Christ's Resurrection and You: A Building Not Made with Hands

Texts:  2 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:10; Luke 24:36-49

    ON THE WHOLE, I'M GLAD the rapture of the saints didn't happen last night at 6:00 PM.  There's  so much more on this earth I want to see and do and accomplish.  But if Harold Camping had been right, and even now we were standing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, I would possess something I so grievously lack right now.  And that's a full sense and knowledge of the splendour, the goodness, the graciousness, the beauty, the holiness, the indescribable greatness of what my great God and Saviour did for me when He died on the cross and rose again for my sake.

    To know Jesus Christ and the life-giving power of His resurrection is the most marvellous, desirable thing you and I can ever experience.  There is no end to the benefits we derive from Him!  We've seen these past weeks how Jesus' resurrection enabled us to be adopted as children of God.  How by it we are brought into His new covenant and brought into the nurture of our mother, the Church.  How Jesus rose again to strip off our old filthy sinful natures and clothe us instead in our new selves, which is the shining glorious garment of His righteousness and love.   How amazing is Jesus Christ our Lord, who was crucified for our sins and rose that we might live His life forever!  How glorious and splendid are all His gifts to us!  Just thinking about them, we should be in a continual state of rapture all day long!

    But you know how it is, and so do I.  The good things of this world, and its troubles as well, hang like a curtain between us and the jaw-dropping vision of Christ and His resurrection benefits.  It's not that we don't believe that Jesus rose again, it's just that other stuff is so present and so pressing, His resurrection and what it means to us isn't something that we consciously dwell on day after day.  It's for Easter Sunday, and maybe a week or two thereafter.  Good to know about, but not exactly relevant to what we're dealing with now.

    At least, that's how it seems.  It seems that way too with our own resurrection, the one St. Paul so eloquently writes about in 1 Corinthians 15.  That's for the future, sure, for the day when Jesus really comes back.  But that doesn't seem to be happening real soon. And in the meantime, I'll wager that none of us goes around with a secret smile and a little skip in our step because we, too, someday will have a glorious immortal body like the one Jesus Himself rose in.  I don't say this is the way we should be; it's just a fact of our human nature that it's woefully easy for us to get distracted from heavenly things and forget what we have and Whose we are.  It's especially easy when the distractions have to do with poor health, or poverty, or advancing old age, or the approach of death, for ourselves or those we love.  Who can think of their bodily resurrection when we have so much on our minds?

    But in the fourth and fifth chapters of his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul-- speaking by the Holy Spirit-- reveals that those very everyday difficulties and distractions should be signposts and reminders that point us ever and again back to our blessed hope of personal resurrection through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Not only that,  but our very weakness serves to show the great power of God in Christ.  As Paul says earlier in chapter 4, we carry the magnificent good news of Christ died and risen around in clay jars, "to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."  And so, as our Epistle reading today begins, "‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.'" This is a quotation from Psalm 116:10, where the psalmist has been lamenting his neediness, his trouble, his nearness to death, and what he speaks of in this quoted verse is of his great affliction.   He brings his distress to God in faith that God is One who hears and heals and restores.  And so Paul evokes that same spirit of faith in us, but we have an even greater reason to hope in God than the psalmist did.  For we know that He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and He'll present all of us together to Himself, in His very presence.

    This is our resurrection hope!  This is the gospel grace that even today is reaching more and more people, that thanksgiving may overflow to the glory of God!

    We hold this hope in light of-- perhaps I should say, in contrast to-- the very unhopeful situations we find ourselves in day after day.  Because we trust in the One who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, because we trust that He will also raise us with Him, we do not lose heart.

    And it can be so easy in this world to lose heart.  We don't have to be suffering persecution for our faith; ordinary ageing and illness will do it.  We look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and we think, "Wait a minute, when did that happen?  I don't feel that old!"  Or worse, we gaze upon the pale form of a sick loved one languishing full of tubes in a hospital bed, and we know how true it is that our outer nature, our present physical bodies, are indeed wasting away.  But the resurrection life of Christ is even now working its revival in you and me, if indeed we are trusting in the One who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and who will also raise us.  Even now, He is renewing our inner nature, the new self in Christ, day by day.

    We might want to say to Paul, "Hey, you call what I'm going through a ‘light momentary affliction.'  What do you know about the cancer I'm suffering?  Paul, how can you minimize my parent's congestive heart failure?  Paul, people are calling me a hatemongering bigot for standing up for traditional gospel truth.  How can you call that kind of affliction ‘slight'?"

    Oops, scratch that one.  Paul knew a lot about being afflicted for the sake of Christ.  In fact, go back to verses 8-12 of chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, or skip over to chapters 11 and 12, and you'll see that if any one had sufferings and afflictions, if anyone in Church history knew what it was like to have his outer nature wasted away, it was the Apostle Paul.  But he kept his eyes on the resurrection we're all promised in Christ Jesus.  And therefore he could say that if our present bodily troubles were put in a scale with the glory that will come to us in the resurrection, the glory that's coming to us will far outweigh them all.

    In fact, our present troubles go to contribute to the glory that is to be.  How can this happen?  Disease and trial and suffering aren't virtuous in themselves.  But as we set them in contrast to the resurrection that is to come; especially, as others see our resurrection hope in contrast to what we're going through here on this earth, we glorify our risen Lord, who has promised to share His glory with us.  So, as Paul says, our focus is no longer on how we see things to be in this troubled world; rather, we fix our eyes on what is unseen and eternal. 

    That is, what is unseen for now.  The unbelieving world may say, "Yes, you're looking at what's unseen, all right, because there's nothing there."  We reply, "No, there is something there, beyond the curtain of this failing earthly life.  There is Someone there, who walked this earth and lived and died and rose again for me, and one day I will see Him face to face and know that He is realer and solider and more weighty than anything that can be looked upon in this temporary world."

    Now, I need you to bear with me for a moment, because I'm going to inject something personal, and I don't want it to take away from the glory that belongs to the Scripture or to Jesus Christ, the Lord of Scripture.  It's just that I find it ironic-- or maybe appropriate-- that this passage speaks of looking and seeing.  You know about my eyesight, how I often have to wear two pairs of cheaters to read.  That's annoying, but I manage.  But in the past couple of days I've noticed some symptoms that may have serious implications for my eyesight, that may even require surgery.  I tell you this by way of confession, to admit that when I found this out I didn't feel too full of thanksgiving.  It can be really hard to keep your focus on things eternal when your imagination is telling you you might not be able to see things earthly for much longer.

    It's been said that the preacher can't preach to him or herself.  Maybe not, but the Apostle can preach to the preacher, and Paul has preached to me that whatever happens when I go in to see the eye doctor, the renewal of Jesus Christ is still taking place in me day by day, whether I feel like it or not.  And age-related things like this only go to remind us that this body we live in is like a tent.  Paul was thinking of the dwelling tents of the wandering Bedouins of the desert; we might think of a tent on a camping trip.  Either way, there comes a time when those things get wet and waterlogged and worn and full of holes.  There is no way they can be compared with our own solid house at home.  In the same way, our present bodies are wearing out.  But by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, God Himself has prepared for us an eternal house in heaven, a building not made by human hands.  Of course it's not made by human hands!  For our eternal home, our resurrection bodies, are established on the foundation of Christ's resurrection itself, and no mortal had anything to do with that.

    The Scripture says that now we groan, longing to be clothed with our permanent heavenly dwelling.  We have to understand that that is truly our longing.  Some people, even Christians, think the goal is to get rid of this earthly tent, our physical bodies, and just fly away as a spirit, naked and free.  That may be great Greek philosophy, but it is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  No, we do not want to be found naked before God.  We must not stand before Him as bare unclothed spirits.  In fact, we can not.  We must be clothed with the heavenly dwelling that God has prepared for us for us, in order for us to know the eternal life that swallows up our mortality.

    Because, brothers and sisters, that is why God made you-- so you might be clothed, surrounded, protected, and made at home in the resurrection body He has prepared for you.  No matter what happens to you in this life, that new and heavenly body will be yours; you can believe that because God has given you the Holy Spirit as a guarantee on the purchase.  He witnesses to our hearts through the Word that Jesus Christ truly did die for us, that His resurrection was for us, and that we can take Him at His word when He promises that where He is, we will be also.

    And so, Paul says, things are actually switched around for us.  Our earthly natures say, "Give me as much time here on earth in this body as possible.  I'm in no hurry to go!"  But the Spirit keeps us looking towards what we don't yet see, and He makes us eager to see it.  He makes us long to move out of the temporary home of this tent and move permanently into our forever home with the Lord.  The Spirit of God makes us confident that we shall indeed some day be forever at home with the Lord, clothed in the glorious bodies He has prepared for us.

    Does this confidence give us the right to be so heavenly-minded we're no earthly good?  Not at all.  Here on this present earth or later on in eternity, our aim and pleasure should be to please Him who did not please Himself, but gave Himself up to save us all.

    Does our future hope lead us to conclude that this present life is meaningless, just a waiting room for heaven, as it were?  No, because we do have our future hope, we strive so that when we appear before the judgement seat of Christ, the things we have done in this present body will please Him and earn us His favor and reward.

    Jesus Christ is risen; He is risen indeed.  Not as a ghost, not as a disembodied spirit, but as a gloried Man of touchable flesh and bone.  And we will be like Him, on that day when He truly returns and gathers His saints to rejoice with Him around His throne. 

    That day is coming.  Someday we will be there, and we will at last feel the glorious weight of the splendor and majesty of our Lord Jesus and His finished work for us.  Whether the time is long or short, do not lose heart.  Make it your goal to please Him. And whatever you may be going through now, whatever now causes you to groan with longing or grief, keep your eyes focussed on Jesus Christ, the one who was dead, and see, He lives again.   He is your resurrection, He is your life, and in Him you will live and find shelter forever more.

Christ's Resurrection and You: Sunday Best, Every Day

Texts:  Colossians 3:1-17; Matthew 28:16-20

REMEMBER COMING TO CHURCH in your Sunday best?  Women and girls put on that suit or dress that rarely got worn any other day of the week.  Men and boys wore good slacks and jackets, white shirts, and ties.  Ladies, you'd never forget your hat, and everyone was clean and pressed with shoes shined and hair brushed, ready to come into the presence of the Lord.

    Maybe you still dress up to come to church.  But for the most part, the world has changed.  People wear whatever they feel like to church.  Some churches even advertise that with them, it's "casual dress" and people can "come as you are." And it's not just the lay people: in some denominations (and nondenominations), the pastors make a point of wearing T-shirts and jeans to preach in.  The idea is that casual dress sends the message that the love of God is open to all, whoever they are or whatever they've done.

    But it's one thing to reject "Sunday best" clothing from our bodies; it's quite another to exclude "Sunday best" from our hearts.  God probably doesn't care if we're casual in our clothing or if we dress up.  But He cares very much if we're casual about our obedience to Jesus Christ and our love for our neighbor in our daily lives.  When we are, it tells God and the world that we really haven't understood the power of Christ in His resurrection-- or that we don't really care.

    Up on that mountain in Galilee after He rose from the dead, Jesus commissioned His disciples to make disciples of all nations by baptising them and teaching them to obey everything that He had commanded them.  Because we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ's shed blood, we don't believe that we earn God's favor by our obedience.  But because we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ's shed blood, we strive to show our thanks and praise by doing what Jesus says.  We come as we are, but God doesn't leave us as we are.  Rather, we are to clothe ourselves with the Sunday best He Himself gives.

    One of my childhood pastors liked to say that the only command Jesus gave was for us to love God and one another.  I'd dispute him on that, now that I'm ordained myself and if he were still around.  But let's say he was right, that the only command of Christ is to love.  It's Scripture's job, not ours, to tell us what loving God and our neighbor means.  It includes holiness, righteousness, mutual consideration, self-denial, self-control, and a lot of other things that the unsaved world doesn't include in this word "love."  Jesus stated flatly that "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given" to Him.  That means He's Lord.  He and He alone has the right to set the dress code, so to speak, and define how we should look walking around clothed in His divine love.

    And if and since we have been raised with Christ, He wants to see our hearts and minds dressed in our Sunday best, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year round.  In Paul's Letter to the Colossians, the third chapter, he draws the design, you might say, of what our church clothes should look like and how they should be worn.

    Remember, you have been raised with Christ, so set your minds on things above.  Don't go on doing things the way the popular culture or the way your sinful nature wants to do them.  In Jesus' crucifixion, you died; in His resurrection, you were born anew; and now He keeps your real, eternal life safely hidden in the heart of God, in heaven where He reigns at the right hand of the Father in glory.

    So the first thing we have to do is take off the old, filthy, ugly clothing that belonged to our earthly natures.  Or as Paul puts it in verses 5 and following, "Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly."  First of all he mentions fornication, and the Greek word being translated means any kind of sexual immorality, inside or outside of marriage.  Take off, kill, reject any kind of impurity-- it's possible to have a dirty mind in a virgin body.  Reject passion or lust, which isn't just for things sexual; it also includes excessive desire for anything this world has to offer, such that we hurt our neighbor, corrupt ourselves, and dishonor God in the pursuit of it.  Cast off evil desires-- you know the ones you're tempted to, and I have mine-- and utterly stifle greed.  Because Paul is right: when we want some material object with that kind of passion, we're saying it's more important to us than God and it's the same thing as idolatry.  Now that we've been raised with Christ, the clothing of our minds should no longer be the casual, who-cares attire of this present world.  For God cares, and cares deeply, how we clothe ourselves in His presence, and those who insist on wrapping themselves in the rags of their sin will find themselves subject to the wrath of God, when Christ comes to judge the living and the dead.

    You used to be like that, before the Holy Spirit took hold of your life and caused you to be born again through the resurrection of Christ.  You used to do things like that.  And when now you still find yourself doing things like that, when you realize you're still thinking in these God-rejecting, deathly ways, call on the Spirit for help and get rid of that filthy attire right away.  It's the truth: you can be perfectly moral concerning what you do with your body, but if your mind is wearing attitudes like anger and malice, if you can't open your mouth without slandering someone or saying something abusive about them, you deny the resurrection of Christ and its power in you.

    Really, how can we church people, even pastors, elders, and deacons, be so cruel to one another as we often are?  What's our excuse?  Do we gossip about one another and distort the truth about one another because we think it's going to solve some problem?  Do we undermine one another's efforts with the excuse that we just want everything to be done right in the church?  Heaven forbid!  How can we be so foolish?

    These sins existed in the Colossian church, just as they do in our congregations today.  Let's stop going around with our hearts and minds and tongues dressed in such loathsome garments!  After all, we have taken off our old sinful self with its conniving and scheming and backstabbing and distortions.   Jesus' blood has taken that nasty outfit off of us and thrown it away; it's not even fit for the ragbag!  Jesus is risen, we are risen with Him and now we've put on our new selves.  It's our every day Sunday best, and it's a garment that Jesus renews in us day after day.  Our spiritual clothing is now cut in the image of God the creator Himself.  No longer do we dress to express ourselves: the clothing of our minds should now express the glory of Jesus Christ, who is all in all.

    But we have a problem in the church today.  Let's be frank about it: we have a big problem in our denomination. As you may have heard, a majority of our presbyteries has now approved a change to the ordination standards in our Book of Order.  The clause used to read

    Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life of obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the history confessional standards of the church.  Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness.  Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

From now it will say,

    Standards for ordained service reflect the church's desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000).  The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate's calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office.  The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate's ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003).  Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.

This wouldn't be so bad-- if the Presbyterian Church (USA) didn't have a long record of being extremely casual about Scripture and what it means by "the Lordship of Christ."  Colossians is clear: submitting to Jesus' authority means getting rid of sexual immorality of every kind.  But the majority of our presbyteries seem to think we could put on the new life in Christ right over the rags of the old life of this world.  Or worse than that, that the new life in Christ is all about celebrating and expressing what belongs to our old sinful style.

    The primary impact of this new Book of Order wording will be to allow the ordination of people who are indulging in extra-marital and non-marital sexual relations, whether homo- or heterosexual.  But our sexual lives aren't the only area where sinners deceive themselves about what Jesus' lordship requires.  How often have we known vengefulness redefined as justice, or cruel speech called honesty?  We all struggle with evil habits and ways that fit us like a second skin, and in every case   Jesus demands that we stop submitting ourselves to them.  Whatever your besetting sin was or is, you'll get nowhere in the eyes of God by arguing that you were "born this way."  He knows you were born that way.  You were born in sin and death, and so was I.  But now in Christ we have taken off the old self with its practices, and clothed ourselves with Christ and His perfect purity and righteousness.

    So how do we look in our ever-new Sunday best?  We look like Jesus Himself.  We look like the holy people God has chosen us to be.  We're compassionate to one another.  We're kind.  We're humble, gentle, and patient.  We bear with one another and we forgive the grievances we have against one another.  We forgive as the Lord forgave us-- for that is another way of expressing Jesus' great commandment, to love one another, as He has loved us.   It's true: every virtue that we're clothed in as Christians is an expression of Jesus' love, and His love perfectly harmonizes them all.

    There are difficult days ahead for our denomination.  We might be tempted to say that our Colossians passage just gives us a beautiful ideal of the Christian life, that can have no effect on the gritty realities we're facing.

    But this passage finds its true meaning as we live in it, walk in it, and wear it every day of the week.  Don't confuse casual dress for the body with carelessness for the heart and mind.  The resurrection life in Christ is not all about what's comfortable for me and you, and let the rest of the church look to itself.  No, we are members of one body.  God gives us our beautiful new selves to put on so we can live Jesus' resurrection life together, for the good of all.

    So as you put on your every day Sunday best, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, the deep peace with God Jesus won for us on the cross.  Let that peace rule and regulate your spirit, so you can trust Him to bring good out of every situation and not lash out in anger and disappointment at what our denomination has done, even as you're called narrowminded or self-righteous for standing up for the truth of Scripture.  Be thankful, especially as you think how Jesus has saved you, even though you did not deserve it.  And minister to each other. Know the word of Christ and be ready to speak it to build one another up in comfort and hope.  Be filled with the wisdom of Christ so you know how to minister His love in the time of need. Be ready to admonish those who are falling into error, even as you maintain a spirit of patience and humility.  Fill your mind and your mouth with hymns and songs and spiritual songs that faithfully express what God has done for us-- you'll be amazed at how much sound teaching you can memorize that way.  And be grateful, for God Himself has laid out your suit, pressed your shirt, and shined your shoes.  All you have to do is put it all on and reflect the image of your creator.

    What should you look like in your spiritual Sunday best?  You should look like your risen Saviour, Jesus Christ.  So take off your old self and be clothed with His virtue, His wisdom, His peace.  "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Amen.

Christ's Resurrection and You: Who Is Your Mother?

Texts:  Galatians 4:21-31; John 21:15-19

THERE'S A STORY ABOUT A little boy, maybe four or five years old, who goes Christmas shopping with his mother.  The store is crammed with customers, and he loses her in the crowd. The child looks around desperately.  He sees a woman with her back to him, wearing a blue coat.  Oh! His mother was wearing a blue coat!  That must be his mom!

    The little boy runs up to her and grabs her by the belt of her coat.  Whew, he's safe!  But she's busy and distracted and he can't get her attention, so he just holds onto that belt for dear life.  Eventually, the woman pays for her selections and makes her way out of the crowded store, the little boy in tow.  Out on the sidewalk, the woman notices the pull on her coat belt.  "Mommy!" she hears a little voice say.  She turns around-- and the child bursts into tears and wails, "You're not my mommy!!"

    Oh, dear.  We have to hope that if and when this happens in real life, the nice lady would take the boy back into the store and help him find his real mother.  But nice and helpful as she might be, as nice and helpful as babysitters and teachers and aunts might be, they are not your mother, they can never take the place of your mother.  A normal child knows who his mother is, and he looks to her for guidance, for teaching, for counsel, for nurture, for protection, and yes, for discipline.

    It's important for us children of God the Father to know who our mother is, too, for nobody and nothing can take her place, and only she can guide, teach, counsel, nurture, protect, and discipline us up to everlasting life.

    Trouble is, too often we children of God fail to recognize our mother.  We latch onto mother substitutes and follow them to spiritual disaster, even to perdition, if that could be possible for the elect.  As a Christian, it's important that you know: Who is your mother?

    This is the problem St. Paul confronts in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Galatians.  The members of the Galatian Church had forgotten who their true mother was.  You could say that the whole epistle is Paul is trying to wake this church up to the danger that's gotten them into.  At the very start he says

    Paul, an apostle-- sent not by men or from man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead--

Paul writes in the authority of the resurrected Son of God.  He speaks in the power of the gospel of Christ dead and risen again.  This is the gospel that gave us birth into new life with God in Christ.  In it we gain the freedom of God's household (as we read in the first part of Chapter 4).  This good news is "not from men nor by men."  For what human being could ever conceive of an actual living, breathing, walking-around personage dying, and then, all by Himself, under His own power, rising from the dead?    The resurrection put the final seal on the new covenant God had always intended to make with mankind.  It made good on all the promises the Lord made so long ago to Father Abraham, that through his seed all nations would be blessed.  The Holy Spirit Himself had enabled the Galatians to believe and accept that Christ's blood had been shed for them, and that now they were justified through faith in Him alone.

    All this was on their spiritual birth certificate, you might say, and yet now they were doubting their identity in Christ.  Maybe they needed something else to guide, counsel, and nurture them.  Maybe they should follow what those men who came from Jerusalem said, and be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses like good Jews!

    And Paul can only shake his head in frustration and say, "You foolish Galatians!  Who is your mother, anyway?"

    Which brings us to our passage in Chapter 4.  Here Paul compares two mothers, Hagar and Sarah.  You know the story from Genesis.  God promised Abraham a son from his own loins.  For years nothing happened, and Abraham and his wife Sarah grew older and older, till the time of childbearing had passed her by.  So Sarah and Abraham decided to help things along a little.  After all, doesn't God help those who help themselves?  They utilized a device prevalent among their Hittite neighbors, for a wife who was barren to give one of her maidservants to her husband to be a surrogate mother.  The child would count as the wife's own offspring and everything would be acceptable and legitimate according to the rules of  the time.

    You know what happened next.  Hagar, the Egyptian slave woman, got pregnant and proceeded to make herself insufferable.  She pushed it so far that Sarah punished her and Hagar ran away into the desert.  But she returned and bore Ishmael, Abraham's natural son.  Then in God's good time, He miraculously enabled Sarah and Abraham to make a baby together.  As it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, "And from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore."  The birth of Isaac was literally life from the dead!  But Hagar and Ishmael didn't appreciate the wonder God had brought about.  Ishmael mocked and persecuted his little half-brother, and so it was the Lord's will that he and his mother be sent away. 

    As it happened, Ishmael fathered a great nation of his own, the Arab people, but in Galatians Paul wants us to see how these two mothers and their sons are metaphors for the choice we have to make.  Who is our mother?  Is it Hagar, whose son was born in the ordinary way?  Or is it Sarah, who bore her child from the deadness of her womb by the resurrection power of God?

    I'm still working away at the family tree for my mom that I mentioned last week, and for a time I had a certain 4th great-grandmother down as the daughter of her own sister-in-law.  That's what comes of having sons named after their fathers.  So how did I make that mistake?  I took the word of several different websites that said that Mary was Catherine's mother.  Never mind that the dates didn't make a bit of sense, that's what they all said.  And for awhile, I believed it.

    The voices of this world unite to tell you that Hagar is your mother.  Hagar is human effort making us acceptable to God.  Hagar stands for us making things happen in our own time and by our own effort, instead of being patient and waiting for God to keep His promises.  If you're nice enough, if you give enough to charity, if you follow the rules-- especially God's rules!-- He'll accept you as His child and take you to heaven when you die.

    To claim Hagar as your mother is to reject the power of Christ in His resurrection.  It's to reject Him as the fulfillment of all the promises made to Abraham.  The men who were travelling throughout the Roman world trying to convince Gentiles they had to be circumcised were known as "Judaizers."  Their goal was to make sure that good Christians also became good Jews.  They didn't realize or didn't care that the covenant that God made with Moses at Mount Sinai was only provisional.  That all the ceremonies and sacrifices looked forward to the slaying of the perfect Lamb of God on Calvary's cross.  And that now that He, Jesus, is risen, there is no more need for Gentiles to convert to Judaism to be pleasing to God. In fact, all Jews need to welcome Jesus their risen Messiah in order to be the chosen people God always intended them to be!

    Hagar represents the old covenant of Law, but Sarah represents God's new covenant of grace, shown to us in the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  We, too, have been born by the power of the Spirit.  We, too, are children of promise.  We are sons and daughters of the free woman, Sarah, and we share in the inheritance of God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    That is, if Sarah is your mother.  That is to say, if you accept that you are a child of God solely by His own life-giving power.

    In the same way, we must also choose whether our mother is the Jerusalem here on earth, or the Jerusalem that is above.  Remember that in the first century, Jerusalem was still the site of the Temple.  It was where the animal sacrifices were made.  It was where the men of Israel had to go to observe the appointed Feasts, like Passover and the Day of Atonement.  It was the heart of Jewish religious observance, the place where forgiveness of sins was to be found-- until the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As Jesus said to the woman of Samaria,

    "A time is coming when you will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. . . . A time is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth." 

    Now that Christ has died, risen, and ascended into heaven, the place of our worship is in heaven with Him who is Spirit and Truth.  It is our mother the heavenly Jerusalem, which is above, and is free.

    But does that mean God has left us motherless here on earth?  By no means!  For the Scripture makes it clear that the Jerusalem above represents the Church of God in all her perfection.  In Revelation 21 it says, "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."  In Ephesians 6 we read that husbands should love their wives "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, . . . to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."  The Jerusalem above is the perfection of God's covenant people, His Church, and if you are in Christ through faith, she is your mother.

    To many, that's strictly a Roman Catholic concept.  And really, we have to avoid the idea that "the Church" is just the pastors and the presbytery and the General Assembly and not all of us gathered here as the body of Christ Sunday after Sunday.  But even we Protestants need to recognise the Church as our mother, for it is to her that God has entrusted His Word and Sacraments, that through them we might be guided, taught, counselled, nurtured, protected, and disciplined.  John Calvin says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, that "the Church is she into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined, let not man put asunder (Mark 10:9)": to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother. This was true not merely under the Law, but even now after the advent of Christ; since Paul declares that we are the children of a new, even a heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26).

And so our Lord Himself commanded the Apostle Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to demonstrate his love for Christ by feeding His lambs, taking care of His sheep, and feeding His sheep.  Whatever else the leadership of the Church does, they must make sure that saints old and new are constantly being fed with the pure milk and the solid meat of the word of God.  Following their example, we must all teach and encourage one another, loving and caring for one another for the sake of our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ.  That's the only way we can grow up to be like Him.  There are many who think they can be Christians on their own, without being connected to any visible church.  But the Scripture utterly denies that this is possible.  You are either incorporated into God's covenant assembly, or you are still out in the desert, clinging like Ishmael to the robe of Hagar your slave woman mother.  You are either miraculously born of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and incorporated into His body by baptism, or you are dead in your trespasses and sins.  You can seek your own spiritual food and starve, or be richly nurtured by the hand of the mother God has given you.

    Who is your mother?  Your mother is the new covenant people, sealed in Christ's blood.  Your mother is the assembly of the children of God, given new birth by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Your mother is the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, the spotless bride that God has foreordained you to become.  Nothing can take her place.  Today and every day let us thank our earthly mothers for all they have done for us. But even more, let us thank and praise our Father in heaven for caring for us and loving us through His Church, our mother who is free. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Christ's Resurrection and You: Noblesse Oblige

Texts:    Romans 8:9-25; John 20:19-23

        ALL OVER THE WORLD THIS PAST FRIDAY, PEOPLE were glued to coverage of the royal wedding.  Even we Americans find the British monarchy fascinating.  And I'm wondering, how would you feel, how could you act, if it could be proven that you were the direct, legitimate descendant of royalty?

    The other night, I was doing some genealogical work online.  I think it'd be fun to give my mom an updated version of her chart for Mother's Day, and I was trying to see how far back I could get.  Well, I hit paydirt with a website that had page after page of information on a branch of the family I hadn't researched much before.  I identified my three-times-great grandmother, and on her "Person Page" the notes said that, according to a book called Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants, she was the direct descendant of Edward I of England and Robert II of France.

    Wow, I thought.  Wow.  I'm descended from kings and queens!  Immediately I began to sit a little taller.  Instantly I felt more responsible, more capable.  I was filled with a sense of noblesse oblige, the conviction that I had a duty to do great and good things in my life, and not only that, that I had the ability to do them.

    There was one problem.  The fourth or fifth cousin who published this website had inserted a question mark in the middle of this note.  Oh-oh.  So I dug further.  And it turns out that this claim to royal blood came about because great-great-great grandmother Sophia's great-grandpa Matthew ran around colonial Maryland claiming to be a younger son of a certain duke or earl back in England.  There's no mystery about that; it's well-documented that that's what he alleged.  Trouble is, the records in England say the nobleman's son named Matthew died as a young boy, and the family coat of arms our Matthew sported in the colonies wouldn't have been the proper style for a younger son, even if the duke or earl had been his father.

    Oh.  So much for my royal ancestry.  It was inspiring for the half-hour it lasted!

    But then it hit me-- I am related to royalty!  And so are you!  And our relationship to the King is a lot closer than thirty or forty generations back.  And we've got a lot better proof of it than what we read on some website or in somebody's book or what some ancestor bragged about four hundred years ago.  You and I are children of the great Monarch of the universe, God Almighty Himself, and the guarantee of that relationship is the resurrection of our Elder Brother Jesus Christ and the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.

    See what it says in Paul's letter to the Romans.  If we'd had time to read the whole eighth chapter, we'd see that it begins and ends with God's solution to our sense of condemnation over our sins.  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ, and because Christ is for us, no one can bring any charge against us; we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  The second part and the next to the last part tell us what life is like for those who are still under condemnation and those who through Christ are conquerors over sin.  And the center of it all shows us how we are more than conquerors.  Verses 14 through 17 assure us that we're not just victorious warriors in God's army, we are sons and heirs in God's household!

    How do we know?  We know it by the power of the Holy Spirit in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Verse 14 says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  Verse 16 assures us that  "The Spirit of God testifies with our spirit that we are God's children"!  Up in verse 10, we are assured that by His Spirit the risen Christ is living in us, making our spirits alive because of His righteousness, even while our bodies are effectively dead because of sin.  This Spirit living in us is the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, and He will also bring about the resurrection of our mortal bodies.  Christ's resurrection makes ours possible; more than that, it guarantees that we, too, will rise.

    Can we believe that?  Yes, because we are children of God, sealed with His Spirit.  And as it says in verse 17, "if we are children, we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ."  Titus 1, verses 5b-7 say that "He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."  Our inheritance is first and foremost eternal life!  When Christ arose, He proved that He has eternal life to give.  He showed that because we are in Him, we now share the deathless life that He displayed outside the tomb that first Easter morning.

    It's important for us to keep the "sons of God" language in this passage.  In ancient Greco-Roman society, daughters did not inherit the estate from their fathers.  Of course, neither did servants or slaves.  Nor, ordinarily, did boys born out of wedlock.  It was legitimate sons who inherited their fathers' possessions and power.  And adopted sons could inherit as well.  And so Paul writes that we all have received the same spirit of sonship through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ alone is God's Son by substance and nature.  But through His blood we have been legally adopted by God. All the good things that are coming to Jesus are also coming to us.  We all will share in His glory that will be revealed at the last day, when He comes to judge the living and the dead.

    We will share in His glory, that is, if indeed we share in His sufferings.  The earthly life of an adopted royal son is not one of indulgence and ease.  In verses 5 through 8 of this chapter Paul talks about the low, deadly, hostile, and rebellious life and attitude we find in someone who isn't controlled by God's Spirit.  It makes sense that someone like that who's outside of God's favor is going to suffer for it.  But in verses 18 on, we see that we who belong to God's household by adoption can expect to suffer in this life, too. 

    Of course we can say that people who reject God suffer from His wrath, while God's children suffer from the wrath of the world.  But that's not where Paul takes us in the next part of chapter 8.  No, he seems to be telling us that just as we are bound up in Christ and share His sufferings and His coming glory, so too is the creation bound up in suffering with us and waits to be brought to glorious freedom when we are fully revealed as God's beloved sons.  We represent creation, and only with us will it be freed from its bondage to death and decay.

    So in this life we still struggle against the effects of sin, our sins and the sins of others.  We still experience the disruption of creation brought about by the Fall, we're still subject to calamities like earthquakes, floods, and deadly storms.  As children of God these disasters make us long for the day when God's purpose will be fulfilled and the promise of Christ's resurrection will be made perfect in us.  Paul writes that when His glory is revealed in us, every bad thing that has ever happened to us will be seen to be nothing, in comparison to the glory we will inherit.  But right now we're still in the middle of the war.  Our adoption as sons is not yet complete; it won't be final until our bodies are redeemed, resurrected, and renewed to be like the body of the risen Christ.  At that time all creation will be redeemed and renewed with us.

    Still, even now the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.  Therefore, what should be our attitude?  Since the royal shed blood and triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ have given us life, how should we behave?

    The term was "noblesse oblige."  It literally means "nobility obliges."  Verse 12 tells us, "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-- but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it."  Being a child of Almighty God does not give us the right to sin up a storm on the basis that Jesus paid for it all.  It does not give us license to look down on unbelievers as if it was some virtue or attractiveness in ourselves that made Jesus save us.  Being related to God the Father by the royal blood of Christ does not entitle us to condemn others as if we ourselves did not deserve to be condemned.  That is living according to the sinful nature, and if you do that, you will die.

    No, rather, because God has made us His children through the resurrection of His Son, we struggle to put to death the misdeeds of our sinful flesh.  By the Spirit of God we do this; not on our own: He causes us to cry out to our heavenly Father and depend on Him alone.  By His Spirit He makes us more and more like His Son Jesus Christ.

    As the Spirit leads us, we grow to do the deeds that befit our status as royal children.  I think my response of responsibility and capability when I thought I might have royal ancestry was the right one, even though, I admit, it was rather silly even if it had been true. As beloved sons in the household of our heavenly Father, we do have the responsibility confidently and ably to represent our Lord wherever we are and to whomever we may meet.  A tall order for weak, sinful mortals like ourselves-- but God through His Spirit gives us the capability to do all He asks.

    When the risen Christ appeared to His disciples in the Upper Room the night of His resurrection, John says that "he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.'" This was a foretaste of the great outpouring that would come forty days later at Pentecost.  But it's important what our Lord says to them next.  He says, "‘If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'"

    I hope you understand what a weighty obligation that puts on you.  It applies especially to us pastors and teachers, who have the responsibility of opening the word of God and declaring Christ's forgiveness out of it.  But you, the Church; you, the individual Christian, also have a noble obligation in the power of the Spirit to declare the forgiving gospel of Christ to those around you.  You have an obligation to be the face and form of the Body of Christ to those whom you meet every day.

    It's a formidable responsibility.  In our weakness we fail at it all the time.  But you are not alone.  You have God's Holy Spirit living in you, proving to you that you are His child, demonstrating that your lineage through the blood of Jesus Christ is true.  You have the power of Christ's resurrection in you, giving you life and sustaining you with His promise through all the struggles and sufferings of this life.  You have this holy Supper, where you may see, touch, and taste, and have the promise of His everlasting life confirmed to you.

    The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the risen Lord, and  we will share their jubilation when He returns with all His saints when He comes again in glory.  Until then, stand tall, walk by the Spirit, and remember who you are.  By the resurrection of your Lord Jesus Christ, you are a child of God. You are His heir, and a co-heir with Christ.  May God work in you and in all His children what is pleasing to Him, to the glory of His name.  Amen.

The Vindication of God

Texts:    Colossians 2:1-15; Matthew 28:1-10

      SEVERAL YEARS AGO, A BOOK of essays was published called God in the Dock.  It's by C. S. Lewis, and the title comes from criminal trials in Great Britain, where the defendant stands the whole time in an elevated open box, exposed to the stares and censures of everyone in the courtroom.  Lewis's argument is that we modern people no longer see ourselves on trial before God the Judge; rather, we put God on trial and act as judge over Him.

    You know how it is.  We put God in the dock for public disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornados; for private suffering like disease, poverty, and murder.  This is the wrong way around, since it's our sin that disrupted creation and causes us to do evil to one another every day.  If God wanted to, He'd have every right to wipe every one of us out all at once, for the wages of sin is death, and all of us are sinners.

    But there was a time when God was really in the dock.  It was a dark Friday afternoon outside the city of Jerusalem, nearly 2,000 years ago.  On that day a Man hung on a cross, being shamefully tortured to death for the crime of claiming to be God.  At the foot of that cross, and in hiding in the city, were women and men who knew that Man had never done an unjust or wicked or sinful thing in His life.  Yet this Man was suffering the most degrading, agonizing, disgusting form of execution practiced by a civilized society, a death designed to show to everyone what a low, despicable being the crucified criminal was.  Was that Man really guilty of what His enemies charged?  Were all His friends and disciples wrong in calling Him the Righteous One?  Or was the holy God actually turning His back on a truly innocent Man? After a few hours the Man was dead and buried-- and the wages of sin is death.    Could this Man ever be vindicated?   Could God?

    We know that that Man dying on the cross outside of Jerusalem that day was Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  For the rest of that Friday, all the Sabbath, and into the eve and morning of the first day of the week, His disciples hid and mourned and simply could not understand.  God was in the dock, and it seemed as if the verdict would come in "Guilty."

    But as the Gospel according to Matthew tells us, early on the first day of the week, just as the sun was beginning to rise, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" went to Jesus' tomb.  Matthew doesn't tell us whether the women knew that the tomb not only was closed with the customary stone, but also was sealed and guarded.  He only tells us they intended to "look at it," and very likely, to mourn.

    In any event, it didn't matter.  For as the two Marys approached the tomb where Jesus lay, a violent earthquake shook the ground and angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled back the stone, and sat on it.  His appearance so frightened the guards they fainted away  like dead men.  And Jesus' tomb?  It was -- empty.

    Empty before the stone was rolled away.  Empty before the earthquake sent the ground reeling.  Empty before the angel descended and sat and greeted the women as they approached.  "Do not be afraid," he said to them, "for I know you that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said."

    "He is risen, just as He said."  And then, as the women hurried away to tell the Eleven the incredible news, Jesus Himself met them.  As it says in verses 9 and 10, "‘Greetings,' he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.'"

    Jesus the Crucified One was risen!  He was alive!  He was risen, just as He said, risen indeed!

    Brothers and sisters, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ means many things to us, in this world and the next.  But one of the most important and magnificent things it declares is the vindication of God.  God was in the dock in the crucifixion of His Son.  But now, Jesus Christ is risen from the grave, and God the Son, God the Father, and we who believe in Him have been fully justified against any imputation of sin or censure: Divine vindication has come.

    First of all, the Man Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has been vindicated.  Did anyone think He was dying for His own sins on that cross?  No! The resurrection proves He was the Sinless One, dying for the sins of the world.  The resurrection of Christ proved that He, Himself, was totally righteous and innocent.  The grave could not hold Him, death had no power over Him.

    The resurrection vindicates Jesus' claims to be one with God, to be God Himself.  Only God has life in Himself; only God has power over death.  In John chapter 10, Jesus tells His opponents,

    The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

Jesus had declared that He would rise, that He could rise, for He is the only-begotten Son of God the Father.  In Him all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Col. 2:9).  He is the head over every power and authority, including death.  And by His resurrection, His divine claims are proven true.

    The resurrection vindicates Jesus' word as the word of God: "He is risen, just as he said."  Any human can preach comfort and holiness and beautiful ethics and morality.  But only someone who was God and who spoke the very words of God could promise that He would come back to life after being crucified, and actually do it.

    The vindication of Christ our God assures us that He and His word are to be trusted.  His sinless life and death has the power to save us from death and hell.  His word is to be received as the very word of God, for He was and is God, come to us in human flesh, risen from the grave, and ascended in that same flesh into heaven. When He says He will give eternal life to whomever believes in Him, we can take Him at His word.  Jesus was no criminal blasphemer, suffering on a Roman cross for His own sins:  He was and is the glorious Son of God, and as He hung there dying (as it says in Colossians 2:15), He was [disarming] the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."

    The resurrection of our Lord Jesus vindicates God the Father as holy and righteous. The dying thief whom Luke records admits that he and his fellow-thief were suffering the just punishment for their crimes, but this Man Jesus had done nothing wrong.  The disciples on the road to Emmaus, who didn't believe Jesus was already risen, asserted that He had been a godly and true prophet; in fact, they'd thought He was the Messiah sent to redeem Israel.  How could a good and righteous God allow a Man who had kept His Law perfectly to suffer death and decay like any other sinner?

    But, as Peter preached on the first Pentecost, God did not abandon Jesus to the grave, nor did He allow His Holy One to see destruction.  In raising His Son from the dead, God the Father proves that He is righteous and is on the side of the righteous.  God is vindicated against any charge that He is indifferent to evil or blind to what evil men and evil forces do.  No, even on the cross God was defeating evil, and the resurrection of Christ points forward to the Last Days when all righteousness will be vindicated and death, sin, and the devil will be crushed under the feet of our triune God forever.

    The vindication of God the Father in the resurrection of Christ assures us that the prayers of His saints are heard.  We can trust that at the right time He will rescue us from all our troubles.  And in the meantime, we can know that our sufferings have meaning and purpose.  God is our heavenly Father who loves us, and though, as Peter tells us in his first epistle, "for a little while [we] may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials[, t]hese have come so that [our] faith-- of greater worth than gold, though refined by the fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

    The resurrection of Christ is not only the vindication of God, it is also vindication from God, vindication for us sinners whom He has called to belong to Him.  God is too holy to look upon sin; we sinners cannot endure in His presence.  Our sins have earned us the punishment of eternal death.  On the other hand, He has chosen us before the creation of the world (as it says in Ephesians 1) to be adopted as His sons in Jesus Christ.  How can God the Righteous adopt unworthy sinners without violating His holy justice?  How can He maintain His holiness and still fulfill His plan to admit us into His love?
    In Romans 3, Paul writes that God presented Jesus

    . . . as a sacrifice of propitiation, through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice . . . at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The resurrection of Christ proves that His death was an atoning sacrifice for our sakes.  It demonstrates that His blood totally paid the penalty for our sins, and in Him we can stand fully accepted before the throne of God, as His beloved daughters and sons.  Christ is risen, and we are vindicated before our holy God.

    In our Colossians reading, Paul reminds us that formerly, we were dead in our sins.  We were "uncircumcised in our sinful nature,"  which is to say that we were outside of the saving covenant between God and His faithful people.  But now, God has made us alive with Christ, the One who was dead and is risen again.  Now we "have been given fullness" in Him and share the divine fullness which is His.  We have "been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through [our] faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead."  Colossians 2:14 assures us that in his death, Jesus "canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross."

    When Jesus was crucified, our sins and guilt were crucified with Him.  And with them died the punishment we deserved for them under God's righteous Law.  In Christ we are fully vindicated.  All charges against us have been wiped away!  As it is written in Romans 8, who can bring any charge against God's elect?  God Himself justifies and vindicates us!  Who can condemn?  Jesus Christ, who died and was raised to life, sits at the right hand of God interceding for us!  In the resurrection of Christ we can be assured that all our sins are forgiven.  And not only that, but through our risen Saviour we also enjoy all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, knowledge of the deep, deep love of God and wisdom of how He used the shame of the cross to bring us, even us, to the joys of life eternal.

    And so, as Paul urges us in Colossians, let no one deceive us by fine-sounding arguments.  Let no one take us captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, that depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  God is out of the dock, and in Christ, He has cleared us from all charges as well. 

    So don't allow yourself to be put in the dock again.  The basic principles of this world say that the dead do not rise.  Too bad for the basic principles of this world.  God has come from beyond this world and raised up His Son Jesus Christ and raised us up with Him, as well.  Unbelieving human tradition tries to tell us that Jesus didn't exist, or if He did, He didn't rise and it shouldn't matter to our faith if He didn't.  But Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death, and all our hope in heaven and on earth depend on this truth.  Human tradition says it's up to us to vindicate ourselves in the eyes of God and the world.  We have to do good deeds and keep all the rules.  But Jesus Christ is risen, and we who were dead and helpless in our sins have been raised with Him.  He and He alone has brought us into His everlasting covenant by a circumcision not done by human hands but by Christ Himself in our baptism.

    The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the vindication of God.  The women who met Him outside the tomb that morning fell down at His feet and worshipped Him. They did right, for He was their Lord and their God.  And by His blood and rising, He is ours.  Do not be afraid.  Heed the voice of the angel; obey the word of your Lord Himself.  Go quickly and spread the good news: Your full vindication has come, for Christ who died is risen, He is risen indeed!

A New Kind of Love

John 13:34-35; 15:9-17

THE NIGHT THAT JESUS WAS betrayed to death for our sins, when the supper had been eaten and Judas the betrayer was gone, Jesus began to teach His disciples one last time.  As He counseled them He says, "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so must you love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

    This command of Jesus was not just for the eleven disciples in the upper room.  It is also for us who claim the name of Jesus today, for us who gather around this holy Table.  But there is something about this command to love that should cause us to stop and question.  First of all, how can our Lord say that a command to love is "new"?  And secondly, what kind of love does it command?

    "A new command I give you: Love one another."  But what is new about the command to love?  As far back as the days of Moses in the desert, God's people were commanded to love one another.  In Leviticus 19, verse 18, it says, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself."  Again in verse 34, we read, "The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.  Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt."   Jesus Himself said that after the command to love God with all our being, the greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and that these two commands sum up all the Old Testament Law and Prophets!  How can Jesus now say that the command to love is new?

    But there is something new about Jesus' new mandate. The old command to love said, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Jesus' new command says, "Love one another, as I have loved you."  Obedience to the old command depends totally on our imperfect and fruitless efforts to keep God's law.  Obedience to the new command hangs wholly on the fruitful love of God given us through Christ Jesus our Lord. 

    Verse 9 says, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." And as He has loved us, so we are to love one another.   In his commentary on John, John Calvin warns us against getting into speculations about the mystic love between the Father and the Son in the fellowship of the Godhead.  That wouldn't have been helpful to the disciples and it isn't helpful to us.  Jesus calls us to participate in the fruitful, joyful love of God.  For that we need another human being, a true Man, to show us what the love of God is like and teach us how to love like God.  And so Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was born of woman and took flesh, and became a real human being.  During the three years of His earthly ministry the disciples witnessed how the Father loved the Son and how the Son loved them.  It was a love they could see and hear and handle.  It was a love they could refer to and say, "Yes, this is how we are to love one another!"

    But what kind of love is this that Jesus commands in John?  What kind of love did He display in all the gospels?  There's a peculiar factor in this love, which we mustn't ignore.  Look at verse 10:  Jesus says, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love." 

    Let's read that again: "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love."

    I admit:that as Reformed Christian and as a human being still struggling with sin, when I simply read that statement, I'm troubled by it.  And I suggest that we all have to wrestle with this text, or we're likely to misunderstand the kind of love Jesus is commanding us to love.

    The Reformed Christian problem first.  I want to ask Jesus, "Lord, are You saying that You'll love us only if we obey all Your commands?  Lord, I remember those commands, and You made the Law of Moses even stricter!  But didn't your servant Paul write that by keeping the Law no one could be saved, and that if we try to earn Your love by keeping the commandments, we're still under the wrath of Your Father?  Lord, how can You say, ‘If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love'?"

   And from the Gospel, the Lord makes reply.  Look at the larger context for this verse.  Jesus had just taught the disciples that He is the Vine and they are the branches.  They-- and that means we as well-- must remain in Him if they are to bear fruit and know the joy of receiving whatever they ask from the Father.  Did the disciples or we get into the Vine by our own work or our own volition?  Absolutely not! 

    In the same way, it is Jesus Christ alone who brings us into His love. As He reminds us in verse 16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last."  Jesus already loves us!  As we can read in Ephesians Chapter 1, we were chosen by God in Him before the creation of the world!  In love God predestined us to be adopted as His sons and daughters through Jesus Christ! 

    No, the keyword in John 15:10 is "remain."  Again, that might look like it's all up to us to keep Jesus loving us and not lose our salvation.  But see again what our Lord says in verse 16.  He has appointed us to bear fruit, fruit that will last.  Do you think God the Son can appoint anything that isn't going to happen?  Perish the thought!

    It is right for us to want to avoid any hint of salvation by human works.  But when Jesus says, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love," He means something more wonderful and joyful than anything our worries might suggest.

    But the sinful world also has a problem with linking love and obedience.  Sinful man too often loves "Because."  I love you because you're pretty.  I love you because you do nice things for me.  I love you because you're rich and take me to fancy places.  I love you because you listen when I go on and on about my troubles.  But let you the beloved grow old and ugly, or stop doing the nice things, or become poor, or get tired of listening to the same sob story, then I, a sinful human being, will stop loving you.  We see this in the prodigious divorce rate in Western society.  This kind of sinner might say, "See, even Jesus says I don't have to love you if you don't please me!"  This interpretation is a crime against Jesus' words.

    So, thinking people, including unbelievers, say, no, true love is unconditional.  It doesn't matter how cruelly the beloved behaves or how filthy and repulsive he or she is to the lover, the true lover must keep on loving and expect nothing, nothing in return.  And really (I once heard a sermon that preached this idea), if the beloved does return the love, even the littlest bit, the lover is no longer showing true, unconditional love.

    But here we have Jesus saying, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love."

    "Wow, Lord," we say, "that sounds awfully conditional to us!   Not only do You seem to be saying that our remaining in Your love is conditioned on us obeying Your commands, but also that You have to obey God the Father's commands in order to remain in His love!"

    But remember what we learned.  It is God through His Son who elects us into His love and appoints that we shall remain and bear fruit.  Again, God does not love us if we do this or that, He loves us in His Son.  And the Father does not love the incarnate Son if, He loves Him because Christ is His Son.  But because Christ is His Son and God is His Father, Jesus joyfully obeys His Father's commands and the Father takes joy and pleasure in the Son's obedience.  Whoever said that love expects nothing in return?  Not our Triune God!  Whoever said that love that's reciprocated is not love at all?  Not the holy Scriptures that testify to Him!

    No, the love with which Jesus Christ has loved us, the new kind of love He charges us to bear towards one another, is a love where joy is obedience and obedience is joy.  It is a mutual love where we strive to outdo one another in taking care of one another, in listening to one another, and in anticipating one another's needs.  It is the love shown by Jesus our Master when He knelt down and washed the feet of His disciples at the table that night, even though that was the job of the lowest of slaves.  It is the love He showed when He willingly laid down His life for us on the cursed cross, despising the shame of it (as Hebrews says) for the joy set before Him, the joy of becoming the Author and Perfecter of our faith. 

    God takes pleasure in receiving this obedient love.  At Jesus' baptism, God's voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."  At His transfiguration, Christ's disciples heard the Voice from the cloud say, "This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to Him!"  True divine love is never reciprocated?  The love of God has no expectations?  What Christian can believe that?  The love of God is all about eager expectation!  In our verses from John, Jesus commands us to joyful obedience and He calls us His friends.  Beloved, there is no contradiction here.  What are friends for but to know one another's hearts?  And our Friend Jesus shares with us everything He has learned from His Father, and in prayer we may share everything with Him.  What are friends for, but to be willing to do any good thing for one another in love, as Christ has shown the full extent of His love for us in His death?  A servant obeys because he has to.  A friend fulfills his friend's commands because he wants to, and he receives his friend's joy and pleasure in return.

    This kind of willing, obedient love is the same love we in the church are now to show one another:  Loving each other mutually, eagerly, joyfully-- drawing always on the love of Christ continually being poured into our hearts by His Holy Spirit.

    The old command, "Love your neighbor as yourself," only served to show us how badly we failed at keeping God's law.  We not only didn't love our neighbor as ourselves, we couldn't love ourselves according to the image of God in us.  But Jesus' new command says, "Love each other as I have loved you."  By the blood of His cross He has already brought us into His love, just as He is always and eternally in the love of the Father.  The love of Christ is already here for us and in us, in all its fulness.  Now let us discover the secret of enjoying and blissfully living in His love: Let us love one another, as He has loved us.  The more we obey His new command, the more we will know the pleasure of God.  The more we know the pleasure of God, the more we will discover of His love and the more we will want to obey.

    Brothers and sisters, let us love one another.  Not some idealized imagining of what the ideal friend would be like, but one another, just as we are, in all our faults and annoyances and failings.  Let us love one another not only in thought and sympathy, but in service and action.  People, love your preachers, and we preachers, let us love the people.  Officers, love the laity, and laity, love your officers.  Love the member who has to do everything or she complains, and love the member who never seems to pitch in at all.  Love, yes, love even those in the church who are cranky and obstructive and never seem to love you back, because it was while we were still God's enemies that He commended His love towards us and sent Christ to die for our sins.  Loving church member, maybe God will use your obedience to soften the heart of that other person and bring him or her into the joy of our Saviour's love!


    "No greater love has any one than this, that He lay down his life for his friends."  This is love of God in Christ shown to us in this holy Supper.  Here we know the solemn joy of divine blood shed for us and divine flesh broken for us.  Here we experience the fullness of love, the love of Christ that dwells within us, the love of Christ that daily teaches us how to love one another, as He has loved us.

    May His joy be in us, and may our joy in Him and each other be complete.  Let us strive to outdo each other in eager, obedient, mutual love.  This is our Lord's new command: Love one another.

    In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Who Is This?

Texts: Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Zechariah 3:1-2, 6-9; 2 Samuel 7:11b-16; Matthew 21:1-16

    ALL WEEK PILGRIMS HAD been surging into Jerusalem.  The Passover was near, and hour by hour more and more people approached the gates to the city.

    But today, five days before the Feast, something was happening on the road from the Mount of Olives that was out of the ordinary even for this holiday time.  Down from the Mount rolled a stream of pilgrims shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David!"   "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"  And "Hosanna in the highest!"

    All this clamour seemed to be addressed to a Man riding in the midst of the crowd, seated on a young donkey with its mother close by.  The exultant pilgrims were cutting branches off the palm trees and spreading them  and their own cloaks on the road in front of Him.  Closer and closer to the city the loud and excited procession approached, until the Man and His supporters swept in through the city gate and into the Temple courts.  Still they cried out, "Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"  And the Man rode on, tall and regal on the cloak-draped beast, the very image of a King taking possession of what was His own.

    On Jerusalem and her citizens the impression was nothing short of seismic.  From one end of the city to the other the news spread, and their hearts were shaken to the depths.  "Who is this who has come?" they asked.  "Who is this?"

    From the Man's crowd of supporters the reply came, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."

    Who is this?  Who is this Jesus?  People are still asking the question today.  Every year about this time unbelievers with little scholarship and less reverence claim to answer that question with their latest ideas.  They say, "He was an ordinary man buried in his family tomb."  Or, "He was a co-conspirator with Judas trying to gain political control."  Or, "Jesus was the husband of Mary Magdalene."  You've heard all the sensationalist theories, and I hope you know they're only good for making the authors money off of people fool enough to believe their lies. 

    But the question is still remains: Who is this?  Who is the One who rode into Jerusalem that Sunday afternoon so many centuries ago? 

    We don't need to come up with new theories: the Scripture itself answers question.  Not just with a few facts about a Rabbi who once walked the hills of Galilee and Judea; no, the Word of God shows us the living Jesus and reveals who He is for us today and will be forever.

    Who is this, riding into Jerusalem?  The Galilean crowds say to the people of the city, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee." 

    Could they have meant that Jesus was the prophet from Nazareth, so no one would confuse Him with some other prophets of God that were around?

    No.  Absolutely not.  Everyone knew that John the Baptist was the first prophet God had sent the Jews since the death of the prophet Malachi over four hundred years before.  From then until John, no person had spoken in the name of the Lord, at least not with God's approval.  But for the previous three years Jesus of Nazareth had been proving by His words and miracles that He had every right to speak in the name of the Lord.  He was the only prophet worthy of the name in Israel. Jesus, moreover, had shown Himself to be greater than any prophet who had come before.  His words were more authoritative than those of Moses.  His miracles were more wonderful and divine than those of Elijah and Elisha.  He was not simply a prophet, He was the Prophet.

    As we read from the Book of Deuteronomy, fourteen centuries before Jesus walked this earth the Lord God put His words into the mouth of His servant Moses.  Moses said, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him."

    What does it mean to say "a prophet like Moses"?  Hear what the Lord Himself said about Moses, as it is written in Numbers 12, verses 6-8a:

    When a prophet of the LORD is among you,
          I reveal myself to him in visions,
         I speak to him in dreams.
    But this is not true of my servant Moses;
          he is faithful in all my house.
    With him I speak face to face,
         clearly and not in riddles;
           he sees the form of the LORD.

The promised "prophet like Moses" would speak with the Lord face to face.  He would hear and know the word of the Lord directly, and not through dreams and visions.  He would be "faithful in all God's house," and would declare the message of God fearlessly, without worrying what people might say or do to him.  The great Prophet to come would be one of the children of Israel. And the Lord commanded that the people must listen to him.

    Jesus was and is the Prophet like Moses whom the Jews had been awaiting for so long.  The cheering Galileans who marched beside Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem that day knew He was.  And by the grace of the Holy Spirit, our ears are opened to receive Him as the Prophet, too.

    The Apostle John writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  The Greek for "the Word was with God" can be translated "the Word was before the face of," or "face to face with God."  From all eternity, Christ the Lord beheld the form and face of the Father directly, without needing any go-between.  As a Man on this earth that relationship and direct communication between Himself and the Father continued unbroken until the agony of the Cross.  John reports that Jesus said, "My teaching is not my own.  It comes from him who sent me.  If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out if my teaching comes from God or not."  Jesus received the word of God directly and He proclaimed it faithfully.  Just as with Moses, and even more than Moses, Jesus' word was and is the will of God for His chosen people.  The Lord said through Moses in the desert,

    I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; 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 call him to account.

Who is this,  riding into Jerusalem?  It is Jesus Christ, God's final and greatest Prophet. And to Jesus all mankind must listen, and Him all mankind must obey.

    Who is this, who enters the Temple area in such righteous zeal?  This Jesus acts as if He had the right to drive out those buying and selling there.  Wasn't it the priests of Israel, and especially the high priest, whose duty it was to make sure that the temple of God remained a house of prayer for all nations?  For the Temple was where the people met with God.  It was the place where the sacrifices were offered to make atonement for sin.  As Solomon prayed at the first Temple's dedication, "May your eyes, [O Lord], be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your name there. . . . Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray towards this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive."  The high priest was charged with keeping himself and the Temple holy and pure.  And only he might carry the blood of the sacrifice into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, to turn away God's wrath so the people might live. 

    But as we read in the book of the prophet Zechariah, the high priests of Israel were sinful men themselves.  Joshua was high priest in Jerusalem after the people returned from exile in Babylon, and humanly-speaking, he was a pretty good man.  But even he is covered with such sin, his robes are so dirty before the Lord, that Satan in strict justice has every right to accuse him.  But the Lord rebukes Satan, and says that Joshua is a burning stick snatched from the fire.  The Lord then addresses Joshua and says,

     "Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.  . . . and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day."

This Joshua and his fellow priests are men symbolic of things to come, in the day when God would send the righteous Branch of Jesse spoken of by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, through whom God would remove His people's sin in a single day.   Joshua and the other priests were emblems of the great and perfect High Priest to come.  The robes of this High Priest would be pure and His sacrifice for sin would be perfectly acceptable to God.  The name Joshua itself means "Jehovah saves," and it's the Hebrew version of the Greek name "Jesus."  The writer of the book of Hebrews says that Jesus is our High Priest forever.  Jesus is the One who is "holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."  He is the One who sacrificed for our sins once for all when He offered Himself.  He is the One who serves in the sanctuary of heaven, in the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.  He is the One who has the right to cleanse the Temple, the right to encourage the praises of the children shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David!"-- even though the impure and faithless chief priests of His day wanted Him to keep them quiet. 

    Who is this, striding into the Temple and overturning the tables of the moneychangers?  It is Jesus, our great High Priest, who took the blood of His own body into the Holy of Holies of heaven, and made full atonement for all our sins.

    And who is this, whom the crowds on the road and the children in the Temple hail as the Son of David?

    As we read in our selection from 2 Samuel, God promised King David that

    I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.

In the ordinary course of this world, God fulfilled this promise first of all in David's son Solomon.  He was born of David, his kingdom was established, and he built the house for God's name.  And God kept on keeping this promise in David's grandson and great-grandson and great-great-grandsons.  When it was necessary, God punished them "with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men," but David's line was never destroyed.  Even in the days of the Exile, the Davidic line continued, and ever since, the Jews had looked forward to the coming of the ultimate King of Israel, "great David's greater Son."  For in him God would keep His promise to David, in which He said, "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever." 

    And now, on this first Palm Sunday afternoon, men, women, and little children are crying out to Jesus, "Hosanna to the Son of David"  "Hosanna!" they cry.  "Save us!"  And Jesus accepts their praise.  Before His conception, the angel told His mother Mary that her Son would sit forever on the throne of His father David.  All through His ministry,  Jesus announced the coming of the kingdom of God and in His commands and parables He made it clear that He Himself was the ruler of that kingdom.  Jesus before Pilate declared that He was a king, and not just a king of any single nation in this world; He was king of a kingdom that transcends this world, a kingdom that will endure before God forever.

    Who is this, riding into Jerusalem like a king ready to take His throne?  It is Jesus, the Son of David, the One to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    Who is this Jesus?  He is our King, enthroned on the Cross where He won the victory over Satan, sin, and death.  Under His gracious rulership we bow in humble joy and receive health, bounty, nurture, and peace that nothing on earth can give.  He is our High Priest, and the Cross was the bloody altar where He offered Himself up as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.  In His broken body and shed blood alone we find redemption and are cleansed to stand in the presence of God.   He is our Prophet, the Prophet, and from the Cross His blood speaks the divine word of judgment against sin and the gracious word of hope for ransomed sinners.   From His mouth and His alone we receive the true meaning of the Scriptures and are called to eternal life.

    Jesus is your Prophet, Priest, and King, and He is mine.  So come to His Supper, all you who are baptised into His name.  At His Table He comes to you humbly, no longer on a donkey, but in these elements of bread and wine; on these He has promised to set His seal. Lift up your hearts to heaven and receive Him by faith, with thanksgiving. 

    Hosanna to you, Christ Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King.  Blessed are You who come in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna to the Son of David.  Amen.