Messiah in the OT - Psalm 22, 16

Messiah in the Old Testament (W. Kaiser) – Psalm 22, 16

            Walter Kaiser cites several Psalms in his effort to draw the line from the Old Testament idea of Messiah to identification of Jesus as the fulfillment of messianic prophecy.  Included in his work are comments on Psalms 40, 45, 68 & 72.  The reader can refer to his book The Messiah in the Old Testament (http://www.christianbook.com/the-messiah-in-the-old-testament/walter-kaiser/9780310200307/pd/0030X?product_redirect=1&Ntt=0030X&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP) for his comments on those Psalms.  Here, I will summarize Kaiser’s writing on Psalm 22 & Psalm 16 as each one points to Jesus as messiah.

            Kaiser cites five scholars dating back to Calvin who, in different ways, believe that the sufferer in Psalm 22 is King David, but also that the experience described in the Psalm transcends the experiences of David.  So, the Psalm definitely ties to David, but also must be fulfilled by someone (a) who comes after David, and (b) whose experiences are expressed in the Psalm in a way that goes beyond David’s experiences of suffering.  One of the scholars cited by Kaiser, Charles Briggs, writing in 1889, says, “The sufferings [described in Psalm 22] transcend those any historical sufferer with the single exception of Jesus Christ.”[i] In other words, only Jesus could fulfill what’s said in the Psalm. 

            Kaiser agrees, with his pointing to New Testament quotations of the Psalm as being among the strongest of the points in his argument.  Two of the supposed 7 last words of Christ, the 4^th & 6^th, come from this Psalm.  The fourth word is “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:45-49; Mark 15:33-37).  Kaiser observes that the Psalms were titled by the first line of the Psalm when the New Testament was written.  Matthew and Mark present Jesus as having the entire Psalm on his mind in those moments on the cross.  Also, the point of emphasis is on the word “my,” emphasizing the relationship of the speaker to God as his father.[ii]

            The 6^th word, “it is finished,” signifies the completion of God’s redeeming work (Psalm 22:31; John 19:30).  That Jesus’ final cry of accomplishment is a quote of the final words of the Psalm further demonstrates his identification with the one singing the lament.  From these observations as well as the other points he raises, it is clear that Walter Kaiser sees the Messiah Jesus in the words of Psalm 22.

            Psalm 16 points to the resurrection.  “My body lies secure; for you do not give me up to Sheol” (16:9b-10a).  Peter quoted this Psalm in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:27 as he discussed the resurrection.   Kaiser feels the hinge that keys the messianic interpretation is in the middle verse 9.  The NRSV translates the subject there “my body,” but the actual Hebrew word is plural and means “Holy ones.”  Kaiser’s reputation believes this must be translated in the singular, that it refers to Messiah, and that the Messiah is the one who will not be given up to Sheol.

            How does one avoid eternal death?  Resurrection.  Kaiser believes David, the author/singer of Psalm 16, knew one of his descendants would surpass him and would overcome death.  He thinks this is all David knew.  He didn’t know it would be Jesus, a carpenter’s son from Nazareth.  But, he knew one of his descendants would be the one and he conveys that in Psalm 16:9-11.  Kaiser also speculates that Psalm 16 could have been one of the passages the resurrected Christ shared with the Emmaus Road disciples (Luke 24).

            Kaiser offers much more material demonstrating the presence of the messiah in the Psalms.  He says more about the two I’ve discussed as well the ones I mentioned earlier and in the previous post on this topic.  In the next post I will review his identification of the messiah in passages from some of the Minor Prophets.

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[i] Kaiser, p.112.

[ii] Kaiser, p.114.

Easter Sunrise - 2016

We Need God Alive (Luke 24:1-12)

Easter Sunday, Sunrise Service, March 27, 2016

            “At early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking spices that they had prepared.” 

            On Friday, Jesus died.  Luke tells us, “When all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. ⁴⁹ But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.”

            Then a righteous man, a priest and council member who disagreed with the decision made by others in the establishment to have Jesus executed, Joseph of Arimathea, honored Jesus with a proper burial.  Luke says, “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. ⁵⁶ Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.  On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.”

            These women were the ones to make their way to the tomb in the pre-dawn Sunday darkness.  Who were these women?  They have lived in the center of Luke’s story throughout.  They were healed by Jesus (ch. 8).  He cured their diseases and drove demons of them.  They followed him and support him and the disciples with their resources.

            One was married to someone in Herod’s court.  

Another was Magdalene, a woman of questionable repute. 

The sisters, Mary and Martha inhabited Jesus’ circle. 

His mother and another Mary were in his orbit. 

Poor, rich, diseased, healthy, socially connected, social rejects – each one of these women needed Jesus and each recognized that they needed Jesus.

            Who gets up before sunrise on a Sunday morning?  Here we are.  We are people with broken hearts and failing bodies, we are people who struggle to pay the bills and have plenty to pay the bills.  We have shared many Good Fridays.  We’ve been to the cross together.  We have traveled all the way from Galilee together.  We are here and have only just met for the first time this morning. 

            Luke shows us these women by telling us what they did.  I’ve mentioned that they received – they received healing from Jesus.  And they gave – their money, their allegiance.  They also opened their homes.  Jesus and his disciples ate with Martha and Mary.  They followed from Galilee and when Jesus was flogged and then humiliatingly paraded through Jerusalem as a bloody spectacle, the women trailed along, stepping in pools of his blood, weeping for him.  When the crowds headed for home after being sickened by another Roman crucifixion, the women lingered and watched and planned.  Jesus was taken from them, but they would not stop loving him. 

            Nor would they stop needing him.  Jesus filled holes in their lives.  Only Jesus could complete them.  These women loved their own parents.  They loved their husbands.  They loved their children.  But they carried brokenness and their families could not patch what was torn or fill what was empty.  Only Jesus enabled these wounded souls to be the women God created them to be.  He died on the cross, but their need for him lingered and so they lingered.

            Disciples follow Jesus.  The women followers continued following even after he was dead.  Laid in the tomb to rest forever, yet they came because they needed to and they recognized their need.  They came to the tomb, they entered the tomb, and there they discovered more than they expected. 

            Decades, centuries, millennia do not change the story.  Week after week, year after year, – continue to need Jesus.  Easter morning after Easter morning we continue to return here because we know we need Him.  Everyone needs Jesus.  It’s a universal human condition. 

Not everyone recognizes the need.  People try to fill the holes. Maybe success will do it for me.  Will a marriage will make me happy?   A baby? Years ago, I talked with a man who had just gone through a divorce.  He discovered 20 years of marriage was not the answer.  Adjusting to his new life as a divorced man, he said some nights he was so directionless, he just went and walked the aisles at Walmart.  Our conversation waned.  He concluded, “At least now I’m happy.” 

Las Vegas, the Bahamas – escape doesn’t work.  The bottle or pills – numbing the pain doesn’t work. 

Only Jesus can offer hope.  Only He can fix what’s broken, fill the emptiness, and helps us be the men and women God made us to be.

He was dead, but they still needed Him. So they went to the tomb.  This story is 2000 years old, but we still need Him.  So we come. 

When we come, what happened with the women happens with us.  They entered the empty tomb where angels greeted them with the news that He is alive.  Jesus – the one they so desperately need – is alive. 

Immediately the women told the disciples who just as quickly dismissed the silly, dreaming woman-talk.  Has any dismissal ever rung so hollow?  Though they would not admit it, the disciples needed Jesus as much as they women did.  There’s Peter inching toward the door, “Yeah, guys, I agree.  These women are batty.”  And he’s off, running fast enough to kick up a dust storm.  Why run after the words of crazy women?  He needs Jesus.  He knows Jesus has died, but he needs Jesus alive. 

He only finds an empty tomb, but he is amazed. 

Are we?  Caught between an old story and our hope that the story will continue when Jesus returns and our hope that he will return, and driven by our need for Him, are we amazed on Easter Sunday?  I am.

Like the faithful women who followed Jesus and like Peter with his doubts, his failings, and his desperation, I know I need Jesus and I think you do too.  We believe He rose.  We believe the resurrection as a fact of history.  We believe He sits at the right hand of the father, and we believe His Holy Spirit is in all places and is with us in this place, helping us, speaking to us, and encouraging us right now. 

The women told their story and we continue to tell it.  We need Jesus alive and He is alive.  And so, Easter is complete joy and it is also real hope that the brokenness will be fixed and is being fixed.  The emptiness will be filled and is being filled.  Just as we are connected to these women through human need, we are connected through the satisfaction we have in Jesus.  He is alive, our needs are met, and we have a story to tell.  As we tell it, those who hear and also recognize their need will, like Peter, be amazed.  And we will live in that amazement with them.

AMEN 

Messianic Prophecy –Abraham, Judah

The Messiah in the Old Testament –Abraham, Judah

            In his book The Messiah in the Old Testament, Walter Kaiser, of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, notes 8 promises God made to Abraham.[i]  The seventh of these was that through Abraham, God would bless all the peoples of the earth (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18).  Kaiser feels this promise points to the heart of the Gospel.  Salvation comes as a gift given by God apart from human works.[ii]  In Galatians 3:8 & Romans 4:10-12, the Apostle Paul looks to this early expression of the Gospel in Abraham’s life.  The Messiah – Jesus – fulfills this promise by overcoming the divide between Jews (the Chosen People) and the gentiles (those without knowledge of God). 

            I find Kaiser’s identification of the anticipated Messiah in the promises made to Abraham to be very convincing.  The continuity from Genesis 3:15 and “the seed,” born of woman t0 Abraham to the promise to Jesus and then to Paul’s discourse on Jesus is easy for me to accept. 

I am not as inclined to follow Kaiser’s assertion that Abraham knew God would raise Isaac or provide a substitute when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22).[iii] I think for our ancestors in the faith, things were not as settled as for us with the benefit of hindsight.  I don’t know what Abraham knew or believed when he took Isaac up Moriah to be a human sacrifice.  That story is problematic and I find that it is unhelpful to try to dampen the cruelty and the lack of moral clarity in that story.  But it is quite easy to see the birth of a Messianic hope in the promise to Abraham. 

            This Abrahamic promise is specified four generations later when his great, great grandson Joseph is giving blessing to his 12 sons.  Jacob reserves the most important blessing not for the oldest, but for the fourth son, Judah. 

             Genesis 49:8-12New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

⁸ Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion,     like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?

¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.

¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes; ¹² his eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

            The key word in this prophecy from Genesis 48 is in verse 10, ‘shiloh’ (translated ‘tribute’ in the NRSV).  This Hebrew word, based upon its usage in Ezekiel, means his ‘due,’ or that which is ‘rightfully his.’  Based on understanding ‘shiloh,’ this way, Kaiser understands Genesis 48:10 to mean Judah will govern until the Messiah comes at which point the Messiah (Jesus) will rule the world.[iv]  This is why we call Him King of Kings and Lord of the Lords.  The roots of this idea reach all the way back to Genesis and the constituting of the nation of Israel.

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[i] W. Kaiser (1995).  The Messiah in the Old Testament.  Zondervan Publishing (Grand Rapids), p.46.

[ii] Ibid, p.47.

[iii] Ibid, p.50.

[iv] Ibid, p. 53.

The Messiah in the Old Testament - Genesis 9

The Messiah in the Old Testament – Noah

            Christians believe Jesus is the ‘anointed of the Lord.’  That is what ‘Christ’ means.  ‘Christ,’ ‘Messiah;’ these are titles, not names.  We who follow and worship Jesus believe he is the one who fulfilled the prophecies about God sending an anointed one who would herald his restoration of Shalom and Edenic ‘Good’ to the world, fallen in sin as it is.  We Christians believe Jesus is the bringer of salvation.  In The Messiah in the Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser points to texts from the Hebrew Bible that anticipate and point to the Messiah.

            Last week I began my reflections on Kaiser’s observations in chapter 2, “The Messiah in the Pentateuch.”[i]  He cited Genesis 3:15, the passage in which God judges between the deceptive serpent and the offspring of Adam and Eve, the people who succumbed to the serpent’s wiles.  This week, we briefly touch on the next Messianic text Kaiser identifies in the Pentateuch, the prediction of Noah (Genesis 9:25-27).

            After Noah and his family are back on dry ground and the flood waters receded, Noah’s first act on dry ground is to worship. 

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹ And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 9:20-21).

God notes that even Noah’s family had evil in it.  Shortly after this Noah reissues the Eden commission to be fruitful and fill the earth (9:1).  Echoes of this commission fill Jesus’ great commission.  Here, a new humanity, one rescued from the flood is sent to reestablish God’s vision for creation.  In the Gospel (Matthew 28), Jesus sends his disciples to make a new humanity, one in his image.  One of God’s purposes for humanity is for us to go out, obeying his commands, acting as his agents to make the earth what he intends.

            Soon after Noah issues the commission, trouble comes.  He passed out naked in a drunken stupor and his middle son Ham “saw the nakedness of his father,” a shameful thing in that ancient culture (Genesis 9:21-22).  Reverently, the oldest, Shem and youngest Japheth, cover Noah without looking at him.  When Noah wakes up, he blessed them and curses Ham.

            The controversial verse is 27.  “May God dwell in the tents of Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.”  In this sentence, who is referred to by the word “him,” and “his” in the second and third stanzas?  Do these pronouns refer to Japheth or do they refer to God?  Kaiser believes God is the referent for the pronouns “him” and “his”.  Thus he writes, “The meanings of Genesis 9:27 is God’s announcement that his advent will take place among the Shemites, later known through the Greek form of their name as the Semites” (p. 45).

            Furthermore, Kaiser poses a question that prior to the coming of Jesus would have been so preposterous as to not even be asked.  “How could the immortal God, so to speak, contaminate himself with the stuff of our humanity?”  This question is not as difficult for Christians because we believe Jesus was God in human flesh; a paradox, fully God and fully human at the same time.  It is a core belief summed up well in John 1:14.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.”  Kaiser believes the promise to Shem in Genesis 9:27 anticipates and is fulfilled by John 1:14.

            So far, following Walter Kaiser’s comments, God will appear before humanity through natural human birth (Genesis 3:15) and will be a Shemite (Semite) (Genesis 9:27).  Has God’s plan for the Messiah has been in God’s mind from the very beginning?

            Next, we will take a look at the Messiah in relation to Abraham. 

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[i] Pentateuch refers to the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  These works are also called “Torah,” and “The Law of Moses.”

When the Dream Comes True (Matt. 3:1-17)

Sunday, January 17, 2016

           Two sinners, flawed people who make mistakes and fall short of God’s glory. 

Two extraordinary men – there have never been any like these men and their contributions to humanity are greater than can be measured.

Great men?  Sinners fallen short of God?  These men are both.  Consider their lives, their words, and the profound importance of each as I hold each up alongside the other. 

            First, Martin Luther King Jr.   In 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, he said,

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

                       

“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

            Has his dream been realized? 

            However accurate or inaccurate or partially accurate, the perception of many, maybe most black people is that they can’t get a fair shake in business, in education, in health care, in housing, and in numerous other ways in every day.  Statistics bear this out.  Black Americans are less likely to be admitted to the highest universities, less likely to be identified and put in academically gifted programs, and more likely to be suspended from school for offenses that if done by whites often go unpunished.  In nearly every formal institution in our country, blacks get less opportunity for advancement; and, they suffer more harshly and more frequently than whites who commit the same offenses and rules infractions.

            Has Dr. King’s dream been realized? 

            Many African Americans have achieved incredible success.  Condoleezza Rice is a brilliant academic, a political scientist, and former secretary of state.  Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America’s leading astrophysicists.  Colin Powell is one the great generals in U.S. army’s history.  Ben Carson is a brain surgeon and a presidential candidate.  Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice.  And of course our president, Barak Obama is an African American who has achieved the highest office in the land.  No matter what your personal opinion is of these named, they all merit respect.  This high level achievement and leadership among persons of color had not happened when Dr. King gave that speech.

            On a more personal level, in our day biracial families are accepted as the boundaries for what is considered normal expand.  I did not imagine when we adopted H__ and M__ that we would meet other families just like ours in preschool and then again in our neighborhood, but we have.  Chapel Hill is progressive town and there are places in North Carolina and in other parts of America that are less-welcoming of such diversity.  However, I think across America, there is now a social consensus that racism is evil.  Since Dr. King gave the “I have a Dream Speech” things have changed.

            They have not changed nearly quickly enough.  His poignant phrase “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” needs to be taken to heart.  Right now, most of the perspectives I get from black people in my circles are different than the perspectives of white people in my circles.  I hate saying “black people think …” or “all white people …” do such and such.  I think the generalizing is unfair.  However, I do feel safe in saying that most black people expertience the world differently than most white people. 

            Dr. King’s context was America, embroiled in racial conflict.  The man I have thought about alongside Martin Luther King Jr. is John the Baptist whom we meet in Matthew’s Gospel.  John burst upon the scene calling the people of Judah to “Repent!  For the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”  He allowed no margin for the luxury of cooling off.  Repentance is a turning – to turn from looking and living in one direction to looking and living in an altogether different direction.  God is over here, but you are oriented over there. You have to radically turn your lives because the way you are currently headed is away from God. 

            Essentially, this was John’s message.  As America today needs to turn away from greed, materialism, racism, elitism, and xenophobia, John said the people in the first century needed to turn away from sin and turn to God. 

Otherwise, we will miss the presence of Jesus even though, he is here.  This season, epiphany, the time after Christmas – this is Jesus’ ‘coming out party.’  We won’t see it, not now, not if we aren’t watching.  To miss it is to live apart from God.  If we live apart from God now, we will be apart from him at the Judgment.  When Jesus returns in the Second Coming to call his own into the Kingdom, we will not be among those counted as his own.  We need to turn. 

We need to turn because currently our gaze is fixed by human wisdom in the direction of today’s definition of success.  Philosophies like individualism, naturalism, and patriotism do not appear inherently evil, but when one of these ways of thinking and seeing define our worldview instead of Jesus defining our worldview, it pull us away from the God who wants to saves us from self-destruction.

“Repent!”  Turn from where we are looking, from what we are thinking, from who we are admiring, from how we are living; turn from this to God. 

In the Gospels are stories of people who met Jesus in person and still could not turn to him because they could not turn away from the allure of wealth or the entrenched racism of their day.  In the New Testament world, the segregation was Jew-gentile.  Today it is white-black, or English speaking-non English speaking; or it is citizen-immigrant; or it is Christian-Muslim.  Whatever divides people by objectifying those not-like-me as “other” – whatever that division point is, it is evil and we must turn from it.  We must in humble confession turn to God.  John preached that.

            Dr. King claimed that God showed him a vision of life – the life to come if people could learn to live in peace and harmony and love for each other; people from all backgrounds.  He said,

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

           

            John also had a sense of what would it would be like when the words he preached became reality.  He said,

¹¹ “I baptize you with^[b] water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

            So, two prophets; one condemned racial inequality, the other sin run rampant among the chosen people of God.  King’s denouncing of racism is a damning of sin – a specific arena of sin and for us in 2016, one that arena, racism, continues to trouble our communities because it exists and people of color continue to suffer injustices.  Likewise John the Baptist issued a call that we must heed; we must turn from the ways of the world to the ways of God as we know God in Jesus.

            These two prophets who preached with force and drama had vision.  They imagined the fulfillment of their dreams.  John the Baptist spoke and it was electric; he baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He will gather the grain, and the chaff. The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  People from all walks of life abandoned the comforts of Jerusalem and flooded out to the wilderness to be baptized by him and hear him talk about the one who was to come. 

Who was this Savior John forecast?

What would life be like upon his arrival?  John offered the stark call – repent!  And, he offered the promise of baptism by spirit and fire.

Dr. King named the evil of racism and imagined a world without it. 

So what of it?  What do we make of the preaching and the vision of either man?  Were their dreams realized?  Today we have Travon Martin and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.  Today secularism is on the rise; Christianity it so politicized, it is stripped of anything in it that resembles faith. 

John was anointed by God.  Dr. King awakened America to God’s compassion for the downcast and God’s hatred of racism and injustice.  Both spoke with power as they cast compelling visions.  So, what do we do with the world as it is?

Imagine John there in the Jordan.  Everyone is spellbound.  In those flowing waters, he appears to be the most powerful man in the world and all who come defer to his passion and his fiery teaching.  The royal official, the temple soldier, the priest, the Roman centurion; before John, they all shrink.  Submissively, they go to the waters.

Then, Jesus comes.  His eyes meet John’s.  John finds himself tongue-tied.  Matthew writes, “Jesus came … to be baptized by him [but] John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

He who had cast the pre-vision of the Kingdom fell to pieces when the Kingdom stood before him in the person of Jesus.  John would have stopped Jesus at the start of his ministry.  Why?  I believe seeing Jesus is so overwhelming, we forget everything.  At the same time, we see everything.

We inherit John’s call to repentance and the 1960’s iteration of it in Dr. King’s call to end segregation and build harmony and love across racial lines.  We repent and we work for equality recognizing that when one group of people is wounded by prejudice, we all are.

We anticipate the dreams of these prophets.  God gives glimpses and so we can say with John, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  With MLK, we get glimpses of the Promised Land where black boys and girls and white children and Jewish and Syrian and Chinese and Mexican children all laugh and run and play together, without fear.  We can imagine it.  We spend our lives working for it, reaching for it.

Still we know that we won’t finally reach it until Jesus meets our gaze as he did John’s.  In that moment, face to face, completely exposed before him, completely vulnerable, we feel ourselves wrapped in his arms of love.  Then, we are finally home.

We know that day will come.  Until it does, we honor the prophets who have gone before us by working for love and brotherhood and sisterhood as we understand things in light of the way of Jesus.  We can’t fully say what it will be like when the dream comes true.  So, we imagine, we work for it, we pray for it, and with hopeful expectation and full readiness, we wait for it. 

AMEN

The Messiah in the Old Testament

The Messiah in the Old Testament

            The Messiah in the Old Testament (Zondervan Publishing House, 1995) is the title of a book by Walter Kaiser, professor of Old Testament at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  Monthly, in my newsletter articles and weekly in my blog, I will begin 2016 with thoughts Kaiser’s book has raised in me. 

            I don’t know that I could write an opening paragraph any dryer than this.  What possible interest could my reading of Kaiser have for you, friendly reader?  Only this: there is continuity between Christianity and Judaism.  If we Christians are ignorant of Judaism, we ignore our spiritual relatives to our peril.  Thus we must give our attention to our spiritual roots.

            The Apostle Paul calls all non-Jewish Christ followers “wild olive shoots.”  In order to be part of God’s people, we have to be “grafted in” (Romans 11:19).  To follow Jesus with a deep, mature faith, we have to embrace that by God’s grace, we gentile Christ-followers are adopted into Israel and not at the expense of Israel. 

            What is the eternal destiny of Jewish people who do not accept that Jesus is the Messiah?  That is for God to decide.  I will not in this space offer any opinion about the eternal destiny of Jews or anyone else.  I enter this exercise with fear and trembling.  I know the history of evils Christians have committed against Jews.  It is understandable that one of the most detestable things to Jews is the attempt Christians make to convert them.  I pray I can write in a way that is respectful.

As an evangelical Christian, I would try to help anyone of any background who does not follow and worship Jesus come to that point in their journey where they decide to worship and follow him.  But my role is to love, to encourage, to help, and to support and to do it all with compassion.  I do not convert anyone.  I do not “win souls.”  The Holy Spirit does this.  My efforts at reading about the Jewishness of Jesus are not part of a design to specifically witness to Jews.  I feel called to witness to all people.  But for reasons stated above, this witness is shared humbly.  Confidently and boldly, but just as important, humbly.

            My goal in this study is to more deeply understand Jesus.  And I invite you to join me in this.  As the Gospel makes clear, Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed one of Israel.  So, if we are to understand our Lord, we need to understand why he is called “Christ.”  It’s a title, not his last name.  It serves as a name, of course, because there is no other Christ.  But to know Jesus, we need to know all aspects of Him (or as many as we can).  John 21:25 implies what we obviously see when we realize Jesus is God.  No one can ever know all there is to know of Him.  So we strive to know as much as we can. 

            Kaiser writes, “The Bible is to be read with an appreciation of its wholeness, its unity, and its concept of a divine plan that is being enacted both in immediate historical fulfillments, and in a final, climactic fulfillment in the last days” (p.26).  This unity carries from Old Testament words about the Messiah through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and into the age of the church.  Kaiser’s proposal is that “the messianic doctrine is located in God’s single, unified plan, called in the NT his ‘promise,’ which is eternal in its fulfillment but climactic in its final accomplishments, while being built up by historical fulfillments that are part and parcel of that single ongoing plan as it moved toward its final plateau” (p.31). 

In other words, from the start, God planned to save the world through the Jewish Messiah.  I hope you’ll walk with me as I explore all the implications in the claim that Jesus is the Christ even and we are his, ‘Christians.’ Follow the blog (http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/).  Leave comments, or Facebook me or tweet at me.  Participate in the conversation.  Together, let’s begin growing in our knowledge of our Lord by growing in our understanding of what we mean when we say Jesus Christ.

Satan, Get Behind Us (Mark 8:31-39)

Satan, Get Behind Us (Mark 8:31-39)

Sunday, March 1, 2014 - 2nd Sunday Lent

            Jesus, in a private session with his disciples, explained that he, their teacher, the one they had watched calm storms at sea and conquer demons, must suffer.  The religious leaders and legal experts would reject him.  He would be killed.  It was coming.  It was inevitable.  Mark says in verse 32 that Jesus said this openly.  Throughout Mark’s gospel people heard Jesus but did not know what he was saying.  Misunderstanding was a consistent theme, but not here.  This was not cryptic.  Nothing was left for interpretation.  They would have no trouble getting the message, just difficulty swallowing it.

            Especially Peter.  It was too much.  He heard Jesus say, “the son of man must undergo great suffering … and be killed,” and that is all Peter heard.  Jesus said more, but Peter could not hear any more.  I imagine he grabbed Jesus by the arm and pulled him off to the side for a one-on-one session.

            Lord, you can’t say stuff like this.  You can’t lose your nerve, not now.  You’re scaring the other disciples.  I just stood up among everyone and put myself out there.  I have thrown my lot in with you.  I declared you the Messiah.  The Messiah restores Israel.  Don’t you know the stories, Jesus?  The Messiah makes things right.  The Messiah does not die.  We’ve followed you this far.  Now don’t lose the message.  No more talk about suffering.  You are Israel’s Messiah.  You can’t die. 

            Peter missed a key part of what Jesus said.  He mentioned being rejected, suffering, and being killed.  Right after that he said the Son of Man, which is how Jesus refers to himself in Mark, would rise from death.  But none of them expected the Messiah to be resurrected prior to the last day.  So novel was the idea of the Messiah’s resurrection preceding the general resurrection of all people the disciples simply did not hear it when Jesus said it.

Peter’s worldview demanded that he see everything in existence as it related to God’s selection of Israel as of his special people.  Sure, Peter wanted God to heal the sick, bring justice, and make the world right.  But that would happen when God set things right in Israel through the Messiah.  The world would be redeemed after Israel was established as the center of all human activity.  The Messiah would do this.  Peter believed Jesus was that Messiah.

            In fact Jesus was going to make the world right, but not in the way that Peter and most people in first century Israel anticipated.  The crucifixion was absolutely necessary.  Jesus had to die for us so we would not be eternally separated from God by our sins.  The resurrection was absolutely necessary because it was the signal that the death of our bodies would be a prelude to our resurrection.  Jesus gave the disciples the entire plan so that after he rose, they could understand the gospel and carry it throughout the earth.

           

            By sharing the plan with the disciples, Jesus was giving them a part in it.  Satan could not prevent this, but Satan could distract the disciples so that they failed to receive the invitation they had been given. 

Oh, you have been invited to follow this guy and to tell everyone that their sins can be forgiven when they turn to Him, give their hearts to Him, and follow Him.  Don’t believe it.  That’s the lie the enemy, the devil, whispered in the disciples’ ears.  He’s telling you the Messiah has to suffer and die at the hands of the religious leaders?  Whoever heard such nonsense?  That’s Satan.  He can’t hurt Jesus or those under Jesus’ protection.  But the disciples still had free will and could freely walk away from Jesus or impede Jesus’ progress in carrying out God’s design.  Satan could not get to Jesus, but could he derail Jesus’ followers?

Can he do so today?

We live as Christ followers in a family, a church family.  We don’t just come here because we like coming.  We come because we are invited by God.  God has purposes for us that are the same as those he gave the disciples.  We continue the work begun in them.  Our mission is to announce that Jesus is Lord and to help people become His followers.  We are to follow Him and help others join us as His disciples.  We are commissioned by the same Holy Spirit that formed the church in Acts chapter 2.

Our focus has to stay on who we are in Christ and who He is calling us to be and what He is calling us to think, say, and do.  Satan can’t stop us, but can put other thoughts in our minds.  We have to say to whatever distraction arises, “Get behind us, Satan!  For you are drawing our minds not to divine things, but to Human things.”  We need to keep our minds on the divine work God has given and the holy lives to which God has called us in Christ.Satan is right now trying to seduce HillSong into ignoring God’s word for us and instead focusing on human things.  We have to agree to say together, “Get behind us Satan.”

An example of Satan’s tactics can be seen in our church’s finances.  The report is in the bulletin each month and if you read that then you know we are way behind for January and February.  HillSong’s receipts are made up your tithes and we also have income from students who rent parking spaces, and outside groups that use our facility.  From these receipts we pay salaries, fund missions, pay the light bill, and any other costs that arise.  Currently our receipts are behind our costs.

The leaders of our church need to know this and pay attention to it and we are.  Satan wants our leaders to obsess about it.  Satan tells the truth, but manipulates it.  You know, since the beginning of last summer, eight families have left the church and they are all faithful tithers. [i]  That is true.  And our giving is down and it is quite simple to put the two together and say, we can’t hire a youth pastor right now.  We can’t fund a mission trip or expand our ministries right now.  We need to focus on belt-tightening. That’s what the enemy wants.

Yes, focus on the finances.  And the enemy wins. 

Our focus is on our mission to help people to become disciples of Jesus.  That’s our focus.  That is our mission.  It involves doing what we need to do to have a high quality youth ministry because we know that most people who make a decision to follow Jesus make that decision between the ages of 11 and 25. 

Part of doing our work is taking care of our money.  So, we stand before God and name the concern – our receipts and tithes are low.  We ask you, the church family to join the church leaders on our knees before God in prayer.  Together we ask Him to provide and to lift the anxiety we feel.  Number 1, we pray. 

Second, we make short term decisions without compromising our big-picture calling.  Heather and I are going to meet and discuss how we can tinker with the missions and ministry budgets.  We’re not going to change anything but we might put off spending until later in the year, after we have prayed and involved you, the church family in the process.  First is prayer.  Second is the leadership acknowledging the issue and keeping our eye on our calling – to make disciples.

Third we appeal to membership.  If you have given 10% of your income to church budget, could you give 12 or 13% this year?  If you can give more, we ask you to do so.  If you cannot, OK.  We want every member to join us in earnestly asking God to bring in new people who will participate in ministry and help us in our work of making disciples.

Prayer, leadership making short term decisions and keeping the focus on the big picture, and an appeal to members to pray and to give; this all leads us to the biggest step, number 4.  We believe.  We believe God can provide and will.  We believe God has given us a picture of our church, a safe space where people come to Jesus, are made new by Him, and sent into the world on mission for him.  We believe this is who God wants us to be.  We believe and we tell Satan to get behind us because our mission is the product of what Jesus did when he suffered and died.

We and churches like us around the world exist because Jesus was able to put Satan’s temptations behind Him and behind his disciples.  Those fishermen and tax collectors who are cowards and bumblers in the gospel become heroic in their witness in the book of Acts.  Jesus did not just defeat Satan.  He taught his followers how to put Satan behind them. 

Being reminded of who Peter becomes helps us keep our focus.  He moved past his initial difficulties and we can.  We have. 

Recall the years, 2008-2012.  The United States went through a recession and millions were hit financially.  Someone recently told me of a church they know where the members were so devastated by loss of income that they could not tithe as much and the church had to sell its building.  Now that church did not lose its focus.  It is a church called to lead people to Jesus and still does, but it had to carry on holding services in rented space at a fitness club.  They made changes and did what they needed to go to continue answering God’s call.

Now think about HillSong and how God has been at work here.  For the other church, it may be that God’s best for them in the recession years was to close the building but the keep the congregation alive.   

Our focus is on what God has done here and continues to do among us.  Since the recession of 2008, one way Satan has tried to get churches off track is to get us to obsess about belt-tightening.  In that period time, we hired an associate pastor and added expenses, and increased our mission giving.  Then we hired a youth pastor and began doing annual youth mission trips.  Along the way, we had to make cuts, but we never sacrificed.  The ministry work has only grown. 

Since the 2008 recession, we have increased the number of local mission projects we do.  We raised well over 1000 dollars for relief after the Haiti Earthquake, and our members went there on medical teams and construction teams.  We also saw over 40 of our members become sponsors for kids in Kombolcha Ethiopia, and we are about to make our 4^th trip there. 

More pastoral staff, new mission trips, annual youth group mission trips, expanded ministries, and new local missions, all in a time of financial crisis; why could this happen?  It happened because God enabled us to say, “Get behind us Satan.  We don’t want to look at the temptations you’re dangling before us.  We won’t give in to the anxiety you’re suggesting.  Get behind us. We want to see what Jesus has for us, so get out of the way.”

Our deacons and our treasurer Kent Stone are key leaders and their work of raising concerns is vital to our church life.  I appreciate them and our deacons, pastors, and elders are going to take this information, pray over it, and pour our hearts out to God for His protection, and provision.  We’re going to make responsible choices. What drives us is what God has called us to do.  We are called and we are sent to make disciples.  Nothing is going to stop that work or even slow it down. 

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^[i] will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

Is there some distraction in your life? If that distraction were moved out of the way, would you be free to follow Jesus wherever leads? 

You are invited to a time of silent prayer.  Ask God what it means in your life to take up your cross and follow Jesus.  Ask God what it means for you to deny yourself and to lose your life for the sake of the Gospel.  And ask God to help you say, “Get behind me Satan,” so that you can see and embrace God’s plan for redeeming the world and to live your part in that plan. 

We will pray and sing.  At any point, you are invited to come for prayer.  We will have people at the front and back to pray with you.

AMEN

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[i] Ginger Burkes, The Driggers, Matthew Lawrence, The Neumans, The Mooneys, The Parkers, The Sodens, and Sarah Stanley have all left the church.