25 November 2011

Psalm 140, 142; Isa. 24:14-23; 1 Pet. 3:13-4:6; Matt. 20:17-28

The prophetic word of Isaiah bears some resemblance to the book of the Revelation in that from time to time the scenes of judgment are interrupted by praise. This passage begins with one such interlude and it is easy to be captured by this praise coming from the ends of the earth in the hope that the judgments of God are exhausted but here the praise is broken by the prophet himself who does not join the chorus but instead proclaims that betrayal is still seen on the earth and, as we will also see, in the heavens. At this, the judgment breaks out afresh against the whole earth and then ultimately all those in heaven and on earth who rebel against the Lord. The fallen angels and all those kings of earth are imprisoned for a season of time prior to the final judgment while the Lord reigns from Jerusalem. Sounds very much like the Revelation given to John.

Jesus speaks of His death as they go up to Jerusalem for the Passover. He is warning them about what is going to happen next. They knew that it hadn’t been safe for them there but who could truly have imagined what was in store? The mother of James and John certainly didn’t believe it. Her belief was clearly that this was the moment that Jesus would be glorified but her idea of glory didn’t match Jesus’ idea. She thought He was going to take His rightful place as king of the Jews and she wanted her sons to be vice-regents with Him. He has always been king even if we don’t recognize Him as such, He needed no earthly acclamation or recognition. Likewise, our citizenship is in heaven but do we still live and work for earthly acclaim or have we embraced our status as the beloved children of God and now can live as Jesus here commands?

When was the last time anyone asked you to make a defense for the hope that is in you? Too often we share the concerns and fears of the world and they see nothing in us that is different from the spirit in themselves. In my adult lifetime I am concerned that Christians have become indistinguishable from non-Christians through our immersion in politics. What started out as a particular set of issues that were important to Christians, primarily moral issues like abortion and the moral education of our children in the public schools, have now become lost in the conversation that centers around economics. There are many places where a uniquely Christian perspective can and should be brought to light in politics but we should be judicious and unwavering in those places and more soft-spoken and less interested in others. Our true and ultimate citizenship is in heaven and those are the concerns we should primarily express in our lives here, those things that have to do with God’s will for humanity and the rest of creation. We need to be a set apart people, not blending in seamlessly with the world.

Hark! the Name of Jesus, sounded
Loud, from golden harps above!
Lord, we blush, and are confounded,
Faint our praises, cold our love!
Wash our souls and songs with blood,
For by Thee we come to God.

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24 November 2011

Psalm 131, 132; Zeph. 3:1-13; 1 Pet. 2:11-25; Matt. 20:1-16

Zephaniah does not spare Jerusalem simply because she is the city of God. There is perhaps an expectation of greater responsibility because she is chosen. It is not enough to take the name of the Lord, to be a priest, to be a prophet or even to simply be a Jew. Righteousness and justice are more important than religious activity or religious titles. Not only are the people of God included in the judgment against unrighteousness, the nations have hope, the Lord’s mercy will reach beyond the borders of Israel. Those who are spared will be also made new, they will be changed into His true people.

Is there anyone who reads this parable and doesn’t feel that after all those laborers hired first do have a complaint of some sort even though they were chosen and hired and paid exactly what they agreed to take for a day’s labor? It seems unfair but it is only because we lack a true appreciation of our own need for mercy and grace. We have come to the place where we believe ourselves to be at some level deserving rather than recipients of grace. We must always fight against that tendency as we seek to become like Him. In truth, the more we earnestly and honestly seek that the more we recognize the great gulf between us and true righteousness and we will find ourselves seeking not reward but more grace and more mercy. The more we know of holiness the more we see the need of grace from His endless supply.

Peter urges the church to live so that no one may speak evil of them. They are to love one another and to be good citizens according to human standards as well. In obedience to the emperor and governors they are acknowledging the sovereignty of God in all things so our obedience to earthly rulers is subjection to Him. Jesus has given us the perfect example of how to live this life even if it reveals to us that the world doesn’t appreciate or recognize what it means to be truly human. Humanity had a higher destiny and value than we currently see and we are to restore that dignity and destiny knowing that persecution will come. We have a great responsibility to the Lord vis a vis the world. We are to show it the true way to live.

Let us praise, and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted Him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky:
“Thou hast washed us with Your blood;
Thou art worthy, Lamb of God!”

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23 November 2011

Psalm 119:145-176; Obadiah 15-21; 1 Pet. 2:1-10; Matt. 19:23-30

Today we have Obadiah’s take on the end of things. All see the same things concerning the righteous remnant and Jerusalem. Those who have come against God’s people have come against the Lord Himself and their treatment of His people will be recompensed. It would seem that what we have done to others will be done to us in the end if we are outside the covenant. Obadiah sees the people of Jacob/Israel and of Joseph as the instrumentality of the Lord’s judgment against the house of Esau who are historically their brothers but who have gone after other gods. Remember that the person Esau, brother of Jacob, son of Isaac, married a foreign wife to spite his parents, particularly his mother. From there the nation that comes from him is outside the covenant.

These words of Jesus concerning the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven is in response to the encounter with the rich young man who has walked away from an invitation to enter and also to follow Jesus. Wealth was frequently seen as evidence of God’s blessing so the disciples are astonished that Jesus has spoken against the wealthy in this way. The difficulty is that we don’t always want to enter the kingdom badly enough to give up the kingdoms we already have. Jesus has been consistent in this teaching about the kingdom and our understanding of the true value of things. He compared the kingdom with a treasure in a field and the man who sold everything in order to buy the field or the pearl of great price and in many other ways. It is clear that we must understand that the kingdom of heaven is worth any price and nothing compares with it and so long as it does we are guilty of idolatry. Jesus’ reply to the disciples’ astonishment is that with God all things are possible. We enter the kingdom because of what Jesus does for us. When we see the kingdom in all its glory we will wonder how we ever valued anything else at all.

The stone that was rejected has become the chief cornerstone. It seems incredible to imagine that the stone that was most important and valuable and perfect could be rejected by the builders who later realized its true value and honor. In Jesus we see that reality perfectly. The only truly good man who ever lived, the only truly righteous man, was rejected and put on a cross but the Lord accepted the sacrifice and now He is the cornerstone of the church. Peter incorporates the images from Isaiah to speak to those of us who, before Jesus, were truly not a people, were not loved, had not received mercy and had no hope but who in Jesus are all those things and more. Our self understanding is to be that we are a royal priesthood and a holy nation, let us embrace that understanding and set about being just that.

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more:
He Who washed us with His blood
Has secured our way to God.

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22 November 2011

Psalm 121, 122, 123; Nahum 1:1-13; 1 Pet. 1:13-25; Matt. 19:13-22

As we move towards the beginning of Advent we continue our tour of Old Testament apocalyptic prophecy. Nahum gave the prophecy that Jonah longed to give, concerning the Lord’s anger towards Nineveh and its destruction. In this first part of the prophetic word we get an overall picture of the Lord’s anger and the unstoppable nature of His wrath. In verse 3 we see the prophet repeating a portion of the Lord’s own self-disclosure to Moses in Exodus 34. The Lord is able to summon the cooperation of the earth to bring about His fierce judgment and in the end, those who have been faithful to Him will be set free from bondage.

The commandments Jesus lists for the young man all have to do his actions concerning other people. Jesus doesn’t directly mention the commandments concerning loving the Lord. The command He gives the man concerning His possessions exposes His failure to keep those commands not mentioned. The idolatry of possessions is revealed and the man is unwilling to renounce this idolatry. It is easier to focus on the other commandments because they are easier to measure our success or failure in keeping them. Our duty vis a vis the Lord is our primary responsibility as He is the One with whom we are in covenant, who has saved us, but we are more apt to transgress because we de-personalize Him. Ask Him to show you what is most important in your life, if anything is an idol to you.

Be holy as God is holy. Does anyone truly set out to keep this commandment? I know that I don’t typically have that in mind constantly but it would require constant vigilance in order to keep this commandment. We don’t talk much about holiness in life these days, not so many sermons are given on the topic but it is what we are called to do and be. Accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf raises the bar on our lives, not lowers it. We are called to a new life and Peter here says that we are no longer ignorant so we are to live out of this new knowledge and wisdom which flows from the knowledge of grace. A life lived from the former passions is a life of rebellion and sin, when we were God’s enemies and Nahum has told us that it is not good or safe to be an enemy of God.

Let us sing, though fierce temptation
Threaten hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong Salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown:
He Who washed us with His blood
Soon will bring us home to God.

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21 November 2011

Psalm 106:1-18; Joel 3:1-2,9-17; 1 Pet. 1:1-12; Matt. 19:1-12

Joel’s vision of the end is of warfare where all are involved, where all are called to battle, where even the weak say, “I am a warrior.” All are called to the valley where the battle will rage and we get the sense in the prophecy that the prophet is standing above it all looking down on that valley and sees that in the end it is not the battle that matters but the Lord who uses it to judge the nations who have rebelled against Him and who have oppressed His people. They have been lured there for a battle but they have come for their own destruction as the Lord appears to save His people. Joel says that the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. It will be a terrible time in the world, certainly it will look as though this will be the end of Israel, but in fact it will be the day of her deliverance.

Divorce is not the Lord’s will for our lives. Jesus is here speaking to religious people, not the world, and they want to know where He stands on the issue of divorce. Whenever they come to ask Jesus particular questions about issues, it is always because the rabbis were divided on that issue. There are some things about which Jesus never speaks and is never asked questions, those things that were so clear in the law that there was no division. They ask here because there was division between rabbinic schools concerning divorce. As always, Jesus does not appeal to rabbinic interpretations of Moses, He goes back to the clear word of the Lord from Genesis 2.24, before sin entered the world. We know what the will of God is in this matter, everything else is accommodation to sin. Jesus makes no accommodation at all. Divorce is something contrary to the will of God like every other sin in our lives and we are to work for righteousness. Can we receive that truth?

Our hope is the resurrection of the dead. We know that hope is secure in Jesus. Our lives should reflect the truth that we are not longing for things of this earth but we are longing for a heavenly reward, one that is undefiled and secure. If we are pursuing such a reward then it should be easy for others to identify us because our priorities and values will be different, out of sync with the world. We will see things differently and will live differently. The prophets only saw this salvation at a distance and through a glass darkly, we who live on the other side of Easter see things more clearly in that regard. We see that in the end all things will indeed be made new, a new creation, undefiled by human sin, will be our home, not simply a cleaned up old creation. We will go back to a Genesis 2 environment, the one to which Jesus always points.

Let us love the Lord Who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by His grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with His blood,
He presents our souls to God.

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