"Contagious" (Holy 2:10-19)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3Lmw8DDMM&t=2233s

Sunday, January 24, 2021

 

            Prior to 2020, an ongoing debate between my wife and me had to do with handwashing and the transmission of germs.  She is maniacal, no, not maniacal; committed!  That’s the right word, committed. Long before anyone ever said the words “COVID-19,” my wife Candy was committed to fighting germs.  In her world, “Good morning” is something you say after you’ve confirmed everyone has indeed washed their hands. 

            A year into the COVID-19 situation, she wins the debate.  We all need to be committed to hand-washing and stopping the spread of the virus, a contagion unlike anything we’ve ever seen.  Interestingly, the Biblical prophet Haggai deals with the issue of what can be caught and what cannot be caught.

            In chapter 1 Haggai established the necessity of rebuilding the Jerusalem temple that had been destroyed when exile began.  Haggai and Zechariah come along after the exile with the message that it is time once again for Israel to answer call to live as God’s people through whom God will reveal Himself to the world. 

            Recall the Torah, the law, specifically Leviticus 19:2. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  That law had not changed in 520 BC, Haggai’s day. Israel was once again called to be holy.  The first order of business was to rebuild the temple.  This work would signal to the people of Israel and the surrounding nations that worship was the central, organizing activity around which community life revolved.  Haggai’s prodding got the work started, but then what?  Once they completed the temple, what would daily life be like for God’s people after exile?

            This question confronts everyone who believes in Jesus and follows him as Lord.  When gentiles realize we are ‘in Christ’ we understand that we too are a part of the people of God.  The command “be holy” applies to the way we live.  Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  Also, in that sermon, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).  Answering this divine call to holiness determines the direction of our lives.

            Is it possible?  Can we “be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect?”  Is it just a pipe dream to suppose we can be holy?  Haggai addresses this.  After he has inspired the people to overcome their fears and begin the temple work, he hints at what must be the foundation of life lived under God and in relationship with God.

            “Ask the priests,” he writes. “If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold [of that garment then] touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy?  The priests answered, ‘no’ (2:12).”  We 21^st century American Christians take communion.  If you were to ask me, the professional religionist of this church, after a communion service, ‘Is everyone who ate today’s communion bread now sinless,’ I would answer, ‘no.’  I believe the bread shows that we are forgiven.  Jesus has taken on himself the death sin brings.  But, after we walk away from  the Lord’s Supper, we make mistakes again.  We have been forgiven.  We have not achieved holiness. Touching something holy doesn’t make us holy.  Holiness is not contagious. Sin is.

            Next, in verse 13 Haggai asks, “’If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches [you], do [you] become unclean?’ The priests answered, ‘Yes.’”  So, while holiness does not rub off, impurity does.  Paul makes this point in his first letter to the Corinthian church.  Quoting a Greek proverb, he writes, “Bad company ruins good morals” (15:33).  Who we hang out with, what we watch, and the websites we visit and games play affect how we think and how we see the world. 

Sin draws us in, so that we forget to consider the Lord as we live in the places of everyday life.  20^th century theologian James McClendon defined sin as refusal to walk the way of Jesus, ruptures in the community (which is a rejection of God’s rule), and reversion to a life apart from God.[i]  We refuse God’s way, reject God’s rule and relegate God to limited spaces.  God lives in the church building and we visit him on Sundays.  Maybe, God is awake and active when our family prays before a meal, or while we are on a mission trip, or volunteering for a ministry.  The rest of the time, God is quiet, sitting off to the side and ignored.  We would say, O yes, Jesus is Lord.  However, we’ve caught the contagion: sin! So, Jesus is a quiet Lord who doesn’t have authority in our day-to-day lives.  Grace and righteousness are condescendingly patted on the head and set on the shelf.  Other values rule.

If we can’t catch holiness, and defilement rubs off on us like wet mud clinging to our shoes, what is do be done?  How do we wash off the profane and clothe ourselves with Christ’s gospel?

In verses 16-17, Haggai, as he did in chapter 1, points out the farming failures the people struggled with prior to working on the temple.  And in verses 18-19, Haggai notes how much better they fared once they laid the foundation for that temple.  What thread ties it together?  God’s involvement; “I struck … the products of your toil with blight” says the Lord, when the temple was a pile of rubble.  And after the people obeyed the prophet and began the work?  Haggai issued God’s promise.  “From this day on I will bless you.”

Holiness cannot be caught, except when issued by God.  Impurities, defilement, sin, deviations cannot be washed off, except when the one doing the washing is God.  The divine call in Haggai is an act of God’s grace.  God invites the people once again to be His people.  They did not accomplish this, but working hard in response to His grace, they did rebuild the temple and re-establish the worshiping community.  They received God’s blessing. They lived as God’s active partners with God as the initiator.  When God initiates the relationship and we respond obediently, God makes us holy. 

Church, we cannot stop the pandemic.  We can live responsibly, limit our indoor gatherings, socially distance, and wash our hands.  We can pray.  We must do all these things.

Church, we are powerless to root sin out of the world; moreover, we will catch the corrosive effects of life lived apart from God.  We will feel God’s absence, when under the influence of people who have refused God’s way, rejected God’s rule, and reverted to a life apart from God.  The godless life defiles us.  But then we remember that the God who promised to be present in Haggai has come to us in the  flesh in Jesus. 

He modeled the perfect human life, loving selflessly, teaching God’s wisdom, fulfilling God’s law, and doling out grace.  In his death he defeated sin, and in his resurrection, he overcame death.  He calls us to himself and fills us with the Holy Spirit.  He makes us right.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30, “Christ Jesus became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

 We don’t catch holiness, we receive it.  We turn to Jesus, he removes all that dirties and ruins us, and gives us sparkling, heavenly robes.  He is righteous and covers us with his righteousness so that we may exist with one another in relationships of love and peace. 

In recent days, a lot of talk about hope has been tied to a new president and to the arrival of vaccines.  We hear people pinning their hopes to these things.  We know the only real hope for the world is Jesus, the holy, eternal one who makes us new.  His holiness covers us. He gives us life and we live in Him. 

AMEN

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[i] McClendon, J. (1994), Systematic Theology: Vol. 2: Doctrine, Abingdon Press (Nashville), p.130-135.

Porch Sitting and Coffee Sipping (Ephesians 3:7-13)

What do we learn about God when we come into the church?

            According to Ephesians 2:19, we are members of the household God – we being “the church.” 

            This summer, I visited a guy.[i]  His house is old, mildewed, run-down.  Junk is piled everywhere.  Stacks of seemingly uses papers and old clothes lay about.  What can I learn about the man by what I saw in his household?

            He sits on his front porch.  He had invited me to do some porch-sitting with him.  So we sat.  As we talked, people would walk by; people who are having a hard time in life.  He lives in that part of the city where drugs are easy to get, but work, not so much.  There’s an abundance of heartache and a shortage of love.

He knew just about all who passed by, and they certainly know him.  Many would stop, and he’d say, “What do you need?”  He would give a bag groceries.  I don’t know who donated all the food, but he never ran out.  On the table on his front porch were clean, neatly folded used clothes.  He’d pass those out too, as people had need. 

            This is not all he does.  Sometimes he preaches at the church where he’s an associate pastor.  That’s how I met him.  Sometimes, he goes to prayer meetings with other pastors.  Sometimes he does advocacy work for the underprivileged in Durham. And sometimes, he sits on his porch.

            What can we learn about the man when we look at his household?  That he needs to clean up and maybe paint the walls?  Or, that he is ready to meet people in their need with compassion, kindness, prayer, and groceries if they are hungry and clothes if they need them? 

I visited another household – one in the part of the city with spacious green lawns and two-car garages[ii].  People don’t walk by these houses, they drive up to them.  This couple, near 80, has known me for 40 years. 

They invited me into their neatly decorated home.  For over an hour, we sat at their kitchen table, drank coffee, and talked about share memories.  We discussed life in the church and race in America.  At lunch time, they had prepared a table on their beautifully furnished, shaded back patio.  After a sandwich and some coleslaw, she said, “Rob, you haven’t had enough to eat,” as she refilled my empty plate. 

By the time I departed, I was full of food, and even more full of love from people who have loved me for as far back as I can remember.  And wisdom.  Gently, they poured the wisdom of their years into me. 

What can I learn about these people from their household?  That they have worked hard and enjoy the privilege of good education and good salaries and cultural refinement?  Or, that they love me and out of their household flows welcome and generosity?

Both my hosts showed me that God is welcoming – welcomes all.  They showed me God is generous.  They showed me God is ready to sit on the porch with me and listen.  They showed me God has a place at the table set for me.  And after each visit, I left with my cup full, God’s grace flowing out of me.  On Sunday morning, do people leave our church full, with God’s abundant love pour over?

Verse 10 caught me as I read Ephesians 3 this week.  Through the church, the wisdom of God will be made know to rulers and authorities in Heavenly places.  Are we ready for that?  Angelic beings, heavenly creatures we cannot imagine, supernatural forces both evil and benevolent, ask God, who are you?  What are you?  What wisdom will you share?  God responds, all you need to know of me you can know by looking to earth, to the realm of humans.  Look to my church if you want to know anything about me.  Whoa!

My family visited several churches this summer[iii].  We met some wonderful people.  But I don’t know if I would call the church (church worldwide) exalted based on what we saw.  One church didn’t really welcome us.  They were very nice, but they barely noticed we were there.  Another was so polished in their welcome, so refined in their method, it felt kind of like they wanted to sell us something.  Each church had its strengths and weaknesses.  That’s true of us too.  There are things HillSong does well.  And areas where we need improvement. 

However, we would miss the mark if we thought we had to strive for that improvement in order to be the church described in Ephesians 3:10.  The church does not make God’s wisdom known to the heavenly powers.  God does it working through His church, imperfect as it is. 

The great reformation theologian John Calvin says, “Truth is not extinguished [from] the world, but remains safe because it has the church as its faithful custodian.”[iv]  We have custody of the Word of God; we are responsible to share the Gospel and to do it in an inviting, loving way. 

Our sins separate us from God, but Jesus took our sins and the end to which our sins lead, death, on himself.  On the cross, Jesus shouldered it all.  Removing our sin and replacing it with righteousness, Jesus makes us right with God and each other.  And then in resurrection, Jesus defeated the last enemy – death.  So, as we come to life in Christ, we step into the Kingdom, into eternal life as sons and daughters of God.  This is the Gospel.  Paul calls himself a servant of this Gospel (3:7).  We, God’s church, have custody of this word and must care for it according to God’s design.  

Bible scholar Marcus Barth says it another way, calling the church a functional outpost of the Kingdom.  The world yearns to be rescued from the decay of sin and delivered to live in the Kingdom of God.  As Barth thinks about the church as the place where the wisdom of God is revealed, he imagines an outpost.  In the church, we’re not in the Kingdom fully, not yet.  But, we are connected and we point the way. 

Eighteenth century evangelist and founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley reads Ephesians 3:10 and writes that the church is “the theater of divine wisdom.”  The church is where divine wisdom performs.  It is where God’s ways are displayed and it is where we are affected by God. 

The church is …

·         a faithful custodian – caring for how the good news of life in Christ is shared

·         an outpost – pointing the way so people can escape the clutches of pain and loss and find their way into God’s arms

·         the theater in which God touches all who come with love and grace

·         the front porch where we sit together and pray and listen and welcome all who come buy

·         the kitchen table where we talk over cups of coffee

Pay attention because in these pictures, we don’t come to church to see what we can get.  We just come as we are, no pretensions, and we receive what God gives.   In receiving, with God doing the giving, we become the medium in which the wisdom of God is made known. 

We come wounded and broken.  God restores and heals. 

We come sad.  God sits with us in our sadness long enough for us to see that we are not alone, but rather are part of a family who loves us.  Sometimes the way we see God sitting with us is in others in the church, our friends, putting their arms around us.  No answers.  No solutions.  Just presence and love. 

We come confused.  God says, that’s OK.  Follow Jesus, even when confused.  Does the confusion clear up?  Sometimes?  Yes.  Eventually.  Always?  Not necessarily.  Some mysteries of God remain as mysteries.  But keep worshiping God, keep following Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will work through us. 

We come with our questions, our doubts, and our fears.  God says, yes, come.  And God loves us, through the love of the church family.

What does the world learn about God when the world looks into our church and we are living as a people in a dynamic relationship with God in which we give up all control and authority to God?

One lesson about God is seen in examining ourselves.  We have been created to be receivers, not achievers.  America celebrate achievers.  Look at what he accomplished.  We put those who have accomplished a lot on pedestals.  But God made us to be in relationship with God.  We are designed to receive what God has to give.  We probably have trouble with this because for centuries, we’ve been condition to work for what we have, to earn it, so we can tell ourselves we deserve it.  In the way of the Gospel, life, the love of God expressed through the cross and the resurrection, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, can only be received. 

Oh, we work hard.  We work hard to turn the other cheek, to respond to hurts with forgiveness, to know the word, to tune out temptations, to bless others with our generosity.  We work hard, but our efforts flow out of our gratitude for the grace we’ve been given.  We work knowing everything we have has already been given to us before we did a thing.  That’s the wisdom of God revealed through the church.

A second lesson is we are created for a home, not created for the marketplace.  The marketplace is not bad.  Buying and selling is a part of human interaction.  There are examples of smart business people who became devoted followers of Jesus while continuing to be smart in the game of commerce.  Jesus commended shrewdness.[v]  Yet, we were not made for business.  We were made for home and family.

In America and in other parts of the world, church has become big business.  Churches compete for one another to draw people.  In that climate, worship attendees become customers who must be attracted and then satisfied.  Church members see themselves as stakeholders or board members.  The church staff are viewed as employees.  And the senior pastor is a CEO. 

The New Testament presents an entirely different metaphor for church.  In the New Testament, church members called one another ‘brother,’ and ‘sister.’  Paul described himself as Timothy’s father in the faith.[vi]  Ephesians 1:5 says we are all adopted as children of God.  If we are unsatisfied with our family, we don’t shop around until we find a happier one.  We stick with one another through painful, hard times.  We come alongside each other, brothers and sisters in Christ, and together we pray for healing, forgiveness, and new life.  We laugh and cry and sing and dance together.  The church is a household, not one option among many in a spiritual marketplace.[vii]

What does the world learn about God when the world looks into the church?

Life is received from God, not achieved.  Our effort comes as response to God’s grace.  God is a giver.

Church is a family of believers who make up a household, not a Sunday morning option that serves to make the attendees happy.   Church goers who are in Christ have joy in all circumstances and are equipped to walk through darkness and pain because they lean on Christ.  Churches do not bend over backward to give people what they want; rather, they meet the needs people bring with the love of Christ – love expressed relationally, emotionally, and tangibly.  God has a place for you. 

I began with my experiences – porch sitting with one brother in Christ; kitchen-table-coffee drinking with two others.  This week, the wisdom of God is going to be made known in the world through this church.  Don’t be surprised.  God does this every week.  You may have been a part of it.  God may reveal divine mysteries through you this week. 

Ground yourself in Christ – bound to the Gospel by God’s grace.

Do some porch-sitting.  Sit with someone and listen deeply, ready to welcome any who come, and pray for all.

Do some kitchen-table coffee sipping.  As you do, with gratitude, receive the grace of God others will pour into you.  Don’t keep your brothers and sisters in Christ at arm’s length.  Let them pour love into your heart – let someone love you to overflowing. 

The wisdom of God won’t only be revealed through us, but also to us. 

AMEN

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[i] My visit to Alan Jones of Mosaic Church in Durham, August 2017.

[ii] My visit to Sandy and Emerson Shelton in Richmond, VA, August 2017

[iii] The period of my Sabbatical, May-September 2017.

[iv] Institutes, Book IV, chapter 8.12.

[v] Luke 16:1-13

[vi] 1 Timothy 1:2.

[vii] Peter T. Cha and Greg J. Yee (2012).  Honoring the Generations, M.Sydney Park, Soong-Chan Rah, and Al Tizon, editors.  Judson Press (Valley Forge, PA), p.94.

Hope Words and Why We Believe Them (Eph 1:15-23)

Subways: underground trains in big cities.  In places like Washington DC and New York the underground system is immense.  The subways in Moscow are ornately decorated and quite beautiful.  But a lot of subways are not so pretty.  The platform is grimy, trash strewn, without benefit of sunshine (obviously), and overall quite drab.  Subway riders are harried, tired; thousands of people rushing to and from work where they will, in a high-pressure environment, give 10-11 hours of their lives, 50-75 hours a week. 

            The work, the rush, the gray, depressed environment; the underground metro is not a place of spiritual inspiration. 

Except …

            There’s that young woman.  Look at her down in this cave, dancing!  All we hear is the shuffle of tired feet, the screech of the trains coming down the line.  In those earbuds, what does she hear?  What music induces such beautiful body movement?  Poetry in motion. 

All we see are heads down, glum eyes set straight ahead.  Must get to work.  Must do the work.  Must get home.  Must not go crazy.  Must not slug anyone as I slog through this commute.  The subway iPod dancer’s eyes are closed.  As we muddle along in the shadows, what light does she see, she with her closed eyes, her smiling face, her dancing body?[i]

            She is Christianity.  Wait.  What?

            Where the world sees death, a Christian, one who follows Christ, one whose life is lived in Christ sees laughter.  We don’t mock the pain death brings.  We are sympathetic.  But, we know death is an enemy that has been defeated, and in Christ we have eternal life.  God gives beauty for our ashes, strength for fear; God gives us deep laughter and takes our grief.  We will be called “oaks of righteousness” … to display God’s glory.[ii]  In the Spirit, God is with us now and always, comforting us, emboldening us, filling us, and empowering us.  As we live in awareness of God-in-us loving us, we hear music others cannot hear.  We smile at happiness others do now know, cannot know.  We can’t help it.  We must dance.

            Look at her, so frivolous as she sprinkles beauty and grace all about this bleak subterranean world.  Look at us, witnesses to eternal joy and indefatigable hope – hope that cannot be broken or made weary.

            Except …

            We know too many people cut off from this joy and this hope, cut off from God and caught up in pain. 

            Twitter is the ultimate safe space because you can create any name you want as your user name.  You can put any picture in as your ID.  You can exist in the Twitter totally anonymously.  You can also follow whomever else is on Twitter.

            My Twitter handle is ‘revtennant.’  The picture is a photo of my wife Candy and me.  On my profile page is a picture of me on one of our church trips to Ethiopia.  My bio tells exactly who I am. 

            Occasionally, I will tweet scripture verses or quotes from authors like Eugene Peterson.  My simple aim is to get positive words flowing into the raging torrent of social media.  Tweets and Facebook posts can be impossibly negative, divisive, and provocative.  I too try to provoke.  I try to take words from the Bible to provoke people to hope, or at least to consider that hope might be possible.

            Most of the people who see my Tweets are church members, friends, family.  But, remember; on Twitter anyone can follow you.  Someone called “Atheist C Cat.”  Has reacted to one of my Christ-proclaiming tweets.  Atheist C Cat could be anyone – maybe someone from this church or formally of this church.  A-Cat’s bio says, “Skeptic.  Atheist.  Ex-Christian.  Cat lover.”  That’s it.

            A-Cat’s initial response to me was a low grade jab at God.  I posted a quote – “Everything God does is woven into the plot for your salvation.”[iii]  “Maybe the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect, loving deity should have created a perfect world where salvation isn’t needed.”

            I didn’t take the bait.  God doesn’t need me to defend God.  God’s reputation is intact.  Instead, I tried to pick up on A-Cat’s words and engage in a conversation.  I asked. “What would a perfect world look like?”

            “Different than the one we’re in.”

            “Couldn’t Christians and Atheists and Muslims and Jews” work together for good?

            And A-Cat responded and we went on this way.  I kept trying to guide the conversation toward a hopeful place and A-Cat kept going back to the inevitability of death and destruction.  I hope the conversation will continue, but where he or she last left it, was with this.  “I choose to live in reality as much as possible, even though it does appear bleak.  But the evidence leads the way.”

            Pay close attention to this anonymous atheist Tweeter who depicts him/herself as an ex-Christian and trolls Christian pastors with impotent barbs aimed at God.  She declares that reality is death and destruction.  Anything else – faith, hope, love – is fantasy.  Reality is humans will always be evil and malicious toward each other.  And evidence, the supreme standard for truth, leads to this fatalistic conclusion. 

            Two thought for A-Cat; first, I suspect many people feel just like her.  Many see the world and see death and try to make the best of a situation that inevitably leads to chaos and misery.  Second, in a world without God, A-Cat is right.  All people sin.  Sin is seen in real time in the way we hurt each other.  And sin up on sin, across the oceans across the span of centuries leads to a world that is spiraling to death.  A-Cat is correct.

            Except … subway iPod dancer seems oblivious, dancing, spilling color and light and music out all over A-Cat’s gray dying world. 

So the tension is clear.  Without God, without life in Christ, we exist as Darwinian animals whose only purpose is to survive and pass on our genes.  Eat, produce young, and then die, either a lonely death or a violent one.  Either way, there is no hope because this life is all there is and death is the end.  With God, living life in Christ, we stand in the midst of a decaying world bound for destruction.  Each one of us, each church, big or small, each individual Christian, stands amid the chaos and insists there is another story, a better story to be told and being told.  In Jesus Christ, God has come near.  In Jesus Christ, the Kingdom has come.  In Jesus Christ, we can have life, abundant, eternal life.  I’ll take that subway iPod dancer’s vision over A-Cat’s fatalism any day.  I want to dance like no one is watching.

Except … many people in the church, people who speak words of faith live lives that suggest they are find A-Cat’s argument more convincing.  A lot of Christians are beleaguered by doubt and or burdened by responsibility or immobilized by depression.  Some in the church live joyless lives that suggest whatever good we can hope for from God is coming much, much later.  We drag ourselves through our days with an aura of defeat.  Ignatius of Loyola defined sin as “refusing to believe that God wants my happiness and fulfillment.”[iv]

Questions; do we believe God wants us happy and fulfilled?  Do we believe God is able to help us be happy and be fulfilled?  Can God help with this?  If we say yes, God wants us happy, and if we say, yes, God can help with this, then here’s the biggie.  Is God willing to help?  But there’s even a bigger question than that.  Assuming God is willing to help, will we know it when God does help?  When God gives happiness and fulfillment, we recognize it? 

Or are we caught in smaller things?  God gives a good marriage, full of commitment and grace – a happiness that starts now and lasts to old age.  But, we miss the gift because we have misguided notion what a marriage should be and we spin our wheels trying to achieve something that will produce limited happiness that quickly runs out.  God gives honest work, but we miss the gift because we think we should be distinguished, accomplished, and respected.  We never stop to consider the burdens that come with prestige. 

I am not saying don’t strive for excellence.  I am saying don’t wait to be grateful.  See what God is doing in life right now and trust that God has good in store for you tomorrow.  If today, you carry pain, don’t let the pain define whether or not today is good.  Bring the pain into worship, into community of fellow Christ-followers.  Bring the hurt to the cross and see God standing with you in the pain and let God define what today is.

Philip Yancey references a survey in which Americans are asked what words they would like most to hear.  Three answers top the list.  You’ll guess the first one.  What is the number 1 answer to the question, ‘what words do you want to hear?’  It is “I love you.”  What’s number 2?  It is “I forgive you.”  Let’s see if you can guess number 2? 

“Supper is ready.”

Where do most people eat supper?  I think at home.  But some live alone, so supper is quiet unless the TV is on.  Others are in families, but the despair of the world had invaded the family.  So, with family around, the TV is still on.  No one is talking to each other.  Everyone sits zombie-like, letting the evening news or the 7 o’clock game show define reality.  Or the family is fragmented.  Some sit down to dinner, but others are at practice or at meetings.  Why is sister’s chair empty?  O she has soccer.  Why isn’t dad eating with us?  Had to work late.  Or the dinner table is the arena in which the family fights are battled out.  At least once a week, dinner ends with someone slamming down silverware and someone else leaving the table in tears.

            In the Kingdom of God, dinner is different.  It is with family no matter your age or marital status.  In the Kingdom, dinner is an affair where you are surrounded by people who love you and pay attention to you, and no one is in a hurry and no one is missing.  God, Ephesians 1:5 tells us, “destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ.”  The Kingdom is family.  Verse 11, “in Christ we have an inheritance.”  And that inheritance is eternal life.  We say this with certainty because we know Jesus lived, no one, atheists or otherwise deny that he was crucified, and we are positively certain he was resurrected on the third day.  Ephesians 2:20 – “God … raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”

            We believe these hope words because the strongest historical evidence is that the resurrection happened.  But evidence is not the only standard by which we assess truth.  We also look at experience.  We have experienced the love of God.  Through our lived relationship with God, we know God is here and God is good.  What I pray I could show Atheist Cat but also show my brothers and sisters in Christ who are overcome with negativity and disappointment is that God, as we know God in Jesus Christ, is Lord.  Jesus is Lord now, here.  And Lord wants us to receive love and forgiveness.  And the Lord has a place set for us at His table. 

            Those of us who have received the forgiveness and eaten at the table of the Father who’s adopted us are so full of love, we are free to dance like no one is watching.  We have music to share in the monotonous drone of godless life.  We have good news. 

            If you have known this good news but the hardness of life has driven it deep into the recesses of your heart, this morning, pray.  Ask God open the ears of your soul so you can truly hear Him say, “I love you.”

            If all you can see are your own failures they threaten to overrun you, ask God to open your heart so you can hear Him say, “I forgive you.”  And when you hear it, believe it.  Receive it.  You are a new creation, a child of God.

            If you know you are loved and you are forgiven, then you also know people who haven’t walked with Jesus.  You have people like Atheist Cat in your life.  Go to one of them and with grace say, “Your place at the table is set and ready for you.  Please come home to father.  Supper is ready.  ”

AMEN

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[i] Philip Yancey (2014).  Vanishing Grace, Zondervan (Grand Rapids).  In this message, I refer to several stories Yancey shares in this book including the iPod dancer, the references to Tim Keller and Ignatius of Loyola, the words people want to hear most.  These stories are found in chapter 4 (p.69-88).

[ii] Isaiah 61:3.

[iii] Eugene Peterson (

[iv] Yancey, p.79.  

The Easter Sermon

Do We Understand the Good News? (Mark 16:6-7; Matthew 28:8-10)

Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017

            The end of 2016, and maybe the entirety of 2016, was hard for a lot of people; maybe for you.  Some felt roughed up, and at a loss because of the political climate in America.  The election results were a tough blow for a lot of people.  Others were happy with the election, but distressed about things going on in the world.  And then a lot of people have their own problems, personal demons or trials that are so intense, they couldn’t even focus on the national or international scenes.  Getting from one day to the next was tough enough. 

            As I took in the state of the world right around us here, I sensed a creeping, uncomfortable malaise.  Pastors and preachers have a variety of responsibilities including the duty to share good news.  I felt that need quite strongly as we turned the page from December to January.  I felt that on Sunday mornings, we had to turn our attention from distressing current events to deeper truths and greater realities – things that could not be affected by what happens in Washington or in the voting booth. 

            So, we began this year imagining just how big God is.  We turned all our attention onto God.  This was not a retreat from the realities around us.  We prayed over the immigration issue.  We prayed for refugees and many in our church have volunteered to help refugees.  We pray over race relations in our country.  And our church is going to spend the rest of this year examining how we can be a more diverse community.  Our decision to earnestly seek to see as much of God as we can was not a denial of the pain and frustration all around us.  The decision to look to God was a declaration that God’s goodness is bigger than the evils of the present day.  God’s light shines brighter than any darkness.

            We want to be witnesses to that light and to draw others into God’s light.  We can only testify to what we have seen.  So, we tried, as a church family, see God.

            As winter gave way to spring and Lent began, we took up an unusual Lenten discipline.  Rather than fasting, going without red meat or desserts or things like that, we instead engaged in story-telling.  This is our attempt to answer God’s call on us to be witnesses.  We set up a witness wall where anyone could write down a testimony of seeing God at work, working for good in the world.  Each week we invited the church to come to wall and share their stories of things they see God doing in their own lives. 

            I wrote down some of the responses.  These are all stories from people who worshiped in this room in the last 6 weeks.  One testified to provision – God met financial needs in a desperate time.  Another wrote of tangible experiences of God’s love, including gratitude for a loving church family.  One person wrote thanks for the opportunity to play school soccer; another for the chance to be in a school play; for opportunities for friendship; the opportunity to become grandparents; and, the opportunity to share the Gospel.  The wall is full of accounts of God helping people. 

            That last one I mentioned is quite important for today – Easter Sunday.  Someone was thankful for the opportunity to share the Gospel.  That word ‘gospel’ comes from the Greek and it means, literally, ‘good news.’  The Greek word is eungelion, the root for the English ‘evangel’ or ‘evangelism.’  Technically, evangelism means ‘the telling of good news.’ 

Of course, if I just asked everyone to define ‘evangelical,’ I’d get a wide variety of responses.  Some would not have anything to do with sharing good news.

Similarly, if I asked everyone to write down and turn in a definition of ‘gospel,’ there would be a plethora of definitions.  Some might define it by terms of genre – ‘gospel music.’  Others might define it by terms of purity – ‘that’s the gospel truth.’

In any Easter Sunday crowd, we gather together as a mixture of people.  Some are experienced in church and in churches like ours, and are very knowledgeable about the Bible.  Others are not in church as often and it all feels unfamiliar.  The question I have is for everyone because I think we might all, in different ways, struggle with this.  Do we understand the good news?  We sing about Jesus’ resurrection with great energy, but why is this good news for us?    

            N.T. Wright gives a helpful definition of the ancient way the word ‘gospel’ was used.[i]

            The term actually was in use by the Romans before the New Testament was written.  It was used when there was a handover of power.  The Emperor had died and thus the empire was full of uncertainty.  Will the empire hold together?  Are we going to sink into chaos?  Will pirates or invading barbarians take over?  Is war inevitable?

When the new Emperor was crowned, heralds were dispatched to travel throughout the empire to announce this message.  “We have a new Emperor.  His name is Augustus.  A new age of peace and justice begins.”  That was the gospel, the announced “good news.” Of course people in the empire knew that for them – the majority who were poor peasants – it would be more of the same.  It didn’t matter who was in power.  For the majority in the roman empire, life was poverty and struggle.  The peace-and-justice gospel was empty political rhetoric.

In that world, a world of Jewish frustration – frustrated at being under Roman heel; a world of Greek cultural dominance; and a world of Roman military and political power; in that world, New Testament writers seized this term from the empire and used it to tell what God had done in Jesus.  The first verse of the Gospel of Mark – “Arxh tou euaggeliou Ihsou Xristou uiou qeou.”  “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

From the start, the New Testament did what we have been trying to do.  The New Testament told a different story, a competing narrative.  The New Testament challenged the dominant narrative of empire with news of God at work in the world changing everything.  The New Testament writers from Mark to Matthew to Luke to Paul responded to Rome.  “You say the good news is that Augustus or Nero or Domitian is now king?  That’s good news?” 

“No,” New Testament authors defiantly reply.  “We, a small group among the Jews, have the real good news.  God has come in the flesh, in a man in Israel, a peasant carpenter from backwater Nazareth, Jesus.  He is God and he is man; he is Savior, and he is Lord.  He died on the cross for the sins of the world.  And on the third, on this day, he rose from death in resurrection.”

The story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus includes salvation for the individual.  When you put your trust in Christ, receive forgiveness of sins, turn your life over to Him, and acknowledge Him as Lord, you are saved.  Jesus provides the story of your salvation, and mine.  But the Easter proclamation of Good News – Gospel – is much, much more than simply saying, ‘here’s how we get to Heaven.’  The resurrection is the dawning of a new age, one in which God is King.  Easter is God’s response to every oppressive power that would seek to rule the world. 

History is full of declarations of exceptionalism.  The superiority of the Aryan race; the sun never setting on the British Empire; America first; on and on it goes.  At Easter, Christians around the world join together to declare “No,” there is no government, king, general, or any other who has real power.  It is God’s.  The world is God’s.  All that is in it belongs to God.  And God is good.  God is love.  God is forgiveness.  God is light.  God is life.  We know God by way of the salvation we’ve been given in Jesus Christ. 

Of course whether or not news is considered “good” depends one where you’re standing.  A couple of weeks ago, we got the news on a Monday night.  “National Champions!”  What could be better?  Well, if you cheer Gonzaga or for Duke a lot of things could be better. 

But more importantly, how do we respond to the news that in Jesus God has come and inaugurated a new age in which God is king?  The resurrection set this in motion and when it happened, no one was ready for it, not even Jesus’ closest followers.

All four New Testaments Gospels convey the same detail the morning of the resurrection.  The male followers of Jesus were in hiding.  The women stole to the tomb in the early morning hours to anoint the dead body of Jesus as it had not been appropriately prepared for burial.  Those women went to the tomb as an act of love for Jesus, but they were fully convinced he was dead.

Mark reports that they found the stone sealing the tomb already rolled to the side and so they entered and found a young man that Luke and Matthew both describe as an angel.  Mark’s young man then gives the 2-part good news that is the beginning of Christian proclamation that we continue to this day.  Something has happened!

First, he says, “Fear not.  You are looking for Jesus, but he has been raised.  He is going ahead of you to Galilee.”  This is unmistakable.  He’s not describing a new awareness.  He’s not talking about something that is spiritual but not physical.  Mark describes women entering a tomb where they saw Jesus buried.  Now the body is gone, and the young man they meet there tells them that after Jesus died on Friday and sat in the grave on Saturday, he is alive on Sunday.  His body is somewhere else, fully alive and on the move.

Second, he says to them, “Go and tell.  Tell the disciples they will see him just as he said.”  For the women to do it, to heed the word of the messenger, they have to believe it.  You don’t say something as preposterous as ‘the dead man lives’ unless you believe it. 

Matthew picks up the story here in chapter 28, verse 8.  “So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell the disciples.”  He is alive.

Do we understand?

The Gospels were written between 30 and 50 years after these events.  The accounts on which the Gospels were based circulated orally throughout Christian communities in Jerusalem and Antioch and then in Corinth and Galatia and the rest of cities where churches cropped up.  In the later 30’s and 40’s and 50’s, these stories were told.  In the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote them down.

They did this to get the story straight and help the church remember its foundation.  The Gospels introduce us to our Savior.  They also declare the church’s resounding “no” to the powers of the day.  The Gospels live on to reject the powers of every era including our own. 

Do we understand?

The only way we can understand is if we believe.  I have read numerous exhaustive historical studies.  The best conclusion to be drawn from the hard historical data is Jesus in fact rose from the grave and appeared to his followers.  But evidence doesn’t convince anyone – not in this case.  To fully grasp the news and to comprehend why it this news is good, we have to believe.

We have to believe that we are sinners, that God loves us and in Christ met us in our sin, died in our place taking our sins on himself, and then rose from death on Easter morning.  Once we believe that, then we’re right where those women were in the tomb first hearing the news. 

God has done something.  We’re right to be afraid just as those women were.  The reality of God is terrifying; wonderful, but terrifying too.  But then, as it did for them, that fear gives way to something else.  Because the tomb is empty it means Death is defeated.  We have life.   We have God with us and when we die, we will be raised just as Jesus was raised.  As he was resurrected, we have resurrection ahead of us!   

Finally, it hits us.  News is only news when it is shared.  So, to fully understand the Good news, we need the stories.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John help us there.  We need the honesty – we sin and we need help.  We need the realization that God has done something to help.  We need to believe.  Once we do that, then like those women on Easter morning, we must go and tell. 

There’s a lot of bad news out there.  The world is full of anxiety and uncertainty – a deadly combination.  But, we have another story to offer, one that is truer and one that lasts.  Jesus is alive and all can have life, eternal life, in his name.  Got it?  Good!  Now, we are witnesses called to share our testimony.  Go and tell.

AMEN

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[i] https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2008/09/04/gospel-definitions-nt-wright/