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October 25, 2009
“Stones, Priests, and a Nation”
I Peter 2: 4-12
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The week before last, I had a rolled-up oriental rug in my family room at home. We had unrolled it to decide where we would like to place it and then rolled it up again and left it in the family room. I eventually took it back upstairs to one of the spare rooms because I kept tripping over it in the family room and I was afraid I might hurt myself.
So I have a recent experience that is similar to what is described in what I like to call the legend of the keystone. One of the less frequent but important themes that runs throughout the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Epistles is the reference to the stone that was rejected by builders but was placed in the most prominent place in the structure God was building.
This theme seems to begin in the Psalms and was used later by the prophet Isaiah. In the gospels (as we saw in our first reading this morning) Jesus refers to himself as this stone, and in the Epistles, the Apostles consider Jesus to have been the stone referred to in the Psalms and Isaiah.
The legend of the stone seems to have come from an incident that occurred in the building of the first Temple under King Solomon. It had been specified by God that there was not to be the sound of hammers or other loud construction sounds on the sacred temple site. So all of the stones, were cut to size and given their final dressing at the quarry. Some of the stones that were required for the Temple were of odd configurations, so these stones were made from suitable raw stones when an odd shaped hunk of stone was brought to the dressing site. There was one odd shaped stone that was dressed early and used much later in the building process. Because of its odd shape, it did not stack well with the other stones that had been brought to the temple site and although it was put in various places on the construction site it kept getting in the way and people kept tripping over it. One day, they finally got to the location for that stone. It was the keystone or the stone that was at the head of the arch over the main door into the temple. As Worshippers would later climb the steps into the courtyard, looking up to the front wall of the temple, this was the most prominent stone they would see. The stone that had been stumbled over and been the subject of some cursing, had now been elevated to a glorious position. This stone became a symbol for the Messiah whom God was expected to send.
Jesus claimed to be that stone, and the Apostles writing in some of the Epistles also claimed Him to be that stone. But Peter, writing about him thusly in this passage took the symbolism a little further. He referred to Jesus as a living stone, the keystone in God’s new temple, the one he was building of people on earth. That Temple is the Church, the body of Christ on earth.
Peter also wrote that Christians were to see themselves as living stones comprising a part of the new Temple of God. Take a look at verses 5 and 6. He wrote that we are to “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
But in the light of our passage last week where we looked at the fact that Jesus is our High Priest, I want you to notice what Peter wrote about all Christians being priests. He wrote that like living stones built into God’s spiritual house, we are also to be the priests in that spiritual house. Through this and other NT passages it is made clear to us that we Christians are all to be priests in God’s new temple. But it probably is not at all clear to 21st century Protestant Christians what that means because we are not familiar with the duties of God’s priests in the OT.
Peter helps us here in his epistle when he says that we are “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. The Old Testament priests offered sacrifices to God for themselves and the people who came to them. These sacrifices were mostly animals which were slaughtered and of which certain parts were burned on the altar in the temple courtyard. These sacrifices were offered as atonements for sins, and as recognition of God’s blessing upon the worshipper, or as a sign that God had revealed his closeness to the worshipper.
Within 40 years after Peter wrote these words, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the offerings on the altar there ceased. But we, as priests of God in his spiritual temple are still supposed to offer sacrifices to God for ourselves and for others, but they are to be “Spiritual Sacrifices” not animal sacrifices. So what constitutes a Spiritual sacrifice?
Well, since it is a sacrifice it should cost us something of our time, energy, money, or be costly in some other way. Time to read scriptures, time to participate in the life of the church, time and money to help others, time to pray, and many other things are spiritual sacrifices.
Priests in the OT offered sacrifices for themselves, as atonements for their own sins and in appreciation for God’s blessings in their lives. But they also offered sacrifices for the sins of others and for the blessings of God on others.
We Christians need to make sacrifices on behalf of others, to take our time and money and energy to help others understand that there is a God who loves them. We need to make an effort to make friends with those who are not Christians so we might have the chance to present God to them and to present them to God.
The Old Testament Priests acted as a mediator between God and his people. They prayed for the people to God. Do you pray for others? Do you pray that they will believe in Christ and have their sins forgiven? Do you pray that they will be punished or that they will be forgiven?
The Old Testament priests represented God. There may be times in your life when you are the only Christian in some place. You are there to represent God’s blessings and his standards and his love for the others who are present. There may well be times when you will be God’s representative to the others in your family. Call them to obedience and to forgiveness and love.
The Old Testament priests were also called to a higher level of morality than the average people. As God’s representatives in our world and in our culture, we are called to a higher standard of morality than the rest of the people of this world. We are called to live by God’s rules and the standards of conduct that are specified in the bible. In verses 11 and 12 Peter exhorts his readers to “abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul” and to “Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles…”
As Peter wrote about Christians being priests, he used a peculiar phrase. In the 9th verse he says that we are “A Royal Priesthood”. That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense here in this context, but remember what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote about Jesus being a High priest of the order of Melchizadek? Melchizadek is described as being a High priest and a King. We serve under the Hi Priesthood of Jesus, who is a High Priest and a king. We are more than Priests, we are Royal Priests.
Peter wrote that Christians, in addition to being living stones and Priests were a chosen race and a holy nation. In the Old Testament times, the Jews were called to be God’s Chosen Race and His Holy Nation, but now we Christians have been called from many nations and races to become the new Chosen and Holy Race in this world.
This Saturday Evening will mark the 492nd anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was on October 31st 1517 that Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the chapel in Wittenberg. One of the doctrines that became focused on by the reformers was that of the Priesthood of all believers. That is why we Reformed Protestants do not refer to our Clergy as Priests. We believe that all Christians are Priests serving God under the High Priesthood of Jesus. In the name of our Jesus our High priest I send you out into the world and into the church to perform your priestly duties. Amen
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2009
“Our Great High Priest”
Hebrews 4: 14 – 5: 10
Sunday, October 18, 2009
In my home I have a Currier & Ives Lithograph that was a gift to me from an old family friend. The lithograph is of a Minister marrying a young couple. The minister is obviously of the Reformed tradition because he is wearing the Geneva Tabs. When this was pointed out to the previous owner of the picture he said that since I was at that time a recently ordained Presbyterian Minister, he would give it to me. Ironically, I have never in my 34 years in the Ministry worn the Geneva tabs or any of those peculiar shirts that seem to be relegated to Clergy. I have never worn them for three reasons.
First of all, My father never wore one and I have always had the feeling that he might disown me if I ever wore one.
I have also never worn them because I do not know how I would handle being called “Father” by people who are not my children. A Presbyterian Pastor I heard of who wore such collars supposedly felt OK at being called Father because as He said, “after all, I have a wife and three children to prove it.”
But most of all I do not wear such collars because I am not a priest in the formal sense and I do not want people to think I am. This Sunday and next Sunday I am going to be talking about various aspects of the priesthood in the Christian Era and I hope to help you understand more about the term Priest and its place in the Christian Church.
This morning we are starting our look at the priesthood at the top with the High Priest. The priesthood of Israel was instituted by God through Moses in the wilderness at about 1600 BC.
At that same time God ordered the Jews to build the Tabernacle. The word Tabernacle means tent, unless it is preceded by the word “The”, then it refers to the portable building that the Jews used to Worship God. That building had a fenced in courtyard that surrounded it. The ordinary folks, who came to worship God (non-priests or non-Levites) were not permitted inside the tabernacle. They worshipped from the courtyard.
The interior of the tabernacle was divided into two rooms. The front room, which comprised two thirds of the interior space of the temple was called the Holy Place. In that place were the seven branched lampstand, a table holding 12 loaves of bread, and a small altar for burning incense. Just outside the door or curtain that led outside, in the courtyard was the big altar where animals were sacrificed and burnt as offerings to God.
Those who worked within the tabernacle fell into two categories, Priests and Levites. All were born in the tribe of Levi, but the priests were descended from a particular family in that tribe, the family of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
The Levites did their work within the tabernacle, preparing wood for the fires, preparing bread for the table, repairing the tabernacle, and cleaning it.
The priests were appointed by God to preside over the worship and especially to serve as a mediator between God and his people. The priest offered the prayers of the people to God in his prayers and through the smoke of the incense he burned on the altar in the Holy Place. After the prayers were offered and the incense burned and the sacrifices killed and burned, the priest would pronounce that God had received their prayers and offerings and would consider them to be payment for their sins. The priest announced that the fellowship between the holy God and his unholy people could be resumed.
There was one person responsible for making sure that all Levites and Priests carried out their duties properly and that all prayers and sacrifices were offered in ways that would please God. That man was the High Priest. He was ordinarily one of the sons of the previous High Priest. In Addition to his ordinary duties of making certain that all acts in the temple were in accord with the law and offering some of the prayers and sacrifices himself, he had specific duties.
He was the only priest allowed into the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies comprised the rear third of the interior of the tabernacle building. There was only one piece of furniture in it. The Ark of the Covenant. It looked like a blanket chest with rings on the side and statues of angels on the top. The ark served as God’s throne among his people. On top of the ark was an area called the Mercy Seat. For a while at least, God’s presence above the ark was marked by a ball of fire called the shekinah or the glory of God.
Each year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would offer a sacrifice for his own sins, then a much larger sacrifice for the sins of the people, then he would take some of the blood of that second sacrifice into the holy of holies and pour it out on the mercy seat on top of the Ark
It was then his duty to go back out through the Holy place and into the court yard and announce that God had received their sacrifices as an atonement for all their sins.
When the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Tabernacle was long gone, but the Priests and the High Priest were still observing the same rituals in the Temple, which was a permanent building built on the same general plan as the tabernacle.
This Epistle was written to Jewish Christians who were under pressure to give up their Christian faith and return completely to Judiasm. The author is writing to tell them that in Christ they have something much better than Judiasm. The most important of those superior things is their New High Priest. In earlier chapters he has already stated that Jesus the Son of God is our new high priest.
Here he mentions that Jesus is the “great High priest who has passed through the heavens.” In order to atone for our sins, Jesus did not pass through the curtains in the temple and through the Holy Place in the temple, he passed through the heavens, through the distance or dimensions that separate us from God. He passed not into some earthly space representing God’s throne, but into the very real presence of God, to offer our prayers and confessions to God and to present himself as the sacrifice for our sins. And, since his ascension, Jesus is in that Holy place praying for us not just for a few minutes each year, but He lives there permanently as our High Priest.
The Author finished the 14th verse by writing, “let us hold fast to our confession.” He was imploring his audience to not give up their superior High priest and depend on the merely human and therefore inferior Hi Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.
In later verses in this passage he deals with other qualities of Jesus as High Priest. Jesus is human so, like the other high priests he is able to understand the temptations we are influenced by. But he has not sinned so he does not have to atone for his own sins before he can atone for ours.
And, like other legitimate priests, he did not seize the office for himself, he was appointed to it by God. The Author sees that appointment as having been prophecied by the Psalmist in Psalm 110: 4.
Which brings us to the interesting and elusive character of Melchizadek. Superior as Jesus might be, to be a High priest of Jews, he lacked one thing, He was not of the priestly family of Aaron nor of the tribe of Levi.
But there was a priest in the biblical narrative who came before Aaron. He was a contemporary of Abraham and his name was Melchizedek. He is identified as a “Priest of God most High” and as a king of Salem. At one point Abe gave a tithe to God through Melchizadek. 1000 years later the Psalmist proclaimed that the Messiah would be a “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”
Later, in chapter 7 the author of this epistle will argue that The order of Melchizedek is superior to the order of the Levitical priesthood because Abraham, the ancestor of the Levites, recognized the legitimacy of his order.
But in the rest of our passage the author makes other comments. He points out that in the performance of offering himself as the sacrifice for our sins he was submissive and obedient to the will of God, and “having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
Now, most of us have never had to argue the superiority of Christianity to Judiasm, but what the author says about Christianity’s superiority is applicable to other religions. It is being argued in our day that all religions and some philosophies offer alternate routes to the same God. I disagree with that, but even if it were true, it is a doctrine of our faith that the sacrifice of Jesus and the High Priesthood of Jesus is vastly superior to all other approaches to God. Only Jesus has become “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.”
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2009
“God’s Rest”
Hebrews 3: 16-18/4: 6-13
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Since moving to Indiana over a year ago, I have been traveling on the interstate highways as I travel long distances to visit family members and friends. As I travel on long journeys I have become more attentive to the signs that tell me how far it is to the next rest stop. If I have anyone traveling with me, when I see such a sign I usually ask if anyone needs to rest. The term “rest stop” has sometimes become a euphemism for a bathroom break, or a snack or meal stop.
I actually see very few people resting in rest stops. When I am traveling alone I use rest stops for what might be seen as the opposite of resting. I use them to get a little activity after sitting in the car for 3 or 4 hours. I often get out of the car and briskly walk the entire length of the sidewalks in front of the rest stop so I can stretch my legs and bring a little refreshment to my weary body which has been sitting still for far too long. But such activity does in a sense provide me with a rest or respite from my long periods of driving.
Describing such activities as Rest may help us understand the way the word “Rest” is used in this passage. It is used first of the Israelites who came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness with Moses for 40 years. I guess I should remind you here that the Author of this Epistle to the Hebrews was a rather meandering writer, often going off the main subject to explore other related issues. But if you look back into the 3rd chapter and the beginning of the 4th chapter of this Epistle, you will see that the main subject of these parts of the Epistle is the rest God promised to folks who came out Egypt and then wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. That Rest is implied to have been entry into the Promised Land.
This weekend is the time for our local “Feast of the Hunter’s Moon” That event commemorates the French traders who lived in our neighborhood for several years in the 1700s. But they came and left. It was the later settlers of European descent who came by way of Virginia and other Eastern locales that set up farms, businesses and communities. Their part of the history of Indiana should teach us that the coming into a new land and setting up homes, farm, and businesses in it is not exactly restful. In fact it can require quite a bit of energy. But for those settlers who came here, and for those Israelites who came out of Egypt it was considered to offer a better route to self sufficiency and prosperity and to bring a greater chance at a more restful existence in the long run.
The folks who were with Moses had been slaves for several generations and there was no promise of any change of that status for them in Egypt.
And so the prospect of living in a nation of their own and owning property for themselves and their families and being able to develop their own businesses and farms was described as a rest. They would rest in their own homes after years in slavery and another period of time journeying in the wilderness.
But the point that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes is that hardly any of the adults who came out of Egypt got to that promised land of rest. All but a few died in the wilderness during the 40 years. Many of those who were under 20 years of age when they left Egypt and their children and grandchildren did get into the promised land with Joshua.
The Author of this Epistle reminds his readers that that first generation of Adults did not get into the promised rest “Because of disobedience.” And he implies that they also missed something much greater than mere entrance into the Promised Land. They missed the eternal rest that is also a part of God’s plan for those who really belong to Him.
He refers his readers to the 95th Psalm. You might be slightly familiar with it by now because we have both sung it and read it responsively this morning. In that Psalm the Psalmist, whom the author of Hebrews identifies as David, talks about that rest that many of the Israelites of the Exodus missed, and says that that same rest was still available for the people in his own day. Now David lived 400 years after the Exodus and was living in the Promised Land yet implied that some element of that rest was still available for those who believed in God in his day. He exhorted them writing “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” as their ancestors did in the wilderness.
At this point the author of Hebrews states that there is still a chance for the people of his day to get into God’s promised Rest. Each generation of people has a chance to get into God’s rest. We often refer to that rest as “heaven”. Although I sometimes use that term, I prefer to think of it as the Kingdom of God in its final and complete form. All who have accepted the promises and forgiveness of God will participate in God’s final rest.
The Sabbath or Sunday rest is to be a sample for us of that eternal rest. Total and complete rest is not the issue here. We are called to participate in God’s rest as he rested after creation. But I would remind you that God, having completed creation did not take up position in an eternal hammock and rest forever. After creation God still labored in his rest. He changed what he had created and he stayed active in calling each generation to his rest and in directing them as to how to be a part of it.
So God’s rest is not a total rest for him or for us. Being in God’s eternal kingdom will be an active rest. We will be engaged in activities that will energize us and build us up.
And how do we get into this great rest of God? By dealing with our disobedience. We need to confess our sins and allow the grace of God to work in us so we sin less as we grow in God’s grace.
And that is where verses 12 & 13 come in. “Indeed the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and marrow; it is able to judge the thought and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”
The Word of God that we have in our Bible and in our Lord Jesus Christ is a dual purpose tool. It contains the standards by which God will judge us. And it is the tool we need to make use of to prepare ourselves for God’s final judgment.
I have heard some rumors about how some of the professors and teachers at Purdue prepare their students for the final exam. Some of them say that most if not all of the questions on the final have been given to the students earlier in quizzes and other exams.
This is what God has done for us by giving us the Bible as His Word. It is that by which he will judge us and we get to see it ahead of time. We can use it to inspect ourselves and examine and correct ourselves before God uses it to examine us to see if we can enter his rest.
The Author of this epistle says that the Word of God is living and Active. It is no dead document. It is inhabited by the Holy Spirit as we read it and the Spirit uses it to reveal things to us about our God and ourselves. The Spirit uses the Word to convict us of our sins and show us the way to repentance and forgiveness. Our author compares the Word to the two edged swords that were used in those days by Roman soldiers and gladiators in the deadly games in the arenas throughout the Roman Empire. He had obviously seen or heard about some of the victims in the arena, human and animal, being cut into pieces so that many of their inner parts were exposed to all.
I like to think that if the author of this epistle were alive today he would compare the word of God to an x-ray machine or a cat-scan. or perhaps an enhanced ultra-sound machine. These are tools we use to have the inner parts of our bodies exposed so our doctors can see what is causing our problems and illnesses. But an x-ray does not help any patient if no one reads it and diagnoses it.
God has given to us his word, containing his standards, and his Holy Spirit to lead us to see how we stand up to his standards. The word of God is not only to be used as a weapon against God’s enemies, it is to be used by us against ourselves so that we might judge ourselves and receive the judgment of the Holy Spirit now and repent and do our best to live up to God’s standards.
As I studied this passage this past week I came to a shocking realization about the words of the 13th verse. The English translations all tone down the original image. The English translations present to us the image of a person standing before God stripped naked of soul and spirit so God can see all. As scary as that might be, that is not the image that is presented by the Greek words of this passage. Those words are used in other non-biblical texts to refer to a victim about to be sacrificed or executed. The “laid bare” part describes the victim with its head pulled back and its throat exposed for the knife or sword.
It describes us as people standing before God with our throats exposed to God who is holding a knife in his hand.
The judgment that we will have to face before God is serious business. God has given us his scriptures to prepare ourselves for that judgment so we can in all honesty repent and be forgiven and enter God’s eternal Rest.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2009
“The Good Shepherd and His Sheep”
John 10: 14-18
(World Communion Sunday)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
In 1726 Jonathan Swift, a Pastor of the Anglican Church of Ireland, published a book entitled “Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts”. This work was published under the Pseudonym “Lemuel Gulliver”, who is described as being “first a surgeon, then a Captain of several ships.” This work is mostly known today as “Gulliver’s Travels” and has been in print ever since its original publication up to the present day. It has been made into movies, animated and non-animated, and at least one TV Miniseries. But over time, much of the sharp satire that was written into its pages by Swift has been ignored and toned down. I am not at all sure that Swift would be pleased with the presentations and adaptations of his work.
Similarly, many of the sayings of Jesus were intended to have a sharp edge that has been dulled by the passage of time and the studies of many scholars and students of the Bible. Like many of Jesus’ other sayings, this one about the good shepherd was supposed to shock and even irritate many of those who would hear it.
One of the most pointed things about this saying was the way he started it. He said “I am the Good Shepherd”. In order to fully understand the import of these words you need to recall the conversation God had with Moses at the burning bush. At that time God sent Moses to the Israelites in Egypt. Moses asked God who he should say had sent him. God said “I Am Who I am” Tell the Israelites “I Am has sent me to you”. So in certain contexts, when a person connected to the Israelite community would begin an announcement with the statement “I Am” people tended to listen with a certain nervous excitement. When Jesus began statements with I Am his enemies among the priests and Pharisees suspected he was claiming to be God or sent directly from God. That is one of the reasons why they accused him of blasphemy.
In this case, the I Am statement was to identify himself as the Good Shepherd, which was also a not-so-veiled reference to God. In the OT Prophets, God refers to Israel as a flock of sheep and himself as their good shepherd. He identifies himself as the good shepherd in contrast to his not so good flock. In some of the OT passages about the shepherd, God is about to judge the flock and punish and even destroy certain segments of the flock.
But in Jesus’ version of the Good Shepherd, the judgment is predicted to fall on himself as the shepherd. He said “I lay down my life for the sheep.” In Jesus’ use of the shepherd imagery, the sheep are still not very good, but it is the shepherd that is judged and punished, not the sheep.
We all know that Jesus’ prediction of his sacrificial death for his sheep or his followers came true. We remember that death this morning by partaking of this sacrament. We rejoice that by his death He has given us eternal life.
But there are still a few more “edgy” things in this saying that are especially fitting for us to look at this morning.
He said to his Jewish audience “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” We are here as a fulfillment of those words. Only a few of us have any genealogical connection to the people of Israel. Most of us are from Gentile nations, nations that were not a part of the original people or flock of God. We are a part of the “other sheep”.
And, Thanks be to God, other sheep are still coming into the flock in our own day. The church of Jesus Christ is growing so much in continents and nations that are south of the equator that it is predicted that within the next 100 years the majority of Christians will live in the Southern Continents. We thank God that his flock is still growing in our time and we need to remember to welcome our new fellow sheep wherever we find them.
And in order to honor this day and this sacrament with the joy it deserves, I want to call your attention to what Jesus said in vs. 17 & 18. He said that he would lay down his life and take it up again. He said that his life would not be taken from him, but that he would lay it down and then use his power to take it up again. When we participate in this sacrament we remember his death for us and our sins, but we also remember that he did not stay dead, he used his divine power to triumph over his death. As Jesus died for his sheep, he also rose for them, to lead them victoriously into a new life, to show them the way.
As we celebrate our being in Gods redeemed flock of sheep I would have you remember that a shepherd owns his sheep. If you are a sheep in God’s flock, you belong to him, you are his property.
And I would have you remember why a shepherd owns sheep. They are not his pets, they are to be useful to him, to provide profit for him. They are to provide wool that the shepherd will sell for profit. Have you been and are you being profitable for your shepherd? Are you helping him increase his flock? Are you comforting and helping some of his other sheep?
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)