5 June 2011

Psalm 66, 67; Ezek. 3:16-27; Eph. 2:1-10; Matt. 10:24-42

Thus begins the strange prophetic career of Ezekiel. His charge is important and disobedience carries a heavy penalty. If he is told to warn someone about sin and fails to do it, he is guilty of sin and of the person’s death as though he had murdered them. There is no reward as such for obedience, simply the avoidance of judgment. It seems as though Ezekiel is taking on responsibility without getting a raise in pay! Obedience to a responsibility is not extraordinary performance, it is expected performance. He will hear from God, have a special relationship with the Lord and that is enough reward, to be chosen and equipped. The beginning of the prophetic ministry, however, is that he will be bound with cords in his home so he cannot go to the people and, additionally, his tongue will cleave to the roof of his mouth so that he cannot speak to those who come to him. God’s ways are clearly not our ways.

(Note – this is another of those places where the lectionary leaves out some verses, verses 34-39 and I am not quite sure why as there are important principles here.)

Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship. What He says is that we must be completely committed to Him no matter what other relationships may be compromised or whether we are threatened by others. Eternity is at stake in our decision to become His disciples. He will go first and show the level of His/God’s commitment to us but that commitment is to be reciprocal and in like measure. Essentially our charge and our challenge is like Ezekiel’s. We are charged with telling the world about Jesus and in that work we are to be fearless. Again, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and here it spells out clearly that fear is truly fear of judgment. Do we realize how important is our responsibility vis a vis the Gospel?

Do you believe all that Paul says here? If you do, how could you not rejoice always and be willing to give testimony? Look at all he says the Lord has done for us. We were dead in sin and by nature children of wrath. By the richness of God’s mercy in His great love for us, even in that state, we have been made alive with Christ. By grace we have been saved and raised up to the heavenly places with Jesus who alone is worthy in all of creation to receive glory, honor and power. In the coming ages, throughout all eternity He will continue to lavish grace and love on us. It is all gift and it is all grace we appropriate by faith in Jesus. Now, Paul says, walk in those good works God has prepared for you to walk in. Do we appreciate just how amazing grace truly is?

Alleluia! sing to Jesus! His the scepter, His the throne.
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood.

Tune

4 June 2011

Psalm 87, 90; Ezek. 3:4-17; Heb. 5:7-14; Luke 9:37-50

Ezekiel is commissioned and sent and he goes among the exiles at the place of their dwelling and, like the friends of Job, sits among them for seven days. It is important that he identify with the people and their difficult situation before beginning to speak. He cannot be an outsider simply come to lecture them, he must be among them as one of them first. That is the first principle of incarnational ministry. We aren’t sent to a people without understanding them, their culture, their pain and their joys, we must inhabit their world before we speak to a people. Ezekiel knows that his prophecy will magnify the pain of these exiles when the Lord, even in exile, speaks a word against them. He, like all of us, wants to give words of comfort but that is not the message he was given. In order to make Ezekiel fit for the task the Lord had to make him hard-headed, as hard-headed as those to whom he would prophesy. It must have been his nature to be more sensitive to criticism and to delivering difficult messages so the Lord gave him what he needed to carry out the mission. Ezekiel waited until the Lord gave the word before speaking.

Jesus is doing incredible things including this remarkable healing of the boy with an unclean spirit. The reaction of the crowd is that they were astonished at the majesty of God. Does that mean that they knew that this was something only God could do and that in this work they saw God? At this high point in His ministry Jesus then tells the disciples that the end is drawing near and the disciples break into a ridiculous argument about who is the greatest. To review, three of them had just been on the mount of Transfiguration and the other nine hadn’t been able to heal this boy that Jesus could. What difference does it make which of them was the greatest? We do the same thing in comparing ourselves or pastors, we forget that in light of Jesus comparisons are silly. Jesus redefines greatness for them by telling them that humbling yourself is the path to true, kingdom greatness.

What does it mean to say that Jesus “learned obedience”? He certainly didn’t have to learn obedience because He had some history of disobedience. I once had a boss who thought because he read a manual for our new software system at a bank where I worked that he knew the system and in fact set himself up to teach it to others as our department was the beta testing unit to work out the bugs in the software. The package was generic and then was customized for us and the manual didn’t have the customizations to it and when he taught others to use the system it was readily apparent to me and my co-worker that he didn’t know the system at all and we were forced to regularly correct him during his teaching. There is a learning that takes place when we do something that is different from knowing in theory. Jesus had never been in a situation where disobedience was possible in the same way it is here so it is apt to say that He learned obedience. What is required for us to learn obedience, change from disobedience?

Let every kindred, every tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,

O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall,
We at His feet may fall!
We'll join the everlasting song,

Tune

3 June 2011

Psalm 85, 86; Ezek. 1:28-3:3; Heb. 4:14-5:6; Luke 9:28-36

Ezekiel knows from the start that this mission will not win him friends. His message is that the Lord is not pleased and the words he is given are words of lamentation, mourning and woe. The message is similar to the message Stephen gives in Acts 7, the message for which he is stoned to death. God’s accusations include that Israel is impudent, stubborn and rebellious, always has been and always will be. Ezekiel is warned to not be like them in his prophetic ministry, he is to deliver the words the Lord gives him exactly as he receives them. He is finally given a scroll on which the Lord has written and told to eat the words of that scroll and then regurgitate them to the people. In his mouth they were sweet as honey because they were indeed the Lord’s words.

Moses and Elijah are representatives of the law and the prophets, the word of God to His people. Here on the mountain the three disciples experience something like Abraham did when the Lord appeared to him in the covenant ceremony, they fall into sleep and are awakened as the Lord manifests these two men speaking with Jesus. They believe Jesus to be like these men, high acclaim indeed, but not high enough. When the cloud covers them and then lifts the two men are gone and Jesus alone is with the disciples. The voice from the cloud tells them that “this” is my son, listen to Him. Jesus stands alone but in line with the law and the prophets. If they have Jesus they don’t need these other two, His word and theirs are the same but He speaks with a different authority, the authority of a Son. Whatever the disciples believe about Messiah they know from the law and the prophets but they have not fully understood, their understanding needs to come from Jesus Himself.

How important is the incarnation? The writer of Hebrews says here that it is incredibly important to us in that Jesus knows our temptations and knows how difficult this life is since sin entered the world. He has experienced all that we have yet without sin and so He is able to sympathize with us in our weakness. I need a priest who knows my trials even though He has triumphed, He knows how hard this is and that we live by sight too often and not by faith. This would not be tempting if God hadn’t created so wonderfully in the first place. Even sin hasn’t destroyed its “good-ness.” We don’t realize that compared to what could have been and what awaits us that this is, by comparison, a pig-sty. Jesus deals with us in mercy and grace, not judgment and loathing. Even though He did not sin, He sympathizes with those who do and continues to forgive and encourage.

All hail the power of Jesus' name!

Let angels prostrate fall;

bring forth the royal diadem,

to crown him, crown him, crown him Lord of all!

Tune

2 June 2011

Psalm 8, 47; Ezek. 1:1-14,24-28b; Heb. 2:5-18; Matt. 28:16-20

Ezekiel receives a manifestation of God’s glory prior to his commissioning as a prophet. He sees images that are very similar to those that John saw in the Revelation in the 4^th and 5^th chapters particularly and these visions are also similar to what Isaiah tells us he saw and what Daniel saw. The particulars of the images are not the central issue of the theophany, what stands above all else is the glory of the Lord being manifest. He sees a throne with a sea like glass around it surrounded by a rainbow and a being “with the appearance of a man” on the throne. Ezekiel’s attention is captured and he knows that whatever comes next is with authority and is from God. We all need to come “face to face” with God prior to speaking in His Name, that meeting ensures we take great care in communicating His message.

There is a good bit of confusion about this passage in that it remains to be settled whether the only ones who are here this day are the eleven disciples cum apostles or are there others there. If we refer back to verse 10, Jesus tells Mary to “tell my brothers to go to Galilee” then we have to ask who Jesus refers to there, just the 11 remaining disciples or all those who accompanied them. Most commentators fall on the side of believing that the group gathered here in the mountain included others and that it is these among whom were some who doubted. Jesus had conclusively proven Himself as resurrected from the dead to the disciples, concluding with the appearance to Thomas and the invitation to inspect his wounds. The other Gospels tell us these men had no doubts remaining. These are the ones to whom the command is given and who are commissioned to lead the movement and we know that because we see them in this role in the book of the Acts. If they had doubts they could not have been commissioned for the work of discipling and teaching. The commission is to all of us who have been taught their lessons to go make disciples of others. Have we come face to face with Jesus and moved beyond doubt to faith? If so, let us now evangelize.

Jesus was like us in every respect. He was tempted and suffered to overcome temptation. He suffered death and was buried. He was fully man and fully God and in living a perfectly righteous life, without sin, He has overcome death and the grave. He has overcome the curse of sin and has given us His righteousness. Because He was like us in every respect, He took on flesh and understands our weakness, He is truly our brother. That is an amazing reality and now we look to that brother and also recognize Him as God. In Jesus we see the glory of God, the perfect image of God which is what we were created to be. In Him then we see perfect humanity, what we would be if not for sin and we should long for resurrection and the coming of His kingdom when we will be all we can be.

To Thee, great One in Three,
Eternal praises be,
hence evermore.
Thy sovereign majesty
may we in glory see,
and to eternity
love and adore!

Tune

1 June 2011

Psalm 119:97-120; Baruch 3:24-37; James 5:13-18; Luke 12:22-31

What is wisdom and knowledge? That is the question the writer of this passage sets out to answer. There is no wisdom or knowledge that truly measures up unless it is eternal. If what we know concerns things that are not eternal and yet we know there are eternal things then we have failed to search for true wisdom and knowledge. Do we believe in anything that is eternal? That is a good beginning point to the search for wisdom. If we believe there is nothing eternal then all knowledge is transitory and essentially meaningless except for building a kingdom of our own that we know is temporary. If we believe there is something eternal, that existed before all that we know and experience and that will exist beyond their span of existence then we should pursue knowledge of that thing or person if we would know anything truly. Knowledge about creation begins with the acknowledgement of a creator and then knowledge about Him provides us with knowledge of His creation. We must, however, make a right beginning if we are to attain to wisdom.

Jesus asks us to consider a few things, think on them, see if we understand them: ravens, adding an hour to our lives, lilies. These things simply are what they are, they exist. We are called to both exist and grow in our knowledge of our own existence. Most of what we concern ourselves with on a daily basis are things that God can do without our worrying about them or being anxious about them and so we are freed to contemplate higher things like the One who provides all these things. Jesus says that we should give our lives and our thoughts to those things, seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness rather than these second order things or we have wasted the gifts we have been given. We have the gift of reason and awareness of God that these other things do not possess and yet we live at a level below these lower orders of creation because we focus our attention on things that even they don’t worry about. Can we learn to be and to seek Him, it isn’t natural but the Spirit frees us (or should) to do exactly that.

James tells us that we are to be a people devoted to prayer in all things. In any situation in life the appropriate response is, as the song says, take it to the Lord in prayer. He makes a bold statement in the midst of this passage, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Who among us is “righteous”? Does God hear us differently when we are in right relationship to Him? Does sin act as a barrier to God’s hearing us? We do need to take sin seriously in our lives and make a habit of confessing our sin to Him. James encourages us to confess our sins to one another and as Protestants we rebel a bit against such an idea but as Dietrich Bonhoeffer counseled in his book, Life Together, the practice has great merit. When we confess to a brother or sister we begin to get a sense of sin as abominable. It begins to become real to us when we confess we truly don’t love the Lord with our whole heart and our neighbors as ourselves, when we confess the lust in our hearts, the feelings of anger and even hatred for others, all those things from Matthew 5-7 that Jesus spoke of that we dismiss when we confess to God. If we are to make progress in righteousness and in our prayer life, we must begin by dealing with sin and then we are seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Come, holy Comforter,

thy sacred witness bear

in this glad hour.

thou who almighty art,

now rule in every heart,

and ne'er from us depart,

Spirit of power!

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