Don’t Make Jonah’s Mistake

This article by Ruth was in our archives. She returns to her regular place on Fridays next week.

Jonah and the Psalm

A while ago, I posed this question as an informal Facebook poll: “Did the story of Jonah happen literally as it appears in the Bible?” The majority said yes. No surprise. The Church has been defending the story’s miraculous nature since the early Church Fathers. For many, it’s even a test of faith in God’s sovereignty; can you believe God didn’t do it, without believing God couldn’t do it?

People often say that it “must have happened—Jesus says it did.” Fair statement, but one that needs some thought. What is the relationship between Jesus and Jonah?

Let’s assume that the event literally happened to Jonah, son of Amittai, prophet to King Jeroboam. That Jonah’s psalm in chapter 2 was his prayer, recorded as he prayed it.

Why would Jonah sing his gratitude to God in the middle of this mess? Why does Jonah never expresses remorse?

And where does Jesus fit in?

Now the Lord had appointed a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the fish three days and three nights. Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish.

Matthew records Jesus saying: “…For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” Matthew 12:40 (HCSB)

Both events involve a prophetic man who comes back after three days of being given up for dead, but in all other respects, narrative contrasts are greater than similarities.

• Jesus is in conversation with God all through his approach to the grave: Jonah is silent until he can’t stand it any more.
• Jesus laments God’s turning His face away; Jonah is the one who turns his back.
• Jesus enters his grave as an act of submission: Jonah embraces death as part of his defiance.
• Jesus, as God, returns by an act of power and of will: Jonah as vomit.

I called to the Lord in my distress, and He answered me.
I cried out for help in the belly of Sheol; You heard my voice.

Jonah finally breaks his silence. Some suggest he’d been unconscious, others that Jonah physically died and was resurrected, based on Matthew’s “sign of Jonah,” and the reference to Sheol.

For Christians, “Sheol” can bring to mind medieval pictures of Hell, but to Jonah himself the image was very different. Sheol was beneath the earth, the farthest place from Heaven, where the dead descended to (or were raised from if God opened the gate). Those who entered it became silent shadows, without knowledge, passion, or hope. Yet God ruled there, and in the Messiah’s day the righteous would be released to joyously participate in His kingdom.

Some see a connection here with 1 Peter 3:18-20 and Ephesians 4:9 but there’s no real support in scripture for the idea of Jesus “descending to Hell.” Peter speaks of earth, and Paul of the past, not of metaphysics. Instead, they drive home for us the understanding that Jesus overcame time and space to walk in the dust, and “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.”¹

You threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas,
and the current overcame me. All Your breakers and Your billows swept over me.

For modern songwriters, switching ‘voice’ mid-song is a no-no. Not true for the Psalmists who switch from addressing God, to His people, to the writer’s own soul and back again. Jonah moves from speaking about God, to direct, dramatic accusation.

Jesus also recognizes God’s hand in directing his path, but He does it with an attitude of humility and submission that culminates in His prayer, “If this cannot pass… Your will be done,”² modelling not blame but trust and obedience.

But I said: I have been banished from Your sight,
yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.
The waters engulfed me up to the neck;
the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

Jonah has what he wanted—to be far from the face of God—and realizes he should have been more careful in his wishing.

He’s bound and suffocating, tangled in something beyond his strength. He echoes Psalm 88: drowning, God’s wrath, an innocent sufferer, accusation, demands for rescue, loneliness.

At His loneliest moment, Jesus draws instead from Psalm 22 and its anticipation of praise in better days. Like Jonah, Jesus grieves God’s absence. Like Jonah, He identifies Himself as an innocent. Unlike Jonah, He actually is one.

At least Jonah is looking in the right direction—back where he came from.

I sank to the foundations of the mountains;
the earth with its prison bars closed behind me forever!
But You raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!
As my life was fading away, I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You, to Your holy temple.

Jonah continues to deny the cause of his trouble—his own choices. But something has changed.

He’s run as far as he can but still has a connection to the One from whom He ran. He knows to whom he speaks, how he will sound in those ears and what the response is likely to be.

In the darkest place possible, his heart and mind turn toward the brightest. In the grip of the worst monster, he looks toward the most loving Father. At his farthest from home, his mind turns to the Holy of Holies, the centre of all Creation.

To “remember” is not just to recall, but to be intentionally mindful. Of the past—what God has done. Of the present—where He meets us. Of the future—in which He awaits.

This is where Jonah comes closest to Jesus, who in His own climactic moment on the cross contradicted His own sense of abandonment and declared the words of Psalm 31:5, “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit…”…trusting God to “…redeem me, Lord, God of truth.”

Jonah, weakened and lost, cannot save himself but Yahweh-remembered can and will. Jonah is freed from the pit.

Those who cling to worthless idols forsake faithful love

Has Jonah learned anything? Has he changed? He hasn’t admitted his guilt. We see no contrition. Instead, he condemns “those” who forsake faithful love which comes from the God that Jonah fled. So who is he talking about?

“Those” sailors whose misfortune it was to give Jonah a ride? They’d been pagan until they met with Yahweh. Afterward they’d sacrificed and made vows to the LORD, a step toward becoming “Hebrews.” But Jonah didn’t see that happen. He was already underwater and sinking. All Jonah knew of them was that they were “those who cling to worthless idols.” Perhaps he assumes they’ve lost their chance.

“Those” Ninevites, violent and cruel people? He’s endangered his own life to scuttle their chance at receiving the faithful love of God. Is he hoping that this proverb is a promise?

All that’s left is himself—the prophet who clung to the idol of his nationalistic hatred, forsaking the faithful love of God. Jonah’s not the only prophet to object to his assignment. So did Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. He is, however, the only one who upped sticks and ran. The others spoke honestly to God and received His response. Jonah built a wall of silence and refusal between himself and God.

Jonah and Jesus again part ways. Jesus didn’t only accept His role, He chose it. “…He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men.”

One rabbinic writer said:

“Jeremiah sought the honor of God and the honor of Israel;
Elijah sought the honor of God and not the honor of Israel;
Jonah sought the honor of Israel and not the honor of God.”

One might even substitute “Jonah sought the honor of himself…” Jesus sought the honor of the Father through obedience, pursuing and rescuing those who clung to their idols and could not, on their own, find the freedom of letting go.

…but as for me, I will sacrifice to You with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the Lord!

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

The fish has been carrying around 180 extra pounds of ballast. Enough is enough. The LORD lets her off the hook. It’s time for Jonah to head inland.

Three days of petulant silence, followed by a burst of eloquent gratitude, and either hypocritical self-righteousness, or an excuse to head to Jerusalem instead of Nineveh. No wonder she was sick.

Jonah heads reluctantly to Nineveh, wanders around—in silence for three days—before delivering his message.

But Jesus spent His ministry reaching out and being available to not only men like Himself, but to enemies and invaders, strangers and rejects, women and children, heretics and hypocrites. After His resurrection, He allowed only moments to pass before reconnecting with the people He’d come to save.

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However… what if instead of Matthew’s rendering, we look at Luke’s record of the same statement: For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. Luke 11:30 (HCSB)

Despite the fact that Luke wouldn’t have heard it first hand, his understanding of the Jonah/Jesus parallel seems better grounded: just as Jonah’s message of God’s grace toward Nineveh had “overturned” the city, so would Jesus’ overturn the world.

The verb in Jonah’s message to Nineveh seems intentionally ambiguous. Throughout Scripture, it’s translated as demolished, overturned, overthrown, transformed or turned around. Those who (eventually) heard it inferred a threat of destruction, creating fearful repentance. But was this true prophet of Israel not also used to point to an alternative fulfillment?

Nineveh was beautifully, life-givingly “overturned.”

So, yes. Jesus wanted us to remember this story. He wanted us to learn from it.

I’d argue that the least important question about this story is whether it “happened.” What matters is that we learn from Jonah’s mistakes and are free to not repeat them. That we learn from Jesus’ example and are free to make it real in our lives.

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1 Philippians 2:8 HCSB

2 Matthew 26:42

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More about Jonah: Here’s an article by Ruth that’s also about Jonah which appeared here just a few weeks ago.

Ruth Wilkinson is a pastor in south central Ontario, Canada.

The Time Jesus Blessed the Food, But Didn’t Stay to Eat

The First Supper – Emmaus Sunday (Luke 24:13-33)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Of all the theories that seek to explain the identities of the two disciples on the Emmaus road, it makes the most sense to me that it was Cleopas and Mary, a married couple who apparently had kids old enough to have been finding their own way home after Passover. Mary and Cleopas were empty nesters, mature adults, who’ve lived their lives together for decades. They’ve raised their kids. They’ve discovered Jesus. They’ve been following Him closely enough to be present with Him in Jerusalem on that final Passover. They may have been present at the Last Supper. They may have been present in those days of waiting between Jesus’ death and resurrection. But now it’s over and it’s time for them to head back home.

These are just two ordinary people, among the crowds and clusters of pilgrims streaming out of Jerusalem in every direction after Passover. Cleopas and Mary would have been heading westward, towards their own 4 walls, towards their own lives, where things actually made sense, where they knew who they were, they knew which way was up, and they could start wrapping their heads around the fact that… It was over.

Right?

From Jerusalem to Emmaus isn’t a bad journey: about 3 hours on foot, mostly downhill. And they had the advantage of the Roman roads that had been built from Jerusalem out into the countryside. Roman roads were engineering accomplishments. They were level and straight, paved with interlocking flat stones. Maybe Cleopas and Mary, as they walked that road, thought that the Romans – they build good roads. But that’s about all you can say for them. Especially now. Especially after what they’d done to Jesus, because now… It was over.

Wasn’t it?

There was no reason to stay in Jerusalem, no reason to not return home to their regular everyday. They had no reason to not go back to their life of worshipping Yahweh God, and of waiting and praying for the Messiah.

So that Resurrection Sunday morning, with everything so confused and up in the air, they gave everybody one last hug and melted into that crowd of pilgrims heading away from the city and down that Roman road. They must have been surrounded by crowds of fellow travelers who had just celebrated Passover, and were feeling joy, and gratitude, and looking forward to next time.

But Mary and Cleopas… They were in the fog of feeling the void that He left behind. They knew what everyone had lost, because now… He was gone.

Right?

But as they walk, This Guy comes up from behind. He’s been eavesdropping, apparently, and they don’t notice Him until He interrupts them: “Hey, so what are you talking about there, guys? Sounds pretty intense.”

And they stopped walking and looked very sad. (Luke 24:17)

Cleopas answers: “Well… That whole thing with Jesus of Nazareth! You know? That whole thing? He was a prophet but He was crucified. We were all hoping that He was the Messiah and He would redeem Israel.”

(I can imagine Cleopas asking Him, “How do you not know this? What, have you been, like, living under a rock or something?” And This Guy kind of smiling and saying, “Well, yeah, kinda sorta.”)

Cleopas continues, “But then we went this morning to His tomb and His body was gone! It’s just not there! We don’t know where it is. We don’t know what happened. And there were some angels—like actual angels—that said that Jesus is alive. So some of the guys went and checked it out and it matched what the women said, but we don’t know what’s going on. He’s just gone.”

Cleopas pauses for a breath and This Guy says, “Oh, that! Oh, right. That. Yeah. Wasn’t that amazing? Wasn’t it amazing how all of the prophecies came true? Wasn’t it amazing how they pointed to exactly that? To the Messiah having to suffer and die?”

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the scriptures about himself. (Luke 24:27)

This Guy starts walking and talking. Mary and Cleopas follow. Maybe they don’t even realize they’ve started walking again, but they have to hear what He is saying. He’s telling them:

• Genesis points to the Saviour’s ultimate victory over the enemy.
• In Exodus, the Passover lamb dies in the place of the eldest son in every Israelite family and the nation of Israel is saved.
• In Leviticus, the image of the Passover lamb is perpetuated for generations as a remembrance and as a substitute.

And This Guy is walking and talking and they’re just following Him and listening as He talks about:

• Isaiah, who prophesied that the Saviour would be born of a virgin; that He would be a stumbling stone, tripping up people who just didn’t want to get it.
• Jeremiah, who says that the Messiah is going to establish a new covenant between God and humanity.
• Ezekiel, who says that the Messiah will be a shepherd.
• Daniel, who says that the Saviour will govern an eternal Kingdom.
• Joel, who says the Spirit is going to be poured out on all people, (and then maybe He pauses for a second and says, ‘Oh, wait, that hasn’t happened yet. Just you wait, guys. You’re gonna love it.’)
• Then the prophet Amos, who said that Gentile believers from every nation will serve the eternal King.
• Jonah, who creates a picture for us of a prophet who will be entombed for three days.
• Micah, who says that the King will be born in Bethlehem.
• Zechariah, who says the King will arrive riding on a donkey.

And Mary and Cleopas are just soaking this up. Because This Guy… He is opening their minds. He is opening their eyes to things that they had not seen before, had not understood before. And they are starting, I think, to remember some things that Jesus had said about himself.

As they walk and talk and listen and remember, suddenly they discover they’re at their front door. They’re home.

Mary says to This Guy… ‘Listen, we just want to thank you for your time. This has been great! Come and stay with us for the night. Come and crash on our couch. We’re happy to have you for the evening. Just to say thank you.”

He steps back a pace or two and says, “Oh, I couldn’t impose. I’m just gonna keep going.”

But Mary and Cleopas aren’t having that. They’re thinking, “We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know who He is. We haven’t even got His name yet. But whatever this is… We need to hear more. We are not done with This Guy yet.”

I can picture Mary grabbing Jesus by the elbow and saying, “No you don’t. I insist. It’s nearly 7:00. The sun is going down. You’re going to stay. Yes, you are. We brought some food with us from Jerusalem. It’s nothing fancy but stay. I insist!”

They all go in the house. Cleopas and Mary have been gone for over a week. So they’re picking up the mail from the front mat. They’re opening the windows to change the air. They’re getting out the food for supper. They’re setting the table. They’re chatting and catching up, and thinking of questions to ask This Guy. (Maybe a neighbour sticks their head in the door to say ‘Hi, you’re back. Good to see you guys. Who’s your company?’ Mary whispers, ‘We don’t know. Go away. I’ll explain later.’)

Then they sit down—to the First Supper. The one that Jesus chose to sit down to after His resurrection, with people he loved.

While He was reclining at the table with them, He took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus—and He disappeared from their sight. (Luke 24:30-31)

And they’re sitting there, with the bread in their hands, staring. “Ok… You saw that right? It wasn’t just me. He… He just disappeared. Poof!”

It takes a moment for them to gather their wits. They start comparing notes: “It was Him the whole time! It was Jesus the whole time! That makes so much sense, because our hearts were burning within us. We were hearing everything that He was saying, and it was just making so much sense and it was perfect and it was true and we didn’t want to let Him go and it was Jesus the whole time!”

After those first few moments of shock, what do they do? They get up. They leave the mail unopened on the kitchen counter. They close the windows. They lock the door. They ask the neighbours to feed the cat, and they head back up that Roman road to Jerusalem to find the others.

Question: why, after all that time together, did they finally recognize Him in that moment?

Because Jesus chose—in that moment—to remove whatever mask he’d been wearing, or whatever blinders had been on their eyes. He chose—in that moment—to reveal himself, to be recognized, and to say, “I am here. Here I am.”

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Jesus reveals himself to us as we share Communion, remembering that Last Supper, just as He did to Cleopas and Mary at that first supper.

Our response to Jesus can be one of any number of different kinds of response. Our response to recognizing Jesus, to realizing who He is, can be like the response of our sisters in the garden that resurrection morning: they literally fall to their knees in surprise and in confusion.

Our response to recognizing Jesus can be like Peter, out in that fishing boat: a moment of joy and recognition and friendship, as he jumps in the lake and swims to shore because he sees Jesus there. I can see Peter laughing as he gives Jesus a great big, wet hug.

Our response to recognizing Jesus can be like the apostle Thomas, the final one of the eleven apostles to recognize Jesus: he speaks those words of awe and humility, “My Lord and my God.”

Our response to recognizing Jesus can be like the apostle Paul; when he realizes who Jesus was, when he recognizes Him for who He is, Paul changes his mind. He changes his thinking, and he begins to live his life in a new way.

Our response to Jesus in that moment of recognition depends on who we are. It depends on where we are in our life journey. It depends on what happened yesterday, and what we think is going to happen tomorrow. It depends on our unique emotional landscape, our own brain wiring.

I go more in the intellectual direction. That’s just me. There are folks in my church whose response to Jesus is to raise their hands and to shout, “Hallelujah!”

Jesus meets us each uniquely and individually, but He calls us each to respond. When we recognize him, when we see Him for who He is, we are called to respond. To act, to react, to live forward, beyond that moment of recognition.

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Ruth Wilkinson is Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada and appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt. Ruth returns in two weeks.

 

The Three First Words of the Resurrected Jesus

This Is Our Story – Easter Sunday (Matthew 28:5-12, Romans 5:6-12)

by Ruth Wilkinson

The seven last words of Christ, spoken as He hung on the cross:

• Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do.  
• Today, you will be with me in paradise.  
• Woman, behold your son. Behold your mother.  
• My God. My God, why have you forsaken me?  
• I thirst. 
• It is finished.  
• Into your hands I commit my spirit. 

Those are the Seven Last Words of Christ.

Except they’re really, really not. Jesus had more to say:

But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’ See, I have told you.

Message delivered. Tag, you’re it.

So they hurried away from the tomb in fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said… (Matthew 28:5-9)

Let’s look the first three words of Jesus—the first three things that He said to us, and to the women who had come to care for him, after His death. These are the first three things that came out of Jesus’ mouth when He was back with His feet on the ground, and there for us to see.

Jesus’ first word was “Greetings” (28:9). Or so my translation says. In ancient Greek the common word of greeting was khai-re. This was the equivalent of our ‘hello’ or ‘hey.’ In Luke 1:28 when the angel came to tell Mary that she was about to conceive Jesus and to become the mother of the Lord, the angel said to her “Khai-re, favoured one!”  In John 19:3, in a very, very different situation, the Roman guards who had bound Jesus and were beating and mocking him, who had given Him the crown of thorns, said “Khai-re, king of the Jews” in the same way that they would have said “Khai-re, Ceasar!” It’s also (very ironically) the same word that Judas said to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he arrived with the arresting troop to take Jesus into custody. “Khai-re, Rabbi.”

But…  Nobody in our world talks like that. Nobody begins an interaction by saying, “greetings.” When we see it on the page, it seems stilted. Formal. Distant. Especially given the circumstances; Jesus has just risen from the dead, and this is the first moment he’s making contact again with the people He loves. He loves these people. They’ve spent years on the road together, sharing their lives. They’ve supported His ministry. They’ve wept with Him and laughed with Him. And we’re to understand that when He comes to them that morning in the garden, the best He can do is “greetings?”

Well, no.

A bit of background. In English, we’ve lost our connection with whatever meaning our word ‘hello’ originally had. When we say ‘hello’ it’s almost not even a word, but a noise that communicates, “I acknowledge your presence. Please acknowledge my presence.”

Not so in some other languages. For example, in Hebrew, to say hello they say shalom. Shalom is also a word that in everyday conversation means ‘peace.’ In Spanish, buenos dias means hello. It also means ‘good day.’ In Hawaiian, aloha means hello. It also means ‘love,’ and ‘affection.’ People speaking these other languages can speak their word of greeting, knowing that they are communicating to each other their hopes for peace, a good day, love, affection. There’s a value, an emotional component, connected to the word that they use to greet each other. That is also the case with ancient Greek.

Jesus stood in the garden and said to them, “Khai-re-te,” a word that translates as… “Rejoice! Be glad! Be happy!”

In Matthew 5:12,  Jesus says “Khai-re-te and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.” In Luke 10:20, He says, “Khai-re-te that your names are written in heaven.”

The first word out of Jesus’ mouth when He met His friends after His death and His resurrection was not just “greetings.” It was “Rejoice! Be happy! Be glad!”

And they did. The next thing that happened?

…They came to Him and they grabbed hold of Him by His feet and they worshipped him. (Matthew 28:9b)

Humanity fell to its knees in joy, reverence, and adoration of their God because He was alive and He said, “Rejoice.”

Jesus’ second word on that first morning was, “Do not be afraid.”

What was it that they might have been afraid of?

Would they have been afraid of him? Quite possibly. This was a lot to take in. He was dead. He was dead-dead. People who lived in ancient times knew what dead looked like. They had far more exposure to it than we do. But now He was standing there, talking to them, smiling. They knew He wasn’t a ghost or a hallucination; they had all touched Him. He was present. Human beings fear what we don’t understand and this… They did not understand.

Or they might have been afraid of… just kind of everything. What a trauma-filled weekend they had just had! They had been betrayed—all of them—by one of their own. Some had been present when Jesus was arrested. Some had witnessed His trial. Some had seen Him so beaten that that they could hardly recognize Him. Some had actually witnessed His execution. Some had snuck along in the dark afterwards, so they’d at least know where He was buried. They had spent the last couple of days looking over their shoulder. Maybe they were just afraid of everything.

Maybe they were afraid of the future. The game had changed. Nothing was the same. What would happen now?

Isn’t it interesting that the story of Jesus’ human life on earth begins with those same words: don’t be afraid. In the gospels of Matthew and Luke (from which we receive most of our information about His conception and birth) the first words out of anybody’s mouth are “don’t be afraid,” some of the first words that Jesus said when His and our new life began.

That morning in the garden was a new beginning, a new life, and—just like for Mary and Joseph, just like for Zechariah and Elizabeth—it wasn’t going to be easy. They were going to need to be courageous. But it was going to be amazing. So “don’t be afraid.”

Jesus’ third word after His resurrection was “Go and tell.” These women were the first witnesses and messengers of the gospel. Jesus trusted His good news, His first wonderful words, to them. They were the first evangelists, a word that makes us uncomfortable.

Yeah, sure, Jesus said, “don’t be afraid,” but actually talking about Jesus out in public can be intimidating. It can be daunting. It can be scary. However, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. One of the first things Jesus said after leaving the tomb, and also pretty much the last thing He said to us before His return to heaven, was “Go and tell, go and preach the gospel” (Matthew 28:18-20).

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This is our story. Resurrection Sunday morning is our story.

The writer Paul tells us in Romans 5:6-12 that through one person, sin entered the world. Through sin, death entered the world. Death was passed on to all people, because all sinned.

This is the beginning of our story: we had become enemies of God, working against His loving purpose for the world He had made.  We were, to some extent, pawns being manipulated by the enemy, but we had made choices that landed us between a holy God and the one against whom He was angry—the perpetrator of evil in the world.

But… Rejoice!

God’s love is greater than His anger, and just at the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for us—for the ungodly—and God proves His love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So… Don’t be afraid.

Through Jesus’ sacrifice, through His blood, we have now been made right with God. We were enemies of God, now saved from His anger, reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.

Now… Go and tell. 

Because how much more (having been reconciled, having been saved from death) are we saved to life. We are not just saved from death… We are saved to life. Rejoice! Out loud and in public! In God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is our story. Easter Sunday is our story.

We have come with Jesus through the darkness.

We have seen His death and His suffering.

And now we stand in the garden with Mary saying, “Teacher! It’s you! You’re here. What do I do now?”

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Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead gather’d into frowns:
Thy Saviour comes, and with Him mirth:
Awake, awake;
And with a thankfull heart his comforts take.
But thou dost still lament, and pine, and crie;
And feel his death, but not his victorie.

Arise sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
Christ’s resurrection thine may be:
Do not by hanging down break from the hand,
Which as it riseth, raiseth thee:
Arise, Arise;
And with his buriall-linen drie thine eyes:
Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
Draws tears, or blood, not lack an handkerchief.
—The Dawning, George Herbert 

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Ruth Wilkinson — whose birthday is today! — is Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada and appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

The Last Beatitudes of Christ

I wanted to publish this Good Friday sermon on the relevant day. These notes were compiled by Paul based on a sermon give by Ruth Wilkinson.

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In Matthew 4:23-25, we see Jesus just before he gives his best known sermon. He has been teaching, preaching, healing, freeing those demon-possessed, and folks arrive from the north, south, east and west to listen to him, ask for his help, and in general, follow this rabbi.

And then…

5:1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to Him…

On this day, Jesus is in Full-On Rabbi Mode. He sat down with his disciples — not just the 12 apostles — on a hillside on a beautiful early summer Galilean day

Behind him, nestled in Galilean hills was Nazareth where he grew up.

In front, blue sky reflected in the waters of great Sea of Galilee; one dotted with clouds, the other dotted with dozens of fishing boats, small ferries, family craft.

Morning breeze from off the lake faded, as it would every day when outspoken by stronger wind coming down from Mediterranean behind him, perhaps occasionally blowing his hair into his eyes…

Rabbi Jesus sat between greening hills behind him, blue lake before, sunny sky above, he took a deep breath of that summer air, and people leaned in to hear…

² and He began to teach them, saying:

          Matt 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, (whose only wealth is YHWH God, entirely dependent on HIS provision)  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

                4 Blessed are those who mourn, (grieve over the spiritual bankruptcy of themselves, and of all of creation) for they will be comforted.

                5 Blessed are the meek, (true-self, without malice / inadequacy / condescension, wielding their strength with humility) for they will inherit the earth.

                6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, (long for God’s law to reign on earth, and in their own heart and mind) for they will be filled.

                7 Blessed are the merciful, (forgiveness for the guilty, compassion for the suffering) for they will be shown mercy.

                8 Blessed are the pure in heart, (utterly committed to the singleness of God’s purpose) for they will see God.

                9 Blessed are the peacemakers, (negotiate difficult space between people, between people and God, bringing us all closer together) for they will be called sons of God.

                10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, (in a world that revels in hatred and anger, becoming a target for assault of the Enemy against his greatest foe, because they love God’s law) for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But something struck Jesus’ disciples…

Rabbi Jesus was drawing on long tradition of ancient blessings like…

Psalm 128:1 Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in His ways!
2 …blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Psalm 112:1 Hallelujah! Blessed is the one who fears the LORD…,
2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land

…However… Jesus’ blessings seem different… upside down.

What if your reply is

• I don’t want to be meek
• I don’t want to be make peace (Watched the news lately? That’s hard work!)
• I don’t want to mourn
• I don’t want to thirst
• I don’t want to be poor

If those are your responses; full marks!

“The Beatitudes are deliberately designed to shock us. If we’re not shocked by the Beatitudes, it’s only because we have tamed them with a patronizing sentimentality…” (Brian Zahnd)

Yes… Rabbi Jesus was

► Reminding disciples of God’s faithfulness; his love; his promise
► Reminding them of beautiful, powerful, proverbs
► Encouraging his followers toward
• the best of the best of humanity
• the best of the best of what awaits us in our life of obedience and grace…

That’s hard!!

Listening to Rabbi Jesus telling me how to live, I ask myself Who is this guy? What does he actually know about real life?

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. – Hebrews 4:15 NIV

The verse describes him as a High priest, which is someone important and powerful. It was a hereditary office, first established by God in the time of Moses.

Originally, it signified a religious leader; a person of honour who had the weight of being the only person in the nation permitted to stand face to face with Yahweh God, on behalf of the entire nation.

Historically, Israel was ruled by Kings and Priests together. Due to their long, complicated relationship with God they lost their king. The throne was empty and that leadership void needed to be filled.

So the High Priest began presiding over a senate of priests, law experts and heads of influential families. This became the Sanhedrin. This meant the High Priest was the de facto head of church and head of government.

The writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as High Priest rightly … Someone with power. Power over us. Power for us.

But at the same time…

He was Rabbi; an honorary title given by community, in recognition of a life dedicated to God’s Law. The model was Ezra.

Ezra 7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, to practice it, and to teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel.

Note the requirements:

1. Learn,
2. Live,
3. Teach.

Jesus was recognized as Rabbi… by supporters, opponents (even when they were mad at him); men, women; rich and powerful; ordinary people.

He was recognized as a teacher, not only because of what he had learned but because of the life he lived.

1 John 3:16-17 By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our sisters and brothers. If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

“Laid down his life for us”… But he didn’t die until he had first lived for us.

As a Rabbi, he was only entrusted with the authority to preach what he had been seen to live.

In the end, Jesus lived what he had preached. He lived his beatitudes…

Compare these sound bites from the nice, sunny day on the hillside to sound bites from the story we remember today:

On a good day…
■ Surrounded by devoted followers…

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

To people he knew would abandon him…
• “Stay… keep watch with me.”

■ With friends, and in the sunshine…
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Alone, by the light of a nearly full moon…
• “…your will be done. Not mine.”

■  With his sight filled with peaceful blues and greens…

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God.”

Exhausted, eyes squinting against torches in the darkness…
• “No more of this! Put away your sword.” And he touched [his enemy’s] ear and healed him.

■ Seated in a place of peace and familiarity…

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Standing bound and at sword point…
• Before the high priest; before Pilate; before Herod: Jesus remained silent and took it.

■ Teaching with the authority of a Rabbi…

“Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth”

Submitting to the authority and powers of this world; and the world beyond…
• “Don’t you think that I could call on My Father to send legions of angels? But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled …?”

■ In comfort and in safety…

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” 

In pain, and helplessness…
• “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
• “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

■ With his years of ministry ahead of him…

“Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” 

Having done everything that was asked of him…
• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (quoting Psalm 22)

■ With the summer sun on his back…

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

With the sun refusing to shine on him…
• “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

…And with these words, He breathed his last.

Who is this guy? What does he know about real life?
Only absolutely everything.

So today we gather, to consider his cross.

The cross of one who has the power of a High Priest to pass judgement and the authority of a Rabbi to tell us how to live. Who lived this life, just like we do.

Putting up with the guy in the next seat
Finding that peace is hard work
Experiencing grief that just feels like grief
Feeling thirst that just feels like thirst

Who was… “tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.” (Hebrews)

He knew us that well… and still chose to die for us. And he still offers us this invitation…

Matt 16:24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for My sake will find it.

That is our invitation.

To learn and to live. Just like Jesus

To take up our cross… every day. Carry it every day. Surrender our lives every day. Die to ourselves every day.

To follow him into the tomb every day… and — spoiler alert! — back out again into life.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

 

 

 

Lent, Part 6: Connecting the Dots

We’re presenting part 6 of Ruth’s Lenten Stories series a day early this week, as it clears the way to focus on Good Friday tomorrow. We’re looking at what is traditionally called “Palm Sunday.” 

Lenten Stories: Wonder with Me (Luke 19:29-40)

by Ruth Wilkinson

In John’s gospel, the writer begins his account (John 12:12-19) of the ‘Triumphal Entry’ after the long, slow climbing journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, about 24 kilometres (15 miles). It would take the average person 8 hours to walk, more or less. Plus, it was a serious climb: about a half a mile over the course of those 24 kilometres. For perspective, the change in altitude is like climbing the stairs of Toronto’s CN Tower nearly 2 1/2 times. Long, long day.  

At the end of that long, long walk, John tells us, Jesus arrived at the home of friends named Mary and Lazarus and Martha in the town of Bethany, and John describes that evening—that very special, very close dinner with friends just before the worst week of Jesus’ life. Mary poured out onto Jesus’ feet a jar of crazy-expensive perfume and dried His feet with her hair. Jesus received that gift as a gesture of Mary’s extravagant love. 

Having planted in our minds the reminder of Lazarus dead and buried, and then raised to life, and showing us the beautiful, grateful aftermath of that miracle, John cuts to:  

“The great crowd that had come to the feast and who had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.” (John 12:12)

“The feast” was Passover, one of the major celebrations for Jewish people during the course of the year. Jesus would have been traveling with the crowd on their way to Jerusalem for the festival. It wouldn’t have just been the 13 guys on their own. It would have been thousands of people, walking the same road in the same direction for the same reason: to celebrate the people’s liberation from slavery, to celebrate the day that God set them free from Egypt, and on their path to becoming a free nation.  

I wonder… what did it feel like to celebrate Passover, to celebrate freedom from oppression, to celebrate release from slavery in a city that was occupied by the Roman military machine? 

Bethany was a natural place to pause before the final 5 km across the ridge of the Mount of Olives, down into the Valley of Kidron, and then up again into Jerusalem through the eastern gate. John tells us that people had been whispering about Jesus. “Could it be? Could he be? Who do you think he is? Is it finally happening? Has the Messiah come?”  

“Now the Jewish Passover was near and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover. They kept looking for Jesus. They kept asking each other as they hung around in the temple courts. What do you think? What do you think? Will he come to the feast at all? Is he even going to show up? But the Chief Priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it so they could arrest him.” (John 11:55)

Meanwhile, Jesus was on His way, climbing from Jericho, pausing in Bethany, and getting ready to enter Jerusalem. There were people in Bethany who knew Lazarus, who knew that Jesus had raised him from the dead. “That’s the guy! He’s here. That’s him. He changed the water into wine. He fed 5000 people with nothing. He gave sight to a man who was born blind. He delivered people from demonic oppression. He brought Lazarus back to life after he had been dead for three days.” Whispering and pointing, “There! That’s him.” 

After having that evening of rest, that dinner with friends, Jesus began the next stage of the journey—the few remaining miles from Bethany to Jerusalem. He walked a little further, to the village of Bethphage, where He took mount on a donkey. 

Jesus was not whispering. Jesus was not hiding. Jesus was saying, “Here I am!” The rest of the pilgrims would have been on foot and here He was, riding along the top ridge of the Mount of Olives. Riding into Jerusalem. Riding like a king. And the people celebrated Him like a king, in same the way that they would celebrate any enemy-defeating, siege-breaking, liberating king. 

They celebrated Him with shouts of joy, quoting from Psalm 118, which was part of the liturgy and celebration of Passover: “Oh lord, save us, save us, we pray (hoshe-an-na). We beg you, Lord…”  

‘Hosanna’ was originally a phrase of pleading, of desperation. It had by the time of Jesus’ life become cry of gratitude. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the lord, and from the house of the Lord we bless you.”

Hosanna, we cried for help! And hosanna, you have heard! 

I wonder… what did it feel like for Jesus to hear those shouts, knowing that the people celebrating Him as king were absolutely right… and almost completely wrong?  

The people also celebrated Jesus’ arrival as king by paving His path with branches from the palm tree whose fruit and fibre fed them and served them. The palm tree, standing taller than any other tree. The palm tree, with leaves symbolizing dignity and royalty. The palm tree, throughout scripture representing Israel itself. The palm tree, carved on the walls, carved on the pillars of the temple of Yahweh God.  

The religious authorities recognized what was happening, and they did not approve. They were not on side with this. They feared the consequences. They pushed through the crowd to where Jesus was riding. They tugged His sleeve and got His attention. They shouted into the noise, “Teacher rebuke your disciples! Warn them to stop this before it’s too late!”  

Jesus’ response to them was:

“If they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40)

I wonder… when Jesus talked about the stones, was He remembering God’s promise through Isaiah?

‘When you come to me, when you listen to me, when you look for me, I will fill David’s empty throne.’ And:“You will go out with joy. You will be led forth in peace, and the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you.” (Isaiah 55:12)

Or I wonder… was Jesus, rather, remembering the promise made through the prophet Habakkuk? ‘When you build your security and your wealth on the bones of others, when you are arrogant, when you call down shame on your household…’

“…the stones in the wall will call out your judgment.” (Habakkuk 2:11) 

The procession turned and continued down the western slope of the valley between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. The view opened up, giving Jesus a clear view of the city itself. The beautiful city, with its magnificent, unparalleled temple. 

And Jesus wept. 

He wept over the city of peace—Jerusalem—and He said:

“If only! If only you had recognized on this day what would bring you peace. If only on this day you had recognized your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:42) 

I wonder… did the people wonder why He was crying?  

John, who was there that day, heard those cries. He admits that:  

“At the time [we] His disciples did not understand these things. But after Jesus was glorified after He was raised from the dead, then they remembered. They remembered what had been done to him, and they realized that these very things had been written about Him by the prophets long ago.” (John 12:16)

I wonder… how long did it take them to connect this very strange day in Jesus’ life, and in their lives, to the words of the prophet Zechariah:  

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem. Your king is coming to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey. On a colt, on the foal of a donkey… I will cut off the chariot [of war] from Ephraim. I will cut off the horse [of war] from Jerusalem. The bow of war will be broken, and then he, [the one who is coming on the donkey], He will proclaim peace to the nations.” (Zechariah 9:9-10)

I wonder if, when Jesus was coming down that mountain, heading towards Jerusalem, as the vista opened up before him…

I wonder whether, if He looked a little bit to His right, He would have been able to see over the city walls, into the region beyond: to see Golgotha—the place where the Romans crucified their victims.  

I have no way of knowing. But I do know that Luke says earlier that: 

“When the days were coming to a close for Jesus to be taken up, He set His face towards Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51) 

He set His gaze, His focus, His eyes like flint towards Jerusalem, knowing what would happen—what had to happen—when He arrived there. 

Over the course of the next week, Jesus’ life was taken up with a variety of things. 

• On “Holy Monday,” He cleared the temple, casting out the people who were profiteering from those who had come to celebrate Passover.  
• On “Holy Tuesday,” Jesus was preaching, debating, and prophesying among the religious leaders.  
• On “Silent Wednesday,” He rested in Bethany with His friends while Judas went off into town to make his deal with the authorities.  
• On “Maundy Thursday,” Jesus celebrated the Last Supper. He washed the feet of His disciples, preparing them for their life of service. He went to Gethsemane, the garden where He prayed in agony and fear. He was arrested.  

Jesus could have run away. He could have hidden. He could have remained silent, but He did not. He had chosen to set His face towards what God had given Him to do—what only He could do for us.  

In the book of Hebrews the writer tells us,

“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every hindrance, lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance the race set before for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-3) 

The writer goes on to say,

“Consider Him who endured such hostility so that you will not grow weary…” 

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Lent, Part 5: A Different Kind of Judgment

Lenten Stories: Stand With Me (John 8:2-11)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Early in the morning He went back into the temple courts. All the people came to Him, and He sat down to teach them. 

The posture of teaching was, for a rabbi, sitting. Jesus may have been sitting on a chair, with His audience on the floor. Or He might have been sitting on the temple steps, and the others sitting on lower steps, turned around to face Him.

The Scribes and Pharisees, however, brought to Him a woman caught in adultery… 

Things were really starting to get tense for Jesus and His twelve apostles. The Pharisees and the Chief Priests, who often butted heads over one thing or another, had started working together, looking for a way to bring Jesus down. Because Jesus was a threat to their authority, and He was also, as they understood it, a danger to their people—the very people who were coming to hear Jesus teach at the temple. Who were whispering in the streets, in their homes because they didn’t want to be heard by the religious authorities, “Is this the Messiah? Has he come?” A question to which the religious leaders answered a hard, “No. And the longer we let this rumour ride, the longer we let this guy go, the greater danger we are in from Rome.” Rome was the occupying oppressors.

So this day, they chose their moment to confront Jesus in the temple, and they thought they’d got Him.

… They made her stand before them.

To borrow from The Princess Bride… “Now it is down to you. And now it is down to me.” This is a face-off, a cold, calculated, surgical strike.

They said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So what do You say?” (They said this to test Him, in order to have a basis for accusing Him.)

They had their hook. They had their bait. They just needed Him to bite. Because no matter how He answered the question, it was going to be wrong.

They were right about the law. Adultery was a capital offense. In the ancient Law, death was the punishment for the man and the woman involved in adultery.

There were a few capital offenses. Most of them were offenses against God himself. You could be stoned for blasphemy (insulting or belittling the name of God). You could be stoned for worshipping other gods (serving the purposes of spiritual forces other than Yahweh God). You could be stoned for breaking the Sabbath (failing to respect the boundaries set by God for His day of rest). These were religious offenses, and when the offender was tried and found guilty, they were taken out beyond the boundaries of the town and executed by stoning. Adultery was on that list, perhaps because it was connected to the breaking of a covenantal promise of faithfulness. There’s no record in any historical documents that anyone was ever actually stoned to death for adultery. But it was on the books.

If Jesus said ‘no, don’t stone her, let her go’—He could be seen as condoning her behaviour, and going too far against the Law. Adultery was a serious charge that needed a serious response. Or if Jesus said ‘no, let her go,’ He might be seen as siding with the Roman oppressors, because they had removed the right of the religious leaders in Israel to execute offenders except for religious offenses like blasphemy, worshipping other gods, or breaking the Sabbath.

If He said ‘yes, stone her,’ He would be technically correct, but He could then be in trouble with the Roman authorities for going against their edict. Plus, if Jesus said ‘yes, take her out and stone her,’ He could have been effectively putting Himself on trial. He could have been opening the doors for the religious leaders to put Him on trial for blasphemy. For worshipping other gods. For breaking the Sabbath, all of which were things of which they had accused Him in the past. If He had said ‘yes, take her out and stone her,’ they could have said, “OK, we will. You’re next. Don’t try to leave town.”

There was no good answer to this question. As soon as He said yes, as soon as He said no, as soon as people even heard the question asked, the religious leaders would have won.

So…

Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. 

There’s an interesting variation in the way different artists portray this scene, largely between more recent pictures, and older pictures. Modern pictures tend to depict Jesus standing, facing the religious leaders. And between them, usually, the woman on the ground. Which very effectively communicates to us what the power dynamic was: she was helpless. She couldn’t testify in her own defense. She had nobody to stand for her. She was entirely vulnerable in this situation. Whereas, Jesus and the Pharisees were battling it out face to face, over her. That’s usually the modern image of this scene.

Older paintings and drawings stay closer to what the text actually says, depicting the religious leaders standing, the woman standing, and Jesus seated. I think that the older drawings are closer to the truth. I don’t think that Jesus stood up at any point in this event, I think that is significant, and I will tell you why in a minute.

As Jesus continued to write on the ground,

When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” And again He bent down and wrote on the ground. 

Jesus had grown up among people who understood the idea of sinfulness. I know today it’s not a popular word, but sin is a thing. People of Jesus’ nation understood its consequences, understood that it was universal… or at least almost.

Jewish thought holds that it is possible for people to live a life without sin and that, in fact, there are four people in history who never sinned. According to rabbinical teaching, that list consists of Benjamin the son of Jacob, Amram the father of Moses, Jesse the father of David, and Chileab of the son of David. Only those four. For the religious leaders, it would have been really convenient if at that moment one of those four guys had been present. But they could not claim sinlessness for themselves. Maybe they just knew each other too well. Maybe they had enough integrity to not commit blasphemy as a means to an end, however worthy they thought that end was.

When they heard this, they began to go away one by one, beginning with the older ones, until only Jesus was left, with the woman standing there. Then Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” 

“No one, Lord,” she answered. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more.” 

And she went—I think probably out of the temple, out into the streets that were filled with those people who were whispering, “Could he be? Could he be? Could he be?” In the opposite direction of the religious leaders who probably walked away further into the temple, where they felt safe.

______

Sitting was the posture of a rabbi who was teaching. Sitting was also the posture of a judge who was hearing charges, weighing evidence and passing sentence.

There’s a moment in this story when Jesus’ role shifts—from Rabbi Jesus to Judge Jesus. When He sits in the judge’s seat.

Six months later in the same city, the same scene would play out with some differences. Pilate would be sitting in the judgment seat as the religious leaders bring Jesus to stand before him and level their charges. Pilate would even try to let Jesus go, but he can’t pull it off.

I would suggest two things the apostles learned from this event: how to sit, and how to stand.

First, they learned how to sit. Sitting was a posture of teaching, and of judging. Jesus taught His apostles well that teachers—people who have influence over others—are responsible for the impact they have on the people who trust them. Teachers will be held to account. In addition, the apostles learned from Jesus about judging. In the Sermon on the Mount, very early in His ministry, He taught them:

Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1)

The apostles had to learn to sit as a teacher—with humility, with care, and with responsibility for the truth. And they had to learn to sometimes sit in judgement—with insight, compassion, love, and forgiveness. And to give hope.

Even more, they learned how to stand. Judges sat, defendants stood. That was a place where the apostles would find themselves time and time again.

The apostles were brought in to stand before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest.

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name…” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than people…” (Acts 5:27-29)

The apostles had to learn who their judge really was. Yes, they faced hostile authorities and yes, they paid the price for their courage. Our best understanding is that almost all of them died refusing to deny their faith in Jesus. They knew who they were standing before for judgment, and it wasn’t Caesar, and it wasn’t the High Priest. Their judge was the sinless judge who could have thrown the first stone, but chose not to. Who then told the woman, “You’re guilty and it’s not OK. But you have another chance.”

Just as later on, after His death and resurrection, Jesus met Peter on the beach and told him in effect, “You denied me. Three times. You said, “I don’t know Him. I don’t know Him. I don’t know Him.” And that’s not OK. But I’m giving you another chance, Peter: a chance to live a life of complete faithfulness, of confirming every day for the rest of your life, “Yes, I know Him. Yes, I know Him. Yes, I know Him.” So go, Peter, go and sin no more.”

Jesus met Paul the apostle. After His return to heaven He came looking for Paul and found him on the road. He said to Paul, in effect, “You are hurting me and it’s not OK. You are responsible, Paul, for the deaths of people who are going to be your brothers and sisters. But Paul, I’m giving you another chance; to live a life of protecting, of building, of multiplying, of encouraging, of deepening and strengthening My family. So go, Paul, and sin no more.”

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Lent, Part 4: Lord Over What is Good

Lenten Stories: Work With Me (Luke 9:10-17)

by Ruth Wilkinson

The four Gospels were written by four different writers, from different perspectives, for different intended audiences. They include different episodes from Jesus’ life. They include different teachings.  

Very few events—only three—in Jesus’ ministry before His crucifixion are included in all four Gospels. At the very beginning, all four include His baptism. Near the end of His ministry, all four include His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the middle, all four include ‘the feeding of the 5000.’  

This is not just a story. This is not just a flannelgraph-Jesus miracle. There’s more going on here than just a reminder to feed people when they’re hungry. This is not an argument for some prosperity doctrine, where if we give Jesus a little bit, He’ll make us rich. This is not just Jesus showing off. Something important happened on that grassy hill in Galilee, in the season of the Passover before the Passover of the Last Supper. 

So what did the Twelve Apostles learn? How did it shape them, and what difference does it make for us today?  

_______

In its context, the story begins with miracles and power, and with Herod up in the palace saying, “Who is this guy?” (Luke 9:9). It ends with Peter providing an answer to that question: “You are the Christ of God” (John 9:19-22). With Jesus telling the apostles for the first time what its implications are: “I will die.” This is the first time that Jesus tells them what’s going to happen. That is the story in its context.  

It’s kind of perfect that the feeding of the 5000 happened immediately after the successful mission of the Twelve going to village to village (Luke 9:1-6). I mean, imagine the headspace they must have been in when they came back from that adventure. They had spent two years following Jesus, seeing Him work, seeing Him defend the oppressed, seeing Him challenge the short-sightedness and lack of imagination of the powers-that-be, seeing Him argue with pointless rule keeping, seeing Him heal on the Sabbath, breaking the rules. Seeing Him free people who were captive to evil spirits and to physical illness, people who were captive to the limitations of disability. Restoring people to their families and communities, raising people from death. Telling a sea storm, “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep!” Patiently, endlessly answering questions and seeing the people He could have ignored, like we saw last week.  

They spent two years steeping in and learning Jesus’ gentleness and grace, His fierceness and faithfulness. Jesus was impressive.  

And now He had sent them out to do His work. His power had flowed from their fingertips, flowed from their lips to do those same amazing things: healing, speaking truth in a way that captured hearts and minds, setting people free. How awesome was that? And how just-a-little impressive were they? 

Now they were back together, feeling the joy of sharing that experience with each other.  

In this moment of triumph… They walk straight into a wall. 

Thousands of people. No food. No clue. No energy. No answers. 

Empty hands. Empty pockets.  

All they had was Jesus.  

So what did they learn in this event, and what difference did it make for them in the future? 

I would suggest that they learned through this event, in a way that they had not understood before, that Jesus was Lord.  

He was Lord not only of the big, dark things like demons and storms and illness and death. He was also Lord over the little things—the stuff of everyday life. Lord over what is good. He was Lord over an early summer day when the grass is green and the harvest is in. He was Lord of companionship and friendship and laughter and surprise. He was Lord over food and satisfaction and abundance.  

But even more than that… The apostles needed to learn that Jesus was the lord of empty hands, and empty pockets.  

Fast forward. Past Jesus’ death, past His resurrection, past His return to heaven, past the day of Pentecost when the Spirit fell in power on the church gathered together in that upper room.  

One afternoon Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those entering the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter and John (I love this) looked directly at him. (Acts 3:1-4)

I’ve spent enough time working with folks on the street to know that one of the things that it is natural for us to want to do when we see someone sitting and begging is to avoid eye contact. Some of that is our own discomfort because we don’t know how to respond. We don’t know what to say. Should I give him money? Should I not give her money? These are natural moments that we encounter in life. Someone is there in our peripheral vision, and we don’t look. It’s natural, it’s understandable. But it’s not what Peter did.  

Peter looked directly at him. Peter saw him, and so did John.  

Peter looked directly at him, as did John. … But Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” (3:4-6)

What did Peter have in that moment? What did John have in that moment? Empty hands. Empty pockets. The name of Jesus. The power of the Spirit who had filled them all at Pentecost. Peter, standing there, was filled with helplessness, and he was filled with power and faith.  

That’s a tension that we all live with as believers in Jesus.  

We are all unique and gifted individuals. We are all shaped by God to be who we are. We are all the sum of our experiences, the things we’ve learned, the things we’ve lost, the things we’ve gained. 

We come to Jesus filled with the desire to work with Him, to do something… but with empty hands and empty pockets. Filled with a desire to make a difference. Filled with a desire to make the world better for people. But with empty hands. With empty pockets. And that is hard. 

We’ve had some conversations recently in our Bible study about what it’s like to encounter folks on the street who we do not understand. Who we wish we could help. Our heart breaks for them. But there’s nothing that we can do.  

We watch the news at night with empty hands and pockets. We see what’s happening on the other side of the world and we wish we could help, but we can’t. 

We walk the street and we see homeless folks and we wish we could help, but we can’t. 

We answer the phone in the middle of the night and hear a voice we recognize, telling us that something has happened. We listen with empty pockets and empty hands.  

A lot of churches today struggle with emptiness. Empty pews. Those rooms that used to be filled with kids in Sunday School, now empty. Sometimes churches even deal with empty offering plates. Wondering how we can change the world when we can’t even keep the lights on. 

The New Testament writer Paul wrote about this in his second letter to the Corinthian church. He struggled with this too, but he found an answer. He found an understanding of empty hands.  

He says, you know, I thought I was I was impressive. In fact, I knew I was impressive.  

I thought I was something. In fact, I knew I was something.  

But Jesus… Jesus picked me up by the ankles and shook me until my pockets were empty, then He set me down. Paul writes:  

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

When we come to Jesus with our empty hands and our empty pockets, it gives Him the opportunity to fill those hands with what He has for us to give away.  

Yes, we are all individuals with gifts that He has given us for serving Him and doing His work. But He has also called us to offer our empty hands to Him and to say, ‘I’m not impressive. I’m not something. But I will do my best to serve you as a good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:23) .I may not be a clever servant or a talented one, a strong servant, or a rich one, a powerful servant, or a servant who has all the answers. But I can be faithful. I can be trustworthy, I can be a believing servant.’

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Coming back to that story of Peter and the man who was begging at the temple gate, it occurred to me, as I was rereading it, to wonder… who was Peter really talking to? When he was eye-to-eye with the man and saying, “I don’t have any money, but I will give you what I have.”  

Was he talking to this man who in a moment would be standing and leaping and running and telling people the good news?  

Or when Peter said, “I don’t have anything, but what I have I give you?” could he have been talking to God? Could he have been in that moment, praying, ‘I want to do something for you right now. I want to serve you here. I want to make this world better for this man, who you love. But I have empty pockets. I have empty hands. All I have to offer you is my courage. My faith. Myself.’

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Lent, Part 3: A Big Table

Lenten Stories: Sit With Me (John 4:1-10)

by Ruth Wilkinson

We are walking the path of Lent: with Jesus toward the cross and toward the resurrection. We’re focussing on a number of events that happened over the course of Jesus’ life of ministry. In particular, how these stories would have impacted the Twelve Apostles, because it’s in their shoes that we walk with Jesus towards His cross. And it’s in their footsteps that we—the Church—walk beyond Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The story of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well is well known. Early in His ministry He was on the road, travelling from Judea in the south of Israel to Galilee in the north—a journey of  several days. To get there, the text says interestingly that Jesus “…had to pass through Samaria.” But Jesus did not “have to” cross through Samaria. In fact, the rift between Jews and Samaritans was so deep that most Rabbis would have added the extra 100 km or so to their trip, taking the long way around and avoiding Samaria altogether.

When Jesus’ crew arrived at Sychar, He was tired. They had no food, so the disciples left Him on His own by the well to rest, and they went into town to buy lunch. The woman arrived at the well, and saw this guy sitting there. She drew her water. And the man spoke to her:

Give me a drink.

Her response demonstrates the depth of the rift between the two peoples. She doesn’t just say ‘no,’ she starts an argument. “You are a Jew! How can you ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” How can you even do that? How can you—a Jew—ask me—a Samaritan—for water to drink? The next parenthetical phrase is translated different ways in different versions. Some of them say ‘Jews do not associate with Samaritans.’ Others say ‘Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.’ Others say ‘Jews do not share vessels with Samaritans.’ The underlying idea is that Jews would not eat off the same plate that a Samaritan had eaten from. Jews would not share a meal with Samaritans. Jews would not sit down at a table with Samaritans because sharing a meal implies a relationship that just did not exist.

The division between the two groups centered on where and how to worship Yahweh God. The two had fought and wrangled for centuries over that question, even actively opposing and taking steps to undermine each other. The antagonism had deepened and calcified over the centuries.

In Jewish eyes,  Samaritans were not godly people. Jews would not share a meal with Samaritans, or drink from a bucket of water raised from a well by a Samaritan, because that sharing would cross the line of division that, in their concern for faithfulness to Yahweh God, had to stand.

When the woman comes to the well, Jesus knows all that. He knows who she is. And He ignores the rift. He just sees her. He knows who she is. He knows who she is looking for. And He tells her, “I’m here.”

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With perfect timing, just at the moment when Jesus is revealing to her His identity, the Apostles arrive. The text says:

They were amazed to see him talking with a woman.

We’ve looked at the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. Let’s look at the relationship between Rabbis and women, because Rabbis didn’t generally have a lot of time for women—not because they all thought women were evil, or that girls have cooties so stay away!

Rather, there are some instructive quotes in the ancient Jewish teachings called Mishna that help us understand this dynamic.

One says, “Jose ben Yochanan of Jerusalem used to say, engage not in too much conversation with women…” Why? “…for as long as a man engages in conversation with women, he neglects the study of Torah (God’s instruction)” (Pirkei avot 1:5).

Women weren’t evil, they just weren’t as interesting as, or relevant to, the study of God’s Law. They weren’t under the same obligation as men to understand the Law. So they didn’t have the same motivation (or the same excuse) to spend their time in study. Also, women weren’t a good investment of a Rabbi’s time because women couldn’t become Rabbis.

So… The disciples come back from the city having bought their food. And here is Jesus…

• Here is Jesus sitting in hostile territory.
• Here is Jesus loving His enemy.
• Here is Jesus asking kindness from, and offering kindness to, someone He could have just ignored until she went away.
• Here is Jesus investing time in someone who didn’t look like a good return on that investment.
• Here is Jesus drinking water from a Samaritan’s cup.

Yeah, they were amazed.

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What impact did this have on the Twelve? How were they shaped and changed by this encounter, and what did they need to learn? To unlearn?

I would suggest that in this event, they began to unlearn who’s in and who’s out.

And they started to learn how to live in Jesus’ world.

Fast forward to the years after Jesus’ death, after His resurrection, after His return to heaven. Then came the day of Pentecost when the Spirit arrived in power and filled all of the believers, sending them to preach the good news of Jesus, ‘to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’

Beginning in Jerusalem, in the Spirit’s power, the Church exploded. Thousands of Jewish people recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Thousands of Jewish people were baptized into the Church. The people of the Church in Jerusalem “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and to prayer… With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart” (Acts 4:42, 44, 46) which was wonderful in Jerusalem. It was fantastic in Judea.

But it got really, really complicated in Samaria and the ends of the earth.

Simon Peter, true to form, was first among the Apostles to come up against this tension over how the Church worshipped together in homes, over meals. He was the first one to be confronted in real life with this challenge, and because of it, he got called up on the carpet by the other Apostles. They’re all, like, “Peter! My office! Now! Listen. We heard that you visited Gentiles. We heard that you ate with Gentiles” (Acts 11).

Peter’s like, “OK, yes, but guys… Here’s what happened. It’s going to blow your mind. One day I was praying, and I saw a vision. Jesus spoke to me. And He told me to eat things that are not kosher. And I’m like, ‘OK, no, Lord, I’ve never done that. I’m not. I can’t.’ But Jesus told me, “Do not call impure anything that God has made pure.””

And Peter says, “Just as my vision ended, I heard knocking on the door. And there were these guys. They were all Romans—servants. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them, but they had been sent by their boss–this centurion named Cornelius–a military commander for the Romans. The oppressors. The invaders. They said that Cornelius had sent them to this address, to ask for me by name. Because Cornelius said that he had a vision where God told him that I had a message for him.” And Peter’s like, “I hadn’t even finished shaking my head when I felt the Spirit inside me say, ‘No judging. No hesitation. Go.’

“So I went. I went to Cornelius’s house. I went to the home of this Roman soldier and when I heard about his vision and I remembered mine,” Peter says:

I now truly understand that God welcomes people from every nation. He sent this message to the people of Israel, proclaiming the gospel of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.

Peter says, “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He had fallen on us at the beginning.”

Then… this. “Who was I to hinder the work of God?

“So yeah, I had dinner at the Gentile’s house.”

Suddenly the Church exploded beyond Jerusalem, and there were Churches meeting in the homes of Gentiles. There were people sharing meals in the homes of Gentiles. Jewish and Samaritan and Roman and Greek brothers and sisters in Christ sitting at a table sharing dishes in common.

As the centerpiece of that meal, they shared the plate of bread and the cup of wine of remembrance of Jesus’ death and resurrection and of His promised return. And it was amazing. It was unprecedented. It was beautiful.

But it was hard.

It was hard because the Apostles had to keep pushing back against divisions that wanted to creep in. In Acts chapter 15, there’s another big summit meeting among the Apostles where they’re discussing this kind of issue again. James stands up and says, “Brothers, listen to me. Peter has told us has told us how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people to be His own. This is consistent with what the prophet Amos said so long ago when he prophesied about all the “…Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord.””

Paul, writing later to the Church in Galatia, again references (in Galatians chapter 2) Peter’s experience with the Roman centurion and the doors that opened. Then in chapter three he writes words that many of us will have memorized.

All of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. And there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:27-28)

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When the Twelve found Rabbi Jesus sitting at the well drinking water from the cup of a Samaritan woman, they found Jesus chipping the first cracks in a dam that, when it burst, flooded the world.

And the Apostles had to learn to swim.

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Lent, Part 2: Jesus the Teacher

Lenten Stories 2: Hear Me (Matthew 7:24-29)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Lent is the season in which we walk towards Easter—towards Palm Sunday when Jesus was acclaimed by people of Jerusalem, towards Good Friday when He was crucified and died for us, towards Resurrection Sunday when He came out from the tomb, to bring us into new life with Him.

As we walk that road, we’re putting ourselves in the shoes of the apostles, in an exercise of empathy. Asking ourselves what this experience was for those twelve men. Asking ourselves what they lost and what they found. What they had to learn and unlearn as they followed and learned to imitate their Rabbi, Jesus.

Today’s passage is from the end of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He’s been baptized by John the Baptizer, then come through 40 days of testing in the wilderness. He’s begun to travel, to preach, to heal, and to deliver people from evil spirits. And He has at this point chosen His disciples and named 12 of them ‘apostles.’

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The power of a great Rabbi lay in his ability to memorize, to understand, to defend, and to explain to the people around him—using logic, precedent, imagination—what Torah (God’s Law) said, what it meant and how it was to be lived.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ first big public recorded sermon.

Word about Him has gotten around. Large crowds have begun to follow Him. So Matthew begins his description of this event by saying:

“When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying:…” (Matthew 5:1)

He says, if you want to be My disciple, if you want to be a citizen of My kingdom, this is what it looks like…

First, Jesus says, here is the good news: when you suffer, when you are hungry, when you are grieving, when you are poor because of Me (and the disciples go, “Wait, what? That’s the good news?”), when life is hard because of Me—you are blessed. Because what Yahweh God promises you in return is wonderful beyond your imagination, and your faithfulness to Me will be rewarded by My eternal faithfulness to you.

Here is your opportunity: in the meantime, here on earth, you have power to bring good to the world. Power to slow down the decay. Power to show the way. Don’t hide from that opportunity. Live out loud and in plain view as My disciples, because God’s Torah was given for a reason: to reflect God’s nature, to express God’s will. You obey God’s law for your own good, and for the good of the whole world.

But here’s the twist: you have heard it said in the Law, “Don’t murder.” You’ve heard it said, “Don’t commit adultery.” You’ve heard it said, “Don’t be untruthful.”

But. I. Say.

I say murder happens in the heart. I say unfaithfulness happens in the heart. I say cheating happens in the heart. You’ve heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is acceptable payback.” But I say, forgive. You’ve heard it said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say, love your enemy whether you want to or not. Love them the way God loves you.

I say live a righteous life, do the righteous things, but do them from the heart.

Then Jesus says, here’s the challenge: when you do the things that arise naturally from a life of righteousness—giving, praying, fasting—don’t make it about you. No virtue signaling. It’s not about pats on the back.

• When you engage in the spiritual practice of generosity, give quietly and with gratitude that you can give.
• When you engage in the spiritual practice of conversation with God, it’s between you and Him.
• When you engage in the spiritual practice of denying your body to focus your spirit, don’t brag about it on Facebook, so everybody will know how spiritual you are. Why? Because we do these things not for the affirmation of being seen to be good, but we do them looking forward to an eternal reward of having invested our lives well. You can’t take with you into eternity your tax receipts, your brass plaques, your paychecks, and your ‘likes.’ You carry into eternity only what is in, and what flowed out of, your heart.

And yes, Jesus says, we are human. We need money. We need affirmation. But grasping and hanging on to what we can get on earth—that is unbelief, not righteousness. That is a failure to recognize who God is.

So here’s the recap, Jesus says. Don’t compare yourself (for better or for worse) to the people around you. Instead, focus on what God has for you to receive and to do. Your heavenly Father knows what you need. He knows who you are. He knows what you cannot do. He knows what you can. And what He demands of you is to “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” That, Jesus says, is God’s Law.

He says, being my disciple, being a citizen in my kingdom, is not complicated. But it’s not easy. The easy road goes nowhere you want to go. Take instead the road that leads to Me. Counterfeits look good, but ultimately they’re worth face value and no more.

Jesus says, here’s the homework: hear Me. Do what I say. Do what I do. Dig down to the bedrock. Do the hard work of becoming like Me and you will stand.

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished (spellbound) because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28).

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What did the apostles have to unlearn, and what did they have to learn?

I would suggest that first they had to unlearn where authority lay. For Jewish Priests, their authority came through their family tree, a hereditary position established by God so they could serve in His Temple, and engage His people with the Law of Moses. The Rabbis and Scribes had an authority that they earned. Hard. They worked, memorizing Torah, living it and teaching it. They invested their lives in gaining the authority to teach. They also took their authority from their place in the generations of Rabbis, one learning from another who had learned from another, and each claiming the reflected authority of his predecessors.

But for Jesus? Jesus’ authority lay in Himself. “You have heard it said… But. I. Say.” He wasn’t born into the Priestly tribe. He didn’t claim connection with any other Rabbi. He stood on His own.

Having unlearned that, the apostles had to learn where Jesus’ authority did come from. It lay within Himself. But where did He get it?

Jesus was an authority on Torah. He taught Torah, interpreting it the way the Rabbis did, with stories and imaginative examples that said, “This is what it looks like when you live how God wants you to live.” Jesus was an authority on Torah because… He wrote it. Jesus could interpret Torah because He was the author of Torah.

In one of His many clashes with the religious authorities, Jesus said to them:

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life…” (John 5:39-40)

‘You guys are trying so hard. But…’ Jesus was the author of Torah because Jesus is God. He is the one who gave us these words—to help us to learn about him, and to recognize him when He came. The apostles had to learn that Jesus was the source of Torah, and He was the destination that Torah points us towards. That He was the author of our faith and He was the finisher of our faith. He was the truest interpreter of His own Law.

So for us today. What might we need to unlearn? What might we need to re-learn?

Many of us need to unlearn our colouring book and flannel-graph image of Jesus. We need to unlearn the poseable, two-dimensional Jesus who votes like me, shares my taste in music, and approves of me because I believe all the right things. We need to unlearn a Jesus who always does what I want just because I want it.

And we need to learn the Jesus who knows me better than I’d like, with no illusions of what I’m capable of, for better or for worse. Who knows my internet history and does not approve, but loves me anyway. Who knows how much I spent on that thing and does not approve, but loves me anyway. Who knows all my little tricks for earning pats on the back and does not approve, but loves me anyway. And who loves me enough to start shaking me up and making me listen to what He says I should do.

That’s not easy.

It’s not complicated. But it’s not easy. And if it’s not easy for us, imagine what it was like for those 12 guys who did not have our luxury of hindsight, and of the rest of the New Testament writings to learn from. Did not have the benefit of centuries of church history, all those brothers and sisters to learn from.

Imagine how much hard work they had to do before they could get to the point where Peter could say:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matt 16:16).

Where Thomas could say to Jesus:

“You are my Lord and my God” (John 20:28)

And where John, in his beautiful prose, could write:

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory—the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth” (John 1:14)

Rabbi Jesus, growing up as a boy and a young man in Israel, memorized Torah, He lived Torah, modelling for us what it looks like to walk in obedience to God’s Law. And He taught us through beautiful, powerful words like the Sermon on the Mount… if we are willing to hear what He says to us.

He is speaking to us individually. He is speaking to us as a church. He is speaking to us as His people around the world saying, “Hear me. And do what I say.”

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Lent, Part 1: Calling the Disciples

Lenten Stories 1: Follow Me (Luke 6:9-17)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at some events in Jesus’ life—His journey as a Rabbi, a teacher, a healer—and how those experiences may have prepared Him, and His disciples, for the cross.

This week, we’ll introduce ourselves to the apostles: the 12 men who Jesus called to be His closest students, and in whose company we’ll be walking with Jesus through Lent.

The calling of the disciples is not like some of the other stories we’ve looked at. There isn’t one simple, 3 or 4 verse passage with a beginning, middle and end. It develops throughout the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. His relationships with these men evolved within the culture of Rabbis and disciples. The calling of the disciples was not like when Noah built the ark, with God causing the animals to just show up while Noah did his thing. The apostles came to Jesus at different times, in different ways, from different places. Some may have come on their own initiative. Some Jesus seems to have gone actively looking for. Others were introduced to Jesus by a friend. But to every single one of these 12 men, Jesus gave the command, “Follow me,” and they did just that. They followed Him to the very end and they changed the world.

Jesus was a Rabbi. The title is not unique to him. In Jesus’ lifetime, it was honorary, given to someone respected as a teacher of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus was called Rabbi by his own disciples, by people in the crowd, law teachers, by Pharisees (even when they were mad at him), by Sadducees (another group of religious leaders). He was called Rabbi by supporters, and opponents. By men and women. By rich people, powerful people and ordinary people. Jesus was recognized as a Rabbi.

A Rabbi was a master who would take in, and focus on teaching, a chosen group of students. This was a long tradition in Jewish history, at least as far back as the prophet Elijah and his successor, Elisha.

Elijah went and found Elijah… and Elisha set out to follow and serve Elijah. 1 Kings 19:19-21

The two stayed together in a master/student relationship until the end of Elijah’s ministry. Later, in 2 Kings 2, we see what that looked like:

Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal, and Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the LORD has sent me on to Bethel.” But Elisha replied, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”

So they go together to Bethel. While they’re there, Elijah says to Elisha, “God has told me to go to Jericho. You stay here.” And Elisha says, “As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave you.”

So they go together to Jericho. While they’re there, Elijah says to Elisha “God has told me to go to Jordan. You stay here.” And Elisha says, “As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave you.”

Elisha knows that staying together is important because Elijah, as the teacher, is not only responsible for imparting information.

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The prophet Ezra is held up as an example for those who teach, having “…set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it, and to teach it” (Ezra 7:10). A teacher was to learn the Bible inside and out, then set an example of living it. And then to teach it. Proximity was necessary as the teacher set that example.

Rabbis taught while moving around, going from town to town. Their disciples followed them and listened as they talked on the road. When they found a place to stay for the night, the disciples would stay in the house with the Rabbi.

Disciples would, in their early teens, identify a Rabbi with whom they wanted to study. In effect, who they wanted to become. They would apply to the Rabbi to be taught, and the Rabbis would accept the brightest, the most talented, the cleverest. To be accepted as a Rabbi’s disciple was an honour—and a hardship.

The honour was in being deemed worthy of that investment of time and teaching. The hardship was leaving your family behind for a life of hard work, setting aside the work that your family had expected for you. It was leaving your community and whatever future you may have had there, to go on the road to be shaped by someone else into their image.

But God was going to work through you to lead and guide His people in the future. So these gifted young men would become talmidim of the Rabbi: serving him, looking after his needs, imitating His example, memorizing His teaching. Around age 30, students graduated to becoming Rabbis in their own right.

Rabbis were teachers, disciples were learners. What were apostles? When our text says that “He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also designated as apostles,” what does that mean? He chose them from among the larger group of disciples. He chose them for something new.

In classical Greek, the word ‘apostle’ was used mostly to identify either naval expeditions or groups of colonists settling in a new place. In the Greek translations of the Old Testament, Jewish writers used the word for ambassadors sent out to Jewish people around the world with messages or instructions, or to collect taxes. Apostles were sent to do a specific task. They went. They did their task. They returned. They weren’t apostles anymore. That was it. The apostleship was for one task. You went, you did your job, it was over.

But Jesus’ use of the word apostles is different. In John 20:21, He says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent (apostled) Me, so also I am sending you.” Jesus described himself as being apostled from the Father—from heaven to His work on earth. But that work was not a task assigned, then completed. That task began in and continues into eternity. Jesus called the 12 to Himself, and began to apostle them out, at first two by two. He gave them authority to preach and over unclean spirits. Authority to deliver His message in His name. His authority and His power. For life. Their task was never finished.

After decades of learning from their Rabbi, disciples would graduate to becoming a Rabbi themselves.  Jesus’ disciples did not become Rabbis. That’s not how their journey played out. They remained Jesus’ disciples until they died of old age or martyrdom, continuing to be apostled into the world.

Because Jesus himself is the Rabbi. He is our Rabbi today. He is our teacher. Yes, we learn through each other. We learn from each other’s examples. But Jesus is still the teacher. None of the 12 apostles ever stopped beig a disciple, until they died either of old age or of martyrdom.

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No matter how the twelve came to be Jesus’ apostles, no matter how they arrived, whether Jesus went and found them Himself, whether they were introduced by a friend—what matters is that these twelve made themselves available to Jesus. They attached themselves to Him. They followed Him. They travelled with Him everywhere, listening as He talked on the road. They sat in the dust of His feet, embracing both honour and hardship in becoming a disciple of a Rabbi.

• Simon, also known as Peter—nickname Rocky. Peter was a husband and a business partner with James and John.
• Andrew, Peter’s brother—at first a disciple of John the Baptiser, through whom he met Jesus.
• Philip—also a disciple of John the Baptiser, introduced to Jesus by Andrew.
• Nathaniel—introduced by Philip, and described by Jesus as having “no deceit” in him.
• Judas Iscariot—no stranger to deceit. He was the group’s treasurer, and an embezzler.
• Thaddeus—about whom we know very little. We never hear him speak.
• James—one of the “sons of thunder,” who more than once spoke when he shouldn’t have. The first to die for his faith in Jesus.
• John, James’ brother—a prolific writer. The last apostle to die.
• Matthew—previously a tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman occupying force.
• Simon the Zealot—part of the (sometimes violent) resistance against the Roman occupying force. Went from being willing to kill for his people, to dying for his faith in Persia.
• James the Less—so named because he was younger or shorter. After Pentecost, took the gospel to Persia and was martyred there.
• Thomas—nickname The Twin. Profoundly loyal to Jesus. Took the gospel to India and was martyred there.

These men were Jesus’ disciples, as are we. They are our example in how to follow Him faithfully. They became our earliest family. They empowered the next generation of leaders. They bore witness to Jesus’ death and resurrection, and they continued to be learners—disciples. They continued throughout their lives to point to Jesus.

Yes, they messed up. Yes, they panicked and ran for safety. Two of them actually spoke out against him, and only one, as far as we can tell, stayed with the women who followed Jesus all the way to the cross.

But one thing they did right was stay faithful.

They didn’t know what was going to happen next. They didn’t really understand Jesus’ predictions of His returning to life. They couldn’t understand it because it hadn’t happened before.

But when Jesus did return, He found them together, and they picked up where they left off. They continued on… being Jesus’ disciples.

These 12 guys, who we’re going to be in company with for the next few weeks—these 12 ordinary regular guys… they were faithful. They stayed together. They learned and learned and learned. And though they never became Rabbis, they continued always to point people to Jesus.

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, shining with the glory of God. …The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (Revelation 21:10-14)

These 12 guys are the foundation for how we live our faith. They are our example, faithfully carrying Rabbi Jesus’ message into the world. As we are called to do.

Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:19-20)

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, is a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada who appears here most Fridays. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the original article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Familiar Stories, Part Five: Jonah

On the Same Page: Jonah and Nineveh (Jonah 2:1-6)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Everybody hated Nineveh.

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, one of the great empires that that tromped around the Middle East, conquering and destroying and enslaving. The Assyrian empire was conquered by the Babylonian empire, who were conquered by the Persian empire, who were conquered by the Greek empire, who were conquered by Rome, who ruled the world when Jesus was born. The Assyrian empire was just one in a chain of manifest-destiny, survival-of-the-fittest, might-makes-right, doctrine-of-discovery military machines, taking territory, enslaving people, destroying crops, cities, and lives just because they could.

The Prophet Nahum wrote a message from God, addressed directly to the city of Nineveh:

The Lord is slow in anger and great in power. The Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished… Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without prey. The crack of the whip and the rumble of the wheel… Behold, says the Lord of Hosts, I am against you, and all who hear the news of your downfall will applaud, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty? (Nahum 1:3, 3:1-5, :19)

People hated Nineveh.

God was angry with Nineveh, so God does what He does when He is angry; God gave them one last chance. And that last chance was Jonah.

But Jonah didn’t want to be Nineveh’s good news. Jonah did not want to be Nineveh’s last chance. Jonah wanted Nineveh gone. He wanted to see their downfall and applaud. So when God told him to go up to Nineveh, he went down instead. God told him to go east: he went west. God told him to travel inland: he went out to sea.

So God provided a storm to stop the boat.

Jonah volunteered to be thrown overboard to save the boat because he preferred death over submission.

So God provided a fish, that sheltered Jonah for three days, and then put him back on land where he started.

God again said, “Jonah. Go to Nineveh and deliver my message.” Jonah took the hint.

He made that long walk to Nineveh, 550 miles—900 kilometres—to do something that he did not want to do, but must. Jonah arrived at Nineveh, held his nose, and walked through the city gates. He delivered the message:

40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.

‘Put an end to your evil, or,’ says God, ‘I will.’

The message found its way to Nineveh’s king, who took it seriously. He mandated days of repentance, and fasting for every living creature in the city, saying,

Let each one turn from his evil ways and from the violence in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent. He may turn His fierce anger so that we will not perish. (Jonah 3:3)

And Jonah was like, ‘Yeah, I am not gonna be here for this. I’m not sticking around to see what happens next.’ He went out into the into the wilderness. He built himself a little lean-to, and he sat back and waited. And he waited. And eventually it sank in that the fireworks were not happening. God was not overturning Nineveh because God saw their actions. He saw the people of Nineveh turn from their evil. He relented from the disaster that He threatened to bring upon them. Nineveh had a reprieve.

Jonah flipped out, shaking his fist, kicking the sand, and yelling at God, “I knew it! I knew this is what you would do.”

This is why I was so quick to flee. Because I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God. I knew that you were slow to anger. I knew that you were abounding in love and devotion. I knew that you were one who relents. I am so angry right now. I just want to die. (Jonah 4:2ff)

So Jonah sat in the sand by himself complaining in the desert.

God looked down on Jonah, shook His head, and thought, “What am I gonna do with Jonah?”

God provided Jonah a vine with big green leaves for shade. It grew up quickly and sheltered Jonah from the desert sun and wind. The text says that Jonah was greatly pleased. He really liked this plant. Maybe Jonah thought that this was God’s way of apologizing, of trying to make up for letting him down. It’s not a dozen roses, but that kind of a gesture.

But the next day, just when Jonah was appreciating his plant, God sent a worm to weaken it. Then God provided a hot, dry wind from the desert and the plant died, and Jonah got a sunburn. One more thing for Jonah to complain about. He was furious with God for killing his plant.

(*This is how the story of Jonah ends–this is the cliff hanger… This is the question mark that leaves us asking, “what happened next?”) The Lord said to Jonah, “That plant sprang up in a night. It died in a night. You care so much about that plant. Why should I not care about the thousands of people—innocent and guilty—in the great city of Nineveh?”

Curtain.

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Last week we looked at how God worked through Esther and Mordecai to further God’s promises to Israel—promises as yet unfulfilled. Promises that (because they were God’s) were unbreakable.

Covenant promises foreshadowed when Adam, Eve, and the serpent are told that God’s enemy will be crushed by the child of a woman. (Genesis 3:15)

A covenant ratified later in Genesis when God tells Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3)

A covenant advanced in Isaiah: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid upon Him [the servant, the king to come] the guilt of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

A covenant reinforced in Micah: “Many nations will come and say, “Let’s go to the mountain of Yahweh God, to the house of the God of Jacob, so that He can teach us His ways so that we can walk in His path.”” (Micah 4:2)

A covenant given a face in Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me, and then the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple—the messenger of the covenant.” (Malachi 3:1)

A covenant detailed in Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. On my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” (Joel 2:28-29)

A covenant entrusted to us by Jesus himself: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

A covenant we see fulfilled in Romans: “Some of the branches of God’s vine have been broken off. And you—Gentiles from all the nations, from all the earth—although you were outsiders, you have been grafted in among the others.” (Romans 11:17)

A covenant complete and celebrated in Revelation: “There before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God Who sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb.”” (Revelation 7:9-10)

That is the story of God’s covenant, God’s promises that He is keeping.

The story of Esther reminds us of Israel’s perspective on that covenant: they were going to become a blessing to all families, to many nations. To all the earth.

If Esther is heads, I would suggest that Jonah is tails.

Jonah’s story is the covenant from the perspective of the nations, the families, the outsiders–the perspective of all of the earth.

Through Esther, God preserved His people so that they could share His loving-kindness with the world.

Through Jonah, God shows us what it looks like when He preserves the rest of us, however bad we are, so that we can share in His loving-kindness. God’s covenant is for the insiders and the outsiders. For the guilty and the forgiven. It’s for Jerusalem. And it’s for Nineveh.

Scripture writers talk about God’s loving-kindness—His mercy, grace, and love shown to people who don’t deserve it. But God’s love flows from who He is. That loving-kindness is the power behind His covenant. Throughout the Old Testament God showed loving-kindness to Abraham, to Joseph, to Israel in the wilderness, to Ruth and Naomi. He showed His loving-kindness to the kings David and Solomon.

How precious is your loving-kindness, O God, that the children of humanity might take refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 36:7)

Not just the ‘children of Israel’—the children of humanity.

Jesus spoke of Jonah in His teachings, as an example of what it looks like when a messenger comes with the good news of the opportunity to be part of what God is doing in the world. Jesus said:

As Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so I will be a sign to this generation. (Luke 11:30)

Matthew quotes Jesus further:

The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation [with the insiders] and condemn it. Because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:41)

Jesus’ question for them and for us today is… So what are you gonna do about it?

How are you going to respond to the message of Jonah—the message of Jesus?

God loved the world so much that He sent His Son to keep His covenant—to fulfill His promise—to give both Jerusalem and Nineveh the opportunity to say yes. To God’s calling. To God’s standards. To God’s loving-kindness.

God’s covenant has two faces.

Israel through whom the blessing comes, and the rest of the world in which the blessing plays out, and is perpetuated into eternity.

Jonah shows us what it looks like when we, the outsiders, face that open door. When we have the chance to take our place in His promises.

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, a longtime contributor to Christianity 201, is now a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the full article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Familiar Stories, Part Four: Esther

On the Same Page: Esther (Esther 4:12-17)

by Ruth Wilkinson

We don’t know when or by whom this story was recorded, but we know almost precisely when it happened: in 487 BC, Xerxes became king of the empire of Persia, ruling over a territory 4500 miles from end to end, home to almost half of the world’s people, of whom approximately 15% were Jews, spread out through the empire.

There was one large territory in North Africa, another up into Eastern Europe, and another on the Asian continent. And linking all of those big areas was a little corridor along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing Israel. Right in the middle of that little corridor was the city of Jerusalem.

Jewish eyes in that time looked out over the Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

That was Esther’s world.  

Rewinding from Esther’s day, we can see the beginnings of how Israel came to be so scattered, so far from Jerusalem.

In about 740 BC, the prophet Isaiah spoke for God, delivering God’s message that if Israel continued on the path they were on, flirting and being unfaithful with foreign gods, that God would shake them loose and take them away from Jerusalem:

Your land is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you, a desolation demolished by strangers, and the daughter of Zion (the city of Jerusalem) is abandoned like a shack in a vineyard after the harvest… (Isaiah 1:7-8)

Around 586 BC, Babylon completed ongoing campaign of conquest and attrition against Israel. They besieged Jerusalem. It fell. It was emptied. It was destroyed. The Temple was looted and burned. The people of Israel were taken and scattered through the Babylonian empire.

During those generations of exile, God spoke to His people through prophets. Ezekiel recorded an amazing vision of this story of exile in which he sees the Glory of the Lord in the holy of holies of the Temple. He saw the Glory—the presence—of God rise up and start to move out of the Holy of Holies, out to the court of the Temple, and pause. Then the Glory moves further to the threshold of the eastern gate, and pauses.  Then out of the city and away from Jerusalem, to rest on a mountain to the east. The Glory of God has step by step—almost with a sense of reluctance, almost with a sense of grief, of looking over His shoulder to see the damage left behind in His great house and His people—departed from Jerusalem, and settled far to the east. A voice speaks to Ezekiel:

Your relatives, your fellow exiles and the whole house of Israel—they are far away from the Lord. And this land has been given to the enemy as a possession. (Ezekiel 11:15)

But…

This is what the Lord God says: although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries to which they have gone. (11:16) 

‘I sent them, but I went with them. I’m where they are.’

I will gather you back from the peoples to which you have been scattered, and I will give back to you the land of Israel. (11:17)

Later in Ezekiel’s vision he stands again at that same eastern gate, seeing the Glory of God on the far away mountain. And the Glory starts to move—closer. Back towards Jerusalem from the east. Ezekiel says,

His voice was like the roar of mighty waters, and the earth shone with His Glory, and I fell face down and the Glory of the Lord entered the Temple through the gate facing east. (Ezekiel 43:1-5)

The Glory retraces its steps, back into the Holy of Holies. God has returned to the Temple—to Jerusalem. Just as the Glory of God had, sadly, reluctantly, step by step, slowly moved away from Jerusalem, Ezekiel sees the Glory of God rushing back, almost with joy to fill the Temple again.

In around 540 BC, Ezekiel’s prophecy began to be fulfilled. Persia conquered Babylon, and gave permission to all conquered peoples to return to their homelands. By 520 BC the city of Jerusalem had been repopulated. Its walls and Temple had been rebuilt and rededicated just in time for Passover. Israel once again met Yahweh on Mount Zion. God’s presence had returned to Jerusalem.

About 40 years later—in 480 BC—1200 kilometres away as the crow flies, a Jewish girl became queen of Persia.

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Esther’s family was one of many who chose to stay put when their exile officially ended. They could have returned, but they chose to continue living the lives they’d built in what we call the ‘diaspora’ (dispersion) of Jewish people throughout the world. They had built new lives, and synagogues. They had continued to study Torah and pray together, consistent with Jeremiah’s prophecy to Israel when they were first exiled.

This is what the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses, settle down, plant gardens, eat their produce, [get married, have kids, have grandkids]. Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the Lord on that city’s behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

God promised through Ezekiel to be a sanctuary for His people wherever they went. He told them through Jeremiah, “It’s OK to be somewhere else because I’m with you, wherever you are.” Yes, Zion was the centre of the centre of the world for the Jewish nation—ground zero for encountering the presence of Yahweh, but… One of the remarkable things about Yahweh, the God of Israel among the all the other gods of all the other nations at that time, is that where His people went, He went. He wasn’t tied to a particular location: the ocean, or a particular mountain.

Moses understood this. When the people of Israel were still wandering and waiting for their homeland, Moses prayed to God,

If your presence does not go with us, do not send us from where we are… Unless you go with us, how will we be distinguished from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16)

‘If You are not with us, how will people know that we’re us?’ The presence of God is what makes Israel Israel. God was with them.

In exile they created new lives, building synagogues, praying together, reading the scriptures together. Sharing the truth of God’s law, the promise of the prophets, the power of David’s psalms, the wisdom of the proverbs. They continuing in their new homes and cultures to teach their children and to remind themselves of who they were: the nation of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. They were the nation of Moses. Deborah. Ruth. They were the nation of David and Solomon. They were the people of Yahweh, God. They were His nation, His people, and where His people are, He is.

This is Esther’s identity. 

Esther’s parents gave her two names: a name of her place, and a name of her people.

Esther was a Persian name, with connections to the supreme Persian goddess Ishtar, the goddess of fertility.

But she was also given a Jewish name: Hadassa—a little green shrub called myrtle whose branches were used in celebrating the Jewish harvest festival, and pilgrimages to Jerusalem—part of celebration and homecoming. Even more, for the exiles reading the prophecies (especially of Isaiah) myrtle turns up in some eschatological (end-of-the-world) promises. Isaiah writes in chapter 55:12, “You will go out with joy and be led forth in peace.” He describes how God will make the deserts bloom, and one of the plants that will green the desert, replacing nettles and briers, is myrtle, “…as a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign never to be destroyed.” The name Hadassah was connected to an emblem of Israel’s ultimate hope.

So Esther walked among her people in two worlds: understanding the culture she’d been born into, but also recognizing that above and beneath everything she could see was the God of Israel’s past, and of their hope. Her parents named their daughter to know who she was and whose she was—a citizen of Persia, but a child of Israel.

I always come back to this question; where is God in this story? God’s name isn’t mentioned directly, and I think the closest we come is in Esther 4:14. Mordecai sends word to Esther,

If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place… And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. 

Mordecai reminds Esther that the Jews have a destiny… And it hasn’t happened yet.

Yahweh God has made promises, and He will be proved true… And it hasn’t happened yet.

God made a promise to Abraham, and reinforced it through Moses. He expanded it through the prophets during the years of Babylonian exile, talking about a king to come, to restore the nation, end slavery, restore righteousness, and raise up the dead… And it hasn’t happened yet.

Esther has heard it all. She’s steeped in it all of her life. She knows that Yahweh God is where His people are, that His people are His blessing to the world—and it hasn’t happened yet.

So where is God? God is with His people, even when His people are far from home.

God was in Jerusalem meeting Israel in the Temple.

God was on the shores of the Mediterranean, Agean, Black, Red, Caspian, Aral, and Arabian Seas.

God was in Susa, a city that was violent and venal and corrupted, because that’s where His people were.

God was present in the empire that thought it had the power to wipe out the work of God.

And that genocide could not be prevented by someone worshipping in the Temple in Jerusalem. It had to be prevented by someone positioned to cut it off at the source. It had to be ended by someone who was there when it started.

That’s where God was. That was the work that Esther and Mordecai were given to do. that is the work that God did through them.

As Mordecai said, if Esther hadn’t stepped up God would have found another way, because His promise was too important to fail.

This was Esther’s opportunity to be part of the keeping of God’s promise. Because God is always where His people are.

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, a longtime contributor to Christianity 201, is now a pastor in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the full article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

 

Familiar Stories, Part Three: David and Goliath

On the Same Page: David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17:1-5)

by Ruth Wilkinson

The story of David’s life is big: long and complicated. He lived a full life into his 70s, had a complicated family, and made good choices and bad choices. His encounter with Goliath is arguably his greatest single success; he brought down an entire army with a single stone.

So where is God in this story? In the background.

There’s nothing in this story that suggests a miracle, or that can’t be explained in human terms. David’s sling was legitimately a lethal weapon, capable of killing. It did what it was designed to do.

When the Magi came to visit Jesus, God intervened. He spoke directly to individuals in dreams.

When Noah’s family faced the flood, God intervened. He engaged in an act of re-creation. He commanded Noah’s response. He brought the animals to safety.

When Abraham and Isaac made their sacrifice, God intervened. He commanded the act, then provided the substitution.

But in the story of David and Goliath we don’t hear directly from Him. He’s there, He’s been working. He’s been preparing David, who has grown up fighting lions, fighting bears, learning to be a shepherd. He’s had David anointed by the prophet Samuel, and He’s filled David with His Spirit. But in this event, God Himself does not speak, or as far as we can see, act.

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There are three primary actors in this story, each of whom responds differently to God in the background: David defaults to Yahweh, Goliath defies Yahweh, and Saul desires Yahweh.

1. David defaults to Yahweh. David has had a lifetime’s preparation for this moment.  He is ready. He didn’t know when he got up this morning that he was ready, but he is.

Samuel took the horn of special oil and anointed David in the presence of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward (1 Samuel 16:13)From that moment, David protected his sheep filled with the Holy Spirit, wrote his songs filled with the Holy Spirit, killed lions and bears filled with the Holy Spirit. The day he met Goliath, David was still a teenager. He was just beginning his life and career but he is the first person in this event to speak the name of God.

There has been mention of Philistia, Israel, and Saul. Of the rewards for success and the consequences of failure. Of bravado, and of fear… then David arrives and speaks God’s name.

The first time David speaks God’s name it is to the soldiers on the front lines. They shrug it off, dismissing it as big talk from somebody who can’t really fight.

The second time, David speaks God’s name to King Saul, who remembers that name. He recognizes the truth of it.

The third time, David speaks the name of God to the enemy. David holds out the name of Yahweh as his credentials and his battle cry.

All throughout, no matter who he’s facing, David’s default is Yahweh God. He sees Yahweh God in the world. He responds to what the Spirit in him is saying. David defaults to Yahweh, pointing at God until someone pays attention.

2. Goliath denies Yahweh. A little bit of back story: 1 Samuel 5:1-6:15 describes an episode in which the Philistines have defeated the Israelites in battle. They’ve stolen the Ark of God, a box that is the symbol of God’s most immediate presence.

After the Philistines had captured the Ark of God they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then they carried the Ark into Dagon’s (the primary Philistine God’s) temple, and they set the Ark beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod arose early the next day and went to the temple, there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark. So they took Dagon and they put him back in his place. But the following morning, when they got up, there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord. His head and his hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold, and only his body remained [in the temple] (1Samuel 5:1-4)

And the town of Ashdod is like, “OK, we don’t know what this thing is, but it’s gone. We don’t want it. We’ve had enough. We’re sending it somewhere else.” So Ashdod send the Ark to the town of Gath, Goliath’s hometown. And stuff happens in Gath because the Ark is there. The people of Gath say, “We don’t want this thing.” They send it to Ekron. And stuff happens in Ekron because of the presence of the Ark of God. Until everybody has enough of this thing and they decide, “It’s got to go back where it came from.” So they put it on a cart pulled by two cows and just send it away, figuring that if Yahweh God wants it back, the cows will find their way to the right place. And that is exactly what happened. The cows went back to the people of Israel, and the Philistines are shot of the Ark.

Goliath must have known this hometown story. But instead of respecting the power and the consequences of displeasing Yahweh, he just says, “I’m a Philistine and you serve Saul.” Not, “You serve Yahweh. I serve Dagon.” Goliath comes to this battle, pretending that Dagon hadn’t ended up face down on the ground before the symbol of the presence of God. Just as he himself would end up face down on the ground before the one person among the thousands in that valley who was filled with the Spirit of God. Goliath denied Yahweh. And it didn’t work.

3. Saul desired Yahweh. It’s heartbreaking that when David informs Saul, “I will fight in the name of God,” Saul’s response to David is, “Go and may the Lord be with you” (1 Sam 17:37).

We often use that phrase casually, but I don’t think Saul did. This wasn’t “go team” rhetoric, or “good luck.” Saul knew what it meant to say, “May God be with you,” because God had been with Saul, and He wasn’t anymore. When Samuel anointed Saul king over Israel, as later with David, he poured oil on Saul’s head, prayed over him and “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon [Saul]” (1 Samuel 10:10). But Saul, in that position of leadership and example-setting before the nation of Israel, did things that he was commanded not to do. He experienced a principle taught in the Old and New Testaments: that those in leadership are held to a higher standard of accountability.  Moses, after 40 years of leading God’s people through the wilderness, got to the border of the promised land and was not permitted to cross the river because he had, in the sight of Israel, defied God. He did not set the example of honouring God’s holiness and authority. In the New Testament book of James the same principle is at work: “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).

For Saul, the consequence was God’s removal of His Spirit (1 Sam 16:14). Saul was left trying to lead Israel on his own, in his own strength, in his own power. That absence of God’s Spirit impacted Saul’s ability to lead. It impacted his mental health, his family, and his nation. I think, that day when David walked into Saul’s tent, Saul could see the Spirit in David. He recognized the Spirit of God, and he cried, “May Yahweh go with you.” Saul desired Yahweh

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So where is God in your story?

When God doesn’t intervene, how do you respond? Do you, like David, hold to the truth that God keeps His promises? That He has promised to be with us until the end of the age? Do you remind yourself, “He’s with me in this and He will meet me on the other side.” Do you just keep pointing to God until people pay attention?

Or do you deny Yahweh? Saying, “I will handle this. I’m not weak enough that I have to depend on an imaginary friend.” Do you deny the testimony of the people we meet in the Bible? Do you deny that the amazing things he’s done in the past even happened, and the testimony of other people like you?

Or do you desire God? Do you find yourself sometimes in situations that are overwhelming, asking yourself, “Why am I not feeling God’s presence? Has He left me? Or have I wandered away?” Do you desire God?

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson, a longtime contributor to Christianity 201, is now a pastor in a small town east of Toronto, Canada. Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the full article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Familiar Stories, Part Two: Abraham and Isaac

On the Same Page: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Weather and time, permitting I walk to the beach to eat my lunch.

One thing I like there is the pebbles. It’s a rocky beach, scattered with probably millions of pebbles of different colours, shapes and sizes. Every pebble on the beach is unique: some with stripes, some containing spots of crystal, all having come from different places to form this big jumbled pile of colour and shape.

Another thing I like about the beach is the waves. Again, each one is unique with its own shape, colour and size. They reflect the light of the sky: blue or green or grey. They’re textured by the wind, sometimes smooth and sometimes rough. Every wave comes from the same place, arising out of that great lake. Every wave exists for a moment, rising out of a larger whole, and then after having its dance on the shore, blending back down into the lake again.

The stories we’re looking at in this series are not pebbles. They’re not a random collection of stories gathered from all over the place and dumped into this one book. The Bible’s stories are waves. The events of Creation, Noah, Abraham and Isaac are waves, arising out of something greater than themselves. They exist for a moment on the sand with their own shape and colour. We can see them and measure them. But the smaller stories also give us a glimpse into the big picture. The Bible is one big story all the way through, called the ‘metanarrative,’ happening in chapters and events and seasons—the great story that God is telling to and about us.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is part of the beginning of the chapter in which God defines and sets apart His People, who are central to His plan to bring all of creation back to shalom, back to healing. Abraham and Isaac were founders of the nation that would give us Jesus.

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This is a challenging story. For some, the difficulty arises from picturing Isaac as a little kid, and Abraham’s actions as some terrible, bizarre act of child abuse. But Isaac was, in the Hebrew word, a “youth:” someone up to their late teens. The youngest credible estimates put him at about 13 years of age up to his late teens: a young adult. Old enough to understand the idea of sacrifice, to carry a load of wood up a mountain, to challenge his father and ask him intelligent questions. Isaac was not a child. He was a young man.

For other people, the story’s awkwardness centres on two main questions.

1. How could a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?
2. How could a loving father go along with this?

First, how could a loving God ask Abraham—or anyone—to sacrifice his (or any) child?

That question is answered in the text. “Sometime later, God tested Abraham.” (Genesis 22:1)

We’ve talked about testing before. Abraham and Isaac are being refined. They are being strengthened, and they are (both of them, not just Abraham) consolidating everything learned so far, and putting it into practice so they are ready for greater challenges coming down the road. God knew that Abraham was going to pass this test but… I would suggest that Abraham needed to know. Abraham needed to review what he had learned, and to know how far he could trust and obey this God who had called him from his home to who-knows-where. I would also suggest that Isaac needed to know what was in his father’s heart, the implications, who this God was, and that He could be trusted.

So why did God put them through this? It was a test. And yes, it was tough. But that’s kind of the whole point of a test.

Second, how could a loving father go along with this?

In Genesis chapter 22 between verses two and three—between God’s command and Abraham’s response—there is silence. Abraham doesn’t speak. Abraham doesn’t question. Doesn’t ask, “Why? Are you serious? Isn’t there some other way?”

Abraham has argued with God on behalf of his other son, Ishmael. “Oh, that Ishmael might live under Your blessing!” But God replied to Abraham, “…I will establish my covenant with Isaac who Sarah will bear.” But God concedes this: “As for Ishmael, I have heard you, and I will surely bless him. I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis 17:18-21).

Abraham argues with God for a bunch of strangers with a really bad reputation. The Lord says to Abraham, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great because their sin is so grievous. I’m going to go and see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached to me.” Abraham, who would know the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah, who could be one of the people complaining to God about them, says, “OK, hang on a minute. Are you really going to kill the innocent with the guilty? What if there are 50 innocent people in the city?” Abraham argues and bargains with God, until He says, “OK. If there are 10 righteous people in the city I will do nothing” (18:17-32).

But when God commands Abraham, “Sacrifice your son,” he doesn’t argue? Really?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Maybe Abraham didn’t argue with God because he trusted God for the outcome. Abraham knows that God has done the impossible before.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar. He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son, because Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. And in a sense, he did receive Isaac back from death (Hebrews 11:17-19)

We also have Abraham’s answer to Isaac’s question, “What are we going to be sacrificing? We don’t have a lamb.” “God will provide.” I can picture Abraham walking up that hill, muttering with every step, “God will provide. God will provide, God will provide, God will provide…” Talking himself through.

Or maybe he did argue, and maybe it’s just not in the text. “Early the next morning…” Off they went. Maybe it wasn’t so much that Abraham was eager to get started. Maybe it was more that he had been up all night anyway, arguing with God, and now it was time to surrender and obey. A.W. Tozer writes,

The sacred writer spares us a close up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba, when the aged man had it out with his God. But respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until one greater than Abraham wrestled in the garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul.

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That mention of Gethsemane brings us back to the big story. The wave slides back into the lake and we look again toward the horizon.

Very often in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit inspired writers to include two things. One is foreshadowing—hints of things to come. The other is typology (what we might today call tropes or archetypes)—easily recognizable examples or prototypes of who is to come. The Holy Spirit also inspired New Testament writers to help us recognize and identify where God is in this story, and to see the connections between Isaac—the first seed of the nation of Israel—and Jesus—the final word and fulfillment of its purpose.

• Our “respectful imaginations” go to Isaac, who in Genesis 22 walked up a mountain shouldering a load of wood instrumental in his anticipated death, asked his father tough questions, allowed himself to be bound by someone weaker than himself. Isaac surrendered in trust.
• Generations later, Jesus walked up a mountain shouldering a load of wood that instrumental in His anticipated death, spent the night before awake wrestling and asking His father tough questions, and allowed Himself to be bound by those weaker than himself. Jesus surrendered in trust.

• How could a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his own son? Because God demanded the same of Himself.
• How could Abraham, a loving father, go along with it? God Himself—in Jesus—went along with it in total surrender and total sacrifice.

• Abraham’s son was spared because God provided the lamb.
• God’s son was not spared because God provided the lamb.

• Isaac was, “…in a sense received back from death” (Hebrews 11:19).
• Jesus was in truth received back from the dead, bringing us all along with Him.

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So this story–this wave–laps onto the shore, takes shape, pauses for a moment in history, and then blends back into the ocean, drawing our eyes towards the great story of God.

God, who so loved the world that He gave His son, His only son, His son who He loved—Jesus—that whoever believed in Him should not be lost, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson is a pastor in the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ). Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the full article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.

Familiar Stories, Part One: Noah

On the Same Page: Noah and the Flood (Genesis 6:9-22)

by Ruth Wilkinson

Where is God in this story? We know where Noah and his family are. We know where the animals are. We know where the rest of humanity is. So where is God in this story?

First, God is on His sovereign throne looking down at the earth. God has authority. He speaks, expecting and deserving our response.

God looks down from His throne and sees that “the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence.” In the beginning, God created the world and saw that it was good. In Noah’s day, only ten generations from the garden of Eden, God saw that it was corrupted. In that Eden event, God made His first covenant with humanity: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth …” (Genesis 1:28)— “Fill it with My image. Make the earth fruitful and filled with good things.”

Instead, 10 generations later, God looks… And does not see good. He sees that yes, we have filled the earth. But we have filled it with violence. We have filled it with corruption.

That word corrupt means to take something good and twist it, to spoil it. We polluted what God had made. It’s as if we took a magic marker and drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa. We wrecked it. It’s spoiled. The kind of thing that makes us shake our heads and say, “What a waste.”

That word violence means a disruption of the divinely established order of things: oppression of the weak by the strong, exploitation of the poor by the rich. It means not only physical violence, but also relational violence—pollution that prevent us from pursuing and receiving God’s blessing. That ruins our relationships with each other and with the world. Broader than just physical violence, it tears apart what God has made. Destroys our relationships with each other and with him. In Eden, God’s covenant gave us the earth for food, shelter, and comfort. He gave to us the earth and the animals. He gave us to the earth and the animals so that we could care for and cultivate the world of which we are a part. And we twisted those relationships. We did violence to the earth. We did violence to ourselves.

Noah was born into a people who lived in a land watered by the rivers that had flowed through Eden itself… but on a completely different planet. God on His throne, in His sovereignty, looked down and saw that it was not good, but corrupt. He saw the harm that we had done to the world. The direction we were going. So God on His throne made a sovereign decision.

The second place I see God in this story is walking with Noah as a loving creator.

In the beginning, God created us in His image. He walked with us in the garden. He gave us these gifts of sustenance and safety and companionship. Of our animal brothers and sisters. Of each other. And we completely failed. What is God’s response? According to the text–with regret. He regrets having created humanity. You would expect God to be angry. You would expect him to say, “How dare you spoil what I have made? How dare you ignore my sovereignty? How dare you defy my authority? How dare you do things so opposite to what I set you to do?” You would expect God’s response to be anger, but there’s no indication of that in the text.

There is sadness. There is sorrow: grief at what has been lost, at what should have been. The fact that God regretted the situation does not necessarily mean that He was surprised by it. We can know that something is going to happen, and still be disappointed when it does. It doesn’t mean that we’re angry. It means that we are sad. God grieves over the situation.

His response (the thing that we struggle with the most, that makes this story so difficult) is not to abandon the mess and just say, “Oh, forget it. That was a bad idea. I’m never doing that again.”

His response is to engage in an act of recreation.

In the beginning He creates. In Noah’s day, He re-creates. God found a family He could invest in because they were “righteous.” That righteousness is the opposite of corruption. Righteous means ‘in right relationship,’ going in the right direction. It means engaging correctly with His commands, living His values. That righteous family was faithful to God. They were faithful to each other faithful in their community. They were whole. They had healthy relationships, and healthy characters. They lived in accordance with God’s principles. Especially Noah. And God chose this family to start again.

Genesis 1:2 says that in the beginning, “the breath of God, the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.”

In Genesis 2:7, God gives the breath of life to Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 7:22 breath is taken from all life on earth.

And then in Genesis 8:1, God sends a breath to blow over the waters that covered the poor, beleaguered, cursed earth to start bringing it back to life. To start bringing life back to the earth. To start doing what God alone can do: moving our story towards redemption and towards new life. Giving us, and giving our world, what only He can give: the breath of the spirit of life.

God’s work through the flood and through Noah’s family was an act of re-creation, giving us another chance, giving us a second opportunity to obey His sovereignty. A second change to walk alongside Him.

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There is much debate about the story of Noah and the flood—starting with the question of whether it “actually happened.” In other words, whether it is a parable or an event.

Regardless, it is Scripture. It has authority. It’s there for a reason. Parable or event, it speaks to us in a God-breathed way.

If, for example, we interpret Noah’s flood as being a parable, it still has authority for us. When Jesus talks about His second coming, about His return to earth in ultimate power, about that ultimate act of re-creation, He says this:

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the son of man, for in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious until the flood came and swept them away. So will it be at the coming of the son of man. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. (Matthew 24:36-42)

Jesus is teaching from Noah’s story the same way He teaches from parables: picking out one particular core truth, and using the story to reveal a mystery. “You can’t know what’s going to happen, so pay attention to your everyday life. Live your life the way I want you to live. Be righteous. Be like Noah.”

If, however, you interpret Noah’s story as an event (an actuality that happened to people on this planet) then it’s part of our story. It’s part of our history: our relationship with the world, and our relationship with God.

It reminds us that our future, our destiny, is inextricable from that of our world. Our planet, the plants and the animals, and the earth we are part of—this whole great creation, our relationships with each other and our relationships with God—are connected.

Throughout that history, God made covenants with a number of people: with Adam and Eve, with Abraham, with David, with Moses. Jesus made a covenant with us, promising what He was going to do in us, for us, and through us.

Noah’s covenant with God is a little bit different.

God said to Noah and his sons with him, “Behold, I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you… I establish my covenant that never again will all life be cut off by the waters of the flood.” (Genesis 9:8ff)

God is making a covenant not just with Noah, or with his family. God’s covenant is with all of creation: that our shared destiny will never again go down that path. That God has a different plan for us, and for the animals and for all creation. God’s covenant is with the world.

We have been created by, we share the universe with, we are accountable to a God who loves us enough to make us better. Who loves us enough to teach us. To refine us. To bring us through the crises of our lives closer to him. A God who has made a promise to us and to every living creature that our story will be completed. That our story will come to its true and best ending.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not by its own will, but because of the one the sovereign, one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. And brought into the glorious freedom of the children of. God and we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childhood. (Romans 8:19-22)

The story of Noah and the flood is a chapter in our story. It’s a chapter in the story of our world. The story that God is guiding, and writing, and that He will complete.

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Rev. Ruth Wilkinson is a pastor in the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ). Her sermon blog is Pastor Percipia. Click the title of this post for a link to the full article and a video sermon of which this is an excerpt.