The Problem… People!

Missio Dei—The Mission of God Part #1

The first step in our understanding of the mission of God is coming to grips with the problem.

Why is the world the way it is? Why is it so messed up? We all can see that there is something wrong. Tragedies and trauma, disasters and disease, war and waste, arrogance and abuse are commonplace. Some use the condition of the world as an argument against the existence of God. However, the very fact that we know something is wrong is perhaps a better argument for God than against him. The Bible teaches that God didn’t make the world the way it is now. When God made the world, he said it was “good” six times, and then, after making humans declared that it was “very good”—all in the first chapter of the Bible (Gen. 1). So, what happened to bring about such a drastic change?

The first people decided to trust their own senses more than the Creator’s loving command. As a result, they brought sin and death into the world, and their failure has echoed down through history like a bad rhyme or an alliterative sermon outline (e.g., Sin shames, Man blames, God flames and reclaims).

1) Sin shames us and enters through:

Wrong Teaching (v.1-5) Eve listened to the tempter's false teaching. She initially disagreed with it, but it began to ease her towards the place of deception through the nurturing of an inappropriate desire. The lie was couched in an indictment of the character of God’s love for them: “God is holding out on you.” The tempter’s appeal sought to activate in Eve a sense of pride and self-esteem, implying the ancient yet frighteningly contemporary, "You deserve better!" What can we do to avoid such wrong teaching in our lives?

• Know what God has said—spend enough time in the Scriptures to get the big picture of what God is like and what he has done—the enemy always wants to twist it.
• Don’t make stuff up (Pro. 30:6). Eve added the part about not touching the tree, probably as a human effort to contain desire. There is a big difference between what God said and what we say he said.
• Seek the answers you need through a relationship with the Lord himself, not through the addition of outside “technology.”

Wrong Trusting (v.5-6a) As Eve listened to the wrong teaching, she began to wrongly trust her increasingly deceived senses, rather than God's Word. So, we too become deceived when we begin to listen to the voice of temptation and begin to decide for ourselves what is "good for food", etc. Eve made the mistake of dwelling upon what God had expressly forbidden, rather than on the abundance and beauty of that which God had freely supplied. How often do we also miss "the way of escape" we have in our relationship with the Lord (1 Cor. 10:13)? James, in his epistle, describes the process of temptation, desire, sin, and death. As it is written, "each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full‑grown, gives birth to death."  (James 1:12-15) 

While we don’t know how long the process took, Eve came to trust in her own wisdom and discernment, of what was best for her life, rather than the loving command of her Creator, and Adam followed suit. Note the three steps in v. 6,

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

                                  and that it was a delight to the eyes,

                                  and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, 

she took of its fruit and ate, and

she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Wrong Taking (v. 6b) The woman’s misplaced trust led her to transgress the clear command of God, taking and eating the fruit in an effort to be like God. She quickly gave some to her husband so that he might share her "knowledge". How typical that is of human behavior; how quickly we seek others to share in our sin as if it would somehow make us feel less guilty. Adam was not blameless here, for he transgressed the command as well. What was the result?

Wrong (Fallen) Thinking (v. 7-10) While the wrong trust was also a type of wrong thinking, here we learn how sin immediately shamed them and tainted their reasoning. They now felt naked and ashamed of who they were. What God had made in his own image and had declared “very good,” they now saw apart from that relationship and were ashamed. Secondly, they attempted to hide their nakedness with fig leaves, a poor substitute for the garment of innocence. They also became afraid of God and tried in vain to hide from his presence. Sin always affects how we think about God. How quickly they forgot that God created everything and that he was everywhere that his creation was, maintaining and caring for it. Psalm 139 poetically explores the truth that nothing is hidden from God, yet in their new “knowledge,” they forget that and try to hide from Him.

One time when I was a teenager, my brother and I had friends over to spend the night. We were playing Risk. A heating duct connected the basement with my parents’ room, and our noise was keeping my dad awake. We had been told to turn the lights out and go to sleep several times. However, we thought we could hide the fact that we were still up (after all, we only had one small table lamp on) until the door burst open and there stood my dad, and he looked mad! He began, "What are you..." but in mid-sentence, one of my friends turned out the table lamp in hopes that the dark would hide us. There was a pause, then my dad calmly turned on the overhead light and finished his sentence, "What are you still doing up? Get to bed NOW!" While our situation was humorous, the situation in the Garden of Eden was not. That first sin and all sins since bring at least four unwanted things into our lives:

• Sin brings shame to our nakedness (v.7 contrasts 2:25 "unashamed"). It damages our horizontal relationships with others and ourselves and leads us to hide behind social masks, defense mechanisms, and accusations of the other.
• Sin brings a belated fear of God (not the right kind) (v.10). It damages our vertical relationship with God and produces a flight response—a shrinking back from the Lord instead of desiring to please the One who loves us.
• Sin brings a distorted perspective (v.10). We think we can hide from God. Our understanding of the goodness, power, and scope of God’s presence is vastly diminished. We—in Adam and Eve—bought the serpent's proposition of enlightenment without relationship and found out that in a far more pervasive way, we became blind. We still deceive ourselves on this point. The more we think that we can see, and have no need for a relationship with God to make sense of it, the more we prove we are blind (See Rev. 3:17-20).
• Sin brings guilt and death (Gen. 2:17; Romans 6:23) “for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die” ...wages of sin is death.

2) Man blames others (v.11-13)

A brother in the church where I used to serve was a police chief, and he told me a bit about the interrogation process of a suspect. There are three stages a person goes through:

• Denial: hiding from the truth (and God), or running, taking no responsibility for their actions. Martin Luther's "Table Talk" told the story of an officer in the Turkish War who told his men that if they died in battle, they would sup with Christ in Paradise. During the battle, the officer fled. When asked later why he did not wish to “sup with Christ”, he said that he was fasting that day. This is an illustration of denial.
• Minimization: In this stage, the suspect admits some guilt but not all; they tend to blame others or to compare themselves favorably with any others involved. Both men and women are given to such minimization; however, there are differences. Men seem to minimize how much they did, giving only the barest details, while women often minimize their responsibility for the act in the sense of “cause and effect.” The great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is credited with writing, "It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."
• Point of Surrender: In this stage, the suspect finally gives a full confession and admission of guilt.

Mankind, since that first sin, always tried to rationalize or minimize his sin. When faced with the act that had been committed, God asked a couple of simple follow-up questions: “Who told you?” And, “Have you eaten?” How do Adam and Eve respond? Let’s follow the blame train…

• The man blames the woman (v.12) “The woman…” Can you imagine Adam pointing to Eve as he blames her? However, he didn’t stop there but blamed God.
• The man indicts God (v.12) "the woman whom YOU gave to be with me...". Can you see Adam now, pointing his finger at God and then perhaps realizing that such a strategy would not work and redirecting his blame toward the woman?
• The man again blames the woman "...SHE gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Note that the man minimized his involvement by relating the minimum amount of detail. As I picture it, God then moved on to face the woman, and Adam perhaps breathed easier.
• The woman blamed the serpent (v.13): "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She doesn’t deny her involvement but minimizes her responsibility by emphasizing the serpent’s deception. God then moved on to face the serpent, and the woman perhaps breathed easier.
• The serpent, in utter rebellion to God, said nothing.

The first man tried to hide his sin with fig leaves, excuses, and blaming others. In many ways, we still try to do the same thing today. We are quick to place the blame for our sin—and our situation—on others, on our parents, or on our own "low self-esteem," but these excuses have no power with God. The Scripture says that,

"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy."  (Proverbs 28:13) 

3) God flames excuses & reclaims His people (v.14-24)

God, for all his mercy and love, doesn’t like excuses—because they keep us from being set free from our sin and having our relationship with God restored. He doesn’t want our self-deception to come between us. So, when I say “God flames,” I am speaking not only of his righteous wrath at sin but how, in persistent love, he shoots all our feeble excuses down in "flames". He burns up minimization so that, as a gift of his mercy, we might come to confess our guilt and return to him in relational repentance. In this light, his judgment is not merely just; it is kind.

God cursed the serpent (v.14,15). God's punishment of the serpent was in a way that was certainly symbolic of the way in which he had spiritually affected man. The serpent had promised an exalted life but brought spiritual separation, humiliation, and death. God’s judgment upon him fit the crime— "an eye for an eye," so to speak.

God judged the woman (v.16). After he finished with the serpent, we can picture God turning to the woman and pronouncing judgment upon her, yet it is a gracious judgment, for she did not immediately die. Her punishment was also according to her crime. She was now subject to the rule of her husband, no more to lead into sin, and as her pride had led her into sin, so the bearing of children was to become painful (due perhaps to the large head of the child?). Yet there was the hope of a victorious redeemer in the future.

I imagine that at this moment, Adam started to sweat again as he sensed God's wrath would soon turn upon him, and man hasn't stopped sweating since.

God judged the man (v.17-19). The man did not escape the wages of his own sin, for his life was burdened with toil and frustration. Just as he had surrendered his sovereignty to be ruled by others, now creation itself was in rebellion to his rule. This constant struggle is a reminder to man of what he had lost and of his need for a Savior.

Yet God is merciful, and he reclaimed his people. Even at that moment, at the fall of humanity, God graciously began the redemptive process rather than abandoning us to the death that we deserved.

Sin can never be explained away, but guilt can be removed.

There is always a penalty for going rogue. This takes the form of the judgment already described in v.14-19. It highlights that there is a need for a redeemer.  This redeemer is promised in Gen. 3:15 and is progressively revealed through the rest of the OT until seen fully in Jesus Christ.

We see, right at the beginning, that redemption (reclamation) comes through sacrifice (v.21). Where did the “clothes of skins” come from? God sacrificed animals to clothe them, but animal sacrifice just covered sin, and that only temporarily. Jesus Christ is the one who removes the stain of sin completely and brings a robe of righteousness. The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament looked forward to Christ’s death for us.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  (Romans 5:8)

Another lesson that we can learn from this passage is that discipline involves consequences: (v. 22-24).

           Then the LORD God said,

“Behold, the man has become like one of us

                                             in knowing good and evil.

Now, lest he reach out his hand

                                     and take also of the tree of life and eat,

                                                                          and live forever—”

     therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden

to work the ground from which he was taken.

      He drove out the man,   and to the east of the garden of Eden

      he placed the cherubim and

                             a flaming sword that turned every way

                                 to guard the way to the tree of life.

Perhaps we don't often think about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as an act of mercy, but it was.  It would have been a terrible curse for them to eat of the tree of life and live forever in their fallen, sinful, separated state. Our loving God desires that we live forever in righteousness, which we receive only through Jesus Christ.  When we humble ourselves and come to the Lord in confession and repentance, we are forgiven (1 John 1:9). If we are forgiven, then we are not cursed to live forever in our fallen condition. There are loving (though usually unpleasant) consequences we experience when we sin.  God, in his love for us, often allows us to experience the consequences of our sins so that we might learn the truth of Proverbs 13:15, "Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard." (KJV)

Scripture says that God's discipline is never pleasant at the time, but that in the end, our coming to repentance is the result of God's love and kindness.  The grace that God showed to mankind in the Garden of Eden is still available today.  As it is written, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23)

God desires that we might come to our senses and repent.  He is extremely patient and doesn't want anyone to perish, yet we are not to test the Lord God.  We cannot put off dealing with any sin that might be in our lives, even if our circumstances seem to be just fine—it could start to "rain" at any time.  We read in Isaiah 53:6 that,

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Because our iniquity has been laid upon Jesus Christ, I pray that none of us fail to receive the forgiveness that has been offered.  Let what Peter wrote be true of us,

"For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2:25)

Jesus Christ is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Shepherd.  He comes to seek and save those who are lost. Do you see him?

“For This Purpose…”

Encountering The Risen Christ in the Crisis of our Disappointment

In the last several weeks we have been following Jesus’ journey from Galilee in the northern part of Israel south to Jericho and then West to Jerusalem that one final time. As we have seen in recent posts, Jesus was purposeful in preparing his followers for his coming death and resurrection. Today as we reflect on and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we will use this concept of “purpose” to walk through not only Jesus’ death and resurrection, but the crisis of disappointment faced by his disciples—specifically the two who were walking to Emmaus that Sunday morning.

1) A Purposeful Life—To Glorify/Reveal the Father (John 12:27-33)

His very life was filled with purpose—from the 200+ Old Testament prophecies that revealed centuries in advance much about his birth, life, suffering, and death, to the prophecies given by faithful men and women surrounding his birth (Anna, Simeon, etc.). His life and ministry was so tied to what theologians call the Missio Dei (the Mission of God) that Jesus himself in John 5:30 said, “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” And again, in John 8:28-29,

 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up [i.e., crucified] the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

Yet, for all this, the disciples initially misunderstood the trajectory of his mission. Jesus however knew full well what he was facing, and while it troubled him, it did not turn him from his mission. Let’s take a look at John 12:27-33!

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say?

‘Father, save me from this hour’?

                       But for this purpose

         I have come to this hour.

 Father, glorify your name.” 

Then a voice came from heaven:

 “I have glorified it, and

  I    will glorify it again.” 

The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered.

       Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 

    Now is the judgment of this world;

    now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 

    And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 

He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 

Jesus knew his purpose—He wasn’t confused (v. 27, 32).

“For this purpose I have come to this hour” is a precise and profound statement. We might say, “I am here for a reason”, but rarely do we know with enough certainty to say, “for this reason” much less, “at this very moment”! However, Jesus’ life was not spent wandering about with a vague sense of his messianic calling which only became clear near the end. As God the Son he knew it before the foundation of the world when we were chosen in him (Eph. 1:3-4)! As the Son of Man we see him proclaiming knowledge of his purpose when he was 12 years old in the temple, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:9 NKJV).

Jesus’ purpose was compassionate—he wasn’t co-opted (Luke 4:42-44).

Early in his ministry, the people of Capernaum (his adopted hometown) came to think of Jesus as their own local teacher/healer and sought to keep him to themselves. However, Jesus purpose compassionately extended to a much larger “target audience” than that.

And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place.

And the people sought him and came to him,

   and would have kept him from leaving them,

                                          but he said to them, 

“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God

                        to the other towns as well;

                                      for I was sent for this purpose.” 

⁴⁴ And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:42-44)

Jesus was committed to his purpose—no emotional crisis would deter him (v.27).

We see this in his admission of emotional pain in, “Now is my soul troubled” (v.27) and later in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” (Matt. 26:38) Nevertheless we see that, “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’” (v. 39) It seems only too natural for us to switch into fight or flight mode when we experience our own emotional pain, yet Jesus did not defend himself. Instead he extended supernatural forgiveness to his persecutors—even while nailed to a cross. Such abundant grace, even in death, convinced the Roman centurion supervising the execution, “And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:39)

Jesus’ purpose was to reveal the truth—not to start a war (John 18:36-38). 
When Jesus was on trial before Pontus Pilate, the Roman governor, Pilate asked Jesus if he was “the King of the Jews” and “What have you done?” This famous dialogue goes like this,

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of    this world.

                          If my kingdom were of     this world, 

                             my servants would have been fighting,

                                   that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

                       But my kingdom is not from the world.” 

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

Jesus answered,     “You say that I am a king. 

 For this purpose I was born and

  for this purpose I have come into the world—

                                 to bear witness to the truth. 

                               Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 

        Pilate said to him,                  “What is truth?”

What Pilate didn’t understand was that “truth” was more than an abstract philosophical concept. As a result, Pilate asked the wrong question. Instead of asking, “What is truth?” he should have asked, “Who is truth?” Even so, Pilate pronounced him innocent but let him be killed anyway. That was Friday. This is Sunday and we join the story in progress as late in the afternoon two disciples are on the road walking the seven miles to Emmaus.

2) The Crisis of Disappointment (Luke 24:13-24).
Easter may catch us in the crisis of our own disappointments just as it did the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Last week I mentioned the “troubling expectations” of the people in Jerusalem that week. Their ideas of what Jesus had come to do were inaccurate at best. And now, with Jesus dead and in the grave for three days it seems that the disappointment was overwhelming for these two men. We don’t know why they headed to Emmaus but put in the same situation, I would want to get away from the site of such a terrible injustice and might prefer to process my loss “on the road”.

Disappointment must be processed our it will process us. I recently spoke with a long-time supervisor of pastors and he said that he had found that the moral and ethical failures of those in church leadership almost always are related to…

1. Unresolved personal betrayal
2. Unresolved injustice
3. Unfulfilled expectations (e.g., broken promises)

These two disciples were not sinning by leaving Jerusalem, but it appears that they were separating themselves from the community—at least temporarily. In the wake of the betrayal by Judas, grave injustice at the hands of Jewish and Roman leaders, and their own unfulfilled expectations, what did these guys do? They split town. Were they going home or did they just need to get away after such a tragic loss? We don’t know for sure. We do know that God loved them too much to let them go.

Jesus, even as a child newly come into the world, it was for a purpose. Each year we

celebrate Christmas—the incarnation—with a Christmas tree; symbolic of all we have in Christ. But what we have can never be separated from the cross of Christ—our new name, character, purpose, family—see it coming from God’s love poured out at the cross. Now picture the same tree, with all of its lights and ornaments removed, and its beautiful branches pruned off. Perhaps that is how we feel today—ugly, stripped, without hope, good only for the fire. Perhaps that was how the two disciples felt. Let’s consider their story, their crisis of disappointment, and find hope for our own!

Luke 24:13-24 

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus,

                                                             about seven miles from Jerusalem, 

   and they were talking with each other

                            about all these things that had happened. 

While they were talking and discussing together,

    Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 

    But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 

And he said to them, 

        “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” 

And they stood still, looking sad. 

Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

And he said to them, “What things?”

And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 

They were absolutely stunned that there was someone who wasn’t feeling the way that they were feeling. There is currently a television commercial that makes use of the improvisational acting phrase, “Yes, and…” as a way to continue the story. In this biblical narrative, Jesus basically answered their question with a “Yes, and…” when he asked, “What things?” They then tell about the death of Christ and their own unfulfilled expectation, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (v.21) Apparently they didn’t want to stop with the “But we had hoped” point and in v. 22 they themselves used the “Yes, and…” phrase to segue into what was happening that very day.

They didn’t get it. Their world had caved in, their expectations crushed, & their hearts grieved. Even though things were happening in accordance with Jesus’ predictions they still didn’t understand. But God didn’t leave them there in their crisis. In our culture, we often forget about the caring will of the Father and must train our eyes to see his therapeutic love!

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing

                   of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father,

                         that everyone who looks on the Son

                                                and believes in him 

                        should have eternal life,

                              and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:39-40)

In this case, the story is not over. Jesus came after them, like a shepherd seeking his lost sheep (Luke 15:4) and gently, relationally, Jesus begins to roll away the stone of their doubt.

3) The Stone of Their Doubt Was Rolled Way (Luke 24:25-34)

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and

                                   slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things

                                                                  and enter into his glory?”

   And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,

             he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going.

             He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying,

“Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.”

        So he went in to stay with them. 

   When he was at table with them,

              he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 

And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

And       he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us

    while he talked to us on the road,

    while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 

   And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.

   And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 

        saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 

Then they told what had happened on the road,

        and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

While much could be said about this narrative, let me just make a few simple observations about how Jesus rolled their doubts away, that first Easter Sunday:

• He listened to their story of disappointment (v. 19-24)
• He reminded them of Jesus’ purpose (v. 25-26)
• He opened the Scriptures (v. 27, 32) to show why it was necessary for the Christ to die.
• He opened their eyes (v.31) to see him for who he was. 
• He kindled their hearts to share the good news. (v.32-35)
• He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (v.44-45)

"Opening" is a key theme in this passage. The Greek word translated “opened” is dianoigō a strengthened form of anoigo. It occurs eight times in the New Testament, six of which are found in Luke and three of them are here. I might add that belief is not narrow-minded, but disappointment can be very limiting. Jesus opened the Scriptures, their eyes were opened, and he also opened their minds to understand. I don’t know about you, but in my own crises of disappointment, I depend on the Holy Spirit to lead me out of the cave of my own unmet expectations. On that road to Emmaus, what was dark and confining was transformed into a life of renewed hope and purpose. These two disciples, Cleopas and the other guy (or gal), could not help but run and tell the others. They couldn’t keep the good news to themselves. The lifting of their disappointment also appears to have changed their heart towards the community. What is it in our lives that we can’t help but talk about? The answer is quite revealing.

4) “Thus it is written”: In His Purpose, We Find Our Own! (Luke 24:35-49)

 As they were talking about these things, 

Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 

 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 

 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 

                         See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. 

Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones

              as you see that I have.” 

 And when he had said this, 

                   he showed them his hands and his feet. 

And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, 

           he said to them, 

              “Have you anything here to eat?” 

 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

 Then he said to them, 

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, 

          that everything written about me in the Law of Moses

                                                           and the Prophets

                                                           and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 

 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 

        and said to them, 

                  “Thus it is written, that

                                           the Christ should suffer

                               and on the third day rise from the dead, 

             and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed 

                          in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 

 You are witnesses of these things. 

 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

             But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

What had been written about Christ that “must be fulfilled”? First, that he would suffer and die and then be raised from the dead on the third day. Second, that the compassionate proclamation of the Gospel would be made to all nations. Thirdly, to fulfill this, Jesus called his followers (and us) into his purpose as the mantle was passed—“you are witnesses of these things.” Finally, Jesus was sending the promise of the Father— the Holy Spirit to not merely empower them and send them as he had been sent, but to connect them relationally to the love of the Father. This should sound familiar. Jesus invites us to share in his purpose. We don’t have to wonder why we are here. We are “witnesses of these things” and are commissioned to be a part of the compassionate proclamation of the Father’s love.

However, we may question our ability to be a part of such a wonderful cause. What if we have really made a mess of our life? Are we still included in this purpose? The answer is the same for all of us. We are qualified by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone. In addition, we have the example of Saul of Tarsus (aka Paul) who in his ISIS-like fervor to wipe out Christians was confronted by the risen Christ (Acts 9) and transformed into the great apostle of the faith. As he told it in his own words, in Acts 26:14-18,

Paul on Road (Ely Cathedral)

And when we had all fallen to the ground,

I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 

‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

             It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 

And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

                               And the Lord said,

‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 

               But rise and stand upon your feet,

for I have appeared to you for this purpose,

                                to appoint you as a servant and witness

                                to the things in which you have seen me and

                                to those in which I will appear to you, 

                    delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—

to whom I am sending you to open their eyes,

                          so that they may turn from darkness to light

                                                      and from the power of Satan to God,

                              that they may receive forgiveness of sins

                               and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Is It Not Necessary?

He came that we might believe in him and might have life in his name.

But we must respond to his love with our trust in him as our risen Lord. He is still seeking us--even on the road from our greatest disappointments. Will we tell him our story and listen to his answer?

Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? What had we hoped? It is important to realize that he cannot be merely a prophet or a good moral teacher for he claimed to be Lord. If he is not who he said he was then either…

• he knew that he wasn’t Lord and is thus a Liar, or
• he didn’t know that he wasn’t Lord and is thus a Lunatic.

There really is no middle ground. Will we allow him to open to us the scriptures that speak about him, to open our eyes to see him as he really is, to open our minds to understand, and finally to kindle our cold hearts to tell others what he has done for us?

I pray that we will do so today.