesus without apology steps into the role of the Son of Man Daniel spoke about, and His miracles and teaching proved He deserved it.  This Jesus was the One who would reign as King over the indestructible divine kingdom, and His reign would have no end.

    That's how the disciples, including the Twelve, saw Him.  And they were right to see the Lord Jesus that way, as far as their perception went.  But their ideas didn't include what had to happen before the Son of Man could be awarded "all authority, glory, and sovereign power."  And when Jesus tried to teach His followers the whole truth, they didn't want to hear it, in a very real way they couldn't hear it, and they went on acting as if He'd never said anything on the subject at all.

    Though they couldn't ignore Him on it altogether. At the beginning of our target passage in Mark, we read that "they were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid."  From the ordinary point of view, they were just heading for Jerusalem as they would every year to celebrate the Passover.  But even the half-committed crowds that went along with Jesus just to see what miracles He'd perform next knew that Jerusalem wasn't a safe place for the Rabbi to be.  And His behavior was so odd!  He wasn't strolling along with them, singing the customary Psalms and anticipating a glorious time in the holy city.  No, as another translation puts it, He was "forging ahead," His head down like a charging bull, a Man on a mission determined to get that mission done.  What could it all mean?

    The disciples were astonished, the ordinary disciples and the Twelve as well.  From their point of view, Jerusalem was the last place Jesus should go at the moment, Passover or no Passover.  How did this seemingly self-destructive behavior fit, how could it fit with His identity as God's elect King and Ruler of the heavenly kingdom?

    And then Jesus turns up the dissonance.  He takes the twelve apostles aside and says,

     "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

The Son of Man?  Betrayed, flogged, and killed?  Preposterous! Impossible!  Jesus can't possibly mean it.  Never mind that this is the third time Mark records Jesus making this prediction.  It just didn't fit.  And as for His statement that three days later he will rise, what could that possibly mean?  As we see from what happens on Resurrection Day, that didn't register with the apostles at all.

    No, the disciples' idea of the Son of Man had nothing to do with disgrace, suffering, and death, it was all about ruling and glory.  Right after this, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approach Jesus.  How have they explained their Master's strange behavior to themselves?

     Well, maybe He was going up to Jerusalem to declare Himself Messiah and King.  Yes, that would be it.  By the word of His mouth, with mighty signs and wonders, Jesus would overwhelm the Romans and the Jewish religious establishment.  He would take His stand in the Temple, the Holy Spirit would come down in power, and everyone would fall at His feet and crown Him Lord of all.  Definitely something to be astonished at, but it would fit.

    So since the kingdom must be coming in its fullness very, very soon, the brothers ask Him to grant them the seats at His right hand and His left when He sits enthroned in His glory.  As good Jews they're visualizing the thrones set in place in Daniel's vision.  It wouldn't be mere pomp and ceremony.  What they had in mind was the ruling power and authority and might the Son of Man would wield. James and John want to share it when King Jesus sits triumphant in His everlasting kingdom.  Co-prime ministers of Christ the King, that's what they want to be.  The kingdom, the power, and the glory may belong to our Father in heaven, but they're looking forward to a time in the very near future when a good chunk of it is delegated to them.  Talk of death, suffering, and disgrace is out of tune here; let's keep hold of eternal power and splendor.

    They don't know what they're asking, Jesus replies.  "Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?" 

    Oh, yes, certainly they can!

    Did our Lord look at those two with loving pity when they gave that eager reply?  What did they think He meant?  Yes, there was a cup of the king: It was the cup of joy, the cup of salvation, the cup of overflowing provision.  And though the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about the preparations a king-elect would undergo before he was crowned, we do know from Exodus 29 that before a high priest was consecrated, he was to be thoroughly washed-- baptised, really-- to purify himself for his office.  And certainly the prophets say that the Messiah was to be the great High Priest as well as Israel's everlasting King. Likely there other rites before a coronation, like fasting and prayer and seeking the face of the Lord.  Yes, certainly, James and John could handle that!

    But James and John don't know that Jesus will have to drink the cup of God's wrath, as we read about in Psalm 75.  He will drink it down to the dregs, so that the wicked of this earth, including you and me, might be transformed through Him into children of God.  That cup of wrath was drunk by Christ alone, but the sons of Zebedee and all of us who belong to Jesus must be prepared to suffer for the sake of His name, before we can expect to reign with Him in glory.

    And James and John don't understand that the baptism Jesus will undergo will be the baptism of death.  He will be plunged into it fully for our sake on the cross, and after three days emerge living and glorious as the risen Son of Man.  Only Jesus could die that death for our sins, but all of us who bear His name must put to death our selfishness, our pride, our wills, even our physical lives; all we think we know and all we think we are.  All must be submerged and drowned to death in the blood of His cross.  Only then can we rise with Him to eternal life and kingdom glory.

    Yes, James and John will certainly share in Jesus' baptism and cup, and so will you and I who are baptised in His name.  But as to rewards and places of authority, the humble Son of Man declares that they are the Father's alone to give.  As we read in Psalm 75,

    No one from the east or the west
            or from the desert can exalt a man.
    But it is God who judges:
            He brings one down, he exalts another.

    The sons of Zebedee were looking to the main chance and working for their own advantage.  But in their indignation the other ten disciples were just as far off the mark, and in their situation we'd probably do the same.  Why shouldn't one of them get the best place?  Why not you, why not me?  But Jesus frankly, even ruthlessly destroys their false idea about the workings of the kingdom of God, both now and in the world to come.  He says,

        "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."    

This is the truth about the kind of king Christ is and the kind of kingdom He came to establish.  He's not an earthly ruler and His rulership doesn't follow earthly rules.  "Long live the king!" is the traditional cry.  But Jesus came to be put to death.  Many in the Church today can accept the idea that Jesus came to be a model  of service to our fellow man.  But this idea that the wrath of God was upon us all, and only the shed blood of the sinless Son of Man can turn it away, that doesn't fit.  They explain it away by saying the cross was only symbolic, or just a supreme example of love.  But Christ our King was enthroned upon that cross, and without it there would be no kingdom for Him and none for you and me.  We must accept our need for His death, for only then can we truly be His disciples. 

    It's not for us on this earth to be coveting glory for ourselves in God's kingdom to come.  Rather, let us receive the aid of the Holy Spirit as we humbly walk in the way of the cross.  Jesus has reconciled us to God through His suffering so we who belong to His kingdom can follow Him in humility, patience, service, mutual submission, and love.  It is our glory here on earth to suffer for the name of Christ: sometimes directly in times of persecution; sometimes simply by praising and trusting Him in the ordinary troubles and pains of this life.  There will be transcendent glory to come, but for now, He calls us to drink His cup and undergo His baptism.

    Brothers and sisters, what will you do?  Will you try to minimize your need for the cross?  Will you attempt to explain away Christ's command to be the slave of all, so you can keep your deficient idea of Who He is and what He came to do?  Or will you accept that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give up His life as a ransom for many?  Worship Him as He is, your broken and bleeding Savior.  Follow daily in the path of His sacrifice, serving others for His sake.  And know that by His faithfulness and His atoning death, you will stand before Him in His kingdom, praising the Father in the glory of His resurrection.  Amen.

Newborn from God

Texts:    Romans 6:1-17; John 3:1-14

    IN A LITTLE WHILE WE WILL BAPTISE H-- A-- B--, infant son of H-- and D-- B--.  I was told that H-- was born on the 15th of this past August, so he's not quite two months old.  Once this child was not even thought of, but now he's a little person living here among us.  Even in these past two months he's growing, developing, and gaining strength.  What will he look like when he's big?  What will he be able to do? 

    We marvel at the glory of human life, especially when we find it packaged in a little child.  But human life is not enough.

    And what a miracle H-- is!  If anything on this earth could be called miraculous, it's the birth of a newborn child.  We know from science how minuscule we all start out in our mothers' wombs, but somehow the genetic coding works together and a new human being is born!  And now, see how intricate, how delicate, how marvellously-formed a tiny baby is!

     A child like this is indeed is an earthly miracle.  But earthly miracles are not enough.

    And think of the spirit in this child, already manifesting itself.  Here is a new soul with all its dreams and possibilities ahead of it.  How can we look upon a infant like this and not be inspired to contemplate the mysteries of life and the universe and beyond?

    Certainly, the human spirit is an amazing thing.  But the human spirit is not enough.

    All this is not enough, for we know from Scripture-- and from the testimony of our own hearts-- that we are not what we should be or what we were created to be.  We are sinners who  fall short of the glory of God.  We treat God, our neighbor, and ourselves in ways we ought not, and we fail to give God and our neighbor the honor and consideration they deserve.  St. Paul in our passage from Romans 6 speaks of people who would insult the grace of God by using it as an excuse to sin all the more.  He needs to command even Christians not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.  So wonderfully formed our bodies are, with tremendous capabilities and strengths, but we have to be warned not to use them as instruments of wickedness.  Paul urges us not to let sin be our master, to stop being slaves to sin-- and by this we understand that having sin as our master is the ordinary condition of human life.  It's the problem we were born with and still struggle with, no matter how old or how young we are.  Because we are sinners, our lives lead to death, our miracles are fleeting, and our spirits end in frustration.  All our human glories are not enough.

    But maybe (some might say), but maybe all this about sin is just Paul the Apostle talking.  After all (people say), Paul didn't want anybody to have any fun.  He just obscured the real Jesus-- the kind, loving, gentle, inclusive, all-accepting Jesus who'd never lower anybody's self-esteem or judge them or make them feel there was anything about them that God couldn't like.

    Oh, really?  That's an imaginary Jesus people make up in their own heads, and not the Christ of the Bible.  We can read what Jesus Himself said about the natural condition of humanity.  In John 3:18-20, He says,

    [W]hoever does not believe [in Jesus the Son of Man] stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

"Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil," says Jesus, the Son of God.  Not some men, but all men, and that includes us women, too.  It just comes naturally for us to do what is bad and wrong and to try to hide our guilt in the darkness, away from the righteous judgement of the holy God.  We are born with sin as our master and condemnation is what we naturally deserve-- Jesus has said so.  The tiniest child, the most aged, venerable senior, all of us come into this world as children of darkness and not as children of light.

    So what must we do?  Try harder?  Aspire to please God by acts of charity and service?  No, for even our best and kindest acts are polluted and degraded by selfish motives.  No matter how much we try, we fail to meet the standard of goodness set by God's own righteousness.  It's beyond human capability for anyone by his or her own efforts to have eternal life and not perish under the judgement we so properly deserve.

    Human life, human spirit, and earthly miracles are not enough.  We need divine life and the Holy Spirit, given to us by heavenly miracle.  It's not enough for us once to have been newborn-- we need also to be newborn from and by and through God.

    When Nicodemus, the member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus by night, he wondered whether Jesus' presence marked the coming of the kingdom of God.  The coming of the kingdom was an event all good Jews eagerly awaited.  Jesus has been doing miraculous signs in Judea and Galilee, and Nicodemus recognizes by this that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, and the Lord is with Him.  Plainly, the next question is, "Rabbi, are You the Messiah, and will we see You inaugurating the kingdom of God very soon?"

    Nicodemus was expecting the time when God would fulfill all His covenant promises to His chosen people, an unending time of blessedness and joy for those who belonged to Him, with a simultaneous experience of punishment and woe for the enemies of God and Israel.  To a great extent, Nicodemus and his good Jewish countrymen were right.  But it's more than that.  The kingdom of God also has to do with the condition of every human heart.  Is God our Sovereign and Master-- or will we continue to be enslaved by sin?  Jesus gets right to the point: In order to see the kingdom of God-- that is, to be able to experience it, live in it, and enjoy the eternal life that only God can give-- it wasn't enough to have been born of the bloodline of Jacob.  No, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

    For Nicodemus this is such a bizarre thing for Jesus to say that he tries to imagine an adult man crawling back into his mother's womb and having her deliver him all over again.  Absurd and impossible!

    But Jesus is not talking about anything natural or anything of this earth.  This new birth is from first to last an act of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In order to participate in the kingdom of God, we must be newborn from God.  Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit."   Elsewhere in John's gospel the Evangelist records how Jesus promised the Samaritan woman living water that would become a spring welling up to eternal life.  When He preached at the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus spoke of "streams of living water flowing from within" those who believed in Him, by which He meant the Holy Spirit, which believers would receive.  Repeatedly in Scripture water, especially flowing, running water, is used as a means of physical cleansing and refreshing, and as a symbol for spiritual cleansing and revival.  John the Baptist baptised people in the Jordan River, so they might be ready to accept the Messiah when He might be revealed to Israel.   Behind the physical element of water stands a powerful truth about what God does in the human heart so each of us can be fit and ready to see the kingdom of God.   

    And you and I can't do or be a single thing to bring the kingdom of God to us, or to make ourselves clean enough to see and enter it.  Jesus won't allow Nicodemus or us to delude ourselves.  We must have a spiritual rebirth, and that can happen only by the will and pleasure of the Holy Spirit Himself, who is God.  Can you or I control the wind?  No, we only see its influence and feel its force.  And so it is with the new birth from above-- it's totally up to God and His sovereign will.

    But we can take heart.  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."  God has provided the way for us to be born again and to have the life and Spirit that is more than enough.  Jesus Himself is the way, and as we believe in Him through the work of the Holy Spirit, we pass from life to death, from condemnation to adoption as sons, from darkness into light.

    Baptism is God's divinely-ordained sign and seal of this tremendous heavenly reality.  We take a common element, water, plain old H2O, and as we in faith invoke the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our Lord promises to apply His promises to us and our children.  Our Christian baptism is our initiation into new and eternal life-- because, St. Paul says (again, in Romans, chapter 6), our baptism into Jesus Christ is our baptism into His death.  In John 3:14 and 15, Jesus says that "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."  By this He looks towards the death He was to suffer on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  His death washed away the guilt and stain of our sins in His own blood, and in the waters of baptism we are symbolically plunged into the blood of Jesus, that we might arise cleansed and purified and worthy to enter the kingdom of God.

    No one who refuses to come to God through the medium of Christ's atoning death will see life.  But if we are united with Him in His death, as Paul says, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.  With Christ in death, with Christ in newborn life-- this is our hope and our glory.

    But we also rejoice that when we are baptised into Christ, our old sinful self stays dead so we are no longer slaves to sin.  Oh, yes, that old sin nature still hangs around within it us, nagging us and tempting us to go back to what we used to be.  But now that we have been baptised into Christ, we are no longer what we used to be.  We are newborn from God-- truly innocent, truly perfect, truly holy-- because we have been united with Jesus Christ, the truly innocent, perfect, and holy one.

    As we baptise H-- A--, we express our faith that God will do for him what He has promised in Jesus Christ.  He is only a tiny child, and will not be able to express his faith in Christ as His Lord and Savior for many years.  But it was in our very helplessness that God took the initiative to revive and quicken us and raise us up in the power of the Spirit so we might call Jesus Master and Lord.  The Word of God written will teach H-- about Jesus and His death for him, and through the ministry of Christ's church as you surround him with your love and godly example, this child will come to  acknowledge and confirm the blessing of newborn life God gives to him and all of us in Christ. Young or old, whether you are a recent convert or a long-standing pillar of the Church, let us reaffirm our own baptisms, and humbly accept the what God has done for us through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For God so loved you that He gave His only-begotten Son, that if you believe in Him, you will not perish, but have everlasting life.  By His sovereign grace you are reborn into eternal life.  God has done it, let us receive it, and praise His name forever and ever.  Amen.

Getting on with His Job

 Texts:    Isaiah 50:4-11; Mark 1:9-15

    ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE OF this year's Super Bowl ads was the one where the young man thinks his parents are giving him a shiny yellow convertible Camaro as a graduation present, and responds accordingly.  We viewers understand right away that the real present is a mini-refrigerator for the cheapo apartment they figure he'll be getting, but he only has eyes for the fancy, expensive car.  One reason that ad works is because that's how a lot of young people feel about getting their college degrees: "I've worked hard these past four years, my parents are proud of me, I deserve a great job, a great car, a great life.  I'm great, I've arrived, it's all about me, me, me!  Yayyyy!!!"

    . . . Aren't you glad that Jesus the Son of God wasn't like that?  When Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John in the River Jordan, He received the most wonderful gifts from His eternal Father.  As He was coming up out of the river, He saw the heavens being opened, and the Holy Spirit descending on Him in appearance like a dove.  For Jesus and those who had eyes to see, this was a sign that He indeed was the Anointed One, the Messiah.  This visible gift of the Spirit confirmed that all the virtues and powers that had always been His as the Son of God would also be His as the Son of Man.  The powers that belonged to His exalted office were His to use. 

    And with the anointing of the Spirit Jesus received His Father's approval: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."

    We sinners cannot understand how beyond price it would be, to have God the Father's complete and unreserved approval. We're too focussed on the material things of this world.  And we could never in ourselves deserve God's approbation. Our sins prevent us from being pleasing to God.  Only Jesus Christ could receive such an overwhelming gift; being God's beloved Son is His right and His alone.

    If Jesus had been an ordinary human being like you and me, if as an ordinary human being He'd been able to appreciate the value of the gifts He was given at His baptism, it wouldn't be surprising if He'd react like the young man in the commercial.  "Wow!  I'm really special!  My Father loves me, He's given me these great gifts, and I deserve every bit of it!  Hey, everybody,  I'm the Messiah, worship me now!"

    But Jesus didn't react like that.  Jesus had a job to do on this earth, and it's God the Father's great gift and blessing to us that His beloved Son kept His eye on the job, He knew what He had to do, and He carried it out.

    That said, we might expect that Jesus would get straight to work preaching and healing, right after His baptism.  Maybe address the crowd of John's disciples and those who'd come to be baptised, right there on the banks of the river Jordan.  But even though He is God's beloved Son in whom there is no fault, in whom the Father is well pleased, He still has preparation to undergo.  St. Mark tells us that immediately after this the Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, compelled Him to go there, to be tempted by Satan.

    Did you get that?  It wasn't as if Jesus was spending time in fasting and prayer, and the Devil showed up unexpectedly hoping to trip Him up in a weak moment.  No, God the Holy Spirit deliberately sent God the Son into a barren, isolated place  to encounter the accuser of man, so He might be fully ready to do His saving work, to the glory of God the Father.  The word the English versions translate as "being tempted" has several layers of meaning.  Yes, it does mean "to entice someone to sin."  But it also can mean "to make a trial of, to put to the test, to discover what kind of person someone is."  It's one of the greatest jokes of the cosmos that Satan thinks he's so big and powerful and in control, and here God the Holy Spirit was using him-- simply using him-- to prove that Jesus Christ was pure gold all the way through, and binding Him even closer to His Father in heaven. 

    In our passage from Isaiah the anointed Servant of the Lord speaks of His motivation, dedication, and mission.  This was a prophecy of the Christ who was to come.  The Servant says in verses 8,

        Who will contend with me?
                    Let us stand up together.
        Who is my adversary?
                    Let him come near to me.

    Satan the accuser came near to our Lord Jesus in the wilderness, and went away defeated, for

        Behold, the Lord God helps me;
                    who will declare me guilty?

    No one, because Jesus the Servant of God put Himself wholly into the hands of His Father to vindicate and sustain Him.  In the wilderness Satan hoped to break and corrupt the Son of Man, but Jesus came out stronger, more focussed, and with greater integrity than before.

    So now, as Mark tells us, after John the Baptist was arrested--when the herald and forerunner was off the stage-- "Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'"

    This was Jesus' work, to proclaim and bring in the rulership of God on this fallen earth.  Isaiah foretold how He went about it.  His word of hope sustained the weary.  He faithfully declared all His Father gave Him to say, and He didn't turn back or rebel against saying it.  Jesus did what would be impossible for us-- He revealed that He was the center, the focus, the embodiment of the kingdom of God, but at the same time, He didn't preach Himself for Himself.  He didn't say and do things for His own comfort or to boost His self-esteem or His position in the world.  Everything He did in His ministry was done in obedience to God the Father, so sinners like you and me could be reconciled to God through Him and God glorified in heaven and on earth.

    Jesus did not turn backward from what He came to do, even when it took Him to the cross.  No, He

    gave [His] back to those who strike,
                and [His] cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
    [He] hid not [His] face
        from disgrace and spitting.

And because Jesus was pleasing to God, because He got on with the holy task the Father sent Him to do, the cross did not end for Him in disgrace and shame, but in vindication and glory.

    And because Jesus was faithful in word and deed to the job He was given to do, we, too, can share His vindication and glory.  The Scripture is clear: Jesus did what He did because He was the only one who could do it.  His fast, His temptation, His ministry, His cross, His resurrection-- all this He was willing to do, He did it all for you, to reconcile you to the Father and restore you to His love.

    This is something we can hold onto.  It's inevitable:  We will have days, weeks, months, when we don't understand what God is doing, when, as Isaiah says, we have no light and we walk in the darkness.  But there is confidence and hope for you who fear the Lord and obey the voice of Jesus, His Servant.  For His Spirit has given you an open ear to repent and believe the gospel of God's kingship.  To you is given the light of God and for you Jesus completed His mighty work of salvation.  Even in the darkness, even in the midst of uncertainty and temptation, the name of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is strong, and on Him we can rely.

    But there are those who will not accept what Jesus has already done.  They do not trust Him or accept the light He gives.  They claim to believe in Jesus, but it is an idol, a Christ made in their own image.  They claim to have light, but it is light they have kindled themselves, and such a torch will lead them astray.  Satan was only the first of those who preached the bad news of their own greatness, of grabbing the good things they feel they deserve, and those who follow him will suffer his punishment.

    But this is not what God our Father has in mind for you, not if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, who was and is God's beloved Son.  He was tried and proven in His confrontation with Satan in the wilderness, He faithfully proclaimed the good news of God's kingdom, and when the time was right, Jesus opened up the door to the kingdom of heaven by the wounds He suffered in His own body on the cross.  He did the job you and I could never do.  You can trust and rely on Him, even in times of darkness, even when temptation seems too much to bear.  God has given you the greatest gift of His love any ordinary human being can ever receive, and that is the gift of His Son.  Believe the good news:  In Christ Himself you have the kingdom, and that gift will never be taken away from you, and in Him your joy will never end.
   

Glory Reflected, Glory Obscured

Texts:    2 Corinthians 3:7 - 4:6;  Mark 9:1-13

    SOMETHING I'VE NOTICED THESE past few years, and I'm sure you've noticed it, too, is how people like to leave their Christmas lights up all year round.  Now, they don't call them Christmas lights.  But you know what I mean.  The little white lights that stay lit in the trees outside buildings all summer.  Even more, the artificial evergreen trees in offices and homes that change decorations depending on the season.  Now it's a Christmas tree, now it's for Valentine's, now it's decorated for Easter, now for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. 

    But always with lights.  Always with ornaments that glitter and shine.  Always echoing the glory that is Christmas.  We like glory.  We don't want it to fade away.   So we decide to keep the pretty lights burning all year round, and maybe the hope and optimism and sense of wonder and possibility will keep going, too.

    It's right to associate Christ and His birth with light and glory.  All of Jesus' life was glorious, in Who He was and what He did and in Who and where He is today, risen and glorified at the right hand of the Father.  Since that's true, it's hard to understand the gospel of Mark has so much about the glory of Jesus being hidden or concealed.

    From the first verse, we, the Christian reader, know that this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  We read how John the Baptist came in the Spirit and power of Elijah, proclaiming that soon One would come who would baptise with the Holy Spirit.  And how when Jesus was baptised by John, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove, and the voice from heaven declared, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." 

    Isn't that glorious?  But immediately we see that same Spirit driving Jesus into the obscurity of the wilderness, to be tempted.  We hear Jesus forbidding the demons He cast out to talk about who He is.  Even though people in the villages are thrilled with His miraculous healing power, He won't remain there and soak up the fame.  Jesus heals a leper, and charges the man not to tell anyone what He, Jesus, has done.  Jesus teaches in parables, and tells His disciples that He does so in order that those outside of His followers would not be able to understand.

    Yet He keeps on performing miracles that could only be done by the finger of God alone.  Jesus, why all this obscurity?  Why not just come out and proclaim who You are, that you're the Messiah, the Holy One, the glorious promised King and Ruler of Israel?

    Then one day, near Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks His disciples, "Who do people say I am?"  And Peter answers, "You are the Christ."  (St. Matthew gives us more; in his gospel, we read that Peter went on to say that Jesus is the Son of the living God).  Well, at last!  Now would be the time for Jesus to declare His Messiahship all over Galilee and Judea, to march into Jerusalem and take up His crown and reign.

    But no.  After Peter confessed the truth about who Jesus was, our Lord strictly charged the disciples not to tell anyone about Him.  More than that, He began to teach them that He would suffer many things and be killed by the chief priests and scribes!  And He told His followers, not just the Twelve but also those in the crowd, that if they wanted to be His true disciples, they had to be willing to follow Him to crucifixion, too!  Where's the glory now, Jesus?  Why must it be so hidden, so obscured?

    But as Jesus was teaching His followers that they must be willing to suffer the most demeaning of martyrdoms for His sake, He added this amazing statement, which we find in verse 1 of chapter 9 of Mark's gospel:

    "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."

Which is to say, "Yes, many standing here certainly will drink the cup of martyrdom for My sake, but some of you before that will see that the kingdom of God has come with power."

    That is, something will open their eyes and they will see and understand the power and glory of God's kingship, where it had been obscured before.

    Six days later, Mark tells us Jesus took Peter and the brothers James and John up to a high mountain by themselves.  And there He is transfigured before them, appearing in garments blindingly white, beyond any earthly power to bleach them.  Moses and Elijah appear and confer with Jesus, Moses being the one to whom God gave the Law on Mount Sinai, and Elijah being the mightiest of the miracle-working prophets.  This, indeed, was a vision of the kingdom of God having come with power.  Why shouldn't Peter respond in awe and worship?  Why shouldn't he want to build all three of them tabernacles, where they could shelter, where God Most High could be adored in their holy presence?

    But this was not God's plan.  This was not the final demonstration of His power and glory that He meant to reveal.  A cloud overshadowed them all; the glorious scene was obscured, and a Voice said, "This is my beloved Son: listen to him."

    Listen to Jesus, you disciples of His, for He has something even more hidden and even more glorious to reveal to you.  When the cloud lifted, Jesus only was there.  And as they came down the mountain, He charged the three disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen.  He had wanted them to get this glimpse of His unveiled glory, but they were not to go about proclaiming it.  They weren't to give the other disciples and the crowds the idea that this revelation was the kingdom of God having come with power.  So they were to keep it hidden, obscured-- until the Son of Man, that is, Jesus, had risen from the dead.

    Risen from the dead.  What could that mean?  If nothing else, it meant that Jesus had to die.  How could this be, if Jesus indeed was the Christ and the long-expected King?  And what about the prophecy that Elijah must come first, to be the King's forerunner and prophet?

    Jesus assures them that Elijah-- in the person of John the Baptist-- has come.  And they-- the authorities-- beheaded him.  And the Son of Man, Christ the King, must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?  Coming down that mountain road, Jesus left Peter, James, and John with more questions than they started out with.

    Only in Jesus' death and resurrection is the obscurity cleared away and the mystery revealed.  The glory of Christ is His cross, and His power is the victory He won there over sin, Satan, and death.  It's something we never could have imagined, but now that God has done it, we can see that Christ's work of salvation for us and in us is indeed the kingdom of God come in glorious power.

    St. Paul spells it out for us in our reading from 2 Corinthians.  He speaks in verse 7 of the ministry of death coming with glory.  By this he refers to the Law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  The Law of God itself is great and glorious.  It reflects His truth, His purity, His righteousness and love.  It gave the pattern for the kind of people the Israelites were to be, to reflect His image in the world.  But in the end, the Law brought death, because it went to prove how weak, sinful, and inglorious we sinful humans are.  We break God's law, and we are broken on it.

    Yet it was glorious!  So glorious, that whenever Moses came out from God's presence, his face reflected God's glory, and he had to put a veil over his face and obscure it, so the people could bear to be around him.

    But, Paul says, that glory, the glory of the old covenant under the Law, was passing away.  By its very nature it was doomed to blind human eyes to God's plan for our salvation.  For the Law is all about our doing good, our being righteous, our trying to live up to God's standards-- or lowering them to our standards, when we fail.  Isn't that the normal human way of getting in good with God?  We feel we have to earn it.  We're convinced we have to strive to achieve our place in heaven.  "No guts, no glory!" is the motto.

    But in Christ, all that is taken away.  In Christ, we see the glory of His cross and what He did for us there.  In His resurrection and ascension we see that God the Father has put His stamp of approval on the deeds of His beloved Son, and in His gracious will we share the glory of Christ.  Like the kingdom of God, we have not fully arrived.  As we are made more like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are brought from one degree of glory to another.  And this is not our doing, it is always thanks to the work of Christ on what seemed to be a very inglorious cross.

    So, with Paul and his companions, we do not lose heart.  There is much in our culture that criticises Christians, that says we are fools, that claims that we're in the dark and it's the unbelievers and skeptics who have the light of wisdom.  Even in the Church there are many who say that the gospel message of the cross is outdated, that it's veiled to the world and therefore we should discard it and give the world something they can understand.  Some so-called pastors (I've heard them called "goat-herders") would rather spend an hour telling funny stories about themselves instead of five minutes preaching Christ, because it draws a crowd.

    Sadly, the gospel is obscured to those who are perishing in this world, for Satan, the god of this world blinds their minds and keeps them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.  But there was a time when that was true of us, too.  And the obscured glory of God is brighter and stronger than the blatant so-called glory of Satan and this world, and His Spirit was strong to enlighten our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

    Peter, James, and John had the privilege of seeing Jesus gloriously transfigured on the mountain with Moses and Elijah.  We by the Holy Spirit have seen the kingdom of God having come with power in our own lives, though Jesus' death and resurrection.  Like the first disciples, all of us still have times of darkness and obscurity to go through, before we shall see our Lord face to face.  But let us not lose heart.  No, we won't lose heart, we won't be discouraged, because the glory of Christ shines within us and His Spirit keeps us.

    One thing more, and I'll close.  To share in Christ's glory is to share in His obedience.  Often we're told to do and dare great things for Christ, and we feel down and disheartened because we're not out in the field as missionaries or evangelizing so as to convert hundreds every day.  How glorious that would be!  Maybe I exaggerate, but you know the pressure.  We can't do that! we think, so we just go back to the obscurity of our everyday lives.  But maybe our everyday lives are exactly where Jesus wants us to glorify Him.  It's in our daily work, our relationships, our ordinary struggles and joys that we take up our crosses and follow Him, and it's there that we in ourselves truly see the kingdom of God having come in power.

    For we follow Jesus Christ and reflect His glory, the glory that can never fade, tarnish, or pass away.  Amen.

This Is Why He Came

Texts:    Isaiah 61:1-9; Mark 1:29-39   

       ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT things about  being a Christian, especially a Christian pastor, is dealing with people's misconceptions about what Jesus came to do on this earth.  Especially hard to deal with is when unbelievers ask, "If  Jesus is so great, how come you Christians still suffer from diseases and troubles like the rest of us?  How come I can insult your God all I want and I'm perfectly happy and healthy?  Guess He's not so powerful after all!"

    Even Christians can wonder why a loving Jesus who healed so many people when He walked this earth doesn't reach down from heaven and heal them.  Is it because they don't have enough faith?  Or is God punishing them for some sin in their lives?  Or maybe, just maybe (we hardly dare even to think it), Jesus doesn't care to heal us-- or He can't?  But no, no, it's got to be a lack of faith on our part.  Or something.  After all, didn't Jesus come to give us healthier, happier lives and heal us of all our physical diseases?  Why doesn't He get on with it?

    It's hard dealing with this not because there's no answer to it, but because first you have to clear away a fundamental misconception about who Jesus is and what He came to do.

    That's not easy.  Even Jesus' disciples saw things this way, early in His ministry when they came looking for Him the morning Mark records in chapter 1, verses 35-37 of his gospel.  The afternoon before, we read, Jesus healed the mother-in-law of Simon Peter.  And that evening, the whole town of Capernaum showed up at Peter and Mrs. Peter's house so Jesus could heal those who had diseases.  He drove out demons, too, just like He'd driven out that nasty one in the synagogue earlier that day, which you can read about in verse 21-28.  Such power!  Such authority!  No sickness, no infirmity, no minion of Satan, could stand against the command of our Lord Christ!

    So why wasn't Jesus busy doing the same thing that day?  What was He doing out in this solitary place (verse 35) praying?  Come on, Jesus, come back and get to work! Hey, Jesus, "Everyone is looking for You!"  Don't You realize there are still sick people to heal and possessed people to set free?

    That's how we're tempted to feel about Jesus and His work, both back then and today. The unbeliever thinks Jesus doesn't eliminate all sickness and suffering because He can't.  The Christian believes He can, and so often can't understand why He doesn't.

    Yes, Jesus does know that everyone is looking for Him. But He knows they need more than physical healing.  His reply to the disciples is this, in verse 38:   "Let us go somewhere else-- to the nearby villages-- so I may preach there also.  That is why I have come."

    "That is why I have come."  Why?  To preach.  Not primarily to heal the broken bodies and tortured minds of suffering humanity, but to preach.

    To preach? we might ask.  To preach what?  Well, let's look  back at verse 15 of this first chapter of Mark.  There Jesus says, "The time has come.  The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news!"

    Jesus came to preach the kingdom of God.  He healed and cast out demons to show to us that He was and is the Anointed Servant of God who can and does exercise power and authority against everything that would rise up and rebel against the that divine kingdom.

    We talk a lot these days about "Kingdom living" and "Kingdom ministry" and even "Kingdom kids."  But in the Gospel of Mark in particular, the term "kingdom of God" focusses on God Himself.  As Isaiah puts it in chapter 61, God being savior, God being grace-giver, God being provider, God being judge.  God Almighty is the focus and center of His kingdom; He is its Sovereign Lord and King.  The kingdom of God is that state of affairs where God is totally in charge and all resistance goes down before Him.

    This is what Jesus came to proclaim.  He came to prove that He Himself was the Anointed divine King in whose person the kingdom of God has come.  When He cast out demons and healed diseases it was amazing, stupendous-- but it only served to illustrate that He was, as Mark says in chapter 1, verse 1, "Christ, the Son of God."

    Because as grievous and tragic as physical and mental sickness are, even worse is the spiritual sickness that lies beneath them.  Brothers and sisters, all the diseases that mankind ever suffered are only symptoms of the real problem, the sin that's within and around and among us.  Out of the heart of man, out of our hearts, comes the sin that disrupts our relationship with God.  It was human sin that let evil into the world, human sin that perverted our relationship with creation such that viruses and bacteria are our enemies, instead of under our dominion.  Human sin creates economic and political systems that keep people in slavery, poverty, and despair.  Human sin brings about injury, injustice, ruin, and disgrace.

    Certainly, Jesus Christ had the ability to heal every last person in Galilee and Judea, with Samaria, Lebanon, and the Decapolis thrown in.  He could have lived a long, long, life doing nothing but that.  But that wasn't what He came to do.  If all our Savior did was save our bodies, our souls would remain just as dead and damned as they were before He encountered us.  But He came to do far more than that.  Jesus came to preach the arrival of the kingdom of God, the year of the Lord's favor, the day of His judgment.  Jesus, the living Word, brings in the kingdom of God by His word, the same creative word that spoke the universe into existence.  The preached word of Jesus is powerful, authoritative.  His Spirit is in it, and it gives life where there was none; for those who have been called according to His purpose, His word has given life to us.

    Today at Grace Church we have celebrated the Sacrament of Christian Baptism.  In Baptism we acknowledge that we, too, have been in rebellion against the kingdom of God, dead in trespasses and sins.  We were helpless, and needed to be raised and recreated after the image of Jesus Christ.  St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans writes how mankind died through the trespass of our first father Adam.  Sin reigned in death-- until Jesus came with the perfect act of righteousness, His death on the cross, so grace might reign through righteousness to bring us eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. When we were baptised we were baptised into His death.  Sin is defeated in us through Him, God's kingdom rule is established in us, we are freed from the bondage of sin and liberated to serve God in holiness and joy.   This is true for D--; it is true for all those who have been transformed by the word of Christ preached for repentance and faith.

    Every healing, every exorcism Jesus ever did pointed forward to that one great and final act when He would bring healing to our sin-sick souls and utterly crush the head of Satan the prince of demons.  Isaiah looked forward to that day, and spoke of the time when the Lord would make an everlasting covenant with His chosen people.  This is the new covenant made in the blood of Jesus Christ.

    Why did Jesus Christ come?  He came to die and to rise again, that we might truly be healed.  This is how the kingdom of God was established on this earth-- by that one perfect sacrifice that Friday afternoon on Calvary.  By His death death was confounded and the power of sin and Satan broken forever.

     Oh, yes, even as Christian believers we will yet go through the trials and terrors of this fallen world.  Times of suffering and disease will still be ours.  We, too, will experience the death of our mortal bodies.  But we have this comfort, that we can look to Jesus Christ and know that He has given us the health that matters, the only health that will last: the salvation of our souls and the promise of new and immortal bodies like His own.   Sickness and suffering do not defeat us, for Jesus has come preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, and He by His grace has made us His own.

    If you will permit me a personal story: Last Maundy Thursday when I preached at Grace Church, that was the first time I'd appeared in the pulpit with my own hair; that is, the first time since I lost it to chemotherapy.  More than a year before that, in February 2010, I'd been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  At that time something I'd read led me to believe that I might have only four months to live.  That prospect focusses the mind wonderfully.  What did everything I'd been preaching all these years mean in the light of that?  And I was led to ask, All right, how much do I love Jesus Christ?  But then I realized the better question was, How much does Jesus Christ love me?

    He loved me enough to go to the cross to purchase my salvation so I might be made fit for the kingdom of God.  And that's how much He loves you, too.

    There are many who scoff and insist that Jesus has no power to heal.  There are others who desire Jesus only for His power to heal, but otherwise would leave Him alone.  In sickness or in health, let us be those who bow the knee to Him in humble joy.  The kingdom of God is near to you, even in your heart, established by the word of Christ preached to you in His name.  Hear what He declares to you by the power of the Holy Spirit, and repent and believe the good news.  For that is why He came. Amen.

Divine Humility and Kingdom Power

Text: Mark 8:31 - 9:50
　　
JESUS SAID, "I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

To see the kingdom of God come with power! What true disciple of Jesus Christ would not want to see that? Proud oppressors put down, wicked rulers toppled, the hungry fed, the righteous rewarded, justice done, and peace and brotherhood extended over all the earth. That certainly would be worth seeing, and not only seeing, it’s also something we’d like to participate in and get the benefit of.

But here it’s nearly two thousand years later and still we don’t see the kingdom of God come with power. The messed-up brokenness of this world seems to go on as it always has. We see poverty, unemployment, and oppression. We see elected officials deceiving the voters and neighbor cheating neighbor. We see a man willing to kill total strangers at a fitness center to get revenge for how life had treated him. The celebrities we admire turn out to be riddled with drugs and adulteries, and often our lives and the lives of our own families wouldn’t bear media scrutiny, either. So how could Jesus say that "some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power"? Did our Lord-- who is the Truth-- somehow slip up and say something that wasn’t true? Or is the problem with us, that we’re off track on what the kingdom of God really is?

When I was in seminary, one of my professors, R. T. France, taught us something about the kingdom of God that I’ve never forgotten, and I don’t want you to forget it, either: He said, "The kingdom of God is that state of affairs where God is Lord and King-- beginning with you and me." It’s worth saying again: "The kingdom of God is that state of affairs where God is Lord and King-- beginning with you and me." In the kingdom of God, God is absolute Ruler. In His kingdom, God gives all the orders and gets all the glory. Where God is King, those who willingly bow the knee to Him are raised to a right relationship with Him and a right relationship with one another. His subjects enjoy the benefits He gives, including joy and fulfillment and peace. Where God is king, justice, righteousness, and holiness prevail.

The Gospel of Mark is about the coming of God’s rulership. In chapter 1, verse 15, Jesus declares, "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" With every demon driven out, every healing performed, Jesus advanced the borders of the kingdom. The Kingdom was present, but not yet achieved its full power. We must understand: The kingdom of God is not something that one minute does not exist and the next minute, there it is in all its perfection! Rather, it comes in gradually, without our realizing it, then one day our eyes are opened and we recognize what God has been doing all along.

Jesus’ statement in chapter 9, verse 1 follows on from the events at the end of Chapter 8. You’ll remember that in 8:29, Peter declares that Jesus is the Christ. I don’t think we can fully grasp what that meant for the Jewish people in the 1st century. At Christmas we joyfully sing, "Come, Thou long-expected Jesus" and "O come, O come, Emmanuel," but for a 1st century Jew, those hymns would have been cries of hope and anguish. Please, Lord! Send your Messiah, your Christ! Save us now! We can’t take much more! So when Peter has said, "You are the Christ!" and Jesus accepts the title, you have to know what the disciples were thinking. "Ah, soon we make our move! The Messiah is here! God will send His angels, His faithful ones will fight, and the wicked oppressing ungodly unrighteous uncircumcised false-god-worshipping, Temple-desecrating Romans will be driven out by force! The kingdom of God will come with power!"

That’s how things are supposed to happen, right? In this world, that’s the way things have to happen. If conditions are bad, you have to take your pride and your confidence in your hands and stand up and fight. You have to be assertive and aggressive and speak up and struggle for what you need and deserve. And if you’re too weak to do it yourself, you call upon somebody else who can be assertive and aggressive and outspoken enough to get out there and fight and win for you.

But that’s not how it works with the kingdom of God. With the kingdom of God, our normal expectations are turned upside down. Jesus accepts the title of Messiah, warns the disciples not to tell, and begins to teach them to expect His crucifixion. No no no no no, Jesus! says Peter (and you know he was speaking for them all). This is no time for You to be talking about weakness and death! This is the time for glory and triumph and power! But Jesus rebukes Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

For the kingdom of God to come, it had to come God’s way, through the suffering and resurrection of His Son. It had to come through the divine humility of Jesus Christ our Lord, who submitted to a shameful, unjust death to take the punishment for our sins. Jesus could never have sat down at the right hand of His Father in glory unless first He had taken His throne upon the cross. It’s Satan’s business to make us object to that, so we’ll uselessly spend our time and energies bringing in a human version of God’s kingdom in purely human ways. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to open our eyes and help us see things God’s way instead.

Jesus makes it clear: If we would be children of the kingdom, we must follow Him in His divine humility. We don’t live in a time and place where they execute people by crucifixion, but Jesus still calls us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses. He calls for our hearts to be so utterly dedicated to God that we’re willing to suffer injustice, shame, even torture and death for Jesus’ sake. We see the kingdom come in power when our own wills are crying out, "I want, I need, I gotta have, I wanna do!" and we submit to God’s rulership and do what He wants instead. Not by our own strength, but through trust in Him. The kingdom of God is that state of affairs where God is King, starting with you and me, but can be true for us only because first it was true for God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is His divine humility in saving us and redeeming us from our sins that makes it possible for us to submit to God’s rulership and see His kingdom come in this world.

Throughout Chapter 9 and into Chapter 10, our sovereign Lord causes things to happen to show us the Christlike humility His kingship demands. In verse 9, after the awesome experience of the Transfiguration, the Voice of God echoes from the cloud, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

Listen to Jesus! Hear and obey His word! Let His voice drown out the conflicting demands of your flesh and this world. Let His will be your first priority and your greatest joy.

Then in verse 12, Jesus again mentions that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected. In divine humility the kingdom comes, and in no other way. Will you accept His death for your sake? It is the way of the kingdom.

In verse 14 and thereafter, Jesus and the three disciples come down from the mountain and encounter the crowd in conflict over the other disciples’ failure to drive a vicious demon out of a young boy. Mark tells us the teachers of the law were arguing with the other disciples. What about? Most likely, about who had the best technique or the best formula for driving out demons. About which of the two groups, the Pharisees or the Nazarenes, had the most power. But in verses 23 and 24, all Jesus demands from the father of the boy is the merest measure of faith. Not faith as a work or faith as human effort, but faith as total humility before Almighty God and total submission to His will. Jesus delivers the boy and afterwards, in verse 29, He tells his disciples that kind of demon can come out only by prayer. But what is prayer, true, honest, God-pleasing prayer? Again, it is our confession of our total dependency on His power and His will.

When we pray, is it to get God to do our will? Or is it for us to seek His will and to accept it when we know it? Where there is a prayerful, submitted heart, there is the kingdom of God.

Not easy, is it? It wasn’t easy for the disciples, either. Along the road to Capernaum, they reverted to the old human understanding of the kingdom of God as position and greatness and power. You have to wonder if Peter, James, and John hadn’t been a little proud of themselves for having seen what they saw on the mountain. But once they all returned to home base, Jesus reminded them of what the coming of God’s kingdom was all about. "Sitting down," Mark tells us, "Jesus said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’" It is humility that gives us our place in the kingdom of God! The little child Jesus calls to Him is a walking parable of that truth. Not because children are intrinsically good or innocent, but rather that in that culture in particular, children were not esteemed. They were helpless and humble and dependent as Jesus was when He hung on Calvary’s cross, with only faith in His heavenly Father to tell Him that He would be raised to life on the third day. And we see the kingdom of God come in power when our hearts are disciplined to trust God for all our needs, when we are content to be humbled and even humiliated in this world, providing God will get the glory.

Then the disciples object that some other man, not of their group, was driving out demons in Jesus name. John reports that he told the man to stop. But Jesus says no, "whoever is not against us is for us," and "I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward." Our group pride is meaningless in the sight of God. Rather, His favor hinges on and revolves around Jesus Christ. This teaching of our Lord would find greater fulfillment after He ascended into heaven, when the Gentiles began to believe in Him and the Jewish believers had to come to terms with the fact that belonging to Christ didn’t mean joining a Jewish club.

Can we do that? Can we judge only by the measure of Christ and stop drawing lines according to whether someone is inside or outside our particular group? When we do, there is the kingdom of God come in power.

And in verses 42 and following, Jesus impresses on us our critical responsibility for the spiritual well-being of others, especially those who are young in years or young in the faith. There are many ways that spiritual pride can cause us to do things that could lead the weaker brother or sister astray. Is the kingdom of God come in us to the extent that we give up our freedom for the sake of others? And Jesus says, "It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell." There’s more to this teaching than hands and feet and eyes! What is precious to you in this world? What is dearer to you beyond anything else? Your health? Your financial security? Your relationships? Your good name? Jesus says, if any of these things causes you to sin, if any of these good things separate you from God and prevent you from submitting to His kingdom rule, end it. Cut it off. No good thing on this earth can compare with the glory of God’s perfect rulership over you, and no earthly loss, however painful, can be in any way as bad as the agony of hell, the eternal pain of knowing you’ve missed His glorious kingdom for ever.

How does the kingdom of God come in power? Against all the expectations of this world, it comes in weakness and humility. It comes through the cross of Christ and His humbling, saving, pride-purging work on our behalf. The kingdom of God certainly will bring justice and liberation and prosperity and joy. It will bring it, because all creation will be in submission to Christ as King. Pray that God will humble your pride, lest you remain in rebellion and sin and know His kingship only from the depths of hell. Pray He will give you faith to trust and grace to submit to Him in holy joy, that you may know the height and depth and width of the blessings of His rulership.

By Christ’s divine humility, God’s kingdom will come perfectly in power. Blessed were the eyes who saw its coming in the days when Jesus walked this earth. In our time, may He grant us eyes to see and hearts to proclaim His glory alone, now and forever, amen.