Easter Is Personal

“By this gospel you are saved: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day.” (1 Corinthians 15:2–4) 

Over church history, there have been a variety of ways of explaining what happened on the Cross,[1] that combine the diverse language of biblical writers with cultural moments in which the message of the Cross was being preached. Scott McKnight compares it to a set of golf clubs: they all matter at the right time and place.

 A foundational view everyone builds on is called Christus Victor: Christ the Victor, or Christ victorious. Jesus’ death and resurrection demonstrated victory over the greatest foes: evil, sin, death, Satan, Hades. Jesus triumphed over them all, freeing humanity from bondage to them.

• Jesus drove out the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31), setting spiritual captives free (Luke 4:18; Eph. 4:8).

• He destroyed “the one who has the power of death” in order to “free those held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb. 2:14-15). 

• He overpowered the “strong man” (Luke 11:21-22), “disarming the rulers and authorities…triumphing over them” (Col. 2:15)

Jesus, the Messiah, truly is the long awaited Liberator of our souls.[2] This is foundational to what happened on the cross.

 Add Recapitulation Theory[3] to that foundation. This simply notes that Jesus is the second Adam who is getting right what the first Adam got wrong.[4]

“For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” (I Corinthians 15:21-22; see also Romans 5:17) [5]

Adam might have messed up the beginning of the story, but that doesn’t mean he controls the end of the story. The Second Adam is the Great Physician who has arrived “so that the world might be saved.” (John 3:17)[6]

Ransom Theory focused on the biblical teaching that Jesus died as a ransom for the debt of our sins.

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Ransom language fit the ancient Greco-Roman world well. Conquest was familiar to those who lived in or had been conquered by Rome; a redemptor could buy the freedom of someone taken prisoner. [7] Ransom language reminds us that we are in a spiritual war. Adam and Eve sold us into slavery to sin and death, and we can’t buy our way out. If the wages of sin is death[8], then the ransom of Jesus’ life satisfied the debt, and Satan cannot claim his due. C.S. Lewis uses this approach in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

In the 11th century, Anselm focused on Satisfaction Theory. Anselm lived during Medieval European feudalism, where honor to one’s earthly master or lord was incredibly important.[9] In the feudal hierarchy of serf/lord/king, dishonoring the one above you was a huge deal. The more noble the person you offended, the greater your reparation.[10] Anselm said that our sin has dishonored God, and honor must be restored. God’s honor is satisfied when reparations are paid – which he paid Himself in Jesus through the cross.[11]

God made him who had no sin to be a sin offering for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

This approach is still a primary approach used by missionaries introducing the Gospel in honor/shame cultures around the world.

 A contemporary of Anselm named Abelard focused on what it now called Moral Influence Theory. To Anselm, the most important thing was that Jesus is our example, our moral leader. We see this focus in WWJD or the classic Charles Sheldon book In His Steps.

“He demonstrated the act of the greatest love by laying down his life for his friends. Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Abelard focused on a God who demonstrated his love for humanity through the death of Jesus to show us a righteous way of living.[12]

The Reformers (1500s) reframed Ransom and Satisfaction theory in what we call Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA), the one with which we in the US are generally most familiar. They added a legal framework to Satisfaction Theory, a court-centered “balancing of the ledgers” between what is owed and what is paid.[13] 

Here, Jesus was not repaying God for lost honor; rather, he was paying the penalty of death to satisfy the demands of justice. Once again, God Himself, through Jesus, satisfies the demands of justice himself. 

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."(1 Peter 2:24) 

"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18) 

I remember being taught an analogy of a judge (God) taking off his robe and stepping down off the bench to stand in the place of the criminal (me) and take my place in jail.[14]

In all of these views, the foundational truth shines through. Jesus’ death on the cross changed everything, and His resurrection proved it.

* * * * *

Easter doesn’t just celebrate a historical event (though it does that); it doesn’t just highlight a theological atonement theory (though that’s important). Easter is not meant to be merely a corporate gathering once a year where we ponder ideas about atonement as an intellectual exercise.

Easter is personal. A person – Jesus – did something for persons: you and me. Jesus didn’t just give himself through his life, death and resurrection out of love for the world in a vague sense, he did it for me and you in an intensely personal sense.  

We live in a broken world. This is not a secret. The Bible talks about how all of creation mourns[16] in the midst of the brokenness. There are Big Picture issues like the war between Ukraine and Russia, and Israel and Hamas. There is famine, and human trafficking, and bridges collapsing. There are also family tragedies, and sickness, and despair.

Sometimes we participate in the breaking.  It’s another way of saying we step outside of God’s design and we sin. We bully, and slander, and demean. We lust, and fight, and deceive. We are the perpetrators of abuse and hatred. We have dishonored God and others. We know that we are part of the problem of the brokenness in the world.

Sometimes, we have been broken by it. This past year I have had to come to grips with the reality that some bad things were done to me when I was a kid, things that my brain put on a shelf until I was 54.  They were the kind of things that rob a kid of  innocence and trust, and that leave a mark for a long time. It's been draining, and insightful, and terrible, and healing, and it’s ongoing.

We call Crucifixion Friday “Good Friday” not only because we have a Savior who atoned for us that day, but because in his living and dying we know that God understands us because Jesus experienced the worst of what it is like to live in this broken world.

“On the cross, Jesus insists that God is in the hard things, the low things, the scandalous things. The gritty, messy, broken things.  God does not hold God’s self remote from the worst of this world.”[17]

Then, resurrection.

In the light of dawn, the Light of the World reveals himself. All was not lost; all is not lost. “Behold,” Jesus said, “I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)  As Tolkien described it, because of Jesus’ Resurrection, everything sad will become untrue.[18] Now it is clear that all that is evil has been conquered by the Risen Jesus. Crucifixion will not have the last word; Resurrection will.

• We may see part of our lives burn to ashes, but Jesus makes beauty from ashes.

• We may feel like death has come for our hearts and souls, but Jesus specializes in bringing dead things back to life.

• We may take our own Prodigal path, but Jesus, the Good Father, waits to embrace us with joy and feasting.

• There is night, but there will be a morning characterized by rejoicing, whether in the life or the next.

 This is the hope: the brokenness of our history is not our destiny.

His love, as displayed on the cross, covers a multitude of our sins. His power, as shown through His resurrection, shows us that when he says he can make something new, he can make something new.

There is nothing in us so broken he cannot mend it; so foul he cannot cleanse it; so evil he cannot save it; so worthless he cannot refurbish it; so useless he cannot rehabilitate it; so lost he cannot find it; so dead he cannot revive it; so parched he cannot refresh it; so bitter he cannot sweeten it; so in despair that he cannot fill it with hope.

“I’ll remind you of just one beautiful image of God, evident in the Christ of the Gospels: he’s the Restorer of lives. Jesus is the One who sat by the well and restored the Samaritan woman to her place in her community. He restored Zacchaeus’ integrity and offered him friendship. He saved and restored the woman caught in adultery to morality and life.  

He restored the paralytics, the blind and the deaf to wholeness. He restored outcasts such as lepers and the bleeding woman. He restored the sanity of the demonized. Even harshest rebukes were offers of restoration to the unrepentant. When we see Jesus in action, we are seeing the true heart of God, the Restorer of lives.” (Brad Jersak) 

I don’t know the history of your wounds, the length of your scars, the depth of your sin and failure. But I do know this: Jesus came so that we might be saved from the sinful ravages of this broken and fallen world. He offers real life in His Kingdom starting now and continuing into the ages to come. He offers a new life in exchange for your old one, over and over and over.

Christ is Risen (He is risen indeed).

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[1] https://www.sdmorrison.org/7-theories-of-the-atonement-summarized/

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/history-theories-atonement/

[2] “For the earliest Christians, the story of salvation was one of rescue all the way through: the epic of God descending into the depths of human estrangement to release his creatures from bondage to death, penetrating even into the heart of Hades to set the captives free, recall his prodigal children and restore a broken creation.” (D.B. Hart)

[3] https://faithrethink.com/7-atonement-theories-from-church-history/

[4] “God became what we are so that we might become what He is.” – Irenaeus

[5] Scott McKnight thinks Jesus is recapitulating Israel also. “Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3; when tempted to jump off of the temple, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16; and when tempted to seize the kingdoms, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13. Each of these texts is from Israel’s wilderness experience. Jesus is being depicted as a second Israel in a second wilderness. He became what Israel was to undo what Israel did.” 

[6] These two views remain the heart of the Eastern Orthodox position. https://orthodoxbridge.com/2018/07/22/orthodox-christians-on-penal-substitutionary-atonement/

[7] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/april/bonnie-kristian-atonement-theories-historical-context.html

[8] There was/is disagreement about to whom that ransom is owed. Was it Satan? The grave? Meanwhile, Isaiah 43 talks about God trading nations as ransom for Israel, but that looks like picturesque language about the depth of their bondage, not an actual trade.

[9] https://faithrethink.com/7-atonement-theories-from-church-history/

[10] https://andrewspringer.medium.com/five-views-on-the-atonement-of-christ-d71dddca9b84

[11] Jesus offered an overflow of satisfaction to human beings so they can satisfy God’s honor. https://faithrethink.com/7-atonement-theories-from-church-history/

[12] “1 Peter 2:22, “For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” https://andrewspringer.medium.com/five-views-on-the-atonement-of-christ-d71dddca9b84  See also Mark 10:42-45, Romans 12:1-21, and 1 John 3:16.

[13] “John Calvin, who studied law before becoming a Reformer, replaced the image of a serf trying to satisfy his lord with a courtroom where God as righteous judge condemns sinners who violate his law... [it] is immediately intelligible in the world of the Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/april/bonnie-kristian-atonement-theories-historical-context.html

[14] Reformers talked of “imputed righteousness” where Jesus literally took upon himself all of mankind’s sins and in exchange transferred (or imputed) his righteousness to the repentant sinner. https://faithrethink.com/7-atonement-theories-from-church-history/

[16] Romans 8:22

[17] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3362-cruciform

[18] Samwise to Gandalf

The Good News Of Easter

“The Lord Is Risen.”

“He Is Risen Indeed.”

It’s a remarkable claim. A man who died – like, really died – brought himself to life again. People were not stupid 2,000 years ago. They knew what it meant to be dead; they knew what it meant that blood and water flowed from Jesus. They knew dead people did not bring themselves back to life.

There is a reason his followers basically embalmed him as part of the ritual Jewish women performed on the dead.  For the second time, he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, though this time they were soaked with pounds of pungent perfume because it was assumed that, like his friend Lazarus, he would stink soon. If Jesus was merely a man, he would lie in state for four days before they would move what they called the now ‘corrupted’ body into a deeper tomb.

He was dead. You would think that the Gospel writers would want to cover over the fact that the followers of Jesus were so convinced he was dead they did this to him. That would have been a nice detail to leave out, that lack of faith of those closest to him. It would have left a glorious record of disciples who had no doubt, no wavering, no despair. They had understood all of Jesus’ hints. But, no. They recorded it. They thought he was dead.

When He revealed His risen self on the third day (so that he “did not see corruption” – Psalm 16 and Acts 2 – on the 4th day), people weren’t just automatically buying it.

• The disciples did not believe the report of the women, the first to see and then report the resurrected Jesus. 

• Peter left his observance of the empty tomb bewildered.

• The disciples didn’t believe the report of the two dudes on the Emmaus Road to whom Jesus revealed himself.

• They thought he was a ghost when he appeared to them in a room.

• Some of them still doubted after a later meeting .

 They were not fools. They had seen false messiahs, and they knew that crucified people did not come back to life. Yet their eventual response to this is telling. They became convinced that is indeed what happened.

• The early Christians claimed Jesus must be God in the flesh because of this resurrection at a time when no one in the Jewish community expected that kind of physical resurrection was a thing.

• They didn’t eventually appoint a successor to Jesus to carry on His messianic mission, which was a normal thing to do when a supposed messiah died.

• The early Christians said they actually had more hope than ever before, which would be an odd thing to claim if Jesus were still dead.

• They claimed that not only was Jesus alive, but the community of the church was now the temple in which a living God’s Spirit would dwell.

• This belief that Jesus was God solidified on the other side of this. They changed their view of God into a Triune one (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). They went from, “The Lord our God is one” to, “The Lord our God is Three-in-One.”

• They continued to worship Jesus at a time when worship of a human was blasphemous to the Jews and traitorous to the Romans. The death of Jesus would have been a good excuse to back out and avoid all the hardship that came with believing in His deity. This had precedence in Jewish history, as their false messiahs kept failing them and the followers denounced him. But they doubled down.

• They accepted and even embraced martyrdom when they could have remained in a tense but rarely fatal co-existence with the Romans (as long as they didn’t start a political rebellion).

• They changed their worship to the first day of the week (Sunday) instead of insisting on the last day of the week (Saturday) because Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which meant that a new day was now the holy day. They didn’t rest from their labors on the 7thday; they rested in Jesus’ completed work on the Cross before the week even got started.

 This belief that Jesus had risen from the dead upended their lives. It changed everything. But there is something else that stands out to me. John wrote an account in which he and Peter run to the empty tomb:

"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,and said, 'They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!' 

 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. 

 The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first,also went inside. He saw and believed."

 John is recording the RESURRECTION OF JESUS, and he makes sure to note that a) Jesus loved him in particular, b) he won that foot race, and c) he didn’t just see (study and hypothesize) like Peter; he actually was and then believed. Props to John.

John was the last gospel written, and it seemed important to John to add some very important details that the others left out. “He’s alive! And, I’m faster than Peter” – not once, but twice.  

Maybe John and Peter had a running, good-natured argument about this; I don’t know. Maybe this is what first century humor looks like. Based on the disciples’ track record, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that John was just setting the record straight that one of them was more committed to getting to Jesus and more ready to believe.

I am amazed that Jesus died so that even the most appalling acts of evil can be forgiven, that even the criminals we think of as monsters are not beyond the reach of the love and grace of Jesus.

I also love that Jesus died for people like the disciples: the petty, the shallow, the proud. In other words, ordinary people carrying around darker hearts than they want to admit and minds more broken than they know. Look at the “ordinary” people Jesus died for as they are recorded in Scripture (and by this I mean those closest to him).

• The disciples are a mess. They are likely rejects from rabbinical schools. They are not the cream of the Jewish crop. They are petty, jealous, angry, unfocused, and cowardly.

• His cousin John the Baptist and his brother James struggled with doubt even though they saw what he did.

• Jesus called Peter “Satan” one time.

• The Jews in Jerusalem were terribly disappointed that he was not the Warrior Messiah they were looking for. #palmbranches

• The sincerely religious people were busy creating disciples of hell instead of heaven.

• Paul, whom God eventually sends with the Good news to the Gentiles, killed followers of Jesus before he became one.

• Tax collectors, prostitutes, and idol-worshipping Samaritans had a better handle on who Jesus was than the shiny religious people did.

• His best friends can’t seem to stay awake and support him on the worst night of his life in the Garden of Gethsemane.

• They all run away and hide when he gets arrested.

 I love that God’s love pours down from a Cross and seeps into that kind of soil. I love that a gloriously resurrected Jesus appears to that kind of people. Because that means I have hope. That means you have hope.

We have to get over ourselves. Jesus didn’t come to earth because we were so cool to hang out with. He didn’t come because we had finally measured up to God’s expectations and it was time to level up! He came because His good world and His image bearers are dying, “groaning” in longing for the kind of redemption and restoration from sin that only Jesus can bring.

The glory of Resurrection hope is seen in comparison to the hell that Jesus stepped into to redeem. That’s not just the hell of headline-grabbing sins; that’s the hell of our chipping away at God’s good world with our anger, bitterness, envy, greed, lust, and callous cruelty. Some people dig pits of evil with backhoes of sin; those are the ones at which we stand up and point before we bend back to our shovels and slowly dig our way down to join them.

The bad news: Our hearts are darkened; our minds poisoned; our loves and desires distracted and broken. On our own, we tend toward the rot and ruin that follows sin. It’s like a spiritual law of thermodynamics: on our own, entropy and decay increases. Things fall apart. On our own, we continually contribute to the brokenness of the world.

The good news: God has not left us on our own. Jesus can fix the brokenness of his image bearers, and turn that decay into life. In the end, Jesus will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”[1]Now, when we accept the salvation Jesus offers, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”[2]

The bad news: We have spilled the ‘life’s blood” of others: physically, emotionally, relationally. We deserve to get what we give; in this case, the wages of sin is death. God, the LawSetter and Judge, demands justice.

The good news: It doesn’t have to be my life – or yours. Jesus, the Lawfulfiller and Savior, will bear the weight of His own justice by spilling His blood in our place. He took a punishment He did not deserve so that we can have the righteousness we did not earn.

The bad news: I don’t deserve this gift of grace, and neither do you.

The good news: We don’t need to deserve or earn it. It’s a gift to even the most undeserving. Jesus came to save the world and bring life, both now and in the world to come.

When the Jewish people celebrated the Passover, the one leading the meal would hold up bread and say, “This is the bread of our affliction, which our fathers ate in the wilderness” (a reference to Exodus 6). At the Last Supper, the presenter is Jesus, and here is what he does:

“Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Not, “this is the bread of our affliction which our fathers ate in the wilderness.” Now it’s different. “This is the bread of my affliction as I lead you on the true exodus and free you from the bondage of sin and death.”

The Passover has changed its focus. Now we remember Jesus, who became our substitutionary sacrifice so that the spiritual judgment we deserve will pass over us, and whose mercy will lead us from bondage to life.

“Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many.”

Here is the one to whom the blood of the lamb of the Passover in Egypt had pointed. He will do more than free people from the bondage of earthly oppression; he will, as John the Baptist proclaimed, “take away the sins of the world.”

With “this is my body” and “this is my blood,” Jesus showed himself to be the fulfillment of their longings for a Messiah, a Deliverer. Passover had reminded them that God delivered them from death in Egypt through the blood of the Lamb. Now, we celebrate how God delivered the world from the power of sin and death through the blood of Jesus. His resurrection shows us that He has the power to do what He claimed He can do.

I was reading some reflections on Goodreads this past week about Jesus and Easter, and I ran across this quote by so Francis Spufford. It feels like a fitting way to end.

“The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. 

And yet he goes on taking in… He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory… 

But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin... 

It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down…All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. 

Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. 

Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. 

Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. 

Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision….

“Don’t be afraid,” says Yeshua. “Far more can be mended than you know.”

Far more can be mended than you know. “See,” said Jesus in John’s vision in Revelation, “I make all things new.” This is the hope of Jesus’ Resurrection. He came to mend all things. And it is this Risen Savior who calls us to follow Him, so surrender our lives to the plan He has to make us new - heart, mind, and soul.

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[1] Revelation 21:

[2] Philippians 1:6

Three Day Stories

The Bible is full of ‘three day stories”[1]: 

·      Abraham and Isaac’s journey up the mountain

·      Joseph’s brothers in jail in Egypt

·      the plague of darkness in Egypt

·      When the Israelites left Egypt, they traveled three days into the desert before they found water

·      Rahab hid the spies for three days

·      Jonah in the big fish for three days

·      Saul was blinded for three days

·      Jesus was in the tomb for three days

·      “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn, that he may heal us; he has stricken, and he will bind us up.  After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” (Hosea 6:1-2)

On the third day is when the bad stuff ends. That’s the day we celebrate, and rightly so. But third day stories aren’t clear until the third day. On Day One and Day Two, it’s not yet clear how the story will end. The First day of Third Day story is often a brutal one.

It was the First Day -  Crucifixion Friday, or Good Friday -  that Jesus died.  His followers did not know this was a Third Day story. All they had on that Friday was the First Day. They had seen so many failed messiahs by this point[2]. They did not understand the prophecy that pointed toward Jesus’ resurrection. They were afraid and in despair.

Crucifixion Friday reminds us that Jesus knows what it means that all of creation groans (Romans 8:22) and the land mourns (Jeremiah 12:4). When the prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming Christ, he wrote, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Jesus understands our First Days. His entrance into the human condition showed that God is not a distant, uncaring and cold God. God understands us.  

Then there is the Saturday before Sunday. It’s not the day when the tragedy occurred; it’s not the day when Resurrection brings hope and life. It’s that troublesome (and often very long) middle day.

Here’s what the Bible records the followers of Jesus were doing between Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday. (This is a combination of details as they appear in Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).

At the rising of the sun, after the Sabbath on the first day of the week, the two Marys and Salome came to the tomb to keep vigil. They brought sweet-smelling spices they had purchased to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. Along the way, they wondered to themselves how they would roll the heavy stone away from the opening… 

[They encounter the Risen Jesus] 

They brought this news back to all those who had followed Him and were still mourning and weeping. They recounted for them—and others with them—everything they had experienced. The Lord’s emissaries heard their stories as fiction, a lie; they didn’t believe a word of it until Jesus appeared to them all as they sat at dinner that same evening (Resurrection Sunday). 

They were gathered together behind locked doors in fear that some of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were still searching for them. Out of nowhere, Jesus appeared in the center of the room and said, “May each one of you be at peace.”

There’s not a lot of info, but what is there is insightful. What do we see the closest followers of Jesus doing?

·      Keeping a vigil of mourning

·      Planning how to perfume the body of the dead Messiah

·      Hiding in fear

·      Disbelieving that Jesus was alive

 For the most part, it’s not a great resume builder, really. You would think that the biblical writers might want to put a better spin on what happened here. “As the disciples were praying and rejoicing over Jesus’ impending Resurrection, Mary returned and told them the good news. And they said, “Of course! We knew it all along!” This is one reason, by the way, you can take the biblical writers seriously. They aren’t afraid to show warts and all of even the best people in the story.

No, they were mourning the death of their long awaited Messiah. They thought he was gone. They thought he had failed – and in that failure shown that he was not, after all, the promised deliverer. As far as they knew, he was never coming back.

Crucifixion Fridays are hard, but Silent Saturdays may be even harder.

·      Funeral days are hard, but they are at least full of adrenaline and crisis management and we are surrounded by support. But then the next day, when family drifts back home, and friends go back to their routine…that’s when Silent Saturday sets in. The loneliness and the emptiness…

·      The trauma of a major accident or surgery or abuse is a lot, but the months or years of recovery – or wondering if you will ever recover – that’s a different kind of hard.

·      The divorce, the job loss, the day the prodigal child moves away… all their own kind of hard. They are all days of “death”: death of relationship, death of vocation, death of family unity. All hard. Then there is the time afterward where we don’t know if there will be restoration, or provision, or unity.

It’s hard enough when it involves earthly things. But what about when our relationship with God is best described as a Silent Saturday kind of relationship? What if there is a spiritual loneliness and emptiness, a sense that God is aloof at best and gone at worst. What about the times when the heavens seem empty, and our prayers just seem to drift off into a void? What about the times when God is silent?

ANDREW PETERSON – THE SILENCE OF GOD 

It's enough to drive a man crazy, it'll break a man's faith, It's enough to make him wonder, if he's ever been sane, when he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod, And the Heaven's only answer is the silence of God.
It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart, when he has to remember what broke him apart. This yoke may be easy but this burden is not, when the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got, when they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross, then what about the times when even followers get lost? 'Cause we all get lost sometimes…

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll in the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold. And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone, all His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot, what sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought. So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God, The aching may remain but the breaking does not. The aching may remain but the breaking does not. In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.

 So what do we do with the Silent Saturdays of our lives? I want to offer a number of suggestions not so that we will be immediately aware of God’s presence, but so we can be purposeful and grow from this kind of season of our life.

Be honest with God. The Bible gives us permission to voice our hearts during Silent Saturday. Look at a few of the Psalms:

• Psalm 6:2–3  “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul is greatly troubled, but you, O Lord, how long?”

•  Psalm 13:1–2 “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”

• Psalm 90:13–14 “Return, O Lord. How long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.”

• “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)

 After my dad died, I kept a journal for years and did my best to be honest before God about my anger, fear, grief and depression. Just getting it out was healing, and learning to trust that God could handle it was vital. Years later I was talking to a friend going through a lot who literally looked to the heavens and said, “Why? What is going on? How are you letting this happen? Where are you?” There is biblical precedent for this. N.T. Wright wrote:

At this point the Psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, come back into their own, just when some churches seem to have given them up. “Be gracious to me, Lord,” prays the sixth Psalm, “for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.” “Why do you stand far off, O Lord?” asks the 10th Psalm plaintively. “Why do you hide yourself in time of trouble?” And so it goes on: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?” (Psalm 13).  

And, all the more terrifying because Jesus himself quoted it in his agony on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22). Yes, these poems often come out into the light by the end, with a fresh sense of God’s presence and hope, not to explain the trouble but to provide reassurance within it.

But sometimes they go the other way. Psalm 89 starts off by celebrating God’s goodness and promises, and then suddenly switches and declares that it’s all gone horribly wrong. And Psalm 88 starts in misery and ends in darkness: “You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness…”

It is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain [why all this is happening]—and to lament instead.”

 God knows your heart and mind; he already knows your deepest internal struggles. Voice them. Lament is okay. God is big. He can handle it.

2. Keep the vigils

In the spite of the pain of their loss, the Marys did what they had always done, which was part of the ritual of living in Jewish community. What Jewish people believed and what they did in almost every aspect of life were so intertwined that it’s hard to imagine that the vigil was not considered part of what God called them to do. There is something to be said for keeping the faith through an active commitment to obedience and faithfulness. I would like to offer four vigils I believe are helpful.

a. Pursue Church community. Don't forsake gathering together (Hebrews 10:25). The disciples did at least one thing right: they hung together in the midst of their grief. It’s important that we remain connected and not withdraw. In community, others came back and reported their experiences with the Risen Christ. Even in the midst of doubt, there was hope. We stay in community so that we can be challenged, encouraged, and held close. We need to feel the nearness of God’s people when God feels distant. We need the hope that lives in others when our sense of hope is gone. The church is God’s body; you and I are parts of that body. Without it we wither away.

b. Pray and Read Scripture. I don’t know that there is a formula for the best way to do this. There are all kinds of cool ideas about how to read through the Bible or how to pray. I don’t think they are bad; I just don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all kind of approach.

·      Listen to or read the Bible.

·      Pray alone - or get together with others online.

·      Pray for a block of time - or throughout the day.

·      Sing. There are theologically rich songs that are good reminders of the hope we find in Jesus.

c. Dive Into Devotionals (podcasts, books, teachings). This is one way to experience the community of the church. It’s also a good way to find clarity about the Scriptures and to hear the testimonies of others. What did they do when they were in the First and Second days of their stories? Biblegateway.com; biblehub.com, preceptaustin.com, The Bible Project, the history of sermons and posts on our facebook page and website and churches all over the world.  

d. Practice Obedience to God. One of the greatest dangers we face is giving up and saying to God, “You know what? If I can’t feel your presence, I am going to live as if you’re not there.”  The Bible describes the way of obedience as “the path of life” (Psalm 16:11). There is something about faithful obedience that is not just healthy; it is wise and stabilizing. Also, I believe obedience is one of the ways we are conformed to the image of Christ – and in that conforming – as we begin to see what it means to ‘be like Jesus’ -  we begin to appreciate the wisdom of the One who guides our life.  

I love a song Ashley Cleveland sings called “Don’t Let Me Fall Too Far.” That sounds like an odd request, but I get it. It starts,

“I know the places where the ice is thin,

too many cracks, you could slip right in…

Don’t let me fall too far.”

She finishes with,

“I will hope for the things that I cannot see,

I know you’ll finish what you started in me,

Don’t let me fall too far…”

 I think it’s an honest request: I feel like I’m falling off the path; O God, in your strength, steady me and keep me going. Practice obedience. One step in front of the other. When you start to stray on to ice that you know is thin, pray and walk toward the thick ice of life even if you can’t see it at the time.

3.  Learn to wait

• Psalm 37:7  “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”

• Psalm 27:14  “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.”

I’m not good at waiting. I want problem resolution. Give me a task!  Traveling last week, we got stuck in hours of traffic backups. I wanted to take some back roads where I could at least be moving. But according to GPS, it was actually slower. Sometimes the fastest way to the right destination is just sitting there for a while. We so often want to be “human doings” that we forget what it it’s like to be “human beings.” It’s okay to have seasons and rhythms of life in which you are simply present with God and others in the midst of uncertainty and doubt.  

4. Let the desert point you to the oasis. Jon Bloom wrote in an article entitled, “When God Is Silent”:

Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty? … Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself? Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?Deprivation draws out desire… Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9). Deprivation is in the design of this age…We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12)… It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the Well of the world to come.

David said his soul longed for God like a deer panting for water. That sounds like deprivation and anticipation. Once again, okay to voice it. If that is our situation – we are desperate for something refreshing and life-giving – let’s not forget to turn to Jesus.

5. Don't confuse what we think is real from what is really real 

The followers of Jesus huddled in their homes thought it was over. It wasn’t. They thought God had abandoned them. He hadn’t. It’s important to remember during Silent Saturdays that what we think about God and God’s plans might not be true. What is true is that God may well feel absent, but He is not. God is with us always.

So, why does He feel distant or absent in those times? I don’t know.

·      It could be that we are in rebellious sin and we are trying to hide. #adamandeve

·      It could be that we are exhausted, wounded, numb.

·      It could be that God is allowing deprivation to draw out desire.

·      It could be that we are distracted or depressed.

·      It could be we have been traumatized by God’s people, and the character of the ambassadors of the King becomes hard to separate from the character of the King himself.

I don’t know. But I know that God is near and faithful and goodno matter what we think is happening or how we feel. The despair of Silent Saturday may last for a time, but joy comes in the morning of Easter Sunday. More on this next Sunday.

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[1] I got this idea from a brilliant teaching called “Saturday: Living Between Crucifixion and Resurrection,” posted by Richmont Graduate Universityon youtube. I don’t know who the speaker was. You can access the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90EKNZPKCU

[2] http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12416-pseudo-messiahs

The Passion And Resurrection Of Jesus

There are several ways we can look at Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection.

1)   Historically (proofs of the Resurrection of Christ). I posted a video this week on our Facebook page.

2)   Theologically (discussion of what Jesus accomplished spiritually in terms of what we call “substitutionary atonement” – God himself, in the person of Jesus, fulfilled his own judgment on sin and paid the eternal consequences for our sin so that “whoever believes on him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

     I have preached on both of these before, and I will again, but this morning I want to take a different approach.  Other than making a few comments at the end, I just want to read the story of the passion, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ. It’s a combination of the passages in the gospels, all of which offer something unique to the story, so I can’t give you one passage in which to follow along. 

There are going to be a few points where I stop and just let music play so we have time to meditate on what’s been read. Feel free to post your thoughts on the live stream thread as we go through the morning. 

* * * *

“Early in the morning the leading priests and the elders met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor. Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him. Jesus replied, “So you say.”

     But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent.  “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. But Jesus made no response to any of the charges.

    Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted.  This year there was a notorious prisoner named Barabbas.  As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

     The leading priests and the elders said, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.” They persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death.  When Pilate heard this, he was frightened. 

 He took Jesus back into the headquarters again and asked him, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer. “Why don’t you talk to me? Don’t you realize that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”

Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. Those who handed me over to you have the greater sin.”

Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’ Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.”

Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—his blood be on us and on our children!”

So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?”

The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”

Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

“Crucify him!”

“Why? What crime has he committed?”

 “Crucify him!” yelled the crowd.

 Pilate responded, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find him not guilty.” 

So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.     The soldiers stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.  They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!”  And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.  When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

    Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.  They went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”).  The soldiers gave him wine mixed with vinegar, but when Jesus had tasted it, he refused to drink it.

       The soldiers nailed him to the cross, then gambled for his clothes while keeping guard. A sign fastened to the cross above Jesus’ head announced the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that many people could read it.

    The leading priests objected and said to Pilate, “Change it from ‘The King of the Jews’ to ‘He said, I am King of the Jews.’”

    Pilate replied, “No, what I have written, I have written.”

    The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery.  “Look at you now! You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”

  The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus.  “He saved others but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him!  He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”  

   Two criminals were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.One of them scoffed and said, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”

    But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die?  We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

    At noon, darkness fell across the whole land.  At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

    Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.  One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink.  But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”

     Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.  At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. 

    The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

   The Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath.  So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken. Then their bodies could be taken down.  So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus.  But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. 

 As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth.  He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left.  

    The next day, on the Sabbath,  the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate.   “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’  So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”

    Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.”  So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.

    Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.  Suddenly there was a great earthquake! An angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it.  His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

    Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.  And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

    The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message.  And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. They ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him.  Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

    Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

    One of the twelve disciples, Thomas, was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

   But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”

    Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you. Thomas, put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

    “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.

     Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”

The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book.  But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.

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“For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but so the world through Him could be saved.”

There are plenty of things in this world that deserve condemnation – that deserve to be “brought to trial” (literally).  

•  abusers deserved to be brought to trial

• Mass shooters deserve to be brought to trial

• Meth makers and dealers deserve to be brought to trial

• Depending on who you talk to, apparently everybody in government needs to be brought to trial over what’s happening with the virus, and even some nations

 In each of those cases,  we are convinced that someone needs to answer for these things so that the situation can be made right (if possible) and won’t happen again. 

But let’s make it more personal. 

Maybe we have had things done to us that have damaged us, and we know that what happened needs to be brought to trial in some way.  These are the things that we see or experience and we know deep in our souls, “This is not okay. That is not the way life is supposed to be.”

 On the other hand, maybe we have done things to others that deserve condemnation.  Its’ not meth or murder, so we give ourselves a pass. And yet we have contributed to the brokenness of the world by breaking someone. We have no idea what the ripple effect of that is. We did or said something that was not okay, and honestly, we are the perpetrator, not the victim, and if we could see how our actions ripple out into the world we would be appalled. 

Let’s be honest: we have all done things that deserve condemnation. There is plenty of guilt to go around.  

Jesus did not come to rub it in.

Jesus doesn’t have to add to our shame, guilt, and despair. 

Jesus came to offer redemption for this. He came into the world to literally rescue, heal, and make whole not just the victims but the perpetrators. 

• Jesus came to save those who abuse and who have been abused and all those who feel the ripple effect.  

• Jesus came to save those who abuse and those who have been abused and all who will feel the ripple effect.

• Jesus came to save the meth dealers and the meth users and all who experience the ripple effect. 

• Jesus came to save those who self-destruct, and hate, and judge, and lash out, and hurt others.

• Jesus came to save the proud, the self-absorbed, the cuttingly sarcastic, the stingy and greedy, the petty, the passive-aggressive, the cowards and buffoons, the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutional and Green Party, the conservatives and liberals, the deep and shallow state, the poor and the rich, the ugly and the beautiful, the famous and the unknown, the 1% and the 99% because we all need to be saved. Have you seen the world lately?

 We know this is true. We need saving. And if we are honest, we know we need saving because we are part of this.

Jesus came but to save all of us, and that’s great news.  

Jesus said 2,000 years ago that he came to seek and to save all who were lost.  That is still true.All of us are still visited by this God who enters the world to seek us out and save us.

We can respond like the crowd, and try to kill him to get rid of his presence, but He will still be there. 

We can respond like Pilate, and think we can be neutral, but washing our hands so that we don’t have to make a decision won’t resolve it.

We can respond like the women and the disciples who saw Jesus, were filled with awe, and worshiped the risen Christ. 

We can even be full of doubt like Thomas, and Jesus will meet us at the point of our doubt. For some of us, real, genuine faith is hard. “Can I see those wounds again…I just have to know.” And Jesus is faithful.  

But no matter what you have done, or what has been done to you, or what you think of Jesus, it is still true:  That by believing in Him you will have life through the power of the Name of Jesus Christ.

“Since we have been justified through faith in Christ, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King.  Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory.

But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display—the Anointed One died for us.  As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. If we were in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed.” (Romans 5:1-2; 8-11 - The Voice)

Crucifixion Friday: The Importance Of The Cross

The arrival of God on earth was a pretty disruptive event.

• As if it were not disruptive enough that Jesus was born to an unmarried Mary, Mary was still a virgin.  The former was socially scandalous, but the latter was simply not in accord with the normal order of things. And this wasn’t just about Mary. This reflected on Joseph and both their families.

• The angels announced His birth with these ironic words: "Peace on earth!" to a terrified group of shepherds guarding sheep in the shadow of the Herodian, a monumental construction reminding the Jews that they were a captive people living in occupied territory. 

•  When wise men from the East who had traveled for months to track down the Messiah finally showed up, they had to hide from Herod so that he didn’t kill them.

•  Speaking of Herod, the first recorded political act after the birth of Immanuel— whose name means “God with us”—is the mass murder of infants by King Herod.  Not God’s fault, obviously, but the arrival of “The King of the Jews” scared the Roman king over the Jews so much so that a slaughter commenced.

•  Jesus was only 12 when he stayed behind in Jerusalem to teach in the temple after his parents had started home. That’s like Vincent filling in for me on a Sunday without asking. His parents said, "What on earth are you doing?" which is somewhere close to what I would ask Vince.  But their 12-year-old son rebuked them for not recognizing his mission (Luke 2:41–49). “I must be about my father’s business,” he said to JOSEPH. Ouch.

•  As an adult, in Nazareth, his home town, he had an opportunity to win the favor of family and friends before He began His focused mission the last few years of his life.  Instead, he called them out for their narrow-minded view of the Kingdom of God. It seemed that God loved the Gentiles too. They tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:29). The first act of his public ministry touched off a small riot.

•   He hung out with people of bad reputation – tax collectors, prostitutes, adulterers, and even traitors and backstabbers like Judas.  He did this so often his enemies called him a “friend of sinners” thinking that would bother him – but it didn’t.  

•  At the time when Jewish men would pray and thank God that there were not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman, he welcomed women to participate in his mission, an almost unheard of concession. (see Luke 8 and Mark 15 for more on this)

•   In a time when actions mattered almost without concern for the motivation, He questioned why people were fasting, tithing, and praying the way they were.  Jesus said, “People look on the outside, but God looks on the heart. If you are going to fast, or tithe, or pray to impress people, God’s not interested.”  In other words, why bother doing all those ritual acts of holiness if your heart’s not right?”

•  In a time when there were a TON of obsessive laws about Sabbath observance, he encouraged his disciples to break the Pharisee’s rules about the Sabbath if needed because “People were not made for the Sabbath – the Sabbath was made for people”. 

•  One Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. (Luke 6:6-11)  The "scribes and Pharisees" were present, as was a man whose right hand was withered. The religious leaders had come to catch Jesus healing on the Sabbath. The Bible does not record that the man with the withered hand asked for healing. Jesus didn’t have to deny the request to heal or flaunt religious custom. Jesus could simply have done nothing, or waited a few hours and the healing would have been perfectly legal. The man could have waited one more day after a lifetime of sickness. Jesus could have made everybody happy. But the Bible simply says that Jesus knew they were watching, so he healed him.  

•   Once, Jesus made a whip of cords and chased money-changers and animal merchants off the Temple grounds. He told them their presence made the temple a “den of thieves.”  This is not a chapter in How To Win Friends and Influence People.  That initiated a three-year-long conflict with society's most distinguished religious leaders.  

•   One time, Pilate ordered his men to murder some Galilean Zealots who had come to Jerusalem to worship, and then mingled their blood with the sacrifices they were offering. At about the same time, a tower fell in nearby Siloam and killed eighteen more. Jesus was asked about what the cause was of these back-to-back tragedies. From the nature of his reply, we can assume that people were lobbing what they thought were softballs that Jesus could hit out of the park and make everybody happy. “Oh, yeah, those were exceptional sinners who had what was coming to them. God hated them.” But Jesus said, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:2-5).

 Jesus was pointedly, deliberately, and dogmatically counter-cultural in almost every way. It’s not that he came to be counter-cultural: He came to save the world. It’s just that the world was so broken – even in the midst of His chosen people – that what He said and did changed everything. He upset expectations about God, about the expected Messiah, about the people’s understanding of what God wanted from them. 

He didn’t come to be a revolutionary; He couldn't help but be revolutionary, because so many things had gone bad or become distorted.  

• He said God did not focus His attention on the self-centered pious and the legalistically pure, but on the poor, the mourner, the meek, those hungry for God, and the pure in heart.

• He said being rich was not necessarily a blessing from God; God is concerned that we might gain the whole world and lose our soul.

• He said that rather than getting vengeance, we should forgive.

• He said that rather than hating our enemies, we should love them.

•  Rather than keeping what we deserve, we should freely give it away.

• Being “good” wasn’t just about out actions; it included thoughts and intents of the heart.

 No wonder the movers and shakers of his generation were so hostile to him. He said, “You’ve got it all wrong.  You believe wrong, you act wrong.  Some of you are making disciples, but they are disciples of hell. You have missed it, and I have to make it right. You need truth.  And all who love truth will listen to me, because I am the Truth.”

 He stepped into a world that had a lot of things wrong, and He confronted it head on, and he claimed he had the power and authority to do so because he was, in fact, God in the flesh, the long awaited Jewish Messiah, the rightful king of the world in ways that had nothing to do with acres of land and gold.  Even the language the Gospel writers use makes clear that Jesus was challenging Rome not because he wanted to be Emperor of Rome, but because the King of all things had come, and there was no way that was not going to step on the toes of the world’s powerful. 

An inscription dated around 9 B.C. shows Augustus being worshiped as a divine savior.  The people of Asia Minor declared him divine and actually changed their calendar to mark his birthday.  Here’s what they wrote:  

“Since the providence that has divinely ordered our existence has applied her energy and zeal and has brought to life the most perfect good in Augustus, who she filled with virtues for the benefit of mankind, bestowing him upon us and our descendants as savior– he who put an end to war and will order peace, Caesar, who by his epiphany exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied good tidings [euaggelia]… and since the birthday of the god first brought to the world the good tidings [euaggelia] residing in him… For that reason, with good fortune and safety, the Greeks of Asia have decided that the New Year in all the cities should begin on 23rd September, the birthday of Augustus.” [1]

•  Lk. 2:10 describes the birth of Jesus as good news [euaggelia].  

• He is the savior of the world (Lk. 2:11)

• He said he was the only perfectly good one (Mark 10:18)

•  Only he can order peace (Luke 19:42)

• N. T. Wright[2] explains that the emperor was kyrios, the lord of the world, the one who claimed the allegiance and loyalty of subjects throughout his wide empire.  That’s a word that gets applied to Jesus in Philippians 2:11 (and numerous other places)

• Augustus was known as the “son of a god” (divi filius) because his adopted father, Julius Caesar, had been declared a god after his assassination. Augustus put this on the coins. Jesus was called dei filius, the Son of God (not a god)

• When he came in person to pay a state visit to a colony or province, the word for his royal presence was parousia (the word used to refer to the coming of Jesus in 1 Thess. 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23, and elsewhere).

John Dominic Crossan – whom I don’t actually recommend as a good source for information about the Bible,[3]  had at least one important point to make that is noteworthy if for no other reason than that Crossan has a LOT of skepticism about the biblical account of Jesus: 

“Tt)here was a human being in the first century who was called 'Divine,' 'Son of God,' 'God,' and 'God from God,' whose titles were 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World.'" "(M)ost Christians probably think that those titles were originally created and uniquely applied to Christ. But before Jesus ever existed, all those terms belonged to Caesar Augustus… They were taking the identity of the Roman emperor and giving it to a Jewish peasant. Either that was a peculiar joke and a very low lampoon, or it was what… we call high treason. "[18]

We cannot understand how profound a claim Jesus and his followers were making if we don’t realize Jesus was claiming to be King of King and Lord of Lords in a way that challenged every authority and power in the world. He was THE way, THE truth, THE life.  

 It wasn’t just the Romans, of course. This claim to Kingship was a claim to be God, which scandalized the Jewish leadership. It was blasphemy. It was going to get him killed. Yet over and over, Jesus insists - by dropping hints that his Jewish audience clearly understood - that he was indeed the long awaited and true Messiah, the Savior, the fulfillment of all the prophecies. GOD HAD ARRIVED.

Then God was killed. In an execution designed to be excruciating and humiliating. He appeared to follow the path of so many others who claimed to be the Messiah. His followers were convinced he had failed (more on that next week). 

But He wasn’t.  

 His holy disruption continued. His resurrection changed everything. 

“[Jesus] tilted His head back, pulled up one last time to draw breath and cried, "Tetelestai!" (teh-tell’-es-tie) It was a Greek expression most everyone present would have understood. It was an accounting term. Archaeologists have found papyrus tax receipts with "Tetelestai" written across them, meaning "paid in full." With Jesus' last breath on the cross, He declared the debt of sin cancelled, completely satisfied. Nothing else required. Not good deeds. Not generous donations. Not penance or confession or baptism or...or...or...nothing. The penalty for sin is death, and we were all born hopelessly in debt. He paid our debt in full by giving His life so that we might live forever.” ― Swindoll Charles R.

Now that’s a holy disruption.

The dead can live again. His power over physical death proved He had the power over those whose souls were dead as well. Now, everything that has lost its life—everything that is stale, lifeless, and seemingly dead—can be made vigorous, free, lively, and new.

When God came to earth in the person and life of Jesus Christ, He forced everyone to make a choice: hold on tight to the life lived by our expectations, with our plans/hopes/dreams, with our own power, with us at the center, serving a God made in our image, living a life in which our culture seeps into us until we have absorbed so many incorrect and damaging views of the world that we know longer know what it true, and good … or listen to Jesus, be strong enough to see the brokenness, sinfulness, and deception within ourselves. 

“Unless you see yourself standing there with the shrieking crowd, full of hostility and hatred for the holy and innocent Lamb of God, you don’t really understand the nature and depth of your sin or the necessity of the cross.”― C.J. Mahaney

This is the start of the road to redemption - seeing ourselves in the crowd that needs the same cross we want to ignore at best or rage against at worst.  Coming to grips with this might not be not easy.

• When God had to get Paul’s attention, a blinding light threw him to the ground and left him in darkness for three days and nights. 

• When God had to get Peter’s attention, he sent him a dream which left him sleepless and anxious because God told him to abandon a life-long prejudice against the Gentiles.

 God didn’t deliver messages like a Facebook event notification.  You couldn’t click, “Hmm, maybe I’ll attend,” or “Like.”  It wasn’t an easy message to hear.  

Jesus is not a Muzac Savior, whose goal is to make us feel better about ourselves and comfortable with where we are.  These are okay things, but they are not the mission of Jesus. He's not a tame lion, and he’s not interested in tame people. And sometimes he has to bring a little disruption into our lives to help us become the people he's called us to be. Anne Dilliard once wrote, 

“It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”

IF JESUS DOES NOT UNSETTLE YOU, YOU HAVEN’T MET JESUS.

This countercultural Jesus of the New Testament is going to bring upheaval into your life too. We are embedded in a culture; it’s going to seep into us. If you are not feeling the challenge Jesus brings to how we think about life, you are not fully experiencing the life-changing nature of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.   

•  If you believe the most important thing is “You’ve got to follow your heart,”Jesus responds with, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (Mark 7:21-22, NIV 2011). We need to follow the heart of Jesus, and in that process our hearts conform to his.

•  If you believe that you must “Be true to yourself, ”Jesus responds with, “Take up a cross…you must lose your life in me to find it.” We are most true to our true selves when we are true to Christ, in whom we have our identity.

•   If you believe that the Good Life is the Moneyed Life, Jesus responds with ,“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil… Seek the Kingdom of God FIRST.” Getting that first is the only way your money won’t destroy you.

•   If you believe that “The good life is a life of self-expression and experimentation. Have fun and be safe!” Jesus responds with,  “The pure are blessed. Our body is God’s temple…the presence of God in your life brings self-control and purposefulness.” 

•   If you agree with reality TV that “I deserve my 5 minutes of fame!  Do you know who I am? My office smells of rich mahogany!” Jesus responds with, “The last shall be first. The people who are greatest among you are the ones whom you think of as the least.  Why don’t you wash somebody’s feet?”

•   If you are content with saying “There is no truth. Question everything.” Jesus responds with, “I am the Truth.  Those who love truth love me.  You will know the Truth, and it will set you free.”

•  To those who say to God, “I’m okay! Spiritually, I feel fine! I don’t need anything from you!”  Jesus says, “You’re spiritually sick; sin has broken you, and you are in need of a physician.  If you don’t get help you will die.”

•  To those who respond, “Okay, fine, I don’t feel so good, but I’ll fix myself,” Jesus says, “You can’t, but good news. I am the Great Physician, and I can.”

 The presence of Jesus brings holy disruption into the unholy places in our life. 

These challenges may leave us uncomfortable, confused and bewildered for a time.  He challenges our self-deceptive existence in which all these competing voices around us sound so good but lead us so badly astray. 

Jesus will destabalize us so that He can re-stabilize us on the solid foundation of Truth.  God is going to lead us toward crucifixion so we can experience resurrection.

“The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise godfearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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[1] According to John D. Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now.  

[2] “Paul and Caesar:  A New Reading of Romans”

[3] God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. Like I said, I don’t recommend you run out and buy his books. 

The Passion and Resurrection of the Christ

Listen to audio here.  

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/clgtc/videos/10155529579690829/[/embed]

[From a compilation of the Gospel narratives, all of which add insightful details to the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. These narrative begin in Mark 15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, and John 18.]

Early in the morning the leading priests and the elders met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him.  Jesus replied, “So you say.”

But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent.  “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?”Pilate demanded. But Jesus made no response to any of the charges.

Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted.  This year there was a notorious prisoner named Barabbas. As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

The leading priests and the elders said,“By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.” They persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death.  When Pilate heard this, he was frightened.

He took Jesus back into the headquartersagain and asked him, “Where are you from?”But Jesus gave no answer. “Why don’t you talk to me? Don’t you realize that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”

Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. Those who handed me over to you have the greater sin.”

Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you release this man, you are no ‘friend of Caesar.’Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.”

Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

   And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—his blood be on us and on our children!”

So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?”

The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”

Pilate responded,“Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

“Crucify him!”

“Why? What crime has he committed?”

“Crucify him!” yelled the crowd.

 Pilate responded,“Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find him not guilty.”

So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

The soldiers stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.  They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted,“Hail! King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.  When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.  They went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”).  The soldiers gave him wine mixed with vinegar, but when Jesus had tasted it, he refused to drink it.

The soldiers nailed him to the cross, then gambled for his clothes while keeping guard. A sign fastened to the cross above Jesus’ head announced the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that many people could read it.

The leading priests objected and said to Pilate, “Change it from ‘The King of the Jews’ to ‘He said, I am King of the Jews.’”

Pilate replied,“No, what I have written, I have written.”

The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery.  “Look at you now! You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”

The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus.  “He saved others but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him!  He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”  

Two criminals were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

One of them scoffed and said, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”

But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die?  We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land.  At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.  One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink.  But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”

Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.  At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened.

The Roman officerand the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

The Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath.  So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken. Then their bodies could be taken down.  So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth.  He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. 

The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate.   “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’  So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”

Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.”  So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.

Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.  Suddenly there was a great earthquake! An angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it.  His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

Then the angel spoke to the women.“Don’t be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.  And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. They ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

One of the twelve disciples, Thomas, was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”

Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you. Thomas, put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

“My Lord and my God!”Thomas exclaimed.

Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”

The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book.  But these are written so that you may continue to believethat Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47OkuvT5JFo[/embed]

If there is one thing that is more clear than ever, it’s that the world is broken, and I’m not saying this just because Michigan and not Ohio State is in the Final Four.

• Shooters (who will use knives if they can’t get guns)

• Sexual harassers and abusers (#metoo movement and human sex trafficking)

• Families literally imprisoning their own children

• Love letters to mass murderers (the Parkland Shooter)

• Twitter abuse that exposes the cruelty that simmers in more people than we knew

• Racism that is a very real ongoing problem in our culture

• This Nxvim cult I have been reading about that literally brands and enslaves women

• Netflix has more and more documentaries about corruption, lies and greed in business

Last week, a friend of Sheila’s was shot by her husband and put in the trunk of his car, where she stayed until one of her six children talked their father into turning himself in.

There is evil at work in the world, and we know it. It’s not just the stories ‘out there’ that get headlines; it's the story of our own life that reveals how all of creation groans as it waits for redemption. (Romans 8:22)

Maybe we have had things done to us that have damaged us. These are the things that we see or experience and we know deep in our souls, “This is not okay. That is not the way life is supposed to be.” We know something is wrong, and we instinctively desire that justice be done, that God deal with evil in the world. The prophet Amos said, “Let justice roll down like a river,” and that resonates with us. (Amos 5:24)

But that will put us in a bind, because we have done things to othersthat deserve condemnation. Something we said or did contributed to the brokenness of this world, and to someone else’s life in particular. We did or said something that was not okay, and honestly, we are the perpetrator, not the victim. Our words or our actions or even our attitudes have hurt others. There are obvious ones where someone is physically hurt, right? But there are more less noticeable ways we go about doing this.

• Our addictions lead us to use and hurt those around us.

• Our pornography use demeans and dehumanizes others.

• Our sarcasm leaves deep scars.

• Our insecurities cause us to lash out at others who have done nothing wrong.

• Our need to be in control makes us cruel and manipulative.

• As parents, we pass on too many of our dysfunctions to our kids, and as kids, we have wounded our parents more than we know.

Let’s be honest: we have all done things that deserve condemnation. There is plenty of guilt to go around.  And this means that if God is going to judge evil, God is going to judge us.

Enter Jesus, the incarnation, God in human flesh.On our own, we are spiritually dead. Our sins have doomed us to be swept away by the justice of God. Jesus came to take that flood on himself, and in so doing bring peace between sinful, fallen humanity and a holy God. And because Jesus was fully God and fully human, as a perfect man he satisfied God’s uncompromising justice against sinful humanity; as God, he revealed God’s unfailing love in his sacrifice of himself to pay the penalty He demands.

“God did not, then, inflict pain on someone else, but rather on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world into himself… this is a God who becomes human and offers his own lifeblood in order to honor moral justice and merciful love so that someday he can destroy all evil without destroying us.” (Tim Keller)

Or, as John so eloquently puts it in Scripture:

“God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but so the world through Him could be saved.” John 3:16-17)

Jesus said his death would rescue us from the ultimate penalty that we deserve for what we have done; his resurrection shows that He has the power to do what He says he will do. He has shown us that, in the midst of this broken world, Jesus loves us enough to give his life so that we can truly live, and he is strong enough to offer the only kind of healing and hope that can save even the worst of us sinners.  And here is where the radical and perhaps even scandalous message of the gospel really kicks in.

• Jesus came to save those who have been verbally, physically, emotionally or spiritually abused – and those who did the abusing.

• Jesus came to save those who have been used – and those of us who use others for our own selfish gain.

• Jesus came to save the cheated on and the cheater, the back-stabber and the back stabbed, the liar and the lied to, the grudge-holders and the grudge creators.

• Jesus came to save those who self-destruct, and hate, and judge, and lash out, and hurt others.

And since all of us are on this list – probably in every category in some way -  that’s great news for all of us.

2,000 years ago, we were visited by a God who entered the world to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). That is still what Jesus does today.

No matter what you have done, or what has been done to you, or what you think of Jesus, it is still true: “That by believing in Him you will have forgiveness of sins, the redemption of your soul, and life everlasting.”

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLscNgnRSU[/embed]

The Days We Celebrate (Easter 2017)

1 Corinthians 15The Voice (VOICE)

 Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I preached to you when we first met. It’s the essential message that you have taken to heart, the central story you now base your life on; 2 and through this gospel, you are liberated…. 3-4 For I passed down to you the crux of it all which I had also received from others, that the Anointed One, the Liberating King, died for our sins and was buried and raised from the dead on the third day. All this happened to fulfill the Scriptures; it was the perfect climax to God’s covenant story. 

5 Afterward He appeared alive to Cephas (you may know him as Simon Peter), then to the rest of the twelve. 6 If that were not amazing enough, on one occasion, He appeared to more than 500 believers at one time. Many of those brothers and sisters are still around to tell the story, though some have fallen asleep in Jesus. 7 Soon He appeared to James, His brother and the leader of the Jerusalem church, and then to all the rest of the emissaries He Himself commissioned.  8 Last of all, He appeared to me…

13 Friends, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then even the Anointed hasn’t been raised; 14 if that is so, then all our preaching has been for nothing and your faith in the message is worthless. 15 And what’s worse, all of us who have been preaching the gospel are now guilty of misrepresenting God because we have been spreading the news that He raised the Anointed One from the dead (which must be a lie if what you are saying about the dead not being raised is the truth)…

Friends, 17 if the Anointed has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is worth less than yesterday’s garbage, you are all doomed in your sins, 18 and all the dearly departed who trusted in His liberation are left decaying in the ground. 19 If what we have hoped for in the Anointed doesn’t take us beyond this life, then we are world-class fools, deserving everyone’s pity.

20 But the Anointed One was raised from death’s slumber and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death. 21 For since death entered this world by a man, it took another man to make the resurrection of the dead our new reality. 22 Look at it this way: through Adam all of us die, but through the Anointed One all of us can live again. 

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We live in a world in desperate need of peace.

Terrorism, rumors of wars, persecution, genocide, human trafficking, tension between police and citizens, political fighting, social media frenzies of name-calling and insults. It hits closer to home, too: our families, our workplace, our friendships, our church. Then there is the lack of peace deep inside – the depression, anxiety, despair and shame. We live in a world in desperate need of peace.

I want to talk about how Jesus’ death and resurrection makes peace possible.

There is a Hebrew word, Shalom,that refers to peace with God, within, and with others. In many ways it takes us back to the Garden of Eden, at a place and time when everything was good. We have wandered far from that place of peace and rest, and the history of the world shows that we do a terrible job re-creating peace on our own. The prophet Jeremiah lamented the people who say, “’Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace”; Luke records that Jesus wept for Jerusalem: “If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace.”

The prophet Isaiah said that one day there would be a Prince of Peace; Paul wrote that Jesus is our peace; Jesus said he came to bring a peace that was unlike anything the world could give. When he appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, one of the first things he said was, “Be at peace.”

This promise of peace through Jesus Christ is our hope in a fallen and broken world, and that’s our focus today.

Peace With God

We were created to be at peace with God – pure, holy, unstained by sin. Genesis talks about the close communion of God and Adam; it’s that kind of peace that is the goal. Unashamed, guiltless, not covering or hiding our sins or ourselves.

But sin ruined that kind of peace. And lest we blame Adam, we all contribute. We all choose to do that which appalls a righteous and holy God. Everyone is directed by their conscience; Christians are directed by the Bible and empowered by the Holy Spirit – and yet we still at times choose to willfully choose a path of spiritual, emotional, relational and sometimes physical destruction that we know offends  the God who created and loves us and hurts those around us. We don’t just ignore God or make mistakes; we are rebels. Some of us are just more obvious about it than others.

It not that we are totally unaware. If nothing else, our stories betray us. We want a line between good and evil, a really clear demarcation: “There are evil people and things; there are good people and things.” We want Sauron vs. Gandalf; the Lion vs. the Witch; Captain America vs. the Red Skull; Ohio State vs. anyone else, really.

While those stories are instructive and good, it’s not what we experience in real life. Even the writers of Scripture knew this. Look at any primary character in the Old Testament and find one whose life was a pure as snow. They don’t exist. The line between good and evil runs right through the center of our hearts. It’s why we are awesome parents one day and horrible parents the next. It’s why one day I’m the husband my wife dreamed about when she was a kid and the next day I’m not even close. It’s why our friendships struggle, and our families fight, and even church can feel like a battleground.

The whole world is in a war between sin and holiness, and at times the epic heroes arise and defeat the classic villains, and we cheer (as we should), but more often than not we see that murky middle battleground where the Boromirs and the children who visited Narnia and the Tony Starks struggle to embrace the good and reject the evil. And even then that just reminds us that the epicenter of this battle is in our heart.

We see in the Old Testament how God instituted a plan to begin a restoration project that pointed toward Jesus. It starts with Abraham.

God made a covenant, an agreement with Abraham,  that Paul alluded to in the passage we read today (“ the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was the climax to God’s covenant story”). God promised that he would bless the world through Abraham and his descendants, who would become the children of Israel. Abraham just needed to be obedient and follow God. To seal the covenant, it was typical at that time for the two parties to kill an animal, dismember it, and walk through the middle as a way of saying, “If I break the covenant, may this be done to me.” In a vision, God appeared to Abraham and walked through this dissected animal alone. In other words, God said, “If either one of us breaks the covenant, may this be done to me.”

Eventually, God renewed this covenant relationship through Moses (the 10 Commandments and all the extra details), and gave his people an incredible amount of instruction on the kind of life that pleases God.

So all the Israelites were now in a covenant with God – they occasionally re-read the Law publicly and reaffirmed that yes indeed, this was the plan. This covenant was a little different in that there were some conditions: if they did good, they would be blessed. If they did bad, they would not. This led to trouble, because the Jewish people were terrible at keeping the Law.  

God initiated a temporary substitute through the sacrificial system, but they had to keep repeating this (for good reason.) It didn’t matter how much or how often the rabbis added more and more laws to try to make sure they could live perfectly. They couldn’t. If anything, the more detailed they got, the more it became clear how far they were from holy.

To make it worse, the cause-and-effect penalties of their sin caught up with them. The conditions of the covenant had to be honored and they were. The wages of their sin were conquest and enslavement. One Old Testament prophet recorded that they sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept as they remembered what they have lost – and what they could have.

They longed for a Messiah, a deliverer, and bringer of hope and peace. It appeared that these people - who were supposed to be the means by which God blessed the world -  had sold their spiritual birthright in exchange for their sin. They had failed to live up to God’s standards even when God had made them clear through Moses.

Now they were scattered, dying, convinced God has abandoned them.

But God had not.

God did bless the world through Abraham’s descendants – but not in a nationalistic sense like the Israelites expected. It was through the lineage of the Jewish people  that Jesus was born. That was the plan all along.

Enter Jesus, God in the flesh, sent to earth to fulfill the demands that God made on himself in his covenant with Abraham. God did not break the covenant; Abraham did. Yet God would pay the price for that sin by taking upon himself the penalty. He would be killed. He would also offer one sacrifice once and for all to fulfill the obligation of the sacrificial system under the law of Moses. On the cross, Jesus was torn for the sins not just of the Israelites, but of the world. Jesus satisfied the requirements of both those covenants while establishing a new one, one that all of us can be a part of.

Why is this important? Because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Without Jesus, we are dead in our sins. Our peace with God is broken, and without Jesus there is nothing between us and His wrath. No matter how good we think we are, we have shaken our fist at the heavens and said, “Not your will, but mine be done” over and over again.

But on the cross, the justice and mercy of God meet. God initiates a covenant fulfillment with us even before we are aware of the need for it. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, our war with God can end, and we can be at peace with Him. Our sin does not have to condemn us or separate us from God.

We can be forgiven, loved, embraced, even adopted into God’s family so that we are called ‘children of God.’ We are offered forgiveness and hope in this life and an eternity of joy in the presence of God in a New Heaven and New Earth, a reality in which, as Tim Keller says, all that is bad will be undone.

Peace Within

I mentioned a number of things earlier that rob us of peace within: depression, anxiety, shame. We could add anger, bitterness, jealousy, hopelessness, unforgiveness…

Some of those things can be caused by medical issues that a doctor can help (our biology is fallen too). Some of those things we can bring on ourselves because of our sinful choices. Some of things can arise because of sin that has been done to us. I believe the presence of Jesus gives us hope in the midst of all of those things, but there is one primary reason Jesus died and rose again when it comes to peace within. That is to address our guilt and shame for our sin.

Here’s the reality.

On this side of heaven, I will sin because I am not perfect. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the guidance of God’s word and the community of God’s people, I will be remarkably better than I would be without those things. God miraculously frees us from the overwhelming power of sin. Because of Jesus, I am not doomed to be chained by the power of sin. However, the cross and the empty tomb don’t remove the presence of sin. Not yet. I am no longer enslaved to sin, but I can still choose it.

And I do. I’m not perfect. Ask anybody. Neither are you. If you aren’t sure if that’s the case, ask your family. They will fill you in. So what do I do with that?

I could become consumed with perfection and working on my own power – and run myself into the ground trying to achieve the impossible. Then, I will become either insufferably arrogant the more I am successful or sadly self-loathing the more I fail. That’s the kind of righteousness the Bible says is filthy rags. It’s gross. Self-righteousness is not pretty.

Or I can turn to Jesus, the “author and finisher of my faith,” who sees me in my imperfect sinfulness and loves me anyway – and that love includes not letting me stay where I am, but changing and renewing me so that I increasingly become like Jesus. 

Because I have Jesus, I will have a strength I would never have on my own. In my times of doing good, I am driven to worship God, not my own willpower and work, so I avoid arrogance. In my times of failure, I am driven to throw myself at the mercy of a God who is faithful even when I am faithless, and that reminder of the love and tenderness of Jesus moves me out of my self-loathing as I remember that that Jesus knows and loves me, gave His life for me, and is transforming me into His image.

With Others

This changes everything is our relationships. The more we understand how the love of Jesus brought about peace with God, the more determined we will be to pass on that love. And when we see how his death and resurrection show His love – truly see it – we will love Him in return, and it will change us.

What kind of love is that? A radical, self-sacrificing commitment to the good of those around me. It’s what the Bible calls agape love. Jesus died so that I could live; why would I not in some way choose to ‘die’ to myself so that those around me can live? It’s how I honor my Lord. It’s how I pass on the legacy of Jesus.

 In some ways we commemorate this during communion: “This is my body which was broken for you …do this in remembrance.” We can’t die and bring salvation for our sins or the sins of others – we must have Jesus for that. But we can honor what Jesus has done by being broken and spilled out as we show the love of Jesus.

 As followers of Jesus, we ‘die’ to jealousy, envy, anger, pettiness, meanness, pride, selfishness. The Bible insists that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, that we climb up on the altar and sacrifice everything in us that needs to die. We could never do this on our own power, but we are not alone. We have God’s spirit inside us, his Word in front of us, and His people around us.

 We can do this, because God is with us.

 This is the peace the Resurrected Lord offers to us.

• Through Jesus, our relationship with God can been repaired so that we are no longer rebels. We are servants, friends, children, kings, priests. As a church we are the bride of Christ, and the bride will be made glorious in preparation for the glorious return of Jesus.

• Through Jesus, our peace within can be restored as we surrender and then commit our lives to the love and grace of a Risen Savior who is greater than all of our sins. We do not have to live in shame and fear; we can be transparent, bold and loved.

• Through Jesus, our peace with others flows from this reality. We will want to go into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples. We will  want everyone so see how the love of a Risen Savior transforms our lives, not for our glory but for the glory of the One who makes this possible.

The Days We Wait (Easter 2017)

I mentioned last week that the Bible is full of ‘three day stories”[1]: Jonah in the big fish; Joseph’s brothers in jail in Egypt; the plague of darkness in Egypt; Rahab hid the spies for three days. Jesus was in the tomb for three days. On the third day is when the bad stuff ends. That’s the day we celebrate, and rightly so. But Third Day stories aren’t clear until the Third Day. On Day One and Day Two, it’s not yet clear how the story will end. The First day of Third Day story is often a brutal one.

Crucifixion Friday was the First Day of a Three Day story.  We talked last week about how Jesus understands our First Days. His entrance into the human condition showed that God is not a distant, uncaring and cold God. God understands us. But there is still Saturday before Sunday. It’s not the day when the tragedy occurred; it’s not the day that Resurrection brings hope and life. It’s that troublesome (and often very long) middle day. Here’s what the Bible records the followers of Jesus were doing between Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday. (This is a combination of the details as they appear in Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).

At the rising of the sun, after the Sabbath on the first day of the week, the two Marys and Salome came to the tomb to keep vigil. They brought sweet-smelling spices they had purchased to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. Along the way, they wondered to themselves how they would roll the heavy stone away from the opening…

[They encounter the Risen Jesus]

They brought this news back to all those who had followed Him and were still mourning and weeping. They recounted for them—and others with them—everything they had experienced. The Lord’s emissaries heard their stories as fiction, a lie; they didn’t believe a word of it until Jesus appeared to them all as they sat at dinner that same evening (Resurrection Sunday).

 They were gathered together behind locked doors in fear that some of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were still searching for them. Out of nowhere, Jesus appeared in the center of the room and said, “May each one of you be at peace.”

What do we see the closest followers of Jesus doing?

• Keeping a vigil of mourning

• Planning how to perfume the body of the dead Messiah

• Hiding in fear

• Mourning and weeping

• Refusing to believe that Jesus was alive

It’s not a great resume builder, really. You would think that the biblical writers might want to put a better spin on what happened here. “As the disciples were praying and rejoicing over Jesus’ impending Resurrection, Mary returned and told them the good news. And they said, “Of course! We knew it all along!”

No, they were mourning the death of their long awaited Messiah. They thought he was gone. They thought he had failed – and in that failure shown that he was not, after all, the promised deliverer. As far as they knew, he was never coming back.

Crucifixion Fridays are hard, but Silent Saturdays may be even harder. Funeral days are hard, but they are at least full of adrenaline and crisis management and we are surrounded by support. But then the next day, when family drifts back home, and friends go back to their routine…that’s when Silent Saturday sets in. The loneliness and the emptiness…

It’s hard enough when it involves earthly things. But what about when our relationship with God is best described as a Silent Saturday kind of relationship? What if there is a spiritual loneliness and emptiness, a sense that God is aloof at best and gone at worst. What about the times when the heavens seem empty, and our prayers just seem to drift off into a void? What about the times when God is silent?

John Ortberg tells the following story:

“From the time she was a young girl, Agnes believed. Not just believed: she was on fire. She wanted to do great things for God. She said things such as she wanted to "love Jesus as he has never been loved before." Agnes had an undeniable calling. She wrote in her journal that "my soul at present is in perfect peace and joy." She experienced a union with God that was so deep and so continual that it was to her a rapture. She left her home. She became a missionary. She gave him everything. And then he left her.

At least that's how it felt to her. "Where is my faith?" She asked. "Deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness …. My God, how painful is this unknown pain … I have no faith." She struggled to pray: "I utter words of community prayers—and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give. But my prayer of union is not there any longer. I no longer pray."

She still worked, still served, still smiled. But she spoke of that smile as her mask, "a cloak that covers everything." This inner darkness continued on, year after year, with one brief respite, for nearly 50 years. God was just absent. Such was the secret pain of Agnes, who is better known as Mother Teresa.

So what do we do with the Silent Saturdays of our lives? I want to offer a number of suggestions not so that you will be immediately aware of God’s presence, but so you can be purposeful and grow from this kind of season of your life.

1. Be honest with God. The Bible gives us permission to voice our hearts during Silent Saturday. Look at a few of the Psalms:

• Psalm 6:2–3  “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul is greatly troubled, but you, O Lord, how long?”

• Psalm 13:1–2 “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”

• Psalm 90:13–14 “Return, O Lord. How long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.”

• “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)

A friend sent me a psalm of lament, full of anger and frustration, that she had written as part of her process of coming to grips with why God had allowed what He did in her life. It was raw and beautiful, and it was bold. Those are good things. God knows your heart and mind; he already knows your deepest internal struggles. Voice them. God is big. He can handle it.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw9Fp6XWq7w[/embed]

2. Keep the vigils

In the spite of the pain of their loss, the Marys did what they had always done, which was part of the ritual life of living in Jewish community. What Jewish people believed and what they did in almost every aspect of life were so intertwined that it’s hard to imagine that the vigil was not considered part of what God called them to do. There is something to be said for keeping the faith through an active commitment to obedience and faithfulness. I would like to offer four vigils I believe are helpful.

A. Pursue Church community. Don't forsake gathering together (Hebrews 10:25). The disciples did at least one thing right: they hung together in the midst of their grief. It’s important that we remain connected and not withdraw. In community, others came back and reported their experiences with the Risen Christ. Even in the midst of doubt, there was hope. We stay in community so that we can be challenged, encouraged, and held close. We need to feel the nearness of God’s people when God feels distant. We need the hope that lives in others when our sense of hope is gone.

B. Pray and Read Scripture. I don’t know that there is a formula for the best way to do this. There are all kinds of cool ideas about how to read through the Bible or how to pray. I don’t think they are bad; I just don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all kind of approach.

• Listen to or read the Bible.

• Pray alone - or get together with others.

• Pray for a block of time - or throughout the day.

• Sing. There are theologically rich songs that are good reminders of the hope we find in Jesus.

C. Dive Into Devotionals (podcasts, books, teachings). This is one way to experience the community of the church. It’s also a good way to find clarity about the Scriptures and to hear the testimonies of others. What did they do when they were in the First and Second days of their stories?

D. Practice Obedience. One of the greatest dangers we face is giving up and saying to God, “You know what? If I can’t feel your presence, I am going to live as if you’re not there.” We shake our fist at the heavens and begin to sow sinful things that can be forgiven and healed but will nonetheless be harvested (Galatians 6:7).

The Bible describes the way of obedience as “the path of life” (Psalm 16:11). There is something about faithful obedience that is not just healthy; it is wise and stabilizing. This, too, is sowing actions that you will one day reap – but this time it won’t be the wages of sin. It will be the fruit of righteousness.  Also, I believe obedience is one of the ways we are conformed to the image of Christ – and in that conforming – as we begin to see what it means to ‘be like Jesus’ -  we begin to appreciate the wisdom of the One who guides our life.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6csM0TLZIs[/embed]

3. Learn to wait

• Psalm 37:7  “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way.”

• Psalm 27:14  “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.”

I’m not good at waiting. I want problem resolution. Give me a task! Sometimes that is what God calls us to do, but many God does not work that way. I like what Jon Bloom wrote in an article entitled, “When God Is Silent.”

Why is it that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but “familiarity breeds contempt”? Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty? Why am I almost never satisfied with what I have, but always longing for more? Why can the thought of being denied a desire for marriage or children or freedom or some other dream create in us a desperation we previously didn’t have?

Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself? Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?

Do you see it? There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: Deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning that will know the joy of comfort (Matthew 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty that will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).

Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the Catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come...

It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the Well of the world to come.

Sometimes, the best way to hand over the weight of the world is to wait on Christ.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcRMNiZtj5s[/embed]

4. Don't confuse what you feel from what is real

I heard a wise man say once, “You will either judge truth by your feelings, or you will judge your feelings by what it true.” What is true is that God may feel absent, but He is not. God is with us always. Why does He feel absent? I don’t know. It could be that you are in rebellious sin. It could be that you are tired. It could be that God has removed the sense of His presence as part of transforming you into the image of Christ. It could be that you are distracted. I don’t know.

But I know that God is near and faithful no matter how we feel.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RL42uub19E[/embed]

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RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

• “Three Lessons to Learn When You’re Stuck in the Hallways of Life”  - Sarah Coleman


• “When God Seems Far Away”  - John Ortberg

• “When God Seems Silent” -  Jon Bloom

[1] I got this idea from a brilliant teaching called “Saturday: Living Between Crucifixion and Resurrection,” posted by Richmont Graduate University on youtube. I don’t know who the speaker was. You can access the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90EKNZPKCU

The Days We Mourn (Easter 2017)

The Bible is full of ‘three day stories”[1]:  Jonah; Joseph’s brothers in jail in Egypt; the plague of darkness in Egypt. When the Israelites left Egypt, they traveled three days into the desert before they found water; Rahab hid the spies for three days; plagues of judgment against Israel often lasted three days.

Jesus was in the tomb for three days.

On the third day is when the bad stuff ends. That’s the day we celebrate, and rightly so. But third day stories aren’t clear until the third day. On Day One and Day Two, it’s not yet clear how the story will end. The First day of Third Day story is often a brutal one.

It was the First Day -  Crucifixion Friday, or Good Friday -  that Jesus died.  His followers did not know this was a Third Day story. All they had on that Friday was the First Day. They had seen so many failed messiah’s by this point[2]. They did not understand the prophecy that pointed toward Jesus’ resurrection. They were afraid and in despair.

Crucifixion Friday reminds us that Jesus knows what it means that all of creation groans (Romans 8:22) and how the very land mourns (says Jeremiah 12:4). When the prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming Christ, he wrote, “Surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows; He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Jesus understands our First Days. His entrance into the human condition showed that God is not a distant, uncaring and cold God. God understands us.  

“God’s beloved Son, leaving the echoes of His cries upon the mountains and the traces of His weary feet upon the streets, shedding His tears over the tombs and His blood upon Golgotha, associating His life with our homes, and His corpse with our sepulchres, shows us how we, too, may be… sure of sympathy in heaven amid the deepest wrongs and sorrows of earth.” - Edward Thomson.

So today, we are going to begin our journey toward the Third Day - Resurrection Sunday – but settling into the reality of First Days in our lives, and the importance of clinging to a Savior who understands even the most terrifying and tragic days of our lives.

“The psalms of pain and protest shock Christians who are not used to this way of talking to God. Yet they have an explicit place in the New Testament. Jesus uses the phraseology of Psalms 6 and 42 in Gethsemane, and on the cross utters the extraordinary cry that opens Psalms 22. Nor does Jesus pray these prayers so that we might not have to do so, for a lament such as Psalm 44 appears on the lips of Paul (Romans 8:36). In the New Testament, believers grieve and protest. To refuse to do so is often to refuse to face our pains and our losses.” (John Goldingay)

In ancient Israel, mourning was a community event. Family and friends showed support by participating in the rituals of lament with the mourner (e. g. Job 2:12-13). To fail to show solidarity in such a situation was to deny the shared covenant. The lament was so formalized that Zechariah gives directions about how to do them in proper order. (12:11-14).  I think Nicholas Wolerstorff, in his book Lament for a Son, captures the reason why well.

“What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench.”

On Resurrection Sunday, we are going to talk about the primary reason Jesus died: to forgive our sins and save us from the penalty of eternal death. That will also be a part of this morning as well, but first we are going to focus on a different part of the story that the church has commemorated for 2,000 years (at least the more liturgical churches have). We are going to sit on the mourning bench with each other as we offer our suffering to a Savior who suffered and died so that we could live.

READER: As the soldiers led Jesus away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned for him. Jesus turned and said to them, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.’”  (Mark 15:1-15; Luke 23:13-28)

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining...  Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.” Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.”  (Matthew 27:45-50; Luke 23:44-47)

Pastor: Jesus entered a world that was broken, suffering, and full of pain. He grieved the loss of his friends; he wept for his people. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He entered into a lonesome, weary world in desperate need of the light of hope and peace to bring the promise of God's everlasting presence and love.

Pastor: God, you have given us reason to celebrate, but we often find the days cold and our hearts hard.  As we await our resurrection into the new life in the world to come, it’s sometimes hard for us to lift up our hearts. You understand the grief of this world; meet us in our aching hearts we pray. Hold as we walk through darkness.

Congregation: Help us. Embrace us. Heal us.

READER:  “He was despised and forsaken by men, this man of suffering, grief’s patient friend.
As if he was a person to avoid, we looked the other way; he was despised, forsaken, and we took no notice of him. Yet it was our suffering he carried, our pain and distress, our sickness-to-the-soul.


We thought that God had rejected him, but he was hurt because of us; he suffered for us. Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him. He endured the breaking that made us whole. His injuries became our healing. We all have wandered off, like shepherdless sheep, scattered by our aimless pursuits; The Eternal One laid on him, this silent sufferer, the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)

Pastor: Jesus knows the feelings of abandonment, anger, and loneliness we sometimes feel. Jesus knows the depths of our broken hearts, and He alone has the power to bring beauty from the ashes in our lives. We long for the day when His work will be completed in us and in a world that groans as it awaits redemption.  

Congregation: Meanwhile, we weep with those who weep, and we mourn with those who mourn.

READER: The Psalmist wrote in the 88th psalm: O Eternal One! O True God my Savior! I cry out to You all the time, under the sun and the moon. Let my voice reach You! Please listen to my prayers! My soul is deeply troubled, and my heart can’t bear the weight of this sorrow. I feel so close to death…

You crush me with Your anger.
You crash against me like the relentless, angry sea. Those whom I have known, who have been with me,
You have gathered like sheaves and cast to the four winds.
They can’t bear to look me in the eye, and they are horrified when they think of me.
 I am in a trap and cannot be free…

Are You the miracle-worker for the dead?
Will they rise from the dark shadows to worship You again? Will your great love be proclaimed in the grave or Your faithfulness be remembered in whispers like mists throughout the place of ruin? Are Your wonders known in the dominion of darkness,
or is Your righteousness recognized in a land where all is forgotten?

But I am calling out to You, Eternal One.
My prayers rise before You with every new sun! Why do You turn Your head
and brush me aside, O Eternal One?
 Why are You avoiding me… I am desperate. Your rage spills over me like rivers of fire; Your assaults have all but destroyed me…  You have taken from me the one I love and my friend; darkness is my closest friend.

PASTOR: In the midst of the brokenness of this world, we have reason to say, “Hallelujah.” Because even when we are tempted to give up, even when we have lost that which brings ‘life’ to our life, even when the comfort of our friends has brought us nothing but ashes, God does not abandon us.

READER: “At different times and in various ways, God’s voice came to our ancestors through the Hebrew prophets. But in these last days, God’s voice has come to us through His Son, the One who has been given dominion over all things and through whom all worlds were made.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Pastor: God of light and life, you speak even when we do not hear. You are present even when we do not sense you are near. In the midst of darkness and silence, we listen for your voice and long to feel your comforting grace.

Congregation: God of the desperate, draw near us as we draw near to you. Open our eyes so we can see you; open our ears so we can hear.

READER: The prophet Jeremiah wrote: “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick… For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there…?  O, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night…”  (Jeremiah 8:18,21-9:1)                    

Pastor: In this place, we join with the prophets in freely admitting our pain, our loss, our fear. Though the light of God’s mercy illuminates our tears, we mourn without shame. Here, among God’s people, we are welcome even if we're cynical, even if we're angry, even if we scoff at the mention of hope and meaning. Here we can bare our hearts to those who will help us to bear our burden.

Congregation: Here we, the followers of a weeping Savior, bear one another’s burdens.

Pastor: Here, in the company of those who follow the Prince of Peace, let us be at peace. 

Congregation: May we, the church, be a sanctuary of God’s peace for those in need of shelter.

Pastor: We will cast our sorrows upon Christ, for He cares for us.

READER: The Psalmist wrote:

“My soul is dry and thirsts for You, True God, as a deer thirsts for water.

I long for the True God who lives.
When can I stand before Him and feel His comfort? Right now I’m overwhelmed by my sorrow and pain;
I can’t stop feasting on my tears.
People crowd around me and say,
“Where is your True God whom you claim will save?” With a broken heart,
I remember times before
When I was with Your people. Those were better days. 

I used to lead them happily into the True God’s house,
Singing with joy, shouting thanksgivings with abandon,
joining the congregation in the celebration. Why am I so overwrought?
Why am I so disturbed?
Why can’t I just hope in God?
(Psalm 42:1-6)

READER: Though we are worn as we wait for all that is dead to be reborn, we can agree with what David wrote in Psalm 42: “ I will believe and praise the One who saves me and is my life… in the light of day, the Eternal shows me His love. When night settles in and all is dark, He keeps me company—His soothing song, a prayerful melody to the True God of my life.” (Psalm 42:7-8)

Pastor: As we lift our broken hands toward the only One who can heal us, we light the darkness of our memories with candles that help us to remember that though our grief is real, our hope burns brightly with the light of the True God of life.

The First Candle

We light our first candle to acknowledge the pain of loss: the loss of relationships, the loss of jobs, the loss of health. We take the pain of the past, offering it to God from whose nail-scarred hands we may receive the gift of peace. We light this candle for the light of love to illuminate that which was lost in the darkness of our history.

Congregation: Renew us, God of light and joy.

The Second Candle

We light the second candle to remember those who have died. We remember their name, their face, their voice, the memory that we carry with us. We remember the times we laughed, argued, loved, hugged, smiled, and wept. The valley of the shadow of death can seem relentless, so we light this candle to commemorate the memories of a life once shared, and to illuminate with comfort the path of those of us who mourn.

Congregation:  May the light of a dying and risen Savior’s eternal love surround us.

The Third Candle

We light the third candle to our attitudes, our mindset, our hidden, inner times of darkness.  We acknowledge the times of disbelief, anger, despair, and frustration, the times we have compromised our integrity and lost our innocence. We bring God’s pure light to the depth of our flawed mortality. With this light, we also remember the family and friends who have stood with us, and the Savior who is faithful even when we are not.

Congregation:  Let us remember that Christ brings the light of life.

The Fourth Candle

We light this candle to remember those who feel alone, who feel isolated from loved ones, far from home, far from friends, far from a God they believe is unconcerned with their suffering. We light this candle to remember that the God who guided His people through a wilderness with fire can illuminate the way of those captive to the darkness of loneliness and disillusionment.

Congregation:  May Jesus, who was despised and rejected, comfort the lonely and brokenhearted.

The Fifth Candle                                                                                                                           We light this candle to remember those who are in the midst of hardships that threaten to overwhelm them. For the poor, the persecuted, the hungry, the homeless, the sick. We lift up those who suffer the pain, indignity, and bewilderment that accompany a broken body, spirit or soul. We pray that God, who lit up the night to guide wise men to the healing Christ, will light the way today to a Risen Savior. 

Congregation: O God, light our path; bring hope to the hopeless; make us new.

The Sixth Candle

We light the sixth candle to remember our faith and the gift of hope. We remember that God promises those who love him a world with no more pain and suffering. We light a candle for courage in the darkness. We confront our sorrow, our loss, our confusion. With God’s Spirit and the presence of his people, we bring the light of comfort to each other, bearing each other’s burdens, and praying for hope in our broken world.

Congregation.  Let us remember the One who draws beauty from ashes, brings the truth, and offers us hope.

READER: The Apostle Paul wrote: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”  (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

Pastor: It is through the suffering of Christ that we find comfort in the midst of our suffering as well.  On the night Jesus offered himself up for us he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." When the supper was over he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  

Congregation: Because of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we have been delivered from the power of sin, death, and despair. In the light of Gods’ Word, the sacrifice of Christ, and the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, may we endure with hope and faith.

Pastor: It was in His parting sorrow that Jesus asked His disciples to remember Him. May we, the church, be united in the fellowship of his suffering so we can experience the power of his resurrection.

READER:  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’  And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’  (Revelation 21:1-5)

Pastor: In the promise of God’s never-ending love from which nothing can separate us, we claim peace. We long for the day when there shall be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more sickness, no more death. Even when we see only a glimmer, we know the light of your love is overcoming all darkness.

Congregation: Christ himself is with us.  He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Pastor: Hear the good news:  God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. One day, Christ who died and rose again will wipe all tears from our eyes. He will make all things new.

Congregation: All Honor and glory to the only One who can bring us peace.

Pastor: As we wait for Resurrection, we lift up our broken hearts. May the God of Comfort be with us.

Congregation: May the God of Resurrection be with us all. [3]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezmme0B2Awg[/embed]

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[1] I got this idea from a brilliant teaching called “Saturday: Living Between Crucifixion and Resurrection,” posted by Richmont Graduate University on youtube. You can access the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90EKNZPKCU

[2] http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12416-pseudo-messiahs

[3] NOTE: I had never written a liturgy or a lament before this one. I found four or five online, read them for a week, then wrote this one. In other words, I could not have written this without learning from others. I think one of those can be found at Blue Christmas Resources; another at A Service for Longest Night. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I found the rest of them. I tried hard not to plagiarize; I hope I succeeded.