August 22, 2004
The Vineyard of the Lord
The Vineyard of the Lord
Psalm 16 / Isaiah 5: 1-7
Luke 20: 9-18
August 22nd, 2004
This morning I offer a third view of the Kingdom of God amply illustrated in the Bible, but a bit awkward for us to handle. The Kingdom of God is like God’s vineyard.
Vineyards are a part of our culture—Nappa Valley perhaps most famously, but vineyards were much more important in ancient Israelite culture and agriculture. You know what grew in vineyards. Grapes. And grapes were not so much to make raisins for raisin bread as to make wine.
The 104th Psalm is a trifle shocking to some modern ears when it begins so piously, ‘Bless the Lord O my soul,” and then continues to praise God who gives “wine to gladden the heart of man.” In our penthouse room at the Tel Dan Hotel in Jerusalem ten years ago we found a bottle of Israeli wine—a symbol of welcome. A prayer our Jewish friends know well and offer at table in every home, “Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who createst the fruit of the vine.”
But we remember Prohibition, the WCTU, and are very aware of the sad spectacle that unfolds on weekends on campuses across our country as alcohol flows like a virtual Niagara Falls over many young people, ruining some of their lives. Drunk driving wrecks horrible havoc on our roads. What business do I have speaking of this the weekend before classes start at Purdue? How would you go about speaking of the Kingdom of God as a vineyard knowing how massive a problem in society alcohol abuse has become?
But there it is. Isaiah spoke for God:
Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
What elaborate care God put into His vineyard. It was a word-picture people could understand because vineyard owners also put great care into cultivating their vineyards.
Isaiah was as aware of the possibility of the misuse of wine as we are. He knew, as we read in the Book of Proverbs, “wine is a mocker,” and “look not on the wine when it is red.” He knew about Noah’s drunkenness that led to the curse against one of his sons, and about Lot’s drunkenness that led to incest. Scripture amply documents the abuse of wine. Check out your concordance under “wine,” “vine,” and “vineyard,” and you’ll see how it is so.
Yet there it is, this unblushing analogy of God’s project with Israel as a vineyard owner who does everything possible to make it the best vineyard in the land. Why? Because wine was an indispensable part of life. Wine offerings were given to God. Part of the tithe Israelites gave was used to buy wine to consume before the Lord and rejoice. Wine was an agent of rejoicing, a symbol of joy.
Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospels was to change water into wine at a wedding feast. Why? In order to make the wedding happy. Jesus was accused of hob-knobbing with winebibbers and did not defend himself against the charge.
As He neared the end of His ministry, He built on Isaiah’s story that we just read. They knew it well, including that it was a picture of God’s disappointment with Israel. But then Jesus added to the story a dimension that His enemies found very troubling.
He began as Isaiah did, telling of a man planting a vineyard. But then the story develops in a way that summarizes the predicament of Isaiah and the other prophets God sent to labor in the vineyard. He let it out to tenants, going away to another country for a long while. It takes three years for vines to mature and produce grapes in quantity. The time came to reap this harvest. He sent first one servant to fetch his owner’s share of the grapes. They were, after all, sharecroppers. They beat the fellow up and sent him away empty handed. He sent a second and they treated him badly too, sending him away empty handed. He sent a third servant whom they beat up and sent him away again empty handed and more wounded that the previous one.
The vineyard owner said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Maybe they’ll respect him.” But they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Those who listened to Jesus’ story were shocked. “God forbid,” they exclaimed.
But then Jesus spoke as Nathan the prophet spoke to King David after his crime with Bathsheba—when he had her husband killed so he could have her to himself. You remember that Nathan told King David of the poor fellow in his kingdom that had a pet lamb that was taken forcibly by the rich man and slaughtered to make a meal. David was furious. But how quickly his anger turned to shame as he realized he was the rich man in the story.
Jesus made the people to whom He told this story realize He was talking about them and their ancestors who treated God’s servants shamefully and were hell-bent to do worse by His Son. Luke tells us they tried to lay hands on Jesus, but were afraid of the people.
This very important story Jesus told, that used an illustration that might have been drawn from the daily news, summarized Israelite history. His hearers were angry because they realized Jesus was talking about how their forebears had treated the prophets who came from God to restore them to ways of obedience. One after another they made the lot of the prophets miserable. And now they were about to kill Him, God’s final Word—who came not just to speak, but also to begin to gather in the grapes. Not grapes of wrath but grapes of joy.
These miserable servants were hostile to joy. We don’t read they tried to harvest the grapes for their own use. They prevented the harvest. They were hostile to joy.
Arching over all of the laws and over all the warnings of the prophets, and over all the tragic story of Israel’s disobediences and eventual exile is the message that we found summarized at the end of Psalm 16 this morning: “In God’s presence is fullness of joy, at His right hand are pleasures for evermore.”
God’s great project with us is that we should enjoy Him. The chief end of man, as the Shorter Catechism starts to say, is “to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
The Kingdom of God is likened to a Vineyard because wine is a symbol of joy. Jesus and His disciples had joy together. His accusers noticed it and challenged him: “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” Jesus replied, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them . . . new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.” When joy is full, it bursts.
Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches” that ends with, “By this is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit.” Then what? Then marvelous new wine! He said, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” When joy is full, it cannot be contained. This was the image Jesus wanted His disciples to understand of how His joy would intoxicate the world.
Jesus told His closest followers at the Last Supper, “I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Why did He say, “drink of the fruit of the vine?” It was because this pointed to the joy that would come at the wedding feast of the Lamb. This joyous banquet is the symbol of the triumphant reign of God.
Sometimes it’s very good to step back and look at the big picture. What does God want of us? And as a congregation, how do we measure our faithfulness and success? Is this a joyous place? Have we had a taste of the “new wine” Jesus offered? Or perhaps, have other concentrations replaced what is essential so that joy may become scarce?
Joy is evident; indeed, it cannot be hidden. Joy is winsome. The joy of the Lord radiates something to weary travelers along the road of life. To mix metaphors, it sheds rays of light that welcome them. All kinds of people are drawn to joy. As light attracts moths at night, joy attracts people, luring them to God.
Many of us are aware of Jesus’ story about the Great Banquet to which the invited guests decided not to come for a variety of reasons. So the head of the house sent his servants out to the highways and byways and welcomed strangers to the sumptuous feast he had prepared.
At each Great Banquet, the retreat ministry that many of us have attended, there is a nearly unending procession of “agapes,” tokens of affection and delight that greet the guests who come. From the very beginning small tokens that say, “I’m glad you’re here,” surprise the guests. Why all this bother, all this time-consuming work by so many people who prepare the Great Banquets for people they don’t even know? It is because we best understand the grace of God as an outpouring of favors that nobody expects. God’s grace inundates even those who do not acknowledge Him.
Now, we’re careful not to serve wine at our Great Banquets because wine has become a different kind of symbol in our day. But the joy that the Scriptures use wine to suggest, is the key noticeable ingredient those who direct these banquets try to communicate. Joy will be noticeable in a place where the Spirit of God is at work.
You remember that at Pentecost the people in the streets were confused when they heard Galileans speaking about Jesus in languages they didn’t know—North African languages, Far Eastern languages—perhaps Hindi and Japanese, the languages of ancient France and Spain. Jerusalemites accused these linguists of being drunk—“They are filled with new wine.” Did they say this because of the many languages in which they spoke or because of their joy? Did their faces look glad as they spoke, perhaps even shining with happiness? Little did their critics realize that they were right, these folk were intoxicated, but not as they imagined. And Peter explained, “No, it’s too early in the day for wine. They are intoxicated with the Holy Spirit.” Three thousand people trusted in Jesus that day.
Luke tells us afterwards these people “partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
I have two hopes for our response to this message this morning. First, I pray that God will give us a taste of this new wine again, and that the joy it brings will fill our hearts. I pray that we will not prevent this joy in any way.
Second, I pray that we will share this new wine. This morning we have a friend from LUM with us who will share something of the need for joy in our town. Every Tuesday some of you are at Central Presbyterians Church trying to alleviate a bit of suffering of people on our streets. At least one of our number that I know is in the homeless shelter on Tuesday nights.
People need so much more than our money. If our hearts are full; if joy radiates from us and from this place, we have something to share that will bring joy to our streets. This is what the Kingdom of God accomplishes as it quietly unfolds the love and joy of God in a dark time—when very many people live in fear and anger. Terrorism may be the keyword in 21st century secular society today. But joy is the keyword in the Kingdom of God.
I pray that we here at Faith Church may be intoxicated with the joy of the Lord, giving evidence that the Vineyard of the Lord is being well tended in this place, and its fruit is a continual delight.
Let us pray: O Lord of the Vineyard, look on us and find here that your cultivating, pruning, and harvesting is finding good success. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2004
The Plentiful Harvest
The Plentiful Harvest
Exodus 18: 13-23 / Luke 10: 1-12
August 15th, 2004
This morning once again we have invited someone to speak to us about a ministry beyond Faith Church that we are glad to support. Today we will learn a bit more about Habitat for Humanity.
Again I want to address the question of why we are involved in “costly” ministries beyond our own church? Why give money that we don’t see immediate benefit to ourselves? An answer comes in looking at how Jesus started this whole thing we call the “Christian faith.” Jesus came saying, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” and enlisted others to help Him get the word out. It seems clear from Scripture that getting the word out will continue to be important until “the time is fulfilled,” until Jesus returns to wrap up God’s project of reconciling the world to Himself. This communication had two parts: Doing Kingdom things, and speaking Kingdom words.
Jesus first chose twelve men to be His special disciples. We call these the twelve Apostles. The number twelve which is the same number as the twelve tribes of Israel makes us think Jesus was starting to unfold a new Israel. The twelve would go into all the world with the Gospel, developing the People of God far beyond the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.
But Jesus chose more than just twelve people for this task. Today we read of Jesus appointing seventy other men, or perhaps seventy-two men. I asked Fran to read about Moses choosing many wise men to help him govern Israel. Later in Exodus we learn there were seventy elders Moses chose. There seems some parallel to Jesus choosing not only twelve men, but seventy men to help in the great work He began.
Earlier in Luke we read that Jesus had more than twelve disciples, but chose from these many only twelve to be apostles. We take the word “apostle” as a technical term for the original circle of people with which Jesus started to reach out to the world. But we wonder what happened to the other followers Jesus did not call apostles.
Luke lets us know that Jesus appointed seventy of these to go speak for Him. Jesus made clear their importance when he said, “Whenever you enter a town and they receive you . . . say, “The kingdom of God has come near you.”
This meant that they were Jesus’ ambassadors. When America sends ambassadors to other countries, they speak for America. The American embassy in India or China or anywhere is seen as American soil.
Jesus told these seventy disciples their mission would not be easy. They were not to go with lots of equipment—no purse, no suitcase, no sandals—go barefoot. They were not to get involved in conversations along the way. He warned them that they would be like sheep going into the midst of wolves. They could expect hostility. We all hope for better than that in our careers.
We wonder how it went for them. We don’t read about them returning to Jesus for Him to de-brief them. We don’t know how long their missions were. We wonder what became of them when their mission was done. Perhaps they returned home to normal lives after their short-term mission was over, becoming farmers, fishermen, carpenters, etc.
But there is one thing we know about the reason Jesus enlisted these seventy people. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Seventy is a few more than twelve, we might say. And he told them, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” That is, more than seventy are needed.
The world is like a large farmer’s field. Jesus taught elsewhere that weeds as well as good seed got planted in this field. At the harvest the weeds will be gathered and burned. The grain will be gathered into the barn.
In the same section of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus told about how the good seed gets planted on different kinds of ground. Only seed planted on good earth grows and bears fruit. And not all the fruitfulness is the same. Some seeds produce one-hundred fold, some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold.
We read these parables about harvesting and think about what Jesus said to these seventy men he sent out in pairs to work in the field—that is, the world. Work is needed to cultivate the good seed to get it into good soil, and encourage its success.
When Jesus used illustrations from the farm we naturally think about what we understand about farm work. We see farmers doing everything by machinery, from preparing the soil to harvesting the crop. But Jesus taught in days when everything was done by hand.
Living in Indiana we see vast stretches of land now filled with tall-standing corn, or soybeans. Farmers work these huge farms with only a few people driving tractors that till and plant many rows at once, and in the fall, driving combines that gobble up many rows of corn or beans at a time. Fewer and fewer Americans are farmers because a few can do what once needed many farmers.
Imagine if there were no tractors or combines to harvest these crops. It would require many hands. Farm families used to be large because every new child was a laborer come harvest time. Farm mothers and dads not only labored in the field but asked God to multiply the little ones around the breakfast table so there would be many hands to do the work.
I don’t know how Jesus would have taught us the same lesson today. Maybe He’d tell us about tractors and combines now. We see mass evangelism using vast stadiums and TV as the modern machinery for harvesting in the Kingdom of God. Perhaps Jesus would tell His chosen disciples today to rent the largest arenas you can find and buy up all the air time you can to plant and harvest the crops in the Kingdom of God.
But I am not sure Jesus would change how He taught if he were teaching us today. I wonder if He might say, “Remember when there were no such arenas and no TV? There are some big differences between the human heart and a cornfield.” Maybe you have watched a TV preacher and felt he was talking right to your heart. Maybe you went to the RCA Dome and were stirred with thousands of other men who were part of “Promise Keepers.” If this has happened for you, I am glad.
But not everyone watches TV or goes to these arenas to hear the Gospel. Jesus still depends on people to get into the many places, to reach out to the many people who will never turn on such a TV program or go to Yankee Stadium to hear Billy Graham.
So it is as true today as it was when Jesus walked this earth, workers are needed, needed badly in the great harvest field of the world. God needs you and me in the sector of life where we work and live.
God might have touched this world with the message of His love by zapping everyone with the information. But God has chosen a more personal way. Jesus was God coming personally to us. Jesus chose twelve people, then seventy people to continue the personal spread of the information. Why? Because it is more than information that needs to be spread. Living examples of Kingdom of God kind of living make the message of the Kingdom of God easier to understand. Living examples don’t get provided by hour-long TV shows or in mass meetings. Jesus intended His disciples to demonstrate the ways of the Kingdom of God as well as to tell about it.
If we wanted to think in terms of strategy and timing, we might see that the proportion of twelve to seventy might have kept on multiplying so that by the year 2004, so many people were enlisted in this personal embassy that all the planet would be saturated with the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ—and with examples of what Kingdom of God kind of living looks like.
As we know, the faith of Jesus Christ has not embraced the fascination of the whole world yet. Far from it. I wonder if Jesus would stand before us today and plead with us more than he did with those seventy people he sent out two by two on their mission. We are still to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to do the work.
I still puzzle at this request of our Lord. Why does God need us to pray when He knows quite well what’s going on? Perhaps it all has to do with God’s desire that our response to Him be a willing response. He wants to love Him with all we are, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Love is not coerced. We offer real love freely or not at all. That’s why we pray.
If you and I are praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers, do you think we might find ourselves saying, “Lord, I’m available as a laborer?” We are suspicious about the sincerity of someone who will pray that others will do what he is not willing to do. Maybe Jesus wants us to pray because then willingness will develop in our own hearts.
There are not only many people need for this work, but many ways to get it done. In our fellowship are people with a variety of abilities and careers. We have teachers, government workers, doctors, people who work with their hands, people who work in factories, stores, and in the home. God has put you where you are not just to earn a living, but as an ambassador who says, upon showing up for work, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus says to you and me, “Act like it and then speak of it.” I reminded you a few weeks ago of St. Francis of Assissi’s advice to his followers. They were to take the Gospel to the poor and if necessary, even speaking it.
There are two parts to working in God’s great harvest field: demonstrating Kingdom of God kind of living, and speaking about the Kingdom of God. Both are important not just because there is some benefit to religion in society, to soften its rough edges. But because Jesus clearly taught that a harvest day is coming when God will separate the grain from the weeds. When that time comes we might have a different view of these things we read way back when in the Gospels. How wise it is to live so that we don’t have to say at some later point in time, “If only I had!”
There are many forms the work in God’s great field takes. This morning we have someone from Habitat for Humanity to remind us of one important way the message of the Kingdom of God gets spread. As Jesus fed bread and fish to hungry people so we have followers of Jesus who help homeless people have homes. To those with no roof over their heads comes the message “God cares and so do we.” Somehow, it is easier for the Gospel of the Kingdom to register when you have a place to call home.
I am glad that we have helped the ministry of Habitat for Humanity. The undergraduate college from which I received my bachelor’s degree, Sterling College in Kansas, one of our Presbyterian colleges, has developed a partnership with Habitat to help cultivate this wonderful ministry by training Kingdom of God entrepreneurs to help demonstrate God’s care while speaking of the Kingdom of God. I am glad that today we can learn something more of this one means God is using to extend the message of the Kingdom of God in a winsome and believable way.
Let us pray: O Lord, we are grateful that we have learned of your love for the world, of your Kingdom whose embrace is wide. We pray that you will send laborers into your harvest field. We also ask, O Lord, that you may find us useful as laborers in this harvest. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2004
The Kingdom of God is at Hand
The Kingdom of God is at Hand
Psalm 91 / Lamentations 3: 22-33
Mark 1: 14-20
August 8th, 2004
The next three weeks the preaching part of our worship will focus on the Kingdom of God. I have two reasons for this. First, we think far too little about the Kingdom of God. It is the big picture in which everything we do hopefully plays a small part. We need to remember the big picture.
Second, this month we are focusing more than usual on ministries beyond our local church that we help to sustain. Part of our worship hour will include reports from ministries we support. Why do we do this? It is because we believe the Kingdom of God is larger than our local fellowship.
I hope to see Faith Church increase its involvement in the work of the Kingdom of God beyond us. To whom much is given, much is required. We have been given much in many ways. Our financial strength far exceeds the resources of other parts of the world. We should give generously. But we pray too. Prayer is the link between parts of the Kingdom of God as well as with God. When we pray we participate seriously with God in His work with others.
Beyond this, you have sent me to teach in Zambia and Colombia, and others of you too have gone to help the work of the Kingdom of God in Haiti, Mexico, Benin, and elsewhere. I hope these interactions in the Kingdom elsewhere will increase.
But these other places have been given much too that they share. The participation is not all one way, from rich to poor countries. Perhaps you have noticed that each time I come back from a ministry overseas, so far to Zambia and to Colombia, that I come back with my batteries recharged. Christians in these places shared with me their intensity. I reflected this to you. This interaction between sectors of the Kingdom of God nourishes us all.
The underlying theme of the entire Bible is that this world belongs to God. In the beginning God formed this world, creating it in beauty so that He said, “It is very good.” Here we see the boundary of the Kingdom of God. It encompasses everyone, everything, everywhere.
What went wrong that God’s world should today be so mired with violence, with moral rot, with epochal sickness and sadness? I should have thought that Genesis 1 would have been the first page of a story of gradually increasing joy in God’s creation. Why did not God create all things, declare it all very good, and then settle back to watch the eighth day of creation unravel in ascending joy?
It has not been a story of ascending joy. The very idea of the Kingdom of God presumes that there has been another kingdom not of God. The story of the human race, oddly enough, is a story of the violent battle going on between the Kingdom of God and the princedom of the Prince of this world.
The story of Israel tells of God’s special work to win this battle. He used Israel, a small, powerless people as the vanguard to reclaim a fallen humanity. How strange were God’s tactics.
We read from the Book of Lamentations this morning. Jeremiah wrote it with tears streaming from his eyes as he saw the final vestige of the old Kingdom of Israel taken captive. The Kingdom of Judah, the southern, smaller part of the kingdom once presided over by David was exiled in Babylon. Jerusalem’s broken streets were vacant and weeds grew in their cracks. Jeremiah began: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people, Judah has gone into exile . . . she dwells among the nations, but finds no resting place.”
Despite this and much else that the prophet wrote in his despair, Terry read for us words with a far different tone. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.” We often remember these words on Wednesday morning when we gather to pray. They apply to us as much as to God’s ancient people. “Though the wrong seem oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” And God’s reign is full of mercy. It never ends.
Throughout the history of God’s people, Israel, after the exile the constant refrain echoed of trust that God would restore the fortunes of Israel. The Jews always thought of this in terms of the restoration of the Kingdom of David—to whom God had promised, “My steadfast love I will keep for him for ever, and my covenant will stand firm for him.” “His line shall endure for ever, his throne as long as the sun before me.”
The years went by in which Israel languished in exile but the hope never died that God would fulfill this promise. It was during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, that the feeling started to grow among the Jews that God was about to do something immanently. When you read the Gospel of Matthew and Luke that tell of the birth of Jesus, remember you are reading the words of Jews who recognized the mysterious events surrounding the peasant woman, Mary, and Joseph, a carpenter of the tribe of Judah, David’s tribe. God was quietly, even surreptitiously fulfilling the promise to King David of an enduring king from his family line.
The magi saw an unusual star in the East and God told these non-Jewish wise men that it stood for the birth of the King of the Jews. Why should this have interested them since they weren’t Jews? It did interest them. It resonated with them as more than an event of interest to Jews. They were wise enough to know this King of the Jews born in Palestine had pertinence to the whole world. That’s why they brought gifts befitting royalty and bowed before the toddler Jesus. This took place in troubled times. Herod, Rome’s client king over the Jews, was a paranoid, vengeful man. It was a dark day to be a little boy.
When the baby Jesus was born, God was starting a momentum that needed this time of deep darkness. A tiny light began to shine, a light Herod could not quench, that would grow in splendor in unusual ways. John wrote, “We saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Not full of power and the vestiges of human empire, but full of grace and truth.
Thirty years went by during which Jesus, having survived Herod’s infanticide, lived quietly in Nazareth, seen by neighbors and townsfolk as just another good lad in town. Then one day he left home and went south into the Judean desert to hear a man preach who happened to be His cousin. He stood in line with all sorts of people who wanted to change their ways, and submitted to baptism in the Jordan River at the hands of John the Baptist. Jesus was baptized as though he was a just another sinner, so thoroughly did he identify with people’s deepest need.
Then He came back home to Galilee in the north and started to say, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” What time was fulfilled? He didn’t have to explain. People knew what time. It was the time that filled everyone’s longing, the time when God would fulfill the promise to King David to ignite again the Kingdom of God. The ancient Israelites thought of David’s kingdom as far more than another earthly kingdom. It represented the reign of God—the Creator of heaven and earth who presided between the outstretched wings of the cherubim on top of the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark was at the heart of the Temple in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city.
When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” He meant it has drawn near. It had seemed far away. In fact, it seemed God had forgotten about it. But now it had drawn near. But the Kingdom drew near without the conspicuous signs of earthly dominion.
The only signs of the Kingdom of God’s drawing near were to be seen in the person of Jesus—so far. And mostly the blind noticed, and the lame, and the seriously ill.
Remember what blind Bartemaeus said, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” How did he know Jesus was a descendent of King David?
When he opened the eyes of the blind it was a sign fulfilling the promise of the prophet Isaiah, “Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.”
Even though these were the kinds of signs the prophet Isaiah promised, the Jews looked for a conquering king, one to overthrow the Romans. No wonder. They were profoundly weary of being under the yoke of a succession of foreign governments. But this was not Jesus’ intent. He did not stand against Rome. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” He taught. He did, as the prophet said would happen. He healed the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the dumb. His kingdom would conquer by stooping not by overwhelming.
When Jesus died on the cross it seemed that the flash of promise that appeared in the life of Jesus was a false hope. How could a dead Jesus restore the Kingdom to Israel? Indeed, Jesus did crush the hope that Israel would be restored to the highly romanticized glory days of King David. His power was not the ordinary kind that wins momentary battles and loses wars. He made no attempt to overwhelm all competitors for world domination. He had a greater project that winning over temporary governments.
When Jesus died He not only conquered death and sin—a victory we must trust took place since people still sin and die, He showed us the direction of our participation in the conquest of the Kingdom of God. To share in the triumph we have to share in the battle, trusting that the outcome is secure. God triumphed on the cross, but we wait to see the fruits of this victory. As Paul wrote, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” As John wrote in his first epistle, “And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” A strange victory many would say.
Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ,” and in saying this, he showed how he understood the conquest of the human heart must happen. He said this not just as a personal statement, but to teach everyone who reads these words how we take part in Jesus’ invincible campaign against the powers of evil.
“Come learn of me,” Jesus said. And his disciples did that. They watched Jesus walk about Palestine interacting with Jews and Samaritans, with people the Jews referred to as “dogs,” with Roman centurions who represented Rome’s hated domination—extending to all the tenderest care. And when Jesus was about to leave His disciples, He told them to carry on. He meant not only that they should speak the words of the Gospel but also that they should do as He did as an exhibit of the reign of God.
Bishop Wright has observed, I think rightly, that Christians have focused much more on why Jesus died than on why Jesus lived. Following Jesus means not just claiming the forgiveness of sin brought to us by His death, but deliberately trying to follow in His footsteps, as we see Him walking in the first century, in the twenty-first century in which we live. We are afraid that too much emphasis on Jesus’ life looks like “works righteousness.”
In I Peter we read a very picturesque description of what a Christian is to do. He uses a word in calling Jesus our example, taken from an elementary school classroom where a teacher is helping children learn to write. The teacher writes the letters clearly and then has the students trace over the letters as he has written them. By tracing over the letters the student learns to write them as the teacher does. We are to trace over the life of Jesus in a twenty-first century context.
When Jesus told His disciples and their followers to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel,” it is unthinkable that He meant to divide His death from His life. The reason why we bother with the needs of University Church in its ministry to Purdue students, or with The Theological College of Central Africa in Zambia, or with the Biblical Seminary in Medelllin, Colombia is because we believe the life of Jesus as well as well as the death of Jesus is important in these places. We want TJ Jenney and Will Miller to represent the life of Jesus well as well as to proclaim the death of Jesus from the pulpit. When Paul tells us that we are “saved by his life,” it has to do with the actual tracing out of His life, and not just with proclaiming heaven yet to come.
So think on these things as you listen to the ones who will speak to us these next four weeks. And ponder how you will trace over Jesus’ life in your daily life. Jesus calls you and me to present not only the message of His death but also the message of His life—evident as we trace over it. Then, we realize our calling is not just to where we live, but also beyond where we live, in fact, to the whole world.
I pray that God will help us to understand this. I pray that God will help me to understand this more clearly. I pray that we as a people may discover the joy of participating as fully as we can in the wholehearted spread of the Gospel—its tracing over of Jesus’ life, and its proclamation of His victorious death and resurrection.
Let us pray: O Lord, Grant us the will and the determination to take our part in your project of restoring your sovereignty over life in this world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)