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January 18, 2009
“The Great Tablecloth Vision”
Acts 10: 9-23
January 18th, 2009
Chapter 10 of the book of acts describes a turning point in the church of Jesus Christ. It can be argued that this chapter also describes a turning point in human history.
It all started with a man named Cornelius. Cornelius was a Centurion or Master Sergeant in the Roman Army stationed in Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Caesarea was the capital of that district of the Roman Empire. Being stationed in Caesarea was good and bad. It was good because of the climate. The coast of the Mediterranean Sea usually provides one with a good climate and a good view.
The bad part of his assignment was that Caesarea was in Israel. No Roman politician or Soldier desired to serve in Israel. They were seen by the local population as being oppressors and usurpers of the authority that naturally belonged to God and the deposed Jewish rulers.
During that time there were all sorts of Jewish uprisings against Rome. In about 30 years the final Jewish Rebellion against Rome would occur. At the end of that rebellion, Jerusalem would be destroyed and most of the Jewish population would be destroyed or deported.
Cornelius was not your average Non-Commissioned Roman officer. He seems to have liked his assignment in Israel and he seems to have gotten to know the locals. He began to Worship their God with them and he contributed to their offerings for the poor in their communities. We are told that he was a God-fearer, a Jewish term for a Gentile who worshipped their God but had not formally become a Jew.
Such a person would be welcome at the synagogue services but would not be welcome in Jewish homes or be able to receive Jewish guests in his home. Gentiles and Jews did not mix socially because of the OT laws against intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles and especially because of the Jewish Food laws. Jews could only eat certain kinds of food. They were especially restricted as to what kinds of meat they could eat. Their food also had to be killed and prepared in specific ways. So Jews only bought food from a Jewish market. Food prepared in a Gentile kitchen was forbidden.
So Cornelius was welcome in the Worship of the Jewish community but he was not a part of the Jewish community. One day an angel of God visited Cornelius in a vision. The angel told Cornelius to send to Joppa and invite St. Peter to come and stay with and talk to him. So Cornelius sent two servants and a soldier to invite Peter to return with them. They were almost at the end of their 30 mile journey when God visited Peter to prepare him for their visit and invitation
Peter was at the time on the flat roof of the house he was staying at in Joppa. He was hungry and he was up there praying while his lunch was being prepared.
God gave Peter a vision. In the vision Peter saw a large cloth, probably sailcloth, let down like a tablecloth would be floated onto a table. On the sheet or tablecloth were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Some would have been acceptable as food for Jews, some would not, but the command of God was “Get up, Peter, kill and Eat”.
This caused a problem for Peter. He was an Apostle of Jesus, but he was still a Jew. He had been raised to practice the Jewish dietary laws. According to those rules, some of the animals on that tablecloth were unclean, Jews were not allowed to eat them. And even the clean or acceptable animals would have to have been blessed by a priest or rabbi, killed according to Jewish ritual, and prepared in proper vessels in a Jewish kitchen. Peter was commanded to kill and eat all of the animals on the cloth.
Peter said “No. I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice of Jesus answered “What God has made clean you must not call profane.” God then repeated the instructions two more times. Now in the Bible, when a vision or set of instruction occurs three times in a row, it means that this is definitely the Word of the Lord. So Peter was sure that he had the word of the Lord on this matter, but what matter was it? What did the vision mean?
At just that moment, the Gentile representatives of the Gentile Cornelius were arriving at the Jewish household where Peter was staying. At that point the Holy Spirit spoke to Peter and said, “Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation: for I have sent them.”
I would be willing to bet that Peter was not happy to see that they were Gentiles, representatives of a Roman Centurion, and that the invitation involved Peter’s staying in his house and eating his food. In addition to the Gentile and food problem, remember that Peter’s beloved Lord Jesus was killed by Roman Soldiers. And now the voice of Jesus had commanded him to go and stay in the home of a Roman soldier.
Peter was a great apostle but his life as a Jewish man living in Roman controlled Israel had left him with some prejudices. And sometimes prejudices are not erased without considerable effort.
God took considerable effort in this case. Peter did go to Caesarea with those 3 Gentile men. He did stay in Cornelius’ house and eat his Gentile food. And most importantly, Peter preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Cornelius and his family and friends. And they believed. And that was the beginning of Gentiles, non-Jews becoming Christians. And all of us have had a stake in that. We are all but one or two of us Gentiles who believe in Jesus. Cornelius was our spiritual ancestor, the first born again non-Jew.
God used the vision of the tablecloth or sheet to make Peter understand that God was now accepting Gentiles as equals in His sight to Jews, the chosen people.
When God said to Peter “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”, those words were to have an impact on much more than just Peter or the apostles or Cornelius or his friends. You see, we never know whom God has made clean, or is making clean or will make clean. We never know whom God is working in by His Holy Spirit. God has made for us brothers and sisters in Christ of every nation and ethnic group in our world. And God willing, many more will be made clean by the blood of Jesus before he returns.
And that means that we Christians must treat every person we meet with dignity and respect. They were created by God and bear His image. And they might be or become our brothers and sisters in Christ. How wonderful it would be if they might come to Jesus partially because of our love and acceptance of them and our witness to them.
Tomorrow is a Holiday that honors a man who sought equality for all people of all nations and ethnicities. Tuesday a man from his race will be inaugurated as President of the United States of America.
It appears that we have come farther from segregation and prejudice than some of us had thought. And that is a marvelous thing. But we can only continue our progress as long as we Christians continue to see in each person we meet a creature in the image of God and a potential brother or sister in Christ. Our progress will only continue as long as we treat each person with dignity and honor because they bear God’s image. Our progress will only continue as long as we remember that we never know whom God has or will make clean by the blood of Jesus.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:07 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2009
“Why Was Jesus Baptized?”
Matthew 3: 13-17
January 11, 2009
My Brother-in-law’s Mother-in-law left her Episcopal congregation because the Pastor would not baptize her grandson. In churches of all denominations there have been problems caused by people who want their children and grandchildren baptized by pastors who for one reason or another refuse.
If you have been affected by such a situation you may gain some comfort in the knowledge that John the Baptist did not want to Baptize Jesus. John’s reluctance was not due to any judgment about Jesus or his family. John did not want to baptize Jesus because he did not feel worthy to baptize Jesus. He recognized in Jesus a moral superiority.
Which brings a question to mind. If the baptism which John offered was a baptism that was a sign of repentance on the part of the baptized person, why was Jesus baptized by John? We believe that Jesus was without sin, so why would he accept and even request a baptism that was a sign of repentance for sins that he did not commit?
Jesus dealt with Johns resistance the way some of us have answered our children when we do not have the time or energy to give a full explanation or answer. He said “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfull all righteousness.” In other words, Jesus said that his baptism by John was somehow important in God’s plan for Jesus to bring God’s righteousness to God’s people.
For Jesus, his baptism by John was obviously not a baptism of repentance. Jesus did not need to turn away from his sins or toward God and his kingdom. He had no sins and he was already oriented toward the kingdom of God. But perhaps he was baptized as a sign that he was already aimed toward God and his kingdom and already working toward bringing in the kingdom of God. Or, since this baptism occurred at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, perhaps his baptism was a sign of his now turning all of his energies toward accomplishing all that the Father sent him to do.
There is perhaps an element of the baptism of Jesus in our practice of having our infants baptized. Jesus was baptized as a preparation for and declaration of his participation in God’s coming kingdom. When we have our infants and young children baptized we do it as a way of preparing them for their own participation in the kingdom of God. In Infant baptism parents promise to teach their baptized child about God and his kingdom and to help their children to come to believe in God and to come into his kingdom through faith in Jesus.
Jesus insisted on being baptized by John for another reason. The people who were gathered around John who were being baptized or had been baptized were proclaiming that they were putting aside their sins and that they were preparing to be a part of God’s coming kingdom. They were saying in effect, “We are God’s People. We have chosen to follow God’s way and we plan to be in His Kingdom.”
Jesus was baptized as a way of saying, “These people who have claimed to be God’s people, These repentant people are My People.” Jesus was baptized not as a sign of repentance for his own sins, but as a sign of identification with those who were repenting of their sins.
This element of identification is also present in our baptism of our infants. We have our infants and young children baptized as a way of identifying them as ones for whom Christ died. We have them baptized as a way of identifying them as a part of Christ’s church, the kingdom of God on earth.
When our baptized children take on the vows of baptism for themselves at confirmation when they join the church as communicant members, and when Adults are baptized they both repent of their sins and identify themselves as belonging to Christ and his eternal kingdom.
As we look at the beginning of Jesus ministry, his baptism, we need to see how consistent it is with the end of his ministry, His death. In his death, he appeared to die as a sinner so he could overcome death for his people. In his baptism he appeared to be a repentant sinner so he could identify with repentant sinners and eventually claim their sins as his own and overcome them by his death.
After John did his part in baptizing Jesus, God added something to the ceremony. The heavens opened in some way and the Holy Spirit of God in the form of a dove landed on Jesus. This marks the official anointing of Jesus. Jesus was the Messiah God had promised to send to his people. Messiah is a Hebrew word that means “the Anointed one”. The Jews often anointed their new prophets, priests, and kings with oil. Jesus’ formal anointing was not by men using oil, but by God anointing Him with His Holy Spirit. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit as God’s eternal king at His baptism.
At the same time, the voice of God spoke from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”
When Jesus was baptized he took the baptism of John and made it into something different, the sacrament of Christian Baptism. He changed it from being only a declaration of repentance as preparation for the kingdom of God. Those elements still remain, but it is no longer John’s baptism. It is now Jesus’ baptism. In Christian baptism we express sorrow for our sins but we also claim to prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of Christ. We claim that Jesus as the only eternal begotten son of God is the king of that eternal kingdom.
We also claim that as Christians, the Holy Spirit has come into our lives. As the Holy Spirit was a part of Jesus baptism, So at our baptisms we claim the Holy Spirit has come into us and is helping us live our lives. In the early New Testament period described in the book of Acts, we find some folks who were baptized by John’s baptism but had not received the Holy Spirit. They were rebaptized in Christian baptism and began to display signs that the Holy Spirit had come into them.
We can not yet claim eternal life for our baptized children, that claim will have to be made by them when they accept Jesus as their lord and savior. But at their baptisms we pledge to do all we can to help them and encourage them to believe in Jesus and his eternal kingdom.
As we gather here this morning to honor the Baptism of our Lord Jesus, we will now have an opportunity to claim once again to belong to him through our Baptisms.
Some of us can remember our Baptism because we were baptized as older children or adults. Some of us have no memory of our baptism because we were brought for baptism as infants by our parents. But we do remember the vows we made when we confirmed our baptisms and professed our faith in Jesus.
Let us now reaffirm the vows that we made or that were first made for us by our parents at our baptism.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2009
“Facing a New Year”
John 1: 9-13
January 4, 2008
This first Sunday of this new year provides us with the first opportunity we have had to begin the year together as a Worshipping congregation of God’s people.
This is the first opportunity I have had to preach to you as we are starting a new year. I like starting a new year. I am not foolish enough to approach each new year as a blank slate, I acknowledge that I still have some stuff in my life that happened last year that I still have to deal with. All of my tasks do not neatly end at the end of a year. But I still like starting a new year because it reminds me that I still have some future left on this planet and there is still some time left for me to enjoy life here. It also reminds me that there are things left to be done, and the new year will provide me with time to do some of them.
As we face a new year together I would like to remind you of all that we celebrated at the end of last year. I think that the way the Christian calendar interacts with the secular calendar is one small act of God’s providence. As we end each calendar year we are reminded at Christmas of the gracious gift of revelation and salvation that God has given us in Jesus. So as we begin a new year, especially a new year about which there have been made as many dire predictions as this new year, it is good to be able to remember that God in Jesus Stands with us as we face all that will happen to us and our world in 2009.
So I want to start our year together by looking at a part of one of the passages that is often read at the end of the year, the prologue of the gospel of John. I have selected only 5 verses because I think they give us adequate information about who we are and where we are as we start a new year.
In the 9th verse John stated that “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world”. John was of course speaking of Jesus as God. God is the true light which enlightens the world. All that is true and enlightening comes from God, even if you did not read it in the Bible or if you did not hear it spoken about in Church. Any Scientific theory that is proven to be true beyond any shadow of a doubt is a truth that has been revealed to us by God though science.
All philosophical truths which are really true are also God’s truth.
As you face a new year, I encourage you to seek and recognize all of God’s truth and enlightenment in your world and in your life.
Now get ready because the Second thing John said in these verses is not so uplifting. In verse 10 he wrote, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.”
As Christians we just finished celebrating Christmas. We just completed our celebration of the Incarnation, the coming of God into our world as a human being. We honored Mary, Joseph, Angels, Shepherds and Wisemen, all of whom recognized him at his birth. But as we stand at the beginning of a new year we need to remember that we live in a world that for the most part rejected Jesus. Most of the people whom Jesus met and to whom he preached did not accept that he was Divine. And many of the people in our world do not.
And it gets worse. In verse 11 John wrote: “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him”. The people who were listed as God’s chosen people were not all as chosen as others. Many of them, most of them did not recognize their God when he came to them as Jesus.
We live in a world where not everyone who proclaims to love and follow and honor God really does. You have to be careful about what religious leaders and so-called enlightened world leaders might encourage you to do or to believe. The Scriptures are a higher guide for us than any word from any person or authority.
These first 3 verses of this passage have reminded us of what kind of world we live in as we face the new year. Now the 12th and 13th verses we can see who we are as we begin the new year. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”
There are several things about us that are revealed here. First of all, if you have received Jesus as your savior you are a child of God. Believing in His name is the same thing as receiving him as Savior. Believing in his name is to believe in Him, to believe that he is the Son of God, and that he has the power to forgive our sins and give us eternal life in his kingdom. If you have done that, then God has given you the power to become, and you have become, a child of God.
Of course, if you are a child of God you should bear some resemblance to God. You should be living to please and honor him. If you really believe that Jesus died for you, you should love him and you should be demonstrating that love as you live your life.
The power that we have to be children of God comes from God, just as the power we had to be children of our parents came from them. They were responsible for our coming to this physical or earthly life. It was their procreative abilities that put us on this earth, so it is the power of God through Jesus that has brought us into His kingdom.
Your being in God’s kingdom has nothing to do with who your parents were or what family you came from, it has to do with God’s determination to place you in his kingdom.
And that is great news. Because if the power and abilities of humans did not get you into the Family of God, neither can they remove you from it.
But as we face the new year we need to acknowledge that there is a negative side to being a child of God in this world. And that is that we are often in the minority. Not only that, but we often do not fit in.
From the first verses of this passage we learned that most of the world did not recognize Jesus as the divine light. So those of us who do are often at a disadvantage. We are trying to live by God’s standards and in the power of God’s love in a world where neither is totally accepted.
So should we just shut down or shut up and wait for the return of Jesus? No, because God’s power is still at work. The power of God that gave us our new lives as children of God is still at work in others bringing them to new life. And, Oddly enough, God wants us to help Him as he converts others. Being God, he really doesn’t need our help to bring others to the new life, but he chooses to have us help him. So we are to tell others about Jesus, we are love others with God’s love, we are to demonstrate God’s patience toward others.
And we are to keep God’s patience with the people of this world as they try to solve the problems of this world.
We are quite aware of some of the problems we are facing and expected to face as we enter this new year. People are going to be suffering because of our suffering economy. And you can pretty much count on our leaders to continue to seek their own profits and the profits of their friends and constituents as they attempt to solve our problems. But that is the way things have been since the beginning of time, And God has still used selfish, human leaders to make some good decisions that have made good lives for us.
So as we live as children of God in this word that has largely rejected Him, we are to trust in God to use even our corrupted systems to bring about the good that we and the other people of this world need.
The new year is a gift of God to his born-again children in which we are to honor him by our lives and in our prayers. We are to live during this year in ways that will lead others to take hold of God’s power to be born again, and we are to demonstrate God’s patience as we pray and work to solve the problems in our families, our communities, our nation, and our World.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)