One Spirit, One People, One Peace

Texts:  Isaiah 2:1-5; Ephesians 2:11-22

WHEN I WAS A FRESHMAN IN college, I met a guy at a party who introduced me to the concept of world citizenship.  He said he was working with a group who were lobbying the UN to make my hometown of Kansas City a "city of the world."  Somehow, the very mention of this filled me with excitement.  There was something so big and thrilling about the idea, something larger and grander and more hopeful than anything I'd conceived of before, and the thought that I myself might be involved in it made it all the more amazing.

Well, nothing came of this plan as far as I know, and it's been a long time since I thought that humanity united under a single human government is a good thing.  Still, there's something inherently appealing about the idea of human oneness and unity.  How wonderful it would be-- No barriers, no conflicts, just perfect communication and peace between man and man.

But that's not how things are in this world.  In fact, it seems like parties, opinion groups, and factions are more polarized and more in opposition than ever before in human history.  You probably have friends you don't talk to much any more because every time you get together, you end up in an argument about some issue or other.  With some people you can't even talk about the weather without things getting political!  It wouldn't be so bad if people would stick to evidence and facts, but the dividing walls of hostility are erected so high and so thick things too often end up in name-calling and insults.  So we stay in our own camps with that figurative wall standing between us, and human oneness is only a dream-- if we think it's a good thing at all.

With the way things are today, it should give us perspective on the polarization between the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman world, as we read in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  But their conflict concerned more than current issues; it cut to the heart of created reality, for was over who or what should be worshipped as the true God and what that deity requires of us as humans.

This question is way bigger than the debate over, say, global warming or government-run health care.  In such matters let us take our stands based on the facts as we know them, but allow that more information may prove us to be wrong.  But in this matter of Jew vs. Gentile-- or, rather, Jew vs. pagan, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to who was and is right, or at least, more right, in this conflict.  The Jews absolutely were, before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only people on the face of this earth who worshipped the true Lord and Creator of the universe, while the gods of the pagans were useless idols.  The Jews were the only ones who'd been given His laws to follow, the only ones whom the Lord had made His people through solemn covenant, the only ones to whom He had powerfully revealed Himself with unshakeable promises of blessing. And although the prophets spoke of a Messiah to come who would somehow bring benefit to the nations as well, they were also clear that it was through Israel alone that this Savior would come. When it came to the divisions between Jews and pagans, it was not a matter of each side giving up a little on the human level and coming to a friendly compromise.  Compromise was something Israel could not do and remain Israel.  For whenever Israel compromised with the Gentile nations, that's when they got into deep trouble.

No, as Paul writes in verse 12, time was when we who were born Gentiles were

separated from Christ [that is, the Messiah of Israel], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

In fact, for many centuries the dividing wall of hostility was a necessary barrier to preserve Israel from total disobedience and dissolution before the Messiah could come.   It was essential that the pagans and their evil influence be kept at a safe distance from the commonwealth of Israel, and the further off the better.  But, Paul says, the time has come for the dividing wall to be taken down.  Better than that, the time has come when it has been taken down, and the two indeed have become one.

How?  By us holding interfaith councils and agreeing that all religions lead to the same god?  By us avoiding controversial subjects and just talking about puppies and kittens and blue balloons instead?

No.  It took Jesus Christ Himself to break it down and bring Jews and Gentiles together.  For as we see in verses 14 and 15,

He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances . . .

Now when we read that Jesus has "abolished . . . the law of commandments and ordinances," we might conclude that the Jews were wrong all along and we can indulge in and celebrate all sorts of immoral behavior and do it with Jesus' blessing.  That'd save a lot of arguments, for sure!  But we'd be wrong if we did.  For Paul has just finished, up in verse 10, saying that God has created-- recreated, actually-- us in Jesus Christ for good works.  And all the Scripture tells us that a godly life is the only way to please our Creator.  So what is this abolition?

In such a case, it helps to look at the original Greek. The word translated "abolish" literally means "down-un-acting" and, in the case of this verse, scholars interpret it as "made ineffectual or powerless; nullified; invalidated."  So what was the law considered to be effectual or valid for previous to Christ?  Well, the Jews looked to keeping the Law as an effectual and valid way to please God and be justified in His presence.  And that is what Moses had said by the Spirit in Leviticus, "The man who does these things will live by them"-- that is, have life, peace, and fellowship with the Lord of life.  But by the same Spirit he also said in Deuteronomy, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."  And who can live up to that?  The Jews never could.  Certainly the Gentiles could not.  We cannot.  The Law which reflected the holiness of God only served to prove how unholy we all were.  But in His flesh-- in His perfect obedience in life and His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the commands of the Law in our place and set it aside as the way to peace and fellowship with God.

And as Paul writes in verse 13, in Christ Jesus we (and we're included with the Gentile Ephesians here) who were far off from Israel and alienated from God's promises have been brought near by the blood of Christ, shed for us all on Calvary's cross.  In Christ the vision of Isaiah is fulfilled, when the nations would miraculously stream up to Mount Zion and know peace walking in the ways of the God of Jacob.

I've heard that outside the United Nations building in New York there's a sculpture called "Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares," frankly taking its title from the verses from Isaiah 2 that read,

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks.

In other words, let's bring about peace on earth.  Well, people, if you're trying to achieve that by what goes on in that building, good luck.  You'll be at it a long, weary time.  No, the Scripture is clear: Man cannot end hostility: Our peace is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.  In Him is the one and only peace that can make Jew and Gentile one and create one new man out of the two warring peoples.  It took the Son of God made Man to make peace between God's covenant people and those who before had been excluded from His covenant, and He did it by His atoning death.

But His death accomplished even more.  As wonderful as it was that Jesus should make one people out of the warring human factions of Jew and Gentile,  He also reconciled humanity to Almighty God.

And we all needed reconciliation to God.  Because as we can read in Ephesians 2:3, by nature-- fallen human nature-- we are all children of wrath.  In our natural sinful state we are at war with God and God is at war with us.  But in Christ and through Christ and because of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God who is rich in mercy chose us in love to be saved through Him.  And so now, as verse 16 says, He has reconciled both groups "to God in one body through the cross, bringing the hostility to an end."

But how does this come to be true for you and me?  Verse 18 answers that question: it is the work of the Holy Spirit who gives us access to the Father through Jesus Christ our mutual Lord.  By His gracious work we're no longer illegal aliens who deserve no amnesty; God Himself as in Psalm 87 has declared us to be born citizens of the heavenly Zion and by Christ His living Word it is so.  In Jesus we are made fellow-citizens with the saints-- and by that Paul would have meant the holy men and women of faithful Israel-- and members of the household of God.  In Christ the earthly nation of Israel is redeemed and rebuilt together with the elect Gentiles into the spiritual Zion, founded upon the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the head and cornerstone.  The dividing wall has been broken down, and in its place one building rises under His power.  Together we are that building, and it is no ordinary house: it is a holy temple intended for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I hope you have a sense of how beautiful this is!  But beyond that I want us all to understand the power these beautiful truths must have for our lives in this fallen world.

First of all, we were not saved to be lone-wolf, individualized Christ-followers.  Back up in verse 11, the apostle begins this passage with the word "therefore."  In the previous verses he was reminding us of our salvation in Christ and God's will for our lives in consequence of that.  But we are not on our own.  God raised us up in Christ to be incorporated into one holy people by the ministry of one Spirit.  It is absolutely false that you can be a perfectly good Christian without being part of Christ's church.  Membership in Christ's church is a fundamental part of what you were saved for.  Indeed, everyone who has been reconciled to God in Jesus Christ is a member of His Church whether he or she is able to sit in a pew or not.  Therefore, let us support and build up and act in love towards one another, for Jesus Christ is our peace.  In Him and in the power of His Spirit we can demonstrate that we are one new man, as we look out for the good of on another just as we would for ourselves.

Second, we cannot take our position as citizens of the heavenly Zion for granted, as something that simply comes with our living in our particular time and place.  No, for if things had kept on going as they had for hundreds of years, we who are not ethnic Jews would have remained strangers and aliens, unforgiven sinners, with no hope and without God in the world.  It is by grace you have been saved, just as it is by grace that the Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah have by grace come to know that reality.  This should give us all a sense of humility before God and a heart of compassion towards our unsaved pagan neighbors.  For we were once as they are, and the blood of Christ that brought us near to God will, in His mercy, one day bring them in as members of the household of faith, too.  So let us conduct our lives in the power of the Spirit so Christ indeed will be seen in us, that through us others might also be reconciled to the God who made them.

This brings us to the third and final truth I believe we should take from our Scripture readings today.  Despite our compassion, there will always be plenty of people around us who are perfectly content to be without God in this world.  We Christians, they charge, are the ones who are unenlightened.  Indeed, when we conduct ourselves as citizens of God's holy nation and stand up for His righteousness in this world, we will be reviled as fools, bigots, even as enemies of humanity.  It can be hard living as a Christian in this world, the way things are going.  It may threaten your position, your income, and your reputation.  But you are members of Christ's one holy nation, and our heavenly citizenship takes precedence over all other loyalties.  Yes, let us be good Americans, good members of our political parties, good trade union members, good service club members, good members of our families.  But when any direction or practice or mindset of our nation, party, union, club, yes, even of our own families contradicts the will and nature of God as we know it from His revealed Word, He calls and commands us to stand firm in the Spirit and hold fast to the truth of Christ.

It won't be easy, but we can do it.  We can do it because we are God's one new people through His one Holy Spirit.  And the one peace we rest in is Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the Peace that will always last and never fail.  He has already accomplished the cosmic work of making peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both of us and God.  And so we can find our peace in Him, no matter what our conflict with the world may be.  Rejoice, Church of God!  We are His people, bought with His blood and brought together by His Spirit.  We are God's holy temple, His dwelling place on earth, and He will see to it that His temple, His spiritual Zion, stands forever, to the glory of His name.

What Is God For?

Texts:  Isaiah 40:18-31; Ephesians 1:3-14

I'M SURE YOU'D HEARD that tornados hit the Oklahoma City area again Friday night.  We prayed for the victims during our prayers this morning, for those who were hurt, for those who lost property, for those who lost loved ones.  But we know that as sure as this world turns there are going to be tornados in the Midwest in the spring, and sure as that world is fallen and sinful, there will be those who use that fact as an excuse to insult and mock God and those who believe in Him.

If you ever want to get totally fed up with that, go online and read the comments after any news article about any natural disaster. You'll have people writing that tornados and floods and hurricanes prove that God could not exist.  If the disaster takes place in the Bible Belt, they'll say with great glee that God must be punishing those stupid Christians, or insist that the disaster shows God can't be relied on, since He didn't come through as expected and protect His believers from loss and harm.

What can you say to such people?  Assuming they'd even begin to listen?  As believers in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can say that if that's the kind of god they believe in, these scoffers and mockers are right, because that kind of God doesn't exist.  If they think God is the Great Vending Machine in the Sky that's there to make sure our lives remain prosperous and comfortable, providing we drop in a few dollars worth of good works from time to time, that's a figment of the human imagination and it should be made fun of.

Atheists and people who believe in other religions have a distorted view of what we Christians think about who God is and what He is for.  No surprise.  The real problem is that too many Christians-- or people who call themselves Christians-- carry around the same false ideas about God and live their lives according to those false ideas.

It's gotten so bad that studies have shown that the majority of Christian teenagers-- and many, many Christian adults as well, don't really believe in classic Christianity; they hold to a religion that's been called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  This modern faith says yes, there's a god, of some sort: that's the Deism part.  What this god is really like in him or itself doesn't really matter, the thing that matters is that he or it is benevolent and kind and well-meaning towards human beings and wants them to be happy, however they define happiness.  If I'm a believer in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, I'd tell you this deity expects people to be nice and fair to other people, but he pretty much leaves it up to each person to decide what niceness and fairness is.  And so when I'm nice and do nice things, I can expect to be rewarded with this god's protection and favor.  That's Moralism.  And the most desirable way for him to reward and protect me is for him to solve all my problems, get rid of all the trouble, turmoil, and stress in my life, and make my sojourn here on earth comfortable and uncomplicated.  That's the Therapeutic part.  This god-- this false god-- makes no demands for his own sake; what he's for is to make me feel good about myself.  Otherwise, what good is he?

Brothers and sisters, is that what God is for?  Is that the deity we should be raising our children to pray to and depend upon?  Does the god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism bear any resemblance to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?  What do the Scriptures say?

The Lord God had a lot to say about Himself in chapter 40 of the prophecy of Isaiah.  We read that God is incomparable and unique.  He is high and holy.  To Him, people are like grasshoppers and the whole expanse of heaven is like a tent you might live in on a camping trip.  Governments and rulers reign only as long as He allows them; the mere breath from His mouth sweeps them away like chaff.  He marshals the stars and maintains them in their courses; nothing is outside His rulership or beyond His control-- and that would include tornados, floods, and hurricanes.

Does that sound like the spineless god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, that deity who is at our beck and call, that we obligate and control by our good works?  Not in the least.  However, the Lord certainly is benevolent and merciful towards His people Israel.  He assures them that their trouble is known to Him.  He reminds them that He is the God who gives strength to the weary, even when the young and the strong are collapsing by the roadside.  He tells them that those who hope in the Lord will

. . . renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Is this like the therapeutic relief so many expect from God these days?

No, not really.  For as we've seen, the modern expectation is that God is supposed to be good to me for my good.  The eternal reality is that God is good for His own glory.  And it is not our good, moralistic works He wants, it's putting our hope in Him; that is, our total dependence on His greatness and power.

But maybe that's just the Old Testament talking.  Many people will tell you that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are two different beings.  Or maybe that the Old Testament writers got God wrong, and all this business about His holiness and majesty can be discarded; what we really want to concern ourselves with is His love and affection and how wonderful it makes us feel.

And the New Testament does tell us how much God loves  us.  But so does the Old.  And the Old Testament does tell us about God's glory and majesty.  But so does the New.  Both parts of God's holy Scriptures tell us who God is and what He is for.  And what it all says together might be a surprise to the self-satisfied atheists who comment on news websites and YouTube videos, and to many Christians as well.

What did we read in Paul's letter to the Ephesians?  Who is God, and what is He for?

First of all, He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom all praise is due.  Jesus Christ the Son of God is the One who died to take away our sins by the express purpose and will of His Father in heaven.  No concept of God that leaves out Jesus Christ the God-Man can claim any kind of reality.  Beside the triune God of the Scriptures there is no God.

This same God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  No, we are not promised an easy life on this earth.  God never says He will divert tornados to keep His people out of their path, or always let us have the job we want, or grant us continual good health and prosperity on this earth.  What He does promise, what He is for, is our sharing in His very nature through Jesus Christ our Lord.  He's for us knowing union with Him: tasting a little of it now in this life, but enjoying it perfectly in the life to come.

We who believe in Jesus were chosen for this.  Before the creation of the world, St. Paul writes, God chose us-- not to be privileged, not to be perpetually safe and secure, not even to be serene and without turmoil in our minds-- but to be holy and blameless in His sight.  I don't know about you, but I know that in myself I am not holy and blameless in the sight of God.  I suspect you know the same about yourself.  So has God's choice failed, or are we outside His choice?  Not at all, for it is in Christ and Christ alone that we lose our guilt before God and deserve to stand in His holy presence, and God has ordained, He has predestined us to be in Christ, to be adopted as His very sons and Jesus' own siblings.  Being in Christ!  Sharing in His nature and His union with the Father!  You can't get more holy and blameless than that.

And what for?  God does it all for and according to His good pleasure and will.  Just think, God is pleased when His elect people are joined in union with His Son Jesus Christ!  But see, it is God's will and pleasure that come first, not ours.  If the it were left us to us to determine what would be the highest good for ourselves and the universe, how shabby and shallow that good would be!  But God has done everything according to His will, not ours, that His glorious grace might be praised as it deserves.

This grace is not some vague benevolence, it is that salvation He has granted us in Jesus Christ, His beloved Son.  It is the redemption we have in Christ's blood and the forgiveness of our sins.  The modern world isn't too big on the concept of sin: if people talk about sin at all, they define it as things like eating chocolate or not approving of any and all sexual relationships or praying in a public school.  But according to the riches of God's grace lavished on us in His wisdom and understanding, the blood of Christ purchased for us forgiveness of real sins, the ones that had us under God's righteous wrath and kept us from fellowship with Him.

What is God for?  God is for working out the mystery of His will-- again, according to His good pleasure.  Not just His will to save us but more than that, His will to exalt His Son Jesus Christ to the highest place, bringing all heaven and earth together under the sole headship of Christ.

And yes, God is for us.  He is for us in Christ.  He is for us because He is first and foremost for Himself, for the purpose of His will.  God's purpose for us is that we might be for the praise of His glory.  By birth, by sin, by our natural bent we were not for God and we did not want to serve Him.  We were for our own glory, and we expected Him, if He existed, to serve us.

But by the power of the gospel preached to us God changed our hearts and turned them away from our own purposes and raised them up to love and appreciate His.  God gave us His Holy Spirit so we can know by fellowship with Him that the spiritual blessings promised to us are faithful and secure.  God has promised us an inheritance in Christ, and the Spirit is our guarantee that it surely will be ours.  When?  When all God's chosen possession, His predestined saints, shall have been redeemed.

That day surely will come, and as it does, what is God for?  Again, He is for the praise of His glory.  If God were an ordinary human like you or me, this would be obnoxious.  Insufferable.  How full of himself that person is! we'd say.  But God is God:  High, majestic, holy and incomparable.  He is no vague deity whose sole purpose is to tell us what good children we are and make things all better for us.  He is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory; He acts and operates according to the highest wisdom, understanding, and might. He has not left the welfare of the universe up to us and our sinful wills; rather, His good and gracious will works everything out to His good pleasure, and we can know that in His good pleasure we will receive everything we need for hope, purpose, and fulfillment in Him.

What is God for?  God is for Himself, and therefore in Christ God is for you.  Even in the worst of times, even when your life has been flattened and the mockers of God and the mockers of His people are shouting their insults and lies at full volume, you can have faith that the true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is your Help and Redeemer.  What He chooses nothing can discard; what He predestines nothing can change; what He wills, nothing can sway from His purpose.  Trust in Him, for He who is the Creator of the world also raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and He will do for you all His has promised, to the praise of His glory.  Amen.

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.

The Secret Factor

Texts: Ezekiel 36:16-36; Mark 5:21-43

YOU KNOW HOW YOU’LL BE WATCHING a commercial on TV, and it claims that the product is "New and Improved!"? Yeah, right, they say that all the time; there’s probably nothing new about that cleaner or tool or whatever it is, at all. But then you try it, and what do you know? It really is better. It’s got some patented new ingredient or factor in it that makes it more effective than it was before. The manufacturer may give this ingredient a fancy name for advertising purposes, but what it actually is is a secret, and the secret ingredient makes all the difference.

Secret ingredients and secret factors can make all the difference in machines and laundry detergents. So how much more does it matter in God’s plan for our salvation! Nearly two thousand years ago in the land of occupied Israel comes a rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus preaching, teaching, and healing, and at first He struck the crowd as just another preaching, teaching, and healing rabbi-- a lot of them were around in those days. But as people encountered Him and experienced what He did, they came to realize there was something different about Jesus, some secret factor that set Him apart from the rest. The whole gospel according to St. Mark is about that secret factor, about who Jesus really is. It’s so important to Mark that he reveals from the start what it is. Turn if you will to the first verse of Mark’s Gospel, and let’s read what he says there. It says, "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

Wow! Jesus of Nazareth not only is the Christ-- the Anointed One-- the Messiah, He is also the one and only Son of God! Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom of God, and He’s not just a messenger or herald like John the Baptist, Jesus is the divine King Himself. Where Jesus is, there is God’s Kingdom, and bit by bit, miracle by miracle, Jesus reveals that all the promises of God are totally and gloriously fulfilled in Him.

In our reading from Ezekiel we have an example of some of those promises. The Lord says that the people of Israel and their land would be cleansed of its bloody defilement and healed in spirit and heart. The Lord would put His Spirit on them so they would not defile themselves with idols and disobedience again. These words of cleansing were for the Jewish exiles who would return from Babylon, yes. But they looked forward to an even greater salvation than the physical and political restoration promised then. The land, as it says in verse 35, will be like the Garden of Eden; paradise will be restored and all the nations will honor the name of the Lord.

This is ultimately a picture of the coming Kingdom of God. Jesus not only talks about the Kingdom; He makes it real in all He teaches and does. A few days before the events of our passage in Mark 5, Jesus showed His dominion over nature by calming a ferocious storm with a word. Then He showed His rulership over the demons by casting a legion of them out of a man whom no one could subdue. And now, in our passage, He shows that He is the Lord who cleanses His people from all their impurities.

On this particular day, Jesus and His disciples have barely landed on shore when Jairus, one of the synagogue rulers-- he’d be like an elder in the church, but with more social position and better perks-- comes running up to Jesus and begs Him to come heal his young daughter, who dying right now. But while life remains, there is hope, and if anyone can heal his child, Jesus can.

You can imagine the crowd. People were glad to see Jesus anyway, and now there was the chance to see Him do a spectacular miracle for a very prominent man. After all, people could understand that He might be the Messiah-- an inspired, holy, God-driven, strictly-human Messiah. And come the day King Jesus would free Israel and sit down on His throne in Jerusalem, they could say that they were there to see Him prove He was the Christ. Not an opportunity you’d want to miss.

Meanwhile, one woman in the crowd was making her own opportunity . . . A woman who had suffered for the past twelve years with a pathological flow of blood. The physical and financial toll had been drastic enough. The social and religious suffering she must have endured would have been even worse.

To understand her position, it would help for us to read Leviticus 15:25-31:

"‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. Whoever touches them will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. . . .

"‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.’"

There were similar rules in the Law of Moses for anyone, male or female, who had any sort of running sore or bodily discharge, especially blood. Emissions violated the physical perfection of one’s body. They were signs of sin and disorder. They were incompatible with wholeness and therefore with holiness before God. The blood of the altar brought forth cleansing and acceptance with the Lord, but blood in the wrong place and from the wrong source was polluting. We see that in our Ezekiel passage, where the Lord says that Israel’s wicked conduct was like a woman’s monthly uncleanness before Him. Misplaced, uncontrolled blood and every other bodily discharge made not only the one who had it ritually unclean, but also everyone and everything that person touched.

We mustn’t impose our 21st century ideas on this woman. It’s doubtful she’d gone around the past twelve years resenting this law and feeling the injustice of it all. Even as she suffered, she would have accepted that this was how things were. She wanted to correct her condition; she’d spent every penny she had trying to be cured. She wanted to stand again in the synagogue and the Temple clean and whole before her neighbors and Almighty God. But now she no longer even had anyone she could send to ask Jesus to come to her to heal her. She takes advantage of the facelessness and crush of the crowd and exercises the last hope she has. Jesus was there, in the middle of the scrum, and "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed."

And her faith was rewarded. Free, free at last! Free from the blood, free from the pain, free from the debilitation, free from the impurity! We have read what happens next, how Jesus in His compassion draws the woman out and gives her the time to tell Him the whole truth about why and how she did what she did. Poor Jairus Mark doesn’t mention, but we can imagine what terrible anxiety he must be in. Every second longer that this woman talks is one second closer to its being too late for his little girl! But Jesus has all the time in the world to give to the healed woman, because He is God incarnate, Lord of Eternity. He certifies and declares her healing and her cleansing from her impurity. "Daughter," He says, "your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Her physical suffering ended the moment she touched His clothes; now, with the blessing of the Son of God, the suffering of her heart and soul and relationships are also at an end. In her the prophecy of Ezekiel is fulfilled; for her in Jesus Christ the Kingdom of God has come.

But the crowd and the messengers from Jairus’ house don’t know that. They’re not in on the secret of who Jesus actually is. "Your daughter is dead," they tell the synagogue ruler. "Why bother the teacher any more?" In other words, "There’s nothing even Jesus can do now. Give it up and come home."

Jesus ignores them. "Jairus," He says, "Don’t be afraid; keep on believing." Jairus, you believed in Me a few minutes ago; you can still rely on Me now.

Jesus forbids the crowd to follow Him any farther, but it’s likely they’d lost interest anyway. Everyone knows the child is dead. She was practically dead when her father set out on his desperate mission. The professional mourners are already there doing their job. What a laugh that Jesus should say, "The child is not dead but asleep"!

Now, some commentators claim that this means Jesus knew she was only in a coma. But how could He know that? He had not seen her yet. And this was a culture that did its dying at home. They knew what death looked like. No, this twelve year old girl slept the sleep of death, the sleep of those who go to the grave awaiting the resurrection. Jesus was a mighty healer, but what could even He do in a case like this?

He went into the death chamber taking only her parents and Peter, James, and John. He reached out and took the hand of that cold corpse and spoke life into it. "Talitha koum!"-- "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" Jesus Christ the Lord of life gave life where there was none, so that she stood up perfectly well and healthy. And as with the woman healed of the flow of blood, Jesus is divinely compassionate and commands that she be fed. This child is not a mere test case, a demonstration of His kingly power. She was a human being, an adolescent girl who’d be hungry and needed something to eat.

Jesus strictly orders everyone present not to let anyone know what He had done for that little girl. For it was not yet time for Him to reveal who and what He was. His Messiahship was not to be founded on the death and resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, but on the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

But here’s something we might overlook. The bleeding woman touched Jesus. The Law said that anyone an unclean person touched would be contaminated, too. But Jesus does not withdraw and undergo the rituals for cleansing. Jesus touched the corpse of the dead girl. Here is what the Law says in the book of Numbers about that:

"Whoever touches the dead body of anyone will be unclean for seven days. He must purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. Whoever touches the dead body of anyone and fails to purify himself defiles the LORD’s tabernacle. That person must be cut off from Israel. Because the water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean; his uncleanness remains on him."

But Jesus doesn’t observe this ordinance, either. In fact, He goes to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue the very next Sabbath. Is Jesus guilty (as the scribes and Pharisees claimed) of flouting the Law of Moses? Or is the secret factor about Him at work here?

Of course it is. He is the Son of God. He is the Lord of holiness who as it says in Ezekiel 36 sprinkles the water of cleansing on us. He is the Lord of life who makes disease and uncleanness, sin and death as though they had never been. All our impurity can never contaminate Him.

Except . . . except on a dark dirty Friday on a hill called Calvary when He took all our uncleanness and corruption on Himself, that we might stand pure, whole, and acceptable before Almighty God. Your sin and mine was like a twelve-year issue of menstrual blood, but the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross makes us pure and clean, fit to enter His Kingdom. In our trespasses and sins we were dead and rotting corpses, but faith in the dead body of our Lord Jesus Christ makes us whole and makes us deathless children of God. He purged away all our impurity on that cross and three days later rose again, revealed as our pure and holy Lord and King.

The people in Jesus’ day didn’t realize who He was. But now the secret is revealed and the promises of the Kingdom are for you and for all whom the Lord shall call. What a great miracle that is! In His divine compassion, Jesus put forth His power and did all this for us! The secret factor of Christ the Son of God is a secret no longer; no, Jesus commands us to spread the news throughout the world!

But maybe this means nothing to you as yet. Maybe you’re trying to clean yourself up before you come and fall at His feet. Can you be hygienic wallowing in a cesspool? Give it up. Maybe you’re still kidding yourself about how offensive your sins are to God and you’re hoping to earn your way to eternal life by your good deeds. Can a stinking corpse run a marathon? Give it up. Your situation is worse than you realize and the blood of Jesus Christ is your only hope.

But there is hope in Jesus, overwhelming, abundant hope. He will never fail you, never send you away, never let you down. His heart is moved with compassion for you, for He is your Great Physician. Nothing is impossible for Him, for He is the Son of God the Father Almighty. Like the woman in the crowd, reach out now in faith and Jesus will cleanse you from all your sin. Trust Him like Jairus, and Jesus will give you new life like the life He won when He came forth triumphant from the grave.

No other Messiah. No other healer. No other god. Jesus, in our helplessness, help us, we pray. Look with compassion upon us, cleanse us from all our sins, give us new life in your name, and fill us with Your peace. Amen.

The Ultimate Prophet

Texts: I Kings 17:17-24; Luke 7:11-17

WHAT IS A PROPHET? What does he or she do?

When I was in seminary, sometimes I'd go to the nearest big city to shop or attend a meeting or a concert or whatever.

On one of the main streets you were sure to see a certain character. He carried a placard, like a gigantic chalkboard, with words written on it in various colors. It was always the same message, and it said something like, "The wrath of God is coming! Don't eat cow, pig, beans, bird! Repent!" There was a lot more to it, against sex, drugs, violence and all, but that's the part I remember, how he called poultry "bird" and ranked "eating beans" as an abomination against God.

Is that a prophet? Is that what a prophet does?

But maybe a prophet is more somebody who predicts the future. Like your aunt who said you'd end up marrying that person you didn't like at first--and you did. Or the theorist who looks at the signs and predicts what the climate will be like in a hundred years, or when the next big war will occur.

Preachers of doom. Predictors of the future: That's how the general public thinks of prophets these days. We Christians would also point to prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah who spoke the word of the Lord and really could foretell the future, because God Himself was telling them what was to come. And we might debate whether prophets like that are around any more.

But I think we'd be pretty well agreed that being a prophet is about speaking a certain message, and that message is generally about what'll happen in the future. That's why it's called prophecy, right?

Which is why it might seem odd to hear the reaction of the crowd at Nain when Jesus raises the widow's son from the dead. He didn't preach, He didn't predict. But the people were all filled with awe and said, "A great prophet has risen among us!"

We might be tempted to ask, "Hey, folks, don't you mean 'a great miracle worker'? Where's the message from God in what Jesus just did?"

But the people of Nain were right in their reaction, more right than they knew, themselves. And it all comes down to what a prophet; that is, a prophet of God, really is.

In the Book of Numbers, the Lord says, "When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams." A prophet is one with whom the Lord truly communicates.

In Deuteronomy, the Lord declares, "If a prophet . . . appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder . . . takes place, and he says, 'Let us follow other gods . . . and . . . worship them,' you must not listen to that prophet." A true prophet of God will always give glory to God. He or she is faithful, and will never contradict what the Lord has handed down in His Word.

Also in Deuteronomy, the Lord speaks of a prophet to come and says, "I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will bring him to account." A prophet of God makes God's will known to the people.

In Zechariah, the Lord says, "[D]id not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? Then they repented and said, 'The Lord Almighty has done to us just what our ways and practices deserved, just as he determined to do.'" A prophet calls people to repentance and declares what the Lord will do if they do not obey Him.

And in 2 Kings, a young Israelite slave girl tells her mistress about the prophet Elisha, saying, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." God demonstrates His presence and power through His prophets by the working of miracles.

In all these things, the true prophet is there for God's sake, and not for his own. A true prophet is sent to give us what God knows we need, not what we think we want. The true prophet is there to show God to us, that He might be worshipped and glorified.

The people of Nain knew that. They knew that God demonstrated His presence and love through His prophets and the miracles they worked. When they saw what Jesus did for the widow and her son, they gave God praise and said, "A great prophet has risen among us. God has looked favorably on his people!" They recognised that Jesus was a true prophet.

They saw it in His godly compassion. Luke says that when the Lord saw the widow walking in front of the bier of her only son, His heart went out to her, and He acted on her behalf.

They recognised it in His calm authority when He told her, "Do not weep." Jesus can say that because He can do something about the cause of her grief. For you or me to come up to a mother who's lost her only child and say, "Don't cry!" would be an obscenity and an imposition. Of course she should cry in the face of death! But Jesus can face death down. He has a right to say, "Do not weep!"

Then Jesus reaches out His hand and touches the bier. I wonder, did any of His disciples or any one in the crowd think, "Oh, no, Teacher, you mustn't pollute yourself by touching a dead body!"? If they did, it didn't matter, because life and cleanness were about to overcome death and corruption.

Jesus commands the corpse, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" He does; and Jesus, who has just given him new life, gives him back to his mother.

The townspeople are rightly filled with the fear of God. They rightly understand, as the Greek says, that "God has visited his people." It's significant that Luke the physician uses "visit" in the sense of a doctor coming to heal a patient, not "visit" in the sense of a judge coming to pass sentence. They recognise in Jesus a great prophet, like Elijah, coming in the Spirit, love, and life-giving power of the Lord.

Elijah was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. He was the prophet against whom all other prophets were measured. Elijah spoke God's judgement before kings and performed mighty wonders. Elijah brought God near to His people Israel, whether they wanted Him near or not. It is certain that when Jesus raised the widow's son at Nain, the onlookers immediately thought of the widow and her son at Zarephath and what had been done for them by the great Elijah.

But there's something they likely missed in their awe and praise. When Elijah raised the son of the widow of Zarephath, he had to ask God for the boy's life back. It was all up to the Lord. Elijah had no power of himself to restore life; he was an ordinary mortal like any of us. The boy was raised only when the Lord heard and acted on Elijah's prayer.

But Jesus can simply say, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" and the dead man sits up alive and healthy and begins to speak! Jesus can do that because He does have power in Himself to give life!

Jesus can do that because He is not merely a prophet, He is the ultimate prophet. He is the Word of God spoken directly from the mouth of God, incarnate among us. He is the Law of God lived out in all its purity here on this earth. He is the power and compassion of God demonstrated in signs and wonders among the people. Yes, God had come to help and heal His people! He was doing it in person, and His name was Jesus of Nazareth. No prophet before or since could ever be the Prophet that He is.

But in our hearts we wonder: if Jesus is the ultimate Prophet, and if He demonstrated the power of God by miracles like raising the widow's son at Nain, why didn't He go on to raise all widows' sons, and their daughters, too? Why doesn't He look down from heaven and immediately banish pain, suffering, and grief from all our loved ones?

If you're going through a hardship like this, I can't answer that question for you in your particular case. But taking the bigger picture, I would suggest that if Jesus did that, He wouldn't be the Prophet we need Him to be. No matter how we feed it, heal it, or prolong it, this earthly life of ours will come to an end. These mortal bodies will die and decay. They are infected with sin and never can be the perfect lives we all wish we had. They can never be worthy to stand in the presence of the perfect, holy God. Jesus healed bodies to give us a sample, a taste, of what life will be like in that day when He heals body and soul together.

And truly, God our Father knows what it is like to have an only Son die young. Jesus was the only innocent human being who ever lived. He is the only one of whom we can say, "He didn't deserve to die like that." Jesus didn't deserve to die at all!

But He did die, and God raised Him from the dead. His resurrection is the ultimate sign of God present with us. Already, if you have Him living in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, He's given you new life in your inmost being. Think of it: Jesus our Lord has already raised your spirit from the dead, and in His perfect time He will give you an undying body and make you perfectly whole.

The prophets of old represented the life and power and righteousness to God's people Israel. And even now, our Lord Jesus displays the power of God to us. He is the presence of God with us. He is the ultimate Prophet, Emmanuel, Christ the Lord.

All praise, honor, and glory be to you, Lord Christ, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

[Preached Thursday, 7 June, and Sunday, 10 June 2007]