Messiah in the Old Testament - some final thoughts (for now)

A Final Post on The Messiah in the Old Testament (Walter Kaiser)

            I am loathe to write this post because if you read my blogs regularly, you know at the beginning of 2016, I intended to write blog posts throughout the year reacting to Kaiser’s book.  He makes the case that anticipation of Jesus coming as Messiah (Anointed one of God, the Christ) is seen in the Old Testament.  According to Kaiser, from Genesis to Malachi, there is unmistakable evidence of the Messiah’s presence in the Old Testament.  I wanted to learn Kaiser’s perspective and share it with you, my readers. 

            I did OK through the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and I reviewed his assessment of OT books up through the Psalms.   Alas, time caught up with me.  Some of Kaiser’s meatiest work is done in the prophets.  In 2016, other interests (family life, church, study of racial dynamic in American life) took me away from working on writing my responses to the ideas in this book. 

            So now, I conclude by recommending that you go to Amazon (or whatever site you prefer) and get your own copy of Kaiser’s book. 

            I do offer this.  I have only recently come to appreciate just how important and controversial it is to think that New Testament concepts arose first in the Old Testament and then served as fulfillment of the Old Testament.  For Jewish people who do not believe Jesus is the Messiah, this is a great insult.  For them, the Old Testament is not “Old.”  It is “the Bible,” the Torah.  Some Jews may feel that their book was stolen from them by the same Christians who perpetrated the Pogroms and ignored the Holocaust.  I think the story is more complicated than that, but I want to be gentle with the feelings of others, especially those who have suffered enormous wounding in history.

            I want to respect the Jewish reading of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).  I want to be in dialogue with Jewish friends and neighbors.  I want to learn about this sacred text from them; they’re the experts.  If I see something about the Messiah (Jesus as Messiah) in Psalm 22 or Genesis 3 or Isaiah 53, something my Jewish friends don’t see or refuse to see, I want to come to that knowledge humbly.  I want to hold that reading reverently and with no intent to marginalize or discard the Jewish viewpoint.

            At the same time, I recognize the absolute nature of this conversation.  Either Jesus is the Messiah or he isn’t.  I believe he is.  I believe His Holy Spirit resides in me and compels me to read the Hebrew Bible through Gospel-tinted lenses.  I believe what Kaiser says is true.  “A straightforward understanding and application of the text leads one straight to the Messiah and to Jesus of Nazareth, who has fulfilled everything these texts said about his first coming” (p.232).

            Thus, I live in this tension.  I want to love and respect my Jewish neighbor who says “Don’t undermine my Bible by insisting that its message is fulfilled in Jesus.”  At the same, I believe scripture (including the Old Testament) can be properly only when read in such a way that we see that the message points to Jesus.  The Bible is about God’s relationship with humanity, and God’s relationship with humanity is made whole through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ, the Messiah.  I believe that with all my being, all my soul.

            I pray that conversations around this topic can be peaceful and friendly, even if they end in disagreement.

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.

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.”

The Messiah in Genesis 3:15

Comments on The Messiah in the Old Testament – Genesis to Deuteronomy

            I look to the first five books of the Bible for creations stories – Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; Noah and the Flood; the tower of Babel.  This is where we meet Abraham and Noah and read about the Law.  I never thought to look to these books, referred to variously as the Pentateuch, the Law of Moses, and the Torah, for words about the Messiah.  Yet, Kaiser lists two messianic prophecies in the primeval history (Genesis 1-11), two in the patriarchal era (Genesis 12-50), and two in the Mosaic epoch (Exodus-Deuteronomy) (Kaiser, p.36). 

            It begins with what some call the protoevangelium  (first gospel), Genesis 3:15.  After Eve and then Adam disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit, they move from the sparkle of innocence to the stain of sin.  God speaks first to the serpent who tempted Eve.  God says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”  Kaiser comments, “The seed/offspring mentioned in this verse became the root from which the tree of the OT promise of a Messiah grew” (p.37-38).

The serpent, he feels, is a title, not a description of a reptilian animal.  He points out something that should be obvious, unmistakable.  And yet, I had not made this connection previously.  God has already created animals that “creep and crawl”.  And God “saw that it was good” (1:25).  If you hate snakes or spiders or sharks or cockroaches or rats, take up your argument with God.  In the opening chapter of the Bible, God declared these animals “good.”  So, by the third chapter, the snake is not by nature evil.  Nor is it endowed with the image of God as humans are (1:26).

Thus Kaiser feels that “serpent” is a title, and the demotion of the one called “serpent” in verse 15 is directly tied to the prophecy that the woman’s offspring will oppose him.  In Revelation 12:9, Satan is associated with the serpent who invaded Eden.  Kaiser also points out verse where Paul makes this connection (Romans 16:20; 2 Corinthians 11:13; see Kaiser’s footnote, p.39).  Kaiser concludes “the identity of the tempter can be none other than Satan” (p.39).

While I understand Kaiser’s reasoning here and his logic makes sense, I am hesitant to go as far as he did in affirming with certainty that the Eden serpent = Satan.  I am hesitant because I think the account of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent is legend, not history.  Now let me be clear.  This is does not mean I don’t think it is true.  I do think the world was created “good.”  I think that one of the major points of Genesis 1-3.  I also think Kaiser demonstrates a masterful hermeneutic in identifying the serpent with the invasion of evil into the good God made.  However, making a certain association with Satan goes too far. 

Maybe the simplest way to elucidate why I can’t just say the serpent is Satan is my acknowledgment that I am not 100% sold on a literal Adam and Eve.  I think evolution is a good explanatory framework offered by science for how God made the world.  At some point, God endowed prehistoric humans with His Spirit.  At that point the creature that had evolved to be what is today called Homo sapiens became God’s image-bearer.  What I am offering here is a theological conclusion driven by faith.  My thoughts here do not strip Genesis 1-3 of truth, but rather set those chapters as a theological statement. 

I think Satan was real and played a role in drawing humans away from God and into sin.  But even our understanding of Satan has undergone change over time.  The idea of a divine council that included a role entitled ‘Hasatan,’ the accuser, is one that developed. 

Originally, this Accuser was an important member of the council.  He is not in opposition to God until 1 Chronicles 21:1 and Zechariah 3:1-2.  In those passages, Satan is unquestioningly opposed to God and is thus evil.  But in Job, it not nearly as clear.  In Job, it appears that Satan is fulfilling the role indicated by his title.  It appears God is the provocateur.  A brief analysis of Job is coming, but I think it might anachronistic to suppose that ancient Israelite communities who lived with Genesis as their book of faith had any concept of Satan and if they did, it is not the understanding we have living in a post-New Testament world as we do. 

This excurses on Satan is necessary to interact with Kaiser.  I find his observation of the serpent as a cipher for the entrance of evil into the good God made as a brilliant explanation.  A lot of people have made the connection, but I am particularly enlightened by the way Kaiser does it and the way he demonstrates that the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent’s head is in fact the Messiah.  I feel like my understanding of God’s story has expanded due to this portion of Kaiser’s work. 

I’ll pick the next identification he makes of a messianic prediction the Pentateuch in my next post. 

Reflection from Walter Kaiser's "The Messiah in the Old Testament" - intro

Comments on The Messiah in the Old Testament – Opening Remarks

            In the 1720’s Anthony Collins published two works in which he attempted to show that “the literal meaning of certain messianic proof-texts from the OT could not support the messianic interpretation placed on them by the NT.  … The so-called ‘complete’ or ‘spiritual’ fulfillment of these OT texts that many were applying to Jesus, Collins concluded, could be no more than an illustration” (Kaiser, p.14).  The eighteenth century scholar Collins felt that there was no proof that Jesus had been anticipated as ‘messiah.’

            Kaiser then lists 7 methods of interpretation of prophecy used to overcome the challenge posed by Collins. 

1.      Dual meaning.  There might be an original meaning of a text, say from Isaiah’s time, and that meaning stood in Isaiah’s day.  This prophecy had a later, fuller meaning, to which messianic interpretation and application could be attached.  This method came from Thomas Sherlock in 1732.  The problem with this is the loss of predictive value.  The prophecy said something in Isaiah’s day, but they did not ‘predict’ something else, a future ‘anointed one’ of the Lord.

2.     Single meaning.  This view from J.G. Herder and J.G. Eichhorn declared the only meaning of prophecy to be its original meaning.  There was no secondary application.  Eichhorn was convinced that the last three decades of the 1700’s completely erased the idea that the OT prophets predicted anything.  The Bible reader had to discern the individual prophet’s life in order to glean hope for the future.  I have to say, I have real trouble understanding this method based on the brief description.  To me it seems like a reiteration of Collins’ original thought.

3.     New Testament meaning.  From 1828-1858, E.W. von Hengstenberg published and re-published a 3-volume work on prophecy.  In it, he gave final arbitration to New Testament authors.  For him, they determined how to understand the OT texts considered ‘messianic.’  His critics said his reading was dogmatic and ignored the historical context of Jeremiah or Hosea or whatever prophet was in question.

4.     Developmental meaning.  Nineteenth century scholar Franz Delitzsch could see that there were pericopes[i] used to support the idea of messianic prediction, but these passage simply did not provide that support.  They clearly contained different meaning (Kaiser does not provide an example on p.21 where this method is described).  So, he took a tact different than Hengstenberg.  Delitzsch saw the meaning of such passages developing.  The prophecies did not contain an absolute prediction but there was more to their meaning than the original OT understanding yielded.  The full development of the meaning was seen in later doctrine and Christian experience.  As I write this, I am conscious of the fact that I do not clearly see the distinction Kaiser is drawing between Hengstenberg and Delitzsch.

5.     Goal Meaning.  A.F. Kirkpatrick, in 1897, proposed that Jesus was the ethical and moral goal of what the OT prophets had in mind.  He did not fulfill specific and detailed promises.  He united all the lines of prophecy by filling them with new meaning.  Of course this rendered each individual pericope of Isaiah or Zechariah vague and void of specific significance.

6.    Relecture Meaning.  This is a process of reading old prophecies in a new way so that they have new meaning (without removing their original meaning).  This process appears encouraging (for Christians who want Jesus to be the fulfillment of the OT), but it is too subjective.  It cannot be sustained and it cannot have any sort of precision in identifying the history of a passage.

7.     Theological Meaning.  Whether or not Jesus fulfilled the words of OT prophets historically, theologically, what the prophets aimed for was the Messiah who was Jesus (even if the prophets themselves were not fully away of this).  H.G.A. Ewald said the history of Israel would find consummation and its final stage of growth in the Christian church.  I have talked to many Jews and read works by many others; they would nearly all be thoroughly offended by Ewald’s suggestion.

These seven meanings applied to prophecies considered potentially messianic are not necessarily Kaiser’s thought.  Rather, he summarized them on pages 19-22 in order to trace the history of how readers have tried to tie the OT to the NT.  Where does he come down in this conversation?

He thinks all seven procedures are self-defeating (p. 27) essentially because they are not comprehensive enough.  Each approach zeroes in on specific OT passages and in one way or another tries to draw a line to a NT idea.  But Bible verses or even entire passages cannot be ripped out of the Bible.  They must be read within the story.  The story shows that God has a single, unified plan.

Prophecies made within the course of the story are based on a relationship with the God who makes the promise.  Those prophecies, some of which might be categorized as ‘messianic,’ are not predictions the way we understand the notion of prediction. 

It is not like saying “Detroit will beat Green Bay 18-16.”  Would that prediction be right if Detroit beat Green Bay 21-7?  Or would it be right if Green Bay beat Detroit 18-16?  This is not what is happening in the OT words we have in the Bible in Amos and Joel and the Psalms and Ezekiel and the rest.  The words in the Bible come in the flow of people who are in relationship with the God of promise.  The prophetic words are seeds full of God’s promise. 

We only see the fullness of the potential of the seed as it blooms.  It is alive and growing along the way.  Isaiah’s words in chapter 45-55 spoke to Israelites in exile in Babylon in the late 6^th century BC.  But when that era passed, Isaiah’s words did not stop speaking.  Rather, his words that have become scripture were infused with the wisdom and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  As time went out, the message grew and “filled out” as a flower does.  The full bloom is seen in Christ.  He said as much (Matthew 5:17).

Here is what Kaiser has to say.  “We conclude, therefore, 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.  Thus what began simply as a ‘word’ about who God was and what he was going to do for a select group of people became a word that was intended from the start to be cosmopolitan in its effects, for it announced simultaneously who God was and what he was going to do for all the other nations on earth through this one group” (p.31).

After this introduction, Kaiser goes to a place that surprised me.  The title of chapter 2 is “The Messiah in the Pentateuch.”[ii]  I did not expect to find words pointing to Messiah in those first five books.  I think that is part of Kaiser’s point about the unity of the Biblical story.  I should have expected to find the Messiah there.  In my next post, I’ll share how Kaiser does that.

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[i] Pericope – an extract from a text, especially the Bible https://www.google.com/search?q=pericope&oq=pe&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i60j69i61j69i60j69i59.2360j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

[ii] Pentateuch refers to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy.

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.

God's Servant in the 21st Century

            Think of the most important news stories in the world right now.  I don’t mean your favorite stories although the most important could be a good, positive story.  What I am getting is the stories that are significant for humanity.  What issues or stories are the big ones?  Concentrate on the one or two that come to mind.   Think on the first one or two stories that came to mind.

            Now, raise your hand if the story you thought of is negative.  If it would be “bad news,” just raise your hand.

            Some that came to my mind as example of the most significant current events include the following:

-         Race relations in the United States.

-         The ongoing war with Isis in Iraq and Syria.

-         The terrorist murders in France.

-         Climate change.

-         The Republican-controlled congress.

-         Immigration in the United States

-         Same-sex marriage becoming a norm in American culture.

I wonder if anything that came to my mind would be on your list.  It’s too simple to count every story as “bad”.  Some certainly are.  Others are rife with tension because there is the negative element, but also the potential for hope.  These stories and many you have thought of and stories that we can’t see coming that will dominate headlines tomorrow collectively make up the narrative of our time.  This is our day.  When seen collectively, the signs of sin wreaking havoc and destroying human life are all too obvious. 

What word does a follower of Jesus Christ speak into this bad news?  To what action is the body of Christ, His church, called in our day?

We want to live out our faith publically.  We want to live as Jesus’ disciples not only as we carry out our individual lives and our church life, but also as we give a witness to the goodness of God and claim that God’s goodness, seen in Jesus, it a truer story than the bad news we hear.  We want to counter the anxiety, hatred, death, and destruction we see in these stories with a story of the good news of life in Christ.  All people are invited to Him and He seeks the lost and in different ways most of us have times of being lost.

Isaiah, living in Babylon with the Jews who were there as exiles, spoke the good news of God into a situation in which God’s people felt defeated an abandoned.  They thought themselves dead and the promises dating to Moses gone, but Isaiah came along to say God is still all powerful, God is with us, and God will save us. 

Isaiah’s words to the exiles are found in Isaiah 40-55.  Within that block, there are four passages called the servant songs.  Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and then the most well-known 52-53 are passages in which the prophet speaks of a special servant of the Lord, or the prophecy is from the perspective of the Lord’s servant. 

Bible scholars have widely debated who specifically was being discussed in these “servant songs.”  Who is the servant?  There have been many suggestions.  The servant is the prophet himself – Isaiah.  The servant is the nation of Israel, commissioned by God to be a light that shines and allows the world to see God (Is. 49:6).  The the emperor of Persia when Persia overthrew Babylon and allowed many Jews to return to Israel, Cyrus, is specifically named in Isaiah.  Thus, many think he is the servant.  New Testament writers took the prophecies to be signposts pointing to Jesus. 

Isaiah certainly did not know Jesus was coming.  He knew God was doing a new thing, but he expected to see God work in his lifetime and he did.  God has always been a God who saves.  I don’t think Christians are wrong to read the “servant songs” and immediately think of Jesus.  However, I think there other ways of identifying the servant are equally appropriate. 

Donald Gowan of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary writes, “The identity of the servant is not the key issue.  … What God accomplishes through the servant is what is important.”[i]  Another expert, Norman Gottwald, of New York Theological Seminary says, “The most promising question is not who is the servant but what does the servant do?”[ii]  When I was in seminary, we would get caught up in discussions over issues like this, and I have found it extremely encouraging to read these scholars and hear them express more concern about the servant’s action and what it says about God.  Most helpful is the perspective of Paul Hanson of Harvard Divinity School.  He says, “The servant is the description of the human being whom all who love God are challenged to become.”[iii]

Isaiah?  Israel?  Cyrus?  Maybe the servant image pointed to these, but when we consider the world around us, and the problems, and when we realize we are called as Christ-followers to announce the Gospel and the hope it brings to a lost, hurting, dying world, then the servant is a depiction of who we are called to be as God’s witnesses.  And in Jesus, we have a perfect example.

Look at Isaiah 42.  God delights in the servant.  After Jesus was baptized a voice from Heaven said, “You are my Son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).  In Isaiah 42 God says, “I will put my spirit upon him.”  Luke 4:1 says Jesus was full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit.  Isaiah 42 repeatedly shows the servant to be an agent of God’s justice (v. 2, 3, 4).  In his first public sermon Jesus declared that the Spirit of the Lord anointed him to bring “good news to the poor, … release to the captives, … recovery of sight to the blind, and … [freedom] to the oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

In Isaiah 49, the servant is the speaker.  “While I was in my mother’s womb, he named me” he says (49:1).  The Angel Gabriel told Mary, “You will bear a son and name him Jesus” (Luke 1:31).   The servant says God made his mouth like a sharp sword.  “He made me a polished arrow” (49:2).  In Revelation, the resurrected Christ is described as having a two-edged sword coming from his mouth (1:16).  In Isaiah, the servant says God is glorified in Him.  In the Gospels, God is glorified in Jesus during the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36).  Also in John 12, shortly before he is arrested, Jesus declares that his action of sacrificing his own life brings glory to God.  Immediately, a voice from Heaven confirms what Jesus just said.  God is glorified in Jesus and in what Jesus’ act of dying on the cross (John 12:27-28).

If the various Bible scholars are correct and the most important thing to see in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and 52-53 is what the servant does, then we can see that Jesus does it better than anyone.  He perfectly filled the role of the servant described by Isaiah, and the servant is the key figure in God’s salvation of Israel and in turn the world.

Now recall again the problems we face – racism in our country; war in Syria; terrorism on a global scale; an immigration system that is completely broken and affects millions of people in our country; pollution which leads to climate change.  As Jesus’ disciples, we are called to respond to the bad news of terror, war, and death by sharing the good news of life in Christ.

How do Isaiah’s prophecies and Jesus’ ideal modeling of those visions help us?  Consider what we are.  Paul writes in 1^st Corinthians 12, “You are the body of Christ” (v. 27).  He also says, “In the one spirit we were all baptized … and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit” (v.13).  After Jesus rose from death, he breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples (John 20) and after his ascended, the Holy Spirit filled hundreds of Christ-followers at Pentecost.  Jesus is as present and as active as when he walked the earth but not bodily.  He is present in spirit and in the church, us.  We act as the body of Christ.

What did Professor Hanson say about the “servant songs?”  If we are people who love God, then we strive to live into the role of God’s servant.  Thus we look at the same verses from Isaiah Jesus fulfilled and see if those depictions can continue to be descriptive of the church in the world today.

In Isaiah 42 it says God delights in the servant and in Luke 3, at his baptism, God calls Jesus his beloved.  Isaiah tells us that God puts his spirit upon the servant, and Luke 4:1 says Jesus was full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit.  What about today?  Paul writes in Romans 5, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (5:5).  As the servant is beloved of God and endowed with God’s spirit, so too are when we receive forgiveness and give our lives to Christ. 

Last week we talked about seeing God above the problems of the world, as over everything.  We see God for God is.  This morning, we add to that, our perception of ourselves.  In Christ, we are sons and daughters of God.  When we find ourselves tempted to dwell on problems, our own personal struggles or the evils that threaten people around the globe, a helpful spiritual discipline is to remember that in Christ we are sons and daughters of God.

Isaiah 42 shows that God’s servant works for justice (v. 2, 3, 4), and Luke 4 among many other Gospel passages shows Jesus’ concern for people who suffered injustice.  We are living into the life of God’s servants when we identify the most vulnerable people in society and we work to help them.  Most often, these are those who are victims of injustice.  We see it, name it, and work to counteract injustice.  This will be our theme next week, but here we’ll simply say that the Lord’s servant speaks and works for the justice the Lord demands.  When we act out of compassion to help those in need, we are living into the role of God’s servant. 

Isaiah 49 also showed us some things about the servant including that God knew him before his birth.  And the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would have a son and would call him Jesus.  Does the Lord pay such careful attention to us even before we are born?  Luke 12 and Matthew 6 are both places where Jesus talks about the intimate, detailed care God has for us.  Like the servant, we too are loved. 

Isaiah 49 also tells us that the servant speaks the piercing truth so that his words are like a sword, and we see the same of Jesus throughout the gospels and the sword metaphor used in Revelation 1.  The servant says God made his mouth like a sharp sword.  If we as individual disciples and collectively as the body of Christ want to answer God’s call and live as God’s servant, we have to speak the truth of the word of God.  We don’t need to go out of our way to try to step on the toes of people in our lives.  We don’t need to quote scripture all the time.  But our words must laced with, colored by, and washed in the truths of the Bible.  When they are we end up pointing people to God. 

That’s not always comfortable or easy.  It doesn’t always feel good.  But, speaking truth in all occasion with love and compassion and tact indicates that we are living on God’s terms for God’s purpose.  We have given up our lives to Him that he would use us as His instruments of healing in the world. 

Finally, in Isaiah, the servant says God is glorified in Him.  In the Gospels, God is glorified in Jesus.  When we love, when we show compassion and work for peace and justice, when we welcome all people, and when we realize that because of Christ we are God’s offspring as well as his creation and all this determines how we speak and how we live, then God is glorified in our lives. 

The servant songs become a 21^st century word that speaks to the world around us as we see ourselves for who we are in Christ and set our lives so that all that we say, think, and do reveals our complete God-orientation and Holy Spirit dependence.  Now, again, recall the opening question.  What are the stories of today, the big issues?  Which one troubles you most?  It could be a national current like terrorism.  It could be something local.  Maybe what troubles you most is something in your own neighborhood or your own family. 

We are God’s servants – loved, Spirit-equipped, armed with the truth we have in the word, and commission to work for justice, show compassion, and point people to Jesus.  We are going to take a few moments now for silent reflection.  Consider what you find most troubling in the world today.  Ask God how you, as His servant, and how we, His church, are to speak and give his hope and peace and love to the people suffering from that trouble God has put on your heart.  Take a few moments to think and pray about it silence, the problem, and the word of God we, His servants, are to bring to the people who suffer.

After we have this reflection time, we will sing, you will be invited to come for prayer if you would like to come. 

AMEN

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[i] Gowan (1998), Theology of the Prophetic Books: The Death & Resurrection of Israel, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p.159.

[ii] Gottwald (1985), The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction,Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.497.

[iii] Hanson (1989), Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preachign: Isaiah 40-66, John Knox Press (Louisville), p.44.