Author: Dave Faulkner

I'm a British Methodist minister, married with two adult children. I blog from a moderate evangelical-missional-charismatic perspective. My interests include digital photography (currently using a Nikon Z8), contemporary music, and watching football (Tottenham Hotspur) and cricket. For my photography, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/davefaulkner

Mission in the Bible 9: Fellowship as Lifestyle Evangelism (Acts 2:42-47)

Acts 2:42-47

In recent years, one criticism older generations have had of the young is the way they devalue the currency of words. ‘Awesome’ is used when they simply mean ‘Good.’ Sometimes our daughter says to me, ‘Dad, can’t you ever get excited about anything?’ and I reply, ‘I’ll call something awesome when it really is. Until that time, this is just good.’

However, if we older generations look down our noses at younger people over this, we should realise that in the church we are also guilty of devaluing the currency of words.

And one word we frequently devalue in the church is ‘fellowship.’ ‘We invite you to stay after the service for a time of fellowship over tea and coffee.’ ‘Working together on the Christmas Bazaar is an experience of fellowship.’

Fellowship is so much more than a warm fuzzy feeling.

We see the biblical word for fellowship, ‘koinonia’, deployed in our reading from Acts chapter 2. It has a cluster of meanings: ‘fellowship’, ‘sharing’, ‘in common.’

It’s used elsewhere in the New Testament of things like the Lord’s Supper, when Paul tells us that the bread we break is a ‘sharing’ in the Body of Christ. We have the Body of Christ in common. We have fellowship in the Body of Christ.

Ultimately, our fellowship is everything we have in common in Christ. And the three thousand converts at Pentecost find that such deep fellowship is the first fruit of their faith in Christ. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit leads them in putting into practice the teaching of Jesus.

Much of our fellowship is little more than a religious game of snooker where we bump into each other, and then bounce off. Not them. The first fruit of mission was a shared life. This really was the church as a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom.

And the preached evangelism from Peter which led to their conversions (verse 41) led to the lifestyle evangelism at the end of our passage where ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’ (verse 47). So this is important! What did this fellowship look like?

Firstly, it was shared worship:

In verse 42, they share in prayer. In verse 46, they meet together every day in the Temple courts.

This continues what was already happening. The one hundred and twenty disciples upon whom the Spirit fell at Pentecost had been gathering together for prayer. And it continues afterwards. So some years later, when the Corinthian Christians are meeting for worship probably in a large house owned by one of the few wealthy members of the church, they are not simply in the same room together, they are using their differing gifts of the Spirit in the service of worship. Or at least that’s what Paul wants them to do.

The best and most true Christian worship is shared worship. Yes, it’s possible to worship alone and we should, but it’s not the sum total of worship. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian, as John Wesley said.

It isn’t always possible to have mass participation in a typical Sunday service and not everybody likes speaking in front of everyone else, although there might still be things we could do to involve more people and their gifts. But often the place for truly shared worship is the small group such as the house group. In these contexts, it’s often easier to have a time of worship where more people can make contributions based on their gifts.

And so that’s another reason why we need to revisit the idea of small groups in many churches. We need to share in our worship, having the opportunity to use our gifts in that cause.

Perhaps we worry that our gifts aren’t all that good. A small group is a good place to try them out among supportive friends. If we play a musical instrument, we don’t have to be Royal Albert Hall performance standard. Our friends will cheer us on and encourage us.

And I have certainly known examples in the past where the first steps a budding preacher made were in a small group where they led a Bible study. Sharing together in worship has great potential for taking nascent gifts and growing them.

Plus, we don’t have to do this from scratch. There are various resources around to help small groups share in worship. I don’t recall whether I still have it after the big reduction in books I had to do to come here, but I used to have a book entitled, ‘50 Worship Ideas For Small Groups.’ It was co-written by the hymn writer Stuart Townend.

So let me encourage people to be brave in our churches, and truly share in worship.

Secondly, it was shared meals:

Again, we find this in verses 42 and 46. In verse 42 ‘They devoted themselves to … the breaking of bread’ and in verse 46 ‘They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.’

‘Breaking bread’ here is not code for an early form of Holy Communion. It is an everyday expression for eating together. Simple meals earlier in the day often were just bread. But more ample meals later on ‘would start with breaking and blessing bread and wine.’[1]

Later, these practices would help form the framework for celebrating the Lord’s Supper, but what we have here is sharing in that most basic way of meeting human need and sustaining life: everyday eating. It might even be that the common meals in the Christian community were ‘sometimes at the expense of those who could afford the food.’[2]

In this, the early church was following the example of Jesus, who conducted much of his ministry over food. Some of his most dramatic teaching was over a meal. He provided for people’s needs in the feedings of the five thousand and the four thousand. I believe Jesus knew that there is something about a meal where, especially if it is not rushed, people begin to open up some of the deepest things in their lives. So what an opportunity it becomes to share together, support each other, and deepen faith.

And this is something the church can build upon. There are churches that run men’s breakfasts with a guest speaker. I can think of a church I know that has a monthly women’s pub meal. The opportunities are there to make this into something significant for the kingdom of God. Yes, of course we can unwind and let our hair down – if we have enough – but we can also take the moment to build our relationships and our trust so that we can support each other and help one another’s faith grow in the face of life’s challenges. There is a chance here to take something good and make even more of it.

Furthermore, we can develop the biblical gift of hospitality. Remember that one definition of hospitality is to make someone feel at home even when you wish they were at home! So yes, it can include a meal, but it can be so much more.

I often appreciated that when I was single – apart from the times when I arrived to find they had also invited a young lady with whom they were trying to set me up! It was well-meaning but misguided.

Let’s see what we can do under the Holy Spirit’s guidance to make the most of sharing food together.

Thirdly and finally, it was shared possessions:

If the worship and the meals are the bread in the sandwich on the outside in verses 42 and 46, then the filling is in the middle in verses 44 and 45:

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

So – I guess this one is the biggest challenge of all, especially in a consumerist, materialist society like ours. And even two thousand years ago, what the early church practised was different from other groups. Professional guilds and associations required the payment of entry dues (perhaps not dissimilar from today), and radical religious groups like the Essenes enforced the complete surrender of goods to the community. But what the Christians practised according to Acts was voluntary.[3]

Luke does not describe abolition of private property. Rather, members sold property to help other members as any had need (Acts 2:45). Their resources do not become community property, but are designated for the poor; they were not against property, but valued people altogether more.[4]

I have seen and experienced this for myself. I cannot tell you the whole story now, but when I wanted to go to theological college, I was turned down for a grant (as it was in those days). A number of people gave sacrificially to make it possible for me to go. One was a student who had taken a gap year to earn some money for her own needs, but who gave it to me. Another was an elderly lady at my church, who gave me a large cheque with a letter in which she said, ‘It seems God is calling you to trust him for your provision. We will trust him, too.’ With those words, I read between the lines that this was a significant sacrifice for her.

I saw it at college when a Singaporean student heard that her mother had died back home but she didn’t have the money to pay for a flight to get back for the funeral. The student community, filled with people on limited incomes, rallied round, and raised the money for her to board a plane.

I saw it in the last circuit when due to a technicality a Nepalese church member lost his Nepalese citizenship but could not afford to apply for British citizenship. We set up a fundraising campaign on the website gofundme.com. When we got within an ace of the amount we needed, who gave a donation to carry us across the line? A student.

This is what it means to value people more than property. This again is the church putting into practice the teaching of Jesus about treasures in heaven.

Conclusion

How did the early church devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching (verse 42)? These examples of real fellowship were certainly part of it.

And are we surprised that the apostles performed ‘many wonders and signs’ ( verse 43)? Not really, if the Holy Spirit was already at work so powerfully among the community.

And as I said at the beginning, the evangelistic preaching of the apostles is matched by the evangelistic lifestyle of the church, showing what the kingdom of God is like. No wonder ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’ (verse 47).

But it takes more than just being nice. I think I have had enough of Christians just trying to be nice. If I want nice, I can go to my camera club and meet plenty of nice people.

Being the sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom calls for more than niceness. It calls for a deep openness to the power of the Holy Spirit, who will mould us into what one author called ‘The Community of the King.’

Are we up for the challenge? Come, Holy Spirit.

[1] Craig Keener, Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). p171.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Op. cit., p174.

[4] Op. cit.. p175.

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Pentecost: The Spirit Brings Life, Purpose, And Hope (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

Ezekiel 37:1-14

I don’t know what associations go through your mind when you hear the reading from Ezekiel about the valley of dry bones. Perhaps you hear the words of the old spiritual, ‘Dem bones, dem bones, dem – dry bones.’

I always remember hearing an Anglican bishop read the passage and then ask the question of his congregation, ‘Can these dead Anglicans live?’

It goes without saying that ‘Can these dead Methodists live?’ is an equally valid paraphrase!

Well, maybe ‘dead Methodists’ is a bit harsh (although not in some places!) but perhaps we ask, ‘Can these struggling Methodists live?’ You don’t need me to rehearse the issues of smaller congregations with older members.

And to that issue, God’s promise to send the Holy Spirit speaks powerfully. In Ezekiel, the people of God are struggling in exile in the alien culture of Babylon. And we struggle as now a minority in a culture which no longer uses Christian values as a foundation for life.

So let’s go digging for hope in Ezekiel 37, and the way I propose to do it is this. Three times in the passage God tells the prophet to prophesy the coming of the Spirit on the dry bones, and each time the promised result gets bigger and better. Come with me and catch a vision of hope in these verses.

Firstly, life:

4 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”’

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

There is no cure for the state of God’s people other than a spiritual one. At the risk of stating something that is a hobbyhorse of mine, no amount of new programmes will change the fortunes of the church. No new creative techniques will bring life to dry bones. It is our foolishness that we fall for these parodies of the spiritual life so often. It is to the shame of our denominations that national leaders so often propagate them.

The only cure is for the Sovereign Lord to breathe his breath, the Holy Spirit, into us. If the flowers and plants in the garden are withering, we water them. It is the same with us. We need to be watered with the living water that Jesus promised, namely the Holy Spirit.

I want to tell you one of my favourite sermon stories. It concerns the nineteenth century American evangelist, D L Moody. On one occasion, he was visiting the United Kingdom and spoke to a group of church leaders. For his text he chose Ephesians 5:18, where Paul urges the recipients of his letter to ‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ Moody pointed out that this is legitimately translated into English as ‘Continue to be filled with the Spirit.’

At the mention of this, a vicar objected. ‘Why do I need to continue to be filled with the Spirit? I was filled with the Spirit at conversion.’

‘I need to continue to be filled with the Spirit,’ replied Moody, ‘because I leak.’

And we all leak. We may well be able to point back to glowing times in our lives when we were particularly conscious of the Holy Spirit’s power at work in us, and nothing I say is intended to diminish those experiences. But we cannot live on past glories. As our cars need refilling with petrol or recharging with electricity, so we need refilling with the Spirit.

Perhaps life or our Christian duties have drained us. Think of the time in the Gospels when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and we read that he knew that virtue had gone out of him. It happened to Jesus. We know he recharged in times with his Father. Why not us, too?

Surely, Pentecost is the best day of all to make this our prayer. ‘Lord, we leak. Fill us again with your Spirit.’

Secondly, an army:

9 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.

Now if we get nervous at the mention of an army, let me just say that this is a vision, not something literal. There is nothing that follows this which is military. Nor are we meant to conjure up images of extreme militant believers, like the Christian Nationalists in the USA or anything else of that ilk.

I think the force of the image that the coming of the Spirit creates ‘a vast army’ is about the way the Holy Spirit equips all God’s people to be a missionary people, to be a movement that is a force for good rather than evil in the world.

To hear some Christians talk about their experience of the Holy Spirit, you would think that the function of the Spirit was little more than the supplying of a personal bless-up. And while I have no doubt that on occasions the Spirit provides comfort and encouragement for us, and enables us to experience God’s love, I am also certain that the Holy Spirit is not here for our self-indulgence.

On the day of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit sent one hundred and twenty disciples of Jesus onto the streets of Jerusalem among a multinational crowd with the good news of Jesus.

If you want a contemporary example of this, then the 24-7 Prayer Movement re-formed an ancient lay Christian order called the Order of the Mustard Seed. Its participants take three vows, which are worked out in six practices, that are seen as flowing from the Holy Spirit. Together, they form a corporate body that takes God’s love to the world. These are the vows the associated practices:

What does it mean to be true to Christ?
We live prayerfully
We celebrate creativity to His glory

What does it mean to be kind to people?
We practice hospitality.
We express God’s mercy and justice.

What does it mean to take the gospel to the nations?
We commit ourselves to lifelong learning that we might shape culture and make disciples by being discipled.
We engage in mission and evangelism.

Were we to pray, as Moody recommended, to be refilled with the Spirit because we leak, then I suggest this is the sort of body we would look like, too.

Thirdly and finally, restoration:

11 Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.”’

Now, just as with the word ‘army’, we have to be careful here. The promise of the land was central to Judaism, and certain interpretations of that are central to the current war between the Israeli government and Hamas in Gaza. But the promise of hope for Christians has never been about a geographical nation.

We also have to be careful not to see the idea of returning to the land as meaning for us a thought that things will be restored to the way they were in the supposed ‘good old days.’

Restoration for us is the recovery of our hope. After generations of decline, where in the next couple of decades some long-established Christian denominations may no longer exist in this country, where respect has turned to grudging toleration and then to the attempted silencing of Christians in areas of public life including politics, it’s not surprising that we have become disheartened.

There may or may not be some green shoots of recovery in our society. Justin Brierley, the Christian broadcaster, podcaster, and thinker, has written and spoken about what he calls ‘The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God’. The professed conversions of the former atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the media personality Russell Brand, along with the interest in Christianity shown by public intellectuals such as the historian Tom Holland after an answered prayer may start to shift the atmosphere in the public arena.

But whether that happens or not, the Spirit restores our hope not on the basis of whether Christianity’s popularity is waxing or waning, but on the promise of Jesus that he will build his church and the gates of Hades (that is, death) will not prevail against it. It is the hope that even death cannot destroy God’s People, because of the Resurrection and the promise of the new heavens and new earth. The Holy Spirit settles us in that hope, whatever is happening in the wider world.

This becomes yet another reason to pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’ It may not be one of the ministries of the Spirit that most readily occur to us, but it is an important one nevertheless.

In conclusion, when we may be troubled about the future of the church, we pray again, Come, Holy Spirit.’ For the Spirit will give life to the tired and discouraged in the People of God. And the Spirit will make us a corporate body of God’s redeeming love in Christ for the world. And the Spirit will give us rock-solid hope, whatever fluctuations there are in the culture around us.

Can these dry bones live? Let us not simply say, ‘Sovereign Lord, you alone know.’ Let us instead say, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’

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What Is The Ascended Jesus Doing Now? Acts 1:1-11, Hebrews 1:1-4 (Easter 7, Sunday After Ascension)

Acts 1:1-11 and Hebrews 1:1-4

When George Carey was Bishop of Bath and Wells, he was once asked to perform the reopening of the Post Office in Wells. However, they didn’t tell him all the arrangements.

He turned up, and it was Ascension Day. There he found a hot air balloon, and the plan was for him to ascend in it while the assembled throng sang the hymn, ‘Nearer, my God, to thee.’

Whether the ancient Jews believed that heaven was spatially directly above us is disputed. Some scholars believe their understanding was more akin to heaven being like a parallel dimension to our existence but usually invisible to us. Put like that, it sounds a bit like science fiction, doesn’t it?

But the key aspect in the description of the Ascension that we have in Acts chapter 1 is not simply the being taken up (which is quite a vague expression) but also that ‘a cloud hid him from their sight’ (verse 9). Yes, the ‘taking up’ is reminiscent of Enoch and Elijah going directly to heaven in the Old Testament, but the cloud also has Old Testament connotations, for clouds were sometimes a sign of God’s direct presence. Think of the Exodus, where the Israelites were led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

So the Ascension tells us that Jesus has left this existence and is now in the direct presence of God in heaven.

But what is he doing now? I want to take you around a few New Testament references today to answer that question.

Firstly, he is resting:

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Hebrews 1:3b)

He sat down. That sense of satisfaction when a job is finished. You’ve probably done that after completing something at home. Put the kettle on, make a brew, and put your feet up. He sat down. Even Jesus.

And so he should, because his mission on earth was complete. John’s Gospel records that just before he died on the Cross, he cried out, ‘It is finished!’ (John 19:30). And ‘finished’ here doesn’t mean, it’s over, I’ve failed, that’s it, it means quite the opposite. It means, ‘It is accomplished.’ Jesus has completed everything his Father sent him to do. His suffering and death opened the way to God’s presence. He was vindicated in the Resurrection. It’s done. Big tick!

When we celebrate the Ascension, we rejoice that Jesus has done everything necessary to bring us into fellowship with the God Who Is Trinity. There is nothing we can do or need to do to add to it, for we do not earn our salvation. Jesus has done it all, and now offers it as a gift, which we receive with the empty hands of faith.

I once had a couple start worshipping at a church I served, and they asked about becoming church members. I visited them, and they wanted to know if they were good enough to be accepted as members. I wish I’d picked up on that language at the time, because they turned out to be very judgmental people – especially the husband. If you’re forever trying to earn your salvation, you either become hugely self-critical, because you can never live up to your own standards, or you become hugely critical of others, always taking them to pieces.

And indeed, to try to earn salvation is effectively to say to Jesus, you didn’t need to die on the Cross. Which one of us dares to look Jesus in the eye and say that? But it’s what we do when we try to earn our own passage to heaven.

Instead, rejoice that Jesus has sat down. He has done it all. Receive his wonderful gift!

Secondly, he is sending:

‘For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ (Verse 5)

In a few days the Father would send the Holy Spirit through Jesus upon the disciples. Now of course we’ll think about that next week at Pentecost, so at this point I want to focus on the words ‘in a few days.’

Yes, it’s true that we no longer have to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ, the Spirit comes into our life. Indeed, even to get to that point the Spirit has already been prompting us. But again, that’s for next week.

What about those occasions when Jesus promises something good but it’s a long time coming? We’re not used to that in an instant society. We like fast broadband, Amazon Prime with next-day delivery, twenty-four hour news channels where political spokespeople are expected to react immediately to the latest gossip rather than take the time to be considered and reflective.

Is there something to be said for Jesus to temper his sending with waiting? Could it be that our demand to have everything now has made us immature, like overgrown children, saying, in the words of the Queen song, ‘I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now’?

Jesus does indeed send us good things, but he may well make us wait. For in the waiting for what he sends he has work to do in us, forming us and shaping us into more mature disciples.

Even the psychologists agree that the ability to delay gratification is a sign of maturity. But Jesus knew that long before the rise of psychology!

Is there something we have been praying about for a long time? To the best of our knowledge, does it sound like something the Jesus of the Gospels would approve of? If it is, then I encourage us to keep praying, even if we have been disheartened. Let him use the time before it is fulfilled to prepare us and shape us.

As someone who had to wait longer than most to find a wife, I speak from experience. But she was worth waiting for. And what Jesus sends to you will also be worth waiting for.

Thirdly, he is praying:

Later in the Epistle to the Hebrews we read these words:

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

Over time, I have known a few people who promised to pray for me daily. Most of them are now dead. They included my parents, and a wonderful elderly Local Preacher. I only know of one person who prays for me daily now.

Actually, there’s a second. I know that the ascended Jesus is praying for me. He ‘ever lives to intercede for [us].’ You can’t do better than that! Jesus is praying for his people!

Someone I know once had a conversation with some Catholic friends and asked them why they prayed to Mary. They replied, ‘Because she’s human, so she understands.’

This seemed rather sad to my friend, who realised that her Catholic friends were so fixated on the divinity of Jesus that they had forgotten his humanity.

Her response to them was, ‘Why go to the mother when you can go straight to the boss?’

We can go straight to the boss. He is already praying for us.

Have we ever thought of asking Jesus to pray for us? Because his answer is ‘yes.’

What about those times when we really don’t know what to ask for in prayer? Could we pray, ‘Jesus, I have this issue, and I don’t know the right way to pray about it. I’d love you to guide me in the right way to pray and the right things to ask, but would you also pray to the Father about it for me, please?’ It seems to me that this would be a perfectly biblical approach to take and is far better than simply stating our request and just tacking on the end the words ‘If it be your will.’

Fourthly and finally, he is reigning:

‘He sat down’ not only hints at Jesus resting after completing his earthly work, it is also an act of authority. A Jewish rabbi sat down in the synagogue to teach – as Jesus himself did in the Nazareth synagogue in Luke 4. A king or an emperor would sit down on a throne. And Jesus here sits down ‘at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven’ (Hebrews 1:3).

But how do we understand him to be reigning when so much continues to be wrong with his creation? Allow me to answer that by talking about The Lord Of The Rings.

If you saw all three three-hour movies, you may remember that the final film comes to a climax with victory at the battle of Minas Tirith, and the ring that caused all the trouble being cast into the fires of Mount Doom. After that, most of the heroes board a boat to The Undying Lands, whereas Samwise goes back to the peace of The Shire. It’s just as we would want it.

But that’s not how the original trilogy of books end. There, after the battle is won at Minas Tirith and the ring is destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, we come to a penultimate chapter, entitled ‘The Scouring of the Shire.’ In it,

the Hobbits come back to the Shire to find it under the thumb of Saruman and Wormtongue. It’s an Orwellian nightmare of jobsworths, ruffians and snitchers. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin join forces with Tom Cotton and his family to throw off the Orwellian oppressors and collaborators and MtSGA (Make the Shire Great Again).[1]

The decisive victories have been won, but there are still skirmishes to be had with evil. Can you tell what I’m about to say?

For Christians, the decisive victories have been won at the Cross and the Resurrection. Christ is now reigning at the Father’s right hand. But we still have battles with evil, because not all will bow the knee to Christ in this life, even though the Father has elevated him above all earthly authorities. J R R Tolkien, a devout Catholic, knew this when he wrote The Lord Of The Rings.

Just as in the United Kingdom we have a constitutional monarch on the throne and an elected government in office yet not everyone obeys the laws of the land, so the ascended Christ is on the throne of the universe but not everyone obeys him.

The day will come when everyone will see him and all will bow the knee to him, whether willingly or otherwise. In the meantime, this truth gives us tasks to do. One is to proclaim the good news that Jesus is on the throne of the universe and call people to give their allegiance to him. The other is to demonstrate that truth as we build for God’s kingdom.

In conclusion, I hope you can see how rich and important the doctrine of the Ascension is. Although only Luke mentions the actual event, so much of the New Testament refers to it and builds on it. One scholar even called it ‘The most important event in the New Testament’[2].

But most of all, I hope we can appreciate together what Good News the Ascension is. Jesus who rests, sends, prays, and reigns is in all these things rooting for us.

[1] James Cary, The Forgotten Feast: The Ascension and The Scouring of the Shire

[2] Ian Paul, Why is the Ascension of Jesus the most important event in the New Testament?

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A Loving Friendship With Jesus, John 15:9-17 (Easter 6 2024)

John 15:9-17

In those sadly increasingly rare times when I get to prepare a couple for marriage, one thing I impress upon them is that the success of their relationship will depend on the effort that both of them put in.

I say this, because we so often hear quotations in the media from famous couples who are breaking up, saying things like, ‘Marriage didn’t work for us.’ And it’s nonsense. Marriage is not some separate entity like a car that might malfunction. Nor do we say it in other parts of life. When a friendship ends, we are usually more honest and say, ‘We fell out with each other.’

Now why put this up front in this sermon? Because our Bible passage is about the relationship we have with Jesus and the effort required to maintain it.

Yet putting it as starkly as that will set off the alarm for some Christians. Effort to maintain our relationship with Jesus? Whatever happened to God’s grace? Don’t we depend entirely on God’s grace for all good things?

Well, yes we do, and no, I am not about to preach a religion where good works earn our salvation. In that sense, grace is certainly opposed to good works. But what I want to emphasise today was caught in the words of the late great Christian philosopher Dallas Willard, when he said that while grace is opposed to good works, it is not opposed to effort.

In other words, this is not about effort in order to be saved, but effort in response to being saved.

Jesus speaks about this in the two ways here in which he describes our relationship with him: love and friendship.

Firstly, love:

9 ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

God’s love comes first, before any love we give. We do not love in order to be loved by God: we love because God in Christ loves us first. That’s why Jesus says here, ‘Remain in my love.’ What we do is only ever in response to what God has done for us. Our love does not earn favour with God. We love because God has already favoured us with his love. I often like to say that our love for Jesus is an act of gratitude.

So that may clear up one puzzle here, about our motivation to love Jesus. But it isn’t the only conundrum. It sounds strange to our ears to hear Jesus saying that the way to remain in his love is to keep his commands. In our day and age, we are used to the idea that a relationship of love is a relationship between two equals. So the days of a bride promised to obey the bridegroom in her wedding vows are ones we have left behind. In our marriage service, both bride and groom make the same vows to each other.[1]

We should freely admit that our relationship with Jesus is not a relationship of equals. He is Lord. We are his disciples. Yet despite that, love stretches across the gap. His lofty divine status does not stop him from loving us. Indeed, it is his very nature, for God is love.

We do see examples of this in smaller ways in other parts of life. I remember a church member who was the boss of an engineering company. Any time one of his staff was ill, and particularly if they were in hospital, he took time to visit them. He would enquire whether there was anything the employee’s family needed. He was not checking up on them; he was in a small way imitating Jesus.

And therefore since we are under the authority of Jesus it isn’t out of place for obedience to his commands to be the way in which we show our response of love to him. He has the right as Lord to command us, but his commands are characterised by his love for us. Therefore it is only fitting that our response of love is to do what he commands.

I could put it another way, although this may sound like a slightly diluted version of what Jesus says, and it’s simply to say that if we love someone then we want to do what pleases them. If we love Jesus, because of his great love for us, then we shall want to please him. You could say that of a relationship between equals, as well as our unequal relationship with Jesus.

However we express it, our response of loving obedience constitutes remaining in his love, because this is what we do on our side of the relationship in order to maintain it and keep it strong.

We move on to the second dimension of the relationship, namely friendship:

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve read verse 13 for both love and friendship. It’s the verse that acts like a hinge in the passage, for it mentions love and friendship, it talks about love for friends:

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

Jesus has loved us into friendship. It’s still the unequal relationship, but the friendship crosses that. And it’s still the case that what maintains the relationship from our side is obedience, because on his side Jesus still has the right to command certain things of us, yet he does so from a posture of friendship, not authoritarianism. And on our side, we want to please our friend Jesus by doing what he wants. It’s not a shallow, matey friendship: it’s much deeper than that.

And that ‘hinge verse’ shows us just how deep. It’s a friendship where our love for one another is such that one would lay down his life for his friends. Of course, the primary reference here is to Jesus going to the Cross to die for his friends and for all who would become his friends. In his case, the laying down of his life accomplishes things that no other sacrificial death ever did or ever will.

But at the same time it is also a model and an example for us of what friendship looks like. It’s more than drinks together in the pub after work. It’s more than what passes for fellowship in many a church. It’s a willingness to lay down our lives, if that’s what our friends – or even our Great Friend – need.

Yet this deep, loving friendship is not wholly described by this solemn obligation. It is also described in the amazing privilege that Jesus grants to us because he has called us friends:

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 

He gives us an inside track on the will and the purposes of God. He does not simply give us commands to follow: if obeying his commands was all there was on our side of the relationship, then we would be mere servants. But no. We are friends. He lets us in on his Father’s business. It is possible for us to know what God wants of us and of his creation.

Now of course, some Christians take this to silly extremes. I remember hearing one preacher castigating those ‘who claim to have had more words from the Lord before breakfast than Billy Graham had in a lifetime.’ I think of those who reduce the will of God to trivia – although I concede there will be the odd occasion when it’s right to pray for a parking place.

But there are others among us who act as if we don’t know the will of God and we can’t possibly know the will of God. And that is a sad state of affairs, which misses the beautiful gift Jesus offers us here, arising out of our relationship with him as friends.

There is a middle ground to be struck between those who think we should know every fine detail of our lives from God and those who don’t think we can hear anything from him.

Jesus has let us in on God’s overall plans for creation and his specific plans of salvation for the human race. He has let us in on his commands to follow so that we remain in his love. But within that overall revealing of his Father’s business he often leaves us to apply it specifically. He does not micro-manage us.

For example, I have seen too many Christians get over-wrought about finding a marriage partner. For most of us, Jesus and the apostles simply give us God’s general will in this area, and leave us to apply it. Only in a few rare cases, usually where someone has a particularly tricky calling in life anyway, do I believe God has just one particular person in mind for us. The rest of us can choose – just so long as we remain within the general will of God. That is one way in which divine sovereignty and human freedom hold together.

And all this leads us to the concluding verses:

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: love each other.

Jesus reminds us that it all starts with him, not us, so it cannot be that we earn his love. He always makes the first move, and anything we do is in response to his love and friendship for us.

And we live out that response to his love and friendship in the church and in the world – bearing fruit and loving one another. These are the signs that we have a loving friendship with Jesus.

[1] “But what about ‘Wives, submit to your husbands’?” some will object. In Ephesians 5 where Paul says this, he also calls husbands to love their wives like Christ loves the Church – that is, by being willing to die for them. In other words, Paul calls both spouses to radical self-giving, but in different language.

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Jesus The True Vine, John 15:1-8 (Easter 5 2024)

John 15:1-8

“Did you see that?”

“Well, no, darling, I’m driving.”

That’s a common conversation when my wife and I are in the car. I won’t tell you who typically says which in that exchange!

“Did you see that?” We had it again the other evening when walking the dog. One of us could see the full moon, but the other was standing a few yards away and couldn’t see it, thanks to some houses.

Did you see that? You know the experience, I’m sure.

I think there’s a ‘Did you see that?’ moment at the beginning of our reading when Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine’ (verse 1).

At the end of the previous chapter, Jesus says, ‘Come, now; let us leave’ (John 14:31b). The implication is that they leave the room where they have had what we call the Last Supper and are now on their way to Gethsemane.

On the way, it’s likely that they would have passed the Jerusalem Temple. And when Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine’, it’s a ‘Did you see that?’ moment, because there was a

massive golden vine that adorned the entrance to the temple.

There is a description of it in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus:

The gate opening into the building was, as I said, completely overlaid with gold, as was the whole wall around it. It had, moreover, above it the golden vines, from which depended grape-clusters as tall as a man[1]

Did you see that golden vine? The disciples knew that in the Scriptures the vine or the vineyard symbolised Israel, and that’s why there was a golden vine at the entrance to the Temple. But now Jesus says that he is the true vine.

In other words, Jesus fulfils all that Israel was meant to be. And if you want to be part of the People of God, you need to be connected to him.

And further, if we don’t want the vine we are part of to be condemned like Israel the vineyard was in passages such as Isaiah chapter 5, then there are certain ways in which we need to let Jesus’ Father, the gardener, work in us. And there are certain ways in which we need to respond to his work.

Firstly, pruning:

2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

When we read this metaphor about God pruning us, we naturally think of the ways in which God needs to remove sin from our lives. I wouldn’t dispute that, but we hear a lot about that quite regularly and so I’m not going to concentrate on that today. Instead, I want us to think about other ways God works to prune us.

One is when he takes us through adversity. For me, that has been when God has used experiences of ill-health for good. One occasion came when I had a collapsed lung at college and had to face major surgery. On the weekend when it happened, one of my friends was being visited by his father, who had a healing ministry. But when I got back from A and E, Mark’s Dad Reg had gone home.

Eleven days in hospital, a month convalescing, and three months to return to full fitness were not much fun in my twenties. But when I ended up in the ministry, my experience was invaluable when getting alongside others facing major hospital treatment. I guess God had to prune the ‘quick fix spirituality’ out of me.

Similarly, I have not been shy in saying that I come from a family where there is a history of depression. However, it is only in the last twelve months that I have gone public on the fact that I too am diagnosed as someone who lives with the condition. I was very wary about saying that publicly, because I know there are callous people in the church who would say that makes me unfit to be a minister.

But the way it has given hope to others who find the black cloud over their lives means I am glad I let people know. It may be my thorn in the flesh, I wish I didn’t have it, and I’m sure my family also thinks that, but God pruned from me the shallow thinking that unless you are perpetually joyful you are not a good Christian, and this has helped others.

I believe God often prunes good things from our lives for the greater good, just as a good vinedresser will prune good grapes so that others can grow even bigger. God even does that in churches. I know congregations that many years previously began a programme that worked as an outreach. However, these meetings were still going on, even though they now only connected with existing churchgoers. These meetings needed to be pruned. The only question was whether the church would go along with it.

Secondly, remaining:

4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

If pruning is something that God does, then remaining is something that we do in response. We remain in Christ. We remain vitally connected to Jesus.

One paraphrase of ‘Remain in me, as I also remain in you’ is to say that we make our home in Jesus, just as Jesus makes his home in us. We know that Jesus has come to make his home in our lives when we put our faith in him and our lives in his hands. But there is also a question of us making our home in him. What is that about?

It is going to involve us becoming more in harmony with him. God’s work of pruning us to make us cleaner and more useful in his service is part of it, but it also means that we need to pay particular attention to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament. The church recognised the books that comprise the New Testament as those which faithfully convey the teaching of Jesus, his apostles, and his apostolic circle.

Do you have a programme for reading your Bible regularly, preferably daily? Please don’t be like one woman I knew in a previous church who told me that her sole exposure to the Bible was when she heard it read in church and she didn’t bother with it at home in between Sundays. We need that regular engagement in order to connect with the teaching of Jesus.

And that teaching of Jesus needs putting into practice. That’s where it’s important to involve others. Meet regularly with one or more people and hold each other accountable – kindly, of course! If our small groups really did ape some of John Wesley’s small groups, then this would be part of the meeting every week. We would each talk about how our Christian life was going, what reasons we had for joy where it was going well, and where we were struggling and needed support.

Others do it by having a prayer partner or being part of a prayer triplet. Still others have what they call an ‘accountability partner.’ In one previous appointment I used to meet regularly with the local vicar. We would each talk about how our lives and ministries were going, we would offer reflections to each other, and we would finish by praying for one another.

Please don’t dismiss this as just intense stuff for the hyper-spiritual. We are called disciples of Jesus, which means that we are learners of him or apprentices to him. We need to take this seriously in order to remain in him, to make our home in him.

For this is what puts us in tune with God. If we want the blessing at the end of verse 7, where Jesus says,

ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you

then we need to realise that this only happens after the first half of that verse, where he tells us we need to remain in him and his words remain in us.

So please, let’s take very seriously the importance of remaining in Jesus, making our home in him, by giving attention to his teaching and putting it into practice.

Thirdly and finally, fruit-bearing:

Jesus tells us in these verses that we bear fruit for him as a consequence of pruning and remaining. But what is that fruit-bearing? I want to suggest three examples.

Firstly, it’s about how we conduct ourselves socially in the world. Do we do so with righteousness and justice? In Isaiah 5, to which I referred at the beginning, where Israel is a vineyard gone wrong, the prophet says of God,

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
    for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. (Isaiah 5:7)

How do people outside the church perceive us? Are we known both individually and as a body to be people who not only stand up for what is right in what we say, but also in what we do? Are we the people in the town who are on the side of the poor, both in our pronouncements and in our actions? Do we treat people well? If we allow God to prune us and if we remain in Jesus and his teaching, then this should be a natural consequence.

Secondly, there is the fruit of our character. You may not be surprised that here I am going to link with what Paul says in Galatians 5 about the fruit of the Spirit. If we are in a vital relationship with God, allowing his indwelling Spirit to shape our lives, then we display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

And remember that it’s the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits of the Spirit. It is not nine different fruits but one fruit with nine flavours. All of these things are meant to grow in our character as we are pruned and as we remain in Christ, with his Spirit at work in us.

Then finally, the most natural meaning of fruit-bearing is that of bearing seed to produce more fruit. We will have the desire for spiritual reproduction, for seeking to bring more people into that same close relationship with Jesus. It would be good if lives filled with both justice and holy character (the fruit of the Spirit) provoke questions among the people with whom we live and work. We also need to be ready to speak about our faith when the time is right.

Conclusion

Did you see that? Well, if you want to see physical vines and these principles in real life, Hampshire is a good place to be. A quick Internet search led me to a list of six in the county on the Visit Hampshire website.

But do we also see the spiritual application Jesus makes for us? He embodies the true People of God, and to be part of that people ourselves requires our submission to God’s pruning and our making our home in Jesus. What follows from such a relationship is fruitfulness in the form of just living, holy character, and the spreading of the Gospel.

Is that what we look like?

[1] Ian Paul, Jesus is the true vine in John 15

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The Good Shepherd, John 10:11-18 (Easter 4 2024)

John 10:11-18

The story is told about a group of tourists on a coach in the Holy Land.

“Oh, look,” said one excitedly, “There is a flock of sheep on the hillside. Doesn’t that make you think of all those lovely Bible passages about the sheep and the Good Shepherd?”

“Yes,” replied another, “but why is the shepherd following them shouting at them and beating them?”

The tour guide interjected. “That’s not the shepherd,” he enlightened them, “that’s the local butcher.”

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel reading is always a part of John 10, where Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd. The Lectionary being a three-year cycle and with us currently being in Year B, we get the second of three chunks this year, so we’re not picking up the passage right at the beginning.

Of course, this chapter is much loved, and over the centuries Christians have taken much comfort from knowing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I have, for one, not least when I was struggling with the pain of the neck injury that prevented me from taking my A-Levels.

But although it is comforting, it is not entirely cosy. As well as the comfort, there is also challenge in these famous words of Jesus.

Firstly, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep:

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

We are used to hearing that Jesus died for us, as he says here. But have you noticed how this is different from other New Testament passages? This does not couch things in terms of Jesus dying for our sins – there are plenty that say that – but as Jesus dying to protect us.

Why? The sheep need protection from the wolves, and a hired hand will not stand in the wolf’s way.

And why would Jesus say this? Because he knew there were plenty of wolves in his day, and plenty of religious leaders who would only act as hired hands who did not care for the sheep.

Indeed, you only have to go back to John chapter 9 to find wolves or hired hands in the form of those Pharisees who objected to Jesus healing a blind man on the Sabbath. They would rather sling the healed man out of the synagogue than accept that they had created rules which went beyond God’s commandment to honour the Sabbath.

In fact, you could probably say that the expression ‘Good Shepherd’ was a polemical one. It had good Old Testament precedent in Ezekiel where God says that he himself will shepherd his people, because those who were supposed to do so were not. Jesus aligns the leaders of his day with those whom God condemned six centuries earlier.

Today, some wolves are easy to spot, like millionaire TV evangelists telling poor people that their way out of poverty is to give to them in order to be blessed financially by God.

But others are less easy to spot. Like those who alter our doctrines or undermine the Scriptures, while sounding plausible and intelligent, but falsely claiming that only their view is intellectually credible. At this point, true shepherds have to protect the flock, even if it is costly.

Jesus the Good Shepherd laying down his life for the flock specifically protects his people from the wolf-like claim that lusting after power and force are the ways to change things for good in the world.

What is this like? I turn to someone who, if you know little about him, might seem an unlikely source. Many of you will remember the 1960s folk singer Barry McGuire, most famous for his membership of the New Christy Minstrels, his song ‘Eve of Destruction’, and his association with the Mamas and the Papas – the line in their song ‘Creeque Alley’ that said ‘McGuinn and McGuire were just getting higher’ was about him and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.

Well, a few years after that, Barry McGuire found his freedom not in drugs but in Jesus Christ. And in one concert, he talked about the death of Jesus as being like a shock absorber, absorbing human lawlessness. He then said that when Christians experience the shock of evil in this world, we have two choices: we can either get mad, or we too can absorb the shock to protect others.

Secondly, the Good Shepherd knows his sheep:

14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.

What makes for a true sheep-shepherd relationship? Mutual, personal, intimate, knowledge.

It is thus not enough for us to say we are religious. All sorts of people believe in God – even the devil, as the New Testament tells us. And we know that religion can be co-opted by politicians and others who use it to cultivate influence and power for themselves, rather than knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Similarly, it’s not enough to be a churchgoer. It’s possible to participate in religious practices and rituals without having a personal connection with Jesus the Good Shepherd. The outward form only has meaning if there is an inward reality.

To know the Good Shepherd means to recognise that he knows us just as deeply as he knows the Father (verse 15) – as one song puts it, ‘You know me better than I know myself.’

And in response, we engage with him, and we listen to him. As far as we know how, we put aside the existing filters we place on the world to hear him for who he is, rather than squeezing him into our preferred mould.

This becomes particularly important when we are considering the ethical implications of knowing the Good Shepherd. If we lean politically to the right, we may hear more Jesus’ call to personal morality. If we lean to the left, we may more easily hear his call to social justice. But Jesus gives us no such either/or options. It’s both/and.

Therefore if we want to draw closer to the Good Shepherd – and why wouldn’t we want to be nearer to the One who repeatedly said ‘Peace be with you’ after his Resurrection? – we need to invest in the spiritual disciplines. Prayer and Bible reflection in church, in small groups, and alone. Making sure we put into practice what we have heard. Reflecting on how we are progressing as disciples. The sacraments. And so on. All these help us to know more closely the Good Shepherd who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Thirdly and finally, the Good Shepherd has other sheep:

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

Now before anything else let me knock on the head the idea I have often heard about this verse, namely that Jesus is opening up the possibility that there are many ways to God, in its most crude form the notion that all religions lead to God.

This is not what he is saying when he says he has other sheep not of this sheepfold. We can see that from the fact that he goes on to say that he wants to bring the other sheep into the one sheepfold under him, the one shepherd.

It would also be crazy to suggest that Jesus advocates a multi-faith route to God from a verse in John’s Gospel, where elsewhere he says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.

Sure, the Gospel may present as many different facets of one diamond, but ultimately there is only the one Gospel: that there is a new king or Lord of the universe, his name is Jesus, and he reigns in love and mercy, not by brute force and power.

So no: by bringing the other sheep into the one sheepfold under the one shepherd here, Jesus is anticipating the Gentile mission. Gentiles will be ‘grafted in’ to the people of God, as the Apostle Paul put it in his Epistle to the Romans. The population of the sheepfold is going to increase, because Jesus has made that possible by laying down his life as the Good Shepherd.

But how was the Good Shepherd going to bring other sheep into the sheepfold? That was going to happen after Pentecost, when the Gospel would be preached in Jerusalem, in Samaria, and later to the ends of the earth. The responsibility is delegated, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to those who draw close to him.

A legend tells of Jesus returning to heaven at the Ascension and being quizzed by the angels.

“Master,” asked one of the angels, “what happens to your mission now that you have returned here to heaven?”

“I have left that in the hands of my followers,” replied Jesus.

“But won’t they mess it up, Lord? Won’t they fail you, won’t they lose courage, won’t they forget what they’re meant to do? What is your Plan B?”

Jesus replied, “I have no other plan.”

In conclusion, perhaps what sums this all up quite well is the thirteenth century prayer of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester. I’m sure you know it or will recognise it:

Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.

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Why Does The Risen Jesus Appear To The Disciples? Luke 24:36-49 (Easter 3 Year B 2024)

Luke 24:36-49

It’s a thrill for parents when their child starts speaking. It’s less of a thrill when that child learns the word ‘Why.’ Every question becomes, ‘Why?’

As a child, I was certainly fond of asking ‘Why?’ Not only the dreaded ‘Why do I have to do this thing you are telling me to do?’ but also ‘Why’ in terms of wanting explanations for the way things worked in the world. I know I was persistent on that last kind of question, because my parents bought me a subscription to a children’s magazine called ‘Tell Me Why.’ You can still find old copies on eBay. It comes under eBay’s category of ‘Antiquarian Collectibles’, such is my age now.

As I read the familiar resurrection story from Luke, I realised that one of the questions I wanted to ask of this passage was ‘Why?’ Why did Jesus appear on this occasion to the disciples? What was this resurrection appearance about?

Going over the text, I came up with three answers to that question: why did the risen Jesus appear to the disciples on this occasion? I realised too that the reasons why Jesus appeared to the disciples here are also reasons that are relevant to us.

Firstly, the Risen Jesus brings peace:

36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’

These last couple of weeks I could have done with a dose of ‘Peace be with you’ from Jesus. Straight after Holy Week to Easter Day in which I preached or spoke eight times in eight days, I walked into a legal crisis over the text of my book, which I have had to remove from sale.

Then I had serious warning messages flash up on my car dashboard. An investigation by the dealer found that it needs repairs costing over £2000. The fault is something that the manufacturer should have put on the list for last year’s annual service but failed to do so. They are now trying to wriggle out of responsibility on a technicality.

Yes, I could have done with some peace from Jesus.

The one bright part was that I had to submit some blood pressure readings this week to the pharmacist at the doctors’ surgery, and he described my results as ‘gold standard’, so Debbie said that in fact I clearly haven’t had enough stress!

Now on the one hand ‘Peace be with you’ is a fairly standard Jewish greeting. When I flew to and from the Holy Land on El Al Airlines in 1989, every message over the plane’s PA from the pilot or cabin crew always began with ‘Shalom and good evening.’

But here, the disciples really need peace:

37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.

A ghost: something not of God. So fear is natural. It’s equally possible to be fearful in the presence of God’s almighty power – which the Resurrection indicates.

The way in which Jesus leads the disciples to peace is basically to reassure them: ‘It’s me. You don’t need to be afraid. You know me.’

It was good news for the disciples then, and it is good news for Jesus’ disciples today. The Resurrection says, don’t stay at a distance from Jesus in your relationship with him.

Do you ever feel nervous about drawing near to Jesus? Here’s a secret: I do. My current devotional pattern comes in two parts. Earlier in the day, I have a reflection on a Bible passage, then at night I ponder how the day has gone in the light of Scripture. I find something to rejoice in, and something to confess. When I keep confessing the same sins and failures regularly, I can tell you I don’t want to draw near to Jesus. But what astonishes me is the way my devotional takes me every day to assurances of forgiveness in the Bible. It’s as if every evening Jesus is saying to me, don’t be afraid, don’t stay at a distance, the best thing you can do is draw near to me.

What about you? Where is the Risen Jesus saying ‘Peace be with you’ to you?

Secondly, the Risen Jesus brings proof:

When people invite others over for dinner, the hosts will usually ask in advance if there is anything they cannot eat or dislike. When people ask Debbie and me that question, they will find out that I am allergic to artichokes and dislike roast pork and gammon. Debbie will say that she cannot face fish or mushrooms. Whenever we go out to a pub or a restaurant for a meal, it is a standing joke that I will order fish to make up for not having it at home. If belly pork is on the menu, you can guarantee Debbie will be tempted.

I take great comfort in the Resurrection narratives, because there (including the one we read today) I learn that Jesus likes to eat fish. In John 21, he cooks a fish breakfast for the disciples after their overnight fishing trip. Here, he shows them his wounds and eats some fish to eat as proof that he is bodily to calm their fears and assuage their doubts (verses 38-43).

Now you may say that what was proof for the disciples two thousand years ago is not proof for us. But it is very strong historical evidence. We do not need to doubt the bodily Resurrection of Jesus.

I never tire of emphasising that the Resurrection is bodily. On Easter Day, I told Midhurst how that was a sign that God is renewing his material creation, and that’s why as Christians we care about things like healing, social justice, and the climate.

Today, I want to say that it also means we don’t need to doubt Jesus but trust in him. It’s why we sing lustily on Easter Day,

No more we doubt thee,
glorious Prince of Life[1]

We can trust Jesus because he has conquered sin and death in the Resurrection.

I know we will doubt him still from time to time. I do. But when I doubt, I always come back to the Resurrection. It’s real. It’s true. It’s bodily. It’s what makes life worthwhile. I hold onto that in my dark times. Or perhaps more accurately, that’s what holds onto me.

I don’t know what all your doubts and struggles are. Feel free to talk with me about them, if that would help. I simply invite you to remember that the bodily Resurrection is true, and so Jesus can be trusted.

I mean, the Risen Jesus must be trustworthy. He eats fish!

Thirdly and finally, the Risen Jesus brings purpose:

The Risen Jesus has brought good news for the disciples: fear replaced by peace and doubts replaced by proof. Now they can draw near to Jesus and trust him.

But if it’s good news for them it’s also good news for the world. And Jesus the Teacher gives his class of disciples a lesson. He recaps how he had told them he would die and rise again as the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes in her Scriptures (verse 44). Then he explains how this was rooted in those Scriptures (verses 45-46) – not so much proof texts, scholars suspect, as allusions to the whole story of Israel as Stephen would tell it before his martyrdom and passages like the Servant Songs, especially the Suffering Servant in Isaiah[2].

Israel’s vocation was to be a light to the nations. Jesus had fulfilled that. Now his disciples had to be the light of the world, taking this good news of peace and trust in Jesus from Jerusalem to the world (verses 47-49).

And in our day, that’s what we continue – being light in the world with the good news of Jesus.

But often we struggle with this vocation. If we have other events in our lives that are good news, we have no problem with sharing: the birth of a child or grandchild, a new job, exam success, a family wedding. We will tell our friends without any problems.

We are more reticent about the good news of Jesus. Has it become stale for us? Are we nervous about the response we shall receive? Are we worried about being a Bible-basher? There are many reasons why we may hold back.

Jesus knows that even though his disciples ‘are witnesses of these things’ (verse 48) they are not ready. They need to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit (verse 49).

We don’t have to wait for the Holy Spirit like they did, but this is a reminder to us that the key to fulfilling our purpose as witnesses is the power of the Spirit. We pray that the Holy Spirit will work through us so that we reflect the light of Jesus in the world. We also pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us to the right time to speak about Jesus, and the right way to talk about him. We further pray that the Spirit will give us courage when we find that difficult.

There’s a catchphrase from the movie and stage musical Mrs Doubtfire, where the title character repeats the words, ‘Help is on the way.’ That’s what Jesus promises his disciples at the end of this reading. Yes, his offer of peace enables us to draw near to him and not remain fearful of him. Yes, his proofs and evidence of his Resurrection enable us to trust him rather than doubt him. And yes, we are called to share this light with the world, which we may find daunting.

But help is on the way, because Easter will connect us to Pentecost.

[1] Edmond Budry (1854-1932), translated by Richard Birch Hoyle (1875-1939): Thine be the glory.

[2] Ian Paul, The risen Jesus meets the Eleven in Luke 24.

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Doubting Thomas Overcomes Barriers To Faith, John 20:19-31 (Easter 2 Low Sunday 2024)

John 20:19-31

I gained my first experience of leading worship and preaching in a youth preaching team in my home circuit. We took services in the churches of the circuit under the supervision of a Local Preacher.

One year, we were appointed to take a service on the Sunday after Easter. The Local Preacher, a woman by the name of Win, explained to us that this Sunday was traditionally called ‘Low Sunday.’

Why was that, we asked?

Because, she said, after all the joy and celebration of Easter Day, people needed to come down a bit.

Oh, said we mischievous teenagers: Hangover Sunday!

Now I am not sure that the intoxication of Easter Day has negative side-effects at all. It’s the beginning of the whole Easter season that lasts fifty days until Pentecost. We have seven weeks of celebration!

And our Gospel reading today occurs in the Lectionary every year on Low Sunday. So what to say this year?

Well, there is so much in the reading, and given that I have been preaching on mission before Easter and will go back to that after the Easter season, I am going to leave the first half of the reading where Jesus commissions the remaining apostles to go into the world like he did in the power of the Spirit bringing the forgiveness of sins.

That leaves the second half of the reading and our good friend Thomas. Come with me as we walk with him on a journey to deeper faith in the risen Lord.

Firstly, angry Thomas:

Angry? Yes – angry. Before we ever get onto the question of ‘doubting Thomas’ we need to consider his anger.

How so? Well, part of my preparation for this week has been my regular reading of a blog by an Anglican New Testament scholar, Ian Paul. In his reflections this week on today’s passage he tells a story about how he once took a primary school assembly where he asked the pupils who their heroes were, and then told them that he had actually met each of those heroes on his way to the school that morning. The youngsters grew increasingly sceptical.

But then he asked them how they would have felt if he actually had met their heroes on the way to the school and they hadn’t. A boy shot up his hand and said, ‘I would be very angry!’ Ian Paul reflects on this incident and the Thomas story in these words:

It was an amazing insight into the things that hold us back from believing, and anger at what has happened to us and the way life has turned out seems to me to be far more common than an actual lack of evidence, even if it is evidential language that we naturally reach for.

Thomas is angry at having missed out. The other disciples are annoyingly happy, and he hasn’t had that experience. We talk today about FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – and that’s Thomas. He has missed out, and he’s mad.

And like Ian Paul says, our anger at certain events and circumstances in life can do more to inhibit faith than our intellectual questions. I’m sure you’ve come across people who have described an unspeakable tragedy in their lives and who are angry at God about it. I’m sure you’ve met people who can’t cope with the fact that other people have received blessings that they have longed for, but they haven’t.

I’m sure many of us know how unresolved anger burns up our soul like acid. If we bury the anger, it comes out like a Jack-in-the-box in other forms. Some (but by no means all) forms of depression can happen this way. Yet if we let the anger fester, we become bitter and twisted people.

But here’s the good news. The risen Jesus appears to angry Thomas. He shows him his wounds. The Lord himself has been through unjust suffering. If anyone had the right to be angry about their treatment, it was Jesus. Yet he meets Thomas in love.

If we are struggling with anger, we have a God who can handle it. His Son has been through the most unjust suffering the world has ever seen. He understands. And he has given us the Old Testament Psalms, where so many express questioning and anger towards God about the circumstances of life. God holds us in his arms while we beat upon his chest. And in the Resurrection, he begins the work of reversing injustice.

Secondly, doubting Thomas:

It’s still true that Thomas doubts. He says,

‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’ (Verse 25b)

Although hear the anger in those words ‘I will not believe.’

And Jesus, after showing him his wounds, says,

‘Stop doubting and believe.’ (Verse 27b)

There are some mitigating factors here. Thomas was not alone in doubting. The male disciples generally also doubted the women’s testimony until they saw the empty tomb for themselves. I have often remarked that my late father thought Thomas has been unfairly singled out in history.

Now there are some who make a distinction between doubt and unbelief. The Christian writer Os Guinness says in his book on doubt that doubt is ‘faith in two minds’, whereas unbelief is a straight-out refusal to believe. Thomas seems to oscillate between the two.

But at least he is honest. He doesn’t play pretend. He doesn’t suppress his doubts and pretend to have more faith than he does.

However, ultimately, Jesus wants to bring him to a point of faith, a place of believing.

And what is faith? Contrary to what some of the ‘New Atheists’ say, it is emphatically not believing in something that you know to be untrue.

No. Faith is knowing enough in order to trust. When we have faith, we have enough evidence about Jesus and his Resurrection in order to trust him. We do not have complete knowledge, but we have enough to say, yes, we will entrust our lives to him.

We do this in other parts of life. The point at which I proposed to my then-girlfriend, now wife, was when I knew enough about her to trust her and believe that entering into life together would be a good enterprise. Of course, I will never know her fully: what man ever understands a woman like that?

As Jesus says to Thomas, most people will not get the benefit he does of a personal appearance to lead him to that place of faith. I did have a church member in my first appointment who had become a Christian when Jesus had appeared in a vision to her at the bottom of her bed one night, but for most of us, something like that doesn’t happen.

Instead, we have enough evidence about Jesus in order to trust him. We have the testimonies of the four Gospel writers. As John writes,

31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

We have good historical evidence for the Resurrection. I don’t have time to go into that now, ask me afterwards, but it’s good. We have the testimonies of our friends.

We may not know everything about Jesus. We may still have questions. We may wobble in our faith from time to time. But we have enough in order to stop our fundamental doubting and believe.

Thirdly and finally, humble Thomas:

28 Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Now as an aside this is one of my favourite verses to quote to Jehovah’s Witnesses when they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They try to say that Thomas is at this point addressing heaven, not Jesus, despite the fact that the context is a conversation between him and Jesus. That’s an amazing piece of grammatical gymnastics on their part.

But having said that, it struck me this week what a humble statement this is. After all his anger and doubt, Thomas responds to the evidence and the overtures of love from Jesus in the right way. Humility.

Not everybody does. I have heard of some atheists being asked, if you were given convincing evidence for God, would you then believe? Some still said, no, because they did not want to be answerable to anyone but themselves. Their problem was not intellectual but one of spiritual pride and rebellion.

Thomas has none of these. The right and proper response to Jesus is to bow in adoration and make an oath of allegiance to him. He doesn’t waste any time in doing the right thing.

For pride is another of the barriers to faith, but the gift of humility enables Thomas to respond to the mercy and love of Jesus. The only way we or anyone else find our way into the kingdom of God is by humbly receiving what God does for us in Christ.

I find that some of the people who have the worst problems with pride are intelligent, educated people. They point to surveys that show the higher you go up the scale of intellect, the less people believe in the existence of God. They draw the rather simple conclusion that more intelligent people think belief in God is not plausible, and therefore you should not.

But these people make a fatal mistake. They fail to see that our minds as much as any other part of our lives are affected by sin, and they have fallen victim to the temptation of pride, one of the key things that prevents belief in God. Beware that if you debate with an intellectual whose mind seems hardened against the idea of faith, pride may well be an issue.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not against intellectual endeavour. I have done post-graduate research at university and hold two Theology degrees. I believe Jesus when he said that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.

But at the bottom line, I believe the only way to avail ourselves of God’s blessings in Christ is humility. It is to say, I cannot get to God by my own beliefs, merits, or actions. I can only hold out the empty hands of faith to receive. And when I do, I honour Jesus as my Lord and my God. What he says, goes.

Conclusion

I think we can say, then, that Thomas has shown us some of the major barriers to faith and how they are overcome.

We can bring our anger into the arms of the loving God who has embraced suffering and begun the work of destroying injustice.

We can bring our doubts to the testimony of Jesus and learn that he is trustworthy.

We can reject the pride in our own abilities that prevents us receiving from God and in humility receive his grace and mercy.

Let us remember these things in our own lives and also in our witness to people beyond the church that the risen Jesus is this world’s true Lord.

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Easter Day 2024: God Ships His Blessings On The Third Day (Mark 16:1-8)

Mark 16:1-8

Here’s a true story I heard on Thursday. Somebody was looking up on Google the famous blessing prayer from the Book of Numbers. I’m sure you’ll know the one:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

But the top result wasn’t from a Bible site like Bible Gateway, they only came in second to Amazon, who were selling a print of that text in a picture frame. As a result, the entry read:

 The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Usually ships within 2 to 3 days.

When the person shared this, somebody commented:

I do wish more of His promises came with delivery dates and tracking!

Welcome to Easter Sunday, where we celebrate the fact that God’s blessing has shipped within 2 to 3 days! For on the third day, the tomb was empty.

What blessings ship from God to us on Easter Day? There are many! I want to share four with you.

Firstly, a new body:

You may recall that during Holy Week, a woman at Bethany has anointed Jesus’ body with expensive perfume. Jesus says she has anointed his body for burial. You might say the woman did so prematurely, but perhaps prophetically.

Now, along comes this group of women to do what? Exactly the same.[1] The Greek implies they are bringing liquid spices. This is not the same as the solid spices that John tells us Nicodemus used. The women are coming to do what the woman at Bethany had prophetically foretold.

But if the woman at Bethany was early, the women at the tomb are too late! They knew Jesus was physically dead , otherwise they wouldn’t have come. But now, the body isn’t there, because he has risen.

They weren’t expecting that. Three times in Mark’s Gospel Jesus prophesies that he will suffer and die, but be raised from the dead, yet it hadn’t sunk in. It didn’t fit their prior beliefs. They were persuaded not by the divine words of Jesus but by God’s divine action.

Make no mistake, the Resurrection is bodily. This is not about an immortal soul, this is about God raising Jesus’ body from the dead and making it new – even with new powers, as we read in other Gospels such as John.

God is interested in redeeming the physical, the material, the bodily. Our faith is not simply an ethereal, spiritual matter. Resurrection tells us that the whole of creation is on God’s agenda for renewal.

And that’s why our mission is not only to call people to repentance and faith in Christ, it is also to things like healing, social justice, and the renewal of our planet. Everything that God created has been tainted, and everything that God created is up for redemption. The Resurrection assures us of that.

The second blessing to ship on Easter Day is a new family:

Who is ‘Mary the mother of James’ in verse 1?[2] In the previous chapter, among the women at the Cross, is ‘Mary the mother of Joses and James’ (15:40), which is then shortened to ‘Mary the mother of Joses’ (15:47). It’s likely that ‘Mary the mother of James’ at the empty tomb is ‘Mary the mother of Joses and James.’

But here’s the surprising thing. There is only one woman in Mark’s Gospel who is called ‘Mary the mother of Joses and James.’ She appears in chapter 6 verse 3 where she is the mother of Jesus’ brothers. In other words, this is Mary the mother of our Lord herself.

But just as Jesus had said that his true family were those who did his will, so here at the empty tomb Mary herself is discovering that the risen Jesus is indeed making a new family. His new family is the family of believers in him.

We sometimes talk about the church as a family, and that’s absolutely right. We are the family of God, the community of the King, the sign and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom. In our tradition, we may not go in for the hackneyed way that some Christians address one another as ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ and that’s fair enough, but that’s what we are. At both baptisms and funerals we refer to the subjects as ‘our sister’ or ‘our brother’, and that is because Jesus creates a new family in the Resurrection.

And his Resurrection will be ours one way. I guess that’s why he told the Sadducees during Holy Week that there would be no marrying and giving in marriage in the life of the age to come. There would be no more need for procreation, because no more would dead people need replacing in the population.

One of my colleagues recently told the circuit staff a story of how he was visiting a residential care home, and he met one resident who was dying for what would be the last time. Before my colleague left, the resident said to him, ‘I expect this will be the last time we see each other.’

He replied, ‘I’ve got news for you! I think you’ll find we’re going to be spending rather a long time together!’

So look around this morning in church. Here are members of your forever family. It’s worth us learning to get on with one another!

The third blessing to ship on Easter Day is a new commission:

Having seen the place where Jesus’ body had been laid, the ‘young man dressed in a white robe’ (verse 5) (which is just a long way of saying ‘angel’) tells the women to ‘Go’ (verse 7). They are to go with the message of the Resurrection.

Hang on – who is to go? The women. In our more egalitarian culture, that detail can pass us by. But this was a society in which women couldn’t even give evidence in a court of law. If you were going to choose witnesses to support your case, you wouldn’t select women. The fact that it’s women who are the first witnesses to the Resurrection is a sign that this is not a cobbled-together fiction.

And we might reflect on all those who still say only men can lead the church because Jesus chose twelve male apostles. He also only chose Jews. It’s apparent here that God doesn’t keep to our social conventions. Anyone and everyone who has encountered the Resurrection and wants to follow Jesus can be witnesses to Jesus.

How many of us feel disqualified from serving Jesus in any significant way? It may be through the disapproval of others. It may be through our own low self-esteem that we disqualify ourselves. We may feel unworthy or unfit. ‘I’ve let God down in the past.’ ‘I don’t have the necessary gifts.’ ‘I’m not strong enough.’

But could it be that in fact our risen Lord is giving us a poke on Easter Day and saying, the only thing that qualifies you is that you’ve encountered me and you want to follow me?

I want to invite you to consider whether there is some call you have been resisting, putting off, or filing away because you don’t think you fit the template. I certainly didn’t think I fitted the right mould to be a minister. I’ve had the odd congregation who have agreed! I still at times live with ‘imposter syndrome.’

But on Easter Day, we can put all that aside. Have we met with the risen Lord? Do we love him? If so, let’s take on a commission.

The fourth and final blessing is a new beginning:

But go, tell his disciples and Peter (verse 7)

says the angel to the women.

The disciples and Peter? Huh? Wasn’t Peter a disciple too, an apostle, even? Why mention him separately?

I’m sure we can guess. Peter is so mortified by his three denials of Jesus that he doesn’t even consider himself a true disciple anymore. He may even have returned to his old profession as a fisherman. It’s all over, especially with Jesus having been executed.

But in God’s economy, the end is not the end unless there is good news. And here we have that hint of what John’s Gospel will tell us in greater detail: that restoration is on the way for Peter. ‘No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in him is mine,’ as Charles Wesley wrote.

The new commission that I just spoke of is available to Peter as well. He has a new beginning.

This is after all the Gospel, isn’t it? That our sins and failures don’t have the final word, any more than the sins of those who conspired to have Jesus crucified had the last word. They didn’t. Jesus vacated his grave.

As the late Christian singer Larry Norman put it,

They nailed him to the cross,
They laid him in the ground,
But they should have known
You can’t keep a good man down.[3]

If anyone here thinks they have messed up so badly they can never be valuable to God, then the Resurrection says, think again. There is a new beginning for you.

If anyone here thinks they have committed the unforgivable sin, then the Resurrection says, think again. There is a new beginning for you, too.

The grace of God is bigger than our sins and failures. Even the worst of our betrayals of Christ do not have the final word in life: that place belongs to the love and mercy of God.

As a minister, I have heard respected church members privately tell me about the most awful sins they have committed. It has been my privilege to assure them of God’s forgiveness and the certainty that they, like Peter, have a new beginning with Christ. Easter Day is the reason I can do so. We all have a new beginning today.

I can’t conclude today without drawing attention to the theme of the women’s fear that is present in the reading.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ says the angel, but despite his reassurances, the final verse says this:

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Verse 8)

I’m aware that I can give you all the arguments in the world for the joy, hope, and freedom of the Easter faith, but an encounter with almighty resurrection power can still leave us shaking.

And it seems such a strange way to end the Gospel – so much so that others have speculated that the original ending is lost, or have written alternative endings.

But maybe it all indicates that the necessary response is for us to write our own endings in each of our lives. For as Tom Wright has put it,

‘Jesus is risen, and we have a job of work to do.’

[1] This paragraph and the next are influenced by Ian Paul, The women at the empty tomb in Mark 16.

[2] Again, for what follows I am dependent on Ian Paul’s article.

[3] Larry Norman, ‘Why should the devil have all the good music?’, Only Visiting This Planet, MGM Records, 1972.

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Holy Week Meditations 2024: Isaiah’s Servant Songs (4) Isaiah 52:13-53:12, The Suffering Servant (Good Friday)

Session 4
Introduction to reading in service
This week at Midhurst I have been offering some Holy Week meditations on the so-called ‘Servant Songs’ in Isaiah. Although their immediate application was to the prophet himself and to the People of God in exile in Babylon at the time, they also helped form Jesus’ understanding of his ministry and mission, and the Gospel writers’ understanding of Jesus. Not only that, through Jesus they have application to our lives.

There are four ‘Servant Songs.’ The first three were the Old Testament readings for Monday to Wednesday in Holy Week, the fourth comes today, Good Friday. It does so, because it is the one most associated with the death of Jesus. We will hear it in a moment, before we hear from the Gospel according to Mark.

If the first Servant Song was about God’s People, Israel, in exile, and the second and third were about this prophet ministering to them, who is this fourth Song about? It’s hard to say exactly who at the time would have fulfilled this description, but we do know it found greater fulfilment in Jesus and his suffering. So it will be the framework for my reflections

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Most of us know what it’s like to be misunderstood. It can be quite innocent, when someone mishears what we have said. Or maybe they just don’t get on our wavelength. These experiences can be frustrating, but we can come through them with a smile.

It’s worse when someone wilfully misunderstands us. Perhaps they are too lazy to make the effort to listen. Worse, it may suit their purposes to misunderstand our words, our actions, or our values. Then it is a malicious misunderstanding, which can be both painful and worrying.

The fourth Servant Song and the life and death of Jesus show us One who was regularly misunderstood. Never was that more apparent than at the Cross. If he was truly the Messiah, then in the eyes of most people, he shouldn’t be suffering the fate of execution.

So we’re going to think about some of the ways the suffering Jesus on the Cross is misunderstood, to find how we might apprehend him more truly, and worship and serve him more faithfully.

The first misunderstanding is about image:

Just as there were many who were appalled at him –
    his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
    and his form marred beyond human likeness – (52:14)

If you’ve ever watched Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The Passion of the Christ’, you will know that it depicts the suffering and disfigurement of Jesus graphically. From being flogged and having the crown of thorns pushed into his head, through carrying the crossbeam, to having the nails hammered in, and the agonising death by suffocation. The Gospel writers don’t go into that detail, and I’m sure that was because people in their day knew only too well what death by crucifixion entailed. It was specifically meant to be an horrendous form of death, as a sadistic deterrent. That’s why Rome left crosses up around the countryside – to remind people.

This was not the fate of a victor. This was defeat and shame. The Apostle Paul said that it was a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks for the Messiah’s death to be central to faith.

You may know that in Islam the Qu’ran denies that Jesus died on the Cross at all. Muslims cannot accept that this should be the fate of a divine prophet.

Nothing about the Cross fits any image of a glorious, triumphant leader.

No wonder we also read that

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (53:2b-3)

He just doesn’t fit our glossy image of a true leader.

Yet our passage began with the words

See, my servant will act wisely;
    he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. (52:13)

For what is foolishness to the Greeks and to millions of others is the wisdom of God. On Good Friday, we learn that God has an upside-down, counter-cultural way of transforming lives and changing our world. It isn’t about a gleaming image and power that rolls over others like a tank. Transformation comes as the Son of God, the True Servant, absorbs the darkness and evil of the world for us.

That’s why we also read that

so he will sprinkle many nations,
    and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
    and what they have not heard, they will understand. (52:15)

May God give us understanding of his ways which are not our ways. May we cast aside our shallow devotion to someone’s image and accept instead the substance of what Jesus accomplishes at the Cross.

The second misunderstanding is about character:

Bluntly, people think that the Servant – or Jesus – is suffering because he deserves to do so. That’s why you end up on a Cross. You have committed a crime. You are sentenced.

Think of the dialogue with the two other men who were executed with Jesus. The one who appeals to him, saying ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,’ tells the other prisoner off for scorning Jesus. And he does so by reminding him that the two of them are getting their just desserts. However, he says, Jesus has done no wrong.

Thus, we come to these verses in Isaiah:

4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all. (53:4-6)

‘Yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.’ There is the misunderstanding that Jesus had the character of a sinner, that he had done something worthy of the death penalty. The religious leaders thought that was true, because they considered Jesus had committed the sin of blasphemy. Pilate never understood the nature of Jesus’ claim to kingship, only grasping that if he were a king then he was a usurper and a political threat.

But instead of suffering because he was a sinner, Jesus suffered because we are sinners. And he suffered for our sins. He bore our suffering. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. He was punished and wounded for us.

Some people reject the idea that Jesus could have suffered in our place. But there have been examples occasionally in courts of law where a judge has paid the fine he had imposed on someone who was found guilty. Before God, we are guilty. But in Christ he pays the penalty. The punishment that brought us peace was on him.

We need to reject the misunderstanding that Jesus was a sinner. He was not. He was instead our sin-bearer. And in that we find God’s offer to us of forgiveness, freedom, and healing, even of being in the right with him.

The third and final misunderstanding is about martyrdom:

In other words, did God kill Jesus for a good cause?

And if that language shocks you – God killing Jesus – I can assure you there are people who interpret the Cross that way. Some do so in order to make it sound repulsive and have all the more reason to reject Christianity. There are also a few Christians who even say that is what happened.

And it appears to be a misunderstanding that is present in the prophet’s day. Listen again to the closing verses of this Servant Song. You will hear both the misunderstanding and the correction:


10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors. (53:10-12)

There it was at the beginning: it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer. But what the prophet goes on to show is that this was a partnership between the Servant (Jesus) and God. For God rewards his Servant after his suffering.

And that’s exactly what salvation is at the Cross. We don’t simply speak of Jesus being our substitute, we say more than that. We say that the ‘atonement’ (i.e., what Jesus achieved at the Cross) is God’s self-substitution. God and Jesus are not opposed. They are working together.

It is as the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

God allows the Cross. God gives up his Son to the Cross. (Parents, think about giving up your children in some way.) But God does not kill Jesus, even if for a few hours Jesus feels forsaken by his Father. God and Jesus are in partnership here, bringing reconciliation to the world, to us, to you, to me.

And that is why we are here today. Not to cower before a cruel God, nor conversely to mourn a terrible mistake. But to worship the One Who loved the world so much that he gave up his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

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