"I Commit My Spirit"; Luke 23:46, Psalm 31

 

“I commit my Spirit into Your hands.”  These are dying words.  They are literally the dying words of Jesus—His last statement from the cross.  These are the dying words of Stephen, the first martyr, who in his own death, mirrored Jesus in all of his words and actions including interceding for forgiveness for his murderers.  These are words of total surrender to and trust in God the Father.  But one doesn’t have to wait until one is dying to utter these words.  These words were first spoken by David in a psalm he gave to his choir director so that it could be performed for corporate worship.  They came from a personal place in his own experience but can be used by anyone.  These are words that we can use as an expression of our own trust in God.

            The psalms are the prayerbook of the Hebrew people.  Both Jesus and Stephen would have grown up singing and reciting Psalm 31.  Think of how many hymns you know by heart.  Jesus and Stephen would have been able to recall these words and apply then to their situation. 

As David wrote these words for the choir director, it’s clear he was thinking back on his own life when he had been in a dire situation, one in which he didn’t know if he would live or die.  He did live, and so the psalm ends in praise to God for preserving him and being his refuge.  But the promise of preservation is for all of God’s people.  We might be saved like David was, able to live many years, or we might lose our lives like Stephen, but that doesn’t mean God does not preserve us, for we have been given eternal life.

The Brief Statement of Faith of the PC(USA) begins, “In life and in death, we belong to only comfort in life and in death?  The answer is, “That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.  He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.  He also watches over me in such a way that not a hear can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.  In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.  Because I belong to him, Christ, by His holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.  “I commit my Spirit” ought to be our response to the fact that in life and in death, we belong to God and in response for all that Jesus has accomplished for us.  Biblical scholar J. Clinton McCann Jr says, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit” can be said as, “I turn my life over to you.”  Our lives already belong to God, but committing our spirit to God shows that we acknowledge this fact, and both willingly and with hope surrender ourselves to God. 

Unlike us, Jesus was fully in charge of His own death.  He had told Pilate that Pilate couldn’t take His life unless He, Jesus, permitted it.  Jesus had preached as recorded in John 10 how He lay down His own life only to take it up again, and “No one takes it from Me, but I law it down on my own initiative.  I lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.  This commandment I received from My Father.”  When Jesus said, Father, into your hands I commit My Spirit,” He was reiterating that He was surrendering His life to the Father.  The Romans and the Jewish leaders were only the means by which Jesus died. But they were not in control of Jesus’s death any more or any less than you and I were.  Jesus’s last breath was His to surrender.  Jesus died on purpose with purpose.  He died to accomplish all those things stated in that first answer to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism.   

The last words that Jesus spoke before His death were not the first time that He had committed His spirit into the Father’s hands.  From the time He entered humanity, Jesus submitted Himself to the Father.  He constantly sought the Father’s will and obeyed it.  He lived in the Father’s hands and He died in the Father’s hands.  His life is a model for us that we can make the same commitment any and each day of our lives. 

The sentence “Into your hands I commit my spirit” is not the only forshadowing of Jesus’s life we see in the psalm.  David speaks of being falsely accused.  Jesus had been falsely accused of blasphemy.  The psalm says, “My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and body.”  Jesus was the “Man of Sorrows.”  But unlike the psalmist, it was not His iniquity that caused His pain, but ours.  The psalmist speaks of being rejected by and repulsive to his friends and neighbors.  With the exception of John and some of the women, the disciples fled when Jesus was arrested.  But the psalmist also confesses, “My times are in your hands.”  And at the beginning of each stanza confesses that he trusts in God.  God orders everything from our births to our deaths to everything in between—times of abundance and times of scarcity, times of doubt and times of surety, times of hardship and times of ease.  The writer of Ecclesiastes words it, “To everything there is season:  a time and a purpose under heaven.”  In life and in death, we belong to God. 

What about you?  Do you commit your life into the Father’s hands in times of affliction?  What about all the time?  Everyday?  With every moment of your life?  Is Jesus truly Lord of your life?  I see people who claim to love Jesus, but they really haven’t fully committed themselves into the Father’s hands.  The Bible study group is working on Lesson 4 in our study, which looks at the expectation of suffering in the life of a disciple.  It is far more normal and to be expected that one who is really committed to following Jesus will suffer.  Even in our world today, far more believers are persecuted for their faith than not.  One of the passages we are looking at is I Peter 4.  The chapter ends with verse 19 which says, “Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.”

A test of whether or not we have committed our souls to God is will we do the right thing even when it costs us dearly. 

            Committing our spirits into God’s hands doesn’t mean all of our problems will go away. As Craig Broyles writes, “God does not automatically or instantaneously solve problems.”  However, not submitting to Christ’s Lordship doesn’t mean that we will have less problems. In fact, I guarantee it will mean more because you will be working against the Holy Spirit instead of in cooperation with the Spirit.  Have you ever thought of your problems as God’s problems to fix?  David did.  He didn’t blame God for his problems in this psalm, but he does expect God to do something about them.  He knows his problems are way too big for him to solve on his own.  He ask God more than once to “deliver me,” “rescue me quickly,” “save me,” “don’t let me be put to shame,” “make your face shine upon your servant,” (that’s a prayer for God’s blessing and favor), “let the wicked be put to shame,” “let the lying lips be silent.”  All of these are requests for God to solve his problems.  Committing our lives into the Father’s hands is “letting go and letting God be God.”

               Despite all the hardships and suffering, God is good and has great goodness stored up for those who fear Him, those who commit their spirits into His hands.  The apostle Paul considered all of his many sufferings as “light and momentary afflictions” compared to the eternal weight of glory he would experience.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “If a son asks his father for bread, will the dad give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a scorpion?  If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”  God has good things to give us.  When you worry about what God might take away and use it as an excuse to not surrender to God, you miss out on all the wonderful things God would have for you.  It is God who wants the best for us.  It is the world that harms and takes away, and it is the devil who comes to “steal, kill and destroy.”  God is worthy of our trust.  Jesus is worthy of our total devotion.  Will you like Jesus, David, Stephen, Peter, and Paul and so many others “commit your spirit into His hands?”

Behind the Curtain; Luke 23:45b, Hebrews 9-10

 

We use curtains to hide things.  Shower curtains maintain our privacy as well as keep the water from getting all over the floor.  Window curtains keep people from looking into our houses.  I used to watch the Price is Right when I was younger.  Would pulling back the curtain reveal a great prize, like a new car or trip or an okay prize like a small kitchen appliance?  The climax of the Wizard of Oz occurs when Dorothy and her companions finally get to Oz to meet the wizard, and Toto, the dog, being intuitive as pets are, pulls back the curtain to expose a man using special effects.  While clever, the man has no magical powers or real knowledge of how to get Dorothy back home.  For years, the curtain protected the wizard, but now all was exposed.  He was just a power-hungry individual engaged in manipulation.  Curtains can conceal something wonderful or something shameful, and sometimes the difference is in perspective.  In our Scripture readings today, we hear about the curtain in the temple, the one that separate the Holy of Holies from the inner court.  Upon Jesus’s death, that curtain was not simply pulled back, it was torn in two from top to bottom.  Everything behind the curtain was exposed.  For some it was shameful, for others, it reveals wonderful things. 

            The shame hidden behind the temple curtain was fake worship.  In the video clip, you saw the high priest’s reaction to the tearing of the veil.  The Jewish leaders are devastated.  They cannot pretend to offer sacrifices anymore.  The sham worship they had been doing for hundreds of years was exposed.  There was no Ark of the Covenant.  What you saw cracked inside the Holy of Holies was a stone altar.  I don’t know if they put a stone altar in there or if it was a somewhat empty space, but what was not there was the Ark of the Covenant.  It had been taken in the 6^th Century BC.  The Coptic Orthodox Church of Ethiopia claims to have it at the Church in Axum, and maybe they really do.  But since they claim to have had it for 3000 years, I seriously doubt it. 

            There’s nothing in Scripture to say that the temple itself was torn in two like the movie.  Presumably. they made another curtain and restarted their fake worship for a few more decades, but the tearing of the veil also foreshadowed that the sham worship would be ended once and for all when the temple would be destroyed in 70 AD. 

            Gibson got it wrong in showing the veil being torn from the bottom to the top, which is what you might expect if it was the earthquake that caused it, but top to bottom shows that this rending of the curtain is God’s intentional act.  In the negative sense, it symbolized the departure of the glory of God from the Temple.  I Samuel 4 tells the story of the Philistines attacking Israel and stealing the Ark of the Covenant.  In the process, the sons of Eli the priest, Hophni and Phineas, are killed, and Eli himself dies upon hearing the news that his sons are dead and the Ark has been taken.  Phineas’s wife, who is very pregnant, goes into labor at the news, and dies shortly after the traumatic birth, the midwives try to encourage her by saying she has delivered a boy, boy, but she names the child, “Ichabod,” which means “the glory has departed,” saying that the glory of God has been removed from Israel—no ark, no glory.  And the Jews had felt abandoned by God.  They hadn’t seen that glory in a long time, though the priest did stay alive from year to year, giving them hope, and yet, we know God was still working and answering prayers.  Just in the offering of incense, not even in the Holy of Holies, but just outside of it, Zechariah learned that his prayers for a child had indeed been heard, and not only that, all the cries for a Messiah were about to be answered with the birth of Jesus. 

            And so the tearing of the curtain also symbolizes good news.  We hear again in our Hebrews text how the Holy of Holies could only be entered once a year and only by the high priest.  This was where the presence of God presumably dwelt, and literally did many times as recorded in the Old Testament.  But the tearing of the veil showed that the presence of God was not limited to time or space or a particular person, but everyone could now have access to the God’s presence.  God is not hidden away, but accessible to anyone.  The accessibility comes through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. 

            There’s no more need for a Temple, no more need for sacrifices.  Jesus offered Himself once for all.  Christ is the high priest of a tabernacle not made by human hands, one that is far superior to Solomon’s or Herod’s temple.  And He didn’t offer the blood of animals, but He offered His own blood.  We don’t have to worry from year to year if our sins will be forgiven; we have been forgiven and are being forgiven.  The prize on the other side of the torn curtain is eternal life in Christ.  The last verse of Hebrew 9 contains the promise that Christ will appear a second tie for salvation for those who eagerly await Him.  He won’t have to pay for sin again because that’s already been done. 

            There were other sacrifices besides the once-a-year atonement sacrifice that involved putting blood on the Ark of the Covenant.  There were individual guilt offerings.  There were peace offerings, and there were thank offerings.  On the cross, Jesus not only paid for our sins, but for our guilt and shame.  Those are removed.  Through His blood, Jesus has made peace between us and God.  As a thank offering Jesus shows us that everything good comes from God.  In return, we offer our thanks and praises to God as offerings, and we offer ourselves as living sacrifices in thanks to God. Jesus truly is the once for all sacrifice.   

Notice there’s nothing about the need for an earthly temple to be established before Christ returns.  Rather, our text says that all those things from the beginning were mere shadows of what was to come.  Anyone saying that the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt before Christ can return is at best grossly misinterpreting the book of Daniel.  Herod’s temple was the 3^rd physical temple.  The second temple was rebuilt by the exiles who returned to Jerusalem.  The temple that matters now is the one not built by human hands, which we are told is the Church—the people who follow Christ are the temple of God, and each one of us is a temple of God.  I want to read just a little more from Hebrews 10 beginning in 19:  

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy  Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Here we are told that the veil that was torn was Jesus’s own flesh.  And because of what Christ did, we can confidently enter in to the most holy place, the presence of God.  We can have assurance that our hearts are sprinkled and our bodies washed with pure water.  This latter is a reference to baptism, which signifies our entrance into the church.  We have assurance of our forgiveness, and we are called to encourage each other to love and good deeds.  No longer are our works dead, but profitable.  And we are called to continue to meet together as His Church.  If we want to hasten the day of Christ’s coming, we are to live as the writer of the Hebrews tells us and as Peter tells us to in 2 Peter 3:11 in “holy conduct and godliness.”  Peter also tells us that the reason Christ hasn’t returned yet is because the Lord is patiently waiting for people to come to repentance.  Jesus Himself said that He will not return until “this gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the earth.”  There are still people who need to hear the good news of the kingdom.  Believe it or not, some of them are right here in our town.  And there are a lot of people groups in the world who still have never heard.  We need to pray, as Jesus commanded, that “the Lord of the harvest would send more laborers.”  

Friends the curtain is gone!  We have full access to God in Jesus Christ and access to all of God’s blessings.  We have assurance that our sins are forgiven, that our prayers are heard and will be answered.  We have assurance of eternal life.  We offer worship pleasing to God.  We have the best prize package!  And the Man behind the curtain is no scam artist, but Jesus Christ—God in flesh, who is our High Priest forever. 

Finding Your Identity; Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13

 To listen, click here.

The Brightest and Darkest Moments; Luke 9:28-36, Luke 23:44-45a

 

Think of the brightest moment in your life—a time of happiness, wonder, and joy.  What was it?....Now think of the darkest moment in your life—a time of great pain, grief, maybe a tragedy you would rather forget.  Maybe you even asked or cried out, “Where are you, God?”  Was Jesus in both of those moments?  Did He share in your joy?  Did He share in your sufferings?  Today we look at the brightest and darkest moments in Jesus’s life—His transfiguration, and his crucifixion. 

            The Transfiguration was literally the brightest day for Jesus.  He appeared in light as light.  Luke describes his clothing as flashing like lightening.  Jesus appeared in all His heavenly glory, that which was His from before time, and that which He has now.  Jesus was being honored by God the Father.  And yet, even in this brightest moment, there was talk of darkness ahead.  Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are having a conversation about “Jesus’s departure” “He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.  That’s a nice way of saying Jesus’s death.  We aren’t giving any details about the conversation, but it was something Peter, James, and John were able to hear, although they do not participate in it.  We are only told that towards the end of the conversation, Peter interrupted to say that they could build tabernacles for Jesus and the two prophets.  Luke tells us that they had been sleepy before this, and it was the light that brought them to their senses.  The other two gospels emphasize how terrified they were.  While this was a bright day for Jesus, the disciples were overwhelmed and scared.  God has to speak in a cloud to tell them to PAY ATTENTION!  Something important and serious is happening and going to happen.  They had to be reminded that Jesus wasn’t an ordinary rabbi.  He is the Son of God, the Chosen One.”  If you remember from last week, these are the very titles that the religious leaders used to mock Jesus and challenge Him to come down off the cross. 

            For the 3 disciples, I’m sure this was a WOW experience that took some time to process.  They didn’t talk about it until years later.  That probably would’ve been a hard thing to do!  The Bible study group has been looking at the life of Paul this week.  In re-reading Paul’s conversion experience this week, it dawned on me that the light Paul and the soldiers experienced on that Damascus road was the glorified Jesus—the risen and ascended One shining with the same glory that Peter, James, and John saw on that mountaintop, light so bright that it left Paul blind until Ananias healed him, and may have even been the source of his ongoing eye problems, which Dr. Luke helped treat.  Like Peter, James, and John, everyone fell to the ground in fear.  I can imagine Paul talking to Peter after he returns from his 3 year period in the wilderness and sharing his experience.  I’m sure Peter and John both would have made comparisons with their experience of Jesus. 

For Jesus, this experience allowed Him to reveal His divine fullness to the disciples.  The voice from the Father, echoing what He spoke at Jesus’s baptism, must have been a comfort and reassurance to Jesus.  He would hear God speak one more time during Holy Week when Jesus was teaching and some Greeks wanted to see Jesus.  We don’t know if they ever got to, but the people around Jesus did.  He tells them, “This voice has not come for my sake but for your sakes.” This bright moment for Jesus gave Him something to look forward to, knowing that He was about to face His darkest moment. 

Jesus’s darkest moment was hanging on the cross, dying.  Everyone in Jerusalem and maybe even broader, participated in this darkest moment with the sun being obscured for 3 hours.  We have seen that yes, there was an eclipse during this time, but this couldn’t have been any ordinary eclipse.  3 hours of totality would be something for sure!  Totality during an eclipse is generally a few minutes.  The longest solar eclipse ever recorded is 743 BC at just over 7 ½ minutes.  That’s BC, so if one lasted 3 hours in 33 AD, it surely would have made the history books.  Furthermore, Jesus was crucified around the full moon, not the new moon, which is required for a solar eclipse.  In fact, Julius Africanus writing in 240 AD, reflecting on the writings of Thallus from 50 AD, says that Thallus’s explanation of this 3 hours of darkness being an eclipse are “without evidence.”  There was also an earthquake when Jesus died.  We will hear more about this in a couple of weeks.  Depending on when that earthquake actually hit, it could have thrown enough dust in the air to darken it.  We know that volcanos have done this, so much so, that the sky has been darkened for nearly a year!  3 hours is nothing for a volcano and even a large earthquake.  But all the gospel put the earthquake just before or right at Jesus’s death.  Back in Luke 22, when Jesus was arrested, He said “to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come out against Him, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs as against a robber?  While I was in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me, but this is your hour and power of darkness.”  Of course, Jesus’s arrest and trials and tortures by the Jewish leaders and Herod were all at night.  In the morning, He went before Pilate and was tried and tortured.  And as He was crucified around noon, the sky once again became as dark as night and stayed that way until Jesus died at 3pm.  This was also an hour of the power of darkness.  It looked like evil was winning.  Certainly, evil was very much at work.  The sky darkening could have been creation’s response to the crucifixion of Jesus.  When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the religious leaders tried to make Jesus get His disciples to shut up as they were praising God and singing about the Messiah, but Jesus told the leaders that if they were to be silent, the rocks would cry out.  Romans 8 tells us that all creation is groaning, even now.  Romans 8:20-22--"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

But just as there was a bit of darkness on Jesus’s brightest day for the disciples, that holy terror that overcame them and perhaps even lingered after they came down from the mountain, there is brightness for us on Jesus’s darkest day.  Craig Evans suggests in his commentary on Luke that the 3 hours of darkness might be a foreshadowing of Christ’s return.  Christ’s return is referred to by both Jesus and Paul as being “like a thief in the night,” not that it means Jesus will come at night (because it will always be light somewhere anyway), but that His coming will be unexpected.  Paul, Peter, and the book of Revelation all talk about the heavens and earth shaking violently when Christ returns.  Even Jesus, as brokenhearted as He is, knows that He will come again in glory.  The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus went to the cross keeping in mind the “joy that was set before Him.”  Joy would be coming. 

We know that there is even more light for us on this darkest of days, so much so that we now call this day, “Good Friday.”  The brightest as we have heard the past two weeks is that we have been forgiven at the cross and have had the way to eternal life opened for us.  We know that Jesus’s crucifixion is the greatest expression of God’s love for us, that God sent Jesus to be condemned and die in our place.  And though it looked like evil was winning, it was by Christ’s death that the devil was defeated.  Colossians 2:15 says, “When He, that is Jesus, disarmed the rulers and authorities (that is the spiritual powers and authorities), He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through the cross.”  Yes, we can stand with the women and John at the cross and weep.  It is a very dark day, but the darkness cannot overcome the light.

            We may not realize it, but Jesus is present with us not only in our brightest moments, but in our darkest moments as well.  He suffers with us, and we offer our sufferings up to Him.  In our brightest moments, He rejoices with us, and we are called to glorify and praise Him.  Jesus is with us in every moment.  No matter how dark it gets, Jesus is the Light which the darkness cannot overcome.  The Light will shine again.  Darkness cannot win. 

Saving Others; Luke 23:35-43

 

The first Sunday in Lent in just two weeks away.  Generally, the first Sunday in Lent is recognized as “Temptation of the Lord Sunday.”  It’s a story we all know well, and yes, we will hear it again, but even now, I want to remind you that two of the 3 named temptations that Jesus faced from the devil were ones in which He was tempted to save Himself—turning stones into bread, and throwing Himself off the Temple, in which case, it would be the angels that would come to His aid.  The devil, for all three temptations, started out by challenging Jesus’ identity, “If you are the Son of God” or “Since you are the Son of God.”  Here at the end of His earthly life, Jesus faces one last temptation to save Himself.  Those daring Him to do so, use similar, devilish words, “If this is the Christ of God, the Chosen One,” “If you are the Messiah,” “If you are the King of the Jews,” then save yourself!  But Jesus’s mission was always, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.”  Jesus’s mission was saving others. 

            The challenge for Jesus to save Himself was all done in a mocking, critical way.  The first ones to start it were the “rulers”—that is the Jewish religious rulers.  They start their railings by saying, “He saved others.”  Note that even though they are jeering and once again trying to rile up the bystanders who came to watch the crucifixion, they admit a truth:  Jesus saved others.  No longer are they denying what they had seen and heard—Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and forgave sins.  For their mocking and challenge to make sense, they have to admit that Jesus did and can save!  Even so, they do not want to admit that He is the Messiah.  As they mock Jesus, they are fulfilling prophetic words found in the Apocrypha.  I would like to read to you from the Wisdom of Solomon.  This is from the King James version.  Yes, the early King James Bibles contained the apocrypha.  There are people who try to say that the apocryphal books are not quoted in the New Testament, but I think that’s because they haven’t read them. Jesus quotes from the book of Sirach, also called Ecclesiasticus, many times.  Other passages, like this one I’m about to read are alluded to.  This is from Wisdom 2:1 and then picking up in verse 10 to the end of the chapter.  I found more in later chapters of this book as well.  But listen and see if you can picture the religious rulers at the foot of the cross.  

For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave.

2

10Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.

11Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.

12Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.

13He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.

14He was made to reprove our thoughts.

15He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.

16We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.

17Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.

18For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.

19Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.

20Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.

21Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.

22As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.

23For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.

24Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.

            The second group to mock Jesus is the Roman soldiers.  The Roman soldiers pick up the taunt for Jesus to come down from the cross.  Instead of saying, “If you are the Christ, the Chosen One, the Messiah,” terms which held little to know meaning for them, they pick up on the title, “King of the Jews.”  “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”  They can see the sign Pilate has had written and placed on the cross.  The sign was written in 3 languages so that everyone who was literate could read and understand these words, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.  The longest version of the sign is recorded in the gospel of John, “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews.”  If all this was on there, then the sign would have been of significant size.  In his commentary on Luke, Craig Evans points out that these words are probably the only words about Jesus written in His lifetime.  The disciples wouldn’t have written the gospels until after Pentecost.  The earliest gospel manuscript dates to around 52 AD.  Paul wrote about Jesus earlier than the disciples did!  We can date Galatians to 49 AD.  This title for Jesus, written above His wounded head, though incomplete, was nonetheless true.  He was and still is King of the Jews.  Pilate wanted to believe in Jesus.  He refused to write what the Jewish leaders wanted him to write, which was, “He says He is the King of the Jews.”  And yet, Pilate could not embrace the truth even as he knew and professed Jesus’s innocence.  Jesus wasn’t just King of the Jews.  He was King of the Roman soldiers as well, and He didn’t come off the cross so that they too might be saved. 

            Even the criminals on the crosses on either side of Jesus joined in the mocking and challenging Jesus to come off the cross.  Matthew’s gospel tells us both were involved.  These men would have known nothing about Jesus, and still they jeered and cried out for Jesus to save Himself.  But they add something extra—“Save yourself, and us.”  Perhaps they were really hoping that Jesus would prove Himself and take them all off their crosses, and yet they didn’t really believe He could do it.  Would they have changed if He had?  I don’t think so.  I can imagine them getting freed and then booking it just as hard as they could.  Maybe the one would have, like the one leper out of the 10 that returned to Jesus to give thanks, still have turned to Him in worship and thanks.  That’s not what happened.  However, even though Jesus doesn’t take Himself and them off their crosses, one of the thieves is saved.  At some point one of the criminals changed his mind.  He stopped mocking and called across to the other one saying, “Don’t you even fear God, since you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.”  As death approaches, the reality of what he has done sets in.  He is about to meet his maker.  This is not the time to joke around, but to prepare for eternal judgment.  Some people try to say that the thief was saved without repentance.  No, he doesn’t ask Jesus to forgive him, but he DOES confess his sin before God.  He acknowledges that he has committed crimes which deserve the death penalty and he confesses referential fear of God before God.  And then He looks to the One who can really save Him.  He goes on to say to the other criminal, “But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Somehow, he discerned Jesus’s innocence.  Perhaps it was hearing Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  The words above the cross that Jesus is a King hit him in a new way.  The Holy Spirit is at work.  He turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.”  Because Jesus didn’t save Himself, He could save the man hanging next to Him.  Jesus replies, “Truly, I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise.”  Paradise was a mythological walled garden.  Jesus uses language this man can understand.  It is a return to the Garden of Eden.  This walled garden of Paradise is the garden of the King.  To be invited in, was a huge honor.  To be with Jesus in Paradise means being a companion of the King in a safe place of peace and beauty!  How much better than simply coming off the cross! This man has eternal life!  Peace and fellowship with God forever where no evil exists and no harm can be done by him or to him. 

            Three different groups of people challenged Jesus to save Himself and to come off the cross, but Jesus didn’t come to save Himself.  Could Jesus have come down off the cross?  Of course.  Could He have healed His own wounds like Wolverine in X-Men?  I’m sure.  But that was not His purpose.  Jesus came to save others.  If He had come off the cross, even if He had gotten the other two men down off their crosses, Jesus wouldn’t have saved anyone but Himself.  The criminals would have died some other way, even if was at the end of a long life, but they would have still faced judgment and eternal condemnation.  The repentant thief wouldn’t have had the promise of paradise with Jesus.  Jesus didn’t get off the cross because He was in the business of saving others.  He died to save all who believe from the second death.  He died to give us eternal life.  He died that the world might be saved.  He died that those who lived thousands of years before Him and thousands of years after Him might be saved.  Jesus died that you might be saved. 

"Father, Forgive Them"; Luke 23:32-34

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Carrying Christ's Cross; Luke 23:26, Mark 15:21, Acts 13:1-3, Romans 16:13

 

    Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”  We all have a cross we are called to bear—to die to self.  When we suffer, we know that God is with us in our suffering.  In Isaiah 41, God promises us that when we pass through the water or the fire, He is with us “for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”   God commands, “Do not fear.”  In the New Testament, we hear again and again how Jesus has compassion on the people and is compassionate toward us.  The word compassion literally means “to suffer with.”  Because Christ is fully human and suffered so much Himself, He can identify with us in our sufferings, so that when we suffer, Jesus suffers with us. But we are also called to carry Christ’s cross.  We participate with Him in His sufferings.

            Today we look at Simon of Cyrene, the man who literally helped Christ carry His cross.  Simon was pulled from the crowd by the Roman soldiers and compelled to help Jesus carry His cross.  Jesus was too weak to carry His own cross.  He was bruised and battered and had already lost a lot of blood.  He had been up all night.  Jesus was physically incapable of carrying His own cross.  Without Simon’s help, He may have died prior to being crucified, but that wasn’t God’s plan for Jesus.  As Simon carried the cross with Jesus, he would’ve gotten Jesus’s blood on him.  He would have seen the pain in Jesus’s face and the wounds in His flesh.  In his small, but crucial way, Simon participated in the sufferings of Christ.  I don’t think he slinked away in the crowd when they got Golgotha.  I think he would’ve continued to watch the Man on the cross. 

            When we suffer, we are carrying Christ’s cross.  Peter tells us in I Peter 4:12-13, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”  Suffering should dive us to keep looking at Jesus.  In the letter to the Colossians, Paul tells us that our suffering is a continuation of Christ’s suffering, not necessarily for our own sake, but on behalf of the Church. Colossians 1:24 “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”  When we see our suffering as Christ’s suffering, instead of asking, “Why me?”, we might ask, “Why not me?”.  I’ve seen people who have endured what seems to be more than their fair share of suffering, and I wonder why my life is so easy in comparison.  I had a man in one of the churches I served who knew the Bible very well.  He had large chunks memorized.  He knew how much the Bible talks about suffering and not being surprised when it occurs, but rather that we should expect it.  He confessed that he felt he hadn’t had to suffer much in his life.  He wasn’t particularly wealthy, but he had plenty because he lived simply and frugally.  He lived John Wesley’s words, “Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”  He was incredibly generous.  He took Jesus’s words literally about taking the homeless into your home, something he did at least 4 different times.  But as he was nearing the end of his life, he realized that his life had been relatively easy, and it caused some discomfort in him.  Now I don’t know that he prayed to suffer, but God definitely took his discomfort away.  In his final 5 years, he saw one of his sons die from cancer.  He lost his mobility and eventually lost both legs to lack of circulation, but he never acted like he was miserable in suffering.  He embraced it, and he joyfully embraced when it came his time to die and meet Jesus face to face.  I don’t think we have to pray for suffering to enter our lives, although I have heard of people doing that.  Then there are the ascetics who caused themselves suffering to identify more with Christ.  Rather, we shouldn’t be surprised at suffering when it comes, and when it does come, if we think about our sufferings as Christ’s sufferings, we can better endure it, and even know that there is meaning in our suffering. 

We don’t know if Simon knew much about Jesus at all.  He was a pilgrim to Jerusalem, coming for the Passover feast.  He was from Cyrene, a city in northern Libya, less than 6 miles from the Mediterranean Sea.  He was a Jew.  He could’ve come from a family that had been part of an exiled group long ago, but if we think Simon is the same as Simeon Niger from the book of Acts, which many scholars do, then he would have been a convert to Judaism, part of a long-standing Jewish community in that city.  His dark skin may have been a factor in the soldiers pulling him from the crowd as he would have stood out.  He was the father of two sons—Alexander and Rufus. 

            Why do scholars think Simon of Cyrene is Simeon Niger?  Simon and Simeon are the same name—one is Greek and the other Hebrew.  It’s no different than Joe/Joseph, Jim/James, Dot/Dorothy, Jen/Jennifer.  One reason is that Lucius of Cyrene is also named in Acts 13.  Both men were from the same city.  They had probably been part of the same synagogue, but now they are in Antioch.  Simeon obviously is dark-skinned and perhaps Lucius was not.  Along with Barnabas, and Manaen, who grew up in a completely different environment with Herod the tetrarch and Saul, whom Barnabas had brought to Antioch were the prophets and teachers of the church.  If we go back to Acts 11 we find more proof that Simeon is Simon of Cyrene.  After Stephen was martyred, persecution against Christians in Jerusalem began to be more intense.  In verse 19 we read that believers went to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.  Verse 20: “But there were some of them, men of Cyprus, and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus.”  In other words, these Jewish background believers who had been in Jerusalem, but who were originally from Cyprus, and Cyrene went to Antioch and started the church there.  The Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to check it out.  He did, and he rejoiced at the thriving community in Christ he found there, so he went to Tarsus, and got Saul, who had now become a believer and who had already spent 3 years in the desert being taught by Jesus, and took him to Antioch.  They spent a year meeting and teaching with the community at Antioch, and in verse 26, we read that “the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.”  At the end of the year, the Antioch Church took up an offering for the church in Jerusalem because there was a famine in Judea. 

They returned to Antioch with John Mark.  Mark is the one who tells us in his gospel that Simon is the father of Rufus and Alexander.  He would have met Simeon Niger in Antioch, so again, more evidence that this is the same person.  Paul also knows this family well, so when he sends greetings to Rufus and his mother, who by the time Paul writes Romans, they are in Rome, it is likely that this is now Rufus, Simon’s son, who is grown.  Paul writes Romans around 57 AD, 11 years after starting his first missionary journey.  Somehow Rufus and his mom had already gone to Rome, carrying on in the missionary tradition of Simon.  Perhaps, he himself had gone, but had died by the time Romans is written.  We don’t know what happened to Alexander.  The only Alexander mentioned is one in Ephesus, a coppersmith, who did Paul wrong, and also was a false teacher.  Hopefully, this is not the other son of Simon! 

            After Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch with John Mark, the church leaders including Simon of Cyrene, discern through the Holy Spirit that Paul and Barnabas should be set apart for missionary work. 

            We can see that Simon’s life was radically changed from his carrying Christ’s cross.  By the time we get to Acts 13, it is 13-16 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.  Simon chose not to return to Cyrene after that Passover feast.  He may have been one of the 500 in the crowd to whom Jesus appeared after He was raised from the dead.  Obviously, Simon had embraced the resurrection.  He was probably a witness at Pentecost and may have been filled with the Holy Spirit himself.  He obviously had at some point.  He was compelled to take the gospel to a different place when persecution came.  Instead of going back home, he went north to Antioch taking the gospel with him.  Simon’s suffering with Christ gave him a missionary zeal to share the gospel.  It caused him to dive deep into God’s word.  It was something that gave him a starting platform to tell others about Jesus. 

            When we carry the cross of Christ, we are changed as well.  It is in knowing that our suffering is Christ’s suffering that we can better understand the power of the resurrection.  This is what Paul says in Philippians 3:10-11.  “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”  Paul had suffered so much, and yet he was still pressing into knowing Christ in both his death and resurrection.  Sometimes it is the suffering itself that changes us and makes us more effective witnesses for Christ.  In II Corinthians 1:3-5, Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”  Maybe you have had this experience where coming through a major trial or tribulation, you say, “I wouldn’t want to go through that ever again, but if I had to do my life over, I wouldn’t change that because without that experience, I wouldn’t be who I today.  Because I went through X, I can help people who are struggling with the same thing or similar thing.  I can share how God brought me through that, and how God is faithful and never gives up on us.”  Our sufferings can give us the same zeal to tell others about Christ.  We can even be witnesses in the midst of suffering by the way we offer our sufferings in solidarity with Christ, by not becoming bitter or vengeful or blaming God even in the midst of pain and grief. 

            Finally, when join our cross to Christ’s we can look forward to the same joy that Christ had which is our eternal life with Him in the new heavens and new earth.  The writer of Hebrews puts it this way in Hebrews 13:12-14, “And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. ¹³ Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. ¹⁴ For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”  We don’t get to choose what cross we bear.  We may be compelled to carry the cross, like Simon was, but whatever our cross, we can know that Christ is with us in our suffering, and we are with Him in His.  Jesus didn’t bear the cross alone, and neither do we.  We can offer our suffering up to God.  In carrying our cross, which is really Christ’s cross, we become more like Him. 

Inconvenient Truths; Isaiah 28:9-29, Romans 10:8-21

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God's Guidance; Psalm 19, Matthew 2

 

    When we think of astrology verses astronomy, we think of the latter as scientific and objective, and the former as mystical, superstitious or downright demonic.  These divisions aren’t as clear as we might think.  Early astrologists made some incredible scientific observations and discoveries, and modern astronomy isn’t so divorced from religion.  On my conspiracy theory rabbit trail, I discovered that occultists were heavily involved in the origins of NASA.  Let me just say, Jack Parsons, and leave it at that.  People have worshipped the stars and planets as gods.  Others have tried to discover the mysteries of the stars so that they could be gods.  And many have looked to the stars to know the will of God. 

The stars do tell a story.  The constellations of the northern hemisphere have been recognized the same way across cultures of the world but with different names.  The Hebrew term for constellations of the Zodiac is Mazzaroth.  The Jewish calendar is based on them.  Each of the 12 tribes of Israel were identified by one of them.  Psalm 19:1-4 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.  The skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words. No sound is heard from them, yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  The heavens tell the story from Creation to the new creation, and the ancient Israelites understood them as such.  It’s not so surprising then that God would use the stars to tell of the birth of Jesus, since the coming of Jesus to earth was always a part of God’s plan for the redemption of humankind.  God speaks through the heavenly bodies.  But the story found in the skies is not separate from God’s Word.

            The second half of Psalm 19 speaks of God’s law.  For a long time, I thought the jump from a psalm about creation to David abruptly switching subjects was strange, almost as if they should be 2 different psalms, but it makes sense.  We can’t know what the stars mean apart from the word, and creation adds a visual representation to what we hear in the Word.  In our gospel reading today, we see God using both creation and word to guide the magi to Jesus.  And the magi responded to God’s guidance because they were seeking it.  In their conversation with Herod, and Herod’s consultation with the chief priests and scribes we can see that both the stars and the word were used to determine where the King of the Jews was to be born.  The magi clearly tell Herod that they have come to worship the new king, who was not just a king, but Messiah.  Herod knows that this is a prediction of Messiah.  The difference is that the magi were expecting and looking for the Messiah and Herod and the chief priests and scribes, who knew the prophecy about the Messiah weren’t looking for Him.  They weren’t paying attention to the stars, nor were they excited about His birth, but fearful.  God was speaking all along.  Those who were seeking His guidance heard and followed. 

            God still speaks.  The book of Hebrews opens with the words, “God, after He spoke long ago to the ancestors in the prophets, at many times and in various ways, in these last days has spoken to us through His Son whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the world.”  Jesus is the revelation of God. He is the One to whom the stars point.  He is the one of whom the Scriptures speak.  I had a Bible teacher once whose answer to people who want to know what God’s will for their life was would say, “Jesus Christ is God’s will for your life.”  What does that mean?  Obviously, it is to believe in Him for salvation, but it is more than that.  Romans 8:29 says that God has planned for us to be “conformed to the image of His Son.”  In Philippians 2, Paul exhorts us to have the mind of Christ, which in I Corinthians 2:16 he says we already have.  In other words, we are to think like Christ, which we can do because He has given us His mind.  We are also to act like Christ.  What does it mean to act like Christ?  We go back to the Scriptures, particularly the gospels to see how lived.  Jesus Himself told us to do things like love one another—His most repeated command, forgive one another, serve one another, love our enemies and bless them.  It’s not always that hard to figure out what God is saying to us. 

            Jesus also said He and the Father would speak to us by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent to live in us.  Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth.  The Holy Spirit also guides us by convicting us when we are not doing what God is telling us to do.  How do we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to us?  We hear through the Spirit illuminating our consciences.  We hear through the same communication channels that God used to guide the wise men—the written word and creation and through other people. I was visiting George this week, and we were talking about God speaking to us.  He mentioned how God has used His word to speak to him, when he has run across the right verse at the right time or how sometimes it’s just a little phrase, maybe of 4 words that sticks out.  He talked how a verse can have one application at one time and a different application at another time.  When it comes to God speaking through people, we can infer that the magi consulted with each other as to what star meant and the way they should go.  We also seeing them consulting with the Jewish religious leaders through Herod.  Sometimes God speaks through people who aren’t seeking Him, and in fact, are resistant to Him.  God can speak through anyone or anything.  It is the Holy Spirit who helps us to hear the message God is speaking through an unknowing or even hostile messenger without their knowledge.  Have you ever heard God speak through an unlikely person?  Of course, God speaks through other believers as well.  Proverbs speaks of getting counsel from other people. Proverbs 11:14, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”  Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” And Proverbs 15:22 “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed.”

Another way we can hear God speak to us is through prayer.  Our text doesn’t tell us that the magi prayed, but it is certainly a communication channel offered to them.  We do see them worshipping Jesus.  Worshipping is a form of prayer but prayer also involves listening to God.  Sometimes God speaks to us in prayer through silence.  Sometimes God speaks to us in prayer through action, by answering our prayer even in the moment.  Sometimes God speaks to us in prayer through our own words that as we speak, we get clarification for God’s direction for our lives. 

God also speaks to us through circumstances.  There are events in our lives where things come together in such a way that we know God is speaking to us.  The right opening comes at the right time.  Sometimes God speaks to us to take an action.  Sometimes God speaks to us so that we will stop and rest in Him.  Sometimes God speaks to us through circumstances just so that we will know His love and care for us.  I have God use circumstances in all three ways at various times.

You really know God is speaking to you when multiple things come together at once.  You read something in Scripture, then you might hear something about what you read on a radio program or in conversation with a friend, then circumstances come together to reinforce it, then you pray about it, and it is very clear what God is up to in your life.

There is a saying that you often see on Christmas cards or bumper stickers that says, “Wise men still seek Him.”  This is true!  Those who are wise seek God and those who want to be wise will seek God.  God is still speaking.  God isn’t silent.  God wants to be found.  God reveals Himself in various ways, but we have to be paying attention.  Probably most of us do not make New Year’s resolutions anymore, but one thing we can commit to seeking to be more like Jesus, which we can do when we follow God’s guidance.  May we always to listen to God’s voice. To that end, I have made us star words for this year.  Each has a Scripture verse and a word.  Maybe God will speak to you through the verse, the word, or both as you meditate on it.  You might want to put it on your refrigerator or mirror or keep it in your Bible.  Let God guide you this year through the Word, Creation, prayer, circumstances, and people.