Sunday Morning Greek Blog

August 25, 2024

Courage for the Battle (John 6:56–69; Ephesians 6:10–20)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Courage,Ecclesiology,Ephesians,Evangelism,Greek,Isaiah,Jeremiah,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Miracles,Prayer,Psalms,Spiritual Warfare,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 6:31 pm
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Historical Note: Preached at Mount View Presbyterian Church on August 25, 2024, Omaha, NE.

Related Articles:

I Am the Bread of Life

Take Heart! (θαρσέω tharseō, Matthew 9:2, 22)

Helmet of Salvation (Isaiah 59:17; Ephesians 6:17)

Spiritual Warfare in Ephesians

When I was here last month, I spoke about the feeding of the 5,000, one of the seven miracles that John records Jesus performed during his ministry to go along with the seven foundational “I am” statements that Jesus makes about himself. It is interesting that another one of those seven miracles, Jesus walking on water, which apparently has nothing to do with bread, interrupts John’s account of the miraculous provision of bread at the beginning of John 6 and Jesus’s testimony “I am the bread of life” and what that means for his followers.

There are some “clues,” let’s call them, in John 6 that I want to highlight, because they will be important when we look at the other New Testament reading from the lectionary this morning, Ephesians 6, in a few minutes. The highlight of Jesus’s walking on water, which appears in three of the four gospels, is not Peter getting out of the boat and walking on water himself to Jesus, which only Matthew records, but Jesus’s own comforting words to his frightened disciples as they see him walking across the stormy sea: “Take Heart!” “Take Courage!” “I am. Don’t be afraid!”

This is the second time in John’s gospel where Jesus declares “I am.” The first was with the woman at the well in John 4, his first formal declaration (at least in John’s gospel) of who he is. In that context, that simple declaration, that he was the Messiah, brought incredible freedom to a woman who was haunted by and ashamed of her own past, which in turn gave her the courage to run back to her village and declare that she had indeed discovered the Messiah.

There is no doubt that Peter experienced that same kind of freedom when Christ reached out to him and saved him from his lack of faith as he began to sink into the stormy sea, perhaps a type of what Paul would later say about baptism in Romans 6, that the old man is buried and the new is raised up in the life of Jesus.

This leads into the context of the Gospel passage today. Jesus begins to discuss what it is the disciples are really looking for: food that endures to eternal life. In other words, just as Jesus walking on the water was a supernatural miracle; just as Jesus’s knowledge of the history of the woman at the well was supernatural, so too will our relationship with him have a supernatural quality. In 6:35, Jesus makes the first of his seven foundational “I am” statements that describe who he is: “I am the bread of life,” and he begins to “flesh” that out, some might say literally, as he continues to teach his disciples the significance of that statement.

He connects that statement with the miraculous provision of manna in the desert while the Jews were wandering in the wilderness (v. 41): “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” He is the one who will sustain us if we “feast” on him. He drills down even deeper (v. 51): “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” The manna sustained them for day. Jesus, as the bread of life, sustains us eternally, something he demonstrated in the feeding of the 5,000. Now I think we all understand that when Jesus starts to sound a bit like a cannibal here, we understand he’s speaking figuratively of himself. He is eternal; therefore he’ll never dry up; he won’t melt away with the morning dew when the heat of the day beats down on the wilderness. He’ll keep providing continuously.

It’s pretty obvious at this point that Jesus is setting the stage for the Last Supper, which is only a few chapters later in John’s gospel. At that supper, Jesus will take the bread and say, “This is my body.” He’ll take the cup and say, “This is my blood.” That’s the zero hour. The next day, day one if you will, Jesus will have his body beaten and shredded with a cat-of-nine-tails before being hung on a cross and crucified for our sins. On the third day, he rises again and fulfills what he said in John 6: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” He can say this because of the resurrection.

Now a few weeks ago when I took a quick look at the passages for today in the lectionary, I saw this passage and the Ephesians 6 passage. I knew immediately I wanted to preach on Ephesians 6, because that’s my favorite book in the Bible. At first glance, it was difficult to see an immediate connection between these two passages. But as I started to write out my thoughts and analysis of the gospel passage, I began to see more clearly what the connection was, and it comes from Jesus’s words as he walked on the stormy sea: “Take Heart!” It’s easy to say that, but Ephesians 6:10–20 puts meat on the bones of those encouraging words. Listen to the words of Paul:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. [In other words, “Take Heart!”] 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. [1]

The world around us is pretty crazy right now. Almost like being in a ship that’s getting tossed around by the waves. But the living bread who came down from heaven has granted us power and authority “in the heavenly realms” to “stand” (Paul says this four times) and stand firm in the power of God that dwells in us by virtue of the Holy Spirit. Peter warns us that “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith.”[2] As we break this down, we’ll see that the armor of God is the armor that God is said to “wear” (as if he needs to wear any) in the Old Testament. It’s not a copy; it’s the armor that belongs to God.

So here we go. The first piece mentioned is the belt of truth. Isaiah says of God in 11:5, “5 Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.”[3] The primary use of the belt in the Old Testament was for holding up your tunic or robe so you could run into battle or run to get help. Having the belt of truth around our waist helps us move more efficiently in the battle. Since they didn’t have “pants” in the OT, we could make the analogy in today’s world that without the belt of truth, some of us might get caught with our pants down!

Jeremiah speaks of a linen belt that God told him to buy in chapter 13 of his prophecy. At first he wears it around his waist as a belt should be worn, and God commands that it should never touch water. But a few days later, God tells him to take the belt and hide it in the crevice in the rocks near the Euphrates river. Several days later, God told him to go dig it up, but by that time, the linen belt was ruined and good for nothing. We’ve been given God’s truth in his word, the Bible, and if we neglect it, if we fail to “gird up our loins” with it, if we fail to proclaim it when we know we should, it has no value to us. Just as God’s truth holds this world and this universe together, so his word in our lives through the Holy Spirit holds us together and helps us to stand firm.

Let’s look at the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation together, because Isaiah speaks of both in the same verse in chapter 59 of his prophecy, a chapter about sin, confession, and redemption, but also about the justice of God, which was so rarely practiced in his day. Hear his words beginning in the last half of vs. 15:

The Lord looked and was displeased

that there was no justice.

16 He saw that there was no one,

he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;

so his own arm achieved salvation for him,

and his own righteousness sustained him.

17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate,

and the helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on the garments of vengeance

and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. [4]

This passage is the transition that Isaiah makes from talking about our life on earth to revealing to his readers what the future will look like from chapter 60 on. The language in those last seven chapters of Isaiah at times reminds us of the Book of Revelation, almost as if John had copied sections verbatim into that final book in the Bible. It’s important to note in this context, God is ready to go on the offense.

The breastplate and the helmet are arguably the two most important pieces of the soldier’s protective gear, because they protect the heart and the head, respectively. The heart is the vault of God’s truth in our spirits; the head is where we experience and recognize God’s presence in our lives and distinguish evil from good. We use our minds to speak God’s healing and encouraging words and to cry out for justice. We use our hearts to love and show compassion for the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden.

You will also notice that Paul mentions “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” in conjunction with the helmet at the end of the description of the heavenly armor. The helmet no doubt has its defensive function, but it, along with the rest of God’s armor, give us the confidence to advance against the gates of hell that Jesus promised would not be able to withstand God’s army of faithful followers (Matthew 16:18). The sword looks back to Isaiah 49:2, where the prophet says, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me.” Hide his word in your heart so that when times of trouble come, you can recall it with ease.

Finally, we look at the shoes and the shield. The one who had to gird up his loins and run to spread the news of victory needed a good pair of shoes to make the difficult run to spread good news or to call for more help. Isaiah 52:7 puts it best: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.”

The shield of faith is the final piece of armor to look at. A Roman shield typically had a leather cover, and the soldier would soak it in water for the express purpose having some defense against real flaming arrows the enemy would use to attack. But the shield also had an offensive purpose as well in that if the Roman soldiers stood side-by-side with their shields touching, it made a nearly impenetrable moving wall that could push the enemy back or circle and surround them. Psalm 91, the one about God being our refuge and fortress, says that God’s “faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (vs. 4).

In the final part of the Ephesians text, Paul uses a “pray” word five times. It’s as if Paul is saying that everything he’s just been encouraging his readers to do in the last three chapters must be undergird with prayer. A few weeks ago, the pastor at my home church had a pretty convicting message about prayer, and it really got to me, especially with all the family stuff we’ve had going on lately. I needed to be more intentional with my prayer life. Needless to say, it’s been amazing. I can’t go into detail, but I started with some small stuff, at least it seemed small to me, but I started to see answers, mostly positive answers, happening more frequently. Prayer connects us to the “heavenly realms” where the spiritual battle is being fought. When we fight on our knees, or for those of us with bad knees, in whatever position, by asking God to meet our needs and heal our loved ones and give hope to the lost, God moves mightily.

So let me close with a prayer for Mount View this morning, because that’s what ties all this together. Lord, open our hearts to welcome those who are seeking hope and healing in this world and the next; open our hands to be a giving and generous congregation that demonstrates the love of God in our service to others; and open the eyes of those around us to see how mightily you are moving in this congregation and in the lives of the faithful who call this home. In Jesus’s name, 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.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

June 30, 2024

Touch of the Master (Mark 5:21–43)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Courage,Faith, Faithfulness,Life of Christ,Mark Gospel of,Miracles,Old Testament,Prophet,Psalms — Scott Stocking @ 3:49 pm
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I think we can all agree that there is great benefit to power of human touch, from the time we’re in our mother’s womb to the day of our death. Scientists know, for example, that a newborn benefits almost immediately from touch. A Psychology Today article summarized one study this way: “Skin-to-skin contact in even in the first hour after birth has been shown to help regulate newborns’ temperature, heart rate, and breathing, and decreases crying” (Ferber, Feldman, & Makhoul, 2008). Another study of Romanian orphans in an understaffed orphanage found that the children that experienced less touch had trouble with physical growth and development. Even having a pet can play a significant role in our need for touch.

A quick search in an artificial intelligence search engine created the following list of benefits from physical contact:

Human touch has the power to12345:

  • Signal safety and trust, and it can be soothing.
  • Calm cardiovascular stress.
  • Activate the body’s vagus nerve, which is intimately involved with our compassionate response.
  • Trigger release of intimacy hormones.
  • Support physical, emotional, and mental health.
  • Increase happiness and longevity.
  • Nurture relationships and overall well-being.
  • Lower blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone.

From a simple handshake to the more involved “secret society” handshakes, from a fist bump to a pat on the back, from the encouraging side-hug to a full-on hug, from a simple kiss to, well, you know, and even the gentle rough-housing we do with our kids when they’re younger, human touch has the power to affirm, assure, comfort, encourage, empower, gladden, guide, and strengthen us throughout our lives.

When we look at the idea of “touch” in Scripture, we get two very different pictures of the word in the Old and New Testaments. In the OT, more than half the uses of the main word used for “touch” are found in Leviticus and Numbers and are used in the negative, that is, God or the writer prohibits people from touching something that will make them unclean or that is unholy, primarily a dead animal or person. We do have a few positive examples of “touch” in the OT, so I want to highlight those briefly, because they will tie into our main gospel passage this morning.

Here’s an interesting example from 2 Kings 13:21: “Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.”[1] Even touching the bones of a dead holy man was enough to bring someone back to life! It makes you wonder what those who had to carry Jesus’s body from the cross to the tomb must have felt touching his body. Things that make you go “Hmmmm.”

Isaiah is “commissioned” to be a prophet in chapter 6 verse 7 of his book by an angel touching his lips with a burning coal, saying, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Jeremiah (1:9) didn’t need a burning coal, evidently, as he says, “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now, I have put my words in your mouth.’”

Daniel describes three different “touches” he received during one of his visions (vv. 10, 16, 18)

“A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.”

“Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak.”

“Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength.”

Daniel experiences the whole range of human emotions in a few short verses all because of the touch of a powerful angel or likely the preincarnate Christ himself.

Our psalm reading this morning, Psalm 130, doesn’t use the word “touch,” but you can hear the longing to have the Lord draw near to them, as is evident by the psalmist alternating between the personal name of the Lord (Yahweh) and the kingly title “Lord” (Adonai). They want the Lord “near” them so they know he hears them; they want the touch of forgiveness that Isaiah received; their whole being desperately waits for him to appear and confirm their hope in him.

Now the New Testament has quite a different focus for the word “touch.” In the Gospels you can count on one hand the number of times the word touch is NOT used to refer to a healing or to someone being raised from the dead. The prominent use of the word is in the gospels in the context of Jesus healing someone or raising them from the dead. It’s not just a spiritual reality of forgiveness or being gifted the ability to speak God’s word. It is an actual, physical reality that people were healed of diseases and brought back to life by the touch of Jesus’s hand or by someone reaching out to touch him.

This brings us to our gospel passage today. This is the dramatic climax of the first section of the gospel of Mark, where we have one story of an imminent resurrection interrupted by another story of a woman who’s been sick for 12 years. Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, we’ve read about several miracles Jesus has already done. Right after this story is when Jesus returns to his hometown and commissions the Twelve to go out and minister with their own power of a healing touch, especially through anointing with oil.

We pick up the story as Jesus is returning from the other side of the lake where he had just released a man who had been possessed by a legion of demons by casting those demons into a herd of pigs. In most cases, that might be a tough miracle to top, but this is Jesus we’re talking about.

Jesus is immediately met by a large crowd, including a synagogue ruler named Jairus. A synagogue ruler was basically an assistant to the rabbi and handled the administrative tasks of running the synagogue and organizing worship and community activities. He would have been quite well-known in the community and generally respected as much as the rabbi himself. Jesus himself may have even interacted with him a few times leading up to this point, which may be why Jesus didn’t hesitate to go with him immediately when Jairus asked him to heal his daughter.

It would not have taken long for the awareness of Jairus’s request and Jesus’s response to spread through the large crowd, and it would seem they all started getting excited about the possibility of another miracle. As such, they began following Jesus to Jairus’s home.

Meanwhile, the woman who had been sick for 12 years finds herself at the right place and the right time to assimilate into the crowd and try to get her hands on Jesus’s robe, because she thought (or knew?) that if she could just touch his cloak, she would be healed. I don’t think she really expected to be able to even talk to Jesus in her condition. She was probably embarrassed and perhaps may have been unclean because of her bleeding, so a large crowd was the perfect place for her to be anonymous.

But God had other plans for this woman. Even with the crowd clamoring around Jesus and the disciples trying to clear the road ahead of him to get to Jairus’s house, Jesus still realized that something unusual had happened to him in the crowd. He felt the healing power of God go out from him, and immediately he stopped. He turned and asked the crazy question, “Who touched me?” even with hundreds of people around him! The woman realized she couldn’t hide any more, and humbly, meekly stepped forward to “confess” what she had done and the result. Jesus declared her healed because of her faith, and by default her willingness to act on her faith and sent her on her way in peace.

Keep in mind that Jairus is with Jesus this whole time, probably worried about this delay and how it might affect his daughter. And sure enough, his worst fears come true. As Jesus is finishing up speaking to the woman, people from Jairus’s household come and tell him his daughter is dead. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” they say.

But Jesus turns to Jairus and reassures him: “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Needing to break away from the crowd, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him to Jairus’s house while leaving the other disciples to handle crowd control. The mourners had already begun their wailing, and they laugh at Jesus when he says the child is not dead but only asleep.

The small group of those who believed what Jesus could and was about to do remained with Jesus and went into the house. I imagine you could have cut the anticipation with a knife. It’s hard to imagine what was going through the minds of the three disciples and the girl’s parents: Is he really doing this? Are they praying? Stunned? How would you have felt if you were there witnessing this?

I’m sure Jesus himself whispered a prayer to his heavenly father when he stretched out his hand to take hers and simply said, “Talitha Koum”; “Little girl, get up!” No fancy prayer. No $20 religious words or flowery mushy language. Just, “Get up!” And she did! I can’t even imagine how I might have felt witnessing something like this. The disciples had seen a lot of miracles to this point, but this one really had to take the cake. Yet in hindsight, we know that this was only halfway through his story. Not only was this done for the benefit of the girl and her family, but this was also the final teaching moment for Jesus’s disciples before he sent them out on their own. They needed solid evidence of Jesus’s power, and they got it in that moment.

The power of the touch of the master is truly an amazing thing in Scripture specifically and in our lives generally. I have to admit that in all my years of preaching, I’ve never looked into this topic in this kind of depth, and I was encouraged and motivated to present this message to you. I know there have been several times in my own life I’ve clearly heard the call of God, felt his hand of comfort on me, and have seen his heavenly servants at work.

Around the time I graduated from high school, Wayne Watson released a song called “The Touch of the Master’s Hand.” It was the adaptation of 1921 poem by Myra Brooks Welch. The song instantly became a favorite of mine. I want to close out with the second verse and chorus of this song this morning. In the first verse, the auctioneer is trying to sell an old, dusty violin and starts the bidding process on the violin, the last item on the block, with a one-dollar bid request. The second verse goes like this:

Well the air was hot and the people stood around

As the sun was setting low,

From the back of the crowd a gray-haired man,

Came forward and picked up the bow,

He wiped the dust from the old violin

Then he tightened up the strings,

Then he played out a melody pure and sweet, sweet as the angels sing,

And then the music stopped and the auctioneer,

With a voice that was quiet and low,

Said what is the bid for this old violin

And he held it up with the bow.

And then he cried out “One give me one thousand,

Who’ll make it two? Only two thousand; who’ll make it three?

Three thousand twice, now that’s a good price,

So who’s gotta bid for me?”

The people called out, “What made the change? We don’t understand.”

Then the auctioneer stopped and he said with a smile,

“It was the touch of the Master’s hand.”

May you be touched by the Master’s hand as you go from here this morning. Amen.

[1] 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
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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:

7 He 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.

8 By 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:

1 The Lord says to my lord:

“Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.”

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

“Rule in the midst of your enemies!”

3 Your 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

4 The 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 18th 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.

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
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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:

23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very 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. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever 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 52nd & 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.

October 29, 2023

Living the Greatest Commandments (Matthew 22:34–46; Leviticus 19:11–18; Psalm 110:1)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Ephesians,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Leviticus,Matthew Gospel of,Passion,Proverbs,Psalms,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 9:00 pm
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Our gospel passage this morning contains the two most-quoted Old Testament verses in the New Testament. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” from Leviticus 19:18 of all places, is quoted directly 10 times, with one other allusion to it, spread across several books in the NT, not just the Gospels.

Psalm 110:1, which Matthew quotes in the second part of our gospel passage this morning, is the second most-quoted OT verse in the NT, with a total of 8 direct quotes of and another 10 allusions to the passage. But it doesn’t end there. Dozens of early Christian writers in the first 300 or so years after the birth of the church referenced the passage as well.

Jesus uses this verse twice in each of the first three gospels. The first occurrence is what we read here this morning, when he’s speaking to the pharisees during his last week before his crucifixion and claiming that he is the Messiah, son of David, that the OT points to; the second occurrence in each Gospel is when he’s defending himself before the Sanhedrin after his arrest and affirms his place as the preexistent Messiah and descendant of David. That was the statement that caused the high priest to tear his robe and accuse Jesus of blasphemy. Outside of the gospels, the NT writers and early church fathers use it to demonstrate his resurrection and appointment to the right hand of God.

You probably also noticed that Psalm 110:1’s popularity among early Christian writers pretty much forced the ecumenical councils of the day to use a form of the verse in their respective creeds; we read it every week here in the last part of the Apostle’s Creed: “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

Jesus knows his day of crucifixion is coming, so he’s essentially pulling out all the stops now as far as letting people know who he is. No more hints or subtle innuendos: by citing Psalm 110:1 about himself, Jesus is making the ultimate claim that he’s the Messiah come to earth. No stone will be left unturned before he breathes his last on the cross for our forgiveness, and one stone will be rolled away when he rises from the dead for our hope of eternity.

So we can have absolute assurance that Jesus is who he says he is: To the Jews, Messiah; to the Greeks, Christ. He’s the son of God, son of Man, son of David, three descriptions of the same person. He’s the one we can put our total and complete faith in, because we know how great his love is for us. And we owe him our very lives, dedicated to living out the hope he’s given us.

This is where we back up and look at the first part of our passage today for the two greatest commandments he’s left to us. Matthew and Mark place these commandments in Jesus’s mouth during the week before his crucifixion, while Luke has them much earlier, so it would seem, as a lead-in to the Good Samaritan parable.

Because these are the greatest commandments, we must of course be careful not to let the familiarity of these verses make them “trite” to us. Many of us recognize that these two greatest commandments come from the Old Testament. The “Love the Lord you God” passage comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, as Moses begins his final sermon on the Ten Commandments, in which we hear the oft-repeated refrain to “be very careful to obey all I have commanded you.”

This particular verse underwent a couple minor tweaks as it came into the New Testament. In the original passage, Moses says “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,” as the NIV translates it. That last phrase about “all your strength” could be translated “all your utmost.” The word translated “strength” there is most commonly translated as “very” or “great/greatly,” so it implies the best of the best of the best, the utmost of the utmost.

In our passage this morning, Matthew changes “strength” to “mind,” which is acceptable given the otherwise generic nature of the original Hebrew. Mark and Luke add “mind” to the original “heart,” “soul,” and “strength” from the Hebrew. Including the word “mind” here is most likely a hat tip to the prolific Greek and Roman philosophers, historians, and statesmen and the knowledge base they had accumulated. That doesn’t mean Jesus agreed with Greek and Roman philosophers, however; it just means he wanted his followers to have some intellectual understanding of how his teachings and way of living were different from theirs.

Now loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is noble indeed, and should be first on the minds of all Christ followers. But then there’s that second greatest command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Unlike the greatest command, which is found at the beginning of Moses’s greatest sermon, the “neighbor” command is tucked away in the middle of one of the most exciting books in the Old Testament: Leviticus, chapter 19, vs. 18.

Leviticus 19 reads very much like the Ten Commandments themselves, at least in the early going. But then beginning in vs. 13, after Moses gives the general command not to defraud or rob your neighbor, he begins to break down what that might look like in his “negative” commands. Listen to some of the context leading up to vs. 18, beginning in vs. 11:

11 Do not steal.

Do not lie.

Do not deceive one another.

12 Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

13 Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

14 Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

15 Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

16 Do not go about spreading slander among your people.

Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.

17 Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.

18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.[1]

So NOT doing these things to your neighbor, I suppose, is a passive way of telegraphing your love for them.

The flip side of this, that is, the positive way to state this, is found in other scriptures, notably Micah 6:8:

8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.[2]

Proverbs 3:27–30 has some more sage advice about loving your neighbor with a mix of things we should and shouldn’t do:

27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,

when it is in your power to act.

28 Do not say to your neighbor,

“Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”—

when you already have it with you.

29 Do not plot harm against your neighbor,

who lives trustfully near you.

30 Do not accuse anyone for no reason—

when they have done you no harm.[3]

There’s no shortage of advice and commands in the Bible about how to love our neighbor. In the New Testament, there are nearly 100 verses about how to treat “one another.” If you have a concordance or good computer Bible software or Internet site that allows you to search, spend some time looking up all of the “one another” passages in the New Testament. It’s eye opening. All kinds of positive ways to love your neighbor: love, serve, greet, submit to, encourage, offer hospitality to, and so on. One interesting fact about this: the Greek word for “one another” (ἀλλήλων) in the New Testament is pronounced “all-LAY-lone”; the easy way to remember this is that “you’re never all alone with “all-LAY-lone.”

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that your quilt ministry, which we’re honoring today, is an important way to love your neighbor as well. Your painstaking efforts in cutting the pieces of fabric, arranging them in the various patterns, and stitching them together put meat on the bones of another scripture, Ephesians 4:28b: “doing something useful with [your] own hands, that [you] may have something to share with those in need.”

With all the help we have in scripture about loving your neighbor, you might think that’s always an easy task. But I think we all know better. Sometimes it’s very easy to love our neighbors; other times, there may be hurts or fears that run so deep that it can be hard to break through. There may also be times where “tough love” means we might have to separate ourselves from a situation because the pain or risk of harm is too great to ignore or too much for us to bear.

In those times, it’s good to know we have a God who loves us unconditionally and whose presence is always with us as we saw in last week’s message. But how can we as mere mortals love an almighty, all-sufficient God who has no “need” for anything from us? Just as God’s presence goes with us, God also desires our presence before him. He wants us to love and honor him with all that we are and could be, all that he’s made us to be, and all that we have, to the extent we are in-line with his commands and precepts.

Our reading from Psalm 1 this morning helps us to understand this relationship. The passage in our bulletin is, I believe, from the New Revised Standard Version. When I saw the first word was “Happy,” I actually cringed inside for a moment, because I knew most translations had the word “Blessed” for the first word. I had always figured that was the traditional word for “blessed” used by the Hebrews in their standard blessing: “Blessed art thou, O Lord, King of the Universe.” But I suspended judgment and checked the Hebrew, and sure enough, it was NOT the typical word for blessing. The word does carry the idea of blessing, but it also refers to an emotional state as well as a spiritual state. One lexicon I looked at had it translated as an exclamation: “How happy!” Eugene Peterson, the Presbyterian minister who translated the Message version of the Bible, picked up on that emotional aspect in his translation of Psalm 1, and I want to read that for you this morning. But I’ll give you a head’s up: if you’ve never read the Message translation, it doesn’t really read like a traditional Bible translation. In fact, Psalm 1 is about as far away from a traditional translation as you can get. The first phrase of Psalm 1 sounds a bit sarcastic, but it’s not intended to be. Listen, and you’ll hear why:

1     How well God must like you—

      you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,

      you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,

      you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

2–3  Instead you thrill to God’s Word,

      you chew on Scripture day and night.

      You’re a tree replanted in Eden,

      bearing fresh fruit every month,

      Never dropping a leaf,

      always in blossom.

4–5  You’re not at all like the wicked,

      who are mere wind-blown dust—

      Without defense in court,

      unfit company for innocent people.

6     God charts the road you take.

      The road they take is Skid Row.[4]

That is how we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We spend time with him by fellowshipping with one another on Sunday and throughout the week in our various ministries we have. We spend time in his word getting to know his precepts, statutes, and commands. We do things that bear fruit for God’s kingdom, for after all, Jesus said his followers would be known by their fruit. We “plant” ourselves in the God’s presence so he can nourish and sustain us, because that is how great his love is for us.

As the world around us continues to get scarier, with another mass shooting, a war in the Middle East that has Christians thinking about end-time prophecies and the book of Revelation again, and the general downhill spiral of morality around us, abiding in the presence of God and rekindling our love for him will become all the more important for our own spiritual security and emotional well-being. We can know without a doubt that God is with us; that’s an unfailing promise. We also know that his word will sustain us, for God’s word never returns void. Grace and peace to you all this morning. 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] Peterson, Eugene H. 2005. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

October 2, 2023

Obedient Sons (Psalm 25:1–9; Matthew 21:23–32)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Ecclesiology,Eschatology,Faith, Faithfulness,Matthew Gospel of,Passion,Prophet,Psalms,Repentance,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare,Work — Scott Stocking @ 10:54 pm
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Message preached October 1, 2023, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE.

What does it mean to trust someone? How does it affect your life when you either learn that you can trust a person, especially someone who might be new in your life, like a new significant other in the life of your kids or grandkids? What does it feel like when someone violates your trust?

Our reading from Psalm 25 this morning lets us know that we can put our trust in God, even in the face of our worst enemies. One thing that is striking about Psalm 25 is that it begins and end with David’s concern that he not be put to shame. In a culture that valued honor above all else, shame could be devastating to someone personally, professionally, and even spiritually. David says the surest guarantee against shame was to put his trust in the Lord. But again, what does that look like? David paints a pretty good picture in Psalm 25, so let’s take a look at that.

First we see that David’s trust involves putting his hope in the Lord. That “hope” in God gives David the confidence to know his enemies will not defeat him. Psalm 25:3 has one of the two negative statements about David’s enemies: they are treacherous without cause, and because of that, they will suffer the social stigma of shame.

But David also shows us the path to avoid shame: He asks God, by his personal name “Yahweh,” to teach him about and guide him in his divine paths. In David’s day, pretty much all he had to go on for spiritual guidance was the Torah itself, the first five books of the Old Testament, and perhaps a prophet or a seer. He didn’t have all 66 books of the Bible like you and I have to keep us on the straight and narrow. David most likely had read the Torah himself a few times during his kingship; his many psalms that he wrote offer ample proof of how well he knew the Torah.

He also asks God to remember the good and forgive the bad. He first asks God to remember his own character, his mercy and his love for his creation. Then he asks God to forget, and essentially forgive, his own sins and shortcomings. But then he asks God to remember him as a person who can’t survive without God’s love.

Verses 6 & 7 here give us a nice concise pattern for a quick prayer should we ever need to utter one. Acknowledge God for who he is and what he’s done; cry out for forgiveness; and ask him to remember us, just as the thief on the cross would do 1,000 years later. The word “remember” here should not be overlooked, since it’s use three times. In the Bible, when God remembers, he acts. So when he remembers his mercy and his love, he shows his mercy and his love. When he remembers us, he loves us and reassures us of our place in eternity with him.

As an aside, there’s another application of that word remember as we celebrate World Communion Day today. What do most communion tables say? “In remembrance of me.” So when we partake of communion later, let us not only remember what Christ has done for us, but act on it by sharing it with others and recommitting ourselves as his followers.

In the last couple verses of our Psalm reading today, David again reminds us of God’s goodness and guidance in the lives of those who humble themselves before him.

These principles from this first part of Psalm 25 tie together our two gospel stories we read this morning. The first passage is an actual account from the life of Jesus as he encounters the Pharisees. The second is a parable targeted at the Pharisees.

The first story takes place the next day after Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Do you remember what the first thing Jesus did was after his triumphal entry? He entered the Temple courts and threw out the money changers! And what did he say when he did that? “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers,” bringing together two quotes from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. Because Jesus’s true father is God himself, and the temple is God’s dwelling place on earth, the Temple is also Jesus’s birthright home. He is the earthly steward of the Temple, not the priests or the religious rulers. Jesus’s first act after entering Jerusalem was to establish his authority over and ownership of the Temple as his rightful home. This sets the stage then, for day two, when the chief priests and the elders of the people ask Jesus where his authority comes from.

It’s interesting in this passage that these religious leaders don’t want to engage Jesus on the Scriptures he cited when clearing the temple. The religious leaders are evidently well aware that they’ve been using the temple as an excuse to place a financial burden on the people. Instead of addressing that fact, they try to do what? They try to assassinate his character! Sound familiar? But Jesus, ever the shrewd one with the religious leaders, comes back with a question of his own, which puts them in a pinch. Either way they answer it, they know they’re in trouble of losing their respect and power with the people. Jesus had already said that John represented the return of Elijah, so that put him above the religious leaders in the eyes of the people. If John’s authority was from God, the religious leaders should have believed him. If it wasn’t, the people knew better and would most likely rebel against the religious leaders. Only a nonanswer could save their skins in the short run: “I don’t recall.”

Because the religious leaders couldn’t answer Jesus’s question, which was a perfectly legitimate response in Jesus’s day according to the rules of rhetoric in Greek culture, Jesus deferred the answer to his question as well. Of course, Jesus had already demonstrated his authority at the Temple the day before, but he had also been demonstrating it all along with his healings and miracles he’d done in full sight of the people and the religious rulers. Any attempt to damage Jesus’s character would result in the same backlash to the religious rulers as either of their answers about John the Baptizer would have. Jesus’s response, then, actually helps the religious rulers save face as well.

Jesus was obedient as a son to his Father by defending both the honor of the Temple and his own honor as the true image of God on earth. In the second story from the Gospel reading today, a parable, we have two sons who would in that culture be expected to do their father’s will when asked. The first one says no, but then later reconsiders and decides to go anyway. The second one says he will go, but he never does. The first and I think most important point from the parable is that God expects us to do his will. There’s really no hiding from that.

At first glance, you might think the parable is about keeping your word to do what you promised. But then, if the son who said he wouldn’t go never actually went, would he really deserve anything for keeping his word if he didn’t do his father’s will? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? But by the same token, the son who said he would go but didn’t is in a bit of double jeopardy. Not only has he not kept his word, but he’s failed to do his father’s will as well.

The point of the parable, then, is not how or when you do God’s will, but THAT you do God’s will. Jesus goes on to continue the comparison to John the Baptizer’s ministry that he began in the first part of our Gospel reading. The religious leaders had not heeded John’s warnings to repent, but the “tax collectors and the prostitutes” did believe him and they repented, thus gaining access to the kingdom of God. Their past didn’t matter. God accepts those who humbly come to him in repentance seeking forgiveness.

But the more amazing thing is that, even after the tax collectors and sinners began to repent and turn back to God, the religious leaders still refused to repent themselves! They could see the work of God happening right before their eyes, but they couldn’t bring themselves to believe it. Jesus says earlier in Matthew that his followers would be known by the fruit they bear. Those who do his will bear good fruit. Those who do not bear no fruit or bad fruit.

It’s not clear why the religious leaders didn’t see the importance of John’s (and Jesus’s) message of repentance. The biblical story is full of examples from the patriarchs and other men of faith who repented and went on to do great things for God.

Abraham took Sarah’s slave as a second wife and had a child by her, but God still allowed the line of his chosen people to descend from Sarah.

Abraham and Isaac both lied to kings about their respective relationships with their own wives, but God continued to propagate that family line as his chosen people.

Moses directly disobeyed God’s command, yet God still allowed him to finish his task of leading the people to the doorstep of the Promised Land.

David committed adultery and had the husband of the woman killed in battle, but God still used him to lead Israel to greatness and write numerous inspiring Psalms that are still with us today.

Solomon had hundreds of wives and concubines, yet God still allowed his wisdom to survive the ages in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

In Isaiah’s day, Hezekiah repented while Jerusalem was under siege, and he witnessed the miraculous fatal judgment upon 185,000 of Sennacherib’s soldiers overnight.

Every single one of Jesus’s disciples, with the exception of John, abandoned him on the night of his arrest, and Peter denied knowing him, yet all except Judas were restored to leadership status by Jesus after his resurrection. Peter went on to preach at the birth of the church on Pentecost. The teaching of the apostles was the standard of the early church according to Acts 2:42.

Paul persecuted the early church and tacitly approved of the stoning of Steven, yet God used him to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles, and his letters form a significant portion of our Scriptures today.

Jesus never promised that the path of following him would be without struggle and effort, failure and heartache. When he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” we can’t forget that we still have a “yoke” on; there’s still fertile ground to plow, and that takes some measure of strength and effort. In researching this passage, I came across an anonymous Jewish parable that the rabbis used to teach a similar point to this one. It goes like this:

The matter may be compared to someone sitting at a crossroads. Before him were two paths. One of them began in clear ground but ended in thorns. The other began in thorns but ended in clear ground….

So did Moses say to Israel, “You see how the wicked flourish in the is world, for two or three days succeeding. But in the end they will have occasion for regret.” So it is said, “For there shall be no reward for the evil man” (Proverbs 24:20)….”You see the righteous, who are distressed in this world? For two or three days they are distressed, but in the end they will have occasion for rejoicing.” And so it is said, “That he may prove you, to do you good at the end” (Deuteronomy 8:16). (Sifre to Deut. 53).[1]

So following God may have its thorny patches in the beginning, but when we get to the end of the road, the path is clear and welcoming. But if we try to go our own way, thinking that might be the easier way, and never get on the right path with God, we can only expect trouble in the end. The tax collectors and prostitutes realized they were on the wrong path and changed their ways and their destination. I know many of you have been on the right path, and you’ve experienced your thorny times, but you are stronger, wiser, and more dedicated to God for that because you know his is and will continue leading your through it. Your obedience will yield a great reward. I would encourage you to remain firm and steadfast on that path.

So we see how the truths of Psalm 25 play out in these two stories from the Gospel of Matthew. If we put our trust in God and allow him to guide us, even through the most difficult times, we will know his reward and his glory. I pray that each of us here will continue on that straight and narrow path that is the road to eternal life. Peace to you all. Amen.

[1][1] Trans. Jacob Neusner, Sifre to Deuteronomy, vol. 1 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), pp. 175‒76.

Kingdom Equity (Exodus 16; Psalm 145; Matthew 20:1–16)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Ecclesiology,Eschatology,Exodus,Matthew Gospel of,Psalms,Thanksgiving,Work — Scott Stocking @ 10:03 pm
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Message preached September 24, 2023, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church. Joel Brady helped me with the sketch at the beginning of the message; I screwed up the most important line of the sketch!

What are the consequences of grumbling against God? How does God respond to us when we think he hasn’t been fair to us?

In Exodus 16, the Israelites are on their way to Mount Sinai, when the naysayers had finally had enough of the nomadic desert life and complained to Moses that they weren’t back in Egypt sitting around pots of meat and eating their fill. God, being somewhat tolerant of their frustration and their trouble adapting to their new nomadic lifestyle, promises to give them some meat that night, then rain down bread from heaven in the morning.

That night, God provided them a “harvest” of quail for their meat. Then in the morning, when the dew dried, there was a bunch of white flaky stuff on the ground, and it wasn’t snow. The people, through Aaron, asked Moses about it. Here’s what that exchange might have been like:

Aaron: “What’s this white stuff, Moses?”

Moses: “What’s-it.”

A:“Yeah, Moses, what’s it called?”

M: “Yes, that’s what I told you, what’s-it.”

A: “When did you tell us? You’re just repeating our question back to us.”

M: “Just now. What’s-it’s what it’s called.”

A: (chidingly) “Moses, you’re stuttering again. Stop playing games.”

M: “I told you, the white stuff is called what’s-it.”

A: “That’s what we’re trying to find out! What’s it called?”

M: “Yes.”

A: “What’s it on the ground?”

M: “Everywhere you look.”

A: (frustrated) “GRR!”

M: “Bless you, Aaron. You speak Hebrew. The Hebrew word for “What’s-it” is “manna”!

A: (loudly) “Then why didn’t you say that in the first place! Ugh!” (drop script and storm off to your seat).

Thank you, Joel, for helping out with that. Even before the Israelites got to Mt. Sinai, God was already at work showing his people how he would care for them in the journey ahead. When the manna came each morning, everyone was able to gather as much as they and their family needed, and no more. Except on Fridays, when the “super-manna” came that would keep an extra day through the Sabbath.

At that time, the manna was intended to be a short-term solution for traveling through a deserted wilderness. The journey probably would have only taken them a few years had they not rebelled against God when they spied out the land in Numbers 13. But even in Exodus 16, Moses or perhaps Joshua, as they’re putting the finishing touches on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, can’t resist putting a little reminder in at that early point in the story that the Israelites would go on from there to eat manna for the next 40 years. Perhaps it’s a sarcastic reminder to the Israelites that their stubbornness and rebellion didn’t start with the scaredy-cat spies, but much earlier with the with this rebellion in the desert.

If there’s a bright side to 40-years of wandering in the wilderness, it would have to be that the Israelites were truly a free people in those 40 years. They ruled themselves based on God’s divine leadership. Sure, it must have been boring after a while, wandering here and there as God led them, but at least they had a long stretch of freedom as wanderers. They had sufficient food; their sandals and their clothes never wore out (Deuteronomy 29:5); and they knew exactly which way to go and when because of God’s miraculous manifestation in the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day.

The other part of the bright side is that the peoples in the region began to realize how powerful this nomadic group of Israelites had become, and actually came to fear and respect them. Yet like most of us do, even when things seem to be going well with us, we can get bored and find a reason to grumble, an excuse to stray from God’s path, a reason to look back on “better days,” or at least that’s what we tell ourselves they were. Even though God had given them everything they needed in that time, I’m sure once the new generation began to settle in the Promised Land, they found that settled life much more desirable than their desert wanderings.

Our reading from Psalm 145 today brings to the forefront of our hearts and minds the great works that God has done as a preventive measure of sorts from grumbling about our current situation. The remedy: never stop recalling and recounting the great works of God and all that he has done for us. Tell the stories to your kids, your grandkids, and your great grandkids. Meditate on the greatness of God and his works. Sing about them with a loud voice. When we remember the goodness and greatness of God, any reason we think we may have to grumble pales in comparison.

Fast-forward to our Gospel passage today. We find yet another group of people ready to grumble. This time, we have a parable, or at least, it starts off like most parables of Jesus: “For the kingdom of heaven is like…” We’ll do well not to lose sight of this being a parable about the kingdom of God. It is NOT intended to be a command on how employers should pay their employees! Sorry, folks, but the CEO isn’t taking a pay cut, and you’re not getting a big raise. If this were really about employers and employees, then of course the workers who worked the whole day and got the same pay as those who only worked an hour or two would have every right to grumble. A denarius, after all, was considered a day’s wage in that time.

The parable uses the setting of the vineyard, which is a standard metaphor for the Jewish nation. The workers’ job is most likely to harvest the grapes, and it would seem that time is of the essence, as the owner of the vineyard must keep going back to the marketplace to get more laborers, even up to eleventh hour, one hour before quitting time. We shouldn’t read too much into the number of times the owner has to return to find laborers. One of the key points of the parable is found in this: the work of harvesting souls for God’s kingdom is a continuous process, and it’s never too late to stop harvesting. This doesn’t mean that the owner didn’t know how many laborers he needed; from a practical standpoint, I think it’s a safe speculation that he needed to space out the labor force for a variety of purposes, and each group may have had different tasks throughout the day.

Another point of the parable that may be obvious to most of us is that, since it’s really about the kingdom of God and not about how long you work, the perfect reward of heaven doesn’t have any kind of system of tenure. The one who’s been a saint all their life receives the same reward as those who come late to the kingdom of heaven. It’s interesting that the owner starts with the workers hired last when he pays them. Had he started with those hired first, they may have never known that those who were hired last got the same pay as they did! But then Jesus wouldn’t have been able to make his point about equity in the reward of the kingdom.

“The last will be first, and the first will be last,” then, is not a statement about flipping the rankings in the kingdom of heaven; it’s an affirmation that there are NO rankings in the kingdom of heaven. Everyone is on a level playing field. Your reward is the same as the apostle Paul, Paul’s helper Timothy, any of your former or current pastors, and a pre-teen who has just made a commitment to follow Jesus.

The final and related point here is that the owner of the vineyard never failed to keep his promise. He promised to pay the first workers a denarius, and that is indeed what they got. When he hired the later workers, he said he would pay them “whatever is right.” From a strictly business perspective, if you’ve got a deadline to meet and you don’t have enough help to meet it, the owner’s perspective is going to be that the value of the late laborers increases the closer the deadline looms. If the grapes need to be picked by the end of the day so they don’t start spoiling on the vine, the owner could lose a substantial amount of his investment. So paying the last laborers the same as the first is a sign of his great appreciation for their last-minute efforts, and he probably still made a profit even though everyone got the same daily wage.

As I said above, it’s never too late to stop working for the kingdom of God to “harvest” the souls who are ready to come into his kingdom. As the coming kingdom gets closer every day, the urgency to get God’s word out and change hearts for his kingdom becomes greater and greater. As Timothy says, God desires that all people come to the knowledge of his truth. That can only happen if each one of us does our part to share the love and hope of Jesus with the world.

The biblical story never hides the failings of God’s people. We see everyone for who they are: they find redemption for their fallenness and go on to do great things for God. When they think God is not being fair about what they receive from him, God reminds them, sometimes gently and sometimes more severely, that he has been and always will be their Jehovah Jireh, or Yahweh Yireh as the Israelite would say: The Lord is my Provider. When they try straying from God’s path of righteousness, God reminds them that he is their Yahweh Nissi, The Lord is my Banner.

Paul reminds believers in Galatians 3:26–29 that there are no worldly distinctions in Christ: 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.[1]

The kingdom of God is for all who will come willingly to him, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, or their level of knowledge. Let us go forth from here today and be a people who would shine God’s light through our words and our lives so that the world might know the love of God.

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

August 4, 2023

The Everyday Kingdom of God: Minor Parables of Matthew 13

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Matthew Gospel of,Psalms — Scott Stocking @ 10:22 pm
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I preached a version of this message at Mt. View Presbyterian Church July 30, 2023. I modified a portion of the message to include more context about the major parables in Matthew 13 for my presentation of the message the following Sunday at Peace Presbyterian, which is what I’ve posted here. The recording is from Mt. View.

NOTE: The main text of the message is supplemented with two apologetic footnotes addressing issues that Stephen Wells cites in The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (SAB). Specifically here, I address his comments about the size of a mustard seed and his assumption that Matthew 13:35 is misquoted from the Old Testament reference, Psalm 78:2.

When I was a student in seminary, my preaching professor assigned us what I thought at the time was a very unusual book for preaching class. We had to read Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, a fictionalized story about the town the author grew up in in Minnesota. My preaching professor was big on pastors being able not just to handle God’s word correctly and accurately, but to be able to relay the message of God’s word in stories that churchgoers might remember better than a Bible verse or passage. Being a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy, I was at first a little leery about straying too far from a strict exegesis of God’s word.

But as I began to look more closely at the Gospels in seminary, I began to see how Jesus used stories, in the form of parables, to describe in memorable terms for his listeners what the kingdom of God is like. Now having grown up in the church and going to Sunday School most of my childhood, I had already heard most of the parables, so I kind of knew what they were. I even had come up with my own parable, probably sometime in my high school or early college years. Wanna hear it? It kind of follows one of the parables we read from this morning’s text.

The kingdom of heaven is like a bowl of popcorn. Some kernels never feel the fire of God’s word and remain untouched. Others open up a little, but they’re afraid of too much exposure and never experience their fullness. But those who open themselves completely to the fire of God’s word burning in themselves let his fullness fill them, and they add flavor to the world.

I know, it’s corny, right? Okay, I got my dad joke out of the way.

You might recognize the name Asaph as one of the authors of several Psalms in the Old Testament. In one of his psalms, Psalm 78, he prophesied that God’s messenger would come teaching in parables:

1 My people, hear my teaching;

listen to the words of my mouth.

2 I will open my mouth with a parable;

I will utter hidden things, things from of old— [1]

3 things we have heard and known,

things our ancestors have told us.

4 We will not hide them from their descendants;

we will tell the next generation

the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

his power, and the wonders he has done. [2]

One of things I think this psalm suggests is that there would come a time for the Jews when they would begin to lose track of their stories of faith. To a certain extent, we see that happening in the Gospels on the one hand with how the Pharisees and Sadducees respond to Jesus, but on the other hand, with how Jesus chides those religious leaders.

There are strong undertones in the Gospels that the Jews were not only feeling the tension of Roman oversight, but also that they were feeling the pressure of an increasingly legalistic form of Judaism. They were weighed down with its laws and requirements. That’s why Jesus said earlier in Matthew that his yoke was easy and his burden was light. He had come to give them eternal hope and some much-needed earthly rest from those burdens.

The religious leaders, it seems, had become so full of themselves with their knowledge of God’s laws and the “hedge” they had built around it with their oral tradition that they forgot how to relate to the people. This is why, Matthew earlier in chapter 13, quotes Isaiah 6:9–10, implying that he’s talking about the religious leadership of his day:

You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.[3]

The pharisees couldn’t even understand the stories at first, until they began to realize that Jesus was talking about them in some instances!

The average Jew was ready for a refresh of Judaism. When Jesus came doing miracles and teaching in parables, it seems that was just the thing the Jews needed to have their faith and hope renewed. Matthew packs several of Jesus’s parables in chapter 13 here. Just to recap briefly, the first parable Matthew records is arguably the most familiar to many believers: the parable of the seed cast on the four soils. In a nutshell, Jesus is saying there are four responses to my teaching: Some people will ignore it because they have no interest in it. The second group immediately and happily intakes it, but they have no foundation for it to thrive, so it never really takes hold. The third group might investigate it and even live it for a while, but when they experience trouble, they return to their old ways. Finally, there are those who become fully invested in God’s word and integrate it into their daily lives. Four of the five parables we’re looking at a little closer this morning are about the people in that last group.

The first of our parables this morning is that of the mustard seed. This is a one-point parable, the point being to plant the seed. We don’t need to try to figure out who the man (or woman) is who planted the seed or whether they reference anyone specifically. We don’t need to try to understand what or where the field is. Jesus has already explained that in the other parable from chapter 13 that we didn’t read this morning, the parable of the wheat and tares. We don’t even have to know what it tastes like when added as a seasoning to food. None of those details are important.

As the parable says, the mustard seed is the smallest seed known at the time.[4] That seed will grow into what is technically an evergreen shrub, but it happens to look more like a tree. We should take note here that Jesus doesn’t say it’s the largest tree, but that it’s the largest of “garden plants” in someone’s garden. I believe Jesus uses this particular parable to describe the physical size of the kingdom of God compared to its humble beginnings, especially in the Church era. It’s a parable about the outward manifestation of the kingdom of heaven.

As much as the parable of the mustard seed is about the external manifestation of the kingdom of God, the parable of “hiding” (ἐγκρύπτω engkryptō) or mixing the yeast in the dough is about what the kingdom of God does in each of us. Again, there’s no reason to discern external, real-life references to people or places with the elements of the parable. Nor should we try to interpret what the expansion of the dough with yeast might mean. The singular point here is what happens when we “hide” God’s word in our hearts; it works itself through every part of our lives eventually, in our bodies, our minds, and our hearts and souls, so that we might know the full redemption awaiting us in eternity.

Now the next two parables again each make a singular point; only the characters are different. In the parable of the treasure hidden (κρύπτω kryptō) in the field, (and take note that we see the word “hide” again; same root word as in the parable of the yeast—it’s not an insignificant repetition), Jesus is talking about what the kingdom is worth to those who’ve invested their lives in it. As with the first two parables, the details are irrelevant here: Jesus doesn’t intend us to question the motivation of the man who found a treasure in someone else’s field. We shouldn’t make judgments about that, because we’re not even told if the man had a right to be in someone else’s field.

The parable immediately after that one about the merchant looking for the pearl of great price speaks to the broad expanse of God’s creation. The merchant seemingly has a singular goal here, finding the pearl of great price. As with the hidden treasure parable, the point of these is not the actions of the individuals mentioned or who they might be specifically. Nor is the point that only one individual in each parable gets the kingdom to the exclusion of all others. The point in both of these “value” parables is the value of the kingdom and the desire to have it at all costs. Anyone can find the treasure if they search long enough for it. It’s not reserved for any special class or group of people.

The final parable of the net is a little more complex than the other four we’ve looked at this morning. The net lets us know that God will gather all creation to him in the final judgment. The fact that Jesus mentions “all kinds of fish” here is a bit unusual, since other fishing stories usually just refer to “fish.” The word for “kinds” is the same word that can be translated “nation” or “people” of a certain nationality or ethnic background as opposed to any random person. In the parable, the fishermen keep the good fish but throw the bad (σαπρός, sapros) ones away. The word for “bad” there means “decaying” or “rotten” and is used to describe “bad” fruit in Jesus’s teaching on trees and the fruit they bear. But when Jesus talks about the allegorical equivalent to the fishermen, the angels, he says the angels throw the wicked (i.e., the bad fish) into the fire. That’s a graphic image of the final judgment of humanity.

This parable is nearly identical to the parable of the wheat and tares from earlier in chapter 13. These two parables, the net and the wheat & tares, have always impressed me as lessons for Christians to accept those we live with and work with and not pronounce any kind of ultimate judgment on those who do not follow Jesus. This acceptance should not be confused with tolerance. Christ still wants us to bear witness to his saving grace even to those who are in a state of unbelief or rebellion against God. Our job is not to judge, but to share the truth of God’s word and not only hold our ground in the spiritual battles we may face daily, but to gain ground so we can push back against the evil around us. God will make the final call on each person’s eternal fate. Our job is to be faithful with how God has called us to serve him and NOT to play God ourselves.

Jesus’s use of parables is radically counterculture to how the “official” Jewish religious rulers of the day taught. Those religious rulers taught rules and regulations, laws and statutes. That did have a purpose, but without stories, the Jewish people were getting lost in a growing set of requirements that was difficult to keep up with. He showed us that when we share the word of God with others, his kingdom grows. When we hide his word in our hearts, we grow. He also showed us that of all the things we pursue in this world, even billion-dollar Mega Millions jackpots, the kingdom of God is the greatest and most rewarding treasure we could find and possess. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other good things you worry and fret about will be added to your life. Amen!

[1] Countering SAB on Matthew 13.35. It is difficult to make an argument that the New Testament “misquotes” an Old Testament passage, especially when the speaker may not have been using the original language the Old Testament was written in. The Greek of the Septuagint (LXX) for first part of Psalm 78:2 is identical to Matthew’s first line. The second part of the verse, though, uses different words in the New Testament, but the sense of the phrase is still the same. Here they are for comparison:

LXX (Logos version) of Psalm 78:2: ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου, φθέγξομαι προβλήματα ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς.

UBS 4th Ed. of Matthew 13:35: Ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου, ἐρεύξομαι κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς [κόσμου].

The reason for the difference may stem from the theory that Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Aramaic, so the translation into A.D. first-century Greek may not have followed the Septuagint. It’s also possible that the meaning of some of the Greek words in the LXX had changed significantly in the 200 or so years leading up to the NT times, so Matthew had to choose a different word.

The Hebrew word translated προβλήματα (from which we get the English word “problem,” and which is not found in the NT) in the LXX is either translated with a form of that word or the Greek word from which we get “enigma” (αἰνίγματα). The Greek word used in Matthew’s passage (κεκρυμμένα) means “what has been hidden,” so that certainly fits the sense of “enigma” or “problem.” The NT rendering is essentially a dynamically equivalent translation of the LXX version.

One minor point here: SAB says Matthew’s misquote is of Psalm 78:2–3, but only vs. 2 is quoted.

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

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

[4] Countering SAB on the size of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31. While the mustard seed is definitely not the smallest seed known to us today, this does not take away from what Jesus is saying. First, the seed is planted in a garden that would have been home to vegetable and herb plants, practical things the growers could use for sustenance. While the seed of an epiphytic orchid may be the smallest known seed today (according to what SAB claims, anyway), it was not something that would have been planted in a vegetable garden.

Second, the word for tree (δένδρον) is used because the variety of mustard plant that grew in that region would have grown to a height of about 4 feet by the time it produced the seed pods, much larger than any of the other plants in the garden, but it was classified as an evergreen shrub. It would have been large enough for birds to perch (κατασκηνόω) in. The word doesn’t necessarily mean to make a nest. It implies a temporary residing place. In fact, it comes from the same root word used in John 1:14 to describe Jesus making his “dwelling” among us.

Getting back to the epiphytic orchids: if you do a Bing search asking “Where are epiphytic orchids found?” you will find that they’re found in tropical rainforests growing on top of other plants, thus the name (epi = upon; phytic = plant; Greed roots, of course). They are, apparently, the smallest seeds by weight. Again, calling on Bing, ask “What is the smallest seed in the world?” and you’ll get the answer Aerides odorata, an orchid. However, the information says there’s even a smaller seed than that, about 1/4th the size (0.05 mm vs. 0.2 mm). A simple check of the American Orchid Society (www.aos.org) reveals that these orchids are not native to the Middle East and would probably not have been known to Jesus’s rural and agrarian audiences.

The bottom line is, Jesus used a well-known seed as an object lesson, something everyday folks would know about. It wouldn’t do him any good in his teaching to call on his omniscience and explain that halfway around the world, there’s a seed y’all have never heard of that’s the smallest seed. It’s the ratio that’s important here: the size of mature plants is not proportional to the size of their seeds. The mustard seed wins the prize for the smallest seed that produces the largest plant, relatively speaking.

So once again, we can dispatch SAB’s criticism as uninformed and ignorant of the sociocultural context in which Jesus lived, taught, and interacted with his neighbors.

July 10, 2023

A Childlike Faith in a Patient God (Matthew 11:16–30)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Matthew Gospel of,Psalms,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 8:12 pm
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sermon preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church July 9, 2023. Click above to hear the audio recording.

How patient is God?

We’re not sure how long Adam and Eve had been in the Garden of Eden before they took a couple bites from the forbidden fruit, but upon that violation of the only prohibition he’d given Adam and Eve, God moved rather swiftly. There was no, “Oh, they didn’t really understand. Let’s try this again.” Or “You know, I must have made that fruit just too irresistible for them; it’s my fault.” No, when Eve and Adam committed that first sin, the damage was done. The veil was broken that protected them from the knowledge of evil. They had their chance to know only life with God, and if they had chosen that route, the goodness they would have lived in would have never had anything to contrast itself with. God banished them from the garden immediately.

Then, after Cain and Abel had grown up, Cain being the firstborn of the first created, he decided he didn’t like how God preferred Abel’s offering to his, so he murdered Abel. Again, God dealt swiftly with it, but did not give Cain the death penalty he deserved. Instead, the Scriptures say God marked Cain somehow so people wouldn’t kill him. But Cain had caused a bigger problem that would establish an undertone throughout the OT: the curse of the firstborn. With the possible exceptions of Abraham and Noah (we don’t know their full genealogies), the firstborn in most of the major biblical stories are often bypassed for the continuation of God’s kingdom and the lineage of God’s one and only son, Jesus.

God must have turned on his patience after the Cain and Abel incident, because we don’t really hear of any judgment of God type events until we get to the flood in Genesis 6, 1,656 years after Adam and Eve were created if we’re to take the genealogies in Genesis at their word. God’s judgment is a little less swift as the story moves on. God allows Abraham to negotiate with him over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. God tolerates Abraham’s and Isaac’s deceptions about their respective lies about their wives to Pharaoh and Abimelek. God sends ten plagues over the course of a couple years, it seems, to try to get Pharaoh to change his mind about enslaving the Hebrews. And God uses a prophet to remind David of his sin with Bathsheba, a sin for which he could have been put to death, instead of dealing with him directly at the moment of his moral failure.

This is why David can write what he did in Psalm 145:

8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.[1]

We all know that children require patience, a TON of patience! But sometimes we have to act quickly to protect them from danger. Maybe they’re getting too close to a hot stove or aren’t watching what they’re doing playing in the front yard near the street. No time for patience in some of those situations. But many more times, teaching a child how to navigate the world around them can be filled with a lot of trial and error, bumps and bruises, and scraped knees and elbows. At some point, they have to learn to walk on their own, ride a bike on their own, feed themselves with a spoon and fork, and other “big kid” stuff.

In our gospel passage this morning, we have an interesting analogy that both Matthew and Luke use about Jesus and John the Baptizer. The first-century readers of this gospel would have understood the pipe and dirge references as part of a children’s game. They would have a mock wedding or funeral and try to get people to participate, but no one was responding to them. The pipe referred to the mock wedding ceremony, and the dirge referred to the funeral, of course.

It was a simple game, really. All you had to do was show up and listen to the ceremony and enjoy or take comfort in the company of others, because that’s what the cultural custom told you to do.

John the Baptizer fasted quite often, so the dirge represented his ministry. Many followed him but not many listened to him, and those who didn’t or who were critical of him missed the message that the Messiah had indeed come. Jesus’s ministry was represented by the pipes, the wedding ceremony. Jesus used the wedding ceremony as parable of his own ministry elsewhere in the gospels, when he chides those who were invited but did not come to a wedding feast. The children playing these games had a childlike faith that people would follow along in their “game.”

Jesus had many followers and curiosity seekers as well but he was disappointed that many people did not take his message to heart and believe, especially from among the religious ruling class of his day. The problem wasn’t the general population, so much. They longed to be free from a legalistic Judaism that was crushing their spirit and making them fearful of “outliers” like John and Jesus. The problem was that both Jesus and John represented a challenge to the power of the religious leadership by the number of followers they were attracting, so like any politician threatened with the prospect of losing power or influence, they found a way to play both sides of the coin.

“John has a demon!” they cried, because he fasted and only ate locusts and honey.

“Jesus is a glutton!” “Jesus is a drunkard!” they cried, because he ate and drank with the outsiders and the outcasts, the sinners and tax collectors.

Our gospel reading skips over a few verses in Matthew where Jesus mentions several towns where they had ample opportunity to repent and believe in God. He even says his hometown of Capernaum will fare worse than Sodom in the final judgment. The people are seeing miracle upon miracle from Jesus; they’re hearing incredibly insightful and liberating teaching from Jesus; but these towns could not bring themselves to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

Our passage picks up again with Jesus praising God for revealing the mystery of heaven to “little children.” The term “children” there most likely refers to toddlers, three- and four-year-olds. Not only that, but he emphasizes that God was pleased to reveal his purposes in that way. God doesn’t require us to be intellectual superstars when it comes to being a Christ-follower. We don’t have to know the right doctrines or even be able to explain them perfectly. His main goal for us is that we receive the love and forgiveness he’s offered us through Jesus, to return that love to him out of gratitude, and to share that love and good news with others. Nothing else should be a test of faith for us.

Most children have an innate desire to attach to a grown-up who loves them, cares for them, guides them into right behavior and thinking, and teaches them the things they need to know to survive in life. It’s a matter of simple trust for them. That’s how God wants us to come to him. When we come to him without all the worldly pretense we’ve developed over the years, we, like a child, can see the true character of our heavenly Father. He reveals himself to us, sometimes in ways we’d never imagine.

The Jews in Jesus’s day were burdened with many legalistic requirements that the rabbis had implemented to help keep the people from sinning. It was a “hedge,” as they called it, around the law. It was possible to violate the hedge a little and not sin; but they valued ritualistic purity so much, they wanted to ensure there was no trace of doubt of anyone’s purity. It was a difficult system to live under, because you could suffer disheartening short-term ostracism for not strictly adhering to the Law.

Jesus is out to change that conception, though. He says:

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”[2]

Jesus wants to change the system that had become bloated with legalism over the centuries. Much of that may have been well-intentioned when implemented, but taken all together, it had become something quite burdensome to keep. Jesus wants to make it simple again. “Rest in me,” he says. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus will teach us the true way to be a child of God, a Christ-follower. He will rescue us from our weariness and our burdens. Amen to that!

The apostle Paul seems to have wrestled with that quite a bit as well. I believe he understood God’s patience when it comes to our own response to God. But Paul also recognized we have an internal struggle sometimes, and we have to be patient with ourselves as we grow into that simple, childlike trust in God’s goodness and grace. He exemplifies that in Romans 7, where Paul seems to be having a little argument with himself: “15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.[3]” Paul recognizes his own need not only for patience with himself, but patience from God as well as he fights a constant internal battle with his fleshly desires.

Before I wrap this up, I do want to return to our reading from Psalm 145:8–14 and hit a few high points from that passage. I think it puts a nice bow on what it means to have a childlike faith in God.

When we’re saved by grace, Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 that “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared in advance for us to walk in.” He may have had Psalm 145:10–12 in mind when he wrote this:

10 All your works praise you, Lord;

your faithful people extol you.

11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might,

12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.[4]

Jesus calls us to be light and life in this world. He’s empowered us to do that by imparting the Holy Spirit to us and making us righteous through his sacrifice on the cross. Again, it’s an easy burden from the Savior; certainly easier than trying to live life outside of the hope, healing, and forgiveness he brings. Just as we take joy at the innocence of children as they play their childhood games, so God wants us to experience the joy we can have by trusting in him.

But Jesus also realizes we may miss a step sometimes. His yoke is on us, not to enslave us, but to guide us on a straight path. Psalm 145:13b–14 reassures us that, when we stray from God’s path, he’s ready and willing to lift us up and put us back on the straight path:

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises

and faithful in all he does.

14 The Lord upholds all who fall

and lifts up all who are bowed down.[5]

May the Lord lift us up, sustain us, and bless us as we learn to walk in his will each and every day with the simple faith of a child. 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.

May 6, 2023

Assurance, Hope, and Power: The Disciples’ Resurrection Rebound (John 20:19–31)

Filed under: Greek,John Gospel of,Liturgical Calendar,Passion,Psalms,Resurrection,Soteriology,Theophany — Scott Stocking @ 12:20 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Click the Play button below to hear the recording of the message.

My message from 4/16/23, the week after Easter, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church in Omaha.

I learned a fancy new ten-dollar word this week. “Denouement” (day new MA). If you’re into literature or are a member of book club, perhaps you already knew the term before today. It’s a French word that’s made its way into English that refers to what happens in a story after the climax or high point of the action has occurred. The meaning of denouement is “untying of the knot.” An English equivalent, at least in the context of literature, might be “resolution.” How does the story “resolve” or work itself out after the climax.

Why am I starting my message this morning with a vocabulary lesson? (Don’t worry, no quiz at the end!) Well, you may have already guessed where I’m going with this. The crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ is the climax of the Gospel story in the New Testament. Like the Gospels, the Christian liturgical calendar begins with the “prequel” of the Advent, the birth of Christ, beginning the Sunday after Thanksgiving; passes through several “seasons” in which we see the nature and work of our servant-savior; and leads up to the crucifixion and resurrection.

We’ve now entered the “denouement” of the liturgical seasons, the time between the Resurrection, celebrated on Easter Sunday, and Pentecost, 50 days following. After that, aside from the first Sunday after Pentecost being “Trinity Sunday” and the last Sunday of the liturgical year being “Christ the King,” the rest of the liturgical calendar is officially “proper,” or the nth Sunday after Pentecost. That’s doesn’t sound near as exciting as all the stuff at the beginning of the liturgical year.

Of course, the Gospel is a compelling and engaging story regardless of the season, month, or day in our liturgical or regular calendars. It is made so, in part, by the way you and I live out our faith in the places we find ourselves in this world. As disciples of Christ, we have been charged with being light and salt in an increasingly dark and bland world. But it’s hard to do that if we’re not convinced and assured that the resurrection of Christ has secured that hope for us.

That is where we find ourselves in the early stages of this denouement: Jesus had appeared to the women who came to the tomb, and even to two unnamed disciples on the road to the Emmaus, but the 11 remaining apostles had not yet seen him and, according to the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel, they didn’t believe either of those reports from earlier in the day. But on the evening of that same day Jesus was resurrected, Jesus literally drops in on them in the house where they were staying; the door was locked.

All the apostles (“the Twelve”) except Thomas (and of course Judas) were there for the first visit. It’s likely that others were there as well, but the text is silent on that detail. Jesus shows his disciples his pierced hands and side and even asks his disciples to put their fingers in the holes. The disciples are not only convinced, but the text says they are overjoyed as well. Something else happens here that I think gets overlooked in the Gospel story. Jesus essentially commissions the disciples—we don’t know if this meant only those of the Twelve who were present or everyone—by giving them the Holy Spirit in advance of the day of Pentecost. He also gives them authority to forgive sins or not forgive sins. Jesus was granting them a portion of divine authority here, collectively, so that he could have an official complement of representatives to prepare the world for the coming of the Holy Spirit to believers and birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost.

This is important for a couple reasons. First, just as plant seedlings are often nurtured in the controlled environment of a greenhouse or a baby is born in sterile conditions in the hospital, so too did the church need a perfect or near-perfect spiritual environment to get started and to grow. I believe the authority Jesus gives them, again collectively, included the knowledge of the perfect, untainted Gospel on which Jesus wanted to found the church. Their proclamations were considered authoritative, and as a group, they could hold each other accountable for that perfect doctrine, instead of having all of the authority for the church rest in one person. Eight days later, Thomas would be added to that group when he finally got to see Jesus and had every doubt erased. He would be able to proclaim, “My Lord and my God!” after seeing Jesus for himself.

On the other hand, having a group of leaders thus empowered and commission would also help with the stability of the local, usually house, churches that would begin to form after the day of Pentecost. With so many hearing the Gospel in their own language that day, it would be important that someone with that kind of authority could be sort of a regional overseer for the fledgling churches and communicate officially on behalf of the apostles whenever questions arose. We see some hints of that in the middle chapters of the book of Acts. I think it’s safe to say the apostles didn’t want 3,000 new converts going back to their respective homelands without some kind of help from those who had first-hand experience with Jesus and the apostles.

Getting back to Jesus’s first appearances to the disciples, they had assurance of what we read in our passage from Psalm 16 this morning. Here’s verses 9–11 from the New International Version:

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body also will rest secure,

10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,

nor will you let your faithful one see decay.

11 You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.[1]

The apostles realized that Jesus was the “faithful one” who did not see decay, and by implication, those faithful ones who had died before had also been safe from that decay. Paul tells us in Ephesians that Christ, upon his resurrection, led an army of captives out of the “lower earthly regions” into the heavenly realms. Peter would use this passage from Psalm 16 in his powerful sermon on the day of Pentecost because he had realized and experienced its truth for himself.

Peter would later write in one of his two letters about the living hope that comes through the resurrection of Jesus. He says this in the opening chapter of his first letter:

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. [2]

Thomas had the luxury of seeing Jesus on his second appearance to the group and finally believing he had risen, even though he refused to believe his closest friends after Jesus’s first appearance convinced them. You and I will probably not have that luxury of seeing Jesus while we dwell on earth, unless he comes again in the immediate future. We would fall, then, in the second category: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

As disciples of Christ, we have a wealth of resources available to us as we live and serve in God’s kingdom. We have a new birth, or as Jesus told Nicodemus, we’re “born again” of the Spirit. The old has gone; the new has come! The past no longer controls us. We have a living hope affirmed by the resurrection. The faithful in the Old Testament probably could not have even conceived of what the New Testament has revealed to us about eternal life in the heavenly kingdom. Our inheritance is permanent! No moth or rust can destroy it!

We’re shielded by God’s power (and his armor) through faith, and we have the hope of his second coming and the eternal salvation that will be ours to claim. We have this assurance even in the midst of the trials and griefs we suffer corporately and individually, for it is in standing firm through these trials that our faith is tested, purified, and proven true. Paul says in Ephesians that when we put on God’s armor, we can stand firm in the faith. We can know in part here on earth that joy we will fully know in heaven!

Even though Easter is the climax of our liturgical year, our denouement need not in any way diminish the joy and excitement of living for Christ in the hope of our resurrection and our salvation. Each and every day can be an adventure with Christ as we read his word, serve those who need an extra measure of his grace, and walk in faithful fellowship with one another. Those first few weeks after the resurrection, the believers had a lot of knots to untie to figure out their part in growing the early church. Of course, the Spirit was calling people, and that couldn’t be stopped. But they had to move quickly. For us today, we could use this season to think about how we do our own ministries. How can we use the excitement of celebrating Jesus’s resurrection to channel that energy into “untying the knots” that may be holding us back from doing more for God’s kingdom or for the local church or community? Are there others we could reach? Are there others we could invite? Are there others who need our help? Who could I talk to about my doubts and fears? These don’t have to be grandiose, but I do think the answers should be just big enough to require some faith in and reliance on God to get them done.

As we move through this season leading up to Pentecost, remember that Christ has given us assurance of his resurrection and our own, the hope of eternal life in an imperishable kingdom, and the power to minister in his name and encourage those who also need that assurance and hope. Peace to you! Amen.

[1] Psalm 16:9–11. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] 1 Peter 1:3–9. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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