Liturgical Calendar | Sunday Morning Greek Blog

March 23, 2025

Bearing Fruit…and the Cross (Luke 13:1–9; Psalm 63)

Filed under: 1 Corinthians,Courage,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,forgiveness,Isaiah,Lent,Luke Gospel of,Prayer,Psalms,Repentance,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 11:41 pm
Tags: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Bearing fruit, Bearing the cross, forgiveness, giving up sin for Lent, God's provision, Isaiah 55, Luke 13:1-9, meeting together, Psalm 63, seeking God, thirsting for God, worship

I preached this message on Sunday, March 23, 2025, at Mount View Presbyterian Church. I dealt with all four passages for the Lectionary for this Sunday.

Bearing Fruit…and the Cross

Lent is typically thought of in the Christian world as a time of sacrifice. Some people give up meat only to crowd into the numerous fish fries around town. Others might give up chocolate or coffee or caffeinated beverages or shopping or any number of other things that we might consider “vices” personally, but most of those things are not innately spiritual and may in fact make us a bit more difficult at times to live with if we haven’t had our morning cup of Joe. I’m teasing you a bit, of course. But if Lent is supposed to bring us some spiritual benefit, then shouldn’t we be giving up things that can damage our relationship with God? Why not give up greed, pride, selfishness, and other such things?

That seems to be the underlying theme behind our passages today. They might be summed up by John’s exhortation when he was preaching in the wilderness in Luke 3:8: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” In other words, bear fruit while you’re bearing the cross. In our passage from Luke 13 this morning, Jesus seems to be addressing the thought that some had that bad things only happened to bad people. But the circumstances of our demise do not determine our eternal destiny. In spite of the untimely and unfortunate deaths of the Galileans and those in the tower of Siloam, Jesus says the important thing is to repent and be ready.

Jesus switches to talking about the fig tree that won’t bear fruit in the next few verses. The owner of the fig tree wants to cut it down because it’s unproductive. But the vineyard manager said “Give me another year and I’ll have it bearing fruit.” But the connection here with the previous verses and John’s statement about producing fruit in keeping with repentance is unmistakable. If we’re not bearing fruit, that could affect our salvation and our relationship with our Savior. Jesus said in Matthew 7:20: “By their fruit you will recognize them.”

Paul talks about the quality of our works in 1 Corinthians 3:12–15, but he doesn’t use the language of “fruit.”

¹²If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.^[1]

God, being full of grace and mercy, leaves us a way out when we fall short. That’s what he accomplished through Jesus in his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. But instead of focusing on these warnings for the rest of my message this morning, I want to turn the focus around to the theme I mentioned earlier: How do we bear fruit while bearing the cross? That would have been my sermon title in the bulletin if I had remembered to click send on my e-mail to Judy!

I want us then to look at the other three passages from the lectionary today in addition to our gospel passage I touched on at the beginning. In Psalm 63, we’ll look at seeking God in worship. In Isaiah 55, we’ll look at seeking God for our wellbeing. And finally in 1 Corinthians 10, we’ll look at standing firm in our faith to recognize the way out of temptations that can drag us down.

Let’s look at Psalm 63. For a long time our country has been turning away from church attendance and, by implication, from God altogether. A trusted, unbiased Web site called Statista has this summary of church attendance: “According to a 2022 survey, 31 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 20 percent of Americans who attend every week. Despite only about a fifth of Americans attending church or synagogue on a weekly basis, almost 40 percent consider themselves to be very religious.” A 2024 survey by Gallup puts the number of weekly attenders at 20%, with another 9% at “almost every week.” On the flip side, 31% NEVER attend church or other religious service. We could talk about the reasons for this 24/7 for a week, but we’d probably never get anywhere. Psalm 63 tells us why this shouldn’t be, though.

We should be able to come to church to find God. Granted David, who wrote this psalm, had a special relationship with God that enabled and empowered him to be a great leader of his people, but this doesn’t mean that you and I don’t have access to this same relationship in the New Covenant era. David claims to have seen God’s power “in the sanctuary.” It’s not clear exactly what he “saw,” whether it was some physical manifestation of light, a divine presence, or if he’s using the word “see” to describe what he experienced in worship. Regardless, it was clear at least in David’s day, one of the best places to be to encounter God was the sanctuary in the Temple.

In the New Covenant era, God has given his Holy Spirit to each of us who believe. You don’t have to be a king or a prophet any more to have exclusive access to the Holy Spirit. When we come together to worship, to sing praises and hymns, to read God’s word and hear it explained in such a way that it’s relevant to our live and our situations, the Holy Spirit works among us to build and shepherd that unity we have in body of Christ. When we pray together as a congregation, we let God know that we still trust in him to work in our lives and provide for our needs while at the same time letting those whom we’re praying for know that we will support them however we can. When we come together as a worshipping community for projects and collection for the poor, we show and shower God’s love upon those who are truly in need.

But our worship doesn’t just happen in the church building. Verse implies that wherever David is at, he is earnestly seeking God. Later in vs. 6, he say he remembers God in his bed and while he’s keeping watch on the battlefield at night. He sings to God and he clings to God, knowing that God’s presence is always with him through the Holy Spirit. We have that same assurance. Jesus even promised that at his ascension: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Seek God and you will find him, and as you draw closer to him, others will come to see him at work in your lives as well.

As we seek God, we can also know he will provide for our basic needs and do so generously. That is the message of Isaiah 55. Verses 1 & 2 go like this:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

²Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare. ^[2]

God wants to richly bless us. God’s goodness is genuine and original. God isn’t giving us yesterday’s leftovers. Jeremiah says “His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22b–23). Sometimes we spend a lot of effort and money pursuing things that don’t bring lasting or eternal satisfaction. God wants us to focus on him and what he provides for us. Later on in Isaiah 55, the prophet says this:

⁶Seek the Lord while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

⁷Let the wicked forsake their ways

and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.^[3]

You heard in that passage the idea I suggested earlier about giving up the things that tempt us to turn from God. But Isaiah also says we need to get rid of the “stinkin’ thinkin’” as well. This is complete repentance: not just changing our behavior but changing our minds and our ways of thinking as well. That’s were the worship comes in from Psalm 63: setting our hearts on Christ.

One of my favorite passages occurs a few verses later in Isaiah 55:

My word that goes out from my mouth…

will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

¹²You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;^[4]

I believe this is one of the greatest passages on evangelism. I love that it says God’s word accomplishes the purpose for which he sent it. When I was preaching early in my career, I was never in a church that followed the lectionary or the liturgical calendar. I could preach on what I wanted or I could pick out a theme or a particular book and prepare a sermon series.

But following the lectionary puts these two verses from Isaiah in a new light for me. Now I don’t know who decided on the three cycle of passages to read, but the lectionary is a “reading plan” adopted by many churches and denominations around the world, so it carries a lot of weight and, aside from the denominational differences and nuances that work their way into sermons on these passages, many churches are on the same page when it comes to what their congregations are presented with each Sunday. Because so many churches have agreed to use it, I believe it’s something that God honors. I think there’s something divine about the spiritual foresight those responsible for developing it, so I honor that.

Occasionally I’ll look at the passage for the day and wonder, “How am I going to preach on that?!” But I trust that there’s some component of God’s timing there, that is, some spiritual benefits he has in mind for sending out his word in this way, and I want to be faithful to communicate that in a way that’s relevant to you and my larger audience on the blog. I genuinely believe the lectionary is one way that God’s word gets from his mouth to our ears and that preachers who follow the lectionary are in many and diverse ways fulling the purposes for which God sends it out in that structure.

Finally, I want to look briefly at 1 Corinthians 10. Paul concludes in the first half of chapter 10 that that the written history of God’s people is intended for our encouragement and exhortation to faithfulness. Here’s what vv. 11–13 say:

¹¹These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. ¹²So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! ¹³No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.^[5]

Paul warns us that we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. Faithfulness is an active, ongoing process in the life of the Christian. There is nothing passive about it. Continue seeking God in worship; continue reading his words to hide them in your heart. Continue loving your neighbor as yourself so they too can see the love of God. Continue putting on the armor of God each and every day so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

May the power of the Holy Spirit go with you this week as you serve our Lord and Savior. Amen.

^[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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March 16, 2025

Approaching the Cross (Psalm 27; Luke 13:31–35)

I presented this message on March 16, 2025, at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, Nebraska. In studying the two passages, I discovered several thematic connections between Psalm 27 and the central part of Luke’s gospel, especially from 9:51 through Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Luke 19.

I had attended StoneBridge (my home church) for the worship part of their service before going to preach, and they did a version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate. I started my message with that this morning (the 15 lines toward the end of the longer prayer).

May the Lord be with you.

Have you ever thought about how you read certain types of literature? If you’re reading a fictional novel, or perhaps a true historical account of real event or someone’s life, it’s probably best to start at the beginning and read through to the end. It’s important to have all the details of the story because some of those details will be important throughout or later in the book. If you’re reading a history book or a historical biography, you may want to focus on a certain topic or certain era covered in the book to get the specific information you’re looking for, but you might miss some important background information that gives more context to events of that period. When you read a newspaper, you look for the headlines that interest you. If you’re looking for a specific answer on something like “How do I change a tire,” “Where do the Sandhill Cranes migrate to,” or “How do I calculate the area of a circle,” you typically wouldn’t have to read an entire reference book relevant to the subject. You’d go to the index or table of contents and look up where to find the information you’re looking for.

The Bible is sort of all these types of literature wrapped up in one collection that contains all these things, from the fictional, but true-to-life parables to the priestly “Chronicles” of the kings to the history of the patriarchs and the gospels, right up to the fantastical imagery of Revelation. Because of this, it’s important that we don’t lock ourselves into one way of reading the Bible. While it’s good to sit down and read large sections of the Bible in one sitting from time to time, we can still miss “the big picture” if we don’t understand or know the historical setting in which it was written.

Even when you read the gospels, if you have a Bible with footnotes, you’ll see that there are all sorts of references to passages in both the Old and New Testament where the gospel writer is either quoting the Old Testament or the editor perceives a connection to another New Testament author’s writings. That’s something you don’t typically get in a fictional novel, but would be helpful, I think.

Our two passages today, Psalm 27[1] and Luke 13, have a thematic connection, but it’s important to recognize that this connection compels us to look at the larger context of Luke’s gospel. Luke 13 is a little more than halfway through Luke’s 24-chapter gospel, but more importantly for our purposes, it’s about halfway between Luke 9:51 and Luke 19:28, which is the beginning of the story of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Why is 9:51 an important marker? Luke says this: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”^[2] Luke isn’t even halfway through his gospel and he’s already talking about Jesus getting ready for the cross!

Luke frames the rest of his gospel from 9:51 on in the context of Jesus approaching the cross and preparing himself and his disciples for the implications of that seminal event. In fact, the footnote on this verse in my NIV Bible lists the references to this in the story line along the way: Luke 13:22, 17:11, 18:31, and 19:28.

So let’s take a look at the thematic comparisons between Luke and Psalm 27. Psalm 27:1 is the initial confidence builder for David as he pens this psalm: The Lord is his light, his salvation, and his stronghold, so David has nothing to fear as he leads his people. This confidence is paralleled in Luke 9:51 with his statement that Jesus “resolutely” set out for Jerusalem. The phrase here literally means to “set your face” (or by extension, “set your eyes”) upon Jerusalem. This ties in with Psalm 27:4 as well, when David speaks of dwelling in the house of the Lord and gazing on his beauty in the temple. The temple, of course, was in Jerusalem. In today’s gospel passage, Jesus seems to hint that he’s only three days away from Jerusalem and needs to press on.

In Psalm 27:2–3, David says that in spite of his enemies advancing against him, he will remain confident of the Lord’s help. As Jesus journeys toward Jerusalem in Luke, he encounters his own opposition along the way. In 9:53, the Samaritan village he was near wanted nothing to do with him because he was headed for Jerusalem. In chapter 11, we see opposition from the pharisees and experts in the law as he’s working miracles and teaching about the kingdom. By the end of chapter 11, Luke says this after delivering a list of “woes” to his critics: “⁵³When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, ⁵⁴waiting to catch him in something he might say.”^[3] No love lost there between Jesus and that group of elitists.

Just like David, though, Jesus’s confidence doesn’t wane. He continues on his journey gathering an ever-larger following warning them about the opposition they themselves would face for being his followers and encouraging them to be ready when his time does come. In chapter 13, he faces opposition from a synagogue leader who is upset because Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath! Imagine that! In our passage this morning, the Pharisees seem to think they’re doing Jesus a favor by telling him to leave the region because Herod wants to kill him. But Jesus presses on, even with a bit of sarcasm, or so it seems, when he says in so many words that Jerusalem is the only place for a prophet to die.

The rest of Luke up to the point where he reaches Jerusalem gives us several more examples of this opposition, but we can save that for another time. I mentioned earlier about Psalm 27:4–5 hinting at the importance of temple. For Jesus, the temple was the true home of his family: after all, it was his father’s house. If he knows he’s going to die, he wants to be as close to his family home as possible. His statement in Luke 13:35 about “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” looks forward to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I believe Jesus takes a sense of pride and ownership in the temple, even though it is a structure made by human hands.

We saw after Christmas how Jesus as a boy stayed at the temple and impressed the religious leaders with his knowledge of and wisdom about God’s law. His first order of business after arriving in Jerusalem at the end of Luke 19 is to clear out the corruption in his father’s house. Even as he knew this would be one of his last weeks to experience the earthly temple, he wanted to leave it in better condition than he found it by restoring it to a place of prayer and genuine worship. He knew he would be the sacrificial lamb, and there would be no more need to sell lambs and birds in the temple for the sacrifices. It would be restored to a purer state. In the book of Acts, we see that his followers have been meeting regularly at the temple since his crucifixion, and it is there that the church is born on the day of Pentecost. That was the “Garden of Eden” for Christ followers.

The last half of Psalm 27 is one of David’s most heartfelt prayers for protection against his enemies and for the security of God’s presence with and acceptance of David as his chosen ruler for God’s people. Jesus taught his disciples to pray in Luke 11, the shorter version of the Lord’s prayer. In that prayer, we hear some of the same themes of praise, provision, and forgiveness. He understands the goodness of God’s provision.

But we also hear in that Psalm the foreshadowing of the cross. In verse 12, David asks not to be turned over to his enemies, which sounds very much like Jesus’s plea in the Garden of Gethsemane to have the cup of suffering removed from him. David’s pleas in verse 9 sound very much like Jesus’s words on the cross, “Why have you forsaken me?” Those words come from Psalm 22, where many of the aspects of Jesus’s crucifixion are foretold.

Just as David in the last two verses of Psalm 27 affirms his confidence in the goodness of the Lord and can encourage the worshipers to “be strong and take heart,” so Jesus has confidence in his dying moments to selflessly tell the thief on the cross that he too will join him in paradise when they die. I don’t believe that David intended Psalm 27 to be a messianic psalm, nor do I think Luke intended the central part of his gospel to mirror the themes of Psalm 27, but the parallels are striking and certainly worth noting.

But these parallels are academic. What does all this mean for you and me as we walk with our savior?

First, when we run up against roadblocks or challenges to our faith or we find that doubts are creeping in, we can remain confident that our light, our stronghold, surrounds us with his protection. We need not fear or doubt, but if we wait on the Lord and strengthen our hearts by abiding in God’s word, we can be confident we will see the goodness of the Lord, just as David was. We can walk in the victory of the cross in the overcoming resurrection of our savior.

Second, we can heed the exhortation of Hebrews 10:19–25, which sums up these three themes concisely:

¹⁹Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.^[4]

Worshiping together as a church family, whether we’re a family of 20 or 200 or 2,000, provides a powerful sense of belonging to each of us. We know we have a place to call our spiritual home, just as Jesus considered the temple his spiritual home. We can feel safe here with one another.

Finally, the power of praying together as a church family cannot be overstated. Our prayers, whether in our own closets at home or corporately in our liturgy here, keep us connected to and in constant communication with our heavenly father. We can be assured that he hears us and works to respond to our prayers according to his will and his love for us.

As we go through this Lenten season, let us not forget the forgiveness we have from God and not forget to offer forgiveness and grace to those who need to hear that message. Peace to all of you. Amen.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

[1] Psalm 27 parallels Psalm 31 with similar themes. Psalm 31 will figure prominently in the Lectionary beginning the Sunday before Palm Sunday next month.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

January 19, 2025

The Abundance of God’s Gifts (Psalm 36:5–10)

Filed under: 1 Corinthians,Courage,Ephesians,Epifanía,Epiphany,Faith, Faithfulness,Prayer,Psalms,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 5:23 pm
Tags: 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 13, acrostic psalms, Armor of God in Old Testament, Ephesians 6, God as refuge, God's gifts, prayers against enemies, Psalm 36:5–10, Psalms 34-37, righteousness vs. wickedness, Shame, shaming the enemy, warnings against the wicked

Good morning and happy new year! The Lord be with you! The big question of the morning is, “How are you doing at keeping your New Year’s resolutions?” Whatever resolutions you made, I do hope that one of them was drawing closer to God. Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany give those of us who are Christ-followers a unique opportunity to reflect on why the Savior came to earth to be a living testimony of how one can live for God in a fallen world. Our Psalms passage today, Psalm 36:5–10, gives us the upbeat side of our relationship with God. Let’s hear it again:

⁵Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the skies.

⁶Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

your justice like the great deep.

You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

⁷How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!

People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

⁸They feast on the abundance of your house;

you give them drink from your river of delights.

⁹For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

¹⁰Continue your love to those who know you,

your righteousness to the upright in heart.

¹¹May the foot of the proud not come against me,

nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

¹²See how the evildoers lie fallen—

thrown down, not able to rise!^[1]

Before I get into talking about the positive stuff in Psalm 36, I think it’s important to place this psalm in the context of the psalms around it. Psalm 36 is in the middle of four psalms that were grouped together with a similar theme, Psalms 34–37. I don’t think anyone knows for sure why these psalms are grouped, but the introduction to Psalm 34 says David wrote it “When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.”^[2] It’s possible these four psalms may refer to that event in David’s life.

Psalms 34 and 37 are both acrostic psalms, that is, each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Acrostics tend to make things easier to memorize. This makes a nice little set of bookends for this group. These two psalms “contain wisdom-like instruction in godliness and related warnings concerning the fate of the wicked—instruction and warnings that reinforce the key themes” of the middle two “prayer” psalms, 35 and 36.[3]

Psalm 36 begins with a warning to the wicked, setting the context for the prayer that we read above:

¹I have a message from God in my heart

concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: ^s

There is no fear of God

before their eyes.

²In their own eyes they flatter themselves

too much to detect or hate their sin.

³The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful;

they fail to act wisely or do good.

⁴Even on their beds they plot evil;

they commit themselves to a sinful course

and do not reject what is wrong. ^[4]

Examples of the warnings from Psalm 34 and 37 are plentiful, but I’ll give a few examples here that are relevant to our passage today. One of the promises from 34:15–16 says this, which is what prompts the boldness of the prayers that follow:

¹⁵The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

and his ears are attentive to their cry;

¹⁶but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,

to blot out their name from the earth. ^[5]

The remainder of Psalm 34 goes on to speak of how the Lord will hear the righteous when they cry out in prayer; deliver the righteous from their oppressors and their troubles; and spare them from the ultimate condemnation reserved for the wicked.

In Psalm 35, David opens with a prayer to the Lord to fight against his enemies, making it personal to his own situation. In a culture that values honor, David understands the impact of the additional humiliation he wants his enemies to suffer. “May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame” (vs. 4). In vs. 26, David repeats his prayer: “May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and confusion; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace.”^[6]

It’s not enough to just win a battle; David wants to win so handily that his enemies will be a fleeting memory to the surrounding nations. This not only will affect their reputation, but their economic security as well, as nations would be less likely to trade with a “shamed” nation.

In Psalm 37, David reassures the worshippers that these wicked will in fact be brought down and made irrelevant:

¹²The wicked plot against the righteous

and gnash their teeth at them;

¹³but the Lord laughs at the wicked,

for he knows their day is coming. ^[7]

But enough about the bad news for the wicked and those who have no regard for God. Let’s look at some of the positives these four chapters of Psalms have to offer. The passage we read at the beginning today focuses on God’s love, God’s provision, and God’s righteousness.

In this Psalm, David’s words tell us several things about God’s love and the other gifts he gives us. First, we see that God’s love is infinite and everywhere present, just like the sky. We see it all around us and yet we can never fully comprehend the extent of his love.

Paul’s instruction about love in 1 Corinthians 13 reflects the depths of God’s love as well. We could go to the highest mountain or even farther than that to where the Psalmist says God’s love reaches, but if we don’t grasp that love for ourselves and to share with others, we are nothing. Psalm 34 opens with David expressing his love for God in the form of praise: “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”^[8]

God’s love is so reliable and so real that David can assure the worshippers that they can “take refuge in the shadow of [his] wings.” That “refuge” is mentioned several times in the context of Psalms 34–37 and indeed throughout the Psalms. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”^[9] Verse 22 affirms this: “The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.”^[10]

Second, God has given us great gifts as we walk through a fallen world that often cannot understand the reason for our hope. His provision is boundless. David says that we will feast on the abundance of God’s house and that God gives us access to the “fountain of life” (36:8, 9). Psalm 34:9–10 says:

⁹Fear the Lord, you his holy people,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

¹⁰The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.^[11]

I mentioned 1 Corinthians 13 above. The other NT passage from the lectionary today is 1 Corinthians 12 about the gifts of the Spirit. God shows his love to us by empowering us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised in John 14 that if he went away, he would send another advocate, the Holy Spirit, and Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12 how that works. The Spirit provides us with one or more of the gifts mentioned: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, healing, prophecy, discernment, and so forth. It would be rare for any one Christian to have them all, which is one reason why we gather as a body. As Ephesians 1 says, we are “blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” This is body-of-Christ talk, not individual-believer talk. And while we’re in Ephesians, let’s not forget about God’s armor that he makes available to us so “we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes.”

God’s love and provision for and gifting of us is truly amazing. But we cannot forget that God’s righteousness and justice are of the highest standards and are deeply rooted and incorruptible in the depths of the earth. “Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep” (36:6). “Vindicate me in your righteousness” says David in Psalm 35:24. A few verses later (v. 28), David concludes that Psalm with “My tongue will proclaim your righteousness, your praises all day long.” In 37:5–6, if we commit to and trust in the Lord, “He will make [our] righteous reward shine like the dawn, [our] vindication like the noonday sun.”^[12]

I think a fitting close to this message is the last two verses of Psalm 37, and I think they speak for themselves:

³⁹The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;

he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

⁴⁰The Lord helps them and delivers them;

he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,

because they take refuge in him. ^[13]

Peace to you. Amen.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

^[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Barker, Kenneth, gen. ed. The NIV Study Bible (2011 edition; commentary note on “Ps 34–37,” p. 891). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan

^[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[7] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[8] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[9] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[10] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[11] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[12] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[13] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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December 29, 2024

Advent Love (Luke 1:39–55; 1 Samuel 2:1–10)

Filed under: 1 Samuel,Advent,Adviento,Birth Stories,Christology,Christology,Luke Gospel of — Scott Stocking @ 10:33 pm
Tags: 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Advent, Advent Love, Adviento, Birth of Jesus, Birth of John the Baptist, Birth of Samuel, Elizabeth, Hannah, Hannah's Magnificat, John the Baptist and Jesus, Luke 1:39-55, Mary's Magnificat

Message preached at Mount View Presbyterian Church on December 22, 2024, fourth Sunday in Advent.

Welcome to the fourth Sunday in Advent. May the Lord be with you. [And also with you.] As we mentioned in the Advent Candle ceremony, we’ve already explored the other three themes of this holy season: Hope in the salvation we have in Jesus and his return to bring us to his eternal home; the Peace that comes from living a life united with the Savior; and the Joy of the fellowship we have with one another.

Today, we look at the final theme of Advent, Love. God’s love is the foundation that supports and sustains our Hope, our Peace, and our Joy. God’s love also enables us to love one another, and this love binds us together as a congregation and allows us to be a powerful witness in the community, the city, and the world.

It is God’s love, then, that makes us a family, children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ and members of the body of Christ. It should not surprise us then that God chooses to keep the revelation of his son within one extended family as well. We looked at John the Baptist a couple weeks ago, whose mother, Elizabeth, was Mary’s “relative.” John’s conception was a bit of a mystery as well. When another older couple in the Bible, Abraham and Sarah, had a baby, we’re told that Abraham “had relations” with Sarah and she conceived. In Luke’s gospel, we’re never told that Zechariah had relations with Elizabeth. Was John’s conception a miracle as well? It wouldn’t have been “immaculate” like Jesus’s was, as Elizabeth certainly wasn’t a virgin at her age. But she had been barren. Makes you go “Hmmm.” I’ll save the rest of my speculation for a blog article.

We don’t know exactly what the relationship was between Mary and Elizabeth. Given the age difference, one might suspect Elizabeth was her aunt. Regardless, the end result was that Jesus and John the Baptist likely grew up together, so John was a first-hand witness to Jesus’s early life and could vouch for Jesus’s character and perhaps even his divine nature.

In our Gospel passage today, we read about Mary going to see Elizabeth when they both are pregnant. Elizabeth was already six months along (Luke 1:26, 36). We see that even in the womb, John the would-be Baptist understood that Mary was pregnant with the Son of God. Elizabeth knew as well, as she called Mary “the mother of my Lord.” On the one hand, our rational minds might say John could not possibly have any memory of that encounter. But on the other hand, we might also say that John had an innate. Elijah-esque spiritual insight into who Jesus was.

It would seem that Mary had gone to help Elizabeth with her pregnancy. We know Elizabeth was six months along, and at the end of our passage this morning, we find out Mary stayed with her for about three months. It doesn’t take too much speculation to assume Mary was there for the birth of John. If John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when pregnant Mary arrived, can you imagine what it must have been like while they were that close to each other for three months? How anxious was he to be born? Did Mary get a chance to hold John close to her pregnant belly so he could hear the early stages of Jesus’s beating heart in her womb?

I know a lot of $20 theological words, but I can’t think of any that might describe an innate spiritual connection of two sons of different mothers still in the womb. It would have been very interesting to see John and Jesus together as children. They would have had a connection stronger than twins!

The family connection and family dynamic between Jesus and John is made quite obvious in the early chapters of the Gospels. It’s almost certain that Elizabeth would have told John the story of how he leapt in her womb upon “meeting” Jesus for the first time. Mary probably didn’t have to tell Jesus whose son he really was. Jesus seems to have already figured that out by the age of 12, as he gets separated from his earthly parents. I have to wonder if John in the entourage that had traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover when Jesus found himself talking with the teachers of the law at the steps of the temple.

Jesus knew the temple was his Father’s house. Which meant it was also his “inheritance.” His to honor. His to defend the integrity of. His to ensure the freedom of entry and access to all peoples. Of course, we find out in Acts after his resurrection that his followers would no longer be restricted to the temple to worship. His followers themselves would be the temple of God. All the more reason for Jesus to love the church and pay the ultimate price for its salvation and longevity.

Before I dive into discussing Mary’s Magnificat, I want to remind you of another miraculous birth story of sorts; miraculous because it was the answer to one woman’s earnest prayers for a child. Her name was Hannah, and we read about her in the beginning of a book that bears her son’s name, 1 Samuel. She wanted a son so badly that she pledged her firstborn to be dedicated to the Lord’s service for life. After Samuel was born and weaned, she turned him over to the care and training of Eli, the father of two of the priests at Shiloh. Samuel would grow up a Nazarite, like Samson, but he would remain faithful to the end. He oversaw the transition of Israel from a theocracy to a monarchy and was responsible for appointing and anointing David as King of Israel after the people’s choice, Saul, failed miserably.

Samuel’s complete story is also for another time. The reason I mention this story is that, along with Hannah offering up her son to Eli’s care, she also offers up a prayer of thanksgiving that is most likely the model for Mary’s Magnificat. Here’s what she says in 1 Samuel 2:1–10 and see if you hear the parallels to Mary’s song and to a certain extent, Zechariah’s song at the end of Luke 1:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high.

My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.

²“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

³“Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance,

For the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.

⁴“The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.

⁵Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more.

She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.

⁶“The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.

⁸He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s; on them he has set the world.

⁹He will guard the feet of his faithful servants, but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails; ¹⁰ those who oppose the Lord will be broken.

The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

It’s pretty easy to see the parallels between the two texts. They speak of personal and political victories over enemies; relief for the poor and oppressed, and the Lord’s sovereignty and power in the heavens and on earth.

Getting back to the Mary and Elizabeth story again, we can see there is something mighty that happens when a family follows the Lord and supports each other in prayer and service. Although these events we’re reading about seem to have a little more historical significance than anything you or I may have done or ever do, we should not let that discourage us from rejoicing with family and praising God for the birth of our precious children. It is nearly impossible to trace the influence and the domino effect of what we do and how that may impact the future. You only have to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” to see a fictional portrayal of how one man influenced his small home town for the good of all.

We can of course always pray for our families and especially our children, that they might know the blessings of the Lord and the rewards and support of connecting with a faith community. We can pray for our young children that they would be protected from the negative and unhealthy influences that increasingly show up in ads and content on social media apps and sites and even in some kids’ television shows and educational materials. We can pray for opportunities to show mercy and compassion to those who need help and support in times of great need. We can and have been praying for loved ones facing serious illness or end-of-life issues and be there for them with emotional, material, and prayerful support. I can speak from personal experience that in this time when I’ve been praying for my sister Lindee that I have sensed the presence of the Lord more deeply and that my faith has been strengthened even more.

As the body of Christ here at Mount View, our own church family, you have done great things to the extent of your ability, providing help and comfort with gifts and offerings of quilts, food, and clothing items dedicated to those in need. God has truly blessed this congregation as you continue to reach out and draw closer to him and to each other through your ministry.

For those here who haven’t been to church in a while, I would like to encourage you to consider finding a congregation that is a good fit for you and your family situation. Of course, we’d love to have you here every Sunday. But if you don’t live around here or you’re looking for a different style of worship, churches are like each of us: unique in their makeup, their ministry, and their demographic. I can guarantee you that if you look with an open heart and mind, you will find a congregation that’s a good fit for you. But also remember that the church is made up of imperfect people, so no church is perfect. But they might be a little more perfect if you get involved. Think about that for a minute, hmm?

Jesus was born to show us the way back to God. Those of us here believe the church, whether it be Mount View or somewhere else, is the way to find and remain connected to God and Christ-followers. I pray that all of you will have a blessed Christmas season and that in some way, big or small, you will experience the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ and his family of believers. Amen.

My opinions are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

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December 8, 2024

Advent Peace: John’s Message of Baptism and Repentance (Luke 3:1–12)

Message preached at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE, December 8, 2024. I thought the message might be a little “heavy” theologically, but I got some positive responses from people about digging deep into the background of the words and phrases.

Welcome to the second Sunday of Advent. May the peace of Christ be with you. [And also with you.] “Peace” is one of the most prominent themes in Scripture. In fact, it is so prominent, I’m pretty sure most of you can tell me what the Hebrew word is for “peace” is: שָׁלוֹם (šā·lôm). This noun is found 232 times in the Hebrew Old Testament, and the New International Version translates it as “peace” or a form of that word over half the time. Other translations of the word in the OT make sense when you think about them, and those translations typically represent one small aspect of the complete concept of “peace”: two of the most common translations are “safe” and “prosper.”

In the New Testament, we find the word for “peace” (εἰρήνη eirēnē) 90 times and at least once in every book except 1 John. In the Old Testament, we do find at times that peace refers to the absence of war or the ceasing of hostilities. But that is a very small part of the way shalom is used in the Bible. In both the Old and New Testaments, peace often means something more like a sense of personal security and safety, a sense of wholeness, or even a lack of need or other strife that may disrupt your life. The phrase “peace be with you” was used by Jesus three times in his post-resurrection appearances to assuage his disciples’ fear of seeing him alive again in John 20. Paul uses it often in his greetings (as do most Middle Eastern cultures): “Grace and peace to you.”

In our Gospel passage today from Luke 3, we see the events leading up to Jesus being revealed to the world as Messiah, the one to come. Luke happens to use the word “peace” three times in the first two chapters to sort of “set the stage” what would be one of his ministries to those who believe. At the end of chapter 1, Luke records Zechariah’s blessing upon the birth of John, who would later be known as John the Baptist:

⁷⁶And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,… to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.^[1]

When Jesus was born and the heavenly host appeared to the shepherds in the nearby fields, they heard this familiar pronouncement: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”^[2] Eight days later, Simeon speaks these precious words of blessing when he sees Jesus in the Temple: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. ³⁰For my eyes have seen your salvation.”^[3]

Before we look at the gospel passage, some of you might know your Bible well enough to know Jesus made a negative statement about peace. Yep, that’s right. I’m not going to gloss over that and pretend it’s not there. But I bring it up because it does have a tie-in to our main passage this morning. In Luke 12:49–51, Jesus says this: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”^[4] What did Jesus mean by this? As you read through the gospels and indeed the rest of the New Testament, you find out that Jesus calls us to live radically different lives from the world around us. He expects us to “troublemakers” of a sort for those who trouble us by imposing legalistic requirements on our faith or compelling us to jump through certain hoops that the Bible knows nothing about to supposedly make us feel “saved” and safe from God’s displeasure or wrath.

John seems have a similar mindset in his gospel, as he doesn’t have Jesus saying anything about peace until after the account of the last Supper in his gospel, that is, until he starts preparing his disciples for his crucifixion. As he’s teaching his disciples about the Holy Spirit, he makes this commitment to them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”^[5] The peace he gives will be the peace the disciples need, because he knows they will face persecution after his resurrection, and they will need every ounce of peace and strength Jesus and the Holy Spirit will provide for them.

Now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, let’s look at our gospel passage, Luke 3. The historical data here helps scholars narrow down the time frame of the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry to somewhere between September of AD 27 and October of AD 28. This would mean Jesus and John were in their early 30s. We haven’t seen anything of the adult Jesus yet in Luke’s gospel, nor in the other two gospels that relate the parallel accounts of this story. Luke tells us that John’s ministry to “prepare the way for the Lord” is a fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah 40:3–5.

This quote from Isaiah is where we get the connection to shalom peace described above. Making a “straight path” to the Lord meant that a new way of relating to God was on the horizon. This is the aspect of shalom that implies there will be no more strife about approaching God. The Law and its use by religious leaders had become a hurdle so burdensome that it would be difficult for the average person to feel any sense of security or safety in their salvation. This new way of relating to God, it required a radical symbol of obedience to symbolize the break with the old and adoption of the new way.

That radical break was John preaching in the wilderness “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Now baptism was not a new thing for Jews in that day. Gentiles who wanted to convert to Judaism would submit to a ritual bathing, a “baptism,” that was a memorable representation of their cleansing from their pagan ways. But John insisted that even the Jews needed to baptized as a sign of breaking from the legalistic application of the Law and starting anew on the same footing with the Gentiles. The distinction between Jew and Gentile was being put in the rear-view mirror. All people would come to God on the same terms without any bias.

Now I want to give a caveat here: I’m going to talk about baptism here as it was historically practiced in that day, that is, by immersion. In doing so, I want you to know that this is in no way intended to disparage or diminish the importance and significance of whatever baptism you had by whatever mode. I trust you know me well enough by now that I would never do that to you. I’ve shared my own personal journey with you before, that I was baptized by sprinkling as an infant here in this church and when I got older, I chose to be immersed to have my own personal memory of owning my faith. It’s a personal choice we each must make based on our convictions and our tolerance for getting wet. Having said that, if you’ve never been baptized and decide that’s something you want to do at some point, let’s talk. I’ve got connections.

This baptism, and the repentance that must accompany it according to John’s preaching, is the beginning our source of shalom peace, especially as it relates to our wholeness, purity, and security. The word “baptism” is just an English version of the Greek word, βάπτισμα (baptisma; verb: βαπτίζω baptizō), that drops the final vowel. In other words, there was no attempt to translate the meaning of the word, just to adopt the word itself and expect people to understand its meaning. It derives from a shorter Greek word, βάπτω (baptō), which means “to dip.” That word refers to dipping a finger in water or to the bread dipped in the bowl at the Last Supper. The –isma part of baptisma acts like an intensifier, much like the similar sounding ending added to “forte” (f) “loud” to make “fortissimo” (ff) “very loud” in music notation. So “baptism” in that time meant “immersion,” that is, “a complete dip under water.”

As I said above, then, this immersion is intended to represent a complete break with the past for the Jews and the Gentiles, just like the accompanying repentance was meant to be a complete 180° turnaround in thinking about one’s relationship with God. This was the first step in making peace with God: getting back on the straight and narrow path with him. We see John warning the religious leaders, the “brood of vipers” (cf. Matthew 3:7ff), to repent as well. Even the tax collectors want to be baptized, probably because they’re tired of feeling the stigma from the Jews about having such a career. They’re disgusted with themselves and desire perhaps more than anyone else that clean break with their past.

It’s important to notice here the end result of baptism and repentance as Luke and others describe it: “for the forgiveness of sins.” Many scholars debate whether this means the baptism and repentance are necessary for the forgiveness or if that is simply the recognition of our forgiveness of sin apart from the act itself. We don’t need to debate that here, though,[6] because the important part of that is our sins ARE forgiven. This phrase shows up in several other places in Scripture that are worth noting.

The phrase is found in the parallel passage in Mark 1:4, so no big surprise there. It’s found in Matthew’s account of the Last Supper (26:28) with respect to the cup: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”^[7] Jesus uses the phrase in Luke 24:46–47 when he makes a post-resurrection appearance to his disciples: “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”^[8] Finally, we see it in Acts 2:38, connected with baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, when Peter concludes his Pentecost sermon: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”^[9] The response of the crowd is the birthday of the church!

Now this is a lot of information but let me pull it together here in one paragraph. In communion, we recognize the blood of Jesus would be and has been shed for the forgiveness our sins. John the Baptist says prophetically that our corresponding response to Jesus’s sacrifice should be repentance and baptism. If we read a little farther down in the gospel accounts, we come to the point where Jesus is baptized and we see the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. That sounds very much like the experience of the apostles and those in the upper room in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost, which is why Peter can say to the crowd that after they repent and are baptized, they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist says it more dramatically: “John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize [that is, immerse] you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’”^[10] Finally, in the gospel of John, Jesus lets us know that he’s leaving his peace with us in the person and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The entire gospel story of our salvation and forgiveness is represented by two significant sacraments of the church: our once-in-a-lifetime baptism (or twice for someone like me) and our regular monthly communion. But we also have a daily, or even constant reminder of our salvation with the presence and infilling of the Holy Spirit.

By the time the apostle Paul writes Romans, perhaps within 25 years of the earthly ministry of Jesus, he has processed all this information as well. The first four chapters of Romans represent Paul’s argument about why we need Christ for our salvation and to help us achieve “the obedience of faithfulness” he speaks about. In chapter 5, Paul begins to write about how this impacts the life of the believer in baptism. In 5:1, he writes: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”^[11] Then in chapter 6, he says this about baptism: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”^[12] Baptism, like communion, is another way we encounter the blood of Christ that brings us forgiveness.

In chapter 8, Paul reassures his readers that the roadblocks have been removed, another element of the shalom peace we have with God: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ²because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”^[13] Finally, in chapter 12, Paul reminds us that because of Christ’s sacrifice for us, we can be living sacrifices for him: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.^[14]

God desires to give us peace in abundance, not just in this advent season, but each and every day we walk with him. That peace comes from the blessings he’s bestowed upon us as learn to live out the good works he’s prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). It comes from recognizing the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives to sanctify us and draw us closer to God. It comes from sharing the good news with others who need to hear it or who want to find a church home they’re comfortable in. And it comes from meeting together in sweet fellowship each and every Sunday as we walk in unison as the body of Christ.

May the peace of God go with you today and always. Amen.

^[1] The New International Version. Luke 1:76–77, 79. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] The New International Version. Luke 2:14. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. Luke 2:29–30. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[4] The New International Version. Luke 12:49–51. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[5] The New International Version. John 14:27. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] I have written about this elsewhere in my blog. The Mystery of Immersion (Baptism); Mystery of Immersion (Baptism), Part Two; For the Forgiveness of Sins)

^[7] The New International Version. 2011. Matthew 26:28. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[8] The New International Version. 2011. Luke 24:46–47; see also Isaiah 2:3. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[9] The New International Version. 2011. Acts 2:38. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[10] The New International Version. 2011. Luke 3:16. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[11] The New International Version. 2011. Romans 5:1. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[12] The New International Version. 2011. Romans 6:3–4. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[13] The New International Version. 2011. Romans 8:1–2. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[14] The New International Version. 2011. Romans 12:1. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

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December 7, 2024

Advent Hope (Luke 21:25–36)

I presented this message at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE, on December 1, 2024, the first Sunday in Advent.

Looking for other Advent-themed messages?

What comes to mind when you hear the word “hope”?

If they’re motivated to stay off electronic devices for a while, a young girl might say, “I hope I get an American Girl doll for Christmas,” or a tweenage boy might say “I hope I get a remote-control race car.” The parents might say, “I hope we can pay off our credit cards after Christmas.” In the case of the kids, the “hope” that they might get what they asked for is at its core just a wish, but depending on their relationship with the potential gift givers (or promises made by those potential gift givers), their hope may have a firmer foundation than just a wish.

In the case of the parents, that “hope” becomes more of a pledge or commitment to do the hard work to pay off the cards and not so much winning the lottery, and “hoping” that no other major expenses arise that put a roadblock up against that goal.

For those who face more serious problems than what to get or how to pay for Christmas, their hope may take on a whole new dimension. This is very real in my own family situation right now. When the situation is bigger than you can handle on your own and you have little to no control how such help will come to you, “hope” begins to take on aspects of faith. This is similar to the kind of hope Paul ascribes to Abraham in Romans 4:18 when discussing the promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations even though he was old: “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’”

That hope sustained Abraham and the rest of his descendants not only in the long term, but it sustained him when God had asked him to sacrifice his son at Mount Moriah. He did not hesitate, because he knew, as we find out Hebrews 11 later, God could raise Isaac from the dead if that’s what it took to fulfill the promise.

Now you may find it interesting that the noun for “hope” (ἐλπίς elpis) never appears in the gospels. The verb (ἐλπίζω elpizō) only appears three times: once in an Old Testament quotation (Matthew 12:21) and twice in Luke (23:8; 24:21), once in reference to Herod’s hope that Jesus would perform a miracle in front of him, and the other in the disappointment of the disciples on the road to Emmaus about their hope that the recently crucified Jesus (who was walking with them at the time!) would redeem Israel. In fact the concept of “hope” does not really come to the fore until Paul is converted and begins his evangelistic mission to the Gentiles and writing his own letters to the young churches. Equally surprising is that neither the noun nor the verb is found in the book of Revelation, the book that documents our ultimate victory and fulfillment of our eternal hope.

One way to interpret this, I think, is that because the gospels record the life and events of Jesus the Messiah, the Old Testament hope of his coming was realized. They didn’t have to hope any more because he was there! But Jesus’s death and resurrection put new spin on what Jesus’s ministry on earth was really all about. It wasn’t about overthrowing Rome; it was about showing the Jews how God wants to relate to them. The Jews up to that point thought that his first coming was his only coming, and that would be the establishment of the eternal kingdom. But Jesus’s resurrection was not only for the Jews but for all mankind, and so the new hope, the hope of a resurrection into eternity, was what Christ-followers now had to communicate to the Gentiles AND the Jews. Everyone needed to know the message. The book of Revelation emphasizes the role of the Savior, the Lamb of God, in the last days, so again, that is the story of hope realized.

That is one reason why our NT passage today speaks about the end times. But since we just covered that from Mark’s gospel a couple weeks ago, we’ll simply use that as a jumping-off point to talk about the theme of this first Sunday of Advent: Hope.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” In context, that was referring to Old Testament patriarchs’ trust in the promise that the Messiah would come. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:13 that there are three things that will never pass away: “faith, hope, and love.” The question is, then, what is the eternal nature of this “hope” Paul and the other NT writers speak of? I would suggest that there are three main aspects of this hope:

A more immediate hope for Christ-followers that gives them encouragement and strength to face the day-to-day battles.
A hope for the ministry of the church that the gospel message would spread around the world and especially to the Gentiles.
The hope of our final salvation and transformation into our eternal home in heaven.

Let’s take a look at each of these.

We’ve already hinted at the more immediate hope for believers as Paul described Abraham’s hope and faith in Romans 4 above. We see in Romans 12:12 that Paul wants the believers to “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer,” activities in the here and now. We also see this toward the end of Romans in 15:13 in a sort of “mini benediction”: “¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”^[1] Paul wants them to know the joy and peace of following Jesus in this life so that hope springs eternal in them.

We see in Ephesians 1:18 that Paul is praying they (and you) might know “the hope to which he has called you,” and he goes on to describe that hope in chapters 4 through 6 of that epistle: “just as you were called to one hope when you were called” (4:4b). In the verses immediately following that passage Paul describes the ways in which can live for Christ and live the Christian life to the fullest. Jesus equips us to minister in our own unique ways. He promises that when we do this, we will move on to maturity, learning what it means to put off the old self and to allow Christ to give us a new heart and a new attitude.

Paul even praises the Thessalonians for their exemplary faith and actions: “¹⁹For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?”^[2] The Thessalonians had willingly received and committed themselves to the word of God in spite of the suffering that ensued from their own people. Paul suggests that the Corinthians are in the same boat as the Thessalonians when he says, “⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”^[3]

On the second aspect, the ministry of the church, Paul recounts his own experience as he speaks of the hope he and the people of Israel had been waiting for: “This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me.”^[4] Paul would go on in that testimony to affirm that Jesus had called him to be a minister to the Gentiles so they would know the hope of the gospel. In Peter’s first letter, he says: “¹⁵But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”^[5] He’s giving instruction there to those who are facing persecution, so that those who hold firm to their faith and do this “with gentleness and respect” might win over their haters and bring them into the fold for Christ.

Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 9:10b as well: “Whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.”^[6] Paul is talking here about his work as an apostle in taking the gospel to the Corinthians so that they might know the eternal hope of the gospel. Let’s take a look at this third and final aspect of hope, the hope of eternity in our heavenly reward.

In Acts 23:6, we have what is likely the earliest reference of Paul introducing the word “hope” into our Christian vocabulary in the sense of eternal hope. This happens after his arrest for allegedly disrupting Temple protocol. He’s standing there in front of the Sanhedrin as well as Roman soldiers, and Paul distracts the proceedings by bringing up a subject that causes infighting among the members of the Sanhedrin: “⁶Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.’”^[7] Paul indicates here that the reason for his hope is based on the truth of Jesus’s own resurrection from the dead. Paul had perhaps already written his first letter to the Corinthians at this point, in which he says this about the resurrection: “¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.²⁰But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”^[8]

Paul understood that without the resurrection, there could be no hope of eternal life in heaven. Heaven is a real place, and our new, resurrected bodies will be “spiritual” in the sense that they will be incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). This seems to suggest some unique makeup we can’t completely comprehend. Heaven has streets of gold, so we’ll be walking around. The tree of life will bear fruit each month (Revelation 22:2), so I’m guessing we’ll have something to eat.

Galatians 5:5 says, “⁵For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.”^[9] Paul emphasizes that in 1 Thessalonians 5:8–9: “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. ⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”^[10] God “predestined” that those of us who believe would receive that eternal reward in heaven. Hold firmly to that promise until the end, as Colossians 1:22–23 says: “²²But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—²³if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.”^[11]

Paul says in Romans 15:4 that the Old Testament also points us in this same direction, toward eternity with God in heaven: “⁴For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”^[12]

Titus 2:11–14 has a powerful summary of the three aspects of hope I’ve presented to you today:

¹¹For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ¹²It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ¹⁴who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.^[13]

As we commence with the Advent season, let both remember and share the hope we have in Jesus, not only for our life in the here and now, but in our eternal life in the hereafter. May God bless you and your families and friends this Christmas season. Amen.

^[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. 1 Thessalonians 2:19. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. 2 Corinthians 1:7. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[4] The New International Version. 2011. Acts 26:7 Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[5] The New International Version. 2011. 1 Peter 3:15. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[7] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[8] The New International Version. 2011. 1 Corinthians 15:16-20. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[9] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[10] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[11] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[12] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. (See also Titus 1:2).

^[13] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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May 13, 2024

A Mother’s Courage (Psalm 1; Exodus 2; 1 Samuel 1–2)

Filed under: 1 Samuel,Birth Stories,Courage,Easter,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Luke Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,Prayer,Women in Leadership — Scott Stocking @ 8:41 pm
Tags: 1 Samuel 1-2, Ark = basket, Exodus 2, Exposure, Hannah, Hannah's Magnificat, Luke 1:46-53, Luke 24, Magnificat, Moses's Mother, Mother of Moses, Mother of Samuel, motherhood, תֵּבָה (tē·ḇā(h)

Message preached on May 12, 2024, (Mother’s Day; Ascension Sunday) at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE. Scripture readings for the day were Psalm 1 and Luke 24:44–53 (from Ascension Thursday).

I want to read the first half of Psalm 1 again. As I read those three verses, I’d like you to think about someone you know who might fit that description.

¹Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,

²but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.

³That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.^[1]

One person who fits that bill in my life is my mom, and I’m guessing that might be true for some of you as well. I think I can make a pretty safe bet that some of your kids would say that about each of you as well. You know the sacrifices you’ve made, the labors of love you’ve persevered through, and the happy times you’ve provided to give your children a loving environment in which to grow and thrive. Moms, this day is for you, and this message is for you this morning as well.

I want to look at the courage of three mothers in the Bible who faced some incredibly difficult choices, the mother of Moses; Hannah, the mother of Samuel; and Mary, the mother of Jesus. We don’t have many details about their respective backgrounds or their upbringing, but their stories were important enough to memorialize in Scripture, so they’re worth a closer look.

We read about Moses’s mother in Exodus. Moses’s mother and father were Levites, who after the Exodus would live their lives in service of the Tabernacle and later the Temple. Pharoah had given an order that all the Hebrew newborn boys should be thrown into the Nile, reflecting an ancient, barbaric practice known as “exposure.” Exposure involved abandoning an unwanted child in a remote location and letting the wild animals or nature “take its course.” In Sophocles account of Oedipus Tyrannus, such an abandoned child was maimed intentionally to make them less desirable should they happen to survive or be rescued by a more compassionate soul.

Moses’s mother, of course, was too compassionate and loved her child too much to allow something like that to happen to Moses. Even the Egyptian midwives knew that what they were commanded to do—kill all Hebrew male babies at birth—was morally abhorrent. They conspired to tell Pharaoh that Hebrew women gave birth so quickly they had no time to get to the birthing event. She tried to hide Moses for a few months, but when that became impossible to do, she followed through with Pharoah’s edict, sort of.

She placed Moses in a covered basket coated with tar and pitch so it would float on water. The word for “basket” there is the same word used for Noah’s “Ark,” תֵּבָה (tē·ḇā(h)), so there’s an obvious thematic connection there: God’s deliverance. But Moses’s mother was not interested in seeing her newborn die in the Nile. Moses’s mother knew just where to place the basket so it would float right to the spot where Pharaoh’s daughter would bathe and find him. Moses’s mother took an incredible chance at this point, a chance that one of Pharaoh’s soldier could have found the basket first and killed Moses on the spot; maybe even a chance that the crocodiles, if there were any around, would get to him first.[2] She let her child float down the river, under the watchful eye of Moses’s older sister, until Pharaoh’s daughter would find him. In case you’re wondering, yes, the Nile does have crocodiles, but it’s not clear whether they were common in this part of the Nile. I’m guessing not if it was the royal bathing site.

Most of us know the rest of the story. Pharaoh’s daughter rescued Moses from the river, and Moses’s sister was brave enough to approach her to offer the services of his mother as a wet nurse, so she got paid to do her motherly duty! Moses would eventually grow up to be educated in all the wisdom and knowledge of Egypt, making him the perfect “rebel” to lead his people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses’s mother’s incredible courage to keep him alive against the wishes of a tyrant led the most significant event in early Hebrew history, the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.

From the time of the Exodus and entry into the Promised Land, we jump forward a few hundred years to the end of the period of the Judges. In 1 Samuel, we’re introduced to the family of Elkanah. He is an Ephraimite with two wives: Peninnah and Hannah. Elkanah had children with Peninnah, but Hannah had had no such luck, and in that culture, barrenness was the worst form of shame for a married woman. We learn in the story that Peninnah taunts Hannah relentlessly because she is barren, amplifying the shame Hannah felt. But Elkanah was acutely aware of Hannah’s shame and her desire to have a child, even giving her a double portion of the sacrificial meat after the sacrifice.

At one of these sacrificial meals in Shiloh, Hannah got up and went to pray for a child at “the Lord’s house.” Eli the priest noticed that as she prayed and wept, her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear her voice. He thought she was drunk. Hannah explained that she was in anguish, and it probably didn’t take Eli too long to figure out why, and instead of continuing to chide her for what he thought was a drunken display, he blessed her: “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

We’re not sure of the timeline after that, but it would seem that it happened within the next year, Hannah gave birth to a son and named him “Heard by God,” which in Hebrew is Samuel. Out of her joy, Hannah agreed to dedicate Samuel to the work of the Lord when he was old enough to be weaned, and Eli took him under his wing. Hannah continued to look after Samuel every year, bringing him a new robe at each visit. Hannah was blessed with two more sons and two daughters as well.

Samuel turned out to be a shining light of integrity as a “surrogate” son in the family business of leading in the Tabernacle, especially since Eli’s own two sons were little better than scoundrels. Samuel would be instrumental in the transition from the period where Israel was led by judges to the monarchy and appointment of Saul and then David as kings of Israel. Given the character of most of the judges up through Samuel, it’s difficult to say what would have happened had Samuel, a man after God’s own heart himself, had not come on the scene when Israel went through its transition. We can thank Hannah’s courage and her fervent prayers for the birth and life of Samuel and his faithful work guiding the early monarchs of Israel into its Golden Age.

Hannah’s prayer (1 Samuel 2) after dedicating Samuel to the Lord may sound familiar to some of you. Listen to her prayer and see if doesn’t sound similar to a prayer of another mother who came on the scene about 1,000 years later:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;

in the Lord my horn ^u is lifted high.

My mouth boasts over my enemies,

for I delight in your deliverance.

²“There is no one holy like the Lord;

there is no one besides you;

there is no Rock like our God.

³“Do not keep talking so proudly

or let your mouth speak such arrogance,

for the Lord is a God who knows,

and by him deeds are weighed.

⁴“The bows of the warriors are broken,

but those who stumbled are armed with strength.

⁵Those who were full hire themselves out for food,

but those who were hungry are hungry no more.

She who was barren has borne seven children,

but she who has had many sons pines away.

⁶“The Lord brings death and makes alive;

he brings down to the grave and raises up.

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth;

he humbles and he exalts.

⁸He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

he seats them with princes

and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;

on them he has set the world.

⁹He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,

but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails;

¹⁰ those who oppose the Lord will be broken.

The Most High will thunder from heaven;

the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king

and exalt the horn of his anointed.” ^[3]

Of course, that mother was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her Magnificat that Luke records in chapter 1 seems to pick up on many of the themes Hannah had highlighted in her own prayer.

In spite of their very similar songs of praise to God, they had quite different circumstances in their lives when their firstborns came along. Hannah was in a committed marriage relationship. It’s not clear why she was one of two wives. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say Hannah may have been the wife of one of Elkanah’s brothers who passed away, and through the custom of the Levirate marriage, Elkanah would have been obligated to “marry” his brother’s widow and through that marriage provide an heir for his brother, her late husband. You’ll notice that the story doesn’t make any moral judgments about the arrangement. This could explain Hannah’s earnest and seemingly anxious desire to have a son.

Mary, on the other hand, was most likely too young to have thought of herself as barren, especially since she had not formally tied the knot with Joseph at the time she learns she is pregnant with Jesus. She wasn’t asking God for children when the Gospel writers introduce us to her. In fact, having any children was certainly not “top-of-mind” for her. She is shocked but does not respond with disbelief at God’s promise to her. Even though Joseph shows concern for ending the relationship for both their sakes, so he thinks, to save face, Mary cannot escape the fact that an archangel of the Lord had revealed God’s purpose and promise to her, so she presses forward all the while anticipating what was to come.

We don’t hear anything in the Gospel accounts of Mary and Joseph during Mary’s pregnancy until we get to the birth of Jesus in the stable. Luke picks up the story just as they are headed out from Nazareth to his ancestral home in Bethlehem, even though Mary is obviously in the last month of her pregnancy. She and Joseph persevere through the most unlikely place for a baby to be born: an animal stable instead of their comfortable home back in Nazareth. But that night, the shepherds in the nearby fields found out from a heavenly host that the savior has been born, and they hurry to see him that very night in his humble digs.

But her journey is far from over. Luke tells us Jesus was presented on the eighth day at the temple and receives the two blessings from Anna and Simeon, which must have hit her hard, especially the part about causing the rising and falling of many. Matthew tells us that on the heels of that dedication that “magi” from the East come to worship him and bestow him with gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I’m guessing that gold would have come in handy when God warned them to flee even further from Nazareth, into Egypt, because Herod, like Pharaoh of old, had ordered all babies under two years old to be killed. They were able to return to Nazareth a few years later.

It must have been quite the challenge for Mary to watch Jesus grow up, I mean, he was the son of God. What kind of behavior would you expect from a kid who had all the fulness of deity dwelling in him? We know from the gospel accounts that Mary never seems to be too far away from Jesus throughout his ministry. Of all the people who knew Jesus and associated with him closely, Mary would have been the one to truly understand his mission, especially when he started talking about his impending death. She may not have wanted to understand, but she couldn’t deny that she did, and yet she faced each day with and for him.

Mary is the only one of the three mothers we’ve looked at this morning to see what happens to her son at the end of his life on earth. Yet her incredible sorrow and anguish at witnessing his crucifixion was transformed to inexpressible joy when she encountered him risen from the dead. I’m not sure that Mary would have picked up on Jesus hinting at his own resurrection, even after finding out Jesus had called forth the recently deceased Lazarus from the tomb.

These three mothers, whose sons had significant ministries and a crucial mission for their own times, exemplified the kind of faith and courage that earn them the designation of Psalm 1:3: “She is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever she does prospers.”

Today, let us give thanks to God for the faithfulness of mothers who stood by us and with us as we were growing and maturing. We give thanks to you who are faithful mothers who even today give comfort and encouragement to your adult kids and to your grandkids. And let us give thanks for and encourage younger mothers as they face their own unique challenges in raising the next generation. May the peace and love of God be with you all. Amen.

^[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] It does seem odd that crocodiles aren’t mentioned in this story. Perhaps Pharaoh had a “Croc Patrol” to keep the river clear of them where royalty used it for bathing.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

March 24, 2024

Rigged Trial; Real Redemption (Luke 22:54–62)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Easter,Isaiah,John Gospel of,Lent,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,Passion,Psalms,Resurrection,Spiritual Warfare,Trial of Jesus — Scott Stocking @ 7:16 pm
Tags: Annas, Caiaphas, Crucifixion, Harmonization of trial of Jesus, Isaiah 53:7-8, Luke 22:54-62, Peter's denial, Pilate, Psalm 110:1-4, Sanhedrin, Suffering Servant

I preached this sermon Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024, at Mount View Presbyterian Church.

Click here to save 10% on various Logos Bible Software packages and get five free digital books.

“Lawfare” may be the political “term du jour” but it is hardly a new concept. The first known use of the word has been traced back to 1975, and at the time it referred to actions of an aggressor designed to try to declare military actions against them illegal by using human shields or other uses or misuses of the law to achieve military objectives. It has also been used to describe the attempts of some to question US military actions taken against terrorists, especially after 9/11. In the current climate, it refers to frivolous or unfounded legal action against those who’ve either committed no crime or whose actions did not deserve the level of retribution “the law” has thrown at them.

This doesn’t just affect political candidates or others who go against an “approved” narrative either. Some of you may have heard last week about a woman who was arrested in New York because she changed the locks on the doors of a house she owned to try to get rid of a squatter, someone who had illegally invaded her home and attempted to take possession of it by fraudulent means. The process to eject such people from a home you legally own can take up to two years in some places, and the owner is responsible for spending the money to prosecute the squatter and prove they legitimately own the home, all the while being denied access to their home. “The process is the punishment,” even if you’ve done nothing to deserve it.

As we come to our passage this morning from Luke, Jesus is being arrested after being betrayed by Judas and a violent confrontation in which Peter (at least according to John’s gospel) cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Malchus. Jesus, even while under arrest, reaches out to heal the servant. Peter follows the crowd at a distance to the high priest’s home late that night. Our passage focuses on Peter’s actions outside the residence, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Luke doesn’t give us as much insight into what happened inside the high priest’s home, but other Gospel writers do. It’s there that we see some of the “lawfare” waged against Jesus.

Matthew puts Jesus before the Sanhedrin that evening, while Luke records the concluding element of the all-night trial happening the morning after. The High Priest and the rest of the council sort of back into prophesying that Jesus is the Son of God, especially with Jesus turning the tables on them in Matthew 26:64: “You have said so.” Basically, Jesus is saying that just by them entertaining the possibility that he is the Son of God, they themselves have committed the blasphemy they are accusing Jesus of. In John 11:51, we’re told that the High Priest had unwittingly prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, so he’s again unwittingly confirming Jesus’s true nature and purpose.

Another element of their lawfare was the apparent illegality of the trial. The very judges that condemned Jesus were the same one who bribed Judas to betray him. Technically, they should have been disqualified from judging him. Jewish custom of the day, as recorded in their other writings at the time, forbade capital punishment trials from taking place after sunset. Furthermore, their customs forbade such trials from beginning on the day before the Sabbath, because their custom did have an element of compassion to it in that you couldn’t decide a capital punishment case in one day, and a unanimous verdict was considered possible evidence of conspiracy. Jesus was never given any chance to have an advocate for his defense, either, which was another violation.[1]

All of this was done to fulfill the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53, especially vss. 7–8, which said:

⁷He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished.^[2]

One last thing about the trial of Jesus that night. Jesus quotes the Messianic Psalm 110 about being seated at the right hand of God. Psalm 110 is the most-quoted psalm in the New Testament, especially the first four verses:

¹The Lord says to my lord:

“Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.”

²The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,

“Rule in the midst of your enemies!”

³Your troops will be willing

on your day of battle.

Arrayed in holy splendor,

your young men will come to you

like dew from the morning’s womb. ^j

⁴The Lord has sworn

and will not change his mind:

“You are a priest forever,

in the order of Melchizedek.”^[3]

Psalm 110 was also a popular psalm to discuss among the early church fathers in their writings in the first four centuries of the Christian era as proof of Jesus’s messiahship and, especially as used in later parts of the New Testament, proof of his resurrection. Most Jews were not keen on having the Messiah sit at the right hand of God in heaven. They simply saw that as a reference to the authority of the human descendant of David who would sit on the throne. However, at least one prominent rabbi and his followers did use this passage and another one in Daniel to argue that the Messiah indeed was divine in nature. (For an in-depth study of this passage in relation to its use by early Christian writers, see Ronald Heine’s excellent book Reading the Old Testament With the Ancient Church (Baker, 2007) available from Logos Bible Software if you have an account with them or in ebook format through Christian Book Distributors.)

Now we know that at Jesus’s arrest, the disciples scattered, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy in 13:7: “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” Mark’s account of the arrest has a detail none of the other gospel writers have, that of a young man fleeing naked from the scene of the arrest. Some scholars have suggested that this was Mark himself, the author of that gospel. Even though the gospels say all the disciples scattered, we do know that Peter was able to follow the crowd that had arrested Jesus at a distance, which is where we pick up our main gospel passage this morning.

Now Peter knew from the Last Supper that Jesus had predicted he would deny knowing him three times before the rooster crowed but leave it to bull-headed Peter not to take heed to that, or at least, not to worry about any possible fallout from that. Or maybe it just went right over his head, thinking “Of course I won’t deny him!” The very fact that Jesus predicted that means Jesus knew his trial would be conducted illegally at night. If Jesus had predicted something like that about me, I might have been inclined to go shut myself in a cave somewhere and not speak to or be seen by anyone. But then, wouldn’t that in itself have been a form of denial? Even though Peter was arguably the most well known and the most vocal of the apostles, and thus the most recognizable, he still tried to conceal himself in a crowd outside the high priest’s home.

Sure enough, several in the crowd recognized Peter, first for his appearance and second for his Galilean accent when he protested and denied knowing Jesus. Each time someone called him out as one of Jesus’s followers, the rooster cleared its throat for that fateful crow. Had Peter somehow hoped Jesus’s prediction would be wrong? Or did Peter not realize that roosters always crow around sunrise? I don’t think the crow of the rooster was really a surprise to Peter, though. I believe he knew in his heart his denials, his lack of strength of character to acknowledge that he was a Christ-follower, were piercing his soul and conscience. Two weeks ago, when I spoke on the passage about being ashamed of Christ, I covered this, so I won’t go into again here.

However, I want to look forward a bit to see how Peter came out on the other side of this. Peter apparently had no idea what was going on with the trial of Jesus inside the high priest’s home. If he had been inside the house and had seen how the Sanhedrin was treating him, I wonder if Peter would have spoken up at that point, especially since there was no love lost between the Sanhedrin and the apostles at that point. If two people could have spoken in his defense, the whole thing might have turned out differently. But we know it wasn’t meant to end that way, because as Jesus had been telling his people and as the high priest had predicted, Jesus would have to die for our redemption.

Therein lies the irony of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. A rigged trial ultimately led to our real redemption. Not only was the trial rigged on the Jewish side, but once the Sanhedrin had wrongly convicted Jesus of blasphemy, they knew they couldn’t be the ones to put him to death. Only Rome had the authority to do that. So when they turned him over to Pilate and Herod, did they do so under the charge of blasphemy? Of course not! The Romans didn’t care about their religious disputes. Instead, the Sanhedrin changed the charges to usurpation, that Jesus was claiming to be the king of the Jews. That, they knew, would earn him the death sentence “In the Name of Roman Injustice” (INRI, get it?). The Sanhedrin had to stir up the crowd before Pilate to the point of making him fear a riot in order for Pilate to pronounce the flogging and the death penalty on Jesus, even though the gospels reveal some hesitation on his part to do so.

Jesus was crucified shortly thereafter. The typical method of crucifixion involved breaking the legs of the crucified so they could not push themselves up to breathe, but by the time the guards had gotten around to Jesus, he had already suffocated, according to John’s account (19:31–37). The fact that they only pierced his side but didn’t break his legs[4] was a fulfillment of two prophecies (Psalm 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). The water and blood that flowed from his side was a medical indication that Jesus was in fact dead.

Hebrews 9 gives the ultimate treatise on why blood needed to be shed in order for purification to take place and a covenant to be established. In vs. 19, we’re told that a diluted mixture of the calves’ blood and water was sprinkled on all the people to sanctify them for the new covenant under the Ten Commandments. Verse 22 says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus was the perfect, unblemished lamb of God because he never sinned. Although his body had been thrashed by a cat of nine tails whip, he had no bones broken, so he met the qualifications for the Passover lamb, which happened when God delivered the Jews from slavery in Egypt.

Here’s another connection you may not have considered. In Leviticus, Moses says that certain types of sacrifices, both meat and grain, could be eaten by the priests. When Jesus instituted communion at the last supper, he identified the bread and the wine as his body and blood. When we take communion, that is our way of connecting with the body and blood of Christ, not in the Catholic sense of the elements becoming the body and blood of Christ, but in the sense that we, like the priests, are partaking in the sacrifice first-hand. That’s why we consider communion a “sacrament,” because if we understand its true meaning and the reality behind it, we know that such an act has redemptive power for us. As one Scottish Presbyterian minister in the 18^th century said when a woman who was not a member of his congregation asked if she could take communion, the minister replied, “Tak’ it; it’s for sinners.” There’s a spiritual benefit for each of us when we take communion, especially with a proper understanding of its meaning.

Getting back to Peter: he experienced real redemption in several ways after Christ rose from the dead. Jesus appeared to the disciples the very night of the day he was resurrected, and they all received the same blessing and commission from Jesus. John records his encounter with Jesus at the Sea of Galilee after Peter had apparently returned to the life of a fisherman. He asked Peter three times, once for each denial, if he loved him, and Peter emphatically said he did. Peter would go on a few weeks later to deliver the Pentecost sermon that started it all, the birthday of the church. History (or is it tradition?) has it that Peter was eventually crucified upside down on a cross because he didn’t feel worthy of the same kind of crucifixion Jesus suffered.

As Lent comes to a close this week and we embark upon the Easter season and look forward to our birthday celebration of Pentecost, let us not forget the sacrifice of our savior on the cross, and the provisions he made for us upon his resurrection and in the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. We have a great Savior who has done great things for us, so let us not be ashamed to proclaim his name and his salvation to the world. Amen.

My thoughts are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

[1] See, for example, 10 Reasons Why the Trial of Jesus Was Illegal – Bible Study (crosswalk.com), BibleResearch.org – Twelve Reasons Why Jesus’ Trial Was Illegal, and The Illegal Trial of Christ | Christ.org, accessed 03/22/24.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] The leg bone of the Passover lamb in Exodus was not to be broken either (Ex 12:46).

Postscript: I want to include the study note from Mark 14:53–15:15 from the 2011 version of Zondervan’s NIV Study Bible, because it contains a harmonization of the various Gospel accounts of Jesus’s trials.

Jesus’ trial took place in two stages: a Jewish trial and a Roman trial. By harmonizing the four Gospels, it becomes clear that each trial had three episodes. For the Jewish trial, these were: (1) the preliminary hearing before Annas, the former high priest (reported only in Jn 18:12–14, 19–23); (2) the trial before Caiaphas, the ruling high priest, and the Sanhedrin ([Mk] 14:53–65; see Mt 26:57–68; Lk 22:54–65; Jn 18:24); and (3) the final action of the council, which terminated its all-night session ([Mk] 15:1; see Mt. 27:1; Lk 22:66–71). The three episodes of the Roman trial were: (1) the trial before Pilate (15:2–5; see Mt 27:11–26; Lk 23:1–5; Jn 18:28–19:16); (2) the trial before Herod Antipas (only in Lk 23:6–12); and (3) the trial before Pilate continued and concluded (15:6–15). Since Matthew, Mark, and John give no account of Jesus before Herod Antipas, the trial before Pilate forms a continuous and uninterrupted narrative in these Gospels.

March 13, 2024

How God Loved the World: John 3:14–21; Numbers 21:4–9

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Christology,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Hebrew,John Gospel of,Lent,Numbers,Repentance,Romans,Soteriology,Theophany — Scott Stocking @ 8:41 pm
Tags: "No condemnation", Biblical word for serpent, Condemnation, Jesus and Light, John 3:14-21, John 3:16, Light, Numbers 21:4-9, Promised Land, Romans 8:1-2, Serpents, Snakes in the Bible, Snakes in the wilderness

This message was preached on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B (March 10, 2024), at Mount View Presbyterian Church. Text is lightly edited for publication.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I’ve now added an e-mail option to the blog so you can contact me directly. scott.stocking@sundaymorninggreekblog.com.

“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” I think most of us remember that classic line from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana, Sallah, and several workers have just opened up the roof of a long-buried crypt that was home to the Ark of the Covenant to reveal a “moving floor” about 30 feet below them. Indiana drops a torch down to reveal why the floor was moving: thousands of snakes. Of course, the best line in the movie comes right after that, though, delivered by John Rhys-Davies: “Asps, very dangerous. You go first.”

The Israelites must have had a similar response to Moses and to God when they had finally pushed God to his limit with all their complaining in their 40-year wilderness journey. The story is told in Numbers 21:4–9. They were impatient; they didn’t have any “real” bread; no water; and they hated what God had provided for them. Basically two million disgruntled souls who were trying to rough it out, knowing in their hearts they had to keep going for their children, because they had already lost their shot at dwelling in the Promised Land. God sent a bunch of poisonous, or “fiery” snakes to bite them. Some of them died, but the people pleaded with Moses and with God to save them from yet another judgment for their disbelief and unfaithfulness.

God told Moses to fashion what in Hebrew is called a saraph (שָׂרָף śārāp̄), a bronze serpent that itself must have had a fiery appearance in the desert sun, and put it on a pole so the Israelites who were bitten could look upon it and live. However, it did nothing for those who had already died. This bronze serpent was not an idol originally but rather something akin to a sign of judgment on the Israelites. It couldn’t save them from the pain of being bitten by the snakes, but it would save them from the poison that had entered their bodies. Something else was absorbing the fatal penalty of their disbelief. It’s a bit of a mystery why the word for the winged angels, or seraphim, of Isaiah 6 is also translated snake or serpent elsewhere. Regardless of the specifics of what it looked like, it must have fostered some measure of fear among the Israelites. “You can look at the scary bronze snake, or you can die from the real ones.”

As we read in our gospel passage this morning from John 3:14 and following, Jesus uses this story as a comparison to his own ultimate purpose for his incarnation. Even at the very beginning of the gospel, we get a preview of Jesus’s crucifixion and death even as Jesus has just finished speaking to Nicodemus about being “born again.” Jesus would be lifted up, but not as a king on a throne, a powerful warhorse, or carried on litter, but as a crucified savior on the cross. Look at the frightening image of what our own “poison,” our sin, has done to him and believe in God’s ultimate salvation, or walk away thinking it’s all over with and the cause is lost. Fortunately for us, the disciples did not choose the latter course of action.

This brings us to one of the most beloved and well-known verses of the Bible, John 3:16. “¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”^[1] Most Bible translations put this paragraph from verses 16–21 on Jesus’s lips, but the NIV seems to think this verse and what follows is commentary added by John as he writes the gospel story. That’s a moot point, however, because regardless of who said it, it’s still true, right? Nevertheless, it seems to make sense to put these words in Jesus’s mouth, given he says some very similar things later in this gospel.

We can break verses 16–21 into two distinct sections. Verses 16–18 speak of “condemnation,” or the “perish” part of vs. 16. Verses 19–21 hearken back to the opening verses of John’s gospel by saying Jesus is the light. Let’s look at the condemnation section first and the conditions around that.

Notice first that Jesus says God’s purpose is that those who believe in him will inherit eternal life. This would have stuck in the craw of the Sadducees because a consequence of not believing in the resurrection was not believing in eternal life in God’s kingdom. Of course, this early on, the Jews may not have fully grasped that concept yet since many were expecting a physical kingdom and the overthrow of Rome. Eternal life is the opposite of “perish.” “Perish” at least refers to a spiritual death of sorts here, but it may also include physical death and perhaps even one’s own “extinction.” Jesus seems to have said this a slightly different way in Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”^[2]

Jesus also affirms the negative of this is NOT true, that is, it was NOT God’s purpose to have Jesus condemn the world, as such condemnation would lead to death. Only God the Father does the condemning. Although Jesus would have his fiery moments with the often times smug religious leaders of his day, his ultimate purpose was to get people to see a more excellent way, that of loving one another.

Jesus also says that people must “believe” or “have faith” in him. To some, that may sound like a simple mental assent to acknowledge Jesus as Savior. But the Greek word for believe (πιστεύω pisteuō) implies much more than that. It’s not just head knowledge, but heartfelt action as well. Another well-known passage from Romans 8:1–2 puts it this way: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ²because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”^[3] The “therefore” in Romans 8:1 refers to the arguments Paul has put forth in the first seven chapters of Romans, where Paul speaks of counting ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11), about the significance of our baptism (6:1–10), and about how our suffering for the sake of righteousness produces perseverance, character, and hope (5:3–5), among other things, all of which are demonstrated in the way we live our lives. Notice also how Paul describes Jesus’s role in all this in 5:15: “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.”

We also see this in Hebrews 5:11–6:12, where the author says the new believers can’t keep living on baby food. They’re in danger of falling away if they don’t grow their faith and do the hard things and the necessary things that lead to maturity. It’s spiritual “adulting.” Ephesians 2:8–10 says we’re saved by grace because we are God’s workmanship, created to walk in the good works he’s prepared in advance for us to do. Jesus’s half-brother James says faith without works is dead and useless (2:20). The works don’t save you, but they demonstrate your faith. The more you practice that, the stronger your faith becomes and the less likely you’ll fall away.

Those who have a strong, active faith don’t need to fear condemnation, then, as Jesus says in 3:18. On the flip side, if you know you’re not doing much to grow your faith, those seeds of doubt and condemnation can start to take root and grow. Consider this: those who have been called by God are partners with God in showing his love. Jesus brings this home in the last three verses of our passage today when he says, “This is the judgment.” By judgment, he means here is the standard by which you will be judged. Let’s see what that standard is.

The standard, of course, is Light, or more appropriately, the Light of the world, Jesus, and his message. Jesus uses the word light (φῶς phōs) five times in verses 19–21. This hearkens back to the opening of John’s gospel, where John describes Jesus in verse 9 as “The true light that gives light to everyone.” In the first nine verses of John’s gospel, John uses the word light six times. The word is found 12 more times from chapters 5 through 12, with half of those occurrences at the end of chapter 12. But starting in chapter 13, where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, neither John nor Jesus ever mention the word light again in the remainder of his Gospel.

In the three chapters of John where the word light is used the most, we do see Jesus repeating John’s opening words in chapter 1 and his own words from chapter 3, no doubt for emphasis. Listen to the similar language from the three chapters, and you’ll pick up on why John stops using the word light after chapter 12 (all passages from NIV):

John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 1:9: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

John 3:19: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

John 3:21: “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

John 12:35: “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.”

John 12:36: “Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”

In those last two verses from John 12 I just read, Jesus emphasizes to his disciples to take advantage of every moment they have left with Jesus as he approaches his trial and crucifixion. By this point, it seems the disciples are starting to have some sense of what is about to happen, but they’re still in a fog about it. They do and will have the light, but there is no way they can anticipate the gut wrench from the events about to unfold among them.

Jesus’s final mention of light comes in John 12 46–47, and this is a fitting verse to wrap up this message, because Jesus repeats what he said about him self in our passage this morning.

⁴⁶“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

⁴⁷“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.^[4]

Even though Jesus did not come to judge, I know it must have broken his human heart each time someone rejected his message. Jesus came to show God’s love and compassion to those oppressed under a strict religious legalism. But he also was not afraid to say and do the hard things to confront evil among his people and in the world around him. He knew he couldn’t give people hope if he also didn’t break the old order and establish a new kingdom in the hearts of his followers. As we approach Easter, let us be lights in this world of darkness to draw people to the hope of Jesus. Amen.

^[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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February 29, 2024

How to Not Be Ashamed of Jesus (Mark 8:31–38)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Courage,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Lent,Life of Christ,Mark Gospel of,Passion,Psalms,Repentance,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 10:47 pm
Tags: ashamed, bible, christianity, encouragement, encouragement in trials, epaischynomai, Ephesians 3:20, faith, jesus, Judas's betrayal, Mark 8:31-38, not ashamed, Peter's denial, Psalm 22, shame vs. strength

Message preached second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024, at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE.

Think for a moment about the things people give up for Lent: Chocolate, coffee or other caffeinated beverages, maybe adult beverages, or something that might take more discipline like trading in turf for surf on Fridays or not watching TV. But should Lent really be about giving up things that maybe aren’t so good for us physically or spiritually anyway? Why not instead give up those things that distract us from our commitment to Christ? For those not familiar with the seasons of the church calendar, it may be best to first answer the question, “What is Lent?”

The word Lent itself simply means springtime. For those of us in the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, that seems like a funny thing to call it, because it starts in the dead of winter, anywhere from the middle of February through first week of March, typically. But it does end just before Easter, or Resurrection Sunday as some call it, so that is springtime for us.

Because it typically starts in the dead of winter, the acts of denial typically associated with Lent may not have been a deliberate choice in the early and formative years of church polity. Winters were probably pretty harsh for some. But the fact that Lent looked forward to a time of emerging from the darkness and coldness of winter into the light and life of spring was certainly a means of hope and a renewed sense of purpose. But it wasn’t just a meteorological hope: Lent as a religious holiday always looks forward to the eternal hope we have because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As we come to our passage today, we see Jesus is beginning to experience some frustration with his closest followers. Peter has just made the good confession that Jesus is the Messiah when the other apostles couldn’t figure that out. Up to this time, the disciples had been holding out the hope that Jesus would finally be the political leader the Jews had been expecting to come throw off the chains of Rome and allow them to live as a free people again. But Jesus knew he had to set them straight on just what his kingdom was going to be like. He knew freedom was coming, but it wouldn’t necessarily be from Roman rule. He knew blood must shed, but it wouldn’t be the blood of Romans. He was looking for a kingdom that would not be limited by a geographical region because it would rise up in the hearts and souls of his followers. But just because this kingdom wouldn’t come by war doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be difficult.

This is why Jesus starts teaching his disciples and followers about his upcoming suffering. He wants his disciples to be ready as well, as they will not be immune to suffering and persecution. Peter, ever the fireball, rebukes Jesus for talking about suffering and rejection. After all, Peter thought Jesus would use his divine power to take care of Rome once and for all. Yet Jesus rebukes Peter harshly for thinking like this: “Get behind me, Satan!” O you of little faith. When James and John ask if they can sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, that must have broken his heart as well. Even Judas, we’re told, is “helping himself” to the group’s funds at this point, presumably thinking he might be the minister of finance in the kingdom he thought was coming. Jesus was realizing their human frailty didn’t allow them yet to see what kind of kingdom he would raise up.

What’s interesting about v. 31–32 in our gospel passage this morning is that, when Jesus talks about what he must suffer and at whose hands he must suffer, never once does Jesus mention Rome. Jesus said he would suffer at the hands of the religious leaders of his day, not at the hands of Rome. Did you ever notice that little detail? Apparently the disciples didn’t notice that little detail either when he said it, because they went on thinking the kingdom would be all about confronting Rome. That’s why Jesus must tell them two or three times about his suffering and death in the last half of the gospel accounts.

So what can Jesus do about it at this point? The Jews were not expecting a suffering Messiah, so they weren’t even paying attention to the suffering Messiah psalms or prophecies. We read the last part of Psalm 22 this morning, which is quite upbeat compared to the first part of that Psalm whose verses detail many aspects about what happened to Christ on the cross. The truth is, Jesus knew he must begin to explain more in detail about what he himself would be facing, “the baptism with which Jesus will be baptized with,” and for that matter, what John and James and the rest of the disciples would be facing.

For whatever reason, the Lent passages are a little out of order. A couple weeks ago was “Transfiguation Sunday,” and the Scripture for that Sunday was the gospel text immediately following today’s passage, Mark 9. Apart from Jesus’s words and teaching in the last part of Mark 8, the Transfiguration event should have been the first clue to Peter, James, and John that Jesus’s coming kingdom was not going to be one of this world. It would in fact be a very different kingdom and look nothing like any kingdom ever before seen on earth.

Notice after Jesus finishes rebuking Peter, the very next thing Mark records Jesus saying is that his disciples must take up their cross and follow him. The question is, how would the disciples have understood the “taking up the cross” reference if they hadn’t yet seen Jesus crucified? They knew that the cross was an instrument of Roman torture and punishment, so Jesus’s mention of it must have been somewhat concerning to them if not frightening.

His words get more concerning as he goes on. It’s not enough for one to take up their own cross, but then he starts talking about “losing” your life or your very being. The contradiction of what he was saying must have been mind blowing. If they want to keep their current life, they’ll actually wind up losing it. But if they give up their current life in favor of following Christ and proclaiming his gospel, they’ll actually find out who they truly can be in Christ and what is God’s purpose for their life.

He begins to cut at the heart of the disciples’ misleading conception that they would be “gaining the world” by following Christ, gaining positions of influence and power in an earthly kingdom. What good is it to get all that power if you forfeit who you are and what God wants of your life? O, that many of our politicians would learn that lesson, right? How much is your soul, your very being worth if you would cast it aside for earthly gain, especially when you hold that up against the value that God places on your soul?

Jesus minces no words as he closes out his teaching. It’s time to take sides. If you’re ashamed of Jesus, Jesus honors that and won’t invite you to hang out with him anymore. You won’t have to worry about being seen with someone you’re ashamed of. Is that what you want? On the other hand, if you’re “at home” with Jesus and not afraid to be identified as one of his followers, then you’ll get to join him in the eternal home prepared for you.

Before addressing the positive elements of this passage, I want to wrestle with one question about the negative element: What does it mean to be ashamed of Jesus? The concept in the Bible suggests that being “ashamed” of something is the opposite of being confident you’ve done something right or good and taking a sense of inner pride in that. Being ashamed is more akin to being disgraced, that is, wanting to hide your face from others for whatever it is you’re doing, whether it is a sinful act that deserves shame or a cowardly attitude that causes you to either not take action when you should or even worse, to outright deny the value of something. Additionally, the root of the word is also the root for the concept of strength or power in the New Testament, but for the meaning “ashamed,” the negative prefix is added ἐπαισχύνομαι (epaischynomai)[1]. So there is an underlying nuance of not having or losing strength or power when your ashamed of good things. However, the shame we experience when doing something wrong is meant to motivate us to strengthen our resolve and our character so we have the power to do better the next time.

I know I’m jumping ahead a bit in the biblical timeline, but we have two appropriate examples of shame we can point to, especially in the events surrounding the crucifixion. Perhaps you’ve probably already made the connection to Peter’s actions outside the high priest’s residence at the illegal trial of Jesus the night before his crucifixion. Not once, not twice, but three times Peter denies knowing Jesus. Those were acts of cowardice on his part, but I’ll give him credit for at least showing up there. Where were the rest of the disciples after Jesus’s arrest?

The other example that perhaps you haven’t considered as an act of being ashamed of Jesus would be Judas’s betrayal. As I said above, Judas and the other disciples were expecting an earthly kingdom. Judas seems to have become disillusioned with the direction Jesus’s teaching and ministry had taken and was ashamed that things seemed to be falling apart from a worldly perspective. Perhaps he thought that getting Jesus arrested would be just the catalyst needed to start a revolt or rebellion that would cast off Roman rule once and for all. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t yet grasped that there was a more eternal, spiritual kingdom on the way. When what he had hoped for didn’t pan out, his own shame was so great that he went out and hanged himself. He lost any shot at redemption at that point.

Peter, it seems, gave up at the point of his denials, but fortunately for the early church and the rest of us today, he didn’t follow in Judas’s footsteps. A few days after the resurrection, Peter received forgiveness when Jesus asked him not once, not twice, but three times if Peter loved him. It was as if each yes answer Peter gave undid each of his denials at Jesus’s trial.

How can we today show that we’re not ashamed of Jesus? The most obvious thing is keep sharing the good news of Jesus. As long as this congregation is doing the work God is calling and gifting you to do, you have no reason to be ashamed about any aspect of the ministry of this church. Don’t even be ashamed of the size of your congregation. Where two or three are gathered in Jesus’s name, he’s here in our midst. Don’t be discouraged. I also want to encourage you NOT to think that this church will inevitably close its doors. God works in mysterious ways, and he can bring life to places in ways we never imagined.

The Gospel of John has a slightly different version of this passage. It’s not strictly a parallel passage, but it does involve Jesus predicting his death and has the piece in it about losing your life for the sake of eternal reward. Listen to the words of Jesus John records for us:

²³Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.^[2]

Now of course, in this passage, Jesus is referring to himself as the seed. But if we are in Christ, we also can be the seeds that produce a whole new crop. So I would encourage you not to think of Mount View Presbyterian in terms of it being in its twilight. Think of this church as a seed that is planted here in the neighborhood of 52^nd & Hartman, where you have several grade schools within a three-mile radius. I would encourage you to look beyond yourselves and see what possibilities lie ahead, because God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us (Ephesians 3:20). We may not see it ourselves, but I truly believe God has a long-term vision and plan for this congregation in this location.

Need more encouragement? I told you a few weeks ago in the parlor about how I’ve been recording my messages and putting them on my blog page. Well, I found out I underestimated how much impact that is having, apparently around the world. Last year, my messages were downloaded over 2,000 times by I don’t know how many people. Just so you understand how that works, someone has to send out a link to the message file on my blog, and others have to intentionally click the link to pull it up on their computer or phone and listen to it. Already this year, there have been an additional 400 downloads of these sermon files. As I said a few weeks ago, I always put on the text version of the file that I’ve preached the sermon here at Mount View.

Unfortunately, I have no idea where these people are who are downloading and listening to these sermons. But am I crazy to think that maybe someday someone might show up at our doors who says, “Hey, I thought I’d check out your church because I heard one of your messages on the Internet”? Regardless of the long-term outcome, know that people all over the world are hearing the word of God in messages preached from this pulpit. Last year alone, people from over 160 countries read at least one article or listened to at least one sermon on my blog. I don’t say this to brag about me. All I do is post the files on the Internet. I don’t do any significant promotion. This all happens by word of mouth and the power of God in fulfillment of his promise that his word never returns void. This has been a God thing through and through, and I pray that this congregation will reap the reward from that.

So I leave you with this: Do not be ashamed of your congregation, because you are the body of Christ, placed here for his purposes. Do not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation. And do not be ashamed of Jesus, who has given us life and hope in his kingdom, both now and for eternity. Amen.

^[1] Swanson, James. 1997. In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc. Accessed February 29, 2024, from the software. The word used here has an intensifying prefix (ἐπ’) before the more common word for “ashamed.” The root of the word appears to be *ἰσχύ, which means “to be strong, capable.” The negative prefix alpha is added to the beginning of the root and after the intensifying prefix. The complete concept of the word “ashamed” in context, then, is akin to a complete absence of strength of character to stand for one’s convictions.

^[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My thoughts and ideas are my own, and I have given credit where credit is due.

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Sunday Morning Greek Blog

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How God Loved the World: John 3:14–21; Numbers 21:4–9

February 29, 2024

How to Not Be Ashamed of Jesus (Mark 8:31–38)

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