Prepared For the Defense

                                        1 Peter 3: 13-16

 

 

          Memorial Day used to be just a holiday to me. Mostly, it was the last holiday before school let out, the day we used for makeup day if it snowed too much that winter. I knew, of course, that it was a patriotic day.  It was a day we always recognized veterans and the mothers of veterans. Later, when I was serving in the Navy, it came to mean more to me. Now, when I have a Naval Aviator for a son and a Coast Guard non-commissioned officer in Guam for a son in law, it means a lot more to me. In recent years, people have begun saying nice things about veterans, like “Thank you for your service.” Coming from the Vietnam era, that still sounds strange, but it sounds absolutely wonderful when they say it about my son and son in law. I always add to that a silent thank you for the service my baby daughter renders those young men and women when she works abroad in base recreation activities.

Memorial Day is a day to remember. While we thank those whom we can for their service, we remember those whom we can no longer thank for their sacrifice. Remembering is a good thing. It helps us to keep from revisiting bad places, whether they are places on a map or places in the heart.

In America, we talk a lot about God and country. As America has grown, it has come to be home to the practice of many religions by many subcultures represented in this land of religious freedom. For Christians, we sometimes look around and wonder what has happened to our Christian nation. The answer is remarkably simple. In our desire to be ethical and our ambition to be great, in our yearning to be fair and our mantle of world protector, we have opened the door to all faiths and creeds. Have we forsaken our God? Of course not. Can we still worship in a nation of plurality where no one religion dominates? Absolutely!

But how do we remember? How do we find our way in a land with so many choices? We follow the example of Peter, Peter who had to find Christ in the middle of a Greco-Roman culture which not only tolerated but even encouraged the worship of many pagan gods. Our society is not unique in its challenges to find God’s path.

Peter had this to say: Be zealous for what is good. If you do, if you occupy yourself with this task, who can hurt you? Who can really impact your thoughts if they are full of goodness? The goodness itself will pervade your mind and you will be blessed. Peter sounds like a Motocross commercial. “No Fear!”  This from the guy who betrayed his Lord three times in a matter of minutes when he let the fear overtake him. But Peter learned from his mistakes. He went on to become one of the great leaders of the early church. How, we ask, and Peter answers: Honor Christ in your heart and always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who challenges your belief.

The first dozen years of my legal career were largely devoted to trial practice. I saw and worked against all kinds of lawyers. Some were incredibly talented. Some were brilliant. I was probably neither, but I was one thing, and that thing won a lot of cases. I was prepared. I don’t think I ever got beaten based on my lack of preparation and I’m sure that a lot of cases went my way for the simple reason that I came to court knowing my case. I knew the facts. I knew the law. I knew my client.

Christian preparation is a lot like trial preparation. You don’t just wander in to Christianity. Once you accept Christ, there is a lot of preparation to get ready for what will come. There is prayer. There is Bible study. There is fellowship and worship and witness as you grow in the faith.

And there is challenge. Oh yes, there is plenty of challenge. Along with challenge will eventually come suffering. Peter reminds us of that. He says that we will suffer for righteousness’ sake, but he adds that we will be blessed. Peter came to know exactly what suffering for Christ could ultimately mean. When his time came to be martyred for Christ, legend has it that he requested that he be crucified upside down, in order not to even pretend that he could suffer the same fate as did his Lord.

Peter has some more advice for his followers and for us. He says that being prepared is a number of things. It is an “always” thing. In other words, being prepared doesn’t last for a season or a year. It lasts a lifetime. Being prepared involves knowing the facts and being able to reason them to another. It involves tact and gentleness. No one ever paid much attention to a bully. And being prepared involves respect, respect in a couple of ways. Not only do we respect the ways of people who come from another place and another way of looking at things; we also respect the ability of our Almighty God to use us as tools and messengers to carry the word. If we will honor him and plant the seeds, he will show us his harvest.

Peter is talking about witness. If we do not spend time in preparation, then what will be our witness? We will be given the time necessary for preparation. Of that, you may rest assured. The question is not whether God will provide for our preparation, but whether we will exercise the discipline to prepare. The soldiers and sailors we remember today spent much of their time in preparation. Many soldiers spend years preparing for what may be only one life defining event. They want to be ready to defend.

Many of us worry about what we will say if confronted with questions about our faith.  And yet, so much of the time, we will need no words. I saw plenty of Christian witness this past Wednesday as Johnny Clark, a career soldier himself, planted new flags in our cemetery to commemorate the veterans buried here. Johnny didn’t say a word. His actions spoke for him. A couple hours later, a baker’s dozen more gathered to assemble playground equipment for children to play on for years to come. They didn’t need to witness with words. Their Christianity was speaking volumes in the care to which they came to their task. The church narthex always seems to contain a signup sheet for something or another and miraculously, it always seems to get filled in by folks whose simple witness through food or clothing or meals or some other anonymous offering sends that witness forward with or without words.

Sometimes it will take words. That’s why we read and pray and have fellowship with one another. That’s why we gather to worship our Lord. That’s why we sing praises to him. We are in relationship with our Lord Jesus. So when someone asks us why, we have answers. The God of all that ever was or ever will be sent him, his only son, down to us. God became a man and lived with us. He faced our temptation, bled our blood, ate and drank with us and voluntarily died for us.  He told us he would do what he did and then he did what he told us he would do. And he did it because he loved us that much! He promised that if we believe in him that we will be joining him for eternity.

Why do we believe? Why do any Christians believe? Because the Holy Spirit that he sent to us, that lives within us, enables us to see him, to feel him, to be in relationship with him. We defend that which is real! Jesus is the reason for our hope. He lives! He lives just as much now as he did when he walked among us. When we tell that good news to those who do not know, when we suffer for the righteousness that God gives to us, we defend that which knows no boundary and transcends all time and space.

He is the reason for our hope. Nations will fall. Civilizations will pass away, but Jesus lives. Defend him and all else will fall away.   Do as Peter says: “Let your hearts honor Christ the Lord.”

            Growing Into Salvation

                                       1 Peter 2: 1-10

 

 

          Ever built a house? Watched a multi-story building going up? Maybe you have built a tree house. A couple weeks ago, many church members took part in constructing our new playground set. In every instance, without exception, none of these projects started at the top. Even a tree house has to have some sort of anchoring for the floor or it will never be finished. 
In the second chapter of 1 Peter, our friend Peter talks a lot about foundations. He talks about cornerstones, rocks, even living stones.  Everyone understands that sort of analogy. Cornerstones are essential to the integrity of buildings. Without a solid foundation, everything that is built afterward is suspect.

Every building starts at the bottom. In fact, it really starts below the bottom. If you’re building something big and you want it to last, you will go down until you hit bedrock to start your project. Remember the hymn: On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. It’s true.

If you have built anything substantial, you know that it takes time, usually more time than you initially thought. A building project takes planning and cooperation. No matter how much thought goes into it, there will still be delays, there will still be surprises and there will still be setbacks.

The Christian life is strikingly similar to a building project. Peter gives us some very helpful hints as to what is going to happen along the way to salvation. We are “saved” by grace at the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, but Sanctification, that process of growing into grace, is a lifetime proposition.  There are things we have to do, things we have to leave behind, things we have to adopt as our way of life, if we are to enjoy the life that God has planned for us.

Peter seems to be talking to new believers, but he may as well be talking to each of us, for most of us continue to have our problems with the underbelly of our emotions. We still do battle with malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. They are still part of that which we struggle to put away for good. Peter suggests that we need to taste the milk of the Spirit. When we do so, it tastes so good that we will want more of it. He is so right. Have you ever tried to put away some bad habit? One of the great strategies to quitting something is replacement.  Don’t leave a void. Replace bad thoughts with good thoughts. Replace bad habits with good habits. Don’t spend all your time quitting something. Instead, spend it learning and doing something good.

An infant baptism like the one today gives pause for parents to renew vows to God and the church and for the church members to also renew similar vows. We pledge to help young parents bring up their child in Christian faith. We do so as the body of Christ, acknowledging our interdependence on one another as members of that body. Peter reminds us of just such a commitment when he characterizes us as “living stones” who “are being built up as a spiritual house.” He says we are to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We are “being built up.” We are “being” a holy priesthood. We are in action, moving the body of Christ forward as it ministers to community and world. Peter is not just talking about what has happened, as in finding our belief. He is also talking about what we do with that faith. Christianity is not just the finite act of conversion, but rather the dynamic action of mission and ministry and witness. 

Wow. That’s a lot to lay on believers. Isn’t that what our ministers are supposed to do? Yes, they do or try to do. But the job is not confined to ministers. Or put another way, it is the job of the minister, but everyone is a minister. That’s what Peter means when he calls us a chosen race and a royal priesthood in v. 9. Peter is talking about the priesthood of believers and that is one of the cornerstones of our belief. We believe, and because of our belief, we minister. That is the calling of the Christian. We are saved by God’s grace and in grace we serve our Lord.

Let’s talk about those living stones for a moment. That’s what Peter calls us. He refers to us as the building blocks of a structure because that is precisely what we are. We are nothing less than the spiritual house of God. Please note the pronoun. It is “we.” The great poet John Donne once wrote, that no man is an island. Nothing could be more true in the church. Christianity is community in the fullest sense of the word.

There is a great story about a Spartan king who was bragging to a visiting monarch about the walls of Sparta. The visitor looked around but found no walls in sight. The king pointed to his body guard of troops. He said: “These are the walls of Sparta, every man a brick.” What the Spartan king meant was that the men of Sparta stood as one. In so doing, they were able to accomplish great things. Standing alone, they were virtually useless, but together they were a magnificent force. The Church is the same. It is a wall of faith made up of the hands and feet and hearts of Christians.

In this wonderful passage, Peter also refers to Christians as a priesthood. In today’s world, we are long removed from the priesthood as it was understood in the days of Peter, so it helps to understand that word in its first century context. Theologian William Barclay points out that priests of old had two very important characteristics: they had access to God and they brought the offering to God. Christians now enjoy both such characteristics. We are a priesthood of believers and we minister to God’s children as the body of Christ. We are the living stones that comprise the church. This is the priesthood to which Peter refers.

As God partially revealed himself to humanity through the patriarchs and the nation of Israel, the full revelation was saved for the time when he came down and lived among us. Jesus Christ was the ultimate revelation, that all who believe in him become God’s chosen people. As he formed the true cornerstone for all life, we as Christians now act as living stones from the same building. We are that spiritual house. We are the bricks of that wall of Christianity that Jesus named the church. We cannot do this alone. God designed us to live and work and worship in community.

As we give thanks for this new life here dedicated today, let us remember how much we are designed to lean upon one another. Peter understood. The church is not a building or a creed. The church is us…you and me. As Peter asks then and now, let us offer ourselves as those spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Jesus Christ.

Won Without A Word

                                       1 Peter 3: 1-9

 

 

          “You can be anything you want to be. You can do anything you set your mind to do.” That’s what my mom told me, not once or twice, but like a litany. I heard it so much that by the time I left high school, I think it was part of my DNA. Chances are you had a mother like that. Chances are you are a mother like that, because in addition to a thousand other similar exhortations, that’s what mothers say. They are the world’s original cheerleaders and they are still the best at it because they believe what they are saying. They believe in us.

As amazing as motherhood is, I could almost believe that it is something one can be taught like any other teachable skill. But then it would be a job, and Lord knows, motherhood is not a job. Motherhood is lots of things, but job is not one of its descriptions. Oh, it’s labor, all right, but that should not be confused with the term job. And besides, for most women in America today, motherhood is accomplished in tandem with an actual wage-paying job, a husband to whom that mother is a wife, and so many more unnamed tasks.

Proverbs 31 talks about a woman whose days start early and end late, about a woman who is trusted by her husband, who provides for her household, who reaches out her hands to the needy, whose strength and dignity are her clothing. Many generations have passed since the writing of that proverb, but such women are still found in abundance. Look around. Find a successful man. In most cases, you won’t have to look far to find a good woman, either his wife or his mother or both.

Right now, I’m looking at a room loaded with Proverbs 31 women. This church is full of women who have raised or are raising families, looking after husbands, holding down jobs, teaching Sunday school, doing community volunteering and performing a host of other tasks. They too rise early and go to bed late, filling their days well into the night with the tending to those whom they love.

It seems the special task of women to set the tone of families, to spin their energy in such a way that houses become homes, that the supper table becomes the confessional, that the den becomes sanctuary from the cruelties of the world outside. It is the peculiar province of the woman to make her man feel able to handle the world, to instill in her children the confidence that comes from unconditional love. If the family unit were shaped like a wheel with spokes, I suspect the lady of the house would be the hub.

Is such activity important in the family of God? The Apostle Paul thought so much of the value of wives that he listed rules for them in four different letters. In today’s scripture, the Apostle Peter does likewise. Many point to this passage as an example of prohibition of outward adornment by women. I would suggest that they read it again. Certainly Peter is concerned with adornment, but his emphasis is on internal adornment. He talks about character, about the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. He says that such a spirit is very precious in God’s sight. He points out that by being subject to their husbands, women convey to their men that strength that comes from voluntarily submitting in love. Such conduct will not go unnoticed. It is infectious. This degree of respect and purity is practically irresistible. Peter says that even for the man who is disobedient to God’s calling, such behavior by women can win [such men] without a word. This should come as no surprise to the Christian, for it is Jesus himself who set the benchmark for selfless submission born from love.

This week, I became a grandfather for the second time. On this Mother’s Day week, my youngest daughter gave birth to her first child, a son. I have had to watch her from afar this last eighteen months, as she traveled halfway around the world to marry the man she loved and to start their lives together. Through the miracle of modern technology, Cindy and I have been able to visit with them almost as though we were there. This week, I watched in amazement as my daughter did something so pure and tender in her first days of motherhood. She was resting in her hospital bed and her husband was awkwardly holding his new son. The baby was crying and wouldn’t stop. My son in law was anxious.  My daughter told him to remove his shirt. He did so and pulled his newborn son into the warmth of his naked skin. The baby settled down instantly. It was such a simple, yet profoundly humble act.

I saw the snapshot of my new grandson resting peacefully in the arms of my son in law and I was moved by such tenderness. Where did that wisdom come from? No one told my daughter to do that. That was such a thoughtful, instinctive suggestion. My son-in-law was also wise to follow it. That’s what Peter was talking about. Won without a word.

Most of you, particularly the men, may have heard the comments of Kevin Durant in his acceptance speech this week after he was named the consensus choice for MVP of the NBA. This twenty five year old man is blessed with physical gifts. He is seven feet tall and yet has made his career as a perimeter shooter. As unusual as this is, the fact that Durant is even in the NBA is much more improbable. He grew up in a Washington DC suburb with his older brother, the son of a single mother who had two children before the age of twenty one. Their entire existence was a struggle to put food on the table and shelter over their heads.

In his speech, Durant gave credit to God for his success. He said he understands that basketball is just a platform for him to inspire others to use their God-given talents. He also gave credit to his teammates and his coaches. But he reserved the best comments for last. They were all about his mother. Durant was emotional as he thanked his mother publicly for her drive, for her sacrifice and for her never ending love and belief in him. He called her the real MVP.

At first, it might seem telling that the Apostle Peter says six times as much to women as he does to men. But note that he begins verse 7 with the word “likewise.” It’s about the same as repeating the first six verses to the men. And Peter adds that the men are to live with these women in an understanding way, showing honor to them. He points out that they are weaker, but he is talking about physical, not emotional or intellectual, strength. Peter reminds the men that when it comes to God’s grace, women are co-heirs and suffer none of the prejudice found in the culture of the day.

The Greek language assigns gender to its nouns. We use pronouns to accomplish that purpose, but Greek uses pronouns sparingly. While God and Jesus are masculine in gender, the Holy Spirit is feminine. It’s just a language thing, but think about it. When you are conceived, it is the womb of your mother that nurses you to term. When you come into this world, it is the warmth and comfort of your mother that you first experience. And now, in your yearnings on this earth, when you are looking for the answers, searching for some comfort, it is the Holy Spirit who comes to your side, who pervades your heart, who calms your spirit. It seems appropriate for me to think of that spirit in the female form.

In the end, Peter reminds us, whether men or women, that it is God’s blessing to which we aspire. He gives us all five guidelines for life: unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. When you think about it, none of these things really require a lot of words. They are behaviors. They are attitudes. They are ways to live. They can keep us close to God, and they can win hearts to God. And really, just like Peter teaches us, they can win those hearts without a word by the conduct of their lives.

Road Stories and Bread Breaking

                                       Luke 24: 13-35

 

 

The midsection of Luke 24 marks the first of three resurrection appearances told to us by Luke. It is thought by many to be one of the great short stories in the Bible.

The great Passover weekend is over. Two friends are walking home together and comparing notes and swapping stories about the trip. They live in Emmaus, a town about seven miles outside Jerusalem. They’re talking about all that has happened. It certainly was like no other Passover they had ever attended. The way they are introduced to us, it seems that they must have been followers of Jesus.

Jesus himself draws near. He is, of course, resurrected.  He walks along the road with them. But they don’t recognize him. Luke says that their eyes were kept from it. Jesus says to them: “What are you talking about?” They stop dead in their tracks. They look at him as if he has just crawled out from under a rock.  Are you the only visitor in town to not know what happened this weekend? they ask.

Jesus says “What things?” So they tell him the story. The story of Jesus of Nazarath.  Jesus gets to hear the events…and their idea of him…through the words of some of his followers. According to them, Jesus was a prophet, a doer of mighty acts and deeds before God and the people. It was the religious leaders who delivered him to his death. Jesus’ followers hoped he was the Redeemer of Israel, but he was executed.

The travelers go on with their story. Some women went to the tomb this morning on the third day of his death. They didn’t find his body there, but they said they saw a vision of angels. They said he was alive. The travelers told Jesus that others had gone to the tomb to check it out and that they found it as the women had described, but they had not seen Jesus. It was quite a story those traveling disciples told Jesus about his life and death and the events surrounding the tomb.  But the story they told was punctuated with doubt and sadness.  In their eyes, their hope had turned out to be a false hope. Jesus, the hoped for Redeemer, had died and now his body was missing.

Then Jesus told them a story. He started with Moses and traced their history all the way through the Prophets.  As he did, he interpreted all that Scripture concerning himself and how his coming was prophesied. He called them foolish ones. He said that they were slow of heart to believe that what the prophets had predicted, had indeed come to pass. Their hearts were burning, but they still had no idea who he was.

A long story from the disciples and a longer story from Jesus made for a quick passage down those seven miles and before they knew it, they had drawn close to the village where they lived. It was near evening and they invited this man to come in and have supper with them. He agreed.

I love road trips and long walks. Lately, I’ve become fond of long bike rides. Honestly, I love it with company, but I like it by myself as well. First, I find myself communing with nature. Sooner or later, I find myself in conversation with Jesus. I guess you could call it prayer, but sometimes it seems more like conversation. There’s something about the privacy of  cycling or walking. It slows my pace to the point where I can see and hear more clearly. Many of my reflection times come in the car or on a bike or walking barefooted in the sand. The Irish claim to have “thin” places where God is easier to feel. For me, I think my thin places are places in the heart. They are tapped into by the quietness and slower pace of walking or cycling. Maybe that’s why Jesus himself liked to escape to mountaintops and gardens to pray.

 The road to Emmaus is the first recorded instance in Luke’s gospel where our resurrected Savior appeared. This story only appears in Luke’s gospel. We don’t know for sure where Emmaus was. I don’t think it much matters. It was seven miles down the road. Seven signifies perfect, as you know. Maybe Emmaus was a perfect distance for a conversation such as this. It was just enough time for Jesus to both hear and tell a road story.

And what a story it was.  It made such an impression on these travelers that they didn’t want it to end. They invited this interesting stranger to come in for supper and to stay the night. He acted as if he would go farther, but upon their urging, he went in to stay with them. The words of verse 30 are so close to the words spoken at the Last Supper that some have said that Jesus was again having communion. Luke says that “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.” It is the same activity with nearly the same words. But here Jesus is having a meal with friends. Here, Jesus again takes charge even though he is not the host. And he blesses and breaks the bread.

Here is Jesus, sitting down with us in our homes, at our supper tables, blessing us and the food and eating a meal with us. And our eyes are opened, as were the eyes of the two disciples there that evening.

I love the way Luke brings us the warmth of Jesus. He portrays Jesus as hosting and breaking bread with his friends, whether it is on a mountain with a crowd, in a room with a small group or in our homes, at our dinner tables with only us present. Jesus does it all and does it intimately as though it is just for us. And each time we invite Jesus in, he brings us revelation, from the Beatitudes to Holy Communion to the simple, but profound revelation that he is in our midst; that he is with us.

In Luke’s story, Jesus then vanished from the sight of the disciples, but not from the remembrance of their encounter. It was so profound that they immediately got up and made their way back to Jerusalem at night to tell of what had happened. What they found upon their return was that Jesus had appeared also to Simon! Notice the exclamation point in your Bible. Yes, Jesus had made a point to appear specifically to the man who had so vehemently denied him just days earlier. Simon Peter was reunited with Jesus the very day Jesus emerged from the tomb.

It was a busy day, that Sunday long ago. Jesus arose from the tomb, from death itself and started making rounds. Luke reports that the two from Emmaus told the eleven and those gathered in the Upper Room  “what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

Jesus is the Christ. Of that, there can be no doubt in the minds of believers. He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. He puts the bookends on that which we call time and history. But in between, he walks down the roads of our lives. He tells us all we need to know and tells us why we need to know it.  And then, if we just invite him in, he will not only be with us on those high holy days when we partake of communion, but also on those summer nights when we catch hot dogs at ball games and on those winter nights when we gather for supper at the kitchen table. Yes he is sovereign and sits at the right hand of God. But he also wears sandals just like us. Maybe that’s why we Christians like so much to get together to eat. Maybe it’s just as simple as the fact that when we break bread together, we are in fellowship, and during such times, our hearts are more open to the truths that he would have us see. Perhaps he comes into full vision when we look in the eyes of those we love while we eat and drink with them around a common table. Maybe that’s when the revelation comes most clearly. And we can forever find him in our stories…at our tables…and in our hearts.

                     He Lives!

                                       Luke 24: 1-12

 

 

          He had told them. Three times he had told them,

 

according to Luke. The first time, he said: “The Son of Man

 

must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and

 

chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be

 

raised” [9:22].  The second time he said to his disciples: “The

 

Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men”

 

[9:44]. On the way to Jerusalem, he foretold his death a third

 

time, finishing his remarks with a comment that “on the third

 

day he would rise” [18: 33]. But they didn’t understand. The

 

people closest to Jesus, the people who had been with him day

 

and night for three years, didn’t understand who he was or

 

what he was there to do. When Jesus died on that hill on

 

Calvary, his followers hid in fear and cried in despair.

 

          What a difference three days make! It was Sunday, the

 

first day of the week. The Sabbath was over. Mary Magdalene,

 

Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women went

 

to the tomb to cover Jesus’ body with spices and to do other

 

final burial rights that had had to wait until after the Sabbath. 

 

          The tomb was a hole carved in the rock and covered

 

with a large stone which was rolled across the opening along a

 

top groove meant to hold it in place. The tomb was hewn

 

to hold a man’s body, which would be placed upon a stone

 

shelf also carved from the rock. The tomb was probably too

 

small for all five women to enter at the same time.

 

Luke talks about what they found and what they did not

 

find. They found the stone, but it had been rolled away. And

 

when they went in, what they found was not the dead body of

 

Jesus, but the living spirit bodies of two men. From Luke’s

 

description, there is no doubt that they are angels. No matter

 

that the Gospel accounts differ on the detail, from one

 

man in a long white robe in Mark to the angel of the Lord in

 

Matthew to two angels in John.  No two eyewitnesses ever give

 

identical accounts of something witnessed.  It is not the

 

messengers that Luke would have us remember. When God

 

has something to say, something for us to remember, it is never

 

about the messenger and always about the message. Here, the

 

message is that flesh has been replaced by Spirit and that

 

the tomb is empty!

 

          “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ask the

 

angels? Why, indeed! Why did the religious rulers see him as a

 

threat instead of the answer to their prayers? Why did the

 

people think he was going to be the king they wanted instead of

 

the Savior they needed? Why was everyone expecting a man-

 

made solution to a God-sized problem? The dead reside in

 

tombs and Jesus’ tomb was empty! The angels heralded the

 

news that changed the world. “He is not here, but has risen.”

 

          The angels told the women to remember…to remember

 

what Jesus himself has told them on several occasions…that he

 

would rise on the third day. They remembered his words and

 

then they realized that they were looking for Jesus in the

 

wrong place. The tomb was empty.

 

          Place yourself in that group. You are one of his followers,

 

perhaps one of the women. You are loyal. You have followed

 

Jesus to the end. You heard of his arrest in Gethsemane and

 

you came to the temple court. You waited through the night

 

and saw him taken to Pilate, then back to the temple and yet

 

again to Pilate. You heard his cries of pain as he was whipped

 

and scourged.  You clamored to get inside the Roman

 

courtyard where Pilate presented Jesus and Barabbas. You

 

watched helplessly as the mob demanded that Jesus be

 

crucified. You followed him as he carried his cross through the

 

city and up that hill to the Place of the Skull. You cried as he

 

suffered and yet forgave his persecutors. You huddled at the

 

foot of the cross as he breathed his last.  Your dreams and

 

hopes disappeared with his death and for the last two days, you

 

have cried until there are no more tears. And now, you come to

 

prepare his broken body and he is gone. The tomb is empty,

 

save for two men so bright that your eyes must turn away from

 

the light. What does it all mean?

 

          Luke does that to us in his Gospel. Early in the book, the

 

angel leaves a young Mary to “ponder” things in her heart.

 

Mary Magdalene and the other women find an empty tomb,

 

and they are “perplexed.” When they tell of these things, all of

 

the apostles except Peter characterize their story as an “idle

 

tale.” Peter has a different take. His heart stirs and he runs to

 

the tomb. Looking in, he sees nothing but the linen cloths that

 

have covered Jesus. He goes home “marveling” at what had

 

happened. Luke has the characters, and us, pondering,

 

perplexed and marveling. They did not know what it all meant.

 

          In one of the most monumental miscalculations of

 

information in all of history, the disciples call the story of the

 

empty tomb an “idle tale.” Peter is the lone exception and

 

even he can only “marvel” at the news. The tomb is empty

 

and he is risen. An idle tale?  Not exactly. Two thousand years

 

later, with two billion converts alive today to retell the story, it

 

is known as the Good News, the Gospel, the greatest story ever

 

told.

 

          But even today, it is difficult to grasp the incredible truth

 

of Easter.  Most Bibles now have captions and headings to

 

explain the text. Look at the captions in your Bible for Luke 9

 

and 18 regarding Jesus’ forecasts. Chances are that they read

 

of Jesus foretelling his death. But Jesus words also foretell of

 

his resurrection on the third day. How do we fail to note that in

 

our headings? Are we more interested in his death than his

 

resurrection? Even today, we strain to grasp the message that

 

lies in the story. It is just too big. When we try to downsize it

 

into bits and morsels that we can digest, we distill it into

 

something foreign, something smaller than it is. Do we know

 

what it means, or are we perplexed or still pondering?

 

The story of Easter is the story of the resurrection. Yes,

 

Jesus’ death had to come. His sacrifice had to be made. His

 

love,  his sacrificial, unbounded love, had to be shown and

 

demonstrated for us to know forgiveness.  But the story of 

 

Easter is resurrection! He lives! He lives today! Easter means

 

Resurrection Sunday, and the very fact of the resurrection is

 

that God conquered death and that in that victory lies our

 

path to redemption. He did it for us!

 

          He foretold his death. He went to the cross. All true. But

 

don’t stop there. He rose! To know that he rose is to know that

 

the resurrection is revelation! The resurrection is under-

 

standing. It is no “idle tale.” The real story of the cross is

 

not tragedy, but triumph…and our salvation!

 

          Many of us still look to make the story bite-sized, but it

 

will not be contained. Many of us still look for Jesus among the

 

dead, but we will not find him there.  He is more than a great

 

man, a hero from the past, a role model for gracious living, a

 

person to be studied. The tomb is empty. The story of Easter is

 

that he lives. He lives! He is here and now. We can meet him

 

every day. We can experience him…not just study him. He

 

lives! And because he lives, we too can live.

 

          And the angels said: “Why do you seek the living among

 

the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember…”  

                        Who Is This?

                                       Matthew 21: 6-11

 

 

          It was Passover. It doesn’t get any bigger than that. If you

were living in the kingdom of Judah during the first century,

you came to Jerusalem three times a year. There was the Feast

of Weeks, the Feast of Booths and there was Passover. You

stopped working at your job. You took your children and your spouse out of school and their normal routine, you packed your bag and you went to Jerusalem. The law required that every adult male who lived within twenty miles of Jerusalem must come to the Passover. In addition, Jews from all over the known world made the journey because of its importance on the Jewish calendar. It was the celebration of the Exodus; the remembrance of God’s deliverance of the nation of Israel from Egyptian slavery.

          Those of you who are race fans know that Charlotte Motor Speedway fills up grandstands of more than 180,000 spectators for a major race like the World 600. There are many more in the infield and parking lots. The area just outside Charlotte becomes one of the biggest populations in North Carolina for a few days. A NASCAR race has nothing on Passover. Normally, Jerusalem had a population of about 80,000, but during Passover, it swelled to many times that number. Some thirty years after the death of Jesus, a Roman governor took a census of all the lambs slain during Passover. The number was upwards of a quarter million. Passover regulations required a lamb sacrifice for no more than ten people. Do that math. That equals somewhere around two and a half million people. Passover was the main event!

          It is into this arena that Jesus purposefully came. Matthew is ever faithful to tracing the connections between the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Jesus. He tells us that Jesus sent his disciples to a nearby village to obtain a donkey and a colt, which they dutifully did. What followed was Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem at a time when it was overrun with a population probably twenty five times the number it normally held. It was like arriving at the State Fair gone turbo and being the main attraction of the grand opening. The crowds were huge, the streets were overrun, the atmosphere was high drama and it was infectious.

          And then here came Jesus, riding on a never before ridden colt accompanied by the colt’s mother.  Matthew tells us that this was done to fulfill Scripture, specifically that of Zechariah 9:9, where the prophet tells Israel that its king shall come humbly, “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt…” Jesus sat on the cloaks of his disciples and the large crowd became larger. Many spread their cloaks on the ground. Others cut palm branches to spread in his path. The crowds went ahead of him, proclaiming him and celebrating.

           The scene is not unique. At least a dozen such scenes had happened in Jerusalem’s recorded history, from Alexander the Great to Marcus Agrippa. So the scene is not so unusual. The thing is, such a reception is one reserved for a king or a conquering hero or a ruler. What has Jesus to do with this?

The crowds were shouting. They called Jesus the “Son of David.” They said he came in the name of the Lord.  They called him the prophet. Matthew says that the whole city was stirred up.

Well, if the “what” part of this breaking news has happened before, and many times before, then it must be the “who” that’s important, and indeed it is. It was then and it is now. Son of David? A reference to Scripture and prophecy?  Prophet? A reference to another of God’s heralds?  The Lord’s ambassador? Such language was the language of pilgrims. Hosanna? The term means Save Now. Hosanna in the highest might have meant that some saw Jesus as able to save them.

Was he the Savior? And if he was, what did that mean? Savior of what? Savior of whom?  “Who is this?” they asked. The crowd received Jesus like a king. Of course, he knew this was coming and he knew it would be the key to his earthly downfall.  This made no difference to Jesus, because he was the one person in Jerusalem who knew who he was.

When the religious rulers heard of all the ruckus over this man, they fretted. They were under the thumb of Rome and Rome did not tolerate sedition. Jesus was a major threat to the status quo. Jesus was more than a thorn in their side. He threatened to disrupt a delicate balance precariously struck between religious and political leaders.

“Who is this,” they asked. Caiaphas the high priest asked Jesus if he were the Son of God, and Jesus answered in a riddle. He said that “from now on you will see the Son of Man seated on the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” To Pilate, the Roman governor, he responded as he had to Caiaphas; that is, he said only to their questions: “You have said so.”

Who is this? No one got it right. No one got it right on Palm Sunday, when they called him Son of David and Prophet. No one got it right in the Sanhedrin, when they accused him of blasphemy. No one got it right at his appearance before Pilate, when a government official played the political card rather than exercise fundamental judgment and fairness. No one got it right in the crowd that formed on the morning of Good Friday when they chose to free Barabbas over Jesus. Not even the disciples got it right. We have Peter’s example to remind us of our mortality and weakness.

Who is this? Nobody got it right that first Easter, but that’s okay. God planned it that way. That’s why Jesus came. Because we don’t get it right, at least not without the grace of God that surpasses all understanding, even unto a cross.

Nevertheless, and unbelievably, the question remains to this day. Who is this? Is he the Son of Man? Is he the Son of God? Is he Messiah? Is he Savior of all? There are billions of people walking the face of the earth right now who think they have the answer, and they are wrong.

Who is this? Prophet, priest, king? Yes, and so much more! He is us and greater than us. He is the least and the most of us. He is the bridge to God and God himself.  Who is this?

He is my Savior. Make him be yours too. That’s who he is.

                              Dem Bones

                                            Ezekiel 37: 1-14

             

 

 

          Yesterday, I was listening to a college professor talk about a study he and others had conducted. They rigged Monopoly games so that one player has most of the money and power from the outset. When they won and were interviewed about the game, all the winners’ responses had to do with various moves they had made. They completely ignored the fact that they had the upper hand from the beginning, that they were favored with more money. They said nothing about good luck. That same team conducted other similar tests to weigh the tendency of people to react certain ways in certain sets of circumstances. Their findings were very predictable. In fact, similar studies have been conducted by a number of famous universities for a period of over forty years, and the results never vary. Their conclusions are that people who are advantaged by wealth or power quickly learn how to take their good fortune for granted. Not only that, they fairly quickly lose their ability to be sympathetic or empathetic to their fellow man. Put in simple terms, they thumb their noses at those mundane rules of life that the rest of us have learned to follow.

         Recently, I was at a synagogue during Sabbath worship. It was very interesting as a Christian to watch these devout people, direct descendants of Abraham and Moses and David, as they read from the Torah. Their worship was moving, and yet as I watched and listened to the reading and liturgy from the same books that you and I call the Old Testament, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sorrow that these, the chosen people of God from the beginning, stop right at the edge of the grace that God has offered through his son Jesus. In the next ten days, they will celebrate Passover, while Christians will go to the cross and then celebrate the resurrection of the Son of God. The Jews are still a “works” religion, while Christianity points to Jesus not only as Messiah but as Savior of all mankind.

          Think about it. In the eyes of religious history, the nation of Israel had it all. They were God’s chosen. While we played Monopoly with the Iron, the nation of Israel got to move around the board with the Rolls Royce.  While the Gentiles were trying to scrape up the religious capital to buy Baltic Avenue, the nation of Israel was getting monopolies like Boardwalk and Park Place. They had the Law and the Prophets.

          And yet, Israel couldn’t get it right. First, the Northern kingdom fell and later Judah followed.  Rescue after rescue after rescue, from the garden to Sodom to the Exodus to Sinai, and yet, the more that Israel benefitted from a playing field built in its favor, the more it became complacent and the more it acted ungrateful and unimpressed. Israel acted just like the participants in the Monopoly study.  It was so proud of itself; it felt so vested, that it never could take the time to remember who it was and how it got there.

          In the 37^th chapter of Ezekiel, the exiled prophet says that the hand of the Lord is upon him, a claim he makes several other places in the book. Ezekiel and his people Israel are in exile and their situation looks completely hopeless. Not only is the Temple gone, but so are most of the people.  They are living in the lands of their victors and their identity is practically gone. It is to this backdrop of hopelessness and despair that God speaks through his prophet to his people.

Doesn’t this story have a ring of familiarity? It is the story of the cripple at the Sheep gate who had all the excuses about why he couldn’t get to the pool. It is the story of Nicodemus who, for all his education and training and wealth, could not grasp the power of God to transform the human heart. At the end of the day, these are not stories about people or places or nations. They are stories about God.  

Lucky for us…and the nation of Israel, that it is not God’s story. The hand of the Lord was upon Ezekiel and God’s Spirit set him down in the middle of a valley of dry bones. The dry bones were the hopeless, exiled nation of Israel, or the hopeless cripple at the pool, and even the hapless Rabbi Nicodemus who couldn’t see the power and face of God in plain view. God asked Ezekiel: “Son of Man, Can these bones live?” And the wise prophet said to God: “You know.”

Yes, God does know. God told Ezekiel to prophesy over those bones, the bones of a nation gone bad, a nation corrupt, a nation in despair. A rattling sound was heard and bones came together. They were tied together with sinew, then flesh came upon them. And Ezekiel is looking at a valley of people the size of a great army, but with no breath, and with no breath, there was no real life in these people.

Where was their hope? The nation of Israel had run out of gas, just as so many of us have done in our own lives. What could it do? What can we do? Read on. God said to Ezekiel: Prophesy! Call for breath, and the prophet did as he was commanded. And the Scripture tells us that “the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.”

When God chooses to act, things happen. God chose to act in that valley of dry bones. God brought the nation of Israel back to the Promised Land. God brought them through many more watershed events in their history, just as he has with us.  We know now that God’s people are those who come to believe in him and in the life, death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. What we also need to realize is that his power and authority transcend all things human, all things finite. As it was in Bethesda and in Jerusalem, it also was in the days of the exile. God can raise us from the valleys of our lives, from the depths of our despair, from the hopelessness of our plight, whatever it might be, by the simple breath of his Spirit. He did it for Israel, He did it on the cross, and he does it for us even now.

“And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”