3 April 2015

Psalm 22; Gen. 22:1-14; 1 Peter 1:10-20; John 13:36-38

The story begins with Abraham responding to the voice of God calling his name with, “Here I am.”  As they head up the mountain, Isaac bearing the wood for the burnt offering, like Jesus, bearing the wood on which he will be sacrificed, Abraham responds to his son’s entreaty, “My father”, with another “Here I am.”  Finally, the angel’s voice urgently says, “Abraham, Abraham!” and he said, “Here I am.”  Right where he was supposed to be all the time, attentive and listening, prepared to obey.  Abraham didn’t understand, but he knew these voices, he had heard them all before.  God called him back in Genesis 12 and spoke to him occasionally through those 25 years of wandering. The angels came to his tent and told of the destruction of Sodom, and finally, he had heard the voice of Isaac for whatever period of time they had been together.  He was never too preoccupied to hear those voices and respond, he was always present and accounted for in the moment, no matter how pleasant or distressing the moment might be.  Because his ears were always attentive, he always heard.  Attentiveness is our problem.

Jesus will have to go it alone now.  Peter wants to follow but Jesus tells him, not now, later.  Peter wants to be brave and bold, but Jesus says, today is not the time for your bravery but for your failure.  Peter can’t hear such things about himself and won’t until he happens to hear the cock crow and then he hears what he has said these three times, in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy only hours before.  In this trek up the mountain for crucifixion there will not be anyone but Jesus and the Father.  Like the first reading, the young men will have to wait while the sacrifice is made.  Today is not our day to shine but for God to be glorified.

The prophets heard the Lord’s voice concerning the Messiah and yet they didn’t fully understand what they were hearing.  They didn’t see the horizon of His appearing properly and yet the finally understood that what they saw wasn’t going to happen in their lifetimes, just as Abraham saw the fulfillment of the promise of great progeny and the land from a distance.  Peter says that Jesus “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.”  For this reason, the great love of God that stretches back to before the world was founded, we are called to be holy as He is holy.  We, who bear His image, are called to be like Him.  Abraham was like God in that he was prepared to sacrifice his son, he feared disobedience, displeasing God more than he cared for the promise.  He always knew what was most precious.

2 April 2015

Psalm 102; Jer. 20:7-11; 1 Cor. 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-26  

Jeremiah says the Lord has deceived him because he thought it would be a wonderful thing to be called by the Lord.  We do have some romantic dreams of serving Him, whether we are called to ordained ministry or to some other ministry in the church or the world.  It generally doesn’t take long before we get disabused of the romance of the service.  We find that people don’t want to hear our message when it conflicts with their desires.  We learn that people who say they are Christians sometimes act no better than people who are not.  If we are honest, we learn that sometimes we aren’t either and we don’t enjoy having our toes stepped on any more than other people.  We learn that all of us have a long way to go before we are like Jesus.  The thing to remember is that all the prophets were persecuted by religious people.  Jesus was crucified because religious people demanded it, not pagans.  Jeremiah learns though that God has it all, even when they are arrayed against him and the only truly safe thing to do is obey, let the chips fall where they may.

Can you imagine knowing that you were about to be arrested, beaten beyond recognition, spat upon, mocked and derided, a crown of thorns pressed into your skull, all your friends would desert you, the entire city would be shouting for you to be killed and you would be hanged on a cross and having the presence and peace to pray this prayer?  In only a few minutes all this would begin and yet Jesus prays for those who will soon desert Him, one of whom will publicly disavow Him three times this very night.  He prays not for His own protection but theirs, for their unity, their sanctification and their joy.  Not only that, He prayed for you and me, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…”  That’s us, that’s love.  We are to be that peaceful, that trusting and that unconcerned about ourselves.  As kids ask in the car on long trips, “Are we there yet?”

Paul says, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”  Doesn’t that indicate that there is something significant going on in this ceremonial action?  Further, he warns the Corinthians that they should not come to the table casually and unprepared for some are ill and some have died for failure to discern the body.  I am coming to a different understanding of the sacraments because of what Paul wrote and what the reformers themselves believed concerning these things.  Along the way we have lost too much from our sacramental understanding and the loss, I believe is part of the weakness of the church.  We are too much materialists and no longer properly thinking about things “seen and unseen.”  The sacraments are to be means of grace for us, not just physical accidents.  They are a physical and spiritual connection with Jesus Himself, physical in that the bread and wine are tangible reminders of a spiritual truth, we are both body and soul and in the sacraments that is truer than at any other time.

1 April 2015

Psalm 55; Jer. 17:5-10, 14-17; Phil. 4:1-13; John 12:27-36  

Jeremiah writes like David.  “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength,    whose heart turns away from the Lord… Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream,”  That sounds a lot like, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord,… He is like a tree planted by streams of water…”  Jeremiah knows that as he trusts in the Lord and is faithful to do what the Lord commands him, he loses favor with men.  He also knows that the Lord is eternal and man is a vapor, and that makes it all simple.  He asks but one thing, salvation, to be preserved from men who seek after his life for his obedience to God.  The logic is simple isn’t it?  Why do we so often get it wrong?  We can love one another without trusting in one another, that isn’t good for either of us.

No one gets what Jesus is saying or even believes it can be true.  Their argument from the Law is plain, it says that the Christ “remains forever.”  That word, remains, is one of John’s favorites, in some form or another it appears about 120 times in the New Testament and over half of those are in John’s writings.  It is ambiguous in a way that “live” is not.  It is variously translated as stay, remain, and abide through the Gospel.  The crowd can’t understand what Jesus is saying because they are limited in their thinking about this word.  They see only a man living forever in this form, they don’t see that second life, eternal life, in the way Jesus is speaking.  Like Nicodemus before them, they don’t understand earthly things, what must happen, when Jesus uses the same words about the Son of Man being lifted up that He used with Nicodemus so they can’t understand the heavenly and spiritual things of which He is speaking.  They are putting their trust in an earthly Messiah.

It is difficult to keep in mind that Paul wrote this epistle from prison when he writes, “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” If he can write that from prison, why can’t we find peace in our lives?  We look too often for peace from our circumstances, too often from the world, and not enough from the knowledge of God’s sovereignty.  Paul had learned the secret of abasing and abounding and found that it was in not looking to these things for contentment.  Transcending circumstances is a matter of not allowing circumstances to determine our contentment and peace.  They are too changeable to rely upon.

31 March 2015

Psalm 6, 12; Jer. 15:10-21; Phil. 3:15-21; John 12:20-26  

Jeremiah begins his complaint by decrying the unfairness of life.  He has neither borrowed nor lent yet all hate him, he is a man of strife and contention to the whole land.  The Lord isn’t exactly sympathetic, essentially asking, what did you think was going to happen.  The hardness of the hearts of the people was such that they could not hear the Lord but He sent Jeremiah anyway.  Jeremiah’s initial reaction to receiving the word of the Lord was sweet and so he set about the task of speaking them to the people but what he has found is that this is a bitter and lonely task and life.  He was happy to be alone in God’s service until indifference turned to persecution.  His plea is that the Lord will deliver him from them.  The promise He receives is that the Lord will protect the prophet but He does not promise that He will prosper his work.  It isn’t going to get better for Jeremiah but he will finish his work if he is faithful to the word of the Lord.  The life of a prophet can be difficult to say the least.

After continually telling people His time had not yet come, now, when the Greeks seek to see Him, Jesus says His time has come.  Remember how yesterday’s lesson ended?  The Pharisees pointed out that the “whole world” was going after Jesus.  We see the evidence of that in these people desiring to see Jesus.  These were Gentiles, possibly proselytes, who had come to Jerusalem for the feast, perhaps some of those who saw Him clearing the court of the Gentiles of the money changers, who now come and ask the disciples for an audience with the man himself.  Jesus’ words seem a complete paradox, the time has come to be glorified but also talk of death and dying.  The disciples surely thought there was something a bit amiss in this discourse.  At the moment when it would seem that it was all coming together Jesus insisted on this talk of death. 

What a strange place to begin a lesson, “Let those of us who are mature think this way…”  This way refers to the pressing on towards the prize, not taking for granted that we have already obtained it, continuing to pursue Christ-likeness.  Remembering that our true citizenship is in heaven is the best way to continue on that path, the same thing Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…”  Paul here contrasts that with those whose minds are set on earthly things, whose god is their belly.  Those whose minds on set on heavenly things are unconcerned about glory here on earth, they are content to know that all this gets swallowed up in the end, the good and the bad, the pleasant and the painful, eternity is a long time.

30 March 2015

Psalm 51:1-20; Jer. 12:1-16; Phil. 3:1-14; John 12:9-19  

Jeremiah looks around him and sees that things aren’t right.  The wicked prosper at the expense of the righteous and he can’t make sense of that in light of the righteousness of a sovereign God.  The prophet sees what we all see, what even unbelievers see and yet he begins with an affirmation of God’s righteousness, not a question of whether God is righteous in light of what he sees.  When we come with truth and humility and ask for understanding we are approaching Him in the right way.  Whether our question is on behalf of ourselves, for something that has gone wrong in our lives, or in general, why is the world the way it is, why do children suffer and die for instance, if we come affirming truth in order that we might know more truth, we do well.  Jeremiah is told that not only does the Lord see what he sees, the Lord sees more than that and soon it will be judged, unfortunately for Israel, the “beloved of my soul.”  There is reassurance, however, that this is not a permanent rejection, ultimately there will be restoration.  Judgment will also fall on the unrighteous after the nation has been judged.  Justice sometimes waits.

What had Lazarus done that anyone would seek to kill him?  We think the reason John’s is the only Gospel that mentions the raising of Lazarus from the dead is that it was the last written and prior to that it was thought best to avoid raising the issue again for Lazarus’ safety and that by the time John wrote Lazarus had died.  Lazarus had done nothing, it was the very fact of his being, the witness of his life after being brought back from the dead that was an affront to the leaders, not because of Lazarus so much as because of Jesus.  Part of the motivation for the crowds shouting, “Hosanna”, literally, Lord save us, is that act of Jesus’ in raising Lazarus.  They have come to believe because of this miracle and now proclaim Him as king, and rightly so.  The Pharisees say that the world is going after Him and why do they care?  Why will they not believe?  Their righteousness is being judged in Jesus, the Lord has blessed Him in ways they cannot duplicate, just like the magicians in Egypt could not do as Moses did.  The Father sees more unrighteousness because He knows more of real righteousness.

Paul writes against those who would see themselves as righteous because of their obedience to the law, whom he refers to as “dogs, evildoers, those who mutilate the flesh.”  Jeremiah saw what seemed unrighteous to him and made his complaint to the Lord who then said there was more than the prophet saw that was unrighteous, the same thing Habakkuk experienced.  Paul says that what looks like righteousness to some is simply evil when compared to true righteousness.  All this sort of righteousness, Paul says, he now sees as rubbish (the actual word is far more graphic) and as loss because of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”  The righteousness we need, the only real righteousness, comes from faith.  We can’t have that, however, so long as we hold onto any other notion of righteousness.  Any other form is a barrier to faith and, therefore, salvation.

29 March 2015

Psalm 24, 29; Zech. 9:9-12; 1 Tim. 6:12-16; Matt. 21:12-17  

To a world torn by war could there be anything more comforting than one who brings peace?  We are so fortunate that we live in a place where war is a distant thing, something that happens somewhere else and only tangentially touches most of us.  I have exactly one friend my age who has died in war.  Part of that is timing but part is that my friends tend not to have been in the military.  For the Middle East, then and now, war and death by violence in combat of one sort or another has always been a way of life.  Zechariah saw a day when the Messiah would come and bring peace, riding in on a donkey rather than a horse, humbly coming to claim the kingdom.  If we think we are weary of war and rumors of war, imagine how those in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Jerusalem must feel.  We need Him to come back and establish everlasting peace but the Bible tells me that it will get much worse before it gets better.

Jesus enters the city in fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy and then goes to the temple, judgment begins at the house of God.  His work is to make clear the way to the Lord by clearing from her courts the profiteers, those who will make money on the desire of pilgrims to make sacrifice at the temple in obedience to the commandment.  They will need animals that will be acceptable to the priests, and they can provide pre-approved sacrificial animals.  They will also need to pay the temple tax with the currency you can only use there and these are ready to provide the exchange, at a price of course.  Matthew puts it all in perspective, “But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant…”  What others thought wonderful caused the leaders to be indignant, they wanted none of it.  Are we for peace and are we willing to have Him challenge us in this way?

Paul admonishes Timothy to fight the good fight of faith, the faith that is contained in the “good confession”, the confession of Jesus as lord, the confession of His death as the atoning sacrifice for sin, His resurrection as the seal of its acceptability to the Father, and the ascension to the right hand of the Father where He lives to make intercession for us.  The commandment of which Paul speaks likely refers to Timothy’s way of life, to never bring dishonor on the faith by his conduct. In that attitude, we wait for the day of His appearing in power and glory as the King of kings and Lord of lords.  That peace Zechariah saw Him bringing is meant to be established now in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  We have peace because we have confidence. 

28 March 2015

Psalm 137, 144; Jer. 31:27-34; Rom. 11:25-36; John 11:28-44

Who is the new covenant with?  We tend to think it is with the church but the Lord says that this new covenant will be with the house of Israel.  That refers us back to yesterday’s lesson from Romans that we Gentiles are grafted into the covenant while the Jews are the native stock into which we are grafted.  There will be a change in this new covenant, they will not be punished for the sins of the fathers, the law will be put within, written on the heart.  The basis for the covenant will be the forgiveness of sin.  They will all know Him, from the least to the greatest.  Remember a few days ago, the Lord brought a charge against the great that they have a greater responsibility to make Him known because they have the means and leisure to study and know.  In the new covenant, all will know because the Spirit will be given without regard to greatness or smallness.  What a wonderful thing!

Apparently the sisters had been commiserating with one another concerning Jesus as they both greet Him the same way, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  It is both high praise and a question, why hadn’t He come when they sent word.  There is faith all around, the mourners appreciate Jesus’ weeping as a sign of love but also ask whether love might not have impelled Him to come and heal Lazarus as He had healed the blind man.  Faith stops at the door of the tomb, however.  Martha isn’t prepared to open it, her brother is beyond hope now, it has been four days.  At His reminder that if they believed they would see the glory of God, however, they were willing to believe and open the tomb.  Glory indeed!

I love the fact that Paul has done serious theological work for eleven chapters in Romans, sorting out the mysteries of election and salvation.  He has proven that faith is the key to salvation and that it is all about the mercy of God or it is not salvation.  He has proven that all, inside or outside the covenant, have sinned and are deserving of death, we are all rebels and enemies of God.  Here at the end of that you can hear the man’s heart for the salvation of the Jews, the very ones who have persecuted him and attempted to prevent the Gospel going to the Gentiles.  He wants to see them believe in Jesus and be restored, the call and election are irrevocable, this will happen and Paul wants to see it.  As he wraps it all up, all he can do is praise God, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!... For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Indeed!